Read The Mammoth Book of Travel in Dangerous Places Online
Authors: John Keay
The Mammoth Book of Travel in Dangerous Places (82 page)
Monday, March 19
Lunch. We camped with difficulty last night and were dreadfully cold till after our supper of cold pemmican and biscuit and a half a pannikin of cocoa
cooked over the spirit. Then, contrary to expectation, we got warm and all slept well. To-day we started in the usual dragging manner. Sledge dreadfully heavy. We are 15½ miles from the
depot and ought to get there in three days. What progress! We have two day’s food but barely a day’s fuel. All our feet are getting bad – Wilson’s best, my right foot worst,
left all right. There is no chance to nurse one’s feet till we can get hot food into us. Amputation is the least I can hope for now, but will the trouble spread? That is the serious question.
The weather doesn’t give us a chance – the wind from N. to N. W. and – 40° temp, to-day.
Wednesday, March 21
Got within 11 miles of depot Monday night; had to lay up all yesterday in severe blizzard. To-day forlorn hope, Wilson and Bowers going to depot for
fuel.
Thursday, March 22 and 23
Blizzard bad as ever – Wilson and Bowers unable to start – to-morrow last chance – no fuel and only one or two of food left
– must be near the end. Have decided it shall be natural – we shall march for the depot with or without our effects and die in our tracks.
Thursday, March 29
Since the 21st we have had a continuous gale from W. S. W. and S. W. We had fuel to make two cups of tea a piece and bare food for two days on the
20th. Every day we have been ready to start for our depot
11 miles
away, but outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift. I do not think we can hope for any better
things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far.
It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more.
R. S
COTT
For God’s sake look after our people.
Wilson and Bowers were found in the attitude of sleep, their sleeping-bags closed over their heads as they would naturally close them.
Scott died later. He had thrown back the flaps of his sleeping-bag and opened his coat. The little wallet containing the three notebooks was under his shoulders and his arm flung across Wilson.
So they were found eight months later.
With the diaries in the tent were found the following letters:
To Mrs. E. A. Wilson
My dear Mrs. Wilson,
If this letter reaches you Bill and I will have gone out together. We are very near it now and I should like you to know how splendid he was at the end –
everlastingly cheerful and ready to sacrifice himself for others, never a word of blame to me for leading him into this mess. He is not suffering, luckily, at least only minor discomforts.
His eyes have a comfortable blue look of hope and his mind is peaceful with the satisfaction of his faith in regarding himself as part of the great scheme of the Almighty. I can do no more
to comfort you than to tell you that he died as he lived, a brave, true man – the best of comrades and staunchest of friends.
My whole heart goes out to you in pity,
Yours,
R. S
COTT
.
To Mrs. Bowers
My dear Mrs. Bowers,
I am afraid this will reach you after one of the heaviest blows of your life.
I write when we are very near the end of our journey, and I am finishing it in company with two gallant, noble gentlemen. One of these is your son. He had come to be one of my closest and
soundest friends, and I appreciate his wonderful upright nature, his ability and energy. As the troubles have thickened his dauntless spirit ever shone brighter and he has remained cheerful,
hopeful, and indomitable to the end.
The ways of Providence are inscrutable, but there must be some reason why such a young, vigorous and promising life is taken.
My whole heart goes out in pity for you.
Yours,
R. S
COTT
.
To the end he has talked of you and his sisters. One sees what a happy home he must have had and perhaps it is well to look back on nothing but happiness.
He remains unselfish, self-reliant and splendidly hopeful to the end, believing in God’s mercy to you.
To Sir J. M. Barrie
My dear Barrie,
We are pegging out in a very comfortless spot. Hoping this letter may be found and sent to you, I write a word of farewell . . . More practically I want you to help my
widow and my boy – your godson. We are showing that Englishmen can still die with a bold spirit, fighting it out to the end. It will be known that we have accomplished our object in
reaching the Pole, and that we have done everything possible, even to sacrificing ourselves in order to save sick companions. I think this makes an example for Englishmen of the future, and
that the country ought to help those who are left behind to mourn us. I leave my poor girl and your godson, Wilson leaves a widow, and Edgar Evans also a widow in humble circumstances. Do what
you can to get their claims recognised. Goodbye. I am not at all afraid of the end, but sad to miss many a humble pleasure which I had planned for the future on our long marches. I may not have
proved a great explorer, but we have done the greatest march ever made and come very near to great success. Goodbye, my dear friend,
Yours,
R. S
COTT
.
We are in a desperate state, feet frozen, &c. No fuel and a long way from food, but it would do your heart good to be in our tent, to hear our songs and the cheery conversation as to
what we will do when we get to Hut Point.
Later.
– We are very near the end, but have not and will not lose our good cheer. We have four days of storm in our tent and nowhere’s food or fuel. We
did intend to finish ourselves when things proved like this, but we have decided to die naturally in the track.
As a dying man, my dear friend, be good to my wife and child. Give the boy a chance in life if the State won’t do it. He ought to have good stuff in him. . . . I never met a man in my
life whom I admired and loved more than you, but I never could show you how much your friendship meant to me, for you had much to give and I nothing.
