We brought back with us from our march towards the Pole vivid memories of how to feel intensely, fiercely hungry.

From November 15, 1908, until February 23, 1909, we had but one full meal on Christmas Day, and even then scarcely any time had passed before we were as hungry as ever. Our daily allowance of food would have been a small one for a city worker in a temperate climate, and in our own case hunger was increased by the fact that we were performing vigorous labour in a very low temperature.

When our evening meal was prepared we used to "turn backs" in order to ensure fair divisions of the food. The cook used to pour the hoosh into pannikins and arrange the biscuits in four heaps, and as soon as we were all satisfied that the divisions were equal one man would turn his back, and another, pointing at one lot, would say "Whose?"

Then the man with his back turned would mention a name, and so the distribution proceeded, each of us feeling sure that the smallest share had fallen to his lot.

On alternate days we had chocolate and cheese for lunch, and since the former was more satisfying and easier to divide we infinitely preferred it. Considering how greatly we depended during our march upon pony-meat, the reader will readily understand that the loss of Socks was a terrible blow to us.

If we had been able to use poor Socks for food there is no doubt that we should have been able to get further south, and perhaps even have reached the Pole itself. But I must also mention that had we managed to get to the Pole, we could scarcely have caught the ship before she was compelled to leave by the approach of winter.

During the last weeks of the journey outwards, and the long march back when our allowance had been reduced to twenty ounces per man a day, I confess without one atom of shame that we really thought of little but food. Man becomes very primitive when he is desperately hungry, and neither the glory of the mountains that towered high on our sides, nor the majesty of the great glacier up which we travelled so painfully, appealed to any extent to our emotions.

I used often to find myself wondering whether people who suffer from hunger in the big cities of civilisation felt as we were feeling, and I concluded that they did not, for no barrier of law and order would have been allowed to stand between us and any food that had been available. The difference must be that the man who starves in a city is weakened and hopeless and without spirit while we—until nearly the end—were vigorous and keen.

We could not joke about food in any way that is possible for the man who is hungry in the ordinary sense. True we thought and talked about it most of the time, but always in the most serious manner.

On the outward march we were not severely hungry until we reached the great glacier, and then we were so occupied with the dangers of climbing and of crossing crevasses that we were unable to talk much. And afterwards on the plateau our faces were generally so covered with ice that unnecessary conversation was out of the question.

It was on the march back, after we had got down the glacier, and were tramping over the Barrier surface that we talked freely of food. Strange feelings, indeed, did I have when I looked back over our notes, and saw the wonderful meals that we promised to eat when we could get inside a really good restaurant.

We used to tell each other, with perfect seriousness, about the new dishes that we had thought of, and if the dish met with general approval there would be a chorus of "Ah! That's good."

The "Wild roll" was admitted to be the high-water mark of gastronomic luxury. He proposed that the cook should take a supply of well-seasoned minced meat, wrap it in rashers of fat bacon, and place around the whole an outer covering of rich pastry so that it would take the form of a big sausage-roll. Then this roll was to be fried with plenty of fat.

My best dish, which I admit I put forward with a good deal of pride as we marched over the snow, was a sardine pasty. And I remember that one day Marshall came forward with a proposal for a thick roll of suet pudding with plenty of jam all over it, and there arose quite a heated argument whether he could claim this dish to be an invention, or whether it was not the jam roll already known to the housewives of civilisation.

One point there was on which we were all agreed, and that was our wish not to have any jellies or things of that sort at our future meals. The idea of eating such slippery stuff as jelly did not appeal in the least to any one of us.

Perhaps all this sounds very greedy and uncivilised to anyone who has never been on the verge of starvation, but I wish to say again that hunger makes a man primitive. Not a smile broke from us as we planned wonderful feats of over-eating, in truth we were intensely serious about the matter, and we noted down in the back pages of our diaries details of feasts we would have when we got back to the land of plenty.

The dysentery from which we suffered was certainly due to the meat from the pony Grisi. This animal was shot when greatly fatigued, and I think that his flesh was poisoned by the presence of the poison of exhaustion, as is the case with animals that have been hunted. The manner in which we contrived to continue marching when suffering, and the speed with which we recovered when we got good food, were rather remarkable, and the reason doubtless was that the dysentery was due to poison, and was not produced by organic trouble.

Providentially we had a strong wind behind us during that period of distress and this assuredly saved us, for in our weakened state we could not have made long marches against a head-wind, and without long marches we would have starved between the depots.

