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[Illustration: CHART
Exhibiting the recent discoveries in the
=ARCTIC REGIONS=
_projected by Chas. A. Schott, Esq. U. S. Coast Survey, from the latest
English publications, and materials deposited with Lieutenant Maury,
U. S. Hydrographic Bureau, by E. J. DE HAVEN, ESQ., Commander of U. S.
Grinnell Exposition._]
OUTING ADVENTURE LIBRARY
ADRIFT
IN THE ARCTIC ICE PACK
From the History of the First U. S. Grinnell Expedition in Search of
Sir John Franklin
By ELISHA KENT KANE, M.D.
EDITED BY
HORACE KEPHART
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY
MCMXVI
Copyright, 1915, by OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY
_All rights reserved._
INTRODUCTION
IT was in the summer of 1845 that Sir John Franklin undertook his
fourth voyage into the Arctic regions, in search of a northwest
passage, and disappeared forever in that icy waste.
Franklin's two ships, the _Erebus_ and the _Terror_, were supposed to
be provisioned for three years. When this interval had passed without
word of the daring navigator there was grave fear that he had met
with disaster. Then began an unparalleled series of search and relief
expeditions, public and private, English and American: five separate
ones in 1848, three in 1849, ten in 1850, two in 1851, nine in 1852,
five in 1853, two in 1854, one in 1855, and one in 1857.
Among the earliest of these was one from the United States, known
as the first Grinnell expedition, which left New York in May, 1848.
Lady Franklin had appealed to the President of the United States to
enlist his countrymen as a "kindred people, to join heart and hand in
the enterprise of snatching the lost navigators from a dreary grave."
Accordingly a bill was introduced in Congress to fit out an expedition
for this purpose; but the process of legislation was too slow to
provide vessels and equipment in the short time that was left for such
a venture.
At this juncture a New York merchant, Henry Grinnell, outfitted two
of his own vessels for the service and proffered them gratuitously to
our government. They were at once accepted under a joint resolution of
Congress, and the President was authorized to detail officers and men
from the navy to man the ships.
This little squadron comprised the _Advance_, of 144 tons, and the
_Rescue_, of 91 tons, carrying, respectively, seventeen and sixteen
officers and crew. The expedition was under command of Lieut. Edwin J.
De Haven.
The senior medical officer was Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, who was destined
later (1853) himself to lead a second Grinnell expedition on this same
quest. In the present instance, Dr. Kane states that "while bathing
in the tepid waters of the Gulf of Mexico" he received a telegram
from Washington detaching him from the Coast Survey and ordering him
to proceed forthwith to New York for duty upon the Arctic expedition.
Although he made the overland trip of thirteen hundred miles with all
possible despatch, he had only a fraction of a day left in New York in
which to equip himself for service in the polar seas. It fell to him to
be not only chief surgeon and scientific observer of the expedition,
but also its historian.
In view of the elaborate scientific methods of outfitting for arctic
exploration in our own day, it is interesting to contrast the vessels
and equipment hurriedly assembled for a venture into the Far North
at a time when so little was known of that inhospitable region. Dr.
Kane says: "It was not, perhaps, to be expected that an expedition
equipped so hastily as ours, and with one engrossing object, should
have facilities for observing very accurately, or go out of its way
to find matters for curious research. But even the routine of a
national ship might, I was confident, allow us to gather something
for the stock of general knowledge. With the assistance of Professor
Loomis, I collected as I could some simple instruments for thermal and
magnetic registration, which would have been of use if they had found
their way on board. A very few books for the dark hours of winter, and
a stock of coarse woolen clothing, re-enforced by a magnificent robe
of wolf-skins, that had wandered down to me from the snow-drifts of
Utah, constituted my entire outfit; and with these I made my report to
Commodore Salter at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
"Almost within the shadow of the line-of-battle ship _North Carolina_,
their hulls completely hidden beneath a projecting wharf, were two
little hermaphrodite brigs. Their spars had no man-of-war trigness;
their decks were choked with half-stowed cargo; and for size, I felt as
if I could straddle from the main hatch to the bulwarks.
