72 
FROM CAPE OF GOOD HOPE TO SYDNEY. 
against the cold and the howling gales which sweep with resistless force across the 
isthmus. Happily it was in our power to contribute to the comfort of these poor fellows. 
Most of the leaders were Americans, the party working under them being Portuguese 
from the Cape de Verde Islands. The position of Corinthian Harbour is in lat. 53 0 6' S., 
long. 73 0 24' E. 
Signs of an approaching gale compelled us to hasten our departure. We left at 
daybreak on the 7th. The gale overtook us in the course of the afternoon, and put an end 
to our soundings and dredgings. The results of the latter showed the bottom of the sea to 
be teeming with animal life. A fall of snow which occurred on this day heralded our approach 
to the Antarctic regions. The 10th of February found us at a distance of 1800 miles from the 
South Pole, toiling through showers of snow and sleet. From time to time a whale would 
disport itself close to us, while the wake of the ship was alive with albatrosses, Cape pigeons, 
terns, and the pretty Mother Carey’s chickens. We had been for some days on the 
look-out for icebergs, but hitherto none had appeared above the horizon, though we had just 
crossed the 60th parallel. A few hours after midnight, however, on the morning of the nth, 
a message came from the officer of the watch that an iceberg was in sight. There was a rush 
on deck, and then, far away to the east, we could see a floating silvery mass just visible 
in the first rays of dawn. The iceberg was one of those large flat pieces with vertical 
cave-worn sides and covered with recent snow, which after a few days gathered in large 
numbers around the ship. Its length was about 700 yards, and its height above the water 
over 200 feet. Before the end of the day several bergs were sighted, also pieces of drift-ice, 
and their number increased as we came nearer and nearer to the Antarctic Circle. Late in the 
evening of the 13th five icebergs were visible from the deck, and the ship ran through a mass 
of small loose pieces called, by adepts in “ iceology,” wash-ice. The loud vibrating noise 
which they made as they scraped along the ship’s side, within a few inches of the sleeper’s 
head in his cabin, was by no means a comfortable sound, and one could not but recall 
Coleridge’s verses :— 
“ The ice was here, the ice was there, 
The ice was all around : 
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, 
Like noises in a swound ! ” 
« 
However, I had such comfort as could be found in the thought that I had not killed an 
albatioss with my cross-bow; and as for my companions who had slain the poor bird 
with more deadly weapons, I could but murmur, “ Absit omen ! ” 
At 5 a.m. on the 14th February fifteen bergs could be counted from the deck, and an 
hour afterwards pack-ice was observed for the first time towards the south-east. The sounding 
on this day indicated a depth of 1675 fathoms. Later in the evening we passed an iceberg 
of a very remarkable shape, and which afforded an instructive example of the process by 
which these huge masses are gradually reduced in volume until they finally disappear in the 
warmer currents of lower latitudes. Its sides were pierced with caves, the shape of which 
