Although we were busy in building the hut, and in one way and another had plenty of employment, I was disappointed at not being able to continue landing the stores until the 16th. And here I should like to mention the cheerful assistance which we always received from the officers and crew of the _Nimrod_. They had nothing but hard work and discomfort from the beginning of the voyage, and yet they worked splendidly and were invariably in good spirits. Naturally Captain England was anxious to get the ship away, and also much concerned about the shrinkage of the coal-supply, but it was impossible to let her leave until the wintering party had received their coal from her. The weather was quite fine, and if it had not been for the swell we could have got through a great deal of work. [Illustration: The Ponies transporting Coal on Sledges at Back Door Bay. (See page 50)] According to our experiences on the last expedition, the latest date to which it would be safe to keep the Nimrod would be the end of February, for the young ice forming about that time on the sound would seriously hamper her from getting clear of the Ross Sea. On the 17th and 18th we contrived to land a considerable quantity of coal, equipment and stores, but soon after five o'clock on the afternoon of the 18th a furious blizzard was blowing, and the _Nimrod_ stood off from the shore but could make little headway against the terrific wind and short-rising sea. I was aboard the vessel at the time, and the speed of the gusts must have approached a force of a hundred miles an hour. The tops of the seas were cut off by the wind, and flung over the decks, mast, and rigging of the ship, congealing at once into hard ice, and the sides of the vessel were thick with the frozen sea water. "The masts were grey with the frozen spray, And the bows were a coat of mail." Very soon the cases and sledges lying on deck were hard and fast in a sheet of solid ice, and Harbord, who was the officer on watch, on whistling to call the crew aft, found that the metal whistle stuck to his lips, a painful proof of the low temperature. The gale raged on for days and nights, and about midnight on the 21st the _Nimrod_ shipped a heavy sea, and all the release-water ports and scupper holes being blocked with ice, the water had no means of exit, and began to freeze on deck, where, already, there was a layer of ice over a foot in thickness. Any more weight like this would have made the ship unmanageable. As the ropes, already covered with ice, would have frozen into a solid mass, we were forced to take the drastic step of breaking holes in the bulwarks to allow the water to escape; and only by dint of great exertions did Davis and Harbord perform this feat.