as captured for the biologists--Hunter and Hamilton. A course was then
made to the south amidst a sea of great bergs; the water deepening to
about four hundred fathoms.

During the evening the crevassed slopes of the mainland rose clear to
the south, and many islets were observed near the coast, frozen in a
wide expanse of bay-ice. Haswell Island, visited by Jones, Dovers and
Hoadley of the Western Party, was sighted, and the ship was able to
approach within eight miles of it; at ten o'clock coming up to flat
bay-ice, where she anchored for the night. Before we retired to bunk, a
Ross seal was discovered and shot, three-quarters of a mile away.

Next day, January 22, an unexpected find was made of five more of this
rare species of seal. Many Emperor penguins were also secured. It would
have been interesting to visit the great rookery of Emperor penguins
on Haswell Island, but, as the ship could only approach to within eight
miles of it, I did not think it advisable to allow a party to go so far.

On the night of the 22nd, the 'Aurora' was headed northeast for the
Shackleton Ice-Shelf. In the early hours of the 28rd a strong gale
sprang up and rapidly increased in violence. A pall of nimbus overspread
the sky, and blinding snow commenced to fall.

We had become used to blizzards, but on this occasion several factors
made us somewhat apprehensive. The ship was at least twenty-five miles
from shelter on an open sea, littered with bergs and fragments of ice.
The wind was very strong; the maximum velocity exceeding seventy miles
per hour, and the dense driving snow during the midnight hours of
semi-darkness reduced our chances of navigating with any certainty.

The night of the 23rd had a touch of terror. The wind was so powerful
that, with a full head of steam and steering a few points off the eye of
the wind, the ship could just hold her own. But when heavy gusts swooped
down and the propeller raced on the crest of a mountainous wave, Davis
found it impossible to keep steerage-way.

Drift and spray lash the faces of officer and helmsman, and through the
grey gloom misty bergs glide by on either hand. A long slow struggle
brings us to a passage between two huge masses of ice. There is a shock
as the vessel bumps and grinds along a great wall. The engine stops,
starts again, and stops once more. The yards on the foremast are swung
into the wind, the giant seas are broken by the stolid barriers of ice,
the engine commenc