camped I gave Quan the bullet, and Marshall and I cut him
up. He was a tough one. I am cook this week with Marshall as my tent
mate."

The more one read into Shackleton's story the more wonderful it all
seemed, and with our resources failure appeared impossible--yet that
telegram which Captain Scott had received at Melbourne:

"Beg leave to inform you proceeding Antarctic.
----AMUNDSEN."

We all knew that Amundsen had no previous Antarctic sledging experience,
but no one could deny that to Norwegians ice-work, and particularly
ski-ing, was second nature, and here lay some good food for thought and
discussion. Where would the "Fram" enter the pack? Where would Amundsen
make his base? The answers never once suggested anything like the truth.

Actually on New Year's Day Amundsen was between 500 and 600 miles north
of us, but of Roald Amundsen more anon.

How strange to be once more in open water, able to steer whatever course
we chose, with broad daylight all night, and at noon only a couple of
days' run from Cape Crozier. Practically no ice in sight, but a sunlit
summer sea in place of the pack, with blue sky and cumulo stratus clouds,
so different from the gray, hard skies that hung so much over the great
ice field we had just forced. The wind came fair as the day wore on and
by 10 p.m. we were under plain sail, doing a good six knots. High
mountains were visible to the west-ward, part of the Admiralty Range, two
splendid peaks to be seen towering above the remainder, which appeared to
be Mounts Sabine and Herschell. Coulman Island was seen in the distance
during the day.

What odd thrills the sight of the Antarctic Continent sent through most
of us. Land was first sighted late on New Year's Eve and I think
everybody had come on deck at the cry "Land oh!" To me those peaks always
did and always will represent silent defiance; there were times when they
made me shudder, but it is good to have looked upon them and to remember
them in those post-War days of general discontent, for they remind me of
the four Antarctic voyages which I have made and of the unanimous
goodwill that obtained in each of the little wooden ships which were our
homes for so long. How infinitely distant those towering mountains seemed
and how eternal their loneliness.

As we neared Cape Crozier Wilson became more and more interested. He was
dreadfully keen on the beach there being selected as a base, and his
enthusiasm was infec