CHAPTER XII

ACROSS THE ANTARCTIC CIRCLE--FIRST EFFORTS TO PENETRATE THE PACK

[Illustration: Snowy Petrel, (_Pagodroma nivea_).]

On the evening of the fifteenth we had sunk the land and the drift-ice under the north-eastern horizon. There remains, in that direction, an ice-blink, a bright, cream-colored zone on the sky, which indicates that ice and land is not far off. Icebergs are about us in great numbers, but they are all small, hard, rounded masses, showing the effect of stormy seas. None are over one hundred feet high, and all have a polished surface with huge blue cavities, into which the sea rushes with a cannon-like roar. Giant petrels, cape pigeons, albatrosses and gulls hover about the bark in the air, but in the water we see no life. The night promises to be clear, with a continued fair wind sending us along at the rate of six knots without steam. We are all on deck watching the good old ship plough her way merrily through the virgin antarctic seas, feeling proud of her sterling qualities, and of her sailing capacity, when the Captain suddenly springs into an ecstasy. He acts like a boy with a new toy. We look about for the reason for all the commotion, and he points to the heavens; there, through a break in the low stratus clouds, gleams a star. It is a lonely speck in a narrow strip of blue, but it is the first star which we have seen while along the edge of the south polar lands.

If our dead reckoning is correct we shall cross the antarctic circle to-night, but we have had no opportunity for several days to fix our position. The intermittent fogs and heavy clouds which hang over us constantly have deprived us of the necessary glimpses of the sun, the moon, and the stars, with which to make the nautical calculations. At present our positions by account are only guesses at an actual location because of our absolute ignorance of the currents. During the day and the preceding night we passed great numbers of icebergs, but they were all of the sea-washed and storm-rasped type; irregular in shape, few over a hundred feet high, and all of a dull gray blue colour. The bergs here seem to be fragments of larger tabular masses. Early in the evening a yellow cloud-like figure rose out of the south-east. This, on a closer approach, proved to be a continuation of the mainland. There were tall angular peaks which stood out boldly against the ice-blink thrown upon the vapour which hangs over the land. Between these black peaks were blue valleys filled with glaciers, pouring their frozen streams down the slopes and out into the sea.

At eight o’clock on the morning of the sixteenth we came on deck to gain the first view of the new panorama which the lifting fogs had unveiled. The land here, behind a very bold black headland marking the bluff point of a projecting cape, trends suddenly eastward and sinks under the horizon. The north-western side of this cape is remarkable for its great tongue of ice spreading out smoothly from a snow-covered ridge far interior, and breaking off in an even uninterrupted wall of ice at the seashore. The southern shore has also a great ice-wall, but this wall is interrupted by several black, rocky cliffs which separate the land-ice into numerous glacial streams. Beyond the black headland there are two sharp peaks, about four thousand feet high, and to each side of these are a few dome-like mountains of a lesser height. About ten miles beyond this ridge there is a chain of white peaks, with a general height of perhaps six thousand feet, running parallel to the eastward trend of the coast. Far to the south, still fifty or sixty miles off, we saw a great mass of high land which later proved to be a group of islands. Between the headland eastward, upon which our eyes first landed, and the great cliffs to the south, there is a break in the land which may be a bay or a strait. It is filled with heavy sea-ice and studded with countless icebergs, making an examination of the continuation of the coast impossible. We were compelled to set a course southward, leaving open the question as to whether the coast of Grahamland ends here or extends farther poleward.

Leaving this land behind us we steamed southward during the day, pressing as closely to the land in that direction as the pack-ice, which was held close to the shore, would permit. We decided, at this time, that the land before us was Alexanderland, and behind us, probably, that which is charted as Adelaide Island; but there is nothing about this latter land, as we view it over the stern, which indicates that it is an island. If an island, which Lecointe doubts, it must be a very large one, with the eastern termination beyond our horizon. On the whole, it seems to us like a very large country, ridged by at least two high mountain chains, which are covered with ice to their peaks. We have formed the impression that it is a part of the mainland, and conclude that a strait probably separates Grahamland from the farther antarctic. But this is merely an impression; the facts are that the land, though agreeing in position with the assigned location of Adelaide Island, does not bear any resemblance to the discoverer’s meagre description. As to the land before us, there seems to be no doubt among the officers but that it is the country charted Alexander I. Land, by the Russian explorer, Bellingshausen, seventy-six years ago. He saw it only from a great distance and it has not been seen by human eyes before or since. Now the _Belgica_ is heading for it; but there is so much heavy pack-ice, which appears to embrace the shores, that we do not entertain any hopes of effecting a landing.

