A Sad Entry—Farewell to the Brig—Departure for the South—Death of Ohlsen—Difficult Travelling—The Open Water—The Esquimaux of Etah—A Terrible Gale—Among the broken Floes—A Greenland Oasis—The Ice Cliff—Eggs by the Hundred—An Anxious Moment—A Savage Feast—The First Sign of Civilisation—Return to the Settlements—Home once more.
Kane had now been two years in the arctic regions, and the day of release, so far at least as their little brig was concerned, seemed as far off as ever. Nearly all the men were invalids, and it took all the doctor’s unremitting attention to keep them from utter despondency; others, again, wanted only strength to become mutinous. Kane writes at the beginning of March that his journal “is little else than a chronicle of sufferings.” Brooks, his first officer, “as stalwart a man-o’-war’s-man as ever faced an enemy,” burst into tears when he first saw himself in the glass. On the 4th their last remnant of fresh meat had been doled out, and the region about their harbour ceased to yield any game.
May arrived, and with returning spring, and some supplies obtained from the natives, the crew were so far restored to health that all but three or four could take some part in the preparations for an immediate start to the southward. It had become only too evident that their vessel, now almost dismantled to the water’s edge—the woodwork having been needed for fuel—must be abandoned. But one month’s provisions remained, and they were thirteen hundred miles from the nearest Danish settlement.
The last farewell to the brig was made with some degree of solemnity. It was Sunday. After prayers and a chapter of the Bible had been read, Kane addressed his men, not affecting to disguise from them the difficulties still to be overcome, but reminding them how often an unseen Power had already rescued them from peril. He was met in a right spirit, and a memorial was shortly afterwards brought to him, signed by the whole company, which stated that they entirely concurred in his attempt to reach the south by means of boats, and that they were convinced of the necessity of abandoning the brig. All then went on deck. The flags were hoisted and hauled down again, and the men walked once or twice around the brig, looking at her timbers, and exchanging comments [pg 248]upon the scars, which reminded them of every stage of her dismantling. The figure-head—the fair Augusta, the little blue girl with pink cheeks, who had lost her breast by an iceberg and her nose by a nip off Bedevilled Reach—was taken from the bows. “She is at any rate wood,” said the men, when Kane hesitated about giving them the extra burden, “and if we cannot carry her far we can burn her.”
Their boats were three in number, all of them well battered by exposure to ice and storm, almost as destructive of their seaworthiness as the hot sun of other regions. Two of them were cypress whale-boats, twenty-six feet long, with seven feet beam, and three feet deep. These were strengthened with oak bottom-pieces and a long string-piece bolted to the keel. A washboard of light cedar, about six inches high, served to strengthen the gunwale and give increased depth. A neat housing of light canvas was stretched upon a ridge-line sustained fore and aft by stanchions. The third boat was the little Red Eric. They mounted her on the old sledge, the Faith, hardly relying on her for any purposes of navigation, but with the intention of cutting her up for firewood in case their guns should fail to give them a supply of blubber. Indeed, in spite of all the ingenuity of the carpenter, Mr. Ohlsen, well seconded by the persevering labours of M’Garey and Bonsall, not one of the boats was positively seaworthy. The Hope would not pass even charitable inspection, and they expected to burn her on reaching water. The planking of all of them was so dried up that it could hardly be made tight by caulking. The three boats were mounted on the sledges, the provisions stowed snugly under the thwarts; the chronometers, carefully boxed and padded, placed in the stern-sheets of the Hope, in charge of Mr. Sontag. With them were such of the instruments as they could venture to transport. Their powder and shot, upon which their lives depended, were carefully distributed in bags and tin canisters.
“There was,” says Kane, “no sign or affectation of spirit or enthusiasm upon the memorable day when we first adjusted the boats to their cradles on the sledges, and moved them off to the ice-foot. But the ice immediately around the vessel was smooth, and as the boats had not received their lading, the first labour was an easy one. As the runners moved, the gloom of several countenances was perceptibly lightened. The croakers had protested that we could not stir an inch. These cheering remarks always reach a commander’s ears, and I took good care, of course, to make the onset contradict them. By the time we reached the end of our little level the tone had improved wonderfully, and we were prepared for the effort of crossing the successive lines of the belt-ice, and forcing a way through the smashed material which interposed between us and the ice-foot.
“This was a work of great difficulty, and sorrowfully exhausting to the poor fellows not yet accustomed to heave together. But in the end I had the satisfaction, before twenty-four hours were over, of seeing our little arks of safety hauled up on the higher plane of the ice-foot, in full time for ornamental exhibition from the brig; their neat canvas housing rigged tent-fashion over the entire length of each; a jaunty little flag, made out of one of the commander’s obsolete linen shirts, decorated in stripes from a disused article of stationery—the red-ink bottle—and with a very little of the blue-bag in the star-spangled corner. All hands after this returned on board. I had ready for them the best supper our supplies afforded, and they turned in with minds prepared for their departure next day.
