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Updated: May 27, 2025
'Better these than the hell of suspense." "Trying the power of suggestion, eh?" "Quite so. The second attempt at it is even more open. An advertisement of Shackleton's Safeguard Revolvers. Date, September twenty-second. Advice, by pin: 'As well this as any other way." "Drug or suicide," remarked Bertram. "The man at the other end doesn't seem particular which."
As the fog lifted we saw a huge line of pressure ahead; I steered for a place where the slope looked smoother, and we are camped beneath the spot to-night. We must be ahead of Shackleton's position on the 17th. All day we have been admiring a wonderful banded structure of the rock; to-night it is beautifully clear on Mount Darwin.
Shackleton's journal of January 8 notes the fierce gales blowing at the rate of seventy or eighty miles an hour, while the temperature had dropped to "seventy-two degrees of frost." "We are short of fuel," he writes, "and at this high altitude, eleven thousand six hundred feet, it is hard to keep any warmth in our bodies between the scanty meals.
Ponies, on the other hand, have to be left at the foot of the glacier, while the men themselves have the doubtful pleasure of acting as ponies. As I understand Shackleton's account, there can be no question of hauling the ponies over the steep and crevassed glaciers. It must be rather hard to have to abandon one's motive power voluntarily when only a quarter of the distance has been covered.
We should reach it easily enough on to-morrow's march if we can compass 12 miles. The ponies marched splendidly to-day, crossing the deep snow in the undulations without difficulty. They must be in very much better condition than Shackleton's animals, and indeed there isn't a doubt they would go many miles yet if food allowed.
Before us lay an absolutely flat plateau, only broken by small crevices. In the afternoon we passed 88° 23', Shackleton's farthest south. We pitched our camp in 88° 25', and established our last depot No. 10. From 88° 25' the plateau began to descend evenly and very slowly. We reached 88° 29' on December 9. On December 10, 88° 56'; December 11, 89° 15'; December 12, 89° 30'; December 13, 89° 45'.
The other officers shuffled and moved in a welcome relief from the strain of their expectancy, and Knightley's thoughts were diverted by Shackleton's words to a quite different subject. For he picked with his fingers at the Moorish robe he wore and "I too wore the King's uniform," he pleaded wistfully. "And shall do so again, thank God," responded the Major heartily.
Over the sastrugi it is all up and down hill, and the covering of ice crystals prevents the sledge from gliding even on the downgrade. The sastrugi, I fear, have come to stay, and we must be prepared for heavy marching, but in two days I hope to lighten loads with a depôt. We are south of Shackleton's last camp, so, I suppose, have made the most southerly camp.
Shackleton also was able to strengthen the opinion that Emerald, Nimrod, and Dougherty Islands do not exist. The hardy Shetland and Manchurian ponies, first used by Evelyn Baldwin, proved a valuable equipment in polar research. Shackleton's gasoline motor-car and Scott's captive balloon were of considerable but limited use.
We saw a dark object a quarter of a mile north as we reached the Barrier. I walked over and found it to be the tops of two tents more than half buried Shackleton's tents we suppose. A moulting Emperor penguin was sleeping between them. The canvas on one tent seemed intact, but half stripped from the other.
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