Part 19 (2/2)

plea of tired men. However, there was nothing like proof, and he readily a.s.sented to change sledges. The difference was really extraordinary; we felt the new sledge a featherweight compared with the old, and set up a great pace for the home quarters regardless of how much we perspired.'

All of them arrived at Cape Evans with their garments soaked through, and as they took off their wind clothes showers of ice fell upon the floor. The acc.u.mulation was almost beyond belief and showed the whole trouble of sledding in cold weather. Clissold, however, was at hand with 'just the right meal,' an enormous dish of rice and figs, and cocoa in a bucket. The sledding season was at an end, and Scott admitted that in spite of all the losses they had sustained it was good to be home again, while Wilson, Oates, Atkinson and Cherry-Garrard, who had not seen the hut since it had been fitted out, were astonished at its comfort.

On Sunday, April 23, two days after the return from Hut Point, the sun made it's last appearance and the winter work was begun.

Ponies for exercise were allotted to Bowers, Cherry-Garrard, Hooper, Clissold, P.O. Evans and Crean, besides Oates and Anton, but in making this allotment Scott was obliged to add a warning that those who exercised the ponies would not necessarily lead them in the spring.

Wilson at once began busily to paint, and Atkinson was equally busy unpacking and setting up his sterilizers and incubators. Wright began to wrestle with the electrical instruments; Oates started to make bigger stalls in the stables; Cherry-Garrard employed himself [Page 281]

in building a stone house for taxidermy and with a view to getting hints for a shelter at Cape Crozier during the winter, while Taylor and Debenham took advantage of the last of the light to examine the topography of the peninsula. E. Evans surveyed the Cape and its neighborhood, and Simpson and Bowers, in addition to their other work, spent hours over balloon experiments. In fact everyone was overflowing with energy.

On Friday, April 28, Scott, eager to get the party safely back from Hut Point, hoped that the sea had at last frozen over for good, but a gale on the following day played havoc with the ice; and although the strait rapidly froze again, the possibility of every gale clearing the sea was too great to be pleasant. Obviously, however, it was useless to worry over a state of affairs that could not be helped, and the arrangements for pa.s.sing the winter steadily progressed.

At Scott's request Cherry-Garrard undertook the editors.h.i.+p of the _South Polar Times_ and the following notice was issued:

The first number of the _South Polar Times_ will be published on Midwinter Day.

All are asked to send in contributions, signed anonymously, and to place these contributions in this box as soon as possible.

No contributions for this number will be accepted after May 31.

A selection of these will be made for publication. It is not intended that the paper shall be too scientific.

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Contributions may take the form of prose, poetry or drawing.

Contributors whose writings will lend themselves to ill.u.s.tration are asked to consult with the Editor as soon as possible.

The Editor, _S. P. T._

The editor, warned by Scott that the work was not easy and required a lot of tact, at once placed great hopes in the a.s.sistance he would receive from Wilson, and how abundantly these hopes were fulfilled has been widely recognized not only by students of Polar literature, but also by those who admire art merely for art's sake.

On the evening of Tuesday, May 2, Wilson opened the series of winter lectures with a paper on 'Antarctic Flying Birds,' and in turn Simpson, Taylor, Ponting, Debenham and others lectured on their special subjects. But still the _Discovery_ hut party did not appear, although the strait (by May 9) had been frozen over for nearly a week; and repeatedly Scott expressed a wish that they would return.

In the meantime there was work and to spare for everyone, and as the days went by Scott was also given ample opportunities to get a thorough knowledge of his companions.

'I do not think,' he wrote, 'there can be any life quite so demonstrative of character as that which we had on these expeditions.

One sees a remarkable rea.s.sortment of values. Under ordinary conditions it is so easy to carry a point with a little bounce; self-a.s.sertion is a mask which covers many a weakness....

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Here the outward show is nothing, it is the inward purpose that counts. So the ”G.o.ds” dwindle and the humble supplant them. Pretence is useless.

'One sees Wilson busy with pencil and colour box, rapidly and steadily adding to his portfolio of charming sketches and at intervals filling the gaps in his zoological work of _Discovery_ times; withal ready and willing to give advice and a.s.sistance to others at all times; his sound judgment appreciated and therefore a constant referee.

'Simpson, master of his craft... doing the work of two observers at least... So the current meteorological and magnetic observations are taken as never before on Polar expeditions.'

'Wright, good-hearted, strong, keen, striving to saturate his mind with the ice problems of this wonderful region...'

And then after referring in terms of praise to the industry of E.

Evans, the versatile intellect of Taylor, and the thoroughness and conscientiousness of Debenham, Scott goes on to praise unreservedly the man to whom the whole expedition owed an immense debt of grat.i.tude.

'To Bowers' practical genius is owed much of the smooth working of our station. He has a natural method in line with which all arrangements fall, so that expenditure is easily and exactly adjusted to supply, and I have the inestimable advantage of knowing the length of time which each of our possessions will last us and the a.s.surance that there can be no waste.

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