Austrian expedition, 1871.—Payer and Weyprecht.—The
_Tegetthoff_ adrift in the Polar pack.—Discovery of Franz
Josef Land.—Payer’s sledge journeys.—Payer’s farthest
82° 5´ north latitude.—Cape Fligely.—Abandonment of the
_Tegetthoff_.—Retreat of officers and crew.—Picked up by
Russian fishermen.—“Home.”
[Sidenote: _AUSTRIAN ARCTIC VOYAGES_]
Having gained much distinction for his valuable services in the second
German expedition, Lieutenant Payer was resolved to continue in the path
of polar discovery. The following year, in company with his colleague and
friend, Lieutenant Weyprecht of the Austrian-Hungarian Navy, he equipped
the Norwegian schooner _Isbjorn_ and examined the edge of the ice between
Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla, reaching 78° 43´ north latitude, and 42° 30´
east longitude, on the 1st of September, 1871.
The zealous endeavours of Payer and Weyprecht succeeded in calling into
existence a still larger Austrian expedition in 1872. Their plan was to
select a route by the north end of Nova Zembla with a view to making the
Northeast Passage.
“Weyprecht was to command the ship, _Tegetthoff_, while Lieutenant
Payer was to conduct the sledge parties. The _Tegetthoff_ sailed from
Bremerhaven June 13, 1872, bearing in her course to Tromsoe. Her
equipment was liberal and carefully selected, the total expense of
the expedition amounting to £18,333. The officers and crew numbered
twenty-four souls.
“Delayed by storms among the Loffoden Isles, they did not reach Tromsoe
until July 3. Ten days later the _Tegetthoff_ turned her prow to the
north; the Norwegian coast with its many glaciers was in full view on
July 16, North Cape loomed in the blue distance. By July 25, while
in lat. 74° 0´ 15´´ N., the ice was sighted; proceeding with careful
navigation through opens in the frozen ocean, the ship moved in her
course until the end of August, when she became beset near Cape Nassan,
at the northern end of Nova Zembla, having just parted with the _Isbjorn_
near Barentz Isle, where Count Wilczek was placing supplies for their
possible retreat.”
“Ominous were the events of that day,” writes Payer, “for immediately
after we had made fast the _Tegetthoff_ to that floe, the ice closed in
upon us from all sides and we became close prisoners in its grasp. No
water was to be seen around us, and _never again were we destined to see
our vessel in water_. Happy is it for men that inextinguishable hope
enables them to endure all the vicissitudes of fate, which are to test
their powers of endurance, and that they can never see, at a glance,
the long series of disappointments in store for them! We must have been
filled with despair, had we known that evening that we were henceforward
doomed to obey the caprices of the ice, that the ship would never again
float on the waters of the sea, that all the expectations with which our
friends, but a few hours before, saw the _Tegetthoff_ steam away to the
north, were now crushed; _that we were in fact no longer discoverers, but
passengers against our will on the ice_. From day to day, we hoped for
the hour of our deliverance! At first we expected it hourly, then daily,
then from week to week; then at the seasons of the year and changes of
the weather, then in the chances of new years! _But that hour never
came_, yet the light of hope, which supports man in all his suffering,
and raises him above them all, never forsook us, amid all the depressing
influence of expectations cherished only to be disappointed.”
To reach the coast of Siberia under these circumstances had become an
impossibility, and even in case the ship became liberated, the search for
a winter harbour in Nova Zembla would be a matter of peril and difficulty.
Drifting, not with the current, but in the direction of the prevailing
wind, the land of Nova Zembla receded until it faded out of sight and
only a desert of ice surrounded them. The frightful ice convulsions which
frequently threatened their destruction, determined the men to build a
house on the main floe, where supplies of coal, fuel, and provisions were
stored. Lieutenant Payer comments on the terrible conditions under which
they existed.
