AN ATTACK AND A COUNTERMARCH
_Thursday, the 19th._—We spent a comfortable night and indulged next
morning in the luxury of a ‘long lie.’ About nine o’clock the men
departed, going down stream along the edge of the hills. This was in
opposition to our advice, as we felt sure the ice-cliffs would get worse
as they approached Lake Castani; but Gums confidently asserted his
capability of finding a route, and they thought anything would be better
than repeating the toils of the previous day. They would, we reckoned,
take two days to go down and three to return, so that, allowing them a
day’s rest at the beach, we might hope to see them again on Tuesday.
After their departure we reckoned up our stores; there was not much
bacon, but plenty of soup, chocolate, etc., and flour enough for at
least a fortnight. We then heated water in the big kettle and indulged
in the luxury of a good wash, which was perhaps slightly needed, as our
scanty ablutions for the last week had been perforce in glacier water,
which at a temperature of 32° or so, has not much cleansing power.
After lunch (bread and chocolate) we took about twenty and the men about
forty pounds each, and set out to make a cache further up the stream; H.,
in addition to his burden, attempted to carry the coal-oil stove, a most
detestable fardel, but dropped it when he had gone about half a mile. For
the first three miles our going was fairly easy, along the landward side
of the stream, but we then came to a glacier lake, where we surprised a
small flock of geese, at which H. and I fired our revolvers unavailingly.
We at first attempted the land side of the lake, but were soon defeated,
as the cliffs went sheer down into the water, and we had to return,
wade the stream, and climb up on to the débris-covered glacier. Half an
hour of this sufficed to bring us to the other side of the lake, and we
descended again to the river-bed, up which we proceeded for another three
miles, wading frequently from side to side so as to make the most of
the little bits of beach. Here the hill-side was very steep and with the
ice-cliffs of the glacier formed a miniature cañon just beyond which we
deposited our burdens on a flat bed of gravel and returned rapidly to
camp, wading the river twelve times between the cache and the lake. While
we were making the cache, E. went on a little way and found that the
river issued from an ice-arch under the glacier, from which we hoped that
Libbey’s glacier might be near at hand. We discovered on our homeward
route that it was possible to pass along the lake under the glacier, and
so to save both time and exertion, though at the risk of a falling stone
or two.
We decided that evening to move camp as far as the lake before attempting
further exploration. Just after supper, Billy, who had wandered off a
little way down stream, rushed back shouting, ‘Coonch, coonch!’ and
explained by saying, ‘All same dog.’ We ran out with our pistols, but
were only in time to see a large wolf vanish into the bushes.
_Friday, the 20th_.—We struck camp at 7.15, and I started first with
the men. Before going far I came on the discarded stove, and managed to
hoist it along; but for this I received no thanks, as the others wasted
a quarter of an hour in vainly searching for it. Dropping our loads at
the point where the stream issued from the lake, Billy, Jimmy, and I went
back for a fresh lot, and buried a letter for Shorty, directing them to
follow us up stream. As E. had a cold, it was thought he had better not
do any wading, and he remained in camp to pitch the tent and arrange
things generally, while H. and W. went on to explore beyond our cache.
After lunch the Indians went back for the last load, while I tried to get
round the lake on the land side, but I found the rock so dangerous that
I abandoned the attempt. I am no geologist, but it appeared to be a sort
of clayey sandstone, very hard below, but with a soft crust on top, which
gave way beneath hands, feet, or ice-axe. I then went round the lake on
the ice side, and tried to cross what seemed to be a peninsula between
the river and the head of the lake; but the ferns and alder-scrub on this
proved to be so dense that after going some way without being able to see
anything, I gave that up also, and returned to camp at half-past three.
H. and W. came in at five o’clock, having got as far as a second lake,
whence they were able to see the glacier that descends from St. Elias.
Though this was still at some distance, we felt encouraged, and after
supper indulged in a little whist. W. and E. played against H. and me;
W.’s whist was indeed extraordinary, and he apparently so confused his
partner as eventually to make him revoke in the most palpable manner by
trumping clubs and then leading them. We never played whist again, but
confined ourselves to piquet.
