The Boats
Our boats were three in number, all of them well batteredby exposure to ice and storm, almost as destructive of their sea-worthiness as the hot sun of other regions. Two of them were cypress whale-boats, twenty-six feet long, with seven feet beam, and three feet deep. These were strengthened with oak bottom-pieces and a long string-piece bolted to the keel. A wash board of light cedar, about six inches high, served to strengthen the gunwale and give increased depth. A neat housing of light canvas was stretched upon a ridge-line sustained fore and aft by stanchions, and hung down over the boats’ sides, where it was fastened (stopped) to a jack-stay. My last year’s experience on the attempt to reach Beechy Island determined me to carry but one mast to each boat. It was stepped into an oaken thwart, made especially strong, as it was expected to carry sail over ice as well as water; the mast could be readily unshipped, and carried, with the oars, boat-hooks, and ice-poles, alongside the boat. The third boat was my littleRed Eric. We mounted her on the old sledge, theFaith, hardly relying on her for any purposes of navigation, but with the intention of cutting her up for firewood in case our guns should fail to give us a supply of blubber.
Indeed, in spite of all the ingenuity of our carpenter, Mr Ohlsen, well seconded by the persevering labours of M’Gary and Bonsall, not one of our boats was positively sea-worthy. TheHopewould not pass even charitable inspection, and we expected to burn her on reaching water. The planking of all of them was so dried it could hardly be made tight by calking.
The three boats were mounted on sledges rigged with rue-raddies; the provisions stowed snugly under the thwarts; the chronometers carefully boxed and padded, placed in the stern-sheets of theHope, in charge of Mr Sontag. Withthem were such of the instruments as we could venture to transport.
Our powder and shot, upon which our lives depended, were carefully distributed in bags and tin canisters. The percussion-caps I took into my own possession, as more precious than gold. Mr Bonsall had a general charge of the arms and ammunition. Places were arranged for the guns, and hunters appointed for each boat. Mr Petersen took charge of the most important part of our field-equipage, our cooking gear. Petersen was our best tinker. All the old stove-pipe, now none the better for two winters of Arctic fires, was called into requisition. Each boat was provided with two large iron cylinders, fourteen inches in diameter and eighteen high. Each of them held an iron saucer or lamp, in which we could place our melted pork-fat or blubber, and, with the aid of spun-yarn for a wick, make a roaring fire. I need not say that the fat and oil always froze when not ignited.
Into these cylinders, which were used merely to defend our lamp from the wind, and our pots from contact with the cold air, we placed a couple of large tin vessels, suitable either for melting snow or making tea or soup. They were made out of cake-canisters cut down. How many kindly festival associations hung by these now abused soup-cans! One of them had, before the fire rubbed off its bright gilding, the wedding inscription of a large fruit-cake.
We carried spare tins in case the others should burn out; it was well we did so. So completely had we exhausted our household furniture, that we had neither cups nor plates, except crockery. This, of course, would not stand the travel, and our spare tin had to be saved for protecting the boats from ice. At this juncture we cut plates out of every imaginable and rejected piece of tin-ware.Borden’s meat-biscuit canisters furnished us with a splendid dinner-service; and some rightly-feared tin jars, with ominous labels of Corrosive Sublimate and Arsenic, which once belonged to our department of natural history, were emptied, scoured, and cut down into tea-cups.
Final Orders
Recognising the importance of acting directly upon the men’s minds, my first step now was to issue a general order appointing a certain day, the 17th of May, for setting out. Every man had twenty-four hours given him to select and get ready his eight pounds of personal effects. After that, his time was to cease to be his own for any purpose. The long-indulged waywardness of our convalescents made them take this hardly. Some who were at work on articles of apparel that were really important to them threw them down unfinished, in a sick man’s pet. I had these in some cases picked up quietly and finished by others. But I showed myself inexorable. It was necessary to brace up and concentrate every man’s thoughts and energies upon the one great common object, our departure from the vessel on the 17th, not to return.
