Walrus Hunting
The party which he attended upon their walrus hunt had three sledges. One was to be taken to acachein the neighbourhood; the other two dragged at a quick run toward the open water, about ten miles off to the south-west. They had but nine dogs to these two sledges, one man only riding, the others running by turns. As they neared the new ice, and where the black wastes of mingled cloud and water betokened the open sea, they would from time to time remove their hoods and listen intently for the animal’s voice.
After a while Myouk became convinced, from signs or sounds, or both,—for they were inappreciable by Morton,—that the walrus were waiting for him in a small space of recently-open water that was glazed over with a few days’ growth of ice; and moving gently on, they soon heard its characteristic bellow. The walrus, like some of the higher order of beings to which he has been compared, is fond of his own music, and will lie for hours listening to himself. His vocalisation is something between the mooing of a cow and the deepest baying of a mastiff: very round and full, with its barks or detached notes repeated rather quickly seven to nine times in succession.
The party now formed in single file, following in each other’s steps, and, guided by an admirable knowledge of ice-topography, wound behind hummocks and ridges in a serpentine approach toward a group of pond-like discolourations, recently-frozen ice-spots, but surrounded by firmer and older ice.
When within half a mile of these, the line broke, and each man crawled toward a separate pool—Morton on his hands and knees following Myouk. In a few minutes the walrus were in sight. They were five in number, rising at intervals through the ice in a body, and breaking it up with an explosive puff that might have been heard for miles. Two large grim-looking males were conspicuous as the leaders of the group.
Now for the marvel of the craft. When the walrus is above water, the hunter is flat and motionless; as he begins to sink, alert and ready for a spring. The animal’s head is hardly below the water-line before every man is in a rapid run; and again, as if by instinct, before the beast returns, all are motionless behind protecting knolls of ice. They seem to know beforehand not only the time he will be absent, but the very spot at which he will re-appear. In this way, hiding and advancing by turns, Myouk, with Morton at his heels, has reached a plate of thin ice, hardly strong enough to bear them, at the very brink of the water-pool the walrus are curvetting in.
Myouk, till now phlegmatic, seems to waken with excitement. His coil of walrus-hide, a well-trimmed line of many fathoms’ length, is lying at his side. He fixes one end of it in an iron barb, and fastens this loosely by a socket upon a shaft of unicorn’s horn; the other end is already looped, or, as sailors would say, “doubled in a bight.” It is the work of a moment. He has grasped the harpoon; the water is in motion. Puffing with pent-up respiration, the walrus is within a couple of fathoms close before him. Myouk rises slowly—his right arm thrown back, the left flat at his side. The walrus looks about him, shaking the water from his crest; Myouk throws up his left arm, and the animal, rising breast high,fixes one look before he plunges. It has cost him all that curiosity can cost; the harpoon is buried under his left flipper.
Though the walrus is down in a moment, Myouk is running at desperate speed from the scene of his victory, paying off his coil freely, but clutching the end by its loop. He seizes as he runs a small stick of bone, rudely pointed with iron, and by a sudden movement drives it into the ice; to this he secures his line, pressing it down close to the ice-surface with his feet.
Now comes the struggle. The hole is dashed in mad commotion with the struggles of the wounded beast; the line is drawn tight at one moment, the next relaxed: the hunter has not left his station. There is a crash of the ice; and rearing up through it are two walruses, not many yards from where he stands. One of them, the male, is excited and seemingly terrified; the other, the female, collected and vengeful. Down they go again, after one grim survey of the field; and on the instant Myouk has changed his position, carrying his coil with him and fixing it anew.
He has hardly fixed it before the pair have again risen, breaking up an area of ten feet diameter about the very spot he left. As they sink once more he again changes his place. And so the conflict goes on between address and force, till the victim, half exhausted, receives a second wound, and is played like a trout by the angler’s reel.
Some idea may be formed of the ferocity of the walrus, from the fact that the battle which Morton witnessed, not without sharing some of its danger, lasted four hours—during which the animal rushed continually at the Esquimaux as they approached, tearing off great tables of ice with his tusks, and showing no indications of fear whatever. He received upward of seventy lance-wounds,—Mortoncounted over sixty; and even then he remained hooked by his tusks to the margin of the ice, unable or unwilling to retire. His female fought in the same manner, but fled on receiving a lance-wound.
