Chapter III.Fridtjof Nansen Accepts a Position in the Bergen Museum.—Crosses the Mountains in the Winter.—Prepares Himself for the Doctor’s Degree.The very same day that Nansen set foot on land after his return from this expedition he was offered the Conservatorship of the Bergen1Museum by Professor Collett. Old Danielsen, the chief physician, a man of iron capacity for work, and who had attained great renown in his profession, wanted to place a new man in charge. Nansen promptly accepted the offer, but asked first to be allowed to visit a sister in Denmark. But a telegram from Danielsen, “Nansen must come at once,” compelled him, though with no little regret, to give up his projected visit.The meeting of these two men was as if two clouds heavily laden with electricity had come in contact, producing a spark that blazed over the northern sky. That spark resulted in the famous Greenland expedition.Danielsen was one of those who held that a youth possessed of health, strength, and good abilities should be able to unravel almost anything and everything in this world, and in Fridtjof Nansen he found such an one. So these two worked together assiduously; forboth were alike enthusiastic in the cause of science, both possessed the same strong faith in its advancement. And Danielsen, the clear-headed scientist, after being associated with his colleague for some few years, entertained such firm confidence in his powers and capabilities, that a short time before the expedition to the North Pole set out, he wrote in a letter:—“Fridtjof Nansen will as surely return crowned with success from the North Pole as it is I who am writing these lines—such is an old man’s prophecy!”The old scientist, who felt his end was drawing near, sent him before his death an anticipatory letter of greeting when the expedition should happily be over.Nansen devoted himself to the study of science with the same indomitable energy that characterized all of his achievements.Hour by hour he would sit over his microscope, month after month devote himself to the pursuit of knowledge. Yet every now and then, when he felt he must go out to get some fresh air, he would buckle on his ski, and dash along over the mountain or through the forest till the snow spurted up in clouds behind him. Thus he spent several years in Bergen.But one fine day, chancing to read in the papers that Nordenskjöld had returned from his expedition to Greenland, and had said that the interior of the country was a boundless plain of ice and snow, it flashed on his mind that here was a field of work for him. Yes—he would cross Greenland on ski! and he at once set to work to prepare a plan for the expedition. But such an adventurous task, in which life would be at stake, must notbe undertaken till he himself had become a proficient in that branch of science which he had selected as his special study. So he remains yet some more years in Bergen, after which he spends twelve months in Naples, working hard at the subjects in which he subsequently took his doctor’s degree in 1888.Those years of expectation in Bergen were busy years. Every now and then he would become homesick. In winter time he would go by the railway from Bergen to Voss,2thence on ski over the mountains to Christiania, down the Stalheim road,2with its sinuous twists and bends, on through Nærödal, noted for its earth slips, on by the swift Lerdals river fretting and fuming on one side, and a perpendicular mountain wall on the other. And here he would sit to rest in that narrow gorge where avalanches are of constant occurrence. Let them come! he must rest awhile and eat. A solitary wayfarer hurries by on his sleigh as fast as his horse will go. “Take care!” shouts the traveller as he passes by; and Nansen looks up, gathers his things together, and proceeds on his journey through the valley. It was Sauekilen, the most dangerous spot in Lerdals, where he was resting. Then the night falls, the moon shines brightly overhead, and the creaking sound of his footsteps follows him over the desert waste, and his dark-blue shadow stays close beside him. And he, the man possessed of ineffable pride and indomitableresolution, feels how utterly insignificant he is in that lonely wilderness of snow—naught but an insect under the powerful microscope of the starlit sky, for the far-seeing eye of the Almighty is piercing through his inmost soul. Here it avails not to seek to hide aught from that gaze. So he pours out his thoughts to Him who alone has the right to search them. That midnight pilgrimage over the snowy waste was like a divine service on ski; and it was as an invigorated man, weary though he was in body, that he knocked at the door of a peasant’s cabin, while its astonished inmates looked out in amazement, and the old housewife cried out, “Nay! in Jesus’ name, are there folk on the fjeld3so late in the night? Nay! is it you? Suppose you are always so late on the road!”Even still more arduous was the return journey that same winter. The people in the last house on the eastern side of the mountain, in bidding him “God speed,” entreat him to go cautiously, for the road over the fjeld is well nigh impassable in winter, they say. Not a man in the whole district would follow him, they add. Nansen promises them to be very careful, as he sets off in the moonlight at three o’clock in the morning. Soon he reaches the wild desert, and the glittering snow blushes like a golden sea in the beams of the rising sun. Presently he reaches Myrstölen.4The houseman is away from home, and the women-folk moan and weep on learning the road he means to take. On resuming hisjourney he shortly comes to a cross-road. Shall it be Aurland or Vosse skavlen?5He chooses the latter route across the snow plateau, for it is the path the wild reindeer follow. On he skims over the crisp surface enveloped in the cloud of snow-dust his ski stir up, for the wind is behind him. But now he loses his way, falls down among the clefts and fissures, toils along step by step, and at last has to turn back and retrace his steps. There ought to be a sæter6somewhere about there, but it seems as if it had been spirited away. A pitchy darkness sets in; for the stars have disappeared one by one, and the night is of a coal-black hue, and Fridtjof has to make his bed on the snow-covered plateau, under the protecting shelter of a bowlder, his faithful dog by his side, his knapsack for a pillow, while the night wind howls over the waste.Again, at three in the morning, he resumes his journey, only again to lose his way, and burying himself in the snow, determines to wait for daybreak. Dawn came over the mountain-tops in a sea of rosy light, while the dark shadows of night fled to their hiding-places in the deep valleys below—a proclamation of eternity, where nature was the preacher and nature the listener, the voice of God speaking to himself.At broad daylight he sees Vosse skavlen close at hand, and thither he drags his weary, stiffened limbs; but on reaching the summit he drinks “skaal7to the fjeld,”a frozen orange, the last he has, being his beverage. Before the sun sets again, Fridtjof has crossed that mountain height, as King Sverre8did of yore—an achievement performed by those two alone!Fridtjof Nansen’s father died in 1885, and it was largely consideration for his aged parent’s failing health during the last few years that delayed Nansen’s setting out on his Greenland expedition. The letters that passed between father and son during this period strikingly evince the tender relationship existing between them. On receipt of the tidings of his father’s last illness he hurried off at a moment’s notice, never resting on his long homeward journey, inexpressibly grieved at arriving too late to see him alive.Then, after a year’s sojourn in Naples, where he met the genial and energetic Professor Dohrn, the founder of the biological station9in that city, having no further ties to hinder him, he enters heart and soul into the tasks he has set himself to accomplish,—to take his degree as doctor of philosophy, and to make preparation for his expedition to Greenland, both of which tasks he accomplished in the same year with credit. For he not only made himself a name as a profound researcher in the realms of science, but at the same time equipped an expedition that was soon destined to excite universal attention, not in the north alone, but throughout the length and breadth of Europe.1Bergen, the metropolis of western Norway, the second largest city in Norway.2Voss, a country district of western Norway, connected with Bergen by railway.Stalheim road, a piece of road winding in a slow decline down a steep hill, famous for the beauty of its scenery and the engineering skill with which it has been built.NærödalandLerdals rivermust be passed on the way from Bergen to Christiania.3Fjeld(pron. fyell), mountain.4Myrstölen, the last house on the eastern side of the mountain inhabited the whole year through.5AurlandandVosse skavlen, alternative routes across the mountains from Christiania to Bergen.6Sæter, mountain hut, used by graziers during the summer months.7Skaal, your health.8King Sverre, King of Norway 1177 to 1202.9An institution where animal life is studied.Chapter IV.Nansen Meets Nordenskjöld.1—Preparations for the Greenland Expedition.—Nansen’s Followers on the Expedition.—Starting on the Expedition.—Drifting on an Ice-floe.—Landing on East Coast of Greenland.Nansen had an arduous task before him in the spring of 1888, one that demanded all his strength and energy, for he would take his doctor’s degree, and make preparations for his expedition to Greenland.He had already, in the autumn of 1887, made up his mind to accomplish both these things. In November of that year, accordingly, he went to Stockholm to confer with Nordenskjöld. Professor Brögger, who introduced him to that gentleman, gives the following account of the interview:—“On Thursday, Nov. 3, as I was sitting in my study in the Mineralogical Institute, my messenger came in and said a Norwegian had been inquiring for me. He had left no card, neither had he given his name. Doubtless, I thought, it was some one who wanted help out of a difficulty.“‘What was he like?’ I inquired.“‘Tall and fair,’ replied the messenger.“‘Was he dressed decently?’ I asked.“‘He hadn’t an overcoat on.’ This with a significant smile, as he added, ‘Looked for all the world like a seafaring man—or a tramp.’“‘Humph!’ I muttered to myself; ‘sailor with no overcoat! Very likely thinks I’m going to give him one—yes, I think I understand.’“Later on in the afternoon Wille2came in. ‘Have you seen Nansen?’ he said.“‘Nansen?’ I replied. ‘Was that sailor fellow without an overcoat Nansen?’“‘Without an overcoat! Why, he means to cross over the inland ice of Greenland;’ and out went Wille—he was in a hurry.“Presently entered Professor Lecke with the same question, ‘Have you seen Nansen? Isn’t he a fine fellow? such a lot of interesting discoveries he told me of, and then his researches into the nervous system—a grand fellow!’ and off went Lecke.“But before long the man himself entered the room. Tall, upright, broad-shouldered, strongly built, though slim and very youthful looking, with his shock of hair brushed off his well-developed forehead. Coming toward me and holding out his hand, he introduced himself by name, while a pleasing smile played over his face.“‘And you mean to cross over Greenland?’ I asked.“‘Yes; I’ve been thinking of it,’ was the reply.“I looked him in the face, as he stood before me with an air of conscious self-reliance about him. With everyword he spoke he seemed to grow on me; and this plan of his to cross over Greenland on ski from the east coast, which but a moment ago I had looked on as a madman’s idea, during our conversation gradually grew on me, till it seemed to be the most natural thing in the world; and all at once it flashed on my mind, ‘And he’ll do it, too, as sure as ever we are sitting here talking about it.’“He, whose name but two hours ago I had not known, became in those few minutes (and it all came about so naturally) as if he were an old acquaintance, and I felt I should be proud and fortunate indeed to have him for my friend my whole life through.“‘We will go and see Nordenskjöld at once,’ I said, rising up. And we went.“With his strange attire,—he was dressed in a tight-fitting, dark-blue blouse or coatee, a kind of knitted jacket,—he was, as may be supposed, stared at in Drottning-gatan. Some people, indeed, took him for an acrobat or tight-rope dancer.”Nordenskjöld, “old Nor” as he was often termed, was in his laboratory, and looked up sharply as his two visitors entered the room, for he was, as ever, “busy.”The professor saluted, and introduced his companion, “Conservator Nansen from Bergen, who purposes to cross over the inland ice of Greenland.”“The deuce he does!” muttered “old Nor,” staring with all his eyes at the fair-haired young viking.“And would like to confer with you about it,” continued the professor.“Quite welcome; and so Herr Nansen thinks of crossing over Greenland?”“Yes; such was his intention.” Thereon, without further ado, he sketched out his projected plan, to which “old Nor” listened with great attention, shaking his head every now and then, as if rather sceptical about it, but evidently getting more and more interested as he proceeded.As Nansen and Professor Brögger were sitting in the latter’s house that evening, a knock was heard at the door, and who should come in but “old Nor” himself—a convincing proof to Brögger that the old man entertained a favorable idea of the proposed plan. And many a valuable hint did the young ice-bear get from the old one, as they sat opposite each other—the man of the past and the coming man of the present—quietly conversing together that evening.Now Nansen sets off for home in order to prepare for the arduous task of the ensuing spring. In December, 1887, he is in Bergen again, and at the end of January he travels on ski from Hardanger to Kongsberg, thence by rail to Christiania.In March we see him once more in Bergen, giving lectures in order to awaken public interest in Greenland; now sleeping out on the top of Blaamand,3a mountain near Bergen, in a sleeping-bag, to test its efficiency; now standing on the cathedra in the university auditorium to claim his right to the degree of doctor of philosophy, which on April 28 was honorably awarded him; and on May 2 he sets out for Copenhagen,en routefor Greenland. For unhappily it was the case in Norway in 1888 that Norwegian exploits must be carried out with Danish help. In vain had he sought for assistance from the regents of the university. They recommended the matter to the government, but the government had no 5,000 kroner4($1,350) to throw away on such an enterprise,—the enterprise of a madman, as most people termed it.Yet when that enterprise had been carried to a successful issue, and that same lunatic had become a great man and asked the government and the storthing5for a grant of 200,000 kroner ($54,000) for his second mad expedition, his request was promptly granted. A new Norway had grown up meanwhile, a new national spirit had forced its way into existence, a living testimony to the power of the Nansen expedition.As stated above, Nansen had to go to Denmark for the 5,000 kroner; and it was the wealthy merchant, Augustin Gamel, who placed that amount at his disposal. Still, certain is it, had not that sum of money been forthcoming as it was, Fridtjof Nansen would have plucked himself bare to the last feather in order to carry out his undertaking.But what was there to be gained from an expedition to Greenland worth the risking of human life,—for a life-risk it unquestionably would be,—to say nothing of the cost thereof? What was there to be learned from the ice?The question is soon answered.The island of Greenland,—for it is now well ascertained that it is an island, and that the largest in the world,—this Sahara of the North, contains within its ice-plains the key to the history of the human race. For it is the largest homogeneous relic we possess of the glacial age. Such as Greenland now is, so large tracts of the world have been; and, what is of more interest to us, so has the whole of the north been. It is this mighty ice-realm that has caused a large proportion of the earth’s surface to assume its present appearance. The lowlands of Mid-Germany and Denmark have been scoured and transported thither from the rocks of Norway and Sweden. The Swedish rock at Lützen in Saxony is Swedish granite that the ice has carried with it. And the small glaciers still left in Norway, such as the Folgefond, Jostedalsbræ, Svartis,6etc., are merely “calves” of that ancient, stupendous mass of ice that time and heat have transported, even though it once lay more than a thousand metres in thickness over widely extended plains.To investigate, therefore, the inland ice of Greenland is, in a word, to investigate the great glacial age; and one may learn from such a study many a lesson explanatory of our earth’s appearance at the present day, and ascertain what could exist, and what could not, under such conditions.We know now that, during the glacial age, human beings lived on this earth, even close up to this gigantic glacier, that subsequently destroyed all life on its course. It may be safely asserted that the struggle with theice, and with the variations of climate, have been important factors in making the human race what it will eventually be, the lords of nature.The Esquimaux in their deerskin dress, the aborigines of Australia, the pigmy tribes of Africa’s primeval forests, are a living testimony of the tenacious powers of the soul and body of mankind,—civilization’s trusty outposts. An Esquimau living on blubber under fifty degrees of cold is just as much a man of achievement in this work-a-day world as an Edison, who, with every comfort at his disposal, forces nature to disclose her hidden marvels. But he who, born in the midst of civilization, and who forces his way to an outpost farther advanced than any mankind has yet attained, is greater, perhaps, than either, especially when in his struggle for existence he wrests from nature her inmost secrets.This was the kernel of Nansen’s exploits—his first and his last.Nansen was fully alive to the fact that his enterprise would involve human life; and he formed his plans in such wise that he would either attain his object or perish in the attempt. He would make the dangerous, uninhabited coast of East Greenland his starting-point as one which presented no enticement for retracing his steps. He would force his way onward. The instinct of self-preservation should impel him toward the west—the greater his advance in that direction the greaterhis hopes. Behind him naught but death; before him, life!But he must have followers! Where were men to be found to risk their lives on such a venture? to form one of a madman’s retinue? And not only that, he must have men with him who, like himself, were well versed in all manly sports, especially in running on ski; men hard as iron, as he was; men who, like himself, were unencumbered with family ties. Where were such to be found? He sought long and diligently, and he found them.There was a man named Sverdrup—Otto Sverdrup. Yes, we all of us know him now! But then he was an unknown Nordland youth, inured to hardship on sea and land, an excellent sailor, a skilful ski-runner, firm of purpose; one to whom fatigue was a stranger, physically strong and able in emergency, unyielding as a rod of iron, firm as a rock. A man chary of words in fine weather, but eloquent in storm: possessed, too, of a courage that lay so deep that it needed almost a peril involving life to arouse it. Yet, when the pinch came Sverdrup was in his element. Then would his light blue eyes assume a darker hue, and a smile creep over his hard-set features; then he would resemble a hawk that sits on a perch with ruffled feathers, bidding defiance to every one who approaches it, but which, when danger draws nigh, flaps its pinions, and soars aloft in ever widening circles, increasing with the force of the tempest, borne along by the storm.This man accompanied him.Otto Sverdrup.Otto Sverdrup.Number two was Lieutenant, now Captain,Olaf Dietrichson.He, too, hailed from the north. A man who loved a life in the open air, a master in all manly exploits, elastic as a steel spring, a proficient on ski, and a sportsman in heart and soul. And added to this, a man possessed of great knowledge in those matters especially that were needed in an expedition like the present. He, too, was enrolled among the number.Number three was also from Nordland, from Sverdrup’s neighborhood, who recommended him. His name wasKristian Kristiansen Trana—a handy and reliable youth.These three were all Nordlanders. But Nansen had a great desire to have a couple of Fjeld-Finns with him, for he considered that, inured as they were to ice and snow, their presence would be of great service to him. They came from Karasjok.7The one a fine young fellow, more Qvæn8than Lapp; the other a little squalid-looking, dark-haired, pink-eyed Fjeld-Finn. The name of the first wasBalto; of the other,Ravna. These two children of the mountains came to Christiania looking dreadfully perplexed, with little of the heroic about them. For they had agreed to accompany the expedition principally for the sake of the good pay, and now learned for the first time that their lives might be endangered. Nansen, however, managed to instil a little confidence into them, and as was subsequently proved, they turned out to be useful and reliable members ofthe expedition. Old Ravna, who was forty-five, was a married man,—a fact Nansen did not know when he engaged him,—and was possessed of great physical strength and powers of endurance.Nansen now had the lives of five persons beside his own on his conscience. He would, therefore, make his equipment in such manner that he should have nothing to reproach himself with in case anything went wrong, a work that he conscientiously and carefully carried out. There was not a single article or implement that was not scientifically and practically discussed and tested, measured and weighed, before they set out. Hand-sleighs and ski, boats and tent, cooking-utensils, sleeping-bags, shoes and clothes, food and drink, all were of the best kind; plenty of everything, but nothing superfluous—light, yet strong, nourishing and strengthening. Everything, in fact, was well thought over, and as was subsequently proved, the mistakes that did occur were few and trifling.Nansen made most of the implements with his own hands, and nothing came to pieces during the whole expedition saving a boat plank that was crushed by the ice.But one thing Nansen omitted to take with him, and that was a supply of spirituous liquor. It did not exist in his dictionary of sport. For he had long entertained the opinion—an opinion very generally held by the youth of Norway at the present day—that strong drink is a foe to manly exploit, sapping and undermining man’s physical and mental powers. In former days, indeed, in Norway, as elsewhere, it was consideredmanly to drink, but now the drinker is looked down on with a pity akin to contempt.Thus equipped, these six venturesome men set out on their way; first by steamer to Iceland, thence by the Jason, a sealer, Captain Jacobsen its commander, who, as opportunity should offer, was to set them ashore on the east coast of Greenland. And here, after struggling for a month with the ice, they finally arrived, on July 19, so near to the Sermilik Fjord that Nansen determined to leave the Jason and make his way across the ice to land. The whole ship’s crew were on deck to bid them farewell. Nansen was in command of one of the two boats, and when he gave the word “set off,” they shot off from the ship’s side, while the Jason’s two guns and a spontaneous hurrah from sixty-four stalwart sailors’ throats resounded far and wide over the sea. As the boats worked their way into the ice, the Jason changed her course, and ere long our six travellers watched the Norwegian flag, waving like a distant tongue of fire, gradually fade from sight and disappear among the mist and fog.These six men set out on their arduous journey with all the indomitable fearlessness and disregard of danger that youth inspires,—qualifications that would speedily be called into requisition.Before many hours of toiling in the ice, the rain came down in torrents, and the current drove them with irresistible force away from the land, while ice-floes kept striking against their boats’ sides, threatening to crush or capsize them. A plank, indeed, in Nansen’s boat was broken by the concussion, and had tobe instantly repaired, the rain meanwhile pouring down a perfect deluge. They determined, therefore, to drag the boats upon an ice-floe, and to pitch their tent on it; and having done this they got into their sleeping-bags, the deafening war of the raging storm in their ears. The two Fjeld-Lapps, however, thinking their end was drawing near, sat with a dejected air gazing in silence out over the sea.Camp on the drift-ice.Camp on the drift-ice.Far away in the distance the roar of the surge dashing against the edge of the ice could be heard, while the steadily increasing swell portended an approaching tempest.Next morning, July 20, Nansen was awakened by aviolent concussion. The ice-floe on which they were was rent asunder, and the current was rapidly drifting them out toward the open sea. The roar of the surge increased; the waves broke over the ice-floe on all sides. Balto and Ravna lay crouching beneath a tarpaulin reading the New Testament in Lappish, while the tears trickled down their cheeks; but out on the floe Dietrichson and Kristiansen were making jokes as every fresh wave dashed over them. Sverdrup was standing with hands folded behind his back, chewing his quid, his eyes directed towards the sea, as if in expectation.They are but a few hundred metres distant from the open sea, and soon will have to take to the boats, or be washed off the floe. The swell is so heavy that the floe ducks up and down like a boat in the trough of the sea. So the order is given, “All hands turn in,” for all their strength will be needed, in the fierce struggle they will shortly have to encounter. So they sleep on the very brink of death, the roar of the storm their lullaby—Ravna and Balto in one of the boats, Nansen and the others in the tent, where the water pours in and out.But there is one outside, on the floe. It is his watch. Hour by hour he walks up and down, his hands behind his back. It is Sverdrup. Every now and then he stands still, turns his sharp, thin face with the sea-blue eyes towards the breakers, and then once more resumes his walk.The storm is raging outside, and the surge is dashing over the ice. He goes to the boat where Ravna and Balto lie sleeping, and lays hold of it, lest it shouldbe swept away by the backwash. Then he goes to the tent, undoes a hook, and again stands gazing over the sea; then turns round, and resumes his walk as before.Their floe is now at the extreme edge of the ice, close to the open sea. A huge crag of ice rises up like some white-clad threatening monster, and the surf dashes furiously over the floe. Again the man on the watch arrests his steps; he undoes another hook in the tent. Matters are at their worst! He must arouse his comrades! He is about to do so when he turns once more and gazes seaward. He becomes aware of a new and strange motion in the floe beneath him. Its course is suddenly changed; it is speeding swiftly away from the open sea—inward, ever inward toward calm water, toward life, toward safety. And as that bronze-faced man stands there, a strange and serious look passes over his features. For that has occurred,—that wondrous thing that he and many another sailor has often experienced,—salvation from death without the mediation of human agency. That moment was for him what the stormy night on the Hardanger waste was to Nansen. It was like divine service! It was as if some invisible hand had steered the floe, he said afterwards to Nansen. So he rolled his quid round into the other cheek, stuck his hands in his pockets; and hour after hour, till late in the morning, the steps of that iron-hearted man on the watch might be heard pacing to and fro.When Nansen awoke, the floe was in safe shelter.Still for another week they kept drifting southward,the glaciers and mountain ridges one after another disappearing from view—a weary, comfortless time. Then, toward midnight on July 28, when it was Sverdrup’s watch again, he thought he could hear the sound of breakers in the west. What it was he could not rightly make out; he thought, perhaps, his senses deceived him; for, at other times, the sound had always come from the east where the sea was. But next morning, when it was Ravna’s watch, Nansen was awakened by seeing the Finn’s grimy face peering at him through an opening in the tent.“Now, Ravna, what is it? can you see land?” he asked at a venture.“Yes—yes—land too close!” croaked Ravna, as he drew his head back.Nansen sprang out of the tent. Yes, there was the land, but a short distance off; and the ice was loose so that a way could easily be forced through it. In a twinkling all hands were busy; and a few hours later Nansen planted his foot on the firm land of Greenland.1Nordenskjöld(pron. Nordenshuld), famous Swedish explorer, discoverer of the North-east Passage.2Wille, another Norwegian, who at that time was professor at the High School in Stockholm.3Blaamand(pron. Blohmann).4Onekrone(crown) equals twenty-seven cents.5Storthing, the legislative assembly (congress) of Norway.6Folgefond,Jostedalsbræ, Svartisen, glaciers in Norway.7Karasjok(pron. Karashok), one of the northernmost districts of Norway, chiefly inhabited by Lapps.8Qvæn, the Norwegian name for a man of the race inhabiting the grand duchy of Finland. TheLappsare in Norway called Finns.Chapter V.Journey across Greenland.—Meeting Esquimaux.