CHAPTER X.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ARCTIC DISCOVERY.

In the reign of Henry VIII., Dr. Robert Thorne declared that “if he had facultie to his will, the first thing he would understande, even to attempt, would be if our seas northwarde be navigable to the Pole or no.” And it is said that the king, at his instigation, “sent two fair ships, well-manned and victualled, having in them divers cunning men, to seek strange regions; and so they set forth out of the Thames, the 20th day of May, in the nineteenth year of his reign, which was the year of our Lord 1527.” Of the details of this expedition, however, we have no record, except that one of the vessels was wrecked on the coast of Newfoundland.

In 1536, a second Arctic voyage was undertaken by a London gentleman, named Hore, accompanied by thirty members of the Inns of Law, and about the same number of adventurers of a lower estate. They reached Newfoundland, which, according to some authorities, was discovered by Sebastian Cabot in 1496, and here they suffered terrible distress; in the extremity of their need being reduced to cannibalism. After the deaths of a great portion of the crew, the survivors captured by surprise a French vessel which had arrived on the coast, and navigated her in safety to England.

But the true history of Arctic Discovery dates, as Mr. Markham observes, from the day when the veteran navigator, Sebastian Cabot, explained to young Edward VI. the phenomena of the variation of the needle. On the same day the aged sailor received a pension; and immediately afterwards three discovery-ships were fitted out by the Muscovy Company under his direction. Sir Hugh Willoughby was appointed to their command, with Richard Chancellor in the _Edward Bonadventure_ as his second. The latter, soon after quitting England, was separated from the squadron, and sailing in a northerly direction, gained at last a spacious harbour on the Muscovy coast. Sir Hugh’s ship, and her companion, the _Bona Confidentia_, were cast away on a desolate part of the Lapland coast, at the mouth of the river Arzina. They entered the river on September 18, 1563, and remained there for a week; and “seeing the year far spent, and also very evil weather, as frost, snow, and hail, as though it had been the deep of winter, they thought it best to winter there.” But as day followed day, and week followed week, in those grim solitudes of ice and snow, the brave adventurers perished one by one; and many months afterwards their bleached bones were discovered by some Russian fishermen.

In the spring of 1556, Stephen Burrough, afterwards chief pilot of England, fitted out the “Search-thrift” pinnace, and sailed away for the remote north. He discovered the strait leading into the sea of Kara, between Novaia Zemlaia and the island Waigatz; but he made up his mind to return, because, first, of the north winds, which blew continually; second, “the great and terrible abundance of ice which we saw with our eyes;” and third, because the nights waxed dark. He arrived at Archangel on September 11, wintered there, and returned to England in the following year.

Twenty years later, on a bright May morning, Queen Elizabeth waved a farewell to Martin Frobisher and his gallant company, as they dropped down the Thames in two small barks, the _Gabriel_ and the _Michael_, each of thirty tons, together with a pinnace of ten tons. They gained the shores of Friesland on the 11th of July; and sailing to the south-west, reached Labrador. Then, striking northward, they discovered “a great gut, bay, or passage,” which they named Frobisher Strait (lat. 63° 8’ N.), and fell into the error of supposing that it connected the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific. Here they came into contact with some Eskimos; and Frobisher describes them as “strange infidels, whose like was never seen, read, nor heard of before: with long black hair, broad faces and flat noses, and tawny in colour, wearing seal-skins, the women marked in the face with blue streaks down the cheeks, and round about the eyes.”

Frobisher’s discoveries produced so great an impression on the public mind, that in the following year he was placed at the head of a larger expedition, in the hope that he would throw open to English enterprise the wealth of “far Cathay.” About the end of May 1577, he sailed from Gravesend with the _Ayde_ of one hundred tons, the _Gabriel_ of thirty, and the _Michael_ of thirty, carrying crews of ninety men in all, besides about thirty merchants, miners, refiners, and artisans. He returned in September with two hundred tons of what was supposed to be gold ore, and met with a warm reception. It was considered almost certain that he had fallen in with some portion of the Indian coast, and Queen Elizabeth, naming it _Meta Incognita_, resolved to establish there a colony. For this purpose, Frobisher was dispatched with fifteen well-equipped ships, three of which were to remain for a twelvemonth at the new settlement, while the others, taking on board a cargo of the precious ore, were to return to England.

In the third week of June Frobisher arrived at Friesland, of which he took possession in the queen’s name. Steering for Frobisher Strait, he found its entrance blocked up with colossal icebergs; and the bark _Dennis_, which carried the wooden houses and stores for the colony, coming in collision with one of these, unfortunately sank. Then, in a great storm, the fleet was scattered far and wide,--some of the vessels drifting out to sea, some being driven into the strait; and when most of them rejoined their admiral, it was found they had suffered so severely that no help remained but to abandon the project of a colony. They collected fresh supplies of ore, however, and then made their way back to England as best they could. Here they were met with the unwelcome intelligence that the supposed gold ore contained no gold at all, and was, in truth, mere dross and refuse.

The dream of a northern passage to Cathay was not to be dissipated, however, by an occasional misadventure. Even a man of the keen intellect of Sir Humphrey Gilbert felt persuaded that through the northern seas lay the shortest route to the treasures of the East; and having obtained from Queen Elizabeth a patent authorizing him to undertake north-western discoveries, and to acquire possession of any lands not inhabited or colonized by Christian princes or their subjects, he equipped, in 1583, with the help of his friends, a squadron of five small ships, and sailed from England full of bright visions and sanguine anticipations. On board his fleet were smiths, and carpenters, and shipwrights, and masons, and refiners, and “mineral men;” not to speak of one Stephen Parmenio, a learned Hungarian, who was bound to chronicle in sonorous Latin all “gests and things worthy of remembrance.”

Sir Humphrey formed a settlement at Newfoundland; and then, embarking on board the _Squirrel_, a little pinnace of ten tons burden, and taking with him the _Golden Hind_ and the _Delight_, he proceeded on a voyage of exploration. Unhappily, the _Delight_ ran ashore on the shoals near Sable Land, and all her crew except twelve men, and all her stores, were lost. The disaster determined Sir Humphrey to return to England; and his companions implored him to embark on board the _Golden Hind_, representing that the _Squirrel_ was unfit for so long a voyage. “I will not forsake,” replied the chivalrous adventurer, “the brave and free companions with whom I have undergone so many storms and perils.” Soon after passing the Azores, they were overtaken by a terrible tempest, in which the tiny pinnace was tossed about by the waves like a straw. The _Golden Hind_ kept as near her as the rolling billows permitted; and her captain has left on record that he could see Sir Humphrey sitting calmly in the stern reading a book. He was heard to exclaim--“Courage, my lads; we are as near heaven by sea as by land!” Then night came on, with its shadows and its silence, and next morning it was perceived that the pinnace and her gallant freight had gone to swell the sum of the irrecoverable treasures of the deep.

But neither Frobisher’s mishap nor Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s melancholy fate could check that current of English enterprise which had set in for the North. There was an irresistible attraction in these remote northern seas and distant mist-shrouded lands, with all their possibilities of wealth and glory; and Arctic Discovery had already begun to exercise on the mind of the English people that singular fascination which the course of centuries has not weakened, which endures even to the present day. So, in 1585, Sir Adrian Gilbert and some other gentlemen of Devonshire raised funds sufficient to fit out a couple of vessels--the _Sunshine_ of fifty, and the _Moonshine_ of thirty-five tons--for the great work of discovery; and they gave the command to a veteran mariner and capable navigator, Captain John Davis, a countryman, or county-man, of their own. Towards the end of July he reached the west coast of Greenland, and its cheerless aspect induced him to christen it the “Land of Desolation.” His intercourse with the Eskimos, however, was of the friendliest character. Standing away to the north-west, he discovered and crossed the strait which still bears his name; and to the headland on its western coast he gave the name of Cape Walsingham. Having thus opened up, though unwittingly, the great highway to the Polar Sea, he sailed for England, where he arrived on the 20th of September.

In his second voyage, in 1586, when, in addition to the _Sunshine_ and the _Moonshine_, he had with him the _Mermaid_ of one hundred and twenty tons, and the _North Star_ pinnace of ten, he retraced his route of the previous year. The _Sunshine_ and the _North Star_, however, he employed in cruising along the east coast of Greenland; and they ascended, it is said, as high as lat. 80° N.

Davis in his third voyage pushed further to the north, reaching as far as the bold promontory which he named Cape Sanderson. He also crossed the great channel afterwards known as Hudson Bay.

The next Englishman who ventured into the frozen seas was one Captain Waymouth, in 1602; but he added nothing to the scanty information already acquired. An Englishman, James Hall, was the chief pilot of an expedition fitted out in 1605 by the King of Denmark, which explored some portion of the Greenland coast. He made three successive voyages; but while exhibiting his own courage and resolution, he contributed nothing to the stores of geographical knowledge.

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We now arrive at a name which deservedly ranks among the foremost of Arctic explorers--that of Henry Hudson. He contributed more to our acquaintance with the Polar seas than any one who had preceded him, and few of his successors have surpassed him in the extent and thoroughness of his researches.

He first appears, says Mr. Markham, fitting out a little cock-boat for the Muscovy Company, called the _Hopewell_ (of eighty tons), to discover a passage by the North Pole. On the 1st of May 1607 he sailed from Greenwich. “When we consider the means with which he was provided for the achievement of this great discovery, we are astonished at the fearless audacity of the attempt. Here was a crew of twelve men and a boy, in a wretched little craft of eighty tons, coolly talking of sailing right across the Pole to Japan, and actually making as careful and judicious a trial of the possibility of doing so as has ever been effected by the best equipped modern expeditions.... Imagine this bold seaman sailing from Gravesend, bound for the North Pole, in a craft about the size of one of the smallest of modern collier brigs. We can form a good idea of her general appearance, because three such vessels are delineated on the chart drawn by Hudson himself. The _Hopewell_ was more like an old Surat buggalow than anything else that now sails the seas, with high stern, and low pointed bow; she had no head-sails on her bowsprit, but, to make up for this, the foremast was stepped chock forward. There was a cabin under the high and narrow poop, where Hudson and his little son were accommodated; and the crew were crowded forward.”

Hudson first sighted land beyond the Arctic Circle in lat. 70°. It was the cold, grim coast of East Greenland. Three degrees further north a chain of lofty peaks, all bare of snow, rose upon the horizon, and Hudson’s men noted that the temperature daily increased in mildness. Steering to the north-east, the great navigator arrived off the shores of Spitzbergen, where some of his men landed and picked up various fragments of whalebone, horns of deer, walrus-teeth, and relics of other animals. To the north-west point of Spitzbergen he gave the name which it still bears--Hakluyt’s Headland. At one time he found himself as far north as 81°; and it seems probable that he discovered the Seven Islands: he remarked that the sea was in some places green, in others blue; and he says, “Our green sea we found to be freest from ice, and our azure-blue sea to be our icy sea;” an observation not confirmed by later navigators. The greenness was probably due to the presence of minute organisms.

Having completed a survey of the west coast of Spitzbergen, he resolved on sailing round the north end of Greenland, which he supposed to be an island, and returning to England by Davis Strait. With this view he again examined the sea between Spitzbergen and Greenland, but from the strong ice-blink along the northern horizon felt convinced that there was no passage in that direction. After sighting Spitzbergen, therefore, he determined to return to England; and on his homeward voyage discovered an island in lat. 71° N., which he named Hudson Sutches, and which has since been improperly named Jan Mayen. The _Hopewell_ arrived in the Thames on the 15th of September.

The results of this voyage, says Mr. Markham, were very important, both in a geographical and a commercial point of view. Hudson had discovered a portion of the east coast of Greenland; he had examined the edge of the ice between Greenland and Spitzbergen twice--in June and in the end of July; and he had sailed to the northward of Spitzbergen until he was stopped by the ice, reaching almost as high a latitude as Scoresby in 1806, which was 81° 12′ 42″ N. Hudson’s highest latitude by observation was 80° 23’, but he sailed for two more days in a north-easterly direction. The practical consequence of his voyage was that his account of the quantities of whales and sea-horses in the Spitzbergen seas led to the establishment of a rich and prosperous fishery, which continued to flourish for two centuries.

In the following year Hudson made a second voyage, in the hope of discovering a north-eastern passage to China between Spitzbergen and Novaia Zemlaia. He exhibited his characteristic resolution, and forced his way to the very gate of the unknown region, which is still closed against human enterprise by an impenetrable barrier of ice; but all his efforts proved in vain, and he returned to Gravesend on the 26th of August.

In 1610, in a vessel of fifty-five tons, he once more entered the Polar seas, and gained the extreme point of Labrador, which he named Cape Wolstenholm. Here burst upon him the view of that magnificent sea which has since been associated with his name; and there can be no doubt that his enterprise would have anticipated the discoveries of later navigators, but for the mutiny which broke out among his crew, and eventually led to his being sent adrift, with nine faithful companions, in a small open boat. He was never again heard of.

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The spirit of commercial enterprise and the love of maritime adventure were still strong enough in England to induce the equipment of further expeditions. In 1612 sailed Captain Button,--who discovered a stream, and named it Nelson River; where, at a later date, the Hudson Bay Company planted their first settlement. Here he wintered. In April 1613, on the breaking up of the ice, he resumed his work of exploration, and discovered, in lat. 65°, an island group, which he named Manuel, now known as Mansfield, Islands. Then he bore away for England, arriving in the Thames early in September.

Robert Bylot and William Baffin undertook a voyage in 1615. The latter had had some previous experience of Arctic navigation, which he turned to advantage in 1616, when he accompanied Bylot on a second expedition. Their ship, the _Discovery_, of fifty-five tons, reached Cape Hope Sanderson, the furthest point attained by Davis, on the 30th of May; and after meeting with some obstruction from the ice, proceeded northwards to 72° 45’, where she dropped anchor for awhile among the Women’s Islands. Baffin kept to the north until he found ice in 74° 15’ N., and he then ascended Melville Bay, touching the head of the great basin now known by his name, and sailing down its western coast. He arrived in Dover Roads on the 30th of August, after a brilliantly successful voyage, which had opened up the principal north-west channels into the Arctic Sea.

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It is necessary here to interpolate a few remarks in explanation of the difficulties which beset the Baffin Bay route of Arctic exploration. Geographers assert, and the assertion seems confirmed by the experience of navigators, that a surface-current is constantly flowing down this bay, and carrying great fleets of icebergs and shoals of ice-floes into the Atlantic from its southern channels--Lancaster, Jones, and Smith Sounds. Hence, at the head of the bay there exists a considerable open and navigable expanse, which extends for some distance up Lancaster and Smith Sounds during the summer and early winter, and is known as the “North Water.” But between this open expanse and Davis Strait lies an immense mass of ice, averaging from one hundred and seventy to two hundred miles in width, and blocking up the centre of Baffin Bay, so as to interrupt the approach to the north-west end. This is known as the “middle pack,” and consists of some ancient floe-pieces of great thickness, which may have been brought down from a distant part of the Arctic seas; of a wide extent of ice accumulated during each winter, about six or eight feet in thickness; and of the grand and gigantic icebergs which are so characteristic a feature of the Melville Bay scenery. A very large quantity of this pack is destroyed in each succeeding summer by the thaws, or by the swell and warm temperature of the Atlantic as the ice drifts southward.

It is remarked of the Baffin Bay ice, that it is much lighter than that found in the Spitzbergen seas. The latter often occurs in single sheets, solid, transparent, and from twenty to thirty, and even forty, feet in thickness. In Baffin Bay the average thickness of the floes does not exceed five or six feet, and eight or ten feet is of very rare occurrence.

From Baffin’s voyage, in 1616, until 1817, no attempt was made to force this “middle pack” and enter the North Water; but now the voyage is made every year, and three routes have been opened up. The first is called the “North-about Passage,” and lies along the Greenland coast; the second, or “Middle Passage,” only possible late in the season, is by entering the drift-ice in the centre of the bay; and the third, or “Southern Passage,” also only possible late in the season, along the west side of Baffin Bay. Once in the North Water, whichever route be attempted, all obstacles to an exploration of the unknown region may be considered at an end. From Cape York to Smith Sound the sea is always navigable in the summer months.

It will thus be seen that the great highways to the Pole were discovered by William Baffin.

Our limits compel us to pass over the voyages of Stephen Bennet (1603–1610), Jonas Poole (1610–1613), and Captain Luke Fox (1631). In 1631 the merchants of Bristol despatched Captain Thomas James, but he made no additions to the discoveries of his predecessors. And then for nearly two centuries England abandoned her efforts to open up a communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

In 1818, however, the question of the existence of a North-West Passage once more occupied the public mind; and the British Government accordingly fitted out an exploring expedition, the _Isabella_ and the _Alexander_, under the command of Captain Ross and Lieutenant Parry.

They sailed from England on the 18th of April, reached the southern edge of the Baffin Bay ice on the 2nd of July, and, after a detention of thirty-eight days, reached the North Water on August 8th. The capes on each side of the mouth of Smith Sound, Ross named after his two ships; and having accomplished this much, he affirmed that he saw land against the horizon at a distance of eight leagues, and then retraced his course, and sailed for England.

The British Government, however, refused to be discouraged by the failure of an expedition which had obviously been conducted with an entire absence of vigour and enterprise. They therefore equipped the _Hecla_ and the _Griper_, and gave the command to Lieutenant Parry; who sailed from the Thames on the 5th of May 1819, and on the 15th of June sighted Cape Farewell. Striking northward, up Davis Strait and Baffin Bay, he found himself checked by the ice-barrier in lat. 73° N. A man of dauntless resolution, he came to the determination of forcing a passage at all hazards; and in seven days, by the exercise of a strong will, great sagacity, and first-rate seamanship, he succeeded in carrying his ships through the pack of ice, which measured eighty miles in breadth.

He was then able to enter Sir James Lancaster Sound; and up this noble inlet he proceeded with a fair wind, hopeful of entering the great Polar Sea. But after advancing a considerable distance, he was once more met by the frozen powers of the North, and this time he was forced to own himself vanquished. He accordingly returned towards the south, discovering Barrow Strait; and, more to the westward, an inlet which has since figured conspicuously in Arctic voyages--Wellington Channel. Bathurst Island he also added to the map; and afterwards he came in sight of Melville Island. On the 4th of September he attained the meridian of 110° W. long., and thus became entitled to the Parliamentary grant of £5000. A convenient harbour in the vicinity was named the “Bay of the _Hecla_ and the _Griper_,” and here Lieutenant Parry resolved upon passing the winter.

In the following spring he resumed his adventurous course, and completed a very careful survey of the shores of Baffin Sea; after which he repaired to England, and reached the Thames in safety, with his crews in good health, and his ships in excellent condition, about the middle of November 1820.

Having done so much and so well, it was natural that Captain Parry should again be selected for employment in the Arctic seas in the following year. He hoisted his flag in his old ship, the _Hecla_, and was accompanied by the _Fury_; both vessels being equipped in the most liberal manner. He sailed from the Nore on the 8th of May 1821; he returned to the Shetland Islands on the 10th of October 1823. In the interval, a period of seven-and-twenty months, he discovered the Duke of York Bay, the numerous inlets which break up the northern coast-line of the American continent, Winter Island, the islands of Anatoak and Ooght, the Strait of the _Fury_ and _Hecla_, Melville Peninsula, and Cockburn Island. During their winter sojourn on Winter Island, the English crews were surprised by a visit from a party of Eskimos, whose settlement Captain Parry visited in his turn. He found it an establishment of five huts, with canoes, sledges, dogs, and above sixty men, women, and children, as regularly, and, to all appearance, as permanently fixed as if they had occupied the same spot the whole winter. “If the first view,” says Parry, “of the exterior of this little village was such as to create astonishment, that feeling was in no small degree heightened on accepting the invitation soon given us to enter these extraordinary houses, in the construction of which we observed that not a single material was used but snow and ice. After creeping through two low passages, having each its arched doorway, we came to a small circular apartment, of which the roof was a perfect arched dome. From this three doorways, also arched, and of larger dimensions than the outward ones, led into as many inhabited apartments--one on each side, and the other facing us as we entered. The interior of these presented a scene no less novel than interesting: the women were seated on the beds at the sides of the huts, each having her little fireplace or lamp, with all her domestic utensils about her. The children crept behind their mothers, and the dogs shrank past us in dismay. The construction of this inhabited part of the hut was similar to that of the outer apartment,--being a dome, formed by separate blocks of snow laid with great regularity and no small art, each being cut into the shape requisite to form a substantial arch, from seven to eight feet high in the centre, and having no support whatever but what this principle of building supplies. Sufficient light was admitted into these curious edifices by a circular window of ice, neatly fitted into the roof of each apartment.”

In 1824–25 Captain Parry undertook a third voyage, but with less than his usual success. The _Fury_ was driven ashore by the pressure of the pack-ice, and so damaged, that Parry found it needful to abandon her, and remove her crew and stores to the _Hecla_.

Sir John Parry’s fourth and last expedition, in 1827, was characterized by his bold attempt to cross the icy sea in light boats and sledges; resorting to the former when his progress was interrupted by pools of water, and to the latter in traversing the unbroken surface of the ice-fields. He was soon compelled, however, to abandon the sledges, on account of the hummocks and irregularities of the ice.

We agree with Mr. Cooley, that voluntarily to undertake the toil and brave the danger of such an expedition, required a zeal little short of enthusiasm. When the travellers reached a water-way, they were obliged to launch their boats and embark. On reaching the opposite side, their boats were then to be dragged, frequently up steep and perilous cliffs, their lading being first removed. By this laborious process, persevered in with little intermission, they contrived to accomplish eight miles in five days. They travelled only during the night, by which means they were less incommoded with snow-blindness; they found the ice more firm and consistent; and had the great advantage of lying down to sleep during the warmer portion of the twenty-four hours. Shortly after sunset they took their breakfast; then they laboured for a few hours before taking their principal meal. A little after midnight, towards sunrise, they halted as if for the night, smoked their pipes, looked over the icy desert in the direction in which the journey was to be resumed; and then, wrapping themselves in their furs, lay down to rest. Advancing as far north as 82° 40’, they were then compelled by the drifting of the snow-fields to retrace their steps. They regained their ships on the 21st of August, and sailed for England.

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We must now go back a few years. In May 1819, an overland expedition was despatched to ascertain the exact position of the Coppermine River, to descend it to its mouth, and to explore the coast of the Arctic Sea on either hand. The command was given to Lieutenant Franklin, who was accompanied by Dr. Richardson the naturalist, by Messrs. Hood and Back, two English midshipmen, and two picked seamen. The expedition was spread over a period of two years and a half, and the narrative of what was accomplished and endured by its members reads like a romance. They reached the mouth of the Coppermine, and then launched their little barks on the chill waters of the Polar Sea. With much perseverance, and after encountering some serious obstacles, they made their way along its shores in a westerly direction as far as Point Turnagain, in lat. 68° 30’ N. Between this headland on the east, and Cape Barrow on the west, opens a deep gulf, stretching inland as far as the Arctic Circle, Franklin named it George the Fourth’s Coronation Gulf; and describes it as studded with numerous islands, and indented with sounds affording excellent harbours, all of them supplied with small rivers of fresh water, abounding with salmon, trout, and other fish.

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Passing over Franklin’s after-labours in the great cause of Arctic Discovery, labours which secured him the well-merited reward of knighthood, we come to that last voyage, which helped, as we shall see, to solve the problem of a North-West Passage, but was the cause of one of the saddest chapters in the history of Maritime Enterprise.

It was in the spring of 1845 that Sir John Franklin, in command of the _Erebus_ and the _Terror_, with Captain Crozier, an experienced Arctic navigator, as his lieutenant, and at the head of one hundred and thirty-seven picked seamen, brave, resolute, and hardy, once more sailed for the Polar waters.

On the 8th of June he left the Orkneys, and a month later arrived in Baffin Bay. About the end of July some whaling-ships in Melville Bay saw the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ contending gallantly with the ice which impeded their progress to Lancaster Sound. On the evening of the 26th the ice opened up, and the two discovery-ships sailed away into the north-western seas.

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Two years passed, and no news reached England of Franklin and his companions. As day succeeded day, and week followed week, and still no tidings came, men grew anxious, and then alarmed; “expectation darkened into anxiety, anxiety into dread.” At last, it was determined to institute a search for the missing heroes. An expedition was sent out under Sir James Ross; another under Sir John Richardson; but neither obtained any information. By many all hope was then abandoned; and the fate of Franklin was regarded as one of those mysteries which the historian in vain attempts to unravel. He and his men had perished; of _that_ there could be no reasonable doubt. Yet a few were sanguine enough to believe that they had taken refuge among the Eskimos, or were dragging out a weary existence in some remote wilderness, in expectation of help from home. Franklin’s brave and noble wife was one of those who, whatever they feared or hoped, were, at all events, determined not to rest until some accurate information had been gained. And round her gathered the most eminent scientific men of the day, whose influence combined with the general sympathy of the people to encourage the Government in a further effort.

It was in 1850 that the first clue to the position of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ was secured in Beechey Island, through the accidental detention there of the searching expeditions of Captains Austin and Penny.

They were bound for Melville Island, but on reaching the entrance of Wellington Channel (August 1850), were met by such immense fields of ice sweeping down it and out of Barrow Strait, that they were glad to seek shelter in a great bay at the eastern end of the channel,--a bay almost bisected, as it were, by Beechey Island. On the 23rd, a boat from Captain Ommaney’s ship, the _Assistance_, happened to land on one of the extreme points of the bay; and the crew, in the course of their wanderings, were not a little surprised to discover traces of a former visit from Europeans. Under the lofty cliff of Cape Riley they came upon the groundwork of a tent, scraps of canvas and rope, a quantity of birds’ bones and feathers, and a long-handled rake which, apparently, had been used for collecting the rich rare weeds that cover the bottom of the Arctic waters.

That Europeans had been encamped there, was certain, but not a name or record associated the remains with Franklin’s expedition. News of the discovery, however, reached Captain Penny, an Aberdeen seaman, who had been employed by the British Admiralty as leader of a separate expedition; and in conjunction with Lieutenant de Haven, of the United States Navy, who was in command of the expedition liberally equipped by Mr. Grinnell, of New York, he resolved to examine the east coast of Wellington Channel with minute care, in the belief that some memorials of Franklin would thus be discovered.

From a point called Cape Spenser, the Americans, on foot, pursued the trail of a sledge up the east side of Wellington Channel, until, at one day’s journey beyond Cape Innis, it suddenly ceased, as if the party had there turned back again. A bottle and a piece of _The Times_ newspaper were the only relics which fell into the hands of the searchers. Meantime, Captain Penny had anchored his ships under the western point of Beechey Island, and despatched a boat to take up the clue at Cape Riley, and follow it to the eastward, in the event of the traces being those of a party retreating from the ships, supposing them to have been ice-bound in the north-west, to Baffin Bay. This boat-party eventually returned unsuccessful; but, one afternoon, some men belonging to the _Lady Franklin_ asked leave, and obtained it, for the purpose of a ramble over Beechey Island. They sauntered along towards the low projecting portion of the island which extends northward, choosing a convenient spot to cross the huge ridges of ice which lay piled up along the beach; they were seen to mount the acclivity or backbone of the point. In a minute afterwards their friends on board the ships (says Admiral Sherard Osborn) saw the party rush simultaneously towards a dark object, round which they collected, with signs of great excitement. Presently one ran hither, one thither. Feverish with anxiety, those on board knew immediately that some fresh traces had been found, and a general sortie took place to Beechey Island. “Eh, sir,” said a gallant Scotch mariner, when relating the discovery--“eh, sir, my heart was in my mouth, and I didna ken I could rin so fast afore.”

And what had been found?

A cairn, of a pyramidal form, which had evidently been constructed with much care. The base consisted of a series of preserved-meat tins, filled with gravel and sand; and more tins were so arranged as to taper gradually upwards to the summit of the cairn, in which was planted the fragment of a broken boarding-pike. To all appearance it had been purposely raised for the reception of some documental record, yet nothing could be found in or about the spot, in spite of the most persevering efforts. But presently looking along the northern slope of the island, other strange objects caught the eye. Another rush of anxious excited beings, and they stood before three graves; and many of them brushed away the unwonted tear as they read upon their humble tablets the words _Erebus_ and _Terror_.

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Captain Austin followed up Captain Penny in his explorations of the Arctic wastes, but no further information was obtained of Franklin’s movements. It was impossible to determine whether on his way home he had perished in Baffin Bay; whether he had struck to the north-west by Wellington Channel; or whether he was haply imprisoned in Melville Island.

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We have no space, nor is it necessary, to dwell on the records of the various searching expeditions fitted out by the Government, or by Lady Franklin and her friends. It must be noted, however, that one of these, led by Captain (afterwards Sir) Robert M’Clure, succeeded in accomplishing the enterprise in which Franklin perished, and, entering the Northern Ocean by Behring Strait, actually forced its way, through snow and ice, into the Atlantic. The North-West Passage, so long sought, was thus discovered; but the discovery, though interesting and valuable from a geographical point of view, was followed by no commercial results. In truth, it proved that the route along the north-west of the American Continent could never be practicable for ordinary vessels.

