travelling of the two previous sledge
seasons were sick of sledging. For my own part I confess I viewed the
whole proceedings with distaste, and I have no doubt the others did too;
but the job had to be done if possible, and there was no good in saying
we were sick of it. From beginning to end of this year men not only
laboured willingly, but put their hearts and souls into the work. To have
to do another three months' journey seemed bad enough, and to leave our
comfortable Winter Quarters three weeks before we started on that journey
was an additional irritation. We ran down in surface drift: it was thick
to the south, the wind bit our faces and hands; we could see nothing by
the time we got in, and the snow was falling heavily. The stable was full
of beastly snow, the hut was cold and cheerless, and there was no blubber
for the stove. And if we had only taken the ship and gone home when the
period for which we had joined was passed, we might have been in London
for the last six months!

But then the snow stopped, the wind went down, and the mountain tops
appeared in all their glorious beauty. We were in the middle of a perfect
summer afternoon, with a warm sun beating on the rocks as we walked round
to Pram Point. There were many seals here already, and it was clear that
the place would form a jolly nursery this year, for there must have been
a lot of movement on the Barrier and the sea-ice was seamed with pressure
ridges up to twenty feet in height. The hollows were buckled until the
sea water came up and formed frozen ponds which would thaw later into
lovely baths. Sheltered from the wind the children could chase their
ridiculous tails to their hearts' content: their mothers would lie and
sleep, awakening every now and then to scratch themselves with their long
finger-nails. Not quite yet, but they were not far away: Lappy, one of
our dogs who always looked more like a spaniel than anything else, heard
one under the ice and started to burrow down to him!

Nearly three weeks later I paid several more visits to this delightful
place. It was thick with seals, big seals and little seals, hairy seals
and woolly seals: every day added appreciably to the number of babies,
and to the baaings and bleatings which made the place sound like a great
sheepfold. In every case where I approached, the mothers opened their
mouths and bellowed at me to keep away, but they did not come for me
though I actually stroked one baby. Often