1. Every Arctic expedition should be guided by the experience of its predecessors, both in its plan and its equipment; and hence we have often to deplore the negligence of almost all Polar navigators in failing to inform those who follow them of what they actually saw, of their modes of procedure, or of the mistakes which they committed. It will not, therefore, be labour thrown away, if we state our own experience and record our own observations for the guidance of others, in order to show, with the utmost possible clearness, what future explorers have before them, and how best to meet it.
2. Undivided command in an expedition is the first of all rules; but if there be any division of command in a subordinate expedition by sea or land, the duties and rights of its commander must be clearly and exactly defined. In recent times the command of a Polar expedition has sometimes been conferred not on a seaman, but on a man of science, as in the cases of Kane, Hayes, Nordenskjöld, and Torell. Where the investigation of questions connected with Natural History is the aim and object, this precedent is admissible, but it should never be observed where the commander has an important part to fulfil as a navigator. The command of an expedition has never been conferred on a man of science by the English government. In the very commencement, indeed, of Polar discovery, an English expedition was placed under the command of Sir Hugh Willoughby, who was not bred a sailor, but down to the seventeenth century, even in their naval campaigns, such men were appointed to naval commands. The Dutch expeditions of the sixteenth century generally adopted a destructive division of command, under supercargoes and pilots, representing the mercantile and nautical elements: confusion and discord were the inevitable consequences.
3. Next to the selection of a commander, the selection of the crew demands the greatest care. This ought to be made some time before the expedition starts, in order that those unfit for the service may be discovered, and their places supplied by others; this cautious mode of procedure, and not a preference for any particular nationality, will secure the most effective crew. Although seamanlike qualities do not belong in the same degree to every nation, time and pains only are needed to secure a picked crew for a North-Pole expedition from almost any nation. Endurance of cold is not the only test of effectiveness, although this is a very common assumption; but a sense of duty, perseverance, and resolution are the virtues of a seaman. Habit soon teaches men to conquer cold, and inexorable necessity often hardens weaklings into heroes for Arctic discovery. A certain degree of intelligence is of high importance in the crew. In many cases resolution in the midst of dangers depends on their capacity to observe and think, even on their possessing certain branches of knowledge. The greater part of the crew of the Tegetthoff had these advantages. But men who, in a heavily-laded sledge, leave the old and take to recently-formed ice, without noticing the difference,—who observe a frost-bitten foot several hours after the mischief has been done,—who lose their cartridges, know nothing of their rifle, and little more of their compass, or who pass on without observing the configurations of the land, possess an indifference indeed, but of a kind very dangerous to themselves and to the whole party, though they may despise death as much as Achilles is said to have done.
4. An intelligent crew, from their greater feeling of independence, is, however, more difficult to command than an ignorant one. Devotion and blind confidence are more rarely found in an educated crew; their amenability to discipline is dependent on the good example, the kindness and unalterable calmness of those who may command them. The law of a Polar expedition is obedience, and its basis morality. Punishments are in such situations a miserable and depressing means for the preservation of order, and then employment, especially in a private undertaking, will tend rather to loosen than to maintain the bonds of discipline. If Parry, in 1820, caused corporal punishments to be inflicted, this proves the greater facility with which discipline is maintained on board of a man-of-war, but not its appropriateness generally. Coercion and threats produce no effect; and hence the folly of attempting to secure success by sending out again those who returned without having achieved anything, which was done last century by the authorities of St. Petersburg with every unsuccessful enterprise on the Arctic coasts of Siberia. The regulation that the most meritorious among the crew shall be specially rewarded, after the return of the expedition, provides for the recognition of merit, without exciting ill feeling in the less worthy. For the officers scientific success may be a perfect reward of their toils, but for the crew the reward should consist of more material advantages. Money, indeed, seems a feeble motive of action to men destined to withstand for years the inclemency of Arctic winters, and uncertain whether they shall ever return; but, notwithstanding, it is the only form by which men without sympathy for the aims of science can be gained for the attainment of such objects. The crews of Sir John Ross received for a martyrdom of four years passed in the ice about £100 a head; in the second German expedition from eight to twelve thalers were the monthly pay of each sailor. The pay of the sledgers in the Tegetthoff was, however, nearly four times as much; in some sledge journeys it amounted to 3,000 gulden a man.
5. Contrary to what might be expected, the re-employment of those who have served before is not to be recommended as a rule. The very best only should be re-enlisted. The others are too much disposed to place their experience on a level with that of their commanders; and in all cases, where their opinions differ from those of their officers, they damage by a kind of passive opposition the fundamental law of an expedition—obedience. Those who enter the Arctic regions for the first time are wont to receive the orders of an experienced commander with an attention as unquestioning as it is respectful. Married men also should be excluded, as they were by Barentz in his second (1596) expedition.
6. Some of the crew should be good shots, good pedestrians and mountaineers, but all must be of the same nationality, and in perfect health. The least symptom of rheumatism, of diseases of the lungs and the eyes, and of certain chronic maladies only too common among seamen, unfit them for the endurance of the Polar climate, and especially for sledge expeditions. Those who are addicted to drink are peculiarly liable to the scurvy.
7. The medical man of an expedition, besides professional skill and experience, must possess the most imperturbable patience, for to many of his patients he is not less a physician of the mind than of the body. He should convince himself of the sanitary condition of the crew before the expedition starts, although it may have been previously investigated by medical authorities and declared satisfactory.
8. Since an expedition, in addition to its scientific functions, should take up the illustration of Nature at the Pole, the employment of a photographer, but still better of an artist, is very desirable, for the former is too much confined to the immediate neighbourhood of the ship in his operations.
9. The records of Arctic adventure in former days tell us of equipments strangely incompatible with the object pursued. Their commercial purpose constrained them to fill the hold with bales of silk, instead of provisions for years; but the letters of recommendation which were given to the explorers of the North-East passage for the Saracen princes on the route to Chatai seem peculiarly ludicrous. Some justification may be discovered for Owczyn taking a priest with him on his Siberian expedition (1734), but hardly for his wanting fifty-seven men in a vessel only seventy feet long, and arming it with eight falconets. The employment of a drummer, twelve privates and a corporal, on Gmelin’s scientific Siberian expedition, is still more unintelligible; more so than Davis’s band of music, which was intended to charm the feelings of the Eskimos and dispose them to peaceful proceedings, his predecessor Frobisher having had the saddest experience of their barbarism. Other expeditions by the too plentiful distribution of knives and hatchets among the Eskimos placed them in a position seriously to threaten the white man, and even at the present day the so-called “Wilden-kiste” often contains articles little calculated to inspire the natives with a high opinion of our moral superiority.
10. In fitting out a Polar expedition, all respect should be paid to the principle of bestowing on those who are for a time banished, the greatest possible amount of comfort. The proportions of a ship, and the space at its disposal, narrow the limits available for this end; and since the return to the employment, as at the first, of small vessels, even these limits have been considerably diminished.