164 FROM MADEIRA TO THE BARRIER 



usually the last thing to gladden sailors' hearts, but we 

 were not looking at the risk just then. The meeting 

 with the imposing colossus had another significance 

 that had a stronger claim on our interest the pack-ice 

 could not be far off. We were all longing as one man 

 to be in it; it would be a grand variation in the mono- 

 tonous life we had led for so long, and which we were 

 beginning to be a little tired of. Merely to be able to 

 run a few yards on an ice-floe appeared to us an event 

 of importance, and we rejoiced no less at the prospect 

 of giving our dogs a good meal of seal's flesh, while we 

 ourselves would have no objection to a little change of 

 diet. 



The number of icebergs increased during the after- 

 noon and night, and with such neighbours it suited us 

 very well to have daylight all through the twenty-four 

 hours, as we now had. The weather could not have 

 been better fine and clear, with a light but still favour- 

 able wind. At 8 p.m. on January 2 the Antarctic Circle 

 was crossed, and an hour or two later the crow's-nest 

 was able to report the ice-belt ahead. For the time 

 being it did not look like obstructing us to any great 

 extent ; the floes were collected in long lines, with broad 

 channels of open water between them. We steered 

 right in. Our position was then long. 176 E. and 

 lat. 66 30' S. The ice immediately stopped all swell, 

 the vessel's deck again became a stable platform, and 

 after two months' incessant exercise of our sea-legs we 