Close of the Fight
The Esquimaux seemed to be fully aware of the danger of venturing too near; for at the first onset of the walrus they jumped back far enough to be clear of the broken ice. Morton described the last three hours as wearing, on both sides, the aspect of an unbroken and seemingly doubtful combat.
The method of landing the beast upon the ice, too, showed a great deal of clever contrivance. They made two pair of incisions in the neck, where the hide is very thick, about six inches apart and parallel to each other, so as to form a couple of bands. A line of cut hide, about a quarter of an inch in diameter, was passed under one of these bands and carried up on the ice to a firm stick well secured in the floe, where it went through a loop, and was then taken back to the animal, made to pass under the second band, and led off to the Esquimaux. This formed a sort of “double purchase,” the blubber so lubricating the cord as to admit of a free movement. By this contrivance the beast, weighing some seven hundred pounds, was hauled up and butchered at leisure.
The two sledges now journeyed homeward, carrying the more valued parts of their prize. The intestines and a large share of the carcass were buried up in the cavities of a berg; Lucullus himself could not have dreamed of a grander icehouse.
As they doubled the little island which stood in front of their settlement, the women ran down the rocks to meet them. A long hail carried the good news; and, as the party alighted on the beach, knives were quickly at work,the allotment of the meat being determined by well-understood hunter laws. The Esquimaux, however gluttonously they may eat, evidently bear hunger with as little difficulty as excess. None of the morning party had breakfasted; yet it was after ten o’clock at night before they sat down to dinner. “Sat down to dinner!” This is the only expression of our own gastrology which is applicable to an Esquimaux feast. They truly sit down, man, woman, and child, knife in hand, squatting cross-legged around a formidable joint,—say forty pounds,—falling to like college commoners after grace. I have seen many such feeds. Hans’s account, however, of the glutton-festival is too characteristic to be omitted:—
“Why, Cappen Ken, sir, even the children ate all night; you know the little two-year-old that Awiu carried in her hood—the one that bit you when you tickled it? Yes. Well, Cappen Ken, sir, that baby cut for herself, with a knife made out of an iron hoop, and so heavy that it could barely lift it, and cut and ate, and ate and cut, as long as I looked at it.”
“Well, Hans, try now and think; for I want an accurate answer: how much as to weight or quantity would you say that child ate?” Hans is an exact and truthful man: he pondered a little and said that he could not answer my question. “But I know this, sir, that it ate asipak”—the Esquimaux name for the lump which is cut off close to the lips—“as large as its own head; and three hours afterward, when I went to bed, it was cutting off another lump and eating still.” A sipak, like the Dutch governor’s foot, is, however, a varying unit of weight.
THE COMING WINTER.
“October 26.—The thermometer at 34° below zero, but fortunately no wind blowing. We go on with the outdoor work. We burn but seventy pounds of fuel a day, most of it in the galley—the fire being allowed to go out between meals. We go without fire altogether for four hours of the night; yet such is the excellence of our moss-walls and the air-proof of ourtossut, that, when our housing is arranged, and the main hatch secured with a proper weather-tight screen of canvas, we shall be able, I hope, to meet the extreme cold of February and March without fear.
“Darkness is the worst enemy we have to face; but we will strive against the scurvy in spite of him, till the light days of sun and vegetation.
“Wilson and Brooks are my principal subjects of anxiety; for although Morton and Hans are on their backs, making four of our ten, I can see strength of system in their cheerfulness of heart. The best prophylactic is a hopeful, sanguine temperament; the best cure, moral resistance—that spirit of combat against every trial, which is alone true bravery.
Fuel for the Winter
“October 27.—The work is going on; we are ripping off the extra planking of our deck for fuel during the winter. The cold increases fast, and in spite of all my efforts we will have to burn largely into the brig. I prepared for this two months ago, and satisfied myself, after a consultation with the carpenter, that we may cutaway some seven or eight tons of fuel without absolutely destroying her sea-worthiness.”
My narrative has now reached a period at which everything like progress was suspended. The increasing cold and brightening stars,—the labours, anxieties, and sickness that pressed upon us,—these almost engross the pages of my journal. Now and then I find some marvel such as Petersen’s about the fox’s dexterity as a hunter; Hans tells me of domestic life in South Greenland, or of a seal-hunt and a wrecked kayack; or perhaps M’Gary repeats his thrice-told tale of humour; but the night has closed down upon us, and we are hibernating through it.
