I believe it to be clear that the rations used by us must not only be increased by future expeditions, but co-ordinated in different proportions of fats, proteins and carbohydrates.  Taking into consideration the fact that our bodies were not digesting the amount of fats we had provided, Atkinson suggests that it is useless to increase the fats at the expense of the protein and carbohydrates.  He recommends that fats should total about 5 ounces daily.  The digestion of carbohydrates is easy and complete, and though that of protein is more complicated there are plenty of the necessary digestive ferments.  The ration should be increased by equal amounts of protein and carbohydrates; both should be provided in as dry and pure a form as possible.

There is no censure attached to this criticism.  Our ration was probably the best which has been used:  but more is known now than was known then.  We are all out to try and get these things right for the future.[354]

Campbell reached Hut Point only five days after we left it with the dog-teams.  A characteristic note left to greet us on our return regretted they were too late to take part in the Search Journey.  If I had lived through ten months such as those men had just endured, wild horses would not have dragged me out sledging again.  But they were keen to get some useful work done in the time which remained until the ship arrived.

We had the Polar records:  Campbell and his men, unaided, had not only survived their terrible winter, but had sledged down the coast after it.  We ourselves, faced by a difficult alternative, had fallen on our feet.  We never hoped for more than this:  we seldom hoped for so much.

I wanted a series of Adelie penguin embryos from the rookery at Cape Royds, but had not expected an opportunity of getting them because I was away sledging during the summer months.  Now the chance had come.  Atkinson wanted to work on parasites at the same place, and others to survey.  But the real job was an ascent of Erebus, the active volcano which rose from our doors to some 13,400 feet in height.  A party of Shackleton’s men under Professor David went up it in March, and managed to haul a sledge up to 5800 feet, from which point they had to portage their gear.  A year before this Debenham, with the help of a telescope, selected a route by which they could haul a sledge up to 9000 feet.  There proved to be no great difficulty about it; it was just a matter of legs and breath.

They were a cheery company, part-singing in the evenings and working hard all day.  It was an uneventful trip, Debenham said, and very harmonious:  the best trip he had down there.  Both Debenham and Dickason suffered from mountain sickness, however, and they were the two smokers!  The clearness of the air was marked.  At 5000 feet they could plainly see Mount Melbourne and Cape Jones, between two and three hundred miles away, and several uncharted mountains over to the west, but they were unable to