Chapter VII

RETURN BY SLEDGES TO CLAVERING ISLAND, AND DISCOVERY
OF THE TIROLER FJORD. 27TH OCTOBER TO 4TH
NOVEMBER, 1869.

Autumn the best time for sledge excursions.--Skating
journey.--Dr. Copeland’s bear adventure.--Walrus.--Cape
Borlase Warren.--East side of Clavering Island.--Tiroler
Fjord discovered on 29th October.--Splendid Aurora
Borealis.--Night-quarters on an Arctic journey.--Glaciers.--Rich
vegetation.--On Clavering Island.--Remarkable glacier
movement.--Erratic ice-blocks.--The Greenland
glacier-ice.--Return to quarters of 28th October.--Chased by a
walrus.--Return to ship on 4th November, 1869.

No more exciting situation can be imagined than that of an explorer in unknown lands, more especially when nature seems to have surrounded them with an impenetrable wall, and the earth is as yet untrodden by the foot of man. The Arctic pioneers of England and America have, in their voyages of discovery, nearly always come in contact with mankind, if only those of the lowest grade of civilization. The fast dog-sledges of the Esquimaux--this slowly-dying-out people (often most incorrectly classed with the Mogul race)--seem to form, in the account of these explorers, as great a factotum of life as the art of their conjurers or the cleverness of their hunters. For ourselves, this longing for companionship was left unsatisfied, for the Esquimaux have either entirely deserted the eastern coast of Greenland or have become extinct.

We found that sledge journeys could only be undertaken across the frozen sea or the Fjord in the autumn; the temperature ranging at that time (in the latitude in which we were) between 21° Fahr. and -11°; the weather was now perfectly clear and settled; and, lastly, the Fjords were mostly covered with smooth ice. Again, the moderate cold of this time of the year, when comparatively light clothing is sufficient, is preferable to the sharper cold of the early spring. Plenty of woollen clothes can then supply the place of heavy fur. Masks, hoods, and so on, are still unnecessary; and, when wanted, leather boots can be used instead of those made of sail-cloth. Even snow spectacles are not needed in the autumn, except after freshly-fallen snow or under a cloudy sky, as the land with its dark masses affords rest enough to the eye.

A small tent served us as a sleeping apartment. The _general_ sleeping-sack, which in our spring journey to the north we were obliged to use, did not yet exist; each had his own peculiar one. A lamp for cooking, twelve bottles of spirit as our only fuel, two breech-loaders with cartridges, skates, mountain-shoes, an aneroid barometer, a theodolite, and mathematical instruments; bacon, salt, suet, pemmican, extract of meat, coffee, Cognac, cocoa, and hard bread, formed our store,--a load for five men during a nine days’ sledge journey, which we (Copeland, Iversen, Herzberg, Wagner, and myself) undertook late in the autumn of 1869, for the purpose of investigating the passage from Clavering Island to the conjectured opening into Gael Hamkes Bay, to the north of the first-named island, and to penetrate further in the direction of Jordan Hill.

On the 27th of October (the day of our leaving the ship) we had daily but four hours’ sun; and in a few days this must entirely disappear for three long months. We took a southerly direction, traversing half the way on skates, until we reached Cape Wynn, whose dark rocky face we could distinguish in the darkest Arctic night. The south wind now blew stronger; and as we could not get at our warmer clothing for the moment, we suffered so much from the moderate cold of 0° Fahr., that, in the beginning of the journey, some of us were in great danger of being frozen to death. A group of dolerite pillars on the shore southward from Flache Bay, behind which we sheltered ourselves from the icy wind after a run of thirteen nautical miles, formed an acceptable place of refuge. We crouched in the rifts of the rocks for protection, and then pitched our tent,--no easy matter, owing to the difficulty of obtaining the stones with which to make it firm. At four p.m. we lay down to rest, in order to begin the journey earlier the next day, and by forced marches make up for this day’s loss. Towards morning the wind dropped, the icy influence of which could be disagreeably felt through the tent.

On the 28th of October, at three a.m., favoured by moonlight and calm, we continued our journey (5° Fahr.). After two hours we came upon an ever-thickening complication of small icebergs and hummocks, which forced us to make several détours; and at last left us but with one opening to the east, far from our projected goal.

