silence and the darkness were as waters to quench the thirst for identity, for separateness.
Although it was clear that Lassoo's six-day limit was purely fanciful, we could not but feel a bit more lost when the seventh day's sun rose on our unbroken solitude. Our men would undoubtedly have made great effort to return on the appointed day. Moreover, their horses must now be dead unless they had found help. The grain, less than a bushel, could not keep them going more than six days of hard work. We counted our paltry store of tins and hefted our bag of rice. This had now to be divided among our three servants whose bread stock was very low, Mohammed Joo and Lassoo having been supplied generously for ten days' constant riding or walking. Allowing Anginieur and myself together one box of sardines, a one-pint tin of pork swimming in water, a cup of rice, and four ounces of bread, and to the men a cup of rice and eight ounces of bread (for the three), we were still good for eight days. Happily the tea supply would go even a little longer. Oh, blessed beverage ! As we were quite inactive, the rations would have been satisfactory but for the extreme cold, which demanded the production of a lot of heat units. We usually spent fifteen hours in bed, covered in due form with all our trappings, thus minimising the heat losses.
It was, perhaps, an hygienic régime ; we could not eat enough to satisfy appetite, but we had enough to tame hunger. The only severe trials proceeding from our larder came when some unreadable label gave us a mere mess of cabbage, with-
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