Chapter 72

Some of the men became ill with scurvy, and the boats were used as hospitals, the men that were sound retiring to caverns. A few fish and fowl were caught, and eggs were procured. So March and April dragged along; and then the Antarctic winter began, adding snow and ice to their other troubles. What herbs to gather, how the natives protected themselves against scurvy, does not seem to have occurred to these unfortunates. They sat and shivered and lamented their fate and lost all hope. From the middle of May they we…