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

a firm round turn with the rope round his wrist. It was, therefore, a comparatively easy matter to get him up on the surface again. This little intermezzo would probably have been avoided if we had not been without our ski, but the slope was so steep and smooth that we could not use them. After a few more hauls we had the seal up by the tent, where a large quantity of it disappeared in a surprisingly short time down the throats of fifteen hungry dogs.

The ice of the bay was furrowed by numerous leads, and while the hunters were busy cutting up the seals, I tried to get a sounding, but the thirty fathoms of Alpine rope I had were not enough; no bottom was reached. After having something to eat we went down again, in order if possible to find out the depth. This time we were better supplied with sounding tackle two reels of thread, a marlinspike, and our geological hammer.

First the marlinspike was sent down with the thread as a line. An inquisitive lout of a seal did all it could to bite through the thread, but whether this was too strong or its teeth too poor, we managed after a lot of trouble to coax the marlinspike up again, and the interfering rascal, who had to come up to the surface now and then to take breath, got the spike of a ski-pole in his thick hide. This unexpected treatment was evidently not at all to his liking, and after acknowledging it by a roar of disgust, he vanished into the depths. Now we got on better. The marlinspike sank and sank until it had drawn with it 130 fathoms of thread. A very small piece of seaweed clung to the thread as we hauled it in again; on the spike there was nothing to be seen. As its weight was rather light for so great a depth — a possible setting of current might have carried it a little to one side — we decided to try once more with the hammer, which was considerably heavier, in order to check the result. The hammer, on the other hand, was so heavy, that with the delicate thread as a line the probability of successfully carrying out the experiment seemed small, but we had to risk it. The improvised sinker was well smeared with blubber, and this time it sank so rapidly to the bottom as to leave no doubt of the correctness of the sounding — 130 fathoms again. By using extreme care we succeeded in getting the hammer up again in safety, but no specimen of the bottom was clinging to it.

On the way back to camp we dragged with us the carcass of the young seal. It was past three when we got into our sleeping-bags that night, and, in consequence, we slept a good deal later than usual the next morning. The forenoon was spent by Johansen and Stubberud in hauling up another seal from the bay and packing as much flesh on the sledges as possible. As fresh meat is a commodity that takes up a great deal of space in proportion to its weight, the quantity we were able to take with us was not large. The chief advantage we had gained was that a considerable supply could be stored on the spot, and it might be useful to fall back upon in case of delay or other mishaps.

I took the observation for longitude and latitude, found the height by hypsometer, and took some photographs. After laying down the depot and erecting beacons, we broke camp at 3 p.m. South of the head of the bay there were a number of elevations and pressure masses, exactly like the formations to be found about Framheim. To the east a prominent ridge appeared, and with the glass it could be seen to extend inland in a south-easterly direction. According to our observations this must be the same that Captain Scott has marked with land-shading on his chart.

We made a wide detour outside the worst pressure-ridges, and then set our course east-north-east towards the ridge just mentioned. It was a pretty steep rise, which was not at all a good thing for the dogs. They had overeaten themselves shockingly, and most of the seal’s flesh came up again. So that their feast should not be altogether wasted, we stopped as soon as we had come far enough up the ridge to be able to regard the surface as comparatively safe; for in the depression round the bay it was somewhat doubtful.

On the following morning — Sunday, November 26 — there was a gale from the north-east with sky and Barrier lost in driving snow. That put an end to our plans of a long Sunday march. In the midst of our disappointment I had a sudden bright idea. It was Queen Maud’s birthday! If we could not go on, we could at least celebrate the day in a modest fashion. In one of the provision cases there was still a solitary Stavanger tin, containing salt beef and peas. It was opened at once, and its contents provided a banquet that tasted better to us than the most carefully chosen menu had ever done. In this connection I cannot help thinking of the joy it would bring to many a household in this world if its master were possessed of an appetite like ours. The wife would then have no need to dread the consequences, however serious the shortcomings of the cuisine might be. But to return to the feast. Her Majesty’s health was drunk in a very small, but, at the same time, very good tot of aquavit, served in enamelled iron mugs. Carrying alcohol was, of course, against regulations, strictly speaking; but, as everyone knows, prohibition is not an easy thing to put into practice. Even in Antarctica this proved to be the case. Lindstr�m had a habit of sending a little surprise packet with each sledging party that went out, and on our departure he had handed us one of these, with the injunction that the packet was only to be opened on some festive occasion; we chose as such Her Majesty’s birthday. On examination the packet was found to contain a little flask of spirits, in which we at once agreed to drink the Queen’s health.

