414 SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
overrate the importance of this splendid journey, and 
from the modest descriptions of those who made it we 
have some difficulty in realising its tremendous nature. 
At the farthest point, after travelling 59 days, the three 
were 380 miles from their ship, on sea-ice, although in 
sight of the great range which continues the coast line of 
Victoria Land to the southward. They had lost or ex- 
hausted most of the dogs and the stock of food had been 
nicely calculated to bring them back to the ship if they 
never had a full meal all the way and picked up each of 
the depots left in the trackless waste. The return jour- 
ney was a heroic achievement. The dogs were useless 
and the weather very bad. The first depot was ap- 
proached in a fog, with nothing to guide the travellers, 
and only two days’ provisions were left when it was 
found. Laden with the supplies left there Scott and 
Wilson had to pull the sledges alone, for Shackleton had 
broken down, and only his indomitable will made it 
possible for him to walk along without burdening his 
companions further. The ship was reached on February 
3rd, 1903, the return journey having been accomplished 
in only 34 days, as with the lighter loads it was not 
necessary to do the work by relays. The total absence 
from the ship had been 93 days, and results of startling 
novelty as to the nature of the great ice barrier had been 
secured. 
Meanwhile Armitage and Skelton made a journey from 
the ship up one of the glaciers which descends from the 
western mountains, nearly in latitude 78° S. They 
reached the summit of a snow-clad tableland beyond the 
bare granite peaks of the mountains, and before they 
were compelled to turn they were 9,000 feet above the 
sea and 130 miles distant from the winter quarters. 
