THE AUTUMN (CONTINUED). WORK AND PASTIME
March 28.--It is another day of clear, white silence. At sunrise and
at sunset the twilight zone is becoming more and more marked. It
is, to-night, an intense purple blue, and through it we see a star.
Arctowski puts down the mysterious purple as a reflection from the
shadows of the pack-ice, which at this time is a deep ultramarine
blue, but to most of us it is still a puzzle. We are all occupied
to-day preparing for a winter campaign of work. Danco is building a
triangular hut in which he expects to make his magnetic observations.
Arctowski is arranging a new system for meteorological observations and
is scattering his instruments over the ice, about the ship, and in the
masts. Racovitza is studying bird and seal parasites, and everybody
else is preparing for his own special line of work. We all have big
ambitions, but I fear our efforts will be dwarfed when the gloomy,
dayless night settles down over us.
March 29.--A light northerly wind has lowered, and darkened the
heavens, and brought over us a wet, warm, uncomfortable atmosphere,
with an occasional fall of snow. The snow on the pack is made adhesive
by the water-charged air which is being blown over the ice from the
open sea now, perhaps, one hundred miles northward. The _ski_ will
not slide and sledges can be drawn only with great difficulty. The ice
is still spreading out, increasing the width of the leads, while the
temperature, which is close to zero, is not low enough to make new
ice. Life has again returned in abundance. We saw four finback whales
spouting, blowing, and sporting, and moving leisurely southward in the
leads. We saw also many white and giant petrels, and great numbers of
royal and small pack penguins. On a floe about three miles from the
ship we encountered six crab-eating seals. We killed all of these and
found their stomachs distended by a fresh meal of shrimp. Two were
pregnant, and from these the naturalist secured embryos which were,
indeed, rare and beautiful. These were placed in a jar and marked for
future study. As the sun settled under the horizon westward, a lemon
colour spread along the sky in that direction and early in the night
the sky cleared somewhat. There was a small feeble fragment of an arc
aurora hanging in the south-west with a steady glow during most of the
night.
March 30.--The morning opened bright and cloudless with a temperature
-20° C., and a gentle southerly air which has brushed away the heavy
humid air of yesterday. Racovitza and I went to a lead which Koren, the
cabin-boy, visited yesterday, and who reported thousands of penguins
and hundreds of seals. The distance was about two miles and the
travelling on the floes was good, but when it was necessary to cross
old breaks over the hummocks, and crushed ice, it became a task of
considerable difficulty. When we reached the lead we found that what
Koren had said was to some extent true. Upon a large hummocky floe in
the lead there was much life. We counted twenty crab-eating seals and
seventeen king penguins. This was certainly the largest assemblage of
the great penguins and seals which we had seen on the pack. With a
rifle Racovitza shot six seals and with my _ski_ stick I killed
all the penguins. We realised the fact that it was cruel to do this,
but the calls of science and the dire needs of our stomachs made the
deed absolutely necessary. The seals were all females and from them we
obtained four embryos. The penguins were bagged for food. Later in the
day a westerly wind raised the temperature and brought great quantities
of drift-snow. During the night the wind increased to a half-gale.
March 31.--The wind has veered to the north and is still coming with
the force of a half-gale. There are great drifts of snow lined about
the bark and over the pack. The temperature is -2° C. Everything is wet
and far more uncomfortable than it is when the thermometer is at -20°.
The captain and Amundsen have brought aboard two small live penguins
and turned them over to Racovitza for physiological experiments. We
find it very difficult to bring in our game. It takes the full force of
three men to drag the skin and blubber of one seal, weighing perhaps
two hundred and fifty pounds. One man cannot drag more than two royal
penguins on a sledge when the snow is either extremely dry or slightly
humid, as it has been for the past few weeks, but if the penguins are
bunched and dragged on their own feathers without a sledge, a man is
able to draw six with ease. The lesson which we have learned from this
experience is that sledges, if possible, should be shod with a strip
of penguin skin with feathers attached. We are designing such a sledge
to-day. It is certainly the first effort of the kind on record and we
hope it will prove useful.
