CH. LVI] 
The Societies Expedition 
447 
rudder and screw and was much more satisfactory in 
heavy seas. It gave the helmsman nearly dry quarters. 
The length of the ship on the water line was finally 
fixed at 179 ft., the breadth 34 ft., the depth amidships 
18 ft. She was to be barque-rigged and of 735 gross and 
483 registered tonnage. The framing throughout was of 
oak, the keel of elm. The boats were a sailing cutter 
(which was not taken south), four 26-foot whalers, and 
two Norwegian prams. 
The Dundee Shipbuilders Company undertook her 
construction for £34,050 and £10,322 for the engines, and 
on March 16th, 1900, the keel was laid. On March 21st, 
1 90 1, Lady Markham launched the ship at Dundee, and 
gave her the name of the Discovery. She left Dundee on 
the 3rd June, was in the East India Docks for 55 days 
loading, and on August 1st she arrived at Stokes Bay 1 . 
I had selected the fittest commander in my own mind 
in 1887, when I was on board the Active in the West 
Indies, the guest of my cousin Commodore Markham, then 
in command of the training squadron, the other ships 
being the Rover, Volage, and Calypso. When we were at 
St Kitts, March 1st, 1887, the lieutenants got up a service 
cutter race. The boats were to be at anchor with awnings 
spread. They were to get under way and make sail, 
beat up to windward for a mile, round a buoy, down 
mast and sail, pull down to the starting point, anchor 
and spread awning again. The race tried several qualities. 
For a long time it was a close thing between two mid- 
shipmen, Robert Falcon Scott and Hyde Parker. How- 
ever, Scott won the race and on the 5th he dined with us. 
He was then 18, and I was much struck by his intelligence, 
information, and the charm of his manner. My experience 
taught me that it would be years before an expedition 
would be ready, and I believed that Scott was the destined 
man to command it. At Vigo we were thrown together 
again, when my young friend was torpedo lieutenant of 
the Empress of India, and I was more than ever impressed 
by his evident vocation for such a command. When the 
1 The house flag of the Discovery was made at Dundee : — the cross of 
St George at the hoist, the fly swallow-tailed, party per fesse, argent and 
azure (for ice and sea), and bearing the globe of the Royal Geographical 
Society. Bordure argent and azure. 
