by Jules Verne
My eyes no longer left the pressure-gauge. We were moving continuously upwards, at an angle, with the resplendent ice sparkling in the electric rays all the while. The ice-cap was getting thinner, both above and below. It was reducing mile after mile.
Finally at six in the morning on that memorable day of 19 March, the door of the salon opened. Captain Nemo appeared.
‘The open sea!’ he said.
14
The South Pole
I rushed on to the platform. Yes, the open sea! Just a few scattered ice-floes and floating icebergs. In the distance, a large sea; in the air, a world of birds; and myriads of fish in the water, which varied from deep blue to olive green according to the depth. The thermometer marked 3°. In relative terms, this was like a spring trapped behind the icefield, whose distant masses stood out on the northern horizon.
‘Are we at the Pole?’ I asked the captain, my heart beating wildly.
‘I cannot tell. We will determine our position at noon.’
‘But will the sun appear through the mists?’ I asked, staring at the beige sky.
‘However briefly it appears, it will be enough for me.’
Ten miles to the south of the Nautilus, a solitary island rose to a height of 200 metres. We sailed towards it, but carefully, for the sea could be strewn with reefs.
An hour later we arrived. Two hours after that we had finished going round the island. It measured four or five miles in circumference. A narrow channel separated it from a considerable expanse of land, a continent perhaps, whose limits we were not able to gauge. The existence of dry land seemed to confirm Maury’s hypothesis. The ingenious American noticed that between the South Pole and the 60th parallel, the sea is covered with floating ice blocks of enormous dimensions, rarely encountered in the North Atlantic. From this fact he drew the conclusion that the Antarctic Circle encompasses considerable land, since icebergs cannot form in the open sea but only on coasts. According to his calculations, the blocks of ice surrounding the South Pole form a huge ice-cap, whose width must reach 4,000 kilometres.
Fearing a collision, the Nautilus had stopped three cables from the shore, which was dominated by a superb rocky massif. The boat was launched. The captain, two of his men carrying instruments, and Conseil and I embarked. It was ten in the morning. I had not seen Ned Land. Without doubt the Canadian was not ready to concede defeat as regards the South Pole.
A few oar-strokes took the boat to the sand, where it ran aground. Just as Conseil was about to jump ashore, I held him back.
‘Monsieur,’ I said to Captain Nemo, ‘the honour of being the first to set foot belongs to you.’
‘Indeed, monsieur,’ replied the captain, ‘it will bring me great joy to be the first man to leave footprints on this polar ground.’
Having said that, he jumped lightly on to the sand. A strong emotion caused his heart to beat faster. He climbed a rock forming an overhang at the end of a little promontory, and there, with arms crossed, eyes gleaming, motionless and silent, he seemed to take possession of the southern regions.* After five minutes spent in this trance, he turned towards us again.
‘When you wish, monsieur,’ he shouted to me.
I disembarked, followed by Conseil, leaving the two crewmen in the boat.
The ground appeared to be a coloured tuff that spread into the distance, as if made of ground brick. It was covered in scoriae, lava flows, and pumice stones. One could not mistake its volcanic origin. At places, a few slight exhalations produced a sulphurous smell, witness to still-active interior fires. Nevertheless, having climbed a high escarpment, I could not see any volcanoes within a radius of several miles. It is well known that James Ross* found the craters of Erebus and Terror in full activity in these Antarctic lands at the 167th meridian and 77° 32´ S.
The vegetation of this desolate landmass seemed extremely limited. A few lichens of the species Usnea melanoxantha covered the black quartzose rocks. The meagre flora of the region was entirely composed of microscopic plantlets called rudimentary diatoms, forms of cells fitted between two quartzose shells, together with long purple and crimson wracks attached to little swimming bladders which the swell threw on to the coast.
