CHAPTER IX.News from the “Discovery”—Sickness—Peterson’s Death and Burial—The Relief of the Northern Detachment—The most Northern Grave—The March to 83° N. Lat—Its Results—The Advance of the Season—Anxiety for the Safety of the Western Party—Its Return—Two Hundred Miles to the West—Further Efforts Poleward Hopeless.Illustrated capital letterMEANTIME, our friends in the “Discovery” had passed the winter in not a little anxiety about our fate, Their efforts to communicate in autumn were no more successful than ours, and as spring slipped by and no news came, the suspense increased. Could it be that the “Alert” had penetrated beyond the range of communication, or that any disaster had happened to her? It had been arranged that at the latest a party would reach the “Discovery” from her before the 1st April, and now March was nearly gone. News, however, was close at hand. The dog-sledge, “Clements Markham,” had gallantly fought its way southward past the steep cliffs of Robeson Channel, and when, on 24th March, its crew rounded Cape Beachy and left the last of the cliffs behind them, they knew their troubles were over. Next day they came to a recent sledge-track, and the dogs at once struck out like hounds on a fresh scent. The last promontories were soon passed, and as Discovery Bay opened out, a cheer from the galloping sledge brought a crowd of figures racing from the ship to meet it. In a moment all were shaking hands in a storm of questions. Where was the “Alert”?—had she passed “Navy Opening” or got to “President’s Land”?—and what were the prospects polewards?The arrival of the dog-sledge was a signal for the immediate departure of the “Discovery’s” sledging parties. A dog-sledge was despatched south-eastward to “Hall’s Rest” to ascertain how far the stores left by U.S.S. “Polaris” could be utilised. Then two eight-men sledges, the “Sir Edward Parry” and the “Stephenson,” under Lieutenant Beaumont and Dr. Coppinger, started for the north coast of Greenland, calling at Floeberg Beach on their way, and being there joined by Lieutenant Rawson’s sledge, the “Discovery.” They left the “Alert” on 20th April, and two smaller sledges helped them across Robeson Channel, and then left them to follow the rugged coast that we could see stretching far eastward to Cape Britannia. Another division of sledges, with Lieutenant Archer and Sub-Lieutenant Conybeare, pushed northward through Lady Franklin Sound, hoping to find it opening northward like Robeson Channel, and perhaps affording a smooth and direct route to the shores of the Polar Sea for next year’s parties.The “Discovery” had passed a winter little, if at all, less severe than ours, but in one respect she had been more fortunate. No less than thirty-three musk oxen were secured in the autumn, and thus a supply of good fresh meat was issued twice a-week during the winter. Her routine and amusements were almost identical with our own, but we heard with surprise of herskating rink, and of dramas performed in a snow-built theatre on shore, where a temperature many degrees below zero obliged the actors to appear muffled to several times the size of ordinary stage heroes.After a short rest, our dog-sledge returned to the “Alert,” and reached her just a day too late to give the western and northern parties news from the “Discovery.” She was then at once despatched to pioneer a “high-road” to Greenland across the narrowest part of the channel in advance of the “Discovery’s” detachment. From this time the arrival and departure of sledge-crews was a matter of daily occurrence.Numerous supporting sledges, now travelling invariably in the hours called night, arrived from Greenland or Cape Joseph Henry, filled up with stores, and left again, each fully occupied with its own work, and only catching an occasional glimpse of what the others were doing.It was while all were thus actively employed that sickness—the one sickness of the Arctic regions—appeared amongst us. No one with medical experience of the disease can read the sledge journals of former expeditions without recognising numerous indications of scurvy. Our parties, more than five hundred miles north of where Franklin was lost, and in an unexpectedly colder and more lifeless climate, had no greater safeguards than their predecessors. Accordingly, each sledge-crew that returned to the ship showed fresh examples of the exhaustion, swollen and sprained ankles, stiff knees, and bruised and painful legs, only too familiar to Arctic travellers. Petersen, already maimed by frost-bite, was its first victim. He died on 14th May, and on the 19th the few remaining on board carried him to his grave. A spot on the top of a small hill, half-way between the beach and the beacon on Cairn Hill, was chosen, because a long heavy slab, suitable for a tombstone, lay there. The ground was frozen as hard as rock, and it took three days’ hard work with pick and gunpowder to dig a grave three feet deep. The slab,afterwards rough-hewn by his messmates, and an oaken tablet covered with brass, marks where he lies.PETERSEN’S GRAVE.As the season advanced, signs of approaching summer began to appear. On 19th May, the temperature, for the first time in nine months, rose above freezing. Icicles formed from the projecting angles of the floebergs—and it may here be remarked that icicles, though very common in Arctic pictures, are rare in reality, for they only form in the brief interval between winter and summer, and last but a week or ten days. Signs of returning life began to multiply. A sledge party, returning from Cape Joseph Henry on 21st May, brought in two ptarmigan, snow white, but for one solitary brown feather on the hen. On 4th June, one of us found a little brown caterpillar creeping on some uncovered stones, and saw a flock of birds that looked like knots. In some places the snow was softening into discoloured patches, in others it was gradually leaving the ground. Light snow often fell, but the tiny star-shaped