pack, with the ice to starboard.  About midnight the wind freshened from the north, and we lay close-hauled along the edge of the ice till midday on the 29th, when the direction of the ice became more southerly.  The northerly wind, which gradually increased to a stiff breeze, was good enough for getting us on, but it must inevitably bring fog and snow in its train.  These came, sure enough, as thick as a wall, and for a couple of days we sailed perfectly blindly.

Outside the pack-ice proper lie long streams of floes and loose scattered lumps, which become more frequent as one nears the pack.  For two days we sailed simply by the lumps of ice; the more of them we saw, the more easterly was our course, until they began to decrease, when we steered more to the south.  In this way we went in forty-eight hours from lat. 65deg.  S. and long. 174deg.  E. to lat. 69deg.  S. and long. 178deg.  E., a distance of about two hundred and fifty nautical miles, without entering the pack.  Once we very nearly went into the trap, but fortunately got out again.  The wind was so fresh that we did as much as eight and a half knots; when sailing at such a rate through a loose stream of ice, we sometimes ran upon a floe, which went under the ship’s bottom, and came up alongside the other way up.

During the afternoon of the 31st the streams of ice became closer and closer, and then I made the mistake of continuing to sail to the eastward; instead of this, I ought to have stood off, and steered due south or to the west of south, with this ice on ourport side.  The farther we advanced, the more certain I was that we had come into the eastern pack-ice.  It must be remembered, however, that owing to fog and thick snow we had seen nothing for over two days.  Observations there were none, of course; our speed had varied between two and eight and a half knots, and we had steered all manner of courses.  That our dead reckoning was not very correct in such circumstances goes without saying, and an observation on January 2 showed us that we were somewhat farther to the east than we had reckoned.  On the evening of December 31 the fog lifted for a while, and we saw nothing but ice all round.  Our course was then set due south.  We had come right down in lat. 69.5deg.  S., and I hoped soon to be clear altogether; in 1910 we got out of the ice in 70deg.S., and were then in the same longitude as now.

Now, indeed, our progress began to be slow, and the old year went out in a far from pleasant fashion.  The fog was so thick that I may safely say we did not see more than fifty yards from the ship, whereas we ought to have had the midnight sun; ice and snow-sludge were so thick that at times we lay still.  The wind had, unfortunately, fallen off, but we still had a little breeze from the north, so that both sails and engine could be used.  We went simply at haphazard; now and then we were lucky enough to come into great open channels and even lakes, but then the ice closed