To give some idea of the intense cold they had to encounter it may be stated that, at the highest altitude they reached,—9,272 feet above the sea,—the temperature fell to below -49° Fahrenheit, and this, too, in the tent at night, the thermometer being under Nansen’s pillow. And all this toil and labor, be it remembered, went on from Aug. 16 to the end of September, with sleighs weighing on an average about two hundred and twenty pounds each, in drifting snow-dust, worse than even the sandstorms of Sahara.
In order to lighten their labor, Nansen resolved to use sails on the sleighs—a proceeding which Balto highly disapproved of: “Such mad people he had never seen before, to want to sail over the snow! He was a Lapp, he was, and there was nothing they could teach him on land. It was the greatest nonsense he had ever heard of!”
Sledging across Greenland.
Sails, however, were forthcoming, notwithstanding Balto’s objections; and they sat and stitched them with frozen fingers in the midst of the snow. But it was astonishing what a help they proved to be; and so they proceeded on their way, after slightly altering their course in the direction of Godthaab.[3]
Thus, then, we see these solitary beings, looking like dark spots moving on an infinite expanse of snow, wending their way ever onward, Nansen and Sverdrup side by side, ski-staff and ice-axe in hand, in front, earnestly gazing ahead as they dragged the heavy sleigh, while close behind followed Dietrichson and Kristiansen, Balto and Ravna bringing up the rear, each dragging a smaller sleigh. So it went on for weeks; and though it tried their strength, and put their powers of endurance to a most severe test, yet, if ever the thought of “giving it up” arose in their minds, it was at once scouted by all the party, the two Lapps excepted. One day Balto complained loudly to Nansen. “When you asked us,” he said, “in Christiania, what weight we could drag, we told you we could manage one hundredweight each, but now we have double that weight, and all I can say is, that, if we can drag these loads over to the west coast, we are stronger than horses.”
Onward, however, they went, in spite of the cold, which at times was so intense that their beards froze fast to their jerseys, facing blinding snowstorms that well-nigh made old Ravna desperate. The only bright moments they enjoyed were when sleeping or at their meals. The sleeping-bags, indeed, were a paradise; their meals, ideals of perfect bliss.
Unfortunately, Nansen had not taken a sufficient supply of fatty food with him, and to such an extent did the craving for fat go, that Sverdrup one day seriously suggested that they should eat boot-grease—a compound of boiled grease and old linseed oil! Their great luxury was to eat raw butter, and smoke a pipe after it. First they would smoke the fragrant weed pure and simple; when that was done, the tobacco ash, followed by the oil as long as it would burn; and when this was all exhausted, they would smoke tarred yarn, or anything else that was a bit tasty! Nansen, who neither smoked nor chewed, would content himself with a chip of wood, or a sliver off one of the “truger” (snowshoes). “It tasted good,” he said, “and kept his mouth moist.”
Finally, on Sept. 14, they had reached their highest altitude, and now began to descend toward the coast, keeping a sharp lookout for “land ahead.” But none was yet to be seen, and one day Ravna’s patience completely gave way. With sobs and moans he said to Nansen,—
“I’m an old Fjeld-Lapp, and a silly old fool! I’m sure we shall never get to the coast!”