42 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
and actually doing so in a 60-ton schooner in 1905. The 
last we had heard of him was that he had equipped Nan- 
sen’s old ship, the Fram, for further exploration in the 
Arctic. This was only a feint. Once at sea, he had told his 
men that he was going south instead of north; and when 
he reached Madeira he sent this brief telegram, which 
meant, ‘‘ I shall be at the South Pole before you.” It also 
meant, though we did not appreciate it at the time, that 
we were up against a very big man. 
The Admiral Commanding the Australian Station came 
on board. The event of the inspection was Nigger, the 
black ship’s cat, distinguished by a white whisker on the 
port side of his face, who made one adventurous voyage 
to the Antarctic and came to an untimely end during the 
second. ‘The seamen made a hammock for him with blan- 
ket and pillow, and slung it forward among their own bed- 
ding. Nigger had turned in, not feeling very well, owing 
to the number of moths he had eaten, the ship being full 
of them. When awakened by the Admiral, Nigger had 
no idea of the importance of the occasion, but stretched 
himself, yawned in the most natural manner, turned over 
and went to sleep again. 
This cat became a well-known and much photographed 
member of the crew of the Terra Nova. He is said to 
have imitated the Romans of old, being a greedy beast, 
by having eaten as much seal blubber as he could hold, 
made himself sick, and gone back and resumed his meal. 
He had most beautiful fur. When the ship was returning 
from the Antarctic in 1911 Nigger was frightened by 
something on deck and jumped into the sea, which was 
running fairly rough. However, the ship was hove to, a 
boat lowered, and Nigger was rescued. He spent another 
happy year on board, but disappeared one dark night when 
the ship was returning from her second journey to the 
South in 1912, during a big gale. He often went aloft 
with the men, of his own accord. This night he was seen 
on the main lower topsail yard, higher than which he never 
would go. He disappeared in a big squall, probably be- 
cause the yard was covered with ice. 
