The second Grinnell expedition. Commanded by Dr. Elisha
K. Kane.—Winter quarters in Rensseläer Harbour.—Sledging
trips.—To the rescue.—Effects of exhaustion and cold.—Dr.
Kane’s journey.—Great Glacier of Humboldt.—Return and illness
of Dr. Kane.—Second winter in the ice.—Privations and
suffering.—Abandonment of the _Advance_.—Retreat and rescue.
Mention has already been made of the second Grinnell expedition,
commanded by Dr. Kane and financed by Mr. Grinnell and Mr. Peabody of
London. Dr. Kane’s instructions from the Navy Department at Washington,
dated November 27, 1852, read as follows:—
“SIR:—Lady Franklin having urged you to undertake a search
for her husband, Sir John Franklin, and his companions, and a
vessel, the _Advance_, having been placed at your disposition
by Mr. Grinnell, you are hereby assigned to special duty for
the purpose of conducting an overland journey from the upper
waters of Baffin’s Bay to the shores of the Polar Seas.
“Relying upon your zeal and discretion, the Department sends
you forth upon an undertaking which will be attended with great
peril and exposure. Trusting that you will be sustained by the
laudable object in view, and wishing you success and a safe
return to your friends, I am,
“Respectfully, your obedient servant,
“JOHN P. KENNEDY.
“Passed Assistant Surgeon E. K. Kane,
“United States Navy, Philadelphia.”
The small brig _Advance_, one hundred and forty-tons’ burden, with
seventeen picked men besides the commander, sailed from New York on the
30th of May, 1853, “escorted by several noble steamers; and, passing
slowly on to the Narrows amid salutes and cheers of farewell.”
At the end of eighteen days the _Advance_ had reached St. John’s,
Newfoundland, where Governor Hamilton, a brother to the secretary of the
British Admiralty, and other officials, combined with the inhabitants to
welcome the expedition. Upon sailing once more, Dr. Kane was presented
with a noble team of Newfoundland dogs, the gift of the governor.
The _Advance_ reached Baffin Bay without incident, and a few days later
found her off the coast of Greenland, making her way to Fisdernaes, which
was reached the 1st of July,—“amid the clamor of its entire population,
assembled on the rock to greet us.”
Here a native Eskimo, Hans Christiansen, was engaged as interpreter for
the expedition. The _Advance_ then proceeded across Melville Bay in
the wake of vast icebergs, dodging to the rear of these huge floating
masses, holding on to them when adverse winds became annoying, and
pressing forward as opportunity offered. The promontory of Swartehuk was
passed by the 16th. The following day the _Advance_ anchored at Proven,
where Dr. Kane was warmly welcomed by his old friend Christiansen, the
superintendent. Here he made necessary purchases of furs, and these were
speedily made into suitable garments by the superintendent’s wife and
her assistants. While the brig sailed leisurely up the coast, Kane set
out in the whale-boat to make purchases of dogs among the natives of the
different settlements. After a two days’ stay at Upernavik, the _Advance_
proceeded on her course and passed in succession the Eskimo settlement of
Kingatok, the Kettle,—a mountain top so named from the resemblance of its
profile, and finally Zottik, the farthest point of colonization.
[Sidenote: _THE SECOND GRINNELL EXPEDITION_]
Inclining more directly to the north, she sighted the landmark known as
the Horse’s Head, and later Ducks Islands, and made for Wilcox Point,
which was passed on the 27th of July. The 2d of August found them well in
the ice and harassed by fogs, but the floes opened at intervals, allowing
the ship to make her slow progress through them. The north water was
comparatively free from obstructions, and by the 5th they had passed the
“Crimson Cliffs” described by Sir John Ross; two days later they doubled
Cape Alexander, and passed in to Smith Sound. At Littleton Island they
stopped to deposit a boat and supply of stores. On August 8 the ship
closed with the ice and bored her way through the loose stream ice some
forty miles beyond Life Boat Cove, when it became impossible to force
her way any farther, and, says Kane: “A dense fog gathering round us, we
were carried helplessly to the eastward. We should have been forced upon
the Greenland coast, but an eddy close in shore released us for a few
moments from direct pressure, and we were fortunate enough to get out a
whale-line to the rocks and warp into a protecting niche.”
The following day he writes: “It may be noted among our little miseries
that we have more than fifty dogs on board, the majority of whom might
rather be characterized as ‘ravening wolves.’ To feed this family upon
whose strength our progress and success depend, is really a difficult
matter. The absence of shore or land ice to the south in Baffin Bay
has prevented our rifles from contributing any material aid to our
commissariat. Our two bears lasted the cormorants but eight days; and
to feed them upon the meagre allowance of two pounds of raw flesh every
other day is an almost impossible necessity. Only yesterday they were
ready to eat the caboose up, for I would not give them pemmican. Corn
meal or beans, which Penney’s dogs fed on, they disdain to touch; and
salt junk would kill them.
“Accordingly, I started out this morning to hunt walrus, with which
the Sound is teeming. We saw at least fifty of these dusky monsters,
and approached many groups within twenty paces. But our rifle balls
reverberated from their hides like cork pellets from a pop-gun target,
and we could not get within harpoon distance of one. Later in the day,
however, Ohlsen, climbing a neighboring hill to scan the horizon and
see if the ice had slackened, found the dead carcass of a narwhale
or sea-unicorn; a happy discovery, which has secured for us at least
six hundred pounds of good, fetid, wholesome flesh. The length of the
narwhale was fourteen feet, and his process, or ‘horn,’ from the tip to
its bony encasement, four feet.... We built a fire on the rocks, and
melted down his blubber: he will yield readily two barrels of oil.”
[Sidenote: _DR. ELISHA K. KANE_]
The condition of the ice, furious gales, and the fast approaching winter
all combined to dishearten the crew, who with one exception desired to
return south and find winter quarters. Dr. Kane, however, determined to
push northward, and finally located in Rensseläer Harbour 78° 37´ N.,
71° W. By the 10th of September, the long “night in which no man can
work” was close at hand; the thermometer stood at 14°; every preparation
was made for wintering; a storehouse was erected at Butler Island; an
astronomical observatory arranged at a short distance from the ship.
“Besides preparing our winter quarters,” writes Dr. Kane, “I am
engaged in the preliminary arrangements for my provision depots along
the Greenland coast. Mr. Kennedy is, I believe, the only one of my
predecessors who has used October and November for Arctic field work; but
I deem it important to our movements during the winter and spring, that
depots in advance should be made before the darkness sets in. I purpose
arranging three of them at intervals,—pushing them as far forward as I
can,—to contain in all some twelve hundred pounds of provision, of which
eight hundred will be pemmican.”
To this end one hundred and twenty-five miles of the Greenland coast was
traced to the north and east; the largest of the three depots was located
on an island in latitude 70° 12´ 6´´, and longitude 65° 25´.
By the 20th of November, the darkness made field work impossible, and for
one hundred and twenty days the little band of Arctic explorers endured
the weariness and bitter cold of the long night.
“On the 17th of January,” writes Dr. Kane, “our thermometers stood at
forty-nine degrees below zero; and on the 20th the range of those at
the observatory was at -64° to -67°. The temperature on the floes was
always somewhat higher than at the island; the difference being due,
as I suppose, to the heat conducted from the sea-water, which was at
a temperature of +29°; the suspended instruments being affected by
radiation.
