CHAPTER XXVIII

SUMMER (CONTINUED).

December 2.--Our drift lately has been almost imperceptible. The winds, always feeble and never continuing long in one direction, have simply kept up a little agitation in the pack while the tides have driven the bergs to and fro a little, and thus the pack has become more and more divided. For most of the time the wind has followed the sun around the horizon, and nothing could be more ineffectual in making ice navigable than light, shifting winds. Since it takes the pack a long time to gain momentum, a wind which does not last for several days is of no use unless it is a tempest. Our latitude to-day is 70° 18′, longitude 83° 25′. Our drift throughout the season has been considerable. If it had been in one direction it could have taken us across the south pole or to the magnetic pole.

During the winter, and a part of the advancing summer, we have made various guesses as to when the bark would be liberated from the grasp of the pack. The captain has set the day of departure at October 25; I at November 15; Amundsen, February 1. Both the captain and I are already overruled, and there is even some fear of a possible second winter. Yesterday a lead made its appearance 100 metres to the east, running north, and for the past few weeks we have watched with considerable interest the slow but persistent diminution of our pan. From its original nearly circular form, five miles across and three metres thick, it has dwindled to less than one-half its original size, and even the thickness of the ice is rapidly decreasing. The temperature has gradually ascended, with very many irregular curves, from an average in September of -18° to -3° C. now. But the change has been so irregular that the effect has hardly been felt.

During the entire winter and throughout the year, though snow fell almost every day, even on the brightest and the clearest days, the total snowfall seemed small at all times. There are two reasons for this. First, the actual snow-showers, as seen in temperate regions, periods when much snow falls within a short time, were quite unknown. Second, the topography of the pack is such that every wind carries before it huge drifts of snow which it deposits in open leads, where it is either melted or converted into ice at once. During the blackness of the night, and during the endless gray snow-days since, we have constantly longed for a fair old-time snow-storm: a storm bringing sufficient snow to blanket the ship and keep us warm inside: a gentle, quiet fall of large, soft flakes to soften the hard outlines of the pack, and without the ever accompanying thunder of winds and whizzing, cutting, maddening ice-crystals. But such a pleasure has not been mixed with our assigned experiences. I think it is Nansen who says “the snowless ice-plain is like a life without love,” and in this there is a truth which can only be realised by men who, like us, are imprisoned in the polar pack. The constant war of the winds, which here strive for a place, brings about a restless agitation of the ice. Now it is driven east, then north, then south, and so on, tearing the floes, crushing pans, crowding huge pieces over each other, making hummocks, cliffs, ridges, crevasses, and what not; a veritable chaos of icy destruction, a surface impassable for a journey, and unpleasant to the eye.

The sharp, rough angles of the hard ice project like the ribs of a famished animal, making a picture quite as melancholy in the feeble light of winter and early summer. Snow, deep, soft snow, has upon this coarse framework an effect like that of fat on the animal. It covers the ugly open rifts, pads the sharp corners, and it gives a smooth, pleasant, rounded surface to the pack in general. It buries the unpleasant ruggedness and the gloomy blackness under a velvety covering of white, which is always pleasing to the eye. It gives to the pack a face at once suggestive of warmth and fertility. It is only within the past few days that we have had sufficient snow at one time to give to our moving sea of ice this much-to-be-desired aspect. Snow has fallen in great quantities; not softly and without wind, but noisily and with the never-ceasing gale which is so characteristic of this region. The quantities, however, have been sufficient to bury the _Belgica_ in a huge drift, and the bare ridges, hummocks and irregularities, are softened by the most beautiful crystal drift in which the sunbeams play like kittens.

December 16.--There appears to be a promise in the air and in the quick rising of the barometer which bespeaks a tempest, and how we long for it! Almost the entire year has been one long monotonous series of tempests, but now that we need one to break asunder the floe which retains us as prisoners, and open navigable leads of water, it is tardy in making its appearance. For nearly two months the barometer has been steady, and only spasmodic jerks or varying breezes have driven us about. If we had had but one of the many tempests which, during the winter, made life so miserable, we might have been freed. The temperature is rapidly rising; now generally about -2° C., at midday slightly above zero, and at midnight from -6° C. to -10° C. We thus have our greatest diurnal range. The snow on the pack is melting with a surprising rapidity, and about the ship there is a zone of water in which she sits in her natural environment. The pack everywhere is breaking into small pans, but our old floe holds together with a surprising tenacity; it is about seven miles in circumference, and is lessening very slowly along its fringe, but apparently the snow which the masts have swept and condensed out of the winds holds it with unnatural firmness, for it is certainly the largest floe in our neighbourhood. We watch every new piece which is torn off its edge with a pleasure and an assumed confidence of an early liberation, but if the _Belgica_ were now in free water she could do nothing but wait. The ice is so closely packed that progress would be absolutely impossible.

