DANGEROUS NAVIGATION
Shandon, Dr. Clawbonny, Johnson, Foker, and Strong, the cook, went
on shore in the small boat. The governor, his wife, and five children,
all of the Esquimaux race, came politely to meet the visitors. The
doctor knew enough Danish to enable him to establish a very agreeable
acquaintance with them; besides, Foker, who was interpreter of the
expedition, as well as ice-master, knew about twenty words of the
Greenland language, and if not ambitious, twenty words will carry
you far. The governor was born on the island, and had never left his
native country. He did the honours of the town, which is composed
of three wooden huts, for himself and the Lutheran minister, of a
school, and magazines stored with the produce of wrecks. The remainder
consists of snow-huts, the entrance to which is attained by creeping
through a hole.
The greater part of the population came down to greet the _Forward_,
and more than one native advanced as far as the middle of the bay
in his kayak, fifteen feet long and scarcely two wide. The doctor
knew that the word Esquimaux signified raw-fish-eater, and he
likewise knew that the name was considered an insult in the country,
for which reason he did not fail to address them by the title of
Greenlanders, and nevertheless only by the look of their oily sealskin
clothing, their boots of the same material, and all their greasy
tainted appearance, it was easy to discover their accustomed food.
Like all Ichthyophagans, they were half-eaten up with leprosy; and
yet, for all that, were in no worse health.
The Lutheran minister and his wife, with whom the doctor promised
himself a private chat, were on a journey towards Proven on the south
of Uppernawik; he was therefore reduced to getting information out
of the governor. This chief magistrate did not seem to be very learned;
a little less and he would have been an ass, a little more and he
would have known how to read. The doctor, however, questioned him
upon the commercial affairs, the customs and manners of the Esquimaux,
and learnt by signs that seals were worth about 40 pounds delivered
in Copenhagen, a bearskin forty Danish dollars, a blue foxskin four,
and a white one two or three dollars. The doctor also wished, with
an eye to completing his personal education, to visit one of the
Esquimaux huts; it is almost impossible to imagine of what a learned
man who is desirous of knowledge is capable. Happily the opening of
those hovels was too narrow, and the enthusiastic fellow was not able
to crawl in; it was very lucky for him, for there is nothing more
repulsive than that accumulation of things living and dead, seal flesh
or Esquimaux flesh, rotten fish and infectious wearing apparel, which
constitute a Greenland hovel; no window to revive the unbreathable
air, only a hole at the top of the hut, which gives free passage to
the smoke, but does not allow the stench to go out.
Foker gave these details to the doctor, who did not curse his
corpulence the less for that. He wished to judge for himself about
these emanations, _sui generis_.
"I am sure," said he, "one gets used to it in the long run."
_In the long run_ depicts Dr. Clawbonny in a single phrase. During
the ethnographical studies of the worthy doctor, Shandon, according
to his instructions, was occupied in procuring means of transport
to cross the ice. He had to pay 4 pounds for a sledge and six dogs,
and even then he had great difficulty in persuading the natives to
part with them. Shandon wanted also to engage Hans Christian, the
clever dog-driver, who made one of the party of Captain McClintock's
expedition; but, unfortunately, Hans was at that time in Southern
Greenland. Then came the grand question, the topic of the day, was
there in Uppernawik a European waiting for the passage of the
_Forward_? Did the governor know if any foreigner, an Englishman
probably, had settled in those countries? To what epoch could he trace
his last relations with whale or other ships? To these questions the
governor replied that not one single foreigner had landed on that
side of the coast for more than ten months.
Shandon asked for the names of the last whalers seen there; he knew
none of them. He was in despair.
"You must acknowledge, doctor, that all this is quite inconceivable.
Nothing at Cape Farewell, nothing at Disko Island, nothing at
Uppernawik."
"If when we get there you repeat 'Nothing in Melville Bay,' I shall
greet you as the only captain of the _Forward_."
