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It was the custom, of course, to follow implicitly the terminology used by those of the party whose experience of ice dated back to Captain Scott's first voyage, so that the terms used may be said to be common to all Antarctic voyages of the present century.
The ice was closed ahead, and Davis went south in open water to wait for better conditions. A north-west gale on January 28 enabled the ship to pass between the pack and the land off Cape Adare, and we crossed the Antarctic Circle on the last day of the month.
Doubtless we all possess the feeling in some degree the sense of loneliness and desolation and dismay at the thought of an uninhabited world, and of long periods when man was not. Is it not the absence of human life or remains rather than the illimitable wastes of thick-ribbed ice and snow which daunts us at the thought of Arctic and Antarctic regions?
Great assistance in this direction was afforded by copies of Mr. R. C. Mossmann's researches and papers on Antarctic meteorology, which he kindly supplied to us.
"Have you been shipwrecked, Kurz Pacha?" asked I suddenly. He laughed softly: "No, Miss Minerva, I am not one of the hardy navigators; I keep close in to the shore. Upon the slightest symptom of an agitated sea, I furl my sails, and creep into a safe harbor. Besides, dear Miss Minna I prefer tropical cruises to the Antarctic voyage." And the old wretch actually looked at my black hair.
"Yes, sir; it shall go to the pole." "To the pole!" I exclaimed, unable to repress a gesture of incredulity. "Yes," replied the Captain, coldly, "to the Antarctic pole to that unknown point from whence springs every meridian of the globe. You know whether I can do as I please with the Nautilus!" Yes, I knew that. I knew that this man was bold, even to rashness.
There was no long evening when we read alternately from some favorite book, or laid our deep housekeeping plans, rejoiced in a good bargain or made light of a poor one, and were contented and merry with little. I recalled with longing my little den, where in the midst of the literary disorder I love, I wrote those stories for the "Antarctic" which Polly, if nobody else, liked to read.
From the plane I looked down through a mist upon the blurred landscape beneath me. The hot, humid atmosphere of Caspak condenses as it is fanned by the cold Antarctic air-currents which sweep across the crater's top, sending a tenuous ribbon of vapor far out across the Pacific.
In coming from the northward in the Jane Guy we had been gradually leaving behind us the severest regions of ice-this, however little it maybe in accordance with the generally received notions respecting the Antarctic, was a fact experience would not permit us to deny. To attempt, therefore, getting back would be folly especially at so late a period of the season.
"Yes but so is the Arctic camp, and the Antarctic camp, as well," replied Wade. "What next, Arcot. Shall we go out to intergalactic space at once?" asked Morey, coming up from the power room. "No, we'll go back to Vermont, and have the time-field stuff I ordered installed, then go to Sirius, and see what they have.
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