THREE days after this entry the thermometer had fallen to 11° below
zero. Our housings were not yet fixed, and we had no fires below;
indeed, our position was so liable to momentary and violent change that
it would have been impracticable to put up stoves. Still, our lard-lamp
in the cabin gave us a temperature of +44°; and so completely were our
systems accommodated to the circumstances in which we were, that we
should have been quite satisfied but for the condensed moisture that
dripped from every thing about us. Our commander had allowed me to
place canvas gutters around the hatchways, and from these we emptied
every day several tin cans full of water, that would otherwise have
been added to the slop on our cabin floor. But the state of things was,
on the whole, exceedingly comfortless, and, to those whom the scurvy
had attacked, full of peril. I remember once, when the lard-lamp died
out in the course of the night, the mercury sunk in the cabin to 16°.
It was not till the 19th that we got up our stoves.
The adaptation of the human system to varying temperatures struck me
at this time with great force. I had passed the three winters before
within the tropics--the last on the plains of Mexico--yet I could now
watch patiently for hours together to get a shot at seals, with the
thermometer at +10°. I wrote my journal in imaginary comfort with
a temperature of 40°, and was positively distressed with heat when
exercising on the ice with the mercury at +19°.
I return to my diary.
"_October_ 3. I write at midnight. Leaving the deck, where I have been
tramping the cold out of my joints, I come below to our little cabin.
As I open the hatch, every thing seems bathed in dirty milk. A cloud of
vapor gushes out at every chink, and, as the cold air travels down, it
is seen condensing deeper and deeper. The thermometer above is at 7°
below zero.
"The brig and the ice around her are covered by a strange black
obscurity--not a mist, nor a haze, but a peculiar, waving, palpable,
unnatural darkness: it is the frost-smoke of Arctic winters. Its range
is very low. Climbing to the yard-arm, some thirty feet above the deck,
I looked over a great horizon of black smoke, and above me saw the
heaven without a blemish.
"_October_ 4. The open pools can no longer be called pools; they are
great rivers, whose hummock-lined shores look dimly through the haze.
Contrasted with the pure white snow, their waters are black even to
inkyness; and the silent tides, undisturbed by ripple or wash, pass
beneath a pasty film of constantly forming ice. The thermometer is at
10°. Away from the ship, a long way, I walked over the older ice to a
spot where the open river was as wide as the Delaware. Here, after some
crevice-jumping and _tickly-bender_ crossing, I set myself behind a
little rampart of hummocks, watching for seals.
"As I watched, the smoke, the frost-smoke, came down in wreaths, like
the lambent tongues of burning turpentine seen without the blaze. I
was soon enveloped in crapy mist.
"To shoot seal, one must practice the Esquimaux tactics of much
patience and complete immobility. It is no fun, I assure you after full
experience, to sit motionless and noiseless as a statue, with a cold
iron musket in your hands, and the thermometer 10° below zero. But
by-and-by I was rewarded by seeing some overgrown Greenland calves come
within shot. I missed. After another hour of cold expectation, they
came again. Very strange are these seal. A countenance between the dog
and the mild African ape--an expression so like that of humanity, that
it makes gun-murderers hesitate. At last, at long shot, I hit one. God
forgive me!
"The ball did not kill outright. It was out of range, struck too low,
and entered the lungs. The poor beast had risen breast-high out of
water, like the treading-water swimmers among ourselves. He was thus
supported, looking about with curious, expectant eyes, when the ball
entered his lungs.
"For a moment he oozed a little bright blood from his mouth, and
looked toward me with a sort of startled reproachfulness. Then he
dipped; an instant after, he came up still nearer, looked again, bled
again, and went down. A half instant afterward, he came up flurriedly,
looked about with anguish in his eyes, for he was quite near me; but
slowly he sunk, struggling feebly, rose again, sunk again, struggled a
very little more. The thing was drowning in the element of his sportive
revels. He did drown finally, and sunk; and so I lost him.
"Have naturalists ever noticed the expression of this animal's phiz?
Curiosity, contentment, pain, reproach, despair, even resignation I
thought, I saw on this seal's face.
"About half an hour afterward, I killed another. Scurvy and sea-life
craving for fresh meat led me to it; but I shot him dead.
"On returning to the ship, I found one toe frost-bitten--a
tallow-looking dead man's toe--which was restored to its original ugly
vitality by snow-rubbing. Served me right!
"Spent the afternoon in unsuccessful seal stalking, and in rigging and
contriving a spring-gun for the Arctic foxes: a blood-thirsty day. But
we ate of fox to-day for dinner; and behold, and it was good.
"_October_ 5, Saturday. The wind evidently freshens up. The day has
been bitterly cold. Although our lowest temperature was zero and--1°,
we felt it far more than the low temperature of yesterday. Our maximum
was as high as 4°; yet, with this, it required active motion on deck to
keep one's self warm.
"At 12h. 55m., we had an interval of clear sunshine. The utmost,
however, to which it would raise one of the long register Smithsonian
thermometers was 7°. The air was filled with bright particles of frozen
moisture, which glittered in the sunshine--a shimmering of transparent
dust.[C]
[C] Under the microscope these again showed obscure modifications of
the hexagon.
"At the same time, we had a second exhibition of parhelia, not so vivid
in prismatic tints as that of the 30th of September, but more complete.
The sun was expanded in a bright glare of intensely white light, and
was surrounded by two distinct concentric circles, delicately tinted
on their inner margins with the red of the spectrum. The radius of the
inner, as measured by the sextant, was 22° 04'; that of the outer,
40° 15'. The lowest portions of both were beneath the horizon, and of
course not seen.
"From the central disk proceeded four radii, coincident with the
vertical and the horizontal diameters of the circles.
