THE WINTER JOURNEY cg ig) 
because they were in the wind, but because they were 
not sufficiently in it. The main force of the hurricane, 
deflected by the ridge behind, fled over our heads and 
appeared to form by suction a vacuum below. Our tent 
had either been sucked upwards into this, or had been 
blown away because some of it was in the wind while some 
of it was not. The roof of our igloo was being wrenched 
upwards and then dropped back with great crashes: the 
drift was spouting in, not it seemed because it was blown 
in from outside, but because it was sucked in from within: 
the lee, not the weather, wall was the worst. Already every- 
thing was six or eight inches under snow. 
Very soon we began to be alarmed about the igloo. 
For some time the heavy snow blocks we had heaved up 
on to the canvas roof kept it weighted down. But it 
seemed that they were being gradually moved off by the 
hurricane. The tension became well-nigh unendurable : 
the waiting in all that welter of noise»was maddening. 
Minute after minute, hour after hour—those snow blocks 
were off now anyway, and the roof was smashed up and 
down—no canvas ever made could stand it indefinitely. 
We got a meal that Saturday morning, our last for a 
very long time as it happened. Oil being of such import- 
ance to us we tried to use the blubber stove, but after 
several preliminary spasms it came to pieces in our hands, 
some solder having melted; and a very good thing too, 
I thought, for it was more dangerous than useful. We 
finished cooking our meal on the primus. Two bits of the 
cooker having been blown away we had to balance it on the 
primus as best we could. We then settled that in view of 
the shortage of oil we would not have another meal for as 
long as possible. As a matter of fact God settled that 
for us. 
We did all we could to stop up the places where the 
drift was coming in, plugging the holes with our socks, 
mitts and other clothing. But it was no real good. Our 
igloo was a vacuum which was filling itself up as soon as 
possible: and when snow was not coming in a fine black 
moraine dust took its place, covering us and everything. 
