THE INNER TENT IN WHICH SCOTT AND HIS TWO 
THE TENT OF DEATH AS IT APPEARED AFTER THE RESCUE PARTY HAD CLEARED AWAY THE SNOW. 
THE PUBLIC, AND HERE HIS BODY AND THOSE OF WILSON AND BOWERS 
From a Photograph by 
THE STRAND MAGAZINE. 
them to a cheerful milestone : they 
“ picked up Bowers’s ski, the last thing to 
find on the summit. Now we have only to 
go north, and so shall welcome strong winds.” 
Alas ! that on the Barrier the rare favour- 
able winds were often 14 powerless to move 
the sledge on a surface awful beyond words,” 
and later they were more often adverse. 
Another five days and they hoped to have 
completed the summit stage. On February 
ist they were so far advanced that it was 
allowable to increase rations slightly — it 
makes a lot of difference ” is the satisfactory 
comment. Next day came a set - back. 
Descending the same ££ steep slope where 
they had exchanged sledges on December 
28th.” Scott, “ in trying to keep the track 
and to keep his feet at the same time, came 
an awful £ purler ’ on his shoulder.” It was 
very sore and disabling for a couple of days, 
while Wilson was still not quite recovered, 
and Evans’s hand was no better. Happily 
the two of them were well again before the 
worst surfaces on the Glacier had to be 
traversed. 
The Beginning of the End. 
It was not till February 4th that we mark 
the first overt blow of Fate, ominous of the 
end. Scott and “Evans together unex- 
pectedly fell into e crevasse ” ; then Evans 
had another fall.” This must have been the 
occasion when he struck his head, and 
suffered some degree of concussion, so that 
his alertness was dulled and his splendid 
helpfulness abated. And this when the 
temperature was twenty degrees lower than 
on the ascent. 
February 7th brought the end of the return 
summit journey, after two ££ horrid ” and 
££ anxious ” days. They were caught in “a 
maze of crevasses — huge open chasms 
unbridged ” — and compelled to force a way 
