I climbed a small tilted berg nearby.  The country immediately ahead was much broken up.  Great open leads intersected the floes at all angles, and it all looked very unpromising.  Wild and I went out prospecting as usual, but it seemed too broken to travel over.

“December 29.—­After a further reconnaissance the ice ahead proved quite un-negotiable, so at 8.30 p.m. last night, to the intense disappointment of all, instead of forging ahead, we had to retire half a mile so as to get on a stronger floe, and by 10 p.m. we had camped and all hands turned in again.  The extra sleep was much needed, however disheartening the check may be.”

During the night a crack formed right across the floe, so we hurriedly shifted to a strong old floe about a mile and a half to the east of our present position.  The ice all around was now too broken and soft to sledge over, and yet there was not sufficient open water to allow us to launch the boats with any degree of safety.  We had been on the march for seven days; rations were short and the men were weak.  They were worn out with the hard pulling over soft surfaces, and our stock of sledging food was very small.  We had marched seven and a half miles in a direct line and at this rate it would take us over three hundred days to reach the land away to the west.  As we only had food for forty-two days there was no alternative, therefore, but to camp once more on the floe and to possess our souls with what patience we could till conditions should appear more favourable for a renewal of the attempt to escape.  To this end, we stacked our surplus provisions, the reserve sledging rations being kept lashed on the sledges, and brought what gear we could from our but lately deserted Ocean Camp.

Our new home, which we were to occupy for nearly three and a half months, we called “Patience Camp.”

CHAPTER VII

PATIENCE CAMP

The apathy which seemed to take possession of some of the men at the frustration of their hopes was soon dispelled.  Parties were sent out daily in different directions to look for seals and penguins.  We had left, other than reserve sledging rations, about 110 lbs. of pemmican, including the dog-pemmican, and 300 lbs. of flour.  In addition there was a little tea, sugar, dried vegetables, and suet.  I sent Hurley and Macklin to Ocean Camp to bring back the food that we had had to leave there.  They returned with quite a good load, including 130 lbs. of dry milk, about 50 lbs. each of dog-pemmican and jam, and a few tins of potted meats.  When they were about a mile and a half away their voices were quite audible to us at Ocean Camp, so still was the air.

We were, of course, very short of the farinaceous element in our diet.  The flour would last ten weeks.  After that our sledging rations would last us less than three months.  Our meals had to consist mainly of seal and penguin; and though this was valuable as an anti-scorbutic, so much so that not a single case of scurvy occurred amongst the party, yet it was a badly adjusted diet, and we felt rather weak and enervated in consequence.