i9o2] OUR SETTLEMENT IN WINTER 257 



stands low and that there will be a keen bite in the lightest 

 flickering puffs of air. Well protected, therefore, one closes 

 the wardroom door on the bright yellow light and com- 

 fortable warmth within, and climbs the steep ladder to the 

 entrance porch. These porches, with their double doors and 

 insulated sides, are eminently satisfactory, and although they 

 are thickly crusted with ice inside, and have occasionally to be 

 chipped out, they save us from the keenest draughts and give 

 space in which the snow of the outer world can be shaken off 

 by those who enter. On arriving on deck one treads carefully 

 over its soft snow covering, for here, beneath the winter 

 awning, the gloom is deep, obstacles are numerous, and 

 although fur boots may be an excellent protection against the 

 cold, they are but a poor one against the sharp corner of a 

 hatchway or the business end of a pick-axe ; and indeed one 

 is lucky if one reaches the flap-door of the awning without 

 coming into violent collision with some obstacle, and feeling 

 tempted to use equally violent language concerning the person 

 or persons unknown who have unwittingly prepared the trap. 

 From the ship's starboard or inshore side a gangway of stout 

 poles and planks slopes to a snow platform, and is fitted with 

 battens and guard rails, from the ends of which one guide rope 

 supported on poles leads sharply to the right towards the 

 meteorological screen, whilst the other shows the way to a 

 cutting on the ice-foot, whence an easy path leads to the rocky 

 patches on which stand our little group of huts. The main 

 hut is of most imposing dimensions and would accommodate 

 a very large party, but on account of its size and the necessity 

 of economising coal it is very difficult to keep a working 

 temperature inside ; consequently it has not been available for 

 some of the purposes for which we had hoped to use it. One 

 of the most important of these was the drying of clothes ; for 

 a long time the interior was hung with undergarments which 

 had been washed on board, out all these water-sodden articles 

 became sheets of ice, which only dried as the ice slowly 

 evaporated. When it was found that this process took a 

 fortnight or three weeks the idea was abandoned, and the 

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