I9II] HUT ROUTINE 97 
Dinner was at 7 p.m., and was usually seal or penguin, 
pudding, and dessert. After dinner hardly a night passed 
without a gramophone concert- 
Saturday morning was devoted to a good soap-and- 
water scrub of the whole hut, everyone piling their 
belongings on their beds, Saturday afternoon being 
^ make and mend.' 
Sunday breakfast was at 9 a.m. to give the cook a 
lie-in, and everv week church was held at 10.30 a.m. 
In fine weather Sunday was a great day for a long walk, 
either over the sea ice or up Cape Adare. 
During the week everyone had a washing day, when 
he had a bath and washed his clothes, clothes lines being 
rigged across the hut. 
Of the two huts left by Sir George Newnes' expedition 
in 1899, one hut was standing in fairly good condition, the 
other was roofless. The former we repaired, and it made 
a very good workshop, while the latter, after clearing out 
and roofing with a tarpaulin, we turned into a store 
house. Taking it all round we were a very happy and 
contented little community, but as a wintering station 
Cape Adare is not good, being cut off from the main- 
land until June, when the sea ice can be trusted not 
to go out in a blizzard. 
The sea ice has been forming in Robertson Bay for the 
last week, and now we are able to walk several miles to the 
southward. To the northward of our beach is a lot of 
open water, owing to the strong tidal streams off Cape 
Adare. 
On May 5 began our longest and hardest blow, 
VOL. II. H 
