CHAPTER VI.
LIFE ON BOARD THE “TEGETTHOFF.”
1. Like a spectre in white, the ship stretches out her arms, as if in silent complaint, towards the heaven, and rests, in cruel mockery of her destiny, on a mountain, not of water, but of ice, and seems like a building ready to fall in. A wall of snow and ice surrounds her hull, snow lies thick on her deck, and her rigging is stiffened in icy lines. Could we see through her sides, we should then behold four-and-twenty men parted off in two spaces under the suns of two lamps. Let us inspect them, and first the cabin of the officers in the after-part of the ship.
2. Neither few nor slight were our struggles to remedy the various inconveniences which we encountered; their enumeration here is meant to aid the experience of future adventurers. Though our arrangements were far from complete or perfect, we had never to complain of the discomforts which previous expeditions, even the second German expedition to Greenland, had to endure from the excessive condensation of moisture. Against this enemy we protected ourselves by the snow wall which we raised round the ship, by covering in the deck windows of the cabin, by lining our quarters with vulcanized india-rubber, by sheds built over the cabin stairs, all acting as condensers. Before, however, I enter on the unavoidable inconveniences to which we were exposed by the formation of ice, or by damp and the sudden change of temperature, I would preface my remarks by observing, that all these discomforts and inconveniences are to be endured far more easily than would seem possible to the reader, and that life on board a ship of a North Pole expedition, under normal circumstances, is free from annoyances worthy of mention.
THE “TEGETTHOFF” IN THE FULL MOON.
3. It is a matter of the last importance to keep the air pure and wholesome, and to maintain an equable warmth in the quarters of the officers and crew. The accumulation of moisture and consequent congelation in them is an inconvenience which requires incessant watchfulness to avert.[18] The destruction of the snow wall which surrounded the ship increased the condensation; for that snow covering was nothing but a greatcoat for the ship and those on board. In the beginning of November 1872 the frost on the bulk-heads of the berths, and on those parts of the cabins which were impervious to warmer air, was very perceptible. The bed-clothes were frozen at night to the sides of the ship, the iron knees of the beams—not, alas! covered with felt—gleamed like stalactites, small glaciers were formed under the berths, and even in October the skylight was frozen, inches thick. Every rise in the temperature caused this formation of ice to fall down like a “douche,” and with the opening of a door a white vapour, even in October, streamed along the deck. We prevented the increase of moisture by cutting the openings in the deck, over which we placed two chimneys, each a foot high and covered with a thin metal cap. We boarded up the skylight, leaving a lid by which to air the cabin. But in spite of all this the variations of temperature within our quarters were extraordinary. If the heat of the air in the middle of the cabin and on a level with our heads rose from -2° F. to 76° F.—our usual mean temperature—it amounted on the floor to a little above 34° F., and fell during the night not unfrequently below freezing-point.
4. But the greatest inconvenience perhaps with which we had to contend, arose from the removal of the protection of the tent roof, which was stretched over the after-part of the ship. The want of this prevented our walking on the deck in bad weather, and it also hindered perfect ventilation, which could only be secured, with the constant heat which was maintained below, by keeping the deck windows open. Warming the air from underneath the floor of the cabin would possibly be preferable to the best stove. We had the stove of Meidingen of Carlsruhe, the excellence of which had been tested on the Germania. This stove consumed only 20 lbs. of coals daily, with a thermometer at -13° F., and after the adoption of certain arrangements to save the fuel, its consumption amounted to only 12 lbs. Even in the coldest period of the winter we never consumed more than 4½ cwt. in a month. The lighting of the messroom and quarters of the men was effected by petroleum, the daily consumption of which amounted to about 2⅔ lbs. Altogether there were in the ship two large and two small lamps, besides the deck-lantern, which were burning day and night. The berths were lighted with train-oil; for special purposes, such as drawing, candles were used.
5. The stove had one troublesome enemy in the shape of a hole, as big as a man’s head, in the door of the mess-room, through which a cold stream of air poured itself; and as the ship dipped forward considerably, and the hearth was only about a foot above the floor of the mess-room, this stream filled the whole space with a lake of cold air from three to four feet deep. Hence, while in the berth close by the stove there was a temperature ranging between 100° F. and 131° F., in the other, there was one which would have sufficed for the North Pole itself. In the former a hippopotamus would have felt himself quite comfortable, and Orel, the unhappy occupant of it, was often compelled to rush on deck, when the ice-pressures alarmed us, experiencing in passing from his berth to the deck a difference of temperature amounting to 189° F. In the other berth of the mess-room, water, lemon-juice, and vinegar froze on the floor. Those who occupied it, as they lay in beds, or those who sat at the table to read, were in a cold bath reaching up to their neck. But the hole was an indispensable necessity, for it was better to endure the discomfort even of such a draught than to impede ventilation. Other causes, too, disturbed the equilibrium of temperature. At night the stove was sometimes, from sanitary considerations, not lighted, and then all had to sleep in that cold bath. With the increase of cold and wind, our inconveniences often assumed somewhat ludicrous forms. Some passages from my journal will make this clear:—“When any come below the temperature falls. If the door be opened there rolls in a mass of white vapour; if any one opens a book which he has brought with him, it smokes as if it were on fire. A cloud surrounds those that enter, and if a drop of water falls on their clothes, it is at once converted into ice, even at the stove. Frequently the upper stratum of air in the mess-room becomes so heated, that the deck light has to be opened, and then it rises up, like smoke out of a chimney, to blend itself with the cold air without.”