Yet some of these are topics of interest. The intense beauty of the Arctic firmament can hardly be imagined. It looks close above our heads, with its stars magnified in glory, and the very planets twinkling so much as to baffle the observations of our astronomer. I am afraid to speak of some of these night-scenes. I have trodden the deck and the floes, when the life of earth seemed suspended,—its movements, its sounds, its colouring, its companionships; and as I looked on the radiant hemisphere, circling above me as if rendering worship to the unseen centre of light, I have ejaculated in humility of spirit, “Lord, what is man that Thou art mindful of him?” And then I have thought of the kindly world we had left, with its revolving sunshine and shadow, and the other stars that gladden it in their changes, and the hearts that warmed to us there, till I lost myself in memories of those who are not—and they bore me back to the stars again.
The narration of one day’s hopes and fears, troubles, privations, and trials,—I am sorry I cannot add triumphs,—somuch resembles that of the next, that I feel it would be but tiring the patience of the reader were I to detail, with the same degree of minuteness which I have hitherto done, the daily progress of our little party, and the great cause in which we are engaged.
Despondency
The winter is now upon us, and little or nothing can be done either to effect the liberation of the brig from her icy fetters, or to further our explorations.
On board the brig the mode of life is the same as last winter, except that we are subject to greater privations, consequent on the great demands which have been made upon the stores. We have little to amuse ourselves, and we go through the monotonous round of the day’s duties with as much celerity and ready will, as our drooping circumstances will admit of.
I cannot hide from myself the fact that the main object of our expedition must now be finally abandoned; and our duty, in the next instance, is toward ourselves: to wait the return of light in order to accomplish our escape from the ice,—with the brig if possible, if impossible, without it,—before the frail appliances and stores which are now left are entirely exhausted. Of course, it would be both impolitic and unwise to apprise the crew of my thoughts on this painful subject, so I will keep my own counsel in the meantime. I can see, however, that I am not alone in my convictions.
During November, I observed a few of my best men getting nervous and depressed—M’Gary paced the deck all one Sunday in a fit of home-sickness, without eating a meal—I do my best to cheer them; but it is hard work to hide one’s own trials for the sake of others who have not as many. I am glad of my professional drill and its companion influence over the sick and toil worn. I couldnot get along at all unless I combined the offices of physician and commander. You cannot punish sick men.
December saw the brig fitted up for the winter; and, all things considered, very comfortably we made it. Tom Hickey, our good-humoured, blundering cabin-boy, decorated since poor Schubert’s death with the dignities of cook, is in that little dirty cot on the starboard-side; the rest are bedded in rows, Mr Brooks and myself choke aft. Our bunks are close against the frozen moss-wall, where we can take in the entire family at a glance. The apartment measures twenty feet by eighteen; its height six feet four inches at one place, but diversified elsewhere by beams crossing at different distances from the floor. The avenue by which it is approached is barely to be seen in the moss-wall forward. The avenue—Ben-Djerback is our poetic name for it—closes on the inside with a door well patched with flannel, from which, stooping upon all-fours, you back down a descent of four feet in twelve, through a tunnel three feet high and two feet six inches broad. It would have been a tight squeeze for a man like Mr Brooks, when he was better fed and fatter. Arrived at the bottom, you straighten yourself, and a second door admits you into the dark and sorrowing hold, empty of stores, and stripped to its naked ceiling for firewood. From this we grope our way to the main hatch, and mount by a rude stairway of boxes into the open air.
“December 2.—Many of the men are down with sickness and scurvy, and this adds greatly to my anxiety. M’Gary, Riley, Wilson, and Brooks, are all on the sick-list, and as for poor Morton, I am afraid I will lose him. Poor fellows, I can ill afford to lose any of them; but if Morton dies, it will be a great loss indeed. He is not only one of mymost intelligent men, but he is daring, cool, and every way trustworthy.
Return of the Wanderers
“On the 7th we had an agreeable surprise. I was asleep in the forenoon, after the fatigue of an extra night-watch, when I was called to the deck by the report of ‘Esquimaux sledges.’ They came on rapidly, five sledges, with teams of six dogs each, most of the drivers strangers to us; and in a few minutes were at the brig. Their errand was of charity: they were bringing back to us Bonsall and Petersen, two of the party that left us on the 28th of August.
“The party had many adventures and much suffering to tell of. They had verified by painful and perilous experience all I had anticipated for them. But the most stirring of their announcements was the condition they had left their associates in, two hundred miles off, divided in their counsels, their energies broken, and their provisions nearly gone. Space and opportunity will not permit of my giving an account of their wanderings and privations, but they were very severe. My first thought was of the means of rescuing them. After a little necessary delay I despatched a party to relieve them.
