Chapter VI: Making Winter Quarters at Cape Evans (11)

We awoke to a comparatively hot day! I decided to try one sledge
first, and if all went well to tack on the other. But to our chagrin
we found that we could not manage _one_ sledge. By one o’clock we had
managed to struggle along for one mile, in the course of which
Debenham had badly twisted his knee.

“I decided to go in for night marching, and we pitched the tent, hung
out our wet clothes in the hot sun, and had lunch. Then we turned in
and tried to sleep without success. I read through one year of
Horsfield’s German Grammar, and put a chinstrap on my hat, while Forde
darned socks. It was too hot to keep in the sleeping-bags, and so I
lay outside without a coat!

“At 7 p.m. it is distinctly cooler, so that ice does not melt now if
you touch it.”

These abnormal conditions were due to the bright sun, for the air
temperature was below freezing. But the solar rays striking the tent
melted any snow thereon until there were pools on the flounce, while
water inside the aluminium cooker remained unfrozen for hours.

Night marching commenced about 9 p.m. The surface was much harder, and
we just managed two sledges for a short distance, but we had to relay
most of the way.

To the west is the great Piedmont Glacier, thirty miles wide, and
covering a ten-mile belt between the mountains and the sea. The nearer
mountains were all rounded and smoothed by glacial erosion, while the
higher peaks behind rose into jagged summits, pitted by numerous cwm
valleys, which showed that they had never been beneath a thick ice
mantle.

To the east appeared a brown island about 100 feet high and a quarter
of a mile long. It had a well-defined ice-foot, and I hoped that we
were to chart a new island. Gran and Forde were eager to examine this,
and while we were surveying the coast they marched a mile or so
towards it. But our “island” was merely a stranded berg coloured brown
by the large amount of silt included in the ice. In some such way
numerous “islands,” such as the Nimrod group, have crept on to the
chart, for no one has been able to sight them since their discovery.

We camped just after midnight for lunch, at which I presided. As
usual, it consisted of tea, biscuits (hard sledging tack for Gran and
me, and soft “Shackleton” biscuits for Debenham and Forde), raisins,
butter, and chocolate.

The _Discovery_ map was obviously quite incorrect here, and our chief
guide was Professor David’s account. From the times of his daily
marches we expected to reach Granite Harbour earlier than the rough
chart indicated, for he speaks of the harbour as being twenty miles
out of position! The only place for a bay “five miles wide” seemed to
be about ten miles ahead, so that I hoped that a few more days would
settle the question.

We got a fine view of Erebus, especially of the old crater whose wall
sticks up like a gigantic black fang on the northern slope. Mount
Terror was also visible now round the hump of Erebus. The steam banner
from the latter was very striking, stretching far to the south, and
then, at 8 p.m., shifting to the north after some big puffs. This
usually indicated a strong change in the weather—which was the last
thing we desired in our present position off the inhospitable face of
the Piedmont Glacier!

We camped on rather thin snow and weighted the tent flounce with the
biscuit boxes. It was very warm inside the tent, and though the outer
air was 14° below freezing, small pools of water lay on the tent
flounces in the full heat of the sun. “I made the dinner. The pemmican
was not bad, though not so creamy as Deb’s, which has a reputation. It
is a month to Christmas, and we have been sledging three weeks. I find
it much more pleasant than last February, even with our abnormal
loads. I plan out things while pulling automatically, and the miles
pass along somehow. Camps are much more comfortable, and of course it
is warmer now!

“It is very confusing having breakfast at 7.30 p.m., and sleeping or
trying to sleep through the day. I find it rather hot, and generally
only sleep four hours and think away the other four. However, there is
no comparison between the surface by night and by day, for though the
sun is bright at midnight he is not nearly so high or warm and does
not melt the ice surface. We camped about half a mile from the huge
Piedmont, and set out next day for a remarkable line of icebergs. On
our left was the great glacier, the cliff edge dropping to sea-level
at a brownish boss which I thought might show some rock. But it was
merely stained ice badly crevassed and stepped like a land-slip. I
expected to reach this the same night, but luckily our sledge-meter is
a better guide as to when we’ve done enough. Four and a half miles, if
we have been relaying, takes eleven hours hard work (less lunch-time).
Anyhow, the brown boss was still three miles beyond our camp, as we
found later. (I expect that the pseudo-island was derived from this
breaking ice-cape, for there was a huge group of bergs just ahead of
us.)

“I don’t take very full geological notes for obvious reasons. We see a
piece of rock about every three days!”

There was in fact no leisure for any scientific work. We were too
dog-tired to stir far from the tent. Even the ice was unusually
uninteresting from a scientific point of view. We watched it with very
particular care nevertheless. Hereabouts a rather low screw-pack had
been covered by recent snows, and the alternation of hard blocks and
trenches filled with snow made a surface calculated to keep us all on
the _qui vive_. I took Gran abreast of me in the harness, and so we
explored most of the pitfalls, thereby saving Debenham’s lame leg from
the worst surfaces.

We did some wonderful wriggles, and if the ice ridges were fairly
frequent—say every five feet—the sledges revelled in the track. For
the runners only touched at these points, and the weight was supported
above the soft fields of snow.

