Nowadays we have far more knowledge of air-cooled engines and such
crawling juggernauts as tanks, for it may well be argued that Scott's
motor sledges were the forerunners of the tanks.

On November 1 we advanced six miles and the motor then gave out. Day and
Lashly give it their undivided attention for hours, and the next day we
coaxed the wretched thing to Corner Camp and ourselves dragged the loads
there.

Arrived at this important depot we deposited the dog pemmican and took on
three sacks of oats, but after proceeding under motor power for 1 1/2
miles, the big end brass of No. 1 cylinder went, so we discarded the car
and slogged on foot with a six weeks' food supply for one 4-man unit. Our
actual weights were 185 lb. per man. We got the whole 740 lb. on to the
10 ft. sledge, but with a head wind it was rather a heavy load. We kept
going at a mile an hour pace until 8 p.m.

I had left a note at the Corner Camp depot which told Scott of our trying
experiences: how the engines overheated so that we had to stop, how by
the time they were reasonably cooled the carburettor would refuse duty
and must be warmed up with a blow lamp, what trouble Day and Lashly had
had in starting the motors, and in short how we all four would heave with
all our might on the spans of the towing sledges to ease the starting
strain, and how the engines would give a few sniffs and then stop--but we
must not omit the great point in their favour: the motors advanced the
necessaries for the Southern journey 51 miles over rough, slippery, and
crevassed ice and gave the ponies the chance to march light as far as
Corner Camp--this is all that Oates asked for.

It was easier work now to pull our loads straight-forwardly South than to