The Worst Journey in the World - Apsley Cherry-Garrard (online e reader .txt) 📗

that is N. N. E., was quite soft, the snow all round and the drifts on either side being hard⁠—exceptionally hard in fact. Why this drift should remain soft when a drift in the same place is usually hard is difficult to explain. All is happy in the mule camp. They have given Lal a drink of water and he has started to eat, which is good news. Some of the mules seem snow-blind, and they are now all wearing their blinkers. I have just heard that Gran swung the thermometer at four this morning and found it −29°. Nelson’s face is a sight⁠—his nose a mere swollen lump, frostbitten cheeks, and his goggles have frosted him where the rims touched his face. Poor Marie!

November 9. Early morning. Twelve more miles to the good, and we must consider ourselves fortunate in still carrying on the same good surface, which is almost if not quite as good as that of yesterday. This is the only time I have ever seen a hard surface here, not more than fifteen miles from One Ton, and it looks as if there had been much higher winds. The sastrugi, which have been facing S. W., are now beginning to run a little more westerly. I believe this to be quite a different wind circulation from Ross Island, which as a whole gets its wind from the Bluff. The Bluff is, I believe, the dividing line, though big general blizzards sweep over the whole, irrespective of local areas of circulation. This was amply corroborated by our journey out here last autumn. Well, this is better than then⁠—just round here we had a full blizzard and −33°.

November 10. Early morning. A perfect night for marching, but about −20° and chilly for waiting about. The mules are going well, but Lal Khan is thinning down a lot: Abdullah and Khan Sahib are also off their feed. Their original allowance of 11 lbs. oats and oil-cake has been reduced to 9 lbs., and they are not eating this. The dogs took another 300 lbs. off them today, and pulled it very well. The surface has been splendidly hard, which is most surprising. Wright does not think that there has been an abnormal deposition of snow the last winter; he says it is about 1½ feet, which is much the same as last year. The mules are generally not sinking in more than two inches, but in places, especially latterly, they have been in five, or six. This is the first we have had this year of crusts, and some of them today have been exceptionally big: two at lunch must have lasted several seconds. The dogs seem to think the devil is after them when one of these goes off, and put on a terrific spurt. It is interesting to watch them snuffing in the hoof-marks of the mules, where there is evidently some scent left. In these temperatures they are always kicking their legs about at the halts. As the sun gained power this morning a thick fog came up very suddenly. I believe this is a sign of good weather.

The Dog Party Leaves Hut Point⁠—November 1, 1912

November 11. Early morning. One Ton Depot. Wright got a latitude sight yesterday putting us six miles from One Ton, and our sledge-meter shows 5¾, and here we are. More frostbite this morning, and it was pretty cold starting in a fair wind and −7° temperature. We have continued this really splendid surface, and now the sastrugi are pointing a little more to the south of S. W. While there are not such big mounds, the surface does not yet show any signs of getting bad. There were the most beautiful cloud-effects as we came along⁠—a deep black to the west, shading into long lines of grey and lemon yellow round the sun, with a vertical shaft through them, and a bright orange horizon. Now there is a brilliant parhelion. Given sun, two days here are never alike. Whatever the monotony of the Barrier may be, there is endless variety in the sky, and I do not believe that anywhere in the world such beautiful colours are to be seen.

I had a fair panic as we came up to the depot. I did not see that one body of the ponies had gone ahead of the others and camped, but ahead of the travelling ponies was the depot, looking very black, and I thought that there was a tent. It would be too terrible to find that, though one knew that we had done all that we could, if we had done something different we could have saved them.

And then we find that the provisions we left here for them in the tank are soaked with paraffin. How this has happened is a mystery, but I think that the oil in the XS tin, which was very full, must have forced its way out in a sudden rise of temperature in a winter blizzard, and though the tin was not touching the tank, it has found its way in.

Altogether things seemed rather dismal, but a visit to the mules is cheering, for they seem very fit as a whole and their leaders are cheerful. There are three sacks of oats here⁠—had we known it would have saved a lot of weight⁠—but we didn’t, and we have plenty with what we have brought, so they will be of little use to us. There is no compressed fodder, which would have been very useful, for the animals which are refusing the oats would probably eat it.

Gulab has a very bad chafe, but he is otherwise fit⁠—and it does not seem possible in this life to kill a mule because of chafing. It is a great deal to know that he does not seem