Page:Scott's Last Expedition, Volume 2.djvu/121

Ponting said he had seen the same look on some Russian prisoners' faces at Mukden. I just tumbled into my dry, warm blankets. I expect it was as near an approach to bliss as a man can get on this earth.

Sleeping-bags. (Written August 3, 1912).—The life of a man on such a journey as this depends mainly upon the life of his sleeping-bag. We all three of us took eiderdown linings. Bill's bag proved really too small to take his eiderdown, and on the return journey his bag split down the seams to an alarming extent, letting in the cold air. Latterly in this journey it was by no means an uncommon experience for us to take over an hour in getting into our bags. One night I especially remember when Bill had practically given up all hope of getting his head into his. He finally cut off the flaps of his eiderdown, and with Birdie on one side and myself on the other we managed to lever the lid of the head of the bag open and gradually he got his head into it. I made a great mistake in taking a 'large-sized' bag—though it was a small one. What a man really wants is a large 'middle-sized' bag. The last fortnight, whenever the temperature was very low, I never thawed out the parts of my bag which were not pressing tight up against my body. I have forgotten what Bill's and Birdie's bags weighed when we got in. Mine (bag and eiderdown) was 45 lbs., personal gear 10 lbs. When we started that bag was about 18 lbs.: the accumulation of ice was therefore 27 lbs.

Birdie's bag just fitted him beautifully, though perhaps it would have been a little small with an eiderdown inside. As I understand from Atkinson, Birdie had undoubtedly a