in silhouette except for smoke. Later in the day we found an opening
in the pack and made 9 miles to the south-west, but at 2 a.m. on
January 3 the lead ended in hummocky ice, impossible to penetrate. A
moderate easterly gale had come up with snow-squalls, and we could not
get a clear view in any direction. The hummocky ice did not offer a
suitable anchorage for the ship, and we were compelled to dodge up and
down for ten hours before we were able to make fast to a small floe
under the lee of a berg 120 ft. high. The berg broke the wind and
saved us drifting fast to leeward. The position was lat. 69° 59´ S.,
long. 17° 31´ W. We made a move again at 7 p.m., when we took in the
ice-anchor and proceeded south, and at 10 p.m. we passed a small berg
that the ship had nearly touched twelve hours previously. Obviously we
were not making much headway. Several of the bergs passed during this
day were of solid blue ice, indicating true glacier origin.

By midnight of the 3rd we had made 11 miles to the south, and then
came to a full stop in weather so thick with snow that we could not
learn if the leads and lanes were worth entering. The ice was hummocky,
but, fortunately, the gale was decreasing, and after we had scanned all
the leads and pools within our reach we turned back to the north-east.
Two sperm and two large blue whales were sighted, the first we had seen
for 260 miles. We saw also petrels, numerous adelies, emperors, crab-
eaters, and sea-leopards. The clearer weather of the morning showed us
that the pack was solid and impassable from the south-east to the south-
west, and at 10 a.m. on the 4th we again passed within five yards of
the small berg that we had passed twice on the previous day. We had
been steaming and dodging about over an area of twenty square miles for
fifty hours, trying to find an opening to the south, south-east, or
south-west, but all the leads ran north, north-east, or north-west. It
was as though the spirits of the Antarctic were pointing us to the