HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ARCTIC DISCOVERY.
In the reign of Henry VIII., Dr. Robert Thorne declared that “if he had
facultie to his will, the first thing he would understande, even to
attempt, would be if our seas northwarde be navigable to the Pole or
no.” And it is said that the king, at his instigation, “sent two fair
ships, well-manned and victualled, having in them divers cunning men,
to seek strange regions; and so they set forth out of the Thames, the
20th day of May, in the nineteenth year of his reign, which was the
year of our Lord 1527.” Of the details of this expedition, however, we
have no record, except that one of the vessels was wrecked on the coast
of Newfoundland.
In 1536, a second Arctic voyage was undertaken by a London gentleman,
named Hore, accompanied by thirty members of the Inns of Law, and
about the same number of adventurers of a lower estate. They reached
Newfoundland, which, according to some authorities, was discovered by
Sebastian Cabot in 1496, and here they suffered terrible distress;
in the extremity of their need being reduced to cannibalism. After
the deaths of a great portion of the crew, the survivors captured by
surprise a French vessel which had arrived on the coast, and navigated
her in safety to England.
But the true history of Arctic Discovery dates, as Mr. Markham
observes, from the day when the veteran navigator, Sebastian Cabot,
explained to young Edward VI. the phenomena of the variation of the
needle. On the same day the aged sailor received a pension; and
immediately afterwards three discovery-ships were fitted out by
the Muscovy Company under his direction. Sir Hugh Willoughby was
appointed to their command, with Richard Chancellor in the _Edward
Bonadventure_ as his second. The latter, soon after quitting
England, was separated from the squadron, and sailing in a northerly
direction, gained at last a spacious harbour on the Muscovy coast. Sir
Hugh’s ship, and her companion, the _Bona Confidentia_, were cast
away on a desolate part of the Lapland coast, at the mouth of the river
Arzina. They entered the river on September 18, 1563, and remained
there for a week; and “seeing the year far spent, and also very evil
weather, as frost, snow, and hail, as though it had been the deep of
winter, they thought it best to winter there.” But as day followed day,
and week followed week, in those grim solitudes of ice and snow, the
brave adventurers perished one by one; and many months afterwards their
bleached bones were discovered by some Russian fishermen.
In the spring of 1556, Stephen Burrough, afterwards chief pilot of
England, fitted out the “Search-thrift” pinnace, and sailed away for
the remote north. He discovered the strait leading into the sea of
Kara, between Novaia Zemlaia and the island Waigatz; but he made up
his mind to return, because, first, of the north winds, which blew
continually; second, “the great and terrible abundance of ice which
we saw with our eyes;” and third, because the nights waxed dark. He
arrived at Archangel on September 11, wintered there, and returned to
England in the following year.
Twenty years later, on a bright May morning, Queen Elizabeth waved
a farewell to Martin Frobisher and his gallant company, as they
dropped down the Thames in two small barks, the _Gabriel_ and
the _Michael_, each of thirty tons, together with a pinnace of
ten tons. They gained the shores of Friesland on the 11th of July;
and sailing to the south-west, reached Labrador. Then, striking
northward, they discovered “a great gut, bay, or passage,” which they
named Frobisher Strait (lat. 63° 8’ N.), and fell into the error of
supposing that it connected the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific. Here
they came into contact with some Eskimos; and Frobisher describes them
as “strange infidels, whose like was never seen, read, nor heard of
before: with long black hair, broad faces and flat noses, and tawny
in colour, wearing seal-skins, the women marked in the face with blue
streaks down the cheeks, and round about the eyes.”
Frobisher’s discoveries produced so great an impression on the public
mind, that in the following year he was placed at the head of a larger
expedition, in the hope that he would throw open to English enterprise
the wealth of “far Cathay.” About the end of May 1577, he sailed from
Gravesend with the _Ayde_ of one hundred tons, the _Gabriel_
of thirty, and the _Michael_ of thirty, carrying crews of ninety
men in all, besides about thirty merchants, miners, refiners, and
artisans. He returned in September with two hundred tons of what
was supposed to be gold ore, and met with a warm reception. It was
considered almost certain that he had fallen in with some portion of
the Indian coast, and Queen Elizabeth, naming it _Meta Incognita_,
resolved to establish there a colony. For this purpose, Frobisher
was dispatched with fifteen well-equipped ships, three of which were
to remain for a twelvemonth at the new settlement, while the others,
taking on board a cargo of the precious ore, were to return to England.
In the third week of June Frobisher arrived at Friesland, of which he
took possession in the queen’s name. Steering for Frobisher Strait,
he found its entrance blocked up with colossal icebergs; and the bark
_Dennis_, which carried the wooden houses and stores for the
colony, coming in collision with one of these, unfortunately sank.
Then, in a great storm, the fleet was scattered far and wide,--some of
the vessels drifting out to sea, some being driven into the strait;
and when most of them rejoined their admiral, it was found they had
suffered so severely that no help remained but to abandon the project
of a colony. They collected fresh supplies of ore, however, and then
made their way back to England as best they could. Here they were met
with the unwelcome intelligence that the supposed gold ore contained no
gold at all, and was, in truth, mere dross and refuse.
The dream of a northern passage to Cathay was not to be dissipated,
however, by an occasional misadventure. Even a man of the keen
intellect of Sir Humphrey Gilbert felt persuaded that through the
northern seas lay the shortest route to the treasures of the East;
and having obtained from Queen Elizabeth a patent authorizing him to
undertake north-western discoveries, and to acquire possession of
any lands not inhabited or colonized by Christian princes or their
subjects, he equipped, in 1583, with the help of his friends, a
squadron of five small ships, and sailed from England full of bright
visions and sanguine anticipations. On board his fleet were smiths, and
carpenters, and shipwrights, and masons, and refiners, and “mineral
men;” not to speak of one Stephen Parmenio, a learned Hungarian, who
was bound to chronicle in sonorous Latin all “gests and things worthy
of remembrance.”
Sir Humphrey formed a settlement at Newfoundland; and then, embarking
on board the _Squirrel_, a little pinnace of ten tons burden,
and taking with him the _Golden Hind_ and the _Delight_, he
proceeded on a voyage of exploration. Unhappily, the _Delight_
ran ashore on the shoals near Sable Land, and all her crew except
twelve men, and all her stores, were lost. The disaster determined
Sir Humphrey to return to England; and his companions implored him
to embark on board the _Golden Hind_, representing that the
_Squirrel_ was unfit for so long a voyage. “I will not forsake,”
replied the chivalrous adventurer, “the brave and free companions with
whom I have undergone so many storms and perils.” Soon after passing
the Azores, they were overtaken by a terrible tempest, in which the
tiny pinnace was tossed about by the waves like a straw. The _Golden
Hind_ kept as near her as the rolling billows permitted; and her
captain has left on record that he could see Sir Humphrey sitting
calmly in the stern reading a book. He was heard to exclaim--“Courage,
my lads; we are as near heaven by sea as by land!” Then night came on,
with its shadows and its silence, and next morning it was perceived
that the pinnace and her gallant freight had gone to swell the sum of
the irrecoverable treasures of the deep.
[Illustration: THE LOSS OF THE “SQUIRREL.”]
But neither Frobisher’s mishap nor Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s melancholy
fate could check that current of English enterprise which had set
in for the North. There was an irresistible attraction in these
remote northern seas and distant mist-shrouded lands, with all their
possibilities of wealth and glory; and Arctic Discovery had already
begun to exercise on the mind of the English people that singular
fascination which the course of centuries has not weakened, which
endures even to the present day. So, in 1585, Sir Adrian Gilbert
and some other gentlemen of Devonshire raised funds sufficient to
fit out a couple of vessels--the _Sunshine_ of fifty, and the
_Moonshine_ of thirty-five tons--for the great work of discovery;
and they gave the command to a veteran mariner and capable navigator,
Captain John Davis, a countryman, or county-man, of their own. Towards
the end of July he reached the west coast of Greenland, and its
cheerless aspect induced him to christen it the “Land of Desolation.”
His intercourse with the Eskimos, however, was of the friendliest
character. Standing away to the north-west, he discovered and crossed
the strait which still bears his name; and to the headland on its
western coast he gave the name of Cape Walsingham. Having thus opened
up, though unwittingly, the great highway to the Polar Sea, he sailed
for England, where he arrived on the 20th of September.
In his second voyage, in 1586, when, in addition to the _Sunshine_
and the _Moonshine_, he had with him the _Mermaid_ of one
hundred and twenty tons, and the _North Star_ pinnace of ten, he
retraced his route of the previous year. The _Sunshine_ and the
_North Star_, however, he employed in cruising along the east
coast of Greenland; and they ascended, it is said, as high as lat. 80°
N.
Davis in his third voyage pushed further to the north, reaching as far
as the bold promontory which he named Cape Sanderson. He also crossed
the great channel afterwards known as Hudson Bay.
The next Englishman who ventured into the frozen seas was one Captain
Waymouth, in 1602; but he added nothing to the scanty information
already acquired. An Englishman, James Hall, was the chief pilot of an
expedition fitted out in 1605 by the King of Denmark, which explored
some portion of the Greenland coast. He made three successive voyages;
but while exhibiting his own courage and resolution, he contributed
nothing to the stores of geographical knowledge.
* * * * *
We now arrive at a name which deservedly ranks among the foremost of
Arctic explorers--that of Henry Hudson. He contributed more to our
acquaintance with the Polar seas than any one who had preceded him, and
few of his successors have surpassed him in the extent and thoroughness
of his researches.
He first appears, says Mr. Markham, fitting out a little cock-boat for
the Muscovy Company, called the _Hopewell_ (of eighty tons), to
discover a passage by the North Pole. On the 1st of May 1607 he sailed
from Greenwich. “When we consider the means with which he was provided
for the achievement of this great discovery, we are astonished at the
fearless audacity of the attempt. Here was a crew of twelve men and
a boy, in a wretched little craft of eighty tons, coolly talking of
sailing right across the Pole to Japan, and actually making as careful
and judicious a trial of the possibility of doing so as has ever been
effected by the best equipped modern expeditions.... Imagine this
bold seaman sailing from Gravesend, bound for the North Pole, in a
craft about the size of one of the smallest of modern collier brigs.
We can form a good idea of her general appearance, because three such
vessels are delineated on the chart drawn by Hudson himself. The
_Hopewell_ was more like an old Surat buggalow than anything else
that now sails the seas, with high stern, and low pointed bow; she had
no head-sails on her bowsprit, but, to make up for this, the foremast
was stepped chock forward. There was a cabin under the high and narrow
poop, where Hudson and his little son were accommodated; and the crew
were crowded forward.”
[Illustration: SHIP OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.]
Hudson first sighted land beyond the Arctic Circle in lat. 70°. It was
the cold, grim coast of East Greenland. Three degrees further north
a chain of lofty peaks, all bare of snow, rose upon the horizon, and
Hudson’s men noted that the temperature daily increased in mildness.
