Penguin Interviews.
Last night a tremendous force was expended against the end of our floe, which made the sleeping Belgica quiver from stem to stern; but, fortunately, the good old ice-block held together, while the smaller ice pans around her were pushed on the surface with a groan like that of a man in dire pain. To-day all is quiet, no pressure groans, no noise of animals, no wind, even the usual noise on board has ceased. Since three o’clock the temperature has fallen three degrees every hour. Now, at eight o’clock, it is -25.2°; this is our favourite temperature and what a joy it brings. The day is, perhaps, as a Sunday ought to be, cold, solemn, and silent. A feeble arc aurora appeared at about nine o’clock to-night. It was in the usual position, but the exhibit was so faint that had we not been trained by our previous observations, the phenomenon would have passed unrecognised.
May 31.—By a careful observation Captain Lecointe deduces our latitude to 71° 36′, longitude 87° 33′ 30″. For about a week we have drifted very little. The longitude has changed slightly, but since the 18th we have gone southward about nineteen miles. To the present this is our farthest point southward. On the 20th of March we were at 71° 35′, longitude 88° 02′, a position very near that at present. (The latitude of this day, 71° 36′, proved to be our farthest south during the entire drift with the pack.)
The morning is perfect, as we regard weather. The thermometer is at -23° C. There is almost no wind, and every break in the pack is covered by a thick sheet of new ice. We expected cold, clear weather, but it was otherwise yesterday and last night. The wind howled, the ice was again torn into small pieces, and there was a great amount of pressure evident in the lines of hummocks running easterly and westerly. Either we have come against some obstruction southward, or the northerly pressure is extraordinary. During the night we were anxious about the safety of the Belgica; for, as the fury of the wind rushed over us, the ice was broken and the vessel was subjected to a great amount of pressure. The ice is heaped up around the Belgica in huge walls from five to twenty feet in height. The floes are turning, giving the good old ship hard jabs in her ribs. She takes the savage blows with an agonizing moan. Although the pressure has been such that we packed our kits and were prepared to try the hospitality of the pack, there has been no real injury which we can discover. We were extremely glad, this morning, to find that the broken ice had been reunited, and we soon learned that the raised walls about would prove an effective embankment in future battles with the storms.
At noon there was a faint show of a dawn. The sky in the north was touched with light fiery clouds. The snow had upon it not the slightest suggestion of this red, but remained a dull gray, while the sky above was a smoky blue. One not familiar with the freaks of polar day would have thought the sun would surely rise, or that it had just sunk under the snow, but we know only too well that we are doomed to see it make a fainter and fainter display at noon for three more weeks.
Precisely at twelve o’clock a strange rectangular block of fire appeared in the east-south-east. Its size was that of a small tabular iceberg, but it had a dull crimson glow which made the scene at once weird and fascinating. Its base rested on the horizon and it seemed to rise, brighten, and move northerly. The sky here was a purple, thinly veiled by a light smoky haze, caused by icy crystals in the lower stratus of atmosphere, but there was not another speck of redness on this side of the heavens except the orange bow usually seen over the twilight zone. We watched this with considerable awe and amazement for ten minutes before we could determine its meaning. It passed through several stages of forms, finally it separated, and we discovered that it was the moon. It was in fact a sort of mirage of the moon, but the strange rectangular distortion, the fiery aspect, and its huge size, made a sight long to be remembered.
During the past days of the night we have made soundings of the sea, and have taken samples of submarine and surface life. This has given Arctowski and Racovitza an abundance of work. It is interesting to see them plod along, working steadily and faithfully in the dark laboratory, packing away specimens, jotting down notes, stooping over the microscopes and other instruments, always with a pencil in one hand, and a stick in the other to greet the first man who dares to interrupt them in their den. Poor fellows!—their faces are tired and drawn, as if some great calamity had come upon them. Danco is keeping up with doggish persistency his magnetic observations, the details of which are such that he is almost constantly occupied during working hours. He is steadily failing, but he complains little and keeps up a kind of abnormal cheerfulness.
The meteorological work is now the most troublesome task, for it requires some one to make the observations every hour, and sometimes oftener. Each of us had planned a work of some magnitude to be completed before sunrise. Commandant de Gerlache started to rewrite the ship’s log. Lecointe began to complete the details of the summer’s hydrographic work. Racovitza, in addition to regular laboratory work, was to plan the outlines of a new book on the geographical distribution of life. Arctowski had in mind a dozen scientific problems to elucidate. Amundsen entered into a co-partnership with me to make new and more perfect travelling equipment; and in addition to this, I had the anthropological work of the past summer to place into workable order, and a book on antarctic exploration. Thus we had placed before us the outline for industrious occupation; but we did little of it. As the darkness increased our energy waned. We became indifferent, and found it difficult to concentrate our minds or fix our efforts to any one plan of action. (The work mapped out was partly accomplished, but it was done after the return of the sun.)
The regular routine of our work is tiresome in the extreme, not because it is difficult of execution or requires great physical exertion, but because of its monotony. Day after day, week after week, and month after month we rise at the same hour, eat the same things, talk on the same subjects, make a pretense of doing the same work, and look out upon the same icy wilderness. We try hard to introduce new topics for thought and new concoctions for the weary stomach. We strain the truth to introduce stories of home and of flowery future prospects, hoping to infuse a new cheer; but it all fails miserably. We are under the spell of the black antarctic night, and, like the world which it darkens, we are cold, cheerless, and inactive. We have aged ten years in thirty days.