324 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' [Sept. 



and in that sense it is still retained. The best of our pemmican 

 came from Messrs. Beauvais, of Copenhagen, and contained 

 50 per cent, of lard and, what was not so pleasing, 20 per cent, 

 of moisture ; later on we received from the ' Morning ' some 

 good pemmican made by the Bovril Company. The red ration 

 was a nondescript compound of bacon and pea-flour. I am 

 not very sure as to its food value, and it was retained because 

 it was starchy enough to thicken our nightly soup and make it 

 a mixture which, as the sailors said, ' stuck to your ribs.' 



The remaining articles need no comment, but I should not 

 forget to add that the following were also carried, though for 

 purposes of comparison I have omitted them from the first list. 

 Each tent was allowed per week : 



075 lb. of tea. 

 o # 5 lb. of onion powder. 

 0"25 lb. of pepper. 

 0-4 lb. of salt. 



The totals compared with the figures given before show the 

 amount of water which was unavoidably present, and without 

 going into details I can assure the reader that when one obtains 

 over twenty-nine ounces of food value out of thirty-four ounces 

 of weight carried, one can congratulate oneself on having one's 

 food in an exceedingly concentrated form. 



Including the smaller matters which I have mentioned, this 

 total would be brought up to thirty-five and a half ounces as 

 the daily allowance per man. It is interesting to compare this 

 with the allowance given in Northern expeditions. Greeley 

 allowed thirty-six ounces ; McClintock, forty-two ounces ; 

 Nares, forty ounces ; whereas Parry, in the early days, allowed 

 only twenty-two ounces. The journeys of the latter were not 

 of great length, but one can imagine how famished his party 

 must have been. 



The trouble taken in apportioning the different natures of 

 food has an extremely practical bearing. The object aimed at 

 is that, whilst the traveller develops a craving for food, it should 

 not be for any particular form of food. I have heard it said 

 by members of the older expeditions, 'The thing we craved 



