ng out some three thousand feet from
the face of the glaciers which clothe the slopes of Erebus. It is roughly
an equilateral triangle in shape, at its base some three thousand feet
(9/16th mile) across. This base-line, which divides the cape from the
slopes of Erebus and the crevassed glaciers and giant ice-falls which
clothe them, consists of a ramp with a slope of thirty degrees, and a
varying height of some 100 to 150 feet. From our hut, four hundred yards
away, it looks like a great embankment behind which rises the majestic
volcano Erebus, with its plume of steam and smoke.

The cape itself does not rise on the average more than thirty feet, and
somewhat resembles the back of a hog with several backbones. The hollows
between the ridges are for the most part filled with snow and ice, while
in one or two places where the accumulation of snow is great enough there
are little glacierets which do not travel far before they ignominiously
peter out. There are two small lakes, called Skua Lake and Island Lake
respectively. There is only one hill which is almost behind the hut, and
is called Wind Vane Hill, for on it were placed one of our wind vanes and
certain other meteorological instruments. Into the glacieret which flowed
down in the lee of this hill we drove two caves, which gave both an even
low temperature and excellent insulation. One of them was therefore used
for our magnetic observations, and the other as an ice-house for the
mutton we had brought from New Zealand.

The north side, upon which we had built our hut, slopes down by way of a
rubbly beach to the sea in North Bay. We knew there was a beach for we
landed upon it, but we never saw it again even in the height of summer,
for the winter blizzards formed an ice foot several feet thick. The other
side of the cape ends abruptly in black bastions and baby cliffs some
thirty feet high. The apex of the triangle which forms as it were the
cape proper is a similar kenyte bluff. The whole makes a tricky place on
which to walk in the dark, for the surface is strewn with boulders of all
sizes and furrowed and channelled by drifts of hard and icy snow, and
quite suddenly you may find yourself prostrate upon a surface of slippery
blue ice. It may be easily imagined that it is no seemly place to
exercise skittish ponies or mules in a cold wind, but there is no other
place when the sea-ice is unsafe.

Come and stand outside the hut door. All round you, except where the