We had also brought a board to form a lintel
over the door. Here with the stove, which was to be fed with blubber from
the penguins, we were to have a comfortable warm home whence we would
make excursions to the rookery perhaps four miles away. Perhaps we would
manage to get our tent down to the rookery itself and do our scientific
work there on the spot, leaving our nice hut for a night or more. That is
how we planned it.
That same night "we started to dig in under a great boulder on the top of
the hill, hoping to make this a large part of one of the walls of the
hut, but the rock came close underneath and stopped us. We then chose a
moderately level piece of moraine about twelve feet away, and just under
the level of the top of the hill, hoping that here in the lee of the
ridge we might escape a good deal of the tremendous winds which we knew
were common. Birdie gathered rocks from over the hill, nothing was too
big for him; Bill did the banking up outside while I built the wall with
the boulders. The rocks were good, the snow, however, was blown so hard
as to be practically ice; a pick made little impression upon it, and the
only way was to chip out big blocks gradually with the small shovel. The
gravel was scanty, but good when there was any. Altogether things looked
very hopeful when we turned in to the tent some 150 yards down the slope,
having done about half one of the long walls.
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