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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Round About the North Pole, by W. J. Gordon

-

-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most

-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions

-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of

-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at

-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have

-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.

-

-

-

-Title: Round About the North Pole

-

-Author: W. J. Gordon

-

-Illustrator: Edward Whymper

-

-Release Date: July 1, 2016 [EBook #52462]

-

-Language: English

-

-Character set encoding: UTF-8

-

-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUND ABOUT THE NORTH POLE ***

-

-

-

-

-Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed

-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was

-produced from images generously made available by The

-Internet Archive)

-

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-

-

-

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-

-

-

-                              ROUND ABOUT

-                             THE NORTH POLE

-

-

-[Illustration: "DONE UP"]

-

-                                                            Frontispiece

-

-

-

-

-                              ROUND ABOUT

-                             THE NORTH POLE

-

-

-                            BY W. J. GORDON

-

-                 WITH WOODCUTS AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS

-                           BY EDWARD WHYMPER

-

-

-

-

-                                NEW YORK

-                        E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY

-                      31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET

-                                  1907

-

-

-

-

-                       _Printed in Great Britain_

-

-

-

-

-                                PREFACE

-

-

-Among the many books about the Polar regions there is none quite like

-this, dealing with the gradual progress of exploration towards the north

-along the different areas of advance within the Arctic Circle.

-

-The subject is always interesting, for few regions have been the scene

-of more persistent effort and exciting adventure and unexpected gains

-from the unknown, particularly in the earlier days when the endeavour to

-find the northern passages to the east and west led to the beginning of

-our foreign trade.

-

-It is often asked, "What is the use of further Arctic discovery?" No one

-knows. Nor did any one know the use of most discoveries before they were

-made.

-

-When Eric landed in Greenland he was not in search of cryolite for

-aluminium. When Cabral sailed to Porto Seguro he knew nothing of the

-incandescent gas-mantle. When Oersted looped the live wire round the

-magnetic needle he was not bent on founding electrical engineering. And

-when Linnæus noticed the sleep of plants he had no intention of

-providing a substitute for a clock in high latitudes where, though the

-sunshine is continuous during the summer, the plants within the Circle

-sleep as in the night time, their sleeping leaves telling the traveller

-that midnight is at hand.

-

-Men have made up their minds to reach the Pole, and thither they will

-go. What they will find when they get there may not promise to be much,

-but what they have found round about it has been enough to influence

-considerably the history of the world.

-

-                                                                W. J. G.

-

- _July, 1907._

-

-

-

-

-                                CONTENTS

-

-

-                               CHAPTER I

-                                               PAGE

-

-                     SPITSBERGEN                  1

-

-

-                               CHAPTER II

-

-                     SPITSBERGEN (_continued_)   24

-

-

-                              CHAPTER III

-

-                     NOVAYA ZEMLYA               49

-

-

-                               CHAPTER IV

-

-                     FRANZ JOSEF LAND            64

-

-

-                               CHAPTER V

-

-                     CAPE CHELYUSKIN             84

-

-

-                               CHAPTER VI

-

-                     THE LENA DELTA             106

-

-

-                              CHAPTER VII

-

-                     BERING STRAIT              127

-

-

-                              CHAPTER VIII

-

-                     THE AMERICAN MAINLAND      146

-

-

-                               CHAPTER IX

-

-                     THE PARRY ISLANDS          170

-

-

-                               CHAPTER X

-

-                     BOOTHIA                    190

-

-

-                               CHAPTER XI

-

-                     BAFFIN BAY                 215

-

-

-                              CHAPTER XII

-

-                     SMITH SOUND                235

-

-

-                              CHAPTER XIII

-

-                     GREENLAND                  259

-

-                     INDEX                      287

-

-

-

-

-                         LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

-

-

- "DONE UP"                                                _Frontispiece_

-

-      From Nansen's _First Crossing of Greenland_

-        (Longmans)

-

-                                                            TO FACE PAGE

-

- THE SUMMIT OF ORAEFA                                                  2

-

-      From a photograph

-

- COLUMBUS                                                              4

-

-      From the portrait at Versailles

-

- SAMOYEDS AND THEIR DWELLINGS                                         10

-

-      From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans)

-

- FRANZ JOSEF FIORD                                                    14

-

-      From a drawing by Lieutenant Julius Payer

-

- WHALERS AMONG ICEBERGS                                               30

-

-      From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans)

-

- SIR JOHN FRANKLIN                                                    34

-

-      From _Le Tour du Monde_, 1860 (Hachette)

-

- TRACK OF H.M.S. "DOROTHEA" AND "TRENT"                               36

-

-      From _A Voyage of Discovery towards the North Pole,

-        performed in His Majesty's Ships "Dorothea" and

-        "Trent," under the command of Capt. David Buchan,

-        R.N., 1818_, by Capt. F. W. Beechey, R.N., F.R.S.

-        (Richard Bentley, 1843.)

-

- PARRY CAMPED ON THE ICE                                              40

-

-      From Captain Parry's _Narrative_, 1828 (Murray)

-

- PARRY'S BOATS AMONG THE HUMMOCKS                                     42

-

-      From Captain Parry's _Narrative_, 1828 (Murray)

-

- HOW OUR SHIP STUCK FAST IN THE ICE                                   50

-

-      From _A True Description_, by Gerrit de Veer

-        (Hakluyt Society, 1853)

-

- HOW WE NEARLY GOT INTO TROUBLE WITH THE SEA-HORSES                   56

-

-      From _A True Description_, by Gerrit de Veer

-        (Hakluyt Society, 1853)

-

- ADOLF ERIK NORDENSKIÖLD                                              90

-

-      From a photograph

-

- FRIDTJOF NANSEN                                                      96

-

-      With autograph. From a photograph supplied by

-        himself

-

- REINDEER                                                            112

-

-      By permission. From _Short Stalks_, by Edward

-        Buxton (Stanford)

-

- SAMOYED MAN                                                         114

-

-      From Seebohm's _Siberia in Asia_ (Murray)

-

- OSTIAK MAN                                                          116

-

-      From Seebohm's _Siberia in Asia_ (Murray)

-

- THE FACE OF THE FUR SEAL                                            130

-

-      From _The Seal Islands of Alaska_, by Henry W.

-        Elliott (Washington, 1881)

-

- THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS                                                132

-

-      From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans). From an

-        original Sketch by Frederick Whymper

-

- DRIVING THE FUR SEAL                                                134

-

-      From _The Seal Islands of Alaska_, by Henry W.

-        Elliott (Washington, 1881)

-

- FUR SEALS AT SEA                                                    136

-

-      From _The Seal Islands of Alaska_, by Henry W.

-        Elliott (Washington, 1881)

-

- THE PARKA OF THE ALASKAN INNUITS                                    138

-

-      From Whymper's _Alaska_ (Sampson Low)

-

- THE FROZEN YUKON                                                    140

-

-      From Whymper's _Alaska_ (Sampson Low)

-

- ASCENDING THE YUKON                                                 142

-

-      From Whymper's _Alaska_ (Sampson Low)

-

- MOOSE-HUNTING ON THE YUKON                                          144

-

-      From Whymper's _Alaska_ (Sampson Low)

-

- MAHLEMUT MAN                                                        146

-

-      From Whymper's _Alaska_ (Sampson Low)

-

- WINTER TRAVELLING ON THE GREAT SLAVE LAKE                           150

-

-      From Franklin's _Journey to the Polar Sea_, 1819-22

-        (Murray, 1823)

-

- CROSSING POINT LAKE                                                 152

-

-      From Franklin's _Journey to the Polar Sea, 1819-22_

-        (Murray, 1823)

-

- KUTCHIN INDIANS                                                     154

-

-      From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans). From an

-        original sketch by Frederick Whymper

-

- PREPARING AN ENCAMPMENT ON THE BARREN GROUNDS                       156

-

-      From Franklin's _Journey to the Polar Sea, 1819-22_

-        (Murray, 1823)

-

- SIR JOHN RICHARDSON                                                 158

-

-      With autograph, from a letter in the possession of

-        Edward Whymper

-

- BACK'S JOURNEY DOWN THE GREAT FISH RIVER                            160

-

-      From Back's _Arctic Land Expedition to the mouth of

-        the Great Fish River in the years 1833, 1834, and

-        1835_ (Murray, 1836)

-

- SIR WILLIAM EDWARD PARRY                                            170

-

-      With autograph, from a letter in the possession of

-        Edward Whymper

-

- SIR JOHN BARROW                                                     178

-

-      With autograph

-

- H.M.S. "HECLA" AND "GRIPER" IN WINTER HARBOUR                       180

-

-      From _A Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west

-        Passage_, by Capt. Parry (Murray, 1821)

-

- PARRY'S DISCOVERIES ON HIS FIRST VOYAGE                             182

-

-      From _A Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west

-        Passage_, by Captain Parry (Murray, 1821)

-

- AN IGLOOLIK ESKIMO CARRYING HIS KAYAK                               190

-

-      From Parry's _Second Voyage_ (Murray, 1824)

-

- PARRY'S FARTHEST ON HIS THIRD VOYAGE                                192

-

-      From Parry's _Third Voyage_ (Murray, 1826)

-

- THE "VICTORY"                                                       194

-

-      From Sir J. Ross's _Arctic Expedition, 1829-33_

-        (Webster, 1835)

-

- NORTH HENDON                                                        196

-

-      From Sir J. Ross's _Arctic Expedition, 1829-33_

-        (Webster, 1835)

-

- ESKIMO LISTENING AT A SEAL-HOLE                                     198

-

-      From Parry's _Second Voyage_ (Murray, 1824)

-

- H.M.S. "TERROR" LIFTED BY ICE                                       202

-

-      From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans)

-

- FRACTURED STERN-POST OF H.M.S. "TERROR"                             204

-

-      From Capt. Back's _Narrative, 1838_ (Murray)

-

- THE "FOX" ESCAPING FROM THE PACK                                    208

-

-      From M'Clintock's _Voyage of the "Fox"_

-

- THE "FOX" ON A ROCK                                                 210

-

-      From M'Clintock's _Voyage of the "Fox"_

-

- DISCOVERY OF THE CAIRN                                              212

-

-      From M'Clintock's _Voyage of the "Fox"_

-

- SIR MARTIN FROBISHER                                                216

-

-      From _The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher_

-        (Hakluyt Society, 1867)

-

- ESKIMO AWAITING A SEAL                                              222

-

-      From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans)

-

- A GREENLANDER IN HIS KAYAK                                          224

-

-      From _Le Tour du Monde_, 1868 (Hachette)

-

- BAFFIN BAY IN 1819                                                  232

-

-      From _A Voyage of Discovery_, by Capt. John Ross

-        (Longmans, 1819)

-

- DR. E. K. KANE                                                      234

-

-      From the Frontispiece to Kane's _Arctic

-        Explorations_, 1856

-

- KALUTUNAH                                                           236

-

-      From _Le Tour du Monde_, 1868 (Hachette)

-

- THE EAST COAST OF SMITH SOUND                                       238

-

-      From Hayes' _Open Polar Sea_ (Sampson Low)

-

- DR. I. I. HAYES                                                     240

-

-      By permission, from Hayes' _Open Polar Sea_

-

- THE SHORES OF KENNEDY CHANNEL                                       242

-

-      From Hayes' _Open Polar Sea_

-

- TYNDALL GLACIER                                                     244

-

-      From Hayes' _Open Polar Sea_

-

- A SEAL IN DANGER                                                    246

-

-      From Parry's _Second Voyage for the Discovery of a

-        North-west Passage_ (Murray, 1824)

-

- SIR GEORGE NARES                                                    248

-

-      From a photograph

-

- SLEDGES USED BY SIR LEOPOLD M'CLINTOCK AND SIR GEORGE               254

-   NARES

-

-      (In the collection of Edward Whymper)

-

- BISHOP PAUL EGEDE                                                   258

-

-      From the Frontispiece to _Efterretninger om

-        Grönland_ (Copenhagen)

-

- GREENLANDERS                                                        260

-

-      From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans)

-

- ON LEVEL GROUND                                                     262

-

-      Nansen's _First Crossing of Greenland_ (Longmans)

-

- THE ALLAN LINER "SARDINIAN" AMONG ICEBERGS                          264

-

-      From a photograph

-

- THE "GERMANIA" IN THE ICE                                           266

-

-      From _Le Tour du Monde_, 1874 (Hachette)

-

- THE REGION ROUND MOUNT PETERMANN                                    268

-

-      From a drawing by Lieutenant Julius Payer

-

- THE LAST DAYS OF THE "HANSA"                                        270

-

-      From _Le Tour du Monde_, 1874 (Hachette)

-

- ROBERT E. PEARY                                                     280

-

-      With autograph, from a letter in the possession of

-        Edward Whymper From _Nearest the Pole_, by

-        Commander Peary. By permission of Hutchinson and

-        Co.

-

-

-

-

-                             SECTIONAL MAPS

-

-

-                        1. SPITSBERGEN        12

-

-                        2. CAPE CHELYUSKIN    84

-

-                        3. THE LENA DELTA    106

-

-                        4. BERING STRAIT     128

-

-                        5. THE PARRY ISLANDS 174

-

-                        6. GREENLAND         272

-

-

-

-

-                              ROUND ABOUT

-                             THE NORTH POLE

-

-

-

-

-                               CHAPTER I

-                              SPITSBERGEN

-

-  Iceland—Greenland—America—Sebastian Cabot—Robert Thorne—The

-    North-east Passage—Willoughby—Chancellor—Borough—The North Cape

-    rounded—The White Sea reached—The First Arctic Search

-    Expedition—Pet and Jackman—Brunel—Cornelis Nai—Barents reaches 77°

-    20´—Second voyage of Nai—The Samoyeds—Rijp, Jacob Van Heemskerck

-    and Barents—Bear Island discovered—Spitsbergen discovered—The

-    Dutch reach 79° 49´—Stephen Bennet—Welden—Jonas Poole—Henry Hudson

-    reaches 80° 23´—Poole starts the British whaling trade—Baffin's

-    voyages to Spitsbergen—Pellham winters at Green Harbour.

-

-

-The story of the lands within the Arctic Circle is a record of the brave

-deeds of healthy men. This would seem to be true were we to take the

-story, if we could, back to the days when man followed the retreat of

-the glaciers, as he may in turn have to retreat before them, such a

-condition of things being not beyond the range of probability though it

-may be remote. For the boundaries of the frozen north are not dependent

-on a line of latitude, and have never been the same from period to

-period, or even from year to year. In some cases they have changed

-considerably within the Christian era, and it is evident that the ice is

-not eternal. The fossils declare that the climate round the North Pole

-has varied greatly, and must in comparatively recent ages have been

-comfortably warm, so genial indeed that some people would have us

-believe that men came from there in their last distribution. Not,

-however, with such migrants from the far north do we concern ourselves,

-but with those who have endeavoured to get there in historical times by

-different lines of approach, as we follow the circle round from east to

-west and note the record of each section by itself.

-

-Who was the first to sail to the northern seas we know not. Suffice it

-for us that in 875 Ingolf the jarl, from Norway, refusing to live under

-the sway of Harold Haarfager, sighted Mount Oraefa. As he neared the

-coast, overboard went the carved wood; and where the wood drifted ashore

-he founded Reikjavik. But he was not the first in Iceland, for the Irish

-monastery had been there for years when he arrived, though the monks

-retired to their old country when they found the Norsemen had come to

-stay.

-

-Then the Icelander Gunnbiörn, driven westward in a gale, sighted the

-strange land he called White Shirt from its snowfields, which Eric the

-Red, following a long time afterwards, more happily renamed. "What shall

-we call the land?" he was asked. "Call it Green Land," replied Eric.

-"But it is not always green!" "It matters not: give it a good name and

-people will come to it!"

-

-[Illustration: THE SUMMIT OF ORAEFA]

-

- From a photo

-

-Then the Norsemen worked further south. In 986 Bjarni sighted what we

-now call America, and in 1000 came the voyage of Leif Ericson, who, on

-his way down the mainland, landing again and again, gave the names to

-Helluland, Markland, Vinland—in short, the Viking discovery of the New

-World.

-

-Greenland, like the eastern coast of the continent, was duly colonised,

-its two chief settlements being one just round Cape Farewell, the other

-further north on the same coast. In those days the island, or chain of

-islands beneath an ice-cap, as many think it is, would appear to have

-had a milder climate than it has now. The colonies throve, their

-population becoming numerous enough to require a series of seventeen

-bishops, the last one dying about 1540, to superintend their spiritual

-welfare. But the Eskimos, in their migration from Asia across the Arctic

-islands, arrived in the country before the middle of the fourteenth

-century and gradually drove the Norsemen downwards, the northern colony

-coming to an end in 1342 owing to the enemy attacking during a

-visitation of the Black Death.

-

-Meanwhile Iceland, which touches the Arctic Circle in its northernmost

-point, and extends but half as far south of it as Greenland, increased

-in prosperity as a sort of aristocratic republic, and produced more

-vernacular literature than any country in Europe, in which, as might be

-expected, the story of Greenland and the American colonies was kept so

-well to the fore that it became as familiar among the people as a

-nursery tale. Thither, from Bristol, in February, 1477, went Columbus;

-and thence it was he returned to seek a patron for his western voyage

-across the Atlantic.

-

-The first voyage of Columbus in 1492 gave a great stimulus to maritime

-discovery, and many were the projects for searching the seas for a new

-route to the east. Of these the most important was that submitted to

-Henry VII by John Cabot, of Bristol. Much has been written, on slender

-and confusing evidence, as to the share in its success due to him and to

-his son, the more famous Sebastian; and, to be brief, we cannot do

-better than follow Anderson, who, in his _Origin of Commerce_,

-ingeniously evades the difficulty by speaking, commercially, of "Cabot

-and Sons." The Bristol firm, then, in 1497 despatched their ship

-_Matthew_ to the westward and discovered and took possession of Labrador

-and the islands and peninsulas in the mouth of the St. Lawrence, the

-district being at first known as the New Found Land, a name afterwards

-restricted to the largest island. And they had their reward, as shown in

-the Privy Purse accounts of Henry VII, where an entry of the 10th

-August, 1497, appears—"To hym that found the new isle, £10." Surely not

-an excessive honorarium for the finding of a continent.

-

-In 1498 another voyage of the same ship by way of Iceland, in which some

-attempt seems to have been made to colonise the newly discovered

-territories, resulted in the discovery of Hudson Strait and a visit to

-Labrador, judging by the finding of the deer in herds, the white bears,

-and the Eskimos who are not known to have ever crossed into the island

-of Newfoundland. This was not the only English vessel to appear in these

-parts at that time, for in the same year the Privy Purse accounts record

-a gift of £30 to Thomas Bradley and Launcelot Thirkill for going to the

-New Isle, adding that Launcelot had already received £20 "as preste" for

-his ship going there.

-

-[Illustration: COLUMBUS]

-

-It is evident that the fisheries were found to be worth working, for no

-less than fifty Spanish, French, and Portuguese ships were engaged in

-them in 1517, the year of Sebastian Cabot's disputed voyage to Hudson

-Bay. Ten years afterwards Robert Thorne, of Bristol, wrote to the King,

-mentioning this voyage and suggesting three sea routes to Cathay—by the

-north-west, as Sebastian had attempted, by the north over the Pole, and

-by the north-east—and, in 1547, when Sebastian returned to England for

-good, after his long service with Spain, he again, as the first Governor

-of the Company of Merchant Adventurers, took up this Cathay question,

-which had frequently been raised, and fitted out, as a commencement, an

-expedition to the north-east.

-

-The ships were built at Bristol specially for the purpose, and they were

-sheathed with lead, the first so treated in this country. This sheathing

-of ships was not the only innovation we owe to the most scientific

-seaman of his time, for in his famous ordinances for the voyage many

-excellent new things are enjoined, including the keeping of a log and

-journal, which date from this expedition. There were three vessels, the

-_Bona Esperanza_, of one hundred and twenty tons, Captain Sir Hugh

-Willoughby; the _Edward Bonaventure_, one hundred and sixty tons,

-Captain Richard Chancellor; and the _Bona Confidentia_, ninety tons,

-Captain Durfourth. In Chancellor's ship, as master, was the best

-navigator of the fleet, whose monumental brass in Chatham Church is

-noteworthy for its epitaph: "Here lieth buried the bodie of Steven

-Borough, who departed this life ye xij day of July in ye yere of our

-Lord 1584, and was borne at Northam in Devonshire ye xxv^{th} of Septemb.

-1525. He in his life time discouered Moscouia, by the Northerne sea

-passage to St. Nicholas, in the yere 1553. At his setting foorth of

-England he was accompanied with two other shippes, Sir Hugh Willobie

-being Admirell of the fleete, who, with all the company of ye said two

-shippes, were frozen to death in Lappia ye same winter. After his

-discouerie of Roosia, and ye Coastes thereto adioyninge—to wit, Lappia,

-Nova Zemla, and the Countrie of Samoyeda, etc.: he frequented ye trade

-to St. Nicholas yearlie, as chief pilot for ye voyage, until he was

-chosen of one of ye foure principall Masters in ordinarie of ye Queen's

-Mat^{ties} royall Nauy, where in he continued in charge of sundrie sea

-services till time of his death."

-

-The ships left in May, but did not remain long together. On the 2nd of

-August Willoughby and Durfourth separated from Chancellor in a storm off

-the Lofodens, and after devious courses, that might have led anywhere,

-were frozen in on the coast of Lapland, where they wintered and died, as

-did all the men with them. Chancellor, having waited at the rendezvous

-in vain, crossed the Arctic Circle, rounded the North Cape—so named by

-Borough—and found his way into the White Sea. While his ship was in

-winter quarters near where Archangel now is, he made a sledge journey to

-the Czar at Moscow, which led to the formation of the Muscovy Company

-and the beginning of England's Russian trade; and through his meeting

-there with the Persian Ambassador came about the mission of Anthony

-Jenkinson to the Shah, which opened up for us the Persian trade. Never

-was a voyage more successful. With it began the foreign commerce of this

-country, and from it dates the rise of our mercantile marine.

-

-In 1556 Borough, in the _Searchthrift_, persevered further east, and,

-passing between Novaya Zemlya and Waigatz Island, through the strait

-that bears his name spelt differently, entered the Kara Sea. Next year

-in the same ship he was given the command of the first Arctic Search

-Expedition, its object being to discover what had become of Willoughby.

-Of one ship, the _Confidentia_, he obtained news in an interview with a

-man who had bought her sails, but the full story of the disastrous end

-of the voyage remained a mystery until the Russians found the ships and

-bodies and Willoughby's journal, and took the ships round to the Dwina.

-Then for the first time did people realise what it meant to battle with

-an Arctic winter without preparation, and many were those who withdrew

-their interest in the frozen north, preferring tropical dangers to the

-possibility of such accumulating miseries as the journal records in due

-order in its matter-of-fact way, its last entry being the terribly

-suggestive—"Unknowen and most wonderful wild beasts assembling in

-fearful numbers about the ships."

-

-With Stephen Borough in the Chancellor voyage was Arthur Pet—or Pett, a

-name not unknown in the navy—who, after two centuries, has become

-notable again through a strange discovery. In search of the much-desired

-passage by the north-east he sailed from Harwich on the 31st of May,

-1580, in the _George_, of forty tons, accompanied by Charles Jackman, in

-the _William_, of twenty tons. His orders were to avoid the open sea and

-keep the coast in sight all the way out on the starboard side, and

-William Borough—Stephen's brother, afterwards Comptroller of the

-Navy—gave him certain instructions and notes.

-

-Arranging with Jackman, whose little vessel sailed badly, to wait for

-him at Waigatz, Pet went ahead and endeavoured to pass through Burrough

-Strait, but meeting with trouble from the ice, missed the passage, and

-working round Waigatz to the south, entered the Kara Sea through Yugor

-Strait, or as it used to be called after him, Pet Strait. Coasting

-eastward with the mainland in sight, he was, as might be expected, much

-hampered by the heavy pack. On being joined by the little _William_ he

-made for the northward, seeking a way to the east, but the "more and

-thicker was the ice so that they could go no further," and, after

-talking the matter over on the 28th of July, Pet and Jackman reluctantly

-decided to return to Waigatz and there decide on what should be done.

-

-Their way back was difficult. They became shut in so that "they could

-not stir, labouring only to defend the ice as it came upon them." For

-one day they were clear of it, but next day, the 16th of August, they

-were encumbered again, though they got out of the trouble by sailing

-between the ice and the shore, which was a new experience. In this way

-they just scraped through Pet Strait, and bore away in the open sea to

-Kolguiev, both vessels grounding for a time on the sands to the south of

-that island. On the 22nd of August, two days afterwards, the _William_

-parted from the _George_ in a dense fog, while Pet brought his ship home

-and dropped anchor at Ratcliff on Boxing Day.

-

-The Dutch had for some time been trying to outstrip the English on this

-route to the far east. In 1565 they had settled at Kola, and about

-thirteen years afterwards had established the factory at the mouth of

-the Dwina on the site of Nova Kholmogory, generally known as Archangel.

-In 1584 Olivier Brunel, their energetic emissary in Russia, sailed on

-the first Dutch Arctic discovery expedition. He tried in vain to pass

-through Pet Strait, and the ship, with a valuable cargo of furs and

-mica, was wrecked on its homeward voyage at the mouth of the Petchora.

-

-Ten years elapsed, and then there sailed from the Texel the expedition

-of Cornelis Nai, in which the _Mercury_, of Amsterdam, was commanded by

-Willem Barents. Barents—really Barentszoon, the son of Bernard—sighted

-Novaya Zemlya, with which his name was to be thenceforth associated, on

-the 4th of July, and coasting along its mighty cliffs, peopled with

-their myriad seabirds, passed Cape Nassau ten days later. Thence

-reaching 77° 20´, and thus improving on John Davis's record for the

-highest north, he struggled through the ice to the Orange Islands and

-back, some twenty-five miles, during which he tacked eighty-one times

-and thereby sailed some seventeen hundred geographical miles. Failing to

-proceed further, he came south, and off Pet Strait—named by the Dutchmen

-Nassau Strait—fell in with the other two ships returning from their

-unsuccessful attempt to cross the Kara Sea.

-

-Next year a fleet of seven vessels under Nai left the Mars Diep on

-another endeavour to get through to China. One of the two chief

-commissioners on board was the famous Van Linschoten, who had been on

-the previous voyage, and the chief pilot was Barents, who was in the

-_Winthont_ (Greyhound) with Jacob van Heemskerck as supercargo. Arriving

-at Pet Strait they found it so blocked with ice that no passage was

-possible, and Barents, in search of information, went ashore on the

-mainland south of the strait and made friends—in a way—with the

-Samoyeds, whose appearance, as described by Gerrit de Veer, was "like

-that of wild men," dressed as they were in deerskins from head to foot,

-those of importance wearing caps of coloured cloth lined with fur; for

-the most part short of stature, with broad flat faces, small eyes, and

-bow legs; their hair worn long, plaited, and hanging down their backs.

-

-They were evidently suspicious of the Dutchmen, who did their best to be

-friendly. The chief had placed sentinels all round to see what the

-new-comers were about and note everything that was bought and sold. One

-of the sentinels was offered a biscuit, which "he with great thanks took

-and ate, and while he ate it he still looked diligently about him on all

-sides, watching what was done." Their reindeer sledges were kept

-ready—"that run so swiftly with one or two men in them that our horses

-were not able to follow them." They were unacquainted with firearms,

-and, when a musket was fired to impress them, "ran and leapt like

-madmen," but calmed down as soon as they saw there was no malicious

-intention, to wonder much more, however, when the man with the gun aimed

-at a flat stone he placed as a mark, and, fortunately, hit and broke it.

-The meeting ended satisfactorily; "after that we took our leaves one of

-the other with great friendship on both sides, and when we were in our

-pinnace we all put off our hats and bowed to them, sounding our trumpet;

-they in their manner saluting us also, and then went to their sledges

-again."

-

-[Illustration: SAMOYEDS AND THEIR DWELLINGS]

-

-Barents was by no means convinced that the strait was impassable, and

-held out against the opinion of the others for some days, but with the

-firm ice stretching round in all directions he had to give in, and on

-the 15th of September the fleet began the voyage home. Much had been

-expected, and the result was so conspicuous a failure that the States

-General abandoned any further attempt at a north-east passage on their

-own account, but decided to offer a reward to any private expedition

-that proved successful. Whereupon the authorities and merchants of

-Amsterdam fitted out two vessels for a third voyage, giving the command

-of one to Jan Corneliszoon Rijp, and that of the other to Jacob van

-Heemskerck, with Barents as chief pilot.

-

-The ships left the Dutch coast on the 18th of May. Four days afterwards

-they were off the Shetlands, going north-east. On the 9th of June they

-discovered an island, on which they landed. Here they saw a prodigious

-white bear, which they went after in a boat, intending to slip a noose

-over her neck, but when they were near her she looked so strong that

-their courage failed, and they returned to the ships to fetch more men,

-and what seems to have been quite an armoury of "muskets, harquebusses,

-halberds and hatchets." Accompanied by another boat they attacked this

-formidable beast for over two hours, one of them getting an axe into her

-back, with which she swam away until she was caught and had her head

-split open by another blow from an axe. From this remarkable bear, whose

-skin, we are told, was twelve feet long, the island was named Bear

-Island.

-

-Continuing northwards they sighted, on the 19th of June, Spitsbergen,

-which they supposed to be Greenland—an error that led to much

-confusion—and on the 21st of June they landed and had another trying

-time with a bear, whose skin proved to be thirteen feet long. On one

-island of the cluster they found the eggs of the barnacle goose,

-_Bernicla leucopsis_, whose nesting ground was up to then unknown, and

-on others they saw reindeer, for in this land "there groweth leaves and

-grass." Returning to Bear Island after attaining 79° 49´, some hundred

-and seventy miles higher north than in 1594, Rijp departed for the north

-again, and, failing to get beyond Bird Cape, went home to Holland by way

-of Kola; and to Kola he came back the year afterwards.

-

-In 1603, following the Dutch, came Stephen Bennet to call Bear Island

-Cherie Island, after his patron, and find the walruses in thousands and

-the birds in millions. A rocky tableland of mountain limestone and

-carboniferous sandstone, with the usual fossils in unusual numbers and a

-few coal seams in between; the ravines faced and floored with fragments

-of every dimension and shape, split off by the frost and weathered by

-wind and rain: a grey, grassless, monotonous country, except along the

-coast, where the guano from the vast numbers of seabirds has coated the

-crannies and ledges of the cliffs, that tower up perhaps four hundred

-feet from the water, with a thin layer of soil in which the scurvy-grass

-and a few other plants thrive amazingly, though the island's complete

-flora contains but forty species—such is Bear Island, the stepping-stone

-to Spitsbergen, of which Jonas Poole took possession in 1609 for the

-Muscovy Company.

-

-[Illustration: SPITSBERGEN]

-

-Lying east of the influence of the Gulf Stream, the range of temperature

-is of the widest. Often the island is unapproachable owing to the ice,

-sometimes it is even now as hot as Welden found it in 1608, when, in

-June, "the pitch did run down the ship's sides, and that side of the

-masts that was to the sun-ward was so hot that the tar did fry out of it

-as though it had boiled." That was a great year for Welden, for he

-killed a thousand walruses in less than seven hours and took a young one

-home with him, "where the king and many honourable personages beheld it

-with admiration, the like whereof had never before been seen alive in

-England."

-

-Poole did much useful work in these seas, but is now little heard of,

-most of the surviving interest in such matters being concentrated on

-Henry Hudson, who was in the same service at the same time. Hudson was,

-perhaps, a grandson of Alderman Henry Hudson, one of the founders of the

-Muscovy Company, but nothing is really known of him beyond his being a

-captain in the Muscovy Company, who, on the 19th of April, 1607, took

-the sacrament at St. Ethelburga's, in Bishopsgate Street, with his son

-and crew "and the rest of the parishioners." That he was a parishioner

-may be true, but that all the ten members of the crew were so is

-unlikely. Anyhow, they were outward bound for Japan and China by way of

-the North Pole, and sailed from Gravesend on the 1st of May.

-

-Where he went is not clear in detail, as his latitudes are seldom

-correct and his longitudes are not recorded. He sighted Greenland north

-of Iceland, and, shouldered off by the ice barrier, left it somewhere

-about Franz Josef Fjord, working easterly by the edge of the ice to

-Spitsbergen. Here he sailed round Prince Charles's Foreland and went

-north, passing Hakluyt Headland, which he named, reaching on the 13th of

-July, 80° 23´, "by observation." He saw many whales, but found his way

-blocked by ice; and after many attempts, assuring himself that there was

-no passage hereabouts to the north, sailed southwards for Bear Island.

-On leaving this he seems to have gone west, possibly to the coast of

-Greenland again, for on his way home he lighted upon Hudson's Touches,

-now known as Jan Mayen Island, the principal cape of which bears the

-name of Hudson's Point—which may be either Hudson's or Rudston's (after

-the Rudston mentioned in Baffin's fourth voyage)—while another is known

-as Young's Foreland, perhaps after the James Young who was the first in

-the ship to sight the coast of Greenland on the outward journey. He

-dropped anchor in the Thames on the 15th of September all well. He had

-not crossed the Pole, nor did he find Spitsbergen stretching up to 82°,

-as he said, its most northerly point being miles further south; but he

-had gone beyond Van Heemskerck's furthest north and found a fishing

-ground for whales and walruses which proved of great commercial value.

-

-[Illustration: FRANZ JOSEF FIORD]

-

-In 1610, Poole, finding that he could not land on Bear Island owing to

-the ice, stood away to the north-west, reached Spitsbergen, and worked

-along the western side to Hakluyt Headland, where the ice barred further

-advance. On his way up and down the coast he gave many of the capes and

-bays the names they still bear, and generally did so well that on his

-return he was put in the place of Hudson, who had left the service two

-years before, and made a sort of special commissioner by the Muscovy

-Company "for certain years upon a stipend certain" to make further

-discoveries round Spitsbergen and to ascertain whether there was an open

-sea further northward than had already been found. In addition to

-searching for the open polar sea, he was to convoy the _Mary Margaret_,

-in which were six Biscayners "expert in the killing of the whale," to

-Bear Island, and thence to Whale Bay in Spitsbergen. In short, Poole was

-to start the British whaling trade, the _Mary Margaret_ being the first

-British vessel to be employed in that lucrative but hazardous

-occupation; and she was under the command of Thomas Edge, whose name is

-borne by Edge's Island.

-

-The beginning was so promising that in 1613, two years afterwards, a

-fleet of seven vessels went out to take part in the fishery and clear

-away the foreigners who had come to share in the good fortune; the

-company claiming the islands on the ground of their purely imaginary

-discovery by Willoughby, the Dutch resting their claim on the real

-discovery by Van Heemskerck. In this fleet as chief pilot was William

-Baffin—his second recorded voyage. By him, who as usual kept his eyes

-open, we have the first description of the Spitsbergen glaciers. He was

-at the time—the 29th of July—in Green Harbour in Ice Fjord. "One thing

-more I observed," he says, "in this harbour which I have thought good

-also to set down. Purposing on a time to walk towards the mountains, I,

-and two more of my company, ascended up a long plain hill, as we

-supposed it to be; but having gone a while upon it, we perceived it to

-be ice. Notwithstanding we proceeded higher up, about the length of half

-a mile, and as we went saw many deep rifts or gutters on the land of

-ice, which were cracked down through to the ground, or, at the least, an

-exceeding great depth; as we might well perceive by hearing the snow

-water run below, as it does oftentimes in a brook whose current is

-somewhat opposed with little stones. But for better satisfaction I brake

-down some pieces of ice with a staff I had in my hand, which in their

-falling made a noise on each side much like to a piece of glass thrown

-down the well within Dover Castle, whereby we did estimate the thickness

-or height of this ice to be thirty fathoms. This huge ice, in my

-opinion, is nothing but snow, which from time to time has for the most

-part been driven off the mountains; and so continuing and increasing all

-the time of winter (which may be counted three-quarters of the year)

-cannot possibly be consumed with the thaw of so short a summer, but is

-only a little dissolved to moisture, whereby it becomes more compact,

-and with the quick succeeding frost is congealed to a firm ice."

-

-Next year he was out again in the _Thomasine_, one of a fleet of

-thirteen vessels, and in endeavouring to pass to the north-east, reached

-Wijde Bay, where at the point of the beach at the entrance he "set up a

-cross and nailed a sixpence thereon with the king's arms," probably the

-neatest property mark in history. Thence he went on to the entrance to

-Hinlopen Strait, completing the journey along the north of the main

-island. It was on this voyage that he endeavoured to find his longitudes

-by observing the moon, for Baffin was the first who attempted to take a

-lunar at sea.

-

-Year by year the fishery increased, and the whale fishers multiplied as

-if the sea were a goldfield, the monopoly being respected until 1618,

-when the Dutch, who had all along prospered more than the rest, proved

-too strong for the English, and a compromise was arrived at by which the

-different harbours were allotted to the different nations for the

-processes necessary in the preparation of the whale products for

-shipment. But it was purely a summer industry. There was no colony, and

-it did not seem as though there would be one, for no man willing to

-winter in the place could be found. Vainly were rewards offered to those

-who would venture. In the north was the ever-present barrier of ice,

-more distant some years than others, but always there to come south and

-hold the islands in its grip when the fishery was over, and those who

-came early and those who stayed late saw enough of the wintry landscape

-to make them doubt if life were possible under such conditions.

-

-Then the idea, not new to Englishmen, that colonies should be started by

-criminals, was acted upon, and the Muscovy Company procured the reprieve

-of a batch of prisoners under sentence of death and landed them in

-Spitsbergen under promise of a free pardon, a handsome reward, and full

-provisions and suitable clothes if they would remain there for a

-continuous twelve months. But, as the ship that brought them was

-preparing to return to London, "they conceived such a horror and inward

-fear in their hearts" that they besought the captain to take them back

-that they might be hanged rather than perish amid such desolation; and

-the captain "being a pitiful and a merciful gentleman, would not by

-force constrain them to stay," and brought them home again, when the

-company—who could do no less—procured them a pardon. One captain—of a

-different disposition—had left nine men behind him, all of whom perished

-miserably; and another, in 1630, left eight others, apparently through

-causes beyond his control, whose adventure was to form one of the most

-interesting episodes in Arctic story.

-

-It was on the 15th of August in that year that the _Salutation_ sent

-Edward Pellham and his seven companions ashore to kill reindeer for the

-ship's provisions on her voyage home. Taking with them two dogs, a

-snap-hance, two lances, and a tinder-box, they landed near Black Point,

-between Green Harbour and Bell Sound, and, "laying fourteen tall and

-nimble deer along," camped for the night. During the night the weather

-changed and brought in the ice between the shore and the ship, and in

-the morning the ship had gone. The boat's crew made for Green Harbour,

-thinking she would put in there to pick them up, but she failed to

-appear, being due to leave the country in three days, and after a

-fruitless attempt to catch her at Bell Sound, they eventually took up

-their quarters there on the 3rd of September.

-

-Here was one of the so-called tents of the whale-fishers. "This," says

-Pellham, "which we call the tent, was a kind of house built of timber

-and boards very substantially, and covered with Flemish tiles, by the

-men of which nation it had in the time of their trading thither been

-built. Four-score foot long it is and in breadth fifty. The use of it

-was for the coopers, employed for the service of the company, to work,

-lodge, and live in, all the while they make casks for the putting up of

-the train oil." As this was too large for their comfort, they very

-sensibly built another within it. "Taking down another lesser tent

-therefore (built for the landmen hard by the other, wherein they lay

-whilst they made their oil), from thence we fetched our materials. That

-tent furnished us with one hundred and fifty deal boards, besides posts

-or stanchions and rafters. From three chimneys of the furnaces wherein

-they used to boil their oil, we brought a thousand bricks: there also

-found we three hogsheads of very fine lime, of which stuff we also

-fetched another hogshead from Bottle Cove, on the other side of the

-sound, some three leagues distant. Mingling this lime with the sand of

-the sea-shore, we made very excellent good morter for the laying of our

-bricks: falling to work thereon, the weather was so extreme cold as that

-we were fain to make two fires to keep our morter from freezing. William

-Fakely and myself, undertaking the masonry, began to raise a wall of one

-brick thickness against the inner planks of the side of the tent. Whilst

-we were laying of these bricks, the rest of our company were otherwise

-employed every one of them: some in taking them down, others in making

-of them clean and in bringing them in baskets into the tent. Some in

-making morter, and hewing of boards to build the other side withal, and

-two others all the while in flaying of our venison. And thus, having

-built the two outermost sides of the tent with bricks and morter, and

-our bricks now almost spent, we were enforced to build the two other

-sides with boards; and that in this manner. First we nailed our deal

-boards on one side of the post or stanchion to the thickness of one

-foot: and on the other side in like manner: and so filling up the hollow

-place with sand, it became so tight and warm as not the least breath of

-air could possibly annoy us. Our chimney's vent was into the greater

-tent, being the breadth of one deal board and four foot long. The length

-of this our tent was twenty foot and the breadth sixteen; the height

-ten; our ceiling being deal boards five or six times double, the middle

-of one joining so close to the shut of the other that no wind could

-possibly get between. As for our door, besides our making it so close as

-possibly it could shut; we lined it moreover with a bed that we found

-lying there, which came over both the opening and the shutting of it. As

-for windows, we made none at all, so that our light we brought in

-through the greater tent, by removing two or three tiles in the eaves,

-which light came to us through the vent of our chimney. Our next work

-was to set up four cabins, billeting ourselves two and two in a cabin.

-Our beds were the deer skins dried, which we found to be extraordinary

-warm, and a very comfortable kind of lodging to us in our distress."

-

-For fuel they knocked to pieces seven old boats left ashore by the

-ships, storing the wood over the beams of the tent so as to make a sort

-of floor protecting the interior from snow driven in under the tiles,

-and, in addition, they broke up a number of empty casks. To make the

-wood last as long as possible they hit upon a device for keeping the

-fire in—"when we raked up our fire at night, with a good quantity of

-ashes and of embers, we put into the midst of it a piece of elm wood,

-where, after it had lain sixteen hours, we at our opening of it found

-great store of fire upon it, whereupon we made a common practice of it

-ever after: it never went out in eight months together, or thereabouts."

-

-Upon the 12th of September a small quantity of drift ice came into the

-sound, on a piece of which they found two walruses asleep, when "William

-Fakely being ready with his harping iron, heaved it so strongly into the

-old one that he quite disturbed her of her rest: after which, she,

-receiving five or six thrusts with our lances, fell into a sounder sleep

-of death." The young one, refusing to leave her mother, was also killed;

-and a week afterwards another walrus fell a victim; but even with these

-the store of provisions was inadequate. To make the food last, they put

-themselves on an allowance of one good meal a day, except on Wednesdays

-and Fridays which were fasting days devoted to whale sundries—"a very

-loathsome meat," says Pellham, in brackets—later on, for four days in

-the week they fed upon "the unsavoury and mouldy fritters, and the other

-three we feasted it with bear and venison." "But," continues the

-narrative, "as if it were not enough for us to want meat, we now began

-to want light also; all our meals proved suppers now, for little light

-could we see; even the glorious sun (as if unwilling to behold our

-miseries) masking his lovely face from us, under the sable veil of

-coal-black night."But they were equal to the emergency. "At the

-beginning of this darksome, irksome time, we sought some means of

-preserving light amongst us; finding therefore a piece of sheet lead

-over a seam of one of the coolers, that we ripped off and made three

-lamps of it, which, maintaining with oil that we found in the coopers'

-tent, and rope-yarn serving us instead of candle-wicks, we kept them

-continually burning."

-

-Cheerful and resourceful as they were, their fits of depression were not

-infrequent. "Our extremities being so many, made us sometimes in

-impatient speeches to break forth against the causers of our miseries;

-but then again, our consciences telling us of our own evil deservings,

-we took it either for a punishment upon us for our former wicked lives;

-or else for an example of God's mercy in our wonderful deliverance:

-humbling ourselves therefore, under the mighty hand of God, we cast down

-ourselves before him in prayer, two or three times a day, which course

-we constantly held all the time of our misery."

-

-Their prospects got worse, but they never lost a little hope. "The new

-year now began: as the days began to lengthen, so the cold began to

-strengthen; which cold came at last to that extremity, as that it would

-raise blisters on our flesh, as if we had been burnt with fire, and if

-we touched iron at any time it would stick to our fingers like

-bird-lime: sometimes if we went but out of doors to fetch in a little

-water, the cold would nip us in such a sort that it made us as sore as

-if we had been beaten in some cruel manner."

-

-Provisions were running low; the men began to talk of famine, and the

-outlook became daily gloomier until the 3rd of February. "This proved a

-marvellous cold day; yet a fair and clear one; about the middle whereof,

-all clouds now quite dispersed and night's sable curtain drawn, Aurora

-with her golden face smiled once again upon us, at her rising out of her

-bed; for now the glorious sun with his glittering beams began to gild

-the highest tops of the lofty mountains. The brightness of the sun and

-the whiteness of the snow, both together, were such as that it was able

-to revive even a dying spirit. But to make a new addition to our new

-joy, we might perceive two bears (a she one with her cub) now coming

-towards our tent; whereupon we, straight arming ourselves with our

-lances, issued out of the tent to await her coming. She soon cast her

-greedy eyes upon us, and with full hopes of devouring us she made the

-more haste unto us; but with our hearty lances we gave her such a

-welcome as that she fell down and biting the very snow for anger."

-

-Then more bears came to be eaten; then the birds began to arrive, and

-the foxes to come out of their winter earths to be trapped to the number

-of fifty; then the reindeer returned; and then, on the 25th May, two

-ships of Hull came into the sound from which a boat's crew landing

-unperceived came close up to the tent and shouted "Hey!" And Ayers, the

-only man at the moment in the outer tent, shouted "Ho!"—and Pellham and

-his shipmates had proved it to be possible to live through a winter in

-Spitsbergen.

-

-

-

-

-                               CHAPTER II

-                              SPITSBERGEN

-

-                             (_continued_)

-

-  The summer town of Smeerenberg—Himkoff winters in North East

-    Land—Phipps reaches 80° 48´—Scoresby the elder reaches 81°

-    30´—Scoresby the younger—Voyage of the _Dorothea_ and _Trent_

-    under Buchan and Franklin—Parry reaches 82° 45´—Torell and

-    Nordenskiöld—Carlsen sails round Spitsbergen—Swedish North Polar

-    expedition under Nordenskiöld—Lamont—The Diana coal mine—Leigh

-    Smith—Conway.

-

-

-This wintering of the _Salutation_ men occurred when the Spitsbergen

-fisheries were most flourishing, the prosperity continuing for seven

-more years. So lucrative was the trade that on Amsterdam Island under

-Hakluyt Headland, within fifteen miles of 80° north latitude, about as

-far from the North Pole as St. Malo is from John o' Groat's, there

-sprang up as a summer resort the Dutch village of Smeerenberg. Such was

-the bustle produced by the yearly visit of two or three hundred

-double-manned vessels, containing from twelve thousand to eighteen

-thousand men, that this village of the farthest north was as busy as a

-manufacturing town. The incitement of prices proportionate to the

-latitude attracted hundreds of annual settlers, who throve on the sale

-of brandy, wine, tobacco, and sundries to the whale-fishers in shops of

-all varieties, including bakehouses, where the blowing of a horn let the

-sailors know that the bread had just been drawn hot from the oven. In

-fact, hot rolls and every delicacy could be had in Smeerenberg, which

-the Dutch averred was as flourishing as Batavia, founded by them a few

-years before. And when winter was just about due every man—and

-woman—went back to Holland. But the life of Smeerenberg was a short and

-a merry one, for in 1640 the shore fisheries were failing, and a year or

-so afterwards the lingerers of its last season left it for good,

-clearing out from its houses of brick and wood, demolishing its

-furnaces, removing its copper cauldrons and coolers and casks and

-everything that could be taken away, and leaving it in desolation to be

-occupied in the next and subsequent summers by polar bears.

-

-Like all seaside resorts it had its rival. Close by is the

-Cookery-of-Haarlem, abandoned at the same time, but rather more

-hurriedly. When Martens went there on the 15th of July, 1671, he found

-four houses still standing, in one of which were "several barrels or

-kardels that were quite decayed, the ice standing in the same shape the

-vessels had been made of: an anvil, smith's tongs, and other tools

-belonging to the cookery, were frozen up in the ice; the kettle was

-still standing as it was set, and the wooden troughs stood by it."

-Behind these houses "are high mountains," he continues, "if one climbeth

-upon these, as we do on others, and doth not mark every step with chalk,

-one doth not know how to get down again: when you go up you think it to

-be very easy to be down; but when you descend it is very difficult and

-dangerous, so that many have fallen and lost their lives." Absurd as

-this chalking of the steps may seem, there have been many who have taken

-the hint from the careful Martens when climbing in Spitsbergen, and many

-who have regretted not having done so.

-

-In ordinary summers the west side of Spitsbergen is clear of ice, not so

-the eastern side, the difference being due to the Gulf Stream, which,

-though evidently failing, is traceable along the coast round Hakluyt

-Headland and up to the ice barrier. In addition to this there is the

-general cause, whatever it may be, which makes the western coasts of all

-Arctic lands, isolated or not, warmer than the eastern. Greenland, for

-instance, is more approachable in summer from Davis Strait than from the

-Greenland Sea, Novaya Zemlya from Barents Sea than from Kara Sea, and so

-on with all the islands and peninsulas of Asia and America. Hence all

-this whaling was confined practically to the western harbours of West

-Spitsbergen, the largest of the group of islands. The next largest,

-North East Land, was never much visited except from Hinlopen Strait,

-though the Russians from time to time took some interest in the north

-and east harbours, and would have taken more, for it abounded in

-reindeer, if the ice had not made the landing an enterprise of some

-difficulty.

-

-On the east coast of North East Land, in 1743, a Russian whaler was

-caught in the pack, and the mate, Alexis Himkoff, remembering that a

-house had been built there some years before, went on shore with his

-godson, Ivan Himkoff, and two sailors, Scharapoff and Weregin, in search

-of it, in case the ship should have to be abandoned. They found the

-house, but, on returning to the shore next morning, could see nothing of

-the ship, which had apparently been carried away and crushed in the ice.

-They had brought with them a musket, a powder-horn with twelve charges

-of powder, twelve bullets, an axe, a small kettle, a bag with about

-twenty pounds of flour, a knife, a tinder-box and tinder, a bladder of

-tobacco, and every man had his pipe. That was their outfit.

-

-The house was thirty-six feet in length, and eighteen in height and

-breadth. It contained a small antechamber about twelve feet broad, which

-had two doors, one to close it from the outer air, the other admitting

-to the inner room in which was a Russian stove, a kind of oven without a

-chimney, serving at will for heating, for baking, or for sleeping on.

-Realising that they had a long stay before them, they began by shooting

-twelve reindeer, one for each bullet. They then repaired the house,

-stopping up all the crevices with moss; and they then laid in a store of

-fuel from the driftwood, there being no trees on the island. On the

-beach they found some boards with nails in them, and a long iron hook

-and a few other pieces of old iron. And also there was a root of a fir

-tree in shape not unlike a bow. Those were the materials they had to

-make the best of.

-

-A large stone served for an anvil, a pair of deer horns did duty for

-tongs, and with these and the fire, the iron hook was made into a

-hammer; and then two of the nails were shaped into spear-heads, which

-were tied to sticks from the driftwood with strips of deerskin. With

-these weapons they began by killing a bear, whose flesh they ate, whose

-skin they kept, and whose tendons they made into thread and a string for

-the bow formed out of the root of the fir tree. More nails were forged

-into arrow-heads, tied with sinew on to light sticks cut with the knife,

-the shafts being feathered from the feathers of seafowl. With these

-weapons they shot, before they had finished, two hundred and fifty

-reindeer, and they kept the skins, as they did also those of a large

-number of blue and white foxes, as we shall see in the sequel. In their

-own protection they killed nine bears, the only one they deliberately

-attacked being the first.

-

-To be sure of keeping their fire alight they modelled a lamp out of

-clay, which they filled with deer-fat, with twisted linen for a wick;

-but the clay was too porous, the fat ran through it; so they made

-another lamp of the same stuff, dried it in the air, heated it red hot,

-and cooled it in a sort of thin starch made of flour and water,

-strengthening the pottery by pasting linen rags over it. The result was

-so successful that they made a second lamp as a reserve. Some wreckage

-gave them a little cordage and a quantity of oakum, which came in for

-lamp-wicks. The lamp, like the sacred fire, was never allowed to go out.

-To make themselves clothes, they soaked skins in fresh water till the

-hair could be pulled off easily, and rubbed them well, and then rubbed

-deer fat into them until they were pliant and supple. Some of the skins

-they prepared as furs. Out of nails they, after many failures, made awls

-and needles, getting the eyes by piercing the heads with the point of

-the knife, and smoothing and pointing them by rounding and whetting them

-on a stone.

-

-For six years they lived in this desert place. Then one of them,

-Weregin, died of scurvy, and their gloomy forebodings as to which was to

-be taken next were broken in upon by their sighting a ship, to which

-they signalled with a flag made of deerskin. The signal was seen and

-they were rescued; and they took back to Archangel two thousand pounds

-weight of reindeer fat, their bales of skins and furs, their bow and

-arrows and spears, and in short everything they possessed. And they

-arrived there on the 28th of September, 1749, comfortably off from the

-value of the goods they brought with them—the heroes of one of the very

-best of true desert island stories.

-

-Like most Russians they do not seem to have suffered much from the cold

-or to have been inconvenienced by the summer heat, which is also

-considerable. In 1773, on the 13th of June, when Phipps and Lutwidge

-anchored in Fair Haven, round by Amsterdam Island, they found the

-thermometer reach 58½° at noon and descend no lower than 51° at

-midnight, and on the 16th it rose in the sun to 89½° till a light breeze

-made it fall almost suddenly ten degrees. This was the expedition sent

-out to the North Pole, mainly at the instigation of Daines Barrington,

-Gilbert White's friend. The ships were the _Racehorse_ and _Carcass_;

-and, as every one knows, or ought to know, as midshipman with Captain

-Lutwidge went Horatio Nelson, then a boy of fourteen, who was to figure

-largely in the world, though on this occasion he did nothing remarkable

-beyond attacking a polar bear, whose skin he thought would make a nice

-present for his father, and bringing his boat to the rescue when one of

-the _Racehorse_ boats was attacked by walruses. For another thing the

-expedition is memorable, that being that the useful apparatus for the

-distillation of fresh water from sea water, known to every seafarer, was

-first used on this voyage, Dr. Irving, its inventor, being the surgeon

-of the _Racehorse_. Another item to be noted is that Phipps had with him

-a Cavendish thermometer, which he tried the day after he crossed the

-Arctic Circle, and found that at a depth of 780 fathoms the temperature

-was 26°, while at the surface it was 48°.

-

-Phipps did all he could to go north, and, in longitude 14° 59´ east,

-reached 80° 48', the nearest to the Pole up to then, but he was foiled

-by the ice barrier, which he tried to penetrate again and again. He got

-his ships caught in the ice and took to his boats, thinking he would

-have to abandon them, when fortunately the pack drifted south, and the

-vessels, clearing themselves under sail, caught the boats up and took

-them on board. Then he went along the edge of the ice westward, and,

-finding no opening, gave the venture up and sailed for home.

-

-The next to do good work within this area was William Scoresby the

-elder, whose only equal as a whale-fisher was his son. To him we owe the

-invention of the crow's nest, that cylindrical frame covered with

-canvas, entrance to which is given by a trap-hatch in the base, reached

-by a Jacob's ladder from the topmast crosstrees, the conning-tower, so

-to speak, carried since by every ship on Arctic service. He was also the

-inventor of the ice-drill and many another implement and device used in

-Polar navigation; and he it was who sloped off his fore and main courses

-to come inboard to a boom fitted to the foot, used by every whaler, by

-which, in fact, you may know them. He also, long before the _America_,

-discovered the advantage of flat sails, and, in order to get his weights

-well down, he filled his casks with water as ballast and packed them

-with shingle, so that, instead of going out light, he was in the best of

-trim, with a power of beating to windward that took him to the fishing

-ground in double quick time and further into the ice, when he chose,

-than any of his competitors.

-

-[Illustration: WHALERS AMONG ICEBERGS]

-

-Out in the _Resolution_ in 1806 he saw from his crow's nest, in which he

-often spent a dozen hours at a stretch, that below the ice-blink—the

-white line in the sky which betokens the presence of ice—there was a

-blue-grey streak denoting open water, and that the motion of the sea

-around the ship must be due to a swell, which could only come from open

-water to the northward. On the 13th of May he started for this. By

-sawing the ice, hammering at it, dropping his boats on to it from the

-bow, sallying the ship—that is, rolling her by running the crew

-backwards and forwards across her deck—and, in fact, using every means

-he could think of, he passed the barrier in the eightieth parallel, and,

-on the 24th of June, attained 81° 30´, the farthest north ever reached

-by a sailing vessel in these seas. On that day there was not a ship

-within three hundred and fifty miles of the _Resolution_. The bold

-venture proved a thorough success; in thirty-two days he filled up with

-twenty-four whales, two seals, two walruses, and a narwhal—one of the

-most profitable of his thirty voyages.

-

-In this voyage the chief officer was his son, William Scoresby the

-younger, whose _Arctic Regions_ is the best book ever written on the

-northern seas. Sent by his father to Edinburgh University where he

-studied almost every branch of natural and physical science, he was

-thoroughly equipped for his task, and his practical experience as a

-whaling captain and trained observer stood him in such stead that his

-book is still the basis of all scientific Polar research. His

-description of the Spitsbergen coast as seen from a ship is as faithful

-to-day as when he wrote it. "Spitsbergen and its islands, with some

-other countries within the Arctic Circle, exhibit a kind of scenery

-which is altogether novel. The principal objects which strike the eye

-are innumerable mountainous peaks, ridges, precipices, or needles,

-rising immediately out of the sea to an elevation of 3000 or 4000 feet,

-the colour of which, at a moderate distance, appears to be blackish

-shades of brown, green, grey and purple; snow or ice, in striæ or

-patches, occupying the various clefts and hollows in the sides of the

-hills, capping some of the mountain summits, and filling with extended

-beds the most considerable valleys; and ice of the glacier form,

-occurring at intervals all along the coast, in particular situations as

-already described, in prodigious accumulations. The glistening or

-vitreous appearance of the icy precipices; the purity, whiteness, and

-beauty of the sloping expanse formed by their snowy surfaces; the gloomy

-shade presented by the adjoining or intermixed mountains and rocks,

-perpetually covered with a mourning veil of black lichens, with the

-sudden transitions into a robe of purest white, where patches or beds of

-snow occur, present a variety and extent of contrast altogether

-peculiar; which, when enlightened by the occasional ethereal brilliancy

-of the Polar sky, and harmonised in its serenity with the calmness of

-the ocean, constitute a picture both novel and magnificent. There is,

-indeed, a kind of majesty, not to be conveyed in words, in these

-extraordinary accumulations of snow and ice in the valleys, and in the

-rocks above rocks and peaks above peaks, in the mountain groups, seen

-rising above the ordinary elevation of the clouds, and terminating

-occasionally in crests of snow, especially when you approach the shore

-under the shelter of the impenetrable density of a summer fog; in which

-case the fog sometimes disperses like the drawing of a curtain, when the

-strong contrast of light and shade, heightened by a cloudless atmosphere

-and powerful sun, bursts on the senses in a brilliant exhibition

-resembling the production of magic."

-

-In 1818 there went out the first British expedition prepared to winter

-in the north. The vessels were two whalers bought into the navy, the

-_Dorothea_ and _Trent_, the first under the command of David Buchan, the

-other under that of John Franklin. Neither officer had been in the

-Arctic region before, but Buchan had done excellent service in surveying

-Newfoundland, and Franklin had been marked for special duty owing to his

-work in Australian seas under his cousin, Matthew Flinders, and for the

-manner in which on his way home he had acted as signal officer to

-Nathaniel Dance in that ever-memorable victory off the Straits of

-Malacca, when the Indiamen defeated and pursued a French fleet under

-Admiral Linois. Dance's report gave Franklin a further chance of

-distinction, for it led to his appointment to the _Bellerophon_, whose

-signal officer he was during the battle of Trafalgar.

-

-They were instructed to proceed to the North Pole, thence to continue on

-to Bering Strait direct, or by the best route they could find, to make

-their way to the Sandwich Islands or New Albion, and thence to come back

-through Bering Strait eastward, keeping in sight and approaching the

-coast of America whenever the position of the ice permitted them so to

-do. A nice little programme. But they started too early in a bad season;

-they did not get so far north as Phipps; they made accurate surveys and

-other observations; in exploration they did little; and they had many

-adventures.

-

-As they ranged along the western side of Spitsbergen the weather was

-severe. The snow fell in heavy showers, and several tons' weight of ice

-accumulated about the sides of the _Trent_, and formed a complete casing

-to the planks, which received an additional layer at each plunge of the

-vessel. So great, indeed, was the accumulation about the bows, that they

-were obliged to cut it away repeatedly with axes to relieve the bowsprit

-from the enormous weight that was attached to it: and the ropes were so

-thickly covered with ice that it was necessary to beat them with large

-sticks to keep them in a state of readiness. In the gale the ships

-parted company, but they met again at the rendezvous in Magdalena Bay.

-

-[Illustration: SIR JOHN FRANKLIN]

-

-Later on, off Cloven Cliff, there was a walrus fight begun by the seamen

-and continued by the walruses when they found themselves more at home in

-the water than on the ice. They rose in numbers about the boats, rushing

-at them, snorting with rage, endeavouring to upset them or stave them in

-by hooking their tusks on the gunwales, or butting at them with their

-heads. "It was the opinion of our people," says Beechey, "that in this

-assault the walruses were led on by one animal in particular, a much

-larger and more formidable beast than any of the others; and they

-directed their efforts more particularly towards him, but he withstood

-all the blows of their tomahawks without flinching, and his tough hide

-resisted the entry of the whale lances, which were, unfortunately, not

-very sharp, and soon bent double. The herd was so numerous, and their

-attacks so incessant, that there was not time to load a musket, which,

-indeed, was the only effectual mode of seriously injuring them. The

-purser, fortunately, had his gun loaded, and the whole now being nearly

-exhausted with chopping and sticking at their assailants, he snatched it

-up, and, thrusting the muzzle down the throat of the leader, fired into

-him. The wound proved mortal, and the animal fell back amongst his

-companions, who immediately desisted from their attack, assembled round

-him, and in a moment quitted the boat, swimming away as hard as they

-could with their leader, whom they actually bore up with their tusks and

-assiduously preserved from sinking."

-

-On one occasion Franklin and Beechey, when out in a boat together,

-witnessed the launch of an iceberg. They had approached the end of a

-glacier and were trying to search into the recess of a deep cavern at

-its foot when they heard a report as if of a cannon, and, turning to the

-quarter whence it proceeded, perceived an immense piece of the front of

-the cliff of ice gliding down from a height of two hundred feet at least

-into the sea, and dispersing the water in every direction, accompanied

-by a loud grinding noise, and followed by a quantity of water, which,

-lodged in the fissures, made its escape in numberless small cataracts

-over the front of the glacier. They kept the boat's head in the

-direction of the sea and thus escaped disaster, for the disturbance

-occasioned by the plunge of this enormous fragment caused a succession

-of rollers, which swept over the surface of the bay, making its shores

-resound as it travelled along it, and at a distance of four miles was so

-considerable that it became necessary to right the _Dorothea_, which was

-then careening, by instantly releasing the tackles which confined her.

-The piece that had been disengaged wholly disappeared under water, and

-nothing was seen but a violent boiling of the sea and a shooting up of

-clouds of spray like that which occurs at the foot of a great cataract.

-After a short time it reappeared, raising its head full a hundred feet

-above the surface, with water pouring down from all parts of it; and

-then, labouring as if doubtful which way it should fall, it rolled over,

-and, after rocking about for some minutes, became settled. It was nearly

-a quarter of a mile round and floated sixty feet out of the water, and

-making a fair allowance for its inequalities, was computed to weigh

-421,600 tons.

-

-[Illustration: TRACK OF H.M.S. "DOROTHEA" AND "TRENT"]

-

-There were frequent landings, often with difficulties in the return, due

-generally to attempts at making a short cut to the shore or across the

-ice. Of these short cuts the very shortest was that made by one of the

-sailors named Spinks, who was out with a party in pursuit of reindeer.

-The ardour of the chase had led them beyond the prescribed limits, and

-when the signal was made for their return to the boat some of them were

-upon the top of a hill. Spinks, an active and zealous fellow, anxious to

-be first at his post, thought he would outstrip his comrades by

-descending the snow, which was banked against the mountain at an angle

-of about 40° with the horizon, and rested against a small glacier on the

-left. The height was about two thousand feet, and in the event of his

-foot slipping there was nothing to impede his progress until he reached

-the beach, either by the slope or the more terrific descent of the face

-of the glacier. He began his career by digging his heels into the snow,

-the surface of which was rather hard. At first he got on very well, but

-presently his foot slipped, or the snow was too hard for his heel to

-make an impression, and he increased in speed, keeping his balance,

-however, by means of his hands. In a very short time his descent was

-fearfully quick; the fine snow flew about him like dust, and there

-seemed but little chance of his reaching the bottom in safety,

-especially as his course was taking him in the direction of the glacier.

-For a moment he was lost sight of behind a crag of the mountain, and it

-was thought he had gone over the glacier, but with great presence of

-mind and dexterity, "by holding water first with one hand and then the

-other," to use his own expression, he contrived to escape the danger,

-and, like a skilful pilot, steered into a place of refuge amid a bed of

-soft snow recently drifted against the hill. When he extricated himself

-from the depths into which he had been plunged he had to hold together

-his tattered clothes, for he had worn away two pairs of trousers and

-something more. That was all his damage, and we shall meet with him

-again in the west out with Franklin and Captain Back.

-

-In the morning of the 30th of July the ships found themselves caught in

-a gale with the ice close to leeward. The only way of escaping

-destruction seemed to be by taking refuge in the pack. It was a

-desperate expedient rarely resorted to by whalers and only in extreme

-cases. In the _Trent_ a cable was cut up into thirty-foot lengths, and

-these, with plates of iron four feet square, supplied as fenders, and

-some walrus hides, were hung around her, mainly about her bows; the

-masts were secured with extra ropes, and the hatches were battened and

-nailed down. When a few fathoms from the ice those on board searched

-with anxiety for an opening in the pack, but saw nothing but an unbroken

-line of furious breakers with huge masses heaving and plunging with the

-waves and dashing together with a violence that nothing but a solid body

-seemed likely to withstand; and the noise was so great that the orders

-to the crew could with difficulty be heard. At one moment the sea was

-bursting upon the ice blocks and burying them deep beneath its wave, and

-the next, as the buoyancy brought them up again, the water was pouring

-in foaming cataracts over their edges, the masses rocking and labouring

-in their bed, grinding and striving with each other until one was either

-split with the shock or lifted on to the top of its neighbour. Far as

-the eye could reach the turmoil stretched, and overhead was the

-clearness of a calm and silvery atmosphere bounded by a dark line of

-storm cloud lowering over the masts as if to mark the confines within

-which no effort would avail.

-

-"At this instant," says Beechey, "when we were about to put the strength

-of our little vessel in competition with that of the great icy

-continent, and when it seemed almost presumption to reckon on the

-possibility of her surviving the unequal conflict, it was gratifying in

-the extreme to observe in all our crew the greatest calmness and

-resolution. If ever the fortitude of seamen was fairly tried it was

-assuredly not less so than on this occasion; and I will not conceal the

-pride I felt in witnessing the bold and decisive tone in which the

-orders were issued by the commander of our little vessel, and the

-promptitude and steadiness with which they were executed by the crew."

-

-The brig was steered bow on to the ice. Every man instinctively gripped

-his hold, and with his eyes fixed on the masts awaited the moment of

-concussion. In an instant they all lost their footing, the masts bent

-with the shock, and the timbers cracked below; the vessel staggered and

-seemed to recoil, when the next wave, curling up under her counter,

-drove her about her own length within the edge of the ice, where she

-gave a roll and was thrown broadside to the wind by the succeeding wave

-which beat furiously against her stern, bringing her lee in touch with

-the main mass and leaving her weather side exposed to a floe about twice

-her size. Battered on all sides, tossed from fragment to fragment,

-nothing could be done but await the issue, for the men could hardly keep

-their feet, the motion being so great that the ship's bell, which in the

-heaviest gale had never struck of itself, now tolled so continuously

-that it had to be muffled.

-

-After a time an effort was made to put the vessel before the wind and

-drive her further into the pack. Some of the men gained the

-fore-topsail-yard and let a reef out of the sail, and the jib was

-dragged half up the stay by the windlass. The brig swung into position,

-and, aided by a mass under her stern, split the block, fourteen feet

-thick, which had barred her way, and made a passage for herself into

-comparative safety; and after some four hours the gale moderated.

-Strained and leaking the _Trent_ had suffered much, but the _Dorothea_

-had been damaged more; and both returned to Fair Haven, where it was

-found hopeless to continue the voyage, and thence, when the ships had

-been temporarily repaired, they sailed for England. The expedition had

-not done much, but it had given their Arctic schooling to Franklin,

-Beechey, and Back.

-

-In May, 1827, Parry, in the _Hecla_, was forced to run into the ice, but

-not quite in the same way as Buchan did. He was beset for three weeks,

-and then, getting clear, proceeded to the Seven Islands to the north of

-Spitsbergen, on one of which, Walden, he placed a reserve of provisions;

-the ship, after reaching 81° 5´, going to Treurenberg Bay, in Hinlopen

-Strait, to await his return.

-

-[Illustration: PARRY CAMPED ON THE ICE]

-

-From here he made his dash for the Pole. He had with him two boats of

-his own design, seven feet in beam, twenty in length. On each side of

-the keel was a strong runner, shod with steel, upon which the boat stood

-upright on the ice. They were so built that they would have floated as

-bags had they been stove in. On ash and hickory timbers, an inch by an

-inch and a half thick, placed a foot apart, with a half-timber of

-smaller size between each, was stretched a casing of waterproof canvas

-tarred on the outer side and protected by a skin of fir three-sixteenths

-of an inch thick, over this came a sheet of stout felt, and over all a

-skin of oak of the same thickness as the fir, each boat weighing about

-fourteen hundredweight—that is the hull, as launched. One of these boats

-was named the _Enterprise_, the other the _Endeavour_. They were

-intended to be hauled by reindeer, but the state of the ice rendered

-this impracticable and the men did the work themselves. Parry took

-command of the _Enterprise_, the other being in charge of Lieutenant

-James Clark Ross; and, altogether, officers and men numbered

-twenty-eight.

-

-From Little Table Island, where they left a reserve as they had done at

-Walden, they started for the north—two heavy boats laden with food for

-seventy days and clothing for twenty-eight men, with a compact equipment

-including light sledges, travelling in a sea crowded or covered with ice

-in every form, large and small, over which they were dragged up and down

-hummocks, round and among crags and ridges, along surfaces of every kind

-of ruggedness, of every slope and irregularity, the few flat stretches

-broken with patches of sharp crystals or waist-deep snow; through lanes

-and pools of water with frequent ferryings and transhipments, in

-sunshine and fog, and, strange to say, frequently in pouring rain. They

-travelled by night and rested by day, though, of course, there was

-daylight all the time. "The advantages of this plan," says Parry, "which

-was occasionally deranged by circumstances, consisted, first in our

-avoiding the intense and oppressive glare from the snow during the time

-of the sun's greatest altitude, so as to prevent in some degree the

-painful inflammation in the eyes called snow-blindness which is common

-in all snowy countries. We also thus enjoyed greater warmth during the

-hours of rest and had a better chance of drying our clothes; besides

-which no small advantage was derived from the snow being harder at night

-for travelling. When we rose in the evening we commenced our day by

-prayers, after which we took off our sleeping dresses and put on those

-for travelling, the former being made of camlet lined with racoon skin,

-and the latter of strong blue, box cloth. We made a point of always

-putting on the same stockings and boots for travelling in, whether they

-had dried during the day or not, and I believe it was only in five or

-six instances that they were not either still wet or hard frozen." When

-halted for rest the boats were placed alongside each other, with their

-sterns to the wind, the snow or wet cleared out of them, and the sails,

-held up by the bamboo masts and three paddles, were placed over them as

-awnings with the entrance at the bow.

-

-Progress was not great, sometimes fifty yards an hour, occasionally

-twelve miles a day, that is on the ice, for soon it was apparent that

-the distance gained by reckoning was greater than that given by

-observation, and Parry realised to his dismay that the pack was drifting

-south while he was going north. But he kept on till on the 21st of July

-he reached 82° 45´, which remained the farthest north for forty-nine

-years.

-

-[Illustration: PARRY'S BOATS AMONG THE HUMMOCKS]

-

-During the last few days he had been drifting south in the day almost as

-far as he had advanced north in the night, and, having used up half his

-provisions, he reluctantly abandoned the struggle as hopeless. "As we

-travelled," he says, "by far the greater part of our distance on the

-ice, three, and not infrequently, five times over, we may safely

-multiply the road by 2½; so that our whole distance, on a very moderate

-calculation, amounted to five hundred and eighty geographical miles, or

-six hundred and sixty-eight statute miles; being nearly sufficient to

-have reached the Pole in a direct line."

-

-In 1858 a Swedish expedition under Otto Torell started from Hammerfest

-for Spitsbergen. He was accompanied by A. Quennerstedt and Adolf Erik

-Nordenskiöld. They explored Horn Sound, Bell Sound, and Green Harbour.

-In Bell Sound they dredged with great success for mollusca; they made a

-botanical collection, chiefly of mosses and lichens, found tertiary

-plant fossils, and, in the North Harbour, carboniferous limestone beds

-with the tertiary plant-bearing strata above them—in short, Nordenskiöld

-entered upon his long and fruitful study of Spitsbergen geology. Three

-years afterwards Torell took out another expedition, Nordenskiöld going

-with him, which was to explore the northern coast and then make for the

-far north; but the ice conditions kept them in Treurenberg Bay, where

-they visited Hecla Cove and found Parry's flagstaff. In the course of

-their journeys they noticed in Cross Bay the first known Spitsbergen

-fern, _Cystopteris fragilis_; by the side of a freshwater lake in Wijde

-Bay an Alpine char was picked up; and, at Shoal Point, Torell discovered

-in a mass of driftwood a specimen of the unmistakable Entada bean, two

-and a quarter inches across, brought there from the West Indies by the

-Gulf Stream, as other specimens have been drifted to European shores.

-

-In 1864, the year that Elling Carlsen found the navigation so open that

-he passed the Northern Gate and sailed round Spitsbergen, Nordenskiöld,

-at the head of a small expedition, was at work in Ice Fjord, and, unable

-to go north on account of the ice, rounded South Cape, entered Stor

-Fjord, visited Edge's Land and Barents Land, and from the summit of

-White Mountain, near Unicorn Bay, rediscovered the west coast of the

-island reported by Edge two hundred and fifty years before. In 1868, as

-leader of the Swedish North Polar Expedition in the _Sofia_, he reached

-81° 42´, in 17° 30´ east, the highest latitude then reached by a steam

-vessel, and his farthest north; his next Polar venture, four years

-afterwards, in the _Polhem_, ending in his having to winter in Mossel

-Bay, where his generous endeavour to feed one hundred and one extra men,

-who were ice-bound, on provisions intended for his own twenty-four,

-would have ended in disaster had he not been relieved by Leigh Smith in

-the _Diana_.

-

-The _Diana_ was the steam yacht built for James Lamont, in which, like

-Leigh Smith, he cruised for several seasons in the Arctic seas,

-combining sport with exploration in a truly admirable way. To these two

-yachtsmen we owe much of our knowledge of Spitsbergen, Novaya Zemlya,

-and Franz Josef Land, but we can only give them passing mention here. We

-must, however, find room for Lamont's useful find of the coal mine in

-Advent Bay, from which he filled up the _Diana's_ bunkers. "When I paid

-a visit to the coal mine," he says, "I found it quite a busy scene for a

-quiet Arctic shore. The engineer and fireman directed the blasting, my

-English hands quarried, while the Norwegians carried the sacks down the

-hill. The old mate, the many-sidedness of whose character I have so much

-valued on my various voyages, was digging away with the rest, though I

-am sorry that in the sketch his weather-beaten face is turned away. All

-the rest are portraits, and the reader will notice that Arctic work is

-not done in the attractive uniforms known to Cowes and Ryde. The

-coal-bed was about three feet thick, and lay very horizontally between

-two layers of soft, mud-coloured limestone. It was harder to obtain than

-I anticipated, because saturated, through all the cracks and

-interstices, with water which had frozen into ice more difficult to

-break through than the coal itself, thereby rendering these fissures

-worse than useless in quarrying. This is tertiary coal, and is of fair

-quality, but contains a good deal of sulphur. When we began to burn it,

-so much water and ice was unavoidably mixed with it that the engineers

-had to let it drain on deck in the hot sun and then mix it with an equal

-bulk of Scotch coal. Consumed in this way the ten tons obtained in three

-days was a useful addition to the fast-dwindling stock on board."

-

-While Nordenskiöld was at Mossel Bay he attempted a journey to the

-north, but was stopped by the ice at Seven Islands, and returned round

-North East Land. It took him five days to pass across the twenty-three

-miles between Phipps Island and Cape Platen over pyramids of angular ice

-up to thirty feet high. On the coast, which he found extending, as Leigh

-Smith had reported, much further to the east than was shown on the

-charts, he met with the inland ice ending in precipices from two

-thousand to three thousand feet high. Ascending this ice they had

-scarcely gone a quarter of a mile before one of the men disappeared at a

-place where the surface was level, and so instantaneously that he could

-not even give a cry for help. When they looked into the hole they found

-him hanging on to the drag-line, to which he was fastened with reindeer

-harness, over a deep abyss. Had his arms slipped out of the harness, a

-single belt, he would have been lost. Along the level surface every puff

-of wind drove a stream of fine snow-dust, which, from the ease with

-which it penetrated everywhere, was as the fine sand of the desert to

-the travellers in the Sahara. By means of this fine snow-dust, steadily

-driven forward by the wind, the upper part of the glacier—which did not

-consist of ice, but of hard packed blinding white snow—was glazed and

-polished so that it seemed to be a faultless, spotless floor of white

-marble, or rather a white satin carpet. Examination showed that the

-snow, at a depth of four to six feet, passed into ice, being changed

-first into a stratum of ice crystals, partly large and perfect, then to

-a crystalline mass of ice, and finally to hard glacier ice, in which

-could still be observed numerous air cavities compressed by the

-overlying weight; and, when, as the surface thaws, the pressure of the

-enclosed air exceeds that of the superincumbent weight, these cavities

-break up with the peculiar cracking sound heard in summer from the

-glacier ice that floats about in the fjords. Occasionally broad channels

-were crossed, of which the only way to ascertain the depth was to lower

-a man into them, and frequently he had to be hoisted up again without

-having reached the bottom; such danger areas causing so circuitous a

-route that much progress was impossible.

-

-Prior to the explorations of Sir Martin Conway in 1896, it was supposed

-that this inland ice extended over all the islands of the group, an area

-exceeding twenty thousand square miles. He, however, proved that so far

-as West Spitsbergen was concerned, this was not the case. Crossing it he

-found much of the interior a complex of mountains and valleys, amongst

-which were many glaciers, as in Central Europe, but with no continuous

-covering of ice, each glacier being a separate unit with its own

-drainage system and catchment area, the valleys boggy and relatively

-fertile, the hillsides bare of snow in summer up to more than a thousand

-feet above sea-level. In the rise of the country from the sea it seems

-to have come up as a plain which did not reach the level of perpetual

-snow, so that as it rose it was cut down into valleys in the usual way

-by the agency of water pouring off from the plateau over its edge down a

-frost-split rock-face, the valleys gently sloped, the head necessarily

-steep owing to the face of the cliff being stripped off as the

-waterfalls cut their way back.

-

-Since Nordenskiöld's first expedition we have learnt much of the geology

-and physical features of Spitsbergen; and we hear no more of the poverty

-of its flora and fauna. Now it has become a summer tourist resort we are

-yearly increasing our knowledge of this land of no thunderstorms, for

-centuries the largest uninhabited area on the globe, the only

-considerable stretch on which there is no trace of human occupation

-before its discovery by the moderns in 1596, when it was found by

-Barents and his companions.

-

-

-

-

-                              CHAPTER III

-                             NOVAYA ZEMLYA

-

-  Van Heemskerck and Barents reach Ice Haven—The ship in the ice—The

-    first crew to winter in the Arctic—The house the Dutch built—The

-    bears—The foxes—Intense cold—Twelfth Eve rejoicings—Preparations

-    for departure—Death of Barents—The boat voyage—Meeting with

-    Rijp—Admiral Jacob Van Heemskerck—Carlsen at Ice Haven—Finds the

-    house as described by De Veer—The relics at the Hague—Gardiner

-    finds the powder-flask—Gundersen finds the translation of the

-    voyage of Pet and Jackman—Second voyage of Hudson—His third

-    voyage—De Vlamingh—Russian explorers.

-

-

-We left Barents parting company with Rijp at Bear Island, Rijp bound

-northwards. Barents, taking his vessel eastwards, struck Novaya Zemlya

-at Loms Bay, near Cross Bay, and bearing north-eastwards reached the

-Orange Islands and rounded Cape Mauritius. Steering south he got down

-into Ice Haven, where at length, says De Veer, "the ice began to drive

-with such force that we were enclosed round about therewith, and yet we

-sought all the means we could to get out, but it was all in vain: and at

-that time we had like to have lost three men that were upon the ice to

-make way for the ship, if the ice had held the course it went; but as we

-drove back again, and the ice also whereon our men stood, they being

-nimble, as the ship drove by them, one of them caught hold of the beak

-head, another upon the shrouds, and the third upon the mainbrace that

-hung out behind, and so by great adventure by the hold they took they

-got into the ship again, for which they thanked God with all their

-hearts." The same evening, that of the 26th of August, 1596, they

-reached the west of Ice Haven—now known as Barents Bay—where they were

-forced to remain, being the first crew on record to spend a winter in

-the Arctic regions and survive to tell the story.

-

-To begin with, the ice gathered round the ship and lifted her bow four

-feet out of the water. Endeavouring to right her by clearing the ice

-away, Barents was on his knees measuring the height she had to fall when

-the ice broke with "such a noise and so great a crack that they thought

-verily they were all cast away." As she lay upright again they tried in

-vain with crowbars and other tools to break off the piled-up ice, and

-next day in a heavy snow the pressure became such that the whole ship

-was borne up and so squeezed that "all that was both about and in it

-began to crack, so that it seemed to burst in a hundred pieces, which

-was most fearful both to see and hear, and made all the hair of our

-heads to rise upright with fear." The grip continuing, the vessel was

-driven up four or five feet and the rudder squeezed off, which was

-replaced by a new one, when she sank back into the water a few hours

-afterwards owing to the ice drifting clear for a while. Thus matters

-went on for a little time, the ship being alternately lifted and

-released.

-

-[Illustration: HOW OUR SHIP STUCK FAST IN THE ICE]

-

-On the 11th of September, as there was no hope of escape, it was decided

-to build a house wherein to spend the winter, and in seeking for a

-suitable position, a mass of driftwood—"trees, roots and all"—was

-discovered, "driven ashore from Tartaria, Muscovia, or elsewhere," for

-there were no trees growing on the land, "wherewith," says De Veer, "we

-were much comforted, being in good hope that God would show us some

-further favour; for that wood served us not only to build our house, but

-also to burn and serve us all the winter long; otherwise without all

-doubt we had died there miserably with extreme cold."

-

-The timber was collected and piled up in heaps that it might not be

-hidden under the snow, and two sledges were made on which to drag it to

-the site of the house. This was heavy work in which all took part, four

-of them in turn remaining by the ship, there being thirteen men to each

-party, five to each sledge, with three to help and lift the wood behind

-"to make us draw the better and with more ease," and at the end of the

-first week of it the carpenter died, so that only sixteen were left. But

-the wood was brought along day after day, some to build with, some for

-fuel; and the house was built, the frost so hard at times that "as we

-put a nail into our mouths, as carpenters do, there would ice hang

-thereon when we took it out again and made the blood follow"; and when a

-great fire was made to soften the ground, in order that earth might be

-dug to shovel round the house, "it was all lost labour for the earth was

-so hard and frozen so deep that we could not thaw it, and it would have

-cost us too much wood."

-

-The house was roofed with deals obtained by breaking up the lower deck

-of the fore part of the ship, and, to make it weather-tight, it was

-covered with a sail on which afterwards shingle was spread to keep it

-from being blown off; and the materials of the cabin yielded the wood

-for the door. Inside, the house was made as comfortable as possible, as

-shown in the illustration given in De Veer's book in 1598. Low shelves,

-with partitions between, along the side served for sleeping places; a

-cask on end with a square hole like a window in the upper half was

-frequently used as a bath; a striking clock and a time-glass marked the

-passing of the hours; the large fire in the centre with its frame and

-trivet and spit and copper pots and other kitchen utensils served for

-warmth and cooking; and over the fire hung a large lamp beneath the

-chimney, which terminated outside in a cask giving it the appearance of

-a crow's nest ashore.

-

-While the house was building, and as long as the sun was above the

-horizon, there was much trouble with the bears, whose daily visits were

-always productive of excitement. On the 26th of October, for instance,

-the day after all the crew first slept in the house, when the men had

-loaded the last sledge and stood in the track-ropes ready to draw it to

-the house, Van Heemskerck caught sight of three coming towards them from

-behind the ship. The men jumped out of the track-ropes, and as

-fortunately two halberds lay upon the sledge, Van Heemskerck took one

-and De Veer the other, while the rest ran to the ship, "and as they ran

-one of them fell into a crevice in the ice, which grieved us much, for

-we thought the bears would have run unto him to devour him," but they

-made straight after the others instead. "Meantime we and the man that

-fell into the cleft of ice took our advantage and got into the ship on

-the other side; which the bears perceiving, they came fiercely towards

-us that had no arms to defend us withal but only the two halberds, gave

-them work to do by throwing billets of firewood and other things at

-them, and every time we threw they ran after them as a dog does at a

-stone that has been cast at him. Meantime we sent a man down into the

-caboose to strike fire and another to fetch pikes; but we could get no

-fire, and so we had no means to shoot"—their firearms being matchlocks.

-"At the last as the bears came fiercely upon us we struck one of them

-with a halberd on the snout, wherewith she gave back when she felt

-herself hurt and went away, which the other two, that were not so large

-as she, perceiving, ran away."

-

-When the bears had gone and the long night set in, their place was taken

-by the white foxes, many of these being caught in traps and furnishing

-skins for clothes and flesh for meat—"not unlike that of the

-rabbit"—that was "as grateful as venison." The 19th of November was a

-great day. A chest of linen was opened and divided among the men for

-shirts, "for they had need of them." Next day they washed their shirts,

-having evidently made the new ones in a hurry, and, says De Veer, "it

-was so cold that when we had washed and wrung them they presently froze

-so stiff (out of the warm water) that although we laid them by a great

-fire the side that lay next the fire thawed, but the other side was hard

-frozen, so that we should sooner have torn them in sunder than have

-opened them, whereby we were forced to put them into the boiling water

-again to thaw them, it was so exceeding cold."

-

-On the 3rd of December and the two following days it was so cold that as

-the men lay in their bunks they could hear the ice cracking in the sea

-two miles away, and thought that icebergs were breaking on each other;

-and as they had not so great a fire as usual owing to the smoke "it

-froze so sore within the house that the walls and the roof thereof were

-frozen two fingers thick with ice, even in the bunks in which we lay.

-All those three days while we could not go out by reason of the foul

-weather we set up the sandglass of twelve hours, and when it was run out

-we set it up again, still watching it lest we should miss our time. For

-the cold was so great that our clock was frozen and would not go,

-although we hung more weight on it than before."

