THE FIRST WINTER 199 
of these books, I would suggest that the literature most 
acceptable to us in the circumstances under which we did 
most of our reading, that is in Winter Quarters, was the 
best of the more recent novels, such as Barrie, Kipling, 
Merriman and Maurice Hewlett. We certainly should 
have taken with us as much of Shaw, Barker, Ibsen and 
Wells as we could lay our hands on, for the train of ideas 
started by these works and the discussions to which they 
would have given rise would have been a godsend to us in 
our isolated circumstances. ‘The one type of book in which 
we were rich was Arctic and Antarctic travel. We had a 
library of these given to us by Sir Lewis Beaumont and Sir 
Albert Markham which was very complete. They were 
extremely popular, though it is probably true that these 
are books which you want rather to read on your return 
than when you are actually experiencing a similar life. 
They were used extensively in discussions or lectures on 
such polar subjects as clothing, food rations, and the build- 
ing of igloos, while we were constantly referring to them 
on specific points and getting useful hints, such as the use 
of an inner lining to our tents, and the mechanism of a 
blubber stove. 
I have already spoken of the importance of maps and 
books of reference, and these should include a good en- 
cyclopaedia and dictionaries, English, Latin and Greek. 
Oates was generally deep in Napier’s History of the Penin- 
sular War, and some of us found Herbert Paul’s History of 
Modern England a great stand-by. Most of us managed 
to find room in our personal gear when sledging for some 
book which did not weigh much and yet would last. Scott 
took some Browning on the Polar Journey, though I only 
saw him reading it once; Wilson took Maud and In 
Memoriam; Bowers always had so many weights to tally 
and observations to record on reaching camp that I feel 
sure he took no reading matter. Bleak House was the most 
successful book I ever took away sledging, thougha volume 
of poetry was useful, because it gave one something to 
learn by heart and repeat during the blank hours of the 
daily march, when the idle mind is all too apt to think of 
