another.

On August 7, after drinking to absent friends, Oates, Atkinson, and Gran,
"the three midshipmen" were confirmed in their rank and a ship's biscuit
broken on the head of each in accordance with gunroom practice, and after
this day, during good and bad weather, these three kept regular watch
with the seamen, going aloft, steering, and taking all the usual duties
in their turn.

From the start Pennell, who was to relieve me in command of the ship on
her arrival at the Antarctic base, showed an astounding knowledge of
birds, and Wilson took the keenest interest in teaching him about
bird-life in the Great Southern ocean and giving him a preliminary idea
of the bird types to be met with in Antarctica.

Reflecting back to these days one sees how well we all knitted into the
places we were to fill, because a long sea-voyage searches out hidden
qualities and defects, not that there were many of the latter, still one
man developed lung trouble and another had a strained heart. One of
these, to our great regret, was forced to leave the expedition before the
ship went south, while the other had to be ruled out of the shore
party--an awful disappointment to them both.

We reached Simon's Town on August 15, and here the Naval authorities gave
us every assistance, lent us working parties and made good our long
defect list. We were disappointed on arriving to find that Captain Scott
was away in Pretoria, but he succeeded in obtaining a grant of 500 pounds
from the South African Government and raised another 500 pounds by
private subscription. When Captain Scott came amongst us again he wrote
of the "Terra Nova" party that we were all very pleased with the ship and