Favourable Appearances of an open Westerly Passage.--Land to the
Northward, a Series of Islands.--General Appearance of them.--Meet
with some Obstruction from low Islands surrounded with
Ice.--Remains of Esquimaux Huts, and natural Productions of Byam
Martin Island.--Tedious Navigation from Fogs and Ice.--Difficulty
of Steering a Proper Course.--Arrival and Landing on Melville
Island.--Proceed to the Westward, and reach the Meridian of 110°
W. Long., the first Stage in the Scale of Rewards granted by Act
of Parliament.
A calm which prevailed during the night kept us quite stationary
till three A.M. on the 23d, when a fresh breeze sprung up from the
northward, and all sail was made for Cape Hotham, to the southward
of which it was now my intention to seek a direct passage towards
Behring's Strait. Wellington Channel, to the northward of us, was
as open and navigable to the utmost extent of our view as any part
of the Atlantic; but as it lay at right angles to our coarse, and
there was still an opening at least ten leagues wide to the
southward of Cornwallis Island, I could have no hesitation in
deciding which of the two it was our business to pursue. It is
impossible to conceive anything more animating than the quick and
unobstructed run with which we were favoured, from Beechey Island
across to Cape Hotham. Most men have, probably, at one time or
another, experienced that elevation of spirits which is usually
produced by rapid motion of any kind; and it will readily be
conceived how much this feeling was heightened in us, in the few
instances in which it occurred, by the slow and tedious manner in
which the greater part of our navigation had been performed in
these seas.
At noon we had reached the longitude of 94° 43' 15", the latitude
by observation being 74° 20' 52", when we found that the land
which then formed the western extreme on this side was a second
island, which I called GRIFFITH ISLAND. The ice in this
neighbourhood was covered with innumerable "hummocks," and the
floes were from seven to ten feet in thickness.
After various unsuccessful attempts to get through the ice which
now lay in our way, we were at length so fortunate as to
accomplish this object by "boring" through a number of heavy
"streams," which occasioned the ships to receive many severe
shocks; and, at half an hour before midnight, we were able to,
pursue our course, through "sailing ice," to the westward.
The weather was at this time remarkably serene and clear; and
although we saw a line of ice to the southward of us, lying in a
direction nearly east and west, or parallel to the course on which
we were steering, and some more land appeared to the westward, yet
the space of open water was still so broad, and the prospect from
the masthead, upon the whole, so flattering, that I thought the
chances of our separation had now become greater than before; and
I therefore considered it right to furnish Lieutenant Liddon with
fresh instructions, and to appoint some new place of rendezvous in
case of unavoidable separation from the Hecla. At ten o'clock,
after having had a clear view of the ice and of the land about
sunset, and finding that there was at present no passage to the
westward, we hauled off to the southeast, in the hope of finding
some opening in the ice to the southward, by which we might get
round in the desired direction. We were encouraged in this hope by
a dark "water-sky" to the southward; but, after running along the
ice till half past eleven without perceiving any opening, we again
bore up. There was in this neighbourhood a great deal of that
particular kind of ice called by the sailors "dirty ice," on the
surface of which were strewed sand, stones, and, in some
instances, moss: ice of this kind must, of course, at one time or
other, have been in close contact with the land.
At ten A.M. I despatched Captain Sabine and Mr. Ross to the
eastern point of the island, which we were about to round in the
ships, in order to make the necessary observations, and to examine
the natural productions of the shore. Our latitude at noon was 75°
03' 12", long. 103° 44' 37", and the depth of water forty fathoms.