“On the 5th of February, our thermometers began to show unexampled
temperature. They ranged from 60° to 75° below zero, and one very
reliable instrument stood upon the taffrail of our brig at -65°. The
reduced mean of our best spirit-standards gave -67°, or 99° below the
freezing-point of water.
“At these temperatures chloric ether became solid, and carefully prepared
chloroform exhibited a granular pellicle on its surface. Spirit of
naphtha froze at -54°, and oil of wintergreen was in a flocculent state
at -56°, and solid at -63° and -65°.
“The exhalations from the surface of the body invested the exposed or
partially clad parts with a wreath of vapor. The air had a perceptible
pungency upon inspiration, but I could not perceive the painful sensation
which has been spoken of by some Siberian travellers. When breathed
for any length of time, it imparted a sensation of dryness to the
air-passages. I noticed that, as it were involuntarily, we all breathed
guardedly, with compressed lips.”
The depressing influence of such low temperatures affected both man and
beast. The poor dogs suffered keenly, and many of them died of affections
of the brain, which began with the same symptoms of fits, lunacy, and
lockjaw. The loss of fifty-seven of these brave animals seriously
affected Dr. Kane’s plans. The crew were greatly depleted by scurvy and
almost unfit for the arduous work planned for the early spring.
“An Arctic night and an Arctic day,” remarks Dr. Kane, “age a man more
rapidly and harshly than a year anywhere else in the world.”
Early in March a sledging party was organized to ascertain whether it
were practicable to force a way over the crowded bergs and mountainous
ice to the north. An advance corps was sent out to place a depot of
provisions at a suitable distance from the brig.
[Sidenote: _WINTER QUARTERS IN RENSSELÄER HARBOUR_]
March 20, Dr. Kane writes as follows:—
“I saw the depot party off yesterday. They gave the usual three cheers,
with three for myself. I gave them the whole of my brother’s great
wedding-cake and my last two bottles of Port, and they pulled the sledge
they were harnessed to famously. But I was not satisfied. I could see it
was hard work; and, besides, they were without the boat, or enough extra
pemmican to make their deposit of importance. I followed them, therefore,
and found that they encamped at 8 P.M. only five miles from the brig.
“When I overtook them, I said nothing to discourage them, and gave no new
orders for the morning; but after laughing at good Ohlsen’s rueful face,
and listening to all Petersen’s assurances that the cold and nothing but
the cold retarded his Greenland sledge, and that no sledge of any other
construction could have been moved at all through -40° snow, I quietly
bade them good-night, leaving all hands under their buffaloes.
“Once returned to the brig, all my tired remainder men were summoned; a
large sledge with board runners which I had built somewhat after the neat
Admiralty model sent me by Sir Francis Beaufort, was taken down, scraped,
polished, lashed, and fitted with track ropes and rue-raddies; the lines
arranged to draw as near as possible in a line with the centre of gravity.
“We made an entire cover of canvas, with snugly adjusted fastenings; and
by one in the morning we had our discarded excess of pemmican and the
boat once more in stowage. Off we went for the camp of the sleepers.
It was very cold, but a thoroughly Arctic night; the snow just tinged
with the crimson stratus above the sun, which, equinoctial as it was,
glared beneath the northern horizon like a smelting-furnace. We found
the tent of the party by the bearings of the stranded bergs. Quietly and
stealthily we hauled away their Eskimo sledge, and placed her cargo upon
the _Faith_.
“Five men were then rue-raddied to the track-lines, and with the
whispered word, ‘Now, boys, when Mr. Brooks gives his third snore, off
with you!’ off they went, and the _Faith_ after them, as free and nimble
as a volunteer. The trial was a triumph. We awakened the sleepers with
three cheers; and, giving them a second good-by, returned to the brig,
carrying the dishonored vehicle along with us. And now, bating mishaps
past anticipation, I shall have a depot for my long trip.
“The party were seen by McGary from aloft, at noon to-day, moving easily,
and about twelve miles from the brig.”
Eleven days later, March 31, Dr. Kane writes:—
“We were at work cheerfully, sewing away at the skins of some moccasins
by the blaze of our lamps, when, toward midnight, we heard the noise of
steps above, and the next minute Sonntag, Ohlsen, and Petersen came down
into the cabin. Their manner startled me even more than their unexpected
appearance on board. They were swollen and haggard, and hardly able to
speak.
“Their story was a fearful one. They had left their companions in the
ice, risking their own lives to bring us the news: Brooke, Baker, Wilson,
and Pierre were all lying frozen and disabled. Where? They could not
tell: somewhere in among the hummocks to the north and east; it was
drifting heavily round them when they parted. Irish Tom had stayed by to
feed and care for the others; but the chances were sorely against them.
It was in vain to question them further. They had evidently travelled a
great distance, for they were sinking with fatigue and hunger, and could
hardly be rallied enough to tell us the direction in which they had come.”
“My first impulse,” continues Dr. Kane, “was to move on the instant with
an unencumbered party; a rescue to be effective or even hopeful, could
not be too prompt. What pressed on my mind most was, where the sufferers
were to be looked for among the drifts. Ohlsen seemed to have his
faculties rather more at command than his associates, and I thought that
he might assist us as a guide; but he was sinking with exhaustion, and if
he went we must carry him.
[Sidenote: _SLEDGING TRIPS_]
“There was not a moment to be lost. While some were still busy with
the newcomers and getting ready a hasty meal, others were rigging out
the _Little Willie_ with a buffalo cover, a small tent, and a package
of pemmican; and, as soon as we could hurry through our arrangements,
Ohlsen was strapped on in a fur bag, his legs wrapped in dog-skins and
eider-down, and we were off upon the ice. Our party consisted of nine
men and myself. We carried only the clothes on our backs. The thermometer
stood at -46°, 78° below the freezing-point.
“A well-known peculiar tower of ice, called by the men the ‘Pinnacly
Berg,’ served as our first land-mark; other icebergs of colossal size,
which stretched in long beaded lines across the bay, helped to guide us
afterward; and it was not until we had travelled for sixteen hours that
we began to lose our way.
“We knew that our lost companions must be somewhere in the area before
us, within a radius of forty miles. Mr. Ohlsen, who had been for fifty
hours without rest, fell asleep as soon as we began to move, and awoke
now with unequivocal signs of mental disturbance. It became evident
that he had lost the bearing of the icebergs, which in form and color
endlessly repeated themselves; and the uniformity of the vast field of
snow utterly forbade the hope of local landmarks.
“Pushing ahead of the party, and clambering over some rugged ice piles, I
came to a long level floe, which I thought might probably have attracted
the eyes of weary men in circumstances like our own. It was a light
conjecture; but it was enough to turn the scale, for there was no other
to balance it. I gave orders to abandon the sledge, and disperse in
search of footmarks.
“We raised our tent, placed our pemmican in cache, except a small
allowance for each man to carry on his person; and poor Ohlsen, now just
able to keep his legs, was liberated from his bag. The thermometer had
fallen by this time to -49° 3´, and the wind was setting in sharply from
the northwest.
“It was out of the question to halt; it required brisk exercise to keep
us from freezing. I could not even melt ice for water; and, at these
temperatures, any resort to snow for the purpose of allaying thirst was
followed by bloody lips and tongue; it burnt like caustic.