It was a wonderful field of bergs among which we now encamped. There
were fifteen in all shapes and sizes. Several were low and tabular,
while two were higher and cubic in shape. One was a dirty brown, and
was possibly a brother of the pseudo-island. Two others were shaped
like newts, with a sharp jagged crest. They were, I suppose,
overturned bergs.

At 9.30 on the evening of the 26th we left our camp among the bergs,
and dodged in and out among them towards the low rocky cape just to
the north of us. Huge granite tors crowned it, and great blocks of ice
six feet across had been hurled many feet on to the cape by the gales
of the preceding season. I halted to photograph these, and Debenham
and Gran climbed on to the granite tors. To my amazement Gran called
out that Granite Harbour was in sight. I hastily climbed up and found
we were right at it! This small cape was actually the southern portal,
and the entrance looked about ten miles across.

As in New Harbour there seemed to be two chief arms, the larger
southern portion receiving the Mackay Glacier, and the other being
almost completely bounded by smaller inflowing glaciers.

On the cape were numerous skuas, looking very cold, and dancing about
on chilly feet. They squawked loudly and flapped their wings at us,
but had not laid any eggs as yet, for Forde gave this matter his
particular attention! He reported a feasible track across the cape
which would save a difficult journey through the screw-pack. I agreed
to try the overland journey, and we got across the wide tide crack and
up fifteen feet on to the icy col with much less trouble than I had
expected. “This col rose to about thirty feet on the north side, and
evidently water is driven on to it by gales, for the ice was quite
glassy at first. We relayed across, to the astonishment of the skua
gulls. We passed a fine little polished platform of granite, and then
sharply descended to the sea-ice, and by 1 a.m. were within the
harbour.”

This was very gratifying, and our early arrival was due to several
pieces of good luck. Debenham’s leg had continued to improve in spite
of the gallant way in which he insisted on doing as much work as any
of us; we had met with splendid weather since leaving Butter Point;
the two days’ sail had helped us materially, and finally we found that
the harbour was twelve miles nearer than we had reason to expect.

About 4 a.m. on the 27th November we trekked west up the harbour. Far
away was a high dolerite cliff with a small glacier just notching its
edge. To this we gave the name of “Spillover,” and we made for it as a
prominent landmark.

We were now naturally very anxious to identify the bluff which Captain
Scott had arranged as our rendezvous with Pennell. We were told that
it was about five hundred feet high, and Ferrar had described it as
resembling a cabbage! We could see nothing remotely approaching this
description, nor indeed anything very like a photograph of it, which
appeared in the _Discovery_ volume.

We were so interested in this unexplored region that we pulled the
front sledge along till the second sledge seemed a mere speck to the
eastward. In fact, we failed to notice that the weather was growing
very thick to southward, while a threatening tablecloth was covering
Erebus. We hurried back. The stage was nearly three times the normal
distance. I know it seemed such an interminable distance that I
wondered if the sea-ice were carrying the sledge away!

We got back to our first sledge just in time and pulled in to a little
crag of granite which projected below the frowning cliffs of ice. This
we called First View Point, for from it we could see a bold promontory
which was possibly our rendezvous. Indeed, the error in the map had
made me doubtful if we were in Granite Harbour at all!

View Point was not an ideal camp site. There was no snow, and really
no room for the tent. But we managed to get it spread loosely in a
little alcove, and though it flapped wildly all night, yet we were
very thankful to be on _terra firma_ in the blizzard, even if it were
only a yard or two wide.

Outside the drift blew in great sheets off the glacier sixty feet
above us. The temperature was twenty below freezing, but we were very
snug in the tent, and I slept for nine solid hours.

We left View Point next day, as the blizzard was only a brief one, and
pushed west. Soon we had to cross a giant shear crack some forty feet
wide. Luckily the main channel was frozen in places, and we got across
without difficulty, and then reached a small glacier tongue which
drained the Piedmont. Very heavy clouds again obscured the south, and
I felt it wise to take advantage of this good camping site and sit out
the impending blizzard. So we pitched the tent off the end of the
tongue near a splendid snowdrift which afforded us perfect blocks for
securing the tent. Soon beautiful flakes of snow were falling. Some
were delicate crystal bundles like a pine branch, others were like
little cog wheels with six teeth. It continued to snow most of the
day, and as night marching was not advisable for survey work, I felt
that we could now take a little more time and return to day-sledging.
We cut out breakfast and kept comfortably to our bags all the morning,
having lunch at 1.30. Our last meal had been lunch also! Gran caused
some amusement by demanding two cakes of chocolate, as due from the
missed meal.

Cooking was a great responsibility, and one that I was never anxious
to undertake. Still, even an indifferent cook like myself could not go
far wrong with such simple foods as we had at our disposal. Debenham
“had a light hand with the pastry,” as I have recorded previously, and
I used to watch his methods closely. The only “variable factor” was
the “thickers” in the hoosh. This ingredient varied a little, from
peaflour to wheatmeal or crushed biscuit: but the pemmican was (like
the butter at Cambridge) cut to measure! The cook would take out the
greasy lumps from the weekly bag and loosely fill an aluminium mug
with them. Then he would drop this measure in among the ice and
half-melted snow in the cooker and leave it there to boil. Apparently
the chief art with the thicker consisted in mixing it to a smooth
paste first with a little water—laboriously ladled out of the outer
cooker—and then pour it into the “hoosh” just as the mixture boiled
up.

