Chapter Ctoent^one 



BEYOND ALL FORMER FOOTSTEPS 



ov ember 26. — A day to remember, for we have 



v passed the " furthest South " previously reached by 

 man. To-night we are in latitude 82° isy 2 ' South, 

 longitude 168° East, and this latitude we have been 

 able to reach in much less time than on the last long 

 march with Captain Scott, when we made latitude 

 82° l§y 2 f our " furthest South." We started in lovely 

 weather this morning, with the temperature plus 19° 

 Fahr., and it has been up to plus 20° Fahr. during the 

 day, giving us a chance to dry our sleeping-bags. We 

 were rather anxious at starting about Quan, who had 

 a sharp attack of colic, the result no doubt of his morbid 

 craving for bits of rope and other odds and ends in 

 preference to his proper food. He soon got well enough 

 to pull, and we got away at 7.40 a.m., the surface still 

 very soft. There are abundant signs that the wind 

 blows strongly from the south-south-east during the 

 winter, for the sastrugi are very marked in that direc- 

 tion. There are extremely large circular crystals of 

 snow on the Barrier surface, and they seem hard and 

 brittle. They catch the light from the sun, each one 

 forming a reflector that dazzles the eyes as one glances 

 at the million points of light. As each hour went on 

 to-day, we found new interest to the west, where the 

 land lies, for we opened out Shackleton Inlet, and up 

 the inlet lies a great chain of mountains, and far in to 

 the west appear more peaks; to the west of Cape Wilson 

 appears another chain of sharp peaks about 10,000 ft. 



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