"Their visible points of intersection were marked by bright parhelia;
each parhelion having its circumference well defined, but compressed so
as to have no resemblance to the solar disk.
"Six of these were visible at the same moment; those of the outer
circle being fainter than the inner. Touching the upper circumference
of this outer circle was the arc of a third, which extended toward the
zenith. Indeed, at one time I thought I saw a luminosity overhead,
which may have corresponded to its centre. The tints of this
supplemental circle were very bright. The glowing atmosphere about the
sun was very striking.
"The strange openings in the water of a few hours ago are now great
rivers, lined by banks of hummocks, and wreathed in frost smoke. The
continually increasing wind from the northward explains this southern
drift of the ice, and with it these unwelcome openings. We are
stationary, and the detached ice is leaving us.
"The strong floe of ice-table under ice-table, and hummock upon
hummock, makes our position one of nearly complete solidity. We are
glued up in ice; and to liberate us, some fearful disruption must take
place. Twenty-five feet of solid ice is no feeble matrix, for a brig
drawing but ten. Yet the water is wider, and still widening around us;
so that now we hold on--that is, our floe holds on, to the great mass
to the north of us, like a little peninsular cape.
"To the south every thing is in drifting motion--water, sludge,
frost-smoke--but no seals.
"We caught a poor little fox to-day in a dead-fall. We ate him as an
anti-scorbutic.
"_October_ 6, Sunday. A dismal day; the wind howling, and the snow,
fine as flour, drifting into every chink and cranny. The cold quite
a nuisance, although the mercury is up again to +6°. It is blowing a
gale. What if the floe, in which we are providentially glued, should
take it into its head to break off, and carry us on a cruise before the
wind!
"8 P.M. Took a pole, and started off to make a voyage of discovery
around our floe. After some weary walking over hummocks, and some
uncomfortable sousings in the snow-dust, found that our cape has
dwindled to an isthmus. In the midst of snow and haze, of course, I did
not venture across to the other ice.
"We look now anxiously at the gale--turning in, clothes on, so as to be
ready for changes.
"12 Midnight. They report us adrift. Wind, a gale from the northward
and westward. An odd cruise this! The American expedition fast in a
lump of ice about as big as Washington Square, and driving, like the
shanty on a raft, before a howling gale.
"_October_ 7, Monday. Going on deck this morning, a new coast met my
eyes. Our little matrix of ice had floated at least twenty miles to
the south from yesterday's anchorage. The gale continues; but the day
is beautifully clear, and we have neared the western coast enough to
recognize the features of the limestone cliffs, although many a wrinkle
of them is now pearl-powdered with snow-drift.
"Prominent among these was Advance Bluff; and to the south of it, a
great indentation in the limestone escarpment, which ran back into a
gray distance--a sort of gorge, with a summer water-course. Further
off. Point Innes again, and the shingle beach of 'the Graves'; and a
high bluff-like cape or headland to the southward and westward, which
the captain supposes to be Barlow's Inlet.
"10 P.M. Our master got an observation this evening of a Aquila
(circum-meridian altitude), giving us a latitude of 74° 54' 07''. The
seat of our late resting place was in latitude 75° 24' 52" N. We have
therefore voyaged 30 miles 45 seconds since this new start. At this
rate, should the wind continue, another day will carry us again into
Lancaster Sound.
"_October_ 8. Still we drift. Barlow's Inlet is nearly abreast of us,
and Cape Hotham seen distinctly. The broad, unterminated expanse of
ice to the south is Lancaster Sound, sixty miles distant when we first
began our prisoner's journey. Thermometer at +8°.
"To-day seemed like a wave of the handkerchief from our receding
summer. Winter is in every thing. Yet the skies came back to us with
warm ochres and pinks, and the sun, albeit from a lowly altitude,
shone out in full brightness. It was a mockery of warmth, however,
scarcely worthy the unpretending sincerity of the great planet; for the
mercury, exposed to the full radiance of his deceitful glare, rose but
two degrees: from +7° to 9°. In spite of this, the day was beautiful
to remember, as a type of the sort of thing which we once shared with
the world from which we are shut out; a parting picture, to think
about during the long night. These dark days, or rather the dark day,
will soon be on us. The noon shadows of our long masts almost lose
themselves in the distance.
"A little white fox was caught alive in a trap this morning. He was
an astute-visaged little scamp; and although the chains of captivity,
made of spun-yarn and leather, set hardly upon him, he could spare
abundant leisure for bear bones and snow. He would drink no water. His
cry resembled the inter-paroxysmal yell of a very small boy undergoing
spanking. The note came with an impulsive vehemence, that expressed not
only fear and pain, but a very tolerable spice of anger and ill-temper."
He was soon reconciled, however. The very next day he was tame enough
to feed from the hand, and had lost all that startled wildness of look
which is supposed to characterize his tribe. He was evidently unused to
man, and without the educated instinct of flight. Twice, when suffered
to escape from the vessel, he was caught in our traps the same night.
Indeed, the white foxes of this region--we caught more than thirty of
them--seemed to look at us with more curiosity than fear. They would
come directly to the ship's side; and, though startled at first when we
fired at them, soon came back. They even suffered us to approach them
almost within reach of the hand, ran around us, as we gave the halloo,
in a narrow circle, but stopped as soon as we were still, and stared
us inquisitively in the face. One little fellow, when we let him loose
on the ice after keeping him prisoner for a day or two, scampered back
again incontinently to his cubby-hole on the deck. There may be matter
of reflection for the naturalist in this. Has this animal no natural
enemy but famine and cold? The foxes ceased to visit us soon after
this, owing probably to the uncertain ice between us and the shore:
they are shrewd ice-masters.