[18] The rubbing of frozen places with snow, so often recommended, is most injurious in the extreme north. In my own expedition it was once suggested to a man whose nose was freezing, as a matter of joke. Taken seriously, the unfortunate man rubbed his nose freely. The sharp, sand-like particles of snow acted like a file and scraped off the skin so that it was a week or more before the man's face was healed. LIFE ON AN EAST GREENLAND ICE-PACK "And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold: And ice, mast-high, came floating by, As green as emerald." --COLERIDGE. The second German north polar expedition sailed under Captain Karl Koldewey in 1869, with the intention of landing on the coast of East Greenland, near Sabine Island, whence by winter sledging the explorations of the northern coasts of Greenland and of the north polar basin were to be undertaken. The two ships of the expedition, the _Germania_ and the _Hansa_, reached by the middle of July the edge of the great ice-pack, which in enormous and generally impenetrable ice-masses streams southward from the Arctic Ocean between Greenland and Spitzbergen. As an accompaniment to this vast ice-field come from the glacier fiords of East Greenland most of the enormous icebergs which are sighted and encountered by transatlantic steamships off the banks of Newfoundland. The ships separating through misunderstanding of a signal, the _Germania_, a steam-ship, succeeded in working her way through the ice-stream to Sabine Island, where her crew carried out its programme. The _Hansa_, without steam-power, and so dependent on sails, became entangled in the pack in early August and was never able to escape therefrom. The fate of the _Hansa_ and the experiences of her crew form the subject-matter of this sketch. * * * * * Until the _Hansa_ was fast frozen in the pack, on September 9, Captain Hegemann was prepared for any emergency, whether the ship was crushed or if opening lanes of water should permit escape to Sabine Island from which they were only forty miles distant. Completely equipped and victualled boats were kept on deck so that they could be lowered to the ice at any moment. When the ship was frozen in the captain faced resourcefully the serious question of wintering in the pack. It was known to him that no ship had ever escaped from such wintering in the drifting ice-pack of the Greenland Sea, and indeed the violent and frequently recurring pressures of the ice-field pointed to the early loss of their ship. Life might be possible, but health and comfort could not be had in boats covered with canvas. Cramped quarters, severe cold, damp bedding, and absence of facilities for cooking forbade such an attempt. While others suggested the snow houses of the Eskimo, one fertile mind urged that a living-house be built of coal, which was done. [Illustration: Southeastern Greenland.]