[Illustration: MELTING SNOW DURING A HALT NEAR CAPE BERGHAUS.]
13. In the afternoon, accompanied by the Tyrolese, I ascended a mountain—Cape Littrow—whose height, by means of an aneroid barometer, we ascertained to be 2,500 feet. From its summit we had a view of the mountains of Hall Island, and of the islands which lay to the east. Not a breath of wind was stirring, and the atmosphere was clearer than usual, so that, without suffering in the least degree from cold, I could work for three hours, first in sketching our surroundings and then in taking observations. From south-west to north-east the peaks of distant mountains rose above the summits of those in the foreground. This view, while it assured us that the land we had named after our monarch must be of great extent, stimulated our impatience to know its extent, and the nature and relation of its constituent parts. The Wüllersdorf Mountains were the extreme limits of what could be known for the present, and their three peaks glowed in the setting sun above the dark edges of the terraces of the Sonklar-Glacier, whose broad terminal front over-hung the frozen bay of Nordenskjöld Fiord. It was eight o’clock in the evening when we returned to our tent, not, however, before we had made suitable preparations for the observation of the movement of the glacier. Sumbu and Torossy were our companions; but we had to tie them with a rope both in going up and coming down, and we ourselves only mastered the great steepness of the cone of the mountain by steps which Klotz, who went on before, hewed with incomparable dexterity and precision in the ice. During the night the temperature fell to 46° below zero (C.) (-47° F. in the ship), and I do not believe that we could have passed through it without the help of grog. We drank it as we lay close together muffled up in our sleeping bag. It was boiling hot, and so strong, that under other circumstances it must have made us incapable of work, yet in spite of the grog, we suffered much all through the night from cold and our frozen clothes.
1. THE coldest day we had during this expedition was the 14th of March. By six o’clock on the morning of that day the Tyrolese and I stood on the summit of the precipitous face of the Sonklar-Glacier. The others remained behind to clear the tent of snow, and to bury a small depôt of provisions in an iceberg which was close at hand. The sun had not yet risen, though a golden gleam behind the glaciers of Salm Island indicated his near approach. At last the sun himself appeared, blood-red, glowing with indistinct outline through the mists, and surrounded with parhelia, which generally occur when the cold is great. The tops of the high snowy mountains were first touched with rosy light, which gradually descended and spread over the icy plains, and the sun like a ball of fire shone at length clearly through the frosty mist, and everything around seemed on fire. As the sun even at noon was but a few degrees above the horizon, this wonderful colouring lasted throughout the day, and the mountains, whose steepest sides were covered with a frosty efflorescence, shone like glass in this radiant light. The alcohol thermometer soon after we came on the glacier fell to 59° 1′ (F.) below zero,[34] and a light breeze blowing from the interior, which would have been pleasant enough on a March day in Europe, exposed me, while engaged in the indispensable work of drawing and measuring, to such danger, that though I worked under the shelter of my Tyrolese companions as a protection against the cold, I was constantly compelled to rub my stiffened and benumbed hands with snow. We had taken some rum with us, and as each took his share, he knelt down and allowed another to shake it into his mouth, without bringing the metal cup in contact with his lips. This rum, though it was strong, seemed to have lost all its strength and fluidity. It tasted like innocent milk, and its consistence was that of oil. The bread was frozen so hard that we feared to break our teeth in biting it, and it brought blood as we ate it. The attempt to smoke a cigar was a punishment rather than an enjoyment, because the icicles on our beards always put them out, and when we took them out of our mouths they were frozen. Even the shortest pipes met the same fate. The instruments I used in surveying seemed to burn when I touched them, and the medals which my companions wore on their breasts felt like hot iron.