By degrees the crew got things in order and settled down for the winter in their fairly comfortable though not particularly secure abode. Occasionally they had a bad fright. On the afternoon of January 2, for example, as they were resting after dinner, they heard “a scraping, blustering, crackling, sawing, grating, and jarring sound, as if some unhappy ghost was wandering under our floe. Perplexed, we all jumped up and went out; we thought that our store-house had fallen in. Some of the sailors, going in front with the lamp, carefully searched the path to it. But in whatever direction the light fell on the sparkling and glittering ice-walls we saw nothing. Immovable hung the rigid icicles, often a foot long; evidently nothing was amiss here. We rummaged in the snow path before the house. Although completely snowed up (indeed, the whole house was buried more than a foot deep in ice), we all rushed out, but, of course, we could not see more than the steps, nor hear anything but the howling of the storm. Still, between whiles, we could detect the same rubbing and grinding. For a change we laid ourselves flat down, with our ears to the floor, and could then hear a rustling like the singing of ice when closely jammed, and as if water was running under our great floe. There could be no doubt that it stood in great danger of being smashed to pieces, either from drifting over sunken rocks and bursting up, or breaking over the ice-border; perhaps both at once. We packed our furs and filled our knapsacks with provisions. Our position, if the floe should be destroyed, seemed hopeless.”

Next morning they found that huge masses of the floe in the neighbourhood of the house had broken off, and, on the following day, when the storm had cleared off and they were able to take a careful survey of the situation, they discovered, to their horror, that it was not half its former size. The distance from the house to the edge of the ice, which was once 500 paces, was now only 200; except on one side, where the distance, formerly 3000 paces, was now diminished to 1000, while the diameter of the floe, which, before the storm was two nautical miles, was now barely one. The worst, however, was yet to come, for on January 11 splits appeared in the immediate neighbourhood of the house, which so reduced the floe that it soon measured only 150 feet in diameter, and on this frail raft the unfortunate crew experienced one of the most terrific storms that they had encountered. By a miracle they escaped with their lives, and by the beginning of February their trials, which they had borne with marvellous patience, were practically over.

During the whole of this time they had been drifting steadily south within sight of the barren shore of Greenland, which, unfortunately, the ice had never allowed them to reach. On May 7, however, the sea cleared, and it need hardly be said that they seized gladly on the opportunity of taking to their boats, in which they reached Friedrichsthal on June 7. There they received a ready welcome from the Moravian missionaries, and eventually secured a passage home from Julianshaab, a seaport on the west coast of South Greenland.

In the meanwhile, Koldewey, after waiting some time for the Hansa, was obliged by the approach of winter to find a harbour for his ship off Pendulum Islands. In the spring he went out on a sledging expedition with Payer, during the course of which he reached lat. 77° 01′, the highest point attained up till then on the east coast of Greenland. While sailing home in the summer, he discovered the magnificent Franz Josef Fiord, at the head of which Mount Petermann rears its head to a height of at least 12,000 feet above the sea.

CHAPTER XXII
THE VOYAGE OF THE “TEGETTHOFF”

Many routes to the North Pole had now been tried and found wanting. Expeditions had started out by Behring Strait, through Smith Sound, up the eastern coast of Greenland and from Spitzbergen, but they had one and all been frustrated by those great Arctic currents, which, rushing down from the Polar basin, carried with them such quantities of ice that real progress towards the Pole was practically impossible. There still remained one route, however, which had scarcely been tried at all, namely that which lay round the north-east shores of Nova Zembla. Many noted geographers held that the Gulf Stream did not disappear at the North Cape, and that by following its warmer waters it might be possible to avoid the Arctic currents and the difficulties which followed in their train. It was with a view to testing this theory that the Austrian expedition of 1872-74 set out in the Tegetthoff, under the joint command of Lieutenant Carl Weyprecht, to whom was entrusted all matters connected with navigation, and Lieutenant Julius Payer, who was to be responsible for the conduct of the sledging operations.

