thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth parallels, while his subordinate, Walker,
explored the valley and sink of the Humboldt. Rendezvousing at Lake
Walker and again separating, Frémont reached Sutter's Fort through the
American River route, while Walker and the main party crossed the
Sierras into the extreme southern part of the San Joaquin Valley,
opposite Tulare Lake. Of the survey and explorations made by the
expedition it may be briefly said that they added very greatly to a
knowledge of Upper California, and resulted in the publication in 1848
of the most accurate map of that region extant.
There was, however, another and more important phase to the third
expedition than that of mere exploration. Frémont before leaving
Washington was informed that war with Mexico was possible, and received
general unwritten instructions looking to such a contingency. The
forecast of trouble proved correct, and the preliminary and extensive
disturbances in California interfered most materially with the progress
of his surveys. Frémont's explorations westward of the Arkansas River
had been through and over Mexican territory. In order to place himself
in proper position as a non-invader he proceeded to Monterey, Cal., at
the earliest practicable moment and applied to the commanding general,
Don José Castro, for permission to extend, in the interests of science
and commerce, the geographical survey of the nearest route between the
United States and the Pacific Ocean. The request was granted promptly
and courteously. Scarcely had Frémont commenced his survey in Northern
California than he was peremptorily ordered by General Castro, who later
appears to have been acting under orders from the Mexican Government,
to quit the department; the message being coupled with an intimation
that non-compliance would result in expulsion by an armed force. The
message was delivered in such manner and language as incensed Frémont
and caused him to peremptorily refuse. Withdrawing a short distance he
erected a stockade and awaited expulsion by arms. The Mexican force made
several forward movements, but carefully avoided an attack. Frémont
finally judged it advisable to quit Mexican territory, as his remaining
might be detrimental to the United States. He consequently withdrew
slowly toward Oregon, surveying and exploring as he moved northward.
On May 7, 1845, Frémont was overtaken in the valley of the upper
Sacramento by Lieutenant Archibald H. Gillespie, of the marine corps,
who brought from Washington important despatches which were destined to
settle the fate of California as a Mexican state. Frémont was informed
through Gillespie that war with Mexico had been declared, that the
government counted upon him to ascertain and conciliate the disposition
of the people of California toward the United States, and especially to
conserve American interests by ascertaining and counteracting any scheme
looking to the cession of California to Great Britain. Frémont was then
surrounded by hostile Klamaths, who killed several of his party and with
whom he had several engagements, which resulted in the destruction of
the principal village, fishing appliances, etc., of the offending tribe.
Frémont, turning promptly southward, his heart set on the important
mission intrusted to him, saved from ravage the American settlements in
the valley of the Sacramento, which were in imminent danger of
destruction between the proclamation of the Mexican authorities ordering
confiscation and expulsion and the threatening attitude of the Indian
allies, incited by unscrupulous officials to activity. Aided by
volunteers from the American settlers Frémont freed California
permanently from Mexican domination, his actions receiving mention and
approval from the President in his Annual Message to Congress, in
December, 1846.
Commodore Stockton, United States Navy, charged with the control of
affairs on the Pacific Coast, appointed Frémont Governor and military
commander of California. When controversies arose between Commodore
Stockton, of the navy, and General Kearney, of the army, each having
authority from Washington to conquer California and organize its
government, Frémont adhered to Stockton, his first commander. In
consequence serious complications arose, which finally resulted in the
trial of Frémont, and, although the findings of the court were partly
disapproved and the sentence remitted, he resigned from the army.
His courage, persistency, and success in these expeditions gained for
Frémont world-wide reputation. At home he was named The Pathfinder;
abroad he received the Founders' Medal from the Royal Geographical
Society of England and many other well-deserved marks of appreciation
from geographers.
