A BLIZZARD ON EREBUS 



night close to a steep nunatak about five miles from 

 the hut and nearly two thousand feet above sea-level. 

 There was difficulty in getting a good snowy camping- 

 ground, and they had to put up the tent on smooth blue 

 glacier ice, having a thin coating of snow, and sloping 

 gently down till it terminated in an ice-clifF overlooking 

 the sea not many hundreds of yards below. After 

 dinner Priestley, Murray and Joyce climbed over the 

 nunataks, and found several new hchens, but the 

 specimens collected were lost in the blizzard later on. 

 Priestley also found a number of very perfect felspar 

 crystals weathered out of the kenyte, and collected a 

 couple of handfuls of the best. The members of the 

 party retired to their sleeping-bags at eight o'clock on 

 Monday night, and before midnight a bhzzard swept 

 down upon them, and proved to be an exceptionally 

 severe one, with dense drift. Priestley had volunteered 

 to sleep outside that night, and had taken his sleeping- 

 bag to a nook in the rocks some distance away. When 

 the other men heard the roaring of the blizzard they looked 

 out, and were reassured to find that he had come down 

 while there was time and had lain down close by the tent. 

 The first night the Hght snow round the tent was blown 

 away leaving one side open to the wind, but the occupants 

 were able to find a few bits of rock close by, and secured 

 it with those. 



" Inside the tent for the next three days we were 

 warm enough in our sleeping-bags," wrote Murray in 

 his report. " Though we could not cook anything we 

 ate the dry biscuit and pemmican. The little snow 

 under the floorcloth was squeezed in the hand till it 

 became ice, and we sucked this for drink. We were 

 anxious about Priestley, and occasionally opened the 

 door-flap and hailed him, when he always rephed that 

 he was all right. Joyce had managed to pass him some 



29 



