In 1844 public attention was again directed to the discovery of the
North-West Passage. The expedition under Sir James Ross, in the
_Erebus_ and _Terror_, to the South Polar regions had reopened the
Arctic question. The vessels had been proved sound; they were available
for a new advance. Sir John Franklin had returned from Tasmania, and
when the Admiralty had decided to send out an expedition, he laid claim
to the post of commander of it.
It was not until May, 1845, that the _Erebus_ and _Terror_, fitted with
auxiliary screws, were ready to go. A store-vessel accompanied them as
far as Disco, on the Greenland coast, and there the two ships entered
Baffin's Bay. Along the coast and into the ice they go, meeting it as
it is making its slow way to the south. At length the ships are
completely surrounded, and anchored to the snowy floes which extend in
all directions.
By the end of July they have managed to press on out of the track of all
the whaling vessels, and make for Lancaster Sound, westward. The
desolate coast of North Devon is skirted, and subsequently Beachey
Island is reached. From hence they move northward again, and to
Wellington Channel, only to be turned back again by the ice.
But the signs of coming winter made it absolutely necessary that some
sheltered place should be found in which the long dreary months might be
passed. Day after day the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ sought such a
resting-place, and found none. Any advance was now out of the question;
the "massing" ice prevented that, and threatened them daily. At length
it was decided to run for shelter to Beachey Island, and in Erebus and
Terror Bay the expedition was made as snug as possible for the winter.
The daily record of the passed months tells us of a continual struggle
with ice and snow; checks and renewed efforts; storm-tossed seas, and
icebergs innumerable.
At Beachey Island the vessels remained after their exploration of nearly
three hundred miles of new ground. Plans, no doubt, were made for the
following year, while the cold death-like hand of winter came and
grasped everything in its iron grip. The sun, of course, left the
ships, and after climbing the hills to see the last of him, the crews
went back in darkness to the vessels. How the crews amused themselves
during the winter we can imagine, and we find plenty of testimony to the
games, the acting, the reading, and study, in which time was passed.
The great thing to be aimed at was occupation--action. Stagnation meant
death.
Three men died during the winter, and when the sun reappeared, when the
creeks in the ice warned the crews that the time of release was at hand,
a good and anxious look-out was kept. At length the ice-floes moved
away, and after a while the channel was cut out for the release of the
_Erebus_ and _Terror_. The open water was at length gained, the
instructions were to go south-west from Cape Walker, and that was now
the point aimed at. When the Cape had been gained, and quitted for Cape
Herschel, the ships fell into the Melville Island ice-stream, and they
struggled on till King William's Land was sighted. But unfortunately by
that time another winter had began to reform the ice. So there was
nothing to do but find winter quarters, which were finally established
northward of Cape Felix, in anything but a happy place, for the ice
there is described as of a most fearful nature, and of terrible
pressure.
Here there was a fearful prospect--nothing but ice in mountains, and in
masses which tossed the ships--slowly indeed--and threatened to "nip"
them in halves. But notwithstanding all the hardships, the men bore up,
and prepared for the overland journey to Cape Herschel--a hundred miles
only!--as soon as the spring should open. As soon as possible, a
pioneer party, under Lieutenant Gore and Mr Des Voeux, of the _Erebus_,
started off to see the channel or path by which they might reach
America. When they rapidly returned to tell their comrades the good
news they had gathered, they found Sir John Franklin dead!
Shortly afterwards, in a deep crevasse in the ice, the body was laid
while the burial service was read over it by Captain Fitzjames.
Franklin, "like another Moses, fell when his work was accomplished--with
the long object of his life in view."
The movement of such ice as was still around the vessels would not take
place till very late. The ice will move, but winter may again shut the
ships in before they have traversed one half of the ninety miles still
remaining. Captains Fitzjames and Crozier consult accordingly.
The floe moves, and the imbedded ships go south with it, but there is no
water. No sailing is possible. Drifting helpless with the ice, the
_Erebus_ and _Terror_ are carried along, but unless open water be found,
they will drift back again in the autumn, or at any rate remain
imprisoned in it.
