FIRST ANTARCTIC NIGHT 387 
two engineers were Belgians, and of the nine sailors four 
were Belgian and five Norwegian. 
Dr. Frederick A. Cook, an American surgeon who had 
accompanied Peary in one of his Greenland journeys 
and had for years set his heart on seeing the Antarctic 
regions also, cabled to Gerlache, knowing nothing of the 
difficulty as to a medical man, but asking if he could by 
any means be taken with the expedition. He had himself 
tried and failed to get up an American expedition, and 
now gladly responded to Gerlache’s cabled permission to 
join at Rio de Janeiro. 
The Belgica, with her cosmopolitan company, pro- 
ceeded very slowly on her way, lingering unaccountably 
in the channels of Tierra del Fuego, where any ship 
could go at any season, and not leaving Staten Island until 
January 13th, 1898. It will be remembered that Larsen 
and Evensen had attained their highest southern latitudes 
in clear seas two months earlier in the season four years 
previously. Even at that late date much work was done 
which certainly should not be neglected, but might quite 
suitably have been left until the return journey. This 
consisted in running a line of soundings from Cape Horn 
to the South Shetlands, a tract of sea that had never been 
sounded before. 
On January 20th the South Shetlands were sighted, 
and the ship ran on a rock, giving rise to some alarm but 
no damage. The weather grew bad, and as the Belgica 
proceeded southward she had the misfortune to lose one 
of the Norwegian sailors, who fell overboard and could 
not be saved despite desperate efforts on the part of those 
on board. 
Proceeding into Hughes Gulf, Gerlache discovered a 
wide channel running southwestward and separating 
