Chapter 29 Chapter 29 Crossing the Ice Field

The little procession set out southeast, with Simpson driving the sled.Darke helped him enthusiastically, not surprised by his kind of business.Hatteras and the doctor walked behind, Bell took care of the road, and walked ahead, probing the ice with the tip of the iron rod. Rising temperatures herald a snowfall, and it didn't take long for the snow to fall in large swaths.These bleak snow masses added to the difficulty of walking; they deviated from the correct course; they could not go fast; but, they averaged three nautical miles an hour. The ice field was heaving and uneven with the pressure of the ice, the sledges were often bumpy, and because of the slope of the road it sometimes veered at a worrying angle; but they got out of the way at last.

Hatteras and his companions swathed themselves in leather garments cut in the green fashion; A snow-tight hat is tightly hooped, and only the mouth, nose, and eyes are in contact with the air, and there is no need to protect them; there is nothing so out of place as a high tie and a long neckerchief, which are quickly frozen At night, one can only get them off with an axe, which is a bad way to undress even in polar seas.Instead, you should keep your breathing unobstructed, and if your breathing encounters an obstacle, you should immediately concentrate on it. The endless plains are monotonous and tiring to walk on; there are piled up icebergs everywhere, and the irregular ice mounds seem a bit special, a snowdrift poured from a mold, with a winding valley in the middle of the iceberg , they walked with a compass; the travelers seldom spoke.Opening your mouth was a real pain in the frigid air; spikes of ice suddenly grew between your lips, and the heat of your exhalation could not melt them.Everyone walked in silence, each groping the unfamiliar ground with a stick.Bell's footprints were printed on the soft snow, and the others followed him wholeheartedly. Wherever he passed, the rest of the team hurriedly followed.

Many tracks of bears and foxes gathered from all sides; but it was impossible to see one such beast on the first day; hunting them was dangerous and useless; . Usually on such excursions, travelers place their daily necessities carefully on the way; they lighten the journey as much as possible by placing them in snow caves out of the reach of animals, and on their return they gradually collect the food, so that They don't have to bother with it. Hatteras couldn't use this method on the rink, where it might move; on solid ground, such a deposit would still work, but not on the rink, where the uncertain route makes it difficult to get back where you've already traveled. Very problematic.

At noon, Hatteras stopped the little procession against a wall of ice, and the meal consisted of dried meatloaf and hot tea, the refreshing effect of which produced a real comfort which no traveler could do without. . After an hour's rest, the journey continued; the first day covered about 20 nautical miles; during the night, both man and dog were exhausted. But, despite the exhaustion, a igloo had to be built for the night, and tents were not enough.It took an hour and a half to finish.Bell was very experienced, and the ice cut with a knife was quickly piled up to form a dome, and the last quarter was used to secure the building and formed the key of the dome; the soft snow was used as mortar.It fills the gaps and quickly becomes solid, blending in with the whole building.

Through a narrow opening one could crawl into this makeshift cave; the doctor climbed in with difficulty, and the others followed.They quickly used the alcohol stove for supper.The temperature inside the igloo was still tolerable, and the raging wind outside couldn't get inside. "Dinner!" cried the Doctor in the friendliest tone. The meal is always the same, with few changes, but it can be refreshing, and everyone eats together.After eating, everyone just thought about sleeping; the tarpaulins were spread on the snow to keep out moisture, and they dried their socks and shoes with the fire of a simple stove; An individual is responsible for the vigilance, and this individual must keep everyone safe from blocking the opening of the igloo, because, otherwise, they risk being buried alive.

Duck was also in the igloo, and the driving dog was outside, huddled under the snow after their supper, which soon became their airtight quilt. The fatigue of the day makes them fall asleep quickly.The doctor was on duty at three in the morning; the hurricane was raging outside.What a strange situation it is, these lonely beings lost in the snow, buried in this grave whose walls are thickening in the wind! At six o'clock the next morning, the tedious journey began again; always the same valleys, the same icebergs, a uniformity that made it hard to choose a direction.But the temperature dropped a few degrees, and the travelers, gliding across the snow, ran faster.Often they came upon some knoll that looked like a stone house or an Eskimo house; the doctor, out of conscience, toppled one, only to find a heap of ice.

