an exception for general seaworthiness—­if not for speed—­and a safer, sounder ship there could not be.  The weather is now cool too—­cold, some people call it.  I am still comfortable in cotton shirts and whites, while some are wearing Shetland gear.  Nearly everybody is provided with Shetland things.  I am glad you have marked mine, as they are all so much alike.  I am certainly as well provided with private gear as anybody, and far better than most, so, being as well a generator of heat in myself, I should be O.K. in any temperature.  By the bye Evans and Wilson are very keen on my being in the Western Party, while Campbell wants me with him in the Eastern Party.  I have not asked to go ashore, but am keen on anything and am ready to do anything.  In fact there is so much going on that I feel I should like to be in all three places at once—­East, West and Ship.”

FOOTNOTES: 

    [34] Ross, Voyage to the Southern Seas, vol. i. pp. 22-24.

    [35] Bowers’ letter.

CHAPTER II

MAKING OUR EASTING DOWN

“Ten minutes to four, sir!”

It is an oilskinned and dripping seaman, and the officer of the watch, or his so-called snotty, as the case may be, wakes sufficiently to ask: 

“What’s it like?”

“Two hoops, sir!” answers the seaman, and makes his way out.

The sleepy man who has been wakened wedges himself more securely into his six foot by two—­which is all his private room on the ship—­and collects his thoughts, amid the general hubbub of engines, screw and the roll of articles which have worked loose, to consider how he will best prevent being hurled out of his bunk in climbing down, and just where he left his oilskins and sea-boots.

If, as is possible, he sleeps in the Nursery, his task may not be so simple as it may seem, for this cabin, which proclaims on one of the beams that it is designed to accommodate four seamen, will house six scientists or pseudo-scientists, in addition to a pianola.  Since these scientists are the youngest in the expedition their cabin is named the Nursery.

Incidentally it forms also the gangway from the wardroom to the engine-room, from which it is divided only by a wooden door, which has a bad habit of swinging open and shutting with the roll of the ship and the weight of the oilskins hung upon it, and as it does so, wave upon wave, the clatter of the engines advances and recedes.

If, however, it is the officer of the watch he will be in a smaller cabin farther aft which he shares with one other man only, and his troubles are simplified.

Owing to the fact that the seams in the deck above have travelled many voyages, and have been strained in addition by the boat davits and deck-houses built on the poop, a good deal of water from this part of the deck, which is always awash in bad weather, finds its way below, that is into the upper bunks of our cabins.  In order that only a minimum of this may find its way into our blankets a series of shoots, invented and carefully tended by the occupants of these bunks, are arranged to catch this water as it falls and carry it over our heads on to the deck of the cabin.