CHAPTER XXVII
SUMMER
October, 1898.
[Illustration: Snow-Goggles.]
It is but slowly that this blackness of the polar night is dissolved by the whiteness of the coming day. Until the first weeks of September we felt little of the cheering influence of the rising sun except for short, spasmodic periods. The human system accommodates itself sluggishly and poorly to the strange conditions of the polar seasons, and we, too, are slow in adapting ourselves to the awful despondency of the long winter night. It is possible to close your eyes and befog your brain after a time, when all the world is enveloped in prolonged darkness, but this is not physiological adaptation; it is abnormal education. We have all felt the effects of the night severely. The death of Danco, and also the insanity of a sailor, are due to this withdrawal of light. Now that the light is brightening every day, we are as backward in recuperating as we were in establishing a balance of living comfort during the vanishing dawn of the early night. The present cheering influence of the rising sun invites labour and frivolity. The soothing light of the long evening twilights invites repose. The change from day to night and from night to day, so long absent from our outlook, is now beginning to lighten the burdens of the weary mind and the aching muscles; elevating the depressed spirits of hope, augmenting the dwarfed courage, and raising the moral perceptions to the great life battle of work before us.
We have talked only of the discomforts of the night, and of the misery. The long unbroken darkness has not totally blinded us to its few real charms which are strikingly brought out by the awful contrasts of heat and cold, of light and darkness. As lovers of Nature, we found many pleasures for the eye and the intellect in the flashing aurora australis, in the play of intense silvery moonlight over the mountainous seas of ice, and in the fascinating clearness of the starlight over the endless expanse of driven snows. There was a naked fierceness in the scenes, a boisterous wildness in the storms, a sublimity and silence in the still, cold dayless nights, which were too impressive to be entirely overshadowed by the soul-despairing depression. The attractions of the polar night are not to be written in the language of a people who live in a land of sunshine and of flowers. They are found in a roughness, ruggedness, and severity, appreciated only by men who are fated to live in similar regions, on the verge of another world, where animal sentiments take the place of the finer, but less realistic human passions.
From May 31, when we were in latitude 71° 36′, a point farthest south, to September 16, when we were in latitude 69° 51′ 16″, we steadily and persistently drifted northward. The movement has been extremely slow, and at times we have been stationary, but we have not gone south with northerly winds. This we explain by the fact that new ice forms rapidly in the leads which open behind us, thus closing all the spaces. In a similar manner, but with many more interruptions, and with a much more rapid pace, we have drifted eastward during this time from longitude 87° 33′ 30″ to 82° 22′ 45″. The longitudinal drift, however, has changed with every direction of the wind. From this time until November 19, we drifted southward again, while still continuing our easterly drift.
October 15.--We are now able to read our thermometers and other instruments outside without artificial light from 2:30 A.M. to 9:30 P.M. The five hours of night are made so brilliant by the twilight during clear weather that we can read ordinary print all night. We no longer need lamps on board during the day, which is fortunate, for our stock of candles and petroleum is getting low. The snow in the night now assumes a noticeable brightness after a day of sharp sunshine. During the long night, and in the early days of spring when the sun was feeble, the snow was dull and black. The present change to a sort of phosphorescence I have ascribed to a kind of latent retention by the snow of the light of the sun. I have taken much interest in this phenomenon, and have recently made certain tests which seem to confirm my theory. For a number of days I have placed black cloths over certain smooth fields of snow. During the night I have removed these and invariably there has been a dark spot, corresponding to the size of the cloth, while the snow everywhere else was semi-luminous. This, in my estimation, proves that the snow absorbs and retains for a time certain rays of light.
