The Belgica & Beyond
amateur translations, scans, & assorted research by m.w.
actively under construction.
WRITTEN FROM THE BELGICA 1897-1899
CORRESPONDENCE
- coverage in the Belgian press, translated
- coverage in the British press
- coverage in the American press
- scientific lectures, translated
- list of Expedition publications a) Lecointe on Danco’s contributions
QUELQUES EXPÉDITIONS SUIVANTES
- de Gerlache & Charcot (the Français)
de Gerlache & the Duke of Orléans (the Belgica in the Arctic) - the failed Second Belgian Antarctic Expedition (Arctowski & Lecointe)
- the successful Second Belgian Antarctic Expedition (Gaston de Gerlache)
- the Royal Belgian Observatory
Georges Lecointe’s 20th Century
MARRIAGES & OTHER LIFE EVENTS
Lecointe Family Arctowski - de Gerlache
- Racovitza
- van Mirlo
- van Rysselberghe
ASSORTED BELGICA RESOURCES
- bibliography
- associated persons
- contemporary photographs
the sailors of the Belgica performing a “starlight concert” on Sept. 26, 1897, from Johan Koren’s diary
contact: packloafertranslations@gmail.com
Towards the South Pole
Extraordinary Conference Given at the Sorbonne on 23rd February 1900 on the Belgian Antarctic Expedition, its Goal, its Adventures, and its Results
by Émile G. Racovitza
Naturalist of the Expedition
by Émile G. Racovitza
Naturalist of the Expedition
Ladies, Gentlemen,
The Zoological Society of France has done me a very great honor by charging me with delivering their annual conference. I hope my honorable colleagues will accept the full measure of my gratitude.
My gratitude is of the utmost depth as their choice constitutes an exception in my favor. In fact, until now, the annual conference has always been given by a master of science and speech; but I am neither one of those things, I am no more than a simple candidate for that envied title of “Naturalist.”
A second exception was made concerning this same conference: the title indicates that the subject is geology and not zoology like it will be. If, however, there are accommodations within the laws and regulations — which we see examples of every day — there will also be some for conference titles; you will have proof of it this evening. I would like, therefore, to warn you all that I will be speaking at length about the Antarctic animals and their activities and behaviors.
I will thus be better in my role as a zoologist speaking on behalf of a zoological society, and this manner of doing things will also correspond all the better with my honest sentiments.
Photography by Doctor Cook
I love beasts, all beasts, for there is no monster so hideous and repulsive that it could not deserve all my sympathies. Zoological passions are regulated by the same psychic laws as ordinary human passions, the passion I have for beasts being all the stronger for the fact that it is not always returned. Beasts do not give me good scientific memories equivalent to what I give to them in pure and tender affection. I hope, nevertheless, that in those ethereal regions where zoologists and their works are judged graciously and dispassionately — that is to say, in the other zoological world — I will be fully pardoned because I so fully loved… beasts.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
To reach the Antarctic animals, one must first cross the Atlantic in all her great length. This enormous distance was crossed by the Belgica with a sensible slowness, for our ship was no transatlantic cruiser; it was far from it. This was a solid little wooden ship, of the Norwegian sealing type, thirty-four meters long and two hundred seventy merchant tons. Rigged as a three-masted bark, it had a complete and practical canopy of sails, and its sides, covered in a thick armor of greenheart, were well protected against the occasional wear to be expected when sailing through ice. A big barrel fixed to the top of the largest mast served as the commander’s observatory while he directed the ship through the pack. The rear contained the lodgings of the officers and scientists; the front was arranged for the sailors and, between them, a little deckhouse divided into two by a bulkhead down the middle served as the laboratory for the oceanographer-meteorologist and the naturalist of the expedition. The holds were crammed with coal, a necessary provision for an engine of 150 horsepower which could give the ship a speed up to six or seven knots and which would be especially useful to us while sailing through ice. The orlop was crammed with crates of all shapes and sizes containing furs, foodstuffs, and raw materials of all sorts. Besides these, a complete collection of scientific instruments had been installed on board.
Nineteen persons took part in this expedition; here are their names and appointments:
A. DE GERLACHE, the promoter, organizer, and chief of the Expedition.
G. LECOINTE, the second head of the Expedition, navigational officer, charged with hydrographic research in addition to the magnetic research after Danco’s death.
R. AMUNDSEN, first lieutenant.
J. MELAERTS, second lieutenant.
E. DANCO, charged with magnetic observations.
H. ARCTOWSKI, the oceanographer-meteorologist.
A. DOBROWOLSKI, assistant meteorologist.
FR. A. COOK, Expedition doctor, photographer and anthropologist.
E. G. RACOVITZA, naturalist.
H. SOMERS, first mechanic.
M. VAN RYSSELBERGHE, second mechanic.
Sailors: G. DUFOUR, H. JOHANSEN, E. KNUDSEN, J. KOREN, L. MICHOTTE, J. VAN MIERLO, A. TOLLEFSEN, C. A. WIENCKE.
The goal of the expedition was not to beat the South Pole record at the detriment of scientific observations. Naturally, we would advance as far south as possible, but never by making it impossible for ourselves to carry out that scientific research which is the only, but very great, profit that a polar exploration can give. As planned, it was most of all about studying the South American Antarctic region with all the methods that science currently places at our disposal, and to do an overwintering, as far south as possible, as a way of recording all sorts of observations for at least an entire year.
I do not want to detail the journey of the Belgica until the southernmost point of South America, and so I will begin the summary of our adventures on the 13th of January 1898, the day of our departure from the Gulf of Saint Jean on Staten Island.
We immediately discovered that the reputation of the waters surrounding Cape Horn had not been overstated. The west wind whipped up constant storms, and the Belgica was shaken violently by the enormous waves of the Drake Passage. Luckily I had taken my precautions: all my materials and jars had been carefully arranged in specially constructed lockers, and similarly my microscope was screwed to the laboratory table; it was only the Expedition’s naturalist who was not screwed down, and he often had the chance to regret it!
This did not prevent us from executing a series of soundings which allowed us to make important observations. Between South America and the first Antarctic lands there exists, contrary to the geographers’ suppositions, a sea over four thousand meters deep, which is the continuation of the Pacific basin.
On January 19th, the lookout signaled our first iceberg and on January 20th, thanks to rough seas, we were opposite the South Shetland Islands. It was dead calm and an opaque mist sat heavily on the long undulations of the swelling sea; from time to time it lifted in places, like a soft, thick curtain, and the sharp peaks and mountain chains which formed these islands appeared through its matte whiteness. A solid necklace of black reefs bordered the seaward side of these lands, where giant waves were breaking hard, spouting up great vertical expanses of white sea spray. In the gulfs and coastal cutouts, gigantic icebergs lay where they had run aground, like monstrous vessels anchored in ports of white marble.
We passed between these islands and set our course southwards, towards the Trinity and Palmer lands, coasts just barely glimpsed by American whalers at the beginning of the century.
On January 22nd a terrible storm surprised us in the Bransfield Strait. In the blink of an eye, heavy mists swept in and thick, uninterrupted waves of gray rolled one after the other over the somber sky. The sea dug itself into deep grooves and the wind screamed shrilly in the rigging of the Belgica. The ship was hove to and, under her courses, she sped frantically into the moving horror of the raging hurricane. Now all was dark and gloomy. On the somber horizon were sketched the black silhouettes of unknown, menacing lands, and the darkness of the sky spread thick and heavy above the mourning sea. Only the crests of the waves, illuminated by their flecks of foam, showed any white; every now and then would pass an iceberg, gigantic and terrible, throwing off a murky, bluish-green glow, shaking from the fury of the waves and force of the winds.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
I was lying down in our little laboratory, when all of a sudden Arctowski appeared, pale and trembling, and told me: Wiencke is dead! Dead? With a jump I was standing. Yes, he replied, drowned, carried off by a wave!
And in the wardroom, I found Lecointe dripping with water, numb and frozen from the cold, who said through his tears: “Raco, I couldn’t, he slipped from my hands.” He grieved, brave heart, for not having been able to save his comrade at the risk of his own life, and we had to console him and change him like a child.
Ah! What a night on the Belgica, shaking like a shipwreck while all along the hurricane whistled sinisterly in the rigging and giant waves slammed violently into the sides of the ship. The work had hardly begun and already we’d planted a corpse on our route! Whose turn now of the eighteen who stayed to fight it out against the menacing unknown? Who knew if the willing sacrifice would not be useless, if the work would not fail entirely in some frozen corner of the mysterious Antarctic!
But nature always demands its dues, and I fell asleep late, very late, my forehead propped on the table in our little laboratory.
But what an awakening at the dawn of the day!
Photography by Doctor Cook.
The Belgica slid gently on a calm, united sea, and on all sides, highlands clothed in white led their sharp peaks off into the distant horizon. In the pale blue of the sky, the sun sparkled like magic, and its luminous rays revealed, in the brilliant whiteness of the landscape, the innumerable twinklings of snow crystals.
The steep valleys, gouged out of the surface of these monstrous lands, were replete with gigantic glaciers whose zebra-striped blue fronts plunged down into the dark sea. In some places, the earth’s skeleton rose up out of the whiteness, taking the forms of sharp peaks, vertical walls of black rock, and tall, slender points shaped like towers or steeples. And the eternal snow had quilted in its whiteness cracks and cornices, crests and summits; the contours grew larger in harmonious lines, in gently arched curves, in elegant sinuosities. Broad inlets and narrow channels sliced through the whiteness of the land as shadowy, twitching lines.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
Ever majestic, the icebergs sailing by took on massive, delicate forms; crumpled cyclopean citadels, or the vertiginous domes of alabaster cathedrals. Floes shattered against their walls as waves stormed through the azure caves burrowed into their flanks, emerging crowned in silver-plated foam. Like a flock of swans, slender morsels of ice played in the water, bowing graciously whenever the swelling current rippled past.