—Reaching the West Coast.—Return to Civilization and Home.When Nansen and his companions, after their perilous adventures in the drift-ice, landed with flags flying on their boats on the east waste of Greenland, the first thing they did was to give vent to their feelings in a ringing hurrah—a sound which those wild and barren crags had never re-echoed before. Their joy, indeed, on feeling firm ground beneath their feet once more baffles description. In a word, they conducted themselves like a pack of schoolboys, singing, laughing, and playing all manner of pranks. The Lapps, however, did not partake in the general merriment, but took themselves off up the mountain-side, where they remained several hours.But when their first ebullition of joy had somewhat subsided, Nansen himself followed the example of the Lapps, and clambered up the slope in order to get a good view over the landscape, leaving the others to prepare the banquet they determined to indulge in that evening on the sea-beach. And here he remained some little while, entranced with the wondrous beauty of the scene. The sea and the ice stretched far away to the east, shining like a belt of silver beneath him, while on the west the mountain-tops were bathed in a flood ofhazy sunshine, and the inland ice, the “Sahara of the North,” extended in a level unbroken plain for miles and miles into the interior.A snow bunting perched on a stone close by him, and chirped a welcome; a mosquito came humming through the air to greet the stranger, and settled on his hand. He would not disturb it; it was a welcome from home. It wanted his blood, and he let it take its fill. To the south the grand outline of Cape Tordenskjold rose up in the horizon, its name and form recalling his country to his mind; and there arose in his breast an earnest desire, a deep longing, to sacrifice anything and everything for his beloved “Old Norway.”On rejoining his comrades, the feast was ready. It consisted of oatmeal biscuits, Gruyère cheese, whortleberry jam, and chocolate; and there is little doubt that these six adventurers “ate as one eats in the springtime of youth.” For it had been unanimously resolved that, for this one day at least, they would enjoy themselves to the full; on the morrow their daily fare would be, toeat little, sleep little, and work as hard as possible. To-day, then, should be the first and the last of such indulgence. Time was precious!On the next day, therefore, they resumed their northward journey, along the east coast, fighting their way day and night, inch by inch, foot by foot, through the drift-ice; at times in peril, at others in safety; past Cape Adelaer, past Cape Garde, ever forward in one incessant, monotonous struggle. And now they approached the ill-omened Puisortok, of which Esquimauxand European seafarers had many an evil tale to tell. There, it was said, masses of ice would either shoot up suddenly from beneath the surface of the water, and crush any vessel that ventured near, or would fall down from the overhanging height, and overwhelm it. There not a word must be spoken! there must be no laughing, no eating, no smoking, if one would pass it in safety! Above all, the fatal name of Puisortok must not pass the lips, else the glacier would be angry, and certain destruction ensue.Nansen, however, it may be said, did not observe these regulations, and yet managed to pass it in safety. In his opinion there was nothing very remarkable or terrible about it.But something else took place at Puisortok that surprised him and his companions.On July 30, as they were preparing their midday meal, Nansen heard, amid the shrill cries of the seabirds, a strange weird sound. What it could be he could not conceive. It resembled the cry of a loon more than anything else, and kept coming nearer and nearer. Through his telescope, however, he discerned two dark specks among the ice-floes, now close together, now a little apart, making straight for them. They were human beings evidently—human beings in the midst of that desert region of ice, which they had thought to be a barren, uninhabited waste. Balto, too, watched their approach attentively, with a half astonished, half uneasy look, for he believed them to be supernatural beings.On came the strangers, one of them bending forwardin his kayak1as if bowing in salutation; and, on coming alongside the rock, they crawled out of their kayaks and stood before Nansen and his companions with bare heads, dressed in jackets and trousers of seal-skin, smiling, and making all manner of friendly gestures. They were Esquimaux, and had glass beads in their jet-black hair. Their skin was of a chestnut hue, and their movements, if not altogether graceful, were attractive.On coming up to our travellers they began to ask questions in a strange language, which, needless to say, was perfectly unintelligible. Nansen, indeed, tried to talk to them in Esquimau from a conversation book in that tongue he had with him, but it was perfectly useless. And it was not till both parties had recourse to the language of signs that Nansen was able to ascertain that they belonged to an Esquimau encampment to the north of Puisortok.These two Esquimaux were good-natured looking little beings; and now they began to examine the equipments of the travellers, and taste their food, with which they seemed beyond measure pleased, expressing their admiration at all they saw by a long-drawn kind of bovine bellow. Finally they took leave, and set off northward in their kayaks which they managed with wonderful dexterity, and soon disappeared from sight.At six the same evening our travellers followed in the same direction, and in a short time reached the Esquimau encampment at Cape Bille. Long, however,before their eyes could detect any signs of tents or of human beings, their sense of smell became aware of a rank odor of train-oil, accompanied by a sound of voices; and they presently saw numbers of Esquimaux standing on the sea-beach, and on the rocks, earnestly watching the approach of the strangers.It was a picturesque sight that presented itself to the eyes of our travellers.“All about the ledges of the rocks,” writes Nansen, “stood long rows of strangely wild, shaggy looking creatures, men, women and children—all dressed in much the same scanty attire, staring and pointing at us, and uttering the same cowlike sound we had heard in the forenoon. It was just as if a whole herd of cows were lowing one against another, as when the cowhouse door is opened in the morning to admit the expected fodder.”They were all smiling,—a smile indeed, is the only welcoming salute of the Esquimaux,—all eager to help Nansen and his companions ashore, chattering away incessantly in their own tongue, like a saucepan boiling and bubbling over with words, not one of which, alas, could Nansen or his companions understand.Presently Nansen was invited to enter one of their tents, in which was an odor of such a remarkable nature, such a blending of several ingredients, that a description thereof is impossible. It was the smell, as it were, of a mixture of train-oil, human exhalations, and the effluvium of fetid liquids all intimately mixed up together; while men and women, lying on the floor round the fire, children rolling about everywhere, dogs sniffingall around, helped to make up a scene that was decidedly unique.East Greenland Esquimaux.East Greenland Esquimaux.All of the occupants were of a brownish-greyish hue, due mostly to the non-application of soap and water, and were swarming with vermin. All of them were shiny with train-oil, plump, laughing, chattering creatures—in a word, presenting a picture of primitive social life, in all its original blessedness.Nansen does not consider the Esquimaux, crosseyedand flat-featured though they be, as by any means repulsive looking. The nose he describes, in the case of children, “as a depression in the middle of the face,” the reverse ideal, indeed, of a European nose.On the whole he considers their plump, rounded forms to have a genial appearance about them, and that the seal is the Esquimau prototype.The hospitality of these children of nature was boundless. They would give away all they possessed, even to the shirt on their backs, had they possessed such an article; and certainly showed extreme gratitude when their liberality was reciprocated, evidently placing a high value on empty biscuit-tins, for each time any of them got one presented to him he would at once bellow forth his joy at the gift.But what especially seemed to attract their interest was when Nansen and his companions began to undress, before turning in for the night into their sleeping-bags; while to watch them creep out of the same the next morning afforded them no less interest. They entertained, however, a great dread of the camera, for every time Nansen turned its dark glass eye upon them, a regular stampede would take place.Next day Nansen and the Esquimaux parted company, some of the latter proceeding on their way to the south, others accompanying him on his journey northward. The leavetaking between the Esquimaux was peculiar, being celebrated by cramming their nostrils full of snuff from each other’s snuff-horns. Snuff indeed is the only benefit, or the reverse, it seems the Esquimaux have derived from European civilization upto date; and is such a favorite, one might say necessary, article with them that they will go on a shopping expedition to the south to procure it, a journey that often takes them four years to accomplish!The journey northward was an extremely fatiguing one, for they encountered such stormy weather that their boats more than once narrowly escaped being nipped in the ice. As a set-off, however, to this, the scenery proved to be magnificent,—the floating mountains of ice resembling enchanted castles, and all nature was on a stupendous scale. Finally they reached a harbor on Griffenfeldt’s Island, where they enjoyed the first hot meal they had had on their coasting expedition, consisting of caraway soup. This meal of soup was a great comfort to the weary and worn-out travellers. Here a striking but silent testimony of that severe and pitiless climate presented itself in the form of a number of skulls and human bones lying blanched and scattered among the rocks, evidently the remains of Esquimaux who in times long gone by had perished from starvation.After an incredible amount of toil, Nansen arrived at a small island in the entrance of the Inugsuazmuit Fjord, and thence proceeded to Skjoldungen where the water was more open. Here they encamped, and were almost eaten up by mosquitoes.On Aug. 6 they again set out on their way northward, meeting with another encampment of Esquimaux, who were, however, so terrified at the approach of thestrangers, that they one and all bolted off to the mountain, and it was not till Nansen presented them with an empty tin box and some needles that they became reassured, after which they accompanied the expedition for some little distance, and on parting gave Nansen a quantity of dried seal’s flesh.The farther our travellers proceeded on their journey, the more dissatisfied and uneasy did Balto and Ravna become. Accordingly one day Nansen took the opportunity of giving Balto a good scolding, who with tears and sobs gave vent to his complaints, “They had not had food enough—coffee only three times during the whole journey; and they had to work harder than any beast the whole livelong day, and he would gladly give many thousands of kroner to be safe at home once more.”There was indeed something in what Balto said. The fare had unquestionably been somewhat scanty, and the work severe; and it was evident that these children of nature, hardy though they were, could not vie with civilized people when it became a question of endurance for any length of time, and of risking life and taxing one’s ability to the utmost.Finally, on Aug. 10, the expedition reached Umivik in a dense fog, after a very difficult journey through the ice, and encamped for the last time on the east coast of Greenland. Here they boiled coffee, shot a kind of snipe, and lived like gentlemen, so that even Balto and Ravna were quite satisfied. The former, indeed, began intoning some prayers, as he had heard the priest in Finmarken do, in a very masterly manner,—a pastime,by the way, he never indulged in except he felt his life to be quite safe.The next day, Aug. 11, rose gloriously bright. Far away among the distant glaciers a rumbling sound as of cannon could be heard, while snow-covered mountains towered high, overhead, on the other side of which lay boundless tracts of inland ice. Nansen and Sverdrup now made a reconnoitring expedition, and did not return till five o’clock the next morning. It still required some days to overhaul and get everything in complete order for their journey inland; and it was not till nine o’clock in the evening of Aug. 16, after first dragging up on land the boats, in which a few necessary articles of food were stored, together with a brief account of the progress of the expedition carefully packed in a tin box, that they commenced their journey across the inland ice.Nansen and Sverdrup led the way with the large sleigh, while the others, each dragging a smaller one, followed in their wake. Thus these six men, confident of solving the problem before them, with the firm earth beneath their feet, commenced the ascent of the mountain-slope which Nansen christened “Nordenskjöld’s Nunatak.”2Their work had now begun in real earnest—a work so severe and arduous that it would require all the strength and powers of endurance they possessed to accomplish it. The ice was full of fissures, and these had either to be circumvented or crossed, a very difficult matter with heavily laden sleighs. A covering ofice often lay over these fissures, so that great caution was required. Hence their progress was often very slow, each man being roped to his fellow; so that if one of them should happen to disappear into one of these fathomless abysses, his companion could haul him up. Such an occurrence happened more than once; for Nansen as well as the others would every now and then fall plump in up to the arms, dangling with his legs over empty space. But it always turned out well; for powerful hands took hold of the rope, and the practised gymnasts knew how to extricate themselves.At first the ascent was very hard work, and it will readily be understood that the six tired men were not sorry on the first night of their journey to crawl into their sleeping-bags, after first refreshing the inner man with cup after cup of hot tea.Yet, notwithstanding all the fatigue they had undergone, there was so much strength left in them that Dietrichson volunteered to go back and fetch a piece of Gruyère cheese they had left behind when halting for their midday meal. “It would be a nice little morning walk,” he said, “before turning in!” And he actually went—all for the sake of a precious bit of cheese!Next day there was a pouring rain that wet them through. The work of hauling the sleighs, however, kept them warm. But later in the evening, it came down in such torrents that Nansen deemed it advisable to pitch the tent, and here they remained, weather-bound, for three whole days. And long days they were! But our travellers followed the example ofbruin in winter; that is, they lay under shelter the greater part of the time, Nansen taking care that they should also imitate bruin in another respect,—who sleeps sucking his paw,—by giving them rations once a day only. “He who does no work shall have little food,” was his motto.On the forenoon of the twentieth, however, the weather improved; and our travellers again set out on their journey, having first indulged in a good warm meal by way of recompense for their three days’ fasting. The ice at first was very difficult, so much so that they had to retrace their steps, and, sitting on their sleighs, slide down the mountain slope. But the going improved, as also did the weather. “If it would only freeze a little,” sighed Nansen. But he was to get enough of frost before long.On they tramped, under a broiling sun, over the slushy snow. As there was no drinking-water to be had, they filled their flasks with snow, carrying them in their breast-pockets for the heat of their bodies to melt it.On Aug. 22 there was a night frost; the snow was hard and in good condition, but the surface so rough and full of lumps and frozen waves of slush, that the ropes with which they dragged the sleighs cut and chafed their shoulders. “It was just as if our shoulders were being burnt,” Balto said.They now travelled mostly by night, for it was better going then, and there was no sun to broil them; while the aurora borealis, bathing as it were the whole of the frozen plain in a flood of silvery light, inspiredthem with fresh courage. The surface of the ice over which they travelled was as smooth and even as a lake newly frozen over. Even Balto on such occasions would indulge in a few oaths, a thing he never allowed himself except when he felt “master of the situation.” He was a Finn, you see, and perhaps had no other way of giving expression to his feelings!As they got into higher altitudes the cold at night became more intense. Occasionally they were overtaken by a snowstorm, when they had to encamp in order to avoid being frozen to death; while at times, again, the going would become so heavy in the fine drifting snow that they had to drag their sleighs one by one, three or four men at a time to each sleigh, an operation involving such tremendous exertion that Kristiansen, a man of few words, on one such occasion said to Nansen, “What fools people must be to let themselves in for work like this!”To give some idea of the intense cold they had to encounter it may be stated that, at the highest altitude they reached,—9,272 feet above the sea,—the temperature fell to below -49° Fahrenheit, and this, too, in the tent at night, the thermometer being under Nansen’s pillow. And all this toil and labor, be it remembered, went on from Aug. 16 to the end of September, with sleighs weighing on an average about two hundred and twenty pounds each, in drifting snow-dust, worse than even the sandstorms of Sahara.In order to lighten their labor, Nansen resolved to use sails on the sleighs—a proceeding which Balto highly disapproved of: “Such mad people he hadnever seen before, to want to sail over the snow! He was a Lapp, he was, and there was nothing they could teach him on land. It was the greatest nonsense he had ever heard of!”Sledging across Greenland.Sledging across Greenland.Sails, however, were forthcoming, notwithstanding Balto’s objections; and they sat and stitched them with frozen fingers in the midst of the snow. But it was astonishing what a help they proved to be; and so they proceeded on their way, after slightly altering their course in the direction of Godthaab.3Thus, then, we see these solitary beings, looking like dark spots moving on an infinite expanse of snow,wending their way ever onward, Nansen and Sverdrup side by side, ski-staff and ice-axe in hand, in front, earnestly gazing ahead as they dragged the heavy sleigh, while close behind followed Dietrichson and Kristiansen, Balto and Ravna bringing up the rear, each dragging a smaller sleigh. So it went on for weeks; and though it tried their strength, and put their powers of endurance to a most severe test, yet, if ever the thought of “giving it up” arose in their minds, it was at once scouted by all the party, the two Lapps excepted. One day Balto complained loudly to Nansen. “When you asked us,” he said, “in Christiania, what weight we could drag, we told you we could manage one hundredweight each, but now we have double that weight, and all I can say is, that, if we can drag these loads over to the west coast, we are stronger than horses.”Onward, however, they went, in spite of the cold, which at times was so intense that their beards froze fast to their jerseys, facing blinding snowstorms that well-nigh made old Ravna desperate. The only bright moments they enjoyed were when sleeping or at their meals. The sleeping-bags, indeed, were a paradise; their meals, ideals of perfect bliss.Unfortunately, Nansen had not taken a sufficient supply of fatty food with him, and to such an extent did the craving for fat go, that Sverdrup one day seriously suggested that they should eat boot-grease—a compound of boiled grease and old linseed oil! Their great luxury was to eat raw butter, and smoke a pipe after it. First they would smoke the fragrant weedpure and simple; when that was done, the tobacco ash, followed by the oil as long as it would burn; and when this was all exhausted, they would smoke tarred yarn, or anything else that was a bit tasty! Nansen, who neither smoked nor chewed, would content himself with a chip of wood, or a sliver off one of the “truger” (snowshoes). “It tasted good,” he said, “and kept his mouth moist.”Finally, on Sept. 14, they had reached their highest altitude, and now began to descend toward the coast, keeping a sharp lookout for “land ahead.” But none was yet to be seen, and one day Ravna’s patience completely gave way. With sobs and moans he said to Nansen,—“I’m an old Fjeld-Lapp, and a silly old fool! I’m sure we shall never get to the coast!”“Yes,” was the curt answer, “it’s quite true! Ravna is a silly old fool!”One day, however, shortly afterward, while they were at dinner, they heard the twittering of a bird close by. It was a snow-bunting, bringing them a greeting from the west coast, and their hearts grew warm within them at the welcome sound.On the next day, with sails set, they proceeded onward down the sloping ground, but with only partial success. Nansen was standing behind the large sleigh to steady it, while Sverdrup steered from the front. Merrily flew the bark; but, unfortunately, Nansen stumbled and fell, and had hard work to regain his legs, and harder work still to gather up sundry articles that had fallen off the sleigh, such as boxes of pemmican,fur jackets, and ice-axes. Meanwhile Sverdrup and the ship had almost disappeared from view, and all that Nansen could see of it was a dark, square speck, far ahead across the ice. Sverdrup had been sitting all the while in front, thinking what an admirable passage they were making, and was not a little astonished, on looking behind, to find that he was the only passenger on board. Matters, however, went on better after this; and in the afternoon, as they were sailing their best and fastest, the joyful cry of “Land ahead!” rang through the air. The west coast was in sight! After several days’ hard work across fissures and over uneven ice, the coast itself was finally reached. But Godthaab was a long, long way off still, and to reach it by land was sheer impossibility.The joy of our travellers on once more feeling firm ground beneath their feet, and of getting real water to drink, was indescribable. They swallowed quart after quart, till they could drink no more. The Lapps, as usual took themselves off to the fjeld to testify their joy.That evening was the most delightful one they had experienced for weeks, one never to be forgotten in after years, when, with their tent pitched, and a blazing fire of wood, they sat beside it, Sverdrup smoking a pipe of moss in lieu of tobacco, and Nansen lying on his back on the grass, which shed a strange and delightful perfume all around.But how was Godthaab to be reached? By land it was impossible! Therefore the journey must be made by sea! But there was no boat! A boat, then, must be built. And Sverdrup and Nansen were the men tosolve the problem. They set to work, and by evening the boat was finished. Its dimensions were eight feet five inches in length, four feet eight inches in breadth, and it was made of willows and sail-cloth. The oars were of bamboo and willow branches, across the blades of which canvas was stretched. The thwarts were made from bamboo, and the foot of one of their scientific instruments which, by the way, chafed them terribly, and were very uncomfortable seats.On the way to Godthaab.On the way to Godthaab.All preparations being now made, Nansen and Sverdrup set off on their adventurous journey. The first day it was terribly hard work, for the water was too shallow to admit of rowing. On the second day, however, they put out to sea. Here they had at times to encountersevere weather, fearing every moment lest their frail bark should be swamped or capsized. At night they would sleep on the naked shore beneath the open sky. From morning till night struggling away with their oars, living on hot soup and the sea-birds they shot, which were ravenously devoured without much labor being devoted to cooking the same. Finally they reached their destination, meeting with a hearty welcome, accompanied by a salute from cannon fired off in their honor, when once it was ascertained who the new arrivals were.Nansen’s first inquiry was about a ship for Denmark, and he learned, to his great disappointment, that the last vessel for the season had sailed from Godthaab two months before, and that the nearest ship, the Fox, was lying at Ivitgut, three hundred miles off.It was a terrible blow in the midst of their joy. Home had, as it were, at one stroke receded many hundreds of miles away; and here they would have to pass a whole winter and spring, while dear ones at home would think they had perished, and would be mourning for their supposed loss all those weary months.But this must never be! The Fox must be got at, and friends at home must at all events get letters by her.After a great deal of trouble Nansen at length found an Esquimau who agreed to set off in his kayak bearing two letters. One was from Nansen to Gamel, who had equipped the expedition; the other from Sverdrup to his father.This having been arranged, and boats having beensent off to fetch their comrades from Ameralikfjord, Nansen and Sverdrup plunged into all the joys and delights of civilized life to which they had so long been strangers. Now they were able to indulge in the luxury of soap and water for the first time since the commencement of their journey across the ice. To change their clothes, to sleep in proper beds, to eat civilized food with knives and forks on earthenware plates, to smoke, to converse with educated beings, was to them thesummum bonumof enjoyment, and they felt themselves to be in clover.Notwithstanding all these, Nansen did not seem altogether himself. He was in a dreamy state, thinking perhaps of nights spent in sleeping-bags up on the inland ice, or dreaming of that memorable evening in the Ameralikfjord, of the hard struggles they had undergone on the boundless plains of snow. These things flashed across him, excluding from his mind the conviction that he had rendered his name famous.At last, on Oct. 12, the other members of the expedition joined them, and these six men, who had risked their lives in that perilous adventure, were once more assembled together.His object had been attained, and the name of Fridtjof Nansen would soon be known the whole world over!That same autumn the Fox brought to Norway tidings of the success of the expedition, and a few hours after her arrival the telegraph announced throughout the length and breadth of the civilized world, in few but significant words, “Fridtjof Nansen has crossed over the inland ice of Greenland.”And the Norwegian nation, which had refused to grant the venturesome young man 5,000 kroner ($1,350), now raised her head, and called Fridtjof Nansen one of her best sons. And when one day in April, after having spent a long winter in Greenland, he went on board the Hvidbjörn4on his homeward journey, preparations were being made in the capital for a festival such as a king receives when he visits his subjects.It was May 30: the spring sun was shining with all its brilliancy over Norway. The Christiania fjord was teeming with yachts and small sailing-boats. A light breeze played over the ruffled surface of the water, while the perfume of the budding trees on its banks shed a sweet fragrance all around. As for the town, it literally swarmed with human beings. The quays, the fortress, the very roofs of the houses, were densely packed with eager crowds, all of them intently gazing seaward. Presently a shout of welcome heard faintly in the distance announced his approach, gradually increasing in volume as he came nearer, till it merged into one continuous roar, while thousands of flags were waving overhead.Eagerly the crowds pressed forward to catch the first glimpse of his form, and when they did recognize him, their hurrahs burst forth like a storm, and were caught up in the streets, answered from the windows, from the tops of houses; and when they ceased for a moment from the sheer exhaustion of those who uttered them, they were soon renewed with redoubled vigor. And when finally Nansen had disembarked and had entereda carriage, the police could no longer keep the people under control. As if with one accord they dashed forward, and taking out the horses, harnessed themselves in their place, and dragged him through the streets of the city in triumph.Yes, the Norwegian people had taken possession of Fridtjof Nansen!But up at a window there stood the old housekeeper from Store Fröen, waving her white apron, while tears of joy trickled down her face. She it was who had bound up his bleeding head when years ago he had fallen and cut it on the ice; she it was to whom he had often gone when in some childish scrape. He remembered her in his hour of triumph. And as she was laughing and crying by turns, and waving her apron, he dashed up the steps and gave her a loving embrace.For was she not part and parcel of his home?1Kayak, small and light boat, chiefly made of sealskin, used by the natives of Greenland.2Peaks of rock projecting above the surface of the ice.3Godthaab(pron. Gott-hōb), the only city, and seat of the Danish governor, on the west coast of Greenland.4Hvidbjörn(pron. Vid-byurn), The White Bear, a trading-vessel.
