But we were spared either delay or any other trouble; by noon on Christmas Day we had just what was wanted to keep our spirits at festival pitch; a fresh north-westerly wind, just strong enough to push us along handsomely toward our destination.  It afterwards hauled a little more to the west, and lasted the greater part of Christmas week, until on December 30 we were in long. 170deg.  E. and lat. 60deg.  S. With that we had at last come far enough to the east, and could now begin to steer a southerly course; hardly had we put the helm over before the wind changed to a stiff northerly breeze Nothing could possibly be better; in this way it would not take us long to dispose of the remaining degrees of latitude.  Our faithful companions of the westerly belt —­ the albatrosses —­ had now disappeared, and we could soon begin to look out for the first representatives of the winged inhabitants of Antarctica.

After a careful consideration of the experiences of our predecessors, it was decided to lay our course so that we should cross the 65th parallel in long. 175deg.  E. What we had to do was to get as quickly as possible through the belt of pack-ice that blocked the way to Ross Sea to the south of it, which is always open in summer.  Some ships had been detained as much as six weeks in this belt of ice; others had gone through in a few hours.  We unhesitatingly preferred to follow the latter example, and therefore took the course that the luckier ones had indicated.

Of course, the width of the ice-belt may be subject to somewhat fortuitous changes, but it seems, nevertheless, that as a rule the region between the 175th and the 180th degrees of longitude offers the best chance of getting through rapidly; in any case, one ought not to enter the ice farther to the west.  At noon on New Year’s Eve we were in lat. 62deg. 15’ S. We had reached the end of the old year, and really it had gone incredibly quickly.  Like all its predecessors, the year had brought its share of success and failure; but the main thing was that at its close we found ourselves pretty nearly where we ought to be to make good our calculations —­ and all safe and well.  Conscious of this, we said good-bye to 1910 in all friendliness over a good glass of toddy in the evening, and wished each other all possible luck in 1911.

At three in the morning of New Year’s Day the officer of the watch called me with news that the first iceberg was in sight.  I had to go up and see it.  Yes, there it lay, far to windward, shining like a castle in the rays of the morning sun.  It was a big, flat-topped berg of the typical Antarctic form.  It will perhaps seem paradoxical when I say that we all greeted this first sight of the ice with satisfaction and joy; an iceberg is usually the last thing to gladden sailors’ hearts, but we were not looking at the risk just then.  The meeting with the imposing colossus had another significance that had a stronger claim on our interest —­