The scenic shock was really tremendous. The dramatic intensity of the change, the startling evolution from storm and darkness, blistering winds, soaked with snow and rain, the earth-driven rolling clouds, black and gray, tossed over us and engulfing us in blankets of cold wetness that sent shivering thrills of dread through our bodies, as the waves mounted and pounced on us like beasts of ravin! And then this magnificent uplift! Oh, the calm, superhuman glory of it! The shattered debris of the broken tornado vanishing above us, and—as its myriad shaped or distorted curtains rose—the sunlit dark mountain peaks, the bare rocky crags, jeweled with snow, the ice-strewn beaches of Krocker Land, evolving superbly before our eyes, as if created then, at that very moment, by the transfiguring finger of the Almighty. Mr. Link, it was the most sublime spectacle imaginable; for me it was the climax of my life. I shall never forget its wonder, its power, its amazing enforcement of the idea of creation.
I don’t think there was much difference between any of us in our feelings at that moment; its immensity appalled us in a way, and then it thrilled us. Temperamental details were submerged in the overpowering sensation. At first perhaps we thought it an apparition, a mirage. It was unreal. And then when the realization was acknowledged, to put it bluntly, we gazed in stupid astonishment. We were about four miles away, when the vision broke, standing on our deck, from which every vestige of our supplies had been carried off by the ruthless wind and water. I believe we stood that way for a quarter of an hour, before we quite came to our senses, with the waves and wind still driving us headlong on that apocryphal beach. Then we began to take notice and to take precautions.
The shore was partially encumbered with shore ice, and the lashing waves were throwing upon it other small and large fragments. The coast was low, sandy, shelving, cut up by a few projecting and sand buried ridges of rock, which, like spurs, passed back into the interior, and may have been the outspread roots of the looming ranges beyond and behind them. Goritz managed to direct the launch upon a flat expanse of sand on which we landed with a thud that made the timbers creak. I think the Professor was the first to leap ashore, then Hopkins and myself, and at the last Goritz, with the painter. The next wave drove the boat further up the beach. Nothing now could budge her. Somehow we looked then to Goritz for orders.
“Better get everything out, and take an account of stock. This is good enough camping ground, until we get our bearings and perhaps a little better hold on our wits. I hope the Professor’s faunas are expecting us.”
This oblique hint to the loss of our provisions dampened any ardor we might have succumbed to, in our enthusiasm over the discovery. We set to work with a will, and almost without a word. There were some welcome surprises. The dogs were safe, sound asleep in the cabin, exhausted by their fright. They became a solicitude, however, because of the additional mouths to fill, though, in a state of idleness, half rations would keep them well. But would we need them? Our ammunition and guns were safe, our oil and stove, alcohol, medical outfit, and six boxes of canned vegetables, pemmican, biscuit, tea, coffee, chocolate, in all perhaps three hundred pounds; and our spare clothing, for which we offered fervent thanks. One sledge was saved from the wreck, and one bruised and broken kayak. The portable tent was uninjured, and there remained a serviceable equipment of cans and pots, though for that matter one can for the preparation of our tea and coffee or chocolate, and one pot for miscellaneous stews, soups, and what Hopkins called “hari-kari,” were all we needed. The watertight cabin had saved much.
When the review was finished, and we felt cheered over the immediate prospect, we drew up the “Pluto” on the beach, anchored her, as well as we could, and converted her into our camp. We were clamorously hungry and the dogs were raging. The Professor wasted no time, though just now the allowances were rigorously measured. It might be better when we caught sight of the Professor’s “concentrated reflexion of the palearctic and neoarctic faunas.” At the moment a sublime solitude surrounded us. Yet I had noticed high up on the shoulders of the rock and in the slight subsidences that like saucers lay at their bases, the growth of plants, and the quick eye of the Professor had noted it too. Surely that meant game. I guess we both understood that, for the Professor worked over his fires and vessels with a boyish profusion of activity, and was inclined to be lavish in his ingredients (Goritz, watchful and prudent, stopped him), while something like elation sprang up within me and an utterly inappropriate yearning to sing and laugh and dance.
I remembered Mikkelsen’s and Iversen’s joy when they descended from the cold monotony and whiteness and treachery of the inland ice of Greenland to the habitable earth with its flowers, and life, and warmth. With Mikkelsen too vegetation had meant animal life. They seemed inseparable correlates. In Greenland it had been pygmy willow trees, six inches high, with trunks an inch thick, and blades of grass, and thick moss, and beautiful heather, and then—musk ox!
What it was here would be disclosed as soon as the evening meal was finished. We had all been curiously dumb since we had been thrown ashore, that is, there had been no reference made to our wonderful landfall. Perhaps we were speechless from sheer amazement, or some haunting dread that our return was impossible, or that we were on the margin, as it were, of bigger marvels. I think the latter feeling made us almost mute. Our fancies before we left Point Barrow had been high-strung and the visions wrought in our minds were almost mystical—I have explained that—but these had very completely vanished during the last days of turmoil and disaster, when the wonders we expected to encounter were more likely to have been found in another world than in this one. Yet you see they really had not vanished, they had shrunk somewhat, retreating into invisibility in the crevices and holes of the mind, and now when the stupendous reality confronted us they rushed out from hiding, huger than ever, smothering us into silence with their immensity! A new World, what might not be in it? It was Hopkins who broke the trance that imprisoned us.
“That transformation took the gilt off any lightning-change stunt I ever have seen and—Of course, Professor, there isn’t any guess coming that we’ve ARRIVED, that this is Krocker Land?” he said suddenly.
“Not the slightest,” answered the Professor, filling our cups with chocolate, and in a matter of fact way that was final.