On June 5 Danco died of heart-failure.

On the same day they had a narrow escape of being squeezed in the ice.  Fortunately the enormous block of ice passed under the vessel and lifted her up without doing her any damage.  Otherwise, the first part of the winter passed off well.

Afterwards sickness appeared, and threatened the most serious danger to the expedition —­ scurvy and insanity.  One of them by itself would have been bad enough.  Scurvy especially increased, and did such havoc that finally there was not a single man who escaped being attacked by this fearful disease.

Cook’s behaviour at this time won the respect and devotion of all.  It is not too much to say that Cook was the most popular man of the expedition, and he deserved it.  From morning to night he was occupied with his many patients, and when the sun returned it happened not infrequently that, after a strenuous day’s work, the doctor sacrificed his night’s sleep to go hunting seals and penguins, in order to provide the fresh meat that was so greatly needed by all.

On July 22 the sun returned.

It was not a pleasant sight that it shone upon.  The Antarctic winter had set its mark upon all, and green, wasted faces stared at the returning light.

Time went on, and the summer arrived.  They waited day by day to see a change in the ice.  But no; the ice they had entered so light-heartedly was not to be so easy to get out of again.

New Year’s Day came and went without any change in the ice.

The situation now began to be seriously threatening.  Another winter in the ice would mean death and destruction on a large scale.  Disease and insufficient nourishment would soon make an end of most of the ship’s company.

Again Cook came to the aid of the expedition.

In conjunction with Racovitza he had thought out a very ingenious way of sawing a channel, and thus reaching the nearest lead.  The proposal was submitted to the leader of the expedition and accepted by him; both the plan and the method of carrying it out were well considered.

After three weeks’ hard work, day and night, they at last reached the lead.

Cook was incontestably the leading spirit in this work, and gained such honour among the members of the expedition that I think it just to mention it.  Upright, honourable, capable, and conscientious in the extreme —­ such is the memory we retain of Frederick A. Cook from those days.

Little did his comrades suspect that a few years later he would be regarded as one of the greatest humbugs the world has ever seen.  This is a psychological enigma well worth studying to those who care to do so.

But the Belgica was not yet clear of the ice.  After having worked her way out into the lead and a little way on, she was stopped by absolutely close pack, within sight of the open sea.

For a whole month the expedition lay here, reaping the same experiences as Ross on his second voyage with the Erebus and Terror.  The immense seas raised the heavy ice high in the air, and flung it against the sides of the vessel.  That month was a hell upon earth.  Strangely enough, the Belgica escaped undamaged, and steamed into Punta Arenas in the Straits of Magellan on March 28, 1899.