OUR SECOND WINTER IN THE ICE.
1. The Land had meantime been thickly enveloped in its pure white mantle,
and wreaths of snow-drifts lay over the rocks scattered over its surface.
The light became fainter. Sometimes the precipitous faces of the glaciers
seemed to glow in subdued rose-colour through the leaden grey of the
atmosphere. When new “ice-holes” appeared, a frosty vapour rose and
spread over the surface of the ice; the ship and surrounding objects were
covered as if with down; even the dogs were frosted white. We used to
stand on deck and gaze on the sun as it sank, surrounded by the evening
clouds, behind the jagged edges of the hummocks. Raised by refraction,
he appeared for the last time on the 22nd of October with half his disc
above the horizon, and the whole southern sky was for a time like a sea
of fire over the cold, stiff forms and lines of ice. At length the disc
disappeared, and masses of dark clouds moved up and obscured the light
still lingering in the sky. The long reign of night began, and the wastes
around us relapsed into the stern sway of winter. A pale twilight still
lingered for some time, but its faint arc became smaller and feebler.
No shadows accompanied the forms of those who strayed over the ice. The
wind moaned in the frozen desert. The darkness and the cold continually
increased, till the dome of night vaulted the lonely spot which had
become our home.
2. But the hope and expectation of successes to be achieved, and the
feeling that our safety was not immediately threatened, rendered this
second winter a happy contrast to the preceding one. We had now leisure
and calmness for intellectual occupations, which were, indeed, the
only means of relieving the monotony of the long period of darkness. We
lived like hermits in our little cabins in the after-part of the ship,
and learned that mental activity without any other joy suffices to make
men happy and contented. The oppressive feeling of having to return
ingloriously home, which had always been disagreeably present to our
minds during the first winter, was no longer felt. We had now a hope, the
charms of which grew day by day, that in the spring we should be able
to leave the ship and start on expeditions to explore the land we had
discovered. Happy in this expectation, we could enjoy the indescribable
pleasures of good books, all the more that we were far from the busy
haunts of men, and that the presence of danger clears and sharpens the
understanding. Nowhere can a book be so valued as in such an isolated
position as ours was. Great, therefore, was the advantage we possessed in
a good library, consisting of books of science, and of the classics of
literature. In fact, freed from the constantly recurring perils, which
had been our portion in the first long Arctic night, this second winter
was, to all who actively employed their minds, comparatively a state
of happiness, undisturbed by cares. With regard to the crew, they were
kept in good humour by the increase of their comforts. As we had not the
prospect of a third winter in the ice—which would have rendered a greater
economy of our provisions imperative—we were enabled to provide them with
a more generous diet.
3. In the last three weeks of November we had complete darkness, the sky
clouded over and the weather bad. So dark was it, that our environment,
though it was overspread with countless hummocks and ice-cliffs, looked
like one black unbroken level. On the 31st of October most of the stars
were visible about 3 o’clock in the afternoon; by 4 o’clock actual night
prevailed. On the 16th of November large print was barely legible even at
noon. On the 18th of the month we were able to read the larger letters on
the title-page of Vogt’s _Geology_ at the distance of a foot. At noon, on
the 13th of December, not a letter of this same title-page was legible,
even in clear weather. On the 5th of November there was a total eclipse
of the moon, which then sank below the horizon and did not return till
the 29th of that month. Its beams then fell on a large ice-hole, which
had formed itself twenty miles to the south of the ship, which made us
apprehensive lest our floe should be driven by the north winds in a
southerly direction. On the 4th of December the moon reached its highest
declination, but, as it waned, it was constantly obscured by bad weather.
I had reckoned on the return of moonlight to make an excursion of some
days to the mainland. But the fickleness of the weather at the beginning
of December compelled me to confine my wanderings to Wilczek Island,
which I frequently visited, although with a thermometer at -35° F. I
was exposed to frost-bites in the face and hands, whenever I attempted
to draw by the light of a lamp, and with only the protection of light
woollen gloves.[22]
[Illustration: DEPARTURE OF THE SUN IN THE SECOND WINTER.]
