THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



piercing. Mawson's right leg was still painful. That 

 night we were all very much exhausted, and were 

 obliged to allow ourselves fully eight hours sleep. Our 

 run was sixteen niiles. 



January 24. — To-day we had more heavy sledging 

 over a lot of pie-crust snow and soft snow. The wind 

 was blowing somewhat against us at about twelve miles 

 an hour, the temj)erature being minus 4° Fahr. in the 

 afternoon. A low drift was sweeping in waves over the 

 snow desert; it was a desolate scene. Later in the 

 day we were cheered by the sight of Mount Baxter. 



Towards evening we had some discussion as to 

 whether we were following approximately our old out- 

 going tracks. Mackay thought we were nearer to the 

 new mountain than before, I thought we were further 

 to the south-west, Mawson, who was leading, con- 

 tended that we were pretty well on our old course. Just 

 then I discovered that we were actually on our old 

 sledge tracks, which showed up plainly for a short 

 distance between the newly formed sastrugi. This 

 spoke volumes for Mawson's skill as a navigator. Dis- 

 tance sledged sixteen miles. 



January 25. — It was blowing a mild blizzard. We 

 estimated at lunch time that we were about eighty and 

 a half miles distant now from our Mount Larsen Depot. 

 The temperature during the afternoon was minus 3° Fahr. 

 We all felt, as usual, much fatigued after the day's 

 sledging. For the past four or five days we each took an 

 Easton symp tabloid for the last stage but one before 

 reaching camp, and this certainly helped to keep us 

 going. This evening the blizzard died down about 

 8 P.M., and Mount Nansen was sighted just before we 

 camped. 



January 26. — ^We lost our old sledge tracks again 

 to-day. The weather turned cloudj^ in the afternoon, 



188 



