A grim struggle followed, for although Shackleton showed unending courage he was suffering severely from scurvy, and Scott and Wilson, who were themselves attacked in a lesser degree by this disease, often had cause to wonder whether this return journey was not beyond their powers. It was with feelings of profound thankfulness that, at the beginning of February, Scott and his companions reached the ship. For ninety-three days they had been on the march, and during that time they had travelled 960 statute miles. When the explorers reached their goal they found that the relief ship, the _Morning_, had arrived, and Shackleton returned in her; but the _Discovery_, after being so reluctant to freeze firmly into the ice, refused entirely to thaw out, and consequently Scott and most of his original party spent a second winter in the Antarctic. During this additional year Scott, with Edgar Evans and Lashley as his companions, made a wonderful western journey, in which adventures enough to last ordinary men for a lifetime were almost part of the daily routine. Not until February, 1904, was the _Discovery_ freed from the ice, and on 10th September she reached Spithead after an absence from England of over three years. In those years a crop of most useful information had been gathered, and many geographical discoveries had been made. Among the latter were King Edward Land, Ross Island, and the Victoria Mountains, and--most important of all--the great ice-cap on which the South Pole is situated. Not for some years yet was the South Pole to reveal its secret, but Scott's first expedition may truthfully be said to have shown the way towards that revelation. In the years to come Amundsen frankly admitted how carefully he and his companions studied the accounts of Scott's and Shackleton's expeditions. III After Scott's return from his first visit to the Antarctic no further attempt was immediately made to visit the Far South. But that great explorer, Ernest Shackleton, had seen enough of the South to be gripped by the desire to solve more of its problems, and in the _Geographical Journal_ of March, 1907, he stated the programme of a proposed expedition. In this programme Shackleton said: "I do not intend to sacrifice the scientific utility of the expedition to a mere record-breaking journey, but say frankly, all the same, that one of my great efforts will be to reach the southern geographical Pole." The financial difficulties that seemed to be inseparable from Polar expeditions followed, but they were ultimately removed, and on July 30, 1907, the _Nimrod_ sailed for New Zealand.