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Within her diminutive hull, twenty hands, picked from innumerable volunteers, were bestowed in very limited space, as might be imagined. She was, indeed, so packed with gear of one kind and another that I still wonder how her timbers stood the strain. Piecing together a jig-saw puzzle was child’s play compared with the stowing of her equipment and stores; not a single inch of space was wasted anywhere.

She was fitted with two complete wireless installations; not merely receiving sets, but also transmitting gear. Moreover, she was lit throughout by electric light, at all events during the earlier stages of the voyage, but the need to economize in fuel later compelled the use of oil lamps everywhere. A great quantity of her sea stores and the equipment that would be required when in the Antarctic was sent ahead of her to Cape Town, to be kept in store, awaiting our arrival; but even so she was packed full; and the port alleyway was pretty completely blocked by the seaplane which we were carrying. Everything that human ingenuity could devise or demand was there in that little ship.