THE DRYGALSKI GLACIER
On November 26 Mawson and I ascended a rocky promontory, while Mackay
was securing some seal-meat, and from the top we had a splendid view
across the level surface of sea-ice far below us.
But although what we saw was magnificent, it was also discomforting,
for at a few miles from the shore an enormous iceberg, frozen into the
floe, lay right across the path which we had meant to travel on the
next day.
To the north-west of us was Geikie Inlet, and beyond that, stretching
as far as the eye could follow, was the great Drygalski Glacier.
Not a little concerned were we to observe with our field-glasses
that the surface of this glacier was wholly different to that of the
Nordenskjold Ice Barrier.
Clearly the surface of the Drygalski Glacier was formed of jagged
surfaces of ice very heavily crevassed, but we could see that at
the extreme eastern extension, some thirty miles from where we were
standing, the surface appeared to be fairly smooth.
It was also obvious to us, from what we had seen looking out to sea to
the east of our camp, that there were large bodies of open water at no
great distance from us trending shorewards in the form of long lanes.
The lanes of water were only partly frozen over, and some of these were
interposed between us and the Drygalski Glacier.
Not a moment was to be lost if we were to reach the glacier before the
sea-ice broke up, for one strong blizzard would have converted the
whole of the sea-ice between us and the glacier into a mass of drifting
pack.
The thing, indeed, for us to do was to push on with all our might, and
still with slushy surfaces to hinder us we pulled and tramped until--on
the 28th--we came to a point where for some time it seemed as if our
progress further north was completely blocked. Eventually, however, we
found a place where the ice might just bear our sledges, and, having
strengthened it by laying down slabs of sea-ice and shovelfuls of snow,
we rushed our sledges over safely. Extremely thankful were we to get
them over to the other side, for the ice was so thin that it bent under
our weight, and once Mackay broke through and very nearly got a ducking.
Next we had to encounter some very high sastrugi of hard tough snow,
and as these were nearly at right-angles to our course, the work of
dragging our sledges over them was very distressing. And after the
sastrugi we met with an ice-surface which kept continually cracking as
we passed over it, with a noise like that of a whip being cracked.
We were unable by this time to talk about anything but cereal foods,
such as cakes of various kinds and fruits, for we were very short of
biscuits and were consequently seized with food obsessions.
The sun, however, which had during the afternoons considerable heating
power, and in one way was hindering us by making the surfaces so
slushy, helped us in another way. For when I put some snow into our
aluminium cooking-pot and exposed it for several hours--while we were
camping--to the direct rays of the suns, I was glad to find that half
the snow was thawed down, a result that, of course, saved us both
paraffin and blubber.
[Illustration: The Northern Party on the Plateau, New Year's Day, 1909.
(_See page 211_)]
On the 30th the ice ridges fronting us became higher and steeper, and
strain we ever so mightily we could scarcely get the sledges to move up
the steep ice slopes, and the sledges also skidded a good deal as we
dragged them obliquely upwards.
The glacier was now spread before us as a great billowy sea of pale
green ice, with here and there high embankments of marble-like _névé_
resembling railway embankments. Unfortunately for our progress, the
trend of the latter was nearly at right-angles to our course, and
as we advanced the undulations became more and more pronounced, the
embankments higher and steeper.
These embankments were bounded by cliffs from forty to fifty feet in
height, with overhanging cornices of tough snow. The cliffs faced
northwards, and such serious obstacles were the deep chasms which they
produced to our advance that we had often to go a long way round in
order to head them off.
December began with a very laborious day, and after battling on for
several hours we had only advanced a little over half a mile. So
we decided to camp, for Mackay and me to try to find a way for the
sledge out of the maze of chasms that beset us, and for Mawson to take
magnetic observations.
During that afternoon we discussed our situation at some length. Most
probably the Drygalski Glacier was twenty miles wide, and if we were
to cross it along the course we were travelling at the rate of a mile
a day it would take us twenty days to get over, even if we took no
account of the unforeseen delays which our experience had already
taught us were sure to occur. From what Mackay and I had seen ahead
of us, our difficulties were bound, for a considerable distance, to
increase rather than grow less.
Under these circumstances we were reluctantly forced to the conclusion
that our only hope of ultimate success lay in retreat, and so we
resolved to drag the sledges back off the glacier on to the sea-ice by
the way along which we had come.