THE POLE IS HARD TO GET 



move. I have been suffering from a bad headache all day, 

 and Adams also was worried by the cold. I think that 

 these headaches are a form of mountain sickness, due 

 to our high altitude. The others have bled from the 

 nose, and that must relieve them. Physical effort is 

 always trying at a high altitude, and we are straining 

 at the harness all day, sometimes slipping in the soft 

 snow that overlies the hard sastrugi. My head is very 

 bad. The sensation is as though the nerves were being 

 twisted up with a corkscrew and then pulled out. 

 Marshall took our temperatures to-night, and we are all 

 at about 94°, but in spite of this we are getting south. 

 We are only 198 miles off our goal now. If the rise 

 would stop the cold would not matter, but it is hard 

 to know what is man's limit. We have only 150 lb. 

 per man to pull, but it is more severe work than 

 the 250 lb. per man up the glacier was. The Pole is 

 hard to get. 



December 30. — We only did 4 miles 100 yards to- 

 day. We started at 7 a.m., but had to camp at 11 a.m., 

 a blizzard springing up from the south. It is more 

 than annoying. I cannot express my feelings. We 

 were pulling at last on a level surface, but very soft 

 snow, when at about 10 a.m. the south wind and drift 

 commenced to increase, and at 11 a.m. it was so bad 

 that we had to camp. And here all day we have been 

 lying in our sleeping-bags trying to keep warm and 

 listening to the threshing drift on the tent-side. I am 

 in the cooking-tent, and the wind comes through, it 

 is so thin. Our precious food is going and the 

 time also, and it is so important to us to get on. 

 We lie here and think of how to make things better, 

 but we cannot reduce food now, and the only thing will 

 be to rush all possible at the end. We will do, and 



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