LEAVING PORT FOULKE.--EFFORT TO REACH CAPE ISABELLA.--MEET THE PACK
AND TAKE SHELTER AT LITTLETON ISLAND.--HUNTING.--ABUNDANCE OF
BIRDS AND WALRUS.--VISIT TO CAIRN POINT.--REACHING THE WEST
COAST.--VIEW FROM CAPE ISABELLA.--PLANS FOR THE FUTURE.--OUR
RESULTS.--CHANCES OF REACHING THE POLAR SEA DISCUSSED.--THE
GLACIERS OF ELLESMERE LAND.
The schooner glided gently out to sea, but the wind soon died away and
the current carried us down into the lower bay, where we moored to a
berg, and I went ashore and got some good photographs of Little Julia's
Glen and Fall, Sonntag's Monument, Crystal Palace Glacier, and Cape
Alexander.
Although doubtful as to the prospect ahead, I was determined not
to quit the field without making another attempt to reach the west
coast and endeavor to obtain some further information that might be
of service to me in the future. I had still a vague hope that, even
with my crippled vessel, some such good prospect might open before me
as would justify me in remaining. Accordingly, as soon as the wind
came, we cast off from the friendly berg, and held once more for Cape
Isabella. The wind rose to a fresh breeze as we crawled away from the
land, and the schooner, as if rejoiced at her newly acquired freedom,
bounded over the waters with her old swiftness. But, unhappily, a heavy
pack lay in our course, through which, had the schooner been strong,
a passage might have been forced; but as it could not be done without
frequent collisions with the ice, the intention was not entertained.
The pack was not more than ten miles from the Greenland shore, and I
therefore put back to Littleton Island, and from that point watched the
movements of the ice.
[Sidenote: AT LITTLETON ISLAND.]
We found a convenient anchorage between Littleton and McGary Islands,
and we reached it just in time; for a severe gale, with thick snow,
set in from the northward as I had anticipated from the appearance
of the sky, and held for several days. Meanwhile the people amused
themselves with hunting. A herd of deer was discovered on Littleton
Island, and the walrus were very numerous. Four of the latter were
captured,--this time, however, not from a boat, but by Hans, in the
true Esquimau style. They came along the shore in great numbers, lying
upon the beach in the sun, where Hans approached them stealthily, and
got fast to them one by one with his harpoon. The line being secured
to a rock, the animals were held until they were exhausted, and then
drawn in, when they soon became a prey to the rifles. Wishing to obtain
a young one for a specimen, I joined the hunters; and, selecting from
the herd which lay upon the rocks one to suit my purposes, I fired upon
and killed it. The others plunged quickly into the water. The mother of
the dead calf was the last to leave the rock, and seemed to do so very
reluctantly. In a few moments she came to the surface, and, wheeling
around, discovered the young one still lying upon the rock. Finding
that it did not answer to her cries, she rushed frantically into the
face of danger, and in full view of the cause of her woes, (for I had
approached very near the spot,) the unhappy creature, intent only
upon rescuing her offspring, drew herself out of the water, crying
piteously all the while, and, crawling around it, pushed it before her
into the sea. I endeavored first to frighten her off, and then tried
to arrest her, and save my specimen, with a fresh bullet; but all to
no effect. Although badly wounded, she succeeded in her purpose, and,
falling upon the dead calf with her breast, carried it down with her,
and I saw them no more. I have never seen a stronger or more touching
instance of the devotion of mother to its young, among dumb animals,
and it came from a quarter wholly unexpected.
Having leisure while the snow-storm lasted, I went up to Cairn Point
to see how the ice appeared from that place. After waiting there for a
day, the atmosphere cleared up, and I could see with much distinctness
to Cape Isabella. The line of the solid ice extended in a somewhat
irregular curve up the Sound from that cape to a few miles above Cairn
Point. The sea thence down into the North Water was filled with a loose
pack.
[Sidenote: AT CAPE ISABELLA.]
The day after my return we put to sea. The pack being now much
scattered, we entered it and penetrated to the margin of the fast ice
without difficulty. In two days we reached the coast near Gale Point,
about ten miles below Cape Isabella. Thence to the cape I went in a
whale-boat; but the cape itself could not be passed; so we hauled into
the first convenient bight, and climbed the hill. The view convinced
me, if I was not convinced already, of the folly of attempting any
thing further with the schooner. I no longer hesitated, even in
thought. My opinions were thus recorded at the time:--
"I am fully persuaded, if there still remained a lingering doubt,
of the correctness of my decision to return home, and come out next
year strengthened and refitted with steam. If my impulses lead me
to try conclusions once more with the ice, my judgment convinces
me that it would be at the risk of every thing. As well use a
Hudson-river steamboat for a battering-ram as this schooner, with
her weakened bows, to encounter the Smith Sound ice.
