Part 23 (1/2)
CHAPTER VII.--”HERE'S TO THE LOVED ONES AT HOME.”
Captain Talbot was a brave man, but the ice for the present looked far too dangerous to venture in through. So he kept ”dodging” along the great barrier-edge or cruising eastwards, and away towards what is known as Enderby Land.
Sometimes he encountered a storm, brief but terrible, and dangerous in the extreme. They saw around them great bergs coming into collision, their green, towering, wall-like sides dashed together by the force of wind and waves; heard the thunder of the encounter, and witnessed the mist and foam as they fell to pieces in a chaos of boiling surf.
At times dense fog would envelop the whole sea, and then sail had to be taken in, for the icebergs went floating past and past like mysterious ghosts.
But clearer weather prevailed at last, and two more monster whales were captured.
Three great leviathans! Nearly a voyage in itself. No wonder that the spirits of the men rose higher and higher, as they thought of those who would press them to their hearts on their return home from this adventuresome cruise. And--happiest thought of all!--they would have plenty of money to spend on fathers or mothers, wives or children. For my experience is that so long as they are unallured by the drink demon, British sailors are not really improvident.
But the good luck of the _Flora_ did not continue. Talbot had expected to find sea-elephants in great evidence in these regions.
They are so called, it will do you no harm to know, reader, first on account of their immense size and unwieldiness, many of the males attaining a length of twenty feet or over, and from the fact that they have a kind of proboscis which, when alarmed or angry, they inflate till it looks almost like the trunk of an elephant. They are dangerous then, and, though as a rule peaceable, can give a good account of anyone daring enough to attempt an attack upon them, armed with the spiked seal-club alone.
They usually, however, go further north during the spring or pupping season, but now having returned, they ought to have been about somewhere. But they had evidently chosen fresh ground, and Captain Talbot was unable to find a trace of them.
He was not easily cast down, however, and taking advantage of a splendid westerly and north-westerly wind, he daringly set every inch of canvas--remember it was the long Antarctic day--and flew eastwards on its wings.
But his object was not only to get a paying voyage, but to do some good also to science and to geographical knowledge as well.
It was the duty of Duncan himself, and of Frank as well, not only to keep a log, but to enter therein, along with the s.h.i.+p's sailings, adventures, &c., the temperature of air and water twice a day.
The vessel again appeared to imagine herself a clipper-built yacht and to fly along, and by good luck she not only had a fair wind, but a clear sea, having only now and then to steer away from floating icebergs.
But now and then a boat was lowered to pick up some unusual form of seal, that might be observed floating along on a morsel of snow-clad ice. So tame were these that they only gazed open-mouthed at the advancing boat, and thus fell an easy prey to the gunner.
Very few more Right whales were seen, and none captured.
For a time the course held was about east with a bit of northerly in it, then on reaching the sixties they bowled along in fine style, and in the first week in February they were daringly--far too daringly as it turned out--steering almost directly south through a comparatively open sea towards the great southern ice-barrier in the seventies, which lies east of a mighty volcanic hill well-named Erebus.
It was autumn now--early autumn in these regions, but still a delightful time.
Do not imagine that this distant ocean was uninhabited. Far from it.
There were still millions on millions of birds about, that later on would fly far away to nor'land lands and islands. Petrels of many sorts, especially the snow-white species, Cape pigeons, the smaller penguins on point ends of land, and gulls of such beauty and rarity that it would have puzzled cleverer men than our heroes to cla.s.sify them.
Many of these were carefully shot and made skins of, to be set up when they reached once more their dear native land, if G.o.d in his mercy should spare them.
Mount Sabine itself is pa.s.sed, and soon after, to the east of that mountain, they lie for a day or two at Coulman Island. Strangely enough, though floating icebergs are heaving about all around, this rocky and storm-tossed isle is bare, and they can land.
The captain, with Frank and Conal, go off on a lichen hunt inland. They take their rifles with them, but no wild creature is here that can hurt them.
They find beautiful mosses, however, and strangely beautiful lichens.
Indeed, some parts of the rising ground are crimson or orange with these latter, and the green of the mosses stand out in lovely and striking contrast.
They continued their journey far inland, and although the rocks and the sea all about the sh.o.r.e was alive with birds, here it was solemn and still enough. The scene was indeed impressive and beautiful, and with the blue of the sky above and the bright blue of the ocean beyond, dotted over with green and lofty snow-capped ice-blocks, the whole seemed a little world fresh from the hands of the great Creator of all.