Voyage to the Center of the Earth

by Jacques Collin de Plancy

  VII. Famine. The approach of winter.

  Departure from the cabin.

  As soon as we had arrived, the invalids were placed around the fire, and the advantages of a good hearth gave them so much delight that they were almost ecstatic.

  Edward cooked two large pullets in an earthenware pot that served us as a cooking-pot. He broke a few pieces of biscuit into the broth, and served the invalids a sup that they found delicious. The poor fellows, who were only exhausted, recovered in less than two days, with the flesh of the two pullets and a few glasses of wine, so that the entire troop was fit and well. But we had become numerous, and it was necessary to find subsistence. That is why it was decided that half the troop would stay in the cabin, alternately, while the other went hunting, for the bears only showed themselves rarely and at some distance from our habitation.

  For several days, that kind of life was tolerable, since we scarcely went hunting without bringing back a bear or a reindeer. As the capture of those animals was never achieved without causing us considerable difficulty, and there were the same perils every day, we shall not dwell on the details here; they are sufficiently familiar, by virtue of what we have said in the preceding chapters and what you might have read in various accounts of voyages to the Arctic.

  But we were already in the month of October; the long night was approaching, the bears were drawing further away every day, and all the resources of our imagination could not present any means or any hope of avoiding famine and the most frightful death during a night more than three months long.

  We would no longer see the bears, which had become our ordinary aliment, until the sun returned. We knew that a species of fox appeared in the heart of Spitzbergen when the bears had gone, but those animals, whose flesh is said to be excellent, are not of a size to feed more than six people; it is not easy to catch them, and even if we had been able to think that we could trap one a day by placing snares cleverly, there were twenty-four of us, and we would inevitably die of hunger.

  One evening, when I was thinking sadly about the future, and calculating our needs, compared with the remainder of our provisions, I realized with alarm that the end would arrive in a fortnight at the most.

  Clairancy came over to me, and asked me what I was thinking about; I exposed my fears to him frankly.

  “They are equal to mine,” he replied. “And, many as we are, we’re allowing ourselves to be eaten away by the blackest anxieties without daring to communicate them to one another. We must all sense that death is approaching, terrible, imminent and inevitable. The cold is already chilling our limbs; what will it be like when we have no more food, when we no longer see the consoling light of the sun, which is about to quit us? Alas, in a fortnight, there will be night, hunger and eternal sleep after the most desperate agony!”

  “Woe betides the man who dies last!” I exclaimed. “He’ll remain alone with the cadavers of his companions… his eyelids will close and his adieux to life will be lost in the silence of the desert. The roof of this cabin will serve as his coffin, and the Arctic snows will cover his tomb, while waiting for the hungry bears to nourish themselves on his frozen remains...”

  While I abandoned myself to that delirium of despair, twelve of our companions who had gone out hunting that day returned with empty hands and dying of cold.

  “There’s no more hope,” they said to us, as they opened the door. “The bears have retired northwards; it’s necessary to find other aliments or die. Moreover, if the cold gets worse, it will soon be impossible for us to resist it.”

  The winter was, in fact, already so violent that we no longer dared go out. Those who were obliged to go hunting covered themselves in bearskins, but were frozen by the cold nevertheless. Snow was falling at intervals; the air became misty and damp one moment, and then, in instant later, dry and icy. As soon as we set foot outside the breath of our respiration froze, so to speak, and the cold caused black pustules to growth in the ears, the nostrils and on the lips that caused us incredible pain. When we dipped our shirts in boiling water to wash them, they became as stiff as icicles on emerging from the bowl if we carried out the operation far from the fireplace. We all anticipated the most rigorous winter.

  After our companions had dissipated somewhat, before an ardent fire, the cold that had numbed them during their unsuccessful excursion, we got ready, sadly, to have dinner. Everyone was silent. The captain was the first to break the silence, trying to give us a little of the philosophy that he no longer had himself.

  “It would be vain,” Clairancy interrupted, “to seek to lull ourselves with chimerical illusions. The awakening is too imminent, and will be too painful. It will require a miracle to save us, and we ought not to expect one. Before desiring death, however, let’s try to avoid it. Let’s attempt an enterprise that no one before us has ever dared.

  “I thought that in leaving the mortal desert to which misfortune has relegated us at the approach of winter, the white bears all withdrew to southern regions, but since our companions have seen some of those horrible animals heading north from Spitzbergen to spend the long night there, I conclude that by going further into that region, we might experience less rigorous cold.

  “All those who have wintered on these coasts have been obstinate in staying by the shore; a hundred out of a hundred-and-one have died there. The same fate awaits us; our life is no longer anything but a dream; let us gamble the little that remains to us; who knows where we might not be able to conserve it?”

  “I see,” said the captain, groaning, “that all heads are becoming deranged; the sagest among us are irrational...fortunate, if their madness disguises in their eyes the horror of the last moments!”

  “I’m less irrational than ever!” Clairancy exclaimed. “The bears, which live in our vicinity during the summer, draw away with the sun; if they went in search of a climate more rigorous than that of the shore, either they would not visit us during the warm weather or we would also see them during the winter...”