Chapter III.Fridtjof Nansen Accepts a Position in the Bergen Museum.—Crosses the Mountains in the Winter.—Prepares Himself for the Doctor’s Degree.The very same day that Nansen set foot on land after his return from this expedition he was offered the Conservatorship of the Bergen1Museum by Professor Collett. Old Danielsen, the chief physician, a man of iron capacity for work, and who had attained great renown in his profession, wanted to place a new man in charge. Nansen promptly accepted the offer, but asked first to be allowed to visit a sister in Denmark. But a telegram from Danielsen, “Nansen must come at once,” compelled him, though with no little regret, to give up his projected visit.The meeting of these two men was as if two clouds heavily laden with electricity had come in contact, producing a spark that blazed over the northern sky. That spark resulted in the famous Greenland expedition.Danielsen was one of those who held that a youth possessed of health, strength, and good abilities should be able to unravel almost anything and everything in this world, and in Fridtjof Nansen he found such an one. So these two worked together assiduously; forboth were alike enthusiastic in the cause of science, both possessed the same strong faith in its advancement. And Danielsen, the clear-headed scientist, after being associated with his colleague for some few years, entertained such firm confidence in his powers and capabilities, that a short time before the expedition to the North Pole set out, he wrote in a letter:—“Fridtjof Nansen will as surely return crowned with success from the North Pole as it is I who am writing these lines—such is an old man’s prophecy!”The old scientist, who felt his end was drawing near, sent him before his death an anticipatory letter of greeting when the expedition should happily be over.Nansen devoted himself to the study of science with the same indomitable energy that characterized all of his achievements.Hour by hour he would sit over his microscope, month after month devote himself to the pursuit of knowledge. Yet every now and then, when he felt he must go out to get some fresh air, he would buckle on his ski, and dash along over the mountain or through the forest till the snow spurted up in clouds behind him. Thus he spent several years in Bergen.But one fine day, chancing to read in the papers that Nordenskjöld had returned from his expedition to Greenland, and had said that the interior of the country was a boundless plain of ice and snow, it flashed on his mind that here was a field of work for him. Yes—he would cross Greenland on ski! and he at once set to work to prepare a plan for the expedition. But such an adventurous task, in which life would be at stake, must notbe undertaken till he himself had become a proficient in that branch of science which he had selected as his special study. So he remains yet some more years in Bergen, after which he spends twelve months in Naples, working hard at the subjects in which he subsequently took his doctor’s degree in 1888.Those years of expectation in Bergen were busy years. Every now and then he would become homesick. In winter time he would go by the railway from Bergen to Voss,2thence on ski over the mountains to Christiania, down the Stalheim road,2with its sinuous twists and bends, on through Nærödal, noted for its earth slips, on by the swift Lerdals river fretting and fuming on one side, and a perpendicular mountain wall on the other. And here he would sit to rest in that narrow gorge where avalanches are of constant occurrence. Let them come! he must rest awhile and eat. A solitary wayfarer hurries by on his sleigh as fast as his horse will go. “Take care!” shouts the traveller as he passes by; and Nansen looks up, gathers his things together, and proceeds on his journey through the valley. It was Sauekilen, the most dangerous spot in Lerdals, where he was resting. Then the night falls, the moon shines brightly overhead, and the creaking sound of his footsteps follows him over the desert waste, and his dark-blue shadow stays close beside him. And he, the man possessed of ineffable pride and indomitableresolution, feels how utterly insignificant he is in that lonely wilderness of snow—naught but an insect under the powerful microscope of the starlit sky, for the far-seeing eye of the Almighty is piercing through his inmost soul. Here it avails not to seek to hide aught from that gaze. So he pours out his thoughts to Him who alone has the right to search them. That midnight pilgrimage over the snowy waste was like a divine service on ski; and it was as an invigorated man, weary though he was in body, that he knocked at the door of a peasant’s cabin, while its astonished inmates looked out in amazement, and the old housewife cried out, “Nay! in Jesus’ name, are there folk on the fjeld3so late in the night? Nay! is it you? Suppose you are always so late on the road!”Even still more arduous was the return journey that same winter. The people in the last house on the eastern side of the mountain, in bidding him “God speed,” entreat him to go cautiously, for the road over the fjeld is well nigh impassable in winter, they say. Not a man in the whole district would follow him, they add. Nansen promises them to be very careful, as he sets off in the moonlight at three o’clock in the morning. Soon he reaches the wild desert, and the glittering snow blushes like a golden sea in the beams of the rising sun. Presently he reaches Myrstölen.4The houseman is away from home, and the women-folk moan and weep on learning the road he means to take. On resuming hisjourney he shortly comes to a cross-road. Shall it be Aurland or Vosse skavlen?5He chooses the latter route across the snow plateau, for it is the path the wild reindeer follow. On he skims over the crisp surface enveloped in the cloud of snow-dust his ski stir up, for the wind is behind him. But now he loses his way, falls down among the clefts and fissures, toils along step by step, and at last has to turn back and retrace his steps. There ought to be a sæter6somewhere about there, but it seems as if it had been spirited away. A pitchy darkness sets in; for the stars have disappeared one by one, and the night is of a coal-black hue, and Fridtjof has to make his bed on the snow-covered plateau, under the protecting shelter of a bowlder, his faithful dog by his side, his knapsack for a pillow, while the night wind howls over the waste.Again, at three in the morning, he resumes his journey, only again to lose his way, and burying himself in the snow, determines to wait for daybreak. Dawn came over the mountain-tops in a sea of rosy light, while the dark shadows of night fled to their hiding-places in the deep valleys below—a proclamation of eternity, where nature was the preacher and nature the listener, the voice of God speaking to himself.At broad daylight he sees Vosse skavlen close at hand, and thither he drags his weary, stiffened limbs; but on reaching the summit he drinks “skaal7to the fjeld,”a frozen orange, the last he has, being his beverage. Before the sun sets again, Fridtjof has crossed that mountain height, as King Sverre8did of yore—an achievement performed by those two alone!Fridtjof Nansen’s father died in 1885, and it was largely consideration for his aged parent’s failing health during the last few years that delayed Nansen’s setting out on his Greenland expedition. The letters that passed between father and son during this period strikingly evince the tender relationship existing between them. On receipt of the tidings of his father’s last illness he hurried off at a moment’s notice, never resting on his long homeward journey, inexpressibly grieved at arriving too late to see him alive.Then, after a year’s sojourn in Naples, where he met the genial and energetic Professor Dohrn, the founder of the biological station9in that city, having no further ties to hinder him, he enters heart and soul into the tasks he has set himself to accomplish,—to take his degree as doctor of philosophy, and to make preparation for his expedition to Greenland, both of which tasks he accomplished in the same year with credit. For he not only made himself a name as a profound researcher in the realms of science, but at the same time equipped an expedition that was soon destined to excite universal attention, not in the north alone, but throughout the length and breadth of Europe.1Bergen, the metropolis of western Norway, the second largest city in Norway.2Voss, a country district of western Norway, connected with Bergen by railway.Stalheim road, a piece of road winding in a slow decline down a steep hill, famous for the beauty of its scenery and the engineering skill with which it has been built.NærödalandLerdals rivermust be passed on the way from Bergen to Christiania.3Fjeld(pron. fyell), mountain.4Myrstölen, the last house on the eastern side of the mountain inhabited the whole year through.5AurlandandVosse skavlen, alternative routes across the mountains from Christiania to Bergen.6Sæter, mountain hut, used by graziers during the summer months.7Skaal, your health.8King Sverre, King of Norway 1177 to 1202.9An institution where animal life is studied.
Chapter III.Fridtjof Nansen Accepts a Position in the Bergen Museum.—Crosses the Mountains in the Winter.—Prepares Himself for the Doctor’s Degree.
Fridtjof Nansen Accepts a Position in the Bergen Museum.—Crosses the Mountains in the Winter.—Prepares Himself for the Doctor’s Degree.
Fridtjof Nansen Accepts a Position in the Bergen Museum.—Crosses the Mountains in the Winter.—Prepares Himself for the Doctor’s Degree.
The very same day that Nansen set foot on land after his return from this expedition he was offered the Conservatorship of the Bergen1Museum by Professor Collett. Old Danielsen, the chief physician, a man of iron capacity for work, and who had attained great renown in his profession, wanted to place a new man in charge. Nansen promptly accepted the offer, but asked first to be allowed to visit a sister in Denmark. But a telegram from Danielsen, “Nansen must come at once,” compelled him, though with no little regret, to give up his projected visit.The meeting of these two men was as if two clouds heavily laden with electricity had come in contact, producing a spark that blazed over the northern sky. That spark resulted in the famous Greenland expedition.Danielsen was one of those who held that a youth possessed of health, strength, and good abilities should be able to unravel almost anything and everything in this world, and in Fridtjof Nansen he found such an one. So these two worked together assiduously; forboth were alike enthusiastic in the cause of science, both possessed the same strong faith in its advancement. And Danielsen, the clear-headed scientist, after being associated with his colleague for some few years, entertained such firm confidence in his powers and capabilities, that a short time before the expedition to the North Pole set out, he wrote in a letter:—“Fridtjof Nansen will as surely return crowned with success from the North Pole as it is I who am writing these lines—such is an old man’s prophecy!”The old scientist, who felt his end was drawing near, sent him before his death an anticipatory letter of greeting when the expedition should happily be over.Nansen devoted himself to the study of science with the same indomitable energy that characterized all of his achievements.Hour by hour he would sit over his microscope, month after month devote himself to the pursuit of knowledge. Yet every now and then, when he felt he must go out to get some fresh air, he would buckle on his ski, and dash along over the mountain or through the forest till the snow spurted up in clouds behind him. Thus he spent several years in Bergen.But one fine day, chancing to read in the papers that Nordenskjöld had returned from his expedition to Greenland, and had said that the interior of the country was a boundless plain of ice and snow, it flashed on his mind that here was a field of work for him. Yes—he would cross Greenland on ski! and he at once set to work to prepare a plan for the expedition. But such an adventurous task, in which life would be at stake, must notbe undertaken till he himself had become a proficient in that branch of science which he had selected as his special study. So he remains yet some more years in Bergen, after which he spends twelve months in Naples, working hard at the subjects in which he subsequently took his doctor’s degree in 1888.Those years of expectation in Bergen were busy years. Every now and then he would become homesick. In winter time he would go by the railway from Bergen to Voss,2thence on ski over the mountains to Christiania, down the Stalheim road,2with its sinuous twists and bends, on through Nærödal, noted for its earth slips, on by the swift Lerdals river fretting and fuming on one side, and a perpendicular mountain wall on the other. And here he would sit to rest in that narrow gorge where avalanches are of constant occurrence. Let them come! he must rest awhile and eat. A solitary wayfarer hurries by on his sleigh as fast as his horse will go. “Take care!” shouts the traveller as he passes by; and Nansen looks up, gathers his things together, and proceeds on his journey through the valley. It was Sauekilen, the most dangerous spot in Lerdals, where he was resting. Then the night falls, the moon shines brightly overhead, and the creaking sound of his footsteps follows him over the desert waste, and his dark-blue shadow stays close beside him. And he, the man possessed of ineffable pride and indomitableresolution, feels how utterly insignificant he is in that lonely wilderness of snow—naught but an insect under the powerful microscope of the starlit sky, for the far-seeing eye of the Almighty is piercing through his inmost soul. Here it avails not to seek to hide aught from that gaze. So he pours out his thoughts to Him who alone has the right to search them. That midnight pilgrimage over the snowy waste was like a divine service on ski; and it was as an invigorated man, weary though he was in body, that he knocked at the door of a peasant’s cabin, while its astonished inmates looked out in amazement, and the old housewife cried out, “Nay! in Jesus’ name, are there folk on the fjeld3so late in the night? Nay! is it you? Suppose you are always so late on the road!”Even still more arduous was the return journey that same winter. The people in the last house on the eastern side of the mountain, in bidding him “God speed,” entreat him to go cautiously, for the road over the fjeld is well nigh impassable in winter, they say. Not a man in the whole district would follow him, they add. Nansen promises them to be very careful, as he sets off in the moonlight at three o’clock in the morning. Soon he reaches the wild desert, and the glittering snow blushes like a golden sea in the beams of the rising sun. Presently he reaches Myrstölen.4The houseman is away from home, and the women-folk moan and weep on learning the road he means to take. On resuming hisjourney he shortly comes to a cross-road. Shall it be Aurland or Vosse skavlen?5He chooses the latter route across the snow plateau, for it is the path the wild reindeer follow. On he skims over the crisp surface enveloped in the cloud of snow-dust his ski stir up, for the wind is behind him. But now he loses his way, falls down among the clefts and fissures, toils along step by step, and at last has to turn back and retrace his steps. There ought to be a sæter6somewhere about there, but it seems as if it had been spirited away. A pitchy darkness sets in; for the stars have disappeared one by one, and the night is of a coal-black hue, and Fridtjof has to make his bed on the snow-covered plateau, under the protecting shelter of a bowlder, his faithful dog by his side, his knapsack for a pillow, while the night wind howls over the waste.Again, at three in the morning, he resumes his journey, only again to lose his way, and burying himself in the snow, determines to wait for daybreak. Dawn came over the mountain-tops in a sea of rosy light, while the dark shadows of night fled to their hiding-places in the deep valleys below—a proclamation of eternity, where nature was the preacher and nature the listener, the voice of God speaking to himself.At broad daylight he sees Vosse skavlen close at hand, and thither he drags his weary, stiffened limbs; but on reaching the summit he drinks “skaal7to the fjeld,”a frozen orange, the last he has, being his beverage. Before the sun sets again, Fridtjof has crossed that mountain height, as King Sverre8did of yore—an achievement performed by those two alone!Fridtjof Nansen’s father died in 1885, and it was largely consideration for his aged parent’s failing health during the last few years that delayed Nansen’s setting out on his Greenland expedition. The letters that passed between father and son during this period strikingly evince the tender relationship existing between them. On receipt of the tidings of his father’s last illness he hurried off at a moment’s notice, never resting on his long homeward journey, inexpressibly grieved at arriving too late to see him alive.Then, after a year’s sojourn in Naples, where he met the genial and energetic Professor Dohrn, the founder of the biological station9in that city, having no further ties to hinder him, he enters heart and soul into the tasks he has set himself to accomplish,—to take his degree as doctor of philosophy, and to make preparation for his expedition to Greenland, both of which tasks he accomplished in the same year with credit. For he not only made himself a name as a profound researcher in the realms of science, but at the same time equipped an expedition that was soon destined to excite universal attention, not in the north alone, but throughout the length and breadth of Europe.
The very same day that Nansen set foot on land after his return from this expedition he was offered the Conservatorship of the Bergen1Museum by Professor Collett. Old Danielsen, the chief physician, a man of iron capacity for work, and who had attained great renown in his profession, wanted to place a new man in charge. Nansen promptly accepted the offer, but asked first to be allowed to visit a sister in Denmark. But a telegram from Danielsen, “Nansen must come at once,” compelled him, though with no little regret, to give up his projected visit.
The meeting of these two men was as if two clouds heavily laden with electricity had come in contact, producing a spark that blazed over the northern sky. That spark resulted in the famous Greenland expedition.
Danielsen was one of those who held that a youth possessed of health, strength, and good abilities should be able to unravel almost anything and everything in this world, and in Fridtjof Nansen he found such an one. So these two worked together assiduously; forboth were alike enthusiastic in the cause of science, both possessed the same strong faith in its advancement. And Danielsen, the clear-headed scientist, after being associated with his colleague for some few years, entertained such firm confidence in his powers and capabilities, that a short time before the expedition to the North Pole set out, he wrote in a letter:—
“Fridtjof Nansen will as surely return crowned with success from the North Pole as it is I who am writing these lines—such is an old man’s prophecy!”
The old scientist, who felt his end was drawing near, sent him before his death an anticipatory letter of greeting when the expedition should happily be over.
Nansen devoted himself to the study of science with the same indomitable energy that characterized all of his achievements.
Hour by hour he would sit over his microscope, month after month devote himself to the pursuit of knowledge. Yet every now and then, when he felt he must go out to get some fresh air, he would buckle on his ski, and dash along over the mountain or through the forest till the snow spurted up in clouds behind him. Thus he spent several years in Bergen.
But one fine day, chancing to read in the papers that Nordenskjöld had returned from his expedition to Greenland, and had said that the interior of the country was a boundless plain of ice and snow, it flashed on his mind that here was a field of work for him. Yes—he would cross Greenland on ski! and he at once set to work to prepare a plan for the expedition. But such an adventurous task, in which life would be at stake, must notbe undertaken till he himself had become a proficient in that branch of science which he had selected as his special study. So he remains yet some more years in Bergen, after which he spends twelve months in Naples, working hard at the subjects in which he subsequently took his doctor’s degree in 1888.
Those years of expectation in Bergen were busy years. Every now and then he would become homesick. In winter time he would go by the railway from Bergen to Voss,2thence on ski over the mountains to Christiania, down the Stalheim road,2with its sinuous twists and bends, on through Nærödal, noted for its earth slips, on by the swift Lerdals river fretting and fuming on one side, and a perpendicular mountain wall on the other. And here he would sit to rest in that narrow gorge where avalanches are of constant occurrence. Let them come! he must rest awhile and eat. A solitary wayfarer hurries by on his sleigh as fast as his horse will go. “Take care!” shouts the traveller as he passes by; and Nansen looks up, gathers his things together, and proceeds on his journey through the valley. It was Sauekilen, the most dangerous spot in Lerdals, where he was resting. Then the night falls, the moon shines brightly overhead, and the creaking sound of his footsteps follows him over the desert waste, and his dark-blue shadow stays close beside him. And he, the man possessed of ineffable pride and indomitableresolution, feels how utterly insignificant he is in that lonely wilderness of snow—naught but an insect under the powerful microscope of the starlit sky, for the far-seeing eye of the Almighty is piercing through his inmost soul. Here it avails not to seek to hide aught from that gaze. So he pours out his thoughts to Him who alone has the right to search them. That midnight pilgrimage over the snowy waste was like a divine service on ski; and it was as an invigorated man, weary though he was in body, that he knocked at the door of a peasant’s cabin, while its astonished inmates looked out in amazement, and the old housewife cried out, “Nay! in Jesus’ name, are there folk on the fjeld3so late in the night? Nay! is it you? Suppose you are always so late on the road!”
Even still more arduous was the return journey that same winter. The people in the last house on the eastern side of the mountain, in bidding him “God speed,” entreat him to go cautiously, for the road over the fjeld is well nigh impassable in winter, they say. Not a man in the whole district would follow him, they add. Nansen promises them to be very careful, as he sets off in the moonlight at three o’clock in the morning. Soon he reaches the wild desert, and the glittering snow blushes like a golden sea in the beams of the rising sun. Presently he reaches Myrstölen.4The houseman is away from home, and the women-folk moan and weep on learning the road he means to take. On resuming hisjourney he shortly comes to a cross-road. Shall it be Aurland or Vosse skavlen?5He chooses the latter route across the snow plateau, for it is the path the wild reindeer follow. On he skims over the crisp surface enveloped in the cloud of snow-dust his ski stir up, for the wind is behind him. But now he loses his way, falls down among the clefts and fissures, toils along step by step, and at last has to turn back and retrace his steps. There ought to be a sæter6somewhere about there, but it seems as if it had been spirited away. A pitchy darkness sets in; for the stars have disappeared one by one, and the night is of a coal-black hue, and Fridtjof has to make his bed on the snow-covered plateau, under the protecting shelter of a bowlder, his faithful dog by his side, his knapsack for a pillow, while the night wind howls over the waste.
Again, at three in the morning, he resumes his journey, only again to lose his way, and burying himself in the snow, determines to wait for daybreak. Dawn came over the mountain-tops in a sea of rosy light, while the dark shadows of night fled to their hiding-places in the deep valleys below—a proclamation of eternity, where nature was the preacher and nature the listener, the voice of God speaking to himself.
At broad daylight he sees Vosse skavlen close at hand, and thither he drags his weary, stiffened limbs; but on reaching the summit he drinks “skaal7to the fjeld,”a frozen orange, the last he has, being his beverage. Before the sun sets again, Fridtjof has crossed that mountain height, as King Sverre8did of yore—an achievement performed by those two alone!
Fridtjof Nansen’s father died in 1885, and it was largely consideration for his aged parent’s failing health during the last few years that delayed Nansen’s setting out on his Greenland expedition. The letters that passed between father and son during this period strikingly evince the tender relationship existing between them. On receipt of the tidings of his father’s last illness he hurried off at a moment’s notice, never resting on his long homeward journey, inexpressibly grieved at arriving too late to see him alive.
Then, after a year’s sojourn in Naples, where he met the genial and energetic Professor Dohrn, the founder of the biological station9in that city, having no further ties to hinder him, he enters heart and soul into the tasks he has set himself to accomplish,—to take his degree as doctor of philosophy, and to make preparation for his expedition to Greenland, both of which tasks he accomplished in the same year with credit. For he not only made himself a name as a profound researcher in the realms of science, but at the same time equipped an expedition that was soon destined to excite universal attention, not in the north alone, but throughout the length and breadth of Europe.
1Bergen, the metropolis of western Norway, the second largest city in Norway.2Voss, a country district of western Norway, connected with Bergen by railway.Stalheim road, a piece of road winding in a slow decline down a steep hill, famous for the beauty of its scenery and the engineering skill with which it has been built.NærödalandLerdals rivermust be passed on the way from Bergen to Christiania.3Fjeld(pron. fyell), mountain.4Myrstölen, the last house on the eastern side of the mountain inhabited the whole year through.5AurlandandVosse skavlen, alternative routes across the mountains from Christiania to Bergen.6Sæter, mountain hut, used by graziers during the summer months.7Skaal, your health.8King Sverre, King of Norway 1177 to 1202.9An institution where animal life is studied.
1Bergen, the metropolis of western Norway, the second largest city in Norway.
2Voss, a country district of western Norway, connected with Bergen by railway.Stalheim road, a piece of road winding in a slow decline down a steep hill, famous for the beauty of its scenery and the engineering skill with which it has been built.NærödalandLerdals rivermust be passed on the way from Bergen to Christiania.
3Fjeld(pron. fyell), mountain.
4Myrstölen, the last house on the eastern side of the mountain inhabited the whole year through.
5AurlandandVosse skavlen, alternative routes across the mountains from Christiania to Bergen.
6Sæter, mountain hut, used by graziers during the summer months.
7Skaal, your health.
8King Sverre, King of Norway 1177 to 1202.
9An institution where animal life is studied.
