CHAPTER IV

THE “BELGICA,” HER EQUIPMENT, HER COMFORTS AND DISCOMFORTS

STRAIT OF MAGELLAN, Dec. 2, 1897.

I have now been on the _Belgica_ more than a month, and my admiration for her becomes stronger as we advance toward the southern ice. Her history, her fittings, her equipment, and her men, all serve to enhance this affection, and every day I find in our good ship new points of interest. She has been dressed and redressed so much on this voyage down the Atlantic that the original owners would now hardly recognise her. She has been scraped and polished and painted, and rearranged inside and out, until she looks quite like a pleasure craft. Her new name, _Steam Yacht Belgica_, now fits her, for her aspect and atmosphere as a greasy, sooty sealer has vanished. The almost inseparable distinction of a sealing craft, the persistent fishy odour, is also gone.

The more we drive her over this lonely sea, the more we fix and comb and dress her, the stronger we feel her quivering animation. She already has a place in our affections as definitely as a pet horse. As she takes us farther and farther away from our homes, we become daily more dependent upon her. And as she pitches and tosses in the unruly seas, and rides out the forbidding storms, we feel we shall love her better. We may have become sentimental about our little pet, but so much depends on her. On the ability of the _Belgica_ to plough through the virgin antarctic ice, depends our success in exploring the prospective new lands. On her hospitality depends our comfort, and on her stability depends, not only the success or failure of the entire expedition, but our future existence, for if she is buried in the antarctic, we cannot hope to survive, we must go with her to an icy grave.

To see the _Belgica_ aright, and appreciate her real value, she should be observed in the polar ice, her natural home. In a cosmopolitan harbour, like Antwerp or Rio de Janeiro, among the larger ships and modern ironclads, she seems like a little bull-dog amid a group of large greyhounds--small, awkward, and ungraceful. In colour the _Belgica_ is gray, with natural wood and cream trimmings. She is bark rigged, and has patent single topsails. Her body is one hundred and ten feet long, twenty-six feet wide, and she has a draft of fifteen feet. In a good wind, without steam, she is able to sail six knots. An auxiliary steam power is placed well aft, that the bow may rise to crush the ice. The boiler is new, and the engine has an effective horse-power of one hundred and fifty. Burning three and a half tons of coal, in Belgian bricks (_bricquettes_), and with smooth water, the _Belgica_ will make seven knots per hour. But we shall only use her half speed, for with two tons of coal she will make about four knots, a speed quite sufficient amid icebergs, drifting floes, pack-ice, and unknown rocks.

There are many points of special interest in the construction of a modern steam sealer like the _Belgica_. But to describe all these would lead us into too many long nautical details. In selecting the framework of the bark, timbers were obtained of double the usual size and strength of an ordinary vessel of the same measurement. The stem was inclined, making the bow of an inclination similar to that of a sledge runner, which enables the vessel to rise on to the surface of the ice, and crush it rather by its own weight than by the motive force, as did the older ice-vessels. Otherwise the shape is similar to that of a well-built modern sealing vessel.

The planking inside and outside of the ponderous framework is of extraordinary strength, and over all is a special ice-sheathing of very hard wood. The bow and stern are protected by four-inch planks of greenheart, a tropical wood possessing the remarkable quality of being both hard and elastic. Experience has taught that this wood affords the best protection against the ice destruction. Amidships the wear is less, and here thick oak planks seem to afford the needed security, while it is much lighter and cheaper. The stern wall is five feet thick, and the breast wall about twelve feet in antro-posterior diameter. Outside of this almost indestructible battering ram, there is a protective sheathing of soft Swedish iron, to receive the first cutting edges of the ice.

The rudder is large and specially strong to stand the strain of the crushing ice, while the vessel goes astern into the pack. The helmport is large enough to make it possible to dislodge obstructive ice. The propeller, too, has its special points of interest. It can be raised out of the water, as occasion may require, to free it from ice entanglements, or to replace it with a new one, should it be broken, and also to permit free sailing. And then there is the crow’s nest--a huge barrel raised to the top of the mainmast, to enable the lookout to view a greater horizon. We shall often expect to hear, as I have in the arctic, startling news from the man in this sky-barrel. He will probably announce the first sight of some new lands, and will often send down a signal of our approach to some big animal, which will bring us all on deck armed with rifles, only to find a piece of discoloured ice or snow as a target.

If by any chance the southern ice-floes should hug us too affectionately, we are well prepared for its unwelcome caresses. Our little ship will stand a good deal of hard squeezing; she is constructed to fight not only with her engines and her armoured breast, but in her bowels we have stored something like two thousand pounds of tonite, an explosive said to be superior to dynamite for ice destruction. With this tonite we hope to blast and shatter and find freedom for our _Belgica_ if embraced by the Frost King.

Although we do not expect to hunt seals or whales or anything else for commercial purposes, the expedition is well prepared to take all kinds of life for scientific study. We have boom and harpoon guns to capture whales and sea-elephants. We have rifles, shotguns, pistols, knives, and ammunition to do justice to a pirate ship. Several thousand pounds of alcohol, and a large quantity of chemicals are on hand to preserve animal specimens, and also cotton for stuffing birds, as well as an apparatus for blowing eggs. Our cameras are of all varieties, and with these we expect to photograph the strange antarctic life with its immediate surroundings.

