360 WITH SCOTT: THE SILVER LINING 



our seal. " He died rapidly, thank goodness, and we plugged 

 through our job till about 2*15, having an awful time tying 

 the hide and blubber on the sledge, while the liver lobes ran 

 all over it. Gran swears they worked their way uphill, and 

 came out of the folds of skin ! I threw some bits into the 

 shear-crack, while washing the liver, and the hole was soon full 

 of amphipods, which are cousins of the shrimps. Gran says 

 he is going to fish hereabouts if he can get a hook." » 



On the 4th December we began to collect gear for our 

 next trip. Forde spent a lot of time at the blubber stove, 

 where he was the most expert cook. He cut up large lumps 

 of seal, and fried enough for eight meals. This was mixed 

 with pepper and salt, and about half cooked. He then filled 

 a large tin with this rough substitute for pemmican, and lashed 

 it on to the sledge. I used to enjoy a snack of this half- 

 cooked seal between meals, for there was now no doubt that 

 our appetites were of the true Antarctic variety. 



We had cleaned several skins now, and we fixed them 

 over the roof-tree of our hut. I sewed up the flipper holes, 

 and each skin was about eight feet by six. We lashed them 

 to the sledge, in the middle, and then hung huge stones from 

 the outer margins, which drew them taut, and held the skins 

 close to the walls. They soon became very sooty, but were 

 always translucent, for the hairs are large and coarse, and not 

 at all closely set. We could just stand up under our sledge 

 roof-tree. Forde spread gravel over the blubber-ice composi- 

 tion on the floor, and I gathered some moss and tried to stuff 

 up the crevices therewith. When the cold wind blew down 

 the hills it invaded our hut, and made us glad as soon as the 

 sooty meal was over, and we could take refuge in our snug 

 little tent below. 



That evening Gran and I climbed up to the top of the bluff, 

 above the flag. The sides were covered with granite debris ; 

 some colossal blocks were twenty feet across. In the clay 

 beneath them were mosses and lichens, one of the latter being 

 of a fine frondose shape, with root-like attachments. I collected 

 this specimen, and boxed it on my return ; but the skuas had 

 scattered our specimens when the ship's party finally arrived 

 in 1913. 



We got up in about one hour, and I began to have my 

 doubts about the five- hundred-feet height mentioned in the 1902 