[pg 249]“They were nearly all of them invalids, unused to open air and exercise. It was necessary to train them very gradually. We made but two miles the first day, and with a single boat; and, indeed, for some time after this I took care that they should not be disheartened by overwork. They came back early to a hearty supper and warm beds, and I had the satisfaction of marching them back each recurring morning refreshed and cheerful. The weather, happily, was superb.”
Repeated sledge journeys back to the brig, and afterwards from station to station, were made, as they could not transport all their goods at one time in their enfeebled state. No one worked harder than did the commander himself. On one of his last visits to the brig, he, with the aid of Morton and an Esquimaux, baked 150 lbs. of bread, and performed other culinary operations for the benefit of the whole party.
Their journey was one of peril and difficulty, and constantly interrupted by gales. The reflection would now and again force itself upon their minds that a single storm might convert the precarious platform on which they travelled into a tumultuous ice-pack. While crossing a weak part of the ice one of their sledge-runners broke through, and but for the presence of mind of Ohlsen, the load, boat and all, would have gone under. He saw the ice give way, and by a violent exercise of strength, passed a capstan-bar under the sledge, and thus bore the load till it was hauled on to safer ice. He was a very powerful [pg 250]man, and might have done this without injuring himself; but it would seem his footing gave way under him, forcing him to make a still more desperate effort to extricate himself. It cost him his life: he died three days afterwards, from the strain on his system.
But there were times when travelling was not so difficult, and when they could hoist their sails, and run rapidly before the wind over solid ice. It was a new sensation to the men. Levels which, under the slow labour of the drag-rope, would have delayed them for hours, were glided over without a halt, and the speed of the sledges made rotten ice nearly as available as sound. They made more progress in one day in this manner than they had previously in five. The spirits of the men rose; “the sick mounted the thwarts; the well clung to the gunwale; and, for the first time for nearly a year, broke out the sailors’ chorus, ‘Storm along, my hearty boys!’ ”
“Though the condition of the ice assured us,” says Kane, writing several days later, “that we were drawing near the end of our sledge-journeys, it by no means diminished their difficulty or hazards. The part of the field near the open water is always abraded by the currents, while it remains apparently firm on the surface. In some places it was so transparent that we could even see the gurgling eddies below it; while in others it was worn into open holes that were already the resort of wild fowl. But in general it looked hard and plausible, though not more than a foot or even six inches in thickness.
“This continued to be its character as long as we pursued the Lyttelton Island channel, and we were compelled, the whole way through, to sound ahead with the boat-hook or narwal-horn. We learned this precaution from the Esquimaux, who always move in advance of their sledges when the ice is treacherous, and test its strength before bringing on their teams. Our first warning impressed us with the policy of observing. We were making wide circuits with the whale-boats to avoid the tide-holes, when signals of distress from men scrambling on the ice announced to us that the Red Eric had disappeared. This unfortunate little craft contained all the dearly-earned documents of the expedition. There was not a man who did not feel that the reputation of the party rested in a great degree upon their preservation. It had cost us many a pang to give up our collections of natural history, to which every one had contributed his quota of labour and interest; but the destruction of the vouchers of the cruise—the log-books, the meteorological registers, the surveys, and the journals—seemed to strike them all as an irreparable disaster.
“When I reached the boat everything was in confusion. Blake, with a line passed round his waist, was standing up to his knees in sludge, groping for the document-box, and Mr. Bonsall, dripping wet, was endeavouring to haul the provision-bags to a place of safety. Happily the boat was our lightest one, and everything was saved. She was gradually lightened until she could bear a man, and her cargo was then passed out by a line and hauled upon the ice. In spite of the wet and the cold and our thoughts of poor Ohlsen, we greeted its safety with three cheers.
“It was by great good fortune that no lives were lost. Stephenson was caught as he sank by one of the sledge-runners, and Morton while in the very act of drifting under the ice was seized by the hair of the head by Mr. Bonsall, and saved!”
[pg 251]On June 16th their boats were at the open water. “We see,” says Kane, “its deep indigo horizon, and hear its roar against the icy beach. Its scent is in our nostrils and our hearts.” They had their boats to prepare now for a long and adventurous navigation. They were so small and heavily laden as hardly to justify much confidence in their buoyancy; but, besides this, they were split with frost and warped by sunshine, and fairly open at the seams. They were to be caulked, and swelled, and launched, and stowed, before they could venture to embark in them. A rainy south-wester too, which had met them on arrival, was now spreading with its black nimbus over the sky as if they were to be storm-stayed on the precarious ice-beach. It was a time of anxiety.
Kane writes on July 18th, “The Esquimaux are camped by our side—the whole settlement of Etah congregated around the ‘big caldron’ of Cape Alexander, to bid us good-bye. There are Meteh and Mealik his wife, our old acquaintance Mrs. Eiderduck, and their five children, commencing with Myouk my body-guard, and ending with the ventricose little Accomadah. There is Nessark and Anak his wife; and Tellerk, ‘the right-arm,’ and Amannalik his wife; and Sip-see, and Marsumah, and Aniugnah—and who not? I can name them every one, but they know us as well. We have found brothers in a strange land.”
