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Page 60
At first the "Albatross," instead of keeping on to the south,
followed the windings of the coast as if to enter the Pacific. After
passing Lomas Bay, leaving Mount Gregory to the north and the
Brecknocks to the west, they sighted Puerto Arena, a small Chilean
village, at the moment the churchbells were in full swing; and a few
hours later they were over the old settlement at Port Famine.
If the Patagonians, whose fires could be seen occasionally, were
really above the average in stature, the passengers in the aeronef
were unable to say, for to them they seemed to be dwarfs. But what a
magnificent landscape opened around during these short hours of the
southern day! Rugged mountains, peaks eternally capped with snow,
with thick forests rising on their flanks, inland seas, bays deep set
amid the peninsulas, and islands of the Archipelago. Clarence Island,
Dawson Island, and the Land of Desolation, straits and channels,
capes and promontories, all in inextricable confusion, and bound by
the ice in one solid mass from Cape Forward, the most southerly point
of the American continent, to Cape Horn the most southerly point of
the New World.
When she reached Fort Famine the "Albatross" resumed her course to
the south. Passing between Mount Tam on the Brunswick Peninsula and
Mount Graves, she steered for Mount Sarmiento, an enormous peak
wrapped in snow, which commands the Straits of Magellan, rising six
thousand four hundred feet from the sea. And now they were over the
land of the Fuegians, Tierra del Fuego, the land of fire. Six months
later, in the height of summer, with days from fifteen to sixteen
hours long, how beautiful and fertile would most of this country be,
particularly in its northern portion! Then, all around would be seen
valleys and pasturages that could form the feeding-grounds of
thousands of animals; then would appear virgin forests, gigantic
trees-birches, beeches, ash-trees, cypresses, tree-ferns--and broad
plains overrun by herds of guanacos, vicunas, and ostriches. Now
there were armies of penguins and myriads of birds; and, when the
"Albatross" turned on her electric lamps the guillemots, ducks, and
geese came crowding on board enough to fill Tapage's larder a hundred
times and more.
Here was work for the cook, who knew how to bring out the flavor of
the game and keep down its peculiar oiliness. And here was work for
Frycollin in plucking dozen after dozen of such interesting feathered
friends.
That day, as the sun was setting about three o'clock in the
afternoon, there appeared in sight a large lake framed in a border of
superb forest. The lake was completely frozen over, and a few natives
with long snowshoes on their feet were swiftly gliding over it.
At the sight of the "Albatross," the Fuegians, overwhelmed with
terror--scattered in all directions, and when they could not get
away they hid themselves, taking, like the animals, to the holes in
the ground.
The "Albatross" still held her southerly course, crossing the Beagle
Channel, and Navarin Island and Wollaston Island, on the shores of
the Pacific. Then, having accomplished 4,700 miles since she left
Dahomey, she passed the last islands of the Magellanic archipelago,
whose most southerly outpost, lashed by the everlasting surf, is the
terrible Cape Horn.
Chapter XVII
THE SHIPWRECKED CREW
Next day was the 24th of July; and the 24th of July in the southern
hemisphere corresponds to the 24th of January in the northern. The
fifty-sixth degree of latitude had been left behind. The similar
parallel in northern Europe runs through Edinburgh.
The thermometer kept steadily below freezing, so that the machinery
was called upon to furnish a little artificial heat in the cabins.
Although the days begin to lengthen after the 21st day of June in the
southern hemisphere, yet the advance of the "Albatross" towards the
Pole more than neutralized this increase, and consequently the
daylight became very short. There was thus very little to be seen. At
night time the cold became very keen; but as there was no scarcity of
clothing on board, the colleagues, well wrapped up, remained a good
deal on deck thinking over their plans of escape, and watching for an
opportunity. Little was seen of Robur; since the high words that had
been exchanged in the Timbuktu country, the engineer had left off
speaking to his prisoners. Frycollin seldom came out of the
cook-house, where Tapage treated him most hospitably, on condition
that he acted as his assistant. This position was not without its
advantages, and the Negro, with his master's permission, very
willingly accepted it. Shut up in the galley, he saw nothing of what
was passing outside, and might even consider himself beyond the reach
of danger. He was, in fact, very like the ostrich, not only in his
stomach, but in his folly.
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