the ploughing icebergs, the flat-topped floe-berg was still enormous.
Nearly circular in shape, and averaging quite a hundred feet in
thickness, its area was about seven square miles. With its diversified
surface of hill and dale, favored by several fresh-water lakes, and of
marble-like texture and hardness as to its ice, it seemed to be a
floe-berg of such solidity and extent as would insure safety under any
and all conditions.
The castaways numbered nineteen in all--Captain Tyson, Signal Sergeant
Meyer, eight seamen, and nine Eskimos, of whom seven were women and
children. Except Tyson and the negro cook Jackson, there were no
Americans in the party.
With the foresight, system, and judgment which insured the final safety
of the party, Tyson collected the materials scattered over the several
floes, inventoried and provided for the safety of the food, and insisted
on a fixed ration. Their food supplies on October 18 consisted of 14
hams, 14 cans of pemmican, 12 bags of bread, 1 can of dried apples, 132
cans of meats and soups, and a small bag of chocolate. They also had 2
whale-boats, 2 kayaks, an A-tent, compasses, chronometer, etc., rifles
and ammunition.
Food was of surpassing importance, and Tyson calculated that the supply
would last four months at the rate of twelve ounces daily to each adult,
the Eskimo children to receive half rations.
To insure an equable distribution of the food, Tyson took charge and
personally measured out both bread and pemmican. Later he was able to
give exact weights through a pair of improvised scales. They were made
by Meyer most ingeniously of a lever balance taken from an aneroid
barometer and connected with a three-cornered rule; the weights used
were shot from their shot-gun ammunition.
The foreigners of the party, except the docile Eskimos, were not
thoroughly amenable to command. After Hall's death the failings of the
sailing-master in command, Captain Buddington, were such that he could
not maintain proper discipline, and hence a certain degree of
demoralization existed among the seamen. The rule of the sea that
loosens bonds and makes seamen free from service on the loss of a ship,
was also injuriously felt.
As a result Tyson's powers of control simply arose from his high
character, sound judgment, and professional knowledge. His orders were
obeyed as seemed convenient, but, as one man testified under oath, "When
we didn't [obey his orders] we found out it didn't turn out well"--the
highest of praise.
With increasing cold the tent was no longer habitable, and it became
necessary to provide warm shelter, which was done through the building
of igloos, or snow huts, by the Eskimo Ebierbing (Joe) and Hans
Hendrik. Hans and his family of six built their igloo a little apart
from the others. While there were five separate igloos, they were thrown
into close connection by a system of arched snow passages through which
the men came and went without exposure to the weather. Some delay and
trouble occurred in finding suitable drifts of packed snow from which
were dexterously carved the snow slabs needful for the huts. The very
low entrances to the igloos were covered by a canvas flap frozen into
the outer wall so as to exclude almost entirely the entrance into the
hut of either cold air or wind-driven snow. Feeble light was introduced
through windows made of thin slabs of fresh-water ice cut from an
adjacent lake.
From the entrance the canvas-covered snow floor sloped gently upward to
the rear of the igloo, thus making that portion of the room a little
higher and somewhat warmer, as the colder air flowed down toward the
door. Their scant bedding of sleeping-bags and musk-ox skins was
arranged in the rear of the hut, on canvas-covered boards, where,
however, the arched snow roof was near the head of the sleeper. The only
place where one could stand erect was in the very centre of the hut,
where the separate messes cooked their scanty meals.
Tyson and the Eskimo families did their cooking from the first by lamp,
native-fashion, the lamps being made from pemmican cans with wicks of
canvas ravelings. He urged the others to follow the example thus set,
telling them that this economical method was necessary owing to scarcity
of fuel. The seamen tried it for a while, but as there was much smoke
from lack of care they abandoned the lamp. Despite Tyson's advice, they
began, with reckless disregard for the future, to break up the smaller
of the two boats and use it as fuel for cooking. In excuse they said
that the astronomical observations and opinions of Meyer showed that the
floe was drifting toward Disco, Greenland, and that they would soon
reach that place and the occupancy of the ice camp would be of short
duration.
On October 27 the sun left them permanently for three months, and soon
the bitter, benumbing cold of the arctic winter was felt by all. The
cold, hunger, and short rations soon affected both body and mind,
causing less bodily activity and inducing a sharpness of temper which
often led to long and angry discussions among the seamen.
