The noble mountain forms and mighty glaciers of Crown Prince Rudolf Land could be seen in the distance. Pursuing their course in a westerly direction they reached Hohenlohe Island the next day, where the expedition encamped, and the party divided, the smaller continuing to the north for the purpose of examining the glaciers of Rudolf Land.
A disaster occurred the first day after their departure which nearly proved fatal to the success of their undertaking. While crossing the Middendorf glacier, the snow gave way beneath a sledge, which precipitated one of the men, Zaninovich by name, the dogs and sledge, into a crevasse. “From an unknown depth,” writes Payer, “I heard a man’s voice mingled with the howling of dogs. All this was the impression of a moment, while I felt myself dragged backwards by the rope. Staggering back, and seeing the dark abyss beneath me, I could not doubt that I should be precipitated into it the next instant. A wonderful Providence arrested the fall of the sledge; at a depth of about thirty feet it stuck fast between the sides of the crevasse, just as I was being dragged to the edge of the abyss by its weight. The sledge having jammed itself in, I lay on my stomach close to the awful brink, the rope which attached me to the sledge tightly strained, and cutting deep into the snow. The situation was all the more dreadful as I, the only person present accustomed to the dangers of glaciers, lay there unable to stir. When I cried down to Zaninovich that I would cut the rope, he implored me not to do it, for if I did, the sledge would turn over, and he would be killed. For a time I lay quiet, considering what was to be done. By and by it flashed into my memory, how I and my guide had once fallen down a wall of ice in the Irtler Mountains, eight hundred feet high, and had escaped. This inspired me with confidence to venture on a rescue, desperate as it seemed under the circumstances. Orel had now come up, and, although he had never been on a glacier before, this gallant officer dauntlessly advanced to the edge of the crevasse, and laying himself on his stomach, looked down into the abyss, and cried to me, ‘Zaninovich is lying on a ledge of snow in the crevasse, with precipices all round him and the dogs are still attached to the traces of the sledge, which has stuck fast.’ I called to him to throw me his knife, which he did with such dexterity, that I was able to lay hold of it without difficulty, and as the only means of rescue, I severed the trace which was fastened round my waist. The sledge made a short turn, and then stuck fast again. I immediately sprang to my feet, drew off my canvas boots, and sprang over the crevasse, which was about ten feet broad. I now caught sight of Zaninovich and the dogs, and shouted to him, that I would run back to Hohenlohe Island to fetch men and ropes for his rescue, and that rescued he would be, if he could contrive for four hours to keep himself from being frozen. I heard his answer: ‘Fate, Signore, fate pure!’ and then Orel and I disappeared. Heedless of the crevasses which lay in our path, or of the bears which might attack us, we ran down the glacier back to Cape Schrotter, six miles off. Only one thought possessed us—the rescue of Zaninovich, the jewel and pride of our party, and the recovery of our invaluable store of provisions, and of the book containing our journals, which, if lost, could never be replaced. But even apart from my personal feeling for Zaninovich, I keenly felt the reproaches to which I should be exposed of incautious travelling on glaciers; and it gave me no comfort to think that my previous experiences in this kind of travelling over the glaciers of Greenland appeared to justify my proceedings. Stung with these reflections, I pressed on at the top of my speed, leaving Orel far behind me. Bathed with perspiration, I threw off my bird-skin garments, my boots, my gloves, and my shawl, and ran in my stockings through the deep snow. After passing the labyrinth of icebergs I saw the rocky pyramid of Cape Schrotter before me in the distance. The success of my venture depended on the weather. If snow driving should set in, and the footprints should be obliterated, it would be impossible to find Hohenlohe Island. All around me it was fearfully lonely. Encompassed by glaciers, I was absolutely alone. At last I saw Klotz emerge from behind an iceberg at some distance off, and though I continued to shout his name till I almost reached him, I failed to rouse him from his usual reverie. When at last he saw me breathlessly pushing on, scarcely clothed, and constantly calling, his sack slipped from his back, and he stared at me as if he had lost his senses. When the hardy son of the mountains came to understand that Zaninovich with the sledge was buried in the crevasse, he began to weep, in his simplicity of heart taking the blame of what had happened on himself. He was so agitated and disturbed, that I made him promise that he would do himself no mischief, and then, leaving him to his moody silence, I ran on again towards the island. It seemed as if I should never reach Cape Schrotter; with head bent down I trudged on, counting my steps through the deep snow; when I raised it again, after a little