RECREATIONS 
stations, but as the days went by our life settled into a 
monotonous round. 
I cut the meals down to two a day. We had plenty 
of seal meat and biscuit, but all the other stores were 
approaching their last week. 
We used to have supper about 7 p.m. Every other day 
it consisted of a half ration of pemmican- — for though seal 
meat is not so black as it's painted (and it's very black 
indeed), yet we had eaten little else for a month, and were 
all heartily sick of it. Then we turned in and used to yarn 
or read till about 3 a.m., when we managed to get to sleep. 
We turned out at noon and had a biscuit and seal lunch. 
.During the afternoon we used to walk over the cape and 
inspect the cracks in the sea ice. One man was kept 
fairly busy cutting up seal meatj while the cook coaxed the 
stove to cook the fry. 
Debenham was our only smoker, and certainly found 
tobacco a great solace. I had brought socks instead of 
tobacco, and had looked forward to jeering at him when 
his tobacco and socks gave out. Unfortunately our socks 
lasted much better this trip as our boots were stronger, 
and I never used my spare socks ! 
Gran started a drama — a great "^nature play,' full of 
storms and wrecks with a strong substratum of melo- 
drama. It was called * Tangholman Lighthouse ' and we 
used to urge him to fill it full of incident and cut out the 
^ nature ' part of it. I read ' Martin Chuzzlewit ' for the nth. 
time and found it, as always, very interesting ; while Forde 
tackled ^ Incomparable Bellairs ' — a book which charmed 
Gran — but luckily Forde made it last a very long time. 
VOL. II. T 