In June 1871 Weyprecht and Payer sailed in the Isbjörn on a preliminary excursion to spy out the land, or rather, perhaps, the sea, and, the result of their observations being entirely satisfactory, it was definitely decided that they should adventure in that direction in the following year. The Tegetthoff, a steamer of 220 tons burden, was accordingly put in a state of thorough repair and fitted out for two years and a half. Her crew numbered twenty-two, so that, with her commanders, she carried twenty-four souls, as well as eight dogs.

The expedition sailed from Tromsö on July 14, and eleven days later ice was sighted. At first it afforded them no serious difficulties, for the Tegetthoff was enabled by her steam power to charge the floes and so to force her way through those round which she could not sail. On August 20, however, she was brought to a dead stop by a barrier of ice in lat. 76° 22´ N., long. 63° 3´ E. “Ominous were the events of that day,” says Payer, “for immediately after we had made the Tegetthoff fast to that floe, the ice closed in upon us from all sides, and we became close prisoners in its grasp. No water was to be seen around us, and never again were we destined to see our vessel in water.... We were, in fact, no longer discoverers, but passengers against our will on the ice. From day to day we hoped for the hour of our deliverance! At first we expected it hourly, then daily, then from week to week; then at the seasons of the year and changes of the weather, then in the chances of new years! But that hour never came.”

The Tegetthoff, firmly fixed on her floe, now became the sport of the winds, for in that sea it is the wind that controls the ice-movements. By October 12 she had travelled so far northward that Nova Zembla had completely disappeared from view. On the next day a great excitement took place, for the floe burst right under the ship. “Rushing on deck,” says Payer, “we discovered that we were surrounded and squeezed by the ice; the after-part of the ship was already nipped and pressed, and the rudder, which was the first to encounter its assault, shook and groaned; but as its great weight did not admit of its being shipped, we were content to lash it firmly. We next sprang on the ice, the tossing, tremulous motion of which literally filled the air with noises, as of shrieks and howls, and we quickly got on board all the materials which were lying on the floe, and bound the fissures of the ice hastily together by ice-anchors and cables.... But, just as in the risings of a people, the wave of revolt spreads on every side, so now the ice uprose against us. Mountains threateningly reared themselves from out the level fields of ice, and the low groans which issued from its depths grew into a deep rumbling sound, and at last rose into a furious howl as of myriads of voices. Noise and confusion reigned supreme, and step by step destruction drew nigh in the crashing together of the fields of ice. Our floe was now crushed, and its blocks, piled up into mountains, drove hither and thither. Here they towered fathoms high above the ship, and forced the projecting timbers of massive oak, as if in mockery of their purpose, against the hull of the vessel; there masses of ice fell down as into an abyss under the ship, to be engulfed in the rushing waters, so that the quantity of ice beneath the ship was continually increased, and at last it began to raise her quite above the level of the sea. About 11.30 in the forenoon, according to our usual custom, a portion of the Bible was read on deck, and this day, quite accidentally, the portion read was the history of Joshua; but if in his day the sun stood still, it was more than the ice showed any inclination to do.... In all haste we began to make ready to abandon the ship, in case it should be crushed, a fate which seemed inevitable, if she were not sufficiently raised through the pressure of the ice. At 12.30 the pressure reached a frightful height, every part of the vessel strained and groaned; the crew, who had been sent down to dine, rushed on deck. The Tegetthoff had heeled over on her side, and huge pillars of ice threatened to precipitate themselves upon her. But the pressure abated, and the ship righted herself; and about one o’clock, when the danger was in some degree over, the crew went below to dine. But again a strain was felt through the vessel, everything which hung freely began to oscillate violently, and all hastened on deck, some with the unfinished dinner in their hands, others stuffing it into their pockets.”

Instantly the last preparations were made for leaving the ship—“whither no one pretended to know: for not a fragment of the ice around us had remained whole; nowhere could the eye discover a still perfect and uninjured floe, to serve as a place of refuge, as a vast floe had before been to the crew of the Hansa. Nay, not a block, not a table of ice was at rest, all shapes and sizes of it were in active motion, some turning and twisting, none on the level. A sledge would at once have been swallowed up.”