Stray Leaves From An Arctic Journal Part 12

lbs.

Total dead weight 440 Pemmican and cases 330 Biscuit and dust, &c. 278 Pork and packages 123 Tea, sugar, chocolate, tobacco, &c., in a case 47 Lime-juice and rum 67 Spirits of wine and tallow 78 Sundries, tins, &c. 45 _____ Number of men to drag, 7 1408 _____ 201 lbs. per man.

The officer's load consisted of a gun, powder and ball, telescope, compa.s.s, and note-book; and as all the party, in antic.i.p.ation of cold weather, had to be heavily clad, it may be supposed that the total weight to be dragged through snow and over rough ice was quite as much as the stoutest physical powers were capable of. Several days previous to departure we had travelled short journeys, in perfect marching order, and sledges ladened,--an arrangement which was highly beneficial; and from the way the sledges went over the floe, they gave us high hopes of answering our expectations in the forthcoming march.

From head-quarters the following arrangement of sledges was made public:--

Capt. Erasmus Ommanney was to cross Barrow's Strait to Cape Walker, with the following sledges and officers under his orders: he there was to use his own judgment as to the disposal of the force, it being required, in the event of two routes showing themselves, viz., one to the S.W., and the other W., that Lieut. Sherard Osborn was to be ordered to take up the latter.

[Headnote: _GRAND SOUTHERN SEARCH._]

_CAPTAIN OMMANNEY'S COMMAND._

+-------------------+-----------+---------------------+-----------------+ Long-party sledge Reliance _Domine dirige nos_ Captain Ommancy, six men. +-------------------+-----------+---------------------+-----------------+ Ditto ditto True Blue _Nil desperandum_ Lieutenant Osborn, seven men. +-------------------+-----------+---------------------+-----------------+ Supporting sledge Succour _Sequor juvare_ Lieut. G. F. Mecham, six men. +-------------------+-----------+---------------------+-----------------+ Gaze where some distant speck Ditto ditto Enterprise a sail implies, Lieut. W. H. With all the Browne, six men. thirsting gaze of enterprise. +-------------------+-----------+---------------------+-----------------+ Ditto ditto } Nothing adventure, Mr. Vesey to Lieutenant } Adventure Nothing win Hamilton (mate), Osborne seven men. +-------------------------------+---------------------+-----------------+ Ditto ditto Inflexible _Respice finem_ Mr. Charles Ede (a.s.sist. surg.), six men. +-------------------+-----------+---------------------+-----------------+ Ditto ditto Success One and all Mr. F. S. Crabbe (2d master), seven men. +-------------------+-----------+---------------------+-----------------+

To the highly important direction northward up the unknown channel of Byam Martin Island, and which, as Lieut. Aldrich very properly thought, would intercept the course of Franklin, should he, from Wellington Channel, have sailed north about for Behring's Straits, two sledges were told off under that officer:--

+-------------------+-----------+---------------------+-----------------+ Long-party sledge Lady Faithful and firm Lieut. R. D. Franklin Aldrich, 7 men. +-------------------+-----------+---------------------+-----------------+ Supporting sledge Hotspur In Deo confide Mr. R. R. Pea.r.s.e (mate), 7 men. +-------------------+-----------+---------------------+-----------------+

Lastly to Melville Island, on which route a depot, forty miles in advance, had already been placed in the autumn, and renewed in the spring, the following party was appointed: Lieut. M'Clintock, on his reaching the said island, acting as he should judge fit as to despatching Mr. Bradford along the northern sh.o.r.es, whilst he prosecuted the search to and beyond Winter Harbour:--

+-------------------+--------------+------------------+-----------------+ Long-party sledge Perseverance _Persevere to Lieut. the end_ M'Clintock, 6 men. +-------------------+--------------+------------------+-----------------+ St. George and merry England Dr. Bradford, Do. Resolute Onward to 6 men. the rescue +-------------------+--------------+------------------+-----------------+ Supporting sledge Excellent Respice, Mr. W. May prospice (mate), 6 men. +-------------------+--------------+------------------+-----------------+ Do. Dasher Faithful & Mr. Sh.e.l.labear intrepid. (2d master), 6 men. +-------------------+--------------+------------------+-----------------+ Do. Parry Endeavour Mr. Cheyne to deserve (mate), 7 men. +-------------------+--------------+------------------+-----------------+

Mr. M'Dougal, I have before said, started during the first week of April with his sledge, the "Beaufort,"--

That future pilgrims of the wave may be Secure from doubt, from every danger free.

He had to replenish the depot formed for Lieut. M'Clintock, and then to connect the search round a deep bay, which connected Bathurst and Cornwallis Lands, for separate islands they were proved by him no longer to be.

[Headnote: _DIVISIONS OF SLEDGES._]

Thus fifteen sledges, manned by one hundred and five men and officers, were equipped for the search, leaving on board the four vessels of the squadron, seventy-five souls, which number was afterwards further reduced by Mr. R. C. Allen being sent to search the islands to the westward with the sledge "Grinnell" and seven men.

It now only remains for me to show in what manner it was proposed to enable the supporting sledges to apply their resources, so that the long-parties should reach far beyond the two hundred miles, or twenty days' journey, of which they were alone capable when dependent on their own provision.

The plan proposed in the southern division will give the best idea. The supporting sledge "Success" was capable of feeding all the division for five days, by which time we hoped to be at Cape Walker, and then have sufficient to return back to the squadron, where it could again replenish, and, returning to the same point at which we had separated from it, form such a depot that each of the sledges in return would find five days' provisions to carry them home. By this means six out of the seven sledges in the southern search will be seen to reach a point fifty miles from their original starting-point in perfect condition so far as their provisions are concerned.

We will, for the sake of clearness, cause these six sledges to divide into three divisions, of two each, viz., a long-party sledge and a support: in each case the support can feed the long party for ten days, and then, forming a depot of provisions equal to ten days more, have sufficient left to reach back to Walker, and thence home. The long party are now still complete, after receiving two supports, equal to fifteen days, or 150 miles; and two depots stand in their rear, the one for ten days, the other for five days. The long party now starts, consuming its own provision (forming its own depots for the returning march), advances for twenty days, and accomplishes 200 miles; which, with that done whilst supported, makes in all a journey outward of thirty-five days, or 350 miles from the s.h.i.+ps. Of course, with an increased number of supports, this distance and time may be carried on as long as the strength of the men will endure, or the travelling season admit of.

On the 12th of April, the day calm and cold, some 50 below freezing-point, a scene of bustle and merriment showed that the sledges were mustering previous to being taken to the starting-point, under the north-west bluff of Griffith's Island, to which they marched with due military pomp in two columns, directed by our chiefs. Our sense of decorum was constantly overthrown by the gambols of divers dogs, given to us by Captain Penny, with small sledges attached to them, on which, their food duly marked and weighed, with flags, mottoes, &c., in fact, perfect fac-similes of our own, were racing about, entangling themselves, howling for a.s.sistance, or else running between the men's legs and capsizing them on the snow, amidst shouts of laughter, and sly witticisms at the _tenders_, as they were termed. Reaching the halting-place, tents were pitched, luncheon served out, and all of us inspected, approved of, ordered to fall in, a speech made, which, as was afterwards remarked, b.u.t.tered us all up admirably; the thanks of our leader given to Mr. M'Clintock, to whose foresight, whilst in England, and whose valuable information collated during his travelling experience under Sir James Ross, we were so entirely indebted for the perfect equipment we now had with us.

[Headnote: _SLEDGES READY TO START._]

The inspection over, we trudged back to our s.h.i.+ps, Sunday being spent by the men in cooking and eating, knowing as they did that there were a good many banian days ahead, packing up and putting away their kits, and making little arrangements in the event of accidents to themselves.

Monday was no day for a start; but on the evening of the 15th April the breeze slackened, and the temperature only some 14 below freezing-point, we donned our marching attire, girded up our loins, and all hands proceeded to the sledges.