It was good stuff! It had a rich taste, especially when solid with
ground biscuit after Gran’s famous recipe. Months later, when tasting
a rich Melton Mowbray pie, a memory of the Antarctic rose before me.
There were the four of us; Forde phlegmatically breaking biscuit into
his pot; Debenham blowing lustily into his, and finally spoiling it by
cooling it in the snow-floor; Gran swallowing it piping hot so that
tears came to his eyes, and he fairly wriggled on his sleeping-bag;
and lastly, the anxious cook not daring to taste his, but manipulating
pots and spoons in the effort to produce steaming cocoa before all the
“hoosh” was finished.

A PANORAMA OF CAPE ROBERTS, WHERE THE WESTERN PARTY WAS ISOLATED FOR
THREE WEEKS. LOOKING NORTH.
]

AVALANCHE CLIFFS ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF GRANITE HARBOUR.
]

I started sledging an ardent cocoa-drinker, but soon realized that
there was much to be said for tea at midday. We had a belief that it
refreshed one quicker than cocoa, and so we used to have it at
breakfast also quite frequently. Upon this journey we did not bring
cheese, and I certainly never missed it after the superfluity in the
hut. Raisins were allotted to us, but I think “stoned dates” would
have been better, for one never seemed to have enough to taste in a
spoonful of raisins! The butter was fine! Sometimes I would save some
of the precious lumps of sugar; and an original sweetmeat resulted if
one bit alternately into the frozen butter and the sugar! The
chocolate we usually nibbled at the four o’clock halt; while any
biscuit left over would be dumped into the hold-all pocket on one’s
jersey and eaten at the same time. Debenham never could eat all his
biscuit at the meals, and somehow often had a bit to spare which we
couldn’t resist.

I used to save some of my evening butter in my pot for the morning.
Occasionally hoosh would be poured on it by a hasty cook, and then my
biscuit had to be eaten dry; a small matter, for the hoosh was the
richer. Once or twice on our trek we came to pools of water, and then
Forde would polish up the pots; but thereafter queer mixtures would
gradually swamp the true flavours of our foods. The beverage would be
“co-tea,” or “tea-co,” according to circumstances, while suspicions of
many of our past menus would persist until another scouring day
arrived.

There were some compensations, however, in Polar sledging. One could
obtain water by merely digging a cup into the floor, and the absence
of flies and of rain were blessings indeed. However, the air was not
quite aseptic. Many of the carcases of sheep went bad, and one of our
party was very sick from the butter before we finished our journey.

The snow ceased about 4 p.m., and Gran and I walked to the root of the
ice tongue to examine it. It was a mile and a half long and was fed by
a well-defined overflow from the Wilson Piedmont, which had cut its
way through granite cliffs some 200 feet high. There were several
“chimneys” offering tracks up the cliffs. One had a rough rock figure
at its base, and led Gran to remark, “This is an ome.” I realized he
meant “good omen,” and accordingly we tackled the chimney indicated.
Lichen and mosses welcomed us on the flat summit, where some hundred
yards of granite-strewn platform marked where the piedmont had
retreated from the edge. We investigated the gully between the tongue
and the cliffs, here almost vertical. As usual there was no sign of
grooves or striation, though the ice was much disturbed at the base of
the cliff, and we had to cross many small crevasses.

Early on the 29th I waked the others, hoping to make an early start.
Unfortunately something went wrong with the primus; I am afraid some
spirit was mixed with the paraffin. At any rate we had an anxious hour
testing the apparatus, which formed our only source of heat while
sledging, but found nothing out of order except the fuel.

We had been looking forward to sledging over the vast sheet of clear
ice within Granite Harbour. But the late snowfall had ruined our
chances, and we had practically no easy sledging during the whole of
the journey. Personally I was so pleased that we had safely reached
the Harbour, that a day or two more or less now did not worry me.

At the end of the second stage Forde discovered a cave in the granite
cliffs. It was about fifty feet high and twenty feet wide. I think it
was due to the sea tearing out the loosened blocks along a large
fracture in the granite, though such an occurrence is necessarily rare
on icebound coasts.

I was very anxious to find a suitable spot for a headquarters camp,
and so far not a single spot was large enough to pitch the tent upon.
In the bay just east of the huge bluff there seemed to be some rock
slopes. Most picturesque at the head of the bay was a great granite
cliff festooned with narrow glaciers hanging over like ribbons. We
heard several avalanches here, and so called the place Avalanche Bay.
In the corner was a steep slope of glacial debris—partly mud and
partly gravel and boulders. We climbed up this for two hundred and
fifty feet, and so could look down on a small glacier which occupied a
bowl-shaped hollow in the coast-line. This would appear to be a cwm
valley into which the Piedmont Glacier has flowed.

“After supper it cooled somewhat, and we started out for some relay
work. We could see the Bluff quite close, and after half a mile I
judged we were halfway and went back for the second sledge. Then on
again, and we never seemed to get any nearer. It was nearly two miles
off and we were all tired on arrival. However, we plugged back for the
second sledge, and it was a weary grind! As Debenham remarked: ‘We
were too tired to think!’ We got in about 11.30 and pitched camp on
poor snow, fetching blocks of ice from the wide tide crack to weight
the flaps.

_Photo by Gran._]

THE FIELD OF CREVASSES (SKAUK) AT THE ROOT OF MACKAY TONGUE, JAN. 6,
1912.