It may be asserted that nearly all men had abandoned hope and expectation of ascertaining any exact particulars of the fate of Franklin and his followers, when, towards the close of the autumn of 1854, Dr. Rae, a well-known traveller and Arctic explorer, suddenly appeared in England, bringing with him the most curious evidence of the disasters which had overwhelmed a party that had evidently been travelling from the ice-bound _Erebus_ and _Terror_ towards the Great Fish River. Dr. Rae had ascertained from some Eskimos with whom he had been travelling that this party numbered forty persons, and that all had died of starvation four years prior to Dr. Rae’s visit. The unfortunate “white men” had been first seen on King William’s Land; later in the same year their dead bodies had been observed near or about the mouth of the Great Fish River (1850). Dr. Rae brought home numerous pieces of silver plate obtained from the Eskimos, which were marked with the names of officers of the two ships. Lady Franklin was encouraged by this intelligence to urge upon the Government the propriety of despatching an expedition to the points indicated by the Eskimos; but the Government contented themselves with applying to the Hudson Bay Company. The result was an overland expedition in 1855 to the mouth of the Great Fish River, by Mr. Anderson, one of the Company’s chief officers. He had no boat with him capable of reaching King William’s Land, though it was only sixty miles distant from the point he attained, nor was he accompanied by an Eskimo interpreter. He ascertained, however, that only a portion of the officers and men of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ had reached the Great Fish River--some forty of them, very possibly, as Dr. Rae had been informed; these forty, with the three graves upon Beechey Island, still leaving ninety-five persons unaccounted for.

* * * * *

Lady Franklin and her friends continued to press upon Government the need for further inquiry; but finding the responsible ministers unwilling to interfere in what they had come to consider a hopeless enterprise, they contrived, with some help from the public, to purchase and fit out a strongly-built screw-schooner, of which Captain M’Clintock volunteered to take the command.

He sailed from England in the summer of 1857; reached Melville Bay in safety, but was then held fast by the floating ice. The winter, however, came and went without any injury to him and his gallant band; and on the 27th of July 1858, the _Fox_ stretched across to Lancaster Sound. On the 11th of August she arrived at Beechey Island, and replenished her diminished stores from the depôts left there by previous expeditions. Then she pushed to the westward, past Cape Hotham and Griffith Island, southward through Sir Robert Peel Channel, and so into Prince Regent Inlet. Having arrived off the eastern entrance of Bellot Strait, she found it blocked up by a wall of ice, and from the 20th of August to the 6th of September she watched for an opportunity of breaking through it. On the 6th she made the passage, but only to find the other end obstructed by an impassable ice-barrier; and, after five fruitless attempts, her captain brought her to anchor for the winter in Port Kennedy, on the northern side of the strait.

When the new year opened, M’Clintock resolved on undertaking sledge excursions in various directions, with the view of obtaining some information of Franklin and his expedition. In one of them, at Cape Victoria, on the west coast of Boothia (lat. 69° 50’ N., long. 96° W.), he ascertained from the natives that, several years previously, a ship had been wrecked off the northern shores of King William’s Land; that all her crew landed safely, and set off on a journey to the Great Fish River, where they died. Again: in April, falling in with the same party of Eskimos, they learned further, that besides the ship which had sunk in deep water, another had been driven ashore by the ice. Captain M’Clintock thereupon crossed to Montreal Island, travelled round the estuary of the Great Fish River, and visited Point Ogle and Barrow Island. On May 7, he fell in with an old Eskimo woman, who told him that many of the white men dropped by the way as they made towards the Great Fish River; that some were buried, and some were not. Proceeding in what he conceived to have been the route of the retreating crews, he discovered, near Point Herschel, a bleached skeleton; evidently that of one who had fallen behind the main body, from weakness and fatigue, and had died where he had fallen.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Hobson, who had started with another sledging party, had made the important discovery of a record, giving a brief account of the Franklin expedition up to the time when the ships were lost. It was found within a cairn constructed on Point Victory, and it set forth the following particulars:--

The _Erebus_ and _Terror_ spent their first winter at Beechey Island, in the spot discovered by Penny and Austin’s expedition; but they had previously explored Wellington Channel as far as 73° N., and passed down again into Barrow Strait, between Cornwallis and Bathurst Land. In 1846 the two ships seem to have sailed through Peel Channel, until caught in the ice off King William’s Land, on the 12th of September. In May 1847, Lieutenant Graham Gore and Mr. des Vœux landed, and erected a cairn a few miles south of Point Victory, and deposited in it a document which stated that, on that day, all were well, with Sir J. Franklin in command. Within a month, however, that illustrious navigator died (June 11), and thus was spared the terrible trials which afflicted his followers. The ice did not move, and the winter of 1847–48 closed in upon them. It proved fatal to nine officers and fifteen men. On April 22, 1848, the two ships, which had been imprisoned for upwards of nineteen months, were deserted, and the officers and crews, one hundred and five in number, under the command of Captains Crozier and Fitzjames, started for the Great Fish River.

At the cairn and all about it lay a great quantity of clothing and other articles, which the sufferers had found from experience of three days to be a heavier weight than their enfeebled strength was able to drag.

From this point to a spot about midway between Point Victory and Point Herschel nothing of much importance was discovered, and the skeletons as well as relics were deeply embedded in snow. At this midway station, however, the top of a piece of wood projecting out of the snow was seen by Lieutenant Hobson, and on digging round it a boat was discovered. It stood on a very heavy sledge, and within it were a couple of skeletons. The one in the bottom of the stern-sheets was covered with a great quantity of thrown-off clothing; the other, in the bows, seemed to have been that of some poor fellow who had crept there to look out, and in that position fallen into his last sleep. A couple of guns, loaded and ready cocked, stood upright to hand, as it they had been prepared for use against wild animals. Around this boat was another accumulation of cast-off articles; and it was the belief of M’Clintock that the party in charge of her were returning to the ships, as it they discovered their strength unequal to the terrible journey before them. It may be assumed, however, that the stronger portion of the crews still pushed on with another boat, and that some reached Montreal Island and ascended the Great Fish River.

The point, says Sherard Osborn, at which the fatal imprisonment of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ in 1846 took place, was only ninety miles from the spot reached by Dease and Simpson in their boats in 1838–39, coming from the east. Ninety miles more of open water, and Franklin and his gallant crew would have not only won the prize they sought, but reached their homes to wear their well-earned honours. “It was not to be so. Let us bow in humility and awe to the inscrutable decrees of that Providence who ruled it otherwise. They were to discover the great highway between the Pacific and the Atlantic. It was given them to win for their country a discovery for which she had risked her sons and lavishly spent her wealth through many centuries; but they were to die in accomplishing their last great earthly task: and, still more strange, but for the energy and devotion of the wife of their chief and leader, it would in all probability never have been known that they were indeed the _First Discoverers of the North-West Passage_.”

* * * * *

We have thought it for the convenience of our readers to set before them an uninterrupted narrative of the exertions made to ascertain the fate of Franklin and his companions by English seamen under English influence; but we must now return to 1853, to chronicle the American expedition under Dr. Kane--which did not, indeed, succeed in its primary object, but made some remarkable additions to our knowledge of the Polar Regions.

Dr. Elisha Kane sailed from Boston in 1853, in command of the _Advance_, with a crew of seventeen officers and men, to whom two Greenlanders were subsequently added.

On the 7th of August he passed the two great headlands which guard the entrance of Smith Sound,--Cape Isabella and Cape Alexander, discovered and named in the preceding year by Captain Inglefield,--and after a voyage of equal difficulty and danger reached Rensselaer Bay on the east coast of the sound, where he passed the winter. A few extracts from his diary will show under what conditions, and in what circumstances, Kane and his followers passed the long and dreary winter months:--

“_October 28th._--The moon has reached her greatest northern declination of about 25° 35’. She is a glorious object; sweeping around the heavens, at the lowest part of her curve, she is still 14° above the horizon. For eight days she has been making her circuit with nearly unvarying brightness. It is one of those sparkling nights that bring back the memory of sleigh-bells and songs, and glad communings of hearts in lands that are far away.

“_November 7th._--The darkness is coming on with insidious steadiness, and its advances can only be perceived by comparing one day with its fellow of some time back. We still read the thermometer at noonday without a light, and the black masses of the hills are plain for about five hours, with their glaring patches of snow; but all the rest is darkness. The stars of the sixth magnitude shine out at noonday. Except upon the island of Spitzbergen, which has the advantages of an insular climate, and tempered by ocean-currents, no Christians have wintered in so high a latitude as this. They are Russian sailors who made the encounter there--men inured to hardships and cold. Our darkness has ninety days to run before we shall get back again even to the contested twilight of to-day. Altogether our winter will have been sunless for one hundred and forty days.

“_December 15th._--We have lost the last vestige of our mid-day twilight. We cannot see print, and hardly paper; the finger’s cannot be counted a foot from the eyes. Noonday and midnight are alike; and, except a vague glimmer in the sky that seems to define the hill outlines to the south, we have nothing to tell us that this Arctic world of ours has a sun. In the darkness, and consequent inaction, it is almost in vain that we seek to create topics of thought, and, by a forced excitement, to ward off the encroachments of disease.”

But in due time the long Arctic night passed away, and the season came round for undertaking the sledge journeys which were the main object of the expedition. But Dr. Kane was then met by a new difficulty. Out of the nine splendid Newfoundland and thirty-five Eskimo dogs which he had originally possessed, only six had survived a peculiar malady that had seized them during the winter; and though some fresh purchases were made from the Eskimos who visited Rensselaer Harbour early in April, his means of transport remained wholly inadequate.

Kane, moreover, who though strong of heart was weak of body, had suffered much from the rigour of the climate, and was in a sadly feeble condition when, on the 25th of April 1854, he started on his northward journey. He found the Greenland coast, as he ascended Kane Sea, full of romantic surprises; the cliffs rising to a height of ten hundred and eleven hundred feet, and presenting the boldest and most fantastic outlines. This character is continued as far as the Great Humboldt Glacier. The coast is indented by four great bays, all of them communicating with deep gorges, which are watered by streams from the interior ice-fields. The mean height of the table-land, till it reaches the bed of the Great Glacier, Dr. Kane estimated, in round numbers, at 900 feet; its tallest summit near the water at 1300, and the rise of the background above the general level at 600 more. The face of this stupendous ice-mass, as it defined the coast, was everywhere an abrupt and threatening precipice, only broken by clefts and deep ravines, giving breadth and interest to its wild expression.

Dr. Kane informs us that the most picturesque portion of the coast occurs in the neighbourhood of Dallas Bay. Here the red sandstones contrast very favourably with the blank whiteness, and associate the warm colours of more southern lands with the cold tints of the Arctic scenery. The seasons have acted on the different layers of the cliff so as to give them all the appearance of jointed masonry, and the narrow stratum of greenstone at the top surmounts them with boldly-designed battlements. To one of these “interesting freaks of Nature” Kane gave the name of the “Three Brother Turrets.” The crumbled ruin at the foot of the coast-wall led up, like an artificial causeway, to a ravine that blazed at noonday with the glow of the southern sun, when everywhere else the rock lay in blackest shadow. Just at the edge of this lane of light rose the semblance of a castle, flanked with triple towers, completely isolated and defined. These were the Three Turrets.

Still further to the north, a solitary cliff of greenstone, marked by the slaty limestone that once encased it, sprang from a mass of broken sandstone, like the rough-hewn rampart of an ancient city. At its northern extremity, on the brink of a deep ravine, wrought out among the ruin, stood a solitary column, or minaret-tower, the pedestal of which was not less than 280 feet in height, while the shaft was fully 480 feet. Dr. Kane associated this remarkable beacon with the name of the poet Tennyson.

Dr. Kane continued his advance, and on the 4th of May approached the Great Glacier. This progress, however, was dearly earned. Owing to the excessive cold and labour, most of his party suffered from painful prostration; three were attacked with snow-blindness; and all were troubled with dropsical swellings. Off Cape Kent, while taking an observation for latitude, Kane himself was seized with a sudden pain, and fainted. His limbs became rigid. He was strapped upon the sledge, and insisted that the march should be continued. But, on the 5th, he grew delirious, and fainting every time that he was taken from the tent to the sledge, he succumbed entirely.

“My comrades,” writes this heroic man, than whom no braver or more resolute spirit ever ventured into the dreary Northern wilds, “would kindly persuade me that, even had I continued sound, we could not have proceeded on our journey. The snows were very heavy, and increasing as we went; some of the drifts perfectly impassable, and the level floes often four feet deep in yielding snow. The scurvy had already broken out among the men, with symptoms like my own; and Morton, our strongest man, was beginning to give way. It is the reverse of comfort to me that they shared my weakness. All that I should remember with pleasurable feeling is, that to five brave men, themselves scarcely able to travel, I owe my preservation.”

They carried him back to the brig at Rensselaer Harbour, and for several days he lay fluctuating between life and death. As the summer came on, however, his health slowly improved; and though unable to undertake any sledge excursions in person, he organized a series of expeditions in which his stronger companions took part. Dr. Hayes crossed the strait in a north-easterly direction, reached the opposite coast of Grinnell Land, where the cliffs varied from 1200 to 2000 feet in height, and surveyed it as far as Cape Fraser, in lat. 79° 45’.

He returned on June 1st, and, a few days later, Morton departed to survey the Greenland shore beyond the Humboldt Glacier. His journey was a difficult one, for the obstacles offered by the ice hummocks were sometimes almost insurmountable, and the ice-field was intersected by chasms and water-lanes frequently four feet in width. After skirting the coast of what is now known as Morris Bay, Morton’s party came upon easier ground; and presently a long low country opened on the land-ice, a wide plain between large headlands, with rolling hills through it. A flock of brent geese came down this valley, with a whirr of wings, and ducks were seen in crowds upon the open water. Eiders and dove-kies also made their appearance; and tern were very numerous, and exceedingly tame. Flying high overhead, their notes echoing from the rocks, were large white birds, which Morton supposed to be burgomasters. There were also ivory gulls and mollemokes; the former flying very high, and the latter winging their way far out to sea.

The channel (Kennedy Channel) was here unobstructed by ice, and its waves rolled freely and noisily on the shore. Along its verdant margin Morton proceeded warily, and on the 26th of June, 1854, reached the striking headland of Cape Constitution, about 2000 feet in height. Its base was washed by a tremendous surf, through which it was impossible to pass--the _ne plus ultra_, as it seemed, of human enterprise. Climbing from rock to rock, he contrived to reach an elevation of 300 feet; from which he was able to trace the outline of the coast for fifty miles to the north. In the distance rose a range of mountains, very lofty, and rounded at their summits. To the north-west might be seen a bare peak, striated vertically with protruding ridges, and soaring to an altitude of between 2500 and 3000 feet. This peak, the most remote northern land then known upon the globe, was named after the great pioneer of Arctic travel, Sir Edward Parry.

The range (Victoria and Albert Mountains) with which it was connected was much higher, Morton thought, than any they had seen on the southern or Greenland side of the bay. The summits were generally rounded, resembling a succession of sugar-loaves and stacked cannonballs declining slowly in the perspective.

* * * * *

All the sledge-parties were now once more aboard the brig, and the season of Arctic travel had ended. The short summer was rapidly wearing away, and yet the ice remained a rigid and impenetrable barrier. It was evident that the ship could not be liberated, and Kane found himself compelled to decide between two equally dismal alternatives,--the abandonment of the ship, or another winter among the Polar snows. For himself, he resolved to remain; but to those who were willing to venture on the attempt to reach the Danish settlement at Upernavik, he left the choice open. Out of the seventeen survivors of the party, eight, like Dr. Kane, decided to stand by the brig; the others, to push southward to Upernavik. These were provided with all the provisions and appliances that could be spared, and took their departure on Monday, August 28th; carrying with them a written assurance of a brother’s welcome should they be driven back--an assurance amply redeemed when severe trials had prepared them to share again the fortunes of their commander.

Dr. Kane confronted the winter with equal sagacity and resolution. He had carefully studied the Eskimos, and concluded that their form of habitation and peculiarities of diet, without their unthrift and filth, were the safest that could be adopted. He turned the brig, therefore, into a kind of _igloë_, or hut. The quarter-deck was well padded with moss and turf, and the cabin below, a space some eighteen feet square, was enclosed and packed from floor to ceiling with inner walls of the same material. The floor itself was carefully calked with plaster of Paris and common paste, and covered two inches deep with Manilla oakum and a canvas carpet. The entrance was from the hold by a low, moss-lined tunnel, the _tossut_ of the native huts, with as many doors and curtains to close it up as ingenuity could devise. This was their sitting-room, dining-room, sleeping-room; but there were only ten of them, and the closer the warmer.

While they were engaged in these defences against the enemy, they contrived to open up a friendly intercourse with the Eskimos, visiting them in their snow-huts at the settlements of Etah and Anatoak, distant about thirty and seventy miles from the brig; and, in return for presents of needles, pins, and knives, they undertook to show the white strangers where game was to be procured, as well as to furnish walrus and fresh seal meat. The assistance rendered by the Eskimos was of the greatest value, and we may infer that, without it, Dr. Kane and his followers must have succumbed to the hardships of that dreadful winter.

* * * * *

On the 12th of December, the party which had abandoned the ship suddenly reappeared, finding it impossible to penetrate to the south. They had suffered severely; were covered with rime and snow, and fainting with hunger. It was necessary to use much caution in conveying them below; for after an exposure of such fearful intensity and duration as they had undergone, the warmth of the cabin would have prostrated them completely. They had journeyed three hundred and fifty miles; and their last run from the bay near Etah, some seventy miles in a right line, was through the hummocks with the thermometer at -50°. “One by one,” says Kane, “they all came in and were housed. Poor fellows! as they threw open their Eskimo garments by the stove, how they relished the scanty luxuries which we had to offer. The coffee, and the meat-biscuit soup, and the molasses, and the wheat-bread, even the salt pork, which our scurvy forbade the rest of us to touch--how they relished it all! For more than two months they had lived on frozen seal and walrus meat.”

We cannot dwell on the various little incidents which marked that sad and terrible winter, but an extract or two from Dr. Kane’s journal will show the reader how much the imprisoned explorers endured, and in what spirit they bore their trials:--

“_December 1, Friday._--I am writing at midnight. I have the watch from eight to two. It is day in the moonlight on deck, the thermometer getting up again to 36° below zero. As I come down to the cabin--for so we still call this little moss-lined igloë of ours--every one is asleep, snoring, gritting his teeth, or talking in his dreams. This is pathognomonic; it tells of Arctic winter, and its companion, scurvy. Tom Hickey, our good-humoured, blundering cabin-boy, decorated with the dignities of cook, is in that little dirty cot on the starboard side; the rest are bedded in rows. Mr. Brooks and myself chock aft. Our bunks are close against the frozen moss-wall, where we can take in the entire family at a glance. The apartment measures twenty feet by eighteen; its height six feet four inches at one place, but diversified elsewhere by beams crossing at different distances from the floor. The avenue by which it is approached is barely to be seen in the moss-wall forward; twenty feet of air-tight space make misty distance, for the puff of outside temperature that came in with me has filled our atmosphere with vesicles of vapour. The avenue--Ben-Djerback is our poetic name for it--closes on the inside with a door well-patched with flannel, from which, stooping upon all fours, you back down a descent of four feet in twelve through a tunnel three feet high, and two feet six inches broad. Arrived at the bottom, you straighten yourself, and a second door admits you into the dark and sorrowing hold, empty of stores, and stripped to its naked ceiling for firewood. From this we grope our way to the main hatch, and mount by a rude stairway of boxes into the open air.”

* * * * *

“_February 21, Wednesday._--To-day the crests of the north-east headland were gilded by true sunshine, and all who were able ascended on deck to greet it. The sun rose above the horizon, though still screened from our eyes by intervening hills. Although the powerful refraction of Polar latitudes heralds his direct appearance by brilliant light, this is as far removed from the glorious tints of day as it is from the mere twilight. Nevertheless, for the past ten days we have been watching the growing warmth of our landscape, as it emerged from buried shadow, through all the stages of distinctness of an India-ink washing, step by step, into the sharp, bold definition of our desolate harbour scene. We have marked every dash of colour which the great Painter in his benevolence vouchsafed to us; and now the empurpled blue, clear, unmistakable, the spreading lake, the flickering yellow; peering at all these, poor wretches! everything seemed superlative lustre and unsurpassable glory. We had so grovelled in darkness, that we oversaw the light.

“Mr. Wilson has caught cold, and relapsed. Mr. Ohlsen, after a suspicious day, startles me by an attack of partial epilepsy; one of those strange, indescribable spells, fits, seizures, whatever name the jargon gives them, which indicate deep disturbance. I conceal his case as far as I can; but it adds to my heavy pack of troubles to anticipate the gloomy scenes of epileptic transport introduced into our one apartment.”

* * * * *

“_February 28, Wednesday._--February closes: thank God for the lapse of its twenty-eight days! Should the thirty-one of the coming March not drag us further downward, we may hope for a successful close to this dreary drama. By the 10th of April we should have seal; and when they come, if we remain to welcome them, we can call ourselves saved.

“But a fair review of our prospects tells me that I must look the lion in the face. The scurvy is steadily gaining on us. I do my best to sustain the more desperate cases; but as fast as I partially build up one, another is stricken down. The disease is perhaps less malignant than it was, but it is more diffused throughout our party. Except William Morton, who is disabled by a frozen heel, not one of our eighteen is exempt. Of the six workers of our party, as I counted them a month ago, two are unable to do out-door work, and the remaining four divide the duties of the ship among them. Hans musters his remaining energies to conduct the hunt. Petersen is his disheartened, moping assistant. The other two, Bonsall and myself, have all the daily offices of household and hospital. We chop five large sacks of ice, cut six fathoms of eight-inch hawser into junks of a foot each (for fuel), serve out the meat when we have it, hack at the molasses, and hew out with crowbar and axe the pork and dried apples, pass up the foul slops and cleansings of our dormitory; and, in a word, cook, _scullionize_, and attend the sick. Added to this, for five nights running I have kept watch from 8 P.M. to 4 A.M., catching cat-naps as I could in the day without changing my clothes, but carefully waking every hour to note thermometers.

“Such is the condition in which February leaves us, with forty-one days more ahead of just the same character in prospect as the twenty-eight which, thank God! are numbered now with the past. It is saddening to think how much those twenty-eight days have impaired our capacities of endurance. If Hans and myself can only hold on, we may work our way through. All rests upon destiny, or the Power which controls it.”

* * * * *

It is useless, however, to dwell longer on this melancholy record. Kane saw that to abandon the brig was now the only resource: the ice held it fast, there was no probability of its being released, and a third winter in Rensselaer Bay would have been death to the whole party. As soon, therefore, as the return of spring in some measure recruited the health of his followers, he made the necessary preparations for departure; and on the 20th of May the entire ship’s company bade farewell to the _Advance_, and set out on their homeward route. With considerable difficulty and arduous labour they hauled their boats across the rough, hummocky ice, and reached the open sea. On the 17th of June they embarked, and steered for Upernavik, which port they calculated upon reaching in fifty-six days. When they got fairly clear of the land, and in the course of the great ice-drift southward, they found their boats so frail and leaky that they could be kept afloat only by constant bailing; a labour which told heavily on men already weakened with disease and want. Starvation stared them in the face, when happily they fell in with and captured a large seal, which they devoured voraciously; and this opportune help recruited their failing energies. Thenceforth they were in no lack of food, as seals were plentiful; and early in August, after living for eighty-four days in the open air, they found themselves under the comfortable roofs of Upernavik, enjoying the hospitable welcome of the generous Danes.

Dr. Kane returned to New York on the 11th of October 1855, after an absence of thirty months. His discoveries had been important, his heroism worthy of the race from which he sprung, and none can deny that he had well merited the honours he received. Unfortunately, a frame never very robust had been broken down by the trials of two Arctic winters; and this gallant explorer passed away on the 16th of February 1857, in the thirty-seventh year of his age.

* * * * *

In 1860, Dr. Hayes, the companion of Dr. Kane, took the command of an expedition intended to complete the survey of Kennedy Channel, and to reach, if it were possible, the North Pole. His schooner, the _United States_, was brought up for the winter at Port Foulke, about twenty miles south of Rensselaer Harbour; and early in the following April, Dr. Hayes set out on a sledge and boat journey across the sound, and along the shores of Grinnell Land.

From the eloquent record of his adventures, which does so much credit to his literary skill, “An Arctic Boat Journey,” we have already quoted some stirring passages; but the following extract we may be allowed to repeat, on account of the clear light it throws upon the nature of the difficulties Hayes encountered on his northward advance:--

“The track,” he says, “was rough, past description. I can compare it to nothing but a promiscuous accumulation of rocks closely packed together, and piled up over a vast plain in great heaps and endless ridges, leaving scarcely a foot of level surface. The interstices between these closely accumulated ice-masses are filled up, to some extent, with drifted snow. The reader will easily imagine the rest. He will see the sledges winding through the tangled wilderness of broken ice-tables, the men and dogs pulling and pushing up their respective loads. He will see them clambering over the very summit of lofty ridges, through which there is no opening, and again descending on the other side--the sledge often plunging over a precipice, sometimes capsizing, and frequently breaking. Again he will see the party, baffled in their attempt to cross or find a pass, breaking a track with shovel and handspike; or, again, unable even with these appliances to accomplish their end, they retreat to seek a better track: and they may be lucky enough to find a sort of gap or gateway, upon the winding and uneven surface of which they will make a mile or so with comparative ease. The snow-drifts are sometimes a help and sometimes a hindrance. Their surface is uniformly hard, but not always firm to the foot. The crust frequently gives way, and in a most tiresome and provoking manner. It will not quite bear the weight, and the foot sinks at the very moment when the other is lifted. But, worse than this, the chasms between the hummocks are frequently bridged over with snow in such a manner as to leave a considerable space at the bottom quite unfilled; and at the very moment when all looks promising, down sinks one man to his middle, another to the neck, another is buried out of sight; the sledge gives way,--and to extricate the whole from this unhappy predicament is probably the labour of hours. It would be difficult to imagine any kind of labour more disheartening, or which would sooner sap the energies of both men and animals.”

* * * * *

After encountering difficulties like these, which wore out the strength of most of his party, so that they were compelled to return to the schooner, Dr. Hayes succeeded in crossing the sound, and began his journey along the coast. But the difficulties did not abate, and made such demands on the powers of endurance of the travellers, that the strongest among them broke down, and had to be left behind in charge of another of the party. The resolute Hayes then pushed on, accompanied by Knorr, and on the 18th of May reached the margin of a deep gulf, where further progress was rendered impossible by the rotten ice and broad water-ways. From this point, however, he could see, on the other side of the channel, and immediately opposite to him, the lofty peak of Mount Parry, discovered in 1854 by the gallant Morton; and more to the north, a bold conspicuous headland, which he named Cape Union, the most northern known land upon the globe. Beyond it, he thought he saw the open sea of the Pole, which, from Cape Union, is not distant five hundred miles; but the voyage of the _Polaris_, at a later date, has shown that what he saw was only a land-locked bay.

On the 12th of July, the schooner was set free from the ice, but she proved to be too much damaged to continue her dangerous voyage; and satisfied with having proved that a direct and not impracticable route to the Pole lies up Smith Sound and Kennedy Channel, Dr. Hayes returned to Boston.

* * * * *

It is the opinion, however, of some geographers, though scarcely warranted by ascertained facts, that the Pole may more easily be reached by what is known as the Spitzbergen route. They argue that to the east of this snow-crowned archipelago the influence of the Gulf Stream makes itself felt; and they conclude that this great warm current possibly strikes as far as the Pole itself. It is known that Parry, to the north of Spitzbergen, attained the latitude of 82° 45’; and it is recorded that a Hull whaler, the _True-Love_, in 1837, navigated an open sea in lat. 82° 30’ N., and long. 15° E.; so that she might probably have solved the problem and have gained the Pole, had she continued on her northerly course.

Holding this belief, the illustrious German geographer, Dr. Petermann, succeeded in raising funds for a German expedition in 1868; and the _Germania_, a brig of eighty tons, under the command of Captain Koldewey, sailed from Bergen on the 24th of May, for Shannon Island, in lat. 75° 14’ N., the furthest point on the Greenland coast reached by Sabine in 1823. She was accompanied by the _Hansa_, Captain Hegemann; and both ships were equipped in the most careful manner, and liberally supplied with appliances and stores.

On the 9th of July the expedition was off the island of Jan Mayen, and at midnight on that day was sailing direct to the northward. A heavy fog came on, and the two ships, even when sailing side by side, could not see one another, and communication could be maintained only by the use of the speaking-trumpet. Their crews might then conceive an idea of that impenetrable chaos which, according to Pythias, terminated the world beyond Thule, and which is neither air, nor earth, nor sea. It is impossible to imagine anything more melancholy than this gray, uniform, infinite veil or canopy; ocean itself, far as the eye can reach, is gray and gloomy.

