This was the first land we had passed close to since leaving Hut Point six weeks previously, and now we had roughly 150 miles of travelling, with something to look at, some relief for the eyes to rest on in place of that dazzling white expanse of Barrier ice, with its glitter and sparkle, so tiring to the eyes.  We knew that we must expect crevasses now, hidden and bare, and we also knew that we must every day rise our camps until we reached the plateau summit in 10,000 feet.  The Beardmore itself is about 120 miles in length and from 10 to 30 miles wide.  We had no geologist with us, but specimens have been collected by Shackleton’s people, and our own members, particularly Scott’s Polar sledge party, which are sufficient to give a history of this part of Antarctica.

December 10 showed our party on to the Glacier, but we were not “out of the wood” by this date.  For we had some hard graft marching up the steep incline called by Shackleton the Southern Gateway.  We had made a depot of three ten-foot sledges in good condition to be used for the homeward journey over the Barrier by each returning unit—­realising that the descent of the Glacier would knock our sledges about and most likely break them up to some extent.

We were now organised into three teams of four, pulling 170 lb. per man, and in this formation we made the advance up the Glacier.

The teams were as follows: 

1.—­Scott.           2.—­Evans (Lieut.)      3.—­Bowers. 
Wilson.               Atkinson.                Cherry-Garrard
Oates.                Wright.                  Crean. 
Evans (Seaman).       Lashly.                  Keohane.

With us we kept the dog teams pulling 600 lb. of our own weights and the 200 lb. gross for placing in the Lower Glacier Depot.

Soft snow made the dragging very heavy, and in the afternoon, working on ski, I am sorry to say my party dropped astern and got into camp an hour late—­it could not be helped, we had borne the brunt of the hard work; Lashly and I had man-hauled daily for five weeks, and Atkinson and Wright for some time also.  I had a long talk next morning after breakfast with Captain Scott.  He was disappointed with our inability to keep up with the speed of the main party, but I pointed out that we could not expect to do the same as fresh men—­the other eight had only put on the sledge harness for the first time on December 10:  Scott agreed, but seemed worried and fretful.  However that may be, we got into the lunch camp first of the three sledges, to have our short-lived triumph turned to disaster by a very poor show after the meal—­Scott was much disappointed and dissatisfied:  he appeared to think Atkinson was done; Wilson said Wright was played out and Lashly tired.  They both seemed to think I was all right, but all the same I felt that my unit had been called on to do more than its share and was suffering as a natural consequence.  The depot was built in a conspicuous position, and this done, Meares’s work ended.  He and Dimitri came along with us for a while and then turned back for a long, lonely run over the inhospitable Barrier.