The morning of the 9th was as beautiful as the day previous, and under the warm rays of the sun we made two debarkments to fix the position of the landmarks of the southern opening of the new Strait, and to make the usual scientific collections and observations. The time from the 9th to the 12th was spent in exploring this region. The country was somewhat higher than any we had seen farther northward. Glacial discharge had a greater tendency to be sent out by tongues into the sea. The northern cape (Cape Lancaster) has a long tongue of ice rising with an easy slope to a single mountain of moderate height. This agrees well in position with the Mount William of Biscoe. The southern cape (Cape Reynard) is made prominent by a number of needle-like peaks, which are too steep to offer a resting-place for snow. Between these two prominent capes is a large island (Wiencke Island), which has running through its center a ridge of high peaks (Sierra Du Fief), nearly free of snow. The northern point of Wiencke Island is a black bluff crowned with an even sheet of ice which breaks off into the water to both sides of the cape. This point has been named in honor of the faithful companion of Lieutenant Peary, the friend of Mr. Amundsen and myself, Eivind Astrup (now deceased). The southern cape (Cape Errera) is remarkable, because upon it is a unique pyramidal peak. Just beyond the southern termination of Wiencke Island there are a number of small ice-capped islands (Wauwermans Islands).
In the past three weeks we have been remarkably successful in discovering new regions. Without encountering any serious difficulty we have passed through a new highway from Bransfield Strait, two hundred miles south-westerly, through an unknown land to the Pacific, which has been given the name “Detroit de la Belgica.” This highway is perfectly free, in summer, for ordinary navigation. The scores of new islands which dot the virgin waters are inhabited by countless millions of penguins and cormorants, while great numbers of seals are in evidence on every accessible rock or ledge of ice. In the waters are large numbers of finback whales which, with the seals, will in the near future offer a new industry. To the west of Belgica Strait there are four large mountainous islands (Liege, Brabant, Grand, and Anvers Islands). These islands are probably guarded seaward by a great number of small islands. Over this group we have written the American name, Palmer Archipelago, in justice to the young Yankee sealer, Nathaniel Palmer, who first of all men saw the outer line of this still unknown coast. The various islands, mountains, capes, bays, and headlands have been named in honour of Belgian friends of the expedition. We have not, however, forgotten prominent outside workers, as is clearly shown by Neumayer Channel and Nansen Island. The honor of bestowing some names fell to the lot of each officer. Two islands, which it has been my privilege to name, are called Brooklyn and Van Wyck Islands; Brooklyn, in honour of the city of my home, and Van Wyck, in honour of the first Mayor of Greater New York.
To the east of Belgica Strait the shore-line is unbroken. It has many deep indentations, but there is no passage into the Atlantic. A continuous wall of ice, from fifty to one hundred feet high, fronts the coast everywhere. This land is from two thousand to four thousand feet high, with mountains farther inland perhaps six thousand feet in altitude. Every valley and every surface which is not perpendicular is buried by a sheet of never-melting ice. We were not able to follow the coast of this country far enough south to determine the interesting question whether it is continuous with Grahamland or not. This land has received the name Terre de Danco, in memory of our late faithful companion, Lieutenant Emile Danco.
CHAPTER XI
FROM DANCOLAND TO ALEXANDER ISLANDS
At about eight o’clock in the evening of the twelfth we select what seems to be a comfortable resting-place for the night. Owing to the great depth of water we cannot anchor; hence, in accordance with our previous habits, a little steam is kept up for an emergency movement, and the Belgica is allowed to drift with the winds and the currents during the hours of rest. No one ever knew except the officers on the watch how many narrow escapes we had in our silent hours of slumber. Quietly but quickly the bark moves about, now in danger of being thrown against an iceberg; now being propelled by some mysterious force in a direct line for a rocky island, or the huge blue ice-wall of the mainland. Danger and destruction are always within sight. They are over the gunwale on every side. And then there is always the hazard of submerged reefs upon which we might easily and unexpectedly ride to a rapid end. Hair’s-breadth escapes have been on hand daily, until now we have become hardened to the real dangers which are constantly before us. But up to the present nothing has happened, and this freedom from casualties is due to the persistent watchfulness, the painstaking care, and the praiseworthy faithfulness of the officers and men on watch.
The night is of special interest to me. There is something about the air, the water, the ice, and the land, which fixes my attention and makes sleep impossible. There is a glitter in the sea, a sparkle on the ice, and a stillness in the atmosphere, which fascinates the soul but overpowers the mind. There is a solitude and restfulness about the whole scene which can only be felt; it cannot be described. Here, to the east, the face of the mysterious land is clothed by the successive sheets of snows of the sleeping years of countless silent centuries. About us are scores of icebergs, huge table-topped, pyramidal, and castle-like masses, fragments of this same unknown blanket of accumulated snows which clothes every aspect of antarctic land.
Out of the unfathomed blackness of the ocean to the west rise a series of heavy mouse-coloured clouds, with their cargoes of vapour, which sail over us in a regular train to deposit their snows on the unscaled heights of the overland sea of ice eastward; under the stream of vapour floating landward there is an occasional puff of icy wind rolling down the stupendous white heights of Grahamland, which suddenly chills the air about us and renders it incapable of suspending its charge of humidity. As a result, there is either an occasional shower of snow or a bank of fog which, for a time, veils the electric splendour of our chilly fairyland.
Although the sky is cloudy and dull, and the sun is below the horizon, there is a mystic light thrown against the masts and every projecting object, which is, indeed, strangely puzzling. The sun is sliding eastward under the southern sky, and over it, close to the horizon, hangs a narrow band of lemon which remains from sunset to sunrise. This zone of lemon is the only suggestion of colour in the heavens, and, curiously enough, the light does not seem to come from the regions over the sun but from the east. There is a haze over the land which is luminous throughout the short night. The ice-blink, here, from the snowy mountains far beyond the horizon, is reflected from slope to slope and then into the land mist, giving it a curious glow which at first seems inexplicable. This vapour changes in colour from sapphire during the evening, to turquoise at midnight, and again to violet at dawn. These hues, with their indescribable gradations, are spread over the whites and blacks of the waters, and the snow and the rocks of the land. It all seems like an artist’s dream.
Cape Eivind Astrup—Northern Point of Wiencke Island.