There was much jubilation among the watchers on deck at the prospect. Every available field-glass and telescope was brought to bear upon it. It was almost certainly the Antarctic continent, though, at that time, its extension to the east, west and south remained to be proved. The shelf-ice was seen to be securely attached to it and, near its point of junction with the undulating land-ice, we beheld the mountains of this mysterious land haloed in ghostly mist. While passing the extremity of the western promontory, we observed an exposure of rock, jutting out of the ice near sea-level, in the face of a scar left by an avalanche. Later, when passing within half a cable's length of several berg-like masses of ice lying off the coast, rock was again visible in black relief against the water's edge, forming a pedestal for the ice. The ship was kept farther offshore, after this warning, for though she was designed to buffet with the ice, we had no desire to test her resistance to rock. The bottom was very irregular, and as an extra precaution, soundings were taken every few minutes. Through a light fog all that could be seen landwards was a steep, sloping, icy surface descending from the interior, and terminating abruptly in a seaward cliff fifty to two hundred feet in height. The ice-sheet terminating in this wall presented a more broken surface than the floating shelf-ice. It was riven and distorted by gaping crevasses; an indication of the rough bed over which it had travelled. Towards midnight another bay was entered and many rocky islets appeared on its western side. The engines were stopped for a few hours, and the voyage was resumed in clearer weather on the following morning. All day we threaded our way between islands and bergs. Seals and penguins swam around, the latter squawking and diving in a most amusing manner. Cautiously we glided by an iceberg, at least one hundred and fifty feet high, rising with a faceted, perpendicular face chased with soft, snowy traceries and ornamented with stalactites. Splits and rents broke into the margin, and from each streamed the evanescent, azure vapour. Each puncture and tiny grotto was filled with it, and a sloping cap of shimmering snow spread over the summit. The profile-view was an exact replica of a battleship, grounded astern. The bold contour of the bow was perfect, and the massive flank had been torn and shattered by shell-fire in a desperate naval battle. This berg had heeled over considerably, and the original water-line ran as a definite rim, thirty feet above the green water. From this rim shelved down a smooth and polished base, marked with fine vertical striae. Soundings varied from twenty to two hundred fathoms, and, accordingly, the navigation was particularly anxious work.