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. Miller
of Lyttelton, who has performed a like service for more than one
Antarctic ship. But the different layers of sheathing protecting a ship
which is destined to fight against ice are so complicated that it is a
very difficult matter to find the origin of a leak. All that can be said
with any certainty is that the point where the water appears inside the
skin of the ship is almost certainly not the locality in which it has
penetrated the outside sheathing. "Our good friend Miller," wrote Scott,
"attacked the leak and traced it to the stern. We found the false stern
split, and in one case a hole bored for a long-stern through-bolt which
was much too large for the bolt.... The ship still leaks but the water
can now be kept under with the hand pump by two daily efforts of a
quarter of an hour to twenty minutes." This in Lyttelton; but in a not
far distant future every pump was choked, and we were baling with three
buckets, literally for our lives.

Bowers' feat of sorting and restowing not only the stores we had but the
cheese, butter, tinned foods, bacon, hams and numerous other products
which are grown in New Zealand, and which any expedition leaving that
country should always buy there in preference to carrying them through
the tropics, was a masterstroke of clear-headedness and organization.
These stores were all relisted before stowing and the green-banded or
Northern Party and red-banded or Main Party stores were not only easily
distinguishable, but also stowed in such a way that they were forthcoming
without difficulty at the right time and in their due order.

The two huts which were to form the homes of our two parties down South
had been brought out in the ship and were now erected on a piece of waste
ground near, by the same men who would be given the work to do in the
South.

The gear peculiar to the various kinds of scientific work which it was
the object of the expedition to carry out was also stowed with great
care. The more bulky objects included a petrol engine and small dynamo, a
very delicate instrument for making pendulum observations to test the
gravity of the earth, meteorological screens, and a Dines anemometer.
There was also a special hut for magnetic observations, of which only the
framework was finally taken, with the necessary but bulky magnetic
instruments. The biological and photographic gear was also of
considerable size.

For the interior of the huts there were beds with spring mattresses--a
real luxury but one well worth the space and money,--tables, chairs,
cooking ranges and piping, and a complete acetylene gas plant for both
parties. There were also extensive ventilators which were not a great
success. The problem of ventilation in polar regions still remains to be
solved.

Food can be packed into a comparatively small space, but not so fuel, and
this is one of the greatest difficulties which confront the polar
traveller. It must be conceded that in this respect Norway, with her
wonderful petrol-driven Fram, is far ahead of us. The Terra Nova depended
on coal, and the length of the ship's stay in the South, and the amount
of exploration she could do after landing the shore parties, depended
almost entirely upon how much coal she could be persuaded to hold after
all the necessaries of modern scientific exploration had been wedged
tightly into her.

The Terra Nova sailed from New Zealand with 425 tons of coal in her holds
and bunkers, and 30 tons on deck in sacks. We were to hear more of those
sacks.

Meanwhile stalls were being built under the forecastle for fifteen
ponies, and, since room could not be found below for the remaining four,
stalls were built on the port side of the fore hatch; the decks were
caulked, and deck houses and other fittings which might carry away in the
stormy seas of the South were further secured.

As the time of departure drew near, and each day of civilization appeared
to be more and more desirable, the scene in Lyttelton became animated and
congested. Here is a scientist trying to force just one more case into
his small laboratory, or decanting a mass of clothing, just issued, into
the bottom of his bunk, to be slept on since there was no room for it on
the deck of his cabin. On the main deck Bowers is trying to get one more
frozen sheep into the ice-house, in the rigging working parties are
overhauling the running gear. The engine-room staff are busy on the
engine, and though the ship is crowded there is order everywhere, and it
is clean.

But the scene on the morning of Saturday, November 26, baffles
description. There is no deck visible: in addition to 30 tons of coal in
sacks on deck there are 21/2 tons of petrol, stowed in drums which in turn
are cased in wood. On the top of sacks and cases, and on the roof of the
ice-house are thirty-three dogs, chained far enough apart to keep them
from following their first instinct--to fight the nearest animal they can
see: the ship is a hubbub of howls. In the forecastle and in the four
stalls on deck are the nineteen ponies, wedged tightly in their wooden
stalls, and dwarfing everything are the three motor sledges in their huge
crates, 16' x 5' x 4', two of them on either side of the main hatch, the
third across the break of the poop. They are covered with tarpaulins and
secured in every possible way, but it is clear that in a big sea their
weight will throw a great strain upon the deck. It is not altogether a
cheerful sight. But all that care and skill can do has been done to
ensure that the deck cargo will not shift, and that the animals may be as
sheltered as possible from wind and seas. And it's no good worrying about
what can't be helped.

