We started to live in the hut on January 18, beautifully warm, the gramophone going, and everybody happy.  But for a long time before this most of the landing party had been living in tents on shore.  It was very comfortable, far more so than might be supposed, judging only by the popular idea of a polar life.  We were now almost landed, there were just a few things more to come over from the ship.  “It was blowing a mild blizzard from the south, and I took a sledge over to the ship, which was quite blotted out in blinding snow at times.  It was as hard to get an empty sledge over, as generally it is to drag a full one.  Tea on the ship, which was very full of welcome, but also very full of the superiority of their own comforts over those of the land.  Their own comforts were not so very obvious, since they had tried to get the stove in the wardroom going for the first time.  They were all coughing in the smoke, and everything inside was covered with smuts."[104]

The hut itself was some twelve feet above the sea, and situated upon what was now an almost sandy beach of black lava.  It was thought that this was high enough to be protected from any swell likely to arrive in such a sheltered place, but, as we shall see, Scott was very anxious as to the fate of the hut, when, on the Depot journey, a swell removed not only miles of sea-ice and a good deal of Barrier, but also the end of Glacier Tongue.  We never saw this beach again, for the autumn gales covered it with thick drifts of snow, and the thaw was never enough to remove this for the two other summers we spent here.  There is no doubt this was an exceptional year for thaw.  We never again saw a little waterfall such as was now tumbling down the rocks from Skua Lake into the sea.

The little hill of 66 feet high behind us was soon named Wind Vane Hill, and there were other meteorological instruments there besides.  A snow-drift or ice-drift always forms to leeward of any such projection, and that beneath this hill was large enough for us to drive into it two ice caves.  The first of these was to contain our larder, notably the frozen mutton carcasses brought down by us from New Zealand in the ice-house on deck.  These, however, showed signs of mildew, and we never ate very freely of them.  Seal and penguin were our stock meat foods, and mutton was considered to be a luxury.

The second cave, 13 feet long by 5 feet wide, hollowed out by Simpson and Wright, was for the magnetic instruments.  The temperature of these caves was found to be fairly constant.  Unfortunately, this was the only drift into which we could tunnel, and we had no such mass of snow and ice as is afforded by the Barrier, which can be burrowed, and was burrowed extensively by Amundsen and his men.

The cases containing the bulk of our stores were placed in stacks arranged by Bowers up on the sloping ground to the west of the hut, beginning close to the entrance door.  The sledges lay on the hill side above them.  This arrangement was very satisfactory during the first winter, but the excessive blizzards of the second winter and the immense amount of snow which was gathering about the camp caused us to move everything up to the top of the ridge behind the hut where the wind kept them more clear.  Amundsen found it advisable to put his cases in two long lines.[105]