crystals evaporated without wetting the brown slate of the hill-tops. There was as yet no water in the ravines, but it was plain that the thaw was at hand. A sledge party that got back to the ship on 7th June experienced very unsettled weather, and had to wade through a good deal of soft slushy snow sometimes knee deep. The travelling season was fast drawing to a close, and our extended parties had evidently little time left for their return. Just before tea-time on 8th June, those of us who happened to be on board were startled by hearing Lieutenant Parr’s voice in the captain’s cabin. He had come alone, and we soon heard his tidings. The whole northern detachment was broken down with scurvy, and could not reach the ship without assistance, and that must be immediate. Five men were already helpless on the sledges. He had left them near Cape Joseph Henry, twenty-two hours before, and had marched in the whole way.There was neither time nor occasion to hear more. Every soul capable of pulling at once got orders to man relief sledges. A dog-sledge, laden with immediate necessities, started in advance to cheer them with the news that help was near.It was advisable to follow Lieutenant Parr’s footprints, for, once off the track, the distressed party might easily be passed. He had called at Snow-house Point, hoping to find lamp and matches that would enable him to get a drink in the tent pitched there to assist returning parties, but a wolf had gnawed the tent ropes, and it lay flat on the snow. Near Castle Floe the tracks crossed and re-crossed in a complete maze, for there he had all but lost his way in a treacherous fog. A short halt was necessary to rest and feed the dogs, then we pushed on as before. At length, twenty-three hours after leaving the ship, we caught sight of a figure seated beside a loaded sledge, and resting his head upon his hands; then two others staggered up, helping a third between them; and a moment after, six men slowly emerged from among the hummocks dragging up a second sledge. The wind blowing from them towards us prevented them hearing our first shout, but they soon saw us, and with a faint cheer limped forward, poor fellows, to meet us. For a time our hearts were in our throats, and no one could speak much. Hardly one of them was recognisable. The thin, feeble voices, the swollen and frost-peeled faces and crippled limbs, made an awful contrast to the picked body of determined men we had seen march north only two months before. Four lay packed amongst the tent robes on the sledges—only four, for one had died soon after Parr left them. He was a private in the marine artillery, and belonged to the “Victoria” sledge. Poor Porter—George, as the men called him—had been one of the strongest and most energetic of the party. They had dragged him on the sledge thirty-nine days—others had been on longer—and his death greatly depressed bothcrews. They buried him deep in the ice not far from their camp, and had made one day’s march southwards when we met them. The place was only a mile off, so, when the wants of the survivors had been attended to, we walked back to see it. Sunlight streaming through low clouds of drifting snow made it difficult to see far, but we soon recognised the little mound on the side of a floe-hill. A rough cross, made of a sledge-batten and a paddle, and with a text written on it in pencil, stood at the head. They could do no more for him. Perhaps the sketch reproduced in this book (Plate No. 14) may serve as a humble memento of our shipmate’s grave, the most northern of any race or of any time.Plate XIV.—THE MOST NORTHERN GRAVE, June, 1876.—p.65.Decorative breakDrop Cap aA LITTLE mound of ice on the side of a floe-hill, and a rough cross made of a sledge batten and a paddle, mark our shipmate’s grave—the most northern of any race or time.The first symptoms of scurvy appeared amongst the men only a few days after the auxiliary sledges had quitted the party on the northward march; and before the expenditure of half their provisions obliged them to turn back, they had three men on the sledges, and half the detachment crippled with stiff knees. Instead of finding the floes increase in width as they left the land, they met with nothing worthy of the name of floe. Their road lay across endless hummocks of crushed fragments, piled on each other and drifted over with snow. One half the party worked in advance, slowly hewing a road with their pickaxes. The remainder toiled after them, hauling up each of the three sledges in turn. On 12th May they reached their most northern point, north latitude 83° 20´ 26´´, a little less than four hundred miles from the Pole.Considering the helpless state of the majority, we could not but think them most fortunate in being able to regain the land before even the strongest of them lost the strength and courage that carried their message to the ship. Looking at them as they staggered feebly along, panting at every breath, we forcibly realised the probable fate of those large parties from Franklin’s ships that remain to this day unaccounted for. Since reaching the depôt at Cape Joseph Henry, the men had had ample supplies of lime juice, and nothing now remained but to carry them to the ship before the disruption of the pack. Immediately after falling in with them, the dog-sledge had been sent back again to carry the news of their whereabouts to the relief parties led by the Captain, and in a few hours it again reappeared, carrying a pleasant surprise for the invalids—four Brent geese, swinging by the necks from the back of the sledge. A camp, to break the journey to the ship, had been formed at a little bay in Black Cliffs, where the geese had been shot, and in a few minutes two of our invalids that could best bear the journey were packed on the sledge, and whirled off towards it behind the willing dogs. The main relief parties were soon in sight—two sledges, manned in great part by officers, Captain Nares himself pulling in