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On November 1 we advanced six miles and the motor then gave out. Day and Lashly give it their undivided attention for hours, and the next day we coaxed the wretched thing to Corner Camp and ourselves dragged the loads there.

We went back to help Lashly, who had restarted his engine. If not so dashingly, on account of his slower speed, he also now took the slope without hitch and got a last handshake as he clattered forward. His engine was not working so well as the other, but I think mainly owing to the first overheating and a want of adjustment resulting therefrom.

Evans and his party, however, were unable to keep up the pace set by the leaders, and when they camped at 9.15 Scott heard some news that thoroughly alarmed him. 'It appears, he wrote, 'that Atkinson says that Wright is getting played out, and Lashly is not so fit as he was owing to the heavy pulling since the blizzard. I have not felt satisfied about this party.

I had left a note at the Corner Camp depot which told Scott of our trying experiences: how the engines overheated so that we had to stop, how by the time they were reasonably cooled the carburettor would refuse duty and must be warmed up with a blow lamp, what trouble Day and Lashly had had in starting the motors, and in short how we all four would heave with all our might on the spans of the towing sledges to ease the starting strain, and how the engines would give a few sniffs and then stop but we must not omit the great point in their favour: the motors advanced the necessaries for the Southern journey 51 miles over rough, slippery, and crevassed ice and gave the ponies the chance to march light as far as Corner Camp this is all that Oates asked for.

It would have been a disappointment to them if they had known that we shortly afterwards heard an ominous rattle, which turned out to be the big end brass of one of the connecting rods churning up due to a bad casting. Luckily we had a spare, which Day and Lashly fitted, while Hooper and I went on with the 10 ft. sledge to Safety Camp.

Day and Lashly spent the afternoon making good these defects in a satisfactory manner. This morning the engines were set going again, and shortly after 10 A.M. a fresh start was made. At first there were a good many stops, but on the whole the engines seemed to be improving all the time. They are not by any means working up to full power yet, and so the pace is very slow.

Lashly is his old self in every respect, hard working to the limit, quiet, abstemious and determined. You see altogether I have a good set of people with me, and it will go hard if we don't achieve something.

Soft snow made the dragging very heavy, and in the afternoon, working on ski, I am sorry to say my party dropped astern and got into camp an hour late it could not be helped, we had borne the brunt of the hard work; Lashly and I had man-hauled daily for five weeks, and Atkinson and Wright for some time also. I had a long talk next morning after breakfast with Captain Scott.

Clissold's work of cooking has fallen on Hooper and Lashly, and it is satisfactory to find that the various dishes and bread bakings maintain their excellence. It is splendid to have people who refuse to recognise difficulties. Tuesday, October 17. Things not going very well; with ponies all pretty well.

Half an hour later Day, Lashly, Nelson, Forde, and Keohane arrived with the two ponies men and animals in good form. It is a great comfort to have the men and dogs back, and a greater to contemplate all the ten ponies comfortably stabled for the winter. Everything seems to depend on these animals.