266 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
gaps between the blocks. However, we felt already that 
nothing could drag that roof out of its packing, and subse- 
quent events proved that we were right. 
It was a bleak job for three o’clock in the morning 
before breakfast, and we were glad to get back to the tent 
and a meal, for we meant to have another go at the Em- 
perors that day. With the first glimpse of light we were 
off for the rookery again. 
But we now knew one or two things about that pressure 
which we had not known twenty-four hours ago ; for in- 
stance, that there was a lot of alteration since the Dis- 
covery days and that probably the pressure was bigger. 
As a matter of fact it has been since proved by photo- 
graphs that the ridges now ran out three-quarters of a mile 
farther into the sea than they did ten years before. We 
knew also that if we entered the pressure at the only place 
where the ice-cliffs came down to the level of the Barrier, 
as we did yesterday, we could neither penetrate to the 
rookery nor get in under the cliffs where formerly a pos- 
sible way had been found. There was only one other thing 
to do—to go over the cliff. And this was what we pro- 
posed to try and do. 
Now these ice-cliffs are some two hundred feet high, and 
I felt uncomfortable, especially in the dark. But as we 
came back the day before we had noticed at one place a 
break in the cliffs from which there hung a snow-drift. It 
might be possible to get down that drift. 
And so, all harnessed to the sledge, with Bill on a long 
lead out in front and Birdie and myself checking the sledge 
behind, we started down the slope which ended in the cliff, 
which of course we could not see. We crossed a number 
of small crevasses, and soon we knew we must be nearly 
there. Twice we crept up to the edge of the cliff with 
no success, and then we found the slope: more, we got 
down it without great difficulty and it brought us out just 
where we wanted to be, between the land cliffs and the 
pressure. 
Then began the most exciting climb among the press- 
ure that you can imagine. At first very much as it was the 
