19X1] THE THIRD BLIZZARD 483 
exception so far. However, we have not lost a march yet. 
It was so warm when we camped that the snow melted 
as it fell, and everything got sopping wet. Oates came 
into my tent yesterday, exchanging with Cherry-Garrard. 
The lists now : Self, Wilson, Oates, and Keohanc. 
Bowers, P.O. Evans, Cherry, and Crean. 
Man-haulers: E. R. Evans, Atkinson, Wright, and 
Lashly. We have all taken to horse meat and are so well 
fed that hunger isn't thought of. 
Sunday, December 3. — Camp 29. Our luck in weather 
is preposterous. I roused the hands at 2.30 a.m., intending 
to get away at 5. It was thick and snowy, yet we could 
have got on ; but at breakfast the wind increased, and by 
4.30 it was blowing a full gale from the south. The pony 
wall blew down, huge drifts collected, and the sledges were 
quickly buried. It was the strongest wind I have known 
here in summer. At 11 it began to take off. At 12.30 
we got up and had lunch and got ready to start. The land 
appeared, the clouds broke, and by 1.30 we were in bright 
sunshine. We were off at 2 p.m., the land showing all 
round, and, but for some cloud to the S.E., everything 
promising. At 2.15 I saw the south-easterly cloud 
spreading up ; it blotted out the land 30 miles away at 2.30 
and was on us before 3, The sun went out, snow fell 
thickly, and marching conditions became horrible. The 
wind increased from the S.E., changed to S.W., where it 
hung for a time, and suddenly shifted to W.N.W. and 
then N.N.W., from which direction it is now blowing with 
falling and drifting snow. The changes of conditions are 
inconceivably rapid, perfectly bewildering. In spite of 
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