CHAPTER XXIII.

GERMAN EXPEDITION TOWARDS THE NORTH POLE-CAPTAIN KOLDEWEY'S VOYAGE TO SPITZBERGEN ATTEMPT TO REACH GILLIS LAND-CAPTAIN KOLDEWEY'S VOYAGE TO GREENLAND -WRECK OF CAPTAIN HEGEMANN'S SHIP-WINTER ON A FLOE-DELIVERANCE OF THE CREW-WINTER AT SABINE ISLAND-JOURNEY ON THE ICE.

HE north-west passage had now been discovered, and the fate of the Franklin expedition was no longer shrouded in mystery. But the North Pole had not yet been reached, and the unknown lands and seas beyond the eighty-third parallel were regarded with

a jealous eye by men of science, and with eager desire to emulate the achievements of Parry, Ross, Franklin, and Maclure by lovers of maritime adventure. The terrible fate of the Franklin expedition, and the sufferings endured by Kane and his crew, damped the spirit of enterprise only for a few years. The sight of Wrangell Land obtained by Captain Kellett, the unknown extent of Greenland northward, and the discovery by Kane's men of an open ocean beyond Smith Sound, were so strongly suggestive of new discoveries to be made in the more remote regions of the Ice King's realm, that new expeditions soon began to be planned.

At the instance of Dr. Petermann, an eminent German cosmographer, and with funds contributed by the scientific associations of Germany, a small vessel was purchased at

Captain Koldewey off Spitzbergen.

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Bergen, for the double purpose of advancing as near to the North Pole as might be found practicable, and of surveying a region beyond the eighty-first parallel, the south-western coast of which was sighted in 1707, and has received the name of Gillis Land. The vessel sailed from Bergen on the 24th of May, 1868, under the command of Captain Koldewey, and ran to the north-eastward until a change of course was rendered necessary by the interposition of an impenetrable barrier of ice off the South Cape of Spitzbergen.

The neighbourhood of the ice being made doubly dangerous by the occurrence of a storm, which agitated the detached masses in a violent manner, dashing and grinding them against each other, the vessel was steered to the south-eastward, until more favourable weather enabled her to approach the ice with comparative safety. An easterly course had to be held along the edge of the ice, however, until she nearly attained the twenty-fifth degree of east longitude, when a passage was found among towering icebergs which overtopped her masts, and she ran along the seventy-sixth parallel of latitude until she was again off the South Cape. Captain Koldewey then coasted Spitzbergen to the north-west, as far as the little island of Amsterdam, and sailing round the northern coast, began his quest of that unknown land which the Arctic fogs had concealed for more than a century and a half.

Ice and contrary winds impeding a direct course for Gillis Land, he ran to the northward, and succeeded in getting a little beyond the eighty-first parallel. The same causes, combined with stormy weather, continuing to obstruct his progress, he ran to the south-west, and endeavoured to reach the east coast of Greenland in a higher latitude than had been explored by Scoresby. Again baffled by the ice, he returned to the

coast of Spitzbergen, and, as the season was not yet too far advanced for a survey of the coast, explored the strait which divides the north-eastern coast from the neighbouring island, formerly supposed to be a part of it, but now called NorthEast Land. Walruses were seen in great numbers on the shores and the islets which lie between them, and the cliffs swarmed with aquatic birds. Retracing his course, he sailed down the west coast of Spitzbergen, and then steered southwestward, touching at Bergen on the 30th of September, and arriving at Bremen on the 9th of October.

The failure of this expedition did not deter its promoters from undertaking another. The east coast of Greenland, northward of the islands discovered by Scoresby, was very little known, and it was thought that explorations beyond that point might result in great discoveries. Beyond Wollaston Foreland, a little south of the seventy-fifth parallel, it was an unknown region, the knowledge of the civilised world concerning it being limited to the facts that a headland just below the seventy-eighth parallel had been sighted by a whaler in 1655, and another on the seventy-ninth parallel in 1670. Kane's discoveries had shown that the west coast extended northward beyond the eighty-second parallel; and the intervening coast, embracing more than fifty degrees of longitude, afforded a wide field for the enterprise and energy of explorers. Two vessels were equipped for this purpose, and sailed from the Weser on the 15th of June, 1869, under the command of Captain Koldewey, with Captain Hegemann as junior.

The course followed carried both vessels into the ice off the east coast of Greenland, which they endeavoured to make between the seventy-fourth and seventy-fifth parallels. On the 20th of July, while engaged in dangerous and intricate navigation among floating masses of ice, they became separated.