exerted on the great neighbouring empire if Mr. Hennessy's politics
with reference to the Chinese settled in Hong Kong be carried out,
and they be converted into fellow-citizens conscious that they are
protected by law in person and property, that they do not require to
crawl in the dust before any authority, and that so long as they
keep within the limits of the law they are quite safe from the
oppressions of all officials, and in the enjoyment of all the rights
and privileges which the English law confers upon the citizen.
Many of the Europeans settled at Hong Kong were convinced that for
another thousand years one would be justified in using the
expression regarding China: "Thou art what thou wast, and thou wilt
be what thou art." Others again stated that contact with Europeans
at Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and the accounts given by the
emigrants returning to China in thousands from California and
Australia are by slow degrees changing the aspect of the world in
the "heavenly empire," and thereby preparing for a revolution less
violent, but as thorough as that which has recently taken place in
Japan. If this comes about, China will be a state that must enter
into the calculation when the affairs of the world are settled, and
whose power will weigh very heavy in the scales, at least when the
fate of Asia is concerned. At Hong Kong and Canton the report was
current that the far-sighted Chancellor of the German Empire had
taken this factor into calculation in settling his plans for the
future.
Already the Chinese took part in the European life. A number of
Chinese names, as I have already said, were attached to the address
that was presented to me; at the Governor's reception many stout,
smiling heads provided with pigtails were seen; and Chinese had
taken part in the meetings at which the Governor's scheme of reform
was under discussion. There have also existed in the country from
time immemorial secret societies, which are said only to wait for a
favourable opportunity to endeavour to link their fates to the new
paths.[386] The observations that I made at Hong Kong and Canton
are, however, too superficial for me to wish to detain my reader
with these matters. I accordingly point to the numerous works on
these cities published by authors who have lived there as many
months or years as I have days, and proceed to sketch the
continuation of the voyage of the _Vega_.
Accompanied by the good wishes of many newly acquired friends, we left
the harbour of Hong Kong on the morning of the 9th November. It was my
original intention to steer our course to Manilla, but the loss of time
during our long stay in Japan compelled me to give up that plan. The
course was shaped, however, not directly for Singapore, but for Labuan,
a small English possession on the north side of Borneo. Its northern
extremity (the coal mine) lies in 5 deg. 33' N.L. and 115 deg. 12' E.L. England
took possession of Labuan on account of the coal-seams which are found
there, which are of special importance on account of the situation of
the island nearly in the midst of the large, numerous, and fertile
islands of south-eastern Asia. It was the coal-seams too that attracted
me to the place. For I wished to see whether I could not, in the
neighbourhood of the equator itself, collect valuable contributions
towards ascertaining the nature of the former equatorial climate.
We at first made rapid progress, thanks to a fresh and favourable
monsoon wind. But when we reached the so-called belt of calms, the
wind ceased completely, and we had now to avail ourselves of steam,
which, in consequence of the low power of the _Vega's_ engine and a
strong counter current, carried us forward so slowly that it was not
until the 17th November that we could anchor in the harbour of
Labuan.
The largest of the islands belonging to the colony has, with a
pretty considerable breadth, a length of 10' from N.E. to S.W. It
is inhabited by some thousands (3,300 in 1863) of Chinese and
Malays, together with a few Englishmen, who are either crown
officials or employed at the coal mine. The north part of the island
has a height of 140 metres above the sea, but towards the south the
land sinks to an extensive sandy plain, closely overgrown with bushy
thickets and traversed by low marshes. Most of the inhabitants live
along the shore of the harbour which bears the now, or perhaps only
for the present, indispensable name for English colonies (which on
that account conveys little information) of Victoria. The Governor's
fine residence lies at a little distance from the harbour town in
the interior of the island, the coal mine on its north side. At the
time of our visit the coal company had recently gone into
liquidation, and work had therefore been stopped at the mine, but it
was hoped that it would soon be resumed. The sandy plain is of
little fertility in comparison with the neighbouring tropical lands.
It had recently been burned, and was therefore for the most part
covered only with bushes, among which stems of high, dried-up,
half-burned trees raised themselves, giving to the landscape a
resemblance to a northern forest devastated by an accidental fire.
In consequence of the fire which had thus passed over the island the
plain which, when looked at from a distance appeared to be
completely even, was seen everywhere to be studded with
crater-formed depressions in the sand, quite similar to the
_os_-pits in the _osar_ of Scandinavia.[387] On the north side there
was sandstone rock rising from the sea with a steep slope six to
fifteen metres high. Here tropical nature appeared in all its
luxuriance, principally in the valleys which the small streams had
excavated in the sandstone strata.
The coal mine is sunk on coal-seams, which come to the surface on
the north side of the island. The seams, according to the
information I received on the spot, are four in number, with a
thickness of 3.3, 0.9, 0.4 and 1.0 metre. They dip at an angle of 30 deg.
towards the horizon, and are separated from each other by
strata of clay and hard sandstone, which together have a thickness
of about fifty metres. Above the uppermost coal-seam there are
besides very thick strata of black clay-slate, white hard sandstone
with bands of clay, loose sandstone, sandstone mixed with coal, and
finally considerable layers of clay-slate and sandstone, which
contain fossil marine crustacea, resembling those of the present
time. The strata which lie between or in the immediate neighbourhood
of the coal seams do not contain any other fossils than those
vegetable remains, which are to be described farther on. Thirty
kilometres south of the mine a nearly vertical coal-seam comes to
the surface near the harbour, probably belonging to a much older
period than that referred to above; and out in the sea, eighteen
kilometres from the shore north of the harbour, petroleum rises from
the sea-bottom. The manager of the mine supposed from this that the
coal-seams came to the surface again at this place. The coal-seams
of Labuan are besides, notwithstanding their position in the middle
of an enormous, circular, volcanic chain, remarkably free from
faults, which shows that the region, during the immense time which
has elapsed since these strata have been deposited, has been
protected from earthquakes. Even now, according to Wallace,
earthquakes are scarcely known in this part of Borneo.
From what has been stated above we may conclude that the coal, sand,
and clay strata were deposited in a valley-depression occupied by
luxuriant marshy grounds, cut off from the sea, in the extensive
land which formerly occupied considerable spaces of the sea between
the Australian Islands and the continent of Asia. A similar state of
things must besides have prevailed over a considerable portion of
Borneo. On that island there are coal-seams under approximately
similar circumstances to those on Labuan. So far as I know, however,
they have not hitherto been closely examined with respect to
vegetable palaeontology.
At Labuan fossil plants are found, though very sparingly, imbedded
in balls of clay ironstone from strata above the two lowermost
coal-seams. The upper coal-seams are besides exceedingly rich in
resin, which crosses the coal in large veins. From the thickness and
conversion into a hard sandstone of the layers of sand lying between
and above the coal-seams we may conclude that a very long time,
probably hundreds of thousands or millions of years have passed
since these coal-seams were formed. They also belong to a quite
recent period, during which the vegetation in these regions varied
perhaps only to a slight extent from that of the present time. It
is, however, too early to express one's self on this subject, before
the fossils which we brought home have been examined by Dr.
Nathorst.
Coal mining was stopped for the time, but orders were expected by
every post to resume work. The road between the mine and the harbour
town was at all events pretty well kept, and Mr. COOKE, one of the
directors of the company, still lived at the place. He showed me all
possible hospitality during the time I remained on the north side of
the island for the purpose of collecting fossils. The rest of the
time I was the guest of the acting Governor, Mr. TREACHER, a young
and amiable man, who showed me several collections in natural
history from Labuan and the neighbouring parts of Borneo, and after
our return to Europe sent me a collection of leaves and fruit of the
kinds of trees which now grow on the island. I expect that this
collection will be very instructive in the study of the fossil
plants we brought home with us.
At the steep shore banks on the north coast very fine sections of
the sandstone strata, which lie under and above the coal, are
visible. While I went along the shore in order to examine these, I
visited some Malay huts built on poles. They were surrounded at
flood tide by water, at ebb by the dry beach, bare of all
vegetation. In order to get inside these huts one must climb a
ladder two to two and a half metres high, standing towards the sea.
The houses have the same appearance as a warehouse by the seaside at
home, and are built very slightly. The floor consisted of a few
rattling bamboo splints lying loose, and so thin that I feared they
would give way when I stepped upon them. The household articles
consisted only of some mats and a pair of cooking vessels. I saw no
fireplace; probably fire was lighted on the beach. I could see no
reason why this place should be chosen as a dwelling in preference
to the neighbouring shore with its luxuriant vegetation, which at
the same time was not at all swampy, unless it was for the coolness
which arises from the any situation on the beach, and the protection
which the poles give from the thousands of crawling animals which
swarm in the grassy meadows of tropical regions. It is probable also
that the mosquitos are less troublesome along the sea-shore than
farther into the interior of the country.
Some of my companions saw similar huts during an excursion, which
they undertook in the steam launch, to the mouth of a large river
debouching on the neighbouring coast of Borneo. Regarding this
exclusion Dr. Stuxberg gives the following report:
"On the 19th November Palander, Bove, and I, together with
two men, undertook an excursion in the steam launch of the
_Vega_ to the river Kalias debouching right opposite to
Labuan. We started at dawn, a little after six o'clock. The
course was shaped first north of Pappan Island, then
between the many shoals that lie between it and the
considerably larger Daat Island, and finally south of the
latter island.
"Pappan Island is a small beautiful island, clothed down to
high-water mark with a dark green primeval forest. On Daat
Island, on the contrary, the primeval forest on the east
side has been cut down, and has given place to a new
plantation of cocoa-nut trees, the work of a former
physician on Labuan, which yields its present owner a
considerable revenue.
"We had no little difficulty in finding a way over the
sandy bar, which is deposited in front of the river mouth
at a distance of a nautical mile and a half to three miles
from the coast of Borneo. After several attempts in the
course of an hour we at last succeeded in finding the deep
channel which leads to the river. It runs close to the
mainland on the north side, from Kalias Point to the river
mouth proper. At the bar the depth was only a metre, in the
deep channel, it varied between 3.5 and 7 metres, in the
river mouth it was fourteen to eighteen metres and
sometimes more.
"On the south side of the tongue of land, which projects
north of the mouth of the Kalias, were found two Malay
villages, whose inhabitants appeared to view our passage up
the river with curious glances. A crowd of half or wholly
naked children began a race along the shore, as soon as
they set eyes upon the fast steam launch, probably in order
to keep us in sight as long as possible. We now had deep
water and steamed up the river without delay. The
longed-for visit to some of the Malay villages we thus
reserved till our return.
"We steamed about ten or twelve English miles up one of the
many winding river arms, when the limited depth compelled
us to turn. The vegetation on the mainland, as on the
shores of the islands lying near the river-mouth, was
everywhere so close that it was nearly impossible to find a
place where we could land; everywhere there was the
impenetrable primeval forest. Next the mouth of the river
this consisted of tall, shady broad-leaved trees, which all
had dark green, lustrous, large leaves. Some were in
flower, others bore fruit. The greater number consisted of
fig trees, whose numerous air-roots twining close on each
other formed an impenetrable fence at the river bank. These
air-root-bearing trees play an important _role_ in
increasing the area of the land and diminishing that of the
water. They send their strong air-roots from the branches
and stem far out into the water, and when the roots have
reached the bottom, and pushed their way into the mud, they
make, by the close basket-work they form, an excellent
binding medium for all the new mud which the river carries
with it from the higher ground in the interior. It has
struck me that the air-root-bearing trees form one of the
most important means for the rapid increase of the alluvial
land on Borneo. Farther up the river there commenced large
stretches of a species of palm, which with its somewhat
lighter green and its long sheath-formed leaves was sharply
distinguished from the rest of the forest. Sometimes the
banks on one side were covered with palms only, on the
other with fig-trees only. The palm jungles were not so
impenetrable as the fig-tree thickets, the latter preferred
the more swampy hollows, while the palms on the other hand
grew on the more sandy and less marshy places. Of herbs and
underwood there was nowhere any trace.
"During the river voyage we saw now and then single
green-coloured kingfishers flying about, and a honeysucker
or two, but they were not nearly so numerous as might have
been expected in this purely tropical zone. We saw some
apes leaping in pairs among the trees, and Palander
succeeded in shooting a male. Alligators from one to one
and a half metre in length, frightened by the noise of the
propeller, throw themselves suddenly into the water. Small
land lizards with web-feet jumped forward with surprising
rapidity on the water near the banks. This was all we saw
of the higher animals.
