i 9 ,o] INCESSANT CHANGES 33 
8 P.M.— We are getting on with much bumping and 
occasional ' hold ups.' 
Tuesday, December 13. — I was up most of the night. 
Never have I experienced such rapid and complete changes 
of prospect. Chectham in the last dog-watch was run- 
ning the ship through sludgy new ice, making with all sail 
set four or five knots. Bruce, in the first, took over as 
we got into heavy ice again ; but after a severe tussle 
got through into better conditions. The ice of yesterday 
loose with sludgy thin floes between. The middle watch 
found us making for an open lead, the ice around hard 
and heavy. We got through, and by sticking to the open 
water and then to some recently frozen pools made good 
progress. At the end of the middle watch trouble began 
again, and during this and the first part of the morning 
we were wrestling with the worst conditions we have 
met. Heavy hummocked bay ice, the floes standing 
7 or 8 feet out of water, and very deep below. It was 
just such ice as we encountered at King Edward's Land 
in the Discovery. I have never seen anything more 
formidable. The last part of the morning watch was 
spent in a long recently-frozen lead or pool, and the ship 
went well ahead again. 
These changes sound tame enough, but they are a 
great strain on one's nerves — one is for ever wondering 
whether one has done right in trying to come down so far 
east, and having regard to coal, what ought to be done 
under the circumstances. 
In the first watch came many alterations of opinion ; 
time and again it looks as though we ought to stop when 
VOL. I, D 
