We sighted our first iceberg in latitude 62 degrees on the evening of
Wednesday, December 7. Cheetham's squeaky hail came down from aloft and I
went up to the crow's-nest to look at it, and from this time on we passed
all kinds of icebergs, from the huge tabular variety to the little
weathered water-worn bergs. Some we steamed quite close to and they
seemed for all the world like great masses of sugar floating in the sea.

From latitudes 60 to 63 degrees we saw a fair number of birds: southern
fulmars, whale birds, molly-mawks, sooty albatrosses, and occasionally
Cape-pigeons still. Then the brown-backed petrels began to appear, sure
precursors of the pack ice--it was in sight right enough the day after
the brown-backs were seen. By breakfast time on December 9, when nearly
in latitude 65 degrees, we were steaming through thin streams of broken
pack with floes from six to twelve feet across. A few penguins and seals
were seen, and by 10 a.m. no less than twenty-seven icebergs in sight.
The newcomers to these regions were clustered in little groups on the
forecastle and poop sketching and painting, hanging over the bows and
gleefully watching this lighter stuff being brushed aside by our strong
stem.

We were passing through pack all day, but the ice hereabouts was not
close enough nor heavy enough to stop us appreciably. The ship was
usually conned by Pennell and myself from the crow's-nest, and I took the
ship very near one berg for Ponting to cinematograph it. We now began to
see snow petrels with black beaks and pure white bodies, rather
resembling doves. Also we saw great numbers of brown-backed petrels the
first day in the pack, whole flights of them resting on the icebergs. The
sun was just below the horizon at midnight and we had a most glorious
sunset, which was first a blazing copper changing to salmon pink and then