Evening. (Height about 2000 feet.) Evans’ party started first this morning; for an hour they found the hauling stiff, but after that, to my great surprise, they went on easily.  Bowers followed without getting over the ground so easily.  After the first 200 yards my own party came on with a swing that told me at once that all would be well.  We soon caught the others and offered to take on more weight, but Evans’ pride wouldn’t allow such help.  Later in the morning we exchanged sledges with Bowers, pulled theirs easily, whilst they made quite heavy work with ours.  I am afraid Cherry-Garrard and Keohane are the weakness of that team, though both put their utmost into the traces.  However, we all lunched together after a satisfactory morning’s work.  In the afternoon we did still better, and camped at 6.30 with a very marked change in the land bearings.  We must have come 11 or 12 miles (stat.).  We got fearfully hot on the march, sweated through everything and stripped off jerseys.  The result is we are pretty cold and clammy now, but escape from the soft snow and a good march compensate every discomfort.  At lunch the blue ice was about 2 feet beneath us, now it is barely a foot, so that I suppose we shall soon find it uncovered.  To-night the sky is overcast and wind has been blowing up the glacier.  I think there will be another spell of gloomy weather on the Barrier, and the question is whether this part of the glacier escapes.  There are crevasses about, one about eighteen inches across outside Bowers’ tent, and a narrower one outside our own.  I think the soft snow trouble is at an end, and I could wish nothing better than a continuance of the present surface.  Towards the end of the march we were pulling our loads with the greatest ease.  It is splendid to be getting along and to find some adequate return for the work we are putting into the business.

Friday, December 15.—­Camp 37. (Height about 2500.  Lat. about 84 deg. 8’.) Got away at 8; marched till 1; the surface improving and snow covering thinner over the blue ice, but the sky overcast and glooming, the clouds ever coming lower, and Evans’ is now decidedly the slowest unit, though Bowers’ is not much faster.  We keep up and overhaul either without difficulty.  It was an enormous relief yesterday to get steady going without involuntary stops, but yesterday and this morning, once the sledge was stopped, it was very difficult to start again—­the runners got temporarily stuck.  This afternoon for the first time we could start by giving one good heave together, and so for the first time we are able to stop to readjust footgear or do any other desirable task.  This is a second relief for which we are most grateful.

At the lunch camp the snow covering was less than a foot, and at this it is a bare nine inches; patches of ice and hard neve are showing through in places.  I meant to camp at 6.30, but before 5.0 the sky came down on us with falling snow.  We could see nothing, and the pulling grew very heavy.  At 5.45 there seemed nothing to do but camp—­another interrupted march.  Our luck is really very bad.  We should have done a good march to-day, as it is we have covered about 11 miles (stat.).