ADVENT OF THE SECOND YEAR.
"_Map 30, 1854._--It is a year ago to-day since we left New York. I am
not as sanguine as I was then: time and experience have chastened me.
There is everything about me to check enthusiasm and moderate hope. I am
here in forced inaction, a broken-down man, oppressed by cares, with many
dangers before me, and still under the shadow of a hard wearing winter,
which has crushed two of my best associates. Here, on the spot, after
two unavailing expeditions of search, I hold my opinions unchanged; and
I record them as a matter of duty upon a manuscript which may speak the
truth when I can do so no longer.
[Sidenote: The Dogs]
"_June 1._--At ten o'clock this morning the wail of the dogs outside
announced the return of Dr Hayes and William Godfrey. Both of them were
completely snow-blind, and the doctor had to be led to my bedside to make
his report. In fact, so exhausted was he, that in spite of my anxiety I
forbore to question him until he had rested. I venture to say, that both
he and his companion well remember their astonishing performance over
stewed-apples and seal-meat.
"The dogs were not so foot-sore as might have been expected; but two
of them, including poor little Jenny, were completely knocked up. All
attention was bestowed on indispensable essentials of Arctic search, and
soon they were more happy than their masters."
Dr Hayes had made a due north line on leaving the brig; but,
encountering the "squeezed ices" of my own party in March, he wisely
worked to the eastward.
On the 22d he encountered a wall of hummocks, exceeding twenty feet in
height, and extending in a long line to the north-east.
After vain attempts to force them, becoming embarrassed in fragmentary
ice,--worn, to use his own words, into "deep pits and valleys,"--he was
obliged to camp, surrounded by masses of the wildest character, some of
them thirty feet in height.
The next three days were spent in struggles through this broken plain;
fogs sometimes embarrassed them, but at intervals land could be seen
to the north-west. On the 27th they reached the north side of the bay,
passing over but few miles of new and unbroken floe.
Dr Hayes told me, that in many places they could not have advanced a step
but for the dogs. Deep cavities filled with snow intervened between lines
of ice-barricades, making their travel as slow and tedious as the same
obstructions had done to the party of poor Brooks before their eventful
rescue last March.
His journal entry, referring to the 23d, while tangled in the ice, says,
"I was so snow-blind that I could not see; and as riding, owing to the
jaded condition of the dogs, was seldom possible, we were obliged to
lay-to."
It was not until the 25th that their eyesight was sufficiently restored
to enable them to push on. In these devious and untrodden ice-fields,
even the instinct of the dogs would have been of little avail to direct
their course. It was well for the party that during this compulsory halt
the temperatures were mild and endurable.
On the 26th, disasters accumulated. William Godfrey, one of the sturdiest
travellers, broke down; and the dogs, the indispensable reliance of the
party, were in bad working trim. The rude harness, always apt to become
tangled and broken, had been mended so often, and with such imperfect
means, as to be scarcely serviceable.
[Sidenote: Sledge Trappings]
This evil would seem the annoyance of an hour to the travellers in a
stage-coach, but to a sledge-party on the ice-waste it is the gravest
that can be conceived. The Esquimaux dog is driven by a single trace, a
long thin thong of seal or walrus hide, which passes from his chest over
his haunches to the sledge. The team is always driven abreast, and the
traces are of course tangling and twisting themselves up incessantly,
as the half-wild or terrified brutes bound right or left from their
prescribed positions. The consequence is, that the seven or nine or
fourteen lines have a marvellous aptitude at knotting themselves up
beyond the reach of skill and patience. If the weather is warm enough
to thaw the snow, they become utterly soft and flaccid, and the naked
hand, if applied ingeniously, may dispense with a resort to the Gordian
process; but in the severe cold, such as I experienced in my winter
journeys of 1854, the knife is often the only appliance,--an unsafe one
if invoked too often, for every new attachment shortens your harness, and
you may end by drawing your dogs so close that they cannot pull. I have
been obliged to halt and camp on the open flee, till I could renew enough
of warmth and energy and patience to disentangle the knots of my harness.
It was only after appropriating an undue share of his kin breeches that
the leader of the party succeeded in patching up his mutilated dog-lines.
He was rewarded, however, for he shortly after found an old floe, over
which his sledge passed happily to the north coast. It was the first
time that any of our parties had succeeded in penetrating the area to
the north. The ice had baffled three organized foot-parties. It would
certainly never have been traversed without the aid of dogs; but it is
equally certain that the effort must again have failed, even with their
aid, but for the energy and determination of Dr Hayes, and the endurance
of his partner, William Godfrey.
The party spent the 28th in mending the sledge, which was completely
broken, and feeding up their dogs for a renewal of the journey. But,
their provisions being limited, Dr Hayes did not deem himself justified
in continuing to the north. He determined to follow and survey the coast
toward Cape Sabine.
His pemmican was reduced to eighteen pounds; there was apparently no
hope of deriving resources from the hunt; and the coasts were even more
covered with snow than those he had left on the southern side. His return
was a thing of necessity.
Most providentially they found the passage home free from bergs; but
their provisions were nearly gone, and their dogs were exhausted. They
threw away their sleeping-bags, which were of reindeer-skin and weighed
about twelve pounds each, and abandoned, besides, clothing enough to
make up a reduction in weight of nearly fifty pounds. With their load so
lightened, they were enabled to make good the crossing of the bay. They
landed at Peter Force Bay, and reached the brig on the 1st of June.
This journey connected the northern coast with the former surveys; but it
disclosed no channel or any form of exit from this bay.
