Chapter 5

This fish is found throughout the fishing-ground of Baffin's Bay, but is not particularly sought for by our people. The Esquimaux kill it with ease, and its flesh and skin are eaten as luxuries; the latter especially, as an anti-scorbutic, even by the whalers, and some of our crews partook of the extremely greasy-looking substance,--one man vowing it was very like chestnuts! (?) I did not attempt to judge for myself; but I have no doubt it would form good food to a really hungry person. The narwhales vary in size, ranging sometimes, I am told, to fourteen feet; the horns, of which I saw a great many at Whale-Fish Isles, were from three feet to seven feet in length. The use of this horn is a matter of controversy amongst the fishermen: it is almost too blunt for offence, and its point, for about four inches, is always found well polished, whilst the remainder of it is usually covered with slime and greenish sea-weed. Some maintain that it roots up food from the bottom of the sea with this horn; others, that it probes the clefts and fissures of the floating ice with it, to drive out the small fish, which are said to be its prey, and which instinctively take shelter there from their pursuers. The body of the narwhale is covered with a layer of blubber, of about two inches in thickness. This was removed, and carefully boiled down to make oil; and the _krang_, or carcass, was left as a decoy to molliemauks and ivory-gulls,--these latter birds having for the first time been seen by me to-day. They are decidedly the most graceful of sea-birds; and, from the exquisite purity of their plumage when settled on a piece of ice or snow, it required a practised eye to detect them. Not so the voracious and impertinent mollies--the Procellaria of naturalists. Their very ugliness appeared to give them security, and they are, in the North, what the vulture and carrion crow are in more pleasant climes--Nature's scavengers.

The 14th and 15th of July found us still firmly beset, and sorely was our patience taxed. In-shore of us, a firm unbroken sheet of ice extended to the land, some fifteen miles distant. Across it, in various directions, like hedge-rows in an English landscape, ran long lines of piled-up hummocks, formed during the winter by some great pressure; and on the surface, pools of water and sludge[1] broke the general monotony of the aspect.

[1] Is the term applied to half-thawed ice or snow.

[Headnote: _ANXIETY AND HOPE._]

The striking mass of rock, known as Melville's Monument, was clear of snow, because it was too steep for ice to adhere; but every where else huge domes of white showed where Greenland lay, except where Cape Walker thrust its black cliff through the glacier to scowl upon us.

Tantalus never longed for water more than we did. Those who have been so beset can alone tell of the watchfulness and headaching for water. Now to the mast-head with straining eyes,--then arguing and inferring, from the direction of wind and tide, that water must come. Others strolling over to a hole, and with fragments of wood, or a measure, endeavouring to detect that movement in the floes by which liberation was to be brought about. Some sage in uniform, perhaps, tries to prove, by the experience of former voyages, that the lucky day is passed or close at hand; whilst wiser ones console themselves with exclaiming, "That, at any rate, we are, as yet, before Sir James Ross's expedition,--both in time and position."

The 16th of July showed more favourable symptoms, and Captain Penny was seen working for a lane of water, a long way in-shore of us. In the night, a general disruption of the fixed ice was taking place in the most marvellous manner; and, by the next morning, there was nearly as much water as there had before been ice. The two steamers, firmly imbedded in a mass of ice, many miles in circumference, were drifting rapidly to the southward, whilst the two ships, afloat in a large space of water and fastened to the floe, awaited our liberation.

The prospect of a separation from the ships, when unavoidable, in no wise depressed the spirits of my colleague of the "Intrepid," nor myself. Like the man who lost a scolding wife, we felt if it must be so, it was for the best, and we were resigned. But it was not to be; the "Intrepid" with her screw, and the "Pioneer" with gunpowder, which, for the first time, was now applied, shook the fragments apart in which we were beset, and again we laid hold of our mentors. A thick fog immediately enveloped us, and in it we got perfectly puzzled, took a wrong lead, and, tumbling into a perfect _cul de sac_, made fast, to await a break in the weather. The 18th of July, from the same cause, a dense fog, was a lost day, and next day Penny again caught us up. He reported the whalers to have given up all idea of a Northern fishery this season. Alas! for the many friends who will be disappointed in not receiving letters! and alas! for the desponding, who will croak and sigh at the whalers failing to get across the bay, believing, therefore, that _we_ shall fail likewise.

