Page:Scott's Last Expedition, Volume 2.djvu/79

The three birds that we killed and skinned were very thickly blubbered, and the oil we got from them burnt very well indeed—and much more fiercely than the seal oil. There was about ¾ inch of pure fat under the skin. The birds were in excellent plumage. Bowers noticed there was very little soiled sea ice where they were standing, which also supports the idea of a very recent arrival, or recent freezing of the bay ice, or both.

There was another small group of Emperors wandering by the ice foot down which we came, but none of them had eggs. We saw no others.

The sea was frozen over as far as the horizon. There was a little evidence of pressure in cracks of the sea ice in the bay. Our visit was a very hurried one, unfortunately, owing to the shortness of the light and the risk of getting benighted in the pressure ridges. Subsequent events unfortunately made another visit impossible.

[We legged it back as hard as we could go, two eggs each in our fur mits; Birdie with two skins tied on behind, and myself with one. We were roped up, and climbing the ridges and getting through the holes was very difficult. In one place where there was a steep rubble and snow slope down I left the ice-axe half-way up; in another it was too dark to see our former ice-axe footsteps, and I could see nothing, and so just let myself go and trusted to luck. Bill said with infinite patience, 'Cherry, you must learn how to use an ice-axe.' For the rest of the trip my windclothes were in rags.

We found the sledge, and none too soon. We had four eggs left, more or less whole. Both mine had burst in my mits: the first I emptied out, the second I left