Berkeley Hotel. It is
just the most comfortable thing and the easiest thing to do under the
circumstances.

In our case the best thing was not at all bad, for the hut, as Arctic
huts go, was as palatial as is the Ritz, as hotels go. Whatever the
conditions of darkness, cold and wind, might be outside, there was
comfort and warmth and good cheer within.

And there was a mass of work to be done, as well as at least two journeys
of the first magnitude ahead.

When Scott first sat down at his little table at Winter Quarters to start
working out a most complicated scheme of weights and averages for the
Southern Journey, his thoughts were gloomy, I know. "This is the end of
the Pole," he said to me, when he pulled us off the bergs after the
sea-ice had broken up; the loss of six ponies out of the eight with which
we started the Depot Journey, the increasing emaciation and weakness of
the pony transport as we travelled farther on the Barrier, the arrival
of the dogs after their rapid journey home, starved rakes which looked as
though they were absolutely done--these were not cheerful recollections
with which to start to plan a journey of eighteen hundred miles.

On the other hand, we had ten ponies left, though two or three of them
were of more than doubtful quality; and it was obvious that considerable
improvement could and must be made in the feeding of both ponies and
dogs. With regard to the dogs the remedy was plain; their ration was too
small. With regard to the ponies the question was not so simple. One of
the main foods for the ponies which we had brought was compressed fodder
in the shape of bales. Theoretically this fodder was excellent food
value, and was made of wheat which was cut green and pressed. Whether it
was really wheat or not I do not know, but there could be no two opinions
about its nourishing qualities for our ponies. When fed upon it they lost
weight until they were just skin and bone. Poor beasts! It was pitiful to
see them.

In Oates we had a man who had forgotten as much as most men know about
horses. It was no fault of his that this fodder was inadequate, nor that
we had lost so many of the best ponies which we had. Oates had always
been for taking the worst ponies out on the Depot Journey: travelling as
far on to the Barrier as they could go, and there killing them and
depoting their flesh. Now Oates took the ten remaining ponies into his
capable hands. Some of them were scarecrows, especial