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the ice disturbances which
mark the head of the glaciers, the party pushed blindly forward in air
which was becoming thick with snow-drift. Suddenly Lashly slipped: in a
moment the whole party was flying downwards with increasing speed. They
ceased to slide smoothly; they were hurled into the air and descended
with great force on to a gradual snow incline. Rising they looked round
them to find above them an ice-fall 300 feet high down which they had
fallen: above it the snow was still drifting, but where they stood there
was peace and blue sky. They recognized now for the first time their own
glacier and the well-remembered landmark, and far away in the distance
was the smoking summit of Mount Erebus. It was a miracle.
    Excellent subsidiary journeys were also made of which space allows no
mention here: nor do they bear directly upon this last expedition. But in
view of the Winter Journey undertaken by us, if not for the interest of
the subject itself, some account must be given of those most aristocratic
inhabitants of the Antarctic, the Emperor penguins, with whom Wilson and
his companions in the Discovery now became familiar.
    There are two kinds of Antarctic penguins—the little Adélie with his
blue-black coat and his white shirt-front, weighing 16 lbs., an object of
endless pleasure and amusement, and the great dignified Emperor with long
curved beak, bright orange head-wear and powerful flippers, a
personality of 6½ stones. Science singles out the Emperor as being the
more interesting bird because he is more primitive, possibly the most
primitive of all birds. Previous to the Discovery Expedition nothing was
known of him save that he existed in the pack and on the fringes of the
continent.
    We have heard of Cape Crozier as being the eastern extremity of Ross
Island, discovered by Ross and named after the captain of the Terror. It
is here that with immense pressures and rendings the moving sheet of the
Barrier piles itself up against the mountain. It is here also that the
great ice-cliff which runs for hundreds of miles to the east, with the
Barrier behind it and the Ross Sea beating into its crevasses and caves,
joins the basalt precipice which bounds the Knoll, as the two-knobbed
saddle which forms Cape Crozier is called. Altogether it is the kind of
place where giants have had a good time in their childhood, playing with
ice instead of mud—so much cleaner too!
    But the slopes of Mount Terror do not all end in precipices. Farther to
the west they slope quietly into the sea, and the Adélie penguins have
taken advantage of this to found here one of their largest and most
smelly rookeries. When the Discovery arrived off this rookery she sent a
boat ashore and set up a post with a record upon it to guide the relief
ship in the following year. The post still stands. Later it became
desirable to bring the record left here more up to date, and so one of
the first sledging parties went to try and find a way by the Barrier to
this spot.
    They were prevented from reaching the record by a series of most violent
blizzards, and indeed Cape Crozier is one of the windiest places on
earth, but they proved beyond doubt that a back-door to the Adélie
penguins' rookery existed by way of the slopes of Mount Terror behind the
Knoll. Early the next year another party reached the record all right,
and while exploring the neighbourhood looked down over the 800-feet
precipice which forms the snout of Cape Crozier. The sea was frozen over,
and in a small bay of ice formed by the cliffs of the Barrier below were
numerous little dots which resolved themselves into Emperor penguins.
Could this be the breeding-place of these wonderful birds? If so, they
must nurse their eggs in mid-winter, in unimagined cold and darkness.
    Five days more elapsed before further investigation could be made, for a
violent blizzard kept the party in their tents. On October 18 they set
out to climb the high pressure ridges which lie between the level barrier
and