o make
her way home.

Shackleton had returned to England in 1903, but the mysterious South
Pole amid its wastes of ice and snow still called him back, and in
command of the _Nimrod_ he started forth in August 1907 on the next
British Antarctic expedition, carrying a Union Jack, presented by the
Queen, to plant on the spot farthest south. He actually placed it within
ninety-seven miles of the Pole itself!

With a petrol motor-car on board, Eskimo dogs, and Manchurian ponies,
he left New Zealand on 1st January 1908, watched and cheered by some
thirty thousand of his fellow-countrymen. Three weeks later they were
in sight of the Great Ice Barrier, and a few days later the huge
mountains of Erebus and Terror came into sight. Shackleton had hoped
to reach King Edward VII.'s Land for winter quarters, but a formidable
ice-pack prevented this, and they selected a place some twenty miles
north of the _Discovery's_ old winter quarters. Getting the wild
little Manchurian ponies ashore was no light job; the poor little
creatures were stiff after a month's constant buffeting, for the
_Nimrod's_ passage had been stormy. One after another they were now
led out of their stalls into a horse-box and slung over the ice. Once
on _terra firma_ they seemed more at home, for they immediately began
pawing the snow as they were wont to do in their far-away Manchurian
home.

[Illustration: SHACKLETON'S SHIP, THE _NIMROD_, AMONG THE ICE IN
McMURDO SOUND, THE WINTER LAND QUARTERS OF THE BRITISH ANTARCTIC
EXPEDITION. _By Sir Ernest Shackleton's permission from his book "The
Heart of the Antarctic," published by Mr. Heinemann_.]

The spacious hut, brought out by Shackleton, was soon erected. Never
was such a luxurious house set up on the bleak shores of the Polar
seas. There was a dark room for developing, acetylene gas for lighting,
a good stove for warming, and comfortable cubicles decorated with
pictures. The dark room was excellent, and never was a book of travels
more beautifully illustrated than Shackleton's _Heart of the
Antarctic_.

True, during some of the winter storms and blizzards the hut shook
and trembled so that every moment its occupants thought it would be
carried bodily away, but it stood its ground all right. The long winter
was spent as usual in preparing for the spring expedition to the south,
but it was 29th October 1908 before the weather made it possible to
make a start. The party consisted of Shackleton, Adams, Marsha