FOOTNOTES:

[36] Vide _Scott's Last Expedition_, vol. ii. pp. 454-456.

[37] "Atmospheric Electricity over Ocean," by G. C. Simpson and
C. S. Wright, _Pro. Roy. Soc._ A, vol. 85, 1911.

[38] _See_ B.A.E., 1910, Nat. Hist. Report, vol. i. No. 3, p. 117.

[39] Ibid. p. 111.




CHAPTER III

SOUTHWARD


Open the bones, and you shall nothing find
In the best face but filth; when, Lord, in Thee
The beauty lies in the discovery.
GEORGE HERBERT.


Telegrams from all parts of the world, special trains, all ships dressed,
crowds and waving hands, steamers out to the Heads and a general
hullabaloo--these were the incidents of Saturday, November 26, 1910, when
we slipped from the wharf at Lyttelton at 3 P.M. We were to call at
Dunedin before leaving civilization, and arrived there on Sunday night.
Here we took on the remainder of our coal. On Monday night we danced, in
fantastic clothing for we had left our grand clothes behind, and sailed
finally for the South the following afternoon amidst the greatest
enthusiasm. The wives remained with us until we reached the open sea.

Amongst those who only left us at the last minute was Mr. Kinsey of
Christchurch. He acted for Scott in New Zealand during the Discovery
days, and for Shackleton in 1907. We all owe him a deep debt of gratitude
for his help. "His interest in the expedition is wonderful, and such
interest on the part of a thoroughly shrewd business man is an asset of
which I have taken full advantage. Kinsey will act as my agent in
Christchurch during my absence; I have given him an ordinary power of
attorney, and I think have left him in possession of all the facts. His
kindness to us was beyond words."[40]

"Evening.--Loom of land and Cape Saunders Light blinking."[41]

The ponies and dogs were the first consideration. Even in quite ordinary
weather the dogs had a wretched time. "The seas continually break on the
weather bulwarks and scatter clouds of heavy spray over the backs of all
who must venture into the waist of the ship. The dogs sit with their
tails to this invading water, their coats wet and dripping. It is a
pathetic attitude deeply significant of cold and misery; occasionally
some poor beast emits a long pathetic whine. The group forms a picture of
wretched dejection; such a life is truly hard for these poor
creatures."[42]

The ponies were better off. Four of them were on deck amidships and they
were well boarded round. It is significant that these ponies had a much
easier time in rough weather than those in the bows of the ship. "Under
the forecastle fifteen ponies close side by side, seven one side, eight
the other, heads together, and groom between--swaying, swaying
continually to the plunging, irregular motion."

"One takes a look through a hole in the bulkhead and sees a row of heads
with sad, patient eyes come swinging up together from the starboard side,
whilst those on the port swing back; then up come the port heads, while
the starboard recede. It seems a terrible ordeal for these poor beasts to
stand this day after day for weeks together, and indeed though they
continue to feed well the strain quickly drags down their weight and
condition; but nevertheless the trial cannot be gauged from human
standards."[43]

The seas through which we had to pass to reach the pack-ice must be the
most stormy in the world. Dante tells us that those who have committed
carnal sin are tossed about ceaselessly by the most furious winds in the
second circle of Hell. The corresponding hell on earth is found in the
southern oceans, which encircle the world without break, tempest-tossed
by the gales which follow one another round and round the world from West
to East. You will find albatross there--great Wanderers, and Sooties,
and Mollymawks--sailing as lightly before these furious winds as ever do
Paolo and Francesca. Round the world they go. I doubt whether they land
more than once a year, and then they come to the islands of these seas to
breed.

There are many other beautiful sea-birds, but most beautiful of all are
the Snowy petrels, which approach nearer to the fairies than anything
else on earth. They are quite white, and seemingly transparent. They are
the familiar spirits of the pack, which, except to nest, they seldom if
ever leave, flying "here and there independently in a mazy fashion,
glittering against the blue sky like so many white moths, or shining
snowflakes."[44] And then there are the Giant petrels, whose coloration
is a puzzle. Some are nearly white, others brown, and they exhibit every
variation between the one and the other. And, on the whole, the white
forms become more general the farther south you go. But the usual theory
of protective coloration will not fit in, for there are no enemies
against which this bird must protect itself. Is it something to do with
radiation of heat from the body?

