226 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
very ‘prickly’ state on one occasion. That was all. It 
didn’t last and may have been well justified for aught I 
know: I have forgotten what it was all about. Why we 
should have been more fortunate than polar travellers in 
general it is hard to say, but undoubtedly a very powerful 
reason was that we had no idle hours: there was no time 
to quarrel. 
Before we went South people were always saying, “‘ You 
will get fed up with one another. What will you do all the 
dark winter?” As a matter of fact the difficulty was to get 
through with the work. Often after working all through 
a long night-watch officers carried on as a matter of course 
through the following day in order to clear off arrears. 
There was little reading or general relaxation during the 
day: certainly not before supper, if at all. And while 
no fixed hours for work were laid down, the custom was 
general that all hours between breakfast and supper should 
be so used. 
Our small company was desperately keen to obtain 
results. The youngest and most cynical pessimist must 
have had cause for wonder to see a body of healthy and not 
unintellectual men striving thus single-mindedly to add 
their small quota of scientific and geographical knowledge 
to the sum total of the world—with no immediate prospect 
of its practical utility. Laymen and scientists alike were 
determined to attain the objects to gain which they had set 
forth. 
And I believe that in a vague intangible way there was 
an ideal in front of and behind this work. It is really not 
desirable for men who do not believe that knowledge is of 
value for its own sake to take up this kind of life. The 
question constantly put to us in civilization was and still 
is: “‘ What is the use? Is there gold? or Is there coal?” 
The commercial spirit of the present day can see no good 
in pure science: the English manufacturer is not interested 
in research which will not give him a financial return within 
one year: the city man sees in it only so much energy 
wasted on unproductive work: truly they are bound to the 
wheel of conventional life. 