"After a run of two hours, during which we examined the
banks carefully in order to find a landing place, we lay to
at the best possible place for seeing what the lower fauna
had to offer. It was no easy matter to get to land. The
ground was so muddy that we sank to the knees, and could
make our way through the wood only by walking on an
intermediate layer of palm leaves and fallen branches. The
search for evertebrates did not yield very much. A
half-score mollusca, among them a very remarkable naked
leech of quite the same colour-marking and raggedness as
the bark of tree on which it lived, was all that we could
find here. It struck me as very peculiar not to find a
single insect group represented. The remarkable poverty in
animals must be ascribed, I believe, to the complete
absence of herbs and underwood. Animal life was as poor as
vegetation was luxuriant and various in different places.
Over the landscape a peculiar quietness and stillness
rested.
"During our return we visited one of the two Malay villages
mentioned above. It consisted of ten different houses,
which were built on tall and stout poles out in the water
at the mouth of the river, about six to ten metres from the
shore. All the houses were built on a common large platform
of thick bamboo, which was about a man's height above the
water. At right angles to the beach there floated long
beams, one end being connected with the land, while the
other was anchored close to the platform. From this
anchored end a plank rose at a steep angle to the platform.
Communication with land was kept up in this way. The houses
were nearly all quadrangular, and contained a single room,
had raised, not flat roofs, and were provided at one of the
shorter sides, near one corner, with a high rectangular
door opening, which certainly was not intended to be
closed, and on one of the long sides with a square
window-opening. The building material was bamboo, from
eight to eleven centimetres in thickness, mostly whole, but
sometimes cleft. The roof had a thin layer of palm leaves
upon it to keep out the rain. The house in its entirety
resembled a cage of spills to which the least puff of wind
had always free entrance. The floor bent and yielded much,
and at the same time was so weak that one could not walk
upon it without being afraid of falling through. One half,
right opposite the door opening, was overlaid with a thin
mat of some plant; it was evidently the sleeping place of
the family. Some pieces of cloth was all the clothing we
could discover. Of household articles there was scarcely
any trace. Nor were there any weapons, arrows, or bows. The
fireplace was in one corner of the room; it consisted of an
immense ash-heap on some low stones. Beside it stood a
rather dirty iron pot. All refuse from meals, bones and
mollusc-shells, had been thrown into the water under the
floor; there lay now a regular culture-layer, a couple of
feet higher than the surrounding sea-bottom, consisting for
the most part of mussel shells. The floor of the room was
very dirty and black; it looked as if it had never been in
contact with a drop of water. The interior of the whole
house struck one as being as poor and wretched as that of a
Chukch tent. Its inhabitants appeared scarcely to own more
than they stood or walked in, _i.e._ for every person a
large piece of cloth round the waist. Small boats lay
moored to the platform. They were nothing else than
tree-stems hollowed out, without any separate planks at the
sides, at most two to two and a half metres long, and
capable of carrying only two men. We had met such a boat a
little way up the river, rowed by two youths, and laden
with palm-leaves, it was not more than five to eight
centimetres above the water, and appeared as if it would
capsize with the least indiscreet movement on the part of
the boatmen. Some dogs of middle size went about loose on
the platform; they were at first shy and suspicious of us,
and growled a little, but soon allowed themselves to be
caressed.
"Of the natives, the Malays, unfortunately we saw at close
quarters only some middle-aged men. When we approached the
long floating beams which led to the platform, the women
and children fled precipitately out of the nearest houses,
and by the time we got to the platform, they had fortified
themselves in a distant house, where they sat motionless
and cast curious glances at us through a hole. The children
showed their fear of us by loud crying, kept up the whole
time. When we attempted to approach the fugitives, they
hastened farther away. We won their favour with some
cigarettes, which Palander distributed among them, and with
which they were evidently delighted. They had a serious,
reserved, perhaps rather indifferent appearance. A
physiognomist would perhaps have had difficulty in saying
whether their countenances expressed ferocity,
determination, or indifference. It appeared as if it would
not be easy to bring forth a look of mirth or gladness on
their faces.
"At the Malay villages which we visited, some Chinese had a
sago plantation. With some Malays as workmen in their
service, they were now employed in loading a vessel of
light draught with sago meal, of which they appeared to
have a large quantity in store. Another vessel had just
taken on board its cargo and was starting. The Chinese here
made the same favourable impression on me as their
countrymen, whom I had seen before in Japan and Hong Kong,
and whom I was afterwards to see at Singapore--the
impression of an exceedingly industrious, thriving,
contented, and cleanly race."
Labuan strikes me as a very suitable starting-point for a naturalist
who may wish to explore Borneo. Surrounded by Europeans, but
undisturbed by the distractions of a large city, he would have an
opportunity of accustoming himself to the climate, which, though
rather warm for a dweller in the North, is by no means unhealthy, to
get acquainted with the manners and customs of the natives, to
acquire a knowledge of the commonest forms of the luxuriant nature,
which would otherwise be apt to overwhelm the northern naturalist,
in a word, to make such preparations for the journey as are
necessary to secure its success. This region of Borneo appears to be
one of the least known parts of the Indian Archipelago, and one need
not go far from the coast to come to places which are never visited
by Europeans. Labuan itself and its immediate neighbourhood have
much that is interesting to offer to the observer, and from thence
short excursions may be made with ease and without excessive cost to
the territory of the Sultan of Bruni, who is favourable to
foreigners, and to the mountain Kini Balu, near the northern
extremity of Borneo, which is 4,175 metres high, and visible from
Labuan. When, before our arrival at Japan, I arranged the plan of
our voyage home, I included in it a visit to this mountain, at whose
summit a comparatively severe climate must prevail, and whose flora
and fauna, therefore, notwithstanding its equatorial position, must
offer many points of comparison with those of the lands of the
north. But when I was told that the excursion would require weeks, I
had to give it up.
On the 12th November, the _Vega_ again weighed anchor to continue
her voyage by Singapore to Point de Galle in Ceylon. Between Labuan
and Singapore our progress was but slow, in consequence of the calm
which, as might have been foreseen, prevailed in the sea west of
Borneo.
Singapore is situated exactly halfway, when a vessel, starting from
Sweden, circumnavigates Asia and Europe. We staid here from the 28th
November to the 4th December, very hospitably received by the
citizens of the town, both European and Asiatic, who seemed to vie
with the inhabitants of Hong Kong in enthusiasm for the voyage of
the _Vega_. A Babel-like confusion of speech prevails in the town
from the men of so many different nationalities who live here:
Chinese, Malays, Klings, Bengalees, Parsees, Singhalese, Negroes,
Arabs, &c. But our stay was all too short for independent studies of
the customs and mode of life of these different races, or of the
rich vegetable and animal worlds in the neighbourhood of the town. I
must refer those who are interested in these subjects to previous
descriptions of that region, and to the abundant contributions to a
knowledge of it which have been published by the Straits Branch of
the Asiatic Society, which was founded here on the 4th November,
1877.
We arrived at Galle on the 15th December, having during our passage
from Singapore had a pretty steady and favourable monsoon. While
sailing through the Straits of Malacca strong ball-lightning was
often seen a little after sunset. The electrical discharges appeared
to go on principally from the mountain heights on both sides of the
Straits.
I allowed the _Vega_ to remain in the harbour of Point de Galle,
partly to wait for the mail, partly to give Dr. Almquist an
opportunity of collecting lichens on some of the high mountain
summits in the interior of the island, and Dr. Kjellman of examining
its algae, while I myself would have time to visit the famous
gem-diggings of Ceylon. The return was as good as could have been
expected considering our short stay at the place. Dr. Almquist's
collection of lichens from the highest mountain of Ceylon,
Pedrotalagalla, 2,500 metres high, was very large, Kjellman, by the
help of a diver, made a not inconsiderable collection of algae from
the neighbourhood of the harbour, and from an exclusion which I
undertook in company with Mr. ALEXANDER C. DIXON, of Colombo, to
Ratnapoora, the town of gems, where we were received with special
kindness by Mr. COLIN MURRAY, assistant government agent, I brought
home a fine collection of the minerals of Ceylon.
Precious stones occur in Ceylon mainly in sand beds, especially at
places where streams of water have flowed which have rolled,
crumbled down, and washed away a large part of the softer
constituents of the sand, so that a gravel has been left remaining
which contains considerably more of the harder precious stone layer
than the original sandy strata, or the rock from which they
originated. Where this natural washing ends, the gem collector
begins. He searches for a suitable valley, digs down a greater or
less depth from the surface to the layer of clay mixed with coarse
sand resting on the rock, which experience has taught him to contain
gems[388]. At the washings which I saw, the clayey gravel was taken
out of this layer and laid by the side of the hole until three or
four cubic metres of it were collected. It was then carried, in
shallow, bowl-formed baskets from half a metre to a metre in
diameter, to a neighbouring river, where it was washed until all the
clay was carried away from the sand. The gems were then picked out,
a person with a glance of the eye examining the wet surface of the
sand and collecting whatever had more or less appearance of a
precious stone. He then skimmed away with the palm of the hand the
upper stratum of sand, and went on in the same way with that below
it until the whole mass was examined. The certainty with which he
judged in a moment whether there was anything of value among the
many thousand grains of sand was wonderful. I endeavoured in a very
considerable heap of the gravel thus hastily examined, to find a
single small piece of precious stone which had escaped the glance of
the examiner, but without success.
The yield is very variable, sometimes abundant, sometimes very
small, and though precious stones found in Ceylon are yearly sold
for large sums, the industry on the whole is unprofitable, although
now and then a favourite of fortune has been enriched by it. The
English authorities, therefore, with full justification, consider it
demoralising and unfavourable to the development of the otherwise
abundant natural resources of the region. For the numerous loose
population devotes itself rather to the easy search for precious
stones, which is as exciting as play, than to the severer but surer
labours of agriculture, and when at any time a rich _find_ is made,
it is speedily squandered, without a thought of saving for the times
when the yield is little or nothing. A large number of the precious
stones are polished at special polishing places at Ratnapoora, but
the work is very bad, so that the stones which come into the market
are often irregular, and have uneven, curved, ill-polished surfaces.
Most of them perhaps are sold in the Eastern and Western Indian
peninsulas and other parts of Asia, but many are also exported to
Europe. The precious stones which are principally found at
Ratnapoora, consist of sapphires, commonly blue, but sometimes
yellow or violet, sometimes even completely colourless. In the last
case they have a lustre resembling that of the diamond[389]. Rubies
I saw here only in limited numbers.
[Illustration: GEM DIGGINGS AT RATNAPOORA. ]
The precious stones occur in nearly every river valley which runs
from the mountain heights in the interior of the island down to the
low land. According to a statement by Mr. Tennent (i. p. 33), the
river-sand at many places contains so much of the harder minerals
that it may be used directly for the polishing of other stones. The
same writer, or more correctly Dr. GYGAX, who appears to have
written the rather scanty mineralogical contributions to Tennent's
famous work, states that a more abundant yield ought to be obtained
by working in the solid rock than by the usual method. This idea is
completely opposed to the experience of mineralogy. The finest gems,
the largest gold nuggets, as is well known, are never, or almost
never, found in solid rock, but in loose earthy layers. In such
layers in Ceylon the abundance of precious stones, that is to say,
of minerals which are _hard, translucent, and strongly lustrous_, is
very great, and enormous sums would be obtained if we could add up
the value of the mass of precious stones which have been found here
for thousands of years back. Already Marco Polo says of Ceylon: "In
ista insula nascuntur boni et nobiles rubini et non nascuntur in
aliquo loco plus. Et hic nascuntur zafiri et topazii, ametisti, et
aliquae aliae petrae pretiosae, et rex istius insulae habet pulcriorem
rubinum de mundo".
But some one perhaps will ask, where is the mother-rock of all these
treasures in the soil of Ceylon? The question is easily answered.
All these minerals have once been imbedded in the granitic gneiss,
which is the principal rock of the region.