“On the morning of the 12th Brooks awoke me with the cry of ‘Esquimaux again!’ I dressed hastily, and groping my way over the pile of boxes that leads up from the hold into the darkness above, made out a group of human figures, masked by the hooded jumpers of the natives. They stopped at the gangway, and, as I was about to challenge, one of them sprang forward and grasped my hand. It was Doctor Hayes. A few words, dictated by suffering, certainly not by any anxiety as to his reception, and at his bidding the whole party came upon deck. Poor fellows! I could only grasp their hands and give them a brother’s welcome.
“One by one they all came in and were housed. Poor fellows! as they threw open their Esquimaux garments by the stove, how they relished the scanty luxuries which we had to offer them! The coffee and the meat-biscuit soup, and the molasses and wheat bread, even the salt pork which our scurvy forbade the rest of us to touch,—how they relished it all! For more than two months they had lived on frozen seal and walrus-meat.
“December 23.—A very serious occurrence took place to-day, which might have resulted in disastrous consequences. A watch had been stationed in charge of the lamp, with the usual order of ‘No uncovered lights.’ He deserted his post. Soon afterward Hans found the cooking-room on fire. It was a horrible crisis; for no less than eight of our party were absolutely nailed to their beds, and there was nothing but a bulkhead between them and the fire. I gave short but instant orders, stationing a line between the tide-hole and the main hatch, detailing two men to work with me, and ordering all the rest who could move to their quarters. Dr Hayes with his maimed foot, Mr Brooks with his contracted legs, and poor Morton, otherwise among our best men, could do nothing.
The Brig on Fire
“Before we reached the fire the entire bulkhead was in a blaze as well as the dry timbers and skin of the brig. Our moss walls, with their own tinder-like material and their light casing of inflammable wood, were entirely hidden by the flames. Fortunately the furs of the recently-returned party were at hand, and with them I succeeded in smothering the fire. But I was obliged to push through the blaze of our sailcloth bulkhead in order to defend the wall; and in my anxiety to save time, I had left the cabin without either cap or mittens. I got through somehow or other, and tore down the canvas which hung against thatdangerous locality. Our rifles were in this corner, and their muzzles pointing in all directions.
“The water now began to pass down; but with the discharge of the first bucketful the smoke overcame me. As I found myself going I pushed for the hatchway, knowing that the bucket-line wouldfeelme. Seeing was impossible; but, striking Ohlsen’s legs as I fell, I was passed up to the deck,minusbeard, eyebrows, and forelock,plustwo burns on the forehead and one on each palm.
“In about three minutes after making way with the canvas the fire was got under, and in less than half an hour all was safe again. But the transition, for even the shortest time, from the fiery Shadrachin furnace-temperature below, to 46° below zero above, was intolerably trying. Every man suffered, and few escaped without frost-bitten fingers.
“The remembrance of the danger and its horrible results almost miraculously averted, shocks us all. Had we lost our brig, not a man could have survived. Without shelter, clothing, or food, what help could we have on the open ice field?
“December 25, Christmas Day.—All together again, the returned and the steadfast, we sat down to our Christmas dinner. There was more love than with the ‘stalled ox’ of former times; but of herbs none. We forgot our discomforts in the blessings which adhered to us still; and when we thought of the long road ahead of us, we thought of it hopefully. I pledged myself to give them their next Christmas with their homes; and each of us drank his ‘absent friends’ with ferocious zest over one-eighteenth part of a bottle of sillery,—the last of its hamper.”
We entered upon the New-Year 1851 with mingled feelings of hope and dismay. The long, dull, dreary months of January and February “dragged their slow lengthalong” without much variety or incidents worth noting. We devised plans by which we hoped to be able to get away from our frozen fortress, but could do nothing in the way of execution until the much-longed-for light re-appeared.
“February 10.—At length we have prognostications of the return of the blessed sun. The day is beginning to glow with its rays. The south at noon has almost an orange tinge. In ten days his direct rays will reach our hill tops, and in a week after he will be dispensing his blessed medicine among our sufferers.”
It is hardly worth while to inflict on the reader a succession of journal-records like these. They tell of nothing but the varying symptoms of sick men, dreary, profitless hunts, relieved now and then by the signalised incident of a killed rabbit or a deer seen, and the longed-for advent of the solar light.
