three men must of necessity face abnormally low temperature’s and unheard of hardships whilst making the sledge journey over the icy Barrier.  We had gathered enough knowledge on the autumn sledge journeys and in the days of the Discovery expedition to tell us this, so that it was not without considerable misgivings that Captain Scott permitted Wilson to carry the winter expedition to Cape Crozier into being.  The scope of my little volume only permits me to tell this story in brief.  No very detailed account has yet been published, although Cherry-Garrard, the only survivor of the three, wrote the far too modest memoir of the journey which has been published in Volume II of “Scott’s Last Expedition.”

Apart from the zoological knowledge Wilson hoped to gain from the Cape Crozier visit in mid-winter, there was a wealth of other information to be collected concerning the Barrier conditions, particularly the meteorological conditions, but above all we knew that with such quick and reliable observers as Wilson and his companions we must derive additional experience in the matter of sledging rations, for the party had agreed to make experiments in order to arrive at the standard ration to be adopted for the colder weather we must face during the second half of the forthcoming Polar journey.

Wilson took two small 9 ft. sledges, and after being photographed was helped out to Glacier Tongue by a small hurrah party.  In the bad light he was handicapped from the very first, and it took the party two days to get on to the Ice Barrier.  Their progress was dreadfully slow, which was not to be wondered at, for they were pulling loads of 250 lb. per man, the surfaces were beyond anything they had faced hitherto, and the temperatures seldom above 60 degrees.  Relay work had to be resorted to, and in consequence the party took eighteen days to reach Cape Crozier.  They met with good weather, that is, calm weather, to begin with, but the bad surfaces handicapped them severely.  After rounding Cape Mackay they reached a wind-swept area and met with a series of blizzards.  Their best light was moonlight, and they were denied this practically by overcast skies.  Picture their hardships:  frozen bags to sleep in, frozen finnesko to put their feet in every time they struck camp, finger-tips always getting frost-bitten and sometimes toes and heels; no comfort was to be derived within camp, for, at the best, they could only sit and shiver when preparing the food, and once the bags were unrolled to sleep in more trouble came.  It is on record that Cherry-Garrard took as long as three-quarters of an hour to break his way into his sleeping-bag, and once inside it he merely shook and froze.  The party used a double tent for this journey, that is to say, a light lining was fitted on the inner side of the five bamboo tent poles, so that when the ordinary wind-proof tent cloth was spread over the poles an air space was provided.  There was, I may say, a sharp difference of opinion