CHAPTER XII
ACROSS THE ANTARCTIC CIRCLE—FIRST EFFORTS TO PENETRATE THE PACK
Snowy Petrel,
(Pagodroma nivea).
On the evening of the fifteenth we had sunk the land and the drift-ice under the north-eastern horizon. There remains, in that direction, an ice-blink, a bright, cream-colored zone on the sky, which indicates that ice and land is not far off. Icebergs are about us in great numbers, but they are all small, hard, rounded masses, showing the effect of stormy seas. None are over one hundred feet high, and all have a polished surface with huge blue cavities, into which the sea rushes with a cannon-like roar. Giant petrels, cape pigeons, albatrosses and gulls hover about the bark in the air, but in the water we see no life. The night promises to be clear, with a continued fair wind sending us along at the rate of six knots without steam. We are all on deck watching the good old ship plough her way merrily through the virgin antarctic seas, feeling proud of her sterling qualities, and of her sailing capacity, when the Captain suddenly springs into an ecstasy. He acts like a boy with a new toy. We look about for the reason for all the commotion, and he points to the heavens; there, through a break in the low stratus clouds, gleams a star. It is a lonely speck in a narrow strip of blue, but it is the first star which we have seen while along the edge of the south polar lands.
If our dead reckoning is correct we shall cross the antarctic circle to-night, but we have had no opportunity for several days to fix our position. The intermittent fogs and heavy clouds which hang over us constantly have deprived us of the necessary glimpses of the sun, the moon, and the stars, with which to make the nautical calculations. At present our positions by account are only guesses at an actual location because of our absolute ignorance of the currents. During the day and the preceding night we passed great numbers of icebergs, but they were all of the sea-washed and storm-rasped type; irregular in shape, few over a hundred feet high, and all of a dull gray blue colour. The bergs here seem to be fragments of larger tabular masses. Early in the evening a yellow cloud-like figure rose out of the south-east. This, on a closer approach, proved to be a continuation of the mainland. There were tall angular peaks which stood out boldly against the ice-blink thrown upon the vapour which hangs over the land. Between these black peaks were blue valleys filled with glaciers, pouring their frozen streams down the slopes and out into the sea.
At eight o’clock on the morning of the sixteenth we came on deck to gain the first view of the new panorama which the lifting fogs had unveiled. The land here, behind a very bold black headland marking the bluff point of a projecting cape, trends suddenly eastward and sinks under the horizon. The north-western side of this cape is remarkable for its great tongue of ice spreading out smoothly from a snow-covered ridge far interior, and breaking off in an even uninterrupted wall of ice at the seashore. The southern shore has also a great ice-wall, but this wall is interrupted by several black, rocky cliffs which separate the land-ice into numerous glacial streams. Beyond the black headland there are two sharp peaks, about four thousand feet high, and to each side of these are a few dome-like mountains of a lesser height. About ten miles beyond this ridge there is a chain of white peaks, with a general height of perhaps six thousand feet, running parallel to the eastward trend of the coast. Far to the south, still fifty or sixty miles off, we saw a great mass of high land which later proved to be a group of islands. Between the headland eastward, upon which our eyes first landed, and the great cliffs to the south, there is a break in the land which may be a bay or a strait. It is filled with heavy sea-ice and studded with countless icebergs, making an examination of the continuation of the coast impossible. We were compelled to set a course southward, leaving open the question as to whether the coast of Grahamland ends here or extends farther poleward.
Leaving this land behind us we steamed southward during the day, pressing as closely to the land in that direction as the pack-ice, which was held close to the shore, would permit. We decided, at this time, that the land before us was Alexanderland, and behind us, probably, that which is charted as Adelaide Island; but there is nothing about this latter land, as we view it over the stern, which indicates that it is an island. If an island, which Lecointe doubts, it must be a very large one, with the eastern termination beyond our horizon. On the whole, it seems to us like a very large country, ridged by at least two high mountain chains, which are covered with ice to their peaks. We have formed the impression that it is a part of the mainland, and conclude that a strait probably separates Grahamland from the farther antarctic. But this is merely an impression; the facts are that the land, though agreeing in position with the assigned location of Adelaide Island, does not bear any resemblance to the discoverer’s meagre description. As to the land before us, there seems to be no doubt among the officers but that it is the country charted Alexander I. Land, by the Russian explorer, Bellingshausen, seventy-six years ago. He saw it only from a great distance and it has not been seen by human eyes before or since. Now the Belgica is heading for it; but there is so much heavy pack-ice, which appears to embrace the shores, that we do not entertain any hopes of effecting a landing.
At noon our latitude was 67° 58′ south, the longitude, 69° 53′ west of Greenwich. We hauled a little westward of the outer drift of the pack, and Alexanderland rose up over our port bow still forty or fifty miles away. There are scattered in the waters westward, and in the pack eastward, forty-four icebergs of moderate size. About half of these are tabular in form; the other half are of the pinnacled and sea-washed, or weather-worn variety. A few small black-billed penguins are in the water, darting over the surface and again into the deep, with electric swiftness. Close to the pack-ice, there rises from the black surface of the sea, a number of columns of vapour-like jets. Through our glasses we see under these the black backs of whales with large dorsal fins, and occasionally a ponderous tail whips the water into a foamy whirlpool. On some of the pans of ice are seals basking in the sun, and over the ship, apparently touching the masts and the ropes as the bark rocks to and fro, are giant petrels, Cape pigeons, gulls, white, brown, and blue petrels, all pointing their bills and stretching their necks to examine, perhaps for the first time, human beings and their crafts.
There is a dreamy stillness in the air, in spite of the frequent stirs of wild life, and a charming touch of colour to the sea, the ice, and the land, though the sky is dull, gray, and gloomy. At first glance all seems white and black, and we are impressed with the weight of the awful snowy solitude into which we are entering. A sense of chilly loneliness is more and more forced upon us by the passing panorama of snow, and ice, and deserted rocks. But, critically considered, after the first pangs of desolation have passed, there are a few of us who find some cheer and colour in the harmony of the perennial chilliness before us. This morning there was a break in the clouds, and through this came a flood of yellow light which made the bergs and the icy cliffs of Alexanderland stand out like walls of gold. Shortly after noon a pale blue was thrown over the white glitter of the pack, which increased the high lights, darkened the shadows, and made the moving mass of whiteness, as it rose and fell with the giant wave of the sea, a thing of gladness.
