To the east rose a long snow slope which cut the horizon at the height of about 300 ft. It had every appearance of ice-covered land but we could not stop to make certain, for the heavy ice lying to the northward of us was setting down into the bay, and if we were not to be beset it was necessary to get away at once. All round us were numbers of great whales showing their dorsal fins as they occasionally sounded, so we named this playground for these monsters "The Bay of Whales."
As it was impossible to work to the eastward, we struck northwards through an open lead and came south to the Barrier again about 2 A.M. on the 24th. Then we coasted eastward along the wall of ice, always looking out for the inlet. The lashings had been taken off the motor-car, and the tackle rigged to hoist it out directly we got alongside the ice-foot, to which the Discovery had been moored. For in Barrier Inlet we proposed to place our winter quarters.
I had decided on this inlet because I knew that it was practically the beginning of King Edward VII Land, and that the actual bare land was within an easy sledge journey of that place, and it also had the great advantage of being some ninety miles nearer to the South Pole than any other spot that could be reached with the ship. A further important reason was that it would be an easy matter for the ship on its return to reach this part of the Barrier, whereas King Edward VII Land itself might quite possibly be unattainable if the season was adverse.
However the best-laid schemes often prove impracticable in polar exploration, and within a few hours our first plan was found impossible to fulfil, for the very sufficient reason that the inlet had disappeared. Great disappointment as this was to us, we were thankful that the Barrier had broken away before we had made our camp upon it. The thought of what might have happened made me decide then and there that, under no circumstances, would I winter on the Barrier, and that wherever we landed we would secure a solid rock foundation for our winter home.
We had two strings to our bow and I resolved to use the second and push forward towards King Edward VII Land. The ship was headed eastward, again keeping a few hundred yards off the Barrier, for here the cliff was overhung and a fall of ice would assuredly have been disastrous to us. Soon, however, I saw that we could not make much easting in this way, for by 10 A.M. on the 24th we were close to the pack and found that it was pressed hard against the Barrier edge; and, what was worse, the whole of the northern pack and bergs at this spot were drifting in towards the Barrier.
The seriousness of this situation can be realised by the reader if he imagines that he is in a small boat right under the vertical white cliffs of Dover; that detached cliffs are moving in from seaward slowly but surely with resistless power and force, and that it will only be a question of perhaps an hour or two before the two masses come into contact, and crush his tiny craft as they meet.
There was nothing for it but to retrace our steps, and by steaming hard and working in and out of the looser floes, we just managed to pass the point with barely fifty yards of open water to spare between the Barrier and the pack.
I breathed more freely when we passed this zone of Immediate danger, for there were two or three hundred yards of clear water now between us and the pack, and after skirting along the seaward edge we came to the high cliff of ice at the westerly end, and passed safely out of the bay.
"Nimrod" moored off Tabular Bergs. (See page 14)