FAREWELL TO THE "ADVANCE."
Our last farewell to the brig was made with more solemnity. The
entire ship's company was collected in our dismantled winter-chamber to
take part in the ceremonial. It was Sunday. Our moss walls had been torn
down, and the wood that supported them burned. Our beds were off at the
boats. The galley was unfurnished and cold. Everything about the little
den of refuge was desolate.
[Sidenote: Leaving the "Advance"]
We read prayers and a chapter of the Bible; and then, all standing
silently round, I took Sir John Franklin's portrait from its frame and
cased it in an India-rubber scroll. I next read the reports of inspection
and survey which had been made by the several commissions organized
for the purpose, all of them testifying to the necessities under which
I was about to act. I then addressed the party: I did not affect to
disguise the difficulties that were before us; but I assured them that
they could all be overcome by energy and subordination to command; and
that the thirteen hundred miles of ice and water that lay between us
and North Greenland could be traversed with safety for most of us, and
hope for all. I added, that as men and messmates, it was the duty of
us all, enjoined by gallantry as well as religion, to postpone every
consideration of self to the protection of the wounded and sick; and
that this must be regarded by every man, and under all circumstances, as
a paramount order. In conclusion, I told them to think over the trials
we had all of us gone through, and to remember each man for himself how
often an unseen Power had rescued him in peril; and I admonished them
still to place reliance on Him who could not change.
I was met with a right spirit. After a short conference, an engagement
was drawn up by one of the officers, and brought to me with the
signatures of all the company, without an exception. It read as follows:--
"Second Grinnell Expedition,
"Brig 'Advance,' _May_ 20, 1855.
"The undersigned, being convinced of the impossibility of the liberation
of the brig, and equally convinced of the impossibility of remaining in
the ice a third winter, do fervently concur with the commander in his
attempt to reach the south by means of boats.
"Knowing the trials and hardships which are before us, and feeling the
necessity of union, harmony, and discipline, we have determined to abide
faithfully by the expedition and our sick comrades, and to do all that
we can, as true men, to advance the objects in view.
"Henry Brooks, J. Wall Wilson,
James M'Gary, Amos Bonsall,
George Riley, I. I. Hates,
William Morton, August Sontag,
C. Ohlsen, &c, &c."
[Sidenote: The Memorial]
I had prepared a brief memorial of the considerations which justified
our abandonment of the vessel, and had read it as part of my address. I
now fixed it to a stanchion near the gangway, where it must attract the
notice of any who might seek us hereafter, and stand with them as my
vindication for the step, in case we should be overtaken by disaster. It
closed with these words:--
"I regard the abandonment of the brig as inevitable. We have by actual
inspection but thirty-six days' provisions, and a careful survey shows
that we cannot cut more firewood without rendering our craft unseaworthy.
A third winter would force us, as the only means of escaping starvation,
to resort to Esquimaux habits and give up all hope of remaining by the
vessel and her resources. It would therefore in no manner advance the
search after Sir John Franklin.
"Under any circumstances, to remain longer would be destructive to those
of our little party who have already suffered from the extreme severity
of the climate and its tendencies to disease. Scurvy has enfeebled more
or less every man in the expedition; and an anomalous spasmodic disorder,
allied to tetanus, has cost us the life of two of our most prized
comrades.
"I hope, speaking on the part of my companions and myself, that we have done
all that we ought to do to prove our tenacity of purpose and devotion to
the cause which we have undertaken. This attempt to escape by crossing
the southern ice on sledges is regarded by me as an imperative duty,--the
only means of saving ourselves and preserving the laboriously-earned
results of the expedition.
"E. K. Kane,
"Commander, Grinnell Expedition.
"'Advance,' Rensselaer Bay, _May_ 20, 1855."
We then went upon deck: the flags were hoisted and hauled down again, and
our party walked once or twice around the brig, looking at her timbers
and exchanging comments upon the scars which reminded them of every stage
of her dismantling. Our figure-head--the fair Augusta, the little blue
girl with pink cheeks, who had lost her breast by an iceberg and her nose
by a nip off Bedevilled Reach--was taken from our bows and placed aboard
the "Hope." "She is at any rate wood," said the men, when I hesitated
about giving them the additional burden; "and if we cannot carry her far
we can burn her."
No one thought of the mockery of cheers: we had no festival-liquor to
mislead our perception of the real state of things. When all hands were
quite ready, we scrambled off over the ice together, much like a gang of
stevedores going to work over a quayful of broken cargo.
