ON THE RELIEF SHIP.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 73, 27 March 1909, Page 9

ON THE RELIEF SHIP.

THE NIMROD'S EXPERIENCES PICKING UP THE EXPLORING PARTY. STAUNCH LITTLE VESSEL SEVERELY TESTED. INTERVIEW WITH LIEUT. EVANS. [Bt Telegraph.— Special to The Post.] CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Lieut. Evans, of the Nimrod, in the course of an interesting interview with your representative gave a full account of the journey 01 the little vessel on the relief trip. "Proceeding under canvas after the first two days we reached the pack ice, speaking from memory, on 22nd December. After passing through the first belt of pack ice, which \vas about sixty miles wide and occupied us for two days, we proceeded south on an easterly meridian ■until brought up by heavy impenetrable pack. This compelled us to make a cast back to the nor'-west. Whilst in 173 west- longitude and in latitude 70.42 ws> Look a sounding. No bottom was reached with 1575 fathoms of wire. Prom a. point somewhat south of that we steered for M'Murdo Sound, and reached the edge of the pack five miles outside Beaufort Island at 4 p.m. on Ist January. With the help of the current, which seems to set constantly irom east to west between Cape Bird and Beaufort Island, we gradually drifted in two days to a point at which we were only twentyeight miles from Cape Royds. The last mile or so had been done through an. opening in the pack under easy steam, and this brought us to the edge of what appeared to be a fixed ice sheet." Lieut. Evans then told of the experiences of Mr. M'lntosh and party in. their journey to Cape Royds witn. the mails. Meanwhile the Nimrod was also trying to get to the Cape, and finally succeeded in reaching there about 4 p.m. on the Bth, having seen no sign of Mr. M'lntosh. He had left the ship four days before to cross the ice. "Hearing of his non-arrival," continued Lieut. Evans, "I left immediately with the ship with a view to searching the coastline, but we became beset in the pack, and drifted helplessly about 45 miles in a N.N.W. direction." VESSEL SEVERELY TESTED. We remained helplessly in the pack until the 16th, and during this period wo experienced at limes severe pressure, which proved our vessel to be exceedingly staunch. We were also Compelled to subject the Nimrod to severe tests in ramming the ice in the endeavour to free ourselves. We were successful in mauaging this on 'the 16th, and picked up on the Sunday, in < the afternoon, the mail pack left by Mr. M'lntosh in his tent at the spot at which he landed on the 4th, and from which he set out for Cape Royds on the 11th. We reached Cape Royds with the ship again on the 17th, and learned tj our great relief that M'lntosh and M'Gillan had arrived, after having experienced considerable risks, which have been already described. ALL THE LAND PARTIES AWAY. With the exception of two men, every member of the Jand party was at this time away from the winter quarters on expeditions in various directions. Lieut. Shackleton had just started on the return journey from his farthest-south point, the party was at Ferrar Glacier, and the northern party was at the Magnetic Pole. During the fine weather which prevailed for a time Mr. Davis, the chief officer, was engaged in sledging down from the hut and loading from the ice, alongside which the ship was then lying, the accumulated geological and zoological specimens previously collected. ICE-SHEET BREAKING UP. On 22nd and 23 January a fresh wind from the south commenced to break i up the ice-sheet in the neighbourhood of Cape Royds, compelling the ship to be taken further to the southward. From this point I detached Mr. Davis in charge of a sledge party to convey to Hut Point despatches which were to be forwarded with the supporting party to Lieut. Shackleton, considering that after a southerly wind it might be possible for the ship to get sufficiently far across M'Murdo Sound to examine the western coast in the neighbourhood in which we expected some parties might be. SEARCHING FOR THE EXPLORERS On the 27th we got under way, and stood west for that purpose. We sue- | cceded in picking up the western party in the afternoon, one of the party signalling us with a heliograph. After this date fine weather was only experienced for short intervals, and as a consequence the fast ice that remained in the sound commenced to break up rapidly, and took the form of pack drifting northwards. During the time that the blizzards blew we were trying to preserve our position and at the same time conserve our coal. We moored on the lee side of a stranded iceberg in the neighbourhood of Cape Barne, until the ice was so much broken up as to enable us to get so far south as Glacier j-ongue. We made use of tha-t ice formation to establish a shelter, which served us when required during the remainder of our tay in the Antarctic. THE OVERDUE MAGNETIC POLE PARTY. On Ist February, acting on instructions left ,by Lieutenant Shackleton, we proceeded north along the western coast and searched foi Professor David's party — now some three weeks overdue. After experiencing some small navigational difficulties in this search, we had the good fortune to dis.cover this party on the 4th of February upon the northern ice cliff of the Drygolski Barrier Tongue, they having just completed the remarkablo journey in connection with the attainment of the magnetic pole. It had been impossible to give them any support from the time they left the winter quarters on sth October up to the date when we found them on the ice cliff. As it turned out they had only just been early enough in the season to reach the Drygolski Barrier on their way to the magnetic pole before the sea ice over which they had been travelling broke up. They had encountered and overcome extreme difficulties in their ascent to and their descent from the plateau, and it need scarcely be said that they welcomed our arrival with enthusiasm. INTERESTING SOUNDINGS. Some interesting soundings were taken at ths point at which we picked up Professor David and his party on 11th February. Having been delayed by southerly blizzards, we reached Cape Royds again on 20th February. The southern supporting party returned to Hut Point, whence we conveyed them to Cape Royds to clear up the winter quarters ready for the departure. Aiter this date the temperature became much lower and the blizzards more frequent. RETURN OF THE POLE-SEEKERS. On Ist March, only ten days before it would have become finally necessary to leave with or without the southern party, Lieutenant Shackleton and Mr. Wyld reached Hut Point, having made a forced march of thirty-three miles to