Steering to the north-east, the great navigator arrived off the shores
of Spitzbergen, where some of his men landed and picked up various
fragments of whalebone, horns of deer, walrus-teeth, and relics of
other animals. To the north-west point of Spitzbergen he gave the name
which it still bears--Hakluyt’s Headland. At one time he found himself
as far north as 81°; and it seems probable that he discovered the Seven
Islands: he remarked that the sea was in some places green, in others
blue; and he says, “Our green sea we found to be freest from ice, and
our azure-blue sea to be our icy sea;” an observation not confirmed by
later navigators. The greenness was probably due to the presence of
minute organisms.
[Illustration: SCENERY OF JAN MAYEN.]
Having completed a survey of the west coast of Spitzbergen, he resolved
on sailing round the north end of Greenland, which he supposed to be
an island, and returning to England by Davis Strait. With this view
he again examined the sea between Spitzbergen and Greenland, but from
the strong ice-blink along the northern horizon felt convinced that
there was no passage in that direction. After sighting Spitzbergen,
therefore, he determined to return to England; and on his homeward
voyage discovered an island in lat. 71° N., which he named Hudson
Sutches, and which has since been improperly named Jan Mayen. The
_Hopewell_ arrived in the Thames on the 15th of September.
The results of this voyage, says Mr. Markham, were very important, both
in a geographical and a commercial point of view. Hudson had discovered
a portion of the east coast of Greenland; he had examined the edge of
the ice between Greenland and Spitzbergen twice--in June and in the end
of July; and he had sailed to the northward of Spitzbergen until he was
stopped by the ice, reaching almost as high a latitude as Scoresby in
1806, which was 81° 12′ 42″ N. Hudson’s highest latitude by observation
was 80° 23’, but he sailed for two more days in a north-easterly
direction. The practical consequence of his voyage was that his account
of the quantities of whales and sea-horses in the Spitzbergen seas led
to the establishment of a rich and prosperous fishery, which continued
to flourish for two centuries.
In the following year Hudson made a second voyage, in the hope of
discovering a north-eastern passage to China between Spitzbergen and
Novaia Zemlaia. He exhibited his characteristic resolution, and forced
his way to the very gate of the unknown region, which is still closed
against human enterprise by an impenetrable barrier of ice; but all his
efforts proved in vain, and he returned to Gravesend on the 26th of
August.
In 1610, in a vessel of fifty-five tons, he once more entered the Polar
seas, and gained the extreme point of Labrador, which he named Cape
Wolstenholm. Here burst upon him the view of that magnificent sea which
has since been associated with his name; and there can be no doubt
that his enterprise would have anticipated the discoveries of later
navigators, but for the mutiny which broke out among his crew, and
eventually led to his being sent adrift, with nine faithful companions,
in a small open boat. He was never again heard of.
* * * * *
The spirit of commercial enterprise and the love of maritime adventure
were still strong enough in England to induce the equipment of
further expeditions. In 1612 sailed Captain Button,--who discovered
a stream, and named it Nelson River; where, at a later date, the
Hudson Bay Company planted their first settlement. Here he wintered.
In April 1613, on the breaking up of the ice, he resumed his work of
exploration, and discovered, in lat. 65°, an island group, which he
named Manuel, now known as Mansfield, Islands. Then he bore away for
England, arriving in the Thames early in September.
Robert Bylot and William Baffin undertook a voyage in 1615. The latter
had had some previous experience of Arctic navigation, which he turned
to advantage in 1616, when he accompanied Bylot on a second expedition.
Their ship, the _Discovery_, of fifty-five tons, reached Cape
Hope Sanderson, the furthest point attained by Davis, on the 30th of
May; and after meeting with some obstruction from the ice, proceeded
northwards to 72° 45’, where she dropped anchor for awhile among the
Women’s Islands. Baffin kept to the north until he found ice in 74°
15’ N., and he then ascended Melville Bay, touching the head of the
great basin now known by his name, and sailing down its western coast.
He arrived in Dover Roads on the 30th of August, after a brilliantly
successful voyage, which had opened up the principal north-west
channels into the Arctic Sea.
* * * * *
It is necessary here to interpolate a few remarks in explanation of the
difficulties which beset the Baffin Bay route of Arctic exploration.
Geographers assert, and the assertion seems confirmed by the experience
of navigators, that a surface-current is constantly flowing down this
bay, and carrying great fleets of icebergs and shoals of ice-floes into
the Atlantic from its southern channels--Lancaster, Jones, and Smith
Sounds. Hence, at the head of the bay there exists a considerable open
and navigable expanse, which extends for some distance up Lancaster
and Smith Sounds during the summer and early winter, and is known as
the “North Water.” But between this open expanse and Davis Strait lies
an immense mass of ice, averaging from one hundred and seventy to two
hundred miles in width, and blocking up the centre of Baffin Bay, so
as to interrupt the approach to the north-west end. This is known as
the “middle pack,” and consists of some ancient floe-pieces of great
thickness, which may have been brought down from a distant part of the
Arctic seas; of a wide extent of ice accumulated during each winter,
about six or eight feet in thickness; and of the grand and gigantic
icebergs which are so characteristic a feature of the Melville Bay
scenery. A very large quantity of this pack is destroyed in each
succeeding summer by the thaws, or by the swell and warm temperature of
the Atlantic as the ice drifts southward.
It is remarked of the Baffin Bay ice, that it is much lighter than
that found in the Spitzbergen seas. The latter often occurs in single
sheets, solid, transparent, and from twenty to thirty, and even forty,
feet in thickness. In Baffin Bay the average thickness of the floes
does not exceed five or six feet, and eight or ten feet is of very rare
occurrence.
From Baffin’s voyage, in 1616, until 1817, no attempt was made to force
this “middle pack” and enter the North Water; but now the voyage is
made every year, and three routes have been opened up. The first is
called the “North-about Passage,” and lies along the Greenland coast;
the second, or “Middle Passage,” only possible late in the season, is
by entering the drift-ice in the centre of the bay; and the third, or
“Southern Passage,” also only possible late in the season, along the
west side of Baffin Bay. Once in the North Water, whichever route be
attempted, all obstacles to an exploration of the unknown region may be
considered at an end. From Cape York to Smith Sound the sea is always
navigable in the summer months.
It will thus be seen that the great highways to the Pole were
discovered by William Baffin.
Our limits compel us to pass over the voyages of Stephen Bennet
(1603–1610), Jonas Poole (1610–1613), and Captain Luke Fox (1631). In
1631 the merchants of Bristol despatched Captain Thomas James, but he
made no additions to the discoveries of his predecessors. And then
for nearly two centuries England abandoned her efforts to open up a
communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
In 1818, however, the question of the existence of a North-West
Passage once more occupied the public mind; and the British Government
accordingly fitted out an exploring expedition, the _Isabella_ and
the _Alexander_, under the command of Captain Ross and Lieutenant
Parry.
They sailed from England on the 18th of April, reached the southern
edge of the Baffin Bay ice on the 2nd of July, and, after a detention
of thirty-eight days, reached the North Water on August 8th. The capes
on each side of the mouth of Smith Sound, Ross named after his two
ships; and having accomplished this much, he affirmed that he saw land
against the horizon at a distance of eight leagues, and then retraced
his course, and sailed for England.
The British Government, however, refused to be discouraged by the
failure of an expedition which had obviously been conducted with an
entire absence of vigour and enterprise. They therefore equipped the
_Hecla_ and the _Griper_, and gave the command to Lieutenant
Parry; who sailed from the Thames on the 5th of May 1819, and on the
15th of June sighted Cape Farewell. Striking northward, up Davis Strait
and Baffin Bay, he found himself checked by the ice-barrier in lat.
73° N. A man of dauntless resolution, he came to the determination of
forcing a passage at all hazards; and in seven days, by the exercise of
a strong will, great sagacity, and first-rate seamanship, he succeeded
in carrying his ships through the pack of ice, which measured eighty
miles in breadth.
He was then able to enter Sir James Lancaster Sound; and up this
noble inlet he proceeded with a fair wind, hopeful of entering the
great Polar Sea. But after advancing a considerable distance, he was
once more met by the frozen powers of the North, and this time he was
forced to own himself vanquished. He accordingly returned towards the
south, discovering Barrow Strait; and, more to the westward, an inlet
which has since figured conspicuously in Arctic voyages--Wellington
Channel. Bathurst Island he also added to the map; and afterwards he
came in sight of Melville Island. On the 4th of September he attained
the meridian of 110° W. long., and thus became entitled to the
Parliamentary grant of £5000. A convenient harbour in the vicinity was
named the “Bay of the _Hecla_ and the _Griper_,” and here
Lieutenant Parry resolved upon passing the winter.
In the following spring he resumed his adventurous course, and
completed a very careful survey of the shores of Baffin Sea; after
which he repaired to England, and reached the Thames in safety, with
his crews in good health, and his ships in excellent condition, about
the middle of November 1820.
[Illustration: THE “HECLA” AND “FURY” WINTERING AT WINTER ISLAND.]
Having done so much and so well, it was natural that Captain Parry
should again be selected for employment in the Arctic seas in the
following year. He hoisted his flag in his old ship, the _Hecla_,
and was accompanied by the _Fury_; both vessels being equipped
in the most liberal manner. He sailed from the Nore on the 8th of May
1821; he returned to the Shetland Islands on the 10th of October 1823.
In the interval, a period of seven-and-twenty months, he discovered
the Duke of York Bay, the numerous inlets which break up the northern
coast-line of the American continent, Winter Island, the islands of
Anatoak and Ooght, the Strait of the _Fury_ and _Hecla_,
Melville Peninsula, and Cockburn Island. During their winter sojourn
on Winter Island, the English crews were surprised by a visit from a
party of Eskimos, whose settlement Captain Parry visited in his turn.
He found it an establishment of five huts, with canoes, sledges, dogs,
and above sixty men, women, and children, as regularly, and, to all
appearance, as permanently fixed as if they had occupied the same spot
the whole winter. “If the first view,” says Parry, “of the exterior of
this little village was such as to create astonishment, that feeling
was in no small degree heightened on accepting the invitation soon
given us to enter these extraordinary houses, in the construction of
which we observed that not a single material was used but snow and
ice. After creeping through two low passages, having each its arched
doorway, we came to a small circular apartment, of which the roof was
a perfect arched dome. From this three doorways, also arched, and of
larger dimensions than the outward ones, led into as many inhabited
apartments--one on each side, and the other facing us as we entered.
The interior of these presented a scene no less novel than interesting:
the women were seated on the beds at the sides of the huts, each having
her little fireplace or lamp, with all her domestic utensils about her.
The children crept behind their mothers, and the dogs shrank past us in
dismay. The construction of this inhabited part of the hut was similar
to that of the outer apartment,--being a dome, formed by separate
blocks of snow laid with great regularity and no small art, each being
cut into the shape requisite to form a substantial arch, from seven to
eight feet high in the centre, and having no support whatever but what
this principle of building supplies. Sufficient light was admitted into
these curious edifices by a circular window of ice, neatly fitted into
the roof of each apartment.”
