+-------------------+-----------+---------------------+-----_Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal Or, Eighteen Months in the Polar Regions, in Search of Sir John Franklin's Expedition, in the Years 1850-51

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| Ditto ditto }| | Nothing adventure, |Mr. Vesey |

| to Lieutenant }|Adventure | Nothing win |Hamilton (mate), |

| Osborne |seven men. |

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To the highly important direction northward up the unknown channel of

Byam Martin Island, and which, as Lieut. Aldrich very properly thought,

would intercept the course of Franklin, should he, from Wellington

Channel, have sailed north about for Behring's Straits, two sledges

were told off under that officer:--

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Lastly to Melville Island, on which route a dépôt, forty miles in

advance, had already been placed in the autumn, and renewed in the

spring, the following party was appointed: Lieut. M'Clintock, on his

reaching the said island, acting as he should judge fit as to

despatching Mr. Bradford along the northern shores, whilst he

prosecuted the search to and beyond Winter Harbour:--

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| | | |6 men. |

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| Do. |Resolute | Onward to |6 men. |

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|6 men. |

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Mr. M'Dougal, I have before said, started during the first week of

April with his sledge, the "Beaufort,"--

That future pilgrims of the wave may be

Secure from doubt, from every danger free.

He had to replenish the dépôt formed for Lieut. M'Clintock, and then to

connect the search round a deep bay, which connected Bathurst and

Cornwallis Lands, for separate islands they were proved by him no

longer to be.

[Headnote: _DIVISIONS OF SLEDGES._]

Thus fifteen sledges, manned by one hundred and five men and officers,

were equipped for the search, leaving on board the four vessels of the

squadron, seventy-five souls, which number was afterwards further

reduced by Mr. R. C. Allen being sent to search the islands to the

westward with the sledge "Grinnell" and seven men.

It now only remains for me to show in what manner it was proposed to

enable the supporting sledges to apply their resources, so that the

long-parties should reach far beyond the two hundred miles, or twenty

days' journey, of which they were alone capable when dependent on their

own provision.

The plan proposed in the southern division will give the best idea. The

supporting sledge "Success" was capable of feeding all the division for

five days, by which time we hoped to be at Cape Walker, and then have

sufficient to return back to the squadron, where it could again

replenish, and, returning to the same point at which we had separated

from it, form such a dépôt that each of the sledges in return would

find five days' provisions to carry them home. By this means six out of

the seven sledges in the southern search will be seen to reach a point

fifty miles from their original starting-point in perfect condition so

far as their provisions are concerned.

We will, for the sake of clearness, cause these six sledges to divide

into three divisions, of two each, viz., a long-party sledge and a

support: in each case the support can feed the long party for ten days,

and then, forming a dépôt of provisions equal to ten days more, have

sufficient left to reach back to Walker, and thence home. The long

party are now still complete, after receiving two supports, equal to

fifteen days, or 150 miles; and two dépôts stand in their rear, the one

for ten days, the other for five days. The long party now starts,

consuming its own provision (forming its own dépôts for the returning

march), advances for twenty days, and accomplishes 200 miles; which,

with that done whilst supported, makes in all a journey outward of

thirty-five days, or 350 miles from the ships. Of course, with an

increased number of supports, this distance and time may be carried on

as long as the strength of the men will endure, or the travelling

season admit of.

On the 12th of April, the day calm and cold, some 50° below

freezing-point, a scene of bustle and merriment showed that the sledges

were mustering previous to being taken to the starting-point, under the

north-west bluff of Griffith's Island, to which they marched with due

military pomp in two columns, directed by our chiefs. Our sense of

decorum was constantly overthrown by the gambols of divers dogs, given

to us by Captain Penny, with small sledges attached to them, on which,

their food duly marked and weighed, with flags, mottoes, &c., in fact,

perfect fac-similes of our own, were racing about, entangling

themselves, howling for assistance, or else running between the men's

legs and capsizing them on the snow, amidst shouts of laughter, and sly

witticisms at the _tenders_, as they were termed. Reaching the

halting-place, tents were pitched, luncheon served out, and all of us

inspected, approved of, ordered to fall in, a speech made, which, as

was afterwards remarked, buttered us all up admirably; the thanks of

our leader given to Mr. M'Clintock, to whose foresight, whilst in

England, and whose valuable information collated during his travelling

experience under Sir James Ross, we were so entirely indebted for the

perfect equipment we now had with us.

