Part 19
The winter passed with all in health save Danenhower, whose eyes becoming diseased necessitated several operations and permanently placed him off duty for the voyage. The summer of 1880 came, found them fast embedded in the ice, and went without release. Autumn passed, winter came, and even the opening year of 1881 found them with conditions unchanged, as De Long recites: "A disabled and leaking ship, a seriously sick officer, an uneasy and terrible pack, constantly diminishing coal-pile and provisions, and far from the Siberian coast." A break came, however, with the discovery of new land in May, along the north coast of which the Jeannette drifted slowly. On May 31st a party was sent to examine the island, for such it proved to be, Melville being in command, as Chipp was then on the sick-list. Melville, despite the open condition of the ice, succeeded in landing on June 3, 1881, his third day out. He was obliged to carry his instruments and provisions, at the risk of his life, through the moving pack. It proved to be a desolate, ice-capped, rocky islet, almost destitute of vegetation and inhabited only by dovekies, who nested in the inaccessible cliffs adjoining the discharging glaciers. Another island appearing, De Long named the two; Jeannette, in 76° 47´ N., 159° E., and Henrietta, in 77° 08´ N., 158° E.
The end of the besetment came at last. On June 12, 1881, in 77° 15´ N., 155° E., the pack showed signs of great pressure, the immense floes seeming to be alive in their motion, and despite all efforts the Jeannette was terribly nipped, her bows being thrown high in air. It was evident that escape was hardly possible. Steps were immediately taken to abandon ship, and everything of value or use was speedily withdrawn, with boats, sledges, etc., to a safe distance. Early the next morning the ice opened a little, and the Jeannette immediately sank, with colors flying, in thirty-eight fathoms of water.
De Long and his party thus found themselves adrift in the Polar Sea, more than three hundred miles from the nearest point of the mainland of Asia, and about one hundred and fifty miles from the New Siberian Islands. While the condition of affairs seemed desperate, De Long never despaired. Lieutenant Danenhower being disabled, and Chipp sick, De Long's main dependence was in his chief engineer, Melville, who was well, strong, energetic, and fertile in expedients.
They had five boats (two very small), nine sleds, provisions for sixty days, ammunition, instruments and records; a terrible load for the party, as five men were off duty, and several others too weak to do their share in the drag-ropes. There remained, however, twenty dogs, whose utility was questionable, as they soon consumed more in weight than they ever hauled. The ice was very rough, large openings were frequent, snow often impeded progress, roads had to be made, and on occasion all the stores and men had to be ferried across wide water-lanes. At the beginning there was so much baggage that seven separate loads were hauled, causing the men to travel thirteen times over the same road, but this was soon unnecessary, as weights were gradually reduced.
To add to De Long's discouragement he discovered that they were under the influence of a northwest drift, and after six days' travel due south were twenty-eight miles further north than when the ship sunk. He refrained from discouraging the men by this information, but changing his course to the southwest, got out of the drift.
On July 11th land was discovered, and turning toward it the shipwrecked and exhausted men reached it July 28, 1881; it was in 76° 38´ N., 148° E., and was called Bennett Island. Landing was effected by ferrying and crossing heavy, fast-moving floes, and the danger was greatly enhanced by the low water, which made it extremely dangerous work to attain the surface of the overhanging ice-foot. The cliffs were alive with birds, which was a welcome change of diet, to the sick men especially. The island was quite mountainous, with several grass-covered valleys; a seam of coal was found and signs of considerable animal life.
Recuperated by their nine days' rest, the party started south on August 8th, and landed on Thaddeus Island, of the New Siberian group, August 20, 1881. It is unnecessary to dwell on the dangers and hardships which this unprecedented journey entailed on the members of this party, which were met with fortitude, courage, and energy that made its successful issue one of the most notable efforts in the history of man, overcoming obstacles almost insurmountable.
This remarkable journey had been so far made alternately by sledge and boat, owing to the broken condition of the Polar pack; from Thaddeus Island, however, an open sea enabled them to proceed in boats, which were respectively commanded by De Long, Chipp, and Melville. On September 12th a severe storm separated the boats off the Lena Delta; Chipp with eight men were lost, while Melville, with nine others, reached a small village through one of the eastern mouths of the Lena.
De Long landed, in 77° 15´ N., 155° E., September 17th, with Dr. Ambler and twelve men, having been obliged to abandon his boat, owing to the shallowness of the river. He took with him the ship's records, arms, ammunition, medicines, necessary camp equipments, and four days' provisions, which were carried on the men's shoulders. Fuel proved abundant, and Alexey, their interpreter, killed two deer, thus improving the situation. Retarded by the presence of sick men and by the weight of cumbersome records, they followed slowly southward the barren shores of the Lena, travelling through snow and over ice which broke readily. Their feet were soon in terrible condition, and eventually an ulcer on Ericksen's foot rendered partial amputation necessary on September 29th. De Long then records the terrible situation: They were confronted by a tributary of the Lena which must freeze before they could cross, and as to Ericksen, if forced along, he could not recover, and "if I remained here and kept everybody with me, Ericksen's days would be lengthened a little at the risk of our all dying from starvation." Ice formed in a couple of days, and they proceeded, dragging Ericksen on a sled.
