THE GRANITE HARBOUR EXPEDITION 359 



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 archi- 

 tecture 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 



