MIDDENDORFF’S ADVENTURES IN TAIMURLAND.
For what Purpose was Middendorff’s Voyage to Taimurland undertaken?--
Difficulties and Obstacles.--Expedition down the Taimur River
to the Polar Sea.--Storm on Taimur Lake.--Loss of the Boat.--
Middendorff ill and alone in 75° N. Lat.--Saved by a grateful
Samoïede.--Climate and Vegetation of Taimurland.
On following the contours of the Siberian coast, we find to the east
of Nova Zembla a vast tract of territory projecting towards the Pole,
and extending its promontories far into the icy sea. This country--
which, from its principal river, may be called Taimurland--is the most
northern, and, I need hardly add, the most inhospitable part of the Old
World. The last huts of the Russian fishermen are situated about the
mouth of the Jenissei, but the whole territory of the Taimur River,
and the regions traversed by the lower course of the Chatanga and the
Päsina, are completely uninhabited.
Even along the upper course of these two last-named rivers, the
population is exceedingly scanty and scattered; and the few Samoïedes
who migrate during the summer to the banks of the Taimur, gladly leave
them at the approach of winter, the cold of which no thermometer has
ever measured. As may easily be imagined, Taimurland has but few
attractions for the trader or the fur-hunter, but for the naturalist it
is by no means without interest.
We have seen in a former chapter how Von Baer, prompted by the
disinterested love of science, travelled to Nova Zembla to examine
the productions of a _cold insular_ summer beyond the 70th degree of
latitude. The instructive results of his journey rendered it doubly
desirable to obtain information about the effects of summer in a
_continental_ climate, situated if possible still farther to the
north; and as no region could be better suited to this purpose than
the interior of the broad mass of Taimurland, the Academy of Sciences
of St. Petersburg resolved to send thither a scientific expedition.
Fortunately for the success of the undertaking, Von Middendorff, the
eminent naturalist, whose offer of service was gladly accepted, was
in every respect the right man in the right place; for to the most
untiring scientific zeal, and an unwavering determination, he joined
a physical strength and a manual dexterity rarely found united with
learning. In the Lapland moors he had learned to bivouac for nights
together, while chasing the waterfowl, and on foot he was able to tire
the best-trained walrus-hunter. He understood how to construct a boat,
and to steer it with his own hand, and every beast or bird was doomed
that came within reach of his unerring ball. In one word, no traveller
ever plunged into the Arctic wilds more independent of baggage,
followers, or the means of transport.
On April 4 we find Middendorff, accompanied by Mr. Brandt, a Danish
forester, and a single servant, on the ice of the Jenissei between
Turuchansk and Dudino. Here his companions were attacked by measles;
but as it was high time to reach the Chatanga before the melting
of the snow, the patients were carefully packed up in boxes lined
with skins, and the whole party--whose numbers, meanwhile, had been
increased by the addition of a topographer and of three Cossacks--
emerged from the region of forests on April 13, having to face a cold
of -36°, and a storm that almost overturned their sledges. With Tunguse
guides they traversed the tundra in a north-easterly direction as
far as the Päsina, and thence passing on from one Samoïede horde to
another, at length reached Koronnoie Filippowskoi (71° 5´ lat.) on the
Boganida, an affluent of the Cheta, which is itself a tributary of the
Chatanga. Here a halt was made, partly because all the party except
Middendorff were by this time attacked with the reigning epidemic,
and partly to wait for the Samoïedes, whom they intended to join on
their summer migration to the north. During this interval Middendorff
made an excursion to the Chatanga, for the purpose of gathering
information about the voyage down that river, and to make the necessary
preparations. In the village of Chatangsk, however, he found nearly all
the inhabitants suffering from the measles; and as no assistance was to
be expected from them, he resolved to alter his route, and to proceed
as soon as possible to the River Taimur, which would in all probability
afford him the best means for penetrating to the extreme confines of
continental Asia. As this most _northerly_ river of the Old World lies
far beyond the boundaries of arboreal growth, a boat-frame of twelve
feet on the keel had to be made at Koronnoie before setting out. Brandt
was left behind with part of the company, to make a prolonged series of
meteorological observations, and to gather as complete a collection as
possible of the animals and plants of the country, while Middendorff
started on his adventurous tour (May 19) with sixty-eight reindeer,
under the guidance of a few Samoïedes on their progress to the north,
and accompanied only by the topographer, an interpreter, and two
Cossacks. The difficulties of this journey, since a boat-frame, fuel,
provisions, physical instruments, apparatuses for the preservation
of objects of natural history, forming altogether a load for many
sledges, had to be transported along with the travellers, would have
been great at all times, but were now considerably increased by the
epidemic having also seized the tribe of Samoïedes which Middendorff
expected to find near the small River Nowaia, and which was to guide
him farther on to the Taimur. At length, after a search of three days,
he found the remnant of the horde, which had been decimated and reduced
to a deplorable condition by the epidemic. In vain he sought for the
well-known faces of the chief personages of the horde, with whom he
had negotiated on the Boganida--“they were all dead.” Of thirty-five
persons, one only was completely healthy; a second could hardly crawl
about; but the others lay prostrate in their tents, coughing and
groaning under their skin coverings. Leaving seven corpses on the road,
they had advanced by slow journeys to join Middendorff, until they
broke down, so that instead of receiving aid at their hands, he was now
obliged to help them in their distress--an assistance which they amply
repaid, as we shall see in the sequel.
