Page:Scott's Last Expedition, Volume 2.djvu/166

arrangement works beautifully, and can be timed to five minutes.

Other things we should have brought are fencing masks and foils. As it is, Abbott has manufactured some helmets out of old flour-tins and also some bamboo sabres, and there have been desperate encounters out on the snow.

The prismatic skies we get during the day now are perfectly lovely, and last night we had, I think, the best coloured aurora we have seen. It was a great curtain across the northern sky, the colours being red, green, and yellow.

This spell of fine weather continued until June 18, when the glaciers were obscured with drift, and we could hear the rumbling of pressure on the other side of Cape Adare, a sure sign of wind, although with us it was still quite calm.

We counted twenty-six seals along the tide crack to-day, whereas for some weeks before we had not seen any.

June 19.—Last night about 8 it came on to blow a full gale, with heavy drift and squalls of hurricane force. The hut worked a good deal and some of the outer planking was ripped off. It was my turn for the midnight rounds, and I got my nose rather badly frostbitten, so to-day it is one big blister.

On the morning of the 20th the wind went down and we were able to repair the hut. The sea ice stood the blizzard well, but again it had been forced back about a hundred yards from the north shore.