CHAPTER II.

ON THE FROZEN SEA.

1. The momentous day came at last—the 20th of May, the very day in 1855 on which Kane abandoned his ship;[53] and we hailed with joy the advent of the hour which was to terminate our life of inaction. Yet we could not see without emotion the flags nailed to the masts of the _Tegetthoff_, and the final preparations to leave the ship, which had been our home for two weary years, and in which we had confronted the perils of the frozen sea, its ice-pressures, its storms, and its cold. These recollections crowded upon us as the moment came to abandon her. Now too we had to part with our Zoological, Botanical, and Geological collections, the result of so much labour; the ample collection of instruments, the books which had helped us over many a weary hour, and the sixty-seven bear-skins which we had so carefully prepared—all these had also to be abandoned. The photographs of friends and acquaintances we hung on the rocky walls ashore, preferring to leave them there rather than in the ship, which must some time or other be driven ashore and go to pieces. A document stating the grounds of our decision was laid on the table of the mess-room.

2. We slept during this day, and in the evening sat down to the last meal we were to enjoy on board the ship. About nine o’clock, P.M., we assembled round the boats, ready for the start. Dark masses of clouds obscured the sun, and our route southwards led us into the gloomy monotonous region of ice-hummocks covered with snow—our world for the next three months. The first day’s work for twenty-three men, harnessed to boat or sledge, was the advance of one mile; and even this rate of progress, small as it was, was not constant. Many days it did not amount to half a mile; the sledge-sail was of little avail, for the deep snow retarded our progress; the sledges sank deep into it, those on which the boats were placed actually sticking fast. We had to pass three times heavily laden, and twice empty, over every bit of the road, and half our number were scarcely able to move a sledge or a boat. Such labours and exertions in deep snow were truly distracting. Almost at every step we sank knee-deep. Sometimes some unhappy fellows went in deeper still; of Scarpa, it was asserted that scarcely anything but his head was visible while he dragged. Constantly we had either to unload the sledge, or, harnessing ourselves all together for a moment, drag it out of the deep snow-drift. For one-half of the march we might get on without special impediment, the other half was spent in vain efforts to push the load on, amid “Aussingen,”[54] to time the strong pull and the pull all together. The perspiration often streamed down our faces, for the sky was overcast, and the air exceedingly sultry. After the exertion of some days, raw wounds appeared on the shoulders of several. After a bit of our track had been passed over three times in the way described, it was like a path in the snow hollowed out by the shovel, so that we had spent our strength in levelling it, but hardly in satisfactory progress. To add to our trials, we suffered intensely from thirst, and those among us who were unaccustomed to the fatigues of sledge-travelling, sank down in the snow at every halt and greedily ate of it. If such were to be the course of our journey, would escape be possible? Not a man among us imagined that we could be saved, except by some extraordinary and happy turn of fortune, small signs of which were at present to be seen. To escape from this depressing fear, we deliberately avoided every allusion to the future.

3. The dogs, under the superintendence of Carlsen, took their part in the transport of the baggage, but showed themselves very lazy and intractable under his management, and seemed to take a pleasure in plunging their loaded sledge deep into the snow, out of which it was beyond the old man’s power to free them without help. Nor was their own strength equal to going over the track twice at least, even with only one cwt. each time. If, therefore, their services were to be turned to account, they must be led by some one whom they obeyed, who could help them by shoving or dragging, who could set up the sledge when it overturned, and was strong enough to keep constantly lifting the heavy bags, and who could pass over the same piece of road four or five times, if necessary. This duty was taken in turn by Haller and myself, and we succeeded in transporting in this way daily all the bread and the spirits, weighing together from 8 to 10 cwt., and, in some cases, at a later period, even the entire load of a great sledge divided into parts. I mention this in order to show the great services which our dogs, though their number was small, rendered during the march.

