CHAPTER III.ON THE OPEN SEA.

WE LAUNCH AT LAST.

10. On the 19th of June we had to lie still in our boats, but next day we were able to push them to the edge of a fissure, into which we let them down, unlading them and lading them afresh on the opposite side; our progress during the day thus amounted to a mere change of encampment from one floe to another floe. The absence of navigable “leads” prevented our advancing further. Our position remained unaltered for the next two days, the only eventthat occurred being the shooting of a seal (Phoca Grœnlandica), which sufficed to make the soup we had for supper somewhat more palatable. He had fallen to the gun of Weyprecht, who proved to be the luckiest of us all in seal-hunting, in which only the persevering succeed. Every seal that was shot was of course a saving of the stock of our provisions, and hence the killing of these animals was a matter of extreme importance to us, and the preservation of our lives depended in a very great measure on our success.

11. Nothing can give a better idea of our life at this period than a few quotations from my journal:—

“June 23.—Things have improved a little towards the south; in the forenoon of this day we passed over two water-holes and two floes, thus advancing about a quarter of a mile. The intervention of a third floe hindered us from penetrating into another ‘ice-hole.’ After midnight the ice again opened, and we sailed several hundred paces further.

“June 24.—Early in the morning Orel shot a seal of unusual size. We dragged on for half a mile over a large field of ice to its southern edge, but found, on our arrival there, that an accumulation of smaller floes barred our advance.

“June 25.—We could not sail a bit further; winds from the north-east prevailed; our latitude was 79° 16′. After leaving the ice under the land, the depth of the snow considerably diminished, so that the sledges on which the boats were placed could be dragged on much more easily than before. There were, however, no pools of thaw-water on the ice, though we had observed such much earlier in the preceding year.

“June 26.—Several hours occupied in passing over ice-fields and small ‘ice-holes.’ During the halt at noon a bear came within twenty paces of us, but seeing so many men in motion, ran off. The ice appeared to be last year’s ice, and was much crushed. Orel at noon took the latitude by sextant and artificial horizon, and found it 79° 41′—bitter disappointment.

“June 27.—With a fresh north-east wind we-sailed to-day over a larger ‘ice-hole,’ our latitude at noon being 79° 39′. In the afternoon we dragged our sledges for a quarter of a mile over an ice-field, and our baggage had so diminishedthat I had to drag with the dog-sledge not more than 7 cwt. In the lee of large ice-fields, which act like islands, we find sometimes somewhat more open water-ways.

“June 28.—Two ice-fields and two ‘ice-holes’ were crossed to-day. Progress, though small with the boats, would have been simply impossible with a ship, which could not, like boats, be dragged over floes. Falls of snow and gleams of sunshine alternate with each other. While the rest slept a watch was always posted outside the boat to observe the behaviour of the ice, and to give us timely notice of the approach of a bear.

MARCHING THROUGH ICE-HUMMOCKS

“June 29.—Two or three small ‘ice-holes’ and some ice-fields were crossed to-day. The last ice-field we dragged over was of considerable extent. To-day, for the first time, we made the attempt, with great success, to force the boats through narrow ‘leads’ by means of poles. Another seal was got. Every one of us had now learnt, by force of habit, to eat half a pound of seal blubber with our tea at noon, and to eat it with pleasure. It was some comfort to the more delicate and sensitive to be assured that it tasted like butter, and many experiments had been made on the edibility of the tins during the last few days. Kane came to consider seal fin as a kind of salad. We cooked it in our soup, and the dogs at last went beyond us in the high estimate they placed onthis article of diet. It is worth remarking, albeit it seems to be a contradiction, that though we had all an abhorrence of fatty substances during the sledge-journeys in the coldest period of the year, we now took to them with great relish when the weather was warm. In fact we never felt better than after a noon-day meal at which we had consumed a considerable quantity of blubber. Our digestion was particularly good, and those who suffered from stomach complaints, produced by the continuous use of pease-sausage, ceased to be so affected. The real ground of this abnormal preference of fatty substances was doubtless the fact that we had now abundance of drinking water, and did not suffer therefore from thirst.

HALT AT NOON.

“June 30.—A small ‘ice-hole,’ and then a large ice-field were crossed, and as we were in the act of passing over a ‘lead’ filled with broken ice, it suddenly closed, and we had to draw our boats up again, and to wait till the ice should part asunder. The snow has become quite soft, and we find water at the bottom of a hole, and employ it for the first time for cooking. Cape Tegetthoff and Salm Island are still visibleThe dogs to-day drew 12 cwt., and are quite exhausted. I had my hair cut by Klotz, and, with many apologies for my poverty, offered him some water in compensation—an offer he declined. In the Arctic Seas, even to the doctor, a glass of water is a handsome fee.”