An unfortunate loss of food occurred in connection with the dogs, all
nine having been kept for bear-hunting. Slowly perishing of starvation,
the wolfish dogs succeeded in breaking into the storehouse, and devoured
everything within reach before they were discovered. Five of the most
ravenous brutes were shot, greatly to the advantage of the Eskimo, who
made a royal feast. The white men, not yet reduced to extremities,
looked on with amusement as their native companions with luxurious
satisfaction cooked and swallowed the slaughtered animals.
Tyson's experiences as a whaler made him realize that the only chance
of life lay in obtaining game, and so he organized and encouraged
hunting-parties. All the men were armed except the captain himself, but
it must be here admitted that the entire crew of seamen did not obtain
enough game, during the drift of six months' duration, to make a single
meal for the party. The successful hunters were the Eskimo, Ebierbing
(Joe) being most successful, though Hans Hendrik killed many seal.
Once Hans barely escaped death from the rifles of Ebierbing and Seaman
Kruger, as in the darkness they mistook him for a bear owing to the
color of his snow-covered fur clothing and to the lumbering methods by
which he climbed over the hummocky ridges. Fortunately the hunters
waited for a better shot, and meantime saw that it was Hans.
Matters were getting bad after one boat had been burned and there was no
blubber left for cooking. Some of the men were so weak that they
trembled as they walked, and the native children often cried from the
pangs of hunger. Once the men ate the seal meat uncooked and undressed,
so keen was their hunger.
As no bears appeared, seal-hunting was followed with renewed and
feverish energy. At first seal were killed in open water-spaces around
the edges of the floe. When the extreme cold cemented together the
floes, it was necessary to hunt carefully for seal-holes--places where
the seal comes regularly for air, keeping the hole open by his nose,
rising and breaking the new ice as it forms from day to day.
Such holes are only three or four inches across, and it often requires
long search before the trained eye of the seal-hunter locates a
breathing space. Even then unwearied patience and great skill are
needful for successful hunting. Seated by the hole, with his back to the
wind, his feet on a bit of seal-skin, with a barbed spear in his hand,
the Inuit hunter steadily and intently fastens his eyes on the glazed
water-space where the animal rises. Often it is hours before the seal
comes, if indeed at all, and he is caught only through a swift, single
stroke by which the spear unerringly pierces the thin skull of the
animal. Five seals were killed during November, and Thanksgiving day was
celebrated by adding to the usual meal a little chocolate and some dried
apples.
The moral attitude of the greater number of the seamen was evident from
several incidents. On Thanksgiving day the captain suggested that all
unite in some religious service appropriate to the day and to their
situation, but the seamen were unwilling to participate.
In marked contrast were the feelings of the Inuit Hans Hendrik, who thus
writes: "I considered the miserable condition of my wife and children,
on a piece of ice in the mid-ocean, then I pronounced my prayer:
"_Jesu, lead me by the hand,
While I am here below;
Forsake me not._"
With bad judgment Meyer, who was an under-officer, left Tyson's hut and
joined the seamen--mostly Germans like himself. As a result of the
growing demoralization, incursions were made on the food by unknown
persons, and when Tyson was one day sick a seaman made the issues and
then decided to retain this duty. There had been complaint that Tyson
was too stingy in his issues, and the new issuing officer gave with
freer hand in accord with the wishes of the heedless few.
Tyson was then driven to leave his lonely hut for the igloo wherein
lived Ebierbing and his worthy wife Tookoolito (Hannah) and their young
adopted daughter. This hut was the very centre of activity on the floe.
Apart from the time needful for cooking, Tookoolito busied herself
either in deftly mending the torn and sadly worn skin garments of her
husband and of Tyson, or in making some article that would add to the
general comfort and be of daily use. Thus the party was divided into two
camps, one of care and production, the other of amusement and
consumption. Ebierbing kept the field daily, and his success as a hunter
proved to be the salvation of the party. Hans did what he could, it is
true, but he was either less skilful or less fortunate than his native
companion. The crew did almost nothing save to cook the food given them.
