The wind this morning is still light and southerly. The sky has a brisk wintry look—a quivering high pale blue, lined by a few orange-tinged and violet alto-stratus clouds near the horizon, which seem to be placed there for the express purpose of striking a contrast and a line of division between the azure of the heavens, and the blue of the surface snows. The ice has separated much northward and westward. The leads running south-west and north-east have a general breadth of sixty feet and are mostly covered by a green sheet of new ice. Nearly everybody is out on ski for recreation to-day. Some are on hunting excursions, others are visiting icebergs for toboggan and ski sports, but all are trying to have a royal good time, as they generally do on Sundays when the weather will permit.
Gerlache, Danco, and I went on a long journey due north to examine the ice and, if possible, visit a huge tabular iceberg which we estimated was eight or nine miles away. We found the ice very much crevassed, but there was everywhere a tendency for the floes to unite and assemble into a larger conglomerate sheet, which we call a field because from one edge we cannot see its termination. The snow was hard and fairly even, making excellent ski travelling except at the pressure angles where the fields pommelled each other, raising rough uneven ridges. Most of the leads were covered with new ice sufficiently strong to bear our weights on skis. We saw little life. There were many penguin tracks on the snow with a general northerly direction, from which we concluded that the little creatures with good sense had migrated northward. We saw also some blow-holes of seals, but no life except a few snow petrels. The whole white world about us was deserted. The berg was a much greater distance from the ship than we had estimated, for after we had wandered over the ice six miles the great wall seemed as far away as ever. We should have continued our journey, but Danco found himself unable to follow because of “shortness of breath.” At the limit of our journey, looking north-westerly, we saw a series of low yellow clouds, and under these a vague, irregular outline which had the appearance of land.
On our way back we were discussing the matter of raising flags and the formality of taking possession of newly discovered lands. The conclusion at which we arrived was, that the first chart of a new country was quite as good a deed to the title of land, as the empty formality of pinning a bit of bunting to a temporary post and drinking to the health of the Royal Ruler, as is the custom of British explorers. Thus far we have not unfurled a flag, nor have we made any other effort to take formal possession of the many new lands which we have discovered, except by our attempts at scientific exploration. This is in sharp contrast to the British, German and Russian, and all the ancient explorers whose first act always was to land and say, “This by the help of God, the consent of the Pope, and the permission of the King, belongs to us and to our countrymen.” The modesty of the Belgians is shown by the fact that the staff of the Belgica went ashore to gather, not financial returns, or titles to unclaimed lands, but links of truth to add to the disconnected chain which is to bind the growing annals of terrestrial knowledge.
Whale Blow-hole.
Seal Blow-hole.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE AUTUMN (CONTINUED). WORK AND PASTIME
March 28.—It is another day of clear, white silence. At sunrise and at sunset the twilight zone is becoming more and more marked. It is, to-night, an intense purple blue, and through it we see a star. Arctowski puts down the mysterious purple as a reflection from the shadows of the pack-ice, which at this time is a deep ultramarine blue, but to most of us it is still a puzzle. We are all occupied to-day preparing for a winter campaign of work. Danco is building a triangular hut in which he expects to make his magnetic observations. Arctowski is arranging a new system for meteorological observations and is scattering his instruments over the ice, about the ship, and in the masts. Racovitza is studying bird and seal parasites, and everybody else is preparing for his own special line of work. We all have big ambitions, but I fear our efforts will be dwarfed when the gloomy, dayless night settles down over us.
March 29.—A light northerly wind has lowered, and darkened the heavens, and brought over us a wet, warm, uncomfortable atmosphere, with an occasional fall of snow. The snow on the pack is made adhesive by the water-charged air which is being blown over the ice from the open sea now, perhaps, one hundred miles northward. The ski will not slide and sledges can be drawn only with great difficulty. The ice is still spreading out, increasing the width of the leads, while the temperature, which is close to zero, is not low enough to make new ice. Life has again returned in abundance. We saw four finback whales spouting, blowing, and sporting, and moving leisurely southward in the leads. We saw also many white and giant petrels, and great numbers of royal and small pack penguins. On a floe about three miles from the ship we encountered six crab-eating seals. We killed all of these and found their stomachs distended by a fresh meal of shrimp. Two were pregnant, and from these the naturalist secured embryos which were, indeed, rare and beautiful. These were placed in a jar and marked for future study. As the sun settled under the horizon westward, a lemon colour spread along the sky in that direction and early in the night the sky cleared somewhat. There was a small feeble fragment of an arc aurora hanging in the south-west with a steady glow during most of the night.