To pick up a depot which is only a tiny speck in a vast snowy plain and is nearly sixty miles from the nearest land, is like picking up a buoy in the North Sea with only distant mountains for bearings, and I was most anxious that we should reach it before the glorious weather broke up, for there was stored not only the pony feed but also a most valuable gallon of oil.
Imagine then my delight when, on the evening of the 14th, Wild, who was outside the camp looking through the Goertz glasses, shouted that he could see the depot. We rushed out at once, and there were the flag and sledge to be seen plainly through the glasses. On the next morning we found everything intact and the flag waving merrily in the breeze, and we camped there for a few hours so that we could distribute weights and parcel our provision to be left there for our return journey.
It went to our hearts to leave a tin of sardines and a pot of black currant jam which we had intended for our feast on Christmas Day, but every ounce of additional weight was so important, that although we felt that we ought to take as much food as we possibly could these luxuries had to be left behind.
We were on again soon after one o'clock and when we camped that night we built a snow mound as a guide to our homeward track, and decided to build one at each camp we made. Having two shovels with us, in ten minutes a mound 6 or 7 ft. high could be built, and although we wondered whether our tracks would remain longer than our mounds, or our mounds longer than the tracks, we thought it most advisable to neglect no precautions. And as a matter of fact these mounds remained after the sledge tracks had vanished, and were a great comfort to us on our journey back.
Everything continued to go splendidly for us, and I could not help contrasting the progress of our last few days with the time six years before, when I was toiling along five miles a day over the same ground.
On November 16, for instance, we covered over 17 miles, a record day for us; and also every one was in splendid health, my eyes (which had been attacked by snow blindness) were better, and although split lips prevented us laughing we were going straight as a die to the south—a reason sufficient in itself for our cheerfulness.
Another opportunity for contrast was that between our parsimony in the way of food and Quan's wastefulness. To economise we saved three lumps of sugar each day so that in time we might build up a reserve stock, while Quan with his marvellous digestion preferred to eat a yard of creosoted rope than his proper bait, and often in sheer wantonness threw the food given to him all over the snow.
By this time the work was beginning to tell upon the ponies, especially upon Chinaman, but all of them continued to work splendidly in their own particular way, and naturally we were anxious to advance our food-supply as far as possible south before the ponies gave out.
Quan plodded stolidly through everything, possibly thinking of what tricks he would play at night but at the same time working magnificently; Chinaman was the first to show signs of collapse, but his spirit was willing though his strength was weakening; Grisi and Socks took all soft places with a rush.
But in spite of the hard labours of the day we always felt confident that the ponies would enjoy themselves in their peculiar way at night, and on one occasion I had to go out to prevent Socks from biting and swallowing lumps out of Quan's tail. If we had ever anticipated that they would have played such games, we should have taken a longer wire to tether them and keep them apart.