I tried my best also to fix and diffuse impressions that we were going home. But in this I was not always successful. I was displeased, indeed, with the moody indifference with which many went about the tasks to which I put them. The completeness of my preparations I know had its influence; but there were many doubters. Some were convinced that my only object was to move further south, retaining the brig, however, as a home to retreat to. Others whispered that I wanted to transport the sick to the hunting grounds and other resources of the lower settlements. A few of a more cheerful spirit thought I had resolved to make for some point of look-out, in the hope ofa rescue by whalers or English expedition parties which were supposed still to be within the Arctic circle. The number is unfortunately small of those human beings whom calamity elevates.
There was no sign or affectation of spirit or enthusiasm upon the memorable day when we first adjusted the boats to their cradles on the sledges and moved them off to the ice-foot. But the ice immediately around the vessel was smooth; and, as the boats had not received their lading, the first labour was an easy one. As the runners moved, the gloom of several countenances were perceptibly lightened. The croakers had protested that we could not stir an inch. These cheering remarks always reach a commander’s ears, and I took good care of course to make the outset contradict them. By the time we reached the end of our little level, the tone had improved wonderfully, and we were prepared for the effort of crossing the successive lines of the belt-ice and forcing a way through the smashed material which interposed between us and the ice-foot.
This was a work of great difficulty, and sorrowfully exhausting to the poor fellows not yet accustomed to heave together. But in the end I had the satisfaction, before twenty-four hours were over, of seeing our little arks of safety hauled upon the higher plane of the ice-foot, in full trim for ornamental exhibition from the brig; their neat canvas-housing rigged, tent-fashion, over the entire length of each; a jaunty little flag, made out of one of the commander’s obsolete linen shirts, decorated in stripes from a disused article of stationery, the red-ink bottle, and with a very little of the blue-bag in the star-spangled corner. All hands after this returned on board; I had ready for them the best supper our supplies afforded, and they turned in with minds prepared for their departure next day.
They were nearly all of them invalids, unused to open air and exercise. It was necessary to train them very gradually. We made but two miles the first day, and with a single boat; and indeed for some time after this I took care that they should not be disheartened by overwork. They came back early to a hearty supper and warm beds, and I had the satisfaction of marching them back each recurring morning refreshed and cheerful. The weather, happily, was superb.
FAREWELL TO THE “ADVANCE.”
Ourlast farewell to the brig was made with more solemnity. The entire ship’s company was collected in our dismantled winter-chamber to take part in the ceremonial. It was Sunday. Our moss walls had been torn down, and the wood that supported them burned. Our beds were off at the boats. The galley was unfurnished and cold. Everything about the little den of refuge was desolate.
Leaving the “Advance”
We read prayers and a chapter of the Bible; and then, all standing silently round, I took Sir John Franklin’s portrait from its frame and cased it in an India-rubber scroll. I next read the reports of inspection and survey which had been made by the several commissions organizedfor the purpose, all of them testifying to the necessities under which I was about to act. I then addressed the party: I did not affect to disguise the difficulties that were before us; but I assured them that they could all be overcome by energy and subordination to command; and that the thirteen hundred miles of ice and water that lay between us and North Greenland could be traversed with safety for most of us, and hope for all. I added, that as men and messmates, it was the duty of us all, enjoined by gallantry as well as religion, to postpone every consideration of self to the protection of the wounded and sick; and that this must be regarded by every man, and under all circumstances, as a paramount order. In conclusion, I told them to think over the trials we had all of us gone through, and to remember each man for himself how often an unseen Power had rescued him in peril; and I admonished them still to place reliance on Him who could not change.
I was met with a right spirit. After a short conference, an engagement was drawn up by one of the officers, and brought to me with the signatures of all the company, without an exception. It read as follows:—
“Second Grinnell Expedition,“Brig‘Advance,’May20, 1855.
“The undersigned, being convinced of the impossibility of the liberation of the brig, and equally convinced of the impossibility of remaining in the ice a third winter, do fervently concur with the commander in his attempt to reach the south by means of boats.
“Knowing the trials and hardships which are before us, and feeling the necessity of union, harmony, and discipline, we have determined to abide faithfully by the expeditionand our sick comrades, and to do all that we can, as true men, to advance the objects in view.
