was no break
in the plateau as it extended towards the Pole. I am confident that
the Pole lies on the great plateau we have discovered miles and miles
from any outstanding land."

And so the four men turned homewards. "Whatever our regret may be,
we have done our best," said the leader somewhat sadly. Blinding
blizzards followed them as they made their way slowly back. On 28th
January they reached the Great Ice Barrier. Their food was well-nigh
spent; their daily rations consisted of six biscuits and some
horse-meat in the shape of the Manchurian ponies they had shot and
left the November before. But it disagreed with most of them, and it
was four very weak and ailing men who staggered back to the _Nimrod_
toward the end of February 1909.

Shackleton reached England in the autumn of 1909 to find that another
Antarctic expedition was to leave our shores in the following summer
under the command of Scott, in the _Terra Nova_. It was one of the
best-equipped expeditions that ever started; motor-sledges had been
specially constructed to go over the deep snow, which was fatal to
the motor-car carried by Shackleton. There were fifteen ponies and
thirty dogs. Leaving England in July 1910, Scott was established in
winter quarters in McMurdo Sound by 26th January 1911. It was November
before he could start on the southern expedition.

"We left Hut Point on the evening of 2nd November. For sixty miles
we followed the track of the motors (sent on five days before). The
ponies are going very steadily. We found the motor party awaiting us
in latitude 80-1/2 degrees south. The motors had proved entirely
satisfactory, and the machines dragged heavy loads over the worst part
of the Barrier surface, crossing several crevasses. The sole cause
of abandonment was the overheating of the air-cooled engines. We are
building snow cairns at intervals of four miles to guide homeward
parties and leaving a week's provisions at every degree of latitude.
As we proceeded the weather grew worse, and snowstorms were frequent.
The sky was continually overcast, and the land was rarely visible.
The ponies, however, continued to pull splendidly."

As they proceeded south they encountered terrific storms of wind and
snow, out of which they had constantly to dig the ponies. Christmas
passed and the New Year of 1912 dawned. On 3rd January when one hundred
and fifty miles from the Pole, "I am going forward," says Scott, "with
a party of five men with a mo