Ernest Shackleton, a polar explorer, led several British expeditions to Antarctica during the early 20th century. After Shacklet
on's ship, the Endurance, was trapped and destroyed by ice, Shackleton and his crew were forced to camp on masses of floating ice as they tried to save themselves from the hazardous circumstances.
The following day was Sunday (April 9), but it proved no day of rest for us. Many of the important events of our Expedition occurred on Sundays, and this particular day was to see our forced departure from the floe on which we had lived for nearly six months, and the start of our journeyings in the boats.
3. "This has been an eventful day. The morning was fine, though somewhat overcast by stratus and cumulus clouds; moderate south-southwesterly and southeasterly breezes. We hoped that with this wind the ice would drift nearer to Clarence Island. At 7 a.m. lanes of water and leads could be seen on the horizon to the west. The ice separating us from the lanes was loose, but did not appear to be workable for the boats. The long swell1 from the northwest was coming in more freely than on the previous day and was driving the floes2 together in the utmost confusion. The loose brash between the masses of ice was being churned to mud like consistency, and no boat could have lived in the channels that opened and closed around us. Our own floe was suffering in the general disturbance, and after breakfast I ordered the tents to be struck and everything prepared for an immediate start when the boats could be launched."
I had decided to take the James Caird myself, with Wild and eleven men. This was the largest of our boats, and in addition to her human complement she carried the major portion of the stores. Worsley had charge of the Dudley Docker with nine men, and Hudson and Crean were the senior men on the Stancomb Wills.
Soon after breakfast the ice closed again. We were standing by, with our preparations as complete as they could be made, when at 11 a.m. our floe suddenly split right across under the boats. We rushed our gear on to the larger of the two pieces and watched with strained attention for the next development. The crack had cut through the site of my tent. I stood on the edge of the new fracture, and, looking across the widening channel of water, could see the spot where for many months my head and shoulders had rested when I was in my sleeping bag. The depression formed by my body and legs was on our side of the crack. The ice had sunk under my weight during the months of waiting in the tent, and I had many times put snow under the bag to fill the hollow. The lines of stratification showed clearly the different layers of snow. How fragile and precarious had been our resting place! Yet usage had dulled our sense of danger. The floe had become our home, and during the early months of the drift we had almost ceased to realize that it was but a sheet of ice floating on unfathomed3 seas. Now our home was being shattered under our feet, and we had a sense of loss and incompleteness hard to describe.
How is the point of view in paragraph 3 different from that of the rest of the text?
A. It presents conversations among the members of the expedition; the rest of the text presents Shackleton’s later account to readers.
B. It presents Shackleton’s point of view at the time of the expedition and probably comes from a journal or log he kept; the rest of the text presents his later account to readers.
C. It presents Shackleton’s point of view as a leader giving orders to the other expedition members; the rest of the text presents Shackleton’s later account of the expedition to readers.
D. It presents the point of view of another expedition member giving a later account of events; the rest of the text presents Shackleton’s account of events at the time of the expedition and probably comes from a journal or log he kept.
