Of the sleeping-bags there was little to be said, for although the eiderdown bag might be useful for a short spring trip, it became iced up too quickly to be much good on a long journey. Bowers never used his eiderdown bag,[1] and in some miraculous manner he managed more than once to turn his reindeer bag. The weights of the sleeping-bags before and after the journey give some idea of the ice collected.
[Footnote 1: He insisted upon giving it to Cherry-Garrard. 'It was,' the latter says, 'wonderfully self-sacrificing of him, more than I can write. I felt a brute to take it, but I was getting useless unless I got some sleep, which my big bag would not allow.']
[Page 307] Starting Final Weight Weight Wilson, reindeer and eiderdown. 17 lbs. 40 lbs. Bowers, reindeer only. 17 " 33 " C.-Garrard, reindeer and eiderdown. 18 " 45 "
The double tent was considered a great success, and the new crampons were much praised except by Bowers, whose fondness for the older form was not to be shaken. 'We have discovered,' Scott stated in summing up the results of the journey, 'a hundred details of clothes, mitts, and footwear: there seems no solution to the difficulties which attach to these articles in extreme cold; all Wilson can say, speaking broadly, is "The gear is excellent, excellent." One continues to wonder as to the possibilities of fur clothing as made by the Esquimaux, with a sneaking feeling that it may outclass our more civilized garb. For us this can only be a matter of speculation, as it would have been quite impossible to have obtained such articles. With the exception of this radically different alternative, I feel sure we are as near perfection as experience can direct. At any rate we can now hold that our system of clothing has come through a severer test than any other, fur included.'
With the return of the Cape Crozier Party lectures were resumed, and apart from one or two gales the weather was so good and the returning light so stimulating both to man and beast, that the spirits of the former rose apace while those of the latter became almost riotous when exercised. On August 10, Scott [Page 308] and the new masters were to take charge on September 1, so that they could exercise their respective animals and get to know them as well as possible. The new arrangement was: