When the winter preparations were completed, Captain Koldewey organized several shooting parties, who made good booty of reindeer and musk-oxen and added most satisfactorily to the provision-supplies; no fewer than fifteen hundred pounds of good beef and venison attesting the skill and good fortune of the hunters. But after the beginning of November, neither musk-oxen, reindeer, nor bears were visible.

A second sledge journey was undertaken towards the end of October in a southerly direction. The party discovered another fiord, and returned on the 4th of November. On the following day the sun disappeared altogether, and the dreary Arctic night of three months’ duration overtook them.

The close of the year was marked by a succession of violent storms, and the temperature rose to 25° F. It soon fell again to zero, however; but it was not until 1870 that it indicated the maximum of cold experienced throughout the winter,—namely, -40° F. Of the December gales, the most furious broke out on the 16th, and lasted until the 20th. It set free the ice in the harbour, and even to within three hundred yards of the ship; but fortunately she had been anchored in the most sheltered part of the bay, and close to the shore, in only ten feet of water; otherwise the crushed-up ice, moving with the currents, would probably have carried her away to almost certain destruction.

The heroic little company, however, were nowise disheartened by the gloom and hardship of their situation. From Captain Koldewey’s account, they would seem to have spent a right merry Christmas, after the hearty German fashion. They danced by starlight upon the ice; they celebrated Christmas Eve with open doors, the temperature being 25° F.; with the evergreen Andromeda they made a famous Christmas-tree; they decorated the cabin with flags, and spread out upon their tables the gifts prepared for the occasion by kindly hands: each received his share, and each joined in and contributed to the general merriment.

The Yule-tide festivities over, they made ready the equipments for their sledging expeditions in the ensuing spring,—the object of the most important of these being to attain the highest possible degree of north latitude.

In February the sun returned, and with it the bears; and the daily excursions upon the island, undertaken by the scientific members of the expedition, were rendered dangerous by their audacity. Every one was required to go armed, yet some accidents occurred. One of the “scientists” was severely wounded in the head, and dragged upwards of four hundred paces before his comrades rescued him from the bear. After the lapse of a few weeks, however, he recovered from his wounds.

On the 24th of March, the first sledge-party left the ship, and travelled northward until, on the 15th of April, they reached 77° 1’ N. lat. Then the wild northerly gales compelled them to retrace their steps. On their return they were fortunate enough to shoot some bears, whose blubber supplied them with fuel to warm their food; and the wind filling the sails which they had hoisted on their sledges, they progressed with such rapidity as to reach the ship on the 27th of April.

At the northernmost point attained by this party,—lat. 77° 1’,—the belt of land-ice which skirted the shore seemed to the travellers to be four miles in width and several years old. They speak of it as a “bulwark built for eternity.” Out to seaward, the ice, which was very hummocky, stretched in an unbroken expanse.

Two other sledge-parties were sent out early in May: one of these was employed in making geographical and scientific explorations of the neighbouring coast of Greenland; the other in attempting the measurement of an arc of the meridian. Their journeys were difficult enough and troublesome enough, and made large demands on the energies of those who undertook them. Crossing hummocks and rugged ice was weary work, and sometimes the whole party plunged into deep drifts of snow. On one occasion, the sledge was precipitated into a water-gap, or crevasse; and before it could be recovered and hauled up on the ice-floe, they were compelled to unload it, and remove each article, one by one. Then again they would have to make their way through a storm of pitiless violence; the north wind driving the frozen snow into their faces with a fury that almost blinded them. Up to their knees in the new snow, they pressed forward with a dogged intrepidity; enduring hardships and triumphing over obstacles of which the “mob of gentlemen who stay at home at ease” can form no adequate conception.

The bears now increased in numbers and in boldness, as if they had determined to besiege the small company now left on board the ship. The greatest caution was necessary to prevent accidents; and though several were shot, their death did not appear to terrify the survivors.

The thaw began about the middle of May, and towards the close of the month the sledge-parties were forced to wade through the water which flooded the surface of the sea-ice.

In June, large portions of land-ice were continually breaking off, and much open water could be descried in the south-east. But it was not until the 10th of July that the ice around the ship broke up. Four days later, boating became practicable, and a voyage was made to the Eskimo village on Clavering Island. It ended in disappointment,—the village having been deserted, and the huts having fallen into ruin.

