The Belgica & Beyond


amateur translations, scans, & assorted research by m.w.
actively under construction.

WRITTEN FROM THE BELGICA 1897-1899

  1. Racovitza’s cartoons 
  2. Racovitza’s shipboard diary
  3. Racovitza’s letters home
  4. Lecointe’s meeting notes

CORRESPONDENCE

  1. before
  2. after

    NEWS OF THE BELGICA 1896-1900

    1. coverage in the Belgian press, translated
    2. coverage in the British press
    3. coverage in the American press
    4. scientific lectures, translated
    5. list of Expedition publications
      6.        a) Lecointe on Danco’s contributions

    QUELQUES EXPÉDITIONS SUIVANTES

    1. de Gerlache & Charcot (the Français)
    2. de Gerlache & the Duke of Orléans (the Belgica in the Arctic)
    3. the failed Second Belgian Antarctic Expedition (Arctowski & Lecointe)
    4. the successful Second Belgian Antarctic Expedition (Gaston de Gerlache)
    5.  the Royal Belgian Observatory
    6. Georges Lecointe’s 20th Century

      MARRIAGES & OTHER LIFE EVENTS

      1. Lecointe Family
      2. Arctowski
      3. de Gerlache
      4. Racovitza
      5. van Mirlo
      6. van Rysselberghe

      ASSORTED BELGICA RESOURCES

      1. bibliography
      2. associated persons
      3. contemporary photographs


      the sailors of the Belgica performing a “starlight concert” on Sept. 26, 1897, from Johan Koren’s diary

      contact: packloafertranslations@gmail.com

      the Belgica’s shipboard library


      A very complete library is on board. It is a library, like the men, of various tongues, and descriptive of a great variety of subjects.

      — DR. FREDERICK ALBERT COOK, THROUGH THE FIRST ANTARCTIC NIGHT

      A compilation of books mentioned in expedition narratives and correspondence as having been on board for the Antarctic winter. Mentions of anti-Blackness, specifically the violence of the Congo Free State, and of anti-Romani prejudice. 


      The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak (La Légende et les Aventures héroïques, joyeuses et glorieuses d'Ulenspiegel et de Lamme Goedzak au pays de Flandres et ailleurs)
          Charles de Coster, 1867
          Sent by Louise de Gerlache as a Christmas 1897 gift for her brother Adrien. Louise embroidered covers for this and a handful of other books to be distributed to the officers and scientists on board. Below is the actual cover she produced for Adrien’s copy of Ulenspiegel as displayed in the Military Museum in Brussels.





      Louise’s embroidery features a golden anchor intertwined with A and G in pale pink script (the pink color may be a very faded red, going by the fact that the Belgica logo was red). She embroidered versions of these covers for Gerlache, Danco, Lecointe, Cook, Racovitza, Amundsen, and Arctowski. At the right side of the image, I’ve cropped out another one of her embroidery projects for the expedition: a white-and-red blanket for Adrien’s bunk.

      Trois Mousquetaires (Three Musketeers)
               Alexandre Dumas, 1844
          de Gerlache cites this as having been a favorite of the crew: “Dumas was a favorite author, in particular the Three Musketeers, whose heroic emphasis and even the very improbability of the narrative was singularly attractive to these naïve souls.” (p. 147)


      Trois Contes (Three Tales)
               Gustave Flaubert, 1877
          Two editions were sent by Louise de Gerlache as matching Christmas gifts for Lecointe and Danco. Their embroidered covers would have been identical to the one shown above, but with the lieutenants’ respective initials.


      Africaines (Female Africans)
               Charles Lemaire, 1897
          Lemaire was a close friend of Adrien de Gerlache and one of the primary figures in the atrocities perpetrated by the Congo Free State. Oddly, he eventually spoke out against the very atrocities he himself had committed, and advocated for the Congolese people, only to be dismissed in disgrace in 1907 due to accusations of prejudice against Black soldiers. I have not yet found a digitized version of this text that would allow me to convey which attitude he was espousing at the time of Gerlache’s reading. There is a very brief description of it on his French language Wikipedia page that states the book deals with “contributions to history by woman in Africa,” though it is left unclear whether this means that the book deals with European women in Africa or African women in Africa.
          From de Gerlache’s narrative of the expedition: “We were especially keen on books which might divert our thoughts from our melancholy situation. For my part I found a very particular diversion in reading Africaines, a fascinating book in which my friend Charles Lemaire so successfully evokes a sense of Africa. Such images took on a powerful seductiveness through their contrast with our present situation.” (p. 147)


      Pêcheur d’Islande (An Iceland Fisherman)
               Pierre Loti, 1886
         Louise de Gerlache’s 1897 Christmas gift for Roald Amundsen. In Adrien de Gerlache’s recounting of the Christmas gifts, he says “Amundsen could perhaps see himself in the figure of Ian” (p. 41). The character of Ian is torn between his life at sea and his desire to love. Though he does marry his sweetheart, the story ends with him drowned and her widowed. 


      Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (Contes extraordinaires)
               Edgar Allen Poe, 1840
         Louise de Gerlache’s 1897 Christmas gift for Dr. Frederick Cook, which she chose in honor of his being American. It’s unclear whether she provided an English or French edition of the book. Either way, she would have had a remarkably short time to prepare this gift.


      Voyage Au Pays des Tziganes, ou La Hongrie Inconnue (In the Land of the Gypsies, or Unknown Hungary)
               Victor Tissot, 1880
         A travelogue by a popular French writer about his journey through Hungary. When Lecointe mentions this book, he omits the “Voyage” at the beginning of the French title; given the fact that he titled his Belgica narrative Au Pays des Manchots (In the Land of the Penguins), it seems clear that he was inspired by and referencing Tissot’s work. He remembers reading it as an experience he shared with Danco in the weeks before the latter’s death:

          May 23, 1898: “By the pale light of a candle, I mended my jacket, which was falling to pieces, which Danco read several pages out loud from a work by Tissot, Au Pays des Tzigaines ou la Hongrie inconnue (In the Land of the Gypsies, or Unknown Hungary). 
          If our old friends from the regiment had seen us thus, they would have found the scene amusing: I had the air of a young wife stitching her first set of baby clothes close to the hearth, while Danco, the model husband, amused her with an interesting lecture.” 

      (ch. 29 of Au Pays, translation my own.)


      Inconclusive References
         Obviously, the Belgica set off with more than 7 books in their library: the above list is limited to works that were fully named in some narrative or correspondence about the expedition.
       
          Louise de Gerlache’s 1897 Christmas gifts apparently included every officer. In Voyage of the Belgica: Fifteen Months in the Antarctic, Adrien de Gerlache mentions that she provided “Balzac for the dreamer Arctowski” and “For Racovitza, Zola,” meaning Honoré Balzac and Émile Zola, but he does not specify which works by the authors were chosen. Based on her other choices, it seems safe to say that Louise probably selected from among their most famous works (La Comédie humaine and Les Rougon-Macquart, respectively). Gerlache makes no mention of whether his sister sent a book along for Lieutenant Mélaerts.

          The commander’s sister was not the only friend of the expedition to provide them with reading material: Paul Errera, one of two Belgian Jewish brothers who were involved with both the planning and publication efforts of the expedition, sent along a collection of comedies by the French playwright Eugène Labiche. Gerlache writes: “From time to time a roar of laughter would break the silence: one of us, usually Racovitza, had burst out at an amusing passage in one of Labiche’s comedies. His riotous wit was always able to divert us from the consciousness of our miseries. Our friend Paul Errera who had given us the book was right to add a few words on the flyleaf: ‘A bit of fun never spoiled the most earnest enterprises! In wishing the Belgian Antarctic Expedition bon voyage I would also like them to take these volumes of Labiche with them: they are the quintessence of cheerful humor. - 13 August 1897.” (p. 147) 

          As a scientific expedition, the Belgica was also equipped with the “very complete library” mentioned by Dr. Cook. The full paragraph of the quote atop this page is as follows:

          “A very complete library is on board. It is a library, like the men, of various tongues, and descriptive of a great variety of subjects. Each department has its technical bibliography. [de Gerlache] and [Cook] have a general collection of all the antarctic narratives in all tongues. [Lecointe] has a heap of charts and books on navigation; Lieutenant Danco has everything pertaining to terrestrial magnetism. The general scientific library is indeed a cosmopolitan collection. It contains books in French, English, German, Polish, Norwegian, and Rumanian print. In addition to serious literature, we have other books and magazines of lighter character. But these float about, from the laboratory to the cabin, and then to the forecastle, always in the hands of those whose spirits need elevating. Weeklies with unusually good pictures, such as half tones of beautiful women, theatric or opera scenes are reserved and served after dinner as a kind of entertainment.” (p. 56)

          Some of these scientific texts are hinted at in Racovitza’s prepatory letters to de Gerlache — the latest atlases, works by scientists such as Ernst Haeckel and Johanes Walther, and marine biology reference books from the Smithsonian — but I unfortunately have not had access to the full lists they were sending back and forth. It is highly likely that they brought along copies of Lecointe’s own books, Celestial Navigation and Dead-Reckoning (1897) and The Creation of a National Belgian Navy (also 1897), though I have not yet found any confirmation of this.