Behind are the faceted slopes of Mount Allan Thomson. Photo from the
Flat Iron looking N.W.
]

“We were much amused by the laments of a young seal (still in its
woolly coat) for its mother. ‘Baa-aa!’ he said, quite plainly, like a
cross between a lamb and a vigorous young bull. This resounded from
the five-hundred-foot granite cliff above, and occasionally the mother
re-echoed it from the tide crack where she wisely kept! I was glad to
see about eight seals here. I expect we shall kill most of them!
Trigger caught the young one by the tail, and it bellowed and tried to
get away. It took to water readily. There was a well-defined margin of
level fixed ice, ten yards wide, following the coast all along. We
turned in at midnight tired out and not much worried by the baa-ing of
the seals.”

Before turning in we saw a most remarkable sight to the east. Sailing
over the Ross Sea towards the south was a fleet of cloud galleons. The
hulls appeared as bright white glares separated from each other by
dark nimbus. The lower sails were sheets of stratus, and beautiful
cumulus floated over each. At the front of each the advancing vapours
were curved to form the galleon’s bows.

On the 30th we relayed round the face of Discovery Bluff, leaving one
sledge on the firm ice-foot beyond the seals’ pool while we marched on
with the other to try and find our summer headquarters. The Bay ice
was torn every half-mile by huge shear cracks, but luckily they were
still narrow and we crossed them readily enough.

We now opened up a small bay, and I could see a fine camp site just
ahead. I made straight for a rough beach which was covered with
granite blocks. I was glad to see that lichens and moss were growing
here in some abundance, for it indicated that this was a sheltered,
sunny spot.

Behind the beach was a steep slope leading to a little plain about
four hundred feet up. I climbed up to this while the others explored
the beach and the small cape to westward. Soon I reached the further
edge of the plain, and from here I had a magnificent view up the great
Mackay Glacier. There was a well-defined glacier entering the bay in
the south-west corner, which had a fairly gentle slope. Up this I
hoped to find a route to the interior, for the other outlets of the
glaciers were crevassed to a greater extent than in any of the other
regions. In fact, the ice river resembled a great ploughed field where
every furrow was a huge crevasse. Gran said such an area would be
called Skauk in Norway. He said they used Icelandic terms for their
new words, much as we do Greek. I think this term might be introduced
into our nomenclature, at any rate we used it thereafter.

Meanwhile Debenham had found an excellent spot for our permanent camp.
We were very satisfied with the outlook. One reads of the advantage of
a “gravel subsoil.” Here between some large boulders was a patch of
gravel. To be sure it was full of irregular blocks of granite and half
covered with snow; but by hand-picking it and raking it over and over
we rid ourselves of the “feathers in the bed,” and also got our
tent-site ultimately fairly dry. The small elevated plain was going to
give us a bountiful water supply when the weather got warmer. In fact,
Debenham entered into a disquisition on “hydraulic grades” and the
“origin of springs,” to show that we should have water laid on past
our tent! The snow never melted sufficiently for running water, but
Forde evolved a fine reservoir in a few days. He cleaned out a hollow
in a huge granite tor, and the sun’s heat acting on a snow dam at one
side usually gave us a sufficient supply. Great blocks of bay ice
driven up in a previous summer formed our cool storage. Just off the
Bluff was fuel and food in the shape of seals. Buttresses of granite
crossed the beach, and between two of these was an area where our
kitchen was almost half built. Surrounded on three sides by solid
granite walls three feet high was an enclosure which we managed to
roof in well enough to hold the blubber stove. Forde and Gran were
especially keen on this edifice, which they called Granite House from
Verne’s “Mysterious Island.”

It was a day or two before the house was finished. Forde was master
mason and Gran chief labourer. He used to delight in bringing to the
site great cubes of granite which we others could hardly move. There
was a most uncomfortable block of granite projecting into the hut, but
by the repeated dropping of huge blocks on to it, Gran finally managed
to remove this excrescence.

After lunch on the 30th Gran and I went off to obtain the wherewithal
for our first seal hoosh. Luckily there was a seal a quarter of a mile
from the camp, and we soon slew him in the usual manner. Gran would
attract the doomed animal’s attention, while I stole alongside from
behind and stunned him with a blow on the nose. This was almost the
chief use I made of the geological hammer, for Debenham was making the
rock collections while I studied glacial topography chiefly.

Forde gave us a lesson in butchering. Most people do not realize that
a seal is not far removed from an otter. Anyhow, his anatomy is near
enough to that of a sheep for one to know where the choicest meat
lies. In fact, a seal’s skeleton is just like a sheep’s, in which the
two hind legs have been folded together close to the tail and
converted into swimming flappers.

We cut off two wide strips of blubber first from the belly; then
rolled the seal over—an operation of great difficulty—and obtained two
more from the back. Beneath these strips of blubber were the best
portions of the flesh, except the liver, which needed especial
anatomizing. Around the neck I cut off odd bits of blubber, and one of
these served to cook a meal on the stove, so that there was plenty of
fuel on a seal to cook the meat it provided.

We staggered back laden with spoil, leaving the carcase to a multitude
of skuas. How they quarrelled and fought over the pieces! Every skua
seemed to prefer to grab a piece already selected by another. I
suppose they were not used to tearing fragments off such a superfluity
of carcase! We welcomed these visitors, for we had in mind future
tasty dishes based on skua eggs.

