rked up that we should not be a bit surprised
to see a settlement of Japanese or some other such people some day when
we stroll round towards Blacksand Beach. The Old Sport created some
amusement this evening by opening a tin of Nestle's milk at both ends
instead of making the two holes at one end. He informed us that he had
got so used to using two whole tins of milk for cocoa for fourteen people
at night that he always opened them that way.

"As a consequence we have to spend most of our spare time making bungs to
keep the milk in the tin."[112]

Meanwhile, as was to be expected, the action of the, I suspect, abnormal
summer sea temperature was showing its effect upon the sea-ice. Sea-ice
thaws from below when the temperature of the water rises. The northern
ice goes out first here, being next to the open water, but big thaw pools
form at the same time wherever a current of water flows over shallows, as
at the end of Cape Evans, Hut Point and Cape Armitage.

On January 17 the ice was breaking away between the point of Cape Evans
and the ship, although a road still remained fast between the ship and
the shore. The ship began to get up steam, but the fast ice broke away
quickly that night. I believe they got steam in three hours, twelve hours
being the time generally allowed: only just in time, however, for she
broke adrift as it was reported. The next morning she made fast to the
ice only 200 yards from the ice-foot of the Cape.

"For the present the position is extraordinarily comfortable. With a
southerly blow she would simply bind on to the ice, receiving great
shelter from the end of the Cape. With a northerly blow she might turn
rather close to the shore, where the soundings run to three fathoms, but
behind such a stretch of ice she could scarcely get a sea or swell
without warning. It looks a wonderfully comfortable little nook, but of
course one can be certain of nothing in this place; one knows from
experience how deceptive the appearance of security may be."[113]

The ship's difficulties were largely due to the shortage of coal. Again
on the night of January 20-21 we had an anxious time.

"Fearing a little trouble I went out of the hut in the middle of the
night and saw at once that she was having a bad time--the ice was
breaking with a northerly swell and the wind increasing, with the ship on
dead lee shore; luckily the ice anchors had been put well in on the floe
and some still held. Pennell was getting