There is now considerable life, but we must go far to find it. The leads are several miles from the ship. When we get to them they seem like huge endless rivers, winding through a white plain. On the banks are lines of pressure ridges, from two to twenty feet high. In these spaces of water are some freed icebergs and a few small pans of old ice; but the low temperature soon covers every bit of open sea with an even sheet of new ice, through which the whales and seals must force their blow-holes. Nature favours them by breaks here and there; but the steady, calm, cold weather of the present is opposed to much ice-movement, which accounts for the few breaks. All of the seals which have been seen since the months of April and May are crab-eaters (_Lobodon Carcinophaga_). They seem to travel in groups of from two to ten, and they follow the leads southward after every storm. The whales do the same, and when the new ice forms, and the retreat is cut off, they seek the regions about the icebergs where the retarding influence of the bergs in the drift causes enough commotion to keep spaces of water open. Failing in this, they break through the new ice by forcing their heads through it. It is a curious fact that, up to the present, we have seen only finback whales (_Balaenoptera Sibbaldii_) in the pack, but now we find an occasional bottlenose (_Megaptera Boops_) in the little lakes and streams. The convenience, which the whale and seal holes offer, made us think that perhaps penguins might utilise them as breathing spaces, but this never happened so far as our experience went. Penguins, being better able to move over the ice, have a wider range of habitation, and they always use open leads.
[Illustration: An Old Wind-swept Hummock.]
[Illustration: The Sand-like Drift Snow.]
The weather, the ice, and the general life and surroundings have been so monotonous for the past month, that I have found little of interest to tabulate. The general health of the crew is improving. They no longer have an anxious, dejected aspect, and their spirits are rising. In clear weather they sing, and dance, and speak in happy, cheerful tones. The ship is being prepared for sea, which is a matter of considerable work. Being imprisoned in the grasp of the pack for these many months has made the locality like a small village. Outhouses, sledges, sounding machines, and many other things are strewn on the pack. Aboard, the fixtures have all been more or less disarranged, so that everything must be restored and refitted for the new voyage. We have filled the water-tanks with snow. By burning seal blubber and coal in our condenser, we are able to melt snow and bring the resulting water to a boiling point very quickly; this is poured over the snow in the tanks. This method is very satisfactory, for in this way we are able to make several hundred gallons of water daily. I believe, however, that a jet of steam directed into the tanks would do the work much more quickly and with greater economy; but to make the necessary alterations for this is, with our equipment, quite impossible.
Could there be a more melancholy, a more maddening, or a more hopeless region than this? We are passing rapidly into the polar summer, the time when, in other zones, all Nature smiles;--even the sister zone, the arctic, has striking attractive features at this time. The birds fill the air with music, new animals make their appearance, and on land even flowers and mosquitos serve to make life interesting; but here, in this icy antarctic wilderness, the charm of Nature is dead. We see the sun so seldom that it is, indeed, a surprise when its unobstructed rays fall upon the frosted whiteness. Though it sweeps more than half of the horizon daily, we get only the cold blue light which is filtered through a constant haze of icy clouds. An occasional sunburst for a few moments each day and a clear sky once fortnightly is our average. Storms, tempests, and steady howling winds with snow, are our constant lot, and these come from all points of the compass. There is no inspiring solitude, no rest, no cheerful outlook; the sea is imprisoned under a restless and irregular mass of storm-driven ice. The sky is always cloudy and dirty; the air is always wet, cold, and agitated; under such circumstances the human mind assumes a like attitude.
[Illustration: The Tabular Iceberg, the Largest Berg within the Horizon of the _Belgica’s_ Drift. It is about 200 Feet High, and a Half-mile Long.]
For two days we have had a fierce gale veering from south-east to south-west; an excellent direction to send us north at a rapid pace, which is a pleasant consolation for the ill-effects on the spirits and on the personal comfort. The storm is, of its kind, the worst I have ever seen. The wind is strong, but one could hardly call it a tempest; it brings with it, however, all the elements of misery which follow a tempest. The air is so loaded with very fine snow-crystals that its action upon the face is something of the nature of emery paper. This snow is blown in gusts and constant streams, which scrape and rasp all projections, and bury every declivity, while the snowy surface is cut into small ridges which we call _cestrugi_; and around the _Belgica_ it is deposited to such an extent that nothing but the masts are visible. A very strange accompaniment is a perfectly cloudless blue sky at the zenith, while all along the horizon there is an opaque circle of icy haze, which is tinged with the most delicate hues of red, blue, and yellow. One can nowhere see more than 100 metres, yet this haze seems far off. It is, of course, the driven snow which causes this phenomenon, and also a nearly constant parhelia; but the fact that the sky above is perfectly clear proves that the obscurity is very low on the ice, perhaps not more than ten metres, for the topmasts of the ship are visible above it, and now and then the tops of icebergs also appear. The picturesque effect of this hurling, seething confusion of icy crystals is far beyond my power to paint in words. It is a picture at once full of incomprehensible grandeur, indescribable discomfort, and irresistible attractiveness. But who will tabulate this with enthusiasm when snow is being driven down your neck, into your eyes, ears, and almost into the pores of your skin, while your boots, your mittens, and every opening or fold of clothing are filled with snow at a temperature of -20° C.? Who will paint the colours, or sing the joys of Nature, when the wind pipes the notes of a buzz-saw, and will not permit you to stoop without helping you to a somersault?