[Headnote: _SLEDGES READY TO START._]

The inspection over, we trudged back to our ships, Sunday being spent

by the men in cooking and eating, knowing as they did that there were a

good many banian days ahead, packing up and putting away their kits,

and making little arrangements in the event of accidents to themselves.

Monday was no day for a start; but on the evening of the 15th April the

breeze slackened, and the temperature only some 14° below

freezing-point, we donned our marching attire, girded up our loins, and

all hands proceeded to the sledges.

As we shut in our wooden homes with a projecting point of Griffith's

Island, the weather suddenly changed, and a fast increasing breeze

enveloped us in snow-drift. Reaching the sledges, and shaking them

clear from the snow of the last two days, a hasty cup of tea and a

mouthful of biscuit were partaken of, a prayer offered up, beseeching

His mercy and guidance whose kind providence we all knew could alone

support us in the hazardous journey we were about to undertake; hearty

farewells, in which rough jokes covered many a kindly wish towards one

another; and then, grasping their tracking lines, a hundred hoarse

voices joined in loud cheers, and the divisions of sledges, diverging

on their different routes, were soon lost to one another in snow and

mist.

An April night, with its gray twilight, was no match for the darkness

of a snow-storm from the S.W., and we had almost to feel our road

through the broken ice off the bluffs of Griffith's Island.

At two o'clock in the morning we reached much piled-up ice; and in the

hope of clearer weather in the evening, the word to halt and pitch the

tents was given. The seven sledges of the division, picking out the

smoothest spots, were soon secured. The tents fluttering in the breeze,

a little tea cooked, short orders given, and then each man got into his

blanket-bag, and dreamed of a fine day and finding Sir John Franklin.

In the evening the weather was still thick as pea-soup, with a

double-reef topsail breeze blowing in our teeth; but detention was

impossible, so we again packed up after a meal of chocolate and

biscuit, and facing towards Cape Walker, we carried the hummocks by

storm. Ignorance was bliss. Straight ahead, over and through every

thing, was the only way; and, fresh, hearty, and strong, we surmounted

tier after tier, which more light and a clearer view might only have

frightened us from attempting. Here, a loud cheer told where a sledge

had scaled the pile in its path, or shot in safety down the slope of

some huge hummock. There, the cry, one! two! three! haul! of a party,

and quizzical jokes upon name, flag, or motto, betokened that "Success"

or "True Blue" had floundered into a snow-wreath, above which the top

of the sledge-load was only to be seen, whilst seven red-faced mortals,

grinning, and up to their waists in snow, were perseveringly

endeavouring to extricate it; officers encouraging, and showing the

way; the men labouring and laughing. A wilder or more spirit-stirring

scene cannot be imagined.

A hard night's toil cleared all obstacles, and nothing but a fair,

smooth floe was before us, sweeping with a curve to the base of Cape

Walker; but a fresh difficulty was then met with, in the total absence

of hummock or berg-piece, by which to preserve a course in the thick,

foggy weather, that lasted whilst the warm south wind blew. Imagine,

kind reader, a grayish haze, with fast-falling snow, a constant wind in

the face, and yourself trying to steer a straight course where floe and

sky were of one uniform colour. A hand dog-vane was found the best

guide, for of course it was impossible to keep a compass constantly in

hand; and the officers forming in a line ahead, so as just to keep a

good sight of one another, were followed by the sledges, the crews of

which soon learned that the easiest mode of travelling, and most equal

division of labour, consisted in marching directly after one another;

and as the leading sledge had the extra work of forming the road

through the snow, and straining the men's eyes in keeping sight of the

officers, the foremost sledge was changed every half hour or hour,

according to their will.