At noon our latitude was 67° 58′ south, the longitude, 69° 53′ west of Greenwich. We hauled a little westward of the outer drift of the pack, and Alexanderland rose up over our port bow still forty or fifty miles away. There are scattered in the waters westward, and in the pack eastward, forty-four icebergs of moderate size. About half of these are tabular in form; the other half are of the pinnacled and sea-washed, or weather-worn variety. A few small black-billed penguins are in the water, darting over the surface and again into the deep, with electric swiftness. Close to the pack-ice, there rises from the black surface of the sea, a number of columns of vapour-like jets. Through our glasses we see under these the black backs of whales with large dorsal fins, and occasionally a ponderous tail whips the water into a foamy whirlpool. On some of the pans of ice are seals basking in the sun, and over the ship, apparently touching the masts and the ropes as the bark rocks to and fro, are giant petrels, Cape pigeons, gulls, white, brown, and blue petrels, all pointing their bills and stretching their necks to examine, perhaps for the first time, human beings and their crafts.

There is a dreamy stillness in the air, in spite of the frequent stirs of wild life, and a charming touch of colour to the sea, the ice, and the land, though the sky is dull, gray, and gloomy. At first glance all seems white and black, and we are impressed with the weight of the awful snowy solitude into which we are entering. A sense of chilly loneliness is more and more forced upon us by the passing panorama of snow, and ice, and deserted rocks. But, critically considered, after the first pangs of desolation have passed, there are a few of us who find some cheer and colour in the harmony of the perennial chilliness before us. This morning there was a break in the clouds, and through this came a flood of yellow light which made the bergs and the icy cliffs of Alexanderland stand out like walls of gold. Shortly after noon a pale blue was thrown over the white glitter of the pack, which increased the high lights, darkened the shadows, and made the moving mass of whiteness, as it rose and fell with the giant wave of the sea, a thing of gladness.

[Illustration:

OSGOOD ART COLORTYPE CO., CHI. & N. Y.

Midnight At Midsummer Over The Antarctic Mainland]

At four o’clock in the afternoon we had made a rough outline of the new land before us. It proved to be a group of islands (Alexander Islands) about twenty-five miles long and from ten to fifteen miles wide. There is one large central island, about eighteen miles long, with a high ridge of mountains running approximately from east to west. In this ridge there are three peaks not less than four thousand, five hundred feet in altitude. These are quite pyramidal in form and are covered with snow to their summits, with only an occasional bare, perpendicular rock. This ridge of mountains tapers gradually towards the west and terminates abruptly in the east. Running parallel to this central ridge, about four miles southward, there is a lesser chain of mountains about two thousand feet high, whose sides sink almost perpendicularly into the sea. There is also a similar ridge to the southward. The two valleys between these three ridges of mountains are filled with great sheets of glacial ice. We had a splendid view of these glaciers as we passed about twenty miles off the western end of the island. The northern valley was rough, much crevassed, and generally irregular, extending its tongue out over the sea for several miles. The valley south of the central ridge appeared like a great plain with easy slopes toward the sea, where the frozen mass seemed to project over the waters for a short distance. Around this one large island were a number of small islands, angular rocky masses, mostly covered with caps of glacial ice. These, from a greater distance, appeared to be a part of the main central land mass. The vast number of icebergs to the eastward of the land gave it, also, from a greater distance, the appearance of being connected with some larger land eastward; but from our various positions we were able to make out distinctly that the islands are a separate group with no other land eastward within sight. Our positions northward in the morning and southward during the night, proved this. We saw some signs of land to the south during the afternoon, but these vanished later. It was evidently a mirage.

