We have achieved fair organisation to-day.  Evans is in charge of the road and periodically goes along searching for bad places and bridging cracks with boards and snow.

Bowers checks every case as it comes on shore and dashes off to the ship to arrange the precedence of different classes of goods.  He proves a perfect treasure; there is not a single case he does not know or a single article of any sort which he cannot put his hand on at once.

Rennick and Bruce are working gallantly at the discharge of stores on board.

Williamson and Leese load the sledges and are getting very clever and expeditious.  Evans (seaman) is generally superintending the sledging and camp outfit.  Forde, Keohane, and Abbott are regularly assisting the carpenter, whilst Day, Lashly, Lillie, and others give intermittent help.

Wilson, Cherry-Garrard, Wright, Griffith Taylor, Debenham, Crean, and Browning have been driving ponies, a task at which I have assisted myself once or twice.  There was a report that the ice was getting rotten, but I went over it myself and found it sound throughout.  The accident with the motor sledge has made people nervous.

The weather has been very warm and fine on the whole, with occasional gleams of sunshine, but to-night there is a rather chill wind from the south.  The hut is progressing famously.  In two more working days we ought to have everything necessary on shore.

Tuesday, January 10.—­We have been six days in McMurdo Sound and to-night I can say we are landed.  Were it impossible to land another pound we could go on without hitch.  Nothing like it has been done before; nothing so expeditious and complete.  This morning the main loads were fodder.  Sledge after sledge brought the bales, and early in the afternoon the last (except for about a ton stowed with Eastern Party stores) was brought on shore.  Some addition to our patent fuel was made in the morning, and later in the afternoon it came in a steady stream.  We have more than 12 tons and could make this do if necessity arose.

In addition to this oddments have been arriving all day—­instruments, clothing, and personal effects.  Our camp is becoming so perfect in its appointments that I am almost suspicious of some drawback hidden by the summer weather.

The hut is progressing apace, and all agree that it should be the most perfectly comfortable habitation.  ’It amply repays the time and attention given to the planning.’  The sides have double boarding inside and outside the frames, with a layer of our excellent quilted seaweed insulation between each pair of boardings.  The roof has a single matchboarding inside, but on the outside is a matchboarding, then a layer of 2-ply ‘ruberoid,’ then a layer of quilted seaweed, then a second matchboarding, and finally a cover of 3-ply ‘ruberoid.’  The first floor is laid, but over this there will be a quilting, a felt layer, a second boarding, and