SOUTH 
this marching and camping ; no washing of self or dishes, no 
undressing, no changing of clothes. We have our food anyhow, 
and always impregnated with blubber-smoke ; sleeping almost 
on the bare snow and working as hard as the human physique 
is capable of doing on a minimum of food." 
We marched on, with one halt at 6 a.m., till half-past eleven. 
After a supper of seal steaks and tea we turned in. The surface 
now was pretty bad. High temperatures during the day made 
the upper layers of snow very soft, and the thin crust which 
formed at night was not vsufficient to support a man. Conse- 
quently, at each step we went in over our knees in the soft 
wet snow. Sometimes a man Avould step into a hole in the 
ice which was hidden by the covering of snow, and be pulled 
up with a jerk by his harness. The sun was very hot and 
many were suffermg from cracked lips. 
Two seals were killed to-day. Wild and Mcllroy, who went 
out to secure them, had rather an exciting time on some very 
loose, rotten ice, three killer-whales in a lead a few yards away 
poking up their ugly heads as if in anticipation of a feast. 
Next day, December 26, we started off again at 1 a.m. 
The surface was much better than it has been for the last 
few days, and this is the principal thing that matters. The 
route, however, lay over very hummocky floes, and required 
much work with pick and shovel to make it passable for the 
boat-sledges. These are handled in relays by eighteen men 
under Worsley. It is kiUing work on soft surfaces.'' 
At 5 a.m. we were brought up by a wide open lead after an 
unsatisfactorily short march. While we waited, a meal of tea 
and two small bannocks was served, but as 10 a.m. came and 
there were no signs of the lead closing we all turned in. 
It snowed a little during the day and those who were sleeping 
outside got their sleeping-bags pretty wet. 
At 9.30 p.m. that night we were off again. I was, as usual, 
pioneering in front, followed by the cook and his mate pulling 
a small sledge with the stove and all the cooking gear on. These 
two, black as two Mohawk Minstrels with the blubber-soot, 
were dubbed Potash and Perlmutter.'' Next come the dog 
teams, who soon overtake the cook, and the two boats bring 
104 
