CHAPTER XVI
HORN BLUFF AND PENGUIN POINT
by C. T. MADIGAN
What thrill of grandeur ours
When first we viewed the column'd fell!
What idle, lilting verse can tell
Of giant fluted towers,
O'er-canopied with immemorial snow
And riven by a glacier's azure flow?
As we neared Horn Bluff, on the first stage of our homeward
march, the upper layers of snow were observed to disappear, and the underlying
ice became thinner; in corrugated sapphire plains with blue reaches of sparkling
water. Cracks bridged with flimsy snow continually let one through into
the water. McLean and I both soaked our feet and once I was immersed to
the thighs, having to stop and put on dry socks and finnesko. It was a chilly
process allowing the trousers to dry on me.
The mountain, pushing out as a great promontory from the coast amid the
fast sea-ice, towered up higher as our sledge approached its foot. A great
shadow was cast on the ice, and, when more than a mile away, we left the
warm sunshine.
Awed and amazed, we beheld the lone vastness of it all and were mute. Rising
out of the flat wilderness over which we had travelled was a mammoth vertical
barrier of rock rearing its head to the skies above. The whole face for
five miles was one magnificent series of organ-pipes. The deep shade was
heightened by the icy glare beyond it. Here was indeed a Cathedral of Nature,
where the ``still, small voice'' spoke amid an ineffable calm.
Far up the face of the cliff snow petrels fluttered like white butterflies.
It was stirring to think that these majestic heights had gazed out across
the wastes of snow and ice for countless ages, and never before had the
voices of human beings echoed in the great stillness nor human eyes surveyed
the wondrous scene.
From the base of the organ-pipes sloped a mass of debris; broken blocks
of rock of every size tumbling steeply to the splintered hummocks of the
sea-ice.
Standing out from the top of this talus-slope were several white ``beacons,''
up to which we scrambled when the tent was pitched. This was a tedious task
as the stones were ready to slide down at the least touch, and often we
were carried down several yards by a general movement. Wearing soft finnesko,
we ran the risk of getting a crushed foot among the large boulders. Amongst
the rubble were beds of clay, and streams of thaw-water trickled down to
the surface of a frozen lake.
After rising two hundred feet, we stood beneath the beacons which loomed
above to a height of one hundred and twenty-eight feet. The organ-pipes
were basaltic** in character but, to my great joy, I found the beacons were
of sedimentary rock. After a casual examination, the details were left till
the morrow.
** To be exact the igneous rook was a very thick sill of dolerite,
That night we had a small celebration on raisins, chocolate and apple-rings,
besides the ordinary fare of hoosh, biscuit and cocoa. Several times we
were awakened by the crash of falling stones. Snow petrels had been seen
coming home to their nests in the beacons, which were weathered out into
small caves and crannies. From the camp we could hear their harsh cries.
The scene in the morning sun was a brilliant one. The great columnar rampart
ran almost north and south and the tent was on its eastern side. So what
was in dark shadow on the day before was now radiantly illumined.
Correll remained behind on the sea-ice with a theodolite to take heights
of the various strata. McLean and I, armed with aneroid, glasses, ruck-sack,
geological hammer (ice-axe) and camera, set out for the foot of the talus-slope.
The beacons were found to be part of a horizontal, stratified series of
sandstones underlying the igneous rock. There were bands of coarse gravel
and fine examples of stream-bedding interspersed with seams of carbonaceous
shale and poor coal. Among the debris were several pieces of sandstone marked
by black, fossilized plant-remains. The summits of the beacons were platforms
of very hard rock, baked by the volcanic overflow. The columns, roughly
hexagonal and weathered to a dull-red, stood above in sheer perpendicular
lines of six hundred and sixty feet in altitude.
After taking a dozen photographs of geological and general interest and
stuffing the sack and our pockets with specimens, we picked a track down
the shelving talus to a lake of fresh water which was covered with a superficial
crust of ice beneath which the water ran. The surface was easily broken
and we fetched the aluminium cover of the cooker, filling it with three
gallons of water, thus saving kerosene for almost a day.
After McLean had collected samples of soil, lichens, algae and moss, and
all the treasures had been labelled, we lunched and harnessed-up once more
for the homeward trail.
