Footnotes

'WE HAVE NEARLY REACHED THE END OF OUR TETHER IN THESE WATERS' – RECORDS OF EXPLORATION IN THE ARCTIC BY ALBERT MARKHAM.

The first journal records Markham's first Arctic journey, made in 1873. The Admiralty had refused his offers of Arctic service, so instead he took advantage of a period of leave to sail as second mate in the whaler Arctic to Davis Strait and Baffin's Bay in order to study ice conditions. This he wrote up and published as A Whaling Cruise to Baffin Bay and the Gulf of Boothia (1874). Unlike other volumes by him in the present sale, this particular one, although in his hand, does not appear to have been actually kept on board ship, but rather to have been written up afterwards. It has then been marked up in pencil, with passages marked for deletion and chapter breaks indicated. The editor appears to have been – as one might well expect – Albert's cousin, the more experienced Clements: and indeed the latter's distinctive handwriting makes an appearance at page 155, where a break has been entered for Chapter XVI (altered to XVII) with the heading "Regent's Inlet", an earlier heading "Fury Beach" deleted. (In the published version, Chapter XVI is headed 'Prince Regent's Inlet' and Chapter XVII 'Fury Beach'.) Loosely inserted is a four-page reader's report in an unidentified hand, headed "Notes on Capt. Markham's Whaling Cruise", which indicates that Markham was unhappy with the published version: "You appeared much concerned at the unfair & possibly damaging manner in which the publishers had exposed your unrevised journal, in its crude form, to the public". This report raises a list of queries, although the line and page numbers correspond neither to the printed version nor ours.

The second journal was kept onboard the Hydra. This was a newly constructed Cyclops class turret ship, commanded by Markham on a cruise in the Kara Sea during the crisis with Russia. Once peace was assured by the Treaty of Berlin that August, Markham left the ship for a tour of Brittany with his cousin Clements and wife, visiting Holland, where he held discussions with the Dutch explorer Koolemans Beynen on the need to explore Franz Josef Land as a possible means of accessing the Pole.

The third journal is of what Markham described as 'my third trip to the Arctic Regions', made with Sir Henry Goore Booth in the Norwegian cutter Isbjörn (or 'Isbjörnen', as Markham spells her). Like the Hydra journal, it was written during the expedition. It was afterwards drawn upon for A Polar Reconnaissance: being the Voyage of the ʻIsbjörn' to Novaya Zemlya in 1879 (1881), seen through the press by the indefatigable cousin Clements. The voyage was undertaken to establish whether the west coast of Franz Joseph Land offered the best route for to the Pole, as per his discussions with Beynen. In Clements's summary: 'the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, the Matyushin Shar, and the shores of the Kara Sea were visited; the British flag was hoisted, for the first time, to the north of Novaya Zemlya; and a push was made northwards in the ice between Novaya Zemlya and Spitzbergen' (p. xii). Markham's conviction, as a result of his cruise, that a steam ship would be able to gain access to Franz Josef Land nearly every year was to be confirmed the following season by Benjamin Leigh Smith in the Eira.

Clements took considerable liberties with his younger cousin's text, adding a literary gloss while shearing it of a good deal of first-person immediacy. Take for example the end of the entry for 10 August, which in the original appears at the end of the second notebook (prior to binding), and at p. 245 in the printed text. In the printed version, Clements serves up the original with a side-order of Hiawatha: 'The young ice was already forming on the surface of the water, which, as we sailed through, caused a clearly defined canal to be made in our wake. This was an unmistakable sign, and one not to be lightly neglected, that we had nearly reached the end of our tether. The existence of the short Arctic summer was rapidly drawing to an end, and winter, with its dread inhospitable grasp, we knew would soon claim the surrounding land and sea, and freeze it all up into the solid continent! "Oh the long and dreary Winter!/ Oh the cold and cruel Winter!/ Ever thicker, thicker, thicker/ Froze the ice on lake and river,/ Ever deeper, deeper, deeper/ Fell the snow o'er all the landscape". We felt, indeed, that "winter, with his naked arms and chilling breath," was upon us'. The original, while not without its flourishes, manages to be both simpler and to retain the immediacy of an account written on the spot: "The young ice, this evening, or rather since ½ past 9 when the power of the sun was not very great, has been forming rapidly, and in a clearly defined canal behind us as we sail northwards. This is a sign that we have nearly reached the end of our tether in these waters. The short Arctic summer has nearly come to an end, and winter, with its cold inhospitable grasp, will soon claim the surrounding land and sea and freeze it all up into the solid continent! The sun set to-night before 11 o'clock, leaving us a couple of hours of beautiful twilight, the heaven lit up with the most brilliant colours of the setting sun".