They scarcely took exercise and filled in their time with endless
discussions as to the future or with a pack of cards made out of heavy
paper. Tyson controlled the Eskimos alone, and gave advice to the men
only as occasion urgently demanded.
The winter month of December passed badly, with increasing darkness,
severer cold, and despondent feelings. The poor natives, hearing so much
desperate talk, unfortunately gained the notion that in the last
extremity, which then seemed to be at hand, they would be sacrificed,
and much uneasiness was felt by Tyson who strove to reassure them. Two
wretchedly thin foxes, giving about three ounces of fresh meat to each
man, was the only game up to Christmas, and nothing was encouraging
except the steady drift to the south.
The captain felt it best to give a _starvation feast_ on Christmas, and
so added to the usual ration the last remaining delicacies--a bit of
frozen ham, a few spoonfuls of dried apples, and a swallow or two of
seal blood saved in a frozen condition. The knowledge that the sun was
returning, of southing being made by drift, and chances of game
increasing were conditions of hope that made it an almost cheerful
holiday.
Actually they were in desperate straits of hunger, for Tyson relates
that in his igloo they ate greedily the refuse of the cooking-lamp oil.
Tookoolito turned into food and cooked pieces of dried seal-skin which
had been set aside for repairing their clothing. Of this Tyson says: "It
was so very tough it made my jaws ache to chew it."
Day after day, in storm and in calm, faithful Ebierbing kept the field,
always hoping for success on the morrow. After thirty-six days of
unsuccess he killed a seal in the open sea. Shot through the brain,
the seal floated until he could be reached by that wonderful skin
boat of the Eskimos--the kayak. Then land shot up into view to the
southwestward, and all felt that they were saved.
The new year of 1873 opened in dreary form, with no game, and a dinner
of two mouldy biscuit with seal entrails and blubber served frozen, as
their fuel was gone. The improvident seamen had not only burned one
boat, but even the boards under their sleeping-robes. Compelled at last
by dire need, they now made a lamp from an old can and began to cook
Eskimo-fashion. Most of the time the seamen passed idly in their igloo,
quarrelling and disputing. In their ill-clad, half-starved condition
they suffered terribly from the severe and prolonged cold of January,
during which the mercury was often frozen, with occasional temperatures
seventy degrees below freezing. Hopes of relief were high when a bear
was found near, and then came a feeling of despair when the animal
escaped after injuring badly the two remaining dogs.
Affairs then went from bad to worse, and the utter disruption of the
party was imminent, although Tyson used to the utmost his powers of
command over the natives and of persuasion with the seamen. An unruly
and mutinous member of the crew invaded Tyson's igloo, roundly abused
the captain, and even threatened him with personal violence, well
knowing that he was unarmed. The evil effects of such conduct was so
plain to all that the culprit was forced by public opinion to make an
apology for his actions and thus in a manner to strengthen Tyson's hands
in the future.
After an absence of eighty-three days the sun returned on January 19,
which gave new courage to the natives and increased chances of game.
When they killed a seal after many days of hunting, the starving seamen,
almost crazy at the sight of food, dragged the animal into their own
igloo and gave to the hunters only a small and unfair part of the meat
and blubber. With difficulty Tyson was able to mollify the offended
natives, by whom this injustice was the more felt as Tobias, one of
Hans's babies, was quite sick and could not eat pemmican.
February opened with ten days of fruitless hunting, when Hans
fortunately saw a seal thrust his head up through young ice far from the
floe. Would he come again? Could he kill him at that distance, and was
it possible to bring him in? While asking himself these questions, with
his eyes intent on the air-hole, the nose and then the head of the seal
rose slowly into view. On this shot might depend their lives, and with
the care and slowness of the Inuit hunter, half-starved Hans, with
steady hand and unerring aim, sent a bullet through the brain of the
seal, paralyzing him and thus keeping the air in the seal's lungs and
floating his body. As the thin new ice would not bear a man, Tyson
solved the difficulty by putting Hans in his kayak and pushing him
forward as far as could be done. With his paddle braced against rough
bits of the floe and by squirming his body, Hans finally reached the
seal, fastened a line to it, and worked his way back in the kayak.
