CHAPTER XXVI

THE SPRING (CONTINUED)--RETURN OF LIGHT--A SLEDGE JOURNEY

The morning of July thirty-first opened with a golden glow northward, and a fair but cold wind, driving the hard crystals of snow over the crust with a metallic ring. The weather for several days had not been promising, but on this morning the barometer was steady, the temperature -34° with a fresh breeze from the south. The meteorologist assured us that the signs promised excellent weather. We have learned to take the official weather forecasts with an air of disbelief. Still we started; the sledge was put on the ice, the bundles of food, fuel, furs, tent, etc., were tossed on the snow, and quickly our sledge was snugly loaded, and a sail set to a fair wind. The sail helped us much; its force was equal to that of one man. The surface of the ice was fairly good for sledge travelling, a thin crust on the top offering little friction to the sledge, and generally the runners did not break through. Such a condition was found on the larger pans upon which there were small snow-covered hummocks, from one to three metres high here and there, but around these we could always find a passage.

Physically we believed ourselves in fine trim. Every moment of sunlight had been used by us for exercise. We had been on a forced diet of penguin meat, and had undergone the baking treatment to bring our strength to the maximum. We were, however, far from normal, though our ambitions, like the spring flow of rivers, were no longer to be confined to ordinary bounds. Our real difficulty began when we left the large old fields to cross the young ice of leads. Here were huge ridges of pressure-lines all nearly impassable, and the little valley-like spaces between were covered by beds of dry snow in very small crystals, over which a sledge runs about as easily as over sand. Another disheartening series of regions, were the sites of recent leads and lakes over which it was necessary to pass. These were sheets of water thinly covered with ice from three to six inches in thickness, and coated by a most beautiful fur of hoar-frost. The nearness of this to the level of the water, and the great difference between the temperature of the water and that of the air kept it constantly humid. An evaporation rose from this new ice as if water were boiling under a screen. The mixture of water with cold snow offers a surface over which a sledge slides with the greatest difficulty. There are several methods of overcoming this resistance. One method is to shoe the sledge with ivory or whalebone, or what I like fully as well, penguin skin, but for this we were not prepared at the time.

At a distance of about a mile from the ship we stopped to take compass bearings of her and the surrounding icebergs or landmarks. The scene here was a picture for the gods. In the north the sun, a great yellow ball of fire, was gliding westward along the horizon, laying beams of gold on the endless sheets of white of the pack. The moon, nearly full, a bright globe of frosted silver, floated high in the eastern heavens. The sky was, here and there, thinly veiled by stratus clouds formed by the ever-present microscopic specks of snow which float about in the antarctic atmosphere. The colours above were not rich but restful, and on the frozen bosom of the sea there was a charm which cannot be made to flow under my pen. The surface was everywhere rough and ragged, the line of horizon in some places looking not unlike a profile of ruined, marble buildings. The many, rough edges of blue hummocks, the thin plains of green and yellow, young ice, the clear-cut edges of icebergs, with walls assuming various colours, according to the amount and kind of light absorbed, made a dreamy, fairy-like scene.

[Illustration: The Midnight Sun Over the Pack-ice.]

Before us, apparently within gunshot, was our destination, the great tabular iceberg, its deceptive nearness urging us on to action, and offering us the hope to be able to camp in the lee of it before night. But in reality it was not less than sixteen miles away. Behind us was the little _Belgica_, the only speck of human life in this rolling sweep of the great south frigid zone. How little and insignificant she seems amid these huge sheets and mountains of ice! Yet upon her stability, upon her power to fight and resist the awful attacks of the storming rams of ice, depends not only our comfort and success, but our lives. We travelled in perfect comfort and with much ease, two on _ski_, and one on disc snowshoes to push and guide the sledge. The sun sank under the horizon at about two o’clock, the moon which had been visible all day now assumed a more hopeful face, and little by little the dark-blue twilight circle rose on the southern sky. In the twilight it was difficult to see the hummocks, the crevasses, and the weak sheets of ice. When we began to think of a site for a camp we were, apparently, no nearer our destination after the day’s march of seven miles than when we started. At this time we saw a small smoky discoloration on the sky ahead of us, from which we concluded that water was not far off. A little later, we came to a lead covered with new ice over which we crossed to a very rough peninsula of old ice. From here we saw first a line of greenish yellow ice, which we have learned, by experience, is usually not strong enough to bear the weight of a man; then we saw a black line of open water beyond. After a little careful observation we were able to distinguish many whales and seals in this lead.