It convinced me, however, that such a channel must exist; for this great
curve could be no _cul-de-sac_. Even were my observations since my first
fall-journey of September 1853, not decisive on this head, the general
movement of the icebergs, the character of the tides, and the equally
sure analogies of physical geography, would point unmistakably to such a
conclusion.
[Sidenote: The North-east Party]
To verify it, I at once commenced the organization of a double party.
This, which is called in my Report the North-east Party, was to be
assisted by dogs, but was to be subsisted as far as the Great Glacier by
provisions carried by a foot-party in advance.
For the continuation of my plans I again refer to my journal.
"_June 2._--There is still this hundred miles wanting to the north-west
to complete our entire circuit of this frozen water. This is to be the
field for our next party. I am at some loss how to organize it. For
myself, I am down with scurvy. Dr Hayes is just from the field, worn-out
and snow-blind, and the health-roll of the crew makes a sorry parade.
"_June 3._--M'Gary, Bonsall, Hickey, and Riley were detailed for the
first section of the new parties; they will be accompanied by Morton,
who has orders to keep himself as fresh as possible, so as to enter on
his own line of search to the greatest possible advantage. I keep Hans a
while to recruit the dogs, and do the hunting and locomotion generally
for the rest of us; but I shall soon let him follow, unless things grow
so much worse on board as to make it impossible.
"I am intensely anxious that this party should succeed; it is my last
throw. They have all my views, and I believe they will carry them out
unless overruled by a higher power.
"Their orders are, to carry the sledge forward as far as the base of the
Great Glacier, and fill up their provisions from the _cache_ of my own
party of last May. Hans will then join them with the dogs; and, while
M'Gary and three men attempt to scale and survey the glacier, Morton
and Hans will push to the north across the bay with the dog-sledge, and
advance along the more distant coast. Both divisions are provided with
clampers, to steady them and their sledges on the irregular ice-surfaces;
but I am not without apprehensions that, with all their efforts, the
glacier cannot be surmounted.
"In this event, the main reliance must be on Mr Morton. He takes with
him a sextant, artificial horizon, and pocket chronometer, and has
intelligence, courage, and the spirit of endurance in full measure. He is
withal a long-tried and trustworthy follower.
"_June 5._--The last party are off; they left yesterday at 2
P.M. I can do nothing more but await the ice-changes that are to
determine for us our liberation or continued imprisonment.
"_June 6._--We are a parcel of sick men, affecting to keep ship till our
comrades get back. Except Mr Ohlsen and George Whipple, there is not a
sound man among us. Thus wearily in our Castle of Indolence, for 'labour
dire it was, and weary woe,' we have been watching the changing days, and
noting bird, insect, and vegetable, as it tells us of the coming summer.
One fly buzzed around William Godfrey's head to-day,--he could not tell
what the species was; and Mr Petersen brought in a cocoon from which the
grub had eaten its way to liberty. Hans gives us a seal almost daily, and
for a passing luxury we have ptarmigan and hare. The little snow-birds
have crowded to Butler Island, and their songs penetrate the cracks of
our rude housing. Another snipe, too, was mercilessly shot the very day
of his arrival.
"_June 10._--Hans was ordered yesterday to hunt in the direction of
the Esquimaux huts, in the hope of determining the position of the open
water. He did not return last night; but Dr Hayes and Mr Ohlsen, who were
sent after him this morning with the dog-sledge, found the hardy savage
fast asleep not five miles from the brig. Alongside of him was a large
ussuk or bearded seal, shot, as usual, in the head. He had dragged it for
seven hours over the ice-foot. The dogs having now recruited, he started
light to join Morton at the glacier.
[Sidenote: Arctic Birds]
"_June 16._--Two long-tailed ducks visited us, evidently seeking their
breeding-grounds. They are beautiful birds, either at rest or on the
wing. We now have the snow-birds, the snipe, the burgomaster-gull, and
the long-tailed duck, enlivening our solitude; but the snow-birds are the
only ones in numbers, crowding our rocky islands, and making our sunny
night-time musical with home-remembered songs. Of each of the others
we have but a solitary pair, who seem to have left their fellows for
this far northern mating-ground in order to live unmolested. I long for
specimens; but they shall not be fired at.
"_June 18._--Mr Ohlsen and Dr Hayes are off on an overland tramp. I sent
them to inspect the open water to the southward. The immovable state of
the ice-foot gives me anxiety. Last year, a large bay above us was closed
all summer; and the land-ice, as we find it here, is as perennial as the
glacier.
"_June 21._--A snow, moist and flaky, melting upon our decks, and
cleaning up the dingy surface of the great ice-plain with a new garment.
We are at the summer solstice, the day of greatest solar light!
Would that the traditionally-verified but meteorologically-disproved
equinoctial storm could break upon us, to destroy the tenacious floes!
"_June 22._--The ice changes slowly, but the progress of vegetation
is excessively rapid. The growth on the rocky group near our brig is
surprising.
"_June 23._--The eiders have come back: a pair were seen in the morning,
soon followed by four ducks and drakes. The poor things seemed to be
seeking breeding-grounds, but the ice must have scared them. They were
flying southward.
"_June 25._--Walked on shore and watched the changes: andromeda in
flower, poppy and ranunculus the same: saw two snipe and some tern.
"Mr Ohlsen returned from a walk with Mr Petersen. They saw reindeer, and
brought back a noble specimen of the king duck. It was a solitary male,
resplendent with the orange, black, and green of his head and neck.
"Stephenson is better; and I think that a marked improvement, although a
slow one, shows itself in all of us."
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