In the early part of the journey over the level Barrier surface we felt the heat of the sun severely, although the temperature was very low. It was quite usual to feel one side of the face getting frozen while the other side was being sunburnt. Later on when our strength had begun to lessen, we found great difficulty in hoisting the sail on our sledge, because when we lifted our arms over our heads to adjust the sail, the blood ran from our fingers and they promptly froze. Our troubles with frost-bite were doubtless due partly to the lightness of our clothing, but there was compensation for this in the greater speed with which we were able to travel.

I am convinced that men engaged in polar exploration should be clothed as lightly as possible, even if they are in danger of being frost-bitten when they halt on the march. We owe many grudges against the glacier which caused us so many difficulties, but my chief one now is that we brought back no photographs of a very interesting portion of it. This was due to the facts that we expected to take as many photographs as we had plates to spare on our return journey, and that when we returned we were so short of food that we could not afford the time to unpack the camera.

The glacier itself presented every variety of surface, from soft snow to cracked and riven blue ice, but later the only constant feature were the crevasses, from which we were never free.

Some were entirely covered with a crust of soft snow, and we discovered them only when one of us broke through and hung by his harness from the sledge. Others occurred in mazes of rotten ice, and were even more difficult to negotiate than the other sort. The sledges, owing to their length, were not liable to slip down a crevasse, and when we were securely attached to them by their harness we felt fairly safe, but when the surface was so bad that relay work was necessary we used to miss the support of a sledge on the back journeys.

We would advance one sledge half a mile or a mile, put up a bamboo pole to mark the spot, and then go back for the other. For the walk back we were always roped together, but even then we felt a great deal less secure than when harnessed to one of the long, heavy sledges.

One piece—or two pieces—of fortune we assuredly did have upon the glacier, for both when we were struggling up and scrambling down it the wind was behind us. But on the glacier we were often troubled at night by the fact that there was no snow on which to pitch our tent, and consequently when we were weary after the day's march an hour had frequently to be spent in smoothing out a space for the camp on a rippled, sharp-pointed sea of ice.

The provision bags and sledges were packed on the snow cloths round the tents and it was indeed fortunate for us that we met no bad weather while we were marching up the glacier. Had a blizzard come on while we were asleep, it would have scattered our goods far and wide, and we would have been faced with a most serious situation.

The upper glacier depot was overhung by great cliffs of rock, shattered by the frosts and storms of countless centuries, and many fragments were poised in such a fashion that scarcely more than a touch seemed necessary to bring them hurtling down. All around us on the ice lay rocks that had recently fallen, and it was not a comforting sensation to feel that at any moment a huge boulder might drop upon our camp.

We had no choice of a camping-ground, as all around was rough ice. The cliffs were composed largely of weathered sandstone, and it was on the same mountain higher up on the glacier that Wild discovered coal, at a point where the slope was comparatively gentle.

One of our greatest disappointments was that the last ridge of the great glacier having been passed and the actual plateau gained, we did not meet with a hard surface, such as the Discovery expedition had encountered in the journey to the plateau beyond the west of McMurdo Sound, but still had to battle with soft snow and hard sastrugi.

After the fierce blizzard which raged from the night of January 6 until the morning of January 9, we had better conditions under which to make our final march southwards, for the wind had swept away the soft snow and unencumbered with the sledge we could advance more easily.

In reviewing the experience gained on the southern journey, I do not think that I could suggest any important improvements in equipment for future expeditions. Evidently the Barrier surface varies remarkably, and the traveller must be prepared for either a very hard or a very soft surface, both of which he may encounter in the same day's march.

On the glacier we should have been glad to have had heavy Alpine boots with nails all round, but as the temperature is too cold to permit of the explorer wearing ordinary leather boots, some boot would have to be designed which was at once warm enough for the feel and strong enough to carry the nails.

Our clothing proved to be quite satisfactory, but experience goes to show that a party which hopes to reach the Pole must take more food per man than we did I would in no case take cheese again, for chocolate is more palatable and easier to divide.

Each member of our Southern Party had his own particular duties to perform, Adams being responsible for the meteorological observations which involved—among other duties—the taking of temperatures at regular intervals. Marshall took the meridian altitudes, and the angles and bearings of all the new land, and his work was most discomforting, for at the end of a day's march and often at lunch-time as well, he would be compelled to stand in the biting wind handling the screws of the theodolite. He also prepared the map of the journey and took most of the photographs.

Wild attended to the repair of the sledges and equipment, and also assisted me in the geological observations and the collection of specimens. My other work was to keep the courses and distances, and to work out observations and lay down our directions.

I kept two diaries, one my observation book, and the other a narrative diary. But although all of us kept diaries we were more often than I care to remember too spent and cold at night to pay much attention to them.