and all the shadows were mauve. We passed right under a monster
berg, and all day have been threading lake after lake and lead after
lead. 'There is Regent Street,' said somebody, and for some time we drove
through great streets of perpendicular walls of ice. Many a time they
were so straight that one imagined they had been cut off with a ruler
some hundreds of yards in length."[53]

[Illustration: MIDNIGHT--E. A. Wilson, del.]

On another occasion:

"Stayed on deck till midnight. The sun just dipped below the southern
horizon. The scene was incomparable. The northern sky was gloriously rosy
and reflected in the calm sea between the ice, which varied from
burnished copper to salmon pink; bergs and pack to the north had a
pale greenish hue with deep purple shadows, the sky shaded to saffron and
pale green. We gazed long at these beautiful effects."[54]

But this was not always so. There was one day with rain, there were days
of snow and hail and cold wet slush, and fog. "The position to-night is
very cheerless. All hope that this easterly wind will open the pack seems
to have vanished. We are surrounded with compacted floes of immense area.
Openings appear between these floes and we slide crab-like from one to
another with long delays between. It is difficult to keep hope alive.
There are streaks of water sky over open leads to the north, but
everywhere to the south we have the uniform white sky. The day has been
overcast and the wind force 3 to 5 from the E.N.E.--snow has fallen from
time to time. There could scarcely be a more dreary prospect for the eye
to rest upon."[55]

With the open water we left behind the albatross and the Cape pigeon
which had accompanied us lately for many months. In their place we found
the Antarctic petrel, "a richly piebald bird that appeared to be almost
black and white against the ice floes,"[56] and the Snowy petrel, of
which I have already spoken.

No one of us whose privilege it was to be there will forget our first
sight of the penguins, our first meal of seal meat, or that first big
berg along which we coasted close in order that London might see it on
the film. Hardly had we reached the thick pack, which prevailed after the
suburbs had been passed, when we saw the little Adelie penguins hurrying
to meet us. Great Scott, they seemed to say, what's this, and soon we
could hear the cry which we shall never forget. "Aark, aark," they said,
and full of wonder and curiosity, and