The Worst Journey in the World | Page 6

not continue to follow the Antarctic
Circle.
Ross left England in September 1839 under instructions from the
Admiralty. He had under his command two of Her Majesty's sailing
ships, the Erebus, 370 tons, and the Terror, 340 tons. Arriving in
Hobart, Tasmania, in August 1840, he was met by news of discoveries
made during the previous summer by the French Expedition under
Dumont D'Urville and the United States Expedition under Charles
Wilkes. The former had coasted along Adélie Land, and for sixty miles
of ice cliff to the west of it. He brought back an egg now at Drayton
which Scott's Discovery Expedition definitely proved to be that of an
Emperor penguin.
All these discoveries were somewhere about the latitude of the
Antarctic Circle (66° 32´ S.) and roughly in that part of the world

which lies to the south of Australia. Ross, "impressed with the feeling
that England had ever led the way of discovery in the southern as well
as in the northern region, ... resolved at once to avoid all interference
with their discoveries, and selected a much more easterly meridian
(170° E.), on which to penetrate to the southward, and if possible reach
the magnetic Pole."[8]
The outlines of the expedition in which an unknown and unexpected
sea was found, stretching 500 miles southwards towards the Pole, are
well known to students of Antarctic history. After passing through the
pack he stood towards the supposed position of the magnetic Pole,
"steering as nearly south by the compass as the wind admitted," and on
January 11, 1841, in latitude 71° 15´ S., he sighted, the white peaks of
Mount Sabine and shortly afterwards Cape Adare. Foiled by the
presence of land from gaining the magnetic Pole, he turned southwards
(true) into what is now called the Ross Sea, and, after spending many
days in travelling down this coast-line with the mountains on his right
hand, the Ross Sea on his left, he discovered and named the great line
of mountains which here for some five hundred miles divides the sea
from the Antarctic plateau. On January 27, "with a favourable breeze
and very clear weather, we stood to the southward, close to some land
which had been in sight since the preceding noon, and which we then
called the High Island; it proved to be a mountain twelve thousand four
hundred feet of elevation above the level of the sea, emitting flame and
smoke in great profusion; at first the smoke appeared like snowdrift,
but as we drew nearer its true character became manifest.... I named it
Mount Erebus, and an extinct volcano to the eastward, little inferior in
height, being by measurement ten thousand nine hundred feet high, was
called Mount Terror." That is the first we hear of our two old friends,
and Ross Island is the land upon which they stand.
"As we approached the land under all studding-sails we perceived a
low white line extending from its eastern extreme point as far as the eye
could discern to the eastward. It presented an extraordinary appearance,
gradually increasing in height as we got nearer to it, and proving at
length to be a perpendicular cliff of ice, between one hundred and fifty
and two hundred feet above the level of the sea, perfectly flat and level
at the top, and without any fissures or promontories on its even seaward
face."[9]

Ross coasted along the Barrier for some 250 miles from Cape Crozier,
as he called the eastern extremity of Ross Island, after the commander
of the Terror. This point where land, sea and moving Barrier meet will
be constantly mentioned in this narrative. Returning, he looked into the
Sound which divides Ross Island from the western mountains. On
February 16 "Mount Erebus was seen at 2.30 A.M., and, the weather
becoming very clear, we had a splendid view of the whole line of coast,
to all appearance connecting it with the main land, which we had not
before suspected to be the case." The reader will understand that Ross
makes a mistake here, since Mounts Erebus and Terror are upon an
island connected to the mainland only by a sheet of ice. He continues:
"A very deep bight was observed to extend far to the south-west from
Cape Bird [Bird was the senior lieutenant of the Erebus], in which a
line of low land might be seen; but its determination was too uncertain
to be left unexplored; and as the wind blowing feebly from the west
prevented our making any way in that direction through the young ice
that now covered the surface of the ocean in every part, as far as we
could see from the mast-head, I determined to steer towards the bight to
give it a closer examination, and to learn with more