CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE DIFFICULTIES MULTIPLYING.—SLEDGE BROKEN.—REFLECTIONS ON THE PROSPECT.—THE MEN BREAKING DOWN.—WORSE AND WORSE.—THE SITUATION.—DEFEAT OF MAIN PARTY.—RESOLVE TO SEND THE PARTY BACK AND CONTINUE THE JOURNEY WITH DOGS.
THE DIFFICULTIES MULTIPLYING.—SLEDGE BROKEN.—REFLECTIONS ON THE PROSPECT.—THE MEN BREAKING DOWN.—WORSE AND WORSE.—THE SITUATION.—DEFEAT OF MAIN PARTY.—RESOLVE TO SEND THE PARTY BACK AND CONTINUE THE JOURNEY WITH DOGS.
April 24th.
These journal entries are becoming rather monotonous. I have little to set down to-day that I did not set down yesterday. There is no variety in this journeying over the same track, week in and week out, in the same endless snarl continually,—to-day almost in sight of our camp of yesterday, the sledge broken, the men utterly exhausted, and the dogs used up. We are now twenty-two days from the schooner, and have made on our course not more than an average of three miles a day. From Cairn Point we are distant about thirty miles, and our progress from that place has been slow indeed. Grinnell Land looms up temptingly above the frozen sea to the north of us, but it rises very slowly. I have tried to carry out my original design of striking for Cape Sabine, but the hummocks were wholly impassable in that direction, and I have had to bear more to the northward. The temperature has risen steadily, but it is still very low and colder than during the greater part of the winter at Port Foulke. The lowest to-day was 19° below zero, calm and clear, and the sun blazing upon us as in the early spring-time at home.
April 25th.
REFLECTIONS ON THE PROSPECT.
A most distressing day. The sledge was repaired in the morning with much difficulty, but not so that it held without renewal through the march. The traveling grows even worse the further we proceed. The hummocks are not heavier, but the recent snows have not been disturbed by the wind and lie loose upon the surface, making the labor of dragging the sledge much greater than before, even in those few level patches with which we have been favored since setting out in the morning.
My party are in a very sorry condition. One of the men has sprained his back from lifting; another has a sprained ancle; another has gastritis; another a frosted toe; and all are thoroughly overwhelmed with fatigue. The men do not stand it as well as the dogs.
Thus far I have not ventured to express in this journal any doubts concerning the success of this undertaking; but of late the idea has crossed my mind that the chances of ever reaching the west coast with this party look almost hopeless. The question of the boat was decided days ago, and it becomes now a very serious subject for reflection, whether it is really likely that the men can get over these hummocks to the west coast with even provisions enough to bring them back. It is almost as much as they can do to transport their own camp fixtures, which are neither weighty nor bulky.
April 26th.
THE SITUATION.
The progress to-day has been even more unsatisfactory than yesterday. The men are completely used up, broken down, dejected, to the last degree. Human nature cannot stand it. There is no let upto it. Cold, penetrating to the very sources of life, dangers from frost and dangers from heavy lifting, labors which have no end,—a heartless sticking in the mud, as it were, all the time; and then comes snow-blindness, cheerless nights, with imperfect rest in snow-huts, piercing storms and unsatisfying food. This the daily experience, and this the daily prospect ahead; to-day closing upon us in the same vast ice-jungle as yesterday. My party have, I must own, good reason to be discouraged; for human beings were never before so beset with difficulties and so inextricably tangled in a wilderness. We got into acul-de-sacto-day, and we had as much trouble to surmount the lofty barrier which bounded it as Jean Valjean to escape from thecul-de-sac Genrotto the convent yard. But our convent yard was a hard old floe, scarce better than the hummocked barrier.
I feel to-night that I am getting rapidly to the end of my rope. Each day strengthens the conviction, not only that we can never reach Grinnell Land, with provisions for a journey up the coast to the Polar Sea, but that it cannot be done at all. I have talked to the officers, and they are all of this opinion. They say the thing is hopeless. Dodge put it thus: "You might as well try to cross the city of New York over the house-tops!" They are brave and spirited men enough, lack not courage nor perseverance; but it does seem as if one must own that there are some difficulties which cannot be surmounted. But I have in this enterprise too much at stake to own readily to defeat, and we will try again to-morrow.
April 27th.
THE SITUATION.
Worse and worse! We have to-day made but little progress, the sledge is badly broken, and I ambrought to a stand-still. There does not appear to be the ghost of a chance for me. Must I own myself a defeated man? I fear so.
