Chapter VI (2)

In 1872 the state of the ice both north of Spitzbergen and round Novaya Zemlya was exceedingly unfavourable,[180] and several of the scientific expeditions and hunting vessels, which that year visited the Arctic Ocean, there underwent severe calamities and misfortunes. Five of the best hunting vessels from Tromsoe were lost in the ice; the Swedish expedition, which that year started for the north, could not, as was intended, erect its winter dwelling on the Seven Islands, but was compelled to winter at the more southerly Mussel Bay; and the Austrian expedition under the leadership of Payer and Weyprecht was beset by ice a few hours after its campaign had commenced in earnest. It is well known how this carefully equipped expedition afterwards for two winters in succession drifted about in the Polar Sea, until it finally came to a standstill at a previously unknown land lying north of Novaya Zemlya, which was named after the Austrian Emperor, Franz Josef. These two expeditions, however, did not touch the territory of the _Vega's_ voyage, on which account I cannot here take any further notice of them.[181] But the same year a wintering took place on the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, of which I consider that I ought to give a somewhat more detailed account, both because in the course of it one of the most gallant Polar voyagers of Norway met his fate, and because it shows us various new, hitherto untouched sides of winter life in the High North.

SIVERT TOBIESEN was one of the oldest and boldest of the Norwegian walrus-hunting skippers; he had with life and soul devoted himself to his calling, and in it was exposed to many dangers and difficulties, which he knew how to escape through courage and skill. In 1864 he had sailed round the northeastern part of North-east Land, and had been very successful in hunting; but as he was about to return home, his vessel was beset by ice near the southern entrance to Hinloopen Strait, where the same fate also overtook two other hunting sloops, one of them commanded by the old hunting skipper MATTILAS, who in the winter of 1872-73 died in a tent at Grey Hook, the other by the skipper J. ASTROM. They were compelled to save themselves in boats, in which they rowed through Hinloopen Strait to the mouth of Ice Fjord, where the shipwrecked crews were met and saved by the Swedish expedition of 1864. He passed the winter of 1865-66 happily, in a house built for the purpose on Bear Island, and communicated to the Swedish Academy of Sciences a series of valuable meteorological observations, made during the wintering.[182] After 1868 he had made several successful voyages to Novaya Zemlya, some of which were also remarkable from a geographical point of view, and in 1872 he was also on a hunting expedition to the same regions.

As he could not enter the Kara Sea, he sailed up along the west coast, where in the middle of September he was beset in the neighbourhood of the Cross Islands. Hence seven of the crew travelled south in a boat to seek for a vessel, but Tobiesen himself, his son and two men, remained on board. Their stock of provisions consisted of only a small barrel of bread, a sack of corners and fragments of ship biscuit, a small quantity of coffee, tea, sugar, syrup, groats, salt meat, salt fish, a few pounds of pork, a couple of tin canisters of preserved vegetables, a little bad butter, &c. There was abundance of wood on board and on the land. Notwithstanding the defective equipment they went on bravely and hopefully with the preparations for wintering, gathered drift-wood in heaps on the beach, threw a tent of sails over the vessel, threw up snow about its sides, covered the deck with, the hides of the seals and walruses that had been captured during summer, did what could be done to bring about good ventilation on board, &c. A large number of bears came to the winter station at the commencement of the wintering, affording an abundant supply of fresh bears' flesh. So long as this lasted, the health of the party was good, but when it came to an end at the new year, their food for three weeks consisted mainly of ill-smelling salt bears' flesh. Tobiesen and one of the men were now taken ill. The cold sank to -39-1/2 deg. C.[183] On the 29th April, 1873, Tobiesen died of scurvy. In the month of May his son was also attacked, and died on the 5th July. The two men also suffered from scurvy, but recovered. They rowed south in the month of August, and were rescued by a Russian hunting-vessel.