A ship which sets out upon this journey generally has a bad time, and for
this reason the overladen state of the Terra Nova was a cause of anxiety.
The Australasian meteorologists had done their best to forecast the
weather we must expect. Everything which was not absolutely necessary had
been ruthlessly scrapped. Yet there was not a square inch of the hold and
between-decks which was not crammed almost to bursting, and there was as
much on the deck as could be expected to stay there. Officers and men
could hardly move in their living quarters when standing up, and
certainly they could not all sit down. To say that we were heavy laden is
a very moderate statement of the facts.

Thursday, December 1, we ran into a gale. We shortened sail in the
afternoon to lower topsails, jib and stay-sail. Both wind and sea rose
with great rapidity, and before the night came our deck cargo had begun
to work loose. "You know how carefully everything had been lashed, but no
lashings could have withstood the onslaught of these coal sacks for
long. There was nothing for it but to grapple with the evil, and nearly
all hands were labouring for hours in the waist of the ship, heaving coal
sacks overboard and re-lashing the petrol cases, etc., in the best manner
possible under such difficult and dangerous circumstances. The seas were
continually breaking over these people and now and again they would be
completely submerged. At such times they had to cling for dear life to
some fixture to prevent themselves being washed overboard, and with coal
bags and loose cases washing about, there was every risk of such hold
being torn away.

"No sooner was some semblance of order restored than some exceptionally
heavy wave would tear away the lashing, and the work had to be done all
over again."[45]

The conditions became much worse during the night and things were
complicated for some of us by sea-sickness. I have lively recollections
of being aloft for two hours in the morning watch on Friday and being
sick at intervals all the time. For sheer downright misery give me a
hurricane, not too warm, the yard of a sailing ship, a wet sail and a
bout of sea-sickness.

It must have been about this time that orders were given to clew up the
jib and then to furl it. Bowers and four others went out on the bowsprit,
being buried deep in the enormous seas every time the ship plunged her
nose into them with great force. It was an education to see him lead
those men out into that roaring inferno. He has left his own vivid
impression of this gale in a letter home. His tendency was always to
underestimate difficulties, whether the force of wind in a blizzard, or
the troubles of a polar traveller. This should be remembered when reading
the vivid accounts which his mother has so kindly given me permission to
use:

"We got through the forties with splendid speed and were just over the
fifties when one of those tremendous gales got us. Our Lat. was about 52 deg.
S., a part of the world absolutely unfrequented by shipping of any sort,
and as we had already been blown off Campbell Island we had nothing but
a clear sweep to Cape Horn to leeward. One realized then how in the
Nimrod--in spite of the weather--they always had the security of a big
steamer to look to if things came to the worst. We were indeed alone, by
many hundreds of miles, and never having felt anxious about a ship
before, the old whaler was to give me a new experience.

"In the afternoon of the beginning of the gale I helped make fast the
T.G. sails, upper topsails and foresail, and was horrified on arrival on
deck to find that the heavy water we continued to ship, was starting the
coal bags floating in places. These, acting as battering-rams, tore
adrift some of my carefully stowed petrol cases and endangered the lot. I
had started to make sail fast at 3 P.M. and it was 9.30 P.M. when I had
finished putting on additional lashings to everything I could. So rapidly
did the sea get up that one was continually afloat and swimming about. I
turned in for 2 hours and lay awake hearing the crash of the seas and
thinking how long those cases would stand it, till my watch came at
midnight as a relief. We were under 2 lower topsails and hove to, the
engines going dead slow to assist keeping head to wind. At another time I
should have been easy in my mind; now the water that came aboard was
simply fearful, and the wrenching on the old ship was enough to worry any
sailor called upon to fill his decks with garbage fore and aft. Still
'Risk nothing and do nothing,' if funds could not supply another ship, we
simply had to overload the one we had, or suffer worse things down south.
The watch was eventful as the shaking up got the fine coal into the
bilges, and this mixing with the oil from the engines formed balls of
coal and grease which, ordinarily, went up the pumps easily; now however
with the great strains, and hundreds of tons on deck, as she continually
filled, the water started to come in too fast for the half-clogged pumps
to cope with. An alternative was offered to me in going faster so as to
shake up the big pump on the main engines, and this I did--in spite of
myself--and in defiance of the first principles of seamanship. Of course,
we shipped water more and more, and only to save a clean breach of the
decks did I slow down again and let the water gain. My next card was to
get the watch on the hand-pumps as well, and these were choked, too, or
nearly so.

