New land in the shape of ice-clad mountains greeted the explorers on 22nd November. "It is a wonderful place we are in, all new to the world," says Shackleton; "there is an impression of limitless solitude about it that makes us feel so small as we trudge along, a few dark specks on the snowy plain."
They now had to quit the Barrier in order to travel south. Fortunately they found a gap, called the Southern Gateway, which afforded a direct line to the Pole. But their ponies had suffered badly during the march; they had already been obliged to shoot three of them, and on 7th December the last pony fell down a crevasse and was killed. They had now reached a great plateau some seven thousand feet above the sea; it rose steadily toward the south, and Christmas Day found them "lying in a little tent, isolated high on the roof of the world, far from the ways trodden by man." With forty-eight degrees of frost, drifting snow, and a biting wind, they spent the next few days hauling their sledges up a steep incline. They had now only a month's food left. Pressing on with reduced rations, in the face of freezing winds, they reached a height of ten thousand and fifty feet.
It was the 6th of January, and they were in latitude 88 degrees, when a "blinding, shrieking blizzard" made all further advance impossible. For sixty hours the four hungry explorers lay in their sleeping-bags, nearly perished with cold. "The most trying day we have yet spent," writes Shackleton, "our fingers and faces being continually frostbitten. To-morrow we will rush south with the flag. It is our last outward march."
The gale breaking, they marched on till 9th January, when they stopped within ninety-seven miles of the Pole, where they hoisted the Union Jack, and took possession of the great plateau in the King's name.
"We could see nothing but the dead-white snow plain. There was no break in the plateau as it extended towards the Pole. I am confident that the Pole lies on the great plateau we have discovered miles and miles from any outstanding land."
And so the four men turned homewards. "Whatever our regret may be, we have done our best," said the leader somewhat sadly. Blinding blizzards followed them as they made their way slowly back. On 28th January they reached the Great Ice Barrier. Their food was well-nigh spent; their daily rations consisted of six biscuits and some horse-meat in the shape of the Manchurian ponies they had shot and left the November before. But it disagreed with most of them, and it was four very weak and ailing men who staggered back to the Nimrod toward the end of February 1909.
Shackleton reached England in the autumn of 1909 to find that another Antarctic expedition was to leave our shores in the following summer under the command of Scott, in the Terra Nova. It was one of the best-equipped expeditions that ever started; motor-sledges had been specially constructed to go over the deep snow, which was fatal to the motor-car carried by Shackleton. There were fifteen ponies and thirty dogs. Leaving England in July 1910, Scott was established in winter quarters in McMurdo Sound by 26th January 1911. It was November before he could start on the southern expedition.
"We left Hut Point on the evening of 2nd November. For sixty miles we followed the track of the motors (sent on five days before). The ponies are going very steadily. We found the motor party awaiting us in latitude 80½ degrees south. The motors had proved entirely satisfactory, and the machines dragged heavy loads over the worst part of the Barrier surface, crossing several crevasses. The sole cause of abandonment was the overheating of the air-cooled engines. We are building snow cairns at intervals of four miles to guide homeward parties and leaving a week's provisions at every degree of latitude. As we proceeded the weather grew worse, and snowstorms were frequent. The sky was continually overcast, and the land was rarely visible. The ponies, however, continued to pull splendidly."
As they proceeded south they encountered terrific storms of wind and snow, out of which they had constantly to dig the ponies. Christmas passed and the New Year of 1912 dawned. On 3rd January when one hundred and fifty miles from the Pole, "I am going forward," says Scott, "with a party of five men with a month's provisions, and the prospect of success seems good, provided that the weather holds and no unforeseen obstacles arise."
Scott and his companions successfully attained the object of their journey. They reached the South Pole on 17th January only to find that they had been forestalled by others! And it is remarkable to note that so correct were their observations, the two parties located the Pole within half a mile of one another.