Edward detached the best pieces of meat, and declared that the rest, including the animal’s head, bones and fat, would maintain the fire, conjointly with a few pieces of wood and the remains of the sea-dog that the bear had left us.
A large fire was then built at the entrance to the cavern; a few steaks were grilled and eaten quite rapidly; everyone drank a few mouthfuls of eau-de-vie, internally regretting the spring of fresh water, for we were very thirsty; then it was decided that we would sleep for six hours, and that each of us would take turns to tend the fire while the others slept. We drew lots, and Tristan was designated for the first hour of sentry duty.
IX. The pomme d’espérance. Vegetal discoveries.
The sun goes down.
A peaceful sleep of six long hours, in a dark cavern, restored us perfectly from our fatigue. Edward had the last watch; before waking us up for the departure he decided to climb the hill to examine the region we were going to cross.
Scarcely had he taken fifty paces amid the rocks than he uttered a loud cry, and called us all, each by name. The little troop got up with a start and we threw ourselves, weapons in hand, outside the cave, for we thought that our friend was at grips with some animal and was imploring our help. On looking around for him, however, we saw him on his knees on the slope of the little mountain. His face was radiant.
“Thank Heaven!” he cried, on seeing us. “God is a good father and our journey is not an extravagance.” As he spoke, he beckoned to us to go to him.
His posture intrigued us more as we approached him. He was avidly contemplating a big hole full of fresh water.10
Oh, how intoxicated we were when we realized that we were so close to that consoling spring!
“My throat is burning,” said Edward, “and yet I didn’t want to drink before you. We ought to regale ourselves together, and share the pleasures as well as the pains, so fall to your knees, thank the one who is slaking your thirst, and let’s drink to our health.”
“Great God,” exclaimed Clairancy, “what pleas, what prayers, can unfortunate mortals address to you? Receive our thanks, and watch over the days of your children, who adore you.”
After that, everyone plunged his hands into the spring, and drank avidly. Williams, more phlegmatic and less thirsty than the rest of us, got up first. He perceived, three paces beyond the spring, a branch of dead wood, and advanced in order to make sure that he was not mistaken. The discovery astonished him so much, in the region in which we found ourselves, that he summoned us to make us party to his surprise. Ours was extreme before that little branch planted in the earth. The neighborhood of the spring certainly gave some hope of vegetation, but why had we found nothing similar near the two springs we had encountered on the coast?
Clairancy drew again the conclusion that the notions people had in Europe of the Arctic are absolutely false; that the remote extremity of Spitzbergen might be even warmer than the middle of the country, for causes that we do not yet know; and that it was certain that one could pass from Spitzbergen to America if one dared to make the attempt.11
“That’s what we’ll do,” he continued, “and we’ll see the North Pole.”
At the same time, he tried to extract the little branch from the earth in which it seemed to be planted; but it resisted his efforts. That new incident caused us further surprise. Clairancy dug around the sprig with the tip of a hunting knife, and found a large tuber eight inches from the surface of the soil in the form of a potato, such as one finds in Holland and Germany. It weighed at least two pounds, and had no odor.
“We need to cook it,” said the Manseau. “It might be good to eat, and a vegetable like that would add a little variety to our diet of bear meat.”
His advice merited following; we had a good heap of embers at the cavern entrance; then we buried the tuber therein, resolved only to eat it if we found that it had some flavor. Its skin, although thick, was extremely soft; the fire was ardent and it was cooked in less than ten minutes, broken into six portions and shared fairly between the little troop. Everyone sniffed it first and then bit into it. The tuber had a taste quite similar to that of a turnip baked under cinders, and was such a fine feast for us that we named it the pomme d’espérance.12
After having eaten, we got ready to set forth again. We had saved enough wood that we still had a good supply; he loaded ourselves with it again, and Williams took charge of the skin of the bear we had killed on arrival. Everyone drank a little more fresh water and bid the fortunate spring farewell.
