There is no help for it, however, and each of us prepares to take another
man in so far as he can."[27]
In such spirit and under very similar conditions this dauntless party
set about passing through one of the most horrible winters which God has
invented. They were very hungry, for the wind which kept the sea open
also made the shore almost impossible for seals. There were red-letter
days, however, such as when Browning found and killed a seal, and in its
stomach, "not too far digested to be still eatable," were thirty-six
fish. And what visions of joy for the future. "We never again found a
seal with an eatable meal inside him, but we were always hoping to do so,
and a kill was, therefore, always a gamble. Whenever a seal was sighted
in future, some one said, 'Fish!' and there was always a scramble to
search the beast first."[28]
They ate blubber, cooked with blubber, had blubber lamps. Their clothes
and gear were soaked with blubber, and the soot blackened them, their
sleeping-bags, cookers, walls and roof, choked their throats and inflamed
their eyes. Blubbery clothes are cold, and theirs were soon so torn as to
afford little protection against the wind, and so stiff with blubber that
they would stand up by themselves, in spite of frequent scrapings with
knives and rubbings with penguin skins, and always there were underfoot
the great granite boulders which made walking difficult even in daylight
and calm weather.
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