April 1.--The storm still continues and the barometer is steadily
falling, but the wind is coming in gusts, which is a cheerful
indication that its force is nearly spent. The one food upon which
the most unlimited hatred has been heaped is the fiskabolla. The cook
serves these on Fridays, and the coarse sarcasm brought out before
and after dinner is certainly remarkable. In the cabin only two men,
Gerlache and Amundsen, eat the soft, tasteless, fiberless, and useless
things, and they seem to put them away with a grim relish. Lecointe
has touched them but once since crossing the Atlantic from Madeira to
Rio. Two weeks ago he made a bet with Racovitza, which was supported by
a resolution to eat four fiskabolla. Lecointe lost and selected April
first on which to pay his forfeit. Poor fellow! I believe he would
rather have paid a hundred dollars. He ate the things, but he suffered
with gastric discomfort for a week, and resolved forever afterwards
never to touch, taste, or smell “embalmed fishballs.”
April 2.--The storm has ceased, and a lighter wind is coming from
the south-west. The sky is fairly clear at the zenith, but a bank of
atmosphere, charged with fine ice crystals, hangs over the pack and
makes the horizon obscure. The sun and the moon, rising and descending
through this haze of ice, are distorted, refracted, and deflected, into
all sorts of curious fantastic shapes. To-night there was a parhelion
in prismatic colours. There was a simple reproduction of the image
of the sun, one to each side, and the three suns sank slowly under
the hazy violet of the horizon. Soon after, the moon rose through the
same haze of floating ice crystals, with luminous spots indicating
crescentic rings and four distant moon dogs.
April 3.--The same haze of suspended ice crystals is being driven over
the pack, filling up the chasms and rounding all the sharp edges of the
hummocks. The temperature is -22° C. and the wind is due south, sending
the ice-laden clouds over the crusted snow with a metallic ring. As the
sun rose through this mist this morning we saw a variety of parhelia,
with bright crescentic patches, changing rapidly in brilliancy and
form as the sun ascended. At four in the afternoon the moon rose again
through this icy mist. In colour and form it was the most remarkable
lunar aspect I ever saw. First, as it came over the horizon, its size
seemed so much above what we were accustomed to that we did not easily
guess it was the moon. After it rose clear of the ice-line it took a
wrinkled, distorted form, which in shape and colour resembled an old
withered orange.
April 4.--There has been a great excitement to-day--one which has
forced a new interest into the usual sameness of the daily dry routine.
The woodwork about the pipe of the cabin stove became ignited, and for
a few seconds there was a cry of “fire” and a great scramble for water.
Amundsen, with admirable presence of mind, drew out the pipe from the
deck and then smothered the flames with snow, while the rest of us
hustled about for water, which is always scarce on the _Belgica_.
The captain was able to get an observation of the sun to-day at noon,
from which he fixes our position at latitude 71° 22′ 15″, longitude
84° 54′ 45″. A sounding was made which proved the depth of the sea
530 metres. Although the sky has been fairly clear, at noon a steady
easterly wind was driving over the pack, sending sharp-edged crystals
across the ship with a cutting force. The temperature ranges from -17°
to -20° C. In the past forty-eight hours we have drifted northward nine
miles, and eastward about eight miles. The wind, coming as it does now
with a steady blow, will probably send us drifting westward with a
rapid pace.
April 5.--The day opened doubtfully, the sky presenting neither
a stormy nor a fair aspect. There is no wind, which is a curious
condition of things for this region of eternal blasts. The wind of the
past few days has rolled up great drifts, which give a charm of form in
rounded irregularities to the surface of the icy sea. With the sudden
cessation of the wind, there has been considerable pressure which
has fractured some floes and raised great lines of hummocks along the
fissures and old leads. The temperature is steadily falling; to-day it
ranges from -18° to -27° C. We saw little of the sun except a crimson
burst at its setting, but the moon has had for us a curious attraction.
It is full, and rose over the north at half-past three this afternoon.
The purple twilight curve at this time was feeble but distinctly
visible. The moon rose slowly behind this, and had the appearance of a
great, irregular ball of crude gold, but as it rose above the purple
and over the usual line of orange-red, which limits the curve, it was a
full sharply-cut globe, pale yellow and fresh, as though washed in the
polar whiteness. This was at five o’clock. The sun had just sunk under
a line of snow flushed by a rich rose colour, and the sky above it, in
the west, was fired by a mass of feathery clouds. As the moon ascended,
all of this display of vivid colours faded into the blue electric glow,
which is seen only over the polar pack. By this light we were able to
read ordinary print at eleven o’clock at night. The heavens at this
time were so bright that only the stars to the fourth magnitude were
visible.