“Wait,” said Tristan, before leaving. “We might regret that spring at our first halt; I know a means of taking a few pints of water with us...”
As he spoke he cut the four paws off the bearskin. They had been removed without the aid of a knife, so they formed four bags open at both ends. He tied the four extremities with string, which made four perfect containers he filled them with water, having taken the precaution of putting the fur inside, and then tied the other end of the improvised water-skins. By that ingenious means, we carried ten or twelve pints of water with us, which was perfectly conserved.
At our first halt we emptied one of the bags; the water had not frozen. That circumstance confirmed us increasingly in the idea that we were drawing away from the cold, but a few doubts and fears nevertheless remained. We had been told that the far north of the world was nothing but ice, and we could not help thinking that after having traversed Spitzbergen with difficulty we might perhaps find the great sea of solid ice that Europeans call the polar basin.
“All the notions we have been given of the north,” Clairancy told us, “are mere conjectures engendered by timidity and fear. No one has dared to plunge into these bleak deserts, and descriptions have been made at hazard.”
“Furthermore,” added Edward. “Travelers have taken care to depict Spitzbergen in the most frightful fashion, in order to deter the curious from going deeper into it and reconnoitering the region, thus giving the lie to the stories to which people lend so much faith. Sound geographers are content to say that the far north is unknown.”
“Others,” I replied, “maintain that the environs of the pole are merely icy masses, and claim to prove it by means of physics.”
“Physics is so often mistaken,” said Clairancy, that one only ought to rely on sound experiments. Here, above all, it is easy to prove that physics does not know what it is taking about. The magnetic needle turns constantly toward the pole; follow that line and your compass will become agitated, without taking any direction; draw away from one or other pole, and the needle will soon turn its tip toward it. What attracts it thus to the pole? Are we going to say that it’s ice? But it’s necessary to say that, if we maintain that the two extremities of the world are nothing by icy islands. However, approach an icicle to a magnetized needle and see if it has the slightest virtue.
“I believe that the sagest opinion is that there are mountains of iron in the far north…or something unknown to us, that we shall know soon. As for our companions in the cabin, we must renounce the pleasure of seeing them again; we’ll be too far away from them when our discoveries become significant enough to make them party to them. If we returned to the hut, we would have to decide to die there. Those we left there did not have enough courage to run the hazards that we’re confronting. In any case, the season is advancing, and we don’t have any time to waste.
The Manseau, proud of finding himself, in accordance with Clairancy’s calculation, more courageous than the eighteen residents of the cabin, spoke in his turn, and said that he congratulated himself on being part of the expedition we were about to attempt, firstly because he was in the company of brave men, secondly because he was recovering the hope that he might live, and finally because he had presentiments that told him the journey would end well.
“But what worries me,” he added, “is that the sun is going down as we advance, and that we’ll soon lose it.”
“Well,” said Edward, “when we no longer have then sun, we’ll have th
e moon. In the meantime, be brave!”
At that moment, Tristan stopped, staring ahead attentively. I asked him what was wrong.
“Don’t you see anything?” he said, excitedly.
We could, in fact, make out a few sprigs of moss scattered on the ground, sparse enough at first, but which appeared to become denser in the distance.
The Manseau, who boasted of having fine and penetrating eyesight, exclaimed that he could see something a good league away that might well be a large meadow. His idea caused us to burst out laughing, but the moss that had appeared was real, and gave us new hope.
In order not to abuse the complaisance of the reader, and to avoid repeating details that might perhaps be tiresome, I shall simply say that in a five-day journey we traveled more than sixty leagues, almost in the same manner that we had begun, except that we found more vegetation as we drew further away from the cabin. At the same time, the terrain became so hilly that we had little difficulty in finding cavities like the first in which to sleep. Moss—gathered, admittedly with some difficulty—maintained our fires, and springs were so frequent that we no longer made use of our bear-paws.