For five successive days the weather remained in this condition, the fog alone varying in intensity, and growing thicker and thicker. On the 14th a calm prevailed, and the _Germania_ lowered a boat to pick up drift-wood and hunt the sea-gulls. The ice-blink on the horizon showed that the ships were drawing near the great ice-fields of the Polar Ocean; and another sign of their proximity was the appearance of the ivory gull (_Larus eburneus_), which never wanders far from the ice. Occasionally the ships fell in with a rorqual, or nord-caper, as the seamen call it,--a species of whale distinguished by the presence of a dorsal fin.

On the morning of the 15th of July a light breeze blew up from the south, and the two ships sailed steadily on their north-western course through a sea covered with floating ice. An accustomed ear could already distinguish a distant murmur, which seemed to draw nearer and yet nearer; it was the swell of the sea breaking on the far-off ice-field. Nearer and yet nearer! Everybody gathered upon deck; and, suddenly, as if in virtue of some spell, the mists cleared away, and the adventurers saw before them, within a few hundred yards, the ice! It formed a long line, like a cliff-wall of broken and rugged rocks, whose azure-tinted precipices glittered in the sun, and repelled, unmoved, the rush of the foamy waves. The summit was covered with a deep layer of blinding snow.

They gazed on the splendid panorama in silence. It was a solemn moment, and in every mind new thoughts and new impressions were awakened, in which both hope and doubt were blended.

The point where the _Germania_ had struck the ice was lat. 74° 47’ N. and long. 11° 50’ E., and the icy barrier stretched almost directly from north to south. The _Hansa_ touched the ice on the same day, but in lat. 74° 57’ N., and long. 9° 41’ E.

The two ships, which had separated in the fog, effected a union on the 18th, and the _Germania_ taking the _Hansa_ in tow, they made towards Sabine Island. After awhile, the towing-rope was thrown off, the _Germania_ finding it necessary to extinguish her fires and proceed under canvas. They then followed up, in a southerly direction, the great icy barrier, seeking for an opening which might afford them a chance of steering westward.

On the 20th, the _Germania_ found the ice so thick in the south-west that she adopted a westerly Course, and hoisted a signal for the captain of the _Hansa_ to come on board to a conference. The latter, however, misinterpreted it, and instead of reading the signal as “Come within hail,” read it as “Long stay a peak;” crowded on all sail, and speedily disappeared in the fog, which grew wonderfully intense before the _Germania_ could follow her. Through this curious error the two ships were separated, and for fourteen months the crew of the _Germania_ remained in ignorance of the fate of their comrades’.

* * * * *

Before following the _Germania_ on her voyage of discovery, we propose to see what befell the _Hansa_ among the Arctic ice.

Captain Hegemann had understood the signal of his senior officer to mean that the ships were to push on as far as possible to the westward, and, as we have seen, he crowded on all sail. But when the fog closed in, and he found himself out of sight of the _Germania_, he lay-to, in the hope that the latter might rejoin him. Disappointed in this, he kept on his way, and on the 28th of July sighted the rocky and gloomy coast of East Greenland, from Cape Bröer-Ruys to Cape James.

The weather continued fine. By the light of the midnight sun, which illuminated the fantastic outlines of the bergs, the adventurers engaged in a narwhal-hunt. Nothing is more extraordinary than the effect of the rays of the midnight sun penetrating into an ocean covered with floating ice. The warm and cold tones strike against each other in all directions; the sea is orange, leaden-gray, or dark green; the reefs of ice are tinged with a delicate rose-bloom; broad shadows spread over the snow, and the most varied effects of mirage are produced everywhere in the tranquil waters.

On the 9th of September, the _Hansa_ found the channel of free water in which she had been navigating closed by a huge mass of ice, and to protect her against the drift of the floating bergs she was moored to it with stout hawsers. A few days later, the ice was broken up by a gale of wind from the north-east, and the hawsers snapped. The ice accumulating behind the ship raised it a foot and a half. On a contiguous sheet of ice, the explorers discovered a she-bear with her cub, and a boat was despatched in pursuit. The couple soon caught sight of it, and began to trot along the edge of the ice beside the boat, the mother grinding her teeth and licking her beard. Her enemies landed, and fired, and the bear fell in the snow, mortally wounded. While the cub was engaged in tenderly licking and caressing her, several attempts were made to capture it with a lasso; but it always contrived to extricate itself, and at last took to flight, crying and moaning bitterly. Though struck with a bullet, it succeeded in effecting its escape.

* * * * *

On the 12th they again saw a couple of bears coming from the east, and returning from the sea towards the land. The mother fell a victim to their guns, but the cub was captured, and chained to an anchor which they had driven into the ice. It appeared exceedingly restless and disturbed, but not the less did it greedily devour a slice of its mother’s flesh which the sailors threw to it. A snow wigwam was hastily constructed for its accommodation, and the floor covered with a layer of shavings; but the cub despised these luxuries of civilization, and preferred to encamp on the snow, like a true inhabitant of the Polar Regions. A few days afterwards it disappeared with its chain, which it had contrived to detach from the anchor; and the weight of the iron, in all probability, had dragged the poor beast to the bottom of the water.

The _Hansa_ was now set fast in the ice, and no hope was entertained of her release until the coming of the spring. Her crew amused themselves with skating, and, when the weather permitted, with all kinds of gymnastic exercises. It became necessary, however, to consider what preparations should be made for encountering the Arctic winter, one of the bitterest enemies with which man is called upon to contend. The _Hansa_ was strongly built, but her commander feared she might not be able to endure the more and more frequent pressure of the ice. At first, it was proposed to cover the boats with sail-cloth and convert them into winter-quarters; but it was felt that they would not afford a sufficient protection against the rigour of the Polar climate, its furious winds, its excess of cold, its wild whirlwinds of snow. And therefore it was resolved to erect on the ice-floe a suitable winter-hut, constructed of blocks of coal. Bricks made of this material have the double advantage of absorbing humidity, and reflecting the heat which they receive. Water and snow would serve for mortar; and a roof could be made with the covering which protected the deck of the _Hansa_ from the snow.

The ground-plan of the house was designed by Captain Hegemann; it measured twenty feet in length, and fourteen feet in width; the ridge of the roof was eight feet and a half, and the side walls four feet eight inches in elevation. These walls were composed of a double row of bricks nine inches wide up to a height of two feet, after which a single row was used. They were cemented in a peculiarly novel fashion. The joints and fissures were filled up with dry snow, on which water was poured, and in ten minutes it hardened into a compact mass, from which it would have been exceedingly difficult to extract a solitary brick. The roof consisted of sails and mats, covered with a layer of snow. The door was two and a half feet wide, and the floor was paved with slabs of coal. Into this house, which was completed in seven days, provisions for two months were carried, including four hundred pounds of bread, two dozen boxes of preserved meat, a flitch of bacon, some coffee and brandy, besides a supply of firing-wood, and some tons of coal.

* * * * *

On the 8th of October, after the completion of the house, a violent snow-storm broke out, which would assuredly have rendered its construction impossible, and which, in five days, completely buried both the ship and the hut. Such immense piles of snow accumulated on the deck of the _Hansa_, that it was with the greatest difficulty the seamen could reach their berths.

From the 5th to the 14th of October the drift of the current was so strong, that the ice-bound ship was carried no fewer than seventy-two miles towards the south-south-east.

Meantime, the pressure of the ice continued to increase, and the _Hansa_ seemed held in the tightening grasp of an invincible giant. Huge masses rose in front, and behind, and on both sides, and underneath, until she was raised seventeen feet higher than her original position. Affairs seemed so critical, that Captain Hegemann hastened to disembark the stores of clothing, the scientific instruments, charts, log-book, and diaries. It was found that through the constant strain on her timbers the ship had begun to leak badly, and on sounding, two feet of water were found in the pumps. All hands to work! But after half an hour’s vigorous exertions, the water continued to rise, slowly but surely; and the most careful search failed to indicate the locality of the leak. It was painfully evident that the good ship could not be saved.

“Though much affected,” says the chronicler of the expedition, “by this sad catastrophe, we endured it with firmness. Resignation was indispensable. The coal hut, constructed on the shifting ice-floe, was thenceforward our sole refuge in the long nights of an Arctic winter, and was destined, perhaps, to become our tomb.

“But we had not a minute to lose, and we set to work. At nine o’clock P.M. the snow-fall ceased; the sky glittered with stars, the moon illuminated with her radiance the immense wilderness of ice, and the rays of the Aurora Borealis here and there lighted up the firmament with their coloured coruscations. The frost was severe; during the night the thermometer sank to -20° R. One half the crew continued to work at the pumps; the other was actively engaged in disembarking on the ice the most necessary articles. There could be no thought of sleep, for in our frightful situation the mind was beset by the most conflicting apprehensions. What would become of us at the very outset of a season which threatened to be one of excessive rigour? In vain we endeavoured to imagine some means of saving ourselves. It was not possible to think seriously of an attempt to gain the land. Perhaps we might have succeeded, in the midst of the greatest dangers, in reaching the coast by opening up a way across the ice-floes, but we had no means of transporting thither our provisions; and it appeared, from the reports of Scoresby, that we could not count on finding any Eskimo establishments,--so that our only prospect then would have been to die of hunger.”

The sole resource remaining to the explorers was to drift to the south on their moving ice-floe, and confine themselves, meantime, to their coal hut. If their ice-raft proved of sufficient strength, they might hope to reach in the spring the Eskimo settlement in the south of Greenland, or come to gain the coast of Iceland by traversing its cincture of ice.

* * * * *

It was on the 22nd of October, in lat. 70° 50’ N., and long. 21° W., that the _Hansa_ sank beneath the ice. Dr. Laube writes: “We made ourselves as snug as possible, and, once our little house was completely embanked with snow, we had not to complain of the cold. We enjoyed perfect health, and occupied the time with long walks and with our books, of which we had many. We made a Christmas-tree of birch-twigs, and embellished it with fragments of wax taper.”

To prevent attacks of disease, and to maintain the cheerfulness of the men, the officers of the expedition stimulated them to every kind of active employment, and laid down strict rules for the due division of the day.

At seven in the morning, they were aroused by the watch. They rose, attired themselves in their warm thick woollen clothing, washed in water procured by melting snow, and then took their morning cup of coffee, with a piece of hard bread. Various occupations succeeded: the construction of such useful utensils as proved to be necessary; stitching sail-cloth, mending clothes, writing up the day’s journal, and reading. When the weather permitted, astronomical observations and calculations were not forgotten. At noon, all hands were summoned to dinner, at which a good rich soup formed the principal dish; and as they had an abundance of preserved vegetables, the bill of fare was frequently changed. In the use of alcoholic liquors the most rigid economy was observed, and it was on Sunday only that each person received a glass of port.

The ice-floe on which their cabin stood was assiduously and carefully explored in all directions. It was about seven miles in circuit, and its average diameter measured nearly two miles.

The out-of-door amusements consisted chiefly of skating, and building up huge images of snow--Egyptian sphynxes and the like.

The borders of the ice-floe, especially to the west and south-west, presented a curious aspect; the attrition and pressure of the floating ice had built up about it high glittering walls, upwards of ten feet in elevation. The snow-crystals flashed and radiated in the sun like myriads of diamonds. The red gleam of morning and evening cast a strange emerald tint on the white surface of the landscape. The nights were magnificent. The glowing firmament, and the snow which reflected its lustre, produced so intense a brightness, that it was possible to read without fatigue the finest handwriting, and to distinguish remote objects. The phenomenon of the Aurora Borealis was of constant occurrence, and on one occasion was so wonderfully luminous that it paled the radiance of the stars, and everything upon the ice-floe cast a shadow, as if it had been the sun shining.

Near the coal-cabin stood two small huts, one of which served for ablutions, the other as a shed. Round this nucleus of the little shipwrecked colony were situated at convenient points the piles of wood for fuel, the boats, and the barrels of patent fuel and pork. To prevent the wind and snow from entering the dwelling-hut, a vestibule was constructed, with a winding entrance.

The greatest cold experienced was -29° 30’ F., and this was in December. After Christmas the little settlement was visited by several severe storms, and their ice-raft drifted close along the shore, sometimes within eight or nine miles, amidst much ice-crushing,--which so reduced it on all sides, that by the 4th of January 1870 it did not measure more than one-eighth of its original dimensions.

On the 6th of January, when they had descended as far south as 66° 45’ N. lat., the sun reappeared, and was joyfully welcomed.

On the night of the 15th of January, the colony was stricken by a sudden and terrible alarm. The ice yawned asunder, immediately beneath the hut, and its occupants had but just time to take refuge in their boats. Here they lay in a miserable condition, unable to clear out the snow, and sheltered very imperfectly from the driving, furious tempest. But on the 17th the gale moderated, and as soon as the weather permitted they set to work to reconstruct out of the ruins of the old hut a new but much smaller one. It was not large enough to accommodate more than half the colony; and the other half took up their residence in the boats.

February was calm and fine, and the floe still continued to drift southward along the land. The nights were gorgeous with auroral displays. Luminous sheaves expanded themselves on the deep blue firmament like the folds of a fan, or the petals of a flower.

March was very snowy, and mostly dull. On the 4th, the ice-raft passed within twenty-five miles of the glacier Kolberger-Heide. A day or two later, it nearly came into collision with a large grounded iceberg. The portion nearest to the drifting colony formed an immense overhanging mass; its principal body had been wrought by the action of the sun and the waves into the most capricious forms, and seemed an aggregate of rocks and pinnacles, towers and gateways. The castaways could have seized its projecting angles as they floated past. They thought their destruction certain, but the fragments of ice which surrounded the raft served as “buffers,” and saved it from a fatal collision.

On the 29th of March, they found themselves in the latitude of Nukarbik, the island where Graab, the explorer, wintered, from September 3rd, 1827, to April 5th, 1830. They had cherished the hope that from this spot they might be able to take to their boats, and start for Friedrichstal, a Moravian missionary station on the south coast of Greenland. However, the ice was as yet too compact for any such venture to be attempted.

For four weeks they were detained in the bay of Nukarbik, only two or three miles from the shore, and yet unable to reach it. Their raft was caught in a kind of eddy, and sometimes tacked to the south, sometimes to the north. The rising tide carried it towards the shore, the ebbing tide floated it out again to sea. During this detention they were visited by small troops of birds, snow linnets and snow buntings. The seamen threw them a small quantity of oats, which they greedily devoured. They were so tame that they allowed themselves to be caught by the hand.

From the end of March to the 17th of April, the voyagers continued their dreary vacillation between Skieldunge Island and Cape Moltke; a storm then drove them rapidly to the south. The coast, with its bold littoral mountain-chain, its deep bays, its inlets, its islands, and its romantic headlands, offered a succession of novel and impressive scenes; and specially imposing was the great glacier of Puisortok, a mighty ice-river which skirts the shore for upwards of thirty miles.

Early in May they had reached lat. 61° 12’.

On the 7th, some water-lanes opened for them a way to the shore; and abandoning the ice-raft, they took to their boats, with the intention of progressing southward along the coast. At first they met with considerable difficulty, being frequently compelled to haul up the boats on an ice-floe, and so pass the night, or wait until the wind was favourable. As this necessitated a continual unloading and reloading of the boats, the work was very severe. At one time they were detained for six days on the ice, owing to bad weather, violent gales, and heavy snow-showers. The temperature varied from +2° during the day to -5° R. during the night.

Their rations at this period were thus distributed:--In the morning, a cup of coffee, with a piece of dry bread. At noon, for dinner, soup and broth; in the evening, a few mouthfuls of cocoa, of course without milk and sugar.

They were compelled to observe the most rigid economy in the use of their provisions, lest, before reaching any settlement, they should be reduced to the extremities of famine. Yet their appetite was very keen; a circumstance easily explained, for they were necessarily very sparing in their allowance of meat and fat, which in the rigorous Arctic climate are indispensable as nourishment.

* * * * *

As no change took place in the position of the masses of ice which surrounded them, they resolved to drag their boats towards the island of Illiudlek, about three marine miles distant. They began this enterprise on the evening of the 20th, making use of some stout cables which they had manufactured during the winter, and harnessing themselves by means of a brace passed across the shoulders. That evening they accomplished three hundred paces. Snow fell heavily, and melted as fast as it fell, so that during their night-bivouac they suffered much from damp.

The next day they found before them such a labyrinth of blocks and fragments of ice, floating ice-fields, and water-channels, that they were constrained to give up the idea of hauling their boats across it, and resolved to wait for the spring tide--which, they knew, would occur in a few days. The delay was very wearisome. To beguile the time, some of the seamen set to work at wood-carving, while the officers and scientific gentlemen manufactured the pieces for a game of chess. Others prepared some fishing-lines, eighty fathoms long, in the hope of catching a desirable addition to their scanty bill of fare.

On the 24th, the weather was splendid. The sun shone in a cloudless sky, and wherever its genial radiance fell the thermometer marked + 28° 5’ R. This was an excellent opportunity for drying their clothes, which, as well as their linen, had been thoroughly soaked innumerable times. The coverings were removed from the boats, which, in the warm sunshine, exhaled great clouds of vapour. The cook endeavoured to add to his stores of provisions; but the seals churlishly refused to make their appearance, the fish disdained to nibble at the fat-baited hooks, and the stupid guillemots were cunning enough to escape the best directed shots.

M. Hildebrandt, with two seamen, made an attempt--in which they succeeded--to reach the island of Illiudlek, which lay about three miles off, and is from 450 to 500 feet in height. They found it a desert; not a trace of vegetation; its shores very steep, and at some points precipitous; its surface torn with crevasses and ravines. The only accessible part seemed on the north; but as the evening was drawing in, they had no time for exploration, and made haste to return to the boats.

The castaways now came to a resolution to seek a temporary refuge on this desolate isle. As the heat of the sun was sufficient to render their labour very painful, and they suffered much from the effects of the snow upon their eyes, they went to work at night, dragging their boats forward with many a weary effort, and rested during the daytime. In this way they reached the island on the 4th of June.

Here they moored their boats in a small bay sheltered by a wall of rocks from the north wind, which they named _Hansa-Hafen_. Next day they shot two-and-twenty divers, which provided them with a couple of good dinners. The supply was very valuable, as the stock of provisions on hand would not last above a fortnight.

After a brief rest, the adventurers resumed their voyage, keeping close in-shore, and struggling perseveringly amidst ice and stones--and further checked by an inaccurate chart, which led them into a deep fiord, instead of King Christian IV. Sound. On the 13th of June, however, they arrived at the Moravian missionary station of Friedrichstal, where their countrymen received them with a hearty welcome. For two hundred days they had sojourned upon a drifting ice-field, experiencing all the hardships of an Arctic winter, aggravated by an insufficiency of food.

They reached Julianshaab on the 21st of June; embarked on board the Danish brig _Constance_; and were landed at Copenhagen on the 1st of September.

* * * * *

We must now return to the _Germania_.

Captain Koldewey made several bold attempts to penetrate the pack-ice, but proved unsuccessful in all until, on the 1st of August, he reached lat. 74°, where he contrived to effect a passage; and though much delayed by a succession of fogs and calms, he made his way to Sabine Island,--and dropped anchor on its southern side, in lat. 74° 30’ N., and long. 29° W., on the 5th of August.

On the 10th he again passed towards the north, keeping along the Greenland shore until, in lat. 75° 31’ N., his advance was checked by a mass of closely-packed ice, which stretched from the coast of the mainland out to Shannon Island, a long unbroken line of fourteen miles. It presented a very formidable appearance, being edged in some places with a fringe of broken ice, boulders, and blocks, rising in heaps and hummocks forty feet high.

The _Germania_ remained in this position for several days. As nothing but ice was visible to the northward, and no prospect opened up of further progress in that direction, Captain Koldewey moved his ship to the south side of the island on the 16th of August, and dropped anchor close to Cape Philip Broke.

Eleven days were spent in a careful exploration of Shannon Island, during which time a musk-ox was shot, and close watch was kept from an elevated point on the ice lying to the northward. But as it continued solid and immovable, and the end of the season was at hand, Captain Koldewey returned northward, and brought his vessel to anchor on the south side of Pendulum Island on the 27th of August.

When it became necessary to make preparations for facing the coming winter, Captain Koldewey moved his ship on the 13th of September into the little harbour he had occupied on the 5th of August. Their subsequent experience showed it to be the only secure one between the parallels of 74° and 77°. A few days later the ship was frozen in.

The first sledging-party was despatched on the 14th of September, and remained out for eight days. After reaching the mainland, they travelled for four days up a newly-discovered fiord, finding many petrifactions and much lignite. They also saw large herds of musk-oxen. Vegetation was abundant, but chiefly composed of species of _Andromeda_. In the course of this excursion, our explorers had one or two adventures with bears. First, a female, with her two cubs, paid them a visit, but being received with some volleys of musketry, quickly beat a retreat. On another occasion, a daring intruder found his way into their tent. His temerity, however, cost him his life; and the Germans banqueted gaily on the fat and flesh with which he incontinently supplied them.

When the winter preparations were completed, Captain Koldewey organized several shooting parties, who made good booty of reindeer and musk-oxen and added most satisfactorily to the provision-supplies; no fewer than fifteen hundred pounds of good beef and venison attesting the skill and good fortune of the hunters. But after the beginning of November, neither musk-oxen, reindeer, nor bears were visible.

A second sledge journey was undertaken towards the end of October in a southerly direction. The party discovered another fiord, and returned on the 4th of November. On the following day the sun disappeared altogether, and the dreary Arctic night of three months’ duration overtook them.

The close of the year was marked by a succession of violent storms, and the temperature rose to 25° F. It soon fell again to zero, however; but it was not until 1870 that it indicated the maximum of cold experienced throughout the winter,--namely, -40° F. Of the December gales, the most furious broke out on the 16th, and lasted until the 20th. It set free the ice in the harbour, and even to within three hundred yards of the ship; but fortunately she had been anchored in the most sheltered part of the bay, and close to the shore, in only ten feet of water; otherwise the crushed-up ice, moving with the currents, would probably have carried her away to almost certain destruction.

The heroic little company, however, were nowise disheartened by the gloom and hardship of their situation. From Captain Koldewey’s account, they would seem to have spent a right merry Christmas, after the hearty German fashion. They danced by starlight upon the ice; they celebrated Christmas Eve with open doors, the temperature being 25° F.; with the evergreen _Andromeda_ they made a famous Christmas-tree; they decorated the cabin with flags, and spread out upon their tables the gifts prepared for the occasion by kindly hands: each received his share, and each joined in and contributed to the general merriment.

The Yule-tide festivities over, they made ready the equipments for their sledging expeditions in the ensuing spring,--the object of the most important of these being to attain the highest possible degree of north latitude.

In February the sun returned, and with it the bears; and the daily excursions upon the island, undertaken by the scientific members of the expedition, were rendered dangerous by their audacity. Every one was required to go armed, yet some accidents occurred. One of the “scientists” was severely wounded in the head, and dragged upwards of four hundred paces before his comrades rescued him from the bear. After the lapse of a few weeks, however, he recovered from his wounds.

On the 24th of March, the first sledge-party left the ship, and travelled northward until, on the 15th of April, they reached 77° 1’ N. lat. Then the wild northerly gales compelled them to retrace their steps. On their return they were fortunate enough to shoot some bears, whose blubber supplied them with fuel to warm their food; and the wind filling the sails which they had hoisted on their sledges, they progressed with such rapidity as to reach the ship on the 27th of April.

At the northernmost point attained by this party,--lat. 77° 1’,--the belt of land-ice which skirted the shore seemed to the travellers to be four miles in width and several years old. They speak of it as a “bulwark built for eternity.” Out to seaward, the ice, which was very hummocky, stretched in an unbroken expanse.

Two other sledge-parties were sent out early in May: one of these was employed in making geographical and scientific explorations of the neighbouring coast of Greenland; the other in attempting the measurement of an arc of the meridian. Their journeys were difficult enough and troublesome enough, and made large demands on the energies of those who undertook them. Crossing hummocks and rugged ice was weary work, and sometimes the whole party plunged into deep drifts of snow. On one occasion, the sledge was precipitated into a water-gap, or crevasse; and before it could be recovered and hauled up on the ice-floe, they were compelled to unload it, and remove each article, one by one. Then again they would have to make their way through a storm of pitiless violence; the north wind driving the frozen snow into their faces with a fury that almost blinded them. Up to their knees in the new snow, they pressed forward with a dogged intrepidity; enduring hardships and triumphing over obstacles of which the “mob of gentlemen who stay at home at ease” can form no adequate conception.

The bears now increased in numbers and in boldness, as if they had determined to besiege the small company now left on board the ship. The greatest caution was necessary to prevent accidents; and though several were shot, their death did not appear to terrify the survivors.

The thaw began about the middle of May, and towards the close of the month the sledge-parties were forced to wade through the water which flooded the surface of the sea-ice.

In June, large portions of land-ice were continually breaking off, and much open water could be descried in the south-east. But it was not until the 10th of July that the ice around the ship broke up. Four days later, boating became practicable, and a voyage was made to the Eskimo village on Clavering Island. It ended in disappointment,--the village having been deserted, and the huts having fallen into ruin.

On the 22nd of July, the _Germania_ once more steamed to the northward, to renew the attempt of the preceding year. Her boiler-tubes, however, leaked so seriously, that it was evident the boiler would speedily fail altogether. After some delay it was temporarily patched up; and by following a narrow channel between the loose pack-ice and the firm ice-belt of the coast, she contrived to push forward to the north-east cape of Shannon Island, in lat. 75° 29’ N. Here the ice barrier showed itself compact, solid, and insuperable. The _Germania_, therefore, on the 30th of July, made for the southward, and continued her explorations in that direction. The “Mackenzie Inlet,” which Captain Clavering discovered in 1823, was found to have disappeared; its place being occupied by a low, flat plain, on which herds of reindeer were pasturing. So unaccustomed were they to the sight of man, and so fearless of danger, that five of them were speedily shot.

On the 6th of August, the _Germania_ discovered and entered a broad, deep fiord in lat. 73° 13’. It was perfectly free from ice; but a fleet of huge icebergs was sailing out of it with the current. It was soon noticed that the farther they ascended this picturesque sea-arm, the warmer became the temperature of the air and of the surface water. It threw off several branches, and these wound in and out among lofty mountains. Their declivities were washed by cascades, and their ravines filled with glaciers; so that the prospect thus unexpectedly opened up of the interior of Greenland was singularly romantic and impressive.

Some of the adventurers ascended a mountain 7000 feet in height; but even from this lofty watch-tower no limit could be discerned to the western or principal arm of the fiord. In about 32° W. long. the mountain-range rose, it was ascertained, to an elevation of 14,000 feet. The _Germania_ penetrated for seventy-two miles into this remarkable inlet, and reached 26° W. long.; but her boiler acting irregularly, and Captain Koldewey being apprehensive of the consequences if it wholly failed, commenced his homeward voyage on the 17th of August. He re-entered the pack-ice at the mouth of the fiord, and was occupied until the 24th in forcing his way through it,--reaching the open, iceless sea in lat. 72° N. and long. 14° W.

The _Germania_, owing to the uselessness of her boiler, made the rest of her voyage under sail, and arrived at Bremen in safety on the 11th of September, with all well on board. It is worth notice that, with the exception of two accidental wounds, this interesting expedition was accomplished without any kind of sickness,--a circumstance which speaks highly for the forethought and carefulness of those engaged in equipping and conducting it.

We have been indebted for our brief notice of the voyage of the _Germania_ to a paper by Captain Sir Leopold M’Clintock, who sums up its results in a condensed and intelligible form; and to the narratives by Captain Koldewey and his officers, translated by Mr. Mercier, and published under the direction of Mr. H. W. Bates.

The Greenland shore, under the seventy-fifth parallel of latitude, is not the frozen desert which it has hitherto been supposed to be. It is frequented by large herds of reindeer, as many as fifty having been sighted at a time. Musk-oxen were by no means rare, but made their appearance in troops of fifteen or sixteen; while smaller animals, such as ermines and lemmings, were also met with. Birds were not numerous; shoals of walruses were noticed, but no whales.

Geographically speaking, the voyage was valuable from the observations obtained in reference to a region which previously was almost unknown.

The absence of natives, and of all recent traces of them, is a remarkable fact. In 1829, Captain Graab found the northern Greenlanders ranging as high as 64° 15’ N. lat.; but they knew nothing of any human beings living further north; nor could they themselves travel in that direction, the way being blocked up by huge impassable glaciers.

In 1822, when Scoresby partially explored the Greenland coast between the parallels of 70° and 72° 30’, he discovered many ruined habitations and graves, but no recent indications of human beings.

In the following year, Captain Clavering met with a party of Eskimos in 74°; but neither he nor Scoresby found reindeer or musk-oxen; and the fact ascertained by the _Germania_ that, in 1869, these animals were numerous, and devoid of any fear of man, gives reason to suppose that few, if any, of this isolated tribe of Eskimos are now in existence. Now, as the musk-oxen, and also the reindeer, seem to have wandered hither from the _northward_, we may conjecture that the natives followed the same route.

