SOUTH 
cleared tlie close pack by noon, but the outlook to the south 
gave small promise of useful progress, and I was aiixious now 
to make easting. We went north-east under sail, and after 
making thirty-nme miles passed a pecuhar berg that we had 
been abreast of sixty hours earlier. Killer-whales were be- 
coming active around us, and I had to exercise caution in 
allowing any one to leave the ship. These beasts have a habit 
of locating a resting seal by looking over the edge of a floe and 
then striking through the ice from below in search of a meal ; 
they would not distinguish between seal and man. 
The^noon position on January 8 was lat. 70"^ 0' S., long, 
19° 09' W. We had made 66 miles in a north-easterly direction 
diuing the preceding twenty-four hours. The course dming 
the afternoon was east-south-east through loose pack and open 
water, with deep humniocky floes to the south. Several leads 
to the south came in view, but we held on the easterly course. 
The floes were becommg looser, and there were indications of 
open water ahead. Tlie ship passed not fewer than five hundred 
bergs that day, some of them very large. A dark water-sky 
extended from east to south-south-east on the following morning, 
and the Endurance^ working through loose pack at half speed, 
reached open water just before noon. A rampart berg 150 ft. 
high and a quarter of a mile long lay at the edge of the loose 
pack, and we sailed over a projecting foot of this berg into 
rolling ocean, stretching to the horizon. The sea extended 
from a little to the west of south, round by east to north- 
north-east, and its welcome promise was supported by a deep 
water-sky to the south. I laid a course south by east in an 
endeavour to get south and east of Eoss's farthest south 
(lat. 7r 30' S.). 
We kept the open water for a hundred miles, passing many 
bergs but encountering ]io pack. Two very large whales, 
probably blue whales, came up close to the ship, and we saw 
spouts in all dhections. Open water inside the pack in that 
latitude might have the appeal of sanctuary to the whales, 
which are harried by man farther north. The run southward 
in blue water, with a path clear ahead and the miles falling 
away behind us, was a joyful experience after the long struggle 
22 
