Part 3 (1/2)

still a formidable obstacle, but on the 20th the _Discovery_ pushed her way into an inlet where she met ice which had been formed inside and but recently broken up. The ice was perfectly smooth, and as it showed absolutely no sign of pressure there was no doubting that this inlet would make a secure wintering harbor. Already a lat.i.tude had been reached in which it was most desirable to find safe winter quarters for the s.h.i.+p. In England many people had thought that Wood Bay would be the most southerly spot where security was likely to be found, but Scott had seen enough of the coast-line to the south of that place to realize the impossibility of traveling along it in sledges, and to convince him that if any advance to the south was to be made, a harbor in some higher lat.i.tude must be found.

This inlet was afterwards named Granite Harbor, and so snug and secure a spot was it to winter in that Scott expressed his thankfulness that he did not yield to its allurements. 'Surrounded as we should have been by steep and lofty hills, we could have obtained only the most local records of climatic conditions, and our meteorological observations would have been comparatively valueless; but the greatest drawback would have been that we should be completely cut off from traveling over the sea-ice beyond the mouth of our harbor.... It is when one remembers how naturally a decision to return to this place might have been made, that one sees how easily the results of the expedition might have been missed.'

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It was, however, consoling at the time to know that, in default of a better place, a safe spot had been found for wintering, so with Granite Harbor in reserve the s.h.i.+p again took up her battle with the ice; and on the 21st she was in the middle of McMurdo Sound, and creeping very slowly through the pack-ice, which appeared from the crow's-nest to extend indefinitely ahead. They were now within a few miles of the spot where they ultimately took up their winter quarters, but nearly three weeks were to pa.s.s before they returned there. 'At 8 P.M. on the 21st,' Scott says, 'we thought we knew as much of this region as our heavy expenditure of coal in the pack-ice would justify us in finding out, and as before us lay the great unsolved problem of the barrier and of what lay beyond it, we turned our course with the cry of Eastward ho!'

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CHAPTER III

IN SEARCH OF WINTER QUARTERS

Beholde I see the haven near at hand To which I mean my wearie course to bend; Vere the main sheet and bear up to the land To which afore is fairly to be ken'd.

--SPENSER, Faerie Queene.

In their journey from Cape Was.h.i.+ngton to the south something had already been done to justify the dispatch of the expedition. A coast-line which hitherto had been seen only at a great distance, and reported so indefinitely that doubts were left with regard to its continuity, had been resolved into a concrete chain of mountains; and the positions and forms of individual heights, with the curious ice formations and the general line of the coast, had been observed.

In short the map of the Antarctic had already received valuable additions, and whatever was to happen in the future that, at any rate, was all to the good.

At 8 P.M. on the 22nd the s.h.i.+p arrived off the bare land to the westward of Cape Crozier, where it was proposed to erect a post and leave a cylinder containing an account of their doings, so that the chain of records might be completed. After a landing had [Page 53]

been made with some difficulty, a spot was chosen in the center of the penguin rookery on a small cliff overlooking the sea, and here the post was set up and anch.o.r.ed with numerous boulders. In spite of every effort to mark the place, at a few hundred yards it was almost impossible to distinguish it; but although this small post on the side of a vast mountain looked a hopeless clue, it eventually brought the _Morning_ into McMurdo Sound.

While Bernacchi and Barne set up their magnetic instruments and began the chilly task of taking observations, the others set off in twos and threes to climb the hillside. Scott, Royds and Wilson scrambled on until at last they reached the summit of the highest of the adjacent volcanic cones, and were rewarded by a first view of the Great Ice Barrier.[1]

[Footnote 1: The immense sheet of ice, over 400 miles wide and of still greater length.]

'Perhaps,' Scott says, 'of all the problems which lay before us in the south we were most keenly interested in solving the mysteries of this great ice-ma.s.s.... For sixty years it had been discussed and rediscussed, and many a theory had been built on the slender foundation of fact which alone the meager information concerning it could afford. Now for the first time this extraordinary ice-formation was seen from above.... It was an impressive sight and the very vastness of what lay at our feet seemed to add to our sense of its mystery.'

Early on the 23rd they started to steam along the [Page 54]

ice-face of the barrier; and in order that nothing should be missed it was arranged that the s.h.i.+p should continue to skirt close to the ice-cliff, that the officers of the watch should repeatedly observe and record its height, and that three times in the twenty-four hours the s.h.i.+p should be stopped and a sounding taken. In this manner a comparatively accurate survey of the northern limit of the barrier was made.

On steaming along the barrier it was found that although they were far more eager to gain new information than to prove that old information was incorrect, a very strong case soon began to arise against the Parry Mountains, which Ross had described as 'probably higher than we have yet seen'; and later on it was known with absolute certainty that these mountains did not exist. This error on the part of such a trustworthy and cautious observer, Scott ascribes to the fact that Ross, having exaggerated the height of the barrier, was led to suppose that anything seen over it at a distance must be of great alt.i.tude. 'But,' he adds, 'whatever the cause, the facts show again how deceptive appearances may be and how easily errors may arise. In fact, as I have said before, one cannot always afford to trust the evidence of one's own eyes.' Though the s.h.i.+p was steaming along this ice-wall for several days, the pa.s.sage was not in the least monotonous, because new variations were continually showing themselves, and all of them had to be carefully observed and recorded. This work continued for several days until, on January 29, they arrived at a particularly interesting place, to [Page 55]

the southward and eastward of the extreme position reached by Ross in 1842. From that position he had reported a strong appearance of land to the southeast, and consequently all eyes were directed over the icy cliffs in that direction. But although the afternoon was bright and clear, nothing from below or from aloft could be seen, and the only conclusion to be made was that the report was based on yet another optical illusion.

