CHAPTER IX
DISCOVERIES IN A NEW WORLD OF ICE
On January 3, 1898, we started eastward through Beagle Channel, intending to push southward at once, but an incident happened which changed our progress and also disturbed our ease of mind. This incident proved to be the _Belgica’s_ first geographical discovery. While trying to find Harbourton, a missionary station on the south-eastern shore of the main island of Tierra del Fuego, she struck a reef.
We were steaming eastward through Beagle Channel. It was late at night, and before us there was the dim outline of a long panorama of islands; behind lay the ice-covered mountains of the tail of the Cordilleras. On each side were the black forest-covered steeps of the wild and melancholy Fuegian Islands. At 11 o’clock the twilight was still pouring over the white glacial sheets of the west; the tops of the islands were aglow with a curious pearly light. The water was as smooth as that of the Hudson, but deep down rested the feeble white reflections of the mountain heights. The coastal outline was indeterminable. We pushed along slowly, searching bay after bay for some signs of human life. On a neck of land an object was reported which might be a house, but we could not decide the question even with our best telescopes. We aimed for it. In a few minutes we discovered that our progress through the water was arrested. This was a mystery to us. The engines were forced to their limits, but we remained stationary. Soundings indicated that we were aground on a reef of rocks, but we had gone on so easily that no one had felt a jar. We hoped the tide would rise and lift us off, but it fell and left us stranded. At 4 o’clock in the morning the _Belgica_ began to careen, and at 6 o’clock she had a list, making it impossible to stand on the floor. We tried to brace her up with spars, but they broke like pipe-stems. We now made out the object on shore to be a house and saw also some signs of life about it. Presently a group of men came from it to us. They were Indians, under the direction of Mr. Lucas Bridges, a sheep-farmer. Mr. Bridges volunteered to help us in our efforts to save the ship. I went ashore with him to get the services of as many Indians as possible. The sailors and the Indians, working side by side, began at once to lighten the ship by removing cargo to the shores. Only two or three boat-loads were landed when a sudden storm rolled down the gullies from the high mountains to the north-westward, piling up a sea which made further communication with the ship impossible. From the shore we could see the _Belgica_ rock and roll in response to every gust of wind which passed over us. On the shore and on the ship there was little hope of saving the vessel. Following a tremendous squall we saw the Belgian colours go up and then felt relieved of fear. She drifted with the wind and in an hour disappeared behind a black head of land. The next day she returned and reported no serious injury.
[Illustration: Mount William, Antwerp Island.]
[Illustration: Mount Allo, Liege Island.]
From Harbourton we steamed eastward to the storm-washed shores of Staten Island, where we took our last water-supply, and bade our friends and the known world a final adieu. From the time we left Staten Island, on January 13, 1898, until our return to Punta Arenas, on March 28, 1899, we were in another world--a new icy world, where communication with home regions was impossible. We had troubles of our own, and a little warfare, too--but we were totally ignorant of the Spanish-American War, the Dreyfus case, and the other great national and international troubles which had made history in our absence.
Our first large task was the seemingly impossible work of making a map of the sea bottom and a study of the waters south of Cape Horn. This is a belt of ocean famous as being swept by the most destructive storms on the globe. It is difficult enough for ordinary navigation, but to attempt to remain stationary for three or four hours daily, and sink a wire two miles, with delicate instruments attached, was a venture which did not appeal to us with much promise of success. We were favoured, however, with good weather until we got a glimpse of the South Shetland Islands, and were thus able to make a line of soundings across the previously unfathomed sea. The general depth here was considerable. After passing over a narrow submarine shelf south of Staten Island, the lead dropped suddenly to 13,300 feet. The ocean-bed then rose gradually in an easy slope to the South Shetland Islands, thus proving a rather sharp disconnection between the mountain-ranges of southern South America and those of the imperfectly known antarctic lands.