The Commandant gave us a new programme yesterday for the summer campaign but we do not now regard programmes seriously. We think more of the many little things which cause life to fall and drift and settle into our boots, like the snow around us. Indeed, there are but few things greatly interesting, except the character of our food, the prosecution of our special work, and the prospect of our release from the iron grasp of the rigid pack.
I have heard of a deaf man who once said that life was of value to him only because of “reading, eating, drinking, and the prospect of death.” This sentiment in a modified form would, I am certain, be the confession of many, if not most, of our party, during every stormy period. The modification is, perhaps, only in the last word, and this we would change to “the prospect of an early return to the inner world and to renewed social conditions.” The storms are so numerous and close that a tempest is nearly always on the horizon. If it is not so, as was the case a week ago, the air about the _Belgica_ rings with happy voices and musical sounds. But there is always something to make hilarity short-lived. If it is not the weather it is a frozen batch of skins, a garment hopelessly torn which needs mending, a watch to repair, a boot to mend, a camera to alter, or any one of a thousand discomforts and distractions about the ship which send the soul to the verge of desperation. To-night I have stockings to darn, to-morrow pantaloons to mend, and all of next week carpenter-work, mending and making sledges, sewing sails, dressing skins, and taking photos in a temperature -22° C.--all of this is far from pleasant, but it contains a lesson. It teaches us how much of the drudgery of life is done uncomplainingly by mothers, sisters, wives, and other members of the family circle. It makes us feel the importance of feminine existence, causes us to see the ups and downs, the ponds and eddies, the rapids and cataracts of the humdrum side of life which man ordinarily escapes.
November 16.--The winter night, with its death-dealing blackness, has passed; the spring, with its awful storms and gray monotony has followed, and the summer, with its continuous noonday splendour, commences to-day. At least it ought to, if our estimated position is correct. We have, however, had no observations in a week, and are not, in consequence, able to fix our exact position, and the persistent cloudiness of the sky is such that we cannot determine whether the sun is above or below the horizon at midnight.
November 25.--Latitude 70° 25′, longitude 83° 27′. For more than a week the sun has sailed around our heavens without setting, and thus we have entered upon our summer nightless days. We should have seen its warm glow at midnight and at midday, but we have not seen it at all, not even for one hour, during this time. By this I do not mean that it is dark; in fact, it is quite the contrary. It is too light. The sky has been constantly lined with thick clouds, and there has been an endless period of fog and snow; but under all of this opacity the light, by refraction from the cold mist and by reflection from the dazzling whiteness of the unbroken snow, has been so great that all who have not worn goggles have complained of incipient snow-blindness. At night, or during the sleeping hours, the men are compelled to hang black cloths over the ports to gain sleep and rest from the diffused, piercing light. Nearly every one is suffering, more or less, from insomnia, and the cases which have been mentally deranged before show new signs of disturbance. Thus, though the light, even during cloudy days, is too strong for our eyes, and at night too piercing to permit sleep we long, with an intensity impossible to describe, to see the unobscured face of the sun, and we hunger for its warm, life-giving rays.
