APSLEY CHERRY-GARRARD.
Lamer, Wheathampstead,
1921.
CONTENTS
PAGE INTRODUCTION xvii
CHAPTER I FROM ENGLAND TO SOUTH AFRICA 1
CHAPTER II MAKING OUR EASTING DOWN 24
CHAPTER III SOUTHWARD 48
CHAPTER IV LAND 79
CHAPTER V THE DEPAT JOURNEY 104
CHAPTER VI THE FIRST WINTER 178
6
CHAPTER VII THE WINTER JOURNEY 230
ILLUSTRATIONS
McMurdo Sound from Arrival Heights in Autumn. The sun
is sinking below the Western Mountains. Frontispiece _From a water-colour drawing by Dr. Edward A. Wilson._ FACING PAGE The Last of the Dogs. Scott's Southern Journey 1903. xxxvi _From a sketch by Dr. Edward A. Wilson._ The Rookery of Emperor Penguins under the Cliffs of the Great Ice Barrier: looking east from Cape Crozier. xlii _From a sketch by Dr. Edward A. Wilson._ Raymond Priestley and Victor Campbell. liv _From a photograph by F. Debenham._ Sunrise behind South Trinidad Island. July 26, 1910. 12 _From a water-colour drawing by Dr. Edward A. Wilson._ The Roaring Forties. 32 _From a water-colour drawing by Dr. Edward A. Wilson._ 7 Pack-ice in the Ross Sea. Midnight, January 1911. 62 _From a water-colour drawing by Dr. Edward A. Wilson._ A Sea Leopard. 66 A Weddell Seal. 66 _From a photograph by F. Debenham._ The Terra Nova in the pack. Men watering Ship. 74 _From a photograph by F. Debenham._ Taking a Sounding. 84 _From a sketch by Dr. Edward A. Wilson._ Krisravitza. 84 _From a photograph by F. Debenham._ Mount Erebus showing Steam Cloud, the Ramp, and the Hut at Cape Evans. 96 _From a photograph by F. Debenham._ Dogskin outer Mitts showing lampwick Lashings for slinging over the Shoulders. 114 Sledging Spoon, Pannikin and Cup, which pack into the inner Cooker. 114 _From sketches by Dr. Edward A. Wilson._ Hut Point from the bottom of Observation Hill, showing the 8 Bay in which the Discovery lay, the Discovery Hut, Vince's Cross, the frozen sea and the Western Mountains. 158 _From a photograph by F. Debenham._ Seals. 162 From the Sea. 162 _From sketches by Dr. Edward A. Wilson._ Winter Quarters at Cape Evans. Notice the Whale-back clouds on Erebus, the dA(c)bris cones on the Ramp, and the anemometer pipes which had to be cleared during blizzard by way of the ladder at the end of the Hut. 172 _From a photograph by F. Debenham._ A Cornice of Snow formed upon a Cliff by wind and drift. 176 _From a photograph by F. Debenham._ PLATE I. A panoramic view over Cape Evans, and McMurdo Sound from the Ramp. 184 _From photographs by F. Debenham._ The sea's fringe of Ice growing outwards from the Land. 198 _From a photograph by F. Debenham._ Leading Ponies on the Barrier. November 20, 1911. 206 _From a sketch for a water-colour drawing by Dr. Edward A. Wilson._ Frozen sea and cliffs of Ice: the snout of the Barne Glacier in 9 North Bay. 212 _From a photograph by C. S. Wright._ Erebus and Land's End from the Sea-ice. 224 _From a photograph by C. S. Wright._ Erebus from Great Razorback Island. 224 _From a photograph by F. Debenham._ Two Emperor Penguins. 234 _From a photograph by C. S. Wright._ PLATE II. A panoramic view of Ross Island from Crater Hill, looking along the Hut Point Peninsula, showing some of the topography of the Winter Journey. 236 _From photographs by F. Debenham._ Camping after Dark. 246 _From a sketch by Dr. Edward A. Wilson._ Camp work in a Blizzard: passing the cooker into the tent. 256 _From a sketch by Dr. Edward A. Wilson._ A procession of Emperor Penguins. 264 _From a photograph by C. S. Wright._ The Knoll behind the Cliffs of Cape Crozier. 264 _From a photograph by F. Debenham._ 10 The Barrier pressure at Cape Crozier, with the Knoll. Part of the bay in which the Emperor Penguins lay their eggs is visible. 266 _From a photograph by C. S. Wright._ The Emperor Penguins nursing their Chicks on the Sea-ice, with the cliffs of the Barrier behind. 268 _From a sketch by Dr. Edward A. Wilson._ Mount Erebus and detail of Ice-pressure. 280 _From photographs by C. S. Wright._ Down a Crevasse. 290 _From a sketch by Dr. Edward A. Wilson._ MAPS From New Zealand to the South Pole. lxiv Hut Point. From a sketch by Dr. Edward A. Wilson. 128 Cape Evans and McMurdo Sound. 194 The Winter Journey. 