"At this first sight of the Grinnell Expedition, I confess that the
fastidious experience of naval life on board frigates and corvettes
made me look down on these humble vessels. They seemed to me more
like a couple of coasting schooners than a national squadron bound
for a perilous and distant sea. Many a time afterward I recalled the
short-sighted ignorance of these first impressions, when some rude
encounter with the ice made comfort and dignity very secondary thoughts.
"The _Advance_, my immediate home, had been originally intended for
the transport of machinery. Her timbers were heavily moulded, and her
fastenings of the most careful sort. She was fifty-three tons larger
than her consort, the _Rescue_; yet both together barely equaled two
hundred and thirty-five tons.
"To navigate an ice-bound sea, speed, though important, is much less so
than strength. Extreme power of resistance to pressure must be combined
with facility of handling, adequate stowage, and a solidity of frame
that may encounter sudden concussions fearlessly; and it seemed to
both Mr. Grinnell and Lieutenant De Haven that these qualities might
be best embodied in such small vessels as the Advance and _Rescue_.
It was, indeed, something like a return to the dimensions of our
predecessors of the olden time; for the three vessels of Frobisher
summed up only seventy-five tons, and Baffin's largest was ten tons
less in burden than the _Rescue_. As the vessels of our expedition were
more thoroughly adapted, perhaps, for this dangerous service than any
that had been fitted out before for the Arctic seas, I will describe
them in detail.
"Commencing with the outside: the hull was literally double, a brig
within a brig. An outer sheathing of two and a half inch oak was
covered with a second of the same material; and strips of heavy
sheet-iron extended from the bows to the beam, as a shield against the
cutting action of the new ice. The decks were double, made water-tight
by a packing of tarred felt between them. The entire interior was
lined, _ceiled_, with cork; which, independently of its low conducting
power, was a valuable protection against the condensing moisture, one
of the greatest evils of the polar climate.
"The strengthening of her skeleton, her wooden frame-work, was
admirable. Forward, from kelson to deck, was a mass of solid timber,
clamped and dove-tailed with nautical wisdom, for seven feet from the
cut-water; so that we could spare a foot or two of our bows without
springing a leak. To prevent the ice from forcing in her sides, she
was built with an extra set of beams running athwart her length at
intervals of four feet, and so arranged as to ship and unship at
pleasure. From the Samson-posts, strong radiating timbers, called
shores, diverged in every direction; and oaken knees, hanging and
oblique, were added wherever space permitted.
"Looking forward to the hampering ice fields, our rudder was so
constructed that it could be taken on board and replaced again in less
than four minutes. Our winch, capstan, and patent windlass were of the
best and newest construction.
"A little hurricane-house amidships contained the one galley that
cooked for all hands, and a large funnel of galvanized iron was
connected with the chimney, in such a way that the heat circulating
round it might supply us with melted snow. An armorer's forge, a full
set of ice anchors, a couple of well-built whale-boats, and three
anthracite stoves, made part of the outfit.
"In a word, every thing about the two vessels bore the marks of
intelligent foresight and unsparing expenditure.
"With the governmental arrangements we were not so fortunate. It seems
to be inseparable from national as well as corporate administration,
that it is less effective than the action of individuals. Neither
our own navy nor that of Great Britain attains results so cheaply,
promptly, or well, as the commercial marine; and it is a fact, only
expressed from a sad conviction of its truth, that, in spite of the
disciplined intelligence of many of our officers, the naval service
of the public is regarded among our merchant brethren, and by the
community they belong to, as non-progressive and old-fashioned in all
that admits of comparison between the two. They excel us in equipment,
and speed, and substantial economy.
"I can not, then, say much in praise of either the dispatch or
excellence of our strictly naval equipment. There were other things,
besides the diminutive size of our brigs, to remind one of the days
of the ancient mariners. Some that were matters of serious vexation
at the moment may be forgotten now, or remembered with a smile.