4. We observed during this winter, that, on the clearest nights, snow of
the finest texture continued to fall, so that we saw the heavenly bodies,
as it were, through a veil of fine gauze. In the moonlight this fine
snow sparkled faintly, and its presence could only be discovered by a
prickling on the skin. The constancy of these downfalls added of course
to the depth of the snow under which the _Tegetthoff_ was almost buried;
indeed at the beginning of the spring she no longer stood out from the
covering of snow, although her fore-part was eleven-and-three-quarter
feet, and her after-part four-and-a-half feet, above the ice on which
she rested. The air was also often filled with an indescribable quantity
of driving snow; and when the wind dropped and permitted it to fall, we
were struck with the profound stillness of our environment. The cold
constantly increased and penetrated all the parts of the interior of the
ship which were not artificially heated,[23] and almost all the fluids,
which were not specially protected, were frozen. The various kinds of
spirits on board were exposed on the 23rd of November to the cold at -26°
F.; at the end of an hour-and-a-half they still remained fluid. When the
temperature fell to -31° F., hollands, common gin and maraschino were
congealed in two-hours-and-a-half, but rum and brandy remained unchanged.
On another occasion a mixture of two parts of pure alcohol to one part
of water froze at -47° F., cognac at -53° F. This low temperature had
so increased the thickness of the ice, that the basin of open water,
which had been sawed through in the previous summer, was covered on
the 3rd of January with ice three-and-a-half, and on the 20th with ice
six-and-a-half feet thick.
[Illustration: NOON ON DECEMBER 21, 1873.]
5. On the 21st of December, the middle of the second long Polar
night—which lasted in all 125 days—was reached; and although we knew
where the south lay, every trace of twilight had disappeared, and for six
weeks we were enveloped in unbroken darkness. The figure of a man could
not be discerned at a very short distance. In order to be able to sketch
the ship, I had to illuminate it by torches. Those who made expeditions
afoot were struck, as it were, with blindness. If they approached what
seemed to be a lofty chain of mountains, over the ridge of which the
planet Jupiter hung like a glowing point, they came at once on a dark
wall of ice; and when they ascended the apparently far distant ridge, the
planet stood almost in the zenith. There was something approaching to
twilight only when the crescent moon shone in her first quarter. On the
7th of December the sun was 12°, and on the 21st 14½°, below the horizon.
We should not have seen the sun, could we have ascended the pinnacle of
the Alps, which Pliny imagined to be 120,000 feet high, or even from that
summit of the Caucasus which Aristotle reckoned at 230,000 feet.
6. Distrusting the quiescent state of the ice, we had again stretched
a tent over one-half of the ship’s deck, while the other portion was
covered with snow trodden down as hard as a skating-rink. The space
for free movement was narrowed still further by the long-boat placed
between the two masts, by the stores of provisions kept in readiness for
the possible disaster which might compel us to leave the ship, by the
stand of rifles, by dog-kennels, and other inevitable impediments. In
bad weather the dogs sheltered themselves under the tent, and sometimes
showed ill-temper if their feet were trod on. There were places on deck
where only their particular friends were safe from being bitten; Sumbu
especially had a bad habit of lying behind a cask and springing out
on every one that passed by. Here under its friendly shelter the men
waited the summons to their meals. Hither came Carlsen to enjoy the
opportunity of talking Norwegian with some one or other. The deck light
shone feebly on all this, shedding its rays on the fine snow which fell
through the tent-roof. In the second half of the winter, when the deck
was less frequented, the lantern became, like the crew—more sleepy; and
its dull light fell on hard-frozen sailcloth, boards covered with snow,
and on empty tin cases. Here, too, walked, of course, the deck-watch,
enveloped in clothes from head to foot, with only their eyes uncovered,
looking more like moving figures than men. The deck-watch had also to
keep open the water-hole in the ice, to look out for bears, and to assist
in reading off the thermometers exposed on the ice. They were on duty for
two hours, and the moment they were relieved, they shot down into their
quarters, as quickly as a harpooned whale dives under the waves. He, too,
whose duty it was to fetch the snow to be converted into water was often
to be seen on deck. Although the store of snow in which we lived was
inexhaustible, yet, in order to be exempt from this duty in bad weather,
it was the practice of those who were told off for this service to lay
up a supply of blocks of frozen snow under the tent. Some of the crew
showed the scrupulosity of chemists in their work. Before they proceeded
to build up their pile, they brought specimens to the cook, in order to
learn his opinion as to the residuum of salt in the ice.
