452 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 



the dog-driver after pitching his own tent being to dig 

 holes for each of his dogs. It may be that these condi- 

 tions are more natural to them than any other, and that 

 they are warmer when covered by the drifted snow than 

 they would be in any unwarmed shelter: but this I doubt. 

 At any rate they throve exceedingly under these rigorous 

 conditions, soon becoming fat and healthy after the hardest 

 sledge journeys, ,and their sledging record is a very fine one. 

 We could not have built them a hut ; as it was, we left our 

 magnetic hut, a far smaller affair, in New Zealand, for 

 there was no room to stow it on the ship. I would not advise 

 housing dogs in a hut built with a lean-to roof as an annexe 

 to the main living-hut, but this would be one way of doing 

 it if you are prepared to stand the noise and smell. 



The dog-biscuits, provided by Spratt, weighed 8 oz. 

 each, and their sledging ration was i^- lbs. a day, given to 

 them after they reached the night camp. We made seal 

 pemmican for them and tried this when sledging, as an 

 occasional variation on biscuit, but they did not thrive on 

 this diet. The oil in the biscuits caused purgation, as also 

 did the pemmican : the fat was partly undigested and the 

 excreta were eaten. The ponies also ate their excreta at 

 times. Certain dogs were confirmed leather eaters, and we 

 carried chains for them : on camping, these dogs were taken 

 out of their canvas and raw-hide harnesses, and attached to 

 the sledge by the chains, care being taken that they could 

 not get at the food on the sledge. When sledging, Amund- 

 sen gave his dogs pemmican but I do not know what else : 

 he also fed dog to dog : I do not know whether we could 

 have fed dog to dog, for ours were Siberian dogs which, I 

 am told, will not eat one another. At Amundsen's winter 

 quarters he gave them seal's flesh and blubber one day, 

 and dried fish the next. 1 On the long voyage south in the 

 Fram, he fed his dogs on dried fish, and three times a week 

 gave them a porridge of dried fish, tallow, and maize meal 

 boiled together. 2 At Cape Evans or at Hut Point our dogs 

 were given plenty of biscuit some evenings, and plenty of 

 fresh frozen seal at other times. 



1 See Amundsen, The South Pole, vol. i. p. 264.. 2 Ibid. vol. i. p. 119. 



