Both of these plans were adopted by Scott on the more important journeys, and his parties were able to be absent from the ship for long periods and to travel long distances.
CHAPTER V
THE START OF THE SOUTHERN JOURNEY
|
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit To its full height... |
...Shew us here
That you are worth your breeding, which I doubt not.
For there is none so mean or base
That have not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start.
—SHAKESPEARE.
During the later months of the dark season all thoughts had been turned to the prospects of the spring journeys, and many times the advantages and disadvantages of dogs for sledding were discussed. This question of the sacrifice of animal life was one on which Scott felt strongly from the time he became an explorer to the end of his life. Argue with himself as he might, the idea was always repugnant to his nature.
'To say,' he wrote after his first expedition, that dogs do not greatly increase the radius of action is absurd; to pretend that they can be worked to this end without pain, suffering, and death, is equally futile. The question is whether the latter can be justified by the gain, and I think that logically it may be; but the introduction of such sordid necessity must and does rob sledge-traveling of much of its glory. In my mind no journey ever made with dogs can approach the height of that fine conception which is realized when a party of men go forth to face hardships, dangers, and difficulties with their own unaided efforts, and by days and weeks of hard physical labour succeed in solving some problem of the great unknown. Surely in this case the conquest is more nobly and splendidly won.'
When the spring campaign opened in 1902 the original team of dogs had been sadly diminished. Of the nineteen that remained for the southern journey, all but one—and he was killed at an earlier period—left their bones on the great southern plains. This briefly is the history of the dogs, but the circumstances under which they met their deaths will be mentioned later on.
SLEDDING.