The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras Part 75

From this moment the land grew lower, whence the doctor concluded that it did not extend very far to the north. Besides, it was very likely that New America was merely an island, and did not extend to the Pole.

The ground grew more level; in the west a few low hills could be seen in the distance, covered with a bluish mist.

So far they had experienced no hards.h.i.+ps; they had suffered from nothing except the reflection of the sun's rays upon the snow, which could easily give them snow-blindness. At any other time they would have travelled by night to avoid this inconvenience, but then there was no night. The snow was fortunately melting away, and it was much less brilliant when it was about turning into water.

June 28th the temperature arose to 45; this was accompanied with heavy rain, which the travellers endured stoically, even with pleasure, for it hastened the disappearance of the snow. They had to put on their deer-skin moccasins, and change the runners of the sledge. Their journey was delayed, but still they were advancing without any serious obstacles. At times the doctor would pick up rounded or flat stones like pebbles worn smooth by the waves, and then he thought he was near the Polar Sea; but yet the plain stretched on out of sight. There was no trace of man, no hut, no cairn nor Esquimaux snow-house; they were evidently the first to set foot in this new land. The Greenlanders never had gone so far, and yet this country offered plenty of game for the support of that half-starved people. Sometimes bears appeared in the distance, but they showed no signs of attacking; afar off were herds of musk-oxen and reindeer. The doctor would have liked to catch some of the latter to harness to the sledge; but they were timid, and not to be caught alive.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The 29th, Bell shot a fox, and Altamont was lucky enough to bring down a medium-sized musk-ox, after giving his companions a high idea of his bravery and skill; he was indeed a remarkable hunter, and so much admired by the doctor. The ox was cut out, and gave plenty of excellent meat. These lucky supplies were always well received; the least greedy could not restrain their joy at the sight of the meat.

The doctor laughed at himself when he caught himself admiring these huge joints.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "On the 29th Bell shot a fox, and Altamont a medium-sized musk-ox."]

"Let us not be afraid to eat it," he used to say; "a good dinner is a good thing in these expeditions."

"Especially," said Johnson, "when it depends on a better or worse shot."

"You are right, Johnson," replied the doctor; "one thinks less of one's food when one gets a regular supply from the kitchen."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The 30th, the country became unexpectedly rugged, as if it had been upheaved by some volcanic commotion; the cones and peaks increased indefinitely in number, and were very high. A southeast breeze began to blow with violence, and soon became a real hurricane. It rushed across the snow-covered rocks, among the ice-mountains, which, although on the firm land, took the form of hummocks and icebergs; their presence on these lofty plateaus could not be explained even by the doctor, who had an explanation for almost everything. Warm, damp weather succeeded the tempest; it was a genuine thaw; on all sides resounded the cracking of the ice amid the roar of the avalanches.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The ma.s.ses of ice took the forms of hummocks and icebergs."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "On all sides resounded the cracking of the ice amid the roar of the avalanches."]

The travellers carefully avoided the base of these hills; they even took care not to talk aloud, for the sound of the voice could shake the air and cause accident. They were witnesses of frequent and terrible avalanches which they could not have foreseen. In fact, the main peculiarity of polar avalanches is their terrible swiftness; therein they differ from those of Switzerland and Norway, where they form a ball, of small size at first, and then, by adding to themselves the snow and rocks in its pa.s.sage, it falls with increasing swiftness, destroys forests and villages, but taking an appreciable time in its course. Now, it is otherwise in the countries where arctic cold rages; the fall of the block of ice is unexpected and startling; its fall is almost instantaneous, and any one who saw it from beneath would be certainly crushed by it; the cannon-ball is not swifter, nor lightning quicker; it starts, falls, and crashes down in a single moment with the dreadful roar of thunder, and with dull echoes.

So the amazed spectators see wonderful changes in the appearance of the country; the mountain becomes a plain under the action of a sudden thaw; when the rain has filtered into the fissures of the great blocks and freezes in a single night, it breaks everything by its irresistible expansion, which is more powerful in forming ice than in forming vapor: the phenomenon takes place with terrible swiftness.

