A TALE OF THE FROZEN SEA.
IV.—THE FROZEN SEA.
Ivan soon found himself received into the best society of the place. All were glad to welcome the adventurous trader from Yakoutsk; and when he intimated that his boxes of treasure, his brandy and tea, and rum and tobacco, were to be laid out in the hire of dogs and sledges, he found ample applicants, though, from the very first, all refused to accompany his party as guardians of the dogs. Sakalar, however, who had expected this, was nothing daunted, but, bidding Ivan amuse himself as best he could, undertook all the preparations. But Ivan found as much pleasure in teaching what little he knew to Kolina as in frequenting the fashionable circles of Kolimsk. Still, he could not reject the numerous polite invitations to evening parties and dances which poured upon him. I have said evening parties, for though there was no day, yet still the division of the hours was regularly kept, and parties began at five P.M., to end at ten. There was singing and dancing, and gossip and tea, of which each individual would consume ten or twelve large cups; in fact, despite the primitive state of the inhabitants, and the vicinity to the Polar Sea, these assemblies very much resembled in style those of Paris and London. The costumes, the saloons, and the hours, were different, while the manners were less refined, but the facts were the same.
When the carnival came round, Ivan, who was a little vexed at the exclusion of Kolina from the fashionable Russian society, took care to let her have the usual amusement of sliding down a mountain of ice, which she did to her great satisfaction. But he took care also at all times to devote to her his days, while Sakalar wandered about from yourte to yourte in search of hints and information for the next winter's journey. He also hired the requisite nartas, or sledges, and the thirty-nine dogs which were to draw them, thirteen to each. The he bargained for a large stock of frozen and dry fish for the dogs, and other provisions for themselves. But what mostly puzzled the people were his assiduous efforts to get a man to go with them who would harness twenty dogs to an extra sledge. To the astonishment of everybody, three young men at last volunteered, and three extra sledges were then procured.
The summer soon came round, and then Ivan and his friends started out at once with the hunters, and did their utmost to be useful. As the natives of Kolimsk went during the chase a long distance toward Cape Sviatoi, the spot where the adventurers were to quit the land and venture on the Frozen Sea, they took care, at the furthest extremity of their hunting trip, to leave a deposit of provisions. They erected a small platform, which they covered with drift wood, and on this they placed the dried fish. Above were laid heavy stones, and every precaution used to ward off the isatis and the glutton. Ivan during the summer added much to his stock of hunting knowledge.
At length the winter came round once more, and the hour arrived so long desired. The sledges were ready—six in number, and loaded as heavily as they could bear. But for so many dogs, and for so many days, it was quite certain they must economize most strictly; while it was equally certain, if no bears fell in their way on the journey, that they must starve, if they did not perish otherwise on the terrible Frozen Sea. Each narta, loaded with eight hundredweight of provisions and its driver, was drawn by six pair of dogs and a leader. They took no wood, trusting implicitly to Providence for this most essential article. They purposed following the shores of the Frozen Sea to Cape Sviatoi, because on the edge of the sea they hoped to find, as usual, plenty of wood, floated to the shore during the brief period when the ice was broken and the vast ocean in part free. One of the sledges was less loaded than the rest with provisions, because it bore a tent, an iron plate for fire on the ice, a lamp, and the few cooking utensils of the party.
Early one morning in the month of November—the long night still lasting—the six sledges took their departure. The adventurers had every day exercised themselves with the dogs for some hours, and were pretty proficient. Sakalar drove the first team, Kolina the second, and Ivan the third. The Kolimak men came afterward. They took their way along the snow toward the mouth of the Tchouktcha river. The first day's journey brought them to the extreme limits of vegetation, after which they entered on a vast and interminable plain of snow, along which the nartas moved rapidly. But the second day. in the afternoon, a storm came on. The snow fell in clouds, the wind blew with a bitterness of cold as searching to the form of man as the hot blast of the desert, and the dogs appeared inclined to halt. But Sakalar kept on his way toward a hillock in the distance, where the guides spoke of a hut of refuge. But before a dozen yards could be crossed, the sledge of Kolina was overturned, and a halt became necessary.