The small boat came back to the brig towards evening, bringing back
the visitors. Strong, in order to change the food a little, had
procured several dozens of eider-duck eggs, twice as big as hens'
eggs, and of greenish colour. It was not much, but the change was
refreshing to a crew fed on salted meat. The wind became favourable
the next day, but, however, Shandon did not command them to get under
sail; he still wished to stay another day, and for conscience' sake
to give any human being time to join the _Forward_. He even caused
the 16-pounder to be fired from hour to hour; it thundered out with
a great crash amidst the icebergs, but the noise only frightened the
swarms of molly-mokes and rotches. During the night several rockets
were sent up, but in vain. And thus they were obliged to set sail.
On the 8th of May, at six o'clock in the morning, the _Forward_ under
her topsails, foresails, and topgallant, lost sight of the Uppernawik
settlement, and the hideous stakes to which were hung seal-guts and
deer-paunches. The wind was blowing from the south-east, and the
temperature went up to thirty-two degrees. The sun pierced through
the fog, and the ice was getting a little loosened under its dissolving
action. But the reflection of the white rays produced a sad effect
on the eyesight of several of the crew. Wolsten, the gunsmith, Gripper,
Clifton, and Bell were struck with snow blindness, a kind of weakness
in the eyes very frequent in spring, and which determines, amongst
the Esquimaux, numerous cases of blindness. The doctor advised those
who were so afflicted and their companions in general to cover their
faces with green gauze, and he was the first to put his own
prescription into execution.
The dogs bought by Shandon at Uppernawik were of a rather savage nature,
but in the end they became accustomed to the ship; the captain did
not take the arrival of these new comrades too much to heart, and
he seemed to know their habits. Clifton was not the last to remark
the fact that the captain must already have been in communication
with his Greenland brethren, as on land they were always famished
and reduced by incomplete nourishment; they only thought of
recruiting themselves by the diet on board.
On the 9th of May the _Forward_ touched within a few cables' length
the most westerly of the Baffin Isles. The doctor noticed several
rocks in the bay between the islands and the continent, those called
Crimson Cliffs; they were covered over with snow as red as carmine,
to which Dr. Kane gives a purely vegetable origin. Clawbonny wanted
to consider this phenomenon nearer, but the ice prevented them
approaching the coast; although the temperature had a tendency to
rise, it was easy enough to see that the icebergs and ice-streams
were accumulating to the north of Baffin's Sea. The land offered a
very different aspect from that of Uppernawik; immense glaciers were
outlined on the horizon against a greyish sky. On the 10th the
_Forward_ left Hingston Bay on the right, near to the seventy-fourth
degree of latitude. Several hundred miles westward the Lancaster
Channel opened out into the sea.
But afterwards that immense extent of water disappeared under
enormous fields of ice, upon which hummocks rose up as regularly as
a crystallisation of the same substance. Shandon had the steam put
on, and up to the 11th of May the _Forward_ wound amongst the sinuous
rocks, leaving the print of a track on the sky, caused by the black
smoke from her funnels. But new obstacles were soon encountered; the
paths were getting closed up in consequence of the incessant
displacement of the floating masses; at every minute a failure of
water in front of the _Forward's_ prow became imminent, and if she
had been nipped it would have been difficult to extricate her. They
all knew it, and thought about it.
On board this vessel, without aim or known destination, foolishly
seeking to advance towards the north, some symptoms of hesitation
were manifested amongst those men, accustomed to an existence of
danger; many, forgetting the advantages offered, regretted having
ventured so far, and already a certain demoralisation prevailed in
their minds, still more increased by Clifton's fears, and the idle
talk of two or three of the leaders, such as Pen, Gripper, Warren,
and Wolston.
To the uneasiness of the crew were joined overwhelming fatigues, for
on the 12th of May the brig was closed in on every side; her steam
was powerless, and it was necessary to force a road through the
ice-fields. The working of the saws was very difficult in the floes,
which measured from six to seven feet in thickness. When two parallel
grooves divided the ice for the length of a hundred feet, they had
to break the interior part with hatchets or handspikes; then took
place the elongation of the anchors, fixed in a hole by means of a
thick auger; afterwards the working of the capstan began, and in this
way the vessel was hauled over. The greatest difficulty consisted
in driving the smashed pieces under the floes in order to open up
a free passage for the ship, and to thrust them away they were
compelled to use long iron-spiked poles.
