Chapter XI (3)

From the shore a plain commences, which is studded with extensive lagoons and a large number of small lakes. In spring this plain is so water-drenched and so crossed by deep rapid snow-rivulets, that it is difficult, often impossible, to traverse it. Immediately after the disappearance of the snow a large number of birds at all events had settled there. The Lapp sparrow had chosen a tuft projecting from the marshy ground on which to place its beautiful roofed dwelling, the waders in the neighbourhood had laid their eggs in most cases directly on the water-drenched moss without trace of a nest, and on tufts completely surrounded by the spring floods we met with the eggs of the loom, the long-tailed duck, the eider and the goose. Already during our stay, the water ran away so rapidly, that places, which one day were covered with a watery mirror, over which a boat of light draught could be rowed forward, were changed the next day to wet marshy ground, covered with yellow grass-straws from the preceding year. At many places the grassy sward had been torn up by the ice and carried away, leaving openings sharply defined by right lines in the meadows, resembling a newly worked off place in a peat moss.

In summer there must be found here green meadows covered with pretty tall grass, but at the time of our departure vegetation had not attained any great development, and the flowers that could be discovered were few. I presume however that a beautiful Arctic flower-world grows up here, although, in consequence of the exposure of the coast-country to the north winds, poor in comparison with the vegetation in sheltered valleys in the interior of the country. There are found there too pretty high bushes, but on the other hand trees are represented at Pitlekaj only by a low species of willow which creeps along the ground.

We did not, however, see even this "wood" in full leaf. For in order that full summer heat may begin it is necessary, even here, that the ice break up, and this longed-for moment appeared to be yet far distant. The ice indeed became clear of snow in the beginning of July, and thus the slush and the flood water were lessened, which during the preceding weeks had collected on its surface and made it very difficult to walk from the vessel to land. Now, again pretty dry-shod and on a hard blue ice-surface, we could make excursions in the neighbourhood of the vessel. We had however to be cautious. The former cracks had in many places been widened to greater or smaller openings by the flood water running down, and where a thin black object--a little gravel, a piece of tin from the preserved provision-cases, &c.--had lain on the ice there were formed round holes, resembling the seal-holes which I saw in spring laid bare after the melting of the snow on the ice in the fjords of Spitzbergen. The strength of the ice besides was nearly unaltered, and on the 16th July a heavily loaded double sledge could still be driven from the vessel to the shore.

On the 17th the "year's ice" next the land at last broke up, so that an extensive land clearing arose. But the ground-ices were still undisturbed, and between these the "year's ice" even lay so fast, that all were agreed that at least fourteen days must still pass before there was any prospect of getting free.

When on the 16th the reindeer-Chukch Yettugin came on board, and, talking of the collection of whale-bones in which we had been engaged some days before, informed us that there was a mammoth bone at his tent, and that a mammoth tusk stuck out at a place where the spring floods had cut into the bank of a river which flows from Table Mount to Riraitinop, I therefore did not hesitate to undertake an excursion to the place. Our absence from the vessel was reckoned at five or six days. It was my intention to go up the river in a skin boat belonging to Notti to the place where the mammoth tusk was, and thence to proceed on foot to Yettugin's tent. Yettugin assured us that the river was sufficiently deep for the flat-bottomed boat. But when we had travelled a little way into the country it appeared that the river had fallen considerably during the day that Yettugin passed on the vessel. So certain was I however that the ice-barrier would not yet for a long time be broken up, that I immediately after my return from the excursion, which had thus been rendered unsuccessful, made arrangements for a new journey in order with other means of transport to reach the goal.

While we were thus employed the forenoon of the 18th passed. We sat down to dinner at the usual time, without any suspicion that the time of our release was now at hand. During dinner it was suddenly observed that the vessel was moving slightly Palander rushed on deck, saw that the ice was in motion, ordered the boiler fires to be lighted, the engine having long ago been put in order in expectation of this moment, and in two hours, by 3:30 P.M. on the 18th July, the _Vega_, decked with flags, was under steam and sail again on the way to her destination.