In speaking of granite or gneiss in southern lands, or at least in
the southern lands we now visited, I must, in the first place, point
out that these rocks next the surface of the earth in the south have
a much greater resemblance to strata of sand, gravel, and clay than
to our granite or gneiss rocks, the type of what is lasting, hard,
and unchangeable. The high coast hills, which surround the Inland
Sea of Japan, resemble, when seen from the sea, ridges of sand
(_osar_) with sides partly clothed with wood, partly sandy slopes of
a light yellow colour, covered by no vegetation. On a closer
examination, however, we find that the supposed sandy ridges consist
of weathered granitic rocks, in which all possible intermediate
stages may be seen between the solid rock and the loose sand. The
sand is not stratified, and contains large, loose, rounded blocks
_in situ_, completely resembling the erratic blocks in Sweden,
although with a more rugged surface. The boundary between the
unweathered granite and that which has been converted into sand is
often so sharp that a stroke of the hammer separates the crust of
granitic sand from the granite blocks. They have an almost fresh
surface, and a couple of millimetres within the boundary the rock is
quite unaltered. No formation of clay takes place, and the
alteration to which the rocks are subjected therefore consists in a
crumbling or formation of sand, and not, or at least only to a very
small extent, in a chemical change. Even at Hong Kong the principal
rock consisted of granite. Here too the surface of the granite rock
was quite altered to a very considerable depth, not however to sand,
but to a fine, often reddish, clay, thus in quite a different way
from that on the coast of the Inland Sea of Japan. Here too one
could at many places follow completely the change of the hard
granite mass to a clay which still lay _in situ_, but without its
being possible to draw so sharp a boundary between the primitive
rock and the newly-formed loose earthy layers as at the first-named
place. We had opportunities of observing a similar crumbling down of
the hard granite at every road-section between Galle, Colombo, and
Ratnapoora, with the difference that the granite and gneiss here
crumbled down to a coarse sand, which was again bound together by
newly-formed hydrated peroxide of iron to a peculiar porous
sandstone, called by the natives _cabook_. This sandstone forms the
layer lying next the rock in nearly all the hills on that part of
the island which we visited. It evidently belongs to an earlier
geological period than the Quaternary, for it is older than the
recent formation of valleys and rivers. The _cabook_ often contains
large, rounded, unweathered granite blocks, quite resembling the
rolled-stone blocks in Sweden. In this way there arise at places
where the _cabook_ stratum has again been broken up and washed away
by currents of water, formations which are so bewilderingly like the
ridges (_osar_) and hills with erratic blocks in Sweden and Finland
that I was astonished when I saw them. I was compelled to resort to
the evidence of the palms to convince myself that it was not an
illusion which unrolled before me the well-known contours from the
downs of my native land. An accurate study of the sandy hills on the
Inland Sea of Japan, of the clay cliffs of Hong Kong, and the
_cabook_ of Ceylon would certainly yield very unexpected contributions
to an explanation of the way in which the sand and rolled-stone _osar_
of Scandinavia have first arisen. It would show that much which the
Swedish geologists still consider to be glacial gravel transported
by water and ice, is only the product of a process of weathering or,
more correctly, falling asunder, which has gone on in Sweden also on
an enormous scale. Even a portion of our Quaternary clays have
perhaps had a similar origin, and we find here a simple explanation
of the important circumstance, which is not sufficiently attended to
by our geologists, that often all the erratic blocks at a place are
of the same kind, and resemble in their nature the underlying or
neighbouring rocks.
It is this weathering process which has originated the gem sand of
Ceylon. Precious stones have been found disseminated in limited
numbers in the granite converted into _cabook_. In weathering, the
difficultly decomposable precious stones have not been attacked, or
attacked only to a limited extent. They have therefore retained
their original form and hardness. When in the course of thousands of
years streams of water have flowed over the layers of _cabook_,
their soft, already half-weathered constituents have been for the
most part changed into a fine mud, and as such washed away, while
the hard gems have only been inconsiderably rounded and little
diminished in size. The current of water therefore has not been able
to wash them far away from the place where they were originally
imbedded in the rock, and we now find them collected in the
gravel-bed, resting for the most part on the fundamental rock which
the stream has left behind, and which afterwards, when the water has
changed its course, has been again covered by new layers of mud,
clay, and sand. It is this gravel-bed which the natives call
_nellan_, and from which they chiefly get their treasures of
precious stones.
Of all the kinds of stones which are used as ornaments there are
both noble and common varieties, without there being any perceptible
difference in their chemical composition. The most skilful chemist
would thus have difficulty in finding in their chemical composition
the least difference between corundum and sapphire or ruby, between
common beryl and emerald, between the precious and the common topaz,
between the hyacinth and the common zircon, between precious and
common spinel; and every mineralogist knows that there are
innumerable intermediate stages between these minerals which are so
dissimilar though absolutely identical in composition. This gave the
old naturalists occasion to speak of ripe and unripe precious
stones. They said that in order to ripen precious stones the heat of
the south was required. This transference of well-known
circumstances from the vegetable to the mineral kingdom is certainly
without justification. It points however to a remarkable and
hitherto unexplained circumstance, namely, that the occurrence of
precious stones is, with few exceptions, confined to southern
regions[390]. Diamonds are found in noteworthy number only in India,
Borneo, Brazil, and the Transvaal. Tropical America is the home-land
of the emerald, Brazil of the topaz, Ceylon of the sapphire and the
hyacinth, Pegu of the ruby, and Persia of the turquoise. With the
exception of the diamond the same stones are found also in the
north, but in a common form. Thus common sapphire (corundum) is
found in Gellivare iron ore so plentifully that the ore from certain
openings is difficult to smelt. Common topaz is found in masses by
the hundredweight in the neighbourhood of Falun; common emerald is
found in thick crystals several feet in length in felspar quarries,
in Roslagen, and in Tammela and Kisko parishes in Finland; common
spinel occurs abundantly in Aker limestone quarry; common zircon at
Brevig in Norway, and turquoise-like but badly coloured stones at
Vestana in Skane. True precious stones, on the other hand, are not
found at any of these places. Another remarkable fact in connection
with precious stones is that most of those that come into the market
are not found in the solid rock, but as loose grains in sand-beds.
True jewel mines are few, unproductive, and easily exhausted. From
this one would be inclined to suppose that precious stones actually
undergo an ennobling process in the warm soil of the south.
During the excursion I undertook from Galle to Ratnapoora, I visited
a number of temples in order to procure Pali, Singhalese, and
Sanscrit manuscripts; and I put myself in communication with various
natives who were supposed to possess such manuscripts. They are now
very difficult to get at, and the collection I made was not very
large. The books which the temples wished to dispose of have long
ago been eagerly brought up by private collectors or handed over to
public museums, for example, to the Ceylon Government Oriental
Library established at Colombo[391]. The collector who remains a
considerable time in the region, may however be able to reap a rich
after-harvest, less of the classical works preserved in the temples
than of the smaller popular writings in the hands of private
persons.
We see in Ceylon innumerable descendants of the races who repeatedly
subdued larger or smaller portions of the island, or carried on
traffic there, as Moormen (Arabs), Hindoos, Jews, Portuguese,
Dutchmen, Englishmen, &c., but the main body of the people at all
events varies very little, and still consists of the two allied
races, Tamils and Singhalese, who for thousands of years back have
been settled here. The colour of their skin is very dark, almost
black, their hair is not woolly, their features are regular, and
their build is exceedingly fine. The children especially, who, while
they are small, often go completely naked, with their regular
features, their large eyes, and fresh plump bodies, are veritable
types of beauty, and the same holds true of most of the youths.
Instead of buying in one of the capitals of Europe the right to draw
models, often enough with forms which leave much to desire, and
which must be used without distinction for Greek or Northern
divinities, for heroes or _savants_ of the present or former times,
an artist ought to make tours of study to the lands of the south,
where man does not need to protect himself from the cold with
clothes, and where accordingly nakedness is the rule, at least among
the poorer classes. The dress which is worn here is commonly
convenient and tasteful. Among the Singhalese it consists of a piece
of cloth wound round the middle, which hangs down to the knees. The
men, who still prefer the convenient national dress to the European,
go with the upper part of the body bare. The long hair is held
together with a comb which goes right over the head, and among the
rich has a large four-cornered projection at the crown. The women
protect the upper part of the body with a thin cotton jacket. The
priests wear a yellow piece of cloth diagonally over one shoulder.
The naked children are ornamented with metal bracelets and with a
metal chain round the waist, from which a little plate hangs down
between the legs. This plate is often of silver or gold, and is
looked upon as an amulet.
The huts of the working men are in general very small, built of
earth or _cabook_-bricks, and are rather to be considered as sheds
for protection from the rain and sunshine than as houses in the
European sense. The richer Singhalese live in extensive "verandas"
which are almost open, and are divided into rooms by thin panels,
resembling in this respect the Japanese houses. The Japanese genius
for ornament, their excellent taste and skill in execution, are
however wanting here, but it must also be admitted that in these
respects the Japanese stand first among all the peoples of the
earth.
In the seaport towns the Singhalese are insufferable by their
begging, their loquacity, and the unpleasant custom they have of
asking up to ten times as much, while making a bargain, as they are
pleased to accept in the end. In the interior of the country the
state of things in this respect is much better.
Among the temples which I visited in order to procure Pali books was
the so-called "devil's" temple at Ratnapoora, the stateliest
idol-house I saw in Ceylon. Most of the temples were built of wood;
all were exceedingly unpretentious, and without the least trace of
style. The numerous priests and temple attendants lived in rather
squalid and disorderly dwellings in the neighbourhood of the temple.
They received me in a friendly way and showed me their books, of
which they occasionally sold some. The negotiation several times
ended by the priest presenting me with the book I wished to purchase
and positively refusing to receive compensation in any form. On one
occasion the priest stated that he himself was prevented by the
precepts of his religion from receiving the purchase-money agreed
upon, but said that I might hand it over to some of the persons
standing round. At two of the priests' houses there was a swarm of
school-children, who ran busily about with their palm-leaf writing
books and writing implements.
[Illustration: STATUES IN A TEMPLE IN CEYLON. ]
The temples were very different in their arrangements, probably on
account of the dissimilar usages of the various Buddhist sects to
which they belonged. A temple near Colombo contained a large number
of wooden images and paintings of gods, or men of more than human
size. Most of them stood upright like a guard round a sitting
Buddha. I could not observe any dislike on the part of the priests
to take the foreigner round their temples. The key, however, was
sometimes wanting to some repository, whose contents they were
perhaps unwilling to desecrate by showing them to the unbeliever.
This was, for instance, the case with the press which contained the
devil's bow and arrows, in the temple at Ratnapoora. The temple
vessels besides were exceedingly ugly, tasteless, and ill-kept. I
seldom saw anything that showed any sign of taste, art, and
orderliness. How different from Japan, where all the swords, lacquer
work, braziers, teacups, &c., kept in the better temples would
deserve a place in some of the art museums of Europe.
In the sketch of the first voyage from Novaya Zemlya to Ceylon, a
countryman of Lidner can scarcely avoid giving a picture of
"Ceylon's burned up vales." In this respect the following extract
from a letter from Dr. Almquist, sketching his journey to the
interior of the island may be instructive:--
"Three hours after our arrival at Point de Galle I sat
properly stowed away in the mail-coach _en route_ for
Colombo. As travelling companions I had a European and two
Singhalese. As it was already pretty dusk in the evening
there was not much of the surrounding landscape visible. We
went on the whole night through a forest of tall coco-nut
trees whose dark tops were visible far up in the air
against the somewhat lighter sky. It was peculiar to see
the number of fire-flies flying in every direction, and at
every wing-stroke emiting a bright flash. The night air had
the warm moistness which is so agreeable in the tropics.
Now and then the sound of the sea penetrated to our ears.
For we followed the west coast in a northerly direction.
More could not be observed in the course of the night, and
all the passengers were soon sunk in deep sleep.
"After seven hours' brisk trot we came to a railway station
and continued our journey by rail to Colombo, the capital
of Ceylon. As there was nothing special to see or do there,
I went on without stopping by the railway, which here bends
from the coast to Kandy and other places. The landscape now
soon became grander and grander. We had indeed before seen
tropical vegetation at several places, but of the
luxuriance which here struck the eye we had no conception.
The pity was that men had come hither, had cleared and
planted.
"In the lowlands I saw some cinnamon plantations. Ceylon
cinnamon is very dear; in Europe cheaper and inferior sorts
are used almost exclusively, and most of the plantations in
Ceylon have been abandoned many years ago. Soon the train
leaves the lowland and begins to ascend rapidly. The patch
of coast country, where the coco-nut trees prevail, is
exchanged for a very mountainous landscape; first hills
with large open valleys between, then higher continuous
mountains with narrow, deep, kettle-like valleys, or open
hilly plateaus. In the valleys rice is principally
cultivated. The hills and mountain sides were probably
originally covered with the most luxuriant primitive
forest, but now on all the slopes up to the mountain
summits it is cut down, and they are covered with coffee
plantations. The coffee-plant is indeed very pretty, but
grows at such a distance apart that the ground is
everywhere visible between, and this is a wretched covering
for luxuriant Ceylon.
"At two o'clock in the afternoon we arrived at the station,
Perideniya, the nearest one to Kandy. The famous botanical
garden lies in its neighbourhood, and there I had to visit
the superintendent of the garden, Dr. THWAITES. This
elderly, but still active and enthusiastic naturalist is
exceedingly interested in botanical research, and very
obliging to all who work in that department. He received me
in a very friendly manner, and it was due to him that the
programme of my visit there was so full.