“One of us, to-day, remarked very truly, that he saw perfectly well
how one might lose his reason with the continuance of these sudden and
incessant assaults. It is not dangers that we fear, but worse far; we
are kept in a constant state of readiness to meet destruction, and know
not whether it will come to-day or to-morrow, or in a year. Every night
we are startled out of sleep, and, like hunted animals, up we spring
to await amid an awful darkness, the end of an enterprise from which
all hope of success has departed. It becomes at last a mere mechanical
process to seize our rifles and our bag of necessaries and rush on
deck. In the daytime, leaning over the bulwarks of the ship, which
trembles, yea, almost quivers the while, we look out on a continual work
of destruction going on, and at night, as we listen to the loud and
ever-increasing noises of the ice, we gather that the forces of our enemy
are increasing.”
The hours of these dark and disheartening days were passed in taking
observations, exercise, and occasional bear and sledge journeys. In spite
of this the time crept away with indescribable monotony. During February
the ship drifted first northwest and then north, the greatest longitude
attained being 71° E., in 79° N.; and the summer of 1873 advanced without
any signs of freeing them.
[Illustration: A. E. NORDENSKJÖLD
_From “The Voyage of the Vega,” Macmillan & Co., Ltd., London_]
With sad resignation the officers and crew looked forward to passing
another winter in the ice, although plenty of birds, seal, and bears
insured them fresh meat, so essential for the preservation of health in
high latitudes.
[Sidenote: _DISCOVERY OF FRANZ JOSEF LAND_]
“A memorable day,” writes Payer, “was the 31st of August, 1873, in 79°
43´ Lat., and 59° 33´ E. Long. That day brought a surprise, such as only
the awakening to a new life can produce. About midday, as we were leaning
on the bulwarks of the ship and scanning the gliding mists, through which
the rays of the sun broke ever and anon, a wall of mist, lifting itself
up suddenly, revealed to us, afar off in the northwest, the outlines of
bold rocks, which in a few minutes seemed to grow into a radiant Alpine
land! At first we all stood transfixed and hardly believing what we saw.
Then, carried away by the reality of our good fortune, we burst forth
into shouts of joy—‘Land, land, land at last!’ There was now not a sick
man on board the _Tegetthoff_. The news of the discovery spread in an
instant. Every one rushed on deck, to convince himself with his own eyes,
that the expedition was not after all a failure,—there before us lay the
prize that could not be snatched from us. Yet not by our own action,
but through the happy caprice of our floe and as in a dream had we won
it, but when we thought of the floe, drifting without intermission, we
felt with redoubled pain, that we were at the mercy of its movements.
As yet we had secured no winter harbour, from which the exploration of
the strange land could be successfully undertaken. For the present,
too, it was not within the verge of possibility to reach and visit it.
If we had left our floe, we should have been cut off and lost. It was
only under the influence of the first excitement that we made a rush
over our ice-field, although we knew that numberless fissures made it
impossible to reach the land. But, difficulties notwithstanding, when we
ran to the edge of our floe, we beheld from a ridge of ice the mountains
and glaciers of the mysterious land. Its valleys seemed to our fond
imagination clothed with green pastures, over which herds of reindeer
roamed in undisturbed enjoyment of their liberty, and far from all floes.
“For thousands of years this land had lain buried from the knowledge
of men, and now its discovery had fallen into the lap of a small band,
themselves almost lost to the world, who far from their home remembered
the homage due their sovereign, and gave to the newly discovered
territory the name Kaiser Franz Josef Land. With loud hurrahs we drank
to the health of our Emperor in grog hastily made on deck in an iron
coffee-pot, and then dressed the _Tegetthoff_ with flags. All cares, for
the present, at least, disappeared, and with them the passive monotony of
our lives. There was not a day, there was hardly an hour, in which this
mysterious land did not henceforth occupy our thoughts and attention.”
In October the vessel drifted within three miles of an island lying off
the main mass of land. Lieutenant Payer landed on it, and found it to
be in latitude 79° 54´ N. It was named after Count Wilczek, whose deep
interest in the expedition had won for him the affection of all.
