sperges au Beurre Fondu |

Plum Pudding Union Jack | Port
Pate de Groseilles | Kopke
|
Desserts |

Cafe

---------------0------------

During dinner the Blizzard will render the usual accompaniment--the
Tempest. For Ever and Ever etc.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

MIDWINTER'S DAY MENU AT THE MAIN BASE, ADELIE LAND, 1912

CHAPTER X THE PREPARATION OF SLEDGING EQUIPMENT

The world of fashion insists on its minute vagaries in dress not always
with an eye to utility and an explorer in the polar regions is a very
fastidious person, expending a vast amount of care on his attire, but
with the sole idea of comfort, warmth, and usefulness. The clothes
he wears are many and often cumbersome, but they have gradually been
perfected to meet the demands of the local weather conditions. After a
sojourn in the ice-lands, he returns to civilization with a new concept
of the value of dress. At last he can stand still without being reminded
that his feet are chilly; he experiences the peculiar sensation of
walking about in an airily light suit, in glove-tight boots, without
helmet or mitts. It gives him such a delicious feeling of freedom that
his energy is unbounded and life is a very pleasant and easy thing. Then
it is that he can turn in retrospect to the time in exile, appreciate
his altered circumstances and recall the many ingenuities which were
evolved to make him master of his environment.

It is sufficient to say that we found the proposition of clothing one
of unusual interest. Any one who was not a practised needleman and
machinist was handicapped for a time, until he fell into the ways of the
through-and-through and blanket-stitch, thimbles, shuttles, spools and
many other things he had once affected to despise as belonging to the
sphere of women's work. It was not long before he was an enthusiast in
many arts attaining to a stage of independence, in which he patented new
ideas and maintained them in hot opposition to the whole community of
the Hut. On some fundamental points all were in agreement, and one
of them was that Adelie Land was the country par excellence for the
wind-proof, drift-tight burberry.

Outside all other garments the burberry gabardine was worn. The material
was light and loosely fitting, but in wind and drift it had to be
hermeti