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- Herausgeber: DigiCat
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
In "South," Ernest Shackleton recounts his legendary Antarctic expedition aboard the Endurance, which became an emblem of human resilience amid nature's harshest trials. Written in a gripping narrative style, the text merges adventure and descriptive prose, providing a vivid account of the crew's harrowing journey following the ship's demise in 1915. Shackleton's literary context lies within the tradition of exploration narratives, combining detailed observations of the unyielding landscape with a profound psychological portrait of survival, camaraderie, and leadership as the crew battles both physical despair and the bitter cold of the polar environment. Ernest Shackleton, an Anglo-Irish explorer born in 1874, was driven by an insatiable quest for discovery and a longing to test the limits of both human endurance and geographical boundaries. His previous expeditions laid the groundwork for his ambitious idea to traverse Antarctica. Not only does his expertise as a navigator and leader shine through the text, but his personal ethos—centered around teamwork, courage, and tenacity—emerges as a vital theme amid the perils faced by his crew. "South" stands as an essential reading for anyone fascinated by the spirit of exploration, captivatingly chronicling extraordinary resilience in the face of calamity. Shackleton's masterful storytelling not only illuminates the grim realities of survival but also serves as an inspiring testament to the human spirit, making it a must-read for adventurers and scholars alike. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - An Author Biography reveals milestones in the author's life, illuminating the personal insights behind the text. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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South
Table of Contents
Introduction
In a world of creaking floes and featureless horizons, where iron-hard seas close like jaws around a wooden vessel and silence weighs as heavily as cold, the true expedition unfolds not only across latitude and longitude but within the disciplined courage, mutual reliance, and resourceful will of a small company tested by a continent that yields nothing and demands everything, as months lengthen, supplies diminish, and plans meet the implacable arithmetic of distance and weather.
South is Sir Ernest Shackleton’s narrative of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917, first published in 1919, when memory was fresh and records close at hand. Written after the party’s return and in the shadow of the First World War, the book distills journals, logbooks, and official reports into a coherent account by the expedition’s leader. Shackleton presents the conception of a continental crossing, the organization of men and materiel, and the early stages of the venture, before conditions impose an altogether different measure of achievement.
At its heart lies a bold logistical design: to push the ship Endurance into the Weddell Sea, establish a landing on the Antarctic continent, and make a traverse to the far side, coordinated with a supporting party working from the Ross Sea. Shackleton details the planning and departure, the early ice navigation, and the mounting constraints that drift and pressure impose on a wooden hull. Without anticipating outcomes, the narrative signals a decisive turn as the pack asserts itself, and the expedition’s aims must be recalibrated to the realities of ice and isolation.
South has earned classic status because it joins an unsparing primary record to a lucid, restrained style that refuses theatrics where observation will suffice. Shackleton’s voice is measured, attentive to cause and effect, and generous in crediting the skills of specialists—seamen, scientists, and handlers alike. The book’s momentum arises from clear description, practical detail, and the steady, humane assessment of circumstances. It is adventure literature whose force derives from accuracy and proportion, and history that reads with the inevitability of a novel, without trespassing beyond what the record supports.
As a document, the narrative is exacting about the environment that governs human choice. Entries weigh wind and temperature, describe the pressure of floes and the architecture of pack and lead, and explain the calculations by which a course is chosen or abandoned. The book attends to the routines of a small community under strain—maintenance, scientific observations, the care of animals, the rationing of fuel and food—rendering the extraordinary through the cadence of daily work. This balance between procedure and peril gives the text both authority and dramatic shape.
In the century since its publication, South has set a template for expedition narratives that place collective effort above solitary heroics. Later histories and retellings of polar exploration have repeatedly returned to Shackleton’s account as a foundation, drawing upon its chronology, its portraits of roles within a crew, and its way of articulating risk without grandstanding. The book helped define the modern survival story’s cadence: mounting constraints, clear-eyed appraisal, and adaptation grounded in craft knowledge. Its influence extends beyond polar writing, informing non-fiction about teams operating at the edges of what is possible.
Enduring themes give the narrative its lasting charge. Leadership is not asserted but enacted through decision, communication, and responsibility for others. Duty and solidarity become practical virtues, not abstractions: the willingness to share discomfort, to keep routine, to protect morale. Nature is not an antagonist with malice but a system whose scale cancels human assumptions, compelling humility and continuous learning. The book invites reflection on the limits of control and the uses of prudence, showing how character is expressed in attention to small tasks when outcomes cannot be guaranteed.
Shackleton’s craft lies in a narrative that advances with the exactness of a log yet leaves space for atmosphere and feeling. He stages scenes through sensory fact—sounds of pressure, the quality of light, the fatigue of repetitive labor—rather than through ornament. The first-person vantage confers immediacy, while an almost editorial fairness widens the frame to the whole company and to the supporting expedition working from the other side of the continent. By integrating different responsibilities and perspectives, the book becomes not merely a leader’s testimony but a collective chronicle.
The book also stands at a historical hinge. By 1914 the geographic pole had been reached, yet the ambition to cross the Antarctic continent remained unrealized, and the so‑called Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration was nearing its close. The expedition sails as Europe moves toward war, an irony the text acknowledges in dates and dispatches rather than digression. South preserves the methods and ideals of that era—sail and steam together, scientific aims yoked to geographic ones—just before mechanization, radio, and aircraft would change the scale and tempo of polar work.
Part of the book’s appeal is the texture of its material culture, rendered without fetish: the fit of a hull to ice; the uses of sledges and boats; the reading of barometer and sky; the ration book’s arithmetic. Readers encounter a world where seamanship, meteorology, and field science cooperate under pressure, and where the margin for error is slender. Shackleton’s attentiveness to these particulars situates the drama firmly in the physical world, showing how ingenuity depends upon accumulated skill, and how discipline and care can hold chaos at bay.
That precision and humanity have kept South in active conversation ever since. New editions and studies have sustained its readership, and the narrative is often cited in discussions of leadership, crisis management, and group dynamics. Historians value its primary-source clarity; general readers value its momentum and plainspoken awe. Its language belongs to its time, yet its concerns—preparation, trust, improvisation, endurance—are perennially modern. The book’s authority does not rest on triumphalist conclusion but on process, on how people comport themselves when contingencies multiply and the end cannot be seen.