And the land and the water, the icebergs big and small projected their elegant shapes or their undulating surfaces into the pure and brilliant glow of this serene polar daylight. Soft, subtle hues floated by, and, in harmonious congregations, they colored the sharp peaks of the mountains, the battered surfaces of the rocks, the rough backs of the glaciers, the steep flanks of the icebergs.
Nothing could give an idea of this magical polar landscape, because nowhere else is the light at once so gentle and so brilliant, the colors so fluid and so subtle, the tones so soft and so pale, the shapes so beautiful and so harmonious!
Photography by Doctor Cook.
We were in the strait which is now called the de Gerlache Strait. To the west it is bordered by a large number of skinny little islands: the Palmer Archipelago. To the east is a land of jagged coastlines which has received the name Danco Land.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
We spent twenty days exploring this region and adding it to the map. We carefully followed the whole coast of Danco Land in the boat, and with the dinghies we completed around twenty debarcations. This latter operation presented great difficulties; a very strong tide was constantly breaking against the sharp shores of the islands and continental masses, and it took prolonged searching to find a favorable spot to put feet on the ground. Alongside this, the crew was very weak, as it was the scientific personnel maneuvering the dinghy. Lecointe took the helm, as was only just, whereas Arctowski, Dobrowolski, Danco, and I pulled hard, and Doctor Cook, as the most agile of the group, took the front, ready to jump first onto land to restrain the dinghy with the help of a rope. Neither from afar nor up close did this resemble an admiralty jollyboat, but it worked for us regardless, and the proof is that we made twenty debarcations in the Antarctic, which, in other words, is many more than all our predecessors put together.
Surveyed by Messrs. de Gerlache & Lecointe and drawn by M. Lecointe
One of the first results supplied by these debarcations was the verification that the eternal snows of this region extends down nearly to the border of the sea. As a result, the snow, once fallen, does not melt entirely, no matter where it falls from the highest peaks down to the very edge of the water. As it accumulates, this snow is transformed into névé, and into ice; furthermore, all the inner parts of the lands and islands were covered in a thick crystalline carapace which we called inlandis. This carapace would probably increase indefinitely in thickness if its own feet did not force it to flow out into the sea through glaciers of all different shapes. In the natural valleys, the islandis were drained by way of rivers of ice, the same as those in the Alps. Here and there, where the land was bordered by high cliffs, the inlandis would come rushing down from its summits in great avalanches and reform into glaciers at its feet. On the small, flat islands the inlandis formed a convex carapace which fractured all over the islands’ perimeters. All these glaciers thus arrived in contact with the sea, where, as they progressed, they shed fragments from their sides, little morsels and great chunks which then gave birth to new floes and enormous icebergs.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
(editor’s note: this appears to be a photograph of Racovitza)
Photography by Doctor Cook.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
And all was covered thus in ice and snow in these desolate lands of the Antarctic. All that lay exposed were a few very high cliffs, some isolated peaks, somber nunataks pointing across the inlandis, a few miniscule beaches dominated by their sandy spits and a few little islands or islets scattered through the Gerlache Strait. As one might expect, it was only in these places that we could find any manifestation of animal or plant life, and even then, how poor and how inferior!
One sole flowering plant, the Aira antarctica, a miniscule species of Grass, hides among the tufts of moss and seeks the well-sheltered cornices of the cliff faces. No Ferns, but some Mosses, Lichens, and Algaes. Lichens in grays, oranges, and yellows blanketed the vertical rock falls exposed to the sun, while the Mosses lived in humid cornices and cracks. Nearly all of the latter do not produce fruits; they multiply themselves by budding, the climate not permitting delicate reproductive organs to perform their service.
In the little pools of fresh water, originating from the melting snows, lived a whole world of microscopic Algaes, Diatoms and Oscillarians, Flagellates and Bacterias, sometimes turning the depths of their ponds green, sometimes turning them red.
We were curious to know what were the animal species who, in this hostile climate, made use of these vegetal resources. Meticulous research allowed us to draw up a list. First, a Podurella, a little snow Flea, black-blue, jumping on the rocks or between the plants, or even assembling in large bands on the little flat stones or on the old shells. Next a Fly, the Belgica antarctica, a poor little thing deprived of the most important attribute of the Dipterans, since its wings are tiny and cannot be used for flight. What took place here was that which has already been reported of the insects living on oceanic islands battered by strong, frequent winds. Indeed, these Insects have lost the ability to fly through selection and through the reduction of their wings, as any gifted with flight were constantly carried off by the wind and drowned in the sea.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
Lastly, I must cite three or four species of Acarians, small spider-like creatures who lead a precarious life within the tufts of Mosses and Lichens.
This word, Arachnée, pronounced in reference to our Acariens, gave me a lamentable adventure which I have chosen to recount today to prevent any similar misunderstandings. On our return from the Antarctic, the Belgica was overrun by a swarm of well-meaning reporters who began to interview us conscientiously. Each of us had quite a few surrounding us; I had at least a half dozen myself. These gentlemen, notepads in hand, posed me questions which I did my best to answer. So they asked me what animals we’d found in the Antarctic lands and I gave them the enumeration that you’ve all just heard: “Snow Fleas and a little Fly who’d lost its wings” — and the pencils raced — “and three Acarians.” At this word, every pencil stopped. It was clear that the Acarian was an unknown persona in the editorial halls. So I explained that it’s a sort of small spider. “Ah! Spiders! Perfect!” And the overworked pencils set off once more. The misfortune is that these gentlemen wrote only “spiders.”
Photography of Doctor Cook.
Need I insist on the advantage a skilled journalist might take of the notions: little wingless Flies, Spiders, ice, black rocks battered by the wind, etc? You all understand this, easily, and one of these gentlemen did not disappoint. In his write-up he described, in trembling words, the following somber Antarctic tragedy: on a black, bald rock, surrounded on all sides by ice and snow, battered by frozen hurricanes, there is one weak, delicate little Fly, fighting desperately to escape the lethal embraces of three ferocious Spiders who want to suck its blood. And you will understand, mortals, all the somber horror of this terrifying drama, when you know that this weak and delicate Fly does not even have wings for flying away to safety.
I need not tell you that this somber tableau does not correspond with reality; our Acarians are small beasts, peaceful and honest, who would never hurt a Fly, not even the poor wingless Fly mentioned above. They support their tranquil life by gnawing away at the tough Lichens.
Photography by Racovitza.
In the little pools of water formed by melting snow, a microscopic world has developed which feeds on lower Algaes. Infusorians, Rotifers, Tardigrades, and Nematodes had each provided a few representatives to this population inhabiting the very hardest living conditions. All of these beings possessed either the faculties for encysting themselves or those for reviviscence, and their cells were fit for victoriously overcoming both the periods of complete dryness and those of prolonged congelation, because the miniscule lakes they inhabited never lasted very long. Sometimes the water was completely frozen, sometimes it was completely evaporated by the sun’s rays.
So there you have the survey of the plants and animals who populate these desolate lands; but we met other animals there which cannot be counted among the proper terrestrial fauna, but who nevertheless gave a special character to these regions and who alone lent an appearance of visible life to the lands in the Gerlache Strait. I want to speak of the Birds and the Seals, higher animals endowed with powerful means of locomotion, who for the most part don’t come to these regions outside the summer.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
A white and gray Gull (Larus dominicanus) with a large brown band on the back of its body and wings was found in great quantities on the small, uncovered islands where they had established their homes. Two big brown chicks were sitting in each flat nest made of Moss, and shouting loud, unpleasant cries in response to the shrieks made by their parents as they flew around them. This Gull fed itself on shellfish, and it mostly preferred Limpets. It plucks these Mollusks from the rocks at low tide and then transports them up to the top to the rocks to be eaten. As it typically returns to the same spot for its meals, on every coast one finds little piles representing the value of a lunch or a dinner. There were generally twelve, which proves that it was not us who invented eating Oysters by the dozen.
A Tern (species of Sterna) also nests in the same places, and, with menacing cries and flapping, the courageous little animal pursues the fat Birds who attempt to approach its nest. The Skua (Megalestris antarctica) is another Bird abundant in these regions, where it nests on the highest terraces of the tallest cliffs; its flight is impetuous, and its feet, though palmate like those of its congeners, have transformed into powerful talons. It is the Eagle of these regions and it is curious to witness this adaptation in a Seabird, who has, as a result of the carnivorous habit contracted in these special conditions, taken the appearance of a true Bird of Prey.
The Vulture of these regions is also represented by a bird with webbed feet, the Giant Petrel (Ossifraga gigantea), who has also adapted its external shape to the tasks it has in common with Vulturids. It flies heavily, but powerfully, gliding along in immense circles to search for corpses. Its enormous, hooked beak is capable of slicing through the tough epidermis on a Seal’s corpse. It also possesses the ability to gobble down formidable quantities of rotten meat, to the point that it prevents it from flying; but, like the Vultures, it can recover its agility by ridding itself of the surplus. Also like the Vultures, it possesses extraordinary sight, because whenever we killed a Seal, we saw the Ossifrages come toward us in throngs, without us ever having been aware of their presence.
The Giant Petrel has perfected, to the highest degree, the ability to voluntarily empty their stomachs as a means of self-defense. When one tries to pick up a wounded animal, it hurls the contents of its digestive tube at you from afar, and when one is covered in these more or less decomposed materials, one is not proud, I can assure you. The odor is persistent and horrible, and though as a zoologist one might have seen all sorts of colors and be in possession of a healthy heart, it is truly difficult not to give oneself over to displays resembling that of the Ossifrage.
These animals have a size difference between the sexes. I was able to determine, through many observations, that the wingspan of the males was always over two meters, while that of the females remained below said figure. The color of these Birds was generally a mix of brown, gray, and white, but there were some either fully white or fully brown. This variation in plumage has no importance; my observations show that the color within this species is not fixed, and that it does not depend on age, sex, or habitat as had been erroneously presumed.