“If it be true,” says M’Clintock, “that this migration of men and animals was effected from west to east along the northern shore of Greenland, we naturally assume that it does not extend far towards the Pole; that, probably, its most northern point is at the eastern outlet of Kennedy Channel, and that it turns from thence sharply towards the east and north-east,--the distance, in a straight line, to the most northern point reached by Koldewey, is not more than six hundred miles. It is not less strange than sad to find that a peaceable and once numerous tribe, inhabiting a coast-line of at least 7° of latitude in extent, has died out, or has almost died out, whilst at the same time we find, by the diminution of the glaciers and increase of animal life, that the terrible severity of the climate has undergone considerable modification. We feel this saddening interest with greater force when we reflect that the distance of Clavering’s village from the coast of Scotland is under one thousand miles! They were our nearest neighbours of the New World.”

* * * * *

Returning suddenly to the sixteenth century, we find the names of some Dutch seamen of eminence inscribed in the record of early Arctic Discovery, and amongst these the most illustrious is that of William Barents. We refer to him here, because he is connected with Carlsen’s voyage in 1869, which went over much the same ground as that which the Dutch explorer had surveyed nearly three hundred years before.

The merchants of Amsterdam having fitted out a ship--the _Mercurius_, of one hundred tons--to attempt a passage round the northern end of Novaia Zemlaia, the command was given to William Barents; who accordingly sailed from the Texel on the 4th of June 1594.

He sighted Novaia Zemlaia, in lat. 73° 25’ N., on the 4th of July, sailed along its grim, gaunt coast, doubled Cape Nassau on the 10th, and struck the edge of the northern ice on the 13th. For several days he skirted this formidable barrier, vainly seeking for an opening; and in quest of a channel into the further sea, he sailed perseveringly from Cape Nassau to the Orange Islands. He went over no fewer than seventeen hundred miles of ground in his assiduous search, and put his ship about one-and-eighty times. He discovered also the long line of coast between the two points we have named, laying it down with an exactness which has been acknowledged by later explorers. His men wearying of labour which seemed to yield no positive results, Barents was under the necessity of returning home.

In 1596 the Amsterdammers fitted out another expedition, consisting of two strongly-built ships, under Jacob van Heemskerch and Jan Cornelizoon Rijp, with Barents as pilot, though really in command.

In this voyage the adventurers kept away from the land, in order to avoid the pack-ice, and sailing to the westward, discovered Bear Island on the 9th of June. Then they steered to the northward, and hove in sight of Spitzbergen exactly ten days later. They supposed, however, that it was only a part of Greenland, and were led to bear away to the north-west--a course which was speedily arrested by the eternal icy barrier. Barents then coasted along the western side of Spitzbergen; and the north-western headland being frequented by an immense number of birds, he called it Vogelsang.

On the 1st of July he again made Bear Island, and here he and Rijp agreed to separate. Of the latter we know only that he was unsuccessful in an attempt to find an opening in the ice on the east of Greenland, and that he returned to Holland in the same year. Of the former the narrative is painfully full and interesting.

Quitting Bear Island, he reached Novaia Zemlaia on the 17th of July, sighting the coast in lat. 74° 40’ N. Keeping along it with characteristic perseverance until the 7th of August, he passed Cape Comfort; but only to find himself once more face to face with the dreary spectacle of the far-reaching Polar ice. It so hemmed and fenced him in on every side, that he was unable to extricate his vessel from it; and being driven into a bay, which he named Ice Haven, “there they were forced, in great cold, poverty, misery, and griefe, to stay all the winter.” For the heavy pack-ice drifting into the bay closed it up, and closed around the ship until she was held fast as in iron bonds.

Barents and his sixteen followers now prepared to encounter with a good heart the trials of the long Arctic winter-night. They displayed, in truth, a courage, a patience, and a good fellowship which were heroic. Finding a large supply of drift-wood, they constructed, with the help of planks from the poop and forecastle of the vessel, a sufficiently commodious house, into which they removed all their stores and provisions. They fixed a chimney in the centre of the roof; a Dutch clock was set up and duly struck the weary hours; the sleeping-berths were ranged along the walls; a wine-cask was converted into a bath. All these ingenious devices, however, availed but little against the terrible feeling of depression which is induced by the continuance for so many weeks of a blank and cheerless darkness.

The sun disappeared on the 4th of November, and the cold thereafter increased until it was almost intolerable. Their wine and beer were frozen, and lost all their strength. By means of great fires, by applying heated stones to their feet, and by wrapping themselves up in double fox-skin coats, they barely contrived to keep off the deadly cold. In searching for drift-wood they endured the sharpest pain, and often braved imminent danger. To add to their troubles, they had much ado to defend themselves against the bears, which made frequent assaults on their hut. However, they contrived to slaughter some of the audacious animals, and their fat provided them with oil for their lamps. When the sun disappeared the bears departed, and then the white foxes came in great numbers. They were much more welcome visitors, and being caught in traps, set in the vicinity of the house, supplied the ice-bound voyagers with food and clothing.

When the 19th of December arrived, they found some comfort in the reflection that half the dreary season of darkness had passed away, and that they could now count every day as bringing them nearer to the joyful spring. They suffered much, but endured their sufferings bravely; and celebrated Twelfth Night with a little sack, two pounds of meat, and some merry games. The gunner drew the prize, and became King of Novaia Zemlaia, “which is at least two hundred miles long, and lyeth between two seas.”

On the 27th of January every heart rejoiced, for the glowing disc of the sun reappeared above the horizon. But it brought with it their old enemies the bears, against whom they found it necessary to exercise the greatest vigilance.

On the 22nd of February they again saw “much open water in the sea, which in long time they had not seene.” During the whole month violent storms broke out, and the snow fell in enormous quantities.

On the 12th of March a gale from the north-east brought back the ice, and the open water disappeared; the ice driving in with much fury and a mighty noise, the pieces crashing against each other, “fearful to hear.” Up to the 8th of May the ice was everywhere, and their sad eyes could look forth on no pleasant or hopeful scene. Then it began to break up, and the gaunt, weary explorers prepared to tempt the sea once more. They set to work to repair their two boats, for their ship was so crippled and strained by the ice that she was injured beyond their ability to repair.

On the 14th of June they quitted the place of their long captivity; Barents, before they set out, drawing up in writing a list of their names, with a brief record of their experiences, and depositing it in the wooden hut. He himself was so reduced with sickness, want, and anxiety that he was unable to stand, and had to be carried into the boat. On the 16th, the captain, hailing from the other boat, inquired how the pilot fared. “Quite well, mate,” Barents replied; “I still hope to mend before we get to Wardhouse,”--Wardhouse being an island on the coast of Lapland. But he died on the 19th (or, as some authorities say, on the 20th), to the great grief of his comrades, who appreciated his manly character, and placed great reliance on his experience and skill.

The adventurers met with many difficulties from the ice,--sometimes being carried out far from the ice-belt, and at others being compelled to haul the boats for long distances over the rough surface of the floes to reach open water. It has been well observed that there are many instances on record of long ocean-voyages performed in open boats, but that, perhaps, not one is of so extraordinary a character as that which we are describing,--when two small and crazy craft ventured to cross the frozen seas for eleven hundred miles, continually endangered by huge floating ice-masses, threatened by bears, and exposed for forty days to the combined trials of sickness, famine, cold, and fatigue.

At length they arrived at Kola, in Lapland, towards the end of August; and, strangely enough, were taken on board a Dutch vessel commanded by the very Cornelizoon Rijp who had commanded the sister discovery-ship in the previous year. They reached the Maas in safety in October 1597.

* * * * *

No voyager appears to have sailed in the track of Barents, or, at all events, to have visited the place where he wintered, until 1871. No one but he had rounded the north-east point of bleak Novaia Zemlaia. In 1869, however, and on the 16th of May, Captain Carlsen, a Norwegian of much experience in the North Sea trade, sailed from Hammerfest in a sloop of sixty tons, called the _Solid_. On the 7th of September he reached Ice Haven, and on the 9th discovered a rude wooden house standing at the head of the bay. Its dimensions were 32 feet by 20, and it was constructed of planks measuring from 14 to 16 inches in breadth, and 1½ inches thick. These, it was evident, had belonged to a ship, and amongst them were several oak beams. Heaps of bones of seal, bear, reindeer, and walrus, as well as several large puncheons, were collected round the hut. It was the winter-prison of Barents and his companions, and had never been entered by human foot since they had abandoned it. The cooking-pans stood over the fireplace, the old clock hung against the wall; there were the books, and implements, and tools, and weapons which had been of so much service two hundred and seventy-eight years before. It was an Arctic reproduction of the legend of the hundred years’ sleep of the fairy princess.

Captain Carlsen gives the following list of articles found in the lone hut on the shore of Novaia Zemlaia:--

Iron frame over the fireplace, with shifting bar; two ship cooking-pans of copper, found standing on the iron frame, with the remains of a copper scoop; copper bands, probably at one time fastened round pails; bar of iron; iron crowbar; one long and two small gun-barrels; two bores or augers, each three feet in length; chisel, padlock, caulking-iron, three gouges, and six files; plate of zinc; earthenware jar; tankard, with zinc lid; lower half of another tankard; six fragments of pepper-pots; tin meat-strainer; pair of boots; sword; fragments of old engravings, with Latin couplets underneath them; three Dutch books; a small piece of metal; nineteen cartridge cases, some still full of powder; iron chest, with lid, and intricate lock-work; fragments of metal handle of same; grindstone; an eight-pound iron weight; small cannon-ball; gun-lock, with hammer and flint; clock, bell of clock, and striker; rasp; small auger; small narrow strips of copper band; two salt and pepper pots, about eight inches high; two pairs of compasses; fragment of iron-handled knife; three spoons; borer; hone; one wooden, and one bronze tap; two wooden stoppers for gun muzzles; two spear or ice-pole heads; four navigation instruments; a flute; lock and key; another lock; sledge-hammer head; clock weight; twenty-six pewter candlesticks and fragments, six in a complete state of preservation; pitcher of Etruscan shape, beautifully engraved; upper half of another pitcher; wooden trencher, coloured red; clock alarum; three scales; four medallions, circular, about eight inches in diameter, three of them mounted in oak frames; a string of buttons; hilt of sword, and a foot of its blade; halberd head; and two carved pieces of wood, one with the haft of a knife in it.

On the 14th of September Captain Carlsen sailed from the Ice Haven, and kept along the east coast of Novaia Zemlaia, encountering bad weather and contrary winds, but succeeding in his chief object, the circumnavigation of the island, which he accomplished on the 6th of October. He returned to Hammerfest early in November.

* * * * *

Our chronological summary now brings us to the Austrian Polar expedition of 1872. The command was intrusted to Lieutenant Payer, an accomplished seaman who had served under Captain Koldewey; Carlsen was engaged as pilot; and the steamer _Tegethoff_ was carefully and abundantly equipped for the voyage. The plan laid down by Lieutenant Payer was well-conceived; namely, to round the north-eastern point of Novaia Zemlaia, and sail eastward until he made the extreme north of Siberia, where he proposed to winter. In the spring, travelling-parties would be sent out on exploring journeys; and the voyage, in summer, would be continued as far as Behring Strait.

The _Tegethoff_ steamed out of Tromsö Harbour on the 13th of July; first fell in with the ice on the 25th, in lat. 74° 15’ N.; and on the 29th sighted the coast of Novaia Zemlaia. Here she was caught in the pack; but steam being got up, repeated charges were made at the enemy, and she was carried bravely into an open water-way, about twenty miles wide, to the north of the Matochkia Strait. On the 12th of August she was joined by the _Isbyörn_ yacht, with Count Wilczck and some friends on board. The two vessels anchored close to the shore, in lat. 76° 30’ N., and on the 18th celebrated the Emperor of Austria’s birthday. Daily excursions were made by sledge-parties to the adjoining islands, resulting in an accumulation of botanical and geological specimens, besides slaughtered bears and foxes, and quantities of drift-wood. On the 23rd the vessels parted company,--the _Tegethoff_ steaming to the northward, and the _Isbyörn_ endeavouring to push southward along the coast. On reaching the mouth of the Petchora, Count Wilczck and his friends left her to proceed on the return voyage to Tromsö, while they ascended the Petchora in small boats to Perm, and returned to Vienna by way of Moscow.

The _Tegethoff_ spent the winters of 1872 and 1873 in the Icy Sea, and made some discoveries of interest. It returned in safety in the summer of 1874.

* * * * *

In 1871 an American expedition was fitted out under the command of Captain Charles Francis Hall, who had already gained distinction by his explorations in the Polar regions and his long residence among the Eskimos. Through the liberality of Mr. Grinnell, assisted by the United States Government, he was provided with a stout and well-found steamer, the _Polaris_, which sailed from Brooklyn on the 29th of June. She carried a crew of seventeen officers and men,--Mr. Buddington being sailing and ice master, and Mr. Tyson assistant navigator,--besides six adult Eskimos and two children; and a scientific staff consisting of Dr. Emil Bessel, Mr. Bryan, and Mr. Frederick Meyers.

A few days previous to the sailing of the expedition, Mr. Grinnell presented Hall with the historic flag which Lieutenant Wilkes, in 1838, had borne nearer to the South Pole than any American flag had been before,--which Lieutenant De Haven, and afterwards Dr. Kane, and lastly Dr. Hayes, had carried further north than any other ensign. Captain Hall, in receiving it, expressed his conviction that, in the spring of 1872, “it would float over a new world, in which the North Pole Star is the crowning jewel.”

On the 3rd of July the _Polaris_ entered the land-locked harbour of St. John’s, Newfoundland, where she remained a week while her machinery underwent some repairs. Then she proceeded north to Holsteinberg, in Greenland; but failed in procuring a supply of coal or a stock of reindeer furs, both of which were much desiderated. On the 4th of August she arrived at the Danish settlement of Godhaven, and happily found the United States steamer _Congress_, which had been despatched with extra stores and supplies. Thence she steamed northward to Upernavik, which was reached on the 18th. So far her progress seemed to have been peculiarly fortunate; but already dissensions had broken out among the officers, which augured ill for the eventual success of the expedition. In his despatches home, however, Captain Hall made no allusion to this discouraging circumstance; and his biographer explains this silence by “his idiosyncrasy, which enabled him to sink everything else in the one idea of pushing on to the far north.”

Upernavik, with its little colony of Danish officials and Eskimo natives, was left behind on the 21st of August, and the _Polaris_ continued her adventurous course. Six days later, she arrived at Kane’s winter-quarters in 1853–55, and at the point where he abandoned his little vessel, the _Advance_. Next day her crew found a huge wall of ice in front of them, and doubled round it by steering to the west-north-west. Then again putting their vessel’s head to the northward, they made their way up Kennedy Channel, and gained the threshold of what Dr. Kane had supposed to be the Open Polar Sea. They discovered, however, that it was bounded by land on either side, with a vast expanse of ice stretching far beyond it. Careful observation showed that it was, in reality, a _bay_, which Kane had mistaken for the open sea when its land-boundaries were hidden by fog. It is about forty-five miles wide.

Thence they entered a channel similar to that of Kennedy, which measured about seventeen miles in breadth, and was obstructed by heavy ice. Their progress now was slow and difficult, and many of the crew wore rueful countenances, as if they were going “to sail off the edge of the world.” A more serious obstacle was the timidity of Captain Buddington, who showed himself opposed to pushing further northward. Hall, therefore, resolved to carry the steamer in-shore, land some of his stores, and prepare for wintering at this advanced point of “Ultima Thule.”

At midnight, on the 4th of September, Captain Hall raised an American flag on this land, the northernmost site on which any civilized flag had been planted. When it was waving in the breeze, he proclaimed that he took possession of the surrounding region of snow and ice “in the name of the Lord, and for the President of the United States.” He then returned on board the _Polaris_, and her anchor was let go. The place was only a bend in the coast, and afforded no protection as a harbour; they therefore steamed through the open water, and searched further to the southward; but finding no more sheltered quarters, they returned to their former anchorage, and began to land provisions,--the wind moaning sadly, and the snow falling in heavy showers.

On the 7th, they weighed anchor and steamed in nearer to the shore; bringing the ship round behind an iceberg, which lay aground in thirteen fathoms of water. This huge mass of ice proved to be about 450 feet in length, 300 feet in breadth, and 60 feet in height; lat 81° 38’ N., long. 61° 45’ W. The berg was named “Providence Berg,” and the cove in which they had established themselves, “Thank God Harbour.” On surveying the surrounding country they found nothing calculated to brighten the prospects of the coming winter. The coast-hills rose from nine to thirteen hundred feet in height, and were furrowed and scarred with great cracks and fissures, which bore witness to the rough usage of frost and ice, wind and weather. To the south lay a large glacier, which swept round in a wide circuit, and fell into the bay immediately north of their anchorage. Traces of Eskimos were discernible here and there; circles of stones, indicating where they had pitched their tents. The landscape was all of a dull neutral tint, a kind of cold gray; for, as yet, the winter snow had not clothed it with its mantle of dazzling whiteness. For this, however, the adventurers had not long to wait. A snow-storm began on the 27th of September, and lasted for six-and-thirty hours.

On the 10th of October Captain Hall organized a sledging expedition, as a preliminary to an extended journey in the spring. There were two sledges, each drawn by seven dogs; Captain Hall and Eskimo Joe in one sledge, and Mr. Chester and Eskimo Hans in the other. They were absent until the 24th, but owing to the roughness of the ice had accomplished only fifty miles, and had made no discovery.

Meantime, the crew had been engaged in banking up the ice around the ship, in order to protect it from collision with drifting floes; the deck was partly roofed over, and covered with canvas; and other preparations were made to resist the terrible inclemency of an Arctic winter. These, however, were temporarily suspended by the sudden illness of Captain Hall. On the 1st of November he was a little better, but on the 3rd his malady, which appears to have been a form of paralysis, took a turn for the worse; and the end came so rapidly that the eager-hearted, enthusiastic explorer, who had braved so many harsh experiences in the Polar World, “fell asleep” early on the morning of the 8th. A grave was immediately prepared for the reception of his remains about half a mile inland; a shallow grave, for the ground was frozen so hard that it was scarcely possible to break it up, even with picks; and on the 11th, the funeral took place. The time chosen was half-past eleven in the morning; yet it was so dark that Mr. Bryan read prayers by the light “of a lantern dimly burning.” All the ship’s company were present. The coffin was hauled on a sledge, over which, by way of pall, was spread the American flag with its stars and stripes. The captain and officers, Dr. Bessel, and Mr. Meyers, followed as mourners; and strange and picturesque must the melancholy procession have appeared, as it wound its way through ice and snow, while a weird boreal light or gleam in the air revealed the outlines of the distant hills, rising like a rampart on the edge of the snow-covered plain, and flickered every now and then over the frozen expanse of the ice-bound bay.

Thus, says Captain Tyson, thus ended poor Hall’s ambitious projects; thus was stilled the effervescing enthusiasm of his ardent nature. “Wise he might not always have been, but his soul was in his work; and had he lived till spring, I think he would have gone as far as mortal man could go to accomplish his mission. But with his death, I fear that all hopes of further progress will have to be abandoned.” That Tyson was right in his conjecture, our narrative will show.

* * * * *

Captain Buddington succeeded to the command, and one of his first measures was to discontinue the Sunday service, for reasons which he does not seem to have explained, and we are unable to imagine. So far as we can gather from the published records of the expedition, he was a man unfitted to bear responsibility,--a man without enthusiasm in himself, and incapable, therefore, of stimulating it in others. Nor could he secure the obedience of his inferiors. Seamen are always prompt to detect the weakness of their officers; and the crew of the _Polaris_ soon assured themselves that their new captain was deficient both in courage and resolution.

However, the winter gradually closed in upon the little ice-bound company of the _Polaris_, and they were called upon to endure, with such patience as was at their command, the severities of the long Arctic night. It was very dark, yet not totally dark. For an hour or two at noon it was possible to wander a short distance from the snow-roofed vessel; but, once away from it, the gloom and silence of everything around settled down on the wanderer like a pall. There were none of the usual sounds of Nature to relieve the deep oppression of the scene. “The other evening,” says Tyson, “I had wandered away from the ship, disgusted with the confusion and noise, and longing for a moment’s quiet. Once beyond range of the men’s voices, there was absolutely no other sound whatever. It was quite calm--no wind, no movement of any living creature; nothing but a leaden sky above, ice beneath my feet, and _silence everywhere_. It hung like a pall over everything. So painfully oppressive did it become at last, that I was frequently tempted to shout aloud, to break the spell. At last I did; but no response came, not even an echo.

‘The space was void; there I stood, And the sole spectre was the solitude.’”

On the 1st of January 1872, it is recorded that eighty days had elapsed since the adventurers had seen the sun. The internal economy of the _Polaris_, meantime, was pitiably disorganized. There was no discipline, no order, no method. The men did what they pleased, and consequently made night hideous by their prolonged carousals. The officers disagreed among themselves, and the object of the expedition appeared to have been lost sight of, or no longer to excite any deep or permanent interest. It was even discussed as a proper and probable course to abandon the proposed northward exploration, and, as soon as the ice broke up, to make all haste back to New York.

Early in February, the daylight began to gain upon the night a little, and the Eskimos hunted for seals, as they could be heard under the ice making their breathing holes. Storms were very frequent--storms which drove the snow afar in dense, blinding clouds; and false moons and other atmospheric phenomena attracted the attention of the curious observer. On the 28th, after an absence of one hundred and thirty-five days, the sun reappeared; and never was royal guest more eagerly welcomed by a loyal people. Its rays seemed to bring with them a promise of new life. Men’s hearts grew lighter in spite of themselves, and all felt as if they had been relieved from a heavy and intolerable burden. Not that the temperature showed any perceptible difference. The thermometer indicated 37° below zero on the 1st of March!

Passing over a couple of months which present no incidents of importance, we find that on the 9th of May the monotonous dulness of the expedition was broken by a sledge-journey to the north, undertaken by Captain Tyson, with Meyers, Joe, and Hans as companions. They were absent from the ship six days; striking inland, in an east-north-east direction, to Newman Bay, and thence keeping more to the north, until they reached lat. 82° 9’. Mr. Meyers surveyed the shores of Newman Bay, and Captain Tyson endeavoured to secure some game. One day they came on a large herd of musk-oxen. These animals act very curiously when an attack is made upon them. They form a circle, stern to stern, and await the assault of their enemies. The dogs surround them, and keep them at bay. Not unfrequently a dog gets tossed. Though Joe and the captain fired and reloaded as fast as they could, the poor brutes offered no resistance; but when eight had fallen, the remainder took to flight. The slaughtered oxen were then flayed, and the best pieces cut up for conveyance to the ship.

These cattle develop their great size and weight on what might be supposed to form a very slender diet. Their food is the mosses and lichens which grow on the rocks; and to obtain it, they must first scrape away the snow with their hoofs. At the first sign of danger, the calves shelter themselves under their parents’ body; and their hair is so long as to afford the young a very complete and satisfactory screen. The musk-ox is an animal of considerable bulk. Several of those shot by Tyson and the Eskimos weighed from 500 to 600 lbs. each. In proportion to their size and weight, their legs are very short.

Early in June, Captain Buddington resolved to despatch a couple of boats, for the purpose of exploring the neighbouring coast, and discovering, if possible, an open water channel to the north. One of these was placed under the command of Mr. Chester; the other, of Captain Tyson. Mr. Chester’s boat was nipped in an ice-floe, and crushed to pieces. The crew escaped with difficulty, but the historical flag was lost. Captain Tyson pushed forward to Newman Bay, where some eider-ducks, gulls, and dove-kies were shot. Joined by Mr. Chester--who had returned to the ship, and secured the safety-boat--he found his further progress arrested by that compact, insuperable field of ice which is the despair of Arctic navigators. All attempts to get further to the north proved in vain; and orders to return having arrived from Captain Buddington, there was nothing to be done but to rejoin the _Polaris_.

The summer passed away, and still the _Polaris_ lay beset among the ice; or, rather, drifted slowly to the southward, along with the floe to which it was attached. No sledge-expeditions were organized; and Captain Buddington’s sole concern was to watch for an opportunity of getting out into the open channel, and returning to New York. Some slight progress southward was occasionally made; but towards the end of October it became evident that the explorers would have to spend a second winter in their frozen captivity. They had been carried beyond Rensselaer Harbour, where Dr. Kane wintered during 1853–55, and began the construction of a store-house for provisions, in case the ship should be endangered by the drifting ice.

This dreaded catastrophe did indeed occur, on the night of the 15th. The pressure of the floe was tremendous, but the _Polaris_ bore it bravely, though groaning and creaking in every timber. After awhile, however, it was found that she had started a leak aft, and that the water was gaining on the pumps. The discovery seems to have startled Buddington out of all coolness or reflection. He threw up his arms, and cried out to “throw everything on the ice.” Immediately all was chaos. The men seized whatever lay near to their hands, and threw it overboard. A quantity of stores had been previously placed on the deck, in anticipation of such an event; but these were now hurled on the floe in indiscriminate confusion, and with considerable loss. Captain Tyson and some of the men got overboard, with the view of arranging things in, at least, a semblance of order; but while he was thus engaged, the ice commenced cracking. Shortly afterwards it exploded under his feet, and broke in many places; the ship drove away in the darkness, and Tyson and his companions immediately lost sight of her.

* * * * *

It was a terrible night. The wind blew a hurricane, and the snow fell heavily in drifting, whirling masses. “We did not know,” says Tyson, “who was on the ice, or who was on the ship;” but seeing some musk-ox skins lying across a wide crack in the ice, he pulled them towards him to save them--and behold, rolled up in one of them were two or three of the children of Hans the Eskimo! Some of the men were afloat on small pieces of ice, but by means of the whale-boat these were rescued; and when the gray light of morning dawned on the scene, Tyson ascertained that eighteen persons, besides himself, were castaways. These were--Mr. Meyers, meteorologist; Heron, steward; Jackson, cook; six seamen; Joe and Hans, the Eskimos, and their wives and children.

The piece of the floe on which they were cast was nearly circular, and about four miles in circumference. It was not level, but full of hillocks, and of ponds or small lakes, which had been formed by the melting of the ice during the short summer. The ice varied greatly in thickness. Some of the mounds, or hills, were probably thirty feet thick; the flat parts not more than ten or fifteen. The surface was exceedingly rugged, and the hummocks were white with snow.

Tyson’s first task was to inspect the stock of provisions that had been collected on the floe. It consisted of fourteen cans of pemmican, eleven and a half bags of bread, one can of dried apples, and fourteen hams; and if the ship did not return for them, they might have to support themselves upon this supply all through the dreary winter, or die of starvation. Fortunately, they had a couple of boats; and Tyson’s second care was to load these, embark his little company, and endeavour to reach the shore. In this attempt they were balked by the drifting ice; and before they could repeat it they caught sight of the _Polaris_. Immediately they ran up a rough and ready signal; but no one seemed to be keeping a look-out, and the castaways had the mortification of seeing her drop away behind Littleton Island, without undertaking any search for her missing crew.

Tyson therefore resolved to cross to the other side of the floe, and make for the land, perhaps lower down than the _Polaris_ was, so as to intercept her. Everything was thrown away, except two or three days’ provisions, and the boats were got ready. But the men were slow and reluctant; oars were wanting; a violent gale arose; and as night was coming on, Tyson found himself compelled to abandon his intention. On the following day, the ice again broke; and now the adventurers were drifting with one boat on one piece of ice, while the other boat, a part of their provisions, and an extemporized hut of poles, remained on the main part of the original floe. The ice-raft which carried Tyson and his companions measured about 150 yards each way.

On the 21st, however, the boat and provisions were recovered. Joe, with the keen eye of an Eskimo, caught sight of the bow of the boat, projecting from a fragment of the broken ice. Followed by his faithful ally, Tyson went in search of it, leaping like a chamois-hunter from crag to crag. Six of the dogs had accompanied him. These were harnessed to the boat, and with the help of sturdy arms dragged it over the disrupted floe. The whole party then removed to the large floe, where some snow-houses were speedily erected. They formed quite an encampment: one hut, or rather a sort of half-hut, for Mr. Meyers and Captain Tyson; Joe’s hut for himself, his wife, and their adopted daughter; a hut for the men; a store-house for provisions, and a cook-house,--all united by arched galleries, built of consolidated snow, with one main entrance, and smaller ones branching off to the several apartments or huts. Hans built his _igloë_ separately, but close by. All were constructed after the Eskimo fashion--that is, the ground being levelled off, one half of the floor toward the end furthest from the entrance was slightly raised above the other or front half. The raised part, as we have previously explained, serves as parlour and bedroom; the lower area, as workshop and kitchen. The walls and arched roof were built up of square blocks of hard snow, packed hard and close by the force of the wind. A square of about eighteen inches of this compressed snow or ice served for window.

