degrees 2 minutes 33 seconds S. Long. 169 degrees 3 minutes 25
seconds E.) where we tied a piece of black bunting to pull Crean's
leg--mourning for his pony. We lunched here and then marched on till
6.55 p.m., when we camped, our day's march being 15 miles 839 yards.
I built a snow cairn while supper was being prepared. Surface was very
good and we could have easily marched 20 miles, but, we were not
record breaking, but going easy till the ponies came up. All the same
we shall have to march pretty hard to keep ahead of them. Minimum
temperature: -12.7 degrees, temperature on camping +5 degrees."

We were very happy in our party, and when cooking we all sang and yarned,
nobody ever seemed tired once we got quit of the motors. We built cairns
at certain points to guide the returning parties. We had a light snowfall
on November 6 and occasional overcast, misty weather, but in general the
visibility was good, and although far out on the Barrier we got some view
of the Victoria Land mountain ranges. Very beautiful they looked, too,
but their very presence gave an awful feeling of loneliness.

I must admit it all had a dreadful fascination for me, and after the
others had got into their sleeping-bags I used to build up a large snow
cairn, and whilst resting, now and again I gazed wonderingly at that
awful country.

The Bluff stood up better than the rest, as of course it was so much
nearer to us, and the green tent looked pitifully small and inadequate by
itself on the Barrier, nothing else human about us. Just the sledge trail
and the thrown-up snow on the tent valance, a confused whirl of sastrugi
leading in no direction particularly, a glistening sparkle here, there,
and everywhere when the sun was shining, and the far distant land sitting
Sphinx-like on the Western horizon, with its shaded white slopes, and its