[Headnote: _TRAVELLING BY NIGHT._]

It will be seen that we travelled by night, and hoped by such means to

avoid the glare of the sun, and consequent snow-blindness. It entailed,

however, at this early season of the year, great suffering in the shape

of cold, the people being exposed to the weather during the severest

part of the day. From the 15th to the 19th the weather was of the same

nature,--constant gales of wind in our faces, snow-storms, and heavy

drift; against which we struggled, helped by a rising temperature, that

we flattered ourselves would end in summer,--a mistake for which we

afterwards suffered bitterly, the men having, from the ease with which

they kept themselves warm, become careless of their clothing, and

heedless of those precautions against frost-bite which a winter's

experience had taught them.

Easter Sunday came in gloomily, with a wind inclined to veer to the

northward, and with every appearance of bad weather. Setting our sails

on the sledges, and kites likewise when the wind served, the division

hurried on for Cape Walker, which loomed now and then through the

snow-drift ahead of us. The rapidity of the pace at which we now

advanced--thanks to the help afforded by the sails--threw all into a

profuse perspiration, especially the seamen, who really looked as if

toiling under a tropical sun rather than in an arctic night, with the

temperature below freezing-point. Fatigue obliged us to halt short of

the land, and postpone for another day's march the landing on the

unvisited shores of Cape Walker.

During the sleeping hours, the increased attention to the fur covering,

and the carefully closed door, told us that the temperature was

falling; and the poor cook, with a rueful countenance, announced that

it was below zero, as he prepared the morning meal. More than usual

difficulty was found in pulling on our stiffly-frozen boots, stockings,

and outer garments; and when the men went out of the tent they soon

found their clothing becoming perfectly hard, from the action of the

intense cold on what had been for several days saturated with

perspiration. To start and march briskly was now the only safety, and

in double-quick time tents were down and sledges moving. A nor'-wester

was fast turning up, and as the night of Easter Monday closed around

us, the cold increased with alarming rapidity. One of those magnificent

conglomerations of halos and parhelia common to these regions lit up

the northern heavens, and, by the brilliancy of colouring and startling

number of false suns, seemed as if to be mocking the sufferings of our

gallant fellows, who, with faces averted and bended bodies, strained

every nerve to reach the land, in hopes of obtaining more shelter than

the naked floe afforded from the nipping effects of the cutting gale.

Every moment some fresh case of frost-bite would occur, which the

watchful care of the officers would immediately detect. The man would

fall out from his sledge, restore the circulation of the affected part,

generally the face, and then hasten back to his post. Constant

questions of "How are your feet?" were heard on all sides, with the

general response, "Oh! I hope they are all right; but I've not felt

them since I pulled my boots on."

[Headnote: _COLD AND FROST-BITES._]