Chapter IV.Nansen Meets Nordenskjöld.1—Preparations for the Greenland Expedition.—Nansen’s Followers on the Expedition.—Starting on the Expedition.—Drifting on an Ice-floe.—Landing on East Coast of Greenland.Nansen had an arduous task before him in the spring of 1888, one that demanded all his strength and energy, for he would take his doctor’s degree, and make preparations for his expedition to Greenland.He had already, in the autumn of 1887, made up his mind to accomplish both these things. In November of that year, accordingly, he went to Stockholm to confer with Nordenskjöld. Professor Brögger, who introduced him to that gentleman, gives the following account of the interview:—“On Thursday, Nov. 3, as I was sitting in my study in the Mineralogical Institute, my messenger came in and said a Norwegian had been inquiring for me. He had left no card, neither had he given his name. Doubtless, I thought, it was some one who wanted help out of a difficulty.“‘What was he like?’ I inquired.“‘Tall and fair,’ replied the messenger.“‘Was he dressed decently?’ I asked.“‘He hadn’t an overcoat on.’ This with a significant smile, as he added, ‘Looked for all the world like a seafaring man—or a tramp.’“‘Humph!’ I muttered to myself; ‘sailor with no overcoat! Very likely thinks I’m going to give him one—yes, I think I understand.’“Later on in the afternoon Wille2came in. ‘Have you seen Nansen?’ he said.“‘Nansen?’ I replied. ‘Was that sailor fellow without an overcoat Nansen?’“‘Without an overcoat! Why, he means to cross over the inland ice of Greenland;’ and out went Wille—he was in a hurry.“Presently entered Professor Lecke with the same question, ‘Have you seen Nansen? Isn’t he a fine fellow? such a lot of interesting discoveries he told me of, and then his researches into the nervous system—a grand fellow!’ and off went Lecke.“But before long the man himself entered the room. Tall, upright, broad-shouldered, strongly built, though slim and very youthful looking, with his shock of hair brushed off his well-developed forehead. Coming toward me and holding out his hand, he introduced himself by name, while a pleasing smile played over his face.“‘And you mean to cross over Greenland?’ I asked.“‘Yes; I’ve been thinking of it,’ was the reply.“I looked him in the face, as he stood before me with an air of conscious self-reliance about him. With everyword he spoke he seemed to grow on me; and this plan of his to cross over Greenland on ski from the east coast, which but a moment ago I had looked on as a madman’s idea, during our conversation gradually grew on me, till it seemed to be the most natural thing in the world; and all at once it flashed on my mind, ‘And he’ll do it, too, as sure as ever we are sitting here talking about it.’“He, whose name but two hours ago I had not known, became in those few minutes (and it all came about so naturally) as if he were an old acquaintance, and I felt I should be proud and fortunate indeed to have him for my friend my whole life through.“‘We will go and see Nordenskjöld at once,’ I said, rising up. And we went.“With his strange attire,—he was dressed in a tight-fitting, dark-blue blouse or coatee, a kind of knitted jacket,—he was, as may be supposed, stared at in Drottning-gatan. Some people, indeed, took him for an acrobat or tight-rope dancer.”Nordenskjöld, “old Nor” as he was often termed, was in his laboratory, and looked up sharply as his two visitors entered the room, for he was, as ever, “busy.”The professor saluted, and introduced his companion, “Conservator Nansen from Bergen, who purposes to cross over the inland ice of Greenland.”“The deuce he does!” muttered “old Nor,” staring with all his eyes at the fair-haired young viking.“And would like to confer with you about it,” continued the professor.“Quite welcome; and so Herr Nansen thinks of crossing over Greenland?”“Yes; such was his intention.” Thereon, without further ado, he sketched out his projected plan, to which “old Nor” listened with great attention, shaking his head every now and then, as if rather sceptical about it, but evidently getting more and more interested as he proceeded.As Nansen and Professor Brögger were sitting in the latter’s house that evening, a knock was heard at the door, and who should come in but “old Nor” himself—a convincing proof to Brögger that the old man entertained a favorable idea of the proposed plan. And many a valuable hint did the young ice-bear get from the old one, as they sat opposite each other—the man of the past and the coming man of the present—quietly conversing together that evening.Now Nansen sets off for home in order to prepare for the arduous task of the ensuing spring. In December, 1887, he is in Bergen again, and at the end of January he travels on ski from Hardanger to Kongsberg, thence by rail to Christiania.In March we see him once more in Bergen, giving lectures in order to awaken public interest in Greenland; now sleeping out on the top of Blaamand,3a mountain near Bergen, in a sleeping-bag, to test its efficiency; now standing on the cathedra in the university auditorium to claim his right to the degree of doctor of philosophy, which on April 28 was honorably awarded him; and on May 2 he sets out for Copenhagen,en routefor Greenland. For unhappily it was the case in Norway in 1888 that Norwegian exploits must be carried out with Danish help. In vain had he sought for assistance from the regents of the university. They recommended the matter to the government, but the government had no 5,000 kroner4($1,350) to throw away on such an enterprise,—the enterprise of a madman, as most people termed it.Yet when that enterprise had been carried to a successful issue, and that same lunatic had become a great man and asked the government and the storthing5for a grant of 200,000 kroner ($54,000) for his second mad expedition, his request was promptly granted. A new Norway had grown up meanwhile, a new national spirit had forced its way into existence, a living testimony to the power of the Nansen expedition.As stated above, Nansen had to go to Denmark for the 5,000 kroner; and it was the wealthy merchant, Augustin Gamel, who placed that amount at his disposal. Still, certain is it, had not that sum of money been forthcoming as it was, Fridtjof Nansen would have plucked himself bare to the last feather in order to carry out his undertaking.But what was there to be gained from an expedition to Greenland worth the risking of human life,—for a life-risk it unquestionably would be,—to say nothing of the cost thereof? What was there to be learned from the ice?The question is soon answered.The island of Greenland,—for it is now well ascertained that it is an island, and that the largest in the world,—this Sahara of the North, contains within its ice-plains the key to the history of the human race. For it is the largest homogeneous relic we possess of the glacial age. Such as Greenland now is, so large tracts of the world have been; and, what is of more interest to us, so has the whole of the north been. It is this mighty ice-realm that has caused a large proportion of the earth’s surface to assume its present appearance. The lowlands of Mid-Germany and Denmark have been scoured and transported thither from the rocks of Norway and Sweden. The Swedish rock at Lützen in Saxony is Swedish granite that the ice has carried with it. And the small glaciers still left in Norway, such as the Folgefond, Jostedalsbræ, Svartis,6etc., are merely “calves” of that ancient, stupendous mass of ice that time and heat have transported, even though it once lay more than a thousand metres in thickness over widely extended plains.To investigate, therefore, the inland ice of Greenland is, in a word, to investigate the great glacial age; and one may learn from such a study many a lesson explanatory of our earth’s appearance at the present day, and ascertain what could exist, and what could not, under such conditions.We know now that, during the glacial age, human beings lived on this earth, even close up to this gigantic glacier, that subsequently destroyed all life on its course. It may be safely asserted that the struggle with theice, and with the variations of climate, have been important factors in making the human race what it will eventually be, the lords of nature.The Esquimaux in their deerskin dress, the aborigines of Australia, the pigmy tribes of Africa’s primeval forests, are a living testimony of the tenacious powers of the soul and body of mankind,—civilization’s trusty outposts. An Esquimau living on blubber under fifty degrees of cold is just as much a man of achievement in this work-a-day world as an Edison, who, with every comfort at his disposal, forces nature to disclose her hidden marvels. But he who, born in the midst of civilization, and who forces his way to an outpost farther advanced than any mankind has yet attained, is greater, perhaps, than either, especially when in his struggle for existence he wrests from nature her inmost secrets.This was the kernel of Nansen’s exploits—his first and his last.Nansen was fully alive to the fact that his enterprise would involve human life; and he formed his plans in such wise that he would either attain his object or perish in the attempt. He would make the dangerous, uninhabited coast of East Greenland his starting-point as one which presented no enticement for retracing his steps. He would force his way onward. The instinct of self-preservation should impel him toward the west—the greater his advance in that direction the greaterhis hopes. Behind him naught but death; before him, life!But he must have followers! Where were men to be found to risk their lives on such a venture? to form one of a madman’s retinue? And not only that, he must have men with him who, like himself, were well versed in all manly sports, especially in running on ski; men hard as iron, as he was; men who, like himself, were unencumbered with family ties. Where were such to be found? He sought long and diligently, and he found them.There was a man named Sverdrup—Otto Sverdrup. Yes, we all of us know him now! But then he was an unknown Nordland youth, inured to hardship on sea and land, an excellent sailor, a skilful ski-runner, firm of purpose; one to whom fatigue was a stranger, physically strong and able in emergency, unyielding as a rod of iron, firm as a rock. A man chary of words in fine weather, but eloquent in storm: possessed, too, of a courage that lay so deep that it needed almost a peril involving life to arouse it. Yet, when the pinch came Sverdrup was in his element. Then would his light blue eyes assume a darker hue, and a smile creep over his hard-set features; then he would resemble a hawk that sits on a perch with ruffled feathers, bidding defiance to every one who approaches it, but which, when danger draws nigh, flaps its pinions, and soars aloft in ever widening circles, increasing with the force of the tempest, borne along by the storm.This man accompanied him.Otto Sverdrup.Otto Sverdrup.Number two was Lieutenant, now Captain,Olaf Dietrichson.He, too, hailed from the north. A man who loved a life in the open air, a master in all manly exploits, elastic as a steel spring, a proficient on ski, and a sportsman in heart and soul. And added to this, a man possessed of great knowledge in those matters especially that were needed in an expedition like the present. He, too, was enrolled among the number.Number three was also from Nordland, from Sverdrup’s neighborhood, who recommended him. His name wasKristian Kristiansen Trana—a handy and reliable youth.These three were all Nordlanders. But Nansen had a great desire to have a couple of Fjeld-Finns with him, for he considered that, inured as they were to ice and snow, their presence would be of great service to him. They came from Karasjok.7The one a fine young fellow, more Qvæn8than Lapp; the other a little squalid-looking, dark-haired, pink-eyed Fjeld-Finn. The name of the first wasBalto; of the other,Ravna. These two children of the mountains came to Christiania looking dreadfully perplexed, with little of the heroic about them. For they had agreed to accompany the expedition principally for the sake of the good pay, and now learned for the first time that their lives might be endangered. Nansen, however, managed to instil a little confidence into them, and as was subsequently proved, they turned out to be useful and reliable members ofthe expedition. Old Ravna, who was forty-five, was a married man,—a fact Nansen did not know when he engaged him,—and was possessed of great physical strength and powers of endurance.Nansen now had the lives of five persons beside his own on his conscience. He would, therefore, make his equipment in such manner that he should have nothing to reproach himself with in case anything went wrong, a work that he conscientiously and carefully carried out. There was not a single article or implement that was not scientifically and practically discussed and tested, measured and weighed, before they set out. Hand-sleighs and ski, boats and tent, cooking-utensils, sleeping-bags, shoes and clothes, food and drink, all were of the best kind; plenty of everything, but nothing superfluous—light, yet strong, nourishing and strengthening. Everything, in fact, was well thought over, and as was subsequently proved, the mistakes that did occur were few and trifling.Nansen made most of the implements with his own hands, and nothing came to pieces during the whole expedition saving a boat plank that was crushed by the ice.But one thing Nansen omitted to take with him, and that was a supply of spirituous liquor. It did not exist in his dictionary of sport. For he had long entertained the opinion—an opinion very generally held by the youth of Norway at the present day—that strong drink is a foe to manly exploit, sapping and undermining man’s physical and mental powers. In former days, indeed, in Norway, as elsewhere, it was consideredmanly to drink, but now the drinker is looked down on with a pity akin to contempt.Thus equipped, these six venturesome men set out on their way; first by steamer to Iceland, thence by the Jason, a sealer, Captain Jacobsen its commander, who, as opportunity should offer, was to set them ashore on the east coast of Greenland. And here, after struggling for a month with the ice, they finally arrived, on July 19, so near to the Sermilik Fjord that Nansen determined to leave the Jason and make his way across the ice to land. The whole ship’s crew were on deck to bid them farewell. Nansen was in command of one of the two boats, and when he gave the word “set off,” they shot off from the ship’s side, while the Jason’s two guns and a spontaneous hurrah from sixty-four stalwart sailors’ throats resounded far and wide over the sea. As the boats worked their way into the ice, the Jason changed her course, and ere long our six travellers watched the Norwegian flag, waving like a distant tongue of fire, gradually fade from sight and disappear among the mist and fog.These six men set out on their arduous journey with all the indomitable fearlessness and disregard of danger that youth inspires,—qualifications that would speedily be called into requisition.Before many hours of toiling in the ice, the rain came down in torrents, and the current drove them with irresistible force away from the land, while ice-floes kept striking against their boats’ sides, threatening to crush or capsize them. A plank, indeed, in Nansen’s boat was broken by the concussion, and had tobe instantly repaired, the rain meanwhile pouring down a perfect deluge. They determined, therefore, to drag the boats upon an ice-floe, and to pitch their tent on it; and having done this they got into their sleeping-bags, the deafening war of the raging storm in their ears. The two Fjeld-Lapps, however, thinking their end was drawing near, sat with a dejected air gazing in silence out over the sea.Camp on the drift-ice.Camp on the drift-ice.Far away in the distance the roar of the surge dashing against the edge of the ice could be heard, while the steadily increasing swell portended an approaching tempest.Next morning, July 20, Nansen was awakened by aviolent concussion. The ice-floe on which they were was rent asunder, and the current was rapidly drifting them out toward the open sea. The roar of the surge increased; the waves broke over the ice-floe on all sides. Balto and Ravna lay crouching beneath a tarpaulin reading the New Testament in Lappish, while the tears trickled down their cheeks; but out on the floe Dietrichson and Kristiansen were making jokes as every fresh wave dashed over them. Sverdrup was standing with hands folded behind his back, chewing his quid, his eyes directed towards the sea, as if in expectation.They are but a few hundred metres distant from the open sea, and soon will have to take to the boats, or be washed off the floe. The swell is so heavy that the floe ducks up and down like a boat in the trough of the sea. So the order is given, “All hands turn in,” for all their strength will be needed, in the fierce struggle they will shortly have to encounter. So they sleep on the very brink of death, the roar of the storm their lullaby—Ravna and Balto in one of the boats, Nansen and the others in the tent, where the water pours in and out.But there is one outside, on the floe. It is his watch. Hour by hour he walks up and down, his hands behind his back. It is Sverdrup. Every now and then he stands still, turns his sharp, thin face with the sea-blue eyes towards the breakers, and then once more resumes his walk.The storm is raging outside, and the surge is dashing over the ice. He goes to the boat where Ravna and Balto lie sleeping, and lays hold of it, lest it shouldbe swept away by the backwash. Then he goes to the tent, undoes a hook, and again stands gazing over the sea; then turns round, and resumes his walk as before.Their floe is now at the extreme edge of the ice, close to the open sea. A huge crag of ice rises up like some white-clad threatening monster, and the surf dashes furiously over the floe. Again the man on the watch arrests his steps; he undoes another hook in the tent. Matters are at their worst! He must arouse his comrades! He is about to do so when he turns once more and gazes seaward. He becomes aware of a new and strange motion in the floe beneath him. Its course is suddenly changed; it is speeding swiftly away from the open sea—inward, ever inward toward calm water, toward life, toward safety. And as that bronze-faced man stands there, a strange and serious look passes over his features. For that has occurred,—that wondrous thing that he and many another sailor has often experienced,—salvation from death without the mediation of human agency. That moment was for him what the stormy night on the Hardanger waste was to Nansen. It was like divine service! It was as if some invisible hand had steered the floe, he said afterwards to Nansen. So he rolled his quid round into the other cheek, stuck his hands in his pockets; and hour after hour, till late in the morning, the steps of that iron-hearted man on the watch might be heard pacing to and fro.When Nansen awoke, the floe was in safe shelter.Still for another week they kept drifting southward,the glaciers and mountain ridges one after another disappearing from view—a weary, comfortless time. Then, toward midnight on July 28, when it was Sverdrup’s watch again, he thought he could hear the sound of breakers in the west. What it was he could not rightly make out; he thought, perhaps, his senses deceived him; for, at other times, the sound had always come from the east where the sea was. But next morning, when it was Ravna’s watch, Nansen was awakened by seeing the Finn’s grimy face peering at him through an opening in the tent.“Now, Ravna, what is it? can you see land?” he asked at a venture.“Yes—yes—land too close!” croaked Ravna, as he drew his head back.Nansen sprang out of the tent. Yes, there was the land, but a short distance off; and the ice was loose so that a way could easily be forced through it. In a twinkling all hands were busy; and a few hours later Nansen planted his foot on the firm land of Greenland.1Nordenskjöld(pron. Nordenshuld), famous Swedish explorer, discoverer of the North-east Passage.2Wille, another Norwegian, who at that time was professor at the High School in Stockholm.3Blaamand(pron. Blohmann).4Onekrone(crown) equals twenty-seven cents.5Storthing, the legislative assembly (congress) of Norway.6Folgefond,Jostedalsbræ, Svartisen, glaciers in Norway.7Karasjok(pron. Karashok), one of the northernmost districts of Norway, chiefly inhabited by Lapps.8Qvæn, the Norwegian name for a man of the race inhabiting the grand duchy of Finland. TheLappsare in Norway called Finns.
Chapter IV.Nansen Meets Nordenskjöld.1—Preparations for the Greenland Expedition.—Nansen’s Followers on the Expedition.—Starting on the Expedition.—Drifting on an Ice-floe.—Landing on East Coast of Greenland.
Nansen Meets Nordenskjöld.1—Preparations for the Greenland Expedition.—Nansen’s Followers on the Expedition.—Starting on the Expedition.—Drifting on an Ice-floe.—Landing on East Coast of Greenland.
Nansen Meets Nordenskjöld.1—Preparations for the Greenland Expedition.—Nansen’s Followers on the Expedition.—Starting on the Expedition.—Drifting on an Ice-floe.—Landing on East Coast of Greenland.
Nansen had an arduous task before him in the spring of 1888, one that demanded all his strength and energy, for he would take his doctor’s degree, and make preparations for his expedition to Greenland.He had already, in the autumn of 1887, made up his mind to accomplish both these things. In November of that year, accordingly, he went to Stockholm to confer with Nordenskjöld. Professor Brögger, who introduced him to that gentleman, gives the following account of the interview:—“On Thursday, Nov. 3, as I was sitting in my study in the Mineralogical Institute, my messenger came in and said a Norwegian had been inquiring for me. He had left no card, neither had he given his name. Doubtless, I thought, it was some one who wanted help out of a difficulty.“‘What was he like?’ I inquired.“‘Tall and fair,’ replied the messenger.“‘Was he dressed decently?’ I asked.“‘He hadn’t an overcoat on.’ This with a significant smile, as he added, ‘Looked for all the world like a seafaring man—or a tramp.’“‘Humph!’ I muttered to myself; ‘sailor with no overcoat! Very likely thinks I’m going to give him one—yes, I think I understand.’“Later on in the afternoon Wille2came in. ‘Have you seen Nansen?’ he said.“‘Nansen?’ I replied. ‘Was that sailor fellow without an overcoat Nansen?’“‘Without an overcoat! Why, he means to cross over the inland ice of Greenland;’ and out went Wille—he was in a hurry.“Presently entered Professor Lecke with the same question, ‘Have you seen Nansen? Isn’t he a fine fellow? such a lot of interesting discoveries he told me of, and then his researches into the nervous system—a grand fellow!’ and off went Lecke.“But before long the man himself entered the room. Tall, upright, broad-shouldered, strongly built, though slim and very youthful looking, with his shock of hair brushed off his well-developed forehead. Coming toward me and holding out his hand, he introduced himself by name, while a pleasing smile played over his face.“‘And you mean to cross over Greenland?’ I asked.“‘Yes; I’ve been thinking of it,’ was the reply.“I looked him in the face, as he stood before me with an air of conscious self-reliance about him. With everyword he spoke he seemed to grow on me; and this plan of his to cross over Greenland on ski from the east coast, which but a moment ago I had looked on as a madman’s idea, during our conversation gradually grew on me, till it seemed to be the most natural thing in the world; and all at once it flashed on my mind, ‘And he’ll do it, too, as sure as ever we are sitting here talking about it.’“He, whose name but two hours ago I had not known, became in those few minutes (and it all came about so naturally) as if he were an old acquaintance, and I felt I should be proud and fortunate indeed to have him for my friend my whole life through.“‘We will go and see Nordenskjöld at once,’ I said, rising up. And we went.“With his strange attire,—he was dressed in a tight-fitting, dark-blue blouse or coatee, a kind of knitted jacket,—he was, as may be supposed, stared at in Drottning-gatan. Some people, indeed, took him for an acrobat or tight-rope dancer.”Nordenskjöld, “old Nor” as he was often termed, was in his laboratory, and looked up sharply as his two visitors entered the room, for he was, as ever, “busy.”The professor saluted, and introduced his companion, “Conservator Nansen from Bergen, who purposes to cross over the inland ice of Greenland.”“The deuce he does!” muttered “old Nor,” staring with all his eyes at the fair-haired young viking.“And would like to confer with you about it,” continued the professor.“Quite welcome; and so Herr Nansen thinks of crossing over Greenland?”“Yes; such was his intention.” Thereon, without further ado, he sketched out his projected plan, to which “old Nor” listened with great attention, shaking his head every now and then, as if rather sceptical about it, but evidently getting more and more interested as he proceeded.As Nansen and Professor Brögger were sitting in the latter’s house that evening, a knock was heard at the door, and who should come in but “old Nor” himself—a convincing proof to Brögger that the old man entertained a favorable idea of the proposed plan. And many a valuable hint did the young ice-bear get from the old one, as they sat opposite each other—the man of the past and the coming man of the present—quietly conversing together that evening.Now Nansen sets off for home in order to prepare for the arduous task of the ensuing spring. In December, 1887, he is in Bergen again, and at the end of January he travels on ski from Hardanger to Kongsberg, thence by rail to Christiania.In March we see him once more in Bergen, giving lectures in order to awaken public interest in Greenland; now sleeping out on the top of Blaamand,3a mountain near Bergen, in a sleeping-bag, to test its efficiency; now standing on the cathedra in the university auditorium to claim his right to the degree of doctor of philosophy, which on April 28 was honorably awarded him; and on May 2 he sets out for Copenhagen,en routefor Greenland. For unhappily it was the case in Norway in 1888 that Norwegian exploits must be carried out with Danish help. In vain had he sought for assistance from the regents of the university. They recommended the matter to the government, but the government had no 5,000 kroner4($1,350) to throw away on such an enterprise,—the enterprise of a madman, as most people termed it.Yet when that enterprise had been carried to a successful issue, and that same lunatic had become a great man and asked the government and the storthing5for a grant of 200,000 kroner ($54,000) for his second mad expedition, his request was promptly granted. A new Norway had grown up meanwhile, a new national spirit had forced its way into existence, a living testimony to the power of the Nansen expedition.As stated above, Nansen had to go to Denmark for the 5,000 kroner; and it was the wealthy merchant, Augustin Gamel, who placed that amount at his disposal. Still, certain is it, had not that sum of money been forthcoming as it was, Fridtjof Nansen would have plucked himself bare to the last feather in order to carry out his undertaking.But what was there to be gained from an expedition to Greenland worth the risking of human life,—for a life-risk it unquestionably would be,—to say nothing of the cost thereof? What was there to be learned from the ice?The question is soon answered.The island of Greenland,—for it is now well ascertained that it is an island, and that the largest in the world,—this Sahara of the North, contains within its ice-plains the key to the history of the human race. For it is the largest homogeneous relic we possess of the glacial age. Such as Greenland now is, so large tracts of the world have been; and, what is of more interest to us, so has the whole of the north been. It is this mighty ice-realm that has caused a large proportion of the earth’s surface to assume its present appearance. The lowlands of Mid-Germany and Denmark have been scoured and transported thither from the rocks of Norway and Sweden. The Swedish rock at Lützen in Saxony is Swedish granite that the ice has carried with it. And the small glaciers still left in Norway, such as the Folgefond, Jostedalsbræ, Svartis,6etc., are merely “calves” of that ancient, stupendous mass of ice that time and heat have transported, even though it once lay more than a thousand metres in thickness over widely extended plains.To investigate, therefore, the inland ice of Greenland is, in a word, to investigate the great glacial age; and one may learn from such a study many a lesson explanatory of our earth’s appearance at the present day, and ascertain what could exist, and what could not, under such conditions.We know now that, during the glacial age, human beings lived on this earth, even close up to this gigantic glacier, that subsequently destroyed all life on its course. It may be safely asserted that the struggle with theice, and with the variations of climate, have been important factors in making the human race what it will eventually be, the lords of nature.The Esquimaux in their deerskin dress, the aborigines of Australia, the pigmy tribes of Africa’s primeval forests, are a living testimony of the tenacious powers of the soul and body of mankind,—civilization’s trusty outposts. An Esquimau living on blubber under fifty degrees of cold is just as much a man of achievement in this work-a-day world as an Edison, who, with every comfort at his disposal, forces nature to disclose her hidden marvels. But he who, born in the midst of civilization, and who forces his way to an outpost farther advanced than any mankind has yet attained, is greater, perhaps, than either, especially when in his struggle for existence he wrests from nature her inmost secrets.This was the kernel of Nansen’s exploits—his first and his last.Nansen was fully alive to the fact that his enterprise would involve human life; and he formed his plans in such wise that he would either attain his object or perish in the attempt. He would make the dangerous, uninhabited coast of East Greenland his starting-point as one which presented no enticement for retracing his steps. He would force his way onward. The instinct of self-preservation should impel him toward the west—the greater his advance in that direction the greaterhis hopes. Behind