1. The momentous day came at last—the 20th of May, the very day in 1855 on which Kane abandoned his ship;[53] and we hailed with joy the advent of the hour which was to terminate our life of inaction. Yet we could not see without emotion the flags nailed to the masts of the _Tegetthoff_, and the final preparations to leave the ship, which had been our home for two weary years, and in which we had confronted the perils of the frozen sea, its ice-pressures, its storms, and its cold. These recollections crowded upon us as the moment came to abandon her. Now too we had to part with our Zoological, Botanical, and Geological collections, the result of so much labour; the ample collection of instruments, the books which had helped us over many a weary hour, and the sixty-seven bear-skins which we had so carefully prepared—all these had also to be abandoned. The photographs of friends and acquaintances we hung on the rocky walls ashore, preferring to leave them there rather than in the ship, which must some time or other be driven ashore and go to pieces. A document stating the grounds of our decision was laid on the table of the mess-room. [Illustration: THE FIRST ABANDONMENT OF THE “TEGETTHOFF.” _To face_ p. 348.] 2. We slept during this day, and in the evening sat down to the last meal we were to enjoy on board the ship. About nine o’clock, P.M., we assembled round the boats, ready for the start. Dark masses of clouds obscured the sun, and our route southwards led us into the gloomy monotonous region of ice-hummocks covered with snow—our world for the next three months. The first day’s work for twenty-three men, harnessed to boat or sledge, was the advance of one mile; and even this rate of progress, small as it was, was not constant. Many days it did not amount to half a mile; the sledge-sail was of little avail, for the deep snow retarded our progress; the sledges sank deep into it, those on which the boats were placed actually sticking fast. We had to pass three times heavily laden, and twice empty, over every bit of the road, and half our number were scarcely able to move a sledge or a boat. Such labours and exertions in deep snow were truly distracting. Almost at every step we sank knee-deep. Sometimes some unhappy fellows went in deeper still; of Scarpa, it was asserted that scarcely anything but his head was visible while he dragged. Constantly we had either to unload the sledge, or, harnessing ourselves all together for a moment, drag it out of the deep snow-drift. For one-half of the march we might get on without special impediment, the other half was spent in vain efforts to push the load on, amid “Aussingen,”[54] to time the strong pull and the pull all together. The perspiration often streamed down our faces, for the sky was overcast, and the air exceedingly sultry. After the exertion of some days, raw wounds appeared on the shoulders of several. After a bit of our track