One halt was made to remove and change all leather boots, which, in

consequence of our late warm weather, had been taken into use, but were

now no longer safe; and then, with a rally, the piled-up floe around

the cliffs of Cape Walker was reached. Cold and hungry as we were, it

must have been a heavy barrier indeed to have stopped our men from

taking their sledges to the land; and piled as the floe was against the

Cape, full fifty feet high, we carried our craft over it in safety, and

just in time too, for the north-west wind rushed down upon us, as if to

dispute our right to intrude on its dominion. Hastily securing the

tents, we hurried in to change our boots, and to see whether our feet

were frost-bitten or not; for it was only by ocular proof that one

could be satisfied of their safety, sensation having apparently long

ceased. I shall not easily forget my painful feelings, when one gallant

fellow of my party, the captain of the sledge, exclaimed, "Both feet

gone, sir!" and sure enough they were, white as two lumps of ice, and

equally cold; for as we of the tent party anxiously in turn placed our

warm hands on the frost-bitten feet, the heat was extracted in a

marvellously short time, and our half-frozen hands had to be succeeded

by fresh ones as quickly as possible. With returning circulation the

poor fellow's agonies must have been intense; and some hours afterwards

large blisters formed over the frost-bitten parts, as if the feet had

been severely scalded. Sadly cramped as we were for room, much worse

was it when a sick man was amongst our number. Sleep was out of the

question; and to roll up in the smallest possible compass, and try to

think of something else than the cold, which pierced to the very marrow

in one's bones, was our only resource.

Next day, Tuesday, 22d April, wind N.W. blowing hard, and temperature

at 44° below freezing-point, parties left the encampment under

Lieutenants Browne and Mecham, to look around for cairns, &c., and

report upon the trend of the land, whilst the rest of us secured a

dépôt of Halkett's boats, and built a cairn as a record of our visit.

As it is not my intention to give a detailed account of the operations

of the Southern Division, but merely to tell of those events which will

convey to the reader a general idea of the incidents connected with

Arctic travelling, I shall without further comment give them, leaving

to the curious in the minutiæ of the journeys the amusement of reading

in the Admiralty Blue Books the details of when we eat, drank, slept,

or marched.

Cape Walker was found to form the eastern and most lofty extreme of a

land-trending to the south-west on its northern coast, and to the south

on its eastern shore. The cape itself, full 1000 feet in altitude, was

formed of red sandstone and conglomerate, very abrupt to the eastward,

but dipping with an undulating outline to the west.

In its immediate neighbourhood no traces of Franklin having visited it

were to be seen, and, as a broad channel ran to the southward (there

was every reason to believe down to the American continent, and thence

to Behring's Straits), by which Franklin might have attempted to pass,

Captain Ommanney, very properly despatched Lieutenant Browne to examine

the coast of Cape Walker Land, down the channel to the southward; and

then, the "Success" sledge having previously departed with invalids,

the five remaining sledges, on the evening of the 24th of April,

marched to the westward. Previous to that date it had been impossible

to move, on account of a strong gale in our faces, together with a

severe temperature.

[Headnote: _INJURY TO THE EYES._]

Every mile that we advanced showed us that the coast was one which

could only be approachable by ships at extraordinary seasons: the ice

appeared the accumulation of many years, and bore, for some forty

miles, a quiet, undisturbed look. Then we passed into a region with

still more aged features: there the inequalities on the surface,

occasioned by the repeated snows of winter and thaws of summer, gave it

the appearance of a constant succession of hill and dale. Entangled

amongst it, our men laboured with untiring energy, up steep acclivities

and through pigmy ravines, in which the loose snow caused them to sink

deeply, and sadly increased their toil. To avoid this description of

ice, amongst which a lengthened journey became perfectly hopeless, we

struck in for the land, preferring the heavy snow that encumbered the

beach to such a heart-breaking struggle as that on the floe. The injury

had, however, been done during our last day's labour among the

hummocks; a fine clear evening had given us the full effects of a

powerful sunlight upon the pure virgin-snow: the painful effect, those

alone can conceive who have witnessed it. All was white, brilliant, and

dazzling; the eye in vain turned from earth to heaven for rest or

shade,--there was none; an unclouded sunlight poured through the calm

and frosty air with merciless power, and the sun, being exactly in our

faces, increased the intensity of its effects.

That day several complained of a dull aching sensation in the eyeball,

as if it had been overstrained, and on the morrow blindness was rapidly

coming on. From experience, I can speak of the mental anxiety which

must have likewise, with others, supervened, at the thought of one's

entire helplessness, and the encumbrance one had become to others, who,

God knows, had troubles and labour enough of their own. Gradually the

film spread itself, objects became dimmer and dimmer, and at last all

was darkness, with an intense horror of the slightest ray of sunlight.

