TO STOP OR NOT TO STOP 
45 
slopes that the floes had been thin when these disturbances 
took place. 
At about 4.30 we came to a group of six or seven low 
tabular bergs some 15 or 20 feet in height. It was such 
as these that we saw in King Edward's Land, and they 
might very well come from that region. Three of these 
were beautifully uniform, with flat tops and straight per- 
pendicular sides, and others had overhanging cornices, 
and some sloped towards the edges. 
No more open water was reported on the other side 
of the bergs, and one wondered what would come next. 
The conditions have proved a pleasing surprise. There 
are still large floes on either side of us, but they are not 
much hummocked ; there arc pools of water on their 
surface, and the lanes between arc filled with light brash 
and only an occasional heavy floe. The difference is 
wonderful. The heavy floes and gigantic pressure ice 
struck one most alarming!)' — it seemed impossible that 
the ship could win her way through them, and led one 
to imagine all sorts of possibilities, such as remaining 
to be drifted north and freed later in the season, and 
the contrast now that the ice all around is little more 
than 2 or 3 feet thick is an immense relief. It seems 
like release from a horrid captivity. Evans has twice 
suggested stopping and waiting to-day, and on three 
occasions I have felt my own decision trembling in the 
balance. If this condition holds I need not say how 
glad we shall be that we doggedly pushed on in spite 
of the apparently hopeless outlook. 
In any case, if it holds or not, it will be a great relief 
