CHAPTER XXI.THE OPEN SEA.
The next morning Johnson and Bell set about carrying on board thecamping material. At eight o'clock all the preparations for departurewere complete. At the moment of starting the doctor's thoughtsreturned to the footprints they had seen. Were these men trying togain the North? Had they any means of crossing the Polar Sea! Shouldthey meet them again? For three days they had come across no trace ofthe travellers, and certainly, whoever they were, they could not havereached Altamont Harbor. That was a place which they were the first toset foot in. But the doctor, who was harassed by his thoughts, wantedto take a last view of the country, and he ascended a little hillabout a hundred feet high, whence he had a distant view to the south.
When he had reached the top, he put his glass to his eyes. Great washis surprise when he found he could not see anything, either at adistance on the plains, or within a few feet of him. This seemed veryodd; he made another examination, and at last he looked at theglass,--the object-glass was missing.
"The object-glass!" he cried.
The sudden revelation may be imagined; he uttered a cry so loud as tobe heard by his companions, and they were much astonished at seeinghim running down the hill.
"Well, what's the matter now?" asked Johnson.
The doctor was out of breath, and unable to speak. At length hemanaged to bring out,--
"The footprints!--the expedition!--"
"Well, what?" said Hatteras; "are they here?"
"No, no!" resumed the doctor,--"the object-glass, mine!"
And he showed his own glass.
"O, ho!" cried the American, "so you lost--"
"Yes!"
"But then the footprints--"
"Our own!" cried the doctor. "We lost our way in the fog! We wentaround in a circle, and came across our own footprints!"
"But the print of the shoes?" asked Hatteras.
"Bell's, you know, who walked all day in the snow after breaking hissnow-shoes."
"That's true," said Bell.
Their mistake was so clear, that they all, except Hatteras, burst outlaughing, and he was none the less pleased at the discovery.
"We were stupid enough," said the doctor, when they had stoppedlaughing. What good guesses we made! Strangers up here! Really, weought to think before speaking. Well, since we are easy on this point,we can't do better than start."
"Forward!" said Hatteras.
A quarter of an hour later each one had taken his place on board ofthe launch, which sailed out of Altamont Harbor under mainsail andjib. This voyage began Wednesday, July 10th; they were then very nearthe Pole, exactly one hundred and seventy-five miles from it. Howeversmall the land might be at that point of the globe, the voyage wouldcertainly be a short one. The wind was light, but fair. Thethermometer stood at 50 degrees; it was really warm.
The launch had not been injured by the journey on the sledge; it wasin perfect order, and sailed easily. Johnson was at the helm; thedoctor, Bell, and Altamont were lying as best they might among theload, partly on deck, partly below.
Hatteras stood forward, with his eyes turned to the mysterious point,which attracted him with an irresistible power, as the magnetic poleattracts the needle. If there should be any land, he wanted to be thefirst to see it. This honor really belonged to him. He noticed,besides, that the surface of the Polar Sea was covered with shortwaves, like those of land locked seas. This he considered a proof ofthe nearness of the opposite shore, and the doctor shared his opinion.
Hatteras's desire to find land at the North Pole is perfectlycomprehensible. His disappointment would have been great if theuncertain sea covered the place where he wanted to find a piece ofland, no matter how small! In fact, how could he give a special nameto an uncertain portion of the sea? How plant the flag of his countryamong the waves? How take possession, in the name of her GraciousMajesty, of the liquid element?
So Hatteras, compass in hand, gazed steadily at the north. There wasnothing that he could see between him and the horizon, where the lineof the blue water met the blue sky. A few floating icebergs seemed tobe leaving the way free for these bold sailors. The appearance of thisregion was singularly strange. Was this impression simply the resultof the nervous excitement of the travellers? It is hard to say. Still,the doctor in his journal has described the singular appearance of theocean; he spoke of it as Penny did, according to whom these countriespresent an appearance "offering the most striking contrast of a seafilled with millions of living creatures."
The sea, with its various colors, appeared strangely transparent, andendowed with a wonderful dispersive quality, as if it had been madewith carburet of sulphur. This clearness let them see down intoimmeasurable depths; it seemed as if the sea were lit up like a largeaquarium; probably some electric phenomenon at the bottom of the sealit it up. So the launch seemed hung in a bottomless abyss.
On the surface of the water the birds were flying in large flocks,like thick clouds big with a storm. Aquatic birds of all sorts werethere, from the albatross which is common to the south, to the penguinof the arctic seas, but of enormous size. Their cries were deafening.In considering them the doctor found his knowledge of natural historytoo scanty; many of the names escaped him, and he found himself bowinghis head when their wings beat the air.
"Aquatic birds of all sorts were there."]