him naught but death; before him, life!But he must have followers! Where were men to be found to risk their lives on such a venture? to form one of a madman’s retinue? And not only that, he must have men with him who, like himself, were well versed in all manly sports, especially in running on ski; men hard as iron, as he was; men who, like himself, were unencumbered with family ties. Where were such to be found? He sought long and diligently, and he found them.There was a man named Sverdrup—Otto Sverdrup. Yes, we all of us know him now! But then he was an unknown Nordland youth, inured to hardship on sea and land, an excellent sailor, a skilful ski-runner, firm of purpose; one to whom fatigue was a stranger, physically strong and able in emergency, unyielding as a rod of iron, firm as a rock. A man chary of words in fine weather, but eloquent in storm: possessed, too, of a courage that lay so deep that it needed almost a peril involving life to arouse it. Yet, when the pinch came Sverdrup was in his element. Then would his light blue eyes assume a darker hue, and a smile creep over his hard-set features; then he would resemble a hawk that sits on a perch with ruffled feathers, bidding defiance to every one who approaches it, but which, when danger draws nigh, flaps its pinions, and soars aloft in ever widening circles, increasing with the force of the tempest, borne along by the storm.This man accompanied him.Otto Sverdrup.Otto Sverdrup.Number two was Lieutenant, now Captain,Olaf Dietrichson.He, too, hailed from the north. A man who loved a life in the open air, a master in all manly exploits, elastic as a steel spring, a proficient on ski, and a sportsman in heart and soul. And added to this, a man possessed of great knowledge in those matters especially that were needed in an expedition like the present. He, too, was enrolled among the number.Number three was also from Nordland, from Sverdrup’s neighborhood, who recommended him. His name wasKristian Kristiansen Trana—a handy and reliable youth.These three were all Nordlanders. But Nansen had a great desire to have a couple of Fjeld-Finns with him, for he considered that, inured as they were to ice and snow, their presence would be of great service to him. They came from Karasjok.7The one a fine young fellow, more Qvæn8than Lapp; the other a little squalid-looking, dark-haired, pink-eyed Fjeld-Finn. The name of the first wasBalto; of the other,Ravna. These two children of the mountains came to Christiania looking dreadfully perplexed, with little of the heroic about them. For they had agreed to accompany the expedition principally for the sake of the good pay, and now learned for the first time that their lives might be endangered. Nansen, however, managed to instil a little confidence into them, and as was subsequently proved, they turned out to be useful and reliable members ofthe expedition. Old Ravna, who was forty-five, was a married man,—a fact Nansen did not know when he engaged him,—and was possessed of great physical strength and powers of endurance.Nansen now had the lives of five persons beside his own on his conscience. He would, therefore, make his equipment in such manner that he should have nothing to reproach himself with in case anything went wrong, a work that he conscientiously and carefully carried out. There was not a single article or implement that was not scientifically and practically discussed and tested, measured and weighed, before they set out. Hand-sleighs and ski, boats and tent, cooking-utensils, sleeping-bags, shoes and clothes, food and drink, all were of the best kind; plenty of everything, but nothing superfluous—light, yet strong, nourishing and strengthening. Everything, in fact, was well thought over, and as was subsequently proved, the mistakes that did occur were few and trifling.Nansen made most of the implements with his own hands, and nothing came to pieces during the whole expedition saving a boat plank that was crushed by the ice.But one thing Nansen omitted to take with him, and that was a supply of spirituous liquor. It did not exist in his dictionary of sport. For he had long entertained the opinion—an opinion very generally held by the youth of Norway at the present day—that strong drink is a foe to manly exploit, sapping and undermining man’s physical and mental powers. In former days, indeed, in Norway, as elsewhere, it was consideredmanly to drink, but now the drinker is looked down on with a pity akin to contempt.Thus equipped, these six venturesome men set out on their way; first by steamer to Iceland, thence by the Jason, a sealer, Captain Jacobsen its commander, who, as opportunity should offer, was to set them ashore on the east coast of Greenland. And here, after struggling for a month with the ice, they finally arrived, on July 19, so near to the Sermilik Fjord that Nansen determined to leave the Jason and make his way across the ice to land. The whole ship’s crew were on deck to bid them farewell. Nansen was in command of one of the two boats, and when he gave the word “set off,” they shot off from the ship’s side, while the Jason’s two guns and a spontaneous hurrah from sixty-four stalwart sailors’ throats resounded far and wide over the sea. As the boats worked their way into the ice, the Jason changed her course, and ere long our six travellers watched the Norwegian flag, waving like a distant tongue of fire, gradually fade from sight and disappear among the mist and fog.These six men set out on their arduous journey with all the indomitable fearlessness and disregard of danger that youth inspires,—qualifications that would speedily be called into requisition.Before many hours of toiling in the ice, the rain came down in torrents, and the current drove them with irresistible force away from the land, while ice-floes kept striking against their boats’ sides, threatening to crush or capsize them. A plank, indeed, in Nansen’s boat was broken by the concussion, and had tobe instantly repaired, the rain meanwhile pouring down a perfect deluge. They determined, therefore, to drag the boats upon an ice-floe, and to pitch their tent on it; and having done this they got into their sleeping-bags, the deafening war of the raging storm in their ears. The two Fjeld-Lapps, however, thinking their end was drawing near, sat with a dejected air gazing in silence out over the sea.Camp on the drift-ice.Camp on the drift-ice.Far away in the distance the roar of the surge dashing against the edge of the ice could be heard, while the steadily increasing swell portended an approaching tempest.Next morning, July 20, Nansen was awakened by aviolent concussion. The ice-floe on which they were was rent asunder, and the current was rapidly drifting them out toward the open sea. The roar of the surge increased; the waves broke over the ice-floe on all sides. Balto and Ravna lay crouching beneath a tarpaulin reading the New Testament in Lappish, while the tears trickled down their cheeks; but out on the floe Dietrichson and Kristiansen were making jokes as every fresh wave dashed over them. Sverdrup was standing with hands folded behind his back, chewing his quid, his eyes directed towards the sea, as if in expectation.They are but a few hundred metres distant from the open sea, and soon will have to take to the boats, or be washed off the floe. The swell is so heavy that the floe ducks up and down like a boat in the trough of the sea. So the order is given, “All hands turn in,” for all their strength will be needed, in the fierce struggle they will shortly have to encounter. So they sleep on the very brink of death, the roar of the storm their lullaby—Ravna and Balto in one of the boats, Nansen and the others in the tent, where the water pours in and out.But there is one outside, on the floe. It is his watch. Hour by hour he walks up and down, his hands behind his back. It is Sverdrup. Every now and then he stands still, turns his sharp, thin face with the sea-blue eyes towards the breakers, and then once more resumes his walk.The storm is raging outside, and the surge is dashing over the ice. He goes to the boat where Ravna and Balto lie sleeping, and lays hold of it, lest it shouldbe swept away by the backwash. Then he goes to the tent, undoes a hook, and again stands gazing over the sea; then turns round, and resumes his walk as before.Their floe is now at the extreme edge of the ice, close to the open sea. A huge crag of ice rises up like some white-clad threatening monster, and the surf dashes furiously over the floe. Again the man on the watch arrests his steps; he undoes another hook in the tent. Matters are at their worst! He must arouse his comrades! He is about to do so when he turns once more and gazes seaward. He becomes aware of a new and strange motion in the floe beneath him. Its course is suddenly changed; it is speeding swiftly away from the open sea—inward, ever inward toward calm water, toward life, toward safety. And as that bronze-faced man stands there, a strange and serious look passes over his features. For that has occurred,—that wondrous thing that he and many another sailor has often experienced,—salvation from death without the mediation of human agency. That moment was for him what the stormy night on the Hardanger waste was to Nansen. It was like divine service! It was as if some invisible hand had steered the floe, he said afterwards to Nansen. So he rolled his quid round into the other cheek, stuck his hands in his pockets; and hour after hour, till late in the morning, the steps of that iron-hearted man on the watch might be heard pacing to and fro.When Nansen awoke, the floe was in safe shelter.Still for another week they kept drifting southward,the glaciers and mountain ridges one after another disappearing from view—a weary, comfortless time. Then, toward midnight on July 28, when it was Sverdrup’s watch again, he thought he could hear the sound of breakers in the west. What it was he could not rightly make out; he thought, perhaps, his senses deceived him; for, at other times, the sound had always come from the east where the sea was. But next morning, when it was Ravna’s watch, Nansen was awakened by seeing the Finn’s grimy face peering at him through an opening in the tent.“Now, Ravna, what is it? can you see land?” he asked at a venture.“Yes—yes—land too close!” croaked Ravna, as he drew his head back.Nansen sprang out of the tent. Yes, there was the land, but a short distance off; and the ice was loose so that a way could easily be forced through it. In a twinkling all hands were busy; and a few hours later Nansen planted his foot on the firm land of Greenland.
Nansen had an arduous task before him in the spring of 1888, one that demanded all his strength and energy, for he would take his doctor’s degree, and make preparations for his expedition to Greenland.
He had already, in the autumn of 1887, made up his mind to accomplish both these things. In November of that year, accordingly, he went to Stockholm to confer with Nordenskjöld. Professor Brögger, who introduced him to that gentleman, gives the following account of the interview:—
“On Thursday, Nov. 3, as I was sitting in my study in the Mineralogical Institute, my messenger came in and said a Norwegian had been inquiring for me. He had left no card, neither had he given his name. Doubtless, I thought, it was some one who wanted help out of a difficulty.
“‘What was he like?’ I inquired.
“‘Tall and fair,’ replied the messenger.
“‘Was he dressed decently?’ I asked.
“‘He hadn’t an overcoat on.’ This with a significant smile, as he added, ‘Looked for all the world like a seafaring man—or a tramp.’
“‘Humph!’ I muttered to myself; ‘sailor with no overcoat! Very likely thinks I’m going to give him one—yes, I think I understand.’
“Later on in the afternoon Wille2came in. ‘Have you seen Nansen?’ he said.
“‘Nansen?’ I replied. ‘Was that sailor fellow without an overcoat Nansen?’
“‘Without an overcoat! Why, he means to cross over the inland ice of Greenland;’ and out went Wille—he was in a hurry.
“Presently entered Professor Lecke with the same question, ‘Have you seen Nansen? Isn’t he a fine fellow? such a lot of interesting discoveries he told me of, and then his researches into the nervous system—a grand fellow!’ and off went Lecke.
“But before long the man himself entered the room. Tall, upright, broad-shouldered, strongly built, though slim and very youthful looking, with his shock of hair brushed off his well-developed forehead. Coming toward me and holding out his hand, he introduced himself by name, while a pleasing smile played over his face.
“‘And you mean to cross over Greenland?’ I asked.
“‘Yes; I’ve been thinking of it,’ was the reply.
“I looked him in the face, as he stood before me with an air of conscious self-reliance about him. With everyword he spoke he seemed to grow on me; and this plan of his to cross over Greenland on ski from the east coast, which but a moment ago I had looked on as a madman’s idea, during our conversation gradually grew on me, till it seemed to be the most natural thing in the world; and all at once it flashed on my mind, ‘And he’ll do it, too, as sure as ever we are sitting here talking about it.’
“He, whose name but two hours ago I had not known, became in those few minutes (and it all came about so naturally) as if he were an old acquaintance, and I felt I should be proud and fortunate indeed to have him for my friend my whole life through.
“‘We will go and see Nordenskjöld at once,’ I said, rising up. And we went.
“With his strange attire,—he was dressed in a tight-fitting, dark-blue blouse or coatee, a kind of knitted jacket,—he was, as may be supposed, stared at in Drottning-gatan. Some people, indeed, took him for an acrobat or tight-rope dancer.”
Nordenskjöld, “old Nor” as he was often termed, was in his laboratory, and looked up sharply as his two visitors entered the room, for he was, as ever, “busy.”
The professor saluted, and introduced his companion, “Conservator Nansen from Bergen, who purposes to cross over the inland ice of Greenland.”
“The deuce he does!” muttered “old Nor,” staring with all his eyes at the fair-haired young viking.
“And would like to confer with you about it,” continued the professor.
“Quite welcome; and so Herr Nansen thinks of crossing over Greenland?”
“Yes; such was his intention.” Thereon, without further ado, he sketched out his projected plan, to which “old Nor” listened with great attention, shaking his head every now and then, as if rather sceptical about it, but evidently getting more and more interested as he proceeded.
As Nansen and Professor Brögger were sitting in the latter’s house that evening, a knock was heard at the door, and who should come in but “old Nor” himself—a convincing proof to Brögger that the old man entertained a favorable idea of the proposed plan. And many a valuable hint did the young ice-bear get from the old one, as they sat opposite each other—the man of the past and the coming man of the present—quietly conversing together that evening.
Now Nansen sets off for home in order to prepare for the arduous task of the ensuing spring. In December, 1887, he is in Bergen again, and at the end of January he travels on ski from Hardanger to Kongsberg, thence by rail to Christiania.
In March we see him once more in Bergen, giving lectures in order to awaken public interest in Greenland; now sleeping out on the top of Blaamand,3a mountain near Bergen, in a sleeping-bag, to test its efficiency; now standing on the cathedra in the university auditorium to claim his right to the degree of doctor of philosophy, which on April 28 was honorably awarded him; and on May 2 he sets out for Copenhagen,en routefor Greenland. For unhappily it was the case in Norway in 1888 that Norwegian exploits must be carried out with Danish help. In vain had he sought for assistance from the regents of the university. They recommended the matter to the government, but the government had no 5,000 kroner4($1,350) to throw away on such an enterprise,—the enterprise of a madman, as most people termed it.
Yet when that enterprise had been carried to a successful issue, and that same lunatic had become a great man and asked the government and the storthing5for a grant of 200,000 kroner ($54,000) for his second mad expedition, his request was promptly granted. A new Norway had grown up meanwhile, a new national spirit had forced its way into existence, a living testimony to the power of the Nansen expedition.
As stated above, Nansen had to go to Denmark for the 5,000 kroner; and it was the wealthy merchant, Augustin Gamel, who placed that amount at his disposal. Still, certain is it, had not that sum of money been forthcoming as it was, Fridtjof Nansen would have plucked himself bare to the last feather in order to carry out his undertaking.
But what was there to be gained from an expedition to Greenland worth the risking of human life,—for a life-risk it unquestionably would be,—to say nothing of the cost thereof? What was there to be learned from the ice?
The question is soon answered.
The island of Greenland,—for it is now well ascertained that it is an island, and that the largest in the world,—this Sahara of the North, contains within its ice-plains the key to the history of the human race. For it is the largest homogeneous relic we possess of the glacial age. Such as Greenland now is, so large tracts of the world have been; and, what is of more interest to us, so has the whole of the north been. It is this mighty ice-realm that has caused a large proportion of the earth’s surface to assume its present appearance. The lowlands of Mid-Germany and Denmark have been scoured and transported thither from the rocks of Norway and Sweden. The Swedish rock at Lützen in Saxony is Swedish granite that the ice has carried with it. And the small glaciers still left in Norway, such as the Folgefond, Jostedalsbræ, Svartis,6etc., are merely “calves” of that ancient, stupendous mass of ice that time and heat have transported, even though it once lay more than a thousand metres in thickness over widely extended plains.
To investigate, therefore, the inland ice of Greenland is, in a word, to investigate the great glacial age; and one may learn from such a study many a lesson explanatory of our earth’s appearance at the present day, and ascertain what could exist, and what could not, under such conditions.
We know now that, during the glacial age, human beings lived on this earth, even close up to this gigantic glacier, that subsequently destroyed all life on its course. It may be safely asserted that the struggle with theice, and with the variations of climate, have been important factors in making the human race what it will eventually be, the lords of nature.
The Esquimaux in their deerskin dress, the aborigines of Australia, the pigmy tribes of Africa’s primeval forests, are a living testimony of the tenacious powers of the soul and body of mankind,—civilization’s trusty outposts. An Esquimau living on blubber under fifty degrees of cold is just as much a man of achievement in this work-a-day world as an Edison, who, with every comfort at his disposal, forces nature to disclose her hidden marvels. But he who, born in the midst of civilization, and who forces his way to an outpost farther advanced than any mankind has yet attained, is greater, perhaps, than either, especially when in his struggle for existence he wrests from nature her inmost secrets.
This was the kernel of Nansen’s exploits—his first and his last.
Nansen was fully alive to the fact that his enterprise would involve human life; and he formed his plans in such wise that he would either attain his object or perish in the attempt. He would make the dangerous, uninhabited coast of East Greenland his starting-point as one which presented no enticement for retracing his steps. He would force his way onward. The instinct of self-preservation should impel him toward the west—the greater his advance in that direction the greaterhis hopes. Behind him naught but death; before him, life!
But he must have followers! Where were men to be found to risk their lives on such a venture? to form one of a madman’s retinue? And not only that, he must have men with him who, like himself, were well versed in all manly sports, especially in running on ski; men hard as iron, as he was; men who, like himself, were unencumbered with family ties. Where were such to be found? He sought long and diligently, and he found them.
There was a man named Sverdrup—Otto Sverdrup. Yes, we all of us know him now! But then he was an unknown Nordland youth, inured to hardship on sea and land, an excellent sailor, a skilful ski-runner, firm of purpose; one to whom fatigue was a stranger, physically strong and able in emergency, unyielding as a rod of iron, firm as a rock. A man chary of words in fine weather, but eloquent in storm: possessed, too, of a courage that lay so deep that it needed almost a peril involving life to arouse it. Yet, when the pinch came Sverdrup was in his element. Then would his light blue eyes assume a darker hue, and a smile creep over his hard-set features; then he would resemble a hawk that sits on a perch with ruffled feathers, bidding defiance to every one who approaches it, but which, when danger draws nigh, flaps its pinions, and soars aloft in ever widening circles, increasing with the force of the tempest, borne along by the storm.
This man accompanied him.
Otto Sverdrup.Otto Sverdrup.
Otto Sverdrup.
Number two was Lieutenant, now Captain,Olaf Dietrichson.He, too, hailed from the north. A man who loved a life in the open air, a master in all manly exploits, elastic as a steel spring, a proficient on ski, and a sportsman in heart and soul. And added to this, a man possessed of great knowledge in those matters especially that were needed in an expedition like the present. He, too, was enrolled among the number.
Number three was also from Nordland, from Sverdrup’s neighborhood, who recommended him. His name wasKristian Kristiansen Trana—a handy and reliable youth.
These three were all Nordlanders. But Nansen had a great desire to have a couple of Fjeld-Finns with him, for he considered that, inured as they were to ice and snow, their presence would be of great service to him. They came from Karasjok.7The one a fine young fellow, more Qvæn8than Lapp; the other a little squalid-looking, dark-haired, pink-eyed Fjeld-Finn. The name of the first wasBalto; of the other,Ravna. These two children of the mountains came to Christiania looking dreadfully perplexed, with little of the heroic about them. For they had agreed to accompany the expedition principally for the sake of the good pay, and now learned for the first time that their lives might be endangered. Nansen, however, managed to instil a little confidence into them, and as was subsequently proved, they turned out to be useful and reliable members ofthe expedition. Old Ravna, who was forty-five, was a married man,—a fact Nansen did not know when he engaged him,—and was possessed of great physical strength and powers of endurance.
Nansen now had the lives of five persons beside his own on his conscience. He would, therefore, make his equipment in such manner that he should have nothing to reproach himself with in case anything went wrong, a work that he conscientiously and carefully carried out. There was not a single article or implement that was not scientifically and practically discussed and tested, measured and weighed, before they set out. Hand-sleighs and ski, boats and tent, cooking-utensils, sleeping-bags, shoes and clothes, food and drink, all were of the best kind; plenty of everything, but nothing superfluous—light, yet strong, nourishing and strengthening. Everything, in fact, was well thought over, and as was subsequently proved, the mistakes that did occur were few and trifling.
Nansen made most of the implements with his own hands, and nothing came to pieces during the whole expedition saving a boat plank that was crushed by the ice.
But one thing Nansen omitted to take with him, and that was a supply of spirituous liquor. It did not exist in his dictionary of sport. For he had long entertained the opinion—an opinion very generally held by the youth of Norway at the present day—that strong drink is a foe to manly exploit, sapping and undermining man’s physical and mental powers. In former days, indeed, in Norway, as elsewhere, it was consideredmanly to drink, but now the drinker is looked down on with a pity akin to contempt.
Thus equipped, these six venturesome men set out on their way; first by steamer to Iceland, thence by the Jason, a sealer, Captain Jacobsen its commander, who, as opportunity should offer, was to set them ashore on the east coast of Greenland. And here, after struggling for a month with the ice, they finally arrived, on July 19, so near to the Sermilik Fjord that Nansen determined to leave the Jason and make his way across the ice to land. The whole ship’s crew were on deck to bid them farewell. Nansen was in command of one of the two boats, and when he gave the word “set off,” they shot off from the ship’s side, while the Jason’s two guns and a spontaneous hurrah from sixty-four stalwart sailors’ throats resounded far and wide over the sea. As the boats worked their way into the ice, the Jason changed her course, and ere long our six travellers watched the Norwegian flag, waving like a distant tongue of fire, gradually fade from sight and disappear among the mist and fog.
These six men set out on their arduous journey with all the indomitable fearlessness and disregard of danger that youth inspires,—qualifications that would speedily be called into requisition.
Before many hours of toiling in the ice, the rain came down in torrents, and the current drove them with irresistible force away from the land, while ice-floes kept striking against their boats’ sides, threatening to crush or capsize them. A plank, indeed, in Nansen’s boat was broken by the concussion, and had tobe instantly repaired, the rain meanwhile pouring down a perfect deluge. They determined, therefore, to drag the boats upon an ice-floe, and to pitch their tent on it; and having done this they got into their sleeping-bags, the deafening war of the raging storm in their ears. The two Fjeld-Lapps, however, thinking their end was drawing near, sat with a dejected air gazing in silence out over the sea.
Camp on the drift-ice.Camp on the drift-ice.
Camp on the drift-ice.
Far away in the distance the roar of the surge dashing against the edge of the ice could be heard, while the steadily increasing swell portended an approaching tempest.
Next morning, July 20, Nansen was awakened by aviolent concussion. The ice-floe on which they were was rent asunder, and the current was rapidly drifting them out toward the open sea. The roar of the surge increased; the waves broke over the ice-floe on all sides. Balto and Ravna lay crouching beneath a tarpaulin reading the New Testament in Lappish, while the tears trickled down their cheeks; but out on the floe Dietrichson and Kristiansen were making jokes as every fresh wave dashed over them. Sverdrup was standing with hands folded behind his back, chewing his quid, his eyes directed towards the sea, as if in expectation.
They are but a few hundred metres distant from the open sea, and soon will have to take to the boats, or be washed off the floe. The swell is so heavy that the floe ducks up and down like a boat in the trough of the sea. So the order is given, “All hands turn in,” for all their strength will be needed, in the fierce struggle they will shortly have to encounter. So they sleep on the very brink of death, the roar of the storm their lullaby—Ravna and Balto in one of the boats, Nansen and the others in the tent, where the water pours in and out.
But there is one outside, on the floe. It is his watch. Hour by hour he walks up and down, his hands behind his back. It is Sverdrup. Every now and then he stands still, turns his sharp, thin face with the sea-blue eyes towards the breakers, and then once more resumes his walk.
The storm is raging outside, and the surge is dashing over the ice. He goes to the boat where Ravna and Balto lie sleeping, and lays hold of it, lest it shouldbe swept away by the backwash. Then he goes to the tent, undoes a hook, and again stands gazing over the sea; then turns round, and resumes his walk as before.
Their floe is now at the extreme edge of the ice, close to the open sea. A huge crag of ice rises up like some white-clad threatening monster, and the surf dashes furiously over the floe. Again the man on the watch arrests his steps; he undoes another hook in the tent. Matters are at their worst! He must arouse his comrades! He is about to do so when he turns once more and gazes seaward. He becomes aware of a new and strange motion in the floe beneath him. Its course is suddenly changed; it is speeding swiftly away from the open sea—inward, ever inward toward calm water, toward life, toward safety. And as that bronze-faced man stands there, a strange and serious look passes over his features. For that has occurred,—that wondrous thing that he and many another sailor has often experienced,—salvation from death without the mediation of human agency. That moment was for him what the stormy night on the Hardanger waste was to Nansen. It was like divine service! It was as if some invisible hand had steered the floe, he said afterwards to Nansen. So he rolled his quid round into the other cheek, stuck his hands in his pockets; and hour after hour, till late in the morning, the steps of that iron-hearted man on the watch might be heard pacing to and fro.
When Nansen awoke, the floe was in safe shelter.
Still for another week they kept drifting southward,the glaciers and mountain ridges one after another disappearing from view—a weary, comfortless time. Then, toward midnight on July 28, when it was Sverdrup’s watch again, he thought he could hear the sound of breakers in the west. What it was he could not rightly make out; he thought, perhaps, his senses deceived him; for, at other times, the sound had always come from the east where the sea was. But next morning, when it was Ravna’s watch, Nansen was awakened by seeing the Finn’s grimy face peering at him through an opening in the tent.
“Now, Ravna, what is it? can you see land?” he asked at a venture.
“Yes—yes—land too close!” croaked Ravna, as he drew his head back.
Nansen sprang out of the tent. Yes, there was the land, but a short distance off; and the ice was loose so that a way could easily be forced through it. In a twinkling all hands were busy; and a few hours later Nansen planted his foot on the firm land of Greenland.