  “The flight of the bears,” the crew-master replied, “in the case that it is directed to the north of Spitzbergen, as our companions believe they have seen, signifies nothing, except that the animals are going to spend the bad season in a few isolated lairs, or in regions slightly more sheltered than this one.”

  “Well then,” Edward put in, beginning to take Clairancy’s side, “It will be in those lairs, those sheltered areas, that we might be able to spend the winter; we’d have the neighborhood of the bears; we’d be able to hunt, and live. In any case, who knows whether we might not find, a little further way from the sea, some vegetation, some woods unknown in Europe. Is nature entirely dead in the Arctic?”

  “The snows ought to be less thick as one advances inland,” Clairancy added. “The wind from the sea blows less violently there than on the shore; the mountains of ice that float around these coasts must chill the air more here than in open country…but I can see that my sentiment isn’t that of the entire troop. If only three among us will consent to go with me, we can march for two days in exploration, and return here before sunset with good news.”

  The greater number protested against that proposal, and made all imaginable efforts to deflect Clairancy from his project, but he declared firmly that nothing could prevent him from attempting an enterprise that at least flattered his hopes.

  “If I die,” he added, “I’ll only be dying a few days sooner, and in the position we’re in, one can quit life without making a great sacrifice.”

  Edward, as enterprising as Clairancy, wanted to accompany him, and was the first to number himself among those who would march northwards. Tristan, who could not envisage the imminent death without horror, made a third, saying that many men had been able to avoid death by confronting the perils that seemed ready to deliver it.

  The friendship that linked me closely with those three fellows had already advised me to go with them, and their tone convinced me to make my decision immediately. But Edward did not think that
our small number was sufficient; that is why he seduced a young English sailor who was very attached to him to share the honor of the expedition. Tristan, for his part, persuaded the Manseau, Martinet, that he would die of hunger and cold in the cabin, whereas if he came with us, he would at least be able to eat, because we would have no lack of bears, and that in addition, he would not be obliged to hunt or do anything perilous, but only carry provisions.

  “In that case,” the Manseau replied, “I’ll go with you. Death for death, as well elsewhere as here, and the later the better.”

  Thus, there were six of us decided to go. We made bearskin bonnets and gloves of a sort; each of us loaded himself with ten pounds of cooked meat, five pounds of powder and a good packet of lead. We also had six carbines, as many pistols, three axes, a halberd, a large hunting knife and a few old ropes. A bundle of wood was loaded on the Manseau’s back, and each of us took a few dry bundles on our shoulders for the first halts, leaving the rest to providence.

  Edward’s sailor, whose name was Williams, equipped himself with a large flask of eau-de-vie and a bottle of vinegar, which he attached to the end of his halberd, and we left the cabin in the most bizarre apparel I have ever seen.

  Our eighteen companions, who were unable to decide to go with us, escorted us for a few paces, weeping. Clairancy, dreading that their dolor might affect some of us, advised them to go back inside. They embraced us, convinced that they were losing us forever, and only quit us after bidding us the saddest adieu.

  VIII. Excursion in Spitzbergen.

  The cave of the white bear.

  Our eyes turned back toward the cabin when the poor comrades we had left there had gone back inside, and our tears flowed abundantly. What would their destiny be? And what would be ours? We were abandoning, doubtless never to see them again, those whom misfortune had rendered so dear, and we were going toward an almost certain death—but in the cabin, it seemed to us infallible.

  “Let’s not linger any longer over such sad ideas,” said Edward, “And let’s cease to regret the cabin. Perhaps we’ll find, a few leagues further on, assured subsistence; we can then return to our friends, make them party to it, and have the pleasure once again of conserving their days. If Heaven determines otherwise, at least we won’t have the pain of seeing them struggle with death.”

  After that, he declaimed emphatically a few lines by an English poet:

  Nature is everywhere our common mother;

  Crushed by misfortune, betrayed by fortune,

  Her mortal children find her in all places;

  Deserts also have their nature and their god.

  Although that thought was not entirely accurate, in the situation in which we found ourselves, it was applauded enthusiastically, and sustained our courage. Clairancy also wanted to affirm us by means of beautiful speech; he recited to us all that his memory could furnish him of the most philosophical, and concluded his sermon with these fine lines from Racine:

  Does God ever leave his children in need?

  To the little birds he gives their pasture,

  And his bounty extends over all of nature.

  “Unfortunately,” Williams observed, “the comparison is defective here, for there are no more birds in Spitzbergen than hairs in my hand.”

  “You don’t know that,” Tristan replied. “No one has ever ventured beyond the coasts of the great desert, and one ought not to judge an inn by its sign.”

  At that moment the Manseau stopped, to ask us whether we had a compass—and we perceived that we had forgotten to bring one.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Edward put in. “We won’t go back to the hut for something so trivial. The country is too flat and too open for us to fear getting lost. Let’s go on, then, and without anxiety. As long as the sun is behind us, it will be our compass and our guide.”

  The cold, which had appeared to us at first to be extremely rigorous, became less unbearable as we advanced northwards, either because the exercise of a rapid march, combined with the weight of our provisions and our weapons, gave us some warmth, or because the air was indeed less sharp inland than on the coast, and we followed our route more cheerfully than we had begun it.