The Memorial
I had prepared a brief memorial of the considerations which justified our abandonment of the vessel, and had read it as part of my address. I now fixed it to a stanchion near the gangway, where it must attract the notice of any who might seek us hereafter, and stand with them as my vindication for the step, in case we should be overtaken by disaster. It closed with these words:—
“I regard the abandonment of the brig as inevitable. We have by actual inspection but thirty-six days’ provisions, and a careful survey shows that we cannot cut more firewood without rendering our craft unseaworthy. A third winter would force us, as the only means of escaping starvation, to resort to Esquimaux habits and give up all hope of remaining by the vessel and her resources. It would therefore in no manner advance the search after Sir John Franklin.
“Under any circumstances, to remain longer would be destructive to those of our little party who have already suffered from the extreme severity of the climate and its tendencies to disease. Scurvy has enfeebled more or less every man in the expedition; and an anomalous spasmodic disorder, allied to tetanus, has cost us the life of two of our most prized comrades.
“I hope, speaking on the part of my companions and myself, that we have done all that we ought to do to prove our tenacity of purpose and devotion to the cause which we have undertaken. This attempt to escapeby crossing the southern ice on sledges is regarded by me as an imperative duty,—the only means of saving ourselves and preserving the laboriously-earned results of the expedition.
“E. K. Kane,“Commander, Grinnell Expedition.
“‘Advance,’Rensselaer Bay,May20, 1855.”
We then went upon deck: the flags were hoisted and hauled down again, and our party walked once or twice around the brig, looking at her timbers and exchanging comments upon the scars which reminded them of every stage of her dismantling. Our figure-head—the fair Augusta, the little blue girl with pink cheeks, who had lost her breast by an iceberg and her nose by a nip off Bedevilled Reach—was taken from our bows and placed aboard the “Hope.” “She is at any rate wood,” said the men, when I hesitated about giving them the additional burden; “and if we cannot carry her far we can burn her.”
No one thought of the mockery of cheers: we had no festival-liquor to mislead our perception of the real state of things. When all hands were quite ready, we scrambled off over the ice together, much like a gang of stevedores going to work over a quayful of broken cargo.
Excluding four sick men, who were unable to move, and myself, who had to drive the dog-team and serve as common carrier and courier, we numbered but twelve men,—which would have given six to a sledge, or too few to move it. It was therefore necessary to concentrate our entire force upon one sledge at a time. On the other hand, however, it was important to the efficiency of our organization that matters of cooking, sleeping baggage, and rations, should be regulated by separate messes.
The routine I established was the most precise:—Daily prayers both morning and evening, all hands gathering round in a circle and standing uncovered during the short exercise; regulated hours; fixed duties and positions at the track-lines and on the halt; the cooking to be taken by turns, the captains of the boats alone being excused. The charge of the log was confided to Dr Hayes, and the running survey to Mr Sontag. Though little could be expected from either of these gentlemen at this time, I deemed it best to keep up the appearance of ordinary voyaging; and after we left the first ices of Smith’s Straits I was indebted to them for valuable results. The thermometer was observed every three hours.
The Boats’ Crews
To my faithful friend and first officer, boatswain Brooks, I assigned the command of the boats and sledges. I knew how well he was fitted for it; and when forced, as I was afterward during the descent, to be in constant motion between the sick-station, the Esquimaux settlements, and the deserted brig, I felt safe in the assurance of his tried fidelity and indomitable resolution. The party under him was marshalled at the rue-raddies as a single gang; but the messes were arranged with reference to the two whale-boats, and when we came afterward to the open water the crews distributed in the same way:—
With this organization we set out on our march.
Up to the evening of the 23d, the progress was little more than a mile a day for one sledge; on the 24th, bothsledges reached First Ravine, a distance of seven miles, when we found that the dog-sledge had brought on to this station the buffalo bags and other sleeping appliances which we had prepared during the winter. The condition of the party was such that it was essential they should sleep in comfort; and it was a rule, therefore, during the whole journey, never departed from unless in extreme emergency, never to begin a new day’s labour till the party was refreshed from the exertions of the day before. Our halts were regulated by the condition of the men rather than by arbitrary hours, and sleep was meted out in proportion to the trials of the march. We slept by day when the sun was warmest, and travelled when we could avoid his greatest glare.