We worked on board—those of us who could work at all—at arranging a new gangway with a more gentle slope, to let some of the party crawl up from their hospital into the air. We were six, all told, out of eighteen, who could affect to hunt, cook, or nurse.
For myself, my thoughts had occupation enough in the question of our closing labours. I never lost my hope. I looked to the coming spring as full of responsibilities; but I had bodily strength and moral tone enough to look through them to the end. A trust, based on experience as well as on promises, buoyed me up at the worst of times. Call it fatalism, as you ignorantly may, there is that in the story of every eventful life which teaches the inefficiency of human means and the present control of a Supreme Agency. See how often relief has come at the moment of extremity, in forms strangely unsought, almost at the time unwelcome; see, still more, how the back has been strengthenedto its increasing burden, and the heart cheered by some conscious influence of an unseen Power.
“February 21.—To-day the crests of the north-east headland were gilded by true sunshine, and all who were able assembled on deck to greet it. For the past ten days we have been watching the growing warmth of our landscape, as it emerged from buried shadow, through all the stages of distinctness of an India-ink washing, step by step, into the sharp, bold definition of our desolate harbour scene. We have marked every dash of colour which the great Painter in his benevolence vouchsafed to us; and now the empurpled blues, clear, unmistakable, the spreading lake, the flickering yellow; peering at all these, poor wretches! everything seemed superlative lustre and unsurpassable glory. We had so grovelled in darkness that we oversaw the light.”
Sickness
My journal for March is little else than a chronicle of sufferings. Our little party was quite broken down. Every man on board was tainted with scurvy, and it was not common to find more than three who could assist in caring for the rest. The greater number were in their bunks, absolutely unable to stir.
The circumstances were well fitted to bring out the character of individuals. Some were intensely grateful for every little act of kindness from their more fortunate messmates; some querulous; others desponding; others again wanted only strength to become mutinous. Brooks, my first officer, as stalwart a man-o’-war’s man as ever faced an enemy, burst into tears when he first saw himself in the glass. On Sunday, the 4th, our last remnant of fresh meat had been doled out. Our invalids began to sink rapidly. The region about our harbour ceased to furnish its scanty contingent of game. One of our huntsmen,Petersen, never very reliable in anything, declared himself unfit for further duty. Hans was unsuccessful: he made several wide circuits, and saw deer twice; but once they were beyond range, and the next time his rifle missed fire.
I tried the hunt for a long morning myself, without meeting a single thing of life, and was convinced, by the appearance of things on my return to the brig, that I should peril the morale, and with it the only hope, of my command by repeating the experiment.
I laboured, of course, with all the ingenuity of a well-taxed mind, to keep up the spirits of my comrades. I cooked for them all imaginable compounds of our unvaried diet-list, and brewed up flax-seed and lime-juice and quinine and willow-stems into an abomination which was dignified as beer, and which some were persuaded for the time to believe such. But it was becoming more and more certain every hour, that unless we could renew our supplies of fresh meat, the days of the party were numbered.
I spare myself, as well as the readers of this hastily-compiled volume, when I pass summarily over the details of our condition at this time.
I look back at it with recollections like those of a nightmare. Yet I was borne up wonderfully. I never doubted for an instant that the same Providence which had guarded us through the long darkness of winter was still watching over us for good, and that it was yet in reserve for us—for some, I dared not hope for all—to bear back the tidings of our rescue to a Christian land. But how I did not see.
The advent of April brings with it a better state of matters. Petersen has so far recovered that he is able to go hunting, and he has met with some success; and never was blessing more welcome than the fresh meat with which his gun supplied our long starved table. Several of thecrew are on their legs again, and things generally begin to assume a healthier aspect. Business, as far as our shattered constitutions will permit, is now the order of the day.
“April 20.—A relief-watch, of Riley, Morton, and Bonsall, are preparing to saw out sledge runners from the cross-beams of the brig. It is slow work. They are very weak, and the thermometer sinks at night to -26°. Nearly all our beams have been used up for fuel; but I have saved enough to construct two sledges. I want a sledge sufficiently long to bring the weight of the whale-boat and her stowage within the line of the runner; this will prevent her rocking and pitching when crossing hummocked ice, and enable us to cradle her firmly to the sledge.
All at Work
“April 21.—Morton’s heel is nearly closed, and there is apparently a sound bone underneath. He has been upon his back since October. I can now set this faithful and valuable man to active duty very soon.