Penny had passed a long way inside of the spot the steamers had been beset and nipped in; and he witnessed a sight which, although constantly taking place, is seldom seen--the entire dissolution of an enormous iceberg.

[Headnote: _DISSOLUTION OF AN ICEBERG._]

This iceberg had been observed by our squadron, and remarked for its huge size and massiveness, giving good promise of resisting a century of sun and thaw. All on board the "Lady Franklin" described as a most wonderful spectacle this iceberg, without any warning, falling, as it were, to pieces; the sea around it resembled a seething caldron, from the violent plunging of the masses, as they broke and rebroke in a thousand pieces! The floes, torn up for a distance of ten miles by the violent action of the rollers, threatened, by the manner the ice was agitated, to destroy any vessel that had been amongst it; and they congratulated themselves, on being sufficiently removed from the scene of danger, to see without incurring any immediate risk.

The fog again lifted for a short time. Penny went in my "crow's nest," as well as into the "Resolute's," and soon gave us the disagreeable intelligence, that the land-floe had broken up, and we were in the pack, instead of having, as we had fancied, "fast ice" to hold on by; and, as he remarked, "We can do nothing but push for it;--it's all broken ice, and push we must, in-shore, or else away we go with the loose floes!"

With this feeling the six vessels started in the night, in an indifferent and cross lead, we towing the "Resolute" and "Lady Franklin,"--the "Intrepid," with "Assistance" and "Sophia," astern. Breaking through two light barriers of ice, the prospect was improving; and, as they said from the "crow's nest," that eight miles of water was beyond a neck of ice ahead, I cast off the vessel in tow to charge the ice; at first she did well, but the floe was nearly six feet thick, hard and sound, and a pressure on it besides. The "Pioneer" was again caught, and the squadron anchored to the floe to await an opening. A few hours afterwards we were liberated, and, moving the vessel as far astern as we could, the fact was duly reported to the senior officer; but, as the road ahead was not open, no change of position could be made. On the morning of the 20th we were again beset, and a south gale threatened to increase the pressure; escape was, however, impossible, and "Fear not, but trust in Providence" is a necessary motto for Arctic seamen. My faith in this axiom was soon put to the proof. After a short sleep I was called on deck, as the vessel was suffering from great pressure. My own senses soon made it evident; every timber and plank was cracking and groaning, the vessel was thrown considerably over on her side, and lifted bodily, the bulkheads cracking, and treenails and bolts breaking with small reports. On reaching the deck, I saw indeed that the poor "Pioneer" was in sad peril; the deck was arching with the pressure on her sides, the scupper-pieces were turning up out of the mortices, and a quiver of agony wrung my craft's frame from stem to taffrail, whilst the floe, as if impatient to overwhelm its victim, had piled up as high as the bulwark in many places.

The men who, whaler-fashion, had, without orders I afterwards learnt, brought their clothes on deck, ready to save their little property, stood in knots, waiting for directions from the officers, who, with anxious eye, watched the floe-edge as its ground passed the side, to see whether the strain was easing; suddenly it did so, and we were safe! But a deep dent in the "Pioneer's" side, extending for some forty feet, and the fact, as we afterwards learnt, of twenty-one timbers being broken upon one side, proved that her trial had been a severe one.

Again had the ice come in upon us from the S.W., and nothing but a steady, watchful progress through the pack was left to our squadron, as well as Penny's. But I shall not weary the reader with the dry detail of our every-day labours,--their success or futility. Keenly and anxiously did we take advantage of every move in the ice, between the 20th and 31st July, yet, not seven miles in the right direction was made good; the first of August found us doubting, considerably, the prospect of reaching Lancaster Sound by a northern passage; and Capt. Penny decided, if the water approached him from the south, to strike to the westward in a lower latitude.

