From almost the first hour violent blizzards, intense cold, and the uneven condition of the ice made the journey disheartening and laborious. By April 1 they penetrated by Cape Hausa into a newly discovered passage, covered with heavy ice, to which Payer gave the name of Austria Sound. By the 7th of April they advanced into Rawlinson Sound, over a track between hummocks some of which were forty feet high, the depressions between them filled with deep layers of snow. The noble mountain forms and mighty glaciers of Crown Prince Rudolf Land could be seen in the distance. Pursuing their course in a westerly direction they reached Hohenlohe Island the next day, where the expedition encamped, and the party divided, the smaller continuing to the north for the purpose of examining the glaciers of Rudolf Land. A disaster occurred the first day after their departure which nearly proved fatal to the success of their undertaking. While crossing the Middendorf glacier, the snow gave way beneath a sledge, which precipitated one of the men, Zaninovich by name, the dogs and sledge, into a crevasse. “From an unknown depth,” writes Payer, “I heard a man’s voice mingled with the howling of dogs. All this was the impression of a moment, while I felt myself dragged backwards by the rope. Staggering back, and seeing the dark abyss beneath me, I could not doubt that I should be precipitated into it the next instant. A wonderful Providence arrested the fall of the sledge; at a depth of about thirty feet it stuck fast between the sides of the crevasse, just as I was being dragged to the edge of the abyss by its weight. The sledge having jammed itself in, I lay on my stomach close to the awful brink, the rope which attached me to the sledge tightly strained, and cutting deep into the snow. The situation was all the more dreadful as I, the only person present accustomed to the dangers of glaciers, lay there unable to stir. When I cried down to Zaninovich that I would cut the rope, he implored me not to do it, for if I did, the sledge would turn over, and he would be killed. For a time I lay quiet, considering what was to be done. By and by it flashed into my memory, how I and my guide had once fallen down a wall of ice in the Irtler Mountains, eight hundred feet high, and had escaped. This inspired me with confidence to venture on a rescue, desperate as it seemed under the circumstances. Orel had now come up, and, although he had never been on a glacier before, this gallant officer dauntlessly advanced to the edge of the crevasse, and laying himself on his stomach, looked down into the abyss, and cried to me, ‘Zaninovich is lying on a ledge of snow in the crevasse, with precipices all round him and the dogs are still attached to the traces of the sledge, which has stuck fast.’ I called to him to throw me his knife, which he did with such dexterity, that I was able to lay hold of it without difficulty,