so SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [December 



I have asked Wright to plot the pack with certain symbols 

 on the chart made by Pennell. It promises to give a very 

 graphic representation of our experiences. 



' We hold the record for reaching the northern edge of the 

 pack, whereas three or four times the open Ross Sea has been 

 gained at an earlier date. 



' I can imagine few things more trying to the patience than 

 the long wasted days of waiting. Exasperating as it is to see 

 the tons of coal melting away with the smallest mileage to 

 our credit, one has at least the satisfaction of active fighting 

 and the hope of better fortune. To wait idly is the worst of 

 conditions. You can imagine how often and how restlessly we 

 climbed to the crow's nest and studied the outlook. And 

 strangely enough there was generally some change to note. A 

 water lead would mysteriously open up a few miles away or 

 the place w^here it had been would as mysteriously close. Huge 

 icebergs crept silently towards or past us, and continually we 

 were observing these formidable objects with range finder and 

 compass to determine the relative movement, sometimes with 

 misgiving as to our ability to clear them. Under steam the 

 change of conditions was even more marked. Sometimes we 

 would enter a lead of open water and proceed for a mile or 

 two without hindrance; sometimes we would come to big sheets 

 of thin ice which broke easily as our iron-shod prow struck 

 them, and sometimes even a thin sheet would resist all our 

 attempts to break it; sometimes we would push big floes with 

 comparative ease and sometimes a small floe would bar our 

 passage with such obstinacy that one would almost believe it 

 possessed of an evil spirit; sometimes we passed through acres 

 of sludgy sodden ice which hissed as it swept along the side, and 

 sometimes the hissing ceased seemingly without rhyme or rea- 

 son, and we found our screw churning the sea without any effect. 

 ' Thus the steaming days passed away in an ever changing 

 environment and are remembered as an unceasing struggle. 



' The ship behaved splendidly — no other ship, not even the 

 Discovery, would have come through so well. Certainly the 

 Ninirod would never have reached the south water had she been 

 caught in such pack. As a result I have grown strangely attached 

 to the Terra Nova. As she bumped the floes with mighty 

 shocks, crushing and grinding a way through some, twisting and 