On the 22nd of July, the Germania once more steamed to the northward, to renew the attempt of the preceding year. Her boiler-tubes, however, leaked so seriously, that it was evident the boiler would speedily fail altogether. After some delay it was temporarily patched up; and by following a narrow channel between the loose pack-ice and the firm ice-belt of the coast, she contrived to push forward to the north-east cape of Shannon Island, in lat. 75° 29’ N. Here the ice barrier showed itself compact, solid, and insuperable. The Germania, therefore, on the 30th of July, made for the southward, and continued her explorations in that direction. The “Mackenzie Inlet,” which Captain Clavering discovered in 1823, was found to have disappeared; its place being occupied by a low, flat plain, on which herds of reindeer were pasturing. So unaccustomed were they to the sight of man, and so fearless of danger, that five of them were speedily shot.

On the 6th of August, the Germania discovered and entered a broad, deep fiord in lat. 73° 13’. It was perfectly free from ice; but a fleet of huge icebergs was sailing out of it with the current. It was soon noticed that the farther they ascended this picturesque sea-arm, the warmer became the temperature of the air and of the surface water. It threw off several branches, and these wound in and out among lofty mountains. Their declivities were washed by cascades, and their ravines filled with glaciers; so that the prospect thus unexpectedly opened up of the interior of Greenland was singularly romantic and impressive.

Some of the adventurers ascended a mountain 7000 feet in height; but even from this lofty watch-tower no limit could be discerned to the western or principal arm of the fiord. In about 32° W. long. the mountain-range rose, it was ascertained, to an elevation of 14,000 feet. The Germania penetrated for seventy-two miles into this remarkable inlet, and reached 26° W. long.; but her boiler acting irregularly, and Captain Koldewey being apprehensive of the consequences if it wholly failed, commenced his homeward voyage on the 17th of August. He re-entered the pack-ice at the mouth of the fiord, and was occupied until the 24th in forcing his way through it,—reaching the open, iceless sea in lat. 72° N. and long. 14° W.

The Germania, owing to the uselessness of her boiler, made the rest of her voyage under sail, and arrived at Bremen in safety on the 11th of September, with all well on board. It is worth notice that, with the exception of two accidental wounds, this interesting expedition was accomplished without any kind of sickness,—a circumstance which speaks highly for the forethought and carefulness of those engaged in equipping and conducting it.

We have been indebted for our brief notice of the voyage of the Germania to a paper by Captain Sir Leopold M’Clintock, who sums up its results in a condensed and intelligible form; and to the narratives by Captain Koldewey and his officers, translated by Mr. Mercier, and published under the direction of Mr. H. W. Bates.

The Greenland shore, under the seventy-fifth parallel of latitude, is not the frozen desert which it has hitherto been supposed to be. It is frequented by large herds of reindeer, as many as fifty having been sighted at a time. Musk-oxen were by no means rare, but made their appearance in troops of fifteen or sixteen; while smaller animals, such as ermines and lemmings, were also met with. Birds were not numerous; shoals of walruses were noticed, but no whales.

Geographically speaking, the voyage was valuable from the observations obtained in reference to a region which previously was almost unknown.

The absence of natives, and of all recent traces of them, is a remarkable fact. In 1829, Captain Graab found the northern Greenlanders ranging as high as 64° 15’ N. lat.; but they knew nothing of any human beings living further north; nor could they themselves travel in that direction, the way being blocked up by huge impassable glaciers.

In 1822, when Scoresby partially explored the Greenland coast between the parallels of 70° and 72° 30’, he discovered many ruined habitations and graves, but no recent indications of human beings.

In the following year, Captain Clavering met with a party of Eskimos in 74°; but neither he nor Scoresby found reindeer or musk-oxen; and the fact ascertained by the Germania that, in 1869, these animals were numerous, and devoid of any fear of man, gives reason to suppose that few, if any, of this isolated tribe of Eskimos are now in existence. Now, as the musk-oxen, and also the reindeer, seem to have wandered hither from the northward, we may conjecture that the natives followed the same route.