We lost sight of the Alexander Islands at about ten o’clock last night, when it became too dark to see more than a few miles. During the night we steamed slowly over a south-westerly course close to the edge of the pack. At 6 a.m. (February 17) the fires were covered and the sails braced to a fair wind, sending us along, south-westerly, at the rate of about four knots. There was some rain and snow during the night, which lined the decks, covered the ropes, and sheeted the sails with ice. So thoroughly were the sails incased that we were unable to set the patent topsails. We hammered and pounded the sails and then we pulled and lugged at the ropes, but our efforts were in vain. The steam-winch was brought to our aid, but it, too, failed to bring down the icy sails. At eight o’clock, when I came on deck, there was no land or ice in sight. (We saw no more land for thirteen months.)

An hour later we passed along the outer fringe of small fragments of drift ice. The weather changed every few minutes. Alternately we had rain, and sleet, and fog, and snow. Our speed was increasing and the wind came in strong puffs. We had seen very few bergs in the forenoon, but the horizon was constantly hazed by thick weather, so we must have passed many without being able to see them. Just before noon, while trying to walk over the slippery decks, my attention was suddenly directed to a dark spot in the fog over our port bow. I watched this for a second or two, for the spot grew curiously lighter as we went on. Everything was stiff, and dark, and dull. The lookout on the capstan threw his arm easily, but anxiously, on the anchor and leaned over to fix his eye on the same object, but he gave no signal, and I said nothing, for there didn’t seem to be anything tangible to report. The Captain now walked from the chart table to the port-side of the bridge; just as he caught sight of the curious object it brightened with a blink and a fraction of a second later a great wall of ice, towering far above the masts, stood before us. “Hard-a starboard,” shouted the Captain, with such abruptness and such force that a quiver went deep into the heart of everyone on deck; a few moments later we grazed the marble-like cliff of a huge iceberg, gliding by so closely that we nearly scraped its knife-like edges.

[Illustration: The _Belgica_ pressing Southward through the Drift-ice.]

[Illustration: Iceberg off Cape Tuxen.]

During the afternoon we sailed westerly, keeping the streams of drift-ice within sight. There were fewer icebergs as we advanced, but it continued foggy, with alternate squalls of rain and snow, which prevented our seeing to any long distance. The ice which we have passed within the past few days, and the pack to the southward, are not, at any place, formidable except in the choked channels, Bismarck Inlet, and the inlet north of Alexanderland. If we had awaited an easterly wind, which is the prevailing wind of summer, no doubt we might have forced a way southward along the coast of Grahamland. The season for antarctic navigation, however, is already past, and if we are to make a point far south this year, which the Commandant desires, we must push on with all force.

Early in the evening the prow was turned southward. With sails and steam the good ship was rushed through the light streams of drift-ice. The sea rolled under her in great inky mountains and the ice, in response to the wave, gave off a noise like the crackle of a silk garment. At midnight we came to a region where the sea was closely covered with ice, but the pieces were still small and separated by bands of water covered with brash.

6 a.m. February 18. Those of us not directly connected with the navigation of the bark, and the men off watch, slept very little last night; the noise of the larger pans, as they struck the ship, and the grating and rasping of the smaller fragments, as the _Belgica_ was forced through the ice, was such that sleep was impossible. We were all anxious and uneasy. There was little wind, but it was dark and foggy, and icebergs were everywhere to be expected. Mentally another berg collision was constantly before us and every unusual thump suggested a calamity. As the purple gray of dawn illuminated the horizon eastward, our hearts beat more easily, and our minds were more at rest, though the new scene which now lay before us was the most hopeless icy-desolation which, to the present, it had been our lot to see.

All about us the ice was very closely packed. There was a seemingly endless sea of ice, waving on the swell of the great restless waters under us. It was the first really good view which we had had of the characteristic ice, which covers the limitless expanse of this circumpolar ocean. Farther northward the true sea-ice was so much melted and weather-worn, and so much mixed with small angular fragments of icebergs and other land-ice, that the pack was a conglomerate mass entirely different from the true pack-ice. Now, as the sun rose and the mist dissolved, we saw pans of ice of an average diameter of one hundred feet, with a thickness of five feet, whose surfaces were raised here and there, by old wind-rasped hummocks or miniature mountains, from one to two yards high. Between these pans there were zones of water covered with closely packed pulverised ice, in which there were some pieces a few feet in diameter. In our efforts to push southward we selected these lanes between the larger pans, but the fine ice so effectually stopped our progress that even by using the full power of the engines we could not make more than two miles in six hours. A long and continuous swell of the Pacific was responsible for the steady pressure and forced continuity of the pack. Here, also, were large numbers of icebergs scattered in the pack, and from a distance they seemed to offer a continuous barrier. While this was not true when the horizon was closely examined, their influence, however, coupled with the power of the great swell of the sea, was an effective bar to farther progress.

