New lands within the Arctic circle: Narrative of the discoveries of the Austrian ship "Tegetthoff" in the years 1872-1874Payer, Julius
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New lands within the Arctic circle: Narrative of the discoveries of the Austrian ship "Tegetthoff" in the years 1872-1874
Payer, Julius
Admiral Tegetthoff (Ship); Arctic regions; Franz Josef Land (Russia) -- Discovery and exploration
13. To-day, too, we allowed the dogs to descend into our cabin,—the
constant object of their longings. The poor animals were so dazzled by
looking at our lamp, that they almost took it for the sun itself; but
by and by their attention was directed exclusively to the rich remains
of our dinner, the sight of which appeared completely to satisfy their
notions of the wonders of the cabin. After behaving themselves with great
propriety, they again quietly withdrew, all except Jubinal, who appeared
to be indignant at the deceitfulness of our conduct, inasmuch as we had
allowed him to starve so long on dried horse-flesh and on crushed bear’s
head, while we revelled in luxury. He accordingly made his way into
Lieutenant Brosch’s cabin, where, discovering a mountain of macaroni, he
immediately attacked it, and warned us off from every attempt to rescue
it, by growling fiercely till he had finished it all. Sumbu, however,
with much levity, suffered himself to be made drunk by the sailors with
rum, and everything which he had scraped together for weeks and buried in
the snow and so carefully watched, was stolen from him by the other dogs
in one night.
14. Another year had now glided away. Looking anxiously into the future,
we shortsighted mortals saw the fulfilment of our highest wishes in being
liberated from the floe. In the pious manner of the whalers of the Arctic
Ocean, Carlsen wrote this day in the log: “Önsker at Gud maa vere med os
i det nye aar, da kan intet vare imod os—_May God be with us in the new
year and nothing can be against us_.” In this new year, with its happier
issues, was verified again the eternal truth, that Providence acts in
ways not to be fathomed, and that it is folly in man to mark out his own
path beforehand according to his own mind. The sun of this new year,
whose beams were to light us to new lands and discoveries, was still low
beneath the horizon.
CHAPTER VI.
LIFE ON BOARD THE “TEGETTHOFF.”
1. Like a spectre in white, the ship stretches out her arms, as if in
silent complaint, towards the heaven, and rests, in cruel mockery of
her destiny, on a mountain, not of water, but of ice, and seems like a
building ready to fall in. A wall of snow and ice surrounds her hull,
snow lies thick on her deck, and her rigging is stiffened in icy lines.
Could we see through her sides, we should then behold four-and-twenty
men parted off in two spaces under the suns of two lamps. Let us inspect
them, and first the cabin of the officers in the after-part of the ship.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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