For four miles we ran parallel to the one-thousand-foot wall of Horn Bluff
meeting several boulders stranded on the ice, as well as the fragile shell
of a tiny sea-urchin. The promontory was domed with snow and ice, more than
one thousand two hundred feet above sea-level. From it streamed a blue glacier
overflowing through a rift in the face. Five miles on our way, the sledge
passed from frictionless ice to rippled snow and with a march of seven miles,
following lunch, we pitched camp.
Every one was tired that night, and our prayer to the Sleep Merchant in
the book of Australian verse was for:
Twenty gallons of balmy sleep,
Dreamless, and deep, and mild,
Of the excellent brand you used to keep
When I was a little child.
For three days, December 22, 23 and 24, the wind soughed
at thirty miles per hour and the sky was a compact nimbus, unveiling the
sun at rare moments. Through a mist of snow we steered on a north-west course
towards the one-hundred-and-fifty-two mile depot. The wind was from the
south-east true, and this information, with hints from the sun-compass,
gave us the direction. With the sail set, on a flat surface, among ghostly
bergs and over narrow leads we ran for forty-seven miles with scarce a clear
view of what lay around. The bergs had long ramps of snow leading close
up to their summits on the windward side and in many cases the intervals
between these ramps and the bergs were occupied by deep moats.
One day we were making four knots an hour under all canvas through thick
drift. Suddenly, after a gradual ascent, I was on the edge of a moat, thirty
feet deep. I shouted to the others and, just in time, the sledge was slewed
round on the very brink.
We pushed on blindly:
The toil of it none may share;
By yourself must the way be won
Through fervid or frozen air
Till the overland journey's done.
Christmas Day! The day that ever reminds one of the sweet
story of old, the lessons of childhood, the joys of Santa Claus--the day
on which the thoughts of the wildest wanderer turn to home and peace and
love. All the world was cheerful; the sun was bright, the air was calm.
It was the hometrail, provisions were in plenty, the sledge was light and
our hearts lighter.
The eastern edge of Ninnis Glacier was near, and, leaving the sea-ice, we
were soon straining up the first slope, backed by a line of ridges trending
north-east and south-west, with shallow valleys intervening. On the wind-swept
crests there were a few crevasses well packed with snow.
It was a day's work of twelve miles and we felt ready for Christmas dinner.
McLean was cook and had put some apple-rings to soak in the cooker after
the boil-up at lunch. Beyond this and the fact that he took some penguin-meat
into the tent, he kept his plans in the deepest mystery. Correll and I were
kept outside making things snug and taking the meteorological observations,
until the word came to enter. When at last we scrambled in, a delicious
smell diffused through the tent, and there was a sound of frying inside
the cooker-pot. We were presented with a menu which read:
``Peace on earth, good will to men.''
Xmas 1912 KING GEORGE V. LAND
200 miles east of Winter Quarters.
MENU DU DINER
Hors d'oeuvre
Biscuit de plasmon Ration du lard glace
Entree
Monsieur l'Empereur Pingouin fricasse
Piece de Resistance
Pemmican naturel a l'Antarctique
Dessert
Hotch-potch de pommes et de raisins
Chocolat au sucre glaxone
Liqueur bien ancienne de l'Ecosse
Cigarettes Tabac
The hors d'oeuvre of bacon ration was a welcome surprise.
McLean had carried the tin unknown to us up till this moment. The penguin,
fried in lumps of fat taken from the pemmican, and a little butter, was
delicious. In the same pot the hoosh was boiled and for once we noted an
added piquancy. Next followed the plum-pudding--dense mixture of powdered
biscuit, glaxo, sugar, raisins and apple-rings, surpassing the
finest, flaming, holly-decked, Christmas creation.
Then came the toasts. McLean produced the whisky from the medical kit and
served it out, much diluted, in three mugs. There was not three ounces in
all, but it flavoured the water.
I was asked to call ``The King.'' McLean proposed ``The Other Sledgers''
in a noble speech, wishing them every success; and then there were a few
drops left to drink to ``Ourselves,'' whom Correll eulogized to our complete
satisfaction. We then drew on the meagre supply of cigarettes and lay on
our bags, feeling as comfortable as the daintiest epicure after a twelve-course
dinner, drinking his coffee and smoking his cigar.
