There is no doubt that Amundsen's plan is a very
serious menace to ours. He has a shorter distance to the Pole by 60
miles--I never thought he could have got so many dogs safely to the ice.
His plan of running them seems excellent. But, above and beyond all, he
can start his journey early in the season--an impossible condition with
ponies."[118]
We read that on leaving McMurdo Sound the Terra Nova coasted eastward
along the Barrier face, with Campbell and his men who were to be landed
on King Edward VII.'s Land if possible. She surveyed the face of the
Barrier as she went from Cape Crozier to longitude 170 deg. W., whence she
shaped a course direct for Cape Colbeck, which Priestley states in his
diary "is only 200 feet high according to our measurement and looks
uncommonly like common or garden Barrier."
Here they met heavy pack, and were forced to return without finding any
place where the cliff was low enough to allow Campbell and his five men
to land. They coasted back, making for an inlet known as Balloon Bight.
Priestley tells the story:
"February 1, 1911. Our trip has not been without outcome after all, and
all our doubts about wintering here or in South Victoria Land have been
settled in a startling fashion. About ten o'clock we steamed into a deep
bay in the Barrier which proved to be Shackleton's Bay of Whales, and our
observations in the last expedition [Shackleton's] have been wonderfully
upheld.
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