es to the Pole
and back, worked out to perfection. The advance party would have returned
to the glacier in fine form and with surplus of food, but for the
astonishing failure of the man whom we had least expected to fail. Edgar
Evans was thought the strongest man of the party.

The Beardmore Glacier is not difficult in fine weather, but on our return
we did not get a single completely fine day; this with a sick companion
enormously increased our anxieties.

As I have said elsewhere, we got into frightfully rough ice and Edgar
Evans received a concussion of the brain--he died a natural death, but
left us a shaken party with the season unduly advanced.

But all the facts above enumerated were as nothing to the surprise which
awaited us on the Barrier. I maintain that our arrangements for returning
were quite adequate, and that no one in the world would have expected the
temperatures and surfaces which we encountered at this time of the year.
On the summit in lat. 85 deg.-86 deg. we had -20 deg., -30 deg.. On the Barrier in lat.
82 deg., 10,000 feet lower, we had -30 deg. in the day, -47 deg. at night pretty
regularly, with continuous head-wind during our day marches. It is clear
that these circumstances come on very suddenly, and our wreck is
certainly due to this sudden advent of severe weather, which does not
seem to have any satisfactory cause. I do not think human beings ever
came through such a month as we have come through, and we should have got
through in spite of the weather but for the sickening of a second
companion, Captain Oates, and a shortage of fuel in our depots for which
I cannot account, and finally, but for the storm which has fallen on us
within 11 miles of the depot at which we hoped to secure our final
supplies. Surely misfortune could scarcely have exceeded this last blow.
We arrived within 11 miles of our old One Ton Camp with fuel for one last
meal and food for two days. For four days we have been unable to leave
the tent--the gale howling about us. We are weak, writing is difficult,
but for my own sake I do not regret this journey, which has shown that
Englishmen can endure hardships, help one another, and meet death with as
great a fortitude as ever in the past. We took risks, we knew we took
them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for
complaint, but bow to the will of Providence, determined still to do our
best to the last. But if we have been willing to give our