e ever
changing coast between the various "fixes." One could keep warm doing
this and one saw more of the land and ice formation than the others, for
it meant following carefully round-cape and glacier edge, penetrating
inlets and delineating every islet, promontory, cliff, and talus.

In spite of the cold, the gloom, and the sad whistling wind that heralded
the now fast approaching darkness, I felt glad to work with my sextant
and sketch-book under the shadow of those fantastic ice-foots hung round
with fringes of icicle. I loved to go with Gran into the deep bays and
walk for miles under the overhanging of the vast ice cliffs all purple in
the reflection of the early winter noon, and to come out sometimes as we
did on to the sea ice clear of a jutting glacier, to face suddenly
northward over the frozen sea where nothing but a great waste of ice
stretched away to meet the horizon and the rosy, copper glow of the
departed sun's rays. Some of the cloud effects at the end of April were
too wonderful for mere pen or brush to describe. To appreciate them one
must go there and see them, those wonderful half-light tints.

Then there were the ice caves and grottos which were formed in the
grounded icebergs that had overturned before we came, and the still more
wonderful caves in the ice-sheet where it over-rode Ross Island and
formed a cliff-face between Cape Evans and Glacier Tongue,
extraordinarily like the white chalk cliffs of Studland Bay I found them,
with here and there outstanding pinnacles which a little imagination
would liken to Old Harry Rocks when the gray light was on them.

At the most we could only take sextant and theodolite angles for two
hours on either side of noon, so Gran and I went without our lunch,
taking a few biscuits and some chocolate out with us on our survey days,
and as we worked farther and farther from our base we found it necessary
to start out in the darkness in order to take full advantage of what
light was vouchsafed us. It was good healthy work and we developed
glorious appetites, so that our mouths ran with water when perhaps we met
a couple of fellows leading the little white ponies on the sea ice for
exercise, and they told us what they had had for lunch and what was being
kept for us. We found it all most interesting and, although I detested
that sunless winter, I loved the changing scenery, which never seemed
monotonous when there was any daylight or moonlight. To mark our
"station