"A botanic garden in Ceylon must naturally be something
extraordinary. Nowhere else can grander or more luxuriant
vegetation be seen than here. The garden has been
especially famous for the number of different varieties of
trees of immense size which it can show. Besides, all
possible better known plants are to be found here,
cultivated in the finest specimens. Spices and drugs were
specially well represented. Here long tendrils of the black
pepper-plant wound themselves up the thick tree-stems, here
the cardamon and the ginger flourished, here the pretty
cinnamon, camphor, cinchona, nutmeg, and cocoa trees made a
splendid show, here I saw a newly gathered harvest of
vanilla. The abundance of things to be seen, learned, and
enjoyed here was incredible. However, the next day I
determined on the advice of Dr. Thwaites to make a tour up
to the mountain localities proper, in order there to get a
better sight of the lichen flora of Ceylon.
[Illustration: A COUNTRY PLACE IN CEYLON. ]
[Illustration: HIGHLAND VIEW IN THE INTERIOR OF CEYLON. Coffee
Plantations; Adam's Peak in the back-ground. ]
"I now travelled south partly by rail, partly by coach,
until in the evening I found myself lodged at a
'rest-house' at Rambodde, a thousand metres above the sea,
at about the same height accordingly as that at which trees
cease to grow in southern Norway. This tropical mountain
land reminds one a little, in respect of the contours of
the landscape, of the fells of Norway. Here too are found
league-long deep valleys, surrounded by high mountain
summits and ranges with outlines sharply marked against the
horizon. But here they were everywhere overgrown with
coffee bushes, or possibly with cinchona plants. The
mountain slopes were so laid bare from the bottom all the
way up that scarce a tree was left in sight; everywhere so
far as the eye could reach only coffee.
"Next day, attended by a Singhalese, I went, or to speak
more correctly, climbed farther up the steep coffee
plantations. At a height of 1,300 metres above the sea
coffee ceases to grow, and we now found some not very
extensive tea plantations, and above these the primitive
forest commences. At a height of 1,900 metres above the sea
there is an extensive open plateau. Up here there is a not
inconsiderable place, Novara Elliya, where the governor has
a residence, and part of the troops are in barracks during
the summer heat. One of the mountains which surround this
plateau is Pedrotalagalla, the loftiest mountain of Ceylon,
which reaches a height of 2,500 metres above the sea.
"I have ascended not so few mountains, but of none has the
ascent been so easy as of this, for a broad footpath ran
all the way to the top. Without this path the ascent had
been impossible, for an hour's time would have been
required for every foot made good through the jungle, so
closely is the ground under the lofty trees covered to the
top of the mountain with bushes, creepers, or the bamboo.
In the evening I returned to my former night-quarters,
where I slept well after a walk of thirty-six English
miles.
"As I felt myself altogether unable the following day to
make any further excursion on foot, I travelled back to
Peradeniya by mail-coach. During this journey I had as my
travelling companion a Singhalese, whom it was a special
pleasure to see at close quarters. One of his big toes was
ornamented with a broad ring of silver, both his ears were
pierced above, and provided with some pendulous ornament,
and one side of the nose was likewise perforated, in order
that at that place too might he adorn himself with a piece
of grandeur. On his head he had, like all Singhalese, a
comb by which the hair drawn right upwards is kept in
position, as little girls at home are wont to have their
hair arranged. As the man did not appear to know a word of
English, it was impossible to enter into any closer
acquaintance with him.
"At noon on the following day I found myself compelled, by
a quite unexpected occurrence, to return precipitately to
the coast again. Dr. Thwaites and I had been invited to
dinner by his Excellency the Governor. As I was still
limping after my long excursion on foot, and besides had
not had the forethought to take a dress-suit with me, I
considered that, vexatious as it was to decline, I could
not accept this gracious invitation, but instead went my
way. Thus after six exceedingly pleasant days I came back
to Point de Galle and the _Vega_".
[Footnote 385: Yet with one very laughable exception. I wished for
zoological purposes to get one of the common Chinese rats, and with
this object in view made inquiries through my interpreter at a shed
in the street, where rats were said to be cooked for Chinese
epicures. But scarcely had the question been put, when the old,
grave host broke out in a furious storm of abuse, especially against
the interpreter, who was overwhelmed with bitter reproaches for
helping a "foreign devil" to make a fool of his own countrymen. All
my protestations were in vain, and I had to go away with my object
unaccomplished. ]
[Footnote 386: See on this subject W.A. Pickering, "Chinese Secret
Societies" (_Journal of the Straits Branch of the R. Asiatic
Society_, 1878, No. 1, pp. 63-84) ]
[Footnote 387: Concerning their formation and origin see a paper by
K. Nordenskioeld in _Oefversigt af Vet.-akad Foerh_ 1870, p 29. ]
[Footnote 388: Emerson Tennent says on the subject:--The gem
collectors penetrate through the recent strata of gravel to the
depth of from ten to twenty feet in order to reach a lower deposit,
distinguished by the name of _Nellan_, in which the objects of
their search are found. This is of so early a formation that it
underlies the present beds of rivers, and is generally separated
from them or from the superincumbent gravel by a hard crust (called
_Kadua_), a few inches in thickness, and so consolidated as to have
somewhat the appearance of laterite or sun-burnt brick. The nellan
is for the most part horizontal, but occasionally it is raised into
an incline as it approaches the base of the hills. It appears to
have been deposited previous to the eruption of the basalt, on which
in some places it reclines, and to have undergone some alteration
from the contact. It consists of water-worn pebbles firmly imbedded
in clay, and occasionally there occur large lumps of granite and
gneiss, in the hollows under which, as well as in "pockets" in the
clay (which from their shape the natives denominate "elephants'
footsteps "), gems are frequently found in groups, as if washed in
by the current. (E. Tennent, _Ceylon_ London, 1860, i. p. 34.) ]
[Footnote 389: Diamonds are wanting in Ceylon. And neither gold nor
platinum appears to occur in noteworthy quantity in the gem gravel. ]
[Footnote 390: The only considerable exceptions from this are two
localities for precious stones in Southern Siberia and the
occurrence of precious opal in Hungary. The latter, however, in
consequence of defective hardness and translucency, can scarcely be
reckoned among the true precious stones. ]
[Footnote 391: The Catalogue of Pali, Singhalese, and Sanscrit
Manuscripts in the Ceylon Government Oriental Library, Colombo,
1876, includes:--
41 Buddhist canonical books
71 Other religious writings
25 Historical works, traditions
29 Philological works
16 Literary works
6 Works on Medicine, Astronomy, &c.
According to Emerson Tennent (i. p. 515), the Rev. R. Spence Hardy
has in the _Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Asiatic Society_ for
1848 given the titles of 467 works in Pali, Sanskrit, and Elu,
collected by himself during his residence in Ceylon. Of these about
eighty are in Sanskrit, 150 in Elu or Singhalese, and the remainder
in Pali. ]
CHAPTER XX.
The Voyage Home--Christmas, 1879--Aden--Suez--Cairo--
Excursion to the Pyramids and the Mokattam Mountains--
Petrified Tree-stems--The Suez Canal--Landing on Sicily
by night--Naples--Rome--The Members of the Expedition
separate--Lisbon--England--Paris--Copenhagen--Festive Entry
into Stockholm--_Fetes_ there--Conclusion
During our stay in Japan and our voyage thence to Ceylon I had
endeavoured at least in some degree to preserve the character of the
voyage of the _Vega_ as a scientific expedition, an attempt which,
considering the short time the _Vega_ remained at each place, could
not yield any very important results, and which besides was rendered
difficult, though in a way that was agreeable and flattering to us,
by I may almost say the tempestuous hospitality with which the
_Vega_ men were everywhere received during their visits to the ports
of Japan and East Asia. It was besides difficult to find any new
untouched field of research in regions which were the seat of
culture and civilisation long before the time when the forest began
to be cut down and seed to be sown in the Scandinavian North, and
which for centuries have formed the goal of exploratory expeditions
from all the countries of Europe. I hope however that the _Vega_
will leave lasting memorials even of this part of her voyage through
the contributions of Stuxberg, Nordquist, Kjellman, and Almquist to
the evertebrate fauna and the sea-weed and lichen flora of East
Asia, and by my collections of Japanese books, of fossil plants from
Mogi and Labuan, &c.
[Illustration: THE SCIENTIFIC MEN OF THE _"VEGA."_
F.R. Kjellman.
A. Stuxberg.
E. Almquist
O. Nordquist. ]
With the new overpowering impression which nature and people exerted
on those of us, who now for the first time visited Japan, China,
India, Borneo, and Ceylon, it was however specially difficult,
during a stay of a few days at each place, to preserve this side of
the _Vega_ expedition. I therefore determined after leaving Ceylon
to let it drop completely, that is, from that point merely to
_travel home_. Regarding this part of the voyage of the _Vega_ I
would thus have very little to say, were it not that an obligation
of gratitude compels me to express in a few words the thanks of the
_Vega_ men for all the honours bestowed upon them, and all the
goodwill they enjoyed during the last part of the voyage. For many
of my readers this sketch may perhaps be of interest as reminding
them of some happy days which they themselves have lived through,
and it may even happen that it will not be unwelcome to the friends
of geography in a future time to read this description of the way in
which the first circumnavigators of Asia and Europe were _feted_ in
the ports and capitals of the civilised countries. In this sketch
however I am compelled to be as brief as possible, and I must
therefore sue for pardon if every instance of hospitality shown us
cannot be mentioned.
We started from Point de Galle on the 22nd December, and arrived at
Aden on the 7th January. The passage was tedious in consequence of
light winds or calms. Christmas Eve we did not celebrate on this
occasion, tired as we were of entertainments, in such a festive way
as at Pitlekaj, but only with a few Christmas-boxes and some extra
treating. On New Year's Eve, on the other hand, the officers in the
gunroom were surprised by a deputation from the forecastle clad in
_pesks_ as Chukches, who came, in good Swedish, mixed with a few
words of the Pitlekaj _lingua franca_ not yet forgotten, to bring us
a salutation from our friends among the ice of the north, thanks for
the past and good wishes for the coming year, mixed with Chukch
complaints of the great heat hereaway in the neighbourhood of the
equator, which for fur-clad men was said to be altogether
unendurable.
We remained at Aden only a couple of days, received in a friendly
manner by the then acting Swedish-Norwegian consul, who took us
round to the most remarkable points of the desolate environs of this
important haven, among others to the immense, but then and generally
empty water reservoirs which the English have made in the
neighbourhood of the town. No place in the high north, not the
granite cliffs of the Seven Islands, or the pebble rocks of Low
Island on Spitzbergen, not the mountain sides on the east coast of
Novaya Zemlya, or the figure-marked ground at Cape Chelyuskin is so
bare of vegetation as the environs of Aden and the parts of the east
coast of the Red Sea which we saw. Nor can there be any comparison
in respect of the abundance of animal life between the equatorial
countries and the Polar regions we have named. On the whole animal
life in the coast lands of the highest north, where the mountains
are high and surrounded by deep water, appears to be richer in
individuals than in the south, and this depends not only on the
populousness of the fowl-colonies and the number of large animals of
the chase that we find there, but also on the abundance of
evertebrates in the sea. At least the dredgings made from the _Vega_
during the voyage between Japan and Ceylon gave an exceedingly
scanty yield in comparison with our dredgings north of Cape
Chelyuskin.
Aden is now an important port of call for the vessels which pass
through the Suez Canal from European waters to the Indian Ocean, and
also one of the chief places for the export of the productions of
Yemen or Arabia Felix. In the latter respect the harbour was of
importance as far back as about four hundred years ago, when the
Italian, LUDOVICO DE VARTHEMA, was for a considerable time kept a
prisoner by the Arab tribes at the place.
In the harbour of Aden the _Vega_ was saluted by the firing of
twenty-one guns and the hoisting of the Swedish flag at the maintop
of an Italian war vessel, the despatch steamer _Esploratore_ under
the command of Captain AMEZAGA. The _Esploratore_ took part in an
expedition consisting of three war vessels, charged with founding an
Italian colony at Assab Bay, which cuts into the east coast of
Africa, north of Bab-el-Mandeb, on a tract of land purchased for the
purpose by Rubbattino, an Italian commercial company. On board was
Professor SAPETTO, an elderly man, who had concluded the bargain and
had lived at the place for forty years. It was settled that he
should be the administrator of the new colony. On board the
_Esploratore_ were also the _savants_ BECCARI and the Marquis DORIA,
famous for their extensive travels in the tropics and their valuable
scientific labours. The officers of the Italian vessel invited us to
a dinner which was one of the pleasantest and gayest of the many
entertainments we were present at during our homeward journey. When
at the close of it we parted from our hosts they lighted up the way
by which we rowed forward over the tranquil waves of the Bay of Aden
with blue lights, and the desert mountain sides of the Arabian coast
resounded with the hurrahs which were exchanged in the clear, calm
night between the representatives of the south and north of Europe.