Our course being directly across this break in the ice, we decided to pitch the tent on the nearest floe which offered a solid bed. This lead had a general direction from east to west; it was about one mile wide at its narrowest points, but in other places there were expansions of from two to four miles. A good floe was found to be south of this, and our site for camping resembled in many ways the margin of a large river. The old ice with the ridges of hummocks offered an elevated bank. In the centre were fragments of ice, floating about like the winter ice of a stream. It was a real joy to pitch the new tent, after our experience with the ill-adapted old ones. In less than three minutes it was set, and a fire was in progress for a needed meal. The temperature was -20° C., and a strong breeze came from the south, but even with these atmospheric conditions we were comfortable in our shelter.

It took us a long time to prepare our food--about six hours;--everything which contained water was frozen to the consistency of stone, and to heat this, or indeed any kind of food, the Jackson apparatus, which was the only stove we had taken from the ship, was inefficient, while its consumption of alcohol was, in our experience, so wasteful that its use as an item of polar equipment is injudicious. It took us about two hours to thaw out some penguin steak, and two more to make a soup which has the enchanting name of “_bonne femme_.” In this we managed to mix a liberal supply of reindeer hair, penguin grease, and other flavouring material. The soup was a failure,--but not quite so much so as the chocolate prepared shortly after. This was made in a can in which the penguin steak had been warmed. It contained, besides chocolate, milk and sugar, much butter, penguin oil, blood, and pieces of fishy meat, some “_bonne femme_” soup, and reindeer fur. Lecointe, who had the honour of having the first cup, received, besides the major quantity of oil, the lighter floating material. He pronounced it “scandalous!” But the other victims who tried it praised its nutritious qualities very highly. After our feed we stowed ourselves away in our bags, falling on each other’s stomachs, as our efforts to reach the bottom failed. Finally we went to sleep while the wind roared and the snow dropped on our tent, making a sound like bits of metal; a music which, when comfortably stowed in our bags, proved restful and conducive to sleep.

[Illustration: Ice-Flowers.]

[Illustration: The Assembled Discs of Ice Crystals which give Origin to Polar Ice.]

We arose the next morning complaining somewhat of the cold, but this is the grievance of every first encampment. After three hours of cooking, chocolate was prepared, and with it we ate alpine biscuits. This was quite sufficient for our morning meal. Then we crawled out of our bags, took our furs from the snow under the bags, shook the snow out of them, and quickly dressed. Once in our travelling garments, though frozen and filled with fine dust-like snow, we soon felt comfortable and dry. Emerging from the camp we saw the sun about fifteen degrees east of north and close to the horizon, from which we concluded it was eleven o’clock. Our watches had refused to tell the time in the cold. The day was not promising, the sun was screened by an increasing mist and the horizon was everywhere indistinct. The pack was gray, and the leads black with many smoky zones on the sky, indicating a disruption of the ice and much pack movement. We were permitted a look at our projected journey’s end, the tabular iceberg, and from our position the way to it seemed simple enough. Its distance from us was about nine miles; it was 2,000 feet long and from 250 to 300 feet high, with a smooth upper surface and vertical cliffs; along the base, on the two sides visible to us, was a huge ice fort about 50 feet high and 100 feet wide. On this were fragments of ice mostly covered with snow, giving it an appearance of a smooth terrace. Here and there were huge fissures visible only at the top, and widening into a valley towards the base. These valleys were strewn with ponderous boulders of ice. There was no evidence of fresh fissures, no blue lines or stratas; everything wore a homogeneous mantle of unblemished purity.

The lead before us proved, on further examination, an impassable barrier for the time. It extended as far as the eye could penetrate to the east and to the west, a great polar river in a mid-polar sea of ice. In it were hundreds of whales, finbacks and bottlenoses, and countless seals, Weddell sea-leopards, and crab-eaters, but strangely enough no penguins. The new ice forming was not of sufficient strength to bear our weights, hence we returned to the tent to prepare our dinner, the last meal of the day. When it takes six hours to prepare one meal, one does not provide more than two, and in actual practice that is found sufficient.

[Illustration: An Iceberg Held by the Ensnaring Influence of the Pack-ice, Forming the So-called “Barrier.”]

Finding that to cross the lead was quite impossible for a day or two, we decided to build a snow-house which is always preferable to a tent for a long stay. This was the second snow-house which we built in the antarctic, and the first in which men lived. It was constructed on the Eskimo model, conical in shape, like a bee-hive, with circular lines of blocks, each circle decreasing in size until the top, which is small enough to cover with one or two pieces. The Eskimo does this with an ordinary knife or a crescent-shaped instrument, made from a walrus tooth; but this requires much dexterity and some experience. I have always found that a small saw was better adapted for the purpose. With this, one can improve on Eskimo methods and build a much stronger _igloo_.