"I have secured the following important advantages for the future,
and, with these I must, perforce, rest satisfied, for the present:--
[Sidenote: RESULTS OF THE VOYAGE.]
"1. I have brought my party through without sickness, and have thus
shown that the Arctic winter of itself breeds neither scurvy nor
discontent.
"2. I have shown that men may subsist themselves in Smith Sound
independent of support from home.
"3. That a self-sustaining colony may be established at Port
Foulke, and be made the basis of an extended exploration.
"4. That the exploration of this entire region is practicable from
Port Foulke,--having from that starting-point pushed my discoveries
much beyond those of my predecessors, without any second party
in the field to coöperate with me, and under the most adverse
circumstances.
"5. That, with a reasonable degree of certainty, it is shown that,
with a strong vessel, Smith Sound may be navigated and the open sea
reached beyond it.
"6. I have shown that the open sea exists.
[Sidenote: RESOURCES OF PORT FOULKE.]
"And now, having proven this much, I shall return to Boston, repair
the schooner, get a small steamer, and come back as early next
spring as I can. The schooner I will leave at Port Foulke; and,
remaining there only long enough to see the machinery set in motion
for starting the hunt, collecting the Esquimaux, and establishing
the discipline of the colony, I will seek Cape Isabella, and thence
steam northward by the route already designated. If I cannot reach
the open sea in one season, I may the next; in any event, I shall
always have at Port Foulke a productive source of food and furs,
and a vessel to carry them to Cape Isabella, upon which I may fall
back; and if I need dogs, they will be reared at the colony in
any numbers that may be required. Besides, if in this exploration
I should be deficient in means, and the expedition should be
hereafter left entirely to its own resources, a sufficient profit
may be made out of the colony in oils, furs, walrus ivory, eider
down, etc., to pay at least a very considerable proportion of the
wages of the employés, beside subsisting them. The whole region
around Port Foulke is teeming with animal life, and one good hunter
could feed twenty mouths. Both my winter and summer experience
proves the correctness of this opinion. The sea abounds in walrus,
seal, narwhal, and white whale; the land in reindeer and foxes; the
islands and the cliffs, in summer, swarm with birds; and the ice is
the roaming-ground of the bears."
Thus much for the future; let me now come back to the present.
Inglefield has very correctly exhibited the expansion of Smith Sound,
as I have had most excellent opportunity for observing, both in my
passage over, and from Cape Isabella. He has placed some of the capes
too far north, and his local attraction, probably, has caused a slight
error in the axis of the Sound. His Victoria Head is the eastern cape
of my Bache Island, and his Cape Albert is the eastern cape of Henry
Island.
[Sidenote: CAPE ISABELLA.]
The view up the Sound from Cape Isabella was truly magnificent. The
dark, wall-sided coast, rendered more dark in appearance by the
contrast with the immense cloak of whiteness that lay above it, was
relieved by numerous glaciers, which pour through the valleys to the
sea. The _mer de glace_ is of great extent, and, rising much more
rapidly and being more broken, gives a picturesque effect not belonging
to the Greenland side, and adds much to the grandeur of its appearance.
The mountains are lofty, and are everywhere uniformly covered with
ice and snow; and the glacier streams which descend to the sea convey
the impression almost as if there had once been a vast lake on the
mountain-top, from which the overflowing waters, pouring down every
valley, had been suddenly congealed.
Off Cape Sabine there are two islands, which I name Brevoort and
Stalknecht; and another, midway between them and Wade Point, which I
name Leconte. A deep inlet running parallel with the Cadogen Inlet of
Captain Inglefield, fringed all around with glaciers set into the dark
rocks like brilliants into a groundwork of jet, opens between Wade
Point and Cape Isabella. I leave the naming of it until I see whether
Inglefield has not a bay set down there, as I have not with me the
official map of his explorations.
Cape Isabella is a ragged mass of Plutonic rock, and looks as if it had
been turned out of Nature's laboratory unfinished and pushed up from
the sea while it was yet hot, to crack and crumble to pieces in the
cold air. Its surface is barren to the last degree; immense chasms or
cañons cross it in all directions, in which there was not the remotest
trace of vegetation,--great yawning depths with jagged beds and
crumbling sides,--sunless as the Cimerian caverns of Avernus.
