138 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [April 
plaster, as the mustard could not be tasted at all and the 
flavour of linseed was most distinct. 
For lighting purposes the blubber lamps we made 
were very satisfactory. We had some little tins, which 
had contained ^ Oxo.' These, filled with melted blubber 
and a strand of rope for a wick, gave quite a good light. 
A tin bridge was pierced to hold the wick and laid across 
the top of the Oxo tin. We luckily had one or two books 
— ^ David Copperfield,' ' The Life of R. L. Stevenson,' 
and ' Simon the Jester ' being the favourites — and after 
hoosh Levick used to read a chapter of one of them. 
Saturday evenings, we each had a stick of chocolate, 
and usually had a concert, and Sunday evening at supper 
twelve lumps of sugar were served out and we had church, 
which consisted of my reading a chapter of the Bible, 
followed by hymns. We had no hymn-book, but Priestley 
remembex-ed several hymns, while Abbott, Browning, 
and Dickason had all been, at some time or other, in a 
choir, and were responsible for one or two of the better- 
known psalms. When our library was exhausted we started 
lectures, Levick's on anatomy being especially interesting. 
April 12. — A calm day. Priestley and I went over 
to the main depot to get some oil we had left there on 
the sledges, and in the afternoon I went into the cove 
south of us to look for seals. I saw one lying on some 
new ice, but I could not reach him. I found an old 
penguin egg. It was four months old if it had been 
laid this year, so I brought it back on the chance of its 
having been frozen all the time, but no such luck. It 
was hopelessly bad. 