  After having walked for six long hours without a break, fatigue obliged us to take a rest. We stopped at the foot of a small mound, as stony and arid as all the rest. We placed ourselves in shelter from the wind, laid down the provisions and weapons, and deliberated as to whether to break into the provisions of wood. The cold was intense, but we were so well sheltered that we all had the courage to suffer and to reserve the kindle and logs for our sleep period. Tristan spread out the food with which he was laden and we ate, less comfortably than in the cabin, in truth, but not without pleasure.

  Afterwards, we resumed marching. As the bundle of wood was rather heavy, Tristan offered to liberate Martinet from it and carry it in his turn.

  “Many thanks,” the Manseau replied, “but it to that bundle and its weight that I owe some warmth, and I’ll only let go of it to deliver it to the flames.”

  Thus, everyone conserved his particular burden. Tristan alone was less laden than the others, because we had consumed the provisions he was carrying. The cold that was beginning to numb us did not take long to dissipate gradually after half an hour’s journey.

  We advanced with long strides, and were increasingly convinced that the climate is milder to the north of Spitzbergen than the south. We marched with a courage of which we would never have dared to think ourselves capable before our attempt, since we made our second halt more than fifteen leagues distant from the cabin.

  We had chosen for our repose some kind of rock, as at our first halt. We had decided to take the second meal there, to burn a little wood and to sleep for a few hours, but we did not know how we were going to make the fire last long enough and burn hot enough to protect us against the cold during several hours of sleep, and simultaneously retain some provision of wood for the following day. The terrain was as arid everywhere as on the coast, and did not offer as much as a sprig of moss.

  The cold, which seemed to us more tolerable, was nevertheless excessively rigorous. Our lips were cruelly cracked, our noses blackish red and our eyes bloodshot, but our stricken imagination did not allow us to perceive that we had gained little, and that by taking violent exercise on the shore we would not have been much colder than we were inland.

  Clairancy, who was running his gaze around the surrounding area, thought he perceived a small mountain in the distance, half a league away; he made us party to the discovery, and we had the same impression as him.

  “That hill doubtless encloses some cavity,” he told us. “Let’s muster the strength to go there; we’ll spend the hours of sleep more comfortably there. Our provision of wood having no need to be divided in order to maintain heat all around us, the flames will last longer.”

  Everyone found so little advantage in remaining beside the rock where we had stopped that, although passably fatigued, the little troop bravely took up its burdens and resumed marching. Soon, our hopes became more real. We all distinguished a small steep hill bristling with rocks and poorly-joined stones; we could reasonably hope for some indentation that could serve as a temporary hut.

  While we were rejoicing at that idea we perceived a white bear on the summit of the little mountain. The sight of those animals, which had caused us such great fear to begin with, now caused us the sweetest joy. Our companions had not been mistaken, then, in telling us that the bears were retiring northwards. The climate was, therefore, less frightful ahead of us, and the flesh of that bear would provide us with food for some time.

  We knew that shouting often caused the monsters to flee. Each of us refrained from muttering the slightest clamor, and the little troop was content to make its weapons ready and to advance upon the animal in silence. We arranged ourselves in pairs, in order not to frighten it even by our number, and we decided not to attack it until it was at close range.

  Our modest appearance did
indeed, give the bear confidence. After considering us for some time, it descended the hill abruptly and ran toward us, head down. We let it approach to within twenty paces without making the slightest sign of hostility, but then we waited for it, with our weapons trained. The Manseau was bringing up the rear, and told us, trembling, to dispatch the beast.

  The three Englishmen—which is to say, Edwards, Williams and I—fired our muskets, loaded with three or four bullets. The bear was wounded in the head and the shoulder, but its skin was so tough that it seemed only to be stunned by our shots, for it only stopped for a few seconds, shaking its ears; then it launched itself upon us again, uttering a muffled roar. Clairancy and Tristan still had their carbines loaded; they shot the animal in their turn. Clairancy, more fortunate than anyone else, planted five large caliber bullets in its belly, which knocked it down. The monster made further efforts to get up again and return to the attack, but we did not give it time; the most agile fell upon it and finished it off with axes.

  As soon as it was dead, Martinet and Williams, who had shown more fear than the rest of the troop, put a rope around the bear’s neck, and as we were not far from the hill, it was dragged in that manner to the place where we were to spend the night.

  The most pleasant surprise awaited us there. A profound cavern occupied part of the rock; the entrance was narrow and orientated to the north, directly opposite the wind, which was blowing from the south.

  “If this inn had been made expressly for us,” the Manseau exclaimed, joyfully, “it could not have been better designed.”

  Blessings were heaped upon Clairancy, to whom we owed that shelter, which seemed to us as comfortable as a palace, and to Nature, which was still showing us maternal sentiments. At the same time, we examined the grotto; it had a certain odor that immediately caused us to judge that it was the lair of the bear we had just killed; we were convinced of it when we found half a sea-dog9 in the depths, which was beginning to stink. It was quickly pulled outside, after which the bear that we had successfully brought was skinned; its skin would serve us as a bed.