138 A VOYAGE TO SPITZBEBGEN, ETC. 



VIII. — A Voyage to Spitzhergen and the Arctic Seas. By Abel 

 Chapman, Esq., Silksworth Hall, Sunderland. With Four 

 Plates. 



The interest which has always attached to records of Arctic 

 research has tempted me to write the following account of a 

 brief visit to Spitzbergen, and the adjacent seas, in the summer 

 of 1881. 



An expedition to the Arctic regions was proposed in the spring 

 of that year ; but so little enterprise is there among travellers, 

 that while '' Cook" can draw his thousands to the beaten tracks 

 of the Rhine or the Mle, or to rush " round the world in ninety 

 days," the greatest difficulty was experienced in securing a mere 

 handful who were willing to strike out a new line, and thereby 

 reach some of the least-known and most sublime phenomena of 

 Nature. These difficulties it is u.nnecessary to recount. Even- 

 tually, after a long period of doubt and uncertainty, they were 

 surmounted, and on 12th July our small party embarked at 

 North Shields, '' than which," wrote a south-country member of 

 tho expedition, "we encountered no more uncivilized looking 

 region in all our travels, nor any in which the native language 

 is more incomprehensible." 



Leaving the Tyne in the s.s. '' Johann Sverdrup," we joined 

 our chartered steamer, the "Pallas," in Bergen, on 15th July. 

 The latter, which was to be our ocean home for several weeks, 

 was a commodious little vessel of 367 tons and 50 horse-power, 

 giving a speed of nine knots. 



Of our nine hundred mile voyage through the Norwegian 

 fjords little need be said. They are doubtless well known to 

 most of my readers. The mountain scenery is magnificent, 

 especially about the wild Loffotens, but bird life is singularly 

 deficient : Shags and Arctic Skuas in the south, family parties 

 of Eider Ducks, and a few common sea-birds here and there 

 were all we saw, save an occasional Eagle soaring high over 

 the mountain peaks. 



At Tromso we stopped two days to fill up with coal and take 

 in our stores of provisions, etc. Here a,lso our ice-navigator, 