[Illustration: Penguins on a Sea-worn Iceberg Resembling a Whale.]

On the ice we see a number of crab-eating seals, mostly in pairs, but some in groups of five or six. They are in a sleepy mood and evidently enjoy the sharp sunbursts which now and then light up the beds of snow and the projecting icy spires with an electric glow. There are a few penguins about, and also some giant petrels; but the ornithological surprise of the day is the countless thousands of terns resting on, and hovering about, the icebergs. Great rows cover the ridges, and in some places the air is one hustling mass of bird life, all seeming to strive for a place to fly, or fighting for a resting spot on the higher angles of the bergs.

During the afternoon we saw a black zone along the northern horizon. It was a water-sky indicating that under it there was open, ice-free water. To the south, to the east, and to the west, however, there was everywhere the dazzling whiteness of the ice-blink on the heavens, offering no hope of advance.

We now tried to retrace our path, but we were held with such a firm embrace that we could not gain sufficient room to turn. At six o’clock the pressure slackened a little and, at the same time, we saw a black line of open water about two miles westward. We headed for this and for seven long hours we struggled with full force to press between the firmly packed floes. After midnight we were again in free waters, and set a course westerly along the edge of the pack-ice.

February 19, noon, latitude 69° 06′, longitude 78° 27′ 30″. The conditions permitting nautical observations are rare at the edge of the pack, because here the atmosphere is in a constant whirlpool of agitation. Storm, fog, rain, sleet and snow, are the normal conditions. One rarely gets a peep of the sun, and if by chance it should break through, it is seldom at noon or at an hour convenient for the Captain to make his reckoning. If then it happens, as it has to-day, that we obtain the observations which fix our position accurately in this lonely world of desolation, a kind of boyish rejoicing runs along the line of men on the decks; and even in the cabins, one hears comparisons. One says, “Now I am nine thousand, nine hundred and eighty-nine miles from home. It is noon, but at home they are just taking breakfast.” Another says, “Everybody that I love is nine thousand miles over our starboard quarter. They are just entering upon the duties of the day.” It has suddenly occurred to every one to think of home and of civilisation, for we are going farther and farther away from the known world of life and comfort into the unknown world of sterility and discomfort. To-day we know the exact spot on which we are being thrown about by a great unknown sea of mystery, and this knowledge seems to bring us nearer home because it offers us something tangible with which to make comparisons. In reality, however, we are as hopelessly isolated as if we were on the surface of Mars, and we are plunging still deeper and deeper into the white antarctic silence. A man at the verge of starvation takes a certain comfort in knowing, though it is out of his reach, that food exists. So with us, we extract a certain amount of satisfaction out of the numbers which record our latitude and longitude to-day, though our homes are proven by the figures to be out of all possible reach for months, perhaps for years, and possibly forever.

All day we have steamed westerly along the edge of the pack, passing very many icebergs and running through occasional streams of drift-ice. We have been looking for an opening into the ice offering us a passage southward, but we have found no promising break in the compact mass. Excepting the sunburst at noon it has been a dark, dull, gloomy day. A light fall of snow, mixed with a cold drizzling rain, has fallen over us almost constantly. This has again made the decks like a sliding pond. It is humorous, but also sorrowful, to see the men, whose clothing is sheeted with a plate of ice, stumble and glide and slip from rope to rope, always holding on to something to keep from spreading on the floor or glancing overboard into the icy waters. If one falls he swears and warms the cold air by heated language, but he is at once subdued by a companion, who says, “What! you complain of such little accidents, and you an explorer? No! that is the voice of a kitchen adventurer.”

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