In 1824–25 Captain Parry undertook a third voyage, but with less than
his usual success. The _Fury_ was driven ashore by the pressure of
the pack-ice, and so damaged, that Parry found it needful to abandon
her, and remove her crew and stores to the _Hecla_.
[Illustration: THE “FURY” ABANDONED BY PARRY--1824.]
Sir John Parry’s fourth and last expedition, in 1827, was characterized
by his bold attempt to cross the icy sea in light boats and sledges;
resorting to the former when his progress was interrupted by pools of
water, and to the latter in traversing the unbroken surface of the
ice-fields. He was soon compelled, however, to abandon the sledges, on
account of the hummocks and irregularities of the ice.
We agree with Mr. Cooley, that voluntarily to undertake the toil and
brave the danger of such an expedition, required a zeal little short of
enthusiasm. When the travellers reached a water-way, they were obliged
to launch their boats and embark. On reaching the opposite side, their
boats were then to be dragged, frequently up steep and perilous cliffs,
their lading being first removed. By this laborious process, persevered
in with little intermission, they contrived to accomplish eight miles
in five days. They travelled only during the night, by which means they
were less incommoded with snow-blindness; they found the ice more firm
and consistent; and had the great advantage of lying down to sleep
during the warmer portion of the twenty-four hours. Shortly after
sunset they took their breakfast; then they laboured for a few hours
before taking their principal meal. A little after midnight, towards
sunrise, they halted as if for the night, smoked their pipes, looked
over the icy desert in the direction in which the journey was to be
resumed; and then, wrapping themselves in their furs, lay down to rest.
Advancing as far north as 82° 40’, they were then compelled by the
drifting of the snow-fields to retrace their steps. They regained their
ships on the 21st of August, and sailed for England.
* * * * *
We must now go back a few years. In May 1819, an overland expedition
was despatched to ascertain the exact position of the Coppermine River,
to descend it to its mouth, and to explore the coast of the Arctic
Sea on either hand. The command was given to Lieutenant Franklin, who
was accompanied by Dr. Richardson the naturalist, by Messrs. Hood and
Back, two English midshipmen, and two picked seamen. The expedition was
spread over a period of two years and a half, and the narrative of what
was accomplished and endured by its members reads like a romance. They
reached the mouth of the Coppermine, and then launched their little
barks on the chill waters of the Polar Sea. With much perseverance, and
after encountering some serious obstacles, they made their way along
its shores in a westerly direction as far as Point Turnagain, in lat.
68° 30’ N. Between this headland on the east, and Cape Barrow on the
west, opens a deep gulf, stretching inland as far as the Arctic Circle,
Franklin named it George the Fourth’s Coronation Gulf; and describes it
as studded with numerous islands, and indented with sounds affording
excellent harbours, all of them supplied with small rivers of fresh
water, abounding with salmon, trout, and other fish.
* * * * *
Passing over Franklin’s after-labours in the great cause of Arctic
Discovery, labours which secured him the well-merited reward of
knighthood, we come to that last voyage, which helped, as we shall see,
to solve the problem of a North-West Passage, but was the cause of one
of the saddest chapters in the history of Maritime Enterprise.
It was in the spring of 1845 that Sir John Franklin, in command of
the _Erebus_ and the _Terror_, with Captain Crozier, an experienced
Arctic navigator, as his lieutenant, and at the head of one hundred
and thirty-seven picked seamen, brave, resolute, and hardy, once more
sailed for the Polar waters.
On the 8th of June he left the Orkneys, and a month later arrived in
Baffin Bay. About the end of July some whaling-ships in Melville Bay
saw the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ contending gallantly with the
ice which impeded their progress to Lancaster Sound. On the evening of
the 26th the ice opened up, and the two discovery-ships sailed away
into the north-western seas.
* * * * *
Two years passed, and no news reached England of Franklin and his
companions. As day succeeded day, and week followed week, and still no
tidings came, men grew anxious, and then alarmed; “expectation darkened
into anxiety, anxiety into dread.” At last, it was determined to
institute a search for the missing heroes. An expedition was sent out
under Sir James Ross; another under Sir John Richardson; but neither
obtained any information. By many all hope was then abandoned; and
the fate of Franklin was regarded as one of those mysteries which the
historian in vain attempts to unravel. He and his men had perished; of
_that_ there could be no reasonable doubt. Yet a few were sanguine
enough to believe that they had taken refuge among the Eskimos, or
were dragging out a weary existence in some remote wilderness, in
expectation of help from home. Franklin’s brave and noble wife was
one of those who, whatever they feared or hoped, were, at all events,
determined not to rest until some accurate information had been gained.
And round her gathered the most eminent scientific men of the day,
whose influence combined with the general sympathy of the people to
encourage the Government in a further effort.
It was in 1850 that the first clue to the position of the _Erebus_
and _Terror_ was secured in Beechey Island, through the accidental
detention there of the searching expeditions of Captains Austin and
Penny.
They were bound for Melville Island, but on reaching the entrance of
Wellington Channel (August 1850), were met by such immense fields of
ice sweeping down it and out of Barrow Strait, that they were glad to
seek shelter in a great bay at the eastern end of the channel,--a bay
almost bisected, as it were, by Beechey Island. On the 23rd, a boat
from Captain Ommaney’s ship, the _Assistance_, happened to land
on one of the extreme points of the bay; and the crew, in the course
of their wanderings, were not a little surprised to discover traces
of a former visit from Europeans. Under the lofty cliff of Cape Riley
they came upon the groundwork of a tent, scraps of canvas and rope, a
quantity of birds’ bones and feathers, and a long-handled rake which,
apparently, had been used for collecting the rich rare weeds that cover
the bottom of the Arctic waters.
That Europeans had been encamped there, was certain, but not a name
or record associated the remains with Franklin’s expedition. News of
the discovery, however, reached Captain Penny, an Aberdeen seaman, who
had been employed by the British Admiralty as leader of a separate
expedition; and in conjunction with Lieutenant de Haven, of the United
States Navy, who was in command of the expedition liberally equipped
by Mr. Grinnell, of New York, he resolved to examine the east coast of
Wellington Channel with minute care, in the belief that some memorials
of Franklin would thus be discovered.
From a point called Cape Spenser, the Americans, on foot, pursued the
trail of a sledge up the east side of Wellington Channel, until, at
one day’s journey beyond Cape Innis, it suddenly ceased, as if the
party had there turned back again. A bottle and a piece of _The
Times_ newspaper were the only relics which fell into the hands of
the searchers. Meantime, Captain Penny had anchored his ships under
the western point of Beechey Island, and despatched a boat to take up
the clue at Cape Riley, and follow it to the eastward, in the event of
the traces being those of a party retreating from the ships, supposing
them to have been ice-bound in the north-west, to Baffin Bay. This
boat-party eventually returned unsuccessful; but, one afternoon, some
men belonging to the _Lady Franklin_ asked leave, and obtained
it, for the purpose of a ramble over Beechey Island. They sauntered
along towards the low projecting portion of the island which extends
northward, choosing a convenient spot to cross the huge ridges of
ice which lay piled up along the beach; they were seen to mount the
acclivity or backbone of the point. In a minute afterwards their
friends on board the ships (says Admiral Sherard Osborn) saw the party
rush simultaneously towards a dark object, round which they collected,
with signs of great excitement. Presently one ran hither, one thither.
Feverish with anxiety, those on board knew immediately that some fresh
traces had been found, and a general sortie took place to Beechey
Island. “Eh, sir,” said a gallant Scotch mariner, when relating the
discovery--“eh, sir, my heart was in my mouth, and I didna ken I could
rin so fast afore.”
And what had been found?
A cairn, of a pyramidal form, which had evidently been constructed
with much care. The base consisted of a series of preserved-meat
tins, filled with gravel and sand; and more tins were so arranged as
to taper gradually upwards to the summit of the cairn, in which was
planted the fragment of a broken boarding-pike. To all appearance it
had been purposely raised for the reception of some documental record,
yet nothing could be found in or about the spot, in spite of the most
persevering efforts. But presently looking along the northern slope
of the island, other strange objects caught the eye. Another rush of
anxious excited beings, and they stood before three graves; and many
of them brushed away the unwonted tear as they read upon their humble
tablets the words _Erebus_ and _Terror_.
* * * * *
Captain Austin followed up Captain Penny in his explorations of the
Arctic wastes, but no further information was obtained of Franklin’s
movements. It was impossible to determine whether on his way home he
had perished in Baffin Bay; whether he had struck to the north-west
by Wellington Channel; or whether he was haply imprisoned in Melville
Island.
* * * * *
We have no space, nor is it necessary, to dwell on the records of the
various searching expeditions fitted out by the Government, or by
Lady Franklin and her friends. It must be noted, however, that one of
these, led by Captain (afterwards Sir) Robert M’Clure, succeeded in
accomplishing the enterprise in which Franklin perished, and, entering
the Northern Ocean by Behring Strait, actually forced its way, through
snow and ice, into the Atlantic. The North-West Passage, so long
sought, was thus discovered; but the discovery, though interesting
and valuable from a geographical point of view, was followed by no
commercial results. In truth, it proved that the route along the
north-west of the American Continent could never be practicable for
ordinary vessels.
It may be asserted that nearly all men had abandoned hope and
expectation of ascertaining any exact particulars of the fate of
Franklin and his followers, when, towards the close of the autumn of
1854, Dr. Rae, a well-known traveller and Arctic explorer, suddenly
appeared in England, bringing with him the most curious evidence of
the disasters which had overwhelmed a party that had evidently been
travelling from the ice-bound _Erebus_ and _Terror_ towards the Great
Fish River. Dr. Rae had ascertained from some Eskimos with whom he
had been travelling that this party numbered forty persons, and that
all had died of starvation four years prior to Dr. Rae’s visit. The
unfortunate “white men” had been first seen on King William’s Land;
later in the same year their dead bodies had been observed near or
about the mouth of the Great Fish River (1850). Dr. Rae brought home
numerous pieces of silver plate obtained from the Eskimos, which were
marked with the names of officers of the two ships. Lady Franklin
was encouraged by this intelligence to urge upon the Government the
propriety of despatching an expedition to the points indicated by
the Eskimos; but the Government contented themselves with applying
to the Hudson Bay Company. The result was an overland expedition in
1855 to the mouth of the Great Fish River, by Mr. Anderson, one of the
Company’s chief officers. He had no boat with him capable of reaching
King William’s Land, though it was only sixty miles distant from the
point he attained, nor was he accompanied by an Eskimo interpreter. He
ascertained, however, that only a portion of the officers and men of
the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ had reached the Great Fish River--some forty
of them, very possibly, as Dr. Rae had been informed; these forty, with
the three graves upon Beechey Island, still leaving ninety-five persons
unaccounted for.
