could drive forty or fifty miles in the komatik, getting off to run when
you feel a bit stiff with the cold, especially if it happens to be
uphill. You might be tempted to coast down the hills, but you find that
dogs can’t stand that any more than horses could, so you let down the
“drug” (a piece of iron chain) to block the runners. There is no sound
except the lone twitter of a venturesome tomtit who decided to risk the
winter in a particularly thick spruce-tree. Sometimes you go
bumpity-bump over fallen trees, with pitfalls between lightly covered
with snow. Sometimes the dogs bound ahead eagerly over smooth ground
where the only signs of the times are the occasional tracks of a rabbit,
partridge, fox, or caribou. Then how you will enjoy the dinner of hot
toasted pork cakes before the open fire, after the excitement of feeding
the ravenous dogs with huge pieces of frozen seal-meat and seeing them
burrow down under the snow for their night’s sleep. If there is no
pressing need of his services next morning, the doctor may take you
skeeing, or show you how to catch trout through a hole in the ice.
Winter or summer, perhaps you might come to agree with Dr. Grenfell that
one may have “a jolly good time” while doing a man’s work in rough,
out-of-the-way Labrador. You would, at any rate, have a chance to
discover that life may be a splendid adventure.
THE CAPTAIN OF HIS SOUL: CAPTAIN SCOTT
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
TENNYSON.
We know of many heroes--heroes of long ago, whose shining deeds make the
past bright; and heroes of to-day, whose courage in the face of danger
and hardship and whose faithful service for others make the times in
which we live truly the best times of all. But should you ask me who of
all this mighty company of the brave was the bravest, I should answer,
Captain Scott. Some one has called his story, “The Undying Story of
Captain Scott.” Would you like to hear it, and know for yourself why it
is that as long as true men live this is a story that cannot die?
Most people who work know what they are working for; most men who are
fighting for a cause know where they give their strength and their
lives. The explorer alone has to go forward in the dark. He does not
know what he will find. Only he hears within his heart the still
whisper: “Something hidden. Go and find it.” And he believes that there
is no far place of the earth that does not hold some truth, something
that will help us learn the secrets of life and explain much that
puzzles us in the world to-day.
When the explorer has once begun to think and wonder about the great
unseen, unknown countries, where man has never journeyed, the whisper
comes again and again: “Something hidden. Go and find it.”
People sometimes say to the explorer, “There is no sense of going to
those strange lands where you cannot live. No good nor gold ever yet
came from No-Man’s Land.”
But the men who went into the jungles of darkest Africa said, “As long
as there is something hidden we must go to find it.” And the men who
went into the still, white, frozen lands of the North said: “There is no
truth that can stay untouched. When we know the secrets of the North and
the South, we shall the better understand the East and the West.”
The whisper, “Something hidden,” came to Robert Falcon Scott when he was
a little boy in Devonshire, England. Con, as he was called, never tired
of hearing the tales of Sir Walter Raleigh, and of Sir Francis Drake,
who sailed the seas and found a new world for England and sent his drum
back to Devon where it was hung on the old sea-wall to show that the
great days of the past would surely live again.
“You must take my drum” (Drake said),
“To the old sea-wall at home,
And if ever you strike that drum,” he said,
“Why, strike me blind, I’ll come!
“If England needs me, dead
Or living, I’ll rise that day!
I’ll rise from the darkness under the sea
Ten thousand miles away!”
The Devonshire men were sure that the brave spirit of Drake would come
back in some true English heart whenever the time of need came. They
even whispered when they told how Nelson won his great victory at
Trafalgar,
“It was the spirit of Sir Francis Drake.”
When Con heard these tales, and the stories of his own father and uncles
who were captains in England’s navy, he knew it was true that the spirit
of a brave man does not die.
Sometimes when he was thinking of these things and wondering about the
“something hidden” that the future had in store for him, his father
would have to call him three or four times before he could wake him from
his dream. “Old Mooney,” his father called him then, and he shook his
head.
“Remember, son,” he would say, “an hour of doing is better than a life
of dreaming. You must wake up and stir about in this world, and prove
that you have it in you to be a man.”
