Dickason was half crippled with dysentery when they started, but improved.  Browning, however, was still very ill, but now they were able to eat a ration of four biscuits a day and a small amount of pemmican and cocoa which gave him a better chance than the continual meat.  As they neared Granite Harbour, a month after starting, his condition was so serious that they discussed leaving him there with Levick until they could get medicine and suitable food from Cape Evans.

But their troubles were nearly over, for on reaching Cape Roberts they suddenly sighted the depot left by Taylor in the previous year.  They searched round, like dogs, scratching in the drifts, and found—­a whole case of biscuits:  and there were butter and raisins and lard.  Day and night merged into one long lingering feast, and when they started on again their mouths were sore[30] with eating biscuits.  More, there is little doubt that the change of diet saved Browning’s life.  As they moved down the coast they found another depot, and yet another.  They reached Hut Point on November 5.

The story of this, our Northern Party, has been told in full by the two men most able to tell it:  by Campbell in the second volume of Scott’s book, by Priestley in a separate volume called Antarctic Adventure.[31] I have added only these few pages because, save in so far as their adventures touch the Main Party or the Ship, it is better that I should refer the reader to these two accounts than that I should try and write again at second hand what has been already twice told.  I will only say here that the history of what these men did and suffered has been overshadowed by the more tragic tale of the Polar Party.  They are not men who wish for public applause, but that is no reason why the story of a great adventure should not be known; indeed, it is all the more reason why it should be known.  To those who have not read it I recommend Priestley’s book mentioned above, or Campbell’s equally modest account in Scott’s Last Expedition.[32]

The Terra Nova arrived at Cape Evans on January 18, 1913, just as we had started to prepare for another year.  And so the remains of the expedition came home that spring.  Scott’s book was published in the autumn.

The story of Scott’s Last Expedition of 1910-13 is a book of two volumes, the first volume of which is Scott’s personal diary of the expedition, written from day to day before he turned into his sleeping-bag for the night when sledging, or in the intervals of the many details of organization and preparation in the hut, when at Winter Quarters.  The readers of this book will probably have read that diary and the accounts of the Winter Journey, the last year, the adventures of Campbell’s Party and the travels of the Terra Nova which follow.  With an object which I will explain presently I quote a review of Scott’s book from the pen of one of Mr. Punch’s staff:[33]