So it runs on for weeks together in my journal; and if it be tiresome for readers to follow such repetitions, how much more wearisome must it have been to live through and experience them! Yet if it were possible for our situation to become worse, it did so during the first half of the following month.

CROSSING A FISSURE.

12. On the 1st of July the whole of our day’s labour consisted in passing over a fissure. The observations taken at noon gave 79° 38′ as our latitude, so that during the last four days we had gained one single minute only. Next day we lay amid fragments of floes closely packed together, and there were neither “ice-holes” nor fields of ice over which we could pass. On the 3rd of July we crossed some fissures with great difficulty and traversed two small ice-fields, but a wind from the S.E. set in, and our observations showed 79° 38′ N. latitude; while we discovered from our longitude that we were only four miles to the east of the ship. The small amount of drift discernible in the ice, with such strong winds, was a sad sign of its closely packed condition.

13. With imperturbable patience we continued to drag our heavy loads over the ice, and on the 4th imagined that wehad penetrated a mile in a southerly direction; but the wind from the S.E. blew so persistently that when we took our observations on the following day we found our latitude 79° 40½′, and that we had thus been actually driven back towards the north-west, and that the toils of the last three weeks had been fruitless. On the 5th and 6th the ice lay before us in piled-up masses rendering progress impossible, and we were compelled to rest, consuming our provisions without getting one step further. Our seal-hunting also on those days was seldom successful. For hours the hunters lurked round the edges of ice-holes, sometimes without seeing a single seal come to the surface; and when at last the animal did make its appearance, it very often sunk after it was hit, before a boat could be launched. Those we saw on the edges of ice-holes showed a dexterity in diving out of the way of mischief which failed, as things were, to excite our admiration. The bears, even more than the seals, showed a prudence and caution which their previous behaviour had not led us to expect. On the first of those days a bear came pretty near us, but the dogs, alas! rushed at him and drove him away. Henceforward when the dogs were not dragging they were secured with ropes, but our prudence came too late.

14. On the 7th there was no change. The day passed away in moving from one floe with rotten edges to another somewhat more firm. We only shoved our boats a few hundred yards through the lakes of thaw water which had formed themselves on the ice. Our latitude was 79° 43′.

15. On the 8th we got away in a narrow “lead” a few hundred paces southward, but after getting so far we were stopped by thickly-packed ice, and again we had to draw our boats out of the water and recommence our life of painful expectancy—watching for the ice to open. No one of the party suffered so much from this depressing state of things as Carlsen. For more than twenty years the old and tried “ice-master” had lived amid floes and ice-blinks, manfully and successfully fighting against the hardships of the Arctic Seas, and now that frailties had increased on him, he saw himself compelled to such toils and privations as would have taxed his strength even in his prime. The old polar navigator bore his burthens without murmur or complaint,though it was painful to others to see the signs of exhaustion in his appearance. He no longer spoke of the polar bears and walruses, which he had entranced by a glance of his eye or bewitched with one of his words of magic. Even the puritanical zeal with which he once rebuked and lectured the Slavonians for playing cards on “God’s holy day” had grown somewhat cold, and his fears lest the conversations of the lively Southerners should end in blows became even more intense.

CARLSEN.

16. It was a strange life this abode for weeks of summer in boats covered over with a low tent roof. Oars by way of furniture, and three pairs of stockings for each man’s mattress and pillow. My journal describes these days: “Four boats are lying on the ice, crammed with sleeping men: and so great is the heat in them, that no one needs his fur coat, and snow placed in any vessel becomes water in a few hours. If Torossy has not ushered in the day by barking, the cooks do it when they bring the bowls of soup to the boats with the cry ‘Quanta!’ Then ensues a short scene of confusion:spoons and tin-pots have to be searched for and found, till at length quiet is again restored, after a little ransacking, and each man has his pot full of hot soup in his hand, consisting of meal, pemmican, pease-sausage, bread-dust, boiled beef, seal, and bears’ flesh; when the soup is flavoured with seal-blubber it is called ‘Gulyas.’ The soup is consumed amid perfect silence—not a word is spoken; what indeed was there to be said, which was not already known, or which had not been said a hundred times before? Each one knows the other’s history from his cradle downwards. A stillness like death reigns over all the surrounding forms of ice, and the frozen ocean stretches out beneath a vast shroud. A sunless leaden sky spreads over all, not a breath of air stirs, it is neither warm nor cold, slowly melts the snow, and this pale realm of ice forms a world of danger and difficulty, against which are matched the strength and sagacity of three-and-twenty men!