the drag-ropes of the leading sledge. Thus reinforced, three marches carried the whole party back to the ship. The first instalment reached her by dog-sledge on 12th June. Next day, when Flagstaff Point was rounded, and the yards and masts of the ship were again in view, the “Marco Polo” sledge went in front. Her officer and three men had throughout steadily refused to be treated as invalids, and now, hoisting their sledge pennant and the Union Jack they had so gallantly carried to the most northern point ever reached by land or sea, they led the way alongside the ship.Such results as were obtained by the northern party have been greatly lost sight of in the painful interest connected with the cause of the scurvy, a subject which it would be altogether improper to enter upon here. But the effort to penetrate across the polar pack has proved other facts besides the necessity for a change in sledge diet. The attempt was never a hopeful one, but if it had not been made, no one would have been satisfied that it was impossible. If the men had been able to march as far every day after the scurvy appeared as they did before it—inother words, if the scurvy had not broken out—they would have reached only twenty-seven miles further north. The Pole lay 435 miles from their most advanced depôt. Their total distance marched was 521 geographical miles, so that under impossibly favourable circumstances—if they had been able to travel in a perfectly straight line, pulling a single sledge, and with ice as smooth as a lake, they would have succeeded in reaching the Pole and half-way back again, a conclusion which would be neither satisfactory nor instructive. If a comparatively unbroken ice-cap exists, and if its surface affords better travelling than its broken margin, it is possible that some future expedition may yet find it lying nearer Cape Joseph Henry, and travel over it to 84° or 85°, but certainly not to the Pole. The broken condition of the floes is inexplicable; perhaps a small island or bank exists to the northward. Those who choose to think so have two facts to hang their faith on: a hare track was found thirty miles from the land, and the depth of the Polar Sea at the furthest camp was only seventy fathoms.When the northern party arrived on board the ship, they found her very different to what they had left her. The thawing snow had been thrown off her upper deck, and the banking up round her sides had almost disappeared. A deep pool of not very clean water lay all round the ship, and in order to get on board it was necessary to cross a bridge some twenty feet long made of poles and planks. The tide rose and fell in this pool, showing that the ice in which the ship was imbedded was actually supported like a bridge between the shore and the floebergs; in fact, so fixed was the ship that, when the snow banking sank a little more, the tide might be seen rising and falling against the torn and ragged planking of her sides. Other pools of water lay on the floes, especially in the neighbourhood of floebergs. Cracks, too, were opening in every direction, and though there was as yet no motion in the pack, it seemed as if it only wanted a strong wind to set it grinding and roaring as it did in autumn. This state of affairs, together with the two following even more important considerations, made us very anxious about Lieutenant Aldrich and his crew. He had a good store of lime juice laid out in depôt for his return journey, but, with the experience of the northern party before us, we could hardly hope that his crew would be free from scurvy when they reached it. And again, we knew, from the reports of his auxiliary sledge, that he had penetrated far to the westward across an absolute desert of deep snow, which, if once softened, would effectually bar his return, and cut him off from assistance.In many places round the ship the snow was softening rapidly, so much so that spots once hard enough to walk on were now totally impassable. Even snow-shoes, which had proved most useful on the march to the rescue of the northern party a week before, now balled so much under the heel, and shovelled up such a weight of slush, that they could not be used.On clear days the depôt at Cape Joseph Henry was visible with a good glass from the top of Cairn Hill. As long as it could be seen we knew that the party had not reached it, and a most anxious watch was kept on the little flickering miraged spot. Up to the 18th June no change occurred, and then Lieutenant May and his indefatigable dogs went off to try and find some trace of the missing party. On the 25th the suspense came to an end. It was Sunday morning, and shortly after service the news came from Cairn Hill that both Aldrich’s sledge and the dog-sledge were in sight. The two tents pitched on the floes near Mushroom Point could be made out plainly. They were evidently encamped for the day as usual. Their homeward march would not begin till evening, so at 7 p.m. everyone that could left the ship to meet them. Rounding a low point, we came on them suddenly. The “Challenger” led the way with colours flyingand sledge-sail set. Her officer and the last man left of his crew—a stalwart, light-hearted teetotaler—hauled in her drag-belts. One man, unable to walk, lay muffled on the sledge, the others kept up as best they could, taking turns on the dog-sledge. They had turned back from a point two hundred and thirty geographical miles to the westward, and had travelled, there and back, over seven hundred miles of coast-line, but had found no shore leading poleward. On their outward journey, as they passed each successive cape, another and another came into view, till, on rounding a headland in north latitude 83°.7, they found the shore-line bending off to the southward. At this spot, since called Cape Columbia, a slaty cliff sloping downward to the floes formed the most northern point of the new world. For miles on either side the shore was lifeless, but there on the