This good work done, Tyson took stock. Successive expeditions had gathered together nearly all that was on the ice when the _Polaris_ drifted from them, and he found that their stores included two boats--one of which, however, was being broken up for fuel--and one kayack, a good supply of powder and shot, eleven and a half bags of bread, fourteen cans of pemmican, fourteen hams, ten dozen cans of meats and soups, one can of dried apples, and about twenty pounds of chocolate and sugar mixed. The pemmican cases were large, each weighing forty-five pounds; the meats and soups were only one and two pound cans; the hams were small; the dried-apple can counted for twenty-two pounds. Evidently, when divided among nineteen people, this supply could not last many weeks; and unless they reached the land, or could catch seals, starvation seemed their probable ultimate fate. The allowance was reduced to eleven ounces for each adult, and half that amount for the children,--rations painfully inadequate to the proper support of the human frame in a Polar region and during an Arctic winter.

On the 23rd of October they lost sight of the sun. At this time they were about eight or ten miles off-shore, and forty to fifty miles west of Northumberland Island, in lat. 77° 30’ nearly. The Eskimos were on the watch for seals day after day, but without success. In truth, it is not easy to find the seal in winter, as they live principally under the ice, and can be seen only when it cracks. A warm-blooded animal, it cannot always remain beneath the frozen surface without breathing, and for this purpose they make air-holes through the ice and snow. These, however, are so small at the surface, not exceeding two and a half inches across, that they are not easily distinguished, especially in the twilight-gloom of an Arctic winter day.

The floe, or ice-raft, on which the crew of the _Polaris_ had found shelter, continued to drift slowly to the southward, impelled by wind and current. The weather was so severe that it was worse than useless to attempt to reach the shore. The castaways therefore huddled themselves together in their _igloes_, or huts of snow, or took such diversion as hunting for fox or seal afforded. Or when a gleam of fair weather afforded an opportunity, Tyson took a short drive in his sledge, and explored as much as he dared of the ice lying towards the shore. On the 1st of November an attempt was made to reach the land, the dogs being harnessed to the sledge, and the boat loaded with the most essential articles; but the state of the ice rendered all efforts of this kind fruitless.

One day, Joe and Hans, the Eskimos, went out in quest of game. In wandering through the hummocks they lost one another, and Joe, after trying his luck alone, made his way back towards the hut before night came on; he fully anticipated to find that Hans had preceded him, and was much alarmed when he heard that he had not returned. Accompanied by Robert, he started in search of him. As they sped along through the rapidly-gathering darkness, they saw what appeared to be a Polar bear approaching them; loaded their pistols, and prepared to give him a warm reception, when, fortunately, the creature throwing up his arms, and standing erect, they perceived that it was their missing comrade. He had used both hands and feet in climbing the rough hummocks, and his fur clothing being covered with snow, the deception was tolerably complete.

On the 21st of November, Captain Tyson writes in his diary: “We are living now on as little as the human frame can endure without succumbing; some tremble with weakness when they try to walk. Mr. Meyers suffers much from this cause; he was not well when he came on the ice, and the regimen here has not improved him. He lives with the men now; they are mostly Germans, and so is he, and the affinity of blood draws them together, I suppose. Since he has housed with the men, I have lived in the hut with Joe, Hannah, and Puney. Puney, poor child, is often hungry; indeed, all the children often cry with hunger. We give them all that it is safe to use. I can do no more, however sorry I may feel for them.”

* * * * *

But it is unnecessary to trace the misfortunes and sufferings of Captain Tyson’s little company day by day. Their wretched condition--adrift on a raft of ice, insufficiently clothed, insufficiently fed, poorly housed, without any of the comforts that generally make an Arctic expedition endurable, buffeted by snow-storm and tempest, in constant apprehension lest their insecure raft should break up--requires no exaggeration of colouring to produce its full impression on the reader. In January 1873, it was found that the provisions were diminishing with terrible rapidity; and this was due not so much to the regular daily consumption as to the secret pilferings of the crew, who were not controlled by any bonds of discipline, and yielded Captain Tyson an imperfect and reluctant obedience. They were all Germans, except Heron, an Englishman, and the cook, a man of colour, and their conduct was a disgrace to their nationality. They seem to have thought that their raft was carrying them swiftly towards Disco in Greenland, where abundant supplies could easily be obtained; but, in truth, they were drifting in the direction of Labrador, and the safety of all demanded the sternest economy of their small stock of provisions.

The cold was now excessive,--35° below zero at noon, and 37° at midnight. On the 13th, it sank below 40°. On the following day, however, a strong westerly gale blew up; the cold became more moderate--the temperature rose to -14°. Under the influence of the gale, the ice began to crack and grind and break up; the natives launched a kayack; a seal was hunted down, and the castaways feasted gloriously. This, however, was but a transient gleam of good fortune. On the 17th the glass again sank to 38°, and no more seals were visible. The men were now reduced to less than twelve ounces of food daily, which was not sufficient to furnish internal warmth, or to strengthen the system against the terrible effects of the Arctic climate.

The 19th was, to some extent, a day of hope; for, after an absence of eighty-three days, the sun once more rose above the misty horizon. Eskimo Joe took advantage of the burst of daylight to undertake a hunting expedition. About five miles from the hut he found open water, and shot two seals, but could land only one; the young ice carried the other away. Encouraged by the cheerful glow of the sun, he stayed out later than usual, and it was very dark before he returned. A light of burning blubber was kindled to guide him to the hut. It shone out upon the gloom of the night like a pharos.

The 25th of January marked the one hundred and third day of the castaways’ voyage on the ice-raft, and they severely felt the monotonous wretchedness of their existence. It was a beautiful day, and perfectly calm; but the thermometer indicated 40° below zero. At midnight the heavens were illuminated with all the glories of a brilliant aurora. They seemed to be ablaze: from the south-west to the north-east, from the horizon to the zenith, the magnetic fires shot here and there, and wavered and undulated, like flame driven by a strong wind. At one time the splendour was almost overpowering, and the straining eye was fain to seek relief in darkness.

On the 1st of February a violent gale arose, blowing from the north-west, and the ice, rolling and rocking beneath its influence, split up into great cracks and fissures which threatened the safety of the castaways. Huge blocks fell off from the floe; and the vast bergs which had hitherto accompanied, and partly sheltered it, moved rapidly before the wind. Everything acknowledged the might of the storm; but as yet the adventurers had not been disturbed, though surrounded by mountains of ice heavy enough, if driven against their encampment, to have crushed them to atoms. Thus far they had floated safely, but the position was one to cause reflection: at some time or other the ice must break up, they knew; but whether they would survive the catastrophe was beyond conjecture. They could only wait and hope.

* * * * *

Here is a picture of the interior of one of the _igloes_, or snow-huts:--

“Joe and Hannah are sitting in front of the lamp, playing checkers on an old piece of canvas, the squares being marked out with Tyson’s pencil. They use buttons for men, as they have nothing better. The natives easily learn any sort of game; some of them can even play a respectable game of chess; and cards they understand as well as the ‘heathen Chinee.’ Cards go wherever sailors go, and the first lessons that the natives of any uncivilized country get are usually from sailors.

“Little Puney, Joe and Hannah’s adopted child, a little girl, is sitting wrapped in a musk-ox skin; every few minutes she says to her mother, ‘I am _so_ hungry!’ The children often cry with hunger. It makes one’s heart ache, but they are obliged to bear it with the rest.”

* * * * *

The gale continued on the 2nd, with blinding showers of snow--fine, penetrating, pungent. Next day the weather moderated, and the glass rose to 15° below zero. Dark clouds lowered in the horizon, preventing the land from being seen, if any shore were near. But the rapid rise in the temperature, after so strong a north-west gale, allowed Tyson to hope that the wind had mastered the current, and was forcing them towards the Greenland shore.

Though all around nothing was visible but ice and icebergs, the scene had a certain beauty of its own--a strange weird beauty, like that of a dream-picture. When the sun shone on the bergs, and lighted up their massive or fantastic forms, all the prismatic colours of the rainbow flashed through the “crystal pendants” or “projecting peaks.” The interest of the scene was enhanced by the variety of its forms. Every berg appeared to have had its individual history, and its broken outline and furrowed surface bore witness to the experiences it had undergone--storm and rain, wind and water. Some rose up around the castaways like solid ramparts; others represented the spire of a Gothic cathedral, the pinnacle of a Turkish minaret, the glittering walls of a palace: all were beautiful, yet terrible in their beauty, conveying a profound feeling of might and destructive power.

On the 5th, and again on the 7th, a seal was caught, and the little company enjoyed a plentiful meal. On the latter day a couple of narwhals were shot, but both sank before they could be reached. These narwhals are sometimes called sea-unicorns, or monodons, in allusion to the long horn, six to eight feet in measurement--or, rather, the elongated tooth--which projects from the upper jaw; a formidable weapon, tapering from base to point, with a spiral twist from left to right. Strange stories were told of these sea-unicorns by the early navigators; but science has made short work of legend and fable.

* * * * *

Day after day, the history of _our_ navigators was the same; no stirring romance, but harsh reality:--wind and snow, snow and wind--a wind which almost froze the life-blood of those exposed to it, and snow which fell so fast and thick as to wrap the scene in the gloom of desolation. Still, the ice-raft drifted southward; slowly but surely drifted through the darkness of the night and the twilight obscurity of the day; while the little company it carried suffered much from increasing weakness, though better provided with food than formerly, owing to the frequent capture of narwhal and seal. Occasionally the mists cleared off, and the sun streamed out in meridian splendour, lighting up every feature of the “ice-scape”--may we coin the word?--around them. But, too frequently, “snow and blow, blow and snow,” was, as Tyson remarks, “the order of the day.”

Hope lives eternal in the human breast; and though it had sunk very low in the hearts of our adventurers, it suddenly rekindled on the 19th of February, when they caught sight of the west coast, at no greater distance than thirty-eight or forty miles. Its flame was kept alive on the 21st by the discovery that the thermometer had risen to 3° above zero. Next day it had risen to 20°, or within 12° of freezing-point; and men inured to the rigour of an Arctic winter spoke of such weather with cheeriness as “very comfortable.” The cloud upon the prospect now was the want of food, for the game had begun to fail. The hunters went forth every morning, but returned empty-handed. The feebleness of the party increased in an alarming degree. It took several men to carry a light Eskimo kayack, which for an ordinary man is not even a burden. What was to be done? The only chance of life seemed to lie in reaching the shore; but how were these gaunt, frail skeletons to convey their boat across the rugged ice until they reached the open water?

They decided, however, on making the attempt, in the hope of reaching a place called Shaumen, a little to the north of Cape Mercy, in lat. 65° N., where game, and sometimes Eskimos, were to be found. In spite of all their efforts, they were foiled by a succession of blinding, lashing, beating snow-storms. The mercury sank again to 24° below zero, and their position grew desperate. They were reduced to one meal--and such a meal!--_per diem_. Great was their joy on the 28th when the hunters brought in thirty-seven dove-kies, or two apiece. They were cooked without delay, and eaten up to the last morsel, except the feathers. Greater still was their joy on the 2nd (of March), when Eskimo Joe shot a monster oogjook (a large kind of seal), the largest they had ever seen--such a monster that it took all hands to drag its carcass to the huts. Peter danced and sung in the exuberance of his delight, and everybody felt that for a time they were saved from starvation. On measurement, this glorious oogjook proved to be seven feet nine inches in length, or fully nine feet including the tail.

The ice-raft was now approaching Cumberland Gulf, and Tyson calculated that they had reached lat. 65° N. They drifted more and more rapidly; and if they did not die of famine,--if the ice did not break up too suddenly,--there was a probability of their reaching the whaling ground, and falling in with some friendly ship. The gales, however, were frequent and severe; the thermometer continued very low--32° to 34° below zero; and the sufferings of the whole company were intense. Even the Eskimos were sorely afflicted; though without these bold and patient hunters, the white men must certainly have perished.

On the 7th of March there were indications of the breaking up of the floe. It cracked and snapped beneath them, with a sound like that of distant thunder. So far as the surface was concerned, however, no signs of fracture were visible; the eye, straining in every direction, saw nothing but an unbroken expanse of ice. And thus it continued until the 12th, when, during a terrible storm, the threatened catastrophe took place, the ice-raft being shattered suddenly into hundreds of pieces, on one of which, not more that one hundred yards by seventy-five, the adventurers found themselves adrift! Oh, what a night of dread anxiety they passed, expecting every moment that this piece too would give way, and plunge them into ruin! But it held together; and when the wind abated, and the snow ceased to fall, and the wild hurtling of the broken ice was hushed, they could look around them, and realize their position. The condition of the ice had undergone an absolute change; the “floes” were driven up into a “pack,” and huge blocks, of all shapes and sizes, were heaped up and jammed together in inextricable confusion.

Noting that on the 21st of March seven seals replenished the empty larder of our adventurers, and that on the 26th whales were visible for the first time,--a welcome sign, as indicating their approach to the fishing-grounds,--we pass on to the 29th, which was marked by a curious incident. Shortly after dark, Tyson heard a noise outside his hut; he had just taken off his boots, preparing for rest; Joe, too, was on the point of retiring, but thinking the ice was breaking up, he went out to view the “situation.” In a few seconds he hastily returned, pallid and frightened, and exclaiming, “There is a bear close to my kayack!” The kayack lay within ten feet of the entrance to the hut. Both Joe and Tyson’s rifles were outside; Joe’s within the kayack, and Tyson’s lying close to it; but Joe had his pistol in the hut. The captain put on his boots, and then both crept cautiously out. Seal-skins and lumps of blubber were lying about in all directions; and Bruin, having dragged some of these about thirty feet from the kayack, was banqueting at his ease. Joe crept into the sailors’ hut to alarm them. Meantime Tyson crawled stealthily to his rifle, but in taking it knocked down a shot-gun standing by. The bear heard it, but Tyson’s rifle already covered him; he growled; Tyson pulled the trigger, but the gun would not go off; a second, and a third time--it did not go; but Tyson did, for the bear now rushed full upon him. Retiring to the hut, he put another cartridge in, and then again crept out into the open, taking up a position where he could see the animal, although the night was dark. The bear, too, saw his assailant, and faced towards him; but this time the rifle-ball went straight to its mark; the bear ran about two rods, and fell dead.

The victim was a “sea-bear,” _Ursus maritimus_, and supplied the company on the ice-raft with a welcome change of diet.

As the piece of ice was gradually wearing away, the adventurers of the _Polaris_ resolved on an effort to regain the main pack, which would necessarily be safer. With their sleeping-gear, tent, and a supply of shot and powder, they embarked on board the boat, and stood to the westward; and on the 4th of April, after a succession of rough experiences, reached the “pack.” Here they were not much better off, for a violent gale blowing from the north-east, the ice began to break off in huge fragments; and soon the area at the command of the navigators was so small, that they were compelled to reload the boat, and prepare for a hurried departure. The wind, however, subsided, the pack closed up, and things returned to their normal condition.

On the 18th of April the castaways were somewhat reinvigorated by the capture of a seal, which Joe brought ashore in his kayack, and by the appearance of land to the south-west. But in this wild Arctic region the weather in spring is subject to surprising changes, and on the 20th another gale began to blow. Such was its fury that it drove a heavy swell of sea across the ice-raft, which washed away every article that was loose. Billow after billow followed with ever-increasing violence; and tent, and skins, and nearly all the bed-gear, were swept into the boiling waters. Only a few articles were saved, which, along with the women and children, had been stowed in the boat. To save the boat tasked the energies of all the party, who had to hold on to it, with might and main, to prevent it from being carried out to sea. All through the dreadful night the men were on the watch against this crowning disaster; all through the dreary night, from 9 P.M. until 7 A.M., straining every nerve, calling into play every resource of energy. Ever and anon, one of the tremendous billows would plunge downward, and lift the boat bodily, and the men with it, and carry it and them forward on the ice, almost to the opposite edge of the floating raft; several times the boat heeled partly over, and was hauled back only by the more than human strength which the crew derived from a knowledge of their position. The boat gone, all was lost! Terrible was the work; had the waters been smooth, the task would not have been easy; but they were filled with loose ice, which rolled about in blocks of all shapes and sizes, and with almost every wave these came toppling and rolling and driving forward like an avalanche, and fell about the heads and limbs of the men as they clung desperately to the boat. But God mercifully supplied them with the strength they needed; and so, labouring to the uttermost, they waited and watched for the day. For twelve hours scarcely a sound was uttered except the crying of the children, and Tyson’s stern command to “Hold on,” or “Bear down,” with the responsive “Ay, ay, sir” of the men.

Day dawned at last, with a dull gray light over the restless sea, and Tyson saw with indescribable thankfulness a large raft of ice floating within reach. He determined to make for it, though the men hesitated to launch the boat into such a “hell of waters.” But it was done; the women and children were first got on board, and then all the men embarked in safety. By dint of hard pulling, they gained the ice, landed, refreshed themselves with a morsel of food, and then, on this new ice-raft, laid down to rest. The following morning found them “safe and sound,” after all their trials, with the exception of a few bruises and contusions.

On the 22nd of April another bear was killed; and just in time, for the whole party were without a morsel of food. This lasted them for three or four days; and then, on the 25th, as starvation once more stared them in the face, they resolved on a desperate effort to make the land. What else were they to do? The rain fell in torrents; the wind blew a hurricane; the ice-raft was constantly wasting away; they had no provisions. True, the boat was frail and leaky, and the sea ran high; but as the ice would not much longer afford them even a footing, a decision was forced upon them.

So in their crippled, overloaded boat they set out, the wind blowing a gale, and a tremendous sea running, full of small knife-like blades of ice. After eight hours’ labour at the oars, they came to a piece of floe, and encamped upon it for the night. At daylight on the 28th they again launched their boat; and after much weary work in threading their way through a fleet of icebergs, they got into comparatively open water.

At half-past four, a joyful sight!--a steamer right ahead, and bearing north of them. The castaways hoisted their colours, and pulled towards her. She was a sealer, going south-west, and making her way through the floating ice. The hearts of the castaways beat with joy at the prospect of speedy relief; but, alas, they were doomed to disappointment! She did not see the miserable little company in the overloaded boat; and it was impossible for them to overtake her. Night gathered over the sea, and she disappeared.

Reaching a suitable piece of floe, they boarded it, and again encamped for the night, under a sky which was clear and calm, and shone with the glory of stars. The sea, too, was tranquil, and, notwithstanding their disappointment, they felt more hopeful than before; it was evident they had reached the borders of civilization, and might rely upon obtaining help. With seals’ blubber they kindled beacon-fires on the ice; and divided their men into two watches.

The next day they sighted another steamer, launched their boat, and pulled lustily towards her. In vain: she did not see them, and after a couple of hours’ hard work they were hemmed in by the ice, and could make no progress. They landed on a floe, and hoisted their colours; collected and loaded all their rifles and pistols, and filled the echoes with the ringing report of three simultaneous volleys. They heard three shots in reply, and--glorious sight!--saw the steamer directing her course towards them. They shouted with all their might; but in the keen air their voices seemed to pass away soundlessly. Presently the steamer changed her course, tacking south, then north, then west, as if she were vainly endeavouring to force a passage through the accumulated ice. Yet there seemed no insuperable obstacle in her path. The fugitives fired again, and again; but she came no nearer, and late in the afternoon steamed away to the south west.

At sunset they descried land in the same direction, about thirty-five miles distant.

On the following day, the 30th of April, Tyson was lying in the boat, his watch having just ended, when the look-out raised a sudden shout: “There’s a steamer! there’s a steamer!” As if fresh life had been poured into his veins, Tyson sprang to his feet, ordered all the guns to be fired, joined his companions in a loud simultaneous cry, and raised their colours to the head of the boat’s mast. Hans leaped into his kayack, and was despatched to intercept the ship, if possible, as there was some danger of losing sight of her in the fog which prevailed; but, happily, she bore down towards them. Hans paddled on, and in his broken English shouted, “American steamer.” He was not understood by those on board, but they kept their course, and in a few minutes lay alongside of the ice-isle which sheltered Tyson and his company. Oh, what three loud, hearty, joyful cheers acknowledged their deliverance! These were immediately returned by the crew of the steamer, which proved to be the sealer _Tigress_, of Conception Bay, Newfoundland.

We quote from Captain Tyson’s simply-worded narrative:--

“Two or three of their small seal-boats were instantly lowered. We, however, now that relief was certain, threw everything from our own boat, and in a minute’s time she was in the water; while the boats of the _Tigress_ came on, and the crews got on our bit of ice, and peeped curiously into the dirty pans we had used over the oil-fires. We had been making soup out of the blood and entrails of the last little seal which Hans had shot. They soon saw enough to convince them that we were in sore need. No words were required to make _that_ plain.

“Taking the women and children in their boats, we tumbled into our own, and were soon alongside of the _Tigress_. We left all we had behind, and our all was simply a few battered smoky tin pans and the _débris_ of our last seal. It had already become offal in our eyes, though we had often been glad enough to get such fare.

“On stepping on board, I was at once surrounded by a curious lot of people--I mean men filled with curiosity to know our story, and all asking questions of me and the men. I told them who I was, and where we were from. But when they asked me, ‘How long have you been on the ice?’ and I answered, ‘Since the 15th of last October,’ they were so astonished that they fairly looked blank with wonder.

“One of the party, looking at me with open-eyed surprise, exclaimed,--

“‘_And was you on it night and day?_’

“The peculiar expression of the tone, with the absurdity of the question, was too much for my politeness. I laughed in spite of myself, and my long unexercised risibles thrilled with an unwonted sensation.”

Tyson and his party were picked up in lat. 53° 35’ N.; a fact which will give the reader some idea of the wonderful voyage they had accomplished on their various ice-rafts.

They were treated with thoughtful kindness on board the _Tigress_, which on the 7th of May turned her head towards Newfoundland. On the following day she put into Conception Bay, where the Americans landed, and remained until the 12th. They then started for St. John’s; and the news of their remarkable experiences having preceded them, found themselves on their arrival the objects of a very general and lively curiosity. After a short stay, they were conveyed to Washington on board the United States steamship _Frolic_. And here ends their strange, eventful history.

We must now return to the _Polaris_.

When she drifted away in the darkness of that stormy night, she had on board fourteen persons: Captain Buddington, Dr. Emil Bessel, Messrs. Bryan and Chester, and ten officers and seamen. What had become of them and their vessel? Such was the natural question which arose on the safe arrival at Washington of Tyson and his companions; and the American Government quickly came to the determination of organizing a relieving party to seek for and bring back the survivors and remains, if any, of the _Polaris_ expedition. The steamship _Juniata_ was immediately despatched to form a depôt of supplies on the coast of Greenland in advance. She reached Upernavik on the 31st of July, and there brought into use her steam-launch, the _Little Juniata_; which, manned by a gallant crew, pushed forward into the icy waters of Melville Bay, but without coming upon any traces of the missing explorers. Meantime, the American Government purchased the _Tigress_, and fitted her up for a thorough cruise in the Arctic seas. With Captain Greer in command, and Mr. Tyson as acting-lieutenant, and a crew of eleven officers and forty-two men, “all told,” the _Tigress_ set sail on the evening of July 14th, and dropped anchor at St. John’s on the morning of the 23rd.

On the 11th of August we find her at Upernavik, where she took on board a supply of coal from the _Juniata_. She then proceeded northward, falling in with the heavy pack-ice near Cape York. The 14th saw her off the Eskimo settlement of Netlik. She was now approaching Northumberland Island, in the neighbourhood of which, or of Littleton Island, it was supposed the _Polaris_ had parted from the ice-floe. Captain Greer carefully examined Northumberland Island, but without success. He then made for Littleton Island; and a boat was lowered to go on shore, carrying Lieutenant White, Captain Tyson, and other officers. What was their surprise, as they approached, to discover some human figures and a couple of tents on the mainland, near Littleton Island. The figures proved to be Eskimos; and through the agency of Eskimo Joe, who was on board the _Tigress_, it was soon ascertained that Captain Buddington had deserted the _Polaris_ on the day after her separation from the floe; that he and his companions had erected a house on the mainland, and wintered therein; had fitted it up with sleeping-berths for fourteen men, the full number, and furnished it with stove, table, chairs, and other articles removed from the abandoned ship; that during the winter the party had built and equipped a couple of sailing-boats; and that “about the time when the ducks begin to hatch” they had departed for the south.

The Eskimo chief, or leader, added that Captain Buddington had made him a present of the _Polaris_; but that the gift proved of no effect, for in a violent gale she broke loose from the ice, drifted out into the channel, and foundered.

Further search brought the crew of the _Tigress_ to the winter-camp of the _Polaris_ crew. It was situated in lat. 78° 23’ N., and long. 73° 46’ W. Some manuscripts were found there, with the log-book, the medical stores, and remains of instruments; and these, with whatever else that seemed of intrinsic value, having been removed on board the _Tigress_, the expedition bore away to the southward, and on the 16th of October reached St. John’s, Newfoundland, where they received the welcome intelligence of the rescue of the _Polaris_ party under the circumstances we shall now relate.

We return to the eventful night of the 15th of October 1872. During the tremendous gale that then raged along the Arctic coast, the bow-hawser of the _Polaris_ snapped like a “pack-thread,” the anchors slipped, and the ship drifted away into the darkness. The wind forced her in a north-easterly direction; and next morning those on board found her “a little north of Littleton Island, in Smith Sound, having been exactly abreast of Sutherland Island during a portion of the night.”

As she was leaking rapidly the pumps were set to work; and the fires with much difficulty being lighted, the ship was got to obey her helm. It was then found that the following officers and men remained on board:--Captain Buddington; Mr. Chester, chief mate; William Merton, second mate; Emil Schuman, chief engineer; Odell, assistant-engineer; Campbell and Booth, firemen; Coffin, carpenter; Sieman, Hobby, Hays, and Manch, seamen; Dr. Emil Bessel, meteorologist; and Mr. Bryan, astronomer and chaplain.

A look-out was kept, it is said, for the nineteen who were missing, but no signs of them being discovered, Captain Buddington came to the comfortable conclusion that they had saved themselves in the boats. Doubting the feasibility of carrying the _Polaris_ to the southward, he determined to abandon her, and winter on shore. With this view she was run in as near land as possible, and finally grounded in Kane’s Life-boat Cove, lat. 78° 23’ 30″ N., and long. 73° 21’ W. Here, on the 17th of October, Captain Buddington prepared to establish a winter-camp; and the next few days were occupied in removing from the stranded vessel all the food and fuel, and such articles as could conduce to the comfort and sustenance of the party through the ensuing winter.

With spars, bulk-heads, and canvas brought from the _Polaris_ a commodious house was erected, measuring twenty-two feet in length, and fourteen feet in width. It was thoroughly water-tight; warmed inside by a stove; and banked outside with masses of compact snow. In the interior the sides were lined with fourteen sleeping-berths. A table and chairs and lamps added to the general comfort; so that our explorers were prepared to brave a Polar winter under more favourable conditions than those experienced by most Arctic navigators.

In the course of a few days a party of native Eskimos, with five sledges, made their appearance, and their friendly labours were found of no little value. They considered themselves amply repaid by a few presents of knives, needles, and the like, and after a short stay returned to their settlement at Etah. However, others soon took their place; and eventually two or three families built their _igloes_ in the neighbourhood of the American camp. The Eskimo women made themselves very useful by making and repairing clothing, and rendering other feminine courtesies; while the men, when game became plentiful, supplied the little settlement with a welcome abundance of fresh meat. Nor was this the only advantage derived from the presence of the Eskimos; on the contrary, it had an excellent effect on the _morale_ of the men, who did not feel that utter isolation, that sense of being cut off from human companionship, and separated from the rest of the world, which is one of the severest trials of wintering in the Arctic regions. The heavy pressure of the long, dark Polar night was wonderfully lightened by the kindly attentions and mirthful society of the Eskimos.

It is probable that some of the _Polaris_ crew never spent a happier winter. There was no want of food, no suffering from cold; their quarters were warm, cheerful, and well-lighted. Time did not hang heavily on their hands; for when the house-work was done, when the fires were replenished, the lamps trimmed, and the day’s provisions cooked, they amused themselves with reading or writing, or played at chess, draughts, and cards. It is true they had no communication with the world without, and no intelligence could reach them from friends or kinsmen; but, _surgit amari aliquid_--in the cup of human happiness a bitter drop is always found!

When the worst of the winter was past, they began, under the direction of the carpenter, to construct a couple of boats, with the view of returning homeward as soon as the ice broke up. Each was twenty-five feet long, square fore and aft, and five feet beam; capable, that is, of carrying seven men, with provisions for about two months, in which time they might reasonably calculate on reaching the civilized settlements. It was the end of May before the condition of the ice enabled them to set out. Then they broke up their camp, rewarded their Eskimo friends, carried on board stores and provisions; and, finally, early on the morning of the 1st of June they bade farewell to their winter-home, and sailed out into the waters of Smith Sound.

Their voyage was unmarked by any disastrous incident, and presents a strange contrast to the dangerous experiences of Tyson and his companions. Wherever they landed, they obtained an abundant supply of aquatic birds, seal, and other game. They were all in good health, well-fed, well-clothed. Their boats were sound and strong. The winter had long passed away, and the glorious summer sun poured its full radiance on the calm surface of the Arctic sea. Sailing pleasantly along, they touched at Hakluyt Island, and subsequently landed on the west shore of Northumberland Island. The pack-ice detained them there until the 10th. They then entered a water-way toward Cape Parry, but were subsequently forced back by the ice to the place whence they had started. On the 12th the channel was clearer. They set sail again; crossed the southern part of Murchison Sound; doubled Cape Parry; and halted for rest and refreshment on Blackwood Point, near Fitz Clarence Rock. Thence they made, in due succession, for Wolstenholme Island, and Cape York,--names which recall the adventures of the earlier explorers.

