THE "FORWARD" DRIVEN BACK SOUTH
The weather cleared up towards evening, and land was clearly
distinguished between Cape Sepping and Cape Clarence, which runs east,
then south, and is joined to the coast on the west by a rather low
neck of land. The sea at the entrance to Regent Strait was free from
ice, with the exception of an impenetrable ice-bank, a little further
than Port Leopold, which threatened to stop the _Forward_ in her
north-westerly course. Hatteras was greatly vexed, but he did not
show it; he was obliged to have recourse to petards in order to force
an entrance to Port Leopold; he reached it on Sunday, the 27th of
May; the brig was solidly anchored to the enormous icebergs, which
were as upright, hard, and solid as rocks.
The captain, followed by the doctor, Johnson, and his dog Dick,
immediately leaped upon the ice, and soon reached land. Dick leaped
with joy, for since he had recognised the captain he had become more
sociable, keeping his grudge against certain men of the crew for whom
his master had no more friendship than he. The port was not then
blocked up with ice that the east winds generally heaped up there;
the earth, intersected with peaks, offered at their summits graceful
undulations of snow. The house and lantern erected by James Ross were
still in a tolerable state of preservation; but the provisions seemed
to have been ransacked by foxes and bears, the recent traces of which
were easily distinguished. Men, too, had had something to do with
the devastation, for a few remains of Esquimaux huts remained upon
the shores of the Bay. The six graves inclosing the remains of the
six sailors of the _Enterprise_ and the _Investigator_ were
recognisable by a slight swelling of the ground; they had been
respected both by men and animals. In placing his foot for the first
time on boreal land, the doctor experienced much emotion. It is
impossible to imagine the feelings with which the heart is assailed
at the sight of the remains of houses, tents, huts, and magazines
that Nature so marvellously preserves in those cold countries.
"There is that residence," he said to his companions, "which James
Ross himself called the Camp of Refuge; if Franklin's expedition had
reached this spot, it would have been saved. There is the engine which
was abandoned here, and the stove at which the crew of the _Prince
Albert_ warmed themselves in 1851. Things have remained just as they
were, and any one would think that Captain Kennedy had only left
yesterday. Here is the long boat which sheltered him and his for a
few days, for this Kennedy, separated from his ship, was in reality
saved by Lieutenant Bellot, who braved the October temperature in
order to go to his assistance."
"I knew that brave and worthy officer," said Johnson.
Whilst the doctor was examining with all an antiquarian's enthusiasm
the vestiges of previous winterings, Hatteras was occupied in piling
together the various provisions and articles of fuel, which were only
to be found in very small quantities. The following day was employed
in transporting them on board. The doctor, without going too far from
the ship, surveyed the country, and took sketches of the most
remarkable points of view. The temperature rose by degrees, and the
heaped-up snow began to melt. The doctor made an almost complete
collection of northern birds, such as gulls, divers, eider-down ducks,
which are very much like common ducks, with white breasts and backs,
blue bellies, the top of the head blue, and the remainder of the
plumage white, shaded with green; several of them had already their
breasts stripped of that beautiful down with which the male and female
line their nests. The doctor also perceived large seals taking breath
on the surface of the ice, but could not shoot one. In his excursions
he discovered the high water mark, a stone upon which the following
signs are engraved:
(E. I.)
1849,
and which indicate the passage of the _Enterprise_ and
_Investigator_; he pushed forward as far as Cape Clarence to the spot
where John and James Ross, in 1833, waited with so much impatience
for the breaking up of the ice. The land was strewn with skulls and
bones of animals, and traces of Esquimaux habitations could be still
distinguished.
The doctor wanted to raise up a cairn on Port Leopold, and deposit
in it a note indicating the passage of the _Forward_, and the aim
of the expedition. But Hatteras would not hear of it; he did not want
to leave traces behind of which a competitor might take advantage.
In spite of his good motives the doctor was forced to yield to the
captain's will. Shandon blamed the captain's obstinacy, which
prevented any ships following the trace of the _Forward_ in case of
accident. Hatteras would not give way. His lading was finished on
Monday night, and he attempted once more to gain the north by breaking
open the ice-bank; but after dangerous efforts he was forced to resign
himself, and to go down Regent's Channel again; he would not stop
at Port Leopold, which, open to-day, might be closed again to-morrow
by an unexpected displacement of ice-fields, a very frequent
phenomenon in these seas, and which navigators ought particularly
to take into consideration.
If Hatteras did not allow his uneasiness to be outwardly perceived,
it did not prevent him feeling it inwardly. His desire was to push
northward, whilst, on the contrary, he found himself constrained to
put back southward. Where should he get to in that case? Should he
be obliged to put back to Victoria Harbour, in Boothia Gulf, where
Sir John Ross wintered in 1833? Would he find Bellot Strait open at
that epoch, and could he ascend Peel Strait by rounding North
Somerset? Or, again, should he, like his predecessors, find himself
captured during several winters, and be compelled to exhaust his
strength and provisions? These fears were fermenting in his brain;
he must decide one way or other. He heaved about, and struck out south.