“If it be true,” says M’Clintock, “that this migration of men and animals was effected from west to east along the northern shore of Greenland, we naturally assume that it does not extend far towards the Pole; that, probably, its most northern point is at the eastern outlet of Kennedy Channel, and that it turns from thence sharply towards the east and north-east,—the distance, in a straight line, to the most northern point reached by Koldewey, is not more than six hundred miles. It is not less strange than sad to find that a peaceable and once numerous tribe, inhabiting a coast-line of at least 7° of latitude in extent, has died out, or has almost died out, whilst at the same time we find, by the diminution of the glaciers and increase of animal life, that the terrible severity of the climate has undergone considerable modification. We feel this saddening interest with greater force when we reflect that the distance of Clavering’s village from the coast of Scotland is under one thousand miles! They were our nearest neighbours of the New World.”

Returning suddenly to the sixteenth century, we find the names of some Dutch seamen of eminence inscribed in the record of early Arctic Discovery, and amongst these the most illustrious is that of William Barents. We refer to him here, because he is connected with Carlsen’s voyage in 1869, which went over much the same ground as that which the Dutch explorer had surveyed nearly three hundred years before.

The merchants of Amsterdam having fitted out a ship—the Mercurius, of one hundred tons—to attempt a passage round the northern end of Novaia Zemlaia, the command was given to William Barents; who accordingly sailed from the Texel on the 4th of June 1594.

He sighted Novaia Zemlaia, in lat. 73° 25’ N., on the 4th of July, sailed along its grim, gaunt coast, doubled Cape Nassau on the 10th, and struck the edge of the northern ice on the 13th. For several days he skirted this formidable barrier, vainly seeking for an opening; and in quest of a channel into the further sea, he sailed perseveringly from Cape Nassau to the Orange Islands. He went over no fewer than seventeen hundred miles of ground in his assiduous search, and put his ship about one-and-eighty times. He discovered also the long line of coast between the two points we have named, laying it down with an exactness which has been acknowledged by later explorers. His men wearying of labour which seemed to yield no positive results, Barents was under the necessity of returning home.

In 1596 the Amsterdammers fitted out another expedition, consisting of two strongly-built ships, under Jacob van Heemskerch and Jan Cornelizoon Rijp, with Barents as pilot, though really in command.

In this voyage the adventurers kept away from the land, in order to avoid the pack-ice, and sailing to the westward, discovered Bear Island on the 9th of June. Then they steered to the northward, and hove in sight of Spitzbergen exactly ten days later. They supposed, however, that it was only a part of Greenland, and were led to bear away to the north-west—a course which was speedily arrested by the eternal icy barrier. Barents then coasted along the western side of Spitzbergen; and the north-western headland being frequented by an immense number of birds, he called it Vogelsang.

On the 1st of July he again made Bear Island, and here he and Rijp agreed to separate. Of the latter we know only that he was unsuccessful in an attempt to find an opening in the ice on the east of Greenland, and that he returned to Holland in the same year. Of the former the narrative is painfully full and interesting.

Quitting Bear Island, he reached Novaia Zemlaia on the 17th of July, sighting the coast in lat. 74° 40’ N. Keeping along it with characteristic perseverance until the 7th of August, he passed Cape Comfort; but only to find himself once more face to face with the dreary spectacle of the far-reaching Polar ice. It so hemmed and fenced him in on every side, that he was unable to extricate his vessel from it; and being driven into a bay, which he named Ice Haven, “there they were forced, in great cold, poverty, misery, and griefe, to stay all the winter.” For the heavy pack-ice drifting into the bay closed it up, and closed around the ship until she was held fast as in iron bonds.

Barents and his sixteen followers now prepared to encounter with a good heart the trials of the long Arctic winter-night. They displayed, in truth, a courage, a patience, and a good fellowship which were heroic. Finding a large supply of drift-wood, they constructed, with the help of planks from the poop and forecastle of the vessel, a sufficiently commodious house, into which they removed all their stores and provisions. They fixed a chimney in the centre of the roof; a Dutch clock was set up and duly struck the weary hours; the sleeping-berths were ranged along the walls; a wine-cask was converted into a bath. All these ingenious devices, however, availed but little against the terrible feeling of depression which is induced by the continuance for so many weeks of a blank and cheerless darkness.

The sun disappeared on the 4th of November, and the cold thereafter increased until it was almost intolerable. Their wine and beer were frozen, and lost all their strength. By means of great fires, by applying heated stones to their feet, and by wrapping themselves up in double fox-skin coats, they barely contrived to keep off the deadly cold. In searching for drift-wood they endured the sharpest pain, and often braved imminent danger. To add to their troubles, they had much ado to defend themselves against the bears, which made frequent assaults on their hut. However, they contrived to slaughter some of the audacious animals, and their fat provided them with oil for their lamps. When the sun disappeared the bears departed, and then the white foxes came in great numbers. They were much more welcome visitors, and being caught in traps, set in the vicinity of the house, supplied the ice-bound voyagers with food and clothing.