Unfortunately the illness had prevented the Samoïede women from
sewing together, as they had promised, the skins that were necessary
to complete the covering of the travellers’ tent, so that they had
much to suffer during a violent snow-storm, which raged from May 27
to 30. Thus after another long delay and an irreparable loss of time,
considering the extreme shortness of the summer, Middendorff was not
able to start from the Nowaia before May 31. The softening of the snow
rendered the advance of the sledges extremely difficult, so that it
was not before June 14 that he reached the Taimur at a considerable
distance above the point where the river discharges its waters into the
lake. Encamping on a steep declivity of its bank, Middendorff now set
about building his boat. On June 30 the ice on the river began to break
up, and on July 5 the navigation of the stream was free. By the light
of the midnight sun the boat was launched, and christened “The Tundra,”
to commemorate the difficulties of its construction in the deserts
of 74° N. lat. Constant north winds retarded the voyage down the
river and over the lake, beyond which the Taimur, traversing a hilly
country, is inclosed within steep and picturesque rocks. The increasing
rapidity of the stream now favored the travellers, and the storms were
less troublesome between the mighty rock-walls; but unfortunately
Middendorff, instead of being able, as he had expected, to fill his
nets with fish as he advanced, and to establish dépôts for his return
journey, found himself obliged to consume the provisions he had taken
with him in the boat. On August 6 the first night-frost took place, and
from that time was regularly repeated. Yet in spite of these warnings,
Middendorff continued his journey down the river, and reached the sea
on August 24, in 76° N. lat. But now it was high time to return.
“The fear of leaving my undertaking half unfinished,” says Middendorff,
“had hitherto encouraged me to persevere. The great distance from
any human habitation, the rapid stream, against which we had now to
contend, and the advanced season, with its approaching dark nights and
frosts, made our return an imperative necessity, and I could have but
little reliance on our remaining strength. The insufficient food and
the fatigues of our journey, often prolonged to extreme exhaustion,
had reduced our vigor, and we all began to feel the effects of our
frequent wading through cold water, when, as often happened, our boat
had grounded upon a shallow, or when the flat mud-banks of the river
gave us no other alternative for reaching the dry land. It was now also
the second month since we had not slept under a tent, having all the
time passed the nights behind a screen erected on the oars of the boat,
as a shelter against the wind. Provided with a good load of drift-wood,
collected on the shore of the Polar Ocean, we began our return voyage
on August 26. The borders of the river were already incrusted with ice.
Wading became extremely irksome, the river having meanwhile fallen
above six feet, and the shallows frequently forcing us to step into the
water and pull the boat along.
“Fortunately the wind remained favorable, and thus by rowing to the
utmost of our strength, and with the assistance of the broad sails of
our ‘Tundra,’ we surmounted two rapids which, encased between abrupt
rocks, seemed to defy our utmost efforts.
“On the 31st, a malicious gust of wind, bursting out of a narrow gorge,
threw our boat against the rocks and broke the rudder. The frost and
wet, together with the shortness of our provisions, tried us sorely.
Not a day passed without sleet and snow.