"Anyhow with every pump,--hand and steam,--going, the water continued to
rise in the stokehold. At 4 A.M. all hands took in the fore lower
topsail, leaving us under a minimum of sail. The gale increased to storm
force (force 11 out of 12) and such a sea got up as only the Southern
Fifties can produce. All the afterguard turned out and the pumps were
vigorously shaken up,--sickening work as only a dribble came out. We had
to throw some coal overboard to clear the after deck round the pumps, and
I set to work to rescue cases of petrol which were smashed adrift. I
broke away a plank or two of the lee bulwarks to give the seas some
outlet as they were right over the level of the rail, and one was
constantly on the verge of floating clean over the side with the cataract
force of the backwash. I had all the swimming I wanted that day. Every
case I rescued was put on the weather side of the poop to help get us on
a more even keel. She sagged horribly and the unfortunate ponies,--though
under cover,--were so jerked about that the weather ones could not keep
their feet in their stalls, so great was the slope and strain on their
forelegs. Oates and Atkinson worked among them like Trojans, but morning
saw the death of one, and the loss of one dog overboard. The dogs, made
fast on deck, were washed to and fro, chained by the neck, and often
submerged for a considerable time. Though we did everything in our power
to get them up as high as possible, the sea went everywhere. The wardroom
was a swamp and so were our bunks with all our nice clothing, books, etc.
However, of this we cared little, when the water had crept up to the
furnaces and put the fires out, and we realized for the first time that
the ship had met her match and was slowly filling. Without a pump to suck
we started the forlorn hope of buckets and began to bale her out. Had we
been able to open a hatch we could have cleared the main pump well at
once, but with those appalling seas literally covering her, it would
have meant less than 10 minutes to float, had we uncovered a hatch.

"The Chief Engineer (Williams) and carpenter (Davies), after we had all
put our heads together, started cutting a hole in the engine room
bulkhead, to enable us to get into the pump-well from the engine room; it
was iron and, therefore, at least a 12 hours job. Captain Scott was
simply splendid, he might have been at Cowes, and to do him and Teddy
Evans credit, at our worst strait none of our landsmen who were working
so hard knew how serious things were. Capt. Scott said to me quietly--'I
am afraid it's a bad business for us--What do you think?' I said we were
by no means dead yet, though at that moment, Oates, at peril of his life,
got aft to report another horse dead; and more down. And then an awful
sea swept away our lee bulwarks clean, between the fore and main
riggings,--only our chain lashings saved the lee motor sledge then, and I
was soon diving after petrol cases. Captain Scott calmly told me that
they 'did not matter'--This was our great project for getting to the
Pole--the much advertised motors that 'did not matter'; our dogs looked
finished, and horses were finishing, and I went to bale with a strenuous
prayer in my heart, and 'Yip-i-addy' on my lips, and so we pulled through
that day. We sang and re-sang every silly song we ever knew, and then
everybody in the ship later on was put on 2-hour reliefs to bale, as it
was impossible for flesh to keep heart with no food or rest. Even the
fresh-water pump had gone wrong so we drank neat lime juice, or anything
that came along, and sat in our saturated state awaiting our next spell.
My dressing gown was my great comfort as it was not very wet, and it is a
lovely warm thing.

"To make a long yarn short, we found later in the day that the storm was
easing a bit and that though there was a terrible lot of water in the
ship, which, try as we could, we could not reduce, it certainly had
ceased to rise to any great extent. We had reason to hope then that we
might keep her afloat till the pump wells could be cleared. Had the storm
lasted another day, God knows what our state would have been, if we had
been above water at all. You cannot imagine how utterly helpless we felt
in such a sea with a tiny ship,--the great expedition with all its hopes
thrown aside for its life. God had shown us the weakness of man's hand
and it was enough for the best of us,--the people who had been made such
a lot of lately--the whole scene was one of pathos really. However, at 11
P.M. Evans and I with the carpenter were able to crawl through a tiny
hole in the bulkhead, burrow over the coal to the pump-well cofferdam,
where, another hole having been easily made in the wood, we got down
below with Davy lamps and set to work. The water was so deep that you had
to continually dive to get your hand on to the suction. After 2 hours or
so it was cleared for the time being and the pumps worked merrily. I went
in again at 4.30 A.M. and had another lap at clearing it. Not till the
afternoon of the following day, though, did we see the last of the water
and the last of the great gale. During the time the pumps were working,
we continued the baling till the water got below the furnaces. As soon as
we could light up, we did, and got the other pumps under weigh, and, once
the ship was empty, clearing away the suction was a simple matter. I was
pleased to find that after all I had only lost about 100 gallons of the
petrol and bad as things had been they might have been worse....