Our heterogeneous collection of obsolete old carbines, with the
impracticable ball-cartridges that accompanied them, gave us many
a laugh before we got home. Thanks to the incessant labors of our
commander, and the exhaustless liberality of Mr. Grinnell, most of our
deficiencies were made up, and we effected our departure in time for
the navigation of Baffin's Bay.
"Our crews consisted of man-of-war's-men of various climes and
habitudes, with constitutions most of them impaired by disease,
temporarily broken by the excesses of shore life. But this original
defect of material was in a great degree counteracted by the strict
and judicious discipline of our executive officers. The crews proved
in the end willing and reliable; and, in the midst of trials which
would have tested men of more pretension, were never found to waver.
I record, in the commencement of this narrative, how much respect and
kindly feeling I, as one of their little body, entertain for their
essential contribution to the ends of the expedition."
Speaking of the quick transition from harbor life and home associations
to the discomforts of arctic voyaging in these tiny ships, he continues:
"The difference struck me, and not quite pleasantly, as I climbed
over straw and rubbish into the little peculium which was to be
my resting-place for so long a time. The cabin, which made the
homestead of four human beings, was somewhat less in dimensions than
a penitentiary cell. There was just room enough for two berths of six
feet each on a side; and the area between, which is known to naval men
as 'the country,' seemed completely filled up with the hinged table,
the four camp-stools, and the lockers. A hanging lamp, that creaked
uneasily on its gimbals, illustrated through the mist some long rows
of crockery shelves and the dripping step-ladder that led directly from
the wet deck above. Everything spoke of cheerless discomfort and narrow
restraint....
"I now began, with an instinct of future exigencies, to fortify my
retreat. The only spot I could call my own was the berth I have spoken
of before. It was a sort of _bunk_--a right-angled excavation, of six
feet by two feet eight in horizontal dimensions, let into the side of
the vessel, with a height of something less than a yard. My first care
was to keep water out, my second to make it warm. A bundle of tacks,
and a few yards of India-rubber cloth, soon made me an impenetrable
casing over the entire wood-work. Upon this were laid my Mormon
wolf-skin and a somewhat ostentatious Astracan fur cloak, a relic of
former travel. Two little wooden shelves held my scanty library; a
third supported a reading lamp, or, upon occasion, a Berzelius' argand,
to be lighted when the dampness made an increase of heat necessary. My
watch ticked from its particular nail, and a more noiseless monitor,
my thermometer, occupied another. My ink-bottle was suspended, pendulum
fashion, from a hook, and to one long string was fastened, like the
ladle of a street-pump, my entire toilet, a tooth-brush, a comb, and a
hair-brush.
"Now, when all these distributions had been happily accomplished, and
I crawled in from the wet, and cold, and disorder of without, through
a slit in the India-rubber cloth, to the very centre of my complicated
resources, it would be hard for any one to realize the quantity of
comfort which I felt I had manufactured. My lamp burned brightly;
little or no water distilled from the roof; my furs warmed me into
satisfaction; and I realized that I was sweating myself out of my
preliminary cold, and could temper down at pleasure the abruptness of
my acclimation."
The expedition progressed northward without special incident until the
8th of July, when, having passed Uppernavik, "the jumping-off place of
Arctic navigators," the two vessels became locked fast in the ice.
Then began a heart-breaking task of warping through the pack with
ice-anchor, cable and winch. It was "all hands" at this heave and haul,
from captain to cook, and the doctor too. "We were twenty-one days thus
imprisoned, never leaving a little circle of some six miles radius."
Then they struck open water-leads, and made fair progress for sailing
vessels under such circumstances, but "how often when retarded by
baffling winds or unfavorable leads, have I wished for a few hours of
steam!"
On August 18th they passed the ice barrier of Baffin Bay, and bore away
southwesterly towards Lancaster Sound, in more open water than they
had seen for weeks. Several British rescue squadrons were known to be
somewhere in these waters, including a number of steamers, but De Haven
and his associates were ignorant of their course and intended scheme of
search.
