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. [Illustration: "Nimrod" moored off Tabular Bergs. (_See page 14_)] We then continued to the westward until in the evening the ship's head was put north and we gained a fairly open sea. It is, however, remarkable how limited is one's horizon at sea, for although there appeared to be open water for an indefinite distance we were soon up against rigid ice again. The fact is that low pack-ice is not visible at any great distance, and that one cannot trust an appearance of open water. All night long we tried to penetrate to the east, practically doubling in our tracks before we were able to pursue the direction we wished to follow. By noon on January 25 I found that any hopes I had of a clear run were vain, and the prospect of reaching King Edward VII Land grew remoter every ensuing hour. Indeed it seemed impossible to reach the land, and the shortness of coal, the leaky condition of the ship, and the necessity of landing all our stores and putting up the hut before the vessel left us, made the situation an extremely anxious one. I had not expected to find Barrier Inlet gone, and, at the same time, the way to King Edward VII Land absolutely blocked by ice, though the latter condition was not unusual.