Part 11

On the 25th of April Frederick declined breakfast—evidence of something wrong with him. Lockwood, therefore, resolved to go up to a gorge he had seen the previous day, and there go into camp and lie over a day. Frederick could hardly walk, and hence rode when it was possible. Finding a snow-slope inside the hummocks, they made good progress and reached “Gorge Rest” in one hour. In the mean while the sun came out, and the air became calm and warm, affording a good opportunity for drying wet clothes and bags. Lockwood gave a drink of brandy to Frederick, and then displayed Mrs. Greely’s silk flag, as they had now attained a point higher than any American had before reached. In the afternoon, Jewell and Ralston succeeded in finding Beaumont’s _cache_ farther on, and, as proof of their discovery, brought back a can of rum marked “Bloodhound,” the name of his sledge. It was about there that his first man was sent back with the scurvy. Afterward, when all but two had the disease, they had to go on or die in the traces.

On the 26th, Frederick was well, otherwise he would have been sent back. They built a _cache_ and left one day’s ration for men and dogs; also, to lighten load, snow-shoes, head and foot gear, blankets, indeed everything they could do without. They reached Stanton Gorge, dropped load, and Frederick was sent back with the team for the rest of their stuff. The men came in without doubling, having also found Beaumont’s _cache_ on a high hill. They all agreed that such unnecessary labor was enough to bring on the scurvy. They found there fifty-six pounds of pemmican, ten pounds of bacon, and a large box containing bread, potatoes, chocolate, tea, sugar, onion-powder, and stearine used for fuel, all of which were taken on to Cape Bryant. Beyond this point, to Cape Stanton, their route lay along the foot of steep snow-slopes beneath the cliffs, with lines of floe-bergs and hummocks outside, and was exceedingly rough. Lockwood and Frederick, after crossing Hand Bay, passed the men moving slowly and laboriously. Their troubles were increased by frequent upsettings of the sledges along the slope and by the friction of the splintered bottoms owing to the runners cutting through.

It was not till 8 P. M. that they all reached Frankfield Bay, and, thoroughly tired out, went into camp, after an advance of nine miles in thirteen hours.

Here they cached one day’s rations for all, and then traveled along the low shore which skirted the base of Mount Lowe, and came upon the snow-covered surface of Frankfield Bay, a small and pretty harbor surrounded by steep mountains. Beyond this bay, they crossed a spit of land, going up a steep slope, and down another equally steep at a run. There they threw off a half load and went back for the rest. Afterward all proceeded with half-loads, Lockwood taking his post at the traces and pulling with the men. After a while he dropped off to help Frederick, while the men went on to Cape Bryant. Taking advantage of an interval of leisure, he got out the lamp and made just two pint-cups of tea for Frederick and himself. “Of all the occasions,” he says, “when a draught of tea tasted particularly good, none like this lingers in my memory. Though without milk and with very little sugar, it tasted like nectar. In fact, as the gods never undertook any Arctic sledge-journeys, their nectar was not half so delicious.”

On the 27th, Lockwood shot five ptarmigans or Arctic quails. Sitting on a floe-berg, they were scarcely distinguishable from the snow. The traveling on that day was on the whole fair; yet so heavily were the sledges loaded, and so much worn, that when, after making fifteen miles in twelve hours, they reached Cape Bryant at 8.30 P. M., both men and dogs were nearly exhausted. To add to their joylessness, they had to be very sparing of their rations. Cracker-dust was with them the grand panacea for short rations. This went into every stew, was mixed with their tea, and was even taken alone, and found to be very _filling_. By its aid, they persuaded themselves that the short allowance was a hearty repast.

On the 28th, Brainard and others made an unsuccessful search for a _cache_ left there by Beaumont, but got a good view of Cape Britannia from a high cliff. Lockwood and Jewell also saw it from a height back of the camp. Beaumont had seen Cape Britannia, but never reached it. He got only thirty miles farther than Cape Bryant; that is, to the opposite side of the fiord which here appears, and which they called “Beaumont’s Fiord.” While Frederick brought up some stores left behind, Lockwood busied himself with many details connected with his further advance toward the north, for now his supports were to leave him and return to the Boat Camp, while Brainard, Frederick, and himself, with the dog-sledge, were to proceed alone.

Lockwood now satisfied himself by a careful inspection of the sledges that the supporting party could go no farther, especially as some of the men were suffering with snow-blindness. He therefore broke up one of the sledges, and with it repaired the remaining drag-sledge and the dog-sledge. Brainard, also suffering with snow-blindness, remained in the tent, while Lockwood with the others built a _cache_ and deposited therein the Beaumont stores and such others as they could not take on. Food for the return party to Boat Camp having been dropped _en route_, he decided to take with him twenty-five days’ rations. Hence their advance must be limited to the time these rations would feed them, going northeast and returning to Cape Bryant.

