130 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
back, making for an inlet knownas Balloon Bight. Priestley 
tells the story: 
“February 1, 1911. Our trip has not been without 
outcome after all, and all our doubts about wintering here 
or in South Victoria Land have been settled in a startling 
fashion. About ten o’clock we steamed into a deep bay in 
the Barrier which proved to be Shackleton’s Bay of Whales, 
and our observations in the last expedition [Shackleton’s] 
have been wonderfully upheld. Our present sights and 
angles Pennell tells me are almost a duplicate of those that 
we got. Every one has always been doubtful about the Bay 
of Whales we reported, but now the matter has been set at 
rest finally. There is no doubt now that Balloon Bight and 
the neighbouring bay marked on the Discovery’s chart 
have become merged into one, and further, that since that 
period the resulting bight has broken back considerably 
more: indeed it seems to have altered a good deal on its 
western border since our visit to it in 1908. Otherwise it 
is the same, the same deceptive caves and shadows having 
from a distance the appearance of rock exposures, the same 
pressure-ridged cliffs, the same undulations behind, the 
same expanse of sea-ice and even the same crowds of whales. 
I hope that before we leave we shall find it possible to survey 
the bight, but that depends on the weather. It was satis- 
factory to find all our observations coming right and every- 
body backing up Shackleton, and I turned in last night 
feeling quite cheerful and believing that there would be 
a really good chance of the Eastern Party finding a home 
on the Barrier here—our last chance of surveying King 
Edward’s Land. 
“However, man proposes but God disposes, and I was 
waked up by Lillie at one o’clock this morning by the 
astounding news that there was a ship in the bay at anchor 
to thesea-ice. All was confusion on board fora fewminutes, 
everybody rushing up on deck with cameras and clothes. 
“Tt was no false alarm, there she was within a few yards 
of us, and what is more, those of us who had read Nansen’s 
books recognized the Fram. 
“She is rigged with fore and aft sails and as she has 