The _Vega_ left Aden, or more correctly its port-town, Steamer
Point, on the 9th January, and sailed the following day through
Bab-el-Mandeb into the Red Sea. The passage of this sea, which is
narrow, but 2,200 kilometres long, was tedious, especially in its
northern part, where a strong head wind blew. This caused so great a
lowering of the temperature that a film of ice was formed on the
fresh-water pools in Cairo, and that we, Polar travellers as we
were, had again to put on winter clothes in Egypt itself.
The _Vega_ anchored on the 27th January at the now inconsiderable
port, Suez, situated at the southern entrance to the Suez Canal.
Most of the scientific men and officers of the _Vega_ expedition
made an excursion thence to Cairo and the Pyramids, and were
everywhere received in a very kind way. Among other things the
Egyptian Geographical Society sent a deputation to welcome us under
the leadership of the President of the Society, the American, STONE
PACHA. He had in his youth visited Sweden, and appeared to have a
very pleasant recollection of it. The Geographical Society gave a
stately banquet in honour of the _Vega_ expedition. An excursion was
made to the Great Pyramids, and, as far as the short time permitted,
to other remarkable places in and around the heap of ruins of all
kinds and from all periods, which forms the capital of the Egypt of
to-day. During our visit to the Pyramids the Swedish-Norwegian
consul-general, BOeDTKER, gave us a dinner in the European hotel
there, and the same evening a ball was given us by the Italian
consul-general, DE MARTINO. A day was besides devoted by some of us,
in company with M. GUISEPPE HAIMANN, to a short excursion to the
Mokattam Mountains, famous for the silicified tree-stems found
there. I hoped along with the petrified wood to find some strata of
clay-slate or schist with leaf-impressions. I was however
unsuccessful in this, but I loaded heavily a carriage drawn by a
pair of horses with large and small tree-stems converted into hard
flint. These he spread about in the desert in incredible masses,
partly broken up into small pieces, partly as long fallen stems,
without root or branches, but in a wonderfully good state of
preservation. Probably they had originally lain embedded in a layer
of sand above the present surface of the desert. This layer has
afterwards been carried away by storms, leaving the heavy masses of
stone as a peculiar stratum upon the desert sand, which is not
covered by any grassy sward. No root-stumps were found, and it thus
appeared as if the stems had been carried by currents of water to
the place where they were imbedded in the sandy layers and
silicified. In their exterior all these petrifactions resemble each
other, and by the microscopical examination which has hitherto been
made naturalists have only succeeded in distinguishing two species
belonging to the family Nicolia, and a palm, a pine, and a
leguminous plant, all now extinct. It is possible that among the
abundant materials I brought home with me some other types may be
discovered by polishing and microscopical examination. Such at least
was my expectation in bringing home this large quantity of stones,
the transport of which to the _Vega_ was attended with a heavy
expenditure.
From Cairo we returned, on the 2nd February, to Suez, and the
following day the _Vega_ weighed anchor to steam through the Suez
Canal into the Mediterranean. This gigantic work, created by the
genius and perseverance of LESSEPS, which is unsurpassed by the many
marvels of construction in the land of the Pharaohs, has not a very
striking appearance, for the famous canal runs, like a small river
with low banks, through the monotonously yellow plain of the desert.
There are no sluices. No bold rock-blastings stand as monuments of
difficulties overcome. But proud must every child of our century be
when he gazes on this proof that private enterprise can in our day
accomplish what world-empires in former times were unable to carry
into execution. We touched at Port Said for a few hours on the 5th
February, after which we continued our voyage to Naples, the first
European port we were to visit.
At Aden and in Egypt I had received several letters and telegrams
informing me that great preparations were being made at Naples for
our reception, and that repeated inquiries had been addressed to the
Swedish consul-general regarding the day of our arrival, questions
which naturally it was not so easy to answer, as our vessel, with
its weak steam-power, was very dependent on wind and weather. It was
hoped that the _Vega_ might be signalled from the Straits of
Messina, but we did not come to the entrance to the Straits until
after sunset. I therefore ordered the _Vega_ to lie to there for
some hours, while Lieut. Bove and I rowed ashore to send off
telegrams announcing our arrival in Europe to Sweden, Naples, Rome,
and other places. The shore, however, was farther off than we had
calculated, and it was quite dark before it was reached. It was not
without difficulty that in these circumstances we could get to land
through the breakers in the open road quite unknown to us, and then,
in coal-black darkness, find our way through thickets of prickly
bushes to the railway which here runs along the coast. We had then
to go along the railway for a considerable distance before we
reached a station from which our telegrams could be despatched.
Scarcely had we entered the station when we were surrounded by
suspicious railway and coast-guard men, and we considered ourselves
fortunate that they had not observed us on the way thither, for they
would certainly have taken us for smugglers, whom the coast-guard
have the right to salute with sharp shot. Even now we were
overwhelmed with questions in a loud and commanding tone, but when
they saw to what high personages our telegrams were addressed, and
were informed by their countryman Bove, who wore his uniform, to
what vessel we belonged, they became very obliging. One of them
accompanied us back to our boat, after providing us with excellent
torches which spread abundant light around our footsteps. They were
much needed, for we were now compelled to share the astonishment of
our guide that in the darkness we had succeeded in making our way
over the rugged hills covered with cactus plants and bushy thickets
between the railway and the coast, and along a railway viaduct which
we had passed on our way to the station without having any idea of
it. It was the last adventure of the voyage of the _Vega_, and my
first landing on the glorious soil of Italy.
On the 14th February, at 1 P.M., the _Vega_ arrived at Naples.
At Capri a flag-ornamented steamer from Sorrento met us; somewhat
later, another from Naples, both of which accompanied us to the
harbour. Here the Swedish expedition was saluted by an American
war-vessel, the _Wyoming_, with twenty-one guns. The harbour swarmed
with boats adorned with flags. Scarcely had the _Vega_ anchored--or
more correctly been moored to a buoy--when the envoy LINDSTRAND, the
Swedish-Norwegian consul CLAUSEN, Prince TEANO, president of the
Geographical Society, Commander MARTIN FRANKLIN, Commendatore NEGRI,
and others came on board. The last-named, who nearly two years
before had made a special journey to Sweden to be present at the
departure of the _Vega_, now came from Turin commissioned by the
Italian government, and deputed by the municipalities of Florence
and Venice, the Turin Academy of Sciences, and several Italian and
foreign geographical societies, to welcome the Expedition, which had
now brought its labours to a happy issue.
After Herr Lindstrand, as King Oscar's representative, had welcomed
the Expedition to Europe, and publicly conferred Swedish decorations
on Palander and me, and two adjutants of the Italian Ministry of
Marine had likewise distributed Italian orders to some of the _Vega_
men, some short speeches were exchanged, on which the members of the
Expedition, accompanied by the persons enumerated above, landed in
the Admiral's steam-launch under a salute of twenty-one guns from
the Italian guard-ship. On the landing-quay, where a large crowd of
the inhabitants of the city was assembled, the Swedish seafarers
were received by the Syndic of Naples, Count GIUSSO, accompanied by
a deputation from the municipality, &c. Here we were taken, between
rows of enthusiastic students, in the gala carriages of the
municipality, to the Hotel Royal des Etrangeres, where a handsome
suite of apartments, along with equipages and numerous attendants,
was placed at our disposal. We were there received by the committee
in charge of the festivities, Prince BELMONTE and Cavalier RICCIO,
who afterwards, during our stay in the city, in the kindest way
arranged everything to make our stay there festive and agreeable.
On Sunday the 15th several deputations were received, among them one
from the University. A beautifully-bound address was presented by
"Ateneo Benjammo Franklin," and a number of official visits were
made and received. We dined with the Swedish-Norwegian consul,
Clausen. On Monday the 16th an address was presented from "Scuola
d'Applicazione per gl'Ingenieri," and from "Neapolitana
Archaeologiae, Litterarum et Artium Academia," a song of welcome in
Latin, written by Professor ANTONIO MIRABELLI. Then followed a grand
dinner given by the municipality of the city in a hall of the hotel,
which was now inaugurated and was named the _Vega_ Hall, and was on
this occasion ornamented with the royal cipher, the Swedish and
Italian flags, &c. In the evening there was a gala representation at
San Carlo, where the members of the Expedition scattered among the
different boxes were saluted with repeated loud cries of
"Bravo!"--On Tuesday the 17th the Committee had arranged an
excursion to Lake Averno, the Temple of Serapis, and other places
famous in a geological and historical respect, situated to the
north-west of Naples. Prince URUSOV entertained some of the members
of the Expedition to dinner. There was an afternoon musical
entertainment at the "Societa Filarmonica," where there was a
numerous attendance of persons moving in the first circles in the
city.--Wednesday the 18th, excursion along with the Committee to
Pompeii, where the Swedish guests were received by the famous
superintendent of the excavations, Director RUGGIERI. Breakfast was
eaten with merry jests and gay speeches in a splendid Roman bath,
still in good preservation, excavations were undertaken, &c. In the
afternoon there was a grand dinner, followed by a reception by the
admiral in command, and a festive representation at the Bellini
Theatre.--Thursday the 19th, Dr. FRANZ KUeHN, arrived from Vienna,
deputed by the Geographical Society there to welcome us. Excursion
in company with Professor PALMIERI and the Committee to Vesuvius,
which at the time of our visit was emitting thick columns of smoke,
was pouring out a stream of lava, and casting out masses of glowing
stone. We ascended the border of the crater, not without
inconvenience from the heat of the half-solidified lava streams over
which we walked, from the gases escaping from the crater, and from
the red-hot stones flung out of it. The new railway, not then ready,
was inspected, and the observatory visited. We dined with the
Committee at the hotel--Friday the 20th, journey to Rome, where the
members of the Expedition arrived at 2 P.M., and were, in the same
way as at Naples, received in a festive manner by the Syndic of the
city, Prince RUSPOLI, president and director of the Geographical
Society, by members of the University, the Scandinavian Union, &c.
Carriages met the Swedish guests, in which they were taken past the
Swedish-Norwegian minister's hotel, decked with innumerable flags,
to Albergo di Roma in the Corso, where a splendid suite of
apartments, along with equipages, was placed at the disposal of the
Expedition. In the evening we dined with the Swedish minister, and
were afterwards received by Prince PALLAVICINI at his magnificent
palace--Saturday the 21st, visit to the Chamber of Deputies, private
excursions, dinner given by the Duke NICOLAS of Leuchtenberg, to
Nordenskioeld and Nordquist.--Sunday the 22nd, public meeting of the
Geographical Society, at which its grand gold medal was presented to
Nordenskioeld. In the evening a grand dinner, given by the
Geographical Society, in the Continental Hotel. Among the toasts
which were drunk may be mentioned one to the King of Sweden and
Norway, proposed in a very warm and eloquent speech by the Premier,
CAIROLI; to Nordenskioeld, by Prince Teano; to Palander, by the
Minister of Marine, Admiral ACTON; to the other members of the
Expedition, to its munificent patrons, Oscar Dickson and Alexander
Sibiriakoff, to Bove, the Italian officer, who took part in it,
&c.--Monday the 23rd. Audience of the King. In the evening a grand
reception at the Palazzo Teano, where almost all that was
distinguished and splendid of Roman society appeared to be
assembled.--Tuesday the 24th. Dined at the Quirinal with King
Humbert. There were present, besides the King and his suite, the
Swedish minister, the members of the _Vega_ expedition, Prince
Teano, President of the Geographical Society; Commendatore Negri;
Cairoli, Premier; Acton, Minister of Marine; MALVANO, Secretary of
the Cabinet; Major BARATIERI, and the Italian naval officer, EUGENIO
PARENT, a member of the Swedish Polar expedition of 1872-3, and
others. In the evening, reception by the English minister, Sir A.B.
PAGET, and a beautifully arranged _fete_ at the Scandinavian Union,
at which a number of enthusiastic speeches were made, and flowers
and printed verses were distributed.--Wednesday the 25th. Farewell
visits. Some of the members of the Expedition travelled north by
rail. Captain Palander made an excursion to Spezzia to take part in
a cruise on the large ironclad _Duilio_. The others remained some
days longer in Rome in order to see its lions, undisturbed by
official _fetes_.