He started, therefore, with—

Men-rations, weighing 230 pounds. Dog-pemmican, weighing 300 ” Equipments, weighing 176 ” Dog-sledge, weighing 80 ” Total 786 ”

or about 98 pounds to each dog.

The weather, though cold, causing some frost-bites, had been beautiful during their stay here. The men had done their parts well, and had endured uncomplainingly much hard work, hardship, and exposure. The supporting party left at 4 P. M., after hearty hand-shaking and wishing good luck to Lockwood, Brainard, and Frederick, leaving the three lonely and depressed on that desolate shore.

And now, as the returning party disappeared in the distance, the explorers turned toward Cape Britannia. Although they started with a very heavy load, yet the traveling was fine, and, all three pushing, they made rapid progress, having Cape May directly ahead and across the fiord. The dogs seemed to object to going over the sea, and kept deflecting constantly to the right, the only difficulty arising from the deepening of the snow and its becoming soft. When they got stuck, Brainard would pull at the traces, while Lockwood would push at the upstand, and Frederick divide his energies between helping them and inducing the dogs to do so.

At 1 A. M. on April 30th, they camped on the fiord, well satisfied with their advance of sixteen miles in eight hours without once doubling.

Moving off at 5 P. M. with full load, they had not gone far before they were forced to throw off half of it, and soon with this half they found it difficult to get along, for the sledge would sink down to the slats and the men to their knees through the deep, soft snow. Lockwood could fully appreciate poor Brainard’s efforts and labors in a fiord at the southwest, when he crawled through snow waist-deep, and on hands and knees, for two hundred yards. At 9 P. M. they came to hummocks, pitched tent, threw off load, and, while Lockwood prepared supper, the others went back with the team to bring up what they had thrown off. They had to adhere strictly to the allowance, for they had rations for just so many days. They had advanced six miles in seven hours and three quarters.

They started again the next morning with full load, but soon had to pitch off again. Had better traveling, on the whole, than on the previous day, though meeting with ranges of old floes and hummocks filled in with snow. Shortly after midnight, they came abreast Cape May, the desire of Beaumont, but which, with his crew broken down with scurvy, and with heavy sledges loaded down with all kinds of equipments, he never attained. The party pitched tent near an immense floe extending as far back as the eye could reach. Brainard and Frederick went back for the dismounted stuff, while Lockwood turned cook again, the first thing being to pulverize a lot of ice and set it on the lamp to melt. Cape Britannia and Beaumont Island were very distinctly seen, the latter from refraction double. Their allowance of alcohol was a constant source of trouble. They could not afford meat for both breakfast and supper, hence their supper consisted of tea, cracker-dust, and bean-stew. Advanced twelve miles in fourteen hours.

Lockwood and Brainard now took turns in cooking, Frederick being excused. The two former did not sleep well, and, as usual, the Esquimaux blew his trumpet loudly, but not sweetly. They left at 7 P. M. with full load, but as usual threw off a portion, leaving Brainard with it. Toward midnight they came to an open crack in the ice ten feet wide, through which sea-water could be seen below, and had to follow it several hundred yards before coming to a crossing. Thinking this a favorable chance to get a deep-sea sounding, they threw off the load, and Frederick went back for Brainard and the balance of the stores, while Lockwood got into a sleeping-bag and read “King Lear” until their return. In sounding, they ran out all the line they had, then four coils of seal-thongs, then some rope, and finally Frederick’s dog-whip, and got no bottom at eight hundred and twenty feet. They began to haul up after debating whether they should not risk the dog-traces, when, presto! the rope broke, and all below was lost. Leaving their treasures in the deep, they moved on with half-load over a low line of hummocky ice having the same general direction as the crack, namely, toward Beaumont’s Island. Beyond was an unbroken field of snow extending apparently to Cape Britannia. Ice being required for supper, they went into camp on the hummocks, going back, however, for the stores left behind, having advanced eight miles in ten hours.

After taking bearings, they broke camp at 4 P. M., and, with a full load, proceeded over the level snowfield, broken here and there only by hummocks trending in a curve toward Cape Britannia. Until midnight the snow-crust sustained the sledge, but after that, failing to do so, they had to reduce load. Wind and snow coming on, they camped near a small ice-mound, after advancing fourteen miles in fourteen hours, and again brought up the stores left behind.

