-a fine day.
On January 5 the "plot began to thicken." The clouds hung above like a
blanket, sprinkling light snow. The light was atrocious, and a few open
rents gave warning of the western zone of pitfalls. All the while there
was a shifting spectral chaos of whiteness which seemed to benumb the
faculties and destroy one's sense of reality. We decided to wait for a
change in the weather.

During the night the snow ceased, and by lunch time on the 6th the
sledge-meter recorded ten miles. The strange thing was that the firm
sastrugi present on the outward journey were now covered inches in snow,
which became deeper as we marched westward.

It was now a frequent occurrence for one of us to pitch forward with his
feet down a hidden crevasse, sometimes going through to the waist. The
travelling was most nerve-racking. When a foot went through the crust
of snow, it was impossible to tell on which side of the crevasse one
happened to be, or in what direction it ran. The only thing to do was to
go ahead and trust in Providence.

At last we landed the sledge on a narrow ridge of hard snow, surrounded
by blue, gaping pits in a pallid eternity of white. It was only when the
tent was pitched that a wide quarry was noticed a few yards away from
the door.

It was now fourteen miles to the top of Mount Murchison and we had only
two more days' rations and one and a half pounds of penguin-meat.

On January 7th the light was worse than ever and snow fell. It was only
six miles across the broken country between us and the gully between Mt.
Murchison and Aurora Peak, where one could travel with some surety.
A sharp look-out was kept, and towards 11 P.M. a rim of clear sky
overtopped the southern horizon. We knew the sun would curve round into
it at midnight, so all was made ready for marching.

When the sun's disc emerged into the rift there was light; but dim, cold
and fleeting. The smallest irregularity on the surface threw a
shadow hundreds of yards long. The plain around was a bluish-grey
checquer-board of light and shade; ahead, sharp and clear against the
leaden sky, stood beautiful Aurora Peak, swathed in lustrous gold--the
chariot of the goddess herself. The awful splendour of the scene tended
to depress one and make the task more trying. I have never felt
more nervous than I did in that ghostly light in the tense silence,
surrounded by the hidden horror of fathomless depths. All was covered
with a uniform layer of snow, gr