While the _Vega_ lay in the harbour of Naples she was literally
exposed to storming by visitors. The crew were on several occasions
invited to the theatres there by the managers. Excursions to Pompeii
had besides been arranged for them by the consul for the united
kingdoms, Clausen, who spared no pains to make the stay of the
expedition at Naples honouring to the mother-country and as pleasant
as possible to the guests, as well as in arranging the more formal
details of the visit. We had besides the joy of meeting in Italy our
comrade from the severe wintering of 1872-3, Eugenio Parent, who
soon after had the misfortune to be in the tower of the ironclad
_Duilio_, when the large Armstrong cannon placed there burst, and
the wonderful good fortune to escape with life and without being
seriously hurt from this dreadful accident. The only mishap on board
the _Vega_ during the latter part of her long voyage home occurred
besides in the harbour of Naples, one of the sailors who was keeping
back an enthusiastic crowd of people who stormed the _Vega_, being
thrown down from the bulwarks with the result that he broke an
arm.[392]
On the 29th February the _Vega_ left the harbour of Naples, but no
longer with her staff complete. Doctors Kjellman, Almquist, and
Stuxberg, and Lieut. Nordquist had preferred the land route from
Italy to Stockholm to the long _detour_ by sea, and Lieut. Bove was
obliged, by family circumstances, to leave the _Vega_ at Naples. We,
however, all met again at Stockholm. At our departure from Naples
the gunroom _personnel_ thus consisted only of me, Captain Palander,
and Lieuts. Brusewitz and Hovgaard.
Through M.A. RABAUT, President of the young, but already so well
known Geographical Society of Marseilles, I had received repeated
invitations to visit along with my companions the birthplace of
Pytheas, the first Polar explorer and the discoverer of the
Scandinavian Peninsula. With great reluctance I was compelled to
decline this invitation. We had to hasten home, and I wished to save
some days for a visit to the fatherland of HENRY the Navigator and
VASCO DA GAMA.
We sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar on the 9th March, and
anchored in the harbour of Lisbon on the 11th March at 2 P.M. The
following day we made an excursion to the beautiful palace of Cintra,
situated about five Portuguese miles from the capital. On Saturday we
were received in audience by the King, Dom Luiz, of Portugal, who, a
seaman himself, appeared to take a great interest in the voyage of the
_Vega_. Later in the day the Swedish minister in Lisbon gave a dinner,
to which were invited the President of the Portuguese Council, the
Minister of Foreign Affairs, the members of the Diplomatic Corps, and
others, ending in the evening with a grand reception. On Monday the 15th
we were present by special invitation at a meeting of the Geographical
Society, at which the newly-returned African travellers, BRITO-CAPELLO
and IVEN, gave addresses. Here I had besides the great pleasure of
meeting the famous African traveller, Major SERPA PINTO. The King at the
same time honoured us with decorations, and at its meeting on the 10th
March the Portuguese Chamber of Deputies resolved, on the motion of the
Deputies ENNES and ALFREDO, to express its welcome and good wishes in a
congratulatory address to the _Vega_ men.
We weighed anchor again on the 15th March. We were favoured at first
with a fresh breeze and made rapid progress, but at the entrance to the
Channel we met with a steady head-wind, so that it was not until the
evening of the 25th March, considerably later than we had counted on,
that we could anchor in the harbour of Falmouth, not, as was first
intended, in that of Portsmouth. We thus missed some preparations which
had been made at the latter place to welcome us to the land which stands
first in the line of those that have sent out explorers to the Polar
Seas. We besides missed a banquet which the Royal Geographical Society
had arranged in honour of the _Vega_ expedition, at which the Prince of
Wales was to have presided, and which now, in the midst of the Easter
holidays and a keenly-contested parliamentary election, could not be
held.[393] Our stay in England, at all events, was exceedingly pleasant.
Palander and I travelled on the night before Good Friday to London,
where we were received at the railway station by the Swedish minister,
Count PIPER, and a large number of our countrymen living in London.
Count Piper carried me to my future host, the distinguished Secretary of
the Geographical Society and famous Arctician and geographical writer,
CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM, who did everything to make my stay in London as
pleasant and instructive as possible. Saturday was spent in paying
visits. On Easter Sunday Consul-General RICHTER gave a lunch in the
Continental Hotel, to which a considerable number of Scandinavians and
Englishmen were invited. The same evening we dined with the famous
Arctic traveller, Sir ALLEN YOUNG. On Monday we were invited by the Earl
of NORTHBROOK, President of the Geographical Society,[394] to his
country seat, Stratton, near Winchester. Here we saw the way--an
exceedingly quiet one--in which an English parliamentary election goes
on. The same day we paid a visit to Mr. SPOTTISWOODE, the President of
the Royal Society, at his magnificent country seat, in the neighbourhood
of London. Here I saw several instructive experiments with very large
machines for the production of light by electric discharges in highly
rarified air. Wednesday the 31st, grand dinner at the Swedish
minister's, and in the evening of the same day a Scandinavian _fete_ in
the Freemasons' Hall, at which there were great rejoicings according to
old northern usages.
[Illustration: THE OFFICERS OF THE "VEGA."
E. Bruzewitz.
G. Bove.
A. Hovgaard. ]
We started for Paris on the night before the 1st April. We went by
Boulogne-sur-Mer, whose Chamber of Commerce had invited us to a
_fete_ to celebrate the first landing of the _Vega_ men on the soil
of France after the North-east Passage was achieved. Several of the
authorities of the town and Dr. HAMY, a delegate from the
Geographical Society of Paris met us in the waiting-room at the
station. Here a breakfast had been arranged, in the course of which
we were presented to a number of eminent persons of the place, with
whom we afterwards passed the greater part of the day in the most
agreeable way. After making several excursions in the neighbourhood
of the town and paying the necessary official visits, we partook of
a festive dinner arranged by the municipality. From Boulogne we
travelled by night to Paris, arriving there on the 2nd April at
7 A.M.
Notwithstanding the early morning hour we were received here at the
station in a festive way by the Swedish-Norwegian minister and the
_personnel_ of the Legation, a deputation from the Geographical
Society of Paris, and a considerable number of the members of the
Scandinavian colony in the capital of France. The famous Madagascar
traveller, GRANDIDIER, President of the Geographical Society's
Central Committee, welcomed us, with lively expressions of assent
from the surrounding crowd. We were invited during our stay in the
city to live with our countryman, A. NOBEL, in a very comfortable
villa belonging to him, Rue Malakoff, No. 53, and I cannot
sufficiently commend the liberal way in which he here discharged the
duties of a host and assisted us during our stay in Paris, which,
though very agreeable and honouring to us, demanded an extraordinary
amount of exertion.
Our reception in Paris was magnificent, and it appeared as if the
metropolis of the world wished to show by the way in which she
honoured a feat of navigation that it is not without reason that she
bears on her shield a vessel surrounded by swelling billows. It is a
pleasant duty for me here to offer my thanks for all the goodwill
we, during those memorable days, enjoyed on the part of the
President of the Republic, of Admiral LA RONCIERE LE NOURY,
President of the Geographical Society, his colleague, M. HECHT, M.
MAUNOIR, the Secretary of the Society, M. QUATREFAGE, and M.
DAUBREE, members of the Institute, not to forget many other
Frenchmen and Scandinavians. Among the _fetes_ of Paris I must
confine myself to an enumeration of the principal ones.
Friday, the 2nd April. Public _seance de reception_ by the Geographical
Society in the Cirque des Champs Elysee in the presence of a very large
and select audience. Admiral La Ronciere delivered the speech on this
occasion, which I replied to by giving a pretty full account of the
Swedish Arctic expeditions, on which the President handed me the large
gold medal of the Society "as a proof of the interest which the public
and the geographers of France take in the voyage of the _Vega_." Dined
the same day with the Swedish-Norwegian minister, SIBBERN.--Saturday the
3rd. Invitation to a festive meeting of delegates from twenty-eight
learned societies in France in the amphitheatre of the Sorbonne.[395] We
were greeted by the Minister of Education in a masterly and eloquent
speech, after which he conferred upon us, on the part of the Republic,
Commander's and Officer's Insignia of the French Legion of Honour. "A
reward," as the Minister of the _Republic_ expressed himself, "for the
blood of the brave and the sleepless nights of the learned." After that
an official dinner and reception by M. Jules Ferry.--On Sunday the 4th,
an address was presented from the Scandinavian Union, under the
presidency of Herr Fortmeijer. In the evening a brilliant entertainment
on a large scale given by the Scandinavian Union in the Hotel
Continental. Among those present may be mentioned Prince OSCAR of
Sweden, the President of the _Fete_ Committee, Herr JENSEN, Fru KRISTINA
NILSON-ROUZEAUD the Danish minister, the Swedish embassy, members of the
Russian embassy, a large number of Scandinavian artists, many of the
principal representatives of the French and foreign press, and lastly,
what ought perhaps to have been mentioned first, a flower-garden of
ladies, of which every dweller in the north might feel proud.--Monday
the 5th. Meeting of the Institute in its well-known hall, with speeches
of welcome. Hence we were conducted to a grand festive reception,
arranged beforehand to the minutest details by the Municipal Council, in
"la Salle des Etats," situated in that part of the Tuileries where the
Geographical Congress was held in 1878. The hall and the ascent to it
were richly ornamented with French tri-colours and Swedish flags,
beautiful Gobelins, and living plants. A number of speeches were made,
after which the President of the Municipal Council, on the part of the
City of Paris, presented to me a large, artistically executed medal as a
memorial of the voyage of the _Vega_[396]. In the evening a grand dinner
was given by the Societe de Geographie, with several eloquent speeches
for King Oscar (General Pittie), for President Grevy, for the prosperity
of France (Prince Oscar), for the _Vega_ expedition (M. Quatrefage),
and so on.--Tuesday the 6th. Dinner given by the President of the
Republic, M. Grevy, to Prince Oscar and the _Vega_ men then in
Paris.--Wednesday the 7th. Dinner given to a numerous and select company
of French _savants_ by the then President of the Geographical Society
and of the Institute, M.A. Daubree.--Thursday the 8th. Dinner to a
small circle at Victor Hugo's house, where the elderly poet and
youthful-minded enthusiast in very warm, and I need not say eloquent,
words congratulated me on the accomplishment of my task. Reception there
the same evening.
Here ended our visit to the capital of France. Thoroughly exhausted,
but bringing with us memories which shall never pass away, we
travelled the following day to Vlissingen, whither the _Vega_ had
gone from Falmouth, under the command of Brusewitz. We had been
compelled to decline warm and hearty invitations to Holland and
Belgium from want of time and strength to take part in any more
festivities. The anchor was weighed immediately after we came on
board, and the course shaped for Copenhagen. At noon on the 15th we
passed Helsingborg, which was richly ornamented with flags for the
occasion. Already at Kullaberg we had been met by the steamer _H.P.
Prior_, with Lund students on board, and eight other steamers with
deputations of welcome and enthusiasts for the voyage of the _Vega_,
from Copenhagen, Malmoe, Helsingborg, and Elsinore. The number of
passengers was stated to be 1,500, including a number of ladies.
Songs were sung, speeches made, fireworks let off, &c. At night we
lay at anchor in the outer road of Copenhagen, so that it was not
until the following forenoon that we steamed into the harbour,
saluting the fort with nine shots of our little cannon, and saluted
in turn by as many. While the _Vega_ was sailing into the harbour,
and after she had anchored, there came on board the Swedish
Minister, Baron BECK-FRIIS, the Swedish consul-general EVERLOeF, the
representatives of the University, of the merchants, and of the
Geographical Society under the presidency of the former President of
the Council, Count HOLSTEIN-HOLSTEINBORG, to bring us a welcome from
the corporations they represented, and accompany us to the Toldbod,
where we were received by the President-in-chief, the Presidents of
the Communal Authority, and the Bourse, and the Swedish Unions of
Copenhagen. We then drove through the festively ornamented city,
saluted by resounding hurrahs, from a countless throng of human
beings, to the Hotel d'Angleterre, where apartments had been
prepared for us. On the 17th a _fete_ was given by the Geographical
Society in the Casino Hall, which was attended by the King, the
Crown Prince, and Prince John of Gluecksborg, and nearly all the
distinguished men of Copenhagen in the fields of science, business,
and politics. The speech of the _fete_ was delivered by Professor
ERSLEV. Thereafter a gay and lively banquet was given, at which the
Crown Prince of Denmark presided.