“The beam was too long to be carried through our hatches; we therefore have sawed it as it stands, and will carry up the slabs separately. These slabs are but one and a half inch wide, and must be strengthened by iron bolts and cross-pieces; still they are all that we have. I made the bolts out of our cabin curtain-rods, long disused. Mr Petersen aids Ohlsen in grinding his tools. They will complete the job to-morrow,—for we must work on Sunday now,—and by Monday be able to begin at other things. Petersen undertakes to manufacture our cooking and mess-gear. I have a sad-looking assortment of battered rusty tins to offer him; but with the stove-pipe much may be done.
“April 22.—Gave rest for all but the sawyers, who keep manfully at the beam. Some notion of our weakness may be formed from the fact of these five poor follows averaging among them but one foot per hour.”
PREPARATIONS FOR LEAVING THE BRIG.
Wecontinued toiling on with our complicated preparations till the evening of the 24th, when Hans came back well laden with walrus meat. Three of the Esquimaux accompanied him, each with his sledge and dog-team fully equipped for a hunt. The leader of the party, Kalutunah, was a noble savage, greatly superior in everything to the others of his race. He greeted me with respectful courtesy, yet as one who might rightfully expect an equal measure of it in return, and, after a short interchange of salutations, seated himself in the post of honour at my side.
I waited, of course, till the company had fed and slept, for among savages especially haste is indecorous, and then, after distributing a few presents, opened to them my project of a northern exploration. Kalutunah received his knife and needles with a “Kuyanake,” “I thank you:” the first thanks I have heard from a native of this upper region. He called me his friend,—“Asakaoteet,” “I love you well,”—and would be happy, he said, to join the “nalegak-soak” in a hunt.
The project was one that had engaged my thoughts long before daylight had renewed the possibility of carrying it out. I felt that the further shores beyond Kennedy Channel were still to be searched before our work could be considered finished; but we were without dogs, the indispensable means of travel. We had only four left out of sixty-two. Famine among the Esquimaux had been as disastrous as disease with us: they had killed all but thirty,and of these there were now sixteen picketed on the ice about the brig. The aid and influence of Kalutunah could secure my closing expedition.
I succeeded in making my arrangements with him, provisionally at least, and the morning after we all set out. The party consisted of Kalutunah, Shang-hu, and Tatterat, an outlandish Esquimaux, who had his name from the Kitty-wake Gull, with their three sledges. Hans, armed with the Marston rifle, was my only companion from the ship’s company. The natives carried no arms but the long knife and their unicorn ivory lances. Our whole equipment was by no means cumbersome: except the clothes upon our back and raw walrus-meat, we carried nothing.
Setting Out
We started with a wild yell of dogs and men in chorus, Kalutunah and myself leading. In about two hours we had reached a high berg about fifteen miles north of the brig. Here I reconnoitred the ice ahead. It was not cheering: the outside tide-channel, where I had broken through the fall before, was now full of squeezed ice, and the plain beyond the bergs seem much distorted. The Esquimaux, nevertheless, acceded to my wish to attempt the passage, and we were soon among the hummocks. We ran beside our sledges, clinging to the upstanders, but making, perhaps, four miles an hour where, unassisted by the dogs, we could certainly have made but one. Things began to look more auspicious.
We halted for lunch about thirty miles north of the brig, after having edged along the coast about thirty miles eastward. Lunch over, the journey began again, and we should have accomplished my wishes had it not been for the untoward influence of sundry bears. The tracks of these animals were becoming more and more numerous as we rounded one iceberg after another; andwe could see the beds they had worn in the snow while watching for seal. These swayed the dogs from their course: yet we kept edging onwards; and when in sight of the northern coast, about thirty miles from the central peak of the “Three Brothers,” I saw a deep band of stratus lying over the horizon in the direction of Kennedy Channel. This water-sky indicated the continued opening of the channel, and made me more deeply anxious to proceed. But at this moment our dogs encountered a large male bear in the act of devouring a seal. The impulse was irresistible; I lost all control over both dogs and drivers. They seemed dead to everything but the passion of pursuit. Off they sped with incredible swiftness, the Esquimaux clinging to their sledges, and cheering their dogs with loud cries of “Nannook!” A mad, wild chase, wilder than German legend,—the dogs, wolves; the drivers, devils. After a furious run, the animal was brought to bay; the lance and the rifle did their work, and we halted for a general feed. The dogs gorged themselves, the drivers did as much, and we buried the remainder of the carcass in the snow. A second bear had been tracked by the party to a large iceberg north of Cape Russel; for we had now travelled to the neighbourhood of the Great Glacier. But the dogs were too much distended by their abundant diet to move: their drivers were scarcely better. Rest was indispensable.