“Again all have taken their places in the boats to bale out the thaw water, the great enemy of their health—and of their solitary pair of boots. He whose turn it is to hunt the seal squats at the edge of a floe before a fissure, which admits a few square feet of water, in which no seal will show himself, because he has scarcely room to turn in it.

“To the others, their abode in the boats is a time of manifest weariness and ennui. Happy the man who has any tobacco, happy he who, after smoking his pipe, does not fall into a faint; happy too the man who finds a fragment of a newspaper in some corner or other, even if there should be nothing contained in it but the money-market intelligence, or perhaps directions to be followed in the preparation of pease-sausage. Enviable is he who discovers a hole in his fur coat which he can mend; but happiest of all are those who can sleep day and night. Of these latter some have stowed themselves away under the rowing seats, and above them reposes a second layer of sleepers, but nothing is visible of either party but the soles of their feet. No paradise of bliss! Noon comes: a little tea is made over the train-oil fire, each gets one cup of it and a handful of hard bread-crumbs—a kind of dog’s food which the impartial ‘committee of provisions’ measures out with Argus-eyes. The fourth part of the skin of a seal is thrown into each of the four boats, andthe blubber on it is eagerly devoured. Some, for the sake of the fins, the ribs, or the head, become guests of the dogs. Flocks of gulls settle impudently near us, screaming and fighting for every morsel they can reach. Some of us try to catch them with nets, but no sooner are the nets up than the gulls disappear.

“The formality of dinner is over, and we have come to such a pass that even the tea excites the nerves of the community, and some Troubadour will then raise his voice with abravurasuch as might have been heard on San Marco. The end of the Franklin expedition, and the history of the two skeletons which were found in the boat, is told again for the twentieth time—a story which never fails to produce a harrowing effect, and to rouse the firm and resolute to yet greater efforts and self-command.

“The most animated conversation, however, or rather a constant chattering, is going on meantime in the soot-begrimed tent of the cook. A difference of opinion arises about the precise time when the kettle was to be scraped out, or about the curtailing of the allowance in the last distribution of salt, or as to the delinquent who made a wood-fire on a cask of spirit, or who, instead of untying, cut the string of the sledge packing; many flourishes of speech are bandied to and fro, which at any rate speak well for the oratorical gifts of the disputants.

“There is still, however, one solace left us, the solace of smoking. Some indeed have already exhausted their whole stock of tobacco. He who has half a pouch of it at his disposal is the object of general respect, and the man who can invite his neighbour to a pipe of tobacco and a pot of water is considered to do an act of profuse liberality. Tobacco becomes a medium of exchange among us, and provisions are bought and paid for with it, its value rising every day. There is no difference between day and night, and Sundays are only distinguished by dressing the boats with flags.”

17. In this enforced idleness passed away the days between the 9th and 15th inst., save that on the 14th we changed our place by three hundred yards, in order to select a more convenient spot for seal-hunting and to keep up the appearance of travelling—but in truth only the appearance, for in realityour situation had become truly dreadful. There were no events of sudden occurrence either to excite or alarm us, but time flowed on, and our constantly diminishing stock of provisions, like the steady movement of the hands of a clock, spoke with a plainness of speech, that could not be resisted, of the doom impending over us. Hitherto we had patiently endured the severe labours of dragging our heavily-laden boats and sledges from floe to floe, of launching the boats in the small fissures, and again drawing them on to the floes, when the ice became closely packed, often too carrying all the provisions and baggage as we slowly crept along. The least progress was sufficient to fill us with joy and thankfulness. Meanwhile the ice on all sides lay closely packed, and many times we had to wait for a week in our boats on a floe, till the “leads” were pleased to open, while every empty tin case proclaimed, with fearful distinctness, the diminishing of our provisions and the gloominess of our prospects; and now a steady wind from the south destroyed the little progress we had made.After the lapse of two months of indescribable efforts, the distance between us and the ship was not more than nine English miles!The heights of Wilczek Island were still distinctly visible, and its lines of rocks shone with mocking brilliance in the ever-growing day-light. All things seemed to say that after a long struggle with the supremacy of the ice there remained for us but a despairing return to the ship and a third winter there, stript of every hope, and the Frozen Ocean for our grave!

