CHAPTER XXV 



SPITSBERGEN AS A SUMMER RESORT 



THE relative accessibility of Spitsbergen rendered it 

 certain to become, sooner or later, the goal of 

 summer tourists. Holiday - makers are incited to travel 

 by a variety of motives. Curiosity moves some ; mere 

 fatuous love of change operates on others ; whilst I fear 

 that the only reason for which many leave their homes is 

 to be able to boast on their return that they have visited 

 such and such places beyond the range of their friends. 

 The ardent lover of Nature is impelled to become ac- 

 quainted with all the moods of his great mistress. It is 

 his joy to behold her in sunshine as in storm, in the 

 glory of fertility as in the majesty of the desert ; to 

 pursue her into the fastnesses of the mountains or the 

 breadth of the plains ; to know her beneath her mantle 

 of snow and ice, as well as in all her gorgeous pageantry 

 of tropical exuberance. For him the mystery of Polar 

 snows and the summer-long day must have a strong fascina- 

 tion. Knowing that Nature never and nowhere "did betray 

 the heart that loves her," he will feel confident that there 

 is a beauty of the Arctic regions as well worth knowing as 

 that of any other part of this great terrestrial ball. 



The time, therefore, was sure to come when it would 

 occur to some caterer for the public entertainment that 

 tourist steamers to Spitsbergen would pay. The pioneer in 

 this enterprise was Captain W. Bade, formerly an officer 

 in the German Navy. He took part in the North-German 



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