There was quite a meeting on the bridge, and it was decided to get well in, and lie in open water under lee of the pack till the gale blew itself out.  “Under ordinary circumstances the safe course would have been to go about and stand to the east.  But in our case we must risk trouble to get smoother water for the ponies.  We passed a stream of ice over which the sea was breaking heavily, and one realized the danger of being amongst loose floes in such a sea.  But soon we came to a compacter body of floes, and running behind this we were agreeably surprised to find comparatively smooth water.  We ran on for a bit, then stopped and lay to."[84]

All that day we lay behind that pack, steaming slowly to leeward every now and then, as the ice drifted down upon us.  Towards night it began to clear.  It was New Year’s Eve.

I turned in, thinking to wake in 1911.  But I had not been long asleep when I found Atkinson at my side.  “Have you seen the land?” he said.  “Wrap your blankets round you, and go and see.”  And when I got up on deck I could see nothing for a while.  Then he said:  “All the high lights are snow lit up by the sun.”  And there they were:  the most glorious peaks appearing, as it were like satin, above the clouds, the only white in a dark horizon.  The first glimpse of Antarctic land, Sabine and the great mountains of the Admiralty Range.  They were 110 miles away.  But

          Icy mountains high on mountains pil’d
    Seem to the shivering sailor from afar
    Shapeless and white, an atmosphere of cloud;[85]

and, truth to tell, I went back to my warm bunk.  At midnight a rowdy mob, ringing the New Year in with the dinner-bell, burst into our Nursery.  I expected to be hauled out, but got off with a dig in the ribs from Birdie Bowers.

In brilliant sunshine we coasted down Victoria Land.  “To-night it is absolutely calm, with glorious bright sunshine.  Several people were sunning themselves at 11 o’clock!  Sitting on deck and reading."[86]

At 8.30 on Monday night, January 2, we sighted Erebus, 115 miles away.  The next morning most of us were on the yards furling sail.  We were heading for Cape Crozier, the northern face of Ross Island was open to our fascinated gaze, and away to the east stretched the Barrier face until it disappeared below the horizon.  Adelie penguins and Killer whales were abundant in the water through which we steamed.

I have seen Fuji, the most dainty and graceful of all mountains; and also Kinchinjunga:  only Michael Angelo among men could have conceived such grandeur.  But give me Erebus for my friend.  Whoever made Erebus knew all the charm of horizontal lines, and the lines of Erebus are for the most part nearer the horizontal than the vertical.  And so he is the most restful mountain in the world, and I was glad when I knew that our hut would lie at his feet.  And always there floated from his crater the lazy banner of his cloud of steam.