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

the conviction that we have a monopoly of what is called a living soul; the eyes, it is said, are the mirror of this soul. That is all right enough; but now take a look at a dog’s eyes, study them attentively. How often do we see something “human” in their expression, the same variations that we meet with in human eyes. This, at all events, is something that strikingly resembles “soul.” We will leave the question open for those who are interested in its solution, and will here only mention another point, which seems to show that a dog is something more than a mere machine of flesh and blood —

his pronounced individuality. There were about a hundred dogs on board the Fram. Gradually, as we got to know each one of them by daily intercourse, they each revealed some characteristic trait, some peculiarity. Hardly two of them were alike, either in disposition or in appearance. To an observant eye there was here ample opportunity for the most amusing exercise. If now and then one grew a little tired of one’s fellow-men — which, I must admit, seldom happened —

there was, as a rule, diversion to be found in the society of the animals. I say, as a rule; there were, of course, exceptions. It was not an unmixed pleasure having the whole deck full of dogs for all those months; our patience was severely tested many a time. But in spite of all the trouble and inconvenience to which the transport of the dogs necessarily gave rise, I am certainly right in saying that these months of sea voyage would have seemed far more monotonous and tedious if we had been without our passengers.

During the first four or five days we had now been making our way towards the Straits of Dover, and the hope began to dawn within us that this time, as last, we should slip through without any great difficulty. There had been five days of absolute calm; why should it not last out the week? But it did not. As we passed the lightship at the western end of the Goodwins the fine weather left us, and in its place came the south-west wind with rain, fog, and foul weather in its train. In the course of half an hour it became so thick that it was impossible to see more than two or three ship’s lengths ahead; but if we could see nothing, we heard all the more. The ceaseless shrieks of many steam-whistles and sirens told us only too plainly what a crowd of vessels we were in. It was not exactly a pleasant situation; our excellent ship had many good points, but they did not prevent her being extraordinarily slow and awkward in turning. This is an element of great danger in these waters. It must be remembered that a possible accident — whether our own fault or not — would to us be absolutely fatal. We had so little time to spare that the resulting delay might ruin the whole enterprise. An ordinary trading vessel can take the risk; by careful manoeuvring a skipper can almost always keep out of the way. Collisions are, as a rule, the result of rashness or carelessness on one side or the other. The rash one has to pay; the careful one may perhaps make money out of it. Carefulness on our part was a matter of course; it would have been a poor consolation to us if another ship had had to pay for her carelessness. We could not take that risk; therefore, little as we liked doing so, we put into the Downs and anchored there.

Right opposite to us we had the town of Deal, then in the height of its season. The only amusement we had was to observe all these apparently unconcerned people, who passed their time in bathing, or walking about the white, inviting sands. They had no need to worry themselves much about what quarter the wind blew from. Our only wish was that it would veer, or in any case drop. Our communication with the land was limited to sending ashore telegrams and letters for home.

By the next morning our patience was already quite exhausted, but not so with the south-wester. It kept going as steadily as ever, but it was clear weather, and therefore we decided at once to make an attempt to get to the west. There was nothing to be done but to have recourse to the ancient method of beating. We cleared one point, and then another, but more than that we could not manage for the time being. We took one bearing after another; no, there was no visible progress. Off Dungeness we had to anchor again, and once more console ourselves with the much-vaunted balm of patience. This time we escaped with passing the night there. The wind now thought fit to veer sufficiently to let us get out at daybreak, but it was still a contrary wind, and we had to beat almost all the way down the English Channel. A whole week was spent in doing these three hundred miles; that was rather hard, considering the distance we had to go.

I fancy most of us gave a good sigh of relief when at last we were clear of the Scilly Isles. The everlasting south-west wind was still blowing, but that did not matter so much now. The main thing was that we found ourselves in open sea with the whole Atlantic before us. Perhaps one must have sailed in the Fram to be able fully to understand what a blessing it was to feel ourselves altogether clear of the surrounding land and the many sailing-ships in the Channel —

to say nothing of constantly working the ship with a deck swarming with dogs. On our first voyage through the Channel in June we had caught two or three carrier pigeons, which had come to rest in the rigging utterly tired out. On the approach of darkness we were able to get hold of them without difficulty. Their numbers and marks were noted, and after they had been taken care of for a couple of days and had recovered their strength, we let them go. They circled once or twice round the mast-heads, and then made for the English coast.