Excluding four sick men, who were unable to move, and myself, who had to
drive the dog-team and serve as common carrier and courier, we numbered
but twelve men,--which would have given six to a sledge, or too few to
move it. It was therefore necessary to concentrate our entire force upon
one sledge at a time. On the other hand, however, it was important to the
efficiency of our organization that matters of cooking, sleeping baggage,
and rations, should be regulated by separate messes.
The routine I established was the most precise:--Daily prayers both
morning and evening, all hands gathering round in a circle and standing
uncovered during the short exercise; regulated hours; fixed duties and
positions at the track-lines and on the halt; the cooking to be taken by
turns, the captains of the boats alone being excused. The charge of the
log was confided to Dr Hayes, and the running survey to Mr Sontag. Though
little could be expected from either of these gentlemen at this time, I
deemed it best to keep up the appearance of ordinary voyaging; and after
we left the first ices of Smith's Straits I was indebted to them for
valuable results. The thermometer was observed every three hours.
[Sidenote: The Boats' Crews]
To my faithful friend and first officer, boatswain Brooks, I assigned
the command of the boats and sledges. I knew how well he was fitted for
it; and when forced, as I was afterward during the descent, to be in
constant motion between the sick-station, the Esquimaux settlements, and
the deserted brig, I felt safe in the assurance of his tried fidelity
and indomitable resolution. The party under him was marshalled at the
rue-raddies as a single gang; but the messes were arranged with reference
to the two whale-boats, and when we came afterward to the open water the
crews distributed in the same way:--
To the _Faith_. To the _Hope_.
James M'Gary, William Morton,
Christian Ohlsen, August Sontag,
Amos Bonsall, George Riley,
Carl J. Petersen, John Blake,
Thomas Hickey. William Godfrey.
With this organization we set out on our march.
Up to the evening of the 23d, the progress was little more than a mile a
day for one sledge; on the 24th, both sledges reached First Ravine, a
distance of seven miles, when we found that the dog-sledge had brought
on to this station the buffalo bags and other sleeping appliances which
we had prepared during the winter. The condition of the party was such
that it was essential they should sleep in comfort; and it was a rule,
therefore, during the whole journey, never departed from unless in
extreme emergency, never to begin a new day's labour till the party was
refreshed from the exertions of the day before. Our halts were regulated
by the condition of the men rather than by arbitrary hours, and sleep was
meted out in proportion to the trials of the march. We slept by day when
the sun was warmest, and travelled when we could avoid his greatest glare.
Mr Morton, Ohlsen, and Petersen, during this time performed a double
duty. They took their turn at the sledges with the rest, but they were
also engaged in preparing the _Red Eric_ as a comrade boat. She was
mounted on our good old sledge, the _Faith_--a sledge that, like her
namesake, our most reliable whale-boat, had been our very present help in
many times of trouble. I believe every man felt, when he saw her brought
out, that stout work was to be done, and under auspices of good.
In the meantime I had carried Mr Goodfellow, with my dog-sledge, to
a sick-station, which I had arranged at Anoatok; and had managed to
convey the rest one by one to the same spot. Mr Wilson, whose stump was
still unhealed, and who suffered besides from scurvy; George Whipple,
whose tendons were so contracted that he could not extend his legs, and
poor Stephenson, just able to keep the lamps burning and warm up food
for the rest, were the other invalids, all incapable of moving without
assistance. It is just that I should speak of the manly fortitude with
which they bore up during this painful imprisonment. Dr Hayes, though
still disabled from his frozen foot, adhered manfully to the sledges.
As I review my notes of the first few days of our ice-journey, I find
them full of incidents, interesting and even momentous when they
occurred, but which cannot claim a place in this narrative. The sledges
were advancing slowly, the men often discouraged, and now and then one
giving way under the unaccustomed labour.
[Sidenote: The "Red Boat"]
The _Red Boat_ was completed for service in a few days, and joined the
sledge-party on the floes,--an additional burden, but a necessary one,
for our weary rue-raddies; and I set out for the sick-station with Mr
Goodfellow, our last remaining invalid. As my team reached the entrance
of Force Bay, I saw that poor Nessark, the Esquimaux, who had carried Mr
Wilson and some stores to Anoatok, finding his sledge-load too heavy,
had thrown out a portion of it upon the ice. He had naturally enough
selected the bread for his jettison, an article of diet unknown among the
Esquimaux, but precisely that of which our sick were most in need. I lost
some time in collecting such parts of his rejected cargo as I could find,
and, when I reached the huts after a twelve hours' drive, the condition
of our sick men made it imperative that I should return at once to the
brig. The strength of the dogs began to fail while crossing the reach of
Force Bay, and I was forced to camp out with them on the ice-belt, but
early in the morning I came upon the fires of the sledge-party.
