We had a great feed which I had kept hidden and out of the official weights since our departure from Winter Quarters.  It consisted of a good fat hoosh with pony meat and ground biscuit; a chocolate hoosh made of water, cocoa, sugar, biscuit, raisins, and thickened with a spoonful of arrowroot. (This is the most satisfying stuff imaginable.) Then came 21/2 square inches of plum-duff each, and a good mug of cocoa washed down the whole.  In addition to this we had four caramels each and four squares of crystallized ginger.  I positively could not eat all mine, and turned in feeling as if I had made a beast of myself.  I wrote up my journal—­in fact I should have liked somebody to put me to bed.

December 26.  We have seen many new ranges of mountains extending to the S.E. of the Dominion Range.  They are very distant, however, and must evidently be the top of those bounding the Barrier.  They could only be seen from the tops of the ridges as waves up which we are continually mounting.  Our height yesterday morning by hypsometer was 8000 feet.  That is our last hypsometer record, as I had the misfortune to break the thermometer.  The hypsometer was one of my chief delights, and nobody could have been more disgusted than myself at its breaking.  However, we have the aneroid to check the height.  We are going gradually up and up.  As one would expect, a considerable amount of lassitude was felt over breakfast after our feed last night.  The last thing on earth I wanted to do was to ship the harness round my poor tummy when we started.  As usual a stiff breeze from the south and a temperature of -7 deg. blew in our faces.  Strange to say, however, we don’t get frost-bitten.  I suppose it is the open-air life.

I could not tell if I had a frost-bite on my face now, as it is all scales, so are my lips and nose.  A considerable amount of red hair is endeavouring to cover up matters.  We crossed several ridges, and after the effects of over-feeding had worn off did a pretty good march of thirteen miles.

[No more Christmas Days, so no more big hooshes.[248]]

December 27.  There is something the matter with our sledge or our team, as we have an awful slog to keep up with the others.  I asked Dr. Bill and he said their sledge ran very easily.  Ours is nothing but a desperate drag with constant rallies to keep up.  We certainly manage to do so, but I am sure we cannot keep this up for long.  We are all pretty well done up to-night after doing 13.3 miles.

Our salvation is on the summits of the ridges, where hard neve and sastrugi obtain, and we skip over this slippery stuff and make up lost ground easily.  In soft snow the other team draw steadily ahead, and it is fairly heart-breaking to know you are putting your life out hour after hour while they go along with little apparent effort.