slope of the cape, amongst the stones and snow, they found a little Arctic poppy, with its tiny yellow petals withered into lines and folds of green. Beyond Cape Columbia it was sometimes hard to tell where the land ended and the frozen sea began; here and there, banks of sand and gravel were bare of snow, but when you dug into them with a pick there was deep ice beneath. On the left lay a monotonous, snow-clad shore rising into irregular mountain groups, and on the right, perennial floes, worn into mounds and valleys. They still followed the shore-line, till, on their forty-fifth day’s journey, they found themselves further south than the winter quarters of the ship. Then they came to the limit of their provisions. There was only enough left to carry them back to their farthest depôt. And so, recovering in succession each of the little piles of stores deposited on their outward journey, they retraced their footsteps along this shore that no other human eyes than theirs had ever looked on. For a week before the dog-sledge met them their state was even worse than we had feared. The snow that bore them on their outward way had softened; every step sank a different depth in it, sometimes to the knee, sometimes to the waist. The men broke down one by one, strength and appetite failed them, and every motion of their swollen and stiffened limbs was an agony. They would haul the sledge five or six yards forward, and then stop for want of breath. With fifty miles of bottomless snow before them, it was no wonder some of them began to think their prospects hopeless, and wanted to be left behind rather than burden the others with their weight. But the sight of the dog-sledge put new life in the party. Its four strong men and six plucky dogs soon got them over their difficulties. Now they were safe and close to the ship, and knees grew straighter than they had been for many a day; those who could walk at all required an order to keep them on the dog-sledge. There was amongst them an ex-member of the “Bulldog” sledge, who had impressed himself specially on his former sledge-mates by one peculiar trait—he never could see a joke till hours after it was made, and then his sudden roars of laughter would sometimes wake the whole crew from their first sleep. The poor fellow was now amongst the worst, but he insisted on being helped into the drag-belts, and staggered alongside the ship in harness. Thus ended the spring sledging.For another month hunting parties scoured the land, and two sledges tried to find an overland route to the “Discovery” in case our ship should suffer in the disruption of the pack; but so far as the “Alert” was concerned, the exploring work of the year was over. Of the “Discovery’s” proceedings we yet knew little. We had heard that Lady Franklin Sound had proved a mere inlet. No news had reached us from the North Greenland detachment, but the shore that we could see from our mast-heads and from the hills of Floeberg Beach was long and deeply indented, and its extreme limit at Cape Britannia was far to the east, but little to the north.The summer disruption of the pack was now evidently close at hand, and it was therefore necessary to come to an immediate decision about the future. We had men in both ships who had passed many winters in “whalers,” and they were unanimously of opinion that the “Alert” had little if any chance of ever leaving her winter quarters. Those with knowledge of naval Arctic work thought otherwise. The “break-up,” when it did come, would probably give us a choice of three alternatives—namely, to advance, to stay where we were, or to retreat. As for advancing, in some very favourable season we might perhaps get the ship about twelve miles further westward and five further north, but this was the very utmost that could be hoped for; and for all purposes of northward extension our present position was just as good. Any advance along the shores of Greenland was utterly out of the question, for the eastward motion of the pack threw its chief pressure on that shore. What, then, would another year at Floeberg Beach enable us to accomplish? Assuming, against all precedent, that our crew would completely recover and be as strong as ever they were—assuming, too, that the whole force of the Expedition, guided by the experience already gained, could be launched northwards over the floes, there could even then be no hope whatever of adding one degree to our north latitude.THE NORTH COAST OF GREENLAND, FROM CAPE BRITANNIA (AT EXTREME LEFT OF UPPER SKETCH) TO THE MOUTH OF ROBESON CHANNEL AND CAPE RAWSON (AT RIGHT OF LOWER SECTION). SKETCHED FROM THE MAIN-TOP OF H.M.S. “ALERT” AT HER WINTER QUARTERS.Under such circumstances, retreat, if possible before the relief ship was despatched from England, became a duty. There was one objection to it that was often joked about, but of course never seriously entertained—“The public will not be satisfied unless you stay one or two more winters, or at least lose a ship.” We little knew how very near we should be to doing both.Plate XV.—BACK FROM THE FARTHEST NORTH.—p.65.Decorative breakDrop Cap oON June 14th, the northern detachment, with the relief sledges sent to its assistance, returned to the ship from its ten weeks’ march over the polar floes. The detachment had started northward seventeen strong, but only four remained able to pull in the drag-belts, and of these one was the officer in command. Frost-peeled and sun-burnt, with stiffened knees, and faces and clothes stained with stearine smoke, these four led the way alongside the ship, flying the Union Jack they had carried a month’s hard march beyond every predecessor.
CHAPTER IX.
News from the “Discovery”—Sickness—Peterson’s Death and Burial—The Relief of the Northern Detachment—The most Northern Grave—The March to 83° N. Lat—Its Results—The Advance of the Season—Anxiety for the Safety of the Western Party—Its Return—Two Hundred Miles to the West—Further Efforts Poleward Hopeless.
