s
experienced.

We used the telephones almost daily for taking time, and Simpson used to
stand inside the hut at the sidereal clock whilst I took astronomical
observations outside in the cold. We also telephoned time to the ice cave
in which the pendulums were being swung when determining the force of
gravity. Telephones were quite efficient in temperatures of 40 degrees
and more below zero.

Midwinter Day arrived on June 22, and here one must pay an affectionate
and grateful tribute to Bowers, Wilson, Cherry-Garrard, and Clissold the
cook.

To start with, we had to discuss whether we would hold the midwinter
festival on the 22nd or 23rd of June, because in reality the sun reached
its farthest northern Declination at 2.30 a.m. on the 23rd by the
standard time which we were keeping. We decided to hold it on the evening
of the 22nd, this being the dinner time nearest the actual culmination. A
Buszard's cake extravagantly iced was placed on the tea-table by
Cherry-Garrard, his gift to us, and this was the first of the dainties
with which we proceeded to stuff ourselves on this memorable day.
Although in England it was mid-summer we could not help thinking of those
at home in Christmas vein. The day here was to all intents and purposes
Christmas Day; but it meant a great deal more than that, it meant that
the sun was to come speeding back slowly to begin with, and then faster
and faster until in another four months or so we should find ourselves
setting out to achieve our various purposes. It meant that before another
year had passed some of us, perhaps all of us, would be back in
civilisation taking up again the reins of our ordinary careers which, of
necessity, would lead us to different corners of the earth. The
probability was that we should never all sit down together in a peopled
land, for Simpson was bound to be racing back to India with Bowers and
probably Oates, whose regiment was at Mhow; Gran would away to Norway,
and the other Ubdugs to Australia. One or two of us had been tempted to
settle in New Zealand, and the old Antarctics amongst us knew how useless
it had been to arrange those Antarctic dinners which never came off as
intended.

But to return to the menu for Midwinter Day. When we sat down in the
evening we were confronted with a beautiful water-colour drawing of our
winter quarters, with Erebus's gray shadow looming large in the
background, from the summit of which a rose-tinted smoke-cloud delicat