138 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' [May 



deck should have a fish breakfast one Sunday and the officers 

 the same on the next, but this will not continue, as we cannot 

 hope to keep up the supply for so many months. 



' Our winter routine of feeding is now pretty well fixed. 

 We shall have mutton on Sunday as long as it will last, skua on 

 Tuesday, seal's heart on Thursday, and plain seal on the other 

 days. The kidneys are used to make seal-steak pie, an excel- 

 lent dish ; the liver comes at breakfast twice a week ; and the 

 sweetbreads I suppose pass as cook's perquisites, as we 

 never see them aft. I am thinking of having cold tinned 

 meat one night a week, so as to give the galley people a 

 night off.' 



1 May 1 6. — We are getting record temperatures. Yester- 

 day the minimum at the outer thermometer was — 66°, and 

 to-day I read it myself at— 67*7°; the screen thermometer 

 has not been below— 55 °, showing that we still enjoy the 

 shelter of our comparatively warm corner. It would appear 

 that this year is going to be much colder than last, but since 

 March we have had far less wind than during the corresponding 

 period of last year, and we could welcome a far severer cold if 

 it assures us an absence of this scourge. 



'Some of our costumes this year are very quaint. Our 

 gaberdine wind clothes are badly worn, and what remains of 

 them is being reserved for sledging ; to take the place of these 

 we have served out all sorts of odd scraps of material together 

 with a large green tent which was brought south by the 

 ' Morning.' This has resulted in the most curious outer 

 garments, and one may see a figure approaching in a pair of 

 gaily striped and patched trousers and a bright green jumper, 

 a combination of colour which in any other place could 

 scarcely fail to attract marked attention.' 



'June 12. — This week we have had the first blizzard for the 

 winter, with some rather novel features. The wind has come 

 and gone with surprising rapidity. Sometimes it has been 

 blowing with extreme violence, harder than I have ever known 

 it ; at others it has been almost calm, with the air still filled 

 with snow. The barometer has been hurrying down and up 



