ANTARCTIC VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY. 



405 



The sea broke all the hawsers which held them to a large piece of floe, and 

 drove them helplessly along into the heavy pack. They were now involved in 

 an ocean of rolling fragments of ice, which were dashed against them by the 

 waves with so much violence that their masts quivered as if they would fall at 

 every successive blow. The loud crashing noise of the straining and working 

 of the timbers and decks, as they were driven against some of the heavier 

 pieces, might well appall the stoutest heart, and thus hour passed away after 

 hour. During this terrible scene the ships were at one time so close together 

 that when the " Terror " rose to the top of one wave, the " Erebus " was on the 

 top of the wave next to leeward of her, the deep chasm between them being fill- 

 ed with heavy rolling masses ; and as the ships descended into the hollow be- 

 tween the waves, the maintopsail-yard of each could be seen, just level with the 

 crest of the intervening wave, from the deck of the other. The night, w^hich 

 now began to draw in, rendered their condition, if possible, more hopeless and 

 helpless than before ; but at midnight the snow, which had been falling thickly 

 for several hours, cleared away, as the wind suddenly shifted to the westward ; 

 the swell began to subside, and the shocks which the ships still sustained, though 

 strong enough to shatter any vessel less strongly ribbed, were feeble compared 

 with those to which they had been exposed. On the following day, the wind 

 having moderated to a fresh breeze, the crippled ships, whose rudders had been 

 sorely shattered, w^ere securely moored to a large floe-piece in the now almost 

 motionless pack, where, by dint of unceasing labor, the damages were repaired 

 in the course of a week, and the vessels once more fitted to fight their way to 

 the south. 



On February 22 the great barrier was seen from the mast-head, just before 

 midnight, and the following day, the wind blowing directly on to its cliffs, they 

 approached it within a mile and a half, in lat. Y8° 11', the highest ever attained 

 in the southern hemisphere. From this point, situated about 5° of longitude 

 farther to the east than the indentation where the ships had so narrowly escaped 

 being frozen fast in the preceding year, the barrier trended considerably to the 

 northward of east, so that Ross was obliged to give up all hope of rounding it, 

 and extending his explorations towards the pole, as the season was already con- 

 siderably advanced. On his return voyage to the Falklands, where he intended 

 to pass the winter, he had already reached the latitude of 60°, and thought him- 

 self out of danger of meeting with bergs, when, in the afternoon of March 1 2, 

 the southerly wind changed to a strong north-westerly breeze. In the evening 

 the wind increased so much, and the snow-showers became so incessant, that he 

 was obliged to proceed under more moderate sail. Small pieces of ice were 

 also met with, warning him of the presence of bergs, concealed by the thickly- 

 falling snow, so that before midnight he directed the topsails of the " Erebus " 

 to be close-reefed, and every arrangement made for rounding to until daylight, 

 deeming it too hazardous to run any longer. " Our people," says the gallant 

 explorer, " had hardly completed these operations, when a large berg was seen 

 ahead and quite close ; the ship was immediately hauled to the wind on the 

 port tack, with the expectation of being able to weather it ; but just at this mo- 

 ment the ^ Terror ' was observed running down upon us, under her topsail and 