I think this episode led to our taking a few carrier pigeons with us when we left Christiansand; Lieutenant Nilsen, as a former owner of pigeons, was to take charge of them. Then a nice house was made for them, and the pigeons lived happily in their new abode on the top of the whale-boat amidships. Now, in some way or other the second in command found out that the circulation of air in the pigeon-house was faulty; to remedy this defect, he one day set the door a little ajar. Air certainly got into the house, but the pigeons came out. A joker, on discovering that the birds had flown, wrote up “To Let”

in big letters on the wall of the pigeon-house. The second in command was not in a very gentle frame of mind that day.

As far as I know, this escape took place in the Channel. The pigeons found their way home to Norway.

The Bay of Biscay has a bad name among seamen, and it fully deserves it; that tempestuous corner of the sea conceals for ever in its depths so many a stout ship and her crew. We for our part, however, had good hopes of escaping unharmed, considering the time of year, and our hopes were fulfilled. We had better luck than we dared to anticipate. Our stubborn opponent, the south-west wind, got tired at last of trying to stop our progress; it was no use. We went slowly, it was true, but still we got along. Of the meteorological lessons of our youth, we especially recalled at that moment the frequent northerly winds off the coast of Portugal, and as a pleasant surprise we already had them far up in the Bay. This was an agreeable change after all our close-hauled tacking in the Channel. The north wind held almost as bravely as the south-west had done before, and at what was to our ideas quite a respectable rate, we went southward day after day towards the fine-weather zone, where we could be sure of a fair wind, and where a sailor’s life is, as a rule, a pleasant one.

For that matter, as far as seamanship was concerned, our work had gone on smoothly enough, even during these first difficult weeks. There were always willing and practised hands enough for what was wanted, even though the work to be done was frequently of a not very pleasant kind. Take washing decks, for instance. Every seaman will have something to say about what this is like on board ships that carry live animals, especially when these are carried on deck, in the way of all work that has to be done. I have always held the opinion that a Polar ship ought not, any more than any other vessel, to be a wholesale establishment for dirt and filth, however many dogs there may be on board. On the contrary, I should say that on voyages of this kind it is more than ever vitally necessary to keep one’s surroundings as clean and sweet as possible. The important thing is to get rid of anything that may have a demoralizing and depressing effect. The influence of uncleanliness in this way is so well known that it is needless to preach about it here.

My views were shared by everyone on board the Fram, and everything was done to act in accordance with them, in spite of what may be considered great difficulties. Twice a day the whole deck was thoroughly washed down, besides all the extra turns at odd times with bucket and scrubber. At least once a week the whole of the loose deck was taken up, and each separate part of it thoroughly washed, until it was as clean as when it was laid down at Christiansand. This was a labour that required great patience and perseverance on the part of those who had to perform it, but I never saw any shortcomings. “Let’s just see and get it clean,” they said.

At night, when it was not always easy to see what one was doing, it might often happen that one heard some more or less heated exclamations from those who had to handle coils of rope in working the ship. I need not hint more explicitly at the cause of them, if it is remembered that there were dogs lying about everywhere, who had eaten and drunk well in the course of the day. But after a time the oaths gave way to jokes. There is nothing in the world that custom does not help us to get over.

It is the universal practice on board ship to divide the day and night into watches of four hours; the two watches into which the crew is divided relieve each other every four hours. But on vessels that sail to the Arctic Ocean, it is customary to have watches of six hours. We adopted the latter plan, which, on its being put to the vote, proved to have a compact majority in its favour. By this arrangement of watches we only had to turn out twice in the course of twenty-four hours, and the watch below had had a proper sleep whenever it turned out. If one has to eat, smoke, and perhaps chat a little during four hours’ watch below, it does not leave much time for sleeping; and if there should be a call for all hands on deck, it means no sleep at all.

To cope with the work of the engine-room, we had from the beginning the two engineers,