April 6.--Still it blows from the east. There is now and then an
intermission for a day, or a part of a day, when the wind turns to the
north or the south, but strong easterly winds prevail. The other winds
are hardly of sufficient force or duration to set the pack into motion.
Parhelias and paraselenas are now of daily occurrence. This morning
at nine o’clock, when the sun was over a bank of drift-snow on the
horizon, there was first, a halo, then a rapidly-changing series of
sun dogs; generally two extra suns, one to each side, and all having
perpendicular lines drawn through the centres. The days are fading
rapidly, and the nights are lengthening with an alarming quickness.
The life, too, is less and less in evidence. We now walk miles over
the desolate waste of white expanse without seeing penguins or seals,
where only a few days ago we saw great numbers. There are some tracks
of animals which have been stranded by the closing of fissures and
open spaces of water. The direction of these is generally northward,
or towards some large iceberg, where there is usually open water into
which the creatures dive to seek a more congenial region northward,
where the fissures are sure to be open. We took a _ski_ excursion
at noon to-day, and travelled over twelve miles without seeing a speck
of life.
April 8.--All the leads and open spaces of water seem to have closed,
and all the snowy world about us is saddened under the increasing gray
of the coming night. Lecointe has put up a box-shaped house in which
he intends to make the nautical observations for the year. We of the
cabin have all given him a lift at his house-building. The commandant
had a hammer and nails; Racovitza had a saw; Arctowski made the plans;
Danco acted as general director; Lecointe and I did the horse work of
transporting the planks and other material from the ship to the site of
the new observatory. We enjoy such little tasks as pastime before and
after our regular scientific observations and official duties. It took
us one day to build the captain’s house, but it was inartistic in
shape, unstable in its setting, and the wind blew through it, making
drafts and an interior atmosphere colder than that of the open expanse
outside. We next covered it with tar paper and anchored it by banking
and burying the structure under snow. The captain made his first
observation in the new house to-night. He sighted two stars, came in,
and rather hastily said, “It is splendid,” but shortly after I was
called upon to attend to two frozen fingers. This is the first result
of our newly constructed shelter.
[Illustration: Iceberg in the Edge of the Pack-ice, About 120
Feet High.]
[Illustration: Penguin Tracks.]
April 9.--It is the birthday of King Leopold, of the Belgians, to-day.
The commandant has made it a holiday and ordered a special menu with
a liberal supply of wine to the officers and crew. All are expected
to celebrate the day in good form. We enjoy these days of rest,
recreation, and change from the usual formula of regular work, and we
conscientiously point out, far in advance, the legal holidays of all
lands and the birthdays of each of the men of the _Belgica_. It is
a slow week when we have not succeeded in having at least one day set
aside as a period of special feeding, followed by a flow of champagne.
“All honor to the King” is the voice of the _Belgica_ to-day. His
picture is in a prominent place in the dining-room, and his name is
on every tongue. If His Majesty could hear the flattering toasts, the
words of loyalty and praise, the genuine feeling of good fellowship
which now rings over the new world about us, he would feel that we
were, one and all, glad citizens of that little land which deserves
the credit of opening the gates of antarctic darkness and mystery. He
would and should know that, though we are from many lands, we are now
proud subjects of King Leopold.
That we might better mark the king’s birthday and remember it as a
period of great rejoicing, and to arouse our sleeping regard for
women we have instituted a “beauty contest.” Lecointe, Racovitza, and
Amundsen, I think, were responsible for the invention. At any rate,
anything suggestive of kind, tender, feminine recollections, or of love
and poetry, is first championed by one of these gentlemen. It was so in
the “beauty contest.” For several days they had been electioneering and
pointing out the special merits of the women of their choice. The pick
has been made from the illustrations of a Paris journal, illustrating
women famous for graces of form and manner, and public notoriety.
