revailed.
Among the executive officers Scott was putting more and more trust in
Campbell, who was to lead the Northern Party. He was showing those
characteristics which enabled him to bring his small party safely through
one of the hardest winters that men have ever survived. Bowers also had
shown seamanlike qualities which are an excellent test by which to judge
the Antarctic traveller; a good seaman in sail will probably make a
useful sledger: but at this time Scott can hardly have foreseen that
Bowers was to prove "the hardest traveller that ever undertook a Polar
journey, as well as one of the most undaunted." But he had already proved
himself a first-rate sailor. Among the junior scientific staff too,
several were showing qualities as seamen which were a good sign for the
future. Altogether I think it must have been with a cheerful mind that
Scott landed in Australia.
When we left Melbourne for New Zealand we were all a bit stale, which was
not altogether surprising, and a run ashore was to do us a world of good
after five months of solid grind, crowded up in a ship which thought
nothing of rolling 50 deg. each way. Also, though everything had been done
that could be done to provide them, the want of fresh meat and
vegetables was being felt, and it was an excellent thing that a body of
men, for whom every precaution against scurvy that modern science could
suggest was being taken, should have a good course of antiscorbutic food
and an equally beneficial change of life before leaving civilization.
And so it was with some anticipation that on Monday morning, October 24,
we could smell the land--New Zealand, that home of so many Antarctic
expeditions, where we knew that we should be welcomed. Scott's Discovery,
Shackleton's Nimrod, and now again Scott's Terra Nova have all in turn
been berthed at the same quay in Lyttelton, for aught I know at the same
No. 5 Shed, into which they have spilled out their holds, and from which
they have been restowed with the addition of all that New Zealand,
scorning payment, could give. And from there they have sailed, and
thither their relief ships have returned year after year. Scott's words
of the Discovery apply just as much to the Terra Nova. Not only did New
Zealand do all in her power to help the expedition in an official
capacity, but the New Zealanders welcomed both officers and men with open
arms, and "gave them to understand that although already separated by
many thous
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