One day in January, although they had cut down their rations and ate as little as possible (so little indeed that they were getting weak), they found that they were coming to the end of their food, and they must either turn back or go on and die, in which case the record of their work would have been lost. So they planted a flagstaff with the Union Jack on it, and left a box containing a notice that they had annexed the land for Great Britain and King Edward VII.
They took a long look with their field-glasses in the direction of the South Pole to see if any mountains were to be seen, but there were none. And then they started on their desperate tramp to the ship.
They made a number of interesting and useful discoveries. They came upon mountains and glaciers of ice, and mineral rocks of coal and limestone.
And they found tiny insects which are able to live in the ice, and when they boiled them, they did not kill them!
They found that the penguins, the great wingless birds which sit up and look just like people, enjoyed listening to a gramophone, which they set going for their benefit.
But their journey back was a very anxious and trying experience for them.
In order to guide them they had planted flags here and there along their path, but storms came and blew them down, and it was, therefore, most difficult to find their way from one food depot to another. They did it largely by spooring their old tracks.
This is how Sir Ernest Shackleton describes their doings on one particular day:
"We were thirty miles from our depot. Although we could see it in the distance, it was practically unattainable, for soft snow covered treacherous crevasses, and as we stumbled along in our search for food we seemed to get no nearer to our longed-for goal. The situation was desperate.
"Two of our party, utterly worn out and exhausted, fell in harness, but with the greatest pluck again pushed on as soon as they had temporarily recovered. It was with a feeling of devout thankfulness that we crossed the last crevasse and secured some food. Beyond a little tea we had had nothing for thirty-four hours, and previously to that our last meal consisted merely of one pannikin of half-cooked pony maize-not much foundation for work under such conditions, and with an extremely low temperature. Under these conditions we marched sixteen miles in twenty-two hours.