It is very curious to find such calm weather in Ross Sea; in the two months we have been here we have hardly had a strong breeze.  Thus, when I was relieved at 2 a.m. on the 25th, I wrote in my diary `. . .  It is calm, not a ripple on the water.  The three men forming the watch walk up and down the deck.  Now and then one hears the penguins’ cry, kva, kva, but except these there is no other sound than the tuff, tuff of the motor, 220 times a minute.  Ah, that motor! it goes unweariedly.  It has now gone for 1,000 hours without being cleaned, while on our Atlantic cruise last year it stopped dead after going for eighty hours. . . .  Right over us we have the Southern Cross, all round glow the splendid southern lights, and in the darkness can be seen the gleaming outline of an iceberg. . . .”

On the 26th we crossed the Antarctic Circle, and the same day the temperature both of air and water rose above 32deg.  F.

It was with sorrow in our hearts that we ate our last piece of “crocodile beef,” but I hoped we should get a good many albatrosses, which we saw as soon as we came out of the ice.  They were mostly the sooty albatross, that tireless bird that generally circles alone about the ship and is so difficult to catch, as he seldom tries to bite at the pork that is used as bait.  When I saw these birds for the first time, as a deck boy, I was told they were called parsons, because they were the souls of ungodly clergymen, who had to wait down here till doomsday without rest.

More or less in our course to Cape Horn there are supposed to be two groups of islands, the Nimrod group in about long. 158deg.  W., and Dougherty Island in about long. 120deg.  W. They are both marked “D” (Doubtful) on the English charts.  Lieutenant Shackleton’s vessel, the Nimrod, Captain Davis, searched for both, but found neither; Dougherty Island, however, is said to have been twice sighted.  The Fram’s course was therefore laid for the Nimrod group.  For a time things went very well, but then we had a week of northerly winds —­ that is, head winds —­ and when at last we had a fair wind again, we were so far to the south-east of them that there was no sense in sailing back to the north-west to look for doubtful islands; it would certainly have taken us weeks.  Consequently, our course was laid for Dougherty Island.  We had westerly winds for about two weeks, and were only two or three days’ sail from the island in question, when suddenly we had a gale from the north-east, which lasted for three days, and ended in a hurricane from the same quarter.  When this was over, we had come according to dead reckoning about eighty nautical miles to the south-east of the island; the heavy swell, which lasted for days, made it out of the question to attempt to go against it with the motor.  We hardly had a glimpse of sun or stars, and weeks passed without our being able to get an observation, so that for that matter we might easily be a degree or two out in our reckoning.  For the present, therefore, we must continue to regard these islands as doubtful.