Ivan was the first to raise his fair companion from the ground; and then with much difficulty—their hands, despite all the clothes, being half-frozen—they again put the nartas in condition to proceed. Sakalar had not stopped, but was seen in the distance unharnessing his sledge, and then poking about in a huge heap of snow. He was searching for the hut, which had been completely buried in the drift. In a few minutes the whole six were at work, despite the blast, while the dogs were scratching holes for themselves in the soft snow, within which they soon lay snug, their noses only out of the hole, while over this the sagacious brutes put the tip of their long bushy tails.
At the end of an hour well employed, the hut was freed inside from snow, and a fire of stunted bushes with a few logs lit in the middle. Here the whole party cowered, almost choked with the thick smoke, which, however, was less painful than the blast from the icy sea. The smoke escaped with difficulty, because the roof was still covered with firm snow, and the door was merely a hole to crawl through. At last, however, they got the fire to the state of red embers, and succeeded in obtaining a plentiful supply of tea and food: after which their limbs being less stiff, they fed the dogs.
While they were attending to the dogs, the storm abated, and was followed by a magnificent aurora borealis. It rose in the north, a sort of semi-arch of light; and then across the heavens, in almost every direction, darted columns of a luminous character. The light was as bright as that of the moon in its full. There were jets of lurid red light in some places, which disappeared and came again; while there being a dead calm after the storm, the adventurers heard a kind of rustling sound in the distance, faint and almost imperceptible, and yet believed to be the rush of the air in the sphere of the phenomenon. A few minutes more and all had disappeared.
After a hearty meal, the wanderers launched into the usual topics of conversation in those regions. Sakalar was not a boaster, but the young men from Nijnei-Kolimsk were possessed of the usual characteristics of hunters and fishermen. They told with considerable vigor and effect long stories of their adventures, most exaggerated—and when not impossible, most improbable—of bears killed in hand to hand combat, of hundreds of deer slain in the crossing of a river, and of multitudinous heaps of fish drawn in one cast of a seine: and then, wrapped in their thick clothes and every one's feet to the fire, the whole party soon slept. Ivan and Kolina, however, held whispered converse together for a little while, but fatigue soon overcame even them.
The next day they advanced still farther toward the pole, and on the evening of the third camped within a few yards of the great Frozen Sea. There it lay before them, scarcely distinguishable from the land. As they looked upon it from a lofty eminence, it was hard to believe that that was a sea before them. There was snow on the sea and snow on the land: there were mountains on both, and huge drifts, and here and there vast polinas—a space of soft, watery ice, which resembled the lakes of Siberia. All was bitter, cold, sterile, bleak, and chilling to the eye, which vainly sought a relief. The prospect of a journey over this desolate plain, intersected in every direction by ridges of mountain icebergs, full of crevices, with soft salt ice here and there, was dolorous indeed; and yet the heart of Ivan quaked not. He had now what he sought in view; he knew there was land beyond, and riches, and fame.
A rude tent, with snow piled round the edge to keep it firm, was erected. It needed to be strongly pitched, for in these regions the blast is more quick and sudden than in any place perhaps in the known world, pouring down along the fields of ice with terrible force direct from the unknown caverns of the northern pole. Within the tent, which was of double reindeer-skin, a fire was lit; while behind a huge rock, and under cover of the sledges, lay the dogs. As usual, after a hearty meal, and hot tea—drunk perfectly scalding—the party retired to rest. About midnight all were awoke by a sense of oppression and stifling heat. Sakalar rose, and by the light of the remaining embers scrambled to the door. It was choked up by snow. The hunter immediately began to shovel it from the narrow hole through which they entered or left the hut, and then groped his way out. The snow was falling so thick and fast that the traveling yourte was completely buried, and the wind being—directly opposite to the door, the snow had drifted round and concealed the aperture.
The dogs now began to howl fearfully. This was too serious a warning to be disdained. They smelt the savage bear of the icy seas, which in turn had been attracted to them by its sense of smelling. Scarcely had the sagacious animals given tongue, when Sakalar, through the thick-falling snow and amid the gloom, saw a dull heavy mass rolling directly toward the tent. He leveled his gun, and fired, after which he seized a heavy steel wood-axe, and stood ready. The animal had at first halted, but next minute he came on growling furiously. Ivan and Kolina now both fired, when the animal turned and ran. But the dogs were now round him, and Sakalar behind them. One tremendous blow of his axe finished the huge beast, and there he lay in the snow. The dogs then abandoned him, refusing to eat fresh bear's meat, though, when frozen, they gladly enough accept it.
