The first winter passed by the expedition in their icy prison was at best but a time of gloom, though all on board combined to render each other's lot as little wearisome as possible. The conduct of the crew throughout the enterprise was exemplary and praiseworthy; and it is pleasant to read of the kindly feeling and sympathy that prevailed between officers and men. Only by the maintenance of complete harmony and mutual consideration could an existence passed under the circumstances described in these volumes be rendered tolerable. The devices resorted to, to employ and pass the time, were various. Constant occupation on the part both of officers and men was found not only to be beneficial, but absolutely necessary to ward off ennui and depression. The duties connected with the daily routine of work were not sufficient; occupation had to be invented. The chief officers had their scientific observations to employ and interest them; but the resources of the men were fewer. At first the building of snow-houses was resorted to as a means of filling up the time. Then a school was begun, in which were passed many hours daily; besides which, there was seal-catching and bear-hunting. On an average, two bears were killed weekly, and roasted bear-flesh was relished by all; and the flesh of the seal, which was at first but little appreciated, was by-and-by found to be at least palatable.
It is well known that the getting-up and performance of theatricals have been found a source of great beneficial occupation and amusement during winters passed in the Arctic regions, where it is a matter of prime importance that the spirits of the men should be kept as even and jolly as possible. But there were several reasons why the crew of the Tegetthoff were compelled to forego such recreations. Their numerical strength was too small; the languages spoken on board were too diverse; for the crew was a very mixed one, including Germans, Italians, Hungarians, and Slavs, all orders, however, being issued in Italian; and the performance must have been given in four separate languages. There was no other place available for a theatre than the barricaded deck, where the spectators would have had to sit enduring a temperature of from twenty to thirty degrees of cold; and lastly, there was a general feeling that the situation of the party was a far too serious and critical one for such diversions to be so welcome as other Arctic expeditions have found them.
During the first winter the Tegetthoff drifted through the wandering ice for the most part in a north-easterly direction. When a little north of seventy-four degrees, she took a turn towards the west in February 1873. Her course was now a generally westward one, but with variations. In the spring and summer of 1873 every effort was of course again put forth to free her from the ice. All endeavour in this direction, however, still proved ineffectual, and the little party again prepared, though with very anxious and depressed hearts, to face a second winter. But through the long gloom of that second winter they were to be buoyed up by hope and expectation. In August the ship took a turn northward, when suddenly, 'as if by magic,' the mists lifted, and behold! a vast shape, high, bold, and rocky, loomed out of the fog on the vessel's bows. It was land beyond a doubt, new land; and fresh hope and life filled every breast at the sight. The whole aspect of things suddenly changed for the explorers. They had now something to look forward to through the long winter—namely, the exploration of that new land which they had discovered, or as it may be said, which had discovered them.
When the land first revealed itself to the explorers, it was too late in the season to leave the ship for purposes of exploration, and so the Tegetthoff remained close by it, still fast in the ice, all through the succeeding winter, during which one disturbing thought troubled the minds of all on board, the fear, namely, that the vessel might drift away again from the land, and all the hopes of the expedition end in nothing. But no such untoward fortune awaited them. When the spring came round, and the long darkness waned, the light revealed the land still in the same position. And now preparations began to visit the new-found land. Three separate sledge-journeys were made from the ship, all under the command of Lieutenant Payer. The first journey began early in March 1874, and was a short one. The party comprised six men and three dogs; but as Lieutenant Payer contemplated making his second journey the most important one, he reserved the pick of the crew for it. It will be understood that it required no little courage and patient endurance on the part of the handful of men engaged in this first sledge-journey across the desolate wastes of ice, when it is stated that their physical condition was very far from being perfect. 'Pospischill suffered from lung-disease; Lurkinovich from palpitation of the heart; Haller from chronic rheumatism; Lettis from a tendency to bronchial catarrh.' It is therefore all the more creditable to these men that they bore up so well, and accomplished so much, for the first sledge-expedition did all that its leader expected from it. The position of the new land and its general character were determined; Wilczek Island and the south part of Hall Island explored; and from the results thus arrived at, Lieutenant Payer was enabled to arrange a plan for a more protracted journey towards the north.
The second sledge-expedition was by far the most important of the three. It started from the ship on the 26th of March in the thick of a snowstorm. After enduring the most excessive toil and hardship, the party penetrated northwards to a distance of one hundred and sixty miles, as far as it was possible to go with sledges. The cold endured during these sledge-journeys was often most intense. The men never dared to bring their lips in contact with a metal cup in the act of drinking. One shook the liquid into his companion's mouth. The strongest rum seemed to lose all its strength, and had the taste of milk and the consistence of oil. The bread was frozen so hard that there was danger of breaking the teeth in eating it, and it brought blood as it was being consumed. The instruments used by Lieutenant Payer in surveying burned when he touched them; and the medals worn by some of the men felt like hot iron, proving the truth of the saying that 'extremes meet.' The furthest point northward reached by Lieutenant Payer and his party was Cape Fligely, 85° 5′, where the Austro-Hungarian flag was planted for the first time in the far north. Gladly would the Lieutenant have visited the lands beheld from that northern peak, could he have done so with any degree of safety. But he felt that he had gone as far as the resources at his command warranted, and wisely shrank from further risking the lives of his brave followers.