The 18th April. Grand entertainment given by the King.--The 19th
April. Magnificent banquet given by the Society of Merchants to the
members of the _Vega_ expedition at the Bourse, the rooms being
richly ornamented with flowers and flags, and with busts and
paintings executed for the occasion by eminent artists. Councillor
of state MELCHIOR presided, and amongst those present, were observed
the Crown Prince, the ministers, the speakers and vice-speakers of
the _folke-_ and _lands-ting_, and a number of the principal
scientific and military men and officials. Speeches were delivered
by the Crown Prince, State-councillor TEITGEN, Manager of the Great
Northern Telegraph Company, Admiral BILLE, Professor MADVIG,
State-councillor Melchior, &c. At another place, an entertainment
was given at the same time to the crew. In the evening, _fete_ of
the Students' Union, the Swedish National Union, and the Norwegian
Union.
I was obliged to decline an invitation to Lund, because his Majesty,
King Oscar, had expressed the wish that we should first set foot on
Swedish ground at the Palace of Stockholm.
It was settled that our entry into Stockholm should take place in
the evening of the 24th April, but we started from Copenhagen as
early as the night before the 20th in order to be sure that we would
not, in consequence of head winds or other unforeseen hindrances,
arrive too late for the festivities in the capital of Sweden. In
consequence of this precaution we arrived at the archipelago of
Stockholm as early as the 23rd, so that we were compelled during the
night between the 23rd and 24th to lie still at Dalaroe. Here we were
met by Commander LAGERCRANTZ, who by the King's orders brought our
families on the steamer _Skoeldmoen_ to meet us.
[Illustration: THE CREW OF THE "VEGA." After a photograph taken at
Naples. ]
On the 24th at 8 A.M. the _Vega_ again weighed anchor in order to
steam on slowly, past Vaxholm into Stockholm. We met innumerable
flag-decked steamers by the way, fully laden with friends, known and
unknown, who with shouts of rejoicing welcomed the _Vega_ men home.
The nearer we came to Stockholm, the greater became the number of
steamers, that, arranged in a double line and headed by the _Vega_,
slowly approached the harbour. Lanterns in variegated colours were
lighted on the vessels, fireworks were let off, and the roar of
cannon mingled with the loud hurrahs of thousands of spectators.
After being greeted at Kastelholmen with one salute more the _Vega_
anchored in the stream in Stockholm at 10 P.M.
The queen of the Maelar had clothed herself for the occasion in a
festive dress of incomparable splendour. The city was illuminated,
the buildings round the harbour being in the first rank. Specially
had the King done everything to make the reception of the _Vega_
expedition, which he had so warmly cherished from the first moment,
as magnificent as possible. The whole of the Royal Palace was
radiant with a sea of lights and flames, and was ornamented with
symbols and ciphers in which the name of the youngest sailor on the
_Vega_ was not omitted.
An estrade had been erected from Logaorden to the landing-place.
Here we were received by the town councillors, whose president, the
Governor, welcomed us in a short speech, we were then conducted to
the Palace, where, in the presence of her Majesty the Queen of
Sweden, the members of the Royal House, the highest officials of the
State and Court, &c., we were in the grandest manner welcomed in the
name of the fatherland by the King of Sweden, who at the same time
conferred upon us further marks of his favour and goodwill[397]. It
was also at the Royal Palace that the series of festivities
commenced with a grand gala dinner, on the 25th of April, at which
the King in a few magnanimous words praised the exploit of the
_Vega_. Then _fete_ followed _fete_ for several weeks.
On the 26th the Swedish Yacht Club gave an entertainment in the
Grand Hotel under the presidency of Admiral Lagercrantz. Among those
who were present may be mentioned his Majesty the King, the Crown
Prince, Prince Oscar, Oscar Dickson, and Baron von Otter, Minister
of Marine. On the evening of the same day there was a torchlight
procession by pupils of the Technical High School. On the 27th there
was a gala-play, to which all the _Vega_ men were invited. On the
28th at a festive meeting of the Academy of the Sciences, a medal
struck on account of the _Vega_ expedition was distributed, the
meeting being followed by a dinner given at the Hotel Phoenix by the
Academy under the presidency of the Crown Prince. On the 30th April
and 5th May banquets were given by the Publicist Club, and by the
Idun Society, by the Naval Officers' Society to the officers of the
_Vega_, and by the Stockholm Workman's Union to the crew. On the 7th
and 8th May there were festivities at Upsala, the principal
attraction of which consisted of gay, lively, and ingenious carnival
representations, in which we received jocular addresses and homage
from fantastically dressed representatives of the peoples of
different countries and periods.
[Illustration: THE ENTRANCE OF THE "VEGA" INTO STOCKHOLM ON THE 24TH
APRIL, 1880. ]
During this time there were daily received deputations addresses,
and telegrams of welcome, among others from the _riksdag_ of Sweden,
the _storting_ of Norway, and the principal towns of Norway and
Finland, from the student corps at Upsala and Helsingborg, from the
St. Petersburg Geographical Society, from women in Northern Russia
(the address accompanied by a laurel wreath in silver), &c. In a
word, the Stockholm _fetes_ formed the climax of the remarkable
triumphal procession from Japan to Stockholm, which stands unique in
the history of festivities. Even after the Expedition was broken up
in Stockholm, and the _Vega_ had sailed on the 9th May for
Karlskrona and Gothenburg, where she was again taken over by the
whaling company that previously owned her, the _fetes_ were repeated
at these towns. They commenced anew when the _Vega_ exhibition was
opened with appropriate solemnities by His Majesty the King in one
of the wings of the Royal Palace, and when some months after I
visited Berlin, St. Petersburg, and my old dear fatherland, Finland.
But I may not weary my reader with more notes of festivities. It is
my wish yet once again to offer my comrades' and my own thanks for
all the honours conferred upon us both in foreign lands and in the
Scandinavian North. And in conclusion I wish to express the hope
that the way in which the accounts of the successful voyage of the
_Vega_ have been received in all countries will give encouragement
to new campaigns in the service of research, until the natural
history of the Siberian Polar Sea be completely investigated and
till the veil that still conceals the enormous areas of land and sea
at the north and south poles be completely removed, until man at
last knows at least the main features of the whole of the planet
which has been assigned him as a dwelling-place in the depths of the
universe.
Hearty thanks last of all to my companions during the voyage of the
_Vega_; to her distinguished commander Louis Palander, her
scientific men and officers, her petty officers and crew. Without
their courage and the devotion they showed to the task that lay
before us, the problem of the North-East Passage would perhaps still
be waiting for its solution.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Map of the North Coast of the Old World from Norway to
Behring's Straits, with the track of the _Vega_, constructed
from old and recent sources, and from observations made during the
Voyage of the _Vega_, by N. Selander, Captain in the General Staff. ]
ABSTRACT OF THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA
Distance traversed
English
1878 geographical miles
Karlskrona--Copenhagen June 22--24 144
Copenhagen--Gothenburg ,, 26, 27 134
Gothenburg--Tromsoe July 4--17 1,040
Tromsoe--Chabarova ,, 21--30 930
Chabarova--Port Dickson Aug 1--6 580
Port Dickson--Cape Chelyuskin ,, 10--19 510
Cape Chelyuskin--Preobraschenie Island ,, 20--24 385
Preobraschenie Island--the Mouth of the Lena ,, 24--27 380
The Mouth of the Lena--Irkaipij Aug 27--Sept 12 1,260
Irkaipij--Pitlekaj Sept 18--28 235
_The Wintering_ Sept 28, 1878--
July 18, 1879
1879
Pitlekaj--St. Lawrence Bay July 18--20 190
St. Lawrence Bay--Port Clarence ,, 21, 22 120
Port Clarence--Konyam Bay ,, 26--28 160
Konyam Bay--St. Lawrence Island ,, 30, 31 90
St. Lawrence Island--Behring Island Aug 2--14 900
Behring Island--Yokohama Aug. 19--Sept 2 1,715
Yokohama--Kobe Oct. 11--13 360
Kobe--Nagasaki ,, 18--21 410
Nagasaki--Hong Kong Oct. 27--Nov 2 1,080
Hong Kong--Labuan Nov. 9--17 1,040
Labuan--Singapore ,, 21--28 750
Singapore--Point de Galle Dec. 4--15 1,510
Point de Galle--Aden Dec. 22--Jan. 7, 1880 2,200
1880
Aden--Suez Jan. 9--27 1,320
Suez--Naples Feb. 3--14 1,200
Naples--Lisbon Feb. 29--March 11 1,420
Lisbon--Falmouth March 16--25 745
Falmouth--Vlissingen April 5--8 345
Vlissingen--Copenhagen ,, 10--16 632
Copenhagen--Stockholm ,, 20--24 404
---------
Total 22,189
[Footnote 392: An accident also happened during the first half of
the expedition, the steersman, in backing among drift-ice, having
been thrown over the wheel and hurt very seriously. ]
[Footnote 393: Further particulars on this point are given in the
Annual Address on the Progress of Geography by the Right Hon. the
Earl of Northbrook (_Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society_,
1880, p. 401). ]
[Footnote 394: During our visit to London we had no opportunity of
taking part in any of the meetings of the Society, but some time
after the Society gave Palander the Founders Gold Medal (I had in
1869 obtained the same distinction) and elected me an Honorary
Corresponding Member. ]
[Footnote 395: These are enumerated in the _Bulletin de la Societe
de Geographie_, Mai, 1880, p. 463. In the same part (p. 450) there
is also a report of the speeches made at the _seance de reception_. ]
[Footnote 396: The medal was accompanied by an "extrait du registre
de proces-verbaux du conseil municipal de la ville de Paris," a
caligraphic masterpiece illuminated in various colours and gold. The
_Conseil municipal_ also ordered a detailed description of the
_fete_ to be printed, with the title _Relation officielle de le
reception de M. le Professeur Nordenskioeld par le conseil municipal
de Paris le lundi 5 Avril_ 1880. ]
[Footnote 397: Among others to all who took part in the Expedition a
_Vega_ medal, specially struck, to be worn on a blue-yellow riband
on the breast. It may perhaps be of interest for numismatists to
know that the medals distributed on account of the _Vega_ expedition
are to be found delineated in the eighth and ninth parts of the
Swedish Family Journal for 1880. To those that are there delineated
there have since been added a medal struck by the Finnish Society of
Sciences, and the Anthropological-Geographical Society's medal. ]
INDEX.
INDEX.
(_n_ after the number of a page signifies note)
A
Aagaard, Aage, i. 302_n_
_Acanthostephia Malmgreni_, ii. 49
Actinia Bay, i. 331
Acton, Admiral, ii. 446
Adam's mammoth _find_, i. 408
Adam's Peak, ii. 431
Adam's wood, ii. 209
Aden, ii. 437
Ahlquist, A.E., i. 103
Aino race, the, ii. 199
Aitanga, Chukch woman, ii. 57; portrait, ii. 8
Akja, Lapp sledge, i. 83
Alasej, the river, discovered, ii. 161;
mammoth _find_ at, i. 408
Alaska, ii. 196
Alaska Commercial Company, ii. 257
_Alauda alpestris_, i. 129_n_
Albertus Magnus, i. 159
Alecto, _see_ Antedon
Aleutian Islands, the, i. 161_n_, ii. 274_n_, 275_n_;
discovered, ii. 196
Alexejev, Feodot, ii. 162, 164, 167
Alfred the Great, i. 46, 47, 215
Algae, on the inland-ice of Greenland, i. 178;
in the Kara Sea, i. 185;
at Behring Island, ii. 292
Alibert's graphite quarry, ii. 235
Alkhornet, i. 112
Almquist, E., i. 4, 37, 38, 93, 187, 208, 319, 320, 340, 436, 444,
465, 478, 504, 505;
ii. 32, 242, 414, 434;
excursion to Beli Ostrov, i. 200;
report on a dead man laid out on the tundra, ii. 89;
on the colour-sense of the Chukches, ii. 135;
excursion in Ceylon, ii. 427;
portrait, ii. 435.
Alophus (beetle), ii. 55
Altaic races, i. 103
Amber in China, ii. 399
America, the north-west coast of, first visited by Europeans,
ii. 210_n_;
Russian voyages to, ii, 196.
American whaler, near the _Vega's_ winter-quarters, i. 467;
voyages in the Siberian Polar sea, i. 27;
accounts of the state of the ice north of Behring's Straits, i. 459
Amezaga, Captain, ii. 439
Ammonites with gold lustre, i. 273
Amossov, Feodot, ii. 170, 171
Amoretti, Carlo, ii. 215
Amulets, Chukch, i. 503, ii. 126, 134;
Eskimo, ii. 239
Anadyr, the river, i. 22; ii. 75, 76, 164, 165, 167, 195;
is discovered, ii. 162
Anadyrsk, ii. 165, 172
Anauls, ii. 166
Andersen, the photographer, ii. 304
Andrejev Land, ii. 202
Andrejev, Sergeant, ii. 202, 203
Androphagi, i. 77_n_; ii. 157_n_
Angara river, the, i. 374
Anian Sound, the, ii. 215.
