The days from the 11th to the 15th of January were destined to bring new horrors. On the first-named day a heavy storm with driving snow prevailed, in the midst of which the man on watch burst into the house with the alarm, “All hands turn out!” Hastily gathering their furs and knapsacks, they rushed to the door, to see it almost completely snowed up. To gain the outside quickly they broke through the snow-roof, to find that the tumult of the elements was something beyond anything they had previously experienced. Scarcely able to move from the spot, they huddled together for warmth and mutual protection. Suddenly a new cry arose: “Water on the floe close by!” The heavy waves washed over the ice: the field began to break on all sides. On the spot between the house and the piled-up wood, a gap opened. All seemed lost. The firewood was drifting into the raging sea; the boats were in danger, and without this last resource, what would they do? The community was divided into two parts. Sadly, though hastily, these brave Germans bade each other good-bye, for none of them expected to see the morrow. Cowering in the shelter of their boats, they stood shivering all day, the fine pricking snow penetrating their very clothes. Their floe, from its last diameter, about a mile, had dwindled to 150 feet. Towards evening, the heavy sea subsided, and the ice began to again pack and freeze together. Shortly after midnight a new terror arose, the sailor on watch rushing in with the information that they were drifting on an iceberg. All rushed to the entrance, where they could, in the midnight gloom, distinguish a huge mass of ice, of giant proportions. “It is past,” said the captain. Was it really an iceberg, the mirage of one, or the high coast? They could not decide the question, for owing to the rapidity of the drift, the ghastly object had disappeared the next moment.
Again on the 14th a frightful storm raged, and the ice was once more in motion. The floe broke in the immediate vicinity of the house, and the boats had to be dragged near it. “All our labour,” says the narrative, “was rendered heavier by the storm, which made it almost impossible to breathe. About eleven we experienced a sudden fissure which threatened to tear our house asunder; with a thundering noise an event took place, the consequences of which, in the first moments, deranged all calculations. God only knows how it happened that, in our flight into the open, none came to harm. But there, in the most fearful weather, we all stood roofless on the ice, waiting for daylight, which was still ten hours off. The boat King William lay on the edge of the floe, and might have floated away at any moment. Fortunately, the fissure did not get larger. As it was somewhat quieter at midnight, most of the men crept into the captain’s boat, when the thickest sail we had was drawn over them. Some took refuge in the house; but there, as the door had fallen in, they entered by the skylight, and in the hurry broke the panes of glass, so that it was soon full of snow. This night was the most dreadful one of our adventurous voyage on the floe. The cold was -9½° Fahr. (41½° below freezing). Real sleep, at least in the boat, was not to be thought of; it was but a confused, unquiet, half-slumber, which overpowered us from utter weariness, and our limbs quivered convulsively as we lay packed like herrings in our furs. The cook had, in spite of all, found energy enough in the morning to make the coffee in the house, and never had the delicious drink awakened more exhausted creatures to life. The bad weather raged the whole day. We lay in the boat, half in water, half in snow, shivering with the frost, and wet to the skin.” Next night was passed in the same comfortless position, but on the morning of the 16th the second officer caught sight of a star, and never was there a more welcome omen. For five nights they slept in the boats, but by the 19th they had partially rebuilt their house, although from this time forth they had to take it in turns to sleep in the boats, their new erection being only one-half the size of the older one. Throughout all the discomfort, want, hardships, danger of all kinds, the frame of mind among the men was good, undaunted, and exalted. The cook kept a right seamanlike humour, even in the most critical moments. As long as he had tobacco nothing troubled him.
And so it went on from day to day: fresh dangers were followed by fresh deliverances, and in spite of all the perils encountered, no lives were lost, nor were there any serious cases of sickness. By May they had spent eight months on their ice-raft, and had drifted 1,100 miles. On the morning of the 7th they were agreeably surprised to see open water in the direction of land. The captain, considering that the moment had arrived when they should leave the floe and try to reach the coast, called a council. This project received almost unanimous approbation, and in feverish haste and impatience the boats were hauled empty over three floes, the stores and necessaries being carried after them, partly on sledges and partly on the back. At four P.M. they set sail, the officers and crew being divided into three companies. They made seven miles, and then hauled up on a small floe. After finding a low spot, and first emptying the boats, they were lifted, by swinging them in the water, till the third time, when a strong pull and a pull all together brought their bows on the ice, and they were soon bodily on its surface. Next day by noon they were not more than four or five miles from the land, but the ice was densely packed in irregular masses. Bad weather, with much snow, detained them six days on a floe; and [pg 267]then, having proceeded some little distance, they were again condemned to five days’ detention. Their provisions were getting low; they had rations left for not over a month. As no change took place in the ice, they resolved to drag their boats over it to the island of Illuidlek, which, after delays and dangers very similar to those encountered by Parry on his memorable Polar sledge and boat journey, was reached on June 4th. A little later they successfully sailed to the Greenland Moravian mission station of Friedrichstal, where their troubles ended, and where they received a hearty welcome. A Danish vessel brought them to Copenhagen on September 1st, and it then became evident that it was time to pay some attention to their outward appearance. In their forlorn condition they could not leave the ship, or they might have been compromised with the police. Some were in seal-skin caps, some in furs, others in sea boots from which the toes protruded, with ragged trousers, threadbare coats, and a general air of Arctic seediness. At length Captain Hegemann fetched them away in the twilight, and took them to a clothing warehouse, where they were soon made to look more like civilised beings. A few days later, and they entered Bremen; not, indeed, in their own good ship, but by an express train, by its east gate, from Hamburgh. The Hansa men may safely await the judgment of their contemporaries, for throughout the narrative, good discipline, a hearty esprit de corps, unmurmuring submission to the inevitable—whatever it might be—and a determination to do and dare whatever might appear for their mutual advantage, appear on every page. Germany may well be proud of such sons—Arctic heroes every one of them. The fortunes of the Germania were less eventful.
