540 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 



the troubles have thickened his dauntless spirit ever shone 

 brighter and he has remained cheerful, hopeful and in- 

 domitable to the end. . . . 



To Sir J. M. Barrie 



My dear Barrie. We are pegging out in a very com- 

 fortless spot. Hoping this letter may be found and sent to 

 you, I write a word of farewell . . . Good-bye. I am not at 

 all afraid of the end, but sad to miss many a humble pleasure 

 which I had planned for the future on our long marches. I 

 may not have proved a great explorer, but we have done 

 the greatest march ever made and come very near to great 

 success. Good-bye, my dear friend. Yours ever, 



R. Scott. 



We are in a desperate state, feet frozen, etc. No fuel 

 and a long way from food, but it would do your heart good 

 to be in our tent, to hear our songs and the cheery conversa- 

 tion as to what we will do when we get to Hut Point. 



Later. We are very near the end, but have not and 

 will not lose our good cheer. We have four days of storm 

 in our tent and nowhere's food or fuel. We did intend to 

 finish ourselves when things proved like this, but we have 

 decided to die naturally in the track. 1 



The following extracts are from letters written to other 

 friends : 



"... I want to tell you that I was not too old for this 

 job. It was the younger men that went under first. . . . 

 After all we are setting a good example to our countrymen, 

 if not by getting into a tight place, by facing it like men 

 when we were there. We could have come through had 

 we neglected the sick." 



" Wilson, the best fellow that ever stepped, has sacri- 

 ficed himself again and again to the sick men of the 

 party. . . ." 



"... Our journey has been the biggest on record, and 

 nothing but the most exceptional hard luck at the end 

 would have caused us to fail to return." 



1 Scott's Last Expedition, vol. i. pp. 584-599. 



