Wild was the first to overcome this difficulty by sewing into the
canvas wall the glass lid of a chronometer box. Later on three other
windows were added, the material in this case being some celluloid
panels from a photograph case of mine which I had left behind in a bag.
This enabled the occupants of the floor billets who were near enough to
read and sew, which relieved the monotony of the situation considerably.
"Our reading material consisted at this time of two books of poetry,
one book of 'Nordenskjold's Expedition,' one or two torn volumes of the
'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' and a penny cookery book, owned by Marston.
Our clothes, though never presentable, as they bore the scars of nearly
ten months of rough usage, had to be continually patched to keep them
together at all."
As the floor of the hut had been raised by the addition of loads of
clean pebbles, from which most of the snow had been removed, during the
cold weather it was kept comparatively dry. When, however, the
temperature rose to just above freezing-point, as occasionally
happened, the hut became the drainage-pool of all the surrounding
hills. Wild was the first to notice it by remarking one morning that
his sleeping-bag was practically afloat. Other men examined theirs with
a like result, so baling operations commenced forthwith.
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