I can imagine nothing more despairing than a storm on the edge of the pack. At best it is a cold, dull, and gloomy region, with a high humidity and constant drizzly fogs. Clear weather is here an exception. Storm with rain, sleet, and snow, is the normal weather condition throughout the entire year. During the day of the twenty-eighth we are unable to get a glimpse of the sun, and are in consequence in doubt as to our actual position. There is something about the sea and sky which promises a night of unusual terrors. The wind comes in a steady torrent from the east, and with it come alternate squalls of rain, sleet, and snow. Hour after hour it blew harder, and before night it brought with it a heavy sea studded with icebergs—moving mountains of blackness. The Belgica runs westerly before it, almost under bare poles, and edges closer and closer toward the fragments of ice to the south, where the sea is easier. The sky to the north and east is smoky and wavy, as if a number of huge fires were there sending out gusts of smoke, and on the southern sky there is a bright pearly zone. This is an ice-blink, a reflection of the ice beyond our horizon upon the particles of watery vapour suspended in the air. As night comes upon us it becomes necessary to choose between the forbidding blackness of the north and the more cheerful, but less hospitable, whiteness of the south. With icebergs on every side, always in our course, coming as suddenly out of the thickening darkness as if dropped from the skies, it is not wise, or prudent, either to move out of, or to rest in, our position. To be more friendly with the ice, or to rid ourselves entirely of its companionship, is plainly our duty.
We have decided to seek the harbouring influence of the pack, as an experiment, to ride out the increasing fury of the tempest. The Belgica is headed southward, and quickly plows through the trembling icy seas. But the noise and commotion which come to a climax every time she rises to the crest of a great swell, are terrible. The wind beats through the rigging like the blasts out of a blowpipe, the quivering masts sweep the sky with the regularity of a pendulum, and the entire ship is covered with a sheet of ice. As the eye drops over the side of the ship the sea glitters with the brightness of a winter sky. This brightness of the sea, with the sooty blackness of the heavens above it, formed a weird contrast, never to be forgotten. Here and there are sparkling, semi-luminous pieces of ice which spring from the darkness with meteoric swiftness, and are again as quickly lost in the gathering blackness behind us. These fragments increase in number and in size as we press poleward; but the Belgica strikes and pushes them aside as easily as a broom removes dust.
After a short but very exciting time, the pieces of ice become more numerous and of larger dimensions, and the bergs are so closely grouped that further progress seems impossible. The sea rolls more and more, in long easy swells, as we pass through the ice. This eases the ship and makes matters more comfortable to the sufferers of seasickness. I must hasten to confess that about one-half of us are thus afflicted at this time. Still, we try to be cheerful. I cannot imagine a scene more despairing, though, than the Belgica as she pushes into the pack during this dark night. The noise is maddening. Every swell that drives against the ship brings with it tons of ice, which is thrown against her ribs with a thundering crash. The wind howls as it rushes past us, and comes with a force which makes us grasp the rails to keep from being thrown into the churning seas. The good old ship keeps up a constant scream of complaints as she strikes piece after piece of the masses of ice. Occasionally we try to talk, but the deafening noises of the storm, the squeaking strains of the ship, and the thumping of the ice makes every effort at speech inaudible. With our stomachs dissatisfied, and our minds raised to a fever-heat of excitement, and with the prospect of striking an iceberg at any moment and sinking to the bottom of the sea, we were, to say the least, uncomfortable. When we had sufficiently entered into the body of the pack, and were snugly surrounded by closely-packed ice-floes, the sea subsided, and here the overworked ship rested for the night.
In the morning the wind changed to the north-east, and the ice separated, leaving long open leads of water. These leads offer a tempting highway poleward, and Gerlache was not long in deciding the course. With a fair wind pressing the sails and with steam, we push southward. The navigation is not easy, still it is less difficult at this time than it usually is in an antarctic pack. The pans are small—from fifty to a hundred yards in diameter and about four feet thick. They are separated by quantities of pulverised fragments and discs of new ice.
