On the 8th of October, after the completion of the house, a violent snow-storm broke out, which would assuredly have rendered its construction impossible, and which, in five days, completely buried both the ship and the hut. Such immense piles of snow accumulated on the deck of the Hansa, that it was with the greatest difficulty the seamen could reach their berths.
From the 5th to the 14th of October the drift of the current was so strong, that the ice-bound ship was carried no fewer than seventy-two miles towards the south-south-east.
Meantime, the pressure of the ice continued to increase, and the Hansa seemed held in the tightening grasp of an invincible giant. Huge masses rose in front, and behind, and on both sides, and underneath, until she was raised seventeen feet higher than her original position. Affairs seemed so critical, that Captain Hegemann hastened to disembark the stores of clothing, the scientific instruments, charts, log-book, and diaries. It was found that through the constant strain on her timbers the ship had begun to leak badly, and on sounding, two feet of water were found in the pumps. All hands to work! But after half an hour’s vigorous exertions, the water continued to rise, slowly but surely; and the most careful search failed to indicate the locality of the leak. It was painfully evident that the good ship could not be saved.
“Though much affected,” says the chronicler of the expedition, “by this sad catastrophe, we endured it with firmness. Resignation was indispensable. The coal hut, constructed on the shifting ice-floe, was thenceforward our sole refuge in the long nights of an Arctic winter, and was destined, perhaps, to become our tomb.
“But we had not a minute to lose, and we set to work. At nine o’clock P.M. the snow-fall ceased; the sky glittered with stars, the moon illuminated with her radiance the immense wilderness of ice, and the rays of the Aurora Borealis here and there lighted up the firmament with their coloured coruscations. The frost was severe; during the night the thermometer sank to -20° R. One half the crew continued to work at the pumps; the other was actively engaged in disembarking on the ice the most necessary articles. There could be no thought of sleep, for in our frightful situation the mind was beset by the most conflicting apprehensions. What would become of us at the very outset of a season which threatened to be one of excessive rigour? In vain we endeavoured to imagine some means of saving ourselves. It was not possible to think seriously of an attempt to gain the land. Perhaps we might have succeeded, in the midst of the greatest dangers, in reaching the coast by opening up a way across the ice-floes, but we had no means of transporting thither our provisions; and it appeared, from the reports of Scoresby, that we could not count on finding any Eskimo establishments,—so that our only prospect then would have been to die of hunger.”
The sole resource remaining to the explorers was to drift to the south on their moving ice-floe, and confine themselves, meantime, to their coal hut. If their ice-raft proved of sufficient strength, they might hope to reach in the spring the Eskimo settlement in the south of Greenland, or come to gain the coast of Iceland by traversing its cincture of ice.
It was on the 22nd of October, in lat. 70° 50’ N., and long. 21° W., that the Hansa sank beneath the ice. Dr. Laube writes: “We made ourselves as snug as possible, and, once our little house was completely embanked with snow, we had not to complain of the cold. We enjoyed perfect health, and occupied the time with long walks and with our books, of which we had many. We made a Christmas-tree of birch-twigs, and embellished it with fragments of wax taper.”
To prevent attacks of disease, and to maintain the cheerfulness of the men, the officers of the expedition stimulated them to every kind of active employment, and laid down strict rules for the due division of the day.
At seven in the morning, they were aroused by the watch. They rose, attired themselves in their warm thick woollen clothing, washed in water procured by melting snow, and then took their morning cup of coffee, with a piece of hard bread. Various occupations succeeded: the construction of such useful utensils as proved to be necessary; stitching sail-cloth, mending clothes, writing up the day’s journal, and reading. When the weather permitted, astronomical observations and calculations were not forgotten. At noon, all hands were summoned to dinner, at which a good rich soup formed the principal dish; and as they had an abundance of preserved vegetables, the bill of fare was frequently changed. In the use of alcoholic liquors the most rigid economy was observed, and it was on Sunday only that each person received a glass of port.