The smallest Bird living in these regions was the Storm Petrel (Oceanites oceanicus) who nested there, flying low and sculling the surfaces of the straits and channels. On the bare rocks and islands lived a Cormorant (species of Phalacrocorax) in a flat, round nest made of Algae. Each family raised one little one and the parents were so attached to their offspring that they refused to take flight when we approached their chicks.
All of these Birds presented similar physiognomies to those of the inhabitants of the European seas; it is otherwise for the two groups of Birds of whom I’d now like to say a few words: the Penguins and Sheathed Beaks.
Nothing shocks more than an encounter with this bizarre and comical being who is called the Penguin. Imagine a little fellow upright on his feet, provided with two large paddles in place of arms, with a little head against a pudgy, portly body; imagine this being with its back covered by a dark, blue-flecked habit, tapering at the rear into a pointed tail dragging along the ground, and ornamented on front by a fresh, lustrous, white shirtfront. Put this being in motion on its two flat feet and give it at the same time a small comical waddle and a constant movement of the head; you will have behind your eyes something irresistibly enticing and comedic.
These Birds cannot fly, because their feathers are very reduced on the wings and transformed into a sort of set of scales; but on the other hand, what marvelous swimmers! With great blows of their wings, they can cleave floes, or jump out of the water in successive leaps like porpoises. On earth they are most ungainly, this does not, however, prevent them from climbing to shocking heights on the cliffs. They jump from rock to rock or balance like gymnasts with their wings, aided by their feet and bills.
Two species of Penguin live in the Gerlache Strait. They have founded populous, animated cities there, though these are devoid of any institution of social hygiene. In these cities and villages, they practice a system of spreading manure where one stands, and from afar the wind brought the odorous effects of this rudimentary hygiene to us on the Belgica. With these odors came to us, from certain cities, the echoes of an appalling noise. These were ferocious Kaah, Kaahs, followed by the furious choir of a frenzied crowd. We asked ourselves, astonished, if we had not fallen right into an electoral period, and I was disembarked to pursue an inquiry into this subject.
The citizens of these noisy cities were the Chinstrap Penguins (Pygoscelis antarcticus), a species 60 cm in height, distinguishable from all the others by a thin black line which curves along their white cheeks like the fanged mustache of a musketeer. This gives the Chinstrap Penguin a provocative and quarrelsome air, an air which corresponds very well with their character.
Photography by Danco.
Upon disembarking I was welcomed with a storm of cries, vehement shouts and indignant exclamations, which left me without any doubts as to the unfavorable opinion that these Birds had of my person. I thought that with time, I would end up being accepted, and I sat down on a rock at some distance. But my geniality and patience were deployed wholly in vain. All the Penguins turned towards me, their hackles raised, feathers standing on their heads and their beaks wide open, hurling constant streams of speech at me that, from their tone, I judged to be grievously injurious and which, quite luckily — given my natural timidity — I did not comprehend at all, philologists not yet having established the penguin dictionary. Weary of war, I made a large detour and returned towards the city, hiding myself behind the rocks. I could thus observe these animals without their suspecting it, and without their normal life being disrupted by the presence of an intruder.
Photography by Racovitza.
The dirt surface of this city was quite uneven; it had been established on an inclined beach, studded with rocks fallen from the high cliffs, and the ground had been divided into lots, upon each of which was installed a family composed of a father, mother, and two little ones. The round nest was a simple area, with a bottom made just of dirt surrounded by a very low wall made of little shells mixed with the bones of their Penguin ancestors, which, in the hardly respectful but still practical spirit of these Birds, had been used to further their own interests. It was clear that this simple wall was meant to prevent the eggs from rolling down the sloping land of the city. The young were still covered in gray down; they had fat bellies so stuffed with food that they nearly dragged along the ground. With their little heads, their little arms and their little flippers hidden beneath their enormous paunch, they looked like fat balls of gray yarn, rolling here and there inside their nests. The parents stayed beside their nests, looking after their offspring carefully, preventing the young from leaving their paternal home and taking turns fulfilling the role of searching for their food.
Surrounding each nest was a zone constituting each family’s property, separated from their neighboring zones by theoretical limits. This system has created a continuous process within the city: whenever a Penguin sets foot on their neighbor’s property, the proprietor protests violently and the dispute quickly degenerates into a high-pitched quarrel. The two citizens, and, frequently, a third and fourth who’ve drawn themselves into the mix, will stand face to face, staring into the whites of each other’s eyes, their bodies tilting forward, arms swept back, mouths wide open and feathers standing upright on their heads, berating each other with the harshest of truths. From afar, they resemble two fishmongers reproaching each other for the freshness of their merchandise. It was these constant quarrels amongst the city’s inhabitants that had produced the racket we’d heard from the Belgica, quarrels which, consequently, were not due to electoral squabbles, but to judicial contestations between landowners.
As for the other lively, populous cities established on these coasts, they were not noisy like the first, and their inhabitants showed themselves to be calm and dignified. This was a second species of Penguin, the Gentoo (Pygoscelis papua), a bit larger than the Chinstrap Penguin and more sumptuously clothed. The back is still covered in a blue-flecked coat. On the belly and chest, the immaculate white shirtfront shines like pure silk, but the black head is ornamented with a white diadem, and the bill and flippers are scarlet red. At our twelfth landing, these cities were especially numerous and well-populated; I’d estimate around twelve thousand citizens lived there.
From the moment I set foot on their homeland, I saw that there was a considerable difference of character between the two species of Penguins. I slipped, in fact, on a rocky platform where a large town of Gentoos had been established, and I observed with satisfaction that to them, my person seemed, if not congenial, at least uninteresting. Naturally, all of them turned towards me, considered me attentively, a few more susceptible citizens shouted cries of protest or concern, but seeing me sit peacefully amidst them without bothering them, they quickly stopped paying attention to me and occupied themselves with their affairs. I could see them at my own convenience, photograph them the same, and I have nothing to repent of the long hours that I had to devote to them, because with those I saw a really remarkable spectacle.
The nests of these Penguins look exactly like those of the Chinstrap Penguins, but at the time when I became an honorary citizen of the gentoo city, these nests were no longer occupied. All the young, already a large size, wearing ample robes of down and white bibs on their chests, were gathered in the middle of the city, forming picturesque and amusing groups. Like their chinstrapped cousins, they had vast bellies dragging on the ground, little arms and a waddling walk; but in lieu of being separated into their parental nests they were all gathered together at the center of the city. Observation demonstrated to me that this arrangement was perfectly voluntary and that a particular social organization had been established in the best interests of the city. To fully explain this, it is necessary to give some details on the topography around them.
The gentoo city was built on a platform, backed against a high cliff, around thirty meters above sea level. This platform had a vaguely quadrilateral shape, with one side pressed to the cliff face, two sides forming the ridge of a vertical wall directly above the sea, and the fourth side opening on a steep slope which ended on a rocky little beach. The chicks, around sixty in number, were assembled in the center of the city, and, at that moment, only eight adults were found with them. These latter were posted here and there around the edges of the platform, but only on the sides bordering the sea; there were none on the side with the cliff. I had before my eyes a veritable educational institution, as the eight adults were surveillants, prefects charged with preventing the young from falling from the platform’s heights. They were standing firmly upright on their flippers, grave and unmoving, and all convinced of the importance of their mission. Whenever one of the young approached an edge of the platform too closely, the closest prefect opened their enormous beak and sternly barked a most sensible admonishment in their direction. If this did not suffice, a well-applied blow from said beak reminded the recalcitrant of their sense of duty. Shrieking high-pitched cries, rolling on their pudgy paunches and waving their stumpy little arms, the young student would rejoin its companions; the prefect, too, returns to its own position, having solemnly placed at its side the tuft of down still lingering in its beak.
Photography by Racovitza.
The adults charged with watching the little ones took turns from time to time. One of the fatigued sentinels would lift its head in the air, open its beak, and let out a shout very similar to that of a donkey; this cry would be returned by another cry from the little beach found at the foot of the cliff. There were, as it turns out, several adults down there, waiting for their turn on guard duty by preening their feathers or lazily stretching out on the sand. The shouts of the sentinel on duty are repeated a few times, and each cry is followed by a response from the guardhouse sent up by the same individual. The cries of the one above become more and more urgent, and those of the one at the base more and more annoyed. Finally, the individual in the guardhouse makes up its mind; wearily, it climbs the length of the rocky trail up to the platform, going to take the place of the one who called them up, and to stand guard with the same conscientiousness and gravity. The sentinel relieved of duty hastens towards the little beach with visible satisfaction, and flings itself joyously into the sea, splashing water in every direction.
Photography by Racovitza.
The sentinels are not involved in the feeding of the young; their role is simply educational and moral. Through their pecking beaks they teach the inexperienced children about prudence and the experiences they’ll encounter in life; but nourishment is brought to the two children of each family by the father and mother who gave birth to them. Indeed, the adults arrived in turn, their craws replete with the little pelagic Crustaceans which serve as food for all the Penguins, and from far away the children, who recognize them, come to greet them; the chick squats on the ground and opens its beak wide, at which point the parent, crooking its neck and crossing its beak with that of its little one, ejects the succulent swill from within its craw.
In the other cities, which were built at sea level, the young were also in groups, but the surveillance was much less strict, not being as necessary; this demonstrates that the intelligence of these animals is such that they know how to adapt their social laws to the topographic circumstances and that they are not possessed solely by mechanical instinct.
Thus the difference in character between the two Penguins comes from the difference in social organization. The noisy Chinstrap, a terrible bedfellow, is a strict individualist, constantly engaged in quarrels to defend his property; the brave and honest Gentoo is a shrewd communist who need never defend himself against his fellow citizens, has shared the land equally, and has simplified the task of childrearing by establishing a communal boarding school. This gives him the wisdom of a philosopher and the calm of a sage, and the many leisures which are always ensured by well-composed social organization.
