This penguin’s stomach proved to be filled with freshly caught fish up to 10 in. long.  Some of the fish were of a coastal or littoral variety.  Two more emperors were captured on the following day, and, while Wordie was leading one of them towards the ship, Wild came along with his team.  The dogs, uncontrollable in a moment, made a frantic rush for the bird, and were almost upon him when their harness caught upon an ice-pylon, which they had tried to pass on both sides at once.  The result was a seething tangle of dogs, traces, and men, and an overturned sled, while the penguin, three yards away, nonchalantly and indifferently surveyed the disturbance.  He had never seen anything of the kind before and had no idea at all that the strange disorder might concern him.  Several cracks had opened in the neighbourhood of the ship, and the emperor penguins, fat and glossy of plumage, were appearing in considerable numbers.  We secured nine of them on May 6, an important addition to our supply of fresh food.

The sun, which had made “positively his last appearance” seven days earlier, surprised us by lifting more than half its disk above the horizon on May 8.  A glow on the northern horizon resolved itself into the sun at 11 a.m. that day.  A quarter of an hour later the unseasonable visitor disappeared again, only to rise again at 11.40 a.m., set at 1 p.m., rise at 1.10 p.m., and set lingeringly at 1.20 p.m.  These curious phenomena were due to refraction, which amounted to 2° 37´ at 1.20 p.m.  The temperature was 15° below zero Fahr. and we calculated that the refraction was 2° above normal.  In other words, the sun was visible 120 miles farther south than the refraction tables gave it any right to be.  The navigating officer naturally was aggrieved.  He had informed all hands on May 1 that they would not see the sun again for seventy days, and now had to endure the jeers of friends who affected to believe that his observations were inaccurate by a few degrees.

The ‘Endurance’ was drifting north-north-east under the influence of a succession of westerly and south-westerly breezes.  The ship’s head, at the same time, swung gradually to the left, indicating that the floe in which she was held was turning.  During the night of the 14th a very pronounced swing occurred, and when daylight came at noon on the 15th we observed a large lead running from the north-west horizon towards the ship till it struck the western lead, circling ahead of the ship, then continuing to the south-south-east.  A lead astern connected with this new lead on either side of the ‘Endurance’, thus separating our floe completely from the main body of the pack.  A blizzard from the south-east swept down during the 16th.  At 1 p.m. the blizzard lulled for five minutes; then the wind jumped round to the opposite quarter and the barometer rose suddenly.  The centre of a cyclonic movement had passed over us, and the compass recorded an extraordinarily rapid swing of the floe.  I could see nothing through the mist and snow, and I thought it possible that a magnetic storm or a patch of local magnetic attraction had caused the compass, and not the floe, to swing, Our floe was now about 2½ miles long north and south and 3 miles wide east and west.