"What do you expect, Crowburny?" Hatteras said to him. "Aren't we the first to set foot on this part of the Earth?" "Perhaps," replied the doctor, "but anyway, who knows?" "Don't waste your time on vain searches," the captain continued, "I am anxious to get back to the ship, especially since we are short of this much-needed fuel." "In this respect," said the doctor, "I have great hopes." "Doctor," Hatteras used to say, "I made a mistake leaving the Forward; it was a mistake! The captain's place is on the ship and nowhere else."

"Johnson is there." "Indeed! Anyway... let's hurry! Let's hurry!" The procession walked quickly; they heard Simpson yelling at the dogs, which, by a strange phosphorescence, seemed to be running over burning ground, and the frames of the sled raised dust like sparks.The doctor walked ahead in order to test the nature of this snow, and suddenly, while jumping over a small ice mound, he disappeared.Bell was beside him, and immediately ran over. "Oh, Mr. Crawford," he cried anxiously, as Hatteras and Simpson overtook him, "where are you?" "Doctor!" cried the captain.

"Here I am! In a hole," answered a calm voice, "give me a piece of rope, and I will crawl to the surface of the earth." They handed the doctor the rope, and he crouched at the bottom of a funnel some dozen feet; he hung it around his waist, and his three companions pulled him up with difficulty. "Are you hurt?" Hatteras asked. "No! I'm not in danger," the doctor replied, shaking his face full of snow. "But how did this happen to you?" "Oh! That's the problem with refraction!" he replied with a laugh. "Always refraction! I thought I stepped over a foot-wide ditch and I fell into a 10-foot hole! Ahhh! Illusion of light! This The only delusion I have left, my friends, but it is not easy for me to throw it away! This tells you that you must not take a step until you have a feel for the ground, because you can't count by feeling! Here, the ear will hear Wrong, what the eyes see is false! This is indeed an area prone to deviation."

"Can we continue on our way?" asked the captain. "Go on, Hatteras, go on! This little tumble will do more harm than good." Still heading southeast, night fell, the travelers stopped, and they had traveled twenty-five miles; they were exhausted, but this Doesn't prevent the Doctor from climbing an iceberg while building an igloo. The moon, still almost full, shone brilliantly in the clear sky, and the stars shone with unusual intensity; Glittering under the clusters, their clear outlines are outlined on the surrounding shadows, like upright pillars, overturned tree trunks, tombstones, like a wide cemetery without trees, sad, silent, boundless, as if Human beings have been lying comfortably here for 20 generations to do eternal sleep.

