1 82 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. 



