270 THE SEA*. 



desperate. Tyson, the second officer, with the steward, cook, six sailors, and eight Esquimaux, 

 passed a miserable night on the drifting- floe. Next morning hope revived in their breasts 

 when they saw the Polaris apparently steaming towards them, and all kinds of attempts were 

 made to attract attention : an india-rubber blanket was hoisted on an oar, but all to no purpose. 

 The steamer altered her course, disappearing behind a point of the land, and eighteen deserted 

 beings were destined to a series of experiences similar to those recorded of the Hansa men. 

 At the Washington investigation, it was shown that the captain had at the time hopes of 

 saving his vessel, which, after all, had to be run ashore on Lyttelton Island, in a sinking 

 condition. As they had the boats and a supply of provisions, he considered their condition 

 better than his own. 



The men on the ice did their best under the circumstances, and their experiences were 

 hardly less eventful than those of the Germans in a similar strait. Their food became scarce 

 as the winter advanced, but the Esquimaux were of considerable use to them in catching 

 seals. They passed nearly six months on the drifting ice-floe (from October 15th, 1872, to 

 April 1st, 1873), and when at length they left it, and were rescued by the sealing steamer 

 Tigress, we can well imagine the revulsion of feeling described in their evidence before the 

 Washington committee. Meantime the Polaris herself was ashore on Lyttelton Island, 

 where Buddington, his officers and men, fourteen souls in all, had to pass the winter, 

 fortunately under no great privations, as the stores were saved. They were eventually 

 rescued by the Ravenscraig, a steam-whaler, and later, having been transferred to the whaler 

 Arctic, reached Dundee, and eventually their own homes, in safety. In spite of the perils 

 encountered by both parties, Captain Hall was the only one of the little baud who did not 

 live to reach his native land. 



The Americans have, therefore, as we have indicated, stuck bravely to the Smith Sound 

 route to the Pole, and a large proportion of English and foreign authorities still favour the 

 same idea. 



We have seen the staunch little Fox of M'Clintock's expedition miraculously escape 

 from the grinding surging ice after a detention of 24-2 days, any one of which might easily 

 have been the last for its brave company ; we have witnessed, in mental vision, the philo- 

 sophical German crew of the ill-fated Hansa drifting 1,100 miles on their precarious ice-raft, 

 to be saved, every man of them, at last ; and we have just seen half of the Polaris men 

 rescued from their peril on the floating ice-field after nearly six months of weary watching. 

 Turn we now to one more example of the dangers of the Arctic seas to find a vessel to all 

 appearance hopelessly encompassed in the ice-drifts, and destined not to make its escape 

 before two long and dreary years had passed away. 



When in 1874 the Austro-Hungarian expedition, after a long absence, during which 

 nothing had been heard from it, returned in safety, many fears which had been felt were 

 sensibly allayed ; and when the public learned of the difficulties they had encountered and 

 the grand discoveries made, it was generally voted a complete success. This expedition, 

 under Lieutenant Weyprecht of the Navy and Lieutenant Payer of the Engineers who had 

 already made himself a name as an Arctic explorer in the second German expedition had 

 been partly organised at the expense of the public, and greatly aided by Count Wilczek, 

 who accompanied it in his yacht as far as Barents Island. A very small steamer no more 



