ight in. This meant a little wind, and every now and then our feet came
down on a hard slippery patch under the soft snow. We were surrounded by
fog which walked along with us, and far above us the moon was shining on
its roof. Steering was as difficult as the pulling, and four hours of the
hardest work only produced 11/4 miles in the morning, and three more hours
1 mile in the afternoon--and the temperature was -57 deg. with a
breeze--horrible!

In the early morning of the next day snow began to fall and the fog was
dense: when we got up we could see nothing at all anywhere. After the
usual four hours to get going in the morning we settled that it was
impossible to relay, for we should never be able to track ourselves back
to the second sledge. It was with very great relief that we found we
could move both sledges together, and I think this was mainly due to the
temperature which had risen to -36 deg..

This was our fourth day of fog in addition to the normal darkness, and we
knew we must be approaching the land. It would be Terror Point, and the
fog is probably caused by the moist warm air coming up from the sea
through the pressure cracks and crevasses; for it is supposed that the
Barrier here is afloat.

I wish I could take you on to the great Ice Barrier some calm evening
when the sun is just dipping in the middle of the night and show you the
autumn tints on Ross Island. A last look round before turning in, a good
day's march behind, enough fine fat pemmican inside you to make you
happy, the homely smell of tobacco from the tent, a pleasant sense of
soft fur and the deep sleep to come. And all the softest colours God has
made are in the snow; on Erebus to the west, where the wind can scarcely
move his cloud of smoke; and on Terror to the east, not so high, and more
regular in form. How peaceful and dignified it all is.

That was what you might have seen four months ago had you been out on the
Barrier plain. Low down on the extreme right or east of the land there
was a black smudge of rock peeping out from great snow-drifts: that was
the Knoll, and close under it were the cliffs of Cape Crozier, the Knoll
looking quite low and the cliffs invisible, although they are eight
hundred feet high, a sheer precipice falling to the sea.

It is at Cape Crozier that the Barrier edge, which runs for four hundred
miles as an ice-cliff up to 200 feet high, meets the land. The Barrier is
moving against this land at a rate whi