But in spite of the disappointment at being unable to report that Ross's 'appearance of land' rested on solid foundations, there was on the afternoon of the 29th an indescribable sense of impending change. 'We all felt that the plot was thickening, and we could not fail to be inspirited by the fact that we had not so far encountered the heavy pack-ice which Ross reported in this region, and that consequently we were now sailing in an open sea into an unknown world.'

The course lay well to the northward of east, and the change came at 8 P.M. when suddenly the ice-cliff turned to the east, and becoming more and more irregular continued in that direction for about five miles, when again it turned sharply to the north. Into the deep bay thus formed they ran, and as the ice was approached they saw at once that it was unlike anything yet seen. The ice-foot descended to various heights of ten or twenty feet above the water, and behind it the snow surface rose in long undulating slopes to rounded ridges, the heights of which could only be guessed. Whatever doubt remained in their minds that this was snow-covered land, a sounding of 100 fathoms quickly removed it.

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But what a land! On the swelling mounds of snow above them there was not one break, not a feature to give definition to the hazy outline. No scene could have been more perfectly devised to produce optical illusions. And then, while there was so much to observe, a thick fog descended, and blotted out all hope of seeing what lay beyond the ice-foot. During the afternoon of January 30 the fog was less dense, but still no sign of bare land could be seen, and it was not until the bell had sounded for the evening meal that two or three little black patches, which at first were mistaken for detached cloud, appeared. 'We gazed idly enough at them till someone remarked that he did not believe they were clouds; then all gla.s.ses were leveled; a.s.sertions and contradictions were numerous, until the small black patches gradually a.s.sumed more and more definite shape, and all agreed that at last we were looking at real live rock, the actual substance of our newly discovered land.... It is curious to reflect now on the steps which led us to the discovery of King Edward's Land, and the chain of evidence which came to us before the actual land itself was seen: at first there had been the shallow soundings, and the sight of gently rising snow-slopes, of which, in the nature of things, one is obliged to retain a doubt; then the steeper broken slopes of snow, giving a contrast to convey a surer evidence to the eye; and, finally the indubitable land itself, but even then surrounded with such mystery as to leave us far from complete satisfaction with our discovery.'

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The temptation to push farther and farther to the east was almost irresistible, but with the young ice forming rapidly around them, Scott, on February 1, decided to return, and on their way back along the barrier they experienced much lower temperatures than on the outward journey. During the return journey they landed on the barrier, and on February 4 preparations for a balloon ascent were made. 'The honour,' Scott says, 'of being the first aeronaut to make an ascent in the Antarctic Regions, perhaps somewhat selfishly, I chose for myself, and I may further confess that in so doing I was contemplating the first ascent I had made in any region, and as I swayed about in what appeared a very inadequate basket and gazed down on the rapidly diminis.h.i.+ng figures below, I felt some doubt as to whether I had been wise in my choice.'

If, however, this ascent was not altogether enjoyed by the aeronaut, it, at any rate, gave him considerable information about the barrier surface towards the south; and, to his surprise, he discovered that instead of the continuous level plain that he had expected, it continued in a series of long undulations running approximately east and west, or parallel to the barrier surface. Later on, however, when the sledge-party taken out by Armitage returned, they reported that these undulations were not gradual as had been supposed from the balloon, but that the crest of each wave was flattened into a long plateau, from which the descent into the succeeding valley was comparatively sharp. On the evening of the 4th they put out [Page 58]

to sea again, and on the 8th they were once more in McMurdo Sound, with high hopes that they would soon find a sheltered nook in which the _Discovery_ could winter safely, and from which the sledge-parties could set forth upon the task of exploring the vast new world around them.

Without any delay they set out to examine their immediate surroundings, and found a little bay which promised so well for the winter that Scott's determination to remain in this region was at once strengthened.

The situation, however, was surrounded with difficulties, for although the ice had broken far afield it refused to move out of the small bay on which they had looked with such eager eyes; consequently they were forced to cling to the outskirts of the bay with their ice-anchors, in depths that were too great to allow the large anchors to be dropped to the bottom. The weather also was troublesome, for after the s.h.i.+p had lain quietly during several hours a sudden squall would fling her back on her securing ropes, and, uprooting the ice-anchors, would ultimately send her adrift.

In spite, however, of the difficulty of keeping the s.h.i.+p in position, steady progress was made with the work on sh.o.r.e, and this consisted mainly in erecting the various huts which had been brought in pieces.

The original intention had been that the _Discovery_ should not winter in the Antarctic, but should land a small party and turn northward before the season closed, and for this party a large hut had been carried south. But even when it had been decided to keep the [Page 59]