It snowed during the night, about one inch falling, chiefly as needles
and fluff-balls. All this spoiled future sledging, but we watched it
philosophically now that we had got our main supply to its
destination.

I turned in later than the others, and, on having a last look round, I
noticed some dark specks floating on a little pool. With no organic
matter in the air, this seemed unusual, and on closer examination I
found that these were the long-desired insects! They were little
bluish fellows shaped like a cigar, with six legs and no wings. I was
very pleased, and rushed to inform my sleeping mates. I am sorry to
record that they did not seem to think the discovery worth the loss of
their first sleep! Each insect was about one millimetre long, so that
twenty-five only measure an inch, and they clustered together like
aphides.

Next morning I received congratulations, as it was my birthday. The
sledge flags were hoisted on a line between two depôt poles. We hung
up the red-and-black depôt bunting also in honour of the occasion.
Debenham said he had no present for me, but he could not allow me to
cook my birthday dinner. I noticed that the others seemed overjoyed
that I should be relieved of my cooking duties for one meal!

“However, I did breakfast, and made a fine hoosh. The great secret is
to mix the wheatmeal, pepper, salt, etc., well, and pour it in _just
before_ the pemmican boils, giving it only five minutes. It is much
more slippery and soothing than if you cook the ‘thickers’ longer. I
shall be quite an accomplished cook later on!”

About 11 a.m. Gran, Forde, and I brought the other sledge in from the
Bluff. After lunch we unloaded the stores, mustered them, and placed
them under a big rock until the hut should be ready to receive them.

“We seem to be especially rich in raisins. I fear I forgot to take out
a bag at Cape Evans. Gran is going to sow sea-kale here, so that our
vegetables and fruits should be plentiful!

”About 5.30 a long streamer of smoke announced that the famous stove
was going, and Debenham made a splendid liver-fry, followed by cocoa
in very quick time. Gran produced a bottle of Savoy sauce, which he
had carried as part of his personal gear, and presented it to me. No
present could possibly have been more acceptable, as any one who has
lived on one dish for a month will realize. I could have eaten two
whacks of the fry easily! We decided to use the bottle at one meal
instead of spinning it out, but (as Wendell Holmes remarked about the
honeypot) you can’t pour out the last dregs from a sauce-bottle. Some
one suggested we should draw lots for these precious dregs. (Privately
I thought they belonged to me, but I nobly agreed!) So, in the way
they have in the navy, I thought of a word of five letters, and I said
that the last alphabetical letter should win the prize (as a matter of
fact I had thought of ‘Savoy’). Gran gave me the third letter (_v_),
and he took the first. Debenham took the fourth, and then I felt safe.
But Forde took the last (_y_), and so won the sauce. A very sorrowful
moment! This ingenuous game always entranced me; it trusted so
implicitly in the leader’s lack of American ‘smartness,’ for the word
was not divulged until the numbers were out!

The method bewildered me when I first heard it, but I hope the above
account is lucid.

The next day Gran became cook, and gave us a fine hoosh, after which I
started trying to get the astronomical position of our headquarters.
Gran explained the way the Norwegian fishermen obtain latitude and
longitude by very simple yet sufficiently accurate methods. They
observe the sun at 11.30, again near noon, and at 12.30. By this means
they get the local time of noon by calculating halfway between the
other two observations, which should be nearly the same reading. The
noon reading is a check.

Unfortunately in 77° S. the sun pursued a placid path which was nearly
horizontal, and it was very difficult to find the “keystone” of such a
flat “arch” as he described!

We had unloaded one sledge and converted it into the roof-tree of our
granite hut. It was necessary to collect sealskins to cover our house,
and as the walls were now high enough, Gran and I went off on a
fur-hunting trip. About half a mile away was a big seal, and I
determined to secure him.

“It was extraordinary how long the muscular action lasted, for this
animal was stabbed three times in the heart and pithed three times in
the brain. We had great difficulty in turning him over; there is
nothing so slimy, heavy, and sloppy as a huge sheet of blubber and
skin. We managed to roll the heavy hide on to the sledge, but it would
not stay there. Just like a slow moving glacier it slipped off
everywhere. ‘Trigger’ took off his belt and lashed it on, and we
managed to start by sticking the ice-axes in to keep some from
dragging in the snow. We had to cross an ugly shear crack about four
feet wide, regularly torn in the floe by the pressure of the glacier,
but it was no trouble by using the interlocking promontories. We
cooked tea on the blubber stove, whose white smoke lends homeliness to
our headquarters.... We named the latter Cape Geology, in memory of
the chief object of our journey, though we had been able to do very
little scientific work so far.

“After lunch Debenham and I proceeded to flense the blubber off,
laying the hide on a rounded boss of ice. It was slow work, for the
sun warmed the blubber so that it was as easy to cut as flannel two
inches thick. We dug out a cache between two blocks of ice and put the
meat and blubber therein, covering them with smaller blocks of ice,
and this storehouse served well after we had taken the precaution to
mark it with a bamboo, so that it was not lost in the snow.