When the 19th of December arrived, they found some comfort in the reflection that half the dreary season of darkness had passed away, and that they could now count every day as bringing them nearer to the joyful spring. They suffered much, but endured their sufferings bravely; and celebrated Twelfth Night with a little sack, two pounds of meat, and some merry games. The gunner drew the prize, and became King of Novaia Zemlaia, “which is at least two hundred miles long, and lyeth between two seas.”

On the 27th of January every heart rejoiced, for the glowing disc of the sun reappeared above the horizon. But it brought with it their old enemies the bears, against whom they found it necessary to exercise the greatest vigilance.

On the 22nd of February they again saw “much open water in the sea, which in long time they had not seene.” During the whole month violent storms broke out, and the snow fell in enormous quantities.

On the 12th of March a gale from the north-east brought back the ice, and the open water disappeared; the ice driving in with much fury and a mighty noise, the pieces crashing against each other, “fearful to hear.” Up to the 8th of May the ice was everywhere, and their sad eyes could look forth on no pleasant or hopeful scene. Then it began to break up, and the gaunt, weary explorers prepared to tempt the sea once more. They set to work to repair their two boats, for their ship was so crippled and strained by the ice that she was injured beyond their ability to repair.

On the 14th of June they quitted the place of their long captivity; Barents, before they set out, drawing up in writing a list of their names, with a brief record of their experiences, and depositing it in the wooden hut. He himself was so reduced with sickness, want, and anxiety that he was unable to stand, and had to be carried into the boat. On the 16th, the captain, hailing from the other boat, inquired how the pilot fared. “Quite well, mate,” Barents replied; “I still hope to mend before we get to Wardhouse,”—Wardhouse being an island on the coast of Lapland. But he died on the 19th (or, as some authorities say, on the 20th), to the great grief of his comrades, who appreciated his manly character, and placed great reliance on his experience and skill.

The adventurers met with many difficulties from the ice,—sometimes being carried out far from the ice-belt, and at others being compelled to haul the boats for long distances over the rough surface of the floes to reach open water. It has been well observed that there are many instances on record of long ocean-voyages performed in open boats, but that, perhaps, not one is of so extraordinary a character as that which we are describing,—when two small and crazy craft ventured to cross the frozen seas for eleven hundred miles, continually endangered by huge floating ice-masses, threatened by bears, and exposed for forty days to the combined trials of sickness, famine, cold, and fatigue.

At length they arrived at Kola, in Lapland, towards the end of August; and, strangely enough, were taken on board a Dutch vessel commanded by the very Cornelizoon Rijp who had commanded the sister discovery-ship in the previous year. They reached the Maas in safety in October 1597.

No voyager appears to have sailed in the track of Barents, or, at all events, to have visited the place where he wintered, until 1871. No one but he had rounded the north-east point of bleak Novaia Zemlaia. In 1869, however, and on the 16th of May, Captain Carlsen, a Norwegian of much experience in the North Sea trade, sailed from Hammerfest in a sloop of sixty tons, called the Solid. On the 7th of September he reached Ice Haven, and on the 9th discovered a rude wooden house standing at the head of the bay. Its dimensions were 32 feet by 20, and it was constructed of planks measuring from 14 to 16 inches in breadth, and 1½ inches thick. These, it was evident, had belonged to a ship, and amongst them were several oak beams. Heaps of bones of seal, bear, reindeer, and walrus, as well as several large puncheons, were collected round the hut. It was the winter-prison of Barents and his companions, and had never been entered by human foot since they had abandoned it. The cooking-pans stood over the fireplace, the old clock hung against the wall; there were the books, and implements, and tools, and weapons which had been of so much service two hundred and seventy-eight years before. It was an Arctic reproduction of the legend of the hundred years’ sleep of the fairy princess.

Captain Carlsen gives the following list of articles found in the lone hut on the shore of Novaia Zemlaia:—

On the 14th of September Captain Carlsen sailed from the Ice Haven, and kept along the east coast of Novaia Zemlaia, encountering bad weather and contrary winds, but succeeding in his chief object, the circumnavigation of the island, which he accomplished on the 6th of October. He returned to Hammerfest early in November.

