as probably
the best which has been used: but more is known now than was known then.
We are all out to try and get these things right for the future.[354]

Campbell reached Hut Point only five days after we left it with the
dog-teams. A characteristic note left to greet us on our return regretted
they were too late to take part in the Search Journey. If I had lived
through ten months such as those men had just endured, wild horses would
not have dragged me out sledging again. But they were keen to get some
useful work done in the time which remained until the ship arrived.

We had the Polar records: Campbell and his men, unaided, had not only
survived their terrible winter, but had sledged down the coast after it.
We ourselves, faced by a difficult alternative, had fallen on our feet.
We never hoped for more than this: we seldom hoped for so much.

I wanted a series of Adelie penguin embryos from the rookery at Cape
Royds, but had not expected an opportunity of getting them because I was
away sledging during the summer months. Now the chance had come. Atkinson
wanted to work on parasites at the same place, and others to survey. But
the real job was an ascent of Erebus, the active volcano which rose from
our doors to some 13,400 feet in height. A party of Shackleton's men
under Professor David went up it in March, and managed to haul a sledge
up to 5800 feet, from which point they had to portage their gear. A year
before this Debenham, with the help of a telescope, selected a route by
which they could haul a sledge up to 9000 feet. There proved to be no
great difficulty about it; it was just a matter of legs and breath.

They were a cheery company, part-singing in the evenings and working hard
all day. It was an uneventful trip, Debenham said, and very harmonious:
the best trip he had down there. Both Debenham and Dickason suffered from
mountain sickness, however, and they were the two smokers! The clearness
of the air was marked. At 5000 feet they could plainly see Mount
Melbourne and Cape Jones, between two and three hundred miles away, and
several uncharted mountains over to the west, but they were unable to
plot them accurately because they could get direction rays from one point
only. The Sound itself was covered by cloud most of the time, but
Beaufort Island and Franklin Island were clear. Unlike David's party,
they could see no signs whatever of volcanic action on Mount Bird, which
is almost entirely covered wit