I wish I had seen that igloo:  with its black and blubber and beastliness.  Those who saw it came back with faces of amazement and admiration.  We left a depot at the head of the bay, marked with a bamboo and a flag, and then we turned homewards, counting the weeks, and days, and then the hours.  In the early hours of January 27 we left the pack.  On January 29 we were off Cape Adare, “head sea, and wind, and fog, very ticklish work groping along hardly seeing the ship’s length.  Then it lifts and there is a fair horizon.  Everybody pretty sea-sick, including most of the seamen from Cape Evans.  All of us feeling rotten."[364] Very thick that night, and difficult going.  At mid-day (lat. 69 deg. 50’ S.) a partial clearance showed a berg right ahead.  By night it was blowing a full gale, and it was not too easy to keep in our bunks.  Our object was now to make east in order to allow for the westerlies later on.  We passed a very large number of bergs, varied every now and then by growlers.  On February 1, latitude 64 deg. 15’ S. and longitude 159 deg. 15’ E., we coasted along one side of a berg which was twenty-one geographical miles long:  the only other side of which we got a good view stretched away until lost below the horizon.  In latitude 62 deg. 10’ S. and longitude 158 deg. 15’ E. we had “a real bad day:  head wind from early morning, and simply crowds of bergs all round.  At 8 A.M. we had to wedge in between a berg and a long line of pack before we could find a way through.  Then thick fog came down.  At 9.45 A.M.  I went out of the ward-room door, and almost knocked my head against a great berg which was just not touching the ship on the starboard side.  There was a heavy cross-swell, and the sea sounded cold as it dashed against the ice.  After crossing the deck it was just possible to see in the fog that there was a great Barrier berg just away on the port side.”  We groped round the starboard berg to find others beyond.  Our friend on the opposite side was continuous and apparently without end.  It was soon clear that we were in a narrow alley-way—­between one very large berg and a number of others.  It took an hour and a quarter of groping to leave the big berg behind.  At 4 P.M., six hours later, we were still just feeling our way along.  And we had hopes of being out of the ice in this latitude!

The Terra Nova is a wood barque, built in 1884 by A. Stephen & Sons, Dundee; tonnage 764 gross and 400 net; measuring 187’ x 31’ x 19’; compound engines with two cylinders of 140 nominal horse-power; registered at St. Johns, Newfoundland.  She is therefore not by any means small as polar ships go, but Pennell and his men worked her short-handed, with bergs and growlers all round them, generally with a big sea running and often in darkness or fog.  On this occasion we were spared many of the most ordinary dangers.  It was summer.  Our voyage was an easy one.  There was twilight most of the night:  there were plenty of men on board, and heaps of coal.