Penguins form an order of Birds which is strictly limited to the southern hemisphere and especially the Antarctic region. There is another order of Birds with the same geographic distribution; the order of Chionidae, though probably related to the Oystercatchers, comprises one genus and two species. The Chionis minor inhabits Kerguelen, the Chionis alba inhabits Antarctica, and this latter we encountered many times. It is an all white Bird, the size of a fat Pigeon, with a bill covered in excrescences that form a sort of sheath, from which comes their common name of Sheathbills. They nest in holes in the rocks and raise two young covered in gray down. It is the only Antarctic Bird which does not have palmate feet, nor does it seek nutrition from the marine animals; I saw them feeding on a siphonous Algae which covered the rocks at low tide.
From time to time we would see, on the rocky beaches or the passing ice floes, fat, shapeless masses, those long spindles which are none other than Seals. The most common was the Weddell Seal (Leptonychotes weddellii), able to grow more than two meters long, covered in a dark gray coat flecked with yellow. When the sun shone, they sprawled lazily atop the snow, eyes closed, in the most perfect tranquility. One could sit right beside them and give them friendly little pats; they would lift their round heads, consider you with their large, humid eyes, exhale forcefully through their nostrils, and sometimes open an enormous pink maw armed with small pointed teeth. If you did not touch them, they would let their heads fall back to the snow and continue their snooze. Heavy sighs, the heavy sighs of those who have dined well, occasionally interrupted their regular respiration. Sometimes, their little claw-lined flippers would move sharply, and, with supernatural dexterity, they would scratch their backs or their heads, all of which were covered in brown parasites, Lice, which had sunken their proboscises into their epidermises.
The tides were quite strong in the Gerlache Strait, but the rocks uncovered by them were bare and polished by the constant rubbing of the ice; only a few well-sheltered holes, a few deep corners allowed Algaes to develop, and in these places we found a few representatives of marine fauna: some Limpets, Amphipods, Annelids, and Planarians, few in numbers of both species and individuals.
But the channels and straits were visited by huge herds of Whales. In the bays covered in ice floes, all of a sudden an eddy would form on the water’s surface; one would see the appearance of a small, black, conical eminence, which was open at its peak and releasing a high column of white vapor curving elegantly at its summit. Then a long dark mass appeared which would dive down, rotating along its length, and completely disappear. The eddy fades little by little and in its place the water takes on the properties of a mirror, an effect caused by a fine layer of grease the Cetacean leaves on the surface. A few minutes later, the same carousel would begin again, and then again four or five more times. Finally, after the expulsion of the vapor column and the apparition of the elongated black mass, all of a sudden you’d see a vast tail swing up and then disappear anew; but this time for a much longer period. So this is how the observer is presented with the Humpback (Megaptera boops), in the ordinary conditions of its life. The second species of Balaenoptera, the Balaenoptera musculus, lives much in the same fashion, only it doesn’t swing its tail when it dives down deep, or when it “sounds,” as the Whalers say.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
Large bands of Humpbacks surrounded us almost constantly throughout our stay in the Gerlache Strait, and we could hear their powerful breaths day and night. It is very probable that Whales do not sleep and that they perform the aforementioned movements of sounding and returning to the surface from the 1st of January through the 31st of December. The only variety that can be introduced to this monotonous life must be, for both sexes, the mating period, and for the females, the period of birthing and nursing their young. Unfortunately, I cannot give you any further information there, given that we did not assist in these ceremonies which, judging by the size of the spouses, must not be lacking in a certain grandeur. On the other hand, the data available to science are too uncertain for recounting them to be prudent, but I can describe for you a game the Humpbacks confided in me, a game in which I often assisted, always with great pleasure.
A deep bay is overrun by a band of Humpbacks. Everywhere throughout the ice floes, they shoot up high columns of vapor, and the echoes of the frozen mountains resound with their noisy blasts. All of a sudden, a monstrous black mass sporting two enormous white-speckled paddles rears obliquely over the surface of the water. As it falls back down, this mass sends great wreaths of foamy water splashing high and wide, which the strong undulations of the current spread into the calm, far-off seas. This carousel repeats many times; the Megapterans seem lost in happiness as, each one trying to outdo the other, they execute their fantastic cabrioles. This spectacle is commanding due to the enormous mass of the animal, which can reach nearly twenty meters in length, but at the same time, grotesque, because of the solid form and gauche attitude of the performer.
On February 12th we left the Gerlache Strait by its Pacific exit and made our way towards the south. The vast coast of Graham Land was visible to the east, but it was impossible for us to reach through the thick ice defending it from our approach. On the 16th we were in view of a land formed of high, massive mountains separated by vast plains which were covered, like the mountains, in ice and snow. This was incontestably Alexander I Land, but the approach was just as well defended as that of Graham Land. Flat icebergs, veritable rafts of ice all tightly packed together, covered miles of sea between us and that distant, mysterious land. We were in front of the pack, and it was its choppy border which we had been following towards the west and the south. We made attempts to penetrate here with the boat, and twice found ourselves caught for 24 hours.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
Until a latitude of approximately 70° south, we had been navigating through open seas, always with the pack visible in the south, when a violent hurricane accompanied by whirling snow raged towards us. The enormous swell and waves which formed, the violent tide which seized the pack, separated the rafts of ice and formed vast channels and considerable lakes between the floating ice. The moment seemed right to turn for the south, and the Belgica hove to, pushed on by the extremely violent winds as it rushed to assault the pack. We flew like an arrow to the open channels and lakes of free water. Violent shocks indicated each time the Belgica rammed into an ice raft; pushing with force, her prow would climb the ice which would break noisily in two and the ship would pass over the debris, her course just barely slowed. A new lake of open water would allow her to regain her speed and a new band of ice rafts would slow her down for a moment. This fantastical course lasted a full day and the ship sank about a hundred miles into the interior of the pack. As we progressed, the rafts of ice grew in width and thickness; in the end, we had nothing around us but fields and plains a hundred meters or even more than a kilometer in diameter, separated only by the tiniest trickles of water. The Belgica’s advance crept slower and slower; at last she stumbled against a vast field and stopped short. At the same time the tempest ceased and, little by little, the floes and the fields, the rafts and the plains came closer and closer, squeezing the flanks of the ship like a vise. Useless were the endeavors made towards returning to the open sea; the Belgica was solidly wedged into the pack and she would stay in this position for thirteen months.
Winter began, the cold became worse and worse, any channels and lakes still open froze over, an abundant blanket of continual snow covered the ice both old and young, and, finally, the Belgica found herself trapped in a field of approximately twelve kilometers in diameter, neighbored by other fields, which in turn touched other plains, and others still, so that all the way to the horizon, we could see nothing but the immaculate whiteness of the pack.
We arranged ourselves as best we could to pass a winter on the pack; stoves were installed in the cabins, Wolf and Seal furs were drawn over the steerage, the sledges, the skis, and the snowshoes were carefully inspected and put in order.
From the first astronomical observations, we were convinced that the pack was in continual motion. The wind created the drift in every sense and these movements gave way to the creation of rifts, to the enlargement of the channels and lakes, or, in other cases, to the disparition of these channels and to violent collisions. Indeed, when the wind blew from the south, the pack spread towards open sea, the fields and plains separating; on the contrary, when the wind blew from the north, the pack stumbled over the land which surely must be found to the south, and so the plains came closer, the edges bumped violently together and rifts were produced on all sides. It often snowed hard and tall dunes of snow would accumulate opposite the pressure mounds. It was impossible to go out on excursions on this pack without wearing skis or snowshoes, because in the deep, loose snow one could sink up to their waist.
The wind whipped up storms almost constantly, pushing in thick, gray clouds that obscured the sky in uninterrupted bands. Violent snow-whirls limited the view, rippling white curtains made of powdery snow as fine as sand. In the battering winds which stole our hearing, in the mortal cold which embraced our bodies, in the white gloom which stifled our sight, we felt so lost and so isolated that hope abandoned us, and only one sentiment remained: the sense of duty. We were sent here as missionaries of Science and we would seek to accomplish this mission as best we could. For thirteen months we took meteorological observations hour by hour, without missing an hour; as often as we could, we took soundings through a hole cut in the ice and fished for marine animals. Whenever the weather permitted, we took astronomical observations and made long excursions to study the Birds and Seals which inhabited the pack. Moreover, we were able to execute a great many tasks in the interest of defending ourselves against the cold and protecting the boat from the pressure shifts. We cleared the Belgica when the wind buried it beneath dunes of snow, we made cloaks and shoes, we built up fresh provisions of meat from Seals and Penguins, and we even fabricated new observational instruments and fishing tools.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
And from time to time, we would be given a holiday. The wind would calm, the gray clouds would hide beneath the horizon, and in their place would appear the sweet and luminous blue of the sky. Myriads of ice crystals would appear in the air and in place of one sun we would have three, because the beautiful Parhelions were reflected across the silver powder. Beneath a rainbow of brilliant colors, decorated with a cross of gold in the center, were suspended three yellow discs in a gilded glory. This marvelous vision would not last long, as the crystalline flakes would melt away in the calm air and the rainbow would slowly disappear, taking with it the cross of gold; once alone in the clear polar atmosphere, the sun spilled thousands of shimmering reflections upon the vast field of the pack.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
Finally we could take account of what lay around us. The white uniformity of the pack extended all the way to the horizon in every direction; white hills with blue backs stretched out atop the vast, immaculate plains. In the channels and lakes of open water we saw the deep blue of the sea, and on the newborn ice, a greenish tint, pale and feeble in the constant cold. On the backs of the snow dunes, the wind had sculpted elegant arabesques with blue bases and silver crowns, and the icebergs, prisoners, like us, of the frozen pack, rose up in great masses, some slender, others stocky, all monstrous. A subtle blue hue played along the square back of one giant; the sun poured down its side, gilding the sharp towers of white marble; and the giants, like the dwarfs, left great ashen shadows in their wakes. And the color was so pure, the light was so bright upon the icebergs and the hills, on the channels and the pack, that we might have believed ourselves to be in the land of dreams had reason not kept us on earth!