Meanwhile, daylight appeared, and climbing an iceberg we surveyed the east. Presently we heard Copeland at no great distance exclaim in a voice of alarm, “A bear! a bear!” We hurried forward, and found our companion behind a group of high ice-cliffs, in such a state of excitement as a hand-to-hand encounter with a bear might well warrant. He informed us that he was surprised by it at about fifty paces’ distance, that it had broken from a barrier of hummocks and had galloped up to within five paces, had then raised itself, and had struck him down with both fore-paws. Copeland had had no time to load his gun; but as the creature caught his clothes, he swung the butt-end of it across its snout. This (and perhaps the noise of our approach) had the unexpected effect of putting Master Bruin to flight; and we saw the monster a hundred paces off in the swinging gallop peculiar to him, looking round every now and then.

This experience served as a lesson to us to keep our weapons loaded on the sledge for the future, and to be watchful, especially with a circumscribed horizon of view.

In spite of all our efforts to keep to our southerly course, the constantly increasing collection of the ice masses forced us to the eastward; and at eight a.m., in the latitude of Cape Borlase Warren, we stopped at the entrance of Gael Hamkes Bay. We found ourselves nearly five miles from the coast in a perfect forest of high jagged ice-cliffs, the boundary of which we could not see even from a high stand-point. Round about us rose ice-barriers on every side; evidently the pack-ice of the previous summer had drifted direct into the bay, and had there increased to bergs. They were the same masses which a month before had prevented the ship from advancing.

_Page 356._

ICEBERG NEAR CAPE BORLASE WARREN.]

Some nautical miles to the east a bright smooth surface glittered, to all appearance an inviting road; which, however, we could only hope to reach by carrying our baggage piecemeal over the chaotic masses; besides this, we were not at all sure of being able to reach our goal this new way. We were already preparing to undertake this troublesome work, when we suddenly heard the grunting and puffing of walruses, and saw their sphynx-like bodies emerge from the supposed icy surface--in reality a watery mirror. There remained, therefore, nothing for us but to retrace our steps for two hours, and seek an outlet along the coast. In this we succeeded: the coast offered much that was geologically interesting; a scanty intermediate stratum of coal, probably of lias formation, and some petrified wood in dolerite may be mentioned.

We proceeded along the shore over slippery ice thrown up by the tide. Arrived at the promontory of Borlase Warren, which is a sharp advancing group of rocks, we came upon a number of stranded icebergs, amongst which we had much trouble in finding a road. We followed the coast, which curved sharply to the west and was covered with the remains of Esquimaux dwellings, until it became more open, though more and more covered with snow; and after a march of twenty nautical miles, we encamped for the night at the foot of a mountain north of Cape Mary.

On the 29th of October, at half-past seven a.m., we continued our journey westward; the weather was lovely (14° Fahr.). Nothing interrupted our march, but an occasional topographical survey. The easterly mountain-range of Clavering Island, with precipitous masses covered with ice, 3250 to 4875 feet high, lay before us. Even from the distance the geological character of this island was unmistakeable. Its rocks of granite and gneiss, which also seem to prevail in the interior of Greenland, were interspersed to the north with numerous dark streaks of basalt, which struck one, even in the distance, by their regularity of form and dark colour. Up to the last moment the existence of the Fjord which we were seeking seemed doubtful; but as we turned a promontory to the south-west of Sattelberg peninsula, we came upon it. It stretched in a northerly direction, and then bent to westward, and was enclosed, cell-like, by glorious mountain domes.

Our great desire to extend our journey as much as possible could now be carried out, if, on the one hand, we made the most of our limited _time_, and, on the other, our not less limited _provisions_, by agreeing to short rations; we therefore gave up our regular mid-day meal. As our stock of spirit was far too small to allow of our melting ice for drinking purposes, our thirst became exceedingly troublesome. The layer of snow on the thick ice we found interspersed with smooth spots, which we crossed upon skates.

Later on, we continually came across parts where the frozen sea-water had formed a saline deposit upon the surface of the ice, which made our advance much more difficult. It was now dark; and when at five o’clock, after marching twenty-two nautical miles in a temperature of 9° Fahr., we encamped at the foot of a stony hillock, we were delighted by the sight of a lovely Aurora--violet, green, and yellow. In unusual intensity it passed from west to east through our zenith. It appeared like one single beam, so that involuntarily we were drawn to the conclusion that the appearance resembled a flattened lens, or a ring, in the centre of which we were exactly placed. Night had spread its wings over the comfortless dreariness. The surrounding mountains appeared like black, shadowy masses.

The sledge is now freed from its burden,--a much more complicated affair than might be supposed; for, though we had only taken the merest necessaries, we had to be very careful of the instruments, cooking apparatus, climbing-poles, lamp, &c., also the barometer and thermometer to read off.