The men were at prayers when I first saw them; but, as they passed to the
drag-ropes, I was pained to see how wearily they moved. Poor Brooks' legs
were so swollen that he could not brace them in his blanket coverings,
and Dr Hayes could hardly keep his place. The men generally showed
symptoms of increasing scurvy. It was plain that they could not hold
their own without an increased allowance, if not of meat, at least of
fresh bread and hot tea.
Taking with me Morton, my faithful adjutant always, I hurried on to the
brig.
We lighted fires in the galley, melted pork, baked a large batch of
bread, gathered together a quantity of beans and dried apples, somewhat
damaged, but still eatable, and by the time our dogs had fed and rested,
we were ready for the return. Distributing our supplies as we passed the
squads on the floe, I hastened to Anoatok. I had taken Godfrey with us
from his party, and, as it was painfully evident that the men could not
continue to work without more generous food, I sent him on to Etah with
the dogs, in the hope of procuring a stock of walrus-meat.
The little company at the hut welcomed my return. They had exhausted
their provisions; their lamp had gone out; the snow-drift had forced
its way in at the door, so that they could not close it; it was blowing
a north-easter; and the thermometer, which hung against the blanketed
walls, stood only sixteen degree above zero. The poor fellows had all the
will to protect themselves, but they were lame, and weak, and hungry,
and disheartened. We built a fire for them of tarred rope, dried their
bedding, cooked them a porridge of meat-biscuit and pea-soup, fastened
up their desolate doorway, hung a dripping-slab of pork-fat over their
lamp-wick, and, first joining in a prayer of thankfulness, and then a
round of merry gossip, all hands forgot sickness, and privation, and
distance in the contentment of our sleeping-bags. I cannot tell how long
we slept, for all our watches ran down before we awoke.
The gale had risen, and it was snowing hard when I replenished the fires
of our heartstone. But we went on burning rope and fat, in a regular
tea-drinking frolic, till not an icicle or even a frost-mark was to be
seen on the roof. After a time Godfrey rejoined us; Metek came with him;
and between their two sledges they brought an ample supply of meat. With
part of this I hastened to the sledge-party. They were now off Ten-mile
Ravine, struggling through the accumulated snows, and much exhausted,
though not out of heart. In spite of their swollen feet, they had worked
fourteen hours a day, passing in that time over some twelve miles of
surface, and advancing a mile and a half on their way.
[Sidenote: The Sledge-Party]
Once more leaving the party on the floe, Morton and myself, with Metek
and his sledge in company, revisited the brig, and set ourselves to work
baking bread. The brig was dreary enough, and Metek was glad to bid it
good-bye, with one hundred and fifty pounds on his dog-sledge, consigned
to Mr Brooks. But he carried besides a letter, safely trusted to his
inspection, which directed that he should be sent back forthwith for
another load. It was something like a breach of faith, perhaps; but his
services were indispensable, and his dogs still more so. He returned, of
course, for there was no escaping us; his village lay in the opposite
direction, and he could not deviate from the track after once setting
out. In the time we had cooked about a hundred pounds of flour pudding,
and tried out a couple of bagfuls of pork-fat,--a good days work,--and we
were quite ready, before the subdued brightness of midnight came, to turn
in to our beds. Our beds!--there was not an article of covering left on
board. We ripped open the old mattresses, and, all three crawling down
among the curled hair, Morton, Metek, and the Nalegak, slept as sound as
vagrants on a haystack.
On Monday, the 28th, we all set out for the boats and Anoatok. Both Metek
and myself had all our sledges heavily laden. We carried the last of our
provision-bags, completing now our full complement of fifteen hundred
pounds, the limit of capacity of our otherwise crowded boats.
It caused me a bitter pang to abandon our collection of objects of
natural history, the cherished fruit of so much exposure and toil; and
it was hardly easier to leave some other things behind,--several of my
well-tested instruments, for instance, and those silent friends, my
books. They had all been packed up, hoping for a chance of saving them;
and, to the credit of my comrades, let me say gratefully that they
offered to exclude both clothes and food in favour of a full freight of
these treasures.
But the thing was not to be thought of. I gave a last look at the
desolate galley-stove, the representative of our long winter's fireside,
at the still bright coppers now full of frozen water, the theodolite,
the chart-box, and poor Wilson's guitar,--one more at the remnant of the
old moss-walls, the useless daguerreotypes, and the skeletons of dog,
and deer, and bear, and musk-ox,--stoppered in the rigging;--and, that
done, whipped up my dogs so much after the manner of a sentimentalising
Christian, that our pagan Metek raised a prayer in their behalf.
[Illustration]
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