18. Such reflections and prospects were not calculated to raise our spirits or promote calm and deliberate thought, and it was happy for us that the earth was round, and that we were thus prevented from seeing how much ice lay between us and the open sea. No measures were left untried which promised to facilitate our progress or prolong our lives. We ceased to cook with oil, and used spirit instead, in order to lighten the boats. The rations of bread were diminished; even our faithful companion little Pekel fell a victim to necessity. Seals played a greater part still in ourcuisine, and everything seemed to depend on the successful use of the four hundred ball-cartridges which still remained in store. On the 15th of July a walrusshowed himself close to the boats, but when we made a rush upon him to finish him he disappeared under the waters, and heavy rain drove us back again into the boats. Up to this time all signs of a happy termination of our venture seemed to have disappeared; but the hour of our liberation and escape was nearer than we thought.

19. On the evening of the 15th of July, after finishing our supper, a line of small “leads” running to the south-west opened itself, and we forced our way for about a mile against wind and current coming from the same direction. Next day, July 16, the wind blew from the north-west, and after our boats had been nearly crushed by the ice closing in some smaller “ice-holes,” we ran into a broader and longer “lead.” At noon of this day our latitude was 79° 39′, and we had gone so far that the highest points of Cape Tegetthoff and Wilczek Island were barely discernible—blue shadows surrounded by an edge of yellow vapour, and over the whole a heavy water sky.

20. Up to this date we had been compelled to cross every fissure, a procedure as exhausting for us as it was detrimental to the boats. The least impediment, such as the stoppage of a “lead” by some pieces of ice, had sufficed to cause us hours of laborious efforts. The ice lay thick and close, and its floes were firmly frozen together. But now it was not only somewhat opened, but seldom cemented by frost, and the efforts of fifteen or twenty men generally sufficed to shove apart any two floes with long poles, or remove any barrier which closed a “lead.” If the “leads” closed in so that there was danger lest the boats should be crushed, the crew jumped out and hauled them up on the ice.

The accompanying sketch exhibits one of the scenes that occurred almost daily—the pushing the floes asunder with long poles, in order that the boat might pass between them, while the rotatory motion of the floe closes the fissure in the foreground, so that another boat has to be drawn on the ice as quickly as possible. The baggage of the boat is represented partly as packed on a sledge, or partly lying on the snow, and the men and dogs stand ready to drag it over the floe to the next place of launching. Two other boats, which have found the “lead” open, are on before, and one of them is lying at an ice-field which has to be crossed, waiting for the others to come up.

SCENE ON THE ICE.

21. It sometimes happened that we could not push the floes asunder, and we were then compelled to cross them; and in those cases where the floes were a mile or more in diameter, our progress took the form of sledging. The provision was sent on for some distance to the nearest water, and the boats, which remained behind under the care of the less able-bodied of our party, were lifted on to the sledge when it returned by the rest of the crew, and firmly secured. The smallest of our boats was shoved through the snow while the dogs with their sledge transported the bags of bread and the spirit.

22. An advance of four miles a day now sufficed to satisfy us, and we had acquired such precision in our arrangements before starting that three hours sufficed to accomplish them. If the sledges came on obstacles from the ice, the pioneers hurried on with picks and shovels to remove them. Lakes on the ice were made little of; we waded through them with much equanimity, and any one who fell into a “lead” while the day’s labour was going on seemed to take the accident very coolly. On the 17th of July we had passed, in the way I have described, three ice-fields and three small “ice-holes;” but on the following day we made very little progress, because a wind, setting in from the west, packed the ice closely. We were therefore overjoyed to find our latitude to-day 79° 22′, a result which could only be ascribed to the late north winds; but we could not quiet our fears, lest a wind from the south should deprive us of our dearly-bought advance.

23. We now penetrated into a region full of icebergs, many of which were covered with earth and moraine dirt, which made them look at a distance, amid the dazzling uniformity of the ice, like rocky cliffs. In the evening a she-bear was seen close to us, which came full tilt at our dogs; at thirty paces off she was hit, but not mortally, and fell; but getting up again, ran off to an ice-hole, and remained long enough on its surface to be secured by the harpooners. She afforded us as much food as four small seals, and some of our party, with the voracity of beasts of prey, scraping the flesh off the bones for their private use, carried it about with them wrapped in their pocket-handkerchiefs, and ate about a pound of it rawevery day at noon, as long as it lasted, after merely washing the carrion in sea-water.