_Saturday, the 21st._—A cloudless morning greeted us, and at 7.30 we
four started out with the firm determination of reaching the long-sought
glacier. We went up the river to the ice-arch, where we climbed again
on to the glacier to turn the second lake. When we had gone a little
further, we halted to sketch and photograph our mountain, the upper
part of which was showing well over the Chaix Hills. We then plodded
on over the disgusting moraine, and at noon reached the point where
Libbey’s Glacier runs into the Agassiz. We halted here for lunch, and
then started to climb it. Though descending at a considerable angle, it
was not much broken, and in fifty minutes more E., W., and I, slanting
across it in an easterly direction, reached a green island which so
much resembled the Gletscher Alp at Saas Fee that we christened it the
Langenfluh. On the other side of this there was a grand ice-fall with
great black seracs. H. had stayed behind to take some bearings, and at
first we failed to see him anywhere, but soon discovered that he was
taking a more direct course up the glacier towards St. Elias. We pushed
on, and soon joined him on the plateau above. Here, though a little
later the ice would doubtless be bare, we found some snow-patches in the
hollows, and had to be a little cautious about crevasses.
Fairly on the top at last, we halted before one of the most magnificent
views I ever hope to see. The plateau stretched before us, at much the
same level for eight or ten miles, right to the foot of the mountain,
which here rose in one appalling precipice. Put the Dom as seen from Saas
on the top of Monte Rosa as seen from Macugnaga, and you will have some
idea of the grandeur of the spectacle that lay before us. To the right
rose the double-headed Cook, seamed with a great couloir down its centre,
then the rather shapeless mass of Vancouver, and beyond that numbers of
unnamed peaks, some of which we thought we recognised as having been
noticed at Yakutat. Far away to the east were Fairweather and Crillon,
clearly defined on the horizon.
The upper part of our mountain was not so steep as the lower, but the
whole face was streaming with avalanches, the dull boom of which was
plainly audible from time to time, and on the mountain itself no possible
route could be discovered. On the south arête rises a very prominent
and beautiful peak (subsequently christened Haydon Peak), and beneath
this were some rocks on which W. urged that an attempt might be made,
but through the big telescope they looked most unpleasant, and he
yielded to our united advice that we should return on our tracks, and,
circumnavigating the Chaix Hills, which, from their broken nature, it was
impossible to cross, see what we could do on the south-west side, where
Seton-Karr had failed. After taking observations, which afterwards gave
the height we had reached as 1,625 feet above the sea, we reluctantly
left at about four o’clock, and tried to improve our return route by
keeping down the bed of the stream, instead of on the ice, till nearly
at the second lake; but I do not think we gained much, as we were then
forced on to the glacier in its most unpleasant part. We stopped at the
cache to bring back some stores, and finally reached camp at nine, very
weary and footsore from the fearful moraine-walking, which had nearly
destroyed one of my two pairs of boots already. Some tomato soup revived
us somewhat, and we turned in at half past eleven.
_Sunday, the 22nd._—The weather was again perfect, and we spent the
morning in sketching and similar peaceful occupations, but H. was not
going to allow us the luxury of a whole day’s rest, and after lunch
we packed down again to Camp D, whence E. and I went on down stream,
following the tracks made by our men on Thursday, which were plainly
visible in the sandy soil. In forty minutes we reached Lake Castani,
which presented an extraordinary scene; the water was very low, and
enormous bergs lay stranded far up the hill, even to the very edge of
the timber, some of them as much as a hundred feet above the level of the
lake. We were here much puzzled by the sudden disappearance of the tracks
at the water’s edge. The ice-cliffs were, as we had expected, utterly
unscaleable, and we could only suppose that they had gone round, their
footprints being invisible on the harder face of the hill.
We continued along the shore till we had crossed a small stream running
in from the north, and kept on to the west for some distance, when we
realised that the lake was in shape something between a broad arrow and a
crescent moon, and that our best route in future would be to cut across
from horn to horn. Accordingly, we turned inland through the trees, and
in fifteen minutes reached a beautifully clear little rivulet, near which
were many flat places well suited for a camp. Stepping out briskly,
eighty minutes brought us back to camp at six o’clock, where we found the
others preparing supper.
_Monday, the 23rd._—We actually succeeded in getting off at 6.45, no
light task, as it generally took a good two hours to make breakfast,
including bread-baking, strike the tents, and arrange the packs. We
coasted round the lake and dropped our loads, not on the stream where E.
and I had been the day before, but by a small pond to the left, where we
could see across Castani to the glaciers. The Indians then returned to D
for more things, while H., E., and W. started with the hope of finding
a way across the hills at our back. I had no belief in the possibility
of this, and went on round the lake to try and find out, if possible,
what had been the route of our other men. At the westernmost point of
the peninsula projecting into the lake, I came on their traces for a
few yards, when they again vanished at the water’s edge. Oddly enough,
the true solution never once occurred to us. Going leisurely, I reached
at 11.15 the north-west extremity of the lake, putting up half-a-dozen
geese as I went whose wildness argued considerable knowledge of man. I
then meditated a return to camp, but my plans were suddenly changed by
coming on tracks in the herbage which I believed to be those of the men.
