544 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 



a contrast would be ridiculous : to write a book without 

 accounting for it a waste of time. 



First let me do full justice to Amundsen. I have not 

 attempted to disguise how we felt towards him when, after 

 leading us to believe that he had equipped the Fram for an 

 Arctic journey, and sailed for the north, he suddenly made 

 his dash for the south. Nothing makes a more unpleasant 

 impression than a feint. But when Scott reached the Pole 

 only to find that Amundsen had been there a month before 

 him, his distress was not that of a schoolboy who has lost 

 a race. I have described what it had cost Scott and his four 

 companions to get to the Pole, and what they had still to 

 suffer in returning until death stopped them. Much of 

 that risk and racking toil had been undertaken that men 

 might learn what the world is like at the spot where the sun 

 does not decline in the heavens, where a man loses his orbit 

 and turns like a joint on a spit, and where his face, however 

 he turns, is always to the North. The moment Scott saw 

 the Norwegian tent he knew that he had nothing to tell 

 that was not already known. His achievement was a mere 

 precaution against Amundsen perishing on his way back ; 

 and that risk was no greater than his own. The Polar 

 Journey was literally laid waste : that was the shock that 

 staggered them. Well might Bowers be glad to see the 

 last of Norskies' tracks as their homeward paths diverged. 



All this heartsickness has passed away now ; and the 

 future explorer will not concern himself with it. He will 

 ask, what was the secret of Amundsen's slick success ? 

 What is the moral of our troubles and losses ? I will take 

 Amundsen's success first. Undoubtedly the very remark- 

 able qualities of the man himself had a good deal to do with 

 it. There is a sort of sagacity that constitutes the specific 

 genius of the explorer; and Amundsen proved his posses- 

 sion of this by his guess that there was terra firma in the 

 Bay of Whales as solid as on Ross Island. Then there is 

 the quality of big leadership which is shown by daring to 

 take a big chance. Amundsen took a very big one indeed 

 when he turned from the route to the Pole explored and 

 ascertained by Scott and Shackleton and determined to 



