The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1894-09-06


Our organization Is purely civil. There
fore we depend for discipline principally
upon the intelligence and good will Of the
gentlemen who are members of this party.
Now, at the beginning Of our journey
together, every man is asked to treat every
other man with consideration. Let no man
lose his temper. No one should indulge
prejudice against another member. Frank
ness and sincerity must be ever present.
Every man is asked to determine now that
he will be friend to every other man.
Make allowances for differences of tenn
permanent and of race. Let us show the
world that Americans and Norwegians
can work together in perfect harmony.
The effectiveness of an exploring party is
quickly destroyed by discussions or per
sonal enmities. BY mutual forbearance
we can avoid these.
"Our work is to be hard. We must all
do drudgery; all must perform mental Ia
Dor. We are our own servants. We leave
behind us most of the comforts of civili-
cation But we are still gentlemen, and we
have not left our good manners with our
good clothes.
IT any man has complaints to make,
they should be expressed to the leader,
who will do his best to right all wrongs,
and to no one else.
IF any man becomes dissatisfied, dis
contented or fearful as to the outcome of
this expedition, he must keep silent We
must help one another not only in the
performance of physical labor, but in what
is even more important-the maintenance
of cheerfulness and confidence.
LET us pledge ourselves now to stand
together throughout this expedition, firm
and true, for success.
walter WELLMAN."
Spitzbereen In Sight.
Those OF us who remained up until mid
night were rewarded with q glimpse of
one of the distant high peaks of Spitzber-
gen. Only three days from Tromso and
a glistening cap of our promising land
dead ahead! Now we are rewarded with a
much grander spectacle. 1t is like what
one might imagine as the original from
which modern scene painters draw inspi-
ration for production of their transforms
ton pictures upon the stage. A little be-
fore midnight the down shooting rays of
the sun were seen straight north over
Spitzbergen. Between the sun and us were
successive curtains of clouds, illumined,
of course, from the far side, like the mesh
curtains used in fairy scenes of the theater.
Through openings were sights SO grand and
deep as to draw the vision and hold it en-
tranced and make one think he were look
ing through all the clouds of this world,
and the space which intervenes before
the next one into the eternal beyond. I
have no desire to attempt pOetical or SEN
timental description, but the spectacle was
1xy hoo, f,,1 <Io 80
poor words to describe, and in that deep
blue background SO far behind so many
films of various tinted clouds the great
sun was now and then to be seen fitting
in downward course straight for the all
snow peaks of Spitzbergen. In the forecas-
tie stood Captain Bottelfsen, sextant in
hand, waiting an opportunity to take a
midnight altitude.
Another glimpse of the great white red
orb, and he is gone. Darker clouds inter-
vene, but his rays, through reflection from
the glaciers and the snow peaks, are paint
ing all the northern horizon a golden vel
low. Will the sun reappear? Yes; there
he is. His lower edge dips below the
clouds. Now his equator is to be seen,
and now-look quickly-he stands COM
pletely unmarked. A new corona of gold
en- light shines out in the north. The
spectacle has passed beyond the art of the
scene painter. Nature shows herself to
be without rivals.
An instant or. two thus, and the sun
stands still. It quivers in the heavens as
If undetermined whether to honor earth
by nearer approach. And then it starts
up again on another "a hour sweep
through the polar sky. The sun has set
and the sun has risen all in one glorious
process One day is gone. Another is
here, and it is time to crawl into our
hunks and draw closer the curtains over
the portfolios.
It is not easy to realize that for four
months we have bid goodby to night, and
that the sun we are to have always in the
heavens. The midnight sun, now SO won
derful a spectacle because new to most of
us, will soon be commonplace enough.
1t is a beautiful yet a sad thought-the
thought that, far as we are from home,
there Is one thing our friends there may
gaze upon at the same instant we do, and
that thus the sun as common object may
be made the medium of thought trans
ference from polar regions to the haunts
of civilization and back again. From a
thought like this we are reused by the
voice of DR.. NAHUM shouting his familiar
Steady" as the Ragnvald Jarl gives her
hundred millionth lurch to port since
morning.
The good doctor imagines it to be his
duty to run the ship, and he goes out on
deck and converses with the good natured
captain as to the advisability of "hang-
ing some more curtains on those things
that stick out over the sides from the front
pole, " meaning thereby, Of course, more
sail on the yardarms Of the mainmast.
When the captain laughingly declines, the
good doctor expresses himself as being
willing to compromise on smaller cur
tain on the back pole. The little after
deck Of the Jarl, wherein few of us sur
prise the sailors by ordering them to pour
buckets of sea water upon our naked bod
les early in the morning-this away up
in the arctic region, near the pole, in early
May-the good doctor calls this deck our
back porch.
A Calm Sea ut Last.
This morning we rose to find bright
sun, a calm sea and Spitzbergen but few
miles on our starboard bow. The sharp
pointed peaks from which the group takes
it's name line the whole coast the snow