Page:Scott's Last Expedition, Volume 2.djvu/105

were over Terror Point and almost out of the blizzard area. The surface all up this slope was good going, hard but smooth, hardened however by variable winds of no great force, with but few areas of the softer sandy drifts which are the heavy ones to drag over.

Across the divide we went downhill with the air-stream on our backs, and very soon we were once more on the old softer crusty surface of the Barrier itself, with trifling sastrugi and heavier pulling, a surface into which the sledge runners and the feet sank a couple of inches. Subsidences again began and soon became frequent. Bright fine weather, and Terror peak visible all day, as well as Erebus from the time when we first caught sight of it over Terror slope. One of the features of Erebus during the whole of this march was the outstanding old Northern Crater, which stood out boldly against the skyline part of the way down the slope. We lost it, however, at the end of to-day's march.

Bowers turned his bag again to-day from fur outside to fur inside, and so it remained till we reached Cape Evans.

The temperature ranged from −47·2° in the morning to −38° in the evening. At our lunch camp it was −40·3°. We made 6¾ miles in the day.

We were now travelling with a view to getting in all the daylight we could and at the same time with a view to reducing our nights to the shortest possible, for we got but little sleep and were often uncomfortably cold all night. We therefore turned out generally at 5.30 a.m., lunched at 2.30 p.m., and camped at 6 p.m., to turn in between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m.