-

-The snow fell until it was so deep round the house that on Christmas Day

-they heard foxes running over the roof; and the last day of the year was

-so cold that "the fire almost cast no heat, for as we put our feet to

-the fire we burnt our hose before we could feel the heat, so that we had

-work enough to do to patch our hose." On the 4th of January, "to know

-where the wind blew we thrust a half pike out of the chimney with a

-little cloth or feather upon it; but we had to look at it immediately

-the wind caught it, for as soon as we thrust it out it was frozen as

-hard as a piece of wood and could not go about or stir with the wind, so

-that we said to one another how fearfully cold it must be out of doors."

-

-Next day, being Twelfth Eve, on which foreigners, according to the old

-practice, hold the festivities now customary in England on the following

-day, the men asked Van Heemskerck that they might enjoy themselves, "and

-so that night we made merry and drank to the three kings. And therewith

-we had two pounds of meal, which we had taken to make paste for the

-cartridges wherewith, of which we now made pancakes with oil, and to

-every man a white biscuit, which we sopped in wine. And so supposing

-that we were in our own country and amongst our friends it comforted us

-as well as if we had made a great banquet in our own house. And we also

-distributed tickets, and our gunner was king of Nova Zembla, which is at

-least eight hundred miles long and lieth between two seas."

-

-In time the sun reappeared—as also the bears—and the rigours of the

-winter relaxing, the men, on the 9th of May, applied to Barents asking

-him to speak to Van Heemskerck with a view to preparing for departure.

-This, after two other appeals, he did on the 15th of May, Van

-Heemskerck's answer being that, if the ship were not free by the end of

-the month, he would get ready to go away in the boats. The two boats,

-or, to be exact, the boat and the herring skute, were then repaired and

-made suitable for a long sea voyage, and on the 13th of June were in

-proper condition with all their stores ready. Then Van Heemskerck,

-"seeing that it was open water and a good west wind, came back to the

-house again, and there he spake unto Willem Barents (that had been long

-sick) and showed him that he thought it good (seeing it was a fit time)

-to go from thence, and they then resolved jointly with the ship's

-company to take the boat and the skute down to the water side, and in

-the name of God to begin our voyage to sail from Nova Zembla. Then

-Willem Barents wrote a letter, which he put into a powder flask and

-hanged it up in the chimney, showing how we came out of Holland to sail

-to the kingdom of China, and what had happened to us." Then Barents was

-taken down to the shore on a sledge and put into one boat, the other

-sick man, Andriesz, being placed in the other, and "with a

-west-north-west wind and an indifferent open water" they set sail on a

-voyage of over fifteen hundred miles among the ice, over the ice, and

-through the sea.

-

-Barents, though they little suspected it, had but a few days to live. As

-they passed the northernmost cape of Novaya Zemlya, "Gerrit," he said to

-De Veer, "if we are near the Ice Point, just lift me up again. I must

-see that point once more." They were amongst the ice floes again; soon

-they had to make fast to one; and then they became shut in and forced to

-stay there. Next day their only means of safety lay in hauling their

-boats up on to a floe, taking the sick men out on to the ice and putting

-the clothes and other things under them; but after mending the boats,

-which had been much bruised and crushed, they drifted into a little open

-water and got afloat. On the 20th of June, about eight in the morning it

-became evident that Andriesz was nearing his end. "Methinks," said

-Barents, in the other boat, when he heard of it, "with me too it will

-not last long." But still his companions did not realise how ill he was,

-and talked on unconcernedly. Then he looked at the little chart which De

-Veer had made of the voyage. Putting it down, he said, "Gerrit, give me

-something to drink." And no sooner did he drink than he suddenly died.

-Thus passed away their chief guide and only pilot, than whom none better

-ever sailed the northern seas.

-

-[Illustration: HOW WE NEARLY GOT INTO TROUBLE WITH THE SEA-HORSES]

-

-Working their way down the west coast of the long island, putting in

-every now and then in search of birds and eggs, constantly in peril from

-the floating ice and the bears, they slowly came south. When passing

-Admiralty Peninsula they had to deal with a danger of their own causing.

-They sighted about two hundred walruses upon one of the floes. Sailing

-close to them they drove them off, "which," says De Veer, "had almost

-cost us dear, for they, being mighty strong sea monsters, swam towards

-us round about our boats with a great noise as if they would have

-devoured us; but we escaped from them by reason that we had a good gale

-of wind, yet it was not wisely done of us to waken sleeping wolves."

-

-Day by day De Veer tells the story of that adventurous voyage, with its

-long succession of dangers and disappointments, until they reached the

-mainland and sent the Lapland messenger to Kola, who returned with a

-letter from Jan Corneliszoon Rijp, who at first they could not believe

-was the old friend from whom they had parted at Bear Island; and more

-briefly he continues the story until Amsterdam was reached on the 1st of

-November, when the survivors, in the same clothes they wore in their

-winter quarters, fur caps and white fox-skins, walked up to the house of

-Pieter Hasselaer to report themselves on arrival and received the hearty

-welcome they deserved.

-

-Though Van Heemskerck had failed to make the passage to the east by way

-of the north, he was perhaps destined for greater fame on the far less

-rigorous route. Like Nelson he went on an Arctic expedition that failed,

-and then secured a place in history by a sea-fight in Spanish waters,

-for which his countrymen will never forget him. He it was who as

-Vice-Admiral of Holland fought the Spanish fleet at Gibraltar in the

-decisive battle of the 25th of April, 1607, in which with his twenty-six

-vessels he attacked Juan Alvarez Davila's twenty ships and ten galleons.

-Early in the struggle he had his leg swept off by a cannon shot, but he

-remained on deck till he died, gaining the complete victory which

-rendered his countrymen free from hindrance on the road to the Indies

-round the Cape of Good Hope, of which for so many years they made such

-profitable use. It is customary to give all the credit of the Arctic

-voyage to Barents on the ground that his captain was no sailor, but

-Holland knows no better sailor than Jacob Van Heemskerck of Gibraltar

-Bay.

-

-On the 9th of September, 1871, Captain Elling Carlsen, sailing in the

-Barents Sea, which he had entered round Icy Cape, landed in Ice Haven

-and found the house just as De Veer had described it. There it had stood

-in cold storage for 274 years, never having been entered by human foot

-since Van Heemskerck had shut the door. The bunks, the table, the bath,

-the clock, in short everything, all in order, as the orderly Dutchmen

-had left it. Never did a voyage book receive such ample verification;

-never did the description of an island home stand the test better.

-

-Carlsen, to begin with, knew nothing of De Veer or Barents, but he set

-to work in a conscientious way and recorded the results like a true

-archæologist. "Thursday, 14th," he wrote in his log, "Calm with clear

-sky. Four o'clock in the morning we went ashore further to investigate

-the wintering place. On digging we found again several objects, such as

-drumsticks, a hilt of a sword, and spears. Altogether it seemed that the

-people had been equipped in a warlike manner, but nothing was found

-which could indicate the presence of human remains. On the beach we

-found pieces of wood which had formerly belonged to some part of a ship,

-for which reason I believe that a vessel has been wrecked there, the

-crew of which built the house with the materials of the wreck and

-afterwards betook themselves to boats."

-

-Bringing away a very large number of articles, he resumed his voyage and

-landed at Hammerfest, where Mr. E. C. Lister Kay, who happened to be

-there on a yachting trip, bought them, thinking they would be

-repurchased from him, at the price he gave, for one of our own museums.

-In this he was disappointed, and the collection was taken down to his

-house in Dorsetshire, where Count Bylandt, the Dutch Ambassador,

-happening to hear of it, called and bought it for his Government, who

-placed it at the Hague in a room, the exact imitation of that in Novaya

-Zemlya.

-

-In July, 1876, Mr. Charles Gardiner, another English yachtsman, when on

-a cruise in the _Glow-worm_ in Barents Sea, made a call at the house and

-brought away many other relics, which he presented to the Dutch, to be

-added to those at the Hague; and among them was the powder-flask hung in

-the chimney, containing the paper mentioned by De Veer. The previous

-August Captain Gundersen had been there in the Norwegian schooner

-_Regina_. In one of the chests he found two charts and what he described

-as Barents's Journal. The journal proved to be a manuscript Dutch

-translation of the story of the voyage in 1580 of Arthur Pet and Charles

-Jackman.

-

-In 1608, eleven years after Barents died, Henry Hudson, in the Muscovy

-Company's service, was sent to China by the north-east. He sailed on the

-22nd of April from St. Katharine's, near the Tower of London, and on the

-3rd of June passed the North Cape on his way to Novaya Zemlya, which he

-reached near Cape Britwin twenty-three days afterwards. For some

-considerable distance he had skirted the ice pack, vainly endeavouring

-to get through to the northward and enter the Kara Sea round the Orange

-Islands.

-

-This being impracticable he ranged southwards looking for a passage

-through at Kostin Shar, which in the Dutch map he had with him was

-marked as a strait and proved to be a bay. Had he been able to go a

-little further north than Cape Britwin he might have found that

-Matyushin Shar, like a rift in the rocks, divides the long island in

-half, though at that early season the ice would have probably been

-blocking it. From Kostin or thereabouts he departed for home, his voyage

-failing almost at the outset, owing to his being two months too early.

-

-While off the coast he sent his boat ashore several times. "Generally,"

-he says, "all the land of Nova Zembla that we have yet seen is to a

-man's eye a pleasant land; much main high land with no snow on it,

-looking in some places green, and deer feeding thereon; and the hills

-are partly covered with snow and partly bare"—rather a different picture

-from that given by De Veer of what it was like in the winter. De Veer,

-too, had committed himself to the statement that there were no deer in

-the country, but here were Hudson's men frequently coming upon their

-traces, and on the 2nd of July reporting that they had seen "a herd of

-white deer, ten in a company," bringing on board with them a white lock

-of deer's hair in proof thereof.

-

-On his return Hudson left the service of the Muscovy Company. He went to

-Holland, and, early in April, 1609, was sent out by the Amsterdam

-Chamber of the Dutch East India Company. On the 5th of May he rounded

-the North Cape, making for Novaya Zemlya, and a few days afterwards

-reached the ice. Here, according to Dutch accounts, his men mutinied,

-but what happened during the trouble is not recorded. Whether it was

-really owing to a mutiny, or, as is by no means improbable, to secret

-instructions received at his departure, Hudson, on the 14th, made sail

-for the North Cape, passed it on the 19th, when he observed a spot on

-the sun, and then went off westwards to Newfoundland, making direct

-apparently for the mouth of the river now bearing his name, which was

-discovered by Verrazano in March, 1524, and surveyed by Gomez in the

-following year, and was at the time of Hudson's visit British territory.

-

-The reason for this astonishing change of route was, perhaps, that on

-some of the charts of the period, as on Michael Lock's planisphere, this

-river, the Rio de Gamas or Rio Grande of the Spaniards, was made to

-communicate with what seems to be intended for Lake Ontario, and this

-with the other lakes to the westward was widened out into the waterway

-to the South Sea. Thus Hudson drops out of our story at his first

-mutiny, for he did not cross the Arctic Circle on his fourth voyage,

-when his second mutiny ended his career in the bay that bears his name,

-which, like the river and the strait, was indicated on the maps years

-before he went there.

-

-In 1664 Willem de Vlamingh, the Dutch navigator, or—to be cautious—the

-namesake of the Dutch navigator, who thirty-one years afterwards found

-Dirk Hartog's plate and named Swan River in West Australia after the

-black swans, was in these regions and rounded Novaya Zemlya into the

-Kara Sea, reaching so far north that if his recorded latitude be correct

-he must have sighted the Franz Josef archipelago, and, contrary to the

-tendency of Arctic explorers, mistaken land for a bank of mist or a

-group of icebergs. After him neither Dutch nor English delay us, the

-opening up of this continuation of the Urals being left to the Russians,

-who found it first and named it—Novaya Zemlya meaning simply New Land.

-

-For years it was left to the Samoyeds and the walrus hunters, whose

-persistent reports of deposits of silver in its cliffs led to Loschkin's

-making his way round it and spending two winters on its east coast. In

-1768 Rosmysslof, also on silver bent, wintered in Matyushin Shar, that

-wonderful waterway, ninety fathoms deep, bounded by high hills and

-precipitous cliffs, winding so sharply that ships have been into it for

-a dozen miles or so and seeing no passage ahead have come out again to

-seek it elsewhere. In 1807 came Pospeloff, with Ludlow the mining

-engineer, to settle the silver question once for all, and settle it they

-did by showing that everywhere the so-called silver was either talc or

-mica, and naming Silver Bay ironically in memory thereof. Fourteen years

-afterwards Lütke surveyed the west coast, continuing during the next

-three summers; and in 1832 Pachtussoff arrived to undergo in the course

-of his really admirable work the hardships and privations of which he

-died.

-

-

-

-

-                               CHAPTER IV

-                            FRANZ JOSEF LAND

-

-  Austro-Hungarian expedition of 1872—The voyage as planned—The drift

-    of the _Tegetthoff_—The polyglot crew—Discovery of Franz Josef

-    Land—Payer's description of an aurora—The sledge journeys—Crown

-    Prince Rudolf Land—Cape Fligely reached—Abandonment of the

-    _Tegetthoff_—The boat voyage to Cape Britwin—Leigh Smith's

-    expeditions—Loss of the _Eira_—The retreat in the boats—Jackson in

-    Franz Josef Land—His excellent survey work—The Italian expedition

-    under the Duke of the Abruzzi—Cagni attempts to reach the Pole and

-    is stopped at 86° 34´—The return journey.

-

-

-In 1871 Weyprecht and Payer were out in the cutter _Isbjörn_, pioneering

-for their intended voyage to the eastward, which started next year in

-the _Tegetthoff_, the famous Austro-Hungarian attempt of 1872 which may

-be described as an unintentional voyage of unexpected discovery. The

-amount of credit due to a man who starts to find one thing and lights

-upon another has always been a contentious matter, and this expedition

-afforded an extreme case for such speculations. The plan was to go

-east-north-east, the wintering places being undetermined, though they

-might be Cape Chelyuskin, the New Siberian Islands, or any land that

-might be discovered; and a return to Europe through Bering Strait lay

-among the possibilities of the venture, as an endeavour was to be made

-to reach the coast of Siberia in boats and penetrate south down one of

-the large rivers of Northern Asia. What happened was that during the

-afternoon of the 20th of August, when off the north-west coast of Novaya

-Zemlya in 76° 22´ north, 63° 3´ east, the ship was run into an ice-hole

-and made fast to a floe, and during the night the ice, instead of

-parting asunder, closed in and imprisoned her, so that she never steamed

-or sailed again. In the ice and on the ice she lay perfectly helpless,

-drifting with the floe, and still in its grip when she was abandoned by

-her crew on the 20th of May, two years afterwards.

-

-It was a wonderful drift. North-easterly in the main to begin with, then

-north-westerly, then easterly to about 73°, then north, then west, in

-and out and roundabout, till they reached much the same longitude as

-they started from and then with a general tendency to the northward.

-Autumn passed away; the Polar night set in; and still they drifted

-ice-bound—a miscellaneous company representative of the polyglot empire;

-"on board the _Tegetthoff_," says Payer, "are heard all the languages of

-our country, German, Italian, Slavonic, and Hungarian; Italian is,

-however, the language in which all orders are given," to which we should

-add the Norwegian of Olaf Carlsen, the ice-master. During the winter

-there was enough of occupation and amusement, though private theatricals

-were impossible, as they would have had to be given in four languages to

-be intelligible to the audience.

-

-The short summer came and went, and August had almost gone when—it was

-on the 30th, in 79° 43´—there came a surprise. The rays of the sun were

-fitfully breaking through the gloom when suddenly the gliding mists

-rolled up like a curtain, revealing in the north-west the outlines of a

-rocky coast, which in a few minutes grew into a radiant Alpine land. The

-shore, however, was unattainable, as a rush over the icefield soon

-showed, but from the edge of the fissure that barred any further

-progress they could make out its hills and glaciers and imagine the

-green pastures of its valleys. They called it Kaiser Franz Josef's Land,

-and along it they drifted during September till its outlines faded as

-the wind began to drive the floe to the south. But at the end of the

-month the direction of the floe changed to the north-west, taking the

-_Tegetthoff_ up to 79° 58´, her highest north, near enough to one of the

-islands for an effort to be made to land. Six started from the ship over

-the grinding, groaning, broken walls of ice, and when they were out of

-sight of the ship a mist settled down which cut them off from the sight

-of land and then so closely enwrapped them that they could see nothing.

-Advance they found hopeless, and as they returned they lost their way

-and were saved by the sagacity of a dog they had with them. All through

-October the drift continued, and it was not until forenoon of the 1st of

-November, two months after sighting the country, that they managed to

-get ashore. This was on Wilczek Island in the same longitude as

-Admiralty Peninsula in Novaya Zemlya, and in the same latitude as Mossel

-Bay in Spitsbergen.

-

-The sun had retired for the winter nine days before, and it was by the

-light of the moon that they first explored the unknown country. Little

-could be done, and, as it was much too late for attempting to shift from

-the ship to the shore, the winter had to be spent on board as the other

-had been. Through this winter, as before, the auroral displays were

-remarkable, and they are excellently described by Payer. Of one of them,

-he says: "It is now eight o'clock at night, the hour of the greatest

-intensity of the northern lights. For a moment some bundles of rays only

-are to be seen in the sky. In the south a faint, scarcely observable,

-band lies close to the horizon. All at once it rises rapidly and spreads

-east and west. The waves of light begin to dart and shoot; some rays

-mount towards the zenith. For a short time it remains stationary, then

-suddenly springs to life. The waves of light drive violently from east

-to west; the edges assume a deep red and green colour and dance up and

-down. The rays shoot up more rapidly; they become shorter; all rise

-together and approach nearer and nearer to the magnetic Pole. It looks

-as if there were a race among the rays, and that each aspired to reach

-the Pole first. And now the point is reached, and they shoot out on

-every side, to the north and the south, to the east and the west. Do the

-rays shoot from above downwards, or from below upwards? Who can

-distinguish? From the centre issues a sea of flames. Is that sea red,

-white, or green? Who can say?—it is all three colours at the same

-moment. The rays reach almost to the horizon; the whole sky is in

-flames. Nature displays before us such an exhibition of fireworks as

-transcends the powers of imagination to conceive. Involuntarily we

-listen; such a spectacle must, we think, be accompanied with sound. But

-unbroken stillness prevails, not the least sound strikes on the ear.

-Once more it becomes clear over the ice, and the whole phenomenon has

-disappeared with the same inconceivable rapidity with which it came, and

-gloomy night has again stretched her dark veil over everything. This was

-the aurora of the coming storm—the aurora in its fullest splendour."

-

-Sledging was begun in March, Hall Island being first visited, and, on

-the 26th, Payer, with six men, started on his main journey up Austria

-Sound, reaching Hohenlohe Island, where three men were left, and then

-proceeding further north to Crown Prince Rudolf Land. Off the southern

-promontory of this were innumerable icebergs, up to two hundred feet in

-height, cracking and snapping in the sunshine. The Middendorf Glacier,

-with an enormous sea-wall, ran towards the north-west; layers of snow

-and rents in the sea-ice, caused by icebergs falling in, filled the

-intervening space. Into these fissures Payer and his men were

-continually falling, drenching their canvas boots and clothes with

-sea-water. One of the men was sent on ahead to find a path by which the

-glacier might be climbed, and discovering a fairly open road the summit

-was gained across many crevasses bridged with snow, three of those at

-the lower part needing but a slight movement to detach the severed

-portions and form them into bergs.

-

-While resting on the glacier looking down on the semicircular terminal

-precipice and the gleaming host of bergs which filled the indentations

-of the coast, one of the men reported that his foot was swollen and

-ulcerated, and he had to be sent back to Hohenlohe Island. Just as the

-others were setting off, the snow gave way beneath the sledge, and down

-fell Zaninovich, the dogs and the sledge, while Payer was dragged

-backwards by the rope. The fall was arrested at a depth of thirty feet

-by the sledge sticking fast between the sides of the crevasse. Payer, on

-his face, the rope attaching him to the sledge tightly strained and

-cutting into the snow, shouted that he would sever the rope, but

-Zaninovich implored him not to do so as the sledge would then turn over

-and he would be killed; hearing, however, from Orel, that the man was

-lying on a ledge of snow with precipices all around him and that the

-dogs were still fast to the traces, Payer cut the rope, and the sledge

-made a short turn and stuck fast again. Then, telling Zaninovich that he

-must contrive to keep himself from freezing for four hours, Payer and

-Orel set off to run the six miles back to Hohenlohe Island. Payer, as he

-went on ahead, threw off his bird-skin clothes, his boots and his

-gloves, and ran in his stockings through the snow. In an hour he reached

-the camp, and leaving it unattended they all set off to the rescue with

-a rope and a pole. Picking up his clothes on the way, Payer and his men

-reached the crevasse; one of the party was let down by the rope, and

-finally Zaninovich and the sledge and dogs were brought from their

-dangerous position four hours and a half after their fall.

-

-The advance was then resumed along the west coast of Crown Prince Rudolf

-Land round the imposing headland they named Cape Auk—the rocky cliffs

-being covered with little auks and other seabirds, enormous flocks

-flying up and filling the air, the whole region seeming to be alive with

-their incessant whirring—and following the line of Teplitz Bay, Payer

-mounted one of the bergs detached from a glacier and saw open water with

-ice bounding it on the horizon. As the sheet over which their course lay

-became thinner, and threatened to give way beneath them, they had to

-open up a track among the hummocks by pick and shovel; and when this

-failed they had to unload the sledge and carry the things separately. At

-Cape Saulen they camped for the night in the fissure of a glacier into

-which they had to drag their baggage by a long rope; and next day—the

-12th of April, 1874—they went on again and reached Cape Fligely, in 81°

-50´ 43˝, their farthest north.

-

-With great difficulty they made their way back to the ship, a long,

-toilsome journey through snow and sludge, with open water in places

-where there had been ice, which made them fear the _Tegetthoff_ might

-have drifted away again. The imminent danger of starvation was ended by

-their reaching their depot on Schonau Island, whence Payer went on for

-the remaining twenty-five miles alone with the dog-sledge, the two dogs

-giving much trouble until they struck the old sledge track almost

-obliterated by snow, when they raised their heads, stuck their tails in

-the air, and broke into a run. Halting on an iceberg for a meal, the

-berg capsized, and in a moment Payer was begirt by fissures,

-water-pools, and rolling blocks of ice, from which he managed to escape.

-When he turned into the narrow passage between Salm and Wilczek Islands,

-Orgel Cape, visible at a great distance, was the only dark spot on the

-scene. At once the dogs made for it, and about midnight he arrived

-there. With an anxious heart he began the ascent; a barren stony plateau

-confronted him; with every advancing step, made with increasing

-difficulty, the land gradually disappeared and the horizon of the frozen

-sea expanded before him; no ship was to be seen, no trace of man for

-thousands of miles except a cairn with the fragments of a flag

-fluttering in the wind, and a grave half covered with snow. Still he

-climbed, and suddenly three masts emerged. He had found the ship; there

-she lay about three miles off, appearing on the frozen ocean no bigger

-than a fly, the icebergs and drifts around her having hidden her amongst

-them. He held the heads of the dogs towards her and pointed with his arm

-to where she lay; and they saw her, and away they went, to find all but

-the watch asleep.

-

-After another sledge journey north-westwards to Mount Brunn, from which

-Richthofen Peak was sighted, preparations were made for abandoning the

-ship and returning home. The three boats left the _Tegetthoff_ on the

-20th of May, but so slow was the progress over the difficult route that

-at the end of every day in the first week it was possible for Payer to

-go back to her on the dog-sledge to replenish the stores which had been

-consumed; and at the end of two months of indescribable effort the

-distance between the boats and the ship was not more than eight statute

-miles. The heights of Wilczek Land were still distinctly visible and its

-lines of rocks shone with mocking brilliance in the ever-growing

-daylight. All things appeared to promise that after a long struggle with

-the ice there remained for the expedition but a despairing return to the

-ship and a third winter there with the frozen ocean for their grave.

-

-In the middle of July the fissures which had been opening out around

-them became wider and longer, progress reaching some four miles a day;

-then the north wind blew and the icefield commenced to drift to the

-south, to drift again north-east when the wind changed. Backwards and

-forwards, amid every variety of weather, including heavy rain, the pack

-ice moved until it changed to drift ice, and, on the 15th of August, the

-much-tried company got afloat at last in open water and laid their

-course for Novaya Zemlya, where they fell in with two Russian schooners

-off Cape Britwin.

-

-The next to visit Franz Josef Land was Leigh Smith, whom we met with in

-the Spitsbergen seas. Building the _Eira_ especially for Arctic service,

-he started in 1880, the year she was launched, on a cruise to Greenland

-and thence eastwards, which took him to the west and north-west of the

-ground gone over by the Austrians. He surveyed the whole coast from 42°

-east to the most westerly point seen by Payer, and sorted it out into

-several islands, but found no trace of the _Tegetthoff_, for where she

-had been left was open water. Encouraged by the success of his visit, in

-which the observations and collections were unusually good, he returned

-in the _Eira_ the following year to meet with much more unfavourable ice

-conditions. Finding it impossible to get westward of Barents Hook the

-_Eira_ was, on the 15th of August, made fast to the land floe off Cape

-Flora, and six days afterwards she was nipped and stove by the ice and

-slowly sank in eleven fathoms of water. As she settled down the steam

-winch was set to work, and by its means half a dozen casks of flour and

-about three hundredweight of bread were saved from the main hold; and

-when nothing more could be got from the lower deck the stores in the

-after cabin were attacked, and within the two hours from the discovery

-of the leak to the disappearance of the ship, all these provisions and

-the boats and clothes were safe on the ice; and the sails were cut away,

-and with them and some oars a tent was erected in which all the company,

-twenty-five in number, took shelter.

-

-A move was made next day to the land. On Cape Flora a house was built

-mainly of earth and stones, covered with sails, in which the winter was

-passed. Fortunately the district abounds with bears and walruses, and

-the meat from these, boiled with vegetables, and served out three times

-a day into twenty-five plates made out of old provision tins, proved the

-right sort of fare to keep every one in excellent health. Thanks in a

-great measure to Bob, the retriever, the larder was kept full; but there

-being a shortness of coal, recourse for fuel had to be made to rope and

-blubber, so that no one could mistake the time when the cooking was on.

-In fact, the odour and the smoke were of great interest to the bears,

-who lingered about intending to pay surprise visits, and the dog had

-always to be sent in front of those leaving the house. One day when out

-on his own account, Bob discovered a school of walruses on the ice and

-reported the matter in his own fashion, whereupon several of these were

-shot, and after an exciting chase five were secured. In January he found

-another school, of which three were bagged and stowed alongside the

-house, although the thermometer stood at forty below zero. On another

-occasion he managed to tempt a bear up to the front door, where it was

-promptly tumbled over, to his evident satisfaction.

-

-During the winter the party killed twenty-nine walruses and three dozen

-bears. Once, when only a fortnight's meat was left, and things began to

-look serious, no less than eight bears were killed in two weeks. At the

-end of April the birds returned, and in June the ice was cleared away by

-a gale and walruses were seen swimming on the water in hundreds. Never

-did a wintering party meet with better fortune, and never was one better

-managed.

-

-On the 21st of June they started from Cape Flora in four boats, six men

-each in three of them, seven in the other, to reach the open sea,

-leaving in the house six bottles of champagne in case any person might

-look in, besides a few other things, and blocking up the door to keep

-out the bears. Before the boats reached the ice they crossed eighty

-miles of water, and then six weeks' hard labour began, zigzagging

-through channels, hauling over hummocky floes, sailing through pools,

-halting for days on a floe with no water in sight, but never doubting

-that a clearance would come. On leaving the ice they steered for Novaya

-Zemlya, at first in a gentle breeze, which rapidly increased to a gale

-in a heavy thunderstorm, so that the boats, with their sails of

-tablecloth and shirt-tail, had to be carefully handled as they scudded

-before it at such a pace that within twenty-four hours of leaving the

-ice they were drawn up all safe on the beach at the entrance of

-Matyushin Shar. Next morning the Dutch exploring schooner, _Willem

-Barents_, was descried coming out of the strait, and before the schooner

-was reached by the boats there came round the point the _Hope_, which

-Sir Allen Young, of the _Pandora_, had brought out as a rescue ship for

-them. They had been driven by the gale to the very spot on the very day

-they could be best relieved.

-

-From the reports of Weyprecht and Payer it appeared that the north-east

-of Franz Josef Land would make an excellent base for a start for the

-North Pole, and Leigh Smith was led to the same view by his visit to

-Alexandra Land, but along the south he had made so many changes in

-Payer's map that a further examination of the region was evidently

-desirable. To effect this by a careful survey of the coasts, Frederick

-G. Jackson landed near Cape Flora on the 7th of September, 1894, and

-began his residence of a thousand days. Setting to work in a

-businesslike way, and recording his progress in similar style, he

-disintegrated the land masses into a group of some fifty size-able

-islands, through which run two main waterways, his British Channel and

-Payer's Austria Sound, both opening out northwards into Queen Victoria

-Sea; Crown Prince Rudolf Land being a large island at the northern

-entrance of Austria Sound, Wilczek Land at its southern entrance being

-about twice its size. He defined the coast-lines for over eighty miles

-of latitude, extending to fifteen degrees of longitude as far west as

-the most westerly headland, Cape Mary Harmsworth, and so cutting up

-Franz Josef Land that not even an island now bears the name, which is

-used only as that of the archipelago. Never in Arctic exploration was

-work rendered more evident than in the difference between the map as

-Jackson found it and as he left it.

-

-The _Windward_, with the expedition on board, sighted the land on the

-25th of August, but, stopped by intervening ice, could not reach the

-coast until a fortnight afterwards, the landing taking place at Cape

-Flora, close to Leigh Smith's house, which was found with the roof off.

-Not far away Jackson established his headquarters, quite a little

-settlement, though the expedition consisted of only eight men. Just as

-Leigh Smith found no remains of the _Tegetthoff_, so Jackson found no

-trace of the _Eira_. It had been intended that the _Windward_ should

-return after putting the party ashore, but, shut in by the ice, she had

-to remain during the first winter, getting away safely next year, to

-return in 1896 and take away Nansen, who, as we shall see further on,

-ended his long land journey here. On her 1897 trip she departed with the

-members of the expedition all well, so that neither ship nor man was

-lost, the only serious casualties being among the dogs and the Russian

-ponies which did such excellent service.

-

-Two years afterwards, in July, 1899, the deserted settlement was visited

-by the Duke of the Abruzzi, in his expedition in the _Stella Polare_, on

-his way to the north, a few days before he met with his short

-imprisonment in the ice in British Channel. His was a successful run all

-the same, for he was in 82° 4´, to the northward of Crown Prince Rudolf

-Land, or, as it is now called, Prince Rudolf Island, twenty-seven days

-out from Archangel. Passing Cape Fligely—the latitude of which was

-afterwards found to be sixteen miles south of the 82° 5´ Payer had made

-it—and rounding Cape Auk, the _Stella Polare_ went into winter quarters

-in Teplitz Bay, whence Captain Umberto Cagni started, on the 11th of

-March, 1900, for his forty-five days' march towards the North Pole.

-

-It was a great disappointment to the Duke to have to stay with the ship

-instead of leading this well-equipped and thoroughly organised sledge

-attempt, but owing to an accident two of his fingers had been so

-severely frost-bitten that they had to be amputated, and, unless a

-second winter was to be spent in the ice, a start was imperative before

-he could recover from the operation. Thus all he could do was to assist

-at the first encounter of the sledges with the pressure ridges and wish

-Cagni the longest possible journey and a safe return. There was every

-appearance of the journey being a difficult one, for on the first day a

-stoppage had to be made every quarter of a mile or thereabouts for a

-road to be cut through the ridges with ice-axes, while next day a new

-hindrance was experienced in the young ice in the channels being too

-thin at times to support the sledges, one of which began to sink and was

-only extricated with difficulty, so that only one sledge could be

-allowed on such ice at a time.

-

-On the 13th of March the auxiliary sledge was sent back, thus reducing

-the caravan to a dozen sledges and ninety-eight dogs, which in a long

-line passed over a vast plain covered with great rugged blocks of ice,

-as though they had been thrown down confusedly by a giant's hand to bar

-the way. The wind was north-east, the cold intense, fifty below zero,

-not to be particular to a degree or so, for, as Cagni says, when the

-temperature is below twenty-two, and it is impossible to use a screen or

-a magnifying glass, the mere fact of approaching to read the scale on an

-unmounted thermometer sends it up a couple of degrees, and when the

-temperature is below fifty-eight an approach makes a difference of three

-or four degrees. So cold was it that the sleeping bags were as hard as

-wood, and the men got into them after much effort, not to sleep but to

-feel their teeth chattering for hours, the only warm parts of the body

-being the feet clad in long woollen stockings. "There are patches of ice

-on our knees," says Cagni, "like horses' knee-caps, and we have others,

-both large and small, sometimes thick enough to be scraped off with a

-knife, everywhere, but especially on our cheeks and backs and in all

-places where the perspiration has oozed through."

-

-Amid such surroundings the camp must have seemed somewhat out of place.

-When a suitable site was chosen the first sledge was stopped, and near

-it the three other sledges of the third detachment were drawn up at a

-distance of about ten feet from each other. The sledges of the second

-detachment as they came up formed a second line, those of the third

-forming another. The tents were pitched between two sledges, generally

-those in the centre, the guy ropes being fastened to the sledge runners,

-those at the ends to an ice-axe stuck in the ice. The sleeping bags were

-then unpacked, the cooking stoves taken out of the boats, and everything

-arranged under the tent. The thin steel wire ropes to which the dogs

-were tethered, when unharnessed, were stretched between the sledges away

-from the tents. While the men were taking the dogs out of the harness,

-which always remained attached to the traces on the sledges, and

-tethering them to the steel ropes, one of the guides took a chosen

-victim to some distance from the camp, and felled it with a blow from an

-ice-axe, then opened it, skinned it quickly, divided it up into ten

-shares and distributed these to the dogs, already destined to undergo

-the same fate, these being the weakest and most ailing—in short, this

-was the elimination of the unfit.

-

-On the 22nd of March the first detachment began its return journey; it

-consisted of Lieutenant Querini and two men, and it was never heard of

-again. The way northwards continued extremely difficult, with channels

-and ridges plentiful and the road so rough that the sledges began to

-break up in the bows and runners, some at last so badly that their

-fragments had to be used to repair the others with. On the 31st the

-second detachment was sent back, consisting of the doctor and two men,

-and it got safely to the ship. The third detachment, consisting of Cagni

-with two Courmayeur guides—Petigax and Fenoillet—and a sailor, Canepa,

-all four Italians, made the final effort. That day they were on level

-ice and covered seventeen miles, but at night a snowstorm came on and

-there was trouble. After a rest they pressed forward in rapid marches

-amid bad weather over the drifting fields. On the 12th of April while

-raising camp a strong pressure piled up within a hundred yards of them a

-wall from thirty-six to forty-five feet high, the highest ridge they had

-seen. Enormous blocks rolled down towards them with loud crashes after

-being thrown up by other blocks, lifted to the brow of the ridge and

-rolled over in their turn, raising a cloud of ice-dust in their fall,

-the loud continual creaking of the pressure drowned by the booming of

-the cascade which shook the ice for yards around. These ridges were

-constantly forming, most of them remaining, some of them subsiding as

-the edges drifted apart, and the channels thus caused were even more

-difficult to deal with, some having to be passed over thin ice, some

-ferried over on small floes. But they did not cross the track all along,

-and during the last few days the travelling was easy.

-

-On the 24th of April the long journey reached its end. "At ten minutes

-past twelve," says Cagni, "we are on our way to the north. The ice is

-like that of yesterday, level and smooth, and, later on, undulating. At

-first the dogs are not very willing to pull, but encouraged by our

-shouts and a few strokes, they advance at a rapid pace, which they keep

-up during the whole march. At five we meet with a large pressure ridge,

-which almost surprises us, as it seems to us a century since we have

-seen any; we lost a quarter of an hour in preparing a passage through

-and crossing it. Beyond it the aspect of the ice changes; the

-undulations are more strongly marked, and large blocks and small ridges

-indicate recent pressure, but luckily they do not stop us or obstruct

-our way. Soon after six we come upon a large channel running from east

-to west; we must stop. Beyond the channel is a vast expanse of new ice,

-much broken up and traversed by many other channels. Even if I were not

-prevented from doing so, I would now think twice before risking myself

-in the midst of them. If we did push forward on that ice, even for half

-a day, we would gain very few miles and besides run the risk of losing a

-sledge. The dogs are very tired, and we too feel the effects of

-yesterday's strain. I therefore consider that it is more prudent to stop

-here, and both the guides are of the same opinion. The sun is unclouded.

-I bring out the sextant and take altitudes of the sun to calculate the

-longitude (65° 19´ 45˝ E.) while Fenoillet and Canepa put the sledges in

-order and pitch the tent in a sort of small amphitheatre of hillocks

-which shelter us from the north wind. On that farthest to the north,

-which is almost touched by the water of the channel, we plant the staff

-from which our flag waves. The air is very clear; between the north-east

-and the north-west there stand out distinctly, some sharply pointed,

-others rounded, dark or blue and white, often with strange shapes, the

-innumerable pinnacles of the great blocks of ice raised up by the

-pressure. Farther away again on the bright horizon in a chain from east

-to west is a great azure wall which from afar seems insurmountable." The

-latitude was 86° 34´.

-

-The outward journey took forty-five days; the homeward took sixty, and

-proved a perilous adventure owing to the drift of the pack to the

-westward and its breaking up as the weather became warmer and the

-southern boundary was approached. At first there was good promise. The

-dogs knew they were going back, and followed the outward track so fast

-that the men, failing to keep up with them, for the first time took a

-seat on the sledges and were drawn along at four miles an hour. Progress

-was rapid for a few days owing to there being now only four sledges and,

-in a considerable degree, to the intelligence of the leading dog,

-Messicano. Ever since leaving Teplitz Bay this small white dog, with the

-intelligent eyes and bushy legs, had held the first place in the leading

-sledge because he followed the man at the head of the convoy better than

-the others, and now when the guide was behind or on the sledge,

-Messicano took the track at a gallop with his nose on the snow, losing

-the way now and then, but finding it again, though to the men it was

-often invisible. The time came, however, when the old track had to be

-left for a better course to the ship, and then difficulties of every

-sort had to be overcome, the delays being such that dog after dog had to

-be killed to keep away starvation, and it was only with seven of them

-and two sledges that Prince Rudolf Island was reached from the westward

-on the 23rd of June. "The snow is wet, which is very bad for dragging

-the sledges, as it sticks to the runners and tires our dogs exceedingly;

-we have still seven, but only three that really pull (three to each

-sledge), for Messicano is at the last extremity and can hardly hold up

-the trace." Toiling on thus through the fog to Cape Brorok a noise was

-heard in the distance like the creaking caused by pressure among ice

-floes, and when the fog lifted it was found that the sound was that of

-the seabirds on the cliffs. Out on the icefield no signs of life had

-been met with beyond the traces of a bear, a seal that vanished, and a

-walrus that popped up through thin ice to send Fenoillet scuttling off

-on his hands and knees.

-

-Meanwhile the ship, which had been seriously damaged, had been made

-seaworthy. Liberated from her berth by mines of gunpowder and guncotton,

-she sailed from Teplitz Bay on the 16th of August, and, after further

-unpleasant experiences in the ice, reached Cape Flora, where a call was

-made at Jackson's house in the vain hope of news of Querini; and thence,

-after more ice complications, Captain Evensen took her to Hammerfest.

-Though, as in all Arctic endeavour, conditions were against them, the

-employment of a Norwegian crew for the ship and an Italian crew for the

-sledges had, under excellent management, worked thoroughly well.

-

-

-

-

-                               CHAPTER V

-                            CAPE CHELYUSKIN

-

-  Chelyuskin reaches the cape—The Laptefs—Deschnef's voyage through

-    Bering Strait—Nordenskiöld's voyages to the Yenesei—The Siberian

-    tundra—The voyage of the _Vega_—Nordenskiöld rounds Cape

-    Chelyuskin—Endeavour to reach the Siberian Islands—Liakhoff's

-    discovery—The _Vega_ passes the Cape North of Captain Cook—Frozen

-    in within six miles of Cape Serdze Kamen—Completes the North-east

-    Passage—Nansen's voyage—The _Fram_—Her drift in the ice—Nansen and

-    Johansen start for the Pole—They reach 86° 13´ 6˝—Their journey to

-    Frederick Jackson Island—The meeting with Jackson—Sverdrup's

-    voyage to Spitsbergen.

-

-

-The tundras and shores of Siberia abound with obstacles to exploration,

-and yet a third of the threshold of the Polar regions has been surveyed

-along their line. No spot remains unvisited on the northern margin of

-the Asiatic mainland, the northernmost point of which is Cape Chelyuskin

-in 77° 36·8´, so that the Arctic Circle sweeps inland for 770 miles to

-the south of it—in other words the cape is practically half-way between

-the Circle and the Pole.

-

-[Illustration: CAPE CHELYUSKIN]

-

-It was chiefly from the land that the northern coast-line was surveyed

-by the Russians, whose Arctic work has been immense and thorough, though

-not marked by any striking discoveries. Cape Chelyuskin was first

-reached, in May, 1742, by the explorer whose name it bears, after a

-sledge journey from the Chatanga, he being at the time second in command

-to Khariton Laptef, whose first expedition in 1739 ended in the loss of

-his ship three hundred miles from his winter quarters, to which he had

-to travel on foot, losing twelve men by cold and exhaustion on the way.

-Within the preceding four years the survey of the coast west of it had

-been completed in four stages—from Archangel to Yalmal (that is Land's

-End); from Yalmal to the Obi; from the Obi to the Yenesei; from the

-Yenesei to Cape Sterlegof. In 1735 Pronchistschef, from the Lena, failed

-to round Cape Chelyuskin from the east, and returned to the Olenek to

-die but two days before his young wife, who was his companion on his

-perilous voyage. Two years afterwards Dmitri Laptef began his

-explorations east of the Lena which took him to Cape Baranoff, thus

-joining up to the discoveries of the sable-hunters made a century

-before, including those of Deschnef, who, in 1648, sailed from the

-Kolyma to Kamchatka and went through Bering Strait more than thirty

-years before Bering was born. Thus the route of the North-east Passage

-was known, although no man had travelled the whole way either by land or

-sea, before the task was undertaken by Nordenskiöld.

-

-To begin with, Nordenskiöld made two voyages to the Yenesei. In the

-first voyage he left Tromsoe in the _Proeven_ on the 14th of June, 1875,

-and reached what he named Dickson Harbour at the mouth of the Yenesei on

-the 15th of August. Sending back the _Proeven_, which returned through

-Matyushin Shar, he, with Lundstrom the botanist and Stuxberg the

-zoologist, and three walrus-hunters, embarked in a boat they had brought

-out with them and proceeded up the estuary into the river; and during

-the first six hundred miles they landed only twice. On the last day of

-the month they caught up a steamer on which they became passengers.

-

-"We were yet," says Nordenskiöld, "far to the north of the Arctic

-Circle, and as many perhaps imagine that the little-known region we were

-now travelling through, the Siberian tundra, is a desert wilderness

-covered either by ice and snow, or by an exceedingly scanty moss

-vegetation, it perhaps may not be out of place to say that this is by no

-means the case. On the contrary, we saw snow during our journey up the

-Yenesei only at one place, in a deep valley cleft some fathoms in

-breadth, and the vegetation, especially on the islands which are

-overflowed during the spring floods, is distinguished by a luxuriance to

-which I have seldom seen anything comparable. Already had the fertility

-of the soil and the immeasurable extent and richness in grass of the

-pastures drawn forth from one of our walrus-hunters, a middle-aged man

-who is owner of a little patch of ground among the fells of Northern

-Norway, a cry of envy at the splendid land our Lord had given the

-Russian, and of astonishment that no creature pastured, no scythe mowed,

-the grass. Daily and hourly we heard the same cry repeated, and even in

-louder tones, when some weeks after we came to the grand old forests

-between Yeneseisk and Turuchansk, or to the nearly uninhabited plains on

-the other side of Krasnojarsk covered with deep black earth, equal

-without doubt in fertility to the best parts of Scania, and in extent

-surpassing the whole Scandinavian peninsula. This judgment formed on the

-spot by a genuine though illiterate agriculturist is not without

-interest in forming an idea of the future importance of Siberia."

-

-In fact, Siberia is particularly rich in mineral and agricultural

-wealth, and this voyage, which opened up the route to and from Europe by

-the natural outlets to the north, was of such commercial promise that

-the explorer received for it the special thanks of the Russian

-Government. As, however, there were people who looked upon it as an

-exceptional voyage in an exceptional year, Nordenskiöld next season took

-another voyage to the river, this time in the _Ymer_, carrying the first

-instalment of merchandise so as to begin the trade; and he was followed

-in a few weeks by Captain Joseph Wiggins, in the _Thames_, whose

-subsequent voyages made the northern route well known.

-

-Assured by the experience gained in these voyages that the North-east

-Passage was possible to a steam vessel of moderate size, Nordenskiöld,

-in 1878, was enabled to fit out the _Vega_, and sailed from Tromsoe on

-the 31st of July. Three other vessels accompanied her, two bound for the

-Yenesei, one for the Lena, the rendezvous being Khabarova. All went

-well. On the 9th of August the _Fraser_ and _Express_ proceeded up the

-Yenesei to discharge their cargoes and return to Europe in safety; next

-day the _Vega_ and _Lena_ left for the eastward, and, after some risky

-navigation among islands and through fog, lay for four days in Actinia

-Haven, between Taimyr Island and the mainland, vainly waiting for clear

-weather. Pushing on through fitful fog they sighted a promontory in the

-north-east gleaming in the sunshine, and rounding its western horn

-anchored in a bay open to the north and free from ice at the extremity

-of Cape Chelyuskin. With the rounding of the most northerly point of the

-Old World the first object of the expedition had been attained. The

-salute fired in honour of the event having frightened away the only

-polar bear who had stood watching the ship from the western horn, some

-of the party landed, the botanists to discover that all the plants of

-the peninsula had apparently been stopped on the outermost promontory

-when trying to migrate further north. The flora was not extensive—a few

-luxuriant lichens and twenty-three flowering plants, eight of them

-saxifrages, most of them with a tendency to form semi-globular tufts;

-the fauna consisted of the bear, a few seals, a walrus, two shoals of

-white whales, some ducks and geese, and a number of sandpipers. Not so

-long a list as was obtained at other landings, but by no means a bad one

-for the half-way house to the Pole.

-

-After passing the cape the course was laid for the New Siberian Islands,

-but ice prevented progress in their direction beyond 77° 45´, the

-highest north of the voyage, and the ship had to work her way out by the

-route she went in, thus losing a day, which had serious consequences,

-though it proved the correctness of Nordenskiöld's theory that the water

-delivered by the Siberian rivers is, for a few months, of sufficiently

-high temperature to give a clear passage to vessels content to keep near

-the coast. On reaching the mouth of the Lena the ships parted company,

-Captain Johannsen taking the smaller steamer up the river as intended

-and bringing the news of the rounding of Cape Chelyuskin and the promise

-of the North-east Passage being accomplished in one season, which was

-not destined to be fulfilled.

-

-Another attempt was then made by the _Vega_ to reach the islands to the

-north, but after sighting the two most westerly of the group the shallow

-sea was too crowded with rotten ice, and an idea of landing on Liakhoff

-Island having to be given up for the same reason, the course was altered

-so as to take the ship round Svjatoi Nos (the Holy Cape), where in

-April, 1770, Liakhoff had noticed the mighty crowd of reindeer going

-south. Justly considering they must have come over the ice from some

-northern land, he went back on their tracks in a dog-sledge, discovering

-two of the most southerly islands, and obtaining from Catherine the

-Second as a reward the monopoly of hunting the foxes and collecting the

-ivory there from the fossil mammoths he found in abundance.

-

-Forced to keep to the channel along the coast, which daily became

-narrower, the _Vega_ reached Cape Chelagskoi, and when off this

-promontory Nordenskiöld saw the first natives during his voyage. Two

-boats built of skin almost exactly similar to the oomiaks, or women's

-boats, used by the Eskimos, came out to the ship, the men, women, and

-children in them intimating by shouts and gestures that they wished to

-come on board. The _Vega_ was brought-to that they might do so, but as

-none of the Chukches could speak Russian and none of the Swedes knew

-Chukche, the interview was not so satisfactory as expected, though the

-universal language of pantomime with presents ensured a favourable

-termination.

-

-On the 12th of September the _Vega_ passed Irkaipii, the Cape North of

-Captain Cook, and by rounding it Nordenskiöld joined up with the

-westernmost limit of the Arctic discoveries of the great navigator. Cook

-tried to weather it in August, 1778, but was turned back by fog and

-snow, and thinking it was "not consistent with prudence to make any

-further attempts to find a passage into the Atlantic this year in any

-direction, so little was the prospect of succeeding," he sailed for

-Hawaii, where his intention of making the attempt the ensuing summer

-came to nought owing to his death.

-

-On the 28th of September the _Vega's_ progress for the year was arrested

-by her being frozen in for the winter on the eastern side of Kolyuchin

-Bay in the northernmost part of Bering Strait, only six miles of ice

-barring the way round Cape Serdze Kamen into the open sea. During her

-detention of two hundred and sixty-four days the scientific

-investigations of many kinds that were undertaken were of lasting

-importance, as they had been throughout, and when she was released on

-the 18th of July, 1879, to come home by way of Yokohama, the collections

-and records she brought with her were simply enormous. No better work

-with greater results was done by any Arctic expedition than during this

-successful voyage, which was too well managed to have much adventure.

-For it Nordenskiöld very justly claimed the reward of twenty-five

-thousand guilders offered in 1596 by the States-General of Holland, the

-endeavour to win which sent out Van Heemskerck, Barents, and Rijp.

-

-[Illustration: ADOLF ERIK NORDENSKIÖLD]

-

-We have seen how the Dutchmen built their house at Ice Haven mainly of

-the driftwood from the Siberian rivers. Similar wood from probably the

-same source is found on the shores of Greenland and of almost all the

-northerly islands of the Arctic Ocean. Further, the Greenland flora

-includes a series of Siberian plants apparently from seeds drifted there

-by some current. Not only do trees and seeds travel by water from Asia

-westward to America; at Godthaab, for instance, on the western coast of

-Greenland, there was found a throwing-stick of a shape and ornamentation

-used only by the Alaskan Eskimos; and three years after the foundering

-of the _Jeannette_ to the north of the New Siberian Islands there were

-found on the south-west coast of Greenland a number of articles in the

-drift-ice that must have come from the sunken vessel. For these and

-other reasons it seemed clear to Fridtjof Nansen that a current flowed

-at some point between the Pole and Franz Josef Land from the Siberian

-Arctic Sea to the Greenland coast, and so he set to work to organise his

-daring expedition to strike this current well to the eastward, trusting

-to its mercies to take him to or near the Pole.

-

-In 1893, when the _Fram_ rounded Cape Chelyuskin, Nansen had found the

-Kara Sea almost as open as Nordenskiöld had done, but had met with more

-difficulties among the islands off the Taimyr Peninsula. A famous

-vessel, the _Fram_, the first of her kind, built specially for the ice

-to take her where it listed in the hope that she would drift to

-discovery like the _Tegetthoff_, and not to disaster like the

-_Jeannette_. The general idea was Nansen's, the carrying out of the idea

-was Colin Archer's. As Nansen says: "We must gratefully recognise that

-the success of the expedition was in no small degree due to this man."

-Plan after plan did he make of the projected ship, model after model did

-he prepare and abandon before he was satisfied: and never was a ship

-more honestly built. With her double-ended deck plan, with a side of

-such curve and slope that under ice pressure she would be lifted instead

-of crushed between the floes, and with bow, stern, and keel so rounded

-off that she would slip like an eel from the embrace of the ice, she was

-of such solidity as to withstand any pressure from any direction. Her

-stem of three stout oak beams, one inside the other, was four feet in

-thickness, protected with iron; her rudder-post and propeller-post, two

-feet across, had on either side a stout oak counter-timber following the

-curvature upwards and forming a double stern-post, with the planking

-cased with heavy iron plates; and between these timbers was a well for

-the screw and another for the rudder, so that each could be hoisted on

-deck, the rudder with the help of the capstan coming up in a few

-minutes. Her frames, ten inches thick and twenty-one wide, stood close

-together, carrying three layers of planking, giving altogether a side of

-two feet or more of solid wood, so shored and stayed for strength that

-the hold looked like a thicket of balks, joists, and stanchions. With a

-length of 128 feet over all, a breadth of thirty-six, a depth of

-seventeen, and a displacement of 800 tons, she was quite a

-multum-in-parvo engined with a 220 horse-power triple expansion, so

-contrived that in case of accident or for any other cause the cylinders

-could be used singly or two together. Rigged as a three-masted

-fore-and-aft schooner, with the mainmast much higher than the others—it

-being unusually high, for the crow's-nest on the main-topmast was 102

-feet above the water—she proved equal to the demands on her, though in

-her case strength and warmth had to be thought of before weatherliness

-and speed. But her speed was not so poor, for when steaming and sailing

-after leaving Cape Chelyuskin on the 10th of September she was doing her

-nine knots.

-

-The day after she had entered the Nordenskiöld Sea came a walrus-hunt,

-so graphically described by Nansen that we must find room for an

-extract. "It was," he says, "a lovely morning—fine, still weather; the

-walruses' guffaw sounded over to us along the clear ice surface. They

-were lying crowded together on a floe a little to landward of us, blue

-mountains glittering behind them in the sun. At last the harpoons were

-sharpened, guns and cartridges ready, and Henriksen, Juell, and I set

-off. There seemed to be a slight breeze from the south, so we rowed to

-the north side of the floe, to get to leeward of the animals. From time

-to time their sentry raised his head, but apparently did not see us. We

-advanced slowly, and soon were so near that we had to row very

-cautiously. Juell kept us going, while Henriksen was ready in the bow

-with a harpoon, and I behind him with a gun. The moment the sentry

-raised his head the oars stopped, and we stood motionless; when he sank

-it again, a few more strokes brought us nearer. Body to body they lay,

-close-packed on a small floe, old and young ones mixed. Enormous masses

-of flesh they were. Now and again one of the ladies fanned herself by

-moving one of her flippers backwards and forwards over her body; then

-she lay quiet again on her back or side. More and more cautiously we

-drew near. Whilst I sat ready with the gun, Henriksen took a good grip

-of the harpoon shaft, and as the boat touched the floe he rose, and off

-flew the harpoon. But it struck too high, glanced off the tough hide,

-and skipped over the backs of the animals. Now there was a pretty to do!

-Ten or twelve great weird faces glared upon us at once; the colossal

-creatures twisted themselves round with incredible celerity, and came

-waddling with lifted heads and hollow bellowings to the edge of the ice

-where we lay. It was undeniably an imposing sight; but I laid my gun to

-my shoulder and fired at one of the biggest heads. The animal staggered

-and then fell head foremost into the water. Now a ball into another

-head; this creature fell, too, but was able to fling itself into the

-sea. And now the whole flock dashed in, and we, as well as they, were

-hidden in the spray. It had all happened in a few seconds. But up they

-came again immediately round the boat, the one head bigger and uglier

-than the other—their young ones close beside them. They stood up in the

-water, bellowed and roared till the air trembled, threw themselves

-forward towards us, then rose up again, and new bellowings filled the

-air. Then they rolled over and disappeared with a splash, then bobbed up

-again. The water foamed and boiled for yards around—the ice-world that

-had been so still before seemed in a moment to have been transformed

-into a raging Bedlam. Any moment we might expect to have a walrus tusk

-or two through the boat or to be heaved up or capsized. Something of

-this kind was the very least that could happen after such a terrible

-commotion. But the hurly-burly went on and nothing came of it."

-

-The _Fram_ had to follow the coast owing to the thick pack barring the

-way across the sea. The mouth of the Chatanga was passed, then that of

-the Olenek, and then the influence of the warm water of the Lena being

-apparent by the clearance of the floes, the course was laid straight for

-the Pole in open water until 77° 44´ was reached, when, checked by the

-long compact edge of ice shining through the fog, the route became

-north-westerly until they stopped for fear they should get near land,

-which was the very thing they wished to avoid; and on the 25th of

-September in about 78½° north latitude—north-west of Sannikof Land—they

-were frozen in.

-

-Preparations for wintering began. The rudder was hauled up, the engine

-was taken to pieces, each separate part oiled and laid away with the

-greatest care—for Amundsen looked after it as if it were his own child—a

-carpenter's shop was started in the hold, a smithy arranged first on

-deck and then on the ice. But it all had to be replaced, even the engine

-put together again, for the pack cleared away for a brief period, to

-return, when again the shiftings were made; and when the windmill was

-put up to drive the dynamo, the winter installation was in all senses

-complete.

-

-Slowly the _Fram_ drifted in her ice-berth, so slowly that at the end of

-twelve months she had moved from point to point only 189 miles, having

-returned no further west than the longitude of the Olenek; her highest

-north, attained on the 18th of June, being 81° 46´. In the main the

-drift was north-westerly, but three times it had boxed the compass in

-irregular loops, the only constant thing about it being that, in no

-matter what direction she was taken, the bow of the _Fram_ always

-pointed south. Of grips she had many, some of the pressures were

-enormous, once they were severe enough to suggest measures for her

-abandonment, but she survived them all unscathed. Early in the drift it

-became apparent that the ice was packing twice and slacking twice in

-every twenty-four hours, and in this sea, as afterwards in the Atlantic

-area, the influence of the tides, particularly the spring tides, was

-unmistakable—as it was expected it would be—though in the deep Polar

-basin the wind had more effect; and, in truth, the wind was a factor

-throughout in the packing of the ice and in the drift's direction. One

-thing was clear, that the current was not taking the _Fram_ across the

-North Pole, but about half-way between it and Spitsbergen; and if the

-Pole was to be reached some of the expedition must attempt to get there

-over the ice. This meant leaving the ship, going north, and returning to

-the nearest known land, for, owing to the irregularity of the drift, it

-was hopeless to think of again reaching the _Fram_. During the second

-winter the route of the ship trended more to the north, and, after a

-loop all round in January, she reached 84° 4´ on the 14th of March in

-the longitude of Cape Chelyuskin. Here Nansen and Lieutenant F. H.

-Johansen, who rather than not join the _Fram_ had shipped in her as

-stoker, left the ship with three sledges, two kayaks, and twenty-eight

-dogs to go as far northward as they could, their expectation being that

-they would reach the Pole in fifty days. Had they remained in the ship

-until November they would have saved themselves trouble, for, as matters

-turned out, the embarrassing drift took the _Fram_ within eight miles of

-the farthest north they attained after twenty-three days of strenuous

-endeavour.

-

-[Illustration: Yours sincerely Fridtjof Nansen.]

-

-The ice, fairly easy for a few days, soon became terrible in the

-difficulties it offered to progress over it, and the continual toil of

-hauling and carrying the sledges, and righting them when capsized, soon

-told on the two men to such an extent as to tire them out so thoroughly

-that sometimes in the evening they fell asleep as they went along. The

-cold, too, proved singularly searching and severe. During the course of

-the day the damp exhalations of the body little by little became

-condensed in their outer garments, which became transformed into suits

-of ice-armour, so hard that if they could have been got off they could

-have stood by themselves, and they crackled audibly at every movement.

-The clothes were so stiff that the sleeve of Nansen's coat rubbed deep

-sores in his wrist, one of which got frost-bitten, the wound growing

-deeper and deeper and nearly reaching the bone. "How cold we were," says

-Nansen, "as we lay there shivering in the bag, waiting for the supper to

-be ready! I, who was cook, was obliged to keep myself more or less awake

-to see to the culinary operations, and sometimes I succeeded. At last

-the supper was ready, was portioned out, and, as always, tasted

-delicious. These occasions were the supreme moments of our existence,

-moments to which we looked forward all day long. But sometimes we were

-so weary that our eyes closed, and we fell asleep with the food on its

-way to our mouths. Our hands would fall back inanimate with the spoons

-in them and the food fly out on the bag."

-

-The further they went the worse became the conditions. On the 8th of

-April, with ridge after ridge and nothing but rubble to travel over, the

-work became so disheartening that Nansen went on ahead on his skis and

-from the highest hummocks viewed the state of affairs; and as far as the

-horizon, lay a chaos of such character that progress across was

-impracticable if he and Johansen were to return alive. Here, then, they

-stopped, this being their northernmost limit, 128 miles from the _Fram_,

-260 miles from the Pole, latitude 86° 13·6´, longitude 95°.

-

-To reach this point they had been travelling north-westwards for six

-days, the way due north being impassable; but on turning south they

-seemed to enter another country; so much did the going improve after the

-first mile that in three days they covered over forty miles. They were

-making for Petermann Land, which does not exist, or for the

-wide-stretching Franz Josef Land, also placed on the maps by Payer,

-which Jackson had been cutting up into fragments while the _Fram_ was in

-the ice. Further south difficulties thickened ahead of them till the

-road became almost as bad as that to the north. Before they reached land

-the hundred days they had allowed themselves had increased to more than

-half as many again, their dogs had been killed one by one to yield food

-for the rest, until only two remained; Nansen was helpless with

-rheumatism for two days; and Johansen was nearly killed by a bear.

-Through a chain of disasters caused by storms and fogs and snow and the

-state of the ice, they threaded their way, sometimes by sledge,

-sometimes by kayak, through mazes of open channels, leaping from floe to

-floe and ferrying back to get their baggage over, hundreds of yards on

-mere brash, dragging the sledges after them in constant fear of their

-capsizing into the water. Then the ice gave out and, taking to their

-kayaks, they sailed and paddled to what is now known as Frederick

-Jackson Island in the north of the Franz Josef Archipelago.

-

-Here they wintered, quite at a loss at first to know where they were,

-owing to their watches having run down during a great effort of

-thirty-six hours at a stretch, so that they did not know their

-longitude, though they subsequently concluded they must be somewhere on

-Franz Josef Land within 140 miles of Eira Harbour. They built a hut and

-altogether lived passably well, there being no lack of food, thanks

-mainly to the bears, whose visits were embarrassing in their frequency

-though the visitors were not unwelcome when they came to stay.

-

-On the 19th of May they set out for the south, down British Channel,

-with their sledges and kayaks, and five days afterwards, when off Cape

-M'Clintock, while Johansen was busy lashing the sail and mast securely

-to the deck of his kayak to prevent their being blown away, Nansen went

-on ahead to look for a camping ground and fell through a crack in the

-ice which had been hidden by the snow. He tried to get out, but with his

-skis firmly fastened could not pull them up through the rubble of ice

-which had fallen into the water on the top of them, and, being harnessed

-to the sledge, he could not turn round. Fortunately, as he fell, he had

-dug his staff into the ice on the opposite side of the crack, and

-holding himself up with its aid, and the arm he had got over the edge of

-the ice, he waited patiently for Johansen to come and pull him out. When

-he thought a long time had passed and felt the staff giving way and the

-water creeping further up his body, he called out but received no

-answer; and it was not until the water had reached his chest that

-Johansen came and pulled him out.

-

-For a few days they were storm-bound. On the 3rd of June they started

-again down the channel, their whereabouts still a mystery to them,

-nothing in the least like it being on their map. Nine days afterwards,

-after rounding Cape Barents on Northbrook Island, the kayaks, which had

-been left moored to the edge of the ice, got adrift. Nansen, running

-down from the hummock, from which he had been looking round, threw off

-some of his clothes and sprang into the water. The wind was off the ice,

-and the kayaks with their high rigging were moving away as fast as he

-could swim. It seemed more than doubtful if he could reach them. But all

-their hope was there, all they had was on board; they had not even a

-knife with them, and whether he sank or turned back amounted to much the

-same thing. When he tired he turned over and swam on his back, and then

-he could see Johansen walking restlessly up and down on the ice, unable

-to do anything, and having the worst time he ever lived through. But the

-wind lulled, and when Nansen turned over he saw he was nearing the

-kayaks, and though his limbs were stiffening and losing all feeling, he

-put all the strength he could into his strokes, and eventually was able

-to reach them. He tried to pull himself up, but was so stiff with cold

-that he could not do so. For a moment he thought he was too late; but

-after a little he managed to swing one leg up on to the edge of the

-sledge, which lay on the deck, and in this way he scrambled on board.

-The kayaks were lashed together so as to form a double boat, and the

-only way in which, owing to his stiffness, he could paddle them was to

-take one or two strokes on one side and then step into the other kayak

-and take a few strokes on the other side. The return was consequently

-slow, but it was a return, though the ice was reached a long way from

-where the drifting had begun.

-

-Next day but one came another perilous episode. "Towards morning," says

-Nansen, "we rowed for some time without seeing any walrus, and now felt

-more secure. Just then we saw a solitary rover pop up a little in front

-of us. Johansen, who was in front at the time, put in to a sunken ledge

-of ice; and although I really thought that this was caution carried to

-excess, I was on the point of following his example. I had not gone so

-far, however, when suddenly the walrus shot up beside me, threw himself

-on to the edge of the kayak, took hold further over the deck with one

-flipper, and as it tried to upset me aimed a blow at the kayak with its

-tusks. I held on as tightly as possible, so as not to be upset into the

-water, and struck at the animal's head with the paddle as hard as I

-could. It took hold of the kayak once more and tilted me up so that the

-deck was almost under water, then let go and raised itself right up. I

-seized my gun, but at the same moment it turned round and disappeared as

-quickly as it had come. The whole thing had happened in a moment, and I

-was just going to remark to Johansen that we were fortunate in escaping

-so easily from that adventure, when I noticed that my legs were wet. I

-listened, and now heard the water trickling into the kayak under me. To

-turn and run her in on to the sunken ledge of ice was the work of a

-moment, but I sank there. The thing was to get out and on to the ice,

-the kayak filling all the time. The edge of the ice was high and loose,

-but I managed to rise; and Johansen, by tilting the sinking kayak over

-to starboard, so that the leak came above the water, managed to bring

-her to a place where the ice was low enough to admit of our drawing her

-up. All I possessed was floating about inside, soaked through. So here

-we lie, with all our worldly goods spread out to dry and a kayak that

-must be mended before we can face the walrus again. It is a good big

-rent that he has made, at least six inches long; but it is fortunate

-that it was no worse."

-

-The kayak was mended, and, after a long rest, it was past noon on the

-17th of June when Nansen turned out to prepare breakfast. After doing so

-he went up on a hummock to look around. Flocks of little auks were

-flying overhead, and, amid the confused noise of their calls, he heard a

-couple of barks from a dog. Thinking he was mistaken he waited for a

-time, and then the barking was unmistakable, bark after bark, one of a

-deeper tone than the other. He shouted to Johansen, who started up from

-the sleeping-bag incredulous. The sound ceased, and, breakfast over,

-Nansen went forth to investigate. Soon he came on the footprints of a

-dog or wolf, and then, still doubting, he heard a distant yelping that

-certainly came not from a wolf. Making his way among the hummocks, he

-heard a shout from a human voice, a strange voice—the first for three

-years. Running up on to a hummock he shouted with all his might. Back

-came a shout in reply; and among the hummocks he caught sight of a dog,

-and further off a man walked into view. The man spoke to the dog in

-English. Thinking he recognised Jackson, Nansen raised his hat as he met

-him, and they shook hands heartily.

-

-The contrast could not have been greater. One the well-groomed,

-civilised European in a check suit and rubber water-boots, the other in

-dirty rags black with oil and soot, with long matted hair and shaggy

-beard, and a face in which the complexion was undiscernible through the

-accumulations which a winter's endeavours, including scrapings with a

-knife, had failed to remove. As they talked they had turned to go

-inland. Suddenly Jackson stopped, and, looking the new arrival straight

-in the face, said—

-

-"Aren't you Nansen?"

-

-"Yes, I am."

-

-"By Jove! I'm damned glad to see you."

-

-And seizing his hand he shook it again, his whole face beaming with a

-smile of welcome and delight at the unexpected meeting; and needless to

-say, both Nansen and Johansen received the warmest of welcomes from all

-at Elmwood. The _Windward_ was then on her way, and when she arrived the

-two Norsemen from the farthest north went in her to Vardoe, where they

-landed on the 13th of August.

-

-Meanwhile the _Fram_ had continued her leisurely drift, north-west,

-south-west, north-west, west, then all round the compass, still with her

-head pointing south, until on the 15th of November she reached 85° 55·5´

-in longitude 66° 31´, thus giving Captain Otto Sverdrup the honour of

-attaining the highest north in a ship. Another winter was passed in her

-ice-berth, during which she moved westerly. In February came another

-complete triangle in her course, after which she went south-west, and on

-the 16th of May turned due south. Then, in the later days of the month

-with the southerly drift continuing and open water on ahead, Sverdrup

-resolved to set her free by mines, and on the 3rd of June, as a result

-of the blastings, she gave a lurch, settled a little deeper at the stern

-and moved away from the edge of the ice until the hawsers tautened. But,

-though she was afloat, the ice around still kept her captive, and in the

-pool she drifted straight towards Spitsbergen.

-

-Again and again was steam got up and endeavour made to break a way out,

-but day after day elapsed, and it was not until the 13th of August that

-she passed through the last floes into open water, and her thirty-five

-months of imprisonment came to an end. Making for Danes Island in

-Spitsbergen, she was there boarded by Andrée, who was then preparing for

-his disappearance in the balloon voyage to the Pole. Going on direct to

-Skjervoe in Norway, Sverdrup landed at two o'clock in the morning to

-wake up the telegraphist, who told him that Nansen had reached Vardoe a

-week before and was then at Hammerfest and probably leaving for Tromsoe.

-For Tromsoe Sverdrup started, after telegraphing to Nansen. And there,

-at four o'clock in the afternoon of the 25th of August, 1896, Sir George

-Baden-Powell's yacht _Otaria_, with Nansen and Johansen on board, glided

-alongside the _Fram_, the good little ship looking much weather-beaten

-though none the worse for such a task of strength and endurance as had

-been set no other in the story of the sea.

-

-

-

-

-                               CHAPTER VI

-                             THE LENA DELTA

-

-  Discovery of the Siberian Islands—Hedenström—Anjou and

-    Wrangell—Migration of reindeer—Animals and plants of the

-    tundra—The northward migration of the native tribes—The voyage of

-    the _Jeannette_—Her drift in the pack—Jeannette Island—Henrietta

-    Island—The ship crushed and sunk—Landing on Bennett Island—The

-    boat voyage—The boats separate in a storm—De Long lands on the

-    Lena Delta—Nindemann and Noros in search of assistance—Safety of

-    the whale-boat—Fate of De Long and his companions—Baron Toll's

-    discoveries.

-

-

-The Siberian Islands, lying north of the delta of the Lena, answer to

-the Parry Islands on the American side, the two groups being separated

-by that wide stretch of the Arctic Ocean communicating with the Pacific

-through Bering Strait. At first the Asiatic group was officially named

-after Liakhoff, then it was called after the unwisely named New Siberia,

-but, under any designation, it took half a century to find the different

-islands, and considerably more to land on them.

-

-[Illustration: THE LENA DELTA]

-

-When Liakhoff discovered the one named after him by the Empress

-Catherine, he also went north to Moloi, and he seems to have visited

-Kotelnoi to the north-west. In 1775 Chvoinof was sent to survey these

-three, but he devoted most of his attention to Liakhoff Island—fifty

-miles across—which he found to consist, as reported, of hills of granite

-rising from a mass of mammoth bones, sand, and ice, some of the ice

-ancient enough to carry a deep covering of moss. Though he stated that

-other islands could be made out in the distance, nothing was done to

-verify his discoveries, real or imaginary, until thirty years had

-passed, when Thaddeus and Stolbovoi were reached. Next year (1806) New

-Siberia, to the eastward, was discovered by Sirovatskof, and two years

-afterwards Bjelkof was added to the southerly portion of the

-archipelago.

-

-In 1809 Hedenström, assisted by Sannikof, began his series of surveys

-extending over all these, and cleared up much of the mystery concerning

-them. From Thaddeus, Sannikof sighted, away to the northward, what is

-now known as Bennett Island; and, from New Siberia, Hedenström sighted

-Henrietta and Jeannette Islands, and set out for them, and would have

-reached them had his sledges not been stopped by open water. Like his

-predecessors he was astonished at the mammoth remains on Liakhoff

-Island.

-

-According to his account, "these bones or tusks are less large and heavy

-the further we advance towards the north, so that it is a rare

-occurrence on the islands to meet with a tusk of more than 108 lbs. in

-weight, whereas on the continent they are said often to weigh as much as

-432 lbs. In quantity, however, these bones increase wonderfully to the

-northward, and as Sannikof expresses himself, the whole soil of the

-first of the Liakhoff Islands appears to consist of them. For about

-eighty years the fur-hunters have every year brought large cargoes from

-this island, but as yet there is no sensible diminution of the stock.

-The tusks on the islands are also much more fresh and white than those

-on the continent. A sandbank on the western side was most productive of

-all, and the fur-hunters maintain that when the sea recedes after a long

-continuance of easterly winds, a fresh supply of mammoth bones is always

-found to have been washed from this bank, proceeding apparently from

-some vast store at the bottom of the sea." Besides these multitudinous

-remains of the mammoth Hedenström found numerous remains of rhinoceros,

-the horn of which was then thought to be a bird's claw three feet long.

-

-To clear up the wide discrepancies in the maps the Emperor Alexander, in

-1820, equipped two expeditions to proceed by land to the northern coast

-of Siberia and properly survey it, the work to be carried as far east as

-Cape Chelagskoi, whence a sledge party was to start for the north in

-search of the inhabited country reported to exist in the Polar Sea in

-that direction. One of these expeditions, under Lieutenant P. F. Anjou,

-was to commence its operations from the mouth of the Yana; the other,

-under Lieutenant Ferdinand Vrangel' (or, as he is generally known

-amongst us, Wrangell or Von Wrangell), was to start from the mouth of

-the Kolyma, his chief assistant being Midshipman Matiuschkin. Both

-parties did good survey work, but neither made any striking discovery.

-Anjou reached 76° 36´ to the north of Kotelnoi; Wrangell reached 72° 2´

-(north-east of the Bear Islands, one hundred and seventy-four miles out

-on the sea from the great Baranoff rock), beyond which progress was

-impossible owing to the thinness of the ice, which was covered with salt

-water.

-

-Wrangell had many perilous experiences. In his fourth journey over the

-sea the ice broke up around him and he found himself on a floe with a

-labyrinth of water lanes hemming him in on every side and a storm coming

-on from the westward. The storm rapidly increased in fury, and the

-masses of ice around him were soon dashing against each other and

-breaking in all directions. On the floe, which was tossing to and fro on

-the waves, he gazed in painful inactivity on the conflict, expecting

-every moment to be swallowed up. For three long hours he had remained

-unable to move, the mass of ice beneath him holding together, when it

-was caught by the storm and hurled against a large field of ice. The

-crash was terrific, as it was shattered into little pieces. At that

-dreadful moment, when escape seemed impossible, he was saved by the

-impulse of self-preservation. Instinctively the party sprang on to the

-sledges and urged the dogs to full speed, and as hard as they could

-gallop they skimmed across the yielding fragments to the field on which

-they had been stranded, and safely reached a stretch of firmer ice,

-where the dogs ceased running among the hummocks, conscious that the

-danger was past.

-

-But it is not so much for adventures like this that his account of his

-work is of continuing interest as for the abundance of its notes and

-reflections on the country and its life and climate. Once, for instance,

-when on the Baranicha he was fortunate enough to witness a migration of

-reindeer. "I had hardly finished the observation," he says, "when my

-whole attention was called to a highly interesting, and to me a

-perfectly novel, spectacle. Two large migrating bodies of reindeer

-passed us at no great distance. They were descending the hills from the

-north-west and crossing the plain on their way to the forests, where

-they spend the winter. Both bodies of deer extended further than the eye

-could reach, and formed a compact mass, narrowing towards the front.

-They moved slowly and majestically along, their broad antlers resembling

-a moving wood of leafless trees. Each body was led by a deer of unusual

-size, which my guides assured me was always a female. One of the herds

-was stealthily followed by a wolf, who was apparently watching for an

-opportunity of seizing any one of the younger and weaker deer which

-might fall behind the rest, but on seeing us he made off in another

-direction. The other column was followed at some distance by a large

-black bear, who, however, appeared only intent on digging out a mouse's

-nest every now and then, so much so that he took no notice of us. We had

-great difficulty in restraining our two dogs, but happily succeeded in

-doing so; their barking, or any sound or motion on our part, might have

-alarmed the deer, and by turning them from their course, have proved a

-terrible misfortune to the hunters, who were awaiting their passage, on

-which they are entirely dependent for support. We remained for two hours

-whilst the herds of deer were passing by, and then resumed our march."

-

-The way in which the deer are dealt with by the hunters was seen by

-Matiuschkin when despatched by Wrangell to survey the Anyui. "The true

-harvest, which we arrived just in time to see, is in August or

-September, when the reindeer are returning from the plains to the

-forests. They are then healthy and well fed, the venison is excellent,

-and as they have just acquired their winter coats the fur is thick and

-warm. The difference of the quality of the skins at the two seasons is

-such, that whilst an autumn skin is valued at five or six roubles, a

-spring one will only fetch one or one and a half roubles. In good years

-the migrating body of reindeer consists of many thousands; and though

-they are divided into herds of two or three hundred each, yet the herds

-keep so near together as to form only one immense mass, which is

-sometimes from thirty to seventy miles in breadth. They always follow

-the same route, and in crossing the river near Plotbischtsche, they

-choose a place where a dry valley leads down to the stream on one side,

-and a flat sandy shore facilitates their landing on the other side. As

-each separate herd approaches the river, the deer draw more closely

-together, and the largest and strongest takes the lead. He advances,

-closely followed by a few of the others, with head erect, and apparently

-intent on examining the locality. When he has satisfied himself, he

-enters the river, the rest of the herd crowd after him, and in a few

-minutes the surface is covered with them. Then the hunters, who have

-been concealed to leeward, rush in their light canoes from their

-hiding-places, surround the deer, and delay their passage, whilst two or

-three chosen men armed with short spears dash into the middle of the

-herd and despatch large numbers in an incredibly short time; or at least

-wound them so, that, if they reach the bank, it is only to fall into the

-hands of the women and children. The office of the spearman is a very

-dangerous one. It is no easy thing to keep the light boat afloat among

-the dense crowd of swimming deer, which, moreover, make considerable

-resistance; the males with their horns, teeth, and hind legs, whilst the

-females try to overset the boat by getting their fore-feet over the

-gunwale; if they succeed in this the hunter is lost, for it is hardly

-possible that he should extricate himself from the throng; but the skill

-of these people is so great that accidents very rarely occur. A good

-hunter may kill a hundred or more in less than half an hour. When the

-herd is large, and gets into disorder, it often happens that their

-antlers become entangled with each other; they are then unable to defend

-themselves, and the business is much easier. Meanwhile the rest of the

-boats pick up the slain and fasten them together with thongs, and every

-one is allowed to keep what he lays hold of in this manner. It might

-seem that in this way nothing would be left to requite the spearmen for

-their skill, and the danger they have encountered; but whilst everything

-taken in the river is the property of whoever secures it, the wounded

-animals which reach the bank before they fall, belong to the spearman

-who wounded them. The skill and experience of these men are such that in

-the thickest of the conflict, when every energy is taxed to the

-uttermost, and their life is every moment at stake, they have sufficient

-presence of mind to contrive to measure the force of their blows so as

-to kill the smallest animals outright, but only to wound the larger and

-finer ones, so that they may be just able to reach the bank. Such

-proceeding is not sanctioned by the general voice, but it seems

-nevertheless to be almost always practised. The whole scene is of a most

-singular and curious character, and quite indescribable. The throng of

-thousands of swimming reindeer, the sound produced by the striking

-together of their antlers, the swift canoes dashing in amongst them, the

-terror of the frightened animals, the danger of the hunters, the shouts

-of warning advice or applause from their friends, the blood-stained

-water, and all the accompanying circumstances, form a whole which no one

-can picture to himself without having witnessed the scene."

-

-[Illustration: REINDEER]

-

-The tundra has no more characteristic animal than the reindeer. Over the

-mossy hillocks and the matted tops of the dwarf birches he runs, or

-through the rivers and lakes he swims, with his broad-hoofed, spade-like

-feet never at a loss to find a footing. In the long winter he is

-protected by his thick skin against the influence of the cold, and is

-seldom at starvation point, as he digs for food in the deepest snow, and

-is by no means particular what he eats; and in the short summer he is in

-luxurious ease, for the tundra, as we have seen, is not always as bad as

-it is painted. In exposed places near the coast it is little else than

-gravel beds interspersed with patches of peat and clay, with scarcely a

-rush or a sedge to break the monotony, but by far the greater part of it

-is a gently undulating plain, broken up by lakes, rivers, swamps, and

-bogs; the lakes with patches of green water-plants, the rivers flowing

-between sedges and rushes, the swamps the breeding haunts of ruffs and

-phalaropes, the bogs dotted with the white fluffy seeds of the

-cotton-grass. Almost everywhere the birds are in noticeable numbers,

-among the commonest being the golden plover (who wears the tundra

-colours), the bluethroat, the fieldfare, the whooper swan, and the ducks

-and divers—particularly the divers—and, among the birds of prey, the

-falcons and the rough-legged buzzards, which, with the owls, find such

-abundant provision in the lemmings that migrate in myriads compared with

-which the reindeer troops are insignificant.

-

-"The groundwork of all this variegated scenery," says Seebohm, "is more

-beautiful and varied still—lichens and mosses of almost every

-conceivable colour, from the cream-coloured reindeer-moss to the

-scarlet-cupped trumpet-moss, interspersed with a brilliant alpine flora,

-gentians, anemones, saxifrages, and hundreds of plants, each a picture

-in itself, the tall aconites, both the blue and yellow species, the

-beautiful cloudberry, with its gay white blossom and amber fruit, the

-fragrant _Ledum palustre_ and the delicate pink _Andromeda polifolia_.

-In the sheltered valleys and deep water-courses a few stunted birches,

-and sometimes large patches of willow scrub, survive the long severe

-winter, and serve as cover for willow-grouse or ptarmigan. The Lapland

-bunting and red-throated pipit are everywhere to be seen, and certain

-favoured places are the breeding-grounds of plovers and sandpipers of

-many species. So far from meriting the name of Barren Ground, the tundra

-is for the most part a veritable paradise in summer. But it has one

-almost fatal drawback—it swarms with mosquitoes."

-

-[Illustration: OSTIAK MAN]

-

-[Illustration: SAMOYED MAN]

-

-The beauty of the tundra is, however, transient and skin deep; it is

-only such plants as can live in the soil that thaws that survive.

-Wherever the ground is dug into, ice is sure to be reached; in fact, it

-may be said that ice is one of the rocks of the subsoil, and in some

-places these strata of ice that never melts have been found to be three

-hundred feet thick—ice that has remained in block since the mammoths got

-into cold storage in it ages ago, for otherwise they would not have

-lasted intact in skin and flesh as many have done, like the very first

-discovered in a complete state, that chipped out by Adams in 1807.

-

-In such a climate, whose winter terrors are only too prominent, all

-along the north of Siberia live the ancient peoples driven towards the

-sea by those mighty movements from the land of the Turk and Mongol

-which, north and south, east and west, flooded Europe and Asia with

-invaders—Ostiaks and Samoyeds west of Chelyuskin; Yakuts, Chukches, and

-others to the east of it, the descriptions of whose unpleasant manners

-and customs appear to be written with a view to showing how curiously

-local are the laws of health. One may well ask, as Wrangell did, why

-they should remain in so dreary a region and take life so contentedly.

-And the answer may be that they might go further north and fare worse,

-as their predecessors in the eastern section would seem to have done.

-Once, according to the legend, there were more hearths of the Omoki on

-the shores of the Kolyma than there are stars in the clear sky, and

-these Omoki, or some other departed race, appear to have left as their

-traces the remains of the timber forts and the tumuli that are found on

-the coast, especially near the Indiyirka, and the huts of earth and

-stones and bones found all along from Chelagskoi to the straits, similar

-remains of a departed people now existing in the Parry Islands, over a

-thousand miles away. According to another legend of more recent date,

-there was an intervening land, the land that Wrangell went to seek and

-the _Jeannette_ went to winter at, and the supposed site of which she

-drifted through, in her last and longest imprisonment in the ice.

-

-The _Jeannette_ was the old _Pandora_, bought from Sir Allen Young by

-James Gordon Bennett, and accepted by and fitted out, officered, and

-manned under the orders of the Navy Department of the United States, her

-commander being Lieutenant George Washington De Long. She left San

-Francisco on the 8th of July, 1879, and two months afterwards had been

-run into the pack and was fast in the ice off Herald Island, drifting to

-her doom. Her route, in the main, was north-westerly, with many

-complicated loops, at first at the rate of half a mile a day, then at

-two miles, then at three, showing that the current from Bering Strait

-had been reinforced by some other current as she went further west, and,

-from its direction, there seemed to be land to the northward which was

-never sighted.

-

-Wrangell Land, passed to the south, proved to be not a continent but a

-small island. No other land was seen for a monotonous twenty months, and

-then, in May, 1881, the ship drifted, stern first, past that sighted by

-Hedenström from New Siberia, which was found to consist of two islands,

-to be henceforth known as Jeannette and Henrietta. On the 12th of June,

-in latitude 77° 14´ 57˝, the _Jeannette_ was crushed and sank, her fore

-yardarms breaking upwards as she slipped down through the rift in the

-pack, and a start was made for the Siberian Islands over the ice; but

-the drift had taken the party to 77° 36´, before they got on their

-proper course, and after a most laborious journey, lasting up to the

-28th of July, they were safe ashore on the land sighted by Sannikof from

-Thaddeus, which De Long named Bennett Island.

-

-Bennett Island was left on the 7th of August, the party of thirty-three

-being in three boats, thirteen under De Long in the first cutter, ten

-under Lieutenant Chipp in the much smaller second cutter, and ten, under

-Engineer George W. Melville, whose skill and resourcefulness had been

-conspicuous throughout, were given the whale-boat, the most suitable of

-the three. Sail was made for Thaddeus Island, which was reached in

-safety; after a halt of some days it was left on the 31st of August.

-Then Kotelnoi Island was reached and rested at; then the boats made for

-Semonovski, which was left on the 12th of September.

-

-The same day a gale came on in which the first cutter had great

-difficulty in keeping afloat, the second cutter disappeared never to be

-heard of again, and the whale-boat, behaving excellently, went off

-before the wind straight for the continent to reach in safety one of the

-eastern mouths of the Lena, up which Melville arrived at a Russian

-village on the 26th of September. De Long's party ran their boat aground

-in shallow water, on the 17th of September, and rafted and waded ashore

-to one of the most inhospitable spots on the globe. Heavily laden they

-made their way down the dreary delta, toiling through the snow, delayed

-by the tributaries which were not frozen over hard enough to bear,

-hampered by sickness and disablement, and finally dying one by one of

-starvation.

-

-On the 9th of October De Long sent two of the seamen, Nindemann and

-Noros, ahead in search of relief. They had no food but what they could

-find, and on the second day out their dinner consisted of a little

-willow tea and a burnt boot sole. Next morning they burnt another sole

-of a boot, and they spent the day struggling through a morass in

-drifting snow, crossing streams of all sizes, and halting for the night

-in so high a wind that they were unable to light a fire and took refuge

-in a hole in the snow from which they emerged with difficulty in the

-morning, owing to the wind having piled up the snow against the opening.

-At the end of the third day they reached a deserted hut in which were

-some deer bones, which they grilled and tried to eat, and in the morning

-a gale was blowing and the wild drifting snow was so thick that they had

-to remain where they were and continue their diet of charred bones and

-willow tea.

