234 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' [April 



joint was not true, and there was considerable leakage. How 

 the flange became strained is not known, but the delicacy of 

 bringing it into perfect truth again can be easily imagined. 

 Yet this has now been done, and the pendulums are being 

 swung as they should be in a good vacuum, which would 

 certainly not have been the case had we not possessed 

 engineering skill competent to deal with the situation. These 

 instances are only some of many ; all day long repairs, great 

 and small, pour in upon the engine-room department, and 

 one cannot exaggerate the importance of possessing a staff 

 which is capable of undertaking them. 



1 1 have written much to-day concerning our daily life, but 

 as I proceeded it occurred to me to think of the view which 

 those at home would take of a party of their fellow men con- 

 demned to four months of darkness, and I have thought that 

 they would probably imagine a life in which there was a 

 maximum amount of sleep and little more activity than was 

 necessary for the preparation and consumption of food. How 

 far otherwise is the reality can be gathered herein, and to 

 explain this must be my excuse for carrying description to 

 such detail. Also, at home many no doubt will remember the 

 horrible depression of spirit that has sometimes been pictured 

 as a pendant to the long polar night. We cannot even claim 

 to be martyrs in this respect : our life seems in every way 

 normal ; with plenty of work the days pass placidly and cheer- 

 fully.' 



Life throughout our polar winters ran so smoothly that 

 there was little to record from day to day but the changes of 

 weather and those trifling adventures and incidents which 

 loom so large at the moment, but diminish in importance as 

 they recede into the past. My diary presents a running 

 record of such circumstances and events, with here and there 

 some lengthy digression explanatory of the general conditions 

 under which we lived. It is difficult to extract from these 

 memoirs in connected fashion, and at the same time to 

 observe a chronological sequence of events, without falling to 

 some extent under the influence of the diary form, but in 



