Time simply flies and the sun steadily climbs the heavens.  Breakfast, lunch, and supper are now all enjoyed by sunlight, whilst the night is no longer dark.

Notes at End of Volume

’When they after their headstrong manner, conclude that it is their duty to rush on their journey all weathers; ... ’—­’Pilgrim’s Progress.’

    ’Has any grasped the low grey mist which stands
    Ghostlike at eve above the sheeted lands.’

A bad attack of integrity!!

’Who is man and what his place,
Anxious asks the heart perplext,
In the recklessness of space,
Worlds with worlds thus intermixt,
What has he, this atom creature,
In the infinitude of nature?’

F.T.  PALGRAVE.

It is a good lesson—­though it may be a hard one—­for a man who had dreamed of a special (literary) fame and of making for himself a rank among the world’s dignitaries by such means, to slip aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognised, and to find how utterly devoid of significance beyond that circle is all he achieves and all he aims at.

He might fail from want of skill or strength, but deep in his sombre soul he vowed that it should never be from want of heart.

’Every durable bond between human beings is founded in or heightened by some element of competition.’—­R.L.  STEVENSON.

’All natural talk is a festival of ostentation.’—­R.L.  STEVENSON.

’No human being ever spoke of scenery for two minutes together, which makes me suspect we have too much of it in literature.  The weather is regarded as the very nadir and scoff of conversational topics.’—­R.L.  STEVENSON.

CHAPTER XV

The Last Weeks at Cape Evans

Friday, October 6.—­With the rise of temperature there has been a slight thaw in the hut; the drips come down the walls and one has found my diary, as its pages show.  The drips are already decreasing, and if they represent the whole accumulation of winter moisture it is extraordinarily little, and speaks highly for the design of the hut.  There cannot be very much more or the stains would be more significant.

Yesterday I had a good look at Jehu and became convinced that he is useless; he is much too weak to pull a load, and three weeks can make no difference.  It is necessary to face the facts and I’ve decided to leave him behind—­we must do with nine ponies.  Chinaman is rather a doubtful quantity and James Pigg is not a tower of strength, but the other seven are in fine form and must bear the brunt of the work somehow.

If we suffer more loss we shall depend on the motor, and then! ... well, one must face the bad as well as the good.

It is some comfort to know that six of the animals at least are in splendid condition—­Victor, Snippets, Christopher, Nobby, Bones are as fit as ponies could well be and are naturally strong, well-shaped beasts, whilst little Michael, though not so shapely, is as strong as he will ever be.