In Europe we generally undress to go to rest. In Arctic regions, on the contrary, we generally dress. Each one frees his long beard from the clusters of ice which had settled upon it, and brings out his reserve stockings or his bear-skin shoes. The feet are thrust into the sleeping-sack, and the body follows. The space is so narrow, and the party so closely packed, that the pulling-off of boots can only be accomplished by sitting on one’s neighbour, and every one must inevitably step over or on another at the least movement, and seeking for one’s fur gloves necessitates kneeling either upon the face or the shins of some one else, thus causing an indignant remonstrance. From the spot where the knee rests issues a howl; you start back unsuspiciously--knock over the lamp (an uncovered tin dish filled with bears’-grease which hung from the gable of the tent by a wire); a flood of oil ensues--but who cares for that? But it is dangerous when the tent gets on fire--an accident which happened twice on our journey. In a moment several square feet of covering, on which the burning spirit had been spilt, was in flames; we burnt fur hoods and gloves in trying to put it out. The sufferers then drew fur stockings over their hands.

The cooking apparatus, filled either with ice or snow, is in full activity; the temperature rises rapidly; heavy clouds of smoke fill the tent, so that one cannot see one’s hand; a burning candle has the appearance of a halo round a moon; a light rain falls from the thoroughly wet walls of the tent, which, after becoming steam, at once freezes--the dampness of clothes and covering thus augmenting daily.

The satisfying of thirst (that great torment of Arctic sledge journeys) by melted ice, and the preparation of the evening meal--cocoa or coffee, with a little bread and bacon--had occupied the spirit-lamp three-quarters of an hour, causing an atmosphere most trying to the eyes, and, from its daily recurrence, creating perfect torture.

The evening meal over (not one would give it up for all the treasures of the world), we took a short siesta, the only pleasant time of the day. We smoke--the sailors that dreadful shrub called “Camel’s-hair.” The day’s events, new discoveries, as well as possible eventualities, are discussed; the day-book is closed, and those suffering from dysentery take some opium. Then from a locked tin box is taken a bottle of rum or brandy, from which we each have two or three spoonfuls. For a few minutes conversation brightens, then the pipe is emptied, and we bury ourselves in our sleeping-sack.

About nine o’clock on the 30th of October we found ourselves ready to start again. We bent our steps westward into the cell-like windings of the Sound, which, from its grand scenery, we named the “Tiroler Fjord,” the breadth of which was at first seven nautical miles, but narrowed suddenly to one nautical mile and a half. Numerous cliffs and close-lying ice-fields here caused us much hindrance.

A large promontory of Clavering Island, somewhat resembling the “Eiger” in Switzerland, the steep wall of which fell sheer into the Fjord, was our next aim; but before we reached it, imposing fields of glaciers were visible. We now found ourselves more to the north side of Clavering Island. The chief glacier of this valley, the farther end of which might be 800 feet above the level of the sea, showed the most perfect lateral and central moraines. The height of the tide in the Fjord at this spot was from two to three feet.

Our road here was a perfect rocky street, leading us now over a field of snow some miles in extent, and then over smooth ice, interspersed with spots of snow, which we crossed on skates. After a while this became impracticable. We went on in the increasing darkness along the north-west strand of the island, and, after travelling twenty nautical miles, halted at six p.m. The object of our journey had now been proved, and, more than that, we found that the Sound opened into two arms running westward.

The west side, which from here we had almost entirely overlooked, consisted of the coarse-grained, greyish-yellow granite which had been washed from the heights, crumbling easily, and thoroughly percolated by the streams running down from the glaciers, at some distance giving one the impression of weather-beaten sandstone. This sedimentary formation fell five degrees towards the west. The surface was covered with a thick growth of birches and willows, and grasses of a few inches high. This spot was the richest in vegetation of any I had seen in Greenland; and we might therefore count upon the presence of reindeer, which was all the more welcome, as the continuation of our journey depended upon the success of our hunters.

Tirol Fjord.]

Whilst Herzberg and Iversen hunted, and Wagner remained to guard the tents, Copeland and I started for the middle of the fork, which was here from three to five nautical miles broad, in order to find a spot, if possible, from which we could get a favourable view of the branches. Ice-cliffs in numbers filled it, their light colour striking with a glare against the steel-green of the smooth ice-covering of the Fjord. To the north and west brown walls, 3000 feet high, rose in imposing forms in giant rows, as a background to the glaciers of the Tiroler Fjord.