Evenly scattered about in the icy expanse are numerous icebergs; usually about two hundred can be counted from the crow’s-nest. The navigating officer remains at the masthead, and directs the course of the ship. It is exciting navigation. The sky in the north is lined with heavy, lead-coloured clouds, and in the south there is the ever-bright ice-blink. Petrels in large numbers and in great varieties hover about us, as if to ask our business in their domain. Penguins walk about on the ice, uttering squeaky noises which re-echo from berg to berg. Seals, lazily sunning themselves, come to the edge of the floe to see the human intruders. Meanwhile the ship is forced on in a wild manner into the ice. Now she is running upon the floes to break them; again she is pushed between to force them aside; but always she is fighting an uneven battle against the huge masses of ice.
After two days of this ice-ramming, we found that we had passed through about ninety miles of ice. We are now made to realise that further progress is out of the question. The ice is too closely packed; and the floes here are heavier; it is no longer practicable to break them, or push them aside. We are so closely hugged, indeed, that movement in any direction is impossible. To the south there are several lakes visible from the crow’s-nest, and to the north-west there are also spaces of open water; but after several efforts we found ourselves unable to reach these. On the fourth of March, we were forced to admit our inability to extricate ourselves. Our position at this time was latitude 71° 22′, longitude 84° 55′—about three hundred miles across the polar circle and about 1,100 from the geographical pole. The nearest land from here is the still unknown group of Alexander Islands, about three hundred miles eastward.
We are now again firmly stationed in a moving sea of ice, with no land and nothing stable on the horizon to warn us of our movements. Even the bergs, immense, mountainous masses, though apparently fixed and immovable, sail as we do, and with the same apparent ease. The astronomical positions which we obtain from the sun and from the stars indicate to us that we drift from five to ten miles per day. It is a strange sensation to know that, blown with the winds, you are moving rapidly over an unknown sea, and yet see nothing to indicate a movement. We pass no fixed point, and can see no pieces of ice stir; everything is quiet. The entire horizon drifts with us. We are part of an endless frozen sea. Our course is zigzag, but generally west—we do not know our destination, and are always conscious that we are the only human beings to be found in the entire circumpolar region at the bottom of the globe. It is a curious situation.
March 5.—We are not yet prepared to resign ourselves to the doubtful destiny of an unknowable life in the restless sea of ice. We still hope against hope that some favourable force will separate the ice and permit us to retreat. Day after day we have tried to slide into some promising lead, but each effort has been a bitter disappointment. The weather is getting colder and clearer. The pack and the sky is touched with new charms of colour, and the life is full of inspiration. Altogether, the new region in which we are now held is more hopeful and less monotonous than the hundreds of miles of desolate icy waste through which we have passed. If there were only some sort of relief at hand for our rescue, in case the ship were crushed, we would gladly make arrangements to pass the winter and the long night here. If our vessel should be destroyed no one at home could possibly know the location of our wanderings, or the site of our final destruction, and with our equipment we could not navigate the Cape Horn seas to a land of human habitation. Our faith then is pinned on the Belgica; our life is linked with hers. If she gains freedom our liberty is assured; if she sinks, we shall all go to an icy grave.
The drift of conversation for several days has been in this strain. We must seek to divert thought to other channels, for to constantly weigh the prospects of death and misfortune is to cast the mind into a melancholy state, from which it is difficult to arouse. To be caught in the ice is, after all, the usual luck of polar explorers. It is a life of hardship, of monotony, and isolation, full of certain dangers and uncertain rewards. For success there awaits honorable reward, but for failure there is always ready a storm of condemnation. Our success to the present has been such that we feel proud of our work. We have seized the records to-day and hope to elaborate our observations. Everything which we have done will require careful revising, and this brings to us a new interest and a brighter promise. It serves to divert our attention from the darker side of our future.
