THE DEPOT JOURNEY 177 
the end of their sledge while I turned hot and cold and sick 
and went through the various symptoms before I got my 
equilibrium back, which I fortunately did whilelegging it at 
full speed. They started to goahead soonafter that though, 
and we could not hold our own, although we were close to 
the cape. I had the same thing happen again after another 
fall, but we stuck it round the cape and arrived only about 
so yards behind. I have never felt so done, and so was 
my team. Of course we need not have raced, but we did, 
and I would do the same thing every time. Titus produced 
a mug of brandy he had sharked from the ship and we all 
lapped it up with avidity. The other team were just about 
laid out, too, so I don’t think there was much to be said 
either way.””} 
Two days later the sun appeared for the last time for 
four months. 
Looking back I realized two things. That sledging, at 
any rate in summer and autumn, was a much less terrible 
ordeal than my imagination had painted it, and that those 
Hut Point days would prove some of the happiest in my 
life. Just enough to eat and keep us warm, no more—no 
frills nor trimmings: there is many a worse and more 
elaborate life. ‘The necessaries of civilization were luxuries 
to us: and as Priestley found under circumstances com- 
pared to which our life at Hut Point was a Sunday School 
treat, the luxuries of civilization satisfy only those wants 
which they themselves create. 
1 Bowers’ letter. 