The first iceberg was met the day before we saw the snowy outline of the South Shetlands. It appeared a long way off, over our port bow, at about 8 o’clock in the evening of January 19th. We all went on deck to get a glimpse of our first antarctic berg, but we made no efforts to get nearer. The sky was sooty, and the air so heavy that the coming twilight was lost in a gloomy mist. Around the dull white mass there was a cloud of vapour which rose and fell, now offering a peep at the strange block of ice, and again veiling it from view. Half sorry to leave it without further observation, we steamed onward until it sank into the stormy sea over our port quarter.
The night which followed was dark. The sea rolled under our stern in huge inky mountains, while the wind scraped the deck with an icy edge. We kept a sharp lookout for icebergs, which might come suddenly into our path out of the impenetrable darkness ahead. The sudden fall of the temperature and the stinging, penetrating character of the wind seemed to warn us that ice was near; but we encountered none. Life was plentiful, but melancholy. Curious albatrosses and petrels hovered about us, uttering strange cries, and in the water there was an occasional spout from a whale. It was a night of uncertainty, of anticipation, of discomfort--an experience which only those who have gone through the wilderness of an unknown sea can understand.
[Illustration: Weddell Sea Leopards of Belgica Strait.
(_Leptonychotes Weddelli._)]
The morning dawned, as it usually does over Cape Horn seas, without the sun, and with a smoky, low, lead-streaked sky. At noon the icy mist overhead melted and an occasional sunburst gave life and colour to the scene. Our soundings indicated a proximity to land, which caused us to skim the horizon constantly through our glasses with keen interest. A small white speck here and there indicated distant icebergs. At about three o’clock in the afternoon a series of low pyramidal masses appeared under the southern sky. It was like a bank of blue fog fringed with snowy bands. The whole length of our seaboard formed an ill-defined, cloud-like aggregation resting on the black waters and extending the entire length from north-east to south-west. As we steamed on, the central groups became more distinct and the whole line rose above the horizon. We now recognised it as the northern exposure of the South Shetland Islands. During the afternoon a gentle but piercing wind came from the land, bringing with it a glassy air and an easy, silvery sea, over which the new land stood out in bold relief. We could distinguish Livingston Island over our port bow, and north-eastward, melting into the blue airy distance, were numerous similar islands. Over our starboard bow was Smith Island, its base still under the water, and its table-topped crest rising into mouse-coloured clouds, sixty miles away.
We hoped that the night would not again be darkened by the ever-present black mist, and pushed rapidly landward to get a good view before midnight. But this was not to be, for as the sun sank in the south-west the wind came out of the north-east with a sooty smoke which blocked out our horizon. The distance was too great to make a good study of the land. In a general way this coast-line resembles the northern parts of the Greenland landscape. About the largest islands there are many small, ice-free isles, or rocks, which serve as resting-places for seals, penguins, cormorants, and gulls. On the larger islands, and especially on Livingston Island, there are high peaks and rounded, dome-like hills, which are crowned with snow, but whose sides are mostly bare and wind-rasped. The valleys are filled with huge glaciers, which send tongues out to the sea. We saw no glaciers, however, which came out from any distance into the water. The limit of the ice was generally at high-water mark, where it wasted away in small fragments. From what we later learned of the lands farther south, it is extremely probable that moss and lichens are here abundant, but there is no hope for grass or trees.
It is very curious that this group of islands, about one hundred in number, with a thousand miles of accessible coast-line, and several good harbours, free of ice for much of the year, should remain unclaimed by any government, and unsettled by human efforts. It would be a humane mission if our government would take possession of these islands, and place there a lighthouse, with a supply station, for the preservation of ship-wrecked sailors. Vessels are lost in this vicinity almost every year, and we do not know but that some poor seamen are not now stranded on one of the many desolate islands, awaiting the relief which never comes.
During the night of the 20th, the ship was kept moving slowly southward. It was another night of anxiety, though there were few icebergs about, and no pack-ice; yet the proximity to an unknown coast and the uncertainty of our position, with unsettled weather, made us all but comfortable. In the morning it was misty. Numerous small icebergs were about us, and while trying to dodge these we made another discovery--we struck a rock. This time we did not go on to it as easily as we did in Beagle Channel. We struck with a force that made the ship tremble and crack from stem to stern. We needed no call to come on deck, but after reaching it, we could not see what had happened.