“I made a granite seat in the hut, and will have a fur carpet, for it
is cold for the toes on the snowy floor. The stove smokes badly, but
gives off enormous flames and heat, only burning 10″ × 3″ × 10″ of
blubber per meal....” Soon, however, the soot and oil filled the
bottom of the stove, and then it ran out over the rocks and spread all
over the snowy floor. We had to stand in this fearful mixture, which
is dirtier than the grease in a foul motor engine, and much more
ubiquitous. The smoke made one gasp as eddies drove it into the face,
and we never managed a door for the hut to keep out the icy winds
blowing down from Mount England.

The sledge ran along the centre of the roof, and the chimney projected
through it. Biscuit-boxes helped to form the roof, but sealskins
enough to cover it were gradually collected. Forde said it was as good
as many an Irish shebeen, which made me pity the Irish more than
anything I had yet heard of them! However, it saved our fuel, and kept
our field notes and sketches cleaner than if we were cooking in the
tent, so that we feel that this sample of Antarctic architecture
fulfilled a worthy purpose.

“I cut up the seal meat and insisted on adding meat to the liver, for
we should need to kill a seal every other day at the rate the cook
wants liver! I’m bound to say that I am the biggest eater. Gran had a
reputation that way, but he has not eaten as much, and Debenham and
Forde are very poor eaters.” It was very cold in the granite hut. I
sat in the doorway to try and keep out the draught, and was very glad
to trot out and warm my toes after cocoa. “The skuas don’t show any
particular inclination to lay yet. Perhaps they see it won’t be worth
their while. Nor do they seem at all anxious to clean the blubber from
the sealskin we left for them.”

Our tent was in the shadow of the Bluff all night, and so it was quite
cold in spite of the midnight sun. Gran and I set out next day to put
up the rendezvous flag, and to kill a seal, while Forde and Debenham
finished the hut.

We climbed up one of the chimneys or steep gullies which scored the
front of the Bluff for several hundred feet, and then got out on to a
knob, where we raised a red flag on a stout bamboo pole. I found a
fine deep crack, and Gran wedged it in very solidly with blocks of
granite. From this view point I made a great discovery, that there is
an ice tongue about one mile wide and five miles long, projecting from
the _skauk_ of the Mackay Glacier. Bay ice fringes the cliffs beyond
it, and as the map shows, the tongue extends almost down the middle of
Granite Harbour.

We had many arguments about this tongue. The _Discovery_ must have
been close to it in 1902. Debenham was inclined to think that it had
grown since that date; but later we saw a photo from the _Discovery_
which showed that it was in existence then.

I wrote a note to Pennell, and lashed it to the mast, telling him we
were going inland till January the 8th. We then hurried down the
screes, and went out on the bay ice to slay our seal. “He died
rapidly, thank goodness, and we plugged through our job till about
2·15, having an awful time tying the hide and blubber on the sledge,
while the liver lobes ran all over it. Gran swears they worked their
way uphill, and came out of the folds of skin! I threw some bits into
the shear crack, while washing the liver, and the hole was soon full
of amphipods, which are cousins of the shrimps. Gran says he is going
to fish hereabouts if he can get a hook.”

On the 4th December we began to collect gear for our next trip. Forde
spent a lot of time at the blubber stove, where he was the most expert
cook. He cut up large lumps of seal, and fried enough for eight meals.
This was mixed with pepper and salt, and about half cooked. He then
filled a large tin with this rough substitute for pemmican, and lashed
it on to the sledge. I used to enjoy a snack of this half-cooked seal
between meals, for there was now no doubt that our appetites were of
the true Antarctic variety.

We had cleaned several skins now, and we fixed them over the roof-tree
of our hut. I sewed up the flipper holes, and each skin was about
eight feet by six. We lashed them to the sledge, in the middle, and
then hung huge stones from the outer margins, which drew them taut,
and held the skins close to the walls. They soon became very sooty,
but were always translucent, for the hairs are large and coarse, and
not at all closely set. We could just stand up under our sledge
roof-tree. Forde spread gravel over the blubber-ice composition on the
floor, and I gathered some moss and tried to stuff up the crevices
therewith. When the cold wind blew down the hills it invaded our hut,
and made us glad as soon as the sooty meal was over, and we could take
refuge in our snug little tent below.

That evening Gran and I climbed up to the top of the bluff, above the
flag. The sides were covered with granite debris; some colossal blocks
were twenty feet across. In the clay beneath them were mosses and
lichens, one of the latter being of a fine frondose shape, with
root-like attachments. I collected this specimen, and boxed it on my
return; but the skuas had scattered our specimens when the ship’s
party finally arrived in 1913.

GRANITE HUT, CAPE GEOLOGY.

Forde and Gran are cooking at the blubber stove, whose chimney
projects behind the “sledge” roof-tree.
]

FORDE COOKING SEAL-FRY ON THE BLUBBER STOVE AT CAPE ROBERTS.
]

We got up in about one hour, and I began to have my doubts about the
five-hundred-feet height mentioned in the 1902 record! Luckily, I had
an aneroid, and this showed it to be over fifteen hundred feet high. I
got a magnificent view of Granite Harbour and the Mackay Glacier. The
large ice tongue ended in three splay “fingers,” and was badly
crevassed, except right at the end. Far to the east I could see Mount
Erebus and Beaufort Isle. Below was a regular succession of shear
cracks, due to the irresistible pressure of the Mackay Tongue pushing
out the bay ice. Great pressure ridges, six, ten, and fifteen feet
high marked where the bay ice was being jammed on to the Bluff. These
were very prominent near Cape Geology also, and pools of water
collected in the hollows between the ridges.

