NEVER AGAIN 573 



Akaroa to Lyttelton put out to sea on her way and ranged 

 close alongside. " Are all well ? " " Where's Captain 

 Scott ? " " Did you reach the Pole ? " Rather unsatis- 

 factory answers and away they went. Our first glimpse, 

 however, of civilized life. 



At dawn the next morning, with white ensign at half- 

 mast, we crept through Lyttelton Heads. Always we looked 

 for trees, people and houses. How different it was from the 

 day we left and yet how much the same : as though we had 

 dreamed some horrible nightmareand could scarcely believe 

 we were not dreaming still. 



The Harbour-master came out in the tug and with him 

 Atkinson and Pennell. " Come down here a minute," said 

 Atkinson to me, and " It's made a tremendous impression, 

 I had no idea it would make so much," he said. And indeed 

 we had been too long away, and the whole thing was so 

 personal to us, and our perceptions had been blunted : we 

 never realized. We landed to find the Empire — almost the 

 civilized world — in mourning. It was as though they had 

 lost great friends. 



To a sensitive pre-war world the knowledge of these 

 men's deaths came as a great shock : and now, although 

 the world has almost lost the sense of tragedy, it appeals to 

 their pity and their pride. The disaster may well be the 

 first thing which Scott's name recalls to your mind (as 

 though an event occurred in the life of Columbus which 

 caused you to forget that he discovered America) ; but 

 Scott's reputation is not founded upon the conquest of the 

 South Pole. He came to a new continent, found out how 

 to travel there, and gave knowledge of it to the world : he 

 discovered the Antarctic, and founded a school. He is the 

 last of the great geographical explorers : it is useless to try 

 and light a fire when everything has been burned; and he 

 is probably the last old-fashioned polar explorer, for, as I 

 believe, the future of such exploration is in the air, but not 

 yet. And he was strong : we never realized until we found 

 him lying there dead how strong, mentally and physically, 

 that man was. 



In both his polar expeditions he was helped, to an 



