y respectable corner. For the rest of it we had
our Arctic library, and the spare spaces on the matchboard bulkhead,
which fenced it on three sides, were decorated with photographs. In place
of eiderdown Scott's old uniform overcoat usually covered his bed, while
peeping out from under his sleeping place one could espy an emblem of
civilisation and prosperity in the shape of a very good suit-case.

The foregoing pages illustrate sufficiently the grouping of the
afterguard, and if one adds an anthracite stove, a 12 ft. by 4 ft. table,
a pianola, gramophone, and a score of chairs, with a small shelf-like
table squeezed in between the dark-room and Simpson's corner, one
completes the picture of the officers' quarters in the Cape Evans Hut.
A bulkhead of biscuit cases and so on divided us from the men's
accommodation. They were very well off, each seaman having a trestle bed
similar to Captain Scott's, unless he preferred to build a bunk for
himself, as one or two did. They had a table 6 ft. by 4 ft., and the cook
had a kitchen table 4 ft. square, and certainly no crew space was ever
provided on a Polar Expedition that gave such comfortable and cosy
housing room.

CHAPTER VIII

THE WINTER CLOSES IN

The closing down of the Polar night was very swift now and the few hours
of gray daylight were employed collecting what data was required by
certain members for working on during the forthcoming days of darkness.
Young Gran was handed over to me to help with the survey work and
astronomical observations which had to be taken from time to time. He was
a most entertaining assistant. Without complaint, he stood patiently
shivering in that cutting winter wind whilst I swung around the
theodolite telescope and took angles for him to write down in my
notebook. I don't think anybody has made a triangulated survey under
conditions worse than we endured that epoch: the weather was beastly and
we spent much time dancing when nearly sick with cold, our fingers tucked
under our arms to recover their feelings. When one's extremities did get
frost-bitten it was no joke--frost-bitten finger tips gave us little
peace at night with their sharp burning pain.

The most interesting part of the survey work was what is known to the
surveyor as coast-lining. This meant walking along the edge of the sea
ice, fixing one's position by sextant angle every five hundred yards or
so, and sketching in a notebook the character and features of th