of snowshoes on Snatcher.  From this he went on without much pressing, the other ponies followed, and one by one were worn out in the second place.  We went on all day without lunch.  Three or four miles (T. 23 deg.) found us engulfed in pressures, but free from difficulty except the awful softness of the snow.  By 8 P.M. we had reached within a mile or so of the slope ascending to the gap which Shackleton called the Gateway._22_ I had hoped to be through the Gateway with the ponies still in hand at a very much earlier date and, but for the devastating storm, we should have been.  It has been a most serious blow to us, but things are not yet desperate, if only the storm has not hopelessly spoilt the surface.  The man-haulers are not up yet, in spite of their light load.  I think they have stopped for tea, or something, but under ordinary conditions they would have passed us with ease.

At 8 P.M. the ponies were quite done, one and all.  They came on painfully slowly a few hundred yards at a time.  By this time I was hauling ahead, a ridiculously light load, and yet finding the pulling heavy enough.  We camped, and the ponies have been shot. [32] Poor beasts! they have done wonderfully well considering the terrible circumstances under which they worked, but yet it is hard to have to kill them so early.  The dogs are going well in spite of the surface, but here again one cannot get the help one would wish. (T. 19 deg..) I cannot load the animals heavily on such snow.  The scenery is most impressive; three huge pillars of granite form the right buttress of the Gateway, and a sharp spur of Mount Hope the left.  The land is much more snow covered than when we saw it before the storm.  In spite of some doubt in our outlook, everyone is very cheerful to-night and jokes are flying freely around.

CHAPTER XVII

On the Beardmore Glacier

Sunday, December 10.—­Camp 32. [33] I was very anxious about getting our loads forward over such an appalling surface, and that we have done so is mainly due to the ski.  I roused everyone at 8, but it was noon before all the readjustments of load had been made and we were ready to start.  The dogs carried 600 lbs. of our weight besides the depot (200 lbs.).  It was greatly to my surprise when we—­my own party—­with a ‘one, two, three together’ started our sledge, and we found it running fairly easily behind us.  We did the first mile at a rate of about 2 miles an hour, having previously very carefully scraped and dried our runners.  The day was gloriously fine and we were soon perspiring.  After the first mile we began to rise, and for some way on a steep slope we held to our ski and kept going.  Then the slope got steeper and the surface much worse, and we had to take off our ski.  The pulling after this was extraordinarily fatiguing.  We sank above our finnesko everywhere, and in places nearly to our knees.  The runners of the sledges got coated