But, as one man philosophically remarked in his diary: 

“It will do us all good to be hungry like this, for we will appreciate so much more the good things when we get home.”

Seals and penguins now seemed to studiously avoid us, and on taking stock of our provisions on March 21 I found that we had only sufficient meat to last us for ten days, and the blubber would not last that time even, so one biscuit had to be our midday meal.

Our meals were now practically all seal meat, with one biscuit at midday; and I calculated that at this rate, allowing for a certain number of seals and penguins being caught, we could last for nearly six months.  We were all very weak though, and as soon as it appeared likely that we should leave our floe and take to the boats I should have to considerably increase the ration.  One day a huge sea-leopard climbed on to the floe and attacked one of the men.  Wild, hearing the shouting, ran out and shot it.  When it was cut up, we found in its stomach several undigested fish.  These we fried in some of its blubber, and so had our only “fresh” fish meal during the whole of our drift on the ice.

“As fuel is so scarce we have had to resort to melting ice for drinking-water in tins against our bodies, and we treat the tins of dog-pemmican for breakfast similarly by keeping them in our sleeping-bags all night.

“The last two teams of dogs were shot to-day (April 2) the carcasses being dressed for food.  We had some of the dog-meat cooked, and it was not at all bad—­just like beef, but, of course, very tough.”

On April 5 we killed two seals, and this, with the sea-leopard of a few days before, enabled us to slightly increase our ration.  Everybody now felt much happier; such is the psychological effect of hunger appeased.

On cold days a few strips of raw blubber were served out to all hands, and it is wonderful how it fortified us against the cold.

Our stock of forty days’ sledging rations remained practically untouched, but once in the boats they were used at full strength.

When we first settled down at Patience Camp the weather was very mild.  New Year’s Eve, however, was foggy and overcast, with some snow, and next day, though the temperature rose to 38° Fahr., it was “abominably cold and wet underfoot.”  As a rule, during the first half of January the weather was comparatively warm, so much so that we could dispense with our mitts and work outside for quite long periods with bare hands.  Up till the 13th it was exasperatingly warm and calm.  This meant that our drift northwards, which was almost entirely dependent on the wind, was checked.  A light southerly breeze on the 16th raised all our hopes, and as the temperature was dropping we were looking forward to a period of favourable winds and a long drift north.