498 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [December 
party didn't get up till io. They started quite well, but 
got into difficulties, did just the wrong thing by straining 
again and again, and so, tiring themselves, went from bad 
to worse. Their ski shoes, too, are out of trim. 
Just as I thought we were in for making a great score, 
this difficulty overtakes us — it is dreadfully trying. The 
snow around us to-night is terribly soft, one sinks to the 
knee at every step ; it would be impossible to drag sledges 
on foot and very difficult for dogs. Ski arc the thing, and 
here are my tiresome fellow-countrymen too prejudiced 
to have prepared themselves for the event. The dogs 
should get back quite easily ; there is food all along the 
line. The glacier wind sprang up about 7 ; the morning 
was very fine and warm. To-night there is some stratus 
cloud forming — a hint no more bad weather in sight. A 
plentiful crop of snow blindness due to incaution — the 
sufferers E. Evans, Bowers, Keohane, Lashly, Oates — in 
various degrees. 
This forenoon Wilson went over to a boulder poised 
on the glacier. It proved to be a very coarse granite with 
large crystals of quartz in it. Evidently the rock of which 
the pillars of the Gateway and other neighbouring hills are 
formed. 
Tuesday, December 12. — Camp 34. We have had a 
hard day, and during the forenoon it was my team which 
made the heaviest weather of the work. We got bogged 
again and again, and, do what we would, the sledge dragged 
like lead. The others were working hard but nothing to be 
compared to us. At 2.30 I halted for lunch, pretty well 
cooked, and there was disclosed the secret of our trouble 
