To rightly get hold of our wintering place one must imagine a low spit of land jutting out into a fiord running, roughly north and south and bounded on both sides by a steep-to coast line indented with glaciers of vast size. Here and there gigantic snow-slopes were to be seen which more gradually lowered into the sea, and all around ice-covered mountains with black and brown foothills. A few islands rose to heights of 300 or 400 feet in McMurdo Sound, and these had no snow on them worth speaking of even in the winter. The visible land was of black or chocolate-brown, being composed of volcanic tuff, basalts, and granite. There were occasional patches of ruddy brown and yellow which relieved the general black and white appearance of this uninhabitable land, and close to the shore on the north side of Cape Evans were small patches of even gritty sand. In the neighbourhood of our Cape hard, brittle rocks cropped up everywhere, rocks that played havoc with one's boots. Sloping up fairly steeply from Cape Evans itself we had more and more rock masses until a kind of rampart was reached, on which one could see a number of extraordinary conical piles of rock, which looked much as if they had been constructed by human hands for landmarks or surveying beacons—these were called debris cones. This part above and behind Cape Evans was christened The Ramp, and from it one merely had to step from boulders and stones on to the smooth blue ice-slope that extended almost without interruption to the summit of Erebus itself. From The Ramp one could gaze in wonder at that magnificent volcano, White Lady of the Antarctic, beautiful in her glistening gown of sparkling crystal with a stole of filmy smoke-cloud wrapped about her wonderful shoulders.
We used to gaze and gaze at that constantly changing smoke or steam which the White Lady breathes out at all seasons, and has done for thousands of years.
Those were such happy days during the first Cape Evans summer. For the most part we had hot weather and could wash in the thaw pools which formed from the melting snow, and even draw our drinking water from the cascades which bubbled over the sun-baked rock, much as they do in summer-time in Norway.
The progress made by Davis and his crew of voluntary carpenters was amazing. One week after our arrival at the Cape, Nelson, Meares, and I commenced to cut a cave out of the ice cap above our camp for stowing our fresh mutton in. When knock-off work-time came Bowers, Nelson, and I made our way over to the ship with a hundred gallons of ice from this cave to be used for drinking water, it all helped to save coal and nobody made a journey to or fro empty handed if it could be helped. Once on board we took the opportunity to bath and shave. In this country it is certainly a case of "Where I dines I sleeps," so after supper on board we coiled down in somebody's beds and slept till 5.30 next morning when we returned to camp and carried on all day, making great progress with the grotto, which was eventually lit by electric light. We had plenty of variety in the matter of work; one part of the grotto was intended for Simpson's magnetic work, and this was the illuminated section. Whenever people visited the ice caves we got them to do a bit of picking and hewing; even roping in Captain Scott, who did a healthy half-hour's work when he came along our way.
Scott and Wilson got their hands in at dog-driving now, as I did occasionally myself. Nobody could touch Meares or Dimitri at dog-team work, although later on Cherry-Garrard and Atkinson became the experts.
The hut was finished externally on January 12 and fine stables built up on its northern side. This complete, Bowers arranged an annexe on the south side from which to do the rationing and provision issues. How we blessed all this fine weather; it was hardly necessary to wear snow glasses, in spite of so much sunshine, for the glare was relieved by the dark rock and sand around us. When all the stores had been discharged from the ship she lightened up considerably, and Campbell then set to work to ballast her for Pennell. Meares amused the naval members of our party by asking, with a childlike innocence, "Had they got all the cargo out of the steamer?" There was nothing wrong in what he said, but the "Terra Nova," Royal Yacht Squadron—and "cargo" and "steamer"—how our naval pride was hurt!
Incidentally we called the sandy strand (before the winter snow came, and covered it, and blotted it all out) Hurrah Beach; the bay to the northward of the winter quarters we christened Happy Bay. Although our work physically was of the hardest we lived in luxury for a while. Nelson provided cocoa for Captain Scott and myself at midnight just before we slept. He used to make it after supper and keep it for us in a great thermos flask. We only washed once a week and we were soon black with sun and dirt but in splendid training. In the first three weeks my shore gang, which included the lusty Canadian physicist, Wright, carried many hundreds of cases, walked miles daily, dug ice, picked, shovelled, handed ponies, cooked and danced. Outwardly we were not all prototypes of "the Sentimental Bloke," but occasionally in the stillness of the summer nights, we some of us unbent a bit, when the sun stood low in the south and all was quiet and still, and we did occasionally build castles in the air and draw home-pictures to one another, pictures of English summers, of river picnics and country life that framed those distant homes in gold and made them look to us like little bits of heaven—however, what was more important, the stores were all out of the "Terra Nova," even to stationery, instruments, and chronometers, and we could have removed into the hut at a pinch a week before we did, or gone sledging, for that matter, had we not purposely delayed to give the ponies a chance to regain condition. It was certainly better to let the carpenter and his company straighten up first, and in our slack hours we, who were to live in the palatial hut, got the house in order, put up knick-knacks, and settled into our appointed corners with our personal gear and professional impedimenta only at the last moment, a day or two before the big depot-laying sledge journey was appointed to start. Simpson and Ponting had the best allotments in the hut, because the former had to accommodate anemometers, barometers, thermometers, motors, bells, and a diversity of scientific instruments, but yet leave room to sleep amongst them without being electrocuted, while the latter had to arrange a small-sized dark room, 8 ft. by 6 ft. floor dimension, for all his developing of films and plates, for stowing photographic gear and cinematograph, and for everything in connection with his important and beautiful work as camera artist to the Expedition. Ponting likewise slept where he worked, so a bed was also included in the dark room.
Before moving the chronometers ashore Pennell, Rennick, and I myself took astronomical observations to determine independently the position of the observation spot on the beach at Cape Evans. The preliminary position gave us latitude 77 degrees 38 minutes 23 seconds S. longitude 166 degrees 33 minutes 24 seconds E., a more accurate determination was arrived at by running meridian distances from New Zealand and taking occultations during the ensuing winter, for longitude: latitudes were obtained by the mean results of stars north and south and meridian altitudes of the sun above and below pole.
Before getting busy with the preliminaries for the big depot journey, I took stock of the fresh meat in the grotto. The list of frozen flesh which I handed over to Clissold, the cook, looked luxurious enough, for it included nothing less than 700 lb. of beef, 100 sheep carcasses, 2 pheasants, 3 ox-tails, and 3 tongues, 10 lb. of sweetbread, 1 box of kidneys, 10 lb. of suet, 82 penguins, and 11 skua-gulls! The cooks' corner in the hut was very roomy, and, if my memory serves me aright, our cooking range was of similar pattern to one supplied to the Royal yacht, "Alexandra."
On January 19 a snow road was made over to the ice foot on the south side of Cape Evans in order to save the ponies' legs and hoofs. The Siberian ponies were not shod, and this rough, volcanic rock would have shaken them considerably.