84. WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
all to see. He cannot fly away. And because he is quaint 
in all that he does, but still more because he is fighting 
against bigger odds than any other bird, and fighting 
always with the most gallant pluck, he comes to be consid- 
ered as something apart from the ordinary bird—sometimes 
solemn, sometimes humorous, enterprising, chivalrous, 
cheeky—and always (unless you are driving a dog-team) 
a welcome and, in some ways, an almost human friend. 
The alternative landing-place to Cape Crozier was some- 
where in McMurdo Sound, the essential thing being that 
we should have access to and from the Barrier, such com- 
munication having to be by sea-ice, since the land is for the 
most part impassable. As we steamed from Cape Crozier 
to Cape Bird, the N. W. extremity of Ross Island, we carried 
out a detailed running survey. 
When we neared Cape Bird and Beaufort Island we 
could see that there was much pack in the mouth of the 
Strait. By keeping close in to the land we avoided the worst 
of the trouble, and ‘‘as we rounded Cape Bird we came in 
sight of the old well-remembered landmarks—Mount Dis- 
covery and the Western Mountains—seen dimly through 
a hazy atmosphere. It was good to see them again, and 
perhaps after all we are better this side of the Island. It 
gives one a homely feeling to see such a familiar scene.”’! 
Right round from Cape Crozier to Cape Royds the 
coast is cold and forbidding, and for the most part heavily — 
crevassed. West of Cape Bird are some small penguin 
rookeries, and high up on the ice slopes could be seen 
some grey granite boulders. These are erratics, brought 
by ice from the Western Mountains, and are evidence of 
a warmer past when the Barrier rose some two thousand — 
feet higher than it does now, and stretched many hundreds 
of miles farther out to sea. But now the Antarctic is be- 
coming colder, the deposition of snow is therefore farther — 
north, and the formation of ice correspondingly less. | 
Many watched all night, as this new world unfolded — 
itself, cape by capeand mountain by mountain. We pushed © 
through some heavy floes and “‘at 6 a.m. (on January 4) | 
1 Scote’s Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 87. | 
