32 SCOTT'S. LAST (ORXPEDITION [Juty 
there must have been openings in our packing—and we thought 
it possible that by degrees the upward tension might draw the 
canvas roof out. We could not be quite certain that the ice-slabs 
were not being eaten away. This however proved not to be our 
danger, the slabs remained sound to the end and the canvas buried 
in the walls did not draw anywhere at all, even for an inch. 
The storm continued unabated all day, and we decided to 
cook a meal on the blubber stove. : We felt a great satisfaction in 
having three penguin skins to cook with for some days, so that 
we could last out any length of blizzard without coming to our 
last can of oil. 
We got the blubber stove going once or twice, but it insisted 
on suddenly going out for no apparent reason. And before we 
had boiled any water, in trying to restart it with the spirit lamp 
provided for the purpose, the feed-pipe suddenly dropped off, un- 
soldered, rendering the whole stove useless. [That was the end 
of the stove; very lucky it ended when it did, for it was obviously 
a most dangerous thing.] We therefore poured the melted oil 
into tins and lamps for the journey home in case our candles ran 
out, and for drying or thawing out socks and mits. 
We then considered matters in the light of a shortage of oil 
and absence of tent. We decided first to go as long as we could 
without a hot meal so long as the blizzard kept us inactive. We 
also saw that we could not afford to start our last can of oil with 
the vague chance of getting a seal and improvising a blubber 
stove and so staying on here. We still had a fill of oil in our 
fifth can. As for the tent, we believed we should at any rate find 
part of it, if only the legs, and we saw no impossibility in im- 
provising a tent cover of some sort from the canvas roof of our 
hut, even if the tent and lining were both lost. 
Lying in our bags in the hut we were very wet, and got wetter 
from the fine drift every time we moved in or out of them. Every- 
thing was buried in a pile of soft, fine drift. But we were not 
cold. We finished our breakfast on the primus when the blubber 
stove gave out, and this was our last meal for a good many hours 
as it happened. [At intervals during the next 24 hours Birdie, 
who was absolutely magnificent, was up and about, stopping up 
every crevice where wind or drift was working in with socks, mits, 
and anything handy. A drift hole was especially bad in the 
middle of the windward wall, drifting us all up lightly, and put- 