How do you think that the delicate boy, with the narrow chest and the
dreamy blue eyes, whom his father called “Old Mooney,” grew into the
wide-awake, practical lad who became, a few years later, captain of the
naval cadets on the training ship _Britannia_?
“I must learn to command this idle, dreamy ‘Old Mooney’ before I can
ever command a ship,” he said to himself. So he gave himself orders in
earnest.
When he wanted to lie in bed an extra half hour, it was, “Up, sir! ‘Up
and doing,’ is the word!” And out he would jump with a laugh and a cheer
for the new day.
When he felt like hugging the fire with a book on his knees he would
say, “Out, sir! Get out in the open air and show what you’re made of!”
Then he would race for an hour or two with his dog, a big Dane, over the
downs, to come back in a glow ready for anything. And so the man who was
to command others became master of himself. There came a time when a
strong, brave man was needed to take command of the ship _Discovery_,
that was to sail over unexplored seas to the South Pole. And Robert
Falcon Scott, then a lieutenant in the royal navy, who had long dreamed
of going forth where ships and men had never been and find the
“something hidden” in strange far-off lands, found his dream had come
true. He was put in command of that ship.
Three years were spent in that terrible land where
The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around;
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled--
in the fierce winds that swept over those great death-white wastes.
After this time of hardship and plucky endurance it was hard to have to
return without having reached the South Pole. But he came back with so
much of deepest interest and value to report about the unknown country,
that those who had given their money to provide for the expedition said:
“The voyage has really been a success. Captain Scott must go again under
better conditions with the best help and equipment possible.”
It was some time, however, before Captain Scott could be spared to go on
that second and last voyage to the South Pole. This man who knew all
about commanding ships and men was needed to help with the great
battleships of the navy. Five years had passed before plans were ready
for the greatest voyage of all.
When it was known that Captain Scott was to set out on another
expedition, eight thousand men volunteered to go as members of the
party. It was splendid to think how much real interest there was in the
work and to know how much true bravery and fine spirit of adventure
there is in the men of our every-day world, but it was hard to choose
wisely out of so many the sixty men to make up the party.
They needed, of course, officers of the navy, besides Captain Scott, to
help plan and direct, a crew of able seamen, firemen, and stokers to
[Illustration: _Photo by Brown Bros._
Captain Robert F. Scott]
run the ship, and doctors and stewards to take care of the men. Besides
these, they wanted men of science who would be able to investigate in
the right way the plants, animals, rocks, ice, ocean currents, and winds
of that strange part of the earth; and an artist able to draw and to
take the best kind of photographs and moving pictures.
The ship chosen for this voyage was the _Terra Nova_, the largest and
strongest whaler that could be found. Whalers are ships used in
whale-fishing, which are built expressly to make their way through the
floating ice of Arctic seas.
The _Terra Nova_ was a stout steamer carrying full sail, so that the
winds might help in sending her on her way, thus saving coal whenever
possible. The great difficulty was, of course, the carrying of
sufficient supplies for a long time and for many needs.
With great care each smallest detail was worked out. There were three
motor sledges, nineteen ponies, and thirty-three dogs to transport
supplies. There was material for putting up huts and tents. There were
sacks of coal, great cans of oil and petrol (gasoline); and tons of
boxes of provisions, such as pemmican, biscuit, butter, sugar,
chocolate--things that would not spoil and which would best keep men
strong and warm while working hard in a cold country. There were fur
coats, fur sleeping bags, snow shoes, tools of all sorts, precious
instruments, books, and many other things, each of which was carefully
considered for they were going where no further supplies of any sort
were to be had.
On June 15, 1910, the _Terra Nova_ sailed from Wales, and on November 26
left New Zealand for the great adventure.
If the men had been superstitious they would have been sure that a
troublous time was ahead, for almost immediately a terrible storm broke.
Great waves swept over the decks, the men had to work with buckets and
pumps to bale out the engine room, while boxes and cases went bumping
about on the tossing ship, endangering the lives of men and animals, and
adding to the noise and terror of the blinding, roaring tempest.