The gentle slopes of Clavering Island were covered with a light green, and over it hung long icy tongues and frozen torrents, surmounted by the snow-capped main ridge, 4200 to 5250 feet high; and in a south-westerly direction, in another arm of the Fjord, we could see a rocky island with glaciers about 4200 feet high; this had been landed upon from another side by Clavering, and named “Jordan Hill.”

On this journey a dark layer of a variety of conglomerate drew us nearly five miles out of our way towards Jordan Hill. From the colour we had hoped to find a stratum of coal. After discovering our mistake, and retracing our steps, we found that our hunters were busy cutting up two nearly white reindeer. We were so hungry that we ate some of the meat raw, and carried the legs away to the sledge.

It was half-past three p.m. before we left our resting-place, and, from the unexpected increase of our provisions, we determined to sacrifice another day in order to explore the background of the Tiroler Fjord.

On the strand of Clavering Island we had collected a quantity of drift-wood, and on the south side Clavering had met with Esquimaux; but from the presence of the drift-wood we concluded that they were not there, as they would have carefully collected it.

On the 1st of November, at half-past six a.m., in the darkness when we started for the background of Tiroler Fjord, it was still lovely weather (8.5° Fahr.); the end of the Fjord, however, was not visible, and for a time we thought that it was connected with Fligely Fjord, when a much shorter route would be opened for our return to the ship. By nine o’clock (6.8° Fahr.) we had reached the mid-length of the Fjord, and stood upon its west bank opposite a beautiful semicircle of glaciers, in the centre of which rose a mighty granite colossus. The lower end of these glaciers might be about 300 feet above the level of the sea.

A dead-white barrier, which from our standing-point appeared to close in the Fjord a mile to the north of us, and which in the early dawn of the morning we could not understand, we now discovered to be the mighty wall of the termination of a glacier. Natural as this discovery was, we were taken by surprise, though even in the distance we recognized these glaciers as of primary formation.

After an hour and a half’s walking over the smooth surface of the Fjord, we came upon an isolated conical rock, surrounded by gigantic walls 300 feet high, and upon the opposite bank was a similar isolated screen. Behind the same, separated merely by a large bed of rubbish, lay a colossal terminal moraine, and over this rose the icy front of wildly-shaped glaciers. Scarcely anywhere can the traces of glacier formation be so strikingly followed out as on this spot. The surface of this rock was perfectly polished, and cut with parallel furrow-shaped cavities, with an inclination of eight degrees southward, where a local deviation in the rock, agreeing with the inclination of the neighbouring glacier, formed a prominency. Parallel with the cavities above described ran small furrows an inch deep; thus these polished cavities of larger dimensions seem to show us that the glaciers at different epochs, and with different degrees of force, flowed down, passing lightly in some places over the surface of the rocks, and at last resting unevenly on one level, leaving everywhere traces of its presence. Lastly, these small rifts and furrows are known to have been formed from blocks which the streaming glacier had forced against the walls. Remarkable, too, is the upward tendency of the cavities in some places as well as the smaller furrows. The same thing is observable in those spots where the tenacious bulk of the forward-driving masses of the upper portions of the glacier have been hemmed in by projections, or rather when, for a short space, it was forced to go upwards. Where the smaller inclination of the surface of the rocky cone admitted of it, we found it strewn with erratic blocks of a cubic yard in size. They were upright, and situated often in the most peculiar places; the summit of the rocky cone was also covered with them. At the foot of the Fjord walls lay lateral moraines, placed terrace-wise one above another. Evidently the large glaciers had long since left these spots. Over the frozen road covered with rubbish we reached the terminal moraine, 150 feet high, over which the glacier torrents now hung, turned to icy giant cataracts. What water-floods must have hurried onward to the Fjord when the sun shone bright!

From the height of the terminal moraine ridge the slope of rubbish fell forty-six feet over the outer edge of the glacier. The icy stream, from its azure colour and its transparency, we named “Pasterze,” and the heights above, which, to carry out the analogy, we called “Grossglockner,” rose in confused towering groups; though we missed the characteristic feature of our Alps, the sharpness of the ice edges. This circumstance may be explained by the fact that the ice of the Greenland glaciers is not so solid and glassy as ours. It resembles more last year’s ice, and for this reason cracks and fissures are not so frequent as with us; for a long time the edges, from thaws and evaporations, have rounded off; and, lastly, the very formation of the ice is not so sharp and defined as in our glaciers. We found the ice so smooth that it was with difficulty we reached the heights.

