Stratified Tabular Iceberg, off Cape Rasmussen, to the lee of which the Belgica rested during the night of Feb. 12.
Iceberg in Belgica Strait with a Great Tunnel through it.
Selecting a position in the lee of these islands, and close to a large grounded iceberg, the bark was brought up to the wind and kept under easy steam. It was difficult to keep from drifting onto the islands or the bergs. At midnight the wind came down from the glacial gullies and brushed the masts with hellish force, sending us pitching and tossing over the disturbed sea in a manner which unbalanced the equilibrium of the stomachs of even the oldest sailors. Now we rocked within a few yards of the death-dealing wall of a berg, and again we rolled uncomfortably near the phosphorescent breakers of a submerged mountain. Material for our destruction was always close at hand, and we went out often to see it. Sleep, rest, and quietude were far from us on this memorable night of the fourteenth.
Early in the morning of the fifteenth we withdrew from our nightmare of terrors and took to the more stormy and less dangerous waters westward. There had been some snow, and rain, and sleet during the night. The ropes were coated with ice, the masts incased in a glassy plating, and the decks as slippery as ice could make them. The sea struck us heavily under the starboard poop and spread a spray of water over the quarter-deck. We took the wind from the north-east and set a course south-south-west. The wind being free it became necessary to manipulate the sails and hustle about on deck. With the vessel madly rocking, the ropes incased in ice, and the floor glassy and glittering, the difficulty of this work can be more easily imagined than written. In one corner there a sailor on hands and knees was trying to keep from being used as a baseball; in another, an officer was making the air sulphureous because the ice on the ropes has cut his hand. Just then the cook came along, and finding it more easy to stand on his head than on his feet, the soup was spread over the ice as a lubricant; and then some one uttered complaints in easy Belgica language because there would be no soup for his dinner. Altogether this was a day of misery, and it was followed by many of a like nature.
Nearly everybody was seasick to-day; at least, everybody would be if they admitted the truth. No one feels quite comfortable; we are all inexpressibly tired and sleepy and uncomfortable at the pit of the stomach, but nobody admits being a worshipper of Neptune. One is bilious, another has eaten some “embalmed beef,” some have headaches, others rheumatism. All the symptoms indicate ordinary seasickness, the effects of the sudden throws upon the brisk, choppy sea. I have often noticed this glum feeling come over an entire ship’s company after being in ice or sheltered waters for any considerable time, as we have been. We pride ourselves, however, as being weather-beaten sailors, and having passed the nauseating storms of Cape Horn we are not going to admit mal de mer, even if we did feed the fish several times during the course of a meal.
One of the Wauwermans Islands.
Sophie Rocks. Dancoland.