The 27th brought the same nasty weather, and the 28th was not much better, though not bad enough to stop us. After a deal of hard work in hauling our buried belongings out of the snow, we got away and continued our course to the north-eastward. It was not exactly an agreeable morning: a brisk wind with driving snow right in one’s face. After trudging against this for a couple of hours I heard Stubberud call “Halt!” — half his team were hanging by the traces in a crevasse. I had gone across without noticing anything; no doubt owing to the snow in my face. One would think the dogs would be suspicious of a place like this; but they are not — they plunge on till the snow-bridge breaks under them. Luckily the harness held, so that it was the affair of a moment to pull the poor beasts up again. Even a dog might well be expected to be a trifle shaken after hanging head downwards over such a fearful chasm; but apparently they took it very calmly, and were quite prepared to do the same thing over again.

For my own part I looked out more carefully after this, and although there were a good many ugly fissures on the remaining part of the ascent, we crossed them all without further incident.

Unpleasant as these crevasses are, they do not involve any direct danger, so long as the weather is clear and the light favourable. One can then judge by the appearance of the surface whether there is danger ahead; and if crevasses are seen in time, there is always a suitable crossing to be found. The case is somewhat different in fog, drift, or when the light is such that the small inequalities marking the course of the crevasse do not show up. This last is often the case in cloudy weather, when even a fairly prominent rise will not be noticed on the absolutely white surface until one falls over it. In such conditions it is safest to feel one’s way forward with the ski-pole; though this mode of proceeding is more troublesome than effective.

In the course of the 28th the ascent came to an end, and with it the crevasses. The wind fell quite light, and the blinding drift was succeeded by clear sunshine. We had now come sufficiently high up to have a view of the sea far to the north-west. During the high wind a quantity of ice had been driven southward, so that for a great distance there was no open water to be seen, but a number of huge icebergs. From the distance of the sea horizon we guessed our height to be about 1,000 feet, and in the evening the hypsometer showed the guess to be very nearly right.

November 29. — Weather and going all that could be wished on breaking camp this morning; before us we had a level plateau, which appeared to be quite free from unpleasant obstructions. When we halted for the noon observation the sledge-meter showed ten geographical miles, and before evening we had brought the day’s distance up to twenty. The latitude was then 77� 32’. The distance to the Barrier edge on the north was, at a guess, about twenty geographical miles. We were now a good way along the peninsula, the northern point of which Captain Scott named Cape Colbeck, and at the same time a good way to the east of the meridian in which he put land-shading on his chart. Our height above the sea, which was now about 1,000 feet, was evidence enough that we had firm land under us, but it was still sheathed in ice. In that respect the landscape offered no change from what we had learnt to know by the name of “Barrier.” It cannot be denied that at this juncture I began to entertain a certain doubt of the existence of bare land in this quarter.

This doubt was not diminished when we had done another good day’s march to the eastward on November 30. According to our observations we were then just below the point where the Alexandra Mountains should begin, but there was no sign of mountain ranges; the surface was a little rougher, perhaps. However, it was still too soon to abandon the hope. It would be unreasonable to expect any great degree of accuracy of the chart we had to go by; its scale was far too large for that. It was, moreover, more than probable that our own determination of longitude was open to doubt.

Assuming the approximate accuracy of the chart, by holding on to the north-east we ought soon to come down to the seaboard, and with this object in view we continued our march. On December 1, in the middle of the day, we saw that everything agreed. From the top of an eminence the sea was visible due north, and on the east two domed summits were outlined, apparently high enough to be worthy of the name of mountains. They were covered with snow, but on the north side of them there was an abrupt precipice, in which many black patches showed up sharply against the white background. It was still too soon to form an idea as to whether they were bare rock or not; they might possibly be fissures in the mass of ice. The appearance of the summits agreed exactly with Captain Scott’s description of what he saw from the deck of the Discovery in 1902. He