Page:The Worst Journey in the World volume 2.djvu/55

338 is hard to recall in the enjoyment of the present how irritable and weary you felt only twenty hours ago. The whisper of the sledge, the hiss of the primus, the smell of the hoosh and the soft folds of your sleeping-bag: how jolly they can all be, and generally were.

Certainly as we skirted these mountains, range upon range, during the next two marches (November 30 and December 1), we felt we could have little cause for complaint. They brought us to lat. 82° 47′ S., and here we left our last depôt on the Barrier, called the Southern Barrier Depôt, with a week's ration for each returning party as usual. "The man food is enough for one week for each returning unit of four men, the next depôt beyond being the Middle Barrier Depôt, 73 miles north. As we ought easily to do over 100 miles a week on the return journey, there is little likelihood of our having to go on short commons if all goes well." And this was what we all felt—until we found the Polar Party. This was our twenty-seventh camp, and we had been out a month.

It was important that we should have fine clear weather during the next few days when we should be approaching the land. On his previous southern journey Scott had been prevented from reaching the range of mountains which ran along to our right by a huge chasm. This phenomenon is known to geologists as a shear crack and is formed by the