October 3d, food entirely failing, their dog was killed and cooked, giving them strength the following day to reach a deserted hut large enough to hold the party. Here they were storm-stayed two days; Ericksen dying, Alexey hunting unsuccessfully, the drifting snow and piercing cold--all these served to plunge the party into despair. De Long writes: "What, in God's name, is going to become of us?--fourteen pounds of dog meat left and twenty-five miles to a possible settlement.... Read the burial service and carried our departed shipmate's body to the river, where he was buried." Their last food was eaten October 7th, and nothing remained except old tea-leaves and two quarts of alcohol; but Alexey shot a ptarmigan, of which a thin soup was made.
On October 9th the exhausted condition of some of the men and an open, unfordable creek debarred further progress of the party as a whole. In this contingency De Long sent Nindermann and Noros ahead for relief, with orders to keep the west bank of the Lena until they reached a settlement. Later De Long advanced a mile and camped in a hole in the bank; Alexey killed four ptarmigans and the party resorted to their deer-skin clothing for subsistence, but without avail. The last entry in De Long's diary, October 30, 1881, records all dead except Collins, who was dying, Ah Sam and Dr. Ambler, of whom no mention was made.
Noros and Nindermann, after a march of one hundred and twenty miles, reached Bulcour, which they found deserted. Seeking shelter in one of the vacant huts, they were discovered by a native, who took them to an adjacent encampment. The natives either did not understand Nindermann or were unwilling to go northward, for despite his incessant and urgent entreaties they carried the two seamen southward to Bulun, where they arrived on October 29th, and met Melville and his party.
This energetic officer, exhausting all practicable means, pushed his relief parties northward to the extremity of the Lena Delta, but without success. He reached the Arctic Ocean, recovered the log-books, chronometer, and other articles on November 14th, when a severe storm obliged him to abandon the search. Renewing his efforts, in March, 1882, he discovered, on the 23d of that month, the bodies of his companions.
An official inquiry as to the general conduct of the expedition caused the board of officers to express their opinion that the general personnel were entitled to great praise for their solidarity and cheerfulness, their constancy and endurance. The zeal, energy, and professional aptitude of Melville were noticed, and special commendation given to De Long for the high qualities displayed by him in the conduct of the expedition.
The scientific observations of the Jeannette expedition must be of considerable value, involving as they do hydrographic, magnetic, and meteorological observations over an extended portion of the earth's surface previously unknown, and it appears surprising that after all these years they remain undiscussed.
In addition may be noted the importance of De Long's hydrographic contributions, covering some fifty thousand square miles of polar ocean, which indicate with equal clearness the character of fifty thousand other square miles of area to the south, and thus prove the Siberian Arctic Ocean to be a shallow sea, dotted with islands.
The geographic results are represented in part by the attainment of the highest latitude ever reached in Asiatic seas, and in the discovery of Jeannette, Henrietta, and Bennett Islands. Discoveries, however, are both direct and indirect, and to positive results should be added successes of an inferential though negative character. Through De Long's northwest drift the long-sought-for Wrangel Land shrank from its assumed dimensions as a continent, connecting, under the Petermann hypothesis, Asia with Greenland, to its reality--a small island.
It is to be said that this reduction of Wrangel Land into a little island doomed De Long's expedition to certain failure and closed Behring Strait as a promising route to high latitudes; for the arctic canon of Parry yet obtains, that without a sheltering coast no vessel can hope to navigate safely the Polar Ocean.
With the march of time it is not to be expected that geographic problems connected with the vast ice-covered ocean to the north of Siberia will be left unsolved. These coming explorers may be more fortunate than was De Long, and while profiting by his experiences they will surpass his efforts, yet their successes cannot make greater demands on the courage and constancy of them and their subordinates than were shown by the gallant De Long and his associates in the fateful voyage of the Jeannette.
XIII.
PAUL BELLONI DU CHAILLU,
DISCOVERER OF THE DWARFS AND GORILLAS.
Among the thousands of vigorous and adventurous men whom chance brought to light in foreign climes, but who by choice have cast their lot with America, by becoming citizens of the United States, there are few whose explorations and discoveries have excited more popular interest and discussion than have those of Du Chaillu, the discoverer, in modern times, of the dwarfs and the capturer of the gorilla.
