520 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 



bustle all the time." x Wilson was feeling the cold more 

 than either of them now. His leg was not yet well enough 

 to wear ski. Oates had suffered from a cold foot for some 

 time. Evans, however, was the only man whom Scott seems 

 to have been worried about. "His cuts and wounds sup- 

 purate, his nose looks very bad, and altogether he shows con- 

 siderable signs of being played out." . . . "Well, we have 

 come through our seven weeks' ice-cap journey and most of 

 us are fit, but I think another week might have had a very 

 bad effect on P.O. Evans, who is going steadily down- 

 hill." 2 They had all been having extra food which had 

 helped them much, though they complained of hunger and 

 want of sleep. Directly they got into the warmer weather 

 on the glacier their food satisfied them, " but we must 

 march to keep on the full ration, and we want rest, yet we 

 shall pull through all right, D.V. We are by no means 

 worn out." 3 



There are no germs in the Antarctic, save for a few 

 isolated specimens which almost certainly come down from 

 civilization in the upper air currents. You can sleep all 

 night in a wet bag and clothing, and sledge all day in a 

 mail of ice, and you will not catch a cold nor get any aches. 

 You can get deficiency diseases, like scurvy, for inland this 

 is a deficiency country, without vitamines. You can also 

 get poisoned if you allow your food to remain thawed out 

 too long, and if you do not cover the provisions in a depot 

 with enough snow the sun will get at them, even though 

 the air temperature is far below freezing. But it is not easy 

 to become diseased. 



On the other hand, once something does go wrong it is 

 the deuce and all to get it right : especially cuts. And the 

 isolation of the polar traveller may place him in most diffi- 

 cult circumstances. There are no ambulances and hospi- 

 tals, and a man on a sledge is a very serious weight. Prac- 

 tically any man who undertakes big polar journeys must 

 face the possibility of having to commit suicide to save his 

 companions, and the difficulty of this must not be over- 

 rated, for it is in some ways more desirable to die than to 



1 Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 561. 2 Ibid. pp. 562, 563. 3 Ibid. p. 566. 