“It was indispensable then that we should move on, looking out for traces
as we went. Yet when the men were ordered to spread themselves, so as
to multiply the chances, though they all obeyed heartily, some painful
impress of solitary danger, or perhaps it may have been the varying
configuration of the ice-field, kept them closing up continually into
a single group. The strange manner in which some of us were affected I
now attribute as much to shattered nerves as to the direct influence of
the cold. Men like McGary and Bonsall, who had stood out our severest
marches, were seized with trembling-fits and short breath; and, in spite
of all my efforts to keep up an example of sound bearing, I fainted twice
on the snow.
[Sidenote: _TO THE RESCUE_]
“We had been nearly eighteen hours out without water or food, when a new
hope cheered us. I think it was Hans, our Eskimo hunter, who thought he
saw a broad sledge track. The drift had nearly effaced it, and we were
some of us doubtful at first whether it was not one of those accidental
rifts which the gales make in the surface-snow. But, as we traced it
on to the deep snow among the hummocks, we were led to footsteps; and,
following these with religious care, we at last came in sight of a small
American flag fluttering from a hummock, and lower down a little Masonic
banner hanging from a tent-pole hardly above the drift. It was the camp
of our disabled comrades; we reached it after an unbroken march of
twenty-one hours.
[Illustration: A GALE IN THE ARCTIC SEA]
“The little tent was nearly covered. I was not among the first to
come up; but, when I reached the tent-curtain, the men were standing
in silent file on each side of it. With more kindness and delicacy of
feeling than is often supposed to belong to sailors, but which is almost
characteristic, they intimated their wish that I should go in alone. As I
crawled in, and, coming upon the darkness, heard before me the burst of
welcome gladness that came from the four poor fellows stretched on their
backs, and then for the first time the cheer outside, my weakness and my
gratitude together almost overcame me. ‘They had expected me: they were
sure I would come!’
“We were now fifteen souls; the thermometer seventy-five degrees below
the freezing-point; and our sole accommodation a tent barely able to
contain eight persons; more than half our party were obliged to keep from
freezing by walking outside while the others slept. We could not halt
long. Each of us took a turn of two hours’ sleep; and we prepared for our
homeward march.”
Continuing his spirited narrative, Dr. Kane describes the retreat:—
“It was fortunate indeed that we were not inexperienced in sledging over
the ice. A great part of our track lay among a succession of hummocks;
some of them extending in long lines, fifteen and twenty feet high, and
so uniformly steep that we had to turn them by a considerable deviation
from our direct course; others that we forced our way through far above
our heads in height, lying in parallel ridges, with the space between
too narrow for the sledge to be lowered into it safely, and yet not wide
enough for the runners to cross without the aid of ropes to stay them.
These spaces, too, were generally chocked with light snow, hiding the
openings between the ice-fragments. They were fearful traps to disengage
a limb from, for every man knew that a fracture or a sprain even would
cost him his life. Besides all this, the sledge was top heavy with its
load; the maimed men could not bear to be lashed down tight enough to
secure them against falling off.
“Notwithstanding our caution in rejecting every superfluous burden, the
weight, including bags and tent, was eleven hundred pounds.
“And yet our march for the first six hours was very cheering. We made
by vigorous pulls and lifts nearly a mile an hour, and reached the new
floes before we were absolutely weary. Our sledge sustained the trial
admirably. Ohlsen, restored by hope, walked steadily at the leading belt
of the sledge lines; and I began to feel certain of reaching our halfway
station of the day before, where we had left our tent. But we were still
nine miles from it, when, almost without premonition, we all became aware
of an alarming failure of our energies.
[Sidenote: _EFFECTS OF EXHAUSTION AND COLD_]
“I was, of course, familiar with the benumbed and almost lethargic
sensation of extreme cold; and once, when exposed for some hours in the
midwinter of Baffin’s Bay, I had experienced symptoms which I compared to
the diffused paralysis of the electro-galvanic shock. But I had treated
the _sleepy comfort_ of freezing as something like the embellishment of
romance. I had evidence now to the contrary.
“Bonsall and Morton, two of our stoutest men, came to me, begging
permission to sleep: ‘They were not cold; the wind did not enter them
now; a little sleep was all they wanted.’ Presently Hans was found nearly
stiff under a drift; and Thomas, bolt upright, had his eyes closed, and
could hardly articulate. At last, John Blake threw himself on the snow,
and refused to rise. They did not complain of feeling cold; but it was
in vain that I wrestled, boxed, ran, argued, jeered, or reprimanded; an
immediate halt could not be avoided.
“We pitched our tent with much difficulty. Our hands were too powerless
to strike a fire; we were obliged to do without water or food. Even the
spirits (whiskey) had frozen at the men’s feet, under all the coverings.
We put Bonsall, Ohlsen, Thomas, and Hans, with the other sick men,
well inside the tent, and crowded in as many others as we could. Then,
leaving the party in charge of Mr. McGary, with orders to come on after
four hours’ rest, I pushed ahead with William Godfrey, who volunteered
to be my companion. My aim was to reach the halfway tent, and thaw
some ice and pemmican before the others arrived. The floe was of level
ice, and the walking excellent. I cannot tell how long it took us to
make the nine miles; for we were in a strange sort of stupor, and had
little apprehension of time. It was probably about four hours. We kept
ourselves awake by imposing on each other a continual articulation of
words; they must have been incoherent enough. I recall these hours as
among the most wretched I have ever gone through; we were neither of us
in our right senses, and retained a very confused recollection of what
preceded our arrival at the tent. We both of us, however, remember a
bear, who walked leisurely before us and tore up as he went a jumper that
Mr. McGary had improvidently thrown off the day before. He tore it into
shreds and rolled it into a ball, but never offered to interfere with
our progress. I remember this, and with it a confused sentiment that our
tent and buffalo robes might probably share the same fate. Godfrey, with
whom the memory of this day’s work may atone for many faults of a later
time, had a better eye than myself; and, looking some miles ahead, he
could see that our tent was undergoing the same unceremonious treatment.
I thought I saw it, too, but we were so drunken with cold that we strode
on steadily, and, for aught I know, without quickening our pace. Probably
our approach saved the contents of the tent; for when we reached it
the tent was uninjured, though the bear had overturned it, tossing the
buffalo robes and pemmican into the snow; we missed only a couple of
blanket-bags. What we recollect, however, and perhaps all we recollect,
is, that we had great difficulty in raising it. We crawled into our
reindeer sleeping-bags, without speaking, and for the next three hours
slept on in a dreamy and intense slumber. When I awoke, my long beard
was a mass of ice frozen fast to the buffalo-skin; Godfrey had to cut me
out with his jackknife. Four days after our escape, I found my woollen
comfortable with a goodly share of my beard still adhering to it.
“We were able to melt water and get some soup cooked before the rest of
our party arrived: it took them but five hours to walk the nine miles.
They were doing well, and, considering the circumstances, in wonderful
spirits. The day was most providentially windless, with a clear sun. All
enjoyed the refreshment we had got ready. The crippled were repacked in
their robes; and we sped briskly toward the hummock-ridges which lay
between us and the Pinnacly Berg.
“The hummocks we had now to meet came properly under the designation
of squeezed ice. A great chain of bergs stretching from northwest to
southeast, moving with the tides, had compressed the surface-floes; and,
rearing them up on their edges, produced an area more like the volcanic
pedregal of the basin of Mexico than anything else I can compare it to.
