4. But to return to our journey. It was evening when the Coburg Islands (81° 35′ N. L.) were reached. The Dolerite rock of this small cluster of islands was of a remarkably coarse-grained crystalline texture. We had frequently come across the traces of bears and foxes during the march of this day, though we actually saw neither bear nor fox. On the 15th of April, after a severe march, we got clear of the region of ice-hummocks, and continued our southerly course with our sledge-sail before the wind. We encountered a bear this day, which, being allowed to approach within the distance of thirty paces, fell dead under our fire. In a few minutes we loaded the sledge with fresh meat, and again pursued our journey. But excessive exertion, the want of sleep, and the exclusive use of a meat diet, were meanwhile telling their tale of reduced strength, though our appetites were great almost beyond belief. The excessive consumption of animal food[50] without bread-stuff excited hunger and lowered our muscular power, while it irritated our nervous system. Our supply of bark was rapidly decreasing, and Haller, Sussich, and Lukinovich, who could not endure bear-flesh, were often attacked with giddiness during the march, and placed on “half-diet.” In the following week our miseries were intensified by insufficiency of sleep; in fact, we could not spare time to sleep it out. Hence the afternoon hours of the march were especially oppressive, and though the sledge with its load was positively lighter, our strength to drag it had diminished in still greater measure. It would be a great mistake to imagine that exercise of itself, without necessary rest, increases the capacity of marching. The loss of strength is almost suddenly experienced, especially in return journeys, when the excitement of discovery has passed away, and nothing is left but the animal-like employment of dragging.
5. Our course lay under Andrée Island; we crossed over the flat ice-dome of Rainer Island, and on the west saw Back’s Inlet filled with many icebergs. From this elevation we once more beheld the snowy ranges of Crown-Prince Rudolf’s Land in the far distance, which soon, however, disappeared in an ocean of mist, whose white waves rolled over the intervening ice-levels. As we again descended to the icy surface of the sea, to our great astonishment we fell into a hole covered over with snow, and got thoroughly wet, and, after much wandering about, we found, towards evening, a dry place (81° 20′ N. L.) on which to pitch our tent. On the 16th of April we found our latitude by an observation taken at noon to be 81° 12′, and when we reached, in the evening, a point four miles to the north of Cape Hellwald, those whose appetite had failed them could not march a step further.
6. On the 17th of April, Orel, with the large sledge, continued the march southwards, while I went on with the dog-sledge, in order to ascend Cape Hellwald. The temperature had fallen in the morning to -18° F., and the outlines of the icebergs vibrated and undulated under the influence of refraction. Ice-hummocks, on the distant horizon, insignificant in size, were magnified into gigantic proportions; then again many of these phantasmagoria seemed to form a long line, which broke up at the next step forward. Unyoking the dogs on the shore of the island, I left the sledge behind, and climbed the steep sides of a precipice of clay-slate, with its laminæ firmly frozen into a mass, and reached the summit of the lofty promontory—Cape Hellwald—about 2,200 feet above the level of the sea. On the tops of its basaltic columns great flocks of divers congregated, which flew round me without fear as I set up my theodolite, and then settled close to me on the snow. I might have killed half-a-dozen of them at a single shot. By and by, these birds, scared by the appearance of the dogs, who soon joined me, took refuge on some inaccessible rocks, but were not in the least disturbed when I fired at them. My lofty point of view enabled me to have a general survey of the mountainous country lying on the north-west, and to ascertain that I stood on an island separated from lands on the west by Sternek Fiord. Meantime Orel, far below me, was moving on with the sledge, but so great is the advantage of dog-sledging, that I descended and arrived at the same time as he did at Cape Easter. By an observation taken at noon we found our latitude to be 81°. In the afternoon the dogs in their own sledge dragged half of our baggage, and notwithstanding got on more quickly than we did with the large sledge. Henceforward the order of the day was fasting, more or less absolute; for our stock of provisions consisted of bread and bear’s flesh for two days and a half, and the dogs could no longer be favoured as they had been.