Their course now assumed a more difficult character, as they had come face to face with the ice of Melville Bay,--that great expanse of Arctic waters which is surrounded by glacier-loaded shores, and has always been a favourite “whaling-ground.” Here they encountered some difficulty with the “pack;” the “leads,” or water-ways, curiously intersecting one another, and striking far into the ice, and so closing up that it was often necessary to haul their boats across a kind of promontory, or tongue, from one lead to another. Their troubles, however, were of brief duration. On the twentieth day after leaving Life-boat Cove, they sighted a steamer, beset in the ice, at a distance of thirty or thirty-five miles from Cape York. She could not come to _them_, it was true, but they could go to her; and this they prepared to do. They had not traversed half the distance, however, before they met a body of eighteen men from the ship; for they too had been seen, and recognized as white men, and relief immediately despatched. The friendly vessel proved to be the _Ravenscraig_ of Dundee, Captain Allen, lying in lat. 75° 38’ N., and long. 65° 35’ W.

It was now found, according to the narrative of the expedition, that the relief did not come much too soon, for the boats had been considerably injured by contact with the rough hummocky ice. And the fatigue of hauling them over such a surface may be inferred from the fact that it took the _Polaris_ crew, with their eighteen relief-men from the _Ravenscraig_, six hours to reach the latter vessel. The difficulty was increased by a deep slushy snow, which lay thick upon the ice, and which was not only heavy and disagreeable to the wayfarer, but exceedingly dangerous, as more than one found by sinking into the pitfalls it treacherously concealed.

But they reached the _Ravenscraig_ at midnight, and received a hearty welcome from Captain Allen, who was able also to communicate the grateful intelligence that their comrades, the little company sent adrift on the ice-raft, were all in safety.

It has been well said that the _Polaris_ expedition proved curiously prolific of startling and exciting incidents. From the time when Captain Bartlett of the _Tigress_ rescued the “exhausted waifs” of the ice-floe, until the last scene in this romantic drama was enacted, the public mind had been kept in a condition of continual expectancy by the progress of events connected with the story of these Arctic explorers. The lamentable death of Captain Hall,--the long voyage on the ice-floe through the gloom of the Polar night,--the return of the nineteen castaways after so many hairbreadth escapes and wonderful adventures,--the departure of the _Tigress_,--the discovery of Buddington’s winter-camp,--and now the rescue of him and his crew by the Dundee whaler, formed a series of surprising and exciting events, which, if not of epical interest, would certainly seem to furnish matter for a poet’s song. Even the early annals of Arctic exploration, with their narratives of the achievements and sufferings of Hudson, Davis, Barentz, present no incidents of a more remarkable character. As men dwelt upon them, they came to acknowledge that the “age of romance” was not ended yet.

On the 18th of September 1873, the _Arctic_ whaling-steamer arrived at Dundee with eleven of the _Polaris_ survivors, who had been transferred to her from the _Ravenscraig_, as the latter was not homeward bound. Three others reached America in the _Intrepid_; and thus the expedition of the _Polaris_ terminated without any loss of life, if we except the unfortunate death of her enthusiastic commander, Captain Hall.

It added nothing, it is true, to our geographical knowledge of the Arctic World; and yet it was not without some useful results. The _Polaris_, at all events, approached nearer to the North Pole than any one of her predecessors; and men of science were thenceforth justified in asserting that the hope of complete success was no longer chimerical. The distance to the pole from the point reached by the _Polaris_ was comparatively so trivial, as to afford good reason for believing that it would not long baffle human resolution and enterprise. Then, again, it was established as a fact beyond doubt that Europeans could securely winter in a latitude of 81° 38’; that a ship well built and well equipped might push northward as far as 82° 16’; and that no insuperable obstacles to its further advance could then be detected. It was also shown that the temperature, even in lat. 82°, was not of a nature to overcome the energy and enthusiasm of men accustomed to life and adventure in the Arctic World. These data, so conclusively established by experience, constituted a source of great encouragement to future navigators, and permit the conclusion that the _Polaris_ expedition, with all its disasters and mismanagement, helped forward the great work of discovering the North Pole.

“We now know,” says Mr. Markham, “that the American vessel commanded by Captain Hall passed up the strait, in one working season, for a direct distance of two hundred and fifty miles, without a check of any kind, reaching lat. 82° 16’ N.; and that at her furthest point the sea was still navigable, with a water-sky to the northward.”

The _Polaris_, however, was nothing better than a river-steamer of small power, ill adapted for encountering the perils of Arctic navigation,--with a crew, all told, of thirty men, women, and children, including eight Eskimos. If she could accomplish such a voyage without difficulty, and could attain so high a latitude, it was reasonable to anticipate that a properly equipped English expedition, under equally favourable circumstances, would do, not only as much, but much more, and carry the British flag into the waters of the circumpolar sea, if such existed. With this view, the Admiralty fitted out the _Alert_ and the _Discovery_, under Captains Nares and Stephenson. Every precaution that science could suggest was adopted to ensure the completeness of their equipment; and the two ships, accompanied as far as Disco by H.M.S. _Valorous_ as a tender, left England on the 29th May 1875.

* * * * *

The British Expedition, consisting of the _Alert_ and the _Discovery_, did not succeed in all it was intended to accomplish; and yet it can hardly be spoken of as a failure. It did not reach that conventional point of geographers, the North Pole, but it penetrated within four hundred miles of it; and it ascertained the exact nature of the obstacles which render access impossible, except under conditions not at present in existence. We agree with a thoughtful writer in the _Spectator_ that this was a most important service rendered both to Science and the State. We now know that by the Smith Sound route a ship may attain to within 450 miles of the Pole; and that, afterwards, a journey about as long as from London to Edinburgh must be undertaken, in a rigorous climate, with the thermometer 50° below zero, over ice packed up into hillocks and hummocks which render sledge-travelling almost impracticable, or practicable only by hewing out a path with the pickaxe at the rate of a mile and a half a day. And further: the work would have to be begun and completed in four months, or, from lack of light and warmth, it could not be done at all. These are serious difficulties, and whether it is worth while for men to encounter them, where the gain would be problematical, we need not here inquire. Before any attempt can be made, some provision must be discovered for protecting those who make it against the excessive cold, and for a surer and swifter mode of conveyance than the sledge affords. The journalist to whom we have referred speculates that science may furnish future expeditions with undreamt-of resources,--with portable light and heat, for instance, from the newly-discovered mines at Disco; preventives against scurvy; electric lights; supplies of dynamite for blowing up the ice; and a traction-engine to traverse the road thus constructed; but, in the meantime, these appliances are not at our command. We must be content with the measure of success achieved by Captain Nares and his gallant followers.

And these well deserve the gratitude of all who think the fame and honour of a nation are precious possessions. They have shown clearly that the “race” has not degenerated; that Englishmen can do and suffer now as they did and suffered in the old time. They displayed a courage and a fortitude of truly heroic proportions. And the experiences of Arctic voyaging are always of a nature to require the highest courage and the sternest fortitude. The long Arctic night is in itself as severe a test of true manhood as can well be devised. The miner works under conditions for less laborious than those to which the Arctic explorer submits, for he enjoys an alternation of light and darkness; his underground toil lasts but for a few hours at a time. Yet we know that it tries a man’s manly qualities sorely! What, then, must it be to keep brave and cheerful and true throughout a prolonged night of one hundred and forty-two days--that apparently endless darkness, almost the darkness of a sunless world?

We know, too, that continuous work, without relaxation, for month after month, will break down the nerves and shatter the intellect of the strongest. Yet we read that the men of the _Alert_ toiled like slaves, on one occasion, for seventy-two days, in cold so extreme that the reader can form no conception of its severity, and with the dread constantly hanging over them of that terrible and most depressing disease, scurvy. Owing to their inability to procure any fresh game, as most former expeditions had done, each of the extended sledge-parties, when at their farthest distance from any help, was attacked by it. The return-journeys were, therefore, a prolonged homeward struggle of men who grew weaker at every step, the available force to draw the sledge continually decreasing, and the weight to be dragged as steadily increasing, as, one after another, the men stricken down had to be carried by their enfeebled comrades.

It has been well said that in such exploits as these there is a sustained heroism which we cannot fully appreciate, because we cannot fully realize the terrible character of the sacrifices involved. But it is comparatively easy for us to understand, and therefore to admire, the courage of Lieutenant Parr, when he started alone on a journey of thirty-five miles, with no other guide for his adventurous steps than the fresh track of a wandering wolf over the ice and snow, in order to carry help and comfort to his failing comrades. It is easy to understand, and therefore to admire, the devotion of Mr. Egerton and Lieutenant Rawson, when, at the imminent risk of their own lives, they nursed Petersen, the interpreter, while travelling from the _Alert_ to the _Discovery_, with the temperature 40° below zero. Petersen, who had accompanied them with the dog-sledge, fell ill; and with a noble unselfishness they succeeded in retaining heat in the poor fellow’s body by alternately lying one at a time alongside of him, while the other by exercise was recovering his own vital warmth. We can also acknowledge and admire the constancy of Captain Nares, who, in that horrible climate, lived thirty-six days in the “crow’s-nest,” while his ship laboured among the grinding, shivering, crushing ice, until exhaustion overcame him. And we can acknowledge and admire the bravery and faithfulness of the men of the sledge-parties who, for days and weeks, drew the sledges and their comrades, with gloom above and around them, ice and snow everywhere bounding the prospect, and in a temperature which seemed to freeze the blood and benumb the heart.

What a tale, says a writer in the _Times_, what a tale of unrequited suffering it is! Surely not “unrequited;” for those who suffered, suffered at the call of duty, and have been rewarded by the approval of their countrymen, and by the consciousness of having done something great, of not having lived in vain. “How lightly do all talk of glory; how little do they know what it means! The little army had to cut its way through the ice-barriers, dragging heavily-laden sledges, and going to and fro, the whole force being often required for each sledge, content to make a mile and a quarter a day, in pursuit of an object still four hundred miles off, through increasing difficulties, and with barely five months, or one hundred and fifty days, wherein to go and return. The labour is a dreadful reality; the scheme itself a nightmare, the phantasy of a disordered brain. Even the smaller and subsidiary expedition for planting a depôt last autumn cost three amputations. The cold was beyond all former experience for intensity and length, and the physical effect of a long winter spent in the ships under such conditions is particularized as one reason why the men were less able to endure cold, labour, and the want of proper food. Every one of the expeditions, whatever the direction, came back in the saddest plight,--some dragging the rest, and in one case only reaching the ship through the heroism of an officer pushing on many miles alone to announce his returning comrades, and to procure the aid by which alone they were saved from destruction. These are episodes, but they are the matter which redeems the story and makes its truest value. They tell us what Englishmen will do on occasions beyond our feeble home apprehensions, when once they have accepted a call, and are in duty bound.”

* * * * *

At the time we write no elaborate record of the expedition has been published, and the materials of the following sketch are collected therefore from various narratives which have appeared in the daily journals. We shall begin by endeavouring to place before the reader, with the assistance of Mr. Clements R. Markham, a rapid summary of what the expedition accomplished. And then we shall describe its more interesting incidents.

* * * * *

The object of Captain Nares and his followers was to discover and explore as considerable a portion of the unknown area in the Polar Regions as was possible with reference to the means at their disposal, and to the positions the vessels succeeded in reaching as starting-points. The theories about open Polar basins and navigable waters which once obtained have long been discarded by practical Arctic geographers. A coast-line, however, is needful as a means of progress to “the threshold of work;” and it is needful, too, in order to secure the desired results of Arctic discovery in the various departments of scientific inquiry.

The expedition, then, in the first place, had to force its way through the ice-encumbered channel which connects Baffin Bay with the Polar Ocean; a channel which successively bears the names of Smith Sound, Kane Basin, Kennedy Channel, Hall Basin, and Robeson Strait. Smith Sound opens out of Baffin Bay between Capes Alexander and Isabella. The _Alert_ and the _Discovery_ passed these famous headlands and entered the Sound on July 29, 1875; and from that date until September 1, when the _Alert_ crossed the Threshold of the Unknown Region, they fought one continuous battle with the ice. The _Polaris_, it is true, had made a rapid passage on the occasion of its memorable voyage; but the circumstances were exceptional. Generally the Sound is blocked up by heavy floes, with winding waters caused by the action of wind and tide. With great difficulty our two ships forced the barrier; but their success was due in no small measure to the skill and vigilance of Captain Nares, who allowed himself no rest until they were out of danger. At length, after many hairbreadth escapes, and many laborious nights and days, and much energy and devotion on the part of the officers, and equal courage and industry on the part of the men, the expedition reached the north shore of Lady Franklin Inlet, and found a safe, commodious harbour in lat. 81° 44’ N. Here the _Discovery_ took up her winter quarters, as had previously been arranged; and the _Alert_, after a brief interval of repose, continued her northward progress.

This she was enabled to do through the opportune opening up of a water-lane between the shore and the ice. Bravely she dashed ahead, rounded Cape Union, so named by the men of the _Polaris_ expedition, and entered the open Polar Ocean. Then, in lat. 82° 20’ N., the white ensign was hoisted on board a British man-of-war in a latitude further north than the ship of any nation had reached before. Soon afterwards the solid masses of the Polar pack-ice began to close around the adventurous vessel; and on the 3rd of September 1875, the _Alert_ was fast fixed in her winter quarters, on the ice-bound shore of the inhospitable Polar Sea in lat. 82° 27’ N.

This, says Mr. Markham,[11] was the first grand success; and it assured the eventual completion of the work. For, owing to the admirable seamanship of Captain Nares, and to the zeal and devotion of the officers and crew, the _Alert_ had been carried across the Threshold, and was _within_ the Unknown Region. A point of departure was thus obtained, which rendered certain the achievement of complete success; inasmuch as in whatever direction the sledge-parties travelled, valuable discoveries could not fail to be the result.

The autumnal excursions, during which depôts of provisions were established for use in the work of the coming spring, were not performed without a very considerable amount of suffering. Lieutenant May and two seamen were so severely frost-bitten, that, to save their lives, amputation was found necessary.

As will be seen from the latitude given, the ships wintered further north than any ships had ever previously wintered. The cold exceeded anything previously registered, and darkness extended over a dreary period. The winter, however, was not spent idly: observatories were erected, and a mass of valuable scientific data industriously accumulated.

“But the crowning glories of this ever-memorable campaign were,” as Mr. Markham exclaims, “achieved during the spring.” Three main sledge-expeditions were organized: one, under Commander Markham and Lieutenant Parr, instructed to keep due north, as far as possible, into the newly-discovered Polar Ocean; another, under Lieutenant Aldrich, to explore the American coast, westward; and the third, under Lieutenant Beaumont of the _Discovery_, to survey the north coast of Greenland, facing eastward. Each party consisted of two sledges; and the six, with their gallant crews, set out on the 3rd of April 1876, determined to vindicate and maintain the reputation of British seamen. They separated at Cape Joseph Henry; and before they again met, this was what they achieved:--

Commander Markham and Lieutenant Parr pushed northward as far as lat. 83° 20’ 26″ N.; being the most northerly point which any explorers have attained. They may therefore be fairly and justly regarded as “the Champions” of Arctic Discovery, until some successors, more fortunate than they, shall surpass their glorious feat.

Lieutenant Aldrich struck westward; rounded Cape Colombia in lat. 83° 7’ N.; and explored 220 miles of the American coast-line, previously not laid down on any map.

Lieutenant Beaumont crossed Robeson Strait, and surveyed the northern coast of Greenland for about seventy miles.

“In order,” it is said, “that these three main parties might do their work successfully, every soul in the two ships was actively employed. The depôt and relieving parties did most arduous work, and the officers vied with each other in promoting the objects of the expedition, while the most perfect harmony and unanimity prevailed. Captain Feilden and Mr. Hart were especially active in making natural history collections; and Lieutenants Giffard, Archer, Rawson, Egerton, and Conybeare did admirable work in exploring and keeping open communications.” When the sledge-parties returned to the ships, Captain Nares found that they had suffered terribly; but he also found that their success had been complete. They had solved a geographical problem; no open sea surrounded the Pole, as so many sanguine spirits had anticipated. The way northward was over a waste of ice--of ice broken up into hummocks and ponderous masses. And with the appliances they possessed further progress was impossible; the expedition had reached its _ne plus ultra_.

The work was done, and Captain Nares perceived that nothing more could be gained, while valuable lives might be lost by remaining longer in the Polar Ocean. He decided upon returning to England, with the following rich results to show as the reward of an heroic enterprise:--

First, the expedition had discovered a great Polar Ocean, a knowledge of which cannot fail to prove of exceeding value to the hydrographer. Next, the shores of this ocean had been explored along fifty degrees of longitude, and important collections formed of specimens of the Arctic fauna, flora, and geology. The channel connecting the Polar Ocean with Smith Sound had also been carefully surveyed, and an accurate delineation effected of either shore. Geological discoveries of high value had also been made; as, for example, that of the former existence of an evergreen forest in lat. 82° 44’ N.,--a fact significant of vast climatic changes. And, lastly, interesting observations in meteorology, magnetism, tidal and electric phenomena, and spectrum analysis had been carefully recorded. The expedition of 1875–76 must, therefore, in view of these results, be classed among the most successful which ever adventured into Arctic waters; though it failed, like its predecessors, to gain the North Pole.

* * * * *

The _Alert_ and the _Discovery_ left the shores of England in May 1875. After a voyage of five weeks’ duration they arrived at Lievely, the port of Disco Island, on the west coast of Greenland. This small settlement numbers about ninety-six inhabitants, Danes and Eskimos,--generally speaking, a mixed race. The Danish Inspector of North Greenland resides here, and he received the expedition with a salute from three brass cannon planted in front of his house. There is a well-conducted school, attended by about sixteen children; and a small church, where the schoolmaster reads the Lutheran service on Sundays,--the priest coming over from Upernavik occasionally, to perform marriages, christenings, and other religious services.

The _Alert_ having taken on board thirty Eskimo dogs and a driver, the expedition left Disco at one o’clock on July 16th, and next morning reached Kiltenbunto, about thirty miles further north.

Kiltenbunto is a little island in the Strait of Weigattet, between Disco and the mainland. Here the _Discovery_ took on board thirty dogs; and shooting-parties from both ships made a descent on a “loomery,” or “bird-bazaar,” frequented by guillemots, kittiwakes, and other ocean-birds. Two or three days later the expedition arrived at a settlement named Proven, where it was joined by the Eskimo dog-driver, Hans Christian, the attendant of Kane, Hayes, and Hall, in their several expeditions. At Proven the adventurers received and answered their last letters from “home.”

Striking northward through Baffin Bay, they reached Cape York on the 25th of July, and met with a company of the misnamed Arctic Highlanders, who traversed the ice-floes in their dog-sledges, and soon fraternized with the seamen. A narwhal having been harpooned, a quantity of the skin and blubber was given to these Eskimos. Mr. Hodson, the chaplain of the _Discovery_, describes them as exceedingly greedy and barbarous, eating whatever fell in their way, but living chiefly upon seals. They were not so far advanced in civilization as to be able to construct kayacks, and apparently they had never before seen Europeans. They wore trousers of bear-skin, and an upper garment of seal-skin.

Proceeding northward by Dr. Kane’s Crimson Cliffs, they soon reached that brave explorer’s celebrated winter quarters, Port Foulke, and took advantage of a day’s delay to visit the Brother John Glacier. They found Dr. Kane’s journal, but no relics; shot a reindeer, and a large number of birds.

Between Melville Bay and the entrance to Smith Sound no ice was met with; but on the 30th of July the “pack” was sighted, off Cape Sabine, in lat. 78° 41´ N. Here, at Port Payer, the ships were fast held by the ice for several days. An attempt to proceed further northward was made to the west of the islands in Hayes Sound; but the water-way not leading in the right direction, the ships returned. On the 6th of August they made a fresh start, and thenceforward maintained an uninterrupted struggle with the ice. The _Alert_ led the way, with Captain Nares in her “crow’s-nest,” anxiously looking out for practicable channels. At Cape Frazer the huge solid mass again delayed them. Then they succeeded in crossing Kennedy Channel to the east side, and taking shelter in Petermann Fiord--so named after the great German geographer. After a few days they again pushed northward; and on the 25th of August, after many narrow escapes from being crushed in the ice, a well-sheltered harbour received them, on the west side of Hall Basin, north of Lady Franklin Sound, in lat. 81° 44´ N. This was at once selected as the winter quarters of the _Discovery_. Her sister-ship, continuing her course, rounded the north-east point of Grant Land; but instead of falling in with a continuous coast-line, stretching one hundred miles further towards the north, as all had anticipated, found herself on the border of what was evidently a very extensive sea, with impenetrable ice on every side. As no harbour could be found, the ship was secured as far north as possible, inside a kind of embankment of grounded ice close to the land. There she passed the winter; and during the eleven months of her detention no navigable water-way, through which she could move further to the north, presented itself.

Far from meeting with the “great Polar Sea” dreamed of by Kane and Hayes, our adventurers discovered that the ice-barrier before them was unusually thick and solid. It looked as if composed of floating icebergs which had gradually been jammed and welded together. Henceforth it will be known on our maps as the Palæocrystic Sea, or Sea of Ancient Ice; and a stranded mass of ice disrupted from an ice-floe is to be termed a floeberg.

Ordinary ice does not exceed ten feet in thickness; but in the Polar Sea, generation after generation, layer has been superimposed on layer, until the whole mass measures from eighty feet to one hundred and twenty feet; it floats with its surface nowhere less than fifteen feet above the water-line. It was this wonderful thickness which prevented the _Alert_ from driving ashore. Owing to its great depth of flotation, sixty feet to one hundred feet, the mass grounded on coming into shallow water, and formed a breakwater within which the ship was comparatively secure. “When two pieces of ordinary ice are driven one against the other, and the edges broken up, the crushed pieces are raised by the pressure into a high, long, wall-like hedge of ice. When two of the ancient floes of the Polar Sea meet, the intermediate lighter broken-up ice which may happen to be floating about between them alone suffers; it is pressed up between the two closing masses to a great height, producing a chaotic wilderness of angular blocks of all shapes and sizes, varying in height up to fifty feet above water, and frequently covering an area upwards of a mile in diameter.”

* * * * *

We must now return to the _Discovery_. As soon as she had taken up her winter quarters, her crew began to unload her, landing the boats, stores, and spare spars, and otherwise preparing for the winter. The first day ashore they shot a herd of eleven musk-oxen. A few days afterwards the sea was frozen all round the ship, so that they could freely move to and fro about the ice. A week later they saw a large number of musk-oxen, and shot about forty--thus laying in a considerable supply of provisions.

Their winter port, which was surrounded by snow-clad hills, about two thousand feet high, they christened Discovery Harbour.

As soon as the sea was completely frozen over, the sledging-parties were organized and duly despatched; but as the autumn was rapidly passing, very little could be done in this direction. The usual preparations on the part of Arctic explorers were then made for “hybernating.” Houses were built; also a magnetic observatory and a theatre of ice--recalling the glittering edifice constructed by Catherine II. of Russia on the Neva, and celebrated by Cowper in the well-known lines,--

“No forest fell When thou wouldst build, no quarry sent its stores To enrich thy walls; but thou didst hew the floods, And make thy marble of the glassy wave.”

A smithy was erected on the 11th of November, being the first the Arctic ice had ever borne. Its roof was made of coal-bags, cemented with ice. The ship’s stoker reigned supreme in it as blacksmith; and when we consider the accessories,--the ice, the snow, the darkness,--we must admit that his blazing forge must have made a curious picture. The chaplain tells us, humorously, that the smith adorned the interior wall with a good many holes, as each time that his iron wanted cooling he simply thrust it into the ice!

As for the theatre, which, as we know, has always been a favourite source of amusement with Arctic explorers when winter-bound, it was sixty feet long and twenty-seven feet broad; and, in honour of the Princess of Wales, was named “The Alexandra.” Her birthday was selected as the day of opening--December 1st; and the opening piece was a popular farce--“My Turn Next.” As sailors are generally adepts at dramatic personations, we may conceive that the piece “went well,” and that the different actors received the applause they merited. It is recorded that foremost among them was the engineer, Mr. Miller, who appears to have been, emphatically, the _Polar Star_. Several of the men sung songs; and recitations, old and new, were occasionally introduced; the result of the whole being to divert the minds and keep up the spirits of the ship’s company during the long, long Arctic night.

The Fifth of November and its time-honoured associations were not forgotten. A huge bonfire blazed on the ice; a “Guy Fawkes” was manufactured and dressed in the most approved fashion; and the silence of the frozen solitudes was broken by the sounds of a grand display of fireworks and the cheering of the spectators.

A fine level promenade had been constructed on the ice, about a mile in length, by sweeping away the snow; and this served as a daily exercise ground. A skating-rink was also constructed. A free hole in the ice, for the sake of better ventilation, was carefully kept up. Whenever it closed, through a process of gradual congelation, the ice-saws were set in motion to open it up again, or it was blasted with gunpowder. The dogs lived on the ice-floe all the winter. It must not be thought that the cold was uniform day after day. Probably it is not the _low_ temperature so much as the _variable_ temperature that makes an Arctic winter so very trying to the European. In a few hours the change would be no less than 60°. The cold reached its height--or depth--in winter, when the thermometer marked 70½° below zero; the greatest cold ever experienced by any Polar expedition. It is difficult for the human frame to bear up against this excess of rigour, even with the help of good fires, good food, and good clothing. Not only the physical but the mental faculties are debilitated and depressed.

Our ice-bound seamen, however, managed to keep Christmas merrily. Early on the day so dear to Christian memories “the waits” went their usual rounds,--a sergeant of marines, the chief boatswain’s mates, and three other volunteers,--singing Christmas carols, and making “a special stay outside the captain’s cabin.” In the forenoon prayers were said on the lower deck; after which the captain and officers visited the men’s mess, tasting the Christmas pudding, and examining the tasteful decorations which had been improvised. Then the gifts which, in anticipation of the day, had been sent out by kindly English hearts, were distributed by the captain,--to each gift the name of the recipient having been previously attached. This was an affecting scene; and hearty, though not without a touch of pathos in them, were the cheers given as the distribution took place; a distribution recalling so many “old familiar faces,” and all the sweet associations and gentle thoughts of home! Cheers were also raised for the captain and men of the far-away _Alert_. Next, a choir was formed, and echo resounded with the strains of “O the Roast Beef of Old England!” of which, no doubt, many of the singers entertained a very affectionate remembrance. The men dined at twelve and the officers at five, and the day seems in every respect to have been most successful as a festival.

A few particulars of the “situation” may here be given in the chaplain’s own words:--“We had brought fish, beef, and mutton from England,” he says, “all of which we hung up on one of the masts, and it was soon as hard as a brick, and perfectly preserved. We had also brought some sheep from England with us, and they were killed from time to time. When we arrived in Discovery Bay, as we called it, six of them were alive; but on being landed they were worried by the dogs, and had to be slaughtered. During the winter the men had to fetch ice from a berg about half a mile distant from the ship, in order to melt it for fresh water.”

At last the long Arctic night came to an end. It was with emotions of hope and gratitude and joy that the explorers welcomed the first rays of the returning sun on the last day of February. For four months they had lived in obscurity and gloom, with the exception of such relief as the stars and the moon had occasionally afforded. On the day of the sun’s return to the Polar World, it was known that it would rise at about twelve o’clock, and everybody ascended the hills for the purpose of hailing the glorious spectacle. The mists and fogs, however, baffled their expectations; and though they _felt_ its influence, they did not see it for some days after it had mounted above the horizon.

News was brought from the _Alert_ by two officers and two men towards the end of March. They had accomplished the journey with the thermometer at 40° below zero, and had occupied six days in making it. The officers were Lieutenant Rawson and Mr. Egerton, who had started at first in company with Petersen, the interpreter, but had been compelled to return with him, as already narrated, because he was severely frost-bitten. Directly they returned to the _Discovery_, preparations were made for sending out the sledge-parties. Two officers and three men, with a dog-sledge, started across Robeson Channel to Hall’s Rest, the winter quarters of the _Polaris_, to report on the stores left by the American vessel, which the United States Government had placed at the disposal of the British expedition. They reappeared on the fifth day, with the information that they had found biscuit, pemmican, preserved meat, molasses, and other articles. They had lived in a wooden observatory that they found erected there. Captain Hall’s grave was in excellent preservation; and they set up a head-board, with an inscription on it, to mark its situation.

Lieutenant Beaumont and Mr. Coppinger, the surgeon, each with an eight-man sledge--or, rather, with seven men besides themselves--started for the _Alert_, in quest of the other sledge which had wintered with that vessel; their design being to cross Robeson Channel, and explore the North Greenland coast. In this journey, owing to the “hummocky” character of the ice, they spent twelve days.

