New lands within the Arctic circle: Narrative of the discoveries of the Austrian ship "Tegetthoff" in the years 1872-1874Payer, Julius
History
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
3. On the morning of the 10th of April (the thermometer standing at 5°
F.) we divided the tent; one half was put on the dog-sledge, the other
was pitched, with its open side close under the rock. Before a caravan
takes the desert, the camels are watered, and we too, though in a
very different kind of desert, exposed to the constant evil of thirst,
would gladly have been treated in like fashion. But we had to content
ourselves with a pint of boiling water, served out to each of us every
morning, reminding us, indeed, of coffee, for 2 lbs. of it were boiled
in 105 gallons of water in the course of thirty days. The provisions
were divided, and enough for eight days was dealt out to the party
starting to the north, Orel, Zaninovitch, Klotz, myself, and two dogs.
The special requirements of our expedition, among which were a rifle and
a revolver, raised the weight of our sledge to about 4 cwt., which it was
the business of the dogs to draw without any assistance from us, and this
they did over the level snow with such zeal, that we had some trouble in
keeping up with them.
4. The merits of our dogs I have hitherto left unnoticed, in order
emphatically to assert that we owed the passing beyond the eighty-second
degree of north latitude not to our own exertions, but to the endurance
and courage of these animals. No kind of life among dogs is comparable
for hardships with the life of a dog in an Arctic sledge. His tent is
scarcely the pretext of a shelter, and his natural coat is generally
covered by a thick rime. The snow when it drifts completely covers him,
though he constantly but vainly seeks to shake it off. He draws his
breath with difficulty, hunger gnaws at his bowels, and his wounded feet
colour the snow with blood. Often, too, these poor animals amid the
great cold must keep still; then they lift up their paws alternately, to
prevent frost-bite. The two dogs, which accompanied us to the extreme
North, were the noblest animals ever employed in a sledge expedition,
and when I recall the great services they rendered us, both now and
afterwards in the return to Europe, their sad end fills me with sincere
sorrow. Jubinal and Torossy were dogs of remarkable size and strength,
and escaped the epidemic diseases[46] which attacked the dogs of Hayes
and Kane; and though it has been thought that the dogs of the Eskimo and
of the Siberian people were alone adapted for Arctic expeditions, our
experience with our own dogs most of them brought from Vienna, proves
that they were not a whit less useful. Our dogs had only one defect:
they had not been trained to sledge-drawing from their youth, but had
been broken to it only during our expedition, and were therefore not
always amenable to discipline. When left to themselves in dragging the
sledge they went on, without turning to the right or left, from cape
to cape, and if they found themselves on a wide plain of ice, and far
from all striking landmarks, they ran either towards the sun or moon, or
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