7. At a few miles’ distance there rose before us the rocky cones of Wiener Neustadt Island, with large glaciers descending their sides. As it was beyond a doubt that the ascent of one of these conical heights would open up an extensive prospect, I fixed on the imposing Cape Tyrol as the most promising for an ascent. Accordingly, on the 18th of April Haller and I started, and after a toilsome march over glaciers, reached its dark, weather-worn summit, 3,000 feet above the level of the sea. Even here we perceived the traces of excrements of the fox, from whose craft the birds were protected by the inaccessibility of the places where they bred. Though we had cut up some bullets into slugs, we refrained from shooting at the auks and divers perched on the rocks, as we saw that our game could not be bagged even if we killed them. Over our heads was spread the bright sky, below us a very sea of mist, in which, though invisible to us, Orel was wending his way towards the south. The distant glacier wastes of Wilczek Land towered aloft on the east; a cloudy shade separated the heights of the peninsula of La Roncière from the colourless icy wastes of Lindemann Bay, and beyond the picturesque Collinson Fiord there seemed to be a maze of inlets and bights, bare rocks and broad table-lands. We bitterly deplored that the necessity of returning to the ship prevented us from penetrating into this labyrinth of mountains and sounds.
THE VIEW FROM CAPE TYROL. COLLINSON FIORD—WIENER NEUSTADT ISLAND.
8. In our descent we passed over three basaltic terraces, and came upon a rocky ledge covered with a thick carpet of Usnea melaxantha—a fresh example of the great capability of lichens to bear extremes of temperature, the great cold of winter and the burning heat of the rock in summer. The mists now began to rise, and for the first time a greenish landscape without snow gleamed out of the depth, on which lay the warm glow of the sun. The scenery seemed to belong to the Alps, and not the 81st degree of North Latitude. The contrast became the more striking, when the mists rolled away and unveiled the icebergs and the ice-filled sound. When we reached these green mountain slopes we found ourselves among grasses, the lower stalks of which were already beginning to be green; the few flowering plants (Saxifraga oppositifolia, Silene acaulis, Papaver nudicale) were clustered together in dense masses. We were now able to form some conception of what summer might be here. Countless streams issuing from the snow would force these spots to put on the livery of summer, and rapid torrents would precipitate themselves down gorges of snow and rock; but at present all was stiff and stark, save that stunted green herbage seemed to show that we were in the fancied paradise of Franz-Josef Land, though when compared even with other Arctic lands it was but a scene of desolation. Closer to the shore above the level of the sea, in a belt of yellow sandstone, we found much lignite firmly frozen in the ground, resembling drift-wood a century old.
9. The search for our companions was for some time fruitless; and a driving snow might have separated us from them for ever. At last, however, we found them gathered together in the tent near Forbes’ Glacier, in about 80° 58′ N. L., and as the party had been without tobacco for a fortnight, they greeted Haller’s collection of lichens as a welcome substitute.
10. During the last few days the cold had sensibly increased, and we therefore determined to sleep during the day, and to walk during the night. Our march in the night of April 18 was a memorable one to us. We were trudging along in the face of a strong south-wester—which was extremely distressing to our highly sensitive frozen noses—and striving to protect the soles of our feet by the rapidity of our movement from being frost-bitten. After succeeding to a certain extent in this, we began to find the snow very deep, and so soft that we sank in at every step. This grew worse and worse; water rose in the deeper layers of snow and penetrated our boots, and as this could not be explained by the state of the temperature, we had to step with distrust and hesitation, in constant fear of unseen depths. At first we believed that the water arose from streams flowing from underneath the glaciers, or from the movement of these glaciers breaking up the surface of the ice. Hence we kept at a distance from their terminal walls. But that the ice-sheet of the sea itself had broken up, that unseen fissures surrounded us, and that the water under the snow was nothing but the water of the sea forcing its way in—of this we had not the least conception, till the sudden immersion of the leader of the party left no doubt about the matter. Once Haller would have utterly disappeared unless he had been quickly rescued. As we picked our way along, even with a long pole we found every now and then no bottom. Klotz now took the lead with a long “alpenstock,” guiding us with the greatest dexterity among these fissures, though often himself falling in. Greatly did we rejoice when we reached unbroken footing. Some of the party on this occasion were frost-bitten in the feet, but we could do little more for them than rub their feet with snow and improve as we could their foot-covering. The sun was now visible at midnight, and the mountains of Markham Sound were tinged with rosy light.