Our chronological summary now brings us to the Austrian Polar expedition of 1872. The command was intrusted to Lieutenant Payer, an accomplished seaman who had served under Captain Koldewey; Carlsen was engaged as pilot; and the steamer Tegethoff was carefully and abundantly equipped for the voyage. The plan laid down by Lieutenant Payer was well-conceived; namely, to round the north-eastern point of Novaia Zemlaia, and sail eastward until he made the extreme north of Siberia, where he proposed to winter. In the spring, travelling-parties would be sent out on exploring journeys; and the voyage, in summer, would be continued as far as Behring Strait.

The Tegethoff steamed out of Tromsö Harbour on the 13th of July; first fell in with the ice on the 25th, in lat. 74° 15’ N.; and on the 29th sighted the coast of Novaia Zemlaia. Here she was caught in the pack; but steam being got up, repeated charges were made at the enemy, and she was carried bravely into an open water-way, about twenty miles wide, to the north of the Matochkia Strait. On the 12th of August she was joined by the Isbyörn yacht, with Count Wilczck and some friends on board. The two vessels anchored close to the shore, in lat. 76° 30’ N., and on the 18th celebrated the Emperor of Austria’s birthday. Daily excursions were made by sledge-parties to the adjoining islands, resulting in an accumulation of botanical and geological specimens, besides slaughtered bears and foxes, and quantities of drift-wood. On the 23rd the vessels parted company,—the Tegethoff steaming to the northward, and the Isbyörn endeavouring to push southward along the coast. On reaching the mouth of the Petchora, Count Wilczck and his friends left her to proceed on the return voyage to Tromsö, while they ascended the Petchora in small boats to Perm, and returned to Vienna by way of Moscow.

The Tegethoff spent the winters of 1872 and 1873 in the Icy Sea, and made some discoveries of interest. It returned in safety in the summer of 1874.

In 1871 an American expedition was fitted out under the command of Captain Charles Francis Hall, who had already gained distinction by his explorations in the Polar regions and his long residence among the Eskimos. Through the liberality of Mr. Grinnell, assisted by the United States Government, he was provided with a stout and well-found steamer, the Polaris, which sailed from Brooklyn on the 29th of June. She carried a crew of seventeen officers and men,—Mr. Buddington being sailing and ice master, and Mr. Tyson assistant navigator,—besides six adult Eskimos and two children; and a scientific staff consisting of Dr. Emil Bessel, Mr. Bryan, and Mr. Frederick Meyers.

A few days previous to the sailing of the expedition, Mr. Grinnell presented Hall with the historic flag which Lieutenant Wilkes, in 1838, had borne nearer to the South Pole than any American flag had been before,—which Lieutenant De Haven, and afterwards Dr. Kane, and lastly Dr. Hayes, had carried further north than any other ensign. Captain Hall, in receiving it, expressed his conviction that, in the spring of 1872, “it would float over a new world, in which the North Pole Star is the crowning jewel.”

On the 3rd of July the Polaris entered the land-locked harbour of St. John’s, Newfoundland, where she remained a week while her machinery underwent some repairs. Then she proceeded north to Holsteinberg, in Greenland; but failed in procuring a supply of coal or a stock of reindeer furs, both of which were much desiderated. On the 4th of August she arrived at the Danish settlement of Godhaven, and happily found the United States steamer Congress, which had been despatched with extra stores and supplies. Thence she steamed northward to Upernavik, which was reached on the 18th. So far her progress seemed to have been peculiarly fortunate; but already dissensions had broken out among the officers, which augured ill for the eventual success of the expedition. In his despatches home, however, Captain Hall made no allusion to this discouraging circumstance; and his biographer explains this silence by “his idiosyncrasy, which enabled him to sink everything else in the one idea of pushing on to the far north.”

Upernavik, with its little colony of Danish officials and Eskimo natives, was left behind on the 21st of August, and the Polaris continued her adventurous course. Six days later, she arrived at Kane’s winter-quarters in 1853–55, and at the point where he abandoned his little vessel, the Advance. Next day her crew found a huge wall of ice in front of them, and doubled round it by steering to the west-north-west. Then again putting their vessel’s head to the northward, they made their way up Kennedy Channel, and gained the threshold of what Dr. Kane had supposed to be the Open Polar Sea. They discovered, however, that it was bounded by land on either side, with a vast expanse of ice stretching far beyond it. Careful observation showed that it was, in reality, a bay, which Kane had mistaken for the open sea when its land-boundaries were hidden by fog. It is about forty-five miles wide.

