Samples of Darnings.
I must hasten to say that our food is not without variety, its quality is good, and it is perhaps all that could be desired under the circumstances; but men in the monotone of polar regions develop flighty longings. We have for breakfast cereals, such as corn meal, crushed oats, hominy, good, freshly-baked biscuits, oleomargarine, marmalade, and coffee. Our supply of sugar is low and the provision of milk is almost exhausted. It is the sugar and milk which are in greatest demand. For dinner we have soups of various kinds, canned meats, preserves, potatoes and macaroni, with a dessert of fruit pudding. Our supper consists of fish, cheese, and an occasional conglomerate mixture of macaroni, nulles, pemmican, and tinned meats. There is a sufficient variety to prevent a dislike for any one article. There are, however, a few things to which many have developed a sharp animosity. These are usually the articles with a neutral flavour. The things hated most violently are kydbolla and fiskabolla; both are Norwegian concoctions of doubtful stuffs. The kydbolla is said to be a mixture of ground beef and cream, and the fiskabolla is described as a compound of fish and cream. We are, however, ungrateful enough to doubt the usual truthfulness of our Norse friends. The colour and consistency of the meats and fish balls are such that no suggestion as to the composition is possible, and thus one idea after another is developed. Some prove by a plausible argument that they are the refuse of the packing-house, defibrinated, bleached, ground, and compressed. Others insist that useless dogs, cats, and what not, have been utilised. All traces by which one might discover the composition have been removed; even the odour of the fish has been destroyed in the fish balls.
It is in this spirit that we have begun to eat penguin meat. The doubtful recommendation which it has received from other explorers has caused us to shun it; but now, for variety, we would gladly take to anything; even horse meat would be a relish. For some time a few of us have insisted upon collecting and saving all the penguins possible, both for the skins and fresh meat. We have tried the meat several times, and it seems to improve upon acquaintance. It was amusing to watch the first trials: little pieces were taken and tasted, and allowed to settle into the stomach slowly. With a few some time elapsed before a second trial was attempted. Some never ventured farther, and others passed their plates for a second and third helping. No one seemed to eat the penguin steaks with any kind of relish, but somehow we stored away quite a little stack of it. It is rather difficult to describe its taste and appearance; we have absolutely no meat with which to compare it. The penguin, as an animal, seems to be made up of an equal proportion of mammal, fish, and fowl. If it is possible to imagine a piece of beef, an odoriferous codfish, and a canvas-back duck, roasted in a pot, with blood and cod-liver oil for sauce, the illustration will be complete.
March 22.—The storm continued through the night and subsided this morning at sunrise, but began again at 3 P.M., and now at 5 P.M. it is blowing a full gale with snow, and a temperature -1.5° C. (29.3° F.). The effect of the wind and the drift has made little change upon the pack in general, but the Belgica is being more and more buried in the accumulating banks. The last wind drove us south nineteen miles, and west twenty-six miles, and this storm, being from about the same direction, will undoubtedly drive us still farther into the frigid unknown.
March 23.—The day dawned under a clear sky with a little wind coming from the south-east. The temperature is -11.5° C. (11.3° F.). There is no marked change in the ice except that the hard sharp edges and projections have been reduced, and the entire pack has assumed a soft, velvety-like mantle which is due to the enormous quantity of drift-snow which comes with the strong easterly and north-easterly winds. At about nine o’clock we saw a mirage, a cream-coloured ridge of ice apparently raised thirty or forty feet above the general surface of the pack. After dinner, accompanied by Lecointe, we took a journey on ski for recreation. We chose a course due south and travelled about two miles. The ice was rough, full of small hummocks and crevasses, and altogether very difficult for travelling, but it gave us just the hard physical task which we desired for exercise. At the end of our journey we found a large lead partly covered with new ice. Its direction was south-east and its width about fifty feet. It was a beautiful river-like band of sparkling, blue water which would have afforded the bark an easy passage homeward or poleward, but there were two miles of hard unbroken ice between it and this promising highway. To each side of the lead were a number of small penguins sunning themselves, arranging and oiling their feathers for a plunge into the waters. In the lead in several places we saw a few black spots which, upon closer examination, proved to be groups of penguins coming up from the depths of the ocean to breathe and to sport on the surface after having had a full meal of shrimps. On the return some of these penguins followed us to the ship and were captured by the hunters after considerable difficulty.
