xlii WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
bay ice, and Ross Sea, completely frozen over, was a plain 
of firm white ice to the horizon. There was not even the 
lane of open water which usually runs along the Barrier 
cliff stretching away as it does like a winding thread to the 
east and out of sight. No space or crack could be seen 
with open water. Nevertheless the Emperors were un- 
settled owing, there can be no doubt, to the knowledge 
that bad weather was impending. The mere fact that the 
usual canal of open water was not to be seen along the 
face of the Barrier meant that the ice in Ross Sea had a> 
southerly drift. This in itself was unusual, and was caused 
by a northerly wind with snow, the precursor here of a 
storm from the south-west. The sky looked black and 
threatening, the barometer began to fall, and before long 
down came snowflakes on the upper heights of Mount 
error! 
‘““All these warnings were an open book to the Em- 
peror penguins, and if one knew the truth there probably 
were many others too. They were in consequence un- 
settled, and although the ice had not yet started moving 
the Emperor penguins had; a long file was moving out 
from the bay to the open ice, where a pack of some one or 
two hundred had already collected about two miles out at 
the edge of a refrozen crack. For an hour or more that 
afternoon we watched this exodus proceeding, and re- 
turned to camp, more than ever convinced that bad weather 
might be expected. Nor were we disappointed, for on the 
next day we woke toa southerly gale and smother of snow 
and drift, which effectually prevented any one of us from 
leaving our camp at all. This continued without intermis- 
sion all day and night till the following morning, when the 
weather cleared sufficiently to allow us to reach the edge 
of the cliff which overlooked the rookery. 
“The change here was immense. Ross Sea was open 
water for nearly thirty miles; along line of white pack ice 
was just visible on the horizon from where we stood, some 
800 to goo feet above the sea. Large sheets of ice were 
still going out and drifting to the north, and the migration 
of the Emperors was in full swing. There were again two 