We now found that a quite ice-free "lead" had arisen between the vessel and the open water next the shore, the ice-fields west of our ground-ices having at the same time drifted farther out to sea, so that the clearing along the shore had widened enough to give the _Vega_ a sufficient depth of water. The course was shaped at first for the N.W. in order to make a _detour_ round the drift-ice fields lying nearest us, then along the coast for Behring's Straits. On the height at Yinretlen there stood as we passed, the men, women, and children of the village all assembled, looking out to sea at the fire-horse--the Chukches would perhaps say fire-dog or fire-reindeer--which carried their friends of the long winter months for ever away from their cold, bleak shores. Whether they shed tears, as they often said they would we could not see from the distance which now parted us from them. But it may readily have happened that the easily moved disposition of the savage led them to do this. Certain it is that in many of us the sadness of separation mingled with the feelings of tempestuous joy which now rushed through the breast of every _Vega_ man.

The _Vega_ met no more ice-obstacles on her course to the Pacific. Serdze Kamen was passed at 1:30 A.M. of the 19th, but the fog was so dense that we could not clearly distinguish the contours of the land. Above the bank of mist at the horizon we could only see that this cape, so famous in the history of the navigation of the Siberian Polar Sea, is occupied by high mountains, split up, like those east of the Bear Islands, into ruin-like gigantic walls or columns. The sea was mirror-bright and nearly clear of ice, a walrus or two stuck up his head strangely magnified by the fog in our neighbourhood, seals swam round us in large numbers, and flocks of birds, which probably breed on the steep cliffs of Serdze Kamen, swarmed round the vessel. The trawl net repeatedly brought up from the sea bottom a very abundant yield of worms, molluscs, crustacea, &c. A zoologist would here have had a rich working field.

The fog continued, so that on the other side of Serdze Kamen we lost all sight of land, until on the morning of the 20th dark heights again began to peep out. These were the mountain summits of the easternmost promontory of Asia, East Cape, an unsuitable name, for which I have substituted on the map that of Cape Deschnev after the gallant Cossack who for the first time 230 years ago circumnavigated it.

By 11 A.M. we were in the middle of the sound which unites the North Polar Sea with the Pacific, and from this point the _Vega_ greeted the old and new worlds by a display of flags and the firing of a Swedish salute.

Thus finally was reached the goal towards which so many nations had struggled, all along from the time when Sir Hugh Willoughby, with the firing of salutes from cannon and with hurrahs from the festive-clad seamen, in the presence of an innumerable crowd of jubilant men certain of success, ushered in the long series of North-East voyages. But, as I have before related, then hopes were grimly disappointed. Sir Hugh and all his men perished as pioneers of England's navigation and of voyages to the ice-encumbered sea which bounds Europe and Asia on the north. Innumerable other marine expeditions have since then trodden the same path, always without success, and generally with the sacrifice of the vessel and of the life and health of many brave seamen. Now for the first time, after the lapse of 336 years, and when most men experienced in sea matters had declared the undertaking impossible, was the North-East Passage at last achieved. This has taken place, thanks to the discipline, zeal, and ability of our man-of-war's-men and their officers, without the sacrifice of a single human life, without sickness among those who took part in the undertaking, without the slightest damage to the vessel, and under circumstances which show that the same thing may be done again in most, perhaps in all years, in the course of a few weeks. It may be permitted us to say, that under such circumstances it was with pride we saw the blue-yellow flag rise to the mast-head and heard the Swedish salute in the sound where the old and the new worlds reach hands to each other. The course along which we sailed is indeed no longer required as a commercial route between Europe and China. But it has been granted to this and the preceding Swedish expeditions to open a sea to navigation, and to confer on half a continent the possibility of communicating by sea with the oceans of the world.

[Footnote 258: And Hellant, _Anmaerkningar om en helt ovanlig koeld i Torne (Remarks on a Quite Unusual Cold in Torne_), Vet.-akad. Handl. 1759, p. 314, and 1760, p. 312. In the latter paper Hellant himself shows that the column of mercury in a strongly cooled thermometer for a few moments _sinks farther_ when the ball is rapidly heated. This is caused by the expansion of the glass when it is warmed before the heat has had time to communicate itself to the quicksilver in the ball, and therefore of course can happen only at a temperature above the freezing-point of mercury. ]

[Footnote 259: That mercury solidifies in cold was discovered by some academicians in St. Petersburg on the 25th December, 1759, and caused at the time a great sensation, because by this discovery various erroneous ideas were rooted out which the chemists had inherited from the alchemists, and which were based on the supposed property of mercury of being at the same time a metal and a fluid. ]