I was never in all my life so disheartened as I am to-night; not even when, in the midst of a former winter, I bore up with my party through hunger and cold, beset by hostile savages, and, without food or means of transportation, encountered the uncertain fortunes of the Arctic night in the ineffectual pursuit of succor.
MEN USED UP.
Smith Sound has given me but one succession of baffling obstacles. Since I first caught sight of Cape Alexander, last autumn, as the vanishing storm uncovered its grizzly head, I have met with but ill fortune. My struggles to reach the west coast were then made against embarrassments of the most grave description, and they were not abandoned until the winter closed upon me with a crippled and almost a sinking ship, driving me to seek the nearest place of refuge. Then my dogs died, and my best assistant became the victim of an unhappy accident. Afterward I succeed in some measure in replacing the lost teams, on which I had depended as my sole reliance; and here I am once more baffled in the middle of the Sound, stuck fast and powerless. My men have failed me as a means of getting over the difficulties, as those of Dr. Kane did before me. Two foot parties sent out by that commander to cross the Sound failed. Ultimately I succeeded in crossing with dogs, but the passage was made against almost insuperable difficulties, so great that my companion, convinced that starvation and death only would result from a continuance of the trial, resolved to settle it with a Sharp's rifle-ball; but the ball whizzed past my ear, and I got to the shorenotwithstanding,—discovered Grinnell Land, and surveyed two hundred miles of its coast. But the ice is now infinitely worse than it was then; and I am convinced that the difficulties of this journey have now culminated and the crisis has been reached. The men are, as I have before observed, completely exhausted from the continued efforts of the past week, and are disheartened by the contemplation of the little progress that was made as well as by the formidable nature of the hummocks in front, which they realize are becoming more and more difficult to surmount as they penetrate farther and farther into them. Their strength has been giving way under the incessant and extraordinary call upon their energies, at temperatures in which it is difficult to exist even under the most favorable circumstances, each realizing that upon his personal exertions depends the only chance of making any progress, and recognizing that after all their efforts and all their sacrifices the progress made is wholly inadequate to accomplish the object in view. Besides this prostration of the moral sentiments, there is the steady and alarming prostration of the physical forces. One man is incapacitated from work by having his back sprained in lifting; another is rendered useless by having his ancle sprained in falling; the freezing of the fingers and toes of others renders them almost helpless; and the vital energies of the whole party are so lowered by exposure to the cold that they are barely capable of attending to their own immediate necessities, without harboring a thought of exerting themselves to complete a journey to which they can see no termination, and in the very outset of which they feel that their lives are being sacrificed.
THE CONCLUSION.
It is, therefore, in consideration of the condition ofmy men, that I have been forced to the conclusion that the attempt to cross the Sound with sledges has resulted in failure; and that my only hope to accomplish that object now rests in the schooner. Having the whole of the season before me, I think that I can, even without steam, get over to Cape Isabella, and work thence up the west shore; and, even should I not be able to get as far up the Sound as I once hoped, yet I can, no doubt, secure a harbor for next winter in some eligible position. Coming to this conclusion, I have determined to send back the men, and I have given McCormick full directions what to do, in order that the vessel may be prepared when the ice breaks up and liberates her. He is to cradle the schooner in the ice by digging around her sides; repair the damage done last autumn, and mend the broken spars, and patch the sails.
For myself, I stay to fight away at the battle as best I can, with my dogs.
The men have given me twenty-five days of good service, and have aided me nearly half way across the Sound with about eight hundred pounds of food; and this is all that they can do. Their work is ended.
ONE MORE EFFORT.
Although the chance of getting through with the dogs looks hopeless; yet, hopeless though the prospect, I feel that, when disembarrassed of the men, I ought to make one further effort. I have picked my companions, and have given them their orders. They will be Knorr, Jensen, and sailor McDonald,—plucky men all, if I mistake not, and eager for the journey. There are others that are eager to go with me; but, if they have courage and spirit, they have little physical strength; and, besides, more than two persons toone sledge is superfluous. And now when I think of this new trial which I shall make to-morrow, my hopes revive; but when I remember the fruitless struggles of the past few days and think of these hummocks, with peak after peak rising one above the other, and with ridge after ridge in endless succession intersecting each other at all angles and in all directions, I must own that my heart almost fails me and my thoughts incline me to abandon the effort and retreat from what everybody, from Jensen down, says cannot be done, and rely upon the schooner for crossing the Sound. But I have not failed yet! I have fourteen dogs and three picked men left to me; and now, abandoning myself to the protecting care of an all-wise Providence, who has so often led me to success and shielded me from danger, I renew the struggle to-morrow with hope and determination. Away with despondency!
Dog Sledge