The next few days were spent in using pick, shovel and iron crowbars on the envelope of ice that covered our cases, corners of which only peeped from the mass.

The whole looked like a huge piece of the sweet known as almond rock, and it was as difficult to get our cases clear of the ice as it is to separate almonds from that sticky conglomerate without injury. In this strenuous labour, however, there was some humour, for Brocklehurst, who took great interest in the recovery of the chocolate, spent his energies in rescuing one particular case which had been covered with ice.

Having rescued it he carried it up to the hut to be sure of its safety, and was greeted with joy by the Professor, who recognised in the load some of his scientific instruments which were playing the part of the cuckoo in an old chocolate box. Needless to say Brocklehurst's joy was not as heartfelt as the Professor's.

We were now using the ponies, and within ten days after the departure of the ship we had practically everything handy to the hut, excepting the coal. Permanently we had not lost very much, but we do know that our one case of beer lies to this day under the ice, and some volumes of the Challenger reports, which had been intended to provide us with useful reading matter during the winter nights, were only dug out a few days before our final departure.

Most of us at one time or another had wounds and bruises to be attended to by Marshall, and the annoying feature of these simple wounds was the length of time it took in our special circumstances for them to heal.

The day after the ship left we laid in a supply of fresh meat for the winter, killing about a hundred penguins and burying them in a snow-drift close to the hut. By February 28 we were practically in a position to feel contented with ourselves, and to explore the neighbourhood of our winter quarters (See sketch, page 61).

From the door of our hut which faced north-west, we had a splendid view of the Sound and the western mountains. Right in front of us lay a small lake which came to be known as Pony Lake, and to the left of that was another sheet of ice that became snow-covered in autumn, and here in the dark months we exercised both the ponies and ourselves.

Six times up and down the "Green Park," as we called it, made a mile, and it was here before darkness fell upon us that we played hockey and football.

To the left of Green Park was a gentle slope leading down between two cliffs to the sea, and ending in a little bay known as Dead Horse Bay, and on either side of this valley lay the penguin rookery.

On coming out of the hut we had only to go round the corner of the building to catch a glimpse of Mount Erebus, which lay directly behind us. Its summit was about fifteen miles from our quarters, but its slopes and foothills began within three-quarters of a mile of the hut.

Our view was cut off from the east to south-west by the ridge at the head of the valley where the hut stood, but on ascending this ridge we looked over the bay to the south-east, where lay Cape Barne. To the right was Flagstaff Point.

There were many localities which became favourite places for walks, and these are shown on the plan (page 61). Sandy Beach was generally the goal of any one taking exercise, when uncertain weather warned us against venturing further, and while the dwindling light allowed us to go so far. Here we sometimes exercised the ponies, and they much enjoyed rolling in the soft sand.

As regards the interest and scenery of our winter quarters we were infinitely better off than the expedition which wintered in McMurdo Sound between 1901 and 1904, and as a field of work for geologists and biologists Cape Royds far surpassed Hut Point. The Professor and Priestley saw open before them a new chapter of geological history, for Murray the lakes were a fruitful field for new research. Adams, the meteorologist, could not complain, for Mount Erebus was in full view of the meteorological station, and this fortunate proximity to Erebus and its smoke-cloud led, in a large measure, to important results in this branch. Mawson made the study of ice part of his work, and from every point of view I must say we were extremely fortunate in the winter quarters to which the state of the ice had led us.

Before we had been ten days ashore the hut was practically completed, though it was over a month before it attained the very fully furnished appearance which it assumed after every one had arranged his belongings. It was not a spacious dwelling for fifteen persons, but if the hut had been larger we should not have been so warm.

At first the coldest part of the house was undoubtedly the floor, which was formed of inch tongue-and-groove: boarding, but was not double-lined. There was a space of about four feet under the hut at one end, and as the other rested almost on the ground it was obvious to us that as long as this space remained we should suffer from the cold. So we decided to make an airlock of the area under the hut, and to this end we built a wall with the bulk of provision cases round the south-east and southerly sides, which were to windward.

On either side of the porch two other buildings were gradually erected. One, built out of biscuit cases, the roof covered with felt and canvas, was a store-room for Wild, who looked after the issue of all food-stuffs. The building on the other side was far more elaborate, and was built by Mawson to serve as a chemical and physical laboratory. It was destined, however, to serve solely as a store-room, for the temperature inside was so nearly the same as that outside, that the moist atmosphere rushing from the hut covered everything inside this store-room with fantastic ice crystals.

The lee side of the hut ultimately became the wall of the stables, for we decided to keep the ponies sheltered for the winter. However the first night they were stabled none of us had much rest, and some of them broke loose and returned to their valley. Shortly afterwards Grisi, one of the most high-spirited of the lot, pushed his head through a window, so the lower halves of the hut windows had to be boarded up.

In a store-room built on the south-east of the hut we kept the tool-chest, the shoe-maker's outfit which was in constant requisition, and any general stores that had to be issued at stated times. But the first blizzard found out this place, and after the roof had been blown off the wall fell down. When the weather was fine again we organised a party to search for such things as mufflers, woollen helmets and so on, and I found a Russian felt boot, weighing five pounds, lying three-quarters of a mile from the crate in which it had been stowed. For the whole of this distance it must have had a clear run in the air, for there was not a scratch on the leather.

The dog kennels were placed close to the porch of the hut, and the meteorological station was on the weather side on the top of a small ridge. Adams was responsible for this, and as readings of the instruments were to be taken day and night at intervals of two hours, and as in thick weather the man trying to go between hut and screen might possibly lose his way, a line was rigged up on posts which were cemented into the ground by ice.