Chapter Ctoent^ttBO 



ON THE GREAT GLACIER 



T\ecember 5. — Broke camp sharp at 8 a.m. and pro 

 *^ ceeded south down an icy slope to the main glacier. 

 The ice was too slippery for the pony, so Wild took 

 him by a circuitous route to the bottom on snow. At 

 the end of our ice slope, down which the sledge skidded 

 rapidly, though we had put on rope brakes and hung 

 on to it as well as we could, there was a patch of soft 

 snow running parallel with the glacier, which here 

 trended about south-west by south. Close ahead of 

 us were the massed-up, fantastically shaped and split 

 masses of pressure across which it would have been 

 impossible for us to have gone, but, fortunately, it was 

 not necessary even to try, for close into the land was 

 a snow slope free from all crevasses, and along this 

 gentle rise we made our way. After a time this snow 

 slope gave place to blue ice, with numberless cracks 

 and small crevasses across which it was quite impossible 

 for the pony to drag the sledge without a serious risk 

 of a broken leg in one of the many holes, the depth of 

 which we could not ascertain. We therefore unharnessed 

 Socks, and Wild took him over this bit of ground very 

 carefully, whilst we others first hauled our sledge and 

 then the pony sledge across to a patch of snow under 

 some gigantic granite pillars over 2000 ft. in height, 

 and here, close to some thaw water, we made our lunch 

 camp. I was still badly snow-blind, so stayed in camp 

 whilst Marshall and Adams went on to spy out a good 

 route to follow after lunch was over. When they 



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