ks back upon these first efforts of the Discovery Expedition that the
results were not more disastrous than was actually the case. When one
reads of dog-teams which refused to start, of pemmican which was
considered to be too rich to eat, of two officers discussing the ascent
of Erebus and back in one day, and of sledging parties which knew neither
how to use their cookers or lamp, nor how to put up their tents, nor even
how to put on their clothes, then one begins to wonder that the process
of education was gained at so small a price. "Not a single article of the
outfit had been tested; and amid the general ignorance that prevailed the
lack of system was painfully apparent in everything."[15]

This led to a tragedy. A returning sledge party of men was overtaken by a
blizzard on the top of the Peninsula near Castle Rock. They quite
properly camped, and should have been perfectly comfortable lying in
their sleeping-bags after a hot meal. But the primus lamps could not be
lighted, and as they sat in leather boots and inadequate clothing being
continually frost-bitten they decided to leave the tent and make their
way to the ship--sheer madness as we now know. As they groped their way
in the howling snow-drift the majority of the party either slipped or
rolled down a steep slippery snow slope some thousand feet high ending in
a precipitous ice-cliff, below which lay the open sea. It is a nasty
place on a calm summer day: in a blizzard it must be ghastly. Yet only
one man, named Vince, shot down the slope and over the precipice into the
sea below. How the others got back heaven knows. One seaman called Hare,
who separated from the others and lay down under a rock, awoke after
thirty-six hours, covered with snow but in full possession of his
faculties and free from frost-bites. The little cross at Hut Point
commemorates the death of Vince. One of this party was a seaman called
Wild, who came to the front and took the lead of five of the survivors
after the death of Vince. He was to take the lead often in future
expeditions under Shackleton and Mawson, and there are few men living
who have so proved themselves as polar travellers.

I have dwelt upon this side of the early sledging deficiencies of the
Discovery to show the importance of experience in Antarctic land
travelling, whether it be at first or second hand. Scott and his men in
1902 were pioneers. They bought their experience at a price which might
easily have been high