CHAPTER V 



THROUGH THE ROSS SEA 



Midnight on the 29th marked our breaking through the 

 pack, and thence we sailed southward and slightly westward, 

 without further trouble from the ice. In fact, it was a help, 

 for we encountered half a gale from the south on the 31st and 

 hove to under the shelter of a drifting belt of pack. This 

 was necessary for the sake of the weakened ponies. Advan- 

 tage was taken of the halt to put down soundings. Bottom 

 was reached at 187 fathoms, whereas the day before it had 

 been 1 1 1 1 fathoms or 5500 feet deeper ! We hauled up 

 some small pebbles of eruptive rock coated with polyzoa — a 

 low form of life which was absent on the rocks from the deep 

 water. 



Late in the evening of the last day of the year the officer 

 of the watch reported " Land in sight." On the starboard 

 bow was a clouded horizon, and there, apparently far above the 

 sea line, in a belt of thinner clouds extended a range of moun- 

 tains in a vast panorama. There were two widely separated 

 peaks rising in solitary splendour, and akin in form to the 

 Matterhorn ; but even grander owing to the clothing ot snow 

 from top to bottom. These were Mounts Sabine and 

 Monteagle, each about 10,000 feet high, with their slopes 

 washed by the waters of Ross Sea. They lie well to the south 

 of Cape Adare, where Borchgrevinck spent the first winter in 

 the Antarctic. 



An hour or two later we kept up the good old ceremony 

 of ushering in the New Year. At the proper time Lieut. 

 Evans performed on the steam siren, and others of us, with 

 handbells and other weapons of offence, awakened the sleeping 

 afterguard. As a grand finale, a march was played on the 



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