322 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 



workshop at hand may be all that stands between success 

 and failure." 1 I do not believe that Scott built high hopes 

 on these motors : but it was a chance to help those who 

 followed him. Scott was always trying to do that. 



Did they succeed or fail ? They certainly did not help 

 us much, the motor which travelled farthest drawing a 

 heavy load to just beyond Corner Camp. But even so fifty 

 statute miles is fifty miles, and that they did it at all was 

 an enormous advance. The distance travelled included 

 hard and soft surfaces, and we found later when the snow 

 bridges fell in during the summer that this car had crossed 

 safely some broad crevasses. Also they worked in tem- 

 peratures down to - 30 Fahr. All this was to the good, 

 for no motor-driven machine had travelled on the Barrier 

 before. The general design seemed to be right, all that 

 was now wanted was experience. As an experiment they 

 were successful in the South, but Scott never knew their 

 true possibilities ; for they were the direct ancestors of the 

 1 tanks' in France. 



Night-marching had its advantages and disadvantages. 

 The ponies were pulling in the colder part of the day and 

 resting in the warm, which was good. Their coats dried 

 well in the sun, and after a few days to get accustomed 

 to the new conditions, they slept and fed in comparative 

 comfort. On the other hand the pulling surface was un- 

 doubtedly better when the sun was high and the tempera- 

 ture warmer. Taking one thing with another there was 

 no doubt that night-marching was better for ponies, but 

 we seldom if ever tried it man-hauling. 



Just now there was an amazing difference between day 

 and night conditions. At midnight one was making short 

 work of everything, nursing fingers after doing up harness 

 with minus temperatures and nasty cold winds : by supper 

 time the next morning we were sitting on our sledges 

 writing up our diaries or meteorological logs, and even 

 dabbling our bare toes in the snow, but not for long ! 

 Shades of darkness ! How different all this was from 

 what we had been through. My personal impression of 



1 Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 438-439. 