We talked till twelve o'clock, and then went outside to look at the midnight
sun, shining brightly just above the southern horizon. Turning in, we were
once more at home in our dreams.
By a latitude shot at noon on Boxing Day, I found that our position was
not as far north as expected. The following wind had been probably slightly
east of south-east and too much westing had been made. From a tangle of
broken ridges whose surface was often granular, half-consolidated ice, the
end of the day opened up a lilac plain of sea-ice ahead. We were once more
on the western side of Ninnis Glacier and the familiar coast of Penguin
Point, partly hidden by an iceberg, sprang into view. The depot hill to
the north-west could be recognized, twenty miles away, across a wide bay.
By hooch-time we had found a secure path to the sea-ice, one hundred and
eighty feet below.
The wind sprang up opportunely on the morning of the 27th, and the sun was
serene in a blue sky. Up went the sail and with a feather-weight load we
strode off for the depot eighteen miles distant. Three wide rifts in the
sea-ice exercised our ingenuity during the day's march, but by the time
the sun was in the south-west the sledge was sawing through the sandy snow
of the depot hill. It was unfortunate that the food of this depot had been
cached so far out of our westerly course, as the time expended in recovering
it might have been profitably given to a survey of the mainland east of
Penguin Point. At 6.20 P.M., after eighteen and a quarter miles, the food-bag
was sighted on the mound, and that night the dinner at our one-hundred-and-fifty-two-mile
depot was marked by some special innovations.
Penguin Point, thirty miles away, bore W. 15 degrees S., and next day we
made a bid for it by a march of sixteen miles. There was eleven days' ration
on the sledge to take us to Mount Murchison, ninety miles away; consequently
the circuitous route to the land was held to be a safe ``proposition.''
Many rock faces became visible, and I was able to fix numerous prominent
points with the theodolite.
At three miles off the coast, the surface became broken by ridges, small
bergs and high, narrow cupolas of ice surrounded by deep moats. One of these
was very striking. It rose out of a wind-raked hollow to a height of fifty
feet; just the shape of an ancient Athenian helmet. McLean took a photograph.
As at Horn Bluff, the ice became thinner and freer of snow as we drew near
the Point. The rocky wall under which the tent was raised proved to be three
hundred feet high, jutting out from beneath the slopes of ice. From here
the coast ran almost south on one side and north-west on the other. On either
hand there were dark faces corniced with snow.
The next day was devoted to exploration. Adelie penguins waddled about the
tide-crack over which we crossed to examine the rock, which was of coarse-grained
granite, presenting great, vertical faces. Hundreds of snow petrels flew
about and some stray skua gulls were seen.
Near the camp, on thick ice, were several large blocks of granite which
had floated out from the shore and lay each in its pool of thaw-water, covered
with serpulae and lace coral.
Correll, our Izaak Walton, had brought a fishing-line and some penguin-meat.
He stopped near the camp fishing while McLean and I continued down the coast,
examining the outcrops. The type of granite remained unchanged in the numerous
exposures.
I had noticed a continuous rustling sound for some time and found at length
that it was caused by little streams of ice-crystals running down the steep
slopes in cascades, finally pouring out in piles on the sea-ice. The partial
thaw in the sunlight causes the semi-solid ice to break up into separate
grains. Sometimes whole areas of the surface, in delicate equilibrium, would
suddenly flow rapidly away.
For three miles we walked, and as the next four miles of
visible coast presented no extensive outcrops, we turned back for lunch.
During the afternoon, on the summit of the Point, it was found that an uneven
rocky area, about a quarter of a mile wide, ran backwards to the ice-falls
of the plateau. The surface was very broken and weathered, covered in patches
by abundant lichens and mosses. Fossicking round in the gravel, Correll
happened on some tiny insect-like mites living amongst the moss or on the
moist under side of slabs of stone. This set us all insect-hunting. Alcohol
was brought in a small bottle from the tent, and into this they were swept
in myriads with a camel's-hair brush. From the vantage-point of a high rock
in the neighbourhood the long tongue of Mertz Glacier could be seen running
away to the north.
At 8.30 A.M., on New Year's Eve, we set off for another line of rocks about
four miles away to the west. There were two masses forming an angle in the
ice-front and consisting of two main ridges rising to a height of two hundred
and fifty feet, running back into the ice-cap for a mile, and divided by
a small glacier.
