ACROSS THE ANTARCTIC CIRCLE--FIRST EFFORTS
TO PENETRATE THE PACK
[Illustration: Snowy Petrel, (_Pagodroma nivea_).]
On the evening of the fifteenth we had sunk the land and the drift-ice
under the north-eastern horizon. There remains, in that direction, an
ice-blink, a bright, cream-colored zone on the sky, which indicates
that ice and land is not far off. Icebergs are about us in great
numbers, but they are all small, hard, rounded masses, showing the
effect of stormy seas. None are over one hundred feet high, and all
have a polished surface with huge blue cavities, into which the
sea rushes with a cannon-like roar. Giant petrels, cape pigeons,
albatrosses and gulls hover about the bark in the air, but in the water
we see no life. The night promises to be clear, with a continued fair
wind sending us along at the rate of six knots without steam. We are
all on deck watching the good old ship plough her way merrily through
the virgin antarctic seas, feeling proud of her sterling qualities,
and of her sailing capacity, when the Captain suddenly springs into
an ecstasy. He acts like a boy with a new toy. We look about for the
reason for all the commotion, and he points to the heavens; there,
through a break in the low stratus clouds, gleams a star. It is a
lonely speck in a narrow strip of blue, but it is the first star which
we have seen while along the edge of the south polar lands.
If our dead reckoning is correct we shall cross the antarctic circle
to-night, but we have had no opportunity for several days to fix our
position. The intermittent fogs and heavy clouds which hang over us
constantly have deprived us of the necessary glimpses of the sun, the
moon, and the stars, with which to make the nautical calculations. At
present our positions by account are only guesses at an actual location
because of our absolute ignorance of the currents. During the day and
the preceding night we passed great numbers of icebergs, but they
were all of the sea-washed and storm-rasped type; irregular in shape,
few over a hundred feet high, and all of a dull gray blue colour. The
bergs here seem to be fragments of larger tabular masses. Early in the
evening a yellow cloud-like figure rose out of the south-east. This, on
a closer approach, proved to be a continuation of the mainland. There
were tall angular peaks which stood out boldly against the ice-blink
thrown upon the vapour which hangs over the land. Between these black
peaks were blue valleys filled with glaciers, pouring their frozen
streams down the slopes and out into the sea.
At eight o’clock on the morning of the sixteenth we came on deck to
gain the first view of the new panorama which the lifting fogs had
unveiled. The land here, behind a very bold black headland marking the
bluff point of a projecting cape, trends suddenly eastward and sinks
under the horizon. The north-western side of this cape is remarkable
for its great tongue of ice spreading out smoothly from a snow-covered
ridge far interior, and breaking off in an even uninterrupted wall of
ice at the seashore. The southern shore has also a great ice-wall, but
this wall is interrupted by several black, rocky cliffs which separate
the land-ice into numerous glacial streams. Beyond the black headland
there are two sharp peaks, about four thousand feet high, and to each
side of these are a few dome-like mountains of a lesser height. About
ten miles beyond this ridge there is a chain of white peaks, with a
general height of perhaps six thousand feet, running parallel to the
eastward trend of the coast. Far to the south, still fifty or sixty
miles off, we saw a great mass of high land which later proved to be a
group of islands. Between the headland eastward, upon which our eyes
first landed, and the great cliffs to the south, there is a break
in the land which may be a bay or a strait. It is filled with heavy
sea-ice and studded with countless icebergs, making an examination of
the continuation of the coast impossible. We were compelled to set a
course southward, leaving open the question as to whether the coast of
Grahamland ends here or extends farther poleward.
Leaving this land behind us we steamed southward during the day,
pressing as closely to the land in that direction as the pack-ice,
which was held close to the shore, would permit. We decided, at this
time, that the land before us was Alexanderland, and behind us,
probably, that which is charted as Adelaide Island; but there is
nothing about this latter land, as we view it over the stern, which
indicates that it is an island. If an island, which Lecointe doubts,
it must be a very large one, with the eastern termination beyond our
horizon. On the whole, it seems to us like a very large country, ridged
by at least two high mountain chains, which are covered with ice to
their peaks. We have formed the impression that it is a part of the
mainland, and conclude that a strait probably separates Grahamland from
the farther antarctic. But this is merely an impression; the facts are
that the land, though agreeing in position with the assigned location
of Adelaide Island, does not bear any resemblance to the discoverer’s
meagre description. As to the land before us, there seems to be no
doubt among the officers but that it is the country charted Alexander
I. Land, by the Russian explorer, Bellingshausen, seventy-six years
ago. He saw it only from a great distance and it has not been seen
by human eyes before or since. Now the _Belgica_ is heading for
it; but there is so much heavy pack-ice, which appears to embrace the
shores, that we do not entertain any hopes of effecting a landing.
