The surface was awfully soft, and though we discarded our outer garments
we sweated tremendously. At about 11 a.m. Scott and I changed places. I
found his sledge simply glided along whereas he found no such thing. The
difference was considerable. After lunch we changed sledges and left
Scott's team behind with ease. We stopped at the appointed time, and
after supper Captain Scott came into our tent and told us that we had
distorted our sledge by bad strapping or bad loading. This was, I think,
correct, because Oates had dropped his sleeping-bag off a few days back
through erring in the other direction and not strapping securely--we
meant to have no recurrence and probably racked our sledge by heaving too
hard on the straps.

The 29th was another day of very hard pulling. We were more than 9000
feet up--very nearly at the "summit of the summit." Quoting my diary I
find set down for December 30 and 31 as follows.

"Saturday, _December_ 30.

"Away at 8 a.m. Had a hell of a day's hauling. We worked independently
of the other sledge, camping for lunch at 1 p.m. about half a mile
astern of them. Then off again, and hauled till 7.15 p.m., when we
reached Captain Scott's camp, he being then stopped 3/4-hour. The
surface was frightful and they had a heavy drag. Our distance to-day
was 12 miles 1200 yards statute. We all turned in after our welcome
hoosh, too tired to write up diaries even.

"Bill came in and had a yarn while we drank our cocoa.

"We are now about 9200 feet above the Barrier, temperature falls to