THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



for food, and we got a meal at 2 p.m. We turned in 

 and slept. Adams fell exhausted in his harness, but 

 recovered and went on again. Wild did the same the 

 night before. 



January 28. — Thank God we are on the Barrier 

 again at last. We got up at 1 a.m. this morning, 

 had breakfast, consisting of tea and one biscuit, and 

 got under way at 3 a.m. We reached the depot in half 

 an hour without any difficulty. The snow here was deep 

 enough to carry us over the crevasses that had impeded 

 our progress so much on the outward march. We had 

 proper breakfast at 5 a.m. then dug out our depot. 

 The alternate falls of snow and thaws had frozen 

 solidly in a great deal of our gear, and our spare sledge 

 meter was deeply buried. We marched along till we 

 were close to the Gap, then had lunch. At 1 p.m. we 

 were through the Gap and on to the crevassed and ridged 

 Barrier surface. We are now safe, with six days' 

 food and only 50 miles to the depot, but Wild 

 has developed dysentery. We are at a loss to know 

 what is the cause of it. It may possibly be due to the 

 horse-meat. The weather has been fairly fine all day, 

 though clouding up from the south towards noon, 

 and we were assisted by a fresh southerly breeze up 

 the slope to the head of the Gap. Indeed, we needed 

 it, for the heavy surface and our dilapidated sledge 

 made the hauling extremely hard. Just before we left 

 the glacier I broke through the soft snow, plunging 

 into a hidden crevasse. My harness jerked up under 

 my heart, and gave me rather a shake up. It seemed 

 as though the glacier were saying: "There is the last 

 touch for you; don't you come up here again." It was 

 with a feeling of intense relief that we left this great 

 glacier, for the strain has been hard, and now we know 

 that except for blizzards and thick weather, which two 



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