Mr Morton, Ohlsen, and Petersen, during this time performed a double duty. They took their turn at the sledges with the rest, but they were also engaged in preparing theRed Ericas a comrade boat. She was mounted on our good old sledge, theFaith—a sledge that, like her namesake, our most reliable whale-boat, had been our very present help in many times of trouble. I believe every man felt, when he saw her brought out, that stout work was to be done, and under auspices of good.
In the meantime I had carried Mr Goodfellow, with my dog-sledge, to a sick-station, which I had arranged at Anoatok; and had managed to convey the rest one by one to the same spot. Mr Wilson, whose stump was still unhealed, and who suffered besides from scurvy; George Whipple, whose tendons were so contracted that he could not extend his legs, and poor Stephenson, just able to keep the lamps burning and warm up food for the rest, were the other invalids, all incapable of moving without assistance.It is just that I should speak of the manly fortitude with which they bore up during this painful imprisonment. Dr Hayes, though still disabled from his frozen foot, adhered manfully to the sledges.
As I review my notes of the first few days of our ice-journey, I find them full of incidents, interesting and even momentous when they occurred, but which cannot claim a place in this narrative. The sledges were advancing slowly, the men often discouraged, and now and then one giving way under the unaccustomed labour.
The “Red Boat”
TheRed Boatwas completed for service in a few days, and joined the sledge-party on the floes,—an additional burden, but a necessary one, for our weary rue-raddies; and I set out for the sick-station with Mr Goodfellow, our last remaining invalid. As my team reached the entrance of Force Bay, I saw that poor Nessark, the Esquimaux, who had carried Mr Wilson and some stores to Anoatok, finding his sledge-load too heavy, had thrown out a portion of it upon the ice. He had naturally enough selected the bread for his jettison, an article of diet unknown among the Esquimaux, but precisely that of which our sick were most in need. I lost some time in collecting such parts of his rejected cargo as I could find, and, when I reached the huts after a twelve hours’ drive, the condition of our sick men made it imperative that I should return at once to the brig. The strength of the dogs began to fail while crossing the reach of Force Bay, and I was forced to camp out with them on the ice-belt, but early in the morning I came upon the fires of the sledge-party.
The men were at prayers when I first saw them; but, as they passed to the drag-ropes, I was pained to see how wearily they moved. Poor Brooks’ legs were so swollen that he could not brace them in his blanket coverings, andDr Hayes could hardly keep his place. The men generally showed symptoms of increasing scurvy. It was plain that they could not hold their own without an increased allowance, if not of meat, at least of fresh bread and hot tea.
Taking with me Morton, my faithful adjutant always, I hurried on to the brig.
We lighted fires in the galley, melted pork, baked a large batch of bread, gathered together a quantity of beans and dried apples, somewhat damaged, but still eatable, and by the time our dogs had fed and rested, we were ready for the return. Distributing our supplies as we passed the squads on the floe, I hastened to Anoatok. I had taken Godfrey with us from his party, and, as it was painfully evident that the men could not continue to work without more generous food, I sent him on to Etah with the dogs, in the hope of procuring a stock of walrus-meat.
The little company at the hut welcomed my return. They had exhausted their provisions; their lamp had gone out; the snow-drift had forced its way in at the door, so that they could not close it; it was blowing a north-easter; and the thermometer, which hung against the blanketed walls, stood only sixteen degree above zero. The poor fellows had all the will to protect themselves, but they were lame, and weak, and hungry, and disheartened. We built a fire for them of tarred rope, dried their bedding, cooked them a porridge of meat-biscuit and pea-soup, fastened up their desolate doorway, hung a dripping-slab of pork-fat over their lamp-wick, and, first joining in a prayer of thankfulness, and then a round of merry gossip, all hands forgot sickness, and privation, and distance in the contentment of our sleeping-bags. I cannot tell how long we slept, for all our watches ran down before we awoke.
The gale had risen, and it was snowing hard when I replenished the fires of our heartstone. But we went on burning rope and fat, in a regular tea-drinking frolic, till not an icicle or even a frost-mark was to be seen on the roof. After a time Godfrey rejoined us; Metek came with him; and between their two sledges they brought an ample supply of meat. With part of this I hastened to the sledge-party. They were now off Ten-mile Ravine, struggling through the accumulated snows, and much exhausted, though not out of heart. In spite of their swollen feet, they had worked fourteen hours a day, passing in that time over some twelve miles of surface, and advancing a mile and a half on their way.