We selected a bank of driven snow with a hard consistency. To get a working edge here we first made a straight cut, then a slanting circular incision, raising the crescent out in pieces. Then we sawed another groove parallel to the first and cut this strip into blocks of a size easy to handle. Finally we passed the saw under the surface at the desired thickness, after which a slight touch from the hand or foot separated the block. There is no rule as to the size of the blocks; they must be cut according to the strength of the snow. Usually blocks one foot thick, two feet long, and eighteen inches wide are the most convenient. These can be transported on a sledge to any desired site for the _igloo_. Such a place is never far off. The man who builds the wall must be careful that the blocks of each succeeding circle will centre on the lines of meeting of the blocks below, a law well known in masonry. He must endeavour to keep the surface of the wall from sloping in or out, and every piece must rest firmly on each of its neighbours. When the _igloo_ is finished there will be found many holes between the blocks, but these are easily filled from the outside. The door should be cut after the structure is erected. If the _igloo_ is intended for a continued residence, a low arched entrance is necessary to keep out the sand-like blasts of fine snow.

Our sojourn in this particular house was very agreeable. It was an experience which I shall long remember. We placed the sledge sail on the snowy floor, and on it our sleeping bags. The only culinary articles which we used were fixed in terraces on the wall, or simply driven in the blocks. To undress and get into our bags in this house was an easy matter. Taking off everything but our underwear, we placed the travelling suit, including our boots, under the bags, and without more discomfort than a little snow down our backs we slid into the zenith of polar comfort, the sleeping-bag. The scene outside was dazzling beyond description; the scene inside was restful beyond all expectation. Through the crevices of the dome the sharp, silvery rays of the moon pierced and played in quivering beams and zones of colour. The pale blue sky, with its wealth of starry gems, was visible from one or two positions. A brisk, cold wind drove a little snow into our _igloo_ and over our beds, but this did not disturb us. We wrote, read, and played cards by the aid of a candle, and at a time which we guessed to be eleven o’clock, we fell asleep.

[Illustration:

Arctowski. Lecointe. Racovitza. Gerlache.

The Midsummer Christmas Dinner.]

August 2.--We did not awake until about nine o’clock to-day. Breakfast was prepared while we made a hasty examination of our situation. The horizon was obscured by a light fog; it had snowed a little during the night; the lead was separating, and zones of water-sky were noticed in nearly every direction. These prospects forbidding a continuation of our journey, we packed up for the return. Many seals appeared on the ice as we left, and some came over to our camp as if to say “good-bye.” We did not molest them. The ship was not in sight when we started, and we knew by its changed position yesterday that there was considerable motion in the ice, enough to make the actual direction of the _Belgica_ somewhat doubtful. The light was dull and diffused, making it impossible to observe hummocks and drifts; a fact which caused constant stumbling, and the destruction of one pair of _ski_. We tried to take a compass course, but this was difficult because the light was too vague to make hummocks or landmarks discernible. Many ill-defined, smoky figures of clouds, generally oblong, were on the sky. These indicated the disruption of the ice and an exposure of bands of open water, which we were soon to locate definitely, with much disappointment and discomfort.

As we advanced we heard whales spouting on all sides, but could not yet see them or the open water in which they gambolled. A little farther on we saw many seals, and soon after a belt of ice fissured in every direction. Thinking that we could cross this we strode over one pan after another, expecting every moment that we would reach more solid ice where we might pitch our tent for the night. The darkness advanced, and the pans separated more and more. Soon it was perfectly dark. The ice was so black that we could not easily mark the difference between it and the waters. To proceed was now impossible, and to camp on a little pan, the centre of a great pressure angle, was not conducive to rest, but we had no other choice. In a few moments our tent was pitched, and light within offered a spark of cheerfulness, but everything outside was as dismal as it could possibly be. The wind blew with a despairing howl, driving snow into every opening or seam of our fur suits. The ice groaned and cracked, and complained of the pressure forced against it; our floe was little by little reduced in size until we could hear the seals in the water as plainly as if they were under the tent. I cannot imagine a position on the polar pack more hopeless. We were tired and knew well that we would sleep, and perhaps not awake until dropped into the cold water. To overcome this danger we kept watch.

[Illustration:

Before. After. Frederick A. Cook. Frederick A. Cook. Roald Amundsen. Roald Amundsen. Emile Racovitza. Emile Racovitza.

(We were all reasonably good-looking when we embarked, but we were otherwise when we returned. The long night effected a radical transformation in our physiognomies.)]