For many days after leaving their Esquimaux friends they were more or less beset with broken floating ice, and the weather was often extremely bad. Kane describes a gale, during which the boats were nearly swamped. At length they reached a cleft or cave in the cliff, and were shoring up their boat with blocks of ice, when they saw the welcome sight of a flock of eider ducks, and they knew that they were at their breeding grounds.
“We remained almost three days in our crystal retreat, gathering eggs at the rate of 1,200 a day. Outside the storm raged without intermission, and our egg-hunters found it difficult to keep their feet; but a merrier set of gourmands than were gathered within never surfeited in genial diet.” It was the 18th of July before the ice allowed them to depart. In launching the Hope she was precipitated into the sludge below, carrying away rail and bulwark, tumbling their best shot-gun into the sea, and, worst of all, their kettle—soup-kettle, paste-kettle, tea-kettle, water-kettle, all in one—was lost overboard. For some days after they made fair progress.
A little later and matters had not improved. The ice was again before them in an almost unbroken mass. “Things grew worse and worse with us,” says Kane; “the old difficulty of breathing came back again, and our feet swelled to such an extent that we were obliged to cut open our canvas boots. But the symptom which gave me most uneasiness was our inability to sleep. A form of low fever which hung by us when at work had been kept down by the thoroughness of our daily rest. All my hopes of escape were in the refreshing influences of the halt.
“It must be remembered that we were now in the open bay, in the full line of the great ice-drift to the Atlantic, and in boats so frail and unseaworthy as to require constant baling to keep them afloat.
“It was at this crisis of our fortunes that we saw a large seal floating—as is the custom of these animals—on a small patch of ice, and seemingly asleep. It was an ussuk, [pg 252]and so large that I at first mistook it for a walrus. Signal was made for the Hope to follow astern, and, trembling with anxiety, we prepared to crawl down upon him.
“Petersen, with the large English rifle, was stationed in the bow, and stockings were drawn over the oars as mufflers. As we neared the animal our excitement became so intense that the men could hardly keep stroke. I had a set of signals for such occasions, which spared us the noise of the voice; and when about three hundred yards off the oars were taken in, and we moved on in deep silence with a single scull astern.
“He was not asleep, for he reared his head when we were almost within rifle-shot; and to this day I can remember the hard, careworn, almost despairing expression of the men’s thin faces as they saw him move: their lives depended on his capture.
“I depressed my hand nervously, as a signal for Petersen to fire. M’Gary hung upon his oar, and the boat, slowly but noiselessly sagging ahead, seemed to me within certain range. Looking at Petersen, I saw that the poor fellow was paralysed by his anxiety, trying vainly to obtain a rest for his gun against the cut-water of the boat. The seal rose on his fore-flippers, gazed at us for a moment with frightened curiosity, and coiled himself for a plunge. At that instant, simultaneously with the crack of our rifle, he relaxed his long length on the ice, and, at the very brink of the water, his head fell helpless to one side.
“I would have ordered another shot, but no discipline could have controlled the men. With a wild yell, each vociferating according to his own impulse, they urged both boats upon the floes. A crowd of hands seized the seal, and bore him up to safer ice. The men seemed half crazy: I had not realised how much we were reduced by absolute famine. They ran over the floe, crying and laughing, and brandishing their knives. It was not five minutes before each man was sucking his bloody fingers, or mouthing long strips of raw blubber.
“Not an ounce of this seal was lost. The intestines found their way into the soup-kettles without any observance of the preliminary home processes. The cartilaginous parts of the fore-flippers were cut off in the mêlée and passed round to be chewed upon; and [pg 253]even the liver, warm and raw as it was, bade fair to be eaten before it had seen the pot. That night, on the large halting-floe, to which, in contempt of the dangers of drifting, we happy men had hauled our boats, two entire planks of the Red Eric were devoted to a grand cooking-fire, and we enjoyed a rare and savage feast....
“Two days after this a mist had settled down upon the islands which embayed us, and when it lifted we found ourselves rowing in lazy time, under the shadow of Karkamoot. Just then a familiar sound came to us over the water. We had often listened to the screeching of the gulls or the bark of the fox, and mistaken it for the ‘Huk’ of the Esquimaux; but this had about it an inflection not to be mistaken, for it died away in the familiar cadence of a ‘halloo.’
“ ‘Listen, Petersen! oars, men!’ ‘What is it?’—and he listened quietly at first, and then, trembling, said, in a half whisper, ‘Dannemarkers!’
“I remember this the first tone of Christian voice which had greeted our return to the world. How we all stood up and peered into the distant nook; and how the cry came to us again, just as, having seen nothing, we were doubting whether the whole was not a dream; and then how, with long sweeps, the white ash cracking under the spring of the rowers, we stood for the cape that the sound proceeded from, and how nervously we scanned the green spots, which our experience, grown now into instinct, told us would be the likely camping-ground of wayfarers!
