2. The weather throughout the outward journey, and especially the long
gale in 83 degrees S., stopped us.

3. The soft snow in lower reaches of glacier again reduced pace.

We fought these untoward events with a will and conquered, but it cut
into our provision reserve.

Every detail of our food supplies, clothing, and depots made on the
interior ice sheet and over that long stretch of 700 miles to the Pole
and back worked out to perfection. The advance party would have returned
to the glacier in fine form and with surplus of food, but for the
astonishing failure of the man whom we had least expected to fail. Edgar
Evans was thought the strongest man of the party.

The Beardmore Glacier is not difficult in fine weather, but on our return
we did not get a single completely fine day; this with a sick companion
enormously increased our anxieties.

As I have said elsewhere we got into frightfully rough ice, and Edgar
Evans received a concussion of the brain--he died a natural death, but
left us a shaken party, with the season unduly advanced.

But all the facts above enumerated were as nothing to the surprise which
awaited us on the Barrier. I maintain that our arrangements for returning
were quite adequate, and that no one in the world would have expected the
temperatures and surfaces which we encountered at this time of the year.
On the summit in Latitude 85 degrees 86 degrees we had -20 degrees -30
degrees. On the Barrier in Latitude 82 degrees, 10,000 feet lower, we had
-30 degrees in the day, -47 degrees at night pretty regularly, with