pot for six men, with a Bovril ration for thickening.  The flesh was white and succulent, and the bones, not fully formed, almost melted in our mouths.  That was a memorable meal.  When we had eaten our fill, we dried our tobacco in the embers of the fire and smoked contentedly.  We made an attempt to dry our clothes, which were soaked with salt water, but did not meet with much success.  We could not afford to have a fire except for cooking purposes until blubber or driftwood had come our way.

The final stage of the journey had still to be attempted.  I realized that the condition of the party generally, and particularly of McNeish and Vincent, would prevent us putting to sea again except under pressure of dire necessity.  Our boat, moreover, had been weakened by the cutting away of the topsides, and I doubted if we could weather the island.  We were still 150 miles away from Stromness whaling-station by sea.  The alternative was to attempt the crossing of the island.  If we could not get over, then we must try to secure enough food and fuel to keep us alive through the winter, but this possibility was scarcely thinkable.  Over on Elephant Island twenty-two men were waiting for the relief that we alone could secure for them.  Their plight was worse than ours.  We must push on somehow.  Several days must elapse before our strength would be sufficiently recovered to allow us to row or sail the last nine miles up to the head of the bay.  In the meantime we could make what preparations were possible and dry our clothes by taking advantage of every scrap of heat from the fires we lit for the cooking of our meals.  We turned in early that night, and I remember that I dreamed of the great wave and aroused my companions with a shout of warning as I saw with half-awakened eyes the towering cliff on the opposite side of the cove.  Shortly before midnight a gale sprang up suddenly from the north-east with rain and sleet showers.  It brought quantities of glacier-ice into the cove, and by 2 a.m. (May 12) our little harbour was filled with ice, which surged to and fro in the swell and pushed its way on to the beach.  We had solid rock beneath our feet and could watch without anxiety.  When daylight came rain was falling heavily, and the temperature was the highest we had experienced for many months.  The icicles overhanging our cave were melting down in streams and we had to move smartly when passing in and out lest we should be struck by falling lumps.  A fragment weighing fifteen or twenty pounds crashed down while we were having breakfast.  We found that a big hole had been burned in the bottom of Worsley’s reindeer sleeping-bag during the night.  Worsley had been awakened by a burning sensation in his feet, and had asked the men near him if his bag was all right; they looked and could see nothing wrong.  We were all superficially frostbitten about the feet, and this condition caused the extremities to burn painfully, while at the same time sensation was lost in the skin.  Worsley thought that the uncomfortable heat of his feet was due to the frost-bites, and he stayed in his bag and presently went to sleep again.  He discovered when he turned out in the morning that the tussock-grass which we had laid on the floor of the cave had smouldered outwards from the fire and had actually burned a large hole in the bag beneath his feet.  Fortunately, his feet were not harmed.