INTO THE UNKNOWN

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 257, 30 October 1929, Page 6

INTO THE UNKNOWN

SCOTT'S ANTARCTIC JOURNEYS. ( Few brave men have been so overwhelmed in the moment of victory by such a griiy and pathetic tragedy as fell to the lot of Captain Robert Falcon Scott, whose heroic death was a sad, but truly glorious, ending to a career of brilliant and daring achievement. His first Antarctic expedition reached the great lloating ice barrier early in 1902, and, after discovering the hitherto unknown territory of peaks and glaciers, which he named King Edward Vll.'s Land, he made a couple of wonderful journeys, which established liis reputation as a daring explorer and a resourceful leader of men. In November, 1902, he started on a southward journey and succeeded in advancing to within 463 miles of the South Pole, an achievement far beyond anything hitherto accomplished. In the following summer lie made liis way into the unknown interior of Victoria Land, and in the course of eighty-one days he covered 109S miles, travelling over a series of glaciers and mountains and reaching an altitude of 9000 feet above sea level.

It was during the progress of his second expedition, which left England in 1910, that fossils and coal were discovered in the Antarctic, which proved that the icy regions of to-day were once covered with a luxuriant vegetation. On November 2, 1911, he left his base to make a second attempt to reach the Pole, at which he arrived on January IS, 1912, accompanied by Dr. Wilson, Captain Oates, Lieutenant Bowers and Petty Officer Evans.

All the joy of Scott's great achievement was crushed by the discovery that he had, been forestalled by Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer, who had reached the Pole by another route thirtythree days earlier and had left behind him the flag of his country flying above a tent, in which were deposited the records of liis visit. Amundsen had made his way to the Pole from a base 400 miles to the east of Scott's headquarters, and both his outward and return journeys were made in exceptionally fine weather, whereas the conditions experienced by Scott were exactly the reverse. In addition, the Norwegian, by sheer chance, chose a much easier and less arduous route than that followed by the British party. After a brief rest at the spot they * had laboured so strenuously to reach, the five" disappointed men turned their faces northwards and commenced the weary tramp of 850 miles back to their base. Misfortune and bad weather attended them from the start. Evans died on February 27, and seventeen days later Oates, who was so badly frost-bitten that he could walk no further, stepped out into a blinding blizzard to meet a hero's death in order to leave his comrades free to make a dash for safety.

The survivors tramped on for three more days, and 011 March 19 they erected their tent for the last time. A terrible storm arose and raged for several days, so that the men were imprisoned in the tent, unable to leave and make an attempt to reach a depot, only eleven miles away, where* stores had been left on their outward march. They finished the last of their food and fuel 011 the first day of their confinement, and there are few incidents in the world's history to compare with the grandeur and the pathos of the closing scene in the lives of those three gallant men, calmly awaiting their deaths by starvation and exposure.

Wilson and Bowers died first, and, with his comrades lying dead on either side of him, Scott wrote farewell letters and made entries in his journal: until the pencil dropped from his dying grasp. Eight months later a search party from the base found the frozen remains of the three heroes and brought back with them Scott's letters and journals, which revealed to the world another glorious story of British courage and endurance, a story which sent a thrill of sorrow and pride throughout the Empire.