Wednesday, January 10.—­Camp 62.  T. -11 deg..  Last depot 88 deg. 29’ S.; 159 deg. 33’ E.; Var. 180 deg..  Terrible hard march in the morning; only covered 5.1 miles (geo.).  Decided to leave depot at lunch camp.  Built cairn and left one week’s food together with sundry articles of clothing.  We are down as close as we can go in the latter.  We go forward with eighteen days’ food.  Yesterday I should have said certain to see us through, but now the surface is beyond words, and if it continues we shall have the greatest difficulty to keep our march long enough.  The surface is quite covered with sandy snow, and when the sun shines it is terrible.  During the early part of the afternoon it was overcast, and we started our lightened sledge with a good swing, but during the last two hours the sun cast shadows again, and the work was distressingly hard.  We have covered only 10.8 miles (geo.).

Only 85 miles (geo.) from the Pole, but it’s going to be a stiff pull both ways apparently; still we do make progress, which is something.  To-night the sky is overcast, the temperature (-11 deg.) much higher than I anticipated; it is very difficult to imagine what is happening to the weather.  The sastrugi grow more and more confused, running from S. to E. Very difficult steering in uncertain light and with rapidly moving clouds.  The clouds don’t seem to come from anywhere, form and disperse without visible reason.  The surface seems to be growing softer.  The meteorological conditions seem to point to an area of variable light winds, and that plot will thicken as we advance.

Thursday, January 11.—­Lunch.  Height 10,540.  T. -15 deg. 8’.  It was heavy pulling from the beginning to-day, but for the first two and a half hours we could keep the sledge moving; then the sun came out (it had been overcast and snowing with light south-easterly breeze) and the rest of the forenoon was agonising.  I never had such pulling; all the time the sledge rasps and creaks.  We have covered 6 miles, but at fearful cost to ourselves.

Night camp 63.  Height 10,530.  Temp. -16.3 deg..  Minimum -25.8 deg..  Another hard grind in the afternoon and five miles added.  About 74 miles from the Pole—­can we keep this up for seven days?  It takes it out of us like anything.  None of us ever had such hard work before.  Cloud has been coming and going overhead all day, drifting from the S.E., but continually altering shape.  Snow crystals falling all the time; a very light S. breeze at start soon dying away.  The sun so bright and warm to-night that it is almost impossible to imagine a minus temperature.  The snow seems to get softer as we advance; the sastrugi, though sometimes high and undercut, are not hard—­no crusts, except yesterday the surface subsided once, as on the Barrier.  It seems pretty certain there is no steady wind here.  Our chance still holds good if we can put the work in, but it’s a terribly trying time.