"You will ask where all the water came from seeing our forward leak had
been stopped. Thank God we did not have that to cope with as well. The
water came chiefly through the deck where the tremendous strain,--not
only of the deck load, but of the smashing seas,--was beyond conception.
She was caught at a tremendous disadvantage and we were dependent for our
lives on each plank standing its own strain. Had one gone we would all
have gone, and the great anxiety was not so much the existing water as
what was going to open up if the storm continued. We might have dumped
the deck cargo, a difficult job at best, but were too busy baling to do
anything else....

"That Captain Scott's account will be moderate you may be sure. Still,
take my word for it, he is one of the best, and behaved up to our best
traditions at a time when his own outlook must have been the blackness of
darkness...."

Characteristically Bowers ends his account:

"Under its worst conditions this earth is a good place to live in."

Priestley wrote in his diary:

"If Dante had seen our ship as she was at her worst, I fancy he would
have got a good idea for another Circle of Hell, though he would have
been at a loss to account for such a cheerful and ribald lot of Souls."

The situation narrowed down to a fight between the incoming water and the
men who were trying to keep it in check by baling her out. The Terra Nova
will never be more full of water, nearly up to the furnaces, than she was
that Friday morning, when we were told to go and do our damndest with
three iron buckets. The constructors had not allowed for baling, only for
the passage of one man at a time up and down the two iron ladders which
connected the engine-room floor plates with the deck. If we used more
than three buckets the business of passing them rapidly up, emptying them
out of the hatchway, and returning them empty, became unprofitable. We
were divided into two gangs, and all Friday and Friday night we worked
two hours on and two hours off, like fiends.

Wilson's Journal describes the scene:

"It was a weird night's work with the howling gale and the darkness and
the immense seas running over the ship every few minutes and no engines
and no sail, and we all in the engine-room oil and bilge water, singing
chanties as we passed up slopping buckets full of bilge, each man above
slopping a little over the heads of all below him; wet through to the
skin, so much so that some of the party worked altogether naked like
Chinese coolies; and the rush of the wave backwards and forwards at the
bottom grew hourly less in the dim light of a couple of engine-room oil
lamps whose light just made the darkness visible, the ship all the time
rolling like a sodden lifeless log, her lee gunwale under water every
time."

"There was one thrilling moment in the midst of the worst hour on Friday
when we were realizing that the fires must be drawn, and when every pump
had failed to act, and when the bulwarks began to go to pieces and the
petrol cases were all afloat and going overboard, and the word was
suddenly passed in a shout from the hands at work in the waist of the
ship trying to save petrol cases that smoke was coming up through the
seams in the afterhold. As this was full of coal and patent fuel and was
next the engine-room, and as it had not been opened for the airing it
required to get rid of gas, on account of the flood of water on deck
making it impossible to open the hatchway, the possibility of a fire
there was patent to every one, and it could not possibly have been dealt
with in any way short of opening the hatches and flooding the ship, when
she must have foundered. It was therefore a thrilling moment or two until
it was discovered that the smoke was really steam, arising from the bilge
at the bottom having risen to the heated coal."[46]

Meanwhile men were working for all our lives to cut through two bulkheads
which cut off all communication with the suction of the hand-pumps. One
bulkhead was iron, the other wood.

Scott wrote at this time:

"We are not out of the wood, but hope dawns, as indeed it should for me,
when I find myself so wonderfully served. Officers and men are singing
chanties over their arduous work. Williams is working in sweltering heat
behind the boiler to get the door made in the bulkhead. Not a single one
has lost his good spirits. A dog was drowned last night, one pony is dead
and two others in a bad condition--probably they too will go.
Occasionally a heavy sea would bear one of them away, and he was only
saved by his chain. Meares with some helpers had constantly to be
rescuing these wretched creatures from hanging, and trying to find them
better shelter, an almost hopeless task. One poor beast was found hanging
when dead; one was washed away with such force that his chain broke and
he disappeared overboard; the next wave miraculously washed him on board
again and he is fit and well. [I believe the dog was Osman.] The gale has
exacted heavy toll, but I feel all will be well if we can only cope with
the water. Another dog has just been washed overboard--alas! Thank God
the gale is abating. The sea is still mountainously high but the ship is
not labouring so heavily as she was."[47]