* * * * *
Lady Franklin and her friends continued to press upon Government
the need for further inquiry; but finding the responsible ministers
unwilling to interfere in what they had come to consider a hopeless
enterprise, they contrived, with some help from the public, to
purchase and fit out a strongly-built screw-schooner, of which Captain
M’Clintock volunteered to take the command.
He sailed from England in the summer of 1857; reached Melville Bay
in safety, but was then held fast by the floating ice. The winter,
however, came and went without any injury to him and his gallant band;
and on the 27th of July 1858, the _Fox_ stretched across to
Lancaster Sound. On the 11th of August she arrived at Beechey Island,
and replenished her diminished stores from the depôts left there by
previous expeditions. Then she pushed to the westward, past Cape Hotham
and Griffith Island, southward through Sir Robert Peel Channel, and so
into Prince Regent Inlet. Having arrived off the eastern entrance of
Bellot Strait, she found it blocked up by a wall of ice, and from the
20th of August to the 6th of September she watched for an opportunity
of breaking through it. On the 6th she made the passage, but only to
find the other end obstructed by an impassable ice-barrier; and, after
five fruitless attempts, her captain brought her to anchor for the
winter in Port Kennedy, on the northern side of the strait.
When the new year opened, M’Clintock resolved on undertaking sledge
excursions in various directions, with the view of obtaining some
information of Franklin and his expedition. In one of them, at Cape
Victoria, on the west coast of Boothia (lat. 69° 50’ N., long. 96°
W.), he ascertained from the natives that, several years previously, a
ship had been wrecked off the northern shores of King William’s Land;
that all her crew landed safely, and set off on a journey to the Great
Fish River, where they died. Again: in April, falling in with the same
party of Eskimos, they learned further, that besides the ship which had
sunk in deep water, another had been driven ashore by the ice. Captain
M’Clintock thereupon crossed to Montreal Island, travelled round the
estuary of the Great Fish River, and visited Point Ogle and Barrow
Island. On May 7, he fell in with an old Eskimo woman, who told him
that many of the white men dropped by the way as they made towards the
Great Fish River; that some were buried, and some were not. Proceeding
in what he conceived to have been the route of the retreating crews, he
discovered, near Point Herschel, a bleached skeleton; evidently that of
one who had fallen behind the main body, from weakness and fatigue, and
had died where he had fallen.
[Illustration: DISCOVERY OF THE CAIRN CONTAINING SIR JOHN
FRANKLIN’S PAPERS.]
[Illustration: RELICS OF THE FRANKLIN EXPEDITION BROUGHT BACK TO
ENGLAND.]
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Hobson, who had started with another sledging
party, had made the important discovery of a record, giving a brief
account of the Franklin expedition up to the time when the ships were
lost. It was found within a cairn constructed on Point Victory, and it
set forth the following particulars:--
The _Erebus_ and _Terror_ spent their first winter at Beechey
Island, in the spot discovered by Penny and Austin’s expedition; but
they had previously explored Wellington Channel as far as 73° N.,
and passed down again into Barrow Strait, between Cornwallis and
Bathurst Land. In 1846 the two ships seem to have sailed through Peel
Channel, until caught in the ice off King William’s Land, on the
12th of September. In May 1847, Lieutenant Graham Gore and Mr. des
Vœux landed, and erected a cairn a few miles south of Point Victory,
and deposited in it a document which stated that, on that day, all
were well, with Sir J. Franklin in command. Within a month, however,
that illustrious navigator died (June 11), and thus was spared the
terrible trials which afflicted his followers. The ice did not move,
and the winter of 1847–48 closed in upon them. It proved fatal to nine
officers and fifteen men. On April 22, 1848, the two ships, which had
been imprisoned for upwards of nineteen months, were deserted, and the
officers and crews, one hundred and five in number, under the command
of Captains Crozier and Fitzjames, started for the Great Fish River.
At the cairn and all about it lay a great quantity of clothing and
other articles, which the sufferers had found from experience of three
days to be a heavier weight than their enfeebled strength was able to
drag.
[Illustration: DISCOVERY OF ONE OF THE BOATS OF THE FRANKLIN
EXPEDITION.]
From this point to a spot about midway between Point Victory and Point
Herschel nothing of much importance was discovered, and the skeletons
as well as relics were deeply embedded in snow. At this midway station,
however, the top of a piece of wood projecting out of the snow was seen
by Lieutenant Hobson, and on digging round it a boat was discovered. It
stood on a very heavy sledge, and within it were a couple of skeletons.
The one in the bottom of the stern-sheets was covered with a great
quantity of thrown-off clothing; the other, in the bows, seemed to have
been that of some poor fellow who had crept there to look out, and in
that position fallen into his last sleep. A couple of guns, loaded and
ready cocked, stood upright to hand, as it they had been prepared for
use against wild animals. Around this boat was another accumulation of
cast-off articles; and it was the belief of M’Clintock that the party
in charge of her were returning to the ships, as it they discovered
their strength unequal to the terrible journey before them. It may
be assumed, however, that the stronger portion of the crews still
pushed on with another boat, and that some reached Montreal Island and
ascended the Great Fish River.
The point, says Sherard Osborn, at which the fatal imprisonment of the
_Erebus_ and _Terror_ in 1846 took place, was only ninety
miles from the spot reached by Dease and Simpson in their boats in
1838–39, coming from the east. Ninety miles more of open water, and
Franklin and his gallant crew would have not only won the prize they
sought, but reached their homes to wear their well-earned honours. “It
was not to be so. Let us bow in humility and awe to the inscrutable
decrees of that Providence who ruled it otherwise. They were to
discover the great highway between the Pacific and the Atlantic. It
was given them to win for their country a discovery for which she had
risked her sons and lavishly spent her wealth through many centuries;
but they were to die in accomplishing their last great earthly task:
and, still more strange, but for the energy and devotion of the wife
of their chief and leader, it would in all probability never have been
known that they were indeed the _First Discoverers of the North-West
Passage_.”
* * * * *
We have thought it for the convenience of our readers to set before
them an uninterrupted narrative of the exertions made to ascertain the
fate of Franklin and his companions by English seamen under English
influence; but we must now return to 1853, to chronicle the American
expedition under Dr. Kane--which did not, indeed, succeed in its
primary object, but made some remarkable additions to our knowledge of
the Polar Regions.
Dr. Elisha Kane sailed from Boston in 1853, in command of the
_Advance_, with a crew of seventeen officers and men, to whom two
Greenlanders were subsequently added.
On the 7th of August he passed the two great headlands which guard
the entrance of Smith Sound,--Cape Isabella and Cape Alexander,
discovered and named in the preceding year by Captain Inglefield,--and
after a voyage of equal difficulty and danger reached Rensselaer Bay
on the east coast of the sound, where he passed the winter. A few
extracts from his diary will show under what conditions, and in what
circumstances, Kane and his followers passed the long and dreary winter
months:--
“_October 28th._--The moon has reached her greatest northern
declination of about 25° 35’. She is a glorious object; sweeping around
the heavens, at the lowest part of her curve, she is still 14° above
the horizon. For eight days she has been making her circuit with nearly
unvarying brightness. It is one of those sparkling nights that bring
back the memory of sleigh-bells and songs, and glad communings of
hearts in lands that are far away.
“_November 7th._--The darkness is coming on with insidious
steadiness, and its advances can only be perceived by comparing one
day with its fellow of some time back. We still read the thermometer
at noonday without a light, and the black masses of the hills are
plain for about five hours, with their glaring patches of snow; but
all the rest is darkness. The stars of the sixth magnitude shine out
at noonday. Except upon the island of Spitzbergen, which has the
advantages of an insular climate, and tempered by ocean-currents,
no Christians have wintered in so high a latitude as this. They are
Russian sailors who made the encounter there--men inured to hardships
and cold. Our darkness has ninety days to run before we shall get back
again even to the contested twilight of to-day. Altogether our winter
will have been sunless for one hundred and forty days.
“_December 15th._--We have lost the last vestige of our mid-day
twilight. We cannot see print, and hardly paper; the finger’s cannot
be counted a foot from the eyes. Noonday and midnight are alike;
and, except a vague glimmer in the sky that seems to define the hill
outlines to the south, we have nothing to tell us that this Arctic
world of ours has a sun. In the darkness, and consequent inaction, it
is almost in vain that we seek to create topics of thought, and, by a
forced excitement, to ward off the encroachments of disease.”
But in due time the long Arctic night passed away, and the season came
round for undertaking the sledge journeys which were the main object
of the expedition. But Dr. Kane was then met by a new difficulty. Out
of the nine splendid Newfoundland and thirty-five Eskimo dogs which he
had originally possessed, only six had survived a peculiar malady that
had seized them during the winter; and though some fresh purchases were
made from the Eskimos who visited Rensselaer Harbour early in April,
his means of transport remained wholly inadequate.
Kane, moreover, who though strong of heart was weak of body, had
suffered much from the rigour of the climate, and was in a sadly
feeble condition when, on the 25th of April 1854, he started on his
northward journey. He found the Greenland coast, as he ascended Kane
Sea, full of romantic surprises; the cliffs rising to a height of ten
hundred and eleven hundred feet, and presenting the boldest and most
fantastic outlines. This character is continued as far as the Great
Humboldt Glacier. The coast is indented by four great bays, all of them
communicating with deep gorges, which are watered by streams from the
interior ice-fields. The mean height of the table-land, till it reaches
the bed of the Great Glacier, Dr. Kane estimated, in round numbers, at
900 feet; its tallest summit near the water at 1300, and the rise of
the background above the general level at 600 more. The face of this
stupendous ice-mass, as it defined the coast, was everywhere an abrupt
and threatening precipice, only broken by clefts and deep ravines,
giving breadth and interest to its wild expression.
[Illustration: THE “THREE BROTHER TURRETS.”]
Dr. Kane informs us that the most picturesque portion of the coast
occurs in the neighbourhood of Dallas Bay. Here the red sandstones
contrast very favourably with the blank whiteness, and associate the
warm colours of more southern lands with the cold tints of the Arctic
scenery. The seasons have acted on the different layers of the cliff so
as to give them all the appearance of jointed masonry, and the narrow
stratum of greenstone at the top surmounts them with boldly-designed
battlements. To one of these “interesting freaks of Nature” Kane gave
the name of the “Three Brother Turrets.” The crumbled ruin at the foot
of the coast-wall led up, like an artificial causeway, to a ravine that
blazed at noonday with the glow of the southern sun, when everywhere
else the rock lay in blackest shadow. Just at the edge of this lane
of light rose the semblance of a castle, flanked with triple towers,
completely isolated and defined. These were the Three Turrets.
