196 NORTHWARD 



On the current charts of the South Pacific there are 

 marked several archipelagoes and islands, the position 

 of which is not a little doubtful. One of these — 

 Emerald Island — is charted as lying almost directly in 

 the course we had to follow to reach Hobart. Captain 

 Davis, who took Shackleton's ship, the Nimrod, home 

 to England in 1909, sailed, however, right over the 

 point where Emerald Island should be found according 

 to the chart without seeing anything of it. If it exists 

 at all, it is, at any rate, incorrectly charted. In order 

 to avoid its vicinity, and still more in order to get as far 

 as possible to the west before we came into the westerly 

 belt proper, we pressed on as much as we could for 

 one hard week, or perhaps nearer two; but a continual 

 north-west wind seemed for a long time to leave us 

 only two disagreeable possibiHties, either of drifting to 

 the eastward, or of finding ourselves dov/n in the drift- 

 ice to the north of Wilkes Land. 



Those weeks were a very severe trial of patience to 

 the many on board who were burning with eagerness 

 to get ashore with our news, and perhaps to hear some 

 in return. When the first three weeks of February 

 were past, we were not much more than half-way ; with 

 anything like favourable conditions we ought to have 

 arrived by that time. The optimists always consoled 

 us by saying that sooner or later there would be a 

 change for the better, and at last it came. A good 

 spell of favourable wind took us at a bound well to the 



