182 SCOTT'S LAST (EXPEDITION [January 
found the handle of the primus pump had disappeared. We 
spent some time searching, but it was quite useless among the 
rough granite blocks. Just as we started pulling on the sea ice 
Debenham missed the sight-ruler, an indispensable part of the 
plane table, Luckily he found this about a mile back and Forde 
managed to make some ingenious leather caps that served in- 
stead of the other lost articles. 
According to orders we now spent the last week surveying 
the neighbourhood of the rendezvous. The blubber stove was 
going strong most of the day to melt water or cook supper. We 
used to light it with paper rubbed in the blubber. The black 
sooty blubber oil would leak out and melt the ice on the floor 
of the hut. The soot caked all the cooking utensils, and spread 
itself liberally over us. Gran could always be relied on to make 
any special delicacy such as porridge, for which we saved our 
‘thickers’ and a little oatmeal we had. This used to take him 
about three hours in the cold hut—while we worked out sights or 
wrote notes snugly in the comparatively clean tent. 
Moreover on these occasions Gran enlivened the cape by car- 
olling grand opera. When he felt the cold and soot and smoke 
rather too much for him ‘ Pagliacci’ or ‘ Bertran du Born’ 
would sink to pianissimo. Then we would shout our ‘ Bravos’ 
and ‘Encores’ and the northern Caruso would start off again 
and away flew the skuas. So by degrees a steaming pot of 
‘good stoof, that will stick to your ribs’ was brought to the 
tent by our hardy Norse mate. 
We found Gran’s seakale sprouting in their rock garden. No 
less than twelve dicotyledons! I’m sure they were the first grown 
under natural (or rather unnatural) conditions in 77° South. 
Unfortunately they only flourished a week, and even the native 
mosses did not get green that summer—which made me sure it 
was a very cold January. 
On the roth there was an addition to our circle. Gran found 
two skua chicks in one nest and took one as a pet. He tried to 
feed it, with the result that it nearly died; so he returned it. 
However, one of the pair of chicks is always killed in the first 
week or so. 
Gran and I went over to the Mackay Ice Tongue to deter- 
mine accurately the movement of the latter in the past thirty days. 
We reached the stake without much trouble by prodding for the 
crevasses and then set about finding its progress to the east. 