At noon our latitude was 67° 58′ south, the longitude, 69° 53′ west
of Greenwich. We hauled a little westward of the outer drift of the
pack, and Alexanderland rose up over our port bow still forty or fifty
miles away. There are scattered in the waters westward, and in the pack
eastward, forty-four icebergs of moderate size. About half of these are
tabular in form; the other half are of the pinnacled and sea-washed,
or weather-worn variety. A few small black-billed penguins are in the
water, darting over the surface and again into the deep, with electric
swiftness. Close to the pack-ice, there rises from the black surface
of the sea, a number of columns of vapour-like jets. Through our
glasses we see under these the black backs of whales with large dorsal
fins, and occasionally a ponderous tail whips the water into a foamy
whirlpool. On some of the pans of ice are seals basking in the sun, and
over the ship, apparently touching the masts and the ropes as the bark
rocks to and fro, are giant petrels, Cape pigeons, gulls, white, brown,
and blue petrels, all pointing their bills and stretching their necks
to examine, perhaps for the first time, human beings and their crafts.
There is a dreamy stillness in the air, in spite of the frequent stirs
of wild life, and a charming touch of colour to the sea, the ice, and
the land, though the sky is dull, gray, and gloomy. At first glance
all seems white and black, and we are impressed with the weight of the
awful snowy solitude into which we are entering. A sense of chilly
loneliness is more and more forced upon us by the passing panorama of
snow, and ice, and deserted rocks. But, critically considered, after
the first pangs of desolation have passed, there are a few of us who
find some cheer and colour in the harmony of the perennial chilliness
before us. This morning there was a break in the clouds, and through
this came a flood of yellow light which made the bergs and the icy
cliffs of Alexanderland stand out like walls of gold. Shortly after
noon a pale blue was thrown over the white glitter of the pack, which
increased the high lights, darkened the shadows, and made the moving
mass of whiteness, as it rose and fell with the giant wave of the sea,
a thing of gladness.
[Illustration:
OSGOOD ART COLORTYPE CO., CHI. & N. Y.
Midnight At Midsummer Over The Antarctic Mainland]
At four o’clock in the afternoon we had made a rough outline of the new
land before us. It proved to be a group of islands (Alexander Islands)
about twenty-five miles long and from ten to fifteen miles wide. There
is one large central island, about eighteen miles long, with a high
ridge of mountains running approximately from east to west. In this
ridge there are three peaks not less than four thousand, five hundred
feet in altitude. These are quite pyramidal in form and are covered
with snow to their summits, with only an occasional bare, perpendicular
rock. This ridge of mountains tapers gradually towards the west and
terminates abruptly in the east. Running parallel to this central
ridge, about four miles southward, there is a lesser chain of mountains
about two thousand feet high, whose sides sink almost perpendicularly
into the sea. There is also a similar ridge to the southward. The two
valleys between these three ridges of mountains are filled with great
sheets of glacial ice. We had a splendid view of these glaciers as
we passed about twenty miles off the western end of the island. The
northern valley was rough, much crevassed, and generally irregular,
extending its tongue out over the sea for several miles. The valley
south of the central ridge appeared like a great plain with easy slopes
toward the sea, where the frozen mass seemed to project over the waters
for a short distance. Around this one large island were a number of
small islands, angular rocky masses, mostly covered with caps of
glacial ice. These, from a greater distance, appeared to be a part of
the main central land mass. The vast number of icebergs to the eastward
of the land gave it, also, from a greater distance, the appearance of
being connected with some larger land eastward; but from our various
positions we were able to make out distinctly that the islands are a
separate group with no other land eastward within sight. Our positions
northward in the morning and southward during the night, proved this.
We saw some signs of land to the south during the afternoon, but these
vanished later. It was evidently a mirage.
