THE “GERMANIA” AND THE “HANSA”
As has been seen in the last chapter, Hall was first inspired to
enter upon the field of Arctic exploration by the loss of the
Franklin expedition, and we have, in consequence, abandoned the
true chronological order of events and dealt with his expedition
out of its place. We must now hark back to the year 1868, when Dr
Petermann, the famous German geographer, fitted out a small ship
called the _Germania_ for a voyage of discovery along the east coast
of Greenland, thus earning for himself the distinction of being the
first of his race to send out an expedition to the Polar regions.
Dr Petermann himself took no active part in the work, but entrusted
the command to Captain Karl Koldewey, an expert in maritime matters,
who had studied navigation at the Polytechnic school in Hanover, and
physics and astronomy at the University of Göttingen.
His first trip in the _Germania_, in which he was accompanied by
a small crew of only eleven men, was not attended by any very
remarkable results. Pack-ice frustrated his attempt to coast
northward along the shores of Greenland, and compelled him to set
his course eastward to the Spitzbergen seas, where he succeeded
in reaching the latitude of 81° 5′. He then turned back down the
Hinlopen Strait, and made his way to Bergen, where he arrived on the
last day of September.
His second expedition, which sailed in the following year, was
much more fully equipped, and on this occasion the _Germania_, a
screw-steamer of 140 tons, which was manned by a crew of seventeen
officers and men, was accompanied by the _Hansa_, a schooner of 76¾
tons, commanded by Captain Hegemann, and having fourteen officers and
men on board. As it was intended that this expedition should spend a
winter within the Arctic circle especial pains were expended upon the
commissariat department, and no better provisioned ships had ever set
out on a voyage of adventure.
For a while progress was slow, owing to the heavy gales which
prevailed during the latter half of the month. They pressed steadily
on, however, keeping well in company with one another, and at the
beginning of July the knowledge that they were now reaching the
higher latitudes was brought home to them by the fact that the
sun did not set until 10.15, and that it was possible to read the
smallest print at midnight without the aid of artificial light. A
few days later, when they were off the coast of Jan Mayen Island,
they saw the midnight sun for the first time, and Dr Borgen and Dr
Copeland—the latter an Englishman who had studied and worked in
Germany—embarked with increased ardour on that series of scientific
observations which was the most valuable result of the expedition.
It was soon after this that a misunderstanding occurred which
resulted in the two ships being separated for ever. They were sailing
along in company, searching for a passage through the ice which
would, it was hoped, extend far away to the north. Koldewey, wishing
to consult with Hegemann, signalled to him to come within hail, but
he, unfortunately, misunderstood the signal, and, setting more sail,
disappeared into the fog before Koldewey could follow him.
Separated from his consort, Hegemann did all that lay in his power
to reach Sabine Island, the appointed rendezvous in the event of
any accident of this nature. The weather, however, was against him,
and, try as he would, he could not succeed in approaching within
thirty-five nautical miles of his destination. The _Hansa_ now found
herself in serious difficulties. For many weeks she had been fighting
against the ice, which was rapidly hemming her in on every side, but
lack of steam power made it impossible for her either to reach Sabine
Island or to force her way through to the landward water which lay
along the coast. On September 6 her captain had no choice but to lay
her up between two promontories of a large ice-field, and on the
following day she was completely frozen in.
It was now, of course, obvious that the crew would have to spend the
winter where they were, and they instantly set about building a house
of coal bricks, of which they had an ample supply on board. These
formed an excellent building material, since they absorbed the damp
and kept the warmth in the room, while water and snow made a perfect
substitute for mortar. “We only needed,” says Hegemann, “to strew
finely-powdered snow between the grooves and cracks, pour water upon
it, and in ten minutes all was frozen into a strong compact mass.” So
well did the men work that the house was finished and provisioned
for two months in little more than a week.