Pressure-ridges in the sea-ice, looking west from Cape Geology to the
Punch Bowl cwm, January 13, 1912.
]

On the afternoon of the 5th we started to the north, to march around
the end of the Mackay Tongue, which lay about five miles off. We were
now crossing ice covered with nearly a foot of snow; but with only one
sledge and ten days’ food, we got along in fine style. We could easily
see our signal flag flying on the Bluff, and the red showed quite
clearly when the wind blew it out. We reached one of the “fingers” at
the end of the ice tongue about 6.30, and here I decided to camp, so
as not to lose sight of our survey stations.

“There seems to be no large tide crack here, which means that the
tongue is floating. It is broken into deep lateral bays, and consists
of regular rolls and hollows. I don’t believe that storms affect this
harbour much, or it would have gone out long ago. We pitched the tent
on soft snow, just off the end. I got ice from the glacier for the
cooker, which Forde declared was salty from old sea spray. Anyhow, the
hoosh was very good.”

Far to the west we could see a huge black mountain projecting through
the Mackay Glacier. It was formed of black dolerite capping granite,
and reminded me of a three-cornered Chinese junk. Debenham objected to
this name as being unworthy of such a fine nunatak, and proposed
Gondola Mountain. We knew it by this name during our expedition, but
on my return to Sydney I discovered that Professor David had seen it
from the coast, and had called it Mount Suess. So Mount Suess
displaces Debenham’s euphonious title.

“The sky looked very ugly—the sun dimly glaring through gloomy
clouds—a low, thick, dark bank on the eastern horizon, and the
barometer falling half an inch in the twelve hours. So far nothing has
happened, but now (10.30 p.m.) snow has just begun, and may keep on
some time; for I see, from the log, that we had similar conditions at
Harbour Tongue on the 28th. The temperature is +23°, and we are very
comfortable; for though we are on sea-ice, yet we can reach the
glacier in twenty yards, and there is twenty miles of ice between us
and the open water.”

I am going to copy my notes, for the next few days, _verbatim_, for
they give a fairly complete account of a typical summer blizzard in
Antarctica. If the language seems a trifle strong, the circumstances
should be considered.

“_Wednesday, December 6, 1911._—10 a.m. We are held up in our first
violent blizzard, and it is just a month since we started. We have had
snow blizzards, but this has wind force about 7 as well, and the drift
is thick and wetting.

“We have a pretty snug camp on snow, one foot thick, which you can
accommodate to your hip-bone, but which it is difficult to stand the
Primus upon (especially as the cooker _base_, on which it usually
rests, is full of fat, and is now our frying pan at the _hut_). It
started snowing about midnight, and clothed the tent by 3 a.m. I woke
to hear the tent flapping, and shaking down young avalanches, and it
has been going strong ever since.

“There is always a strong bulge _in_ on the windward (S.E.) side, and
slighter bulges at the two lateral tent segments. Then the door, if
properly placed, tends to blow _out_, and the laterals next to it do
most of the flapping, and make a deuce of a row.

“2 p.m. Still blizzing strongly; there have been one or two lulls of a
few minutes; but they don’t seem to mean much. It is snowing
furiously, too; pattering on the tent like rain on wooden shingles. If
you budge from the tent (Debenham had to get a notebook) you get very
cold, because the drift melts and wets you at this temperature (+23°
F.). We had a meal about 11 a.m., Gran cooking a good bovril-pemmican,
with a large supply of broken biscuit therein. This strong south-east
wind blows practically direct from Cape Roberts on to the tongue on
our lee, and so I do not much fear it will shift out any ice. Anyhow,
we can’t move, and I am learning to take these blizzes
philosophically. Besides, the bags are dry and warm, and when I tire
of writing the diary I snooze a bit, and then read Harker’s
‘Petrology’ (Deb’s), and then snooze, and then read ‘Poe’s Tales’ (too
fantastic and oriental to please me are most of them), or ‘Martin
Chuzzlewit,’ or do some German grammar. Forde is actually reading
something. He has tackled ‘The Mysterious Island’ which Gran has
nearly finished at last. Deb started to work out a latitude, but is
now wrapped in ‘Morfus.’ Last night’s hoosh was an enormous success,
2½ pots of Forde’s concentrated seal hoosh, mixed with water and meal,
made a top-hole hoosh—very tasty, and all indigenous.

“6 p.m. The tent is beastly sloppy. We have just finished our _lunch_
at 6 p.m., and if we can’t get away, that is our last meal to-day!
To-day is a queer camp, the first down here where the tent has dripped
on us, when no Primus is going. We have put the cooker under the
tied-up door, and it is filling, I see! Forde is dressing his finger
with a penknife, and Deb keeping warm very sensibly in his bag.

“_December 7, 1911._—Slept pretty well. Dreams, as usual, furnished
some conversation ’twixt Gran and me, and occasionally Deb. I had a
very vivid one (or two) after two pots of seal fry the other night.