“It required desperate efforts to work our way over it,—literally
desperate, for our strength failed us anew, and we began to lose our
self-control. We could not abstain any longer from eating snow; our
mouths swelled, and some of us became speechless. Happily the day was
warmed by a clear sunshine, and the thermometer rose to -4° in the shade:
otherwise we must have frozen.
“Our halts multiplied, and we fell half-sleeping on the snow. I could
not prevent it. Strange to say, it refreshed us. I ventured upon the
experiment myself, making Riley wake me at the end of three minutes; and
I felt so much benefited by it that I timed the men in the same way.
They sat on the runners of the sledge, fell asleep instantly, and were
forced to wakefulness when their three minutes were out. By eight in
the evening we emerged from the floes. The sight of the Pinnacly Berg
revived us. Brandy, an invaluable resource in emergency, had already been
served out in tablespoonful doses. We now took a longer rest, and a last
but stouter dram, and reached the brig at 1 P.M., we believe without a
halt. I say _we believe_: and here perhaps is the most decided proof of
our sufferings: we were quite delirious, and had ceased to entertain a
sane apprehension of the circumstances about us. We moved on like men
in a dream. Our footmarks seen afterwards showed that we had steered a
bee-line for the brig. It must have been by a sort of instinct, for it
left no impress on the memory. Bonsall was sent staggering ahead, and
reached the brig, God knows how, for he had fallen repeatedly at the
track-lines; but he delivered with punctilious accuracy the messages I
had sent by him to Dr. Hayes. I thought myself the soundest of all, for
I went through all the formula of sanity, and can recall the muttering
delirium of my comrades when we got back into the cabin of our brig.
Yet I have been told since of some speeches and some orders, too, of
mine, which I should have remembered for their absurdity if my mind had
retained its balance.
“Petersen and Whipple came out to meet us about two miles from the
brig. They brought my dog-team, with the restoratives I had sent for by
Bonsall. I do not remember their coming. Dr. Hayes entered with judicious
energy upon the treatment our condition called for, administering
morphine freely, after the usual frictions. He reported none of our
brain-symptoms as serious, referring them properly to the class of
those indications of exhausted power which yield to generous diet and
rest. Mr. Ohlsen suffered some time from strabismus and blindness: two
others underwent amputation of parts of the foot, without unpleasant
consequences; and two died in spite of all our efforts. This rescue
party had been out for seventy-two hours. We had halted in all eight
hours, half of our number sleeping at a time. We travelled between eighty
and ninety miles, most of the way dragging a heavy sledge. The mean
temperature of the whole time, including the warmest hours of three days,
was at -41° 2´. We had no water except at our two halts, and were at no
time able to intermit vigorous exercise without freezing.”
Dr. Kane writes, April 4, Tuesday:—
“Four days have passed, and I am again at my record of failures, sound,
but aching still in every joint. The rescued men are not out of danger,
but their gratitude is very touching. Pray God that they may live!”
[Illustration: THE OUTLOOK FROM CAPE GEORGE RUSSELL]
Shortly after these events, the ship was visited by Eskimos, a
good-natured, childlike company, who disdained such dainties offered
by the crew as wheat bread, corned pork, and lumps of white sugar, but
gorged themselves on beef and blubber, and took opportunity to steal
whatever they could lay their hands on. Dr. Kane purchased all the walrus
meat they had to spare and some of their dogs, enriching them in return
with needles and beads, and a treasure of old cask staves. Following his
experience with the Eskimos, Dr. Kane gives an amusing anecdote of a seal
hunt.
“On one occasion,” he writes, “while working my way toward the Eskimo
huts, I saw a large _Usuk_ basking asleep upon the ice. Taking off my
shoes, I commenced a somewhat refrigerating process of stalking, lying
upon my belly and crawling along, step by step, behind the little knobs
of floe. At last, when I was within long rifle-shot, the animal gave a
sluggish roll to one side, and suddenly lifted his head. The movement
was evidently independent of me, for he strained his neck in nearly the
opposite direction. Then, for the first time, I found that I had a rival
seal-hunter in a large bear, who was on his belly like myself, waiting
with commendable patience and cold feet for a chance of nearer approach.
‘What should I do?—the bear was doubtless worth more to me than the
seal; but the seal was now within shot, and the bear a bird in the bush!
Besides, my bullet once invested in the seal would leave me defenceless.
I might be giving a dinner to a bear, and saving myself for his dessert.’
These meditations were soon brought to a close; for a second movement
of the seal so aroused my hunter’s instincts that I pulled the trigger.
My cap alone exploded. Instantly with a floundering splash, the seal
descended into the deep, and the bear, with three or four rapid leaps,
stood disconsolately by the place of his descent. For a single moment
we stared each other in the face, and then, with that discretion which
is the better part of valor, the bear ran off in one direction, and I
followed his example in the other.”
[Sidenote: _DR. KANE’S JOURNEY_]
Toward the end of April, Dr. Kane had completed his preparations for his
grand sledge journey to the north.
“It was,” he writes, “to be the crowning expedition of the campaign to
attain the _ultima thule_ of the Greenland shore, measure the waste that
lay between it and the unknown west, and seek round the furthest circle
of the ice for an outlet to the mysterious channels beyond.”
“The worst thought I have now in setting out,” writes Dr. Kane, April 26,
“is that of the entire crew I can leave but two behind in able condition,
and the doctor and Bonsall are the only two officers who can help Ohlsen.
This is our force, four able-bodied and six disabled to keep the brig;
the commander and seven men, scarcely better upon the average, out upon
the ice. Eighteen souls, thank God! certainly not eighteen bodies!
“I am going this time to follow the ice-belt (_Eis-fod_) to the Great
Glacier of Humboldt, and there load up with pemmican from our cache of
last October. From this point I expect to stretch along the face of the
glacier inclining to the west of north, and make an attempt to cross
the ice of the American side. Once on smooth ice, near this shore, I may
pass to the west, and enter the large indentation whose existence I can
infer with nearly positive certainty. In this I may find an outlet, and
determine the state of things beyond the ice-clogged area of this bay.
“I take with me pemmican and bread and tea, a canvas tent, five by six,
and two sleeping-bags of reindeer skin. The sledge has been built on
board by Mr. Ohlsen. It is very light, of hickory, and but nine feet
long. Our kitchen is a soup kettle for melting snow and making tea,
arranged so as to boil with either lard or spirits.
“For instruments I have a fine Gambey sextant, in addition to my ordinary
pocket-instrument, an artificial horizon, and a Barrow’s dip-circle.
These occupy little room upon the sledge. My telescope and chronometer I
carry on my person.”
Ill equipped, enfeebled in health, discouraged by the failure of their
caches which had been broken into by bears, the little party struggled
on as long as strength and provisions lasted. “The most picturesque
portion of the North Greenland coast,” writes Dr. Kane, “is to be found
after leaving Cape George Russell and approaching Dallas Bay. The red
sandstones contrast most favorably with the blank whiteness, associating
the cold tints of the dreary Arctic landscape with the warm coloring
of more southern lands. The seasons have acted on the different layers
of the cliff so as to give them the appearance of jointed masonry, and
the narrow line of greenstone at the top caps them with well-simulated
battlements. One of these interesting freaks of nature became known to us
as the ‘Three Brother Turrets.’
