It is, indeed, when the sun is covered and the weather thickish that one is in danger of snow-blindness, that painful complaint with which we all became too well acquainted during the southern journey. The only way to guard against an attack is to wear goggles the whole time, but when one is perspiring on account of exertion with the sledges, the glasses fog and they have to be taken off so that they may be wiped. When they were removed, the glare from the surrounding whiteness was intense, and the only relief was to get inside a tent, which was made of a green material very restful to the eyes. On the night of the 8th the weather cleared, and we saw that we were in a regular nest of crevasses, Marshall and Wild finding that their tent was pitched on the edge of a previously unseen one. To stand in drift for four days with 24° of frost was so bad for the ponies that we were thankful that their appetites for the hot food we gave to them was not affected, but we wanted to get under way and put some good marches in before we could feel really happy. The distance as the crow flies from our winter quarters to the Pole is 750 geographical miles and as yet we had only done fifty-one. That a polar explorer needs a large stock of patience in his equipment is not to be denied, and as we lay in our bags anxious to be marching yet unable to move we drew heavy draughts upon our stock. CHAPTER XXII ONWARD The morning of the 9th was fine, calm and clear, and, as soon as we had dug the sledges out of the drift and breakfasted, we set out to find a track among the crevasses. Our hunt for crevasses was successful enough, for we discovered all sorts from narrow cracks to ugly chasms with no bottom visible, but to find a track through them was beyond our powers. There was indeed nothing for it but to trust to Providence, and having got under way we got over the first few crevasses without difficulty. And then all of a sudden Chinaman went down a crack which ran parallel to our course. Adams tried to pull him out and he struggled gamely, but it was not until Wild and I left our sledges and hauled along Chinaman's sledge that, just in time, he managed to get on to firm ice, for three feet more and it would have been all up with the Southern Journey. The three-foot crack opened out into a great fathomless chasm, and down that would have gone the pony, all our cooking gear and biscuits and half the oil, and probably Adams as well. But when things seem to be as hopeless as possible they often take a sudden change for the better, and in our case this was the last crevasse we encountered for some time, and at length, with a gradually improving surface, we were really able to push along.