550 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 



found by Shackleton's men in 1916 — the hardships that 

 wasted his life will be only a horror of the past, and his 

 via dolorosa a highway as practicable as Piccadilly. 



And now let me come down to tin tacks. No matter 

 how well the thing is done in future, its organizers will 

 want to know at first all we can tell them about oil, about 

 cold, and about food. First, as to oil. 



Scott complains of a shortage of oil at several of his last 

 depots. There is no doubt that this shortage was due to 

 the perishing of the leather washers of the tins which con- 

 tained the paraffin oil. All these tins had been subjected 

 to the warmth of the sun in summer and the autumn tem- 

 peratures, which were unexpectedly cold. In his Voyage 

 of the Discovery Scott wrote as follows of the tins in which 

 they drew their oil when sledging : " Each tin had a small 

 cork bung, which was a decided weakness; paraffin creeps 

 in the most annoying manner, and a good deal of oil 

 was wasted in this way, especially when the sledges were 

 travelling over rough ground and were shaken or, as fre- 

 quently happened, capsized. It was impossible to make 

 these bungs quite tight, however closely they were jammed 

 down, so that in spite of a trifling extra weight a much 

 better fitting would have been a metallic screwed bung. 

 To find on opening a fresh tin of oil that it was only three- 

 parts full was very distressing, and of course meant that the 

 cooker had to be used with still greater care." 1 Amund- 

 sen wrote of his paraffin : "We kept it in the usual cans 

 but they proved too weak ; not that we lost any paraffin, 

 but Bjaaland had to be constantly soldering to keep them 

 tight." 2 



Our own tins were furnished with the metallic screwed 

 stoppers which Scott recommended. There was no trouble 

 reported 3 until we came up to One Ton Camp when on 

 the Search Journey. Here was the depot of food and oil 

 which I had laid in the previous autumn for the Polar 

 Party, stowed in a canvas ' tank ' which was buried be- 



1 Scott, Voyage of the Discovery, vol. i. p. 44.9. 



2 Amundsen, The South Pole, vol. ii. p. 19. 



3 Lashly's diary records that the Second Return Party found a shortage of oil at 

 the Middle Barrier Depot (see p. 395). 



