We are at once surrounded by friends, and learn with pleasure that Nansen is a guest on board the small white yacht Otaria, anchored near the Fram, which she brought in tow from Hammerfest.
I much regret not being able to shake hands with him, but I am leaving my companions after sincere and heartfelt farewells to take my passage on the mail boat Haakon Jarl, which is leaving in a few minutes. Dr. Ekelund accompanies me to Trondhjem. One of the officers on board hands me letters and papers from France. Now, then, I am going to have a foretaste of the pleasure of again seeing those dear to me; I already feel that they are near me.
The Haakon Jarl is a superb steamer, conducting the mail service along the coasts of Norway, where railways are unknown.
Navigation through the fjords is full of charms and surprises. The landscape is of the most varied description: at one time tall rocks, snow-capped like the mountains of Spitzbergen; at another, green wooded hills, fertile prairies with large herds of cattle grazing, and arable land in all its luxuriance. Little hamlets on the mountain sides, villages, châlets nestling mid fir trees and beeches suggest the picturesque scenery of Switzerland.
The vessel threads her way through the islands, and touches at all the stations on her route.
The plaintive sound of the siren re-echoes from the mountains, announces her arrival, and small vessels surround the steamer to receive and deliver dispatches, to take off passengers and their luggage, and then to make for their various destinations.
The fore-deck is one mass of cases, heaps of bricks, casks, bales, bark, and articles of every description. With the exception of a few tardy tourists going from Tromsö to Trondhjem, as it is already late in the season, passengers seem to change at every station. In some places the banks on either side are quite near, and it requires all the skill of the captain to make his way between the beacons, and avoid the numerous rocks scattered along the course. During the winter the passage is lighted by the lighthouse, but just now the nights are short, and there is very little darkness. We pass a great many vessels going through the Loffoden Islands.
Meals are served in a sumptuous saloon, and the traditional amateur concert takes place after dinner. The evening is spent in smoking cigars on deck, where Nature is the leading feature on the programme. The scene is as full of variety as of surprises.
First the sun, whose immense scarlet disc sinks slowly into the wave, leaving in its track a fiery horizon. The whole sky is coloured with tints running the gamut from violet to light grey. Clouds assume fantastic forms, merge into one another, transform their outlines, then disappear; then the pale moon appears, and its silvery glimmer is reflected on the waters.
I stand for hours together in an ecstasy of admiration before these changing pictures, so little known to Parisians. A few stars are shining in the firmament; the air is pure, the night calm, and the atmosphere pleasant.
I can breathe freely and enjoy life. The light breeze, which brings us the perfumes from the pine woods, is barely enough to stir the surface of the sea. In the wake of the ship is a long phosphorescent track. Every turn of the propeller brings me nearer to my country, the main object of my thoughts.
The Haakon Jarl stayed a few hours at Bodo, a small Scandinavian town, beginning to show traces of civilization. Doctor Ekelund and I landed. We were pleased to find some newspapers, in which a meeting of Andrée and Nansen at Tromsö was referred to, also the Polar voyage chart of the celebrated Norwegian explorer. We afterwards attended an open-air concert given by a family of German artists.
During our passage to Torghatten, a small troupe of the Salvation Army came on board, and amused us a good deal with some of their musical performances, and their devout, though rather extravagant, practices.
The captain, a respectable lady, with her head concealed at the farther end of a huge poke-bonnet, which would not be out of place at Madame Tussaud’s, was gravely seated in a rocking-chair, and presided over the spiritual concert given by the members of the congregation. The devout musicians, leaning against a heap of dried cod-fish, sang in more or less plaintive tunes the praises of the Lord, who doubtless understands all languages. For my part, I did not understand a single word of these hymns, but I could judge by the faces of the audience that the music, which emollit mores, did not convince them. It was a wonder we did not throw them some small change; we expected that one of the pleasant company would go round, hat in hand, to make a collection for the expenses of the institution, or for any other more prosaic purpose.
A pretty young girl, of sixteen or seventeen years of age, with her hair arranged after the fashion of Miss Helyett (doubtless the captain’s niece), followed in a book, though with a distracted sort of devotion, the songs of the Salvation Army.