“On September 5, while endeavoring to double during a violent storm a
rocky island at the northern extremity of Lake Taimur, one wave after
another dashed into the boat, which I could only save by letting her
run upon a sand-bank. The violent wind, with a temperature of only +27°
at noon, covered our clothes with solid ice-crusts. We were obliged to
halt four days till the storm ceased; our nets and my double-barrelled
gun proved daily more and more unsuccessful, so that hunger combined
with cold to render our situation almost intolerable. On the 8th, while
on the lookout for ptarmigan, I saw through my telescope a long stripe
of silver stretching over the lake, and, returning to my comrades,
informed them that we must absolutely set off again the next morning,
regardless of wind and weather.
“On the following day the ominous indications of the telescope rendered
it necessary to approach the more open west side of the lake; which I
followed until stopped by the ice, along whose borders I then sailed in
order to reach the river, which must still be open. Meanwhile the wind
had completely fallen, and, to our astonishment, we saw the water in
our wake cover itself with a thin crust of ice as soon as we passed.
The danger of freezing fast in the middle of the lake was evident.”
Unfortunately, while endeavoring to reach the river, the boat was
crushed between two ice floes, and was with great difficulty dragged on
shore. The only chance of rescue now was to meet with some Samoïedes on
the upper course of the river, for these nomads never wander northward
beyond the southern extremity of the lake, and from this our travellers
were still at a great distance.
“We made a large hand-sledge,” continues Middendorff, “and set off
without loss of time on the 10th, in spite of the rainy weather, which
had completely dissolved the sparing snow upon the hills. The sharp
stones cut into our sledge-runners like knives, and after having
scarcely made three versts, the vehicle fell to pieces. The bad weather
forced us to stop for the night. The fatigues of our boat-journey, the
want of proper food, and mental anxiety, had for several weeks been
undermining my health: a total want of sleep destroyed the remainder of
my strength, so that, early on the 11th, I felt myself quite unable to
proceed.”
In this extremity Middendorff adopted with heroic self-denial the best
and only means for his own preservation and that of his comrades. If,
by departing without loss of time, they were fortunate enough to reach
the Samoïedes before these nomads had left the Taimur country for the
south, he also might be rescued; if they found them very late, they
at least might expect to save their lives; if the Samoïedes could not
be found, then of course the whole party was doomed. Thus Middendorff
resolved to separate at once from his comrades. A remnant of flesh
extract, reserved for extreme cases, was divided into five equal
portions; the naturalist’s dog, the faithful companion of all his
previous journeys, was killed, though reduced to a mere skeleton, and
his scanty flesh similarly distributed among the party. The blood and
a soup made of the bones served for the parting repast. Thus of his
own free-will, the winter having already set in, Middendorff, ill and
exhausted, remained quite alone in the icy desert, behind a sheltering
rock, in 75° N. lat., several hundred versts from all human dwellings,
almost without fuel, and with a miserable supply of food. The three
first days he was still able to move. He saw the lake cover itself
completely with ice, and the last birds depart for the south. Then his
strength utterly failed him, and for the next three days he was unable
to stir. When he was again able to move, he felt an excessive thirst.
He crawled to the lake, broke the ice, and the water refreshed him.
But he was not yet free from disease, and this was fortunate, as want
of appetite did not make him feel the necessity of food. Now followed
a succession of terrible snow-storms, which completely imprisoned the
solitary traveller, but at the same time afforded him a better shelter
against the wind.
“My companions,” he writes in a letter to a relation, “had now left
me twelve days; human assistance could no longer be expected; I was
convinced that I had only myself to rely upon, that I was doomed, and
as good as numbered with, the dead. And yet my courage did not forsake
me. Like our squirrels, I turned myself according to the changes of
the wind. During the long sleepless nights fancy opened her domains,
and I forgot even hunger and thirst. Then Boreas broke roaring out of
the gullies as if he intended to sweep me away into the skies, and
in a short time I was covered with a comfortable snow-mantle. Thus I
lay three days, thinking of wretches who had been immured alive, and
grown mad in their dreadful prison. An overwhelming fear of insanity
befell me--it oppressed my heart--it became insupportable. In vain I
attempted to cast it off--my weakened brain could grasp no other idea.
And now suddenly--like a ray of light from heaven--the saving thought
flashed upon me.
