“In the attic, formed by the two upturned boats, live ten unkempt and careless lodgers, who drop boots, mitts, and other articles of apparel on to the men below.  Reindeer hairs rain down incessantly day and night, with every movement that they make in their moulting bags.  These, with penguin feathers and a little grit from the floor, occasionally savour the hooshes.  Thank heaven man is an adaptable brute!  If we dwell sufficiently long in this hut, we are likely to alter our method of walking, for our ceiling, which is but four feet six inches high at its highest part, compels us to walk bent double or on all fours.

“Our doorway—­Cheetham is just crawling in now, bringing a shower of snow with him—­was originally a tent entrance.  When one wishes to go out, one unties the cord securing the door, and crawls or wriggles out, at the same time exclaiming ‘Thank goodness I’m in the open air!’ This should suffice to describe the atmosphere inside the hut, only pleasant when charged with the overpowering yet appetizing smell of burning penguin steaks.

“From all parts there dangles an odd collection of blubbery garments, hung up to dry, through which one crawls, much as a chicken in an incubator.  Our walls of tent-canvas admit as much light as might be expected from a closed Venetian blind.  It is astonishing how we have grown accustomed to inconveniences, and tolerate, at least, habits which a little time back were regarded with repugnance.  We have no forks, but each man has a sheath-knife and a spoon, the latter in many cases having been fashioned from a piece of box lid.  The knife serves many purposes.  With it we kill, skin, and cut up seals and penguins, cut blubber into strips for the fire, very carefully scrape the snow off our hut walls, and then after a perfunctory rub with an oily penguin-skin, use it at meals.  We are as regardless of our grime and dirt as is the Esquimaux.  We have been unable to wash since we left the ship, nearly ten months ago.  For one thing we have no soap or towels, only bare necessities being brought with us; and, again, had we possessed these articles, our supply of fuel would only permit us to melt enough ice for drinking purposes.  Had one man washed, half a dozen others would have had to go without a drink all day.  One cannot suck ice to relieve the thirst, as at these low temperatures it cracks the lips and blisters the tongue.  Still, we are all very cheerful.”

During the whole of their stay on Elephant Island the weather was described by Wild as “simply appalling.”  Stranded as they were on a narrow, sandy beach surrounded by high mountains, they saw little of the scanty sunshine during the brief intervals of clear sky.  On most days the air was full of snowdrift blown from the adjacent heights.  Elephant Island being practically on the outside edge of the pack, the winds which passed over the relatively warm ocean before reaching it clothed it in a “constant pall of fog and snow.”