164 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
From odd corners we unearthed some Contemporary 
Reviews, the Girls’ Own Paper and the Family Herald, 
all of ten years ago! We also found encased in ice an in- 
complete copy of Stanley Weyman’s My Lady Rotha; it 
was carefully thawed out and read by everybody, and the 
excitement was increased by the fact that the end of the 
book was missing. 
‘““Who’s going to cook?” was one of the last queries 
each night, and two men would volunteer. It is not great 
fun lighting an ordinary coal fire on a cold winter’s morn- 
ing, but lighting the blubber fire at Hut Point when the 
metal frosted your fingers and the frozen blubber had to 
be induced to drip was a far more arduous task. ‘The water 
was converted from its icy state and, by that time, the 
stove was getting hot, in inverse proportion to your temper. 
Seal liver fry and cocoa with unlimited Discovery Cabin 
biscuits were the standard dish for breakfast, and when it 
was ready a sustained cry of ‘hoosh’ brought the sleepers 
from their bags, wiping reindeer hairs from their eyes. I 
think I was responsible for the greatest breakfast failure 
when I fried some biscuits and sardines (we only had 
one tin). Leaving the biscuits in the frying pan, the lid 
of a cooker, after taking it from the fire, they went on 
cooking and became as charcoal. This meal was known 
as ‘the burnt-offering.” On April 1 Bowers prepared to 
make a fool of two of us by putting chaff in our pannikins 
and covering the top only with seal meat. The plan turned 
back upon the maker, for he had not enough left to 
make up the deficiency, and, as I found out many weeks 
afterwards, surreptitiously gave up his own hoosh to the 
April fools and went without himself. Of such are the 
small incidents which afforded real amusement and even 
live in the memory as outstanding features of our existence. 
Breakfast done, there was a general clean-up. One 
seized the apology for a broom which existed: day foot- 
gear, finnesko, hair socks, ordinary socks and puttees, took _ 
the place of fleecy sleeping-socks and fur-lined sleeping- | 
boots: lunch cooks began to make their preparations: ice 
was fetched for water: a frozen chunk of red seal meat 