The seven men, the harpooner Henrik Nilsen, Ole Andreas Olsen, Axel Henriksen, Amandus Hansen, Nils Andreas Foxen, Johan Andersson and Lars Larsen, who rowed away in autumn, had an exceedingly remarkable fate. When they left the vessel they could only take with them fourteen ship biscuits, six boxes of lucifers, two guns, with ammunition, a spy-glass, a coffeepot and an iron pot, but no winter clothes to protect them from the cold. At first, in order to get to open water, they had to drag the boat about seven kilometres over the ice. They then steered southwards along the land. The journey was made under circumstances of great difficulty and privation. The darkness and cold increased, as did the storm, and what was worst of all their stock of provisions was very soon consumed. On the second day, however, they wore fortunate enough to shoot a bear; afterwards they also succeeded in killing a pair of seals. Finally, after having partly rowed and partly sailed about three weeks (they had no almanac with them), and travelled nearly 400 kilometres, they came to two small hunting or store houses, which the Russians had built on the north side of Gooseland. In order to have at least a roof over their heads the exhausted men settled there, though in the house they found neither food, clothes, nor hunting implements. They were all much enfeebled by hunger, thirst, cold, and the long boat journey; their feet were swollen and partly frost-bitten.

They remained in the house three weeks, and during that time shot a seal, two white foxes, and four reindeer, with which they kept in their lives; but as it appeared that there were no more reindeer to be had, and there were no more opportunities of shooting seals or reindeer, they determined to leave the house and endeavour to get to Vaygats Island. When they broke up, Ole Andreas Olsen and Henrik Nilsen took the guns and ammunition, while the other five commenced the journey with some small sledges they had found at the house, on which they loaded what they had of clothes and other articles. The boat was left behind. Soon after they left the house Ole Andreas Olsen and Henrik Nilsen were separated in a snowstorm from the others who drew the sledges. The latter now agreed to determine by lot whether they should return to the house or continue their journey, and when the lot fell for the latter they allowed it to settle the matter, and so went south.[184]

Their position was now desperate in the extreme. When they left the house they had about half a pound of reindeer flesh and a little blubber remaining. The weather was dreadful; they were badly clothed, and they wanted water. In consequence they could make only very short days' marches. At night they buried themselves in the snow, and while the rest slept, one man kept constant watch, to prevent the others from being snowed up and to keep the bears at a distance. They all held out till the sixth night. Then Amandus Hansen died. The rest were compelled to leave him in the snow and continue their journey as well as they could, but they had by degrees become so weak and exhausted that, after having traversed probably about 100 kilometres, for the most part along the coast, they had to leave even the sledges and the most of what they had with them. The seventh or eighth day they caught sight of a little pile of fuel, and the track of a sledge in the snow. By following this track for about ten kilometres they found a small house, inhabited by Samoyeds, who immediately gave them a friendly reception, and entertained them in the most hospitable way. In particular they showed much kindness to Nils Andreas Foxen, whose toes were frost-bitten, and who was in other respects much enfeebled.

These Samoyeds, three men, three women, and a boy, spoke Russian. They had settled for the winter on the south part of Gooseland to shoot the seal and the walrus. They had with them a large barge, besides some small Samoyed boats, and were comparatively well provided with reindeer flesh, meal, tea, sugar, &c. Their guns were old flint-lock fowling-pieces, but they were good shots. With these Samoyeds the four shipwrecked men remained the whole winter, and were tolerably well off. When the weather permitted they assisted the Samoyeds in capturing seals, and when the weather was bad they passed the time as well as they could, the Samoyeds generally employing themselves in playing cards or draughts. In order to avoid scurvy the Samoyeds often took exercise in the open air, and ate reindeer flesh, partly cooked and partly raw, and drank the blood. They lived in the house until March was well advanced, when, for want of fuel, they were obliged to hew it down. Instead they removed into a tent of reindeer skin. These Samoyeds appear to have been Christians in name, though they must have had strange ideas of their new God. When, for instance, they saw a seal and missed shooting it, they shot at the sun, because they believed that God was angry with them. They lived in a sort of marriage, but if the man became unfriendly to the woman, or tired of her, he could take another; they had no clocks, but, notwithstanding, had a tolerably good idea of time by the help of the stars and the sun; instead of an almanac they used a piece of wood, in which for every day they cut a notch. Although they sometimes quarrelled with and threatened one another, they were, however, on the whole friendly, and reasonable, and showed much kindness to the four shipwrecked men, whom they provided with warm skin clothes, and during the whole time with food in abundance, according to their circumstances, so that they did not suffer any want.

