THE PASSING OF SHACKLETON.

Shannon News, 7 March 1922, Page 2

THE PASSING OF SHACKLETON.

Few things (says the Methodist Times) have touched the heart of the reading public more than the accounts that have been given of the death of Sir Ernest Shackieton. A life lull of romance closed under romantic conditions. On aboard the Quest, lying at anchor at Grytviken, the Norwegian whaling station at South Georgia, the last entry he made in his diary, on January 4, was, “in the darkening sky 1 sjaw a lone star hover like a gem over the bay.” That was the last he was to see of earthly stars, for six hours after he was dead. And surely Lady Shackieton has correctly interpreted Tier husband’s wish in deciding that somewhere near the spot on which that lone star was shining her brave husband should be buried. For that rugged island, far off in the Southern Ocean, had sacred memories for that- daring explorer. ’The pluckiest thing of the kind ever recorded was the voyage in an open boat over 800 miles of stormy seas undertaken by Shackieton and four others from Elephant. Island to South Georgia to seek relief for their 17 companions left behind in dire straits. . On- reaching land it was found that „the whaling station they were in search, of was on the other side of the island, necessitating a tenable journey jover a mountain track. Concerning • that journey Shackieton ' wrote in his book “South”: —

“When I look back on those days 1 have no doubt that Providence guided us, not only across those snow-fields, but across the storm-swept sea. ' 1 know that during that inarch of 36 hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers qf South Georgia it ..

seemed to me often that we were four and not- three. I said nothing to my companions on the point, but afterwards Worsley said to me, ‘Boss, I had a curious feeling on the march that there was another person with us.’ Crean confessed to the same idea. One feels ‘the dearth of human words, the roughness of mortal speech’ in trying to describe tilings intangible, but a record of our journeys would be incomplete without a reference to a subject- very near to our hearts.”

What but a spot made sacred by such a memory could he fit to receive the body out of which the heroic sour, had departed? Ernest Shackieton it he had known that the lone star he saw in the darkening night was light-. ing the way to his final rest close at hand would have made as his • own the wish of a kindred spirit, Robert Louis Stevenson, when he-said—

Under the wide and starry sky Dig the grave and let me lie; Glad did I live and gladly die,. And I lay me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me: Here he lies where’ he longed to l e; Home is the sailor, home from the

sea, A*d the hunter home from,the hill