The Windward, with the expedition on board, sighted the land on the 25th of August, but, stopped by intervening ice, could not reach the coast until a fortnight afterwards, the landing taking place at Cape Flora, close to Leigh Smith's house, which was found with the roof off. Not far away Jackson established his headquarters, quite a little settlement, though the expedition consisted of only eight men. Just as Leigh Smith found no remains of the Tegetthoff, so Jackson found no trace of the Eira. It had been intended that the Windward should return after putting the party ashore, but, shut in by the ice, she had to remain during the first winter, getting away safely next year, to return in 1896 and take away Nansen, who, as we shall see further on, ended his long land journey here. On her 1897 trip she departed with the members of the expedition all well, so that neither ship nor man was lost, the only serious casualties being among the dogs and the Russian ponies which did such excellent service.
Two years afterwards, in July, 1899, the deserted settlement was visited by the Duke of the Abruzzi, in his expedition in the Stella Polare, on his way to the north, a few days before he met with his short imprisonment in the ice in British Channel. His was a successful run all the same, for he was in 82° 4´, to the northward of Crown Prince Rudolf Land, or, as it is now called, Prince Rudolf Island, twenty-seven days out from Archangel. Passing Cape Fligely—the latitude of which was afterwards found to be sixteen miles south of the 82° 5´ Payer had made it—and rounding Cape Auk, the Stella Polare went into winter quarters in Teplitz Bay, whence Captain Umberto Cagni started, on the 11th of March, 1900, for his forty-five days' march towards the North Pole.
It was a great disappointment to the Duke to have to stay with the ship instead of leading this well-equipped and thoroughly organised sledge attempt, but owing to an accident two of his fingers had been so severely frost-bitten that they had to be amputated, and, unless a second winter was to be spent in the ice, a start was imperative before he could recover from the operation. Thus all he could do was to assist at the first encounter of the sledges with the pressure ridges and wish Cagni the longest possible journey and a safe return. There was every appearance of the journey being a difficult one, for on the first day a stoppage had to be made every quarter of a mile or thereabouts for a road to be cut through the ridges with ice-axes, while next day a new hindrance was experienced in the young ice in the channels being too thin at times to support the sledges, one of which began to sink and was only extricated with difficulty, so that only one sledge could be allowed on such ice at a time.
On the 13th of March the auxiliary sledge was sent back, thus reducing the caravan to a dozen sledges and ninety-eight dogs, which in a long line passed over a vast plain covered with great rugged blocks of ice, as though they had been thrown down confusedly by a giant's hand to bar the way. The wind was north-east, the cold intense, fifty below zero, not to be particular to a degree or so, for, as Cagni says, when the temperature is below twenty-two, and it is impossible to use a screen or a magnifying glass, the mere fact of approaching to read the scale on an unmounted thermometer sends it up a couple of degrees, and when the temperature is below fifty-eight an approach makes a difference of three or four degrees. So cold was it that the sleeping bags were as hard as wood, and the men got into them after much effort, not to sleep but to feel their teeth chattering for hours, the only warm parts of the body being the feet clad in long woollen stockings. "There are patches of ice on our knees," says Cagni, "like horses' knee-caps, and we have others, both large and small, sometimes thick enough to be scraped off with a knife, everywhere, but especially on our cheeks and backs and in all places where the perspiration has oozed through."
Amid such surroundings the camp must have seemed somewhat out of place. When a suitable site was chosen the first sledge was stopped, and near it the three other sledges of the third detachment were drawn up at a distance of about ten feet from each other. The sledges of the second detachment as they came up formed a second line, those of the third forming another. The tents were pitched between two sledges, generally those in the centre, the guy ropes being fastened to the sledge runners, those at the ends to an ice-axe stuck in the ice. The sleeping bags were then unpacked, the cooking stoves taken out of the boats, and everything arranged under the tent. The thin steel wire ropes to which the dogs were tethered, when unharnessed, were stretched between the sledges away from the tents. While the men were taking the dogs out of the harness, which always remained attached to the traces on the sledges, and tethering them to the steel ropes, one of the guides took a chosen victim to some distance from the camp, and felled it with a blow from an ice-axe, then opened it, skinned it quickly, divided it up into ten shares and distributed these to the dogs, already destined to undergo the same fate, these being the weakest and most ailing—in short, this was the elimination of the unfit.
