sat around the cooker on our rolled up fur bags, the contented expression on our dirty brown faces made our bearded ugliness almost handsome.  We built wonderful castles in the air as to what luxuries Lashly, who was a famous cook, should prepare on our return to winter quarters.  There we had still some of the New Zealand beef and mutton stored in my glacier cave, and one thing I had set my heart on was a steak and kidney pudding which my friend Lashly swore to make me.

After the meal we unrolled our sleeping-bags and luxuriantly got into them, for the recent fine weather had given us a chance to dry thoroughly the fur and get the bags clear of that uncomfortable clamminess due to the moisture from our bodies freezing until the sleeping-bags afforded but little comfort.  The weather looked glorious, there was not a cloud in the sky, and towards 10 o’clock the sun was still visible to the S.S.W.  We could see it through the thin, green canvas tent wall as we turned in, still in broad daylight, and the warmth derived from it made sleep come to us quite easily.

I woke at five the next morning, and, rousing my companions, we were up and about in a minute.  The primus stove and cooking apparatus were brought into the tent once more; our sleeping foot-gear was changed for our marching finneskoe and good steel-spiked crampons fixed to the soft fur boots to give us grip in places where the ice was blue and slippery.  By 6 a.m. the little green tent was struck, the sledge securely packed, and the three of us commenced a day’s march, the details of which, although it occurred over nine years ago, are so fresh in my memory that I have not even to refer to my sledging diary.

We commenced the day unluckily, for a low Stratus cloud had spread like a tablecloth over the Beardmore and filled up the glacier with mist.  This added tremendously to our difficulties in steering, for we had no landmarks by which to set our course, although I knew the approximate direction of descent and could make this by means of a somewhat inadequate compass.  The refinements in steering were not sufficient to keep us on the good blue ice surface down which we could have threaded our way had we commanded a full view of the glacier.  Our route led us over rougher ice than we should normally have chosen, and the outlook was distinctly displeasing.  The air was thick with countless myriads of tiny floating ice crystals, and the great hummocks of ice stood weirdly shapen as they loomed through the frozen mist.  I appreciated that we were getting into trouble, but hoped that the fog would disperse as the sun increased its altitude.  We fell about a good deal, and to my consternation the surface became worse and worse.  We were, however, covering distance in an approximately northward direction, and our team achieved with stubborn purpose what would have appeared impossible to us when we first visited this great, white, silent continent.

It was no good going back, and we could not tell whether the good track was to the right or the left of our line of advance.  As new and more troublesome obstacles presented themselves, the more valiantly did my companions set themselves to win through.  Crean and Lashly had the hearts of lions.  The uncertain light of the mist worried us all three, and we were forced to take off our goggles to see to advance at all.