The shore was dotted with molluscs: little mussels, limpets, smooth heart-shaped cockles, and especially clios with oval-shaped membranous bodies and heads made up of two round lobes. I could also see myriads of three-centimetre southern clios of which a whale swallows a whole world with each mouthful. These charming pteropods, true sea butterflies, gave life to the open water near the shore.
Amongst other zoophytes appearing on the shallows were a few coral arborescences, which James Ross reports as living in the Antarctic seas as deep as 1,000 metres, small dead man’s fingers belonging to the species Procellaria pelagica, a large number of Asterias peculiar to these climes, and some starfish dotting the ground.
But in contrast life was over-abundant in the air. Thousands of birds of varied species flew and fluttered, deafening us with their cries. Others covered the rocks, watching us pass without fear and crowding familiarly under our feet. These birds were penguins: although clumsy and heavy on land, they are quite agile and supple in the water, where they have sometimes been confused with the fleet bonito. They produced raucous cries, and formed numerous assemblies; sober in gesture, but with much clamour.
Amongst the birds, I noticed sheathbills belonging to the family of waders, as big as pigeons: white, with short conical beaks, and eyes surrounded by red circles. Conseil stocked up with them, for they make a pleasant dish when properly prepared. Sooty albatrosses, with a wingspan of four metres, passed through the air; gigantic petrels with curved wings, including some lammergeiers, which are great devourers of seals, and are appropriately called the vultures of the sea; chequered gulls, like little ducks with the tops of their bodies coloured black and white; and finally a whole series of petrels, some of them verging on white with wings edged in brown, others blue and peculiar to the Antarctic seas. These petrels are ‘so oily’, as I said to Conseil, ‘that the inhabitants of the Faroe Islands merely add a wick before lighting them’.
‘If they are so oleaginous,’ replied Conseil, ‘they would indeed make perfect lamps! The only thing one could ask is for nature herself to provide them with the wick!’
After about half a mile, the ground was completely covered with penguin ‘nests’, which are burrows for laying eggs, and from which numerous birds were emerging. Later on, Captain Nemo had a few hundred hunted down, for their black flesh is highly edible. They produce a braying noise like a donkey’s. These creatures are the size of a goose, their bodies slate-coloured turning white below and with ruffs of lemon piping, and they allowed themselves to be stoned to death without trying to escape.
Meanwhile the mist was not lifting, and at eleven o’clock the sun had still not appeared. Its absence continued to worry me. Without it, no observation was possible. How then could we determine whether or not we had reached the Pole?
When I rejoined Captain Nemo, I found him silently leaning against a slab of rock and looking at the sky. He seemed impatient and upset. But what could he do? This audacious and energetic man did not command the sun as he did the sea.
Midday arrived without the sun showing itself for a single moment. It was not even possible to deduce where it was behind the curtain of cloud. And soon the cloud began to snow.
‘Tomorrow,’ the captain said simply, and we went back to the Nautilus through the gusty eddies.
During our absence the nets had been spread, and I studied with interest the fish that had been hauled on board. The Antarctic seas serve as refuge for a very great number of migrators, which flee the storms of the less elevated zones only to fall into the mouths of porpoises and seals. I noticed a few 10-centimetre southern bullheads, off-white cartilaginous animals, covered with pale stripes and armed with spicules; and then some three-foot Antarctic chimaeras with very long silvery-white bodies and smooth skins, round heads, backs with three fins
, and snouts ending in trunks which curve back round towards their mouths. I tasted their flesh, but found it insipid, although Conseil appreciated it greatly.
The blizzard continued the next day. It was impossible to remain on the platform. From the salon, where I recorded the incidents of our excursion to the polar landmass, I heard the cries of the petrels and albatrosses piercing the storm. The Nautilus moved away and headed about 10 miles south along the coast, through the half-light produced by the sun skimming above the edge of the horizon.
The following day, 20 March,* the snow had stopped. The cold was a little worse, with the thermometer marking +2°. The fog lifted, and I hoped that we could make our observation today.
