THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



leave the ice-foot at any time, and, of course, the building 

 of the hut could go on during the absence of the ship. 

 The first shore party consisted of Adams, Marston, 

 Brocklehurst, Mackay and Murray, and two tents were 

 set up close to the hut, with the usual sledging requisites, 

 sleeping-bags, cookers, &c. A canvas cover was rigged 

 on some oars to serve as a cooking-tent, and this, later 

 on, was enlarged into a more commodious house, built 

 out of bales of fodder. 



The first things landed this day were bales of fodder 

 for the ponies, and sufficient petroleum and provisions 

 for the shore party in the event of the ship having to 

 put to sea suddenly owing to bad weather. For facility 

 in landing the stores, the whole party was divided into 

 two gangs. Some of the crew of the ship hoisted the 

 stores out of the hold and slid them down a wide plank 

 on to the ice, others of the ship's crew loaded the stores 

 on to the sledges, and these were Iinuled to land by the 

 shore party, each sledge having three men harnessed to 

 it. The road to the shore consisted of hard, rough ice, 

 alternating with very soft snow, and as the distance from 

 where the ship was lying at first to the tide-crack was 

 nearly a quarter of a mile, it was strenuous toil, especially 

 when the tide-crack was reached and the sledges had to 

 be pulled up the slope. After the first few sledge-loads 

 had been hauled right up on to the land, I decided to 

 let the stores remain on the snow slope beyond the tide- 

 crack, where they could be taken away at leisure. The 

 work was so heavy that we tried to substitute mechanical 

 haulage in place of man haulage, and to achieve this 

 end we anchored a block in the snow slope just over the 

 tide-crack, and having spliced together practically all 

 the running gear and all the spare line in the ship, we 

 rove one end of the rope through the block and brought 

 it back to the ship. The other end was brought round 



102 



