Page:Scott's Last Expedition, Volume 2.djvu/209

from now on till the time we were relieved or relieved ourselves.

We decided to reduce the biscuit to half ration and cut out everything else for the time being except seal meat and a small portion of pemmican for flavouring. This same day we were fortunate enough to kill a small crab-eater seal. I tasted a small piece of raw blubber and rather liked it, while Abbott and Browning declared that it had a very strong flavour of melon.

It was some time, however, before the blubber was added to our diet as a regular ration. During this short period of calm several times one or other of the party thought they saw smoke off the end of the Drygalski, but there seems no doubt that what they saw was only what is known as frost smoke, the vapour from the leads of open water on pack ice, though the ship certainly was at one time within 25 miles of us.

On the 27th further discomfort was added to our condition as the gale was accompanied by blinding drift, so that we had all the unpleasantness of a barrier blizzard with no adequate shelter; for the tents were threadbare and torn in several places. The snow was soon so thick that the sledge was completely buried with drift and the tent three-quarters hidden.

During most of this fortnight we were living on one meal a day, and on this day we were unable even to get this, so that by the 29th, when the wind eased for a day or two, we were in no wise in a condition to look forward with equanimity to the chance of a winter without sufficient food or decent shelter; in fact so weak were we that a