We took a four hours’ sleep on the open ice, the most uncomfortable that I remember. Our fatigue had made us dispense with the snow-house; and, though I was heavily clad in a full suit of furs, and squeezed myself in between Kalutunah and Shang-hu, I could not bear the intense temperature. I rose in the morning stiff and sore. I mention it as a trait of nobleness on the part of Kalutunah,which I appreciated very sensibly at the time, that, seeing me suffer, he took his kapetah from his back and placed it around my feet.
The next day I tried again to make my friends steer to the northward. But the bears were most numerous upon the Greenland side; and they determined to push on toward the glacier. They were sure, they said, of finding the game among the broken icebergs at the base of it. All my remonstrances and urgent entreaties were unavailing to make them resume their promised route. They said that to cross so high up as we then were was impossible, and I felt the truth of this when I remembered the fate of poor Baker and Schubert at this very passage. Kalutunah added, significantly, that the bear-meat was absolutely necessary for the support of their families, and that Nalegak had no right to prevent him from providing for his household. It was a strong argument, and withal the argument of the strong.
Bear Hunting
I found now that my projected survey of the northern coast must be abandoned, at least for the time. My next wish was to get back to the brig, and to negotiate with Metek for a purchase or loan of his dogs as my last chance. But even this was not readily gratified. All of Saturday was spent in bear-hunting. The natives, as indomitable as their dogs, made the entire circuit of Dallas Bay, and finally halted again under one of the islands which group themselves between the headlands of Advance Bay and at the base of the glacier.
While the Esquimaux were hunting about the bergs, I sat and took a sketch of the glacier; seeing them come to a halt above the island, I gained the nearest sledge, and the whole party gathered together a few miles from the face of the glacier. Here Hans and myself crawled withTatterat and his dogs into an impromptu snow-hut, and, cheered by our aggregated warmth, slept comfortably. Our little dome, or rather burrow, for it was scooped out of a drift, fell down in the night; but we were so worn out that it did not wake us.
On rising from a sleep in the open air, at a temperature of 12° below zero, the hunt was resumed along the face of the glacier, with just enough of success to wear out the dogs and endanger my chances of return to the brig. In spite of the grandeur of the scenery and the noble displays of force exhibited by the falling bergs, my thoughts wandered back to the party I had left; and I was really glad when Kalutunah yielded to my renewed persuasion, and turned his team toward the ice-belt of the south-eastern shore.
The spot at which we landed I have called Cape James Kent. It was a lofty headland, and the land-ice which hugged its base was covered with rocks from the cliffs above. As I looked over this ice-belt, losing itself in the far distance, and covered with its millions of tons of rubbish, greenstones, limestones, chlorite slates, rounded and angular, massive and ground to powder, its importance as a geological agent in the transportation of drift struck me with great force. Its whole substance was studded with these varied contributions from the shore; and further to the south, upon the now frozen waters of Marshall Bay, I could recognise raft after raft from the last year’s ice-belt, which had been caught by the winter, each one laden with its heavy freight of foreign material.
On the south-eastern corner of this bay, where some low islands at the mouth of the fiord formed a sort of protection against the north wind, was a group of Esquimaux remains,—huts, cairns, and graves. Though evidentlylong deserted, my drivers seemed to know all about them, for they suspended the hunt around the bergs to take a look at these evidences of a bygone generation of their fathers.
There were five huts, with two stone pedestals for the protection of meat, and one of those strange little kennels which serve as dormitories when the igloë is crowded. The graves were further up the fiord; from them I obtained a knife of bone, but no indications of iron.
“The Inhabited Spot”
These huts stood high up, upon a set of shingle terraces, similar to those of Rensselaer Bay. The belt-ice at their foot was old and undisturbed, and must have been so for years; so, too, was the heavy ice of the bay. Yet around these old homesteads were bones of the seal and walrus, and the vertebræ of a whale similar to that of the igloë of Anoatok. There must have been both open water and a hunting-ground around them, and the huts had in former days been close upon this water-line. “Una suna nuna?” “What land is this, Kalutunah?” I did not understand his answer, which was long and emphatic; but I found from our interpreter that the place was still called “the inhabited spot;” and that a story was well preserved among them of a time when families were sustained beside its open water, and musk-ox inhabited the hills. We followed the belt-ice, crossing only at the headlands of the bays, and arrived at the brig on the afternoon of Wednesday.
