“October 27.—The sun at noon was scarcely visible above the horizon. At night of the same day a strong wind from the south-east opened a fissure on the starboard side of the vessel and about 150 paces from it, which grew into the dimensions of an ‘ice-hole.’
“October 28.—To-day the sun took leave of us. Only with its upper edge had it appeared above the horizon, and sent towards us its mild beams like the consoling glance of a departing friend. The coal-house is finished. But what reliance can be placed on such an abode in such a position? A storm may carry away the planks which form its roof; sparks from a fire may set fire to its walls and consume it; and at any moment, through a pressure opening up an abyss beneath, it may sink and be engulfed. Two o’clock in the afternoon, the groaning sound comes from the piles of ice around us; our floe appears to twist somewhat, and the pressure of the ice will probably soon begin.
“October 29.—During the night a noise in the ice, which, though it did not further disturb us, was yet witness enough that it is ever ready to disturb us. The sun no longer appears; only a rosy light at noon in the heavens.
“October 30.—At half-past three o’clock in the morning there was a dreadful straining and creaking in the ship: at once we sprang out of our berths, and stood on deck with our fur garments on, and with our bags as before. New fissures had appeared which rapidly enlarge themselves; the two boats and the coal-house are now surrounded by up-forced masses of ice and separated from us. Then a pause! There is however no real repose, and the least sound on deck, the falling of anything heavy—at other times quite unnoticed—alarms us into the expectation of new onsets. At noon, as we sate at dinner, there was renewed and excessive straining in the ship, and even in the cabin we heard such a rushing sound in the ice without, that it seemed as if the whole frozen sea would the next moment boil and rise in vapour. During all the afternoon the noise continues, and all the fissures send forth dense vapours, like hot springs. During the day no quiet for reading or working, and every night almost our sleep is disturbed by a horrible awaking within a great creaking, groaning coffin. Men can accustom themselves to almost anything; but to these daily recurring shocks, and the constantly renewed question as to the end and issue of it all, we cannot grow accustomed.”
8. There is however such an intolerable monotony in my diary, that, to spare my readers, I thus, in a few words, resuming its contents, describe our situation:—“One of us, to-day, remarked very truly, that he saw perfectly well how one might lose his reason with the continuance of these sudden and incessant assaults. It is not dangers that we fear, but worse far; we are kept in a constant state of readiness to meet destruction, and know not whether it will come to-day, or to-morrow, or in a year. Every night we are startled out of sleep, and, like hunted animals, up we spring to await amid an awful darkness the end of an enterprise from which all hope of success has departed. It becomes at last a mere mechanical process to seize our rifles and our bag of necessaries and rush on deck. In the daytime, leaning over the bulwarks of the ship, which trembles, yea, almost quivers the while, we look out on a continual work of destruction going on, and at night, as we listen to the loud and ever-increasing noises of the ice, we gather that the forces of our enemy are increasing.”
CHAPTER V.
OUR FIRST WINTER (1872) IN THE ICE.
1. In the beginning of November we were already environed by a deep twilight; but our dreary waste had become of magical beauty; the rigging, white with frost, stood out, spectre-like, against the grey-blue of the heavens; the ice, broken into a thousand forms and overspread with a covering of snow, had now assumed the cold pure aspect of alabaster shaded with the tender hues of arragonite. Southward at noon we saw veils of frosty vapour rise into the carmine-coloured sky out of the fissures and “ice-holes,” in which the water seemed to boil.
2. All our preparations for wintering had now been completed. Lieutenant Weyprecht struck the top-masts to diminish pressure from the wind; some sails were still kept set, in order that the ship, in the event of her being set free, might at once get under weigh. The fore-part of the ship only could be covered in as a tent, for the preparations to abandon her in case of need compelled us to leave her after-part uncovered. There, in perfect order, lay all the materials we meant to take with us, our provisions, ammunition, tents, sledges, &c. The ship was surrounded with a wall of snow and ice, which we constantly restored, whenever it was injured by pressure from without, and her deck was gradually overspread with a mantle of snow, which contributed, however, to maintain an equable warmth in the ship. Our distance from land rendered it impossible to cover the deck with a layer of sand, which would have prevented the melting of the snow from the warmth of the ship.