204 SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
described as by the impressionable French commodore, 
his official report being even more picturesque in its de- 
scriptive colouring than the more popular account of the 
voyage edited by other hands. 
The ships, wafted by a light breeze, steered east- 
ward along the coast which was only five or six miles 
distant, the sailors shouting at their best in reply to the 
hoarse cries of the startled penguins. At noon a good 
observation gave the position as 66° 30' S. and 138° 21' E. 
The dipping needle showed an inclination of 86° and the 
compasses were moving wildly, no two agreeing together. 
It seemed as if the magnetic pole lay no great distance 
inland from the coast which ran from east to west along 
the Antarctic circle. The fairy palaces of floating ice 
sometimes came inconveniently near, and the ships 
seemed to be threading the narrow streets of a city of 
giants. The orders of the officers were echoed and re- 
echoed mockingly by the vertical walls of ice, the sea 
rushed roaring into the ice-caves along the water-line 
setting up eddies that would have seriously menaced 
the vessels had the breeze dropped. The steady heat of 
the sun was melting the snow on the flat tops of the 
bergs and cascades of water poured down their sides. 
One floating berg was dark-coloured as if -mixed with 
earth. 
The magnetic observers were impatient to land while 
the fine weather lasted either on the coast itself or on 
an ice island, and at last at 6 p. m. a berg was noticed 
sloping gently to the water’s edge to which MM. Dumou- 
lin and Coupvent with their apparatus were safely con- 
veyed in the whaleboat. They reported that the bergs 
were all afloat and the instruments showed that they were 
subject to a very perceptible drift. This proved that the 