With food failing again and the revival of the selfish spirit of every
man for himself, Tyson's lot was hard and he knew not what would happen
from day to day. Always quiet and cool, he spoke only when there was
need, and never with harsh tones or angry words. He did not waste his
force on matters of minor importance--an attitude that carried weight in
the end.
When almost in despair there came seal after seal, and scores of arctic
dovekies, or little auks in winter plumage. Though each of the birds
gave but four ounces of meat, they were welcomed both as a change of
diet and as harbingers of coming spring. The seamen then listened to
Tyson's advice and decided to eke out life on one meal a day, owing to
the fast-vanishing stock of bread and pemmican.
Cape Mercy, in about 65 deg. north latitude, was now in sight though forty
miles distant. Some of the men were ready to heartlessly abandon the
natives, owing to the smallness of the sole remaining boat, but Tyson
said tactfully that all _could_ go (not _must_ go) when the water was
ice-free. Preparations were made, the tent enlarged from spare canvas,
the ammunition divided, etc., but ice conditions grew worse instead of
better.
March opened with a violent storm, which kept all in their igloos save
the indefatigable hunters. Then Ebierbing shot a monster harp seal about
nine feet long, the largest that Tyson had ever seen, which gave about
seven hundred pounds of its rich, nutritious meat and blubber. So
delirious were the quite starved seamen that they rushed at the body,
carved out pieces and ate them raw, soon being so frightfully besmeared
with blood that they looked like ravenous brutes devouring their prey.
The heedless men, who turned to Tyson in all cases of dire distress, now
ignored his advice not to eat the liver of the seal, and paid for their
imprudence by fits of sickness, fortunately not fatal.
With a persistent, fatuitous belief that they would drift to Disco, the
seamen were first aroused to the extreme seriousness of their situation
by a most violent gale of sixty hours in which they barely escaped
death. As has been said, their igloos were built near the centre of an
enormous floe nearly a hundred feet in thickness and fifteen miles in
circumference. When the storm began the sea seemed covered by floes of
similar size and of equally unbreakable ice. The party again failed to
have in mind the many insecure and dangerous icebergs which dotted the
ice-plain that covered the sea. Throughout the first night the cracking
and breaking of the floes sounded like the firing of heavy artillery and
the explosion of high-powered shells. Under stress of anxiety the men
passed the second night dressed and ready for the worst.
The howling of the gale, the snow-filled air making everything
invisible, the recurring roar of the sea, the sound of splitting floes
within a few yards of the igloos, and the awful moaning of the moving
pack around them, with the steady grinding of colliding bergs, made it a
night of horrors. With the gale ended they found themselves saved almost
as by miracle, for though their igloos were safe in the centre of a tiny
fragment of the great floe, its area was less than a hundred square
yards. Surrounding them were hundreds of icebergs and huge floes of all
sizes and shapes inextricably entangled and disrupted. Yesterday they
could walk miles on their own floe, now they were confined to a
floe-fragment.
Dangerous as was the gale it brought about their safety, for the open
pack made seal-hunting more productive. The twenty-three seals which
were killed during the succeeding two weeks gave needful food, revived
their courage, and renewed their strength. Tyson then arranged to save
for emergencies their little remaining bread and pemmican. As they were
now off the entrance to Hudson Strait, on the breeding grounds of the
seal, their safety as regards food seemed to be assured. But another
gale brought fresh and unlooked-for disaster, for while they collided
with a large iceberg without destruction they were driven far to the
eastward, into the open ocean, where their floe was by itself away from
the main ice, with only water in sight.
Tyson knew that separation from the icebergs and floes meant speedy
death, and as soon as the sea calmed, April 1, he ordered the party to
prepare for the abandonment of the floe. Many objected to leaving their
comfortable igloos, with plenty of meat, to seek ice so far to the west
that it could not be seen, but they finally obeyed Tyson's orders.
The short-sightedness of the seamen in burning a boat was now evident to
all. There were nineteen persons to be crowded into a whale-boat
intended for eight. Some of the selfish would have left the natives
behind, for taking them meant the leaving behind of nearly all meat and
other dead weights. Bread, pemmican, some ammunition, the tent, and
sleeping-gear were put in the boat, and with a spirit of loyalty
criticised by the seamen, Tyson took on board the desk and records of
Captain Hall. If this man lived it would be with honor; if he died it
should be with his self-respect. The fearfully overcrowded boat barely
escaped swamping several times--saved only through Tyson's skilful
seamanship. Some men were so alarmed that in panic they threw overboard
seal meat to lighten the boat. Three days of unremitting labor brought
them to a floe that seemed solid, which they occupied in face of bad
weather.
