74 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [August 
greater heat supply than other men ordinarily have. He 
never had serious trouble with his feet, while ours were 
constantly frostbitten. He slept I should be afraid to 
say how much longer than we did, even in the last days. 
It was a pleasure to lie awake, practically at any rate all 
night, and hear his snores. Largely owing to the arrange- 
ment of toggles, also not having shipped his eiderdown 
bag, but mainly due to his extraordinary energy, he many 
times turned his bag during the journey, and thus he 
got rid of a lot of the moisture in his bag, which came 
out as snow or actual knobs of ice. When we did turn 
our bags, the only way was directly we turned out, and 
even then you had to be quick before the bag froze. Get- 
ting out of the tent at night, it was qnite a race to get 
back to your bag, before it began to get hard again. Of 
course this was in the lowest temperatures. 
On the return journey we never rolled our bags up, 
but let them freeze out straight — arranging them carefully 
so that they should freeze in the best shape for getting 
into them again. On the Barrier they were literally as 
hard as boards, but coming back down the Sound they 
never got so hard that they would not bend. I cannot 
say what a self-sacrifice I consider it to have been that 
Birdie handed over his dry eiderdown to me when we 
were coming back. At the time a dry sleeping-bag would 
have been of more value to any of us than untold wealth. 
Our bags were of course much worse after lying out a 
blizzard in them. 
Clothes, — The details of our clothes were all taken 
down by Scott after we got in, and I will not repeat. We 
