FIRST ANTARCTIC NIGHT 391 
never at rest, but drifted within certain limits in all direc- 
tions, the several floes being joined by leads covered with 
thin ice which bent and cracked in bad weather giving the 
pack as a whole a sort of flexibility and power of move- 
ment. The position was fixed by observations of the 
stars whenever it was possible to do so, and the drift 
could thus be traced from point to point. The course of 
the ship showed no general onward movement like that 
of the Fram across the Arctic Sea; it resembled nothing 
so much as a hank of tangled wire. Several times the 
ice shifted northward until the latitude was a little less 
than 70°, and the depth increased to nearly 1,000 
fathoms, and several times it drove south until the latitude 
exceeded 71 0 31', and the water was only 210 fathoms 
deep. On the east the limit of the drift was 8o° 30' W. 
and before the ship got free again she was in 102° W. 
The nights grew longer and on May 15th the sun set 
almost at noon, not to appear again for seventy days, 
though three days later a party from the ship, climbing a 
high iceberg, caught a glimpse of half the dull yellow 
disc peeping above the northern horizon. During the 
whole dark duration of these ten weeks the Belgica wan- 
dered aimlessly about, clasped in the ever writhing and 
rending but unrelenting ice. Fierce storms blew over 
her and the ice cracked with horrid noises and rose in 
pressure ridges, but though land no doubt lay to the 
south there was no shore near enough to offer resistance 
sufficient to bank the ridges to a dangerous height, and 
the storms passed, leaving the hull unhurt. 
The brilliance of the moonlight or the weird glow of 
the aurora australis occasionally lit up the rough surface 
of the pack and the sheets of level snow with lights and 
shadows more cheerless than the darkness itself. De- 
