266 THE EASTERN SLEDGE JOURNEY 



90 feet and sloped evenly down to the water on the 

 greater part of their circumference. One of the sounds, 

 that penetrated into the Barrier a short distance inside 

 the western cape of the bay, continued southward and 

 gradually narrowed to a mere fissure. We followed 

 this until it lost itself, thirty geographical miles within 

 the Barrier. 



The last day of this trip — Thursday, January 11 — will 

 always be fixed in our memory; it was destined to 

 bring us experiences of the kind that are never for- 

 gotten. Our start in the morning was made at exactly 

 the same time and in exactly the same way as so many 

 times before. We felt pretty certain of reaching Fram- 

 heim in the course of the day, but that prospect was for 

 the moment of minor importance. In the existing state 

 of the weather our tent offered us as comfortable 

 quarters as our snowed-up winter home. What made 

 us look forward to our return with some excitement was 

 the possibility of seeing the Fram again, and this 

 thought was no doubt in the minds of all of us that 

 January morning, though we did not say much about it. 



After two hours' march we caught sight of West 

 Cape, at the entrance to the bay, in our line of route, 

 and a little later we saw a black strip of sea far out on 

 the horizon. As usual, a number of bergs of all sizes 

 were floating on this strip, in every variety of shade from 

 white to dark grey, as the light fell on them. One 

 particular lump appeared to us so dark that it could 