-

-Next day, Thursday, the 13th of October, they began against a strong

-head wind. In the afternoon they sighted a hut on the west bank of the

-river. "They had seen one in the morning, but had in vain attempted to

-cross the ice to it. Now they tried to reach this, but were turned back

-by the brittle ice. They kept it in sight as they moved southward, and

-made another attempt to cross the ice, but it broke and they came back.

-Then they saw that there was no further progress possible to the

-southward on that side of the water, and they returned to the ice. It

-broke again, but they kept on. They went in up to their waists, but

-managed to pull themselves up on the stronger ice." The wind was blowing

-against them and the ice was like glass, so that they were driven back.

-They looked about for ice which had been roughened by the ripples

-beneath, and finding some they succeeded at length in reaching the other

-side, where were two wooden crosses beneath a bank, which rose fifty

-feet above them. They pulled themselves up the bank, but when they came

-to the hut which they had kept in sight they found it a ruin nearly full

-of snow. "While Noros was trying to make a place in it for shelter,

-Nindemann saw a black object farther along to the south and went to it.

-It was a small peaked hut without a door, but large enough to hold two

-men. There were some fresh wood shavings outside the hut and higher up

-on the hill two boxes. On going to them Nindemann found them old and

-decayed, and he began to break one of them open. When he had ripped off

-the top he discovered that there was another box enclosed; breaking into

-it he found a dead body, and hastily left it. Doubtless the two crosses

-below on the river bank were memorials of the two beings left high up

-above the reach of the floods."

-

-In the small hut they found a sort of floor, the boards of which they

-pulled up for firewood, and in a hole beneath was a box in which were a

-couple of fish and two fish heads; and, as these were discovered, a

-lemming came out of another hole and was promptly caught. On the

-lemming, roasted on the ramrod, and the fishes, which were so decayed

-that they dropped apart as they were handled, they made their meal for

-that day. Next day the snowstorm was so heavy that they were driven back

-here after striving in vain to make headway. On the Saturday, still

-without food, they rested for the night in a fissure in the river bank,

-where as a last resource Nindemann cut a piece off his sealskin trousers

-and soaked it in water and burnt it to a crust. Their breakfast

-consisted of the remains of this toasted sealskin. During the day they

-saw a crow flying across the river and in among the hills, and, as the

-crow in these regions is rarely found away from the haunts of men,

-Nindemann decided to cross the river in the hope of meeting with either

-natives or game on the other side. When darkness came on no shelter was

-discoverable, and so, after a meal of more sealskin and hot water, they

-went to rest in a hole in the snow. Next day, during which they

-recrossed the river, their experiences were similar and the end the

-same.

-

-On Tuesday the 18th, after a terrible day, they came upon a hut with a

-pile of wood close by, which proved to be sledges, and these they broke

-up, as there was no other firing. Next day as they were struggling on

-they reached a place where there were three huts, in one of which was a

-half-kayak and in it was some blue mouldy fish; and here, attacked by

-dysentery, they remained until the Saturday, unable to go any further.

-About noon there was a noise outside like a flock of geese sweeping by.

-Nindemann, looking through the crack of the door, saw something moving

-which he took to be a reindeer, and was going out with his rifle when

-the door opened and a man entered, who promptly fell on his knees when

-he caught sight of the gun. Nindemann threw the rifle into a corner and,

-trying to make friends with the man by signs, offered him some of the

-fish, which the man by an emphatic gesture pronounced not fit to eat.

-After some more of the sign language it was clear that the native had no

-food with him, and holding up three or four fingers to show that he

-would return in so many hours or days he drove off. About six o'clock in

-the evening, while they were preparing their fish dinner, the visitor

-returned with two other men, one of whom brought in a frozen fish which

-he skinned and sliced, and while the sailors were eating it—the first

-healthy meal they had had for weeks—the natives invited them to

-accompany them, and brought in deerskin coats and boots and finally got

-them into the sledges and drove off to the westward for about fifteen

-miles. Here there were two tents, and Nindemann was taken into one,

-Noros into the other, and both were well looked after, the natives doing

-their very best to get them well.

-

-This was intelligible on both sides, for the language of kindness is

-universal, but as the sailors knew not the language of their hosts, and

-the natives knew not the language of their guests, the difficulty of

-being understood by each other was great, and the delivery of the urgent

-message in signs was almost impossible. Nindemann did his best; he

-appealed to the man who seemed to be the head of the party, and drawing

-in the snow a map of the places where he had been, with every

-combination of signs he could think of, he tried to explain what he

-wanted. That he succeeded to a certain extent was clear, though he did

-not think so at first, for the natives loaded up their sledges,

-twenty-seven in number, with reindeer meat and skins and fish, and

-struck their tents, and, with over a hundred head of deer harnessed up,

-started for the south. At noon, when the deer were resting, the man for

-whom the map had been drawn in the snow took Nindemann to where he could

-show him a prominent landmark, and asked by signs if that was where he

-had left his friends. And on learning by signs that it was further to

-the north, he shook his head as if sorry, and resumed his journey to the

-south. During the next day they reached Ku Mark Surka, where there were

-a number of natives who were much interested in the new-comers, and

-again the sailors used every effort to deliver their message.

-

-Immediately after breakfast on the morning of the 25th, Nindemann began

-talking to these people in signs and pantomime. Soon one of them showed

-that he had an idea of where the sailors came from, for he spoke to one

-of the boys, who ran off and returned with a model of a Yakutsk boat.

-Then they gathered round and evidently asked if the ship was anything

-like it. And in answer, Nindemann took up some sticks and placed three

-of them in the boat to show that his ship had three masts, and then he

-fastened smaller sticks across to show that she had yards, which seemed

-to surprise them greatly. Then he made a funnel out of wood and put it

-in position, and pointed to the fire and smoke to show that she was a

-steamer, and then he cut out a propeller with his knife and put it where

-the rudder was to show that she was a screw. Continuing his work he soon

-chipped out so many small boats to show how many she had; and then,

-signing to one of the men to get him two pieces of ice, he showed them

-how the ship had been crushed. Pointing to the northward he tried to

-tell them that the ship had been crushed up there; and then he put away

-the ship and kept only three of the little boats to tell that part of

-the story, and in the boats he put so many sticks to represent the

-number of men in each. When he had done this one of the men pointed to a

-dog that was looking on and asked if the ship had any, whereupon the

-sailor counted on his fingers to show there were about forty, and by

-pantomime explained that they had been shot. This being evidently

-understood, Nindemann drew a chart of the coast-line, and imitating a

-gale of wind showed that the boat he came from went to the land at a

-certain point and that he knew nothing of the others. Then he went on to

-show how they had all left the boat, waded ashore and walked along the

-river-bank, and he marked the huts where they had stopped, and then he

-indicated where one of the men had died and been buried in the river.

-This was understood, for all the audience shook their heads as if to say

-how sorry they were. But when he tried to tell them that he had left the

-captain two days afterwards and had been so many days on the way to ask

-for help, they showed that they either did not or would not understand;

-and really it was not easy to make such a matter clear.

-

-Next day Nindemann made another attempt to get them to understand the

-one essential, urgent fact that help was needed, or the men would die;

-but no, he could not do it. On the Thursday, despairing of the

-hopelessness of his task and the helplessness of his companions, he

-broke into tears and groans, and a woman in the hut took pity on him and

-spoke earnestly to one of the men, who came and said something about a

-commandant. Then the sailor, who had picked up a few words, asked him to

-take him to Bulun, to which the man replied by again saying commandant

-and holding up five or six fingers. Late in the evening there arrived a

-tall Russian, whom Nindemann supposed to be the commandant and addressed

-in English, but he was a Russian exile who could not understand him,

-though he seemed to know something about the matter, for in what he said

-he clearly mentioned Jeannette and Americansk. Nindemann tried him in

-German, but at this he shook his head. Then Nindemann showed him the

-chart given him by De Long, which the Russian evidently did not

-understand, though he said something that sounded like St. Petersburg

-and telegrams. While this apparently hopeless conversation was going on

-Noros was busy steadily writing out a note that the two sailors had

-drawn up, and the tall Russian—who we shall see was really a most

-intelligent man—giving over his talk with Nindemann in despair, coolly

-picked this up and put it in his pocket, and notwithstanding the protest

-of the Americans, walked off with it. In the morning he came in and gave

-them to understand that he was going to Bulun, and that they were to

-follow, and soon afterwards the natives fitted them out with clothing

-and boots and food and sent them off on a sledge. At Bulun they were

-taken to the commandant, who, after a little sign language from

-Nindemann, showed that he understood, and said something about a

-telegram. The sailors jumped at the idea, and one of them dictated to

-the other a despatch to the American Minister at St. Petersburg. This

-the Russian took, explaining that the captain should have it next day.

-Who the captain was the sailors could not make out; but three days

-afterwards, that is on the 3rd of November, while Nindemann lay on the

-bed and Noros was sitting on the table, a man came in dressed in fur.

-

-"My God, Mr. Melville!" said Noros, recognising him as soon as he spoke.

-"Are you alive? We thought that the whale-boats were all dead!"

-

-The exile had handed the note to Melville, whom he knew as the captain,

-and his difficulty in understanding the sailors had been in their

-speaking of one boat while he had only seen the other. The whale-boat

-crew had reached a village opposite to where he lived, and he had agreed

-to take them to Bulun, and he was on his way there to arrange for their

-transport when he heard of the sailors. Like a sensible man he ordered

-the men to be sent to Bulun, and had hurried there, made his

-arrangements with the commandant and returned to Melville, who, seeing

-the urgency of the case as soon as he read the letter, had started at

-once, leaving his party to follow.

-

-Melville, as soon as possible, went off along the track of the two

-sailors, who were too weak to go with him, and eventually found the

-chronometer and the log-books and other records; but the winter was too

-far advanced for him to do more, and he had to return, after a journey

-of over six hundred miles, to try again in the spring. Then, accompanied

-by Nindemann, he went north, and came upon the bodies of the commander

-and those who had perished with him, and three or four feet behind De

-Long, as if he had tossed it over his shoulder, lay the journal in which

-the last page was but a chronicle of death after death.

-

-This chapter must conclude with another tragedy. In 1885 Dr. Bunge and

-Baron Toll made some important investigations in the neighbourhood of

-the mouth of the Yana; and next year Bunge among the fossils of Liakhoff

-Island found not only mammoth and rhinoceros, but horse, musk-ox and

-deer, and two new species of ox. To these Toll, after discovering that

-there were flourishing trees on Kotelnoi in the time of the

-mammoth—nearly two hundred miles north of their present limit—added

-frozen carcases of musk-ox and rhinoceros, and bones of antelope and

-tiger.

-

-In 1902 Toll, pushing his geological researches further north, reached

-Bennett Island, where he collected bones of the mammoth and other recent

-mammals, while the main mass of the plateau he identified as of Cambrian

-age. These discoveries he included in the record announcing his

-intention of leaving for Kotelnoi, which was found in 1904 by the

-expedition sent to his relief, for he was never seen alive again.

-

-

-

-

-                              CHAPTER VII

-                             BERING STRAIT

-

-  Native stories of the distant continent—The Russians in

-    Kamchatka—Bering's expedition—The difficulties of his task—Builds

-    a vessel and reaches Kamchatka—Builds another vessel and discovers

-    the strait named after him by Captain Cook—His second

-    expedition—Spangberg's voyage to Japan—Bering reaches the American

-    coast—His shipwreck and death—The influence of the sea-otter and

-    the fur-seal on geographical discovery—The Arctic voyage of

-    Captain Cook—Clerke's voyage—Beechey's voyage—Point Barrow reached

-    by the barge of the _Blossom_—Kellett's voyage in the

-    _Herald_—Boat expedition to Hudson Bay—Kellett reaches 72°

-    51´—Landing on Herald Island—Kellett sights Wrangell Island—Berry

-    in the _Rodgers_ explores Wrangell Island—He reaches 73°

-    44´—Frederick Whymper and W. H. Dall ascend the Yukon.

-

-

-Rumours of land over against the far corner of Siberia had reached the

-Russians for years, and many were the legends of those who had seen

-these lands from the cliffs, or had been on the ice to look at them more

-closely, or had gone away to them and never come back. There was, for

-instance, the old legend of Kraechoj, who believed he had found safe

-shelter at Irkaipii from the Chukche vengeance, but the Chukche made his

-way into the stronghold and killed Kraechoj's son, whereupon Kraechoj

-escaped by letting himself down with thongs to the boat and fled to the

-land whose mountains can be seen in clear sunshine from Cape Yakan; and

-there he was among his people who had left Asia before him.

-

-And among the official documents was the statement made by the Chukches

-when they went to Anadyrskoi Ostrog to acknowledge the dominion of the

-Russians, that "The Noss is full of rocky mountains, and the low grounds

-consist of land covered with turf. Opposite to it lies an island, within

-sight of it, of no great extent, and void of wood. It is inhabited by

-people who have the same aspect as the Chukche, but are quite a

-different nation, and speak their own language, though they are not

-numerous. It is half a day's voyage with boats from the Noss to the

-island. There are no sables on the island, and no other animals but

-foxes, wolves, and reindeer. Beyond the island is a large continent that

-can be scarcely discerned from it, and that only on clear days; in calm

-weather one may row over the sea from the island to the continent, which

-is inhabited by a people who in every particular resemble the Chukches.

-There are large forests of fir, pine, larch, and cedar trees; great

-rivers flow through the country and fall into the sea. The inhabitants

-have dwellings and fortified places of abode environed with ramparts of

-earth; they live upon wild reindeer and fish; their clothes are made of

-sable, fox, and reindeer skins, for sables and foxes are there in great

-abundance. The number of men in that country may be twice or three times

-as many as that of the Chukches who are often at war with them." That

-there was land in sight somewhere seemed clear, but the reports differed

-in placing it all the way round from the north to the east. Many were

-the vain attempts to reach it from the northward-flowing rivers, and it

-was left to be found from the Pacific side.

-

-[Illustration: BERING STRAIT]

-

-When Atlassof, in 1697, took the first steps in the conquest of

-Kamchatka the Russians were already known to the inhabitants. Long

-before him Fedotof and a few comrades had made their way into the

-country and intermarried with native women. They had been held in great

-honour and almost deified as being evidently of a superior race. For

-some time it was supposed that no human hand could hurt them, but this

-belief was rudely shattered when two of the demigods quarrelled and

-fought, and one wounding the other, the blood flowed. That flow of blood

-was fatal, for the natives, judging that they were but ordinary flesh,

-took an early opportunity of wiping them out, the name of their leader

-being still traceable in that of the Fedotcha River on the banks of

-which they had lived.

-

-The Kamchadales had other tales to tell of visitors from the east and

-south, and Atlassof himself discovered on the River Itcha a Japanese who

-had been wrecked on the coast two years before, from whom he learnt of

-islands innumerable. But there were no ships on the Pacific coast of

-Siberia, and nothing in the way of discovery could be done until 1714,

-when there arrived at Ochotsk a detachment of sailors and shipwrights

-despatched thither overland. According to one of the sailors, Henry

-Bush, a Dutchman, the carpenters built a good durable vessel some fifty

-feet long which was ready for sea in 1716 when the first voyage was

-undertaken. The coast of Kamchatka was made near the River Itcha, and

-sailing south they reached the Kompakova, where they wintered and found

-the whale that had in its body the harpoon of European workmanship

-marked with Roman letters, mentioned by Scoresby. Bush returned to

-Ochotsk in July, to be sent in the following year to discover the

-Shantar Islands, and next year, 1718, the Kuriles; thus venturing into

-the Pacific beyond Cape Lopatka.

-

-The last of these expeditions was due to the direct order of Peter the

-Great, who, knowing nothing of Deschnef, and finding the sea open to the

-north, resolved on a voyage in that direction, his holograph

-instructions to Admiral Apraxin being: "One or two boats with decks to

-be built at Kamchatka, or at any other convenient place, with which

-inquiry should be made relative to the northerly coasts, to see whether

-they are not contiguous with America, since their termination is not yet

-known." Peter died, and the Empress Catherine, carrying out these

-instructions in their fullest meaning, began her reign with an order for

-the expedition.

-

-Veit Bering, Dane by birth and sailor by trade, had voyaged to the

-Indies, east and west, and, like many other men of enterprise, had

-entered the Russian service at Peter's invitation. He had served with

-distinction in the Cronstadt fleet in the war against the Swedes, and,

-being in good repute for his knowledge of ships and their handling, was

-appointed to the command of the most remarkable Arctic enterprise on

-record. Just as Nicholas ruled a line and ordered a railway to be built

-there, so did Catherine in the same imperial way order an exploring

-expedition, and it was done. But it meant building the ship from the

-trees of the forest on the coast of the Pacific and carrying the

-materials and stores—everything but the timber—right across the Russian

-empire in the days when for thousands of miles there were not even

-roads.

-

-[Illustration: THE FACE OF THE FUR SEAL]

-

-Bering's lieutenants were Martin Spangberg and Alexei Tschirikof. With

-them and the rest of the expedition he left St. Petersburg on the 5th of

-February, 1725. During that year they got as far as the Ilim, where they

-wintered. In the spring of 1726 they sailed down the Lena to Yakutsk,

-where they parted company for a time owing to the difficulties of the

-route to Ochotsk, the way not being passable in summer with wagons, or

-in winter with sledges, on account of the marshes and rocky ground. So

-Spangberg set out, working along the rivers Aldan, Maia, and Judoma,

-with part of the provisions and heavy naval stores, while Bering

-followed overland through uninhabited country with more stores on

-horses, and Tschirikof remained to collect still more and follow in the

-track of his commander.

-

-Bering reached Ochotsk first. Spangberg was frozen up in the Judoma, and

-thence he walked to Ochotsk with the most necessary materials; but he

-suffered so much from hunger on the way that he had to support life by

-eating leather bags, straps, and shoes, and did not reach Bering till

-the 1st of January, 1727, nearly two years after leaving St. Petersburg.

-In the beginning of February he returned to the Judoma and brought away

-about half of his lading, the other half being left for a third journey,

-which he made from and to Ochotsk on horses. Meanwhile Tschirikof was

-toiling along from Yakutsk, and did not arrive to complete the party

-until the 30th of July.

-

-On arrival Bering had to build a vessel to take his most necessary naval

-stores and his shipbuilders across the sea of Ochotsk to Bolscheretzkoi,

-which, in her, he reached on the 2nd of September. From here he followed

-the shipwrights, who went on ahead to fell the trees, taking with them

-the provisions and stores, over the backbone of the isthmus and down the

-Kamchatka River to the mouth, a distance of some two hundred miles, the

-journey being very slow on account of the travelling being by

-dog-sledge. In short, it was not until the 4th of April, 1728, that is,

-more than three years after leaving St. Petersburg, that it was possible

-to put on the stocks the vessel in which the voyage to the north was to

-be made. But she took only three months to build, being launched on the

-10th of July, when she was named the _Gabriel_.

-

-Laden with stores for forty men during a year's voyage, she put to sea

-ten days afterwards, Bering keeping close to the coast so that he could

-map it as he went. On the 10th of August he was off the island of St.

-Lawrence, which he so named, as it was the day of that saint. In a day

-or two he had passed the East Cape without seeing the American coast,

-and had entered the Arctic Circle. And on the 15th he was well through

-the strait, out in the Arctic Ocean, in 67° 18´ off Serdze Kamen, a

-promontory behind which the coast trended to the west, as the Chukches

-had told him it did; and he assumed, and rightly so, though he had not

-gone far enough to prove it, that there was no land connection between

-Asia and America. Whereupon, as he had in his opinion accomplished his

-mission, seeing no need for wintering in those parts, he put the

-_Gabriel_ about and was back in the Kamchatka River on the 20th of

-September, after a voyage of seven weeks in a vessel that took three

-months to build on a spot that took over three years to reach—the plan

-of campaign being much the same as that in which a mountain stronghold

-is advanced on across a desert, besieged for a few days, and captured by

-assault.

-

-[Illustration: THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS]

-

-After wintering, Bering went off next year on a voyage due east in

-search of reported land, but, after some hundred and thirty miles out,

-he was blown back, and, rounding the south end of Kamchatka, put in at

-the River Bolschaia; thence he crossed to Ochotsk, whence he started for

-St. Petersburg, where he arrived after an absence of five years.

-Catherine was dead and another empress reigned in her stead, who was

-pleased and satisfied if no one else was, and the 21st of February,

-1733, saw him starting again in the same laborious fashion to arrange

-other voyages as part of a great scheme for the exploration of Northern

-and North-eastern Asia. Some of these expeditions on the north coast

-have already been mentioned; Bering's particular task was to send

-Spangberg in search of Japan, while he and Tschirikof, in separate

-ships, went eastward to America. More stores and provisions went

-overland across Siberia than before; Spangberg got again frozen up on

-the Judoma and had to continue on foot to Ochotsk, where he found plenty

-of food owing to Bering having sent on ahead, in case of any such

-trouble, a hundred horses, each of them laden with meal. In June, 1738,

-Spangberg, in two newly-built vessels and the _Gabriel_, was off to

-Japan, to reach the Kuriles and return to winter in Kamchatka; but next

-year he arrived there all well and found to his astonishment that the

-Japanese knew as much about maps as he did. He was still more astonished

-on his return to be told by those high in office at St. Petersburg that

-he could not possibly have been there as they had not got it on their

-maps where he said it was, and, consequently, he was to go where he had

-been as soon as he could to make sure. He started on this voyage of

-verification, but circumstances were against him and he did not reach

-there; and his Japanese trip remained discredited until the Russian

-geographers knew better. His voyage thither had, however, used such a

-stock of provisions that it was two years before the deficiency could be

-made up, and it was actually the 4th of September, 1740, seven and a

-half years after leaving St. Petersburg, when Bering, in the

-specially-built _St. Peter_, and Tschirikof, in her sister the _St.

-Paul_, got off outward bound to America.

-

-In about three weeks they were at Awatcha Bay on the east of Kamchatka,

-anchored in the fine harbour named Petropaulovsk after the two ships,

-and here they had to stay for the winter, so that they did not leave

-Russian territory until the 4th of the following June. A few days out

-the ships were separated in a fog and storm, and the _St. Paul_ reached

-the American coast first, at Kruzof Island on the western shore of Sitka

-Sound. The _St. Peter_ three days afterwards, on the 18th of July,

-drifted to the coast more to the northward, at Cape St. Elias near the

-mighty mountain of that name. In this neighbourhood amid much fog Bering

-stayed six weeks until he was blown out to sea, when, his men beginning

-to die from scurvy, he resolved to return to Kamchatka. It was a voyage

-of misfortune in a continual downfall, the men in want, misery, and

-sickness, continuously at work in the cold and wet, becoming fewer and

-fewer, so that there were not enough to work the ship properly. It ended

-on one of the Commander Islands by the vessel being lifted by the sea

-clear over a reef into calm water. Bering died—the island is named after

-him—and the survivors of the crew, building a boat from the materials of

-the _St. Peter_, arrived at Petropaulovsk on the 27th of August,

-bringing with them a quantity of sea-otter skins, which did more for

-discovery in those seas than any imperial expedition.

-

-[Illustration: DRIVING THE FUR SEAL]

-

-As the sable had brought about the conquest of Siberia, so did the

-sea-otter lead to the seizure of the islands of the Bering Sea and the

-coasts of Alaska. Three years after the return of the survivors of the

-_St. Peter_, Nevodtsikof wintered on one of the Aleutian Islands, and in

-a few years the fur-hunters were at their exterminating work over the

-whole chain. In time the fur-seal attracted as much attention, and, with

-Pribylov's discovery, in 1786, of its rookeries on the islands named

-after him, the trade became of such increasing importance as to endanger

-in our time the peace of the world. Every one has heard of the wonderful

-haunts and habits of that strange eared seal which seems to have come

-from the south through the tropics to breed in the coldest limit of its

-range, now almost entirely on the Pribylovs and the Commanders; how it

-is pursued in skin boats and every sort of craft, and scared in long

-lines to slaughter by clapping of boards and bones and waving of flags

-and opening and shutting of gingham umbrellas, until it promises to

-become as extinct as Steller's sea-cow or as rare as the sea-otter.

-

-Following Bering on the way to the north came Captain James Cook, in

-H.M.S. _Resolution_, who gave Bering's name to the strait. Cook sighted

-Mount St. Elias in May, 1778, and, cruising slowly along the coast with

-many discoveries and much accurate surveying, was off, and named, Cape

-Prince of Wales, the western extremity of America, on the 9th of August.

-He then crossed the strait and plied back until on the 18th he sighted

-and named Icy Cape in 70° 29´. Close to the edge of the ice, which was

-as compact as a wall, and seemed to be ten or twelve feet high at the

-least, he sought persistently for a passage through, but none was to be

-found; and after reaching 70° 6´ in 196° 42´ (163° 18´ W.) on the 19th,

-he turned westward to the Asiatic coast, along which he went until he

-sighted and named Cape North, as already stated. Then, blocked by ice,

-east, north, and west, he returned, passing Cape Serdze Kamen (Bering's

-farthest) and naming East Cape, confirming Bering's observation that it

-was the most easterly point of Asia.

-

-On Cook's death at Hawaii Captain Charles Clerke, of the accompanying

-vessel H.M.S. _Discovery_, took command of the expedition and carried

-out Cook's intention of making another effort during the following year.

-The ice conditions were, however, worse. The two ships found the ice

-block further south, and as impenetrable as before, and Clerke's highest

-was 70° 33´ on the American side, on the 19th of July. As it was Cook's

-last voyage, so it was Clerke's. He was in a bad way with consumption,

-and continued his work in the north, though, under the special

-circumstances and being in command, he could at any time have given up

-the obviously hopeless attempt and left for a more genial climate, in

-which he would at least have had a chance of longer life; but, remaining

-at his duty, he died at sea on the 22nd of August, and was buried at

-Petropaulovsk.

-

-[Illustration: FUR SEALS AT SEA]

-

-Captain Beechey, in H.M.S. _Blossom_, passed through the strait in 1826

-when sent north from the Pacific with a view of meeting with his old

-commander, Franklin, then on his second land journey. Beechey took the

-ship to Icy Cape, whence on the 17th of August he despatched the barge

-under the master, Thomas Elson, to survey the coast to the

-north-eastward as far as he could go in three weeks, there and back.

-Elson reached his farthest on the 25th at a spit of land jutting out

-several miles from the more regular coast-line, the width of the neck

-not exceeding a mile and a half, broadest at its extremity, with several

-frozen lakes on it, and a village, whose natives proved so troublesome

-that it was thought unsafe to land. This was Point Barrow, in 71° 23´

-31˝, longitude 156° 21´ 30˝, the northernmost land on the western half

-of the American continent. To the eastward curved a wide bay—named Elson

-Bay by Beechey—the shore-line of which joined on to the ice pack that

-encircled the horizon. Here he was within a hundred and sixty miles of

-where Franklin had turned back a week before. Though Beechey did not

-meet Franklin he did most useful work in these parts, for by him the

-whole coast was surveyed between Point Barrow and Point Rodney, to the

-south of Prince of Wales Cape.

-

-Franklin was also the cause of the appearance of the next British

-expedition in the strait. This was in 1848, Captain Henry Kellett, in

-H.M.S. _Herald_, with Commander Thomas Moore in H.M.S. _Plover_, forming

-the western detachment of the first series of search expeditions. There

-were three detachments, one to follow the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ from the

-eastward, another under John Richardson to descend the Mackenzie and

-search the northern coast, the other coming in from the west to meet the

-ships should they have made the passage. On this duty the _Herald_ and

-_Plover_ were hereabouts for three seasons, the _Plover_ wintering, the

-_Herald_ going south when the navigation closed.

-

-In October, 1826, Beechey had buried a barrel of flour for Franklin on

-the sandy point of Chamisso Island, ample directions for finding it

-being cut and painted on the rock, and to call the attention of the

-party to the spot the name of the _Blossom_ was painted on the cliffs of

-Puffin Island. When the _Herald_ was at Chamisso Island in 1849 Captain

-Kellett searched for this flour and found it. A considerable space was

-cleared round the cask, its chimes were freed, and, only adhering to the

-sand by the two lower bilge staves, it required the united strength of

-two boats' crews, with a parbuckle and a large spar as a lever, to free

-it altogether. The sand was frozen so hard that it emitted sparks with

-every blow of the pickaxe. The cask itself was perfectly sound and the

-hoops good, and out of the 336 lb. of flour which it contained, 175 lb.

-were as sweet and well tasted as any he had with him; so good indeed was

-it that Captain Kellett gave a dinner party, at which all the pies and

-puddings were made of this flour.

-

-[Illustration:

-

-  THE PARKA OF THE ALASKAN INNUITS

-

-  (THE SHORTER COAT IS THAT WORN BY THE MEN)

-]

-

-After the dinner party, on the 18th of July, the two vessels started for

-the north, being joined as soon as they stood from the anchorage by

-Robert Shedden in his yacht the _Nancy Dawson_, who at his own

-initiative had come up from Hong Kong to join in the search. From

-Wainwright Inlet Kellett sent off the boats under Lieutenant Pullen, two

-of which made the journey along the northern coast and up the Mackenzie,

-their crews thence making their way home eastwards to York Factory.

-

-When Kellett was about to commence his observations at the inlet he drew

-a semicircle on the sand from water's edge to water's edge, and placed

-the boats' noses between its points. The natives seemed to understand

-the meaning of this line. Not one of them attempted to overstep it, and

-they squatted down and remained perfectly quiet and silent. When a

-stranger arrived they shouted to him, and he no sooner comprehended the

-directions than he crept rather than walked to the boundary, and

-squatted among the rest. Afterwards they danced and sang and played

-football with the seamen—who stood no chance with them at that game—and

-when they had gone off, after all this good behaviour, it was discovered

-that they had been picking the pockets of some of the party, one losing

-a handkerchief, another a glove, and Commander Moore a box of percussion

-caps.

-

-The boat party had a similar experience, without the pocket-picking.

-Reaching Point Barrow they landed to make observations and look about

-for traces of the visit of the _Blossom's_ boat, which they did not

-find. Their interpreter did not understand the tribe, and recourse was

-had to the universal language of signs. "We made a rude model of a

-vessel," says Lieutenant Hooper, "and performed sundry antics to signify

-what we were in search of, but could elicit no information, and so set

-to work at obtaining observations. We concluded that these people must

-have been entirely misunderstood. Far from evidencing any disposition to

-assail or molest us, they were most docile and well-behaved, agreeably

-disappointing us in their conduct. When we arrived on the hillock, all,

-big and little, sat down around us, and I amused myself by filling their

-pipes, becoming a great favourite immediately in consequence. They had

-among them a great many knives, which we feared would influence the

-magnet. Mr. Pullen therefore kindly drew off the crowd to a distance,

-distributing among them tobacco, beads, snuff, etc., and much to their

-credit be it said, there was neither confusion nor contention, each

-taking his allotted portion, and seeming delighted with his good

-fortune. They took care not to come near the instruments, finding that

-we did not like their approach; one or two indeed came towards us, but

-retired instantly when laughingly motioned back, and this should be

-considered as a display of great forbearance, inasmuch as their

-curiosity must have been highly excited. When the observations were

-concluded they were allowed to inspect the objects of their wonder; then

-fast and thickly to utterance flew their expressions of astonishment at

-the—to them—novel and splendid instruments. The trough of quicksilver,

-liquid and restless, especially attracted them, pleasure and wonder were

-evident at the simple view, but when one or two had permission to take

-some from the dish, and found it ever elude the grasp, their

-astonishment knew no bounds."

-

-[Illustration: THE FROZEN YUKON]

-

-From Wainwright Inlet, which is between Icy Cape and Point Barrow, the

-_Herald_ sailed along the pack to the westward, reaching her highest

-north, 72° 51´, in 163° 48´, and, on the 17th of August, Kellett landed

-on and named Herald Island in 71° 17´ 45˝, a mass of granite towering

-nine hundred feet above the sea, under five miles long and three broad,

-inhabited mainly by black and white divers and yielding the collector

-only four flowering plants. Further to the west he sighted Wrangell

-Island, sailed past and named by the American whaling captain, Thomas

-Long, in August, 1867.

-

-In 1881 Wrangell Island was thoroughly explored by another search

-expedition, that of Captain Berry in the American ship _Rodgers_, who

-was in these parts looking out for traces of the _Jeannette_. He found

-it to be, not a continent as some had supposed, but an island forty

-miles broad and sixty-six miles long, about thirty miles from Herald

-Island and eighty from the Siberian coast; and on it, as on all these

-Siberian islands and the coast of Alaska, remains of the mammoth were

-found. Examining the ice to the northward, he reached 73° 44´ in 171°

-30´, being fifty-three miles further north than Kellett and twenty-four

-miles further than Collinson in 1850. Returning from the north to winter

-quarters he achieved another Arctic record in his ship being destroyed

-by fire in St. Lawrence Bay on the Asiatic side of Bering Strait.

-

-Opposite this, on the American side, from Cape York downwards the land

-trends away to the south-east to Norton Sound, in which are the mouths

-of the Yukon, one of the mightiest rivers of the world, its volume being

-as great as, or according to some writers greater than, the Mississippi.

-In a course of two thousand miles it runs northwards to the Arctic

-Circle at the now abandoned trading post of Fort Yukon, where its waters

-are reinforced by its tributary, the Rat or Porcupine, coming in from

-the north-east, and given their seaward direction to the south-west. Up

-this vast waterway in 1866 went Frederick Whymper and William H. Dall.

-

-Beginning with a sledge journey of a hundred and seventy miles from

-Unalachleet, they struck the Yukon on the 10th of November, gliding down

-a high steep bank on to it. Hardly a patch of clear ice was to be seen,

-the snow covering the whole extent. Accumulations of hummocks had in

-many places been forced on the surface before the river had become

-thoroughly frozen, and the water was still open, running swiftly in a

-few isolated streaks. From bank to bank was not less than a mile, the

-stream flowing among several islands. As they sledged up the river the

-dreary expanse of snow made them almost forget they were on a sheet of

-ice; and, as it winds considerably, their course was often from bank to

-bank to cut off corners and bends. Many cliffs abutted on the stream,

-and islands of sombre green forest studded it in all directions.

-

-[Illustration: ASCENDING THE YUKON]

-

-On the 15th they reached Nulato, six hundred miles from the mouth, where

-they spent the winter. Here they found a curious method of fishing

-practised all through the season. Early in the winter large piles or

-stakes had been driven down into the bed of the river, and to these were

-affixed wickerwork traps like eel-pots on a large scale, oblong holes

-being kept open over them by frequently breaking the ice. This was cold

-work, for the temperature ran low. "In November and December," says

-Whymper, "I succeeded in making sketches of the fort and neighbourhood

-when the temperature was as low as thirty degrees below zero. It was

-done, it need not be said, with difficulty, and often by instalments.

-Between every five strokes of the pencil, I ran about to exercise myself

-or went into our quarters for warmth. The use of water-colours was of

-course impracticable—except when I could keep a pot of warm water on a

-small fire by my side—a thing done by me on two or three occasions, when

-engaged at a distance from the post. Even inside the house the spaces

-near the windows, as well as the floor, were often below freezing point.

-Once, forgetful of the fact, I mixed some colours up with water that had

-just stood near the oven, and wetting a small brush commenced to apply

-it to my drawing block. Before it reached the paper it was covered with

-a skin of ice, and simply scratched the surface, and I had to give up

-for the time being."

-

-On the 12th of May the Nulato River broke up and ran out on the top of

-the Yukon ice for more than a mile upstream; and in a few days the ice

-of the main river was coming down in a steady flow at a rate of five or

-six knots, surging into mountains as it met with obstacles, and grinding

-and crashing and carrying all before it, whole trees and banks being

-swept away on its victorious march, the water rising fourteen feet above

-the winter level. On the 26th Whymper and Dall started with two Indians

-and a steersman in a skin canoe, the river still full of ice, and

-navigation difficult. They had proceeded but a short distance when they

-came to bends, round which logs and ice were sweeping at a great rate,

-so that it was necessary for a man to stand in the bows of the canoe,

-with a pole shod at one end with iron, to push away the masses of ice

-and tangle of driftwood. They could often feel the ice and logs rolling

-and scraping under the canoe; and it was not the thickness of a plank

-between them and destruction, but that of a piece of sealskin a tenth of

-an inch thick.

-

-On the 7th of June they were two hundred and forty miles above Nulato,

-at the junction of the Tanana, the furthest point reached by the

-Russians, and soon were in a part abounding with moose owing to their

-seeking refuge in the stream from the millions of mosquitoes. Here the

-Indian hunters were busy, not wasting powder and shot, but manœuvring

-round the swimming deer in their birch-bark canoes until they tired the

-victim out; and then stealthily approaching, securing it with a stab

-from their knives.

-

-After twenty-six laborious days against the stream they reached Fort

-Yukon, the then furthest outpost of the Hudson's Bay Company, six

-hundred miles from Nulato, and, of course, managed and victualled from

-the east. Here the amount of peltry was astonishing, the fur-room of the

-fort containing thousands of marten skins, hanging from the beams, and

-huge piles of common furs lying around, together with a considerable

-number of foxes, black and silver-grey, and many skins of the wolverine,

-thought so much more of by the Indians than by any one else that they

-are used as a medium of exchange. All these furs were brought in from

-the surrounding districts, far and near, and traded for goods, as widely

-distributed, among the native tribes whose representatives gathered at

-the fort in such a miscellaneous crowd that perhaps half a dozen

-dialects were heard in a morning.

-

-[Illustration: MOOSE-HUNTING ON THE YUKON]

-

-In the crowd the busiest and most prominent were the primitive Tananas,

-gay with feathers and painted faces, looking like survivals among the

-local Kutchins and the Kutchins of the upper river, the Birch River men,

-and the Rat River men by whom the skins were brought from the natives of

-the northern coast, as were the messages from the Franklin search

-parties. Indians were all of these, distinguishable by their wearing the

-hyaqua or tooth-shell (_Dentalium entalis_) through the septum of the

-nose, while the Mahlemut wears a bone on each side of the mouth, a

-practice common with all the Innuit, or Eskimo tribes, from the Alaska

-Peninsula to Point Barrow, unless some other form of labret happens to

-be the local fashion.

-

-

-

-

-                              CHAPTER VIII

-                         THE AMERICAN MAINLAND

-

-  The Hudson's Bay Company—Samuel Hearne—His journey down the

-    Coppermine River—The North West Fur Company—Sir Alexander

-    Mackenzie—His journey down the Mackenzie—Sir John Franklin's first

-    land journey—Fort Enterprise—Back's journey to Athabasca—The

-    rapids of the Coppermine—Point Turnagain reached—The Wilberforce

-    Falls—The terrible crossing of the Barren Grounds—Franklin's

-    second land journey—Richardson's voyage to the eastward—Discovers

-    Wollaston Land and Dolphin and Union Strait—Franklin's voyage to

-    Return Reef—Back's journey down the Great Fish River—Discovers

-    Montreal Island and King William Land—The Parry Falls—Sir George

-    Simpson—Peter Warren Dease and Thomas Simpson—Exploration of the

-    coast between Return Reef and Point Barrow—Simpson advances beyond

-    Point Turnagain and discovers Victoria Land and Dease Strait—Their

-    second voyage down the Coppermine—Discovery of Simpson

-    Strait—Reach the Great Fish River—Their farthest east—Complete the

-    survey of the northern coast between Boothia and Bering Strait—The

-    first to find the North-West Passage.

-

-

-For two elks and two black beavers, paid yearly whensoever the King of

-England entered their estate, the Hudson's Bay Company were, in 1670,

-presented by Charles II with the northern part of the American mainland,

-thus ensuring an ample stretch of British territory along the passage to

-the South Sea. But the company soon ceased to be interested in any such

-passage, finding quite enough to do in developing the very profitable

-fur trade of their vast possessions. With the exception of John Knight's

-disastrous voyage to Marble Island in 1719, whatever attempts at

-discoveries there may have been were kept quiet for fear of aiding their

-rivals the French to the south, who were fostering the trade in the

-region of the great lakes; and not until the French dominion ended in

-1763 and the Frenchmen's interests were passing to an opposition British

-company was any effort made to explore the coast of the Polar Sea.

-

-[Illustration: MAHLEMUT MAN]

-

-Owing to Indian reports of rich deposits of native copper and an

-abundance of fur-bearing animals, Samuel Hearne, once a midshipman in

-the Royal Navy, was sent by the company in 1769 to explore to the west

-and north. After a journey of thirteen hundred miles to the west he

-found the Coppermine River and the Great Slave Lake, and he traced the

-river to its mouth and emerged on the northern shore, being the first

-known white man to see the Arctic Ocean between the Boothia Peninsula

-and Bering Strait. Among other things he was instructed to discover a

-north-west passage, and he certainly did something definite towards it

-by showing there was open water so much further west; but, though he

-suspected it, he was unable to prove that the northernmost point of the

-continent was in the unexplored country between the Coppermine and

-Hudson Bay.

-

-In 1783 the North West Fur Company was formally established, and after a

-severe struggle obtained, owing mainly to the efforts of Alexander

-Mackenzie, a fair share of the trade in the west of the region

-controlled by the Hudson's Bay people. Mackenzie was at Fort Chippewyan,

-on Lake Athabasca, and thence he was sent in 1789 on an exploring voyage

-to the north. In four birch-bark canoes, one of his party being an

-Indian known as English Chief, who had been with Hearne on his journey

-to the Coppermine, he started down the Great Slave River into the Great

-Slave Lake. After spending twenty days in crossing and exploring this

-vast sheet of water, he entered the large river now bearing his name,

-and down it amid many dangers and difficulties, overcome by skill,

-persuasion, force, good humour or good fortune, he reached the sea on

-the 14th of July. He camped on Whale Island, the name being given owing

-to one of the men sighting a great many animals in the water, which he

-at first supposed to be pieces of ice. "However," says Mackenzie, "I was

-awakened to resolve the doubts which had taken place respecting this

-extraordinary appearance. I immediately perceived that they were whales;

-and having ordered the canoe to be prepared, we embarked in pursuit of

-them. It was indeed a very wild and unreflecting enterprise, and it was

-a very fortunate circumstance that we failed in our attempt to overtake

-them, as a stroke from the tail of one of these enormous fish would have

-dashed the canoe to pieces. We may, perhaps, have been indebted to the

-foggy weather for our safety, as it prevented us from continuing our

-pursuit. Our guide informed us that they are the same kind of fish which

-are the principal food of the Eskimos, and they were frequently seen as

-large as our canoe. The part of them which appeared above the water was

-altogether white, and they were much larger than the largest

-porpoise"—being evidently belugas (_Delphinapterus leucas_).

-

-Satisfied with a short canoe voyage on the sea, he returned to the river

-and made his way back to the fort, arriving there in the middle of

-September. He had thus proved the existence of the sea twenty degrees

-further west than Hearne had done. Three years afterwards he started on

-his notable journey to the Pacific at Cape Menzies, facing Princess

-Royal Island, being the first white man to cross the Rocky Mountains,

-and, as he had reached Fort Chippewyan by way of Montreal, the first to

-cross North America above the Gulf of Mexico.

-

-Another of Hearne's Indians accompanied Franklin on his first land

-journey in 1819, the object of which was to explore the coast between

-Hearne's farthest and Hudson Bay, thus filling in the gap in which the

-assumed northern promontory was to be found. Franklin, who was sent out

-by the British Government, had with him, as surgeon and naturalist, Dr.,

-afterwards Sir, John Richardson, to whom as a boy Robert Burns had lent

-Spenser's _Faerie Queene_, a naval surgeon with a distinguished record,

-who while on half-pay had studied botany and mineralogy at Edinburgh.

-Like another member of the expedition, George Back, who had been with

-Franklin in the _Trent_ and _Dorothea_ voyage, he was destined to gain a

-great reputation among Arctic explorers. With Back was another

-midshipman, Robert Hood, whose fate it was to be murdered by an Iroquois

-half-breed who, through want of food, betook himself to cannibalism.

-

-Landing at York Factory, in Hudson Bay, after an exciting voyage, on the

-30th of August, Franklin, disregarding local advice, pushed on across

-the continent during the winter, arriving at Fort Chippewyan on the 26th

-of March, the losses and trying experiences of the long journey being

-mainly due to the rigours of the climate at that time of year; and

-thence, in July, the party followed Mackenzie's route to Fort Providence

-on Great Slave Lake. Here they were joined by Mr. Wentzel, of the North

-West Company.

-

-Starting for the north on the 2nd of August in four canoes, they were

-joined next day at the mouth of the Yellow Knife by a band of Indians,

-under a chief named Akaitcho, in seventeen canoes. The Indians were to

-guide the party and supply them with food by hunting and fishing on the

-way, but game and fish proved scarce—and scarcer owing to the poorness

-of the Indian marksmanship—provisions were short and portages long, so

-that the journey, which soon led across a series of lakes, was pursued

-under toilsome and hazardous conditions until it ended at Winter Lake in

-64° 30´, where it became necessary to winter in a log house built by

-Wentzel, and named Fort Enterprise. The site was delightful: a hillside

-amid trees three feet in diameter at the roots, the view in front

-bounded at a distance of three miles by round-backed hills, to the

-eastward and westward the Winter and Roundrock Lakes connected by the

-Winter River, its banks clothed with pines and ornamented with a

-profusion of mosses, lichens, and shrubs.

-

-[Illustration: WINTER TRAVELLING ON THE GREAT SLAVE LAKE]

-

-In a few weeks, however, the weather became so severe that, according to

-Franklin, the trees froze to their very centres and became as hard as

-stones, on which some of the axes were broken daily, until but one was

-left. And though at first the reindeer appeared in numbers, their visits

-lasted only for a short time, and the party, short of tobacco for the

-Canadian voyageurs and of ammunition for the Indians, had so poor an

-outlook that it became necessary to accept Back's proposal to return to

-the forts and bring on supplies which had not been forwarded as

-promised; the failure being due to the journey, unlike the successful

-ventures of Hearne and Mackenzie, being pushed on regardless of climatal

-conditions, and, in some degree, to the rivalry between the two fur

-companies which were amalgamated while the expedition was in progress.

-

-Back set out accompanied by Wentzel and two Canadians and two Indians

-and their wives, crossing lakes frozen just hard enough to bear them,

-going wide circuits to avoid those which were open, amid mist and fog

-and storm, over rugged, bare country, through dense woods and

-snow-covered swamps, rafting across a river with pine branches for

-paddles, until Fort Providence was reached. From here he sent back

-Belanger with letters and a hundred bullets he procured on loan.

-Belanger arrived at Fort Enterprise on the 23rd of October alone; he had

-walked constantly for the last six-and-thirty hours through a storm, his

-locks were matted with snow, and he was encrusted with ice from head to

-foot, so that he was scarcely recognised when he slipped in through the

-doorway.

-

-At Fort Providence Back had to wait until the Great Slave Lake was

-frozen over. On the 18th of November he observed two mock moons at equal

-distances from the central one, the whole encircled by a halo, the

-colour of the inner edge of the large circle a light red inclining to a

-faint purple; and two days afterwards two parhelia were observable, with

-a halo, the colours of the inner edge of the circle a bright carmine and

-red-lake intermingled with a rich yellow forming a purplish orange, the

-outer edge being a pale gamboge. On the 7th of December he left,

-sledging across the lake before the wind, for the North West fort on

-Moose Deer Island, and finding at the Hudson's Bay fort, also on the

-island, five packages of belated supplies and two Eskimo interpreters on

-their way to Franklin.

-

-Here he was told that nothing could be spared at Fort Chippewyan, that

-goods had never been transported so far in the winter season, that the

-same dogs could not go and return, and that from having to walk

-constantly on snow-shoes he would suffer a great deal of misery and

-fatigue. Nevertheless he undertook the journey in dog-sledges with a

-Canadian and an Indian, leaving Wentzel behind. At times the weather was

-so cold that they had to run to keep themselves warm, and, owing to the

-snow, the feet of the dogs became so raw that an endeavour was made to

-fit them with shoes. With legs and ankles so swollen that it was painful

-to drag the snow-shoes after him, Back hurried on, reaching Fort

-Chippewyan on the 2nd of January to find that he and all Franklin's

-party had been reported to have been killed by Eskimos. Here he had to

-wait a month, and then, with an instalment of what he wanted, he set out

-on his return, arriving at Fort Enterprise on St. Patrick's Day after a

-memorable journey of over a thousand miles.

-

-[Illustration: CROSSING POINT LAKE]

-

-During his absence he was told that the cold had been so severe that

-Hood had found accurate observing difficult owing to the sextant having

-changed its error and the glasses lost their parallelism from the

-contraction of the brass, a circumstance, combined with the

-crystallisation of the mercury of the artificial horizon, that might

-account for some of the diversity of results obtained by Arctic

-navigators. And Richardson had to tell him of an early discovery that

-when fishing and the hands get cold by hauling in the line, the best way

-to warm them is to put them in the water; and how the fish had frozen as

-they were taken out of the water so that by a blow or two of the hatchet

-they were easily split open, leaving the intestines removable in one

-lump, and yet that these much-frozen fish retained their vitality so

-that he had seen a thawed carp recover so far as to leap about with much

-vigour after it had been frozen for thirty-six hours.

-

-On the 14th of June Fort Enterprise was left, and on the 25th the

-expedition began to cross Point Lake on the way to the Coppermine, the

-river being reached through Rocknest Lake on the 30th. Down the river

-they paddled, taking the rapids as they went—in one place three miles of

-them on end. "We were carried along with extraordinary rapidity,

-shooting over large stones, upon which a single stroke would have been

-destructive to the canoes; and we were also in danger of breaking them,

-from the want of the long poles which lie along their bottoms and

-equalise their cargoes, as they plunged very much, and on one occasion

-the first canoe was almost filled with the waves; but there was no

-receding after we had once launched into the stream, and our safety

-depended on the skill and dexterity of the bowmen and steersmen."

-

-There were rapids day by day affording almost every possible chance of

-wreck except that due to driftwood; the two worst being one where the

-stream descends for three-quarters of a mile in a deep but narrow and

-crooked channel which it has cut through the foot of a hill of five

-hundred or six hundred feet high, confined between perpendicular cliffs

-resembling stone walls varying in height from eighty to a hundred and

-fifty feet, on which lies a mass of fine sand; the body of the river

-pent within this narrow chasm dashing furiously round the projecting

-rocky columns as it discharges itself at the northern extremity in a

-sheet of foam. The other being where the river flows between lofty stone

-cliffs, reddish clay rocks and shelving banks of white clay, and is full

-of shoals. Franklin's people had entered this rapid before they were

-aware of it, and the steepness of the cliffs prevented them from

-landing, so that they owed their preservation to the swiftness of their

-descent. Two waves made a complete breach over the canoes; a third would

-probably have filled and overset them, which would have proved fatal to

-all on board. This Escape Rapid, as it was named, was, as it were, the

-gate into the territory of the Eskimos who were soon met with in small

-parties all the way down to the sea. It was passed on the 15th of July;

-three days afterwards the Indians bade farewell to the expedition in the

-morning, and in the afternoon the canoes were afloat on the Arctic

-Ocean.

-

-[Illustration: KUTCHIN INDIANS]

-

-From the river mouth Wentzel returned, as arranged, with despatches,

-taking with him a number of voyageurs and others, thus reducing the

-party to twenty in all in two canoes. In these Franklin, nearly two

-years after he had landed in America, went on his voyage to the eastward

-to enter at last on the work he had been sent to do. But the survey of

-this lofty rocky coast was no easy matter; the sea was rough, the

-weather tempestuous, the canoes were lightly built and only suited for

-river work, and, in short, it was a most risky enterprise. Tracing the

-shore of Coronation Gulf and coasting up and out of Bathurst Inlet,

-Franklin reached Point Turnagain in 109° 25´ W., at the entrance of

-Dease Strait, on the 16th of August, 1821. Though the voyage had

-extended over only six and a half degrees of longitude, he had sailed

-555 geographical miles; and then, as his resources did not permit of his

-going further or of his returning to the Coppermine, and in his own

-words "Our scanty stock of provisions rendering it necessary to make for

-a nearer place," he, on the 22nd, turned back to ascend the Hood River.

-

-Here they soon reached the Wilberforce Falls, beautiful and remarkable,

-but not easy of navigation. "In the evening," says Franklin in his

-journal, "we encamped at the lower end of a narrow chasm through which

-the river flows for upwards of a mile. The walls of this chasm are

-upwards of two hundred feet high, quite perpendicular, and in some

-places only a few yards apart. The river precipitates itself into it

-over a rock forming two magnificent and picturesque falls close to each

-other. The upper fall is about sixty feet high, and the lower one at

-least one hundred, but perhaps considerably more, for the narrowness of

-the chasm into which it fell prevented us from seeing its bottom and we

-could merely discern the top of the spray far beneath our feet. The

-lower fall is divided into two by an insulated column of rock which

-rises about forty feet above it."

-

-As the river above the falls appeared too rapid and shallow for the

-large canoes they were taken to pieces, and two smaller ones built from

-their materials. The voyage in these lasted but three days, when the

-river was abandoned as trending too far to the west, and the party,

-carrying the canoes, proceeded overland to Point Lake on their struggle

-of starvation across the Barren Grounds. For days they had nothing to

-eat but lichens—species of _Gyrophora_ or _Umbilicaria_ known as

-tripe-de-roche—a diet varied with leather, burnt bones and skins, an

-occasional ptarmigan, and, once, a musk ox, until they were so weak that

-when a herd of reindeer went strolling past they had not strength enough

-to shoot at them.

-

-The tragedy need not be lingered over. Back was again sent for help,

-and, finding no stores at Fort Enterprise, was on his way to Fort

-Providence when he fell in with Akaitcho, who at once hurried to the

-rescue; and on the 14th of July, 1822, Franklin, Richardson, Back, and

-Hepburn the seaman, who had behaved as a hero all through, returned to

-York Factory after a three years' journey, fraught with peril and

-horror, by land and water, of over six thousand three hundred statute

-miles.

-

-After he had been at home a year, Franklin suggested that another

-attempt should be made to survey the northern coast while Parry was at

-work in search of the North-West Passage. The suggestion was accepted.

-Accompanied by Richardson and Back, and by E. N. Kendall as assistant

-surveyor—who had been out with Captain Lyon in the same capacity—and by

-Thomas Drummond as assistant naturalist, he left Liverpool on the 26th

-of February, 1825.

-

-[Illustration: PREPARING AN ENCAMPMENT ON THE BARREN GROUNDS]

-

-Taught by experience, the expedition was better managed in every way.

-Instead of driving ahead regardless of the season or the trade routine,

-the ordinary conditions of local travel were kept in view throughout,

-and the results were more in proportion to the effort. Three boats were

-specially built at Woolwich on Franklin's design and under Buchan's

-superintendence. They were of mahogany with timbers of ash, both ends

-alike, steerable by oar or rudder, the largest 26 ft. by 5 ft. 4 ins.,

-the two others 24 ft. by 4 ft. 10 ins., and with them Colonel Pasley's

-portable boat, known as the _Walnut Shell_ from its shape, 9 ft. long

-and half as wide, with frames of ash fastened with thongs and covered

-with canvas. The canvas was "waterproofed by Mr. Macintosh, of

-Glasgow"—the first instance of its use—and for the first time also what

-we know as macintosh coats and overalls were issued as part of the

-outfit, the process having been patented in 1824.

-

-The boats and stores were sent on ahead by way of York Factory in 1824,

-and Franklin and his party, travelling by New York and the lakes, caught

-them up on the Methye River at sunrise on the 29th of June. With them

-were several old friends, not the least delighted being the two Eskimo

-interpreters, Augustus and Ooligbuck, who were to be of the utmost

-importance throughout. On the 8th of August they had got along so well

-that they were at the junction of the Bear Lake River with the

-Mackenzie. Here Back and Peter Warren Dease of the Hudson's Bay Company,

-who had joined the expedition to look after the local arrangements, were

-sent off to build a house to winter in on the banks of the Great Bear

-Lake, in Keith's Bay, where the river leaves it; Richardson also left to

-explore the northern shore of the lake, and Franklin and Kendall

-continuing down the Mackenzie reached the sea before the week was out in

-less than six months from their departure from Liverpool. And on the 5th

-of September they had returned upstream and were at their winter

-quarters at the new house on the lake, which Back had named Fort

-Franklin, to find that Richardson had been along the northern shore and

-noted as being the nearest point to the Coppermine the entrance of the

-river he had named after Dease, which was to be of so much service to

-him later on.

-

-During the winter another boat, the _Reliance_, was built on the lines

-of the _Lion_, the largest of the Woolwich boats, and leaving Dease to

-complete the stores for another comfortable winter, the expedition

-started on the 24th of June. At Point Separation, at the head of the

-Mackenzie delta, Franklin in the _Lion_ with Back in the _Reliance_—our

-old friend Robert Spinks being his coxswain—took the western arm, and

-Richardson in the _Dolphin_ and Kendall in the _Union_, carrying the

-_Walnut Shell_ with them, took the eastern arm.

-

-[Illustration: Yours faithfully John Richardson]

-

-Richardson, with a few more or less threatening encounters with the

-Eskimos, ending fairly well owing to Ooligbuck, and in constant danger

-of wreck avoided by careful navigation, rounded Cape Bathurst in 70° 36´

-and discovered Wollaston Land, the coast-line of which they left

-continuing to the east, when they reached Coronation Gulf and, on the

-8th of August, entered the Coppermine, and thus filled in the gap of

-nine hundred and two statute miles from Point Separation. Leaving the

-_Dolphin_ and _Union_ at Bloody Fall on that river, it being impossible

-to take them further, the expedition, carrying the _Walnut Shell_ with

-them, proceeded along the banks, but finding they had no use for the

-portable boat, owing to the shallowness of the stream, they soon

-abandoned it, and in 67° 13´, where the river is nearest to the

-north-eastern arm of Great Bear Lake, the Coppermine was left and the

-course laid across the Barren Grounds for Dease River. This was reached

-three days afterwards, Richardson being met at its mouth by Dease's

-people on the 24th of August.

-

-Franklin had similar experiences with the Eskimos, and was as deeply

-indebted to Augustus for his tact and bravery in dealing with them.

-Coasting along to the westward, hindered by ice, bad weather and fog,

-and tormented by mosquitoes, his progress was much slower than that of

-Richardson. Delayed for some days on or about Foggy Island, he had to

-give up his intention of reaching Bering Strait, and not knowing that

-Elson with the barge of the _Blossom_ had come as far east as Point

-Barrow, he gave the name of Cape Beechey to the westernmost headland in

-sight, and leaving Return Reef in 148° 52´ on the 18th of August, after

-covering six hundred and ten statute miles through parts not previously

-discovered, began his voyage back to Fort Franklin, where he arrived on

-the 21st of September. Meanwhile Richardson had gone off to explore the

-Great Slave Lake, whence Drummond had started on his journey among the

-Rockies; and, being unable to get away till another winter had passed,

-both Franklin and Richardson landed in England in September, 1827, after

-an important and fruitful expedition that had no death-roll.

-

-Back was again in these regions in 1833 on his expedition in search of

-Sir John Ross. Reaching the Great Slave Lake, he built Fort Reliance at

-its north-eastern corner and began the long winter there on the 5th of

-November. Soon afterwards Akaitcho put in an appearance, and expressed

-his intention—which he did his best to fulfil—of being of as much

-assistance as he could; and later on Augustus made his way across

-country to offer his services, but, either exhausted by suffering and

-privation, or caught in a snowstorm, he died alone near the Rivière à

-Jean.

-

-Temperatures ranging from 50 to 70 minus were of frequent occurrence,

-and, on one occasion Back, after washing his face within a yard of the

-fire, had his hair clotted with ice before he had time to dry it. Every

-animal was driven away from the neighbourhood by the cold, except a

-solitary raven which swept once round the house and then winged his

-flight to the westward. On the 25th of April a messenger arrived at the

-fort with the news of the safe return of Sir John Ross to England, but

-Back determined to proceed with the journey for exploring purposes,

-taking one boat instead of two, and, with Richard King the surgeon, and

-eight men, he started for the Great Fish River on the 8th of July.

-

-[Illustration: BACK'S JOURNEY DOWN THE GREAT FISH RIVER]

-

-The voyage was a hazardous and adventurous one. For five hundred and

-thirty geographical miles the river was found to run through an

-iron-ribbed country without a single tree on the whole line of its

-banks, expanding into fine large lakes with clear horizons, most

-embarrassing to the navigator, and broken into falls, cascades, and

-rapids, to the number of no less than eighty-three, pouring its waters

-into the Polar Sea in latitude 67° 11´ and longitude 94° 30´; so that

-his explorations on the northern coast were confined to a section

-further east than Point Turnagain.

-

-The expedition met with its greatest danger at Escape Rapid, between

-Lake Macdougall and Lake Franklin, on the 25th of July. Here the stream

-was broken by a mile of heavy and dangerous rapids. The boat was

-lightened, and every care taken to avoid accident; but so overwhelming

-was the rush and whirl of the water, that she, and consequently those in

-her, were twice in imminent peril of being plunged into one of the gulfs

-formed in the rocks and hollows. It was in one of these places, which

-are fall, rapid, and eddy within a few yards, that the boat owed its

-safety to an unintentional disobedience of the steersman's directions.

-

-The power of the water so far exceeded whatever had been witnessed on

-any of the other rivers that the precautions used elsewhere were weak

-and unavailing. McKay, the steersman, was endeavouring to clear a fall

-and some sunken rocks on the left, but the man to whom he spoke

-misunderstood him, and did exactly the reverse; and then, seeing the

-danger, the steersman swept the stern round; instantly the boat was

-caught by an eddy to the right, which, snapping an oar, twirled her

-irresistibly broadside on; so that for a moment it seemed uncertain

-whether the boat was to be hurled into the hollow of the fall, or dashed

-stern foremost on the sunken rocks. Of how it happened no account can be

-given, but her head swung inshore towards the beach and thereby gave an

-opportunity for some of the men to spring into the water and by their

-united strength rescue her from her perilous position. Had the man to

-whom the first order was given understood and acted on it no human power

-could have saved the crew from being buried in the abyss. Nor yet could

-any blame be justly attached to the steersman, who had never been so

-situated before and whose coolness and self-possession never in this

-imminent peril forsook him. At the awful moment of suspense, when one of

-the crew with less nerve than his companions began to cry aloud to

-Heaven for aid, McKay in a still louder voice exclaimed, "Is this a time

-for praying? Pull your starboard oar." Never could a reminder that

-_laborare est orare_ have been more opportune.

-

-On the 1st of August Montreal Island was reached. Nine days afterwards a

-log of driftwood, nine feet long and nine inches in diameter, jocularly

-described as a piece of the North Pole, was found on the beach, which,

-as there are no trees on the Fish River or the Coppermine, Captain Back

-was of opinion must have come from the Mackenzie and drifted eastward,

-so that he was on the main line of the land. The inference, confirmed by

-the appearance of a whale, was correct, but, misled, perhaps, by hilly

-islands, he missed the channel through which it had come, blocking it,

-in the manner of John Ross, with a range of mountains that does not

-exist. Though he reached Mount Barrow and mistook the head of Simpson

-Strait for an inlet, thus failing to find one of the north-west

-passages, he discovered and named King William Land and sighted Point

-Booth at its eastern extremity. An attempt to reach Point Turnagain to

-the westward and thus link up with Franklin's farthest east, in which he

-might have discovered the passage, proving impracticable owing to the

-bogginess of the ground, Back began his return from King William Land in

-latitude 68° 13´, longitude 94° 58´, and entered on a wearisome journey

-up the river and lakes he had come down, meeting with a party from Fort

-Reliance on the 17th of September.

-

-A week after, when within a couple of days of the fort, on that "small

-but abominable river" the Ah-hel-dessy from Artillery Lake, Back

-discovered the Anderson Falls. Toiling along over the mountains, every

-man with a seventy-five-pound package on his back, he had not proceeded

-more than six or seven miles when, observing the spray rising from

-another fall, he was induced to visit it and was well consoled for

-having left the boat behind. "From the only point," says Back, "at which

-the greater part of it was visible, we could distinguish the river

-coming sharp round a rock, and falling into an upper basin almost

-concealed by intervening rocks; whence it broke in one vast sheet into a

-chasm between four and five hundred feet deep, yet in appearance so

-narrow that we fancied we could almost step across it. Out of this the

-spray rose in misty columns several hundred feet above our heads; but as

-it was impossible to see the main fall from the side on which we were,

-in the following spring I paid a second visit to it, approaching from

-the western bank. The road to it, which I then traversed in snow-shoes,

-was fatiguing in the extreme, and scarcely less dangerous; for, to say

-nothing of the steep ascents, fissures in the rocks, and deep snow in

-the valleys, we had sometimes to creep along the narrow shelves of

-precipices slippery with the frozen mist that fell on them. But it was a

-sight that well repaid any risk. My first impression was of a strong

-resemblance to an iceberg in Smeerenberg Harbour, Spitsbergen. The whole

-face of the rocks forming the chasm was entirely coated with blue,

-green, and white ice, in thousands of pendent icicles; and there were,

-moreover, caverns, fissures, and overhanging ledges in all imaginable

-varieties of form, so curious and beautiful as to surpass anything of

-which I had ever heard or read. The immediate approaches were extremely

-hazardous, nor could we obtain a perfect view of the lower fall, in

-consequence of the projection of the western cliffs. At the lowest

-position we were able to attain, we were still more than a hundred feet

-above the level of the river beneath; and this, instead of being narrow

-enough to step across, as it had seemed from the opposite heights, was

-found to be at least two hundred feet wide. The colour of the water

-varied from a very light to a very dark green; and the spray, which

-spread a dimness above, was thrown up in clouds of light grey. Niagara,

-Wilberforce Falls on Hood River, the falls of Kakabikka near Lake

-Superior, the Swiss or Italian falls—although they may each charm the

-eye with dread—are not to be compared to this for splendour of effect.

-It was the most imposing spectacle I had ever witnessed; and, as its

-berg-like appearance brought to mind associations of another scene, I

-bestowed upon it the name of our celebrated navigator, Sir Edward Parry,

-and called it Parry's Falls."

-

-Back, like Franklin, owed much of the success of his expedition to the

-cordial help of the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, George,

-afterwards Sir George, Simpson. Ever the fastest of travellers in the

-north, Simpson had, in 1828, made a 3260-mile canoe voyage from Hudson

-Bay to the Pacific, passing the Rockies through canyons previously

-untried, and slipping down mountain torrents and through unknown rapids

-at such speed that hostile Indians let him pass in sheer amazement; and

-all his life he was distinguished for similar energy and celerity. When

-it became clear that the British Government had no immediate intention

-of completing the survey of the northern coast, Simpson organised an

-expedition at the Company's expense to undertake the task, and entrusted

-the leadership to Dease, who had done such excellent work for Franklin;

-and with Dease he associated his own nephew, Thomas Simpson, in no way

-inferior to his uncle in energy, speediness, or decision of character,

-being in fact one of our very best explorers, Arctic or otherwise.

-

-Thomas Simpson, Master of Arts of Aberdeen and a winner of the

-Huttonian, began characteristically by starting off to Fort Garry—now

-Winnipeg—with a view, as he says, "to refresh and extend my astronomical

-practice which had for some years been interrupted by avocations of a

-very different nature"; and thence, in the winter, making his way to

-Fort Chippewyan, a journey of 1277 miles, joining Dease there more than

-a month before he was expected. Two boats were built, light clinker

-craft of 24 ft. keel and 6 ft. beam, adapted for shallow navigation by

-their small draught, both alike and honoured with the classical names of

-the heavenly twins, _Castor_ and _Pollux_, each boat provided with a

-small oiled canvas canoe and portable wooden frame. Of one, the

-steersman was the redoubtable James McKay—"Pull your starboard oar!"—and

-of the other, George Sinclair, Back's bowman; and one of the bowmen was

-Felix, who had been with Franklin in 1826. All told, the expedition

-numbered fourteen.

-

-Leaving Fort Chippewyan on the 1st of June, 1837, they reached Bear Lake

-River on the 3rd of July, and six days afterwards were out on the sea.

-On the 23rd of July they camped at Return Reef, that is to say they had

-traversed the whole extent of Franklin's survey in a fortnight, and not

-without danger from the ice and losing much time by doubling the floes,

-however far they extended seawards. Once Simpson's boat, which was of

-course leading, was only saved from destruction by throwing out

-everything it contained upon the floating masses. By means of portages

-made from one fragment to another, the oars forming the perilous

-bridges, and after repeated risks of boats, men, and baggage being

-separated by the motion of the ice, they succeeded with much labour in

-collecting the whole equipment on one floe, which, being covered with

-water, formed a sort of wet dock. There they hauled up the boats,

-momentarily liable to be overwhelmed by the turning over of the ice,

-three miles from land, with the fog settled round them throughout the

-inclement night.

-

-Continuing westwards along new country, they reached and named Cape

-George Simpson (after the Governor) and, a little further on, Boat

-Extreme, where, from the coldness of the weather and the interminable

-ice, the further advance of the boats appeared to be so hopeless that

-Dease agreed to stay in charge of them while Simpson with five men,

-including McKay and Felix, pushed ahead for Point Barrow on foot.

-Passing McKay Inlet and Sinclair River, named after the two steersmen,

-an Eskimo camp was reached, where Simpson exchanged his tin plate for a

-platter made out of a mammoth tusk, and borrowed an oomiak which floated

-in about half a foot of water. In this useful skin boat the journey was

-resumed to Point Barrow, and on the 4th of August the survey completed

-between Franklin's farthest and Elson's.

-

-The winter was passed at the mouth of the Dease River, on Great Bear

-Lake, where Fort Confidence had been built ready for the expedition on

-its return. On the 6th of June, 1838, a start for the coast was made by

-the Coppermine route, that river being reached on the 22nd, and its

-descent accomplished, on the spring flood, in nine days. But it was a

-bad season, and the navigation was so hampered by ice that no start was

-made to the eastward until the 17th of July. At Boathaven, in 109° 20´,

-Simpson again left the boats and went ahead with Sinclair and six others

-who had not been to Point Barrow. Passing Franklin's farthest at Point

-Turnagain, he kept on for a hundred miles along the whole length of

-Dease Strait, discovering and naming Victoria Land, reaching Beaufort

-River beyond Cape Alexander, and sighting an open sea to the eastward.

-From here, in 106° 3´, the return began; and by many devices and the

-unfailing skill of McKay and Sinclair, the two boats were taken up the

-Coppermine stream, falls and rapids and all, to the nearest point to

-Fort Confidence, where they were hauled up in readiness for next year.

-

-On the 22nd of June, 1839, the boats again left for the sea; and they

-were run down to Bloody Fall without a stoppage in eleven hours. Again

-there were fourteen all told in them, but this time one of the men was

-Ooglibuck, who had come specially from Ungava in Labrador, in the

-wonderful time of three months less eight days, to join the expedition

-which was to meet with great success and accomplish an Arctic boat

-journey of over sixteen hundred statute miles.

-

-Entirely blocked until the 3rd of July, and hindered by ice difficulties

-all the way, the boats did not reach the previous year's farthest until

-the 28th of July. On the 11th of August, through an outlet only three

-miles wide, they passed into the much-desired eastern sea. "That

-glorious sight," says Simpson, after whom the strait is named, "was

-first beheld by myself from the top of one of the high limestone

-islands, and I had the satisfaction of announcing it to some of the men

-who, incited by curiosity, followed me thither. The joyful news was soon

-conveyed to Mr. Dease, who was with the boats at the end of the island,

-about half a mile off." On the continent and on King William Land, where

-Franklin's men were in time coming to perish of starvation, reindeer

-were seen browsing on the scanty herbage among the shingle. A terrible

-thunderstorm followed, and then, doubling a very sharp point on the

-13th, Simpson landed and saw before him a sandy desert. It was Back's

-Point Sir C. Ogle that he had at length reached. Away in the distance

-was the Great Fish River, and three days afterwards the party were

-encamped on Montreal Island, where McKay led the way to the provisions

-and gunpowder deposited by Back among the rocks.

-

-The expedition had performed its allotted task, and the men were

-consulted as to whether they would continue for a short distance to the

-eastward. To their honour they all assented without a murmur; but the

-cruel north-east wind forbade much progress in that direction, and their

-farthest east was reached at Castor and Pollux River. From there

-immediate return was imperative, as not a day could be spared. And so,

-from latitude 68° 28´ 23˝, longitude 94° 14´, they turned back on the

-21st of August, leaving the survey of the north coast of the American

-mainland practically complete from Bering Strait to Boothia.

-

-Further, on their return journey they crossed to the southern shore of

-King William Land and traced its coast for nearly sixty miles,

-discovering and naming Cape Herschel, south-eastward of which, in

-Simpson Strait, M'Clintock found the remains of one of Franklin's men.

-They thus linked up with what was to be the route of the Franklin

-expedition and were the first to find the North-West Passage for the

-command of which the territory was given by Charles II to the Hudson's

-Bay Company.

-

-

-

-

-                               CHAPTER IX

-                           THE PARRY ISLANDS

-

-  John Rae—Wollaston Land and Victoria Strait—Overlaps Franklin's

-    route—M'Clure discovers Prince of Wales Strait—The North-West

-    Passage—Banks Land—M'Clure rescued by Bedford Pim—Collinson's

-    remarkable voyage—In Beaufort Sea—Reaches Banks Strait—Voyage to

-    Cambridge Bay—On Franklin's route—The North-West Passage sailed

-    by Amundsen along the track of the _Enterprise_—Sir

-    John Barrow—Parry's first voyage—Penetrates Lancaster

-    Sound and discovers the Parry Islands—Stopped by ice in

-    Banks Strait—The search for Franklin—Sir John Ross—De

-    Haven—Penny—Austin—Ommanney—Osborn—Belcher—Kellett—M'Clintock—Drift

-    of the _Resolute_—Sledge work—Sverdrup's discoveries during his

-    four years in the north.

-

-

-The second to complete a north-west passage by linking up with

-Franklin's voyage was Dr. John Rae, an Orkneyman by birth, as energetic

-as Thomas Simpson and evidently not inferior to him in stamina, for in

-his Arctic journeys he walked a distance equal to that of the

-circumference of the earth. In 1846 he had surveyed the Committee Bay

-district between Boothia and the Melville Peninsula, reaching it from

-Repulse Bay, and in 1848 and 1849 he had been associated with Richardson

-in searching for Franklin along the coast from the Mackenzie eastwards.

-Next year, while in charge of the Mackenzie district, he was again

-requested to lead a Franklin search expedition, and, starting from Fort

-Confidence on the 25th of April, was on the sea by the 1st of May.

-Crossing over to Wollaston Land, and making westward along the coast on

-the 22nd of May, he rounded Cape Baring, just above the seventieth

-parallel. Crossing to its continuation, Victoria Land, on a second

-journey, he travelled eastward, and, going up Victoria Strait, rounded

-Pelly Point, also just above the seventieth parallel, on the 12th of

-July, thus practically completing the survey of the southern half of

-what Collinson was to prove is one large island.

-

-[Illustration: Yours very truly W Parry]

-

-Off Pelly Point, it afterwards appeared, the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ were

-beset in the ice in September, 1846, and fifty miles to the south-east

-they had been abandoned in April, 1848; but the only relic found by Rae

-on this occasion was the doubtful one—picked up in Parker Bay—of the

-butt-end of a flagstaff on which was nailed a piece of white line by two

-copper tacks, all three bearing the Government mark. This was the first

-to be found of anything that could be thought to be a trace of the

-missing ships, a sort of promise of what he was to meet with four years

-later; and it is worth noting that, had he not failed in getting across

-the strait to King William Land, Rae would in 1850 have probably

-discovered Franklin's fate.

-

-His farthest in these parts was passed in May, 1853, by Captain Richard

-Collinson, in his sledge journey to Gateshead Island from H.M.S.

-_Enterprise_, then wintering in Cambridge Bay. The _Enterprise_ and

-_Investigator_ had been placed under Collinson's command and sent by way

-of Cape Horn to search for Franklin from the west, the instructions

-being that the ships should not part company; but regardless of this,

-Commander Robert Le Mesurier M'Clure, of the _Investigator_, happening

-to get through Bering Strait first, declined to wait for his commanding

-officer, went off on an expedition on his own account and, by a sledge

-journey, joined Parry's track when in search of the North-West Passage.

-

-Steering north-east from Franklin Bay, M'Clure reached the south of

-Parry's Banks Land and followed the coast north-eastwards, discovering

-Prince of Wales Strait and making his way rather more than half-way up,

-until, near Princess Royal Island in 72° 50´, he was caught in the ice

-and imprisoned for the winter. On Trafalgar Day, 1850, M'Clure left the

-_Investigator_ on a sledge journey up the strait, and at sunrise on the

-26th of October, from Mount Observation in 73° 30´, a hill six hundred

-feet above the sea, he looked over Banks Strait and Melville Sound, and

-saw the coast of Banks Land terminating about twelve miles further on

-and thence trending to the north-west, while Wollaston Land, as it

-proved to be, turned eastward on the other side at Peel Point. That

-evening Banks Strait was reached at Cape Lord John Russell, and the

-North-West Passage by Prince of Wales Strait clearly demonstrated. The

-spot was not bare of vegetation, and there were many traces of animals,

-for, fortunately for M'Clure, there was no scarcity of game during his

-three winterings in Banks Land—reindeer in herds, musk oxen

-occasionally, hares in troops, ducks in plenty, ptarmigan almost as

-numerous, and bears, wolves, and foxes to feed on them; for instance,

-the weights of three items in the bag, 1945 lb. of musk ox, 7716 lb. of

-deer, and 1017 lb. of hare, show fairly good shooting.

-

-Enclosing a record of the visit in a cairn, M'Clure returned to the

-ship, from which in the spring three sledge parties were sent

-out—Cresswell's to the north-west finding that Banks Land was an island,

-Wynniatt's to the north-east reaching Reynolds Point on the north of

-Wollaston Land, and Haswell's down Wollaston Land to within forty miles

-of where Rae turned back about a week later—this being the only attempt

-at searching for Franklin that the expedition undertook after sighting

-Nelson Head. Released in July, the _Investigator_ retreated down the

-strait and attempted to circumnavigate Banks Land, finding to the west a

-coast as precipitous as a wall, the water deep—fifteen fathoms close in,

-with the yardarms almost touching the cliffs on one hand and the lofty

-ice on the other—and the pack drawing forty feet of water, rising in

-rolling hills a hundred feet from base to summit. On shore the hills

-were as remarkable. Many of them were peaked and isolated by precipitous

-gorges, about three hundred feet deep. And all the way up them were

-numbers of fallen trees, in many places in layers, some protruding

-twelve or fourteen feet, one of these trunks measuring nineteen inches

-in diameter. Says M'Clure: "I entered a ravine some miles inland, and

-found the north side of it, for a depth of forty feet from the surface,

-composed of one mass of wood similar to what I had before seen. The

-whole depth of the ravine was about two hundred feet. The ground around

-the wood or trees was formed of sand and shingle; some of the wood was

-petrified, the remainder very rotten and worthless even for burning."

-And this forest bed is on the shore of the Beaufort Sea in 74° north

-latitude, a similar one being in Prince Patrick Island, on the other

-side of Banks Strait.

-

-After one or two narrow escapes the _Investigator_ entered her last home

-at the Bay of Mercy, well within the strait, near Cape Hamilton, the

-most prominent of the three capes discovered from the Dundas Peninsula

-by Parry's lieutenant, Beechey, thirty-one years before. The winter

-passed, and on the 11th of April M'Clure left the ship on a sledge

-journey across to Parry's old quarters at Winter Harbour, which were

-reached on the 28th, to find nothing but a notice of M'Clintock's having

-been there in the previous June. Noticing Parry's inscription rock,

-M'Clure judiciously left on it a statement that the _Investigator_ was

-in want of relief at Mercy Bay. But all through that year no news from

-the outside came to Banks Land, and matters became serious owing to the

-appearance of scurvy, notwithstanding the abundance of fresh meat, for

-even in January a herd of reindeer trotted by.

-

-[Illustration: THE PARRY ISLANDS]

-

-Another winter went wearily, each month with a gloomier outlook than the

-last, and on the 5th of April the first of the scurvy patients died.

-Next morning M'Clure and Haswell were walking near the ship discussing

-how they could dig a grave in the frozen ground, when they noticed a man

-hurriedly approaching from the entrance of the bay, throwing up his arms

-and shouting at the top of his voice, his face as black as ebony. When

-he came within talking range the dark-faced stranger called out, "I am

-Lieutenant Pim, late of the _Herald_ and now in the _Resolute_; Captain

-Kellett is in her at Dealy Island." And soon the dog-sledge with two men

-came into view. Pim's arrival was most fortunate for the sufferers, for

-the captain, as a desperate resource, was—in spite of the doctor's

-protests—just about to send off two sledge parties of the invalids to

-take their chance of escaping somehow, as there was no hope of their

-recovery in the ship; and on examination by the doctor of the

-_Resolute_, it was found that every man of the crew was more or less

-affected by the disease. So the ship was abandoned in Mercy Bay, and the

-officers and crew, crossing to the _Resolute_, reached England by way of

-Hudson Strait.

-

-Collinson's was the most remarkable voyage ever accomplished by a

-sailing-ship in the Arctic regions. It lasted from 1850 to 1855—five

-years and a hundred and sixteen days—all the way out across the Atlantic

-and Pacific and home again in safety, traversing a hundred and

-twenty-eight degrees of longitude in the Arctic sea, coming nearest at

-the time to completing the north-west passage by ship (up Prince of

-Wales Strait), finding two north-west passages by sledge (one joining

-with Parry's discoveries across Banks Strait, the other with Franklin's

-up Victoria Strait), and approaching nearer than any other naval

-expedition to the great discovery by travelling up Franklin's route for

-some distance, and passing within thirty miles of the spot where the

-vessels he was in search of had been abandoned, though unfortunately,

-like Rae, he was on the west side of the waterway instead of the east.

-

-Passing Bering Strait in July, 1850, the _Enterprise_ went north from

-Wainwright Inlet into the Beaufort Sea, until she was stopped by the

-heavy pack. Trying east, to join with Parry's farthest, and then west,

-she arrived, on the 28th of August, at 73° 23´ in 164°, and here she

-turned south after having sailed over eleven thousand miles without

-having to reef her topsails, an unprecedented run of distance and fine

-weather combined. Returning in 1851 from wintering at Hong Kong,

-Collinson, with a southerly wind "too precious to be wasted," made his

-way up Prince of Wales Strait, knowing nothing of the visit of the

-_Investigator_, to find ice blocking his way just at the northern

-outlet, his furthest north, by ship, 73° 30´, forty miles beyond

-M'Clure's winter quarters, as given in the record he found in one of the

-cairns.

-

-Unable to round the corner into Banks Strait owing to the ice block,

-Collinson returned down Prince of Wales Strait and followed the track of

-the _Investigator_ half-way up the west coast of Banks Land, though he

-had found nothing to indicate she had gone in that direction. Finding

-the ice conditions dangerous, he retraced his route along the coast and

-went into comfortable winter quarters in Walker Bay, at the entrance of

-Prince of Wales Strait. By the end of November the natives fishing for

-salmon-trout had cleared off, as also had the reindeer, hares, and

-ptarmigan and other birds, and on the 17th of March the ravens, which

-had been the last to leave, were the first to return. In April sledge

-parties went out, one of which under Lieutenant Parkes crossed the route

-of the _Hecla_ along the strait and reached Melville Island at Cape

-Providence on the way to Winter Harbour, short of which, within sight of

-Point Hearne, Parkes began his homeward journey, owing to his taking the

-tracks of sledges and barking of dogs as indicating the presence, not of

-M'Clure as it did, but of Eskimos, with whom, being without weapons, he

-was unable to cope.

-

-Released on the 5th of August, the _Enterprise_ proceeded to sea,

-coasting along past Rae's farthest and Cape Baring, and so, where no

-ship had been, through Coronation Gulf to Cambridge Bay. Here the winter

-of 1852-3 was spent, and hence the sledges went up Victoria Strait. At

-Finlayson Islands, what seemed to be a piece of a companion-door was

-found among the driftwood, which might have been a relic of the lost

-ships; but that was all. During the return along the northern coast the

-_Enterprise_ was beset in Camden Bay, and here the third winter was

-passed, release not coming until the end of the following July, and

-Bering Strait not being reached until the 21st of August after a voyage,

-like that of the _Vega_, too well managed to yield much adventure. Like

-all the other Arctic voyages of this period, it failed in the one object

-it was undertaken to achieve; but in days to come the first ship to sail

-the passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific was to follow Collinson

-from Cambridge Bay along the route laboriously completed by the

-surveyors of the mainland from James Cook to Dease and Simpson.

-

-M'Clure claimed and—to have done with the matter—obtained the reward of

-£10,000 for discovering the North-West Passage through Prince of Wales

-Strait, though he sailed only half-way up it and, in attempting to get

-round to Parry's farthest, lost his ship and started sledging on the

-west side of the pack; while Collinson took his ship much nearer to

-Parry's course on the east side; and Franklin, by linking up with Dease

-and Simpson over the ice by way of Victoria Strait, had previously found

-another of the possible passages, as shown by Collinson's voyage to

-Cambridge Bay. But surely what was done by M'Clure, and by Collinson in

-his northerly cruise, was to see where ships could pass when there was

-no ice in the way, which was no more than had been done by Parry, who

-had taken his ship within sight of both their farthest, and would have

-sailed into the Beaufort Sea had not the pack forbidden it. It was

-Parry, in fact, who discovered the main road, the route by Prince of

-Wales Strait, like that by Peel Sound taken by Franklin and successfully

-accomplished by Amundsen, being only one of the many by-roads leading

-off along his course.

-

-His famous voyage to Melville Island was due to the influence of Sir

-John Barrow. Barrow, to whom more than any other man this country owes

-its position in Arctic story, was born in a small thatched cottage at

-Dragley Beck, near Ulverston, in North Lancashire, in 1764, and, in a

-remarkable course of promotion by merit, became second secretary of the

-Admiralty for forty years under twelve or thirteen different naval

-administrations, Whig and Tory; being so unmistakably the right man in

-the right place that he was only dispensed with once—on a change of

-First Lords—and then was reinstated the next year. When he was seventeen

-he was given the opportunity of a voyage in a Greenland whaler, which he

-accepted, and that was his only Arctic experience; but even when with

-Macartney in China and South Africa, he kept up his interest in the

-north, and in 1817, when at the Admiralty, proposed to Lord Melville his

-plan for two voyages of discovery, one to the north and the other to the

-north-west, which opened the new era of Polar exploration.

-

-[Illustration: Yours very truly John Barrow]

-

-The voyage to the north was that of Buchan and Franklin in the

-_Dorothea_ and _Trent_; that to the north-west was undertaken by John

-Ross in the _Isabella_ and William Edward Parry in the _Alexander_. Of

-this we need only say here that on their return from the north of Baffin

-Bay, Ross and Parry coasted down the west side and sailed into Lancaster

-Sound for a considerable distance until Ross—who seems to have had the

-mountain-finding eye and an unenviable gift for missing straits—declared

-that it ended in a range of mountains which he appropriately named

-Croker's; and, that there should be no mistake about them, he gave a

-very pretty picture of them as a full-page plate in his book. Parry,

-however, saw no mountains and took the liberty of saying so to Barrow

-when he reported himself at the Admiralty, the result being the despatch

-of Parry's expedition in the _Hecla_ and _Griper_ which left Yarmouth on

-the 12th of May, 1819, and, for the first time after leaving the coast

-of Norfolk, dropped anchor in the bay named after them in Melville

-Island, on the 5th of September.

-

-Parry, before his voyage in the _Alexander_, had had Arctic experience

-while lieutenant of the _Alexandria_ frigate engaged in protecting the

-Spitsbergen whale fisheries, and knew thoroughly what he was about. For

-instance, he worked his crews in three watches, and had both his vessels

-rigged as barques as the most convenient rig among ice, though the

-_Griper_, a strong, slow gunboat, was rather too small to be so treated,

-being only about half the tonnage of the _Hecla_, whose measurement was

-under four hundred. Had she been a little speedier more work might have

-been done; but what was done was magnificent.