time, it was always the same black spot that I saw on the distant horizon. At last I came near it, saw the tent, saw some dark spots creep out of it, saw them gather together, and then run down the snow-slope. These were the friends we had left behind. A few words of explanation, with an exhortation to abstain from idle lamentations, were enough. They at once detached a second rope from the large sledge, and got hold of a long tent-pole. Meanwhile I had rushed upon the cooking-machine, quickly melted a little snow to quench my raging thirst, and then we all set off again—Haller, Sussick, Lukinovich, and myself—to the Middendorf glacier. Tent and provisions were left unwatched; we ran back for three hours and a half; fears for Zaninovich gave such wings to my steps, that my companions were scarcely able to keep up with me. Ever and anon, I had to stop to drink some rum. At the outset, we met Orel, and rather later Klotz, both making for Cape Schrotter, Klotz to remain behind there, and Orel to return with us at once to Middendorf glacier. When we came among the icebergs under Cape Habermann, I picked up, one by one, the clothes I had thrown away. Reaching the glacier, we tied ourselves together with a rope. Going before the rest I approached with beating heart the place, where the sledge had disappeared four hours and a half ago. A dark abyss yawned before us; not a sound issued from its depths, not even when I lay on the ground and shouted. At last I heard the whining of a dog, and then an unintelligible answer from Zaninovich. Haller was quickly let down by a rope; he found him still living, but almost frozen, on a ledge of snow forty feet down the crevasse. Fastening himself and Zaninovich to the rope, they were drawn up after great exertion. A storm of greetings saluted Zaninovich, stiff and speechless though he was, when he appeared on the surface of the glacier. I need not add that we gave him some rum to stimulate his vital energies. It was a noble proof how duty and discipline assert themselves, even in such situations, that the first word of this sailor, saved from being frozen to death, was not a complaint, but thanks, accompanied with a request that I would pardon him if he, in order to save himself from being frozen, had ventured to drink a portion of the rum, which had fallen down in its case with the sledge to his ledge of snow. Haller again descended, and fastened the dogs to a rope. The clever animals had freed themselves from their traces in some inexplicable way, and had sprung to a narrow ledge, where Haller found them, close to where Zaninovich had lain. It was astonishing how quickly they discerned the danger of the position and how great was their confidence in us. They had slept the whole time, as Zaninovich afterwards told us, and he had carefully avoided touching them lest they should fall down deeper into the abyss. We drew them up with some difficulty, and they gave expression to their joy, first by rolling themselves vigorously in the snow, and then by licking our hands. We then raised Haller by the rope some ten feet higher than the ledge on which Zaninovich had lain, so that he might be able to cut the ropes which fastened the loading of the firmly wedged in sledge. At this moment, Orel arrived, and with his help we raised one by one the articles with which the sledge was loaded. It was ten o’clock before we were convinced that we had lost nothing of any importance in the crevasse.”
CAPE FLIGELY
On April 12, 1874, Payer and his companions attained their farthest north, 82° 5´ north latitude; on that day they stood on a promontory about one thousand feet high, to which the name of Cape Fligely was given.
“Rudolf Land still stretched in a northeasterly direction,” writes Payer, “to wards a Cape, Cape Sherard Osborne—though it was impossible to determine its further course and connection.”
In the distant north, blue mountain ranges indicated masses of land and to these the names of King Oscar Land and Petermann Land were given. “Proudly we planted the Austro-Hungarian flag,” continues Payer, “for the first time in the high North. A document we enclosed in a bottle and deposited in a cleft of rock.” The return to the ship was rendered doubly hazardous by the insecurity of the ice, and the increasing water holes.
The results of the journey may be summed up as follows—Payer found the newly discovered country to be about the size of Spitzbergen, and consisting of two large masses, Wilczek Land to the East, and Zichy Land to the west, intersected by numerous fjords and skirted by many islands. Austria Sound divides the two main masses of land and extends to 82° N., where Rawlinson Sound forks off to the northeast. The mountains reach a height of two thousand to three thousand feet; glaciers abound in the ravines, and even the islands are covered with a glacial cap.
A third sledge journey was undertaken by Lieutenant Payer on April 29 to explore a large island named after M’Clintock.
HOME
The momentous day, May 20, on which the Tegetthoff was abandoned, came at last. Three boats were selected by the return expedition. Two of these were Norwegian whale-boats, twenty feet long, five feet broad, and two and one-half deep; the third was somewhat smaller.