South Polar Regions.
As the advance laboriously continued, the condition of the dogs, to Scott's poignant sorrow, went from bad to worse, and by 21st December the question of turning back had to be considered. At this time additional anxiety was caused by Shackleton, who was showing symptoms of scurvy; but Christmas Day was in sight, and as on that festival the travellers had decided to have a really satisfying meal, they resolved to push on farther.
Their meal on Christmas Day put new life into the party; but they realized all too acutely that their food supplies were so inadequate that, if they were to continue the advance they must be prepared to face the risk of famine. There were, however, strong incentives to urge them on their way. Each day took them farther and farther into regions hitherto untrodden by the feet of men. Who can blame them for taking the risks that were involved in their determination to continue the march?
But on 27th December, Wilson, whose industry in sketching and determination not to give in were beyond praise, was suffering so severely from snow-blindness that he had to march blindfold; and at last the decision to turn back had to be made. Observations taken at their last camp showed that they had reached between 82° 16' and 82° 17' S.—a finer record than Scott anticipated, after he had realized that the dogs were unable to fulfill the hopes placed in them.
The return march was a prolonged period of suspense. By January 9, 1903, only four out of the nineteen dogs which had started on the journey were alive, and on the 15th the last of them had to be killed. "I think," Scott wrote, "we could all have wept." Even more serious was the fact that at this time Shackleton became seriously ill.
A grim struggle followed, for although Shackleton showed unending courage he was suffering severely from scurvy, and Scott and Wilson, who were themselves attacked in a lesser degree by this disease, often had cause to wonder whether this return journey was not beyond their powers. It was with feelings of profound thankfulness that, at the beginning of February, Scott and his companions reached the ship. For ninety-three days they had been on the march, and during that time they had travelled 960 statute miles.
When the explorers reached their goal they found that the relief ship, the Morning, had arrived, and Shackleton returned in her; but the Discovery, after being so reluctant to freeze firmly into the ice, refused entirely to thaw out, and consequently Scott and most of his original party spent a second winter in the Antarctic. During this additional year Scott, with Edgar Evans and Lashley as his companions, made a wonderful western journey, in which adventures enough to last ordinary men for a lifetime were almost part of the daily routine.
Not until February, 1904, was the Discovery freed from the ice, and on 10th September she reached Spithead after an absence from England of over three years. In those years a crop of most useful information had been gathered, and many geographical discoveries had been made. Among the latter were King Edward Land, Ross Island, and the Victoria Mountains, and—most important of all—the great ice-cap on which the South Pole is situated.
Not for some years yet was the South Pole to reveal its secret, but Scott's first expedition may truthfully be said to have shown the way towards that revelation. In the years to come Amundsen frankly admitted how carefully he and his companions studied the accounts of Scott's and Shackleton's expeditions.
III