[Illustration: SEAL-HUNTING—SEPTEMBER 1872.]
4. Sept. 22, there was a fissure in the ice about thirty paces from the ship, and we quickly put on board all the materials which were lying on the floe, believing that the moment of our deliverance had come. But no such moment came, nor did the equinoctial storms which we expected set in; _we continued to drift still further to the north_; and on Oct. 2, we had passed the seventy-seventh degree of north latitude. In the beginning of this month a storm, which lasted but a short time, opened up a large “ice-hole” near the after-part of the ship, and forthwith we set to work to open a passage through our floe in order to reach it, but two days afterwards this “ice-hole” also closed up. Yet amid all our mishaps we forgot not on October the 4th—the name-day of his Majesty the Emperor Francis Joseph I.—the homage which was due to our noble and gracious Sovereign. The ship was gaily dressed with flags, and a rifle-match, in which watches and pipes were the prizes, scared away for a short afternoon the sad impressions of the moment.
[Illustration: SHOOTING AT A TARGET, OCTOBER 1872.]
5. Encounters with polar bears afforded us much excitement. On the 6th of October our first bear was killed and divided among the dogs, for as yet we had not learnt to regard the flesh of these animals as the most precious part of our provisions. A fox also, the first seen during this expedition, showed himself during the previous night. He had evidently come from Novaya Zemlya, and his curiosity had led him close to the ship, from whence he was driven by the dogs. It now became indispensable for everyone who left the immediate neighbourhood of the ship to carry arms with him, and the neglect of this precaution had sometimes rather ludicrous, at other times somewhat serious, consequences. On the 11th of October I left the ship unarmed, and with no other companion than our Lapland dog, Pekel, to employ myself in the harmless occupation of piling up a tower of ice. Working as I was in a stooping position, I was unconscious of what was immediately around me, when on a sudden the loud barking of Pekel caused me to raise myself, and I saw a bear quite close before me. Shaking his head and making a snuffling noise, he came on towards me. In the expectation that some of the people engaged on deck would see my critical position, I contented myself with shaking my fist at him, unwilling to reveal any weakness to my enemy. As this, however, seemed to produce no effect, I cried out repeatedly, “A bear!” At last I saw Klotz, who was on deck, go to the stand of arms, but with such stoical composure, that I ceased to trust to others, and left to the bear, who had now advanced to a distance of about fifteen paces from me, the glory of forcing his enemy to take to flight.