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AURORA AUSTRALIS.

a basin, settled myself in a comfortable position and started.

At the end of half an hour there were seven whole raisins and forty-nine pieces in the basin, stones scattered all over the hut and myself, raisin in my hair and in everything else within reach, and about two hundred raisins inside various members of the Expedition. There was raisin in everything at dinner from the soup to the tea, and I meet raisin stones in my bed, on all my clothes and in all my books.

Last but not least I retired from the fray, with my respect for all people who make cakes and puddings greatly enhanced. In the words of a prominent scientist on the Expedition, “To a man of my refined and sensitive nature, it is singularly repulsive to be beaten by a fruit.”

Another duty new to me is making tea, and it is by no means a light one. The capacity of this Expedition for tea is simply marvellous; some of the members take it in a bath, and among the many things I have learnt is that some Scotchmen take more tea than ‘whuskie’, (though that may be because they can get no ‘whuskie’,) and that they are more particular about it than even Australians. It is either too hot or too cold, boiled too much or not boiled at all, too