“The sloping rubbish at the foot of the coast-wall led up, like an
artificial causeway, to a gorge that was streaming at noonday with the
southern sun; while everywhere else the rock stood out in the blackest
shadow. Just at the edge of the bright opening rose the dreamy semblance
of a castle, flanked with triple towers, completely isolated and defined.
These were the ‘Three Brother Turrets.’
“I was still more struck with another of the same sort, in the immediate
neighborhood of my halting ground beyond Sunny Gorge, to the north
of latitude 79°. A single cliff of green stone, marked by the slaty
limestone that once encased it, rears itself from a crumbled base of
sandstones, like the boldly chiselled rampart of an ancient city. At its
northern extremity, on the brink of a deep ravine which has worn its way
among the ruins, there stands a solitary column or minaret-tower, as
sharply finished as if it had been cast for the Place Vendome. Yet the
length of the shaft alone is four hundred and eighty feet; and it rises
on a plinth or pedestal itself two hundred and eighty feet high.”
[Sidenote: _GREAT GLACIER OF HUMBOLDT_]
But by far the most remarkable feature of the Great White North visited
by Dr. Kane was the “Great Glacier of Humboldt.” “I will not attempt to
do better by florid description,” he writes. “Men only rhapsodize about
Niagara and the ocean. My notes speak simply of the ‘long evershining
line of cliff diminished to a well-pointed wedge in the perspective’; and
again, of ‘the face of glistening ice, sweeping in a long curve from the
low interior, the facets in front intensely illuminated by the sun.’ But
this line of cliff rose in solid glassy wall three hundred feet above the
water-level, with an unknown, unfathomable depth below it; and its curved
face, sixty miles in length from Cape Agassiz to Cape Forbes, vanished
into unknown space at not more than a single day’s railroad travel from
the Pole. The interior with which it communicated, and from which it
issued, was an unsurveyed _mer de glace_, an ice-ocean, to the eye of
boundless dimensions.
“It was in full sight—the mighty crystal bridge which connects the two
continents of America and Greenland. I say continents, for Greenland,
however insulated it may ultimately prove to be, is in mass strictly
continental. Its last possible axis, measured from Cape Farewell to the
line of this glacier, in the neighborhood of the eightieth parallel,
gives a length of more than twelve hundred miles,—not materially less
than that of Australia from its northern to its southern cape. Imagine
now the centre of such a continent, occupied through nearly its whole
extent by a deep unbroken sea of ice, that gathers perennial increase
from the water-shed of vast snow-covered mountains, and all the
precipitation of the atmosphere upon its own surface. Imagine this moving
onward like a great glacial river, seeking outlets at every fiord and
valley, rolling icy cataracts and having at last reached the northern
limit of the land that has borne it up, pouring out a mighty frozen
torrent into unknown Arctic space.
“It is thus, and only thus, that we must form a just conception of a
phenomenon like this Great Glacier. I had looked in my own mind for such
an appearance, should I ever be fortunate enough to reach the northern
coast of Greenland. But, now that it was before me, I could hardly
realize it. I had recognized in my quiet library at home, the beautiful
analogies which Forbes and Studen have developed between the glacier and
the river. But I could not comprehend at first this complete substitution
of ice for water.
[Illustration: HUMBOLDT GLACIER]
“It was slowly that the conviction dawned on me that I was looking upon
the counterpart of the great river system of Arctic Asia and America. Yet
here were no water-feeders from the south. Every particle of moisture
had its origin within the polar circle, and had been converted into
ice. There were no vast alluvions, no forest or animal traces borne
down by liquid torrents. Here was a plastic, moving, semi-solid mass,
obliterating life, swallowing rocks and islands, and ploughing its way
with irresistible march through the crust of an investing sea.”
[Sidenote: _RETURN AND ILLNESS OF DR. KANE_]
By May 5, Dr. Kane became delirious and fainted every time he was taken
from the tent. “My comrades would kindly persuade me that, even had I
continued sound, we could not have proceeded on our journey. The snows
were very heavy, and increasing as we went; some of the drifts perfectly
impassable, and the level floes often four feet deep in yielding snow.
The scurvy had already broken out among the men, with symptoms like my
own; and Morton, our strongest man, was beginning to give way.
“It is the reverse of comfort to me that they shared my weakness. All
that I could remember with pleasurable feeling is, that to five brave
men, Morton, Riley, Hickey, Stephenson, and Hans, themselves scarcely
able to travel, I owe my preservation. They carried me back by forced
marches, after caching our stores and India-rubber boat near Dallas Bay,
in lat. 79° 5´, long. 66°.”
Such was the “failure” of the Grand Expedition!
The gentle hand of summer now extended much-needed relief to the stricken
crew. Seals began to appear and in such large numbers that there was no
want of fresh meat, which worked wonders in the health of those suffering
with scurvy. Snow-buntings and gulls and eider-ducks came winging their
way to their northern breeding places—and the warm sun brought out the
welcome verdure with marvellous rapidity.
Dr. Kane’s health improved, but he was obliged to give up further sledge
journeys. To Dr. Hayes was intrusted a journey in which he reached the
opposite coast of Grinnell Land, which he surveyed as far as Cape Frazer.
On June 1, Morton left the brig with Hans, the Eskimo, for the purpose of
surveying the Greenland coast beyond the Humboldt Glacier. The lateness
of the season rendered much of the ice extremely unsafe.
On June 26, 1854, Morton reached the bold headland of Cape Constitution,
where the surf dashed so furiously against the high, overhanging cliffs,
that further progress was impossible. Climbing from rock to rock, in the
hope of finding a pass, he stood at last at a height of three hundred
feet and looked out upon a great waste of waters, stretching as far as
the eye could reach into the unknown north. About him the flocks of
sea-swallows, kittiwakes, and brent-geese blended their discordant notes
with the thunderous roll of the sea. From Cape Constitution the coast of
Washington Land trended to the east, but far to the northwest, beyond the
open waters of the channel, a peak terminating a range of mountains was
seen towering at a height of from twenty-five hundred to three thousand
feet, and this remote landmark received the name of Mount Parry. On the
25th of June, Morton commenced his return and reached the brig on the
10th of July, “staggering by the side of the limping dogs, one of which
was riding as a passenger upon the sledge.”
Meanwhile, the brief summer was rapidly waning; there seemed no promise
of the ice breaking up, and the alarming prospect of passing a second
winter in the ice forced itself upon the gallant commander and his brave
and suffering crew.
“We have no coal for a second winter here,” he writes; “our stock of
fresh provisions is utterly exhausted; and our sick need change, as
essential to their recovery.”
An unsuccessful attempt was made to reach Sir Edward Belcher’s squadron
at Beechey Island.
“The season travels on,” writes Dr. Kane on August 15; “the young ice
grows thicker, and my messmates’ faces grow longer every day. I have
again to play buffoon to keep up the spirits of the party. A raven! The
snowbirds begin to fly to the south in groups; coming at night to our
brig to hover on the rigging. Winter is hurrying upon us. The poppies are
quite wilted.”
Two days later we find the entry:—
“In five days the spring tides come back: should we fail in passing
with them, I think our fortunes are fixed. The young ice bore a man
this morning: it had a bad look, this man-supporting August ice! The
temperature never falls below 28°; but it is cold o’ nights with no fire.”
