Christmas Day, 1913.
Potages aux légumes à l’Anglais.
Mulets d’eaux Patagonia.
Bœuf rôti d’Argentine. Pommes de terre de Punta Arenas.
Petits Pois à l’Angleterre.
Pouding Noël de Army & Navy Stores, garni “Holly Antarctic.”
Fromage Gouda, Beurre, Pain de Mana, Biscuits Matelote.
Bonbons Peppermint à la School-girl.
Café de Rio de Janeiro.
The forecastle was visited after dinner and each man given a half-pound tin of tobacco. Boxing Day was comparatively fine, and a laundry was organised on shore with great success; a fire was made, old kerosene tins turned into boilers, and the articles washed in camp-baths with water from a streamlet. It is one thing, however, to wet clothes in the Patagonian Channels; it is quite another to dry them. For days afterwards the rain descended in torrents, while the wind blew persistently from the north-west; with one short intermission we lay in Hale Cove weather-bound for thirteen days, till, as some one remarked, “it was a pity that we had not given it as a postal address.” It was tiresome of course, but an interval of rest for all on board after the strenuous passage of the channels was not without advantage; for ourselves journals were written up, flowers pressed, and photographs developed.