To read South today is to face a setting remote in geography yet recognizable in kind: a world of uncertainty, finite resources, and interdependence where judgment under pressure determines what is possible. Its pages honor competence and care, esteem the collective over the solitary, and insist that dignity can be preserved amid deprivation. Those lessons transcend their latitude. Whether one approaches the book as history, literature, or a manual for steady action, its clarity and moral poise make it a companion for contemporary challenges and a classic with undiminished power.
Synopsis
South is Ernest Shackleton’s account, first published in 1919, of the Imperial Trans‑Antarctic Expedition and its two complementary parties. Written in a measured, documentary style, the book reconstructs the planning, aims, and unfolding realities of an attempt to traverse the Antarctic continent from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea. Shackleton sets the scene in the final years of the so‑called Heroic Age, emphasizing preparation, logistics, and the division of responsibilities between the Weddell Sea group under his command and the Ross Sea group charged with laying depots. From the outset, the narrative balances ambition with sober attention to practical limits and risks.
He then recounts recruitment, equipment selection, and the voyage south in 1914, when the expedition’s ship proceeds via the Atlantic to South Georgia for final preparations. Advice from whaling personnel about ice conditions frames the judgment calls that follow. The narrative underscores the constraints of time, funding, and war‑time uncertainty, yet stresses methodical planning and the intention to coordinate with the separate Ross Sea party. The ship departs into the Weddell Sea, confronting heavy pack ice that tests engines, hull, and seamanship. Shackleton outlines watch systems, scientific tasks, and the balance between pressing onward and preserving the vessel and stores.
As the ice tightens, the ship becomes beset, immobilized within a moving seascape that drifts with winds and currents. Shackleton details the improvised routines of a forced winter: rationing, sledging practice, care of dogs, meteorological and oceanographic observations, and the psychological importance of order. The crew adapts the ship for prolonged confinement, while officers survey pressure ridges and the shifting floe. The narrative emphasizes patience and contingency, noting how progress on the chart comes not from navigation but from the caprices of the ice. Months pass in relative safety, yet the strain on the ship and morale steadily accumulates.
Seasonal changes bring increasing pressure, and the icefield flexes with destructive force. Shackleton describes damage to the hull, the struggle to lighten the ship, and the disciplined evacuation to camp on the floe when continued occupation becomes untenable. The party salvages essentials—boats, food, instruments—and establishes a makeshift base over moving ice. Daily life becomes a cycle of watchfulness and small repairs, hunting for fresh meat, and calculating the prospects of a breakout or a sledge journey. Decisions emerge from reconnaissance and consensus, with safety prioritized over glory. Navigation becomes theoretical, tethered to celestial sights and the drift of the pack.
Eventually, conditions demand a shift from waiting to action. Shackleton narrates the hazardous launch of the small boats among collapsing leads, freezing spray, and erratic seas. Navigation under these circumstances becomes a test of judgment and persistence, with scant shelter and limited fuel. The party’s aim is modest yet daunting: to reach the nearest scrap of land that can support a camp. After a harrowing passage, they establish themselves on a barren shore, reorganizing supplies and medical care. The book lingers on the practicalities of survival—firemaking, shelter, clothing, and routine—while weighing options for securing outside assistance across a hostile ocean.
Recognizing that waiting offers dwindling prospects, a small detachment prepares for an open‑boat journey toward inhabited shores, selecting gear to balance weight, strength, and navigational precision. Shackleton outlines the modifications to the chosen boat, the reliance on a sextant and dead reckoning, and the necessity of seizing a favorable wind window. The account highlights exposure, cold, fatigue, and the strain of maintaining a course amid storm systems. Landfall, if achieved, does not end the difficulty; the terrain beyond the coast presents another barrier. The narrative stresses leadership, teamwork, and calm process over drama, leaving outcomes to unfold in their time.
South then shifts to the Ross Sea party, whose role was to lay supply depots across the Great Ice Barrier from a base near McMurdo Sound to support the planned crossing. Their ship experiences severe difficulties that separate the shore group from much of its equipment, compelling improvisation under extreme conditions. Depot journeys proceed nonetheless, with long sledging marches, exposure to crevasses and blizzards, and the managing of scurvy risk through diet and rest. The record here is procedural and exacting, noting weigh‑outs, distances, and depot positions, and illustrating how logistics become the defining science of polar travel.
Throughout, Shackleton sets forth practical principles: the primacy of human welfare over objectives, the need for flexible plans, and the utility of constant observation—of ice, weather, and men. The prose dwells on small choices that accumulate into survival: when to push or pause, how to distribute loads, why to preserve instruments and records even when rations tighten. He acknowledges errors and fortunate escapes, situating them within the limits of knowledge at the time. The book thereby functions as a manual as much as a narrative, distilling lessons on food, clothing, navigation, and campcraft without ornament or retrospective certainty.
By concluding with clear-eyed reflections on risk, endurance, and responsibility, South offers more than an adventure tale. It preserves a primary account of an expedition that confronted nature’s indifference with method and cohesion, and it asks what leadership owes to those it leads when ambitions collide with reality. The work’s enduring significance lies in its disciplined attention to fact, its respect for collective effort, and its recognition that success in exploration can be measured in ways other than distance covered. Without relying on suspense, the book leaves readers with a framework for judgment under pressure that outlasts its era.
Historical Context
Ernest Shackleton’s South is set against the late Edwardian and wartime world of the 1910s, when the British Empire, learned societies, and maritime institutions framed exploration as a national vocation. The book recounts the Imperial Trans‑Antarctic Expedition, launched in 1914, with operations spanning the South Atlantic, South Georgia, the Weddell Sea, and the Ross Sea. Its narrative unfolds within global sea lanes connecting Britain to South America and the sub‑Antarctic. Naval discipline, merchant‑marine practices, and the prestige politics of the Royal Geographical Society and allied bodies shaped planning, personnel, and public expectations, while whaling stations and colonial administrations in the Falkland Islands Dependencies provided logistical anchors on the polar frontier.
The work emerges from the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration (roughly 1897–1922), a period defined by national rivalries, philanthropic patronage, and scientific aspiration. Shackleton’s earlier Nimrod Expedition (1907–1909) had reached a farthest south, while contemporaries like Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen had turned the South Pole into a potent symbol of national prowess by 1911–1912. After Amundsen’s success and Scott’s tragedy, a trans‑continental crossing became the next great objective. South reflects that transition, registering both the momentum of competitive exploration and the growing emphasis on methodical logistics, depot‑laying, and scientific observation as hallmarks of serious polar enterprise.