"We had dreamed before this, and pleasantly enough, of fellowship with
them in our efforts, dividing between us the hazards of the way, and
perhaps in the long winter holding with them the cheery intercourse
of kindred sympathies. We waked now to the probabilities of passing
the dark days alone. Yet fairly on the way, an energetic commander,
a united ship's company, the wind freshening, our well-tried little
ice-boat now groping her way like a blind man through fog and bergs,
and now dashing on as if reckless of all but success--it was impossible
to repress a sentiment almost akin to the so-called joyous excitement
of conflict.
"We were bidding good-by to 'ye goode baye of old William Baffin'; and
as we looked round with a farewell remembrance upon the still water,
the diminished icebergs, and the constant sun which had served us so
long and faithfully, we felt that the Bay had used us kindly."
On August 19th they fell in with two of the British vessels,--and now
begins the interesting part of Kane's narrative: the discovery of the
site of Franklin's first winter encampment, then of three head-stones
marking the graves of men belonging to his expedition, and finally the
separation of the American squadron from their English allies, the
freezing-in of the two ships, and their drifting helplessly in the ice
pack, month after month, through the long Arctic night, where no vessel
ever had wintered before--drifting "toward God knows where!"
The following pages comprise chapters XX to XLVI of Dr. Kane's work
"The U. S. Grinnell Expedition in search of Sir John Franklin: a
Personal Narrative" (London and New York, 1854), omitting nothing but
some scientific observations that do not add to the interest of the
book as a record of heroic adventure.
In this narrative Dr. Kane tells of the first discovery of traces of
the Franklin expedition--the winter encampment on Beechey Island, and
the three graves. No more was learned of the ill-starred navigators
until 1854, when Dr. Rae, of the Hudson's Bay Company heard that
a party of white men had been seen, four winters before, on King
William's Land, and that their bodies had been afterwards found on
the mainland. From the Eskimos who gave him this report he obtained
various relics of the Franklin expedition that were unquestionably
authentic.
In 1859 numerous other relics were found, including a paper on which
was the following memorandum.--
"25 April, 1848.--H. M. ships _Terror_ and _Erebus_ were deserted on
22 April, 5 leagues N.N.W. of this, having been beset since 12 Sept.,
1846. The officers and crews, consisting of 105 souls, under the
command of Captain F. R. M. Crozier, landed here in lat. 69° 37' 42"
N., long. 98° 41' W. Sir John Franklin died on 11 June, 1847, and the
total loss by deaths in the expedition has been to this date 9 officers
and 15 men.
"And start on to-morrow, 26th, for Back's Fish River."
Nothing further has ever been heard of the discoverers of the northwest
passage. They vanished in the great white silence.
Horace Kephart.
ADRIFT IN THE ARCTIC ICE PACK
CHAPTER I
"_August_ 19. The wind continued freshening, the aneroid falling two
tenths in the night. About eight I was called by our master, with the
news that a couple of vessels were following in our wake. We were
shortening sail for our consort; and by half past twelve, the larger
stranger, the _Lady Franklin_, came up along side of us. A cordial
greeting, such as those only know who have been pelted for weeks in the
solitudes of Arctic ice--and we learned that this was Captain Penny's
squadron, bound on the same pursuit as ourselves. A hurried interchange
of news followed. The ice in Melville Bay had bothered both parties
alike; Commodore Austin, with his steamer tenders, was three days ago
at Carey's Islands, a group nearly as high as 77° north latitude; the
_North Star_, the missing provision transport of last summer, was safe
somewhere in Lancaster Sound, probably at Leopold Island. For the rest,
God speed!
"As she slowly forged ahead, there came over the rough sea that good
old English hurrah, which we inherit on our side the water. 'Three
cheers, hearty, with a will!' indicating as much of brotherhood as
sympathy. 'Stand aloft, boys!' and we gave back the greeting. One cheer
more of acknowledgment on each side, and the sister flags separated,
each on its errand of mercy.
