THE OPEN SEA.
MORTON and Hans returned to the brig on the tenth of July, after having
been on their separate exploration three weeks and a half. Their story
is full of thrilling incidents and important results.
The first day they made twenty-eight miles, and were greatly encouraged.
The next day the arctic enemies of exploration appeared on the field,
skirmishing with deep snow through which dogs and men had to wade. Next
came a compact host of icebergs. They were not the surface-worn,
dingy-looking specimens of Baffin Bay, but fresh productions from the
grand glacier near which they lay. Their color was bluish white, and
their outlines clearly and beautifully defined. Some were square, often
a quarter of a mile each side. Others were not less than a mile long,
and narrow. Now and then one of colossal size lifted its head far above
its fellows, like a grand observatory. Between these giant bergs were
crowded smaller ones of every imaginable size and form.
Through these our explorers had to pick their way. Beginning one night
at eight, they dashed along through a narrow lane, turning this way and
that, for seven hours. Then they came against the face of a solid
ice-cliff, closing the path altogether. Back they urged their weary
dogs, and their own weary selves, looking for an opening by which they
might turn north, but none appeared until they reached the camp from
which they had started. Resting awhile, they commenced anew.
Sometimes they climbed over an ice hillock, making a ladder of their
sledge. Morton would climb up first, and then draw up the dogs, around
whose bodies Hans tied a rope; then the load was passed up; lastly Hans
mounted, and drew up the sledge.
Having broken through the bergy detachment of their arctic foes and
reached smoother ice, other opposing columns met them. Dense mists,
giving evidence of open water, chilled and bewildered them; but the
welcome birds, giving other proof of the nearness of the Polar Sea,
cheered them on.
The next attack was in the form of insecure ice. The dogs were dashing
on in their wild flight when it began to yield beneath them. The dogs
trembled with fear and lay down, as is their habit in such cases. Hans,
by a skillful mingling of force and coaxing, succeeding in getting the
party out of the danger.
At one time a long, wide channel presented its protest to their farther
progress. To this they were obliged so far to yield as to go ten miles
out of their way to reach its northern side.
Their right of way was also challenged by seams in the ice often four
feet deep, filled with water, and too wide for their best jumping
ability. These they filled up by attacking the nearest hummocks with
their axes and tumbling the fragments into it until a bridge was made.
This work often caused hours of delay.
The signs of open water became more and more apparent. The birds were so
plenty that Hans brought down two at one shot. Soon they struck the icy
edge of a channel. Along this they coasted on the land side. It brought
them to a cape around which the channel run close to a craggy point.
Here they deposited a part of their provisions to lighten the sledge.
Morton went ahead to learn the condition of the land-ice round the
point. He found it narrow and decaying, so that he feared there would be
none on their return; yet, forward! was the word. The dogs were unloosed
and driven forward alone; then Hans and Morton tilted the sledge
edgewise and drew it along, while far below the gurgling waters were
rushing southward with a freight of crushed ice.
The cape passed, they opened into a bay of clear water extending far and
wide. Along its shore was a wide, smooth ice-belt. Over this the dogs
scampered with their sledge and men with wonderful fleetness, making
sixty miles the first day! The land grew more and more sloping to the
bay as they advanced until it opened from the sea into a plain between
two elevated rocky ranges. Into this they entered, steering north, until
they struck the entrance of a bay; but the rugged ice across their path
forbid farther sledge-travel in that direction. So they picketed,
securely, as they thought, the dogs, took each a back load of
provisions, and went forward. Their trusty rifles were in hand, and
their boat-hook and a few scientific instruments were carefully secured
to their persons. Thus equipped, they had tramped about nine miles from
the last camp when an exciting scene occurred. It was a bear fight,
shaded this time with the tender and tragic. A mother-bear and her child
came in sight. They were a loving couple, and had plainly been engaged
in a frolic together. Their tracks were scattered profusely about, like
those of school children at recess in a recent snow. There were also
long furrows down the sloping side of an ice-hill, upon and around which
the footprints were seen. Morton declared that they had been coasting
down this slope on their haunches, and this opinion was supported by the
fact that Dr. Kane did, at another time, see bears thus coasting!
Five of the dogs had broken away from their cords and had overtaken
their masters. So they were on hand for the fight.
Mother and child fled with nimble feet, and the dogs followed in hot
pursuit. The bear, being overtaken by her enemies, began a most skillful
and heroic skirmishing. The cub could not keep up with its mother, so
she turned back, put her head under its haunches and threw it some
distance ahead, intimating to it to run, while she faced the dogs. But
the little simpleton always stopped just where it alighted, and waited
for mamma to give it another throw! To vary the mode of operation, she
occasionally seized it by the nape of the neck and flung it out of harms
way, and then snapped at the dogs with an earnestness that meant
business. Sometimes the mother would run a little ahead and then turn,
as if to coax the little one to run to her, watching at the same time
the enemy.
For a while the bear contrived to make good speed; but the little one
became tired and she came to a halt. The men came up with their rifles
and the fight became unequal, yet the mother's courage was unabated. She
sat upon her haunches and took the cub between her hind legs, and fought
the dogs with her paws. "Never," says Morton, "was animal more
distressed; her roaring could have been heard a mile! She would stretch
her neck and snap at the nearest dog with her shining teeth, whirling
her paws like the arms of a windmill." Missing her intended victim, she
sent after him a terrific growl of baffled rage.
When the men came up the little one was so far rested as to nimbly turn
with its mother and so keep front of her belly. The dogs, in heartless
mockery of her situation, continued a lively frisking on every side of
her, torturing her at a safe distance for themselves.
Such was the position of the contending parties when Hans threw himself
upon the ice, rested upon his elbows, took deliberate aim, and sent a
ball through the heroic mother's head. She dropped, rolled over,
relieved at once of her agony and her life.
The cub sprung upon the dead body of its mother and for the first time
showed fight. The dogs, thinking the conflict ended, rushed upon the
prostrate foe, tearing away mouthfuls of hair. But they were glad to
retreat with whole skins to their own backs. It growled hoarsely, and
fought with genuine fury.
The dogs were called off, and Hans sent a ball through its head; yet it
contrived to rise after falling, and climbed again upon its mother's
body. It was mercifully dispatched by another ball.
The men took the skin of the mother and the little one for their share
of the spoils, and the dogs gorged themselves on the greater carcass.
After this incident the journey of our explorers soon ended. Hans gave
out, and was ordered to turn leisurely aside and examine the bend of the
bay into which they had entered. Morton continued on toward the
termination of a cape which rose abruptly two thousand feet. He tried to
get round it, but the ice-foot was gone. He climbed up its sides until
he reached a position four hundred and forty feet, commanding a horizon
of forty miles. The view was grand. The sea seemed almost boundless, and
dashed in noisy surges below, while the birds curveted and screamed
above. Making a flag-staff of his walking-stick, he threw to the wind a
Grinnell flag. It had made the far southern voyage with Commodore
Wilkes, and had come on a second arctic voyage. It now floated over the
most northern known land of the globe.
Feasting his eyes with the scenery for an hour and a half, Morton struck
his flag and rejoined Hans. The run home had its perils and narrow
escapes, but was made without accident, and with some additional
surveys.