“August 18, Friday,” he writes, “reduced our allowance of wood to six
pounds a meal. This, among eighteen mouths, is one-third of a pound of
fuel each. It allows us coffee twice a day, and soup once. Our fare
besides this is cold pork boiled in quantity and eaten as required. This
sort of thing works badly; but I must save coal for other emergencies. I
see ‘darkness ahead’!
“I inspected the ice again to-day. Bad! Bad!—I must look another winter
in the face. I do not shrink from the thought, but, while we have a
chance ahead, it is my first duty to have all things in readiness to meet
it. It is _horrible_—yes, that is the word—to look forward to another
year of disease and darkness to be met without fresh food and without
fuel. I should meet it with a more tempered sadness if I had no comrades
to think for and protect.”
“August 20, Sunday.—Rest for all hands. The daily prayer is no longer
‘Lord, accept our gratitude and bless our undertaking,’ but, ‘Lord,
accept our gratitude and restore us to our homes.’ The ice shows no
change; after a boat and foot journey around the entire southeastern
curve of the bay, no signs!”
The future looked so gloomy, and Dr. Kane’s apprehension for the ultimate
safety of his party was so grave, that he determined to erect a cairn in
a conspicuous spot upon a cliff looking out upon the icy desert, and on a
broad face of rock the words—
“Advance
“A.D. 1853-54”
were painted in letters which could be read at a distance. A pyramid
of heavy stones perched above it, was marked with the Christian symbol
of the cross. “It was not without a holier sentiment than that of mere
utility that I placed under this the coffins of our two poor comrades. It
was our beacon and their gravestone. Near this a hole was worked into the
rock, and a paper, enclosed in glass, sealed in with melted lead. This
paper contained a careful record of the expedition up to date.
“The memory of the first winter quarters of Sir John Franklin, and the
painful feelings with which, while standing by the graves of his dead, I
had five years before sought for written signs pointing to the fate of
the living, made me careful to avoid a similar neglect.”
On August 24, the last hope of liberating the vessel vanished, and,
calling his officers and crew together, Dr. Kane explained to them the
full gravity of the situation, and though he was fully determined to
stand by the brig and felt that an attempted retreat to the settlement
of Upernavik so late in the season would certainly fail, he nevertheless
gave his full permission to those desiring to leave, and the promise
of a brother’s welcome, should they be driven back. The roll was then
called, and eight of the men out of the seventeen survivors of the party
volunteered to remain in the ship. The rest made ready to abandon her,
and with a generous division of stores and appliances left the ship on
the 28th, “The party moved off with the elastic step of men confident in
their purpose, and were out of sight in a few hours.”
Reduced in numbers, many of them helpless, the waning efficiency of all,
combined with the impending winter darkness and the scant supply of fuel
and stores, tended sadly to depress the isolated group of despairing
men. But their intrepid commander, realizing the necessity of immediate
action, put all hands, sick and well, to work according to their
strength, in preparation for the approaching of winter.
[Sidenote: _SECOND WINTER IN THE ICE_]
Dr. Kane had made a careful study of the Eskimos, and had come to the
wise conclusion that their form of habitations and their peculiar
diet, minus their unthrift and filth, was the safest and best method
of existence under the unusual circumstances of an Arctic winter. He
therefore determined to borrow a lesson from the natives and, as far as
possible, turn the brig into an _igloë_. The quarter-deck was padded
down with moss and turf, so as to form a nearly cold-proof covering.
Below a space some eighteen feet square was packed from floor to ceiling
with inner walls of the same material. The floor was carefully calked
with plaster-of-Paris and common paste, covered a couple of inches deep
with Manila oakum, and carpeted with canvas. A low moss-lined tunnel was
arranged to connect with the hold, and divided with as many doors and
curtains as possible to keep out the cold draughts.
Large banks of snow were also thrown up along the brig’s sides to keep
off the cold wind. These arduous labours in the open air greatly improved
the health and spirits of the men.
Intercourse with the Eskimos at the winter settlements of Etah and
Anoatok, distant some thirty and seventy miles, led to a treaty by which
the Eskimos, for such presents as needles, pins, and knives, engaged to
furnish walrus and fresh seal meat, to the ship. Common hunting parties
were organized, and the white men were directed by the natives where to
find the game. To these supplies of fresh meat, Kane and his companions
owed their salvation, and the Eskimos on their part learned to regard the
white men as their benefactors, and sincerely mourned their departure.
[Sidenote: _PRIVATIONS AND SUFFERINGS_]
Before the darkness came on, Dr. Kane again nearly lost his life in an
attempt to secure a seal—while out in the ice, Hans had just cried out,
“_Pusey! pusey mut!_ seal! seal!” “At the same instant,” writes Dr. Kane,
“the dogs bounded forward, and, as I looked up, I saw crowds of gray
netsik, the rough or hispid seal of the whalers disporting in an open
sea of water.”
“I had hardly welcomed the spectacle when I saw that we had passed upon
a new belt of ice that was obviously unsafe. To the right and left and
front was one great expanse of snow-flowered ice. The nearest solid floe
was a mere lump, which stood like an island in the white level. To turn
was impossible; we had to keep up our gait. We urged on the dogs with
whip and voice, the ice rolling like leather beneath the sledge-runners;
it was more than a mile to the lump of solid ice. Fear gave to the poor
beasts their utmost speed, and our voices were soon hushed to silence.
“This suspense, unrelieved by action or efforts, was intolerable; we
knew that there was no remedy but to reach the floe, and that everything
depended upon our dogs, and our dogs alone. A moment’s check would
plunge the whole concern into the rapid tideway; no presence of mind or
resource, bodily or mental, could avail us. The seals—for we were now
near enough to see their expressive faces—were looking at us with that
strange curiosity which seems to be their characteristic expression; we
must have passed some fifty of them, breast-high out of water, mocking us
by their self-complacency.
“This desperate race against fate could not last: the rolling of the
tough salt-water ice terrified our dogs; and when within fifty paces from
the floe, they paused. The left-hand runner went through: our leader
‘Toodlamick’ followed, and in one second the entire left of the sledge
was submerged. My first thought was to liberate the dogs. I leaned
forward to cut poor ‘Tood’s’ traces, and the next minute was swimming in
a little circle of pasty ice and water alongside him. Hans, dear good
fellow, drew near to help me, uttering piteous expressions in broken
English; but I ordered him to throw himself on his belly with his hands
and legs extended, and to make for the island by cogging himself forward
with his jack-knife. In the meantime—a mere instant—I was floundering
about with sledge, dogs, and lines, in a confused puddle around me.
[Illustration: I. I. HAYES]
“I succeeded in cutting poor Tood’s lines and letting him scramble to
the ice, for the poor fellow was drowning me with his piteous caresses,
and made my way for the sledge; but I found that it would not buoy me,
and that I had no resource but to try the circumference of the hole.
Around this I paddled faithfully, the miserable ice always yielding when
my hopes of a lodgment were greatest. During this process, I enlarged my
circle of operations to a very uncomfortable diameter, and was beginning
to feel weaker after every effort. Hans, meanwhile, had reached the firm
ice, and was on his knees, like a good Moravian, praying incoherently
in English and Eskimo; at every fresh crushing-in of the ice he would
ejaculate ‘God!’ and when I recommenced my paddling he recommenced his
prayers.