Ole Andreas Olsen and Henrik Nilsen had, when they were separated in the snowstorm from the sledge party, half a pound of flesh and their guns, and nothing more. They did not succeed in finding any game, and though they were not very far from the house, they required three days and a half to get back to it. In the meantime, also, these two comrades in misfortune had been separated. Henrik Nilsen found the house first, lighted a fire, roasted and ate some pieces of fox flesh that he found remaining. Ole Andreas Olsen, who in desperation had endeavoured to quench his thirst with sea-water, was so weak that, when late at night he came to the boat, he could not crawl up to the house. He had kept himself in life by eating snow and devouring large pieces of his "pesk," which was made of the raw hides of reindeer he had previously shot. After having lain a while in the boat he crept up to the house, where he found Henrik sleeping by the fire, which was not yet quite extinguished. The following day they both began to make arrangements for a lengthened stay in the house. But here they found nothing, neither food, household furniture, nor aught else. Nor did they succeed at first in getting any game; and for more then a fortnight they sustained life by boiling and gnawing the flesh from the bones of the reindeer, the seal, and the bear, that lay under the snow, remains from the Russian hunting excursions of the preceding year. Finally, before Christmas they succeeded in killing a reindeer. Their lucifers were now done, but they lighted a fire by loading their guns with a mixture of which gunpowder formed a part, and firing into old ropes, left behind by the Russians, which they picked asunder and dried. One of the Russian huts they tore down and used as fuel. They had neither axe nor saw, but they split up the fuel by means of a piece of iron, which they took from the keel of the boat, and of which they made, by hammering with stones, a sort of knife. Of some nails, which they also took from the boat, they likewise forged needles by means of stones; they used reindeer sinews for thread, and of the hides they sewed clothes for themselves. They lived in the hut until some time in April. During this time they shot eleven reindeer and a bear, so that they did not actually suffer hunger; but in the middle of April they had powder remaining for only three shots, and they now saw the impossibility of supporting themselves longer at that place, wherefore they determined to go farther south, in order, if possible, to reach Vaygats Island. They went by land along the sea-shore, leaving the boat behind. After the lapse of some days they came to the same Samoyeds with whom the other four of the crew were, and they now remained till the middle of June with the Samoyeds, who gave them the same hospitable treatment as their companions in misfortune. When at the time specified it was determined to fetch the boat from the Russian hut, in order that they might make their way southwards, Johan Andersson, a Swede by birth, declared that he wished to remain with the Samoyeds, and was not willing to accompany the other five on their homeward journey.

The latter now dragged the boat for two days over the ice but when it became too heavy they had to cut it through the middle and leave a half behind. Of a large sealskin, which they got from the Samoyeds, they made a stern to the other half, which they continued to drag over the ice for three days, until they came to open water. Then they rowed in the truncated boat ten days, until they reached a fast ice-border at the Vaygats Island, where they again fell in with Samoyeds. Even by these, who could speak neither Russian nor Quaen, and by whom they could with difficulty make themselves understood, they were well received. They remained there eight days and got good entertainment. These Samoyeds had tame reindeer, with which they sent the shipwrecked men on their way southwards, till they fell in with a vessel, with which four returned to Norway. Lars Larsen now did not wish to go home, preferring to remain with the Samoyed family which he had last met with. Samoyed life, however, must not be so pleasant after all, for in a year or two both the men who had remained among the Samoyeds returned home. As a reward for the hospitality which the shipwrecked walrus-hunters had received from the Samoyeds on Gooseland, the Norwegian Government presented them with a number of gifts, consisting of clothes, pearls, breechloaders, with ammunition, &c., which were handed over to them with festive speeches and toasts on the 17th July, 1880. During the entertainment which took place on this occasion on the coast of Novaya Zemlya, toasts were drunk in champagne, and it is said that this liquor was very much relished by the Samoyeds.[185]

As little as Tobiesen could any other walrus-hunter make his way, either in 1872 or 1873, into the Kara Sea, the entrances of which were during these summers blocked by a compact belt of ice, which extended along the east coast of Novaya Zemlya and Vaygats Island to the mainland. In the belief of a large number of experienced walrus-hunters, with whom I have conversed on the subject, this belt of ice was only some few nautical miles broad, and it is therefore probable that even in those years there would have been no obstacle to prevent a passage eastwards by this route in autumn.