The highest waves of which I can find any record were 36 feet high. These
were observed by Sir James C. Ross in the North Atlantic.[48]

On December 2 the waves were logged, probably by Pennell, who was
extremely careful in his measurements, as being 'thirty-five feet high
(estimated).' At one time I saw Scott, standing on the weather rail of
the poop, buried to his waist in green sea. The reader can then imagine
the condition of things in the waist of the ship, "over and over again
the rail, from the fore-rigging to the main, was covered by a solid sheet
of curling water which swept aft and high on the poop."[49] At another
time Bowers and Campbell were standing upon the bridge, and the ship
rolled sluggishly over until the lee combings of the main hatch were
under the sea. They watched anxiously, and slowly she righted herself,
but "she won't do that often," said Bowers. As a rule if a ship gets that
far over she goes down.

*       *       *       *       *

Our journey was uneventful for a time, but of course it was not by any
means smooth. "I was much disturbed last night by the motion; the ship
was pitching and twisting with short sharp movements on a confused sea,
and with every plunge my thoughts flew to our poor ponies. This afternoon
they are fairly well, but one knows that they must be getting weaker as
time goes on, and one longs to give them a good sound rest with a ship on
an even keel. Poor patient beasts! One wonders how far the memory of
such fearful discomfort will remain with them--animals so often remember
places and conditions where they have encountered difficulties or hurt.
Do they only recollect circumstances which are deeply impressed by some
shock of fear or sudden pain, and does the remembrance of prolonged
strain pass away? Who can tell? But it would seem strangely merciful if
nature should blot out these weeks of slow but inevitable torture."[50]

On December 7, noon position 61 deg. 22' S., 179 deg. 56' W., one berg was
sighted far away to the west, as it gleamed every now and then in the
sun. Two more were seen the next day, and at 6.22 A.M. on December 9,
noon position 65 deg. 8' S., 177 deg. 41' W., the pack was sighted ahead by
Rennick. All that day we passed bergs and streams of ice. The air became
dry and bracing, the sea was calm, and the sun shining on the islands of
ice was more than beautiful. And then Bump! We had just charged the first
big floe, and we were in the pack.

"The sky has been wonderful, with every form of cloud in every condition
of light and shade; the sun has continually appeared through breaks in
the cloudy heavens from time to time, brilliantly illuminating some field
of pack, some steep-walled berg, or some patch of bluest sea. So sunlight
and shadow have chased each other across our scene. To-night there is
little or no swell--the ship is on an even keel, steady, save for the
occasional shocks on striking ice.

"It is difficult to express the sense of relief this steadiness gives
after our storm-tossed passage. One can only imagine the relief and
comfort afforded to the ponies, but the dogs are visibly cheered and the
human element is full of gaiety. The voyage seems full of promise in
spite of the imminence of delay."[51]

We had met the pack farther north than any other ship.

What is pack? Speaking very generally indeed, in this region it is the
sea-ice which forms over the Ross Sea area during the winter, and is
blown northwards by the southerly blizzards. But as we shall see, the
ice which forms over this area is of infinite variety. As a rule great
sheets spread over the seas which fringe the Antarctic continent in the
autumn, grow thicker and thicker during the winter and spring, and break
up when the temperatures of sea and air rise in summer. Such is the ice
which forms in normal seasons round the shores of McMurdo Sound, and up
the coast of the western mountains of Victoria Land. In sheltered bays
this ice will sometimes remain in for two years or even more, growing all
the time, until some phenomenal break-up releases it. We found an example
of this in the sea-ice which formed between Hut Point and the Barrier.
But there are great waters which can never freeze for very long. Cape
Crozier, for instance, where the Emperor penguins nest in winter, is one
of the windiest places in the world. In July it was completely frozen
over as far as we could see in the darkness from a height of 900 feet.
Within a few days a hurricane had blown it all away, and the sea was
black.