“I was nearly gone. My knife had been lost in cutting out the dogs; and a
spare one which I carried in my trousers-pocket was so enveloped in the
wet skins that I could not reach it. I owed my extrication at last to a
newly broken team-dog, who was still fast to the sledge and in struggling
carried one of the runners chock against the edge of the circle. All my
previous attempts to use the sledge as a bridge had failed, for it broke
through, to the much greater injury of the ice. I felt it was a last
chance. I threw myself on my back, so as to lessen as much as possible
my weight, and placed the nape of my neck against the run or edge of
the ice; then with caution slowly bent my leg, and, placing the ball of
my moccasined foot against the sledge, I pressed steadily against the
runner, listening to the half-yielding crunch of the ice beneath.
“Presently I felt that my head was pillowed by the ice, and that my wet
fur jumper was sliding up the surface. Next came my shoulders; they were
fairly on. One more decided push and I was launched up on the ice and
safe. I reached the ice-floe, and was frictioned by Hans with frightful
zeal. We saved all the dogs, but the sledge, kayack, tents, guns,
snow-shoes, and everything besides, were left behind. The thermometer at
8° will keep them frozen fast in the sledge till we can come and cut them
out.
“On reaching the ship, after a twelve-mile trot, I found so much of
comfort and warm welcome that I forgot my failure. The fire was lit up,
and one of our few birds slaughtered forthwith. It is with real gratitude
that I look back upon my escape, and bless the great presiding Goodness
for the very many resources which remain to us.”
On December 12, the party which had deserted the ship returned; they had
had a bitter experience struggling for more than four months among the
hummocks and snow-drifts, and were in a pitiable condition.
“The thermometer was at -50°”, writes Dr. Kane; “they were covered with
rime and snow, and were fainting with hunger. It was necessary to use
caution in taking them below; for after an exposure of such fearful
intensity and duration as they had gone through, the warmth of the
cabin would have prostrated them completely. They had journeyed three
hundred and fifty miles; and their last run from the bay near Etah, some
seventy miles in a right line, was through the hummocks at this appalling
temperature. Poor fellows! as they threw open their Eskimo garments by
the stove, how they relished the scanty luxuries which we had to offer
them. The coffee, and the meat-biscuit soup, and the molasses, and the
wheat bread, even the salt pork, which our scurvy forbade the rest of
us to touch—how they relished it all! For more than two months they had
lived on frozen seal and walrus-meat.”
To Dr. Kane’s determination to stand by the brig was due the preservation
of the entire party, for had he been less firm in his resolution, the
entire expedition would undoubtedly have perished on the ice.
“February closes,” writes the heroic leader; “thank God the lapse of its
twenty-eight days! Should the thirty-one of the coming March not drag
us further downward, we may hope for a successful close to this dreary
drama. By April 10 we should have seals; and when they come, if we remain
to welcome them, we can call ourselves saved. But a fair review of our
prospects tells me that I must look the lion in the face. The scurvy is
steadily gaining on us. I do my best to sustain the more desperate cases,
but as fast as I partially build up one, another is stricken down. Of the
six workers of our party, as I counted them a month ago, two are unable
to do out-door work, and the remaining four divide the duty of the ship
among them. Hans musters his remaining energies to conduct the hunt.
Petersen is his disheartened, moping assistant. The other two, Bonsall
and myself, have all the daily offices of household and hospital.
“We chop five large sacks of ice, cut six fathoms of eight-inch hawser
into junks of a foot each, serve out the meat when we have it, hack
at the molasses, and hew out with crow-bar and axe the pork and dried
apples; pass up the foul slop and cleansings of our dormitory, and in a
word, cook, _scullionize_, and attend the sick.
“Added to this, for five nights running, I have kept watch from 8 P.M.
to 4 A.M., catching such naps as I could in the day without changing my
clothes, but carefully waking every hour to note thermometers.”
The sufferings endured during the month of March are painfully
interesting. Had Dr. Kane’s strength given way at this juncture, the
whole party, deprived of their leading spirit, must have perished. He
attributes his comparative immunity from scurvy to “rat-soup.” These
rodents, surviving the bleak winter, had overrun the ship; but he was the
only man who would eat them. Having no fuel, the only method of heating
was the Eskimo method of lamps; the soot and fatty carbon blacking
everything on which it rested.
Heroic methods were made to keep in touch with the friendly natives, and
Hans, on more than one occasion, saved the life of the party by securing
fresh meat from them.
To add to their troubles, two men attempted to desert at this critical
juncture; only one succeeded—Godfrey—who joined the Eskimos. But strange
as it may seem, this man returned with a supply of meat for his desperate
comrades, while refusing to return on board ship. Fearing Godfrey might
have done bodily harm to Hans, who was absent, Dr. Kane determined to
follow the man and bring him back. To this end he made a journey along
with a dog sledge of over eighty miles to the Eskimo settlement, and
returned with his man.
[Sidenote: _ABANDONMENT OF THE “ADVANCE”_]
There was no other alternative but to prepare for abandoning the
_Advance_, as early in the spring as the weather would permit, and hope
to reach the Danish settlements at Upernavik. Before the boats could
be transferred to the open water, much labour in preparation must be
expended, and the most of the party were bedridden and unable to move.
Not until May 20, 1855, were they able to bid farewell to the brig, and
the retreat was started under the most trying experiences of sickness and
famine. By June 17, they stood beside open sea, but not for fifty-six
more days did they reach Upernavik.
Before the open water was reached, a sad and tragic accident had befallen
one of the ablest men. “I had left the party on the floe,” writes Dr.
Kane, “with many apprehensions for their safety, and the result proved
they were not without cause. While crossing a ‘tide-hole’ one of the
runners of the _Hope’s_ sledge broke through, and, but for the strength
and presence of mind of Ohlsen, the boat would have gone under. He saw
the ice give way, and, by a violent exercise of strength, passed a
capstan-bar under the sledge, and thus bore the load till it was hauled
on to safer ice. He was a very powerful man, and might have done this
without injuring himself, but it would seem his footing gave way under
him, forcing him to make a still more desperate effort to extricate
himself. It cost him his life; he died three days afterwards.
“I was bringing down George Stephenson from the sick-station, and, my
sledge being heavily laden, I had just crossed, with some anxiety, near
the spot at which the accident occurred. A little way beyond we met Mr.
Ohlsen, seated upon a lump of ice and very pale. He pointed to the camp
about three miles farther on, and told us in a faint voice, that he had
not detained the party: he ‘had a little cramp in the small of his back,’
but would soon be better.
“I put him at once in Stephenson’s place, and drove him on to the
_Faith_. There he was placed in the stern sheets of the boat, and well
muffled up in our best buffalo robes. During all that night he was
assiduously attended by Dr. Hayes; but he sank rapidly. His symptoms had
from the first a certain obscure but fatal resemblance to our winter’s
tetanus and filled us with forebodings.”
The strength of the stricken band was gradually reaching its minimum. The
exertion of bailing the unseaworthy boats required all the strength left
to the enfeebled party. They breathed heavily, their limbs swelled, and
they suffered from insomnia, so that each day rendered their weakened
efforts less promising. At this crisis of their fortunes, they saw a
large seal floating on a small patch of ice, and seemingly asleep.
