We landed on a little beach inside a cave which was occupied by a number of sea-elephants, which showed their resentment of our approach by opening their mouths very wide and making stertorous windy noises which could hardly be described as “roaring”—“breathing” defiance with a vengeance.
In the enclosed atmosphere they smelled horribly, for they are unclean, swinish brutes. From the cave we clambered up a steep cliff to the top of the island, which we found to be irregular in shape and covered with tussock grass. Wilkins, with the assistance of Marr and Argles, immediately set about collecting albatross for addition to the natural history collections. These birds, when seen at close quarters on the ground, prove to be much larger than one would imagine, being about the size of large geese, but with much longer legs. Their appearance on land is ugly and ungainly, and contrasts strongly with the grace and beauty they exhibit when in flight. Wilkins, by going slowly, was easily able to get within reach, when he grabbed their beaks and “pithed” them by passing a needle through the back of the skull into the brain. He took the heads, wings and legs as specimens and made them into neat parcels for transmission to the museums. Jeffrey and McLeod had stayed to look after the boat, so, being at a loose end and remembering Worsley’s ecstatic remarks concerning baby albatross, I set about collecting enough of them for a meal for all hands. The island was covered with little paths worn by the birds, which formed a regular maze amongst the tussocks and hummocks of grass. Here and there one came across little circular plateaux which apparently formed a meeting-place for numbers of birds, for they were worn absolutely bare to the mud. The nests of the albatross are placed on the top of small, raised, cone-shaped mounds composed of earth and tussock grass, which are nearly always situated on the windward side of the island, so that the birds when preparing for flight have merely to spread their wings to get a good take off. The inside of the nest is hollowed sufficiently deep to allow the young bird to crouch and take shelter from the winds. The young are pretty little things covered with white down, and from the highest point of the island I could see them all round me standing out in marked contrast to the dark green of the tussock grass.
The giant petrels, “Nellies” or “Stinkers,” as they are variously called, nest in much the same way. They are most unpleasant creatures and receive from sailors none of the veneration accorded to the albatross. We had been ashore some hours when Commander Wild sent up a detonator as a signal for our recall. The cliffs on the side where we had landed are steep and overhanging, so that we had to approach cautiously, and had some difficulty in finding the way back to our cave. We at length found the spot where we had ascended. I flung my collection of birds over the cliff to be picked up below, and all of us having got safely down we rowed back to the ship.
Macklin, in speaking of “the veneration accorded to the albatross,” voices a very old superstition amongst seamen of the old sailing ship days. When I first went to sea as a boy this was still a common belief amongst sailors, but though there are a few of these old-timers left who still hold to the old romantic ideas, they are becoming more and more scarce. Romance is not dead, as Kipling says, but it moves with the times. Masefield says:
Them birds goin’ fishin’ is nothin’ but souls o’ the drowned,
Souls o’ the drowned an’ the kicked as are never no more;
An’ that there haughty old albatross cruisin’ around,
Belike he’s Admiral Nelson or Admiral Noah.
I recalled the party on account of the weather, for a strong wind had blown up, the seas were increasing and there were indications of a heavy storm. I did not care to be caught with the Quest on a lee shore, so went back to Prince Olaf Harbour, where we found that all their own whale catchers had returned for shelter. In addition there were a number belonging to other stations which had put in here till the weather should abate. We had for dinner the next night the baby albatross which Macklin had brought off. This was the first food obtained by Sir Ernest Shackleton on his arrival at South Georgia from the boat journey, and often had we listened to Worsley’s telling of the story, this much of which never varied: “Baby albatross just off the nest—we ate them! By jove, they were good, damn good!” By one of life’s little ironies he was having dinner ashore that night and so missed them; his disappointment on hearing of it was keen.
On the 22nd, the weather having abated somewhat, we left to carry out an extensive series of soundings about the north-western end of South Georgia. This we accomplished in spite of very bad weather. The Quest, as usual, behaved abominably, having a most uncomfortable motion as we butted into the head seas, which sent the spray in clouds high over the yards.