24. On the 19th of July we again passed over several small ice-fields, and on the 20th and 21st one several miles in diameter. We were favoured with a north-west wind, and on the 20th of July our latitude was 79° 11′, our longitude 61° 3′, and our progress was so brilliant on the 22nd (79° 1′ L.), that we were compelled to draw the boats twice only out of the water, and warping through narrow “leads,” came again to larger “ice-holes,” over which we were able to sail. Our spirits were greatly raised, and we went on full of hope that we should soon come into longer water-ways, which would exempt us from the toils of crossing floes with the sledges. On the 23rd sudden squalls from the E.N.E., accompanied with heavy showers of rain, detained us in our covered boats, and our whole business on this day was collecting the rainwater in an empty spirit-cask and drinking it as grog. On the 24th we again made good progress. The rain fell in torrents, and we were wet through and through, and at night we lay down to rest reeking. The rain continued, but good progress was made almost without interruption during the next three days. We bore all the discomforts with joy, because the rain powerfully and rapidly dissolved the ice.[55]Our clothes were constantly wet, but we eagerly snatched every gleam of sunshine to dry our stockings or our saturated boots.

25. The cooks, when they called us in the morning, now constantly drew such pictures of the day’s prospects, that we might have been tempted to believe that during the night all the ice had disappeared; but this pleasing illusion was rudely dispelled whenever we stepped out of the boats into the open air. These good men, having no compass to consult, always flattered themselves with the notion that where water was to be seen, there also lay the south. But, alas! there lay the ice-hummocks, and there, too, lay the boats and sledges to be dragged as before. Klotz went a little further; it was his opinion that we ought always to take to the water without fear, even if it stretched to the north, in order, as he said, to get home round the North Pole.

26. On the 27th we had reached 78° 48′ N. L., but a windfrom the south-west set in, and after two days of constant toil, alternately launching and drawing up the boats, we found, on the 29th, that we had been driven back to 78° 50′ N. L. But in many cases the movement of ice is unaccountable, and on the 30th this was verified; for, notwithstanding the prevalence of the south-west wind, we had drifted to 78° 32′ N. L., 61° 3′ E. L. The weather at this time was thicker and duller than usual, and the horizon from our boats extended but a few hundred paces, so that we had considerable difficulty in choosing the most navigable “leads.” The view did not extend above two miles, even when we climbed to the top of one of the hummocks, and mists generally lay on its outskirts. In clear weather we had always steered in the direction of a water-sky which promised open sea, even though we had to makedétoursto the south-west or south-east. But now such a foggy obscurity lay over every “ice-hole,” however small, that the outline of its edges was hardly discernible at a few paces off, and, under these circumstances, we could only pull the boats round, till we came to the first opening in the enclosing ice.

27. Winds from the south continued during the following week, and heavy rains again fell, and we had much laborious dragging through the fog on the 31st of July and the 1st of August. Our stock of bread, which had been reduced to powder by the constant lading and unlading, was meanwhile so thoroughly soaked that on the 2nd of August we stopped for half a day on a floe (78° 28′ N. L., 61° 49′ E. L.) to dry it in the sun, which, after a long absence, gladdened us by showing himself. We took the opportunity also to dry our clothes and our stockings. On such a day as this the scene around us entirely lost its gloomy sepulchral character; the heavens were brilliantly blue, the ice lay around us in dazzling light, and the deep ultramarine of the sea-water peeped forth from the “leads.” Henceforward we had less occasion to cross large floes. Our route gradually changed its character; “leads” and “ice-holes” occurred far more frequently, and the channels between them, winding through drifting islands of ice, were sometimes three or four miles in extent. Along these we glided under sail and oars, and when we came to a temporary halt, Weyprecht, with his compass, mounted oneof the ice-hummocks to examine the water-ways and determine which we should follow. Our rate of progress was much increased, an acceleration due to the change in the ice, effected slowly but surely by sunshine and rain. The enormous masses of snow were wasting away; the thaw-water, gathering in countless streams, spread as lakes on the hollows of the floes, and oozed through fissures in the ice into the sea. The edges of the floes, undermined by the action of the waves, fell in, or were worn away by the pressure, and a single warm day or shower of rain sufficed to dissolve what remained of them. Hence, if the difficulty of drawing boats on to the ice was lessened, the danger of breaking through it in the process was greater, and we ran the risk of seeing all the cases containing our provisions sink in the sea before our eyes. As the ice-fields diminished in size and thickness, the number and breadth of the “leads” increased. The alternation of heavy south-east winds and calms helped on the destruction of the ice, and our progress was great in proportion. From the 3rd to the 7th of August each day we accomplished greater distances. The ice gradually changed from pack-ice to drift-ice, impenetrable only where it lay in thicker masses. When fogs came on, we generally decided, after wandering about for a little, to wait on or near a floe for finer weather. We no longer restricted our labours to certain times of the day. In the highest spirits, we toiled incessantly at rowing or dragging the boats, or shoving the floes asunder with our long poles.