The next morning proved clear and calm, and gave them a full view of the long-desired cape, which they reached at 8 P. M., pitching tent on the ice-foot—four miles in one hour and a half. Lockwood had read so much of scurvy, deep snows, etc., as associated with sledge-journeys in the experience of the English expedition, that he had come to regard them as inseparable from such enterprises. Yet here they were, at a point which Beaumont saw only from afar, without the first and without serious difficulty from the others. Cape Britannia had been the _ultima Thule_ of Beaumont’s hopes, and quite as far as Lieutenant Greely expected Lockwood to reach. But he was able to go much farther, and would do so. He built a cairn, and deposited a record of their journey to date, also rations for five days for use on their return, the spare sledge-runner, and everything they could do without. Leaving Frederick to see that the dogs did not eat up the tent and everything in it, Lockwood and Brainard climbed the adjacent mountain, two thousand and fifty feet high, to view the magnificent prospect spread out before them from that point. “We seemed,” Lockwood writes, “to be on an island terminating some miles to the north in a rocky headland. To the northeast, seemingly twenty miles away, was a dark promontory stretching out into the Polar Ocean, and limiting the view in that direction. Intermediate, were several islands separated by vast, dreary fiords, stretching indefinitely southward. Extending halfway round the horizon, the eye rested on nothing but the ice of the Polar Sea; in-shore, composed of level floes, but beyond, of ridges and masses of the roughest kind of ice. The whole panorama was grand, but dreary and desolate in the extreme. After erecting a monument, we were glad to escape the cold wind by returning.”

While here, Lockwood took several astronomical observations. They broke camp at 7 P. M., and traveled northward over smooth ice free from snow, to the promontory, where they came in sight of the distant headland northeast, which they had seen from the mountain-top. Hearing a low, moaning sound, and looking to the north, they saw a line of hummocks, and near it their old acquaintance, the tidal crack, stretching in one direction toward Beaumont Island, and in the other, curving toward Black Cape, as Lockwood named the headland northeast of them. Repairing their sledge, which had given way, they proceeded toward this headland, having fairly good traveling though somewhat obstructed by soft and deep snow, and camped at midnight near a hummock and not far from the crack, from which Frederick tried, without success, to get a seal. This would have relieved his mortified feelings at the loss of a ptarmigan he had shot at the cape, and which Ritenbank had stolen. Took observations for latitude and longitude before turning into their sleeping-bags. Advanced eleven miles in five hours.

The observations were repeated next morning, and they then went on their course. After going a considerable distance, they halted to rest and to view the tide-crack, now near them and about one hundred yards across, filled in here and there with young ice or detached masses. This crack was incomprehensible, differing from those seen in the straits, which were near shore and so narrow as to attract little attention. Frederick gave Lockwood to understand by signs and gestures that after a while the ice outside, or north of the crack, would move oft seaward. Resuming their way, they soon after passed Blue Cape, and thence crossing a small fiord got to Black Cape, the bold, rocky headland they had seen from the mountain. Beyond Black Cape, and in the same general direction, but seen indistinctly, appeared a dark, rocky cape, which Lockwood called Distant Cape, because, seeming so near, it was yet so far, as they afterward found. At Black Cape were seen bear-tracks, also those of the fox, hare, and lemming, in great numbers. The tide-crack here came near the shore, and then extended directly across to the next cape. The ice along shore indicated having sustained enormous pressure. Great bergs and hummocks, weighing thousands of tons, had been pushed upon the ice-foot like pebbles.

The ice-foot offering better traveling, they followed that course, though it took them somewhat away from Distant Cape. Leaving it, they crossed what seemed to them a little bay, but it took them one hour and a half to reach the cape on the farther side. Seeing a large fiord intervening between them and Distant Cape which they had wished to reach before encamping, they gave up the effort and pitched their tent. Soon after, Frederick shot a hare, but only wounding him, they had to expend all their remaining strength in running him down. But food was now everything, and they spared neither the hare nor themselves. They called that point Rabbit Point, in memory of the friend who served them a good turn. Advanced seventeen miles in ten hours.