The Sledge-Party
Once more leaving the party on the floe, Morton and myself, with Metek and his sledge in company, revisited the brig, and set ourselves to work baking bread. The brig was dreary enough, and Metek was glad to bid it good-bye, with one hundred and fifty pounds on his dog-sledge, consigned to Mr Brooks. But he carried besides a letter, safely trusted to his inspection, which directed that he should be sent back forthwith for another load. It was something like a breach of faith, perhaps; but his services were indispensable, and his dogs still more so. He returned, of course, for there was no escaping us; his village lay in the opposite direction, and he could not deviate from the track after once setting out. In the time we had cooked about a hundred pounds of flour pudding, and tried out a couple of bagfuls of pork-fat,—a good days work,—and we were quite ready, before the subdued brightness of midnight came, to turn in to our beds. Our beds!—there was not an article of covering left on board. We ripped open the old mattresses, and, all three crawling down among the curled hair, Morton, Metek,and the Nalegak, slept as sound as vagrants on a haystack.
On Monday, the 28th, we all set out for the boats and Anoatok. Both Metek and myself had all our sledges heavily laden. We carried the last of our provision-bags, completing now our full complement of fifteen hundred pounds, the limit of capacity of our otherwise crowded boats.
It caused me a bitter pang to abandon our collection of objects of natural history, the cherished fruit of so much exposure and toil; and it was hardly easier to leave some other things behind,—several of my well-tested instruments, for instance, and those silent friends, my books. They had all been packed up, hoping for a chance of saving them; and, to the credit of my comrades, let me say gratefully that they offered to exclude both clothes and food in favour of a full freight of these treasures.
But the thing was not to be thought of. I gave a last look at the desolate galley-stove, the representative of our long winter’s fireside, at the still bright coppers now full of frozen water, the theodolite, the chart-box, and poor Wilson’s guitar,—one more at the remnant of the old moss-walls, the useless daguerreotypes, and the skeletons of dog, and deer, and bear, and musk-ox,—stoppered in the rigging;—and, that done, whipped up my dogs so much after the manner of a sentimentalising Christian, that our pagan Metek raised a prayer in their behalf.
THE MARCH AND ITS INCIDENTS.
I foundthat Mr Brooks had succeeded in getting his boat and sledges as far as the floe off Bedevilled Reach. I stopped only long enough to point out to him an outside track, where I had found the ice quite smooth and free from snow, and pressed my dogs for the hut. I noticed, to my great joy, too, that the health of his party seemed to be improving under our raw-meat specific, and could not find fault with the extravagant use they were making of it.
The invalids at the sick-station were not as well as I could have wished; but I had only time to renew their stock of provision and give them a few cheering words. Our walrus-meat was nearly exhausted.
Setting Out
I had fixed upon two new stations further to the south, as the depôts to which our stores were now to be transported. One was upon the old and heavy floes off Navialik, “the big gull’s place,”—a headland opposite Cape Hatherton,—the other on the level ice-plain near Littleton Island. Having now gathered our stores at Anoatok, I began with a thankful heart to move them onward. I sent on Metek to the further station with two bags of bread-dust, each weighing ninety pounds, and, having myself secured some three hundred pounds at Navialik, drove on for Etah Bay.
My long succession of journeys on this route had made me thoroughly weary of the endless waste of ice to seaward, and I foolishly sought upon this trip to vary the travel by following the ice-belt. But, upon reaching Refuge Harbour, I found the snow so heavy and the fragments fromthe cliffs so numerous and threatening, that I was obliged to give it up. A large chasm stopped my advance and drove me out again upon the floes.
Getting beyond a table-land known as Kasarsoak, or “the big promontory,” I emerged from the broken ice upon a wide plain. Here I first saw with alarm that the ice had changed its character: the snow which covered it had become lead-coloured and sodden by the water from beneath, and ice-fields after ice-fields stretching before me were all covered with stained patches. As I rode along these lonely marshes, for such they were, the increased labour of the dogs admonished me that the floe was no longer to be trusted. It chilled my heart to remember the position of our boats and stores. Nearly nine hundred pounds of food, exclusive of the load now upon my sledge, were still awaiting transportation at Anoatok.