1Nordenskjöld(pron. Nordenshuld), famous Swedish explorer, discoverer of the North-east Passage.2Wille, another Norwegian, who at that time was professor at the High School in Stockholm.3Blaamand(pron. Blohmann).4Onekrone(crown) equals twenty-seven cents.5Storthing, the legislative assembly (congress) of Norway.6Folgefond,Jostedalsbræ, Svartisen, glaciers in Norway.7Karasjok(pron. Karashok), one of the northernmost districts of Norway, chiefly inhabited by Lapps.8Qvæn, the Norwegian name for a man of the race inhabiting the grand duchy of Finland. TheLappsare in Norway called Finns.
1Nordenskjöld(pron. Nordenshuld), famous Swedish explorer, discoverer of the North-east Passage.
2Wille, another Norwegian, who at that time was professor at the High School in Stockholm.
3Blaamand(pron. Blohmann).
4Onekrone(crown) equals twenty-seven cents.
5Storthing, the legislative assembly (congress) of Norway.
6Folgefond,Jostedalsbræ, Svartisen, glaciers in Norway.
7Karasjok(pron. Karashok), one of the northernmost districts of Norway, chiefly inhabited by Lapps.
8Qvæn, the Norwegian name for a man of the race inhabiting the grand duchy of Finland. TheLappsare in Norway called Finns.
Chapter V.Journey across Greenland.—Meeting Esquimaux.—Reaching the West Coast.—Return to Civilization and Home.When Nansen and his companions, after their perilous adventures in the drift-ice, landed with flags flying on their boats on the east waste of Greenland, the first thing they did was to give vent to their feelings in a ringing hurrah—a sound which those wild and barren crags had never re-echoed before. Their joy, indeed, on feeling firm ground beneath their feet once more baffles description. In a word, they conducted themselves like a pack of schoolboys, singing, laughing, and playing all manner of pranks. The Lapps, however, did not partake in the general merriment, but took themselves off up the mountain-side, where they remained several hours.But when their first ebullition of joy had somewhat subsided, Nansen himself followed the example of the Lapps, and clambered up the slope in order to get a good view over the landscape, leaving the others to prepare the banquet they determined to indulge in that evening on the sea-beach. And here he remained some little while, entranced with the wondrous beauty of the scene. The sea and the ice stretched far away to the east, shining like a belt of silver beneath him, while on the west the mountain-tops were bathed in a flood ofhazy sunshine, and the inland ice, the “Sahara of the North,” extended in a level unbroken plain for miles and miles into the interior.A snow bunting perched on a stone close by him, and chirped a welcome; a mosquito came humming through the air to greet the stranger, and settled on his hand. He would not disturb it; it was a welcome from home. It wanted his blood, and he let it take its fill. To the south the grand outline of Cape Tordenskjold rose up in the horizon, its name and form recalling his country to his mind; and there arose in his breast an earnest desire, a deep longing, to sacrifice anything and everything for his beloved “Old Norway.”On rejoining his comrades, the feast was ready. It consisted of oatmeal biscuits, Gruyère cheese, whortleberry jam, and chocolate; and there is little doubt that these six adventurers “ate as one eats in the springtime of youth.” For it had been unanimously resolved that, for this one day at least, they would enjoy themselves to the full; on the morrow their daily fare would be, toeat little, sleep little, and work as hard as possible. To-day, then, should be the first and the last of such indulgence. Time was precious!On the next day, therefore, they resumed their northward journey, along the east coast, fighting their way day and night, inch by inch, foot by foot, through the drift-ice; at times in peril, at others in safety; past Cape Adelaer, past Cape Garde, ever forward in one incessant, monotonous struggle. And now they approached the ill-omened Puisortok, of which Esquimauxand European seafarers had many an evil tale to tell. There, it was said, masses of ice would either shoot up suddenly from beneath the surface of the water, and crush any vessel that ventured near, or would fall down from the overhanging height, and overwhelm it. There not a word must be spoken! there must be no laughing, no eating, no smoking, if one would pass it in safety! Above all, the fatal name of Puisortok must not pass the lips, else the glacier would be angry, and certain destruction ensue.Nansen, however, it may be said, did not observe these regulations, and yet managed to pass it in safety. In his opinion there was nothing very remarkable or terrible about it.But something else took place at Puisortok that surprised him and his companions.On July 30, as they were preparing their midday meal, Nansen heard, amid the shrill cries of the seabirds, a strange weird sound. What it could be he could not conceive. It resembled the cry of a loon more than anything else, and kept coming nearer and nearer. Through his telescope, however, he discerned two dark specks among the ice-floes, now close together, now a little apart, making straight for them. They were human beings evidently—human beings in the midst of that desert region of ice, which they had thought to be a barren, uninhabited waste. Balto, too, watched their approach attentively, with a half astonished, half uneasy look, for he believed them to be supernatural beings.On came the strangers, one of them bending forwardin his kayak1as if bowing in salutation; and, on coming alongside the rock, they crawled out of their kayaks and stood before Nansen and his companions with bare heads, dressed in jackets and trousers of seal-skin, smiling, and making all manner of friendly gestures. They were Esquimaux, and had glass beads in their jet-black hair. Their skin was of a chestnut hue, and their movements, if not altogether graceful, were attractive.On coming up to our travellers they began to ask questions in a strange language, which, needless to say, was perfectly unintelligible. Nansen, indeed, tried to talk to them in Esquimau from a conversation book in that tongue he had with him, but it was perfectly useless. And it was not till both parties had recourse to the language of signs that Nansen was able to ascertain that they belonged to an Esquimau encampment to the north of Puisortok.These two Esquimaux were good-natured looking little beings; and now they began to examine the equipments of the travellers, and taste their food, with which they seemed beyond measure pleased, expressing their admiration at all they saw by a long-drawn kind of bovine bellow. Finally they took leave, and set off northward in their kayaks which they managed with wonderful dexterity, and soon disappeared from sight.At six the same evening our travellers followed in the same direction, and in a short time reached the Esquimau encampment at Cape Bille. Long, however,before their eyes could detect any signs of tents or of human beings, their sense of smell became aware of a rank odor of train-oil, accompanied by a sound of voices; and they presently saw numbers of Esquimaux standing on the sea-beach, and on the rocks, earnestly watching the approach of the strangers.It was a picturesque sight that presented itself to the eyes of our travellers.“All about the ledges of the rocks,” writes Nansen, “stood long rows of strangely wild, shaggy looking creatures, men, women and children—all dressed in much the same scanty attire, staring and pointing at us, and uttering the same cowlike sound we had heard in the forenoon. It was just as if a whole herd of cows were lowing one against another, as when the cowhouse door is opened in the morning to admit the expected fodder.”They were all smiling,—a smile indeed, is the only welcoming salute of the Esquimaux,—all eager to help Nansen and his companions ashore, chattering away incessantly in their own tongue, like a saucepan boiling and bubbling over with words, not one of which, alas, could Nansen or his companions understand.Presently Nansen was invited to enter one of their tents, in which was an odor of such a remarkable nature, such a blending of several ingredients, that a description thereof is impossible. It was the smell, as it were, of a mixture of train-oil, human exhalations, and the effluvium of fetid liquids all intimately mixed up together; while men and women, lying on the floor round the fire, children rolling about everywhere, dogs sniffingall around, helped to make up a scene that was decidedly unique.East Greenland Esquimaux.East Greenland Esquimaux.All of the occupants were of a brownish-greyish hue, due mostly to the non-application of soap and water, and were swarming with vermin. All of them were shiny with train-oil, plump, laughing, chattering creatures—in a word, presenting a picture of primitive social life, in all its original blessedness.Nansen does not consider the Esquimaux, crosseyedand flat-featured though they be, as by any means repulsive looking. The nose he describes, in the case of children, “as a depression in the middle of the face,” the reverse ideal, indeed, of a European nose.On the whole he considers their plump, rounded forms to have a genial appearance about them, and that the seal is the Esquimau prototype.The hospitality of these children of nature was boundless. They would give away all they possessed, even to the shirt on their backs, had they possessed such an article; and certainly showed extreme gratitude when their liberality was reciprocated, evidently placing a high value on empty biscuit-tins, for each time any of them got one presented to him he would at once bellow forth his joy at the gift.But what especially seemed to attract their interest was when Nansen and his companions began to undress, before turning in for the night into their sleeping-bags; while to watch them creep out of the same the next morning afforded them no less interest. They entertained, however, a great dread of the camera, for every time Nansen turned its dark glass eye upon them, a regular stampede would take place.Next day Nansen and the Esquimaux parted company, some of the latter proceeding on their way to the south, others accompanying him on his journey northward. The leavetaking between the Esquimaux was peculiar, being celebrated by cramming their nostrils full of snuff from each other’s snuff-horns. Snuff indeed is the only benefit, or the reverse, it seems the Esquimaux have derived from European civilization upto date; and is such a favorite, one might say necessary, article with them that they will go on a shopping expedition to the south to procure it, a journey that often takes them four years to accomplish!The journey northward was an extremely fatiguing one, for they encountered such stormy weather that their boats more than once narrowly escaped being nipped in the ice. As a set-off, however, to this, the scenery proved to be magnificent,—the floating mountains of ice resembling enchanted castles, and all nature was on a stupendous scale. Finally they reached a harbor on Griffenfeldt’s Island, where they enjoyed the first hot meal they had had on their coasting expedition, consisting of caraway soup. This meal of soup was a great comfort to the weary and worn-out travellers. Here a striking but silent testimony of that severe and pitiless climate presented itself in the form of a number of skulls and human bones lying blanched and scattered among the rocks, evidently the remains of Esquimaux who in times long gone by had perished from starvation.After an incredible amount of toil, Nansen arrived at a small island in the entrance of the Inugsuazmuit Fjord, and thence proceeded to Skjoldungen where the water was more open. Here they encamped, and were almost eaten up by mosquitoes.On Aug. 6 they again set out on their way northward, meeting with another encampment of Esquimaux, who were, however, so terrified at the approach of thestrangers, that they one and all bolted off to the mountain, and it was not till Nansen presented them with an empty tin box and some needles that they became reassured, after which they accompanied the expedition for some little distance, and on parting gave Nansen a quantity of dried seal’s flesh.The farther our travellers proceeded on their journey, the more dissatisfied and uneasy did Balto and Ravna become. Accordingly one day Nansen took the opportunity of giving Balto a good scolding, who with tears and sobs gave vent to his complaints, “They had not had food enough—coffee only three times during the whole journey; and they had to work harder than any beast the whole livelong day, and he would gladly give many thousands of kroner to be safe at home once more.”There was indeed something in what Balto said. The fare had unquestionably been somewhat scanty, and the work severe; and it was evident that these children of nature, hardy though they were, could not vie with civilized people when it became a question of endurance for any length of time, and of risking life and taxing one’s ability to the utmost.Finally, on Aug. 10, the expedition reached Umivik in a dense fog, after a very difficult journey through the ice, and encamped for the last time on the east coast of Greenland. Here they boiled coffee, shot a kind of snipe, and lived like gentlemen, so that even Balto and Ravna were quite satisfied. The former, indeed, began intoning some prayers, as he had heard the priest in Finmarken do, in a very masterly manner,—a pastime,by the way, he never indulged in except he felt his life to be quite safe.The next day, Aug. 11, rose gloriously bright. Far away among the distant glaciers a rumbling sound as of cannon could be heard, while snow-covered mountains towered high, overhead, on the other side of which lay boundless tracts of inland ice. Nansen and Sverdrup now made a reconnoitring expedition, and did not return till five o’clock the next morning. It still required some days to overhaul and get everything in complete order for their journey inland; and it was not till nine o’clock in the evening of Aug. 16, after first dragging up on land the boats, in which a few necessary articles of food were stored, together with a brief account of the progress of the expedition carefully packed in a tin box, that they commenced their journey across the inland ice.Nansen and Sverdrup led the way with the large sleigh, while the others, each dragging a smaller one, followed in their wake. Thus these six men, confident of solving the problem before them, with the firm earth beneath their feet, commenced the ascent of the mountain-slope which Nansen christened “Nordenskjöld’s Nunatak.”2Their work had now begun in real earnest—a work so severe and arduous that it would require all the strength and powers of endurance they possessed to accomplish it. The ice was full of fissures, and these had either to be circumvented or crossed, a very difficult matter with heavily laden sleighs. A covering ofice often lay over these fissures, so that great caution was required. Hence their progress was often very slow, each man being roped to his fellow; so that if one of them should happen to disappear into one of these fathomless abysses, his companion could haul him up. Such an occurrence happened more than once; for Nansen as well as the others would every now and then fall plump in up to the arms, dangling with his legs over empty space. But it always turned out well; for powerful hands took hold of the rope, and the practised gymnasts knew how to extricate themselves.At first the ascent was very hard work, and it will readily be understood that the six tired men were not sorry on the first night of their journey to crawl into their sleeping-bags, after first refreshing the inner man with cup after cup of hot tea.Yet, notwithstanding all the fatigue they had undergone, there was so much strength left in them that Dietrichson volunteered to go back and fetch a piece of Gruyère cheese they had left behind when halting for their midday meal. “It would be a nice little morning walk,” he said, “before turning in!” And he actually went—all for the sake of a precious bit of cheese!Next day there was a pouring rain that wet them through. The work of hauling the sleighs, however, kept them warm. But later in the evening, it came down in such torrents that Nansen deemed it advisable to pitch the tent, and here they remained, weather-bound, for three whole days. And long days they were! But our travellers followed the example ofbruin in winter; that is, they lay under shelter the greater part of the time, Nansen taking care that they should also imitate bruin in another respect,—who sleeps sucking his paw,—by giving them rations once a day only. “He who does no work shall have little food,” was his motto.On the forenoon of the twentieth, however, the weather improved; and our travellers again set out on their journey, having first indulged in a good warm meal by way of recompense for their three days’ fasting. The ice at first was very difficult, so much so that they had to retrace their steps, and, sitting on their sleighs, slide down the mountain slope. But the going improved, as also did the weather. “If it would only freeze a little,” sighed Nansen. But he was to get enough of frost before long.On they tramped, under a broiling sun, over the slushy snow. As there was no drinking-water to be had, they filled their flasks with snow, carrying them in their breast-pockets for the heat of their bodies to melt it.On Aug. 22 there was a night frost; the snow was hard and in good condition, but the surface so rough and full of lumps and frozen waves of slush, that the ropes with which they dragged the sleighs cut and chafed their shoulders. “It was just as if our shoulders were being burnt,” Balto said.They now travelled mostly by night, for it was better going then, and there was no sun to broil them; while the aurora borealis, bathing as it were the whole of the frozen plain in a flood of silvery light, inspiredthem with fresh courage. The surface of the ice over which they travelled was as smooth and even as a lake newly frozen over. Even Balto on such occasions would indulge in a few oaths, a thing he never allowed himself except when he felt “master of the situation.” He was a Finn, you see, and perhaps had no other way of giving expression to his feelings!As they got into higher altitudes the cold at night became more intense. Occasionally they were overtaken by a snowstorm, when they had to encamp in order to avoid being frozen to death; while at times, again, the going would become so heavy in the fine drifting snow that they had to drag their sleighs one by one, three or four men at a time to each sleigh, an operation involving such tremendous exertion that Kristiansen, a man of few words, on one such occasion said to Nansen, “What fools people must be to let themselves in for work like this!”To give some idea of the intense cold they had to encounter it may be stated that, at the highest altitude they reached,—9,272 feet above the sea,—the temperature fell to below -49° Fahrenheit, and this, too, in the tent at night, the thermometer being under Nansen’s pillow. And all this toil and labor, be it remembered, went on from Aug. 16 to the end of September, with sleighs weighing on an average about two hundred and twenty pounds each, in drifting snow-dust, worse than even the sandstorms of Sahara.In order to lighten their labor, Nansen resolved to use sails on the sleighs—a proceeding which Balto highly disapproved of: “Such mad people he hadnever seen before, to want to sail over the snow! He was a Lapp, he was, and there was nothing they could teach him on land. It was the greatest nonsense he had ever heard of!”Sledging across Greenland.Sledging across Greenland.Sails, however, were forthcoming, notwithstanding Balto’s objections; and they sat and stitched them with frozen fingers in the midst of the snow. But it was astonishing what a help they proved to be; and so they proceeded on their way, after slightly altering their course in the direction of Godthaab.3Thus, then, we see these solitary beings, looking like dark spots moving on an infinite expanse of snow,wending their way ever onward, Nansen and Sverdrup side by side, ski-staff and ice-axe in hand, in front, earnestly gazing ahead as they dragged the heavy sleigh, while close behind followed Dietrichson and Kristiansen, Balto and Ravna bringing up the rear, each dragging a smaller sleigh. So it went on for weeks; and though it tried their strength, and put their powers of endurance to a most severe test, yet, if ever the thought of “giving it up” arose in their minds, it was at once scouted by all the party, the two Lapps excepted. One day Balto complained loudly to Nansen. “When you asked us,” he said, “in Christiania, what weight we could drag, we told you we could manage one hundredweight each, but now we have double that weight, and all I can say is, that, if we can drag these loads over to the west coast, we are stronger than horses.”Onward, however, they went, in spite of the cold, which at times was so intense that their beards froze fast to their jerseys, facing blinding snowstorms that well-nigh made old Ravna desperate. The only bright moments they enjoyed were when sleeping or at their meals. The sleeping-bags, indeed, were a paradise; their meals, ideals of perfect bliss.Unfortunately, Nansen had not taken a sufficient supply of fatty food with him, and to such an extent did the craving for fat go, that Sverdrup one day seriously suggested that they should eat boot-grease—a compound of boiled grease and old linseed oil! Their great luxury was to eat raw butter, and smoke a pipe after it. First they would smoke the fragrant weedpure and simple; when that was done, the tobacco ash, followed by the oil as long as it would burn; and when this was all exhausted, they would smoke tarred yarn, or anything else that was a bit tasty! Nansen, who neither smoked nor chewed, would content himself with a chip of wood, or a sliver off one of the “truger” (snowshoes). “It tasted good,” he said, “and kept his mouth moist.”Finally, on Sept. 14, they had reached their highest altitude, and now began to descend toward the coast, keeping a sharp lookout for “land ahead.” But none was yet to be seen, and one day Ravna’s patience completely gave way. With sobs and moans he said to Nansen,—“I’m an old Fjeld-Lapp, and a silly old fool! I’m sure we shall never get to the coast!”“Yes,” was the curt answer, “it’s quite true! Ravna is a silly old fool!”One day, however, shortly afterward, while they were at dinner, they heard the twittering of a bird close by. It was a snow-bunting, bringing them a greeting from the west coast, and their hearts grew warm within them at the welcome sound.On the next day, with sails set, they proceeded onward down the sloping ground, but with only partial success. Nansen was standing behind the large sleigh to steady it, while Sverdrup steered from the front. Merrily flew the bark; but, unfortunately, Nansen stumbled and fell, and had hard work to regain his legs, and harder work still to gather up sundry articles that had fallen off the sleigh, such as boxes of pemmican,fur jackets, and ice-axes. Meanwhile Sverdrup and the ship had almost disappeared from view, and all that Nansen could see of it was a dark, square speck, far ahead across the ice. Sverdrup had been sitting all the while in front, thinking what an admirable passage they were making, and was not a little astonished, on looking behind, to find that he was the only passenger on board. Matters, however, went on better after this; and in the afternoon, as they were sailing their best and fastest, the joyful cry of “Land ahead!” rang through the air. The west coast was in sight! After several days’ hard work across fissures and over uneven ice, the coast itself was finally reached. But Godthaab was a long, long way off still, and to reach it by land was sheer impossibility.The joy of our travellers on once more feeling firm ground beneath their feet, and of getting real water to drink, was indescribable. They swallowed quart after quart, till they could drink no more. The Lapps, as usual took themselves off to the fjeld to testify their joy.That evening was the most delightful one they had experienced for weeks, one never to be forgotten in after years, when, with their tent pitched, and a blazing fire of wood, they sat beside it, Sverdrup smoking a pipe of moss in lieu of tobacco, and Nansen lying on his back on the grass, which shed a strange and delightful perfume all around.But how was Godthaab to be reached? By land it was impossible! Therefore the journey must be made by sea! But there was no boat! A boat, then, must be built. And Sverdrup and Nansen were the men tosolve the problem. They set to work, and by evening the boat was finished. Its dimensions were eight feet five inches in length, four feet eight inches in breadth, and it was made of willows and sail-cloth. The oars were of bamboo and willow branches, across the blades of which canvas was stretched. The thwarts were made from bamboo, and the foot of one of their scientific instruments which, by the way, chafed them terribly, and were very uncomfortable seats.On the way to Godthaab.On the way to Godthaab.All preparations being now made, Nansen and Sverdrup set off on their adventurous journey. The first day it was terribly hard work, for the water was too shallow to admit of rowing. On the second day, however, they put out to sea. Here they had at times to encountersevere weather, fearing every moment lest their frail bark should be swamped or capsized. At night they would sleep on the naked shore beneath the open sky. From morning till night struggling away with their oars, living on hot soup and the sea-birds they shot, which were ravenously devoured without much labor being devoted to cooking the same. Finally they reached their destination, meeting with a hearty welcome, accompanied by a salute from cannon fired off in their honor, when once it was ascertained who the new arrivals were.Nansen’s first inquiry was about a ship for Denmark, and he learned, to his great disappointment, that the last vessel for the season had sailed from Godthaab two months before, and that the nearest ship, the Fox, was lying at Ivitgut, three hundred miles off.It was a terrible blow in the midst of their joy. Home had, as it were, at one stroke receded many hundreds of miles away; and here they would have to pass a whole winter and spring, while dear ones at home would think they had perished, and would be mourning for their supposed loss all those weary months.But this must never be! The Fox must be got at, and friends at home must at all events get letters by her.After a great deal of trouble Nansen at length found an Esquimau who agreed to set off in his kayak bearing two letters. One was from Nansen to Gamel, who had equipped the expedition; the other from Sverdrup to his father.This having been arranged, and boats having beensent off to fetch their comrades from Ameralikfjord, Nansen and Sverdrup plunged into all the joys and delights of civilized life to which they had so long been strangers. Now they were able to indulge in the luxury of soap and water for the first time since the commencement of their journey across the ice. To change their clothes, to sleep in proper beds, to eat civilized food with knives and forks on earthenware plates, to smoke, to converse with educated beings, was to them thesummum bonumof enjoyment, and they felt themselves to be in clover.Notwithstanding all these, Nansen did not seem altogether himself. He was in a dreamy state, thinking perhaps of nights spent in sleeping-bags up on the inland ice, or dreaming of that memorable evening in the Ameralikfjord, of the hard struggles they had undergone on the boundless plains of snow. These things flashed across him, excluding from his mind the conviction that he had rendered his name famous.At last, on Oct. 12, the other members of the expedition joined them, and these six men, who had risked their lives in that perilous adventure, were once more assembled together.His object had been attained, and the name of Fridtjof Nansen would soon be known the whole world over!That same autumn the Fox brought to Norway tidings of the success of the expedition, and a few hours after her arrival the telegraph announced throughout the length and breadth of the civilized world, in few but significant words, “Fridtjof Nansen has crossed over the inland ice of Greenland.”And the Norwegian nation, which had refused to grant the venturesome young man 5,000 kroner ($1,350), now raised her head, and called Fridtjof Nansen one of her best sons. And when one day in April, after having spent a long winter in Greenland, he went on board the Hvidbjörn4on his homeward journey, preparations were being made in the capital for a festival such as a king receives when he visits his subjects.It was May 30: the spring sun was shining with all its brilliancy over Norway. The Christiania fjord was teeming with yachts and small sailing-boats. A light breeze played over the ruffled surface of the water, while the perfume of the budding trees on its banks shed a sweet fragrance all around. As for the town, it literally swarmed with human beings. The quays, the fortress, the very roofs of the houses, were densely packed with eager crowds, all of them intently gazing seaward. Presently a shout of welcome heard faintly in the distance announced his approach, gradually increasing in volume as he came nearer, till it merged into one continuous roar, while thousands of flags were waving overhead.Eagerly the crowds pressed forward to catch the first glimpse of his form, and when they did recognize him, their hurrahs burst forth like a storm, and were caught up in the streets, answered from the windows, from the tops of houses; and when they ceased for a moment from the sheer exhaustion of those who uttered them, they were soon renewed with redoubled vigor. And when finally Nansen had disembarked and had entereda carriage, the police could no longer keep the people under control. As if with one accord they dashed forward, and taking out the horses, harnessed themselves in their place, and dragged him through the streets of the city in triumph.Yes, the Norwegian people had taken possession of Fridtjof Nansen!But up at a window there stood the old housekeeper from Store Fröen, waving her white apron, while tears of joy trickled down her face. She it was who had bound up his bleeding head when years ago he had fallen and cut it on the ice; she it was to whom he had often gone when in some childish scrape. He remembered her in his hour of triumph. And as she was laughing and crying by turns, and waving her apron, he dashed up the steps and gave her a loving embrace.For was she not part and parcel of his home?1Kayak, small and light boat, chiefly made of sealskin, used by the natives of Greenland.2Peaks of rock projecting above the surface of the ice.3Godthaab(pron. Gott-hōb), the only city, and seat of the Danish governor, on the west coast of Greenland.4Hvidbjörn(pron. Vid-byurn), The White Bear, a trading-vessel.
