Wednesday, June 18, 2014

The Worst Journey in the World - extract.

  1. Apsley Cherry-Garrard
  2. Apsley George Benet Cherry-Garrard was an English explorer of Antarctica. He was a survivor of the Terra Nova Expedition and is acclaimed for his historical account of this expedition, The Worst Journey in the World. 
An extract:

(http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/14363/pg14363.txt)

'Two days later the sun appeared for the last time for four months.

Looking back I realized two things. That sledging, at any rate in summer
and autumn, was a much less terrible ordeal than my imagination had
painted it, and that those Hut Point days would prove some of the
happiest in my life. Just enough to eat and keep us warm, no more--no
frills nor trimmings: there is many a worse and more elaborate life. The
necessaries of civilization were luxuries to us: and as Priestley found
under circumstances compared to which our life at Hut Point was a Sunday
School treat, the luxuries of civilization satisfy only those wants which
they themselves create.'