The mental conditions have been indicated above. Physically we are steadily losing strength, though our weight remains nearly the same, with a slight increase in some. All seem puffy about the eyes and ankles, and the muscles, which were hard earlier, are now soft, though not reduced in size. We are pale, and the skin is unusually oily. The hair grows rapidly, and the skin about the nails has a tendency to creep over them, seemingly to protect them from the cold. The heart action is failing in force and is decidedly irregular. Indeed, this organ responds to the slightest stimulation in an alarming manner. If we walk hurriedly around the ship the pulse rises to 110 beats, and if we continue for fifteen minutes it intermits, and there is also some difficulty of respiration. The observers, going only one hundred yards to the observatories, come in almost breathless after their short run. The usual pulse, too, is extremely changeable from day to day. Now it is full, regular, and vigorous; again it is soft, intermittent and feeble. In one case it was, yesterday, 43, to-day it is 98, but the man complains of nothing and does his regular work. The sun seems to supply an indescribable something which controls and steadies the heart. In its absence it goes like an engine without a governor.
There is at present no one disabled, but there are many little complaints. About half of the men complain of headaches and insomnia; many are dizzy and uncomfortable about the head, and others are sleepy at all times, though they sleep nine hours. All of the secretions are reduced, from which it follows that digestion is difficult. Acid dyspepsia and frequent gastric discomforts are often mentioned. There are also rheumatic and neuralgic pains, muscular twitchings, and an indefinite number of small complaints, but there is but one serious case on hand. This is Danco. He has an old heart lesion, a leak of one of the valves, which has been followed by an enlargement of the heart and a thickening of its walls. In ordinary conditions, when there was no need for an unusual physical or mental strain, and when liberal fresh food and bright sunshine were at hand, he felt no defect. But these conditions are now changed. The hypertrophied muscular tissue is beginning to weaken, and atrophy of the heart is the result, dilating and weakening with a sort of measured step, which, if it continues at the present rate, will prove fatal within a month.
May 22.—It is clear and still. The temperature has fallen to -19° C., and altogether, though sunless, this sharp, cold weather at present is more agreeable to us than the dull, stormy days with warmth and light a month ago. It is Sunday, and we have nearly all been out for a jaunt on skis. We took some photographs, but they are ugly, because there is nothing distinct in the pictures. It is not possible to make good, clear pictures except on bright moonlight nights or on sharp, sunny days. It is the custom aft to go into the masthead and scan the horizon for signs of life, before starting on our tours of recreation. In this way we are reasonably sure to return with a penguin, a seal, or the story of an adventure. To-day we saw a seal about a mile from the ship, but when we got to it the animal started towards the Belgica. We urged it on and drove it easily to our home. The creature looked about with much curiosity when it came to the rough, dirty snow about the bark, and searched diligently for a hole through which it might plunge to the sea below. But no such hole or crevasse was within a mile of us, for the calm cold of the past week has reunited all the broken fragments into large fields. We threw a rope around the seal, which was a crab-eater, intending to take its temperature and make other physiological experiments, but the thing was too slippery and too lively for us. Several instruments were broken, and some very strong ropes were snapped like ordinary twine. Finally the seal was shot, and its skeleton was prepared to enrich a Belgian museum of natural history. There was to-night a bright aurora. It began as a straight horizontal zone low on the southern sky. Later it changed to an arc with the parts of two other arcs below it. A similar phenomenon appeared last night.
May 27.—The little dusk at midday is fading more and more. A feeble deflected light falls upon the elevations, the icebergs, and the hummocks, offering a faint cheerfulness, but this soon withdraws and leaves a film of blackness. The pack presents daily the same despondent surface of gray which, by contrast to the white sparkle of some time ago, makes our outlook even more melancholy. The weather is now quite clear and in general more settled. The temperature ranges from 5° to 10° C. below zero. We have frequent falls of snow, but the quantity is small and the period is short. Generally we are able to see the stars from two in the afternoon until ten in the morning. During the four hours of midday the sky is generally screened by a thick icy vapour. There are a few white petrels about daily, and in the sounding hole we have noticed a seal occasionally, but there is now no other life. All have an abundance of work, but our ambition for regular occupation, particularly anything which requires prolonged mental concentration, is wanting; even the task of keeping up the log is too much. There is nothing new to write about, nothing to excite fresh interest. There are now no auroras, and no halos; everything on the frozen sea and over it is sleeping the long sleep of the frigid night.
CHAPTER XXII
THE SOUTH POLAR NIGHT (CONTINUED)—DAYS OF DISCONTENTMENT.
A Helpless Ship in a Hopeless Sea of Ice.
The grayness of the first days of the night has given way to a soul-despairing darkness, broken only at noon by a feeble yellow haze on the northern sky. I can think of nothing more disheartening, more destructive to human energy, than this dense, unbroken blackness of the long polar night. In the arctic it has some redeeming features. There the white invader has the Eskimo to assist, teach, and amuse him. The weather there is clear and cold; and in the regions about Greenland, where I have been engaged, there is land—real solid land, not the mere mockery of it, like the shifting pack that is about us here. With land at hand, prolonged journeys are always possible, but what are we to do on a moving sea of ice?
May 29.—Yesterday we had a warm northerly gale with much snow and a thick fog. The ice is again in rapid motion. There are many new leads, numerous pressure angles, and fresh fissures in the ice. Danco is steadily failing. To-day is Sunday; the men look forward with some anticipation to this day because Sunday is set aside, not as a day of worship, for I have never seen a man on the Belgica with a Bible or prayer-book in his hands, but as a time of freedom from usual duties. It is the weekly period of recreation and special feeding. The few eatables which are still relished are placed on the menu for Sunday. This serves to mark time and to divide, somewhat, the almost unceasing sameness of our life.
This morning had in it no element of promise or cheer. Even at noon it was dark and gloomy. But the wet, warm, northerly wind of yesterday is blowing its last breath. The cold air of the upper atmospheric stratus is settling down over us again, as it always does in an approaching calm. In this region nothing is more conducive to comfort than a sharp atmosphere with a low temperature. Warm weather is nice enough in summer or in more temperate latitudes; but in this sea of ice and in midwinter, it is far from desirable. Aside from the personal discomforts, high temperature in our position adds enormous dangers to our safety. The ice, now being firmly congealed, is crushed and thrown from one part of the ever restless sea to another. It is broken, crushed, and ground into a snowy powder, which only too well indicates to us what would become of our vessel if it were torn from its present bed.