In 1874, on the contrary, the state of the ice became very favourable, and many walrus-hunters again as formerly sailed in all directions across the Kara Sea, which this year was also visited by an Englishman, Captain J. WIGGINS. None of them, however, penetrated farther to the east or north than Johannesen, Carlsen, Mack, and others had done during the years 1869-70.

It was not until the following year that the North-east voyages took a step forward, important both in a purely geographical as well as a practical point of view, when I succeeded in a walrus-hunting sloop, the _Proeven_, commanded by the walrus-hunting Captain Isaksen, in sailing through Yugor Straits, which were passed on 2nd August, and over the nearly ice-free Kara Sea as far as to the mouth of the Yenisej. The _Proeven_ anchored there on the 15th August 1875, in, or more correctly immediately off, the same splendid haven where the _Vega_ expedition lay at anchor from the 6th to the 10th August, 1878. Hence I sailed under various difficulties along with Dr. Stuxberg and Dr. Lundstroem and three men in a Nordland boat, up the river to Saostrovskoj, where we fell in with a steamer, in which we afterwards travelled to Yenisejsk. On leaving Port Dickson I handed over the command to Dr. Kjellman, who along with Dr. Theel returned by sea to Europe across the Kara Sea and through Matotschkin Schar, which was passed during the return voyage on the 4th to the 11th September.

By this voyage of 1875 I was the first who succeeded in penetrating from the Atlantic Ocean in a vessel to the mouths of the great Siberian rivers. One of the objects which the old North-east voyagers had aimed at was thus at last accomplished, and that in a way that promised to be of immense practical importance for the whole of Siberia. The voyage was also regarded in that light by leading men in the great empire of the East, and our return journey from Yenisejsk by Krasnojarsk, Tomsk, Omsk, Yekaterinburg, Nischni-Novgorod, Moscow and St. Petersburg, became therefore a journey from _fete_ to _fete_. But a number of voices were simultaneously raised, which asserted that the success of the _Proeven_ depended on an accidental combination of fortunate circumstances, which would not soon occur again. In order to show that this was not the case, and that I might myself bring the first goods by sea to Siberia, I undertook my second voyage to the Yenisej in 1876, in which I penetrated with the steamer _Ymer_, not only to the mouth of the river, but also up the river to the neighbourhood of Yakovieva in 71 deg. N.L. Hence I returned the same year by sea to Europe.[186] In the gulf of Yenisej a large island was discovered, which I named after Mr. Alexander Sibiriakoff, who defrayed the principal expenses of the expedition. Before starting on this voyage, I visited the Philadelphia Exhibition, and it may perhaps deserve to be mentioned, that leaving New York on the 1st July by one of the ordinary steamers, and going on board my own vessel in Norway, I reached the mouth of the Yenisej on the 15th August, that is to say, in forty-six days.

The same year Captain Wiggins also undertook a voyage to the Yenisej, in which he penetrated with a steamer up the river beyond the labyrinth of islands lying between 70 deg. and 71 deg. N.L. The vessel wintered there, but was lost the following spring at the breaking up of the ice.[187]

The voyages of the _Proeven_ and the _Ymer_ led to several purely commercial voyages to the Yenisej and the Ob, of which however I can here with the greatest brevity mention only the following:

The Swedish steamer _Fraser_, commanded by the German Captain DALLMANN, after having been fitted out at Gothenburg on Sibiriakoff's account, sailed in 1877 with a cargo from Bremen to the Yenisej and back. The vessel left Hammerfest on the 9th August, arrived at Goltschicha on the 21st August, commenced the return voyage on the 14th September, and on the 24th of the same month was back at Hammerfest.

The steamer _Louise_ commanded by Captain DAHL, with a cargo of iron, olive oil, and sugar, the same year made the first voyage from England to Tobolsk, starting from Hull on the 18th July and arriving at Tobolsk on the 20th September.[188]

Captain SCHWANENBERG sailed in a half-decked sloop, the _Utrennaja Saria_, from the Yenisej to Europe. To what has been already said of this voyage, I may here add a few words more.

