The South Pole, Roald Amundsen [free children's ebooks online .txt] 📗

on one tack or the other for about two-thirds of the way. For only three days out of three months did we have a real west wind, a wind which, with south-westerly and north-westerly winds, I had reckoned on having for 75 per cent. of the trip from Buenos Aires to about the longitude of Tasmania.

In my enthusiasm over the west wind in question, I went so far as to write in my diary at 2 a.m. on November 11: “There is a gale from the west, and we are making nine knots with foresail and topsail. The sea is pretty high and breaking on both sides of the vessel, so that everything about us is a mass of spray. In spite of this, not a drop of water comes on deck, and it is so dry that the watch are going about in clogs. For my part I am wearing felt slippers, which will not stand wet. Sea-boots and oilskins hang ready in the chart-house, in case it should rain. On a watch like to-night, when the moon is kind enough to shine, everyone on deck is in the best of humours, whistling, chattering, and singing. Somebody comes up with the remark that ‘She took that sea finely,’ or ‘Now she’s flying properly.’ ‘Fine’ is almost too feeble an expression; one ought to say ‘lightly and elegantly’

when speaking of the Fram … . What more can one wish?” etc.

But whatever time Adam may have spent in Paradise, we were not there more than three days, and then the same wretched state of things began again. What I wrote when there was a head wind or calm, I should be sorry to reproduce. Woe to him who then came and said it was fine weather.

It was lucky for us that the Fram sails so much more easily now than in 1910, otherwise we should have taken six months to reach the Barrier. When we had wind, we used it to the utmost; but we did not do this without the loss of one or two things; the new jib-sheet broke a couple of times, and one night we carried away the outer bobstay of the jib-boom. The foresail and topsail were neither made fast nor reefed during the whole trip.

The last time the jib-sheet broke there was a strong breeze from the south-west with a heavy sea; all sail was set with the exception of the spanker, as the ship would not steer with that. There was an extra preventer on the double jib-sheet, but in spite of that the sheets broke and the jib was split with a fearful crack. Within a minute the mainsail and gaff-topsail were hauled down, so that the ship might fall off, and the jib hauled down. This was instantly unbent and a new one bent. The man at the helm, of course, got the blame for this, and the first thing he said to me was “I couldn’t help it, she was twisting on the top of a wave.” We were then making ten knots, and more than that we shall not do.

The Fram rolled well that day. A little earlier in the afternoon, at two o’clock, when the watch had gone below to dinner and were just eating the sweet, which on that occasion consisted of preserved pears, we felt that there was an unusually big lurch coming. Although, of course, we had fiddles on the table, the plates, with meat, potatoes, etc., jumped over the fiddles, which they didn’t care a button for, into Beck’s cabin. I caught one of the pears in its flight, but the plate with the rest of them went on its way. Of course there was a great shout of laughter, which stopped dead as we heard a violent noise on deck, over our heads; I guessed at once it was an empty water-tank that had broken loose, and with my mouth full of pear I yelled “Tank!” and flew on deck with the whole watch below at my heels. A sea had come in over the after-deck, and had lifted the tank up from its lashings. All hands threw themselves upon the tank, and held on to it till the water had poured off the deck, when it was again fixed in its place. When this was done, my watch went below again and lit their pipes as if nothing had happened.

On November 13 we passed the northernmost of the Prince Edward Islands, and on the 18th close to Penguin Island, the most south-westerly of the Crozets. In the neighbourhood of the latter we saw a great quantity of birds, a number of seals and penguins, and even a little iceberg. I went close to the land to check the chronometers, which an observation and bearings of the islands showed to be correct.

Our course was then laid for Kerguelen Island, but we went too far north to see it, as for two weeks the wind was south-easterly and southerly, and the leeway we made when sailing close-hauled took us every day a little to the north of east. When we were in the same waters in 1910, there was gale after gale; then we did not put in at Kerguelen on account of the force of the wind; this time we could not approach the island because of the wind’s direction. In no respect can the second trip be compared with the first; I should never have dreamed that there could be so much difference in the “Roaring Forties”

in two different years at the same season. In the “Foggy Fifties”

the weather was calm and fine, and we had no fog until lat. 58� S.

As regards the distance sailed, November, 1911, is the best month the Fram has had.

