"Here winter holds his unrejoicing court;
And through his airy hall the loud misrule
Of driving tempest is forever heard.
Here the grim tyrant meditates his wrath,
Here arms his winds and all-subduing frost.
Moulds his fierce hail and treasures up his snows
With which he now oppresses half the globe."
_June 22nd. Sunday_. It was blowing very hard from the south, and there
was much ice, so we had a difficult time picking our way. The weather
was also bitterly cold. Again birds were very numerous. We were making
our way to Princess Charlotte's Monument on the west side, and it was
slow work. The _Arctic_ was ahead of us and not moving on any faster.
We felt the loss of the relief ships. They were always a cause of some
excitement, and there was a chance of finding Greely so long as we kept
going north. Now that that interest was removed, I consoled myself with
the knowledge that we were nearing the magnetic pole, and would soon be
steaming up Lancaster Sound, the highway to the northwest along which so
many brave men had gone never to return. During the afternoon it became
more squally, and when I turned in we were making little headway, but
the wind was going down.
_June 23rd. Monday_. We were steaming in tolerably open water when I
came on deck. The _Arctic_ was ahead. Birds were numerous--some geese
with hundreds of eider and guillemot. After breakfast we saw land ahead,
that is, to the west, and during the afternoon were within a mile or so
of it,--Princess Charlotte's Monument. There was much loose ice to the
south and a straight floe edge to the north of us, and to this we hooked
on two hundred yards to the east of the _Arctic_. We did not care to
go closer to the rocks lest the ice should come in on us. I saw Dr.
Crawford take the _Arctic's_ launch and go ashore to look for eggs.
Returning a couple of hours after, steam went down and the _Arctic_ was
obliged to unhook and go after them. It appeared that the boiler was too
exposed and the cold so intense that they simply could not keep steam
up. The launch had been keeping under the lee of the floe as much as
possible, and when steam went down she began to drift away from this
into rough water. For a few minutes things looked bad for her, as she
was a wretched sea boat with her heavy boiler and engine. During the
night we unhooked and worked our way towards the south.
_June 24th. Tuesday._ Day fine, but blowing from the south. A lot of ice
on the coast, and to the south and east all was white. We were now where
whales might be seen and preparations were made. Foregoers and lines
were tested, harpoons examined, guns cleaned and fired to make sure
they would work, lines coiled away in boats, and every one was on the
lookout. We never heard of Disco or Cape York now. All was Lancaster
Sound and Pond's Bay, with weird tales of cold days spent rock-nosing
off Cape Kater and in Cumberland Gulf. All these preparations did not
hurry matters in the least. The king of this country decided that we
should remain for a day or two where we were, and so in the evening we
were hooked on almost where the morning found us.
June 25th. Wednesday. About noon the wind died down and the currents,
setting south, took the ice off the coast so that we were able to crawl
along a little; but a few hours later we made fast to the land floe off
Cape Horsburgh, as the pack was drifting in again. We saw many walrus
here, but did not like to spend time at them, as we wanted to be the
first ship up the Sound. At tea time we moved along a little further
and by bedtime we tied up again. Some of our tanks were pumped out and
cleaned, ready for the anticipated oil. There were a number of seals in
sight, but they were left alone, as the time was precious.
June 26th. Thursday. As the ship was hard and fast I took a rifle and
went after some seals which were to be seen a mile away. Before going
very far I found myself climbing over hummocks of old ice which had
drifted down Jones Sound, and it was very difficult walking. On one side
of a hummock the snow would be perfectly smooth and frozen hard, while
on the other side it would be so soft that one at once went through the
surface and had to clamber along in several feet of it.
Again, one would come to a perfectly rotten and honeycombed piece of ice
underneath which there was a foot or two of water, and below the water
could be seen the solid old floe; this made walking so difficult that I
returned to the ship without getting a shot.
[Illustration: 0248]
_June 27th and 28th_ were uneventful. We moved little, and Cape
Horsburgh was in sight all the time, but on:
_June 29th, Sunday,_ we had a good lead along the shore floe and were
steaming fast through it when I came on deck. A number of bears were
seen about noon, but the wind was from the south and the ice was coming
in, so we hurried along. As there were a number of them, they were
probably attracted by some dead beast.
Barron tells of seeing once about one hundred bears around a dead whale.
He also tells of men being devoured by these creatures.
In the days of muzzle-loaders there was more risk than there is now,
because if one came suddenly upon a bear with cubs and missed his shot,
there might not be time to load again.
Late in the evening we were off: Cape Warrender and were steaming
amongst loose ice at bedtime. Several narwhals were seen during the
afternoon, but we paid no attention to them.
_June 30th. Monday._ Steaming up the Sound towards a solid floe at
breakfast time with many white whales in sight. We steered south along
the ice edge, and seeing an Eskimo standing on it, we sailed up to
him. He was a very uncouth looking individual after the smartly dressed
gentlemen on the Greenland side. His clothes did not fit and he was
otherwise careless about his appearance. He had in his hand a narwhal's
tusk, and as we came close we heard him singing "Bonny Laddie--Highland
Laddie." This he had probably learned from his parents, they having
learned it from the whalers in sailing-ship days. In old times it was
customary to lower the boats and tow the ship through the leads to
the above tune. I was told this, so it may be true. The native came on
board. He was much more like an American Indian than a Greenland Eskimo.