[Sidenote: _PAYER’S SLEDGE JOURNEYS_]
A second winter settled upon the _Tegetthoff_ and her crew at this
point, the chief diversion being bear hunts, in which no less than
sixty-seven bears were killed. On the 10th of March, 1874, Payer made
a preliminary sledge journey, the object of which was to determine the
position and general relations of the new land. A large sledge was used
and was equipped for a week; it carried an extra quantity of provisions,
which were intended to form depots, for the more extended sledge journey
contemplated for later on. Thirty-nine pounds of hard bread, five pounds
of pemmican, sixteen pounds of boiled beef, one pound of pea-sausage,
one-half pound of salt and pepper, six pounds of rice, two pounds of
grits, five pounds of chocolate, five gallons of rum, one pound of
extract of meat, two pounds of condensed milk, and eight gallons of
alcohol. The party consisted of Payer and six men, with three dogs.
Intense cold and violent snow-storms, the thermometer falling as low as
-59°, caused great suffering to the men from frost bites. This frightful
temperature was experienced March 14. On that day Payer with a Tyrolese
mountain climber stood on the summit of the precipitous face of the
Sonklar-Glacier, whose broad terminal front overhangs the frozen bay of
Nordenskjöld Fiord.
After making deposits of provisions, the party were obliged to return to
the ship, after an absence of five days.
On March 26, Lieutenant Payer with ten men and three dogs started on a
more extended journey of thirty days. The equipment for this second trip
consisted of:—
lbs.
the large sledge 150
the provisions, including packing 620
the dog sledge 37
the tent, sleeping bags, tent-poles, and Alpine stock 320
alcohol and rum 128
fur coats and fur gloves 140
instruments, rifles, ammunition 170
shovel, 2 cooking-machines, drag-ropes, dog-tent, etc. 1565
Each of the four sacks of provisions—calculated for seven days and seven
men—contained fifty-one pounds of boiled beef, forty-eight pounds of
bread, eight pounds of pemmican, seven pounds of bacon, two pounds of
extract of meat, four pounds of condensed milk, two pounds of coffee,
four pounds of chocolate, seven pounds of rice, three pounds of grits,
one pound of salt and pepper, two pounds of pea-sausage, four pounds of
sugar, besides a reserve bag with twenty pounds of bread. Boiled beef was
taken as food for the dogs, and it was hoped that game would supplement
the general rations.
From almost the first hour violent blizzards, intense cold, and the
uneven condition of the ice made the journey disheartening and laborious.
By April 1 they penetrated by Cape Hausa into a newly discovered passage,
covered with heavy ice, to which Payer gave the name of Austria Sound. By
the 7th of April they advanced into Rawlinson Sound, over a track between
hummocks some of which were forty feet high, the depressions between them
filled with deep layers of snow.
The noble mountain forms and mighty glaciers of Crown Prince Rudolf
Land could be seen in the distance. Pursuing their course in a westerly
direction they reached Hohenlohe Island the next day, where the
expedition encamped, and the party divided, the smaller continuing to the
north for the purpose of examining the glaciers of Rudolf Land.
A disaster occurred the first day after their departure which nearly
proved fatal to the success of their undertaking. While crossing
the Middendorf glacier, the snow gave way beneath a sledge, which
precipitated one of the men, Zaninovich by name, the dogs and sledge,
into a crevasse. “From an unknown depth,” writes Payer, “I heard a man’s
voice mingled with the howling of dogs. All this was the impression of
a moment, while I felt myself dragged backwards by the rope. Staggering
back, and seeing the dark abyss beneath me, I could not doubt that I
should be precipitated into it the next instant. A wonderful Providence
arrested the fall of the sledge; at a depth of about thirty feet it stuck
fast between the sides of the crevasse, just as I was being dragged to
the edge of the abyss by its weight. The sledge having jammed itself in,
I lay on my stomach close to the awful brink, the rope which attached
me to the sledge tightly strained, and cutting deep into the snow.
