Chapter 35 Chapter Three Seventeen Days Walk

This new event, Altamon's first utterances, completely changed the situation of these wrecks; formerly, feeling no possibility of salvation, no hope of returning to Baffin Sea, dragging their weary bodies on the long road, Food was scarce, and now, within four hundred nautical miles of their igloo, there was a ship that would provide them with plenty of provisions, and perhaps a means of carrying out their daring plans for the North Pole.Hatteras, Doc, Johnson, Bell hope after near despair; it's a gratifying thing, almost ecstatic! But Altamon's news was not complete, and after a few minutes' rest the doctor resumed his valuable conversation; the questions he asked him needed only to be answered by a gesture of the head or the movement of the eyes.

He soon learned that the Pallboise was a three-masted ship from New York, America, in distress in the ice floes, with plenty of food and fuel; and that, despite the ship's roll, it could probably hold up, perhaps Can salvage the cargo above. Altamon and his crew left it for two months, and carried off the skiff in sledges; they thought of going through Smith Strait, and waited for some whaling ship to take them to America; but gradually, these The unfortunate ones fell on the road one by one due to fatigue and disease.In the end, only the captain and two sailors were left in the crew of thirty.If Altamon survived by chance, it would really be a miracle from heaven.

Hatteras wanted to know from the Americans why the Pearl Boise came to such a high latitude. Altamon meant that he had been dragged here by the ice floes, and he could not resist. Hatteras was eager to question him about the purpose of his voyage. Altamon claimed he wanted to find the Northwest Passage. Hatteras stopped insisting and asked no more similar questions. The doctor said: Now, he said, all our efforts were directed toward finding the Pearl Boise; instead of venturing to the Baffin Sea, what we had to do was to travel a third less way to find that ship, so that we could Get everything you need to survive the winter.

There was no other way, Bell replied. I should add, said the bosun, that we must not waste a moment; we should count our journeys according to how many days our food would last us, contrary to the usual calculation, so as to get on the road as soon as possible. You are right, Johnson, the doctor said: to-morrow, February 26th, we will arrive at the Perboise on March 15th, and risk starvation.What do you think, Hatteras? Let us get ready at once, said the captain, and we set off.Maybe the journey is longer than we thought. Why?The doctor retorted that the man seemed quite sure of his ship's condition.

But, Hatteras replied, what if the Perleboise drifted off the ice, as did the Vampire? Anyway, the doctor said, it might happen! Johnson and Bell made no refutation of the possibility of drift, and were themselves victims of it. But Altamon listened intently to the conversation, and he made it clear to the doctor that he was going to speak.The latter fulfilled the wish of the American, who, after a quarter of an hour of detours and hesitant talk, gained a certainty that the Pearl Boise was stranded on a stretch of coast, unable to leave the bedrock. The news relieved the four Britons; but it deprived them of all hope of returning to Europe, unless Bell built a boat out of the fragments of the Perboise.In any case, the most important thing is to go to the scene of the accident.

The doctor posed one final question to the American: did he see clear sea at eighty-three degrees north latitude? No, answered Altamon. That's all for the conversation.Soon the preparations for departure began; Bell and Johnson put their energies first on the sled; Knowing the weak point of this transport, it needs a lot of thick snow and the undercarriage of the skid is raised. Bell put a cot with tent-cloths in the sledges, which were for the Americans; a little food would not weigh the sledges down; Load capacity is made up. The doctor put away the provisions, and counted them with considerable precision; by his calculations, the food intake of the travelers was reduced to three-quarters of the food for each person during the three-week journey.They kept a whole ration for the four sled dogs.If Duck pulls with them.There are also whole servings.

These preparations were interrupted by the eager sleep and desire for rest from seven o'clock in the evening; but, before going to bed, the wrecks gathered around the fire, and they did not have to save fuel; The accustomed luxury of heat; dry meatloaf, a few biscuits, and many cups of coffee soon satisfied them, equal to the hopes that had come so quickly and out of reach. At seven o'clock in the morning, work started again, and it was all finished by nearly three o'clock in the evening. The sky had grown dark; the sun had reappeared on the horizon since the 31st of January, but with only a faint, brief gleam; luckily the moon rose at half-past six, and in clear weather, Its brilliance is enough to light the way.The temperature dropped significantly in the past few days, reaching minus thirty-seven degrees Celsius.

The time to go has come.Altamon was very pleased with the idea of ​​going on the road, though the jolts of the sled would increase his pain; he made it clear to the doctor that he would find on board the Perboise the antiscorb which was so important to his ailment. sick medicine. He was loaded onto the sled; he was made as comfortable as possible; the dogs, including Duck, were harnessed; and the travelers took a last look at the ice rink where the Forward stood.For a moment Hatteras looked maddened with anger, but he quickly got himself under control, the small team in unusually dry weather.Deep into the fog in the north-north-west.

Each took his usual place, Bell at the head, directing the doctor and boatswain beside the sled, supervising and pushing the sled when necessary, Hatteras behind, walking in a straight line, keeping the whole procession along Bell's the route to go. They walked fairly quickly; for the ice was hard and slippery in cold weather, good for skating; and the five dogs pulled a load of less than nine hundred pounds with ease.But people and animals quickly become out of breath and often stop to catch their breath. Just before seven o'clock in the evening, the moon rose a reddish disk from the mist on the horizon.Its pale radiance pierced through the atmosphere, casting a few rays, and the icebergs reflected its clear light; the ice field showed to the northwest the great plain of perfect white.No ice packs, no ice mounds.The placid sea seemed to have frozen as quietly as a placid lake.

