32 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION JULY 



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 us-eless. [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- 



