of the tent itself jutted out beyond the igloo wall.

That night we took much of our gear into the tent and lighted the blubber
stove. I always mistrusted that stove, and every moment I expected it to
flare up and burn the tent. But the heat it gave, as it burned furiously,
with the double lining of the tent to contain it, was considerable.

It did not matter, except for a routine which we never managed to keep,
whether we started to thaw our way into our frozen sleeping-bags at 4 in
the morning or 4 in the afternoon. I think we must have turned in during
the afternoon of that Friday, leaving the cooker, our finnesko, a deal of
our foot-gear, Bowers' bag of personal gear, and many other things in the
tent. I expect we left the blubber stove there too, for it was quite
useless at present to try and warm the igloo. The tent floor-cloth was
under our sleeping-bags in the igloo.

"Things must improve," said Bill. After all there was much for which to
be thankful. I don't think anybody could have made a better igloo with
the hard snow blocks and rocks which were all we had: we would get it
air-tight by degrees. The blubber stove was working, and we had fuel for
it: we had also found a way down to the penguins and had three complete,
though frozen eggs: the two which had been in my mitts smashed when I
fell about because I could not wear spectacles. Also the twilight given
by the sun below the horizon at noon was getting longer.

But already we had been out twice as long in winter as the longest
previous journeys in spring. The men who made those journeys had daylight
where we had darkness, they had never had such low temperatures,
generally nothing approaching them, and they had seldom worked in such
difficult country. The nearest approach to healthy sleep we had had for
nearly a month was when during blizzards the temperature allowed the
warmth of our bodies to thaw some of the ice in our clothing and
sleeping-bags into water. The wear and tear on our minds was very great.
We were certainly weaker. We had a little more than a tin of oil to get
back on, and we knew the conditions we had to face on that journey across
the Barrier: even with fresh men and fresh gear it had been almost
unendurable.

And so we spent half an hour or more getting into our bags. Cirrus cloud
was moving across the face of the stars from the north, it looked rather
hazy and thick to the south, but it is always difficult to judge weather
in the d