Corner Camp is a well-known trap for blizzards on the line of their exit at Cape Crozier, and it was clouding up, the barometer falling, and the temperature rising rapidly.  “So we decided to come back some way, and have in the end come right back to the Biscuit Depot, since it looked very threatening to the east.  Here the temperature is lower (-15 deg.) and it is clearing.  Ross Island has been largely obscured, but the clouds are opening on Terror.  We had a very good run and the dogs pulled splendidly, making light work of it:  29 miles for the day, half of it with loaded sledges!  Lappy’s feet are bleeding a good bit, owing to the snow balling in between his toes where the hair is unusually long.  Bullet, who is fat and did not pull, celebrated his arrival in camp by going for Bielchik who had pulled splendidly all day!  There is much mirage, and Observation Hill and Castle Rock are reversed."[288] We reached Hut Point the next day.  Lappy’s feet were still bad, and Dimitri wrapped him in his windproof blouse and strapped him on to the sledge.  All went well until we got on to the sea-ice, when Lappy escaped and arrived an easy first.

Dog-driving is the devil!  Before I started, my language would not have shamed a Sunday School, and now—­if it were not Sunday I would tell you more about it.  It takes all kinds to make a world and a dog-team.  We had aristocrats like Osman, and Bolsheviks like Krisravitza, and lunatics like Hol-hol.  The present-day employer of labour might stand amazed when he saw a crowd of prospective workmen go mad with joy at the sight of their driver approaching them with a harness in his hands.  The most ardent trade unionist might boil with rage at the sight of eleven or thirteen huskies dragging a heavy load, including their idle master, over the floe with every appearance of intense joy.  But truth to tell there were signs that they were getting rather sick of it, and within a few days we were to learn that dogs can chuck their paws in as well as many another.  They had their king, of course:  Osman was that.  They combined readily and with immense effect against any companion who did not pull his weight, or against one who pulled too much.  Dyk was unpopular among them, for when the team of which he was a member was halted he constantly whined and tugged at his harness in his eagerness to go on:  this did not allow the rest of the team to rest, and they were justifiably resentful.  Sometimes a team got a down upon a dog without our being able to discover their doggy reason.  In any case we had to watch carefully to prevent them carrying out their intentions, their method of punishment always being the same and ending, if unchecked, in what they probably called justice, and we called murder.