Chapter V.Journey across Greenland.—Meeting Esquimaux.—Reaching the West Coast.—Return to Civilization and Home.
Journey across Greenland.—Meeting Esquimaux.—Reaching the West Coast.—Return to Civilization and Home.
Journey across Greenland.—Meeting Esquimaux.—Reaching the West Coast.—Return to Civilization and Home.
When Nansen and his companions, after their perilous adventures in the drift-ice, landed with flags flying on their boats on the east waste of Greenland, the first thing they did was to give vent to their feelings in a ringing hurrah—a sound which those wild and barren crags had never re-echoed before. Their joy, indeed, on feeling firm ground beneath their feet once more baffles description. In a word, they conducted themselves like a pack of schoolboys, singing, laughing, and playing all manner of pranks. The Lapps, however, did not partake in the general merriment, but took themselves off up the mountain-side, where they remained several hours.But when their first ebullition of joy had somewhat subsided, Nansen himself followed the example of the Lapps, and clambered up the slope in order to get a good view over the landscape, leaving the others to prepare the banquet they determined to indulge in that evening on the sea-beach. And here he remained some little while, entranced with the wondrous beauty of the scene. The sea and the ice stretched far away to the east, shining like a belt of silver beneath him, while on the west the mountain-tops were bathed in a flood ofhazy sunshine, and the inland ice, the “Sahara of the North,” extended in a level unbroken plain for miles and miles into the interior.A snow bunting perched on a stone close by him, and chirped a welcome; a mosquito came humming through the air to greet the stranger, and settled on his hand. He would not disturb it; it was a welcome from home. It wanted his blood, and he let it take its fill. To the south the grand outline of Cape Tordenskjold rose up in the horizon, its name and form recalling his country to his mind; and there arose in his breast an earnest desire, a deep longing, to sacrifice anything and everything for his beloved “Old Norway.”On rejoining his comrades, the feast was ready. It consisted of oatmeal biscuits, Gruyère cheese, whortleberry jam, and chocolate; and there is little doubt that these six adventurers “ate as one eats in the springtime of youth.” For it had been unanimously resolved that, for this one day at least, they would enjoy themselves to the full; on the morrow their daily fare would be, toeat little, sleep little, and work as hard as possible. To-day, then, should be the first and the last of such indulgence. Time was precious!On the next day, therefore, they resumed their northward journey, along the east coast, fighting their way day and night, inch by inch, foot by foot, through the drift-ice; at times in peril, at others in safety; past Cape Adelaer, past Cape Garde, ever forward in one incessant, monotonous struggle. And now they approached the ill-omened Puisortok, of which Esquimauxand European seafarers had many an evil tale to tell. There, it was said, masses of ice would either shoot up suddenly from beneath the surface of the water, and crush any vessel that ventured near, or would fall down from the overhanging height, and overwhelm it. There not a word must be spoken! there must be no laughing, no eating, no smoking, if one would pass it in safety! Above all, the fatal name of Puisortok must not pass the lips, else the glacier would be angry, and certain destruction ensue.Nansen, however, it may be said, did not observe these regulations, and yet managed to pass it in safety. In his opinion there was nothing very remarkable or terrible about it.But something else took place at Puisortok that surprised him and his companions.On July 30, as they were preparing their midday meal, Nansen heard, amid the shrill cries of the seabirds, a strange weird sound. What it could be he could not conceive. It resembled the cry of a loon more than anything else, and kept coming nearer and nearer. Through his telescope, however, he discerned two dark specks among the ice-floes, now close together, now a little apart, making straight for them. They were human beings evidently—human beings in the midst of that desert region of ice, which they had thought to be a barren, uninhabited waste. Balto, too, watched their approach attentively, with a half astonished, half uneasy look, for he believed them to be supernatural beings.On came the strangers, one of them bending forwardin his kayak1as if bowing in salutation; and, on coming alongside the rock, they crawled out of their kayaks and stood before Nansen and his companions with bare heads, dressed in jackets and trousers of seal-skin, smiling, and making all manner of friendly gestures. They were Esquimaux, and had glass beads in their jet-black hair. Their skin was of a chestnut hue, and their movements, if not altogether graceful, were attractive.On coming up to our travellers they began to ask questions in a strange language, which, needless to say, was perfectly unintelligible. Nansen, indeed, tried to talk to them in Esquimau from a conversation book in that tongue he had with him, but it was perfectly useless. And it was not till both parties had recourse to the language of signs that Nansen was able to ascertain that they belonged to an Esquimau encampment to the north of Puisortok.These two Esquimaux were good-natured looking little beings; and now they began to examine the equipments of the travellers, and taste their food, with which they seemed beyond measure pleased, expressing their admiration at all they saw by a long-drawn kind of bovine bellow. Finally they took leave, and set off northward in their kayaks which they managed with wonderful dexterity, and soon disappeared from sight.At six the same evening our travellers followed in the same direction, and in a short time reached the Esquimau encampment at Cape Bille. Long, however,before their eyes could detect any signs of tents or of human beings, their sense of smell became aware of a rank odor of train-oil, accompanied by a sound of voices; and they presently saw numbers of Esquimaux standing on the sea-beach, and on the rocks, earnestly watching the approach of the strangers.It was a picturesque sight that presented itself to the eyes of our travellers.“All about the ledges of the rocks,” writes Nansen, “stood long rows of strangely wild, shaggy looking creatures, men, women and children—all dressed in much the same scanty attire, staring and pointing at us, and uttering the same cowlike sound we had heard in the forenoon. It was just as if a whole herd of cows were lowing one against another, as when the cowhouse door is opened in the morning to admit the expected fodder.”They were all smiling,—a smile indeed, is the only welcoming salute of the Esquimaux,—all eager to help Nansen and his companions ashore, chattering away incessantly in their own tongue, like a saucepan boiling and bubbling over with words, not one of which, alas, could Nansen or his companions understand.Presently Nansen was invited to enter one of their tents, in which was an odor of such a remarkable nature, such a blending of several ingredients, that a description thereof is impossible. It was the smell, as it were, of a mixture of train-oil, human exhalations, and the effluvium of fetid liquids all intimately mixed up together; while men and women, lying on the floor round the fire, children rolling about everywhere, dogs sniffingall around, helped to make up a scene that was decidedly unique.East Greenland Esquimaux.East Greenland Esquimaux.All of the occupants were of a brownish-greyish hue, due mostly to the non-application of soap and water, and were swarming with vermin. All of them were shiny with train-oil, plump, laughing, chattering creatures—in a word, presenting a picture of primitive social life, in all its original blessedness.Nansen does not consider the Esquimaux, crosseyedand flat-featured though they be, as by any means repulsive looking. The nose he describes, in the case of children, “as a depression in the middle of the face,” the reverse ideal, indeed, of a European nose.On the whole he considers their plump, rounded forms to have a genial appearance about them, and that the seal is the Esquimau prototype.The hospitality of these children of nature was boundless. They would give away all they possessed, even to the shirt on their backs, had they possessed such an article; and certainly showed extreme gratitude when their liberality was reciprocated, evidently placing a high value on empty biscuit-tins, for each time any of them got one presented to him he would at once bellow forth his joy at the gift.But what especially seemed to attract their interest was when Nansen and his companions began to undress, before turning in for the night into their sleeping-bags; while to watch them creep out of the same the next morning afforded them no less interest. They entertained, however, a great dread of the camera, for every time Nansen turned its dark glass eye upon them, a regular stampede would take place.Next day Nansen and the Esquimaux parted company, some of the latter proceeding on their way to the south, others accompanying him on his journey northward. The leavetaking between the Esquimaux was peculiar, being celebrated by cramming their nostrils full of snuff from each other’s snuff-horns. Snuff indeed is the only benefit, or the reverse, it seems the Esquimaux have derived from European civilization upto date; and is such a favorite, one might say necessary, article with them that they will go on a shopping expedition to the south to procure it, a journey that often takes them four years to accomplish!The journey northward was an extremely fatiguing one, for they encountered such stormy weather that their boats more than once narrowly escaped being nipped in the ice. As a set-off, however, to this, the scenery proved to be magnificent,—the floating mountains of ice resembling enchanted castles, and all nature was on a stupendous scale. Finally they reached a harbor on Griffenfeldt’s Island, where they enjoyed the first hot meal they had had on their coasting expedition, consisting of caraway soup. This meal of soup was a great comfort to the weary and worn-out travellers. Here a striking but silent testimony of that severe and pitiless climate presented itself in the form of a number of skulls and human bones lying blanched and scattered among the rocks, evidently the remains of Esquimaux who in times long gone by had perished from starvation.After an incredible amount of toil, Nansen arrived at a small island in the entrance of the Inugsuazmuit Fjord, and thence proceeded to Skjoldungen where the water was more open. Here they encamped, and were almost eaten up by mosquitoes.On Aug. 6 they again set out on their way northward, meeting with another encampment of Esquimaux, who were, however, so terrified at the approach of thestrangers, that they one and all bolted off to the mountain, and it was not till Nansen presented them with an empty tin box and some needles that they became reassured, after which they accompanied the expedition for some little distance, and on parting gave Nansen a quantity of dried seal’s flesh.The farther our travellers proceeded on their journey, the more dissatisfied and uneasy did Balto and Ravna become. Accordingly one day Nansen took the opportunity of giving Balto a good scolding, who with tears and sobs gave vent to his complaints, “They had not had food enough—coffee only three times during the whole journey; and they had to work harder than any beast the whole livelong day, and he would gladly give many thousands of kroner to be safe at home once more.”There was indeed something in what Balto said. The fare had unquestionably been somewhat scanty, and the work severe; and it was evident that these children of nature, hardy though they were, could not vie with civilized people when it became a question of endurance for any length of time, and of risking life and taxing one’s ability to the utmost.Finally, on Aug. 10, the expedition reached Umivik in a dense fog, after a very difficult journey through the ice, and encamped for the last time on the east coast of Greenland. Here they boiled coffee, shot a kind of snipe, and lived like gentlemen, so that even Balto and Ravna were quite satisfied. The former, indeed, began intoning some prayers, as he had heard the priest in Finmarken do, in a very masterly manner,—a pastime,by the way, he never indulged in except he felt his life to be quite safe.The next day, Aug. 11, rose gloriously bright. Far away among the distant glaciers a rumbling sound as of cannon could be heard, while snow-covered mountains towered high, overhead, on the other side of which lay boundless tracts of inland ice. Nansen and Sverdrup now made a reconnoitring expedition, and did not return till five o’clock the next morning. It still required some days to overhaul and get everything in complete order for their journey inland; and it was not till nine o’clock in the evening of Aug. 16, after first dragging up on land the boats, in which a few necessary articles of food were stored, together with a brief account of the progress of the expedition carefully packed in a tin box, that they commenced their journey across the inland ice.Nansen and Sverdrup led the way with the large sleigh, while the others, each dragging a smaller one, followed in their wake. Thus these six men, confident of solving the problem before them, with the firm earth beneath their feet, commenced the ascent of the mountain-slope which Nansen christened “Nordenskjöld’s Nunatak.”2Their work had now begun in real earnest—a work so severe and arduous that it would require all the strength and powers of endurance they possessed to accomplish it. The ice was full of fissures, and these had either to be circumvented or crossed, a very difficult matter with heavily laden sleighs. A covering ofice often lay over these fissures, so that great caution was required. Hence their progress was often very slow, each man being roped to his fellow; so that if one of them should happen to disappear into one of these fathomless abysses, his companion could haul him up. Such an occurrence happened more than once; for Nansen as well as the others would every now and then fall plump in up to the arms, dangling with his legs over empty space. But it always turned out well; for powerful hands took hold of the rope, and the practised gymnasts knew how to extricate themselves.At first the ascent was very hard work, and it will readily be understood that the six tired men were not sorry on the first night of their journey to crawl into their sleeping-bags, after first refreshing the inner man with cup after cup of hot tea.Yet, notwithstanding all the fatigue they had undergone, there was so much strength left in them that Dietrichson volunteered to go back and fetch a piece of Gruyère cheese they had left behind when halting for their midday meal. “It would be a nice little morning walk,” he said, “before turning in!” And he actually went—all for the sake of a precious bit of cheese!Next day there was a pouring rain that wet them through. The work of hauling the sleighs, however, kept them warm. But later in the evening, it came down in such torrents that Nansen deemed it advisable to pitch the tent, and here they remained, weather-bound, for three whole days. And long days they were! But our travellers followed the example ofbruin in winter; that is, they lay under shelter the greater part of the time, Nansen taking care that they should also imitate bruin in another respect,—who sleeps sucking his paw,—by giving them rations once a day only. “He who does no work shall have little food,” was his motto.On the forenoon of the twentieth, however, the weather improved; and our travellers again set out on their journey, having first indulged in a good warm meal by way of recompense for their three days’ fasting. The ice at first was very difficult, so much so that they had to retrace their steps, and, sitting on their sleighs, slide down the mountain slope. But the going improved, as also did the weather. “If it would only freeze a little,” sighed Nansen. But he was to get enough of frost before long.On they tramped, under a broiling sun, over the slushy snow. As there was no drinking-water to be had, they filled their flasks with snow, carrying them in their breast-pockets for the heat of their bodies to melt it.On Aug. 22 there was a night frost; the snow was hard and in good condition, but the surface so rough and full of lumps and frozen waves of slush, that the ropes with which they dragged the sleighs cut and chafed their shoulders. “It was just as if our shoulders were being burnt,” Balto said.They now travelled mostly by night, for it was better going then, and there was no sun to broil them; while the aurora borealis, bathing as it were the whole of the frozen plain in a flood of silvery light, inspiredthem with fresh courage. The surface of the ice over which they travelled was as smooth and even as a lake newly frozen over. Even Balto on such occasions would indulge in a few oaths, a thing he never allowed himself except when he felt “master of the situation.” He was a Finn, you see, and perhaps had no other way of giving expression to his feelings!As they got into higher altitudes the cold at night became more intense. Occasionally they were overtaken by a snowstorm, when they had to encamp in order to avoid being frozen to death; while at times, again, the going would become so heavy in the fine drifting snow that they had to drag their sleighs one by one, three or four men at a time to each sleigh, an operation involving such tremendous exertion that Kristiansen, a man of few words, on one such occasion said to Nansen, “What fools people must be to let themselves in for work like this!”To give some idea of the intense cold they had to encounter it may be stated that, at the highest altitude they reached,—9,272 feet above the sea,—the temperature fell to below -49° Fahrenheit, and this, too, in the tent at night, the thermometer being under Nansen’s pillow. And all this toil and labor, be it remembered, went on from Aug. 16 to the end of September, with sleighs weighing on an average about two hundred and twenty pounds each, in drifting snow-dust, worse than even the sandstorms of Sahara.In order to lighten their labor, Nansen resolved to use sails on the sleighs—a proceeding which Balto highly disapproved of: “Such mad people he hadnever seen before, to want to sail over the snow! He was a Lapp, he was, and there was nothing they could teach him on land. It was the greatest nonsense he had ever heard of!”Sledging across Greenland.Sledging across Greenland.Sails, however, were forthcoming, notwithstanding Balto’s objections; and they sat and stitched them with frozen fingers in the midst of the snow. But it was astonishing what a help they proved to be; and so they proceeded on their way, after slightly altering their course in the direction of Godthaab.3Thus, then, we see these solitary beings, looking like dark spots moving on an infinite expanse of snow,wending their way ever onward, Nansen and Sverdrup side by side, ski-staff and ice-axe in hand, in front, earnestly gazing ahead as they dragged the heavy sleigh, while close behind followed Dietrichson and Kristiansen, Balto and Ravna bringing up the rear, each dragging a smaller sleigh. So it went on for weeks; and though it tried their strength, and put their powers of endurance to a most severe test, yet, if ever the thought of “giving it up” arose in their minds, it was at once scouted by all the party, the two Lapps excepted. One day Balto complained loudly to Nansen. “When you asked us,” he said, “in Christiania, what weight we could drag, we told you we could manage one hundredweight each, but now we have double that weight, and all I can say is, that, if we can drag these loads over to the west coast, we are stronger than horses.”Onward, however, they went, in spite of the cold, which at times was so intense that their beards froze fast to their jerseys, facing blinding snowstorms that well-nigh made old Ravna desperate. The only bright moments they enjoyed were when sleeping or at their meals. The sleeping-bags, indeed, were a paradise; their meals, ideals of perfect bliss.Unfortunately, Nansen had not taken a sufficient supply of fatty food with him, and to such an extent did the craving for fat go, that Sverdrup one day seriously suggested that they should eat boot-grease—a compound of boiled grease and old linseed oil! Their great luxury was to eat raw butter, and smoke a pipe after it. First they would smoke the fragrant weedpure and simple; when that was done, the tobacco ash, followed by the oil as long as it would burn; and when this was all exhausted, they would smoke tarred yarn, or anything else that was a bit tasty! Nansen, who neither smoked nor chewed, would content himself with a chip of wood, or a sliver off one of the “truger” (snowshoes). “It tasted good,” he said, “and kept his mouth moist.”Finally, on Sept. 14, they had reached their highest altitude, and now began to descend toward the coast, keeping a sharp lookout for “land ahead.” But none was yet to be seen, and one day Ravna’s patience completely gave way. With sobs and moans he said to Nansen,—“I’m an old Fjeld-Lapp, and a silly old fool! I’m sure we shall never get to the coast!”“Yes,” was the curt answer, “it’s quite true! Ravna is a silly old fool!”One day, however, shortly afterward, while they were at dinner, they heard the twittering of a bird close by. It was a snow-bunting, bringing them a greeting from the west coast, and their hearts grew warm within them at the welcome sound.On the next day, with sails set, they proceeded onward down the sloping ground, but with only partial success. Nansen was standing behind the large sleigh to steady it, while Sverdrup steered from the front. Merrily flew the bark; but, unfortunately, Nansen stumbled and fell, and had hard work to regain his legs, and harder work still to gather up sundry articles that had fallen off the sleigh, such as boxes of pemmican,fur jackets, and ice-axes. Meanwhile Sverdrup and the ship had almost disappeared from view, and all that Nansen could see of it was a dark, square speck, far ahead across the ice. Sverdrup had been sitting all the while in front, thinking what an admirable passage they were making, and was not a little astonished, on looking behind, to find that he was the only passenger on board. Matters, however, went on better after this; and in the afternoon, as they were sailing their best and fastest, the joyful cry of “Land ahead!” rang through the air. The west coast was in sight! After several days’ hard work across fissures and over uneven ice, the coast itself was finally reached. But Godthaab was a long, long way off still, and to reach it by land was sheer impossibility.The joy of our travellers on once more feeling firm ground beneath their feet, and of getting real water to drink, was indescribable. They swallowed quart after quart, till they could drink no more. The Lapps, as usual took themselves off to the fjeld to testify their joy.That evening was the most delightful one they had experienced for weeks, one never to be forgotten in after years, when, with their tent pitched, and a blazing fire of wood, they sat beside it, Sverdrup smoking a pipe of moss in lieu of tobacco, and Nansen lying on his back on the grass, which shed a strange and delightful perfume all around.But how was Godthaab to be reached? By land it was impossible! Therefore the journey must be made by sea! But there was no boat! A boat, then, must be built. And Sverdrup and Nansen were the men tosolve the problem. They set to work, and by evening the boat was finished. Its dimensions were eight feet five inches in length, four feet eight inches in breadth, and it was made of willows and sail-cloth. The oars were of bamboo and willow branches, across the blades of which canvas was stretched. The thwarts were made from bamboo, and the foot of one of their scientific instruments which, by the way, chafed them terribly, and were very uncomfortable seats.On the way to Godthaab.On the way to Godthaab.All preparations being now made, Nansen and Sverdrup set off on their adventurous journey. The first day it was terribly hard work, for the water was too shallow to admit of rowing. On the second day, however, they put out to sea. Here they had at times to encountersevere weather, fearing every moment lest their frail bark should be swamped or capsized. At night they would sleep on the naked shore beneath the open sky. From morning till night struggling away with their oars, living on hot soup and the sea-birds they shot, which were ravenously devoured without much labor being devoted to cooking the same. Finally they reached their destination, meeting with a hearty welcome, accompanied by a salute from cannon fired off in their honor, when once it was ascertained who the new arrivals were.Nansen’s first inquiry was about a ship for Denmark, and he learned, to his great disappointment, that the last vessel for the season had sailed from Godthaab two months before, and that the nearest ship, the Fox, was lying at Ivitgut, three hundred miles off.It was a terrible blow in the midst of their joy. Home had, as it were, at one stroke receded many hundreds of miles away; and here they would have to pass a whole winter and spring, while dear ones at home would think they had perished, and would be mourning for their supposed loss all those weary months.But this must never be! The Fox must be got at, and friends at home must at all events get letters by her.After a great deal of trouble Nansen at length found an Esquimau who agreed to set off in his kayak bearing two letters. One was from Nansen to Gamel, who had equipped the expedition; the other from Sverdrup to his father.This having been arranged, and boats having beensent off to fetch their comrades from Ameralikfjord, Nansen and Sverdrup plunged into all the joys and delights of civilized life to which they had so long been strangers. Now they were able to indulge in the luxury of soap and water for the first time since the commencement of their journey across the ice. To change their clothes, to sleep in proper beds, to eat civilized food with knives and forks on earthenware plates, to smoke, to converse with educated beings, was to them thesummum bonumof enjoyment, and they felt themselves to be in clover.Notwithstanding all these, Nansen did not seem altogether himself. He was in a dreamy state, thinking perhaps of nights spent in sleeping-bags up on the inland ice, or dreaming of that memorable evening in the Ameralikfjord, of the hard struggles they had undergone on the boundless plains of snow. These things flashed across him, excluding from his mind the conviction that he had rendered his name famous.At last, on Oct. 12, the other members of the expedition joined them, and these six men, who had risked their lives in that perilous adventure, were once more assembled together.His object had been attained, and the name of Fridtjof Nansen would soon be known the whole world over!That same autumn the Fox brought to Norway tidings of the success of the expedition, and a few hours after her arrival the telegraph announced throughout the length and breadth of the civilized world, in few but significant words, “Fridtjof Nansen has crossed over the inland ice of Greenland.”And the Norwegian nation, which had refused to grant the venturesome young man 5,000 kroner ($1,350), now raised her head, and called Fridtjof Nansen one of her best sons. And when one day in April, after having spent a long winter in Greenland, he went on board the Hvidbjörn4on his homeward journey, preparations were being made in the capital for a festival such as a king receives when he visits his subjects.It was May 30: the spring sun was shining with all its brilliancy over Norway. The Christiania fjord was teeming with yachts and small sailing-boats. A light breeze played over the ruffled surface of the water, while the perfume of the budding trees on its banks shed a sweet fragrance all around. As for the town, it literally swarmed with human beings. The quays, the fortress, the very roofs of the houses, were densely packed with eager crowds, all of them intently gazing seaward. Presently a shout of welcome heard faintly in the distance announced his approach, gradually increasing in volume as he came nearer, till it merged into one continuous roar, while thousands of flags were waving overhead.Eagerly the crowds pressed forward to catch the first glimpse of his form, and when they did recognize him, their hurrahs burst forth like a storm, and were caught up in the streets, answered from the windows, from the tops of houses; and when they ceased for a moment from the sheer exhaustion of those who uttered them, they were soon renewed with redoubled vigor. And when finally Nansen had disembarked and had entereda carriage, the police could no longer keep the people under control. As if with one accord they dashed forward, and taking out the horses, harnessed themselves in their place, and dragged him through the streets of the city in triumph.Yes, the Norwegian people had taken possession of Fridtjof Nansen!But up at a window there stood the old housekeeper from Store Fröen, waving her white apron, while tears of joy trickled down her face. She it was who had bound up his bleeding head when years ago he had fallen and cut it on the ice; she it was to whom he had often gone when in some childish scrape. He remembered her in his hour of triumph. And as she was laughing and crying by turns, and waving her apron, he dashed up the steps and gave her a loving embrace.For was she not part and parcel of his home?
