In entering the waters below Cape Horn it had been my plan to continue southward not farther than the northern extremity of the South Shetland Islands, thence to bear off in a southwesterly course until the outer edge of the field—or pack-ice—had been reached. This ice fringe would, I believed, begin somewhat north of the Antarctic Circle, not lower than the sixty-fifth parallel—possibly much higher. It would recede before the warm sun of December—the month answering to our northern June. My continued purpose was to creep westward along the edge of the ice-pack, examining every foot of the way, in the hope of finding a warm northerly flowing current, of the sort that Borchgrevink had reported. Such a current would afford a possible entrance to the frozen expanses surrounding the Antarctic Continent—perhaps guide us to the very gateway of the continent itself. Failing to find a passage sooner, we would continue westward to the coast of Victoria Land, and endeavor to reach our destination by following the warm current already reported by Borchgrevink.

I was rather surprised at Captain Biffer’s hearty approval of this outline. I believe now he was of the opinion that a few weeks along the edge of the pack, with perhaps a little squeeze here and there, would satisfy Chauncey Gale’s ambition for Antarctic conquest, and that the Billowcrest would be ordered north for a cruise in the Pacific, in the direction of more friendly latitudes.

For the present, therefore, we continued directly southward—very slowly, for we were still full early—keeping well off the stormy coast of Patagonia, and to the eastward of the Falkland Islands. These we sighted one morning, and ran close in to get a glimpse of inhabited land once more before plunging into the vastness of unknown and unpeopled seas. It was a bleak shore, and perhaps reminded Mr. Larkins of his native Newfoundland, where the conditions were somewhat similar. He gazed solemnly at the forbidding coast along which there showed but meager signs of foliage.

“Thim’s nootmig threes,” he said, at last, waving at the stunted vegetation which we were inspecting through the glasses, and upon which we had been commenting.

Edith Gale protested.

“Oh, Mr. Larkins! Nutmeg trees don’t grow in this cold latitude!”

“Yis, ma’am,—wooden nootmigs. The people ship ’em to the shtates.”

“And that long, smooth rock running down; what’s that, Mr. Larkins?”

“That’s a seals’ shlidy-down. The seals, ma’am, get out there and shoot the shoots. Many’s the time I’ve watched them in Newfoundland. I shouldn’t wonder if the bake-apple grows over there, too,” he added, reflectively.

“Baked apple! Do apples grow already baked in Newfoundland, Mr. Larkins?”

“Not baked apple, but bake-apple, ma’am. A bit of a foine yellow berry that grows on the top of a shlip of a shtalk, so high”—(holding his hand down to within a foot of the deck)—“one berry to the shtalk, ma’am, and delishuous, my worrd! And the bake-apple jam!” Mr. Larkins closed his eyes and wagged his head in a manner to indicate that life without bake-apple jam was but a poor shift, at best. “The bake-apple, is it!” he continued. “Oh, but, Miss, you must never die without tasting the bake-apple!”

There was something about Mr. Larkins’s manner that compelled faith in this unknown fruit, which ordinarily we would have regarded as a pleasant myth of his own. We caught a measure of his enthusiasm. We wanted to see the mysterious golden berry that grew one on a stalk, and had we not been on our way to find the South Pole, I believe we might have gone in pursuit of the bake-apple.

And now we were indeed getting well to the southward. The sun though on its upward incline had fallen far behind. Our days became long spectral cycles broken only by brief periods of luminous twilight, and the glacial feeling in the air was no longer a quality of our imagination. Against the chill wind that came over our bow we tacked but leisurely. Gradually, as we should, we were acquiring the taste for Antarctic cold, and daily the fascination of it, and of the lonely seas around and about, grew upon us.