On the 22nd of March the first detachment began its return journey; it consisted of Lieutenant Querini and two men, and it was never heard of again. The way northwards continued extremely difficult, with channels and ridges plentiful and the road so rough that the sledges began to break up in the bows and runners, some at last so badly that their fragments had to be used to repair the others with. On the 31st the second detachment was sent back, consisting of the doctor and two men, and it got safely to the ship. The third detachment, consisting of Cagni with two Courmayeur guides—Petigax and Fenoillet—and a sailor, Canepa, all four Italians, made the final effort. That day they were on level ice and covered seventeen miles, but at night a snowstorm came on and there was trouble. After a rest they pressed forward in rapid marches amid bad weather over the drifting fields. On the 12th of April while raising camp a strong pressure piled up within a hundred yards of them a wall from thirty-six to forty-five feet high, the highest ridge they had seen. Enormous blocks rolled down towards them with loud crashes after being thrown up by other blocks, lifted to the brow of the ridge and rolled over in their turn, raising a cloud of ice-dust in their fall, the loud continual creaking of the pressure drowned by the booming of the cascade which shook the ice for yards around. These ridges were constantly forming, most of them remaining, some of them subsiding as the edges drifted apart, and the channels thus caused were even more difficult to deal with, some having to be passed over thin ice, some ferried over on small floes. But they did not cross the track all along, and during the last few days the travelling was easy.
On the 24th of April the long journey reached its end. "At ten minutes past twelve," says Cagni, "we are on our way to the north. The ice is like that of yesterday, level and smooth, and, later on, undulating. At first the dogs are not very willing to pull, but encouraged by our shouts and a few strokes, they advance at a rapid pace, which they keep up during the whole march. At five we meet with a large pressure ridge, which almost surprises us, as it seems to us a century since we have seen any; we lost a quarter of an hour in preparing a passage through and crossing it. Beyond it the aspect of the ice changes; the undulations are more strongly marked, and large blocks and small ridges indicate recent pressure, but luckily they do not stop us or obstruct our way. Soon after six we come upon a large channel running from east to west; we must stop. Beyond the channel is a vast expanse of new ice, much broken up and traversed by many other channels. Even if I were not prevented from doing so, I would now think twice before risking myself in the midst of them. If we did push forward on that ice, even for half a day, we would gain very few miles and besides run the risk of losing a sledge. The dogs are very tired, and we too feel the effects of yesterday's strain. I therefore consider that it is more prudent to stop here, and both the guides are of the same opinion. The sun is unclouded. I bring out the sextant and take altitudes of the sun to calculate the longitude (65° 19´ 45˝ E.) while Fenoillet and Canepa put the sledges in order and pitch the tent in a sort of small amphitheatre of hillocks which shelter us from the north wind. On that farthest to the north, which is almost touched by the water of the channel, we plant the staff from which our flag waves. The air is very clear; between the north-east and the north-west there stand out distinctly, some sharply pointed, others rounded, dark or blue and white, often with strange shapes, the innumerable pinnacles of the great blocks of ice raised up by the pressure. Farther away again on the bright horizon in a chain from east to west is a great azure wall which from afar seems insurmountable." The latitude was 86° 34´.
The outward journey took forty-five days; the homeward took sixty, and proved a perilous adventure owing to the drift of the pack to the westward and its breaking up as the weather became warmer and the southern boundary was approached. At first there was good promise. The dogs knew they were going back, and followed the outward track so fast that the men, failing to keep up with them, for the first time took a seat on the sledges and were drawn along at four miles an hour. Progress was rapid for a few days owing to there being now only four sledges and, in a considerable degree, to the intelligence of the leading dog, Messicano. Ever since leaving Teplitz Bay this small white dog, with the intelligent eyes and bushy legs, had held the first place in the leading sledge because he followed the man at the head of the convoy better than the others, and now when the guide was behind or on the sledge, Messicano took the track at a gallop with his nose on the snow, losing the way now and then, but finding it again, though to the men it was often invisible. The time came, however, when the old track had to be left for a better course to the ship, and then difficulties of every sort had to be overcome, the delays being such that dog after dog had to be killed to keep away starvation, and it was only with seven of them and two sledges that Prince Rudolf Island was reached from the westward on the 23rd of June. "The snow is wet, which is very bad for dragging the sledges, as it sticks to the runners and tires our dogs exceedingly; we have still seven, but only three that really pull (three to each sledge), for Messicano is at the last extremity and can hardly hold up the trace." Toiling on thus through the fog to Cape Brorok a noise was heard in the distance like the creaking caused by pressure among ice floes, and when the fog lifted it was found that the sound was that of the seabirds on the cliffs. Out on the icefield no signs of life had been met with beyond the traces of a bear, a seal that vanished, and a walrus that popped up through thin ice to send Fenoillet scuttling off on his hands and knees.
Meanwhile the ship, which had been seriously damaged, had been made seaworthy. Liberated from her berth by mines of gunpowder and guncotton, she sailed from Teplitz Bay on the 16th of August, and, after further unpleasant experiences in the ice, reached Cape Flora, where a call was made at Jackson's house in the vain hope of news of Querini; and thence, after more ice complications, Captain Evensen took her to Hammerfest. Though, as in all Arctic endeavour, conditions were against them, the employment of a Norwegian crew for the ship and an Italian crew for the sledges had, under excellent management, worked thoroughly well.