The Imperial Trans‑Antarctic Expedition’s plan was to land a party in the Weddell Sea, traverse the continent via the South Pole, and exit at the Ross Sea, supported by a separate depot‑laying team. The very name “Imperial” signaled the era’s intertwining of exploration, national prestige, and imperial geography. Funding relied on a mix of private donors, institutional grants, and commercial support, with newspapers amplifying public interest. The scheme required two ships: Endurance for the Weddell Sea and Aurora for the Ross Sea. South documents how financing pressures and tight schedules shaped decisions, underscoring the precarious economics underpinning much early twentieth‑century exploration.
Technological and logistical choices mirrored contemporary capabilities. Endurance, a stout wooden barquentine constructed in Norway for ice work, combined sail with a steam engine, exemplifying hybrid propulsion in polar vessels. Wireless sets existed but had limited range in high latitudes and proved unreliable amid pack ice. On the ice, dogs, sledges, tents, and fur or gabardine garments reflected established polar practice, while navigation relied on sextants, chronometers, and dead reckoning. The presence of Frank Hurley’s cameras and glass plates signaled the new power of photography and film to turn expeditions into public spectacles and sources of revenue, preserving a visual archive that South integrates into its testimony.
The expedition coincided with the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914. Shackleton offered men and ships to the Admiralty, and, after consultation, received permission to proceed. The war altered the expedition’s context: media attention shifted, government priorities tightened, and many participants would later serve in uniform. South carries this wartime inflection—its language of duty, endurance, and sacrifice resonated with a public steeped in news of the Western Front. The pressures of wartime finance and shipping also affected relief efforts and the return of personnel, illustrating how global conflict framed even the most remote ventures.
Geographical uncertainty about the Weddell Sea was a defining hazard. Charts, based on sparse nineteenth‑century observations, left wide gaps about ice behavior and currents. Expanding and compressing pack ice created crushing forces lethal to wooden hulls. South records how sea‑ice dynamics, pressure ridges, and polynyas dictated movement and survival strategies. Rather than a predictable gateway to the continent, the Weddell Sea functioned as an unstable, drifting environment, thwarting planned landfalls. Shackleton’s narrative thus reflects early twentieth‑century limits in polar meteorology and oceanography, and it dramatizes the period’s ongoing shift from heroic aspiration to empirical, experience‑driven caution.
Shipboard life and the ice camps reflect contemporary social hierarchies and maritime culture. Edwardian Britain’s class distinctions met the practical egalitarianism demanded by survival: officers, scientists, seamen, and specialists shared cramped quarters, heavy labor, and rationed supplies. Discipline, routines, and morale management drew on Royal Navy and merchant‑service traditions, while humor, games, and makeshift entertainments reveal the coping strategies of long polar winters. South demonstrates how exploration intersected with broader ideals of masculinity and teamwork prevalent in Britain and its dominions, even as the extreme environment compressed those ideals into concrete, life‑preserving practices.
South Georgia, a linchpin in the story, illustrates the global whaling economy shaping the sub‑Antarctic in the early 1900s. Norwegian entrepreneurs established modern shore‑based stations there from 1904, notably at Grytviken and nearby harbors such as Leith and Stromness. Whale oil supplied lubricants, lighting, and later food industries, drawing multinational crews and creating seasonal hubs of expertise, coal, and craft. Shackleton’s reliance on whalers for intelligence, shelter, and shipping support exemplifies how commercial frontiers underpinned exploration. The island’s rugged interior and industrial shore installations become backdrops and lifelines in South, reflecting the entwined worlds of commerce and discovery.
International cooperation marked the expedition’s relief efforts. After extraordinary open‑boat navigation to seek help, Shackleton coordinated multiple attempts to reach his men in Antarctic waters. Governments and private interests in the South Atlantic and southern South America responded, and whaling captains contributed vessels and local knowledge. The final successful rescue came in late August 1916, when the Chilean Navy’s tug Yelcho, commanded by Luis Pardo, reached Elephant Island. South portrays this multinational assistance as a counterpoint to wartime division, revealing practical, humanitarian networks that linked Britain, Norway, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and the Falklands in the southern maritime world.
The Ross Sea party, operating independently in the opposite sector, anchors the book’s second strand of context. Based near Cape Evans on Ross Island, the group laid depots across the Ross Ice Shelf toward the Beardmore Glacier to support the planned crossing. Their ship, Aurora, was torn from its moorings in a 1915 storm and drifted for months, leaving men stranded ashore with limited supplies. Despite scarcity, they completed depot‑laying in 1915–1916. Scurvy, exposure, and accidents caused fatalities, including the loss of Reverend Arnold Spencer‑Smith, and later Aeneas Mackintosh and Victor Hayward. South records this often‑overlooked sacrifice within the era’s depot‑based logistics.
Scientific objectives, though overshadowed by survival, framed the expedition from the start. Early twentieth‑century polar ventures pursued meteorology, magnetism, geology, and biology alongside geographical conquest. South preserves meteorological notes, ice observations, and natural history impressions assembled under extraordinary constraints. The book captures a transitional moment when credentialed scientists worked alongside sailor‑naturalists, and when specimen collecting and instrument reading coexisted uneasily with the storytelling economy that funded expeditions. Shackleton’s emphasis on human endurance does not erase science; rather, it shows how field knowledge accumulated piecemeal, shaped by weather windows, transport limits, and the constant calculus of risk.
Mass media and visual culture decisively shaped the expedition’s afterlife. Frank Hurley’s still photographs and motion‑picture footage, salvaged with great effort, became the foundation for a widely shown film, released in 1919 under the title South, and for the book’s striking illustrations. Lecture tours, newspaper serializations, and publishing contracts turned ordeal into public narrative. In a post‑war marketplace hungry for authentic adventure, the book’s measured tone and images offered proof and drama. South thus belongs to a broader media economy in which exploration financed itself partly through spectacle, while also creating a durable visual record of the Heroic Age’s methods and environments.
Financial realities underpin much of the decisions South describes. Pre‑war fundraising relied on prominent patrons, commercial endorsements, and subscriptions, while wartime constraints tightened credit and diverted shipping. The cost of multiple relief attempts and the loss of equipment created debts that post‑1916 lectures, films, and this 1919 book sought to address. Such pressures were typical: from the 1890s onward, many polar ventures balanced scientific aims against publicity, and they traded exclusives with newspapers to secure backing. South’s publication history thus mirrors the period’s uneasy compromise between exploration as public service and exploration as a commodity within competitive print and film markets.