During the inundation in the spring of 1877, which compelled the mate Nummelin to betake himself for eight days to the roof of the fragile dwelling in which he had passed the winter, the Yenisejsk-built vessel, the _Aurora_ (or _Sewernoe Sianie_) was lost. Schwanenberg, who soon afterwards came to the neighbourhood, succeeded in purchasing from an Englishman, Mr. SEEBOHM, another little vessel, which was also built at Yenisejsk by Mr. Boiling for the purpose of transporting thither the goods which I had carried in the _Ymer_ to Korepovskoj, a _simovie_ on the bank of the Yenisej in 71 deg. 19' N.L. The goods however had been taken up the river by a steamer, on which account the vessel was sold by Boiling to Mr. Seebohm, who made an excursion in it to the lower courses of the Yenisej for ornithological researches. He named the vessel the _Ibis_. When Mr. Seebohm no longer required it, there was at first a proposal that it should be taken over by Captain Wiggins, who, as has been already stated, had the year before come to the Yenisej with a small steamer, which wintered at the islands in the river, and had now stranded during the breaking up of the ice. He wished to carry his men on the _Ibis_ either home or to the Ob, but the English seamen declared that they would not for all the world's honour and riches sail in that vessel. Schwanenberg had thus an opportunity of purchasing the vessel, whose name he altered to the _Utrennaja Saria_ (the _Dawn_), and to the surprise of all experienced seamen he actually made a successful passage to Norway. The vessel was then towed along the coast to Gothenburg, and through the Goeta Canal to Stockholm, and finally crossed the Baltic to St. Petersburg.

On the 13th August Schwanenberg hoisted the Russian flag on his little vessel. During his outward passage he met, in the mouth of the Yenisej, Sibiriakoff's steamer the _Fraser_, Captain Dallmann, who in vain endeavoured to dissuade him from prosecuting the adventurous voyage. He anchored at Beli Ostrov on the 24th August, passed the Kara Port on the 30th August, and reached Vardoe on the 11th September. The _Utrennaja Saria_ arrived at Christiania on the 31st October, at Gothenburg on the 15th November, passed Motala on the 20th, reached Stockholm on the 23rd November and St. Petersburg on the 3rd December. Everywhere in Scandinavia the gallant seamen met with the heartiest reception. Their vessel was the first that sailed from the town of Yenisejsk to Europe, and is still, when this is being written, the only one.

The _Dawn_ is 56 feet long, 14 feet beam, and draws 6 feet of water. Aft there is a little cabin in which there is scant space for three men. Cooking is done in the fore. The cargo consisted of a small quantity of graphite, fish, furs, and other samples of the products of Siberia.

The vessel was manned by Captain Schwanenberg, the mates Nummelin and Meyenwaldt, and two exiled criminals, who in this unexpected way returned to their native country. I take it for granted that by the rare nautical exploit they took part in, they there won forgiveness for former offences.

[Footnote 159: Compare: "The names of the places that the Russes sayle by, from Pechorskoie Zauorot to Mongozey" (_Purchas_, III. p. 539): "The voyage of Master Josias Logan to Pechora, and his wintering there with Master William Pursglove and Marmaduke Wilson, Anno 1611" (_loc. cit._ p. 541): "Extracts taken out of two letters of Josias Logan from Pechora, to Master Hakluyt, Prebend of Westminster" (_loc. cit._ p. 546): "Other obseruations of the sayd William Pursglove" (_loc. cit._ p. 550). The last paper contains good information regarding the Obi, Tas, Yenisej, Pjaesina, Chatanga, and Lena. ]

[Footnote 160: The stringent regulations regarding fasting of the Russians, especially the Old Believers, if they be literally observed, form an insuperable obstacle to the colonisation of high-northern regions, in which, to avoid scurvy, man requires an abundant supply of fresh flesh. Thus, undoubtedly, religious prejudices against certain kinds of food caused the failure of the colony of Old Believers which was founded in 1767 on Kolgujev Island, in order that its members might undisturbed use their old church books and cross themselves in the way they considered most proper. The same cause also perhaps conduced to the failure of the attempts which are said to have been made after the destruction of Novgorod by Ivan the Terrible in 1570 by fugitives from that town to found a colony on Novaya Zemlya (_Historische Nachrichten von den Samojeden und den Lapplaendern_, Riga und Mietau, 1769, p. 28). This book was first printed in French at Koenigsberg in 1762. The author was Klingstedt, a Swede in the Russian service, who long lived at Archangel. ]

