The conduct of the crew was on the whole praiseworthy. Their obedience to command, their perseverance and resolution shown on every occasion, will be cited as an example of what these virtues and qualities can achieve amid the most appalling dangers and trials.
With regard to my narrative, I make no claim for it founded on its literary excellence; rather I sue for indulgence to its manifold shortcomings. I have not written for the man of science, though I have not shunned a few scientific details. Nor have I aimed at presenting a record, which might be profitable to those who shall follow us in the same career of discovery, though some hints will be found in my pages which will not be without their use to those who may consult them for information and guidance. Rather I have endeavoured to narrate our sufferings, adventures, and discoveries in a manner which shall be interesting to the general reader who reads to amuse himself.
The magnetical and meteorological observations, so carefully taken and tabulated by Weyprecht, Brosch, and Orel, together with the sketches of the Fauna of the Frozen Ocean, drawn by myself from the collection of Dr. Kepes, were presented to the Imperial Academy of Sciences of Vienna, and will in due time be published under the auspices of that august body.
PRELIMINARY NOTICE BY THE TRANSLATOR.
It will be interesting to English readers to learn a few particulars concerning the two leaders of the Austrian North Polar Expeditions. Carl Weyprecht was born in Hesse-Darmstadt in 1838, and in his eighteenth year entered the Austrian navy. Ten years afterwards he was present at the action between the Austrian and Italian fleets at Lissa—July 20, 1866; was promoted to the rank of lieutenant of the second class, and decorated with the order of the Iron Cross in recognition of his services in that battle. It was shortly after this, that Weyprecht volunteered to take the command of a small vessel, manned by only four seamen, which was to sail from Hammerfest to explore the Arctic Ocean. This dauntless offer was the basis of the first German North Polar expedition. When, however, permission to act in this capacity was obtained, Lieutenant Weyprecht was serving on board the Austrian frigate Elizabeth, which formed one of the squadron sent by the Austrian Government to bring home the body of the ill-fated Maximilian. Immediately on his return to Europe he repaired to Gotha, eager to place his services at the command of the expedition which had meantime been planned by Petermann and a committee of patrons of Arctic exploration. But unhappily, just at this moment his health, which had suffered from fever caught at New Orleans, failed, and the command of the expedition, known as the first German North Polar Expedition (May 24-October 10, 1868), was undertaken by Captain Koldewey. It was only in 1871 that he recovered his health, and in the June of that year began, in the Isbjörn, his life of Arctic experience and discovery. In the following year, 1872, he was appointed to the naval command of the expedition which sailed in the Tegetthoff, whose strange and eventful history is recorded in the following pages.
His companion and colleague, Julius Payer, was born at Schönau in Teplitz, Bohemia, in 1841, and received his education as a soldier at the Wiener-Neustadt Military Academy, 1856-59, where General Sonnklar was his teacher in geographical science, and early imbued his mind with a love for the grandeurs of the glacier world. With the rank of “Ober-Lieutenant” he served in the campaign of 1866 in Italy, and was decorated for his distinguished services at the battle of Custozza. Afterwards, while serving with his regiment in Tyrol, he gained great celebrity as one of the most successful Alpine climbers, and turned his experience as a mountaineer to profit in his surveys of the Orteler Alps and glaciers. Payer gained his first experience as an Arctic discoverer in the second German North Polar Expedition, under Koldewey and Hegemann—June 15, 1869-Sept. 11, 1870. His services during that expedition were of a most distinguished character. He shared in the most important discoveries which were then made, specially those of König Wilhelm’s Land, and of the noble Franz-Josef Fjord. He acquired in East Greenland the experience of sledging, which was of such eminent use in his explorations of the great discovery of the Tegetthoff Expedition—Kaiser Franz-Joseph Land. He shines too as an author in his descriptions of Greenland scenes, in the Second German North Polar Voyage, published in 1874 by Brockhaus of Leipzig, and partially reproduced in an English translation by the Rev. L. Mercier and Mr. H. W. Bates. For these services, on the return of the expedition, he was again decorated, receiving the order of the Iron Crown.
In the voyage of the Isbjörn, June 21-Oct. 4, 1871, we find him associated with Weyprecht in the pioneering voyage described in the earlier part of this work, and lastly as joint commander of the renowned Tegetthoff expedition, June, 1872-September, 1874.