18 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' [Nov. 



written. All this was not finished till after noon, when many 

 willing hands helped us to pack up our tent and make all 

 ready for our final start. If former moments of parting have 

 seemed unpropitious, the same cannot be said of to-day ; the 

 sun shone brightly on our last farewells, and whilst behind us 

 we left all in good health and spirits, it is scarcely to be won- 

 dered at that our hopes ran high for the future. We are 

 already beyond the utmost limit to which man has attained : 

 each footstep will be a fresh conquest of the great unknown. 

 Confident in ourselves, confident in our equipment, and con- 

 fident in our dog team, we can but feel elated with the prospect 

 that is before us. 



\ The day's work has cast a shadow on our highest aspira- 

 tions, however, and already it is evident that if we are to 

 achieve much it will be only by extreme toil, for the dogs have 

 not pulled well to-day; possibly it may be something to do 

 with the surface, which seems to get softer, possibly something 

 to do with the absence of the men in front to cheer them on, 

 and possibly something to do with the temperature, which rose 

 at one time to + 20 and made the heavy pulling very warm 

 work. Whatever the reason may be, by five o'clock we had 

 only covered about three miles, and this is by no means up to 

 expectation. We have decided that if things have not improved 

 in the morning we will take on half the load at a time ; after a 

 few days of this sort of thing the loads will be sufficiently 

 lightened for us to continue in the old way again.' 



The above extract shows that our troubles were already 

 beginning, but as yet we had no suspicion that they were likely 

 to be as grievous as they soon became. On the following day 

 we attempted once more to start our heavy loads, but after a 

 few yards of struggling the dogs seemed to lose all heart, and 

 many looked round with the most pathetic expression as much 

 as to say we were really expecting too much of them ; there 

 was but one thing to be done — namely, to divide the load into 

 two portions and take on half at a time. This meant, of course, 

 that each mile had to be traversed three times, but as there 

 was no alternative we were forced to start on this tedious form 



