CHAPTER XX
THE DAYS OF TWILIGHT PRECEDING THE LONG NIGHT
April 26.—The sky is again hazed, the barometer is falling, and the temperature has risen from -21° at 8 A.M. to -2° at 3 P.M. We made a sounding and found the depth 410 metres. During the day Racovitza lowered his paraphernalia to fish submarine life for the laboratory. We had hardly lost the effects of the last storm and were beginning to enjoy the clear steady weather, with the light southerly winds, but to-day there is another storm. The sun burst through the high fog at ten o’clock this morning, but her rays were too feeble to dissolve the cold vapours. Quickly the only bright spot of heavenly glory was smothered by cold leaden clouds coming from the darkness of the north-west. This we knew to be an announcement of the coming of dirty weather from that direction. For five days the barometer has steadily risen, but this morning it began to fall and in this descent we read the story of another week of trouble. Violent winds, in conjunction with the noise, the gloomy darkness, and forbidding exterior conditions, will set up a spirit of discontent and melancholy, followed by insomnia and disturbances of digestion. I suppose, however, we should not complain, for these gales carry us along on interesting journeys where no other human eyes have before scanned the horizon.
April 28.—It is a neutral gray day. There is no sun and nothing to arouse an interest in life. The atmosphere is dark, warm, wet, and, in general, most disgusting. The temperature is -1°, but about the ship the snow has melted much, allowing the Belgica to settle now and then with a crack and a sudden jar. The wind is westerly and comes with a steady rush. The ice is separating, leaving open leads running north-westerly. We saw several white and two-spotted brown petrels. The trawl, yesterday, brought up a mass of weird-looking deep-sea creatures which Racovitza is to-day stowing away in alcohol. In these storms it is not prudent to venture outside over the pack. There are just now too many large fissures covered by soft snow-bridges which are dangerous. We have already had several cold baths by sliding through these soft drifts, and a fatal accident might easily occur. With these perils in view we do not risk going out on the pack for the usual recreation and exploring excursions. The men, too, find it extremely difficult to keep open a passage to embark. The drift is such that it requires the constant efforts of one and sometimes of two men to dig a path. It is irritating that the drifts are usually a few feet from the side of the bark where they do not give the needed shelter, while the excellent wall of snow which the men have placed around is again mostly melted or settled to such an extent that it must all be done again. On board, the naturalist has several mysterious creatures from the bottom of the sea, under the microscope. The geologist is packing away the stones picked from the new land a few months ago. The captain and the commandant are laying out the chart of the discoveries and we are all looking up the bibliography of everything antarctic.
April 30.—It is snowing and blowing still, but the temperature is again falling. It is dark and gloomy and humid outside. We begin to think that the sun, and the moon, and the stars have deserted us, leaving us alone in a cold, howling wilderness. We saw a few white petrels hovering over large lakes of inky waters, which the change in our drift has made from the wide leads of a few days ago, but there is no other life. It is now necessary to light our lamps at three o’clock in the afternoon to do ordinary work about the vessel. I expect it will not be long before it will be necessary to use candles during our midday meal. To-night there is a sign of clearing in the whirling cloud of snow which has driven about us so long. The moon is glowing brightly in an inky sky. It is the first glimpse of a heavenly body in nearly a week. The new moon has partly spent itself above the banks of frosty clouds which, for weeks, have veiled the heavens. To-night it comes to us with a ragged fringe on its upper surface, but we are glad enough to get even that. The moon, like the sun, is sailing along the northern sky from north-east to north-west about 30° above the horizon. There is a bright band of green rays running through the moon to the surface snows where the light expands and becomes diffused. Late last night we observed a series of luminous clouds which, from their quick movement, we took to be an aurora. But the position of the moon to-night, together with a similar exhibition of luminous clouds in the same position which we know to be brightened by lunar light, convinces us that we have been mistaken.
By an observation at ten o’clock to-night our position is deduced to be latitude 70° 43′ 30″, longitude 90° 30′ 45″. It is evident that we have begun to drift rapidly on an easterly course. In five days we have drifted northward seven miles and eastward nearly two degrees. (From this time on, through the long night and far into the advancing day, the trend of our drift was easterly, in response to prevailing westerly winds.)
The months of March and April were, in many respects, the happiest months of the year. Everything at this time was new to us. We found interest in the weird cries of the penguins; we found pleasure and recreation in hunting seals, and we prided ourselves on our ability to wing petrels for specimens. Everything about the new life and the strange, white world around us was fascinating. The weather at this time was occasionally clear and cold, though generally stormy, which was not the case during the greater part of the year. The pieces of ice gathered into groups, and united to form larger fields. The entire pack, one endless expanse of apparently motionless, but still constantly moving, ice, was full of interest to us. The sun presented a curious face in its rise and descent; and the colour effects, though not gorgeous, were attractive for their simplicity of shades. The moon, too, had a distorted face as it came out of the frosty mist resting over the pack. The stars shone occasionally through their setting of heavy blue with a sparkle like huge gems. At this season the aurora australis displayed most of its rare glory on the southern skies. We were drifting rapidly from one unknown sea to another still more unknown. “Perhaps we are on the way to the south pole,” was an everyday suggestion.
Our first and most important work in the pack was to study the strange sea over which we drifted. This necessitated observations, not only of the sea-ice and icebergs and the scant life about us on the ice and in the water, but also of the composition of the water, its depth, the temperatures at various depths, and the material of the sea-bottom. It required also a careful study of the atmosphere. The heads of the various scientific departments and their assistants were kept busy for a part of the time making these studies. The sailors, in addition to assisting with the scientific labour, were kept well engaged by the ordinary routine work of the ship and the task of embanking the vessel with snow to protect her from the expected cold of the coming winter-long night.
By the end of April our ship was snugly arranged for her winter imprisonment. A roof had been erected over the deck amidships, and under it were an anvil and a fire for the use of the engineer while making the necessary iron-work. The cabins were rearranged to offer the greatest possible amount of heat, light, and freedom from humidity. A floor was placed over the engine-room, and on it a small stove to heat the officers’ quarters. The galley was put between decks next to the forecastle, into which should go the superfluous heat. Double doors and double windows were made everywhere, and all possible openings where heat might escape were closed. Exteriorly, the sides of the ship were banked by snow blocks, the decks were blanketed by the constantly falling snow, and over it all the snow-charged winds drifted, making a neat and perfect embankment. Our antarctic home, then, was imbedded under a huge snowbank, on a field of ice which drifted with the winds over the unknown antarctic seas.
The Ross Seal with Trachea Inflated.