424 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION 



month ago. The whole incident was most interesting and full of sugges- 

 tion as to the slow working of the brain of these queer people. Another 

 point was most weird to see, that on the under side of this very dirty piece 

 of sea ice, which was about two feet thick and which hung over the water 

 as a sort of cave, we could see the legs and lower halves of dead Emperor 

 chicks hanging through, and even in one place a dead adult. I hope to 

 make a picture of the whole quaint incident, for it was a corner crammed 

 full of Imperial history in the light of what we already knew, and it would 

 otherwise have been about as unintelligible as any group of animate or 

 inanimate nature could possibly have been. As it is, it throws more light 

 on the life history of this strangely primitive bird. 



We were joking in the boat as we rowed under these cliffs and saying 

 it would be a short-lived amusement to see the overhanging cliff part com- 

 pany and fall over us. So we were glad to find that we were rowing back 

 to the ship and already 200 or 300 yards away from the place and in open 

 water when there was a noise like crackling thunder and a huge plunge into 

 the sea and a smother of rock dust like the smoke of an explosion, and 

 we realised that the very thing had happened which we had just been 

 talking about. Altogether it was a very exciting row, for before we got 

 on board we had the pleasure of seeing the ship shoved in so close to these 

 cliffs by a belt of heavy pack ice that to us it appeared a toss-up whether 

 she got out again or got forced in against the rocks. She had no time 

 or room to turn and get clear by backing out through the belt of pack 

 stern first, getting heavy bumps under the counter and on the rudder as 

 she did so, for the ice was heavy and the swell considerable. [Dr. Wilson's 

 Journal.] 



Note 9, p. 81. Dr. Wilson writes in his Journal: January 14. He 

 also told me the plans for our depot journey on which we shall be starting 

 in about ten days' time. He wants me to be a dog driver with himself, 

 Meares, and Teddie Evans, and this is what I would have chosen had I 

 had a free choice at all. The dogs run in two teams and each team wants 

 two men. It means a lot of running as they are being driven now, but it is 

 the fastest and most interesting work of all, and we go ahead of the whole 

 caravan with lighter loads and at a faster rate; moreover, if any traction 

 except ourselves can reach the top of Beardmore Glacier, it will be the 

 dogs, and the dog drivers are therefore the people who will have the best 

 chance of doing the top piece of the ice cap at 10,000 feet to the Pole. 

 May I be there! About this time next year may I be there or there- 

 abouts! With so many young bloods in the heyday of youth and strength 

 beyond my own I feel there will be a most difficult task in making choice 

 towards the end and a most keen competition and a universal lack of 

 selfishness and self-seeking with a complete absence of any jealous feeling 

 in any single one of the comparatively large number who at present stand 

 a chance of being on the last piece next summer. 



It will be an exciting time and the excitement has already begun in 

 the healthiest possible manner. I have never been thrown in with a more 



