igiz] 
HUNGER AND SUPPLIES 
137 
our seal meat too fast, so Jiad to come down to half tJic 
above ration, and it was not until tlie middle of July, 
when we got some more seals, that we were able to go 
back to the old ration. 
There is no doubt that during this period we were all 
miserably hungry, even directly after the meals. Towards 
the end of June we had to cut down still more, and have 
only one biscuit per day, and after July to stop the 
biscuit ration altogether until September, when we 
started one biscuit a day again. By this means we were 
able to save enough biscuits for a month at half ration 
for our journey down the coast. I am sure seals have 
never been so thoroughly eaten as ours were. There 
was absolutely no waste. The brain was our greatest 
luxury ; then the liver, kidneys, and heart, which we used 
to save for Sundays. The bones, after we had picked all 
the meat off them, we put on one side, so that if the worst 
came to the worst we could pound them up for soup. 
The best of the undercut was saved for sledging. After 
our experience in March, when we got thirty-nine fish out 
of a seal's stomach, we always cut tiiem open directly we 
killed them in the hope of finding more, but we never 
again found anything fit to eat. One of our greatest 
troubles was a lack of variety in the flavouring of our 
meals. Two attempts were made by Levick to relieve 
this want from the medicine chest, but both were failures. 
Once we dissolved several ginger tabloids in tlie hoosh 
without any effect at all, and on the historic occasion 
when we used a mustard plaster, there was a general 
decision that the correct term would have been linseed 