In this condition, many of the four sledge-parties reached a place

called by us all, in commemoration of the event, "Snow-blind Point," at

the entrance of a bay in 100° W. long.

Unable to advance in consequence of a severe gale, which raged for

six-and-thirty hours, we found, on the 1st of May, that sixteen men and

one officer were, more or less, snow-blind and otherwise unwell; a

large proportion out of the entire number of thirty souls. To be ill in

any place is trying enough; but such an hospital as a brown-holland

tent, with the thermometer in it at 18° below zero, the snow for a bed,

your very breath forming into a small snow called "barber," which

penetrated into your very innermost garments, and no water to be

procured to assuage the thirst of fever until snow had been melted for

the purpose, called for much patience on the part of the patients, and

true Samaritan feelings on the part of the "doctors,"--a duty which had

now devolved on each officer of a sledge-party, or, in default of him,

upon some kind volunteer amongst the men. Happily, the effects of

snow-blindness are not lasting, for we recovered as suddenly as we had

been struck down. The gale blew itself out, leaving all calm and still,

as if the death-like scenery was incapable of such wild revelry as it

had been enjoying; and again we plodded onwards, parting from the last

supporting sledge on the 6th of May.

Since leaving Cape Walker on the 24th of April, we had gradually

passed, in a distance of sixty miles, from a red sandstone to a

limestone region; the scenery at every mile becoming more and more

monotonous, and less marked by bold outline, cliff, or mountain: as far

as the bay, of which Snow-blind Point formed one extreme, a long range

of hills, soft and rounded in _contour_, faced the sea, and sloped

to it with a gradual inclination, some three miles in length; ravines

became more and more scarce; and after passing the bay, in 100° long.

W., none of any size were to be seen. Drearily monotonous as all Arctic

scenery must naturally be, when one universal mantle of snow makes

earth and water alike, such a tame region as this was, if possible,

more so; and walking along the weary terraces, which in endless

succession swept far into the interior, and then only rose in

diminutive heights of maybe 500 feet, I recalled to memory the like

melancholy aspect of the Arctic shores of Asia as described by Baron

Wrangell.

[Headnote: _ZEAL OF THE MEN._]

The broken and rugged nature of the floes obliged us to keep creeping

along the coast-line, whilst our ignorance of the land ahead, its trend

or direction, occasioned, together with the endless thick weather that

we had until the 14th May, many a weary mile to be trodden over, which

a knowledge of the bays or indentations would have saved us. It was

under such unprofitable labour that the sterling value of our men the

more conspicuously showed itself. Captain Ommanney, myself, and Mr.

Webb of the "Pioneer," (who sooner than be left behind had voluntarily

taken his place as one of the sledge-crew,) were the only three

officers; we were consequently thrown much into the society of the men,

and I feel assured I am not singular in saying that that intercourse

served much to raise our opinion of the character and indomitable

spirit of our seamen and marines. On them fell the hard labour, to us

fell the honours of the enterprise, and to our chief the reward; yet

none equalled the men in cheerfulness and sanguine hopefulness of a

successful issue to our enterprise, without which, of course, energy

would soon have flagged. Gallant fellows! they met our commiseration

with a smile, and a vow that they could do far more. They spoke of cold

as "Jack Frost," a real tangible foe, with whom they could combat and

would master. Hunger was met with a laugh, and a chuckle at some future

feast or jolly recollections told, in rough terms, of by-gone good

cheer; and often, standing on some neighbouring pile of ice, and

scanning the horizon for those we sought, have I heard a rough voice

encouraging the sledge-crew by saying, "Keep step, boys! keep step! she

(the sledge) is coming along almost by herself: there's the 'Erebus's'

masts showing over the point ahead! Keep step, boys! keep step!"

[Headnote: _PLEASING DREAMS._]

Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal Or, Eighteen Months in the Polar Regions, in Search of Sir John Franklin's Expedition, in the Years 1850-51 · 第 11 / 15 段