fortune. To wait idly is the worst of conditions. You can imagine how
often and how restlessly we climbed to the crow's nest and studied
the outlook. And strangely enough there was generally some change to
note. A water lead would mysteriously open up a few miles away or the
place where it had been would as mysteriously close. Huge icebergs
crept silently towards or past us, and continually we were observing
these formidable objects with range finder and compass to determine
the relative movement, sometimes with misgiving as to our ability
to clear them. Under steam the change of conditions was even more
marked. Sometimes we would enter a lead of open water and proceed for
a mile or two without hindrance; sometimes we would come to big sheets
of thin ice which broke easily as our iron-shod prow struck them, and
sometimes even a thin sheet would resist all our attempts to break it;
sometimes we would push big floes with comparative ease and sometimes
a small floe would bar our passage with such obstinacy that one would
almost believe it possessed of an evil spirit; sometimes we passed
through acres of sludgy sodden ice which hissed as it swept along
the side, and sometimes the hissing ceased seemingly without rhyme
or reason, and we found our screw churning the sea without any effect.

'Thus the steaming days passed away in an ever changing environment
and are remembered as an unceasing struggle.

'The ship behaved splendidly--no other ship, not even the _Discovery_,
would have come through so well. Certainly the _Nimrod_ would never
have reached the south water had she been caught in such pack. As
a result I have grown strangely attached to the _Terra Nova_. As
she bumped the floes with mighty shocks, crushing and grinding a way
through some, twisting and turning to avoid others, she seemed like a
living thing fighting a great fight. If only she had more economical