During those five days, we had not perceived any animal, and our provisions were soon exhausted. The cold was intense, but we were convinced that it was diminishing from day to day; if we were mistaken, our experience proved the truth of the maxim that good and evil are entirely in the imagination.
At any rate, the sun abandoned us on the twentieth of October. The moon took its place, no longer quitting the horizon.
X. Northern lands. Unknown animals and fruits.
The aurora borealis.
The light of the moon was so bright that it consoled us for the absence of the sun. The sky was pure, the air serene and extremely dry. The earth before us was covered with thick yellow-tinted moss, and we were already encountering bushes from time to time that resembled box-trees and the dwarf pines of Switzerland. The pole star now served as our guide. The most absolute silence reigned everywhere around us, and we did not even hear the slightest gust of wind. Furthermore, we all enjoyed the best of health.
Although we had crossed all of Spitzbergen, it would be impossible for us to describe. Some geographers have made it an island; I shall only say that they are mistaken about that; either Spitzbergen is a continent that extends all the way to the pole, or it is a peninsula joined to the polar lands of the north, since we were not stopped in our march either by the sea or by any river. I think, therefore, that it is a vast desert, placed by God himself in order to separate the people of the terrestrial world from the opening at the pole; and that frightful barrier had doubtless never been crossed before us.
On the sixth day of our journey—which is to say, the twenty-first of October, the little troop entered into sandy heath of a sort, strewn with mosses, creeping herbs and unknown bushes, the tallest of which was barely three feet high. Our joy is easily imaginable on seeing the soil and the climate before us embellished by the hour.
Edward, almost in ecstasy at finally treading a more cheerful terrain, paused from time to time to enjoy the consolatory aspect of the vegetation. Soon he shouted that he could see three foxes. We thought at first that he was dreaming, but when we looked in the direction he was pointing, each of us could make out, a hundred paces away, three white animals, walking rather slowly because of the smallness of their feet.
Although we could have run after them, the fear of losing them in some burrow stopped us. Edward and Clairancy advanced alone, stealthily, and each fired two rifle shots. It had been four days since we had made use of our weapons, and when we had killed the white bear on the first day, our guns had only produced an ordinary detonation. Here it was terribly repeated by several echoes.
“Let’s rejoice!” exclaimed Clairancy. “We’re no longer in flat country; we’ll find mountains, valleys, and perhaps forests.”
After that speech, he remembered the three white beasts at which he had just shot. We had caught up with him and Edward; we all ran to the place where we had seen our prey. One of the three animals was stone dead; the others were no longer there. The Manseau perceived them under a bush, slightly wounded, trying in vain to evade our search. The whiteness of their coats gave them away. Martinet picked them up, therefore, gave them to us to kill, and returned to the bush, where, he said, there was something he had to look at.
Indeed, he called out, after a few moments, that he had just made the most delightful of all discoveries, from our viewpoint.
“What is it, then?” we asked him, excitedly.
“Plums, my friends,” he replied. “Black plums. It’s doubtless the ordinary nourishment of the animals I just caught, for it stands to reason that they wouldn’t be living in this country if there were nothing here to eat.”
“Inasmuch as one can’t live on air any more in the north than in the south,” added Williams. “But after all, they are plums, or rather sloes, since they’re no bigger than a pistol-bullet...”
During all this verbiage, we had all gathered around the bush. It really was laden with little dry plums, which fell into the hand as soon as they were touched. They were blackish, slightly elongated fruits with a slightly sour taste, but extremely refreshing. They had no stones, but we nevertheless retained the name of plums, which reminded us of Europe. We each ate copiously and filled our pockets with them, blessing the father of nature.
After that, we resumed our route, laden with fruits, of which we had been deprived for so long, and with the hope of making a better dinner than usual with our three pieces of game.