"8 P.M. The breeze has freshened to a gale. Fogs have closed
round us, and we are driving ahead again, with look-outs on every side.
We have no observation; but by estimate we must have got into Lancaster
Sound.
"The sea is short and excessive. Every thing on deck, even anchors
and quarter-boats, have 'fetched away,' and the little cabin is half
afloat. The _Rescue_ is staggering under heavy sail astern of us. We
are making six or seven knots an hour. Murdaugh ahead, looking out for
ice and rocks; De Haven conning the ship.
"All at once a high mountain shore rises before us, and a couple of
isolated rocks show themselves, not more than a quarter of a mile
ahead, white with breakers. Both vessels are laid to."
The storm reminded me of a Mexican "norther." It was not till the
afternoon of the next day that we were able to resume our track, under
a double-reefed top-sail, stay-sail, and spencer. We were, of course,
without observation still, and could only reckon that we had passed the
Cunningham Mountains and Cape Warrender.
About three o'clock in the morning of the 21st, another sail was
reported ahead, a top-sail schooner, towing after her what appeared to
be a launch, decked over.
"When I reached the deck, we were nearly up to her, for we had shaken
out our reefs, and were driving before the wind, shipping seas at every
roll. The little schooner was under a single close-reefed top-sail,
and seemed fluttering over the waves like a crippled bird. Presently an
old fellow, with a cloak tossed over his night gear, appeared in the
lee gangway, and saluted with a voice that rose above the winds.
"It was the _Felix_, commanded by that practical Arctic veteran, Sir
John Ross. I shall never forget the heartiness with which the hailing
officer sang out, in the midst of our dialogue, 'You and I are ahead
of them all' It was so indeed. Austin, with two vessels, was at Pond's
Bay; Penny was somewhere in the gale; and others of Austin's squadron
were exploring the north side of the Sound. The _Felix_ and the
_Advance_ were on the lead.
"Before we separated, Sir John Ross came on deck, and stood at the
side of his officer. He was a square-built man, apparently very little
stricken in years, and well able to bear his part in the toils and
hazards of life. He has been wounded in four several engagements--twice
desperately--and is scarred from head to foot. He has conducted
two Polar expeditions already, and performed in one of them the
unparalleled feat of wintering four years in Arctic snows. And here he
is again, in a flimsy cockle-shell, after contributing his purse and
his influence, embarked himself in the crusade of search for a lost
comrade. We met him off Admiralty Inlet, just about the spot at which
he was picked up seventeen years before."
Soon after midnight, the land became visible on the north side of the
Sound. We had passed Cape Charles Yorke and Cape Crawfurd, and were
fanning along sluggishly with all the sail we could crowd for Port
Leopold.
It was the next day, however, before we came in sight of the island,
and it was nearly spent when we found ourselves slowly approaching
Whaler Point, the seat of the harbor. Our way had been remarkably clear
of ice for some days, and we were vexed to find, therefore, that a firm
and rugged barrier extended along the western shore of the inlet, and
apparently across the entrance we were seeking.
It was a great relief to us to see, at half past six in the evening, a
top-sail schooner working toward us through the ice. She boarded us at
ten, and proved to be Lady Franklin's own search-vessel, the _Prince
Albert_.
This was a very pleasant meeting. Captain Forsyth, who commanded the
_Albert_, and Mr. Snow, who acted as a sort of adjutant under him, were
very agreeable gentlemen. They spent some hours with us, which Mr.
Snow has remembered kindly in the journal he has published since his
return to England. Their little vessel was much less perfectly fitted
than ours to encounter the perils of the ice; but in one respect at
least their expedition resembled our own. They had to rough it: to use
a Western phrase, they had no fancy fixings--nothing but what a hasty
outfit and a limited purse could supply. They were now bound for Cape
Rennell, after which they proposed making a sledge excursion over the
lower Boothian and Cockburne lands.
The _North Star_, they told us, had been caught by the ice last
season in the neighborhood of our own first imprisonment, off the
Devil's Thumb. After a perilous drift, she had succeeded in entering
Wolstenholme Sound, whence, after a tedious winter, she had only
recently arrived at Port Bowen.
