FROM ENGLAND TO SOUTH AFRICA 9 
was reduced by sickness. A very short time will convince 
anybody that the ease with which men accustomed to this 
work get through their watch is mainly due to custom and 
method. The ship had no forced draught nor modern ven- 
tilating apparatus. Four hours in the boiling fiery furnace 
which the Terra Nova’s stokehold formed in the tropics, 
unless there was a good wind to blow down the one canvas 
shaft, was a real test of staying power, and the actual shov- 
elling of the coal into the furnaces, one after the other, 
was as child’s play to handling the “‘ devil,’ as the weighty 
instrument used for breaking up the clinker and shaping 
the fire was called. The boilers were cylindrical marine or 
return tube boilers, the furnaces being six feet long by three 
feet wide, slightly lower at the back than at the front. The 
fire on the bars was kept wedge-shape, that is, some nine 
inches high at the back, tapering to about six inches in front 
against the furnace doors. The furnaces were corrugated 
for strength. We were supposed to keep the pressure on 
the gauge between 70 and 80, but it wanted some doing. 
For the most part it was done. 
We did, however, get uncomfortable days with the rain 
sluicing down and a high temperature—everything wet 
on deck and below. But it had its advantages in the fresh 
water it produced. Every bucket was on duty,and the ship’s 
company stripped naked and ran about the decks or sat in 
the stream between the laboratories and wardroom skylight 
and washed their very dirty clothes. The stream came 
through into our bunks, and no amount of caulking ever 
stopped it. To sleep with a constant drip of water falling 
upon you is a real trial. These hot, wet days were more 
trying to the nerves than the months of wet, rough but 
cooler weather to come, and it says much for the good 
spirit which prevailed that there was no friction, though we 
were crowded together like sardines in a tin. 
July 12 was a typical day (lat. 4° 57’ N., long. 22° 
4’ W.). Avery hot, rainy night, followed by a squall which 
struck us while we were having breakfast, so we went up 
and set all sail, which took until about 9.30 a.m. We then 
sat in the water on the deck and washed clothes until just 
