Part 21 (2/2)
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 s.h.i.+pwrecked men remained the whole winter, and were tolerably well off. When the weather permitted they a.s.sisted the Samoyeds in capturing seals, and when the weather was bad they pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d. When, for instance, they saw a seal and missed shooting it, they shot at the sun, because they believed that G.o.d 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 s.h.i.+pwrecked men, whom they provided with warm skin clothes, and during the whole time with food in abundance, according to their circ.u.mstances, 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-sh.o.r.e, 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 s.h.i.+pwrecked men on their way southwards, till they fell in with a vessel, with which four returned to Norway. Lars La.r.s.en 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 s.h.i.+pwrecked 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sed on 2nd August, and over the nearly ice-free Kara Sea as far as to the mouth of the Yenisej. The _Proeven_ anch.o.r.ed 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. Lundstrom 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 d.i.c.kson 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.serted that the success of the _Proeven_ depended on an accidental combination of fortunate circ.u.mstances, 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 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 princ.i.p.al 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 and 71 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:
[Ill.u.s.tration: JOSEPH WIGGINS ]
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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: DAVID IVANOVITSCH SCHWANENBERG. Born in Courland in 1831. ]
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 pa.s.sed 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 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 pa.s.sage to Norway.
The vessel was then towed along the coast to Gothenburg, and through the Gota Ca.n.a.l 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 pa.s.sage 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 anch.o.r.ed at Beli Ostrov on the 24th August, pa.s.sed 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, pa.s.sed 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GUSTAF ADOLF NUMMELIN. Born at Viborg in 1853. ]
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 s.p.a.ce for three men. Cooking is done in the fore. The cargo consisted of a small quant.i.ty 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.
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