se of
Kennedy, whose magnetic work was done principally at night, arrangements
were made to assist him with the cooking.

Work commenced during the winter months at ten o'clock and, unless
anything special had to be done, finished at 1 P.M., when lunch was
served. The afternoon was usually devoted to sport and recreation.

The frequent blizzards and heavy snowfall had by this time buried the
Hut so deeply that only the top of the pointed roof was visible and all
the outside stores were covered.

My diary for April 9 says:

"The blizzard" (which had commenced on the evening of the 6th) "played
itself out during the night and we got to work immediately after
breakfast. There was still a fresh breeze and low drift, but this
gradually died away.

"We were an hour digging an exit from the Hut. The day has been occupied
in cutting a tunnel entrance, forty feet long, through the drift, so
that driving snow cannot penetrate, and we shall be able to get out with
less trouble.

"As we get time I intend to excavate caverns in the huge drifts packed
round the house and stow all our stores inside; also a good supply of
ice for use during blizzards.

"I had intended to make a trip to Masson Island before the winter
properly set in, but with the weather behaving as it does, I don't think
it would be wise."

The 10th, 11th and 12th being fine, good progress was made in digging
out store-rooms on either side of the tunnel, but a blizzard on the 13th
and 14th stopped us again.

On going to feed the dogs during the afternoon of the 14th, Watson found
that Nansen was dead; this left us with seven, as Crippen had already
died. Of the remainder, only four were of any value; Sweep and the two
bitches, Tiger and Tich, refusing to do anything in harness, and, as
there was less than sufficient food for them, the two latter had to be
shot. Sweep would have shared the same fate but he disappeared, probably
falling down a crevasse or over the edge of the glacier.

Until the end of April almost all our time was spent in making
store-rooms and in searching for buried stores; sometimes a shaft would
have to be sunk eight to twelve feet. Bamboo poles stuck in the snow
marked the positions of the different stacks. The one marking the
carbide was blown away, and it was two days before Dovers finally
unearthed it. By the 30th, caves roomy enough to contain everything
were completed, all being connected by the tunnel. We were now
self-contain