“By-and-by—for we must have been pulling for a good half-hour—the single mast of a small shallop showed itself; and Petersen, who had been very quiet and grave, burst out into an incoherent fit of crying, only relieved by broken exclamations of mingled Danish and English. ‘’Tis the Upernavik oil-boat, the Fraulein Flaischer! Carlie Mossyn, the assistant cooper, must be on his road to Kingatok for blubber. The Mariane (the one annual ship) has come, and Carlie Mossyn’—and here he did it all over again, gulping down his words and wringing his hands.
“It was Carlie Mossyn, sure enough. The quiet routine of a Danish settlement is the same year after year, and Petersen had hit upon the exact state of things. The Mariane was at Proven, and Carlie Mossyn had come up in the Fraulein Flaischer to get the year’s supply of blubber from Kingatok.
“Here we first got our cloudy vague idea of what had passed in the world during our absence. The friction of its fierce rotation has not much disturbed this little outpost of civilisation, and we thought it a sort of blunder as he told us that France and England were leagued with the Mussulman against the Greek Church. He was a good Lutheran, this assistant cooper, and all news with him had a theological complexion.
“ ‘What of America? eh, Petersen?’—and we all looked, waiting for him to interpret the answer.
“ ‘America?’ said Carlie; ‘we don’t know much of that country here, for they have no whalers on the coast; but a steamer and a barque passed up a fortnight ago, and have gone out into the ice to seek your party.’
“How gently all the lore of this man oozed out of him! he seemed an oracle, as, with hot tingling fingers pressed against the gunwale of the boat, we listened to his words. ‘Sebastopol aint taken.’ Where and what was Sebastopol?
[pg 254]“But ‘Sir John Franklin?’ There we were at home again—our own delusive little speciality rose uppermost. Franklin’s party, or traces of the dead which represented it, had been found nearly a thousand miles to the south of where we had been searching for them. He knew it; for the priest (Pastor Kraag) had a German newspaper which told all about it. And so we ‘out oars’ again, and rowed into the fogs.
“Another sleeping halt was passed, and we have all washed clean at the fresh-water basins, and furbished up our ragged furs and woollens. Kasarsoak, the snow top of Sanderson’s Hope, shows itself above the mists, and we hear the yelling of the dogs. Petersen had been foreman of the settlement, and he calls my attention, with a sort of pride, to the tolling of the workmen’s bell. It is six o’clock. We are nearing the end of our trials. Can it be a dream?
“We hugged the land by the big harbour, turned the corner by the brewhouse, and, in the midst of a crowd of children, hauled our boats for the last time upon the rocks.
“For eighty-four days we had lived in the open air. Our habits were hard and weatherworn. We could not remain within the four walls of a house without a distressing sense of suffocation. But we drank coffee that night before many a hospitable threshold, and listened again and again to the hymn of welcome, which, sung by many voices, greeted our deliverance.” They had been eighty-four days on the trip.
Kane and his party received all manner of kindness from the Danes of Upernavik. After stopping there nearly a month, and recruiting their health, they left for Godhavn on a Danish vessel, the captain of which had engaged to drop them at the Shetland Islands, should no other or better opportunity occur. Just as they were leaving Godhavn, however, the look-out man at the hill-top announced a steamer in the distance. It drew near, with a barque in tow, and they soon recognised the stars and stripes of their own country. All the boats of the settlement put out to her. “Presently,” says the interesting narrative we have followed, “we were alongside. An officer whom I shall ever remember as a cherished friend, Captain Hartstene, hailed a little man in a ragged flannel shirt, ‘Is that Dr. Kane?’ and with the ‘Yes!’ that followed the rigging was manned by our countrymen, and cheers welcomed us back to the social world of love which they represented.” This U.S. man-of-war which had been sent especially to search for them, had been several weeks among the northward ice before they returned, so fortunately, to Godhavn. A few weeks later Kane was being honoured as only Americans honour those whom they highly esteem. Later, in many ways, he received the fullest recognition in our own country. It is sad to know that he, who had laboured so hard for the welfare of his men, and not merely for science or personal ambition, was the first to pass away. His slight frame could not stand the many drafts which had been put on its endurance, and scarcely fourteen months elapsed from the period of his return till the sad news of his death shocked not merely the world of science but a world of friends, many of whom had never known him in the flesh, but who, from his writings and good report, had learned to love him.
Voyage of the United States—High Latitude attained—In Winter Quarters—Hardships of the Voyage—The dreary Arctic Landscape—Open Water once more—1,300 Miles of Ice traversed—Swedish Expeditions—Perilous Position of the Sofia.
