ICE-HOLE COVERED WITH YOUNG ICE.
10. Again from my journal I reproduce some passages which express the feelings which passed through our minds—through mine at least—during this season of the Tegetthoff’s first winter in the ice:—“December 21—The middle of the long night. It is noon, and, though nothing can be lighter than the colour of all that surrounds us—of the snow—yet it is as dark as midnight. Nothing but a pale yellow sheen hovers over the south. The sun has sunk below the horizon 11° 40′, and we should have to ascend a mountain eighteen and a half (German) miles high in order to behold it. Nothing is to be seen, neither bears nor men, and we only hear the steps of those who are near us. We see but the confused outline even of the ship, as she drifts hither and thither with the floe, a prisoner in the fetters of the ice, the sport of winds and currents, carrying her further and further into the still and silent realm of death. A definite object, with hope to inspire them, raises men above toils and troubles of every kind; but exile like ours, when the sacrifice seems useless, is hard to be borne. An inexorable ‘No’ lays its ban on every hope, and daily struggle for self-preservation is our lot. If we attempt to fathom destiny, our utmost hopes are liberation from our icy captivity some time next summer, and the reaching the coast of Siberia. Siberia a hope! And yet how changeable are the feelings when the reign of monotony is interrupted! The moon is up—darkness exists no more. In the North the moon is an event—it is life, everything almost; it is the only link which connects us with the far-distant home. As its beams fall on the meanest forms, diamonds blaze forth in its light from the snow and the frost, and the soul feels the beauty of the transformation. She looks down on us like a returning friend that watches over us, and unfolds bewitching forms and magic images to cheer us. Two weeks ago she rose above the horizon, first as a blood-red disk, then paled as she climbed higher and higher, till she stands out the clear, silver-bright, full moon.”
11. Christmas had come; the season when in the forests of our far-distant home the branches of the pine-trees are heavy laden with snow, and which ever comes back with the memories of the days of our youth, and with the remembrances of our families and absent friends. Only for a short time, about noon, we were made uneasy by a movement and pressure of the ice. But the alarm passed away, and we gathered together for a choice and gorgeous feast, both on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and each of the cabin-mess had a bottle of good wine to himself. Carlsen and Lusina were our guests. Each of the crew received half a bottle of wine, together with a quarter of a bottle of “artificial wine,”[17] and in addition an allowance of grog, so weak, however, that even a baby might have drunk it without harm. Dried fish, roast bear well kept and seasoned, nuts and the like, contributed in their way to heighten the joyous feelings which, this day at least, animate even the most miserable of men. The dogs, at other times so insatiable, had for once enough and to spare, and carried off the fragments to bury them in the snow. The contents of a chest full of presents, which we had brought with us, were distributed by lot, and great was the delight of those who won a bottle of rum or a few cigars.
12. The last day of the year 1872 afforded us no very happy thoughts as we looked back on its events; it had been to us a year of disappointments. The comparison drawn between our actual condition and the expectations we had so ardently cherished seemed full of the bitterest irony. This day also, about noon, a pressure from the ice, which lasted but a short time, alarmed us all, and we rushed on deck to make our usual preparations. The enemy, however, passed away without further disturbance, and cheerfully and socially we awaited the first hour of the new year. With a bottle of champagne, one of the two still left, we meant to greet its coming in with that hopefulness of mind which seems inextinguishable in all the changes and chances of life. But the champagne, alas! proved a delusion. Klotz, the Tyrolese, in one of his brown studies exposed this precious bottle for four hours to a temperature of -19° F., and when he produced it the bottle had burst and the wine was thoroughly frozen. At midnight the crew serenaded us, and we afterwards marched forth in a body with torches, and walked round the ship, whose rigging glowed in the light of the tarred torches. The frosted fur garments of the men seemed edged with shining light, and a red glare fell on the masses of ice.
CARLSEN MAKES THE ENTRY IN THE LOG.
13. To-day, too, we allowed the dogs to descend into our cabin,—the constant object of their longings. The poor animals were so dazzled by looking at our lamp, that they almost took it for the sun itself; but by and by their attention was directed exclusively to the rich remains of our dinner, the sight of which appeared completely to satisfy their notions of the wonders of the cabin. After behaving themselves with great propriety, they again quietly withdrew, all except Jubinal, who appeared to be indignant at the deceitfulness of our conduct, inasmuch as we had allowed him to starve so long on dried horse-flesh and on crushed bear’s head, while we revelled in luxury. He accordingly made his way into Lieutenant Brosch’s cabin, where, discovering a mountain of macaroni, he immediately attacked it, and warned us off from every attempt to rescue it, by growling fiercely till he had finished it all. Sumbu, however, with much levity, suffered himself to be made drunk by the sailors with rum, and everything which he had scraped together for weeks and buried in the snow and so carefully watched, was stolen from him by the other dogs in one night.
14. Another year had now glided away. Looking anxiously into the future, we shortsighted mortals saw the fulfilment of our highest wishes in being liberated from the floe. In the pious manner of the whalers of the Arctic Ocean, Carlsen wrote this day in the log: “Önsker at Gud maa vere med os i det nye aar, da kan intet vare imod os—May God be with us in the new year and nothing can be against us.” In this new year, with its happier issues, was verified again the eternal truth, that Providence acts in ways not to be fathomed, and that it is folly in man to mark out his own path beforehand according to his own mind. The sun of this new year, whose beams were to light us to new lands and discoveries, was still low beneath the horizon.