We marched agreeably for a good two hours, still in the bushy heath, and then found a little spring that formed a stream, weak and silent, in verity, but it was the first one we had encountered since arriving in Spitzbergen. It was decided that we would eat beside the spring, so we set down our burdens. Some of us gathered herbs and broke off twigs for the fire, which was soon lit, while the others skinned the three animals we had killed. Their flesh was as white as their skin, and they would have resembled our hares if they had had rounder muzzles, shorter legs and a smaller tail. They were cooked without lingering too long over the question of whether they were hares or foxes, while I walked along the little stream with Clairancy, which disappeared underground after two hundred paces. Some of the others dug up several pommes d’espérance on the banks, which grew there in rather large quantity.
I can assure you now, on my own behalf and that of all my comrades, that the best and most delicious meal of our lives was the one we made at that halt. No one touched the bear-meat, of which we were beginning to weary, but we fell so eagerly upon the three white hares that they were completely dispatched. Their roasted flesh was excellent: fresh, tender and as delicate in its taste as that of the most renowned of our European hares. Perhaps it was a little more insipid, but that was hardly noticed. The pommes d’espérance, the plums, the eau-de-vie, the spring water, and with all of that, a good fire, were enough, I believe, after having had so many troubles, for poor devils like us to believe themselves momentarily as happy as princes. In any case, we were the sovereigns and masters of the land, and could exercise all rights freely.
While we were finishing our dinner with the noisiest gaiety, however, and congratulating one another on having quit the cabin, and thanking Clairancy and Edward again for being the authors and leaders of the enterprise, a phenomenon common enough in northern nights suddenly came to disturb our joy. The sky was clear, the moon shining with all its brilliance, when it was suddenly tarnished and we saw, in the direction of the pole, the entire landscape ablaze, with sheets of flame spread over the sky; and it seemed to us that we could hear distant noises that we could not define.
Martinet pointed out to us chariots of fire, ardent armies borne on the clouds, blazing cavaliers fighting one another fiercely, charging one another at a full gallop. Tristan observed that a rain of fire or blood was falling around the pole. Williams made us distinguish in the distant noises the sound
of thunder and bursts of bellicose music. A mortal terror was about to take possession of us, when Edward and Clairancy reminded us that everything that we could see was merely an aurora borealis.
“You know,” Edward told us, “that this phenomenon is illuminated almost every night around the poles. The Lapps, the Russians and the Norwegians are so accustomed to it that they rejoice in seeing it. All those that have spent the night in Spitzbergen have had the spectacle, and we ought to expect to enjoy it for as long as the Arctic night lasts.”
He went on: “If you care to make a small effort of memory, you’ll recall that even England has seen a few boreal aurorae, and in the sixteenth century, in the reign of Henry VIII, London and several other cities were frightened, on the same autumnal night, by these marvelous apparitions. Giants of flame were seen battling in the clouds, blazing horses traversing the plans of the sky, horrible heads that separated from their bodies, hideous monsters that chopped one another into pieces with fiery scimitars. Blood flowed in abundance; the sound of drums, trumpets and artillery fire was heard, and the muffled and terrible clamors of the combatants. Some saw, in those frightful signs, certain presages of wars, plagues and famines; others claimed that the prodigies announced the end of the world. But everything dissipated before dawn; in so many marvels, a natural marvel was recognized: an aurora borealis. There was, in its wake, neither war, nor plague, nor famine, and the end of the world did not arrive.”
“France, added Clairancy,” although more distant from the north than Great Britain, has also seen such prodigies. In the reign of Louis XI, while the Comte de Charolais was besieging Paris, an aurora borealis manifest around midnight made it appear that the entire city was ablaze. It was thought at first that the enemy had withdrawn, after setting fire to the city, but nothing was burning, and luminous clouds were soon perceived in the sky, which were named flaming clouds; those dazzling clouds represented armies, phantoms, monsters or demons, in accordance with what the imagination of each spectator wanted to configure therein.
Voyage to the Center of the Earth Page 6
