522 SCOTTS LAST EXPEDITION [December 
surface, owing, of course, to the varying angles at which 
the wind strikes the slopes. We were half an hour late 
starting this morning, which accounts for some loss of 
distance, though I should be content to keep up an average 
of 13' (geo.). 
Wednesday , December 27. — Lunch. Bar. 21*02. The 
wind light this morning and the pulling heavy. Everyone 
sweated, especially the second team, which had great 
difficulty in keeping up. We have been going up and 
down, the up grades very tiring, especially when we get 
amongst sastrugi which jerk the sledge about, but we have 
done yl miles (geo.). A very bad accident this morning. 
Bowers broke the only hypsometer thermometer. We 
have nothing to check our two aneroids. 
Night camp 49. Bar. 20-82. T. -6'3°. We 
marched off well after lunch on a soft, snowy surface, 
then came to slippery hard sastrugi and kept a good pace ; 
but I felt this meant something wrong, and on topping 
a short rise we were once more in the midst of crevasses 
and disturbances. For an hour it was dreadfully trying- 
had to pick a road, tumbled into crevasses, and got jerked 
about abominably. At the summit of the ridge we came 
into another c pit ' or 4 whirl,' which seemed the centre 
of the trouble— is it a submerged mountain peak ? During 
the last hour and a quarter we pulled out on to soft snow 
again and moved well. Camped at 645, having covered 
13^ miles (geo.). Steering the party is no light task. 
One cannot allow one's thoughts to wander as others do, 
and when, as this afternoon, one gets amongst disturb- 
ances, I find it is very worrying and tiring. I do trust 