-

-Entering Lancaster Sound, Parry found a strait not blocked by mountains

-but thirty miles broad leading into a region up to then unknown,

-except—so it is said—to the Norsemen. On the 12th of August Prince

-Regent Inlet was discovered and named, it being George IV's birthday.

-Then North Somerset was sighted and the course laid across Barrow Strait

-to North Devon and its south-western peninsula known as Beechey Island;

-then Wellington Channel was descried, and then Cornwallis Island.

-Griffith Island was discovered on the 23rd of August, Bathurst Island on

-the 25th, Byam Martin Island on the 27th, where Sabine, the astronomer

-of the expedition, found they had passed north of the magnetic north

-pole. Then the south side of Melville Island was coasted along, Dealy

-Island being found on the 4th of September at noon, and, at a quarter

-past nine at night, just after passing Bounty Cape (named in honour of

-the event), the _Hecla_ crossed the 110th meridian west, and became

-entitled to the Government grant of £5000 for doing so—which Parry

-shared between the ships.

-

-[Illustration: H.M.S. "HECLA" AND "GRIPER" IN WINTER HARBOUR]

-

-Soon the ice became difficult and the ships had to anchor, but, the

-conditions improving, the westerly voyage was resumed. Cape Providence

-was passed and Cape Hay sighted, but the ships could get no further than

-about half-way between these capes, and they had to return to Winter

-Harbour, where, on the 26th of September, they were warped to their

-quarters through a channel cut in the ice. The _Hecla_, sending down all

-her upper masts except the main topmast, and the _Griper_, housing her

-fore and main topmasts, used the spars to support a roof which

-completely enclosed their upper decks and made them both snug for the

-winter, which did not seem so long owing to the efforts of the officers

-to keep every one amused and on the move. Parry, a host in himself, was

-well seconded by his lieutenant, Beechey, late of the _Trent_, James

-Clark Ross, one of his midshipmen, Captain Sabine, and Lieutenant

-Liddon, the commander of the _Griper_, who was almost disabled with

-rheumatism, and Lieutenant Hoppner, also of the _Griper_. A couple of

-books of plays on board proved a real treasure; owing to them the Royal

-Arctic Theatre was started, the pioneer of so many amateur theatrical

-ventures in the Polar seas, and the _North Georgia Gazette_ and _Winter

-Chronicle_ came into existence, the first of ship newspapers. On

-Christmas Day there was a dinner of roast beef which had been on board

-since May, the condition of which, as Parry said, was an excellent

-testimony to the antiseptic properties of a cold atmosphere; and the

-food generally was good and abundant, and the management and supplies

-far better than on many subsequent expeditions. In the spring, game was

-found in fair quantity, nearly four thousand pounds of musk ox, deer,

-hares, geese, ducks, and ptarmigan being brought on board.

-

-In May the vessels were afloat again, though ice-bound, and, in June,

-walking, not sledging, journeys were organised, the furthest points

-reached being Cape Fisher to the north and Cape Hoppner to the west. On

-the 1st of August the vessels moved out of the bay to the westward, and

-six days afterwards Beechey called attention to the land with the three

-capes already mentioned. "The land," says Parry, "which extends beyond

-the 117th degree of west longitude, and is the most western yet

-discovered in the Polar Sea to the north of the American continent, was

-honoured with the name of Banks Land out of respect to the late

-venerable and worthy President of the Royal Society."

-

-On the 16th Cape Dundas was named, but progress was impossible. For a

-week Parry made every endeavour to pass, but the floes, forty to fifty

-feet thick, heaped up by the tides from the east and the west so as to

-form a wide-stretching landscape of hill and dale, barred the way right

-across Banks Strait; and no further west could be attained than 113° 46´

-43·5˝, in latitude 74° 26´ 25˝. Thence Parry returned, hoping to get

-through on another voyage, and bidding farewell to the North Georgian

-Islands, as he called them, or the Parry Islands, as we now know them,

-he came home by the way he went out, through Lancaster Sound. Needless

-to say, the very next season the whalers followed on Parry's track, and

-Lancaster Sound became the highway to a very profitable fishing-ground.

-

-[Illustration: PARRY'S DISCOVERIES ON HIS FIRST VOYAGE]

-

-Among the Parry Islands in 1851 were several vessels in search of

-Franklin. Sir John Ross, aged seventy-four, was there in the

-schooner-yacht _Felix_ on a private expedition chiefly memorable for the

-story of his having sent off a carrier pigeon from his winter quarters

-at Cornwallis Island, which reached his home—North-West Castle,

-Stranraer, Wigtownshire—three thousand miles away, in five days. Lady

-Franklin's vessel, the _Prince Albert_, was there, with Captain Forsyth

-and Parker Snow on board, an old fruit schooner, and therefore the

-speediest sailing-craft among the crowd. The Grinnell expedition of the

-two American brigs, _Advance_ and _Racer_, under De Haven, was also

-there, to drift afterwards up Wellington Channel and down again back

-into Baffin Bay; as was a British Government expedition of the two

-whaling brigs, _Lady Franklin_ and _Sophia_, under Captain William

-Penny, who was to discover the sea open north of Wellington Channel. In

-addition to these was the British squadron under Captain Horatio Austin

-in H.M.S. _Resolute_, with H.M.S. _Assistance_, Captain Erasmus

-Ommanney, and the old Cattle Conveyance Company's boats known as H.M.S.

-_Intrepid_, Lieutenant Cator, and H.M.S. _Pioneer_, Lieutenant Sherard

-Osborn, these two being screw steamers used as tenders, which proved of

-great value as tugs and ice-breakers.

-

-On the 23rd of August Captain Ommanney found Franklin's winter quarters

-on Beechey Island, and four days afterwards Captain Penny came upon the

-gravestones marking where the three men, two of the _Erebus_ and one of

-the _Terror_, had been buried in 1846, though nothing was discoverable

-of the route intended to be taken by the ships. The news was important,

-and the _Prince Albert_, acting as despatch vessel, was immediately sent

-home with it, to return next year with Kennedy and Bellot to make a

-discovery of her own. Soon Captain Austin's four ships departed, also to

-return in the following year, Sir Edward Belcher, in the _Assistance_,

-being then in command, Kellett being in the _Resolute_, M'Clintock in

-the _Intrepid_, and Sherard Osborn again in the _Pioneer_. Belcher's

-attempt ended in his abandoning his vessels in the ice; one of them, the

-_Resolute_, as though in mute protest, drifting from 74° 41´ for a

-thousand miles, to be picked up by Buddington off Cape Dyer in Baffin

-Bay, bought from him by the American Government and presented to Great

-Britain, refitted as she used to be, as a much-appreciated token of

-goodwill.

-

-The great feature of these years was the wonderful sledge work; by it

-mainly the northern coasts of the islands discovered by Parry were

-surveyed and other islands added to the archipelago, including the

-westernmost, Prince Patrick, named after the Duke of Connaught, who was

-at first known as Prince Patrick instead of Prince Arthur. The sledges

-fitted out by Austin traversed 1500 miles of coast-line, 850 of which

-were new, the routes radiating between Osborn's 72° 18´ and Bradford's

-76° 25´, M'Clintock going farthest, 760 miles, to 114° 20´ in 74° 38´.

-Those next year from Kellett at Dealy Island covered 8558 miles,

-radiating from Pim's 74° 6´ (to rescue M'Clure) to M'Clintock's 77° 23´,

-a run to 118° 20´ and back of 1401 miles, while Mecham reached 120° 30´

-on a trip of 1163 miles; and Belcher from his winter quarters in

-Northumberland Sound, in 76° 52´, aided by Richards and Osborn, was

-almost as busy further north.

-

-Thus practically the whole belt of land and sea westward between and

-including Lancaster Sound and Jones Sound as far as 120° was searched

-and mapped, the most northerly of the Parry Islands known up to then

-being Finlay Island, North Cornwall, and Graham Island. But in 1898

-Captain Otto Sverdrup went up Smith Sound in his old ship the _Fram_ on

-an endeavour to sail round the north coast of Greenland from west to

-east. He had to winter in Rice Strait, near Pim Island, and finding, to

-put it sportingly, that he was to a certain extent trespassing on

-Peary's preserves, decided to devote his attention to the unknown region

-approachable through Jones Sound. In 1899, therefore, he took the _Fram_

-up the sound, and, failing to pass through Cardigan Strait, spent the

-three following years among the fiords at the north-western end.

-

-From here he sent his sledge and ski parties far and wide, west and

-south and north over an approximate area of a hundred thousand square

-miles. Long stretches of coast-fine were explored and named, in a few

-cases unnecessarily, though, strange to say, the unnecessary names were

-all royal ones, King Oscar Land being the west of Ellesmere Land, Crown

-Prince Gustav Sea and Prince Gustav Adolf Sea being the Polar Ocean, and

-King Christian Land being simply Finlay Island. Separated from Finlay

-Island by Danish Sound and from North Cornwall by Hendriksen Sound, he

-found two large islands, which—just as John Ross named Boothia after his

-principal patron, the distiller—Sverdrup named Ellef Ringnes and Amund

-Ringnes after two of his supporters, the brewers; his other discovery,

-Axel Heiberg Land—which seems to be Peary's Jesup Land sighted in

-1898—to the west and north-west of these, being so called after his

-other munificent patron.

-

-His farthest south was Beechey Island, his farthest west Cape Isachsen

-in Ellef Ringnes Land, his farthest north Lands Lokk in Grant Land, in

-latitude 81° 40´ and longitude about 92°, within sixty miles of

-Aldrich's farthest along the north-eastern coast, the gap afterwards

-traversed by Peary. Within these limits the amount of coast detail

-filled in was remarkable. Owing to the favourable condition of the ice

-and the excellent management in all ways, the sledges frequently did

-their fifteen miles and more a day. Though the expedition lost its

-doctor during the first winter, there was little trouble as regards

-health; and game was in plenty right up to the far north where Hare

-Fiord tells of hares in hundreds.

-

-With hunting episodes the story is pleasantly varied, one in particular

-being so graphically described by Sverdrup that as a sample we may be

-forgiven a rather long quotation. "The bear," says Sverdrup, "was

-determined to go up a difficult stony valley a little north of our tent,

-and, try as the dogs would to prevent it, up the valley it went. Schei

-and I ran full speed northward along the ice-foot, and soon heard that

-the dogs had brought it to bay. We made a short cut across some hills of

-grit, and, when we reached the top of one of them, saw the bear on the

-other side of the valley, sitting on a hill-top, which fell almost sheer

-away. But on the north side it was accessible, and here it was probably

-that the bear had climbed it. There sat the king of the icefields

-enthroned on a kind of pedestal, and the whole staff of yelping dogs

-standing at a respectful distance. I tried a couple of shots, but

-overrated the distance, and the bullets went over the bear's head. I

-then told Schei to go and shoot it whilst I looked on at the further

-development of the drama. The bear's position was a first-rate one. It

-had taken its stand on a little plateau high up on a mountain crag; this

-little ledge was reached by a bridge not more than a good yard in width,

-and there stood the bear, like Sven Dufva, ready with his sledgehammer

-to fell the first being that should venture across. His majesty was not

-visible to Schei until he came within a few feet of him, but then it was

-not long before a shot was heard. The bear sank together, and a few

-seconds afterwards all the dogs had thrown themselves on to it. They

-tugged and pulled at the bear's coat, tearing tufts of hair out of it,

-and before we knew what they were doing, had dragged the body to the

-edge of the plateau, where it shot out over the precipice. The dogs

-stood amazed, gazing down into the depths where the bear was falling

-swiftly through the air—but not alone, for on it as large as life were

-two dogs which had clung so fast to its hair, that they now stood

-planted head to head, and bit themselves still faster to it in order to

-keep their balance. I was breathless as I watched this unexpected

-journey through the air. The next moment the bear in its perpendicular

-fall would reach the projecting point of rock, and my poor dogs!—it was

-a cruel revenge the bear was taking on them. I should now have only

-three dogs left in my team. The bear's body dashed violently against the

-rock, turned a somersault out from the mountain wall and fell still

-further, until, after falling a height of altogether at least a hundred

-feet, it reached the slopes by the river, and was shot by the impetus

-right across the river-ice and a good way up the other side. And the

-dogs? When the bear dashed against the mountain they sprang up like

-rubber balls, described a large curve, and with stiffened legs continued

-the journey on their own account, falling with a loud thud on to the

-hardly packed snow at the bottom of the valley. But they were on their

-legs again in a moment, and set off as fast as they could go across the

-river after the bear. Not many minutes afterwards the whole pack came

-running up, but when they were driven away from the carcase, they lay

-down again to await their turn. I hurried back to camp to fetch the dog

-harness; we put a lanyard through the nose of the mighty fallen, and set

-off. The dogs knew well enough that this meant food for them, and the

-nearer we came to camp the harder they pulled. In fact, I had to sit on

-the carcase to keep them back, and, jolting backwards and forwards, on

-this new kind of conveyance I made my entrance into camp, in the light

-spring night." But bears were few, compared with the musk oxen, which,

-with the reindeer and hares, and with the wolves and foxes, and stoats

-and lemmings, seals and walruses, narwhals and white whales, represented

-the Arctic mammalia.

-

-The most singular experience met with was perhaps the sledge journey

-through the ice tunnel on the return across the Simmons Peninsula in

-1900. Descending a valley which became narrower and narrower Sverdrup

-and Fosheim began to think it was going to end in a canyon, but without

-any warning they were stopped by a high wall of ice, perpendicular and

-inaccessible to any one without wings. Looking about, Sverdrup found a

-large hole which proved to be the beginning of a tunnel through the

-glacier. Through this lofty vault they sped. From the roof hung

-threateningly above their heads gigantic blocks of ice, seamed and cleft

-and glittering sinisterly; and all around were icicles like steel-bright

-spears and lances piercing downwards on them. Along the walls were caves

-after caves, with pillars in rows like giants in rank; and over all

-shone a ghostly whitish light which became bluish as they went. "I dared

-not speak," says Sverdrup. "It seemed to me that in doing so I should be

-committing a deed of desecration; I felt like one who has impiously

-broken into something sacred which Nature had wished to keep closed to

-every mortal eye. I felt mean and contemptible as I drove through all

-this purity. The sledges jolted from block to block, awakening

-thunderous echoes in their passage: and it seemed as if all the spirits

-of the ice had been aroused and called to arms against the intruders on

-their church-like peace."

-

-

-

-

-                               CHAPTER X

-                                BOOTHIA

-

-  Christopher Middleton—Wager River—Repulse Bay—Parry's second

-    north-west voyage—Melville Peninsula—Fury and Hecla Strait—John

-    Ross's second Arctic voyage—Introduces steam navigation into the

-    Arctic regions—The whaler _John_—Ross misses the North-West

-    Passage—Snow houses—Eskimo geographers—James Clark Ross finds the

-    Magnetic North Pole—Lyon in the _Griper_—Back in the

-    _Terror_—Rae's journey round Committee Bay—Sir John Franklin's

-    last voyage—Kennedy and Bellot—Discovery of Bellot Strait—Rae's

-    journey in 1854—His Franklin discoveries—M'Clintock's voyage in

-    the _Fox_—Lady Franklin's instructions—Captain Charles

-    Hall—Frederick Schwatka—Amundsen accomplishes the North-West

-    Passage.

-

-

-In July, 1742, Christopher Middleton, working northwards in Hudson Bay

-from Fort Churchill, made his way up Rowe's Welcome and entered a deep

-inlet apparently leading to the South Sea. Middleton—who gained his

-Fellowship of the Royal Society for his variation observations at Fort

-Churchill, and was the first to practise the modern method of finding

-longitude by eight or ten different altitudes of the sun or stars when

-near the prime vertical—spent eighteen days in the inlet observing the

-tides, and then came to the conclusion that it was an estuary; and he

-named it Wager River after Sir Charles Wager, who was First Lord of the

-Admiralty when he began his voyage. Proceeding north, he reached his

-Repulse Bay, and at the north-east end of it saw Frozen Strait, as he

-called it, stretching away along the north of Southampton Island towards

-Cape Comfort. Here, also from tidal observations, he satisfied himself

-that Repulse Bay afforded no passage to the westward and that Frozen

-Strait led into Fox Channel.

-

-[Illustration: AN IGLOOLIK ESKIMO CARRYING HIS KAYAK]

-

-His opinions were disputed by those who only knew the coast from his

-chart, and two vessels were sent out to prove he was wrong. The reports

-of the captains of these—there is no need to mention their names—were

-embarrassing. Neither had been to Repulse Bay, but both had been to

-Wager River, and they agreed that it was unmistakably a river and not a

-strait; but in every other respect, even in naming the places they had

-seen, they were at variance. Thus the matter was left in sufficient

-doubt to encourage some people in believing in a north-west passage

-through Repulse Bay, just at the Arctic Circle, and to seek this, Parry,

-on his return from Melville Island, was despatched on his second voyage.

-

-This time the _Hecla_ was commanded by George Francis Lyon—the North

-African traveller—Parry being in the _Fury_, a sister ship; both

-vessels, at Parry's suggestion, being exactly alike so that their gear

-and fittings were interchangeable. They sailed from the Little Nore on

-the 8th of May, 1821, and going direct up Frozen Strait, with much

-trouble from the ice, ran into Repulse Bay on the 22nd of August. Here

-after a careful examination it was ascertained beyond a doubt that no

-passage existed through to the westward. "Thus," says Lyon, "the

-veracity of poor Middleton, as far as regards this bay at least, was now

-at length established; and in looking down the strait we had passed, he

-was fully justified in calling it a frozen strait. We were now

-indisputably on our scene of future action, the coast of America; and it

-only remained for us to follow minutely the line of shore in

-continuation from Repulse Bay."

-

-During a stay at Gore Bay red snow was brought off to the _Fury_, its

-colour being much fainter than that found in the _Isabella_ voyage at

-Crimson Cliffs in Greenland; "the appearance of the mass was not unlike

-what is called raspberry ice, in a far better climate, where cold is

-made subservient to luxury." The colouring of this is due to one of the

-Algæ, _Protococcus nivalis_, and not as Peter Paterson said in

-1671—ninety years before De Saussure—to the rocks being "full of white,

-red, and yellow veins, like marble; upon any alteration of the weather,

-these stones sweat, which, together with the rains, tinges the snow

-red." The day on which this snow was found, the 30th of August, was so

-warm that the party were glad to pull off their coats and waistcoats.

-"The valleys were fertile in grasses and moss; and the fineness of the

-weather had drawn forth a number of butterflies, spiders, and other

-insects, which would, by their gay colours and active motions, have

-almost deceived us into an idea that we were not in the Arctic regions,

-had not the Frozen Strait, filled with huge masses of moving ice,

-reminded us but too forcibly, that we were in the most dangerous of

-them."

-

-[Illustration: PARRY'S FARTHEST ON HIS THIRD VOYAGE]

-

-Early in October the ships took up their quarters at Winter Island on

-the coast of Melville Peninsula in 66° 32´, and there, during the

-cordial intercourse with the Eskimos, Parry heard of the way through

-further north which led him on his release in the following July to

-discover Fury and Hecla Strait, along which the ships passed to find

-their progress blocked by the ice just beyond its entrance into Regent

-Inlet. Returning through the strait, they reached the island of Igloolik

-at the eastern entrance, and there they passed the winter, Igloolik

-being an important Eskimo settlement, with four fixed places of

-residence on it, to which as the season changes the natives move in

-rotation. From this island, as the health of the men did not permit of

-his venturing to spend another winter in the ice, Parry retraced his

-route and returned to England.

-

-The ships dropped anchor in the Thames on Trafalgar Day, 1823. Next

-year, on the 19th of May, they were off again to the north to seek a

-passage to the west down Prince Regent Inlet, Parry in the _Hecla_,

-Hoppner in the _Fury_. It was a bad season. The ships were late in

-leaving Baffin Bay and were hindered by new ice in Lancaster Sound. So

-far from reaching the strait discovered two years before, they could get

-no further south than Port Bowen, in 73° 12´, where they spent the

-winter in a singularly barren part of Cockburn Land. Starting in July

-they went down to Cresswell Bay, the ships being forced by the weather

-and the ice to work—as is not unusual under such circumstances—in almost

-every possible direction within every mile, their track—as shown in the

-illustration—being most complicated. The end of it all was that the

-_Fury_ was wrecked and her stores carefully taken out and left, on what

-was named Fury Beach, for the use of future callers in want of them. And

-the _Hecla_ came home alone.

-

-Four years afterwards Captain John Ross, anxious for further work in the

-north, started in search of the passage by the same route. After some

-years of effort he had succeeded in organising an expedition, the

-expenses of which to the amount of over £17,000 were borne by Felix

-Booth, with the exception of over £2000 added by Ross himself. It was a

-memorable voyage in many respects, and for one thing in particular that

-is frequently passed unnoticed. This was the introduction of steam into

-Arctic navigation. The _Victory_ was an old Isle of Man packet-boat of

-eighty-five tons, which, by raising her sides five feet, Ross increased

-to one hundred and fifty tons. Taking out her old paddles, he replaced

-them with a pair of Robertson's patents, hoistable out of water in a

-minute, so as to clear the ice. The engine was also a patent, by

-Braithwaite and Ericsson, who built the Novelty that appeared at

-Rainhill. But neither Braithwaite nor Ericsson was any happier in this

-production. Its great feature was the doing away with the funnel, no

-flue being required owing to the fires being kept going by artificial

-draught derived from two bellows of unequal sizes—"the bellows draught,"

-in fact, like that of the Novelty which broke down in the great

-locomotive contest won by the Rocket. Had not Ross been a man of

-enterprise he would never have ventured to sea with such an experimental

-arrangement; but he did, and he suffered for it.

-

-[Illustration: THE "VICTORY"]

-

-The "execrable machinery," as he inadequately called it, went wrong from

-the first. On the way from Galleons Reach to Woolwich, part of it became

-displaced, causing a delay for repairs. At Woolwich, Sir Byam Martin,

-the Comptroller of the Navy, and Sir John Franklin went on board and

-said uncomplimentary things about it, as also did the Duke of Orleans

-(afterwards King Louis Philippe) and the Duke of Chartres, though the

-Frenchmen were more gentle in their phrases. From Woolwich to Margate

-this remarkable engine, aided by the sails, took the _Victory_ in just

-over twelve hours, the boiler leaking so much that the additional

-forcing pump had to be kept working by hand all the time. Passing the

-Lizard, the piston-rod was found to be so much worn on one side by

-friction against the guide-wheels that a piece of iron had to be brazed

-on to it. Then the keys of the main shaft broke and the substitutes made

-on board broke one after the other. "The boilers also continued to leak,

-though we had put dung and potatoes in them by Mr. Ericsson's

-directions." The air-pump drew quantities of water; the feeding pump was

-insufficient to supply the boiler. The big bellows nearly wore out; so

-did the small one. Off the Mull of Galloway the stoker fell into the

-machinery and had his arm crushed and nearly severed above the elbow.

-Then the teeth of the fly-wheel of the small bellows were shorn off, and

-the boiler joints gave way, and the water, or rather the potato soup,

-flowed out of the furnace doors and put out the fire.

-

-Enough has been said to show the difficulties under which Ross first

-used steam on a voyage to the northern seas. The list of damages need

-not be continued. Every constituent part of the apparatus gave way in

-turn; and when the _Victory_ became imprisoned for the winter, and the

-engineering staff had some time on their hands, they employed it in

-taking what was left of the installation, piece by piece, out of the

-ship, laying it on the ice, and leaving it there.

-

-Ross was to be accompanied by the whaler _John_, but the men mutinied

-and refused to start, so that he went on from Loch Ryan alone. The

-following year the crew of the _John_, then on a whaling voyage in

-Baffin Bay, again mutinied, killed the master, put the mate adrift in a

-boat in the manner of Henry Hudson, and lost the ship on the western

-coast, where most of them were drowned.

-

-With the _Krusenstern_, a boat of eighteen tons, in tow, Ross crossed

-the Atlantic, sighting Sanderson's Hope on the 29th of July, having left

-Scotland six weeks before. Early in August he sailed through Lancaster

-Sound, and, taking the opportunity of removing his Croker's Mountains to

-the north-east corner of North Somerset, went down Prince Regent Inlet

-to Fury Beach. After completing his provisions for twenty-seven months

-from the stores left behind by Parry, he crossed Cresswell Bay, passed

-Cape Garry, Parry's farthest south, on the 15th of August, and next day,

-Sunday, "I went on shore," he says, "with all the officers, to take

-formal possession of the new-discovered land; and at one o'clock, being

-a few minutes after seven in London, the colours were displayed with the

-usual ceremony, and the health of the King drunk, together with that of

-the founder of our expedition, after whom the land was named."

-

-[Illustration: NORTH HENDON]

-

-"From the highest part of this land, which was upwards of a hundred feet

-above the level of the sea," he continues, "we had a good view of the

-bay and the adjoining shores, and had the satisfaction to find that the

-ice was in motion and fast clearing away. We therefore resolved to wait

-patiently till we could see an opening; and proceeded to the northern

-quarter of this spot to make some observations on the dip of the

-magnetic needle.... To this place I gave the name Brown Island, after

-the amiable sister of Mr. Booth; the inlet was named Brentford Bay, and

-the islands Grimble Islands." And in his book is a beautiful steel

-engraving by W. Chevalier, "Taking Possession. Cape Hussard, Grimble

-Isle, Brentford Bay, Brown's Island." In short, Ross found the place,

-landed on it, took possession of it, named it and sketched it. "The

-sketches from which the drawings were made were taken by Mr. Ronald's

-invaluable perspective instrument, and therefore _must_ be true

-delineations."

-

-And Ross passed on, apparently quite pleased with himself. But the Fates

-had again been against him, for this was the very North-West Passage he

-had come specially to find; the bay, as Kennedy was to show, being the

-entrance to Bellot Strait in which the _Fox_ was to winter when on the

-Franklin search. He had blundered along from the island of North

-Somerset to the mainland of America, and passed unheeded its

-northernmost point, which M'Clintock was to name Cape Murchison.

-

-Working down the coast of the newly-named Boothia, the _Victory_ reached

-Felix Harbour, and there she wintered. No Eskimos were seen until the

-9th of January, when thirty-one came to the ship and were invited on

-board, a return visit being paid next day to their village, which Ross

-named North Hendon. As this was a typical Eskimo snow camp we may as

-well copy his picture and quote his description.

-

-"The village soon appeared, consisting of twelve snow huts, erected at

-the bottom of a little bight on the shore, about two miles and a half

-from the ship. They had the appearance of inverted basins, and were

-placed without any order; each of them having a long crooked appendage,

-in which was the passage, at the entrance of which were the women, with

-the female children and the infants. We were soon invited to visit

-these, for whom we had prepared presents of glass beads and needles; a

-distribution of which soon drove away the timidity which they had

-displayed at our first appearance. The passage, always long, and

-generally crooked, led to the principal apartment, which was a circular

-dome, being ten feet in diameter when intended for one family, and an

-oval of fifteen by ten where it lodged two. Opposite the doorway there

-was a bank of snow, occupying nearly a third of the breadth of the area,

-about two feet and a half high, level at the top, and covered by various

-skins, forming the general bed or sleeping place for the whole. At the

-end of this sat the mistress of the house, opposite to the lamp, which,

-being of moss and oil, as is the universal custom in these regions, gave

-a sufficient flame to supply both light and heat; so that the apartment

-was perfectly comfortable. Over the lamp was the cooking dish of stone,

-containing the flesh of deer and of seals, with oil; and of such

-provision there seemed no want. Everything else, dresses, implements, as

-well as provisions, lay about in unspeakable confusion, showing that

-order, at least, was not in the class of their virtues. It was much more

-interesting to us to find, that among this disorder there were some

-fresh salmon; since, when they could find this fish, we were sure that

-it would also furnish us with supplies which we could not too much

-multiply. On inquiry, we were informed that they were abundant; and we

-had, therefore, the prospect of a new amusement, as well as of a

-valuable market at the mere price of our labour."

-

-[Illustration: ESKIMO LISTENING AT A SEAL-HOLE]

-

-A few weeks later Ross was to see how these houses were built. "Four

-families," he says, "comprising fifteen persons, passed the ship to

-erect new huts about half a mile to the southward. They had four

-heavy-laden sledges, drawn each by two or three dogs, but proceeded very

-slowly. We went after them to see the process of building the snow

-house, and were surprised at their dexterity; one man having closed in

-his roof within forty-five minutes. A tent is scarcely pitched sooner

-than a house is here built. The whole process is worth describing.

-Having ascertained, by the rod used in examining seal holes, whether the

-snow is sufficiently deep and solid, they level the intended spot by a

-wooden shovel, leaving beneath a solid mass of snow not less than three

-feet thick. Commencing then in the centre of the intended circle, which

-is ten feet or more in diameter, different wedge-shaped blocks are cut

-out, about two feet long, and a foot thick at the outer part; then

-trimming them accurately by the knife, they proceed upwards until the

-courses, gradually inclining inwards, terminate in a perfect dome. The

-door being cut out from the inside before it is quite closed serves to

-supply the upper materials. In the meantime the women are employed in

-stuffing the joints with snow, and the boys in constructing kennels for

-the dogs. The laying the snow sofa with skins and the insertion of the

-ice window complete the work; the passage only remaining to be added, as

-it is after the house is finished, together with some smaller huts for

-stores"—the design being similar to that of the yurts of the Eskimos of

-the north, with a change of material, snow for stone, and ice instead of

-seal-gut for the window over the entrance.

-

-Making friends with the Eskimos, and gaining a great reputation by the

-carpenter fitting one of them with a wooden leg, Ross obtained much

-valuable information from them, particularly as to the geography of the

-district. Like all Arctic men, he was impressed by their quickness in

-understanding maps and their skill in drawing them upon anything, snow,

-paper, or otherwise, that lay handy. One of them, Ikmallik, drew in the

-ship's cabin a map, which he reprints in his book, showing the

-coast-line of the country south of the _Victory's_ quarters, with the

-capes, inlets, and islands, giving the isthmus of Boothia and Committee

-Bay, and Repulse Bay on the other side of the Melville Peninsula, which

-is really wonderful, for neither the Eskimo, nor Ross, had anything to

-copy from, it being nearly twenty years before Rae's exploration; and

-the one thing it clearly demonstrated was that there was no waterway to

-the westward, south of Felix Harbour.

-

-Ross owed much to Ikmallik, and really a good deal of the time of the

-expedition was spent in confirming the statements of that well-informed

-man. The west coast of Boothia was surveyed down to Bulow Bay; the east

-side from Cape Nicholas down to Cape Porter, including the crossing of

-the upper part of James Ross Strait, the discovery of Matty Island and

-the north-east coast of King William Land from Cape Landon, opposite

-Cape Porter—where Ross, as usual, missed a strait—westward to capes

-Franklin and Jane Franklin, within sight of which in the days that were

-coming, by one of those remarkable coincidences so frequent in the

-north, the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ were to meet their fate.

-

-The one conspicuous triumph of the expedition was the journey of James

-Ross to the site of the Magnetic North Pole, which he found on the

-western coast of Boothia on the 1st of June, 1831. In the younger Ross's

-own words, "the land at this place is very low near the coast, but it

-rises into ridges of fifty or sixty feet high about a mile inland. We

-could have wished that a place so important had possessed more of mark

-or note. It was scarcely censurable to regret that there was not a

-mountain to indicate a spot to which so much of interest must ever be

-attached; and I could even have pardoned any one among us who had been

-so romantic or absurd as to expect that the magnetic pole was an object

-as conspicuous and mysterious as the fabled mountain of Sinbad, that it

-even was a mountain of iron, or a magnet as large as Mont Blanc. But

-Nature had here erected no monument to denote the spot which she had

-chosen as the centre of one of her great and dark powers; and where we

-could do little ourselves towards this end, it was our business to

-submit, and to be content in noting by mathematical numbers and signs,

-as with things of far more importance in the terrestrial system, what we

-could but ill distinguish in any other manner.... We fixed the British

-flag on the spot and took possession of the North Magnetic Pole and its

-adjoining territory in the name of Great Britain and King William the

-Fourth. We had abundance of materials for building, in the fragments of

-limestone that covered the beach; and we therefore erected a cairn of

-some magnitude, under which we buried a canister containing a record of

-the interesting fact; only regretting that we had not the means of

-constructing a pyramid of more importance and of strength sufficient to

-withstand the assaults of time and of the Eskimos. Had it been a pyramid

-as large as that of Cheops, I am not quite sure that it would have done

-more than satisfy our ambition, under the feelings of that exciting day.

-The latitude of this spot is 70° 5´ 17˝, and its longitude 96° 46´ 45˝

-west."

-

-The _Victory_ in the short summer of 1830 sailed a few miles further

-south and spent the winter in Victoria Harbour, to be there abandoned in

-May, 1832. Ross in his boats made for Fury Beach, where, at Somerset

-House, as he called it, he passed the following winter. On the 26th of

-August, 1833, when in his boats off the eastern mouth of Lancaster

-Sound, he was picked up by the _Isabella_, his old ship, and in her he

-reached the Humber in October of that year after four successive winters

-in the ice, having been enabled to make so long a stay by his fortunate

-find of the stores left by Parry.

-

-[Illustration: H.M.S. "TERROR" LIFTED BY ICE]

-

-In 1824 Captain Lyon was sent out in the _Griper_ to winter at Repulse

-Bay, and thence crossing the isthmus described by the Eskimos continue

-along to Franklin's Point Turnagain; but the _Griper_ was nearly wrecked

-in Rowe's Welcome and did not reach Wager River. The discoveries of Ross

-led to the renewal of this attempt by Captain Back in the _Terror_ in

-1836. He was to go to Wager River or Repulse Bay, and then make his way

-into Prince Regent Inlet, and so west; but he became imprisoned in the

-ice off Cape Comfort during one of the severest winters known. Drifting

-up Frozen Strait amid most perilous experiences, the ship, lifted high

-above sea-level by pressure, lay at times almost horizontal. Once "they

-beheld," he says, "the strange and appalling spectacle of what may be

-fitly termed a submerged berg, fixed low down, with one end to the

-ship's side, while the other, with the purchase of a long lever

-advantageously placed at a right angle with the keel, was slowly rising

-towards the surface. Meanwhile, those who happened to be below, finding

-everything falling, rushed or clambered on deck, where they saw the ship

-on her beam-ends, with the lee boats touching the water, and felt that a

-few moments only trembled between them and eternity."

-

-Day after day the _Terror_ defied the persistent effort of the ice to

-smash her, but suffering much in almost every timber she withstood it

-sufficiently to keep together. For four months she was entirely out of

-water, and when at last she was free, Back wrapped her up as best he

-could, and brought her home with the water pouring into her so that the

-men were so wearied out that they could hardly have continued at the

-pumps another day; and he ran her ashore in Lough Swilly only just in

-time. Upwards of twenty feet of her keel, together with ten feet of the

-stern-post, were driven over more than three and a half feet on one

-side, leaving a frightful opening astern for the free ingress of water.

-The forefoot was entirely gone; numbers of bolts were either loosened or

-broken; and when, besides this, the strained and twisted state of the

-ship's frame was considered, there was not one on board who did not

-express astonishment that they had ever floated across the Atlantic.

-

-The next attempt to complete the coast of the American mainland was made

-from the land, and at the cost of the Hudson's Bay Company. Really it

-was the expedition proposed by Simpson some five years before, of which

-he would have been the leader had he not been shot; and it was entrusted

-to the capable hands of Dr. John Rae.

-

-After wintering at York Factory, Rae reached Repulse Bay with two boats,

-the _Magnet_ and _North Pole_, on the 25th of July, 1846, and in his

-usual style started immediately across the chain of lakes and portages

-which make up the isthmus that now bears his name, launching his boats

-in the tidal water of Committee Bay on the 1st of August. Stopped by ice

-on the west side and then on the east he returned to Repulse Bay, where

-he built Fort Hope of stones and roofed it with sails, and lived in it

-through the winter on what he could shoot and catch, for many weeks

-venturing on only one meal a day. Outside the men kept themselves warm

-chiefly by building snow houses and playing football; inside, as the

-only fuel used was for cooking, the only thing they could do was to wrap

-themselves in furs, and trust to their natural heat in a temperature

-that ranged about zero.

-

-[Illustration: FRACTURED STERN-POST OF H.M.S. "TERROR"]

-

-In April, with a couple of sledges, eight dogs, and five men, he crossed

-the isthmus again and went straightaway up the east side of Boothia to

-Ross's farthest south, thus completing that coast-line. Back he went to

-Fort Hope after a trip of nearly six hundred miles, to start again on

-the 12th of May up the west coast of the Melville Peninsula to Cape

-Ellice, which Parry had sighted from the strait on that side. And he was

-back once more at Fort Hope on the 9th of June. Thus the survey of the

-northern coast was complete with the exception of the gap between the

-Boothia isthmus, on the west side, and Castor and Pollux River of Dease

-and Simpson, which Rae in another famous effort from Repulse Bay was to

-link up later on.

-

-When Rae reached Lord Mayor's Bay on the east coast of Boothia,

-Franklin, with the _Erebus_ and _Terror_, was off its west coast in the

-same latitude. This was the reappearance of the _Terror_ in the north.

-After Back's voyage she had been repaired to sail with the _Erebus_,

-under Sir James Clark Ross, when he discovered the South Magnetic Pole;

-and on their return the barques had been thoroughly overhauled and

-fitted with auxiliary screws, the first time that the screw propeller

-was used in Arctic work. Franklin was in the _Erebus_, the _Terror_

-being commanded by Francis R. M. Crozier as she had been in the

-Antarctic voyage. Crozier was one of Parry's men, he having been in the

-_Fury_ in 1821 and in the _Hecla_ on her two subsequent expeditions.

-

-The ships left England on the 19th of May, 1845, and were last seen and

-spoken with on the 26th of July in Melville Bay on their way to

-Lancaster Sound. According to information gained during the long series

-of searches, they passed through the sound and went north for about a

-hundred and fifty miles, to 77°, up Wellington Channel into Penny

-Strait—the first time the passage had been made. Returning down the west

-side of Cornwallis Island, discovering the strait between it and

-Bathurst Island, they wintered at Beechey Island, where three of the men

-died and were buried; and where the most significant relic was about

-seven hundred tins of preserved meat that seemed to have been condemned

-as bad, just as the stock of similar stuff had in the same year been

-condemned and thrown overboard at Portsmouth.

-

-Leaving Beechey Island in 1846, they went south down Peel Sound, being

-the first to pass through it, and Franklin Strait—another new

-discovery—to within twelve miles of Cape Felix in King William Land,

-where, on the 12th of September, they were beset about half-way between

-Cape Adelaide in Boothia and Pelly Point in Victoria Land. Hereabouts

-the second winter was passed, and on the 24th of May a party under

-Lieutenant Gore crossed the ice to Point Victory, probably on a journey

-to examine the unknown coast between there and Cape Herschel. On the

-11th of June, 1847, Sir John Franklin died. The ships drifted a short

-distance during their imprisonment in the ice, and the third winter was

-passed some twenty miles further south down Victoria Strait, where, on

-the 22nd of April, 1848, when fifteen miles north-north-west of Point

-Victory, they were abandoned, and the officers and crews, a hundred and

-five in all, under Crozier's command, started for Back's Great Fish

-River, some of them completing the first North-West Passage in crossing

-Simpson Strait and reaching Montreal Island.

-

-The first undoubted traces of the lost expedition were those discovered

-at Beechey Island, the news reaching England in the _Prince Albert_ in

-the autumn of 1850. As soon as the winter was over this excellent little

-schooner was again sent out by Lady Franklin under the command of

-Captain William Kennedy, who took with him as a volunteer Lieutenant

-Joseph René Bellot of the French navy, and also John Hepburn, who had

-been with Franklin on the land journey in 1819. Kennedy wintered at

-Batty Bay in North Somerset, and during a remarkable sledge journey, in

-which he made the circuit of the island, he and Bellot reached Brentford

-Bay, and, on the 21st of April, 1852, discovered the strait named after

-the gallant Frenchman. But he found no traces of the expedition through

-turning to the north and crossing to Prince of Wales Island, instead of

-going to the south at the western mouth of the strait. He had, however,

-discovered the termination of Boothia, the north point of the American

-continent which men had been seeking for three centuries.

-

-To the southern end of Boothia came the indefatigable Rae. That cheery

-hero of the north left Repulse Bay on the 31st of March, 1854, to

-complete the Hudson's Bay Company's survey. On the 20th of April he met

-a young Eskimo in Pelly Bay, who told him the fate of the _Erebus_ and

-_Terror_, and from him and his people Rae obtained a number of small

-articles, forks and spoons and so forth, which had undoubtedly come from

-the ships, one of which had been crushed in the ice, the other sinking

-after drifting further south.

-

-Rae was not the man to return until he had attacked the work he had set

-out to do, and he continued his surveying with his customary accuracy,

-despatch, and general alertness, striking across the peninsula,

-discovering the Murchison River, reaching Simpson's farthest at Castor

-and Pollux River, and thence proving the insularity of King William Land

-by travelling up the east coast of the strait now named after him—and he

-was back again in August. He had almost finished the survey of the

-northern coast-line; and he had ascertained how and where Franklin's

-voyage had ended, for which discovery the British Government gave him

-the reward of £10,000, letting it be understood that so far as they were

-concerned the Franklin searches were at an end.

-

-But Lady Franklin thought one more effort should be made to unravel the

-mystery of her husband's fate, and there were many who thought the same.

-Helped to a certain extent by a public subscription, she organised

-another expedition. The steam-yacht _Fox_ was bought from the executors

-of Sir Richard Sutton and altered for Arctic work by her builders, the

-Halls of Aberdeen clipper fame. As leader went Captain, afterwards Sir,

-Frederick Leopold M'Clintock, who had done such brilliant sledge-work in

-the north; like his second in command, Lieutenant W. R. Hobson, he gave

-his services gratuitously, as also did Dr. David Walker and Captain,

-afterwards Sir, Allen Young, then of the Mercantile Marine, who also

-subscribed £500 towards the fund. Carl Petersen, the Eskimo interpreter

-on the voyages of Penny and Kane, came to join from Copenhagen, having

-landed there from Greenland only six days previously. The British

-Government, although declining to send out an expedition, contributed

-liberally to the supplies, and sent on board all the arms and ammunition

-and ice-gear and every instrument that was asked for.

-

-[Illustration: THE "FOX" ESCAPING FROM THE PACK]

-

-Lady Franklin's instructions were so characteristic of the noble-hearted

-woman whose name can never be forgotten in Arctic story that they must

-be given in full:—

-

-                                           "ABERDEEN, _June 29, 1857_.

-

-  "MY DEAR CAPTAIN M'CLINTOCK,

-

-  "You have kindly invited me to give you 'Instructions,' but I cannot

-  bring myself to feel that it would be right in me in any way to

-  influence your judgment in the conduct of your noble undertaking;

-  and indeed I have no temptation to do so, since it appears to me

-  that your views are almost identical with those which I had

-  independently formed before I had the advantage of being thoroughly

-  possessed of yours. But had this been otherwise, I trust you would

-  have found me ready to prove the implicit confidence I place in you

-  by yielding my own views to your more enlightened judgment; knowing

-  too as I do that your whole heart also is in the cause, even as my

-  own is. As to the objects of the expedition and their relative

-  importance, I am sure that you know that the rescue of any possible

-  survivor of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ would be to me, as it would be

-  to you, the noblest result of our efforts.

-

-  "To this object I wish every other to be subordinate; and next to it

-  in importance is the recovery of the unspeakably precious documents

-  of the expedition, public and private, and the personal relics of my

-  dear husband and his companions.

-

-  "And lastly, I trust it may be in your power to confirm, directly or

-  inferentially, the claims of my husband's expedition to the earliest

-  discovery of the passage, which, if Dr. Rae's report be true (and

-  the Government of our country has accepted and rewarded it as such),

-  these martyrs in a noble cause achieved at their last extremity,

-  after five long years of labour and suffering, if not at an earlier

-  period.

-

-  "I am sure that you will do all that man can do for the attainment

-  of all these objects; my only fear is that you may spend yourselves

-  too much in the effort; and you must therefore let me tell you how

-  much dearer to me even than any of them is the preservation of the

-  valuable lives of the little band of heroes who are your companions

-  and followers.

-

-  "May God in His great mercy preserve you all from harm amidst the

-  labours and perils which await you, and restore you to us in health

-  and safety as well as honour. As to the honour I can have _no_

-  misgiving. It will be yours as much if you fail (since you _may_

-  fail in spite of every effort) as if you succeed; and be assured

-  that, under _any and all circumstances whatever_, such is my

-  unbounded confidence in you, you will possess and be entitled to the

-  enduring gratitude of your sincere and attached friend,

-

-                                                      "JANE FRANKLIN."

-

-[Illustration: THE "FOX" ON A ROCK]

-

-The men of the _Fox_ were worthy of the confidence placed in them.

-Leaving Aberdeen on the 1st of July, M'Clintock reached Disco on the

-last day of the month, and, proceeding northwards, was, by a perverse

-freak of fortune, beset in Melville Bay on the 8th of August, and kept

-imprisoned thence onwards all through the winter, drifting south through

-Baffin Bay and Davis Strait. On the 26th of April, 1858, after a drift

-of 1194 geographical miles, the _Fox_ escaped from the pack and steamed

-to the eastward amid the most perilous of ice experiences. Most men

-would have returned and tried again; not so M'Clintock. He boldly ran up

-the Greenland coast as if nothing had happened and, making good

-deficiencies, resumed his voyage. Soon after leaving Sanderson's Hope

-the _Fox_ was nearly wrecked near Buchan Island, remaining on a rock

-until the tide rose again to set her free. After calling at Beechey

-Island, M'Clintock followed Franklin's track down Peel Sound until

-stopped by the pack, when he retraced his course and tried Prince Regent

-Inlet, reaching Bellot Strait on the 21st of August. At Port Kennedy in

-this famous waterway—which is like a Greenland fiord, about twenty miles

-long and scarcely a mile wide at its narrowest part, the water four

-hundred feet deep within a quarter of a mile of its northern shore—he

-passed the winter.

-

-On the 1st of March he reached by sledge the Magnetic Pole and fell in

-with four of the Boothian Eskimos, who, at the cost of a needle each,

-built him a snow hut in an hour, in which they all spent the night.

-"Perhaps," says M'Clintock, "the records of architecture do not furnish

-another instance of a dwelling-house so cheaply constructed!" Halting at

-Cape Victoria the Eskimos came up from their village close by with a

-number of small relics of the lost expedition. Returning to the _Fox_

-after a journey of four hundred and twenty statute miles in which the

-survey of the west coast of Boothia was completed, everything was made

-ready for three long sledge journeys of two sledges each, the captain

-taking that for Montreal Island, and giving Hobson the best chance of

-promotion by sending him round the west coast of King William Land,

-while Young took the Prince of Wales Land route.

-

-On the east coast of King William Land M'Clintock met with more Eskimos,

-from whom he obtained relics and obtained information. Pushing on, he

-reached Montreal Island on the 15th of May, where the only traces of a

-boat were some scraps of copper and an iron-hoop bolt. A crossing to the

-mainland on the 18th of May revealed no more; and next day the return

-journey began. Six days afterwards, walking along a gravel ridge near

-the beach on the way to Cape Herschel, M'Clintock found the first

-skeleton, partly exposed, with a few fragments of clothing appearing

-through the snow, evidently one of the men who, as the old Eskimo woman

-said, fell down and died as they walked along. Visiting Simpson's cairn

-at Cape Herschel and meeting with nothing, he went on for about twelve

-miles, where he caught sight of a small cairn built by Hobson's party at

-their furthest south, reached six days before, containing a note with

-the great news that at Point Victory they had found what is now known as

-the Franklin record.

-

-This record, which has frequently been printed—in a smaller size than

-the original—was one of the navy bottle-papers with the request in six

-languages that it should be forwarded to the Admiralty. A pale blue

-paper, twelve and a half inches by eight, it was filled up in the

-ordinary way, and then added to round the four margins in the

-handwriting of Lieutenant Gore, Captain FitzJames, and Captain Crozier,

-and signed by these and C. F. Des Vœux. It had been first deposited four

-miles away, so it said, "by the late Commander Gore," in 1847, and next

-year found by Lieutenant Irving, added to, and removed to the new cairn

-on the site of Sir James Ross's pillar.

-

-[Illustration: DISCOVERY OF THE CAIRN]

-

-Brief as it was, it contained all the authentic information regarding

-Franklin's voyage up to the time the ships were abandoned. Resuming the

-return journey along the edge of the strait where the meeting of the

-Pacific and Atlantic tides keeps the ice drifting down from the

-north-west almost constantly packed, M'Clintock reached a boat with two

-skeletons and other relics already visited by Hobson, who had found

-other cairns and many relics, and, in Back Bay, another record by Gore,

-also deposited in 1847, but giving no additional news.

-

-Hobson was dragged alongside the _Fox_, on the 14th of June, so ill with

-scurvy that he was unable to walk or even stand without assistance.

-M'Clintock arrived five days later; and on the 27th Allen Young returned

-after an exploration of three hundred and eighty miles of coast-line,

-which, added to that discovered by M'Clintock and Hobson, gave a total

-of eight hundred geographical miles of new coast as the work of the

-expedition, besides what it had done in clearing up the Franklin

-mystery.

-

-In 1869 Captain C. F. Hall collected other relics and sufficient

-information to account for seventy-nine men out of the hundred and five

-who left the ships. Ten years after that, Schwatka, in his long, careful

-search of King William Land, discovered the grave of Lieutenant Irving,

-in which were some fragments of his instruments and the prize medal he

-won at the Royal Naval College. Near by were many traces indicating that

-it was the site of the first encampment of the retreating crews after

-leaving their ships; and down the coast he traced camp after camp, and

-death after death. Irving's remains were brought away and are buried at

-Edinburgh. The spot where they were found was Cape Jane Franklin.

-

-More fortunate than Franklin was Captain Roald Amundsen. Leaving

-Christiania in the _Gjöa_ on the 16th of June, 1903, he crossed the

-Atlantic and proceeded down Peel Sound, past Bellot Strait, and along

-the west coast of Boothia, where a fire on the ship did a certain amount

-of damage, and, struggling thereafter for ten days among shoals and

-rocks, down James Ross Strait, past Matty Island into Rae Strait, he

-dropped anchor in Petersen Bay, King William Land. For his base station

-he required a site in which the inclination was eighty-nine degrees, and

-at Gjöahaven, in this bay, he found it in 68° 30´ N., 96° W.

-

-Here he arranged his headquarters for his observations on the Magnetic

-Pole which were kept going night and day for nineteen months; and here

-he stayed for two winters, moving about in the country around and over

-into Boothia, where he proved that the Pole was not immovable and

-stationary, but in all likelihood in continual movement. Leaving the

-south-eastern corner of King William Land in his little ship he passed

-through Simpson Strait, linking up with Collinson; and, like him, he was

-delayed for a winter on the coast of the American mainland. Through

-Bering Strait he reached San Francisco, where the voyage ended in the

-sale of the _Gjöa_. Thus of Amundsen it can be said, without any

-qualification whatever, that he accomplished the North-West Passage.

-

-

-

-

-                               CHAPTER XI

-                               BAFFIN BAY

-

-  Sir Humphrey Gilbert—Sir Martin Frobisher—His first voyage—The

-    fateful stone—First meeting with the Eskimos—The Cathay

-    Company—Second voyage—Third voyage—Frobisher builds a fort—The

-    ships among the floes—Captain Hall finds the Frobisher

-    relics—Adrian Gilbert—John Davis—His voyages and dealings with the

-    Eskimos—Reaches and names Sanderson's Hope—The Traverse

-    Book—William Baffin—His first voyage to Greenland—His fourth and

-    fifth voyages—Discovers Baffin Land—Discovers Baffin Bay—Smith

-    Sound—Jones Sound—Lancaster Sound—Baffin's farthest north—John

-    Ross and Parry verify his discoveries.

-

-

-In 1566 Humphrey Gilbert—who was as near to heaven by sea as by

-land—petitioned Queen Elizabeth for privileges in regard to discoveries

-"by the North-west to Cataia" as an alternative to a petition he, in

-conjunction with Anthony Jenkinson, had presented the previous year for

-a voyage by the north-east. He received no answer; but ten years

-afterwards, in support of this unanswered petition, he published his

-_Discourse of a Discovery for a New Passage to Cataia_. This met with

-approval, and led, with little delay, to the expedition under the Martin

-Frobisher who, among other noteworthy services, commanded the _Triumph_

-in the Armada fight to such good purpose that he was one of the five

-distinguished men knighted by Howard in mid-channel after the battle off

-the Isle of Wight.

-

-Frobisher was a good seaman—but no mineralogist. Mainly at the expense

-of Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and under the business management of

-that old seafarer, Michael Lock, of the Muscovy Company, he left

-Blackwall on the 7th of June, 1576, in the _Gabriel_ of twenty-five

-tons, accompanied by the _Michael_ of twenty tons—which deserted and

-returned as soon as difficulties arose—and a ten-ton pinnace, which

-ended by foundering off Greenland. All told, the expedition numbered

-thirty-five, of whom the _Gabriel_ carried eighteen; and with these the

-voyage through the Arctic Ocean was to be made to China.

-

-Leaving the Shetlands at her top speed of a league and a half an

-hour—which her master, good Christopher Hall, proudly recorded—the

-_Gabriel_ sighted Cape Farewell on the 11th of July. Two days afterwards

-she was thrown on her beam-ends in a storm, and was rapidly filling with

-water flowing in at her waist when she was relieved by the loss of her

-fore-yard and the cutting away of her mizen-mast. Rounding the cape,

-steering westward when he could among the floating ice, Frobisher

-reached a high headland at the south-east end of what is now Frobisher

-Bay, which he named Queen Elizabeth Foreland. A few days afterwards

-Hall, out in a boat seeking a way through the ice for the ship, landed

-on what they called Hall's Island, and, noticing a fog coming on, left

-hurriedly, snatching up, as specimens of the plants, a few grasses and

-flowers, and, as a rock specimen, a heavy black stone picked up

-haphazard on the beach. The grass faded, the flowers perished, and the

-fateful stone remained.

-

-[Illustration: SIR MARTIN FROBISHER]

-

-For fifty leagues Frobisher sailed north-westward into the bay, thinking

-it to be a strait with Asia on the right hand and America on the left.

-He landed at what he called Butcher's Island, saw "mightie deere which

-ranne at him and hardly he escaped with his life in a narrow way where

-he was faine to use defence and policie," and from a hill-top "perceived

-a number of small things fleeting in the sea afarre off whyche hee

-supposed to be porposes or seales or some kind of strange fishe but

-coming nearer he discovered them to be men in small boates made of

-leather," who only just failed in capturing his boat before he reached

-it. Subsequent conferences with the Eskimos ended in his losing the boat

-with five men who had gone ashore to trade; and finally, having lifted

-single-handed one of the interesting natives, kayak and all, into the

-_Gabriel_, he made sail for home.

-

-When Lock went aboard on the ship's arrival there were no riches from

-Cathay, nothing worth mentioning beyond the Eskimo—who soon died—the

-kayak and paddle, and "the fyrste thynge found in the new land," the

-black stone. He carried away the stone, after chipping off a few

-fragments for the friends around, and after a week or two's

-consideration sent some of it to the Mint to be assayed. The report was

-not as he expected; the "saymaster" was of opinion that it was

-marcasite, that is, iron pyrites. Not satisfied, Lock sent some to

-another expert, who also said it was pyrites. Then he tried a third man,

-who could find no gold in it. And then he tried a fourth—this time an

-Italian—who gave him the answer he wanted: "A very little powder of gold

-came thereout."

-

-Lock sent him some more, telling him frankly that three other assayers

-"could find no such thing therein," but again the Italian was equal to

-the occasion. "The xviii day of January," writes Lock, "he sent me by

-his mayde this little scrap of paper written, No. 1, hereinclosed; and

-thereinclosed the grayne of gold, which afterward I delivered to your

-majesty." For the Queen had become interested in the wonderful stone

-which was the talk of the town, its value increasing at every recital

-until many believed, as Sir Philip Sidney seems to have done, that it

-was "the purest gold unalloyed with any other metals."

-

-Lock was not the man to let such excellent advertisement be lost, and

-forthwith he projected the Cathay Company for which the charter was

-obtained from the Crown on St. Patrick's Day, 1577. Lock was named as

-Governor for six years with remuneration "for ever" of one per cent on

-all goods imported; Frobisher was named as Captain by sea and Admiral of

-the ships and navy of the Company for life with a yearly stipend and one

-per cent, like Lock, on all goods the Company brought in. Queen

-Elizabeth—notwithstanding the report from the Mint—headed the list of

-shareholders with £1000; and Burghley, Howard, Leicester, Walsingham,

-Hunsdon, Sidney, even Gresham, subscribed for shares in this remarkable

-company.

-

-To bring home more of the "golden ore," a new expedition was entered

-upon at once, and on the 26th of May, Whit-Sunday as it happened,

-Frobisher started on his second voyage. He had three vessels, the _Aid_

-of two hundred tons, lent him from the Royal Navy, and the _Gabriel_ and

-_Michael_ as before, and one hundred and twenty officers and men, of

-whom thirty were miners and other landsmen, and, in addition, six

-condemned criminals whom he was to land in Greenland as colonists but

-put ashore at Harwich instead.

-

-To the new land—named by the Queen Meta Incognita, "the unknown limit of

-the outward course"—he made his way without much adventure. Landing on

-Hall's Island, he sought for more stone but could find not so much as a

-piece as big as a walnut; for Hall, who was again with him as master,

-had apparently lighted, in the one sample, on the whole of its mineral

-wealth. This disappointment, however, was forgotten in the finding of

-occasional patches of pyrites on the mainland and other islands which in

-due course were visited. Thirty leagues up the bay a landing was made on

-what was called Countess of Warwick's Island, where more ore was found

-and a fort called Best's Bulwark was built. That was Frobisher's

-farthest on this voyage, and thence he sailed on the 24th of August,

-bringing with him two hundred tons of pyrites, and, as a present for the

-Queen, a horn two yards long, wreathed and straight, which he had found

-in the nose of a dead narwhal.

-

-The ore was received with rejoicings. Some of it was deposited in

-Bristol Castle, some in the Tower of London under four locks, but there

-was not enough of it; and as there were then, as now, no furnaces in

-England capable of getting gold out of marcasite, a new expedition was

-despatched while the furnaces were being prepared. This time the

-enterprise was to be on a very different scale. Frobisher was given a

-fleet of fifteen vessels, Drake's old ship, the _Judith_, amongst them,

-the _Aid_, as before, being the flagship. He was to bring home two

-thousand tons of mineral and find other mines, if he could, besides

-taking out a colony of a hundred persons to settle in Meta Incognita,

-for whom the materials of a wooden house were among the miscellaneous

-cargo.

-

-The fleet left Harwich on the 31st of May, 1578. A landing was made in

-the south of Greenland, which Frobisher named West England and took

-possession of, his point of departure from there being called by him,

-"from a certain similitude," Charing Cross! Soon he was among the ice

-floes. One of the ships was driven on to a floe and sank with some of

-the materials for the wooden house. Then followed a storm in which most

-of the ships had a terrible experience. "Some," says Captain Best of the

-_Ann Frances_, the chronicler of the voyage, "were so fast shut up and

-compassed in amongst an infinite number of great countreys and ilands of

-ise, that they were fayne to submit themselves and their ships to the

-mercie of the unmercifull ise, and strengthened the sides of their ships

-with junckes of cables, beds, masts, planckes, and such like, which

-being hanged overboord, on the sides of their shippes, mighte the better

-defend them from the outrageous sway and strokes of the said ise. But as

-in greatest distresse, men of best value are best to be discerned, so it

-is greatly worthy commendation and noting with what invincible mind

-every captayne encouraged his company, and with what incredible labour

-the paynefull mariners and poore miners (unacquainted with such

-extremities) to the everlasting renoune of our nation, dyd overcome the

-brunt of these so great and extreame daungers; for some, even without

-boorde uppon the ise, and some within boorde, uppon the sides of their

-shippes, having poles, pikes, peeces of timber and ores in their hands,

-stood almost day and night, without any reste, bearing off the force,

-and breaking the sway of the ise, with suche incredible payne and perill

-that it was wonderfull to behold, which otherwise no doubt had striken

-quite through and through the sides of their shippes, notwithstanding

-our former provision; for planckes of timber, of more than three ynches

-thick, and other things of greater force and bignesse, by the surging of

-the sea and billow, with the ise were shevered and cutte in sunder at

-the sides of oure ships, that it will seeme more than credible to be

-reported of. And yet (that which is more) it is faythfully and playnely

-to be proved, and that by many substantiall witnesses, that our shippes,

-even those of greatest burdens, with the meeting of contrary waves of

-the sea, were heaved up betweene islandes of ise a foote welneere out of

-the sea above their watermarke, having their knees and timbers within

-boorde both bowed and broken therewith."

-

-To add to the difficulties of the voyage Frobisher lost his way, and

-entered what he called the Mistaken Streight—now designated Hudson

-Strait—through which he might have found his way to Cathay, had he been

-so minded; but recognising that he was on the wrong road he returned and

-reached his mining district at the end of July. While the ore was being

-gathered in, Best ventured into the upper part of Frobisher Bay as far

-as the Gabriel Islands—the only exploring work that was done—and early

-in September the fleet departed on the homeward voyage.

-

-Frobisher had left one unmistakable indication of his visit behind him.

-On Countess of Warwick Island he had built a house of lime and stone,

-and "the better," says Best, "to allure those brutish and uncivill

-people to courtesie, againste other times of our comming, we left

-therein dyvers of our countrye toyes, as bells and knives, wherein they

-specially delight, one for the necessarie use, and the other for the

-great pleasure thereof. Also pictures of men and women in lead, men a

-horsebacke, lookinglasses, whistles and pipes. Also in the house was

-made an oven, and breade left baked therein, for them to see and taste.

-We buried the timber of our pretended forte, with manye barrels of

-meale, pease, griste, and sundrie other good things, which was of the

-provision of those whyche should inhabite, if occasion served. And

-insteade therof we fraight oure ships full of ore, whiche we holde of

-farre greater price."

-

-Here we part from the Cathay Company. The inevitable trouble came with

-the discovery that, practically, the only gold the ore would yield was

-that put in as an "additament" by the Italian. A very thick cloud rolled

-over Frobisher, who, like Lock, seems to have believed in the

-genuineness of the affair all through; but soon his country had need of

-him and he came to the front again in so worthy a manner that little

-more was heard of his connection with this company that failed.

-

-[Illustration: ESKIMO AWAITING A SEAL]

-

-To complete the story. In 1861 (say three hundred years afterwards)

-Captain Hall—hearing among the Eskimos how numerous white men had

-arrived first in two, then three, then a great many ships, how they had

-killed several natives and taken away two, how five of the white men had

-been captured, and how these had built a large boat and put a mast in

-her and sailed away to death when the water was open—went to Kod-lun-arn

-(White Man's Island) and there found the house of lime and stone as

-described, and traces of the diggings, and many relics among which he

-made the collection presented by him to the British Government.

-

-In the year 1583, when Sir Humphrey Gilbert, whose _Discourse_ gave so

-great a stimulus to Arctic discovery, founded St. John's,

-Newfoundland—the first English colony in America—a patent was granted by

-Queen Elizabeth to his brother Adrian "of Sandridge in the county of

-Devon," as one of the colleagues of the Fellowship for the Discovery of

-the North-West Passage. At this Sandridge—on the east of the Dart,

-bounded on three sides by the river, some two miles above Dartmouth—was

-the home of the three Gilberts (John, Humphrey, and Adrian), whose

-mother by a second marriage became the mother of Carew and Walter

-Raleigh; and here, about 1550, of a family also owning property in the

-small peninsula, was born John Davis, as we know him, or John Davys, as

-he signed himself, who was probably a playmate, and certainly a

-life-long friend, of these five.

-

-Davis was an accomplished seaman, the best of the Elizabethan

-navigators, and a man of accurate observation, always on the alert,

-whose reputation does not rest only on the work he did in the northern

-and other seas, for he was the author of _The Seaman's Secrets_, the

-most popular practical navigation treatise of its time. Very early,

-perhaps from the first, he was one of the moving spirits in this new

-north-west enterprise, for on the 23rd of January, 1583, we find Dr.

-Dee-who had helped to send Frobisher on his first voyage—making an entry

-in his journal that Mr. Secretary Walsingham had come to his house,

-where by good luck he found Mr. Adrian Gilbert, and so talk began on

-"the north-west straits discovery"; and, next day, "I, Mr. Awdrian

-Gilbert and John Davis, went by appointment to Mr. Beale, his howse,

-where only we four were secret, and we made Mr. Secretary privie of the

-N.W. Passage, and all charts and rutters were agreed upon in

-generall"—"rutter" being the French "routier," originating in _Le

-Routier de la Mer_, signifying a book of sea routes. Another important

-friend of Davis was William Sanderson, the representative of the

-merchants by whom the expenses of the voyage were borne, he being the

-chief subscriber. One of the ships, the _Moonshine_, seems to have

-belonged to him, and it was largely owing to his influence among the

-shareholders that Davis was appointed captain and chief pilot of the

-"exployt," in which he was to practically rediscover Greenland.

-

-There were two vessels, the _Sunshine_ of London, fifty-nine tons, with

-twenty-three persons on board, and the _Moonshine_ of Dartmouth,

-thirty-five tons, with nineteen. They left Dartmouth on the 7th of June,

-1585, but had to put in at Falmouth and then at the Scillies, where

-Davis occupied the twelve days he spent there in surveying and charting

-the islands. On the 20th of July they were sailing down the east coast

-of Greenland, and were so little attracted by it that Davis called it

-the Land of Desolation. Nine days afterwards he found a group of many

-pleasant green islands bordering on the shore, while the mountains of

-the mainland were still covered with snow, and here he landed on the

-west coast at Gilbert Sound, as he named it, near where Godthaab now is,

-and entered into communication with the natives.

-

-[Illustration: A GREENLANDER IN HIS KAYAK]

-

-For such occasions, apparently, he had among the _Sunshine_ people four

-described as musicians, whom, on sighting the Eskimos, he sent for. As

-soon as they arrived from the ship he ordered them to strike up a

-dancing tune, and to their merry music Davis and his men began to caper

-as if they were enjoying themselves immensely, while the lookers-on

-gradually increased in number. "At length," he says, "one of them

-poynting up to the sunne with his hande would presently strike his brest

-so hard that we might hear the blowe. This he did many times, before he

-would any way trust us. Then John Ellis the master of the _Mooneshine_,

-was appointed to use his best policie to gaine their friendshippe: who

-strooke his breast and poynted to the sunne after their order: which

-when he had diverse times done, they began to trust him, and one of them

-came on shoare, to whom we threwe our caps, stockings and gloves, and

-such other things as then we had about us, playing with our musicke, and

-making signes of joy, and dancing. So the night comming we bade them

-farewell, and went aboord our barks."

-

-The next morning, being the 30th of July, thirty-seven canoes came up to

-the ships, their occupants calling to the English to come on shore. "Wee

-not making any great haste unto them, one of them went up to the top of

-the rocke, and lept and daunced as they had done the day before, shewing

-us a seales skinne, and another thing made like a timbrel, which he did

-beate upon with a sticke, making a noyse like a small drumme." Whereupon

-Davis manned his boats and went to the waterside where they were in

-their canoes, "and after we had sworne by the sunne after their fashion,

-they did trust us. So I shooke hands with one of them, and hee kissed my

-hand, and we were very familier with them. We bought five canoas of

-them, we bought their clothes from their backs, which were all made of

-seales skins and birdes skinnes: their buskins, their hose, their

-gloves, all being commonly sewed and well dressed: so that we were fully

-persuaded that they have divers artificers among them. Wee had a paire

-of buskins of them full of fine wooll like bever. Their apparell for

-heate, was made of bird skinnes with their feathers on them. We sawe

-among them leather dressed like glovers leather, and thicke thongs like

-white leather of a good length. Wee had of their darts and oares, and

-found in them that they would by no meanes displease us, but would give

-us whatsoever we asked of them and would be satisfied with whatsoever we

-gave them. They took great care one of an other: for when we had bought

-their boates, then two other woulde come and carie him away betweene

-them that had soulde us his." He describes them as "a very tractable

-people, voyde of craft or double dealing, and easie to be brought to

-civiltie or good order," the men of good stature, unbearded, small-eyed,

-"by whom, as signes would permit, we understood that towards the north

-and west there was a great sea."

-

-During his stay among these islands he found considerable quantities of

-wood—fir, spruce, and juniper—which whether it came floating any great

-distance or grew in some island near he did not discover; but he thought

-it grew further inland because the people had so many darts and paddles

-which they held of little value and gave away for insignificant trifles.

-He also found "great abundance of seales" in shoals as if they were

-small fish; but saw no fresh water, only snow water in large pools, and

-he notes that the "cliffes were all of such oare as M. Frobisher brought

-from Meta Incognita."

-

-Leaving the sound on the 1st of August he crossed the strait now named

-after him and reached land in 66° 40´. In water "altogether voyd from ye

-pester of ice" he anchored, "in a very fair rode, under a very brave

-mount, the cliffs whereof were as orient as gold." This mount he named

-Mount Raleigh, the roadstead he called Totnes Rode, the sound round the

-mount he named Exeter Sound, the foreland to the north he called Dyer's

-Cape, the southern foreland being named Cape Walsingham—all of which

-names remain. Here white bears were killed "of monstrous bignesse," a

-raven was descried upon Mount Raleigh, withies were found growing low

-like shrubs, and there were flowers like primroses, though there was no

-grass.

-

-For three days Davis went coasting downwards, and rounding the

-southern point of the peninsula, which he named the Cape of God's

-Mercy, he entered what he afterwards called Cumberland Strait, now

-Cumberland Gulf, supposing it to be his way to the westward. It was

-clear of ice; sixty leagues up islands were found, among which a stay

-was made during five days of very foggy foul weather. On the 15th of

-August "we heard dogs houle on the shoare, which we thought had bene

-Wolves, and therefore we went on shoare to kil them; when we came on

-lande, the dogs came presently to our boate very gently, yet we

-thought they came to pray upon us, and therefore we shot at them and

-killed two: and about the necke of one of them we found a letheren

-coller, whereupon we thought them to be tame dogs. Then wee went

-farther and founde two sleads made like ours in Englande. The one was

-made of firre, spruse and oken boards, sawen like inch boards; the

-other was made all of whale bone, and there hung on the toppes of the

-sleds three heads of beasts, which they had killed. We saw here

-larkes, ravens, and partriges"—probably rock ptarmigan.

-

-Searching about, it was agreed that the place was all islands, with

-sounds passing between them; that the water remained of the same colour

-as the main ocean, whereas in every bay they had been into it became

-blackish; that a shoal of whales they saw must have come from the west,

-because to the eastward no whale had been seen; that "there came a

-violent counter checke of a tide from the south-west against the flood

-which we came with, not knowing from whence it was maintayned"; that the

-further they ran westward the deeper was the water, "so that hard abord

-the shoare among these yles we could not have ground in 330 fathoms";

-and that, lastly, there was a tide range of six or seven fathoms, "the

-flood comming from diverse parts, so as we could not perceive the chiefe

-maintenance thereof." For which six reasons it was determined to

-continue the voyage to the westward if the weather changed—which it did

-to worse with the wind unfavourable, so that the ships had to run for

-shelter and then sail for home, crossing the Atlantic from Greenland in

-a fortnight. On arrival Davis reported to Walsingham that the North-West

-Passage was a matter nothing doubtful, but at any time almost to be

-passed, the sea navigable, void of ice, the air tolerable, and the

-waters very deep; and a voyage for next year was decided on, for which

-the merchants of Exeter, Totnes, London, Cullompton, Chard, and

-Tiverton, and five private subscribers, "did adventure their money"—to

-the amount of £1175—"with Mr. Adrian Gilbert and Mr. John Davis in a

-voyage for the discovery of China, the seventh daie of April in the

-xxviij yeare of the rayne of or. soverayne Ladie Elizabeth."

-

-The fleet, consisting of the _Mermaid_ of one hundred and twenty tons,

-the _Sunshine_ and _Moonshine_, and a ten-ton pinnace named the _North

-Star_, left Dartmouth on the 7th of May, 1586. On reaching Greenland the

-_Sunshine_ and _North Star_ were sent up the east coast of Greenland,

-while the _Mermaid_ and _Moonshine_ made for Gilbert Sound.

-

-Here the Eskimos received them cordially "after they had espied in the

-boate, some of our companie that were the yeere before heere with us,

-they presently rowed to the boate, and tooke holde on the oare, and hung

-about the boate with such comfortable joy as woulde require a long

-discourse to be uttered: they came with the boates to our shippes,

-making signes that they knewe all those that the yere before had bene

-with them. After I perceived their joy, and smal feare of us, my selfe

-with the merchaunts, and others of the company went a shoare, bearing

-with me twentie knives: I had no sooner landed, but they lept out of

-their Canoas, and came running to mee and the rest, and imbraced us with

-many signes of hartie welcome: at this present there were eighteene of

-them, and to each of them I gave a knife: they offered skinnes to mee

-for rewarde, but I made signes that it was not solde, but given them of

-curtesie: and so dismissed them for that time, with signes that they

-shoulde returne againe after certaine houres." But soon there were

-passing troubles owing to iron having so great an attraction for them

-that they could not resist stealing it. While amongst them, exploring

-the country, Davis compiled the first Eskimo vocabulary known, a list of

-some forty words written down phonetically, most of them remarkably good

-approaches considering that both parties were ignorant of each other's

-language, none of them, however, except that for "sea" being likely to

-be of any use in putting him on the road to China.

-

-On leaving Gilbert Sound, Davis when in latitude 63° 8´ "fel upon a most

-mighty and strange quantity of ice, in one intyre masse, so bigge as

-that we knew not the limits thereof, and being withall so very high, in

-forme of a land, with bayes and capes, and like high cliffe land, as

-that we supposed it to be land, and therefore sent our pinnesse off to

-discover it: but at her returne we were certainely informed that it was

-onely ice, which bred great admiration to us all, considering the huge

-quantity thereof, incredible to be reported in truth as it was, and

-therefore I omit to speake any further thereof. This onely, I thinke

-that the like before was never seene, and in this place we had very

-stickle and strong currants. We coasted this mighty masse of ice untill

-the 30 of July, finding it a mighty bar to our purpose: the ayre in this

-time was so contagious, and the sea so pestered with ice, as that all

-hope was banished of proceeding: for the 24 of July all our shrowds,

-ropes, and sailes were so frozen, and compassed with ice, onely by a

-grosse fogge, as seemed to me more then strange, sith the last yeere I

-found this sea free and navigable, without impediments."

-

-Crossing the straits he repaired and revictualled the _Moonshine_ in an

-excellent harbour among islands where they found it very hot and were

-"very much troubled with a flie which is called Musketa, for they did

-sting grievously." Forsaken by the _Mermaid_, he abandoned the search in

-Cumberland Sound as he "found small hope to pass any farther that way,"

-and worked south, it being too late to go northwards, crossing Frobisher

-Bay, which he described as "another great inlet neere forty leagues

-broad where the water entered with violent swiftnesse, this we also

-thought might be a passage, for no doubt the north parts of America are

-all islands." Off the coast of Labrador he found a vast shoal of

-codfish, of which he caught over forty with a long spike nail made into

-a hook. These he salted, and some of them, on his return, he gave, at

-Walsingham's request, to Burghley, who, at an interview, encouraged him

-to make a further attempt.

-

-Next year he was off again, this time "to the Isles of the Molucca or

-the coast of China." He seems to have been on board the _Ellen_, a small

-craft of some twenty tons, his two other vessels being the _Sunshine_ as

-before, and the _Elizabeth_. These he left to fish for cod in the

-straits while he went northward from Gilbert Sound in his little

-"clinker," which he had probably chosen as being handy for ice

-navigation. Running along the land, to which he gave the name of London

-Coast, he reached 72° 12´—the highest north up to then attained—where he

-named the loftiest of the headlands Sanderson's Hope, whose lofty crest

-piercing through the driving clouds near Upernivik has become perhaps

-the best-known landmark in the northern seas. Here the wind suddenly

-shifting to the northward made further progress impossible, and he had

-to shape his course westerly, and then, owing to ice, which he in vain

-endeavoured to get round to the north, he had to turn southwards. Amid

-much fog, and with the ice always present, he came down the coast of

-Baffin Land, giving a name here and there on the way, until on the 31st

-of July he passed "a very great gulfe, the water whirling and roring, as

-it were the meetings of tides," which was probably the entrance to

-Hudson Strait. Next day he was off the Labrador coast and named Cape

-Chidley after his friend who died in the Straits of Magellan, and on the

-15th of August he laid his course for England.

-

-[Illustration: BAFFIN BAY IN 1819]

-

-Of this voyage Hakluyt prints the Traverse Book, one of the earliest

-known. In it the full detail is given for every day, arranged in nine

-columns, one each for the month, the day, the hour, the courses, the

-leagues, the elevation of the pole in degrees and minutes, the wind, and

-a remarks column headed "The Discourse"—for Davis was an exact and

-systematic man remarkable for his latitudes never being wrong, though

-like all those old navigators before the invention of the chronometer,

-he was frequently out in his longitude. He was going off again bound for

-the sea north of Sanderson's Hope, but the coming of the Armada and the

-death of Walsingham caused the postponement of the project he did not

-abandon, for it seems that the _Desire_, in which he discovered the

-Falkland Islands at the other end of America, was to be his reward for

-accompanying Cavendish round the world, and that in her he intended to

-make his next Polar voyage.

-

-The work he had set himself to do was done by William Baffin, who first

-appears in the Arctic record as pilot of the _Patience_ in James Hall's

-Greenland voyage in 1612, which ended in Hall being killed in revenge

-for the kidnapping proceedings on the two previous voyages under the

-Danish flag. Baffin then made two voyages, as we have seen, to

-Spitsbergen in the service of the Muscovy Company, and, in that of the

-Company for the Discovery of the North-West Passage, he made his fourth,

-in 1615. In Hudson's old ship the _Discovery_, also her fourth trip to

-the north, he passed up Hudson Strait to the end of Southampton Island,

-where he abandoned the attempt to get through owing to ice and shallow

-water, and returned after discovering the land that Parry named after

-him.

-

-In his fifth voyage, again in the _Discovery_, with Robert Bylot again

-as master, he left Gravesend on the 16th of March, 1616, and reached

-Sanderson's Hope on the 30th of May, discovering the great bay to the

-north which bears his name. Passing the Women Islands and the Baffin

-Islands off Cape Shackleton, he took the middle passage across Melville

-Bay, coasting along by Cape York, by the cape named after one of his

-directors, Sir Dudley Digges, and the sound named after another of his

-directors, Sir John Wolstenholme; along Prudhoe Land, entering the North

-Water of the whalers, reaching Cape Alexander in 77° 45´, his farthest

-north; opening up and naming Smith Sound, after Sir Thomas Smith,

-another of his directors, and Jones Sound, after Alderman Sir Francis

-Jones, another of the board, and Lancaster Sound, after Sir James

-Lancaster of the East India Company. Thus, coasting Ellesmere Land,

-North Devon, Bylot Island, and Baffin Land, he continued his voyage from

-the north on his way home. A good piece of work: the discoveries so many

-and unexpected that people ceased to believe in them, geographers going

-so far as to erase his bay from their maps until, two hundred years

-afterwards, Ross and Parry sailed over the land of the unbelievers and

-confirmed Baffin's work in every detail—and Ross, in his best

-mountain-finding manner, reported no thoroughfare at Smith Sound.

-

-[Illustration: DR. E. K. KANE]

-

-

-

-

-                              CHAPTER XII

-                              SMITH SOUND

-

-  Captain Inglefield—Dr. Kane—The open Polar Sea—Hans Hendrik the

-    Greenlander—Kalutunah the Eskimo—An Eskimo bear-hunt—A lesson in

-    catching auks—Dr. Hayes—His journey over the glacier—Tyndall

-    Glacier—Captain C. F. Hall—Joe and Hannah—Voyage of the

-    _Polaris_—Drift of the _Polaris_—The voyage on the ice-floe—The

-    British Government Expedition of 1875—The _Alert_ and

-    _Discovery_—The cairn on Washington Irving Island—Discovery

-    Harbour—How the _Alert_ got into safety at Floeberg Beach—Low

-    temperatures—Nares on sledging—Description of the sledges and

-    their burden—Markham starts for the Pole—Reaches 83° 20´

-    26˝—Outbreak of scurvy—Parr's walk—Aldrich's journey

-    west—Beaumont's journey east—The perilous homeward voyage.

-

-

-Lady Franklin, who incidentally did so much for Arctic discovery, sent

-out the _Isabel_ in 1852 under Commander, afterwards Sir, Edward

-Augustus Inglefield to search for her husband to the north of Baffin

-Bay. Unlike John Ross, the names of whose ships, _Isabella_ and

-_Alexander_, are home by the capes at its entrance, he found Smith Sound

-to be the highway to the north. Steaming up the open water "stretching

-through seven points of the compass," noting the coasts as he went, he

-was turned back by the ice in 78° 28´, at the entrance to the Kane Sea,

-with Cairn Point and the way in to Rensselaer Harbour on his right, and

-Cape Sabine and Ellesmere Land, which he named, on his left; the

-farthest north he sighted being Cape Louis Napoleon, the farthest east

-Cape Frederick VII, now known as Cape Russell. Needless to say he found

-no Franklin traces, although he really looked for them.

-

-Twelve months afterwards Dr. Elisha Kent Kane in the United States brig

-_Advance_ followed in his track and wintered in Rensselaer Harbour, nine

-miles further north. Ostensibly Kane was on a Franklin search, but his

-real object was the Pole. He explored the sea named after him, naming

-many landmarks, not always placing them in their true positions, and

-underwent many hardships. For one mistake he was famous for a time, and

-his reputation now suffers. One of his expedition, William Morton,

-almost reached Cape Constitution, in about 80½°, which he placed some

-sixty miles too far north, and described as the corner of the north

-coast of Greenland; and from the southern horn of the bay of which it is

-the northern boundary he looked out over the south of Kennedy Channel,

-which is open every summer, and mistook it for the Polar Sea. And he

-returned with a report of an even more wonderful discovery than the

-Polar Sea, for, according to the illustration, he beheld the midnight

-sun dipping in its waters on Midsummer Day.

-

-In May, 1854, the month before Morton's discoveries, Dr. Hayes and

-William Godfrey crossed the Kane Sea to connect the northern coast with

-Inglefield's survey, "but it disclosed no channel or any form of exit

-from the bay," being, in fact, Ellesmere Land continued, and yet on

-reaching the shore for the first time at Hayes Point, three miles north

-of Cape Louis Napoleon, and following it for two miles to Cape Frazer,

-they quite unnecessarily named the country Grinnell Land. On the other

-side of this sea the chief discovery was Kane's Humboldt glacier, some

-fifty miles north-east of their winter quarters, which was described as

-"the mighty crystal bridge which connects the two continents of America

-and Greenland," when, of course, it does nothing of the sort.

-

-[Illustration: KALUTUNAH]

-

-What with sickness, accident, and other disaster, it became evident that

-the _Advance_ would never leave her wintering place, and in July Kane

-set off on a wild endeavour to reach Beechey Island and obtain relief

-from the Franklin search vessels, but he had to return. Next month Hayes

-was sent to Upernivik, but he also came back. Finally in May, 1855, the

-brig was abandoned and the survivors began their journey to the south.

-Fortunately on the outward voyage Kane, at Fiskernaes, had engaged Hans

-Hendrik the Greenlander, then a boy of nineteen, who became quite a

-prominent figure in this and subsequent voyages, and without him and

-Kalutunah, chief of the Etah Eskimos, the whole party would have

-perished miserably.

-

-Hans first appears when spearing a bird on the wing; Kalutunah's first

-appearance was equally encouraging. "The leader of the party," says

-Kane, "was a noble savage, greatly superior in everything to the others

-of his race. He greeted me with respectful courtesy, yet as one who

-might rightfully expect an equal measure of it in return, and, after a

-short interchange of salutations, seated himself in the post of honour

-at my side. I waited, of course, till the company had fed and slept, for

-among savages especially haste is indecorous, and then, after

-distributing a few presents, opened to them my project of a northern

-exploration. Kalutunah received his knife and needles with a 'Kuyanaka,'

-'I thank you'; the first thanks I have heard from a native of this upper

-region. He called me his friend—'Asakaoteet,' 'I love you well'—and

-would be happy, he said, to join the nalegak-soak in a hunt."

-

-And the journey ended in a hunt, for the dogs caught sight of a large

-male bear in the act of devouring a seal. The impulse was irresistible;

-Kane lost all control over both dogs and drivers, who seemed dead to

-everything but the passion of pursuit. Off they sped with incredible

-speed; the Eskimos clinging to their sledges and cheering their dogs

-with loud cries. A mad, wild chase, wilder than German legend—"the dogs,

-wolves; the drivers, devils." After a furious run, the animal was

-brought to bay, and the lance and rifle did their work. There were more

-bears and more hunts, and when Kane objected that this could hardly be

-called northern exploration, he was told by Kalutunah, significantly,

-that the bear-meat was absolutely necessary for the support of their

-families, and that the nalegak-soak had no right to prevent him from

-providing for his household. "It was a strong argument," says Kane, "and

-withal the argument of the strong."

-

-[Illustration: THE EAST COAST OF SMITH SOUND]

-

-Bear-hunting hereabouts has its dangers, for the Eskimos of the north

-are not armed with bows and arrows as are those of the mainland. When

-the bear is found the dogs are set upon the trail, and the hunter runs

-by their side in silence. As he turns the angle ahead his game is in

-view before him, stalking probably along with quiet march, sometimes

-sniffing the air suspiciously, but making, nevertheless, for a clump of

-hummocks. The dogs spring forward, opening in a wild wolfish yell, the

-driver shrieking "Nannook! nannook!" and all straining every nerve in

-pursuit. The bear rises on his haunches, views his pursuers, and starts

-off at full speed. The hunter, as he runs, leaning over his sledge,

-seizes the traces of a couple of his dogs and liberates them from their

-burden. It is the work of a minute; for the speed is not checked and the

-remaining dogs rush on with apparent ease. Pressed more severely, the

-bear stands at bay while his two foremost pursuers halt at a short

-distance and quietly await the arrival of the hunter. At this moment the

-whole pack are liberated; the hunter grasps his lance, and, stumbling

-through the snow and ice, prepares for the encounter. Grasping the lance

-firmly in his hands he provokes the animal to pursue him by moving

-rapidly across its path, and then running as if to escape. But hardly is

-its long body extended for the tempting chase, before, with a quick

-jump, the hunter doubles on his track, and, as the bear turns after him

-again, the lance is plunged into the left side below the shoulder; and

-that so dexterously, that, if it be an inch or so wide of the proper

-spot, the spear has to be left in the bear and the man has to run for

-his life.

-

-At this hazardous work Kalutunah was an adept, and he was equally

-skilful at a much less dangerous game, as Dr. Hayes was to discover when

-wintering in the schooner _United States_ in Foulke Harbour, further

-south, in 1860-61. Hayes wished to learn how to catch auks, and the

-Eskimo gave him a lesson. Kalutunah carried a small net, made of light

-strings of sealskin knitted together, the staff by which it was held

-being about ten feet in length. Arriving about half-way up the cliffs he

-crouched behind a rock and invited the doctor to follow his example. The

-slope on which the birds were congregated was about a mile long, and in

-vast flocks they were sweeping over it a few feet above the stones down

-the whole length of the hill, returning higher in the air, and so round

-and round in a complete circuit. Occasionally a few hundreds or

-thousands would drop down as if following some leader, and in an instant

-the rocks, for some distance, would swarm with them as they speckled the

-hill with their black backs and white breasts. The doctor was told to

-lie lower, as the birds noticed him and were flying too far overhead.