[Headnote: _"PIONEER" NIPPED._]

The ships--generally the "Resolute"--kept the lead in our heaving and warping operation through the pack; and, leaving a small portion of the crews to keep the other vessels close up under her stern, the majority of the officers and men laboured at the headmost ship, to move her through the ice. Heaving ahead with stout hawsers, blasting with gunpowder, cutting with ice-saws, and clipping with ice-chisels, was perseveringly carried on; but the progress fell far short of the labour expended, and the bluff bow slipped away from the nip instead of wedging it open. Warping the "Resolute" through a barrier of ice by lines out of her hawse-holes, put me in mind of trying to do the same with a cask, by a line through the bung-hole: she slid and swerved every way but the right one, ahead; I often saw her bring dead up, as if a wall had stopped her. After a search, some one would exclaim, "Here is the piece that jams her!" and a knock with a two-pound chisel would bring up a piece of ice two or three inches thick! In short, all, or nearly all, of us soon learnt to see, that the fine bow was the one to get ahead in these regions; and the daily increasing advantage which Penny had over us, was a proof which the most obstinate could not dispute.

I often thought how proud our countrymen would be of their seamen, could they have looked on the scene of busy energy and activity displayed in the solitude of Melville Bay:--the hearty song, the merry laugh, and zealous labours of the crew; day after day the same difficulties to contend with, yet day after day met with fresh resolution and new resources; a wide horizon of ice, no sea in sight, yet every foot gained to the northward was talked of with satisfaction and delight; men and officers vieing with one another in laborious duties, the latter especially, finding amongst a body of seamen, actuated by such noble and enthusiastic feelings, no necessity to fear an infringement of their dignity. The etiquette of the quarter-deck was thrown on one side for the good of the common cause; and on every side, whether at the capstan, at the track-line, hauling, heaving, or cutting, the officer worked as hard as the seamen,--each was proud of the other, and discipline suffered nought, indeed improved: for here Jack had both precept and example.

If we had our labours, it is not to be wondered at that we had also our leisure and amusements, usually at night,--a polar night robed in light,--then, indeed, boys fresh from school never tossed care more to the winds than did the majority of us. Games, which men in any other class of society would vote childish, were entered into with a zest which neither gray hairs nor stout bodies in any degree had damped. Shouts of laughter! roars of "Not fair, not fair! run again!" "Well done, well done!" from individuals leaping and clapping their hands with excitement, arose from many a merry ring, in which "rounders," with a cruelly hard ball, was being played. In other directions the fiddle and clarionet were hard at work, keeping pace with heels which seemed likely never to cease dancing, evincing more activity than grace. Here a sober few were heaving quoits, there a knot of Solomons talked of the past, and argued as to the future, whilst in the distance the sentimental ones strolled about, thinking no doubt of some one's goodness and beauty, in honour of whom, like true knights, they had come thus far to win bright honour from the "Giant of the North."

Sometimes a bear would come in sight, and then his risk of being shot was not small, for twenty keen hands were out after the skin: it had been promised as a _gage d'amour_ by one to his betrothed; to a sister by another; a third intended to open the purse-strings of a hard-hearted parent by such a proof of regard; and not a few were to go to the First Lord with it, in exchange for a piece of parchment, if he would not object to the arrangement.

[Headnote: _LIEUT. HALKETT'S BOAT._]

Every day our sportsmen brought home a fair proportion of loons and little auks, the latter bird flying in immense flocks to all the neighbouring pools of water, and to kill ten or twelve of them at a shot when settled to feed, was not considered as derogatory to the character of a Nimrod, where the question was a purely gastronomic one. I found in my shooting excursions an India-rubber boat, constructed upon a plan of my dear friend Peter Halkett, to be extremely convenient; in it I floated down the cracks of water, landed on floe-pieces, crossed them dragging my boat, and again launched into water in search of my feathered friends. At the Whale-Fish Islands, much to the delight of my Esquimaux friends, I had paddled about in the inflated boat, and its portability seemed fully to be appreciated by them, though they found fault with the want of speed, in which it fell far short of their own fairy craft.