The doctor watched for a long time in spite of the cold and fatigue, and his companions had difficulty pulling him down; but it was time to rest, the igloo was repaired, and the four travelers huddled together like moles. group, and soon fell asleep. The next day and the next few days were uneventful. Whether the trip went smoothly or not, the speed was determined by the change of temperature, sometimes harsh and cold, sometimes wet and biting; you should decide whether to wear moccasins or snow shoes according to the ground conditions . Thus came January 15th; the moon became a crescent, and soon disappeared; although the sun was hidden below the horizon, and for six hours gave a kind of twilight glow, it was not enough to illuminate the way; Pathfinding in the specified direction.Bell went ahead; Hatteras followed directly behind him.Then Simpson and the doctor, one behind the other, saw only Hatteras, also trying to keep in line.But, despite their caution, they sometimes deviate by 30° to 40° and have to start over again. On February 15, Hatteras estimated that he traveled 100 nautical miles south; this morning was used to repair various daily and camping appliances; he did not forget to read the Bible. At noon they moved on again; the weather was very cold; the thermometer read -36°C and the sky was unusually clear. Suddenly, suddenly, without knowing why, there was a sudden change, and a completely frozen fog rose from the ground; it was about 90 feet high, and it was completely motionless; they could see each other clearly only within a step; this fog condensed on the clothes. Long, pointed ice edges erected. When travelers encountered this kind of ice fog, their first thought was to get together, and immediately there were various shouts: "Oh, Simpson!" "Bell! Here!" "Mr. Crawburn!" "doctor!" "Captain! Where are you?" The four traveling companions looked for each other, their arms waving in the thick fog, but their eyes couldn't see anything.But what worried them was that they could hear no answer; it seemed that the fog was unfit for sound. Everyone wanted to shoot, to signal their coming together, but if the voices of the speech were too weak, the sound of the guns was too loud, because the echoes drowned each other out and bounced from all directions, creating a kind of reverberation that did not determined direction. Everyone acts according to their instincts.Hatteras paused, arms folded, and waited.Simpson could only struggle to hold on to his sled.Bell took a few steps back, carefully groping for footprints with his hands.The doctor hit the ice, fell and got up again, walked left and right, his steps became more and more confused, and after five minutes, he said to himself: "It won't last long! What a strange weather! It's unexpected! Don't know what to lean on, let alone these face-smashing ice edges. Oh! Oh! Captain!" he said cried again. But he heard no reply; and by sheer chance he loaded the gun again, though he wore thick gloves, and the cold barrel burned his hand.While doing this, he seemed to vaguely see a vague figure dangling a few steps away from him. "At last!" he said. "Hatteras! Bell! Simpson! Is that you? Answer me!" There was a muffled sound. "Ah!" thought the good doctor, "what is the matter?" The shadow drew nearer; its original size diminished, its outline accentuated, and a terrible thought flashed through the doctor's mind. "A bear!" he thought to himself. Indeed, it was probably a bear of considerable size; lost in the mist, coming and going, backing away, it narrowly missed these travelers whose presence he certainly would not have suspected. "It's complicated!" thought the doctor, motionless. Sometimes he would feel the breath of the beast before it disappeared into the icy mist; He was so close that his clothes were torn more than once by the sharp claws, and he jumped behind, and the moving colossus disappeared like a ghost. But the doctor stepped back, feeling the ground rise under his feet; he clawed his hands over the edge of the ice, climbed over one obstacle, then two more, groping with his stick. "An iceberg!" he said to himself, and looking around, he saw his three companions emerge from the fog. "Hatteras! Mr Crawford! Bell! Simpson! " The four cried out almost at the same time; the sky, illuminated by a beautiful halo, glowed faintly, and painted the dense fog like clouds in colorful colors, and the tops of icebergs seemed to emerge from a silver sea.The travelers found themselves surrounded by circles at least a hundred feet in diameter.Fortunately, the sky above was clearer and the weather was cold, so they could easily hear each other talking, and they could observe from the height of the iceberg.After each of them had fired the first shot, there was no answer to be heard, and little better to do than to rise in the mist. "Sleigh!" cried the captain. "Eighty feet below us," Simpson replied. "As good as ever?" "As good as ever." "Where's the bear?" asked the doctor. "What bear?" Bell replied. "The bear I ran into, it nearly broke my head off." "A bear!" said Hatteras. "Let's go down." "No!" retorted the doctor, "we'll still be lost, and certainly will be." "If this beast jumps on our dogs..." said Hatteras. At this moment, Duck's cry was heard, which came from the fog and could easily reach the traveler's ears. "It's Dark!" Hatteras called. "Something must have happened. I'm going down." The barking of the dogs came from below in unison, like a terrible ensemble; Duck and the dogs barked.The sounds are like a hum overall, but there is no loud sound, as in a room full of things.They felt an invisible struggle going on below, in the fog.Like a sea of ​​monsters fighting. "Dak! Dak!" shouted the captain, trying to get back into the ice fog. "Wait! Hatteras, wait!" replied the doctor. "I think the fog has lifted." The mist did not dissipate, but it slowly dried up like water in a pond, and it seemed to return to the ground where it was born, with the glistening tops of ice growing above it; the other tops were momentarily submerged In the mist, revealed like new islands; and by a common optical illusion, the travelers clung to the icicles, thinking they had risen into the air, and the highest mist receded beneath them. Soon the top of the sled appeared, then the driving dog, then about thirty other beasts, and finally the wobbly giant, and Duck jumped up, his head lifted from the snow , Burying his head in again and again. "Fox!" Bell yelled. "Bears!" replied the doctor, "one, three, five!" "Our dogs! Our food!" Simpson yelled. A group of foxes and bears came to the sled and spoiled a lot of things.Predatory nature brought them into complete accord, and the dogs barked, but the beasts paid no heed, and the scene of destruction proceeded with fury. "Shoot!" cried the captain, and he loaded the cartridge. His companions followed his example.But at the sound of the four shots, the bears raised their heads, gave a comical howl, and gave the signal to retreat, and trotted away, outnumbered by horses, and followed by the pack of foxes , they quickly disappeared among the icebergs of the Arctic.