-Having placed himself as Kalutunah approved, the birds began to sweep

-lower and lower in their flight until their track came well within

-reach. Then, as a dense portion of the crowd approached, up went the

-net, and half a dozen birds flew into it, and, stunned by the blow,

-could not recover before the Eskimo had slipped the staff through his

-hands and seized the net. With his left hand he pressed down the birds,

-while with the right he drew them out one by one, and, for want of a

-third hand, used his teeth to crush their heads. The wings were then

-locked across each other; and with an air of triumph the old chief

-looked around, spat the blood and feathers from his mouth, and went on

-with the sport, tossing up his net and hauling it in with much rapidity

-until he had caught about a hundred, and wanted no more.

-

-[Illustration: I. I. Hayes]

-

-Hayes did his best to disparage both Kalutunah and Hans, to whom he was

-not quite so much indebted as Kane, owing to his having given himself a

-better chance of retreat by not taking the schooner out of Smith Sound,

-his quarters in Hartstene Bay being only some twelve miles north of Cape

-Alexander. He had come to verify the existence of the open sea and sail

-to the Pole across it if he could; and he verified it to his own

-satisfaction. But he did not get so far north as Morton, although he

-claimed to have done so, for he climbed a cliff eight hundred feet high

-and looked out over the open water—in Kennedy Channel—and did not see

-the Greenland cliffs trending away northwards within thirty miles of

-him, and visible all the way up for two degrees north of Cape

-Constitution. Thus he left the map as Kane left it, with Greenland cut

-off short south of the eighty-first parallel, and his farthest seems to

-have been the south point of Rawlings Bay, where the _Alert_ was forced

-on shore in August, 1876, in 80° 15´.

-

-"I climbed," he says, "the steep hillside to the top of a ragged cliff,

-which I supposed to be about eight hundred feet above the level of the

-sea. The view which I had from this elevation furnished a solution of

-the cause of my progress being arrested on the previous day. The ice was

-everywhere in the same condition as in the mouth of the bay across which

-I had endeavoured to pass. A broad crack, starting from the middle of

-the bay, stretched over the sea, and uniting with other cracks as it

-meandered to the eastward, it expanded as the delta of some mighty river

-discharging into the ocean, and under a water-sky, which hung upon the

-northern horizon, it was lost in the open sea. The sea beneath me was a

-mottled sheet of white and dark patches, these latter being either soft

-decaying ice or places where the ice had wholly disappeared. These spots

-were heightened in intensity of shade and multiplied in size as they

-receded, until the belt of the water-sky blended them all together into

-one uniform colour of dark blue. The old and solid floes (some a quarter

-of a mile, and others miles across) and the massive ridges and wastes of

-hummocked ice which lay piled between them and around their margins,

-were the only parts of the sea which retained the whiteness and solidity

-of winter."

-

-Unfortunately for Hayes, the astronomer of the expedition, August

-Sonntag, who had assisted Kane in the same capacity, was frozen to death

-on a sledge journey, and the doctor was left to do the work for himself,

-with disappointing results, as with errors of many miles in either

-latitude or longitude his journeys can only be noticed in a very general

-way. In October, 1860, he proceeded for some distance over the glacier

-to the east of his wintering place. The first attempt to scale the

-glacier was attended by what might have been a serious accident. The

-foremost member of the party missed his footing as he was clambering up

-the rude steps, and, sliding down the steep side, scattered those who

-were below him to the right and left and sent them rolling into the

-valley beneath. The next effort was more successful, and, the end of a

-rope being carried over the side of the glacier, the sledge was drawn up

-the inclined plane and a fair start obtained. A little further on Hayes

-was only saved from disappearing down a crevasse by clutching a pole he

-was carrying on his shoulder. Next day, the surface being smoother, more

-progress was made, and they reached a plain of compact snow covered with

-a crust through which the feet broke at every step. The day afterwards

-the cold grew more intense and a gale came on. At night the men

-complained bitterly and could not sleep, and as the storm increased in

-strength they were forced to leave the tent and by active exercise

-prevent themselves from freezing.

-

-[Illustration: THE SHORES OF KENNEDY CHANNEL]

-

-To face the wind was impossible, and shelter was nowhere to be found

-upon the unbroken plain, there being but one direction in which they

-could move, that being with their backs to the gale. It was not without

-difficulty that the tent was taken down and bundled upon the sledge, the

-wind blowing so fiercely that they could scarcely roll it up with their

-stiffened hands. The men were in pain and could only hold on for a few

-moments to the hardened canvas, their fingers, freezing continually,

-requiring vigorous pounding to keep them on the flickering verge of

-life. "In the midst of a vast frozen Sahara, with neither hill,

-mountain, nor gorge anywhere in view," says Hayes, "fitful clouds swept

-over the face of the full-orbed moon, which, descending toward the

-horizon, glimmered through the drifting snow that whirled out of the

-illimitable distance, and scudded over the icy plain, to the eye in

-undulating lines of downy softness, to the flesh in showers of piercing

-darts. Our only safety was in flight; and like a ship driven before a

-tempest which she cannot withstand, and which has threatened her ruin,

-we turned our backs to the gale; and, hastening down the slope, we ran

-to save our lives. We travelled upwards of forty miles, and had

-descended about three thousand feet before we ventured to halt."

-

-Next year he visited the large glacier in Whale Sound which he named

-after Professor John Tyndall, pulling first along its front in a boat

-and then mounting its surface. As he rowed along within a few fathoms of

-this two miles of ice, he found the face "worn and wasted away until it

-seemed like the front of some vast incongruous temple, here a groined

-roof of some huge cathedral, and there a pointed window or a Norman

-doorway deeply moulded; while on all sides were pillars round and fluted

-and pendants dripping crystal drops of the purest water, and all bathed

-in a soft blue atmosphere. Above these wondrous archways and galleries

-there was still preserved the same Gothic character; tall spires and

-pinnacles rose along the entire front and multiplied behind them, and

-new forms met the eye continually. Strange, there was nothing cold or

-forbidding anywhere. The ice seemed to take the warmth which suffused

-the air, and I longed to pull my boat far within the opening and paddle

-beneath the Gothic archways."

-

-Charles Francis Hall, of Cincinnati, was a man of a very different

-stamp. He was a genius and a genuine worker, an accurate observer and

-painstaking explorer who believed above all things in thoroughness.

-Realising that the best way to study the Polar regions was to understand

-the Eskimos, who know most about them, and utilise their local

-knowledge, he settled amongst them, lived with them, adopted their

-customs, and became as one of them in their huts and tents, taking part

-in their sports and hardships. Two friends he made amongst them,

-Ebierbing and his wife Tookoolito, better known as Joe and Hannah, who

-accompanied him till he died.

-

-[Illustration: TYNDALL GLACIER]

-

-After clearing up the Frobisher problem and throwing some light on the

-Franklin mystery, he started in 1871 to go as far north as he could

-across the reported Polar Sea. To him Henry Grinnell, who did so much

-for northern discovery, entrusted the American flag which had been to

-the Antarctic with Wilkes in 1838, to the Arctic with De Haven, with

-Kane and with Hayes, and was a sort of oriflamme of Polar discovery. His

-ship was the _Polaris_, of 387 tons, once the _Periwinkle_, a name which

-seemed to be a little too unassuming. Buddington, his sailing-master,

-was an experienced whaling captain; his assistant, Tyson, destined for

-the independent command of an ice-floe, was another whale-fisher. The

-naturalist was Emil Bessels. On board were also Joe and Hannah—of

-course—and William Morton, to show where the sea was, and, picked up at

-Upernivik, the indispensable Hans Hendrik with his wife and three

-children.

-

-The voyage was fortunate so long as Hall lived. The _Polaris_ found the

-Polar gates open before her. She steamed right up Smith Sound, through

-Kane Sea, up Kennedy Channel, into Robeson Channel—named after the

-Secretary to the American Navy—until she reached the ice, in 82° 16´, on

-the 30th of August, 1871, the highest latitude then attained by a ship.

-Hall would have pressed on into the ice, but Buddington wisely refused,

-and hardly had the _Polaris_ been headed round when she was beset and

-carried southwards, to escape in a few days and take refuge for the

-winter in a harbour on the east of what is now known as Hall Basin,

-protected at its entrance by a grounded floeberg. The latitude is 81°

-38´, the harbour Hall called Thank God Bay. There in November he died;

-and close by is Hall's Rest, where he is buried.

-

-His death was the end of the enterprise. Buddington wished to return as

-soon as the ship was released, and eventually had his way, after a

-journey or two of little importance. But he stayed too long. The ship

-was clear in June, and he did not start until the 1st of August, and he

-started by driving her into the pack, anchored her to a floe, and

-drifted helplessly into Baffin Bay, as De Haven had done through

-Lancaster Sound in 1850. For eleven weeks the drift continued until she

-was off Northumberland Island on the 15th of October. Here in the middle

-of the night a violent gale arose, and the crippled ship, nipped between

-two masses of ice, was lifted bodily and thrown on her side, her timbers

-cracking loudly and her sides apparently breaking in. Two boats, all she

-had, were hurriedly got on to the ice, and provisions, stores, and

-clothing were being passed out, when with a roar the floe broke asunder,

-and the _Polaris_ disappeared like a phantom in the gale. As the ice

-cracked and the sides lurched apart, a bundle of fur lay across the

-fissure. A grab was made at it, and the bundle was saved. It contained

-the baby of Joe the Eskimo, whose wife had been confined the year before

-in latitude 82°, perhaps the most northerly birthplace of any of this

-world's inhabitants.

-

-[Illustration: A SEAL IN DANGER]

-

-On the ice were Tyson, with Sergeant Meyer, the steward, the cook, six

-sailors, and nine Eskimos, men, women, and children, including Hans and

-Joe. They built a house, from the materials thrown out from the ship, as

-a shelter; and they built snow houses as the time went on and the floe

-diminished. Provisions they had but few, but Hans and Joe were

-indefatigable. They speared seals, caught fish, trapped birds, and,

-sometimes, a bear would scramble up on to the ice for them to shoot—and

-they never missed. In short, without them the party would have starved

-to death.

-

-The floe on which the castaways passed the winter was about a hundred

-yards long and seventy-five broad. On this they voyaged down the whole

-length of Baffin Bay and through Davis Strait, the ice melting away and

-getting smaller and smaller as they drifted south, until on the 1st of

-April, when it was only twenty yards round, they had to take to the

-remaining boat, the other having been used for fuel. Once they nearly

-touched the shore, but the wind rose and off they were driven in the

-snow. When they were picked up by the sealer _Tigress_ in 53° 35´, near

-the coast of Labrador, on the 30th of April, they had drifted fifteen

-hundred miles in the hundred and ninety-six days that had elapsed since

-they left the ship.

-

-The _Polaris_, blown to the northward, reached land at Lifeboat Cove in

-the entrance to Smith Sound, a little north of Foulke Harbour, and here

-with the aid of the Etah Eskimos the crew passed the winter; and, in the

-spring, some of them went on an expedition in the Hayes country and lost

-the famous flag. As the ship could not be made seaworthy, two

-flat-bottomed boats were built of her materials, and on the 21st of June

-these were found hauled up on a floe in Melville Bay, and their people

-rescued by the whaler _Ravenscraig_, which shifted them into the

-_Arctic_, another Dundee whaler, on board of which was Commander

-Markham, who, with Hans Hendrik, four years afterwards, was to follow up

-Hall's track to the north.

-

-The results of this expedition were of considerable importance. In five

-days Captain Hall had run five hundred miles through what on most

-occasions has been found to be an ice-choked sea. He completed the

-exploration of Kennedy Channel, discovered Hall Basin and Robeson

-Channel, and was the first to reach the Polar ocean by this route.

-Greenland and Grinnell Land he extended northward for nearly a hundred

-and forty miles; and, north of Petermann Fiord, where he showed that the

-inland ice terminated, he had found a large area free from ice, with its

-wild flowers and herbage and musk oxen.

-

-Hall's remarkable success in taking a ship to so high a latitude led to

-the Government expedition of 1875, the first British attempt to reach

-the Pole since Parry's failure in 1827. Three ships were employed: the

-_Alert_, a seventeen-gun sloop; the _Discovery_, once the _Bloodhound_,

-a Dundee whaler; and the _Valorous_. The _Alert_ and _Discovery_ were

-specially prepared for the voyage at Portsmouth by Sir Leopold

-M'Clintock who was then Admiral Superintendent of the dockyard; the

-_Valorous_, an old paddle sloop, required little alteration, as her duty

-was merely to carry the stores that could not safely be taken by the

-exploring vessels in crossing the Atlantic and hand them over at Disco.

-

-[Illustration: SIR GEORGE NARES]

-

-The leader, Captain George Strong Nares, when one of the Franklin search

-officers under Kellett at Melville Island, had distinguished himself by

-a sledge journey in which he had travelled nine hundred and eighty miles

-in sixty-nine days and reached 119½° west longitude. He was known as one

-of the best navigators in the Navy, and when called upon to go to the

-north was in command of H.M.S. _Challenger_, then on her famous voyage

-of scientific exploration in very different seas. With him in the

-_Alert_ was Commander Albert Hastings Markham, whose experience, varied

-and considerable, gained by his spending much of his spare time within

-the Arctic Circle, rendered him especially well fitted for the position.

-In command of the _Discovery_ was Captain Henry Frederick Stephenson;

-and the officers of both ships were, like the crews, all specially

-selected. There was no difficulty in the manning. One commanding officer

-called at the office at Portsmouth where the men were being entered and

-asked for advice. "An order," he said, "has come on board my ship,

-directing me to send volunteers for Arctic service to this office. What

-am I to do? The whole ship's company, nearly eight hundred men, have

-given in their names."

-

-The three ships left Spithead on the 29th of May, 1875, and were all at

-Godhavn on the 6th of July. Nine days afterwards they left for Ritenbenk

-of the curious name, which is an anagram of that of Berkentin who was in

-charge of the Greenland department when it was founded. Here the

-_Valorous_ parted company to return home after filling up with fuel at

-the coal quarries on the north side of Disco Island, while the two ships

-went to Proven to pick up Hans Hendrik, who this time left his wife and

-children behind him.

-

-Through Smith Sound, almost choked with ice, progress was slow and

-difficult; but the passage was safely accomplished, and so across Kane

-Sea and up Kennedy Channel. On Washington Irving Island an ancient cairn

-was found, evidently the work of white men's hands and of great age, as

-shown by the state of the lichens on it—yet another of the many

-indications in the Polar regions that there was always a somebody before

-the first on record. Crossing the mouth of Archer Fiord, a snug harbour

-was found in 81° 44´, where the _Discovery_ was left to spend the

-winter, the _Alert_ going on, hampered much by the floes, though helped

-at last by a south-westerly wind, until she had to stop in 82° 27´ on

-the shore of the Polar Ocean, at what was named Floeberg Beach, off an

-open coast and with no more protection during the winter than was

-afforded by masses of ice ranging up to sixty feet in height aground in

-from eight to twelve fathoms of water.

-

-"The protected space," says Nares, "available for shelter was so

-contracted and shallow, the entrance to it so small, and the united

-force of the wind and flood-tide so powerful, that it was with much

-labour and no trifling expense in broken hawsers that the ship was

-hauled in stem foremost. It was a close race whether the ice or the ship

-would be in first, and my anxiety was much relieved when I saw the

-ship's bow swing clear into safety just as the advancing edge of the

-heavy pack closed in against the outside of our friendly barrier of ice.

-From our position of comparative security the danger we had so narrowly

-escaped was strikingly apparent as we gazed with wonder and awe at the

-power exerted by the ice driven past us to the eastward with

-irresistible force by the wind and flood-tide at the rate of about a

-mile an hour. The projecting points of each passing floe which grounded

-near the shore in about ten fathoms of water would be at once wrenched

-off from its still moving parent mass; the pressure continuing, the

-several pieces, frequently thirty thousand tons in weight, would be

-forced up the inclined shore, rising slowly and majestically ten or

-twelve feet above their old line of flotation. Such pieces quickly

-accumulated until a rampart-like barrier of solid ice-blocks, measuring

-about two hundred yards in breadth and rising fifty feet high, lined the

-shore, locking us in, but effectually protecting us from the

-overwhelming power of the pack." The land had already assumed a wintry

-aspect, and the ship soon put on a garb of snow and ice, each spar and

-rope being double its ordinary thickness from the accumulation of rime.

-Around her everything was white and solemn; no voice of bird or beast

-was heard; all was still and silent save the gathering floes; and in two

-days the men were able to walk on shore over the new ice.

-

-For eleven months she stayed here, secured by cables to anchors frozen

-on to the shore to protect her from gales on the landward side. With the

-ship housed in awnings of tilt-cloth, with snow a foot thick laid on the

-upper deck and banked up on each side as high as the main-chains, with

-skylights and hatchways carefully covered up, except two hatchways for

-ingress and egress constructed with porches and double doors so as to

-prevent the entrance of the bitter air, the crew here passed the long

-Polar night. On the 11th of October the sun disappeared, and then began

-those entertainments, lectures, lessons, games, not forgetting the Royal

-Arctic Theatre which opened on the 18th of November, with which the

-winter was pleasantly whiled away. "Can you sing or dance? or what can

-you do for the amusement of others?" every man had been asked before he

-was chosen, and the result was a singularly happy time kept up until

-sunrise.

-

-The cold was intense and long-continued. Even the tobacco pipes froze,

-the stem becoming solidly clogged with ice as the smoking went on unless

-it was made so short as to bring the bowl unpleasantly close to the

-mouth. On the 1st of April the temperature was down to minus 64°, and

-three days afterwards it was a hundred and five below freezing, the cold

-weather preventing the departure of the dog-sledge for Discovery Bay.

-

-During the autumn, sledging parties had laid out reserves of stores for

-the spring journeys, and a certain amount of practice had been given to

-the men in what was intended to be the chief work of the expedition. The

-field, however, was not promising. On one occasion Nares went out to

-look at it. He obtained a fine view of the pack for a distance of six

-miles from the land. The southern side of each purely white snow-covered

-hummock was brilliantly lighted by the orange-tinted twilight. The

-stranded floebergs lining the shore extended from half to three-quarters

-of a mile off the land. Outside were old floes with undulating upper

-surfaces separated from each other by Sherard Osborn's "hedgerows of

-Arctic landscape," otherwise ridges of pressed-up ice of every size. "It

-will be as difficult," was his verdict, "to drag a sledge over such ice

-as to transport a carriage directly across country in England." He gave

-a lecture on sledging at one of the winter entertainments. It was

-interesting but not encouraging. He told his hearers that if they could

-imagine the hardest work they had ever been called upon to perform in

-their lives intensified to the utmost degree, it would only be as

-child's play in comparison with the work they would have to perform

-whilst sledging. "These prophetic words," says Markham, "were fully

-realised, and were often recalled and commented on by the men."

-

-They had four different kinds of sledges. From the illustrations it will

-appear how the eight-feet sledges differed from those used by

-M'Clintock, the Nares sledge being higher and more slender in the

-uprights. The eight-men sledge, such as the Marco Polo—which was bound

-for the Pole—had six uprights eighteen inches apart. It was eleven feet

-long, thirty-eight inches wide, eleven inches high, and weighed one

-hundred and thirty pounds. The tent, made of light, unbleached duck, was

-nine feet four inches long at the bottom, eight feet at the top, seven

-feet wide and high, and weighed forty-four pounds. The tent poles, five

-in number, weighed five pounds apiece. The coverlet weighed thirty-one

-pounds and a half, and the extra coverlet twenty pounds. The lower robe

-weighed twenty-three pounds, the waterproof floor-cloth fifteen. The

-eight sleeping-bags weighed eight pounds apiece, and the eight

-knapsacks, when packed, twelve pounds apiece. The shovel and two

-pickaxes accounted for twenty-one pounds, the store-bag for twenty-five,

-the cooking gear for twenty-nine, the gun and ammunition for

-twenty-five, the medical stores for twelve, the instruments for fifteen,

-and the tent for nine and a quarter. To this must be added a thousand

-and eighty pounds for forty-five days' provisions for the eight men, and

-we have the total of sixteen hundred and sixty-four pounds odd, which

-with seven men at the ropes gives each man a drag of about two hundred

-and thirty-eight pounds. In the spring the weight decreases as the

-provisions are consumed, but the rate of decrease is not the same in the

-autumn, for then the steadily falling temperature increases the weight

-of the outfit by the moisture it adds to the tent and clothing. In

-Markham's autumn journey the tent of thirty-two pounds came back as

-fifty-five, the coverlet as forty-eight, the lower robe as forty, the

-floor-cloth as forty, and everything else was heavier than at the start.

-

-The sledges mustered for their journeys on the 3rd of April. Seven in

-number, they were drawn up in single line according to the seniority of

-the leaders, all fully equipped and provisioned, and manned by

-fifty-three officers and men. On each was its commander's banner—a

-swallow-tailed flag charged with a St. George's cross and displaying the

-armorial bearings. As a precaution against snow-blindness, the men had

-been ordered to decorate the backs of their snow-jumpers with any device

-they thought fit, the result being a display of comic blazonry that

-often formed a topic of conversation when others failed. For the same

-reason the two boats carried on the north-going sledges were gaily

-decorated with the royal arms, and the rose, shamrock, and thistle; the

-artist, as on other occasions, being Doctor Moss, whose great difficulty

-in the matter was that in spite of the quantity of turpentine used in

-mixing the paint it would persist in freezing so that the brush became

-as stiff as a stick every few seconds.

-

-[Illustration]

-

-  SECTION    SLEDGES USED BY (1) SIR LEOPOLD M'CLINTOCK AND    SECTION

- M'CLINTOCK               (2) SIR GEORGE NARES                  NARES

-

-                   (In the collection of Ed. Whymper)

-

-Lieutenant Aldrich, supported for three weeks by Lieutenant Giffard, was

-to explore the shores of Grant Land, towards the north and west, along

-the coast-line he had discovered in the previous autumn. Commander

-Markham, seconded by Lieutenant Parr, was to accompany Aldrich to Cape

-Joseph Henry and then strike off to the northward over the ice. The

-other three sledges were to accompany these as far as their own

-provisions would allow, after completing the four's deficiencies and

-giving them a fresh start from an advance post.

-

-When Markham was only eleven days out, one of his crew complained of

-pain in his ankles and knees, and was of no help for the rest of the

-journey. This was the first appearance of the scurvy which was to ruin

-so many hopes, for man after man was taken ill and became a passenger.

-To make matters worse no rougher road was ever traversed by sledge. Over

-a labyrinth of piled-up blocks of ice ranging to forty feet and more in

-height, through which the road had to be cut with pickaxe and shovel,

-and amid gale and fog and falling snow, the painful progress went on.

-With many a "One; two; three; haul!" the heavy mass would be dragged

-where the men could hardly drag themselves; one of the sledges taken a

-few yards by the combined crews, who would then return for the other. On

-the 19th of April one of the boats was abandoned and this made matters

-easier, but only for a time, as the disease spread. At last it was

-decided to stop; and on the 12th of May a party of ten went ahead to

-reach the farthest north.

-

-"The walking," says Markham, "was undoubtedly severe, at one moment

-struggling through deep snowdrifts, in which we floundered up to our

-waists, and at another tumbling about amongst the hummocks. Some idea

-may be formed of the difficulties of the road, when, after more than two

-hours' hard walking, with little or nothing to carry, we had barely

-accomplished one mile. Shortly before noon a halt was called, the

-artificial horizon set up, and the flags and sledge standards displayed.

-Fortunately the sun was favourable to us, and we were able to obtain a

-good altitude as it passed the meridian, although almost immediately

-afterwards dark clouds rolled up, snow began to fall, and the sun was

-lost in obscurity. We found the latitude to be 83° 20´ 26˝ N., or three

-hundred and ninety-nine miles and a half from the North Pole."

-

-On the 8th of June Lieutenant Parr appeared on the quarter-deck of the

-_Alert_ greeting in silence the one or two who chanced to meet him. That

-some calamity had happened was evident from his looks. He had walked on

-alone for forty miles to bring the news that Markham's party were in

-sore distress. Measures of rescue were instantly taken; Lieutenant May

-and Doctor Moss, on snow-shoes, pushing ahead with the dog-sledge laden

-with medical stores, while Nares with a strong party followed. On their

-arrival one man had died, and of the others no less than eleven were

-brought back to the ship on the relief sledges.

-

-Ten days afterwards, fearing a similar fate had overtaken Aldrich's

-party, Lieutenant May was despatched to find him. As with Markham,

-scurvy had begun on the outward journey, and it had become so bad on the

-return that one of the men was being sent off to the ship when May

-arrived with help. It had nevertheless been a successful journey, the

-road being easier than that by the northern route. Aldrich had traced

-the continuous border of the heavy pack for two hundred miles from

-Floeberg Beach, rounded Cape Columbia, in 83° 7´ N., the northernmost

-point of Grant Land, and, along the coast trending steadily south-west,

-had reached longitude 85° 33´ and sighted Cape Alfred Ernest in

-longitude 86½°.

-

-With his arrival there were over forty scurvy patients on board the

-_Alert_; and Nares was to learn that the sledge parties from the

-_Discovery_ had been similarly affected. Lieutenant Beaumont had gone

-along the North Greenland coast, reaching, on the 21st of May, 51° W.,

-in 82° 20´ N., and sighting Cape May, Mount Hooker, and Cape Britannia.

-On the 10th of May, while on his outward journey, he had sent back

-Lieutenant Rawson to bring a relief party to meet him, and Rawson with

-Hans and eight dogs, accompanied by Doctor Coppinger, reached him on the

-25th of June when he was on his last possible day's journey, he and two

-of his men dragging the sledge with four helpless comrades lashed on the

-top of it.

-

-The _Discovery_ had also sent out Lieutenant Archer to survey the fiord

-named after him, which opens out into Lady Franklin Bay; and Lieutenant

-Fulford had crossed the channel and explored Petermann Fiord. In fact,

-the expedition's geographical work was of great extent, as was the other

-scientific work, the most important, as usual, being that done from the

-ships. Among the odds and ends easily rememberable was the haul of the

-seine in Sheridan Lake, near the wintering station of the _Alert_, which

-yielded forty-three char (_Salmo arcturus_), the most northerly

-freshwater fish; the finding of the nest of the sanderling (_Calidris

-arenarius_), now in the Natural History Museum, in 82° 33´, and the

-discovery of the nesting of the grey phalarope and the knot in the same

-neighbourhood; the thirty-feet seam of Miocene coal worked in Discovery

-Harbour; and the Eskimo relics at Cape Beechey, near the eighty-second

-parallel, which, in connection with the encampments on the opposite

-coast, suggested that there, at the narrowest part of Robeson Channel,

-had been a crossing place from shore to shore.

-

-On the 31st of July, 1876, the _Alert_ was again under steam after her

-long rest, and one of the most dangerous voyages on record began. The

-ships, of from five hundred to six hundred tons, were handled as if they

-were small tugs; blocked, beset, pressed on shore, Nares with consummate

-skill, constant watchfulness, and never-failing patience, brought them

-through. But they did not get out of Smith Sound until the 9th of

-September, and then it was against head winds in stormy weather amid

-icebergs innumerable that they were slowly worked southwards and

-homewards.

-

-[Illustration: BISHOP PAUL EGEDE]

-

-

-

-

-                              CHAPTER XIII

-                               GREENLAND

-

-  Hans Egede—The house of Eric the Red—Nansen's crossing of

-    Greenland—Nansen and Sverdrup row to Ny Herrnhut—Nordenskiöld's

-    journeys—Berggren's discovery—Nordenskiöld on the inland

-    ice—Glaciers and icebergs—Diatoms and whales—Edward Whymper's

-    expedition—Greenland in Miocene times—Graah—Scoresby—Ryder—The

-    _Germania_ and _Hansa_—The Duke of Orleans—The Eskimos of

-    Clavering Island—Franz Josef Fiord—The drift of the _Hansa_—The

-    Greely expedition—The International Polar stations—Voyage of the

-    _Proteus_—Lockwood reaches 83° 24´—Greely's wagon—The Eskimo house

-    at Lake Hazen—Greely Relief expeditions—The rescue of

-    Greely—Peary—His journey to Independence Bay—His four years'

-    expedition—Reaches 84° 17´—His Polar expedition of 1905—The

-    _Roosevelt_—The voyage to Cape Sheridan—Plan of the northern

-    advance—Peary reaches 87° 6´—Moxon's mariner.

-

-

-Hans Egede, aged twenty-two, priest of the parish of Vaagen, in the

-north of Norway, reading, in 1710, about the Norse colonists of the

-west—and apparently knowing nothing of Thiodhilda—was led to think that

-some of their descendants might still be living in heathenism. Writing

-to the Bishop of Trondhjem, he proposed to go out to these as a

-missionary. The good father rather astonished him by the reply that

-"Greenland was undoubtedly part of America, and could not be very far

-from Cuba and Hispaniola, where there was found such abundance of gold,"

-and, as those who went to Greenland might bring home "incredible

-riches," he approved of the suggestion.

-

-Unfortunately, however, Egede had written his letter without the

-knowledge of his wife, who by no means thought with the Bishop until

-seven years afterwards, when she changed her mind. Trying in vain

-locally, Egede applied for support to Frederick IV of Denmark, who

-finding him an earnest, honest, interesting man, gave him his patronage,

-the result being that a company was formed at Bergen for the development

-of trade and the propagation of the gospel; and, on the 3rd of May,

-1721, the _Hope_ set sail from there for Greenland with forty-six

-intending colonists, including the missionary and his wife and family.

-

-His landing-place was on an island at the mouth of Godthaab Fiord, or

-Baal's River. He found the Greenlanders very different from what he had

-supposed; and also that the Dutch were carrying on a profitable trade

-with them and keeping it quiet. To begin with they were nothing like

-Vikings in appearance; and their language, instead of being a

-Scandinavian dialect, was of the same character as that of the Eskimos

-of Labrador—and not at all easy to learn. Learn it, however, he and his

-family did; and among the Greenlanders they remained and laboured with

-truly admirable energy and devotion, battling hard for life amid much

-disaster until, with the help of his son Paul, who succeeded him as

-superintendent of the mission with the title of bishop, the settlement

-became permanent, and other settlements arose from it up the western

-coast as they are found to-day.

-

-[Illustration: GREENLANDERS]

-

- _From a photo by Dr. H. Rink_

-

-Though there were no Norsemen, there were many traces of them, the most

-interesting being the house of Eric the Red, near Igaliko. Here, close

-to Erik's Fiord and overlooking Einar's Fiord, on one of the prettiest

-sites in Greenland, was Brattelid—"the steep side of a rock"—one side of

-it a natural cliff, the walls of the other sides, more than four feet

-thick, built of blocks of red sandstone from four to six feet in length

-as well as in breadth and thickness, reminding the visitor of those of

-Stonehenge, and evoking similar wonderment as to how they were got into

-place. And in his first colony, now called Igdluernerit, Egede seems to

-have followed the Norsemen—at an interval—in their architecture, to

-judge by the large stones in the walls of his house, which, like Eric's,

-is now in ruins.

-

-Twelve years after Egede, came the Moravians to take up their quarters

-at Ny Herrnhut, also at the mouth of Godthaab (that is, Good Hope)

-Fiord. It was here that Nansen and Sverdrup landed in October, 1888,

-having rowed up from Ameralik Fiord in their "half a boat," as the

-Eskimos called it.

-

-"Are you Englishmen?" they were asked.

-

-"No," said Nansen, in good Norse, "we are Norwegians."

-

-"May I ask your name?"

-

-"My name is Nansen and we have just come from the interior."

-

-"Oh, allow me to congratulate you on taking your doctor's degree!"

-

-From which it is clear that Godthaab is not so much out of the world as

-one would suppose.

-

-Nansen with his three Norsemen and two Lapps had reached the east coast

-in the _Jason_, and on the 17th of July had left the ship in their boats

-to make their way to the shore; but they had been caught in the floes,

-and on them and among them they had drifted for twelve days—an

-experience they had not bargained for. Getting ashore at last near Cape

-Tordenskiold, they worked their way back northwards along the coast,

-spending a short time at an Eskimo encampment at Cape Bille, until on

-the 15th of August they hauled their two boats up near Umivik and

-started to cross Greenland over the inland ice.

-

-The country is now in its glacial period, and for days they toiled

-across its glacial desert; each day alike in its wearisome monotony.

-"Flatness and whiteness were the two features of this ocean of snow,"

-says Nansen; "in the day we could see three things only, the sun, the

-snowfield and ourselves. We looked like a diminutive black line feebly

-traced upon an infinite expanse of white. There was no break or change

-in our horizon, no object to rest the eye upon, and no point by which to

-direct the course. We had to steer by a diligent use of the compass, and

-keep our line as well as possible by careful watching of the sun and

-repeated glances back at the four men following and the long track which

-the caravan left in the snow. We passed from one horizon to another, but

-our advance brought us no change."

-

-By the 2nd of September they had all taken to their skis on which they

-made great progress alone, but when it came to hauling the sledges there

-was a difference. Sometimes the snow proved to be very heavy going,

-particularly when it was wind-packed, and then it was no better than

-sand. One entry in Nansen's journal will suffice: "It began to snow in

-the middle of the day, and our work was heavier than ever. It was worse

-even than yesterday, and to say it was like hauling in blue clay will

-scarcely give an idea of it. At every step we had to use all our force

-to get the heavy sledges along, and in the evening Sverdrup and I, who

-had to go first and plough a way for ourselves, were pretty well done

-up."

-

-[Illustration: ON LEVEL GROUND]

-

-When at last the wind became favourable they hoisted sail, and off they

-went over the waves and drifts of snow at a speed that almost took their

-breath away; and when they reached the western slopes they slid down

-them using the sledges as toboggans. At first they had intended making

-for Christianshaab, but the route had to be changed for that to

-Godthaab, and the sea was reached some distance to the south. Here they

-stitched the floor-sheet of their tent over a framework of withies, and

-with oars made of canvas stretched across forked willows and tied to

-bamboo shafts, Nansen and Sverdrup boldly trusted themselves to the

-waves and with much hard labour pulled into Ny Herrnhut on the 3rd of

-October. Such was the first crossing of Greenland, a really remarkable

-instance of daring endeavour.

-

-Further north, Nordenskiöld, in 1883, had attempted to cross over the

-ice-cap from near Disco on the west coast, but, hindered and finally

-stopped by crevasses and other obstacles, could do no more than send his

-Lapps to try their best on their skis, and they returned after their

-journey eastwards of a hundred and forty miles reporting similar

-monotonous conditions all along their track. Thirteen years before, he

-had, also from Auleitsivik Fiord, started out with Berggren; and

-deserted by their followers, they had gone on by themselves for some

-thirty miles east of the northern arm of the fiord. It was on this

-occasion that Berggren discovered _Ancylonema_, that small poly-cellular

-alga forming the dark masses that absorb a far greater amount of heat

-than the white ice and thus cause the deep holes that aid in the process

-of melting.

-

-"The same plant," says Nordenskiöld, "has no doubt played the same part

-in our country; and we have to thank it, perhaps, that the deserts of

-ice which formerly covered the whole of Northern Europe and America have

-now given place to shady woods and undulating cornfields."

-

-Nordenskiöld looked upon Greenland and its icefield as a broad-lipped,

-shallow vessel with chinks in the lip, the glacier being viscous matter

-within it. As more is poured in, the matter runs over the edges, taking

-the lines of the chinks, that is, of the fiords and valleys, as that of

-its outflow. In other words, the ice floats out by force of the

-superincumbent weight of snow just as does the grain on the floor of a

-barn when another sackful is shot on to the top of the heap already

-there. When the glacier reaches the sea it makes its way along the

-bottom under water for a considerable distance, in some cases, as near

-Avigait, for more than a mile. This is where the water is too shallow

-for it to affect the mass, which forms a breakwater; though as a rule

-the shore deepens more suddenly and the projection is less. It was long

-supposed that the berg broke from the glacier by force of gravity, but

-this is not generally so. The berg is forced off from the parent glacier

-by the buoyant action of the sea from beneath; the ice groans and

-creaks; then there is a crashing, then a roar like the discharge of

-artillery; and with a great regurgitation of the waves the iceberg is

-launched into life. These huge floating islands of ice are the most

-conspicuous exports of Greenland; and their true magnitude is not

-realised until it is remembered that only about an eighth of their bulk

-appears above the water. Bergs as large as liners we frequently hear

-of—one such is shown in our illustration—but sometimes they are of much

-greater freeboard, though the very large ones reported as extending

-along the horizon are invariably groups of several crowded together.

-

-[Illustration: THE ALLAN LINER "SARDINIAN" AMONG ICEBERGS]

-

-_Ancylonema_ has evidently plenty to do. Another instance of the

-important part played by the insignificant in these regions is suggested

-by the colour of the sea. This varies from ultramarine blue to

-olive-green, from the purest transparency to striking opacity; and the

-changes are not transitory but permanent. These patches of dark water

-abound with diatoms, while the bluer the water the fewer are the

-diatoms; and where they are most numerous, there the animals that feed

-on them assemble in their greatest numbers. And these animals are

-jellyfish, entomostracans, and, to a greater extent, pteropods, their

-chief representative being _Clio borealis_. In short, the animals that

-feed on the diatoms are food of the Greenland whale, and where the

-waters are dark the whale-fishers thrive. "I know nothing stranger than

-the curious tale I have unfolded," says Dr. Robert Brown, who worked out

-this remarkable chain, "the diatom staining the broad frozen sea, again

-supporting myriads of living beings which crowd there to feed on it, and

-these again supporting the huge whale. Thus it is no stretch of the

-imagination to say that the greatest animal depends for its existence on

-a being so minute that it takes thousands to be massed together before

-they are visible to the naked eye."

-

-Cold as Greenland is, there was a time when matters were different. In

-token of this we have the Miocene fossils collected by Edward Whymper

-during his expedition from near Jakobshavn in 1867, which were described

-and illustrated by Oswald Heer in the _Philosophical Transactions_ for

-1869. A look at these is a welcome relief after such a surfeit of ice.

-Here, as well preserved as in the leaf beds of Alum Bay, are the leaves

-and fruits of an unmistakable temperate flora. Magnolias, maples,

-poplars, limes, walnuts, water-lilies; myrica, smilax, aralia; sedges

-and grasses, conifers and ferns: these at the least were all growing in

-Greenland in its Miocene age. And even a thousand years ago the climate

-must have been milder than now, to judge by the farming reports of the

-colonists who seem to have been quite at home along the coast, which,

-with its innumerable islands and fiords, is as intricate as that of

-Norway.

-

-Searching for the ancient eastern settlement of the Norsemen, W. A.

-Graah, in 1829, wintered at Julianehaab, which in all likelihood is the

-site, although he knew it not. Possessed with the idea that it must be

-on the south-eastern coast, he devoted his attention to that region

-only, finding Eskimos who had never seen a white man and starting a

-trading intercourse which led to most of them migrating to the less

-inclement west. His work linked up with that of Scoresby, who in 1822

-charted the main features of the sea-front from 69° to 75°. Ryder,

-seventy years afterwards, filled in the details of much of Scoresby's

-work, and found Eskimos further north, as Clavering had done in 1823,

-when in the _Griper_ during Sabine's observations at Pendulum Island.

-

-[Illustration: THE "GERMANIA" IN THE ICE]

-

-It was to Pendulum Island, in 74° 32´, that Karl Koldewey, after his

-preliminary run to 81° 5´ in 1868, took the _Germania_ to winter during

-the German expedition of 1869. The two vessels, the _Germania_, a small

-two-masted screw steamer of one hundred and forty-three tons, built

-specially for Arctic service, and the _Hansa_, only half her size, which

-had been strengthened for the voyage, reached Jan Mayen on the 9th of

-July, and, hidden from each other by fog, sailed northwards for five

-days. On the fifth evening the wind rose, the fog cleared, and a hundred

-yards in front of them lay the ice like a rugged line of cliffs.

-

-For a few days they sailed along it endeavouring to find an opening to

-the north. Then, on the 20th, the _Germania_ ran up a signal to approach

-and communicate, which was misunderstood, and, instead of repeating it

-and making sure, the _Hansa_ put up her helm, fell off, crowded on all

-sail, and disappeared in the fog. Koldewey, persisting in his efforts to

-get through the pack, found an opening on the 1st of August. Nine days

-afterwards he was again blocked, and finally, on the 27th, he reached

-Pendulum Island, where he made the _Germania_ snug for the winter, which

-proved to be remarkably mild.

-

-The first sledge party travelling up one of the fiords met with abundant

-vegetation and herds of reindeer and musk oxen, and were visited by

-bears who had not learnt to be wary of man; and when the bears came back

-with the sun in February they were as troublesome as those of Ice Haven

-to the Dutchmen. Several sledge parties went out in the spring, and,

-notwithstanding inadequate equipment, did excellent work. In April,

-1870, Koldewey reached 77° 1´, almost up to Lambert Land, otherwise the

-Land of Edam. Here, looking out over the ice-belt, they agreed that it

-was "a bulwark built for eternity," and hoisting sails on their sledges

-they ran back to the ship. But in 1905 the Duke of Orleans arrived on

-the coast to reach 78° 16´ and discover that their Cape Bismarck was on

-an island and their Dove Bay a strait.

-

-In the neighbourhood of their winter quarters the glaciers and mountains

-were well explored, and an attempt was made to measure an arc of the

-meridian, which proved to be rather rough work among such surroundings.

-The snowstorms were particularly pitiless and heavy, and the travelling

-decidedly bad. The thaw began about the middle of May, and there was

-more sledging through pools than usual, so that they did not want

-variety in their occupations. On the 14th of July boating became

-practicable, and a voyage was made to the Eskimo village found by

-Clavering in 1823, on the island named after him, but the village proved

-to be deserted and the huts in ruins—an unwelcome discovery, for, as

-M'Clintock says in reference to it: "It is not less strange than sad to

-find that a peaceable and once numerous tribe, inhabiting a coast-line

-of at least seven degrees of latitude, 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."

-

-[Illustration: THE REGION ROUND MOUNT PETERMANN]

-

-A little north of the seventy-third parallel Koldewey discovered on his

-way home the magnificent Franz Josef Fiord. Here the grandest scenery in

-Greenland is to be found along its deep branches winding among the

-mountains, one of which, Mount Petermann, is over eleven thousand feet

-high. As the _Germania_ entered this remarkable inlet, which extends

-inland for some five degrees of longitude, a fleet of icebergs were

-sailing out of it with the current; the farther she advanced the warmer

-seemed the temperature of the air and surface water, and the wilder and

-more impressive became the grouping of the mighty cliffs and peaks with

-their lofty waterfalls and raging torrents and deep glacier-filled

-ravines. It was the great geographical discovery of the expedition.

-

-Meanwhile Hegemann, trying to pass to the north more to the westward,

-got the _Hansa_ beset on the 9th of September some twenty-four miles

-from Foster Bay. As the ice-pressure threatened to become too great for

-the vessel to resist, an elaborate house was planned and built on the

-floe. Briquettes were used for the walls, the joints were filled up with

-dry snow on which water was poured, and in ten minutes it hardened into

-a compact mass. The house was twenty feet long, fourteen feet wide, and

-four feet eight inches high at the sides, with a rising roof consisting

-of sails and mats covered with deep snow. Into this house, which took a

-week to build, provisions for two months were carried, besides wood and

-fuel. The boats were put out, a flagstaff was set up, and quite a little

-settlement was started on the ice; and no sooner was it completed than a

-violent snowstorm, lasting for five days, buried both the ship and the

-house. The ice increased around, and, the pressure of the accumulation

-lifting the _Hansa_ seventeen feet above her original level, everything

-of value was removed from her on to the ice and into the house. On the

-22nd of October she sank, having drifted below the seventy-first

-parallel; and all through the winter the floe, which was about two miles

-across, leisurely made its way to the south.

-

-Off Knighton Bay Christmas was kept with all possible honour. The

-briquette house was decorated with coloured-paper festoons, and, by the

-light of the sole remaining wax candle, the genial Germans made

-themselves merry around a stubby Christmas tree devised out of an old

-birch broom. Three weeks afterwards the floe cracked beneath the

-dwelling. There was barely time to take refuge, but all hands were saved

-in the boats. For two days they remained in them, poorly sheltered from

-the storm and unable to clear out the snow. Then a smaller house was

-built of the ruins of the old one, but it was only large enough for half

-the party; and as the spring advanced the floe decreased, breaking away

-at the edges as did that on which the _Polaris_ people drifted to

-Labrador.

-

-[Illustration: THE LAST DAYS OF THE "HANSA"]

-

-At the end of March it entered Nukarbik Bay and there it stayed four

-weeks, caught in an eddy, slowly moving round and round just far enough

-from the shore to render an attempt at escape impossible; twice a day

-they went in with the tide and out with the tide, the ice too bad for

-the boats and never promising enough for a dash to the land. Having

-become thoroughly acquainted with this portion of the coast with its

-bold range of hills, its deep bays, its inlets, headlands, and islands,

-a storm came on which cleared them out of the eddy and drove them

-further south. Three weeks after that the floe had become so diminished

-by the lashing of the surge that it was hardly a hundred yards across,

-and large fragments were slipping off every hour.

-

-They had been on it for two hundred days and drifted eleven hundred

-miles when, on the 7th of May, water-lanes opening shorewards, they took

-to the boats and ventured among the masses of ice, making for the south.

-At first they had their difficulties in being compelled to haul up on

-the floes to pass the night or wait for a favourable wind, which meant

-severe work in unloading and reloading. Once during their painful

-progress of more than a month they were kept on a floe for six days by

-gales and snow-showers. Finally, after a long desperate effort, they

-reached Illuilek Island, and thence proceeded close inshore among rocks

-and ice to Frederiksdal, a couple of hours' walk from the southernmost

-point of the Greenland mainland, Cape Farewell being part of an island

-twenty-eight miles further to the south-east. On the 21st of June, eight

-days afterwards, they were at Julianehaab, whence they sailed to be

-landed at Copenhagen on the 1st of September, just ten days before the

-_Germania_ steamed into Bremen. Thus the expedition, by its two

-divisions, ice-borne and ship-borne, had skirted nearly all that was

-then known of the east coast from end to end.

-

-On the north coast, Beaumont's discoveries were extended by Lieutenant

-James B. Lockwood for ninety-five miles, the trend of the shore taking

-him up to 83° 24´, three minutes and thirty-four seconds nearer the

-North Pole than Markham reached out on the sea. This was on the 13th of

-May, 1882, during the ill-fated A. W. Greely expedition. Like most

-American expeditions up to then this began well and ended badly, worse,

-in fact, than any; and unlike them, and all others, it consisted

-entirely of soldiers—as if a detachment of Royal Engineers had been sent

-north on ordnance survey work. It was, however, more miscellaneous, for

-among its twenty-three members were representatives of three cavalry

-regiments, six infantry regiments, and an artilleryman.

-

-This was to be the garrison of the International Circumpolar Station at

-Lady Franklin Bay. The idea of a ring of stations round the Pole for the

-study of the natural phenomena for which the Arctic regions afford so

-wide and important a field was not new, but it was first reduced to

-definiteness and its adoption secured by Karl Weyprecht of the

-Austro-Hungarian expedition of 1872. At a meeting of German scientific

-men at Gratz, in September, 1875, he procured assent to his general

-principle that the best results in Arctic inquiry were to be obtained by

-subordinating geographical discovery to physical investigation. It had

-long been evident that the most valuable results had been obtained by

-the ships and fixed observatories, and that the toilsome work of the

-sledges in their successive approaches by a few more miles towards a

-mathematical point, though most interesting to read about, had really

-been of very little practical use owing to the necessarily light

-equipment. Instead, therefore, of a number of isolated attempts at

-irregular intervals, Weyprecht suggested that the better way would be to

-attack the subject systematically by a group of expeditions at permanent

-stations working together long enough at the same time for their

-observations to be dealt with as part of a general scheme; and the

-suggestion was approved although he did not live long enough to see the

-stations occupied.

-

-[Illustration: GREENLAND]

-

-Three International Polar Conferences were held, in 1879 and the two

-following years, at Hamburg, Berne, and St. Petersburg, at the last of

-which it was arranged that the stations should be fourteen in number,

-two in the south and twelve in the north, these twelve being—(1) The

-Austrian at Jan Mayen; (2) the Danish at Godthaab; (3) the Finnish at

-Sodankyla in Uleaborg; (4) the German at Kingua in Cumberland Sound; (5)

-the British at Fort Rae on the northern arm of the Great Slave Lake; (6)

-the Dutch at Dickson Harbour at the mouth of the Yenesei; (7) the

-Norwegian at Bosekop at the head of Alten Fiord; (8) the Russian at

-Little Karmakul Bay in Novaya Zemlya; (9) the second Russian on Sagastyr

-Island in the Lena Delta; (10) the Swedish at Mossel Bay in Spitsbergen;

-(11) the American at Point Barrow under Lieutenant P. H. Ray, who met

-with marked success and brought his men all home in safety; and (12) the

-second American at Lady Franklin Bay, the winter quarters of H.M.S.

-_Discovery_, which Greely renamed Fort Conger.

-

-In direct opposition to the guiding idea of the scheme, Greely's work

-was complicated by having tacked on to it Howgate's proposal of another

-dash for the Pole, his instructions requiring him to send out "sledging

-parties in the interests of exploration and discovery." Further, his

-expedition was fitted out in a way that almost invited disaster. Let one

-instance suffice. "In speaking of this instrument," he explains, "it is

-necessary to say that a dip-circle was especially made for the Lady

-Franklin Bay Expedition, but it was by error shipped to the United

-States Coast Survey. On calling for it, when the duplicate instrument

-ordered could not be had in time, the late Mr. Carlisle Patterson, then

-Superintendent, promptly promised that it should be sent on to me at New

-York. On the day of my sailing, a dip-circle, carefully boxed, was

-received; but on opening it at St. John, an old, rusty, unreliable

-instrument was found in the place of the new circle. This resulted in

-unsatisfactory and incomplete observations at Conger, for the old circle

-having upright standards instead of transverse ones, as in the new, but

-one end of the needle could be read. It must always be a matter of

-regret that this unwarrantable and unauthorised substitution by some

-person was made, which materially impaired, if not effectually

-destroyed, the value of our two-years' dip-observations." This sort of

-thing reduced International Polar Research to a farce, and the same

-spirit appeared in other departments, more seriously than all in the

-relief proceedings, which were conducted in a way that could only lead

-to starvation.

-

-In August, 1881, the _Proteus_, with the expedition on board, made her

-way up Smith Sound and Kennedy Channel without serious hindrance until

-she entered the south-eastern part of Lady Franklin Bay, where the

-close, heavy pack brought her to a stop within eight miles of her

-destination. She had come seven hundred miles from Upernivik in less

-than a week, and, faced by ice twenty to fifty feet thick, she had to

-wait another seven days before she got into Discovery Harbour. Here the

-party landed and a house was built, and dissension arose which ended in

-one of the company returning in the ship and another endeavouring to do

-so and being too late, so that he had to remain as a sort of tolerated

-volunteer. Two others were sent away as being physically unfit; but,

-making up for these, were two Eskimos engaged at Upernivik.

-

-Preliminary sledging began at once, and in the spring the two great

-efforts were made. The doctor's, towards the Pole, left on the 19th of

-March and got adrift on a floe from which the party escaped with the

-loss of their tent, provisions, and some of their instruments. According

-to Greely's report: "The farthest latitude attained by this party is

-given by Dr. Pavy as 82° 56´, it being estimated, as no observations for

-time, magnetic declination, or latitude were made at any period during

-his absence."

-

-On the 3rd of April, Lockwood with twelve men left for the coast of

-Greenland. Up to Newman Bay four men had been sent back as unfit for

-field-work. On the 16th, when the party started from here for the

-north-east, Lockwood and Christiansen, the Eskimo, were in advance

-hauling about eight hundred pounds with a team of eight dogs, a

-three-men sledge following, and then two two-men sledges; at Cape Bryant

-the men-sledges were sent back, and Lockwood, Brainard, and the Eskimo

-went on with the dog-sledge. Cape Britannia was reached on the 5th of

-May, and on the 13th they camped at Lockwood Island, and there, for the

-first time, Americans reached a farthest north.

-

-"I decided to make this cape my farthest," reported Lockwood, "and to

-devote the little time we could stay to determining accurately my

-position, if the weather would allow, which seemed doubtful. We built a

-large, conspicuous cairn, about six feet high and the same width at the

-base, on the lower of two benches. After repitching the tent Sergeant

-Brainard and I returned to the cairn, and collected in that vicinity

-specimens of the rocks and vegetation of the country, the sergeant

-making almost all the collection. We ascended without difficulty to a

-small fringe of rocks, which seemed from below to form the top. The

-ascent, at first very gradual, became steeper as we went up, but we had

-no difficulty, as for some distance below the summit the surface is

-covered with small stones, as uniform in size, position, etc., as those

-of a macadamised road. Reached the top at 3.45 p.m. and unfurled the

-American flag (Mrs. Greely's) to the breeze in latitude 83° 24´ N.

-(according to last observation). The summit is a small plateau, narrow,

-but extending back to the south to broken, snow-covered heights. It

-commanded a very extended view in every direction. The barometer, being

-out of order, was not brought along, so I did not get the altitude. The

-horizon on the land side was concealed by numberless snow-covered

-mountains, one profile overlapping another, and all so merged together,

-on account of their universal covering of snow, that it was impossible

-to detect the topography of the region. To the north lay an unbroken

-expanse of ice, interrupted only by the horizon."

-

-On Midsummer Day Greely started with a four-wheel wagon to explore

-Grinnell Land. The wagon, in the men's vernacular, was a man-killer, and

-was abandoned after they had dragged it a hundred miles. On this journey

-much exploring work was done in the unknown country, the most

-interesting find being that of the Eskimo house at Lake Hazen. In this,

-according to Greely's description, there were two fireplaces, one in the

-east and the other in the south, both of which had been built outward so

-as to take up no part of the space of the room, which was over seventeen

-feet long and nine feet wide. The sides of the entire dwelling were low

-walls of sodded earth, lined inside with flat thin slates, the tops of

-which were about two feet above the level of the interior floor, and the

-bench was covered with flat slabs of slate. Near by was a smaller house

-of the same character, and around were a large number of relics,

-including walrus-ivory toggles for dog-traces, sledge-bars and runners,

-an arrow head, skinning knife, and articles of worked bone. Next year

-further explorations of the back country were undertaken, so that some

-six thousand miles of the interior were viewed, disclosing many fertile

-valleys with their herds of musk ox.

-

-Meanwhile the _Neptune_, with supplies for Fort Conger, had in August,

-1882, been vainly endeavouring to get north, and, a few miles from Cape

-Hawks, had turned back with the pack piling the ice as high as her rail.

-Six attempts she made before she gave up and retreated, after making

-several deposits of stores at Cape Sabine and elsewhere. In July, 1883,

-the _Proteus_, making a similar attempt to reach Greely, was crushed in

-the ice off Cape Albert, her side opening with a crash while the men

-were working in the hold, the ice forcing its way into the coal-bunkers

-and then pouring in so that as soon as the pressure slackened she went

-down, escape to the south being effected in the boats.

-

-Next year, matters having become serious, a naval expedition consisting

-of the _Thetis_, the _Bear_, and Nares's old ship the _Alert_, presented

-by the British Government, was placed in the capable hands of Commander

-Winfield Schley, who had with him George Melville of _Jeannette_ fame as

-engineer of the _Thetis_, and matters were conducted in quite a

-different way under much more favourable circumstances. Schley intended

-to find Greely, at all costs, and he did so. First he found a cairn at

-Brevoort Island, in which were the papers deposited by Greely relating

-how he had had to come south owing to shortness of supplies, and how his

-party were then—21st of October, 1883—encamped on the west side of a

-small neck of land distant about equally from Cape Sabine and Cocked Hat

-Island.

-

-As it was then the 22nd of June, 1884, and they had had only forty days'

-complete rations to live upon, Schley hurried off at once. Had he been

-two days later he would have been too late. There was a tent wrecked by

-the gale, with its pole toppling over and only kept in place by the guy

-ropes. Ripping it up with a knife, a sight of horror was disclosed. On

-one side, close to the opening, with his head towards the outside, lay

-what was apparently a dead man. On the opposite side was a poor fellow,

-alive but without hands or feet, and with a spoon tied to the stump of

-his right arm. Two others, seated on the ground, were pouring something

-out of a rubber bottle into a tin can. Directly opposite, on his hands

-and knees, was a dark man with a long matted beard, in a dirty and

-tattered dressing-gown with a little red skull cap on his head, and

-brilliant staring eyes. As Colwell appeared, he raised himself a little,

-and put on a pair of eyeglasses.

-

-"Who are you?" asked Colwell.

-

-The man made no answer, staring at him vacantly.

-

-"Who are you?" again.

-

-One of the men spoke up. "That's the Major—Major Greely."

-

-Colwell crawled in and took him by the hand, saying to him, "Greely, is

-this you?"

-

-"Yes," said Greely in a faint, broken voice, hesitating with his words;

-"yes—seven of us left—here we are—dying—like men. Did what I came to

-do—beat the best record."

-

-Near at hand were ten graves. The bodies, despite Greely's

-remonstrances, were taken up and removed for burial in the United

-States. "Little could be seen of the condition of the bodies, as they

-had been clothed, and all that appeared was intact. In preparing them

-subsequently," says Schley, "it was found that six had been cut and the

-flesh removed." One of these, that of a cavalryman serving under the

-assumed name of Henry, had a bullet in it. He had been shot, at Greely's

-written order, "for stealing sealskin thongs, the only remaining food."

-

-The next to add to our knowledge of the northern coast of Greenland was

-Robert E. Peary, of the American Navy, who seems to have devoted his

-life to Arctic exploration. On his first expedition in 1886, he

-penetrated with Maigaard for some distance into the country in the

-neighbourhood of Jakobshavn as a sort of pioneering venture. In 1891,

-accompanied by his wife, when outward bound in the _Kite_ in the

-Melville Bay pack, he had his leg broken. The ship had been butting a

-passage through the spongy sheets of ice which had imprisoned her, when

-in going astern a detached cake struck the rudder, jamming the tiller

-against the wheel-house where Peary was standing, and pinned his leg

-long enough to snap it between the knee and the ankle. In spite of this

-he insisted on being landed with the rest of the party at McCormick Bay,

-a little to the north of Whale Sound, where a house was built and the

-winter spent.

-

-Making a good recovery, he set off in May to sledge across North

-Greenland through snow and over it, and over snow-arched crevasses,

-often, in cloudy weather, travelling in grey space with nothing visible

-beyond a foot or two around him. After fifty-seven days' journey to the

-north-east and along Peary Channel, the northern boundary of the

-mainland, he left the inland ice for a strange country dotted with

-snowdrifts and mostly of red sandstone, in which murmuring streams,

-roaring waterfalls, and the song of snow-buntings formed an agreeable

-change from the silence of the desert of snow. Four days' hard labouring

-through this brought him on the 4th of July to Independence Bay on the

-north-east coast, where from Navy Cliff, nearly four thousand feet high,

-he looked across to Academy Land on the other side of the bay and beyond

-it over the region leading down to the farthest north of the Duke of

-Orleans. "It was almost impossible," he says, "to believe that we were

-standing upon the northern shore of Greenland as we gazed from the

-summit of this bronze cliff, with the most brilliant sunshine all about

-us, with yellow poppies growing between the rocks around our feet, and a

-herd of muskoxen in the valley behind us. Down in that valley I had

-found an old friend, a dandelion in bloom, and had seen the bullet-like

-flight and heard the energetic buzz of the humble-bee."

-

-[Illustration: R. E. Peary, U. S. N.]

-

-Next year he and his wife were out again to take up their quarters at a

-house they built at Bowdoin Bay, where, in September, their daughter was

-born. In March, 1894, he started for another journey across Greenland,

-with twelve sledges and over ninety dogs, but severe weather drove him

-back after travelling some two hundred miles. Staying over that winter

-instead of returning in the _Falcon_, he set out in the spring, and

-under almost desperate circumstances managed to reach and return from

-Independence Bay.

-

-Following this came his expedition of 1898, in which he spent four

-winters in the Arctic regions and almost met with Petersen's fate by a

-venturesome winter sledge journey, which resulted in the freezing of his

-feet and the loss of eight of his toes. Travelling in Grinnell Land he

-proved beyond doubt that it was continuous with Ellesmere Land, as had

-been admitted by those who named it. Following Lockwood's track, he

-continued it up to 83° 54´, along Hazen Land, practically completing the

-coast-line to Cape Henry Parish, its furthest east, thus rounding the

-north of the Greenland archipelago, and even there finding traces of

-Eskimos and a fauna similar to that of other Arctic lands hundreds of

-miles further south. And striking northwards over the sea from Cape

-Hecla, with seven men and six dog-sledges, into the breaking, drifting

-pack, he made a dash for the Pole which ended at 84° 17´.

-

-His next northern venture, though not more remarkable, is destined,

-perhaps, to be remembered longer. On it he sighted the new land away out

-in the sea north-west of Grinnell Land, nearer to the Pole than any

-other land discovered up to then, and where it was expected to be. And

-out over the ice he went to eclipse his 1902 record by nearly two

-hundred miles, in the best planned of all his journeys.

-

-In July, 1905, he had left New York in the _Roosevelt_, a steamship of

-over six hundred tons and more than a thousand horse-power, rigged

-complete as a three-masted coasting schooner, able to hold her own

-almost anywhere in the event of her engines becoming useless. One

-hundred and eighty-two feet in length, thirty-five and a half in beam,

-and sixteen and a quarter in depth; sharp in the bow and rounded

-amidships; treble in framing and double in planking, with sides thirty

-inches thick, twelve feet of deadwood in her bow, and six feet of false

-keels and kelsons, she was specially built for the expedition as the

-strongest and most powerful vessel ever sent on Arctic service, and was

-launched on the 23rd of May, 1905, Mrs. Peary naming her by smashing a

-block of ice against her ironclad stem.

-

-A month out from New York, the _Roosevelt_ left Etah laden deep with

-coal from the _Eric_ that had awaited her there, and having on board

-over fifty Eskimos, of both sexes and all sizes, and some two hundred

-Eskimo dogs. Leaving a reserve of provisions at Bache Peninsula, she

-worked up through open water and occasional ice to Richardson Bay, where

-the pack looked so threatening that Peary literally rammed his way

-across to the eastern side, and so continued northwards. When off Cape

-Lupton the ship received such rough treatment that the rudder was

-twisted and the head-bands and tiller-rods broken, as she ground along

-the face of the ice-foot "with a motion and noise like that of a

-railway-car which has left the rails"; but this was the only time she

-was in serious danger during her most fortunate run. Resting for six

-days in Newman Bay to repair damages and make ready for a final effort,

-she was headed westward to Grinnell Land through the floes, and after a

-continuous battle of thirty-five hours, reached the ice-foot at Cape

-Sheridan, a little north of the old winter quarters of the _Alert_, and

-found her wintering place, like her, just as the Polar pack closed in

-against the shore. The endeavour had been to lay up in Porter Bay,

-twenty-seven miles further north, but the state of the ice made this

-impossible.

-

-Provisions were plentiful, as no less than two hundred and fifty musk

-oxen had been shot by the 1st of November, and there were numbers of

-hares and several herds of the white reindeer first mentioned by Hudson

-in his second voyage three hundred years ago. During the very mild

-winter eighty of the dogs died, and when sledging began only twenty

-teams of six each were available. The plan of the northern advance over

-the ice was to divide it into sections of about fifty miles each, with

-snow houses at each station, the nearest station being supplied from the

-base and supplying the next, and so on, thus keeping up an unbroken line

-of communication gradually extending nearer to the Pole, the sledges

-working backwards and forwards, outwards laden and inwards empty,

-between station and station along the line.

-

-The land was left at Point Moss, north-west of Cape Joseph Henry. At 84°

-38´ a lead in the pack stopped the way for six days until the young ice

-was thick enough to bear, and forty miles further north the vanguard

-drifted east some seventy miles during a storm for another six days. On

-the 20th of April a region of much open water was reached, and from

-midnight to noon next day the last effort was made by Peary, Henson, and

-a small party of Eskimos, the farthest north, 87° 6´, being attained and

-immediately left in a rapid retreat for safety.

-

-Thus Peary went nearer to the Pole than Cagni by thirty-two minutes or

-thirty-seven statute miles, both being stopped by water with apparently

-similar conditions ahead of them. What the conditions may be along the

-intervening two hundred miles from Peary's farthest nobody knows; but

-although a good many things may happen between London and York, which is

-about the same distance, there is good reason for supposing that, even

-if there be land somewhere, the road is over a sea more or less packed

-with ice which is never without its channels.

-

-One thing is clear: the attainment of the Pole is a matter of money.

-Given the funds, the men and the dogs, and the ships, boats, sledges,

-and other things will be forthcoming, and the journey accomplished, not

-by a rush, but on some systematic station-to-station plan; though it is

-not impossible that it may be done by chance in some exceptional year,

-for the climate of the north is variable and has a wider range of

-temperature than that of Britain in its good years and its bad years.

-

-Let us hope there may be land at the exact spot, for then the position

-can be checked at leisure, and there will be no doubt of its having been

-reached. Joseph Moxon, Hydrographer to the King, in 1652 met at

-Amsterdam a sailor of a Greenland ship which "went not out to fish that

-summer, but only to take in the lading of the whole fleet to bring it to

-an early market"—in other words, to act as a carrier—which ship, before

-the whaling fleet had caught enough to lade her, had by order of the

-Company sailed to the North Pole and back again, and even two degrees

-beyond it; no land seen, no ice, and the weather as it was in

-summer-time at Amsterdam.

-

-A sailor's yarn told in a tavern? Only this and nothing more, perhaps;

-though a good many things were kept dark in the whaling trade as in

-other trades. But if there had been an island at the Pole we might

-eventually have been able to verify that ancient mariner's tale.

-

-

-

-

-                                 INDEX

-

-

- Abruzzi, Duke of, The, 76

-

- Academy Land, 281

-

- Actinia Haven, 87

-

- _Advance_, The, 183, 236

-

- _Aid_, The, 218, 219

-

- Akaitcho, 150, 156, 160

-

- Alaska, 134

-

- Aldrich, Pelham, 255

-

- _Alert_, H.M.S., 248, 278

-

- _Alexander_, The, 179

-

- Alexander, Cape, 234, 235

-

- Alexandra Land, 75

-

- _Alexandria_, H.M.S., 179

-

- Alfred Ernest, Cape, 257

-

- Ameralik Fiord, 261

-

- America, The Norse discovery of, 3

-

- Amundsen, Roald, 178, 214

-

- _Ancylonema nordenskioeldii_, 264

-

- Anderson Falls, The, 163

-

- Andrée, S. A., 104

-

- Anjou, P. F., 108

-

- _Ann Frances_, The, 220

-

- Antelope, 126

-

- Archangel, 6

-

- Archer, Colin, 91

-

- Archer Fiord, 250, 257

-

- Archer, R., 257

-

- _Arctic_, The, 247

-

- Arctic Search Expedition, The first, 7

-

- _Assistance_, H.M.S., 183, 184

-

- Atlassof, 128

-

- Augustus the Eskimo, 157, 159, 160

-

- Auk, Cape, 69

-

- Auleitsivik Fiord, 263

-

- Aurora Borealis, The, 67

-

- Austin, Horatio, 183

-

- Austria Sound, 68

-

- Avigait, 264

-

-

- Baal's River, 260

-

- Back, George, 38, 149, 151, 156, 160, 203

-

- Baden-Powell, Sir George, 105

-

- Baffin, William, 15, 233

-

- Baffin Land, 233

-

- Banks Land, 172, 176, 182

-

- Baranoff Cape, 85

-

- Barents Bay, 49

-

- Barents, Willem, 9, 49

-

- Barnacle Goose, The, 12

-

- Barren Grounds, The, 156, 159

-

- Barrington, The Hon. Daines, 29

-

- Barrow Point, 137, 167, 273

-

- Barrow, Sir John, 178

-

- Barrow Strait, 180

-

- Bathurst Island, 180, 206

-

- Bear, Black, 110

-

- Bear Island, 12

-

- Bear, Polar, 11, 12, 23, 27, 28, 52, 73, 74, 88, 99, 186, 238, 267

-

- _Bear_, The, 278

-

- Beaufort Sea, The, 173

-

- Beaumont, Lewis Anthony, 257

-

- Beechey, Cape, 159

-

- Beechey, Frederick William, 35, 137

-

- Beechey Island, 180, 183, 186, 206

-

- Belanger, 151

-

- Belcher, Edward, 184

-

- Bellot, Joseph René, 183, 207

-

- Bellot Strait, 197

-

- Bennet, Stephen, 12

-

- Bennett Island, 107, 117, 126

-

- Bering Strait, 85, 127

-

- Bering, Veit, 130

-

- Berry, Captain, 141

-

- Bessels, Emil, 245

-

- Best, George, 220

-

- Best's Bulwark, 219

-

- Bille, Cape, 262

-

- Bird Cape, 12

-

- Birds, 12, 88, 113, 114, 141, 160, 172, 181, 228, 239, 258, 280

-

- Bismarck, Cape, 268

-

- Bjarni discovers America, 2

-

- Bjelkof Island, 107

-

- _Blossom_, H.M.S., 137

-

- Boat Extreme, 167

-

- Bolscheretzkoi, 131

-

- _Bona Confidentia_, The, 5

-

- _Bona Esperanza_, The, 5

-

- Booth, Felix, 194

-

- Boothia, 190

-

- Borough, Steven, 6

-

- Borough, William, 8

-

- Bosekop, 273

-

- Bounty Cape, 180

-

- Bowdoin Bay, 281

-

- Bowen, Port, 193

-

- Bradley, Thomas, 4

-

- Brainard, D. L., 276

-

- Brattelid, 261

-

- Brentford Bay, 197, 207

-

- British Channel, 75, 99

-

- Brorok, Cape, 82

-

- Brown, Robert, 265

-

- Brunel, Olivier, 9

-

- Brunn, Mount, 71

-

- Buchan, David, 33, 157

-

- Buchan Island, 211

-

- Buddington, J. M., 245

-

- Bulun, 124

-

- Bunge, A., 126

-

- Burrough Strait, 7

-

- Bush, Henry, 129

-

- Butcher's Island, 217

-

- Byam Martin Island, 180

-

- Bylot, Robert, 233

-

-

- Cabot, Sebastian, 4, 5

-

- Cagni, Umberto, 77, 284

-

- Cambridge Bay, 177

-

- Camden Bay, 177

-

- _Carcass_, H.M.S., 29

-

- Carlsen, Elling, 44, 58

-

- Carlsen, Olaf, 65

-

- _Castor_, The (boat), 166

-

- Castor and Pollux River, 169, 208

-

- Cathay Company, The, 218

-

- Catherine, The Empress, 130

-

- Cator, Lieutenant, 183

-

- Cavendish thermometer, The, 30

-

- Chamisso Island, 138

-

- Chancellor, Richard, 5

-

- Char, 44, 258

-

- Charing Cross, 220

-

- Charles's Foreland, Prince, 14

-

- Chelagskoi, Cape, 108

-

- Chelyuskin, Cape, 84

-

- Cherie Island, 12

-

- Chippewyan, Fort, 147, 152, 166

-

- Christian Land, King, 185

-

- Chukches, The, 89, 115, 127

-

- Chvoinof, 106

-

- Clavering Island, 268

-

- Clerke, Charles, 136

-

- _Clio borealis_, 268

-

- Coal, 45, 249, 258

-

- Collinson, Richard, 171, 175

-

- Columbia, Cape, 257

-

- Columbus visits Iceland, 3

-

- Colwell, J. C., 279

-

- Commander Islands, The, 135

-

- Conferences, The Polar, 273

-

- Confidence, Fort, 167

-

- Conger, Fort, 273

-

- Constitution, Cape, 236

-

- Conway, William Martin, 47

-

- Cook, James, 90, 136

-

- Cookery-of-Haarlem, 25

-

- Coppermine River, 147, 153, 159, 167

-

- Cornwall, North, 185

-

- Cornwallis Island, 180, 206

-

- Coronation Gulf, 155

-

- Countess of Warwick Island, 219, 222

-

- Crow's Nest, The, 30

-

- Crozier, F. R. M., 205, 212

-

- Cumberland Gulf, 227

-

-

- Dall, W. H., 142

-

- Danes Island, 104

-

- Danish Sound, 185

-

- Davis, John, 9, 223

-

- Davis Strait, 227

-

- Dealy Island, 174, 180

-

- Dease, Peter Warren, 158, 165

-

- Dease River, 158, 159

-

- Dease Strait, 168

-

- Dee, Dr. John, 223

-

- De Haven, Lieutenant, 183

-

- De Long, G. W., 116

-

- Deschnef, 85

-

- Des Vœux, C. F., 212

-

- Devon, North, 180

-

- _Diana_, The, 44

-

- Dickson Harbour, 85, 273

-

- _Discovery_, H.M.S. (Cook), 136

-

- _Discovery_, H.M.S. (Nares), 248

-

- _Discovery_, The (Hudson), 233

-

- Discovery Harbour, 250

-

- Distillation apparatus, The, 30

-

- _Dolphin_, The (boat), 157, 158

-

- Dolphin and Union Strait, 159

-

- _Dorothea_, H.M.S., 33

-

- Dove Bay, 268

-

- Drummond, Thomas, 157, 160

-

- Dudley, Ambrose, 216

-

- Dudley Digges Cape, 234

-

- Durfourth, Captain, 5

-

- Dyer, Cape, 227

-

-

- East Cape, 132

-

- Ebierbing and Tookoolito, 244

-

- Edam, Land of, 268

-

- Edge, Thomas, 15

-

- Edge's Island, 15

-

- _Edward Bonaventure_, The, 5

-

- Egede, Hans, 259

-

- Egede, Paul, 260

-

- _Eira_, The, 72

-

- _Elizabeth_, The, 232

-

- _Ellen_, The, 231

-

- Ellesmere Land, 235, 281

-

- Ellis, John, 225

-

- Elmwood, 103

-

- Elson, Thomas, 137, 159

-

- Elson Bay, 137

-

- _Endeavour_, The (boat), 41

-

- English Chief, 147

-

- Entada bean, The, 44

-

- Enterprise, Fort, 150

-

- _Enterprise_, H.M.S., 171, 175

-

- _Enterprise_, The (boat), 41

-

- _Erebus_, H.M.S., 171, 183, 205

-

- _Eric_, The, 283

-

- Eric the Red, 2, 261

-

- Ermine, 188

-

- Eskimo relics, 277

-

- Eskimos first met with, 217

-

- Eskimos, Migration of the, 3

-

- Eskimos, 3, 139, 140, 145, 152, 154, 157, 158, 159, 167, 168, 176, 192,

-    198, 200, 207, 211, 217, 222, 225, 229, 237, 244, 246, 258, 260,

-    277, 282, 283

-

- Etah, 283

-

- Evensen, Captain, 83

-

- Exeter Sound, 227

-

- _Express_, The, 87

-

-

- _Falcon_, The, 281

-

- Farewell, Cape, 271

-

- Fedotof, 129

-

- Felix Harbour, 197

-

- _Felix_, The, 182

-

- Fern, The first Spitsbergen, 43

-

- Finlay Island, 185

-

- Finlayson Islands, 177

-

- Fish River, The Great, 160, 169

-

- Fishes, 153, 176, 258

-

- FitzJames, James, 212

-

- Fligely, Cape, 70, 76

-

- Floeberg Beach, 250

-

- Flora, Cape, 72, 75, 103

-

- Forsyth, C. C., 183

-

- Fossils, 43, 107, 126, 173, 266

-

- Foulke Harbour, 239

-

- Fox, Arctic, 23, 53

-

- Fox, Black, 144

-

- Fox, Silver-grey, 144

-

- _Fox_, The, 208

-

- _Fram_, The, 91, 185

-

- Franklin, Fort, 158

-

- Franklin, John, 33, 149, 156, 195, 205

-

- Franklin, Lady, 209, 235

-

- Franklin Record, The, 212

-

- Franklin Strait, 206

-

- Franz Josef Fiord, 269

-

- Franz Josef Land, 62, 64

-

- _Fraser_, The, 87

-

- Frazer, Cape, 236

-

- Frederick Jackson Island, 99

-

- Frederiksdal, 271

-

- Frobisher Bay, 216

-

- Frobisher, Martin, 215

-

- Frozen Strait, 190

-

- Fur-seal, The, 135

-

- Fury Beach, 193, 202

-

- Fury and Hecla Strait, 193

-

- _Fury_, H.M.S., 191

-

-

- _Gabriel_, The (Bering), 132

-

- _Gabriel_, (Frobisher), 216, 218

-

- Gabriel Islands, The, 221

-

- Gardiner, Charles, 59

-

- Garry, Fort, 165

-

- _George_, The, 8

-

- _Germania_, The, 267

-

- Gibraltar Bay, Battle of, 58

-

- Giffard, G. A., 255

-

- Gilbert, Adrian, 223, 229

-

- Gilbert, Humphrey, 215, 221

-

- Gilbert Sound, 225

-

- Gjöa, The, 214

-

- Gjöahaven, 214

-

- Glaciers, 16, 46, 68, 189, 242, 237, 244, 264

-

- _Glow-worm_, The, 59

-

- Godfrey, William, 236

-

- Godthaab, 91, 225, 273

-

- Godthaab Fiord, 260

-

- Gore, Graham, 206, 212

-

- Graah, W. A., 266

-

- Graham Island, 185

-

- Greely, A. W., 272

-

- Greenland, 2, 14, 259

-

- Greenland Archipelago, The, 282

-

- Greenland, East, 12

-

- _Greyhound_, The, 10

-

- Griffith Island, 180

-

- Grinnell Land, 236, 277, 281

-

- _Griper_, H.M.S., 179, 202, 267

-

- Gulf Stream, The, 13, 26, 44

-

- Gundersen, Captain, 59

-

- Gunnbiörn discovers Greenland, 2

-

-

- Hakluyt Headland, 14

-

- Hall Basin, 245

-

- Hall, C. F., 213, 222, 244

-

- Hall, Christopher, 216

-

- Hall, James, 233

-

- Hall Island, 68

-

- Hall's Rest, 246

-

- Hamilton, Cape, 174

-

- Hans Hendrik, 237, 245, 249

-

- _Hansa_, The, 267

-

- Hare, 172, 176, 181, 186, 188, 283

-

- Hare Fiord, 186

-

- Hartstene Bay, 241

-

- Hayes, I. I., 237

-

- Hazen, Lake, 277

-

- Hazen Land, 281

-

- Hearne, Samuel, 147

-

- Hecla, Cape, 282

-

- _Hecla_, H.M.S., 40, 179, 191

-

- Hedenström, 107

-

- Heemskerck, Jacob van, 10, 49

-

- Heer, Oswald, 266

-

- Hegemann, Captain, 269

-

- Heiberg Land, Axel, 185

-

- Helluland, 3

-

- Hendon, North, 197

-

- Hendrik, Hans, 237, 245, 249

-

- Hendriksen Sound, 185

-

- Henrietta Island, 107

-

- Henson, C., 284

-

- Hepburn, John, 156, 207

-

- _Herald_, H.M.S., 138

-

- Herald Island, 116, 141

-

- Herschel, Cape, 169, 212

-

- Himkoff, Alexis, 26

-

- Hinlopen Strait, 17

-

- Hobson, W. R., 208, 212

-

- Hohenlohe Island, 68

-

- Hood River, The, 155

-

- Hood, Robert, 149

-

- Hooper, William Hulme, 140

-

- Hope, Fort, 204

-

- _Hope_, The (Young), 75

-

- _Hope_, The (Egede), 260

-

- Howgate, H. W., 274

-

- Hudson Bay, 62

-

- Hudson, Henry, 13, 15, 60

-

- Hudson River, The, 61

-

- Hudson Strait, 4, 62, 221, 232

-

- Hudson's Bay Company, The, 146

-

- Hudson's Touches, 14

-

- Humboldt Glacier, The, 237

-

- Hyaqua shell, The, 145

-

-

- Icebergs, 35, 230, 264

-

- Ice-drill, The, 30

-

- Ice Haven, 49

-

- Iceland, 2

-

- Icy Cape, 136, 137

-

- Igloolik, 193

-

- Igloos, 198, 211

-

- Ikmallik, 200

-

- Independence Bay, 280

-

- Inglefield, E. A., 235

-

- Ingolf lands in Iceland, 2

-

- Insects, 192, 281

-

- International Polar Stations, The, 272

-

- _Intrepid_, H.M.S., 183

-

- _Investigator_, H.M.S., 171

-

- Irkaipii, 89, 136

-

- Irving, John, 212, 213

-

- _Isabel_, The, 235

-

- Isabella, Cape, 235

-

- _Isabella_, The, 179, 202

-

- Isachsen, Cape, 186

-

- _Isbjörn_, The, 64

-

-

- Jackman, Charles, 8, 60

-

- Jackson, Frederick G., 75, 103

-

- Jakobshavn, 266, 280

-

- Jan Mayen, 14, 273

-

- Japanese, The, 129, 133

-

- _Jason_, The, 261

-

- _Jeannette_, The, 91, 116, 141

-

- Jeannette Island, 107

-

- Jenkinson, Anthony, 7, 215

-

- Jesup Land, 185

-

- Joe and Hannah, 244

-

- Johansen, F. H., 96

-

- _John_, The, 196

-

- Jones Sound, 234

-

- Joseph Henry, Cape, 284

-

- Journal, The, introduced, 5

-

- _Judith_, The, 219

-

- Julianehaab, 266

-

-

- Kalutunah, 237

-

- Kamchatka, 129

-

- Kane, E. K., 236

-

- Kane Sea, The, 235

-

- Kara Sea, The, 7

-

- Karmakul Bay, 273

-

- Kay, E. C. Lister, 59

-

- Kellett, Henry, 138, 174, 184

-

- Kendall, E. N., 156

-

- Kennedy Channel, 236

-

- Kennedy, Port, 211

-

- Kennedy, William, 183, 207

-

- King, Richard, 160

-

- Kingua, 273

-

- King William Land, 163, 214

-

- _Kite_, The, 280

-

- Knight, John, 146

-

- Kod-lun-arn, 223

-

- Kola, 9, 12, 57

-

- Koldewey, Karl, 267

-

- Kolguiev, 8

-

- Kolyuchin Bay, 90

-

- Kompakova, The, 129

-

- Kotelnoi Island, 106, 117

-

- Kraechoj, 127

-

- _Krusenstern_, The, 196

-

- Kruzof Island, 134

-

- Ku Mark Surka, 122

-

- Kuriles, The, 133

-

- Kutchins, The, 145

-

-

- Labrador, Discovery of, 4

-

- Labrets, 145

-

- Lady Franklin, 183

-

- Lady Franklin Bay, 250, 272

-

- Lambert Land, 268

-

- Lamont, James, 44

-

- Lancaster Sound, 179, 180, 234

-

- Lands Lokk, 186

-

- Laptef, Dmitri, 85

-

- Laptef, Khariton, 84

-

- Leif lands in America, 3

-

- Lemming, 188

-

- _Lena_, The, 87

-

- Lena Delta, The, 106

-

- Liakhoff, 89, 106

-

- Liakhoff Island, 89, 126

-

- Lichens, 156

-

- Lifeboat Cove, 247

-

- Linschoten, Van, 10

-

- _Lion_, The (boat), 157, 158

-

- Little Table Island, 41

-

- Lock, Michael, 61, 216

-

- Lockwood, James B., 272, 275

-

- Lockwood Island, 276

-

- Log, The, introduced, 5

-

- Long, G. W. De, 116

-

- Long, Thomas, 141

-

- Loschkin, S., 62

-

- Louis Napoleon, Cape, 235

-

- Ludlow, 62

-

- Lunar at sea, The first, 17

-

- Lundstrom, 85

-

- Lütke, 63

-

- Lutwidge, Skeffington, 29

-

- Lyon, George Francis, 191, 202

-

-

- Mackenzie, Alexander, 147

-

- Mackenzie River, Discovery of, 148

-

- Macintoshes, The first, 157

-

- M'Clintock, F. L., 184, 208, 248, 268

-

- M'Clintock, Cape, 99

-

- M'Clure, Robert Le M., 171, 177

-

- McCormick Bay, 280

-

- McKay, James, 161

-

- _Magnet_, The (boat), 204

-

- Magnetic North Pole, 214

-

- Mahlemut labret, The, 145

-

- Mammals, Fossil, 126

-

- Mammoth, 107, 115, 126

-

- Markham, A. H., 247, 249

-

- Markland, 3

-

- Marten skins, 144

-

- Martens, F., 25

-

- Mary Harmsworth, Cape, 75

-

- _Mary Margaret_, The, 15

-

- Matiuschkin, 108

-

- _Matthew_, The, 4

-

- Matty Island, 201

-

- Matyushin Shar, 60

-

- May, William H., 256

-

- Melville Bay, 234

-

- Melville, G. W., 117

-

- Melville Island, 174, 176, 180

-

- Melville Peninsula, 192, 205

-

- Merchant Adventurers, The, 5

-

- _Mercury_, The, 9

-

- Mercy Bay, 174

-

- _Mermaid_, The, 229

-

- Meta Incognita, 219

-

- _Michael_, The, 216

-

- Middendorf Glacier, The, 68

-

- Middleton, Christopher, 190

-

- Mistaken Streight, 221

-

- Moloi, 106

-

- Montreal Island, 162, 169, 206, 212

-

- Moons, Mock, 151

-

- _Moonshine_, The, 224, 229

-

- Moore, Thomas E. L., 138

-

- Moose-hunting, 144

-

- Moravians, The, 261

-

- Morton, William, 236, 245

-

- Moss, E. L., 254

-

- Moss Point, 284

-

- Mossel Bay, 44, 45, 273

-

- Moxon, Joseph, 285

-

- Murchison, Cape, 197

-

- Murchison River, 208

-

- Muscovy Company, The, 6, 13, 15, 17, 60, 233

-

- Musk ox, 126, 172, 181, 188, 248, 267, 283

-

-

- Nai, Cornelis, 9

-

- _Nancy Dawson_, The, 139

-

- Nansen, Fridtjof, 91, 261

-

- Nares, G. S., 248

-

- Narwhal, 31, 188, 219

-

- Nassau, Cape, 9

-

- Navy Cliff, 280

-

- Nelson, Horatio, 29

-

- _Neptune_, The, 277

-

- Newfoundland, Discovery of, 4

-

- Newman Bay, 283

-

- New Siberian Islands, The, 88, 106

-

- Nindemann, 118

-

- Nordenskiöld, Adolf Erik, 43, 44, 85, 263

-

- Noros, 118

-

- Norsemen discover America, 2

-

- Northbrook Island, 100

-

- North Cape, The, 6, 89, 136

-

- North East Land, 26

-

- North-East Passage, The, 5, 85

-

- Northern Passage, The, 5

-

- _North Pole_, The (boat), 204

-

- North Pole, Magnetic, 214

-

- _North Star_, The, 229

-

- North Water, The, 234

-

- North-West Fur Company, The, 147

-

- North-West Passage, The, 5

-

- Norton Sound, 142

-

- Nova Kholmogory, 9

-

- Novaya Zemlya, 7, 9, 49

-

- Nulato, 142

-

- Ny Herrnhut, 261

-

-

- Obi, The, 85

-

- Observation, Mount, 172

-

- Ochotsk, 129

-

- Ommanney, Erasmus, 183

-

- Omoki, The, 115

-

- Ooligbuck the Eskimo, 157, 158, 168

-

- Oraefa, Mount, 2

-

- Orleans, Duke of, 268

-

- Osborn, Sherard, 183

-

- Ostiaks, The, 115

-

- _Otaria_, The, 105

-

-

- Pachtussoff, 63

-

- _Pandora_, The, 116

-

- Parhelia, 152

-

- Parker Bay, 171

-

- Parr, Alfred A. C., 255

-

- Parry, William Edward, 40, 178, 179, 191, 234

-

- Parry Falls, The, 163

-

- _Patience_, The, 233

-

- Patrick Island, Prince, 174, 184

-

- Pavy, O., 275

-

- Payer, Julius, 64

-

- Peary Channel, 280

-

- Peary, Robert E., 185, 186, 280

-

- Peel Sound, 206

-

- Pellham, Edward, 18

-

- Pelly Bay, 207

-

- Pelly Point, 171

-

- Pendulum Island, 267

-

- Penny Strait, 206

-

- Penny, William, 183

-

- Pet, Arthur, 7, 60

-

- Pet Strait, 8

-

- Peter the Great, 130

-

- Petermann Fiord, 248

-

- Petermann, Mount, 269

-

- Petersen Bay, 214

-

- Petersen, C., 208

-

- Petropaulovsk, 134

-

- Phipps, The Hon. Constantine John, 29

-

- Pim, Bedford, 174

-

- _Pioneer_, H.M.S., 183

-

- Plants, 43, 88, 91, 113, 114, 156, 192, 248, 264, 266, 281

-

- _Plover_, H.M.S., 138

-

- Point Lake, 153

-

- Point Victory, 206

-

- Polar Stations, The International, 272, 273

-

- _Polaris_, The, 245

-

- _Polhem_, The, 44

-

- _Pollux_, The (boat), 166

-

- Poole, Jonas, 13, 15

-

- Porcupine River, The, 142

-

- Pospeloff, 62

-

- Pribylov Islands, The, 135

-

- _Prince Albert_, The, 183, 207

-

- Prince of Wales, Cape, 136

-

- Prince of Wales Strait, 172, 176

-

- _Proeven_, The, 85

-

- Pronchistschef, 85

-

- _Proteus_, The, 274, 278

-

- _Protococcus nivalis_, 192

-

- Prudhoe Land, 234

-

- Pullen, W. J. S., 139

-

-

- Quennerstedt, A., 43

-

-

- _Racehorse_, H.M.S., 29

-

- _Racer_, The, 183

-

- Rae, Fort, 273

-

- Rae, John, 170, 204, 207

-

- Rae Strait, 208, 214

-

- Raleigh, Mount, 227

-

- Rat River, The, 142

-

- _Ravenscraig_, The, 247

-

- Rawlings Bay, 241

-

- Rawson, Wyatt, 257

-

- Red snow, 192

-

- Regent Inlet, Prince, 180

-

- _Regina_, The, 59

-

- Reikjavik founded, 2

-

- Reindeer, 10, 18, 23, 27, 28, 60, 109, 150, 169, 172, 174, 176, 181,

-    188, 267, 283

-

- Reindeer, White, 61, 283

-

- Reliance, Fort, 160

-

- _Reliance_, The (boat), 158

-

- Rensselaer Harbour, 235, 236

-

- Repulse Bay, 191, 204, 207

-

- _Resolute_, H.M.S., 175, 183, 184

-

- _Resolution_, H.M.S., 136

-

- _Resolution_, The (whaler), 31

-

- Return Reef, 159, 166

-

- Rhinoceros, 126

-

- Richardson, John, 149, 156, 170

-

- Richthofen Peak, 71

-

- Rijp, Jan Corneliszoon, 11, 57

-

- Ringnes Islands, The, 185

-

- Ritenbenk, 249

-

- Robeson Channel, 245

-

- Rocky Mountains first crossed, 149

-

- _Rodgers_, The, 141

-

- _Roosevelt_, The, 282

-

- Rosmysslof, 62

-

- Ross, James Clark, 41, 181, 201

-

- Ross, John, 179, 182, 194, 234

-

- Rudolf Island, Prince, 75, 76, 82

-

- Hudson's Point, 14

-

- Russell, Cape, 235

-

- Ryder, Lieut., 266

-

-

- Sabine, Edward, 181, 267

-

- Sabine, Cape, 235

-

- Sable, The, 135

-

- Sagastyr Island, 273

-

- St. Elias, Cape, 134

-

- St. Elias, Mount, 136

-

- St. Lawrence Bay, 141

-

- St. Lawrence Island, 132

-

- _St. Paul_, The, 134

-

- _St. Peter_, The, 134

-

- _Salmo arcturus_, 258

-

- Salmon trout, 176

-

- _Salutation_, The, 18

-

- Samoyeds, The, 10, 115

-

- Sanderson's Hope, 232

-

- Sanderson, William, 224

-

- Sannikof, 107

-

- Schley, Winfield S., 278

-

- Schonau Island, 70

-

- Schwatka, Frederick, 213

-

- Scoresby, William, the elder, 30

-

- Scoresby, William, the younger, 31, 129, 266

-

- Seal, The Fur, 135

-

- Seals, 31, 88

-

- Sea-otter, The, 135

-

- _Searchthrift_, The, 7

-

- Semonovski Island, 117

-

- Serdze Kamen, Cape, 90, 132, 136

-

- Seven Islands, The, 40

-

- Shackleton, Cape, 233

-

- Shantar Islands, The, 130

-

- Sheathing for ships introduced, 5

-

- Shedden, Robert, 139

-

- Sheridan, Cape, 283

-

- Siberia, 84, 106

-

- Siberian Islands, The, 88, 106

-

- Silver Bay, 63

-

- Simmons Peninsula, 188

-

- Simpson, Sir George, 165

-

- Simpson, Thomas, 165

-

- Simpson Strait, 168, 206, 214

-

- Sinclair, George, 166

-

- Sirovatskof, 107

-

- Sitka Sound, 134

-

- Sledges and sledge-work, 184, 252

-

- Smeerenberg, 24

-

- Smith, Benjamin Leigh, 44, 72

-

- Smith Sound, 234, 235

-

- Snow, William Parker, 183

-

- Snow houses, 198, 211

-

- Sodankyla, 273

-

- _Sofia_, The, 44

-

- Somerset House, 202

-

- Somerset, North, 180

-

- Sonntag, August, 242

-

- _Sophia_, The, 183

-

- Spangberg, Martin, 131

-

- Spinks, Robert, 37, 158

-

- Spitsbergen, 12, 15, 16, 18, 24, 104

-

- Steamship, The first Arctic, 194

-

- _Stella Polare_, The, 76

-

- Sterlegof, Cape, 85

-

- Stoat, 188

-

- Stolbovoi, 107

-

- Stuxberg, 85

-

- _Sunshine_, The, 224, 229, 232

-

- Sverdrup, Otto, 104, 185, 261

-

- Svjatoi Nos, 89

-

-

- Tanana, The, 144

-

- Tananas, The, 145

-

- _Tegetthoff_, The, 64

-

- Teplitz Bay, 69, 77

-

- _Terror_, H.M.S., 171, 183, 203, 205

-

- Thaddeus Island, 107, 117

-

- _Thames_, The, 87

-

- Thermometer, The deep-sea, 30

-

- _Thetis_, The, 278

-

- Thirkill, Launcelot, 4

-

- _Thomasine_, The, 16

-

- Thorne, Robert, 5

-

- Tiger, 126

-

- _Tigress_, The, 247

-

- Toll, Baron E., 126

-

- Torell, Otto, 43

-

- _Trent_, H.M.S., 33

-

- Treurenberg Bay, 40

-

- Tripe-de-roche, 156

-

- Tschirikof, Alexei, 131

-

- Tundra, The, 86, 113

-

- Turnagain, Point, 155, 167

-

- Tyndall Glacier, 244

-

-

- Umivik, 262

-

- _Union_, The (boat), 157, 158

-

- _United States_, The, 239

-

- Upernivik, 232

-

-

- _Valorous_, H.M.S., 248

-

- Veer, Gerrit de, 10, 49

-

- _Vega_, The, 87

-

- Victoria, Cape, 211

-

- Victoria Land, 168

-

- Victoria Sea, Queen, 75

-

- Victoria Strait, 206

-

- _Victory_, The, 194

-

- Victory, Point, 212

-

- Vinland, 3

-

- Vlamingh, Willem de, 62

-

- Vrangel', Ferdinand, 108

-

-

- Wager River, 190

-

- Waigatz Island, 7

-

- Wainwright Inlet, 139

-

- Walden Island, 40

-

- Walker Bay, 176

-

- _Walnut Shell_, The (boat), 157, 159

-

- Walrus, 12, 13, 20, 31, 34, 57, 73, 82, 88, 93, 101

-

- Walsingham, Francis, 224, 229, 231

-

- Washington Irving Island, 250

-

- Welden, Captain, 13

-

- Wellington Channel, 180

-

- Wentzel, 150, 151, 154

-

- West England, 220

-

- Weyprecht, K., 64, 272

-

- Whale fishery, The, 15, 17

-

- Whale, Greenland, 14, 15, 31, 265

-

- Whale Island, 148

-

- Whale, White, 88, 148, 188

-

- Whaling trade begins, 15

-

- White Man's Island, 223

-

- White Sea, The, 6

-

- White Shirt, 2

-

- Whymper, Edward, 266

-

- Whymper, Frederick, 142

-

- Wiggins, Joseph, 87

-

- Wijde Bay, 17

-

- Wilberforce Falls, The, 155

-

- Wilczek Island, 66

-

- William Land, King, 163, 214

-

- _William_, The, 8

-

- Willoughby, Sir Hugh, 5

-

- _Windward_, The, 76, 103

-

- Winter Harbour, 174, 181

-

- Winter Island, 192

-

- _Winthont_, The, 10

-

- Wollaston Land, 158

-

- Wolstenholme, Cape, 234

-

- Wolverine, 144

-

- Women Islands, The, 233

-

- Wrangell, Ferdinand Von, 108

-

- Wrangell Island, 116, 141

-

-

- Yakuts, The, 115

-

- Yalmal, 85

-

- Yenesei, The, 85

-

- _Ymer_, The, 87

-

- Young, Allen, 75, 116, 208, 213

-

- Young's Foreland, 14

-

- Yugor Strait, 8

-

- Yukon, Fort, 142, 144

-

- Yukon, The, 142

-

-

-                                PLYMOUTH

-                     WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.