The separation of the squadron, occasioned by either mistake or accident, detained us for a few days in the beginning of August, in order that junction might again take place. Penny, by dint of hard tracking and heaving, gained seven miles upon us. For several days a schooner, a ketch, and a single-masted craft, had been seen far to the southward; they were now rapidly closing, and we made them out to be the "Felix," Sir J. Ross, with his boat towing astern, and the "Prince Albert," belonging to Lady Franklin, in charge of Commander Forsyth.

_August 5th._--Plenty of water. The "Assistance" received orders to proceed (when her consort the "Intrepid" joined her) to the north shore of Lancaster Sound, examine it and Wellington Channel, and having assured themselves that Franklin had not gone up by that route to the N.W., to meet us between Cape Hotham and Cape Walker. I regretted that the shore upon which the first traces would undoubtedly be found, should have fallen to another's share: however, as there seemed a prospect of separation, and by doing so, progress, I was too rejoiced to give it a second thought; and that the "Assistance" would do her work well, was apparent to all who witnessed the zeal and skill displayed by her people in the most ordinary duty.

Taking in our ice-anchors, and getting hold of the "Resolute," I bid my friends of the "Assistance" good-bye, thinking that advance was now likely: this hope soon failed me, for again we made fast, and again we all waited for one another.

Amongst many notes of the superiority of steam over manual labour in the ice, I will extract two made to-day.

The "Assistance" was towed by the "Intrepid" in fifteen minutes, a distance which it took the "Resolute," followed by the "Pioneer," from 10 A.M. to 3 P.M. to track and warp.

The "Intrepid" steamed to a berg in ten minutes, and got past it. The rest of the squadron, by manual labour, succeeded in accomplishing the same distance in three hours and a half, namely, from 7 P.M. to 10 30 P.M., by which time the ice had closed ahead, and we had to make fast.

_August 6th and 7th._--Very little progress: and a squadron of blank faces showed that there were many taking a deep and anxious interest in the state of affairs. The remark that Sir James Ross's expedition was by this time, in 1848, in a better position than ourselves, and only found time to secure winter quarters at Leopold Island, was constantly heard: there was, in fact, but one hope left,--we had steam, and there was yet thirty days of open navigation.

[Headnote: _CHARGING THE ICE._]

Friday the 9th of August at last arrived. Captain Penny's squadron was gone out of sight in a lane of water towards Cape York. The schooner and ketch were passing us: caution yielded to the grim necessity of a push for our very honour's sake: the ship was dropped out of the nip, the "Pioneer" again allowed to put her wedge-bow, aided by steam, to the crack. In one hour we were past a barrier which had checked our advance for three long weary days. All was joy and excitement: the steamers themselves seemed to feel and know their work, and exceeded even our sanguine expectations; and, to every one's delight, we were this evening allowed to carry on a system of ice-breaking which will doubtless, in future Arctic voyages, be carried out with great success. For instance, a piece of a floe, two or three hundred yards broad, and three feet thick, prevented our progress: the weakest and narrowest part being ascertained, the ships were secured as close as possible without obstructing the steam vessels, the major part of the crews being despatched to the line where the cut was to be made, with tools and gunpowder for blasting, and plenty of short hand-lines and claws.

The "Pioneer" and "Intrepid," then, in turn rushed at the floe, breaking their way through it until the impetus gained in the open water was lost by the resistance of the ice. The word "Stop her! Back turn, easy!" was then given, and the screw went astern, carrying with her tons of ice, by means of numerous lines which the blue-jackets, who attended on the forecastle, and others on broken pieces of the floe, held on by. As the one vessel went astern, the other flew ahead to her work. The operation was, moreover, aided by the explosions of powder; and altogether the scene was a highly interesting and instructive one: it was a fresh laurel in the screw's wreath; and the gallant "Intrepid" gave a _coup-de-grace_ to the mass, which sent it coach-wheeling round, as it is termed; and the whole of the squadron taking the nip, as Arctic ships should do, we were next morning in the true lead, and our troubles in Melville Bay were at an end.

