THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



A few days later we were all eating Grisi meat, and we 

 all got dysentery. The meat could not have become 

 affected in any way after the death of the pony, because 

 it froze hard within a very short time. The manner 

 in which we managed to keep on marching when suffer- 

 ing, and the speed with which we recovered when we 

 got proper food, were rather remarkable, and the reason, 

 no doubt, was that the dysentery was simply the result 

 of the poison, and was not produced by organic trouble 

 of any sort. We had a strong wind behind us day after 

 day during this period, and this contributed in a very 

 large measure to our safety, for in the weakened con- 

 dition we had then reached we could not have made 

 long marches against a head-wind, and without long 

 marches we would have starved between the depots. 

 We had a sail on the sledge, formed of the floorcloth of 

 a tent, and often the sledge would overrun us, though 

 at other times it would catch in a drift and throw us 

 heavily. 



When we were travelling along during the early 

 part of the journey over the level Barrier surface, we 

 felt the heat of the sun severely, though as a matter of 

 fact the temperature was generally very low, sometimes 

 as low as zero Fahr. though the season was the height 

 of summer. It was quite usual to feel one side of the 

 face getting frozen while the other side was being sun- 

 burned. The ponies would have frozen perspiration 

 on their coats on the sheltered side, while the sun would 

 keep the other side hot and dry, and as the day wore 

 on and the sun moved round the sky the frosted area 

 on the animals would change its position in sympathy. 

 I remember that on December 4 we were marching 

 stripped to our shirts, and we got very much sunburned, 

 though at noon that day the air temperature showed 

 ten degrees of frost. When we started to climb the 



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