But through it all the men never lost their spirits. Scott led in the
singing of chanties, as they worked hour after hour to save the ship
and its precious cargo.
At last they came out on a calm sea where the sun shone on blue waves
dotted here and there with giant ice-bergs, like great floating palaces,
agleam with magic light and color, beautiful outposts of the icy world
they were about to enter.
You know that the seasons in the South Arctic regions are exactly
opposite to ours. Christmas comes in the middle of their summer--the
time of the long day when the sun never drops below the horizon. Their
winter, when they get no sunlight for months, comes during the time we
are having spring and summer.
It was Scott’s plan to sail as far as the ship could go during the time
of light, build a comfortable hut for winter quarters, then go ahead
with sledges and carry loads of provisions, leaving them in depots along
the path of their journey south, which was to begin with the coming of
the next long day.
Patient watchfulness, not only by the man in the crow’s nest, but on the
part of all hands, was needed to guide the ship through the great
masses of ice that pressed closer and closer about, as if they longed to
seize and keep it forever in their freezing hold.
At last in January they came within sight of Mt. Terror, a volcano on
Ross Island, which marked the place where they must land. It was strange
and terrible, but most beautiful, to see the fire rise from that snowy
mountain in the great white world they had come to explore. The ship
could go no farther south because there stretched away from the shore of
the island the great Ice Barrier, an enormous ice cap rising above the
sea fifty or sixty feet and extending for 150,000 square miles.
Scott came, you remember, knowing well what lay before him. To reach the
South Pole he must travel from his winter camp on Ross Island, 424 miles
over the barrier, climb 125 miles over a monster glacier, and then push
his way over 353 more miles of rough ice on a lofty, wind-swept plain.
The whole journey southward and back to the winter hut covered about
1,850 miles.
As they could not count at most on more than 150 days in the year when
marching would be possible, this meant that they must make over ten
miles a day during the time of daylight. Scott knew how hard this must
be in that land of fierce winds and sudden blizzards, when the blinding,
drifting snow made all marching out of the question. But there was
nothing of the dreamer about him now; he carefully worked out his plans
and prepared for every emergency.
After finding a good place to land and build the hut for the winter camp
where it would be sheltered from the worst winds, they spent eight days
unloading the ship, which then sailed away along the edge of the barrier
with a part of the men, to find out how things were to the east of them.
Captain Scott and his men had an exciting time, I can tell you, carrying
their heavy boxes and packing cases across the ice to the beach. Great
killer whales, twenty feet long, came booming along under them, striking
the ice with their backs, making it rock dizzily and split into wide
cracks, over which the men had to jump to save their lives and their
precious stores.
While part of the company was building the hut and making it
comfortable for the long dark winter, Captain Scott and a group of
picked men began the work of going ahead and planting stores at depots
along the way south. They would place fuel and boxes of food under
canvas cover, well planted to secure it against the wind, and mark the
spot by a high cairn, or mound, made of blocks of ice. This mound was
topped with upright skis or dark packing boxes, which could be seen as
black specks miles away in that white world. At intervals along the
trail they would erect other cairns to mark the way over the desert of
snow. Then back they went to the hut and the winter of waiting before
the march.
How do you suppose they spent the long weeks of darkness? Why, they had
a wonderful time! Each man was studying with all his might about the
many strange things he had found in that land.
Wilson, who was Scott’s best friend, gave illustrated lectures about the
water birds he had found near there, the clumsy penguins who came
tottering up right in the face of his camera as if they were anxious to
have their pictures taken. He had pictures, too, of their nests and
their funny, floundering babies. There were also pictures of seals
peeping up at him out of their breathing-holes in the ice, where he had
gone fishing and had caught all sorts of curious sea creatures.
Other men were examining pieces of rock and telling the story which they
told of the history of the earth ages and ages ago when the land of that
Polar world was joined with the continents of Africa and South America.
Evans gave lectures on surveying, and Scott told about the experiences
of his earlier voyage and explained the use of his delicate instruments.