The width of Prince Regent's Channel is about the same from Port
Leopold to Adelaide Bay. The _Forward_, more favoured than the ships
which had preceded her, and of which the greater number had required
more than a month to descend the channel, even in a more favourable
season, made her way rapidly amongst the icebergs; it is true that
other ships, with the exception of the _Fox_, had no steam at their
disposal, and had to endure the caprices of an uncertain and often
foul wind.
In general the crew showed little wish to push on with the enterprising
Hatteras; the men were only too glad to perceive that the vessel was
taking a southerly direction. Hatteras would have liked to go on
regardless of consequences.
The _Forward_ rushed along under the pressure of her engines, the
smoke from which twisted round the shining points of the icebergs;
the weather was constantly changing from dry cold to snowy fogs. The
brig, which drew little water, sailed along the west coast; Hatteras
did not wish to miss the entrance to Bellot Strait, as the only outlet
to the Gulf of Boothia on the south was the strait, only partially
known to the _Fury_ and the _Hecla_; if he missed the Bellot Strait,
he might be shut up without possibility of egress.
In the evening the _Forward_ was in sight of Elwin Bay, known by its
high perpendicular rocks; on the Tuesday morning Batty Bay was sighted,
where the _Prince Albert_ anchored for its long wintering on the 10th
of September, 1851. The doctor swept the whole coast with his
telescope. It was from this point that the expeditions radiated that
established the geographical configuration of North Somerset. The
weather was clear, and the profound ravines by which the bay is
surrounded could be clearly distinguished.
The doctor and Johnson were perhaps the only beings on board who took
any interest in these deserted countries. Hatteras was always intent
upon his maps, and said little; his taciturnity increased as the brig
got more and more south; he often mounted the poop, and there with
folded arms, and eyes lost in vacancy, he stood for hours. His orders,
when he gave any, were curt and rough. Shandon kept a cold silence,
and kept himself so much aloof by degrees that at last he had no
relations with Hatteras except those exacted by the service; James
Wall remained devoted to Shandon, and regulated his conduct
accordingly. The remainder of the crew waited for something to turn
up, ready to take any advantage in their own interest. There was no
longer that unity of thought and communion of ideas on board which
are so necessary for the accomplishment of anything great, and this
Hatteras knew to his sorrow.
During the day two whales were perceived rushing towards the south;
a white bear was also seen, and was shot at without any apparent
success. The captain knew the value of an hour under the circumstances,
and would not allow the animal to be chased.
On Wednesday morning the extremity of Regent's Channel was passed;
the angle on the west coast was followed by a deep curve in the land.
By consulting his map the doctor recognised the point of Somerset
House, or Fury Point.
"There," said he to his habitual companion--"there is the very spot
where the first English ship, sent into these seas in 1815, was lost,
during the third of Parry's voyages to the Pole; the _Fury_ was so
damaged by the ice on her second wintering, that her crew were obliged
to desert her and return to England on board her companion ship the
_Hecla_."
"That shows the advantage of having a second ship," answered Johnson.
"It is a precaution that Polar navigators ought not to neglect, but
Captain Hatteras wasn't the sort of man to trouble himself with
another ship."
"Do you think he is imprudent, Johnson?" asked the doctor.
"I? I think nothing, Mr. Clawbonny. Do you see those stakes over there
with some rotten tent-rags still hanging to them?"
"Yes; that's where Parry disembarked his provisions from his ship,
and, if I remember rightly, the roof of his tent was a topsail."
"Everything must be greatly changed since 1825!"
"Not so much as any one might think. John Ross owed the health and
safety of his crew to that fragile habitation in 1829. When the _Prince
Albert_ sent an expedition there in 1851, it was still existing;
Captain Kennedy had it repaired, nine years ago now. It would be
interesting to visit it, but Hatteras isn't in the humour to stop!"
"I daresay he is right, Mr. Clawbonny; if time is money in England,
here it is life, and a day's or even an hour's delay might make all
the difference."
During the day of Thursday, the 1st of June, the _Forward_ cut across
Creswell Bay; from Fury Point the coast rose towards the north in
perpendicular rocks three hundred feet high; it began to get lower
towards the south; some snow summits looked like neatly-cut tables,
whilst others were shaped like pyramids, and had other strange forms.
The weather grew milder during that day, but was not so clear; land
was lost to sight, and the thermometer went up to thirty-two degrees;
seafowl fluttered about, the flocks of wild ducks were seen flying
north; the crew could divest themselves of some of their garments,
and the influence of the Arctic summer began to be felt. Towards
evening the _Forward_ doubled Cape Garry at a quarter of a mile from
the shore, where the soundings gave from ten to twelve fathoms; from
thence she kept near the coast as far as Brentford Bay. It was under
this latitude that Bellot Strait was to be met with; a strait the
existence of which Sir John Ross did not even guess at during his
expedition in 1828; his maps indicated an uninterrupted coast-line,
whose irregularities he noted with the utmost care; the entrance to
the strait must therefore have been blocked up by ice at the time.
It was really discovered by Kennedy in April, 1852, and he gave it
the name of his lieutenant, Bellot, as "a just tribute," he said,
"to the important services rendered to our expedition by the French
officer."