204 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
fortune to sledge with him (for it is sledging which is far 
the greatest test) will all be dissatisfied, for I know that I 
cannot do justice to his value. If you knew him you could 
not like him: you simply had to love him. Bill was of the 
salt of the earth. If 1 were asked what quality it was before 
others that made him so useful, and so lovable, I think I 
should answer that it was because he never for one moment 
thought of himself. In this respect also Bowers, of whom 
I will speak in a moment, was most extraordinary, and 
in passing may I be allowed to say that this is a most 
necessary characteristic of a good Antarctic traveller? We 
had many such, officers and seamen, and the success of 
the expedition was in no small measure due to the general 
and unselfish way in which personal likes and dislikes, 
wishes or tastes were ungrudgingly subordinated to the 
common weal. Wilson and Pennell set an example of ex- 
pedition first and the rest nowhere which others followed 
ungrudgingly: it pulled us through more than one difh- 
culty which might have led to friction. 
Wilson was a man of many parts. He was Scott’s right- 
hand man, he was the expedition’s Chief of the Scientific 
Staff: he was a doctor of St. George’s Hospital, and a 
zoologist specializing in vertebrates. His published work 
on whales, penguins and seals contained in the Scientific 
Report of the Discovery Expedition is still the best avail- 
able, and makes excellent reading even to the non-scien- 
tist. On the outward journey of the Terra Nova he was 
still writing up his work for the Royal Commission on 
Grouse Disease, the published report of which he never 
lived to see. But those who knew him best will probably 
remember Wilson by his water-colour paintings rather than 
by any other form of his many-sided work. 
As a boy his father sent him away on rambling holidays, 
the only condition being that he should return with a 
certain number of drawings. I have spoken of the draw- 
ings which he made when sledging or when otherwise en- 
gaged away from painting facilities, as at Hut Point. He | 
brought back to Winter Quarters a note-book filled with 
such sketches of outlines and colours: of sunsets behind the _ 
