Now unless a man believes that such a view is wrong he has no business to
be 'down South.' Our magnetic and meteorological work may, I suppose,
have a fairly immediate bearing upon commerce and shipping: otherwise I
cannot imagine any branch of our labours which will do more at present
than swell the central pool of unapplied knowledge. The members of this
expedition believed that it was worth while to discover new land and new
life, to reach the Southern Pole of the earth, to make elaborate
meteorological and magnetic observations and extended geological surveys
with all the other branches of research for which we were equipped. They
were prepared to suffer great hardship; and some of them died for their
beliefs. Without such ideals the spirit which certainly existed in our
small community would have been impossible.
But if the reasons for this happy state of our domestic life were due
largely to the adaptability and keenness of the members of our small
community, I doubt whether the frictions which have caused other
expeditions to be less comfortable than they might have been, would have
been avoided in our case, had it not been for the qualities in some of
our men which set a fashion of hard work without any thought of personal
gain.
With all its troubles it is a good life. We came back from the Barrier,
telling one another we loathed the place and nothing on earth should make
us return.
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