THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



civilisation; a cheerful fire burned in the grate, and a 

 bunch of flowers stood on the mantelpiece. The dividing 

 curtain between it and No. 1 Park Lane, on the other 

 side of the cubicle, did not require to be decorated, for the 

 colour of Joan of Arc, and also portions of Napoleon, had 

 oozed through the canvas. In " The Gables " was set up 

 the lithographic press, which was used for producing 

 pictures for the book which was printed at our winter 

 quarters. 



The next cubicle on the same side belonged to Army- 

 tage and Brocklehurst. Here everything in the way of 

 shelves and fittings was very primitive. I lived in 

 Brocklehurst's portion of the cubicle for two months, as 

 he was laid up in my room, and before I left it I con- 

 structed a bed of empty petrol cases. The smell from 

 these for the first couple of nights after rigging them 

 up was decidedly unpleasant, but it disappeared after 

 a while. Next to Brocklehurst's and Armytage's 

 quarters came the pantry. The division between the 

 cubicle and the pantry consisted of a tier of cases, 

 making a substantial wall between the food and the heads 

 of the sleepers. The pantry, bakery, and store-room, all 

 combined, measured six feet by three, not very spacious, 

 certainly, but sufficient to work in. The far end of the 

 hut constituted the other wall of the pantry, and was 

 lined with shelves up to the slope of the roof. These 

 shelves were continued along the wall behind the stove, 

 which stood about four feet out from the end of the house, 

 and an erection of wooden battens and burlap or sacking 

 concealed the biological laboratoiy. The space taken 

 up by this important department was four feet by four, 

 but lack of ground area was made up for by the 

 shelves, which contained dozens of bottles soon to be filled 

 with Murray's biological captures. 



Beyond the stove, facing the pantry, was Mackay's 



142 



