ON a terribly cold day in January, 1893, my father received a wire from Christiania, saying that my brother was dangerously ill there.
After he took his degree, Vaughan had worked with Pasteur in Paris for some time at the table next Professor Sophus Torop. They thus became friends, and when my brother wished to complete some original scientific work of his own, Professor Torop kindly offered him space in his huge laboratories at Christiania if he cared to use them. Thither he went. A cut on his hand ended in serious blood-poisoning, and a terrifying telegram suggesting amputation of the right arm was the first intimation we had of the illness.
It was afternoon. Someone must go to Norway. Norway in winter! Yes, Norway covered with snow and ice: its rivers, fjords, waterfalls, and lakes all frozen: its mountains cloaked with purest snow: its people swathed in fur.
My father was too tied by his profession to leave. My mother was not equal to so perilous a journey. My husband was away in Scotland on business, so I undertook the expedition. It was considered too wild an undertaking for me, a young woman, to do quite alone, so my people insisted that my sister, then a little girl, should accompany me.
Three hours later we started, not in the least knowing how we were ever going to get to Christiania, as the winter was particularly severe, and for months the great naval station at Kiel had been completely ice-bound. We had the most exciting time crossing from Kiel to Korsör in the first boat that had ventured through the ice for twelve weeks, and so bad did the passage finally become that we were forced to get out and walk.
Crossing an ice-floe was somewhat interesting and certainly exciting, and walking on one’s feet from Denmark to Sweden was a queer experience.
Sometimes we stumbled through slush across ice-hummocks between two and three feet thick. At other times we got into lumbersome ice-boats and were pulled by sailors with feet properly swathed for the purpose. Occasionally the boat would slide into an ice-crack, and, though the passengers remained dry, the wretched men dragging the craft suffered unexpected cold baths.
We passed encampments on the ice, with people living calmly there, from whom we learnt that various venturesome travellers, thinking they could cross the frozen belt without proper guides, had started off on foot. Then fog or mist overtook them and they lost their way, or, being fatigued, they sat down to rest and were frozen into their eternal sleep. Others slipped and lost their lives in the ice-cracks. Two or three such deaths were matters of weekly occurrence that severe winter.
We were met in Christiania at six o’clock in the morning by Dr. Nansen, who came to tell us that our brother’s hand had been saved, and though he was still seriously ill, they hoped all immediate danger was past.