This region was soon found to be a perfect menagerie of life. Seals lay
about dozing peacefully by the narrow lanes of water. Adelie penguins strutted
in procession up and down the little glacier. To reach his rookery, a penguin
would leap four feet on to a ledge of the ice-foot, painfully pad up the
glassy slope and then awkwardly scale the rocks until he came to a level
of one hundred and fifty feet. Here he took over the care of a chick or
an egg, while the other bird went to fish. Skua gulls flew about, continually
molesting the rookeries. One area of the rocks was covered by a luxuriant
growth of green moss covering guano and littered skeletons--the site of
a deserted rookery.
Correll and I went up to where the ridges converged, selecting numerous
specimens of rock and mineral and finding thousands of small red mites in
the moist gravel. Down on the southern ridge we happened on a Wilson petrel
with feathered nestlings. At this point McLean came along from the west
with the news of silver-grey petrels and Cape pigeons nesting in hundreds.
He had secured two of each species and several eggs. This was indeed a discovery,
as the eggs of the former birds had never before been found. Quite close
to us were many snow petrels in all kinds of unexpected crevices. The light
was too dull for photographing, but, while I took magnetic ``dips'' on the
following morning, McLean visited the silver-grey petrels and Cape pigeons
and secured a few ``snaps.''
The last thing we did before leaving the mainland was to kill two penguins
and cut off their breasts and this meat was, later, to serve us in good
stead.
Crossing the Mertz Glacier at any time would have been an unpleasant undertaking,
but to go straight to Mount Murchison (the site of our first depot on the
outward journey) from Penguin Point meant spanning it in a long oblique
line. It was preferable to travel quickly and safely over the sea-ice on
a north-westerly course, which, plotted on the chart, intersected our old
one-hundred-mile camp on the eastern margin of the glacier; then to cross
by the route we already knew.
By January 2 we had thrown Penguin Point five miles behind, and a spell
of unsettled weather commenced; in front lay a stretch of fourteen miles
over a good surface. The wind was behind us, blowing between thirty
and forty miles per hour, and from an overcast sky light snow was falling.
Fortunately there were fleeting glimpses of the sun, by which the course
could be adjusted. Towards evening the snow had thickened, but thanks to
the splendid assistance afforded by a sail, the white jutting spurs of the
edge of Mertz Glacier were dimly visible.
A blizzard took possession of the next day till 7 P.M., when we all sallied
out and found the identical gully in which was the one-hundred-mile camp
of the outward journey. The light was still bad and the sky overcast, so
the start was postponed till next morning.
There was food for five days on a slightly reduced ration and the depot
on Mount Murchison was forty miles away.
Once we had left the sea-ice and stood on the glacier, Aurora Peak with
its black crest showed through the glasses. Once there, the crevasses we
most dreaded would be over and the depot easily found.
A good fourteen and a quarter miles slipped by on January 4--a fine day.
On January 5 the ``plot began to thicken.'' The clouds hung above like a
blanket, sprinkling light snow. The light was atrocious, and a few open
rents gave warning of the western zone of pitfalls. All the while there
was a shifting spectral chaos of whiteness which seemed to benumb the faculties
and destroy one's sense of reality. We decided to wait for a change in the
weather.
During the night the snow ceased, and by lunch time on the 6th the sledge-meter
recorded ten miles. The strange thing was that the firm sastrugi present
on the outward journey were now covered inches in snow, which became deeper
as we marched westward.
It was now a frequent occurrence for one of us to pitch forward with his
feet down a hidden crevasse, sometimes going through to the waist. The travelling
was most nerve-racking. When a foot went through the crust of snow, it was
impossible to tell on which side of the crevasse one happened to be, or
in what direction it ran. The only thing to do was to go ahead and trust
in Providence.
At last we landed the sledge on a narrow ridge of hard snow, surrounded
by blue, gaping pits in a pallid eternity of white. It was only when the
tent was pitched that a wide quarry was noticed a few yards away from the
door.
It was now fourteen miles to the top of Mount Murchison and we had only
two more days' rations and one and a half pounds of penguin-meat.
On January 7th the light was worse than ever and snow fell. It was only
six miles across the broken country between us and the gully between Mt.
