THE ARCTIC AND THE ANTARCTIC 47 



by this time had reached its final dimensions, twelve feet 

 by nine feet, but still wanted a foot or two in height. 



It was fortunate that we were able to devote our 

 whole attention to this work on this and the followingi 

 day, for on the evening' of the 1 9th Levick, Abbott, and 

 Browning arrived at the cave thoroughly exhausted and 

 without any of their equipment. Early in the morning 

 the gale had reached its climax, and in one of <the 

 gusts the three bamboos on the weather side of the 

 tent had been snapped as if they had been reeds. The 

 tent then collapsed over the heads of the party, and 

 the jagged ends of the poles made short work of the 

 canvas." 



Levick's account of the accident and of their 

 subsequent adventures is of sufficient interest to 

 be reproduced verbatim : " The wind had been 

 blowing very hard all night, and at 8 a.m. it had 

 increased to hurricane force. The tent door, which 

 had been flapping violently, had a large rent in it, 

 and Abbott was mending this when suddenly, with 

 a startling crash, the bamboo tent -poles gave way, 

 and in a minute the whole tent was down on 

 us, the tremendous weight of wind upon it pinning 

 us down so that we could hardly move. 



The situation was a most uncomfortable one. With 

 great difficulty Abbott wormed his way back to his 

 bag and managed to get into it ; and for a time I 

 thought the only thing for us to do was to lie quietly 

 as we were, in the hope that the wind would moderate. 



The snow and ice blocks which we had piled round 

 the skirting outside were by this time frozen into a 

 solid mass, so that there was little fear of the wind 

 getting under the tent and lifting it away We had 





