THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



geological specimens, a piece of sandstone, as a knife- 

 sharpener. The meat used to bulk large in the pot, 

 but as fresh meat contains about 60 per cent, of moisture, 

 it used to shrink considerably in the process of cooking, 

 and we did not have to use very much snow in the pot. 



We used the meat immediately we had started to 

 kill the ponies in order to save the other food, for we 

 knew that the meat contained a very large percentage 

 of water, so that we would be carrying useless weight 

 with it. The pemmican and biscuits, on the other 

 hand contained very little moisture, and it was more 

 profitable to keep them for the march further south, 

 when we were likely to want to reduce the loads as far 

 as possible. We left meat at each depot, to provide 

 for the march back to the coast, but always took on as 

 much as possible of the prepared foods. The reader 

 will understand that the loss of Socks, which represented 

 so many pounds of meat, was a very severe blow to us, 

 for we had after that to use sledging stores at the depots 

 to make up for the lost meat. If we had been able 

 to use Socks for food, I have no doubt that we would 

 have been able to get further south, perhaps even to 

 the Pole itself, though in that case we could hardly 

 have got back in time to catch the ship before she was 

 forced to leave by the approach of winter. 



When we were living on meat our desire for cereals 

 and farinacious foods became stronger; indeed any 

 particular sort of food of which we were deprived seemed 

 to us to be the food for which nature craved. When 

 we were short of sugar we would dream of sweet-stuffs, 

 and when biscuits were in short supply our thoughts 

 were concerned with crisp loaves and all the other 

 good things displayed in the windows of the bakers' 

 shops. During the last weeks of the journey outwards, 

 and the long march back^ when our allowance of food 



