100 
SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION 
[June 
arrangement works beautifully, and can be timed to five 
minutes. 
Other things we should have brought are fencing masks 
and foils. As it is, Abbott has manufactured some 
helmets out of old flour-tins and also some bamboo 
sabres, and there have been desperate encounters out 
on the snow. 
The prismatic skies we get during the day now are 
perfectly lovely, and last night we had, I think, the best 
coloured aurora we have seen. It was a great curtain 
across the northern sky, the colours being red, green, 
and yellow. 
This spell of fine weather continued until June i8, 
when the glaciers were obscured with drift, and we could 
hear the rumbling of pressure on the other side of Cape 
Adare, a sure sign of wind, although with us it was still 
quite calm. 
We counted twenty-six seals along the tide crack 
to-dav, whereas for some weeks before we had not 
seen any. 
June 19. — Last night about 8 it came on to blow a 
full gale, with heavy drift and squalls of hurricane force. 
The hut worked a good deal and some of the outer planking 
was ripped off. It was my turn for the midnight rounds, 
and I got my nose rather badly frostbitten, so to-day it is 
one big blister. 
On the morning of the 20th the wind went down and 
we were able to repair the hut. The sea ice stood the 
blizzard well, but again it had been forced back about a 
hundred yards from the north shore. 
