wing to the cliff edges at the side. We must therefore be prepared
to be cut off for a longer time than I anticipated. I heard that all
the people who journeyed towards C. Royds yesterday reached their
destination in safety. Campbell, Levick, and Priestley had just
departed when I returned._10_

_Tuesday, January_ 17.--We took up our abode in the hut to-day
and are simply overwhelmed with its comfort. After breakfast this
morning I found Bowers making cubicles as I had arranged, but I soon
saw these would not fit in, so instructed him to build a bulkhead of
cases which shuts off the officers' space from the men's, I am quite
sure to the satisfaction of both. The space between my bulkhead and
the men's I allotted to five: Bowers, Oates, Atkinson, Meares, and
Cherry-Garrard. These five are all special friends and have already
made their dormitory very habitable. Simpson and Wright are near the
instruments in their corner. Next come Day and Nelson in a space which
includes the latter's 'Lab.' near the big window; next to this is a
space for three--Debenham, Taylor, and Gran; they also have already
made their space part dormitory and part workshop.

It is fine to see the way everyone sets to work to put things straight;
in a day or two the hut will become the most comfortable of houses,
and in a week or so the whole station, instruments, routine, men and
animals, &c., will be in working order.

It is really wonderful to realise the amount of work which has been
got through of late.

It will be a _fortnight to-morrow_ since we arrived in McMurdo Sound,
and here we are absolutely settled down and ready to start on our depot
journey directly the ponies have had a proper chance to recover from
the effects of the voyage. I had no idea we should be so expeditious.

It snowed hard all last night; there were about three or four inches
of soft snow over the camp this morning and Simpson tells me some
six inches out by the ship. The camp looks very white. During the
day it has been blowing very hard from the south, with a great deal
of drift. Here in this camp as usual we do not feel it much, but we
see the anemometer racing on the hill and the snow clouds sweeping
past the ship. The floe is breaking between the point and the ship,
though curiously it remains fast on a direct route to the ship. Now
the open water runs parallel to our ship road and only a few hundred
yards south of it. Yesterday the whaler was rowed in close to t