We lost sight of the Alexander Islands at about ten o’clock last night,
when it became too dark to see more than a few miles. During the night
we steamed slowly over a south-westerly course close to the edge of
the pack. At 6 a.m. (February 17) the fires were covered and the sails
braced to a fair wind, sending us along, south-westerly, at the rate of
about four knots. There was some rain and snow during the night, which
lined the decks, covered the ropes, and sheeted the sails with ice. So
thoroughly were the sails incased that we were unable to set the patent
topsails. We hammered and pounded the sails and then we pulled and
lugged at the ropes, but our efforts were in vain. The steam-winch was
brought to our aid, but it, too, failed to bring down the icy sails. At
eight o’clock, when I came on deck, there was no land or ice in sight.
(We saw no more land for thirteen months.)
An hour later we passed along the outer fringe of small fragments of
drift ice. The weather changed every few minutes. Alternately we had
rain, and sleet, and fog, and snow. Our speed was increasing and the
wind came in strong puffs. We had seen very few bergs in the forenoon,
but the horizon was constantly hazed by thick weather, so we must have
passed many without being able to see them. Just before noon, while
trying to walk over the slippery decks, my attention was suddenly
directed to a dark spot in the fog over our port bow. I watched this
for a second or two, for the spot grew curiously lighter as we went on.
Everything was stiff, and dark, and dull. The lookout on the capstan
threw his arm easily, but anxiously, on the anchor and leaned over
to fix his eye on the same object, but he gave no signal, and I said
nothing, for there didn’t seem to be anything tangible to report. The
Captain now walked from the chart table to the port-side of the bridge;
just as he caught sight of the curious object it brightened with a
blink and a fraction of a second later a great wall of ice, towering
far above the masts, stood before us. “Hard-a starboard,” shouted the
Captain, with such abruptness and such force that a quiver went deep
into the heart of everyone on deck; a few moments later we grazed
the marble-like cliff of a huge iceberg, gliding by so closely that we
nearly scraped its knife-like edges.
[Illustration: The _Belgica_ pressing Southward through the
Drift-ice.]
[Illustration: Iceberg off Cape Tuxen.]
During the afternoon we sailed westerly, keeping the streams of
drift-ice within sight. There were fewer icebergs as we advanced, but
it continued foggy, with alternate squalls of rain and snow, which
prevented our seeing to any long distance. The ice which we have passed
within the past few days, and the pack to the southward, are not, at
any place, formidable except in the choked channels, Bismarck Inlet,
and the inlet north of Alexanderland. If we had awaited an easterly
wind, which is the prevailing wind of summer, no doubt we might have
forced a way southward along the coast of Grahamland. The season for
antarctic navigation, however, is already past, and if we are to make a
point far south this year, which the Commandant desires, we must push
on with all force.
Early in the evening the prow was turned southward. With sails and
steam the good ship was rushed through the light streams of drift-ice.
The sea rolled under her in great inky mountains and the ice, in
response to the wave, gave off a noise like the crackle of a silk
garment. At midnight we came to a region where the sea was closely
covered with ice, but the pieces were still small and separated by
bands of water covered with brash.
6 a.m. February 18. Those of us not directly connected with the
navigation of the bark, and the men off watch, slept very little last
night; the noise of the larger pans, as they struck the ship, and the
grating and rasping of the smaller fragments, as the _Belgica_ was
forced through the ice, was such that sleep was impossible. We were all
anxious and uneasy. There was little wind, but it was dark and foggy,
and icebergs were everywhere to be expected. Mentally another berg
collision was constantly before us and every unusual thump suggested
a calamity. As the purple gray of dawn illuminated the horizon
eastward, our hearts beat more easily, and our minds were more at rest,
though the new scene which now lay before us was the most hopeless
icy-desolation which, to the present, it had been our lot to see.
All about us the ice was very closely packed. There was a seemingly
endless sea of ice, waving on the swell of the great restless waters
under us. It was the first really good view which we had had of
the characteristic ice, which covers the limitless expanse of this
circumpolar ocean. Farther northward the true sea-ice was so much
melted and weather-worn, and so much mixed with small angular fragments
of icebergs and other land-ice, that the pack was a conglomerate mass
entirely different from the true pack-ice. Now, as the sun rose and
the mist dissolved, we saw pans of ice of an average diameter of one
hundred feet, with a thickness of five feet, whose surfaces were raised
here and there, by old wind-rasped hummocks or miniature mountains,
from one to two yards high. Between these pans there were zones of
water covered with closely packed pulverised ice, in which there were
some pieces a few feet in diameter. In our efforts to push southward
we selected these lanes between the larger pans, but the fine ice
so effectually stopped our progress that even by using the full power
of the engines we could not make more than two miles in six hours. A
long and continuous swell of the Pacific was responsible for the steady
pressure and forced continuity of the pack. Here, also, were large
numbers of icebergs scattered in the pack, and from a distance they
seemed to offer a continuous barrier. While this was not true when
the horizon was closely examined, their influence, however, coupled
with the power of the great swell of the sea, was an effective bar to
farther progress.
