190 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
that water was seldom possible in a land where ice is more 
abundant than coal. 
One great danger threatened all our meals in this hut, 
namely that of a Cag. A Cag is an argument, sometimes 
well informed and always heated, upon any subject under 
the sun, or temporarily in our case, the moon. They ranged 
from the Pole to the Equator, from the Barrier to Ports- 
mouth Hard and Plymouth Hoe. They began on the 
smallest of excuses,they continued through the widest field, 
they never ended; they were left in mid air, perhaps to be 
caught up again and twisted and tortured months after. 
What caused the cones on the Ramp; the formation of ice 
crystals; the names and order of the public-houses if you 
left the Main Gate of Portsmouth Dockyard and walked 
to the Unicorn Gate (if you ever reached so far); the best 
kinds of crampons in the Antarctic, and the best place in 
London for oysters ; the ideal pony rug; would the wine 
steward at the Ritz look surprised if you asked him for 
a pint of bitter? Though the Times Atlas does not rise 
to public-houses nor Chambers’s Encyclopaedia sink to 
behaviour at our more expensive hotels, yet they settled 
more of these disputes than anything else. 
On the day we are discussing, though mutterings can 
still be heard from Nelson’s cubicle, the long table has 
been cleared and every one is busy by 9.30. From now 
until supper at 7 work is done by all in some form or 
other, except for a short luncheon interval. I do not mean 
for a minute that we all sit down, as a man may do in 
an office at home, and solidly grind away for upwards of 
nine hours or more. Nota bit of it. We have much work 
out of doors, and exercise is a consideration of the utmost 
importance. But when we go out, each individual quite 
naturally takes the opportunity to carry out such work as 
concerns him, whether it deals with ice or rocks, dogs or 
horses, meteorology or biology, tide-gauges or balloons. 
When blizzards allowed, the ponies were exercised by 
their respective leaders between breakfast and mid-day, 
when they were fed. This exercising of animals might bea 
pleasant business, on the other hand it could be the deuce 
