5. For thousands of years this land had lain buried from the knowledge of men, and now its discovery had fallen into the lap of a small band, themselves almost lost to the world, who far from their home remembered the homage due to their sovereign, and gave to the newly-discovered territory the name KAISER FRANZ-JOSEF’S LAND. With loud hurrahs we drank to the health of our Emperor in grog hastily made on deck in an iron coffee-pot, and then dressed the _Tegetthoff_ with flags. All cares, for the present at least, disappeared, and with them the passive monotony of our lives. There was not a day, there was hardly an hour, in which this mysterious land did not henceforth occupy our thoughts and attention. We discussed whether this or that elevation in the grey and misty distance were a mountain, or an island, or a glacier. All our attempts to solve the question of the extent of the land lying before us were of course still more fruitless. From the headland which we had first seen (Cape Tegetthoff), to its hazy outline, in the north-east, it seemed to extend nearly a degree; but as even its southernmost parts were at a great distance from us, it was impossible to arrive at anything more definite than a mere approximation to its configuration. The size and number of the icebergs which we had recently fallen in with were now amply explained,—they were indisputable witnesses of its great extent and its vast glaciation. 6. At the end of August and the beginning of September north winds drove us somewhat towards the south, so that the outlines of the land were still more faintly defined. But at the end of September we were again driven towards the north-west and reached 79° 58′, the highest degree of latitude to which the _Tegetthoff_ and its floe drifted. We now saw an island at some distance off—afterwards called Hochstetter island—lying before us. Its rocky outlines were distinctly visible, and the opportunity of _reaching the land by a forced march_ seemed more favourable than any which had been presented. It might also be the last chance offered to us, for our fears lest we might drift out of sight of this land were well founded. Six of her crew now left the _Tegetthoff_ and committed themselves to the destiny which the movement of the ice had in store for them. The east winds, which had prevailed during the last days, had forced the ice landward, and the pressures had crushed in the edges of our floe, and greatly diminished its size. We rushed over the grinding, groaning, broken walls of drifting ice, and so great was our ardour, that we took no notice when some one or other of the party tripped and fell. Each panted to reach the land. We had already gone half way, the ship having long disappeared from our eyes, when there arose a mist which enveloped everything, so that the masses of ice looked like high mountains through the hazy atmosphere. Of the land itself we could see nothing, and no choice was left to us but to return to the ship