Illustrated capital letter
MEANTIME, our friends in the “Discovery” had passed the winter in not a little anxiety about our fate, Their efforts to communicate in autumn were no more successful than ours, and as spring slipped by and no news came, the suspense increased. Could it be that the “Alert” had penetrated beyond the range of communication, or that any disaster had happened to her? It had been arranged that at the latest a party would reach the “Discovery” from her before the 1st April, and now March was nearly gone. News, however, was close at hand. The dog-sledge, “Clements Markham,” had gallantly fought its way southward past the steep cliffs of Robeson Channel, and when, on 24th March, its crew rounded Cape Beachy and left the last of the cliffs behind them, they knew their troubles were over. Next day they came to a recent sledge-track, and the dogs at once struck out like hounds on a fresh scent. The last promontories were soon passed, and as Discovery Bay opened out, a cheer from the galloping sledge brought a crowd of figures racing from the ship to meet it. In a moment all were shaking hands in a storm of questions. Where was the “Alert”?—had she passed “Navy Opening” or got to “President’s Land”?—and what were the prospects polewards?
The arrival of the dog-sledge was a signal for the immediate departure of the “Discovery’s” sledging parties. A dog-sledge was despatched south-eastward to “Hall’s Rest” to ascertain how far the stores left by U.S.S. “Polaris” could be utilised. Then two eight-men sledges, the “Sir Edward Parry” and the “Stephenson,” under Lieutenant Beaumont and Dr. Coppinger, started for the north coast of Greenland, calling at Floeberg Beach on their way, and being there joined by Lieutenant Rawson’s sledge, the “Discovery.” They left the “Alert” on 20th April, and two smaller sledges helped them across Robeson Channel, and then left them to follow the rugged coast that we could see stretching far eastward to Cape Britannia. Another division of sledges, with Lieutenant Archer and Sub-Lieutenant Conybeare, pushed northward through Lady Franklin Sound, hoping to find it opening northward like Robeson Channel, and perhaps affording a smooth and direct route to the shores of the Polar Sea for next year’s parties.
The “Discovery” had passed a winter little, if at all, less severe than ours, but in one respect she had been more fortunate. No less than thirty-three musk oxen were secured in the autumn, and thus a supply of good fresh meat was issued twice a-week during the winter. Her routine and amusements were almost identical with our own, but we heard with surprise of herskating rink, and of dramas performed in a snow-built theatre on shore, where a temperature many degrees below zero obliged the actors to appear muffled to several times the size of ordinary stage heroes.
After a short rest, our dog-sledge returned to the “Alert,” and reached her just a day too late to give the western and northern parties news from the “Discovery.” She was then at once despatched to pioneer a “high-road” to Greenland across the narrowest part of the channel in advance of the “Discovery’s” detachment. From this time the arrival and departure of sledge-crews was a matter of daily occurrence.
Numerous supporting sledges, now travelling invariably in the hours called night, arrived from Greenland or Cape Joseph Henry, filled up with stores, and left again, each fully occupied with its own work, and only catching an occasional glimpse of what the others were doing.
It was while all were thus actively employed that sickness—the one sickness of the Arctic regions—appeared amongst us. No one with medical experience of the disease can read the sledge journals of former expeditions without recognising numerous indications of scurvy. Our parties, more than five hundred miles north of where Franklin was lost, and in an unexpectedly colder and more lifeless climate, had no greater safeguards than their predecessors. Accordingly, each sledge-crew that returned to the ship showed fresh examples of the exhaustion, swollen and sprained ankles, stiff knees, and bruised and painful legs, only too familiar to Arctic travellers. Petersen, already maimed by frost-bite, was its first victim. He died on 14th May, and on the 19th the few remaining on board carried him to his grave. A spot on the top of a small hill, half-way between the beach and the beacon on Cairn Hill, was chosen, because a long heavy slab, suitable for a tombstone, lay there. The ground was frozen as hard as rock, and it took three days’ hard work with pick and gunpowder to dig a grave three feet deep. The slab,afterwards rough-hewn by his messmates, and an oaken tablet covered with brass, marks where he lies.
PETERSEN’S GRAVE.
PETERSEN’S GRAVE.
As the season advanced, signs of approaching summer began to appear. On 19th May, the temperature, for the first time in nine months, rose above freezing. Icicles formed from the projecting angles of the floebergs—and it may here be remarked that icicles, though very common in Arctic pictures, are rare in reality, for they only form in the brief interval between winter and summer, and last but a week or ten days. Signs of returning life began to multiply. A sledge party, returning from Cape Joseph Henry on 21st May, brought in two ptarmigan, snow white, but for one solitary brown feather on the hen. On 4th June, one of us found a little brown caterpillar creeping on some uncovered stones, and saw a flock of birds that looked like knots. In some places the snow was softening into discoloured patches, in others it was gradually leaving the ground. Light snow often fell, but the tiny star-shaped crystals evaporated without wetting the brown slate of the hill-tops. There was as yet no water in the ravines, but it was plain that the thaw was at hand. A sledge party that got back to the ship on 7th June experienced very unsettled weather, and had to wade through a good deal of soft slushy snow sometimes knee deep. The travelling season was fast drawing to a close, and our extended parties had evidently little time left for their return. Just before tea-time on 8th June, those of us who happened to be on board were startled by hearing Lieutenant Parr’s voice in the captain’s cabin. He had come alone, and we soon heard his tidings. The whole northern detachment was broken down with scurvy, and could not reach the ship without assistance, and that must be immediate. Five men were already helpless on the sledges. He had left them near Cape Joseph Henry, twenty-two hours before, and had marched in the whole way.