Thence they entered a channel similar to that of Kennedy, which measured about seventeen miles in breadth, and was obstructed by heavy ice. Their progress now was slow and difficult, and many of the crew wore rueful countenances, as if they were going “to sail off the edge of the world.” A more serious obstacle was the timidity of Captain Buddington, who showed himself opposed to pushing further northward. Hall, therefore, resolved to carry the steamer in-shore, land some of his stores, and prepare for wintering at this advanced point of “Ultima Thule.”

At midnight, on the 4th of September, Captain Hall raised an American flag on this land, the northernmost site on which any civilized flag had been planted. When it was waving in the breeze, he proclaimed that he took possession of the surrounding region of snow and ice “in the name of the Lord, and for the President of the United States.” He then returned on board the Polaris, and her anchor was let go. The place was only a bend in the coast, and afforded no protection as a harbour; they therefore steamed through the open water, and searched further to the southward; but finding no more sheltered quarters, they returned to their former anchorage, and began to land provisions,—the wind moaning sadly, and the snow falling in heavy showers.

On the 7th, they weighed anchor and steamed in nearer to the shore; bringing the ship round behind an iceberg, which lay aground in thirteen fathoms of water. This huge mass of ice proved to be about 450 feet in length, 300 feet in breadth, and 60 feet in height; lat 81° 38’ N., long. 61° 45’ W. The berg was named “Providence Berg,” and the cove in which they had established themselves, “Thank God Harbour.” On surveying the surrounding country they found nothing calculated to brighten the prospects of the coming winter. The coast-hills rose from nine to thirteen hundred feet in height, and were furrowed and scarred with great cracks and fissures, which bore witness to the rough usage of frost and ice, wind and weather. To the south lay a large glacier, which swept round in a wide circuit, and fell into the bay immediately north of their anchorage. Traces of Eskimos were discernible here and there; circles of stones, indicating where they had pitched their tents. The landscape was all of a dull neutral tint, a kind of cold gray; for, as yet, the winter snow had not clothed it with its mantle of dazzling whiteness. For this, however, the adventurers had not long to wait. A snow-storm began on the 27th of September, and lasted for six-and-thirty hours.

On the 10th of October Captain Hall organized a sledging expedition, as a preliminary to an extended journey in the spring. There were two sledges, each drawn by seven dogs; Captain Hall and Eskimo Joe in one sledge, and Mr. Chester and Eskimo Hans in the other. They were absent until the 24th, but owing to the roughness of the ice had accomplished only fifty miles, and had made no discovery.

Meantime, the crew had been engaged in banking up the ice around the ship, in order to protect it from collision with drifting floes; the deck was partly roofed over, and covered with canvas; and other preparations were made to resist the terrible inclemency of an Arctic winter. These, however, were temporarily suspended by the sudden illness of Captain Hall. On the 1st of November he was a little better, but on the 3rd his malady, which appears to have been a form of paralysis, took a turn for the worse; and the end came so rapidly that the eager-hearted, enthusiastic explorer, who had braved so many harsh experiences in the Polar World, “fell asleep” early on the morning of the 8th. A grave was immediately prepared for the reception of his remains about half a mile inland; a shallow grave, for the ground was frozen so hard that it was scarcely possible to break it up, even with picks; and on the 11th, the funeral took place. The time chosen was half-past eleven in the morning; yet it was so dark that Mr. Bryan read prayers by the light “of a lantern dimly burning.” All the ship’s company were present. The coffin was hauled on a sledge, over which, by way of pall, was spread the American flag with its stars and stripes. The captain and officers, Dr. Bessel, and Mr. Meyers, followed as mourners; and strange and picturesque must the melancholy procession have appeared, as it wound its way through ice and snow, while a weird boreal light or gleam in the air revealed the outlines of the distant hills, rising like a rampart on the edge of the snow-covered plain, and flickered every now and then over the frozen expanse of the ice-bound bay.

Thus, says Captain Tyson, thus ended poor Hall’s ambitious projects; thus was stilled the effervescing enthusiasm of his ardent nature. “Wise he might not always have been, but his soul was in his work; and had he lived till spring, I think he would have gone as far as mortal man could go to accomplish his mission. But with his death, I fear that all hopes of further progress will have to be abandoned.” That Tyson was right in his conjecture, our narrative will show.

