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260
LAST SIGHT OF VICTORIA LAND.
[Chap. VIII.
1841
account of passing over less space during their continuance, but in the event of drifting down upon the pack or a chain of bergs, you are left totally at the mercy of the waves, the high sea generally preventing the use of boats to tow you clear of them, and defeating every effort to take advantage of any feeble air of wind that in smooth water might prove effectual; and it is this constant heavy swell that renders the navigation of the antarctic seas so much more hazardous than that of the arctic ocean.
Feb. 28.At daylight we wore and stood towards the pack; the land was reported at 6 20 a.m., the same abrupt western termination we had before seen, and the pack soon afterwards appeared. We were close in with the edge of it by noon in lat. 69° 57′ S. and long. 167° 5′ E., when it appeared from the northward one unbroken mass of ice with many large bergs amongst it, and so firmly cemented together by the late severe cold, (the thermometer during the night having been down to 14°, and at noon only reached 22°,) that not the smallest hole of water could be perceived amongst it: we therefore wore round and stood to the northward; and as we ran close along the pack edge we passed through several long streams of young ice, which being broken up the heavy swell offered but little obstruction to our progress; whales were seen in great numbers coming out from under the ice to "blow," and then returning under it again to feed or for protection. At six o'clock in the