Of course they took short exploring trips about, and sometimes when the
moon was up, or, perhaps, in the scant twilight of midday, they played a
game of football in the snow.
At last the sun returned, and the time came for the great journey about
the first of November, just a year after they had left New Zealand.
They had not gone far when it was proved that the motor sledges were
useless, as the engines were not fitted for working in such intense
cold. So, sorrowfully they had to leave them behind, and make ponies
and dogs do all the work of hauling.
Then began a time of storms when blizzard followed blizzard. It seemed
that they had met the wild spirit of all tempests in his snowy fastness,
and as if he were striving to prove that the will of the strongest man
must give way before the savage force of wind and weather. But there was
something in the soul of these men that could not be conquered by any
hardship--something that would never give up.
“The soul of a true man is stronger than anything that can happen to
him,” said Captain Scott.
It seemed as if this journey was made to prove that. And it did prove
it.
Misfortune followed misfortune. The sturdy ponies could not stand the
dangers. Some of them slipped and fell into deep chasms in the ice;
others suffered so that the only kind thing was to put them out of their
pain. The men went along then up the fearful climb across the glacier,
with just the help of the dogs who pulled the sledges carrying
provisions. One of the men became very ill, which delayed them further.
And ever the dreadful wind raged about them.
They reached a point about 170 miles from the Pole on New Year’s day.
Here Scott decided to send two members of his party back with the sick
man and the dog sledge. They were, of course, disappointed, but realized
it was for the best.
After leaving part of their provisions in a new depot to feed them on
the way back, Captain Scott and four men, Wilson, Oates, Bowers, and
Evans, went on the last march to the Pole with lighter loads which they
dragged on a hand sledge. This is what Scott wrote in the letter sent
back by his men:
“A last note from a hopeful position. I think it’s going to be all
right. We have a fine party going forward and all arrangements are going
well.”
How did the way seem to the men who still went on and on, now in the
awful glare of the sun on the glistening ice, now in the teeth of a
terrific gale? Here are some lines written by Wilson which may tell you
something of what they felt:
The silence was deep with a breath like sleep
As our sledge runners slid on the snow,
And the fateful fall of our fur-clad feet
Struck mute like a silent blow.
And this was the thought the silence wrought,
As it scorched and froze us through,
For the secrets hidden are all forbidden
Till God means man to know.
We might be the men God meant should know
The heart of the Barrier snow,
In the heat of the sun, and the glow,
And the glare from the glistening floe,
As it scorched and froze us through and through
With the bite of the drifting snow.
But still they pushed on and on, carrying supplies and their precious
instruments, together with the records of their observations and
experiences, until at last the goal was reached.
The South Pole at last! But here after all they had dared and endured
another great trial awaited them just at the moment of seeming success.
There at the goal toward which they had struggled with such high hopes
was a tent and a mound over which floated the flag of Norway. The Norse
explorer, Amundsen, had reached the Pole first. A letter was left
telling of his work of discovery. He had happened on a route shielded
from the terrific winds against which Scott had fought his way mile by
mile, and had arrived at the Pole a month earlier.
Now, indeed, Scott showed that “the soul of a brave man is stronger than
anything that can happen to him.” Cheerfully he built a cairn near the
spot to hold up their Union Jack, which flapped sadly in the freezing
air as if to reproach them with not having set it as the first flag at
the Farthest South of the earth. Then before they started back with the
news of Amundsen’s success, Scott wrote these lines in his diary:
“Well, we have turned our back now on the goal of our ambition and must
face 800 miles of solid dragging--and good-by to most of the day
dreams.”
But it was for Scott to show the world that defeat might be turned into
the greatest victory of all. When you hear any one say that a man is too
weak or fearful to bear hardship and ill-success to the end, think of
Captain Scott and say, “The brave soul is stronger than anything that
can happen.”
On he struggled, on and on, though delayed again and again by blizzards
that raged about in the most terrible fury as if determined to make
this little party give up the fight. At last they came, weak and nearly
frozen (for the supplies of food and fuel had run short), almost within
sight of a provision camp where comfort and plenty awaited them. At this
moment came the most terrible storm of all, that lasted for more than a
week.