Lieutenant Payer, while out on a sledging expedition, made an important discovery. On Kuhn Island he found a seam of coal, in places eighteen inches in thickness, alternating with sandstone. It would be strange if in some future age our supply of warmth should be furnished from Arctic fuel. Many fine zoological and botanical specimens were collected by the scientific gentlemen connected with this expedition. The leading discovery was that of a large inlet in lat. 73° 15′ N., which was named after the Emperor Franz Josef. Surrounding it were mountain peaks ranging as high as 14,000 feet. The Germania reached Bremen on September 11th, 1870—but a few days after the arrival of their brethren of the Hansa, and at a period when all Germany was en fête on account of their recent victories.
CHAPTER XXXI.
Hall’s Expedition—The Austro-Hungarian Expedition—Nordenskjöld.
Captain Hall’s Expedition—High Latitude Attained—Open Water Seen—Death of Hall—The Polaris Beset—An Abandoned Party—Six Months on a Floating Ice-floe—Rescue—Loss of the Steamer—Investigation at Washington—The Austro-Hungarian Expedition—The Tegethoff hopelessly Beset in the Ice—Two Long Weary Years—Perils from the Ice Pressure—Ramparts raised round the Ship—The Polar Night—Loss of a Coal-hut—Attempts to Escape—A Grand Discovery—Franz Josef Land—Sledging Parties—Gigantic Glaciers—The Steamer Abandoned—Boat and Sledge Journey to the Bay of Downs—Prof. Nordenskjöld’s Voyage—The North-East Passage an accomplished Fact.
But little record has been made, except in transient literature and Government reports, of the expedition concerning which we are about to write. Captain Charles Francis Hall’s name is, with the public, more intimately associated with “Life with the Esquimaux,” and but little with the fact that he succeeded in taking a vessel to a higher latitude than ever reached in that way before. He returned to America in 1869, having for five years lived with, and to a great extent as the natives, the result being that, excepting many errors of taste and style, he succeeded in producing a work which has a very special ethnological value. Before it had issued from the press, he had, encouraged by the then Secretary of the United States Navy, laid a plan before Congress for attempting to reach the North Pole viâ Smith Sound. He eventually succeeded in obtaining a grant of fifty thousand dollars for the purpose, while an old U.S. river gun-boat was placed at his disposal. She was re-named the Polaris. It was understood that no naval officer should accompany him, and he therefore engaged a whaling captain, one S. O. Buddington, to navigate the vessel. Two scientific gentlemen, Dr. Bessels and Mr. Meyer, accompanied him, as did Morton, Kane’s trusty friend, who has been so often mentioned in these pages.
The expedition sailed in the summer of 1871, and after having touched at Disco, Greenland, proceeded up Smith Sound, Kane Basin, and Kennedy Channel, across Polaris Bay (discovered and designated by Hall), eventually reaching 82° 16′ N., the highest latitude ever attained by a ship prior to Captain Nares’s expedition. Ice impeded their further progress. The strait into which they had entered was named after Mr. Robeson, and from the point which they had so speedily and easily attained, a water horizon was seen to the north-east. The vessel was laid up in a harbour named Thank-God Bay, where Captain Hall, after sundry minor explorations, died on November 8th, having endured severe suffering, the symptoms indicating paralysis and congestion of the brain. During his delirium he had expressed the opinion that they were trying to poison him, and before he would touch medicine, food, or wine, he made his clerk taste it. This being repeated at home, on the return of the expedition, a Government investigation of a careful and detailed nature took place at Washington, but led to nothing being elicited beyond the facts of a want of esprit de corps among some of the members, and that there had been some disagreeable dissensions on board. Captain Buddington had no ambition to distinguish himself in the field of science, which he evidently despised, being probably what is called a “practical” man—that is, one who must have immediate gain before his eyes to stir him to exertion—and there does not appear to have been any very earnest feeling on the part of the others. Hall died almost on the spot with which his name must ever [pg 269]be associated, and it is a melancholy fact that he should not have lived to reap the honours and rewards due to so much enterprise. The Polaris, a steam vessel of small power, and unadapted for the Arctic seas, had been taken to a point which the finest vessels ever employed in the exploration of the far north had previously failed in reaching.