The Diaries of Frank Hurley, 1912-1941.

These diaries cover most of Hurley’s life, but the following notes are only from his Antarctic experience with Shackleton.

p. 13, 15 December 1914: No darkness at night now, it being possible to read print at 11 p.m. in one’s cabin from the porthole light.

p. 16, 8 January 1915: … The monotony of slow progression I have relieved somewhat by printing a series of prints from my negatives, with the intention of binding them up into a pictorial log of the expedition….

p. 17, 17 January 1915: I finished reading Marcus Clarke’s exquisite book [His Natural Life (1874)] which impressed me greatly, especially since I have been to the various places around which his tale is woven.

p. 21 and 29—gramophone competitions and entertainments.

p. 26, 26 July 1915: quote from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: “Nor dim, nor red,/Like God’s own Head,/The glorious sun uprist.

p. 35, 5 December 1915: Lazy day in tent, reading encyclopedia on Borneo, Sumatra and Australia….

p. 36, 30 January 1916. Eothen. Came to the end of Eothen. I would rather carry this excellent book than six times its weight in rations. Kinglake’s magnificent description of the desert, resembles Byron’s Ocean – an apostrophe written — not to be excelled. It transported me from the illimitable ice to the interminable desert sands, to the sphinx, to the great pyramids, and dwelt me transiently by the umbrageous olives of far Damascus and the knarled cedars of Lebanon. Alas! The book is finished and round me remains the ever unchangeable ice, the same leaden sky, the same existing patience – the same white line that girdles the boundary of vision and acts like a bar to our frigid captivity.

p. 39-40, 13 March 1916: … Never has time seemed to drag so much as today. Windy (SW) and foggy and the atmosphere very depressing. Even a desert island would be more acceptable to this drifting imprisonment of mental and physical inertia. Although time hangs on our hands, it is impossible to concentrate our thoughts for any time reading. Anxiety is felt by all that it is time to be making a move.