Devoted to California and to its exploration Frémont immediately fitted
out, at his own expense, another expedition, the fourth. In October,
1848, with thirty-three men and a large train he crossed the Rocky
Mountains, undeterred by his fearful experiences in 1844, and again
attempted the passage of the snow-covered Sierras in mid-winter. The
snow was deep, the guide inefficient, and the winter unusually cold.
One-third of his men and all his animals perished after suffering cold,
hunger, and fatigue of the most appalling character, and the remnant of
the expedition returned to Santa Fé. Unappalled by this overwhelming
disaster Frémont reorganized at Santa Fé a new party, and after a long,
perilous journey reached Sacramento in the spring of 1849.
Frémont's experiences during his surveys of the great valleys of the San
Joaquin and Sacramento caused him to fall under the fascinating spell
which California exercises over the greater number of its Eastern
settlers. The vast domain of its virgin forests, the luxuriance of its
vegetation, the extent and fertility of its valley lands, and its
incomparable climate were speedily recognized by Frémont as so many
physical conditions calculated to insure unparalleled prosperity when
once it should be occupied by Americans. He saw this vast region
practically a waste; its magnificent harbors unvexed, unbroken by the
keels of commerce; its unrivalled valleys awaiting the hand of
intelligent labor to transform them from mere pastures for scattered
herds of cattle into fruitful granaries, orchards, and vineyards capable
of feeding a continent. Imbued with these ideas he cast in his lot with
California, and was a potent power in making it a free State, and was
honored by election as its first Senator, unfortunately, however,
drawing the short term in the United States Senate.
Failing, through the defeat of his party, of re-election, Frémont
visited Europe for a brief and well-earned rest, which was broken by the
authorization of Congress for a survey of a trans-continental railway,
which awoke his dormant exploring spirit. Returning promptly to the
United States he organized an expedition under private auspices, which
started westward in September, 1853. He travelled by the central route
through the mountains of Colorado, passing over the Sierra Blanca,
through the Sandy Hill Pass and the valley of the Grand River. Turning
southward into Utah and crossing the Sawatch Mountains, Frémont's march
brought him to the Sierra Nevada near the end of winter, and their
passage was attempted near the thirty-seventh parallel. Thereof he
writes: "I was prepared to find the Sierra here broad, rugged, and
blocked with snow, and was not disappointed in my expectations." The
snow being impassable and food failing he made a detour of some seventy
miles to the southward and reached the Kern River Valley through Walker
Pass. The march entailed endless suffering and extreme privations on the
party, which was pushed to the direst extremities to preserve life. They
were often without food of any kind for an entire day and for many weeks
had only the flesh of their emaciated and exhausted horses. The
disastrous outcome of this expedition impaired Frémont's reputation, it
appearing, then as now, surprising that, aware by bitter experience of
the impracticability of such a journey, he should have so timed his
march as to be again overwhelmed by the dreadful winter snow of the
Nevada range.
This sketch has in view the treatment neither of Frémont's career as a
soldier nor as a politician, which phases of his life, viewed by
ordinary circumstances, may be considered as unsuccessful. It need not
be here dwelt on that his name became a watchword of the ever-growing
spirit of human freedom, and that as the standard-bearer of an idea he
astonished the country and the world by obtaining the suffrages of
nearly one and a half millions of his countrymen for the highest office
in the gift of the people. His unwavering, if impractical, devotion to
freedom was forcibly illustrated by his emancipation proclamation in
Missouri, which he declined to recall, even at the request of the
President who revoked it.
It is undoubted that Frémont's non-success in business and political
ventures has tended to diminish his reputation as an explorer, a
reputation which, it is safe to say, must continue to grow steadily in
the future with the development of the great trans-Rocky Mountain region
to which he gave the enthusiasm of his youth, the maturity of his
manhood, and for which he sacrificed his profession and his private
fortune. While Frémont loved all the great West, it was to California
especially that he gave the best he had of mind, heart, and body, never
sparing himself in any effort for the upbuilding of her future. So it is
that in the scene of his activities on the shores of the golden Pacific,
rather than on the coast of the Atlantic, should be more appreciated the
labors and ever grow brighter and brighter the name of John C. Frémont,
the Pathfinder.
