CHAPTER III.

DRIFTING IN THE NOVAYA ZEMLYA SEAS.

1. At the end of August the temperature in the Frozen Ocean is generally at the freezing point of the Centigrade thermometer, but this year (1872) it was constantly six degrees below it. A cold bleak air enveloped us, there was abundance of snow, the sun showed himself rarely, and for some days he had sunk, at midnight, under the horizon. The ship and her rigging were stiff with ice, and everything indicated that for us winter had begun. As the masses of ice which inclosed us consisted only of small floes, we were led to hope that the strong east winds would soon disperse them. But the very contrary really happened, for the low temperatures, the calms, and falls of snow, bound the floes of ice only the more closely together, and within a few days congealed them into one single field, in the midst of which the ship remained fast and immovable. Our surroundings were monotonous beyond description,—one vast unattractive white surface, and even the high-lands of Novaya Zemlya were covered with freshly fallen snow.

2. To reach the coast of Siberia under these circumstances had become an impossibility, and even in the event of our being liberated, the search for a winter harbour in Novaya Zemlya would be a matter of peril and difficulty. Yet we calculated confidently on this contingency and employed our enforced inactivity in completing our preparations for sledge journeys during the autumn, although we could not but feel, that their importance must be of secondary interest and value in a country so well known as Novaya Zemlya. Meantime we drifted slowly along the coast in a northerly direction and apparently under the influence of a current, which has been often observed on the northern coasts of Novaya Zemlya. But the gloom of our situation, as we became conscious of our captivity, was more distinctly and painfully felt. On the 1st of September the temperature sank nine degrees below zero (12° F.), and the few and limited spaces of open water round our floe disappeared. The sun now remained six hours below the horizon, and the formation of young ice in a single night often reached such a thickness, that we soon perceived that our last hope for this year lay in the setting-in of heavy equinoctial storms to break up the ice-fields.

3. On the 2nd of September a fissure running through our floe reached the after-part of the _Tegetthoff_ and opened into a “lead,” and even our floe partially broke up; but this availed us nothing, for the ship itself remained fast on a huge fragment. During the night of Sept. 3, the after-part of the _Tegetthoff_ was gently raised for the first time by the pressure and driving from beneath of the ice; yet of the formidable nature of such pressure we had as yet no presentiment. Though our situation seemed desperate, it was not attended by immediate danger, and, condemned as we were to inactivity, we found the amusement and occupation we needed in skating on the young ice, which covered many of the newly-formed ice-holes between the ice-floes. Besides the duty of making and recording meteorological observations, the training of the dogs, the bringing ice to the kitchen to be transformed into water, the manufacture of oil, expeditions on foot to explore the country, were the only forms in which our energies could be exerted. Absolute loneliness surrounded us; even the Arctic sea-gull (_Larus glaucus_) and the grey stormy petrel (_Procellaria glacialis_, L.) of the polar regions, were but rarely seen, and a bear, which, Sept. 5, came within forty paces of the ship, was driven away by the awkwardness of our hunters. The cold became more and more intense and the weather more gloomy. Sept. 2, the cabin lamp had to be lit for the first time about half-past nine o’clock, and on the 3rd we began to heat the interior parts of the ship, the temperature of which had been for some time at zero; and on the 11th, the first fiery belts of the Aurora flamed in the northern heavens. On the 9th and 10th, there was a very heavy storm from the north-east, which drove us back for a short time towards the west, and partially broke up our floe, but all the efforts of the next week to destroy the connection of what remained by sawing and blasting proved unsuccessful. Blasting with powder, whether above or below the surface-ice, proved ineffectual. Even old fissures in the ice appeared to defy further disruption, segments which had been laboriously made by sawing, froze again almost immediately, and even the application of steam was powerless to set our floe in motion and force the breaking-up of the parts which had been sawn through. It was of no avail that, up to Oct. 7, we kept open a trench round the ship, by destroying in the day the ice which had been formed during the night: the expected disruption of our ice-field never happened. Dark streaks in the heavens still proclaimed that we were in the neighbourhood of open water, and though they seemed only to indicate “leads” of no great breadth or extent, they helped to sustain our hopes. But these were soon doomed to be disappointed, for even these “leads” closed up, and _at the same time the temperature fell to an unusually low degree_. On the 15th of September we had 15 degrees of cold, and on the 19th the temperature fell 18·6 degrees below zero (C.). To add to this, there were frequent falls of drifting snow. As long as fissures remained we had opportunities of seal-hunting, but by the end of the month the “ice-holes” were overspread with spongy ice, which hindered the movements of our boats within them. The alternate openings and closings of the water-ways around us seemed in our monotonous life a harmless spectacle, for the lofty walls of piled-up ice had not as yet for us the language of imminent and threatening dangers.

