A week before Christmas we had food for thirty-five days, and were about three hundred geographical miles from the Pole, with the same distance back to the depot we had just made, so that at the best we knew that we must march on short rations if we were to reach our goal. Each succeeding day we hoped to get rid of the crevasses, but although we were fortunate in having been favoured with splendid weather, we had to camp each night sustained by the hope that on the morrow we should really be upon the plateau, and by the thought that Christmas Day--with its splendid dinner--was approaching. By December 21--Midsummer Day--the weather had changed, and we encountered 28° of frost and such a strong blizzard wind that both our fingers and our ears were frost-bitten, while our beards were masses of ice all day long. From the conditions I could easily imagine that we were on a spring sledging journey, for such a chilly wind was blowing that it found its way through the nearly worn-out walls of our tent. Relay work still continued to hamper us, and on the 22nd we had to work with the alpine rope all day, dragging 400 lb. at a time up steep slopes and across ridges, and roping ourselves together when we went back for the second sledge, because the ground was so treacherous that often we were only saved by the rope from falling into fathomless pits. [Illustration: The Camp below "The Cloudmaker"] Wild described this sensation of walking over a surface of half-ice and half-snow as like walking over the glass roof of a station, and so accustomed did we become to crevasses that our usual question when any of us fell into one was, "Have you found it?" I suppose that we became callous as regards immediate dangers, though I confess that we were always glad to meet crevasses with their coats off, that is, not hidden by their perilous snow-coverings. Longing as we were really to stretch out our legs for the Pole, it can easily be imagined how irksome this constant succession of crevasses was. And to add to our discomforts, the temperature had become so low that the pony-maize refused any longer to swell in the water, the result being that it swelled after we had eaten it. Christmas Eve, however, brought a change in our fortunes, and was much the brightest day we had enjoyed since entering our southern gateway. We covered over eleven miles, and at night were 9095 ft. above sea-level, and the way before us was still rising.