Medical practice and nutrition reveal the state of early twentieth‑century knowledge. Polar doctors emphasized hygiene, frostbite prevention, and morale, while scurvy prevention depended on securing fresh meat or carefully managed rations—measures difficult for the Ross Sea party and complicated even in better‑provisioned camps. Standard sledging rations, pemmican, and carefully weighed rucksacks reflected lessons from previous British and Norwegian expeditions. South’s spare references to illness and fatigue align with the era’s understated reporting of bodily suffering, yet they also document incremental advances in field medicine and the harsh consequences when logistics, weather, and happenstance pushed those practices to their limits.
Navigation and seamanship occupy a central place in the book’s ethos. Small‑boat voyages in sub‑Antarctic latitudes demanded expert use of sextant sights through brief clearings, chronometer care in wet, cold conditions, and constant trimming to survive breaking seas. The skills drilled in the British merchant marine and Royal Navy—reefing, steering by swell and wind, reading cloud and birdlife—surface repeatedly in South. The success of open‑boat passages and coastal approaches to South Georgia illustrates how an older maritime culture, still dominant in 1914–1916, could accomplish feats that later technology would render rarer, and it situates the expedition within the long tradition of Atlantic and Southern Ocean seamanship.
The book also reflects changing ideas about leadership and teamwork. Early twentieth‑century expedition leaders were expected to be fundraisers, logisticians, moral exemplars, and, in crisis, paternal figures. South’s accounts of routines, rationing, and conflict management reveal a pragmatic approach shaped by naval custom but open to improvisation. The distribution of responsibilities to navigators, surgeons, carpenters, and photographers shows specialization within a tight hierarchy. These practices intersected with the broader Edwardian belief in character and duty, yet the narrative also hints at a shift toward collective problem‑solving grounded in practical competence rather than rigid rank alone.
When South appeared in 1919, Britain and its dominions were absorbing wartime loss and social change. Readers sought narratives that combined realism with uplift, and Shackleton’s account offered a non‑combatant epic of endurance and rescue. The book’s reception benefited from veterans’ culture, philanthropic networks, and a publishing industry rebuilding from wartime disruption. At the same time, it arrived as the Heroic Age waned, with mechanization poised to transform polar logistics in the decades ahead. South thus served as both capstone and elegy, fixing in print the methods, values, and limits of pre‑modern polar travel just as the world pivoted toward new technologies and priorities. South functions as both mirror and critique of its era. It reflects imperial ambition, masculine ideals, and the public’s appetite for heroic narrative, while also documenting nature’s indifference to imperial projects and the fragile economics that sustained them. The book highlights the international cooperation that wartime politics often obscured, and it underscores how science, commerce, and media shaped exploration’s possibilities. By chronicling improvisation amid failure of the original aim, South tests the Edwardian creed of willpower against environmental reality, leaving a record that honors courage while tempering triumphalism.
Author Biography
Ernest Shackleton (1874–1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer and author, a central figure of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Known for exceptional leadership under extreme conditions, he led expeditions that advanced geographic knowledge and set enduring standards for polar survival and teamwork. His name is most associated with the Endurance saga, but his contributions spanned navigation, logistics, and public communication through lectures and books. Operating in an era of scientific discovery and imperial competition, Shackleton balanced ambitions for firsts with a growing emphasis on the safety of his crews. His career forged a legacy of resilience that continues to influence explorers, leaders, and readers.
Born in County Kildare and raised in London, Shackleton attended Dulwich College before leaving formal schooling in his mid-teens to join the merchant marine. Apprenticed as a sailor, he qualified as a master mariner before the turn of the century, gaining extensive experience in global trade routes and seamanship. This training shaped his practical leadership style: respect for craft, attention to morale, and a preference for flexible planning. The culture of the Royal Geographical Society and the period’s enthusiasm for polar science drew him toward exploration. By the early 1900s he had the navigational skills, organizational drive, and ambition necessary for Antarctic work.
Shackleton first went south with the British National Antarctic (Discovery) Expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott from 1901 to 1904. Serving as a junior officer and sledge traveler, he participated in the attempt to reach high southern latitudes and in depot-laying and scientific support. Despite illness that forced his early return, he helped push to a then-record “farthest south” and gained first-hand experience of Antarctic logistics, sledging techniques, and the physiological limits imposed by cold and malnutrition. The expedition’s mixed hardships and achievements sharpened his appreciation for provisioning, teamwork, and contingency planning—principles that would define his later leadership and separate organizational identity.
Determined to lead his own venture, Shackleton organized the British Antarctic (Nimrod) Expedition of 1907–1909. Operating from a base on Ross Island, his parties made several notable accomplishments: a near approach to the geographic South Pole, a first ascent of Mount Erebus, and significant geological and surveying work, including a journey to the vicinity of the South Magnetic Pole. Public and scientific interest was considerable, and Shackleton received a knighthood on his return. He recounted the enterprise in The Heart of the Antarctic, a widely read narrative that combined logistical detail with vivid storytelling, helping to fix his image as both practitioner and chronicler.
Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic (Endurance) Expedition, begun in 1914, aimed to cross the continent via the South Pole. The ship Endurance became trapped and was crushed in the Weddell Sea pack, forcing the crew to camp on ice and then sail open boats to Elephant Island. Shackleton and a small team navigated the lifeboat James Caird to South Georgia and secured the rescue of all marooned men. The outcome—no loss of life from the Endurance party—made his crisis leadership renowned. He later narrated the ordeal in South, a work that shaped public memory of the expedition and exemplified meticulous, humane command.
During the First World War, Shackleton undertook wartime assignments and lectured extensively, sustaining his public profile while planning future voyages. Seeking renewed scientific and exploratory work, he launched the Shackleton–Rowett Expedition in 1921 aboard Quest, intending a broad program in the South Atlantic and Antarctic regions. Before substantive fieldwork began, he died suddenly on South Georgia in early 1922. He was buried there at the request of those associated with the expedition, linking his memory permanently to the sub-Antarctic landscape. The Quest voyage, though curtailed, underlined Shackleton’s enduring commitment to exploration, oceanic field science, and the welfare of his crews.
Shackleton’s legacy rests on a blend of results and ethos. His expeditions widened geographic knowledge, amassed data for geologists and meteorologists, and produced classic accounts in The Heart of the Antarctic and South. More broadly, his example informs modern thinking on leadership, risk, and resilience: careful preparation, adaptable strategy, clear communication, and a prioritization of team welfare. Case studies in business, mountaineering, and polar operations continue to draw on his decisions during Nimrod and Endurance. Memorials, archives, and ongoing Antarctic research keep his story current, while renewed editions of his books ensure that his voice remains accessible to new generations.
