19th-20th
Lunch 8 Camp N. 65 1720
19th-20th
7 Camp N. 77 1820
20th-21st N. 30 to 35 W. 93 950
21st-22nd
Safety Camp N. & W. 107 1125


_Wednesday, February_ 22.--Safety Camp. Got away at 10 again: surface
fairly heavy: dogs going badly.

The dogs are as thin as rakes; they are ravenous and very tired. I feel
this should not be, and that it is evident that they are underfed. The
ration must be increased next year and we _must_ have some properly
thought out diet. The biscuit alone is not good enough. Meares is
excellent to a point, but ignorant of the conditions here. One thing
is certain, the dogs will never continue to drag heavy loads with men
sitting on the sledges; we must all learn to run with the teams and
the Russian custom must be dropped. Meares, I think, rather imagined
himself racing to the Pole and back on a dog sledge. This journey
has opened his eyes a good deal.

We reached Safety Camp (dist. 14 miles) at 4.30 A.M.; found Evans and
his party in excellent health, but, alas! with only ONE pony. As far as
I can gather Forde's pony only got 4 miles back from the Bluff Camp;
then a blizzard came on, and in spite of the most tender care from
Forde the pony sank under it. Evans says that Forde spent hours with
the animal trying to keep it going, feeding it, walking it about;
at last he returned to the tent to say that the poor creature had