28. On the 7th our progress might be estimated at twelve miles. It was the first day we had got on without dragging the sledges and crossing floes, and when we halted at noon amid some loose ice, we saw, to the south, a fluctuation in the sea level, and the ice alternately rising and falling. “The swell of the ocean!” exclaimed all with joy: “we are close to the open sea”—the open sea, being to us at that moment deliverance. Our amazement at finding it at such a latitude, 78° N. L., was so great that, notwithstanding that indisputable sign, we could scarcely believe our eyes, and we were filled with indescribable excitement. For a moment only that excitement was diverted to other and very different objects—two bears suddenly appeared on the scene, swimming about100 paces from us. Two boats were at once manned, and the chase began. But the bears swam faster than the boats could be pulled by the four men in each boat; sometimes they raised themselves high out of the water as they turned to look at their pursuers. Suddenly one of them disappeared, while the other made for a floe and climbed on to it. As he stood and impudently stared at us, a shot was fired at him, and he immediately decamped, swimming with great rapidity to another distant floe. But as no trace of blood was to be seen on the ice, and our companions drinking their mid-day tea were scarcely to be distinguished, we considered it unsafe to pursue him further. In the evening we stopped again before a dense group of small floes, which like the rest of the ice had become rotten; the one whereon we were preparing to encamp for the night broke into several pieces just as we were raising our boat on to it. We were, however, fortunate enough to save our provisions.

BEARS IN THE WATER.

29. Though we had been accustomed so long to oscillate between extremes, we now felt that the hour had come, when we might count with certainty on being liberated from the fetters of the ice, and all our hopes gained new life. Yet once more they seemed doomed to be disappointed. On the7th, before we turned into sleep, the prevailing north wind had gathered so much ice around us that we were fairly shut in. Next day (August 8), after the efforts of many hours to force through the multitude of small floes by which we were jammed in, we discovered that we should be unable to move, unless the wind changed to the south-west. Our exertions on the 9th were equally unsuccessful. It was not dense masses of ice, under whose walls we had so often felt ourselves imprisoned, that now held us captive, but miserable flat floes. Their diameter was from fifty to sixty paces, and though they hardly appeared above water, they were not the less impenetrable hindrances. The movement in the sea, that had so elevated us, was scarcely perceptible, and our faith in the nearness of the ocean was consequently much shaken.

30. Again rain fell in abundance, and we remained in the boats waiting for the breaking-up of the ice. It was scarcely possible to go any distance from them, for the ice of the surrounding floes was so thin, that we could not venture to walk on them lest we should break through. Fissures abounded, but no seals were to be seen in them. This forced abode in our boats was almost unendurable. We could not always sleep, and only a frugal few had any tobacco left to smoke. Some of our party had for a long time smoked dry tea-leaves in the form of cigarettes, or had filled their pipes with match paper. All the tinder had been long used up in this way, and a dreadful trial it had been to the olfactory nerves of those who would not so indulge. Haller went further still, and smoked paper in the close covered boat! besides many leaves of his note-books, he still had a quantity of packing-paper, but, in the interest of the community, I was compelled to interfere against its use in this fashion. He found some compensation in another occupation, which had the merit at least of being inoffensive to others—mixing together his rations of tea, salt, and bread-dust, he converted the mixture into a soup. These days seemed as though they would never end; there was a continual taking off and pulling on of boots; some sat in the boats gaping about vacantly in all directions; some standing on the ice gaped as vacantly; all mental activity was concentrated in two wishes, that the ice would break up, and that the time for the next meal wouldcome round. No one had any private reserve of provision. The days were gone when a stocking filled with bread might be seen hanging from the belt of one, or the ribs of a bear in the hand of another. And yet amidst all the hunger, which we felt the more acutely from our abundant leisure, some among us had actually become as plump as quails, and if we had been found dead on the floes, it would have been thought, that we had died in consequence of over-eating, so stout had most of us become. But dreadful was the solemn lapse of time. August was well advanced; the knowledge that we had provisions for only one month more, and the shortness of the season for action that still remained, failed not to impress upon us all that the crisis of our fate was at hand. For three weeks past the formation of young ice had begun, both on the ice and on the sweet-water lakes on the floes. Even during these summer months, the temperature in the night had frequently fallen two or three degrees below freezing-point, and the cold now began to join the fragments of old floes into formidable obstacles. The caprice of a wind might again carry us off towards the north, as it had done two years ago, but carry us too, to certain inevitable destruction. On the 9th of August we found our latitude 78° 9′—a higher degree than we had expected. But what would a lower degree have availed us, had not the open sea been near us—the open sea, on which hung all our hopes, ever since the word had been uttered? The joy of that day’s discovery was fed and sustained by the low murmur of a distant surf, which either imagination or our senses, rendered acute by the presence of danger, continued to hear in the south.

