PONY FLESH 



share had fallen to our lot. At lunch-time there would 

 be chocolate or cheese to distribute on alternate days, 

 and we much preferred the chocolate days to the cheese 

 days. The chocolate seemed more satisfying, and it 

 was more easily divided. The cheese broke up into 

 very small fragments on the march, and the allowance, 

 which amounted to two spoonfuls per man, had to be 

 divided up as nearly as possible into four equal heaps. 

 The chocolate could be easily separated into sticks of 

 equal size. It can be imagined that the cook for the 

 week had no easy task. His work became more difficult 

 still when we were using pony-meat, for the meat and 

 blood, when boiled up, made a delightful broth, while 

 the fragments of meat sunk to the bottom of the pot. 

 The liquor was much the better part of the dish, and no 

 one had much relish for the little dice of tough and 

 stringy meat, so the cook had to be very careful indeed. 

 Poor old Chinaman was a particularly tough and stringy 

 horse. 



We found that the meat from the neck and rump was 

 the best, the most stringy portions coming from the 

 ribs and legs. We took all the meat we could, tough 

 or tender, and as we went south in the days when 

 horse-meat was fairly plentiful, we used to suck frozen, 

 raw fragments as we marched along. Later we could 

 not afford to use the meat except on a definite allow- 

 ance. The meat to be used during the day was generally 

 cut up when we took a spell in the morning, and the 

 bag containing the fragments was hung on the back of 

 the sledge in order that the meat might be softened by 

 the sun. It cut more easily when frozen than when 

 partially thawed, but our knives gradually got blunt, 

 and on the glacier we secured a rock on which to sharpen 

 them. During the journey back, when every ounce of 

 weight was of great importance, we used one of our 



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