At last, what with the working of the saws, the hauling, the capstan
and poles, incessant, dangerous, and forced work, in the midst of
fogs or thick snow, the temperature relatively low, ophthalmic
suffering and moral uneasiness, all contributed to discourage the
crew, and react on the men's imagination. When sailors have an
energetic, audacious, and convinced man to do with, who knows what
he wants, where he is bound for, and what end he has in view, confidence
sustains them in spite of everything. They make one with their chief,
feeling strong in his strength, and quiet in his tranquillity; but
on the brig it was felt that the commander was not sure of himself,
that he hesitated before his unknown end and destination. In spite
of his energetic nature, his weakness showed itself in his changing
orders, incomplete manoeuvres, stormy reflections, and a thousand
details which could not escape the notice of the crew.
Besides, Shandon was not captain of the ship, a sufficient reason
for argument about his orders; from argument to a refusal to obey
the step is easy. The discontented soon added to their number the
first engineer, who up to now had remained a slave to his duty.
On May 16th, six days after the _Forward's_ arrival at the icebergs,
Shandon had not gained two miles northward, and the ice threatened
to freeze in the brig till the following season. This was becoming
dangerous. Towards eight in the evening Shandon and the doctor,
accompanied by Garry, went on a voyage of discovery in the midst of
the immense plains; they took care not to go too far away from the
vessel, as it was difficult to fix any landmarks in those white
solitudes, the aspects of which changed constantly.
The refraction produced strange effects; they still astonished the
doctor; where he thought he had only one foot to leap he found it
was five or six, or the contrary; and in both cases the result was
a fall, if not dangerous, at least painful, on the frozen ice as hard
as glass.
Shandon and his two companions went in search of a practicable passage.
Three miles from the ship they succeeded, not without trouble, in
climbing the iceberg, which was perhaps three hundred feet high.
From this point their view extended over that desolated mass which
looked like the ruins of a gigantic town with its beaten-down obelisks,
its overthrown steeples and palaces turned upside down all in a
lump--in fact, a genuine chaos. The sun threw long oblique rays of
a light without warmth, as if heat-absorbing substances were placed
between it and that gloomy country. The sea seemed to be frozen to
the remotest limits of view.
"How shall we get through?" exclaimed the doctor.
"I have not the least idea," replied Shandon; "but we will get through,
even if we are obliged to employ powder to blow up those mountains,
for I certainly won't let that ice shut me up till next spring."
"Nevertheless, such was the fate of the _Fox_, almost in these same
quarters. Never mind," continued the doctor, "we shall get through
with a little philosophy. Believe me, that is worth all the engines
in the world."
"You must acknowledge," replied Shandon, "that the year doesn't begin
under very favourable auspices."
"That is incontestable, and I notice that Baffin's Sea has a tendency
to return to the same state in which it was before 1817."
"Then you think, doctor, that the present state of things has not
always existed?"
"Yes; from time to time there are vast breakings up which scientific
men can scarcely explain; thus, up to 1817 this sea was constantly
obstructed, when suddenly an immense cataclysm took place which drove
back these icebergs into the ocean, the great part of which were
stranded on Newfoundland Bank. From that time Baffin's Bay has been
almost free, and has become the haunt of numerous whalers."
"Then, since that epoch, voyages to the north have been easier?"
"Incomparably so; but for the last few years it has been observed
that the bay has a tendency to be closed up again, and according to
investigations made by navigators, it may probably be so for a long
time--a still greater reason for us to go on as far as possible. Just
now we look like people who get into unknown galleries, the doors
of which are always shut behind them."
"Do you advise me to back out?" asked Shandon, endeavouring to read
the answer in the doctor's eyes.
"I! I have never known how to take a step backward, and should we
never return, I say 'Go ahead.' However, I should like to make known
to you that if we do anything imprudent, we know very well what we
are exposed to."
"Well, Garry, what do you think about it?" asked Shandon of the sailor.
"I? Commander, I should go on; I'm of the same opinion as Mr.
Clawbonny; but you do as you please; command, and we will obey."
"They don't all speak like you, Garry," replied Shandon. "They aren't
all in an obedient humour! Suppose they were to refuse to execute
my orders?"
"Commander," replied Garry coldly, "I have given you my advice because
you asked me for it; but you are not obliged to act upon it."
Shandon did not reply; he attentively examined the horizon, and
descended with his two companions on to the ice-field.