Soon after this discovery we came near losing Haldane, the big grey wolf, in a crevasse. Miserably thin from starvation the wretched dogs no longer filled their harness. As we pulled up Haldane, after he had broken into a deep, sheer-walled crevasse, his harness slipped off just as he reached the top. It was just possible to seize hold of his hair at that moment and to land him safely, otherwise we should have lost many days' rations. He took to the harness once more but soon became uncertain in his footsteps, staggered along and then tottered and fell. Poor brutes! that was the way they all gave in--pulling till they dropped. We camped at 4 A.M., thinking that a rest would revive Haldane. Inside the tent some snow was thawed, and we drank the water with an addition of a little primus spirit. A temperature reading showed-1 degree F. Outside, the hungry huskies moaned unceasingly until we could bear to hear them no longer. The tent was struck and we set off once more. Haldane was strapped on the sledge as he could not walk. He had not eaten the food we had given him, because his jaws seemed too weak to bite. He had just nursed it between his paws and licked it. Before the dogs became as weak as this, great care had to be taken in tethering them at each camp so as to prevent them from gnawing the wood of the sledge, the straps or, in fact, anything at all. Every time we were ready for a fresh start they seemed to regain their old strength, for they struggled and fought to seize any scraps, however useless, left on the ground. The day's march was completed at 10.30 A.M. and fourteen and a half miles lay behind. "We were up again at 11.20 P.M. Sky clear; fifteen-mile breeze from the south-south-east and the temperature 3 degrees F. By midnight there was a thirty-mile wind and low, flying drift. "December 21.--The night-march was a miserable one. The only thing which helped to relieve it was that for a moment Dixson Island was miraged up in the north, and we felt that we had met an old friend, which means a lot in this icy desolation. The surface was furrowed by hard, sharp sastrugi. "We camped at 9 A.M. after only eleven miles. Haldane was finished off before we retired. "We were up again at 9 P.M., and when a start was made at 11 P.M. there was a strong south-south-east wind blowing, with low drift; temperature, zero Fahr. "December 22.--The surface of hard, polished sastrugi caused many falls. The track was undulating, rising in one case several hundred feet and finally falling in a long slope. "Pavlova gave in late in the march and was taken on the sledge. "Camped at 6.40 A.M. in a forty-mile wind with low drift. Distance marched was twelve miles one thousand four hundred yards.