544 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [January 
be a wearisome return. We are descending in altitude — 
certainly also the Norwegians found an easy way up. 
Wednesday , January 17. — Camp 69. T. -22° at start. 
Night -21 0 . The Pole. Yes, but under very different 
circumstances from those expected. We have had a 
horrible day — add to our disappointment a head wind 
4 to 5, with a temperature - 22 0 , and companions 
labouring on with cold feet and hands. 
We started at 7.30, none of us having slept much after 
the shock of our discovery. We followed the Norwegian 
sledge tracks for some way ; as far as we make out there 
are only two men. In about three miles we passed two 
small cairns. Then the weather overcast, and the tracks 
being increasingly drifted up and obviously going too far 
to the west, we decided to make straight for the Pole 
according to our calculations. At 12.30 Evans had such 
cold hands we camped for lunch — an excellent ' week-end 
one/ We had marched 7*4 miles. Lat. sight gave 
89 0 53' 37". We started out and did S\ miles due south. 
To-night little Bowers is laying himself out to get sights 
in terrible difficult circumstances ; the wind is blowing 
hard, T. -21°, and there is that curious damp, cold feeling 
in the air which chills one to the bone in no time. We 
have been descending again, I think, but there looks to be 
a rise ahead ; otherwise there is very little that is different 
from the awful monotony of past days. Great God ! 
this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have 
laboured to it without the reward of priority. Well, 
it is something to have got here, and the wind may be 
our friend to-morrow. We have had a fat Polar hoosh in 