7. With December a new era began for the dogs. A large snow house was
built for them outside the ship, in which were placed their kennels,
well filled with straw. The name of each dog was written on his house.
And here let me remark, that the winter quarters of the dogs should
always be on the ice. To keep them under the deck-tent is unhealthy and
inconvenient, and would be an impossibility if their numbers were great.
Every morning Haller opened the door of the snow house, and out rushed
the dogs, with their tails in the air, to begin forthwith a general
fight. No shouts, no blows, not even the discharge of a rifle could
separate the combatants. Pouring water over them at a temperature of -35°
F., though a somewhat barbarous way of producing peace, was successful
only with the younger dogs. When the fight was over, the next object
was to find out their special patron, and the instant they recognised
him they rushed upon him, tugged at his clothes, and thrust their noses
inquiringly into his pockets. Each then made his morning round, visiting
the places where he had hid in the snow a piece of bread or covered up
a bit of seal. When they had satisfied their appetite, it was curious
to observe how they would make it smooth over the hole in which they
deposited their treasure, all the time cunningly turning their eyes right
and left to see whether they were observed.
[Illustration: PEKEL, SUMBU, AND JUBINAL.]
8. Their violence and eagerness having somewhat abated, we may observe
the members of our pack one by one. The red giant there, who offers his
paw as huge as a bear’s, is named after a god of the heathen days of
Lapland, “Jubinal;” and not a few legends surrounded the accounts of his
early life. A Siberian Israelite, so it was said, brought him from the
north of Asia over the Ural. He was the victor in all fights, the leader
of the sledge team, and could drag four men on a hard level path without
any effort. The day before we sailed from Bremerhaven he tore a sheep to
pieces. Every summer when he changed his coat, the sailors clad him in
a canvas dress. Bop was his inferior in strength, but his superior in
wisdom; Matoschkin surpassed him in gravity. The latter used to sit for
hours in a moody manner on a pile of chests looking at the ice world.
Bop and Matoschkin were Newfoundlands; the first died of cold in our
first winter, the latter, as our readers may remember, was carried off
by a bear and torn to pieces. We had also two Newfoundland bitches, who
were called respectively “Novaya” and “Zemlya;” the former died in the
first year, the latter, though she was of little use in sledging from
her laziness, may claim indisputably the merit of being the mother of
her hopeful son, “Torossy,” who grew to a considerable size, and was
the pride of the whole crew. He knew no other world than the frozen
ocean, and no other destiny than to draw a sledge; and to this work he
had devoted himself zealously since the commencement of winter. In the
happy courage of ignorance he wagged his tail all day on deck; wagged
his tail as he followed us on the ice; wagged it, even when Sumbu stole
his dinner; wagged it, even before the jaws of a bear. Gillis, the fifth
Newfoundland, was incessantly quarrelling, and was the irreconcilable
enemy of Jubinal; he was a favourite with no one, chiefly because he had
killed the two cats which we brought from Tromsoe as pets for the dogs.
His body was covered with scars, and half his time was spent under the
medical treatment of the Tyrolese. He was not wanting in docility, but he
was essentially an eye-pleaser; all his efforts in the sledge were mere
sham. Pekel, the Lapp, was the smallest of all the dogs. In his early
days he had tended the reindeer at the North Cape and on the plains of
Tana Elf, and his ways did not fit him for life amid the ice, but for the
brown herd which roamed at the foot of Kilpis. Hence he was quarrelsome,
and showed special enmity to Sumbu, the mere sight of whom was enough to
stir up the most hostile feelings. He was therefore banished with his
house to a high ice-cliff, but the thaw destroying its supports, house
and dog fell plump into an ice-lake. Among all the dogs there was no such
desperate hypocrite as Sumbu, the most demonstrative in his friendship,
but withal the most greedy and dissatisfied. He was the first to slink
away with tail between his legs and find out the most secluded nook,
when he saw the other dogs being harnessed in the sledges; and, when
pulled out and put in a team, at once laid himself down on the sledge,
not to draw, but to be drawn. When at last he was set in motion, he was
no longer the same dog. He was then full of action, unsurpassed in speed
and agility, and his sportiveness was as great as his cunning. From the
carpenter he would carry off a hoop, or a bag of nails from the stoker,
or he lay flat on his belly and thrust out his long nose in the snow. His
agility stood him in good stead, for it enabled him to catch all the mice
that ventured on deck. Neither the stores of provisions for the dogs nor
the depôt of food for the crew were safe from his depredations. He hated
bears so fiercely, that he began to howl like a wolf when we turned out
to hunt them. Boldly he followed up their trail, even when at a distance
from the hunters and close to the heels of the bear. The dogs were fed
once a day with bear’s flesh or blubber, or dried horse-flesh, as long as
it lasted.[24] They well knew the hour of feeding, and gathered together
before it arrived. At night they were shut up in their house, and when
the snow drifted they all lay huddled in a heap before the door. The
dog-house was about eight feet high, but after a few weeks we could
scarcely discern it from the accumulation of snow-drifts. For some time
we kept up communication with it by means of a shaft dug in the snow; but
one day in February a fissure in the ice was formed right across where
the house stood, which compelled us to remove it.
