It deserves to be stated that the expedition of the _Tegetthoff_ was partly due to the munificence of a private individual, the Count Wilczek, who contributed the sum of forty thousand florins towards its equipment, besides encouraging the enterprise by every means in his power. The _Tegetthoff_ was a screw-steamer of two hundred and twenty tons burden, built expressly for this expedition, with engines of one hundred horse-power, and fitted out for a voyage of two-and-a-half years' duration. Her commander was Captain Weyprecht, and with him was associated, as colleague and as director of the land operations, the writer of these volumes, Lieutenant Payer. The crew, officers and men included, numbered only twenty-four. The ideal object of the voyage was the north-east passage; its direct and expressed aim, the exploration of the seas and lands lying to the north-east of Novaya Zemlya. Where the ship was to winter was not definitely fixed; and a return home by way of Behring's Strait was, though improbable, a possibility. The _Tegetthoff_ left Bremerhaven on June 13, 1872, and Tromsoe a month later. Immediately previous to the voyage of the _Tegetthoff_, a preliminary voyage of reconnaissance had been made in a small coasting-ship by Count Wilczek, who had found the sea between Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya almost entirely open and free from ice. It was hoped, therefore, that the water would be in the same condition when the _Tegetthoff_ crossed it, and that where a small sailing-vessel had gone so far, a fully equipped steam-ship might penetrate almost indefinitely. But to the latter vessel the Spitzbergen seas presented a wholly dissimilar aspect. The ice was first encountered in seventy-four degrees--much farther south than was expected; and from that time it never entirely left the vessel. Off Cape Nassau the expedition was overtaken by Count Wilczek, who had followed in the _Isbjörn_, the small sailing-ship in which the preliminary pioneering voyage had been made, with the object of placing a depot for the _Tegetthoff_ on the north coast of Novaya Zemlya. Very shortly after the two vessels separated, the _Tegetthoff_ was fairly beset and hemmed in by the ice in latitude 76° 22′ N., longitude 63° 3′ E. The good ship had made her first and her last voyage, for from that icy grip she was destined never to get free. Long and desperate were the efforts made by officers and men to release the ship. Sawing the ice and blasting with powder, both above and below the surface, alike proved fruitless. Fissures that had been made with great toil, froze again as soon as made; and when the vessel tried to steam against the ice, it was unable so much as to set the floe in motion. The _Tegetthoff_ was now entirely at the mercy of the terrible foe by which she was beset on all sides.