Captain Buddington succeeded to the command, and one of his first measures was to discontinue the Sunday service, for reasons which he does not seem to have explained, and we are unable to imagine. So far as we can gather from the published records of the expedition, he was a man unfitted to bear responsibility,—a man without enthusiasm in himself, and incapable, therefore, of stimulating it in others. Nor could he secure the obedience of his inferiors. Seamen are always prompt to detect the weakness of their officers; and the crew of the Polaris soon assured themselves that their new captain was deficient both in courage and resolution.

However, the winter gradually closed in upon the little ice-bound company of the Polaris, and they were called upon to endure, with such patience as was at their command, the severities of the long Arctic night. It was very dark, yet not totally dark. For an hour or two at noon it was possible to wander a short distance from the snow-roofed vessel; but, once away from it, the gloom and silence of everything around settled down on the wanderer like a pall. There were none of the usual sounds of Nature to relieve the deep oppression of the scene. “The other evening,” says Tyson, “I had wandered away from the ship, disgusted with the confusion and noise, and longing for a moment’s quiet. Once beyond range of the men’s voices, there was absolutely no other sound whatever. It was quite calm—no wind, no movement of any living creature; nothing but a leaden sky above, ice beneath my feet, and silence everywhere. It hung like a pall over everything. So painfully oppressive did it become at last, that I was frequently tempted to shout aloud, to break the spell. At last I did; but no response came, not even an echo.

On the 1st of January 1872, it is recorded that eighty days had elapsed since the adventurers had seen the sun. The internal economy of the Polaris, meantime, was pitiably disorganized. There was no discipline, no order, no method. The men did what they pleased, and consequently made night hideous by their prolonged carousals. The officers disagreed among themselves, and the object of the expedition appeared to have been lost sight of, or no longer to excite any deep or permanent interest. It was even discussed as a proper and probable course to abandon the proposed northward exploration, and, as soon as the ice broke up, to make all haste back to New York.

Early in February, the daylight began to gain upon the night a little, and the Eskimos hunted for seals, as they could be heard under the ice making their breathing holes. Storms were very frequent—storms which drove the snow afar in dense, blinding clouds; and false moons and other atmospheric phenomena attracted the attention of the curious observer. On the 28th, after an absence of one hundred and thirty-five days, the sun reappeared; and never was royal guest more eagerly welcomed by a loyal people. Its rays seemed to bring with them a promise of new life. Men’s hearts grew lighter in spite of themselves, and all felt as if they had been relieved from a heavy and intolerable burden. Not that the temperature showed any perceptible difference. The thermometer indicated 37° below zero on the 1st of March!

Passing over a couple of months which present no incidents of importance, we find that on the 9th of May the monotonous dulness of the expedition was broken by a sledge-journey to the north, undertaken by Captain Tyson, with Meyers, Joe, and Hans as companions. They were absent from the ship six days; striking inland, in an east-north-east direction, to Newman Bay, and thence keeping more to the north, until they reached lat. 82° 9’. Mr. Meyers surveyed the shores of Newman Bay, and Captain Tyson endeavoured to secure some game. One day they came on a large herd of musk-oxen. These animals act very curiously when an attack is made upon them. They form a circle, stern to stern, and await the assault of their enemies. The dogs surround them, and keep them at bay. Not unfrequently a dog gets tossed. Though Joe and the captain fired and reloaded as fast as they could, the poor brutes offered no resistance; but when eight had fallen, the remainder took to flight. The slaughtered oxen were then flayed, and the best pieces cut up for conveyance to the ship.

These cattle develop their great size and weight on what might be supposed to form a very slender diet. Their food is the mosses and lichens which grow on the rocks; and to obtain it, they must first scrape away the snow with their hoofs. At the first sign of danger, the calves shelter themselves under their parents’ body; and their hair is so long as to afford the young a very complete and satisfactory screen. The musk-ox is an animal of considerable bulk. Several of those shot by Tyson and the Eskimos weighed from 500 to 600 lbs. each. In proportion to their size and weight, their legs are very short.

