Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton

“ To pick up a depot which is only a tiny speck in a vast snowy plain and is nearly sixty miles from the nearest land, is like picking up a buoy in the North Sea with only distant mountains for bearings, and I was most anxious that we should reach it before the glorious weather broke up, for there was stored not only the pony feed but also a most valuable gallon of oil. ”

“ Critical as our position was, we were cheered by the thought that we were still getting south, but the sledges were being badly damaged by the continual ice-work, and as there were still 340 geographical miles between us and the Pole, we longed for a surface which was a little less like walking over a cucumber-frame. Of all the surfaces on which to travel, none can be more irritating than that of rotten ice through which one's feet are everlastingly breaking. ”

“ Not a moment was to be lost if we were to reach the glacier before the sea-ice broke up, for one strong blizzard would have converted the whole of the sea-ice between us and the glacier into a mass of drifting pack. ”

“ Men go out into the void spaces of the world for various reasons. Some are incited simply by a love of adventure, some have a keen thirst for scientific knowledge, and others are drawn away from trodden paths by the mysterious fascination of the unknown. I think that in my own case it was a combination of these factors that determined me to try my fortune once again in the frozen south.
I had been invalided home before the conclusion of the Discovery expedition, and I had the keenest desire to see more of the vast continent that lies amid the Antarctic snows and glaciers. ”

“ Often on the Barrier and up on the plateau our thoughts had turned to the day when we should return to winter quarters, but never had we imagined that we should have to fight our way to the back door, so to speak, in such a cheerless fashion.
At 7.45 P.M. we reached the top of Ski Slope, and from there both the hut and the bay could be seen. But no sign of the ship could we find, and no trace of life could be seen at the hut. ”

“ Man becomes very primitive when he is desperately hungry, and neither the glory of the mountains that towered high on our sides, nor the majesty of the great glacier up which we travelled so painfully, appealed to any extent to our emotions.
I used often to find myself wondering whether people who suffer from hunger in the big cities of civilisation felt as we were feeling, and I concluded that they did not, for no barrier of law and order would have been allowed to stand between us and any food that had been available. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Before sunset we were to sever all ties with the outer world, but we all looked forward eagerly to our coming venture, for the glamour of the unknown was with us and the south was calling.
All day long the deck of our little vessel was thronged by sight-seers, who showed the greatest interest in everything connected with the ship and her equipment. There were many whose criticisms were frankly pessimistic as to our chances of weathering an Antarctic gale, for the Nimrod was deep in the water, but we, having confidence in the ship, were not disturbed by these criticisms. ”

“ In this way we advanced for a mile, and then returned over the crevasses and hauled up the other sledges over a surface where often and often a slip meant death.
In such rough-and-tumble work the sledges naturally suffered, and the one with the broken bow frequently striking against hard, sharp ice, pulled us up with a jerk and flung us down. In all our difficulties and dangers, however, we found solace in the thought that the glacier must eventually end and our longed-for plateau be reached. ”

“ By December 16 we had crossed nearly one hundred miles of crevassed ice and risen 6000 ft. on the largest glacier in the world, and on the following afternoon we burned our boats behind us as regards warm clothing, and made a depot of everything except the barest necessities. But relay work still hampered our progress towards our goal, and no thirsty man ever longed for water with more eagerness than we longed for the plateau and the end of that vast glacier. ”

“ The Adelie is always comical. He pops out of the water with startling suddenness, like a jack-in-the-box, alights on his feet, shakes his tail, and toddles off about his business. He always knows where he wants to go and what he wants to do, and it is difficult to turn him aside from his purpose. ”

“ Heavy snow continued to cut off all view of the surrounding country, and they had been wandering for twenty-seven hours after their glissade, when Day found them in a state of complete exhaustion, and just staggering along because they knew that to stop meant death. Had not Day been outside the hut—to which the travellers had no idea they were close—watching for the return of the ship, that expedition, undertaken so light-heartedly, must almost certainly have been a fatal one to Mackintosh and McGillan. ”

“ At last we were on the Barrier again, and with six days' food and only fifty miles between us and our next supply I thought that grave danger was behind us. But the man who congratulates himself that anxieties and perils are over, before he has reached the very end of his polar exploration work is wasting his time.
In our case Wild developed dysentery, the cause of which we could only ascribe to the horse-meat; while just before we left the glacier I broke through some soft snow and plunged into a hidden crevasse. ”

“ While the Adelies were nesting the Emperors came in numbers to inspect the camp, the two kinds usually paying no attention to each other unless an Adelie thought an Emperor came too close to her nest, when an odd unequal quarrel followed. Little impudence, pecking and scolding, and being more than able to hold her own with the tongue, but knowing the value of discretion whenever the Emperor raised his flipper.
The Emperors were very inquisitive and would come a long way to see a motor-car or a man, and when out on these excursions the leader kept his party together by a long shrill squawk. ”

“ On the 17th we had to march in a blinding blizzard, with 42° of frost, but mercifully the wind was behind us; and although the sledge with the sail up sometimes overran us and sometimes, getting into a patch of soft snow, brought us up with a jerk, we were thankful that we had not to face such a wind. The jerks, however, were very painful; for when we were brought up suddenly, the harness round our weakened stomachs hurt us very much indeed. ”

“ On the 20th we were impeded by such a bad light that we could only see a little way; but by 4 P.M. we reached Depot A, at which was the tin of jam that we had originally intended to eat on Christmas Day—and never did jam taste more delightful! Our depoted tobacco and cigarettes were also there, and apart from the intense enjoyment of a good smoke, I felt sure that tobacco would make up for the shortage of food until we reached the Bluff depot. This last depot was the one which I had told Joyce to lay out, and which was the one ray of hope in front of us during these days of hunger and disease. ”

“ On the next day we tried the experiment of strengthening the brew of the tea by using the old tea-leaves of a previous meal mixed with the new ones—an idea of Mackay's which Mawson and I did not appreciate at first, though later on we were glad enough to adopt it.
By this time the weather had become warmer, and consequently the saline snow on the sea-ice was sticky, and gripped the runners of the sledges like glue. Only by the greatest exertion could we drag the sledges along even at a snail's pace. ”

“ I am convinced that men engaged in polar exploration should be clothed as lightly as possible, even if they are in danger of being frost-bitten when they halt on the march. We owe many grudges against the glacier which caused us so many difficulties, but my chief one now is that we brought back no photographs of a very interesting portion of it. This was due to the facts that we expected to take as many photographs as we had plates to spare on our return journey, and that when we returned we were so short of food that we could not afford the time to unpack the camera. ”