258 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' [Feb. 



held us bound ; we knew that the heaviest battleship would 

 have shattered itself ineffectually against it, and we had seen a 

 million-ton iceberg brought to rest at its edge. For weeks we 

 had been struggling with this mighty obstacle, controlling the 

 most powerful disruptive forces that the intelligence of man 

 has devised, but only to realise more completely the inadequacy 

 of our powers. Even Nature had seemed to pause before such 

 a vast difficulty, and had hitherto delivered her attacks with 

 such sluggish force that we had reasonably doubted her ability 

 to conquer it before the grip of the winter arrested her efforts. 

 1 But now without a word, without an effort on our part, it 

 was all melting away, and we knew that in an hour or two not 

 a vestige of it would be left, and that the open sea would be 

 lapping on the black rocks of Hut Point. 



' Fast as the ice was breaking, it was not fast enough for 

 our gallant relief ships ; already we could see them battling 

 through the floes with a full head of steam and with their bows 

 ever pressing forward on the yet unbroken sheet; working this 

 way and that, they saw the long cracks shot out before them 

 and in a moment their armoured stems were thrust into them 

 and they forged ahead again in new and rapidly widening 

 channels. There was evidently a race as to which should be 

 first to pass beyond the flagstaff round which our small 

 company had clustered, but the little " Morning," with her 

 bluff bows and weak engines, could scarcely expect to hold 

 her own against her finer-built and more powerful competitor. 



'By ten o'clock we could observe the details of the 

 game and watch each turn and twist with a knowledge of its 

 immediate cause. By 10.30 we could see the splintering of 

 the ice as they crashed into the floes and hear the hoarse 

 shouts of the men as, wild with excitement, they cheered each 

 fresh success. Scarcely half-a-mile of ice remained between 

 us, and now the contest became keener, and the crew of the 

 "Terra Nova" gathered together by word of command and 

 ran from side to side of their ship till she rolled heavily and 

 seemed to shake herself, as the force of each rush was gradually 

 expended and she fell back to gather way for a fresh attack ; 



