LAND IOI 
morning she made fast to the ice only 200 yards from the 
ice-foot of the Cape. 
“For the present the position is extraordinarily com- 
fortable. With a southerly blow she would simply bind on 
to the ice, receiving great shelter from the end of the Cape. 
With a northerly blow she might turn rather close to the 
shore, where the soundings run to three fathoms, but 
behind such a stretch of ice she could scarcely get a sea or 
swell without warning. It looks a wonderfully comfortable 
little nook, but of course one can be certain of nothing in 
this place; one knows from experience how deceptive the 
appearance of security may be.” ! 
The ship’s difficulties were largely due to the shortage 
of coal. Again on the night of January 20-21 we had an 
anxious time. 
“Fearing a little trouble I went out of the hut in the 
middle of the night and saw at once that she was having 
a bad time—the ice was breaking with a northerly swell 
and the wind increasing, with the ship on dead lee shore ; 
luckily the ice anchors had been put well in on the floe 
and some still held. Pennell was getting up steam and his 
men struggling to replace the anchors. 
“We got out the men and gave some help. At 6 
steam was up, and I was right glad to see the ship back out 
to windward, leaving us to recover anchors and hawsers.”’ ? 
A big berg drove in just after the ship had got away, 
and grounded where she had been lying. The ship re- 
turned in the afternoon, and it seems that she was search- 
ing round for an anchorage, and trying to look behind this 
berg. There was a strongish northerly wind blowing. 
The currents and soundings round Cape Evans were then 
unknown. The current was setting strongly from the 
north through the strip of sea which divides Inaccessible 
Island from Cape Evans, a distance of some two-thirds 
ofa mile. The engines were going astern, but the current 
and wind were too much for her, and the ship ran aground, 
being fast for some considerable distance aft—some said 
as far as the mainmast. 
1 Scott’s Last Expedition, vol. i. p. 127. 2 Ibid. p. 134. 