Still further to the north, a solitary cliff of greenstone, marked by
the slaty limestone that once encased it, sprang from a mass of broken
sandstone, like the rough-hewn rampart of an ancient city. At its
northern extremity, on the brink of a deep ravine, wrought out among
the ruin, stood a solitary column, or minaret-tower, the pedestal of
which was not less than 280 feet in height, while the shaft was fully
480 feet. Dr. Kane associated this remarkable beacon with the name of
the poet Tennyson.
Dr. Kane continued his advance, and on the 4th of May approached the
Great Glacier. This progress, however, was dearly earned. Owing to the
excessive cold and labour, most of his party suffered from painful
prostration; three were attacked with snow-blindness; and all were
troubled with dropsical swellings. Off Cape Kent, while taking an
observation for latitude, Kane himself was seized with a sudden pain,
and fainted. His limbs became rigid. He was strapped upon the sledge,
and insisted that the march should be continued. But, on the 5th, he
grew delirious, and fainting every time that he was taken from the tent
to the sledge, he succumbed entirely.
“My comrades,” writes this heroic man, than whom no braver or more
resolute spirit ever ventured into the dreary Northern wilds, “would
kindly persuade me that, even had I continued sound, we could not have
proceeded on our journey. The snows were very heavy, and increasing as
we went; some of the drifts perfectly impassable, and the level floes
often four feet deep in yielding snow. The scurvy had already broken
out among the men, with symptoms like my own; and Morton, our strongest
man, was beginning to give way. It is the reverse of comfort to me that
they shared my weakness. All that I should remember with pleasurable
feeling is, that to five brave men, themselves scarcely able to travel,
I owe my preservation.”
They carried him back to the brig at Rensselaer Harbour, and for
several days he lay fluctuating between life and death. As the summer
came on, however, his health slowly improved; and though unable to
undertake any sledge excursions in person, he organized a series of
expeditions in which his stronger companions took part. Dr. Hayes
crossed the strait in a north-easterly direction, reached the opposite
coast of Grinnell Land, where the cliffs varied from 1200 to 2000 feet
in height, and surveyed it as far as Cape Fraser, in lat. 79° 45’.
He returned on June 1st, and, a few days later, Morton departed to
survey the Greenland shore beyond the Humboldt Glacier. His journey was
a difficult one, for the obstacles offered by the ice hummocks were
sometimes almost insurmountable, and the ice-field was intersected by
chasms and water-lanes frequently four feet in width. After skirting
the coast of what is now known as Morris Bay, Morton’s party came
upon easier ground; and presently a long low country opened on the
land-ice, a wide plain between large headlands, with rolling hills
through it. A flock of brent geese came down this valley, with a whirr
of wings, and ducks were seen in crowds upon the open water. Eiders
and dove-kies also made their appearance; and tern were very numerous,
and exceedingly tame. Flying high overhead, their notes echoing
from the rocks, were large white birds, which Morton supposed to be
burgomasters. There were also ivory gulls and mollemokes; the former
flying very high, and the latter winging their way far out to sea.
The channel (Kennedy Channel) was here unobstructed by ice, and its
waves rolled freely and noisily on the shore. Along its verdant margin
Morton proceeded warily, and on the 26th of June, 1854, reached the
striking headland of Cape Constitution, about 2000 feet in height. Its
base was washed by a tremendous surf, through which it was impossible
to pass--the _ne plus ultra_, as it seemed, of human enterprise.
Climbing from rock to rock, he contrived to reach an elevation of 300
feet; from which he was able to trace the outline of the coast for
fifty miles to the north. In the distance rose a range of mountains,
very lofty, and rounded at their summits. To the north-west might be
seen a bare peak, striated vertically with protruding ridges, and
soaring to an altitude of between 2500 and 3000 feet. This peak, the
most remote northern land then known upon the globe, was named after
the great pioneer of Arctic travel, Sir Edward Parry.
[Illustration: MORTON ON THE SHORE OF THE SUPPOSED POLAR OCEAN.]
The range (Victoria and Albert Mountains) with which it was connected
was much higher, Morton thought, than any they had seen on the southern
or Greenland side of the bay. The summits were generally rounded,
resembling a succession of sugar-loaves and stacked cannonballs
declining slowly in the perspective.
* * * * *
All the sledge-parties were now once more aboard the brig, and the
season of Arctic travel had ended. The short summer was rapidly wearing
away, and yet the ice remained a rigid and impenetrable barrier. It was
evident that the ship could not be liberated, and Kane found himself
compelled to decide between two equally dismal alternatives,--the
abandonment of the ship, or another winter among the Polar snows.
For himself, he resolved to remain; but to those who were willing to
venture on the attempt to reach the Danish settlement at Upernavik,
he left the choice open. Out of the seventeen survivors of the party,
eight, like Dr. Kane, decided to stand by the brig; the others, to push
southward to Upernavik. These were provided with all the provisions and
appliances that could be spared, and took their departure on Monday,
August 28th; carrying with them a written assurance of a brother’s
welcome should they be driven back--an assurance amply redeemed when
severe trials had prepared them to share again the fortunes of their
commander.
Dr. Kane confronted the winter with equal sagacity and resolution. He
had carefully studied the Eskimos, and concluded that their form of
habitation and peculiarities of diet, without their unthrift and filth,
were the safest that could be adopted. He turned the brig, therefore,
into a kind of _igloë_, or hut. The quarter-deck was well padded
with moss and turf, and the cabin below, a space some eighteen feet
square, was enclosed and packed from floor to ceiling with inner walls
of the same material. The floor itself was carefully calked with
plaster of Paris and common paste, and covered two inches deep with
Manilla oakum and a canvas carpet. The entrance was from the hold by a
low, moss-lined tunnel, the _tossut_ of the native huts, with as
many doors and curtains to close it up as ingenuity could devise. This
was their sitting-room, dining-room, sleeping-room; but there were only
ten of them, and the closer the warmer.
[Illustration: DR. KANE PAYING A VISIT TO AN ESKIMO HUT AT ETAH.]
While they were engaged in these defences against the enemy, they
contrived to open up a friendly intercourse with the Eskimos, visiting
them in their snow-huts at the settlements of Etah and Anatoak, distant
about thirty and seventy miles from the brig; and, in return for
presents of needles, pins, and knives, they undertook to show the white
strangers where game was to be procured, as well as to furnish walrus
and fresh seal meat. The assistance rendered by the Eskimos was of the
greatest value, and we may infer that, without it, Dr. Kane and his
followers must have succumbed to the hardships of that dreadful winter.
* * * * *
On the 12th of December, the party which had abandoned the ship
suddenly reappeared, finding it impossible to penetrate to the
south. They had suffered severely; were covered with rime and snow,
and fainting with hunger. It was necessary to use much caution in
conveying them below; for after an exposure of such fearful intensity
and duration as they had undergone, the warmth of the cabin would have
prostrated them completely. They had journeyed three hundred and fifty
miles; and their last run from the bay near Etah, some seventy miles
in a right line, was through the hummocks with the thermometer at
-50°. “One by one,” says Kane, “they all came in and were housed. Poor
fellows! as they threw open their Eskimo garments by the stove, how
they relished the scanty luxuries which we had to offer. The coffee,
and the meat-biscuit soup, and the molasses, and the wheat-bread, even
the salt pork, which our scurvy forbade the rest of us to touch--how
they relished it all! For more than two months they had lived on frozen
seal and walrus meat.”
We cannot dwell on the various little incidents which marked that sad
and terrible winter, but an extract or two from Dr. Kane’s journal will
show the reader how much the imprisoned explorers endured, and in what
spirit they bore their trials:--
“_December 1, Friday._--I am writing at midnight. I have the watch
from eight to two. It is day in the moonlight on deck, the thermometer
getting up again to 36° below zero. As I come down to the cabin--for
so we still call this little moss-lined igloë of ours--every one is
asleep, snoring, gritting his teeth, or talking in his dreams. This is
pathognomonic; it tells of Arctic winter, and its companion, scurvy.
Tom Hickey, our good-humoured, blundering cabin-boy, decorated with the
dignities of cook, is in that little dirty cot on the starboard side;
the rest are bedded in rows. Mr. Brooks and myself chock aft. Our bunks
are close against the frozen moss-wall, where we can take in the entire
family at a glance. The apartment measures twenty feet by eighteen; its
height six feet four inches at one place, but diversified elsewhere by
beams crossing at different distances from the floor. The avenue by
which it is approached is barely to be seen in the moss-wall forward;
twenty feet of air-tight space make misty distance, for the puff of
outside temperature that came in with me has filled our atmosphere with
vesicles of vapour. The avenue--Ben-Djerback is our poetic name for
it--closes on the inside with a door well-patched with flannel, from
which, stooping upon all fours, you back down a descent of four feet
in twelve through a tunnel three feet high, and two feet six inches
broad. Arrived at the bottom, you straighten yourself, and a second
door admits you into the dark and sorrowing hold, empty of stores, and
stripped to its naked ceiling for firewood. From this we grope our way
to the main hatch, and mount by a rude stairway of boxes into the open
air.”
* * * * *
“_February 21, Wednesday._--To-day the crests of the north-east
headland were gilded by true sunshine, and all who were able ascended
on deck to greet it. The sun rose above the horizon, though still
screened from our eyes by intervening hills. Although the powerful
refraction of Polar latitudes heralds his direct appearance by
brilliant light, this is as far removed from the glorious tints of
day as it is from the mere twilight. Nevertheless, for the past ten
days we have been watching the growing warmth of our landscape, as it
emerged from buried shadow, through all the stages of distinctness of
an India-ink washing, step by step, into the sharp, bold definition
of our desolate harbour scene. We have marked every dash of colour
which the great Painter in his benevolence vouchsafed to us; and now
the empurpled blue, clear, unmistakable, the spreading lake, the
flickering yellow; peering at all these, poor wretches! everything
seemed superlative lustre and unsurpassable glory. We had so grovelled
in darkness, that we oversaw the light.
“Mr. Wilson has caught cold, and relapsed. Mr. Ohlsen, after a
suspicious day, startles me by an attack of partial epilepsy; one of
those strange, indescribable spells, fits, seizures, whatever name the
jargon gives them, which indicate deep disturbance. I conceal his case
as far as I can; but it adds to my heavy pack of troubles to anticipate
the gloomy scenes of epileptic transport introduced into our one
apartment.”
* * * * *
“_February 28, Wednesday._--February closes: thank God for the
lapse of its twenty-eight days! Should the thirty-one of the coming
March not drag us further downward, we may hope for a successful close
to this dreary drama. By the 10th of April we should have seal; and
when they come, if we remain to welcome them, we can call ourselves
saved.