It is a vast desert, flat and monotonous. Such was the impression this sight made on the doctor's mind, and he communicated it to his companion. You are right, Mr. Crowburne, replied Johnson: This is a desert, but we are not afraid to die of thirst here! This is an obvious advantage, added the doctor: but this immensity proves one thing to me; that we are very far from any land; We couldn't see an iceberg around us. The horizon was shrouded in fog, Johnson replied. No doubt, but since we set out, we have been unable to set foot on a plain, and are in danger of being unable to get out.

You know, Mr. Crawburn, what this dangerous walk of ours means?We get used to it, we don't think about it anymore, but all in all, there is a bottomless pit beneath the ice surface we walk on! You are right, my friend, but we need not fear being swallowed up; this white shell is very resistant at minus thirty-three degrees Celsius!Note its gradual increase in thickness, for in these latitudes it snows nine days out of ten, even in April, even in May, even in June, and I estimate that it should not be less than thirty at its thickest point. or forty feet. That's for sure, Johnson replied. For we are not, like the skaters on the Serpontina, in constant fear of the insecure ground under our feet; we need not be afraid of such dangers. Do people know about the resistance of ice?asked the old sailor, who was always eager to learn something when he walked with the doctor. Fully aware, the latter replied, there is one thing that can be measured in the world that people don't know now, except human ambition!Is it not for this reason that we are pushed towards this North Pole that man is finally to know?But, coming back to your question, here is my answer.Two inches of ice can support a man; three and a half inches of ice can support a horse and its rider; five inches of ice can support an eight-millimeter cannon; eight inches of ice cannon cannons erected ;At last, ten inches of ice, an army, and a crowd beyond count!Where we're going, we could build Liverpool Customs or London's Houses of Parliament. It's hard to imagine such resistance, said Johnson: "But just now, Mr. Crowburny, you said that nine out of ten days snow falls in these districts; that's an obvious fact; and I can't argue with that; but Where did the snow come from, because the oceans were frozen, and I don't quite know how the large amounts of water vapor that formed the clouds were produced. Your observation is correct, Johnson; and, in my opinion, most of the rain and snow we see in the polar regions is formed by water in temperate oceans; A drop of water rises into the sky in the form of water vapor, forms a cloud, and finally condenses here; only when we drink water, that is, this kind of snow water, do we quench our thirst with the river water of our own country. Always, replied the bosun. At this moment, the voice of Hatteras correcting the wrong way came, interrupting the conversation.The fog was getting thicker, making it difficult to walk in a straight line. At last the little party stopped about eight o'clock in the evening, having traveled fifteen miles; the weather was still dry; tents were pitched; fires were lit; supper was passed in peace. one night. Hatteras and his companions did catch the fine weather.Their voyage met with little difficulty in the days that followed, though the weather was so cold that mercury froze in the thermometers.No traveler could tolerate a similar temperature if it was windy.The doctor in this case confirmed the correctness of Barry's observations made during his expedition to Melville Island.The famous sailor preached that a well-dressed man could walk without injury in very cold weather, so long as the atmosphere was calm; Severely severe, it will soon lead to death.The doctor has nothing to worry about, because a gust of wind will freeze them all to the marrow of their bones. On March 5th, he saw a strange phenomenon at this latitude: the sky was very calm, the stars were shining, the snow was falling heavily, but there were no clouds; the stars twinkled through the snowflakes, and the snowflakes carried an elegant order Fall onto the ice rink.The snow fell for about two hours and then stopped. The doctor has not yet found a reasonable explanation for the snowfall. The last crescent is lost; seventeen hours of the day are deep darkness; travelers are bound by a long rope so as not to separate from each other; it is almost impossible to walk in a straight line. But although these brave men were supported by an iron conviction, they were beginning to feel tired; the number of stops was increasing, but not a moment was wasted, because the food had been significantly reduced. Hatteras often determined his location by observing the moon and stars.Seeing the days go by and the goal of the journey out of reach, he sometimes asked himself if the Perle Boise really existed, if the American hadn't been out of his head out of pain, or out of love for the Englishman. Seeing the predicament he was in, he did not want to bring them to a situation where they would surely die. He told his thoughts to the doctor; the latter was flatly against it, but he understood that there had been an unpleasant rivalry between the English captain and the American captain. These will be two difficult people to get along with, he thought. On March 14th, after traveling for sixteen days, the travelers were still at eighty-two degrees north latitude; they were exhausted, and they were still a hundred miles away from the ship; Eat a quarter of the food so that the dog eats the whole food. Unfortunately they could not hope to hunt, for there were only seven powders and six bullets left; and they shot in vain at the few white rabbits and foxes which were few, but missed a single one. But on Friday the 15th, the doctor was lucky enough to catch a seal lying on the ice; it cost him many bullets to wound it; It had a massive body; Johnson cut it deftly, but the mammal was too thin to do much good to those who couldn't drink seal oil like the Eskimos. But the doctor bravely tried the viscous liquid; in spite of his good intentions he could not drink it.He left the sealskin, not quite knowing why, but by a hunter's instinct, put it on the sled. The next day, the sixteenth, they saw several icebergs and mounds on the horizon, marking the next coast, or just the rise and fall of the ice field?It's hard to know what point of view to take. The travelers came to an ice mound and used it to dig a shelter more comfortable than a tent. With the help of snow knives, after another three hours of tenacious labor, they finally lay down beside the lighted stove.