31. Thus passed the days from the 10th to the 13th of August, the calking of our boats forming our only distraction. Eagerly and earnestly we gazed on the water-sky in the south and on every change in the ice.[56]On the 10th our latitude was 78° 6′ and our longitude 60° 45′, E.; on the 13th our latitude was 77° 58′, and our longitude 61° 10′ E. On the 12th the ice had become somewhat looser. We advanced a mile to the south, but were then again beset. It rained during the whole day, and in the night, the temperature fell several degrees below freezing-point.Ice an inch thick was formed on the 13th over the surface of the fresh-water lakes, and when we went, either to drink from them or to perform our toilet, we had to break through a coating of ice. All these were so many signs that Summer had bid us adieu and that the short Autumn of the north had begun. This day, too, we had the first impression of the returning cold.

CALKING THE BOATS.

32. At last during the night of the 14th, the ice somewhat opened and we could go on our way. Just before we started, in the early morning, a seal was shot which the dogs had discovered and attacked: it was the eighteenth and last we shot since we abandoned the ship. With much labour in shoving we forced a passage through a long succession of “leads” and halted for a short rest at midnight in front of a larger “ice-hole,” to refresh our strength with some pieces of blubber, seasoned with alcohol and thaw-water. Drift ice lay all round us, and we had the presentiment, that the hour at last had come which was to set us free from the ice. All things rise in our estimation, when we are about to bid them farewell, and it was with some pain that we felt all at once, that in a few minutes we should bid adieu to the realm of ice, which lay behind us in all its magical grandeur. We nowmoved on under sail: the “ice-holes” increased in size, the ice diminished, and the swell of the ocean was perceptibly greater. Our latitude at noon next day was 77° 49′. A large “ice-hole” opened before us, and with a sea running high, the boats, making a good deal of water, we sailed into it—it was the last ice-hole. The last line of ice lay ahead of us, and beyond it the boundless open sea!

FAREWELL TO THE FROZEN OCEAN.

33. About six o’clock in the evening we had reached the extreme edge of the ice-barrier, and once more, but for the last time, drew our boats on a floe. Again our ears heard the noise of the waves—the voice of life to us. Again we saw the white foam of the surge, and felt, as if we had awoke from a death-like slumber of years to a new existence. But if our joy at deliverance was great, not less great was our astonishment to have reached the ice-barrier in the high latitude of 77° 40′, and with it the hope of final escape. We went to rest for some hours, but were roused by the watch about two o’clock in the morning. The east wind had gathered some heavy masses of ice around us, which rose and fell withthe swell of the ocean, and we were already several hundred yards from the water’s edge. Any delay in escaping as quickly as possible would require the labours of many days to set us free again. After much shoving with the poles, and lading and unlading, we again got beyond the line of ice. The frozen ocean lay behind us, and on our last floe we made preparations for our voyage on the open sea.

1. There lay the open Ocean before us; never were its sparkling waves beheld with more sincere joy, than by the small band of men, who, escaping from the prison house of the ice after fearful struggles, now raised their arms on high to greet its glad waters. The 15th of August was the day of our liberation—the festival of the Assumption of the Virgin—and our boats were dressed with flags in its commemoration. But it was no time for the rest and recreation of a Holy Day: graver duties pressed upon us. The boats had to be ballasted, and were with difficulty made to take on board the baggage, the water-casks, and the crews. Our four sledges, to which we owed so much of our success so far, were of course left behind. The dogs too were put on board, not, however, without much hesitation, when the contingencies of the voyage were considered.