There was neither time nor occasion to hear more. Every soul capable of pulling at once got orders to man relief sledges. A dog-sledge, laden with immediate necessities, started in advance to cheer them with the news that help was near.
It was advisable to follow Lieutenant Parr’s footprints, for, once off the track, the distressed party might easily be passed. He had called at Snow-house Point, hoping to find lamp and matches that would enable him to get a drink in the tent pitched there to assist returning parties, but a wolf had gnawed the tent ropes, and it lay flat on the snow. Near Castle Floe the tracks crossed and re-crossed in a complete maze, for there he had all but lost his way in a treacherous fog. A short halt was necessary to rest and feed the dogs, then we pushed on as before. At length, twenty-three hours after leaving the ship, we caught sight of a figure seated beside a loaded sledge, and resting his head upon his hands; then two others staggered up, helping a third between them; and a moment after, six men slowly emerged from among the hummocks dragging up a second sledge. The wind blowing from them towards us prevented them hearing our first shout, but they soon saw us, and with a faint cheer limped forward, poor fellows, to meet us. For a time our hearts were in our throats, and no one could speak much. Hardly one of them was recognisable. The thin, feeble voices, the swollen and frost-peeled faces and crippled limbs, made an awful contrast to the picked body of determined men we had seen march north only two months before. Four lay packed amongst the tent robes on the sledges—only four, for one had died soon after Parr left them. He was a private in the marine artillery, and belonged to the “Victoria” sledge. Poor Porter—George, as the men called him—had been one of the strongest and most energetic of the party. They had dragged him on the sledge thirty-nine days—others had been on longer—and his death greatly depressed bothcrews. They buried him deep in the ice not far from their camp, and had made one day’s march southwards when we met them. The place was only a mile off, so, when the wants of the survivors had been attended to, we walked back to see it. Sunlight streaming through low clouds of drifting snow made it difficult to see far, but we soon recognised the little mound on the side of a floe-hill. A rough cross, made of a sledge-batten and a paddle, and with a text written on it in pencil, stood at the head. They could do no more for him. Perhaps the sketch reproduced in this book (Plate No. 14) may serve as a humble memento of our shipmate’s grave, the most northern of any race or of any time.
Plate XIV.—THE MOST NORTHERN GRAVE, June, 1876.—p.65.
Plate XIV.—THE MOST NORTHERN GRAVE, June, 1876.—p.65.
Decorative break
Drop Cap aA LITTLE mound of ice on the side of a floe-hill, and a rough cross made of a sledge batten and a paddle, mark our shipmate’s grave—the most northern of any race or time.
Drop Cap a
A LITTLE mound of ice on the side of a floe-hill, and a rough cross made of a sledge batten and a paddle, mark our shipmate’s grave—the most northern of any race or time.
The first symptoms of scurvy appeared amongst the men only a few days after the auxiliary sledges had quitted the party on the northward march; and before the expenditure of half their provisions obliged them to turn back, they had three men on the sledges, and half the detachment crippled with stiff knees. Instead of finding the floes increase in width as they left the land, they met with nothing worthy of the name of floe. Their road lay across endless hummocks of crushed fragments, piled on each other and drifted over with snow. One half the party worked in advance, slowly hewing a road with their pickaxes. The remainder toiled after them, hauling up each of the three sledges in turn. On 12th May they reached their most northern point, north latitude 83° 20´ 26´´, a little less than four hundred miles from the Pole.
Considering the helpless state of the majority, we could not but think them most fortunate in being able to regain the land before even the strongest of them lost the strength and courage that carried their message to the ship. Looking at them as they staggered feebly along, panting at every breath, we forcibly realised the probable fate of those large parties from Franklin’s ships that remain to this day unaccounted for. Since reaching the depôt at Cape Joseph Henry, the men had had ample supplies of lime juice, and nothing now remained but to carry them to the ship before the disruption of the pack. Immediately after falling in with them, the dog-sledge had been sent back again to carry the news of their whereabouts to the relief parties led by the Captain, and in a few hours it again reappeared, carrying a pleasant surprise for the invalids—four Brent geese, swinging by the necks from the back of the sledge. A camp, to break the journey to the ship, had been formed at a little bay in Black Cliffs, where the geese had been shot, and in a few minutes two of our invalids that could best bear the journey were packed on the sledge, and whirled off towards it behind the willing dogs. The main relief parties were soon in sight—two sledges, manned in great part by officers, Captain Nares himself pulling in the drag-ropes of the leading sledge. Thus reinforced, three marches carried the whole party back to the ship. The first instalment reached her by dog-sledge on 12th June. Next day, when Flagstaff Point was rounded, and the yards and masts of the ship were again in view, the “Marco Polo” sledge went in front. Her officer and three men had throughout steadily refused to be treated as invalids, and now, hoisting their sledge pennant and the Union Jack they had so gallantly carried to the most northern point ever reached by land or sea, they led the way alongside the ship.