Murchison and Aurora Peak, where one could travel with some surety. A sharp
look-out was kept, and towards 11 P.M. a rim of clear sky overtopped the
southern horizon. We knew the sun would curve round into it at midnight,
so all was made ready for marching.
When the sun's disc emerged into the rift there was light; but dim, cold
and fleeting. The smallest irregularity on the surface threw a shadow hundreds
of yards long. The plain around was a bluish-grey checquer-board of light
and shade; ahead, sharp and clear against the leaden sky, stood beautiful
Aurora Peak, swathed in lustrous gold-- the chariot of the goddess herself.
The awful splendour of the scene tended to depress one and make the task
more trying. I have never felt more nervous than I did in that ghostly light
in the tense silence, surrounded by the hidden horror of fathomless depths.
All was covered with a uniform layer of snow, growing deeper and heavier
at every step. I was ahead and went through eight times in about four miles.
The danger lay in getting the sledge and one, two, or all of us on a weak
snow-bridge at the same time. As long as the sledge did not go down we were
comparatively safe.
At 1.30 A.M. the sun was obscured and the light waned to dead white. Still
we went on, as the entrance of the gully between Aurora Peak and Mount Murchison
was near at hand and we had a mind to get over the danger-zone before a
snowstorm commenced.
By 5.30 A.M. we breathed freely on ``terra firma,'' even though one sunk
through a foot of snow to feel it. It had taken six hours to do the last
five and three-quarter miles, and, being tired out with the strain on muscles
and nerves, we raised the tent, had a meal, and then slept till noon on
the 8th. It was eight miles to the depot, five miles up the gully and three
miles to the summit of Mount Murchison; and no one doubted for a moment
that it could not be done in a single day's march.
Advancing up the gully after lunch, we found that the surface became softer,
and we were soon sinking to the knees at every step. The runners, too, sank
till the decking rested on the snow, and it was as much as we could do to
shift the sledge, with a series of jerks at every step. At 6 P.M. matters
became desperate. We resolved to make a depot of everything unnecessary,
and to relay it up the mountain afterwards.
The sledge-meter, clogged with snow and almost submerged, was taken off
and stood up on end to mark a depot, whilst a pile was made of the dip-circle,
theodolite and tripod, pick, alpine rope, ice-axe, all the mineral and biological
specimens and excess clothing.
Even thus lightened, we could scarcely move the sledge, struggling on, sinking
to the thighs in the flocculent deluge. Snow now began to fall so thickly
that it was impossible to see ahead.
At 7 P.M. we finished up the last scraps of pemmican and cocoa. Biscuit,
sugar and glaxo had given out at the noon meal. There still remained one
and a half pounds of penguin meat, several infusions of tea and plenty of
kerosene for the primus.
We staggered on till 10.30 P.M., when the weather became so dense that the
sides of the gully were invisible. Tired out, we camped and had some tea.
In eight hours we had only made four and a half miles, and there was still
the worst part to come.
In our exhausted state we slept till 11 P.M. of January 9, awaking to find
the sky densely overcast and a light fog in the air. During a rift which
opened for a few minutes there was a short glimpse of the rock on Aurora
Peak. Shredding half the penguin-meat, we boiled it up and found the stew
and broth excellent.
At 1.30 A.M. we started to struggle up the gully once more, wading along
in a most helpless fashion, with breathing spells every ten yards or less.
Snow began to fall in such volume that at last it was impossible to keep
our direction with any certainty. The only thing to do was to throw up the
tent as a shelter and wait. This we did till 4.30 A.M.; but there must have
been a cloud-burst, for the heavy flakes toppled on to the tent like tropical
rain. We got into sleeping-bags, and tried to be patient and to forget that
we were hungry.
Apparently, during our seven weeks' absence, the local precipitation had
been almost continual, and snow now lay over this region in stupendous amount.
Even when one sank three feet, it was not on to the firm sastrugi over which
we had travelled out of the valley on the outward journey, for these lay
still deeper. It was hoped that the ``snowdump'' did not continue over the
fifty miles to the Hut, but we argued that on the windy plateau this could
scarcely be possible.
It was evident that without any more food, through this bottomless, yielding
snow, we could never haul the sledge up to the depot, a rise of one thousand
two hundred feet in three miles. One of us must go up and bring food back,
and I decided to do so as soon as the weather cleared.