4. In the first week after the _Tegetthoff_ was abandoned, whenever Weyprecht encamped at the end of the day’s march, Haller, Zaninovich and I returned in the dog-sledge to the ship in order to replenish the stores we had consumed. The distance, which we had taken a week to pass with all our baggage, was done by the help of the dogs in an hour or two. In these different visits we did our utmost to fulfil the commissions of our companions. We rummaged the hold, though in many of the cases we opened nothing was to be seen but a dressed bear-skin. In one of these trips we filled a small cask with a concentrated decoction of all the tea which was left behind, and the rum we found was used to give it the proper strength. When we returned to the boat-parties before the morning start, this still lukewarm decoction of tea and rum met with great approbation, but the greatest was reserved for the remains of the condensed milk we brought with us, not merely because it was milk, but because to us it was the only milk in the world. Round the remains of the bears we had killed we always found flocks of sea-gulls screaming and quarrelling. Sometimes too we saw bears prowling round the ship at a distance, waiting till their time for plunder came. They seemed to wait for the moment when they should be able to take permanent possession of a fortress which had been so long hostile to their race.

5. But we had the benefit of their company through the earlier part of our journey. May 23, a bear was shot by Weyprecht, and forthwith the gulls, who always turned up whenever there was anything eatable to be got, consumed the remains with astonishing rapidity, even to the bones. On the 26th, when I was about two miles from the advanced parties, fetching something which had been left behind, I suddenly sighted a bear at about 100 paces distant, lying in the snow and apparently asleep. The dogs too got sight of him, and I had much trouble in keeping them in, till I overturned the sledge to act as a breast-work. As the bear rose and stood on his hind legs I fired, but though severely wounded, he managed to crawl away. The dogs, rushing off with the sledge behind them, assailed the wounded animal with a fury which would have been fatal to them, if the sledge had been checked by any obstacle. Torossy specially showed a complete ignorance of how matters stood, and was saved by Jubinal from the paws of his assailant. Whenever the bear came up to the sledge, Jubinal swung round with it, till I came up so close as to make sure of killing it with my last cartridge. On the 31st, Klotz shot a bear which came within ten paces of the boats; but notwithstanding this addition of fresh meat, the stores we brought in the dog-sledge from the ship maintained their charm.

6. A few days after the abandonment of the ship, dark masses of clouds, indicating open water, were seen in the south-west, which doubtless proceeded from the fissures we had observed three weeks before from Cape Brünn. There was good ground, therefore, to hope that we should get beyond the land-ice in a few days, and reach the network of ever-changing “leads.” If we succeeded in this, we might then launch the boats in one of these water-ways, and following the windings of its course between the fields of ice, escape to the south with greater rapidity. Our most sanguine expectations were exceeded when, on the 28th, we reached unexpectedly a small flat island, the very existence of which was unknown to us—Lamont Island. Ascending the highest point of it, we saw an “ice-hole” stretching to the south-east, in which was floating an enormous table-shaped iceberg. This “ice-hole” was not more than a mile from the southern extremity of the island, which was itself still surrounded by forced-up blocks of ice. A driving snow-storm detained us on the 29th on the island, and we contented ourselves with gathering pieces of drift-wood lying on the shore. On the 30th we delayed no longer in our attempt to advance to the edge of the floes and launch our boats. But our calculations were doomed to disappointment; after a toilsome search of several days to find a suitable spot from which to launch our boats, we were convinced that this was for the present impossible, because the edges of the “ice-hole” were surrounded with broad barriers of broken ice, rendering the passage of the boats and sledges impossible. Weyprecht and Klotz had meanwhile started to reconnoitre, and their report on their return showed that sledging, for the present at least, was at an end. The ice-hole before us extended far eastward, and the attempt to outflank it would have led us through walls of ice piled up to the height of fifty feet. We went back, therefore, to the more level surface of ice we had left, and pitched our camp, which we called the “Harbour of Aulis;” for, like the Greeks of old, we had here to wait for more favourable winds. Winds only could open the ice before us and widen the “leads” into a navigable condition. We had never kept at any great distance from our boats while engaged in transporting their heavy loads, but henceforward we were careful to keep close to them, as we had every reason to look for the speedy breaking up and separation of the ice. We were now in 79° 46′ N. L., and therefore only five miles from the ship. Cape Tegetthoff was still distinctly visible on our northern horizon.