When Nansen and his companions, after their perilous adventures in the drift-ice, landed with flags flying on their boats on the east waste of Greenland, the first thing they did was to give vent to their feelings in a ringing hurrah—a sound which those wild and barren crags had never re-echoed before. Their joy, indeed, on feeling firm ground beneath their feet once more baffles description. In a word, they conducted themselves like a pack of schoolboys, singing, laughing, and playing all manner of pranks. The Lapps, however, did not partake in the general merriment, but took themselves off up the mountain-side, where they remained several hours.
But when their first ebullition of joy had somewhat subsided, Nansen himself followed the example of the Lapps, and clambered up the slope in order to get a good view over the landscape, leaving the others to prepare the banquet they determined to indulge in that evening on the sea-beach. And here he remained some little while, entranced with the wondrous beauty of the scene. The sea and the ice stretched far away to the east, shining like a belt of silver beneath him, while on the west the mountain-tops were bathed in a flood ofhazy sunshine, and the inland ice, the “Sahara of the North,” extended in a level unbroken plain for miles and miles into the interior.
A snow bunting perched on a stone close by him, and chirped a welcome; a mosquito came humming through the air to greet the stranger, and settled on his hand. He would not disturb it; it was a welcome from home. It wanted his blood, and he let it take its fill. To the south the grand outline of Cape Tordenskjold rose up in the horizon, its name and form recalling his country to his mind; and there arose in his breast an earnest desire, a deep longing, to sacrifice anything and everything for his beloved “Old Norway.”
On rejoining his comrades, the feast was ready. It consisted of oatmeal biscuits, Gruyère cheese, whortleberry jam, and chocolate; and there is little doubt that these six adventurers “ate as one eats in the springtime of youth.” For it had been unanimously resolved that, for this one day at least, they would enjoy themselves to the full; on the morrow their daily fare would be, toeat little, sleep little, and work as hard as possible. To-day, then, should be the first and the last of such indulgence. Time was precious!
On the next day, therefore, they resumed their northward journey, along the east coast, fighting their way day and night, inch by inch, foot by foot, through the drift-ice; at times in peril, at others in safety; past Cape Adelaer, past Cape Garde, ever forward in one incessant, monotonous struggle. And now they approached the ill-omened Puisortok, of which Esquimauxand European seafarers had many an evil tale to tell. There, it was said, masses of ice would either shoot up suddenly from beneath the surface of the water, and crush any vessel that ventured near, or would fall down from the overhanging height, and overwhelm it. There not a word must be spoken! there must be no laughing, no eating, no smoking, if one would pass it in safety! Above all, the fatal name of Puisortok must not pass the lips, else the glacier would be angry, and certain destruction ensue.
Nansen, however, it may be said, did not observe these regulations, and yet managed to pass it in safety. In his opinion there was nothing very remarkable or terrible about it.
But something else took place at Puisortok that surprised him and his companions.
On July 30, as they were preparing their midday meal, Nansen heard, amid the shrill cries of the seabirds, a strange weird sound. What it could be he could not conceive. It resembled the cry of a loon more than anything else, and kept coming nearer and nearer. Through his telescope, however, he discerned two dark specks among the ice-floes, now close together, now a little apart, making straight for them. They were human beings evidently—human beings in the midst of that desert region of ice, which they had thought to be a barren, uninhabited waste. Balto, too, watched their approach attentively, with a half astonished, half uneasy look, for he believed them to be supernatural beings.
On came the strangers, one of them bending forwardin his kayak1as if bowing in salutation; and, on coming alongside the rock, they crawled out of their kayaks and stood before Nansen and his companions with bare heads, dressed in jackets and trousers of seal-skin, smiling, and making all manner of friendly gestures. They were Esquimaux, and had glass beads in their jet-black hair. Their skin was of a chestnut hue, and their movements, if not altogether graceful, were attractive.
On coming up to our travellers they began to ask questions in a strange language, which, needless to say, was perfectly unintelligible. Nansen, indeed, tried to talk to them in Esquimau from a conversation book in that tongue he had with him, but it was perfectly useless. And it was not till both parties had recourse to the language of signs that Nansen was able to ascertain that they belonged to an Esquimau encampment to the north of Puisortok.
These two Esquimaux were good-natured looking little beings; and now they began to examine the equipments of the travellers, and taste their food, with which they seemed beyond measure pleased, expressing their admiration at all they saw by a long-drawn kind of bovine bellow. Finally they took leave, and set off northward in their kayaks which they managed with wonderful dexterity, and soon disappeared from sight.
At six the same evening our travellers followed in the same direction, and in a short time reached the Esquimau encampment at Cape Bille. Long, however,before their eyes could detect any signs of tents or of human beings, their sense of smell became aware of a rank odor of train-oil, accompanied by a sound of voices; and they presently saw numbers of Esquimaux standing on the sea-beach, and on the rocks, earnestly watching the approach of the strangers.
It was a picturesque sight that presented itself to the eyes of our travellers.
“All about the ledges of the rocks,” writes Nansen, “stood long rows of strangely wild, shaggy looking creatures, men, women and children—all dressed in much the same scanty attire, staring and pointing at us, and uttering the same cowlike sound we had heard in the forenoon. It was just as if a whole herd of cows were lowing one against another, as when the cowhouse door is opened in the morning to admit the expected fodder.”
They were all smiling,—a smile indeed, is the only welcoming salute of the Esquimaux,—all eager to help Nansen and his companions ashore, chattering away incessantly in their own tongue, like a saucepan boiling and bubbling over with words, not one of which, alas, could Nansen or his companions understand.
Presently Nansen was invited to enter one of their tents, in which was an odor of such a remarkable nature, such a blending of several ingredients, that a description thereof is impossible. It was the smell, as it were, of a mixture of train-oil, human exhalations, and the effluvium of fetid liquids all intimately mixed up together; while men and women, lying on the floor round the fire, children rolling about everywhere, dogs sniffingall around, helped to make up a scene that was decidedly unique.
East Greenland Esquimaux.East Greenland Esquimaux.
East Greenland Esquimaux.
All of the occupants were of a brownish-greyish hue, due mostly to the non-application of soap and water, and were swarming with vermin. All of them were shiny with train-oil, plump, laughing, chattering creatures—in a word, presenting a picture of primitive social life, in all its original blessedness.
Nansen does not consider the Esquimaux, crosseyedand flat-featured though they be, as by any means repulsive looking. The nose he describes, in the case of children, “as a depression in the middle of the face,” the reverse ideal, indeed, of a European nose.
On the whole he considers their plump, rounded forms to have a genial appearance about them, and that the seal is the Esquimau prototype.
The hospitality of these children of nature was boundless. They would give away all they possessed, even to the shirt on their backs, had they possessed such an article; and certainly showed extreme gratitude when their liberality was reciprocated, evidently placing a high value on empty biscuit-tins, for each time any of them got one presented to him he would at once bellow forth his joy at the gift.
But what especially seemed to attract their interest was when Nansen and his companions began to undress, before turning in for the night into their sleeping-bags; while to watch them creep out of the same the next morning afforded them no less interest. They entertained, however, a great dread of the camera, for every time Nansen turned its dark glass eye upon them, a regular stampede would take place.
Next day Nansen and the Esquimaux parted company, some of the latter proceeding on their way to the south, others accompanying him on his journey northward. The leavetaking between the Esquimaux was peculiar, being celebrated by cramming their nostrils full of snuff from each other’s snuff-horns. Snuff indeed is the only benefit, or the reverse, it seems the Esquimaux have derived from European civilization upto date; and is such a favorite, one might say necessary, article with them that they will go on a shopping expedition to the south to procure it, a journey that often takes them four years to accomplish!
The journey northward was an extremely fatiguing one, for they encountered such stormy weather that their boats more than once narrowly escaped being nipped in the ice. As a set-off, however, to this, the scenery proved to be magnificent,—the floating mountains of ice resembling enchanted castles, and all nature was on a stupendous scale. Finally they reached a harbor on Griffenfeldt’s Island, where they enjoyed the first hot meal they had had on their coasting expedition, consisting of caraway soup. This meal of soup was a great comfort to the weary and worn-out travellers. Here a striking but silent testimony of that severe and pitiless climate presented itself in the form of a number of skulls and human bones lying blanched and scattered among the rocks, evidently the remains of Esquimaux who in times long gone by had perished from starvation.
After an incredible amount of toil, Nansen arrived at a small island in the entrance of the Inugsuazmuit Fjord, and thence proceeded to Skjoldungen where the water was more open. Here they encamped, and were almost eaten up by mosquitoes.
On Aug. 6 they again set out on their way northward, meeting with another encampment of Esquimaux, who were, however, so terrified at the approach of thestrangers, that they one and all bolted off to the mountain, and it was not till Nansen presented them with an empty tin box and some needles that they became reassured, after which they accompanied the expedition for some little distance, and on parting gave Nansen a quantity of dried seal’s flesh.
The farther our travellers proceeded on their journey, the more dissatisfied and uneasy did Balto and Ravna become. Accordingly one day Nansen took the opportunity of giving Balto a good scolding, who with tears and sobs gave vent to his complaints, “They had not had food enough—coffee only three times during the whole journey; and they had to work harder than any beast the whole livelong day, and he would gladly give many thousands of kroner to be safe at home once more.”
There was indeed something in what Balto said. The fare had unquestionably been somewhat scanty, and the work severe; and it was evident that these children of nature, hardy though they were, could not vie with civilized people when it became a question of endurance for any length of time, and of risking life and taxing one’s ability to the utmost.
Finally, on Aug. 10, the expedition reached Umivik in a dense fog, after a very difficult journey through the ice, and encamped for the last time on the east coast of Greenland. Here they boiled coffee, shot a kind of snipe, and lived like gentlemen, so that even Balto and Ravna were quite satisfied. The former, indeed, began intoning some prayers, as he had heard the priest in Finmarken do, in a very masterly manner,—a pastime,by the way, he never indulged in except he felt his life to be quite safe.
The next day, Aug. 11, rose gloriously bright. Far away among the distant glaciers a rumbling sound as of cannon could be heard, while snow-covered mountains towered high, overhead, on the other side of which lay boundless tracts of inland ice. Nansen and Sverdrup now made a reconnoitring expedition, and did not return till five o’clock the next morning. It still required some days to overhaul and get everything in complete order for their journey inland; and it was not till nine o’clock in the evening of Aug. 16, after first dragging up on land the boats, in which a few necessary articles of food were stored, together with a brief account of the progress of the expedition carefully packed in a tin box, that they commenced their journey across the inland ice.
Nansen and Sverdrup led the way with the large sleigh, while the others, each dragging a smaller one, followed in their wake. Thus these six men, confident of solving the problem before them, with the firm earth beneath their feet, commenced the ascent of the mountain-slope which Nansen christened “Nordenskjöld’s Nunatak.”2
Their work had now begun in real earnest—a work so severe and arduous that it would require all the strength and powers of endurance they possessed to accomplish it. The ice was full of fissures, and these had either to be circumvented or crossed, a very difficult matter with heavily laden sleighs. A covering ofice often lay over these fissures, so that great caution was required. Hence their progress was often very slow, each man being roped to his fellow; so that if one of them should happen to disappear into one of these fathomless abysses, his companion could haul him up. Such an occurrence happened more than once; for Nansen as well as the others would every now and then fall plump in up to the arms, dangling with his legs over empty space. But it always turned out well; for powerful hands took hold of the rope, and the practised gymnasts knew how to extricate themselves.
At first the ascent was very hard work, and it will readily be understood that the six tired men were not sorry on the first night of their journey to crawl into their sleeping-bags, after first refreshing the inner man with cup after cup of hot tea.
Yet, notwithstanding all the fatigue they had undergone, there was so much strength left in them that Dietrichson volunteered to go back and fetch a piece of Gruyère cheese they had left behind when halting for their midday meal. “It would be a nice little morning walk,” he said, “before turning in!” And he actually went—all for the sake of a precious bit of cheese!
Next day there was a pouring rain that wet them through. The work of hauling the sleighs, however, kept them warm. But later in the evening, it came down in such torrents that Nansen deemed it advisable to pitch the tent, and here they remained, weather-bound, for three whole days. And long days they were! But our travellers followed the example ofbruin in winter; that is, they lay under shelter the greater part of the time, Nansen taking care that they should also imitate bruin in another respect,—who sleeps sucking his paw,—by giving them rations once a day only. “He who does no work shall have little food,” was his motto.
On the forenoon of the twentieth, however, the weather improved; and our travellers again set out on their journey, having first indulged in a good warm meal by way of recompense for their three days’ fasting. The ice at first was very difficult, so much so that they had to retrace their steps, and, sitting on their sleighs, slide down the mountain slope. But the going improved, as also did the weather. “If it would only freeze a little,” sighed Nansen. But he was to get enough of frost before long.
On they tramped, under a broiling sun, over the slushy snow. As there was no drinking-water to be had, they filled their flasks with snow, carrying them in their breast-pockets for the heat of their bodies to melt it.
On Aug. 22 there was a night frost; the snow was hard and in good condition, but the surface so rough and full of lumps and frozen waves of slush, that the ropes with which they dragged the sleighs cut and chafed their shoulders. “It was just as if our shoulders were being burnt,” Balto said.
They now travelled mostly by night, for it was better going then, and there was no sun to broil them; while the aurora borealis, bathing as it were the whole of the frozen plain in a flood of silvery light, inspiredthem with fresh courage. The surface of the ice over which they travelled was as smooth and even as a lake newly frozen over. Even Balto on such occasions would indulge in a few oaths, a thing he never allowed himself except when he felt “master of the situation.” He was a Finn, you see, and perhaps had no other way of giving expression to his feelings!
As they got into higher altitudes the cold at night became more intense. Occasionally they were overtaken by a snowstorm, when they had to encamp in order to avoid being frozen to death; while at times, again, the going would become so heavy in the fine drifting snow that they had to drag their sleighs one by one, three or four men at a time to each sleigh, an operation involving such tremendous exertion that Kristiansen, a man of few words, on one such occasion said to Nansen, “What fools people must be to let themselves in for work like this!”
To give some idea of the intense cold they had to encounter it may be stated that, at the highest altitude they reached,—9,272 feet above the sea,—the temperature fell to below -49° Fahrenheit, and this, too, in the tent at night, the thermometer being under Nansen’s pillow. And all this toil and labor, be it remembered, went on from Aug. 16 to the end of September, with sleighs weighing on an average about two hundred and twenty pounds each, in drifting snow-dust, worse than even the sandstorms of Sahara.
In order to lighten their labor, Nansen resolved to use sails on the sleighs—a proceeding which Balto highly disapproved of: “Such mad people he hadnever seen before, to want to sail over the snow! He was a Lapp, he was, and there was nothing they could teach him on land. It was the greatest nonsense he had ever heard of!”
Sledging across Greenland.Sledging across Greenland.
Sledging across Greenland.
Sails, however, were forthcoming, notwithstanding Balto’s objections; and they sat and stitched them with frozen fingers in the midst of the snow. But it was astonishing what a help they proved to be; and so they proceeded on their way, after slightly altering their course in the direction of Godthaab.3
Thus, then, we see these solitary beings, looking like dark spots moving on an infinite expanse of snow,wending their way ever onward, Nansen and Sverdrup side by side, ski-staff and ice-axe in hand, in front, earnestly gazing ahead as they dragged the heavy sleigh, while close behind followed Dietrichson and Kristiansen, Balto and Ravna bringing up the rear, each dragging a smaller sleigh. So it went on for weeks; and though it tried their strength, and put their powers of endurance to a most severe test, yet, if ever the thought of “giving it up” arose in their minds, it was at once scouted by all the party, the two Lapps excepted. One day Balto complained loudly to Nansen. “When you asked us,” he said, “in Christiania, what weight we could drag, we told you we could manage one hundredweight each, but now we have double that weight, and all I can say is, that, if we can drag these loads over to the west coast, we are stronger than horses.”
Onward, however, they went, in spite of the cold, which at times was so intense that their beards froze fast to their jerseys, facing blinding snowstorms that well-nigh made old Ravna desperate. The only bright moments they enjoyed were when sleeping or at their meals. The sleeping-bags, indeed, were a paradise; their meals, ideals of perfect bliss.
Unfortunately, Nansen had not taken a sufficient supply of fatty food with him, and to such an extent did the craving for fat go, that Sverdrup one day seriously suggested that they should eat boot-grease—a compound of boiled grease and old linseed oil! Their great luxury was to eat raw butter, and smoke a pipe after it. First they would smoke the fragrant weedpure and simple; when that was done, the tobacco ash, followed by the oil as long as it would burn; and when this was all exhausted, they would smoke tarred yarn, or anything else that was a bit tasty! Nansen, who neither smoked nor chewed, would content himself with a chip of wood, or a sliver off one of the “truger” (snowshoes). “It tasted good,” he said, “and kept his mouth moist.”
Finally, on Sept. 14, they had reached their highest altitude, and now began to descend toward the coast, keeping a sharp lookout for “land ahead.” But none was yet to be seen, and one day Ravna’s patience completely gave way. With sobs and moans he said to Nansen,—
“I’m an old Fjeld-Lapp, and a silly old fool! I’m sure we shall never get to the coast!”
“Yes,” was the curt answer, “it’s quite true! Ravna is a silly old fool!”
One day, however, shortly afterward, while they were at dinner, they heard the twittering of a bird close by. It was a snow-bunting, bringing them a greeting from the west coast, and their hearts grew warm within them at the welcome sound.
On the next day, with sails set, they proceeded onward down the sloping ground, but with only partial success. Nansen was standing behind the large sleigh to steady it, while Sverdrup steered from the front. Merrily flew the bark; but, unfortunately, Nansen stumbled and fell, and had hard work to regain his legs, and harder work still to gather up sundry articles that had fallen off the sleigh, such as boxes of pemmican,fur jackets, and ice-axes. Meanwhile Sverdrup and the ship had almost disappeared from view, and all that Nansen could see of it was a dark, square speck, far ahead across the ice. Sverdrup had been sitting all the while in front, thinking what an admirable passage they were making, and was not a little astonished, on looking behind, to find that he was the only passenger on board. Matters, however, went on better after this; and in the afternoon, as they were sailing their best and fastest, the joyful cry of “Land ahead!” rang through the air. The west coast was in sight! After several days’ hard work across fissures and over uneven ice, the coast itself was finally reached. But Godthaab was a long, long way off still, and to reach it by land was sheer impossibility.
The joy of our travellers on once more feeling firm ground beneath their feet, and of getting real water to drink, was indescribable. They swallowed quart after quart, till they could drink no more. The Lapps, as usual took themselves off to the fjeld to testify their joy.
That evening was the most delightful one they had experienced for weeks, one never to be forgotten in after years, when, with their tent pitched, and a blazing fire of wood, they sat beside it, Sverdrup smoking a pipe of moss in lieu of tobacco, and Nansen lying on his back on the grass, which shed a strange and delightful perfume all around.
But how was Godthaab to be reached? By land it was impossible! Therefore the journey must be made by sea! But there was no boat! A boat, then, must be built. And Sverdrup and Nansen were the men tosolve the problem. They set to work, and by evening the boat was finished. Its dimensions were eight feet five inches in length, four feet eight inches in breadth, and it was made of willows and sail-cloth. The oars were of bamboo and willow branches, across the blades of which canvas was stretched. The thwarts were made from bamboo, and the foot of one of their scientific instruments which, by the way, chafed them terribly, and were very uncomfortable seats.
On the way to Godthaab.On the way to Godthaab.
On the way to Godthaab.
All preparations being now made, Nansen and Sverdrup set off on their adventurous journey. The first day it was terribly hard work, for the water was too shallow to admit of rowing. On the second day, however, they put out to sea. Here they had at times to encountersevere weather, fearing every moment lest their frail bark should be swamped or capsized. At night they would sleep on the naked shore beneath the open sky. From morning till night struggling away with their oars, living on hot soup and the sea-birds they shot, which were ravenously devoured without much labor being devoted to cooking the same. Finally they reached their destination, meeting with a hearty welcome, accompanied by a salute from cannon fired off in their honor, when once it was ascertained who the new arrivals were.
Nansen’s first inquiry was about a ship for Denmark, and he learned, to his great disappointment, that the last vessel for the season had sailed from Godthaab two months before, and that the nearest ship, the Fox, was lying at Ivitgut, three hundred miles off.
It was a terrible blow in the midst of their joy. Home had, as it were, at one stroke receded many hundreds of miles away; and here they would have to pass a whole winter and spring, while dear ones at home would think they had perished, and would be mourning for their supposed loss all those weary months.
But this must never be! The Fox must be got at, and friends at home must at all events get letters by her.
After a great deal of trouble Nansen at length found an Esquimau who agreed to set off in his kayak bearing two letters. One was from Nansen to Gamel, who had equipped the expedition; the other from Sverdrup to his father.
This having been arranged, and boats having beensent off to fetch their comrades from Ameralikfjord, Nansen and Sverdrup plunged into all the joys and delights of civilized life to which they had so long been strangers. Now they were able to indulge in the luxury of soap and water for the first time since the commencement of their journey across the ice. To change their clothes, to sleep in proper beds, to eat civilized food with knives and forks on earthenware plates, to smoke, to converse with educated beings, was to them thesummum bonumof enjoyment, and they felt themselves to be in clover.
Notwithstanding all these, Nansen did not seem altogether himself. He was in a dreamy state, thinking perhaps of nights spent in sleeping-bags up on the inland ice, or dreaming of that memorable evening in the Ameralikfjord, of the hard struggles they had undergone on the boundless plains of snow. These things flashed across him, excluding from his mind the conviction that he had rendered his name famous.
At last, on Oct. 12, the other members of the expedition joined them, and these six men, who had risked their lives in that perilous adventure, were once more assembled together.
His object had been attained, and the name of Fridtjof Nansen would soon be known the whole world over!
That same autumn the Fox brought to Norway tidings of the success of the expedition, and a few hours after her arrival the telegraph announced throughout the length and breadth of the civilized world, in few but significant words, “Fridtjof Nansen has crossed over the inland ice of Greenland.”
And the Norwegian nation, which had refused to grant the venturesome young man 5,000 kroner ($1,350), now raised her head, and called Fridtjof Nansen one of her best sons. And when one day in April, after having spent a long winter in Greenland, he went on board the Hvidbjörn4on his homeward journey, preparations were being made in the capital for a festival such as a king receives when he visits his subjects.
It was May 30: the spring sun was shining with all its brilliancy over Norway. The Christiania fjord was teeming with yachts and small sailing-boats. A light breeze played over the ruffled surface of the water, while the perfume of the budding trees on its banks shed a sweet fragrance all around. As for the town, it literally swarmed with human beings. The quays, the fortress, the very roofs of the houses, were densely packed with eager crowds, all of them intently gazing seaward. Presently a shout of welcome heard faintly in the distance announced his approach, gradually increasing in volume as he came nearer, till it merged into one continuous roar, while thousands of flags were waving overhead.
Eagerly the crowds pressed forward to catch the first glimpse of his form, and when they did recognize him, their hurrahs burst forth like a storm, and were caught up in the streets, answered from the windows, from the tops of houses; and when they ceased for a moment from the sheer exhaustion of those who uttered them, they were soon renewed with redoubled vigor. And when finally Nansen had disembarked and had entereda carriage, the police could no longer keep the people under control. As if with one accord they dashed forward, and taking out the horses, harnessed themselves in their place, and dragged him through the streets of the city in triumph.
Yes, the Norwegian people had taken possession of Fridtjof Nansen!
But up at a window there stood the old housekeeper from Store Fröen, waving her white apron, while tears of joy trickled down her face. She it was who had bound up his bleeding head when years ago he had fallen and cut it on the ice; she it was to whom he had often gone when in some childish scrape. He remembered her in his hour of triumph. And as she was laughing and crying by turns, and waving her apron, he dashed up the steps and gave her a loving embrace.
For was she not part and parcel of his home?
1Kayak, small and light boat, chiefly made of sealskin, used by the natives of Greenland.2Peaks of rock projecting above the surface of the ice.3Godthaab(pron. Gott-hōb), the only city, and seat of the Danish governor, on the west coast of Greenland.4Hvidbjörn(pron. Vid-byurn), The White Bear, a trading-vessel.
1Kayak, small and light boat, chiefly made of sealskin, used by the natives of Greenland.
2Peaks of rock projecting above the surface of the ice.
3Godthaab(pron. Gott-hōb), the only city, and seat of the Danish governor, on the west coast of Greenland.
4Hvidbjörn(pron. Vid-byurn), The White Bear, a trading-vessel.