above
sea-level. In the afternoon we began to prepare the 'James Caird' for
the journey to the head of King Haakon Bay. A noon observation on this
day gave our latitude as 54° 10? 47?? S., but according to the German
chart the position should have been 54° 12? S. Probably Worsley's
observation was the more accurate. We were able to keep the fire alight
until we went to sleep that night, for while climbing the rocks above
the cove I had seen at the foot of a cliff a broken spar, which had
been thrown up by the waves. We could reach this spar by climbing down
the cliff, and with a reserve supply of fuel thus in sight we could
afford to burn the fragments of the 'James Caird's' topsides more
freely.
During the morning of this day (May 13) Worsley and I tramped across
the hills in a north-easterly direction with the object of getting a
view of the sound and possibly gathering some information that would be
useful to us in the next stage of our journey. It was exhausting work,
but after covering about 2? miles in two hours, we were able to look
east, up the bay. We could not see very much of the country that we
would have to cross in order to reach the whaling-station on the other
side of the island. We had passed several brooks and frozen tarns, and
at a point where we had to take to the beach on the shore of the sound
we found some wreckage--an 18-ft.
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