“We struck an iceberg,” some one said.
“Yes; a black one,” said Knudsen.
A few moments later the fog lifted, and we saw white crests and black rocks about us on every side. The good old ship was turned; she rolled off and struck two or three other rocks, and then steamed away, none the worse for it. As we withdrew we watched the small icebergs being dashed to pieces on the same rocks, and wondered if that would not be our fate with the next encounter.
At about noon on the 21st, the horizon cleared a little, giving us an opportunity to pass safely from the rocks and bergs around us. Sail Rock was visible on our port, but nothing else except the dim outline of Deception Island and the rocks eastward. Sail Rock is remarkable from a distance; it has the appearance of a ship under sail; but at close range it is more like a house with a gable-roof. It is a solid rock about four hundred feet high, a thousand feet long, and five hundred feet wide. The sides for three or four hundred feet are perpendicular, offering no beach, and no ledge as a resting-place for birds, except at the peak. As we had Sail Rock over our quarter, the weather changed; the bright gray of the waters became black, the sky grew lead-coloured, and penguins jumped out of the water and then rushed through it landward with electric swiftness, as if to warn us of a coming storm. The storm, however, did not come until the morning of the 22d.
[Illustration: Cormorants at Home.]
[Illustration: Arctowski gathering Geological Specimens, observed by a Megalestris.
(Cape Lancaster in the Background.)]
This storm proved to us a melancholy affair. The wind at first was not strong or steady, but the sea which rolled under our starboard quarter tossed us about upon its bosom as a child does a toy. Occasionally it broke over us amidship, flooding the laboratory and the galley. There was a large quantity of coal on the decks, and some of this was carried by the swash into the scuppers, making escape of the water impossible. To free the scuppers one of our youngest sailors--Wiencke--was at work periodically during much of his watch. In the afternoon the tempest increased and gathered force hour after hour. Great seas broke over us with increasing violence, while the wind came and went with a cannon-like roar. Everything movable on the decks was swept overboard. At about three o’clock in the afternoon Amundsen and I were on the bridge, straining our eyes and levelling our glasses on a mysterious black object ahead, directly in our course; while thus engaged, we heard an unearthly cry,--a cry which made me shiver because of its force and painful tone. We turned about quickly, but saw nothing to indicate the direction of the noise. Amundsen, thinking there had been an accident in the engine-room, rushed in that direction. I went aft to the quarter-deck, and, looking astern, saw a man struggling among the foamy crests. It was Wiencke--in trying to free the scuppers he had lost his balance, and in falling, he had uttered the awful cry which had startled us. With quick presence of mind he sought the log-line and grasped it. I caught hold of the other end, and began to draw it slowly in, but he slipped until his hand was stopped by the log; upon this he held with a death-like grasp. Before I had pulled in the full length of the line everybody was on deck; but there was little to be done. With the sea tossing the ship about like a chip, and the wind blowing a gale, it was impossible to lower a boat. As I brought Wiencke close to the stern, Lecointe, with a bravery impossible to appreciate, volunteered to be lowered into the icy sea to pass a rope around the poor fellow. He followed his offer with demands for a rope, which was securely fastened around his waist. With two men at the rope, Lecointe was lowered into the churning waters, but he sank at once with the counter-eddies, and nearly lost his own life without being able to keep near Wiencke. Lecointe was raised, and without delay or undue excitement, we managed to tow Wiencke to the side of the ship, where we expected to lower another man. But while we were doing this, he gave up his grip on the log and sank. We waited there for an hour, but saw no more of our unfortunate shipmate. Wiencke was a boy with many friends, and his absence was deeply felt in our little party.
