gh Oates, I believe, had an idea that collars were
better. However, we had not got the collars. The mules themselves looked
very fit and strong: our only doubt was whether their small hoofs would
sink into soft snow even farther than the ponies had done.

No record of this expedition would be complete without some mention of
the cases of fire which occurred. The first was in the lazarette of the
ship on the voyage to Cape Town: it was caused by an overturned lamp and
easily extinguished. The second was during our first winter in the
Antarctic, when there was a fire in the motor shed, which was formed by
full petrol cases built up round the motors, and roofed with a tarpaulin.
This threatened to be more serious, but was also put out without much
difficulty. The third and fourth cases were during the winter which had
just passed, and were both inside Winter Quarters.

Wright wanted a lamp to heat a shed which he was building out of cases
and tarpaulins for certain of his work. He brought a lamp (not a primus)
into the hut, and tried to make it work. He spent some time in the
morning on this, and after lunch Nelson joined him. The lamp was fitted
with an indicator to show the pressure obtained by pumping. Nelson was
pumping, kneeling at the end of the table next the bulkhead which divided
the officers' and men's quarters: his head was level with the lamp, and
the indicator was not showing a high pressure. Wright was standing close
by. Suddenly the lamp burst, a rent three inches long appearing in the
join where the bottom of the oil reservoir is fitted to the rest of the
bowl. Twenty places were alight immediately, clothing, bedding, papers
and patches of burning oil were all over the table and floor. Luckily
everybody was in the hut, for it was blowing a blizzard and minus twenty
outside. They were very quick, and every outbreak was stopped.

On September 5 it was blowing as if it would rip your wind-clothes off
you. We were bagging pemmican in the hut when some one said, "Can you
smell burning?" At first we could not see anything wrong, and Gran said
it must be some brown paper he had burnt; but after three or four
minutes, looking upwards, we saw that the top of the chimney piping was
red hot where it went out through the roof, as was also a large
ventilator trap which entered the flue at this point. We put salt down
from outside, and the fire seemed to die down, but shortly afterwards the
ventilator trap fell on to th