Our eyes were now straining, as we advanced with the sledge, to see whether any formidable mountains still barred our path to the plateau, and our thankfulness was unbounded when at last we realised that apparently we were going to have a fairly easy ascent of hard névé and snow on to the plateau. On that day we advanced a little over ten miles, and on December 30 we reached an altitude of nearly 5000 ft., our breath freezing into lumps of ice and cementing our Burberry helmets to our beards and moustaches as in winter time. New Year's Eve brought with it some disappointment from Mawson's announcement--after he had taken a fresh set of magnetic observations--that he made out the Magnetic Pole to be further inland than had been originally estimated. We were still dragging the sledge on an up grade and on a softer surface than before, and as we were also obliged to put ourselves on somewhat shorter rations, in order to form an emergency food-supply in case our journey proved longer than we anticipated, we were very much exhausted by night. On that same evening a skua gull came to visit us, I am afraid not with any intention of giving us New Year's greetings, but because he mistook us for seals crawling inland to die, as is not infrequently the habit of these animals. New Year's Day gave us beautifully calm weather, and to celebrate the beginning of 1909 Mawson provided us with a grand hoosh and a rich pot of cocoa, which we enjoyed thoroughly after an exhausting march. Hunger, indeed, was beginning to beset us, and we should also have liked more to drink if we could have afforded it. In fact instead of talking about what we would like to eat, we began to talk about what we would drink if we had the chance. Mackay would have liked to drink a gallon of buttermilk straight off, Mawson wanted a big basin of cream, while my choice was several pots of the best coffee with plenty of hot milk. We were still climbing on January 3, but on the next day we were pleased to find that the up grade was becoming less steep. We had reached an altitude of over 6000 ft. and found breathing in the cold air distinctly trying. It was not that definite mountain sickness had attacked us, but that we felt weaker than usual as the result, doubtless, of the height combined with the cold. Still, we were progressing at the rate of about ten miles a day, and that was enough to make us hopeful in spite of everything. On the 6th I left off my crampons and put on a new pair of finnesko, with the result that I fell heavily over one of the sastrugi, and slightly straining some muscles on the inner side of my left leg, just below the knee, I suffered a considerable amount of pain for the rest of the journey. Mountain lassitude still continued to attack us and our hands were often frost-bitten when packing up the sledge. By the 9th we were completely out of sight of any mountain ranges, and were toiling up and down amongst the huge billows of a snow sea. CHAPTER XL