I felt no uneasiness once the lines were cast off, for I knew that everything had been done which could be done to insure success, and that every essential item of supplies was on board.

On former journeys I had sometimes felt anxiety, but through the whole of this last expedition I allowed nothing to worry me.

Perhaps this feeling of surety was because every possible contingency had been discounted, perhaps because the setbacks and knock-out blows received in the past had dulled my sense of danger.
The _Roosevelt_ having coaled at Sydney, we crossed the bay to North Sydney to take on some last items of supplies.

When we started to leave the wharf over there we discovered that we were aground, and had to wait an hour or so for the tide to rise.

In our efforts to move the ship, one of the whale-boats was crushed between the davits and the side of the pier; but after eight arctic campaigns one does not regard a little accident like that as a bad omen.
We got away from North Sydney about half past three in the afternoon of July 17, in glittering golden sunshine.