The temperature still continued to rise, reaching 33° Fahr. on November 14.  The thaw consequent upon these high temperatures was having a disastrous effect upon the surface of our camp.  “The surface is awful!—­not slushy, but elusive.  You step out gingerly.  All is well for a few paces, then your foot suddenly sinks a couple of feet until it comes to a hard layer.  You wade along in this way step by step, like a mudlark at Portsmouth Hard, hoping gradually to regain the surface.  Soon you do, only to repeat the exasperating performance ad lib., to the accompaniment of all the expletives that you can bring to bear on the subject.  What actually happens is that the warm air melts the surface sufficiently to cause drops of water to trickle down slightly, where, on meeting colder layers of snow, they freeze again, forming a honeycomb of icy nodules instead of the soft, powdery, granular snow that we are accustomed to.”

These high temperatures persisted for some days, and when, as occasionally happened, the sky was clear and the sun was shining it was unbearably hot.  Five men who were sent to fetch some gear from the vicinity of the ship with a sledge marched in nothing but trousers and singlet, and even then were very hot; in fact they were afraid of getting sunstroke, so let down flaps from their caps to cover their necks.  Their sleeves were rolled up over their elbows, and their arms were red and sunburnt in consequence.  The temperature on this occasion was 26° Fahr., or 6° below freezing.  For five or six days more the sun continued, and most of our clothes and sleeping-bags were now comparatively dry.  A wretched day with rainy sleet set in on November 21, but one could put up with this discomfort as the wind was now from the south.

The wind veered later to the west, and the sun came out at 9 p.m.  For at this time, near the end of November, we had the midnight sun.  “A thrice-blessed southerly wind” soon arrived to cheer us all, occasioning the following remarks in one of the diaries: 

“To-day is the most beautiful day we have had in the Antarctic—­a clear sky, a gentle, warm breeze from the south, and the most brilliant sunshine.  We all took advantage of it to strike tents, clean out, and generally dry and air ground-sheets and sleeping-bags.”

I was up early—­4 a.m.—­to keep watch, and the sight was indeed magnificent.  Spread out before one was an extensive panorama of ice-fields, intersected here and there by small broken leads, and dotted with numerous noble bergs, partly bathed in sunshine and partly tinged with the grey shadows of an overcast sky.

As one watched one observed a distinct line of demarcation between the sunshine and the shade, and this line gradually approached nearer and nearer, lighting up the hummocky relief of the ice-field bit by bit, until at last it reached us, and threw the whole camp into a blaze of glorious sunshine which lasted nearly all day.