88 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [MARCH 



March 5 to 15. The conditions are gradually but surely 

 becoming more unbearable and we cannot hope for improve- 

 ment until we are settled in some permanent home, for the 

 winter. The tents we are living in at present are more thread- 

 bare than ever, and are pierced with innumerable holes both 

 large and small, so that during the whole time we are inside them 

 we are living in a young gale. 



To-day, March 15, is the last that I expect the ship, and 

 from now on I shall conclude something has happened and that 

 she is not coming. 



For some days we have been preparing in every way possible 

 for the winter, and our position may be summed up as follows: 

 We landed, besides our sledging rations, six boxes of biscuits with 

 45 Ibs. in each box. The sledging biscuits were finished on 

 March i, and of the others we have to keep two boxes intact 

 for our journey down the coast. 



We have also enough cocoa to give us a mug of very thin 

 cocoa five nights of the week; enough tea for a mug of equally 

 thin tea once a week; and the remaining day we must reboil 

 the tea leaves or drink hot water solus. Our only luxuries are 

 a very small amount of chocolate and sugar, sufficient to give 

 us a stick of chocolate every Saturday and every other Wednes- 

 day, and eight lumps of sugar every Sunday. A bag of raisins 

 we are keeping to allow twenty-five raisins per man on birth- 

 days and red letter days, and I can see that one of Priestley's 

 difficulties in the future is going to be preventing each man 

 from having a birthday once a month. We have decided to 

 open up neither the chocolate nor the sugar till we are settled 

 in our winter quarters, and, at present, breakfast and supper 

 each consist of a mug of weak seal hoosh and one of weak 

 cocoa, with one biscuit. 



To eke out these provisions we have eleven seals and 120 

 penguins already killed, but to get through the whole winter, 

 even on half rations, we shall require several more seals, and 

 the infrequency of their appearance is causing us all great 

 anxiety. 



The wind is incessant, but although strong and very cold, 

 it at least has the merit of being usually free from drift, so that 

 on most days we can work even if under very disadvantageous 

 conditions. 