They followed in our wake the next day as we pushed through many
streams of ice across the strait. We sighted the shore about five miles
to the west of Cape Hurd very closely; a miserable wilderness, rising
in terraces of broken-down limestone, arranged between the hills like a
vast theatre.
On the 25th, still beating through the ice off Radstock Bay, we
discovered on Cape Riley two cairns, one of them, the most conspicuous,
with a flag-staff and ball. A couple of hours after, we were near
enough to land. The cape itself is a low projecting tongue of
limestone, but at a short distance behind it the cliff rises to the
height of some eight hundred feet. We found a tin canister within the
larger cairn, containing the information that Captain Ommanney had
been there two days before us, with the _Assistance_ and _Intrepid_,
belonging to Captain Austin's squadron, and had discovered traces of
an encampment, and other indications "that some party belonging to
her Britannic majesty's service had been detained at this spot."
Similar traces, it was added, had been found also on Beechy Island, a
projection on the channel side some ten miles from Cape Riley.
Our consort, the _Rescue_, as we afterward learned, had shared in this
discovery, though the British commander's inscription in the cairn,
as well as his official reports, might lead perhaps to a different
conclusion. Captain Griffin, in fact, landed with Captain Ommanney, and
the traces were registered while the two officers were in company.
I inspected these different traces very carefully, and noted what I
observed at the moment. The appearances which connect them with the
story of Sir John Franklin have been described by others; but there may
still be interest in a description of them made while they were under
my eye. I transcribe it word for word from my journal.
"On a tongue of fossiliferous limestone, fronting toward the west on a
little indentation of the water, and shielded from the north by the
precipitous cliffs, are five distinct remnants of habitation.
"Nearest the cliffs, four circular mounds or heapings-up of the
crumbled limestone, aided by larger stones placed at the outer edge, as
if to protect the leash of a tent. Two larger stones, with an interval
of two feet, fronting the west, mark the places of entrance.
"Several large square stones, so arranged as to serve probably for a
fire-place. These have been tumbled over by parties before us.
"More distant from the cliffs, yet in line with the four already
described, is a larger inclosure; the door facing south, and looking
toward the strait: this so-called door is simply an entrance made
of large stones placed one above the other. The inclosure itself
triangular; its northern side about eighteen inches high, built up of
flat stones. Some bird bones and one rib of a seal were found exactly
in the centre of this triangle, as if a party had sat round it eating;
and the top of a preserved-meat case, much rusted, was found in the
same place. I picked up a piece of canvas or duck on the cliff side,
well worn by the weather: the sailors recognized it at once as the gore
of a pair of trowsers.
"A fifth circle is discernible nearer the cliffs, which may have
belonged to the same party. It was less perfect than the others, and
seemed of an older date.
"On the beach, some twenty or thirty yards from the triangular
inclosure, were several pieces of pine wood about four inches long,
painted green, and white, and black, and, in one instance, puttied;
evidently parts of a boat, and apparently collected as kindling wood."
The indications were meagre, but the conclusion they led to was
irresistible. They could not be the work of Esquimaux: the whole
character of them contradicted it: and the only European who could have
visited Cape Riley was Parry, twenty-eight years before; and we knew
from his journal that he had not encamped here. Then, again, Ommanney's
discovery of like vestiges on Beechy Island, just on the track of a
party moving in either direction between it and the channel: all these
speak of a land party from Franklin's squadron.
Our commander resolved to press onward along the eastern shore of
Wellington Channel. We were under weigh in the early morning of the
26th, and working along with our consort toward Beechy--I drop the
"Island," for it is more strictly a peninsula or a promontory of
limestone, as high and abrupt as that at Cape Riley, connected with
what we call the main by a low isthmus. Still further on we passed Cape
Spencer; then a fine bluff point, called by Parry Point Innes; and
further on again, the trend being to the east of north, we saw the low
tongue, Cape Bowden. Parry merely sighted these points from a distance,
so that the shore line has never been traced. I sketched it myself
with some care; but the running survey of this celebrated explorer had
left nothing to alter. To the north of Cape Innes, though the coast
retains the same geognostical character, the bluff promontories subside
into low hills, between which the beach, composed of coarse silicious
limestone, sweeps in long curvilinear terraces. Measuring some of
these rudely afterward, I found that the elevation of the highest
plateau did not exceed forty feet.