The Esquimaux left the brig after a day’s rest, fully laden with wood and other presents, and promising to engage Metek, if they could, to come up with his four dogs. They themselves engaged to lend me one dog from each of their teams. It pleased me to find that I had earned character with these people, at first so suspiciousand distrustful. They left on board each man his dog, without a shade of doubt as to my good faith, only begging me to watch the poor animals’ feet, as the famine had nearly exterminated their stock.
The month of May had come. Metek, less confiding because less trustworthy than Kalutunah, did not bring his dogs, and my own exhausted team was in almost daily requisition to bring in supplies of food from Etah. Everything admonished me that the time was at hand when we must leave the brig and trust our fortunes to the floes. Our preparations were well advanced, and the crew so far restored to health that all but three or four could take some part in completing them.
Still, I could not allow myself to pass away from our region of search without a last effort to visit the furthest shores of the channel. Our communications with the Esquimaux, and some successful hunts of our own, had given us a stock of provisions for at least a week in advance. I conferred with my officers, made a full distribution of the work to be performed in my absence, and set out once more, with Morton for my only companion. We took with us the light sledge, adding the two borrowed dogs to our team, but travelling ourselves on foot. Our course was to be by the middle ice, and our hope that we might find it free enough from hummocks to permit us to pass.
My journal, written after our return, gives nothing but a series of observations going to verify and complete my charts. We struggled manfully, through days and nights of adventurous exposure and recurring disaster, to force our way, and at last found our way back to the brig, Morton broken down anew, and my own energies justadequate to the duty of supervising our final departure. I had neither time nor strength to expend on my diary.
The operations of the search were closed.
Preparing for Retreat
The detailed preparations for our escape would have little interest for the general reader; but they were so arduous and so important that I cannot pass them by without a special notice. They had been begun from an early day of the fall, and had not been entirely intermitted during our severest winter-trials. All who could work, even at picking over eider-down, found every moment of leisure fully appropriated. But since our party had begun to develop the stimulus of more liberal diet, our labours were more systematic and diversified.
The manufacture of clothing had made considerable progress. Canvas mocassins had been made for every one of the party, and three dozen were added as a common stock to meet emergencies. Three pairs of boots were allowed each man. These were generally of carpeting, with soles of walrus and seal hide; and when the supply of these was exhausted, the leather from the chaffing-gear of the brig for a time supplied their place. A much better substitute was found afterward in the gutta-percha that had formed the speaking-tube. This was softened by warm water, cut into Lengths, and so made available to its new uses. Blankets were served out as the material for body clothing. Every man was his own tailor.
For bedding, the woollen curtains that had formerly decorated our berths supplied us with a couple of large coverlets, which were abundantly quilted with eider-down. Two buffalo-robes of the same size, with the coverlets, were arranged so as to button on them, forming sleeping-sacks for the occasion, but easily detached for the purpose of drying or airing.
Our provision-bags were of assorted sizes, to fit under the thwarts of the boats. They were of sailcloth, made water-tight by tar and pitch, which we kept from penetrating the canvas by first coating it with flour-paste and plaster of Paris. The bread-bags were double, the inner saturated with paste and plaster by boiling in the mixture, and the space between the two filled with pitch. Every bag was, in sailor-phrase, roped and becketed; in ordinary parlance, well secured by cordage.
These different manufactures had all of them been going on through the winter, and more rapidly as the spring advanced. They had given employment to the thoughts of our sick men, and in this way had exerted a wholesome influence on their moral tone and assisted their convalescence. Other preparations had been begun more recently. The provisions for the descent were to be got ready and packed. The ship-bread was powdered by beating it with a capstan-bar, and pressed down into the bags which were to carry it. Pork-fat and tallow were melted down, and poured into other bags to freeze. A stock of concentrated bean-soup was cooked, and secured for carriage like the pork-fat; and the flour and remaining meat-biscuit were to be protected from moisture in double bags. These were the only provisions we were to carry with us. I knew I should be able to subsist the party for some time after their setting out by the food I could bring from the vessel by occasional trips with my dog-team. For the rest we relied upon our guns.
Besides all this, we had our camp equipage to get in order, and the vitally important organization of our system of boats and sledges.