Some years after this I met Wilson in a shooting lodge in Scotland.  He was working upon grouse disease for the Royal Commission which had been appointed, and I saw then for the first time something of his magnetic personality and glimpses also of his methods of work.  He and Scott both meant to go back and finish the job, and I then settled that when they went I would go too if wishing could do anything.  Meanwhile Shackleton was either in the South or making his preparations to go there.

He left England in 1908, and in the following Antarctic summer two wonderful journeys were made.  The first, led by Shackleton himself, consisted of four men and four ponies.  Leaving Cape Royds, where the expedition wintered in a hut, in November, they marched due south on the Barrier outside Scott’s track until they were stopped by the eastward trend of the range of mountains, and by the chaotic pressure caused by the discharge of a Brobdingnagian glacier.

But away from the main stream of the glacier, and separated from it by land now known as Hope Island, was a narrow and steep snow slope forming a gateway which opened on to the main glacier stream.  Boldly plunging through this, the party made its way up the Beardmore Glacier, a giant of its kind, being more than twice as large as any other known.  The history of their adventures will make anybody’s flesh creep.  From the top they travelled due south toward the Pole under the trying conditions of the plateau and reached the high latitude of 88 deg. 23’ S. before they were forced to turn by lack of food.

While Shackleton was essaying the geographical Pole another party of three men under Professor David reached the magnetic Pole, travelling a distance of 1260 miles, of which 740 miles were relay work, relying entirely on man-haulage, and with no additional help.  This was a very wonderful journey, and when Shackleton returned in 1909 he and his expedition had made good.  During the same year the North Pole was reached by Peary after some twelve years of travelling in Arctic regions.

Scott published the plans of his second expedition in 1909.  This expedition is the subject of the present history.

The Terra Nova sailed from the West India Dock, London, on June 1, 1910, and from Cardiff on June 15.  She made her way to New Zealand, refitted and restowed her cargo, took on board ponies, dogs, motor sledges, certain further provisions and equipment, as well as such members of her executive officers and scientists as had not travelled out in her, and left finally for the South on November 29, 1910.  She arrived in McMurdo Sound on January 4, 1911, and our hut had been built on Cape Evans and all stores landed in less than a fortnight.  Shortly afterwards the ship sailed.  The party which was left at Cape Evans under Scott is known as the Main Party.