I believe, and we had experiences to prove me right, that there is a
critical period early in the winter, and that if sea-ice has not frozen
thick enough to remain fast by that time, it is probable that the sea
will remain open for the rest of the year. But this does not mean that no
ice will form. So great is the wish of the sea to freeze, and so cold is
the air, that the wind has only to lull for one instant and the surface
is covered with a thin film of ice, as though by magic. But the next
blizzard tears it out by force or a spring tide coaxes it out by stealth,
whether it be a foot thick or only a fraction of an inch. Such an example
we had at our very doors during our last winter, and the untamed winds
which blew as a result were atrocious.

Thus it is that floes from a few inches to twenty feet thick go voyaging
out to join the belt of ice which is known as the pack. Scott seems to
have thought that the whole Ross Sea freezes over.[52] I myself think
this doubtful, and I am, I believe, the only person living who has seen
the Ross Sea open in mid-winter. This was on the Winter Journey
undertaken by Wilson, Bowers and myself in pursuit of Emperor penguin
eggs--but of that later.

It is clear that winds and currents are, broadly speaking, the governing
factors of the density of pack-ice. By experience we know that clear
water may be found in the autumn where great tracts of ice barred the way
in summer. The tendency of the pack is northwards, where the ice melts
into the warmer waters. But the bergs remain when all traces of the pack
have disappeared, and, drifting northwards still, form the menace to
shipping so well known to sailors rounding the Horn. It is not hard to
imagine that one monster ice island of twenty miles in length, such as do
haunt these seas, drifting into navigated waters and calving into
hundreds of great bergs as it goes, will in itself produce what seamen
call a bad year for ice. And the last stages of these, when the bergs
have degenerated into 'growlers,' are even worse, for then the sharpest
eye can hardly distinguish them as they float nearly submerged though
they have lost but little of their powers of evil.

There are two main types of Antarctic berg. The first and most common is
the tabular form. Bergs of this shape cruise about in thousands and
thousands. A less common form is known as the pinnacled berg, and in
almost every case this is a tabular berg which has been weathered or has
capsized. The number of bergs which calve direct from a mountain glacier
into the sea is probably not very great. Whence then do they come?

The origin of the tabular bergs was debated until a few years ago. They
have been recorded up to forty and even fifty miles in length, and they
have been called floe bergs, because it was supposed that they froze
first as ordinary sea-ice and increased by subsequent additions from
below. But now we know that these bergs calve off from the Antarctic
Barriers, the largest of which is known as the Great Ice Barrier, which
forms the southern boundary of the Ross Sea. We were to become very
familiar with this vast field of ice. We know that its northern face is
afloat, we guess that it may all be afloat. At any rate the open sea now
washes against its face at least forty miles south of where it ran in
the days of Ross. Though this Barrier may be the largest in the world, it
is one of many. The most modern review of this mystery, Scott's article
on The Great Ice Barrier, must serve until the next first-hand
examination by some future explorer.

A berg shows only about one-eighth of its total mass above water, and a
berg two hundred feet high will therefore reach approximately fourteen
hundred feet below the surface of the sea. Winds and currents have far
more influence upon them than they have upon the pack, through which
these bergs plough their way with a total disregard for such flimsy
obstacles, and cause much chaos as they go. For the rest woe betide the
ship which is so fixed into the pack that she cannot move if one of these
monsters bears down upon her.

Words cannot tell the beauty of the scenes through which we were to pass
during the next three weeks. I suppose the pack in winter must be a
terrible place enough: a place of darkness and desolation hardly to be
found elsewhere. But forms which under different conditions can only
betoken horror now conveyed to us impressions of the utmost peace and
beauty, for the sun had kissed them all.

"We have had a marvellous day. The morning watch was cloudy, but it
gradually cleared until the sky was a brilliant blue, fading on the
horizon into green and pink. The floes were pink, floating in a deep blue
sea, and all the shadows were mauve. We passed right under a monster
berg, and all day have been threading lake after lake and lead after
lead. 'There is Regent Street,' said somebody, and for some time we drove
through great streets of perpendicular walls of ice. Many a time they
were so straight that one imagined they had been cut off with a ruler
some hundreds of yards in length."[53]


[Illustration: MIDNIGHT--E. A. Wilson, del.]

