358 WITH SCOTT: THE SILVER LINING 



sealskins to cover our house, and as the walls were now high 

 enough, Gran and I went off on a fur-hunting trip. About 

 half a mile away was a big seal, and I determined to secure him. 



" It was extraordinary how long the muscular action 

 lasted, for this animal was stabbed three times in the heart 

 and pithed three times in the brain. We had great difficulty 

 in turning him over ; there is nothing so slimy, heavy, and 

 sloppy as a huge sheet of blubber and skin. We managed to 

 roll the heavy hide on to the sledge, but it would not stay 

 there. Just like a slow-moving glacier it slipped off every- 

 where. ' Trigger ' took off his belt and lashed it on, and we 

 managed to start by sticking the ice-axes in to keep some from 

 dragging in the snow. We had to cross an ugly shear crack 

 about four feet wide, regularly torn in the floe by the pressure 

 of the glacier, but it was no trouble by using the interlocking 

 promontories. We cooked tea on the blubber-stove, whose 

 white smoke lends homeliness to our headquarters. . . . We 

 named the latter Cape Geology, in memory of the chief object 

 of our journey, though we had been able to do very little 

 scientific work so far. 



" After lunch Debenham and I proceeded to flense the 

 blubber off, laying the hide on a rounded boss of ice. It was 

 slow work, for the sun warmed the blubber so that it was as 

 easy to cut as flannel two inches thick. We dug out a cache 

 between two blocks of ice and put the meat and blubber 

 therein, covering them with smaller blocks of ice, and this 

 storehouse served well after we had taken the precaution to 

 mark it with a bamboo, so that it was not lost in the snow. 



" I made a granite seat in the hut, and will have a fur 

 carpet, for it is cold for the toes on the snowy floor. The 

 stove smokes badly, but gives off enormous flames and heat, 

 only burning 10" x 3" X 10" of blubber per meal. . . . ' Soon, 

 however, the soot and oil filled the bottom of the stove, and 

 then it ran out over the rocks and spread all over the snowy 

 floor. We had to stand in this fearful mixture, which is 

 dirtier than the grease in a foul motor engine, and much more 

 ubiquitous. The smoke made one gasp as eddies drove it 

 into the face, and we never managed a door for the hut to 

 keep out the icy winds blowing down from Mount England. 



The sledge ran along the centre of the roof, and the 

 chimney projected through it. Biscuit-boxes helped to form 



