sing through pack all day, but the ice hereabouts was not
close enough nor heavy enough to stop us appreciably. The ship was
usually conned by Pennell and myself from the crow's-nest, and I took the
ship very near one berg for Ponting to cinematograph it. We now began to
see snow petrels with black beaks and pure white bodies, rather
resembling doves. Also we saw great numbers of brown-backed petrels the
first day in the pack, whole flights of them resting on the icebergs. The
sun was just below the horizon at midnight and we had a most glorious
sunset, which was first a blazing copper changing to salmon pink and then
purple. The pools of water between the floes caught the reflection, the
sea was perfectly still and every berg and ice-floe caught something of
the delicate colour. Wilson, of course, was up and about till long after
midnight sketching and painting. The Antarctic pack ice lends itself to
water-colour work far better than to oils.

When conning the ship from up in the crow's-nest one has a glorious view
of this great changing ice-field. Moving through lanes of clear blue
water, cannoning into this floe and splitting it with iron-bound stem,
overriding that and gnawing off a twenty ton lump, gliding south, east,
west, through leads of open water, then charging an innocent-looking
piece which brings the ship up all-standing, astern and ahead again,
screwing and working the wonderful wooden ship steadily southward until
perhaps two huge floes gradually narrow the lane and hold the little lady
fast in their frozen grip.

This is the time to wait and have a look round: on one side floes the
size of a football field, all jammed together, with their torn up edges
showing their limits and where the pressure is taken. Then three or four
bergs, carved from the distant Barrier, imprisoned a mile or so away,
with the evening sun's soft rays casting beautiful shadows about them and
kissing their glistening cliff faces.

Glancing down from the crow's-nest the ship throws deep shadows over the
ice and, while the sun is just below the southern horizon, the still
pools of water show delicate blues and greens that no artist can ever do
justice to. It is a scene from fairyland.

I loved this part of the voyage, for I was in my element. At odd times
during the night, if one can call it night, the crow's-nest would have
visitors, and hot cocoa would be sent up in covered pots by means of
signal halyards. The pack ice was new