Page:Scott's Last Expedition, Volume 2.djvu/161

Dinner was at 7 p.m., and was usually seal or penguin, pudding, and dessert. After dinner hardly a night passed without a gramophone concert.

Saturday morning was devoted to a good soap-and-water scrub of the whole hut, everyone piling their belongings on their beds, Saturday afternoon being 'make and mend.'

Sunday breakfast was at 9 a.m. to give the cook a lie-in, and every week church was held at 10.30 a.m.

In fine weather Sunday was a great day for a long walk, either over the sea ice or up Cape Adare.

During the week everyone had a washing day, when he had a bath and washed his clothes, clothes lines being rigged across the hut.

Of the two huts left by Sir George Newnes' expedition in 1899, one hut was standing in fairly good condition, the other was roofless. The former we repaired, and it made a very good workshop, while the latter, after clearing out and roofing with a tarpaulin, we turned into a store house. Taking it all round we were a very happy and contented little community, but as a wintering station Cape Adare is not good, being cut off from the mainland until June, when the sea ice can be trusted not to go out in a blizzard.

The sea ice has been forming in Robertson Bay for the last week, and now we are able to walk several miles to the southward. To the northward of our beach is a lot of open water, owing to the strong tidal streams off Cape Adare.

On May 5 began our longest and hardest blow,