THE HEART OF THE 



ANTARCTIC 



and if a fall of ice had occurred while we were close in the 

 results would certainly have been disastrous for us. I 

 soon saw that we would not be able to make much easting 

 in this way, for the Barrier was now trending well to the 

 north-east, and right ahead of us lay an impenetrably 

 close pack, set with huge icebergs. By 10 a.m. we were 

 close to the pack and found that it was pressed hard 

 against the Barrier edge, and, what was worse, the whole 

 of the northern pack and bergs at this spot were drifting 

 in towards the Barrier. The seriousness of this situation 

 can be well realised by the reader if he imagines for a 

 moment that he is in a small boat right under the vertical 

 white cliffs of Dover; that detached cliffs are moving in 

 from seaward slowly but surely, with stupendous force 

 and resistless power, and that it would only be a question 

 of perhaps an hour or two before the two masses came into 

 contact with his tiny craft between. 



There was nothing for it but to retrace our way and 

 try some other route. Our position was latitude 78° 20' 

 South and longitude 162° 14' West when the ship turned. 

 The pack had already moved inside the point of the cliff 

 where we had lain in open water at eight o'clock, but by 

 steaming hard and working in and out of the looser floes 

 we just managed to pass the point at 11.20 a.m. with 

 barely fifty yards of open water to spare between the 

 Barrier and the pack. 



I breathed more freely when we passed this zone of 

 immediate danger, for there were two or three hundred 

 yards of clear water now between us and the pack. We 

 were right under the Barrier cliff, which was here over 

 two hundred and fifty feet high, and our course lay well 

 to the south of west, being roughly south-west true; so 

 as we moved south more quickly than the advancing ice 

 we were able to keep close along the Barrier, which grad- 

 ually became lower, until about three o'clock we were 



76 



