The news from this party is on the whole good, not the least good being that the sledge-meter is working again, though not very reliably.  They are marching well, and at a great pace, except for Khan Sahib.  Gulab, however, is terribly chafed both by his collar and by his breast harness, both of which have been tried.  He has a great raw place where this fits on one side, and is chafed, but not so badly, on the other side.  Lal Khan is pulling well, but is eating very little.  Pyaree is doing very well, but has some difficulty in lifting her leg when in soft snow.  Abdullah seems to be considered the best mule at present.  On the whole good hearing.

Wright’s sleeping-bag is bad, letting in light through cracks in a good many places.  But he makes very little of it and does not seem to be cold—­saying it is good ventilation.  The mule cloths, which have a rough lining to their outside canvas, are collecting a lot of snow, and all the mules are matted with cakes of snow.  They are terrible rope-eaters, cloth-eaters, anything to eat, though they are not hungry.  And they have even learnt to pull their picketing buckles undone, and go walking about the camp.  Indeed Nelson says that the only time when Khan Sahib does not cast himself adrift is when he is ready to start on the march.

November 6.  Early morning. We had a really good lie-in yesterday, and after the hard slogging with the dogs during the last few days I for one was very glad of it.  We came on behind, and in sight of the mules this last march, and the change in the dogs was wonderful.  Where it had been a job to urge them on over quite as good a surface yesterday, to-day for some time we could not get off the sledge except for short runs:  although we had taken 312 lbs. weight off the mules and loaded it on to the dogs.

We had a most glorious night for marching, and it is now bright sunlight, and the animals’ fur is quite warm where the sun strikes it.  We have just had a bit of a fight over the dog-food, Vaida going for Dyk, and now the others are somewhat excited, and there are constant growlings and murmurings.

The camp makes more of a mark than last year, for the mules are dark while the ponies were white or grey, and the cloths are brown instead of light green.  The consequence is that the camp shows up from a long distance off.  We are building cairns at regular distances, and there should be no difficulty in keeping on the course in fair weather at any rate.  Now in the land of big sastrugi:  Erebus is beginning to look small, but we could see an unusually big smoke from the crater all day.