For the first twenty-four hours after we entered the ice it was so loose that we were able to hold our course and keep up our speed for practically the whole time.  On the two following days things did not go quite so smoothly; at times the lines of floes were fairly close, and occasionally we had to go round.  We did not meet with any considerable obstruction, however; there were always openings enough to enable us to keep going.  In the course of January 6 a change took place, the floes became narrower and the leads broader.  By 6 p.m. there was open sea on every side as far as the eye could reach.  The day’s observations gave our position as lat. 70deg.  S., long. 180deg.  E.

Our passage through the pack had been a four days’ pleasure trip, and I have a suspicion that several among us looked back with secret regret to the cruise in smooth water through the ice-floes when the swell of the open Ross Sea gave the Fram another chance of showing her rolling capabilities.

But this last part of the voyage was also to be favoured by fortune.  These comparatively little-known waters had no terrors to oppose to us.  The weather continued surprisingly fine; it could not have been better on a summer trip in the North Sea.  Of icebergs there was practically none; a few quite small floebergs were all we met with in the four days we took to cross Ross Sea.

About midday on January 11 a marked brightening of the southern sky announced that it was not far to the goal we had been struggling to reach for five months.  At 2.30 p.m. we came in sight of the Great Ice Barrier.  Slowly it rose up out of the sea until we were face to face with it in all its imposing majesty.  It is difficult with the help of the pen to give any idea of the impression this mighty wall of ice makes on the observer who is confronted with it for the first time.  It is altogether a thing which can hardly be described; but one can understand very well that this wall of 100 feet in height was regarded for a generation as an insuperable obstacle to further southward progress.

We knew that the theory of the Barrier’s impregnability had long ago been overthrown; there was an opening to the unknown realm beyond it.  This opening —­ the Bay of Whales —­ ought to lie, according to the descriptions before us, about a hundred miles to the east of the position in which we were.  Our course was altered to true east, and during a cruise of twenty-four hours along the Barrier we had every opportunity of marvelling at this gigantic work of Nature.  It was not without a certain feeling of suspense that we looked forward to our arrival at the harbour we were seeking What state should we find it in?  Would it prove impossible to land at all conveniently?

One point after another was passed, but still our anxious eyes were met by nothing but the perpendicular wall.  At last, on the afternoon of January 12, the wall opened.  This agreed with our expectations; we were now in long. 164deg., the selfsame point where our predecessors had previously found access.