meat and vegetables was being felt, and it was an excellent thing that a body of men, for whom every precaution against scurvy that modern science could suggest was being taken, should have a good course of antiscorbutic food and an equally beneficial change of life before leaving civilization.
And so it was with some anticipation that on Monday morning, October 24, we could smell the land—New Zealand, that home of so many Antarctic expeditions, where we knew that we should be welcomed. Scott's Discovery, Shackleton's Nimrod, and now again Scott's Terra Nova have all in turn been berthed at the same quay in Lyttelton, for aught I know at the same No. 5 Shed, into which they have spilled out their holds, and from which they have been restowed with the addition of all that New Zealand, scorning payment, could give. And from there they have sailed, and thither their relief ships have returned year after year. Scott's words of the Discovery apply just as much to the Terra Nova. Not only did New Zealand do all in her power to help the expedition in an official capacity, but the New Zealanders welcomed both officers and men with open arms, and "gave them to understand that although already separated by many thousands of miles from their native land, here in this new land they would find a second home, and those who would equally think of them in their absence, and welcome them on their return."
But we had to sail round the southern coast of New Zealand and northwards up the eastern coast before we could arrive at our last port of call. The wind went ahead, and it was not until the morning of October 28 that we sailed through Lyttelton Heads. The word had gone forth that we should sail away on November 27, and there was much to be done in the brief month that lay ahead.
There followed four weeks of strenuous work into which was sandwiched a considerable amount of play. The ship was unloaded, when, as usual, men and officers acted alike as stevedores, and she was docked, that an examination for the source of the leak might be made by Mr. H. J.