“My last pieces of wood were quickly lighted--some water was thawed
and warmed--I poured into it the spirits from a flask containing a
specimen of natural history, and drank. A new life seemed to awaken
in me; my thoughts returned again to my family, to the happy days I
had spent with the friends of my youth. Soon I fell into a profound
sleep--how long it lasted I know not--but on awakening I felt like
another man, and my breast was filled with gratitude. Appetite returned
with recovery, and I was reduced to eat leather and birch-bark, when
a ptarmigan fortunately came within reach of my gun. Having thus
obtained some food for the journey, I resolved, although still very
feeble, to set out and seek the provisions we had buried. Packing some
articles of dress, my gun and ammunition, my journal, etc., on my small
hand-sledge, I proceeded slowly, and frequently resting. At noon I saw,
on a well-known declivity of the hills, three black spots which I had
not previously noticed, and as they changed their position, I at once
altered my route to join them. We approached each other--and, judge
of my delight, it was Trischun, the Samoïede chieftain, whom I had
previously assisted in the prevailing epidemic, and who now, guided by
one of my companions, had set out with three sledges to seek me. Eager
to serve his benefactor, the grateful savage had made his reindeer
wander without food over a space of 150 versts where no moss grew.
“I now heard that my companions had fortunately reached the Samoïedes
four days after our separation; but the dreadful snow-storms had
prevented the nomads from coming sooner to my assistance, and had even
forced them twice to retrace their steps.
“On September 30 the Samoïedes brought me to my tent, and on October
9 we bade the Taimur an eternal farewell. After five months we hailed
with delight, on October 20, the verge of the forest, and on the
following day we reached the smoky hut on the Boganida, where we had
left our friends.”
Having thus accompanied Middendorff on his adventurous wanderings
through Taimuria, I will now give a brief account of his observations
on the climate and natural productions of this northern land.
The remark of Saussure that the difference of temperature between light
and shade is greatest in summer, and in the high latitudes, was fully
confirmed by Middendorff. While the thermometer marked -37° in the
shade, the hillsides exposed to the sun were dripping with wet, and
towards the end of June, though the mean temperature of the air was
still below the freezing-point of water, the snow had already entirely
disappeared on the sunny side of the Taimur River. Torrents came
brawling down the hills; the swollen rivers rose forty or sixty feet
above their winter level, and carried their icy covering along with
them to the sea.
On August 3, in the very middle of the short Taimurian summer, in 74°
15´ of latitude, Middendorff hunted butterflies under the shelter of
a hill, bare-footed and in light under-clothes. The thermometer rose
in the sun to +68°, and close to the ground to +86°, while at a short
distance on a spot exposed to the north-eastern air-current it fell at
once to +27°.
The moisture of the air was very remarkable. In May thick snow-fogs
almost perpetually obscured the atmosphere, so that it was impossible
to ascertain the position of the sun. It appeared only in the evening,
or about midnight, and then regularly a perpendicular column of
luminous whiteness descended from its orb to the earth, and, widening
as it approached the horizon, took the form and the appearance of a
colossal lamp-flame, such as the latter appears when seen through the
mists of a vapor bath. From the same cause parhelia and halos were very
frequent.
During the daytime the snow-fogs, in perpetual motion, either entirely
veiled the nearest objects, or magnified their size, or exhibited them
in a dancing motion. In June the snow-fog became a vapor-fog, which
daily from time to time precipitated its surplus of moisture in form
of a light rain, but even then the nights, particularly after eleven
o’clock, were mostly serene.
Experience proved, contrary to Arago’s opinion, that thunder-storms
take place within the Arctic zone. The perpetual motion of the air was
very remarkable. The sun had merely to disappear behind a cloud to
produce at once a gust of wind. Towards the end of August, the southern
and the northern air-currents, like two contending giants, began to
strive for the mastery, until finally the storms raged with extreme
violence. But in these treeless deserts their fury finds nothing to
destroy.
It is impossible to form any thing like a correct estimate of the
quantity of snow which annually falls in the highest latitudes. So
much is certain that it can not be small, to judge by the violence
and swelling of the rivers in spring. The summits of the hills,
and the declivities exposed to the reigning winds, are constantly
deprived of snow, which, however, fills up the bottom of the valleys
to a considerable height. Great was Middendorff’s astonishment, while
travelling over the tundra at the end of winter, to find it covered
with no more than two inches, or at the very utmost half a foot,
of snow; the dried stems of the Arctic plants everywhere peeping
forth above its surface. This was the natural consequence of the
north-easterly storms, which, sweeping over the naked plain, carry
the snow along with them, and form the snow-waves, the compass of the
northern nomads.
