THE DEPOT JOURNEY 155 
over the ice, resting the fore part of their enormous yellow 
and black bodies on the edge of the floes. They were undis- 
guisedly interested in us and the ponies, and we felt that if 
we once got into the water our ends would be swift and 
bloody. 
But I have a very distinct recollection that the whales 
were not all Killers, and that some, at any rate, were Bottle- 
nosed whales. This was impressed upon me by one of the 
most dramatic moments of that night and day. 
We made our way very slowly, sometimes waiting 
twenty minutes for the floe on which we were to touch the 
next one in the direction we were trying to go, but before 
us in the distance was a region of sea-ice which appeared 
to slope gradually up on to the fast Barrier beyond. As we 
got nearer we saw a dark line appear at intervals between 
the two. This we considered was a crevasse at the edge of 
the Barrier which was opening and shutting with the very 
big swell which was running, and on which all the floes 
were bobbing up and down. We told one another that we 
could rush the ponies over this as it closed. 
We approached the Barrier and began to rise up on the 
sloping floes which had edged the Barrier and so on to 
small bergs which had calved from the Barrier itself. 
Leaving Crean with the ponies, Bowers and I went forward 
to prospect, and rose on to a berg from which we hoped to 
reach the Barrier. 
I can never forget the scene that met us. Between us 
and the Barrier was a lane of some fifty yards wide, a seeth- 
ing cauldron. Bergs were calving off as we watched: and 
capsizing: and hitting other bergs, splitting into two and 
falling apart. The Killers filled the whole place. Looking 
downwards into a hole between our berg and the next, a 
hole not bigger than a small room, we saw at least six 
whales. They were so crowded that they could only lie so 
as to get their snouts out of the water, and my memory is 
that their snouts were bottle-nosed. At this moment our 
berg split into two parts and we hastily retreated to the 
lower and safer floes. 
Now in the Zoological Report of the Discovery Ex- 
