"NOT YET UP, BUT NEARLY SO" 



to the west, some of which appeared to-day. After 

 dinner we examined the sledge runners and turned one 

 sledge end for end, for it had been badly torn while we 

 were coming up the glacier, and in the soft snow it 

 clogged greatly. We are still favoured with splendid 

 weather, and that is a great comfort to us, for it would 

 be almost impossible under other conditions to travel 

 amongst these crevasses, which are caused by the con- 

 gestion of the ice between the headlands when it was 

 flowing from the plateau down between the mountains. 

 Now there is comparatively little movement, and many 

 of the crevasses have become snow-filled. To-night we 

 are 290 geographical miles from the Pole. We are 

 thinking of our Christmas dinner. We will be full that 

 day, anyhow. 



December 20. — Not yet up, but nearly so. We got 

 away from camp at 7 a.m., with a strong head wind 

 from the south, and this wind* continued all day, with 

 a temperature ranging from plus 7° to plus 5°. Our 

 beards coated with ice. It was an* uphill pull all day 

 around pressure ice, and we reached an altitude of over 

 8000 ft. above sea-level. The weather was clear, but 

 there were various clouds, which were noted by Adams. 

 Marshall took bearings and angles at noon, and we got 

 the sun's meridian altitude, showing that we Were in 

 latitude 85° 17' South. We hope all the time that each 

 ridge we come to will be the last, but each time another 

 rises ahead, split up by pressure, and we begin the same 

 toil again. It is trying work and as we have now reduced 

 our food at breakfast to one pannikin of hoosh and one 

 biscuit, by the time the lunch hour has arrived, after 

 five hours' hauling in the cold wind up the slope, we are 

 very hungry. At lunch we have a little chocolate, tea 

 with plasmon, a pannikin of cocoa and three biscuits. 

 To-day we did 11 miles 950 yards (statute) having to 



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