I9I2] THE SHIP DISAPPEARS 277 
wc brought them down from our distress signal 350 feet 
up the glacier, leaving only the big depot flag there. 
It was very trying work with the blubber stove, for 
there was no shelter on the cape. When there was any 
wind the flames would blow out of the door and give 
no heat at all. The water did not get tepid in half an 
hour ; whereas on a calm day it would boil in twenty 
minutes. I spent an hour trying to cook the fry and 
barely succeeded in melting the fat. We decided that 
the stove could not be used in high winds, even though 
it was in a sort of ice cave, and the cook sat in the door 
to keep the wind out ! 
Our rations had been cut down by half for a fortnight. 
Three or four biscuits a day, butter every other day, 
chocolate one stick ; pcmmican one-eighth ; sugar and 
tea two-thirds. However, we had plenty of seal meat, 
and as we were not working we required much less food. 
So passed several days. Gran spent all one afternoon 
making chupatties. The lid of the camera box was his 
pudding-board. He used the wheat meal ' thickers ' for 
dough, and collared our allowance of raisins. The cakes 
were cut out with the rim of a cup, and then fried in a 
mixture of butter, fat, blubber, and soot. Anyhow the 
result was highly successful, though the inside was some- 
what wet and the whole cake I should now consider 
distinctly heavy ! 
Each day we started the last bag of something precious. 
First the pemmican, then the chocolate, then the butter. 
Only one seal had been visible for some days, and I decreed 
her doom. She lay on a large piece of ice which was 
