For what Purpose was Middendorff’s Voyage to Taimurland undertaken?—Difficulties and Obstacles.—Expedition down the Taimur River to the Polar Sea.—Storm on Taimur Lake.—Loss of the Boat.—Middendorff ill and alone in 75° N. Lat.—Saved by a grateful Samoïede.—Climate and Vegetation of Taimurland.

On following the contours of the Siberian coast, we find to the east of Nova Zembla a vast tract of territory projecting towards the Pole, and extending its promontories far into the icy sea. This country—which, from its principal river, may be called Taimurland—is the most northern, and, I need hardly add, the most inhospitable part of the Old World. The last huts of the Russian fishermen are situated about the mouth of the Jenissei, but the whole territory of the Taimur River, and the regions traversed by the lower course of the Chatanga and the Päsina, are completely uninhabited.

Even along the upper course of these two last-named rivers, the population is exceedingly scanty and scattered; and the few Samoïedes who migrate during the summer to the banks of the Taimur, gladly leave them at the approach of winter, the cold of which no thermometer has ever measured. As may easily be imagined, Taimurland has but few attractions for the trader or the fur-hunter, but for the naturalist it is by no means without interest.

We have seen in a former chapter how Von Baer, prompted by the disinterested love of science, travelled to Nova Zembla to examine the productions of a cold insular summer beyond the 70th degree of latitude. The instructive results of his journey rendered it doubly desirable to obtain information about the effects of summer in a continental climate, situated if possible still farther to the north; and as no region could be better suited to this purpose than the interior of the broad mass of Taimurland, the Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg resolved to send thither a scientific expedition. Fortunately for the success of the undertaking, Von Middendorff, the eminent naturalist, whose offer of service was gladly accepted, was in every respect the right man in the right place; for to the most untiring scientific zeal, and an unwavering determination, he joined a physical strength and a manual dexterity rarely found united with learning. In the Lapland moors he had learned to bivouac for nights together, while chasing the waterfowl, and on foot he was able to tire the best-trained walrus-hunter. He understood how to construct a boat, and to steer it with his own hand, and every beast or bird was doomed that came within reach of his unerring ball. In one word, no traveller ever plunged into the Arctic wilds more independent of baggage, followers, or the means of transport.

On April 4 we find Middendorff, accompanied by Mr. Brandt, a Danish forester, and a single servant, on the ice of the Jenissei between Turuchansk and221 Dudino. Here his companions were attacked by measles; but as it was high time to reach the Chatanga before the melting of the snow, the patients were carefully packed up in boxes lined with skins, and the whole party—whose numbers, meanwhile, had been increased by the addition of a topographer and of three Cossacks—emerged from the region of forests on April 13, having to face a cold of -36°, and a storm that almost overturned their sledges. With Tunguse guides they traversed the tundra in a north-easterly direction as far as the Päsina, and thence passing on from one Samoïede horde to another, at length reached Koronnoie Filippowskoi (71° 5´ lat.) on the Boganida, an affluent of the Cheta, which is itself a tributary of the Chatanga. Here a halt was made, partly because all the party except Middendorff were by this time attacked with the reigning epidemic, and partly to wait for the Samoïedes, whom they intended to join on their summer migration to the north. During this interval Middendorff made an excursion to the Chatanga, for the purpose of gathering information about the voyage down that river, and to make the necessary preparations. In the village of Chatangsk, however, he found nearly all the inhabitants suffering from the measles; and as no assistance was to be expected from them, he resolved to alter his route, and to proceed as soon as possible to the River Taimur, which would in all probability afford him the best means for penetrating to the extreme confines of continental Asia. As this most northerly river of the Old World lies far beyond the boundaries of arboreal growth, a boat-frame of twelve feet on the keel had to be made at Koronnoie before setting out. Brandt was left behind with part of the company, to make a prolonged series of meteorological observations, and to gather as complete a collection as possible of the animals and plants of the country, while Middendorff started on his adventurous tour (May 19) with sixty-eight reindeer, under the guidance of a few Samoïedes on their progress to the north, and accompanied only by the topographer, an interpreter, and two Cossacks. The difficulties of this journey, since a boat-frame, fuel, provisions, physical instruments, apparatuses for the preservation of objects of natural history, forming altogether a load for many sledges, had to be transported along with the travellers, would have been great at all times, but were now considerably increased by the epidemic having also seized the tribe of Samoïedes which Middendorff expected to find near the small River Nowaia, and which was to guide him farther on to the Taimur. At length, after a search of three days, he found the remnant of the horde, which had been decimated and reduced to a deplorable condition by the epidemic. In vain he sought for the well-known faces of the chief personages of the horde, with whom he had negotiated on the Boganida—“they were all dead.” Of thirty-five persons, one only was completely healthy; a second could hardly crawl about; but the others lay prostrate in their tents, coughing and groaning under their skin coverings. Leaving seven corpses on the road, they had advanced by slow journeys to join Middendorff, until they broke down, so that instead of receiving aid at their hands, he was now obliged to help them in their distress—an assistance which they amply repaid, as we shall see in the sequel.

