SITE FOR THE WINTER QUARTERS 



three hundred feet. It had every appearance of ice- 

 covered land, but we could not stop then to make certain, 

 for the heavy ice and bergs lying to the northward of us 

 were setting down into the bay, and I saw that if we were 

 not to be beset it would be necessary to get away at once. 

 All round us were numbers of great whales showing their 

 dorsal fins as they occasionally sounded, and on the edge 

 of the bay-ice half a dozen Emperor penguins stood lazily 

 observing us. We named this place the Bay of Whales, 

 for it was a veritable playground for these monsters. 



We tried to work to the eastward so as once more to 

 get close to the Barrier, which we could see rising over 

 the top of the small bergs and pack-ice, but we found 

 this impossible, and so struck northwards through an open 

 lead and came south to the Barrier again about 2 a.m. 

 on the 24th. We coasted eastward along the wall of ice 

 always on the look-out for the inlet. The lashings had 

 been taken off the motor-car, and the tackle rigged to hoist 

 it out directly we got alongside the ice-foot, to which the 

 Discovery had been moored; for in Barrier Inlet we pro- 

 posed to place our winter quarters. 



I must leave the narrative for a moment at this point 

 and refer to the reasons that made me decide on this inlet 

 as the site for the winter quarters. I knew that Barrier 

 Inlet was practically the beginning of King Edward 

 VII Land, and that the actual bare land was within 

 an easy sledge journey of that place, and it had the 

 great advantage of being some ninety miles nearer 

 to the South Pole than any other spot that could be 

 reached with the ship. A further point of importance 

 was that it would be an easy matter for the ship on its 

 return to us to reach this part of the Barrier, whereas 

 King Edward VII Land itself might quite conceivably 

 be unattainable if the season was adverse. Some of my 

 Discovery comrades had also considered Barrier Inlet a 



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