i9"l HUNGER AND SUPPLIES 93 



of it had deteriorated owing to the heat of the sun and the 

 attentions of the penguins. 



The cocoa we could only afford to have five days a week 

 and then very thin, but as we had a little tea we had weak tea 

 on Sunday and reboiled the leaves for Monday. As already 

 stated we had a little chocolate (2 ounces per man a week), 

 and 8 lumps of sugar every Sunday. Our tobacco soon ran out, 

 even with the most rigid economy, and we were reduced to smok- 

 ing the much boiled tea and wood shavings a poor substitute. 

 About the middle of this month we found we were getting 

 through our seal meat too fast, so had to come down to half 

 the above ration, and it was not until the middle of July, when 

 we got some more seals, that we were able to go back to the 

 old ration. 



There is no doubt that during this period we were all miser- 

 ably hungry, even directly after the meals. Towards the end 

 of June we had to cut down still more, and have only one bis- 

 cuit per day, and after July to stop the biscuit ration altogether 

 until September, when we started one biscuit a day again. By 

 this means we were able to save enough biscuits for a month 

 at half ration for our journey down the coast. I am sure seals 

 have never been so thoroughly eaten as ours were. There was 

 absolutely no waste. The brain was our greatest luxury; then 

 the liver, kidneys, and heart, which we used to save for Sundays. 

 The bones, after we had picked all the meat off them, we put 

 on one side, so that if the worst came to the worst we could 

 pound them up for soup. The best of the undercut was saved 

 for sledging. After our experience in March, when we got 

 thirty-nine fish out of a seal's stomach, we always cut them open 

 directly we killed them in the hope of finding more, but we never 

 again found anything fit to eat. One of our greatest troubles 

 was a lack of variety in the flavouring of our meals. Two at- 

 tempts were made by Levick to relieve this want from the 

 medical chest, but both were failures. Once we dissolved several 

 ginger tabloids in the hoosh without any effect at all, and on the 

 historic occasion when we used a mustard plaster, there was a 

 general decision that the correct term would have been linseed 

 plaster, as the mustard could not be tasted at all and the flavour 

 of linseed was most distinct. 



For lighting purposes the blubber lamps we made were very 