4. Sept. 22, there was a fissure in the ice about thirty paces from the ship, and we quickly put on board all the materials which were lying on the floe, believing that the moment of our deliverance had come. But no such moment came, nor did the equinoctial storms which we expected set in; _we continued to drift still further to the north_; and on Oct. 2, we had passed the seventy-seventh degree of north latitude. In the beginning of this month a storm, which lasted but a short time, opened up a large “ice-hole” near the after-part of the ship, and forthwith we set to work to open a passage through our floe in order to reach it, but two days afterwards this “ice-hole” also closed up. Yet amid all our mishaps we forgot not on October the 4th—the name-day of his Majesty the Emperor Francis Joseph I.—the homage which was due to our noble and gracious Sovereign. The ship was gaily dressed with flags, and a rifle-match, in which watches and pipes were the prizes, scared away for a short afternoon the sad impressions of the moment.

5. Encounters with polar bears afforded us much excitement. On the 6th of October our first bear was killed and divided among the dogs, for as yet we had not learnt to regard the flesh of these animals as the most precious part of our provisions. A fox also, the first seen during this expedition, showed himself during the previous night. He had evidently come from Novaya Zemlya, and his curiosity had led him close to the ship, from whence he was driven by the dogs. It now became indispensable for everyone who left the immediate neighbourhood of the ship to carry arms with him, and the neglect of this precaution had sometimes rather ludicrous, at other times somewhat serious, consequences. On the 11th of October I left the ship unarmed, and with no other companion than our Lapland dog, Pekel, to employ myself in the harmless occupation of piling up a tower of ice. Working as I was in a stooping position, I was unconscious of what was immediately around me, when on a sudden the loud barking of Pekel caused me to raise myself, and I saw a bear quite close before me. Shaking his head and making a snuffling noise, he came on towards me. In the expectation that some of the people engaged on deck would see my critical position, I contented myself with shaking my fist at him, unwilling to reveal any weakness to my enemy. As this, however, seemed to produce no effect, I cried out repeatedly, “A bear!” At last I saw Klotz, who was on deck, go to the stand of arms, but with such stoical composure, that I ceased to trust to others, and left to the bear, who had now advanced to a distance of about fifteen paces from me, the glory of forcing his enemy to take to flight.

6. In the first days of October the temperature rose considerably, the thermometer standing a little below zero (C.). This was due to south-west winds, and to the temporary extension of the “ice-holes” in our immediate neighbourhood. The days now became shorter, the sun surrounded with red masses of clouds set behind barriers of blackish-blue ice, and an ever-deepening twilight followed his disappearance. Sept. 29, a “snowfinch” flew from the coast of Novaya Zemlya to the ship, hopped about the deck for a little time, and after delighting us all by his little song, again left us. Some few sea-gulls still wended their flight to the spaces of water in our neighbourhood. Skimming over the top of the mast, they seemed to gaze down upon us, and then with a shrill cry darted away like arrows towards the south. There was something melancholy in this departure of the birds; it seemed as if all creatures were retiring from the long reign of night which was before us. In order to divert our attention from the dreadful monotony of our captivity by some occupation in the open air, we fell on the plan of building houses of ice round the ship. The activity of a building-yard reigned on our ice-floe; heavy ice-tables were broken or sawed through, the dogs in the sledges carried the fragments to their appointed places, and with these blocks we raised crystal walls and towers. Snow, mixed with sea-water, furnished an inexhaustible source of the most excellent mortar; and while we worked laboriously at these meaningless erections, we earned at least by our labour the reward of sleep free from care.

7. As we drifted helplessly northward, the coasts of Novaya Zemlya receded gradually from our gaze. Hitherto we had lain close to the land, which with its rounded mountains and valleys filled with glaciers seemed a miniature of Alpine scenery. Daily almost the gigantic luminous arcs of parhelia stood above it, the usual precursors of stormy weather or heavy falls of snow. Towards the north and north-east the country becomes flatter, and runs into glacier-wastes little raised above the level of the sea. The topography of the northern parts of Novaya Zemlya is complete confusion. The only survey which exists—that of Lütke—extends no further than Cape Nassau. The maps of the Barentz Isles are frequently in contradiction with fact, and their correction is extremely desirable. Though this land was of no value for our object, yet it was still land, and it seemed also to us, drifting as we did, the symbol of the stable and immovable. But now it was gradually disappearing from our eyes. During September we had moved slowly, but with October we drifted at a greater rate, so that by the 12th of this month we saw nothing but a line of heights some thirty miles off, towards the south. At last every trace of land disappeared from our gaze; a hopeless waste received us, in which no man could tell how long we should be, or how far we should penetrate.