56 
SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION 
[July 
Tuesday, July 25, 191 1. — There was a stiff cold breeze 
of force 4 and temp. -- I5'3° which came down our slope 
from S.S.W., with thick weather and heavy clouds moving 
up from the Barrier in the south. We quickly finished 
all our final arrangements and got away down into the 
gut by the pressure ridges, where we found ourselves 
pulling against a gale rapidly freshening from the S.W. 
[My job, writes Cherry-Garrard, was to balance the sledge 
behind : I was so utterly done I don't believe I could 
have pulled effectively. Birdie was much the strongest 
of us. The strain and want of sleep was getting me in 
the neck, and Bill looked very bad.] 
This wind became so strong after we had gone a mile 
that we camped, much against our inclinations, in amongst 
ice-hard, wind-swept sastrugi [our hands going one after 
the other], and the gale continued and freshened to force 
9 and lasted all night. Bowers here determined that 
the tent should not go off alone, and arranged a line 
by which he fastened the cap of the tent to himself as 
he lay in his bag. The temp, during the day was from 
- I5'3° to - 17°, and the whole sky was overcast. 
Bowers to-day turned his bag to hair outside. Cherry 
had a sound sleep in his bag, which he badly wanted, 
[I, writes C.-G., was feeling as if I should crack, and 
accepted Birdie's eiderdown, which he had not used and 
had for many days been asking me to use. It was 
wonderfully self-sacrificing of him, more than I can write. 
I felt a brute to take it, but I was getting useless, unless 
I got some sleep, which my big bag would not allow. The 
day we got down to the Emperors I felt so done that I 
