Jules Verne

AN ANTARCTIC MYSTERY

THE SPHINX OF THE ICE FIELDS

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JULES VERNE

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An Antarctic Mystery
The Sphinx of the Ice Fields
First published in 1897
ISBN 978-1-62012-263-1
Duke Classics
© 2012 Duke Classics and its licensors. All rights reserved.

While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in this edition, Duke Classics does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. Duke Classics does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book.

Contents

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Chapter I - The Kerguelen Islands
Chapter II - The Schooner Halbrane
Chapter III - Captain Len Guy
Chapter IV - From the Kerguelen Isles to Prince Edward Island
Chapter V - Edgar Poe's Romance
Chapter VI - An Ocean Waif
Chapter VII - Tristan D'Acunha
Chapter VIII - Bound for the Falklands
Chapter IX - Fitting Out the Halbrane
Chapter X - The Outset of the Enterprise
Chapter XI - From the Sandwich Islands to the Polar Circle
Chapter XII - Between the Polar Circle and the Ice Wall
Chapter XIII - Along the Front of the Icebergs
Chapter XIV - A Voice in a Dream
Chapter XV - Bennet Islet
Chapter XVI - Tsalal Island
Chapter XVII - And Pym?
Chapter XVIII - A Revelation
Chapter XIX - Land?
Chapter XX - "Unmerciful Disaster"
Chapter XXI - Amid the Mists
Chapter XXII - In Camp
Chapter XXIII - Found at Last
Chapter XXIV - Eleven Years in a Few Pages
Chapter XXV - "We Were the First"
Chapter XXVI - A Little Remnant
Endnotes

Chapter I - The Kerguelen Islands

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No doubt the following narrative will be received: with entire incredulity, but I think it well that the public should be put in possession of the facts narrated in "An Antarctic Mystery." The public is free to believe them or not, at its good pleasure.

No more appropriate scene for the wonderful and terrible adventures which I am about to relate could be imagined than the Desolation Islands, so called, in 1779, by Captain Cook. I lived there for several weeks, and I can affirm, on the evidence of my own eyes and my own experience, that the famous English explorer and navigator was happily inspired when he gave the islands that significant name.

Geographical nomenclature, however, insists on the name of Kerguelen, which is generally adopted for the group which lies in 49° 45' south latitude, and 69° 6' east longitude. This is just, because in 1772, Baron Kerguelen, a Frenchman, was the first to discover those islands in the southern part of the Indian Ocean. Indeed, the commander of the squadron on that voyage believed that he had found a new continent on the limit of the Antarctic seas, but in the course of a second expedition he recognized his error. There was only an archipelago. I may be believed when I assert that Desolation Islands is the only suitable name for this group of three hundred isles or islets in the midst of the vast expanse of ocean, which is constantly disturbed by austral storms.

Nevertheless, the group is inhabited, and the number of Europeans and Americans who formed the nucleus of the Kerguelen population at the date of the 2nd of August, 1839, had been augmented for two months past by a unit in my person. Just then I was waiting for an opportunity of leaving the place, having completed the geological and mineralogical studies which had brought me to the group in general and to Christmas Harbour in particular.

Christmas Harbour belongs to the most important islet of the archipelago, one that is about half as large as Corsica. It is safe, and easy, and free of access. Your ship may ride securely at single anchor in its waters, while the bay remains free from ice.

The Kerguelens possess hundreds of other fjords. Their coasts are notched and ragged, especially in the parts between the north and the south-east, where little islets abound. The soil, of volcanic origin, is composed of quartz, mixed with a bluish stone. In summer it is covered with green mosses, grey lichens, various hardy plants, especially wild saxifrage. Only one edible plant grows there, a kind of cabbage, not found anywhere else, and very bitter of flavour. Great flocks of royal and other penguins people these islets, finding good lodging on their rocky and mossy surface. These stupid birds, in their yellow and white feathers, with their heads thrown back and their wings like the sleeves of a monastic habit, look, at a distance, like monks in single file walking in procession along the beach.

The islands afford refuge to numbers of sea-calves, seals, and sea-elephants. The taking of those amphibious animals either on land or from the sea is profitable, and may lead to a trade which will bring a large number of vessels into these waters.

On the day already mentioned, I was accosted while strolling on the port by mine host of mine inn.

"Unless I am much mistaken, time is beginning to seem very long to you, Mr. Jeorling?"

The speaker was a big tall American who kept the only inn on the port.

"If you will not be offended, Mr. Atkins, I will acknowledge that I do find it long."

"Of course I won't be offended. Am I not as well used to answers of that kind as the rocks of the Cape to the rollers?"

"And you resist them equally well."

"Of course. From the day of your arrival at Christmas Harbour, when you came to the Green Cormorant, I said to myself that in a fortnight, if not in a week, you would have enough of it, and would be sorry you had landed in the Kerguelens."

"No, indeed, Mr. Atkins; I never regret anything I have done."

"That's a good habit, sir."

"Besides, I have gained knowledge by observing curious things here. I have crossed the rolling plains, covered with hard stringy mosses, and I shall take away curious mineralogical and geological specimens with me. I have gone sealing, and taken sea-calves with your people. I have visited the rookeries where the penguin and the albatross live together in good fellowship, and that was well worth my while. You have given me now and again a dish of petrel, seasoned by your own hand, and very acceptable when one has a fine healthy appetite. I have found a friendly welcome at the Green Cormorant, and I am very much obliged to you. But, if I am right in my reckoning, it is two months since the Chilian twomaster Penãs set me down at Christmas Harbour in mid-winter.

"And you want to get back to your own country, which is mine, Mr. Jeorling; to return to Connecticut, to Providence, our capital."

"Doubtless, Mr. Atkins, for I have been a globe-trotter for close upon three years. One must come to a stop and take root at some time."

"Yes, and when one has taken root, one puts out branches."

"Just so, Mr. Atkins.