Since Captain Nemo had not yet appeared, the boat took Conseil and me to land. The ground was still volcanic in nature. Everywhere were traces of lava, scoriae, and basalt, although I was not able to locate the crater that had vomited them out. Here as before, myriads of birds gave life to the polar continent. But they shared this empire with vast herds of marine mammals, looking at us with their soft eyes. There were seals of various species, some stretched out on the shore, some lying on ice-floes, others climbing out of the sea or returning to it. They did not flee at our approach, never having had dealings with man, and I calculated that altogether there were enough to provision several hundred ships.
‘Heavens,’ said Conseil, ‘what a good job Ned didn’t come with us!’
‘Why, Conseil?’
‘Because the mad hunter would have killed everything.’
‘That is going a little far, but I do believe we wouldn’t have been able to stop our friend harpooning a few of these magnificent cetaceans. And that would have upset Captain Nemo, for he never spills the blood of innocent creatures without good reason.’
‘He is right.’
‘Certainly, Conseil. But tell me, have you classified these superb specimens of marine fauna?’
‘Monsieur knows full well that I have not had much practice. Monsieur needs to tell me the names of the animals first.’
‘These are seals and walruses.’
‘Genera of the family of pinnipeds,’ hastened to say my learned Conseil, ‘order of carnivores, group of unguiculates, sub-class of monodelphians, class of mammals, branch of vertebrates.’
‘Good,’ I replied. ‘But these genera of seals and walruses also divide into species, and if I am not mistaken we will soon have an opportunity to observe them more closely. So let’s take a walk.’
It was eight in the morning. There were still four hours to fill until the sun could usefully be observed. I headed towards a vast bay that cut into the granite cliff of the coast.
As far as the eye could see, the ground and ice-floes were covered with marine mammals, and I involuntarily looked for old Proteus, the mythological shepherd who watches over Neptune’s enormous flocks. Seals were particularly numerous. The males and females formed distinct groups, the father watching over his family, the mother suckling her babes, while some stronger juveniles were testing their independence a few feet away. When these mammals wanted to move they produced little jumps, contracting their bodies and helping themselves clumsily along with their imperfect fins, which form real forearms in their congeners, the manatees. I must say that in their natural element these animals swim admirably, with their flexible spines, narrow pelvises, short, close-knit coats, and webbed feet. When resting on the shore, they adopt extremely graceful attitudes. Accordingly, when the ancients observed their soft faces, charming poses, and deep, expressive, velvet eyes that the most beautiful woman would not be able to surpass, they poeticized them in their own way, changing the males into tritons* and the females into sirens.
I pointed out to Conseil the considerable development of the cerebral lobes in these intelligent cetaceans.* No mammal except man has richer brain matter. Accordingly, seals are suited to receiving a degree of education. They are easily domesticated, and like certain other naturalists, I believe that if properly trained they could be of great service as fishing dogs.
Most were sleeping on the rocks or the sand. Amongst the seals in the strict sense, that is without external ears — differing in this respect from the otaries whose ears protrude — I observed several varieties of the three-metre-long Stenorhincus. They had white hair, bulldog heads, and ten teeth in their jaw: four incisors at the top, four at the bottom, and two great canines standing out in the form of a fleur-de-lis. Between them slid a few sea elephants, a kind of seal with a short mobile trunk: the giant of the species has a girth of 20 feet and a length of 10 metres. They did not move as we approached.
‘Are these animals not dangerous?’ asked Conseil.
‘Not unless attacked. When seals defend their young, their fury is terrifying, and it is not uncommon for them to smash fishermen’s boats to pieces.’
‘They have the right to.’
‘Perhaps so.’
Two miles further on, we had to stop at the headland which protected the bay from the south wind. This promontory fell sheer into the sea and its foot was foaming with swell. Beyond it could be heard some formidable roaring noises, like those made by a herd of ruminants.
‘But’, said Conseil, ‘is it a bulls’ concert?’
‘No,’ I said; ‘walruses.’
‘Are they fighting?’
