route, and fairly slithered along with a fresh breeze.  It was heavy travelling for me, not being on ski, but one does not mind being tired if a good march is made.  We did 16 altogether for the day, and so should pick up our last depot to-morrow afternoon.  The weather became fairly thick soon after noon, and at the end of the afternoon there was considerable drift with a mist caused by ice crystals and parhelion.

“January 20.—­Good sailing breeze again this morning; it is a great pleasure to have one’s back to the wind instead of having to face it.  It came on thicker later, but we sighted the last depot soon after 1 p.m. and reached it at 1-15 p.m.  The red flag on the bamboo pole was blowing out merrily to welcome us back from the Pole, with its supply of the necessaries of life below.  We are absolutely dependent on our depots to get off the Plateau alive, and so welcome the lovely little cairns gladly.  At this one, called the ‘Last Depot,’ we picked up four days’ food, a can of oil, some methylated spirit (for lighting purposes), and some personal gear we had left there.  The bamboo was bent on to the floor-cloth as a yard for our sail instead of a broken sledge runner of Amundsen’s, which we had found at the Pole and made a temporary yard of.  As we had marched extra long in the forenoon in order to reach the depot, our afternoon march was shorter than usual.  The wind increased to a moderate gale, with heavy gusts and considerable drift.  We would have had a bad time had we been facing it.  After an hour I had to shift my harness aft so as to control the motions of the sledge.

“Unfortunately the surface got very sandy latterly, but we finished up with 16.1 miles to our credit and camped in a stiff breeze, which rendered itself into a blizzard a few hours later.  I was glad we had our depot safe.

“January 21.-Wind increased to force 8 during night, with heavy drift; in the morning it was blizzing like blazes, and marching was out of the question.  The wind would have been of great assistance to us, but the drift was so thick that steering a course would have been next to impossible, so we decided to await developments and get under way as soon as it showed any signs of clearing.  Fortunately it was short lived, and instead of lasting the regulation two days it went off in the afternoon, and 2.45 found us off with our sail full.  It was good running on ski, but soft plodding for me on foot.  I shall be jolly glad to pick up my dear old ski.  They are nearly 200 miles away yet, however.  The breeze fell altogether latterly, and I shifted up into my old place, a middle number of the five.  Our distance completed was 5.52 miles when camp was made again.  Our old cairns are of great assistance, also the tracks, which are obliterated in places by heavy drift and hard sastrugi, but can be followed easily.

“January 22.—­We