CUTTING UP THE BEARS.
21. On the 8th of April we continued our journey, making an early start as usual. Our track lay between countless hummocks, some of which were forty feet high, while the depressions between them were filled with deep layers of snow, and as we advanced into Rawlinson Sound, high icebergs towered over a monotonous chaos of ice-forms. The ice resembled that which surrounded the Tegetthoff during our first winter, and indicated a periodical, perhaps even an annual, breaking up. There was nothing, however, to entitle us to infer that Rawlinson Sound was navigable in summer. Like many of the passages of the northern coast of North America, Austria and Rawlinson Sounds are too narrow for the purposes of navigation. They are, however, well calculated for sledge travelling. For some time we made use of our sledge-sail; but when the wind shifted to E.S.E., it drove the sledge so much from its true course, that we took it down. Our noses had become so susceptible, that we were glad to put on our wind-protectors to save them from frost-bite. Then followed snow-storms, alternating with brilliant sunshine which, however, illuminated, partially only, some reaches of the hummocky ice, while the distant land lay in shadow. It cost us excessive labour to get the sledge on; we had occasionally to dig a lane for it, and we ran some risk of breaking it. Our advance was one continual zig-zag, due to the confused character of the ice on which we travelled and the untrustworthiness of the compass in high latitudes. It seemed too, as if the declination of the magnetic needle had considerably diminished since we left the ship. Our labours were diversified by the visit of a bear, who, when we first observed him, was standing on the top of one of the many ice-hummocks about 300 paces distant. He then approached us, as was usually the case, under the wind, and we at once drew up to receive him. He took no notice of the bread we had laid down to gain his attention, but still pressed on till he received three bullets in his head. Notwithstanding this he ran for about seventy yards and then fell. To make sure, another bullet was fired into his body, and thinking him dead, we forthwith began to cut him up; but when his belly was being opened, he raised his head in a fury, seized the butt-end of my rifle with his teeth and tore it from my hand. My companions soon despatched him. The bear was eight feet long, and therefore of unusual size. We might have cut off two or three cwt. of flesh from his carcase, but in consideration of the heavy lading of the sledge, we contented ourselves with appropriating sixty pounds. Both Rawlinson and Austria Sounds were equally rich in fresh traces of bears, which seemed to be those of whole families and not of individual animals.
22. Our latitude from a meridian observation was found to be 81° 38′—and though the sun shining dimly through the clouds might account for an error of two or three minutes, we had certainly passed beyond the latitude 81° 35′ reached by Hayes in Smith’s Sound in 1861.[45] Having no conception at the time that Hall’s American expedition had penetrated, the year before we achieved this result, to 82° 9′ on the land and 82° 22′ at sea, we hoisted our sledge-flag to commemorate our success. The character of the ice now became so wild and confused that we wandered 45° from one point of the compass to the other. We constantly expected to come upon open fissures, and could not conceal from ourselves how easily its loose connection might be broken up by a storm, and our return to the ship exposed to great risks. The transport of our travelling gear became increasingly difficult, and great were our fears lest, through the constant heavy shocks which the sledge encountered, the case of spirit should be crushed and destroyed. The difficulties too to be overcome amid the multitude of hummocks were more depressing than the occurrence of snow-storms, inasmuch as their number almost destroyed the possibility of progress; and the monotonous uniformity which tired the eye tended also to depress the spirits.
23. On the 9th of April (the thermometer standing at 10° F., and a light breeze blowing from the east) we continued our work of dragging between the hummocks till noon. We then ascended an iceberg, and discovered that the hummocks of ice in Rawlinson’s Sound appeared to stretch on without end. We therefore altered our course and took a north-westerly direction, in order to come under Crown-Prince Rudolf’s Land, whose noble mountain forms and mighty glaciers shone forth in the light of the sun. We expected to find smoother ice on its coast-line; but we were deceived in this expectation, for the character of the ice remained unchanged. We were compelled therefore to cross this Sound in a westerly direction to Hohenlohe Island, and to select the rocky pyramid—visible from a great distance—of Cape Schrötter as the point where our expedition should divide into two parties; the larger party to remain behind, the smaller to penetrate further towards the north over the glaciers of Rudolf’s Land. By noon of this day we reached 81° 37′ N. L. and in the evening arrived at Cape Schrötter. All the labours and efforts of the last few days had consequently been without result.
CHAPTER VIII.
IN THE EXTREME NORTH.
1. Immediately after reaching Cape Schrötter, the east end of Hohenlohe Island, we ascended the summit of this Dolerite rock, which was quite free from snow, and covered with a sparse vegetation. We were surprised to find here the excrement of a hare. The prospect which lay before us convinced us of the necessity of our proposed temporary separation. The mountains of Crown-Prince Rudolf’s Land, separated from us by an arm of the sea covered with level ice, were so high (about 3,000 feet) that we saw at once that we could pass over them only with the small dog-sledge. The walking powers, moreover, of two of my companions had greatly deteriorated, and for them rest was not an indulgence, but a necessity. Austria Sound appeared to stretch still further to the north, but its western coasts turned sharply to the left in the precipitous cliffs of Cape Felder and Cape Böhm. The blue jagged line of mountains, towering above snow-fields lying in the sun, stretched away to the north-west till they were lost in dark streaks on the horizon, which our experience led us to interpret as a water-sky above open spaces of the sea.
2. I was greatly delighted by Orel’s readiness, though he was suffering from inflamed eyes, to take part in the expedition to the extreme north; and it only remained for us to select the fittest among the party and to calm the apprehensions of those who were to remain behind. On our return to the foot of the rocks, where the tent was already pitched, we found the rest of the party sitting close to each other at the rocky wall on which the sun was shining, in order to warm themselves,—like crickets on the wall of a house. The success of an expedition like that we projected depends chiefly on the mutual good feeling among its members, and he who commands it, besides participating personally in all the labours to be endured, must show himself a sympathetic friend even in cases where strict duty does not enjoin it, so that confidence in him may grow into a kind of belief in his infallibility. There could not be more devoted or enduring men than those who were here lying in the sun, and whom we now joined, in order to decide the question of the hour. I explained to them the plans I meant to follow,—that I should be absent from five to eight days, that if I should not return to them within fifteen days they should march back to the ship with the sledge—sawn through the middle—and the stock of provisions which should be placed at their disposal would suffice for this emergency. I then asked each of them whether he could dismiss fear, and remain behind in this desolation. Sussich answered: “Se uno de lori resta indietro, mi non go paura:” so said the rest. By the expression, however, “uno de lori” they meant Orel or one of the two Tyrolese, and specially with an eye to the bears which might be prowling about. I left it free to Klotz and Haller to decide which of them was the fittest and most serviceable to accompany me: “You,” answered Haller, “you, Klotz, are the better man to drag the sledge and endure fatigue.” Accordingly Sussich and Lukinovich remained under Haller’s command. These three were ordered not to go more than 300 yards from Cape Schrötter, to remain on the defensive if attacked by bears, to spend their time in drying their clothes and repairing their torn boots, and to go about in wooden shoes to save wear and tear. Haller received as Governor of Hohenlohe Island a pocket-compass, a watch, an aneroid barometer, and a thermometer, and to them we left also our little medicine-chest. If Dr. Kepes had once tried to make a doctor of me in one hour, in now repeating the experiment on Haller I confined myself to ten minutes.