March 24.—There were a few faint, luminous patches of aurora last night, but the exhibit was so weak that, had it not been in the usual position of auroras, it would have passed unrecognised. The day is dull and gloomy. The morning was somewhat bright and cheerful, but the wind has veered to the north-west, and at three o’clock it increased to a howling gale with snow and a sky sheeted with lead. The barometer is falling with a quiver which seems to indicate an increase and prolongation of the storm. There is much movement in the ice; new fractures are visible, and from the south to the east there is a water-sky, probably indicating a large lake of open water. One giant petrel was the only life seen to-day. A few minutes before six, while the storm still raged, a strip of the sky in the west brightened, and over it the sun, brushed by snow-charged winds, sank to her rest. It is now so dark in the cabin at seven o’clock that we must use a light during supper.
March 25.—The storm continued all night, but stopped suddenly soon after sunrise. The morning gave no promise of better weather. The sky remained low, the atmosphere wet and uncomfortable. After noon a southerly wind cleared the sky and the air, and sent the thermometer falling rapidly. The ice is separating, leaving large, open, endless leads running north-west and south-east; any one of these leads offers us an excellent passage out of this unearthly sea of ice. There is one within two hundred yards of the bow, but this might as well be ten miles off, for we cannot get the vessel to it. We have made some journeys along these leads, but have seen only one giant and two snow petrels. The captain’s observation at noon shows that we have drifted eleven miles northward. We have made a sounding to-day, and are beginning to prepare the Belgica for her long sleep through the coming winter darkness.
March 26.—A white day, with a blinding glitter from the ice. An ice-edge southerly wind is keeping the temperature close to -20° C. (-4° F.). In our excursions to-day, we found the leads of yesterday converted into large lakes partly covered by quickly-forming new ice, which was about an inch thick and covered by a decoration of hoar-frost in large crystals. In the centre of these lakes there were small pools of open water, and in these several families of small penguins were darting like sunbeams through the water to keep from freezing to the new ice. The shores of these lakes and the broad sheets of ice, which spread out over the glassy blue water, were covered, decorated, and bejewelled by a garden-like growth of ice-flowers. In the absence of budding plants we take very kindly to these crystal shrubs. It is remarkable how much real pleasure we find in our admiration for apparently insignificant things. The forms of the hummocks, the figures of the drift-snow, and the clusters of glittering ice crystals, displayed everywhere, are a source of never-ceasing entertainment. The most remarkable of these formations are what we have affectionately styled ice-flowers. In reality, they are snow crystals, so assembled as to form clusters, which are arranged in rows on the new ice. These ice-flowers possess the charm of both jewels and blooming plants. In form they are flowers, in texture they are gems. They bud, if I may so express it, with the first sharp breath of winter, casting their fragile tendrils into a hundred delicate forms wherever a suspicion of humidity can be hardened with sufficient regularity and force. Upon porous young ice, adjacent to open water, is the garden spot for these curious growths. They give the finishing touch of harmony to the rough outline of the frowning cliffs of ice. They gleam from the miniature ice mountains. They appear as sparkling flowers upon the black sheets of young ice, and convert the cold monotony of the pack into a glistening field of beauty.
March 27.—During the night we had a striking auroral display. It began shortly after eight as a luminous patch, seemingly a part of an arc. This brightened and faded, and at nine it disappeared entirely. A half-hour later a complete arc was visible with a ragged patch of a second arc under it. At ten o’clock bunches of rays converging towards a common centre alternately brightened and faded over the steady luminosity of the arc. This gave the phenomenon an appearance of movement. At eleven o’clock the aurora was very bright and the sky under it seemed much darker. Later the fantastic displays settled into a plain white arc, with a steadily fading glow.