As we shut in our wooden homes with a projecting point of Griffith's Island, the weather suddenly changed, and a fast increasing breeze enveloped us in snow-drift. Reaching the sledges, and shaking them clear from the snow of the last two days, a hasty cup of tea and a mouthful of biscuit were partaken of, a prayer offered up, beseeching His mercy and guidance whose kind providence we all knew could alone support us in the hazardous journey we were about to undertake; hearty farewells, in which rough jokes covered many a kindly wish towards one another; and then, grasping their tracking lines, a hundred hoa.r.s.e voices joined in loud cheers, and the divisions of sledges, diverging on their different routes, were soon lost to one another in snow and mist.

An April night, with its gray twilight, was no match for the darkness of a snow-storm from the S.W., and we had almost to feel our road through the broken ice off the bluffs of Griffith's Island.

At two o'clock in the morning we reached much piled-up ice; and in the hope of clearer weather in the evening, the word to halt and pitch the tents was given. The seven sledges of the division, picking out the smoothest spots, were soon secured. The tents fluttering in the breeze, a little tea cooked, short orders given, and then each man got into his blanket-bag, and dreamed of a fine day and finding Sir John Franklin.

In the evening the weather was still thick as pea-soup, with a double-reef topsail breeze blowing in our teeth; but detention was impossible, so we again packed up after a meal of chocolate and biscuit, and facing towards Cape Walker, we carried the hummocks by storm. Ignorance was bliss. Straight ahead, over and through every thing, was the only way; and, fresh, hearty, and strong, we surmounted tier after tier, which more light and a clearer view might only have frightened us from attempting. Here, a loud cheer told where a sledge had scaled the pile in its path, or shot in safety down the slope of some huge hummock. There, the cry, one! two! three! haul! of a party, and quizzical jokes upon name, flag, or motto, betokened that "Success"

or "True Blue" had floundered into a snow-wreath, above which the top of the sledge-load was only to be seen, whilst seven red-faced mortals, grinning, and up to their waists in snow, were perseveringly endeavouring to extricate it; officers encouraging, and showing the way; the men labouring and laughing. A wilder or more spirit-stirring scene cannot be imagined.

A hard night's toil cleared all obstacles, and nothing but a fair, smooth floe was before us, sweeping with a curve to the base of Cape Walker; but a fresh difficulty was then met with, in the total absence of hummock or berg-piece, by which to preserve a course in the thick, foggy weather, that lasted whilst the warm south wind blew. Imagine, kind reader, a grayish haze, with fast-falling snow, a constant wind in the face, and yourself trying to steer a straight course where floe and sky were of one uniform colour. A hand dog-vane was found the best guide, for of course it was impossible to keep a compa.s.s constantly in hand; and the officers forming in a line ahead, so as just to keep a good sight of one another, were followed by the sledges, the crews of which soon learned that the easiest mode of travelling, and most equal division of labour, consisted in marching directly after one another; and as the leading sledge had the extra work of forming the road through the snow, and straining the men's eyes in keeping sight of the officers, the foremost sledge was changed every half hour or hour, according to their will.

[Headnote: _TRAVELLING BY NIGHT._]

It will be seen that we travelled by night, and hoped by such means to avoid the glare of the sun, and consequent snow-blindness. It entailed, however, at this early season of the year, great suffering in the shape of cold, the people being exposed to the weather during the severest part of the day. From the 15th to the 19th the weather was of the same nature,--constant gales of wind in our faces, snow-storms, and heavy drift; against which we struggled, helped by a rising temperature, that we flattered ourselves would end in summer,--a mistake for which we afterwards suffered bitterly, the men having, from the ease with which they kept themselves warm, become careless of their clothing, and heedless of those precautions against frost-bite which a winter's experience had taught them.

Easter Sunday came in gloomily, with a wind inclined to veer to the northward, and with every appearance of bad weather. Setting our sails on the sledges, and kites likewise when the wind served, the division hurried on for Cape Walker, which loomed now and then through the snow-drift ahead of us. The rapidity of the pace at which we now advanced--thanks to the help afforded by the sails--threw all into a profuse perspiration, especially the seamen, who really looked as if toiling under a tropical sun rather than in an arctic night, with the temperature below freezing-point. Fatigue obliged us to halt short of the land, and postpone for another day's march the landing on the unvisited sh.o.r.es of Cape Walker.