[Illustration: Penguins on a Sea-worn Iceberg Resembling a Whale.]
On the ice we see a number of crab-eating seals, mostly in pairs, but
some in groups of five or six. They are in a sleepy mood and evidently
enjoy the sharp sunbursts which now and then light up the beds of snow
and the projecting icy spires with an electric glow. There are a few
penguins about, and also some giant petrels; but the ornithological
surprise of the day is the countless thousands of terns resting on, and
hovering about, the icebergs. Great rows cover the ridges, and in some
places the air is one hustling mass of bird life, all seeming to strive
for a place to fly, or fighting for a resting spot on the higher angles
of the bergs.
During the afternoon we saw a black zone along the northern horizon.
It was a water-sky indicating that under it there was open, ice-free
water. To the south, to the east, and to the west, however, there was
everywhere the dazzling whiteness of the ice-blink on the heavens,
offering no hope of advance.
We now tried to retrace our path, but we were held with such a firm
embrace that we could not gain sufficient room to turn. At six o’clock
the pressure slackened a little and, at the same time, we saw a black
line of open water about two miles westward. We headed for this and
for seven long hours we struggled with full force to press between the
firmly packed floes. After midnight we were again in free waters, and
set a course westerly along the edge of the pack-ice.
February 19, noon, latitude 69° 06′, longitude 78° 27′ 30″. The
conditions permitting nautical observations are rare at the edge of
the pack, because here the atmosphere is in a constant whirlpool of
agitation. Storm, fog, rain, sleet and snow, are the normal conditions.
One rarely gets a peep of the sun, and if by chance it should break
through, it is seldom at noon or at an hour convenient for the
Captain to make his reckoning. If then it happens, as it has to-day,
that we obtain the observations which fix our position accurately
in this lonely world of desolation, a kind of boyish rejoicing runs
along the line of men on the decks; and even in the cabins, one
hears comparisons. One says, “Now I am nine thousand, nine hundred
and eighty-nine miles from home. It is noon, but at home they are
just taking breakfast.” Another says, “Everybody that I love is nine
thousand miles over our starboard quarter. They are just entering upon
the duties of the day.” It has suddenly occurred to every one to think
of home and of civilisation, for we are going farther and farther
away from the known world of life and comfort into the unknown world
of sterility and discomfort. To-day we know the exact spot on which
we are being thrown about by a great unknown sea of mystery, and this
knowledge seems to bring us nearer home because it offers us something
tangible with which to make comparisons. In reality, however, we are
as hopelessly isolated as if we were on the surface of Mars, and we
are plunging still deeper and deeper into the white antarctic silence.
A man at the verge of starvation takes a certain comfort in knowing,
though it is out of his reach, that food exists. So with us, we extract
a certain amount of satisfaction out of the numbers which record our
latitude and longitude to-day, though our homes are proven by the
figures to be out of all possible reach for months, perhaps for years,
and possibly forever.
All day we have steamed westerly along the edge of the pack, passing
very many icebergs and running through occasional streams of drift-ice.
We have been looking for an opening into the ice offering us a passage
southward, but we have found no promising break in the compact mass.
Excepting the sunburst at noon it has been a dark, dull, gloomy day.
A light fall of snow, mixed with a cold drizzling rain, has fallen
over us almost constantly. This has again made the decks like a
sliding pond. It is humorous, but also sorrowful, to see the men,
whose clothing is sheeted with a plate of ice, stumble and glide and
slip from rope to rope, always holding on to something to keep from
spreading on the floor or glancing overboard into the icy waters. If
one falls he swears and warms the cold air by heated language, but he
is at once subdued by a companion, who says, “What! you complain of
such little accidents, and you an explorer? No! that is the voice of a
kitchen adventurer.”