y-eight hours.

Going at good speed, however, we proceeded south on meridian 179 degrees
E., latitude 68, when (just as we were sighting the Admiralty Mountains,
our first glimpse of the regions of the Pole) we encountered a
south-westerly gale, which, with our cumbersome deck cargo, made the
handling of the ship difficult.

Nevertheless the _Scotia_ rode bravely for several hours over the
mountainous seas, though sometimes she rolled fifty degrees from side to
side.

Towards nightfall we shipped a good deal of water; the sea smashed in
part of our starboard bulwarks, destroyed the upper deck, washed out the
galley, carried off two of our life boats and sent other large fragments
of the vessel floating away to leeward.

At last the pumps became choked, and the water found its way to the
engine-room. So to prevent further disaster we put out the fires, and
then started, all hands, to bale out with buckets.

It was a sight to see every man-jack at work on that job (scientific
staff included), and you would not have thought our spirits were much
damped, whatever our bodies may have been, if you had been there when I
cried, "Are we downhearted, shipmates?" and heard the shout that came up
from fifty men (some of them waist deep in the water):

"No!"

We had a stiff tussle until after midnight, but we stuck hard, and
before we turned into our bunks, we had fought the sea and beaten it.

Next morning broke fine and clear, with that fresh crisp air of the
Antarctic which is the same to the explorer as the sniff of battle to
the warhorse, and no sign of the storm except the sight of some
lead-white icebergs which had been torn from the islands south-west of
us.

Everybody was in high spirits at breakfast, and when one of the company
started "Sweethearts and Wives" all hands joined in the chorus, and
(voice or no voice) I had a bit of a go at it myself.

It is not the most solemn music ever slung together, but perhaps no
anthem sung in a cathedral has ascended to heaven with a heartier spirit
of thanksgiving.

When I went up on deck again, though, I saw that enough of our "wooden
walls" had gone overboard to give "scarey people" the impression (if
things were ever picked up, as I knew they would be, for the set of the
current was to the north-east) that we had foundered, and that made me
think of my dear one.

We had no wireless aboard, and the ship would not be going back to New
Zealand until March, so I was hel