They were not much too soon, for before the month was over the fate
of the unfortunate _Hansa_ was sealed. On October 8 a gale arose
which blew violently for several days. On the 18th, the ice began
to make itself conspicuous by “thrusting and pressing against the
ship. This unpleasant noise lasted until the afternoon. At regular
intervals underneath, the ice, like a succession of waves, groaned
and cracked, squashed and puffed; now sounding like the banging of
doors, now like many human voices raised against one another; and
lastly, like a drag on the wheel of a railway engine. The evident
immediate cause of this crushing was that our field had turned in
drifting, and was now pressed closer to the coast ice.... For a time
the _Hansa_ was spared, though trembling violently. The masts often
swayed so much that it seemed as though someone was climbing them.”
Worse, however, was to follow, for on the next day the pressure of
the ice became so terrible that the deck seams sprang and the bow
of the ship was forced upwards seventeen feet. “The rising of the
ship,” says Hegemann, “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
were taken over to 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.... 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 the ice. The sinking of
the ship 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, etc. The snow roof (with which the _Hansa_
had been equipped for the winter) 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!”
By degrees the crew got things in order and settled down for the
winter in their fairly comfortable though not particularly secure
abode. Occasionally they had a bad fright. On the afternoon of
January 2, for example, as they were resting after dinner, they
heard “a scraping, blustering, crackling, sawing, grating, and
jarring sound, as if some unhappy ghost was wandering under our
floe. Perplexed, we all jumped up and went out; we thought that our
store-house had fallen in. Some of the sailors, going in front
with the lamp, carefully searched the path to it. But in whatever
direction the light fell on the sparkling and glittering ice-walls
we saw nothing. Immovable hung the rigid icicles, often a foot long;
evidently nothing was amiss here. We rummaged in the snow path before
the house. Although completely snowed up (indeed, the whole house
was buried more than a foot deep in ice), we all rushed out, but, of
course, we could not see more than the steps, nor hear anything but
the howling of the storm. Still, between whiles, we could detect the
same rubbing and grinding. For a change we laid ourselves flat down,
with our ears to the floor, and could then hear a rustling like the
singing of ice when closely jammed, and as if water was running under
our great floe. There could be no doubt that it stood in great danger
of being smashed to pieces, either from drifting over sunken rocks
and bursting up, or breaking over the ice-border; perhaps both at
once. We packed our furs and filled our knapsacks with provisions.
Our position, if the floe should be destroyed, seemed hopeless.”
Next morning they found that huge masses of the floe in the
neighbourhood of the house had broken off, and, on the following
day, when the storm had cleared off and they were able to take a
careful survey of the situation, they discovered, to their horror,
that it was not half its former size. The distance from the house
to the edge of the ice, which was once 500 paces, was now only 200;
except on one side, where the distance, formerly 3000 paces, was now
diminished to 1000, while the diameter of the floe, which, before
the storm was two nautical miles, was now barely one. The worst,
however, was yet to come, for on January 11 splits appeared in the
immediate neighbourhood of the house, which so reduced the floe that
it soon measured only 150 feet in diameter, and on this frail raft
the unfortunate crew experienced one of the most terrific storms that
they had encountered. By a miracle they escaped with their lives, and
by the beginning of February their trials, which they had borne with
marvellous patience, were practically over.
During the whole of this time they had been drifting steadily south
within sight of the barren shore of Greenland, which, unfortunately,
the ice had never allowed them to reach. On May 7, however, the
sea cleared, and it need hardly be said that they seized gladly on
the opportunity of taking to their boats, in which they reached
Friedrichsthal on June 7. There they received a ready welcome from
the Moravian missionaries, and eventually secured a passage home from
Julianshaab, a seaport on the west coast of South Greenland.
In the meanwhile, Koldewey, after waiting some time for the _Hansa_,
was obliged by the approach of winter to find a harbour for his
ship off Pendulum Islands. In the spring he went out on a sledging
expedition with Payer, during the course of which he reached lat.
77° 01′, the highest point attained up till then on the east coast
of Greenland. While sailing home in the summer, he discovered the
magnificent Franz Josef Fiord, at the head of which Mount Petermann
rears its head to a height of at least 12,000 feet above the sea.