Notes

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 15, 14 April 1904, Page 18

Notes

Polar Exploration A new chapter in the daring history of polar exploration is furnished by the happy return of the ' Discovery ' and by the few published details of the labors of her occupants during the weary months when she was held in the grip of the ice in the white wastes of the Farthest South. Bernacchi describes the South Polar regions as ' enveloped in an atmosphere of (universal death,' clothed in ♦ lifeless silence,' and scourged by savage cold. The advantages of life in such circumstances could only be realised by 'Mr. Dooley ' when mopping his heated brow in Archey Road, while the atmosphere < looks an' feels like hot sou lP with people floatm' around in it like viggitables'.' <TV nights,' says he, 'is six months long, an' sleep is wan iv th' sports that age hasn't deprived me iv. It must be a great country f'r burglars. But f'r a plain workin' man it's ,very thryin'. Think iv a six months' workin' day. Ye get yeer breakfast and sun-up in March, an' ye don't set down to dinner till th' first iv June. Thin comes a long afternoon, an' I tell ye whin th' whistle blows at six o'clock in October, it's a welcome sound it sinds to yeer ears. Ye go home, an' all th' ehildher has growed up an' th' news in th' morn n' paper is six months' old. Ye lie around readin' an' playin' cards f'r a month or two, an' thin ye yawn an' set th' alarm clock f'r March an' says : " Man, it's the 15th iv November an' time th' ehildher was abed," an' go to sleep. . . At March ye're aroused be th' alarm clocks, an' ye go out to feed the seals, an' I tell ye, ye need a shave.' And the upshot of it is, that ' Mr. Dooley, 1 after all, prefers a land 'where ye don't tell th' lime iv day be th' almanac'