After encountering difficulties like these, which wore out the strength of most of his party, so that they were compelled to return to the schooner, Dr. Hayes succeeded in crossing the sound, and began his journey along the coast. But the difficulties did not abate, and made such demands on the powers of endurance of the travellers, that the strongest among them broke down, and had to be left behind in charge of another of the party. The resolute Hayes then pushed on, accompanied by Knorr, and on the 18th of May reached the margin of a deep gulf, where further progress was rendered impossible by the rotten ice and broad water-ways. From this point, however, he could see, on the other side of the channel, and immediately opposite to him, the lofty peak of Mount Parry, discovered in 1854 by the gallant Morton; and more to the north, a bold conspicuous headland, which he named Cape Union, the most northern known land upon the globe. Beyond it, he thought he saw the open sea of the Pole, which, from Cape Union, is not distant five hundred miles; but the voyage of the Polaris, at a later date, has shown that what he saw was only a land-locked bay.
On the 12th of July, the schooner was set free from the ice, but she proved to be too much damaged to continue her dangerous voyage; and satisfied with having proved that a direct and not impracticable route to the Pole lies up Smith Sound and Kennedy Channel, Dr. Hayes returned to Boston.
It is the opinion, however, of some geographers, though scarcely warranted by ascertained facts, that the Pole may more easily be reached by what is known as the Spitzbergen route. They argue that to the east of this snow-crowned archipelago the influence of the Gulf Stream makes itself felt; and they conclude that this great warm current possibly strikes as far as the Pole itself. It is known that Parry, to the north of Spitzbergen, attained the latitude of 82° 45’; and it is recorded that a Hull whaler, the True-Love, in 1837, navigated an open sea in lat. 82° 30’ N., and long. 15° E.; so that she might probably have solved the problem and have gained the Pole, had she continued on her northerly course.
Holding this belief, the illustrious German geographer, Dr. Petermann, succeeded in raising funds for a German expedition in 1868; and the Germania, a brig of eighty tons, under the command of Captain Koldewey, sailed from Bergen on the 24th of May, for Shannon Island, in lat. 75° 14’ N., the furthest point on the Greenland coast reached by Sabine in 1823. She was accompanied by the Hansa, Captain Hegemann; and both ships were equipped in the most careful manner, and liberally supplied with appliances and stores.
On the 9th of July the expedition was off the island of Jan Mayen, and at midnight on that day was sailing direct to the northward. A heavy fog came on, and the two ships, even when sailing side by side, could not see one another, and communication could be maintained only by the use of the speaking-trumpet. Their crews might then conceive an idea of that impenetrable chaos which, according to Pythias, terminated the world beyond Thule, and which is neither air, nor earth, nor sea. It is impossible to imagine anything more melancholy than this gray, uniform, infinite veil or canopy; ocean itself, far as the eye can reach, is gray and gloomy.
For five successive days the weather remained in this condition, the fog alone varying in intensity, and growing thicker and thicker. On the 14th a calm prevailed, and the Germania lowered a boat to pick up drift-wood and hunt the sea-gulls. The ice-blink on the horizon showed that the ships were drawing near the great ice-fields of the Polar Ocean; and another sign of their proximity was the appearance of the ivory gull (Larus eburneus), which never wanders far from the ice. Occasionally the ships fell in with a rorqual, or nord-caper, as the seamen call it,—a species of whale distinguished by the presence of a dorsal fin.
On the morning of the 15th of July a light breeze blew up from the south, and the two ships sailed steadily on their north-western course through a sea covered with floating ice. An accustomed ear could already distinguish a distant murmur, which seemed to draw nearer and yet nearer; it was the swell of the sea breaking on the far-off ice-field. Nearer and yet nearer! Everybody gathered upon deck; and, suddenly, as if in virtue of some spell, the mists cleared away, and the adventurers saw before them, within a few hundred yards, the ice! It formed a long line, like a cliff-wall of broken and rugged rocks, whose azure-tinted precipices glittered in the sun, and repelled, unmoved, the rush of the foamy waves. The summit was covered with a deep layer of blinding snow.
They gazed on the splendid panorama in silence. It was a solemn moment, and in every mind new thoughts and new impressions were awakened, in which both hope and doubt were blended.
The point where the Germania had struck the ice was lat. 74° 47’ N. and long. 11° 50’ E., and the icy barrier stretched almost directly from north to south. The Hansa touched the ice on the same day, but in lat. 74° 57’ N., and long. 9° 41’ E.