The gentlemen reported, on their return, that they had landed on a
sandy beach, near the east point of the island, which they found
to be more productive, and altogether more interesting, than any
other part of the shores of the Polar regions which we had yet
visited. The remains of Esquimaux habitations were found in four
different places. Six of these, which Captain Sabine had an
opportunity of examining, and which are situated on a level sandy
bank, at the side of a small ravine near the sea, are described by
him as consisting of stones rudely placed in a circular, or,
rather, an elliptical form. They were from seven to ten feet in
diameter; the broad, flat sides of the stones standing vertically,
and the whole structure, if such it may be called, being exactly
similar to that of the summer huts of the Esquimaux which we had
seen at Hare Island the preceding year. Attached to each of them
was a smaller circle, generally four or five feet in diameter,
which had probably been the fireplace. The small circles were
placed indifferently as to their direction from the huts to which
they belonged; and from the moss and sand which covered some of
the lower stones, particularly those which composed the flooring
of the huts, the whole encampment appeared to have been deserted
for several years. Very recent traces of the reindeer and musk-ox
were seen in many places; and a head of the latter, with several
reindeers' horns, was brought on board. A few patches of snow
remained in sheltered situations; the ravines, however, which were
numerous, bore the signs of recent and considerable floods, and
their bottoms were swampy, and covered with very luxuriant moss
and other vegetation, the character of which differed very little
from that of the land at the bottom of Possession Bay.
The dip of the magnetic needle was 88° 25' 58", and the variation
was now found to have changed from 128° 58' west, in the longitude
of 91° 48', where our last observations on shore had been made, to
165° 50' 09" east, at our present station; so that we had, in
sailing over the space included between those two meridians,
crossed immediately to the northward of the magnetic pole and had
undoubtedly passed over one of those spots upon the globe where
the needle would have been found to vary 180°, or, in other words,
where its north pole would have pointed due south.
The wind became very light from the eastward, and the weather
continued so foggy that nothing could be done during the night but
to stand off-and-on, by the soundings, between the ice and the
land. On the 29th, after a few hours of clear weather, the fog
came on again as thick as before; fortunately, however, we had
previously been enabled to take notice of several pieces of ice,
by steering for each of which in succession we came to the edge of
a floe, along which our course was to be pursued to the westward.
As long as we had this guidance, we advanced with great
confidence; but as soon as we came to the end of the floe, which
then turned off to the southward, the circumstances under which we
were sailing were perhaps such as have never occurred since the
early days of navigation. To the northward was the land; the ice,
as we supposed, to the southward; the compasses useless; and the
sun completely obscured by a fog so thick, that the Griper could
only now and then be seen at a cable's length astern. We had
literally, therefore, no mode, of regulating our course but by
once more trusting to the steadiness of the wind; and it was not a
little amusing, as well as novel, to see the quartermaster conning
the ship by looking at the dogvane.
The weather cleared a little at intervals, but not enough to
enable us to proceed till nine A.M. on the 31st, when we cast off
from the ice, with a very light air from the northward. We
occasionally caught a glimpse of land through the heavy fog-banks
with which the horizon was covered, which was sufficient to give
us an idea of the true direction in which we ought to steer. Soon
after noon we were once more enveloped in a fog, which, however,
was not so thick as to prevent our having recourse to a new
expedient for steering the ships, which circumstances at the time
naturally suggested to our minds. Before the fog recommenced, and
while we were sailing on the course which, by the bearings of the
land, we knew to be the right one, the Griper was exactly astern
of the Hecla, at the distance of about a quarter of a mile. The
weather being fortunately not so thick as to prevent our still
seeing her at that distance, the quartermaster was directed to
stand aft, near the taffrail, and to keep her constantly astern of
us, by which means we contrived to steer a tolerably straight
course to the westward. The Griper, on the other hand, naturally
kept the Hecla right ahead; and thus, however ridiculous it may
appear, it is nevertheless true, that we steered one ship entirely
by the other for a distance of ten miles out of sixteen and a
half, which we sailed between one and eleven P.M.
The wind died away on the morning of the 1st of September, and the
fog was succeeded by snow and sleet, which still rendered the
atmosphere extremely thick. At a quarter before four A.M., I was
informed by the officer of the watch that a breeze had sprung up,
and that there was very little ice near the ships. Anxious to take
advantage of these favourable circumstances, I directed all sail
to be made to the westward: there was no difficulty in complying
with the first part of this order; but to ascertain which way the
wind was blowing, and to which quarter of the horizon the ship's
head was to be directed, was a matter of no such easy accomplishment;
nor could we devise any means of determining this question till five
o'clock, when we obtained a sight of the sun through the fog, and
were thus enabled to shape our course, the wind being moderate from
the northward.
At one A.M. on the 2d, a star was seen, being the first that had
been visible to us for more than two months.