South
PREFACE
After the conquest of the South Pole by Amundsen, who, by a narrow margin of days only, was in advance of the British Expedition under Scott, there remained but one great main object of Antarctic journeyings—the crossing of the South Polar continent from sea to sea.
When I returned from the Nimrod Expedition[1] on which we had to turn back from our attempt to plant the British flag on the South Pole, being beaten by stress of circumstances within ninety-seven miles of our goal, my mind turned to the crossing of the continent, for I was morally certain that either Amundsen or Scott would reach the Pole on our own route or a parallel one. After hearing of the Norwegian success I began to make preparations to start a last great journey—so that the first crossing of the last continent should be achieved by a British Expedition.
We failed in this object, but the story of our attempt is the subject for the following pages, and I think that though failure in the actual accomplishment must be recorded, there are chapters in this book of high adventure, strenuous days, lonely nights, unique experiences, and, above all, records of unflinching determination, supreme loyalty, and generous self-sacrifice on the part of my men which, even in these days that have witnessed the sacrifices of nations and regardlessness of self on the part of individuals, still will be of interest to readers who now turn gladly from the red horror of war and the strain of the last five years to read, perhaps with more understanding minds, the tale of the White Warfare of the South. The struggles, the disappointments, and the endurance of this small party of Britishers, hidden away for nearly two years in the fastnesses of the Polar ice, striving to carry out the ordained task and ignorant of the crises through which the world was passing, make a story which is unique in the history of Antarctic exploration.
Owing to the loss of the Endurance and the disaster to the Aurora, certain documents relating mainly to the organization and preparation of the Expedition have been lost; but, anyhow, I had no intention of presenting a detailed account of the scheme of preparation, storing, and other necessary but, to the general reader, unimportant affairs, as since the beginning of this century, every book on Antarctic exploration has dealt fully with this matter. I therefore briefly place before you the inception and organization of the Expedition, and insert here the copy of the programme which I prepared in order to arouse the interest of the general public in the Expedition.
“The Trans-continental Party.
“The first crossing of the Antarctic continent, from sea to sea via the Pole, apart from its historic value, will be a journey of great scientific importance.
“The distance will be roughly 1800 miles, and the first half of this, from the Weddell Sea to the Pole, will be over unknown ground. Every step will be an advance in geographical science. It will be learned whether the great Victoria chain of mountains, which has been traced from the Ross Sea to the Pole, extends across the continent and thus links up (except for the ocean break) with the Andes of South America, and whether the great plateau around the Pole dips gradually towards the Weddell Sea.
“Continuous magnetic observations will be taken on the journey. The route will lead towards the Magnetic Pole, and the determination of the dip of the magnetic needle will be of importance in practical magnetism. The meteorological conditions will be carefully noted, and this should help to solve many of our weather problems.
“The glaciologist and geologist will study ice formations and the nature of the mountains, and this report will prove of great scientific interest.
“Scientific Work by Other Parties.
“While the Trans-continental party is carrying out, for the British Flag, the greatest Polar journey ever attempted, the other parties will be engaged in important scientific work.
“Two sledging parties will operate from the base on the Weddell Sea. One will travel westwards towards Graham Land, making observations, collecting geological specimens, and proving whether there are mountains in that region linked up with those found on the other side of the Pole.
“Another party will travel eastward toward Enderby Land, carrying out a similar programme, and a third, remaining at the base, will study the fauna of the land and sea, and the meteorological conditions.
“From the Ross Sea base, on the other side of the Pole, another party will push southward and will probably await the arrival of the Trans-continental party at the top of the Beardmore Glacier, near Mount Buckley, where the first seams of coal were discovered in the Antarctic. This region is of great importance to the geologist, who will be enabled to read much of the history of the Antarctic in the rocks.
“Both the ships of the Expedition will be equipped for dredging, sounding, and every variety of hydrographical work. The Weddell Sea ship will endeavour to trace the unknown coast-line of Graham Land, and from both the vessels, with their scientific staffs, important results may be expected.
“The several shore parties and the two ships will thus carry out geographical and scientific work on a scale and over an area never before attempted by any one Polar expedition.
“This will be the first use of the Weddell Sea as a base for exploration, and all the parties will open up vast stretches of unknown land. It is appropriate that this work should be carried out under the British Flag, since the whole of the area southward to the Pole is British territory. In July 1908, Letters Patent were issued under the Great Seal declaring that the Governor of the Falkland Islands should be the Governor of Graham Land (which forms the western side of the Weddell Sea), and another section of the same proclamation defines the area of British territory as ‘situated in the South Atlantic Ocean to the south of the 50th parallel of south latitude, and lying between 20 degrees and 80 degrees west longitude.’ Reference to a map will show that this includes the area in which the present Expedition will work.
“How the Continent will be crossed.
“The Weddell Sea ship, with all the members of the Expedition operating from that base, will leave Buenos Ayres in October 1914, and endeavour to land in November in latitude 78 degrees south.
“Should this be done, the Trans-continental party will set out on their 1800-mile journey at once, in the hope of accomplishing the march across the Pole and reaching the Ross Sea base in five months. Should the landing be made too late in the season, the party will go into winter quarters, lay out depots during the autumn and the following spring, and as early as possible in 1915 set out on the journey.
“The Trans-continental party will be led by Sir Ernest Shackleton, and will consist of six men. It will take 100 dogs with sledges, and two motor-sledges with aerial propellers. The equipment will embody everything that the experience of the leader and his expert advisers can suggest. When this party has reached the area of the Pole, after covering 800 miles of unknown ground, it will strike due north towards the head of the Beardmore Glacier, and there it is hoped to meet the outcoming party from the Ross Sea. Both will join up and make for the Ross Sea base, where the previous Expedition had its winter quarters.
“In all, fourteen men will be landed by the Endurance on the Weddell Sea. Six will set out on the Trans-continental journey, three will go westward, three eastward, and two remain at the base carrying on the work already outlined.
“The Aurora will land six men at the Ross Sea base. They will lay down depots on the route of the Trans-continental party, and make a march south to assist that party, and to make geological and other observations as already described.
“Should the Trans-continental party succeed, as is hoped, in crossing during the first season, its return to civilization may be expected about April 1915. The other sections in April 1916.
