The knife serves
many purposes. With it we kill, skin, and cut up seals and penguins,
cut blubber into strips for the fire, very carefully scrape the snow
off our hut walls, and then after a perfunctory rub with an oily
penguin-skin, use it at meals. We are as regardless of our grime and
dirt as is the Esquimaux. We have been unable to wash since we left
the ship, nearly ten months ago. For one thing we have no soap or
towels, only bare necessities being brought with us; and, again, had we
possessed these articles, our supply of fuel would only permit us to
melt enough ice for drinking purposes. Had one man washed, half a
dozen others would have had to go without a drink all day. One cannot
suck ice to relieve the thirst, as at these low temperatures it cracks
the lips and blisters the tongue. Still, we are all very cheerful."
During the whole of their stay on Elephant Island the weather was
described by Wild as "simply appalling." Stranded as they were on a
narrow, sandy beach surrounded by high mountains, they saw little of
the scanty sunshine during the brief intervals of clear sky. On most
days the air was full of snowdrift blown from the adjacent heights.
Elephant Island being practically on the outside edge of the pack, the
winds which passed over the relatively warm ocean before reaching it
clothed it in a "constant pall of fog and snow.
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