It is extremely probable that, on advancing towards the pole, the
fall of snow gradually diminishes, as in the Alps, where its quantity
likewise decreases on ascending above a certain height.
On measuring the thickness of the ice, Middendorff was very much
surprised to find it nowhere, both in the lakes and on the river,
thicker than eight feet, and sometimes only four and a half; its
thickness being constantly proportionate to the quantity of snow with
which it was covered. At first he could hardly believe that this simple
covering could afford so efficacious a protection against the extreme
cold of winter in the 74th degree of latitude, but the fact is well
known to the Samoïedes, who, whenever they require water, always make
the hole where the snow lies deepest.
The tundras of Taimuria were found to consist principally of arid
plateaux and undulating heights, where the vegetation can not conceal
the boulders and the sand of which the crust of the earth is formed.
The withered tips of the grasses scarcely differ in color from the
dirty yellow-brown moss, and the green of the lower part of the stalks
appears as through a veil. Nothing can be of a more dreary monotony
than this vegetation when spread over a wide surface; but in the hardly
perceptible depressions of the plains where the spring water is able to
collect, a fresher green gains the upper hand, the stalks are not only
longer, but stand closer together, and the grass, growing to a height
of three or even four inches, usurps the place of the moss. Here and
there small patches of _Dryas octopetala_, or _Cassiope tetragona_,
and much more rarely a dwarf ranunculus, diversify the dingy carpet,
yet without being able to relieve its wearisome character. But very
different, and indeed truly surprising, is the aspect of the slopes
which, facing the Taimur lake or river, are protected against the late
and early frosts. Here considerable patches of ground are covered with
a lively green, intermingled with gayly-colored flowers, such as the
brilliant yellow Sieversia, the elegant Oxytropis, the blue and white
Saxifragas, the red _Armeria alpina_, and a beautiful new species
of Delphinium. All these various flowers are not dwarfs of stunted
growth, for Polemones, Sisymbrias, Polygonums, and Papavers above a
foot high decorate the slopes, and Middendorff found an islet in the
Taimur covered like a field with a Senecio, of which some of the most
conspicuous specimens were more than a foot and a half high, and bore
no less than forty flowers above an inch in diameter.
The progress of vegetation is uncommonly rapid, so that, as Middendorff
remarks, if any one wishes to see the grass grow, he must travel to
the Taimur. Scarcely do the first leaves peep forth when the blossoms
also appear, as if, conscious of the early approach of autumn, they
felt the necessity of bringing their seeds to a rapid maturity under
this wintry sky.
With regard to the animal creation, the general law of polar uniformity
was fully confirmed in Taimurland. The same lemmings were found which
people the whole north of Asia and America, and as high as 75° N. lat.
they found the traces of the snow-hare, which inhabits the complete
circle of the Arctic regions of the globe. The Arctic fox, everywhere
at home in the treeless wastes, is here also pursued by the northern
glutton; and following the herds of the reindeer, the wolves, and
the Samoïedes, roams up and down the tundra. The ptarmigan, which in
Scandinavia and on Melville Island feeds on berries and buds, appears
also as a summer visitor at the mouth of the Taimur in 75° 4´ N. lat.,
and the ivory gull of the northern European seas likewise builds its
nest on the rocks of that distant shore.
The more vigorous vegetation on the sheltered declivities of the
Taimur provides food for a comparatively greater number of insects
than is found on the coasts of Nova Zembla. Bees, hornets, and three
different species of butterflies, buzzed or hovered round the flowers,
and caterpillars could be gathered by dozens on the tundra, but their
mortal enemies had pursued them even here; and ichneumon flies crept
out of most of them. Two spiders, several flies, gnats, and tipulæ, a
curculio, and half a dozen carabi completed Middendorff’s entomological
list, to which, no doubt, further researches would have considerably
added.
Thus, at the northern extremity of Asia, as in every other part of the
world, the naturalist finds the confirmation of the general law that,
where the means of life are given, life is sure to come forth.