The sharp
white peaks of Elephant Island showed to the west of north a little
later in the day.
"I have stopped issuing sugar now, and our meals consist of seal meat
and blubber only, with 7 ozs. of dried milk per day for the party," I
wrote. "Each man receives a pinch of salt, and the milk is boiled up
to make hot drinks for all hands. The diet suits us, since we cannot
get much exercise on the floe and the blubber supplies heat. Fried
slices of blubber seem to our taste to resemble crisp bacon. It
certainly is no hardship to eat it, though persons living under
civilized conditions probably would shudder at it. The hardship would
come if we were unable to get it."
I think that the palate of the human animal can adjust itself to
anything. Some creatures will die before accepting a strange diet if
deprived of their natural food. The Yaks of the Himalayan uplands must
feed from the growing grass, scanty and dry though it may be, and would
starve even if allowed the best oats and corn.
"We still have the dark water-sky of the last week with us to the
south-west and west, round to the north-east. We are leaving all the
bergs to the west and there are few within our range of vision now. The
swell is more marked to-day, and I feel sure we are at the verge of the
floe-ice.
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