To a certain extent it was from here that we first really overlooked the glacier. It was formed from five great tributaries, which were partly engulfed on the high plateaus of the mountain range, and sinking between the steep walls of the Fjord. Perhaps these gigantic breaches in the walls of the Fjord might be partly the result of thousands of years’ erosion. More distinctly than anything else, however, did the glorious polish on the Hornblend-gneiss and the walls, composed of epidote granite, entitle us to assume that at one time the whole of the Fjord must have been filled with this Greenland “Pasterze;” for in the background it reaches to 720 feet above the level of the sea, and sinks towards the exit of the Sound down to 520 feet.

In our Alps primary glaciers end as soon as they come into the region of 41° Fahr. mean temperature (Schlagintweit, Physikalische Geographie der Alpen); in Greenland, on the contrary, this isothermal line nowhere exists, and the reaching the level of the sea and the extent of the ice is their only limit.

Furthermore, in our Alps the slightest covering of snow on the summit of the glaciers does not fall until the the beginning of September. In Greenland, again, this does not happen until a month and a half later. Some nautical miles upwards from the mouth of the glacier streams in the Fjord the ice was strikingly transparent, light blue, and peculiarly smooth. This was evidently fresh-water ice from the falling torrents, and turned by degrees into the steel-green saltwater ice.

We now found ourselves 3½° west of the ship; and, in spite of the great circuit we had made to the south, we were again in its latitude, as shown by an astronomical calculation of Copeland’s. Our provisions now consisted mainly of reindeer’s flesh, which caused a dysentery that not even opium could assuage. We had, therefore, no choice but to return, which we did at four p.m. We took our course from Cape Giesecke, which we reached, after a thirteen nautical miles’ tramp, at seven p.m. (1° Fahr.) Here we enjoyed the sight of a lovely meteor. For several seconds the whole of the Fjord was bathed in one intense carmine light. On this day the sun set for us, from our circumscribed horizon, shortly before noon, so that it was perfectly dark, when at 7½ p.m. we reached our resting-place of the 29th of October (0° Fahr.).

On the 3rd of November, at 7¾ a.m., we continued our journey in a southerly direction, from the mouth of the Tiroler Fjord, over a monotonous desert of fresh-fallen snow. The temperature had fallen to -9° Fahr., by which the working with the theodolite was rendered very difficult, for we could scarcely approach it without causing the lenses to become coated with moisture. At six p.m., after retracing eighteen nautical miles, we reached the halting-place of the 28th of October (-11° Fahr.). That night we were kept awake by storm and drifting snow.

We started again on the 4th of November at six a.m. with a light west wind (-13° Fahr.), and, after three hours’ march, reached Cape Borlase Warren, when, after passing the dense ice-groups, it became daylight. The sun did not appear quite above the horizon this day. We rested for an hour; the remainder of the spirits provided us with a soup, and then we entered the icy labyrinth. In the neighbourhood of Flache Bay, however, we found it very unsafe, the last northern storm having broken up all the ice, and opened up broad streams of water, which were partly again covered with thin ice, that bent under our weight like leather. In the meantime it was quite dark; even open water we could only distinguish by sounding with the alpenstock. We soon found it very difficult to drag the sledge; so we left it behind in a secure place on the coast, only taking with us our books and instruments. We then followed the line of the coast, but there we met with complicated and impassable masses of ice, so we had to return to the treacherous ice-field. As with difficulty we were following the road, we were suddenly startled by a walrus breaking through the ice close to us. We fled as quickly as we could, for any attempt to defend ourselves would have been madness. But the walrus swam as quickly under the ice after us, breaking through it near us, evidently intending to swim in our company. We dispersed as much as possible, springing over the ice-crust, through which the alpenstock constantly broke, followed by the rustling and flapping caused by the monster. Had any one fallen in, it would have been impossible to have pulled him out again. Fortunately, near Cape Wynn, a screen of old ice relieved us of our pursuer. These creatures can break through ice six inches thick, and strike the exact spot where they last saw their enemy.

From here to the ship (five to six nautical miles) the ice, being thicker, had not suffered from the storm, whilst an intense yellow Aurora covered the greater part of the heavens, its brightness resembling that of the moon in her first quarter. We reached the winter harbour at nine p.m., having traversed twenty-six nautical miles, just as they were about to send a sledge after us, being uneasy as to our fate.

Two days after the sun set, not to rise again until the spring, and frightful snow-storms began.

The passage conjectured by Clavering to exist to the north of the island of the same name, the discovery of some Fjords, the enlargement of our geographical knowledge of the neighbourhood, the completion of its chart, and, lastly, the highly interesting study of the Greenland glaciers, were the fruits of this difficult journey of over 200 miles, reckoning the distance out and in.