South. The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-1917
by , C.V.O. The Macmillan Company. 1930. 8vo. xvi+380 pp. With illustrations and diagrams. $6.00.
THIS account of an unsuccessful attempt to cross the South Polar Continent is aptly characterized by the author and leader of the expedition as a ‘book of high adventure, strenuous days, lonely nights, unique experiences, and, above all, records of unflinching determination, supreme loyalty, and generous self-sacrifice on the part of my men.’ It would be difficult indeed to find in all human experience a parallel to the strenuous life which these 28 men, out of nearly 5000 applicants, led for nearly two years in the fastnesses of the Polar ice.
The story begins with an account of the struggle to reach land, for nearly a year, with the pack ice of the Weddell Sea, a remarkably vivid impression of which is given by the reproduction of photographs taken by the one whose duty it was to take kinematograph pictures. When their ship, the Endurance, was ‘crush edremorselessly,’ their home for the next six months was made on two floating lumps of ice called by them Ocean Camp and Patience Camp. At length an uninhabited island was reached, and tents were pitched on a deserted penguin rookery, which was sure to be above high-water mark.
It is very difficult to get a full conception of the life which was led here and in the other camps. Food was confined to a very few things, and sometimes was hard to get. A scanty supply of fuel enabled them to melt enough ice to give them water to drink, but for no other purpose. So one of the men writes, ‘We have been unable to wash since we left the ship, nearly ten months ago. Had one man washed, half a dozen others would have had to go without a drink all day. One cannot suck ice to relieve the thirst, as at these low temperatures it cracks the lips and blisters the tongue. Still, we are all very cheerful.’ Another wrote in his diary: ‘It’s a hard, rough, jolly life, this marching and camping; no washing of self or dishes, no undressing, no changing of clothes.’ Occasionally they had games of football and hockey, runs with the dogs, and sledge-races — games which ‘ kept all hands in good fettle.’ After supper they of ten sang and had concerts accompanied by a banjo. ‘This banjo was the last thing to be saved off the ship before she sank, and I took it with us as a mental tonic.’
Their reading material consisted of a few books on Antarctic exploration, a copy of Browning, one of the Ancient Mariner, and a penny cookerybook. ‘The greatest treasure in the library was a portion of the Encyclopædia Britannica. This was being continually used to settle the inevitable arguments that would arise. The sailors were discovered one day engaged in a very heated discussion on the subject of Money and Exchange. They finally came to the conclusion that the Encyclopædia, since it did not coincide with their views, must be wrong.’ Two Bibles were given by Queen Alexandra, one for the ship, the other for the shore party. The life about them consisted mainly of their helpful dogs, penguins, and seals, which furnished them with food, clothing and Fuel. There were also many killer-whales, which were a positive danger to them; for when they see a seal resting on the ice. they strike through from belowand seize it. Once they saw one break a hole through ice twelve and one half inches thick.
Their rescuer was their leader. Sir Ernest, who with five men crossed the ice to the most accessible inhabited island. This was apparently the hardest work of the expedition, for’ we had a daily struggle to keep ourselves alive.’ Some conception of the changed conditions of this life may be gained from the fact that here a ’temperature of 30°,i.e., 2°below freezing, is considered unbearably hot.’ At length, after climbing glaciers and descending precipices, sometimes a thousand feet, a ‘steam-whistle came to us. . . . Never had any one of us heard sweeter music.’ By means of a whaler, laid up for the winter in the open port, the men in camp were brought back to civilization, not one of them being lost.
The closing chapters are descriptive of the ‘fortunes and misfortunes ’ of a party sent by the Dominion Government to land stores and equipment, and lay depots on the Great Ice-Barrier for the use of the party that I expected to bring overland from the Weddell Seacoast.’ In an appendix is a brief summary of the scientific work, a full account of which it is hoped will be published. It is interesting to note that ‘specks of gold’ were found in mud brought up in a sounding made a thousand feet below the surface. J. M. H.