lvi WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
dauntless party set about passing through one of the most 
horrible winters which God has invented. They were very 
hungry, for the wind which kept the sea open also made 
the shore almost impossible for seals. There were red- 
letter days, however, such as when Browning found and 
killed a seal, and in its stomach, “‘ not too far digested to be 
still eatable,” were thirty-six fish. And what visions of joy 
for the future. ‘‘ We never again found a seal with an 
eatable meal inside him, but we were always hoping to do 
so, and a kill was, therefore, always a gamble. Whenever 
a seal was sighted in future, some one said, ‘ Fish!’ and 
there was always a scramble to search the beast first.” 
They ate blubber, cooked with blubber, had blubber 
lamps. Their clothes and gear were soaked with blubber, 
and the soot blackened them, their sleeping-bags, cookers, 
walls and roof, choked their throats and inflamed their eyes. 
Blubbery clothes are cold, and theirs were soon so torn as 
to afford little protection against the wind, and so stiff with 
blubber that they would stand up by themselves, in spite 
of frequent scrapings with knives and rubbings with pen- 
guin skins, and always there were underfoot the great 
granite boulders which made walking difficult even in day- 
light and calm weather. As Levick said, “the road to hell 
might be paved with good intentions, but it seemed prob- 
able that hell itself would be paved something after the style 
of Inexpressible Island.” 
But there were consolations; the long-waited-for lump 
of sugar: the sing-songs—and about these there hangs 
a story. When Campbell’s Party and the remains of the 
Main Party forgathered at Cape Evans in November 
1912, Campbell would give out the hymns for Church. 
The first Sunday we had ‘Praise the Lord, ye heavens 
adore Him,’ and the second, and the third. We suggested 
a change, to which Campbell asked, “Why?” We said 
it got a bit monotonous. “Oh no,” said Campbell, “we 
always sang it on Inexpressible Island.” It was also about 
the only one he knew. Apart from this I do not know 
whether ‘Old King Cole’ or the Te Deum was more 
1 Priestley, Antarctic Adventure, p. 243. 