Our way northward was along an ice channel close under the eastern
shore, and bounded on the other side by the ice-pack, at a distance
varying from a quarter of a mile to a mile and three quarters. Off Cape
Spencer the way seemed more open, widening perhaps to two miles, and
showing something like continued free water to the north and west. Here
we met Captain Penny, with the _Lady Franklin_ and _Sophia_. He told us
that the channel was completely shut in ahead by a compact ice barrier,
which connected itself with that to the west, describing a horseshoe
bend. He thought a south wester was coming on, and counseled us to
prepare for the chances of an impactment. The go-ahead determination
which characterized our commander made us test the correctness of his
advice. We pushed on, tracked the horseshoe circuit of the ice without
finding an outlet, and were glad to labor back again almost in the
teeth of a gale.
Captain Penny had occupied the time more profitably. In company with
Dr. Goodsir, an enthusiastic explorer and highly educated gentleman,
whose brother was an assistant surgeon on board the missing vessels,
he had been examining the shore. On the ridge of limestone, between
Cape Spencer and Point Innes, they had come across additional proofs
that Sir John's party had been here--very important these proofs as
extending the line along the shore over which the party must have moved
from Cape Riley.
Among the articles they had found were tin canisters, with the London
maker's label; scraps of newspaper, bearing the date 1844; a paper
fragment, with the words "until called" on it, seemingly part of a
watch order; and two other fragments, each with the name of one of
Franklin's officers written on it in pencil. I annex a fac-simile
of one of these, the assistant surgeon of the _Terror_. They told
us, too, that among the articles found by Captain Penny's men was a
dredge, rudely fashioned of iron hoops beat round, with spikes inserted
in them, and arranged for a long handle, as if to fish up missing
articles; besides some footless stockings, tied up at the lower end to
serve as socks, an officer's pocket, velvet-lined, torn off from the
dress, &c., &c.; all of which, they thought, spoke of a party that had
suffered wreck, and were moving eastward. Acting on this impression.
Captain Penny was about to proceed toward Baffin's Bay, along the north
shore of Lancaster Sound, in the hope of encountering them, or, more
probably, their bleached remains.
For myself, looking only at the facts, and carefully discarding every
deduction that might be prompted by sympathy rather than reason, my
journal reminds me that I did not see in these signs the evidence of a
lost party. The party was evidently in motion; but it might be that it
was a detachment, engaged in making observations, or in exploring with
a view to the operations of the spring, while the ships were locked in
winter quarters at Cape Riley or Beechy, which had returned on board
before the opening of the ice.
I may add, as not without some bearing on the fortunes of this party,
whatever may have been its condition or purposes, that the vacant
water-spaces around us at this time were teeming with animal life.
After passing Beechy, we saw seal disporting in great flocks, rising
out of the water as high as their middle, like boys in swimming; the
white whale, the first we had seen, to the extent of thirty-eight
separate shoals; the narwhal, or sea-unicorn; and, finally, that marine
pachyderm, the tusky walrus. These last were always crowded on small
tongues of ice, whose purity they marred not a little--grim-looking
monsters, reminding me of the stage hobgoblins, something venerable
and semi-Egyptian withal. We passed so close as to have several shots
at them. They invariably rose after plunging, and looked snortingly
around, as if to make fight. Polar bears were numerous beyond our
previous experience, and the Arctic fox and hare abounded. If we add to
these the crowding tenants of the air, the Brent goose, which now came
in great cunoid flocks from the north and north by east, the loons, the
mollemokes, and the divers, we may form an estimate of the means of
human subsistence in these seas.