Such results as were obtained by the northern party have been greatly lost sight of in the painful interest connected with the cause of the scurvy, a subject which it would be altogether improper to enter upon here. But the effort to penetrate across the polar pack has proved other facts besides the necessity for a change in sledge diet. The attempt was never a hopeful one, but if it had not been made, no one would have been satisfied that it was impossible. If the men had been able to march as far every day after the scurvy appeared as they did before it—inother words, if the scurvy had not broken out—they would have reached only twenty-seven miles further north. The Pole lay 435 miles from their most advanced depôt. Their total distance marched was 521 geographical miles, so that under impossibly favourable circumstances—if they had been able to travel in a perfectly straight line, pulling a single sledge, and with ice as smooth as a lake, they would have succeeded in reaching the Pole and half-way back again, a conclusion which would be neither satisfactory nor instructive. If a comparatively unbroken ice-cap exists, and if its surface affords better travelling than its broken margin, it is possible that some future expedition may yet find it lying nearer Cape Joseph Henry, and travel over it to 84° or 85°, but certainly not to the Pole. The broken condition of the floes is inexplicable; perhaps a small island or bank exists to the northward. Those who choose to think so have two facts to hang their faith on: a hare track was found thirty miles from the land, and the depth of the Polar Sea at the furthest camp was only seventy fathoms.
When the northern party arrived on board the ship, they found her very different to what they had left her. The thawing snow had been thrown off her upper deck, and the banking up round her sides had almost disappeared. A deep pool of not very clean water lay all round the ship, and in order to get on board it was necessary to cross a bridge some twenty feet long made of poles and planks. The tide rose and fell in this pool, showing that the ice in which the ship was imbedded was actually supported like a bridge between the shore and the floebergs; in fact, so fixed was the ship that, when the snow banking sank a little more, the tide might be seen rising and falling against the torn and ragged planking of her sides. Other pools of water lay on the floes, especially in the neighbourhood of floebergs. Cracks, too, were opening in every direction, and though there was as yet no motion in the pack, it seemed as if it only wanted a strong wind to set it grinding and roaring as it did in autumn. This state of affairs, together with the two following even more important considerations, made us very anxious about Lieutenant Aldrich and his crew. He had a good store of lime juice laid out in depôt for his return journey, but, with the experience of the northern party before us, we could hardly hope that his crew would be free from scurvy when they reached it. And again, we knew, from the reports of his auxiliary sledge, that he had penetrated far to the westward across an absolute desert of deep snow, which, if once softened, would effectually bar his return, and cut him off from assistance.
In many places round the ship the snow was softening rapidly, so much so that spots once hard enough to walk on were now totally impassable. Even snow-shoes, which had proved most useful on the march to the rescue of the northern party a week before, now balled so much under the heel, and shovelled up such a weight of slush, that they could not be used.
On clear days the depôt at Cape Joseph Henry was visible with a good glass from the top of Cairn Hill. As long as it could be seen we knew that the party had not reached it, and a most anxious watch was kept on the little flickering miraged spot. Up to the 18th June no change occurred, and then Lieutenant May and his indefatigable dogs went off to try and find some trace of the missing party. On the 25th the suspense came to an end. It was Sunday morning, and shortly after service the news came from Cairn Hill that both Aldrich’s sledge and the dog-sledge were in sight. The two tents pitched on the floes near Mushroom Point could be made out plainly. They were evidently encamped for the day as usual. Their homeward march would not begin till evening, so at 7 p.m. everyone that could left the ship to meet them. Rounding a low point, we came on them suddenly. The “Challenger” led the way with colours flyingand sledge-sail set. Her officer and the last man left of his crew—a stalwart, light-hearted teetotaler—hauled in her drag-belts. One man, unable to walk, lay muffled on the sledge, the others kept up as best they could, taking turns on the dog-sledge. They had turned back from a point two hundred and thirty geographical miles to the westward, and had travelled, there and back, over seven hundred miles of coast-line, but had found no shore leading poleward. On their outward journey, as they passed each successive cape, another and another came into view, till, on rounding a headland in north latitude 83°.7, they found the shore-line bending off to the southward. At this spot, since called Cape Columbia, a slaty cliff sloping downward to the floes formed the most northern point of the new world. For miles on either side the shore was lifeless, but there on the slope of the cape, amongst the stones and snow, they found a little Arctic poppy, with its tiny yellow petals withered into lines and folds of green. Beyond Cape Columbia it was sometimes hard to tell where the land ended and the frozen sea began; here and there, banks of sand and gravel were bare of snow, but when you dug into them with a pick there was deep ice beneath. On the left lay a monotonous, snow-clad shore rising into irregular mountain groups, and on the right, perennial floes, worn into mounds and valleys. They still followed the shore-line, till, on their forty-fifth day’s journey, they found themselves further south than the winter quarters of the ship. Then they came to the limit of their provisions. There was only enough left to carry them back to their farthest depôt. And so, recovering in succession each of the little piles of stores deposited on their outward journey, they retraced their footsteps along this shore that no other human eyes than theirs had ever looked on. For a week before the dog-sledge met them their state was even worse than we had feared. The snow that bore them on their outward way had softened; every step sank a different depth in it, sometimes to the knee, sometimes to the waist. The men broke down one by one, strength and appetite failed them, and every motion of their swollen and stiffened limbs was an agony. They would haul the sledge five or six yards forward, and then stop for want of breath. With fifty miles of bottomless snow before them, it was no wonder some of them began to think their prospects hopeless, and wanted to be left behind rather than burden the others with their weight. But the sight of the dog-sledge put new life in the party. Its four strong men and six plucky dogs soon got them over their difficulties. Now they were safe and close to the ship, and knees grew straighter than they had been for many a day; those who could walk at all required an order to keep them on the dog-sledge. There was amongst them an ex-member of the “Bulldog” sledge, who had impressed himself specially on his former sledge-mates by one peculiar trait—he never could see a joke till hours after it was made, and then his sudden roars of laughter would sometimes wake the whole crew from their first sleep. The poor fellow was now amongst the worst, but he insisted on being helped into the drag-belts, and staggered alongside the ship in harness. Thus ended the spring sledging.
