ckened until he was too
weak to stand, and in this condition there had been no option but to
put him out of misery. Anton considers the death of Hackenschmidt to
have been an act of 'cussedness'--the result of a determination to do
no work for the Expedition!! Although the loss is serious I remember
doubts which I had as to whether this animal could be anything but
a source of trouble to us. He had been most difficult to handle all
through, showing a vicious, intractable temper. I had foreseen great
difficulties with him, especially during the early part of any journey
on which he was taken, and this consideration softened the news of
his death. The dog had been left behind in a very sick condition,
and this loss was not a great surprise.

These items were the worst of the small budget of news that awaited
me; for the rest, the hut arrangements had worked out in the most
satisfactory manner possible and the scientific routine of observations
was in full swing. After our primitive life at Cape Armitage it
was wonderful to enter the precincts of our warm, dry Cape Evans
home. The interior space seemed palatial, the light resplendent,
and the comfort luxurious. It was very good to eat in civilised
fashion, to enjoy the first bath for three months, and have contact
with clean, dry clothing. Such fleeting hours of comfort (for custom
soon banished their delight) are the treasured remembrance of every
Polar traveller. They throw into sharpest contrast the hardships of
the past and the comforts of the present, and for the time he revels
in the unaccustomed physical contentment that results.

I was not many hours or even minutes in the hut before I was haled
round to observe in detail the transformation which had taken place
during my absence, and in which a very proper pride was taken by
those who had wrought it.

Simpson's Corner was the first visited. Here the eye travelled over
numerous shelves laden with a profusion of self-recording instruments,
electric batteries and switchboards, whilst the ear caught the
ticking of many clocks, the gentle whir of a motor and occasionally
the trembling note of an electric bell. But such sights and sounds
conveyed only an impression of the delicate methodical means by which
the daily and hourly variations of our weather conditions were being
recorded--a mere glimpse of the intricate arrangements of a first-class
meteorological station--the one and only station of that order which
has