Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE CHAPTER I THE FIRST PARTING Good-bye to the Depot Party Description of parting Classical scenery The Call of the South Dogs and ponies eager for a start The Northern Party; plans and men. On the 26th of January, 1911, a little group of men stood together on the sea ice south of a tongue of ice which juts out from the slopes of Erebus like a huge and natural pier, a fitting monument to the power of the frost which is the ruling force in the Antarctic. Six, at any rate, of those who are alive to-day are destined to have that scene engraved on their memories for the remainder of their lives, for it was there that we of the Northern Party said farewell to our companions who were to make the final successful attack on the South Pole; and though no forebodings disturbed the serenity of the parting, it was ordained that we should never set eyes again on five of the men whom we were proud to number among our friends. The textit{Terra Nova had reached the shores of Ross Island in safety after a voyage of varying fortune. Here we had helped to establish the main party in comfortable winter quarters, and in what we had reason to believe was an advantageous position for communication with the snow plain over which they would have to travel for the first three hundred miles of their march to the Pole. Their stores had been landed with the lossof only one motor-sledge, and now the first march in the campaign towards the Pole was about to be commenced. The men who were to form the Southern Depot Party were all keen to commence their work, and both ponies and dogs were in as good condition as could be expected after their long time on board ship. Every one, in fact, was quietly confident the sledge party that they would give a good account of themselves, …