slithered along with a fresh breeze. It was heavy travelling for me,
not being on ski, but one does not mind being tired if a good march is
made. We did 16 altogether for the day, and so should pick up our last
depot to-morrow afternoon. The weather became fairly thick soon after
noon, and at the end of the afternoon there was considerable drift
with a mist caused by ice crystals and parhelion.

"_January_ 20.--Good sailing breeze again this morning; it is a great
pleasure to have one's back to the wind instead of having to face it.
It came on thicker later, but we sighted the last depot soon after 1
p.m. and reached it at 1-15 p.m. The red flag on the bamboo pole was
blowing out merrily to welcome us back from the Pole, with its supply
of the necessaries of life below. We are absolutely dependent on our
depots to get off the Plateau alive, and so welcome the lovely little
cairns gladly. At this one, called the 'Last Depot,' we picked up four
days' food, a can of oil, some methylated spirit (for lighting
purposes), and some personal gear we had left there. The bamboo was
bent on to the floor-cloth as a yard for our sail instead of a broken
sledge runner of Amundsen's, which we had found at the Pole and made a
temporary yard of. As we had marched extra long in the forenoon in
order to reach the depot, our afternoon march was shorter than usual.
The wind increased to a moderate gale, with heavy gusts and
considerable drift. We would have had a bad time had we been facing
it. After an hour I had to shift my harness aft so as to control the
motions of the sledge.

"Unfortunately the surface got very sandy latterly, but we finished up
with 16.1 miles to our credit and camped in a stiff breeze, which
rendered itself into a blizzard a few hours later. I was glad we had
our depot safe.