[Sidenote: A "DIAMOND OF THE DESERT."]
As I clambered over crag after crag, I thought that I had not in the
summer-time anywhere lit upon a place so devoid of life; but, as if
to compensate for this barrenness, or through some freak of Nature, a
charming cup-like valley nestled among the forbidding hills, and upon
it I stumbled suddenly. Balboa could hardly have been more surprised
when he climbed the hills of Darien and first saw the Pacific Ocean. It
was truly a "Diamond of the Desert," and the little hermitage in the
wilderness of Engadi was not a more pleasing sight to the Knight of the
Couchant Leopard than was this to me.
The few hardy plants which I had found in all other localities had
failed to find a lodgment upon the craggy slopes of this rough cape,
and the rocks stood up in naked barrenness, without the little fringe
of vegetation which usually girdles them elsewhere; but down into this
valley the seeds of life had been wafted; the grass and moss clothed
it with green; and the poppies and buttercups sprinkled it over with
leaves of gold. In its centre reposed a little sparkling lake, like a
diamond in an emerald setting--a little "charmed sea," truly,
"Girt by mountains wild and hoary;"
and weird and wonderful as any that ever furnished theme for Norland
legend.
From the lower margin of this lake a stream rushed in a series of
cascades through a deep gorge to the sea, and from the valley a number
of little rivulets gurgled among the stones, or wound gently through
the soft moss-beds. Tracing one of these to its source, I came upon
a glen which was terminated abruptly by a glacier, appearing at a
little distance like a draped curtain of white satin drawn across the
narrow passage, as if to screen some sacred chamber of the hills. As I
approached nearer this white curtain assumed more solid shape, and I
observed that a multitude of bright fountains fluttered over it. Near
its centre a narrow Gothic archway led into a spacious grotto filled
with a soft cerulean light, fretted with pendants of most fantastic
shape and of rare transparency, which were reflected, as in a silver
mirror, on the still surface of a limped pool, from which gushed forth
a crystal rivulet, pure and sparkling as the cypress-embowered waters
that laved the virgin limbs of the huntress-queen.
[Sidenote: A GLACIER GROTTO.]
While peering into the deep recesses of this wonderful cave, so chaste
and exquisite, where solitude appeared to dwell alone and undisturbed
except by the soft music of streams, I became suddenly conscious of
having been enticed into danger, Actæon-like, unawares. A mass of ice
broke from the glacier front and, splitting into numerous fragments,
the shower came crushing down upon the rocks and in the water near
me, and sent me flying precipitately and with my curiosity still
unsatisfied.
Returning to the lake, I followed around its green border, plucking,
as I went, a nosegay of bright flowers, which have so pleasing
an association that they will not find place in the "botanical
collections," but, rather, in another collection,--mementos, if less
prized, more cherished; and the recollection which I shall carry with
me of this charming valley, and the silvery lake, and the gushing
rivulets, and the grottoed glacier, will be enhanced when I name them
in remembrance of the fairest forms that ever flitted across the memory
of storm-beaten traveler, and the fairest fingers that ever turned
Afghan wool into a cunning device to brighten the light of a dingy
cabin!
* * * * *
[Sidenote: TRACES OF ESQUIMAUX.]
[Sidenote: THE MER DE GLACE.]
Upon going ashore at Gale Point, I discovered traces of Esquimaux much
more recent than those at Gould Bay and other places on the shores of
Grinnell Land. Indeed they were of such a character as to cause me
strongly to suspect that the shore is at present inhabited. The cliffs
are composed of a dark sandstone which, to the northward of the Point,
breaks suddenly away into a broad plain that slopes gently down to
the water's edge. This plain is about five miles wide, and is bounded
at the north much as at the south, by lofty cliffs, which rise above
the primitive rocks back of Cape Isabella. The plain was composed of
loose shingle, covered over in many places with large patches of green,
through which flowed a number of broad streams of water. These streams
sprang from the front of a glacier which bulged down the valley from
the _mer de glace_. It was about four miles from the sea, and bounded
the green and stony slope with a great white wall several hundred feet
high, above which the snow-covered steep of the _mer de glace_ led the
eye away up to the bald summits of the distant mountains. As I looked
up at this immense stream of ice it seemed as if a dozen Niagaras had
been bounding together into the valley and were frozen in their fall,
and the discharging waters of the river below had dried up, and flowers
bloomed in the river-bed. My journal compares it to a huge white sheet,
hung upon a cord stretched from cliff to cliff.
[Illustration]