THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



December 8. — Started at 8 a.m. and immediately 

 began dodging crevasses and pits of unknown depth. 

 Wild and I were leading, for, thank heaven, my eyes 

 are fit and well again. We slowly toiled up a long 

 crevassed slope, and by lunch time were about 1900 ft. 

 up the glacier and had covered 6 miles 150 yards of an 

 uphill drag, with about 250 lb. per man to haul. After 

 lunch we still travelled up, but came on to blue glacier 

 ice almost free from crevasses, so did much better, 

 the sledges running easily. We camped at 6 p.m., the 

 day's journey having been 12 miles 150 yards. The 

 slope we went up in the morning was not as bad as we 

 had anticipated, but quite bad enough for us to be 

 thankful that we are out, at any rate for a time, from 

 the region of hidden crevasses. The hypsometer to-night 

 gave our height as 2300 ft. above sea-level. It is beauti- 

 fully fine still. We have been wonderfully fortunate in 

 this, especially in view of the situation we are in. 



December 9. — Another splendid day as far as the 

 weather is concerned, and much we needed it, for we 

 have had one of our hardest day's work and certainly 

 the most dangerous so far. We started at 7.45 a.m. 

 over the blue ice, and in less than an hour were in a 

 perfect maze of crevasses, some thinly bridged with snow 

 and others with a thicker and therefore more deceptive 

 covering. Marshall went through one and was only saved 

 by his harness. He had quite disappeared down below the 

 level of the ice, and it was one those crevasses that open 

 out from the top, with no bottom to be seen, and 1 daresay 

 there was a drop of at least 1000 ft. Soon after, Adams 

 went through, then I did. The situation became momen- 

 tarily more dangerous and uncertain. The sledges, skid- 

 ding about, came up against the sheer, knife-like edges 

 of some of the crevasses, and thus the bow of the second 

 sledge, which had been strained when Socks fell, gave way. 



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