IX.
ELISHA KENT KANE,
ARCTIC EXPLORER.
Among the picturesque and striking figures of Arctic explorers none
abides more firmly in the minds of Americans than that of Elisha Kent
Kane, whose career and fame largely relate to the fate of the lost
explorer, Sir John Franklin.
Kane was born in Philadelphia, February 3, 1820. In 1842 he graduated in
medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and the following year,
while waiting for a vacancy in the medical corps of the navy, for which
he had passed an examination, sailed on the frigate Brandywine, as
physician to the embassy, to China, under Caleb Cushing, Minister
Plenipotentiary. Later, commissioned as an officer of the medical corps
of the United States Navy, he served on the west coast of Africa, in
Brazil, in the Mediterranean, and on special duty with the army in
Mexico. This brief statement of his duties conveys, however, no idea of
the intense energy and restless activity of Kane in his eager efforts to
acquire personal knowledge of the very ends of the earth.
Indeed, considering Kane's very short life (he died at thirty-seven),
there is no man of modern times to whom the words of Tennyson, in his
strong poem of Ulysses, more fittingly apply:
"I cannot rest from travel, ...
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known: cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least but honored of them all."
Suffice it here to say that before Kane was thirty he had visited in
America the greater part of the eastern half of the United States, the
city of Mexico, Cuba, and Brazil from Rio de Janeiro to the eastern
Andes; in Africa, along the Gold and Slave Coasts, to Dahomey, Cape
Colony, and up the Nile to the Second Cataract; in Europe, the eastern,
southern, and central countries; in Asia, the coast of China, Ceylon,
India from Bombay to the Himalayas, Persia, and Syria. Elsewhere he had
travelled in the islands of Cape Verde, Singapore, Java, Sumatra, and
Luzon of the Philippines. This incessant travel is the more remarkable
as he was always sea-sick, was a man of delicate physique, and nowhere
passed six months without being prostrated by severe illness. As to
personal experiences, he had been wounded in Egypt by a Bedouin who
strove to rob him, narrowly escaped death in saving captured Mexican
officers from slaughter at the hands of renegade irregulars, and barely
survived his unique experiences in the crater of a volcano.
[Illustration: Elisha Kent Kane.]
His descent into the volcano of Tael, in the Philippines, illustrates
Kane's utter disregard of dangers whenever he desired to investigate any
phenomena. As related by Dr. Elder, Kane not only was lowered two
hundred feet below the point usually visited, but descended to the very
surface of the burning lake and dipped his specimen bottles into the
steaming sulphur water. This feat nearly cost him his life, for although
he was able to crawl to and fasten the bamboo ropes around his body,
yet his boots were charred in pieces on his feet, sulphurous
air-currents stifled him into insensibility, and he would have perished
had it not been for the strenuous exertions of Baron Löe, his companion.
The turning-point in Kane's life came in 1850, when, induced by the
persistent petition of Lady Franklin, President Taylor recommended to
Congress an appropriation for an expedition in search of Sir John
Franklin and his missing ships. Kane immediately volunteered for Arctic
service, pressing and urging his application by every means at his
command. Congress acted tardily, so that the whole expedition was fitted
out in eighteen days, and Kane at the last moment, when his hopes had
failed, received orders as surgeon of the Advance, the flagship, which
he joined May 20, 1850.
The expedition owed its existence to the enterprise and generosity of
Henry Grinnell, whose philanthropic mind planned, practical energy
equipped, and munificence endowed it. Without Grinnell's action Congress
would have failed to fit out the expedition, and the grateful chapter of
American co-operation with England in its Franklin search would have
been unwritten. Such practical displays of sympathy in matters of
general and national interest, now considered the most hopeful signs of
international fellowship, may be said to have been inaugurated by the
despatch of the first Grinnell expedition on its errand of humanity.