It will be remembered that Dr. Hayes was associated with Dr. Kane at the period when Morton discovered that open water which seemed to many scientific men of the day positive proof of the existence of an “open polar sea.” Dr. Hayes was an evident believer in the theory, and his enthusiastic advocacy of it induced many in the United States to come forward and lend material aid towards the solution of the problem. A private subscription, to which that worthy New Yorker Mr. Grinnell, who had already done so much to further Arctic exploration, contributed largely, enabled Dr. Hayes to purchase and fit a schooner—the United States—for the arduous work in which she was to be engaged. The vessel was of no great size, merely some 130 tons burden, but was considerably strengthened and suitably provided for her coming struggle with the ice. The expedition, which numbered only fourteen persons all told, left Boston on July 6th, 1860.
Hayes’ idea at starting was to proceed viâ Smith Sound and Kennedy Channel as far north as might be; then to winter on the Greenland coast, and attempt to reach with sledges the northern water. Dangers, the description of which would be but a recapitulation of previous accounts recorded in these pages, were passed successfully, and eventually he laid up the vessel in Port Foulke, where the winter was passed in comparative ease. In the months of April and May, 1861, he made an important exploration, at the end of which he had the pleasure of reaching a point north of that attained by Morton. The journey was one of the very greatest peril. Gales, fogs, and drifting snows; hummocks and broken ice; opening seams and pools of water—such were a few of the dangers and difficulties encountered. Some of the men succumbed utterly, and had to be sent back to the schooner: it occupied the doctor and his companions a clear month to cross Smith Sound. In Kennedy Channel the ice was becoming rotten and full of water-holes, and through the soft and now melting snow they travelled with the greatest difficulty. The dreariness and desolation of an Arctic landscape are well described by Hayes. “As the eye wandered from peak to peak of the mountains as they rose one above the other, and rested upon the dark and frost-degraded cliffs, and followed along the ice-foot and overlooked the sea, and saw in every object the silent forces of Nature moving on—through the gloom of winter and the sparkle of summer—now, as they had moved for countless ages, unobserved but by the eye of God alone—I felt how puny indeed are all men’s works and efforts; and when I sought for some token of living thing, some track of wild beast—a fox, or bear, or reindeer, which had elsewhere always crossed me in my journeyings—and saw nothing but two feeble men and struggling dogs, it seemed indeed as if the Almighty had frowned upon the hills and seas.” Still they pushed on, till the old ice came suddenly to an end, and the unerring instinct of the dogs warned them of approaching danger. They were observed for some time to be moving with unusual caution, and at last they scattered right and left, and refused to proceed. Hayes walked on ahead, and soon came to the conclusion that they must retrace their steps, for his staff gave way on the ice. After [pg 256]camping, and enjoying a refreshing sleep, he climbed a steep hill-side to the summit of a rugged cliff, about 800 feet above the sea level, from which he soon understood the cause of their arrested progress. “The ice was everywhere in the same condition as in the mouth of the bay across which I had endeavoured to pass. A broad crack, starting from the middle of the bay, stretched over the sea, and uniting with other cracks as it meandered to the eastward, it expanded as the delta of some mighty river discharging into the ocean, and under a water-sky, which hung upon the northern and eastern horizon, it was lost in the open sea.
“Standing against the dark sky at the north, there was seen in dim outline the white sloping summit of a noble headland, the most northern known land upon the globe. I judged it to be in the latitude of 82° 30′, or 450 miles from the North Pole. Nearer, another bold cape stood forth, and nearer still the headland, for which I had been steering my course the day before, rose majestically from the sea, as if pushing up into the very skies, a lofty mountain peak, upon which the winter had dropped its diadem of snows. There was no land visible except the coast upon which I stood.
“The sea beneath me was a mottled sheet of white and dark patches, these latter being either soft decaying ice, or places where the ice had wholly disappeared. These spots were heightened in intensity of shade and multiplied in size as they receded, until the belt of the water-sky blended them all together into one uniform colour of dark blue. [pg 257]The old and solid floes (some a quarter of a mile, and others miles across) and the massive ridges and wastes of hummocked ice which lay piled between them and around their margins, were the only parts of the sea which retained the whiteness and solidity of winter.”
Hayes returned from this expedition firmly convinced that he had stood upon the shores of the Polar basin. The arguments have been before indicated for and against this theory, but they are certainly not conclusive. The journey had been one of a most arduous nature; and more than 1,300 miles of ice had been traversed before he regained the schooner. On his return to the United States shortly afterwards, at the climax of the great American war, Hayes immediately volunteered in the Northern army, a pretty decided proof of the energy and bravery of the man.