Born in Paris, July 31, 1835, the early environments of Paul Belloni Du Chaillu fostered and forecast his taste for African exploration, for his father was one of the adventurous Frenchmen whose consular appointment and commercial enterprises led him to settle at the mouth of the Gaboon, on the west coast of Africa, where his distinguished son passed his boyhood. While young Du Chaillu was, doubtless, well grounded in ordinary sciences by his instructors, the learned Jesuit fathers, of Gaboon, yet apart from regular educational institutions he imbibed other wealth of learning by observation of the rich tropical world around him, and also through familiar intercourse with neighboring tribes acquired a knowledge of native tongues and craft, of savage habits and character, which insured his after-success in African exploration.
Commercial pursuits brought Du Chaillu to the United States, in 1852, when he was so strongly impressed by American institutions that he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
Du Chaillu was brought prominently before the American public by a series of striking and interesting articles on the Gaboon country, which from their favorable reception strengthened his belief in the importance of thoroughly exploring certain portions of the west coast of Africa. The region selected for his investigations was under the burning sun of the equator, somewhat to the north of the Congo country, in the basins drained by the Muni, Ogowe, and Rembo Rivers, which, owing to difficulty of access, extreme heat, prevailing fevers, and deadly climate, were practically unknown. Between 1856 and 1859 Du Chaillu journeyed upward of eight thousand miles through this country, travelling on foot, with no white companion, and, with the aid of natives, cursorily explored nearly one hundred thousand square miles of virgin territory. Working with the ardent zeal of a naturalist, his enormous ornithological collection aggregated thousands of specimens, and in this collection alone he added some sixty new species of birds to the domain of science. Among the quadrupeds, he discovered no less than twenty new species, and among the most important animals brought to light were the very remarkable nest-building ape, with its unknown and its almost equally extraordinary brother the koo-loo-lamba, and his observations of the almost unknown gorilla were most interesting and valuable.
In ethnology he accumulated a number of invaluable native arms and implements, which now adorn the British Museum. Space fails in which to recite his intense sufferings, during these explorations, from semi-starvation, the wild beasts of the dense forests, the venomous reptiles of the river valleys, the attacks of ferocious ants, and other intolerable poisonous insects which infest the interior.
There are many interesting accounts of curious quadrupeds in Du Chaillu's book, "Adventures in Equatorial Africa," but none appeals more strongly to most readers than that of the gorilla. Traditions from antiquity, the relation of Hanno, the Carthaginian navigator of 350 B.C., set forth the existence of such an animal, but no white man had ever seen a gorilla, except Andrew Battell, early in the seventeenth century. Nearly ten years before the explorations of Du Chaillu the gorilla had been, however, brought to the notice of naturalists by Dr. Savage, of Boston, who had received a skull from the Rev. J. L. Wilson, an American missionary on the Gaboon.
From boyhood up Du Chaillu had heard from the natives of Gaboon fearful stories of the cunning, strength, and ferocity of this ape, which is the most dreaded animal on the west coast of Africa. For years he had longed for an opportunity to hunt the gorilla, and when he first saw its tracks, which threw his native hunters into alarm, he relates that his sensations were indescribable, his feelings so intense as to be painful, and his heart-throbs so violent that he actually feared the animal would be alarmed by them.
Du Chaillu chronicles the end of his first successful hunt as follows:
"Before us stood an immense male gorilla. He had gone through the jungle on his all-fours; but when he saw our party he erected himself and looked us boldly in the face. He stood about a dozen yards from us, and was a sight, I think, never to forget. Nearly six feet high (he proved two inches shorter), with immense body, huge chest, and great muscular arms; with fiercely glaring, large, deep-gray eyes, and a hellish expression of face, which seemed to me like some nightmare vision, thus stood before us this king of the African forests. He was not afraid of us. He stood there and beat his breast with his huge fists till it resounded like an immense bass-drum--which is their mode of offering defiance--meantime giving vent to roar after roar. The roar of the gorilla is the most singular and awful noise heard in these African woods. It begins with a sharp bark, like an angry dog, then glides into a deep bass roll, which literally and closely resembles the roll of distant thunder along the sky, for which I have sometimes been tempted to take it where I did not see the animal. So deep is it that it seems to proceed less from the mouth and throat than from the deep chest and vast paunch. He again sent forth a thunderous roar, and now truly he reminded me of nothing but some hellish dream-creature--a being of that hideous order, half-man half-beast, which we find pictured by old artists in some representations of the infernal regions."
The explorer relates that flying gorillas so resembled men running for their lives, and their discordant cries seemed so human, that he felt almost like a murderer as he shot them.
