8. On the 3rd of November a party of us started about eight o’clock in the morning, when it was quite dark, to attempt to reach a glacier which we had seen, on the north of the island and on the other side of a frozen inlet of the sea. We took with us a small sledge drawn by three dogs, and, in constant fear of being cut off from the ship, we pressed on over a level surface of snow towards some objects suffused with a dim rosy light, which seemed to float over them. As we neared them we found them to be icebergs, which sparkled like jewels, and which we took to be the terminal precipice of the glacier we were in search of. It was only, however, after some hours that we came actually in sight of it; the ship having meanwhile disappeared from our view. Suddenly there emerged before us, in the east, a white band, which proved to be the terminal front of the glacier, which, as we approached it, we were surprised to find had an inclination of only two or three degrees. Its highest point, therefore, must have been at a very great distance. On its left side there was a moraine of great depth. When we began our return to the ship, the rosy evening light had disappeared from the higher clouds, while it became clearer behind the gigantic mass of the glacier, so that its dark outline stood out strongly marked on the heavens. It was quite dark when we again drew near the ship, but the brave Carlsen, armed with rifle and walrus-lance for any emergency, came out to meet us.
APPROACHING THE LAND BY MOONLIGHT.
9. In an excursion on the 6th of November we reached a point on the north-west of Wilczek Island—passing for the first time during this expedition beyond the eightieth degree of north latitude—whence we could see the mainland of the new country stretching before us under the silver light of the moon. An indescribable loneliness lay on its snowy mountains, faintly illuminated by the span of twilight in the south and by the light of the moon. If the ice on the shore, as it was moved by the ebb and flow of the tide, had not sent forth shrill notes, and had not the wind sighed as it passed over the edges of the rocks, the stillness of death would have lain on the pale and spectral landscape. We hear of the solemn silence of the forest or of the desert, or of a city buried in sleep during the night; but what is this silence to the silence of a land with its cold glacier mountains losing themselves in snows and mists which can never be explored, and the very existence of which had remained unknown from creation till this moment?
10. On the 7th another short expedition towards the south-west of Wilczek Island was carried out; but notwithstanding all our exertions we were unable to determine its configuration, even of the parts immediately contiguous to us. Until the spring of the following year, the whole island, except perhaps a portion of its southern side, remained a mystery to us.
CHAPTER XIII.
OUR SECOND WINTER IN THE ICE.
1. The Land had meantime been thickly enveloped in its pure white mantle, and wreaths of snow-drifts lay over the rocks scattered over its surface. The light became fainter. Sometimes the precipitous faces of the glaciers seemed to glow in subdued rose-colour through the leaden grey of the atmosphere. When new “ice-holes” appeared, a frosty vapour rose and spread over the surface of the ice; the ship and surrounding objects were covered as if with down; even the dogs were frosted white. We used to stand on deck and gaze on the sun as it sank, surrounded by the evening clouds, behind the jagged edges of the hummocks. Raised by refraction, he appeared for the last time on the 22nd of October with half his disc above the horizon, and the whole southern sky was for a time like a sea of fire over the cold, stiff forms and lines of ice. At length the disc disappeared, and masses of dark clouds moved up and obscured the light still lingering in the sky. The long reign of night began, and the wastes around us relapsed into the stern sway of winter. A pale twilight still lingered for some time, but its faint arc became smaller and feebler. No shadows accompanied the forms of those who strayed over the ice. The wind moaned in the frozen desert. The darkness and the cold continually increased, till the dome of night vaulted the lonely spot which had become our home.
2. But the hope and expectation of successes to be achieved, and the feeling that our safety was not immediately threatened, rendered this second winter a happy contrast to the preceding one. We had now leisure and calmness for intellectual occupations, which were, indeed, the only means of relieving the monotony of the long period of darkness. We lived like hermits in our little cabins in the after-part of the ship, and learned that mental activity without any other joy suffices to make men happy and contented. The oppressive feeling of having to return ingloriously home, which had always been disagreeably present to our minds during the first winter, was no longer felt. We had now a hope, the charms of which grew day by day, that in the spring we should be able to leave the ship and start on expeditions to explore the land we had discovered. Happy in this expectation, we could enjoy the indescribable pleasures of good books, all the more that we were far from the busy haunts of men, and that the presence of danger clears and sharpens the understanding. Nowhere can a book be so valued as in such an isolated position as ours was. Great, therefore, was the advantage we possessed in a good library, consisting of books of science, and of the classics of literature. In fact, freed from the constantly recurring perils, which had been our portion in the first long Arctic night, this second winter was, to all who actively employed their minds, comparatively a state of happiness, undisturbed by cares. With regard to the crew, they were kept in good humour by the increase of their comforts. As we had not the prospect of a third winter in the ice—which would have rendered a greater economy of our provisions imperative—we were enabled to provide them with a more generous diet.