0.57 oz. cocoa, 3.0 oz. sugar and 0.86 oz. tea.  This is the Summit ration, total 34.43 oz., with a little onion powder and salt.  I am all for this:  Seaman Evans and others are much regretting the loss of chocolate, raisins and cereals.  For the first week up the glacier we are to go one biscuit short to provision Meares on the way back.  The motors depoted too much and Meares has been brought on far farther than his orders were originally bringing him.  Originally he was to be back at Hut Point on December 10.  The dogs, however, are getting all the horse that is good for them, and are very fit.  He has to average 24 miles a day going back.  Michael is well out of this:  we are now eating him.  He was in excellent condition and tastes very good, though tough."[218]

By this time there was little sleep left for us as we lay in our sleeping-bags.  Three days generally see these blizzards out, and we hoped much from Friday, December 8.  But when we breakfasted at 10 A.M. (we were getting into day-marching routine) wind and snow were monotonously the same.  The temperature rose to +34.3 deg..  These temperatures and those recorded by Meares on his way home must be a record for the interior of the Barrier.  So far as we were concerned it did not much matter now whether it was +40 deg. or +34 deg..  Things did look really gloomy that morning.

But at noon there came a gleam of comfort.  The wind dropped, and immediately we were out plunging about, always up to our knees in soft downy snow, and often much farther.  First we shifted our tents, digging them up with the greatest care that the shovel might not tear them.  The valances were encased in solid ice from the water which had run down.  Then we started to find our sledges which were about four feet down:  they were dragged out, and everything on them was wringing wet.  There was a gleam of sunshine, which soon gave place to snow and gloom, but we started to make experiments in haulage.  Four men on ski managed to move a sledge with four others sitting upon it.  Nobby was led out, but sank to his belly.  As for the drifts I saw Oates standing behind one, and only his head appeared, and this was all loose snow.

“We are all sitting round now after some tea—­it is much better than getting into the bags.  I can hardly think that the ponies can pull on, but Titus thinks they can pull to-morrow; all the food is finished, and what they have had to-day was only what they would not eat out of their last feed yesterday.  It is a terrible end—­driven to death on no more food, to be then cut up, poor devils.  I have swopped the Little Minister with Silas Wright for Dante’s Inferno!"[219] The steady patter of the falling snow upon the tents was depressing as we turned in, but the temperature was below freezing.

The next morning (Saturday, December 9) we turned out to a cloudy snowy day at 5.30 A.M.  By 8.30 we had hauled the sledges some way out of the camp and started to lead out the ponies.  “The horses could hardly move, sank up to their bellies, and finally lay down.  They had to be driven, lashed on.  It was a grim business."[220]