They had barely put up igloos when an awful gale burst on them, and for
four days it was a steady battle against death. Their floe began to
crumble under pressure from other bergs, and Ebierbing's hut was carried
off as the floe split. Seeking the centre of the ice they built a new
igloo, which lasted for the night only. Next day the floe, caught
between two giant bergs, burst with a mighty roar, splitting completely
in two, the crack running through the floor of the igloo. They were left
on a piece of ice so small that they could not make arrangements for all
to lie down together. Everything was put into the boat, and all through
the night they stood watch, half-and-half, ready to launch her at a
moment's notice. Again the floe split while breakfast was being cooked
in the tent, the crack running through the tent; the cook escaped but
the breakfast fell into the sea. The tent was again pitched alongside
the whale-boat. The tent could not shelter all the party, but by turns
they got a little sleep.
About midnight there was heard a fearful crash, and, as Hans relates,
"The ice which served us as a camping-place parted between the boat on
which I slept and the tent. I jumped out to the other side, while that
piece on which the boat was placed moved off quickly with Mister Maje
[Meyer] who was seated in the boat, and we were separated from it by the
water. Our Master [Tyson] asked the sailors to make a boat out of a
piece of ice and try to reach it, but they refused. We had never felt so
distressed as at this moment, when we had lost our boat. At last I said
to my comrade [Ebierbing]: '_We must try to get at it!_' Each of us then
formed an _umiardluk_ [a bad boat] out of a piece of ice, and in this
way passed to the other fragment. As now we were three men we could
manage to put the boat into the water. On doing so Mister Maje [Meyer]
fell into the sea; Ebierbing pulled him up. Meanwhile the ice had
screwed together, and we stood still. At this time night fell, and our
companion who had been in the sea, now lying in the boat, was like to
freeze to death. I said to my comrade that if he remained so he would
really die. When I had spoken we asked him to rise, saying that if he
remained he would perish. The first time he rose he tumbled down, but,
after having walked a long time, he recovered. At daybreak we discovered
our friends close by, and the ice joined together. They came to us and
assisted us to drag the boat over to them."
[Illustration: "WE WERE NEARLY CARRIED OFF, BOAT AND ALL, MANY TIMES
DURING THIS DREADFUL NIGHT."
From Tyson's "Arctic Experiences."]
The crucial trial on the evening of April 20 may best be realized from
Tyson's graphic description: "Finally came a tremendous wave, carrying
away our tent, skins, and bed-clothing, leaving us destitute. The women
and children were already in the boat (Merkut having her tiny baby
Charlie Polaris, Inuit-fashion, in the hood of her fur jacket), or the
little ones would have been swept into watery graves. All we could do
was to try and save the boat. All hands were called to man the boat--to
hold on to it with might and main to prevent it being washed away. With
our boat warp and strong line of _oogjook_ (seal) thongs we secured the
boat to vertical projecting points of ice. Having no grapnels or
ice-anchors these fastenings were frequently unloosed and broken, and we
had to brace ourselves and hold on with all the strength we had.
"I got the boat over to the edge of our ice where the seas first struck,
for toward the farther edge the gathered momentum of the waves would
more than master us and the boat would go.... We were nearly carried
off, boat and all, many times during this dreadful night. The heaviest
seas came at intervals of fifteen to twenty minutes.... There we stood
all night long, from 9 P. M. to 7 A. M., enduring what few, if any, have
gone through and lived. Tremendous seas would come and lift up the boat
bodily, and carry it and us forward almost to the extreme opposite edge
of our piece.
"Several times the boat got partly over the edge and was only hauled
back by the superhuman strength which a knowledge of the desperate
condition its loss would reduce us to gave us. With almost every sea
would come an avalanche of ice-blocks in all sizes, from a foot square
to the size of a bureau, which, striking our legs and bodies, bowled us
off our feet. We were black and blue with bruises for many a day.