294 INTRODUCTION 11 Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised. It is the only form of adventure in which you put on your clothes at Michaelmas and keep them on until Christmas, and, save for a layer of the natural grease of the body, find them as clean as though they were new. It is more lonely than London, more secluded than any monastery, and the post comes but once a year. As men will compare the hardships of France, Palestine, or Mesopotamia, so it would be interesting to contrast the rival claims of the Antarctic as a medium of discomfort. A member of Campbell's party tells me that the trenches at Ypres were a comparative picnic. But until somebody can evolve a standard of endurance I am unable to see how it can be done. Take it all in all, I do not believe anybody on earth has a worse time than an Emperor penguin. Even now the Antarctic is to the rest of the earth as the Abode of the Gods was to the ancient Chaldees, a precipitous and mammoth land lying far beyond the seas which encircled man's habitation, and nothing is more striking about the exploration of the Southern Polar regions than its absence, for when King Alfred reigned in England the Vikings were navigating the ice-fields of the North; yet when Wellington fought the battle of Waterloo there was still an undiscovered continent in the South. For those who wish to read an account of the history of Antarctic exploration there is an excellent chapter in Scott's Voyage of the Discovery and elsewhere. I do not propose to give any general survey of this kind here, but complaints have been made to me that Scott's Last Expedition plunges the general reader into a neighbourhood which he is supposed to know all about, while actually he is lost, having no idea 12 what the Discovery was, or where Castle Rock or Hut Point stand. For the better understanding of the references to particular expeditions, to the lands discovered by them and the traces left by them, which must occur in this book I give the following brief introduction. From the earliest days of the making of maps of the Southern Hemisphere it was supposed that there was a great continent called Terra Australis. As explorers penetrated round the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn, and found nothing but stormy oceans beyond, and as, later, they discovered Australia and New Zealand, the belief in this continent weakened, but was not abandoned. During the latter half of the eighteenth century eagerness for scientific knowledge was added to the former striving after individual or State aggrandizement. Cook, Ross and Scott: these are the aristocrats of the South. It was the great English navigator James Cook who laid the foundations of our knowledge. In 1772 he sailed from Deptford in the Resolution, 462 tons, and the Adventure, 336 tons, ships which had been built at Whitby for the coal trade. He was, like Nansen, a believer in a varied diet as one of the preventives of scurvy, and mentions that he had among his provisions "besides Saur Krout, Portable Broth, Marmalade of Carrots and Suspissated juice of Wort and Beer." Medals were struck "to be given to the natives of new discovered countries, and left there as testimonies of our being the first discoverers."[1] It would be interesting to know whether any exist now. After calling at the Cape of Good Hope Cook started to make his Easting down to New Zealand, purposing to sail as far south as possible in search 13 of a southern continent. He sighted his first 'ice island' or iceberg in lat. 50Adeg 40A S., long. 2Adeg 0A E., on December 10, 1772. The next day he "saw some white birds about the size of pigeons, with blackish bills and feet. I never saw any such before."[2] These must have been Snowy Petrel. Passing through many bergs, where he notices how the albatross left them and penguins appeared, he was brought up by thick pack ice along which he coasted. Under the supposition that this ice was formed in bays and rivers Cook was led to believe that land was not far distant. Incidentally he remarks that in order to enable his men to support the colder weather he "caused the sleeves of their jackets (which were so short as to expose their arms) to be lengthened with baize; and had a cap made for each man of the same stuff, together with canvas; which proved of great service to them."[3] For more than a month Cook sailed the Southern Ocean, always among bergs and often among pack. The weather was consistently bad and generally thick; he mentions that he had only seen the moon once since leaving the Cape. It was on Sunday, January 17, 1773, that the Antarctic Circle was crossed for the first time, in longitude 39Adeg 35A E. After proceeding to latitude 67Adeg 15A S. he was stopped by an immense field of pack. From this point he turned back and made his way to New Zealand. Leaving New Zealand at the end of 1773 without his second ship, the Adventure, from which he had been parted, he judged from the