On another occasion:

"Stayed on deck till midnight. The sun just dipped below the southern
horizon. The scene was incomparable. The northern sky was gloriously rosy
and reflected in the calm sea between the ice, which varied from
burnished copper to salmon pink; bergs and pack to the north had a
pale greenish hue with deep purple shadows, the sky shaded to saffron and
pale green. We gazed long at these beautiful effects."[54]

But this was not always so. There was one day with rain, there were days
of snow and hail and cold wet slush, and fog. "The position to-night is
very cheerless. All hope that this easterly wind will open the pack seems
to have vanished. We are surrounded with compacted floes of immense area.
Openings appear between these floes and we slide crab-like from one to
another with long delays between. It is difficult to keep hope alive.
There are streaks of water sky over open leads to the north, but
everywhere to the south we have the uniform white sky. The day has been
overcast and the wind force 3 to 5 from the E.N.E.--snow has fallen from
time to time. There could scarcely be a more dreary prospect for the eye
to rest upon."[55]

With the open water we left behind the albatross and the Cape pigeon
which had accompanied us lately for many months. In their place we found
the Antarctic petrel, "a richly piebald bird that appeared to be almost
black and white against the ice floes,"[56] and the Snowy petrel, of
which I have already spoken.

No one of us whose privilege it was to be there will forget our first
sight of the penguins, our first meal of seal meat, or that first big
berg along which we coasted close in order that London might see it on
the film. Hardly had we reached the thick pack, which prevailed after the
suburbs had been passed, when we saw the little Adelie penguins hurrying
to meet us. Great Scott, they seemed to say, what's this, and soon we
could hear the cry which we shall never forget. "Aark, aark," they said,
and full of wonder and curiosity, and perhaps a little out of breath,
they stopped every now and then to express their feelings, "and to gaze
and cry in wonder to their companions; now walking along the edge of a
floe in search of a narrow spot to jump and so avoid the water, and with
head down and much hesitation judging the width of the narrow gap, to
give a little standing jump across as would a child, and running on the
faster to make up for its delay. Again, coming to a wider lead of water
necessitating a plunge, our inquisitive visitor would be lost for a
moment, to reappear like a jack-in-the-box on a nearer floe, where
wagging his tail, he immediately resumed his race towards the ship. Being
now but a hundred yards or so from us he pokes his head constantly
forward on this side and on that, to try and make out something of the
new strange sight, crying aloud to his friends in his amazement, and
exhibiting the most amusing indecision between his desire for further
investigation and doubt as to the wisdom and propriety of closer contact
with so huge a beast."[57]

They are extraordinarily like children, these little people of the
Antarctic world, either like children, or like old men, full of their own
importance and late for dinner, in their black tail-coats and white
shirt-fronts--and rather portly withal. We used to sing to them, as they
to us, and you might often see "a group of explorers on the poop, singing
'She has rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, and she shall have
music wherever she goes,' and so on at the top of their voices to an
admiring group of Adelie penguins."[58]

Meares used to sing to them what he called 'God save,' and declared that
it would always send them headlong into the water. He sang flat: perhaps
that was why.

Two or more penguins will combine to push a third in front of them
against a skua gull, which is one of their enemies, for he eats their
eggs or their young if he gets the chance. They will refuse to dive off
an ice-foot until they have persuaded one of their companions to take the
first jump, for fear of the sea-leopard which may be waiting in the water
below, ready to seize them and play with them much as a cat will play
with a mouse. As Levick describes in his book about the penguins at Cape
Adare: "At the place where they most often went in, a long terrace of ice
about six feet in height ran for some hundreds of yards along the edge
of the water, and here, just as on the sea-ice, crowds would stand near
the brink. When they had succeeded in pushing one of their number over,
all would crane their necks over the edge, and when they saw the pioneer
safe in the water, the rest followed."[59]

It is clear then that the Adelie penguin will show a certain spirit of
selfishness in tackling his hereditary enemies. But when it comes to the
danger of which he is ignorant his courage betrays want of caution.
Meares and Dimitri exercised the dog-teams out upon the larger floes when
we were held up for any length of time. One day a team was tethered by
the side of the ship, and a penguin sighted them and hurried from afar
off. The dogs became frantic with excitement as he neared them: he
supposed it was a greeting, and the louder they barked and the more they
strained at their ropes, the faster he bustled to meet them. He was
extremely angry with a man who went and saved him from a very sudden end,
clinging to his trousers with his beak, and furiously beating his shins
with his flippers. It was not an uncommon sight to see a little Adelie
penguin standing within a few inches of the nose of a dog which was
almost frantic with desire and passion.

The pack-ice is the home of the immature penguins, both Emperor and
Adelie. But we did not see any large numbers of immature Emperors during