44 
SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [July 
the wind dropped to light airs the weather looked thick 
and unsettled, with stratus moving up rapidly from the 
south. 
We spent the whole of our daylight in packing our 
hut with soft snow, until not a crack or a crevice remained 
visible anywhere on the outside. 
Then we brought up our tent from the hollow below, 
and pitched it, for the sake of convenience, under the 
lee end of our hut, quite close to the door. My idea in 
doing this was to get more efficient heat for drying socks 
and other gear than was possible in the hut. The large 
open canvas roof of the hut allowed all the heat to escape 
at once, but in the double tent the intense heat of the 
blubber stove dried anything hung in the apex in a very 
short time. 
We cooked our supper in the tent, nearly stifling 
ourselves with the smoke, but the heating effect was 
immense. [The blubber stove heated the oil so much 
that we expected every minute that the whole would 
flare up. It took a lot of primus to start it. We took 
our finnesko in to try and dry them there with the rest 
of the gear when we left. Bill and I, however, took 
our private bags back into the igloo. After dinner we 
flenced one of the Emperor skins as hard as we could 
and boiled down the blubber in the inner cooker — very 
good stuff — nearly filling the stove up.] We then moved 
to the hut to sleep, believing it to be as safe and as 
comfortable as it could be made until we got some cover- 
ing for the roof, such as sealskins. When we turned in 
there was practically no wind at all, but the sky was 