The devices for scientific fishing are as complete as the limited finances would permit. We shall be able to fish on the surface in the middle stratas, and on the bottom of the deep sea. We can even scrape the bed of the ocean with huge dredges for low forms of life, and can drop the thermometer down to register the degrees of heat of the invisible homes of these strange creatures.

The trawls and dredges are made after the last American Sigsbee system as improved by Professor Agassiz. There are four large frames, fifteen nets, and three thousand fathoms of galvanised steel rope with a tensile strength of five tons to haul the catch by steam. And then there is the tangle-bar, and much other fishing apparatus, all of which would make an old-time fisherman stare with envy. In short, the equipment is such that not only the life of the air and land will be accessible, but also a systematic study of the marine life inhabiting the unmeasured depths of the southern ocean will be for the first time possible.

The new science of oceanography, or as Lieutenant Maury, its father, called it, “the geography of the sea,” has been constantly in mind in the organisation and equipment of the _Belgica_. The outfit for fishing partly belongs to this department; unique devices for sounding the ocean in all depths by the Monacho machine (with pianoforte wire and steel rope as a line, sinkers which detach automatically, and a complicated system of special steam machinery) is now adjusted, ready for use. We expect to study the submarine currents, temperature, and the composition of the water. For all of this, we have special apparatus, perhaps not interesting to the average reader in a description, but the results are sure to add a new and startling chapter to the growing annals of ocean science.

The laboratory is in a small, specially constructed deckhouse behind the foremast. Its dimensions are small, perhaps fifteen feet long and twelve feet wide, but its capacity for storing instruments, and its convenience for work is phenomenal. It is intended as the centre for all scientific work, a sort of “union den” for the working staff, as the motto painted in large letters over the window “_L’Union Fait L’Force_,” indicates. It will, however, be principally used for meteorologic, oceanographic, and zoölogical investigations. When one first steps into the laboratory, there creeps over one a fear to move, for everything seems a frail meshwork of glass; straight and spiral tubes, glass cylinders, thermometers, barometers, test tubes, bottles, and glass articles, too numerous to mention, are attached to all the available surface on the walls, the shelves and even the ceiling. At first appearance one would pronounce the frail fixtures short-lived, and it certainly seems as if a single sharp toss or sudden pitch of the ship would send the whole glassy splendour in fragments to the floor. The vessel, however, has rolled for three months on the destructive swell of the Atlantic, and, thanks to the carefully planned attachments, very few instruments have been broken; so we have reason to hope from this experience that the ice will not be more injurious.

A very complete library is on board. It is a library, like the men, of various tongues, and descriptive of a great variety of subjects. Each department has its technical bibliography. The Commandant and the writer have a general collection of all the antarctic narratives in all tongues. The Captain has a heap of charts and books on navigation; Lieutenant Danco has everything pertaining to terrestrial magnetism. The general scientific library is indeed a cosmopolitan collection. It contains books in French, English, German, Polish, Norwegian, and Rumanian print. In addition to serious literature, we have other books and magazines of lighter character. But these float about, from the laboratory to the cabin, and then to the forecastle, always in the hands of those whose spirits need elevating. Weeklies with unusually good pictures, such as half tones of beautiful women, theatric or opera scenes are reserved and served after dinner as a kind of entertainment.

The quarters for officers and men are fairly good--palatial, as comfort is measured on a sealer. The Commandant has a neat little room behind the mizzenmast, opposite to the kitchen. It is carpeted, nicely furnished, and the walls are artistically bedecked by old Dutch sketches, some paintings, and many photographs of polar scenes. We are so pressed for space, that we are told even this room will be partly filled with coal at Punta Arenas. The cabin is well aft; like the laboratory, the Commandant’s room, and the kitchen, it is on deck. As we enter, to the right of the engines are the berths of the Captain and the mates, where they have the soot, steam, and smoke of the engine-room to impress upon them the importance of their work, while the noise is such that prolonged sleep is impossible. The cabin is small, but full of comfort. It is as if eight men stood up around a small table, and a box were built around them, the corners and walls and ceiling being lined with books and instruments. It is not a very joyful place in the tropics, but when an endless sea of ice surrounds us, and the wind is blowing, and the decks are covered with snow, then, with steaming food on the table, we shall find its true value.

A door through the left of the cabin opens into an aisle, to the side of which are the four berths where the devotees of science sleep. The sides are thoughtfully lined with lockers, but every nook, the beds, the ceiling, and at times even the floor, is covered with clothing, instruments and books. After a storm it is a sad rivalry in hopeless entanglement. The forecastle occupies the space between decks from the foremast to the stem. It is large, light, and, compared with the officers’ quarters, extremely comfortable. We speak French in the cabin, German and French in the laboratory, and a mixture of English, Norwegian, French, and German in the forecastle. The life and order on board of the _Belgica_ is that of a well-regulated family. Each man has his duties to perform, but he will also be expected to lend a brotherly hand to his companions as occasion may require. On clear evenings the music-box is often brought up on deck, and as the familiar tunes bound out into the strangely clear atmosphere, some sing, others dance; some walk about, and still others play games. The scene is truly melancholy upon reflection. We are going farther and farther away from home to the most desolate and forbidding part of the known or the unknown world. Our return is uncertain, our future is dark; but we have set out with this knowledge before us, and now it is our duty to aid in keeping up the general family cheerfulness. Whatever else may be our future success or failure, our domestic comforts are assured. When we assemble on deck after dinner, with the music to draw out a general feeling of well-being, a generous and unanimous air of joy rises with the ascending dew of the setting sun of the South Atlantic.

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