“Trembling with anxiety,” writes Dr. Kane, “we prepared to crawl down
upon him. Petersen, with a large English rifle, was stationed in the
bow, and stockings were drawn over the oars as mufflers. As we neared
the animal, our excitement became so intense that the men could hardly
keep stroke. He was not asleep; for he reared his head when we were
almost within rifle-shot; and to this day I can remember the hard,
careworn, almost despairing expression of the men’s thin faces as they
saw him move; their thin lives depended on his capture. I depressed
my hand nervously, as a signal for Petersen to fire. McGary hung upon
his oar, and the boat seemed to me within certain range. Looking at
Petersen, I saw that the poor fellow was paralysed by his anxiety,
trying vainly to obtain a rest for his gun against the cut-water of the
boat. The seal rose on his fore flipper, gazed at us for a moment with
frightened curiosity, and coiled himself for a plunge. At that instant,
simultaneously with the crack of our rifle, he relaxed his long length
on the ice, and, at the very brink of the water, his head fell helpless
to one side. I would have ordered another shot, but no discipline could
have controlled the men. With a wild yell, each vociferating according to
his own impulse, they urged their boats upon the floes. A crowd of hands
seized the seal, and bore him up to safer ice. The men seemed half crazy.
I had not realized how much we were reduced by absolute famine. They ran
over the floe, crying and laughing, and brandishing their knives. It was
not five minutes before every man was sucking his bloody fingers, or
mouthing long strips of raw blubber. Not an ounce of this seal was lost.”
A few days later the familiar cadence of a “halloo” fell upon the ears.
“Listen, Petersen! oars, men!” “What is it?”—and he listened quietly at
first and then, trembling said, in a half whisper, “Danne markers!”
“I remember this,” writes Kane, “the first tone of Christian voice which
had greeted our return to the world. How we all stood up and peered into
the distant nooks; and how the cry came to us again, just as, having
seen nothing, we were doubting whether the whole was not a dream; and
then how, with long sweeps, the white ash cracking under the spring of
the rowers, we stood for the cape that the sound proceeded from, and how
nervously we scanned the green spots which our experience, grown now
into instinct, told us would be the likely camping ground of wayfarer.
By-and-by—for we must have been pulling a good half hour—the single mast
of a small shallop showed itself; and Petersen, who had been very quiet
and grave, burst out into an incoherent fit of crying, only relieved by
broken exclamations of mingled Danish and English. ‘’Tis the Upernavik
oil-boat! the Fräulein Flaischer! Carlie Mossyn, the assistant cooper,
must be on his road to Kingatok for blubber. The _Mariane_ (the one
animal ship) has come, and Carlie Mossyn—’ and here he did it all over
again, gulping down his words and wringing his hands.”
Another halt, a night’s rest, and the settlement was reached, where a
generous welcome awaited the weary explorers.
[Illustration: FIVE MEMBERS OF THE GRINNELL EXPEDITION
BONSALL BROOKS DR. KANE DR. HAYES OHLSEN]
“For eighty-four days,” says Kane, “we had lived in the open air. Our
habits were hard and weather-worn. We could not remain within the four
walls of a house without a distressing sense of suffocation. But we drank
coffee that night before many a hospitable threshold, and listened again
and again to the hymn of welcome, which, sung by many voices, greeted our
deliverance.”
The Danish vessel was not ready for her homeward journey till the 4th
of September. On the 6th, Dr. Kane and his party left Upernavik, in the
_Mariane_, whose captain had promised to convey them to the Shetland
Islands; on the 11th they touched at Godhaven, the inspectorate of North
Greenland, and later at Disco, where the _Mariane_ remained a few days.
As early as February 3, 1855, a resolution had passed Congress
authorizing the Secretary of the Navy to despatch a suitable steamer
and tender for the relief of Dr. Kane. The _Release_ and _Arctic_
were accordingly equipped and put in command of Lieutenant Hartstein,
accompanied by a brother of Dr. Kane. By July 5, the relief expedition
had reached Lievely, Isle of Disco, Greenland, and from this point
Lieutenant Hartstein says in a letter to the Secretary of the Navy: “To
avoid further risk of human life, in a search so extremely hazardous, I
would suggest the impropriety of making any efforts to relieve us if we
should not return; feeling confident that we shall be able to accomplish
all necessary for our own release, under the most extraordinary
circumstances.”
Having forced a passage through the closely packed ice into the north
water, they proceeded to examine the coast from Cape York to Wolstenholme
Island, also Cape Alexander and Sutherland Island.
A few stones heaped together near Point Pellam gave assurance of Kane’s
having been there, but no other clew was secured. Taking a retrograde
course, they examined Cape Hatherton and Littleton Island, finally
reaching a point some fifteen miles northwest of Cape Alexander. Here
they were surprised to fall in with some Eskimos, in whose possession
were found certain articles known to have belonged to Dr. Kane. After
diligent inquiries, they learned of the abandonment of the ship and the
retreat to the south of Dr. Kane’s party.
[Sidenote: _RETREAT AND RESCUE_]
After some further reconnoitring in the hope of finding the party should
they be in the vicinity, Lieutenant Hartstein decided to make for
Upernavik. A furious gale drove them out of their course adrift in the
ice pack.
“After this gale,” writes Dr. Kane’s brother, “we had little or no more
troubles with the ice; one or two trifling detentions of a few days
brought us to open water. We had drifted so far to the south that
Lievely was nearer than Upernavik, and Captain Hartstein determined to
put in there. We had a heavy gale the night after we left the ice; but
so glad were we all to get clear of it, that I heard no complaints about
rough weather. It cleared away beautifully towards morning, and we were
all on the deck, admiring the clear water, and the fantastic shapes of
the water-washed icebergs. All hands were in high spirits; the gale
had blown in the right direction, and in a few hours we should be in
Lievely. The rocks of its land-locked harbor were already in sight. We
were discussing our news by anticipation, when the man in the crow’s nest
cried out: ‘A brig in the harbor!’ and the next minute, before we had
time to congratulate each other on the chance of sending letters home,
that she had hoisted American colors—a delicate compliment, we thought,
on the part of our friends, the Danes. I believe our captain was about to
return it, when to our surprise, she hoisted another flag, the veritable
one which had gone out with the _Advance_, bearing the name of Mr. Henry
Grinnell. At the same moment, two boats were seen rounding the point, and
pulling towards us. Did they contain our lost friends? Yes, the sailors
had settled that. ‘Those are Yankees, sir; no Danes ever feathered their
oars that way.’
“For those who had friends among the missing party, the few minutes
that followed were of bitter anxiety; for the men in the boats were
long-bearded and weather-beaten; they had strange wild costumes; there
was no possibility of recognition.”
In Dr. Kane’s own words, let us conclude the chapter:—
“Presently we were alongside. An officer whom I shall ever remember as
a cherished friend, Captain Hartstein, hailed a little man in a ragged
flannel shirt. ‘Is this Dr. Kane?’ and with the ‘Yes!’ that followed, the
rigging was manned by our countrymen, and cheers welcomed us back to the
social world of love which they represented.”
Dr. Kane and his party reached New York, October 11, 1855, and received
an enthusiastic welcome, after an absence of thirty months. Honours of
the most flattering kind awaited him on both sides of the Atlantic, but
his health was completely broken by the trials of his wonderful journey.
On February 16, 1857, he died at Havana, in the thirty-seventh year of
his age.
[Illustration: “TENNYSON MONUMENT”
The tall shaft, of pale green granite, was discovered by Dr. Kane]