2. With three hurrahs, we pushed off from the ice, and our voyage commenced. Its happy issue depended on the weather and on incessant rowing. If a storm should arise, the boats, laden as they were, must sink. We were soon convinced that the dogs, which suffered greatly from sea-sickness, would dangerously incommode us in the boats by destroying their trim. There was, in fact, no room for them in our over-crowded boats, nor water, nor provisions. We could not bring ourselves to abandon them, and our only form of gratitude for their services was, alas! the painful one of putting them to death. A floe, by which we passed, became the grave of these our true friends, our companions in all situations, and our helpers in all dangers! It was indeed a painfulmoment, when Jubinal was taken out of the boat to meet his death. It was the loss of a true comrade, who had never departed from my side, and who had patiently borne all the labours and toils imposed on him. Poor Torossy too, born in the Arctic regions, amid the ice-pressures, was not a little lamented.

3. With boundless satisfaction, we saw the white edge of the ice gradually become a line, and at last disappear. Every one felt, that finding the ice-barrier in so high a latitude, was the crowning blessing to which we must ascribe our liberation. At the distance of a mile from the edge of the ice, the temperature of the water had risen to 30° F., and that of the air to 39° F. The sunbeams were reflected with such intensity from the smooth surface of the sea, that we felt the long unknown sensation of heat, and were obliged to cast off some of our garments.

4. We shaped our course south-by-west, towards the Barentz Islands, intending to take in supplies of provisions from the depôt formed by Count Wilczek, and then to coast along Novaya Zemlya in search of a ship engaged in the fisheries, which we hoped to find either at Admiralty Peninsula, or Matoschkin Straits, or in Dunen Bay. Norwegian vessels, engaged in the capture of the walrus, might be looked for as far south as Matoschkin Straits, and the Russian salmon-fishers still further to the south. The nearest land was fifty miles off, and everything depended on our reaching its friendly shores before the weather changed for the worse. In the event of stormy weather there would be no other alternative than to throw our provisions overboard in order to lighten the boats.

5. Putting forth all our strength, we rowed steadily for some days. Weyprecht took the lead in his boat, and the others followed him as quickly as possible. The crew of each boat was divided into two watches, who were relieved every four hours. It frequently happened that one boat fell behind the others, and was lost sight of in a fog or mist. Trumpets and horns were then sounded, till the laggard boat, by renewed efforts of her crew, came up with the others. On the 16th, a breeze from the north sprang up, and we used our sails with good effect for some hours. At last Novaya Zemlya was sighted—some silvery points above the level of the sea, whichour people took at first for the reappearance of the ice in the south; they proved to be the snowy summits near Cape Nassau. At this headland the mountains running along the coast suddenly cease, and the land trending to the north-east, assumes the monotonous character of glaciation almost without mountains, as far as the lonely shores where three centuries ago Barentz slept his last sleep.

6. Our progress had no longer the paralysing insignificance of former days. This day at noon our latitude was 76° 46′, and on the 17th, the picturesque range of mountains south of Cape Nassau, rose through the morning mists close before us steeped in violet and crimson hues. A fog arising, we rowed along by compass in the midst of it, the boats seemed to float in the air amid the fog. During its continuance a current caused us to deviate so much to the south-west, that when at noon the land was again visible, we discovered that we had gone beyond the place where the depôt had been formed, and found by the chart, that we were in 75° 40′ lat. and 58° long. But as the loss of time, in going back a distance of a hundred miles, was out of all proportion to the amount of provisions we could have taken in our overladen boats, we determined at all risks to hold on our course.

7. Before us, in the far distance, now rose above the horizon the higher parts of Admiralty Peninsula; to these we now steered. As we passed along we made a vain attempt to land on the north of Gwosdarew Bay. We found the shores full of cliffs, between which a heavy surf was breaking, and could thus form some notion of the perils we should have encountered, had we attempted to land on the Barentz Islands. Two years ago the edge of this coast had been covered with firm ice, and the depôt had been formed by the aid of sledges. But now not a fragment of ice was to be seen on the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, and the rocky shore could only be approached by boats.

8. The differences between the climate in the years 1872 and 1874, were also in other respects very remarkable. In 1872 the mountains of the country were mostly covered with snow, but in 1874, it lay only on the higher parts of its glaciers, and in latitude 76° N., where we had found thick ice, the temperature of the sea was 39° F., and of the air 43° F. The phenomenaof the climate of 1871, as we observed them in the voyage of theIsbjörn, were similar to those of 1874; and this peculiar mildness was experienced on the eastern coasts of Novaya Zemlya by Captain Wiggins, who when navigating the sea of Cara as far as the mouth of the Ob, was shut in there by the ice for a few weeks only.

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