The work accomplished by the second sledge-journey was a sufficiently thorough exploration of Kaiser Franz Joseph Land—named after the Austrian emperor—and the exploration of Austria Sound, which divides Franz Joseph Land into Wilczek Land and Zichy Land. Lieutenant Payer returned to the ship well satisfied with the results achieved; and we think he had every reason for being so. He had, by careful investigations, surveys, and drawings, arrived at a very satisfactory conception of the newly discovered land.
Kaiser Franz Joseph Land is an archipelago, of about equal dimensions to Spitzbergen, extending from eighty degrees or thereabouts to at least eighty-three degrees north latitude, but how far from east to west was not determined. It is a very barren region, as may be believed, containing mountains from two to five thousand feet high, glaciers of great size, and many deep fiords. Animal life is abundant, bears and seals and Arctic birds in great variety, vast numbers being found by the explorers in many parts. No trace of human beings was anywhere discovered, and Lieutenant Payer believes the region to be uninhabitable by man. By the geological formation of the islands, which seem to be of volcanic origin, the explorer was reminded of the north-east coast of Greenland. A third and final sledge-journey was made by which the north-west coasts of M'Clintock Island were visited. The sledge-expeditions began on March 10, 1874, and ended May 3d, during which period a distance of four hundred and fifty miles was traversed.
While these expeditions were being made, the ship was all the while fast in the ice; and as there seemed no prospect of getting free, it was resolved to abandon her. To remain another winter with the hope of further discoveries, would have been, under the circumstances, a very great risk. Provisions were becoming scant, and the physical condition of the men, so severely tried by the two winters already passed amid the ice, was far too low to make it safe to face a third. And all now felt that they could return to their country at least with honour. The Tegetthoff was abandoned on the 20th of May 1874, and the return journey to Europe began. But the dangers and hardships of the explorers were by no means yet over. The progress southward, now in the sledges, now by boats, was toilsome, painful, and slow in the extreme. To convey a conception of this it is sufficient to state that 'after two months of indescribable efforts, the distance between us and the ship was not more than two German miles;' a space that would be equal to about nine English miles. Does not this rate of progress correspond in a striking degree with the experience of our own recent Arctic expedition in traversing the terrible 'sea of ancient ice?' But had the ice of the Novaya Zemlya seas remained much longer as formidable as it did to the sledge-parties of Commander Markham and his colleagues, the Austrian expedition party must have one and all perished. But fortunately, at the end of two months' travelling, and when the men had almost begun to despair, 'leads' unexpectedly opened up in the ice; and after one more month of sledging and boating, the open ocean was reached in 77° 40′; an unusually high latitude. Ultimately the party were picked up, as they had hoped for, by a Russian fishing-vessel, off Cape Britwin, minus one only of its members, poor Krisch the engineer, who had died of consumption shortly before the abandonment of the ship.
The literary skill with which the writer of these volumes has told the story of the Austrian Arctic Expedition is quite equal to the best of similar narratives by any former Arctic explorer. He describes the really wonderful fortunes of the expedition, through all its many vicissitudes and perils, simply and modestly, yet with great vividness and realistic power. His story purports to be no more than a popular narrative of what Austria has accomplished in Arctic discovery; but it is really more than this. In addition to their interest as a record of courageous enterprise and patient resolution and endurance in the face of the most excessive hardships, the volumes possess a distinct scientific value; for their author is an accomplished man of science, as well as a brave navigator and explorer. In a portion of the introductory chapters, Lieutenant Payer treats at length and with great clearness the various theories that have at different times been put forward as to the existence of an open Polar sea. He unhesitatingly concludes that no such sea exists; a conclusion which agrees with the actual discoveries of our own Arctic expedition. From this opinion, however, his colleague Commander Weyprecht, dissents, as does also the eminent German geographer Dr Petermann. 'The Pole impracticable;' such was the brief telegraphic summary with which the announcement of the return of the Alert and Discovery was heralded. But Captain Nares has since modified this expression. He wishes it to be understood that all he means to affirm is, that the Pole is impracticable by the route taken by the Alert and Discovery, and with the present existing scientific appliances.
Impracticable the North Pole may perhaps ever remain, if the state of the ice encountered by our expedition and by Lieutenant Payer be its normal one. But of this we have as yet no certain proof; nor yet, in spite of our author's well-reasoned conclusions, that in some seasons an open sea may not exist. Some of our readers may remember that the American expedition in the Polaris, under Captain Hall, found open water where the sledging-parties of the Alert and Discovery found only vast ice masses of a hundred and fifty feet in height. It appears to us then that nothing dogmatic can be said on one side or the other in respect to this question.