SOUTH 
surprise. Sir Ernest and Hussey sledged out to meet us with 
dixies of hot tea, well wrapped up to keep them warm. 
" One or two of the men left behind had cut a moderately 
good track for us into the camp, and they harnessed themselves 
up with us, and we got in in fine style. 
" One excellent result of our trip was the recovery of two 
cases of lentils weighing 42 lb. each." 
The next day I sent Macklin and Crean back to make a 
further selection of the gear, but they found that several leads 
had opened up during the night, and they had to return when 
within a mile and a half of their destination. We were never 
able to reach Ocean Camp again. Still, there was very little 
left there that would have been of use to us. 
By the middle of February the blubber question was a serious 
one. I had all the discarded seals' heads and flippers dug up 
and stripped of every vestige of blubber. Meat was very short 
too. We still had our three months' supply of sledging food 
practically untouched ; we were only to use this as a last 
resort. We had a small supply of dog-pemmican, the dogs 
that were left being fed on those parts of the seals that we 
could not use. This dog-pemmican we fried in suet with a 
little floiu^ and made excellent bannocks. 
Our meat supply was now very low indeed ; we were reduced 
to just a few scraps. Fortunately, however, we caught two seals 
and four emperor penguins, and next day forty adelies. We 
had now only forty days' food left, and the lack of blubber 
was being keenly felt. All our suet was used up, so we used 
seal-blubber to fry the meat in. Once we were used to its 
fishy taste we enjoyed it ; in fact, like OHver Twist, we wanted 
more. 
On Leap Year day, February 29, we held a special celebra- 
tion, more to cheer the men up than for anything else. Some 
of the cynics of the party held that it was to celebrate their 
escape from woman's wiles for another four years. The last 
of our cocoa was used to-day. Henceforth water, with an 
occasional drink of weak milk, is to be our only beverage. 
Three lumps of sugar were now issued to each man daily. 
One night one of the dogs broke loose and played havoc 
110 