9. The end of December came, and with it the season of those festivals
which animate the Christian world—Christmas-tide and the New Year. In
order to celebrate them in common, we built a snow house, decorated its
interior with flags, and placed in it a Christmas tree, which, however,
more resembled a wooden hedgehog or a _cheval de frise_. About six
o’clock in the evening all our preparations were made, and the ship’s
bell, sounding mournfully in the dark and misty atmosphere, summoned
us to our snow house on the ice. Here lots were drawn, and cigars,
watches, knives, pipes or rum fell to the fortunate drawers. For all
these presents we had to thank friends in Vienna, or Pola, or Hamburg.
Then came the Christmas dinner, but no one’s heart was in the matter. Our
bodies, indeed, were present, but our thoughts were far away with those
we loved at home. New Year’s Eve passed off somewhat more cheerfully.
Better grounded seemed our expectations that 1874 would at last bring us
our long-desired activity and a not inglorious return to Europe. Scarcely
had the new year begun than the crew knocked at our cabin doors with
their congratulations, and such salutations continued to be the order of
the day. On the whole this second winter both before and after the new
year (1874), passed away without the fearful events of the preceding.
Although floes lay close to us on every side, and we had no harbour in
which to pass the winter with comfort—like a bear in its winter sleep—the
quiescent state of the ice allowed us to hope that our floe would remain
in the position it had hitherto maintained. This hope, indeed, lay at the
mercy of the winds; for if north winds should set in, it was extremely
probable that the ice would break up and drift asunder.
10. The life we now led below in the ship had ceased to be in any
way disagreeable, and cheerful and entertaining reading seemed to be
healthier than bodily exercise. We did not suffer from any want of the
necessaries of life; the temperature of our living-rooms generally
admitted of our sitting for hours even without our overcoats. The long
night of this Polar winter was gloomy and oppressive only to those who
had time and leisure to weigh the burden of the hours. There were,
of course, even in this second winter, some of those discomforts and
dangers of which the reader has heard enough, and which lead him when
he reads of life in the frozen regions to think of ice-floes rather
than of a room in which comfort is quite possible. We had, indeed, the
usual inconveniences. As early as the middle of October the skylight was
so covered with frost that we could scarcely read even at noon. On the
20th of that month we were obliged to keep the lamps constantly burning,
and to close in the skylight, which brought night into the mess-room
before the night of Nature had arrived. By the middle of November the
condensation of moisture was perceptible, and our bed-clothes were
frequently frozen to the wall, and had to be torn from it before we
could go to rest. Yet what signified all this? We all slept soundly
notwithstanding, and during the day had to complain rather of warmth
than of cold. The condition of the crew, however, was not so happy. We
could not follow the example set by Hayes and others of removing the
contents of the hold to the land, and so transforming it into quarters
for the men. On board the _Tegetthoff_ we suffered some of the evils of
over-population, and the moisture was so much increased from it, that
some of the berths were completely saturated. The employment of hammocks
would perhaps avert this evil.
[Illustration: IN THE MESS-ROOM.]