The situation was all the more dreadful as I, the only person present
accustomed to the dangers of glaciers, lay there unable to stir. When
I cried down to Zaninovich that I would cut the rope, he implored me
not to do it, for if I did, the sledge would turn over, and he would be
killed. For a time I lay quiet, considering what was to be done. By and
by it flashed into my memory, how I and my guide had once fallen down
a wall of ice in the Irtler Mountains, eight hundred feet high, and
had escaped. This inspired me with confidence to venture on a rescue,
desperate as it seemed under the circumstances. Orel had now come up,
and, although he had never been on a glacier before, this gallant officer
dauntlessly advanced to the edge of the crevasse, and laying himself on
his stomach, looked down into the abyss, and cried to me, ‘Zaninovich is
lying on a ledge of snow in the crevasse, with precipices all round him
and the dogs are still attached to the traces of the sledge, which has
stuck fast.’ I called to him to throw me his knife, which he did with
such dexterity, that I was able to lay hold of it without difficulty,
and as the only means of rescue, I severed the trace which was fastened
round my waist. The sledge made a short turn, and then stuck fast again.
I immediately sprang to my feet, drew off my canvas boots, and sprang
over the crevasse, which was about ten feet broad. I now caught sight of
Zaninovich and the dogs, and shouted to him, that I would run back to
Hohenlohe Island to fetch men and ropes for his rescue, and that rescued
he would be, if he could contrive for four hours to keep himself from
being frozen. I heard his answer: ‘Fate, Signore, fate pure!’ and then
Orel and I disappeared. Heedless of the crevasses which lay in our path,
or of the bears which might attack us, we ran down the glacier back to
Cape Schrotter, six miles off. Only one thought possessed us—the rescue
of Zaninovich, the jewel and pride of our party, and the recovery of our
invaluable store of provisions, and of the book containing our journals,
which, if lost, could never be replaced. But even apart from my personal
feeling for Zaninovich, I keenly felt the reproaches to which I should be
exposed of incautious travelling on glaciers; and it gave me no comfort
to think that my previous experiences in this kind of travelling over
the glaciers of Greenland appeared to justify my proceedings. Stung
with these reflections, I pressed on at the top of my speed, leaving
Orel far behind me. Bathed with perspiration, I threw off my bird-skin
garments, my boots, my gloves, and my shawl, and ran in my stockings
through the deep snow. After passing the labyrinth of icebergs I saw the
rocky pyramid of Cape Schrotter before me in the distance. The success
of my venture depended on the weather. If snow driving should set in,
and the footprints should be obliterated, it would be impossible to find
Hohenlohe Island. All around me it was fearfully lonely. Encompassed by
glaciers, I was absolutely alone. At last I saw Klotz emerge from behind
an iceberg at some distance off, and though I continued to shout his name
till I almost reached him, I failed to rouse him from his usual reverie.
When at last he saw me breathlessly pushing on, scarcely clothed, and
constantly calling, his sack slipped from his back, and he stared at me
as if he had lost his senses. When the hardy son of the mountains came to
understand that Zaninovich with the sledge was buried in the crevasse,
he began to weep, in his simplicity of heart taking the blame of what
had happened on himself. He was so agitated and disturbed, that I made
him promise that he would do himself no mischief, and then, leaving him
to his moody silence, I ran on again towards the island. It seemed as if
I should never reach Cape Schrotter; with head bent down I trudged on,
counting my steps through the deep snow; when I raised it again, after a
little time, it was always the same black spot that I saw on the distant
horizon. At last I came near it, saw the tent, saw some dark spots creep
out of it, saw them gather together, and then run down the snow-slope.
These were the friends we had left behind. A few words of explanation,
with an exhortation to abstain from idle lamentations, were enough. They
at once detached a second rope from the large sledge, and got hold of a
long tent-pole. Meanwhile I had rushed upon the cooking-machine, quickly
melted a little snow to quench my raging thirst, and then we all set off
again—Haller, Sussick, Lukinovich, and myself—to the Middendorf glacier.