We found the wait for clearer weather long and trying with empty stomachs.
As the tobacco-supply still held out, McLean and I found great solace in
our pipes. All through the rest of the day and till 5 P.M. of the next,
January 10, there was not a rift in the opaque wall of flakes. Then to our
intense relief the snow stopped, the clouds rolled to the north, and, in
swift transformation--a cloudless sky with bright sunshine! With the rest
of the penguin-meat--a bare half-pound--we had another thin broth. Somewhat
fortified, I took the food-bag and shovel, and left the tent at 5.30 A.M.
Often sinking to the thighs, I felt faint at the first exertion. The tent
scarcely seemed to recede as I toiled onwards towards the first steep slope.
The heavy mantle of snow had so altered the contours of the side of the
gully that I was not sure of the direction of the top of the mountain.
Resting every hundred yards, I floundered on hour after hour, until, on
arriving at a high point, I saw a little shining mound standing up on a
higher point, a good mile to the east. After seven hours' wading I reached
it and found that it was the depot.
Two feet of the original eight-foot mound projected above the surface, with
the bamboo pole and a wire-and-canvas flag rising another eighteen inches.
On this, a high isolated mountain summit, six feet of snow had actually
accumulated. How thankful I was that I had brought a shovel!
At seven feet I ``bottomed'' on the hard snow, without result. Then, running
a tunnel in the most probable direction, I struck with the shovel the kerosene
tin which was on the top of the food-bag. On opening the bag, the first
items to appear were sugar, butter and biscuits; the next quarter of an
hour I shall not forget!
I made a swag of five days' provisions, and, taking a direct route, attacked
the three miles downhill in lengths of one hundred and fifty yards. Coming
in sight of the tent, I called to my companions to thaw some water for a
drink. So slow was progress that I could speak to them a quarter of an hour
before reaching the tent. I had been away eleven and a half hours, covering
about seven miles in all.
McLean and Correll were getting anxious about me. They said that they had
felt the cold and were unable to sleep. Soon I had produced the pemmican
and biscuit, and a scalding hoosh was made. The other two had had only a
mug of penguin broth each in three days, and I had only broken my fast a
few hours before them.
After the meal, McLean and Correll started back to the cache, two miles
down the gully, to select some of the geological and biological specimens
and to fetch a few articles of clothing. The instruments, the greater part
of the collection of rocks, crampons, sledge-meter and other odds and ends
were all left behind. Coming back with the loads slung like swags they found
that by walking in their old footsteps they made fair progress.
By 8 P.M. all had rested, every unnecessary fitting had been stripped off
the sledge and the climb to the depot commenced. I went ahead in my old
trail, Correll also making use of it; while McLean broke a track for himself.
The work was slow and heavy; nearly six hours were spent doing those three
miles.
It was a lovely evening; the yellow sun drifting through orange cloudlets
behind Aurora Peak. We were in a more appreciative mood than on the last
midnight march, exulting in the knowledge of ten days' provisions at hand
and fifty-three miles to go to reach the Hut.
In the manner of the climate, a few wisps of misty rack came sailing from
the south-east, the wind rose, snow commenced to fall and a blizzard held
sway for almost three days. It was just as well that we had found that depot
when we did.
The fifty-three miles to the Hut melted away in the pleasures of anticipation.
The first two miles, on the morning of January 14, gave us some strenuous
work, but they were luxurious in comparison with what we expected; soon,
however, the surface rapidly and permanently improved. A forty-mile wind
from the south-east was a distinct help, and by the end of the day we had
come in sight of the nunatak first seen after leaving the Hut(Madigan Nunatak).
In two days forty miles lay behind. Down the blue ice-slopes in slippery
finnesko, and Aladdin's Cave hove in sight. We tumbled in, to be assailed
by a wonderful odour which brought back orchards, shops, people--a breath
of civilization. In the centre of the floor was a pile of oranges surmounted
by two luscious pineapples. The Ship was in! There was a bundle of letters--Bage
was back from the south--Wild had been landed one thousand five hundred
miles to the west--Amundsen had reached the Pole! Scott was remaining in
the Antarctic for another year. How we shouted and read all together!
CHAPTER XVII -
WITH STILLWELL'S AND BICKERTON'S PARTIES