Before he had been many minutes on board he was taken aft and relieved
of his tusk by the second mate, getting in return some trifle: the
gentleman belonged to Navy Board Inlet, on the south side, and not far
away.
The Captain had had a lot of paddles made for some of the boats. It was
possible to approach whales with very little noise when the paddles were
used, so we tried them frequently for narwhal hunting. As there were
numbers of these creatures in sight, we had a couple of boats out after
them. A sharp lookout was kept from the crow's nest for whales coming up
the Sound. We hooked on to the ice about two miles from the south shore,
and put a boat out on either side of the ship and about a hundred yards
away. These boats were hooked on by laying the long steering oar on the
ice. Our narwhal hunters had no luck, so they came on board.
_July 1st. Tuesday_. We were fast to the ice with a boat on each side
all day. The Captain had a long interview with the native on the subject
of whales. He seemed to understand maps well, and was able to point out
where he had seen fish; from what I could make out, a good number had
been in the Sound. I spent the afternoon in a boat with the Captain
trying to get a narwhal. We saw dozens and came pretty close to several
lots, but did not get one good shot, although we fired several times.
The harpoons we used for this work were much smaller than the regular
whaling harpoon and were made of the same tough Swedish iron.
Before turning in I spent an hour on deck and heard narwhals and white
whales breathing about us all the time. Everything looked propitious.
_July 2nd. Wednesday._ I had a dream during the night that we had
succeeded in killing a narwhal and that our youngest harpooner, Gyles,
had killed it. Dreams were often recounted at the breakfast table, so
I told this, and, as luck would have it, before dinner Gyles killed our
first narwhal. My night visions were subsequently treated with
great respect, except by the steward, who felt, no doubt, that I was
infringing a little on his rights. A coldness sprang up between us such
as only professional jealousy can create, and which evinced itself the
following day when he did not ask me to help him to pick the raisins for
the duff--Thursday being duff day. The forenoon success gave quite
an impetus to the narwhal fishing, but no more were captured, as the
elusive beasts always went down just as we were almost within shot.
The narwhal (Monodon Monoceros) is to me the most beautiful of the whale
species. The one captured by us was twelve feet long without the tusk.
This measured four feet in length and about four inches around the base.
It ended in a rather sharp point and had a spiral groove running from
right to left. The horn, or rather tooth, protrudes from the upper jaw
of the male, generally on the left side. It only protrudes from the
female head as a freak. On the right side a small undeveloped horn is
found embedded in the skull of the male, but two undeveloped teeth are
found in the female. The narwhal is the only vertebrate animal in which
bilateral symmetry is not the rule. The body is whitish, marbled with
blackish brown, and about four of them yield a ton of oil. With an axe I
easily split the cancellous skull and removed the embedded tusk. We saw
hundreds of white whales this day (Delphinapterus leucas). These are
cousins of the narwhals, but generally a little larger. The _Aurora_ had
great luck the previous year up Prince Regent's Inlet in getting a
good catch of them. This was managed by driving them ashore. They were
skinned and the skin made into leather. Each side counted as one skin.
They go in schools like porpoises, but generally only three or four
abreast, therefore, it takes a large school a considerable time to go
past. They are peculiar in having no dorsal fin, and their yellowish
white colour makes them rather conspicuous.
_July 3rd. Thursday._ 'Before breakfast a bear was seen in the water
and shot by McLean from a boat. Bears are always lucky and we knew that
something better would soon come. While at breakfast a female narwhal
was killed. It must have been fourteen feet long. I removed the two
little embedded horns. Narwhals were very difficult to capture with the
appliances in use at this time, the harpoon gun being only effective
at ten or fifteen yards. As the beast generally went down when one was
about twenty yards away, a long shot had to be taken with a very clumsy
gun. Very little of the narwhal showed above water, just the top of its
head and back. Of course there was a good sized animal immediately under
the water, so that a harpoon might miss the back and still lodge in the
whale. It was very cold and we had several snow showers. The bear was
skinned and the skin salted and put in a barrel, no attempt being made
to dry or otherwise cure any of the bear skins taken during the voyage.
They were kept green.
_July 4th. Friday_. During the night there was a fall of snow and a
breeze from the east had driven some loose ice up the Sound, and pieces
were constantly breaking off the floe. These drifted down the Sound with
the current; but when there was wind from the east much of this broken
ice would drift up and surround us. We were dodging about under canvas
in the morning, and the wind, which was bitterly cold, was going down.
During the forenoon we sailed up to the floe edge and hooked on about
eight miles from the south side, putting two boats on the bran, that is,
one on each side of the ship. The loose ice had drifted away, and as
the afternoon was very fine the Captain decided to try the unies, as the
narwhals were called, and I went with him. One does not generally see
very many unies together, but they were in fours and fives all over the
place this afternoon and very shy. Just as the boat would get within
twenty-five yards or so, off they would go. The Captain made a long shot
at one and got fast. For a few minutes the line ran out rapidly, but
the shot had been a long one and the harpoon drew, so we came on board
disappointed.
Paddles were used instead of oars, as they made less noise. On the
fishing ground we avoided noise as much as possible and for this reason
the ship seldom steamed, but kept her fires banked and moved about under
canvas.