frequently frost-bitten. On Christmas Eve we were 8000 feet above the
Barrier, and we imagined we were clear of crevasses and pressure ridges.
We now felt the cold far more when marching than we had done on the
Beardmore.

The wind all the time turned our breath into cakes of ice on our beards.
Taking sights when we stopped was a bitterly cold job: fingers had to be
bared to work the little theodolite screws, and in the biting wind one's
finger-tips soon went. Over 16 miles were laid behind us on Christmas Eve
when we reached Latitude 85 degrees 35 minutes S., Longitude 159 degrees
8 minutes E. I obtained the variation of the compass here--179 degrees 35
minutes E., so that we were between the Magnetic and Geographical Poles.

The temperature down to 10 degrees below zero made observing unpleasant,
when one had cooled down and lost vitality at the end of the day's march.

Christmas Day, 1911, found our two tiny green tents pitched on the King
Edward VII. Plateau--the only objects that broke the monotony of the
great white glittering waste that stretches from the Beardmore Glacier
Head to the South Pole. A light wind was blowing from the South, and
little whirls of fine snow, as fine as dust, would occasionally sweep
round the tents and along the sides of the sledge runners, streaming away
almost like smoke to the Northward. Inside the tents breathing heavily
were our eight sleeping figures--in these little canvas shelters soon
after 4 a.m. the sleepers became restless and occasionally one would
wake, glance at one's watch, and doze again. Exactly at 5 a.m. our leader
shouted "Evans," and both of us of that name replied, "Right-o, sir."

Immediately all was bustle, we scrambled out of our sleeping-bags, only
the cook remaining in each tent. The others with frantic haste filled the