Two hundred more, including our shot and bullet-bags, were at the Cape Hatherton station; and Metek’s load was probably by this time lying on the ice opposite M’Gary Island. Like Robinson Crusoe with his powder, the reflection came over me:—“Good God! what will become of us if all this is destroyed?”
Only by men experienced in the rapid changes of Arctic ice can the full force of this reflection be appreciated. A single gale might convert the precarious platform, over which we were travelling, into a tumultuous ice-pack. Had the boats their stores on board even, and could they break through without foundering, there was not the remotest prospect of their being liberated in open water; and I knew well what obstacles a wet, sludy surface would present to our over-tasked and almost worn-out party.
Equimaux at Etah
I determined, therefore, as soon as I could secure the meat, which was my immediate errand, to make a requisitionupon the Esquimaux for two of the four dogs which were still at Etah, and by their aid to place the provisions in safety. The north cape of Littleton Island, afterward called Point Security, was selected for the purpose, and I left orders with the invalids at the sick station to be in readiness for instant removal. I pursued my journey alone.
It was quite late in the evening when I drew near Etah. I mean that it was verging on to our midnight, the sun being low in the heavens, and the air breathing that solemn stillness which belongs to the sleeping-time of birds and plants. I had not quite reached the little settlement when loud sounds of laughter came to my ear; and, turning the cape, I burst suddenly upon an encampment of the inhabitants.
Some thirty men, women, and children, were gathered together upon a little face of offal-stained rock. Except a bank of moss, which broke the wind-draught from the fiord, they were entirely without protection from the weather, though the temperature was 5° below zero. The huts were completely deserted, the snow-tossut had fallen in, and the window was as free and open as summer to the purifying air. Every living thing about the settlement was out upon the bare rocks.
The fires were of peat-moss, greased with the fat of the bird-skins. They were used only for cooking, however, the people depending for comfort on the warmth of close contact. Old Kresuk, the blind patriarch of the settlement, was the favoured centre, and around him, as a focus, was a coil of men, women, and children, as perplexing to unravel as a skein of eels. The children alone were toddling about and bringing in stores of moss, their faces smeared with blood, and tit-bits of raw liver between their teeth.
The scene was redolent of plenty and indolence,—thedolce far nienteof the short-lived Esquimaux summer. Provision for the dark winter was furthest from their thoughts; for, although the rocks were patched with sun-dried birds, a single hunting-party from Peteravik could have eaten up their entire supplies in a night.
The dogs seemed as happy as their masters: they were tethered by seal-skin thongs to prevent robbery, but evidently fed to the full extent of their capacity.
Aningnah, wife of Marsumah, was one of the presiding deities of the soup-pot, or rather first witch of the caldron. She was a tall, well-made woman, and, next to Mrs Metek, had a larger influence than any female in the settlement.
During one of my visits to the settlement, I had relieved her from much suffering by opening a furuncle, and the kind creature never lost an opportunity of showing how she remembered it. Poor old Kresuk was summarily banished from his central seat of honour, and the nalegak installed in his place. She stripped herself of her bird-skin kapetah to make me a coverlet, and gave me her two-year-old baby for a pillow. There was a little commotion in the tangled mass of humanity as I crawled over them to accept these proffered hospitalities; but it was all of a welcoming sort. I had learned by this time to take kindly and condescendingly the privileges of my rank; and, with my inner man well refreshed with auk-livers, I was soon asleep.
In the morning I left my own tired dogs in charge of Marsumah, quite confident that his wife would feed them faithfully, and took from them their only team in unequal exchange. Such had become our relations with these poor friends of ours, that such an act of authority would have gone unquestioned if it had cost them a much graver sacrifice. They saw the condition of my own travel-brokenanimals, and were well aware of the sufferings of our party, so long their neighbours and allies. Old Nessark filled my sledge with walrus-meat; and two of the young men joined me on foot, to assist me through the broken ice between Littleton Island and the mainland.
