SUSPENSE 409 



soggy and dangerous, lay several seal, and the bubblings and 

 whistlings and gurglings which came from their throats 

 chimed musically in contrast to the hoarse aak, aak, of the 

 Adelie penguins : the tide crack was sighing and groaning 

 all the time : it was very restful after the Barrier silence. 



Meanwhile the Terra Nova had been seen in the dis- 

 tance, but the state of the sea-ice prevented her approach. 

 It was not until February 4 that communication was opened 

 with her and we got our welcome mails and news of the 

 world during the last year. We heard that Campbell's 

 party had been picked up at Cape Adare and landed at 

 Evans Coves. We started unloading on February 9, and 

 this work was continued until February 14: there was 

 about three miles of ice between the ship and the shore and 

 we were doing more than twenty miles a day. In the case 

 of men who had been sledging much, and who might be 

 wanted to sledge again, this was a mistake. Latterly the 

 ice began to break up, and the ship left on the 15th, 

 to pick up the Geological Party on the western side of 

 McMurdo Sound. But she met great obstacles, and her 

 record near the coasts this year is one of continual fights 

 against pack-ice, while the winds experienced as the season 

 advanced were very strong. On January 13 the fast ice 

 at the mouth of McMurdo Sound extended as far as 

 the southern end of the Bird Peninsula : ten days later 

 they found fast ice extending for thirty miles from the 

 head of Granite Harbour. Later in the season the most 

 determined efforts were made again and again to penetrate 

 into Evans Coves in order to pick up Campbell and his 

 men, until the ice was freezing all round them, and many 

 times the propeller was brought up dead against blocks 

 of ice. 1 



The expedition was originally formed for two years 

 from the date of leaving England. But before the ship left 

 after landing us at Cape Evans in January 1 9 1 1 the possi- 

 bility of a third year was considered, and certain requests 

 for additional transport and orders for stores were sent 

 home. Thus it came about that the ship now landed not 



1 See Introduction, pp. 1, lii-lix. 



