harness, tents, and
sledging gear, with a sufficiency of pony fodder for a fortnight, down
the ski-slope to Hut Point. It was a fine bit of toboganning and Captain
Scott showed himself to be far more expert than any of us in controlling
a sledge on a slippery slope.

We soon got into the way of climbing around on seemingly impossible
slopes and could negotiate the steepest of hills and the slipperiest of
steep inclines. It was largely a question of good crampons, which we
fortunately possessed.

The month of March and the first half of April, 1911, proved to be the
most profitless and unsatisfactory part of the Expedition. This was due
to a long compulsory wait at Hut Point, for we could not cross the
fifteen miles that lay between our position there and the Cape Evans
Station until sea ice had formed, which could be counted on not to break
away and take us into the Ross Sea in its northward drift. Time after
time the sea froze over to a depth of a foot or even more and time and
again we made ready to start for Cape Evans to find that on the day of
departure the ice had all broken and drifted out of sight. As it was, we
were safely, if not comfortably, housed at Hut Point, with the two dog
teams and the two remaining ponies, existing in rather primitive fashion
with seal meat for our principal diet. By the end of the first week in
March we had converted the veranda, which ran round three sides of the
old magnetic hut, into dog and pony shelters, two inner compartments were
screened off by bulkheads made of biscuit cases, a cook's table was
somehow fashioned and a reliable stove erected out of petrol tins and
scrap-iron. Our engineers in this work of art were Oates and Meares. For
a short while we burnt wood in the stove, but the day soon came when seal
blubber was substituted, and the heat from the burning grease was
sufficient to cook any kind of dish likely to be available, and also to
heat the hut after a fashion.

Round the stove we built up benches to sit on for meals, and two sleeping
spaces were chosen and made snug by using felt, of which a quantity had
been left by Scott's or Shackleton's people. The "Soldier" and Meares
unearthed same fire bricks and a stove pipe from the debris heap outside
the hut and then we were spared the great discomfort of being smoked out
whenever a fire was lit. An awning left by the "Discovery" was fixed up
by several of us around the sleeping and cooking space, and although
rathe