Photography by Doctor Cook.
But we could not enjoy this holiday for long. Winter came rapidly, the sun hung lower and lower over the horizon, and on May 18th it left us for three months. The sorrow of the polar night began for us. The neverending darkness was not only a bad influence on the spirit, but detrimental to the body as well. Anemia struck our small colony frequently. Faces turned yellow, breaths became heavy gasps, and even the smallest movement would cause irregular heartbeats. We trailed like shadows through the ceaseless night, drifting amidst the windswept masses of snow covering the ship. In the dark cabins, huddled around the stove, we tried to connect what we had in the present to our memories of what we’d left behind in those far-off, sun-drenched lands; in the flickering yellow light of the oil lamps, we marveled at our books, their tales of love and sunlight.
And outside, the endless storm. Sinister winds blew through the rigging; from time to time, gusts shook the masts from top to bottom, drawing high, sharp sounds from the frozen timbers. The ropes, covered in a mantle of ice and frost, flung themselves about as if terrified of the hurricane, and the ship’s planks rang loudly beneath their relentless blows. Windswept snow buried us beneath moving dunes riddled with narrow crevices and deposited itself in our dark little rooms as a fine, white powder. All across the ice fields, long shivers would come rolling up to the ship, and the whole pack echoed with lugubrious moans. At the edge of our field, terrible pressures battered little icebergs into chunky piles; the slushy ice shattered into fine, glassy fragments, and, when the pressure diminished, when the fields of ice laid themselves flat, the hills would split apart with a crack, letting out long groans as blocks of ice went tumbling into the sea.
With each passing day, the cold grew more intense; under its influence, the mercury froze over in our thermometers, and when it sank below 40°, even the wind calmed, as if it too had been frozen in ice. Nothing moved on the vast field of the pack. The serene sky, dark and pallid, seemed with its stars to be a steel vault strewn with gilded nails, and in this motionless atmosphere, cold and white shone the moon, set in place, it seemed, by silver rays. Lower down, on the surface of the pack ice, the white hills of ice sank heavily into place atop their black shadows, interspersed with the gigantic masses of immobile icebergs. And mute became the fields of ice, mute the dunes of snow. Silence reigned over both the sky and the pack; all of nature seemed fixed in an eternal immobility.
The Man lost in this environment is seized with terror. He dare not make any movement within this terrifying stillness; he dare not cry out in this deathly silence. His heart is clutched by a despair without limits, for he sees that all that surrounds him is dead and frozen, for he feels that nothing is his friend in this lifeless splendor.
But between the stocky shapes of the icy masses, some slender, spindly masts and rigging shoot up from the center of a flat floe. This is our Belgica, this is the only warm and friendly place in this vast, frozen emptiness. Seeing her interred in snow and ice, one might think that she was an integral part of the pack. Huge, shifting dunes drowned her shapely sides, and white snowflakes patiently padded her surface, weaving their way into even the most sheltered corners. And she was white up to the tips of her masts, as the frost had coated wood and rope alike, and the fine, jagged-edged crystals had transformed the rigging into white garlands of crystalline flowers.
She was dear to all of us aboard the Belgica, because she represented for us all the life of today, all the hope of tomorrow. If the ices had crushed her between their bickering masses, in vain would we have fought for our lives in that horrible desert. Nothing else could have saved us from certain death.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
One day, Doctor Cook came to find me in my laboratory and, despite his efforts to appear calm, I could see that he’d been gripped by some violent emotion. “Danco had an attack of suffocation today,” he told me, “I listened to his heart and I noticed that he has a dilation in his aorta. In our situation there can be no hope of improvement; in fifteen days, he will be dead.”
Unwell ourselves, we had only the polar night, thick and stubborn, for consolation, only the blinding snowstorms which buried us deeper and deeper beneath their shifting dunes. And the only sounds from outside were the strident shrieks of the wind in the ropes, the piercing cries of pressure breaking through the ice, and the sinister creaking of our boat battered by the pack.
Doctor Cook cared for Danco not as a doctor, but as a brother. With meticulous care, he arranged his pillow, and how light his touch became whenever he had to return him to his bed! But our friend gave his final sigh on the 5th of June; he left his life behind peacefully, without ever being conscious of his state.
Emile Danco, the expedition’s astronomer, passed away on the pack ice in June 1898.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
And on June 7th, we held his funeral. We had stitched the body of our comrade into a large canvas sack, and to his feet, we attached a heavy iron cannonball. At noon, we were all assembled around the funerary sledge, close to a recently-opened crevasse. The moon shone in an all-white sky, and with its pale light it flung long, black shadows down behind the mounds of ice. The north wind blew harshly, frosting our bare, bowed heads. And the corpse of our friend was pushed into the water. Slowly he drew himself upright against the edge of the fissure, and slowly he descended through the glass into the frigid horror of the sea. Never had we felt such cold throughout our bodies, such cold within our hearts.
And the days rolled by, sad and monotonous. Always the whistling of the wind in the rigging, always the same sharp cries of ice under pressure, always the same worrying creaks in the ribs of the ship.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
On July 27th, the sun finally rose for the first time. For several days, a gilded glow had warned us of this, but on this date it appeared in person. And how funny it was! It was red and puffy like a true Dutch cheese. Moreover, in lieu of being round, it was platelike and elongated by refractions; but it pleased us terribly all the same. Ah! Ladies, Gentlemen, you who see the sun each and every day, you cannot imagine what joy one receives when seeing it again after three months; it is a feast for the eyes and a holiday for the heart. We were still dragging ourselves around with some pain, but what did it matter; imagination had regained its wings in the radiance of the light. One wished to explore Victoria Land, another hoped to return to the Gerlache Strait, a third still suggested some other part. And we discussed these plans passionately, each defending his own, as if we were not solidly stuck in the pack, still at the mercy of the first forceful tremor. And again our friends the Seals and the Penguins reappeared in great numbers, and again the festival of light took place atop the vast plain of the pack, and again we put ourselves gaily to work.
Soundings were carried out regularly, allowing us to observe the interesting fact that, on the longitude line 20° around which we were drifting, the pack ice had been moving above a continental shelf with an average depth of 500 meters. To the south, this shelf climbed slowly towards the surface, towards the north, around the latitude 69° south, it dropped off in a steep cliff, abruptly reaching 1200 meters. Its surface was covered in terrigenous sediments, blocks big as my head, gravel and sand mixed with mud, material lifted from some sandbank and carried by the ice to this location. From these facts, it follows that some land must exist a few degrees south of our position, linking the Antarctic Graham Lands to the Antarctic lands discovered by Ross, Victoria Land.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
Fishing by trawling and dragnets gave us fauna of an abyssal character, the majority of which were Crustaceans, Echinoids, Bryozoans, and Gorgoniids. Almost all of these forms are new, but present nothing remarkable from a morphological point of view. They all resemble the forms of the animals which inhabit the greatest oceanic depths, and this can be explained very easily. The distribution of animals along the seafloor is determined above all by the temperature of the water. Put another way, the temperature found on the surface of the continental shelf is the same as has been observed in the abysses; it hovers around 0 degrees.
By means of muslin silk nets, we also explored the layers of water which extended between the surface and the bottom, and we did not find any animals with very remarkable forms or structures here, either. All displayed familiar physiognomies, although when it comes to individual species, nearly all of them were new. It is the Copepods who constitute the vast majority of plankton animals, which is to say the masses of little floating animals who live between the seafloor and the surface; I’ll mention also Radiolarians, Chaetognaths, Pteropods, and Polychaetes as particularly abundant, and a few Salps which, while rare, were interesting to see, because we’ve been presuming that these were animals from warmer seas who did not inhabit oceans covered in pack ice.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
But what was really abundant, in the superficial layers through which the light penetrated, was vegetation, represented by Diatoms, small lower Algaes which proliferate in polar regions, particularly in the Antarctic regions. They live not only in illuminated layers of the open water, but they invade the holes and cracks in the ice floes, above and below sea level, and the immersed sides of the icebergs. Green plants generally need light to live. Diatoms are not an exception to this rule, rather, the light which filters through the plates and fields of ice thinned by the summer thaws is sufficient for their prosperity, as we also found them just as often in the lakes and channels as underneath the pack. It is thus necessary to conceive of the surface of the Antarctic sea as a vast prairie which serves as the sole source of nutrition for all the animal life of that immense region. Indeed, the planktonic herbivorous animals feed themselves on the Diatoms and serve in turn as food for the carnivores; the waste, the cadavers of animals and the dead plants fall to the bottom and constitute the pasture of the animals living there. Even the Birds, the Seals, and the Cetaceans are tributaries of the Diatom prairie, as they nourish themselves with the Fishes who live on planktonic animals or the schools of Schyzopods who graze on Diatoms.
Our work was not only of a scientific nature; the hard necessities of life in the ice compelled us into complex and often bizarre exercises. Thus it came to be that the beginning of spring marked an era of great battles we were forced to wage against the Rats.
It was not out of good will that we boarded these animals in Punta Arenas; we were never tempted by the laurels heaped upon Father Noah and his ever-memorable ark. It was while refurbishing our coal provisions that these inconvenient guests rode the coal merchant’s pontoon to embark upon the Belgica, without asking permission from the Commander.
At the beginning of the Antarctic voyage, all was well; few in number, they were content to take possession of the hold. During the polar night — while we were fading from anemia — they, habituated to continual darkness, did not care. To the contrary, one might say that the absence of the sun’s indiscreet rays favored their amorous passions, as they spent the whole winter loudly celebrating nuptials and marriages, and every moment was filled with the indignant, high-pitched cries of some Mademoiselle Rat clutched close by an overeager suitor. As a result of all of these ceremonies, by spring, the Rattrap People were swarming, and their countless cohorts had overrun the whole boat. There were now elderly, young, and middle-aged ones, red and brown and yellow ones, even bald and mangy ones, ones to satisfy every taste. But we felt none at all, for these satanic beasts were no longer content with the hold; every evening they invaded our cabins and performed a riotous sabbath which kept us from sleeping.
