KEEP ONLY BAREST NECESSARIES 



a break in the bluff mountains, and the land beyond 

 runs away more to the south-east. The valley is filled 

 with pressure ice, which seems to have come from the 

 inland ice-sheet. The mountains to the south-east also 

 show lines of stratification. I hope that the photographs 

 will be clear enough to give an idea of the character 

 of this land. These mountains are not beautiful in the 

 ordinary acceptance of the term, but they are magnificent 

 in their stern and rugged grandeur. No foot has ever 

 trod on their mighty sides, and until we reached this frozen 

 land no human eyes had seen their forms. 



December 17. — We made a start at 7.20 a.m. and had 

 an uphill pull all the morning over blue ice with patches 

 of snow, which impeded our progress until we learned 

 that the best way was to rush the sledges over them, 

 for it was very difficult to keep one's footing on the 

 smooth ice, and haul the sledges astern over the snow. 

 By 1 p.m. we had done 8 miles of this uphill work, and 

 in the afternoon we did four more. We had worked 

 from 7.23 a.m. until 6.40 p.m. with one hour's rest for 

 lunch only and it seems as though 12 miles was not much, 

 but the last two hours' going was very stiff. We had 

 to take on one sledge at a time up the icy slope, and 

 even then we had to cut steps with our ice-axes as we 

 went along. The work was made more difficult by the 

 fact that a strong southerly wind was dead in our faces. 

 The second sledge we hauled up the rise by means of 

 the Alpine rope. We made it fast to the sledge, went 

 on with the first sledge till the rope was stretched out 

 to its full length, then cut a place to stand on, and by 

 our united efforts hauled the sledge up to where we 

 stood. W e repeated this until we had managed to reach 

 a fairly level spot with both the sledges, and we pitched 

 our tents on a small patch of snow. There was not 

 enough of the snow to make fast the snow-cloths of the 

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