330 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 



was most careful, some said over-careful but I do not think 

 so, that everything should be neat and shipshape, and there 

 was a recognized place for everything. On the Depot 

 Journey we were bidden to see that every particle of snow 

 was beaten off our clothing and flnnesko before entering 

 the tent : if it was drifting we had to do this after enter- 

 ing and the snow was carefully cleared off the floor-cloth. 

 Afterwards each tent was supplied with a small brush with 

 which to perform this office. In addition to other obvious 

 advantages this materially helped to keep clothing, fln- 

 nesko, and sleeping-bags dry, and thus prolong the life of 

 furs. "After all is said and done," said Wilson one day 

 after supper, "the best sledger is the man who sees what 

 has to be done, and does it — and says nothing about it." 

 Scott agreed. And if you were " sledging with the Owner " 

 you had to keep your eyes wide open for the little things 

 which cropped up, and do them quickly, and say nothing 

 about them. There is nothing so irritating as the man who 

 is always coming in and informing all and sundry that he 

 has repaired his sledge, or built a wall, or filled the cooker, 

 or mended his socks. 



I moved into Scott's tent for the first time in the middle 

 of the Depot Journey, and was enormously impressed by 

 the comfort which a careful routine of this nature evoked. 

 There was a homelike air about the tent at supper time, and, 

 though a lunch camp in the middle of the night is always 

 rather bleak, there was never anything slovenly. Another 

 thing which struck me even more forcibly was the cook- 

 ing. We were of course on just the same ration as the tent 

 from which I had come. I was hungry and said so. " Bad 

 cooking," said Wilson shortly; and so it was. For in two 

 or three days the sharpest edge was off my hunger. 

 Wilson and Scott had learned many a cooking tip in the 

 past, and, instead of the same old meal day by day, the 

 weekly ration was so manoeuvred by a clever cook that it 

 was seldom quite the same meal. Sometimes pemmican 

 plain, or thicker pemmican with some arrowroot mixed 

 with it : at others we surrendered a biscuit and a half 

 apiece and had a dry hoosh, i.e. biscuit fried in pemmican 



