y roomy, and, if my memory serves me aright, our
cooking range was of similar pattern to one supplied to the Royal yacht,
"Alexandra."

On January 19 a snow road was made over to the ice foot on the south side
of Cape Evans in order to save the ponies' legs and hoofs. The Siberian
ponies were not shod, and this rough, volcanic rock would have shaken
them considerably.

A great deal of the bay ice had broken away and drifted out of the Sound,
so that by the 20th the ship was only a few hundred yards from Hurrah
Beach. This day Rennick, smiling from ear to ear, came across the ice
with the pianola in bits conveyed on a couple of sledges. He fixed it up
with great cleverness at one end of the hut and it was quite wonderful to
see how he stripped it on board, brought it through all sorts of spaces,
transported it undamaged over ice and rocky beach, re-erected it, tuned
it, and then played "Home, Sweet Home." What with the pianola going all
out, the gramophone giving us Melba records, and the ship's company's
gramophone squawking out Harry Lauder's opposition numbers, Ponting
cinematographing everything of interest and worthy of pictorial record,
little Anton rushing round with nosebags for the ponies, Meares and
Dimitri careering with the dog teams over ice, beach, packing cases, and
what not, sailors with coloured tam-o'-shanters bobbing around in
piratical style, the hot sun beating down and brightening up everything,
one might easily have imagined this to be the circus scene, in the great
Antarctic joy-ride film. Everything ran on wheels in these days, and it
was difficult to imagine that in three months there would be no sun, that
this sweltering beach would be encrusted with ice, and that the cold,
dark winter would be upon us.

The 21st was quite an exciting day. Captain Scott woke me at 4 a.m. to
tell me that the ship was in difficulties. I got up at once, called the
four seamen, and with Uncle Bill we all went out on to the floe. The ice
to which the ship was fast had broken away, and so we helped her re-moor
with her ice-anchors. Petty Officer Evans went adrift on the floe, but we
got him back in the pram. We turned in again at 5.15 and set a watch, but
at 6.30 the "Terra Nova" hoisted an ensign at the main, a pre-arranged
signal, and so all hands again went out and got her ice anchors; she
slipped the ends of the wire hawsers holding them and stood out into the
Sound. The ice was breaking up fast, a swell rollin