NIMROD IN THE ICE 



sheet of open water to the horizon, and which was even 

 now only filled with loose pack! So we got no home 

 letters, and had good reason to believe that our friends 

 had lost their hves in the endeavour to bring them. We 

 knew that they must have embarked on a large floe, 

 and httle expected to see them again. On January 7 

 the Nimrod left Cape Royds to seek for the lost men, 

 on the chance that they might have got ashore near 

 Cape Bird. Within a few hours she was caught by the 

 pack which was drifting rapidly southward along the 

 shore of Ross Island. Driven almost on shore near 

 Horseshoe Bay, the ship, by dint of hard steaming, 

 got a little way off the land, and was there beset by the 

 ice and so remained from the 7th to the 15th, with 

 only a few hours' ineffectual steaming during the first 

 day or two. At length she was rigidly jammed and 

 was carried helplessly by a great eddy of the pack away 

 towards the western side of the sound, and gradually 

 northward. 



" On January 12 she was as tight as though frozen 

 in for the winter. In the afternoon sudden pressure 

 affected all the ice from the Nimrod as far as we could 

 see. Great blocks of ice, six or eight feet in thickness, 

 were tossed and piled on the surface of the floes. These 

 pressure heaps were formed on each side of the ship's 

 bow, but she took no harm, and in about an hour the 

 pressure ceased. On the morning of January 15 there 

 was not the shghtest sign of slacking of the pack, but in 

 the early afternoon Harbord, from the crow's-nest, 

 saw lanes of water at no great distance to the east. 

 Steam was got up and in a few hours we had left our 

 prison and got into a broad lane, with only thin ice 

 which the ship could charge, and the open water was 

 in sight. Shortly after midnight we got clear of the 



Vol. II.-4 49 