-                                PRINTERS

-

-

-

-

-                          TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

-

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- 1. Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical

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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 52462 ***
+
+                              ROUND ABOUT
+                             THE NORTH POLE
+
+
+[Illustration: "DONE UP"]
+
+                                                            Frontispiece
+
+
+
+
+                              ROUND ABOUT
+                             THE NORTH POLE
+
+
+                            BY W. J. GORDON
+
+                 WITH WOODCUTS AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
+                           BY EDWARD WHYMPER
+
+
+
+
+                                NEW YORK
+                        E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY
+                      31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET
+                                  1907
+
+
+
+
+                       _Printed in Great Britain_
+
+
+
+
+                                PREFACE
+
+
+Among the many books about the Polar regions there is none quite like
+this, dealing with the gradual progress of exploration towards the north
+along the different areas of advance within the Arctic Circle.
+
+The subject is always interesting, for few regions have been the scene
+of more persistent effort and exciting adventure and unexpected gains
+from the unknown, particularly in the earlier days when the endeavour to
+find the northern passages to the east and west led to the beginning of
+our foreign trade.
+
+It is often asked, "What is the use of further Arctic discovery?" No one
+knows. Nor did any one know the use of most discoveries before they were
+made.
+
+When Eric landed in Greenland he was not in search of cryolite for
+aluminium. When Cabral sailed to Porto Seguro he knew nothing of the
+incandescent gas-mantle. When Oersted looped the live wire round the
+magnetic needle he was not bent on founding electrical engineering. And
+when Linnæus noticed the sleep of plants he had no intention of
+providing a substitute for a clock in high latitudes where, though the
+sunshine is continuous during the summer, the plants within the Circle
+sleep as in the night time, their sleeping leaves telling the traveller
+that midnight is at hand.
+
+Men have made up their minds to reach the Pole, and thither they will
+go. What they will find when they get there may not promise to be much,
+but what they have found round about it has been enough to influence
+considerably the history of the world.
+
+                                                                W. J. G.
+
+ _July, 1907._
+
+
+
+
+                                CONTENTS
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+                                               PAGE
+
+                     SPITSBERGEN                  1
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+                     SPITSBERGEN (_continued_)   24
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+                     NOVAYA ZEMLYA               49
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+
+                     FRANZ JOSEF LAND            64
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+
+                     CAPE CHELYUSKIN             84
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VI
+
+                     THE LENA DELTA             106
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII
+
+                     BERING STRAIT              127
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII
+
+                     THE AMERICAN MAINLAND      146
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IX
+
+                     THE PARRY ISLANDS          170
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X
+
+                     BOOTHIA                    190
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XI
+
+                     BAFFIN BAY                 215
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII
+
+                     SMITH SOUND                235
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIII
+
+                     GREENLAND                  259
+
+                     INDEX                      287
+
+
+
+
+                         LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+ "DONE UP"                                                _Frontispiece_
+
+      From Nansen's _First Crossing of Greenland_
+        (Longmans)
+
+                                                            TO FACE PAGE
+
+ THE SUMMIT OF ORAEFA                                                  2
+
+      From a photograph
+
+ COLUMBUS                                                              4
+
+      From the portrait at Versailles
+
+ SAMOYEDS AND THEIR DWELLINGS                                         10
+
+      From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans)
+
+ FRANZ JOSEF FIORD                                                    14
+
+      From a drawing by Lieutenant Julius Payer
+
+ WHALERS AMONG ICEBERGS                                               30
+
+      From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans)
+
+ SIR JOHN FRANKLIN                                                    34
+
+      From _Le Tour du Monde_, 1860 (Hachette)
+
+ TRACK OF H.M.S. "DOROTHEA" AND "TRENT"                               36
+
+      From _A Voyage of Discovery towards the North Pole,
+        performed in His Majesty's Ships "Dorothea" and
+        "Trent," under the command of Capt. David Buchan,
+        R.N., 1818_, by Capt. F. W. Beechey, R.N., F.R.S.
+        (Richard Bentley, 1843.)
+
+ PARRY CAMPED ON THE ICE                                              40
+
+      From Captain Parry's _Narrative_, 1828 (Murray)
+
+ PARRY'S BOATS AMONG THE HUMMOCKS                                     42
+
+      From Captain Parry's _Narrative_, 1828 (Murray)
+
+ HOW OUR SHIP STUCK FAST IN THE ICE                                   50
+
+      From _A True Description_, by Gerrit de Veer
+        (Hakluyt Society, 1853)
+
+ HOW WE NEARLY GOT INTO TROUBLE WITH THE SEA-HORSES                   56
+
+      From _A True Description_, by Gerrit de Veer
+        (Hakluyt Society, 1853)
+
+ ADOLF ERIK NORDENSKIÖLD                                              90
+
+      From a photograph
+
+ FRIDTJOF NANSEN                                                      96
+
+      With autograph. From a photograph supplied by
+        himself
+
+ REINDEER                                                            112
+
+      By permission. From _Short Stalks_, by Edward
+        Buxton (Stanford)
+
+ SAMOYED MAN                                                         114
+
+      From Seebohm's _Siberia in Asia_ (Murray)
+
+ OSTIAK MAN                                                          116
+
+      From Seebohm's _Siberia in Asia_ (Murray)
+
+ THE FACE OF THE FUR SEAL                                            130
+
+      From _The Seal Islands of Alaska_, by Henry W.
+        Elliott (Washington, 1881)
+
+ THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS                                                132
+
+      From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans). From an
+        original Sketch by Frederick Whymper
+
+ DRIVING THE FUR SEAL                                                134
+
+      From _The Seal Islands of Alaska_, by Henry W.
+        Elliott (Washington, 1881)
+
+ FUR SEALS AT SEA                                                    136
+
+      From _The Seal Islands of Alaska_, by Henry W.
+        Elliott (Washington, 1881)
+
+ THE PARKA OF THE ALASKAN INNUITS                                    138
+
+      From Whymper's _Alaska_ (Sampson Low)
+
+ THE FROZEN YUKON                                                    140
+
+      From Whymper's _Alaska_ (Sampson Low)
+
+ ASCENDING THE YUKON                                                 142
+
+      From Whymper's _Alaska_ (Sampson Low)
+
+ MOOSE-HUNTING ON THE YUKON                                          144
+
+      From Whymper's _Alaska_ (Sampson Low)
+
+ MAHLEMUT MAN                                                        146
+
+      From Whymper's _Alaska_ (Sampson Low)
+
+ WINTER TRAVELLING ON THE GREAT SLAVE LAKE                           150
+
+      From Franklin's _Journey to the Polar Sea_, 1819-22
+        (Murray, 1823)
+
+ CROSSING POINT LAKE                                                 152
+
+      From Franklin's _Journey to the Polar Sea, 1819-22_
+        (Murray, 1823)
+
+ KUTCHIN INDIANS                                                     154
+
+      From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans). From an
+        original sketch by Frederick Whymper
+
+ PREPARING AN ENCAMPMENT ON THE BARREN GROUNDS                       156
+
+      From Franklin's _Journey to the Polar Sea, 1819-22_
+        (Murray, 1823)
+
+ SIR JOHN RICHARDSON                                                 158
+
+      With autograph, from a letter in the possession of
+        Edward Whymper
+
+ BACK'S JOURNEY DOWN THE GREAT FISH RIVER                            160
+
+      From Back's _Arctic Land Expedition to the mouth of
+        the Great Fish River in the years 1833, 1834, and
+        1835_ (Murray, 1836)
+
+ SIR WILLIAM EDWARD PARRY                                            170
+
+      With autograph, from a letter in the possession of
+        Edward Whymper
+
+ SIR JOHN BARROW                                                     178
+
+      With autograph
+
+ H.M.S. "HECLA" AND "GRIPER" IN WINTER HARBOUR                       180
+
+      From _A Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west
+        Passage_, by Capt. Parry (Murray, 1821)
+
+ PARRY'S DISCOVERIES ON HIS FIRST VOYAGE                             182
+
+      From _A Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west
+        Passage_, by Captain Parry (Murray, 1821)
+
+ AN IGLOOLIK ESKIMO CARRYING HIS KAYAK                               190
+
+      From Parry's _Second Voyage_ (Murray, 1824)
+
+ PARRY'S FARTHEST ON HIS THIRD VOYAGE                                192
+
+      From Parry's _Third Voyage_ (Murray, 1826)
+
+ THE "VICTORY"                                                       194
+
+      From Sir J. Ross's _Arctic Expedition, 1829-33_
+        (Webster, 1835)
+
+ NORTH HENDON                                                        196
+
+      From Sir J. Ross's _Arctic Expedition, 1829-33_
+        (Webster, 1835)
+
+ ESKIMO LISTENING AT A SEAL-HOLE                                     198
+
+      From Parry's _Second Voyage_ (Murray, 1824)
+
+ H.M.S. "TERROR" LIFTED BY ICE                                       202
+
+      From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans)
+
+ FRACTURED STERN-POST OF H.M.S. "TERROR"                             204
+
+      From Capt. Back's _Narrative, 1838_ (Murray)
+
+ THE "FOX" ESCAPING FROM THE PACK                                    208
+
+      From M'Clintock's _Voyage of the "Fox"_
+
+ THE "FOX" ON A ROCK                                                 210
+
+      From M'Clintock's _Voyage of the "Fox"_
+
+ DISCOVERY OF THE CAIRN                                              212
+
+      From M'Clintock's _Voyage of the "Fox"_
+
+ SIR MARTIN FROBISHER                                                216
+
+      From _The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher_
+        (Hakluyt Society, 1867)
+
+ ESKIMO AWAITING A SEAL                                              222
+
+      From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans)
+
+ A GREENLANDER IN HIS KAYAK                                          224
+
+      From _Le Tour du Monde_, 1868 (Hachette)
+
+ BAFFIN BAY IN 1819                                                  232
+
+      From _A Voyage of Discovery_, by Capt. John Ross
+        (Longmans, 1819)
+
+ DR. E. K. KANE                                                      234
+
+      From the Frontispiece to Kane's _Arctic
+        Explorations_, 1856
+
+ KALUTUNAH                                                           236
+
+      From _Le Tour du Monde_, 1868 (Hachette)
+
+ THE EAST COAST OF SMITH SOUND                                       238
+
+      From Hayes' _Open Polar Sea_ (Sampson Low)
+
+ DR. I. I. HAYES                                                     240
+
+      By permission, from Hayes' _Open Polar Sea_
+
+ THE SHORES OF KENNEDY CHANNEL                                       242
+
+      From Hayes' _Open Polar Sea_
+
+ TYNDALL GLACIER                                                     244
+
+      From Hayes' _Open Polar Sea_
+
+ A SEAL IN DANGER                                                    246
+
+      From Parry's _Second Voyage for the Discovery of a
+        North-west Passage_ (Murray, 1824)
+
+ SIR GEORGE NARES                                                    248
+
+      From a photograph
+
+ SLEDGES USED BY SIR LEOPOLD M'CLINTOCK AND SIR GEORGE               254
+   NARES
+
+      (In the collection of Edward Whymper)
+
+ BISHOP PAUL EGEDE                                                   258
+
+      From the Frontispiece to _Efterretninger om
+        Grönland_ (Copenhagen)
+
+ GREENLANDERS                                                        260
+
+      From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans)
+
+ ON LEVEL GROUND                                                     262
+
+      Nansen's _First Crossing of Greenland_ (Longmans)
+
+ THE ALLAN LINER "SARDINIAN" AMONG ICEBERGS                          264
+
+      From a photograph
+
+ THE "GERMANIA" IN THE ICE                                           266
+
+      From _Le Tour du Monde_, 1874 (Hachette)
+
+ THE REGION ROUND MOUNT PETERMANN                                    268
+
+      From a drawing by Lieutenant Julius Payer
+
+ THE LAST DAYS OF THE "HANSA"                                        270
+
+      From _Le Tour du Monde_, 1874 (Hachette)
+
+ ROBERT E. PEARY                                                     280
+
+      With autograph, from a letter in the possession of
+        Edward Whymper From _Nearest the Pole_, by
+        Commander Peary. By permission of Hutchinson and
+        Co.
+
+
+
+
+                             SECTIONAL MAPS
+
+
+                        1. SPITSBERGEN        12
+
+                        2. CAPE CHELYUSKIN    84
+
+                        3. THE LENA DELTA    106
+
+                        4. BERING STRAIT     128
+
+                        5. THE PARRY ISLANDS 174
+
+                        6. GREENLAND         272
+
+
+
+
+                              ROUND ABOUT
+                             THE NORTH POLE
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+                              SPITSBERGEN
+
+  Iceland—Greenland—America—Sebastian Cabot—Robert Thorne—The
+    North-east Passage—Willoughby—Chancellor—Borough—The North Cape
+    rounded—The White Sea reached—The First Arctic Search
+    Expedition—Pet and Jackman—Brunel—Cornelis Nai—Barents reaches 77°
+    20´—Second voyage of Nai—The Samoyeds—Rijp, Jacob Van Heemskerck
+    and Barents—Bear Island discovered—Spitsbergen discovered—The
+    Dutch reach 79° 49´—Stephen Bennet—Welden—Jonas Poole—Henry Hudson
+    reaches 80° 23´—Poole starts the British whaling trade—Baffin's
+    voyages to Spitsbergen—Pellham winters at Green Harbour.
+
+
+The story of the lands within the Arctic Circle is a record of the brave
+deeds of healthy men. This would seem to be true were we to take the
+story, if we could, back to the days when man followed the retreat of
+the glaciers, as he may in turn have to retreat before them, such a
+condition of things being not beyond the range of probability though it
+may be remote. For the boundaries of the frozen north are not dependent
+on a line of latitude, and have never been the same from period to
+period, or even from year to year. In some cases they have changed
+considerably within the Christian era, and it is evident that the ice is
+not eternal. The fossils declare that the climate round the North Pole
+has varied greatly, and must in comparatively recent ages have been
+comfortably warm, so genial indeed that some people would have us
+believe that men came from there in their last distribution. Not,
+however, with such migrants from the far north do we concern ourselves,
+but with those who have endeavoured to get there in historical times by
+different lines of approach, as we follow the circle round from east to
+west and note the record of each section by itself.
+
+Who was the first to sail to the northern seas we know not. Suffice it
+for us that in 875 Ingolf the jarl, from Norway, refusing to live under
+the sway of Harold Haarfager, sighted Mount Oraefa. As he neared the
+coast, overboard went the carved wood; and where the wood drifted ashore
+he founded Reikjavik. But he was not the first in Iceland, for the Irish
+monastery had been there for years when he arrived, though the monks
+retired to their old country when they found the Norsemen had come to
+stay.
+
+Then the Icelander Gunnbiörn, driven westward in a gale, sighted the
+strange land he called White Shirt from its snowfields, which Eric the
+Red, following a long time afterwards, more happily renamed. "What shall
+we call the land?" he was asked. "Call it Green Land," replied Eric.
+"But it is not always green!" "It matters not: give it a good name and
+people will come to it!"
+
+[Illustration: THE SUMMIT OF ORAEFA]
+
+ From a photo
+
+Then the Norsemen worked further south. In 986 Bjarni sighted what we
+now call America, and in 1000 came the voyage of Leif Ericson, who, on
+his way down the mainland, landing again and again, gave the names to
+Helluland, Markland, Vinland—in short, the Viking discovery of the New
+World.
+
+Greenland, like the eastern coast of the continent, was duly colonised,
+its two chief settlements being one just round Cape Farewell, the other
+further north on the same coast. In those days the island, or chain of
+islands beneath an ice-cap, as many think it is, would appear to have
+had a milder climate than it has now. The colonies throve, their
+population becoming numerous enough to require a series of seventeen
+bishops, the last one dying about 1540, to superintend their spiritual
+welfare. But the Eskimos, in their migration from Asia across the Arctic
+islands, arrived in the country before the middle of the fourteenth
+century and gradually drove the Norsemen downwards, the northern colony
+coming to an end in 1342 owing to the enemy attacking during a
+visitation of the Black Death.
+
+Meanwhile Iceland, which touches the Arctic Circle in its northernmost
+point, and extends but half as far south of it as Greenland, increased
+in prosperity as a sort of aristocratic republic, and produced more
+vernacular literature than any country in Europe, in which, as might be
+expected, the story of Greenland and the American colonies was kept so
+well to the fore that it became as familiar among the people as a
+nursery tale. Thither, from Bristol, in February, 1477, went Columbus;
+and thence it was he returned to seek a patron for his western voyage
+across the Atlantic.
+
+The first voyage of Columbus in 1492 gave a great stimulus to maritime
+discovery, and many were the projects for searching the seas for a new
+route to the east. Of these the most important was that submitted to
+Henry VII by John Cabot, of Bristol. Much has been written, on slender
+and confusing evidence, as to the share in its success due to him and to
+his son, the more famous Sebastian; and, to be brief, we cannot do
+better than follow Anderson, who, in his _Origin of Commerce_,
+ingeniously evades the difficulty by speaking, commercially, of "Cabot
+and Sons." The Bristol firm, then, in 1497 despatched their ship
+_Matthew_ to the westward and discovered and took possession of Labrador
+and the islands and peninsulas in the mouth of the St. Lawrence, the
+district being at first known as the New Found Land, a name afterwards
+restricted to the largest island. And they had their reward, as shown in
+the Privy Purse accounts of Henry VII, where an entry of the 10th
+August, 1497, appears—"To hym that found the new isle, £10." Surely not
+an excessive honorarium for the finding of a continent.
+
+In 1498 another voyage of the same ship by way of Iceland, in which some
+attempt seems to have been made to colonise the newly discovered
+territories, resulted in the discovery of Hudson Strait and a visit to
+Labrador, judging by the finding of the deer in herds, the white bears,
+and the Eskimos who are not known to have ever crossed into the island
+of Newfoundland. This was not the only English vessel to appear in these
+parts at that time, for in the same year the Privy Purse accounts record
+a gift of £30 to Thomas Bradley and Launcelot Thirkill for going to the
+New Isle, adding that Launcelot had already received £20 "as preste" for
+his ship going there.
+
+[Illustration: COLUMBUS]
+
+It is evident that the fisheries were found to be worth working, for no
+less than fifty Spanish, French, and Portuguese ships were engaged in
+them in 1517, the year of Sebastian Cabot's disputed voyage to Hudson
+Bay. Ten years afterwards Robert Thorne, of Bristol, wrote to the King,
+mentioning this voyage and suggesting three sea routes to Cathay—by the
+north-west, as Sebastian had attempted, by the north over the Pole, and
+by the north-east—and, in 1547, when Sebastian returned to England for
+good, after his long service with Spain, he again, as the first Governor
+of the Company of Merchant Adventurers, took up this Cathay question,
+which had frequently been raised, and fitted out, as a commencement, an
+expedition to the north-east.
+
+The ships were built at Bristol specially for the purpose, and they were
+sheathed with lead, the first so treated in this country. This sheathing
+of ships was not the only innovation we owe to the most scientific
+seaman of his time, for in his famous ordinances for the voyage many
+excellent new things are enjoined, including the keeping of a log and
+journal, which date from this expedition. There were three vessels, the
+_Bona Esperanza_, of one hundred and twenty tons, Captain Sir Hugh
+Willoughby; the _Edward Bonaventure_, one hundred and sixty tons,
+Captain Richard Chancellor; and the _Bona Confidentia_, ninety tons,
+Captain Durfourth. In Chancellor's ship, as master, was the best
+navigator of the fleet, whose monumental brass in Chatham Church is
+noteworthy for its epitaph: "Here lieth buried the bodie of Steven
+Borough, who departed this life ye xij day of July in ye yere of our
+Lord 1584, and was borne at Northam in Devonshire ye xxv^{th} of Septemb.
+1525. He in his life time discouered Moscouia, by the Northerne sea
+passage to St. Nicholas, in the yere 1553. At his setting foorth of
+England he was accompanied with two other shippes, Sir Hugh Willobie
+being Admirell of the fleete, who, with all the company of ye said two
+shippes, were frozen to death in Lappia ye same winter. After his
+discouerie of Roosia, and ye Coastes thereto adioyninge—to wit, Lappia,
+Nova Zemla, and the Countrie of Samoyeda, etc.: he frequented ye trade
+to St. Nicholas yearlie, as chief pilot for ye voyage, until he was
+chosen of one of ye foure principall Masters in ordinarie of ye Queen's
+Mat^{ties} royall Nauy, where in he continued in charge of sundrie sea
+services till time of his death."
+
+The ships left in May, but did not remain long together. On the 2nd of
+August Willoughby and Durfourth separated from Chancellor in a storm off
+the Lofodens, and after devious courses, that might have led anywhere,
+were frozen in on the coast of Lapland, where they wintered and died, as
+did all the men with them. Chancellor, having waited at the rendezvous
+in vain, crossed the Arctic Circle, rounded the North Cape—so named by
+Borough—and found his way into the White Sea. While his ship was in
+winter quarters near where Archangel now is, he made a sledge journey to
+the Czar at Moscow, which led to the formation of the Muscovy Company
+and the beginning of England's Russian trade; and through his meeting
+there with the Persian Ambassador came about the mission of Anthony
+Jenkinson to the Shah, which opened up for us the Persian trade. Never
+was a voyage more successful. With it began the foreign commerce of this
+country, and from it dates the rise of our mercantile marine.
+
+In 1556 Borough, in the _Searchthrift_, persevered further east, and,
+passing between Novaya Zemlya and Waigatz Island, through the strait
+that bears his name spelt differently, entered the Kara Sea. Next year
+in the same ship he was given the command of the first Arctic Search
+Expedition, its object being to discover what had become of Willoughby.
+Of one ship, the _Confidentia_, he obtained news in an interview with a
+man who had bought her sails, but the full story of the disastrous end
+of the voyage remained a mystery until the Russians found the ships and
+bodies and Willoughby's journal, and took the ships round to the Dwina.
+Then for the first time did people realise what it meant to battle with
+an Arctic winter without preparation, and many were those who withdrew
+their interest in the frozen north, preferring tropical dangers to the
+possibility of such accumulating miseries as the journal records in due
+order in its matter-of-fact way, its last entry being the terribly
+suggestive—"Unknowen and most wonderful wild beasts assembling in
+fearful numbers about the ships."
+
+With Stephen Borough in the Chancellor voyage was Arthur Pet—or Pett, a
+name not unknown in the navy—who, after two centuries, has become
+notable again through a strange discovery. In search of the much-desired
+passage by the north-east he sailed from Harwich on the 31st of May,
+1580, in the _George_, of forty tons, accompanied by Charles Jackman, in
+the _William_, of twenty tons. His orders were to avoid the open sea and
+keep the coast in sight all the way out on the starboard side, and
+William Borough—Stephen's brother, afterwards Comptroller of the
+Navy—gave him certain instructions and notes.
+
+Arranging with Jackman, whose little vessel sailed badly, to wait for
+him at Waigatz, Pet went ahead and endeavoured to pass through Burrough
+Strait, but meeting with trouble from the ice, missed the passage, and
+working round Waigatz to the south, entered the Kara Sea through Yugor
+Strait, or as it used to be called after him, Pet Strait. Coasting
+eastward with the mainland in sight, he was, as might be expected, much
+hampered by the heavy pack. On being joined by the little _William_ he
+made for the northward, seeking a way to the east, but the "more and
+thicker was the ice so that they could go no further," and, after
+talking the matter over on the 28th of July, Pet and Jackman reluctantly
+decided to return to Waigatz and there decide on what should be done.
+
+Their way back was difficult. They became shut in so that "they could
+not stir, labouring only to defend the ice as it came upon them." For
+one day they were clear of it, but next day, the 16th of August, they
+were encumbered again, though they got out of the trouble by sailing
+between the ice and the shore, which was a new experience. In this way
+they just scraped through Pet Strait, and bore away in the open sea to
+Kolguiev, both vessels grounding for a time on the sands to the south of
+that island. On the 22nd of August, two days afterwards, the _William_
+parted from the _George_ in a dense fog, while Pet brought his ship home
+and dropped anchor at Ratcliff on Boxing Day.
+
+The Dutch had for some time been trying to outstrip the English on this
+route to the far east. In 1565 they had settled at Kola, and about
+thirteen years afterwards had established the factory at the mouth of
+the Dwina on the site of Nova Kholmogory, generally known as Archangel.
+In 1584 Olivier Brunel, their energetic emissary in Russia, sailed on
+the first Dutch Arctic discovery expedition. He tried in vain to pass
+through Pet Strait, and the ship, with a valuable cargo of furs and
+mica, was wrecked on its homeward voyage at the mouth of the Petchora.
+
+Ten years elapsed, and then there sailed from the Texel the expedition
+of Cornelis Nai, in which the _Mercury_, of Amsterdam, was commanded by
+Willem Barents. Barents—really Barentszoon, the son of Bernard—sighted
+Novaya Zemlya, with which his name was to be thenceforth associated, on
+the 4th of July, and coasting along its mighty cliffs, peopled with
+their myriad seabirds, passed Cape Nassau ten days later. Thence
+reaching 77° 20´, and thus improving on John Davis's record for the
+highest north, he struggled through the ice to the Orange Islands and
+back, some twenty-five miles, during which he tacked eighty-one times
+and thereby sailed some seventeen hundred geographical miles. Failing to
+proceed further, he came south, and off Pet Strait—named by the Dutchmen
+Nassau Strait—fell in with the other two ships returning from their
+unsuccessful attempt to cross the Kara Sea.
+
+Next year a fleet of seven vessels under Nai left the Mars Diep on
+another endeavour to get through to China. One of the two chief
+commissioners on board was the famous Van Linschoten, who had been on
+the previous voyage, and the chief pilot was Barents, who was in the
+_Winthont_ (Greyhound) with Jacob van Heemskerck as supercargo. Arriving
+at Pet Strait they found it so blocked with ice that no passage was
+possible, and Barents, in search of information, went ashore on the
+mainland south of the strait and made friends—in a way—with the
+Samoyeds, whose appearance, as described by Gerrit de Veer, was "like
+that of wild men," dressed as they were in deerskins from head to foot,
+those of importance wearing caps of coloured cloth lined with fur; for
+the most part short of stature, with broad flat faces, small eyes, and
+bow legs; their hair worn long, plaited, and hanging down their backs.
+
+They were evidently suspicious of the Dutchmen, who did their best to be
+friendly. The chief had placed sentinels all round to see what the
+new-comers were about and note everything that was bought and sold. One
+of the sentinels was offered a biscuit, which "he with great thanks took
+and ate, and while he ate it he still looked diligently about him on all
+sides, watching what was done." Their reindeer sledges were kept
+ready—"that run so swiftly with one or two men in them that our horses
+were not able to follow them." They were unacquainted with firearms,
+and, when a musket was fired to impress them, "ran and leapt like
+madmen," but calmed down as soon as they saw there was no malicious
+intention, to wonder much more, however, when the man with the gun aimed
+at a flat stone he placed as a mark, and, fortunately, hit and broke it.
+The meeting ended satisfactorily; "after that we took our leaves one of
+the other with great friendship on both sides, and when we were in our
+pinnace we all put off our hats and bowed to them, sounding our trumpet;
+they in their manner saluting us also, and then went to their sledges
+again."
+
+[Illustration: SAMOYEDS AND THEIR DWELLINGS]
+
+Barents was by no means convinced that the strait was impassable, and
+held out against the opinion of the others for some days, but with the
+firm ice stretching round in all directions he had to give in, and on
+the 15th of September the fleet began the voyage home. Much had been
+expected, and the result was so conspicuous a failure that the States
+General abandoned any further attempt at a north-east passage on their
+own account, but decided to offer a reward to any private expedition
+that proved successful. Whereupon the authorities and merchants of
+Amsterdam fitted out two vessels for a third voyage, giving the command
+of one to Jan Corneliszoon Rijp, and that of the other to Jacob van
+Heemskerck, with Barents as chief pilot.
+
+The ships left the Dutch coast on the 18th of May. Four days afterwards
+they were off the Shetlands, going north-east. On the 9th of June they
+discovered an island, on which they landed. Here they saw a prodigious
+white bear, which they went after in a boat, intending to slip a noose
+over her neck, but when they were near her she looked so strong that
+their courage failed, and they returned to the ships to fetch more men,
+and what seems to have been quite an armoury of "muskets, harquebusses,
+halberds and hatchets." Accompanied by another boat they attacked this
+formidable beast for over two hours, one of them getting an axe into her
+back, with which she swam away until she was caught and had her head
+split open by another blow from an axe. From this remarkable bear, whose
+skin, we are told, was twelve feet long, the island was named Bear
+Island.
+
+Continuing northwards they sighted, on the 19th of June, Spitsbergen,
+which they supposed to be Greenland—an error that led to much
+confusion—and on the 21st of June they landed and had another trying
+time with a bear, whose skin proved to be thirteen feet long. On one
+island of the cluster they found the eggs of the barnacle goose,
+_Bernicla leucopsis_, whose nesting ground was up to then unknown, and
+on others they saw reindeer, for in this land "there groweth leaves and
+grass." Returning to Bear Island after attaining 79° 49´, some hundred
+and seventy miles higher north than in 1594, Rijp departed for the north
+again, and, failing to get beyond Bird Cape, went home to Holland by way
+of Kola; and to Kola he came back the year afterwards.
+
+In 1603, following the Dutch, came Stephen Bennet to call Bear Island
+Cherie Island, after his patron, and find the walruses in thousands and
+the birds in millions. A rocky tableland of mountain limestone and
+carboniferous sandstone, with the usual fossils in unusual numbers and a
+few coal seams in between; the ravines faced and floored with fragments
+of every dimension and shape, split off by the frost and weathered by
+wind and rain: a grey, grassless, monotonous country, except along the
+coast, where the guano from the vast numbers of seabirds has coated the
+crannies and ledges of the cliffs, that tower up perhaps four hundred
+feet from the water, with a thin layer of soil in which the scurvy-grass
+and a few other plants thrive amazingly, though the island's complete
+flora contains but forty species—such is Bear Island, the stepping-stone
+to Spitsbergen, of which Jonas Poole took possession in 1609 for the
+Muscovy Company.
+
+[Illustration: SPITSBERGEN]
+
+Lying east of the influence of the Gulf Stream, the range of temperature
+is of the widest. Often the island is unapproachable owing to the ice,
+sometimes it is even now as hot as Welden found it in 1608, when, in
+June, "the pitch did run down the ship's sides, and that side of the
+masts that was to the sun-ward was so hot that the tar did fry out of it
+as though it had boiled." That was a great year for Welden, for he
+killed a thousand walruses in less than seven hours and took a young one
+home with him, "where the king and many honourable personages beheld it
+with admiration, the like whereof had never before been seen alive in
+England."
+
+Poole did much useful work in these seas, but is now little heard of,
+most of the surviving interest in such matters being concentrated on
+Henry Hudson, who was in the same service at the same time. Hudson was,
+perhaps, a grandson of Alderman Henry Hudson, one of the founders of the
+Muscovy Company, but nothing is really known of him beyond his being a
+captain in the Muscovy Company, who, on the 19th of April, 1607, took
+the sacrament at St. Ethelburga's, in Bishopsgate Street, with his son
+and crew "and the rest of the parishioners." That he was a parishioner
+may be true, but that all the ten members of the crew were so is
+unlikely. Anyhow, they were outward bound for Japan and China by way of
+the North Pole, and sailed from Gravesend on the 1st of May.
+
+Where he went is not clear in detail, as his latitudes are seldom
+correct and his longitudes are not recorded. He sighted Greenland north
+of Iceland, and, shouldered off by the ice barrier, left it somewhere
+about Franz Josef Fjord, working easterly by the edge of the ice to
+Spitsbergen. Here he sailed round Prince Charles's Foreland and went
+north, passing Hakluyt Headland, which he named, reaching on the 13th of
+July, 80° 23´, "by observation." He saw many whales, but found his way
+blocked by ice; and after many attempts, assuring himself that there was
+no passage hereabouts to the north, sailed southwards for Bear Island.
+On leaving this he seems to have gone west, possibly to the coast of
+Greenland again, for on his way home he lighted upon Hudson's Touches,
+now known as Jan Mayen Island, the principal cape of which bears the
+name of Hudson's Point—which may be either Hudson's or Rudston's (after
+the Rudston mentioned in Baffin's fourth voyage)—while another is known
+as Young's Foreland, perhaps after the James Young who was the first in
+the ship to sight the coast of Greenland on the outward journey. He
+dropped anchor in the Thames on the 15th of September all well. He had
+not crossed the Pole, nor did he find Spitsbergen stretching up to 82°,
+as he said, its most northerly point being miles further south; but he
+had gone beyond Van Heemskerck's furthest north and found a fishing
+ground for whales and walruses which proved of great commercial value.
+
+[Illustration: FRANZ JOSEF FIORD]
+
+In 1610, Poole, finding that he could not land on Bear Island owing to
+the ice, stood away to the north-west, reached Spitsbergen, and worked
+along the western side to Hakluyt Headland, where the ice barred further
+advance. On his way up and down the coast he gave many of the capes and
+bays the names they still bear, and generally did so well that on his
+return he was put in the place of Hudson, who had left the service two
+years before, and made a sort of special commissioner by the Muscovy
+Company "for certain years upon a stipend certain" to make further
+discoveries round Spitsbergen and to ascertain whether there was an open
+sea further northward than had already been found. In addition to
+searching for the open polar sea, he was to convoy the _Mary Margaret_,
+in which were six Biscayners "expert in the killing of the whale," to
+Bear Island, and thence to Whale Bay in Spitsbergen. In short, Poole was
+to start the British whaling trade, the _Mary Margaret_ being the first
+British vessel to be employed in that lucrative but hazardous
+occupation; and she was under the command of Thomas Edge, whose name is
+borne by Edge's Island.
+
+The beginning was so promising that in 1613, two years afterwards, a
+fleet of seven vessels went out to take part in the fishery and clear
+away the foreigners who had come to share in the good fortune; the
+company claiming the islands on the ground of their purely imaginary
+discovery by Willoughby, the Dutch resting their claim on the real
+discovery by Van Heemskerck. In this fleet as chief pilot was William
+Baffin—his second recorded voyage. By him, who as usual kept his eyes
+open, we have the first description of the Spitsbergen glaciers. He was
+at the time—the 29th of July—in Green Harbour in Ice Fjord. "One thing
+more I observed," he says, "in this harbour which I have thought good
+also to set down. Purposing on a time to walk towards the mountains, I,
+and two more of my company, ascended up a long plain hill, as we
+supposed it to be; but having gone a while upon it, we perceived it to
+be ice. Notwithstanding we proceeded higher up, about the length of half
+a mile, and as we went saw many deep rifts or gutters on the land of
+ice, which were cracked down through to the ground, or, at the least, an
+exceeding great depth; as we might well perceive by hearing the snow
+water run below, as it does oftentimes in a brook whose current is
+somewhat opposed with little stones. But for better satisfaction I brake
+down some pieces of ice with a staff I had in my hand, which in their
+falling made a noise on each side much like to a piece of glass thrown
+down the well within Dover Castle, whereby we did estimate the thickness
+or height of this ice to be thirty fathoms. This huge ice, in my
+opinion, is nothing but snow, which from time to time has for the most
+part been driven off the mountains; and so continuing and increasing all
+the time of winter (which may be counted three-quarters of the year)
+cannot possibly be consumed with the thaw of so short a summer, but is
+only a little dissolved to moisture, whereby it becomes more compact,
+and with the quick succeeding frost is congealed to a firm ice."
+
+Next year he was out again in the _Thomasine_, one of a fleet of
+thirteen vessels, and in endeavouring to pass to the north-east, reached
+Wijde Bay, where at the point of the beach at the entrance he "set up a
+cross and nailed a sixpence thereon with the king's arms," probably the
+neatest property mark in history. Thence he went on to the entrance to
+Hinlopen Strait, completing the journey along the north of the main
+island. It was on this voyage that he endeavoured to find his longitudes
+by observing the moon, for Baffin was the first who attempted to take a
+lunar at sea.
+
+Year by year the fishery increased, and the whale fishers multiplied as
+if the sea were a goldfield, the monopoly being respected until 1618,
+when the Dutch, who had all along prospered more than the rest, proved
+too strong for the English, and a compromise was arrived at by which the
+different harbours were allotted to the different nations for the
+processes necessary in the preparation of the whale products for
+shipment. But it was purely a summer industry. There was no colony, and
+it did not seem as though there would be one, for no man willing to
+winter in the place could be found. Vainly were rewards offered to those
+who would venture. In the north was the ever-present barrier of ice,
+more distant some years than others, but always there to come south and
+hold the islands in its grip when the fishery was over, and those who
+came early and those who stayed late saw enough of the wintry landscape
+to make them doubt if life were possible under such conditions.
+
+Then the idea, not new to Englishmen, that colonies should be started by
+criminals, was acted upon, and the Muscovy Company procured the reprieve
+of a batch of prisoners under sentence of death and landed them in
+Spitsbergen under promise of a free pardon, a handsome reward, and full
+provisions and suitable clothes if they would remain there for a
+continuous twelve months. But, as the ship that brought them was
+preparing to return to London, "they conceived such a horror and inward
+fear in their hearts" that they besought the captain to take them back
+that they might be hanged rather than perish amid such desolation; and
+the captain "being a pitiful and a merciful gentleman, would not by
+force constrain them to stay," and brought them home again, when the
+company—who could do no less—procured them a pardon. One captain—of a
+different disposition—had left nine men behind him, all of whom perished
+miserably; and another, in 1630, left eight others, apparently through
+causes beyond his control, whose adventure was to form one of the most
+interesting episodes in Arctic story.
+
+It was on the 15th of August in that year that the _Salutation_ sent
+Edward Pellham and his seven companions ashore to kill reindeer for the
+ship's provisions on her voyage home. Taking with them two dogs, a
+snap-hance, two lances, and a tinder-box, they landed near Black Point,
+between Green Harbour and Bell Sound, and, "laying fourteen tall and
+nimble deer along," camped for the night. During the night the weather
+changed and brought in the ice between the shore and the ship, and in
+the morning the ship had gone. The boat's crew made for Green Harbour,
+thinking she would put in there to pick them up, but she failed to
+appear, being due to leave the country in three days, and after a
+fruitless attempt to catch her at Bell Sound, they eventually took up
+their quarters there on the 3rd of September.
+
+Here was one of the so-called tents of the whale-fishers. "This," says
+Pellham, "which we call the tent, was a kind of house built of timber
+and boards very substantially, and covered with Flemish tiles, by the
+men of which nation it had in the time of their trading thither been
+built. Four-score foot long it is and in breadth fifty. The use of it
+was for the coopers, employed for the service of the company, to work,
+lodge, and live in, all the while they make casks for the putting up of
+the train oil." As this was too large for their comfort, they very
+sensibly built another within it. "Taking down another lesser tent
+therefore (built for the landmen hard by the other, wherein they lay
+whilst they made their oil), from thence we fetched our materials. That
+tent furnished us with one hundred and fifty deal boards, besides posts
+or stanchions and rafters. From three chimneys of the furnaces wherein
+they used to boil their oil, we brought a thousand bricks: there also
+found we three hogsheads of very fine lime, of which stuff we also
+fetched another hogshead from Bottle Cove, on the other side of the
+sound, some three leagues distant. Mingling this lime with the sand of
+the sea-shore, we made very excellent good morter for the laying of our
+bricks: falling to work thereon, the weather was so extreme cold as that
+we were fain to make two fires to keep our morter from freezing. William
+Fakely and myself, undertaking the masonry, began to raise a wall of one
+brick thickness against the inner planks of the side of the tent. Whilst
+we were laying of these bricks, the rest of our company were otherwise
+employed every one of them: some in taking them down, others in making
+of them clean and in bringing them in baskets into the tent. Some in
+making morter, and hewing of boards to build the other side withal, and
+two others all the while in flaying of our venison. And thus, having
+built the two outermost sides of the tent with bricks and morter, and
+our bricks now almost spent, we were enforced to build the two other
+sides with boards; and that in this manner. First we nailed our deal
+boards on one side of the post or stanchion to the thickness of one
+foot: and on the other side in like manner: and so filling up the hollow
+place with sand, it became so tight and warm as not the least breath of
+air could possibly annoy us. Our chimney's vent was into the greater
+tent, being the breadth of one deal board and four foot long. The length
+of this our tent was twenty foot and the breadth sixteen; the height
+ten; our ceiling being deal boards five or six times double, the middle
+of one joining so close to the shut of the other that no wind could
+possibly get between. As for our door, besides our making it so close as
+possibly it could shut; we lined it moreover with a bed that we found
+lying there, which came over both the opening and the shutting of it. As
+for windows, we made none at all, so that our light we brought in
+through the greater tent, by removing two or three tiles in the eaves,
+which light came to us through the vent of our chimney. Our next work
+was to set up four cabins, billeting ourselves two and two in a cabin.
+Our beds were the deer skins dried, which we found to be extraordinary
+warm, and a very comfortable kind of lodging to us in our distress."
+
+For fuel they knocked to pieces seven old boats left ashore by the
+ships, storing the wood over the beams of the tent so as to make a sort
+of floor protecting the interior from snow driven in under the tiles,
+and, in addition, they broke up a number of empty casks. To make the
+wood last as long as possible they hit upon a device for keeping the
+fire in—"when we raked up our fire at night, with a good quantity of
+ashes and of embers, we put into the midst of it a piece of elm wood,
+where, after it had lain sixteen hours, we at our opening of it found
+great store of fire upon it, whereupon we made a common practice of it
+ever after: it never went out in eight months together, or thereabouts."
+
+Upon the 12th of September a small quantity of drift ice came into the
+sound, on a piece of which they found two walruses asleep, when "William
+Fakely being ready with his harping iron, heaved it so strongly into the
+old one that he quite disturbed her of her rest: after which, she,
+receiving five or six thrusts with our lances, fell into a sounder sleep
+of death." The young one, refusing to leave her mother, was also killed;
+and a week afterwards another walrus fell a victim; but even with these
+the store of provisions was inadequate. To make the food last, they put
+themselves on an allowance of one good meal a day, except on Wednesdays
+and Fridays which were fasting days devoted to whale sundries—"a very
+loathsome meat," says Pellham, in brackets—later on, for four days in
+the week they fed upon "the unsavoury and mouldy fritters, and the other
+three we feasted it with bear and venison." "But," continues the
+narrative, "as if it were not enough for us to want meat, we now began
+to want light also; all our meals proved suppers now, for little light
+could we see; even the glorious sun (as if unwilling to behold our
+miseries) masking his lovely face from us, under the sable veil of
+coal-black night."But they were equal to the emergency. "At the
+beginning of this darksome, irksome time, we sought some means of
+preserving light amongst us; finding therefore a piece of sheet lead
+over a seam of one of the coolers, that we ripped off and made three
+lamps of it, which, maintaining with oil that we found in the coopers'
+tent, and rope-yarn serving us instead of candle-wicks, we kept them
+continually burning."
+
+Cheerful and resourceful as they were, their fits of depression were not
+infrequent. "Our extremities being so many, made us sometimes in
+impatient speeches to break forth against the causers of our miseries;
+but then again, our consciences telling us of our own evil deservings,
+we took it either for a punishment upon us for our former wicked lives;
+or else for an example of God's mercy in our wonderful deliverance:
+humbling ourselves therefore, under the mighty hand of God, we cast down
+ourselves before him in prayer, two or three times a day, which course
+we constantly held all the time of our misery."
+
+Their prospects got worse, but they never lost a little hope. "The new
+year now began: as the days began to lengthen, so the cold began to
+strengthen; which cold came at last to that extremity, as that it would
+raise blisters on our flesh, as if we had been burnt with fire, and if
+we touched iron at any time it would stick to our fingers like
+bird-lime: sometimes if we went but out of doors to fetch in a little
+water, the cold would nip us in such a sort that it made us as sore as
+if we had been beaten in some cruel manner."
+
+Provisions were running low; the men began to talk of famine, and the
+outlook became daily gloomier until the 3rd of February. "This proved a
+marvellous cold day; yet a fair and clear one; about the middle whereof,
+all clouds now quite dispersed and night's sable curtain drawn, Aurora
+with her golden face smiled once again upon us, at her rising out of her
+bed; for now the glorious sun with his glittering beams began to gild
+the highest tops of the lofty mountains. The brightness of the sun and
+the whiteness of the snow, both together, were such as that it was able
+to revive even a dying spirit. But to make a new addition to our new
+joy, we might perceive two bears (a she one with her cub) now coming
+towards our tent; whereupon we, straight arming ourselves with our
+lances, issued out of the tent to await her coming. She soon cast her
+greedy eyes upon us, and with full hopes of devouring us she made the
+more haste unto us; but with our hearty lances we gave her such a
+welcome as that she fell down and biting the very snow for anger."
+
+Then more bears came to be eaten; then the birds began to arrive, and
+the foxes to come out of their winter earths to be trapped to the number
+of fifty; then the reindeer returned; and then, on the 25th May, two
+ships of Hull came into the sound from which a boat's crew landing
+unperceived came close up to the tent and shouted "Hey!" And Ayers, the
+only man at the moment in the outer tent, shouted "Ho!"—and Pellham and
+his shipmates had proved it to be possible to live through a winter in
+Spitsbergen.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+                              SPITSBERGEN
+
+                             (_continued_)
+
+  The summer town of Smeerenberg—Himkoff winters in North East
+    Land—Phipps reaches 80° 48´—Scoresby the elder reaches 81°
+    30´—Scoresby the younger—Voyage of the _Dorothea_ and _Trent_
+    under Buchan and Franklin—Parry reaches 82° 45´—Torell and
+    Nordenskiöld—Carlsen sails round Spitsbergen—Swedish North Polar
+    expedition under Nordenskiöld—Lamont—The Diana coal mine—Leigh
+    Smith—Conway.
+
+
+This wintering of the _Salutation_ men occurred when the Spitsbergen
+fisheries were most flourishing, the prosperity continuing for seven
+more years. So lucrative was the trade that on Amsterdam Island under
+Hakluyt Headland, within fifteen miles of 80° north latitude, about as
+far from the North Pole as St. Malo is from John o' Groat's, there
+sprang up as a summer resort the Dutch village of Smeerenberg. Such was
+the bustle produced by the yearly visit of two or three hundred
+double-manned vessels, containing from twelve thousand to eighteen
+thousand men, that this village of the farthest north was as busy as a
+manufacturing town. The incitement of prices proportionate to the
+latitude attracted hundreds of annual settlers, who throve on the sale
+of brandy, wine, tobacco, and sundries to the whale-fishers in shops of
+all varieties, including bakehouses, where the blowing of a horn let the
+sailors know that the bread had just been drawn hot from the oven. In
+fact, hot rolls and every delicacy could be had in Smeerenberg, which
+the Dutch averred was as flourishing as Batavia, founded by them a few
+years before. And when winter was just about due every man—and
+woman—went back to Holland. But the life of Smeerenberg was a short and
+a merry one, for in 1640 the shore fisheries were failing, and a year or
+so afterwards the lingerers of its last season left it for good,
+clearing out from its houses of brick and wood, demolishing its
+furnaces, removing its copper cauldrons and coolers and casks and
+everything that could be taken away, and leaving it in desolation to be
+occupied in the next and subsequent summers by polar bears.
+
+Like all seaside resorts it had its rival. Close by is the
+Cookery-of-Haarlem, abandoned at the same time, but rather more
+hurriedly. When Martens went there on the 15th of July, 1671, he found
+four houses still standing, in one of which were "several barrels or
+kardels that were quite decayed, the ice standing in the same shape the
+vessels had been made of: an anvil, smith's tongs, and other tools
+belonging to the cookery, were frozen up in the ice; the kettle was
+still standing as it was set, and the wooden troughs stood by it."
+Behind these houses "are high mountains," he continues, "if one climbeth
+upon these, as we do on others, and doth not mark every step with chalk,
+one doth not know how to get down again: when you go up you think it to
+be very easy to be down; but when you descend it is very difficult and
+dangerous, so that many have fallen and lost their lives." Absurd as
+this chalking of the steps may seem, there have been many who have taken
+the hint from the careful Martens when climbing in Spitsbergen, and many
+who have regretted not having done so.
+
+In ordinary summers the west side of Spitsbergen is clear of ice, not so
+the eastern side, the difference being due to the Gulf Stream, which,
+though evidently failing, is traceable along the coast round Hakluyt
+Headland and up to the ice barrier. In addition to this there is the
+general cause, whatever it may be, which makes the western coasts of all
+Arctic lands, isolated or not, warmer than the eastern. Greenland, for
+instance, is more approachable in summer from Davis Strait than from the
+Greenland Sea, Novaya Zemlya from Barents Sea than from Kara Sea, and so
+on with all the islands and peninsulas of Asia and America. Hence all
+this whaling was confined practically to the western harbours of West
+Spitsbergen, the largest of the group of islands. The next largest,
+North East Land, was never much visited except from Hinlopen Strait,
+though the Russians from time to time took some interest in the north
+and east harbours, and would have taken more, for it abounded in
+reindeer, if the ice had not made the landing an enterprise of some
+difficulty.
+
+On the east coast of North East Land, in 1743, a Russian whaler was
+caught in the pack, and the mate, Alexis Himkoff, remembering that a
+house had been built there some years before, went on shore with his
+godson, Ivan Himkoff, and two sailors, Scharapoff and Weregin, in search
+of it, in case the ship should have to be abandoned. They found the
+house, but, on returning to the shore next morning, could see nothing of
+the ship, which had apparently been carried away and crushed in the ice.
+They had brought with them a musket, a powder-horn with twelve charges
+of powder, twelve bullets, an axe, a small kettle, a bag with about
+twenty pounds of flour, a knife, a tinder-box and tinder, a bladder of
+tobacco, and every man had his pipe. That was their outfit.
+
+The house was thirty-six feet in length, and eighteen in height and
+breadth. It contained a small antechamber about twelve feet broad, which
+had two doors, one to close it from the outer air, the other admitting
+to the inner room in which was a Russian stove, a kind of oven without a
+chimney, serving at will for heating, for baking, or for sleeping on.
+Realising that they had a long stay before them, they began by shooting
+twelve reindeer, one for each bullet. They then repaired the house,
+stopping up all the crevices with moss; and they then laid in a store of
+fuel from the driftwood, there being no trees on the island. On the
+beach they found some boards with nails in them, and a long iron hook
+and a few other pieces of old iron. And also there was a root of a fir
+tree in shape not unlike a bow. Those were the materials they had to
+make the best of.
+
+A large stone served for an anvil, a pair of deer horns did duty for
+tongs, and with these and the fire, the iron hook was made into a
+hammer; and then two of the nails were shaped into spear-heads, which
+were tied to sticks from the driftwood with strips of deerskin. With
+these weapons they began by killing a bear, whose flesh they ate, whose
+skin they kept, and whose tendons they made into thread and a string for
+the bow formed out of the root of the fir tree. More nails were forged
+into arrow-heads, tied with sinew on to light sticks cut with the knife,
+the shafts being feathered from the feathers of seafowl. With these
+weapons they shot, before they had finished, two hundred and fifty
+reindeer, and they kept the skins, as they did also those of a large
+number of blue and white foxes, as we shall see in the sequel. In their
+own protection they killed nine bears, the only one they deliberately
+attacked being the first.
+
+To be sure of keeping their fire alight they modelled a lamp out of
+clay, which they filled with deer-fat, with twisted linen for a wick;
+but the clay was too porous, the fat ran through it; so they made
+another lamp of the same stuff, dried it in the air, heated it red hot,
+and cooled it in a sort of thin starch made of flour and water,
+strengthening the pottery by pasting linen rags over it. The result was
+so successful that they made a second lamp as a reserve. Some wreckage
+gave them a little cordage and a quantity of oakum, which came in for
+lamp-wicks. The lamp, like the sacred fire, was never allowed to go out.
+To make themselves clothes, they soaked skins in fresh water till the
+hair could be pulled off easily, and rubbed them well, and then rubbed
+deer fat into them until they were pliant and supple. Some of the skins
+they prepared as furs. Out of nails they, after many failures, made awls
+and needles, getting the eyes by piercing the heads with the point of
+the knife, and smoothing and pointing them by rounding and whetting them
+on a stone.
+
+For six years they lived in this desert place. Then one of them,
+Weregin, died of scurvy, and their gloomy forebodings as to which was to
+be taken next were broken in upon by their sighting a ship, to which
+they signalled with a flag made of deerskin. The signal was seen and
+they were rescued; and they took back to Archangel two thousand pounds
+weight of reindeer fat, their bales of skins and furs, their bow and
+arrows and spears, and in short everything they possessed. And they
+arrived there on the 28th of September, 1749, comfortably off from the
+value of the goods they brought with them—the heroes of one of the very
+best of true desert island stories.
+
+Like most Russians they do not seem to have suffered much from the cold
+or to have been inconvenienced by the summer heat, which is also
+considerable. In 1773, on the 13th of June, when Phipps and Lutwidge
+anchored in Fair Haven, round by Amsterdam Island, they found the
+thermometer reach 58½° at noon and descend no lower than 51° at
+midnight, and on the 16th it rose in the sun to 89½° till a light breeze
+made it fall almost suddenly ten degrees. This was the expedition sent
+out to the North Pole, mainly at the instigation of Daines Barrington,
+Gilbert White's friend. The ships were the _Racehorse_ and _Carcass_;
+and, as every one knows, or ought to know, as midshipman with Captain
+Lutwidge went Horatio Nelson, then a boy of fourteen, who was to figure
+largely in the world, though on this occasion he did nothing remarkable
+beyond attacking a polar bear, whose skin he thought would make a nice
+present for his father, and bringing his boat to the rescue when one of
+the _Racehorse_ boats was attacked by walruses. For another thing the
+expedition is memorable, that being that the useful apparatus for the
+distillation of fresh water from sea water, known to every seafarer, was
+first used on this voyage, Dr. Irving, its inventor, being the surgeon
+of the _Racehorse_. Another item to be noted is that Phipps had with him
+a Cavendish thermometer, which he tried the day after he crossed the
+Arctic Circle, and found that at a depth of 780 fathoms the temperature
+was 26°, while at the surface it was 48°.
+
+Phipps did all he could to go north, and, in longitude 14° 59´ east,
+reached 80° 48', the nearest to the Pole up to then, but he was foiled
+by the ice barrier, which he tried to penetrate again and again. He got
+his ships caught in the ice and took to his boats, thinking he would
+have to abandon them, when fortunately the pack drifted south, and the
+vessels, clearing themselves under sail, caught the boats up and took
+them on board. Then he went along the edge of the ice westward, and,
+finding no opening, gave the venture up and sailed for home.
+
+The next to do good work within this area was William Scoresby the
+elder, whose only equal as a whale-fisher was his son. To him we owe the
+invention of the crow's nest, that cylindrical frame covered with
+canvas, entrance to which is given by a trap-hatch in the base, reached
+by a Jacob's ladder from the topmast crosstrees, the conning-tower, so
+to speak, carried since by every ship on Arctic service. He was also the
+inventor of the ice-drill and many another implement and device used in
+Polar navigation; and he it was who sloped off his fore and main courses
+to come inboard to a boom fitted to the foot, used by every whaler, by
+which, in fact, you may know them. He also, long before the _America_,
+discovered the advantage of flat sails, and, in order to get his weights
+well down, he filled his casks with water as ballast and packed them
+with shingle, so that, instead of going out light, he was in the best of
+trim, with a power of beating to windward that took him to the fishing
+ground in double quick time and further into the ice, when he chose,
+than any of his competitors.
+
+[Illustration: WHALERS AMONG ICEBERGS]
+
+Out in the _Resolution_ in 1806 he saw from his crow's nest, in which he
+often spent a dozen hours at a stretch, that below the ice-blink—the
+white line in the sky which betokens the presence of ice—there was a
+blue-grey streak denoting open water, and that the motion of the sea
+around the ship must be due to a swell, which could only come from open
+water to the northward. On the 13th of May he started for this. By
+sawing the ice, hammering at it, dropping his boats on to it from the
+bow, sallying the ship—that is, rolling her by running the crew
+backwards and forwards across her deck—and, in fact, using every means
+he could think of, he passed the barrier in the eightieth parallel, and,
+on the 24th of June, attained 81° 30´, the farthest north ever reached
+by a sailing vessel in these seas. On that day there was not a ship
+within three hundred and fifty miles of the _Resolution_. The bold
+venture proved a thorough success; in thirty-two days he filled up with
+twenty-four whales, two seals, two walruses, and a narwhal—one of the
+most profitable of his thirty voyages.
+
+In this voyage the chief officer was his son, William Scoresby the
+younger, whose _Arctic Regions_ is the best book ever written on the
+northern seas. Sent by his father to Edinburgh University where he
+studied almost every branch of natural and physical science, he was
+thoroughly equipped for his task, and his practical experience as a
+whaling captain and trained observer stood him in such stead that his
+book is still the basis of all scientific Polar research. His
+description of the Spitsbergen coast as seen from a ship is as faithful
+to-day as when he wrote it. "Spitsbergen and its islands, with some
+other countries within the Arctic Circle, exhibit a kind of scenery
+which is altogether novel. The principal objects which strike the eye
+are innumerable mountainous peaks, ridges, precipices, or needles,
+rising immediately out of the sea to an elevation of 3000 or 4000 feet,
+the colour of which, at a moderate distance, appears to be blackish
+shades of brown, green, grey and purple; snow or ice, in striæ or
+patches, occupying the various clefts and hollows in the sides of the
+hills, capping some of the mountain summits, and filling with extended
+beds the most considerable valleys; and ice of the glacier form,
+occurring at intervals all along the coast, in particular situations as
+already described, in prodigious accumulations. The glistening or
+vitreous appearance of the icy precipices; the purity, whiteness, and
+beauty of the sloping expanse formed by their snowy surfaces; the gloomy
+shade presented by the adjoining or intermixed mountains and rocks,
+perpetually covered with a mourning veil of black lichens, with the
+sudden transitions into a robe of purest white, where patches or beds of
+snow occur, present a variety and extent of contrast altogether
+peculiar; which, when enlightened by the occasional ethereal brilliancy
+of the Polar sky, and harmonised in its serenity with the calmness of
+the ocean, constitute a picture both novel and magnificent. There is,
+indeed, a kind of majesty, not to be conveyed in words, in these
+extraordinary accumulations of snow and ice in the valleys, and in the
+rocks above rocks and peaks above peaks, in the mountain groups, seen
+rising above the ordinary elevation of the clouds, and terminating
+occasionally in crests of snow, especially when you approach the shore
+under the shelter of the impenetrable density of a summer fog; in which
+case the fog sometimes disperses like the drawing of a curtain, when the
+strong contrast of light and shade, heightened by a cloudless atmosphere
+and powerful sun, bursts on the senses in a brilliant exhibition
+resembling the production of magic."
+
+In 1818 there went out the first British expedition prepared to winter
+in the north. The vessels were two whalers bought into the navy, the
+_Dorothea_ and _Trent_, the first under the command of David Buchan, the
+other under that of John Franklin. Neither officer had been in the
+Arctic region before, but Buchan had done excellent service in surveying
+Newfoundland, and Franklin had been marked for special duty owing to his
+work in Australian seas under his cousin, Matthew Flinders, and for the
+manner in which on his way home he had acted as signal officer to
+Nathaniel Dance in that ever-memorable victory off the Straits of
+Malacca, when the Indiamen defeated and pursued a French fleet under
+Admiral Linois. Dance's report gave Franklin a further chance of
+distinction, for it led to his appointment to the _Bellerophon_, whose
+signal officer he was during the battle of Trafalgar.
+
+They were instructed to proceed to the North Pole, thence to continue on
+to Bering Strait direct, or by the best route they could find, to make
+their way to the Sandwich Islands or New Albion, and thence to come back
+through Bering Strait eastward, keeping in sight and approaching the
+coast of America whenever the position of the ice permitted them so to
+do. A nice little programme. But they started too early in a bad season;
+they did not get so far north as Phipps; they made accurate surveys and
+other observations; in exploration they did little; and they had many
+adventures.
+
+As they ranged along the western side of Spitsbergen the weather was
+severe. The snow fell in heavy showers, and several tons' weight of ice
+accumulated about the sides of the _Trent_, and formed a complete casing
+to the planks, which received an additional layer at each plunge of the
+vessel. So great, indeed, was the accumulation about the bows, that they
+were obliged to cut it away repeatedly with axes to relieve the bowsprit
+from the enormous weight that was attached to it: and the ropes were so
+thickly covered with ice that it was necessary to beat them with large
+sticks to keep them in a state of readiness. In the gale the ships
+parted company, but they met again at the rendezvous in Magdalena Bay.
+
+[Illustration: SIR JOHN FRANKLIN]
+
+Later on, off Cloven Cliff, there was a walrus fight begun by the seamen
+and continued by the walruses when they found themselves more at home in
+the water than on the ice. They rose in numbers about the boats, rushing
+at them, snorting with rage, endeavouring to upset them or stave them in
+by hooking their tusks on the gunwales, or butting at them with their
+heads. "It was the opinion of our people," says Beechey, "that in this
+assault the walruses were led on by one animal in particular, a much
+larger and more formidable beast than any of the others; and they
+directed their efforts more particularly towards him, but he withstood
+all the blows of their tomahawks without flinching, and his tough hide
+resisted the entry of the whale lances, which were, unfortunately, not
+very sharp, and soon bent double. The herd was so numerous, and their
+attacks so incessant, that there was not time to load a musket, which,
+indeed, was the only effectual mode of seriously injuring them. The
+purser, fortunately, had his gun loaded, and the whole now being nearly
+exhausted with chopping and sticking at their assailants, he snatched it
+up, and, thrusting the muzzle down the throat of the leader, fired into
+him. The wound proved mortal, and the animal fell back amongst his
+companions, who immediately desisted from their attack, assembled round
+him, and in a moment quitted the boat, swimming away as hard as they
+could with their leader, whom they actually bore up with their tusks and
+assiduously preserved from sinking."
+
+On one occasion Franklin and Beechey, when out in a boat together,
+witnessed the launch of an iceberg. They had approached the end of a
+glacier and were trying to search into the recess of a deep cavern at
+its foot when they heard a report as if of a cannon, and, turning to the
+quarter whence it proceeded, perceived an immense piece of the front of
+the cliff of ice gliding down from a height of two hundred feet at least
+into the sea, and dispersing the water in every direction, accompanied
+by a loud grinding noise, and followed by a quantity of water, which,
+lodged in the fissures, made its escape in numberless small cataracts
+over the front of the glacier. They kept the boat's head in the
+direction of the sea and thus escaped disaster, for the disturbance
+occasioned by the plunge of this enormous fragment caused a succession
+of rollers, which swept over the surface of the bay, making its shores
+resound as it travelled along it, and at a distance of four miles was so
+considerable that it became necessary to right the _Dorothea_, which was
+then careening, by instantly releasing the tackles which confined her.
+The piece that had been disengaged wholly disappeared under water, and
+nothing was seen but a violent boiling of the sea and a shooting up of
+clouds of spray like that which occurs at the foot of a great cataract.
+After a short time it reappeared, raising its head full a hundred feet
+above the surface, with water pouring down from all parts of it; and
+then, labouring as if doubtful which way it should fall, it rolled over,
+and, after rocking about for some minutes, became settled. It was nearly
+a quarter of a mile round and floated sixty feet out of the water, and
+making a fair allowance for its inequalities, was computed to weigh
+421,600 tons.
+
+[Illustration: TRACK OF H.M.S. "DOROTHEA" AND "TRENT"]
+
+There were frequent landings, often with difficulties in the return, due
+generally to attempts at making a short cut to the shore or across the
+ice. Of these short cuts the very shortest was that made by one of the
+sailors named Spinks, who was out with a party in pursuit of reindeer.
+The ardour of the chase had led them beyond the prescribed limits, and
+when the signal was made for their return to the boat some of them were
+upon the top of a hill. Spinks, an active and zealous fellow, anxious to
+be first at his post, thought he would outstrip his comrades by
+descending the snow, which was banked against the mountain at an angle
+of about 40° with the horizon, and rested against a small glacier on the
+left. The height was about two thousand feet, and in the event of his
+foot slipping there was nothing to impede his progress until he reached
+the beach, either by the slope or the more terrific descent of the face
+of the glacier. He began his career by digging his heels into the snow,
+the surface of which was rather hard. At first he got on very well, but
+presently his foot slipped, or the snow was too hard for his heel to
+make an impression, and he increased in speed, keeping his balance,
+however, by means of his hands. In a very short time his descent was
+fearfully quick; the fine snow flew about him like dust, and there
+seemed but little chance of his reaching the bottom in safety,
+especially as his course was taking him in the direction of the glacier.
+For a moment he was lost sight of behind a crag of the mountain, and it
+was thought he had gone over the glacier, but with great presence of
+mind and dexterity, "by holding water first with one hand and then the
+other," to use his own expression, he contrived to escape the danger,
+and, like a skilful pilot, steered into a place of refuge amid a bed of
+soft snow recently drifted against the hill. When he extricated himself
+from the depths into which he had been plunged he had to hold together
+his tattered clothes, for he had worn away two pairs of trousers and
+something more. That was all his damage, and we shall meet with him
+again in the west out with Franklin and Captain Back.
+
+In the morning of the 30th of July the ships found themselves caught in
+a gale with the ice close to leeward. The only way of escaping
+destruction seemed to be by taking refuge in the pack. It was a
+desperate expedient rarely resorted to by whalers and only in extreme
+cases. In the _Trent_ a cable was cut up into thirty-foot lengths, and
+these, with plates of iron four feet square, supplied as fenders, and
+some walrus hides, were hung around her, mainly about her bows; the
+masts were secured with extra ropes, and the hatches were battened and
+nailed down. When a few fathoms from the ice those on board searched
+with anxiety for an opening in the pack, but saw nothing but an unbroken
+line of furious breakers with huge masses heaving and plunging with the
+waves and dashing together with a violence that nothing but a solid body
+seemed likely to withstand; and the noise was so great that the orders
+to the crew could with difficulty be heard. At one moment the sea was
+bursting upon the ice blocks and burying them deep beneath its wave, and
+the next, as the buoyancy brought them up again, the water was pouring
+in foaming cataracts over their edges, the masses rocking and labouring
+in their bed, grinding and striving with each other until one was either
+split with the shock or lifted on to the top of its neighbour. Far as
+the eye could reach the turmoil stretched, and overhead was the
+clearness of a calm and silvery atmosphere bounded by a dark line of
+storm cloud lowering over the masts as if to mark the confines within
+which no effort would avail.
+
+"At this instant," says Beechey, "when we were about to put the strength
+of our little vessel in competition with that of the great icy
+continent, and when it seemed almost presumption to reckon on the
+possibility of her surviving the unequal conflict, it was gratifying in
+the extreme to observe in all our crew the greatest calmness and
+resolution. If ever the fortitude of seamen was fairly tried it was
+assuredly not less so than on this occasion; and I will not conceal the
+pride I felt in witnessing the bold and decisive tone in which the
+orders were issued by the commander of our little vessel, and the
+promptitude and steadiness with which they were executed by the crew."
+
+The brig was steered bow on to the ice. Every man instinctively gripped
+his hold, and with his eyes fixed on the masts awaited the moment of
+concussion. In an instant they all lost their footing, the masts bent
+with the shock, and the timbers cracked below; the vessel staggered and
+seemed to recoil, when the next wave, curling up under her counter,
+drove her about her own length within the edge of the ice, where she
+gave a roll and was thrown broadside to the wind by the succeeding wave
+which beat furiously against her stern, bringing her lee in touch with
+the main mass and leaving her weather side exposed to a floe about twice
+her size. Battered on all sides, tossed from fragment to fragment,
+nothing could be done but await the issue, for the men could hardly keep
+their feet, the motion being so great that the ship's bell, which in the
+heaviest gale had never struck of itself, now tolled so continuously
+that it had to be muffled.
+
+After a time an effort was made to put the vessel before the wind and
+drive her further into the pack. Some of the men gained the
+fore-topsail-yard and let a reef out of the sail, and the jib was
+dragged half up the stay by the windlass. The brig swung into position,
+and, aided by a mass under her stern, split the block, fourteen feet
+thick, which had barred her way, and made a passage for herself into
+comparative safety; and after some four hours the gale moderated.
+Strained and leaking the _Trent_ had suffered much, but the _Dorothea_
+had been damaged more; and both returned to Fair Haven, where it was
+found hopeless to continue the voyage, and thence, when the ships had
+been temporarily repaired, they sailed for England. The expedition had
+not done much, but it had given their Arctic schooling to Franklin,
+Beechey, and Back.
+
+In May, 1827, Parry, in the _Hecla_, was forced to run into the ice, but
+not quite in the same way as Buchan did. He was beset for three weeks,
+and then, getting clear, proceeded to the Seven Islands to the north of
+Spitsbergen, on one of which, Walden, he placed a reserve of provisions;
+the ship, after reaching 81° 5´, going to Treurenberg Bay, in Hinlopen
+Strait, to await his return.
+
+[Illustration: PARRY CAMPED ON THE ICE]
+
+From here he made his dash for the Pole. He had with him two boats of
+his own design, seven feet in beam, twenty in length. On each side of
+the keel was a strong runner, shod with steel, upon which the boat stood
+upright on the ice. They were so built that they would have floated as
+bags had they been stove in. On ash and hickory timbers, an inch by an
+inch and a half thick, placed a foot apart, with a half-timber of
+smaller size between each, was stretched a casing of waterproof canvas
+tarred on the outer side and protected by a skin of fir three-sixteenths
+of an inch thick, over this came a sheet of stout felt, and over all a
+skin of oak of the same thickness as the fir, each boat weighing about
+fourteen hundredweight—that is the hull, as launched. One of these boats
+was named the _Enterprise_, the other the _Endeavour_. They were
+intended to be hauled by reindeer, but the state of the ice rendered
+this impracticable and the men did the work themselves. Parry took
+command of the _Enterprise_, the other being in charge of Lieutenant
+James Clark Ross; and, altogether, officers and men numbered
+twenty-eight.
+
+From Little Table Island, where they left a reserve as they had done at
+Walden, they started for the north—two heavy boats laden with food for
+seventy days and clothing for twenty-eight men, with a compact equipment
+including light sledges, travelling in a sea crowded or covered with ice
+in every form, large and small, over which they were dragged up and down
+hummocks, round and among crags and ridges, along surfaces of every kind
+of ruggedness, of every slope and irregularity, the few flat stretches
+broken with patches of sharp crystals or waist-deep snow; through lanes
+and pools of water with frequent ferryings and transhipments, in
+sunshine and fog, and, strange to say, frequently in pouring rain. They
+travelled by night and rested by day, though, of course, there was
+daylight all the time. "The advantages of this plan," says Parry, "which
+was occasionally deranged by circumstances, consisted, first in our
+avoiding the intense and oppressive glare from the snow during the time
+of the sun's greatest altitude, so as to prevent in some degree the
+painful inflammation in the eyes called snow-blindness which is common
+in all snowy countries. We also thus enjoyed greater warmth during the
+hours of rest and had a better chance of drying our clothes; besides
+which no small advantage was derived from the snow being harder at night
+for travelling. When we rose in the evening we commenced our day by
+prayers, after which we took off our sleeping dresses and put on those
+for travelling, the former being made of camlet lined with racoon skin,
+and the latter of strong blue, box cloth. We made a point of always
+putting on the same stockings and boots for travelling in, whether they
+had dried during the day or not, and I believe it was only in five or
+six instances that they were not either still wet or hard frozen." When
+halted for rest the boats were placed alongside each other, with their
+sterns to the wind, the snow or wet cleared out of them, and the sails,
+held up by the bamboo masts and three paddles, were placed over them as
+awnings with the entrance at the bow.
+
+Progress was not great, sometimes fifty yards an hour, occasionally
+twelve miles a day, that is on the ice, for soon it was apparent that
+the distance gained by reckoning was greater than that given by
+observation, and Parry realised to his dismay that the pack was drifting
+south while he was going north. But he kept on till on the 21st of July
+he reached 82° 45´, which remained the farthest north for forty-nine
+years.
+
+[Illustration: PARRY'S BOATS AMONG THE HUMMOCKS]
+
+During the last few days he had been drifting south in the day almost as
+far as he had advanced north in the night, and, having used up half his
+provisions, he reluctantly abandoned the struggle as hopeless. "As we
+travelled," he says, "by far the greater part of our distance on the
+ice, three, and not infrequently, five times over, we may safely
+multiply the road by 2½; so that our whole distance, on a very moderate
+calculation, amounted to five hundred and eighty geographical miles, or
+six hundred and sixty-eight statute miles; being nearly sufficient to
+have reached the Pole in a direct line."
+
+In 1858 a Swedish expedition under Otto Torell started from Hammerfest
+for Spitsbergen. He was accompanied by A. Quennerstedt and Adolf Erik
+Nordenskiöld. They explored Horn Sound, Bell Sound, and Green Harbour.
+In Bell Sound they dredged with great success for mollusca; they made a
+botanical collection, chiefly of mosses and lichens, found tertiary
+plant fossils, and, in the North Harbour, carboniferous limestone beds
+with the tertiary plant-bearing strata above them—in short, Nordenskiöld
+entered upon his long and fruitful study of Spitsbergen geology. Three
+years afterwards Torell took out another expedition, Nordenskiöld going
+with him, which was to explore the northern coast and then make for the
+far north; but the ice conditions kept them in Treurenberg Bay, where
+they visited Hecla Cove and found Parry's flagstaff. In the course of
+their journeys they noticed in Cross Bay the first known Spitsbergen
+fern, _Cystopteris fragilis_; by the side of a freshwater lake in Wijde
+Bay an Alpine char was picked up; and, at Shoal Point, Torell discovered
+in a mass of driftwood a specimen of the unmistakable Entada bean, two
+and a quarter inches across, brought there from the West Indies by the
+Gulf Stream, as other specimens have been drifted to European shores.
+
+In 1864, the year that Elling Carlsen found the navigation so open that
+he passed the Northern Gate and sailed round Spitsbergen, Nordenskiöld,
+at the head of a small expedition, was at work in Ice Fjord, and, unable
+to go north on account of the ice, rounded South Cape, entered Stor
+Fjord, visited Edge's Land and Barents Land, and from the summit of
+White Mountain, near Unicorn Bay, rediscovered the west coast of the
+island reported by Edge two hundred and fifty years before. In 1868, as
+leader of the Swedish North Polar Expedition in the _Sofia_, he reached
+81° 42´, in 17° 30´ east, the highest latitude then reached by a steam
+vessel, and his farthest north; his next Polar venture, four years
+afterwards, in the _Polhem_, ending in his having to winter in Mossel
+Bay, where his generous endeavour to feed one hundred and one extra men,
+who were ice-bound, on provisions intended for his own twenty-four,
+would have ended in disaster had he not been relieved by Leigh Smith in
+the _Diana_.
+
+The _Diana_ was the steam yacht built for James Lamont, in which, like
+Leigh Smith, he cruised for several seasons in the Arctic seas,
+combining sport with exploration in a truly admirable way. To these two
+yachtsmen we owe much of our knowledge of Spitsbergen, Novaya Zemlya,
+and Franz Josef Land, but we can only give them passing mention here. We
+must, however, find room for Lamont's useful find of the coal mine in
+Advent Bay, from which he filled up the _Diana's_ bunkers. "When I paid
+a visit to the coal mine," he says, "I found it quite a busy scene for a
+quiet Arctic shore. The engineer and fireman directed the blasting, my
+English hands quarried, while the Norwegians carried the sacks down the
+hill. The old mate, the many-sidedness of whose character I have so much
+valued on my various voyages, was digging away with the rest, though I
+am sorry that in the sketch his weather-beaten face is turned away. All
+the rest are portraits, and the reader will notice that Arctic work is
+not done in the attractive uniforms known to Cowes and Ryde. The
+coal-bed was about three feet thick, and lay very horizontally between
+two layers of soft, mud-coloured limestone. It was harder to obtain than
+I anticipated, because saturated, through all the cracks and
+interstices, with water which had frozen into ice more difficult to
+break through than the coal itself, thereby rendering these fissures
+worse than useless in quarrying. This is tertiary coal, and is of fair
+quality, but contains a good deal of sulphur. When we began to burn it,
+so much water and ice was unavoidably mixed with it that the engineers
+had to let it drain on deck in the hot sun and then mix it with an equal
+bulk of Scotch coal. Consumed in this way the ten tons obtained in three
+days was a useful addition to the fast-dwindling stock on board."
+
+While Nordenskiöld was at Mossel Bay he attempted a journey to the
+north, but was stopped by the ice at Seven Islands, and returned round
+North East Land. It took him five days to pass across the twenty-three
+miles between Phipps Island and Cape Platen over pyramids of angular ice
+up to thirty feet high. On the coast, which he found extending, as Leigh
+Smith had reported, much further to the east than was shown on the
+charts, he met with the inland ice ending in precipices from two
+thousand to three thousand feet high. Ascending this ice they had
+scarcely gone a quarter of a mile before one of the men disappeared at a
+place where the surface was level, and so instantaneously that he could
+not even give a cry for help. When they looked into the hole they found
+him hanging on to the drag-line, to which he was fastened with reindeer
+harness, over a deep abyss. Had his arms slipped out of the harness, a
+single belt, he would have been lost. Along the level surface every puff
+of wind drove a stream of fine snow-dust, which, from the ease with
+which it penetrated everywhere, was as the fine sand of the desert to
+the travellers in the Sahara. By means of this fine snow-dust, steadily
+driven forward by the wind, the upper part of the glacier—which did not
+consist of ice, but of hard packed blinding white snow—was glazed and
+polished so that it seemed to be a faultless, spotless floor of white
+marble, or rather a white satin carpet. Examination showed that the
+snow, at a depth of four to six feet, passed into ice, being changed
+first into a stratum of ice crystals, partly large and perfect, then to
+a crystalline mass of ice, and finally to hard glacier ice, in which
+could still be observed numerous air cavities compressed by the
+overlying weight; and, when, as the surface thaws, the pressure of the
+enclosed air exceeds that of the superincumbent weight, these cavities
+break up with the peculiar cracking sound heard in summer from the
+glacier ice that floats about in the fjords. Occasionally broad channels
+were crossed, of which the only way to ascertain the depth was to lower
+a man into them, and frequently he had to be hoisted up again without
+having reached the bottom; such danger areas causing so circuitous a
+route that much progress was impossible.
+
+Prior to the explorations of Sir Martin Conway in 1896, it was supposed
+that this inland ice extended over all the islands of the group, an area
+exceeding twenty thousand square miles. He, however, proved that so far
+as West Spitsbergen was concerned, this was not the case. Crossing it he
+found much of the interior a complex of mountains and valleys, amongst
+which were many glaciers, as in Central Europe, but with no continuous
+covering of ice, each glacier being a separate unit with its own
+drainage system and catchment area, the valleys boggy and relatively
+fertile, the hillsides bare of snow in summer up to more than a thousand
+feet above sea-level. In the rise of the country from the sea it seems
+to have come up as a plain which did not reach the level of perpetual
+snow, so that as it rose it was cut down into valleys in the usual way
+by the agency of water pouring off from the plateau over its edge down a
+frost-split rock-face, the valleys gently sloped, the head necessarily
+steep owing to the face of the cliff being stripped off as the
+waterfalls cut their way back.
+
+Since Nordenskiöld's first expedition we have learnt much of the geology
+and physical features of Spitsbergen; and we hear no more of the poverty
+of its flora and fauna. Now it has become a summer tourist resort we are
+yearly increasing our knowledge of this land of no thunderstorms, for
+centuries the largest uninhabited area on the globe, the only
+considerable stretch on which there is no trace of human occupation
+before its discovery by the moderns in 1596, when it was found by
+Barents and his companions.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+                             NOVAYA ZEMLYA
+
+  Van Heemskerck and Barents reach Ice Haven—The ship in the ice—The
+    first crew to winter in the Arctic—The house the Dutch built—The
+    bears—The foxes—Intense cold—Twelfth Eve rejoicings—Preparations
+    for departure—Death of Barents—The boat voyage—Meeting with
+    Rijp—Admiral Jacob Van Heemskerck—Carlsen at Ice Haven—Finds the
+    house as described by De Veer—The relics at the Hague—Gardiner
+    finds the powder-flask—Gundersen finds the translation of the
+    voyage of Pet and Jackman—Second voyage of Hudson—His third
+    voyage—De Vlamingh—Russian explorers.
+
+
+We left Barents parting company with Rijp at Bear Island, Rijp bound
+northwards. Barents, taking his vessel eastwards, struck Novaya Zemlya
+at Loms Bay, near Cross Bay, and bearing north-eastwards reached the
+Orange Islands and rounded Cape Mauritius. Steering south he got down
+into Ice Haven, where at length, says De Veer, "the ice began to drive
+with such force that we were enclosed round about therewith, and yet we
+sought all the means we could to get out, but it was all in vain: and at
+that time we had like to have lost three men that were upon the ice to
+make way for the ship, if the ice had held the course it went; but as we
+drove back again, and the ice also whereon our men stood, they being
+nimble, as the ship drove by them, one of them caught hold of the beak
+head, another upon the shrouds, and the third upon the mainbrace that
+hung out behind, and so by great adventure by the hold they took they
+got into the ship again, for which they thanked God with all their
+hearts." The same evening, that of the 26th of August, 1596, they
+reached the west of Ice Haven—now known as Barents Bay—where they were
+forced to remain, being the first crew on record to spend a winter in
+the Arctic regions and survive to tell the story.
+
+To begin with, the ice gathered round the ship and lifted her bow four
+feet out of the water. Endeavouring to right her by clearing the ice
+away, Barents was on his knees measuring the height she had to fall when
+the ice broke with "such a noise and so great a crack that they thought
+verily they were all cast away." As she lay upright again they tried in
+vain with crowbars and other tools to break off the piled-up ice, and
+next day in a heavy snow the pressure became such that the whole ship
+was borne up and so squeezed that "all that was both about and in it
+began to crack, so that it seemed to burst in a hundred pieces, which
+was most fearful both to see and hear, and made all the hair of our
+heads to rise upright with fear." The grip continuing, the vessel was
+driven up four or five feet and the rudder squeezed off, which was
+replaced by a new one, when she sank back into the water a few hours
+afterwards owing to the ice drifting clear for a while. Thus matters
+went on for a little time, the ship being alternately lifted and
+released.
+
+[Illustration: HOW OUR SHIP STUCK FAST IN THE ICE]
+
+On the 11th of September, as there was no hope of escape, it was decided
+to build a house wherein to spend the winter, and in seeking for a
+suitable position, a mass of driftwood—"trees, roots and all"—was
+discovered, "driven ashore from Tartaria, Muscovia, or elsewhere," for
+there were no trees growing on the land, "wherewith," says De Veer, "we
+were much comforted, being in good hope that God would show us some
+further favour; for that wood served us not only to build our house, but
+also to burn and serve us all the winter long; otherwise without all
+doubt we had died there miserably with extreme cold."
+
+The timber was collected and piled up in heaps that it might not be
+hidden under the snow, and two sledges were made on which to drag it to
+the site of the house. This was heavy work in which all took part, four
+of them in turn remaining by the ship, there being thirteen men to each
+party, five to each sledge, with three to help and lift the wood behind
+"to make us draw the better and with more ease," and at the end of the
+first week of it the carpenter died, so that only sixteen were left. But
+the wood was brought along day after day, some to build with, some for
+fuel; and the house was built, the frost so hard at times that "as we
+put a nail into our mouths, as carpenters do, there would ice hang
+thereon when we took it out again and made the blood follow"; and when a
+great fire was made to soften the ground, in order that earth might be
+dug to shovel round the house, "it was all lost labour for the earth was
+so hard and frozen so deep that we could not thaw it, and it would have
+cost us too much wood."
+
+The house was roofed with deals obtained by breaking up the lower deck
+of the fore part of the ship, and, to make it weather-tight, it was
+covered with a sail on which afterwards shingle was spread to keep it
+from being blown off; and the materials of the cabin yielded the wood
+for the door. Inside, the house was made as comfortable as possible, as
+shown in the illustration given in De Veer's book in 1598. Low shelves,
+with partitions between, along the side served for sleeping places; a
+cask on end with a square hole like a window in the upper half was
+frequently used as a bath; a striking clock and a time-glass marked the
+passing of the hours; the large fire in the centre with its frame and
+trivet and spit and copper pots and other kitchen utensils served for
+warmth and cooking; and over the fire hung a large lamp beneath the
+chimney, which terminated outside in a cask giving it the appearance of