“But a fair review of our prospects tells me that I must look the lion
in the face. The scurvy is steadily gaining on us. I do my best to
sustain the more desperate cases; but as fast as I partially build up
one, another is stricken down. The disease is perhaps less malignant
than it was, but it is more diffused throughout our party. Except
William Morton, who is disabled by a frozen heel, not one of our
eighteen is exempt. Of the six workers of our party, as I counted them
a month ago, two are unable to do out-door work, and the remaining four
divide the duties of the ship among them. Hans musters his remaining
energies to conduct the hunt. Petersen is his disheartened, moping
assistant. The other two, Bonsall and myself, have all the daily
offices of household and hospital. We chop five large sacks of ice, cut
six fathoms of eight-inch hawser into junks of a foot each (for fuel),
serve out the meat when we have it, hack at the molasses, and hew out
with crowbar and axe the pork and dried apples, pass up the foul slops
and cleansings of our dormitory; and, in a word, cook, _scullionize_,
and attend the sick. Added to this, for five nights running I have kept
watch from 8 P.M. to 4 A.M., catching cat-naps as I could in the day
without changing my clothes, but carefully waking every hour to note
thermometers.
“Such is the condition in which February leaves us, with forty-one days
more ahead of just the same character in prospect as the twenty-eight
which, thank God! are numbered now with the past. It is saddening to
think how much those twenty-eight days have impaired our capacities of
endurance. If Hans and myself can only hold on, we may work our way
through. All rests upon destiny, or the Power which controls it.”
* * * * *
It is useless, however, to dwell longer on this melancholy record. Kane
saw that to abandon the brig was now the only resource: the ice held
it fast, there was no probability of its being released, and a third
winter in Rensselaer Bay would have been death to the whole party. As
soon, therefore, as the return of spring in some measure recruited
the health of his followers, he made the necessary preparations for
departure; and on the 20th of May the entire ship’s company bade
farewell to the _Advance_, and set out on their homeward route.
With considerable difficulty and arduous labour they hauled their
boats across the rough, hummocky ice, and reached the open sea. On the
17th of June they embarked, and steered for Upernavik, which port they
calculated upon reaching in fifty-six days. When they got fairly clear
of the land, and in the course of the great ice-drift southward, they
found their boats so frail and leaky that they could be kept afloat
only by constant bailing; a labour which told heavily on men already
weakened with disease and want. Starvation stared them in the face,
when happily they fell in with and captured a large seal, which they
devoured voraciously; and this opportune help recruited their failing
energies. Thenceforth they were in no lack of food, as seals were
plentiful; and early in August, after living for eighty-four days in
the open air, they found themselves under the comfortable roofs of
Upernavik, enjoying the hospitable welcome of the generous Danes.
Dr. Kane returned to New York on the 11th of October 1855, after an
absence of thirty months. His discoveries had been important, his
heroism worthy of the race from which he sprung, and none can deny that
he had well merited the honours he received. Unfortunately, a frame
never very robust had been broken down by the trials of two Arctic
winters; and this gallant explorer passed away on the 16th of February
1857, in the thirty-seventh year of his age.
* * * * *
In 1860, Dr. Hayes, the companion of Dr. Kane, took the command of an
expedition intended to complete the survey of Kennedy Channel, and to
reach, if it were possible, the North Pole. His schooner, the _United
States_, was brought up for the winter at Port Foulke, about twenty
miles south of Rensselaer Harbour; and early in the following April,
Dr. Hayes set out on a sledge and boat journey across the sound, and
along the shores of Grinnell Land.
From the eloquent record of his adventures, which does so much credit
to his literary skill, “An Arctic Boat Journey,” we have already quoted
some stirring passages; but the following extract we may be allowed to
repeat, on account of the clear light it throws upon the nature of the
difficulties Hayes encountered on his northward advance:--
“The track,” he says, “was rough, past description. I can compare it
to nothing but a promiscuous accumulation of rocks closely packed
together, and piled up over a vast plain in great heaps and endless
ridges, leaving scarcely a foot of level surface. The interstices
between these closely accumulated ice-masses are filled up, to some
extent, with drifted snow. The reader will easily imagine the rest. He
will see the sledges winding through the tangled wilderness of broken
ice-tables, the men and dogs pulling and pushing up their respective
loads. He will see them clambering over the very summit of lofty
ridges, through which there is no opening, and again descending on
the other side--the sledge often plunging over a precipice, sometimes
capsizing, and frequently breaking. Again he will see the party,
baffled in their attempt to cross or find a pass, breaking a track with
shovel and handspike; or, again, unable even with these appliances to
accomplish their end, they retreat to seek a better track: and they may
be lucky enough to find a sort of gap or gateway, upon the winding and
uneven surface of which they will make a mile or so with comparative
ease. The snow-drifts are sometimes a help and sometimes a hindrance.
Their surface is uniformly hard, but not always firm to the foot.
The crust frequently gives way, and in a most tiresome and provoking
manner. It will not quite bear the weight, and the foot sinks at the
very moment when the other is lifted. But, worse than this, the chasms
between the hummocks are frequently bridged over with snow in such a
manner as to leave a considerable space at the bottom quite unfilled;
and at the very moment when all looks promising, down sinks one man
to his middle, another to the neck, another is buried out of sight;
the sledge gives way,--and to extricate the whole from this unhappy
predicament is probably the labour of hours. It would be difficult to
imagine any kind of labour more disheartening, or which would sooner
sap the energies of both men and animals.”
* * * * *
After encountering difficulties like these, which wore out the strength
of most of his party, so that they were compelled to return to the
schooner, Dr. Hayes succeeded in crossing the sound, and began his
journey along the coast. But the difficulties did not abate, and made
such demands on the powers of endurance of the travellers, that the
strongest among them broke down, and had to be left behind in charge of
another of the party. The resolute Hayes then pushed on, accompanied
by Knorr, and on the 18th of May reached the margin of a deep gulf,
where further progress was rendered impossible by the rotten ice and
broad water-ways. From this point, however, he could see, on the other
side of the channel, and immediately opposite to him, the lofty peak
of Mount Parry, discovered in 1854 by the gallant Morton; and more to
the north, a bold conspicuous headland, which he named Cape Union, the
most northern known land upon the globe. Beyond it, he thought he saw
the open sea of the Pole, which, from Cape Union, is not distant five
hundred miles; but the voyage of the _Polaris_, at a later date,
has shown that what he saw was only a land-locked bay.
On the 12th of July, the schooner was set free from the ice, but she
proved to be too much damaged to continue her dangerous voyage; and
satisfied with having proved that a direct and not impracticable route
to the Pole lies up Smith Sound and Kennedy Channel, Dr. Hayes returned
to Boston.
* * * * *
It is the opinion, however, of some geographers, though scarcely
warranted by ascertained facts, that the Pole may more easily be
reached by what is known as the Spitzbergen route. They argue that
to the east of this snow-crowned archipelago the influence of the
Gulf Stream makes itself felt; and they conclude that this great warm
current possibly strikes as far as the Pole itself. It is known that
Parry, to the north of Spitzbergen, attained the latitude of 82° 45’;
and it is recorded that a Hull whaler, the _True-Love_, in 1837,
navigated an open sea in lat. 82° 30’ N., and long. 15° E.; so that she
might probably have solved the problem and have gained the Pole, had
she continued on her northerly course.
Holding this belief, the illustrious German geographer, Dr. Petermann,
succeeded in raising funds for a German expedition in 1868; and the
_Germania_, a brig of eighty tons, under the command of Captain
Koldewey, sailed from Bergen on the 24th of May, for Shannon Island,
in lat. 75° 14’ N., the furthest point on the Greenland coast reached
by Sabine in 1823. She was accompanied by the _Hansa_, Captain
Hegemann; and both ships were equipped in the most careful manner, and
liberally supplied with appliances and stores.
On the 9th of July the expedition was off the island of Jan Mayen, and
at midnight on that day was sailing direct to the northward. A heavy
fog came on, and the two ships, even when sailing side by side, could
not see one another, and communication could be maintained only by the
use of the speaking-trumpet. Their crews might then conceive an idea
of that impenetrable chaos which, according to Pythias, terminated the
world beyond Thule, and which is neither air, nor earth, nor sea. It is
impossible to imagine anything more melancholy than this gray, uniform,
infinite veil or canopy; ocean itself, far as the eye can reach, is
gray and gloomy.
For five successive days the weather remained in this condition, the
fog alone varying in intensity, and growing thicker and thicker. On
the 14th a calm prevailed, and the _Germania_ lowered a boat to
pick up drift-wood and hunt the sea-gulls. The ice-blink on the horizon
showed that the ships were drawing near the great ice-fields of the
Polar Ocean; and another sign of their proximity was the appearance of
the ivory gull (_Larus eburneus_), which never wanders far from
the ice. Occasionally the ships fell in with a rorqual, or nord-caper,
as the seamen call it,--a species of whale distinguished by the
presence of a dorsal fin.
On the morning of the 15th of July a light breeze blew up from the
south, and the two ships sailed steadily on their north-western course
through a sea covered with floating ice. An accustomed ear could
already distinguish a distant murmur, which seemed to draw nearer
and yet nearer; it was the swell of the sea breaking on the far-off
ice-field. Nearer and yet nearer! Everybody gathered upon deck; and,
suddenly, as if in virtue of some spell, the mists cleared away, and
the adventurers saw before them, within a few hundred yards, the ice!
It formed a long line, like a cliff-wall of broken and rugged rocks,
whose azure-tinted precipices glittered in the sun, and repelled,
unmoved, the rush of the foamy waves. The summit was covered with a
deep layer of blinding snow.
They gazed on the splendid panorama in silence. It was a solemn moment,
and in every mind new thoughts and new impressions were awakened, in
which both hope and doubt were blended.
The point where the _Germania_ had struck the ice was lat. 74° 47’
N. and long. 11° 50’ E., and the icy barrier stretched almost directly
from north to south. The _Hansa_ touched the ice on the same day,
but in lat. 74° 57’ N., and long. 9° 41’ E.
The two ships, which had separated in the fog, effected a union on the
18th, and the _Germania_ taking the _Hansa_ in tow, they made
towards Sabine Island. After awhile, the towing-rope was thrown off,
the _Germania_ finding it necessary to extinguish her fires and
proceed under canvas. They then followed up, in a southerly direction,
the great icy barrier, seeking for an opening which might afford them a
chance of steering westward.
On the 20th, the _Germania_ found the ice so thick in the
south-west that she adopted a westerly Course, and hoisted a signal
for the captain of the _Hansa_ to come on board to a conference.
The latter, however, misinterpreted it, and instead of reading the
signal as “Come within hail,” read it as “Long stay a peak;” crowded on
all sail, and speedily disappeared in the fog, which grew wonderfully
intense before the _Germania_ could follow her. Through this
curious error the two ships were separated, and for fourteen months the
crew of the _Germania_ remained in ignorance of the fate of their
comrades’.
* * * * *
Before following the _Germania_ on her voyage of discovery, we
propose to see what befell the _Hansa_ among the Arctic ice.
Captain Hegemann had understood the signal of his senior officer to
mean that the ships were to push on as far as possible to the westward,
and, as we have seen, he crowded on all sail. But when the fog closed
in, and he found himself out of sight of the _Germania_, he
lay-to, in the hope that the latter might rejoin him. Disappointed in
this, he kept on his way, and on the 28th of July sighted the rocky and
gloomy coast of East Greenland, from Cape Bröer-Ruys to Cape James.