One morning Lieutenant Oates, who was ill and feared that his friends
might lose their last chance of reaching safety by staying to care for
him, walked out into the blizzard with these words:
“I am just going outside and may be some time.”
Scott wrote that they “realized he was walking to his death and tried to
dissuade him, but knew it was the act of a brave man and an English
gentleman. We all hope to meet the end with a similar spirit,” he added.
A little later Scott wrote in his diary:
“Every day we have been ready to start for our depot eleven miles away,
but outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift. I
do not think we can hope for any better things now. We shall stick it
out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot
be far.”
* * * * *
Eight months after when a rescue party succeeded in reaching the tent,
they found the bodies of Wilson and Bowers lying with their sleeping
bags closed over their heads. Near them was Captain Scott, with the
flaps of his sleeping bag thrown back. Under his shoulder were his
note-books and letters to those at home, which he had written up to the
very last when the pencil slipped from his fingers. His thought in dying
was not for himself but for those that would be left to grieve.
On the spot where they died, their friends left the bodies of these
brave men covered with the canvas of their tent, and over them they
piled up a great cairn of ice in which was placed a wooden cross made of
snow-shoes. On the cross were carved these words of a great poet, which
no one better than Captain Scott had made living words:
“To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” Now we can see why this
tale of Captain Scott is truly an undying story. As long as true hearts
beat those words will find an echo, and also those other words which he
so nobly proved by his life and death:
“The soul of a brave man is stronger than anything that can happen to
him.”
A MODERN VIKING: JACOB RIIS
I doubt no doubts: I strive, and shrive my clay;
And fight my fight in the patient modern way.
SIDNEY LANIER.
Would you like to hear about a viking of our own time? Listen to the
story of this Northman, and see if you will not say that the North Sea
country can still send forth as staunch and fearless men as those who
sailed in their dragon ships the “whale roads” of the uncharted seas,
found a new world and forgot about it long before Columbus dreamed his
dream.
Near the Danish coast where the sea and the low-lying fields grapple
hand to hand in every storm, and where the waves at flood tide thunder
against the barrows beneath which the old vikings were buried, is the
quaint little town of Ribe. This is the sea’s own country. It seems as
if the people here, who never fear to go down to the sea in ships, have
scorned to pile up dikes between them and their greatest friend, who
can, in a moment of anger, prove their greatest enemy. It is as if they
said, “We are of the sea; if it chooses to rise up against us, who are
we to say, ‘Thus far and no farther!’”
There was a boy born in this town whose name was Jacob Riis. The call of
the sea-birds was the first sound he knew; the breath of the sea was
like the breath of life to him. On bright, blue-and-gold days when the
waves danced in rainbow hues and scattered in snowy foam, his heart
“outdid the sparkling waves in glee.” At evening, when the sea-fogs
settled down over the shore and land and water seemed one, something of
the thoughtful strength and patience of that brave little country came
into his face.
Many changes had come to the coast since the sea-rovers of old pulled
their pirate galleys on the beach, took down their square, gaily striped
sails, and gave themselves over to feasting in the great mead-hall,
where the smoking boar’s-flesh was taken from the leaping flames and
seized by the flushed, triumphant warriors, while skalds chanted loud
the joys of battle and plunder. The quaint little town where Jacob Riis
lived sixty-odd years ago had nothing but the broom-covered barrows and
the changeless ocean that belonged to those wild times, and yet it was
quite as far removed from the customs and interests of to-day.
I wish that I could make you see the narrow cobblestone streets over
which whale-oil lanterns swung on creaking iron chains, and the quaint
houses with their tiled roofs where the red-legged storks came in April
to build their nests. The stillness was unbroken by the snort of the
locomotive and the shrill clamor of steam-boat and steam factory
whistles. The people still journeyed by stagecoach, carried tinder-boxes
in place of matches, and penknives to mend their quill pens. The
telegraph was regarded with suspicion, as was the strange oil from
Pennsylvania that was taken out of the earth. Such things could not be
safe, and prudent people would do well to have none of them.