Having, on account of a snow-storm, failed to get the sun on the south meridian, Lockwood waited until it should come round to the north meridian, as this matter of observations was important, and difficult to attend to _en route_. In the mean time, they cached some rations. Saw some ptarmigans, but failed to shoot them. Left near midnight, and having crossed the hummocks thrust in against all these capes, reached the level surface of an immense bay which they were two and one quarter hours in crossing, after untold labor and fatigue, through deep snow, so wet that they seemed to be wading through soft clay. They reached the opposite shore, bathed in perspiration, Lockwood going in advance to encourage the dogs. Sometimes they went down waist-deep. The mass of hummocks came up so near the cliffs as to force the travelers outside. Still, Distant Cape was farther on, with a fiord intervening. At four o’clock, they reached this long-sought point, and looked ahead to see what lay beyond. Away off in the same general direction (northeast) was seen another headland, separated from them by a number of fiords and capes, which lay on an arc connecting Distant Cape with that in the far distance. Inclining to the right, they made their way toward one of these intermediate capes. Sometimes seeing it and sometimes not, they finally reached it at 6 A. M., and, being unable to see anything ahead, went into camp. Soon afterward a pyramidal island loomed up through the storm in the northeast. They enjoyed part of their rabbit for supper, almost raw, for they had no alcohol to waste on luxuries, and carefully laid away the other half for further indulgence. But Ritenbank saw that half rabbit stowed away, and he too liked rabbit, as will be seen. After supper Lockwood made observations, and of trials and tribulations this was not the least. Face chilled, fingers frozen, and sun so low as to require him to lie in the snow; the sun like a grease-spot in the heavens, and refusing to be reflected; snow-drifts over artificial horizon cover; sextant mirrors becoming obscure, vernier clouded, tangent-screw too stiff to work; then, when one had nearly secured a contact, some dog interposing his ugly body or stirring up the snow; such were some of the difficulties to be overcome. Still, these observations must be made, and carefully and correctly made, or otherwise the chief value of the expedition would be lost. They secured double sets of observations here, which delayed them, but got off near midnight from this cape, which Lockwood called Low Point, and made good time toward the dim headland at the northeast. In two hours and a half they reached the cape, which he named Surprise, because they came upon it unexpectedly looming up through the gloom. Beyond and to the right was seen through the storm a dome-capped island, the inevitable inlet intervening. The traveling proving good, they reached it at four, and found it to be the end of a long line of grand, high, rocky cliffs, bearing far to the south.

The ice-foot here being free from snow, the dogs took the sledge along at a trot, and the explorers rode by turns—the first time since leaving Boat Camp. The trend of the coast-line becoming nearly east, Lockwood began to think the time had come for leaving the coast and striking off directly toward the pole, as arranged for in his orders. As this was a matter requiring full consideration, he stopped to get an observation, but, defeated in this by the drifting snow, they went into camp at 6 A. M., having advanced seventeen miles in less than seven hours.

After sleeping, Lockwood rose to take observations. While so doing, and hence out of the tent, he heard a noise in it, and suspected mischief. Sure enough, there was that old thief, Ritenbank, coolly eating up the remains of the rabbit they had kept for a second feast. A dash and a blow, and the dog scampered off, dropping part of the animal in his flight. They had reached the state of not being particular about what they ate, so they gathered up the remains and ate them on the spot.

Resuming their journey at 1 A. M., they traveled under a long line of high cliffs, with hills in the rear. The travel was excellent, but the weather abominable—high winds, with falling and drifting snow. After three hours of progress in an easterly course, a headland was seen obliquely to their left, between which and themselves lay a wide fiord. After an observation of the sun, they struck directly across this fiord for the headland in question, which they finally reached after repeatedly losing themselves in the mist and gloom. Here they stopped awhile to eat pemmican and view the surroundings. Found many rabbit-tracks, but saw none of the animals. In Arctic traveling, one craves warm meat, but seldom gets any but that which is frozen. Continuing along this coast over a good ice-foot, they were pleased to see on their left a small island with a high, narrow ledge, a few hundred yards long. This they reached and went to the north side or end of it. Mist and snow shutting in the land farther on, and also that already passed, they camped, having advanced twenty-two miles in nine and a half hours.

Finding traveling so troublesome in the storm, and much difficulty in getting observations, Lockwood resolved to remain there for better weather, all sleeping as much and eating as little as possible. Indeed, Brainard agreed with Lockwood that, if the easterly trend of the coast should continue, they had better spend their time in going directly north over the sea. On the 11th, it being still stormy and no other land in sight, they remained in their sleeping-bags on the island, which from its shape was first called “Shoe Island,” but afterward “Mary Murray.” All of them suffered greatly with cold feet in the mean while; and, although Lockwood’s feet were wrapped in blankets, furs, and socks, they were like lumps of ice. To husband their few rations, they had eaten very little of late, and doubtless to this may be attributed their cold feet. The dogs were ravenous for food. When feeding-time came, it was amid blows from the men and fights among the dogs that the distribution was made. Old Howler was conspicuous on these occasions. That he might secure all he could, he bolted ball after ball of the frozen mass, and then would wander around, uttering the most unearthly howls while the mass was melting in his stomach. He was, indeed, a character. He had an air of utter weariness and dejection, as well he might, for who can be more miserable than the dethroned monarch, jeered, cuffed, and condemned by his late subjects? One day one of the dogs swallowed a live lemming, and the little animal went squealing all the way down to the corporation.