The Worst Journey in the World - Antarctic 1910-1913 by Apsley Cherry-Garrard
page 118 of 783 (15%)
page 118 of 783 (15%)
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journey, as well as one of the most undaunted." But he had already proved
himself a first-rate sailor. Among the junior scientific staff too, several were showing qualities as seamen which were a good sign for the future. Altogether I think it must have been with a cheerful mind that Scott landed in Australia. When we left Melbourne for New Zealand we were all a bit stale, which was not altogether surprising, and a run ashore was to do us a world of good after five months of solid grind, crowded up in a ship which thought nothing of rolling 50° each way. Also, though everything had been done that could be done to provide them, the want of fresh meat and vegetables was being felt, and it was an excellent thing that a body of men, for whom every precaution against scurvy that modern science could suggest was being taken, should have a good course of antiscorbutic food and an equally beneficial change of life before leaving civilization. And so it was with some anticipation that on Monday morning, October 24, we could smell the land--New Zealand, that home of so many Antarctic expeditions, where we knew that we should be welcomed. Scott's Discovery, Shackleton's Nimrod, and now again Scott's Terra Nova have all in turn been berthed at the same quay in Lyttelton, for aught I know at the same No. 5 Shed, into which they have spilled out their holds, and from which they have been restowed with the addition of all that New Zealand, scorning payment, could give. And from there they have sailed, and thither their relief ships have returned year after year. Scott's words of the Discovery apply just as much to the Terra Nova. Not only did New Zealand do all in her power to help the expedition in an official capacity, but the New Zealanders welcomed both officers and men with open arms, and "gave them to understand that although already separated by many thousands of miles from their native land, here in this new land |
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