Unfortunately the illness had prevented the Samoïede women from sewing together, as they had promised, the skins that were necessary to complete the222 covering of the travellers’ tent, so that they had much to suffer during a violent snow-storm, which raged from May 27 to 30. Thus after another long delay and an irreparable loss of time, considering the extreme shortness of the summer, Middendorff was not able to start from the Nowaia before May 31. The softening of the snow rendered the advance of the sledges extremely difficult, so that it was not before June 14 that he reached the Taimur at a considerable distance above the point where the river discharges its waters into the lake. Encamping on a steep declivity of its bank, Middendorff now set about building his boat. On June 30 the ice on the river began to break up, and on July 5 the navigation of the stream was free. By the light of the midnight sun the boat was launched, and christened “The Tundra,” to commemorate the difficulties of its construction in the deserts of 74° N. lat. Constant north winds retarded the voyage down the river and over the lake, beyond which the Taimur, traversing a hilly country, is inclosed within steep and picturesque rocks. The increasing rapidity of the stream now favored the travellers, and the storms were less troublesome between the mighty rock-walls; but unfortunately Middendorff, instead of being able, as he had expected, to fill his nets with fish as he advanced, and to establish dépôts for his return journey, found himself obliged to consume the provisions he had taken with him in the boat. On August 6 the first night-frost took place, and from that time was regularly repeated. Yet in spite of these warnings, Middendorff continued his journey down the river, and reached the sea on August 24, in 76° N. lat. But now it was high time to return.

“The fear of leaving my undertaking half unfinished,” says Middendorff, “had hitherto encouraged me to persevere. The great distance from any human habitation, the rapid stream, against which we had now to contend, and the advanced season, with its approaching dark nights and frosts, made our return an imperative necessity, and I could have but little reliance on our remaining strength. The insufficient food and the fatigues of our journey, often prolonged to extreme exhaustion, had reduced our vigor, and we all began to feel the effects of our frequent wading through cold water, when, as often happened, our boat had grounded upon a shallow, or when the flat mud-banks of the river gave us no other alternative for reaching the dry land. It was now also the second month since we had not slept under a tent, having all the time passed the nights behind a screen erected on the oars of the boat, as a shelter against the wind. Provided with a good load of drift-wood, collected on the shore of the Polar Ocean, we began our return voyage on August 26. The borders of the river were already incrusted with ice. Wading became extremely irksome, the river having meanwhile fallen above six feet, and the shallows frequently forcing us to step into the water and pull the boat along.

“Fortunately the wind remained favorable, and thus by rowing to the utmost of our strength, and with the assistance of the broad sails of our ‘Tundra,’ we surmounted two rapids which, encased between abrupt rocks, seemed to defy our utmost efforts.

“On the 31st, a malicious gust of wind, bursting out of a narrow gorge, threw our boat against the rocks and broke the rudder. The frost and wet,223 together with the shortness of our provisions, tried us sorely. Not a day passed without sleet and snow.

“On September 5, while endeavoring to double during a violent storm a rocky island at the northern extremity of Lake Taimur, one wave after another dashed into the boat, which I could only save by letting her run upon a sand-bank. The violent wind, with a temperature of only +27° at noon, covered our clothes with solid ice-crusts. We were obliged to halt four days till the storm ceased; our nets and my double-barrelled gun proved daily more and more unsuccessful, so that hunger combined with cold to render our situation almost intolerable. On the 8th, while on the lookout for ptarmigan, I saw through my telescope a long stripe of silver stretching over the lake, and, returning to my comrades, informed them that we must absolutely set off again the next morning, regardless of wind and weather.

“On the following day the ominous indications of the telescope rendered it necessary to approach the more open west side of the lake; which I followed until stopped by the ice, along whose borders I then sailed in order to reach the river, which must still be open. Meanwhile the wind had completely fallen, and, to our astonishment, we saw the water in our wake cover itself with a thin crust of ice as soon as we passed. The danger of freezing fast in the middle of the lake was evident.”

Unfortunately, while endeavoring to reach the river, the boat was crushed between two ice floes, and was with great difficulty dragged on shore. The only chance of rescue now was to meet with some Samoïedes on the upper course of the river, for these nomads never wander northward beyond the southern extremity of the lake, and from this our travellers were still at a great distance.

“We made a large hand-sledge,” continues Middendorff, “and set off without loss of time on the 10th, in spite of the rainy weather, which had completely dissolved the sparing snow upon the hills. The sharp stones cut into our sledge-runners like knives, and after having scarcely made three versts, the vehicle fell to pieces. The bad weather forced us to stop for the night. The fatigues of our boat-journey, the want of proper food, and mental anxiety, had for several weeks been undermining my health: a total want of sleep destroyed the remainder of my strength, so that, early on the 11th, I felt myself quite unable to proceed.”

In this extremity Middendorff adopted with heroic self-denial the best and only means for his own preservation and that of his comrades. If, by departing without loss of time, they were fortunate enough to reach the Samoïedes before these nomads had left the Taimur country for the south, he also might be rescued; ............