OCEAN CAMP 
sleeves were rolled up over their elbows, and their arms were 
red and sunburnt in consequence. The temperature on this 
occasion was 26"" Fahr., or 6° below freezing. For five or six 
days more the sun continued, and most of our clothes and 
sleeping-bags were now comparatively dry. A ^\^'etched day 
with rainy sleet set in on November 21, but one could put up 
with this discomfort as the wind was now from the south. 
The wind veered later to the west, and the sun came out 
at 9 p.m. For at this time, near the end of November, we 
had the midnight sun. " A thrice-blessed southerly wind " 
soon arrived to cheer us all, occasioning the following remarks 
in one of the diaries : To-day is the most beautiful day we 
have had in the Antarctic — a clear sky, a gentle, warm breeze 
from the south, and the most brilliant sunshine. We all took 
advantage of it to strike tents, clean out, and generally dry and 
air ground-sheets and sleeping-bags." 
I was up early— 4 a.m.— to keep watch, and the sight 
was indeed magnificent. Spread out before one was an exten- 
sive panorama of ice-fields, intersected here and there by small 
broken leads, and dotted with numerous noble bergs, partly 
bathed in sunshine and partly tinged with the grey shadows 
of an overcast sky. 
As one watched one observed a distinct line of demarcation 
between the sunshine and the shade, and this line gradually 
approached nearer and nearer, lighting up the hummocky relief 
of the ice-field bit by bit, until at last it reached us, and threw 
the whole camp into a blaze of glorious sunshine which lasted 
nearly all day. 
This afternoon we were treated to one or two showers of 
hail-like snow. Yesterday we also had a rare form of snow, 
or, rather, precipitation of ice-spicules, exactly like little hairs, 
about a third of an inch long. 
" The warmth in the tents at lunch-time was so great that 
we had all the side-flaps up for ventilation, but it is a treat 
to get warm occasionally, and one can put up with a little 
stufJy atmosphere now and again for the sake of it. The 
wind has gone to the best quarter this evening, the south-east, 
and is freshening." 
G 97 
