

TOWARDS THE NORTH POLE. 165 



supplied with provisions a defect which appears to be 

 not uncommon with German expeditions. 



Soon after their return, Payer and Weyprecht began to 

 prepare for a new expedition ; and this time their prepara- 

 tions were thorough, and adapted for a long stay in Arctic 

 regions. " The chief aim of this expedition," says the Revue 

 des Deux Mondes, in an interesting account of recent Polar 

 researches, " was to investigate the unknown regions of the 

 Polar seas to the north of Siberia, and to try to reach 

 Behring's Straits by this route." It was only if after two 

 winters and three summers they failed to double the extreme 

 promontory of Asia, that they were to direct their course 

 towards the Pole. The voyagers, numbering twenty-four 

 persons, left the Norwegian port of Tromsoe, in the steamer 

 Tegethoff, on July 14, 1872. Count Wilczek followed shortly 

 after in a yacht, which was to convey coals and provisions to 

 an eastern point of the Arctic Ocean, for the benefit of the 

 Tegethoff. At a point between Novaia Zemlia and the 

 mouth of the Petschora, the yacht lost sight of the steamer, 

 and nothing was heard of the latter for twenty-five months. 

 General anxiety was felt for the fate of the expedition, and 

 various efforts were made by Austria, England, and Russia 

 to obtain news of it In September, 1874, the voyagers 

 suddenly turned up at another port, and soon after entered 

 Vienna amid great enthusiasm. Their story was a strange 

 one. 



It appears that when the Tegethoff was lost sight oi 

 (August 21, 1872), she had been surrounded by vast masses 

 of ice, which crushed her hull For nearly half a year the 

 deadly embrace of the ice continued ; and when at length 

 pressure ceased, the ship remained fixed in the ice, several 

 miles from open water. During the whole summer the 

 voyagers tried to release their ship, but in vain. They had 

 not, however, remained motionless all this time. The yacht 

 had lost sight x>f them at a spot between Novaia Zemlia and 

 Malaia Zemlia (in North Russia) in about 71 north latitude, 

 and they were imprisoned not far north of this spot. But 



