296 SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
each grasping a flipper. Birds of other kinds, and seals, 
too, were secured; but those responsible for the expedi- 
tion must have had anxious thoughts for the future as 
week after week of the short Antarctic summer went bv 
and the ships still drifted with the pack. There was 
more immediate anxiety occasionally, for the pack was 
so loose that it did not stop the ocean swell, and when a 
gale blew the position of the ships amongst the masses 
of floating ice was perilous in the extreme. 
On January 18th a gale sprang up while the two vessels 
were slowly forging through the fog, towing between 
them the heavy mass of floe which held them apart. At 
midnight the wind went round to the northwest and the 
plight of the expedition must be described in Ross’s own 
words : 
“ All our hawsers breaking in succession, we made 
sail on the ships, and kept company during the thick fog 
by firing guns, and, by means of the usual signals ; under 
the shelter of a berg of nearly a mile in diameter, we 
dodged about during the whole day, waiting for clear 
weather, that we might select the best leads through the 
dispersing pack ; but at 9 p. m. the wind suddenly fresh- 
ened to a violent gale from the northward, compelling us 
to reduce our sails to a close reefed main-top-sail and 
storm-stay-sails ; the sea quickly rising to a fearful height, 
breaking over the loftiest bergs, we were unable any 
longer to hold our ground, but were driven into the heavy 
pack under our lee. Soon after midnight our ships were 
involved in an ocean of rolling fragments of ice, hard as 
floating rocks of granite, which were dashed against 
them by the waves with so much violence that their masts 
quivered as if they would fall at every successive blow ; 
and the destruction of the ships seemed inevitable from 