The weather continued fine. By the light of the midnight sun, which
illuminated the fantastic outlines of the bergs, the adventurers
engaged in a narwhal-hunt. Nothing is more extraordinary than the
effect of the rays of the midnight sun penetrating into an ocean
covered with floating ice. The warm and cold tones strike against
each other in all directions; the sea is orange, leaden-gray, or dark
green; the reefs of ice are tinged with a delicate rose-bloom; broad
shadows spread over the snow, and the most varied effects of mirage are
produced everywhere in the tranquil waters.
[Illustration: THE CREW OF THE “HANSA” TRYING TO LASSO A BEAR.]
[Illustration: THE MIDNIGHT SUN, GREENLAND.]
[Illustration: A BEAR AT ANCHOR.]
On the 9th of September, the _Hansa_ found the channel of free
water in which she had been navigating closed by a huge mass of ice,
and to protect her against the drift of the floating bergs she was
moored to it with stout hawsers. A few days later, the ice was broken
up by a gale of wind from the north-east, and the hawsers snapped. The
ice accumulating behind the ship raised it a foot and a half. On a
contiguous sheet of ice, the explorers discovered a she-bear with her
cub, and a boat was despatched in pursuit. The couple soon caught sight
of it, and began to trot along the edge of the ice beside the boat, the
mother grinding her teeth and licking her beard. Her enemies landed,
and fired, and the bear fell in the snow, mortally wounded. While
the cub was engaged in tenderly licking and caressing her, several
attempts were made to capture it with a lasso; but it always contrived
to extricate itself, and at last took to flight, crying and moaning
bitterly. Though struck with a bullet, it succeeded in effecting its
escape.
* * * * *
On the 12th they again saw a couple of bears coming from the east,
and returning from the sea towards the land. The mother fell a victim
to their guns, but the cub was captured, and chained to an anchor
which they had driven into the ice. It appeared exceedingly restless
and disturbed, but not the less did it greedily devour a slice of its
mother’s flesh which the sailors threw to it. A snow wigwam was hastily
constructed for its accommodation, and the floor covered with a layer
of shavings; but the cub despised these luxuries of civilization, and
preferred to encamp on the snow, like a true inhabitant of the Polar
Regions. A few days afterwards it disappeared with its chain, which it
had contrived to detach from the anchor; and the weight of the iron, in
all probability, had dragged the poor beast to the bottom of the water.
[Illustration: SKATING--OFF THE COAST OF GREENLAND.]
The _Hansa_ was now set fast in the ice, and no hope was
entertained of her release until the coming of the spring. Her crew
amused themselves with skating, and, when the weather permitted, with
all kinds of gymnastic exercises. It became necessary, however, to
consider what preparations should be made for encountering the Arctic
winter, one of the bitterest enemies with which man is called upon to
contend. The _Hansa_ was strongly built, but her commander feared
she might not be able to endure the more and more frequent pressure of
the ice. At first, it was proposed to cover the boats with sail-cloth
and convert them into winter-quarters; but it was felt that they would
not afford a sufficient protection against the rigour of the Polar
climate, its furious winds, its excess of cold, its wild whirlwinds of
snow. And therefore it was resolved to erect on the ice-floe a suitable
winter-hut, constructed of blocks of coal. Bricks made of this material
have the double advantage of absorbing humidity, and reflecting the
heat which they receive. Water and snow would serve for mortar; and a
roof could be made with the covering which protected the deck of the
_Hansa_ from the snow.
The ground-plan of the house was designed by Captain Hegemann; it
measured twenty feet in length, and fourteen feet in width; the ridge
of the roof was eight feet and a half, and the side walls four feet
eight inches in elevation. These walls were composed of a double row
of bricks nine inches wide up to a height of two feet, after which a
single row was used. They were cemented in a peculiarly novel fashion.
The joints and fissures were filled up with dry snow, on which water
was poured, and in ten minutes it hardened into a compact mass, from
which it would have been exceedingly difficult to extract a solitary
brick. The roof consisted of sails and mats, covered with a layer of
snow. The door was two and a half feet wide, and the floor was paved
with slabs of coal. Into this house, which was completed in seven days,
provisions for two months were carried, including four hundred pounds
of bread, two dozen boxes of preserved meat, a flitch of bacon, some
coffee and brandy, besides a supply of firing-wood, and some tons of
coal.
* * * * *
On the 8th of October, after the completion of the house, a violent
snow-storm broke out, which would assuredly have rendered its
construction impossible, and which, in five days, completely buried
both the ship and the hut. Such immense piles of snow accumulated on
the deck of the _Hansa_, that it was with the greatest difficulty
the seamen could reach their berths.
From the 5th to the 14th of October the drift of the current was so
strong, that the ice-bound ship was carried no fewer than seventy-two
miles towards the south-south-east.
Meantime, the pressure of the ice continued to increase, and the
_Hansa_ seemed held in the tightening grasp of an invincible
giant. Huge masses rose in front, and behind, and on both sides,
and underneath, until she was raised seventeen feet higher than
her original position. Affairs seemed so critical, that Captain
Hegemann hastened to disembark the stores of clothing, the scientific
instruments, charts, log-book, and diaries. It was found that through
the constant strain on her timbers the ship had begun to leak badly,
and on sounding, two feet of water were found in the pumps. All hands
to work! But after half an hour’s vigorous exertions, the water
continued to rise, slowly but surely; and the most careful search
failed to indicate the locality of the leak. It was painfully evident
that the good ship could not be saved.
“Though much affected,” says the chronicler of the expedition, “by
this sad catastrophe, we endured it with firmness. Resignation was
indispensable. The coal hut, constructed on the shifting ice-floe, was
thenceforward our sole refuge in the long nights of an Arctic winter,
and was destined, perhaps, to become our tomb.
“But we had not a minute to lose, and we set to work. At nine o’clock
P.M. the snow-fall ceased; the sky glittered with stars, the
moon illuminated with her radiance the immense wilderness of ice, and
the rays of the Aurora Borealis here and there lighted up the firmament
with their coloured coruscations. The frost was severe; during the
night the thermometer sank to -20° R. One half the crew continued to
work at the pumps; the other was actively engaged in disembarking on
the ice the most necessary articles. There could be no thought of
sleep, for in our frightful situation the mind was beset by the most
conflicting apprehensions. What would become of us at the very outset
of a season which threatened to be one of excessive rigour? In vain
we endeavoured to imagine some means of saving ourselves. It was not
possible to think seriously of an attempt to gain the land. Perhaps we
might have succeeded, in the midst of the greatest dangers, in reaching
the coast by opening up a way across the ice-floes, but we had no
means of transporting thither our provisions; and it appeared, from
the reports of Scoresby, that we could not count on finding any Eskimo
establishments,--so that our only prospect then would have been to die
of hunger.”
The sole resource remaining to the explorers was to drift to the
south on their moving ice-floe, and confine themselves, meantime, to
their coal hut. If their ice-raft proved of sufficient strength, they
might hope to reach in the spring the Eskimo settlement in the south
of Greenland, or come to gain the coast of Iceland by traversing its
cincture of ice.
* * * * *
It was on the 22nd of October, in lat. 70° 50’ N., and long. 21° W.,
that the _Hansa_ sank beneath the ice. Dr. Laube writes: “We
made ourselves as snug as possible, and, once our little house was
completely embanked with snow, we had not to complain of the cold.
We enjoyed perfect health, and occupied the time with long walks and
with our books, of which we had many. We made a Christmas-tree of
birch-twigs, and embellished it with fragments of wax taper.”
To prevent attacks of disease, and to maintain the cheerfulness of the
men, the officers of the expedition stimulated them to every kind of
active employment, and laid down strict rules for the due division of
the day.
At seven in the morning, they were aroused by the watch. They rose,
attired themselves in their warm thick woollen clothing, washed in
water procured by melting snow, and then took their morning cup of
coffee, with a piece of hard bread. Various occupations succeeded:
the construction of such useful utensils as proved to be necessary;
stitching sail-cloth, mending clothes, writing up the day’s journal,
and reading. When the weather permitted, astronomical observations and
calculations were not forgotten. At noon, all hands were summoned to
dinner, at which a good rich soup formed the principal dish; and as
they had an abundance of preserved vegetables, the bill of fare was
frequently changed. In the use of alcoholic liquors the most rigid
economy was observed, and it was on Sunday only that each person
received a glass of port.
The ice-floe on which their cabin stood was assiduously and carefully
explored in all directions. It was about seven miles in circuit, and
its average diameter measured nearly two miles.
The out-of-door amusements consisted chiefly of skating, and building
up huge images of snow--Egyptian sphynxes and the like.
The borders of the ice-floe, especially to the west and south-west,
presented a curious aspect; the attrition and pressure of the floating
ice had built up about it high glittering walls, upwards of ten feet
in elevation. The snow-crystals flashed and radiated in the sun like
myriads of diamonds. The red gleam of morning and evening cast a
strange emerald tint on the white surface of the landscape. The nights
were magnificent. The glowing firmament, and the snow which reflected
its lustre, produced so intense a brightness, that it was possible
to read without fatigue the finest handwriting, and to distinguish
remote objects. The phenomenon of the Aurora Borealis was of constant
occurrence, and on one occasion was so wonderfully luminous that it
paled the radiance of the stars, and everything upon the ice-floe cast
a shadow, as if it had been the sun shining.
Near the coal-cabin stood two small huts, one of which served for
ablutions, the other as a shed. Round this nucleus of the little
shipwrecked colony were situated at convenient points the piles of
wood for fuel, the boats, and the barrels of patent fuel and pork. To
prevent the wind and snow from entering the dwelling-hut, a vestibule
was constructed, with a winding entrance.
The greatest cold experienced was -29° 30’ F., and this was in
December. After Christmas the little settlement was visited by several
severe storms, and their ice-raft drifted close along the shore,
sometimes within eight or nine miles, amidst much ice-crushing,--which
so reduced it on all sides, that by the 4th of January 1870 it did not
measure more than one-eighth of its original dimensions.
On the 6th of January, when they had descended as far south as 66° 45’
N. lat., the sun reappeared, and was joyfully welcomed.
On the night of the 15th of January, the colony was stricken by a
sudden and terrible alarm. The ice yawned asunder, immediately beneath
the hut, and its occupants had but just time to take refuge in their
boats. Here they lay in a miserable condition, unable to clear out
the snow, and sheltered very imperfectly from the driving, furious
tempest. But on the 17th the gale moderated, and as soon as the weather
permitted they set to work to reconstruct out of the ruins of the old
hut a new but much smaller one. It was not large enough to accommodate
more than half the colony; and the other half took up their residence
in the boats.
February was calm and fine, and the floe still continued to drift
southward along the land. The nights were gorgeous with auroral
displays. Luminous sheaves expanded themselves on the deep blue
firmament like the folds of a fan, or the petals of a flower.
