Shackleton's Last Voyage: The Story of the QuestWild, Frank
History
Shackleton's Last Voyage: The Story of the Quest
Wild, Frank
Antarctica -- Discovery and exploration -- British; Quest (Ship); Shackleton, Ernest Henry, Sir, 1874-1922
Before leaving South Georgia we had rather a sad duty to perform.
For a long time I had desired to erect some mark which would serve
to perpetuate the memory of Sir Ernest Shackleton. We had no time to
do it before we left for the South, for every day was precious and it
was essential that we should get away at the earliest possible moment.
After some consideration I decided that the mark should take the form
of a cairn surmounted by a cross, and I selected as a site for it a
prominent spot on the headland which stands out from the lower slopes
of Duse Fell, at the entrance to Gritviken harbour. I determined that
it should be the work of his comrades, something which we ourselves
could create without help from outside sources. Everyone on board was
anxious to have a hand in the building, so I arranged things that they
might do so. On the night of our arrival the temperature fell very
low and the surface of the harbour froze over, not sufficiently to
permit of walking but enough to make it an extremely difficult matter
to get the boat to the shore. Also snow fell thickly. We broke a way
through the ice and proceeded to the headland, where we made a search
for suitable building stone. There was none convenient, and to obtain
it we had to go some distance up the hillside to where a shoulder of
rock jutted out through the tussock grass. Having removed the snow we
bored the rock and blasted it with sabulite, afterwards breaking away
suitable pieces with crowbar and pick. For sledging it down the hill we
had to make special box-containers; even then with the steepness of the
declivity and the roughness of the track it was a difficult matter to
prevent the loads from falling off. The work was awkward and hard; on
several occasions the sledges broke away and careered down the slippery
hillside with the men clinging desperately behind. No one grudged the
labour and time spent, for it was the last job we should do for the
Boss. The foundations were laid and the cairn began to grow. There were
no expert masons amongst us, but the work when completed had a most
pleasing appearance. Into the stone we cemented a brass plate on which
was engraved very simply:
SIR ERNEST SHACKLETON
EXPLORER
DIED HERE, JANUARY 5TH, 1922.
ERECTED BY HIS COMRADES.
The cairn is solid and will stand the ravages of frost and blizzards
for many years to come.
It will be the first object picked out by any ship entering the
harbour, and to anyone looking back as the vessel steams away it will
stand out in lonely prominence long after the station has disappeared
from view. It can be seen also from every part of the harbour.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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