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The theodolite employed was a light 3´´ Vernier instrument by Carey Porter, intended for sledging work. This instrument was fairly satisfactory, although possibly rigidity had been sacrificed to lightness to rather too great an extent.
Wright lived in the bunk above Simpson's, and when not devoting his energy and magnificent physique to sledging and field work, he gave himself up to the study of ice physics, a somewhat new scientific line of research.
On March 5 we all started for Hut Point, having previously sent in Atkinson with the good news that no men's lives were lost. Wilson and party met us near Castle Rock and led the ponies in while we dropped the laden sledges, full of pony harness, tents, and sledging gear, with a sufficiency of pony fodder for a fortnight, down the ski-slope to Hut Point.
We had worked out details of distances, courses, stores required, and so forth. Our sledging ration, the result of experience as well as close study, was perfect. The dogs gave promise, after training, of being able to cover fifteen to twenty miles a day with loaded sledges. The trans-continental journey, at this rate, should be completed in 120 days unless some unforeseen obstacle intervened.
Campbell and his sledging party arrived at the Camp at 8.0 A.M. bringing a small load: there seemed little object, but I suppose they like the experience of a march in the blizzard. They started to go back, but the ship being blotted out, turned and gave us their company at breakfast.
The cases for sledging provisions were made of fairly thin, tough ash, which came from the estate of Palsgaard in Jutland, and the material did all it promised. These cases were 1 foot square and 15 1/2 inches high. They had only a little round opening on the top, closed with an aluminium lid, which fitted exactly like the lid of a milk-can.
Luckily the cap was not broken and no damage was done aloft, but it was rather a bad introduction to the Antarctic. There is no place to land the Cape Crozier hut and stores, so we must build a hut in the winter here, which will mean so much extra sledging from winter quarters. Bad start, good finish!
They had to look about for some sort of vehicle to take them to Zeb, and the wagoner whom they hunted up at last swore by hook and by crook that he would go by sledge or not at all, for snow had fallen in Praszkinocz, and there was now a sledging track all the way. As they could not be choosers they of course consented.
The men were sledging almost continuously during a period of six months; they suffered from frost- bite, scurvy, snow-blindness, and the utter weariness of overtaxed bodies.
On sledging journeys one has, of course, to save weight as much as possible, and to take only what is strictly necessary; and I do not include alcohol under the head of strictly necessary things. Nor was it only in winter quarters that we had use for alcohol, but also on the long, monotonous voyage through raw, cold, and stormy regions.
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