Between the years 1858 and 1872 Sweden sent out five expeditions to the Arctic, the results of which were important in many directions, although no geographical discoveries of great mark were made. The first was provided at the expense of Otto Torell, a gentleman of means, and who has deservedly earned a high scientific reputation. The expenses of the others were defrayed partly by private subscription and partly by Government aid. The whole of them were under the direction of Professor Nordenskjöld, and a very decided addition to our knowledge of Spitzbergen has been the result. The Swedes reached a latitude of 81° 42′ N. during the 1868 voyage. An attempt to pass northward from the Seven Isles is thus described by the Professor:—
“Northward lay vast ice masses, it is true as yet broken, but still so closely packed that not even a boat could pass forward, and we were therefore obliged to turn to the south-west and seek for another opening in the ice; but we found on the contrary, that the limit of the ice stretched itself more and more to the south.... On the way we had in several places met with ice black with stones, gravel, and earth, which would seem to indicate the existence of land still farther north.
“The ice itself had, moreover, a very different appearance from that which we had met in these tracts at the end of August. It consisted now, not only of larger ice-fields, but also of huge ice-blocks.... Already, in the beginning of September, the surface of the ocean, after a somewhat heavy fall of snow, had shown itself between the ice masses, covered with a coating of ice, which, however, was then thin, and scarcely hindered the vessel’s progress. Now it was so thick that it was not without difficulty that a way could be forced through it.” On October the 4th, during the prevalence of a gale and heavy sea, their ship, the Sofia, was thrown bodily upon an iceberg, and commenced to leak so badly that when they reached Amsterdam Island, and after eleven hours of incessant work at the pumps, the water stood two feet above the cabin floor. The engine-room, thanks to water-tight bulkheads, was with great difficulty kept so free from water that the fires were not extinguished. Had this not been the case, the ship must have become a prey to the raging elements. At Amsterdam Island the vessel was careened, and the leak provisionally stopped, so that they were able a little later to proceed to a more secure harbour, King’s Bay, where they hauled close to the land, and at ebb tide succeeded in making the ship water-tight. Two ribs were broken by the shock which caused the leak, and an immediate return home was their only safe course. The description, however, gives some idea of the dangers of Arctic ice navigation.
The First German Expedition—Preparations for a Second—Building of the Germania—The Hansa—The Emperor William’s Interest in the Voyage—The Scientific Corps—Departure from Bremerhaven—Neptune at the Arctic Circle—The Vessels Separated among the Ice—Sport with Polar Bears—Wedged in by the Grinding Ice—Preparations to Winter on the Floe—The Hansa lifted Seventeen Feet out of the Water—A Doomed Vessel—Wreck of the Hansa.
On the 24th of October, 1868, a number of gentlemen were assembled round a festive board in Bremen to celebrate the happy return of the first German expedition, under Captain Karl Koldewey. Among the guests was Dr. A. Petermann, the eminent geographer, to whose exertions in great part the inauguration of the expedition had been due. Its object had been to reach as near the North Pole as might be, the route selected being that between Greenland and Spitzbergen. Baffled by an icy barrier off the South Cape of Spitzbergen, at which time a terrific storm was raging, he had steered to the eastward, passing among clusters of icebergs, some of which were taller than his vessel’s masts. After passing safely through many perils, he returned to the South Cape, and coasted Spitzbergen to the north-west; later he had endeavoured to make the ice-girt shores of East Greenland, but not succeeding, again returned to Spitzbergen, and after sundry explorations, turned his vessel’s head towards home.
It was at the banquet above-mentioned that expression was first given to the idea of a second expedition to the inhospitable regions of the far North. There had been some slight surplus of funds left from the first expedition, and it was determined to make an appeal to German liberality to complete a sum sufficient to build a steamer specially adapted for Arctic waters. Committees were formed in Berlin, Munich, Bremen, Hamburg, and numerous other cities, and the result in the end was very satisfactory. The Germania, a steamer of 143 tons burden, was laid on the stocks at Bremerhaven on March 10th, 1869, and thirty-six days afterwards was launched. She was about the average size of a Brazilian or West Indian fruit or coffee schooner, ninety feet long, twenty-two and a half feet broad, and eleven feet deep. Although, therefore, an extremely small steamer, she had been built in the strongest manner, with extra beams, thick iron sheathing, and every other improvement which might render her comparatively safe in the ice. Her sharp build proved subsequently of great advantage to her when sailing. Including the machinery and ship’s fittings, the Germania cost £3,150. A second vessel, the purchase-money for which had been guaranteed by some Bremen merchants, although eventually the subscriptions released them, was a Prussian schooner of 76¾ tons burden, which was re-christened the Hansa, and was meant to be, in some sense, a tender to the Germania, although fate eventually decreed otherwise. Great care was taken with the victualling and equipment of the ships; but little salt or dried meat was taken. Many presents of “the good Rhine wine” and other luxuries, as well as books, instruments, and other kindly remembrances, came in from friends of the expedition.