November 26.--At last we have had a little direct sunshine, and what seems very strange is that this has come to us with continued northerly winds. Without exception thus far, the wind from this direction has been warm and humid, bringing clouds, snow, rain and everything to make life uncomfortable. We can only come to one conclusion, which is that we have been steadily driven south against the main body of a closer pack. The pack before us towards the open sea, of which there is perhaps not less than three hundred miles, has been driven together. With such a condition of things we might suppose that the wind would not be so thoroughly charged with pack vapour. But this is a hypothesis. The fact is that we have fair weather, which is unusual with wind from any direction but south, and we are feasting our souls on direct sunny rays, the first in weeks.
[Illustration: On January 1st, 1899, the _Belgica_ was still Hopelessly Held in a Field of Ice Two Miles in Diameter, while within Two Thousand Feet there was a Long Open Expanse of Navigable Water.]
There is a somewhat surprising movement in the individual masses of the pack, as is seen by the changing position of the various icebergs. In this movement there is regular order in the direction. It is not a motion like the entire drift of the main pack, to and fro in response to the wind. The _Belgica_, firmly held in the body of a floe whose general diameter has been about four miles, has turned her prow steadily with but very little interruption from south in May, to west in August, to north in October, and she is now 22° on her way to the east. From this we can draw only one conclusion--that there is a feeble under-current which, acting on the bergs, is the cause of local disturbance in every pack. Our observations thus far verify this curious suggestion. The floe in which we are fixed has no icebergs in its grasp, like many of the floes around us. If such a current existed it would not be propelled with the same force as the berg-charged floes, but with a tendency to lag behind an active mass to the one side would, by friction against its side, cause it to revolve. Such has been our experience. A group of floes, in which there have been several huge tabular bergs entangled, has slowly but persistently passed around our starboard, while we have turned in response to it; and as a final proof of this movement we have constantly observed the appearance of new bergs south, and the disappearance of old friends to the north.
The winter effects on the ship have been extremely injurious. Her hull has been subjected to very little pressure, but she has been unevenly covered with snow; the stern, buried and forced below her natural water-line, has made her leak; the bow has been exposed to the many alternate freezings and thawings; the rigging, for much of the time, has been loaded with a ponderous weight of accumulated hoar-frost which, with its continued movement in the never-ceasing storms, has weakened every fibre of rope, and now the burning sun splits the masts like sticks of green wood near a fire. The interior has also suffered great injury. The constant drying effects of the internal heat has split or cracked nearly every important beam, while the seams are everywhere wide open. There are two things we seldom have here which will certainly seem strange to my readers. They are sunshine and snow-showers. In a region where the sun does not set for a period of more than two months, one certainly has a right to expect fair and sunny days, and likewise in an area where the whole face of the earth, both land and water, is buried under a perennial sheet of snow one naturally expects to see frequent falls of heavy snow; but in reality, both sunshine and actual snow-showers are very rare, so much so that their appearance affords a special delight and a great surprise. To-day we have had the phenomenal pleasure of having both in one day. Real sunbeams in the morning, large and slowly falling flakes of snow in the afternoon. We have had appropriate music to celebrate the occasion and are happy.
[Illustration: Old Hummocks.]
[Illustration: A Tonite Explosion Used in Efforts to Free the _Belgica_.]
November 27.--Our winter temperature was very slow in falling, and the minimum was not reached until after sunrise. Our lowest observation was recorded on September 8, -43.1° C. In less than ten days after this it had risen to a fraction above zero, and we were drenched with rain and melting snow; since then it has occasionally fallen to -20°, but it has slowly and persistently risen until now the normal temperature is one or two degrees below zero, falling with a southerly wind to -10° and rising above zero with a strong northerly wind.
The zoölogist has seen what he persists in calling a new bird. It resembles the giant petrel in size and colour, but its motion is entirely different. Anatomical details have not been observed, and, “The bird,” says the naturalist, “is either shot-proof or it is able to dodge the lead.” But since Mr. Racovitza had considerable fun from our mistaken reports of true sea-leopards, we have taken advantage of this story to restore our fallen reputation. We persist in saying that unless he produces the bird, or gives us an exact technical description, anatomical and physiological, we maintain the privilege of ascribing the sight to a kind of sunny intoxication which at present, under the influence of the midnight sun, is not uncommon.
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