I followed them, first over a space where the wind had overthrown all the
trees in every direction, raising a natural abattis that presented most
formidable obstacles, and then through some dense alder-scrub to the edge
of the Guyot Glacier.
I supposed they must have gone back by this, and, as there was no
objectionable river cutting me off, I thought I might as well go on
to the glacier for a bit and ascertain its nature. A belt of moraine
separated me from the white ice, and this moraine was different to that
on the Agassiz. The glacier was much more even and the stones fewer, but
in the hollows between the mounds lay pools of horrible red mud often
knee-deep, which made the way anything but a primrose path, for the mud
was often crusted enough to bear biggish stones, and so deluded the
unwary traveller on to it. At length I got beyond this, making a slight
sketch _en route_, and, going up parallel with the hills, found myself on
white ice, but involved in a system of rather formidable crevasses, in
one of which I nearly came to grief. It was at a point where two large
crevasses ran together; I was between them, and as I reached the apex of
the triangle, from which I intended to jump, the ice gave way beneath me,
and I descended abruptly a distance of some seven or eight feet, but
the block wedged beneath me, saving me from a violent squeeze, if not
worse. Though somewhat jarred, I had not let go of my axe, and chipping
a step or two, was soon out of my prison. A few minutes more brought me
to level ice with very few stones on it, and as I was able to walk very
fast on this, I had at two o’clock nearly reached the west end of the
Chaix Hills, which here had subsided into green knolls, though a mile or
so further back a large lake, which with its ramifications and the gorges
from them evidently extended far inland, must have hopelessly cut off the
others had they tried to cross the hills direct.
I was congratulating myself on my superior astuteness, when, to my utter
amazement, I heard shots, and discovered the others pursuing ptarmigan
on the hills with their revolvers. By the time I reached them they had
exhausted their few cartridges, and I found W. anxiously watching over
the old hen, who obligingly waited till I arrived, but unfortunately I
also missed, and we had no ptarmigan for supper that night. The others
had failed almost at once in their attempt to cross the hills and so had
descended to the glacier, and it was their track I had followed through
the bush. E. was very full of a small trout which they had discovered
in one of the pools of a tiny rill on the hills, and it was certainly
a complete marvel what that fish could do with himself in winter, when
one would think everything would be frozen solid. E. went back next day,
captured him and bottled him in alcohol.
On the hills we all scattered; I went across to the other side and had
a grand view of St. Elias across the curve of the Tyndall Glacier, but
coming back to the Guyot a good deal lower down than where I had left it,
I found I had missed the others. Being rather tired, I was disinclined
to go back, so kept on homewards, and an hour’s moraine, and then fifty
minutes across the neck of the peninsula, on which were one or two pools
full of yellow water-lilies, brought me into camp at six o’clock pretty
well beat, but I got two loaves made and some apples cooked by the time
they arrived an hour later. We then had to pitch our tent, and it was, as
usual, hard to find a flat place, but we managed it at last, though the
flies and mosquitoes here threatened to be worse than ever.
_Tuesday, the 24th._—E. and W. went off about nine to cut a trail through
the worst part of the bush by the Guyot Glacier, and the Indians to E
for the last load of stores. H. and I stayed at home mending our boots
and raiment, much plagued by the flies, of which there were many kinds,
varying from a large house-fly to a microscopic grey beast, but all
equally anxious to feed off us. About eleven I went towards the lake and
succeeded in setting fire to a couple of dead trees, to serve as a signal
to the men whom we were expecting from the beach. After this we lunched
early off a few beans, and then H. set off with Billy and Jimmy to make a
cache at the place where we left the bush for the Guyot Glacier. Directly
afterwards E. and W. came back, and at the same moment we heard shouts
across the lake. The men had returned. E. shouted to them to go round by
the Guyot, and I rushed off and caught up H., who, after the cache had
been made, set off to meet them, while the Indians and I returned slowly
as it was very hot.
As the rest of us were having supper, a little after six, we suddenly saw
a figure come in sight round the _eastern_ corner of Castani. It was the
energetic Gums, followed at intervals by the rest of our men, who had
failed to understand our cries and had gone on by the Agassiz Glacier
to our old camp at D. Gums, who had sworn he would never go that way
again, kept his word in the letter if not in the spirit by cutting steps
down the cliffs some three hundred yards short of the slope opposite
camp, down which the others came as they had done before. The mystery of
their footprints was then explained. When they reached the lake its bed
was quite dry, and they went right across it to the western side, where
they were able to get on to the ice, and, the Guyot Glacier proving much
easier than the Agassiz, they reached B without difficulty the first day.