get help from the ship to bring in Dr. Marshall, who had been left in camp prostrate with dysentery on the previous day under the care of the fourth member of the party. We embarked Lieut. Shackleton at about 11.30 p.m., and at 3 p.m., having steamed up the Great Barrier edge to the southward of Cape Armitage, we landed him with a picked relief party to bring in Dr. Marshall. A REMARKABLE PERFORMANCE. This forced march in and the relief journey meant that Lieutenant Shackleton sledged a distance of about one hundred miles in three days — a remarkable performance at tho end of a journey which had already totalled more than 1700 statute miles. Tfhe weather was now almost constantly Bad. On the nrght of Ist March and the early morning of 2nd March we seized tht> opportunity that a lull gave us to get aboard at Cape Royds the remaining specimens and some of the stores. When this work had been nearly completed, at 6.30 a.m. on the 2nd, the wind freshened from the southward in a squall. BOAT'S CREW IN DANGER. Mr. Davis's boat just succeeded in pulling off from the ice face to the ship at her anchorage before the sea made ; the second officer's boat, which was compelled to wait a little longer at the ice face, failed to reach the ship against a rapidly-rising sea owing to an oar breaking and the frost-bitten condition of the hands of the boat's crew. The men in the boat were for some time in considerable danger, but they were finally rescued by being pulled up the ice face by members of the land party still remaining on shore. The boat then filled and sank under the ice foot. When Mr. Davis's boat had been hoisted in the davits it became necessary for the ship to slip her anchor, a contingency ,for which arrangements had been made on coming to anchor at 9 o'clock the previous night. The ship sought shelter, this time at Glacier Tongue. An attempt was made in the evening of the 2nd to embark the remaining members of the land party, and tho boat's crew now at Cape Royds without any blankets, but the weather ma-dc this impracticable. FINAL DIFFICULTIES OVERCOME. A second attempt to embark the men on the morning of the 3rd succeeded. The blizzard was still blowing fresh, and the ship once more nought shelter at Glacier Tongue, but at 10 o'clock that i night we received a signal from Hut Point, and proceeding there we picked up Lieut. Shackleton and the complete southern party. We had got them aboard by 1 a.m. on the 4th. We endeavoured to pick' up their sledge and geological specimens left at Pram Point, but were Erevented from doing this until 11 a.m. y the toughness of the new ice. After we had succeeded in this we started on the homeward voyage.