During the sleeping hours, the increased attention to the fur covering, and the carefully closed door, told us that the temperature was falling; and the poor cook, with a rueful countenance, announced that it was below zero, as he prepared the morning meal. More than usual difficulty was found in pulling on our stiffly-frozen boots, stockings, and outer garments; and when the men went out of the tent they soon found their clothing becoming perfectly hard, from the action of the intense cold on what had been for several days saturated with perspiration. To start and march briskly was now the only safety, and in double-quick time tents were down and sledges moving. A nor'-wester was fast turning up, and as the night of Easter Monday closed around us, the cold increased with alarming rapidity. One of those magnificent conglomerations of halos and parhelia common to these regions lit up the northern heavens, and, by the brilliancy of colouring and startling number of false suns, seemed as if to be mocking the sufferings of our gallant fellows, who, with faces averted and bended bodies, strained every nerve to reach the land, in hopes of obtaining more shelter than the naked floe afforded from the nipping effects of the cutting gale.

Every moment some fresh case of frost-bite would occur, which the watchful care of the officers would immediately detect. The man would fall out from his sledge, restore the circulation of the affected part, generally the face, and then hasten back to his post. Constant questions of "How are your feet?" were heard on all sides, with the general response, "Oh! I hope they are all right; but I've not felt them since I pulled my boots on."

[Headnote: _COLD AND FROST-BITES._]

One halt was made to remove and change all leather boots, which, in consequence of our late warm weather, had been taken into use, but were now no longer safe; and then, with a rally, the piled-up floe around the cliffs of Cape Walker was reached. Cold and hungry as we were, it must have been a heavy barrier indeed to have stopped our men from taking their sledges to the land; and piled as the floe was against the Cape, full fifty feet high, we carried our craft over it in safety, and just in time too, for the north-west wind rushed down upon us, as if to dispute our right to intrude on its dominion. Hastily securing the tents, we hurried in to change our boots, and to see whether our feet were frost-bitten or not; for it was only by ocular proof that one could be satisfied of their safety, sensation having apparently long ceased. I shall not easily forget my painful feelings, when one gallant fellow of my party, the captain of the sledge, exclaimed, "Both feet gone, sir!" and sure enough they were, white as two lumps of ice, and equally cold; for as we of the tent party anxiously in turn placed our warm hands on the frost-bitten feet, the heat was extracted in a marvellously short time, and our half-frozen hands had to be succeeded by fresh ones as quickly as possible. With returning circulation the poor fellow's agonies must have been intense; and some hours afterwards large blisters formed over the frost-bitten parts, as if the feet had been severely scalded. Sadly cramped as we were for room, much worse was it when a sick man was amongst our number. Sleep was out of the question; and to roll up in the smallest possible compa.s.s, and try to think of something else than the cold, which pierced to the very marrow in one's bones, was our only resource.

Next day, Tuesday, 22d April, wind N.W. blowing hard, and temperature at 44 below freezing-point, parties left the encampment under Lieutenants Browne and Mecham, to look around for cairns, &c., and report upon the trend of the land, whilst the rest of us secured a depot of Halkett's boats, and built a cairn as a record of our visit.

As it is not my intention to give a detailed account of the operations of the Southern Division, but merely to tell of those events which will convey to the reader a general idea of the incidents connected with Arctic travelling, I shall without further comment give them, leaving to the curious in the minutiae of the journeys the amus.e.m.e.nt of reading in the Admiralty Blue Books the details of when we eat, drank, slept, or marched.

Cape Walker was found to form the eastern and most lofty extreme of a land-trending to the south-west on its northern coast, and to the south on its eastern sh.o.r.e. The cape itself, full 1000 feet in alt.i.tude, was formed of red sandstone and conglomerate, very abrupt to the eastward, but dipping with an undulating outline to the west.

