“I saw Teddy struggling ahead and Scott astern, but we were the worst off as the leading team had topped the rise and I was too blind to pick out a better trail.  We fairly played ourselves out that time, and finally had to give it up and relay.  Halving the load we went forward about a mile with it, and, leaving that lot, went back for the remainder.  So done were my team that we could do little more than pull the half loads.  Teddy’s team did the same, and though Scott’s did not, we camped practically the same time, having gone over our distance three times.  Mount Kyffin was still ahead of us to the left:  we seemed as if we can never come up with it.  To-morrow Scott decided that if we could not move our full loads we would start relaying systematically.  It was a most depressing outlook after such a day of strenuous labour."[227] We got soaked with perspiration these days, though generally pulling in vest, pants, and windproof trousers only.  Directly we stopped we cooled quickly.  Two skuas appeared at lunch, attracted probably by the pony flesh below, but it was a long way from the sea for them to come.  On Thursday December 14, Scott wrote:  “Indigestion and the soggy condition of my clothes kept me awake for some time last night, and the exceptional exercise gives bad attacks of cramp.  Our lips are getting raw and blistered.  The eyes of the party are improving, I am glad to say.  We are just starting our march with no very hopeful outlook.”

[Illustration:  MOUNT ELIZABETH, MOUNT ANNE AND SOCKS GLACIER—­E.  A. Wilson, del.  Emery Walker Limited, Collotypers.]

But we slogged along with much better results.  “Once into the middle of the glacier we had been steering more or less for the Cloudmaker and by supper to-day were well past Mount Kyffin and were about 2000 feet up after an estimated run of 11 or 12 statute miles.  But the most cheering sign was that the blue ice was gradually coming nearer the surface; at lunch it was two feet down, and at our supper camp only one foot.  In pitching our tent Crean broke into a crevasse which ran about a foot in front of the door and there was another at Scott’s door.  We threw an empty oil can down and it echoed for a terribly long time."[228] We spent the morning of December 15 crossing a maze of crevasses though they were well bridged; I believe all these lower reaches of the glacier are badly crevassed, but the thick snow and our ski kept us from tumbling in.  There was a great deal of competition between the teams which was perhaps unavoidable but probably a pity.  This day Bowers’ diary records, “Did a splendid bust off on ski, leaving Scott in the lurch, and eventually overhauling the party which had left some time before us.  All the morning we kept up a steady, even swing which was quite a pleasure.”  But the same day Scott wrote, “Evans’ is now decidedly the slowest unit, though Bowers’ is not much faster.  We keep up and overhaul either without difficulty.”  Bowers’ team considered themselves quite good, but both teams were satisfied of their own superiority; as a matter of fact Scott’s was the faster, as it should have been for it was certainly the heavier of the two.