A grand council was convened without delay and, after the administrative manners developed by modern States, a commission was named, very judiciously chosen, I am pleased to report. To this end, first an engineer-architect was needed, to establish a plan for trapping the Rat while taking into account all the given necessities: resistance of materials, elegant proportions, etc., and our comrade Van Mirlo, a clever man if there ever was one when it came to all manners of instruments, was unanimously elected. I was proclaimed the second and final member of the commission. Indeed, I needed to put my biological competence in service of the cause; I needed to reveal the latest scientific findings on the customs of Rats so that nothing would be forgotten in constructing the rat trap. The commission reconvened immediately and, during its first meeting, it decided nothing, naturally; but in the second meeting a plan for an improved rat trap was created, whose development had neglected neither the biological point of view nor the architectural perspective in any way whatsoever. For three days our comrade Van Mirlo sawed, filed, and nailed with an ardor beyond compare, and on the third day, we presented for our charmed, rejoicing comrades a marvelous trap for Rats, constructed according to the latest observations given by the architectural and biological sciences, whose effects could not have been doubted by anyone. We also voted, by way of acclamation, to expropriate for our cause a bit of lard to use as bait, this despite the violent protests of Michotte, our housewife, who, like all housewives, possessed sage economical sentiments. We placed the trap that same evening in a well-chosen spot and laid ourselves to rest on our respective pillows, sure of the results. The next day, when we searched for prisoners: nothing, and the day after that nothing and nothing, nothing, Yes! Not once did our scientific trap capture a single Rat.
One such evening, as I lay sleeping, a Rat amused itself by tugging at the corner of the covers pulled over my head! This was too much. I considered this act as an insult addressed to zoology and went to rouse Doctor Cook, who, being a physician, so half biologist, could understand the gravity of this injury better than our other comrades. We immediately formed a war council; here, then, were the arrangements we made for waging battle on the Rats:
Photography by Racovitza.
Our rooms were very small and without any holes, in addition, once a Rat had been locked inside, one could easily make oneself its master. But how to get there? A strong string was attached to the upper corner of the cabin door; this passed over a pulley attached to the frame and was carried along from there by pitons fixed to the ceiling just above my bed. When one pulled the cord, the door would violently snap shut. And so the ambush was prepared. The doctor went back to bed and I did the same. Laid out on my back, I had wrapped the cord around my right hand, and I slept with one eye open, squinting at the side of the door to witness the entrance of the Rats.
This event took place in no time. A handsome individual endowed with an immense tail poked his head over the threshold; he sniffed to the right, then to the left, and, with a spring, leapt into the room… The door closed with a snap, the enemy had fallen into the ambush! I went to rouse my ally Cook, who hastened to don his slippers, and we proceeded to our armaments. The doctor, armed with a rush wand, represented the light cavalry; I took a gnarled stick, representing the field artillery, and, thus equipped, banners in the wind, we threw ourselves upon the enemy.
From the first smack, the Rat was terrified. In prodigious leaps, it ran about the narrow cabin; it was on the library, then the china cabinet, then, using one of us for a prop, it launched itself onto the rack of guns, and we struck like men possessed. For ten minutes we made an awful racket, and once this time had passed, worn out by exhaustion, our foreheads bathed in sweat, we sat ourselves down to mournfully consider the battlefield. All was topsy-turvy inside the cabin; we had broken a heap of precious things. The doctor’s rush had been transformed into a broom, my baton lay in three pieces upon the floorboards, and still the Rat lived, though it was rather out of breath, squatting on the music box and regarding us with murder in its eyes.
Photography by Racovitza.
The situation was completely desperate, and I was already letting myself fall into a deep despair when Doctor Cook rose and, wordlessly, as was his habit, picked up an old piece of wrapping paper which he then rolled into a cylindrical case and placed in a corner of the room. I understood, but even so I was forced to note the incontestable superiority of the son of young America over the product of old Europe on this occasion.
We resumed pursuit. We slowly chased the Rat towards the paper tube; it did not hesitate to enter, and Cook, throwing himself down on his belly, grasped the ends of the cylinder in both hands. At last, we had it! And that victory seemed particularly sweet to us. Cook placed the tube on the table and with a ferocious joy and what remained of my baton I wallopped the unlucky Rat, going from the head to the tail, then the tail to the head, and so on again a good many of times; and when we withdrew it from the tube, wasn’t it flat as a pancake.
This system suited us perfectly from then on and it was in this manner that we managed to rid ourselves of a good number of our enemies. There remained some, however, who would return with the Belgica to Antwerp, where they plan to breed Rats as Antarctic as the explorers.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
With the return of the sun, the temperature grew milder. At the end of spring and in the summer, the thermometer did not drop below 23° and, despite the relatively considerable insulation (more than +30 on a black ball thermometer), it stayed constantly below zero, with a few close exceptions. The maximum observed in summer was 1° above zero. Determining the average temperature of the year — the first such calculation in the Antarctic — gave us a figure significantly lower than that which has been found at latitude 80° north, in Spitzberg, which is to say, than that found 10° closer to the Pole. This figure indicates that as one goes further South over the islandis covering the continental masses sure to be found around the South Pole, the temperature must drop to extreme lows, lower than in the center of Greenland, as the Antarctic is far more extensive than that terrestrial region.
At the edge of a channel. In the foreground, an Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri), in the rear, two Adelie Penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae).
Photography by Doctor Cook.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
The Antarctic ice is inhabited by four species of Seals, all of which we were able to study on our Expedition. The true Sea Leopard (Hydrurga leptonyx), which extends its habitat up to the Kerguelen and Falkland Islands, was extremely rare on our pack. This is the largest of the Antarctic Seals: its size is over 3 meters. At the same time, it is also the most carnivorous. I once saw two using their beautiful teeth to tear apart the Penguin carcasses we’d tossed overboard.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
The most common Seals were the False Leopards (Leptonychotes weddellii), which we already knew from having met them in the Gerlache Strait, and the Crabeater Seals (Lobodon carcinophaga), an animal which grows up to 2 meters long and whose hide is bumpy white with a faint greenish tint. The first is as sweet and gentle as the second is irritable. It would not have been good to be within reach of the jaws, armed with sharp canines and four-pointed, rounded molars at the rear, of the Lobodon. In groups or alone, we found them lying about on the pack, endlessly dozing, idly sprawled in the snow, which melted beneath them, preserving the imprint of their plump, solid bodies. In the water, they swam with marvelous vigor and a shocking agility. They came up to breathe regularly, either in the channels of open water or in the holes they would make in young ice by bashing it violently with the tops of their heads. I saw them feeding on Euphausiids which they captured in the fashion of Baleens; they swam slowly, jaws wide, through a bank of these Crustaceans, then, closing the mouth, they expelled water through their teeth and swallowed the animals they’d caught.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
Crabeater Seal (Lobodon carcinophaga).
Photography by Doctor Cook.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
In the month of September, the False Leopard and the Lobodon birth their young upon the pack ice. The solitary pup is covered in a thick pelt, the same color as that of its parents but much more plush. The baby, at the moment of its birth, is already of a considerable size: 1m15; it already has perfectly functional eyes and teeth and even a subcutaneous layer of fat to protect it from the cold. It can thus set out on its own immediately; the mother even abandons it after having had it for only two or three days.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
We did not encounter the Ross Seals (Ommatophoca rossii) outside of summertime, and even then, they were very few in number. These animals are the most modified of all the Pinnipeds, as every indication of quadrupedal structure has disappeared. Their anterior limbs are extremely reduced and the body is almost entirely round. Their teeth are very fragile, but extremely sharp, and curved at the rear like those of a serpent. This formation is necessary as their diet consists almost entirely of Cephalopods, very agile and slippery animals that only the sharp, curved fangs of this Seal can overpower.
This Seal also possesses a curious capability which distinguishes it from its congeners. Its voice is much more complicated and the sounds which it emits are more varied than those of other Seals. It can inflate its larynx and open its enormous soft palate by creating two resonance banks, two pockets containing a large provision of air. These allow it to execute trills and arpeggios and other, more bizarre sounds. When one irritates one of them, it begins by inflating its larynx while rearing its head back. With its mouth open, and its soft palate distended into the shape of a huge red ball, it then produces a cooing sound resembling a husky-voiced Turtledove. Next it closes its mouth and emits the clucking of a terrified Chicken. Finally, it expels its entire provision of air quite violently through its nostrils, which creates a snuffling sound comparable to that made by a snorting Horse. These successive sounds might not add up to an exceptionally melodious music, I would not disagree with that, but in the Antarctic, where I had nothing to satisfy my musical needs but the voice of my friend and comrade Arctowski performing modulated Polish operas, the song of these Antarctic virtuosos did, on occasion, grant me a certain pleasure.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
(editor’s note: Racovitza is the figure on the left; the man on the right is almost certainly Johan Koren).
As in the Gerlache Strait, we were visited by the Giant Petrel (Ossifraga gigantea), which came during spring and summer to tear meat from the Seal carcasses surrounding the Belgica. In the spring, there were around thirty of them gathered there; though hideous, and foul with the blood and fat of Seals, they nevertheless displayed the most tender, loving sentiments. This was their wedding ceremony, celebrated on the pack, and we were constantly seeing the males showing off their tails like Peacocks and dancing a bourrée in front of their repulsive other halves.
In their work as slaughterhouse butchers, the Ossifrages were assisted by Megalestrises (Stercorarius maccormicki), which were more rare, but just as courageous and impertinent as they were in the Gerlache Strait. But as for continual inhabitants of the pack, I can cite only two Petrels: one, the very rare brown Damier (Thalassoica antarctica), and a second, the Snow Petrel (Pagodroma nivea), which we had had as a loyal companion for the full length of our icy imprisonment.