In its immediate neighbourhood no traces of Franklin having visited it were to be seen, and, as a broad channel ran to the southward (there was every reason to believe down to the American continent, and thence to Behring's Straits), by which Franklin might have attempted to pa.s.s, Captain Ommanney, very properly despatched Lieutenant Browne to examine the coast of Cape Walker Land, down the channel to the southward; and then, the "Success" sledge having previously departed with invalids, the five remaining sledges, on the evening of the 24th of April, marched to the westward. Previous to that date it had been impossible to move, on account of a strong gale in our faces, together with a severe temperature.

[Headnote: _INJURY TO THE EYES._]

Every mile that we advanced showed us that the coast was one which could only be approachable by s.h.i.+ps at extraordinary seasons: the ice appeared the acc.u.mulation of many years, and bore, for some forty miles, a quiet, undisturbed look. Then we pa.s.sed into a region with still more aged features: there the inequalities on the surface, occasioned by the repeated snows of winter and thaws of summer, gave it the appearance of a constant succession of hill and dale. Entangled amongst it, our men laboured with untiring energy, up steep acclivities and through pigmy ravines, in which the loose snow caused them to sink deeply, and sadly increased their toil. To avoid this description of ice, amongst which a lengthened journey became perfectly hopeless, we struck in for the land, preferring the heavy snow that enc.u.mbered the beach to such a heart-breaking struggle as that on the floe. The injury had, however, been done during our last day's labour among the hummocks; a fine clear evening had given us the full effects of a powerful sunlight upon the pure virgin-snow: the painful effect, those alone can conceive who have witnessed it. All was white, brilliant, and dazzling; the eye in vain turned from earth to heaven for rest or shade,--there was none; an unclouded sunlight poured through the calm and frosty air with merciless power, and the sun, being exactly in our faces, increased the intensity of its effects.

That day several complained of a dull aching sensation in the eyeball, as if it had been overstrained, and on the morrow blindness was rapidly coming on. From experience, I can speak of the mental anxiety which must have likewise, with others, supervened, at the thought of one's entire helplessness, and the enc.u.mbrance one had become to others, who, G.o.d knows, had troubles and labour enough of their own. Gradually the film spread itself, objects became dimmer and dimmer, and at last all was darkness, with an intense horror of the slightest ray of sunlight.

In this condition, many of the four sledge-parties reached a place called by us all, in commemoration of the event, "Snow-blind Point," at the entrance of a bay in 100 W. long.

Unable to advance in consequence of a severe gale, which raged for six-and-thirty hours, we found, on the 1st of May, that sixteen men and one officer were, more or less, snow-blind and otherwise unwell; a large proportion out of the entire number of thirty souls. To be ill in any place is trying enough; but such an hospital as a brown-holland tent, with the thermometer in it at 18 below zero, the snow for a bed, your very breath forming into a small snow called "barber," which penetrated into your very innermost garments, and no water to be procured to a.s.suage the thirst of fever until snow had been melted for the purpose, called for much patience on the part of the patients, and true Samaritan feelings on the part of the "doctors,"--a duty which had now devolved on each officer of a sledge-party, or, in default of him, upon some kind volunteer amongst the men. Happily, the effects of snow-blindness are not lasting, for we recovered as suddenly as we had been struck down. The gale blew itself out, leaving all calm and still, as if the death-like scenery was incapable of such wild revelry as it had been enjoying; and again we plodded onwards, parting from the last supporting sledge on the 6th of May.

Since leaving Cape Walker on the 24th of April, we had gradually pa.s.sed, in a distance of sixty miles, from a red sandstone to a limestone region; the scenery at every mile becoming more and more monotonous, and less marked by bold outline, cliff, or mountain: as far as the bay, of which Snow-blind Point formed one extreme, a long range of hills, soft and rounded in _contour_, faced the sea, and sloped to it with a gradual inclination, some three miles in length; ravines became more and more scarce; and after pa.s.sing the bay, in 100 long.