As we were making no way to the westward, I left the ship,
accompanied by a large party of officers and men, and was soon
after joined by the Griper's boats. The basis of this land is
sandstone; but we met with limestone also, occurring in loose
pieces on the surface, and several lumps of coal were brought in
by the parties who had traversed the island in different
directions. Our sportsmen were by no means successful, having seen
only two deer, which were too wild to allow them to get near them.
The dung of these animals, however, as well as that of the
musk-ox, was very abundant, especially in those places where the
moss was most luxuriant; every here and there we came to a spot of
this kind, consisting of one or two acres of ground, covered with
a rich vegetation, which was evidently the feeding-place of those
animals, there being quantities of their hair and wool lying
scattered about. Several heads of the musk-ox were picked up, and
one of the Hecla's seamen brought to the boat a narwhal's horn,
which he found on a hill more than a mile from the sea, and which
must have been carried thither by Esquimaux or by bears: three or
four brace of ptarmigan were killed, and these were the only
supply of this kind which we obtained. We found no indication of
this part of the island having been inhabited, unless the
narwhal's horn be considered as such.
The wind continued light and variable till half past eight A.M. on
the 3d, when a breeze from the northward once more enabled us to
make some progress. I was the more anxious to do so from having
perceived that the main ice had, for the last twenty-four hours,
been gradually, though slowly, closing on the shore, thereby
contracting the scarcely navigable channel in which we were
sailing. The land which formed our western extreme was a low
point, five miles to the westward of our place of observation the
preceding day, which I named Point Ross, and the ice had already
approached this point so much that there was considerable doubt
whether any passage could be found between them. We had scarcely
cleared the point when the wind failed us, and the boats were
immediately sent ahead to tow, but a breeze springing up shortly
after from the westward, obliged us to have recourse to another
method of gaining ground, which we had not hitherto practised:
this was by using small anchors and whale-lines as warps, by which
means we made great progress, till, at forty minutes after noon,
we were favoured by a fresh breeze, which soon took us into an
open space of clear water to the northward and westward. A little
to the westward of Point Ross there was a barrier of ice, composed
of heavy masses firmly fixed to the ground at nearly regular
intervals for about a mile, in a direction parallel to the beach.
At right angles to this a second tier projected, of the same kind
of ice, extending to the shore, so that the two together formed a
most complete harbour, within which, I believe, a ship might have
been placed in case of necessity, without much danger from the
pressure of the external floes of ice. It was natural for us to
keep in view the possibility of our being obliged to pass the
ensuing winter in such a harbour; and it must be confessed, that
the apparent practicability of finding such tolerable security for
the ships as this artificial harbour afforded, should we fail in
discovering a more safe and regular anchorage, added not a little
to the confidence with which our operations were carried on during
the remainder of the season.
At a quarter past nine P.M. we had the satisfaction of crossing
the meridian of 110° west from Greenwich, in the latitude of 74°
44' 20"; by which his majesty's ships under my orders became
entitled to the sum of five thousand pounds, being the reward
offered to such of his majesty's subjects as might succeed in
penetrating thus far to the westward within the Arctic Circle. In
order to commemorate the success which had hitherto attended our
exertions, the bluff headland which we had just passed was
subsequently called by the men BOUNTY CAPE; by which name I have
therefore distinguished it on the chart.
The wind increasing to a fresh gale from the northward in the
afternoon, and the ice still continuing to oppose an impenetrable
barrier to our farther progress, I determined to beat up to the
northern shore of the bay, and, if a tolerable roadstead could be
found, to drop our anchors till some change should take place.
This was accordingly done at three P.M., in seven fathoms' water.
This roadstead, which I called the BAY OF THE HECLA AND GRIPER,
affords very secure shelter with the wind from E.N.E. round by
north to S.W., and we found it more free from ice than any other
part of the southern coast of the island.
The Bay of the Hecla and Griper was the first spot where we had
dropped anchor since leaving the coast of Norfolk; a circumstance
which was rendered the more striking to us at the moment, as it
appeared to mark, in a very decided manner, the completion of one
stage of our voyage. The ensigns and pendants were hoisted as soon
as we had anchored, and it created in us no ordinary feelings of
pleasure to see the British flag waving for the first time in
these regions, which had hitherto been considered beyond the
limits of the habitable part of the world.