“The Ships of the Expedition.
“The two ships for the Expedition have now been selected.
“The Endurance, the ship which will take the Trans-continental party to the Weddell Sea, and will afterwards explore along an unknown coast-line, is a new vessel, specially constructed for Polar work under the supervision of a committee of Polar explorers. She was built by Christensen, the famous Norwegian constructor of sealing vessels, at Sandefjord. She is barquentine rigged, and has triple-expansion engines giving her a speed under steam of nine to ten knots. To enable her to stay longer at sea, she will carry oil fuel as well as coal. She is of about 350 tons, and built of selected pine, oak, and greenheart. This fine vessel, equipped, has cost the Expedition £14,000.
“The Aurora, the ship which will take out the Ross Sea party, has been bought from Dr. Mawson. She is similar in all respects to the Terra Nova, of Captain Scott’s last Expedition. She had extensive alterations made by the Government authorities in Australia to fit her for Dr. Mawson’s Expedition, and is now at Hobart, Tasmania, where the Ross Sea party will join her in October next.”
I started the preparations in the middle of 1913, but no public announcement was made until January 13, 1914. For the last six months of 1913 I was engaged in the necessary preliminaries, solid mule work, showing nothing particular to interest the public, but essential for an Expedition that had to have a ship on each side of the Continent, with a land journey of eighteen hundred miles to be made, the first nine hundred miles to be across an absolutely unknown land mass.
On January 1, 1914, having received a promised financial support sufficient to warrant the announcement of the Expedition, I made it public.
The first result of this was a flood of applications from all classes of the community to join the adventure. I received nearly five thousand applications, and out of these were picked fifty-six men.
In March, to my great disappointment and anxiety, the promised financial help did not materialize, and I was now faced with the fact that I had contracted for a ship and stores, and had engaged the staff, and I was not in possession of funds to meet these liabilities. I immediately set about appealing for help, and met with generous response from all sides. I cannot here give the names of all who supported my application, but whilst taking this opportunity of thanking every one for their support, which came from parts as far apart as the interior of China, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia, I must particularly refer to the munificent donation of £24,000 from the late Sir James Caird[2], and to one of £10,000 from the British Government. I must also thank Mr. Dudley Docker, who enabled me to complete the purchase of the Endurance, and Miss Elizabeth Dawson Lambton, who since 1901 has always been a firm friend to Antarctic exploration, and who again, on this occasion, assisted largely. The Royal Geographical Society made a grant of £1000; and last, but by no means least, I take this opportunity of tendering my grateful thanks to Dame Janet Stancomb Wills, whose generosity enabled me to equip the Endurance efficiently, especially as regards boats (which boats were the means of our ultimate safety), and who not only, at the inception of the Expedition, gave financial help, but also continued it through the dark days when we were overdue, and funds were required to meet the need of the dependents of the Expedition.
The only return and privilege an explorer has in the way of acknowledgment for the help accorded him is to record on the discovered lands the names of those to whom the Expedition owes its being.
Owing to the exigencies of the war the publication of this book has been long delayed, and the detailed maps must come with the scientific monographs. I have the honour to place on the new land the names of the above and other generous donors to the Expedition. The two hundred miles of new coast-line I have called Caird Coast. Also, as a more personal note, I named the three ship’s boats, in which we ultimately escaped from the grip of the ice, after the three principal donors to the Expedition—the James Caird, the Stancomb Wills and the Dudley Docker. The two last-named are still on the desolate sandy spit of Elephant Island, where under their shelter twenty-two of my comrades eked out a bare existence for four and a half months.
The James Caird is now in Liverpool, having been brought home from South Georgia after her adventurous voyage across the sub-Antarctic ocean.
Most of the Public Schools of England and Scotland helped the Expedition to purchase the dog teams, and I named a dog after each school that helped. But apart from these particular donations I again thank the many people who assisted us.
So the equipment and organization went on. I purchased the Aurora from Sir Douglas Mawson, and arranged for Mackintosh to go to Australia and take charge of her, there sending sledges, equipment and most of the stores from this side, but depending somewhat on the sympathy and help of Australia and New Zealand for coal and certain other necessities, knowing that previously these two countries had always generously supported the exploration of what one might call their hinterland.
Towards the end of July all was ready, when suddenly the war clouds darkened over Europe.
It had been arranged for the Endurance to proceed to Cowes, to be inspected by His Majesty on the Monday of Cowes week. But on Friday I received a message to say that the King would not be able to go to Cowes. My readers will remember how suddenly came the menace of war. Naturally, both my comrades and I were greatly exercised as to the probable outcome of the danger threatening the peace of the world.
We sailed from London on Friday, August 1, 1914, and anchored off Southend all Saturday. On Sunday afternoon I took the ship off Margate, growing hourly more anxious as the ever-increasing rumours spread; and on Monday morning I went ashore and read in the morning paper the order for general mobilization.
I immediately went on board and mustered all hands and told them that I proposed to send a telegram to the Admiralty offering the ships, stores, and, if they agreed, our own services to the country in the event of war breaking out. All hands immediately agreed, and I sent off a telegram in which everything was placed at the disposal of the Admiralty. We only asked that, in the event of the declaration of war, the Expedition might be considered as a single unit, so as to preserve its homogeneity. There were enough trained and experienced men amongst us to man a destroyer. Within an hour I received a laconic wire from the Admiralty saying “Proceed.” Within two hours a longer wire came from Mr. Winston Churchill, in which we were thanked for our offer, and saying that the authorities desired that the Expedition, which had the full sanction and support of the Scientific and Geographical Societies, should go on.
So, according to these definite instructions, the Endurance sailed to Plymouth. On Tuesday the King sent for me and handed me the Union Jack to carry on the Expedition. That night, at midnight, war broke out. On the following Saturday, August 8, the Endurance sailed from Plymouth, obeying the direct order of the Admiralty. I make particular reference to this phase of the Expedition as I am aware that there was a certain amount of criticism of the Expedition having left the country, and regarding this I wish further to add that the preparation of the Expedition had been proceeding for over a year, and large sums of money had been spent. We offered to give the Expedition up without even consulting the donors of this money, and but few thought that the war would last through these five years and involve the whole world. The Expedition was not going on a peaceful cruise to the South Sea Islands, but to a most dangerous, difficult, and strenuous work that has nearly always involved a certain percentage of loss of life. Finally, when the Expedition did return, practically the whole of those members who had come unscathed through the dangers of the Antarctic took their places in the wider field of battle, and the percentage of casualties amongst the members of this Expedition is high.