In winter as in summer, its swift, graceful flight traced large circles all around the Belgica. One could not wish for a more charming companion in captivity than this Bird of the frozen austral regions, who never grows larger than a Pigeon and is white, all white, so very white that it stands out whenever it alights on the snow. Only the eyes, the beak, and the feet are black as jet. Softly it floats on the channels of open water; suddenly it hooks down and emerges from the water with its beak full of the little marine animals which serve as its food; at other times, it soars above the surface of the vast fields of ice; one would think then that it was a little tuft of white silk balanced by a zephyr’s wings. Ancient peoples who believed in the migration of souls would not have mistaken the Snow Petrel, had they known of it, for anything but the refuge of the most spotless and irreproachable souls.
The Snow Petrel (Pagodroma nivea).
Photography by Doctor Cook.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
Alas! The sentiment which seeing these Birds had inspired within me would be greatly altered during the chase, and cruel would be my disillusionment. How would you feel if you were granted an encounter with a white virgin, with the pure profile of a madonna; if, moved nearly to tears, you approached her with fervent whispers of the softest and tenderest words and she, in turn, drunkenly hurled crude words your way? You would without a doubt feel atrocious. Well, I’ve had similar sentiments while getting better acquainted with the Snow Petrel. One day, I shot one of them very lightly through the wing with my rifle. You say to me that this is not an advisable way to enter into relations with a virgin, and I agree, but my excuse is that I had no other. Thus the little animal fell and crouched upon the snow. I made my way closer to it to take it. All along, it shrieked at me in its piercing voice, and, when I was no more than a few paces away, it allowed itself something that is very difficult for me to explain here, but which I will nonetheless try to make you understand, through periphrasis, in the interest of the truth.
This animal had voluntary seasickness, and the contents of its stomach served as a projectile which it could throw over a distance of several paces with great force and precision. In the blink of an eye, I was covered in unimaginable things, and I will not even try to describe the odors they emanated. I hasten to tell you that this did not prevent me from seizing it and incorporating it into our zoological collection. Zoologists have seen much worse in their laborious careers!
There you have the four Birds capable of flight who live on the pack ice. I will pass silently over three other species who were only seen one or two times, and which must be considered inhabitants of the border and not the interior of the pack.
I must still speak to you of the Penguins, and of the two species observed I want first to describe for you the one which is the most imposing in size and the most magnificent in its colors.
The Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri).
Photography by Doctor Cook.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
We were deeply humiliated by the extraordinary disdain with which it treated our approach. It did not even take the trouble to watch us and responded to our caresses with nothing but scornful pecks. But the scene would change when one wanted to seize it: it would smack every head in reach with its sizable paddles; a Man had difficulty in making himself its master and could not do so without reaping many bruises and blows.
It wandered about the pack ice slowly, placing one flipper in front of the other with compunction. Its fat belly swung about with each step, its head reentered its shoulders in time with the movement, while its tail traced a wake in the snow, and so the whole of it was animated in a majestic waddling.
Seen from behind while walking thus, on its short legs, hardly visible beneath the mighty foundations of its body, it looked as if it could be mistaken for an elderly Gentleman, very stooped and very fat, who’d lost his braces.
An Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) walking, seen from behind.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
The Penguin of Adélie Land (Pygoscelis adeliae) is a nobleman of lesser wingspan and lesser dress. The head and beak are black and the eye framed in a white eyelid; the back is blue-flecked black and the belly and chest white. Much smaller in size, hardly 0m60, their vivacity contrasted with the calm and the slowness of the Emperor Penguin. Curious and naive, they never missed an opportunity to come and meet us. They would plant themselves on their flippers three paces from us and stare curiously at us all, shouting interrogative cries and flapping their wings. When they left undisturbed, they walked on their two flippers in a waddle, heads leaning forwards, arms along the sides of their bodies. But if they wanted to run fast, they lay on the snow and pushed themselves with their wings and feet, which turned out to give them such speed that a Man running behind them had difficulty catching one. They also feed themselves by fishing in the schools of Crustaceans, and their agility in the water is really remarkable. To get onto the ice, they would build up momentum by tracing a large circle underwater and then fling themselves onto the sheets of ice, which were often 2 to 3 meters high, never missing their marks.
Both photographs taken by Doctor Cook.
Usually, we met them in small, often isolated bands; but in the autumn, they gathered in large numbers in the shelter of a mound of ice to proceed with a necessary, but very delicate, operation. Yes, it’s true, it’s time to molt to have fresh, healthy plumage that can resist the hard winter. The molt lasts two to three weeks, and throughout that period of time the animals cannot go searching for food; this sad time of fasting also rids them of the round bellies they amass over the summer. This molting operation does not put them in good spirits, all the more because they have molting fever throughout this period, so we saw them laying under the snow, their heads tucked into their shoulders, shivering and unhappy, and beware all who pass within reach: Seal or Bird, Penguin or Explorer, all moving beings are violently berated and insulted by the entire colony, suddenly up on their feet.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
It also came about that they had other adventures, like this one which I shall read for you, such as I’ve extracted it from my notebook.
“Wednesday, 22 February 1899: Day well begun, but poorly concluded, for the little Pygoscelis colony having their molt. Under the beautiful sun and calm air of this morning, the sixty members of the Molting Society found life agreeable and the world well made. Lazily rolling on their bellies, they arched their backs like people feeling a bit unwell, they let themselves heat up in the nice warmth of the sun and savored their peace and tranquility. Around two o’clock in the afternoon, they were a bit disrupted by eight compatriots who arrived from afar, by way of land, and who also wished to enter into the Society. After some grunts from the established ones, the new ones were allowed to marry in and begin their molting vigil like the others. But look, there, climbing onto their floe, one Pygocelis, who, judging by his short tail and small size, was surely one of the young born this year. Like all young beings he is a bit noisy, rather foolish and unfamiliar with his place; so as soon as he introduces himself into the group and begins running all around, disturbing the solemn, morose personalities within the society, a concert of insults and growls makes itself heard, and the intrusive youth is vigorously expelled, taking with him the memory of a volley of pecks. See him now on the neighboring floe walking his little worried self from edge to edge, wandering aimlessly from one side, then the other, but, each time he tries to return to the molting field, a few growls remind him of his stinging souvenirs.
But a change of scenery. The wind begins to blow with force, swirls of snow sweep the pack, obscuring the view. It is cold, and the cold is penetrating, for the wind drives it hard over all. The Molting Society, all on their feet, show clear signs of low spirits and uneasiness. We search for shelter behind the blocks of ice and try the best positions. Is lying down not the best? Maybe with the back turned to the wind? No, the belly? Also no; for goodness’ sake, this is tiresome! Ah! But look here, a canny chap has seen a hummock or mound of ice in the distance whose elevation seems to offer proper shelter. He shouts and sets off towards the spot, and look how the whole band sets themselves in motion and marches down the center of the floe, hobbling along Indian-style. They arrive and proceed to install themselves. The youth so promptly isolated by everyone doesn’t miss a thing; as soon as he sees the others filing in, he also launches himself in pursuit as quickly as he can and, profiting from the tumult which is always present when moving house, he slides into the center of the group. That’s that; everyone is too occupied with their own miseries to watch who passes them by.
Alas! The hummock serves for naught, the wind swirls within, better the open countryside, and look, Penguins in retreat towards the center of the floe; twelve of them, probably those who can still get in the water, leave in search of another, better place to spend the night, but thirteen stay behind with the most comical appearances one could imagine. They all have their heads tucked into their shoulders and their feathers standing on end, and it is in this crew that they wander sadly on the floe.
Here is one who sticks his nose into the wind, but it doesn’t stay there very long! The snow blinds him; he therefore reorients to present a less delicate extremity. Brrr! But it’s worse! The snow, chased by the violent winds, slips beneath his puffed-up feathers and frosts his body. Irritated, the beast plants himself back on his feet, but the wind makes him oscillate, the snow blinds him. Here is a little gentleman who goes forth on his flippers, full of rage, and beware any companion met upon his route. A violent symposium takes place and insults rain down on the hapless colleague.
Only a Japanese painter could produce a true-to-life sketch of the profound comedy of the silhouette of a Penguin infuriated by irritation, searching vainly for a place to spend the night within the confusion of a snowstorm.”
The Penguins and Seals of which I have told you did not only serve to distract us in those icy deserts or to provide us with subjects for biological observations. They also served as our nourishment. Hunting for Seals and Penguins was practiced regularly, and it would be fair to say that every animal shown was an animal caught, and every animal caught went through the kitchen, unless scientific interest led to its skin being claimed for the laboratory. But whether they were destined for zoological study or for culinary operations, they always passed through my hands. My comrades, under the fallacious pretext that I was a Doctor of Sciences from the Sorbonne, and thus by definition experienced in the art of dissection, left it to me to take care of chopping Seals and Penguins into beefsteaks. I fulfilled this task as best I could and passed the results of my work onto my collaborator Michotte, the Expedition’s cook, who gave them their final forms.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
It was not as a cook that Michotte set out for the Antarctic regions, but man proposes and circumstance disposes! It would take too long to tell you why the cook engaged in Europe left our company in the Magellan Strait. Suffice to say that when we left America for the South Pole, we had no one in that position, and the commander assigned it to Michotte. He appealed to his dedication and Michotte nobly and plainly accepted the important position of cook of the Belgian Antarctic Expedition. It was not that Michotte had had any prior education which had prepared him for the difficult art which he was to undertake from now on. He had been a legionnaire in Algeria and it has never been said that the life in those camps is suitable for culinary experiences. Nevertheless, if, to his credit, Michotte managed very well in that delicate situation where chance had placed him, it was because he possessed a sophisticated spirit and an absolutely infallible method of which, conveniently, I may read to you now and which could, I hope, be useful to some young and inexperienced housewife. This method is that of the mélange and here is how Michotte applied it.