+a crow's nest ashore.
+
+While the house was building, and as long as the sun was above the
+horizon, there was much trouble with the bears, whose daily visits were
+always productive of excitement. On the 26th of October, for instance,
+the day after all the crew first slept in the house, when the men had
+loaded the last sledge and stood in the track-ropes ready to draw it to
+the house, Van Heemskerck caught sight of three coming towards them from
+behind the ship. The men jumped out of the track-ropes, and as
+fortunately two halberds lay upon the sledge, Van Heemskerck took one
+and De Veer the other, while the rest ran to the ship, "and as they ran
+one of them fell into a crevice in the ice, which grieved us much, for
+we thought the bears would have run unto him to devour him," but they
+made straight after the others instead. "Meantime we and the man that
+fell into the cleft of ice took our advantage and got into the ship on
+the other side; which the bears perceiving, they came fiercely towards
+us that had no arms to defend us withal but only the two halberds, gave
+them work to do by throwing billets of firewood and other things at
+them, and every time we threw they ran after them as a dog does at a
+stone that has been cast at him. Meantime we sent a man down into the
+caboose to strike fire and another to fetch pikes; but we could get no
+fire, and so we had no means to shoot"—their firearms being matchlocks.
+"At the last as the bears came fiercely upon us we struck one of them
+with a halberd on the snout, wherewith she gave back when she felt
+herself hurt and went away, which the other two, that were not so large
+as she, perceiving, ran away."
+
+When the bears had gone and the long night set in, their place was taken
+by the white foxes, many of these being caught in traps and furnishing
+skins for clothes and flesh for meat—"not unlike that of the
+rabbit"—that was "as grateful as venison." The 19th of November was a
+great day. A chest of linen was opened and divided among the men for
+shirts, "for they had need of them." Next day they washed their shirts,
+having evidently made the new ones in a hurry, and, says De Veer, "it
+was so cold that when we had washed and wrung them they presently froze
+so stiff (out of the warm water) that although we laid them by a great
+fire the side that lay next the fire thawed, but the other side was hard
+frozen, so that we should sooner have torn them in sunder than have
+opened them, whereby we were forced to put them into the boiling water
+again to thaw them, it was so exceeding cold."
+
+On the 3rd of December and the two following days it was so cold that as
+the men lay in their bunks they could hear the ice cracking in the sea
+two miles away, and thought that icebergs were breaking on each other;
+and as they had not so great a fire as usual owing to the smoke "it
+froze so sore within the house that the walls and the roof thereof were
+frozen two fingers thick with ice, even in the bunks in which we lay.
+All those three days while we could not go out by reason of the foul
+weather we set up the sandglass of twelve hours, and when it was run out
+we set it up again, still watching it lest we should miss our time. For
+the cold was so great that our clock was frozen and would not go,
+although we hung more weight on it than before."
+
+The snow fell until it was so deep round the house that on Christmas Day
+they heard foxes running over the roof; and the last day of the year was
+so cold that "the fire almost cast no heat, for as we put our feet to
+the fire we burnt our hose before we could feel the heat, so that we had
+work enough to do to patch our hose." On the 4th of January, "to know
+where the wind blew we thrust a half pike out of the chimney with a
+little cloth or feather upon it; but we had to look at it immediately
+the wind caught it, for as soon as we thrust it out it was frozen as
+hard as a piece of wood and could not go about or stir with the wind, so
+that we said to one another how fearfully cold it must be out of doors."
+
+Next day, being Twelfth Eve, on which foreigners, according to the old
+practice, hold the festivities now customary in England on the following
+day, the men asked Van Heemskerck that they might enjoy themselves, "and
+so that night we made merry and drank to the three kings. And therewith
+we had two pounds of meal, which we had taken to make paste for the
+cartridges wherewith, of which we now made pancakes with oil, and to
+every man a white biscuit, which we sopped in wine. And so supposing
+that we were in our own country and amongst our friends it comforted us
+as well as if we had made a great banquet in our own house. And we also
+distributed tickets, and our gunner was king of Nova Zembla, which is at
+least eight hundred miles long and lieth between two seas."
+
+In time the sun reappeared—as also the bears—and the rigours of the
+winter relaxing, the men, on the 9th of May, applied to Barents asking
+him to speak to Van Heemskerck with a view to preparing for departure.
+This, after two other appeals, he did on the 15th of May, Van
+Heemskerck's answer being that, if the ship were not free by the end of
+the month, he would get ready to go away in the boats. The two boats,
+or, to be exact, the boat and the herring skute, were then repaired and
+made suitable for a long sea voyage, and on the 13th of June were in
+proper condition with all their stores ready. Then Van Heemskerck,
+"seeing that it was open water and a good west wind, came back to the
+house again, and there he spake unto Willem Barents (that had been long
+sick) and showed him that he thought it good (seeing it was a fit time)
+to go from thence, and they then resolved jointly with the ship's
+company to take the boat and the skute down to the water side, and in
+the name of God to begin our voyage to sail from Nova Zembla. Then
+Willem Barents wrote a letter, which he put into a powder flask and
+hanged it up in the chimney, showing how we came out of Holland to sail
+to the kingdom of China, and what had happened to us." Then Barents was
+taken down to the shore on a sledge and put into one boat, the other
+sick man, Andriesz, being placed in the other, and "with a
+west-north-west wind and an indifferent open water" they set sail on a
+voyage of over fifteen hundred miles among the ice, over the ice, and
+through the sea.
+
+Barents, though they little suspected it, had but a few days to live. As
+they passed the northernmost cape of Novaya Zemlya, "Gerrit," he said to
+De Veer, "if we are near the Ice Point, just lift me up again. I must
+see that point once more." They were amongst the ice floes again; soon
+they had to make fast to one; and then they became shut in and forced to
+stay there. Next day their only means of safety lay in hauling their
+boats up on to a floe, taking the sick men out on to the ice and putting
+the clothes and other things under them; but after mending the boats,
+which had been much bruised and crushed, they drifted into a little open
+water and got afloat. On the 20th of June, about eight in the morning it
+became evident that Andriesz was nearing his end. "Methinks," said
+Barents, in the other boat, when he heard of it, "with me too it will
+not last long." But still his companions did not realise how ill he was,
+and talked on unconcernedly. Then he looked at the little chart which De
+Veer had made of the voyage. Putting it down, he said, "Gerrit, give me
+something to drink." And no sooner did he drink than he suddenly died.
+Thus passed away their chief guide and only pilot, than whom none better
+ever sailed the northern seas.
+
+[Illustration: HOW WE NEARLY GOT INTO TROUBLE WITH THE SEA-HORSES]
+
+Working their way down the west coast of the long island, putting in
+every now and then in search of birds and eggs, constantly in peril from
+the floating ice and the bears, they slowly came south. When passing
+Admiralty Peninsula they had to deal with a danger of their own causing.
+They sighted about two hundred walruses upon one of the floes. Sailing
+close to them they drove them off, "which," says De Veer, "had almost
+cost us dear, for they, being mighty strong sea monsters, swam towards
+us round about our boats with a great noise as if they would have
+devoured us; but we escaped from them by reason that we had a good gale
+of wind, yet it was not wisely done of us to waken sleeping wolves."
+
+Day by day De Veer tells the story of that adventurous voyage, with its
+long succession of dangers and disappointments, until they reached the
+mainland and sent the Lapland messenger to Kola, who returned with a
+letter from Jan Corneliszoon Rijp, who at first they could not believe
+was the old friend from whom they had parted at Bear Island; and more
+briefly he continues the story until Amsterdam was reached on the 1st of
+November, when the survivors, in the same clothes they wore in their
+winter quarters, fur caps and white fox-skins, walked up to the house of
+Pieter Hasselaer to report themselves on arrival and received the hearty
+welcome they deserved.
+
+Though Van Heemskerck had failed to make the passage to the east by way
+of the north, he was perhaps destined for greater fame on the far less
+rigorous route. Like Nelson he went on an Arctic expedition that failed,
+and then secured a place in history by a sea-fight in Spanish waters,
+for which his countrymen will never forget him. He it was who as
+Vice-Admiral of Holland fought the Spanish fleet at Gibraltar in the
+decisive battle of the 25th of April, 1607, in which with his twenty-six
+vessels he attacked Juan Alvarez Davila's twenty ships and ten galleons.
+Early in the struggle he had his leg swept off by a cannon shot, but he
+remained on deck till he died, gaining the complete victory which
+rendered his countrymen free from hindrance on the road to the Indies
+round the Cape of Good Hope, of which for so many years they made such
+profitable use. It is customary to give all the credit of the Arctic
+voyage to Barents on the ground that his captain was no sailor, but
+Holland knows no better sailor than Jacob Van Heemskerck of Gibraltar
+Bay.
+
+On the 9th of September, 1871, Captain Elling Carlsen, sailing in the
+Barents Sea, which he had entered round Icy Cape, landed in Ice Haven
+and found the house just as De Veer had described it. There it had stood
+in cold storage for 274 years, never having been entered by human foot
+since Van Heemskerck had shut the door. The bunks, the table, the bath,
+the clock, in short everything, all in order, as the orderly Dutchmen
+had left it. Never did a voyage book receive such ample verification;
+never did the description of an island home stand the test better.
+
+Carlsen, to begin with, knew nothing of De Veer or Barents, but he set
+to work in a conscientious way and recorded the results like a true
+archæologist. "Thursday, 14th," he wrote in his log, "Calm with clear
+sky. Four o'clock in the morning we went ashore further to investigate
+the wintering place. On digging we found again several objects, such as
+drumsticks, a hilt of a sword, and spears. Altogether it seemed that the
+people had been equipped in a warlike manner, but nothing was found
+which could indicate the presence of human remains. On the beach we
+found pieces of wood which had formerly belonged to some part of a ship,
+for which reason I believe that a vessel has been wrecked there, the
+crew of which built the house with the materials of the wreck and
+afterwards betook themselves to boats."
+
+Bringing away a very large number of articles, he resumed his voyage and
+landed at Hammerfest, where Mr. E. C. Lister Kay, who happened to be
+there on a yachting trip, bought them, thinking they would be
+repurchased from him, at the price he gave, for one of our own museums.
+In this he was disappointed, and the collection was taken down to his
+house in Dorsetshire, where Count Bylandt, the Dutch Ambassador,
+happening to hear of it, called and bought it for his Government, who
+placed it at the Hague in a room, the exact imitation of that in Novaya
+Zemlya.
+
+In July, 1876, Mr. Charles Gardiner, another English yachtsman, when on
+a cruise in the _Glow-worm_ in Barents Sea, made a call at the house and
+brought away many other relics, which he presented to the Dutch, to be
+added to those at the Hague; and among them was the powder-flask hung in
+the chimney, containing the paper mentioned by De Veer. The previous
+August Captain Gundersen had been there in the Norwegian schooner
+_Regina_. In one of the chests he found two charts and what he described
+as Barents's Journal. The journal proved to be a manuscript Dutch
+translation of the story of the voyage in 1580 of Arthur Pet and Charles
+Jackman.
+
+In 1608, eleven years after Barents died, Henry Hudson, in the Muscovy
+Company's service, was sent to China by the north-east. He sailed on the
+22nd of April from St. Katharine's, near the Tower of London, and on the
+3rd of June passed the North Cape on his way to Novaya Zemlya, which he
+reached near Cape Britwin twenty-three days afterwards. For some
+considerable distance he had skirted the ice pack, vainly endeavouring
+to get through to the northward and enter the Kara Sea round the Orange
+Islands.
+
+This being impracticable he ranged southwards looking for a passage
+through at Kostin Shar, which in the Dutch map he had with him was
+marked as a strait and proved to be a bay. Had he been able to go a
+little further north than Cape Britwin he might have found that
+Matyushin Shar, like a rift in the rocks, divides the long island in
+half, though at that early season the ice would have probably been
+blocking it. From Kostin or thereabouts he departed for home, his voyage
+failing almost at the outset, owing to his being two months too early.
+
+While off the coast he sent his boat ashore several times. "Generally,"
+he says, "all the land of Nova Zembla that we have yet seen is to a
+man's eye a pleasant land; much main high land with no snow on it,
+looking in some places green, and deer feeding thereon; and the hills
+are partly covered with snow and partly bare"—rather a different picture
+from that given by De Veer of what it was like in the winter. De Veer,
+too, had committed himself to the statement that there were no deer in
+the country, but here were Hudson's men frequently coming upon their
+traces, and on the 2nd of July reporting that they had seen "a herd of
+white deer, ten in a company," bringing on board with them a white lock
+of deer's hair in proof thereof.
+
+On his return Hudson left the service of the Muscovy Company. He went to
+Holland, and, early in April, 1609, was sent out by the Amsterdam
+Chamber of the Dutch East India Company. On the 5th of May he rounded
+the North Cape, making for Novaya Zemlya, and a few days afterwards
+reached the ice. Here, according to Dutch accounts, his men mutinied,
+but what happened during the trouble is not recorded. Whether it was
+really owing to a mutiny, or, as is by no means improbable, to secret
+instructions received at his departure, Hudson, on the 14th, made sail
+for the North Cape, passed it on the 19th, when he observed a spot on
+the sun, and then went off westwards to Newfoundland, making direct
+apparently for the mouth of the river now bearing his name, which was
+discovered by Verrazano in March, 1524, and surveyed by Gomez in the
+following year, and was at the time of Hudson's visit British territory.
+
+The reason for this astonishing change of route was, perhaps, that on
+some of the charts of the period, as on Michael Lock's planisphere, this
+river, the Rio de Gamas or Rio Grande of the Spaniards, was made to
+communicate with what seems to be intended for Lake Ontario, and this
+with the other lakes to the westward was widened out into the waterway
+to the South Sea. Thus Hudson drops out of our story at his first
+mutiny, for he did not cross the Arctic Circle on his fourth voyage,
+when his second mutiny ended his career in the bay that bears his name,
+which, like the river and the strait, was indicated on the maps years
+before he went there.
+
+In 1664 Willem de Vlamingh, the Dutch navigator, or—to be cautious—the
+namesake of the Dutch navigator, who thirty-one years afterwards found
+Dirk Hartog's plate and named Swan River in West Australia after the
+black swans, was in these regions and rounded Novaya Zemlya into the
+Kara Sea, reaching so far north that if his recorded latitude be correct
+he must have sighted the Franz Josef archipelago, and, contrary to the
+tendency of Arctic explorers, mistaken land for a bank of mist or a
+group of icebergs. After him neither Dutch nor English delay us, the
+opening up of this continuation of the Urals being left to the Russians,
+who found it first and named it—Novaya Zemlya meaning simply New Land.
+
+For years it was left to the Samoyeds and the walrus hunters, whose
+persistent reports of deposits of silver in its cliffs led to Loschkin's
+making his way round it and spending two winters on its east coast. In
+1768 Rosmysslof, also on silver bent, wintered in Matyushin Shar, that
+wonderful waterway, ninety fathoms deep, bounded by high hills and
+precipitous cliffs, winding so sharply that ships have been into it for
+a dozen miles or so and seeing no passage ahead have come out again to
+seek it elsewhere. In 1807 came Pospeloff, with Ludlow the mining
+engineer, to settle the silver question once for all, and settle it they
+did by showing that everywhere the so-called silver was either talc or
+mica, and naming Silver Bay ironically in memory thereof. Fourteen years
+afterwards Lütke surveyed the west coast, continuing during the next
+three summers; and in 1832 Pachtussoff arrived to undergo in the course
+of his really admirable work the hardships and privations of which he
+died.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+                            FRANZ JOSEF LAND
+
+  Austro-Hungarian expedition of 1872—The voyage as planned—The drift
+    of the _Tegetthoff_—The polyglot crew—Discovery of Franz Josef
+    Land—Payer's description of an aurora—The sledge journeys—Crown
+    Prince Rudolf Land—Cape Fligely reached—Abandonment of the
+    _Tegetthoff_—The boat voyage to Cape Britwin—Leigh Smith's
+    expeditions—Loss of the _Eira_—The retreat in the boats—Jackson in
+    Franz Josef Land—His excellent survey work—The Italian expedition
+    under the Duke of the Abruzzi—Cagni attempts to reach the Pole and
+    is stopped at 86° 34´—The return journey.
+
+
+In 1871 Weyprecht and Payer were out in the cutter _Isbjörn_, pioneering
+for their intended voyage to the eastward, which started next year in
+the _Tegetthoff_, the famous Austro-Hungarian attempt of 1872 which may
+be described as an unintentional voyage of unexpected discovery. The
+amount of credit due to a man who starts to find one thing and lights
+upon another has always been a contentious matter, and this expedition
+afforded an extreme case for such speculations. The plan was to go
+east-north-east, the wintering places being undetermined, though they
+might be Cape Chelyuskin, the New Siberian Islands, or any land that
+might be discovered; and a return to Europe through Bering Strait lay
+among the possibilities of the venture, as an endeavour was to be made
+to reach the coast of Siberia in boats and penetrate south down one of
+the large rivers of Northern Asia. What happened was that during the
+afternoon of the 20th of August, when off the north-west coast of Novaya
+Zemlya in 76° 22´ north, 63° 3´ east, the ship was run into an ice-hole
+and made fast to a floe, and during the night the ice, instead of
+parting asunder, closed in and imprisoned her, so that she never steamed
+or sailed again. In the ice and on the ice she lay perfectly helpless,
+drifting with the floe, and still in its grip when she was abandoned by
+her crew on the 20th of May, two years afterwards.
+
+It was a wonderful drift. North-easterly in the main to begin with, then
+north-westerly, then easterly to about 73°, then north, then west, in
+and out and roundabout, till they reached much the same longitude as
+they started from and then with a general tendency to the northward.
+Autumn passed away; the Polar night set in; and still they drifted
+ice-bound—a miscellaneous company representative of the polyglot empire;
+"on board the _Tegetthoff_," says Payer, "are heard all the languages of
+our country, German, Italian, Slavonic, and Hungarian; Italian is,
+however, the language in which all orders are given," to which we should
+add the Norwegian of Olaf Carlsen, the ice-master. During the winter
+there was enough of occupation and amusement, though private theatricals
+were impossible, as they would have had to be given in four languages to
+be intelligible to the audience.
+
+The short summer came and went, and August had almost gone when—it was
+on the 30th, in 79° 43´—there came a surprise. The rays of the sun were
+fitfully breaking through the gloom when suddenly the gliding mists
+rolled up like a curtain, revealing in the north-west the outlines of a
+rocky coast, which in a few minutes grew into a radiant Alpine land. The
+shore, however, was unattainable, as a rush over the icefield soon
+showed, but from the edge of the fissure that barred any further
+progress they could make out its hills and glaciers and imagine the
+green pastures of its valleys. They called it Kaiser Franz Josef's Land,
+and along it they drifted during September till its outlines faded as
+the wind began to drive the floe to the south. But at the end of the
+month the direction of the floe changed to the north-west, taking the
+_Tegetthoff_ up to 79° 58´, her highest north, near enough to one of the
+islands for an effort to be made to land. Six started from the ship over
+the grinding, groaning, broken walls of ice, and when they were out of
+sight of the ship a mist settled down which cut them off from the sight
+of land and then so closely enwrapped them that they could see nothing.
+Advance they found hopeless, and as they returned they lost their way
+and were saved by the sagacity of a dog they had with them. All through
+October the drift continued, and it was not until forenoon of the 1st of
+November, two months after sighting the country, that they managed to
+get ashore. This was on Wilczek Island in the same longitude as
+Admiralty Peninsula in Novaya Zemlya, and in the same latitude as Mossel
+Bay in Spitsbergen.
+
+The sun had retired for the winter nine days before, and it was by the
+light of the moon that they first explored the unknown country. Little
+could be done, and, as it was much too late for attempting to shift from
+the ship to the shore, the winter had to be spent on board as the other
+had been. Through this winter, as before, the auroral displays were
+remarkable, and they are excellently described by Payer. Of one of them,
+he says: "It is now eight o'clock at night, the hour of the greatest
+intensity of the northern lights. For a moment some bundles of rays only
+are to be seen in the sky. In the south a faint, scarcely observable,
+band lies close to the horizon. All at once it rises rapidly and spreads
+east and west. The waves of light begin to dart and shoot; some rays
+mount towards the zenith. For a short time it remains stationary, then
+suddenly springs to life. The waves of light drive violently from east
+to west; the edges assume a deep red and green colour and dance up and
+down. The rays shoot up more rapidly; they become shorter; all rise
+together and approach nearer and nearer to the magnetic Pole. It looks
+as if there were a race among the rays, and that each aspired to reach
+the Pole first. And now the point is reached, and they shoot out on
+every side, to the north and the south, to the east and the west. Do the
+rays shoot from above downwards, or from below upwards? Who can
+distinguish? From the centre issues a sea of flames. Is that sea red,
+white, or green? Who can say?—it is all three colours at the same
+moment. The rays reach almost to the horizon; the whole sky is in
+flames. Nature displays before us such an exhibition of fireworks as
+transcends the powers of imagination to conceive. Involuntarily we
+listen; such a spectacle must, we think, be accompanied with sound. But
+unbroken stillness prevails, not the least sound strikes on the ear.
+Once more it becomes clear over the ice, and the whole phenomenon has
+disappeared with the same inconceivable rapidity with which it came, and
+gloomy night has again stretched her dark veil over everything. This was
+the aurora of the coming storm—the aurora in its fullest splendour."
+
+Sledging was begun in March, Hall Island being first visited, and, on
+the 26th, Payer, with six men, started on his main journey up Austria
+Sound, reaching Hohenlohe Island, where three men were left, and then
+proceeding further north to Crown Prince Rudolf Land. Off the southern
+promontory of this were innumerable icebergs, up to two hundred feet in
+height, cracking and snapping in the sunshine. The Middendorf Glacier,
+with an enormous sea-wall, ran towards the north-west; layers of snow
+and rents in the sea-ice, caused by icebergs falling in, filled the
+intervening space. Into these fissures Payer and his men were
+continually falling, drenching their canvas boots and clothes with
+sea-water. One of the men was sent on ahead to find a path by which the
+glacier might be climbed, and discovering a fairly open road the summit
+was gained across many crevasses bridged with snow, three of those at
+the lower part needing but a slight movement to detach the severed
+portions and form them into bergs.
+
+While resting on the glacier looking down on the semicircular terminal
+precipice and the gleaming host of bergs which filled the indentations
+of the coast, one of the men reported that his foot was swollen and
+ulcerated, and he had to be sent back to Hohenlohe Island. Just as the
+others were setting off, the snow gave way beneath the sledge, and down
+fell Zaninovich, the dogs and the sledge, while Payer was dragged
+backwards by the rope. The fall was arrested at a depth of thirty feet
+by the sledge sticking fast between the sides of the crevasse. Payer, on
+his face, the rope attaching him to the sledge tightly strained and
+cutting into the snow, shouted that he would sever the rope, but
+Zaninovich implored him not to do so as the sledge would then turn over
+and he would be killed; hearing, however, from Orel, that the man was
+lying on a ledge of snow with precipices all around him and that the
+dogs were still fast to the traces, Payer cut the rope, and the sledge
+made a short turn and stuck fast again. Then, telling Zaninovich that he
+must contrive to keep himself from freezing for four hours, Payer and
+Orel set off to run the six miles back to Hohenlohe Island. Payer, as he
+went on ahead, threw off his bird-skin clothes, his boots and his
+gloves, and ran in his stockings through the snow. In an hour he reached
+the camp, and leaving it unattended they all set off to the rescue with
+a rope and a pole. Picking up his clothes on the way, Payer and his men
+reached the crevasse; one of the party was let down by the rope, and
+finally Zaninovich and the sledge and dogs were brought from their
+dangerous position four hours and a half after their fall.
+
+The advance was then resumed along the west coast of Crown Prince Rudolf
+Land round the imposing headland they named Cape Auk—the rocky cliffs
+being covered with little auks and other seabirds, enormous flocks
+flying up and filling the air, the whole region seeming to be alive with
+their incessant whirring—and following the line of Teplitz Bay, Payer
+mounted one of the bergs detached from a glacier and saw open water with
+ice bounding it on the horizon. As the sheet over which their course lay
+became thinner, and threatened to give way beneath them, they had to
+open up a track among the hummocks by pick and shovel; and when this
+failed they had to unload the sledge and carry the things separately. At
+Cape Saulen they camped for the night in the fissure of a glacier into
+which they had to drag their baggage by a long rope; and next day—the
+12th of April, 1874—they went on again and reached Cape Fligely, in 81°
+50´ 43˝, their farthest north.
+
+With great difficulty they made their way back to the ship, a long,
+toilsome journey through snow and sludge, with open water in places
+where there had been ice, which made them fear the _Tegetthoff_ might
+have drifted away again. The imminent danger of starvation was ended by
+their reaching their depot on Schonau Island, whence Payer went on for
+the remaining twenty-five miles alone with the dog-sledge, the two dogs
+giving much trouble until they struck the old sledge track almost
+obliterated by snow, when they raised their heads, stuck their tails in
+the air, and broke into a run. Halting on an iceberg for a meal, the
+berg capsized, and in a moment Payer was begirt by fissures,
+water-pools, and rolling blocks of ice, from which he managed to escape.
+When he turned into the narrow passage between Salm and Wilczek Islands,
+Orgel Cape, visible at a great distance, was the only dark spot on the
+scene. At once the dogs made for it, and about midnight he arrived
+there. With an anxious heart he began the ascent; a barren stony plateau
+confronted him; with every advancing step, made with increasing
+difficulty, the land gradually disappeared and the horizon of the frozen
+sea expanded before him; no ship was to be seen, no trace of man for
+thousands of miles except a cairn with the fragments of a flag
+fluttering in the wind, and a grave half covered with snow. Still he
+climbed, and suddenly three masts emerged. He had found the ship; there
+she lay about three miles off, appearing on the frozen ocean no bigger
+than a fly, the icebergs and drifts around her having hidden her amongst
+them. He held the heads of the dogs towards her and pointed with his arm
+to where she lay; and they saw her, and away they went, to find all but
+the watch asleep.
+
+After another sledge journey north-westwards to Mount Brunn, from which
+Richthofen Peak was sighted, preparations were made for abandoning the
+ship and returning home. The three boats left the _Tegetthoff_ on the
+20th of May, but so slow was the progress over the difficult route that
+at the end of every day in the first week it was possible for Payer to
+go back to her on the dog-sledge to replenish the stores which had been
+consumed; and at the end of two months of indescribable effort the
+distance between the boats and the ship was not more than eight statute
+miles. The heights of Wilczek Land were still distinctly visible and its
+lines of rocks shone with mocking brilliance in the ever-growing
+daylight. All things appeared to promise that after a long struggle with
+the ice there remained for the expedition but a despairing return to the
+ship and a third winter there with the frozen ocean for their grave.
+
+In the middle of July the fissures which had been opening out around
+them became wider and longer, progress reaching some four miles a day;
+then the north wind blew and the icefield commenced to drift to the
+south, to drift again north-east when the wind changed. Backwards and
+forwards, amid every variety of weather, including heavy rain, the pack
+ice moved until it changed to drift ice, and, on the 15th of August, the
+much-tried company got afloat at last in open water and laid their
+course for Novaya Zemlya, where they fell in with two Russian schooners
+off Cape Britwin.
+
+The next to visit Franz Josef Land was Leigh Smith, whom we met with in
+the Spitsbergen seas. Building the _Eira_ especially for Arctic service,
+he started in 1880, the year she was launched, on a cruise to Greenland
+and thence eastwards, which took him to the west and north-west of the
+ground gone over by the Austrians. He surveyed the whole coast from 42°
+east to the most westerly point seen by Payer, and sorted it out into
+several islands, but found no trace of the _Tegetthoff_, for where she
+had been left was open water. Encouraged by the success of his visit, in
+which the observations and collections were unusually good, he returned
+in the _Eira_ the following year to meet with much more unfavourable ice
+conditions. Finding it impossible to get westward of Barents Hook the
+_Eira_ was, on the 15th of August, made fast to the land floe off Cape
+Flora, and six days afterwards she was nipped and stove by the ice and
+slowly sank in eleven fathoms of water. As she settled down the steam
+winch was set to work, and by its means half a dozen casks of flour and
+about three hundredweight of bread were saved from the main hold; and
+when nothing more could be got from the lower deck the stores in the
+after cabin were attacked, and within the two hours from the discovery
+of the leak to the disappearance of the ship, all these provisions and
+the boats and clothes were safe on the ice; and the sails were cut away,
+and with them and some oars a tent was erected in which all the company,
+twenty-five in number, took shelter.
+
+A move was made next day to the land. On Cape Flora a house was built
+mainly of earth and stones, covered with sails, in which the winter was
+passed. Fortunately the district abounds with bears and walruses, and
+the meat from these, boiled with vegetables, and served out three times
+a day into twenty-five plates made out of old provision tins, proved the
+right sort of fare to keep every one in excellent health. Thanks in a
+great measure to Bob, the retriever, the larder was kept full; but there
+being a shortness of coal, recourse for fuel had to be made to rope and
+blubber, so that no one could mistake the time when the cooking was on.
+In fact, the odour and the smoke were of great interest to the bears,
+who lingered about intending to pay surprise visits, and the dog had
+always to be sent in front of those leaving the house. One day when out
+on his own account, Bob discovered a school of walruses on the ice and
+reported the matter in his own fashion, whereupon several of these were
+shot, and after an exciting chase five were secured. In January he found
+another school, of which three were bagged and stowed alongside the
+house, although the thermometer stood at forty below zero. On another
+occasion he managed to tempt a bear up to the front door, where it was
+promptly tumbled over, to his evident satisfaction.
+
+During the winter the party killed twenty-nine walruses and three dozen
+bears. Once, when only a fortnight's meat was left, and things began to
+look serious, no less than eight bears were killed in two weeks. At the
+end of April the birds returned, and in June the ice was cleared away by
+a gale and walruses were seen swimming on the water in hundreds. Never
+did a wintering party meet with better fortune, and never was one better
+managed.
+
+On the 21st of June they started from Cape Flora in four boats, six men
+each in three of them, seven in the other, to reach the open sea,
+leaving in the house six bottles of champagne in case any person might
+look in, besides a few other things, and blocking up the door to keep
+out the bears. Before the boats reached the ice they crossed eighty
+miles of water, and then six weeks' hard labour began, zigzagging
+through channels, hauling over hummocky floes, sailing through pools,
+halting for days on a floe with no water in sight, but never doubting
+that a clearance would come. On leaving the ice they steered for Novaya
+Zemlya, at first in a gentle breeze, which rapidly increased to a gale
+in a heavy thunderstorm, so that the boats, with their sails of
+tablecloth and shirt-tail, had to be carefully handled as they scudded
+before it at such a pace that within twenty-four hours of leaving the
+ice they were drawn up all safe on the beach at the entrance of
+Matyushin Shar. Next morning the Dutch exploring schooner, _Willem
+Barents_, was descried coming out of the strait, and before the schooner
+was reached by the boats there came round the point the _Hope_, which
+Sir Allen Young, of the _Pandora_, had brought out as a rescue ship for
+them. They had been driven by the gale to the very spot on the very day
+they could be best relieved.
+
+From the reports of Weyprecht and Payer it appeared that the north-east
+of Franz Josef Land would make an excellent base for a start for the
+North Pole, and Leigh Smith was led to the same view by his visit to
+Alexandra Land, but along the south he had made so many changes in
+Payer's map that a further examination of the region was evidently
+desirable. To effect this by a careful survey of the coasts, Frederick
+G. Jackson landed near Cape Flora on the 7th of September, 1894, and
+began his residence of a thousand days. Setting to work in a
+businesslike way, and recording his progress in similar style, he
+disintegrated the land masses into a group of some fifty size-able
+islands, through which run two main waterways, his British Channel and
+Payer's Austria Sound, both opening out northwards into Queen Victoria
+Sea; Crown Prince Rudolf Land being a large island at the northern
+entrance of Austria Sound, Wilczek Land at its southern entrance being
+about twice its size. He defined the coast-lines for over eighty miles
+of latitude, extending to fifteen degrees of longitude as far west as
+the most westerly headland, Cape Mary Harmsworth, and so cutting up
+Franz Josef Land that not even an island now bears the name, which is
+used only as that of the archipelago. Never in Arctic exploration was
+work rendered more evident than in the difference between the map as
+Jackson found it and as he left it.
+
+The _Windward_, with the expedition on board, sighted the land on the
+25th of August, but, stopped by intervening ice, could not reach the
+coast until a fortnight afterwards, the landing taking place at Cape
+Flora, close to Leigh Smith's house, which was found with the roof off.
+Not far away Jackson established his headquarters, quite a little
+settlement, though the expedition consisted of only eight men. Just as
+Leigh Smith found no remains of the _Tegetthoff_, so Jackson found no
+trace of the _Eira_. It had been intended that the _Windward_ should
+return after putting the party ashore, but, shut in by the ice, she had
+to remain during the first winter, getting away safely next year, to
+return in 1896 and take away Nansen, who, as we shall see further on,
+ended his long land journey here. On her 1897 trip she departed with the
+members of the expedition all well, so that neither ship nor man was
+lost, the only serious casualties being among the dogs and the Russian
+ponies which did such excellent service.
+
+Two years afterwards, in July, 1899, the deserted settlement was visited
+by the Duke of the Abruzzi, in his expedition in the _Stella Polare_, on
+his way to the north, a few days before he met with his short
+imprisonment in the ice in British Channel. His was a successful run all
+the same, for he was in 82° 4´, to the northward of Crown Prince Rudolf
+Land, or, as it is now called, Prince Rudolf Island, twenty-seven days
+out from Archangel. Passing Cape Fligely—the latitude of which was
+afterwards found to be sixteen miles south of the 82° 5´ Payer had made
+it—and rounding Cape Auk, the _Stella Polare_ went into winter quarters
+in Teplitz Bay, whence Captain Umberto Cagni started, on the 11th of
+March, 1900, for his forty-five days' march towards the North Pole.
+
+It was a great disappointment to the Duke to have to stay with the ship
+instead of leading this well-equipped and thoroughly organised sledge
+attempt, but owing to an accident two of his fingers had been so
+severely frost-bitten that they had to be amputated, and, unless a
+second winter was to be spent in the ice, a start was imperative before
+he could recover from the operation. Thus all he could do was to assist
+at the first encounter of the sledges with the pressure ridges and wish
+Cagni the longest possible journey and a safe return. There was every
+appearance of the journey being a difficult one, for on the first day a
+stoppage had to be made every quarter of a mile or thereabouts for a
+road to be cut through the ridges with ice-axes, while next day a new
+hindrance was experienced in the young ice in the channels being too
+thin at times to support the sledges, one of which began to sink and was
+only extricated with difficulty, so that only one sledge could be
+allowed on such ice at a time.
+
+On the 13th of March the auxiliary sledge was sent back, thus reducing
+the caravan to a dozen sledges and ninety-eight dogs, which in a long
+line passed over a vast plain covered with great rugged blocks of ice,
+as though they had been thrown down confusedly by a giant's hand to bar
+the way. The wind was north-east, the cold intense, fifty below zero,
+not to be particular to a degree or so, for, as Cagni says, when the
+temperature is below twenty-two, and it is impossible to use a screen or
+a magnifying glass, the mere fact of approaching to read the scale on an
+unmounted thermometer sends it up a couple of degrees, and when the
+temperature is below fifty-eight an approach makes a difference of three
+or four degrees. So cold was it that the sleeping bags were as hard as
+wood, and the men got into them after much effort, not to sleep but to
+feel their teeth chattering for hours, the only warm parts of the body
+being the feet clad in long woollen stockings. "There are patches of ice
+on our knees," says Cagni, "like horses' knee-caps, and we have others,
+both large and small, sometimes thick enough to be scraped off with a
+knife, everywhere, but especially on our cheeks and backs and in all
+places where the perspiration has oozed through."
+
+Amid such surroundings the camp must have seemed somewhat out of place.
+When a suitable site was chosen the first sledge was stopped, and near
+it the three other sledges of the third detachment were drawn up at a
+distance of about ten feet from each other. The sledges of the second
+detachment as they came up formed a second line, those of the third
+forming another. The tents were pitched between two sledges, generally
+those in the centre, the guy ropes being fastened to the sledge runners,
+those at the ends to an ice-axe stuck in the ice. The sleeping bags were
+then unpacked, the cooking stoves taken out of the boats, and everything
+arranged under the tent. The thin steel wire ropes to which the dogs
+were tethered, when unharnessed, were stretched between the sledges away
+from the tents. While the men were taking the dogs out of the harness,
+which always remained attached to the traces on the sledges, and
+tethering them to the steel ropes, one of the guides took a chosen
+victim to some distance from the camp, and felled it with a blow from an
+ice-axe, then opened it, skinned it quickly, divided it up into ten
+shares and distributed these to the dogs, already destined to undergo
+the same fate, these being the weakest and most ailing—in short, this
+was the elimination of the unfit.
+
+On the 22nd of March the first detachment began its return journey; it
+consisted of Lieutenant Querini and two men, and it was never heard of
+again. The way northwards continued extremely difficult, with channels
+and ridges plentiful and the road so rough that the sledges began to
+break up in the bows and runners, some at last so badly that their
+fragments had to be used to repair the others with. On the 31st the
+second detachment was sent back, consisting of the doctor and two men,
+and it got safely to the ship. The third detachment, consisting of Cagni
+with two Courmayeur guides—Petigax and Fenoillet—and a sailor, Canepa,
+all four Italians, made the final effort. That day they were on level
+ice and covered seventeen miles, but at night a snowstorm came on and
+there was trouble. After a rest they pressed forward in rapid marches
+amid bad weather over the drifting fields. On the 12th of April while
+raising camp a strong pressure piled up within a hundred yards of them a
+wall from thirty-six to forty-five feet high, the highest ridge they had
+seen. Enormous blocks rolled down towards them with loud crashes after
+being thrown up by other blocks, lifted to the brow of the ridge and
+rolled over in their turn, raising a cloud of ice-dust in their fall,
+the loud continual creaking of the pressure drowned by the booming of
+the cascade which shook the ice for yards around. These ridges were
+constantly forming, most of them remaining, some of them subsiding as
+the edges drifted apart, and the channels thus caused were even more
+difficult to deal with, some having to be passed over thin ice, some
+ferried over on small floes. But they did not cross the track all along,
+and during the last few days the travelling was easy.
+
+On the 24th of April the long journey reached its end. "At ten minutes
+past twelve," says Cagni, "we are on our way to the north. The ice is
+like that of yesterday, level and smooth, and, later on, undulating. At
+first the dogs are not very willing to pull, but encouraged by our
+shouts and a few strokes, they advance at a rapid pace, which they keep
+up during the whole march. At five we meet with a large pressure ridge,
+which almost surprises us, as it seems to us a century since we have
+seen any; we lost a quarter of an hour in preparing a passage through
+and crossing it. Beyond it the aspect of the ice changes; the
+undulations are more strongly marked, and large blocks and small ridges
+indicate recent pressure, but luckily they do not stop us or obstruct
+our way. Soon after six we come upon a large channel running from east
+to west; we must stop. Beyond the channel is a vast expanse of new ice,
+much broken up and traversed by many other channels. Even if I were not
+prevented from doing so, I would now think twice before risking myself
+in the midst of them. If we did push forward on that ice, even for half
+a day, we would gain very few miles and besides run the risk of losing a
+sledge. The dogs are very tired, and we too feel the effects of
+yesterday's strain. I therefore consider that it is more prudent to stop
+here, and both the guides are of the same opinion. The sun is unclouded.
+I bring out the sextant and take altitudes of the sun to calculate the
+longitude (65° 19´ 45˝ E.) while Fenoillet and Canepa put the sledges in
+order and pitch the tent in a sort of small amphitheatre of hillocks
+which shelter us from the north wind. On that farthest to the north,
+which is almost touched by the water of the channel, we plant the staff
+from which our flag waves. The air is very clear; between the north-east
+and the north-west there stand out distinctly, some sharply pointed,
+others rounded, dark or blue and white, often with strange shapes, the
+innumerable pinnacles of the great blocks of ice raised up by the
+pressure. Farther away again on the bright horizon in a chain from east
+to west is a great azure wall which from afar seems insurmountable." The
+latitude was 86° 34´.
+
+The outward journey took forty-five days; the homeward took sixty, and
+proved a perilous adventure owing to the drift of the pack to the
+westward and its breaking up as the weather became warmer and the
+southern boundary was approached. At first there was good promise. The
+dogs knew they were going back, and followed the outward track so fast
+that the men, failing to keep up with them, for the first time took a
+seat on the sledges and were drawn along at four miles an hour. Progress
+was rapid for a few days owing to there being now only four sledges and,
+in a considerable degree, to the intelligence of the leading dog,
+Messicano. Ever since leaving Teplitz Bay this small white dog, with the
+intelligent eyes and bushy legs, had held the first place in the leading
+sledge because he followed the man at the head of the convoy better than
+the others, and now when the guide was behind or on the sledge,
+Messicano took the track at a gallop with his nose on the snow, losing
+the way now and then, but finding it again, though to the men it was
+often invisible. The time came, however, when the old track had to be
+left for a better course to the ship, and then difficulties of every
+sort had to be overcome, the delays being such that dog after dog had to
+be killed to keep away starvation, and it was only with seven of them
+and two sledges that Prince Rudolf Island was reached from the westward
+on the 23rd of June. "The snow is wet, which is very bad for dragging
+the sledges, as it sticks to the runners and tires our dogs exceedingly;
+we have still seven, but only three that really pull (three to each
+sledge), for Messicano is at the last extremity and can hardly hold up
+the trace." Toiling on thus through the fog to Cape Brorok a noise was
+heard in the distance like the creaking caused by pressure among ice
+floes, and when the fog lifted it was found that the sound was that of
+the seabirds on the cliffs. Out on the icefield no signs of life had
+been met with beyond the traces of a bear, a seal that vanished, and a
+walrus that popped up through thin ice to send Fenoillet scuttling off
+on his hands and knees.
+
+Meanwhile the ship, which had been seriously damaged, had been made
+seaworthy. Liberated from her berth by mines of gunpowder and guncotton,
+she sailed from Teplitz Bay on the 16th of August, and, after further
+unpleasant experiences in the ice, reached Cape Flora, where a call was
+made at Jackson's house in the vain hope of news of Querini; and thence,
+after more ice complications, Captain Evensen took her to Hammerfest.
+Though, as in all Arctic endeavour, conditions were against them, the
+employment of a Norwegian crew for the ship and an Italian crew for the
+sledges had, under excellent management, worked thoroughly well.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+                            CAPE CHELYUSKIN
+
+  Chelyuskin reaches the cape—The Laptefs—Deschnef's voyage through
+    Bering Strait—Nordenskiöld's voyages to the Yenesei—The Siberian
+    tundra—The voyage of the _Vega_—Nordenskiöld rounds Cape
+    Chelyuskin—Endeavour to reach the Siberian Islands—Liakhoff's
+    discovery—The _Vega_ passes the Cape North of Captain Cook—Frozen
+    in within six miles of Cape Serdze Kamen—Completes the North-east
+    Passage—Nansen's voyage—The _Fram_—Her drift in the ice—Nansen and
+    Johansen start for the Pole—They reach 86° 13´ 6˝—Their journey to
+    Frederick Jackson Island—The meeting with Jackson—Sverdrup's
+    voyage to Spitsbergen.
+
+
+The tundras and shores of Siberia abound with obstacles to exploration,
+and yet a third of the threshold of the Polar regions has been surveyed
+along their line. No spot remains unvisited on the northern margin of
+the Asiatic mainland, the northernmost point of which is Cape Chelyuskin
+in 77° 36·8´, so that the Arctic Circle sweeps inland for 770 miles to
+the south of it—in other words the cape is practically half-way between
+the Circle and the Pole.
+
+[Illustration: CAPE CHELYUSKIN]
+
+It was chiefly from the land that the northern coast-line was surveyed
+by the Russians, whose Arctic work has been immense and thorough, though
+not marked by any striking discoveries. Cape Chelyuskin was first
+reached, in May, 1742, by the explorer whose name it bears, after a
+sledge journey from the Chatanga, he being at the time second in command
+to Khariton Laptef, whose first expedition in 1739 ended in the loss of
+his ship three hundred miles from his winter quarters, to which he had
+to travel on foot, losing twelve men by cold and exhaustion on the way.
+Within the preceding four years the survey of the coast west of it had
+been completed in four stages—from Archangel to Yalmal (that is Land's
+End); from Yalmal to the Obi; from the Obi to the Yenesei; from the
+Yenesei to Cape Sterlegof. In 1735 Pronchistschef, from the Lena, failed
+to round Cape Chelyuskin from the east, and returned to the Olenek to
+die but two days before his young wife, who was his companion on his
+perilous voyage. Two years afterwards Dmitri Laptef began his
+explorations east of the Lena which took him to Cape Baranoff, thus
+joining up to the discoveries of the sable-hunters made a century
+before, including those of Deschnef, who, in 1648, sailed from the
+Kolyma to Kamchatka and went through Bering Strait more than thirty
+years before Bering was born. Thus the route of the North-east Passage
+was known, although no man had travelled the whole way either by land or
+sea, before the task was undertaken by Nordenskiöld.
+
+To begin with, Nordenskiöld made two voyages to the Yenesei. In the
+first voyage he left Tromsoe in the _Proeven_ on the 14th of June, 1875,
+and reached what he named Dickson Harbour at the mouth of the Yenesei on
+the 15th of August. Sending back the _Proeven_, which returned through
+Matyushin Shar, he, with Lundstrom the botanist and Stuxberg the
+zoologist, and three walrus-hunters, embarked in a boat they had brought
+out with them and proceeded up the estuary into the river; and during
+the first six hundred miles they landed only twice. On the last day of
+the month they caught up a steamer on which they became passengers.
+
+"We were yet," says Nordenskiöld, "far to the north of the Arctic
+Circle, and as many perhaps imagine that the little-known region we were
+now travelling through, the Siberian tundra, is a desert wilderness
+covered either by ice and snow, or by an exceedingly scanty moss
+vegetation, it perhaps may not be out of place to say that this is by no
+means the case. On the contrary, we saw snow during our journey up the
+Yenesei only at one place, in a deep valley cleft some fathoms in
+breadth, and the vegetation, especially on the islands which are
+overflowed during the spring floods, is distinguished by a luxuriance to
+which I have seldom seen anything comparable. Already had the fertility
+of the soil and the immeasurable extent and richness in grass of the
+pastures drawn forth from one of our walrus-hunters, a middle-aged man
+who is owner of a little patch of ground among the fells of Northern
+Norway, a cry of envy at the splendid land our Lord had given the
+Russian, and of astonishment that no creature pastured, no scythe mowed,
+the grass. Daily and hourly we heard the same cry repeated, and even in
+louder tones, when some weeks after we came to the grand old forests
+between Yeneseisk and Turuchansk, or to the nearly uninhabited plains on
+the other side of Krasnojarsk covered with deep black earth, equal
+without doubt in fertility to the best parts of Scania, and in extent
+surpassing the whole Scandinavian peninsula. This judgment formed on the
+spot by a genuine though illiterate agriculturist is not without
+interest in forming an idea of the future importance of Siberia."
+
+In fact, Siberia is particularly rich in mineral and agricultural
+wealth, and this voyage, which opened up the route to and from Europe by
+the natural outlets to the north, was of such commercial promise that
+the explorer received for it the special thanks of the Russian
+Government. As, however, there were people who looked upon it as an
+exceptional voyage in an exceptional year, Nordenskiöld next season took
+another voyage to the river, this time in the _Ymer_, carrying the first
+instalment of merchandise so as to begin the trade; and he was followed
+in a few weeks by Captain Joseph Wiggins, in the _Thames_, whose
+subsequent voyages made the northern route well known.
+
+Assured by the experience gained in these voyages that the North-east
+Passage was possible to a steam vessel of moderate size, Nordenskiöld,
+in 1878, was enabled to fit out the _Vega_, and sailed from Tromsoe on
+the 31st of July. Three other vessels accompanied her, two bound for the
+Yenesei, one for the Lena, the rendezvous being Khabarova. All went
+well. On the 9th of August the _Fraser_ and _Express_ proceeded up the
+Yenesei to discharge their cargoes and return to Europe in safety; next
+day the _Vega_ and _Lena_ left for the eastward, and, after some risky
+navigation among islands and through fog, lay for four days in Actinia
+Haven, between Taimyr Island and the mainland, vainly waiting for clear
+weather. Pushing on through fitful fog they sighted a promontory in the
+north-east gleaming in the sunshine, and rounding its western horn
+anchored in a bay open to the north and free from ice at the extremity
+of Cape Chelyuskin. With the rounding of the most northerly point of the
+Old World the first object of the expedition had been attained. The
+salute fired in honour of the event having frightened away the only
+polar bear who had stood watching the ship from the western horn, some
+of the party landed, the botanists to discover that all the plants of
+the peninsula had apparently been stopped on the outermost promontory
+when trying to migrate further north. The flora was not extensive—a few
+luxuriant lichens and twenty-three flowering plants, eight of them
+saxifrages, most of them with a tendency to form semi-globular tufts;
+the fauna consisted of the bear, a few seals, a walrus, two shoals of
+white whales, some ducks and geese, and a number of sandpipers. Not so
+long a list as was obtained at other landings, but by no means a bad one
+for the half-way house to the Pole.
+
+After passing the cape the course was laid for the New Siberian Islands,
+but ice prevented progress in their direction beyond 77° 45´, the
+highest north of the voyage, and the ship had to work her way out by the
+route she went in, thus losing a day, which had serious consequences,
+though it proved the correctness of Nordenskiöld's theory that the water
+delivered by the Siberian rivers is, for a few months, of sufficiently
+high temperature to give a clear passage to vessels content to keep near
+the coast. On reaching the mouth of the Lena the ships parted company,
+Captain Johannsen taking the smaller steamer up the river as intended
+and bringing the news of the rounding of Cape Chelyuskin and the promise
+of the North-east Passage being accomplished in one season, which was
+not destined to be fulfilled.
+
+Another attempt was then made by the _Vega_ to reach the islands to the
+north, but after sighting the two most westerly of the group the shallow
+sea was too crowded with rotten ice, and an idea of landing on Liakhoff
+Island having to be given up for the same reason, the course was altered
+so as to take the ship round Svjatoi Nos (the Holy Cape), where in
+April, 1770, Liakhoff had noticed the mighty crowd of reindeer going
+south. Justly considering they must have come over the ice from some
+northern land, he went back on their tracks in a dog-sledge, discovering
+two of the most southerly islands, and obtaining from Catherine the
+Second as a reward the monopoly of hunting the foxes and collecting the
+ivory there from the fossil mammoths he found in abundance.
+
+Forced to keep to the channel along the coast, which daily became
+narrower, the _Vega_ reached Cape Chelagskoi, and when off this
+promontory Nordenskiöld saw the first natives during his voyage. Two
+boats built of skin almost exactly similar to the oomiaks, or women's
+boats, used by the Eskimos, came out to the ship, the men, women, and
+children in them intimating by shouts and gestures that they wished to
+come on board. The _Vega_ was brought-to that they might do so, but as
+none of the Chukches could speak Russian and none of the Swedes knew
+Chukche, the interview was not so satisfactory as expected, though the
+universal language of pantomime with presents ensured a favourable
+termination.
+
+On the 12th of September the _Vega_ passed Irkaipii, the Cape North of
+Captain Cook, and by rounding it Nordenskiöld joined up with the
+westernmost limit of the Arctic discoveries of the great navigator. Cook
+tried to weather it in August, 1778, but was turned back by fog and
+snow, and thinking it was "not consistent with prudence to make any
+further attempts to find a passage into the Atlantic this year in any
+direction, so little was the prospect of succeeding," he sailed for
+Hawaii, where his intention of making the attempt the ensuing summer
+came to nought owing to his death.
+
+On the 28th of September the _Vega's_ progress for the year was arrested
+by her being frozen in for the winter on the eastern side of Kolyuchin
+Bay in the northernmost part of Bering Strait, only six miles of ice
+barring the way round Cape Serdze Kamen into the open sea. During her
+detention of two hundred and sixty-four days the scientific
+investigations of many kinds that were undertaken were of lasting
+importance, as they had been throughout, and when she was released on
+the 18th of July, 1879, to come home by way of Yokohama, the collections
+and records she brought with her were simply enormous. No better work
+with greater results was done by any Arctic expedition than during this
+successful voyage, which was too well managed to have much adventure.
+For it Nordenskiöld very justly claimed the reward of twenty-five
+thousand guilders offered in 1596 by the States-General of Holland, the
+endeavour to win which sent out Van Heemskerck, Barents, and Rijp.
+
+[Illustration: ADOLF ERIK NORDENSKIÖLD]
+
+We have seen how the Dutchmen built their house at Ice Haven mainly of
+the driftwood from the Siberian rivers. Similar wood from probably the
+same source is found on the shores of Greenland and of almost all the
+northerly islands of the Arctic Ocean. Further, the Greenland flora
+includes a series of Siberian plants apparently from seeds drifted there
+by some current. Not only do trees and seeds travel by water from Asia
+westward to America; at Godthaab, for instance, on the western coast of
+Greenland, there was found a throwing-stick of a shape and ornamentation
+used only by the Alaskan Eskimos; and three years after the foundering
+of the _Jeannette_ to the north of the New Siberian Islands there were
+found on the south-west coast of Greenland a number of articles in the
+drift-ice that must have come from the sunken vessel. For these and
+other reasons it seemed clear to Fridtjof Nansen that a current flowed
+at some point between the Pole and Franz Josef Land from the Siberian
+Arctic Sea to the Greenland coast, and so he set to work to organise his
+daring expedition to strike this current well to the eastward, trusting
+to its mercies to take him to or near the Pole.
+
+In 1893, when the _Fram_ rounded Cape Chelyuskin, Nansen had found the
+Kara Sea almost as open as Nordenskiöld had done, but had met with more
+difficulties among the islands off the Taimyr Peninsula. A famous
+vessel, the _Fram_, the first of her kind, built specially for the ice
+to take her where it listed in the hope that she would drift to
+discovery like the _Tegetthoff_, and not to disaster like the
+_Jeannette_. The general idea was Nansen's, the carrying out of the idea
+was Colin Archer's. As Nansen says: "We must gratefully recognise that
+the success of the expedition was in no small degree due to this man."
+Plan after plan did he make of the projected ship, model after model did
+he prepare and abandon before he was satisfied: and never was a ship
+more honestly built. With her double-ended deck plan, with a side of
+such curve and slope that under ice pressure she would be lifted instead
+of crushed between the floes, and with bow, stern, and keel so rounded
+off that she would slip like an eel from the embrace of the ice, she was
+of such solidity as to withstand any pressure from any direction. Her
+stem of three stout oak beams, one inside the other, was four feet in
+thickness, protected with iron; her rudder-post and propeller-post, two
+feet across, had on either side a stout oak counter-timber following the
+curvature upwards and forming a double stern-post, with the planking
+cased with heavy iron plates; and between these timbers was a well for
+the screw and another for the rudder, so that each could be hoisted on
+deck, the rudder with the help of the capstan coming up in a few
+minutes. Her frames, ten inches thick and twenty-one wide, stood close
+together, carrying three layers of planking, giving altogether a side of
+two feet or more of solid wood, so shored and stayed for strength that
+the hold looked like a thicket of balks, joists, and stanchions. With a
+length of 128 feet over all, a breadth of thirty-six, a depth of
+seventeen, and a displacement of 800 tons, she was quite a
+multum-in-parvo engined with a 220 horse-power triple expansion, so
+contrived that in case of accident or for any other cause the cylinders
+could be used singly or two together. Rigged as a three-masted
+fore-and-aft schooner, with the mainmast much higher than the others—it
+being unusually high, for the crow's-nest on the main-topmast was 102
+feet above the water—she proved equal to the demands on her, though in
+her case strength and warmth had to be thought of before weatherliness
+and speed. But her speed was not so poor, for when steaming and sailing
+after leaving Cape Chelyuskin on the 10th of September she was doing her
+nine knots.
+
+The day after she had entered the Nordenskiöld Sea came a walrus-hunt,
+so graphically described by Nansen that we must find room for an
+extract. "It was," he says, "a lovely morning—fine, still weather; the
+walruses' guffaw sounded over to us along the clear ice surface. They
+were lying crowded together on a floe a little to landward of us, blue
+mountains glittering behind them in the sun. At last the harpoons were
+sharpened, guns and cartridges ready, and Henriksen, Juell, and I set
+off. There seemed to be a slight breeze from the south, so we rowed to
+the north side of the floe, to get to leeward of the animals. From time
+to time their sentry raised his head, but apparently did not see us. We
+advanced slowly, and soon were so near that we had to row very
+cautiously. Juell kept us going, while Henriksen was ready in the bow
+with a harpoon, and I behind him with a gun. The moment the sentry
+raised his head the oars stopped, and we stood motionless; when he sank
+it again, a few more strokes brought us nearer. Body to body they lay,
+close-packed on a small floe, old and young ones mixed. Enormous masses
+of flesh they were. Now and again one of the ladies fanned herself by
+moving one of her flippers backwards and forwards over her body; then
+she lay quiet again on her back or side. More and more cautiously we
+drew near. Whilst I sat ready with the gun, Henriksen took a good grip
+of the harpoon shaft, and as the boat touched the floe he rose, and off
+flew the harpoon. But it struck too high, glanced off the tough hide,
+and skipped over the backs of the animals. Now there was a pretty to do!
+Ten or twelve great weird faces glared upon us at once; the colossal
+creatures twisted themselves round with incredible celerity, and came
+waddling with lifted heads and hollow bellowings to the edge of the ice
+where we lay. It was undeniably an imposing sight; but I laid my gun to
+my shoulder and fired at one of the biggest heads. The animal staggered
+and then fell head foremost into the water. Now a ball into another
+head; this creature fell, too, but was able to fling itself into the
+sea. And now the whole flock dashed in, and we, as well as they, were
+hidden in the spray. It had all happened in a few seconds. But up they
+came again immediately round the boat, the one head bigger and uglier
+than the other—their young ones close beside them. They stood up in the
+water, bellowed and roared till the air trembled, threw themselves
+forward towards us, then rose up again, and new bellowings filled the
+air. Then they rolled over and disappeared with a splash, then bobbed up
+again. The water foamed and boiled for yards around—the ice-world that
+had been so still before seemed in a moment to have been transformed
+into a raging Bedlam. Any moment we might expect to have a walrus tusk
+or two through the boat or to be heaved up or capsized. Something of
+this kind was the very least that could happen after such a terrible
+commotion. But the hurly-burly went on and nothing came of it."
+
+The _Fram_ had to follow the coast owing to the thick pack barring the
+way across the sea. The mouth of the Chatanga was passed, then that of
+the Olenek, and then the influence of the warm water of the Lena being
+apparent by the clearance of the floes, the course was laid straight for
+the Pole in open water until 77° 44´ was reached, when, checked by the
+long compact edge of ice shining through the fog, the route became
+north-westerly until they stopped for fear they should get near land,
+which was the very thing they wished to avoid; and on the 25th of
+September in about 78½° north latitude—north-west of Sannikof Land—they
+were frozen in.
+
+Preparations for wintering began. The rudder was hauled up, the engine
+was taken to pieces, each separate part oiled and laid away with the
+greatest care—for Amundsen looked after it as if it were his own child—a
+carpenter's shop was started in the hold, a smithy arranged first on
+deck and then on the ice. But it all had to be replaced, even the engine
+put together again, for the pack cleared away for a brief period, to
+return, when again the shiftings were made; and when the windmill was
+put up to drive the dynamo, the winter installation was in all senses
+complete.
+
+Slowly the _Fram_ drifted in her ice-berth, so slowly that at the end of
+twelve months she had moved from point to point only 189 miles, having
+returned no further west than the longitude of the Olenek; her highest
+north, attained on the 18th of June, being 81° 46´. In the main the
+drift was north-westerly, but three times it had boxed the compass in
+irregular loops, the only constant thing about it being that, in no
+matter what direction she was taken, the bow of the _Fram_ always
+pointed south. Of grips she had many, some of the pressures were
+enormous, once they were severe enough to suggest measures for her
+abandonment, but she survived them all unscathed. Early in the drift it
+became apparent that the ice was packing twice and slacking twice in
+every twenty-four hours, and in this sea, as afterwards in the Atlantic
+area, the influence of the tides, particularly the spring tides, was
+unmistakable—as it was expected it would be—though in the deep Polar
+basin the wind had more effect; and, in truth, the wind was a factor
+throughout in the packing of the ice and in the drift's direction. One
+thing was clear, that the current was not taking the _Fram_ across the
+North Pole, but about half-way between it and Spitsbergen; and if the
+Pole was to be reached some of the expedition must attempt to get there
+over the ice. This meant leaving the ship, going north, and returning to
+the nearest known land, for, owing to the irregularity of the drift, it
+was hopeless to think of again reaching the _Fram_. During the second
+winter the route of the ship trended more to the north, and, after a
+loop all round in January, she reached 84° 4´ on the 14th of March in
+the longitude of Cape Chelyuskin. Here Nansen and Lieutenant F. H.
+Johansen, who rather than not join the _Fram_ had shipped in her as
+stoker, left the ship with three sledges, two kayaks, and twenty-eight
+dogs to go as far northward as they could, their expectation being that
+they would reach the Pole in fifty days. Had they remained in the ship
+until November they would have saved themselves trouble, for, as matters
+turned out, the embarrassing drift took the _Fram_ within eight miles of
+the farthest north they attained after twenty-three days of strenuous
+endeavour.
+
+[Illustration: Yours sincerely Fridtjof Nansen.]
+
+The ice, fairly easy for a few days, soon became terrible in the
+difficulties it offered to progress over it, and the continual toil of
+hauling and carrying the sledges, and righting them when capsized, soon
+told on the two men to such an extent as to tire them out so thoroughly
+that sometimes in the evening they fell asleep as they went along. The
+cold, too, proved singularly searching and severe. During the course of
+the day the damp exhalations of the body little by little became
+condensed in their outer garments, which became transformed into suits
+of ice-armour, so hard that if they could have been got off they could
+have stood by themselves, and they crackled audibly at every movement.
+The clothes were so stiff that the sleeve of Nansen's coat rubbed deep
+sores in his wrist, one of which got frost-bitten, the wound growing
+deeper and deeper and nearly reaching the bone. "How cold we were," says
+Nansen, "as we lay there shivering in the bag, waiting for the supper to
+be ready! I, who was cook, was obliged to keep myself more or less awake
+to see to the culinary operations, and sometimes I succeeded. At last
+the supper was ready, was portioned out, and, as always, tasted
+delicious. These occasions were the supreme moments of our existence,
+moments to which we looked forward all day long. But sometimes we were
+so weary that our eyes closed, and we fell asleep with the food on its
+way to our mouths. Our hands would fall back inanimate with the spoons
+in them and the food fly out on the bag."
+
+The further they went the worse became the conditions. On the 8th of
+April, with ridge after ridge and nothing but rubble to travel over, the
+work became so disheartening that Nansen went on ahead on his skis and
+from the highest hummocks viewed the state of affairs; and as far as the
+horizon, lay a chaos of such character that progress across was
+impracticable if he and Johansen were to return alive. Here, then, they
+stopped, this being their northernmost limit, 128 miles from the _Fram_,
+260 miles from the Pole, latitude 86° 13·6´, longitude 95°.
+
+To reach this point they had been travelling north-westwards for six
+days, the way due north being impassable; but on turning south they
+seemed to enter another country; so much did the going improve after the
+first mile that in three days they covered over forty miles. They were
+making for Petermann Land, which does not exist, or for the
+wide-stretching Franz Josef Land, also placed on the maps by Payer,
+which Jackson had been cutting up into fragments while the _Fram_ was in
+the ice. Further south difficulties thickened ahead of them till the
+road became almost as bad as that to the north. Before they reached land
+the hundred days they had allowed themselves had increased to more than
+half as many again, their dogs had been killed one by one to yield food
+for the rest, until only two remained; Nansen was helpless with
+rheumatism for two days; and Johansen was nearly killed by a bear.
+Through a chain of disasters caused by storms and fogs and snow and the
+state of the ice, they threaded their way, sometimes by sledge,
+sometimes by kayak, through mazes of open channels, leaping from floe to
+floe and ferrying back to get their baggage over, hundreds of yards on
+mere brash, dragging the sledges after them in constant fear of their
+capsizing into the water. Then the ice gave out and, taking to their
+kayaks, they sailed and paddled to what is now known as Frederick
+Jackson Island in the north of the Franz Josef Archipelago.
+
+Here they wintered, quite at a loss at first to know where they were,
+owing to their watches having run down during a great effort of
+thirty-six hours at a stretch, so that they did not know their
+longitude, though they subsequently concluded they must be somewhere on
+Franz Josef Land within 140 miles of Eira Harbour. They built a hut and
+altogether lived passably well, there being no lack of food, thanks
+mainly to the bears, whose visits were embarrassing in their frequency
+though the visitors were not unwelcome when they came to stay.
+
+On the 19th of May they set out for the south, down British Channel,
+with their sledges and kayaks, and five days afterwards, when off Cape
+M'Clintock, while Johansen was busy lashing the sail and mast securely
+to the deck of his kayak to prevent their being blown away, Nansen went
+on ahead to look for a camping ground and fell through a crack in the
+ice which had been hidden by the snow. He tried to get out, but with his
+skis firmly fastened could not pull them up through the rubble of ice
+which had fallen into the water on the top of them, and, being harnessed
+to the sledge, he could not turn round. Fortunately, as he fell, he had
+dug his staff into the ice on the opposite side of the crack, and
+holding himself up with its aid, and the arm he had got over the edge of
+the ice, he waited patiently for Johansen to come and pull him out. When
+he thought a long time had passed and felt the staff giving way and the
+water creeping further up his body, he called out but received no
+answer; and it was not until the water had reached his chest that
+Johansen came and pulled him out.
+
+For a few days they were storm-bound. On the 3rd of June they started
+again down the channel, their whereabouts still a mystery to them,
+nothing in the least like it being on their map. Nine days afterwards,
+after rounding Cape Barents on Northbrook Island, the kayaks, which had
+been left moored to the edge of the ice, got adrift. Nansen, running
+down from the hummock, from which he had been looking round, threw off
+some of his clothes and sprang into the water. The wind was off the ice,
+and the kayaks with their high rigging were moving away as fast as he
+could swim. It seemed more than doubtful if he could reach them. But all
+their hope was there, all they had was on board; they had not even a
+knife with them, and whether he sank or turned back amounted to much the
+same thing. When he tired he turned over and swam on his back, and then
+he could see Johansen walking restlessly up and down on the ice, unable
+to do anything, and having the worst time he ever lived through. But the
+wind lulled, and when Nansen turned over he saw he was nearing the
+kayaks, and though his limbs were stiffening and losing all feeling, he
+put all the strength he could into his strokes, and eventually was able
+to reach them. He tried to pull himself up, but was so stiff with cold
+that he could not do so. For a moment he thought he was too late; but
+after a little he managed to swing one leg up on to the edge of the
+sledge, which lay on the deck, and in this way he scrambled on board.
+The kayaks were lashed together so as to form a double boat, and the
+only way in which, owing to his stiffness, he could paddle them was to
+take one or two strokes on one side and then step into the other kayak
+and take a few strokes on the other side. The return was consequently
+slow, but it was a return, though the ice was reached a long way from
+where the drifting had begun.
+
+Next day but one came another perilous episode. "Towards morning," says
+Nansen, "we rowed for some time without seeing any walrus, and now felt
+more secure. Just then we saw a solitary rover pop up a little in front
+of us. Johansen, who was in front at the time, put in to a sunken ledge
+of ice; and although I really thought that this was caution carried to
+excess, I was on the point of following his example. I had not gone so
+far, however, when suddenly the walrus shot up beside me, threw himself
+on to the edge of the kayak, took hold further over the deck with one
+flipper, and as it tried to upset me aimed a blow at the kayak with its
+tusks. I held on as tightly as possible, so as not to be upset into the
+water, and struck at the animal's head with the paddle as hard as I
+could. It took hold of the kayak once more and tilted me up so that the
+deck was almost under water, then let go and raised itself right up. I
+seized my gun, but at the same moment it turned round and disappeared as
+quickly as it had come. The whole thing had happened in a moment, and I
+was just going to remark to Johansen that we were fortunate in escaping
+so easily from that adventure, when I noticed that my legs were wet. I
+listened, and now heard the water trickling into the kayak under me. To
+turn and run her in on to the sunken ledge of ice was the work of a
+moment, but I sank there. The thing was to get out and on to the ice,
+the kayak filling all the time. The edge of the ice was high and loose,
+but I managed to rise; and Johansen, by tilting the sinking kayak over
+to starboard, so that the leak came above the water, managed to bring
+her to a place where the ice was low enough to admit of our drawing her
+up. All I possessed was floating about inside, soaked through. So here
+we lie, with all our worldly goods spread out to dry and a kayak that
+must be mended before we can face the walrus again. It is a good big
+rent that he has made, at least six inches long; but it is fortunate
+that it was no worse."
+
+The kayak was mended, and, after a long rest, it was past noon on the
+17th of June when Nansen turned out to prepare breakfast. After doing so
+he went up on a hummock to look around. Flocks of little auks were
+flying overhead, and, amid the confused noise of their calls, he heard a
+couple of barks from a dog. Thinking he was mistaken he waited for a
+time, and then the barking was unmistakable, bark after bark, one of a
+deeper tone than the other. He shouted to Johansen, who started up from
+the sleeping-bag incredulous. The sound ceased, and, breakfast over,
+Nansen went forth to investigate. Soon he came on the footprints of a
+dog or wolf, and then, still doubting, he heard a distant yelping that
+certainly came not from a wolf. Making his way among the hummocks, he
+heard a shout from a human voice, a strange voice—the first for three
+years. Running up on to a hummock he shouted with all his might. Back
+came a shout in reply; and among the hummocks he caught sight of a dog,
+and further off a man walked into view. The man spoke to the dog in
+English. Thinking he recognised Jackson, Nansen raised his hat as he met
+him, and they shook hands heartily.
+
+The contrast could not have been greater. One the well-groomed,
+civilised European in a check suit and rubber water-boots, the other in
+dirty rags black with oil and soot, with long matted hair and shaggy
+beard, and a face in which the complexion was undiscernible through the
+accumulations which a winter's endeavours, including scrapings with a
+knife, had failed to remove. As they talked they had turned to go
+inland. Suddenly Jackson stopped, and, looking the new arrival straight
+in the face, said—
+
+"Aren't you Nansen?"
+
+"Yes, I am."
+
+"By Jove! I'm damned glad to see you."
+
+And seizing his hand he shook it again, his whole face beaming with a
+smile of welcome and delight at the unexpected meeting; and needless to
+say, both Nansen and Johansen received the warmest of welcomes from all
+at Elmwood. The _Windward_ was then on her way, and when she arrived the
+two Norsemen from the farthest north went in her to Vardoe, where they
+landed on the 13th of August.
+
+Meanwhile the _Fram_ had continued her leisurely drift, north-west,
+south-west, north-west, west, then all round the compass, still with her
+head pointing south, until on the 15th of November she reached 85° 55·5´
+in longitude 66° 31´, thus giving Captain Otto Sverdrup the honour of
+attaining the highest north in a ship. Another winter was passed in her
+ice-berth, during which she moved westerly. In February came another
+complete triangle in her course, after which she went south-west, and on
+the 16th of May turned due south. Then, in the later days of the month
+with the southerly drift continuing and open water on ahead, Sverdrup
+resolved to set her free by mines, and on the 3rd of June, as a result
+of the blastings, she gave a lurch, settled a little deeper at the stern
+and moved away from the edge of the ice until the hawsers tautened. But,
+though she was afloat, the ice around still kept her captive, and in the
+pool she drifted straight towards Spitsbergen.
+
+Again and again was steam got up and endeavour made to break a way out,
+but day after day elapsed, and it was not until the 13th of August that
+she passed through the last floes into open water, and her thirty-five
+months of imprisonment came to an end. Making for Danes Island in
+Spitsbergen, she was there boarded by Andrée, who was then preparing for
+his disappearance in the balloon voyage to the Pole. Going on direct to
+Skjervoe in Norway, Sverdrup landed at two o'clock in the morning to
+wake up the telegraphist, who told him that Nansen had reached Vardoe a
+week before and was then at Hammerfest and probably leaving for Tromsoe.
+For Tromsoe Sverdrup started, after telegraphing to Nansen. And there,
+at four o'clock in the afternoon of the 25th of August, 1896, Sir George
+Baden-Powell's yacht _Otaria_, with Nansen and Johansen on board, glided
+alongside the _Fram_, the good little ship looking much weather-beaten
+though none the worse for such a task of strength and endurance as had
+been set no other in the story of the sea.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VI
+                             THE LENA DELTA
+
+  Discovery of the Siberian Islands—Hedenström—Anjou and
+    Wrangell—Migration of reindeer—Animals and plants of the
+    tundra—The northward migration of the native tribes—The voyage of
+    the _Jeannette_—Her drift in the pack—Jeannette Island—Henrietta
+    Island—The ship crushed and sunk—Landing on Bennett Island—The
+    boat voyage—The boats separate in a storm—De Long lands on the
+    Lena Delta—Nindemann and Noros in search of assistance—Safety of
+    the whale-boat—Fate of De Long and his companions—Baron Toll's
+    discoveries.
+
+
+The Siberian Islands, lying north of the delta of the Lena, answer to
+the Parry Islands on the American side, the two groups being separated
+by that wide stretch of the Arctic Ocean communicating with the Pacific
+through Bering Strait. At first the Asiatic group was officially named
+after Liakhoff, then it was called after the unwisely named New Siberia,
+but, under any designation, it took half a century to find the different
+islands, and considerably more to land on them.
+
+[Illustration: THE LENA DELTA]
+
+When Liakhoff discovered the one named after him by the Empress
+Catherine, he also went north to Moloi, and he seems to have visited
+Kotelnoi to the north-west. In 1775 Chvoinof was sent to survey these
+three, but he devoted most of his attention to Liakhoff Island—fifty
+miles across—which he found to consist, as reported, of hills of granite
+rising from a mass of mammoth bones, sand, and ice, some of the ice
+ancient enough to carry a deep covering of moss. Though he stated that
+other islands could be made out in the distance, nothing was done to
+verify his discoveries, real or imaginary, until thirty years had
+passed, when Thaddeus and Stolbovoi were reached. Next year (1806) New
+Siberia, to the eastward, was discovered by Sirovatskof, and two years
+afterwards Bjelkof was added to the southerly portion of the
+archipelago.
+
+In 1809 Hedenström, assisted by Sannikof, began his series of surveys
+extending over all these, and cleared up much of the mystery concerning
+them. From Thaddeus, Sannikof sighted, away to the northward, what is
+now known as Bennett Island; and, from New Siberia, Hedenström sighted
+Henrietta and Jeannette Islands, and set out for them, and would have
+reached them had his sledges not been stopped by open water. Like his
+predecessors he was astonished at the mammoth remains on Liakhoff
+Island.
+
+According to his account, "these bones or tusks are less large and heavy
+the further we advance towards the north, so that it is a rare
+occurrence on the islands to meet with a tusk of more than 108 lbs. in
+weight, whereas on the continent they are said often to weigh as much as
+432 lbs. In quantity, however, these bones increase wonderfully to the
+northward, and as Sannikof expresses himself, the whole soil of the
+first of the Liakhoff Islands appears to consist of them. For about
+eighty years the fur-hunters have every year brought large cargoes from
+this island, but as yet there is no sensible diminution of the stock.
+The tusks on the islands are also much more fresh and white than those
+on the continent. A sandbank on the western side was most productive of
+all, and the fur-hunters maintain that when the sea recedes after a long
+continuance of easterly winds, a fresh supply of mammoth bones is always
+found to have been washed from this bank, proceeding apparently from
+some vast store at the bottom of the sea." Besides these multitudinous
+remains of the mammoth Hedenström found numerous remains of rhinoceros,
+the horn of which was then thought to be a bird's claw three feet long.
+
+To clear up the wide discrepancies in the maps the Emperor Alexander, in
+1820, equipped two expeditions to proceed by land to the northern coast
+of Siberia and properly survey it, the work to be carried as far east as
+Cape Chelagskoi, whence a sledge party was to start for the north in
+search of the inhabited country reported to exist in the Polar Sea in
+that direction. One of these expeditions, under Lieutenant P. F. Anjou,
+was to commence its operations from the mouth of the Yana; the other,
+under Lieutenant Ferdinand Vrangel' (or, as he is generally known
+amongst us, Wrangell or Von Wrangell), was to start from the mouth of
+the Kolyma, his chief assistant being Midshipman Matiuschkin. Both
+parties did good survey work, but neither made any striking discovery.
+Anjou reached 76° 36´ to the north of Kotelnoi; Wrangell reached 72° 2´
+(north-east of the Bear Islands, one hundred and seventy-four miles out
+on the sea from the great Baranoff rock), beyond which progress was
+impossible owing to the thinness of the ice, which was covered with salt
+water.
+
+Wrangell had many perilous experiences. In his fourth journey over the
+sea the ice broke up around him and he found himself on a floe with a
+labyrinth of water lanes hemming him in on every side and a storm coming
+on from the westward. The storm rapidly increased in fury, and the
+masses of ice around him were soon dashing against each other and
+breaking in all directions. On the floe, which was tossing to and fro on
+the waves, he gazed in painful inactivity on the conflict, expecting
+every moment to be swallowed up. For three long hours he had remained
+unable to move, the mass of ice beneath him holding together, when it
+was caught by the storm and hurled against a large field of ice. The
+crash was terrific, as it was shattered into little pieces. At that
+dreadful moment, when escape seemed impossible, he was saved by the
+impulse of self-preservation. Instinctively the party sprang on to the
+sledges and urged the dogs to full speed, and as hard as they could
+gallop they skimmed across the yielding fragments to the field on which
+they had been stranded, and safely reached a stretch of firmer ice,
+where the dogs ceased running among the hummocks, conscious that the
+danger was past.
+
+But it is not so much for adventures like this that his account of his
+work is of continuing interest as for the abundance of its notes and
+reflections on the country and its life and climate. Once, for instance,
+when on the Baranicha he was fortunate enough to witness a migration of
+reindeer. "I had hardly finished the observation," he says, "when my
+whole attention was called to a highly interesting, and to me a
+perfectly novel, spectacle. Two large migrating bodies of reindeer
+passed us at no great distance. They were descending the hills from the
+north-west and crossing the plain on their way to the forests, where
+they spend the winter. Both bodies of deer extended further than the eye
+could reach, and formed a compact mass, narrowing towards the front.
+They moved slowly and majestically along, their broad antlers resembling
+a moving wood of leafless trees. Each body was led by a deer of unusual
+size, which my guides assured me was always a female. One of the herds
+was stealthily followed by a wolf, who was apparently watching for an
+opportunity of seizing any one of the younger and weaker deer which
+might fall behind the rest, but on seeing us he made off in another
+direction. The other column was followed at some distance by a large
+black bear, who, however, appeared only intent on digging out a mouse's
+nest every now and then, so much so that he took no notice of us. We had
+great difficulty in restraining our two dogs, but happily succeeded in
+doing so; their barking, or any sound or motion on our part, might have
+alarmed the deer, and by turning them from their course, have proved a
+terrible misfortune to the hunters, who were awaiting their passage, on
+which they are entirely dependent for support. We remained for two hours
+whilst the herds of deer were passing by, and then resumed our march."
+
+The way in which the deer are dealt with by the hunters was seen by
+Matiuschkin when despatched by Wrangell to survey the Anyui. "The true
+harvest, which we arrived just in time to see, is in August or
+September, when the reindeer are returning from the plains to the
+forests. They are then healthy and well fed, the venison is excellent,
+and as they have just acquired their winter coats the fur is thick and
+warm. The difference of the quality of the skins at the two seasons is
+such, that whilst an autumn skin is valued at five or six roubles, a
+spring one will only fetch one or one and a half roubles. In good years
+the migrating body of reindeer consists of many thousands; and though
+they are divided into herds of two or three hundred each, yet the herds
+keep so near together as to form only one immense mass, which is
+sometimes from thirty to seventy miles in breadth. They always follow
+the same route, and in crossing the river near Plotbischtsche, they
+choose a place where a dry valley leads down to the stream on one side,
+and a flat sandy shore facilitates their landing on the other side. As
+each separate herd approaches the river, the deer draw more closely
+together, and the largest and strongest takes the lead. He advances,
+closely followed by a few of the others, with head erect, and apparently
+intent on examining the locality. When he has satisfied himself, he
+enters the river, the rest of the herd crowd after him, and in a few
+minutes the surface is covered with them. Then the hunters, who have
+been concealed to leeward, rush in their light canoes from their
+hiding-places, surround the deer, and delay their passage, whilst two or
+three chosen men armed with short spears dash into the middle of the
+herd and despatch large numbers in an incredibly short time; or at least
+wound them so, that, if they reach the bank, it is only to fall into the
+hands of the women and children. The office of the spearman is a very
+dangerous one. It is no easy thing to keep the light boat afloat among
+the dense crowd of swimming deer, which, moreover, make considerable
+resistance; the males with their horns, teeth, and hind legs, whilst the
+females try to overset the boat by getting their fore-feet over the
+gunwale; if they succeed in this the hunter is lost, for it is hardly
+possible that he should extricate himself from the throng; but the skill
+of these people is so great that accidents very rarely occur. A good
+hunter may kill a hundred or more in less than half an hour. When the
+herd is large, and gets into disorder, it often happens that their
+antlers become entangled with each other; they are then unable to defend
+themselves, and the business is much easier. Meanwhile the rest of the
+boats pick up the slain and fasten them together with thongs, and every
+one is allowed to keep what he lays hold of in this manner. It might
+seem that in this way nothing would be left to requite the spearmen for
+their skill, and the danger they have encountered; but whilst everything
+taken in the river is the property of whoever secures it, the wounded
+animals which reach the bank before they fall, belong to the spearman
+who wounded them. The skill and experience of these men are such that in
+the thickest of the conflict, when every energy is taxed to the
+uttermost, and their life is every moment at stake, they have sufficient
+presence of mind to contrive to measure the force of their blows so as
+to kill the smallest animals outright, but only to wound the larger and
+finer ones, so that they may be just able to reach the bank. Such
+proceeding is not sanctioned by the general voice, but it seems
+nevertheless to be almost always practised. The whole scene is of a most
+singular and curious character, and quite indescribable. The throng of
+thousands of swimming reindeer, the sound produced by the striking
+together of their antlers, the swift canoes dashing in amongst them, the
+terror of the frightened animals, the danger of the hunters, the shouts
+of warning advice or applause from their friends, the blood-stained
+water, and all the accompanying circumstances, form a whole which no one
+can picture to himself without having witnessed the scene."
+
+[Illustration: REINDEER]
+
+The tundra has no more characteristic animal than the reindeer. Over the
+mossy hillocks and the matted tops of the dwarf birches he runs, or
+through the rivers and lakes he swims, with his broad-hoofed, spade-like
+feet never at a loss to find a footing. In the long winter he is
+protected by his thick skin against the influence of the cold, and is
+seldom at starvation point, as he digs for food in the deepest snow, and
+is by no means particular what he eats; and in the short summer he is in
+luxurious ease, for the tundra, as we have seen, is not always as bad as
+it is painted. In exposed places near the coast it is little else than
+gravel beds interspersed with patches of peat and clay, with scarcely a
+rush or a sedge to break the monotony, but by far the greater part of it
+is a gently undulating plain, broken up by lakes, rivers, swamps, and
+bogs; the lakes with patches of green water-plants, the rivers flowing
+between sedges and rushes, the swamps the breeding haunts of ruffs and
+phalaropes, the bogs dotted with the white fluffy seeds of the
+cotton-grass. Almost everywhere the birds are in noticeable numbers,
+among the commonest being the golden plover (who wears the tundra
+colours), the bluethroat, the fieldfare, the whooper swan, and the ducks
+and divers—particularly the divers—and, among the birds of prey, the
+falcons and the rough-legged buzzards, which, with the owls, find such
+abundant provision in the lemmings that migrate in myriads compared with
+which the reindeer troops are insignificant.
+
+"The groundwork of all this variegated scenery," says Seebohm, "is more