The voyage out to Buenos Ayres was uneventful, and on October 26 we sailed from that port for South Georgia, the most southerly outpost of the British Empire. Here, for a month, we were engaged in final preparation. The last we heard of the war was when we left Buenos Ayres. Then the Russian Steam-Roller was advancing. According to many the war would be over within six months. And so we left, not without regret that we could not take our place there, but secure in the knowledge that we were taking part in a strenuous campaign for the credit of our country.
Apart from private individuals and societies I here acknowledge most gratefully the assistance rendered by the Dominion Government of New Zealand and the Commonwealth Government of Australia at the start of the Ross Sea section of the Expedition; and to the people of New Zealand and the Dominion Government I tender my most grateful thanks for their continued help, which was invaluable during the dark days before the relief of the Ross Sea Party.
Mr. James Allen (acting Premier), the late Mr. McNab (Minister of Marine), Mr. Leonard Tripp, Mr. Mabin, and Mr. Toogood, and many others have laid me under a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid.
This is also the opportunity for me to thank the Uruguayan Government for their generous assistance in placing the government trawler, Instituto de Pesca, for the second attempt at the relief of my men on Elephant Island.
Finally, it was the Chilian Government that was directly responsible for the rescue of my comrades. This southern Republic was unwearied in its efforts to make a successful rescue, and the gratitude of our whole party is due to them. I especially mention the sympathetic attitude of Admiral Muñoz Hurtado, head of the Chilian Navy, and Captain Luis Pardo, who commanded the Yelcho on our last and successful venture.
Sir Daniel Gooch came with us as far as South Georgia. I owe him my special thanks for his help with the dogs, and we all regretted losing his cheery presence, when we sailed for the South.
CHAPTER I
INTO THE WEDDELL SEA
I decided to leave South Georgia about December 5, and in the intervals of final preparation scanned again the plans for the voyage to winter quarters. What welcome was the Weddell Sea preparing for us? The whaling captains at South Georgia were generously ready to share with me their knowledge of the waters in which they pursued their trade, and, while confirming earlier information as to the extreme severity of the ice conditions in this sector of the Antarctic, they were able to give advice that was worth attention.
It will be convenient to state here briefly some of the considerations that weighed with me at that time and in the weeks that followed. I knew that the ice had come far north that season and, after listening to the suggestions of the whaling captains, had decided to steer to the South Sandwich Group, round Ultima Thule[4], and work as far to the eastward as the fifteenth meridian west longitude before pushing south. The whalers emphasized the difficulty of getting through the ice in the neighbourhood of the South Sandwich Group. They told me they had often seen the floes come right up to the group in the summer-time, and they thought the Expedition would have to push through heavy pack in order to reach the Weddell Sea. Probably the best time to get into the Weddell Sea would be the end of February or the beginning of March. The whalers had gone right round the South Sandwich Group and they were familiar with the conditions. The predictions they made induced me to take the deck-load of coal, for if we had to fight our way through to Coats’ Land we would need every ton of fuel the ship could carry.
I hoped that by first moving to the east as far as the fifteenth meridian west we would be able to go south through looser ice, pick up Coats’ Land and finally reach Vahsel Bay[3], where Filchner made his attempt at landing in 1912. Two considerations were occupying my mind at this juncture. I was anxious for certain reasons to winter the Endurance in the Weddell Sea, but the difficulty of finding a safe harbour might be very great. If no safe harbour could be found, the ship must winter at South Georgia. It seemed to me hopeless now to think of making the journey across the continent in the first summer, as the season was far advanced and the ice conditions were likely to prove unfavourable. In view of the possibility of wintering the ship in the ice, we took extra clothing from the stores at the various stations in South Georgia.
The other question that was giving me anxious thought was the size of the shore party. If the ship had to go out during the winter, or if she broke away from winter quarters, it would be preferable to have only a small, carefully selected party of men ashore after the hut had been built and the stores landed. These men could proceed to lay out depots by man-haulage and make short journeys with the dogs, training them for the long early march in the following spring. The majority of the scientific men would live aboard the ship, where they could do their work under good conditions. They would be able to make short journeys if required, using the Endurance as a base. All these plans were based on an expectation that the finding of winter quarters was likely to be difficult. If a really safe base could be established on the continent, I would adhere to the original programme of sending one party to the south, one to the west round the head of the Weddell Sea towards Graham Land, and one to the east towards Enderby Land.
We had worked out details of distances, courses, stores required, and so forth. Our sledging ration, the result of experience as well as close study, was perfect. The dogs gave promise, after training, of being able to cover fifteen to twenty miles a day with loaded sledges. The trans-continental journey, at this rate, should be completed in 120 days unless some unforeseen obstacle intervened. We longed keenly for the day when we could begin this march, the last great adventure in the history of South Polar exploration, but a knowledge of the obstacles that lay between us and our starting-point served as a curb on impatience. Everything depended upon the landing. If we could land at Filchner’s base there was no reason why a band of experienced men should not winter there in safety. But the Weddell Sea was notoriously inhospitable and already we knew that its sternest face was turned toward us. All the conditions in the Weddell Sea are unfavourable from the navigator’s point of view. The winds are comparatively light, and consequently new ice can form even in the summer-time. The absence of strong winds has the additional effect of allowing the ice to accumulate in masses, undisturbed. Then great quantities of ice sweep along the coast from the east under the influence of the prevailing current, and fill up the bight of the Weddell Sea as they move north in a great semicircle. Some of this ice doubtless describes almost a complete circle, and is held up eventually, in bad seasons, against the South Sandwich Islands. The strong currents, pressing the ice masses against the coasts, create heavier pressure than is found in any other part of the Antarctic. This pressure must be at least as severe as the pressure experienced in the congested North Polar basin, and I am inclined to think that a comparison would be to the advantage of the Arctic. All these considerations naturally had a bearing upon our immediate problem, the penetration of the pack and the finding of a safe harbour on the continental coast.
The day of departure arrived. I gave the order to heave anchor at 8.45 a.m. on December 5, 1914, and the clanking of the windlass broke for us the last link with civilization[1q]. The morning was dull and overcast, with occasional gusts of snow and sleet, but hearts were light aboard the Endurance. The long days of preparation were over and the adventure lay ahead.