These unsystematic winds and steady weather have kept us in a locality over which we have sounded and fished, hence there is a sort of stagnation of work--no sounding and no fishing. To obtain birds for the collection, meat for our food, and blubber to melt snow is, however, a matter of no little labour. The men have had the second week of half-days to mend their personal effects, and since these are next to nothing they use the time in hunting, reading and discussion. A new system of penguin hunting has been discovered. At meal-time a cornet is used to call the men together, and the penguins, it seems, also like this music; for when they hear it they make directly for the ship, and remain as long as the music lasts, but leave at once when it ceases. In this manner we have only to wait and seize our visitors to obtain penguin steaks, which are, just at present, the prize of the _menu_. But not so with the seals,--they like music, and will come up out of the water onto the ice to enjoy it, but they will not deposit their carcasses, penguin fashion, on board. On the other hand, when we approach them they are more easily obtained. A shot from a revolver straightens them out, but then, we have to transport 150 pounds of blubber and 50 pounds of meat over rough, hummocky ice to the ship. This is an occupation which easily drives sport out of one. Our good sailors, however, do it voluntarily, and at times when free from regular work.

A few days ago Amundsen and I resolved to make a final attempt to reach the tabular iceberg in the east. It has long been our ambition to do this, as it has been the one venturesome aim of every man on board. We have tried it several times before, but always in vain. Wide open leads have prevented our going more than four or five miles, and have also cut off our retreat. But now we decided to take no food and no provision for sleep, but to push boldly to the berg and back in one day. We left after _matte_ at 4 o’clock; the wind was light and easterly, the sky clear, with a temperature -7°. We had no difficulty in making the first seven miles, but the two miles about the berg were much torn and separated by lakes. Among this small ice there were several seals, mostly Weddells (_Leptonychotes Weddelli_), but we also killed the first true sea-leopard (_Ogmorhynus Leptonyx_) here, and also a crab-eater (_Lobodon Carcinophaga_), which we cached with a view to later use as a food supply as a last resort in case the ice separated so much as to prevent our easy retreat. We saw here, also, some giant petrels (_Ossifraga gigantea_), and some white petrels (_Pagodroma nivea_). The floes appeared smaller and smaller, as we approached the berg, and around it they were mere discs of about an average diameter of seven metres; these were separated by huge quantities of brash. After considerable difficulty we finally found a place on the iceberg where we could make a debarkment. The ascent was over a long platform which resembled an ice-fort of the arctic land-ice. It was the base of a cliff of ice which once covered it, but the berg was perfectly tabular. We estimated the iceberg to be 800 metres long, 500 metres wide, and 40 metres high. To its crest there was but one access in the valley made by the decay of a part of the cliff. We ascended this without difficulty, and reached the top in a few moments.

From here the view of the pack was superb. We counted seventy-five icebergs on the horizon, of which ten were tabular. They seemed to be evenly scattered over the pack. The sea-ice appeared blue under the midnight sun, for it was nearly midnight before we reached our destination. The floes seemed small, averaging about one mile in diameter, except those close to the berg. Here and there were seals, and white petrels flew about our heads. The _Belgica_ appeared in the endless blue expanse westward, and to us, at our distance, she was not unlike a stick in the ice not far off. Nothing particularly new was in our increased horizon; possibly a few new bergs were in view eastward, but about these there was little remarkable. From the crow’s nest on the ship, we could count sixty-four icebergs, and the view in general was similar to that which now spread out before us. The top of the berg had a gentle inclination westward; its surface was generally flat, excepting here and there the line of a crevasse filled by re-congelation. We came back over the same path on _ski_, which we had used on the top, and for the first two miles we had no serious trouble. The ice had remained the same, but at this point there had been much commotion. The easterly wind had gone down, and the ice immediately began to separate, and thus in the few hours occupied by our ascent onto the iceberg the entire topography of this part of the pack had changed. Huge lakes had formed, and a dense fog shut off our way. With the compass we sought points of each floe where they touched others, and thus we worked until 4 A.M., when we reached the ship with photos of the berg, and the head of the leopard as a trophy. The work and the resulting fatigue had been so great that Tollefsen, who had joined us at the last moment of our departure, fainted twice after he reached the ship. Poor fellow! his brain has for a long time been unsteady as a result of the unbroken daylight and hopeless isolation. We thought this jaunt would do him good, but it has had a contrary effect, for his mind is now permanently deranged.

[Illustration: Removing the Upper Sheet Preparatory to Sawing the Hard Undersheets.]

[Illustration: Cutting a Canal through the Ice to Release the _Belgica_ from her Year’s Imprisonment.]