Under a joint resolution of Congress, passed May 2, 1850, the President
was authorized "to accept and attach to the navy two vessels offered by
Henry Grinnell, Esq., to be sent to the Arctic seas in search of Sir
John Franklin and his companions." These vessels--two very small brigs,
the flagship Advance and the Rescue--were placed under command of
Lieutenant Edwin J. DeHaven, an officer of Antarctic service under
Wilkes. The vessels had detachable rudders, modern fittings, were
admirably strengthened and fully equipped; in short, they were
thoroughly adapted to the difficult navigation in prospect. Where
Grinnell's forethought and liberality ended there was, says Kane,
another tale: the strictly naval equipment could not be praised, and the
"crews consisted of man-of-war's-men of various climes and habitudes,
with constitutions most of them impaired by disease or temporarily
broken by the excesses of shore life;" but he commends them as ever
brave, willing, and reliable.
The squadron touched at various Greenland ports and then entered the
dreaded ice-pack of Melville Bay, in which the sailing vessels made slow
progress; but in their besetment of three weeks the only dangerous
experience was a "nip," which nearly destroyed the Advance. The movement
of the ice-floes is thus graphically told by Kane: "The momentum of the
assailing floe was so irresistible that as it impinged against the solid
margin of the land ice there was no recoil, no interruption to its
progress. The elastic material corrugated before the enormous pressure,
then cracked, then crumbled, and at last rose, the lesser over the
greater, sliding up in great inclined planes, and these again, breaking
by their weight and their continued impulse, toppled over in long lines
of fragmentary ice."
DeHaven entered Lancaster Sound, near the end of August, in company with
half a dozen English ships bound on the same humane errand, and on the
24th Master Griffin, of the Rescue, participated in the search with
Captain Ommaney, which resulted in the discovery, on Beechy Island, of
vestiges of an encampment. Two days later DeHaven and Kane shared in the
joint search, wherein Captain Penny discovered the graves of three of
Franklin's crew. These discoveries proved that Franklin's expedition had
wintered there during 1845-46, and later innumerable traces of their
stay were noted, indicating the good condition and activity of the
expedition. On September 10th DeHaven's squadron was off Griffith Island
in company with eight English search ships. Consulting with Griffin,
DeHaven concluded that they had not attained such a position as promised
advantageous operations in the season of 1851, and so decided to
extricate the vessels from the ice and return home.
[Illustration: The Arctic Highway.]
Strong gales and an unusually early advance of winter prevented such
action and resulted in the ships being frozen up in the pack, where they
drifted helplessly to and fro, a condition they were destined to undergo
for many months. Beset in the middle of Wellington Channel, the American
squadron, with varying movements to and fro, first drifted under the
influence of southerly gales to the north-northwest, attaining latitude
75° 25´ N., longitude 93° 31´ W. In this northerly drift the expedition
discovered Murdaugh Island and quite extensive masses of land to the
northwest of North Devon, to which the name of Grinnell was given. This
land was further extended the following year by the discoveries of
Captain Penny, and most unwarrantable efforts were made by ungenerous
and unappreciating officials in England to take from the American
squadron its ewe lamb of 1850, an attempt that, properly refuted, failed
of its purpose.
