By the first of February we had extended our canal to within one hundred feet of the _Belgica_, but the ice which remained to be cut was from six to seven feet in depth, and of a consistency so hard that the saws barely made an impression upon it. In one spot we sawed eight hours and cut less than five feet. While we were busily occupied in devising new plans to cut this ice, the wind changed and altered the drift of the ice, bringing a strong pressure on a tongue of the floe, which caused a fracture contiguous to our canal, around the bark and through the remaining ice to the edge. This new crevasse opened, and in so doing, the new floe drifted, partly closing our canal. This sudden and unexpected change, before our canal was completed, brought a look of disappointment and despair to every face. Now our prospective way of retreat was not only useless, but our position was such that the _Belgica_ was subjected to dangerous pressure. To relieve this pressure we cut an oblong concavity in the body of the main floe with the idea of taking the vessel to this as a harbour. In this effort we succeeded on the evening of the thirteenth, but our canal was so effectually closed by new ice and the pressure of neighbouring floes, that we could not escape. On the morning of the fourteenth, the wind again changed. There was a general expansion of the pack, leaving wide open leads on all sides, and our canal again widened. We lost no time in steaming out. No body of men were ever happier than the officers and crew of the _Belgica_ as the good old ship thumped the edge of the ice which had held her a prisoner for nearly a year. Our supply of provisions did not permit a continuation of the campaign, and after all our mission was about fulfilled. Accordingly we headed northward in the most direct manner for the open sea. In two days we pushed, through closely packed ice, twenty miles northward, and then we entered a zone of the pack where the ice was broken into small pieces and closely pressed by an almost continuous line of icebergs. Beyond the bergs there was a dark blue-black sky which, after a time, we recognised as a water sky, indicating that under it there was the open ice-free Pacific. Here, within sight of the open sea, we were again imprisoned by the closely packed ice for thirty days, but at last, when we had almost abandoned all hope of escape and were preparing for work during a second winter night, a gentle southerly wind drove us with the sea ice out beyond the line of icebergs, and then we were free to seek the world of life in our own way. We left the pack-ice in latitude 70° 45′ south, longitude 103° west, and then headed for Cape Horn. [Illustration: A Group of Penguins,--Visitors to the _Belgica_. (To the Left is a Lead into which They dive for Food.)]