SOURCES AND
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
George William Steller: Reprinted from American Geographical Society Research Series No 2, 1925. Translated by Leonhard Stejneger
John Dundas Cochrane: Taken from
A Pedestrian Journey Through Russia & Siberian Tartary to the Frontiers of China, The Frozen Sea, and Kamtchatka
, Constable & Co.,
1829
Alexander Burnes: Taken from
Travels into Bokhara
, John Murray, 1839
John Wood: Taken from
A Journey to the Source of the River Oxus
, John Murray, 1872
Regis-Evariste Huc: Taken from
Lamas of the Western Heavens
, translated by Charles de Salis, © The Folio Society Ltd., 1982
Henri Mouhot: Taken from
Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China, Cambodia & Laos
, John Murray, 1864
Francis Edward Younghusband: Taken from
Among The Celestials
, John Murray, 1898
Ekai Kawaguchi: Taken from
Three Years in Tibet
, Theosophical Publishing Society, 1909
Sven Hedin: Taken from
Trans-Himalaya
, MacMillan & Co., 1909
Edmund Hillary: Taken from ‘The Ascent of Mount Everest’ by Col John Hunt in
Geographical Journal
CXIX(4) pp. 385–99, Dec. 1953, RGS, London
William Gifford Palgrave: Taken from
A Year’s Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia
, MacMillan & Co., 1871
Charles Montagu Doughty: Taken from
Wanderings in Arabia
, Duckworth, 1923
Harry St John Bridger Philby: Taken from
The Empty Quarter
, Constable & Co., London, 1933
Wilfred Thesiger: Taken from
Arabian Sands
, Longman Green, London, 1959, repr Penguin 1964, by kind permission of Curtis Brown
Mungo Park: Taken from
Travels in the Interior of Africa
, Adam & Charles Black, 1860
Hugh Clapperton: Taken from
Narrative of Travels & Discoveries in Northern & Central Africa
, John Murray, 1826
Richard Lander: Taken from
Journal of an Expedition to Explore the Course and Termination of the Niger
, Thomas Tegg, 1845
Heinrich Barth: Taken from
Travels & Discoveries in North and Central Africa
, Longman Brown, 1858
Mary Kingsley: Taken from
Travels in West Africa
, MacMillan & Co., 1897
James Bruce: Taken From
Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile
, Constable & Co., 1804
Richard Francis Burton: Taken from
Wanderings in Three Continents
, Hutchinson, 1901
John Hanning Speke: Taken from
What Led to the Discovery of the Source of the Nile
, Blackwood & Sons, 1864
Samuel White Baker: Taken from
The Albert N’yanza, Great Basin of the Nile and Explorations of the Nile Sources
, MacMillan, 1867
David Livingstone: Taken from
The Last Journals of David Livingstone
, John Murray, 1874
Henry Morton Stanley: Taken from
Through the Dark Continent
, Sampson Low, 1878
Joseph Thomson: Taken from
To the Central African Lakes and Back
, Frank Cass, 1968
James Cook: Taken from
The Journals of Captain James Cook
, Hakluyt Society
Charles Sturt: Taken from
Narrative of an Expedition into Central Australia
, T & W Boone, 1849
William John Wills: Taken from
An Account of the Crossing the Continent of Australia
, Wilson & MacKinnon, 1861
John McDonald Stuart: Taken from
The Journals of John MCDouall Stuart
, Saunders, Otley & Co., 1864
Alexander Mackenzie: Taken from
Voyages from Montreal on the River St Laurence through the Continent of North America to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans
, Cadell & Davies,
1801
Meriwether Lewis: Taken from
History of the Expedition of Captains Lewis and Clark
, A. C. McClurg, 1903
Alexander von Humboldt: Taken from
Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America
, George Routledge & Sons
Henry Savage Landor: Taken from
Across Unknown South America
, Hodder & Stoughton
Hiram Bingham: Taken from
Inca Land: Explorations in the Highlands of Peru
, London, Constable & Co., 1922
John Ross: Taken from
Narrative of a Second Voyage in Search of a North-West Passage
, A. W. Webster, 1835
John Franklin: Taken from
Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of The Polar Sea
, John Murray, 1823
Fridtjof Nansen: Taken from
The First Crossing of Greenland
, Longmans, Green & Co., 1890
Robert Edwin Peary: Taken from
The North Pole
, Hodder & Stoughton, 1910
Ernest Henry Shackleton: Taken from
The Heart of the Antarctic
, Heinemann, 1910
Roald Amundsen: Taken from
The South Pole
, John Murray, 1912
Robert Falcon Scott: Taken from
Scott’s Last Expedition
, Smith Elder & Co., 1913
ENDNOTES
1
. More probably, perhaps, Sahma or Rala.
2
.
Hamra, Hamrur (pl. Hamarir),
apparently used only of sand-tracts absolutely destitute of any kind of vegetation.
3
. This, I maintain, was
the
discovery of the source of the Nile. Had the ancient kings and sages known that a rainy zone existed on the equator, they would not have puzzled their brains so long, and have wondered where those waters came from which meander through upwards of a thousand miles of scorching desert without a single tributary.
4
. This magnificent sheet of water I have ventured to name V
ICTORIA
, after our gracious Sovereign. Its length was not clearly understood by me, in consequence of the word Sea having been applied both to the Lake and to the Nile by my local informants; and there was no recent map of the Nile with the expedition by which I might have been guided.
5
. Dr. Leichhardt had started to cross the Continent some time before.
6
. The Cape or Point Menzies of Vancouver.
7
. Water or milk of clay.
Llanka
is a word of the general language of the Incas, signifying fine clay.