11. The number of those afflicted with scurvy decreased with the approach
of spring. Their gums recovered their fresh and natural appearance, and
the general weakness, the pains in the joints, the leaden weight of the
feet, the depression of spirits—symptoms of this terrible malady—abated,
and the scorbutic marks disappeared from their bodies. Pachtusow, when he
wintered in Novaya Zemlya, so abundant in supplies of drift-wood, caused
his people to use the bath once a week in a log house constructed on the
land, as a preservative against scurvy, and had their inner clothing
washed twice a week, but even these steps were insufficient to avert the
malady. In our case baths so added to the moisture that we were obliged
to put a stop to them, and our under-garments could be changed only as
our stock of them permitted. Hence we could hope to prevent the spread
of scurvy only by the improvement of our diet. Several hundred-weight of
potatoes and a large supply of preserved meat had been kept in store for
the second winter. These now came into use, and were the more welcome
as our supply of lemon-juice—the most important preservative against
scurvy—was diminishing. By the advice of our physician, Dr. Kepes, we
departed from the maxim, so generally adhered to in Arctic expeditions,
of avoiding spirituous liquors. From the beginning of October our men
daily received rations of brandy. When I compare the sanitary condition
of the crew of the _Tegetthoff_ with the better state of that of the
_Germania_, I attribute this to the lesser power of resistance to
disease in some of our people on board the _Tegetthoff_ and to the moral
depression so easily explained by our disasters in this ship.
12. The Arctic voyager is exposed to no disease so much as to scurvy.
Its appearance among a crew exercises a most untoward influence. Its
causes are still but little known; the means, however, of combating it
are numerous. It is no longer the scourge it was in the days of Barentz,
when he and all his men were attacked with it on the short summer
excursion of 1595, or when in Munk’s expedition of 1619 all died but two.
In Behring’s expedition of 1741, out of seventy-six men, forty-two were
attacked and thirty died. In Tschirikoff’s summer expedition during that
same year (1741), out of seventy men, twenty died. Rossmyslow, who passed
the winter of 1768-69 in “Matoschkin-Schar,” lost seven out of thirteen
men. When the disease gains the mastery, the utter incapacity of the
expedition for further exploration follows as a necessary consequence.
Lassinius, who was sent out to explore Novaya Zemlya in 1819, had to
return in the height of summer, all his men having fallen down with the
scurvy. This disease has been a frightful enemy to expeditions which have
wintered in that region, and carried off numerous victims. All these, it
is true, were miserably equipped, and depended on the medicinal virtues
of the “Löffel-kraut” of that country for remedies against the disease.
In 1832-33 Pachtusow, wintering in the south of the island, out of ten
men lost three; in 1834-35, two more died of the same disease. In the
expedition of Ziwolka and Mojsejew, 1838-39, the scurvy gained such
mastery that at the end of February half of the crew were attacked, and
Ziwolka himself with eight men died. Parry regarded damp, especially
damp bedding, as the principal cause of the malady. During his wintering
at Melville Island he found sorrel an effective remedy or palliative.
He attributed the greatest anti-scorbutic effect to beer; and according
to him and to most of the English expeditions, beer and wine take the
place of brandy. The disease generally has a fatal issue when there has
been excessive loss of blood, or when dropsy supervenes. Most of Ross’s
second expedition suffered more or less from it, and the experience of
that expedition showed that vegetable nourishment alone was not competent
to make head against it. Ross regarded the addition of fish or seals to
the ordinary diet as an effective preservative, and did not disdain the
use of blubber for the same purpose. Lemon-juice, uncooked potatoes,
fruit with much acidity, fresh vegetables and fresh meat, wine and yeast,
exercise in the open air, and cheerfulness, have always proved sufficient
to prevent its appearance, or at any rate to render it improbable. But
however valuable these may be as preventives, they almost cease to have
any effect when the disease has once broken out. The lime-juice must be
fresh, and, like vinegar, be taken in as concentrated a form as possible.
It is decomposed and useless by being kept too long, and also by the
action of frost. This was the case with the lemon-juice which Sir John
Ross found among the stores of the _Fury_. An anti-scorbutic effect has
been attributed also—and with justice—to the chewing of tobacco. It
appears that liability to scurvy is very different among different races,
and that neither vegetable nor animal food is an absolute preservative.
The Eskimos, and even the Lapps, who seldom or never use vegetables,
are almost exempt from it, and McClure’s men fell down with it in their
second winter, although they had fresh meat three times a week. Steller
relates that in Kamschatka scurvy attacks strangers only, but not the
natives, who live largely on vegetables; he states also, that the scurvy
when it does appear among strangers and visitors there, is cured by a
diet of the fresh fish of spring.