The party again sought rest, after lighting an oil-lamp with a thick wick, which, in default of the fire, diffused a tolerable amount of warmth in a small place occupied by six people. But they did not sleep; for though one of the bears was killed, the second of the almost invariable couple was probably near, and the idea of such vicinity was anything but agreeable. These huge quadrupeds have been often known to enter a hut and stifle all its inhabitants. The night was therefore far from refreshing, and at an earlier hour than usual all were on foot. Every morning the same routine was followed: hot tea, without sugar or milk, was swallowed to warm the body; then a meal, which took the place of dinner, was cooked and devoured; then the dogs were fed, and then the sledges, which had been inclined on one side, were placed horizontally. This was always done to water their keel, to use a nautical phrase; for this water freezing they glided along all the faster. A portion of the now hard-frozen bear was given to the dogs, and the rest placed on the sledges, after the skin had been secured toward making a new covering at night.
This day's journey was half on the land, half on the sea, according as the path served. It was generally very rough, and the sledges made but slow way. The dogs, too, had coverings put on their feet, and on every other delicate place, which made them less agile. In ordinary cases, on a smooth surface, it is not very difficult to guide a team of dogs, when the leader is a first-rate animal. But this is an essential point, otherwise it is impossible to get along. Every time the dogs hit on the track of a bear, or fox, or other animal, their hunting instincts are developed: away they dart like mad, leaving the line of march, and in spite of all the efforts of the driver, begin the chase. But if the front dog be well trained, he dashes on on one side, in a totally opposite direction, smelling and barking as if he had a new track. If his artifice succeeds, the whole team dart away after him, and speedily losing the scent, proceed on their journey.
Sakalar, who still kept ahead of the party, when making a wide circuit out at sea about midday, at the foot of a steep hill of rather rough ice, found his dogs suddenly increasing their speed, but in the right direction. To this he had no objection, though it was very doubtful what was beyond. However, the dogs darted ahead with terrific rapidity, until they reached the summit of the hill. The ice was here very rough and salt, which impeded the advance of the sledge: but off are the dogs, down a very steep descent, furiously tugging at the sledge-halter, till away they fly like lightning. The harness had broken off, and Sakalar remained alone on the crest of the hill. He leaped off the nartas, and stood looking at it with the air of a man stunned. The journey seemed checked violently. Next instant, his gun in hand, he followed the dogs right down the hill, dashing away too like a madman, in his long hunting-skates. But the dogs were out of sight, and Sakalar soon found himself opposed by a huge wall of ice. He looked back; he was wholly out of view of his companions. To reconnoiter, he ascended the wall as best he could, and then looked down into a sort of circular hollow of some extent, where the ice was smooth and even watery.
He was about to turn away, when his sharp eye detected something moving, and all his love of the chase was at once aroused. He recognized the snow-cave of a huge bear. It was a kind of cavern, caused by the falling together of two pieces of ice, with double issue. Both apertures the bear had succeeded in stopping up, after breaking a hole in the thin ice of the sheltered polina, or sheet of soft ice. Here the cunning animal lay in wait. How long he had been lying it was impossible to say, but almost as Sakalar crouched down to watch, a seal came to the surface, and lay against the den of its enemy to breathe. A heavy paw was passed through the hole, and the sea-cow was killed in an instant. A naturalist would have admired the wit of the ponderous bear, and passed on; but the Siberian hunter knows no such thought, and as the animal issued forth to seize his prey, a heavy ball, launched with unerring aim, laid him low.
Sakalar now turned away in search of his companions, whose aid was required to secure a most useful addition to their store of food; and as he did so, he heard a distant and plaintive howl. He hastened in the direction, and in a quarter of an hour came to the mouth of a narrow gut between two icebergs. The stick of the harness had caught in the fissure, and checked the dogs, who were barking with rage. Sakalar caught the bridle, which had been jerked out of his hand, and turned the dogs round. The animals followed his guidance, and he succeeded, after some difficulty, in bringing them to where lay his game. He then fastened the bear and seal, both dead and frozen even in this short time, and joined his companions.
For several days the same kind of difficulties had to be overcome, and then they reached the sayba, where the provisions had been placed in the summer. It was a large rude box, erected on piles, and the whole stock was found safe. As there was plenty of wood in this place they halted to rest the dogs and re-pack the sledges. The tent was pitched, and they all thought of repose. They were now about wholly to quit the land, and to venture in a north-westerly direction on the Frozen Sea.
