On the top of the pianola, close to the head of the table, lived the gramophone; and under the one looking-glass we possessed, which hung on the bulkhead of Scott’s cubicle, was a home-made box with shelves on which lay our records.  It was usual to start the gramophone after dinner, and its value may be imagined.  It is necessary to be cut off from civilization and all that it means to enable you to realize fully the power music has to recall the past, or the depths of meaning in it to soothe the present and give hope for the future.  We had also records of good classical music, and the kindly-disposed individual who played them had his reward in the pleasant atmosphere of homeliness which made itself felt.  After dinner had been cleared away, some men sat on at the table occupied with books and games.  Others dispersed to various jobs.  In the matter of games it was noticeable that one would have its vogue and yield place to another without any apparent reason.  For a few weeks it might be chess, which would then yield its place to draughts and backgammon, and again come into favour.  It is a remarkable fact that, though we had playing cards with us none of our company appeared desirous to use them.  In fact I cannot remember seeing a game of cards played except in the ship on the voyage from England.

[Illustration:  THE SEA’S FRINGE OF ICE]

With regard to books we were moderately well provided with good modern fiction, and very well provided with such authors as Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte, Bulwer-Lytton and Dickens.  With all respect to the kind givers of these books, I would suggest that the literature most acceptable to us in the circumstances under which we did most of our reading, that is in Winter Quarters, was the best of the more recent novels, such as Barrie, Kipling, Merriman and Maurice Hewlett.  We certainly should have taken with us as much of Shaw, Barker, Ibsen and Wells as we could lay our hands on, for the train of ideas started by these works and the discussions to which they would have given rise would have been a godsend to us in our isolated circumstances.  The one type of book in which we were rich was Arctic and Antarctic travel.  We had a library of these given to us by Sir Lewis Beaumont and Sir Albert Markham which was very complete.  They were extremely popular, though it is probably true that these are books which you want rather to read on your return than when you are actually experiencing a similar life.  They were used extensively in discussions or lectures on such polar subjects as clothing, food rations, and the building of igloos, while we were constantly referring to them on specific points and getting useful hints, such as the use of an inner lining to our tents, and the mechanism of a blubber stove.