We had hoped that some steamer from the north would bring news of war and perhaps letters from home before our departure. A ship did arrive on the evening of the 4th, but she carried no letters, and nothing useful in the way of information could be gleaned from her. The captain and crew were all stoutly pro-German, and the “news” they had to give took the unsatisfying form of accounts of British and French reverses. We would have been glad to have had the latest tidings from a friendlier source. A year and a half later we were to learn that the Harpoon, the steamer which tends the Grytviken station, had arrived with mail for us not more than two hours after the Endurance had proceeded down the coast.
The bows of the Endurance were turned to the south, and the good ship dipped to the south-westerly swell. Misty rain fell during the forenoon, but the weather cleared later in the day, and we had a good view of the coast of South Georgia as we moved under steam and sail to the south-east. The course was laid to carry us clear of the island and then south of South Thule, Sandwich Group. The wind freshened during the day, and all square sail was set, with the foresail reefed in order to give the look-out a clear view ahead; for we did not wish to risk contact with a “growler[5],” one of those treacherous fragments of ice that float with surface awash. The ship was very steady in the quarterly sea, but certainly did not look as neat and trim as she had done when leaving the shores of England four months earlier. We had filled up with coal at Grytviken, and this extra fuel was stored on deck, where it impeded movement considerably. The carpenter had built a false deck, extending from the poop-deck to the chart-room. We had also taken aboard a ton of whale-meat for the dogs. The big chunks of meat were hung up in the rigging, out of reach but not out of sight of the dogs, and as the Endurance rolled and pitched, they watched with wolfish eyes for a windfall.
I was greatly pleased with the dogs, which were tethered about the ship in the most comfortable positions we could find for them. They were in excellent condition, and I felt that the Expedition had the right tractive-power. They were big, sturdy animals, chosen for endurance and strength, and if they were as keen to pull our sledges as they were now to fight one another all would be well. The men in charge of the dogs were doing their work enthusiastically, and the eagerness they showed to study the natures and habits of their charges gave promise of efficient handling and good work later on.
During December 6 the Endurance made good progress on a south-easterly course. The northerly breeze had freshened during the night and had brought up a high following sea. The weather was hazy, and we passed two bergs, several growlers, and numerous lumps of ice. Staff and crew were settling down to the routine. Bird life was plentiful, and we noticed Cape pigeons, whale-birds, terns, mollymauks, nellies, sooty, and wandering albatrosses in the neighbourhood of the ship. The course was laid for the passage between Sanders Island and Candlemas Volcano. December 7 brought the first check. At six o’clock that morning the sea, which had been green in colour all the previous day, changed suddenly to a deep indigo. The ship was behaving well in a rough sea, and some members of the scientific staff were transferring to the bunkers the coal we had stowed on deck. Sanders Island and Candlemas were sighted early in the afternoon, and the Endurance passed between them at 6 p.m. Worsley’s observations indicated that Sanders Island was, roughly, three miles east and five miles north of the charted position. Large numbers of bergs, mostly tabular in form, lay to the west of the islands, and we noticed that many of them were yellow with diatoms[6]. One berg had large patches of red-brown soil down its sides. The presence of so many bergs was ominous, and immediately after passing between the islands we encountered stream-ice. All sail was taken in and we proceeded slowly under steam. Two hours later, fifteen miles north-east of Sanders Island, the Endurance was confronted by a belt of heavy pack-ice, half a mile broad and extending north and south. There was clear water beyond, but the heavy south-westerly swell made the pack impenetrable in our neighbourhood. This was disconcerting. The noon latitude had been 57° 26´ S., and I had not expected to find pack-ice nearly so far north, though the whalers had reported pack-ice right up to South Thule.
The situation became dangerous that night. We pushed into the pack in the hope of reaching open water beyond, and found ourselves after dark in a pool which was growing smaller and smaller. The ice was grinding around the ship in the heavy swell, and I watched with some anxiety for any indication of a change of wind to the east, since a breeze from that quarter would have driven us towards the land. Worsley and I were on deck all night, dodging the pack. At 3 a.m. we ran south, taking advantage of some openings that had appeared, but met heavy rafted pack-ice, evidently old; some of it had been subjected to severe pressure. Then we steamed north-west and saw open water to the north-east. I put the Endurance’s head for the opening, and, steaming at full speed, we got clear. Then we went east in the hope of getting better ice, and five hours later, after some dodging, we rounded the pack and were able to set sail once more. This initial tussle with the pack had been exciting at times. Pieces of ice and bergs of all sizes were heaving and jostling against each other in the heavy south-westerly swell. In spite of all our care the Endurance struck large lumps stem on, but the engines were stopped in time and no harm was done. The scene and sounds throughout the day were very fine. The swell was dashing against the sides of huge bergs and leaping right to the top of their icy cliffs. Sanders Island lay to the south, with a few rocky faces peering through the misty, swirling clouds that swathed it most of the time, the booming of the sea running into ice-caverns, the swishing break of the swell on the loose pack, and the graceful bowing and undulating of the inner pack to the steeply rolling swell, which here was robbed of its break by the masses of ice to windward.
We skirted the northern edge of the pack in clear weather with a light south-westerly breeze and an overcast sky. The bergs were numerous. During the morning of December 9 an easterly breeze brought hazy weather with snow, and at 4.30 p.m. we encountered the edge of pack-ice in lat. 58° 27´ S., long. 22° 08´ W. It was one-year-old ice interspersed with older pack, all heavily snow-covered and lying west-south-west to east-north-east. We entered the pack at 5 p.m., but could not make progress, and cleared it again at 7.40 p.m. Then we steered east-north-east and spent the rest of the night rounding the pack. During the day we had seen adelie and ringed penguins, also several humpback and finner whales. An ice-blink to the westward indicated the presence of pack in that direction. After rounding the pack we steered S. 40° E., and at noon on the 10th had reached lat. 58° 28´ S., long. 20° 28´ W. Observations showed the compass variation to be 1½° less than the chart recorded. I kept the Endurance on the course till midnight, when we entered loose open ice about ninety miles south-east of our noon position. This ice proved to fringe the pack, and progress became slow. There was a long easterly swell with a light northerly breeze, and the weather was clear and fine. Numerous bergs lay outside the pack.
The Endurance steamed through loose open ice till 8 a.m. on the 11th, when we entered the pack in lat. 59° 46´ S., long. 18° 22´ W. We could have gone farther east, but the pack extended far in that direction, and an effort to circle it might have involved a lot of northing. I did not wish to lose the benefit of the original southing. The extra miles would not have mattered to a ship with larger coal capacity than the Endurance