* * * * *
Before night the fog raised, and exposed under it a continuous wall of ice about one hundred and fifty feet high, extending as far eastward and westward as we could see. At first we thought it an iceberg. It had every resemblance to one, but its enormous size led us into doubts. We steamed eastward, keeping from it a distance of about four miles, and presently were able to make out a black line above the water, which later we determined to be rocks. Around the eastern termination were a number of small peaks of volcanic rocks, and from them came, first the odour of guano-beds, and then the deafening squawk--_gha-a-ah_, _gha-a-ah_,--of countless millions of penguins. This was Low Island. We rested here in the lee of its walls for the night, but owing to persistent fogs we did not get a glimpse of its interior.
[Illustration: A Penguin Rookery, Isle Cobalescou.]
[Illustration: Penguins--A Family Gathering on the Pack-ice.]
On the morning of the 23d the sea was easier but choppy, and the weather offered promises of clearing. We took advantage of the conditions to cross Bransfield Strait, which separates the South Shetlands from the mainlands of the true antarctic. The promise of a clear horizon was not realised, for it remained misty all day. Icebergs were passed in great numbers, most of them being table-topped and square cut, with great blue lines, crevasses, and cavities. The mist destroyed the fine outlines and the fascinating colours of the ice. The knife-like corners of the crowns were ill-defined, and the usual exquisite blues and greens were covered by the gloomy gray of the sky. There was about these bergs, even with their subdued colours, something wildly picturesque, but there was also a real danger in our proximity to them in hazy weather.
Historically the record of our predecessors in the region which we are about to enter is short. Early in the twenties the islands about Cape Horn and the South Shetlands were besieged by American fur sealers. They did their work of execution so thoroughly that in the short period of five years almost the entire race of fur seals was exterminated. One of these sealers, Captain Nathaniel Palmer, in a little shallop of forty tons, while seeking new sealing grounds southward, found an extensive country covered with ice and inhabited by penguins and seals. Some years later Captain Biscoe, a British sea-elephant hunter, saw a part of the same country somewhat farther to the south-west, and still later a German sealer, Dallman, saw a part of the same northern coast. To Palmer belongs the honour of the discovery of this vast tract of land. It is a disappointment that his records are so imperfect, but the record of everything antarctic is of a similar nature. Palmer has been forgotten by his own countrymen and ignored by foreign cartographers. In the arrangement of the new chart the Belgian Expedition will attempt to place his name where it belongs--on the land which he saw first of all men.
At 3 o’clock in the afternoon of the 23d a curious white haze appeared upon the southern sky. A little later an imperfect outline of land rose into this haze. It extended as far as we could see to the east and to the west. The top was everywhere veiled by a high mist, and this mist had within it a mysterious light, which is one of the most startling of all the south polar effects. As we drew nearer we noticed that the land was not as it at first appeared, an endless wall of ice, but rough, irregular and disconnected, though it was buried under a mantle of glacial ice, extending to the water’s edge. Here and there were large bays, and one directly over our bowsprit was so wide that it offered us a tempting path southward. Now the maps were carefully studied that we might be able to fix our position on paper; but in this effort we failed.
Over the starboard bow rose two beautiful headlands, mountains of moderate height, perhaps two thousand feet; the first (Mount Pierre) having around it a circular cloak of ice extending from a black crown of rocks at the summit to the sea-line, where it terminated in a perpendicular wall of ice of about one hundred and twenty feet in height. The second (Mount Allo) had a similar form but was much more heavily laden with snow. In front of these remarkable headlands there was a bay, and beyond a long series of mountains, clothed in the same sheet of perennial ice. Eastward there were a number of small islands, mostly free of ice, and beyond, low under the south-eastern sky, was the dim outline of an extensive white country. We set our course somewhat east of south to examine the interruption between the high mountainous land before us and the more even country eastward.
That the reader may better understand the positions I will give the names, which have since been affixed to the discoveries, as we steam along through the undiscovered country.