Two days later, a third party, consisting of a twelve-man sledge and an eight-man sledge, with two officers, proceeded to survey the shores of Lady Franklin Sound. The captain accompanied them in the eight-man sledge, and was absent about a week; but the twelve-man sledge, which had gone merely to carry stores and provisions for the other, did not return for a fortnight, the sledge having been damaged, and one of the marines severely frost-bitten in the heel. The other sledge, after an absence of about four weeks, returned in safety,--having discovered that Lady Franklin Strait, as the Americans call it, was a sound or fiord about sixty miles long. They had fallen in with some musk-oxen, which were too wild to be got at; and had seen three or four glaciers, and hills three thousand feet in height.

About June the warm summer began to assert itself, and in the rays of the sun their icehouses melted away, like the baseless fabric of a vision. So the sledging-party last spoken of adventured across the ice to Polaris Bay, taking with them a life-boat as a precaution (for the ice might at any time have broken up), and a supply of provisions for the use of the North Greenland expedition. This work done, they returned to the ship, leaving behind them two officers and three men, who pushed up Petermann Fiord for about eight miles, until arrested by the impenetrable barrier of a huge glacier.

On returning from their explorations they found that Lieutenant Newsome, with four men, of whom one had died of scurvy on the way, had accidentally separated from the North Greenland party, and reached Petermann Fiord on the 3rd of June. All were seriously ill of scurvy, except Mr. Rawson and a marine. Under Dr. Coppinger’s skill and care, however, they recovered. As soon as possible, the doctor, with Mr. Newsome and the Eskimos, started in a dog-sledge to gather some information about the other members of the North Greenland party. In a day or two they fell in with them; and not too soon, for all were thoroughly exhausted. They had abandoned everything, and when the doctor arrived were without food. Four of them, who were accommodated on the sledge, were broken down with scurvy, and two others had been attacked slightly. What was to be done in this critical position of affairs? At first it was thought advisable to remain on the spot for a while, and see if the Eskimos could shoot a seal. But a day’s experience showed that this plan would not answer; and they then resolved to carry the two worst invalids on the dog-sledge to Hall’s Rest. This was accomplished, and the poor fellows seemed to grow better when nourished by seal-soup and proper food; but on the following morning one of them sank and died. The life of the other hung for some time in the balance. The whole company were now invalided; and Hall’s Rest might fitly have been termed Hall’s Hospital.

A few days--weary, melancholy days--having elapsed, an officer, with a couple of men, was sent across to the ship to report the serious condition of affairs. As it was the end of June, the ice had broken up in many places, and the traject of the strait was not accomplished without difficulty, and frequent immersions in the water. No sooner did Captain Stephenson learn how the party were situated, than he set out, with seven men, to carry a supply of medicines, provisions, and various comforts. They had with them a boat and a sledge on a four-wheeled car, and in this they crossed the land to the margin of the sea, a distance of about six miles. Sometimes the boat was called into requisition to carry themselves and the sledge from floe to floe. With half of the men they returned in a few days, leaving the rest in charge of Lieutenant Beaumont and Dr. Coppinger, until they had made more progress towards recovery.

Early in August an officer arrived from the _Alert_, to report that she had moved southward, and was only about ten miles distant; and that Captain Nares, considering the main objects of the expedition secured, had decided on returning to England. About the same time returned the North Greenland party, their provisions having failed them. A few days later, and, having made her way through the broken ice, the _Alert_ joined the _Discovery_ in Discovery Bay. Mr. Beaumont’s party next arrived; and both vessels prepared for the homeward voyage. They left Discovery Bay, as we shall see, on the 28th of August.

* * * * *

Let us now return to the _Alert_, which we left embedded in the ice of the North Polar Ocean.

Her crew made shift to spend a tolerably merry winter, availing themselves of the usual resources of Arctic explorers under similar conditions. The day’s order was much as follows:--At 6.45 A.M. the commander was called, and all hands were piped up on deck; and the hammocks having been previously stowed away and the decks cleansed, everybody sat down, with vigorous appetite, to breakfast. The steerage and lower deck were afterwards cleared up, and soon after 9 A.M. the men were told off for their respective daily duties. At 10 A.M. another general parade of the crew was summoned, and, as a preventive against scurvy, the day’s dose of lime juice was administered. Then the crew went to quarters; the usual careful inspection took place; and the chaplain read prayers. At one o’clock the deck was cleared, and “dinner smoked upon the board.” On days when the darkness was not too intense the crew turned out to work upon the ice, or took their turn at walking exercise and amusements. They were thus occupied until supper, which was served at about five o’clock; and followed by evening school, the duties of which proved equally agreeable to the officers who taught and the men who learned. Soon after nine the officers in charge inspected the ship to see that all was quiet for the night. At ten out went the lights of the chief petty officers, and at eleven those of the wardroom.

This daily routine was freely interrupted on festival occasions. Guy Fawkes’ Day was celebrated as hilariously as by the men of the _Discovery_; and it is a curious illustration of the strength of old English traditions, that the merry-making customs of the Fifth of November should be thus closely observed by both the ice-bound vessels. Due honours were also paid to Father Christmas; nor was New-Year’s Day forgotten. Dramatic talent existed among the men of the _Alert_ in sufficient force to provide a regular dramatic company. The “Royal Arctic Theatre” was erected in Funnel Row, and entertainments given weekly. The programmes of the “Thursday Pops,” as they were commonly called, were thrown off at a printing-press established in Trap Lane by Messrs. Giffard and Simmons; and from one of these we gather that the Royal Arctic Theatre opened for the season “under the distinguished patronage of Captain Nares, the members of the Arctic Expedition, and all the nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood,” on the 18th of November 1875. The orchestra consisted of one eminent pianist, Signor Aldrichi (Lieutenant Aldrich); and the scenic artist was Dr. Moss. The performances commenced at 7.30; and “sledges” might be ordered at nine o’clock. They were by no means wholly dramatic. The bill of fare included scientific and historical lectures, readings and recitations, songs and instrumental music, ranging from grave to gay, from lively to severe; and now and then, to draw a bumper house, some such attraction as feats of legerdemain by “the real Wizard of the North, on his way to the Hyperborean Regions;” acrobatic feats by “the Bounding Brothers of the Frigid Zone;” or the vocal performances of the “Pale-o’-Christy Minstrels,” who “never sing in London.” The plays produced were an original burlesque operetta, “The Vulgar Little Boy; or, Weeping Bill” (founded on Barham’s popular “Misadventures at Margate”), written expressly by the ship’s chaplain, the Rev. W. H. Pullen, author of the well-known political squib, “Dame Europa’s School;” “Aladdin; or, The Wonderful Scamp;” “Boots at the Swan;” and “The Area Belle.” The last and grand night was March 2nd, 1876,--when Captain Nares lectured on “The Palæocrystic Sea, and Sledging Experiences;” and after a variety of songs and readings, the company and audience sang a grand choral strain, “The Palæocrystic Chorus,” which we borrow from the pages of the _Graphic_:--

“Not very long ago, On the six-foot floe Of the Palæocrystic Sea, Two ships did ride ’Mid the crushing of the tide, The _Alert_ and the _Discovery_.

“The sun never shone Their gallant crews upon For a hundred and forty-two days; But no darkness and no hummocks Their merry hearts could flummox, So they set to work and acted plays.

“There was music and song To help the hours along, Brought forth from the good ship’s store; And each man did his best To amuse and cheer the rest, And ‘nobody can’t do more.’

“Here’s a health to _Marco Polo_; May he reach his northern goal oh! And advance the flag of England into realms unknown; May the _Challenger_ be there All courses bold to dare, And _Victoria_ be victorious in the Frozen Zone.

“May our _Poppie_ be in sight With her colours streaming bright; And the _Bulldog_ tug on merrily from strand to strand; And the _Alexandra_ brave See our banner proudly wave, O’er the highest cliffs and summits of the northernmost land.

“Here’s a health to Hercules, Whom the autumn blast did freeze, And all our gallant fellows by the frost laid low. Just wait a little longer, Till they get a trifle stronger, And they’ll never pull the worse for having lost a toe.

“Here’s a health with three times three To the brave _Discovery_, And our merry, merry guests so truly welcome here; And a brimming bumper yet To our gallant little pet, The lively _Clements Markham_ with its bold charioteer.

“Here’s a health to all true blue, To the officers and crew, Who man this expedition neat and handy oh! And may they ever prove, Both in Sledging and in Love, That the tars of old Britannia are the dandy oh!”

In explanation of some passages in the foregoing spirited effusion, we may state that the six sledges belonging to the _Alert_ were named respectively, _Marco Polo_, _Victoria_, _Challenger_, _Poppie_, _Bulldog_, and _Alexandra_. “Hercules” appears to have been the nickname of one of the strong men of the ship.

* * * * *

The _Alert_ wintered so far north, that its officers and men failed to meet with some of the usual accessories of a Polar expedition. There were no Polar bears; no Eskimos; even auroral displays were infrequent. On the other hand, the darkness is described as not having been particularly dense. The reflection of the snow, and the keen “light of stars,” considerably mitigated the “deep obscure;” and once in every fourteen days the splendour of the moon illuminated the weird outlines of the monotonous Arctic scenery.

Some sledging was done in the autumn, though spring is the season when it can best be undertaken. The _Alert_ was no sooner made all snug in her winter quarters, than sledging-parties carried provisions and boats along the shore both northward and westward, ready for use by expeditions in the following spring; the depôt being planted within a mile of the farthest northern position hitherto attained by civilized man. After a terrible journey of twenty days’ duration, the travellers returned on the 14th of October, just two days after the disappearance of the sun. The snow fell heavily, and, by protecting the sloppy ice from the intense frost, rendered travelling difficult. The men’s shoes got thoroughly wet; hence several were frost-bitten, and one officer and two men, on their return, were compelled to undergo amputation. Beneath the cliffs lay great dense, deep snow-wreaths, and in many places a road had to be excavated to the depth of six feet. The men sunk to their waists. The sledge was often completely buried. It needed all Lieutenant Rawson’s resolution and patience to bring back his little company in safety.

The main sledging-party, under Commander Markham, with Lieutenants Parr and May, and twenty-five men, left the _Alert_ on the 25th of September, for the purpose of establishing a depôt at Cape Joseph Henry. They advanced three miles beyond Sir Edward Parry’s northernmost point, and, from a mountain 2000 feet high, sighted land towards the west-north-west, as far as lat. 83° 7’ N., but saw none to the northward.

With the return of the sun on the 29th of February, Captain Nares began his preparations for the spring sledging-expeditions, organizing two main detachments: one, bound northward, under Commander Markham and Lieutenant Parr, with fifteen men, supported by Dr. Moss and Mr. White, with two seven-man sledges; and another, bound westward, consisting of two seven-man sledges, led by Lieutenants Aldrich and Giffard.

On the 12th of March, Lieutenant Rawson and Mr. Egerton, as already narrated, started off to open up communication with the _Discovery_, but were compelled to return by the illness of Petersen, whom they nursed on the way with womanlike tenderness and devotion. In the following week, accompanied by Simmons, of the _Alert_, and Regan, of the _Discovery_, they resumed their adventurous track across the hummocky ice, with the temperature 40° below zero, enduring much, but pushing forward undauntedly. When their comrades of the _Discovery_ condoled with them on account of frost-bitten cheeks, and noses, and fingers, it was with the frank, blithe heroism of the true British seaman that Lieutenant Rawson replied,--“Well, at least we feel that the cheers from Southsea beach have been fairly earned.”

The sledging-expeditions began in earnest in the first week of April, only a few men being left on board each ship. Captain Stephenson, of the _Discovery_, paid a visit to the _Alert_, and also crossed Hall’s Basin twice to Greenland. Captain Nares, with Captain Feilden, was not less energetic; and for a considerable area round the two ships all was activity and motion. When at Polaris Bay, Captain Stephenson, in memory of the gallant and unfortunate Hall, hoisted the American ensign, and erected a brass tablet above the explorer’s lonely grave. It bears the following inscription:--

“Sacred to the memory of Captain C. F. Hall, of the U.S. ship _Polaris_, who sacrificed his life in the advancement of science on November 8, 1871. This tablet has been erected by the British Polar Expedition of 1875, who, following in his footsteps, have profited by his experience.”

It may be noted here, in illustration of the labour attendant on the equipment of an Arctic sledge-party, and the despatch of provisions for their sustenance, that, in order to support the expeditions on the north coast of Greenland and in Petermann Fiord, “Robeson Channel was crossed eleven times from the position of the _Alert_ to a depôt established north of Cape Brevoort, and Hall’s Basin eleven times between Discovery Bay and Polaris Bay; making a total of twenty-two sledge-parties crossing the straits, including the transporting of two boats. The main depôt at Cape Joseph Henry, for the support of the northern and western divisions, thirty-seven miles from the _Alert_, was visited by sixteen different sledges.”

Our travellers did not fail to examine the various cairns erected by the seamen of the _Polaris_. At one place a box chronometer was found to be in excellent order, though it had undergone the test of four Arctic winters. And some wheat, which the _Polaris_ had brought out in order to ascertain the effect upon it of exposure to extreme cold, was successfully cultivated under a glass shade by Dr. Ninnis--almost as interesting an experiment in its way as the sowing and successful harvesting of Mummy wheat, the grains found in ancient Egyptian sepulchres.

The British expedition had advanced so far north that it was beyond the life-limit of bears, birds, and even seals; and the sledging-parties, unable therefore to obtain any fresh game, were severely attacked by scurvy. This fell disease invariably broke out when its victims were farthest from any assistance. The journeys back to the ships were consequently undertaken, as we have already pointed out, by men whose strength decreased daily; and the burden became all the greater as man after man was smitten down, and, to save his life, placed upon the sledge. Great was the alarm on board the _Alert_, when, towards the close of the 8th of June, Lieutenant Parr suddenly presented himself. He was alone. Where were his comrades? What calamity had befallen them? He soon explained that he had undertaken a journey of thirty-five miles, toiling for twenty-two hours through mist and drift and snow, and guided only by the fresh track of a stray wolf, to convey the news of the prostrated condition of the members of the northern expedition. Preparations were immediately made for hastening to their assistance. With the help of the officers, who all volunteered to drag the sledges, Captain Nares was able by midnight to start with two strong relief-parties--Messrs. Egerton, Conybeare, Wootton, and White, the officers who could best be spared from the ship, taking their places at the drag-ropes; and Lieutenant May and Dr. Moss pushing forward with a supply of medicines in the dog-sledge.

Such was the alacrity and energy of the two latter, that they contrived to reach Commander Markham’s encampment within fifty hours of the departure of Lieutenant Parr; though, unfortunately, not in time to save the life of one of the marines, who but a few hours before had expired and been buried in the floe. On the remainder of the stricken company, their arrival, however, had a most beneficial influence; and when, early the next day, Captain Nares came up to their relief, their courage and resolution, which had never deserted them, were quickened to the utmost, and even the invalids threw off that dread depression an attack of scurvy invariably produces. On the morning of the 14th all were once more safe on board the ship, and offering up their heartfelt thanksgiving to God.

Captain Nares furnishes some particulars which illustrate very vividly the terrible experiences of the adventurous sledge-party, and also the ravages which scurvy never fails to commit. He says that of the seventeen officers and men who originally left the _Alert_, only five--namely, three officers and two men--were able to drag the sledges alongside. Three others--heroes as true as any of those whom Homer has made famous!--manfully kept on their feet to the last, enduring the extreme of pain and fatigue rather than, by riding on the sledges, increase the burden their weakened companions had to drag. They were just able to crawl on board ship without assistance. The remaining eight had struggled gallantly, but the disease had proved too much for them, and they were carried on the sledges. Out of the whole number, only two officers escaped the ravages of scurvy. After due rest and medical attention, the chief carpenter’s mate returned to his duty, and three others recovered so as to be able to wait on their sick comrades; but Jolliffe, a petty officer, who had nobly borne up against the disease while actively employed, when his legs became cramped from resting on board proved to be one of the most lingering cases.

Surely the nation will never begrudge the cost of expeditions which give such occasion for the display of the most generous unselfishness and the noblest devotion!

These sledge-journeys were performed in the face of tremendous difficulties. Beyond the mere coast-belt, there was little smooth ice; the tolerably level floes or fields, usually about six feet above the neighbouring ice, seldom measured a mile across. Their surfaces were thickly covered with rounded blue-topped ice-humps, averaging twenty feet high; which lay sometimes in ranges, and sometimes a hundred to two hundred yards apart, the intervening spaces being filled with wind-driven snow, and the whole resembling a gusty ocean suddenly stiffened into rest.[12] Between these floes, like an embankment of rude formation, extended a vast pile of the wreck and refuse of previous summers’ broken-up pack-ice, regelated during the winter into one rugged and confused mass of angular blocks of various heights up to forty and fifty feet, and of every imaginable variety of configuration, like the disrupted lava at the mouth of a crater. These were interspersed with a continuous series of “steep-sided snow-drifts,” which stretched downwards from the highest summit of the ice-chaos until lost in the general level at a distance of about one hundred yards. It may be conceived that it was not easy to find a passage for the sledges through these labyrinths of ice and snow. The snow-slopes were by no means an assistance, for the winter-winds coming chiefly from the west, and the course of the sledges being due north, they had to be encountered almost at right angles. Consequently, the journey was an incessant struggle with ever-recurring obstacles; as fast as one had been conquered, another presented itself. The pickaxes were in constant requisition, either to cut a way through the packed-up ice, or out of the perpendicular side of the high floes. Instead of a steady advance, the whole party were frequently detained half a day by the necessity of facing the sledge and hauling it forward a few feet at a time. These considerations will enable the reader to judge how great must have been the “pluck,” persistence, and energy which could accomplish a journey of seventy miles in such exceptional circumstances.

Captain Nares observes--and his eulogium will be endorsed by the reader--that no two officers could have accomplished this laborious enterprise with greater ability or courage than Commander Markham and Lieutenant Parr. And it is but just that the services of Rawlings and Lawrence, the captains of the two sledges, should be put on record. In addition to their general cheerfulness and good-humour,--qualities which always help to lighten difficult work,--to their care and skill were due the safe return of the sledges, on which the lives of all depended--safe, uninjured, and in as serviceable a state as when they left the ship, notwithstanding the terrible character of the road they had travelled. To such men as these, and to the brave, patient, resolute sledge-crews generally, we owe the tribute of our praise. However severe their privations, they never complained. During this memorable journey to penetrate to the north over the rugged Polar Oceanic ice, a journey in which the “pluck” and determination of the British seaman were most conspicuously displayed, day after day, against obstacles which might well have been regarded as insurmountable, the two officers and their brave followers succeeded in advancing the Union Jack to latitude 83° 20’ 26″ N.,--or within four hundred miles of the North Pole.

In order to attain this advanced post, the present boundary-mark of geographical research in that direction, the total distance travelled was two hundred and seventy-six miles on the outward, and two hundred and forty-five miles on the homeward journey, though the farthest direct distance from the ship did not exceed seventy-three miles. The result of labour so colossal and sufferings so severe would seem to be, that we must consider a long journey over the Polar pack-ice, with sledge and boat, to be impracticable at any season of the year. As the sledges were necessarily advanced each stage singly, we are able to calculate the exact rate of progression which may be expected, if it should be thought desirable to push forward with light sledges, without any additional means of returning later in the season in the event of a disruption of ice in the rear. The maximum attained by Commander Markham was two and three-quarter miles a day; the mean rate being one mile and a quarter.

The outbreak of scurvy rendered Captain Nares very anxious as to the welfare of Lieutenant Aldrich’s company on their return from the westward; and the more so, when it was found that the cairn erected over his depôt of provisions, thirty miles to the north-west, remained untouched on the day appointed for his arrival there. Lieutenant May, with the dog-sledge, and three robust men, were therefore sent to meet him. On the 20th of June the two parties met at the depôt, and signalled the welcome fact to Captain Nares. It was fortunate that Lieutenant Aldrich returned when he did, for on the following day a rapid thaw set in, with the wind from the southward, and the snow-valleys were rendered impassable for sledges for the rest of the season. His party, like Commander Markham’s, were stricken with scurvy, four of them lying helpless on the dog-sledge; and Lieutenant May’s arrival proved most opportune.

Having now assembled all his company on board the _Alert_, Captain Nares was called upon to decide whether it was possible to carry the work of exploration further, or whether the expedition should return to England. Owing to the absence of any land with a northward trend, and the innavigable character of the Polar pack-ice, he concluded that on neither side of Smith Sound could any ship advance further northward than the _Alert_ had done; and also, that from no secure position in Smith Sound was it possible for sledges to advance nearer to the Pole. If the expedition remained in the vicinity for another season, the exploration of the shores of Grant Land might be pursued to the south-west, and of Greenland to the north-east, but not more than fifty miles beyond the points already attained. In the weakened condition of the crew, and for so small an additional gain, Captain Nares decided that it would be unwise to risk another winter. As soon as the ice broke up, “Ho for merry England!”

A regular thaw did not set in until the last week of June. Water flowed in the ravines on the 1st of July. After that date the thaw gradually extended, and increased in rapidity; and on the 23rd a strong south-west wind drove the pack a mile away from the shore. On the 26th a cairn was erected on the shore, and a record of the work of the expedition deposited in it; and on the 31st, a passage having been cleared through the winter-barrier of icebergs, the _Alert_, with a strong south-west wind filling her canvas, pushed out into Robeson Channel on her homeward voyage. After a run of two miles along-shore, through a fairly open way between the pack-ice and what Dr. Kane calls “the ice-foot,” she was checked in her course by a heavy floe one and a half mile in diameter, which almost touched the land; and no other shelter being available, she lay up in a small cove or creek, among a group of icebergs that had gone ashore in the shallows.

The obstructive floe showed signs of movement early on the morning of August 1st; and soon afterwards went away to the northward at the rate of a mile and a half an hour, grinding along the ice-foot somewhat alarmingly as it advanced towards the ship. Steam being up, however, the _Alert_ cast off her moorings, and succeeded in edging between the land and the floe; while the latter swung round in-shore with a violent jerk, close to the position which the ship had previously occupied.

We may note here the difference which Captain Nares insists upon between an ordinary floe, such as is commonly met with in Arctic waters, and the ancient Polar Sea ice. The former seldom exceeds six feet in thickness, and breaks into fragments against an obstruction, or may be charged by a steamship; but the latter, being some eighty or one hundred feet thick, lifts all impediments out of its course,--or, so to speak, throws them disdainfully away. “Such was the case on this occasion: the Polar floe, which,” says Captain Nares, “we only escaped by a few yards, on nipping against the heavy breastwork of isolated floebergs lining the coast, some of them forty feet high and many thousand tons in weight, which had lately formed our protection from the smaller ice-pieces, tilted them over one after another, and forced them higher up the land-slope, like a giant at play, without receiving the slightest harm itself--not a piece breaking away. It was most providential that, by its twisting round, the _Alert_ was enabled to escape out of the trap in which she was enclosed.”

The shore here presented a formidable line of ice-cliff, from twenty to forty feet in height, striking down into clear blue water ten to twenty fathoms deep. The _Alert_ kept onward, so close to the cliff that the boats hung at her quarter frequently touched it, until again brought to a stop near Cape Union by the accumulation of the pack. Her captain, however, was able here to secure her abreast of a large stream, the current of which had undermined the ice-cliff for some fifty yards, and floated it off to sea, leaving a kind of cove or harbour where the ship could be laid alongside the beach in such a manner that, if the pack struck her, it could only force her on shore. The reader of Arctic voyages will remember that a somewhat similar position was once occupied by Sir Edward Parry’s ship, under somewhat similar circumstances.

When the tide had turned, and began to flow southward, it broke up the ice all around Cape Union, and formed a narrow water-way, which offered Captain Nares a chance of escape. Steam was got up immediately, but, owing to unavoidable delay in shipping the rudder, the ice closed in before the ship could be carried round. Her last stage was worse than her first; for she was now cut off from her safe little port, and no better shelter was available than a slight hollow or break in the ice-cliff. Here, however, she was brought-to, with the ice-blocks swirling past her at a distance of twenty yards. At low water Captain Nares cast off, and bored some way into the pack, so that the _Alert_ might drift round the cape with the southern tide. At about a quarter of a mile from the land, she drove along with the ice; and when the tide slackened, steamed out of the pack before it began to set to the northward. Then, keeping close in to the ice-foot, she kept slowly on her course to the southward, the water-way broadening as she approached Lincoln Bay, which was crossed without difficulty. When within five miles of Cape Beechey, the tide turned; but after a short delay a channel opened, allowing the ship to round the cape. At this point the ice-cliff ends, and the land slopes gently to the shore--which is protected by a barrier of floebergs, similar to, but smaller than, those which line the shore of the Polar Sea. Here the ship was made fast in three fathoms water, within twenty yards of the shore, about a mile to the south of the cape.

We dwell on these particulars in order that our readers may form some idea of the difficulties of Arctic voyaging. The words, “She forced her way through the ice,” afford no conception whatever of the obstacles that have to be overcome, and the dangers that have to be avoided, by a ship navigating in the midst of pack-ice and ice-floes; or of the skill and vigilance and patience on the part of officers and men, by which only can the enterprise be brought to a successful issue.

We are told that on August the 4th snow-squalls blew from the south-west. As the ice had closed in around the ship, holding it in a vice, the sportsmen of the party landed, and visited some neighbouring lakes in search of game. They found a number of wild geese, and killed fifty-seven, which supplied a welcome addition to the ordinary bill of fare. Mr. Egerton and a seaman were sent off to the _Discovery_, then about twenty miles distant, with orders for her to prepare for the homeward voyage. We have already related how they reached the ship in safety.

While the _Alert_ was thus imprisoned, the huge pack-ice in the offing was carried up and down the strait by the tidal movement, the wind having the effect of increasing the velocity of the current and the duration of its flow both northward and southward. The ice generally was of a lighter character than that in the Polar Sea; but many heavy Polar floes were driven southward by the gale, and set into Lady Franklin Sound and Archer Fiord rather than down Kennedy Channel. Lady Franklin Sound, indeed, seems to be the receptacle of all the heavy ice that comes south through Robeson Channel; retaining it until the prevailing westerly winds carry it once more to the northward, and empty the Sound, previous to its being refilled on the return of the northerly gales. It is only, says Captain Nares, in seasons when northerly winds occur more frequently than westerly ones, that any considerable quantities of the huge Polar ice are drifted into Smith Sound and Baffin Bay.

The gale of the 6th of August was very violent. The tide rushing southward, drove a succession of heavy floe-pieces against the small bergs that protected the ship, and capsized one of them completely. It was firmly aground when struck by the point of a large floe; but such was the force of the collision that it was reared erect in the air to its full height of at least sixty feet above water, when, turning a complete somersault, like a practised gymnast, it came down on its back with a shock that shattered it into pieces, and raised a wave sufficient to roll the ship considerably. Into the gap thus caused moved the ice, until at last it nipped the _Alert_, though not dangerously.

That same evening Lieutenant Rawson and two seamen arrived from the _Discovery_, with news of the ill-fortune that had overtaken the Greenland sledge-party.

It soon became apparent that there was no chance of releasing the ice-bound ship except by cutting down the heavy floe that held her prisoner; and accordingly all hands were set to work. After three days’ toil, so much of the floe was hewn away that at high water it floated and set the ship free; at the same time the main pack moved off, and the _Alert_ steamed onward, rejoining her consort, the _Discovery_, on the 11th of August.

All the invalids on board the _Alert_ were now removed to the _Discovery_, and Captain Nares remained at the entrance to the harbour, prepared to cross to Polaris Bay, as soon as the ice permitted, to relieve Lieutenant Beaumont. As before stated, however, he arrived on the 14th, and relieved the commander of the expedition of a serious anxiety. Both vessels were now ready to start, but the state of the ice detained them until the 20th, when, a “lead” offering through the pack, away they steamed, and arrived close to Cape Lawrence without encountering any serious obstacle. Here their old enemy, the ice, again opposed them; and Captain Nares found only the famous “three courses” of a well-known statesman open to him: either to return north, to drive ahead into the pack, or make fast the ships to some of the grounded floebergs. This last expedient was adopted, and in a land-locked inner basin the _Alert_ and the _Discovery_ were accordingly secured. But, unfortunately, at the fall of high water a piece of ice pressed against the _Alert_, and at the same time its protecting floeberg drove ashore. Result: the _Alert_ was aground forward, but with deep water under the stern. And before she could be released, the tide had fallen fourteen feet, so that the ship lay over at an angle of 22°, with fore-foot and keel exposed as far aft as the fore-channels. Nothing could be done until the tide rose. Then the ship was lightened, and afterwards hauled off without having undergone any damage.

A passage again opened on the 22nd of August, and the two ships steamed as far southward as Cape Collinson, with no other troubles than dense snow-storms, mists, and strong head-winds. But off the cape, the _Alert_ having to back to escape a nip, she fouled the _Discovery_ for a moment; the latter escaping, however, with nothing worse than the loss of a boat’s davit.

