THE ROSS SEA PARTY 
The temi3eratiHe that night was — 28° Eahr., the lowest recorded 
during the joimiey up to that time. We are strugghng along 
at a mile an hour," wrote Mackintosh on the 5th. ''It is a 
very hard pull, the surface being very sticky. Pinkey still 
accompanies us. We hope we can get him in. He is getting 
all he wants to eat. So he ought." The conditions of travel 
changed the next day. A southerly wind made possible the 
use of the sail, and the trouble was to prevent the sledge bound- 
ing ahead over rough sastrugi and capsizing. The handling of 
ropes and the sail caused many fi'ost-bites, and occasionally 
the men were dragged along the surface by the sledge. The 
remaining dog collapsed during the afternoon and had to be 
left behind. Mackintosh did not feel that he could afford to 
reduce the pace. Tlie sledge-meter had got out of order, so 
the distance covered in the day was not recorded. The wdnd 
increased during the night, and by the morning of the 7th was 
blowing wdth blizzard force. The party did not move again 
until the morning of the 8th. They were still finding the sledge 
very heavy and were disappomted at their slow progress, their 
marches being six to eight miles a day. On the 10th they got 
the Blufi Peak in line with Mount Discovery. My instructions 
had been that the Bluff depot should be laid on this line, and 
as the depot had been placed north of the hne on the outward 
journey, oAving to thick weather making it impossible to pick 
up the landmarks. Mackintosh intended now to move the stores 
to the proper place. He sighted the depot flag about four 
miles away, and after pitching camp at the new depot site, 
he went across with Joyce and Wild and found the stores as 
he had left them. 
We loaded the sledge with the stores, placed the large 
mark flag on the sledge, and proceeded back to our tent, which 
was now out of sight. Indeed it was not wise to come out as 
we did without tent or bag. We had taken the chance, as the 
weather had promised fine. As we proceeded it grew darker 
and darker, and eventually we were travelHng by only the 
light of stars, the sun having dipped. After four and a half 
hours we sighted the little green tent. It was hard pulling the 
last two hours and very weird travelling in the dark. We 
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