deck went below to see that our messmates’ haversacks were ready to be flung out on the ice alongside, if our ship’s strong beams should prove unequal to the crush. In solitary possession of the wardroom, and quite undisturbed by the excitement on deck, our white cat “Pops” dozed peacefully in her favourite posture on a chair in front of the stove. When we went on deck again the critical moment had come. The stern was clear of the berg, but the bow was in its direct path. The ice pack, buckling and shovelling in front, caught the fore part of the ship, and pushed her forcibly sternwards, swinging her half round into a stream of ice and water sweeping past the berg. The danger was over, but our jibboom was not four feet from the wall of ice. Such an opportunity of arresting our southward drift was not to be lost. Grappling appliances were all ready, and in a moment both ships were being towed comfortably along in the wake of their old enemy. [Illustration: OUR WHITE CAT “POPS.”++] The events of next day well illustrate the uncertainties of ice navigation. At 2 a.m. the ships had slowly struggled northwards until they were abeam of Cape Victoria, but there the ice closed in and “nipped” the ships close inshore under the cliffs. Rudder and screw were again raised to save them from the dangerous pressure, which increased till the floes, sliding one under the other, were forced landwards completely under the ship. At that moment nothing could be more unpromising than the prospects of the expedition, and yet, twenty minutes afterwards we were steaming cheerily along through a good lead towards Franklin and Pierce Bay. By breakfast time we had crossed to the north-eastern shore of the bay, and found further progress checked for the time by floes close packed against the rugged headlands to the north. As the ships were secured to the edge of a broad flat floe lying between an island and the high conglomerate cliffs of the mainland, several walrus were seen lying on a fragment of floe about a mile off. Their flesh would make a most valuable store of food for our dogs, who had been living almost exclusively on preserved Australian meat, for they disliked dog biscuit. Accordingly, a whale-boat with a harpoon gun in her bows was lowered and manned. It was necessary to make a long detour. New ice forming in the shadow of the cliffs impeded our progress and rendered a noiseless attack impossible. Our game, however, paid no attention to the noise we made scraping the ice with the oars and breaking a road with a paddle. We soon got close enough to see that there were three of them lying close together. Occasionally one or other would rear himself slowly up, displaying his double-lobed head and long gleaming tusks, scratch his side lazily with his huge flipper, and fling himself down again with a satisfied grunt beside his slumbering companions. They lay on the edge of a floe. We steered for the largest of the three, and at length the broad