No catastrophe, fortunately, threatened the sledge and its drivers; the proper precautions were taken, and every danger avoided. Besides, this rugged, icy country was not of great extent, and three days later, July 3d, the travellers were on smoother ground. But their eyes were surprised by a new phenomenon, which has for a long time claimed the attention of the scientific men of the two worlds. It was this: the party followed a line of hills not more than fifty feet high, which appeared to run on several miles, and their eastern side was covered with red snow.

The surprise and even the sort of alarm which the sight of this crimson curtain gave them may be easily imagined. The doctor hastened, if not to rea.s.sure, at least to instruct, his companions; he was familiar with this red snow and the chemical a.n.a.lysis made of it by Wollaston, Candolle, Bauer. He told them this red snow was not found in the arctic regions alone, but in Switzerland in the middle of the Alps; De Saussure collected a large quant.i.ty on the Breven in 1760; and since then Captains Ross, Sabine, and others had brought some back from their arctic journeys.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Altamont asked the doctor about the nature of this extraordinary substance. He was told that its color came simply from the presence of organic corpuscles. For a long time it was a question whether these corpuscles were animal or vegetable; but it was soon ascertained that they belonged to the family of microscopic mushrooms, of the genus _Uredo_, which Bauer proposed naming _Uredo vivalis_.

Then the doctor, prying into the snow with his cane, showed his companions that the scarlet layer was only nine feet deep, and he bade them calculate how many of these mushrooms there might be on a s.p.a.ce of many miles, when scientific men estimated forty-three thousand in a square centimetre.

This coloring probably ran back to a remote period, for the mushrooms were not decomposed by either evaporation or the melting of the snow, nor was their color altered.

The phenomenon, although explained, was no less strange. Red is a rare color in nature; the reflection of the sun's rays on this crimson surface produced strange effects; it gave the surrounding objects, men and animals, a brilliant appearance, as if they were lighted by an inward flame; and when the snow was melting, streams of blood seemed to be flowing beneath the travellers' feet.

The doctor, who had not been able to examine this substance when he saw it on crimson cliffs from Baffin's Bay, here examined it at his ease, and gathered several bottlefuls of it.

This red ground, the "Field of Blood," as he called it, took three hours' walk to pa.s.s over, and then the country resumed its habitual appearance.

CHAPTER XX.

FOOTPRINTS ON THE SNOW.

July 4th a dense fog prevailed. They were only able with the greatest difficulty to keep a straight path; they had to consult the compa.s.s every moment. Fortunately there was no accident in the darkness, except that Bell lost his snow-shoes, which were broken against a projecting rock.

"Well, really," said Johnson, "I thought, after seeing the Mersey and the Thames, that I knew all about fogs, but I see I was mistaken."

"We ought," answered Bell, "to light torches as is done at London and Liverpool."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'We ought,' answered Bell, 'to light torches, as is done at London and Liverpool.'"]

"Why not?" asked the doctor; "that's a good idea; it wouldn't light up the road much, but we could see the guide, and follow him more easily."

"But what shall we do for torches?"

"By lighting tow dipped in alcohol, and fastening to the end of walking-sticks."

"Good!" said Johnson; "and we shall soon have it ready."

A quarter of an hour later the little band was walking along with torches faintly lighting up the general gloom.

But if they went straighter, they did not go quicker, and the fog lasted till July 6th; the earth being cold then, a blast of north-wind carried away all the mist as if it had been rags. Soon the doctor took an observation, and ascertained that meanwhile they had not made eight miles a day.

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The 6th, they made an effort to make up for lost time, and they set out early. Altamont and Bell were ahead, choosing the way and looking out for game. Duke was with them. The weather, with its surprising fickleness, had become very clear and dry; and although the guides were two miles from the sledge, the doctor did not miss one of their movements. He was consequently very much startled to see them stop suddenly, and remain in a position of surprise; they seemed to be gazing into the distance, as if scanning the horizon. Then they bent down to the ground and seemed to be examining it closely, and they arose in evident amazement. Bell seemed to wish to push on, but Altamont held him back.

"What can they be doing?" asked the doctor of Johnson.

"I know no more than you, Doctor; I don't understand their gestures."

"They have found the track of some animals," answered Hatteras.

"That's not it," said the doctor.

"Why not?"

"Because Duke would bark."

"Still, they've seen marks of some sort."

"Let us go on," said Hatteras; "we shall soon know."