It was now the 10th of August. By heavens! I shall never forget the light-heartedness of that day. Forty days had we been beset in the ice, and one day of fair application of steam, powder, and men, and the much-talked-of bay was mastered. There was, however, no time to be lost. The air was calm, the water was smooth; the land-floe (for we had again reached it) lay on the one hand--on the other the pack, from whose grip we had just escaped, still threatened us. Penny had been out of sight some time, and the "Felix" and "Prince Albert" were nearly ten miles ahead!

Gentle Reader, I'll bore you no longer! We had calm water and steam,--the ships in tow,--our progress rapid,--the "Albert" and "Felix" were caught,--their news joyfully received,--and they taken in tow likewise. The dates from England were a month later than our own: all our friends were well,--all hopeful; and, putting those last dear letters away, to be read and re-read during the coming winter, we pushed on, and there was no time to be lost. Several nights before we escaped from the pack the frost had been intense, and good sliding was to be had on the pools formed by summer heat on the floes. The bay-ice[2] was forming fast, and did not all melt during the day. The birds had finished breeding; and, with the fresh millions that had been added to their numbers, were feeding up preparatory to their departure south. The sun was sweeping, _nightly_, nearer and nearer to the northern horizon. Night once set in, we knew full well the winter would come with giant strides. "Push on, good screw!" was on every one's lip; and anxiety was seen on every brow, if by accident, or for any purpose, the propeller ceased to move. "What's the matter? All right, I hope!" Then a chuckle of satisfaction at being told that "nothing was amiss!"

[2] First winter ice, or young ice, is called bay-ice, from an old Yorkshire word _bay_, to bend.--_Author._

[Headnote: _DETENTION OFF CAPE YORK._]

Time did not allow us, or I verily believe we might have killed tons of birds between Cape Walker and Cape York, principally little auks (_Alca alle_);--they actually blackened the edge of the floe for miles. I had seen, on the coast of Peru, near the great Guano mines, what I thought was an inconceivable number of birds congregated together; but they were as nothing compared with the myriads that we disturbed in our passage, and their stupid tameness would have enabled us to kill as many as we pleased.

On August 13th, Cape York being well in sight, Penny's brigs were again in view; and whilst the "Intrepid" and "Assistance," with the "Prince Albert," communicated with the natives of Cape York, the "Pioneer" pushed on, and soon passed the brigs, who, although they knew full well that the late arrivals from England had letters for them, were to be seen pushing tooth and nail, to get to the westward.

Slow--as slow as possible--we steamed all day along the "Crimson Cliffs of Beverley." The interview with the natives of Cape York, alas! was to cost us much. My frame of mind at the time was far from heavenly; for "Large Water" was ahead, our squadron many a long mile from its work; and I was neither interested, at the time, in Arctic Highlanders or "Crimson Snow!" In the evening the "Assistance" joined us; and I was told that "important information had been gained." We were to turn back; and the "Intrepid" went in chase of Penny, to get the aid of his interpreter, Mr. Petersen.

I remember being awoke at six o'clock on the morning of the 14th of August, and being told a hobgoblin story, which made me rub my eyes, and doubt my own hearing. What I thought of it is neither here nor there. Suffice it that Adam Beck--may he be branded for a liar!--succeeded, this day, in misleading a large number of Her Majesty's officers (as his attested document proves), and in detaining, for two days, the squadrons in search of Franklin. No one with common perception, who witnessed the interview on our deck between Mr. Petersen, Adam Beck, and our new shipmate, the Esquimaux from Cape York, could fail to perceive that Mr. P. and the Cape York native understood one another much better than the latter could the vile Adam Beck; and had I had any doubts upon the subject, they would have been removed when I learnt that Petersen had seen and communicated with these very natives before our squadron came up, and that no such bloody tale had been told him; in fact, it was the pure coinage of Adam Beck's brain, cunningly devised to keep, at any rate, his own ship on a coast whither he could escape to the neighbourhood of his home in South Greenland.