Having obtained a number of specimens, he now used his utmost endeavors to obtain an ape alive, and speaks of his success as "one of the greatest pleasures of my life;" to his great grief, however, the intractable and savage brute soon died. Regarding it, Du Chaillu writes:
"Some hunters who had been out on my account brought in a young gorilla alive. I cannot describe the emotions with which I saw the struggling little brute dragged into the village. All the hardships I had endured in Africa were rewarded in that moment. It was a little fellow of between two and three years old, two feet six inches in height, and as fierce and stubborn as a grown animal could have been."
Several were captured from time to time, but all died after short confinement. Every effort to subdue their ferocity, whether by force or by persistent kindness, utterly failed; they were never other than morose, bellicose, and treacherous.
Another very interesting animal is the nest-building ape, a before unknown species, which was discovered by our explorer almost by accident. Du Chaillu says:
"As I was trudging along, rather tired of the sport, I happened to look up at a high tree which we were passing, and saw a most singular-looking shelter built in its branches. I asked Aboko whether the hunters here had this way to sleep in the woods, but was told, to my surprise, that this very ingenious nest was built by the _nshiego mbouve_, an ape. The material is leafy branches with which to make the roof, and vines to tie these branches to the tree. The tying is done so neatly, and the roof is so well constructed that, until I saw the nshiego actually occupying his habitation I could scarce persuade myself that human hands had not built all. It sheds rain perfectly, being neatly rounded on top for this purpose. The material being collected, the male goes up and builds the nest, while the female brings him the branches and vines."
Yet another member of the ape family, discovered by our explorer, deserves passing notice in his own words:
"The koo-loo-lamba has for distinctive marks a very round head; whiskers running quite around the face and below the chin; the face is round; the cheek-bones prominent; the cheeks sunken; the jaws are not very prominent--less so than in any of the apes; the hair is black, long on the arm, which was, however, partly bare. This ape, whose singular cry distinguishes it at once from all its congeners in these wilds, is remarkable as bearing a closer general resemblance to man than any other ape yet known. It was very rare, and I was able to obtain but one specimen of it. This is smaller than the adult male gorilla, and stouter than the female gorilla. The head is its most remarkable point. This struck me at once as having an expression curiously like an Esquimau or Chinaman."
Among the worst pests of Africa are ants, especially the bashikouay, which travel in a line about two inches wide and often miles in length. Du Chaillu says: "They devour and attack all with irresistible fury. The elephant and gorilla fly, the black men run for their lives. In an incredibly short time a leopard or deer is overwhelmed, killed, and eaten. They seem to travel day and night. Often have I been awakened out of sleep and obliged to rush from my hut and into the water to save my life. A bashikouay army makes a clean sweep, even ascending to the tops of the highest trees in pursuit of their prey."
The results of his four years of research in the interests of ethnography, geography, and natural history, were placed before the public in a valuable work entitled "Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa." The book gave rise to bitter, harsh, unjust criticisms, and engendered endless discussions. Du Chaillu's journey to the interior was entirely discredited, and his accounts of the animals and natives were characterized as mere fabrications. Discoveries necessarily develop discrepancies between the realities brought to light and existing beliefs produced through inference or imagination; then, as has many another discover in science or geography, Du Chaillu learned how slow is the willingness of a jealous mind to relinquish its favorite error for a conflicting truth.
Justification came speedily, for the explorations of Serval and Bellay, of the very next year, proved the accuracy of Du Chaillu's account of the great Ogowe River, and indicated the general correctness of his map of the Ashira country. Burton confirmed his reports regarding the cannibalistic habits of the Fans, and other statements were speedily corroborated.
Stung to the quick by the adverse criticisms, Du Chaillu, although suffering from the effects of fevers contracted in his long residence in Western Africa, determined to repeat the journey with such precautions regarding his observations as would be absolutely convincing as to their truthfulness; especially he determined to capture and bring to Europe a living gorilla. To ensure accuracy he went through a course of instruction in the use of instruments, learning to make, test, and reduce astronomical and hypsometrical observations, and acquired proficiency in the then difficult art of photography. As regards geographical explorations he had a vague hope that he might reach from the west coast of Africa some unknown tributary of the Nile, down which he might be able to reach the main river and the Mediterranean Sea.
Leaving England in August, 1863, Du Chaillu's first destination was the mouth of Fernand Vaz River, about one hundred and ten miles south of the Gaboon, this point being selected both because he knew the natives and also because that river valley being unknown afforded him virgin ground from the beginning of his journey.
In landing through the terrible surf that makes entrance into the Fernand Vaz so dangerous, Du Chaillu was nearly drowned and all his astronomical instruments and medicines were lost or damaged. This necessitated his delay in that region until other instruments could be had from England; but the time was not lost, for he had ample opportunity of further studying the habits of the gorillas, which abound there; fortunately he captured four, an adult and three young, one of which he shipped alive to London, but it died during the voyage.