The officers and scientific members of the expedition counted among their number several men who had previously or have since become famous. The commander of the [pg 259]whole was Captain Koldewey, a Hanoverian, who had long been a sailor, and who, to fit himself for his new duties, temporarily gave up his profession, in the winters of 1867-8 and 1868-9, to study physics and astronomy at the University of Gottingen. With him were associated Dr. Karl N. J. Borgen, and Dr. R. Copeland, an Englishman, who were conjointly to take scientific observations, &c.; also Julius Payer, a lieutenant in the Imperial Austrian army, on leave. The latter, in particular, joined the expedition with a considerable amount of prestige, derived from an active life spent in the cause of science. Although only twenty-seven years old, he had made and recorded many expeditions in the Alps, and in the mountainous districts of Austria. He had also taken an active part in 1866 in the Italian war. Lastly, to Dr. Adolphus Pansch, surgeon of the Germania, were assigned the departments of zoology, botany, and ethnology. Nearly all of the above had earned their laurels in the scientific literature of Germany. The captain of the Hansa was Paul Friedrich August Hegemann, an experienced navigator; with him were associated two scientific gentlemen, Dr. Bucholz and Dr. Gustavus Laube.
On May 28th, 1869, Captain Koldewey had an audience of his Majesty King William, at Babelsberg, who expressed his gratification at having secured the services of a leader so energetic. The departure of the expedition took place from Bremerhaven on the 15th of June following, in the presence of the King, his Royal Highness the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg Schwerin, Count (now Prince) Bismarck, General von Moltke, and other distinguished men. The King heartily shook the hands of the commander and his scientific corps, and inspected the vessels with much satisfaction. The parting moment at length arrived, and amid the salutes of artillery and hearty cheers from the crowds ashore, the vessels made for the mouth of the Weser, and put to sea.
The first part of the voyage was not specially eventful. The vessels several times parted company, but rejoined afterwards. The dense fogs which infest those latitudes were the cause of much anxiety on the part of the commanders. On July the 4th Dr. Copeland shot a gull, which fell in the sea, and was nearly the cause of a serious disaster. A sailor, without undressing, jumped overboard after it, and the vessel sailing rapidly was soon a considerable distance from him. He was almost on the point of sinking, when a boat, which had been hastily launched, reached him, and he was drawn out of the water. “Like a drowned poodle,” says the narrative, “the sinner stood once more amongst us, receiving as a reward a sound lecture from the captain, followed by a good draught of brandy.” On July the 5th they passed the Arctic circle (66° 33′), the Hansa being the first in the race, and the first to unfurl the North German flag. “Conformably to the custom,” says Koldewey, “as on crossing the equator, Neptune came on board to welcome us, and wish us success on our voyage; of course not without all those who had not yet crossed the Arctic circle having to undergo the rather rough shaving and christening customary on such occasions.... Universal grog and good fellowship on board both ships brought the ceremony to a close.”
After a separation of many days the vessels again joined on July 18th. A prize of a bottle of wine had been offered on board the Germania to the individual who should first sight the Hansa. Soon after breakfast on that day a sail is discovered from the topmast. It is a schooner, and as the whale fishers do not use such craft it must be [pg 260]the Hansa! A little later, and by getting up steam on board the larger vessel, they rejoined, and the officers met and compared notes. They parted that evening full of confident hopes for the future. Little did they think that the vessels would never meet again, and that although as comrades they would meet, a fourteen months’ interval must elapse! By the misunderstanding of a signal the Hansa set all sail and parted company when off the east coast of Greenland in lat. 70° 46′ N., long. 10° 51′ W., and soon became entangled in the ice, while they looked in vain from the “crow’s nest” for an opening. We shall now follow the fortunes of the Hansa.
That vessel was soon inextricably wedged in the ice. The coast of East Greenland was often in sight, and several unsuccessful attempts were made to reach it. During this period they had some sport with the polar bears. On September 12th a she bear and cub approached the vessel, the former being speedily shot. The young one was caught, escaped again, and at last was brought back swimming, and was chained to the ice-anchor. It was very much frightened, but nevertheless devoured its mother’s flesh when it was thrown to it. The men built it a snow house, and offered it a couch of shavings, but young Bruin, as a genuine inhabitant of the Arctic seas, despised such luxuries, and made its bed in the snow. Some days later it had disappeared, together with the chain, which must have become loosened from the anchor. From the weight of the iron alone the poor creature must soon have sunk. Other Arctic guests visited the Hansa. With a brisk wind came two white foxes from the coast, a certain proof that the ice must extend thither.
Towards the end of September the necessity of wintering on the floating ice off the coast was decided upon, and they resolved on the erection of a winter house. Bricks were ready in the shape of “coal-tiles,” while water or snow was to form the mortar. Before anything else was done, the boats were cleaned out, covered with a roofing, and provisions placed ready for them in case of emergency. Captain Hegemann sketched the plan for the building, which was to have an area of 20 × 14 feet, with low roof. Wall-building has to be given up in frosty weather on land, not so on the ice. Finely-powdered snow was strewn between the interstices, and water poured upon it, which in ten minutes became solid ice-mortar. The roof was at first composed of sail-cloth and matting. Meantime the ice was grinding and surging around them, and threatening to crush the vessel at any moment. Underneath the ice-field it groaned and cracked, “now sounding like the banging of doors, now like many human voices raised one against the other, and lastly like the drag on the wheel of a railway engine.” The apparent cause was that the drifting ice was pressing in upon the fixed coast ice. Meantime the Hansa quivered in every beam, and the masts swayed to and fro. Provisions and stores were moved to the house in case of sudden disaster.
