A sizzling on the fire and a smell of porridge and fried seal liver heralded breakfast, which was at 8 A.M. in theory and a good deal later in practice.  A sleepy eye might see the meteorologist stumping out (Simpson always stumped) to change the records in his magnetic cave and visit his instruments on the Hill.  Twenty minutes later he would be back, as often as not covered with drift and his wind helmet all iced up.  Meanwhile, the more hardy ones were washing:  that is, they rubbed themselves, all shivering, with snow, of a minus temperature, and pretended they liked it.  Perhaps they were right, but we told them it was swank.  I’m not sure that it wasn’t!  It should be explained that water was seldom possible in a land where ice is more abundant than coal.

One great danger threatened all our meals in this hut, namely that of a Cag.  A Cag is an argument, sometimes well informed and always heated, upon any subject under the sun, or temporarily in our case, the moon.  They ranged from the Pole to the Equator, from the Barrier to Portsmouth Hard and Plymouth Hoe.  They began on the smallest of excuses, they continued through the widest field, they never ended; they were left in mid air, perhaps to be caught up again and twisted and tortured months after.  What caused the cones on the Ramp; the formation of ice crystals; the names and order of the public-houses if you left the Main Gate of Portsmouth Dockyard and walked to the Unicorn Gate (if you ever reached so far); the best kinds of crampons in the Antarctic, and the best place in London for oysters; the ideal pony rug; would the wine steward at the Ritz look surprised if you asked him for a pint of bitter?  Though the Times Atlas does not rise to public-houses nor Chambers’s Encyclopaedia sink to behaviour at our more expensive hotels, yet they settled more of these disputes than anything else.

On the day we are discussing, though mutterings can still be heard from Nelson’s cubicle, the long table has been cleared and every one is busy by 9.30.  From now until supper at 7 work is done by all in some form or other, except for a short luncheon interval.  I do not mean for a minute that we all sit down, as a man may do in an office at home, and solidly grind away for upwards of nine hours or more.  Not a bit of it.  We have much work out of doors, and exercise is a consideration of the utmost importance.  But when we go out, each individual quite naturally takes the opportunity to carry out such work as concerns him, whether it deals with ice or rocks, dogs or horses, meteorology or biology, tide-gauges or balloons.

When blizzards allowed, the ponies were exercised by their respective leaders between breakfast and mid-day, when they were fed.  This exercising of animals might be a pleasant business, on the other hand it could be the deuce and all:  it depended on the pony and the weather.  A blubber fire was kept burning in the snug stable, which was built against the lee wall of the hut:  the ponies were, therefore, quite warm, and found it chilly directly they were led outside, even if there was no wind.