Shackleton in the Antarctic: Being the story of the British Antarctic expedition, 1907-1909Shackleton, Ernest Henry, Sir
History
Shackleton in the Antarctic: Being the story of the British Antarctic expedition, 1907-1909
Shackleton, Ernest Henry, Sir
Antarctica -- Discovery and exploration -- British; British Antarctic Expedition (1907-1909)
The weather still remained splendid for marching, with a cool breeze
from the south and the sun slightly hidden, but our enjoyment of the
glorious view of peaks new to human eyes was marred by Wild being
temporarily unwell, and by Adams suffering badly from toothache. Our
first attempt to pull out this tooth merely resulted in the tooth
breaking, but at a second attempt Marshall succeeded in getting it out,
an achievement--under the conditions--as creditable to the one as it
was welcome to the other.
Steady progress was made until November 26, which is a day which we
travellers at least shall remember, for on it we passed the "farthest
south" previously reached by man. On this night we reached latitude 82°
18 south, and our "farthest south" in the march with Captain Scott was
82° 16½′.
As each hour passed on this memorable day we found new interest to the
west where the land lies, for we opened out Shackleton Inlet, and up
the inlet a great chain of mountains, and far into the west still more
peaks. To the west of Cape Wilson another chain of peaks about 10,000
ft. high appeared, and to the south-south-east new mountains were
continually coming into view. It falls to the lot of few men to see
land not previously looked upon by human eyes, and it was with feelings
of keen curiosity and awe (mingled in my case with a fervent hope that
no land would block our path) that we watched the new mountains rise
from the great unknown that lay before us.
No man of us could even guess what wonders might be revealed to us in
our march south, and our imaginations took wings until a stumble in the
snow or the sharp pangs of hunger brought back our attention to the
needs of the immediate present.
Our anxiety, however, to learn what lay before us was as keen as it
could be, and the long days of marching over the Barrier surface
were saved from monotony by the continued appearance of land to the
south-east. As we marched on and new mountains kept on rising, we were
concerned to notice that they trended more and more to the eastward,
for that meant that we must alter our course from nearly due south.
Nevertheless, we hoped that when we reached them some strait might be
found which would enable us to go right through them and on south.
Really, however, patience was of more use to us than speculation, for,
come what might, we meant to push on until our limit of strength was
reached.
By November 28 we had reached a truly awful surface, and poor Grisi,
who had been smitten with snow-blindness, had to be shot in the
evening. Having made Depot C. and left one week's provisions and oil
to carry us back to Depot B, we went on the next morning with 1200
lb. weight, which we decided to pull with the ponies, but we quickly
discovered that the ponies would not pull when we did, so we had to
untoggle our harness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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