We had therefore to find a place
where the snow had formed a drift. This we came right up against and met
quite suddenly a very keen wind flowing, as it always does, from the cold
Barrier down to the comparatively warm sea-ice. The temperature was -47 deg.
F., and I was a fool to take my hands out of my mitts to haul on the
ropes to bring the sledges up. I started away from the Barrier edge with
all ten fingers frost-bitten. They did not really come back until we were
in the tent for our night meal, and within a few hours there were two or
three large blisters, up to an inch long, on all of them. For many days
those blisters hurt frightfully.
We were camped that night about half a mile in from the Barrier edge. The
temperature was -56 deg.. We had a baddish time, being very glad to get out
of our shivering bags next morning (June 29). We began to suspect, as we
knew only too well later, that the only good time of the twenty-four
hours was breakfast, for then with reasonable luck we need not get into
our sleeping-bags again for another seventeen hours.
[Illustration: A PANORAMIC VIEW OF ROSS ISLAND FROM CRATER HILL]
The horror of the nineteen days it took us to travel from Cape Evans to
Cape Crozier would have to be re-experienced to be appreciated; and any
one would be a fool who went again: it is not possible to describe it.
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