Part 67 (2/2)

Penguins soon began to splash around; Wilson petrels came glancing overhead and we could descry great flocks of Antarctic petrels wheeling over cliff and sea. Reefs buried in frothing surge showed their glistening mantles, and the boat swerved to avoid floating streamers of brash-ice.

The rocky cliffs, about eighty feet in height at the highest point, were formed of vertically lying slate rocks--a very uniform series of phyllite and sericite-schist. At their base lay great clinging blocks of ice deeply excavated by the restless swell. One island was separated from the parent ma.s.s by a channel cut sheer to the deep blue water.

Behind the main rocks and indenting the ice-cliff was a curving bay into which we steered, finding at its head a beautiful cove fringed with a heavy undermined ice-foot and swarming with Adelie penguins. Overhanging the water was a cavern hollowed out of a bridge of ice thrown from the glacier to the western limit of the rock outcrop.

Hurley had before him a picture in perfect proportion. The steel-blue water, paled by an icy reflection, a margin of brown rocks on which the penguins leapt through the splas.h.i.+ng surf, a curving canopy of ice-foot and, filling the background, the cavern with pendent icicles along its cornice.

The swell was so great that an anchor had to be thrown from the stern to keep the launch off sh.o.r.e, and two men remained on board to see that no damage was done.

At last we were free to roam and explore. Over the first ridge of rocks we walked suddenly into the home of the Antarctic petrels! There had always been much speculation as to where these birds nested. Jones'

party at our western base had the previous summer at Haswell Island happened upon the first rookery of Antarctic petrels ever discovered.

Here was another spot in the great wilderness peopled by their thousands. Every available nook and crevice was occupied along a wide slope which shelved away until it met the vertical cliffs falling to the ocean. One could sit down among the soft, mild birds who were fearless at the approach of man. They rested in pairs close to their eggs laid on the bare rock or among fragments of slate loosely arranged to resemble a rest. Many eggs were collected, and the birds, losing confidence in us, rose into the air in flocks, gaining in feathered volume as they circled in fear above this domain of rock and snow which had been theirs for generations.

In adjoining rookeries the Adelie penguins, with their fat, downy cheeks, were very plentiful and fiercer than usual. Skuas, snow and Wilson petrels were all in their accustomed haunts. Down on the low ice-foot at the mouth of a rocky ravine, a few seals had effected a landing. Algae, mosses and lichens made quite a display in moist localities.

Before leaving for the s.h.i.+p, we ”boiled the billy” on a platform of slate near the cove where the launch was anch.o.r.ed and had a small picnic, entertained by the penguins playing about in the surf or scaling the ice-foot to join the birds which were laboriously climbing to the rookeries on the ridge. The afternoon was so peaceful and the calm hot weather such a novelty to us that we pushed off reluctantly to the 'Aurora' after an eventful day.

Those on board had had a busy time dredging, and their results were just as successful as ours. A haul was made in two hundred and fifty fathoms of ascidians, sponges, crinoids, holothurians, fish and other forms of life in such quant.i.ty that Hunter and Hamilton were occupied in sorting the specimens until five o'clock next morning. Meanwhile the 'Aurora'

had returned to her old anchorage close to Cape Denison.

The sky banked up from the south with nimbus, and early on the 23rd a strong breeze ruffled the water. There were a few things to be brought off from the sh.o.r.e, while Ainsworth, Sandell and Correll were still at the Hut, so that, as the weather conditions pointed to a coming blizzard, I decided to ”cut the painter” with the land.

An hour later the motor-launch, with Madigan and Bickerton, sped away for the last load through falling snow and a rising sea. Hodgeman had battened down the windows of the Hut, the chimney was stuffed with bagging, the veranda-entrance closed with boards, and, inside, an invitation was left for future visitors to occupy and make themselves at home. After the remainder of the dogs and some miscellaneous gear had been s.h.i.+pped, the launch put off and came alongside in a squally wind through thick showers of snow. Willing hands soon unloaded the boat and slung it in the davits. Every one was at last safe on board, and in future all our operations were to be conducted from the s.h.i.+p.

During the night the wind rose and the barometer fell, while the air was filled with drifting snow. On the 24th--Christmas Eve--the velocity of the wind gradually increased to the seventies until at noon it blew with the strength of a hurricane. Chief Officer Blair, stationed with a few men under the fo'c'sle-head, kept an anxious eye on the anchor chain and windla.s.s.

About lunch time the anchor was found to be dragging and we commenced to drift before the hurricane. All view of the land and lurking dangers in the form of reefs and islets were cut off by driving snow.

The wind tw.a.n.ged the rigging to a burring drone that rose to a shriek in the shuddering gusts. The crests of the waves were cut off and sprayed in fine spindrift. With full steam on we felt our way out, we hoped to the open sea; meanwhile the chain cable and damaged anchor were slowly being hauled in. The s.h.i.+p's chances looked very small indeed, but, owing to the good seamans.h.i.+p of Captain Davis and a certain amount of luck, disaster was averted. Soon we were in a bounding sea. Each time we were lifted on a huge roller the motor-launch, swinging in the davits, would rise and then descend with a crash on the water, to be violently b.u.mped against the bulwarks. Everything possible was done to save the launch, but our efforts proved fruitless. As it was being converted into a battering ram against the s.h.i.+p itself it had to be cut away, and was soon swept astern and we saw no more of it.

Most unexpectedly there came a lull in the wind, so that it was almost calm, though the s.h.i.+p still laboured in the seas. A clearance in the atmosphere was also noticeable for Cape Hunter became discernible to the west, towards which we were rapidly drifting. This sight of the coast was a great satisfaction to us, for we then knew our approximate position ** and the direction of the wind, which had veered considerably.

** It should be borne in mind that compa.s.ses are unreliable in the vicinity of the magnetic pole.

The lull lasted scarcely five minutes when the wind came back from a somewhat different quarter, north of east, as violent as ever. The ”eye” of the storm had pa.s.sed over us, and the gale continued steady for several days. That night the struggle with the elements was kept up by officers and crew, a.s.sisted by members of the sh.o.r.e party who took the lee-wheel or stood by in case of emergency.

”December 25. Christmas Day on the high seas off Adelie Land, everything wet and fairly miserable; incipient mal de mer, wind 55-60; snowing!

When Davis came down to breakfast and wished us a Merry Christmas, with a smile at the irony of it, the ward-room was swaying about in a most bewildering fas.h.i.+on.”

Towards evening, after the 'Aurora' had battled for hours slowly to the east, the sea went down somewhat and some drifting ice was sighted. We continued under full steam, pus.h.i.+ng forward to gain the shelter of the Mertz glacier-tongue. It was now discovered that the fluke of the anchor had broken off short, so great had been the strain imposed upon it during the height of the hurricane.

On Boxing Day the s.h.i.+p was in calmer water heading in a more southerly direction so as to come up with the land. Fog, fine snow and an overcast sky made a gloomy combination, but during the afternoon the fog lightened sufficiently for us to perceive the mainland--a ghostly cliff shrouded in diaphanous blink. By 10 P.M. the Mertz glacier was visible on the port bow, and to starboard there was an enormous tilted berg which appeared to be magnified in the dim light.

Allowing a day for the weather to become clearer and more settled, we got out the trawl on the 28th and did a dredging in three hundred fathoms close to the glacier-tongue. Besides rocks and mud there were abundant crinoids, holothurians, corals, crustaceans and ”sh.e.l.ls.”

<script>