For another month hunting parties scoured the land, and two sledges tried to find an overland route to the “Discovery” in case our ship should suffer in the disruption of the pack; but so far as the “Alert” was concerned, the exploring work of the year was over. Of the “Discovery’s” proceedings we yet knew little. We had heard that Lady Franklin Sound had proved a mere inlet. No news had reached us from the North Greenland detachment, but the shore that we could see from our mast-heads and from the hills of Floeberg Beach was long and deeply indented, and its extreme limit at Cape Britannia was far to the east, but little to the north.
The summer disruption of the pack was now evidently close at hand, and it was therefore necessary to come to an immediate decision about the future. We had men in both ships who had passed many winters in “whalers,” and they were unanimously of opinion that the “Alert” had little if any chance of ever leaving her winter quarters. Those with knowledge of naval Arctic work thought otherwise. The “break-up,” when it did come, would probably give us a choice of three alternatives—namely, to advance, to stay where we were, or to retreat. As for advancing, in some very favourable season we might perhaps get the ship about twelve miles further westward and five further north, but this was the very utmost that could be hoped for; and for all purposes of northward extension our present position was just as good. Any advance along the shores of Greenland was utterly out of the question, for the eastward motion of the pack threw its chief pressure on that shore. What, then, would another year at Floeberg Beach enable us to accomplish? Assuming, against all precedent, that our crew would completely recover and be as strong as ever they were—assuming, too, that the whole force of the Expedition, guided by the experience already gained, could be launched northwards over the floes, there could even then be no hope whatever of adding one degree to our north latitude.
THE NORTH COAST OF GREENLAND, FROM CAPE BRITANNIA (AT EXTREME LEFT OF UPPER SKETCH) TO THE MOUTH OF ROBESON CHANNEL AND CAPE RAWSON (AT RIGHT OF LOWER SECTION). SKETCHED FROM THE MAIN-TOP OF H.M.S. “ALERT” AT HER WINTER QUARTERS.
THE NORTH COAST OF GREENLAND, FROM CAPE BRITANNIA (AT EXTREME LEFT OF UPPER SKETCH) TO THE MOUTH OF ROBESON CHANNEL AND CAPE RAWSON (AT RIGHT OF LOWER SECTION). SKETCHED FROM THE MAIN-TOP OF H.M.S. “ALERT” AT HER WINTER QUARTERS.
Under such circumstances, retreat, if possible before the relief ship was despatched from England, became a duty. There was one objection to it that was often joked about, but of course never seriously entertained—“The public will not be satisfied unless you stay one or two more winters, or at least lose a ship.” We little knew how very near we should be to doing both.
Plate XV.—BACK FROM THE FARTHEST NORTH.—p.65.
Plate XV.—BACK FROM THE FARTHEST NORTH.—p.65.
Decorative break
Drop Cap oON June 14th, the northern detachment, with the relief sledges sent to its assistance, returned to the ship from its ten weeks’ march over the polar floes. The detachment had started northward seventeen strong, but only four remained able to pull in the drag-belts, and of these one was the officer in command. Frost-peeled and sun-burnt, with stiffened knees, and faces and clothes stained with stearine smoke, these four led the way alongside the ship, flying the Union Jack they had carried a month’s hard march beyond every predecessor.
Drop Cap o
ON June 14th, the northern detachment, with the relief sledges sent to its assistance, returned to the ship from its ten weeks’ march over the polar floes. The detachment had started northward seventeen strong, but only four remained able to pull in the drag-belts, and of these one was the officer in command. Frost-peeled and sun-burnt, with stiffened knees, and faces and clothes stained with stearine smoke, these four led the way alongside the ship, flying the Union Jack they had carried a month’s hard march beyond every predecessor.