ong we could see this post quite plainly, looking as new as
the day it was erected, and we know now that there is communication with
the Barrier behind, while this rookery itself is free from the blizzards
which sweep out to sea by Cape Crozier. It was therefore an excellent
place to winter and it was a considerable disappointment to find that it
was impossible to land.

This was the first sight we had of a rookery of the little Adelie
penguin. Hundreds of thousands of birds dotted the shore, and there were
many thousands in the sea round the ship. As we came to know these
rookeries better we came to look upon these quaint creatures more as
familiar friends than as casual acquaintances. Whatever a penguin does
has individuality, and he lays bare his whole life for all to see. He
cannot fly away. And because he is quaint in all that he does, but still
more because he is fighting against bigger odds than any other bird, and
fighting always with the most gallant pluck, he comes to be considered as
something apart from the ordinary bird--sometimes solemn, sometimes
humorous, enterprising, chivalrous, cheeky--and always (unless you are
driving a dog-team) a welcome and, in some ways, an almost human friend.

The alternative landing-place to Cape Crozier was somewhere in McMurdo
Sound, the essential thing being that we should have access to and from
the Barrier, such communication having to be by sea-ice, since the land
is for the most part impassable. As we steamed from Cape Crozier to Cape
Bird, the N.W. extremity of Ross Island, we carried out a detailed
running survey.

When we neared Cape Bird and Beaufort Island we could see that there was
much pack in the mouth of the Strait. By keeping close in to the land we
avoided the worst of the trouble, and "as we rounded Cape Bird we came in
sight of the old well-remembered landmarks--Mount Discovery and the
Western Mountains--seen dimly through a hazy atmosphere. It was good to
see them again, and perhaps after all we are better this side of the
Island. It gives one a homely feeling to see such a familiar scene."[89]

Right round from Cape Crozier to Cape Royds the coast is cold and
forbidding, and for the most part heavily crevassed. West of Cape Bird
are some small penguin rookeries, and high up on the ice slopes could be
seen some grey granite boulders. These are erratics, brought by ice from
the Western Mountains, and are evidence of a warmer past when the Barrier
rose