...
"We were joking in the boat as we rowed under these cliffs and saying it
would be a short-lived amusement to see the overhanging cliff part
company and fall on us. So we were glad to find that we were rowing back
to the ship and already 200 or 300 yards away from the place and in open
water when there was a noise like crackling thunder and a huge plunge
into the sea and a smother of rock dust like the smoke of an explosion,
and we realized that the very thing had happened which we had just been
talking about. Altogether it was a very exciting row, for before we got
on board we had the pleasure of seeing the ship shoved in so close to
these cliffs by a belt of heavy pack ice that to us it appeared a toss-up
whether she got out again or got forced in against the rocks. She had no
time or room to turn, and got clear by backing out through the belt of
pack stern first, getting heavy bumps under the counter and on the rudder
as she did so, for the ice was heavy and the swell considerable."[87]
Westward of Cape Crozier the sides of Mount Terror slope down to the sea,
forming a possible landing-place in calm weather. Here there is a large
Adelie penguin rookery in summer, and it was here that the Discovery left
a record of her movements tied to a post to guide the relieving ship the
following year. It was the return of a sledge party which tried to reach
this record from the Barrier that led to Vince's terrible death.
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