4i8 ABRUZZI, THE ROYAL ITALIAN EXPLORER 



yielded to the strain, and along its length was uplifted a ridge of 

 hummock ice. The line of pressure passed through the spot where 

 the "Stella Polare" was made fast. The hummock rose against 

 her bows and forced her ninety feet away from where she had been, 

 while, at the same moment, an increase in the pressure caught her 

 by the sides, heeled her over, and cracked her timbers till those on 

 board rushed to the deck under the belief that the vessel was about 

 to collapse. The rigging of the foremast was torn away, the planks 

 of the exposed side showed spaces of three inches between them, 

 and water poured into the hold so rapidly that it was feared the ship 

 would go down. The hand-pump was manned and worked, while 

 the fires were lit so as to get up steam and set the steam-pump going, 

 every one who was not required for these jobs working vigorously 

 to get all stores out of the ship and on to the ice, lest she should go 

 down and leave them stranded and foodless. The Arctic was giving 

 a characteristic and rugged greeting to the visitors from the South. 

 The stores were landed with the greatest rapidity, the activity 

 with which every one worked being still further stimulated by the 

 news from below that the hand-pump, which was being worked by 

 four men, could not keep the water back, and that already it was 

 almost touching the bars of the furnaces. At one time it looked as 

 though there would be no chance of saving the fires, and had the 

 water once reached them and so prevented steam being got up, the 

 plight of the explorers would have been critical in the extreme. As 

 it was, the Norwegian engineers worked like heroes, and managed 

 to make enough steam to start the steam-pump just as the water 

 touched the fires in one of the boiler furnaces. The steam-pump, 

 assisting the hand-pump, was sufficient to keep the water from 

 rising further, but not enough to keep it back altogether. Neither 

 the steam nor the hand ump, by itself, could prevent the water 

 from rising. Both had to be kept going, since if the water should 

 reach the fires and put them out the effort to save the ship might 

 have proved hopeless. 



