A Wonderful Boat Voyage.

And there the shipless crew stood, the twentyeight of them, awaiting the leader's commands. It was a supreme test of command and planning, forethought and endurance. The story of the ice journey has been told, so too has that most wonderful sea epic been narrated by Shackleton, the 800 miles voyage through Antarctic seas in a small page 27 boat—one of the two saved from the Endurance— from Elephant Island to South Georgia.

Captain Worsley was the navigator of that boat, named the James Caird, only 22ft. 6in. long, with a beam of six feet, partly decked over by the carpenter. With Shackleton and Worsley were four men, the best of the sailors. It was the hardest voyage the gallant six had ever undertaken, for it was the Antarctic winter, and the ocean the little craft had to cross under sail was one of the worst seas in the world. But they came through safely; in sixteen days they reached South Georgia, and after more truly fearful adventures, the whole party marooned on the ice was taken off by a rescue vessel from South America.

Every soul was saved. It was a marvellous achievement. Every day had its new peril, almost every hour; but consummate skill in that smallboat voyage and courage and cheerful endurance of every kind of danger and discomfort—they were in a welter of screaming winds; they were halffrozen and wet all the time; they had to chop the ice off the boat to keep from sinking; they were short of water. But they won through.