It has occurred to me that although the sea ice may freeze in our bays early in March it will be a difficult thing to get ponies across it owing to the cliff edges at the side.  We must therefore be prepared to be cut off for a longer time than I anticipated.  I heard that all the people who journeyed towards C. Royds yesterday reached their destination in safety.  Campbell, Levick, and Priestley had just departed when I returned._10_

Tuesday, January 17.—­We took up our abode in the hut to-day and are simply overwhelmed with its comfort.  After breakfast this morning I found Bowers making cubicles as I had arranged, but I soon saw these would not fit in, so instructed him to build a bulkhead of cases which shuts off the officers’ space from the men’s, I am quite sure to the satisfaction of both.  The space between my bulkhead and the men’s I allotted to five:  Bowers, Oates, Atkinson, Meares, and Cherry-Garrard.  These five are all special friends and have already made their dormitory very habitable.  Simpson and Wright are near the instruments in their corner.  Next come Day and Nelson in a space which includes the latter’s ‘Lab.’ near the big window; next to this is a space for three—­Debenham, Taylor, and Gran; they also have already made their space part dormitory and part workshop.

It is fine to see the way everyone sets to work to put things straight; in a day or two the hut will become the most comfortable of houses, and in a week or so the whole station, instruments, routine, men and animals, &c., will be in working order.

It is really wonderful to realise the amount of work which has been got through of late.

It will be a fortnight to-morrow since we arrived in McMurdo Sound, and here we are absolutely settled down and ready to start on our depot journey directly the ponies have had a proper chance to recover from the effects of the voyage.  I had no idea we should be so expeditious.

It snowed hard all last night; there were about three or four inches of soft snow over the camp this morning and Simpson tells me some six inches out by the ship.  The camp looks very white.  During the day it has been blowing very hard from the south, with a great deal of drift.  Here in this camp as usual we do not feel it much, but we see the anemometer racing on the hill and the snow clouds sweeping past the ship.  The floe is breaking between the point and the ship, though curiously it remains fast on a direct route to the ship.  Now the open water runs parallel to our ship road and only a few hundred yards south of it.  Yesterday the whaler was rowed in close to the camp, and if the ship had steam up she could steam round to within a few hundred yards of us.  The big wedge of ice to which the ship is holding on the outskirts of the Bay can have very little grip to keep it in and must inevitably go out very soon.  I hope this may result in the ship finding a more sheltered and secure position close to us.