On the morning of the 19th a NNW. gale with snow-storm foreboded mischief. The air was gloomy and thick, and the coast four miles off could not be seen. The ice came pressing upon the vessel, and before noon the position became serious. The piled-up masses of “young ice,” four feet thick, pressed heavily on the outer side, and the vessel became tilted upwards at the bows. The men took their meals on deck, not knowing what might happen next. “Soon,” says the narrator, “some mighty blocks of ice pushed themselves under the bow of the vessel, and although they were crushed by it, they [pg 261]forced it up, slowly at first, then quicker, until it was raised seventeen feet out of its former position upon the ice. This movement we tried to ease as much as possible by shovelling away the ice and snow from the larboard side. The rising of the ship was an extraordinary and awful, yet splendid spectacle, of which the whole crew were witnesses from the ice. In all haste the clothing, nautical instruments, journals and cards [the translator means charts] were taken over the landing-bridge. The after part of the ship, unfortunately, would not rise, and therefore the stern-post had to bear the most frightful pressure, and the conviction that the ship must soon break up forced itself upon our minds.” At the end of the afternoon the ice retreated, and the vessel was once more again in her native element. The pumps were set to work, and it was soon made clear that all their exertions would not save the schooner, for the water steadily gained upon them. The fate of the Hansa was sealed, and the coal-house on the ice was destined to be their only refuge, may-be their grave.
The work of removing everything available went on steadily. A snow-storm had raged during the day, but it cleared in the evening; the moon shed her cold light over the dreary ice-fields, and ever and anon the Northern lights flashed over them in many changing colours. The men, whether at the pumps, or engaged in removing the stores, had a hard time of it. The decks were thick with ice, and those at the pumps stood in tubs to keep dry and warm. Night allowed the crew some few hours of welcome rest, and at early dawn all set to work again. “But the catastrophe was near; at 8 A.M. the men who were busy in the fore-peak, getting out firewood, came with anxious faces, with the news that the wood was already floating below. When the captain had ascertained the [pg 262]truth of this intelligence, he ordered the pumping to cease. It was evident that the ship was sinking, and that it must be abandoned.
“The first thing to be done was to bring all necessary and useful things from the ’tween decks on to the ice—bedding, clothing, more provisions, and coal. Silently were all the heavy chests and barrels pushed over the hatchway. First comes the weighty iron galley, then the two stoves are happily hoisted over; their possession ensures us the enjoyment of warm food, the heating of our coal-house, and other matters indispensable for a wintering on the floe. At three o’clock the water in the cabin had reached the table, and all movable articles were floating. The fear that we should not have enough fuel made us grasp at every loose piece of wood and throw it on to the ice. The sinking of the vessel was now almost imperceptible; it must have found support on a tongue of ice or some promontory of our field. There was still a small medicine-chest and a few other things which, in our future position, would be great treasures—such as the cabin-lamp, books, cigars, boxes of games, &c. The snow-roof, too, and the sails were brought on to the ice; but still all necessary work was not yet accomplished. Round about the ship lay a chaotic mass of heterogeneous articles, and groups of feeble rats struggling with death, and trembling with the cold! All articles, for greater safety, must be conveyed over a fissure to about thirty paces farther inland. The galley we at once took on a sledge to the house, as we should want it to give us warm coffee in the evening. We then looked after the sailor Max Schmidt, who was suffering from frost-bite, and brought him on planks under the fur covering to the coal-house. By 9 A.M. all were in the new asylum, which was lit by the cabin-lamp, and looked like a dreary tomb. Pleased with the completion of our heavy day’s work, though full of trouble for the future, we prepared our couch. A number of planks were laid upon the ground, and sail-cloth spread over them. Upon these we lay down, rolled in our furs. A man remained to watch the stove, as the temperature in the room had risen from 2° Fahr. to 27½° Fahr. It was a hard, cold bed; but sleep soon fell upon our weary, over-worked limbs. On the morning of the 21st we went again to the ship to get more fuel. The coal-hole was, however, under water. We therefore chopped down the masts, and hauled them with the whole of the tackle on to the ice—a work which took us nearly the whole day. At eleven the foremast fell, at three the mainmast followed; and now the Hansa really looked a complete, comfortless wreck. For the last time the captain and steersman went on deck, and about six o’clock loosed the ropes, which, by means of the ice-anchor held the ship to the field, as we feared that our floe, which bore all our treasures, might break.” The scientific collections and photographs had to be utterly abandoned. On the night of the 21st and 22nd the wreck sank, about six miles from the coast of Greenland. The jolly-boat, which stood loose on deck, floated, and was drawn on the ice.