Nearly five hundred pictures were selected, representing all kinds of
poses and dress and undress, and anatomical parts of women noted as
types of beauty. The result of this concourse is shown in the following
official record of the great event:--
ANTARCTIC NIGHT
ANNOUNCEMENT BY
THE MINISTER OF ARTS, FEMININE BEAUTY, AND
PUBLIC WORKS
GRAND CONCOURSE OF BEAUTIFUL WOMEN
ORGANISED IN THE COLD ANTARCTIC, HELD
UNDER THE AUSPICES OF
S. M. ARTOCHO I.--KING OF THE POLAR ZONE
AND
S. A. ROALD, PRINCE OF THE KYODBOLLA
===================================================================
FIRST PART.--TOTAL OF VOTES FOR THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
WOMEN.
--------------------------------------------+-------+--------+-------
DESCRIPTION FOR BALLOTING. | FIRST | SECOND | THIRD
| PRIZE.| PRIZE. | PRIZE.
--------------------------------------------+-------+--------+-------
I. Poses plastiques | 252 | 217 | 218
II. Disposition (dreamy, fond of flattery)| 183 | 326 | 339
III. Appearance, common | 391 | 323 | 260
IV. Rosy complexion | 306 | 245 | 264
V. Irreproachable character | 94 | 88 | 210
VI. Grace, personified | 209 | 230 | 319
VII. Elegant appearance (sweet disposition)| 47 | 463 | 101
VIII. Underclothing | 134 | 180 | --
IX. Most artistic poses | 274 | 404 | 391
X. Sporty girls | 208 | 397 | 405
XI. Most graceful dancers | 288 | 291 | 290
===================================================================
PART SECOND.--TOTAL OF VOTES ON THE EXCELLENCE OF
SPECIAL PARTS.
---------------------------------------+-------+--------+-------
DESCRIPTION FOR BALLOTING. | FIRST | SECOND | THIRD
| PRIZE.| PRIZE. | PRIZE.
---------------------------------------+-------+--------+-------
I. The most beautiful face | 94 | 479 | 480
II. Luxuriant hair | 308 | 320 | 282
III. Flashing eyes | 312 | 88 | --
IV. Mouth (Cupid’s bow) | 309 | 88 | --
V. Shapely hands (tapering fingers) | 311 | 217 | 191
VI. Arms | 212 | -- | --
VII. Sloping, alabaster shoulders | 212 | -- | --
VIII. Supple waist | 218 | -- | --
IX. Les jambes | 209 | 217 | --
X. Feet | 211 | -- | --
==============================================================
PART THREE.--Each voter must accept the woman who is
selected by his companions as most suitable for
his welfare, happiness, etc.
Gerlache 94
Melaerts 191
Lecointe 209
Cook 88
Danco 282
Amundsen 256
Racovitza 64
Arctowski 324, 326, 392
(One not sufficient.)
===========================
PART FOUR.--The umpires will decide which girl will be
likely to be preferred by the various “Wandering
Willies” of the expedition.
PRIZE OF HONOUR
The prize of honour will be given to the most beautiful woman--the one
having obtained the largest number of votes.
* * * * *
GENERAL CONDITIONS
The photographs of the “Beauties” to enter into the contest
are filed in the “Minister’s” book. There are four hundred and
sixty-four (464) pictures, charms, delights and fascinations,
but voters are cautioned not to become too enthusiastic or
overheated. Those carrying photographs (of favoured ones) in
their pockets and pinned to their vests, as nearly as possible to
their hearts, may submit them for inspection to the “Minister.”
It is hoped that the elections will be honourable, but “all is
fair in love and war,” and in the “Ladyless South,” swindling of
all kinds is allowable providing it is in an honourable cause.
DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRIZES
On the arrival of the _Belgica_ in port the Minister
will send the diploma, drawn by the “King’s” own hand, to the
fortunate winners of the prizes. The presentation of the prizes
is conditional upon the later appearance of the woman before the
committee to exhibit the parts for which ballot has been cast,
not for re-examination, but to obtain an official photograph.
(Signed)
RACONEVIPADECA, President of the “Pack Loafers.”
LECOINTWHISKY, Minister of the Land of Beautiful
Women, and “Lady Specialist.”