96 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [May 
From now till the end of the month strong gales again re- 
duced our outside work to a minimum, and most of our energies 
were directed to improving our domestic routine. 
We have now a much better method for cutting up the 
meat for the hoosh. Until now we had to take the frozen joints 
and hack them in pieces with an ice-axe. We have now fixed 
up an empty biscuit tin on a bamboo tripod over the blubber 
fire. The small pieces of meat we put in this to thaw; the 
larger joints hang from the bamboo. In this way they thaw 
sufficiently in the twenty-four hours to cut up with a knife, and we 
find this cleaner and more economical. 
We celebrated two special occasions on this month, my wed- 
ding-day on the roth, and the anniversary, to use a paradox, of 
the commissioning of the hut on the 17th, and each time the 
commissariat officer relaxed his hold to the extent of ten raisins 
each. 
Levick is saving his biscuit to see how it feels to go without 
cereals for a week. He also wants to have one real good feed 
at the end of the week. His idea is that by eating more blubber 
he will not feel the want of the biscuits very much. 
On May 25 we had an unpleasant experience that might 
have been serious. Drift had blocked the funnel and shaft so 
that the smoke from the blubber stove became unbearable and 
we made up our minds to put it out. As a matter of fact it went 
out, and we had the greatest difficulty in keeping the lamps alight. 
This ought to have warned us the air was bad. 
In spite of this we lit the primus stove to cook the evening 
hoosh, though we had the greatest difficulty in making it burn. 
Just before hoosh was ready it went out, and all the lamps 
followed suit. 
Three matches struck in succession did the same before we 
realised there was no air. I groped for a spade, and crawling 
along the shaft drove it through the drift, when a match burned 
immediately, the primus stove gave us no trouble, and all went 
well; but it was a lesson to us, and in future I kept a long 
bamboo stuck through the chimney, and the wind keeping it 
shaking maintained an air hole. When I fetched the bamboo 
it was only about 10 yards from the entrance of the shaft, yet 
the drift was so smothering and the night so dark, it was with the 
greatest difficulty I could find it. 