However, the amusements on board were not very numerous, and this was the chief item, as far as I was concerned, in the passage from Tromsö to Trondhjem, where the main body of the army awaited their brethren, who were coming from the North to gain souls for Paradise.
Thursday, August 27th.—About four p.m. the town of Trondhjem appeared to be south-east. This is the haven so long wished for, although I have no right to complain of this latter portion of my voyage, during which no one suffered from the rolling of the vessel. The largest northern town in Norway, where the houses and buildings are made entirely of wood, has really an original appearance, and I sincerely regretted that I could not make a longer stay; but a few hours afterwards I left my amiable guide, Dr. Ekelund, and took a quick train on the single-line railway which was to carry me, within seventeen hours, over the 310 miles that divided me from Christiania.
The train started with some difficulty, and could only ascend the first incline with the aid of a locomotive coupled on behind. At last it proceeded at its normal rate of speed; the line was so bad that my carriage was shaken terribly. The pinewood structures seemed extremely fragile, and the bridges thrown over the lakes and streams made one giddy.
After our two months stay at Spitzbergen, where the vegetable kingdom is represented by moss and lichen, it was pleasant to come back to verdure, trees and flowers. Here Nature is displayed in all her splendour, and I should never tire of admiring the marvellous landscapes, the châlets, the torrents and the waterfalls which all contribute to the grandeur of Norwegian scenery.
The farmers gathering in the harvest, the wood-cutters cutting down trees which they send down from the top of the mountain by the river, which conveys them to a port where they will be received and either sent to a saw-mill or shipped on board a trading vessel—all here is life and movement. What a contrast to the frozen solitudes of Spitzbergen! Hamar is the terminus of the narrow railway. Here we entered the elegant carriages that cross to Elsinore; and lastly, a few hours later, we neared Christiania and descended at full speed such a steep incline that at each moment we asked ourselves with terror where we should go if the brakes failed to act.
On getting out at Christiania, we found ourselves in the midst of civilization. At the station I was assailed by an army of touts, from whom I only escaped by taking refuge in the fly from the Grand Hotel, where French is spoken, and where I found a degree of comfort to which I had become unaccustomed—the refined luxury of great cities. At breakfast I listened to a concert that would not have been out of place on our grands boulevards. I visited the town, which is very interesting, and made purchases of furs and articles of which Norway has the monopoly, various knick-knacks and little trifles that afterwards serve to remind us of our wanderings. I stayed two hours in Copenhagen, and at last on Sunday the 30th of August I embarked, at dawn, at the mouth of the canal at Kiel, on board the mail-boat Skiruer, on which I made my last passage. All the passengers on the boat were on deck to see the German fleet which was drawn up at this station. Twenty ironclads, a great many despatch-boats and torpedo-boats lying at the entrance of the canal excited great curiosity; moreover the spectacle was new to me as well as to most of the passengers, and it is not one that can be seen every day.
At last I arrived at Hamburg and came on to Paris, passing through Cologne and Liège.
The polar balloon was returned to me a little while after, to be kept until the time when M. Andrée should start on his expedition.
By my advice, Andrée agreed that I should increase the volume of his balloon as much as possible by adding to its equator two zones of silk of treble thickness, thus bringing the cubic measurement of the balloon to about 176,582 feet. The result of this addition was an increase in the ascending power of nearly 650 lbs., which is not to be despised.
The outer envelope was then re-varnished inside and out, and, the repairing being completed, the balloon was sent off towards the end of April, 1897, to Gothenburg to be shipped on board the Svensksund.
Andrée’s new companions, M. Fraenkel, acting member, and M. Svedenborg, assistant, came to Paris in the spring[1] to go through a course of balloon practice. They made a series of ascents for practice from the aerostatic park at Vaugirard in the “Nobel” and the “Fram,” under the direction of Messrs. Machuron, Lair and myself.
Notwithstanding my desire to revisit the polar regions, I gave up my place to my nephew and collaborator, who, more fortunate than myself, witnessed the departure of the balloon.
Awaiting the return of the courageous explorers, I conclude the account of this voyage which will constitute an epoch in my life and will leave behind it ineffaceable memories.
Henri Lachambre.
Paris, October 14th, 1897.
[1] As Strindberg did last year.