December 25.--Christmas in midsummer is certainly an anomaly to residents of the northern hemisphere, but our midsummer is more sterile than the midwinter of any known spot on the globe. At home there may be snow and wind, but there is at hand the companionship of warm friends, the cheer of a bright fire, the charm of flowers and pretty things; but what have we in place of this accustomed holiday gayety? Each man has, among the _Belgica’s_ company, his special corps of chums, and brotherly distress has strengthened these bonds, but there are no other human souls within reach to enter our narrow circle of life with new inspirations. We have long since worn out all social enthusiasm, and can unearth nothing new to infuse fresh life into the desired good cheer of our Christmas dinner. Inside then, there is nothing new, while outside all is cold and white and wearisome. There is no flowering-plant within thousands of miles, and no land, not even barren rocks, within hundreds of miles. At dinner we drank to the health of “King Leopold,” to the pleasure of “Queen Wilhelmina,” to the continued success of the expedition, and everybody expressed a hope of an early release from our ice-imprisonment. Altogether, I noticed that the enthusiasm was forced. At heart we were not in a feasting mood, and the doubt of our future was pictured on every face.

We have now been nearly a year in this hopeless desert of ice. Everything seems solid and immovable. We seem to be frozen to the earth, for there is nothing which indicates movement. But with all this appearance of solidity we are in reality continually afloat, adrift with the polar winds, on a perennial ice-sheeted sea. How we long to put our feet on solid ground! We do not desire so greatly to see trees, and plants, and flowers as we do to sit upon something immovable; something not covered with this eternal whiteness, and not glittering with a dazzling ice-blink--plain ground and bare rocks will satisfy us.

[Illustration: Floating-Mountains of Ice.]

[Illustration: View from the Top of a Tabular Iceberg.]

January 1.--New Year’s Day passed like Christmas, with a special feast followed by anxious discussions as to the time of our prospective liberation. We are now doing much travelling over the pack-ice, studying the life and the ice-changes. The _Belgica_ is about ready for the sea, so far as her internal arrangement is concerned, but outside there is nothing which promises a disruption of the ice in such a manner as to permit us to push out of it. The field, in which the bark is held, is still about two miles in diameter. The sun has reached its highest altitude and is sliding down the hillside of winter. We cannot hope that the fading days of summer will bring us relief, since the bright days of November and December were of so little avail in breaking the ice.

In October and November the ice separated, leaving wide open leads, often a mile in width, winding around the floes to the end of vision. If we had been free at this time, we might have gone farther south or north to the open sea in a short time, for we were then only about two thousand feet from a lead of navigable water. We are not now any closer, but the entire pack has changed since then. Around the bergs the ice is broken into small pans. There are a few fields about two miles in diameter, but the main body of the pack is made up of floes less than a half mile in diameter and with an average thickness of six feet. This smallness of the floes prevents severe pressure, but it gives the pack a sort of elasticity which opposes the formation of wide open leads necessary for navigation. We no longer see the great zones of tempting sea, but instead, only small lanes along the edge of the large fields. If, however, we were able to get into these we might take advantage with every shift of the ice to force our way into more favourable localities.

Since Christmas the weather has already become colder. New ice is forming every night, but early in the morning this thaws again and the snow of the pack is melting rapidly; the solid ice seems to lose little of its thickness, though it is becoming more porous and is more easily disrupted. By a series of holes drilled by Mr. Arctowski, he finds the general thickness to be 2.60 metres. This is nearly the same as I found it to be two months ago; from twenty-five measurements along fresh cracks it was 2.65. To-day there are many signs of pack movement, but for three weeks with the steady easterly winds we have moved south-westerly, holding the same relative position with our neighbouring icebergs. A sudden brisk westerly wind is sending us east and north rapidly. This wind does a triple service. It sends us north, it loosens the pack, and it breaks the floes. It is indeed a godsend so early in the new year, for we are already half expecting a prolonged ice-imprisonment through another year, and if for another year, perhaps for much longer.

At midnight we, of the cabin, went forward to surprise the crew. We took with us a liberal allowance of wine, also an abundance of cheese, ham, and biscuits for a lunch. The sailors received us with song and music, and then told us stories which were new to us, but had been told a hundred times in the forecastle. We in return did some speech-making, and a little story-telling, too. The meeting was certainly a success as an entertainment, and though the music was limited to accordions which, from the combined effects of cold, humidity, and rough usage, had many defects, we sat and listened to the discordant notes with real enjoyment.

Outside the scene was beautiful, the sun was in the south, low on the horizon, spreading golden rays over thin stratus clouds to the zenith. In the north the moon was high, and though somewhat paled by the sun it was bright, and stood out in the cold, cloudless blue like a ball of lustreless silver. The endless sea of ice under us was ridged by a line of pressure, at right angles to the line of force, which was from south-west to north-east, and separated by inky lanes of water parallel to the lines. The entire ice was a mass of quivering blue. It was thus midnight and midsummer, and New Year’s Day, and to this series of strange contradictions we owe the peculiar phenomenon of seeing both the sun and the moon at the same time, and that at a nocturnal scene.

[Illustration]

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