The seals during the night came upon the ice to examine our tent, our _ski_, and our sledge; but evidently these were not to their liking, for they went away, and played and gambolled like children on the end of the floe. Whales also spouted all around us, and the wind brought their spray onto our tent in icy globules. About four o’clock in the morning the pan broke within two metres of the tent, and we expected momentarily to see an opening in our floe. Dawn came at last, but the atmosphere was again too obscure to permit a hope of an early advance. We thought we could see more firm ice south of us and made an effort to reach it, but we only mounted the neighbouring pan. From here all further progress was stopped by black bands of open water. We pitched our tent again and prepared some hot food and drink. The mist was so opaque and so much fine snow was drifting that it was impossible to see more than ten or fifteen metres. Occasionally there appeared bright spots in various directions, and in these we thought we could distinguish familiar icebergs, but they always proved to be only small hummocks at a short range.

In the afternoon the wind came out of the south and cleared the air. We now saw the _Belgica_, and also men coming in our direction. This gave us great pleasure. The ship was not more than a mile from us, and the men soon reached a floe south of us, but they could not gain our floe. Van Mirlo made a desperate effort, but slid into the water and nearly lost his life. We ate a hearty meal, then again crept into our bags. For this night it was not necessary to keep a watch, because the pressure had ceased and the temperature was falling rapidly, protecting our pan by one of new elastic ice; but a knife was kept ready to cut an opening for our escape should the ice suddenly separate under us. The night was one of comparative quietness.

We arose early the next morning,--about 8 A.M.,--prepared breakfast, and at noon were ready for a desperate attempt to get to the vessel. We left the tent and most of the equipment behind, but took on our sledge enough food and our bags, in case it became necessary to make another camp. Using the sledge as a bridge, we succeeded in crossing the many leads and crevasses and reached the _Belgica_ about two o’clock. She seemed now a big ship full of comfort and rest. It was nearly two weeks before the ice was sufficiently formed and packed around this pan to permit a removal of the tent.

The month of August was, on the whole, one of the greatest disappointments of our experience in the antarctic. We expected low temperatures and bright, cheerful weather. With the coming sun we hoped to dispel our anæmia and make ourselves ready for a series of difficult tasks to be undertaken in September and October; but instead we failed more and more in strength, and developed alarming mental symptoms. One man was temporarily insane, and several others were nearing a similar condition. The weather was stormy, the atmosphere was charged with clouds of sand-like drift-snow, and the sun was almost constantly invisible, though it rose higher and higher and swept more and more of the horizon daily. For one month following sunrise, like the month preceding its departure, the conditions were in effect a part of the night. It is true we had a little misty grayness at noon which we called daylight, but this was counterbalanced by the never ceasing tempests which drove such a blast of cutting snow that life outside was impossible. The first glimpses of sunlight had aroused us to new ambitions, and to spasmodic spells of cheerfulness, but this hellish series of storms sent us again into the most abject gloom of the night.

The last week of August and the first two weeks of September was the coldest period of the year. At this time the thermometer ranged steadily from -20° C. to -43° C.; the lowest temperature of the year, -43° C., being recorded at four o’clock in the morning of September eighth. The lowest average for any one continuous month was in July, -12° C. From the minimum on September eighth, the temperature rose rapidly to +1° C. during the week following, which was a point within a half degree of the maximum of the hottest weather of midsummer. We thus had our coldest and our warmest weather in the month of September which, in the cycle of the seasons south, is similar to March of the northern hemisphere. Great quantities of drift-snow were driven over the ice at this time, and the air was so charged with crystals that halos of the sun and moon, and parhelias and paraselenes, were of almost daily occurrence. The ice was now the most continuous of any period of the year. The limit of the field in which the _Belgica_ was held was not visible from the masthead. From the crow’s nest it was always difficult to determine the edges of the fields, because the raised pressure ridges made the cracks and narrow lines of water beyond invisible. We were, however, easily able to locate some wide leads, and the almost constant smoky vapour, which rose over fresh breaks, made it possible to determine even small cracks.

We have made the subject of finding open spaces of water a special study. Such knowledge is part of the acquirement of an antarctic hunter. An inexperienced wanderer will walk over the pack day after day until his eyes are blinded by the dazzling blink of the ice before he finds a trace of life; but an adept will adopt the methods of the penguin or the seal, who, when stranded on a field with the blow-hole closed, will mount a hummock and scan the horizon to find the jets of black vapour which rise from open spaces of water. We have to go a long distance now to secure game to replenish our larder with fresh meat, which is, at present, almost our sole diet. The life at best is very scarce, and to find it we must roam over the ice for several miles. With a revolver in our pockets, and a sheath knife at our sides, we go about daily from crevasse to crevasse, eagerly looking for penguins and seals. As a rule we are fairly successful; at any rate, the table is liberally supplied with fresh steaks.

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