[Footnote 260: During the market the Russian priest endeavours to make proselytes, he succeeds, too, by distributing tobacco to induce one or two to subject themselves to the ceremony of baptism. No true conversion, however, can scarcely come in question on account of the difference of language. As an example of how this goes on, the following story of Wrangel's may be quoted. At the market a young Chukch had been prevailed upon, by a gift of some pounds of tobacco, to allow himself to be baptised. The ceremony began in presence of a number of spectators. The new convert stood quiet and pretty decent in his place till he should step down into the baptismal font, a large wooden tub filled with ice-cold water. In this, according to the baptismal ritual, he ought to dip three times. But to this he would consent on no condition. He shook his head constantly, and brought forward a large number of reasons against it, which none understood. After long exhortations by the interpreter, in which promises of tobacco probably again played the principal part, he finally gave way and sprang courageously down into the ice-cold water, but immediately jumped up again trembling with cold; crying, "My tobacco! my tobacco!" All attempts to induce him to renew the bath were fruitless, the ceremony was incomplete, and the Chukch only half baptised. ]

[Footnote 261: In Lapland, too, the melting of the snow in spring is brought about in no inconsiderable degree by similar causes, _i.e._ by dry warm winds which come from the fells. On this point the governor of Norbotten laen, H.A. Widmark, has sent me the following interesting letter--"However warm easterly and southerly winds may be in the parts of Swedish Lapland lying next the Joleen mountains, they are not able in any noteworthy degree to melt the masses of snow which fall in those regions during the winter months. On the other hand there comes every year, if we may rely on the statements of the Lapps, in the end of April or beginning of May, from the west (_i.e._ from the fells), a wind so strong and at the same time so warm, that in quite a short time--six to ten hours--it breaks up the snow-masses, makes them shrink together, forces the mountain sides from their snow covering, and changes the snow which lies on the ice of the great fell lakes to water. I have myself been out on the fells making measurements on two occasions when this wind came. On one occasion I was on the Great Lule water in the neighbourhood of the so-called Great Lake Fall. The night had been cold but the day became warm. Up to 1 o'clock P.M. it was calm, but immediately after the warm westerly wind began to blow, and by 6 o'clock P.M. all the snow on the ice was changed to water, in which we went wading to the knees. The Lapps in general await these warm westerly winds before they go to the fells in spring. Until these winds begin there is no pasture there for their reindeer herds." ]

[Footnote 262: I do not include _La Recherche's_ wintering in 1838-39 at Bosekop, in the northernmost part of Norway, as it took place in a region which is all the year round inhabited by hundreds of Europeans. During this expedition very splendid auroras were seen, and the studies of them by LOITIN, BRAVAIS, LILLIEHOeOeK, and SILJESTROeOeM, are among the most important contributions to a knowledge of the aurora we possess, while we have to thank the draughtsmen of the expedition for exceedingly faithful and masterly representations of the phenomenon. ]

[Footnote 263: The common eider (_S. mollissima_, L.) is absent here, or at least exceedingly rare. ]

[Footnote 264: During the expedition of 1861, when we were shut up by ice in Treurenberg Bay on Spitzbergen (79 deg. 57' N.L.) the first flower (_Saxifraga oppositifolia_, L.), was pulled on the 22nd June. After the wintering in 1872-73, Palander and I during our journey round North-east Land, saw the first flower on the same species of saxifrage as early as the 15th June, in the bottom of Wahlenberg Bay (79 deg. 46' N.L.) ]

[Footnote 265: For the sake of completeness, I shall here also enumerate the plants which Dr. Kjellman found at Pitlekaj. Those marked with an * either themselves occur in Scandinavia or are represented by nearly allied forms.