V.—ON THE ICE.
Despite the fire made on the iron plate in the middle of the tent, our adventurers found the cold at this point of their journey most poignant. It was about Christmas; but the exact time of year had little to do with the matter. The wind was northerly, and keen: and they often at night had to rise and promote circulation by a good run on the snow. But early on the third day all was ready for a start. The sun was seen that morning on the edge of the horizon for a short while, and promised soon to give them days. Before them were a line of icebergs, seemingly an impenetrable wall; but it was necessary to brave them. The dogs, refreshed by two days of rest, started vigorously, and a plain hill of ice being selected, they succeeded in reaching its summit. Then before them lay a vast and seemingly interminable plain. Along this the sledges ran with great speed; and that day they advanced nearly thirty miles from the land, and camped on the sea in a valley of ice.
It was a singular spot. Vast sugar-loaf hills of ice, as old perhaps as the world, threw their lofty cones to the skies, on all sides, while they rested doubtless on the bottom of the ocean. Every fantastic form was there; there seemed in the distance cities and palaces as white as chalk; pillars and reversed cones, pyramids and mounds of every shape, valleys and lakes; and under the influence of the optical delusions of the locality, green fields and meadows, and tossing seas. Here the whole party rested soundly, and pushed on hard the next day in search of land.
Several tracks of foxes and bears were now seen, but no animals were discovered. The route, however, was changed. Every now and then newly-formed fields of ice were met, which a little while back had been floating. Lumps stuck up in every direction, and made the path difficult. Then they reached a vast polinas, where the humid state of the surface told that it was thin, and of recent formation. A stick thrust into it went through. But the adventurers took the only course left them. The dogs were placed abreast, and then, at a signal, were launched upon the dangerous surface. They flew rather than ran. It was necessary, for as they went, the ice cracked in every direction, but always under the weight of the nartas, which were off before they could be caught by the bubbling waters. As soon as the solid ice was again reached, the party halted, deep gratitude to Heaven in their hearts, and camped for the night.
But the weather had changed. What is called here the warm wind had blown all day, and at night a hurricane came on. As the adventurers sat smoking after supper, the ice beneath their feet trembled, shook, and then fearful reports bursting on their ears, told them that the sea was cracking in every direction. They had camped on an elevated iceberg of vast dimensions, and were for the moment safe. But around them they heard the rush of waters. The vast Frozen Sea was in one of its moments of fury. In the deeper seas to the north it never freezes firmly—in fact there is always an open sea, with floating bergs. When a hurricane blows, these clear spaces become terribly agitated. Their tossing waves and mountains of ice act on the solid plains, and break them up at times. This was evidently the case now. About midnight our travelers, whose anguish of mind was terrible, felt the great iceberg afloat. Its oscillations were fearful. Sakalar alone preserved his coolness. The men of Nijnei Kolimsk raved and tore their hair, crying that they had been brought willfully to destruction; Kolina kneeled, crossed herself, and prayed; while Ivan deeply reproached himself as the cause of so many human beings encountering such awful peril. The rockings of their icy raft were terrible. It was impelled hither and thither by even huger masses. Now it remained on its first level, then its surface presented an angle of nearly forty-five degrees, and it seemed about to turn bottom up. All recommended themselves to God, and awaited their fate. Suddenly they were rocked more violently than ever, and were all thrown down by the shock. Then all was still.
The hurricane lulled, the wind shifted. snow began to fall, and the prodigious plain of loose ice again lay quiescent. The bitter frost soon cemented its parts once more, and the danger was over. The men of Nijnei Kolimsk now insisted on an instant return; but Sakalar was firm, and, though their halt had given them little rest, started as the sun was seen above the horizon. The road was fearfully bad. All was rough, disjointed, and almost impassable. But the sledges had good whalebone keels, and were made with great care to resist such difficulties. The dogs were kept moving all day, but when night came they had made but little progress. But they rested in peace. Nature was calm, and morning found them still asleep. But Sakalar was indefatigable, and as soon as he had boiled a potful of snow, made tea, and awoke his people.