W., none of any size were to be seen. Drearily monotonous as all Arctic scenery must naturally be, when one universal mantle of snow makes earth and water alike, such a tame region as this was, if possible, more so; and walking along the weary terraces, which in endless succession swept far into the interior, and then only rose in diminutive heights of maybe 500 feet, I recalled to memory the like melancholy aspect of the Arctic sh.o.r.es of Asia as described by Baron Wrangell.

[Headnote: _ZEAL OF THE MEN._]

The broken and rugged nature of the floes obliged us to keep creeping along the coast-line, whilst our ignorance of the land ahead, its trend or direction, occasioned, together with the endless thick weather that we had until the 14th May, many a weary mile to be trodden over, which a knowledge of the bays or indentations would have saved us. It was under such unprofitable labour that the sterling value of our men the more conspicuously showed itself. Captain Ommanney, myself, and Mr.

Webb of the "Pioneer," (who sooner than be left behind had voluntarily taken his place as one of the sledge-crew,) were the only three officers; we were consequently thrown much into the society of the men, and I feel a.s.sured I am not singular in saying that that intercourse served much to raise our opinion of the character and indomitable spirit of our seamen and marines. On them fell the hard labour, to us fell the honours of the enterprise, and to our chief the reward; yet none equalled the men in cheerfulness and sanguine hopefulness of a successful issue to our enterprise, without which, of course, energy would soon have flagged. Gallant fellows! they met our commiseration with a smile, and a vow that they could do far more. They spoke of cold as "Jack Frost," a real tangible foe, with whom they could combat and would master. Hunger was met with a laugh, and a chuckle at some future feast or jolly recollections told, in rough terms, of by-gone good cheer; and often, standing on some neighbouring pile of ice, and scanning the horizon for those we sought, have I heard a rough voice encouraging the sledge-crew by saying, "Keep step, boys! keep step! she (the sledge) is coming along almost by herself: there's the 'Erebus's'

masts showing over the point ahead! Keep step, boys! keep step!"

[Headnote: _PLEASING DREAMS._]

We had our moments of pleasure too,--plenty of them, in spite of the cold, in spite of fatigue. There was an honest congratulation after a good day's work; there was the time after the pemmican had been eaten, and each one, drawing up his blanket-bag around him, sat, pannikin in hand, and received from the cook the half-gill of grog; and after drinking it, there was sometimes an hour's conversation, in which there was more hearty merriment, I trow, than in many a palace,--dry witticisms, or caustic remarks, which made one's sides ache with laughter. An old marine, mayhap, telling a giddy lamby of a seaman to take his advice and never to be more than a simple private; for, as he philosophically argued, "whilst you're that, do you see, you have to think of nothing: there are petty officers, officers, captains, and admirals paid for looking after you and taking care of you!" or perhaps some scamp, with mock solemnity, wondering whether his mother was thinking of him, and whether she would cry if he never returned to England; on which a six-foot marine remarks, that "thank G.o.d, he has got no friends; and there would only be two people in England to cry about him,--the one, the captain of his company, who liked him because he was the tallest man in it, and the canteen sergeant, whom he had forgot to pay for some beer." Now a joke about our flags and mottoes, which one vowed to be mere jack-acting; then a learned disquisition on raising the devil, which one of the party declared he had seen done, one Sunday afternoon, for the purpose of borrowing some cash to play skittles with. In fact, care and thought were thrown to the winds; and, tired as we were, sleep often overtook us, still laughing at the men's witticisms. And then such dreams,--they seemed as if an angel had sent them to reward us for the hard realities of the day: we revelled in a sweet elysium; home was around us,--friends, kind, good friends, plenty smiled on every side; we eat, drank, and were merry; we visited old scenes with by-gone s.h.i.+pmates; even those who had long gone to that bourne whence traveller returneth not, came back to cheer our sleeping hours; and many a one, nigh forgot amongst the up-hill struggles of life, returned to gladden us with their smiles: and as we awoke to the morning meal, many a regret would be heard that so pleasant a delusion as the night had been spent in should be dispelled: each succeeding night, however, brought again "the cherub that watcheth over poor Jack," to throw sunny thoughts around the mind, and thus relieve our wayworn bodies.