All of our provisions were sealed in carefully-soldered zinc tins, but though the number of “individual cans” was high, the number of species represented in these dishes was limited. But, as good cooking must needs be varied, Michotte would descend into the stores and fish out a beautiful blue can containing Scottish Mutton. He would heat it all and serve it hot; this constituted Monday’s meal. On Tuesday Michotte would return to the storeroom, this time taking a red tin of Australian Rabbit, and prepare it in the same fashion; this became the dish for the second day of the week. The next day he would mix what remained of the Scottish Mutton with what remained of the Australian Rabbit; this, therefore, was a brand-new dish for Wednesday.
But where this method of mélange reached its vertiginous heights as a true masterpiece was the soup. All that remained from the meals of the morning, midday, and evening, all that Michotte’s indiscriminate eye had discovered within the old cans of preserves and storeroom drawers, all that lay about on the deck or around the ship which could be considered even a little bit edible, all of this was brought together in the tureen. And so, when Michotte triumphantly set down that metallic receptacle within whose hunchbacked walls resided his masterpiece, and when the commander lifted the lid, it filled the wardroom with an odor which was, frankly, indescribable.
But Michotte could make an excellent bread, and, early each morning, there were little balls with golden crusts, which cheered us to see and delighted our stomachs. Only those who have been in our situation could understand what these little kindnesses wanted to say. So we are all profoundly grateful to our comrade who would rise four hours before all the others to make that bread, who sacrificed his own rest for the well-being of his companions.
And Michotte would have been the perfect man, par excellence, if he had not had one very slight fault. Michotte was ambitious. And he was not unaware that for a cook, becoming a pastry chef was an unparalleled glory, the Marshal's Baton of that profession; mad with ambition, he coolly announced one day that he was going to make us a jam tart out of puff pastry. This pretense seemed to us to be so absurd that we all forgot our comrade’s threat. However, on the following Thursday — you shall soon see that I had good reason not to forget that day — towards the end of the meal, the door to the wardroom opened and Michotte appeared, grave and solemn, carrying in his outstretched arms something atop a platter which he then respectfully set upon the table. He then disappeared, probably to escape any ovations. Left alone with the thing, we considered it curiously; there was on that platter a rounded object, of a yellowish color, resembling a wooden disk upon which a mélange of jams had been parsimoniously spread. With hesitant spoons in hand, each of us claimed our portion of the sugary mélange; after having tasted it, we declared that it was not bad at all, but what unusual idea did Michotte have in mind when serving us this confection on a wooden disk, we wondered?
The door opened again. It was Michotte, who, upon seeing that no one was going to call him back to congratulate him, had decided to come in person to collect the expected award. His first glance was at the platter and, when he saw it, his face became stern. He coldly informed us that what we had left behind, the thing we called a wooden disk, was in fact the puff pastry tart, and we had consumed nothing but the garnish. There was such severity in Michotte’s gaze and such disappointment writ upon his face that we were moved to action by our comrade’s state of mind; and so, armed with our knives and other blunt instruments, and under Michotte’s gradually pacifying stare, we wearily finished it off by cutting away thin shavings that then vanished into our outraged stomachs.
How wrong were we to fall prey to the goodness of our souls; ever since then, Thursday was the day of the dreaded tart, and the structure of the thing never truly changed. It was always a mixture of various jams parsimoniously distributed atop a brownish circle. Only the consistency of the pastry varied; it oscillated between that of wood and that of sandstone.
We were now in full summer and day was no longer trading places with night. When, by chance, the sky would clear, we could see the sun traveling in a great circle throughout the sky without ever dipping below the horizon. The snow on the pack ice had diminished greatly in thickness, and little rivers of water shimmered here and there upon the ice fields. Our situation, however, remained the same. The Belgica was still firmly frozen within a vast plain, and there had been no indications that we should hope for fissures to open and free us.
Alongside our floe, a persistent channel stretched far off towards the northern horizon; frequently, when the pressure in the ice subsided, it would expand into a watery road more than a kilometer wide. As the ice would not be opening by itself, we decided to dig an artificial channel from the boat out to the natural channel. It was a distance of 760 meters, and for a month we sawed in teams, day and night. We used pickaxes first, digging two narrow ditches in the ice, one on each side of the proposed channel, until they reached sea level; next, we cut away the submerged ice with our saws. We then connected the edges of the canal by sawing from one spot to the other. Big floes of ice were thus detached, sometimes with the aid of dynamite, and pushed into the natural channel.
Photography by Doctor Cook.
(editor’s note: according to Lecointe, the day team was composed of de Gerlache, Melaerts, Racovitza, Van Mirlo, Tollefsen, Johansen, Koren, & Van Rysselberghe. based on higher quality versions I’ve seen of this image, the two leftmost men seem to be Racovitza and Johansen, respectively; working right to left, the identifiable faces are Tollefsen, Van Rysselberghe, de Gerlache (head down, tucked against the dinghy), and either Koren or Knudsen with Van Mirlo behind them (there are 9 men in this photograph instead of the 8 Lecointe listed).
Photography by Doctor Cook.
We had nearly finished our work of sawing and clearing, we were no more than two days’ work away from freeing the boat, when a violent tremor rendered our creation useless. A rift, passing right beneath the Belgica and lengthening our canal, split the field of ice into two pieces; the smaller piece was crushed beneath the larger one and our artificial channel snapped shut. We were imprisoned anew, and our situation was even worse, for the two fragments were still bouncing off each other, and the Belgica had found herself right in between them. We were fortunate enough not to face any strong pressure shifts throughout the 15 days we were stuck in that situation, as the ship would have undoubtedly been flattened.
On February 15th, a détente appeared; our artificial canal reopened and, although it took some effort, we were quite happy when the Belgica managed to advance up to the natural canal. Navigation recommenced for the first time in thirteen months: once again the ship shot forth at top speed, colliding violently with the ice floes and crushing them beneath her feet. For twelve hours we made our way towards the north. At the end of the day, we found ourselves in an area formed of floes and fields which, though they were all of rather small dimensions, were so tightly packed together that it was impossible for us to advance.
For fifteen more days we remained prisoners, and long those days seemed to us, for the edge of the pack was just a dozen miles out; our impatience to know freedom, which was so close, and our powerlessness, our impotence, became painful. To the north, the sky along the horizon was so blue that its significance was unmistakable. It was the Watersky of polar sailors; this being the normal appearance of the sky which contrasts so strongly with that of Iceblink, the sky that warns of ice, whose clouds reflect the white of the pack. From the top of the mast, from the crow’s nest, one could see the horizon rising up in regular undulations. This was the swell of the open ocean rhythmically raising and lowering its waves; we could feel the same under the spot where we’d stopped, which made our situation quite dangerous. Indeed, the bergs, fields, and floes of ice all rose along with the swell. Those closest to the ship collided violently with her sides, threatening to crack the wood with their repeated blows. We were constantly forced to explode our largest icy neighbors with dynamite, or to hack off some sharp point with an ax, and we took care to maintain a ring of small blocks of ice around the ship that could absorb some of the force of the shocks.
The morning of March 15th, the wind blew from the south. This produced a strong drift; the boat, along with its surrounding blocks of ice, was forcefully shoved northwards between two gigantic icebergs. Formidable were the tremblings and strident the moans of the ice tearing itself apart. This could be either our peril or our salvation; it turned out to be our salvation, for once the icebergs had been passed, the Belgica found herself in a much more manageable area. We charged full steam ahead over the broken ice and, after three hours, we were at the edge. Before us sprawled the Ocean, gouged into deep furrows by the tides; behind us, the white pack ice, and, on one point along the southern horizon, barely visible even with a telescope, a floe covered in coal dust and ashes, in debris and discarded waste, marked in black the spot where the Belgica had spent the thirteen long months of its captivity.
I must state that the impression our liberation left upon us was not at all the sort which had been forged by our imaginations while imprisoned. We had been sure that once we reached the edge, we would flee that loathsome and isolated pack at top speed. It did not happen thus; we stayed in place for a day to take soundings and drop drag nets, and when the moment came for us to strike out towards the north, we were shocked to discover that we could not leave this pack without a slight pang of regret.
Throughout those long months there we had suffered, but we had also had happy times; we often lived poorly there, it is true, but what does that matter, we lived there all the same. Isn’t that enough to give rise to regret!
Fifteen days of violent storms, but because they blew on the correct side, they allowed us to travel roughly two thousand miles at a very fast pace. I won’t detail the fantastic landing on the western coast of Tierra del Fuego, I don’t want to narrate for you how we lost two anchors at Black Island, how we passed between the Milky Way and the Furies, through the most dreadful of hurricanes, to enter into the Cockburn Canal. On the morning of March 27th, we dropped anchor in the harbor of Punta Arenas.
Here we will take our leave, Ladies and Gentlemen, because I am no longer of any use to you. Punta Arenas is a civilized city and three lines of magnificent cruise ships connect it to the rest of the world.
It remains for me to thank you for the benevolent attention with which you have followed my long talk, and I must ask your permission to speak, in closing, a few words to the young colleagues who gave me the honor of presenting at this meeting.
My dear Comrades,
Travel, go explore the unknown or poorly studied regions of our globe, get out of the necessarily narrow milieu in which you live. As you can well see, one will always return from the inhospitable lands and frozen packs, even when they set out to face the storms in an incredibly small boat.
And the profit you receive, no matter what journey you take, will be enormous. Your will will be sharpened, you will have a more just view of people and things, you will get used to counting on no one but yourself, which will give you the greatest confidence in your own strength.
And if you are fond of rewards, go without fear. I guarantee that you will be rewarded, and to an even greater degree than the effort you make would merit. You can clearly see this in what has just taken place this evening. You can clearly see me, a naturalist candidate like you, and that I have had the great honor of speaking in the name of the Zoological Society of France, and you might notice that those who have been listening to me are the scientific masters and intellectual elite of Paris, the city of lights.
And you will also have the private satisfaction of being able to tell yourself that you have accomplished something useful, because regardless of how feeble the results you’ve obtained might be, they will always be something which will come to add to that communal work of humanity which we call Science, and which is the purest glory of the modern era.