Hunting and exploring excursions were sent out from the Vega with varying success; as the seasons advanced the natives were threatened with the usual scarcity of food, which was largely relieved by the generosity of the Europeans. A most careful and thorough study was made of these natives, their characteristics, mode of life, manners, speech, and customs.
RETURN OF THE “VEGA”
On July 18, the Vega was liberated from the ice, after having been imprisoned two hundred and ninety-four days.
After a lapse of three hundred and twenty-six years, when Sir Hugh Willoughby made the first attempt at a northeast passage, the Vega sailed through Behring Strait, July 20, 1879, being the first vessel to penetrate by the north from one of the great world oceans to another. The Vega anchored at Yokohama on the evening of the 2d of September.
“On our arrival off Yokohama,” writes Nordenskjöld, “we were all in good health and the Vega in excellent condition, though, after the long voyage, in want of some minor repair, of docking, and possibly of coppering. Naturally among thirty men some mild attacks of illness could not be avoided in the course of a year, but no disease had been generally prevalent, and our state of health had constantly been excellent. Of scurvy we had not seen a trace.”
From Yokohama the news of the Vega’s success was telegraphed throughout the world, and the homeward journey of the expedition, via Hong Kong, Singapore, Suez, Naples, Lisbon, Copenhagen, to Stockholm was one of triumphant progress; each country trying to outdo the others in giving a royal welcome to the gallant explorers. The Vega reached Stockholm April 24, 1880, after a journey of twenty-two thousand one hundred eighty-nine miles.
CHAPTER XVII
British expedition of 1875.—The Alert and Discovery.—Captain George S. Nares, F. R. S., Albert H. Markham, F. R. G. S.—Two voyages of the Pandora, 1875-1876.—Schwatka’s search for the Franklin records, 1878-1879.
