Page:The Worst Journey in the World volume 2.djvu/265

506 edges. We camped here and examined the tracks and discussed things. The surface was fairly good in the forenoon, −23° temperature, and all the afternoon we were coming downhill with again a rise to the W., and a fall and a scoop to the east where the Norwegians came up, evidently by another glacier."

"January 17. We camped on the Pole itself at 6.30 this evening. In the morning we were up at 5  and got away on Amundsen's tracks going S.S.W. for three hours, passing two small snow cairns, and then, finding the tracks too much snowed up to follow, we made our own bee-line for the Pole: camped for lunch at 12.30 and off again from 3 to 6.30  It blew from force 4 to 6 all day in our teeth with temperature −22°, the coldest march I ever remember. It was difficult to keep one's hands from freezing in double woollen and fur mitts. Oates, Evans, and Bowers all have pretty severe frost-bitten noses and cheeks, and we had to camp early for lunch on account of Evans' hands. It was a very bitter day. Sun was out now and again, and observations taken at lunch, and before and after supper, and at night, at 7  and at 2  by our time. The weather was not clear, the air was full of crystals driving towards us as we came south, and making the horizon grey and thick and hazy. We could see no sign of cairn or flag, and from Amundsen's direction of tracks this morning he has probably hit a point about 3 miles off. We hope for clear weather to-morrow, but in any case are all agreed that he can claim prior right to the Pole itself. He has beaten us in so far as he made a race of it. We have done what we came for all the same and as our programme was made out. From his tracks we think there were only 2 men, on ski, with plenty of dogs on rather low diet. They seem to have had an oval tent. We sleep one night at the Pole and have had a double hoosh with some last bits of chocolate, and X's cigarettes have been much appreciated by Scott and Oates and Evans. A tiring day: now turning into a somewhat starchy frozen bag. To-morrow we start for home and shall do our utmost to get back in time to send the news to the ship."