The ice gradually breaking up before a strong south-west wind, the two ships crossed Scoresby Bay, which was perfectly clear, but rolled with a heavy sea. As they approached Cape Frazer, they were buffeted by a terrible gale, and put in to Maury Bay, anchoring among a quantity of grounded ice. Three days were spent in arduous efforts to double Cape Frazer,--one of the _bêtes noires_ of Arctic navigators, because it is the meeting-point of the flood-tides, north and south, one from the Polar Ocean and the other from the Atlantic,--and Cape Hayes, the boundary-mark of the channel. Then the voyagers, with glad hearts, passed into Smith Sound; and hugging the shore as closely as was safe, arrived on the 29th at Prince Imperial Island, in Dobbin Bay, “every one heartily thankful to be out of the pack, clear of the straggling icebergs, and for the ships to be secured to fixed ice once more.”

The temperature now sunk again below freezing-point. The brief Arctic summer was over, and day and night the young sea-ice formed continuously. The mists that had hitherto accompanied the ships cleared away before a brisk northerly wind, and revealed a magnificent panorama of lofty mountains, white with shrouds of snow, and deep valleys filled with colossal glaciers. One of these stretched downwards to the shore, and threw off great icebergs which floated or stranded in Dobbin Bay. It was named after the Empress Eugénie, who had taken a lively personal interest in the expedition.

Crossing Dobbin Bay on the 1st of September, the voyagers came within a quarter of a mile of a depôt of provisions established near Cape Hawks in the previous autumn, and succeeded in removing a portion. A day or two later Captain Nares landed on Washington Island, and visited a cairn which he had raised there on the 12th of August 1865. He visited, also, two old cairns erected by former explorers; the lichens with which they were gray proved that they were of earlier date than Dr. Hayes’ expedition.

On the 3rd of September, by dint of steaming assiduously, the ships rammed their way through a lane of water to the westward of Cape Hawks, which was inconveniently obstructed by loose pieces of old ice. After rounding the cape, says the captain, the pack by drifting away from the land had left unfrozen water and numerous detached small floes, which forced them to make a very serpentine course, and occasionally to pass within thirty yards of the low ice-foot on the shore, fortunately always finding deep water. In this way they reached Allman Bay, half-way between Cape Hawks and Franklin Pierce Bay. Meeting here with a belt of new ice, the _Discovery_ was sent ahead; and under full steam she forced a canal through the ice, which was from one to three inches thick. From the lofty hills in the interior a huge glacier leads down to Allman Bay; and it is a noticeable fact that always in the neighbourhood of a glacier-stream the water was found nearly fresh, and of the temperature of 32°.

On the 7th our homeward-bound ships reached Norman Lockyer Island, on the margin of Princess Marie Bay. The season was now far advanced, and as the slightest mistake might have led to the vessels being ice-bound for the winter, the two captains ascended to the highest point of the island to obtain some idea of the prospect before them. They were much relieved by seeing a large area of open water some twenty miles distant, which they conjectured would extend to the mouth of Smith Sound. No time was lost in getting under way; and the ships crossed two-thirds of the distance before they fell in with ice. By charging it under full steam, they cleared the obstacle, and then, through an open-water channel, ran on to Cape Sabine.

On the 9th of September they arrived off Cape Isabella, where they found a small packet of letters and newspapers which had been left at the depôt by the _Pandora_. The weather was now calm, and the wind favourable. Sail was hoisted, therefore, as the supply of coal began to run short, and on the evening of the 12th the expedition reached Bardin Bay. During the 13th and the 14th they worked southward into Wolstenholm Sound; and thence, with a south-easterly wind, crossed to Cape Byam Martin, which they reached on the 16th. Two days later they entered the well-known waters of Melville Bay; on the 25th they arrived at Disco, where, and afterwards at Egedesminde, they obtained some small supplies of coal.

Egedesminde was left behind on the 2nd of October, and on the 4th the two ships recrossed the Arctic Circle--exactly fifteen months from the time of crossing it on the outward voyage. Experiencing adverse winds, they made but slow progress to the southward; and as the weather became warmer and damper, a few of the men suffered from rheumatism and catarrhs. During a heavy gale on the 19th, the two ships separated; but both, as we have seen, reached the shores of England in safety, where their gallant officers and crews met with the hearty welcome so thoroughly merited by their courage, perseverance, and heroic industry.

Some notes on the general results obtained by the expedition in zoology, botany, and geology, have appeared in the _Academy_. The two naturalists under whose care these departments were placed,--Captain Feilden, in the _Alert_, and Mr. Hart, in the _Discovery_,--worked with unflagging energy and no small success.

Of mammals, the species found farthest north were the Arctic fox, the wolf, the ermine, the Polar hare, the lemming, and the musk-ox,--all of which were seen on the shores of the great Polar Basin or Palæocrystic Sea. No cetaceans were sighted north of Payer Harbour, near Cape Sabine; a fact which renders all the more serious the gradual process of extermination of the Greenland (or right) whale in more southern latitudes. The only seal found beyond Cape Union, in lat. 82° 15’ N., was the little ringed seal or “floe-rat” (_Phoca hispida_).

So far as the land extended, bird life prevailed; the species being the snowy owl, the snow-bunting, and the ptarmigan. Full collections were made of all the birds frequenting Smith Sound; and our naturalists had the satisfaction of discovering the long-sought-for breeding-haunts of the knott and sanderling.[13]

Few species of marine fish were obtained, but “an interesting small salmonoid” was met with in fresh-water lakes as far north as lat. 82° 35’. A fine collection of marine invertebrates was secured by dredging and trawling; and the character of the sea-bottom from Baffin Bay up to lat. 83° 19’ N. was accurately ascertained by a series of careful soundings.

In the department of botany our naturalists were rewarded by the discovery of between twenty and thirty species of phanerogamic plants between the parallels of 82° and 83°. Much richer and more varied results were obtained in the cryptogamic flora.

Geologically, the facts arrived at were of the utmost value. “The whole west coast of Smith Sound, from Cape Isabella to Cape Union, has been fully surveyed and mapped, and large collections have been made both of fossils and rock-specimens; while the sledge-parties which explored the shore of the Polar Basin, both to east and west, brought back sufficient material to determine the geological character of the country. Silurian limestones, richly fossiliferous, were the prevailing rocks along Smith Sound. Miocene deposits, _including a twenty-foot seam of coal_, were found as far north as lat. 81° 44’. From the shales and sandstones of this formation a beautiful series of leaf-impressions were collected, illustrating the characteristic flora of the epoch, and presenting a remarkable demonstration of the existence of a temperate climate within five hundred miles of the present Pole at a comparatively recent geological time. Not less important are the indications of great recent changes in the elevation of the land afforded by the discovery of thick post-pliocene deposits, lying at a considerable elevation above the sea-level, and containing fossils similar to the existing marine fauna. Lastly, very interesting and suggestive observations have been made on glaciation and ice-action in general.”

This, of course, is but a summary, and a very brief and condensed one, of researches which have evidently been of the highest importance. And it might almost be said of the late expedition, that even had its geographical discoveries been less valuable, its scientific results would have entitled it to a foremost place in the annals of Arctic Enterprise.

* * * * *

Our record of Arctic expeditions will fitly close with a sketch of the cruise of the _Pandora_, a screw-yacht commanded by Captain Allen Young, which left England in the summer of 1876, in order to open up communications with the Admiralty expedition.

Captain Young left Upernavik on the evening of the 19th of July, and stood away to the northward--in bad weather, and with the wind blowing a gale. Through vast fields of ice he threaded his way, sometimes under sail, sometimes under steam, until, on the morning of the 24th, he found his ship completely surrounded, in lat. 75° 10’ N.

No time was lost in endeavouring to effect an escape by charging the ice at full speed,--again and again returning to the onset; and a slow but steady progress was being made, when the field in which they were held fast, drifting before the gale, “collided” with a group of grounded bergs, and exposed the little vessel to such severe pressure, that preparations were made for abandoning her. Provisions, ammunition, camping and travelling gear, all were made ready, and the boats were lowered as far as possible at the davits. Meantime, heavy charges of gunpowder were used to blast the ice where it pressed the ship most severely; and the bergs taking a different direction, the _Pandora_ began to recover herself, and before night settled down nearly to her usual level. In the darkness of the night, with the wind howling, and the snow and sleet driving in heavy showers, she moved ahead with the pack; and in this way continued her progress until the 27th, when the weather cleared, and Captain Young discovered that he had advanced right into the heart of Melville Bay, with no water in sight. Full in view were Capes Walker and Melville, the Peaked Hill, and huge glacier-streams embedded in the intervening valleys. All around was one vast monotonous sheet of rugged ice. It was not until the 29th that the _Pandora_, after many hairbreadth escapes, got into open water, in lat. 75° 50’ N., and long. 64° 55’ W. While thus imprisoned in the grasp of the floe, the explorers killed only one Polar bear, four seals, and a few little auks.

In a clear sea they now stood away to the westward, passing Capes Dudley, Digges, and Athol, and other headlands familiar in the records of Arctic adventure. At noon on the 31st, when off Wolstenholm Island, another gale overtook them, increasing rapidly to almost hurricane fury. This was an unpleasant experience; for the deck was washed by heavy seas, and it was with the greatest difficulty they avoided coming into collision with the icebergs which drifted rapidly through the snow and spray.

Reaching Cary Island, they landed to examine Captain Nares’ depôt of provisions, and found it in good preservation. The cairn had not been visited since Young’s call at the island on the 10th of September in the previous year. Afterwards they made for Sutherland Island, where they found a record of the American explorer, Captain Hartstene, dated August 16, 1855. It is with a curious feeling that, in these regions of almost perpetual winter, the voyager comes upon such faint memorials of men who, like him, have dared all the perils of ice-floes and icebergs, and adventured into seas far beyond the track of ordinary commercial enterprise.

On Littleton Island, a record of the expedition was found. The document was dated July 28, 1875, and signed by Captain Nares; and it indicated the course about to be taken by the ships under his orders. Owing to the ice-encumbered condition of the straits, however, Captain Young could not follow it up; and instead of crossing to Cape Isabella, he resolved to examine the coast in Hartstene Bay, in order to seek a harbour for the relief-ship which the Admiralty had intended to send out in 1877, in case of the non-return of the Polar Expedition. This was found on the 4th of August, not far from the Eskimo settlement of Etah, and named after the _Pandora_. It would seem to offer every advantage as winter quarters for Arctic discovery-ships; the surrounding hills are “dotted with Arctic hares, appearing like snow-balls on the luxurious vegetation.” The little auk breeds in thousands on the cliffs, eider fowl and guillemots haunt the waters, and the adjacent valleys and pastures are frequented by reindeer.

Captain Young next made for Cape Isabella, which he reached on the 6th of August. Watchful eyes soon discovered a large cairn on the summit of this headland. A boat was lowered, and the contents of the cairn soon obtained, while despatches and letters for Captain Nares’ expedition were left in their stead. Then the _Pandora_ steamed to the northward; but, owing to the adverse winds and the accumulated ice, could make no way, and was forced back to Cape Isabella. Another attempt was made to the eastward, and for several days the gallant little ship crossed and recrossed the straits, through the pack, always beset with ice, and frequently enshrouded in impenetrable fogs. No fewer than three times was she compelled to take shelter in Pandora Harbour. On the 19th she was driven back to the northward of Littleton Island, and Captain Young and some of his officers took the opportunity of visiting the _Polaris_ camp. Nothing remained of the house erected by Captain Buddington except a few broken boards. The rocks were strewn with pieces of metal, fragments of clothing, and other waifs and strays. The _cache_ in which the retreating party had deposited their books and instruments was also examined; but the only relics were a brass bowl of a seven-inch compass, a tin tube, and parts of a telescope. Some cases and casks, containing records for the use of Captain Nares, were securely placed among the rocks on the western point of the island; and Captain Young then returned to Cape Isabella.

Finding nothing here of any interest, and convinced that no travelling or boat party had reached that position from the Polar ships, the _Pandora_ bore away to the northward under canvas. “It was very dark and thick,” says Captain Young, “but sufficiently clear to enable us to avoid the heavy ice. By nine A.M. we were up to Lecomte Island, when we were stopped by a fog until eleven o’clock, when I could see from aloft that the main pack extended across the straits into Rosse Bay. We were in a lake of land water, with close-packed and heavy ice all round, from south to north, and again closing on the land from the eastward. Our only chance of moving seemed to be through a narrow lead or slack place, running first to the east-north-east, and then again apparently towards the east coast. We entered the pack, and succeeded by five P.M. in again escaping into the land water in Hartstene Bay.” Such are the experiences of twelve hours in the ice-clogged waters of the North! But we need not delay the reader with these minute particulars, notwithstanding their interest as illustrative of the nature of the struggle waged with so much persistency of purpose by the Arctic explorer. The sea was now covered everywhere with ice and bergs. Storms were of frequent occurrence; and the wind and wave beaten _Pandora_ was forced back into Baffin Bay.

Here, on the 28th of August, her captain could see that the solid ice had filled the straits and the head of the bay right across to Cape Alexander. The way north being thus obstructed, Captain Young resolved on proceeding towards Upernavik, in North Greenland, hoping to find that the last ship had not already sailed for Denmark, and in that case to send an officer home with despatches, while the _Pandora_ returned to Smith Strait.

On the 29th she was off Hakluyt Island, and steered for Bardin Bay in Whale Sound. On entering the bay, a summer tent could be seen, and some Eskimos, with their dogs, running to and fro, evidently with the view of attracting the attention of the visitors. Captain Young accordingly landed, with some of his officers, and accompanied by Christian, his Eskimo interpreter. The natives met them with the utmost confidence and fearlessness, assisting to haul their boat up on the shore. They were ten in number, and all members of one family. Food appeared to be plentiful with them, but they were profuse in their thanks for some walrus-flesh given by Captain Young. Their manners were frank and communicative, and they showed considerable vivacity, rejoicing over the results of a very good hunting season. Neither European ships nor white men had they seen for years; but they said that an old man, who, with his family, inhabited Northumberland Island, told of two ships which had passed to the northward “last summer.” How lonely must be the life led by these poor savages! Never gladdened by the sight of a sail; but, year after year, shut up in their frozen solitudes, and without any other object or purpose before them than to obtain just enough food to avoid a premature and miserable death!

Among their treasures Captain Young observed a ship’s bucket, half the top of a mahogany table, the paddle of a Greenlander’s kayack, much ice-worn, and a piece of packing-case marked “Lime juice--Leith;” all of which, they said, had drifted into the bay at different times from the southward. These people seemed to Captain Young of a kind and simple disposition, while they were evidently robust and healthy. All that they had--and it was little enough--they freely pressed upon their visitor; and when asked what present they would like, their chief selected only some gimlets and a fifteen-foot ash oar. The latter, he said, would split up into spear-shafts; the former he wanted for boring bone and ivory. Captain Young, however, gave them several other useful articles; accepting in return some narwhal horns, specimens of their pot-stone cooking-kettles, and of the iron pyrites which they used for striking fire. An exchange of dogs also took place; five of the dogs belonging to the _Pandora_ being given for three of the finest bear-hunting and tame dogs of the Eskimos.

At Upernavik, the _Pandora_, after a stormy and dangerous passage, arrived on the evening of September the 7th, but found that the last ship had sailed for Europe. As there were no means, therefore, of communicating with England, and as, without such communication, Captain Young did not feel authorized to winter in the North, a supply of fresh water wars taken on board, and the ship steered for home. From the 15th to the 21st she tarried at Goodhav’n, in Disco Island. In Davis Strait she encountered large quantities of heavy Spitzbergen drift-ice, and weathered a severe south-easterly gale. On the 16th of October, in lat. 54° 38’ N., and long. 44° 30’ W., she sighted the Arctic ships, _Alert_ and _Discovery_, and hastened to communicate with them. They kept together until the 19th. On the following day, the _Pandora_ was buffeted by another hurricane; but the rest of her voyage was accomplished in safety, and was marked by no incidents of importance.

Here, for the present, terminates the record of British enterprise and adventure in the Arctic World. It is difficult to believe, however, that the nation will rest until the “heart of the mystery has been plucked out,” the Secret finally mastered, and the British flag hoisted on that remote point which is conventionally known as the NORTH POLE.

INDEX.

Agaricus muscarius, 139.

Agassiz, experiments of, 116.

Alectoria jubata, 137.

Aletsch glacier, the, described, 47.

Algol, or Medusa’s Head, 39.

Arctic Highlanders, 12.

Arctic night, the, characteristics of, 32–34, 93–95.

Arctic region, extent of, 13, 14.

Atmospheric phenomena, 31.

Auk, the, described, 97, 98.

Aurora Borealis, the, phenomena of, 27; theory of, 29.

Baffin, discoveries of, 227.

Barents, adventures of, 266–269.

Barrens, the, region of, described, 16.

Bear, Polar, natural history of the, 85–93; hunting seals, 86; voracity of, 88; affection for its young, 88, 89.

Beechey, Captain, quoted, 45, 46, 55.

Bell, quoted, 78.

Bellot, Lieutenant, quoted, 123.

Bennet, Stephen, voyage of, 228.

Berkeley, quoted, 140.

Birds, migrations of, 11.

Boötes, constellation of, 40.

Bremer, Frederika, quoted, 138.

Brewster’s, Sir David, experiment with polarised light, 111.

Buddington, Captain, adventures of, 308–311.

Burrough, Stephen, voyage of, 222, 223.

Button, Captain, voyage of, 227.

Bylot, Robert, voyage of, 227.

Carlsen, Captain, voyage of, 270.

Cladonia rangiferina, 137.

Clarke, Dr., quoted, 203.

Clavering, Captain, referred to, 12.

Cochlearia, or scurvy-grass, uses of, 139.

Coleridge, quoted, 69.

Constellations, northern, list of, 37.

Cooley, Mr., quoted, 230.

Corvidæ, the, natural history of, 160.

Cryptogamous plants of the north, 141, 142.

Crystallization, process of, 108.

Cygnus musicus, 161.

D’Almeida, Count, quoted, 205, 206.

Davis, Captain John, voyages of, 224, 225.

Dolphins, the, natural history of, 82, 83.

_Dorothea_, the, narrow escape of, 55.

Dufferin, Lord, quoted, 166, 167, 172.

Eider ducks, the, natural history of, 103; in Iceland, 104.

Eskimo dog, the, description of, 190.

Eskimo, the, hunting the walrus, 68, 69; hut of, 76.

Eskimo kayak described, 182.

Eskimo seal-hunt, an, described, 77, 78.

Eskimo sledge, the, described, 192–196.

Eskimos, the, boundaries of, 175; character, manners, customs, and clothing, 179–196.

Falcon, the, natural history of, 160.

Faraday, ingenious experiment of, 111.

Felinska, Madame, quoted, 211.

Fish in the Arctic seas, 106.

Flora of the Arctic lands, 19.

Fox, Luke, voyage of, 228.

Fox, the Arctic, natural history of, 151–153.

Fox-trap, a, described, 152.

Franklin, Sir J., overland journey of, 231; last expedition of, 231; relics of, discovered, 233, 235, 236.

Fritillaria sarrana, the, properties of, 142, 143.

Frobisher, Sir Martin, voyage of, 223.

Frobisher Strait discovered, 223.

Gale, an Arctic, described, 70.

Gârds of Lapland, described, 207.

_Germania_, the, expedition of, 245–265.

Geysers, the, phenomena of, 165–167.

Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, death of, 224.

Glacier-ice, peculiarities of, 112.

Glacier in Smith Strait, 124, 127; of Sermiatsialik, 128, 129.

Glaciers, characteristics of, 47; motion of, 113–115; phenomena connected with, 115–118; of the Arctic regions, 118–133; of Spitzbergen, 120, 123.

Godhav’n, 167.

Grampus, the, natural history of, 83, 84.

Greenland, scenery on the coast of, 22.

Guillemot, the, described, 96, 97.

Gull, the, described, 103.

Hall, Captain, expedition and death of, 271, 272.

_Hansa_, the, voyage and loss of, 245–251.

Hans the Hunter, 186–189, 284.

Hare, the Arctic, 154.

Hartwig, Dr., quoted, 15.

Hayes, Dr., quoted, 25, 35, 43, 49, 50, 59, 87, 95, 96, 124, 125, 127, 128, 138, 152, 153, 186, 191, 192, 244; Arctic expedition of, 244, 245.

Hearne, quoted, 183.

_Hecla_, the, and the _Fury_, danger of, 56.

Hegemann, Captain, 245.

Hekla, eruption of, 164.

Henderson, Dr., quoted, 172.

Hill, Mr., quoted, 213, 214.

Hobson, Lieutenant, discovers Franklin relics, 234–236.

Holland, Mr., quoted, 173.

Hore, Mr., voyage of, 222.

Hudson, Henry, discoveries of, 225–228.

Humboldt Glacier, description of, 131–134, 238.

Hutchinson, Captain, quoted, 205.

Icebergs, their dimensions, 41; their magnificent appearance, 42, 43; danger to navigation from, 44, 123; breaking up of, 49; range of, 50, 51; in Baffin Bay, 124.

Ice-fields, extent and character of, 54, 56, 57.

Ice-flowers, characteristics of, 108.

Iceland, dimensions of, 162; history of, 162; volcanoes of, 163; dreary landscapes of, 164; geysers of, 166, 167; houses and churches of, 170; travelling in, 172; horses of, 173.

Iceland moss, uses of, 138, 139.

Jacobshav’n, 168.

Jakut merchants, the, enterprise of, 217.

Jakuts, the, as bear-hunters, 212; manners and customs of, 216, 217.

James, Captain Thomas, voyage of, 228.

Joe the Eskimo, with Captain Tyson, 278, _et sqq._

Kamtschatka, fisheries of, 212; the dog of, 214, 215.

Kamtschatkans, the, characteristics of, 213, 214.

Kane, Dr., quoted, 15, 32, 33, 34, 42, 68, 73, 74, 88, 91, 92, 131–134, 149, 153, 184, 185, 237, 239, 242, 243; Arctic explorations of, 237–244.

Knots, the, habits of, 11, 12.

Koldewey, Captain, referred to, 12; voyage of, 245.

Lagopus, the, 161.

Lamont, Mr., quoted, 60, 62.

Lapland, divisions and extent of, 197; climate of, 197; inhabitants of, 197; the reindeer in, 200; sledging in, 201; an interior in, 204, 205.

Lapp dialect, the, 206.

Lapp hunters, the, boldness of, 202.

Lapps, the, dress, manners, and customs of, 198.

Lapps, the Mountain, character of, 199, 200.

Lapps of West Bothnia, 206, 207.

Laube, Dr., quoted, 252.

Lemming, the Arctic, 154.

Macmillan, Dr., quoted, 135, 136, 137, 141.

Markham, C., quoted, 10, 175, 225, 226, 273.

Marten, the, 155.

Martins, M. Charles, quoted, 119, 120, 121.

M’Clintock, Captain Sir Roderick, quoted, 148, 151, 181, 265; voyage of, 234.

M’Clure, Sir Robert, quoted, 81; discovers North-West Passage, 233.

Mecham, Captain, quoted, 146, 150.

Mer de Glace of Greenland, 127, 128.

Merganser, the natural history of, 99.

Milton, Lord, and Dr. Cheadle, quoted, 158–160.

Moonlight in the Polar World, 26.

Moraines, described, 115.

Moravian mission-stations in Greenland, 179.

Mosses in the Arctic regions, 139.

Musk-ox, the, natural history of, 149, 150.

Mustelidæ family, the, in the Arctic regions, 155.

Nares, Captain, expedition of, 314, _et sqq._

Narwhal, the, natural history of, 82.

Newfoundland colonized, 224.

North-West Passage, utility of, 9.

Novaia Zemlaia, temperature of, 21.

Osborn, Admiral Sherard, quoted, 44, 81, 84, 85, 87, 146, 151, 232, 236, 237.

Ostiaks, the, manners and customs of, 211, 212.

Ostrownoje, trade at, 220.

Oxyria, the, uses of, 141.

Pack-ice, description of, 53.

Parry, Captain, quoted, 44, 46, 56, 230; voyages of, 228, 229, 230.

Payer, Lieutenant, voyage of, 270, 271.

Penny, Captain, voyage of, 232–234.

Phænogamous plants of the north, 141.

Phocidæ, the.--See SEAL.

Plant-life of Spitzbergen, 142; of Kamtschatka, 142, 143.

Pleiads, the, 39.

_Polaris_, the, voyage of, 271–313.

Polecat, the, in the Arctic regions, 156, 157.

Pole-Star, the, position of, 36.

Poole, Jonas, voyage of, 228.

Puffin, the, natural history of, 99.

Quenes, or Finns, the, 206.

Rae, Dr., finds relics of Franklin, 233.

Red snow, phenomenon of, explained, 135.

Refraction, phenomena of, 31.

Regelation, what it is, 111.

Reikiavik, description of, 168, 169.

Reindeer, the, natural history of, 144; usefulness of, 145; food of, 146; and wolves, 147; in Siberia, 218, 219.

Reindeer moss, 137.

Rendu, Bishop, quoted, 114.

Richardson, Sir J., quoted, 145.

Rock-hair, 137.

Rorqual, the, 80.

Ross, Sir James, quoted, 145.

Ross, Sir John, voyages of, 228, 231.

Sabine, Sir Edward, quoted, 10.

Sable, the, natural history of, 156.

Samojedes, the, superstitions of, 208, 209; manners and customs of, 210, 211.

Schaïtan, an Ostiak idol, 211.

Scoresby, Dr., quoted, 44, 106, 186.

Seal, the, natural history of, 71–73; flesh of, 73, 74; different genera of, 75.

Sermiatsialik, glacier of, 127, 128.

Shepherd, Mr., quoted, 104.

Skaptá Jokul, eruption of, 165.

Smew, the, natural history of, 100.

Smith Sound, route by, 228.

Snow, formation of, 108.

Snow-crystals, described, 109.

Snow-line, limit of, 20.

Somerville, Mrs., quoted, 30, 107.

Southey, quoted, 136.

Sporidesmium lepraria, 140.

Spring in the Arctic regions, 34.

Starakis, the, described, 98.

Stephenson, Captain, of the _Discovery_, 314.

Summer in the Arctic regions, 36.

Swan, the wild, natural history of, 105; the whistling, 161.

Tadebtsios, or Samojede demons, 209.

Tadibe, the Samojede priest, 209.

Tchuktche, the, manners and customs of, 220.

Temperature of Arctic winter, 33.

Tennyson, quoted, 105.

Thingvalla, the, in Iceland, 168.

Thorne, Dr. Robert, Arctic exploration proposed by, 222.

Tripe de roche, 137, 138.

Tundras, the stony, described, 15, 16.

Tungusi, the, characteristics of, 219, 220.

Tyndall, Professor, quoted, 47, 48, 108, 109–111, 112, 113, 115, 117, 118.

Tyson, Captain, narrative of, 278–308.

Unknown Region, extent of, 10.

Upernavik, described, 176.

Ursa Major, constellation of, 36; description of, 37, 38.

Waigatz, island of, 208.

Walrus, the, natural history of, 63; courage of, 64; gradual decay of, 67.

Walrus-hunt, a, described, 68, 69.

Walrus-hunting, how carried on, 60; proceeds of, 62.

Ware, quoted, 37, 38.

Whale, the, natural history of, 78; characteristics of the Greenland, 79, 80; the Razor-backed, 80.

Whalebone, what it is, described, 79.

Whale-fishery of the Eskimos, 81.

Whirlwinds of the north, 31.

Willoughby, Sir Hugh, loss of, 222.

Wolf, the Arctic, natural history of, 148.

Wolverine, the, cunning of, 157; anecdotes of, 158–160.

Wooded zone of the Arctic regions, 143.

Wrangel, Admiral von, quoted, 20, 81, 218, 221.

Yakutsk, temperature of, 26.

Young, Captain, cruise of, in the _Pandora_, 334.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The _Tringa canutus_ of ornithologists.

[2] _Abies alba et nigra._

[3] _Larix Canadensis._

[4] _Pinus Banksiana._

[5] _Abies Sibirica_, _Larix Sibirica_.

[6] Tyndall, “Forms of Water,” p. 137.

[7] The name given to a plain of ice near Mont Blanc.

[8] Scoresby calculated that it would require 80,000 persons, labouring continuously from the creation of man to the present day, to count the number of organisms contained in two miles of the green water.

[9] So called from its circular form, and because the surface of the leaf is marked with curved lines.

[10] A more moderate estimate says 1300 persons.

[11] _The Academy_, November 4, 1876, p. 453.

[12] “Here let the billows stiffen and have rest.”--COLERIDGE.

[13] The scarcity of animal life in the remote North is shown by the small quantity of game shot by the sportsmen of the expedition after reaching winter quarters:--six musk-oxen, twenty hares, seventy geese, twenty-six ducks, ten ptarmigan, and three foxes.

Transcriber’s Notes:

1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been corrected silently.

2. Where hyphenation is in doubt, it has been retained as in the original.

3. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have been retained as in the original.

4. Where appropriate, the original spelling has been retained.

5. Italics are shown as _xxx_.