“Tuesday, July 21st. Have at last got a good wind from the north which is sending the ice out to sea. There is nothing but open sea to be seen this evening; now perhaps there is hope of soon seeing the vessel.
“Wednesday, July 22d. Continual changes and continual disappointments. Yesterday hope was strong; to-day the wind has changed to the southeast, and driven the ice in again. We may still have to wait a long time.
Johansen in Jackson’s Saloon
“Sunday, July 26th. The vessel has come at last. I was awakened this morning by feeling some one pull my legs. It was Jackson, who, with beaming countenance, announced that the Windward had come. I jumped up and looked out of the window. There she was, just beyond the edge of the ice, steaming slowly in to find an anchorage. Wonderful to see a ship again! How high the rigging seemed, and the hull! It was like an island. There would be tidings on board from the great world far beyond.”
There was a great stir. Every man was up, arrayed in the most wonderful costumes, to gaze out of the window. Jackson and Blomqvist rushed off as soon as they had got on their clothes. As I scarcely had anything to do on board at present I went to bed again, but it was not long before Blomqvist came panting back, sent by the thoughtful Jackson, to say that all was well at home, and that nothing had been heard of the Fram. This was the first thing Jackson had asked about. I felt my heart as light as a feather. He said, too, that when Jackson had told the men who had come to meet him on the ice about us and our journey, they had greeted the intelligence with three hearty cheers.
I had hardly slept two hours that night, and not much more the night before. I tried to sleep, but there was no rest to be had; I might just as well dress and go on board. As I drew near the vessel I was greeted with ringing cheers by the whole crew gathered on the deck, where I was heartily received by the excellent Captain Brown, commander of the Windward; by Dr. Bruce and Mr. Wilton, who were both to winter with Jackson, and by the ship’s company. We went below into the roomy, snug cabin, and all kinds of news were eagerly swallowed by listening ears, while an excellent breakfast with fresh potatoes and other delicacies glided down past a palate which needed less than that to satisfy it. There were remarkable pieces of news indeed. One of the first was that now they could photograph people through doors several inches thick. I confess I pricked up my ears at this information. That they could photograph a bullet buried in a person’s body was wonderful too, but nothing to this. And then we heard that the Japanese had thrashed the Chinese, and a good deal more. Not least remarkable, we thought, was the interest which the whole world now seemed to take in the Arctic regions. Spitzbergen had become a tourist country; a Norwegian steamship company (the Vesteraalen) had started a regular passenger service to it,[16] a hotel had been built up there, and there was a post-office and a Spitzbergen stamp. And then we heard that Andrée was there waiting for wind to go to the Pole in a balloon. If we had pursued our course to Spitzbergen we should thus have dropped into the very middle of all this. We should have found a hotel and tourists, and should have been brought home in a comfortable modern steamboat, very different from the whaling-sloop we had been talking of all the winter, and, indeed, all the previous year. People are apt to think that it would be amusing to see themselves, and I form no exception to this rule. I would have given a good deal to see us in our unwashed, unsophisticated condition, as we came out of our winter lair, plumping into the middle of a band of English tourists, male and female. I doubt whether there would then have been much embracing or shaking of hands, but I don’t doubt that there would have been a great deal of peering through ventilators or any other loophole that could have been found.
The Windward had left London on June 9th, and Vardö on the 25th. They had brought four reindeer with them for Jackson, but no horses, as he had expected.[17] One reindeer had died on the voyage.
Every one was now busily employed in unlading the Windward, and bringing to land the supplies of provisions, coal, reindeer-moss, and other such things which it had brought for the expedition. Both the ship’s crew and the members of the English expedition took part in this work, which proceeded rapidly, and had soon made a level road over the uneven ice; and now load after load was driven on sledges to land. In less than a week Captain Brown was ready to start for home, and only awaited Jackson’s letters and telegrams. They took a few more days, and then everything was ready. In the meantime, however, a gale had sprung up, blowing on the shore, the Windward’s moorings at the edge of the ice had given way, she was set adrift and obliged to seek a haven farther in, where, however, it was so shallow that there was only one or two feet of water beneath her keel. Meanwhile, the wind drove the ice in, the navigable water closed in all round it outside, and the floes were continually drawing nearer. For a time the situation looked anything but pleasant; but fortunately the ice did not reach the vessel, and she thus escaped being screwed out of the water. After a delay of a couple of days on this account the vessel got out again.
And now we were to bid adieu to this last station on our route, where we had met with such a cordial and hospitable reception. A feverish energy came over the little colony. Those who were going home had to make themselves ready for the voyage, and those who were to remain had to bring their letters and other things on board. This, however, was sufficiently difficult. The vessel lay waiting impatiently and incessantly sounding her steam-whistle; and a quantity of loose ice had packed itself together outside the edge of the shore-ice, so that it was not easy to move. At last, however, those who were to remain had gone on shore, and we who were going home were all on board—that is to say, Mr. Fisher, the botanist; Mr. Child, the chemist; Mr. Burgess; and the Finn, Blomqvist, of the English expedition, along with Johansen and myself. As the sun burst through the clouds above Cape Flora we waved our hats, and sent our last cheer as a farewell to the six men standing like a little dark spot on the floe in that great icy solitude; and under full sail and steam we set out on August 7th, with a fair wind, over the undulating surface of the ocean, towards the south.