CHAPTER IV

LAND

Beyond this flood a frozen continent
Lies dark and wilde, beat with perpetual storms
Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land
Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems
Of ancient pile; all else deep snow and ice....
MILTON, _Paradise Lost_, II.


"They say it's going to blow like hell. Go and look at the glass." Thus
Titus Oates quietly to me a few hours before we left the pack.

I went and looked at the barograph and it made me feel sea-sick. Within a
few hours I was sick, _very_ sick; but we newcomers to the Antarctic had
yet to learn that we knew nothing about its barometer. Nothing very
terrible happened after all. When I got up to the bridge for the morning
watch we were in open water and it was blowing fresh. It freshened all
day, and by the evening it was blowing a southerly with a short choppy
North Sea swell, and very warm. By 4 A.M. the next morning there was a
big sea running and the dogs and ponies were having a bad time. Rennick
had the morning watch these days, and I was his humble midshipman.

At 5.45 we sighted what we thought was a berg on the port bow. About
three minutes later Rennick said, "There's a bit of pack," and I went