The next day they reached the shore, going down by the river recommended
by Seton-Karr, which we had advised them to try. They took a day’s rest,
returned in one day to B, and made their camp next night at the spot
where the river issued from the ice. Leaving this at 4.30 A.M., they had
nearly got to Castani by nine o’clock, when Gums, who was on ahead,
reported that the lake was too high to cross, and they turned towards the
old route on the Agassiz, finding very bad going.
While thus engaged they saw the smoke from the fire I had lit, and Gums
then said he could get round by the Guyot, but as he had previously
denied the existence of such a way the men declined to try it, and, after
hailing us without understanding what we said in reply, went on to D and
so round. They were all in good health, but George, the only one who
had no boots, was very footsore. H. came in about half-an-hour later,
somewhat annoyed by his wild-goose-chase, splashed with glacier-mud,
and hoarse with shouting after the lost caravan; but he was too hungry
to waste time in grumbling, and after supper we turned in early. At
this camp, in consequence of E.’s snoring, which had become perfectly
maddening, packed like sardines as we were, I turned round and slept with
my head where my feet used to be. W. occasionally did a little snoring in
a mild way, but was nothing to E., who not only snored his breath in, but
blew it out again with a puff like a locomotive. Sleeping with his head
under the blankets because of mosquitoes, increased the evil, and it was
no good my poking or kicking him, for he always went to sleep again long
before I did.
_Wednesday, the 25th._—After the fatigues of the previous day the men
slept late. Gums went to fetch some of the Indians’ blankets, &c., left
at D. At nine o’clock E. and nearly all the men got under way, followed
shortly by H. and W., while an hour later I brought on Mike, George, and
Gums, who went very slowly and did not reach the edge of the glacier
till twelve. Here I had a row with Gums, who had apparently got out of
bed wrong leg foremost, and maintained that his load was too heavy,
threatening, in order to lighten it, to throw away the frying-pans and
kettles. As he had been ahead of us most of the time, so that I had had
to call him back more than once, and was, besides, much the strongest
of the three Indians with me, this was absurd, and I nearly lost my
temper with him, a fatal thing when dealing with the natives; but,
curbing my righteous indignation, I merely remarked, ‘Halo kettle, halo
muck-a-muck,’ _i.e._, ‘No kettles, no supper,’ and, leaving him to
digest that information and a ship’s biscuit to soften it down, I went
on after the others, who were vanishing over the glacier. For this my
conscience rather reproached me afterwards, for, without amounting to an
ice-fall, there were some rather ugly crevasses a little way on, in which
laden men might conceivably have come to grief, but they turned up all
right. I had caught up most of those ahead, and had relieved W. of the
camera which he was carrying, when we heard shouts from E. and Shorty at
the edge of the glacier.
With the exception of H., who was on ahead up the glacier and took no
part in the struggle that ensued, we hurried on and found that, as they
got on to the hill-side, they had espied a small flock of geese on a
pool between the glacier and the land. Shorty fired his pistol at them,
on which, instead of flying away, they swam into a cave under the ice,
and he ran down and blockaded them while E. shouted for us. We went down
to the water, and with some difficulty reached the mouth of the cave on
pieces of ice that were more or less afloat. To get there we had to pass
under a slender ice-arch that seemed to be on the point of falling, but
once on the ice-blocks we were quite safe. Accordingly Shorty, W., and I
commenced firing, whilst the others guarded the exit as best they could,
and a wild scene ensued. E. in his excitement slipped into the water,
where he grabbed no less than three geese, but was only able to secure
one, with which he retired to shore terribly numbed. Meanwhile a good
many had got out of the cave, but, to our delight, they could not fly,
the old ones being in moult at the time and the young ones being still
flappers, so that, after much stone-throwing, firing, and occasional
use of ice-axes, we found ourselves in possession of ten geese. Two, I
believe, escaped under the ice, one badly wounded.
We then pushed on after H., bearing our spoils with us, and camped about
four o’clock in a most lovely spot at the west end of the Chaix Hills.
Just at our back was a little lake about two hundred yards long, in which
we used to bathe, and in front of us rose our mountain, partly concealed
by a group of fir-trees to our right, the last timber that we met
with, though I saw three dead trunks on the other side of the Tyndall
Glacier. We made a tremendous supper off stewed goose and apple-sauce,
and afterwards decided to cross the glacier next morning to the site of
Schwatka’s last camp, where, though there was no timber, we could see
that there was plenty of scrub, probably alder, like that surrounding us.
There was a most lovely sunset, but directly afterwards it got very cold,
and we rapidly sought our blankets.