March was very snowy, and mostly dull. On the 4th, the ice-raft passed
within twenty-five miles of the glacier Kolberger-Heide. A day or two
later, it nearly came into collision with a large grounded iceberg. The
portion nearest to the drifting colony formed an immense overhanging
mass; its principal body had been wrought by the action of the sun
and the waves into the most capricious forms, and seemed an aggregate
of rocks and pinnacles, towers and gateways. The castaways could have
seized its projecting angles as they floated past. They thought their
destruction certain, but the fragments of ice which surrounded the raft
served as “buffers,” and saved it from a fatal collision.
On the 29th of March, they found themselves in the latitude of
Nukarbik, the island where Graab, the explorer, wintered, from
September 3rd, 1827, to April 5th, 1830. They had cherished the hope
that from this spot they might be able to take to their boats, and
start for Friedrichstal, a Moravian missionary station on the south
coast of Greenland. However, the ice was as yet too compact for any
such venture to be attempted.
For four weeks they were detained in the bay of Nukarbik, only two
or three miles from the shore, and yet unable to reach it. Their
raft was caught in a kind of eddy, and sometimes tacked to the south,
sometimes to the north. The rising tide carried it towards the shore,
the ebbing tide floated it out again to sea. During this detention they
were visited by small troops of birds, snow linnets and snow buntings.
The seamen threw them a small quantity of oats, which they greedily
devoured. They were so tame that they allowed themselves to be caught
by the hand.
[Illustration: SNOW LINNETS AND BUNTINGS VISITING THE CREW OF THE
“HANSA.”]
From the end of March to the 17th of April, the voyagers continued
their dreary vacillation between Skieldunge Island and Cape Moltke; a
storm then drove them rapidly to the south. The coast, with its bold
littoral mountain-chain, its deep bays, its inlets, its islands, and
its romantic headlands, offered a succession of novel and impressive
scenes; and specially imposing was the great glacier of Puisortok, a
mighty ice-river which skirts the shore for upwards of thirty miles.
Early in May they had reached lat. 61° 12’.
On the 7th, some water-lanes opened for them a way to the shore; and
abandoning the ice-raft, they took to their boats, with the intention
of progressing southward along the coast. At first they met with
considerable difficulty, being frequently compelled to haul up the
boats on an ice-floe, and so pass the night, or wait until the wind was
favourable. As this necessitated a continual unloading and reloading of
the boats, the work was very severe. At one time they were detained
for six days on the ice, owing to bad weather, violent gales, and heavy
snow-showers. The temperature varied from +2° during the day to -5° R.
during the night.
[Illustration: THE CREW OF THE “HANSA” BIVOUACKING ON THE ICE.]
Their rations at this period were thus distributed:--In the morning, a
cup of coffee, with a piece of dry bread. At noon, for dinner, soup and
broth; in the evening, a few mouthfuls of cocoa, of course without milk
and sugar.
They were compelled to observe the most rigid economy in the use of
their provisions, lest, before reaching any settlement, they should be
reduced to the extremities of famine. Yet their appetite was very keen;
a circumstance easily explained, for they were necessarily very sparing
in their allowance of meat and fat, which in the rigorous Arctic
climate are indispensable as nourishment.
* * * * *
As no change took place in the position of the masses of ice which
surrounded them, they resolved to drag their boats towards the
island of Illiudlek, about three marine miles distant. They began
this enterprise on the evening of the 20th, making use of some stout
cables which they had manufactured during the winter, and harnessing
themselves by means of a brace passed across the shoulders. That
evening they accomplished three hundred paces. Snow fell heavily, and
melted as fast as it fell, so that during their night-bivouac they
suffered much from damp.
The next day they found before them such a labyrinth of blocks and
fragments of ice, floating ice-fields, and water-channels, that they
were constrained to give up the idea of hauling their boats across
it, and resolved to wait for the spring tide--which, they knew, would
occur in a few days. The delay was very wearisome. To beguile the time,
some of the seamen set to work at wood-carving, while the officers
and scientific gentlemen manufactured the pieces for a game of chess.
Others prepared some fishing-lines, eighty fathoms long, in the hope of
catching a desirable addition to their scanty bill of fare.
On the 24th, the weather was splendid. The sun shone in a cloudless
sky, and wherever its genial radiance fell the thermometer marked +
28° 5’ R. This was an excellent opportunity for drying their clothes,
which, as well as their linen, had been thoroughly soaked innumerable
times. The coverings were removed from the boats, which, in the warm
sunshine, exhaled great clouds of vapour. The cook endeavoured to
add to his stores of provisions; but the seals churlishly refused to
make their appearance, the fish disdained to nibble at the fat-baited
hooks, and the stupid guillemots were cunning enough to escape the best
directed shots.
M. Hildebrandt, with two seamen, made an attempt--in which they
succeeded--to reach the island of Illiudlek, which lay about three
miles off, and is from 450 to 500 feet in height. They found it a
desert; not a trace of vegetation; its shores very steep, and at some
points precipitous; its surface torn with crevasses and ravines. The
only accessible part seemed on the north; but as the evening was
drawing in, they had no time for exploration, and made haste to return
to the boats.
The castaways now came to a resolution to seek a temporary refuge on
this desolate isle. As the heat of the sun was sufficient to render
their labour very painful, and they suffered much from the effects of
the snow upon their eyes, they went to work at night, dragging their
boats forward with many a weary effort, and rested during the daytime.
In this way they reached the island on the 4th of June.
Here they moored their boats in a small bay sheltered by a wall of
rocks from the north wind, which they named _Hansa-Hafen_. Next
day they shot two-and-twenty divers, which provided them with a
couple of good dinners. The supply was very valuable, as the stock of
provisions on hand would not last above a fortnight.
After a brief rest, the adventurers resumed their voyage, keeping
close in-shore, and struggling perseveringly amidst ice and
stones--and further checked by an inaccurate chart, which led them
into a deep fiord, instead of King Christian IV. Sound. On the 13th
of June, however, they arrived at the Moravian missionary station of
Friedrichstal, where their countrymen received them with a hearty
welcome. For two hundred days they had sojourned upon a drifting
ice-field, experiencing all the hardships of an Arctic winter,
aggravated by an insufficiency of food.
They reached Julianshaab on the 21st of June; embarked on board the
Danish brig _Constance_; and were landed at Copenhagen on the 1st
of September.
* * * * *
We must now return to the _Germania_.
Captain Koldewey made several bold attempts to penetrate the pack-ice,
but proved unsuccessful in all until, on the 1st of August, he reached
lat. 74°, where he contrived to effect a passage; and though much
delayed by a succession of fogs and calms, he made his way to Sabine
Island,--and dropped anchor on its southern side, in lat. 74° 30’ N.,
and long. 29° W., on the 5th of August.
On the 10th he again passed towards the north, keeping along the
Greenland shore until, in lat. 75° 31’ N., his advance was checked by
a mass of closely-packed ice, which stretched from the coast of the
mainland out to Shannon Island, a long unbroken line of fourteen miles.
It presented a very formidable appearance, being edged in some places
with a fringe of broken ice, boulders, and blocks, rising in heaps and
hummocks forty feet high.
The _Germania_ remained in this position for several days. As
nothing but ice was visible to the northward, and no prospect opened
up of further progress in that direction, Captain Koldewey moved his
ship to the south side of the island on the 16th of August, and dropped
anchor close to Cape Philip Broke.
Eleven days were spent in a careful exploration of Shannon Island,
during which time a musk-ox was shot, and close watch was kept from an
elevated point on the ice lying to the northward. But as it continued
solid and immovable, and the end of the season was at hand, Captain
Koldewey returned northward, and brought his vessel to anchor on the
south side of Pendulum Island on the 27th of August.
When it became necessary to make preparations for facing the coming
winter, Captain Koldewey moved his ship on the 13th of September
into the little harbour he had occupied on the 5th of August. Their
subsequent experience showed it to be the only secure one between the
parallels of 74° and 77°. A few days later the ship was frozen in.
The first sledging-party was despatched on the 14th of September,
and remained out for eight days. After reaching the mainland,
they travelled for four days up a newly-discovered fiord, finding
many petrifactions and much lignite. They also saw large herds of
musk-oxen. Vegetation was abundant, but chiefly composed of species of
_Andromeda_. In the course of this excursion, our explorers had
one or two adventures with bears. First, a female, with her two cubs,
paid them a visit, but being received with some volleys of musketry,
quickly beat a retreat. On another occasion, a daring intruder found
his way into their tent. His temerity, however, cost him his life;
and the Germans banqueted gaily on the fat and flesh with which he
incontinently supplied them.
[Illustration: A RASH INTRUDER.]
When the winter preparations were completed, Captain Koldewey organized
several shooting parties, who made good booty of reindeer and musk-oxen
and added most satisfactorily to the provision-supplies; no fewer than
fifteen hundred pounds of good beef and venison attesting the skill
and good fortune of the hunters. But after the beginning of November,
neither musk-oxen, reindeer, nor bears were visible.
A second sledge journey was undertaken towards the end of October in a
southerly direction. The party discovered another fiord, and returned
on the 4th of November. On the following day the sun disappeared
altogether, and the dreary Arctic night of three months’ duration
overtook them.
The close of the year was marked by a succession of violent storms, and
the temperature rose to 25° F. It soon fell again to zero, however; but
it was not until 1870 that it indicated the maximum of cold experienced
throughout the winter,--namely, -40° F. Of the December gales, the
most furious broke out on the 16th, and lasted until the 20th. It set
free the ice in the harbour, and even to within three hundred yards of
the ship; but fortunately she had been anchored in the most sheltered
part of the bay, and close to the shore, in only ten feet of water;
otherwise the crushed-up ice, moving with the currents, would probably
have carried her away to almost certain destruction.
[Illustration: BEAR-HUNTING--GREENLAND.]
The heroic little company, however, were nowise disheartened by the
gloom and hardship of their situation. From Captain Koldewey’s account,
they would seem to have spent a right merry Christmas, after the hearty
German fashion. They danced by starlight upon the ice; they celebrated
Christmas Eve with open doors, the temperature being 25° F.; with the
evergreen _Andromeda_ they made a famous Christmas-tree; they
decorated the cabin with flags, and spread out upon their tables the
gifts prepared for the occasion by kindly hands: each received his
share, and each joined in and contributed to the general merriment.
The Yule-tide festivities over, they made ready the equipments for
their sledging expeditions in the ensuing spring,--the object of the
most important of these being to attain the highest possible degree of
north latitude.
In February the sun returned, and with it the bears; and the daily
excursions upon the island, undertaken by the scientific members of
the expedition, were rendered dangerous by their audacity. Every one
was required to go armed, yet some accidents occurred. One of the
“scientists” was severely wounded in the head, and dragged upwards of
four hundred paces before his comrades rescued him from the bear. After
the lapse of a few weeks, however, he recovered from his wounds.