In December, which began with a speed of one and a half knots, calm, swell against us, and the engine at full speed, we had a fair wind for three days, all the rest calms and head winds; the first part of the month from the north-east and east, so that we came much too far south; even in long. 150 E. we were in lat. 60� S. In Christmas week we had calms and light winds from the southeast, so that we managed to steal eastward to long. 170� E. and lat. 65� S., where, on the edge of the pack-ice, we had a stiff breeze from the north-north-east, that is, straight on to the ice.

Between Buenos Aires and the pack-ice we caught, as I have said, a good many birds, mostly albatrosses, and about thirty skins were prepared by L. Hansen. The largest albatross we got measured twelve feet between the tips of its wings, and the smallest bird was of a land species, not much bigger than a humming-bird.

Talking of albatrosses, it is both amusing and interesting to watch their elegant flight in a high wind. Without a movement of the wings they sail, now with, now against, the wind; at one instant they touch the surface of the water with the points of their wings, at the next they go straight into the air like an arrow. An interesting and instructive study for an aviator.

In a wind, when there is generally a number of them hovering about the vessel, they will dash down after anything that is thrown overboard; but of course it is useless to try to catch them when the ship has so much way. This must be done the next day, when the wind is lighter.

The birds are caught with an iron triangle, which ought to be enclosed in wood, so that it will float on the water. At the apex, which is very acute, the iron is filed as sharp as a knife, and pork is hung on each of the sides. When this is thrown in the wake of the ship, the bird settles on the water to feed. The upper part of its beak is hooked like that of a bird of prey, and as the albatross opens its beak and bites at the pork, you give a jerk, so that the triangle catches the upper part of the beak by two small notches, and the bird is left hanging. If the line should break, the whole thing simply falls off and the bird is unharmed. In hauling in, therefore, you have to be very careful to hold the line quite tight, even if the bird flies towards you, otherwise it will easily fall off: A bird may be pulled halfway in several times, and will immediately take the bait again.

On the night of December 11 an unusually beautiful aurora was seen; it lasted over an hour, and moved in a direction from west to east.

On the 14th all the white paint was washed; the temperature was 43�

F., and we were in shirt-sleeves.

For a whole week before Christmas the cook was busy baking Christmas cakes. I am bound to say he is industrious; and the day before Christmas Eve one of the little pigs, named Tulla, was killed. The swineherd, A. Olsen, whose special favourite this pig was, had to keep away during the operation, that we might not witness his emotion.

Early on the morning of Christmas Eve we saw the three first icebergs; there was an absolute calm all day, with misty air.

To keep Christmas the engine was stopped at 5 p.m., and then all hands came to dinner. Unfortunately we had no gramophone to sing to us, as in 1910; as a substitute the “orchestra” played “Glade Jul, hellige Jul,”

when all were seated. The orchestra was composed of Beck on the violin, Sundbeck on the mandolin, and the undersigned on the flute. I puffed out my cheeks as much as I could, and that is not saying a little, so that the others might see how proficient I was. I hardly think it was much of a musical treat; but the public was neither critical nor ceremonious, and the prevalent costume was jerseys. The dinner consisted of soup, roast pork, with fresh potatoes and whortleberries, ten-years-old aquavit and Norwegian bock beer, followed by wine-jelly and “kransekake,” with — champagne. The toasts of their Majesties the King and Queen, Don Pedro Christophersen, Captain Amundsen, and the Fram were drunk.

I had decorated the saloon in a small way with artificial flowers, embroideries, and flags, to give a little colour. Dinner was followed by cigars and the distribution of Christmas presents. L. Hansen played the accordion, and Lieutenant Gjertsen and R�nne danced “folk dances”; the latter was, as usual, so amusing that he kept us in fits of laughter.

At ten o’clock it was all over, the engine was started again, one watch went to bed and the other on deck; Olsen cleaned out the pigsty, as usual at this time of night. That finished Christmas for this year.

As has been said before, Sir James Ross was down here in the 1840’s. Two years in succession he sailed from the Pacific into Ross Sea with two ships that had no auxiliary steam-power. I assumed, therefore, that if he could get through so easily, there must be some place between South Victoria Land and the Barrier (or land) on the other side, where there was little or no ice. Following this assumption, I intended to go down to the western pack-ice (that lying off South Victoria Land) and steer along it till we were in Ross Sea, or, at all events, until we found a place where we could easily get through. It is quite possible that Ross was very lucky in the time at which he encountered the ice, and that he only sailed in clear weather. We had no time to spare, however, but had to make use of whatever wind there was, even if we could not see very far.

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