398 SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
the two Lapps in charge of the dogs and a Norwegian 
cook. Meteorological and magnetic observations were 
started and natural history collecting undertaken, but the 
exploration by land, of which much had been hoped, was 
of very small account. The pioneers of the Antarctic 
land were after all closer prisoners than the wanderers in 
the Antarctic pack. A few excursions along the shores 
of Robertson Bay or across its ice, climbing the cliff of 
Cape Adare to a height somewhat exceeding 3,000 feet, 
and looking at the coast to the south, summed up the 
exploits. The interior ice-cap was not reached, and no 
land exploration in the ordinary sense of the word was 
accomplished. The scientific observations however were 
interesting, though had the commander of the expedition 
been more fully instructed in the method of getting the 
best work from his expert assistants, by leaving them a 
free hand in their several departments, they might quite 
possibly have been better still. In Antarctic exploration 
as in life generally, however, there is always the consola- 
tion that while things could have been better than they 
are, they might also have been worse ; and despite some 
faults the expedition of the Southern Cross did excellent 
work. 
The winter proved terribly severe. The storms which 
shook the little wooden house were of an altogether unex- 
pected fury, and fierce blizzards drove the snow in blind- 
ing sheets which made it impossible to walk or even to 
crawl on all-fours from the hut to the thermometer screen. 
The sun did not appear above the horizon from May 15th 
to July 29th, a period of seventy-five days, for Cape Adare 
in latitude 71 0 15' S. was practically the same distance 
from the Pole as the Belgica during her drift ; but there 
was no day during the winter on which a glimmer of 
