The three cheers given by the shipwrecked people were returned by a hundred men on deck and aloft. The vessel proved to be the barkentine _Tigress_, sealer, Captain Bartlett, of Conception Bay, Newfoundland. Her small seal boats were very soon in the water; but the shipwrecked party did not wait for them. They threw everything out of their own boat, launched her, and in a few moments were on board the _Tigress_, where they became objects of extreme curiosity, as well as of the most devoted attention. When the time during which they had been on the ice was mentioned, they were regarded with astonishment, and warmly congratulated upon their miraculous escape. They were picked up in latitude 53° 35´ N., off Grady Harbor, Labrador. Thus ended one of the most remarkable escapes on record. For five months the little band of shipwrecked men and women had drifted at the mercy of the Arctic ice-pack, a distance of 1300 miles. CHAPTER XIV Captain Thomas Long.—Discovery of Wrangell Land.—Captain Carlsen and Captain Palliser sail across the Sea of Kara.—Captain Johannsen circumnavigates Nova Zembla.—First German expedition.—Second German expedition.—_Germania_, Captain Koldewey commanding.—_Hansa_, Captain Hegemann.—Departure from Bremen.—Crossing the Arctic Circle.—Island of Jan Mayen.—The ice line.—Separation from the _Hansa_.—Adrift on the ice-floe.—Winter.—Final rescue.—_Germania_ beset.—Winter.—Sledging parties.—Lieutenant Payer’s remarkable journey.—77° 1´ north latitude.—Return of the _Germania_. [Sidenote: _CAPTAIN THOMAS LONG_] Other important discoveries followed the journeys of Dr. Hayes and Captain Hall, including that of Captain Thomas Long, an American whaler, who in 1867 discovered “a mountainous country of considerable extent in the Polar Ocean, beyond Behring Strait,” supposed at that time to be the western prolongation of Plover Island. The same year Captain Carlsen and Captain Palliser sailed across the generally inaccessible Sea of Kara to the mouths of the Obi,—and Captain Johannsen succeeded in circumnavigating the whole archipelago of Nova Zembla. In 1868 the first German north polar expedition was fitted out through the exertions of the scientist Dr. A. Peterman of Gotha. The yacht _Greenland_, commanded by Captain Koldewey, sailed to Spitzbergen, reaching 84° 05´ N. off the north coast, and, passing down Henlopen Strait, sighted Wiche Land, returning home the fall of the same year. [Sidenote: _SECOND GERMAN EXPEDITION_] In 1869 and 1870, the Germans made a more successful attempt to enter the lists of Arctic discovery by exploring a considerable part of the previously unvisited coast of East Greenland. The ship _Germania_ was chosen for this purpose, being expressly adapted for ice navigation; the _Hansa_ of nearly the same size was to accompany her. Captain Karl Koldewey and Captain Fr. Hegemann were first and second in command respectively.