The Nautilus was steadily pursuing its southerly course,following the fiftieth meridian with considerable speed.
Did he wish to reach the pole?Idid not think so,for every attempt to reach that point had hitherto failed.
Again,the season was far advanced,for in the Antarctic regions the 13th of March corresponds with the 13th of September of northern regions,which begin at the equinoctial season.
On the 14th of March Isaw floating ice in latitude 55@,merely pale bits of debris from twenty to twenty-five feet long,forming banks over which the sea curled.
The Nautilus remained on the surface of the ocean.
Ned Land,who had fished in the Arctic Seas,was familiar with its icebergs;but Conseil and Iadmired them for the first time.
In the atmosphere towards the southern horizon stretched a white dazzling band.English whalers have given it the name of "ice blink."However thick the clouds may be,it is always visible,and announces the presence of an ice pack or bank.Accordingly,larger blocks soon appeared,whose brilliancy changed with the caprices of the fog.
Some of these masses showed green veins,as if long undulating lines had been traced with sulphate of copper;others resembled enormous amethysts with the light shining through them.
Some reflected the light of day upon a thousand crystal facets.
Others shaded with vivid calcareous reflections resembled a perfect town of marble.The more we neared the south the more these floating islands increased both in number and importance.
At 60@lat.every pass had disappeared.But,seeking carefully,Captain Nemo soon found a narrow opening,through which he boldly slipped,knowing,however,that it would close behind him.Thus,guided by this clever hand,the Nautilus passed through all the ice with a precision which quite charmed Conseil;icebergs or mountains,ice-fields or smooth plains,seeming to have no limits,drift-ice or floating ice-packs,plains broken up,called palchs when they are circular,and streams when they are made up of long strips.The temperature was very low;the thermometer exposed to the air marked 2@or 3@below zero,but we were warmly clad with fur,at the expense of the sea-bear and seal.
The interior of the Nautilus,warmed regularly by its electric apparatus,defied the most intense cold.Besides,it would only have been necessary to go some yards beneath the waves to find a more bearable temperature.
Two months earlier we should have had perpetual daylight in these latitudes;but already we had had three or four hours of night,and by and by there would be six months of darkness in these circumpolar regions.On the 15th of March we were in the latitude of New Shetland and South Orkney.
The Captain told me that formerly numerous tribes of seals inhabited them;but that English and American whalers,in their rage for destruction,massacred both old and young;thus,where there was once life and animation,they had left silence and death.
About eight o'clock on the morning of the 16th of March the Nautilus,following the fifty-fifth meridian,cut the Antarctic polar circle.
Ice surrounded us on all sides,and closed the horizon.
But Captain Nemo went from one opening to another,still going higher.
Icannot express my astonishment at the beauties of these new regions.
The ice took most surprising forms.Here the grouping formed an oriental town,with innumerable mosques and minarets;there a fallen city thrown to the earth,as it were,by some convulsion of nature.
The whole aspect was constantly changed by the oblique rays of the sun,or lost in the greyish fog amidst hurricanes of snow.
Detonations and falls were heard on all sides,great overthrows of icebergs,which altered the whole landscape like a diorama.Often seeing no exit,Ithought we were definitely prisoners;but,instinct guiding him at the slightest indication,Captain Nemo would discover a new pass.
He was never mistaken when he saw the thin threads of bluish water trickling along the ice-fields;and Ihad no doubt that he had already ventured into the midst of these Antarctic seas before.
On the 16th of March,however,the ice-fields absolutely blocked our road.
It was not the iceberg itself,as yet,but vast fields cemented by the cold.But this obstacle could not stop Captain Nemo:
he hurled himself against it with frightful violence.The Nautilus entered the brittle mass like a wedge,and split it with frightful crackings.
It was the battering ram of the ancients hurled by infinite strength.
The ice,thrown high in the air,fell like hail around us.
By its own power of impulsion our apparatus made a canal for itself;some times carried away by its own impetus,it lodged on the ice-field,crushing it with its weight,and sometimes buried beneath it,dividing it by a simple pitching movement,producing large rents in it.
Violent gales assailed us at this time,accompanied by thick fogs,through which,from one end of the platform to the other,we could see nothing.The wind blew sharply from all parts of the compass,and the snow lay in such hard heaps that we had to break it with blows of a pickaxe.The temperature was always at 5@below zero;every outward part of the Nautilus was covered with ice.
Arigged vessel would have been entangled in the blocked up gorges.
Avessel without sails,with electricity for its motive power,and wanting no coal,could alone brave such high latitudes.At length,on the 18th of March,after many useless assaults,the Nautilus was positively blocked.It was no longer either streams,packs,or ice-fields,but an interminable and immovable barrier,formed by mountains soldered together.
"An iceberg!"said the Canadian to me.
Iknew that to Ned Land,as well as to all other navigators who had preceded us,this was an inevitable obstacle.The sun appearing for an instant at noon,Captain Nemo took an observation as near as possible,which gave our situation at 51@30'long.and 67@39'of S.lat.
