CONVERSATIONS BY FLAGS 



to six fine puppies. The mother and family were found 

 a warm bed on the engine room skylight, where a num- 

 ber of our cases were stowed. We signalled the happy 

 event to the Koonya by flags, and received Captain Evans' 

 congratulations. Signalling by flags is necessarily a 

 somewhat slow operation, especially as the commercial 

 code of signals is not exactly adapted for this particular 

 sort of information, and we could see by the length of 

 time they took to verify each signal that they were at 

 a loss as to the subject-matter of our communication, the 

 incident of a birth naturally being farthest removed from 

 their thoughts at such a time. Whenever the weather 

 moderated at all the two ships always held short conver- 

 sations by flags, and the commander of the Koonya used 

 to make inquiries in particular after the health of the 

 scientific staff. 



January 13 brought with it a gentle breeze from the 

 eastward, the heavy leaden sky broke into blue, flecked 

 with light cirrus clouds, and the day seemed warmer 

 and more pleasant than any we had experienced since 

 we left Lyttelton, though the temperature of the air and 

 sea water were down to 34° and 37° Fahr. respectively. 

 The warm sun tempted those who had not before been 

 much in evidence on to the poop deck, and the whole 

 vessel began to look like a veritable Petticoat Lane. 

 Blankets, coats, boots, bags that might once have been 

 leather but which now looked like lumps of dilapidated 

 brown paper; pyjamas that had been intended to be worn 

 when the owners first came aboard the Nimrod; books 

 that had parted with their covers after sundry adventures 

 in dripping Oyster Alley, but whose leaves evinced the 

 strongest disinclination to separate; pillows of pulp that 

 had once been pillows of feathers; carpet slippers, now 

 merely bits of carpet; in short, all the personal belong- 

 ings of each member of the expedition, including their 



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