The sledge-party under Mr Brooks had advanced to within three miles of the hut when I reached them on my return. They had found the ice more practicable, and their health was improving. But their desire for food had increased proportionally; and, as it was a well-understood rule of our commissariat not to touch the reserved provision of the boats, it became necessary to draw additional supplies from the brig. The seven hundred pounds of bread-dust, our entire stock, could not be reduced with safety.
But the dogs were wanted to advance the contents of our Anoatok storehouse to the stations further south, and I resolved to take Tom Hickey with me and walk back for another baking exploit. It was more of an effort than I counted on: we were sixteen hours on the ice, and we had forgotten our gutta-percha eyautick, or slit-goggles. The glare of the sun as we entered the curve of our ice-cumbered harbour almost blinded us.
Bread Baking
Tom had been a baker at home; but he assures me, with all the authority of an ancient member of the guild, that our achievement the day we came on board might be worthy of praise in the “old country;” Tom knows no praise more expanded. We kneaded the dough in a large pickled-cabbage cask, burnt sundry volumes of the “Penny Cyclopædia of Useful Knowledge,” and converted, between duff and loaf, almost a whole barrel of floor into a strong likeness to the staff of life. It was the last of our stock; and “all the better too,” said my improvident comrade,who retained some of the genius of blundering as well as the gallantry of his countrymen,—“all the better, sir, since we’ll have no more bread to bake.”
Godfrey came on with the dogs three days after, to carry back the fruits of our labour; but an abrupt change of the weather gave us a howling gale outside, and we were all of us storm-stayed. It was Sunday, and probably the last time that two or three would be gathered together in our dreary cabin. So I took a Bible from one of the bunks, and we went through the old-times service. It was my closing act of official duty among my shipmates on board the poor little craft. I visited her afterward, but none of them were with me.
I was glad, when I reached the sick-station, to find things so much better. Everybody was stronger, and, as a consequence, more cheerful. They had learned housekeeping, with its courtesies as well as comforts. Their kotluk would have done credit to Aningnah herself: they had a dish of tea for us, and a lump of walrus; and they bestirred themselves, real housewife-fashion, to give us the warm place and make us comfortable. I was right sorry to leave them, for the snow outside was drifting with the gale; but after a little while the dogs struck the track of the sledges, and following it with unerring instinct, did not slacken their pace till they had brought us to our companions on the floe.
They had wisely halted on account of the storm; and, with their three little boats drawn up side by side for mutual protection, had been lying to for the past two days, tightly housed, and moored fast by whale-lines to the ice. But the drifts had almost buried theHope, which was the windward boat; and when I saw the burly form of Brooks emerging from the snow-covered roof, I could have fancied it a walrus rising through the ice.
Disheartening Work
They had found it hard travel, but were doing well. Brooks’s provision-report was the old story,—out of meat and nearly out of bread—no pleasant news for a tired-out man, who saw in this the necessity of another trip to Etah. I was only too glad, however, to see that their appetites held, for with the animal man, as with all others, while he feeds he lives.
Six Esquimaux, three of them women—that ugly beauty, Nessark’s wife, at the head of them—had come off to the boats for shelter from the gale. They seemed so entirely deferential, and to recognise with such simple trust our mutual relations of alliance, that I resolved to drive down to Etah with Petersen as interpreter, and formally claim assistance, according to their own laws, on the ground of our established brotherhood. I had thought of this before; but both Marsumah and Metek had been so engrossed with their bird-catching that I was loath to take them from their families.
After further consideration, I determined to send Morton; so Petersen and myself gave up the sledge to him, and, along with Marsumah and Nessark, he set out at once to negotiate at Etah, while I took my place with the sledge-parties.
The 6th saw the same disheartening work. The ice was almost impassable. Both sick and well worked at the drag-ropes alike, and hardly a man but was constantly wet to the skin. Fearing for the invalids at the sick-station in case we should be cut off from them, I sent for Mr Goodfellow at once, and gave orders for the rest to be in readiness for removal at a moment’s notice.
The next day Morton returned from Etah. The natives had responded to the brotherly appeal of the nalegak; and they came down from the settlement, bringing a full supplyof meat and blubber, and every sound dog that belonged to them. I had now once more a serviceable team. The comfort and security of such a possession to men in our critical position can hardly be realised. It was more than an addition of ten strong men to our party. I set off at once with Metek to glean from the brig her last remnant of slush (tallow), and to bring down the sick men from Anoatok.
