THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



the whale-boat at the place where the ice- foot had broken 

 away, a party on shore hauling the bags of coal and the 

 cases up the ice-face, which was about fourteen feet 

 high. The penguins were still round us in large numbers. 

 We had not had any time to make observations on them, 

 being so busily employed discharging the ship, but just 

 at this particular time our attention was called to a 

 couple of these birds which suddenly made a spring from 

 the water and landed on their feet on the ice-edge, having 

 cleared a vertical height of twelve feet. It seemed a 

 marvellous jump for these small creatures to have made, 

 and shows the rapidity with which they must move 

 through the water to gain the impetus that enables them 

 to clear a distance in vertical height four times greater 

 than their own, and also how unerring must be their 

 judgment in estimation of the distance and height when 

 performing this feat. The work of landing stores at this 

 spot was greatly hampered by the fact that the bay was 

 more or less filled with broken floes, through which the 

 boat had to be forced. It was impossible to use the oars 

 in the usual way, so, on arriving at the broken ice, they 

 were employed as poles. The bow of the boat was 

 entered into a likely looking channel, and then the crew, 

 standing up, pushed the boat forward by means of the 

 oars, the ice generally giving way on each side, but some- 

 times closing up and nipping the boat, which, if it had 

 been less strongly built, would assuredly have been 

 crushed. The Professor, Mawson, Cotton, Michell and a 

 couple of seamen formed the boat's crew, and with Davis 

 or Harboard in the stern, they dodged the ice very well, 

 considering the fact that the swell was rather heavy at 

 the outside edge of the floes. When alongside the ice- 

 foot one of the crew hung on to a rope in the bow, and 

 another did the same in the stern, hauling in the slack as 

 the boat rose on top of the swell, and easing out as the 



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