7. The space in the boats being insufficient for the crew and all the baggage we had to take, Weyprecht determined to send back Orel and nine men to bring away the jolly-boat, which had been left behind, and I went on in the dog-sledge to help in the work of removing more stores from the ship. It took me just three hours to do the distance, which it had cost the advanced parties eight days to accomplish. The activity of the dogs received a fresh stimulus from their coming on the track of a bear running in the direction of the ship, and when we came within 1,000 yards of it, there we saw our enemy, who, however, thought it more prudent not to await our attack. On the 7th of June the equipment of the jolly-boat was completed, and we returned to our companions with a load of 3 cwt. of boiled beef, shot, and other necessaries. The old track, now well trodden down, proved a great advantage to us. If we had deviated a single step, we should at once have stuck fast, for the character of the snow had altered, and where it lay in masses it had become mere sludge. The temperature, which at the end of May had varied between 25° and 19° F., rose, on June 1, to freezing-point, and remained steady at that point for some time. Even during the weeks of midsummer the temperature rose only a few degrees above freezing-point. On the 3rd of June it rained for the first time, and gradually the weather assumed the character of fogs and driving mists so common to the Arctic Ocean. Clear days were of rare occurrence, and, occasionally only, the sun shone for a few hours. On our return to the boats we found their crews were sitting up and looking out, like young birds in a nest, to see what we had brought from the ship. Tobacco was regarded as a right royal gift, and Dr. Kepes, to whom I gave a shirt-sleeve well stuffed out with the precious weed, regarded himself as a Crœsus.

8. Meantime our longings to launch grew apace; anxiously we looked for the widening of a fissure to enable us to advance southward. We attempted again and again to approach the “ice-hole,” but always found insuperable difficulties to bar the way. The effort to get one of our boats into a dock we had hewn in the ice nearly ended in its loss, and nothing was left to us but to repeat the flank march along the fatal “ice-hole” to the “harbour of Aulis,” there to watch for the breaking-up of the ice. Throughout the day we sat penned up in the boats, worn-out with a feeling of indescribable weariness, each morning longing for the end of the day, and at every meal thinking when the next would be ready. It seemed as if the time for launching the boats would never come. When the hoarse melancholy scream of the burgomaster-gull sounded through the stillness of the night, it seemed like a demon voice from another world, proclaiming that all our efforts would avail nothing to deliver us from the icy power which held us in its grasp. A visit from a bear was a welcome change in the monotony of our life.

9. We were now in the middle of June. Winds from the south still prevailed, and we were close to the ship at the expiration of some weeks; the third part of our provisions was consumed, and of the 250 German miles between the ship and coast of Lapland we had accomplished but one mile and a quarter. If this should continue to be the rate of our progress, we had the prospect of reaching home in twenty years! Yet gloomy as things appeared, there were moments when we were tempted to think that the end of our trials had come at last. Thus, on the 17th of June, an “ice-hole” opened close to us; instantly we prepared to take advantage of it. The day was perfectly clear, and though the temperature in the shade stood at freezing-point (F.), it was to us an African heat. We threw down the walls of ice, levelled a track for the sledges, and that night we stood, with all our baggage, at the edge of the open water, and, on the morning of the 18th of June, we at last succeeded in launching our boats and putting all our baggage on board. The sledges, fastened to the boats, were towed in their wake. The dogs were put in the different boats, Jubinal alone taking kindly to his new abode, seeing doubtless that he would have to sleep no longer on snow. After drinking some tea with the last remains of our rum, we pushed off, steering towards the south, and it was a sure sign of the elevation of our spirits, that three-and-twenty tobacco-pipes were immediately put into active operation. Our progress, however, was but small, scarcely more than one mile an hour, which was fully accounted for by the deep lading of the boats and the towing of the sledges. We might have sailed about three miles, steering in a southerly direction, when a heavy floe stopped us and progress for the time being impossible, we drew the boats up on the ice and went to rest. Soon after snow began to fall and a west wind set in which gradually veered to the south, and the floes were again forced together, and we found all the “leads” closed up when we attempted to move on in the morning. Again we had to wait, but with this difference, that we were now at the mercy of the wind, which might drive us with the floe, on which we happened to be, wherever it pleased.

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 event that 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 diminished that 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.

“_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 on this 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.

“_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 visible The 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.

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 we had 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.

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, and the 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 a _bravura_ such 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 reality our 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 our _cuisine_, 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 walrus showed 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.

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 raw every 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 wind from 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 make _détours_ to 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 one of 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 about 100 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.

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 the 7th, 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 would come 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.

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 now moved 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!

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 with the 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.