From Harbourton we steamed eastward to the storm-washed shores of Staten Island, where we took our last water-supply, and bade our friends and the known world a final adieu. From the time we left Staten Island, on January 13, 1898, until our return to Punta Arenas, on March 28, 1899, we were in another world—a new icy world, where communication with home regions was impossible. We had troubles of our own, and a little warfare, too—but we were totally ignorant of the Spanish-American War, the Dreyfus case, and the other great national and international troubles which had made history in our absence.
Our first large task was the seemingly impossible work of making a map of the sea bottom and a study of the waters south of Cape Horn. This is a belt of ocean famous as being swept by the most destructive storms on the globe. It is difficult enough for ordinary navigation, but to attempt to remain stationary for three or four hours daily, and sink a wire two miles, with delicate instruments attached, was a venture which did not appeal to us with much promise of success. We were favoured, however, with good weather until we got a glimpse of the South Shetland Islands, and were thus able to make a line of soundings across the previously unfathomed sea. The general depth here was considerable. After passing over a narrow submarine shelf south of Staten Island, the lead dropped suddenly to 13,300 feet. The ocean-bed then rose gradually in an easy slope to the South Shetland Islands, thus proving a rather sharp disconnection between the mountain-ranges of southern South America and those of the imperfectly known antarctic lands.
The first iceberg was met the day before we saw the snowy outline of the South Shetlands. It appeared a long way off, over our port bow, at about 8 o’clock in the evening of January 19th. We all went on deck to get a glimpse of our first antarctic berg, but we made no efforts to get nearer. The sky was sooty, and the air so heavy that the coming twilight was lost in a gloomy mist. Around the dull white mass there was a cloud of vapour which rose and fell, now offering a peep at the strange block of ice, and again veiling it from view. Half sorry to leave it without further observation, we steamed onward until it sank into the stormy sea over our port quarter.
The night which followed was dark. The sea rolled under our stern in huge inky mountains, while the wind scraped the deck with an icy edge. We kept a sharp lookout for icebergs, which might come suddenly into our path out of the impenetrable darkness ahead. The sudden fall of the temperature and the stinging, penetrating character of the wind seemed to warn us that ice was near; but we encountered none. Life was plentiful, but melancholy. Curious albatrosses and petrels hovered about us, uttering strange cries, and in the water there was an occasional spout from a whale. It was a night of uncertainty, of anticipation, of discomfort—an experience which only those who have gone through the wilderness of an unknown sea can understand.
Weddell Sea Leopards of Belgica Strait.
(Leptonychotes Weddelli.)
The morning dawned, as it usually does over Cape Horn seas, without the sun, and with a smoky, low, lead-streaked sky. At noon the icy mist overhead melted and an occasional sunburst gave life and colour to the scene. Our soundings indicated a proximity to land, which caused us to skim the horizon constantly through our glasses with keen interest. A small white speck here and there indicated distant icebergs. At about three o’clock in the afternoon a series of low pyramidal masses appeared under the southern sky. It was like a bank of blue fog fringed with snowy bands. The whole length of our seaboard formed an ill-defined, cloud-like aggregation resting on the black waters and extending the entire length from north-east to south-west. As we steamed on, the central groups became more distinct and the whole line rose above the horizon. We now recognised it as the northern exposure of the South Shetland Islands. During the afternoon a gentle but piercing wind came from the land, bringing with it a glassy air and an easy, silvery sea, over which the new land stood out in bold relief. We could distinguish Livingston Island over our port bow, and north-eastward, melting into the blue airy distance, were numerous similar islands. Over our starboard bow was Smith Island, its base still under the water, and its table-topped crest rising into mouse-coloured clouds, sixty miles away.
We hoped that the night would not again be darkened by the ever-present black mist, and pushed rapidly landward to get a good view before midnight. But this was not to be, for as the sun sank in the south-west the wind came out of the north-east with a sooty smoke which blocked out our horizon. The distance was too great to make a good study of the land. In a general way this coast-line resembles the northern parts of the Greenland landscape. About the largest islands there are many small, ice-free isles, or rocks, which serve as resting-places for seals, penguins, cormorants, and gulls. On the larger islands, and especially on Livingston Island, there are high peaks and rounded, dome-like hills, which are crowned with snow, but whose sides are mostly bare and wind-rasped. The valleys are filled with huge glaciers, which send tongues out to the sea. We saw no glaciers, however, which came out from any distance into the water. The limit of the ice was generally at high-water mark, where it wasted away in small fragments. From what we later learned of the lands farther south, it is extremely probable that moss and lichens are here abundant, but there is no hope for grass or trees.
It is very curious that this group of islands, about one hundred in number, with a thousand miles of accessible coast-line, and several good harbours, free of ice for much of the year, should remain unclaimed by any government, and unsettled by human efforts. It would be a humane mission if our government would take possession of these islands, and place there a lighthouse, with a supply station, for the preservation of ship-wrecked sailors. Vessels are lost in this vicinity almost every year, and we do not know but that some poor seamen are not now stranded on one of the many desolate islands, awaiting the relief which never comes.