Autumn has arrived--the new ice is forming, the floe no longer moves at
all. Thirty miles have been passed over by the floe; the explorers are
so much nearer, but then the drift ceases. Sixty miles or less of ice
intervene, and then the open sea will be reached. But the doom has gone
forth. Winter closes again on the brave, the sick, and the suffering;
cold, disease, and privation are fast decimating the available hands.
The snow-cloud settles down upon the vessels, darkness shrouds them; and
when the curtain again rises, and the sun shines out, we find twenty-one
officers and men had been laid to their long, last rest in the Arctic
solitudes. One hundred and four men still remain--hungry, frozen,
patient, brave. Alas that all the bravery was no avail!
It is pitiful to dwell upon the remainder of the sad story of the
expedition. We can picture the band now reduced to such extremity that
they must all remain to die, or struggle on across the ice and snow to
Cape Herschel. They must go. They pack the boats, and put them upon
sleighs, and then wait for spring to set about their weary work.
April comes, and has nearly gone, when the command is given. The men
look their last upon the _Erebus_ and _Terror_, give them three cheers,
and go away into the desolate waste--to die! Point Victory their
object. They gained it, and then their helplessness came and stared
them in the face. In a cairn on the point Fitzjames placed a brief
record, and that is all. They have only food for a month more, and day
by day the strong are growing weak and the weak are dying.
The increase in the number of the latter necessitated a division. The
sick must remain till help comes, or go back to the ships. We can
picture the fearful alternative. Many remained, and of that number two
skeletons were afterwards found, and on board one of the ships the
"bones of a large man with long teeth!" That is all!
The remainder pushed on to Cape Herschel, and left a record in a cairn.
They were desperate and dying men, yet they endeavoured to reach the
Great Fish River, but alas! alas! the skeleton found lying face
downwards, left unburied as he fell, tells us as much of the fate of the
whole party as if the record had been kept.
"The Polar clouds uplift
One moment, and no more."
For a long time no one knew the fate of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_, until
Lady Franklin sent out McClintock in the _Fox_ to lift the veil which
hung over the last voyage of the intrepid John Franklin. But before
giving the account of McClintock's successful search we will enumerate
the various attempts made by Government to ascertain the fate of
Franklin. Our summary must be a very brief one.
Three years after Franklin had set out considerable uneasiness was felt
in Great Britain concerning him. In 1848 two ships, the _Herald_ and
the _Plover_, were sent out by the Admiralty to afford assistance, but
Sir John Richardson and Doctor Rae had anticipated the Government
vessels, and gone via New York to the Mackenzie, which he had already
twice visited with Franklin. Captain Sir James Ross also was searching
by the Lancaster Sound, and he experienced many hardships; but in 1850
his vessels (the _Enterprise_ and _Investigator_, under Collinson and
McClure) were sent, and later on an international squadron was
dispatched to Lancaster Sound under Captains Austin and Penny, Sir John
Ross in the _Felix_, and Mr Grinnell's two American ships under
Lieutenant De Haven, as well as the _Albert_, sent out by Lady Franklin
at her own cost, commanded by Commander Forsyth.
This mixture of royal and mercantile naval commands gave rise to some
unfriendly feelings, but Captain Penny succeeded in finding many traces
of Franklin's crews, and the tombs of those who had died in 1846. Many
most useful surveys and some geographical discoveries were made, but
beyond the traces found by Ommaney and Penny nothing of the fate of the
Franklin expedition was discovered.
In 1852 Sir E. Belcher sailed on the same errand. Lady Franklin also
dispatched the _Isabel_. Doctor Rae in 1854, however, discovered,
through the information afforded by the Esquimaux, that some white men
had been seen in King William's Land a few years previously, "dragging
boats across the ice," and "looking thin." The Hudson's Bay Company
then sent Mr Anderson, in accordance with a request of the English
Government, to explore the district; and on Montreal Island he found the
remains of a boat, and obtained from the Esquimaux many relics of
Franklin's expedition, with articles which had belonged to the crews.
This intelligence decided Lady Franklin to make another attempt to learn
the actual fate of her brave husband.
Before Doctor Rae had returned with the intelligence he had gained
concerning the Franklin Expedition, a very important Arctic Expedition
had been undertaken by Doctor Elisha Kane. To this we must turn our
attention in a new chapter, as he went out to the limits of the Arctic
Zone in search of Sir J. Franklin, and accomplished a most adventurous
journey.