We headed for a small island (Auguste Island), steaming slowly; for with the ordinary lead we found no bottom to the sea, and being in absolutely unknown water we might at any moment strike a reef, as we had done twice before. It was ten o’clock at night before we were near enough to make a landing. Then a boat was lowered, and into it we piled, eagerly seizing the first opportunity of our mission to study the antarctic lands and life. It was a curious night. Everything about us had an other-world appearance. The scenery, the life, the clouds, the atmosphere, the water--everything wore an air of mystery. There was nothing in our surroundings which resembled the part of the antipodes with which I was familiar. Greenland and antarctic landscapes are apparently as widely different as the distance between them.
Though the sun was sliding eastward just under the high mountains to the south-west it seemed perfectly dark. Nevertheless, on the water, as we paddled over it, there was a curious luminous gray light, by which it was possible to read coarse print even at midnight. This light rested on the new lands to the east and west, and brought out the snowy outlines so perfectly that it was possible to take photographs throughout the night. The sky, however, continued black, made so by the sooty clouds which ceaselessly rose out of the Pacific to drop their white cargoes of snow on the neighbouring lands. There was at this time no wind. The water was smooth and glassy, the land far off and restful; but the life was otherwise. Awe-inspiring and strangely interesting were the curious noises of the cormorants, the penetrating voices of the gulls, the coarse _gha-a-ah_, _gha-a-ah_ of the penguins, the sudden and unexpected spouts of whales, the splash of seals and penguins, and the babyish cries of the young animals on the rocks before us.
There was nothing remarkable in the appearance of this land upon which we were about to embark. It was a heap of hard rocks, mostly granite. The northern exposure was bare, the ravines were still levelled with winter ice, and the southern point had on it a small ice-cap. We afterwards saw a hundred others of a similar nature, and all will pass under the same description. We landed in a small bight, upon a ledge of rocks. I think Arctowski, with his hammer and geological bag, was the first to step ashore, and he was followed by Racovitza, with his paraphernalia to capture natural history specimens. Gerlache and I next stumbled over fragments of ice, and stones and impertinent penguins, who disputed our landing. We wished to get a view of the new land, but the force of the swell was such that we were compelled to return to the boat and push away from the rocks to save it from being smashed.
We rested on the oars while Racovitza and Arctowski did the honours of the expedition; we tried to follow them with our glasses as we rocked about in the boat, but soon lost sight of their movements in the darkness. We were able to locate Arctowski by the dull echo of his hammer, and we were able to trace Racovitza by the chorus of penguins which greeted him from rock to rock. The alternate interchange of the music of the hammer and the war song of the penguins was an entertainment which to Gerlache and myself, will be a long and weird remembrance. At about midnight we returned to the rocky ledge to pick up our companions with their loads of rocks and bags of game. The inhabitants did not like their visitors. The penguins assembled about us, picking at our feet; the gulls hovered threateningly about our heads; and even the harmless cormorants dashed to and fro over us, stretching their long necks to ask our mission. Worst of all the sea-leopards clambered over the rocks near us, snorting and defiantly showing their teeth and rolling their large, glassy eyes. As we left it was too dark to see the movement of an animal one hundred yards from shore, but the peculiar whiteness which rested on the scene made it possible to take a photograph of the island with good details.
During the few hours of night we rested under easy steam, and in the morning we found ourselves well into the bight (Hughes Inlet) which we had entered. The land before us retreated and offered even greater hopes of a passage southward. At five o’clock the sun had already risen over the snowy heights of the east and was under the banks of black clouds which sailed out of the west. There was a solitude and restfulness about this sunburst, and the new world of ice under it which is difficult to describe. Our position at this time was in the centre of a wide waste of water, about twelve miles away from the nearest land. We were too far from the rocks to see birds, and except for an occasional spout of a whale there was nothing to mar the dead silence. A strange pang of loneliness came over us as we paced the deck. There were indications of channels to the south and west, but from the distance at which we reviewed the lands every projection seemed a continuous mass of impenetrable crystal solitude. Could there be a place more desperately silent or more hopelessly deserted?
##