SOUTH 
9 miles to the soutli-west, but at 2 a.m. on Jamiary 3 the lead 
eDded in liummocky ice, impossible to penetrate. A moderate 
easterly gale had come up with snow-squalls, and we could not 
get a clear view in any direction. The hummocky ice did not 
offer a siiitable anchorage for the ship, and we were compelled 
to dodge up and down for ten hours before we were able to 
make fast to a small floe under the lee of a berg 120 ft. higli. 
The berg broke the wind and saved us drifting fast to leeward. 
The position was lat. 69^ 59' S., long. 17° 31' W. We made a 
move again at 7 p.m., when we took in the ice-anchor and 
proceeded south, and at 10 p.m. we passed a small berg that 
the ship had nearly touched twelve hours previously. Obviously 
we were not making much headway. Several of the bergs 
passed during this day were of solid blue ice, indicating true 
glacier origin. 
By midnight of the 3rd we had made 11 miles to the south, 
and then came to a full stop in weather so thick with snow 
that we could not learn if the leads and lanes were worth enter- 
ing. The ice was hummocky, but, fortunately, the gale was 
decreasing, and after we had scanned all the leads and pools 
within our reach we turned back to the north-east. Two sperm 
and two large blue whales were sighted, the first we had seen 
for 260 miles. We saw also petrels, numerous adehes, emperors, 
crab-eaters, and sea-leopards. The clearer weather of the 
mornmg showed us that the pack was solid and impassable 
from the south-east to the south-west, and at 10 a.m. on the 
4th we again passed within five yards of the small berg that we 
had passed twice on the previous day. We had been steaming 
and dodging about over an area of twenty square miles for fifty 
hours, trying to find an openuig to the south, south-east, or 
south-west, but all the leads ran north, north-east, or north- 
west. It was as though the spirits of the Antarctic were 
pointing us to the backward track— the track we were deter- 
mined not to follow. Our desire was to make easting as well 
as southing so as to reach the land, if possible, east of Ross's 
farthest South and well east of Coats' Land. This was more 
important as the prevailing winds appeared to be to easterly, 
and every mile of easting would count. In the afternoon 
20 