October 2, 1860, the direction of the drift changed to the south and
later to the east. Their involuntary course lay through Wellington
Channel, Barrow Strait, and Lancaster Sound into Baffin Bay, where
release came, near Cape Walsingham, June 5, 1851. The drift covered ten
hundred and fifty miles and lasted eight and a half months. The sun was
absent twelve weeks. It is impossible to adequately describe the
physical and mental sufferings of the party during this protracted ice
imprisonment. It was a constant succession of harassing conditions,
each, if possible, seeming worse than the former. Now the ships were so
firmly imbedded in the cemented ice-pack that extrication appeared
impossible; again the complete disruption of the pack threatened, or the
instant destruction of their vessels impended, with prospects of a
winter on the naked floe under such conditions of darkness, sickness,
lack of shelter, and suitable nutrition as would render a lingering
death unavoidable. No single week passed with a feeling of security; for
days at a time there was no hour free from terrible suspense as to what
fate might immediately befall, and four times in one day the entire
party prepared to abandon ship at order. The cold became extreme, the
mean of one week in March being thirty-one degrees below zero; seal and
other fresh meat could be got only in small quantities, and scurvy, the
bane of Arctic explorers, affected all save six of the crew, DeHaven
being put off duty by this disease. In all these terrible experiences,
which were borne with a fortitude, courage, and patience most
creditable, Kane was first and foremost in sustaining the heroic efforts
of Griffin, master of the Rescue, on whom the executive duties devolved
during DeHaven's illness. It may be said that not only Kane's medical
skill, but also his cheeriness, activity, and ingenious devices
contributed largely to conserve the health, spirits, and morale of the
crew in these dark hours when despair seemed justified.
Released from the pack, DeHaven patched up his injured ships and
attempted to return and prosecute further the Franklin search; but,
stopped in his return journey by ice in the upper part of Melville Bay,
he judiciously decided to return to the United States, which was safely
reached September 30, 1851.
The following extracts from Kane's very vivid account of the expedition
illustrate some of the most striking phases of their experiences as
recorded in his journal.
Of the conditions and experience of the Advance in the moving ice-pack
he says:
"We were yet to be familiarized with the strife of the ice-tables, now
broken into tumbling masses and piling themselves in angry confusion
against our sides; now fixed in chaotic disarray by the fields of new
ice that imbedded them in a single night; again, perhaps, opening in
treacherous pools, only to close around us with a force that threatened
to grind our brig to powder."
"A level snow-covered surface was rising up in inclined planes or rudely
undulating curves. These, breaking at their summits, fell off on each
side in masses of twenty tons' weight. Tables of six feet in thickness
by twenty of perpendicular height, and some of them fifteen yards in
length, surging up into the misty air, heaving, rolling, tottering, and
falling with a majestic deliberation worthy of the forces that impelled
them."
The following descriptions indicate the narrow escapes of the ships from
destruction during disruptions of the ice-pack:
"The separated sides would come together with an explosion like a
mortar, craunching the newly formed field and driving it headlong in
fragments for fifty feet upon the floe till it piled up against our
bulwarks. Everything betokened a crisis. Sledges, boats, packages of all
sorts were disposed in order; contingencies were met as they approached
by new delegations of duty; every man was at work, officers and seamen
alike. The Rescue, crippled and thrown away from us to the further side
of a chasm, was deserted, and her company consolidated with ours. Our
own brig groaned and quivered under the pressure against her sides."
"The ice came in with the momentum before mentioned as irresistible,
progressive, and grand. All expected to betake ourselves sledgeless to
the ice, for the open space around the vessel barely admits of a
foot-board. The timbers and even cross-beams protected by shores
vibrated so as to communicate to you the peculiar tremor of a
cotton-factory. Presently the stern of the brig, by a succession of
jerking leaps, began to rise, while her bows dipped toward the last
night's ice ahead. Everybody looked to see her fall upon her beam-ends
and rushed out upon the ice."
"On the 13th the hummock ridge astern advanced with a steady march upon
the vessel. Twice it rested and advanced again--a dense wall of ice,
thirty feet broad at the base and twelve feet high, tumbling huge
fragments from its crest, yet increasing in mass at every new effort. We
had ceased to hope, when a merciful interposition arrested it, so close
against our counter that there was scarcely room for a man to pass
between. Half a minute of progress more and it would have buried us all.
As we drifted along five months afterward this stupendous memento of
controlling power was still hanging over our stern."
The discomfort of the prescribed out-of-door exercise in extreme cold
appears from the following:
[Illustration: A Sleeping-bag for Three Men.]