The station is beginning to assume the appearance of an orderly camp.  We continue to find advantages in the situation; the long level beach has enabled Bowers to arrange his stores in the most systematic manner.  Everything will be handy and there will never be a doubt as to the position of a case when it is wanted.  The hut is advancing apace—­already the matchboarding is being put on.  The framework is being clothed.  It should be extraordinarily warm and comfortable, for in addition to this double coating of insulation, dry seaweed in quilted sacking, I propose to stack the pony fodder all around it.

I am wondering how we shall stable the ponies in the winter.

The only drawback to the present position is that the ice is getting thin and sludgy in the cracks and on some of the floes.  The ponies drop their feet through, but most of them have evidently been accustomed to something of the sort; they make no fuss about it.  Everything points to the desirability of the haste which we are making—­so we go on to-morrow, Sunday.

A whole host of minor ills besides snow blindness have come upon us.  Sore faces and lips, blistered feet, cuts and abrasions; there are few without some troublesome ailment, but, of course, such things are ‘part of the business.’  The soles of my feet are infernally sore.

’Of course the elements are going to be troublesome, but it is good to know them as the only adversary and to feel there is so small a chance of internal friction.’

Ponting had an alarming adventure about this time.  Bent on getting artistic photographs with striking objects, such as hummocked floes or reflecting water, in the foreground, he used to depart with his own small sledge laden with cameras and cinematograph to journey alone to the grounded icebergs.  One morning as he tramped along harnessed to his sledge, his snow glasses clouded with the mist of perspiration, he suddenly felt the ice giving under his feet.  He describes the sensation as the worst he ever experienced, and one can well believe it; there was no one near to have lent assistance had he gone through.  Instinctively he plunged forward, the ice giving at every step and the sledge dragging through water.  Providentially the weak area he had struck was very limited, and in a minute or two he pulled out on a firm surface.  He remarked that he was perspiring very freely!

Looking back it is easy to see that we were terribly incautious in our treatment of this decaying ice.

CHAPTER IV

Settling In