Some of these large birds measured twenty feet from tip to tip; theycovered the whole launch with their expanded wings; and there werelegions of these birds, of which the names had never appeared in theLondon "Index Ornithologus." The doctor was dejected and stupefied atfinding his science so faulty. Then, when his glance fell from thewonders of the air to the calm surface of the ocean, he saw no lessastonishing productions of the animal kingdom, among others, medusaethirty feet broad; they served as food for the other fish, and theyfloated like islands amid the sea-weed. What a difference from themicroscopic medusae observed in the seas of Greenland by Scoresby, andof which that explorer estimated the number at twenty-three trillionseight hundred and ninety-eight billions of millions in a space of twosquare miles!
Then the eye glancing down into the transparent water, the sight wasequally strange, so full was it of fishes; sometimes the animals wereswimming about below, and the eye saw them gradually disappearing, andfading away like spectres; then they would leave the lower layers andrise to the surface. The monsters seemed in no way alarmed at thepresence of the launch; they even passed near it, rubbing their finsagainst it; this, which would have alarmed whalers, did not disturbthese men, and yet the sea-monsters were very large.
"Then the eye glancing down into the transparent water,the sight was equally strange."]
Young sea-calves played about them; the sword-fish, with its long,narrow, conical sword, with which it cleaves the ice, was chasing themore timid cetacea; numberless spouting whales were clearly to beheard. The sword-caper, with its delicate tail and large caudal fins,swam with incomprehensible quickness, feeding on smaller animals, suchas the cod, as swift as itself; while the white whale, which is moreinactive, swallowed peacefully the tranquil, lazy mollusks.
Farther down were Greenland anamaks, long and dark; huge sperm-whales,swimming in the midst of ambergris, in which took place thomericbattles that reddened the ocean for many miles around; the greatLabrador tegusik. Sharp-backed dolphins, the whole family of seals andwalruses, sea-dogs, horses and bears, lions and elephants, seemed tobe feeding on the rich pastures; and the doctor admired the numberlessanimals, as he would have done the crustacea in the crystal basins ofthe zoological garden.
What beauty, variety, and power in nature! How strange and wonderfuleverything seemed in the polar regions!
The air acquired an unnatural purity; one would have said it was fullof oxygen; the explorers breathed with delight this air, which filledthem with fresher life; without taking account of the result, theywere, so to speak, exposed to a real consuming fire, of which one cangive no idea, not even a feeble one. Their emotions, their breathingand digestion
, were endowed with superhuman energy; their ideas becamemore excited; they lived a whole day in an hour.
Through all these wonders the launch pushed on before a moderatebreeze, occasionally feeling the air moved by the albatrosses' wings.
Towards evening, the coast of New America disappeared beneath thehorizon. In the temperate zones, as well as at the equator, nightfalls; but here the sun simply described a circle parallel to the lineof the horizon. The launch, bathed in its oblique rays, could not losesight of it.
The animate beings of these regions seemed to know the approach ofevening as truly as if the sun had set; birds, fish, cetacea, alldisappeared. Whither? To the depths of the ocean? Who could say? Butsoon total silence succeeded to their cries, and the sound of theirpassage through the water; the sea grew calmer and calmer, and nightretained its gentle peace even beneath the glowing sun.
Since leaving Altamont Harbor the launch had made one degree to thenorth; the next day nothing appeared on the horizon, neitherprojecting peaks nor those vague signs by which sailors detect theirnearness to land.
The wind was good, but not strong, the sea not high; the birds andfish came as thick as the day before; the doctor, leaning over thegunwale, could see the cetacea rising slowly to the surface; a fewicebergs and scattered pieces of ice alone broke the monotony of theocean.
But the ice grew rarer, and was not enough to interfere with the boat.It is to be remembered that the launch was then ten degrees above thepole of cold; and as to the parallels of temperature, they might aswell have been ten degrees to the other side. There was nothingsurprising in the sea being open at this epoch, as it must have beenat Disco Island in Baffin's Bay. So a sailing vessel would have plentyof sailing room in the summer months.
This observation had a great practical importance; in fact, if whalerscan ever get to the polar basin, either by the seas of North Americaor those of the north of Asia, they are sure of getting full cargoes,for this part of the ocean seems to be the universal fishing-pond, thegeneral reservoir of whales, seals, and all marine animals. At noonthe line of the horizon was still unbroken; the doctor began to doubtof the existence of a continent in so high latitudes.
Still, as he reflected, he was compelled to believe in the existenceof an arctic continent; in fact, at the creation of the world, afterthe cooling of the terrestrial crust, the waters formed by thecondensation of the atmospheric vapor were compelled to obey thecentrifugal force, to fly to the equator and leave the motionlessextremities of the globe. Hence the necessary emersion of thecountries near the Pole. The doctor considered this reasoning veryjust. And so it seemed to Hatteras.
Hence the captain still tried to pierce the mists of the horizon. Hisglass never left his eyes. In the color of the water, the shape of thewaves, the direction of the wind, he tried to find traces ofneighboring land. His head was bent forward, and even one who did notknow his thoughts would have admired, so full was his attitude ofenergetic desire and anxious interrogation.