[Footnote 161: The statement is incredible, and probably originated in some mistake. To form such a heap of walruses at least 50,000 animals would have been required, and it is certain that fifteen men could not have killed so many. If we assume that in the statement of the length and breadth, feet ought to stand in place of fathoms, we get the still excessive number of 1,500 to 3,000 killed animals. Probably instead of 90 we should have 9, in which case the heap would correspond to about 500 walruses and seals killed. The walrus tusks collected weighed 40 pood, which again indicates the capture of 150 to 200 animals. ]

[Footnote 162: _Witsen_, p. 915. Klingstedt states that fifty soldiers with their wives and children were removed in 1648 to Pustosersk, and that the vojvode there had so large an income that in three or four years he could accumulate 12,000 to 15,000 roubles (_Historische Nachrichten von den Samojeden_, &c., p. 53). ]

[Footnote 163: According to Luetke, p. 70. Hamel, _Tradescant d. aeltere_, gives the date 1742-44. ]

[Footnote 164: Thus on the first map in an atlas published in 1737 by the St. Petersburg Academy, Novaya Zemlya is delineated as a peninsula projecting from Taimur Land north of the Pjaesina. ]

[Footnote 165: Properly "Mate, with the rank of Lieutenant," from which we may conclude that Rossmuislov wanted the usual education of an officer. ]

[Footnote 166: These remarkable voyages were described for the first time, after the accounts of Zivolka, by the academician K.E. v. Baer in _Bulletin scientifique publ. par l'Acad. Imp. des Sciences de St. Petersburg_, t. ii. No. 9, 10, 11 (1837). Before this there does not appear to have been in St. Petersburg any knowledge of Pachtussov's voyages, the most remarkable which the history of Russian Polar Sea exploration has to show. ]

[Footnote 167: The carbasse was named, like the vessels of Lasarev and Luetke, the _Novaya Zemlya_. It was forty-two feet long, fourteen feet beam, and six feet deep, decked fore and aft, and with the open space between protected by canvas from breakers. ]

[Footnote 168: The details of Pachtussov's voyages are taken partly from von Baer's work already quoted, partly from Carl Svenske, _Novaya Zemlya_, &c., St. Petersburg, 1866 (in Russian, published at the expense of M.K. Sidoroff), and J. Spoerer, _Nowaja Semlae in geographischer, naturhistorischer und volkswirthschaftlicher Beziehung, nach den Quellen bearbsitet_. Ergaenz-Heft. No. 21 zu Peterm. _Geogr. Mittheilungen_, Gotha, 1867. ]

[Footnote 169: _Bulletin scientifique publie par l'Academie Imp. de St. Petersburg_, t. ii. (1837), p. 315; iii. (1838), p. 96, and other places. ]

[Footnote 170: Paul von Krusenstern, _Skizzen aus sienem Seemannsleben. Seinen Freunden gewidmet_. Hirschberg in Silesia, without date. ]

[Footnote 171: Information regarding the mode of life of the Russian hunters on the coasts of Spitzbergen is to be found in P.A. le Roy, _Relation des avantures arrivees a quatre matelots Russes, &c._ 1766; Tschitschagov's _Reise nach dem Eismeer_, St. Petersburg, 1793; John Bacstrom, _Account of a voyage to Spitzbergen_, 1780, London, 1808 (as stated; I have not seen this work); B.M. Keilhau, _Reise i Oest og Vest Finmarken, samt til Beeren-Eiland og Spetsbergen i Aarene 1827 og 1828_, Christiania, 1831; A. Erman, _Archiv fuer wissenschastliche Kunde von Russland_, Part 13 (1854), p. 260; K. Chydenius, _Svenska expeditionen till Spetsbergen 1861_ (p. 435); Duner and Nordenskioeld, _Svenska Expeditioner till Spetsbergen och Jan Mayen 1863 och 1864_ (p. 101). ]

[Footnote 172: Before 1858 there is to be found in Petermann's _Mittheilungen_ only a single notice of the Norwegian Spitzbergen hunting, the existence of which was at the time probably known to no great number of European geographers. ]

[Footnote 173: The first account of this voyage was published in _Oefversigt af Svenska Vetenskaps-akademiens forhandlingar_, 1870, p. 111. ]

