Page:Scott's Last Expedition, Volume 1.djvu/137

1910] clewed up, and at eleven we stopped to sound. The sounding showed 1111 fathoms—we appear to be on the edge of the continental shelf. Nelson got some samples and temperatures.

The sun is bursting through the misty sky and warming the air. The snowstorm had covered the ropes with an icy sheet—this is now peeling off and falling with a clatter to the deck, from which the moist slush is rapidly evaporating. In a few hours the ship will be dry—much to our satisfaction; it is very wretched when, as last night, there is slippery wet snow underfoot and on every object one touches.

Our run has exceeded our reckoning by much. I feel confident that our speed during the last two days had been greatly under-estimated, and so it has proved. We ought to be off C. Crozier on New Year's Day.

8 —Our calm soon came to an end, the breeze at 3 coming strong from the S.S.W., dead in our teeth—a regular southern blizzard. We are creeping along a bare 2 knots. I begin to wonder if fortune will ever turn her wheel. On every possible occasion she seems to have decided against us. Of course, the ponies are feeling the motion as we pitch in a short, sharp sea—it's damnable for them and disgusting for us.

We may be said to have entered the pack at 4 on the 9th in latitude 65½ S. We left it at 1  on 30th in latitude 71½ S. We have taken twenty days and some odd hours to get through, and covered in a direct line over