196 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
tity were landed, allowing of a ration to such members who 
wished. Consequently cigarettes were an article of some 
value, and in a land where the ordinary forms of currency 
are valueless they became a frequent stake to venture when 
making bets. Indeed, ‘I bet you ten cigarettes,” or “I 
bet you a dinner when we get back to London,” became 
the most frequent bids of the argumentative gambler, occa- 
sionally varied when the bettor was more thanusually certain 
of the issue by the offer of a pair of socks. 
By two o’clock we were dispersed once more to our 
various works and duties. If it was bearable outside, the 
hut would soon be empty save for the cook and a couple of 
seamen washing up the plates ; otherwise every one went 
out to make the most of any glimmering of daylight which 
still came to us from the sun below the northern horizon. 
And here it may be explained that whereas in England the 
sun rises more or less in the east, is due south at mid-day, — 
and sets in the west, this is not the case in the Antarctic 
regions. In the latitude in which we now lived the sun is 
at his highest at mid-day in the north, at his lowest at mid- 
night in the south. As is generally known he remains 
entirely above the horizon for four months of the summer 
(October-February) and entirely below the horizon for 
four months in the winter (April 21-August 21). About 
February 27, the end of summer, he begins to set and 
rise due south at midnight ; the next day he sets a little 
earlier and dips a little deeper. During March and April | 
he is going deeper and deeper every day, until, by the 
middle of April, he is set all the time except for just a peep | 
over the northern horizon at mid-day, which is his last | 
farewell before he goes away. 
The reverse process takes place from August 21 on- 
wards. On this date the sun just peeped above the sea to 
the north of our hut. The next day he rose a little higher 
and longer, and in a few weeks he was rising well in the 
east and sinking behind the Western Mountains. But he 
did not stop there. Soon he was rising in the S.E. until in 
the latter days of September he never rose, for he never set; 
but circled round us by day and night. On Midsummer 