[Footnote 174: _Athenoeum_, 1869, p. 498. Petermann's _Mittheilungen_, 1869, p. 391. ]

[Footnote 175: Palliser's game consisted of 49 walruses, 14 Polar bears and 25 seals; that of the working hunters was many times greater. All the vessels which went from Tromsoe that year captured 805 walruses, 2,302 seals, 53 bears, &c. ]

[Footnote 176: Sidoroff too started in 1869 on a north-east voyage in a steamer of his own, the _George_. However, he only reached the Petchora, and the statement that went the round of the press, that the _George_ actually reached the Ob, is thus one of the many mistakes which so readily find their way into the news of the day. ]

[Footnote 177: Petermann's _Mittheilungen_, 1871, p. 97. Along with Ulve's, Mack's, and Quale's voyages, Petermann refers to a voyage round Novaya Zemlya by T. Torkildsen. In this case, however, Petermann was exposed to a possibly unintended deception. Torkildsen, who visited the Polar Sea for the first time in 1870, indeed made the voyage round Novaya Zemlya, but only as a rescued man on Johannesen's vessel. Torkildsen's own vessel, the _Alfa_, had been wrecked on the 13th July at the bottom of Kara Bay, after which the skipper and six men were saved by Johannesen, yet by no means so that Torkildsen, as is stated by Petermann, had the least command of the vessel that saved him. (Cf. _Tromsoe Stiftstidende_, 1871, No. 23.) ]

[Footnote 178: _Tromsoe Stiftstidende_, 1871, No. 83; Petermann's _Mittheilungen_, 1872, p. 384. ]

[Footnote 179: Cf. _The Three Voyages of William Barents_, by Gerrit de Veer, 2nd Edition, with an Introduction by Lieutenant Koolemaens Beynen. London, 1876 (Works issued by the Hakluyt Society, No. 54). ]

[Footnote 180: The sea in the neighbourhood of Spitzbergen on the east was on the other hand very open that year, so that it was possible for the same time to reach and circumnavigate the large island situated to the east of Spitzbergen, which had been seen in 1864 by Duner and me from the top of White Mount in the interior of Stor Fjord. ]

[Footnote 181: Nor does space permit me to give an account of various expeditions, which indeed concerned Novaya Zemlya, but did not penetrate farther eastward than their predecessors; for instance, the Rosenthal expedition of 1871, in which the well-known African traveller and Spitzbergen voyager Baron von Heuglin, and the Norwegian botanist Aage Aagaard, took part as naturalists; Payer and Weyprecht's voyage of reconnaissance in the sea between Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya in 1871, &c. ]

[Footnote 182: Kongl. _Svenska Vetenskaps-akademiens handlingar_, 1869. ]

[Footnote 183: At Mussel Bay, too, during the winter of 1872-73, the greatest deg. of cold was the same; that is to say, at neither place did it reach the freezing-point of mercury. At the _Vega's_ winter station, on the contrary, it was considerably greater. ]

[Footnote 184: It is very common that the hunters in cases of importance and danger when it is difficult to settle what course ought to be taken, permit the drawing of lots to determine the choice. ]

[Footnote 185: The statements made here regarding the wintering of Tobiesen and his companions are taken partly from a copy which I caused to be made of his journal, partly from an account of the adventures of the seven hunters, copied from _Finmarksposten_ into _Aftonbladet_ for 1873, No. 220. Finally, the account of the distribution of presents to the Samoyeds is copied from Norwegian journals into _Aftonbladet_ for 1880, No. 197. ]

[Footnote 186: The dates of the _Ymer's_ voyage are as follows:--Left the coast of Norway on the 26th July; stay at Matotschkin Sound, through which I, on this occasion, steamed into the Kara Sea from the 30th July to the 5th August; arrival at the Yenisej on the 15th August; arrival at the anchorage at Goltschicha on the 16th August; commenced the return voyage on the 1st September, in the course of it passed Matotschkin Schar on the 7th September. ]

[Footnote 187: Of Captain Wiggins' voyage I know only that his original destination was the Ob, but that on account of currents and shoals which, he encountered at the mouth of this river, he altered his plan, and reached the Yenisej in the beginning of September. ]

[Footnote 188: _Deutsche Geographische Blaetter_, Bremen, 1870, i. p. 216, and ii. p. 35. ]