That day was for the most part thick and hazy, with a northerly wind, and snow-showers from time to time.  Between the showers we caught sight of lofty —­ very lofty —­ pressure ridges, three or four of them, to the eastward.  We estimated their distance at about six miles.  Next day, March 7, we had the same experience that Shackleton mentions on several occasions.  The morning began clear and fine, with a temperature of -40deg.  F. In the course of the forenoon a breeze sprang up from the south-east, and increased to a gale during the afternoon.  The temperature rose rapidly, and when we pitched our camp at three in the afternoon it was only -0.4deg.  F. At our camping-place that morning we left a case of dogs’ pemmican, for use on the homeward journey, and marked the way to the south with splinters of board at every kilometre.  Our distance that day was only twelve and a half miles.  Our dogs, especially mine, looked miserable —­ terribly emaciated.  It was clear that they could only reach 82deg.  S. at the farthest.  Even then the homeward journey would be a near thing.

We decided that evening to be satisfied with reaching 82deg., and then return.  During this latter part of the trip we put up our two tents front to front, so that the openings joined; in this way we were able to send the food direct from one tent to the other without going outside, and that was a great advantage.  This circumstance led to a radical alteration in our camping system, and gave us the idea of the best five-man tent that has probably yet been seen in the Polar regions.  As we lay dozing that evening in our sleeping-bags, thinking of everything and nothing, the idea suddenly occurred to us that if the tents were sewed together as they now stood —­ after the fronts had been cut away —­ we should get one tent that would give us far more room for five than the two separate tents as they were.  The idea was followed up, and the fruit of it was the tent we used on the journey to the Pole —­ an ideal tent in every way.  Yes, circumstances work wonders; for I suppose one need not make Providence responsible for these trifles?

On March 8 we reached 82deg.  S., and it was the utmost my five dogs could manage.  Indeed, as will shortly be seen, it was already too much.  They were completely worn out, poor beasts.  This is the only dark memory of my stay in the South —­ the over-taxing of these fine animals —­ I had asked more of them than they were capable of doing.  My consolation is that I did not spare myself either.  To set this sledge, weighing nearly half a ton, in motion with tired-out dogs was no child’s play.  And setting it in motion was not always the whole of it:  sometimes one had to push it forward until one forced the dogs to move.  The whip had long ago lost its terrors.  When I tried to use it, they only crowded together, and got their heads as much out of the way as they could; the body did not matter so much.  Many a time, too, I failed