Tent and provisions were left unwatched; we ran back for three hours
and a half; fears for Zaninovich gave such wings to my steps, that my
companions were scarcely able to keep up with me. Ever and anon, I had
to stop to drink some rum. At the outset, we met Orel, and rather later
Klotz, both making for Cape Schrotter, Klotz to remain behind there, and
Orel to return with us at once to Middendorf glacier. When we came among
the icebergs under Cape Habermann, I picked up, one by one, the clothes
I had thrown away. Reaching the glacier, we tied ourselves together
with a rope. Going before the rest I approached with beating heart the
place, where the sledge had disappeared four hours and a half ago. A
dark abyss yawned before us; not a sound issued from its depths, not
even when I lay on the ground and shouted. At last I heard the whining
of a dog, and then an unintelligible answer from Zaninovich. Haller was
quickly let down by a rope; he found him still living, but almost frozen,
on a ledge of snow forty feet down the crevasse. Fastening himself and
Zaninovich to the rope, they were drawn up after great exertion. A storm
of greetings saluted Zaninovich, stiff and speechless though he was, when
he appeared on the surface of the glacier. I need not add that we gave
him some rum to stimulate his vital energies. It was a noble proof how
duty and discipline assert themselves, even in such situations, that the
first word of this sailor, saved from being frozen to death, was not a
complaint, but thanks, accompanied with a request that I would pardon
him if he, in order to save himself from being frozen, had ventured to
drink a portion of the rum, which had fallen down in its case with the
sledge to his ledge of snow. Haller again descended, and fastened the
dogs to a rope. The clever animals had freed themselves from their traces
in some inexplicable way, and had sprung to a narrow ledge, where Haller
found them, close to where Zaninovich had lain. It was astonishing how
quickly they discerned the danger of the position and how great was their
confidence in us. They had slept the whole time, as Zaninovich afterwards
told us, and he had carefully avoided touching them lest they should fall
down deeper into the abyss. We drew them up with some difficulty, and
they gave expression to their joy, first by rolling themselves vigorously
in the snow, and then by licking our hands. We then raised Haller by the
rope some ten feet higher than the ledge on which Zaninovich had lain, so
that he might be able to cut the ropes which fastened the loading of the
firmly wedged in sledge. At this moment, Orel arrived, and with his help
we raised one by one the articles with which the sledge was loaded. It
was ten o’clock before we were convinced that we had lost nothing of any
importance in the crevasse.”
[Sidenote: _CAPE FLIGELY_]
On April 12, 1874, Payer and his companions attained their farthest
north, 82° 5´ north latitude; on that day they stood on a promontory
about one thousand feet high, to which the name of Cape Fligely was given.
“Rudolf Land still stretched in a northeasterly direction,” writes Payer,
“to wards a Cape, Cape Sherard Osborne—though it was impossible to
determine its further course and connection.”
In the distant north, blue mountain ranges indicated masses of land and
to these the names of King Oscar Land and Petermann Land were given.
“Proudly we planted the Austro-Hungarian flag,” continues Payer, “for the
first time in the high North. A document we enclosed in a bottle and
deposited in a cleft of rock.” The return to the ship was rendered doubly
hazardous by the insecurity of the ice, and the increasing water holes.
The results of the journey may be summed up as follows—Payer found
the newly discovered country to be about the size of Spitzbergen, and
consisting of two large masses, Wilczek Land to the East, and Zichy Land
to the west, intersected by numerous fjords and skirted by many islands.
Austria Sound divides the two main masses of land and extends to 82° N.,
where Rawlinson Sound forks off to the northeast. The mountains reach a
height of two thousand to three thousand feet; glaciers abound in the
ravines, and even the islands are covered with a glacial cap.
A third sledge journey was undertaken by Lieutenant Payer on April 29 to
explore a large island named after M’Clintock.
[Sidenote: _HOME_]
The momentous day, May 20, on which the _Tegetthoff_ was abandoned, came
at last. Three boats were selected by the return expedition. Two of these
were Norwegian whale-boats, twenty feet long, five feet broad, and two
and one-half deep; the third was somewhat smaller.
The hummocks rendered their advance discouragingly slow. It was necessary
to pass over the same short distance many times in the course of a day,
and after two months of indescribable efforts, the distance reached by
the party was not more than two German miles. An occasional bear, shot by
the men, restored the waning strength and courage, but not until August
14, did the welcome sound of the open water reach their ears, and in 77°
40´ north latitude, they launched their boats. Nine days later they were
picked up by Russian fishermen off the coast of Nova Zembla.