Early in June, Captain Buddington resolved to despatch a couple of boats, for the purpose of exploring the neighbouring coast, and discovering, if possible, an open water channel to the north. One of these was placed under the command of Mr. Chester; the other, of Captain Tyson. Mr. Chester’s boat was nipped in an ice-floe, and crushed to pieces. The crew escaped with difficulty, but the historical flag was lost. Captain Tyson pushed forward to Newman Bay, where some eider-ducks, gulls, and dove-kies were shot. Joined by Mr. Chester—who had returned to the ship, and secured the safety-boat—he found his further progress arrested by that compact, insuperable field of ice which is the despair of Arctic navigators. All attempts to get further to the north proved in vain; and orders to return having arrived from Captain Buddington, there was nothing to be done but to rejoin the Polaris.

The summer passed away, and still the Polaris lay beset among the ice; or, rather, drifted slowly to the southward, along with the floe to which it was attached. No sledge-expeditions were organized; and Captain Buddington’s sole concern was to watch for an opportunity of getting out into the open channel, and returning to New York. Some slight progress southward was occasionally made; but towards the end of October it became evident that the explorers would have to spend a second winter in their frozen captivity. They had been carried beyond Rensselaer Harbour, where Dr. Kane wintered during 1853–55, and began the construction of a store-house for provisions, in case the ship should be endangered by the drifting ice.

This dreaded catastrophe did indeed occur, on the night of the 15th. The pressure of the floe was tremendous, but the Polaris bore it bravely, though groaning and creaking in every timber. After awhile, however, it was found that she had started a leak aft, and that the water was gaining on the pumps. The discovery seems to have startled Buddington out of all coolness or reflection. He threw up his arms, and cried out to “throw everything on the ice.” Immediately all was chaos. The men seized whatever lay near to their hands, and threw it overboard. A quantity of stores had been previously placed on the deck, in anticipation of such an event; but these were now hurled on the floe in indiscriminate confusion, and with considerable loss. Captain Tyson and some of the men got overboard, with the view of arranging things in, at least, a semblance of order; but while he was thus engaged, the ice commenced cracking. Shortly afterwards it exploded under his feet, and broke in many places; the ship drove away in the darkness, and Tyson and his companions immediately lost sight of her.

It was a terrible night. The wind blew a hurricane, and the snow fell heavily in drifting, whirling masses. “We did not know,” says Tyson, “who was on the ice, or who was on the ship;” but seeing some musk-ox skins lying across a wide crack in the ice, he pulled them towards him to save them—and behold, rolled up in one of them were two or three of the children of Hans the Eskimo! Some of the men were afloat on small pieces of ice, but by means of the whale-boat these were rescued; and when the gray light of morning dawned on the scene, Tyson ascertained that eighteen persons, besides himself, were castaways. These were—Mr. Meyers, meteorologist; Heron, steward; Jackson, cook; six seamen; Joe and Hans, the Eskimos, and their wives and children.

The piece of the floe on which they were cast was nearly circular, and about four miles in circumference. It was not level, but full of hillocks, and of ponds or small lakes, which had been formed by the melting of the ice during the short summer. The ice varied greatly in thickness. Some of the mounds, or hills, were probably thirty feet thick; the flat parts not more than ten or fifteen. The surface was exceedingly rugged, and the hummocks were white with snow.

Tyson’s first task was to inspect the stock of provisions that had been collected on the floe. It consisted of fourteen cans of pemmican, eleven and a half bags of bread, one can of dried apples, and fourteen hams; and if the ship did not return for them, they might have to support themselves upon this supply all through the dreary winter, or die of starvation. Fortunately, they had a couple of boats; and Tyson’s second care was to load these, embark his little company, and endeavour to reach the shore. In this attempt they were balked by the drifting ice; and before they could repeat it they caught sight of the Polaris. Immediately they ran up a rough and ready signal; but no one seemed to be keeping a look-out, and the castaways had the mortification of seeing her drop away behind Littleton Island, without undertaking any search for her missing crew.

Tyson therefore resolved to cross to the other side of the floe, and make for the land, perhaps lower down than the Polaris was, so as to intercept her. Everything was thrown away, except two or three days’ provisions, and the boats were got ready. But the men were slow and reluctant; oars were wanting; a violent gale arose; and as night was coming on, Tyson found himself compelled to abandon his intention. On the following day, the ice again broke; and now the adventurers were drifting with one boat on one piece of ice, while the other boat, a part of their provisions, and an extemporized hut of poles, remained on the main part of the original floe. The ice-raft which carried Tyson and his companions measured about 150 yards each way.