564 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 



quickly by, and the starveling dropped behind to gather 

 strength for one more effort. Again it fails, a robuster bird 

 has forced the pace, and again success is wanting to the 

 runt. Sleepily it stands there, with half-shut eyes, in a 

 torpor resulting from exhaustion, cold, and hunger, won- 

 dering perhaps what all the bustle round it means, a little 

 dirty, dishevelled dot, in the race for life a failure, deserted 

 by its parents, who have hunted vainly for their own off- 

 spring round the nest in which they hatched it, but from 

 which it may by now have wandered half a mile. And so it 

 stands, lost to everything around, till a skua in its beat 

 drops down beside it, and with a few strong, vicious pecks 

 puts an end to the failing life." * 



There is a great deal to be said for this kind of treat- 

 ment. The Adelie penguin has a hard life : the Emperor 

 penguin a horrible one. Why not kill off the unfit right 

 away, before they have had time to breed, almost before 

 they have had time to eat ? Life is a stern business in any 

 case: why pretend that it is anything else ? Or that any 

 but the best can survive at all ? And in consequence, I 

 challenge you to find a more jolly, happy, healthy lot of old 

 gentlemen in the world. We must admire them : if only 

 because they are so much nicer than ourselves ! But it is 

 grim : Nature is an uncompromising nurse. 



Nature was going to give us a bad time too if we were 

 not relieved, and on January 1 7, as there were still no signs 

 of the ship, it was decided to prepare for another winter. 

 We were to go on rations ; to cook with oil, for nearly all 

 the coal was gone ; to kill and store up seal. On January 1 8 

 we started our preparations, digging a cave to store more 

 meat, and so forth. I went off seal hunting after breakfast, 

 and having killed and cut up two, came back across the 

 Cape at mid-day. All the men were out working in the 

 camp. There was nothing to be seen in the Sound, and 

 then, quite suddenly, the bows of the ship came out from 

 behind the end of the Barne Glacier, two or three miles 

 away. We watched her cautious approach with immense 

 relief. 



1 Wilson, Nat. Ant. Exp., 1901-1904, " Zoology," Part ii. pp. 44-45. 



