pain, and from time to time raising his head and even scrambling to his legs when it grew intense.  I don’t think I ever realized before how pathetic a horse could be under such conditions; no sound escapes him, his misery can only be indicated by those distressing spasms and by dumb movement of the head with a patient expression always suggestive of appeal."[147] Towards midnight it seemed that we were to lose him, and, apart from other considerations, we knew that unless we could keep all the surviving animals alive the risks of failure in the coming journey were much increased.

“It was shortly after midnight when I [Scott] was told that the animal seemed a little easier.  At 2.30 I was again in the stable and found the improvement had been maintained; the horse still lay on its side with outstretched head, but the spasms had ceased, its eye looked less distressed, and its ears pricked to occasional noises.  As I stood looking it suddenly raised its head and rose without effort to its legs; then in a moment, as though some bad dream had passed, it began to nose at some hay and at its neighbour.  Within three minutes it had drunk a bucket of water and had started to feed."[148]

The immediate cause of the trouble was indicated by “a small ball of semi-fermented hay covered with mucus and containing tape-worms; so far not very serious, but unfortunately attached to this mass was a strip of the lining of the intestine."[149]

The recovery of Bones was uninterrupted.  Two day later another pony went off his feed and lay down, but was soon well again.

Considerable speculation as to the original cause of this illness never found a satisfactory answer.  Some traced it to a want of ventilation, and it is necessary to say that both the ponies who were ill stood next to the blubber stove; at any rate a big ventilator was fitted and more fresh air let in.  Others traced it to the want of water, supposing that the animals would not eat as much snow as they would have drunk water; the easy remedy for this was to give them water instead of snow.  We also gave them more salt than they had had before.  Whatever the cause may have been we had no more of this colic, and the improvement in their condition until we started sledging was uninterrupted.

All the ponies were treated for worms; it was also found that they had lice, which were eradicated after some time and difficulty by a wash of tobacco and water.  I know that Oates wished that he had clipped the ponies at the beginning of the winter, believing that they would have grown far better coats if this had been done.  He also would have wished for a loose box for each pony.

No account of the ponies would be complete without mention of our Russian pony boy, Anton.  He was small in height, but he was exceedingly strong and had a chest measurement of 40 inches.

[Illustration:  EREBUS AND LANDS END]

[Illustration:  EREBUS BEHIND GREAT RAZORBACK]