I
will try here briefly to give the reader some idea of the personality and
activities of these men as they work any ordinary day in the hut. It
should be noticed that not all the men we had with us were brought to do
sledging work. Some were chosen rather for their scientific knowledge
than for their physical or other fitness for sledging. The regular
sledgers in this party of officers were Scott, Wilson, Evans, Bowers,
Oates (ponies), Meares (dogs), Atkinson (surgeon), Wright (physicist),
Taylor (physiographer), Debenham (geologist), Gran and myself, while Day
was to drive his motors as far as they would go on the Polar Journey.
This leaves Simpson, who was the meteorologist and whose observations had
of necessity to be continuous; Nelson, whose observations into marine
biology, temperatures of sea, salinity, currents and tides came under the
same heading; and Ponting, whose job was photography, and whose success
in this art everybody recognizes.
However much of good I may write of Wilson, his many friends in England,
those who served with him on the ship or in the hut, and most of all
those who had the good fortune to sledge with him (for it is sledging
which is far the greatest test) will all be dissatisfied, for I know that
I cannot do justice to his value. If you knew him you could not like him:
you simply had to love him.
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