Anika, Russian peasant, ii. 158
Anjou, Peter Feodorovitsch, i. 23;
journey, ii. 209;
portrait, ii. 207
Anjui river, market at the, ii. 14, 118
Ankudinov, Gerasim, i. 22; ii. 163, 167_n_
_Anser bernicla_, i. 118, 119, 247_n_;
seen during the expedition, i. 321, 334, 343
---- _brachyrhynchus_, i. 126
---- _hyperboreus_, ii. 42
---- _leucopsis_, i. 126
---- _pictus_, ii. 42
---- _segetum_, i. 126
_Antedon Eschrichtii_, i. 324, 325
Anziphorov, the Cossack, ii. 174
Arachnids on Novaya Zemlya, i. 148
Archangel, i 167
Arimaspi, Herodotus' statement regarding, i. 407; ii. 150
Arnell, Dr., i. 383
_Arvicola obscurus_, ii. 44
Arzina, the situation of, i. 66
Asamayama, ascent of, ii. 349;
descent of, ii. 351
Asia, views regarding its geography in the beginning of the
18th century, ii. 177
Astronomical determinations of position, the first in Siberia, ii. 178_n_
Atlassov, Volodimir, ii. 72, 167, 172
Aurora, the, at the _Vega's_ winter quarters, ii. 35
Austrian Arctic Expedition, i. 266, 300
Avatscha Bay, ii. 181, 196
Avril, Ph., i. 400
B
BACHOFF, Ivan, ii. 200
Baer, K.E. von, i. 158; ii. 183, 276;
voyage to Novaya Zemlya, i. 282
Baikal Lake, i. 374
_Balaena Mysticetus_, i. 151, 169
_Balaenoptera Sibbaldii_, i. 170
Baratieri, Major, ii. 446
Barents, i. 101, 108_n_, 422, 423;
voyages, i. 232;
wintering, i. 249;
death, i. 253;
discovery of relics from his wintering, i. 300
Barjatinsky, Ivan Petrovitsch, ii. 169
Barnacle Goose, see _Anser bernicla_
Barrington, D., i. 265
Barrow, J., i. 230; ii. 215
Bartlett, W., i. 467
Bassendine, James, i. 229
Baths in Japan, ii. 345
Baumhauer, ii. 36
Bavier, Consul, ii. 312, 326, 327
Bay-ice, i. 424
Beaker sponges, i. 426, 427
Bear Island, i. 12, 108, 115, 152;
discovery of, i. 247
Bear Islands, the, ii. 171_n_, 195, 201, 202;
the _Vega_ arrives at, i. 421;
geological formation, i. 428
Bear, land, ii. 45; _see_ Polar bear
Beccari, ii. 439
Beck Friis, Baron, ii. 455
Beechey, F.W., i. 28; ii. 228_n_
Behemoth, i. 400
Behring, Vitus, i. 25, 28; ii. 183_n_, 193, 265;
first voyage, ii. 179;
second voyage, ii. 196;
stay on Behring Island, ii. 265;
death, ii. 265
Behring the younger, Captain, ii. 211
Behring Island, ii. 257;
discovered, ii. 197, 262
Behring's Straits, ii. 218;
its hydrography, ii. 242;
is discovered, ii. 180, 181
Beli, Ostrov, i. 187;
excursion to, i. 200;
description of, i. 201;
former visit to, i. 205;
mapping of, ii. 185
Bellot, J.R., ii. 57
Belmonte, Prince, ii. 444
Bell Sound, i. 112, 122, 125, 129, 137, 183
Beluga, _see_ White whale
Beluga Bay, i. 361
Bennet, Stephen, i. 152, 158, 291
Bentinck, Swedish officer, ii. 76_n_
Beormas, i. 48, 51
Beresov, ii. 184
Berggren, Sven, i. 176
Beryl, ii. 422
Berzelius, ii. 325
Besimannaja Bay, i. 73, 112, 344
Busk, i. 373
Bille, Admiral, ii. 456
Billings, J., ii. 78, 203, 254_n_
Biwa Lake, ii. 370
Bjelkov, hunter, ii. 204, 206
Black-lead pencil first mentioned, ii. 235_n_
Blischni Island, _see_ Ljachoff's Island
Bludnaya river, the, ii. 191
Boedtker, Consul-general, ii. 440
Bog iron ore formations in the Kara Sea, i. 185, 186
Bolschaja Reka, ii. 196, 199
Bolschoj, Kamen, i. 173
Bolvan worship, Samoyed, i. 79, 87, 95
_Bona Confidentia_ (vessel), i. 59;
its fate, i. 225
_Bona Esperanza_,(vessel), i. 59;
its fate, i. 225
Books, purchase of Japanese, ii. 364
Boergen, Dr., i. 143
Borgmaestareport, i. 115
Borneo, ii. 407, 413;
excursion to the interior of, ii. 409
Borrowdale, graphite deposit at, ii. 235
Bosman, Cornelis, i. 257
Boulogne-sur-mer, arrival at, ii. 451
Bove, G., i. 4, 39, 190, 318, 502; ii. 2, 47, 242, 409, 447;
excursion to Najtskaj, ii. 20;
to the interior of the Chukch Peninsula, ii. 28;
portrait, ii. 449
Bragin, Dmitri, ii. 275
Brandt, J.F., ii. 275, 276
Brandt, W., i. 279
Brandy, i. 440; ii. 116, 118
Brandywine Bay, i. 108
Briochov Islands, i. 210, 359, 381
Brown, Richard, i. 229_n_
Bruin, Cornelis de, ii. 72
Brun, Captain, i. 360
Brunel, Oliver, i. 234
Bruzewitz, E., i. 4, 39, 339, 353; ii. 18, 44, 447, 455;
his measurements of the thickness of the ice, i. 465;
excursion to Najtskaj, ii. 7;
portrait, ii. 449
Buache, ii. 171
Buckland, John, i. 225
Buckland, William, ii. 228_n_
Buddhism in Japan, ii. 378
Buldakov, Timofej, ii. 163
Bulun, i. 362, 368
Burgomaster, i. 114;
met with during the voyage, i. 191, 352; ii. 42
Burney, James, ii. 178
Burrough, Stephen, i. 60, 100, 169;
his voyage, i. 217
Busa, Elisej, ii. 160
Busch, Henry, ii. 175
Buys, N., ii. 243
Bychov mouth of the Lena, the, i. 367; ii. 194
C
CABOOK, ii. 420, 421
Cabot, Sebastian, i. 56, 58, 217;
portrait, i. 59
Cadamosto, ii. 73_n_
Cairo, stay in, ii. 443
Cairoli, premier, ii. 445, 446
Cannibals in the North, i. 77_n_; ii. 157_n_
Canton, ii. 398
Cape Baranov, i. 25, 428; ii. 195, 206
Cape Borchaja, ii. 194
Cape Chelyuskin, i. 13, 19;
arrival at, i. 336
reindeer there, i. 344, ii. 192_n_;
flora, i. 340;
is discovered, i. 17, 20; ii. 193
Cape Deschnev, ii. 68, 181
Cape Kammennoj, ii. 206
Cape Mattesol, ii. 186
Cape Medinski Savorot, ii. 223_n_
Cape Nassau, ii. 234
Cape North, i. 442; ii. 210
Cape Olenek, i. 363
Cape Onman, i. 456
Cape Prince of Wales, ii. 226
Cape Ruski Savorot, i. 223
Cape Schaitanskoj, i. 381
Cape Schelagskoj, i. 426, 447; ii. 201, 202
Cape St. John, i. 221, 222
Cape Thaddeus, i. 20; ii. 190
Cape Voronov, i. 219_n_
Cape Yakan, i. 27, 447
Capello, Brito, ii. 453
_Carabus truncaticollis_, ii. 55
Carlsen, Elling, ii. 294, 300
Carska Bay, i. 172
Carthaginians' traffic with African races, ii. 73
Caspian Sea, former views regarding, ii. 151
Castren's Island, i. 133
Ceylon, stay at, ii. 414;
natives, ii. 424
Chabarova, i. 75;
church of, i. 76
Chacke, Martin, ii. 214
Chamisso, A. von, ii. 235_n_
Chancelor, Richard, i. 13, 60;
his voyage, i. 67;
his death, i. 226_n_
Chatanga Bay, i. 20; ii. 189, 190
Chatanga river, the, i. 354; ii. 188, 192
Cheltinga, midshipman, ii. 198
Chenizyn, ii. 206, 209
China, stay in, ii. 396;
communication with Europe, i. 373;
its future, ii. 403
Chinese in Japan, ii. 363
at Hong Kong, their treatment, ii. 402;
in Borneo, ii. 412
_Chionoecetes opilio_, ii. 63, 242
Cholodilov, ii. 270_n_
Chukches, the, compared with other Polar races, i. 92, 146;
first meeting with, i. 430;
at Cape Yakan, i. 433;
barter with the, i. 439;
at Irkaipij, i. 449;
visit the _Vega_, i. 486, 513;
at Cape Deschnev, ii. 220;
at Konyam Bay, ii. 221, 245, 246;
on the American side of Behring's Straits, ii. 81, 232;
divided into reindeer and coast Chukches, ii. 81;
number of, ii. 81;
removals, ii. 93;
carry on traffic between America and Siberia, ii. 14, 118;
language, i. 489; ii. 82;
diseases, ii. 87;
position of the women, ii. 138;
their history, _physique_, disposition, and manners, ii. 70
Chukotskojnos, i. 22; ii. 79, 164, 212
Chvoinoff, landmeasurer, i. 418; ii. 204
Chydenius, Carl, i. 142
Clarke, Charles, ii. 211
Clausen, Consul, ii. 443, 444, 446
Clothing, i. 37;
of the _Vega_ men, i. 476
Cloudberries, a powerful antiscorbutic, i. 42, 44
Cochrane, John Dundas, ii. 178
Coffee plantations, ii. 432
Coleoptera in Novaya Zemlya, i. 148;
in North Siberia, i. 321;
at Port Clarence, ii. 242
Collie, Dr., ii. 228_n_
Colmogro, i, 225; ii. 156
Colombo (Ceylon), ii. 427
Colour-blindness, ii. 135
Colours, Chukch, ii. 135
Commander's Islands, ii. 257
Cook, James, i. 13, 25, 28, 442, 445_n_; ii. 210
Cooke, Mr, ii. 408
Copenhagen, the _Vega_ calls at, i. 4;
reception at, ii. 455
Copper Island, ii. 257, 261, 270, 275
Corea, whales with European harpoons caught at, i. 264;
Japanese campaign to, ii. 380
Coregonus caught by the Chukches, i. 494; ii. 18, 19
Corpse found in Chukch Land, i. 505; ii. 89
Corundum, ii. 400, 423
Cosmic dust, i. 329
Coughtrie, J.B., ii. 401
Coxe, J.H., ii. 211
Croyere, L'Isle de la, ii. 196, 198, 200
Crustacea, phosphorescent, ii. 55, 56
Cruys Eiland, i. 234
Crystals found on the ice, i. 327
Currents in the Siberian Polar Sea, i. 18
_Cyqnus Bewickii_, i. 127
_Cystophora cristata_, i. 165
D
Daat Island, i. 409
Dahl, Captain, i. 314
Daibutsu statues, ii. 379
Dale, Fr. de la, i. 237, 243
Dall, W.H. i. 459; ii. 213, 228_n_
_Dallia delicatissima_, ii. 59, 242
Dallmann, Captain, i. 313, 360, 459
Daubree, A., ii. 454
David, Russian ambassador, i. 54
_Dawn_ (vessel), the, i. 317
Day-reckoning on board the _Vega_, i. 453_n_
Delisle, i. 171
De Long, Captain, i. 489
Dementiev, ii. 198
Deschnev Simeon, i. 20, 21, 25; ii. 181, 194;
voyages of, ii. 164
Devil's Temple at Ratnapoora, ii. 427
Diamonds, ii. 416,422
_Diastylis Rathkei_, i. 198, 199
Diatoms, fresh-water, on sea ice, i. 189
Dickson Island, i. 191
Dietary of the expedition, i. 478
Diomede Island, ii. 218
Disco Island, i. 147_n_
Dittmar, C. von, ii. 79, 118
Dixon, Alexander C., ii. 414