from Christiania the best of these compositions, nevertheless there were
days when whatever we put on we had difficulty with ski and had to cast
them aside. There were people who preferred foot-slogging to ski at any
time, and there were certainly days when teams on foot would literally
dance round men pulling on ski. In the light of experience, however, the
expert ski-runner has enormous advantage over the "foot-slogger," however
good an athlete.

What strikes me here is the dreadful similarity in weather condition,
wind, temperature, etc., surface and visibility to that which culminated
in the great disaster of our expedition and resulted in poor Scott's
death exactly a year later. Here is a day taken haphazard from my diary:

"From Corner Camp to Hut Point:

"March 18, 1911.--Called the hands at 6.15 and after a fine warming
breakfast started off on ski. The light was simply awful and the
surface very bad, but we did six miles, then lunched. After lunch
carried on with a strong wind blowing, but after very heavy dragging
we were forced to camp when only nine and a half miles had been laid
between us--we really couldn't see ten yards. Just after we camped the
wind increased to about force 6, alternately freshening up and dying
away, and a good deal of snow fell. Temperature 32.5 below zero."

One year later Scott was facing weather conditions and surfaces almost
identical, but the difference lay in that he had marched more than
sixteen hundred miles, was short of food, and his party were suffering
from the tragic loss of two of their companions and the intense
disappointment of having made this great sledge journey for their
country's honour to find that all their efforts had been in vain, and