Our visit to the brig was soon over: we had very few stores to remove. I trod her solitary deck for the last time, and returned with Metek to his sledge.
I had left the party on the floes with many apprehensions for their safety, and the result proved they were not without cause. While crossing a “tide-hole,” one of the runners of theHope’ssledge broke through, and, but for the strength and presence of mind of Ohlsen, the boat would have gone under. He saw the ice give way, and, by a violent exercise of strength, passed a capstan-bar under the sledge, and thus bore the load till it was hauled on to safer ice. He was a very powerful man, and might have done this without injuring himself; but it would seem his footing gave way under him, forcing him to make a still more desperate effort to extricate himself. It cost him his life—he died three days afterwards.
I was bringing down George Stephenson from the sick-station, and my sledge being heavily laden, I had just crossed, with some anxiety, near the spot at which the accident occurred. A little way beyond we met Mr Ohlsen, seated upon a lump of ice, and very pale. He pointed to the camp about three miles further on, and told us, in a faint voice, that he had not detained the party; he “had a little cramp in the small of the back,” but would soon be better.
I put him at once in Stephenson’s place, and drove him on to theFaith. Here he was placed in the stern-sheets of the boat, and well muffled up in our best buffalo-robes. During all that night he was assiduously attended by Dr Hayes; but he sank rapidly. His symptoms had from the first a certain obscure but fatal resemblance to our winter’s tetanus, which filled us with forebodings.
On Saturday, June 6, after stowing away our disabled comrade in theFaith, we again set all hands at the drag-ropes. The ice ahead of us bore the same character as the day before—no better; we were all perceptibly weaker, and much disheartened.
Sledging Under Sail
We had been tugging in harness about two hours, when a breeze set in from the northward, the first that we had felt since crossing Bedevilled Reach. We got out our long steering-oar as a boom, and made sail upon the boats. The wind freshened almost to a gale; and, heading toward the depôt on Littleton Island, we ran gallantly before it.
It was a new sensation to our foot-sore men, this sailing over solid ice. Levels which, under the slow labour of the drag-ropes, would have delayed us for hours, were glided over without a halt. We thought it dangerous work at first, but the speed of the sledges made rotten ice nearly as available as sound. The men could see plainly that they were approaching new landmarks, and leaving old ones behind. Their spirits rose; the sick mounted the thwarts, the well clung to the gunwale; and, for the first time for nearly a year, broke out the sailor’s chorus, “Storm along, my hearty boys!”
We must have made a greater distance in this single day than in the five that preceded it. We encamped at 5P.M.near a small berg, which gave us plenty of fresh water, after a progress of at least eight miles.
As we were halting, I saw two Esquimaux on the ice toward Life-Boat Cove; and the well-known “Huk! huuk!” a sort of masonic signal among them, soon brought them to us. They turned out to be Sip-su and old Nessark. They were the bearers of good news: my dogs were refreshed and nearly able to travel again; and, as they volunteered to do me service, I harnessed up our united teams, and despatched Nessark to the hut to bring down Mr Wilson and George Whipple.
We expected now to have our whole party together again; and the day would have been an active cheering one throughout, but for the condition of poor Ohlsen, who was growing rapidly worse.
From this time we went on for some days, aided by our sails, meeting with accidents occasionally—the giving way of a spar or the falling of some of the party through the spongy ice—and occasionally, when the floe was altogether too infirm, labouring our way with great difficulty upon the ice-belt.
One only was absent of all the party that remained on our rolls. Hans, the kind son and ardent young lover of Fiskernaes, my well-trusted friend, had been missing for nearly two months. I am loath to tell the story as I believe it, for it may not be the true one after all, and I would not intimate an unwarranted doubt of the constancy of boyish love. But I must explain, as far as I can at least, why he was not with us when we first looked at the open water. Just before my departure for my April hunt, Hans came to me with a long face, asking permission to visit Peteravik: “he had no boots, and wanted to lay in a stock of walrus-hide for soles; he did not need the dogs; he would rather walk.” It was a long march, but he was well practised in it, and I consented of course. BothPetersen and myself gave him commissions to execute, and he left us, intending to stop by the way at Etah.