They were now about to enter a labyrinth of toroses or icebergs. There was no plain ground within sight; but no impediment could be attended to. Bears made these their habitual resorts, while the wolf skulked every night round the camp, waiting their scanty leavings. Every eye was stretched in search of game. But the road itself required intense care, to prevent the sledges overturning. Toward the afternoon they entered a narrow valley of ice full of drifted snow, into which the dogs sank, and could scarcely move. At this instant two enormous white bears presented themselves. The dogs sprang forward; but the ground was too heavy for them. The hunters, however, were ready. The bears marched boldly on as if savage from long fasting. No time was to be lost. Sakalar and Ivan singled out each his animal. Their heavy ounce balls struck both. The opponent of Sakalar turned and fled, but that of Ivan advanced furiously toward him. Ivan stood his ground, axe in hand, and struck the animal a terrible blow on the muzzle. But as he did so, he stumbled, and the bear was upon him. Kolina shrieked; Sakalar was away after his prize; but the Kolimsk men rushed in. Two fired: the third struck the animal with a spear. The bear abandoned Ivan, and faced his new antagonists. The contest was now unequal, and before half an hour was over, the stock of provisions was again augmented, as well as the means of warmth. They had very little wood, and what they had was used sparingly. Once or twice a tree, fixed in the ice, gave them additional fuel; but they were obliged chiefly to count on oil. A small fire was made at night to cook by; but it was allowed to go out, the tent was carefully closed, and the caloric of six people, with a huge lamp with three wicks, served for the rest of the night.
About the sixth day they struck land. It was a small island, in a bay of which they found plenty of drift wood. Sakalar was delighted. He was on the right track. A joyous halt took place, a splendid fire was made, and the whole party indulged themselves in a glass of rum—a liquor very rarely touched, from its known tendency to increase rather than diminish cold. A hole was next broken in the ice, and an attempt made to catch some seals. Only one, however, rewarded their efforts; but this, with a supply of wood, filled the empty space made in the sledges by the daily consumption of the dogs. But the island was soon found to be infested with bears: no fewer than five, with eleven foxes, were killed, and then huge fires had to be kept up at night to drive their survivors away.
Their provender thus notably increased, the party started in high spirits; but though they were advancing toward the pole, they were also advancing toward the Deep Sea, and the ice presented innumerable dangers. Deep fissures, lakes, chasms, mountains, all lay in their way; and no game presented itself to their anxious search. Day after day they pushed on—here making long circuits, there driven back, and losing sometimes in one day all they had made in the previous twelve hours. Some fissures were crossed on bridges of ice, which took hours to make, while every hour the cold seemed more intense. The sun was now visible for hours, and, as usual in these parts, the cold was more severe since his arrival.
At last, after more than twenty days of terrible fatigue, there was seen looming in the distance what was no doubt the promised land. The sledges were hurried forward—for they were drawing toward the end of their provisions—and the whole party was at length collected on the summit of a lofty mountain of ice. Before them were the hills of New Siberia; to their right a prodigious open sea: and at their feet, as far as the eye could reach, a narrow channel of rapid water, through which huge lumps of ice rushed so furiously, as to have no time to cement into a solid mass.
The adventurers stood aghast. But Sakalar led the way to the very brink of the channel, and moved quietly along its course until he found what he was in search of. This a sheet or floe of ice, large enough to bear the whole party, and yet almost detached from the general field. The sledges were put upon it, and then, by breaking with their axes the narrow tongue which held it, it swayed away into the tempestuous sea. It almost turned round as it started. The sledges and dogs were placed in the middle, while the five men stood at the very edge to guide it as far as possible with their hunting spears.
In a few minutes it was impelled along by the rapid current, but received every now and then a check when it came in contact with heavier and deeper masses. The Kolimsk men stood transfixed with terror as they saw themselves borne out toward that vast deep sea which eternally tosses and rages round the Arctic Pole: but Sakalar, in a peremptory tone, bade them use their spears. They pushed away heartily; and their strange raft, though not always keeping its equilibrium, was edged away both across and down the stream. At last it began to move more slowly, and Sakalar found himself under the shelter of a huge iceberg, and then impelled up stream by a backwater current. In a few minutes the much wished-for shore was reached.
The route was rude and rugged as they approached the land; but all saw before them the end of their labors for the winter, and every one proceeded vigorously. The dogs seemed to smell the land, or at all events some tracks of game, for they hurried on with spirit. About an hour before the usual time of camping they were under a vast precipice, turning which, they found themselves in a deep and sheltered valley, with a river at the bottom, frozen between its lofty banks, and covered by deep snow.
"The ivory mine!" said Sakalar in a low tone to Ivan, who thanked him by an expressive look.