‘Fighting or playing.’
‘With respect, we should go and see them.’
‘Of course.’
And there we were, clambering over the black rocks, with the ground sometimes collapsing unexpectedly, working our way over stones made very treacherous by the ice. I slipped more than once, doing my back no good. Conseil, more cautious or more solidly built, never raised an eyebrow, but would simply say as he picked me up:
‘If monsieur would be so good as to spread his weight more, monsieur would maintain his equilibrium better.’
Once at the top of the cape, I could see a vast white plain covered with walruses. They were playing together; the cries were of joy, not anger. Walruses resemble seals as regards the shape of their bodies and the way their limbs are attached, but have no canines or incisors in their lower jaws; and their upper canines form tusks 80 centimetres long and 33 centimetres in circumference where they join the body. These teeth are very much sought after, being made of compact ivory without ridges, harder than elephants’ and less prone to yellowing. As a result, walruses are excessively hunted, and will soon be destroyed down to the last, since the hunters indiscriminately massacre the pregnant females and their young, destroying in fact more than four thousand of them each year.
Passing by these strange animals, I examined them at my leisure, for they did not bother to move. Their skin was thick and rough, fawn shading into red, and their coat short and sparse. Some of them were as much as four metres long. Calmer and less fearful than their northern congeners, they did not appoint sentinels to keep watch over the surroundings of their camp.
After examining the city of walruses, I thought of turning back. It was eleven o’clock, and if Captain Nemo encountered favourable conditions to make an observation, I wanted to be present when he did. However, I had little hope that the sun would show itself that day. Crushed clouds lying on the horizon hid it from our eyes. It was as if that jealous star did not wish human beings to take observations at this unreachable point of the globe.
All the same, I decided to go back to the Nautilus. We followed a narrow track along the summit of the cliff. By half past eleven we were back on the landing strip. The boat had come ashore with the captain. I saw him standing on a block of basalt. His instruments lay near him and his eyes were fixed on the northern horizon, above which the sun was describing its flattened path.
I stood near him and waited in silence. Noon arrived: just like the day before, the sun did not appear.
Such was fate. We had still not made our observation. If we were not able to do so the next day, we would have to give up trying to measure our position.
It was
20 March. Tomorrow, the 21st, was the equinox, and if one ignored the refraction, the sun would vanish under the horizon for six months. With its disappearance the long polar night would begin. At the September equinox the sun had emerged from the northern horizon, rising in flattened spirals until 21 December. From that date, the summer solstice of these Antarctic regions, it had begun to decline once more; and tomorrow it was to send out its last rays.
I told Captain Nemo of my thoughts and fears.
‘You are quite right, Dr Aronnax. If I cannot observe the height of the sun tomorrow, I will not be able to do so for another six months. But because the hazards of my navigation have brought me to these seas by 21 March, my position will be easy to take if the sun does show itself at midday tomorrow.’
‘But why, captain?’
‘Now, when the celestial orb describes such flat spirals, it is difficult to measure its exact height above the horizon, and our instruments are prone to serious errors . . .’
‘How will you proceed then?’
‘I will just use my chronometer,’ he said. ‘If tomorrow, 21 March at noon, taking account of refraction, the sun’s disc is exactly cut by the northern horizon, then I am at the South Pole.’
‘Just so. Nevertheless, your affirmation cannot be mathematically rigorous because the equinox does not necessarily fall at noon.’
‘Yes, monsieur, but the error will be less than 100 metres,* and that’s all we need. Till tomorrow then.’
Captain Nemo returned on board. Conseil and I stayed until five o’clock, working our way up and down the beach, observing and studying. I did not find any unusual objects except a penguin’s egg of remarkable size, which a collector would have paid more than a thousand francs for. Its cream colour and stripes and its characters like hieroglyphics made it a rare curio. I put it into Conseil’s hands, and the careful fellow, sure-footed and holding it like precious porcelain from China,* got it back to the Nautilus in one piece.