“I was walking to Sheffield and got lost, and couldn’t get any one to
tell me the way. I asked a man and couldn’t get any great satisfaction
out of him. He saw some of my Antarctic gear in my bag, and said I
looked as if I was going to the Pole, but would not believe me when I
said I’d been there! I then told him my name (to impress him, no
doubt!), and he was not a bit concerned, but said his name was
_Taylor_ also! Then I switched off home, where everybody was much
concerned about the end of the world, or something equally cheerful.
There was an awful red sky to the south which caused great
perturbation, until finally some one called out, ‘It’s the return of
the mail-clad “goater”-cars from the Pole!’ These were a sort of red
motors assisted by goats, and were quite the latest thing in transport
evidently, and I was much pitied because I didn’t know all about them.
But a bad pun in a dream seems to denote too much fry!

“It is now noon, and we are still snowed up off the end of Mackay
Tongue (43 _hours_ now and we have not got _away_). It dripped most of
the night, for the temperature was +27° outside and warmer inside.
There was a puddle by the door, but Gran and my bags have absorbed
most of that, and Deb’s is wetter. So far the inside of mine is still
O.K., and I have fur inside always now. It is much warmer, and as soft
and comfortable as anything I’ve slept in as far as I remember. We
have been trekking over a month, and though we’ve had almost unique
hard relaying for two weeks—330 per man—yet I enjoyed it much more
than the Ferrar trip under better conditions.

“We got up at 8, and Gran made a biscuit-bovril-pemhoosh, which was
very good. We had only two meals yesterday, so went a full whack this
morning. I put on my boots and wind-coat and puttees, and dug out the
thermometer. The sledge is buried two feet in snow. Deb’s big camera
tripod shows above the snow, and a bamboo pole—also the top of the
shovel,—but the rest is clean buried. The first fall of snow was
consolidated by the blizzard; the last fall, _since 2 p.m._ yesterday,
is fluffy light stuff and quite different in texture. I dug down to
the biscuits and got Deb’s notebook, and then came in and scraped off
the snow and had breakfast. I have finished ‘Martin Chuzzlewit’ this
morning and puzzled over German declensions, and still we can’t see
more than a hundred yards, and it is snowing still. We got a watery
glimpse of the sun about 9; but he’s gone, though, as the north side
of the tent is dripping most, I suppose he’s still about. There’s a
constant rainy patter on the tent, but the snow is so slight it would
not matter if we could see where to steer! However, it’s not hard work
lying still here, and Scott did it seven days; we’ve only had two.

HEAVY SLEDGING OFF MACKAY TONGUE, JUST WHERE WE TRIED TO PACK TO LAND,
DEC. 8, 1911.

Note the great furrows due to the sledge dragging bodily on the snow.
]

THE “HALF-TON” AFTER NELSON LEFT US, OFF THE MOUTH OF DRY VALLEY, NOV.
18, 1911.

Notice the ice-free character of the valley and its faceted walls.
Beneath the flag appears distant “Matterhorn.” The sledge-meter
shows to the left of the tent.
[See p. 339.
]

“The barometer (29.45) is rising steadily, which denotes, I think, no
more strong wind at present. Our short, sharp blizz was correlated
with a very low barometer of 29.18, whereas 29.80 is about the mean
hereabouts.

“There is no tide crack off the Tongue, which is five miles from its
parent glacier, and therefore must be floating. Also, as it projects a
hundred feet above sea-level, it must be _500 feet thick_, which is
comforting.

“We had lunch about two and saw blue sky to the east, Erebus showing
partly; gradually the whole snow cloud blew over _en masse_ to the
west, leaving blue sky and a bright sun. We dug out the sledge,
nothing of which showed, and got off after Deb had taken a photo.

“We could hardly get a move-out of the sledge and finally harnessed so
as to beat out a bit of a track. The going was awful. Never had such
hard work, and with only one fairly light sledge! It pulled me flat on
my face in the soft mushy snow, and wet me half up to the waist
tramping through it. We managed to get around to the end of the Tongue
and one mile to the north, and then it was after 7 p.m., and I could
not stick it, nor could the others. We pitched camp in the middle of
North Bay. But our floorcloth and tent are dry, which is a great
comfort, and we had a fine seal-hoosh. The trouble is that all our
survey work will be blocked; for two miles’ progress in three hours is
deadly, and this snow is universal. However, I’d rather have it now
than earlier, when we had two heavy sledges, for we couldn’t possibly
have moved either! Perhaps it will cement by to-morrow a bit. The
temperature is down to +13½° (after 27° or so) and the barometer is
still rising steadily. I feel a bit wet and will turn in early.

“The Tongue is very imposing from this (north) side, being cut up by
bays so deep that they seem to separate it into islands. We hope to
make the end of the Kar Plateau—a long 800-foot flat-topped
shelf—which seemed to show a bit of beach. We had to camp at what
seems one and a half to two miles away in soft snow, which we kicked
away and shovelled off so as to get a fair spread for the floorcloth.

“_Friday, December 8, 1911._—I doffed some of my clothes and hung them
up inside the tent, if so be they might dry a little. Result, like a
board, for the temperature was only +13. However, I used my eiderdown,
and was jolly snug and warm and slept quite well.

“My bag is wet outside and it wet the floorcloth. Trigger’s you can
squeeze water out of. We must get a drying spot on the coast. It is a
fair morning with a gusty, cold, plateau wind (W.). The sun is shining
low down in the east through cirrus; but it does not look snowy or
blizzy.