Leucanthemum arcticum (L.) DC. Artemisia arctica LESS. * ,, vulgaris L. f. Tilesii LEDEB. Cineraria frigida RICHARDS. * ,, palustris L. f. congesta HOOK. * Antennaria alpina (L.) R. BR. f. Friesiana TRAUTV. * Petasites frigida. * Saussurea alpina (L.) DC. f. angustifolia (DC.) * Taraxacum officinale WEB. Valeriana capitata PALL. Gentiana glauca PALL. Pedicularis sudetica WILLD. ,, Langsdorffii FISCH. ,, lanata WILLD. f. leiantha TRAUTV. ,, capitata ADAMS. * Polemonium coeruleum L. * Diapensia lapponica L. * Armeria sibirica TURCZ. Primula nivalis PALL. f. pygmaea LEDEB. ,, borealis DUBY. * Loiseleuria procumbens (L.) DESV. * Ledum palustre L. f. decumbens AIT. * Vaccinium vitis idaea L. * Arctostaphylos alpina (L.) SPRENG. * Cassiope tetragona (L.) DON. Hedysarum obscurum L. Oxytropis nigrescens (PALL.) FISCH. f. pygmaea CHAM. ,, species? * Rubus Chamaemorus L. * Comarum palustre L. Potentilla fragiformis L. f. parviflora TRAUTV. f. villosa (PALL.) * Sibbaldia procumbens L. * Dryas octopetala L. Spiraea betulaefolia PALL. f. typica MAXIM. * Hippuris vulgaris L. * Saxifraga stellaris L f. comosa POIR. ,, punctata L. * ,, cernua L. * ,, rivularis L. * Rhodiola rosea L. * Empetrum nigrum L. * Cardamine bellidifolia L. Cochlearia fenestrata R. BR. f. typica MALMGR. f. prostrata MALMGR. Ranunculus Pallasii SEHLECHT. * ,, nivalis L. * ,, pygmaeus WG. * ,, hyperboreus ROTTB. * Aconitum Napellus L. f. delphinifolia REICHENB. Claytonia acutifolia WILLD. * Wahlbergella apetala (L.) FR. * Stellaria longipes GOLDIE. f. humilis FENZL. * ,, humifusa ROTTB. Cerastium maximum L. * ,, alpinum L. f. hirsuta KOCH. * Halianthus peploides (STEV.) FENZL. Alsine artica (STEV.) FENZL. * Sagina nivalis (LINDBL.) FR. * Polygonum Bistorta L. * ,, viviparum L. * polymorphum L. f. frigida CHAM. Rumex arcticus TRAUTV. * Oxyria digyna (L.) HILL. Salix boganidensis TRAUTV. f. latifolia. Salix Chamissonis ANDERS. ,, arctica PALL. ,, euneata TURCZ. * ,, reticulata L. ,, species? Betula glandulosa MICHX. f. rotundifolia REGEL. Elymus mollis TRIN. * Festuca rubra L. f. arenaria OSB. * Poa flexuosa WG. Arctophila effusa J. LGE. Glyceria vilfoidea (ANDS.) TH. FR. ,, vaginata J. LGE. f. contracta J. LGE. * Catabrosa algida (SOL.) FR. * Colpodium latifolium R. BR. Dupontia Fischeri R. BR. * Trisetum subspicatum (L.) P.B. * Aira caespitosa L. f. borealis TRAUTV. Alopecurus alpinus SM. * Hierochloa alpina (LILJEBL.) ROEM. and SCH. * Carex rariflora (WG.) SM. * ,, aqvatilis f. epijegos LAEST. * ,, glareosa WG. * ,, lagopina WG. * Eriophorum angustifolium ROTH. * ,, vaginatum L. * ,, russeolum FR. * Luzula parviflora (EHRH.) DESV. * ,, Wahlenbergii RUPR. * ,, arcuata (WG.) SW. f. confusa LINDEB. * Juncus biglumis L. Lloydia serotina (L.) REICHENB. ]

[Footnote 266: _Redogoerelse foer den svenska polarexpeditionen ar_ 1872-73. Bihang till Vet.-Akad. Handl. Bd. 2, No. 18, p. 52. ]

[Footnote 267: _Journal d'un Voyage aux Mers Polaires._ Paris, 1854. Pp. 177 and 223. ]

[Footnote 268: Heckel and Kner, _Die Suesswasserfische Oesterreichs_, p. 295. ]

[Footnote 269: Even pretty far south, in Scandinavia, there occur places with frozen earth which seldom thaws. Thus in Egyptinkorpi mosses in Nurmi and Pjeli parishes in Finland pinewoods are found growing over layers or "tufts" of frozen sand, but also, in other places in Eastern Finland, we find layers containing stumps, roots, &c., of different generations of trees, alternating with layers of frozen mould, according to a communication from the agronomic Axel Asplund. A contribution to the knowledge of the way, or one of the ways, in which such formations arise, we obtain from the known fact that mines with an opening to the air, so far south as the middle of Sweden, are filled in a few years with a coherent mass of ice if the opening is allowed to remain open. If it is shut the ice melts again, but for this decades are required. ]

[Footnote 270: Middendorff already states that the bottom of the sea of Okotsk is frozen (_Sibirische Reise_, Bd. 4, 1, p. 502). ]