showed in the minutest details of equipment; but at the same time
it was natural for the members of the expedition to be obsessed
by the fear that they might start with a flourish of trumpets and
return with failure. The grim possibilities of the voyage were
also not to be forgotten--a voyage to the Antarctic, the very map
of which had remained practically unaltered from 1843-93.

With no previous Polar experience to help him, Scott was following
on the track of great Polar explorers, notably of James Cook and
James Ross, of whom it has been well said that the one defined the
Antarctic region and the other discovered it. Can it be wondered
therefore that his great anxieties were
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to be off and doing, to justify the existence of the expedition at
the earliest possible moment, and to obey the instructions which
had been given him?

Before the _Discovery_ had crossed the Bay of Biscay it was evident
that she did not possess a turn of speed under any conditions,
and that there must be none but absolutely necessary delays on
the voyage, if she was to arrive in the Antarctic in time to take
full advantage of the southern summer of 1901-2 for the first
exploration in the ice. This proved a serious drawback, as it had
been confidently expected that there would be ample time to make
trial of various devices for sounding and dredging in the deep
sea, while still in a temperate climate. The fact that no trials
could be made on the outward voyage was severely felt when the
Antarctic was reached.

On October 2 the _Discovery_ arrived within 150 miles of the Cape,