+beautiful and varied still—lichens and mosses of almost every
+conceivable colour, from the cream-coloured reindeer-moss to the
+scarlet-cupped trumpet-moss, interspersed with a brilliant alpine flora,
+gentians, anemones, saxifrages, and hundreds of plants, each a picture
+in itself, the tall aconites, both the blue and yellow species, the
+beautiful cloudberry, with its gay white blossom and amber fruit, the
+fragrant _Ledum palustre_ and the delicate pink _Andromeda polifolia_.
+In the sheltered valleys and deep water-courses a few stunted birches,
+and sometimes large patches of willow scrub, survive the long severe
+winter, and serve as cover for willow-grouse or ptarmigan. The Lapland
+bunting and red-throated pipit are everywhere to be seen, and certain
+favoured places are the breeding-grounds of plovers and sandpipers of
+many species. So far from meriting the name of Barren Ground, the tundra
+is for the most part a veritable paradise in summer. But it has one
+almost fatal drawback—it swarms with mosquitoes."
+
+[Illustration: OSTIAK MAN]
+
+[Illustration: SAMOYED MAN]
+
+The beauty of the tundra is, however, transient and skin deep; it is
+only such plants as can live in the soil that thaws that survive.
+Wherever the ground is dug into, ice is sure to be reached; in fact, it
+may be said that ice is one of the rocks of the subsoil, and in some
+places these strata of ice that never melts have been found to be three
+hundred feet thick—ice that has remained in block since the mammoths got
+into cold storage in it ages ago, for otherwise they would not have
+lasted intact in skin and flesh as many have done, like the very first
+discovered in a complete state, that chipped out by Adams in 1807.
+
+In such a climate, whose winter terrors are only too prominent, all
+along the north of Siberia live the ancient peoples driven towards the
+sea by those mighty movements from the land of the Turk and Mongol
+which, north and south, east and west, flooded Europe and Asia with
+invaders—Ostiaks and Samoyeds west of Chelyuskin; Yakuts, Chukches, and
+others to the east of it, the descriptions of whose unpleasant manners
+and customs appear to be written with a view to showing how curiously
+local are the laws of health. One may well ask, as Wrangell did, why
+they should remain in so dreary a region and take life so contentedly.
+And the answer may be that they might go further north and fare worse,
+as their predecessors in the eastern section would seem to have done.
+Once, according to the legend, there were more hearths of the Omoki on
+the shores of the Kolyma than there are stars in the clear sky, and
+these Omoki, or some other departed race, appear to have left as their
+traces the remains of the timber forts and the tumuli that are found on
+the coast, especially near the Indiyirka, and the huts of earth and
+stones and bones found all along from Chelagskoi to the straits, similar
+remains of a departed people now existing in the Parry Islands, over a
+thousand miles away. According to another legend of more recent date,
+there was an intervening land, the land that Wrangell went to seek and
+the _Jeannette_ went to winter at, and the supposed site of which she
+drifted through, in her last and longest imprisonment in the ice.
+
+The _Jeannette_ was the old _Pandora_, bought from Sir Allen Young by
+James Gordon Bennett, and accepted by and fitted out, officered, and
+manned under the orders of the Navy Department of the United States, her
+commander being Lieutenant George Washington De Long. She left San
+Francisco on the 8th of July, 1879, and two months afterwards had been
+run into the pack and was fast in the ice off Herald Island, drifting to
+her doom. Her route, in the main, was north-westerly, with many
+complicated loops, at first at the rate of half a mile a day, then at
+two miles, then at three, showing that the current from Bering Strait
+had been reinforced by some other current as she went further west, and,
+from its direction, there seemed to be land to the northward which was
+never sighted.
+
+Wrangell Land, passed to the south, proved to be not a continent but a
+small island. No other land was seen for a monotonous twenty months, and
+then, in May, 1881, the ship drifted, stern first, past that sighted by
+Hedenström from New Siberia, which was found to consist of two islands,
+to be henceforth known as Jeannette and Henrietta. On the 12th of June,
+in latitude 77° 14´ 57˝, the _Jeannette_ was crushed and sank, her fore
+yardarms breaking upwards as she slipped down through the rift in the
+pack, and a start was made for the Siberian Islands over the ice; but
+the drift had taken the party to 77° 36´, before they got on their
+proper course, and after a most laborious journey, lasting up to the
+28th of July, they were safe ashore on the land sighted by Sannikof from
+Thaddeus, which De Long named Bennett Island.
+
+Bennett Island was left on the 7th of August, the party of thirty-three
+being in three boats, thirteen under De Long in the first cutter, ten
+under Lieutenant Chipp in the much smaller second cutter, and ten, under
+Engineer George W. Melville, whose skill and resourcefulness had been
+conspicuous throughout, were given the whale-boat, the most suitable of
+the three. Sail was made for Thaddeus Island, which was reached in
+safety; after a halt of some days it was left on the 31st of August.
+Then Kotelnoi Island was reached and rested at; then the boats made for
+Semonovski, which was left on the 12th of September.
+
+The same day a gale came on in which the first cutter had great
+difficulty in keeping afloat, the second cutter disappeared never to be
+heard of again, and the whale-boat, behaving excellently, went off
+before the wind straight for the continent to reach in safety one of the
+eastern mouths of the Lena, up which Melville arrived at a Russian
+village on the 26th of September. De Long's party ran their boat aground
+in shallow water, on the 17th of September, and rafted and waded ashore
+to one of the most inhospitable spots on the globe. Heavily laden they
+made their way down the dreary delta, toiling through the snow, delayed
+by the tributaries which were not frozen over hard enough to bear,
+hampered by sickness and disablement, and finally dying one by one of
+starvation.
+
+On the 9th of October De Long sent two of the seamen, Nindemann and
+Noros, ahead in search of relief. They had no food but what they could
+find, and on the second day out their dinner consisted of a little
+willow tea and a burnt boot sole. Next morning they burnt another sole
+of a boot, and they spent the day struggling through a morass in
+drifting snow, crossing streams of all sizes, and halting for the night
+in so high a wind that they were unable to light a fire and took refuge
+in a hole in the snow from which they emerged with difficulty in the
+morning, owing to the wind having piled up the snow against the opening.
+At the end of the third day they reached a deserted hut in which were
+some deer bones, which they grilled and tried to eat, and in the morning
+a gale was blowing and the wild drifting snow was so thick that they had
+to remain where they were and continue their diet of charred bones and
+willow tea.
+
+Next day, Thursday, the 13th of October, they began against a strong
+head wind. In the afternoon they sighted a hut on the west bank of the
+river. "They had seen one in the morning, but had in vain attempted to
+cross the ice to it. Now they tried to reach this, but were turned back
+by the brittle ice. They kept it in sight as they moved southward, and
+made another attempt to cross the ice, but it broke and they came back.
+Then they saw that there was no further progress possible to the
+southward on that side of the water, and they returned to the ice. It
+broke again, but they kept on. They went in up to their waists, but
+managed to pull themselves up on the stronger ice." The wind was blowing
+against them and the ice was like glass, so that they were driven back.
+They looked about for ice which had been roughened by the ripples
+beneath, and finding some they succeeded at length in reaching the other
+side, where were two wooden crosses beneath a bank, which rose fifty
+feet above them. They pulled themselves up the bank, but when they came
+to the hut which they had kept in sight they found it a ruin nearly full
+of snow. "While Noros was trying to make a place in it for shelter,
+Nindemann saw a black object farther along to the south and went to it.
+It was a small peaked hut without a door, but large enough to hold two
+men. There were some fresh wood shavings outside the hut and higher up
+on the hill two boxes. On going to them Nindemann found them old and
+decayed, and he began to break one of them open. When he had ripped off
+the top he discovered that there was another box enclosed; breaking into
+it he found a dead body, and hastily left it. Doubtless the two crosses
+below on the river bank were memorials of the two beings left high up
+above the reach of the floods."
+
+In the small hut they found a sort of floor, the boards of which they
+pulled up for firewood, and in a hole beneath was a box in which were a
+couple of fish and two fish heads; and, as these were discovered, a
+lemming came out of another hole and was promptly caught. On the
+lemming, roasted on the ramrod, and the fishes, which were so decayed
+that they dropped apart as they were handled, they made their meal for
+that day. Next day the snowstorm was so heavy that they were driven back
+here after striving in vain to make headway. On the Saturday, still
+without food, they rested for the night in a fissure in the river bank,
+where as a last resource Nindemann cut a piece off his sealskin trousers
+and soaked it in water and burnt it to a crust. Their breakfast
+consisted of the remains of this toasted sealskin. During the day they
+saw a crow flying across the river and in among the hills, and, as the
+crow in these regions is rarely found away from the haunts of men,
+Nindemann decided to cross the river in the hope of meeting with either
+natives or game on the other side. When darkness came on no shelter was
+discoverable, and so, after a meal of more sealskin and hot water, they
+went to rest in a hole in the snow. Next day, during which they
+recrossed the river, their experiences were similar and the end the
+same.
+
+On Tuesday the 18th, after a terrible day, they came upon a hut with a
+pile of wood close by, which proved to be sledges, and these they broke
+up, as there was no other firing. Next day as they were struggling on
+they reached a place where there were three huts, in one of which was a
+half-kayak and in it was some blue mouldy fish; and here, attacked by
+dysentery, they remained until the Saturday, unable to go any further.
+About noon there was a noise outside like a flock of geese sweeping by.
+Nindemann, looking through the crack of the door, saw something moving
+which he took to be a reindeer, and was going out with his rifle when
+the door opened and a man entered, who promptly fell on his knees when
+he caught sight of the gun. Nindemann threw the rifle into a corner and,
+trying to make friends with the man by signs, offered him some of the
+fish, which the man by an emphatic gesture pronounced not fit to eat.
+After some more of the sign language it was clear that the native had no
+food with him, and holding up three or four fingers to show that he
+would return in so many hours or days he drove off. About six o'clock in
+the evening, while they were preparing their fish dinner, the visitor
+returned with two other men, one of whom brought in a frozen fish which
+he skinned and sliced, and while the sailors were eating it—the first
+healthy meal they had had for weeks—the natives invited them to
+accompany them, and brought in deerskin coats and boots and finally got
+them into the sledges and drove off to the westward for about fifteen
+miles. Here there were two tents, and Nindemann was taken into one,
+Noros into the other, and both were well looked after, the natives doing
+their very best to get them well.
+
+This was intelligible on both sides, for the language of kindness is
+universal, but as the sailors knew not the language of their hosts, and
+the natives knew not the language of their guests, the difficulty of
+being understood by each other was great, and the delivery of the urgent
+message in signs was almost impossible. Nindemann did his best; he
+appealed to the man who seemed to be the head of the party, and drawing
+in the snow a map of the places where he had been, with every
+combination of signs he could think of, he tried to explain what he
+wanted. That he succeeded to a certain extent was clear, though he did
+not think so at first, for the natives loaded up their sledges,
+twenty-seven in number, with reindeer meat and skins and fish, and
+struck their tents, and, with over a hundred head of deer harnessed up,
+started for the south. At noon, when the deer were resting, the man for
+whom the map had been drawn in the snow took Nindemann to where he could
+show him a prominent landmark, and asked by signs if that was where he
+had left his friends. And on learning by signs that it was further to
+the north, he shook his head as if sorry, and resumed his journey to the
+south. During the next day they reached Ku Mark Surka, where there were
+a number of natives who were much interested in the new-comers, and
+again the sailors used every effort to deliver their message.
+
+Immediately after breakfast on the morning of the 25th, Nindemann began
+talking to these people in signs and pantomime. Soon one of them showed
+that he had an idea of where the sailors came from, for he spoke to one
+of the boys, who ran off and returned with a model of a Yakutsk boat.
+Then they gathered round and evidently asked if the ship was anything
+like it. And in answer, Nindemann took up some sticks and placed three
+of them in the boat to show that his ship had three masts, and then he
+fastened smaller sticks across to show that she had yards, which seemed
+to surprise them greatly. Then he made a funnel out of wood and put it
+in position, and pointed to the fire and smoke to show that she was a
+steamer, and then he cut out a propeller with his knife and put it where
+the rudder was to show that she was a screw. Continuing his work he soon
+chipped out so many small boats to show how many she had; and then,
+signing to one of the men to get him two pieces of ice, he showed them
+how the ship had been crushed. Pointing to the northward he tried to
+tell them that the ship had been crushed up there; and then he put away
+the ship and kept only three of the little boats to tell that part of
+the story, and in the boats he put so many sticks to represent the
+number of men in each. When he had done this one of the men pointed to a
+dog that was looking on and asked if the ship had any, whereupon the
+sailor counted on his fingers to show there were about forty, and by
+pantomime explained that they had been shot. This being evidently
+understood, Nindemann drew a chart of the coast-line, and imitating a
+gale of wind showed that the boat he came from went to the land at a
+certain point and that he knew nothing of the others. Then he went on to
+show how they had all left the boat, waded ashore and walked along the
+river-bank, and he marked the huts where they had stopped, and then he
+indicated where one of the men had died and been buried in the river.
+This was understood, for all the audience shook their heads as if to say
+how sorry they were. But when he tried to tell them that he had left the
+captain two days afterwards and had been so many days on the way to ask
+for help, they showed that they either did not or would not understand;
+and really it was not easy to make such a matter clear.
+
+Next day Nindemann made another attempt to get them to understand the
+one essential, urgent fact that help was needed, or the men would die;
+but no, he could not do it. On the Thursday, despairing of the
+hopelessness of his task and the helplessness of his companions, he
+broke into tears and groans, and a woman in the hut took pity on him and
+spoke earnestly to one of the men, who came and said something about a
+commandant. Then the sailor, who had picked up a few words, asked him to
+take him to Bulun, to which the man replied by again saying commandant
+and holding up five or six fingers. Late in the evening there arrived a
+tall Russian, whom Nindemann supposed to be the commandant and addressed
+in English, but he was a Russian exile who could not understand him,
+though he seemed to know something about the matter, for in what he said
+he clearly mentioned Jeannette and Americansk. Nindemann tried him in
+German, but at this he shook his head. Then Nindemann showed him the
+chart given him by De Long, which the Russian evidently did not
+understand, though he said something that sounded like St. Petersburg
+and telegrams. While this apparently hopeless conversation was going on
+Noros was busy steadily writing out a note that the two sailors had
+drawn up, and the tall Russian—who we shall see was really a most
+intelligent man—giving over his talk with Nindemann in despair, coolly
+picked this up and put it in his pocket, and notwithstanding the protest
+of the Americans, walked off with it. In the morning he came in and gave
+them to understand that he was going to Bulun, and that they were to
+follow, and soon afterwards the natives fitted them out with clothing
+and boots and food and sent them off on a sledge. At Bulun they were
+taken to the commandant, who, after a little sign language from
+Nindemann, showed that he understood, and said something about a
+telegram. The sailors jumped at the idea, and one of them dictated to
+the other a despatch to the American Minister at St. Petersburg. This
+the Russian took, explaining that the captain should have it next day.
+Who the captain was the sailors could not make out; but three days
+afterwards, that is on the 3rd of November, while Nindemann lay on the
+bed and Noros was sitting on the table, a man came in dressed in fur.
+
+"My God, Mr. Melville!" said Noros, recognising him as soon as he spoke.
+"Are you alive? We thought that the whale-boats were all dead!"
+
+The exile had handed the note to Melville, whom he knew as the captain,
+and his difficulty in understanding the sailors had been in their
+speaking of one boat while he had only seen the other. The whale-boat
+crew had reached a village opposite to where he lived, and he had agreed
+to take them to Bulun, and he was on his way there to arrange for their
+transport when he heard of the sailors. Like a sensible man he ordered
+the men to be sent to Bulun, and had hurried there, made his
+arrangements with the commandant and returned to Melville, who, seeing
+the urgency of the case as soon as he read the letter, had started at
+once, leaving his party to follow.
+
+Melville, as soon as possible, went off along the track of the two
+sailors, who were too weak to go with him, and eventually found the
+chronometer and the log-books and other records; but the winter was too
+far advanced for him to do more, and he had to return, after a journey
+of over six hundred miles, to try again in the spring. Then, accompanied
+by Nindemann, he went north, and came upon the bodies of the commander
+and those who had perished with him, and three or four feet behind De
+Long, as if he had tossed it over his shoulder, lay the journal in which
+the last page was but a chronicle of death after death.
+
+This chapter must conclude with another tragedy. In 1885 Dr. Bunge and
+Baron Toll made some important investigations in the neighbourhood of
+the mouth of the Yana; and next year Bunge among the fossils of Liakhoff
+Island found not only mammoth and rhinoceros, but horse, musk-ox and
+deer, and two new species of ox. To these Toll, after discovering that
+there were flourishing trees on Kotelnoi in the time of the
+mammoth—nearly two hundred miles north of their present limit—added
+frozen carcases of musk-ox and rhinoceros, and bones of antelope and
+tiger.
+
+In 1902 Toll, pushing his geological researches further north, reached
+Bennett Island, where he collected bones of the mammoth and other recent
+mammals, while the main mass of the plateau he identified as of Cambrian
+age. These discoveries he included in the record announcing his
+intention of leaving for Kotelnoi, which was found in 1904 by the
+expedition sent to his relief, for he was never seen alive again.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII
+                             BERING STRAIT
+
+  Native stories of the distant continent—The Russians in
+    Kamchatka—Bering's expedition—The difficulties of his task—Builds
+    a vessel and reaches Kamchatka—Builds another vessel and discovers
+    the strait named after him by Captain Cook—His second
+    expedition—Spangberg's voyage to Japan—Bering reaches the American
+    coast—His shipwreck and death—The influence of the sea-otter and
+    the fur-seal on geographical discovery—The Arctic voyage of
+    Captain Cook—Clerke's voyage—Beechey's voyage—Point Barrow reached
+    by the barge of the _Blossom_—Kellett's voyage in the
+    _Herald_—Boat expedition to Hudson Bay—Kellett reaches 72°
+    51´—Landing on Herald Island—Kellett sights Wrangell Island—Berry
+    in the _Rodgers_ explores Wrangell Island—He reaches 73°
+    44´—Frederick Whymper and W. H. Dall ascend the Yukon.
+
+
+Rumours of land over against the far corner of Siberia had reached the
+Russians for years, and many were the legends of those who had seen
+these lands from the cliffs, or had been on the ice to look at them more
+closely, or had gone away to them and never come back. There was, for
+instance, the old legend of Kraechoj, who believed he had found safe
+shelter at Irkaipii from the Chukche vengeance, but the Chukche made his
+way into the stronghold and killed Kraechoj's son, whereupon Kraechoj
+escaped by letting himself down with thongs to the boat and fled to the
+land whose mountains can be seen in clear sunshine from Cape Yakan; and
+there he was among his people who had left Asia before him.
+
+And among the official documents was the statement made by the Chukches
+when they went to Anadyrskoi Ostrog to acknowledge the dominion of the
+Russians, that "The Noss is full of rocky mountains, and the low grounds
+consist of land covered with turf. Opposite to it lies an island, within
+sight of it, of no great extent, and void of wood. It is inhabited by
+people who have the same aspect as the Chukche, but are quite a
+different nation, and speak their own language, though they are not
+numerous. It is half a day's voyage with boats from the Noss to the
+island. There are no sables on the island, and no other animals but
+foxes, wolves, and reindeer. Beyond the island is a large continent that
+can be scarcely discerned from it, and that only on clear days; in calm
+weather one may row over the sea from the island to the continent, which
+is inhabited by a people who in every particular resemble the Chukches.
+There are large forests of fir, pine, larch, and cedar trees; great
+rivers flow through the country and fall into the sea. The inhabitants
+have dwellings and fortified places of abode environed with ramparts of
+earth; they live upon wild reindeer and fish; their clothes are made of
+sable, fox, and reindeer skins, for sables and foxes are there in great
+abundance. The number of men in that country may be twice or three times
+as many as that of the Chukches who are often at war with them." That
+there was land in sight somewhere seemed clear, but the reports differed
+in placing it all the way round from the north to the east. Many were
+the vain attempts to reach it from the northward-flowing rivers, and it
+was left to be found from the Pacific side.
+
+[Illustration: BERING STRAIT]
+
+When Atlassof, in 1697, took the first steps in the conquest of
+Kamchatka the Russians were already known to the inhabitants. Long
+before him Fedotof and a few comrades had made their way into the
+country and intermarried with native women. They had been held in great
+honour and almost deified as being evidently of a superior race. For
+some time it was supposed that no human hand could hurt them, but this
+belief was rudely shattered when two of the demigods quarrelled and
+fought, and one wounding the other, the blood flowed. That flow of blood
+was fatal, for the natives, judging that they were but ordinary flesh,
+took an early opportunity of wiping them out, the name of their leader
+being still traceable in that of the Fedotcha River on the banks of
+which they had lived.
+
+The Kamchadales had other tales to tell of visitors from the east and
+south, and Atlassof himself discovered on the River Itcha a Japanese who
+had been wrecked on the coast two years before, from whom he learnt of
+islands innumerable. But there were no ships on the Pacific coast of
+Siberia, and nothing in the way of discovery could be done until 1714,
+when there arrived at Ochotsk a detachment of sailors and shipwrights
+despatched thither overland. According to one of the sailors, Henry
+Bush, a Dutchman, the carpenters built a good durable vessel some fifty
+feet long which was ready for sea in 1716 when the first voyage was
+undertaken. The coast of Kamchatka was made near the River Itcha, and
+sailing south they reached the Kompakova, where they wintered and found
+the whale that had in its body the harpoon of European workmanship
+marked with Roman letters, mentioned by Scoresby. Bush returned to
+Ochotsk in July, to be sent in the following year to discover the
+Shantar Islands, and next year, 1718, the Kuriles; thus venturing into
+the Pacific beyond Cape Lopatka.
+
+The last of these expeditions was due to the direct order of Peter the
+Great, who, knowing nothing of Deschnef, and finding the sea open to the
+north, resolved on a voyage in that direction, his holograph
+instructions to Admiral Apraxin being: "One or two boats with decks to
+be built at Kamchatka, or at any other convenient place, with which
+inquiry should be made relative to the northerly coasts, to see whether
+they are not contiguous with America, since their termination is not yet
+known." Peter died, and the Empress Catherine, carrying out these
+instructions in their fullest meaning, began her reign with an order for
+the expedition.
+
+Veit Bering, Dane by birth and sailor by trade, had voyaged to the
+Indies, east and west, and, like many other men of enterprise, had
+entered the Russian service at Peter's invitation. He had served with
+distinction in the Cronstadt fleet in the war against the Swedes, and,
+being in good repute for his knowledge of ships and their handling, was
+appointed to the command of the most remarkable Arctic enterprise on
+record. Just as Nicholas ruled a line and ordered a railway to be built
+there, so did Catherine in the same imperial way order an exploring
+expedition, and it was done. But it meant building the ship from the
+trees of the forest on the coast of the Pacific and carrying the
+materials and stores—everything but the timber—right across the Russian
+empire in the days when for thousands of miles there were not even
+roads.
+
+[Illustration: THE FACE OF THE FUR SEAL]
+
+Bering's lieutenants were Martin Spangberg and Alexei Tschirikof. With
+them and the rest of the expedition he left St. Petersburg on the 5th of
+February, 1725. During that year they got as far as the Ilim, where they
+wintered. In the spring of 1726 they sailed down the Lena to Yakutsk,
+where they parted company for a time owing to the difficulties of the
+route to Ochotsk, the way not being passable in summer with wagons, or
+in winter with sledges, on account of the marshes and rocky ground. So
+Spangberg set out, working along the rivers Aldan, Maia, and Judoma,
+with part of the provisions and heavy naval stores, while Bering
+followed overland through uninhabited country with more stores on
+horses, and Tschirikof remained to collect still more and follow in the
+track of his commander.
+
+Bering reached Ochotsk first. Spangberg was frozen up in the Judoma, and
+thence he walked to Ochotsk with the most necessary materials; but he
+suffered so much from hunger on the way that he had to support life by
+eating leather bags, straps, and shoes, and did not reach Bering till
+the 1st of January, 1727, nearly two years after leaving St. Petersburg.
+In the beginning of February he returned to the Judoma and brought away
+about half of his lading, the other half being left for a third journey,
+which he made from and to Ochotsk on horses. Meanwhile Tschirikof was
+toiling along from Yakutsk, and did not arrive to complete the party
+until the 30th of July.
+
+On arrival Bering had to build a vessel to take his most necessary naval
+stores and his shipbuilders across the sea of Ochotsk to Bolscheretzkoi,
+which, in her, he reached on the 2nd of September. From here he followed
+the shipwrights, who went on ahead to fell the trees, taking with them
+the provisions and stores, over the backbone of the isthmus and down the
+Kamchatka River to the mouth, a distance of some two hundred miles, the
+journey being very slow on account of the travelling being by
+dog-sledge. In short, it was not until the 4th of April, 1728, that is,
+more than three years after leaving St. Petersburg, that it was possible
+to put on the stocks the vessel in which the voyage to the north was to
+be made. But she took only three months to build, being launched on the
+10th of July, when she was named the _Gabriel_.
+
+Laden with stores for forty men during a year's voyage, she put to sea
+ten days afterwards, Bering keeping close to the coast so that he could
+map it as he went. On the 10th of August he was off the island of St.
+Lawrence, which he so named, as it was the day of that saint. In a day
+or two he had passed the East Cape without seeing the American coast,
+and had entered the Arctic Circle. And on the 15th he was well through
+the strait, out in the Arctic Ocean, in 67° 18´ off Serdze Kamen, a
+promontory behind which the coast trended to the west, as the Chukches
+had told him it did; and he assumed, and rightly so, though he had not
+gone far enough to prove it, that there was no land connection between
+Asia and America. Whereupon, as he had in his opinion accomplished his
+mission, seeing no need for wintering in those parts, he put the
+_Gabriel_ about and was back in the Kamchatka River on the 20th of
+September, after a voyage of seven weeks in a vessel that took three
+months to build on a spot that took over three years to reach—the plan
+of campaign being much the same as that in which a mountain stronghold
+is advanced on across a desert, besieged for a few days, and captured by
+assault.
+
+[Illustration: THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS]
+
+After wintering, Bering went off next year on a voyage due east in
+search of reported land, but, after some hundred and thirty miles out,
+he was blown back, and, rounding the south end of Kamchatka, put in at
+the River Bolschaia; thence he crossed to Ochotsk, whence he started for
+St. Petersburg, where he arrived after an absence of five years.
+Catherine was dead and another empress reigned in her stead, who was
+pleased and satisfied if no one else was, and the 21st of February,
+1733, saw him starting again in the same laborious fashion to arrange
+other voyages as part of a great scheme for the exploration of Northern
+and North-eastern Asia. Some of these expeditions on the north coast
+have already been mentioned; Bering's particular task was to send
+Spangberg in search of Japan, while he and Tschirikof, in separate
+ships, went eastward to America. More stores and provisions went
+overland across Siberia than before; Spangberg got again frozen up on
+the Judoma and had to continue on foot to Ochotsk, where he found plenty
+of food owing to Bering having sent on ahead, in case of any such
+trouble, a hundred horses, each of them laden with meal. In June, 1738,
+Spangberg, in two newly-built vessels and the _Gabriel_, was off to
+Japan, to reach the Kuriles and return to winter in Kamchatka; but next
+year he arrived there all well and found to his astonishment that the
+Japanese knew as much about maps as he did. He was still more astonished
+on his return to be told by those high in office at St. Petersburg that
+he could not possibly have been there as they had not got it on their
+maps where he said it was, and, consequently, he was to go where he had
+been as soon as he could to make sure. He started on this voyage of
+verification, but circumstances were against him and he did not reach
+there; and his Japanese trip remained discredited until the Russian
+geographers knew better. His voyage thither had, however, used such a
+stock of provisions that it was two years before the deficiency could be
+made up, and it was actually the 4th of September, 1740, seven and a
+half years after leaving St. Petersburg, when Bering, in the
+specially-built _St. Peter_, and Tschirikof, in her sister the _St.
+Paul_, got off outward bound to America.
+
+In about three weeks they were at Awatcha Bay on the east of Kamchatka,
+anchored in the fine harbour named Petropaulovsk after the two ships,
+and here they had to stay for the winter, so that they did not leave
+Russian territory until the 4th of the following June. A few days out
+the ships were separated in a fog and storm, and the _St. Paul_ reached
+the American coast first, at Kruzof Island on the western shore of Sitka
+Sound. The _St. Peter_ three days afterwards, on the 18th of July,
+drifted to the coast more to the northward, at Cape St. Elias near the
+mighty mountain of that name. In this neighbourhood amid much fog Bering
+stayed six weeks until he was blown out to sea, when, his men beginning
+to die from scurvy, he resolved to return to Kamchatka. It was a voyage
+of misfortune in a continual downfall, the men in want, misery, and
+sickness, continuously at work in the cold and wet, becoming fewer and
+fewer, so that there were not enough to work the ship properly. It ended
+on one of the Commander Islands by the vessel being lifted by the sea
+clear over a reef into calm water. Bering died—the island is named after
+him—and the survivors of the crew, building a boat from the materials of
+the _St. Peter_, arrived at Petropaulovsk on the 27th of August,
+bringing with them a quantity of sea-otter skins, which did more for
+discovery in those seas than any imperial expedition.
+
+[Illustration: DRIVING THE FUR SEAL]
+
+As the sable had brought about the conquest of Siberia, so did the
+sea-otter lead to the seizure of the islands of the Bering Sea and the
+coasts of Alaska. Three years after the return of the survivors of the
+_St. Peter_, Nevodtsikof wintered on one of the Aleutian Islands, and in
+a few years the fur-hunters were at their exterminating work over the
+whole chain. In time the fur-seal attracted as much attention, and, with
+Pribylov's discovery, in 1786, of its rookeries on the islands named
+after him, the trade became of such increasing importance as to endanger
+in our time the peace of the world. Every one has heard of the wonderful
+haunts and habits of that strange eared seal which seems to have come
+from the south through the tropics to breed in the coldest limit of its
+range, now almost entirely on the Pribylovs and the Commanders; how it
+is pursued in skin boats and every sort of craft, and scared in long
+lines to slaughter by clapping of boards and bones and waving of flags
+and opening and shutting of gingham umbrellas, until it promises to
+become as extinct as Steller's sea-cow or as rare as the sea-otter.
+
+Following Bering on the way to the north came Captain James Cook, in
+H.M.S. _Resolution_, who gave Bering's name to the strait. Cook sighted
+Mount St. Elias in May, 1778, and, cruising slowly along the coast with
+many discoveries and much accurate surveying, was off, and named, Cape
+Prince of Wales, the western extremity of America, on the 9th of August.
+He then crossed the strait and plied back until on the 18th he sighted
+and named Icy Cape in 70° 29´. Close to the edge of the ice, which was
+as compact as a wall, and seemed to be ten or twelve feet high at the
+least, he sought persistently for a passage through, but none was to be
+found; and after reaching 70° 6´ in 196° 42´ (163° 18´ W.) on the 19th,
+he turned westward to the Asiatic coast, along which he went until he
+sighted and named Cape North, as already stated. Then, blocked by ice,
+east, north, and west, he returned, passing Cape Serdze Kamen (Bering's
+farthest) and naming East Cape, confirming Bering's observation that it
+was the most easterly point of Asia.
+
+On Cook's death at Hawaii Captain Charles Clerke, of the accompanying
+vessel H.M.S. _Discovery_, took command of the expedition and carried
+out Cook's intention of making another effort during the following year.
+The ice conditions were, however, worse. The two ships found the ice
+block further south, and as impenetrable as before, and Clerke's highest
+was 70° 33´ on the American side, on the 19th of July. As it was Cook's
+last voyage, so it was Clerke's. He was in a bad way with consumption,
+and continued his work in the north, though, under the special
+circumstances and being in command, he could at any time have given up
+the obviously hopeless attempt and left for a more genial climate, in
+which he would at least have had a chance of longer life; but, remaining
+at his duty, he died at sea on the 22nd of August, and was buried at
+Petropaulovsk.
+
+[Illustration: FUR SEALS AT SEA]
+
+Captain Beechey, in H.M.S. _Blossom_, passed through the strait in 1826
+when sent north from the Pacific with a view of meeting with his old
+commander, Franklin, then on his second land journey. Beechey took the
+ship to Icy Cape, whence on the 17th of August he despatched the barge
+under the master, Thomas Elson, to survey the coast to the
+north-eastward as far as he could go in three weeks, there and back.
+Elson reached his farthest on the 25th at a spit of land jutting out
+several miles from the more regular coast-line, the width of the neck
+not exceeding a mile and a half, broadest at its extremity, with several
+frozen lakes on it, and a village, whose natives proved so troublesome
+that it was thought unsafe to land. This was Point Barrow, in 71° 23´
+31˝, longitude 156° 21´ 30˝, the northernmost land on the western half
+of the American continent. To the eastward curved a wide bay—named Elson
+Bay by Beechey—the shore-line of which joined on to the ice pack that
+encircled the horizon. Here he was within a hundred and sixty miles of
+where Franklin had turned back a week before. Though Beechey did not
+meet Franklin he did most useful work in these parts, for by him the
+whole coast was surveyed between Point Barrow and Point Rodney, to the
+south of Prince of Wales Cape.
+
+Franklin was also the cause of the appearance of the next British
+expedition in the strait. This was in 1848, Captain Henry Kellett, in
+H.M.S. _Herald_, with Commander Thomas Moore in H.M.S. _Plover_, forming
+the western detachment of the first series of search expeditions. There
+were three detachments, one to follow the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ from the
+eastward, another under John Richardson to descend the Mackenzie and
+search the northern coast, the other coming in from the west to meet the
+ships should they have made the passage. On this duty the _Herald_ and
+_Plover_ were hereabouts for three seasons, the _Plover_ wintering, the
+_Herald_ going south when the navigation closed.
+
+In October, 1826, Beechey had buried a barrel of flour for Franklin on
+the sandy point of Chamisso Island, ample directions for finding it
+being cut and painted on the rock, and to call the attention of the
+party to the spot the name of the _Blossom_ was painted on the cliffs of
+Puffin Island. When the _Herald_ was at Chamisso Island in 1849 Captain
+Kellett searched for this flour and found it. A considerable space was
+cleared round the cask, its chimes were freed, and, only adhering to the
+sand by the two lower bilge staves, it required the united strength of
+two boats' crews, with a parbuckle and a large spar as a lever, to free
+it altogether. The sand was frozen so hard that it emitted sparks with
+every blow of the pickaxe. The cask itself was perfectly sound and the
+hoops good, and out of the 336 lb. of flour which it contained, 175 lb.
+were as sweet and well tasted as any he had with him; so good indeed was
+it that Captain Kellett gave a dinner party, at which all the pies and
+puddings were made of this flour.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  THE PARKA OF THE ALASKAN INNUITS
+
+  (THE SHORTER COAT IS THAT WORN BY THE MEN)
+]
+
+After the dinner party, on the 18th of July, the two vessels started for
+the north, being joined as soon as they stood from the anchorage by
+Robert Shedden in his yacht the _Nancy Dawson_, who at his own
+initiative had come up from Hong Kong to join in the search. From
+Wainwright Inlet Kellett sent off the boats under Lieutenant Pullen, two
+of which made the journey along the northern coast and up the Mackenzie,
+their crews thence making their way home eastwards to York Factory.
+
+When Kellett was about to commence his observations at the inlet he drew
+a semicircle on the sand from water's edge to water's edge, and placed
+the boats' noses between its points. The natives seemed to understand
+the meaning of this line. Not one of them attempted to overstep it, and
+they squatted down and remained perfectly quiet and silent. When a
+stranger arrived they shouted to him, and he no sooner comprehended the
+directions than he crept rather than walked to the boundary, and
+squatted among the rest. Afterwards they danced and sang and played
+football with the seamen—who stood no chance with them at that game—and
+when they had gone off, after all this good behaviour, it was discovered
+that they had been picking the pockets of some of the party, one losing
+a handkerchief, another a glove, and Commander Moore a box of percussion
+caps.
+
+The boat party had a similar experience, without the pocket-picking.
+Reaching Point Barrow they landed to make observations and look about
+for traces of the visit of the _Blossom's_ boat, which they did not
+find. Their interpreter did not understand the tribe, and recourse was
+had to the universal language of signs. "We made a rude model of a
+vessel," says Lieutenant Hooper, "and performed sundry antics to signify
+what we were in search of, but could elicit no information, and so set
+to work at obtaining observations. We concluded that these people must
+have been entirely misunderstood. Far from evidencing any disposition to
+assail or molest us, they were most docile and well-behaved, agreeably
+disappointing us in their conduct. When we arrived on the hillock, all,
+big and little, sat down around us, and I amused myself by filling their
+pipes, becoming a great favourite immediately in consequence. They had
+among them a great many knives, which we feared would influence the
+magnet. Mr. Pullen therefore kindly drew off the crowd to a distance,
+distributing among them tobacco, beads, snuff, etc., and much to their
+credit be it said, there was neither confusion nor contention, each
+taking his allotted portion, and seeming delighted with his good
+fortune. They took care not to come near the instruments, finding that
+we did not like their approach; one or two indeed came towards us, but
+retired instantly when laughingly motioned back, and this should be
+considered as a display of great forbearance, inasmuch as their
+curiosity must have been highly excited. When the observations were
+concluded they were allowed to inspect the objects of their wonder; then
+fast and thickly to utterance flew their expressions of astonishment at
+the—to them—novel and splendid instruments. The trough of quicksilver,
+liquid and restless, especially attracted them, pleasure and wonder were
+evident at the simple view, but when one or two had permission to take
+some from the dish, and found it ever elude the grasp, their
+astonishment knew no bounds."
+
+[Illustration: THE FROZEN YUKON]
+
+From Wainwright Inlet, which is between Icy Cape and Point Barrow, the
+_Herald_ sailed along the pack to the westward, reaching her highest
+north, 72° 51´, in 163° 48´, and, on the 17th of August, Kellett landed
+on and named Herald Island in 71° 17´ 45˝, a mass of granite towering
+nine hundred feet above the sea, under five miles long and three broad,
+inhabited mainly by black and white divers and yielding the collector
+only four flowering plants. Further to the west he sighted Wrangell
+Island, sailed past and named by the American whaling captain, Thomas
+Long, in August, 1867.
+
+In 1881 Wrangell Island was thoroughly explored by another search
+expedition, that of Captain Berry in the American ship _Rodgers_, who
+was in these parts looking out for traces of the _Jeannette_. He found
+it to be, not a continent as some had supposed, but an island forty
+miles broad and sixty-six miles long, about thirty miles from Herald
+Island and eighty from the Siberian coast; and on it, as on all these
+Siberian islands and the coast of Alaska, remains of the mammoth were
+found. Examining the ice to the northward, he reached 73° 44´ in 171°
+30´, being fifty-three miles further north than Kellett and twenty-four
+miles further than Collinson in 1850. Returning from the north to winter
+quarters he achieved another Arctic record in his ship being destroyed
+by fire in St. Lawrence Bay on the Asiatic side of Bering Strait.
+
+Opposite this, on the American side, from Cape York downwards the land
+trends away to the south-east to Norton Sound, in which are the mouths
+of the Yukon, one of the mightiest rivers of the world, its volume being
+as great as, or according to some writers greater than, the Mississippi.
+In a course of two thousand miles it runs northwards to the Arctic
+Circle at the now abandoned trading post of Fort Yukon, where its waters
+are reinforced by its tributary, the Rat or Porcupine, coming in from
+the north-east, and given their seaward direction to the south-west. Up
+this vast waterway in 1866 went Frederick Whymper and William H. Dall.
+
+Beginning with a sledge journey of a hundred and seventy miles from
+Unalachleet, they struck the Yukon on the 10th of November, gliding down
+a high steep bank on to it. Hardly a patch of clear ice was to be seen,
+the snow covering the whole extent. Accumulations of hummocks had in
+many places been forced on the surface before the river had become
+thoroughly frozen, and the water was still open, running swiftly in a
+few isolated streaks. From bank to bank was not less than a mile, the
+stream flowing among several islands. As they sledged up the river the
+dreary expanse of snow made them almost forget they were on a sheet of
+ice; and, as it winds considerably, their course was often from bank to
+bank to cut off corners and bends. Many cliffs abutted on the stream,
+and islands of sombre green forest studded it in all directions.
+
+[Illustration: ASCENDING THE YUKON]
+
+On the 15th they reached Nulato, six hundred miles from the mouth, where
+they spent the winter. Here they found a curious method of fishing
+practised all through the season. Early in the winter large piles or
+stakes had been driven down into the bed of the river, and to these were
+affixed wickerwork traps like eel-pots on a large scale, oblong holes
+being kept open over them by frequently breaking the ice. This was cold
+work, for the temperature ran low. "In November and December," says
+Whymper, "I succeeded in making sketches of the fort and neighbourhood
+when the temperature was as low as thirty degrees below zero. It was
+done, it need not be said, with difficulty, and often by instalments.
+Between every five strokes of the pencil, I ran about to exercise myself
+or went into our quarters for warmth. The use of water-colours was of
+course impracticable—except when I could keep a pot of warm water on a
+small fire by my side—a thing done by me on two or three occasions, when
+engaged at a distance from the post. Even inside the house the spaces
+near the windows, as well as the floor, were often below freezing point.
+Once, forgetful of the fact, I mixed some colours up with water that had
+just stood near the oven, and wetting a small brush commenced to apply
+it to my drawing block. Before it reached the paper it was covered with
+a skin of ice, and simply scratched the surface, and I had to give up
+for the time being."
+
+On the 12th of May the Nulato River broke up and ran out on the top of
+the Yukon ice for more than a mile upstream; and in a few days the ice
+of the main river was coming down in a steady flow at a rate of five or
+six knots, surging into mountains as it met with obstacles, and grinding
+and crashing and carrying all before it, whole trees and banks being
+swept away on its victorious march, the water rising fourteen feet above
+the winter level. On the 26th Whymper and Dall started with two Indians
+and a steersman in a skin canoe, the river still full of ice, and
+navigation difficult. They had proceeded but a short distance when they
+came to bends, round which logs and ice were sweeping at a great rate,
+so that it was necessary for a man to stand in the bows of the canoe,
+with a pole shod at one end with iron, to push away the masses of ice
+and tangle of driftwood. They could often feel the ice and logs rolling
+and scraping under the canoe; and it was not the thickness of a plank
+between them and destruction, but that of a piece of sealskin a tenth of
+an inch thick.
+
+On the 7th of June they were two hundred and forty miles above Nulato,
+at the junction of the Tanana, the furthest point reached by the
+Russians, and soon were in a part abounding with moose owing to their
+seeking refuge in the stream from the millions of mosquitoes. Here the
+Indian hunters were busy, not wasting powder and shot, but manœuvring
+round the swimming deer in their birch-bark canoes until they tired the
+victim out; and then stealthily approaching, securing it with a stab
+from their knives.
+
+After twenty-six laborious days against the stream they reached Fort
+Yukon, the then furthest outpost of the Hudson's Bay Company, six
+hundred miles from Nulato, and, of course, managed and victualled from
+the east. Here the amount of peltry was astonishing, the fur-room of the
+fort containing thousands of marten skins, hanging from the beams, and
+huge piles of common furs lying around, together with a considerable
+number of foxes, black and silver-grey, and many skins of the wolverine,
+thought so much more of by the Indians than by any one else that they
+are used as a medium of exchange. All these furs were brought in from
+the surrounding districts, far and near, and traded for goods, as widely
+distributed, among the native tribes whose representatives gathered at
+the fort in such a miscellaneous crowd that perhaps half a dozen
+dialects were heard in a morning.
+
+[Illustration: MOOSE-HUNTING ON THE YUKON]
+
+In the crowd the busiest and most prominent were the primitive Tananas,
+gay with feathers and painted faces, looking like survivals among the
+local Kutchins and the Kutchins of the upper river, the Birch River men,
+and the Rat River men by whom the skins were brought from the natives of
+the northern coast, as were the messages from the Franklin search
+parties. Indians were all of these, distinguishable by their wearing the
+hyaqua or tooth-shell (_Dentalium entalis_) through the septum of the
+nose, while the Mahlemut wears a bone on each side of the mouth, a
+practice common with all the Innuit, or Eskimo tribes, from the Alaska
+Peninsula to Point Barrow, unless some other form of labret happens to
+be the local fashion.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII
+                         THE AMERICAN MAINLAND
+
+  The Hudson's Bay Company—Samuel Hearne—His journey down the
+    Coppermine River—The North West Fur Company—Sir Alexander
+    Mackenzie—His journey down the Mackenzie—Sir John Franklin's first
+    land journey—Fort Enterprise—Back's journey to Athabasca—The
+    rapids of the Coppermine—Point Turnagain reached—The Wilberforce
+    Falls—The terrible crossing of the Barren Grounds—Franklin's
+    second land journey—Richardson's voyage to the eastward—Discovers
+    Wollaston Land and Dolphin and Union Strait—Franklin's voyage to
+    Return Reef—Back's journey down the Great Fish River—Discovers
+    Montreal Island and King William Land—The Parry Falls—Sir George
+    Simpson—Peter Warren Dease and Thomas Simpson—Exploration of the
+    coast between Return Reef and Point Barrow—Simpson advances beyond
+    Point Turnagain and discovers Victoria Land and Dease Strait—Their
+    second voyage down the Coppermine—Discovery of Simpson
+    Strait—Reach the Great Fish River—Their farthest east—Complete the
+    survey of the northern coast between Boothia and Bering Strait—The
+    first to find the North-West Passage.
+
+
+For two elks and two black beavers, paid yearly whensoever the King of
+England entered their estate, the Hudson's Bay Company were, in 1670,
+presented by Charles II with the northern part of the American mainland,
+thus ensuring an ample stretch of British territory along the passage to
+the South Sea. But the company soon ceased to be interested in any such
+passage, finding quite enough to do in developing the very profitable
+fur trade of their vast possessions. With the exception of John Knight's
+disastrous voyage to Marble Island in 1719, whatever attempts at
+discoveries there may have been were kept quiet for fear of aiding their
+rivals the French to the south, who were fostering the trade in the
+region of the great lakes; and not until the French dominion ended in
+1763 and the Frenchmen's interests were passing to an opposition British
+company was any effort made to explore the coast of the Polar Sea.
+
+[Illustration: MAHLEMUT MAN]
+
+Owing to Indian reports of rich deposits of native copper and an
+abundance of fur-bearing animals, Samuel Hearne, once a midshipman in
+the Royal Navy, was sent by the company in 1769 to explore to the west
+and north. After a journey of thirteen hundred miles to the west he
+found the Coppermine River and the Great Slave Lake, and he traced the
+river to its mouth and emerged on the northern shore, being the first
+known white man to see the Arctic Ocean between the Boothia Peninsula
+and Bering Strait. Among other things he was instructed to discover a
+north-west passage, and he certainly did something definite towards it
+by showing there was open water so much further west; but, though he
+suspected it, he was unable to prove that the northernmost point of the
+continent was in the unexplored country between the Coppermine and
+Hudson Bay.
+
+In 1783 the North West Fur Company was formally established, and after a
+severe struggle obtained, owing mainly to the efforts of Alexander
+Mackenzie, a fair share of the trade in the west of the region
+controlled by the Hudson's Bay people. Mackenzie was at Fort Chippewyan,
+on Lake Athabasca, and thence he was sent in 1789 on an exploring voyage
+to the north. In four birch-bark canoes, one of his party being an
+Indian known as English Chief, who had been with Hearne on his journey
+to the Coppermine, he started down the Great Slave River into the Great
+Slave Lake. After spending twenty days in crossing and exploring this
+vast sheet of water, he entered the large river now bearing his name,
+and down it amid many dangers and difficulties, overcome by skill,
+persuasion, force, good humour or good fortune, he reached the sea on
+the 14th of July. He camped on Whale Island, the name being given owing
+to one of the men sighting a great many animals in the water, which he
+at first supposed to be pieces of ice. "However," says Mackenzie, "I was
+awakened to resolve the doubts which had taken place respecting this
+extraordinary appearance. I immediately perceived that they were whales;
+and having ordered the canoe to be prepared, we embarked in pursuit of
+them. It was indeed a very wild and unreflecting enterprise, and it was
+a very fortunate circumstance that we failed in our attempt to overtake
+them, as a stroke from the tail of one of these enormous fish would have
+dashed the canoe to pieces. We may, perhaps, have been indebted to the
+foggy weather for our safety, as it prevented us from continuing our
+pursuit. Our guide informed us that they are the same kind of fish which
+are the principal food of the Eskimos, and they were frequently seen as
+large as our canoe. The part of them which appeared above the water was
+altogether white, and they were much larger than the largest
+porpoise"—being evidently belugas (_Delphinapterus leucas_).
+
+Satisfied with a short canoe voyage on the sea, he returned to the river
+and made his way back to the fort, arriving there in the middle of
+September. He had thus proved the existence of the sea twenty degrees
+further west than Hearne had done. Three years afterwards he started on
+his notable journey to the Pacific at Cape Menzies, facing Princess
+Royal Island, being the first white man to cross the Rocky Mountains,
+and, as he had reached Fort Chippewyan by way of Montreal, the first to
+cross North America above the Gulf of Mexico.
+
+Another of Hearne's Indians accompanied Franklin on his first land
+journey in 1819, the object of which was to explore the coast between
+Hearne's farthest and Hudson Bay, thus filling in the gap in which the
+assumed northern promontory was to be found. Franklin, who was sent out
+by the British Government, had with him, as surgeon and naturalist, Dr.,
+afterwards Sir, John Richardson, to whom as a boy Robert Burns had lent
+Spenser's _Faerie Queene_, a naval surgeon with a distinguished record,
+who while on half-pay had studied botany and mineralogy at Edinburgh.
+Like another member of the expedition, George Back, who had been with
+Franklin in the _Trent_ and _Dorothea_ voyage, he was destined to gain a
+great reputation among Arctic explorers. With Back was another
+midshipman, Robert Hood, whose fate it was to be murdered by an Iroquois
+half-breed who, through want of food, betook himself to cannibalism.
+
+Landing at York Factory, in Hudson Bay, after an exciting voyage, on the
+30th of August, Franklin, disregarding local advice, pushed on across
+the continent during the winter, arriving at Fort Chippewyan on the 26th
+of March, the losses and trying experiences of the long journey being
+mainly due to the rigours of the climate at that time of year; and
+thence, in July, the party followed Mackenzie's route to Fort Providence
+on Great Slave Lake. Here they were joined by Mr. Wentzel, of the North
+West Company.
+
+Starting for the north on the 2nd of August in four canoes, they were
+joined next day at the mouth of the Yellow Knife by a band of Indians,
+under a chief named Akaitcho, in seventeen canoes. The Indians were to
+guide the party and supply them with food by hunting and fishing on the
+way, but game and fish proved scarce—and scarcer owing to the poorness
+of the Indian marksmanship—provisions were short and portages long, so
+that the journey, which soon led across a series of lakes, was pursued
+under toilsome and hazardous conditions until it ended at Winter Lake in
+64° 30´, where it became necessary to winter in a log house built by
+Wentzel, and named Fort Enterprise. The site was delightful: a hillside
+amid trees three feet in diameter at the roots, the view in front
+bounded at a distance of three miles by round-backed hills, to the
+eastward and westward the Winter and Roundrock Lakes connected by the
+Winter River, its banks clothed with pines and ornamented with a
+profusion of mosses, lichens, and shrubs.
+
+[Illustration: WINTER TRAVELLING ON THE GREAT SLAVE LAKE]
+
+In a few weeks, however, the weather became so severe that, according to
+Franklin, the trees froze to their very centres and became as hard as
+stones, on which some of the axes were broken daily, until but one was
+left. And though at first the reindeer appeared in numbers, their visits
+lasted only for a short time, and the party, short of tobacco for the
+Canadian voyageurs and of ammunition for the Indians, had so poor an
+outlook that it became necessary to accept Back's proposal to return to
+the forts and bring on supplies which had not been forwarded as
+promised; the failure being due to the journey, unlike the successful
+ventures of Hearne and Mackenzie, being pushed on regardless of climatal
+conditions, and, in some degree, to the rivalry between the two fur
+companies which were amalgamated while the expedition was in progress.
+
+Back set out accompanied by Wentzel and two Canadians and two Indians
+and their wives, crossing lakes frozen just hard enough to bear them,
+going wide circuits to avoid those which were open, amid mist and fog
+and storm, over rugged, bare country, through dense woods and
+snow-covered swamps, rafting across a river with pine branches for
+paddles, until Fort Providence was reached. From here he sent back
+Belanger with letters and a hundred bullets he procured on loan.
+Belanger arrived at Fort Enterprise on the 23rd of October alone; he had
+walked constantly for the last six-and-thirty hours through a storm, his
+locks were matted with snow, and he was encrusted with ice from head to
+foot, so that he was scarcely recognised when he slipped in through the
+doorway.
+
+At Fort Providence Back had to wait until the Great Slave Lake was
+frozen over. On the 18th of November he observed two mock moons at equal
+distances from the central one, the whole encircled by a halo, the
+colour of the inner edge of the large circle a light red inclining to a
+faint purple; and two days afterwards two parhelia were observable, with
+a halo, the colours of the inner edge of the circle a bright carmine and
+red-lake intermingled with a rich yellow forming a purplish orange, the
+outer edge being a pale gamboge. On the 7th of December he left,
+sledging across the lake before the wind, for the North West fort on
+Moose Deer Island, and finding at the Hudson's Bay fort, also on the
+island, five packages of belated supplies and two Eskimo interpreters on
+their way to Franklin.
+
+Here he was told that nothing could be spared at Fort Chippewyan, that
+goods had never been transported so far in the winter season, that the
+same dogs could not go and return, and that from having to walk
+constantly on snow-shoes he would suffer a great deal of misery and
+fatigue. Nevertheless he undertook the journey in dog-sledges with a
+Canadian and an Indian, leaving Wentzel behind. At times the weather was
+so cold that they had to run to keep themselves warm, and, owing to the
+snow, the feet of the dogs became so raw that an endeavour was made to
+fit them with shoes. With legs and ankles so swollen that it was painful
+to drag the snow-shoes after him, Back hurried on, reaching Fort
+Chippewyan on the 2nd of January to find that he and all Franklin's
+party had been reported to have been killed by Eskimos. Here he had to
+wait a month, and then, with an instalment of what he wanted, he set out
+on his return, arriving at Fort Enterprise on St. Patrick's Day after a
+memorable journey of over a thousand miles.
+
+[Illustration: CROSSING POINT LAKE]
+
+During his absence he was told that the cold had been so severe that
+Hood had found accurate observing difficult owing to the sextant having
+changed its error and the glasses lost their parallelism from the
+contraction of the brass, a circumstance, combined with the
+crystallisation of the mercury of the artificial horizon, that might
+account for some of the diversity of results obtained by Arctic
+navigators. And Richardson had to tell him of an early discovery that
+when fishing and the hands get cold by hauling in the line, the best way
+to warm them is to put them in the water; and how the fish had frozen as
+they were taken out of the water so that by a blow or two of the hatchet
+they were easily split open, leaving the intestines removable in one
+lump, and yet that these much-frozen fish retained their vitality so
+that he had seen a thawed carp recover so far as to leap about with much
+vigour after it had been frozen for thirty-six hours.
+
+On the 14th of June Fort Enterprise was left, and on the 25th the
+expedition began to cross Point Lake on the way to the Coppermine, the
+river being reached through Rocknest Lake on the 30th. Down the river
+they paddled, taking the rapids as they went—in one place three miles of
+them on end. "We were carried along with extraordinary rapidity,
+shooting over large stones, upon which a single stroke would have been
+destructive to the canoes; and we were also in danger of breaking them,
+from the want of the long poles which lie along their bottoms and
+equalise their cargoes, as they plunged very much, and on one occasion
+the first canoe was almost filled with the waves; but there was no
+receding after we had once launched into the stream, and our safety
+depended on the skill and dexterity of the bowmen and steersmen."
+
+There were rapids day by day affording almost every possible chance of
+wreck except that due to driftwood; the two worst being one where the
+stream descends for three-quarters of a mile in a deep but narrow and
+crooked channel which it has cut through the foot of a hill of five
+hundred or six hundred feet high, confined between perpendicular cliffs
+resembling stone walls varying in height from eighty to a hundred and
+fifty feet, on which lies a mass of fine sand; the body of the river
+pent within this narrow chasm dashing furiously round the projecting
+rocky columns as it discharges itself at the northern extremity in a
+sheet of foam. The other being where the river flows between lofty stone
+cliffs, reddish clay rocks and shelving banks of white clay, and is full
+of shoals. Franklin's people had entered this rapid before they were
+aware of it, and the steepness of the cliffs prevented them from
+landing, so that they owed their preservation to the swiftness of their
+descent. Two waves made a complete breach over the canoes; a third would
+probably have filled and overset them, which would have proved fatal to
+all on board. This Escape Rapid, as it was named, was, as it were, the
+gate into the territory of the Eskimos who were soon met with in small
+parties all the way down to the sea. It was passed on the 15th of July;
+three days afterwards the Indians bade farewell to the expedition in the
+morning, and in the afternoon the canoes were afloat on the Arctic
+Ocean.
+
+[Illustration: KUTCHIN INDIANS]
+
+From the river mouth Wentzel returned, as arranged, with despatches,
+taking with him a number of voyageurs and others, thus reducing the
+party to twenty in all in two canoes. In these Franklin, nearly two
+years after he had landed in America, went on his voyage to the eastward
+to enter at last on the work he had been sent to do. But the survey of
+this lofty rocky coast was no easy matter; the sea was rough, the
+weather tempestuous, the canoes were lightly built and only suited for
+river work, and, in short, it was a most risky enterprise. Tracing the
+shore of Coronation Gulf and coasting up and out of Bathurst Inlet,
+Franklin reached Point Turnagain in 109° 25´ W., at the entrance of
+Dease Strait, on the 16th of August, 1821. Though the voyage had
+extended over only six and a half degrees of longitude, he had sailed
+555 geographical miles; and then, as his resources did not permit of his
+going further or of his returning to the Coppermine, and in his own
+words "Our scanty stock of provisions rendering it necessary to make for
+a nearer place," he, on the 22nd, turned back to ascend the Hood River.
+
+Here they soon reached the Wilberforce Falls, beautiful and remarkable,
+but not easy of navigation. "In the evening," says Franklin in his
+journal, "we encamped at the lower end of a narrow chasm through which
+the river flows for upwards of a mile. The walls of this chasm are
+upwards of two hundred feet high, quite perpendicular, and in some
+places only a few yards apart. The river precipitates itself into it
+over a rock forming two magnificent and picturesque falls close to each
+other. The upper fall is about sixty feet high, and the lower one at
+least one hundred, but perhaps considerably more, for the narrowness of
+the chasm into which it fell prevented us from seeing its bottom and we
+could merely discern the top of the spray far beneath our feet. The
+lower fall is divided into two by an insulated column of rock which
+rises about forty feet above it."
+
+As the river above the falls appeared too rapid and shallow for the
+large canoes they were taken to pieces, and two smaller ones built from
+their materials. The voyage in these lasted but three days, when the
+river was abandoned as trending too far to the west, and the party,
+carrying the canoes, proceeded overland to Point Lake on their struggle
+of starvation across the Barren Grounds. For days they had nothing to
+eat but lichens—species of _Gyrophora_ or _Umbilicaria_ known as
+tripe-de-roche—a diet varied with leather, burnt bones and skins, an
+occasional ptarmigan, and, once, a musk ox, until they were so weak that
+when a herd of reindeer went strolling past they had not strength enough
+to shoot at them.
+
+The tragedy need not be lingered over. Back was again sent for help,
+and, finding no stores at Fort Enterprise, was on his way to Fort
+Providence when he fell in with Akaitcho, who at once hurried to the
+rescue; and on the 14th of July, 1822, Franklin, Richardson, Back, and
+Hepburn the seaman, who had behaved as a hero all through, returned to
+York Factory after a three years' journey, fraught with peril and
+horror, by land and water, of over six thousand three hundred statute
+miles.
+
+After he had been at home a year, Franklin suggested that another
+attempt should be made to survey the northern coast while Parry was at
+work in search of the North-West Passage. The suggestion was accepted.
+Accompanied by Richardson and Back, and by E. N. Kendall as assistant
+surveyor—who had been out with Captain Lyon in the same capacity—and by
+Thomas Drummond as assistant naturalist, he left Liverpool on the 26th
+of February, 1825.
+
+[Illustration: PREPARING AN ENCAMPMENT ON THE BARREN GROUNDS]
+
+Taught by experience, the expedition was better managed in every way.
+Instead of driving ahead regardless of the season or the trade routine,
+the ordinary conditions of local travel were kept in view throughout,
+and the results were more in proportion to the effort. Three boats were
+specially built at Woolwich on Franklin's design and under Buchan's
+superintendence. They were of mahogany with timbers of ash, both ends
+alike, steerable by oar or rudder, the largest 26 ft. by 5 ft. 4 ins.,
+the two others 24 ft. by 4 ft. 10 ins., and with them Colonel Pasley's
+portable boat, known as the _Walnut Shell_ from its shape, 9 ft. long
+and half as wide, with frames of ash fastened with thongs and covered
+with canvas. The canvas was "waterproofed by Mr. Macintosh, of
+Glasgow"—the first instance of its use—and for the first time also what
+we know as macintosh coats and overalls were issued as part of the
+outfit, the process having been patented in 1824.
+
+The boats and stores were sent on ahead by way of York Factory in 1824,
+and Franklin and his party, travelling by New York and the lakes, caught
+them up on the Methye River at sunrise on the 29th of June. With them
+were several old friends, not the least delighted being the two Eskimo
+interpreters, Augustus and Ooligbuck, who were to be of the utmost
+importance throughout. On the 8th of August they had got along so well
+that they were at the junction of the Bear Lake River with the
+Mackenzie. Here Back and Peter Warren Dease of the Hudson's Bay Company,
+who had joined the expedition to look after the local arrangements, were
+sent off to build a house to winter in on the banks of the Great Bear
+Lake, in Keith's Bay, where the river leaves it; Richardson also left to
+explore the northern shore of the lake, and Franklin and Kendall
+continuing down the Mackenzie reached the sea before the week was out in
+less than six months from their departure from Liverpool. And on the 5th
+of September they had returned upstream and were at their winter
+quarters at the new house on the lake, which Back had named Fort
+Franklin, to find that Richardson had been along the northern shore and
+noted as being the nearest point to the Coppermine the entrance of the
+river he had named after Dease, which was to be of so much service to
+him later on.
+
+During the winter another boat, the _Reliance_, was built on the lines
+of the _Lion_, the largest of the Woolwich boats, and leaving Dease to
+complete the stores for another comfortable winter, the expedition
+started on the 24th of June. At Point Separation, at the head of the
+Mackenzie delta, Franklin in the _Lion_ with Back in the _Reliance_—our
+old friend Robert Spinks being his coxswain—took the western arm, and
+Richardson in the _Dolphin_ and Kendall in the _Union_, carrying the
+_Walnut Shell_ with them, took the eastern arm.
+
+[Illustration: Yours faithfully John Richardson]
+
+Richardson, with a few more or less threatening encounters with the
+Eskimos, ending fairly well owing to Ooligbuck, and in constant danger
+of wreck avoided by careful navigation, rounded Cape Bathurst in 70° 36´
+and discovered Wollaston Land, the coast-line of which they left
+continuing to the east, when they reached Coronation Gulf and, on the
+8th of August, entered the Coppermine, and thus filled in the gap of
+nine hundred and two statute miles from Point Separation. Leaving the
+_Dolphin_ and _Union_ at Bloody Fall on that river, it being impossible
+to take them further, the expedition, carrying the _Walnut Shell_ with
+them, proceeded along the banks, but finding they had no use for the
+portable boat, owing to the shallowness of the stream, they soon
+abandoned it, and in 67° 13´, where the river is nearest to the
+north-eastern arm of Great Bear Lake, the Coppermine was left and the
+course laid across the Barren Grounds for Dease River. This was reached
+three days afterwards, Richardson being met at its mouth by Dease's
+people on the 24th of August.
+
+Franklin had similar experiences with the Eskimos, and was as deeply
+indebted to Augustus for his tact and bravery in dealing with them.
+Coasting along to the westward, hindered by ice, bad weather and fog,
+and tormented by mosquitoes, his progress was much slower than that of
+Richardson. Delayed for some days on or about Foggy Island, he had to
+give up his intention of reaching Bering Strait, and not knowing that
+Elson with the barge of the _Blossom_ had come as far east as Point
+Barrow, he gave the name of Cape Beechey to the westernmost headland in
+sight, and leaving Return Reef in 148° 52´ on the 18th of August, after
+covering six hundred and ten statute miles through parts not previously
+discovered, began his voyage back to Fort Franklin, where he arrived on
+the 21st of September. Meanwhile Richardson had gone off to explore the
+Great Slave Lake, whence Drummond had started on his journey among the
+Rockies; and, being unable to get away till another winter had passed,
+both Franklin and Richardson landed in England in September, 1827, after
+an important and fruitful expedition that had no death-roll.
+
+Back was again in these regions in 1833 on his expedition in search of
+Sir John Ross. Reaching the Great Slave Lake, he built Fort Reliance at
+its north-eastern corner and began the long winter there on the 5th of
+November. Soon afterwards Akaitcho put in an appearance, and expressed
+his intention—which he did his best to fulfil—of being of as much
+assistance as he could; and later on Augustus made his way across
+country to offer his services, but, either exhausted by suffering and
+privation, or caught in a snowstorm, he died alone near the Rivière à
+Jean.
+
+Temperatures ranging from 50 to 70 minus were of frequent occurrence,
+and, on one occasion Back, after washing his face within a yard of the
+fire, had his hair clotted with ice before he had time to dry it. Every
+animal was driven away from the neighbourhood by the cold, except a
+solitary raven which swept once round the house and then winged his
+flight to the westward. On the 25th of April a messenger arrived at the
+fort with the news of the safe return of Sir John Ross to England, but
+Back determined to proceed with the journey for exploring purposes,
+taking one boat instead of two, and, with Richard King the surgeon, and
+eight men, he started for the Great Fish River on the 8th of July.
+
+[Illustration: BACK'S JOURNEY DOWN THE GREAT FISH RIVER]
+
+The voyage was a hazardous and adventurous one. For five hundred and
+thirty geographical miles the river was found to run through an
+iron-ribbed country without a single tree on the whole line of its
+banks, expanding into fine large lakes with clear horizons, most
+embarrassing to the navigator, and broken into falls, cascades, and
+rapids, to the number of no less than eighty-three, pouring its waters
+into the Polar Sea in latitude 67° 11´ and longitude 94° 30´; so that
+his explorations on the northern coast were confined to a section
+further east than Point Turnagain.
+
+The expedition met with its greatest danger at Escape Rapid, between
+Lake Macdougall and Lake Franklin, on the 25th of July. Here the stream
+was broken by a mile of heavy and dangerous rapids. The boat was
+lightened, and every care taken to avoid accident; but so overwhelming
+was the rush and whirl of the water, that she, and consequently those in
+her, were twice in imminent peril of being plunged into one of the gulfs
+formed in the rocks and hollows. It was in one of these places, which
+are fall, rapid, and eddy within a few yards, that the boat owed its
+safety to an unintentional disobedience of the steersman's directions.
+
+The power of the water so far exceeded whatever had been witnessed on
+any of the other rivers that the precautions used elsewhere were weak
+and unavailing. McKay, the steersman, was endeavouring to clear a fall
+and some sunken rocks on the left, but the man to whom he spoke
+misunderstood him, and did exactly the reverse; and then, seeing the
+danger, the steersman swept the stern round; instantly the boat was
+caught by an eddy to the right, which, snapping an oar, twirled her
+irresistibly broadside on; so that for a moment it seemed uncertain
+whether the boat was to be hurled into the hollow of the fall, or dashed
+stern foremost on the sunken rocks. Of how it happened no account can be
+given, but her head swung inshore towards the beach and thereby gave an
+opportunity for some of the men to spring into the water and by their
+united strength rescue her from her perilous position. Had the man to
+whom the first order was given understood and acted on it no human power
+could have saved the crew from being buried in the abyss. Nor yet could
+any blame be justly attached to the steersman, who had never been so
+situated before and whose coolness and self-possession never in this
+imminent peril forsook him. At the awful moment of suspense, when one of
+the crew with less nerve than his companions began to cry aloud to
+Heaven for aid, McKay in a still louder voice exclaimed, "Is this a time
+for praying? Pull your starboard oar." Never could a reminder that
+_laborare est orare_ have been more opportune.
+
+On the 1st of August Montreal Island was reached. Nine days afterwards a
+log of driftwood, nine feet long and nine inches in diameter, jocularly
+described as a piece of the North Pole, was found on the beach, which,
+as there are no trees on the Fish River or the Coppermine, Captain Back
+was of opinion must have come from the Mackenzie and drifted eastward,
+so that he was on the main line of the land. The inference, confirmed by
+the appearance of a whale, was correct, but, misled, perhaps, by hilly
+islands, he missed the channel through which it had come, blocking it,
+in the manner of John Ross, with a range of mountains that does not
+exist. Though he reached Mount Barrow and mistook the head of Simpson
+Strait for an inlet, thus failing to find one of the north-west
+passages, he discovered and named King William Land and sighted Point
+Booth at its eastern extremity. An attempt to reach Point Turnagain to
+the westward and thus link up with Franklin's farthest east, in which he
+might have discovered the passage, proving impracticable owing to the
+bogginess of the ground, Back began his return from King William Land in
+latitude 68° 13´, longitude 94° 58´, and entered on a wearisome journey
+up the river and lakes he had come down, meeting with a party from Fort
+Reliance on the 17th of September.
+
+A week after, when within a couple of days of the fort, on that "small
+but abominable river" the Ah-hel-dessy from Artillery Lake, Back
+discovered the Anderson Falls. Toiling along over the mountains, every
+man with a seventy-five-pound package on his back, he had not proceeded
+more than six or seven miles when, observing the spray rising from
+another fall, he was induced to visit it and was well consoled for
+having left the boat behind. "From the only point," says Back, "at which
+the greater part of it was visible, we could distinguish the river
+coming sharp round a rock, and falling into an upper basin almost
+concealed by intervening rocks; whence it broke in one vast sheet into a
+chasm between four and five hundred feet deep, yet in appearance so
+narrow that we fancied we could almost step across it. Out of this the
+spray rose in misty columns several hundred feet above our heads; but as
+it was impossible to see the main fall from the side on which we were,
+in the following spring I paid a second visit to it, approaching from
+the western bank. The road to it, which I then traversed in snow-shoes,
+was fatiguing in the extreme, and scarcely less dangerous; for, to say
+nothing of the steep ascents, fissures in the rocks, and deep snow in
+the valleys, we had sometimes to creep along the narrow shelves of
+precipices slippery with the frozen mist that fell on them. But it was a
+sight that well repaid any risk. My first impression was of a strong
+resemblance to an iceberg in Smeerenberg Harbour, Spitsbergen. The whole
+face of the rocks forming the chasm was entirely coated with blue,
+green, and white ice, in thousands of pendent icicles; and there were,
+moreover, caverns, fissures, and overhanging ledges in all imaginable
+varieties of form, so curious and beautiful as to surpass anything of
+which I had ever heard or read. The immediate approaches were extremely
+hazardous, nor could we obtain a perfect view of the lower fall, in
+consequence of the projection of the western cliffs. At the lowest
+position we were able to attain, we were still more than a hundred feet
+above the level of the river beneath; and this, instead of being narrow
+enough to step across, as it had seemed from the opposite heights, was
+found to be at least two hundred feet wide. The colour of the water
+varied from a very light to a very dark green; and the spray, which
+spread a dimness above, was thrown up in clouds of light grey. Niagara,
+Wilberforce Falls on Hood River, the falls of Kakabikka near Lake
+Superior, the Swiss or Italian falls—although they may each charm the
+eye with dread—are not to be compared to this for splendour of effect.
+It was the most imposing spectacle I had ever witnessed; and, as its
+berg-like appearance brought to mind associations of another scene, I
+bestowed upon it the name of our celebrated navigator, Sir Edward Parry,
+and called it Parry's Falls."
+
+Back, like Franklin, owed much of the success of his expedition to the
+cordial help of the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, George,
+afterwards Sir George, Simpson. Ever the fastest of travellers in the
+north, Simpson had, in 1828, made a 3260-mile canoe voyage from Hudson
+Bay to the Pacific, passing the Rockies through canyons previously
+untried, and slipping down mountain torrents and through unknown rapids
+at such speed that hostile Indians let him pass in sheer amazement; and
+all his life he was distinguished for similar energy and celerity. When
+it became clear that the British Government had no immediate intention
+of completing the survey of the northern coast, Simpson organised an
+expedition at the Company's expense to undertake the task, and entrusted
+the leadership to Dease, who had done such excellent work for Franklin;
+and with Dease he associated his own nephew, Thomas Simpson, in no way
+inferior to his uncle in energy, speediness, or decision of character,
+being in fact one of our very best explorers, Arctic or otherwise.
+
+Thomas Simpson, Master of Arts of Aberdeen and a winner of the
+Huttonian, began characteristically by starting off to Fort Garry—now
+Winnipeg—with a view, as he says, "to refresh and extend my astronomical
+practice which had for some years been interrupted by avocations of a
+very different nature"; and thence, in the winter, making his way to
+Fort Chippewyan, a journey of 1277 miles, joining Dease there more than
+a month before he was expected. Two boats were built, light clinker
+craft of 24 ft. keel and 6 ft. beam, adapted for shallow navigation by
+their small draught, both alike and honoured with the classical names of
+the heavenly twins, _Castor_ and _Pollux_, each boat provided with a
+small oiled canvas canoe and portable wooden frame. Of one, the
+steersman was the redoubtable James McKay—"Pull your starboard oar!"—and
+of the other, George Sinclair, Back's bowman; and one of the bowmen was
+Felix, who had been with Franklin in 1826. All told, the expedition
+numbered fourteen.
+
+Leaving Fort Chippewyan on the 1st of June, 1837, they reached Bear Lake
+River on the 3rd of July, and six days afterwards were out on the sea.
+On the 23rd of July they camped at Return Reef, that is to say they had
+traversed the whole extent of Franklin's survey in a fortnight, and not
+without danger from the ice and losing much time by doubling the floes,
+however far they extended seawards. Once Simpson's boat, which was of
+course leading, was only saved from destruction by throwing out
+everything it contained upon the floating masses. By means of portages
+made from one fragment to another, the oars forming the perilous
+bridges, and after repeated risks of boats, men, and baggage being
+separated by the motion of the ice, they succeeded with much labour in
+collecting the whole equipment on one floe, which, being covered with
+water, formed a sort of wet dock. There they hauled up the boats,
+momentarily liable to be overwhelmed by the turning over of the ice,
+three miles from land, with the fog settled round them throughout the
+inclement night.
+
+Continuing westwards along new country, they reached and named Cape
+George Simpson (after the Governor) and, a little further on, Boat
+Extreme, where, from the coldness of the weather and the interminable
+ice, the further advance of the boats appeared to be so hopeless that
+Dease agreed to stay in charge of them while Simpson with five men,
+including McKay and Felix, pushed ahead for Point Barrow on foot.
+Passing McKay Inlet and Sinclair River, named after the two steersmen,
+an Eskimo camp was reached, where Simpson exchanged his tin plate for a
+platter made out of a mammoth tusk, and borrowed an oomiak which floated
+in about half a foot of water. In this useful skin boat the journey was
+resumed to Point Barrow, and on the 4th of August the survey completed
+between Franklin's farthest and Elson's.
+
+The winter was passed at the mouth of the Dease River, on Great Bear
+Lake, where Fort Confidence had been built ready for the expedition on
+its return. On the 6th of June, 1838, a start for the coast was made by
+the Coppermine route, that river being reached on the 22nd, and its
+descent accomplished, on the spring flood, in nine days. But it was a
+bad season, and the navigation was so hampered by ice that no start was
+made to the eastward until the 17th of July. At Boathaven, in 109° 20´,
+Simpson again left the boats and went ahead with Sinclair and six others
+who had not been to Point Barrow. Passing Franklin's farthest at Point
+Turnagain, he kept on for a hundred miles along the whole length of
+Dease Strait, discovering and naming Victoria Land, reaching Beaufort
+River beyond Cape Alexander, and sighting an open sea to the eastward.
+From here, in 106° 3´, the return began; and by many devices and the
+unfailing skill of McKay and Sinclair, the two boats were taken up the
+Coppermine stream, falls and rapids and all, to the nearest point to
+Fort Confidence, where they were hauled up in readiness for next year.
+
+On the 22nd of June, 1839, the boats again left for the sea; and they
+were run down to Bloody Fall without a stoppage in eleven hours. Again
+there were fourteen all told in them, but this time one of the men was
+Ooglibuck, who had come specially from Ungava in Labrador, in the
+wonderful time of three months less eight days, to join the expedition
+which was to meet with great success and accomplish an Arctic boat
+journey of over sixteen hundred statute miles.
+
+Entirely blocked until the 3rd of July, and hindered by ice difficulties
+all the way, the boats did not reach the previous year's farthest until
+the 28th of July. On the 11th of August, through an outlet only three
+miles wide, they passed into the much-desired eastern sea. "That
+glorious sight," says Simpson, after whom the strait is named, "was
+first beheld by myself from the top of one of the high limestone
+islands, and I had the satisfaction of announcing it to some of the men
+who, incited by curiosity, followed me thither. The joyful news was soon
+conveyed to Mr. Dease, who was with the boats at the end of the island,
+about half a mile off." On the continent and on King William Land, where
+Franklin's men were in time coming to perish of starvation, reindeer
+were seen browsing on the scanty herbage among the shingle. A terrible
+thunderstorm followed, and then, doubling a very sharp point on the
+13th, Simpson landed and saw before him a sandy desert. It was Back's
+Point Sir C. Ogle that he had at length reached. Away in the distance
+was the Great Fish River, and three days afterwards the party were
+encamped on Montreal Island, where McKay led the way to the provisions
+and gunpowder deposited by Back among the rocks.
+
+The expedition had performed its allotted task, and the men were
+consulted as to whether they would continue for a short distance to the
+eastward. To their honour they all assented without a murmur; but the
+cruel north-east wind forbade much progress in that direction, and their
+farthest east was reached at Castor and Pollux River. From there
+immediate return was imperative, as not a day could be spared. And so,
+from latitude 68° 28´ 23˝, longitude 94° 14´, they turned back on the
+21st of August, leaving the survey of the north coast of the American
+mainland practically complete from Bering Strait to Boothia.
+
+Further, on their return journey they crossed to the southern shore of
+King William Land and traced its coast for nearly sixty miles,
+discovering and naming Cape Herschel, south-eastward of which, in
+Simpson Strait, M'Clintock found the remains of one of Franklin's men.
+They thus linked up with what was to be the route of the Franklin
+expedition and were the first to find the North-West Passage for the
+command of which the territory was given by Charles II to the Hudson's
+Bay Company.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IX
+                           THE PARRY ISLANDS
+
+  John Rae—Wollaston Land and Victoria Strait—Overlaps Franklin's
+    route—M'Clure discovers Prince of Wales Strait—The North-West
+    Passage—Banks Land—M'Clure rescued by Bedford Pim—Collinson's
+    remarkable voyage—In Beaufort Sea—Reaches Banks Strait—Voyage to
+    Cambridge Bay—On Franklin's route—The North-West Passage sailed
+    by Amundsen along the track of the _Enterprise_—Sir
+    John Barrow—Parry's first voyage—Penetrates Lancaster
+    Sound and discovers the Parry Islands—Stopped by ice in
+    Banks Strait—The search for Franklin—Sir John Ross—De
+    Haven—Penny—Austin—Ommanney—Osborn—Belcher—Kellett—M'Clintock—Drift
+    of the _Resolute_—Sledge work—Sverdrup's discoveries during his
+    four years in the north.
+
+
+The second to complete a north-west passage by linking up with
+Franklin's voyage was Dr. John Rae, an Orkneyman by birth, as energetic
+as Thomas Simpson and evidently not inferior to him in stamina, for in
+his Arctic journeys he walked a distance equal to that of the
+circumference of the earth. In 1846 he had surveyed the Committee Bay
+district between Boothia and the Melville Peninsula, reaching it from
+Repulse Bay, and in 1848 and 1849 he had been associated with Richardson
+in searching for Franklin along the coast from the Mackenzie eastwards.
+Next year, while in charge of the Mackenzie district, he was again
+requested to lead a Franklin search expedition, and, starting from Fort
+Confidence on the 25th of April, was on the sea by the 1st of May.
+Crossing over to Wollaston Land, and making westward along the coast on
+the 22nd of May, he rounded Cape Baring, just above the seventieth
+parallel. Crossing to its continuation, Victoria Land, on a second
+journey, he travelled eastward, and, going up Victoria Strait, rounded
+Pelly Point, also just above the seventieth parallel, on the 12th of
+July, thus practically completing the survey of the southern half of
+what Collinson was to prove is one large island.
+
+[Illustration: Yours very truly W Parry]
+
+Off Pelly Point, it afterwards appeared, the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ were
+beset in the ice in September, 1846, and fifty miles to the south-east
+they had been abandoned in April, 1848; but the only relic found by Rae
+on this occasion was the doubtful one—picked up in Parker Bay—of the
+butt-end of a flagstaff on which was nailed a piece of white line by two
+copper tacks, all three bearing the Government mark. This was the first
+to be found of anything that could be thought to be a trace of the
+missing ships, a sort of promise of what he was to meet with four years
+later; and it is worth noting that, had he not failed in getting across
+the strait to King William Land, Rae would in 1850 have probably
+discovered Franklin's fate.
+
+His farthest in these parts was passed in May, 1853, by Captain Richard
+Collinson, in his sledge journey to Gateshead Island from H.M.S.
+_Enterprise_, then wintering in Cambridge Bay. The _Enterprise_ and
+_Investigator_ had been placed under Collinson's command and sent by way
+of Cape Horn to search for Franklin from the west, the instructions
+being that the ships should not part company; but regardless of this,
+Commander Robert Le Mesurier M'Clure, of the _Investigator_, happening
+to get through Bering Strait first, declined to wait for his commanding
+officer, went off on an expedition on his own account and, by a sledge
+journey, joined Parry's track when in search of the North-West Passage.
+
+Steering north-east from Franklin Bay, M'Clure reached the south of
+Parry's Banks Land and followed the coast north-eastwards, discovering
+Prince of Wales Strait and making his way rather more than half-way up,
+until, near Princess Royal Island in 72° 50´, he was caught in the ice
+and imprisoned for the winter. On Trafalgar Day, 1850, M'Clure left the
+_Investigator_ on a sledge journey up the strait, and at sunrise on the
+26th of October, from Mount Observation in 73° 30´, a hill six hundred
+feet above the sea, he looked over Banks Strait and Melville Sound, and
+saw the coast of Banks Land terminating about twelve miles further on
+and thence trending to the north-west, while Wollaston Land, as it
+proved to be, turned eastward on the other side at Peel Point. That
+evening Banks Strait was reached at Cape Lord John Russell, and the
+North-West Passage by Prince of Wales Strait clearly demonstrated. The
+spot was not bare of vegetation, and there were many traces of animals,
+for, fortunately for M'Clure, there was no scarcity of game during his
+three winterings in Banks Land—reindeer in herds, musk oxen
+occasionally, hares in troops, ducks in plenty, ptarmigan almost as
+numerous, and bears, wolves, and foxes to feed on them; for instance,
+the weights of three items in the bag, 1945 lb. of musk ox, 7716 lb. of
+deer, and 1017 lb. of hare, show fairly good shooting.
+
+Enclosing a record of the visit in a cairn, M'Clure returned to the
+ship, from which in the spring three sledge parties were sent
+out—Cresswell's to the north-west finding that Banks Land was an island,
+Wynniatt's to the north-east reaching Reynolds Point on the north of
+Wollaston Land, and Haswell's down Wollaston Land to within forty miles
+of where Rae turned back about a week later—this being the only attempt
+at searching for Franklin that the expedition undertook after sighting
+Nelson Head. Released in July, the _Investigator_ retreated down the
+strait and attempted to circumnavigate Banks Land, finding to the west a
+coast as precipitous as a wall, the water deep—fifteen fathoms close in,
+with the yardarms almost touching the cliffs on one hand and the lofty
+ice on the other—and the pack drawing forty feet of water, rising in
+rolling hills a hundred feet from base to summit. On shore the hills
+were as remarkable. Many of them were peaked and isolated by precipitous
+gorges, about three hundred feet deep. And all the way up them were
+numbers of fallen trees, in many places in layers, some protruding
+twelve or fourteen feet, one of these trunks measuring nineteen inches
+in diameter. Says M'Clure: "I entered a ravine some miles inland, and
+found the north side of it, for a depth of forty feet from the surface,
+composed of one mass of wood similar to what I had before seen. The
+whole depth of the ravine was about two hundred feet. The ground around
+the wood or trees was formed of sand and shingle; some of the wood was
+petrified, the remainder very rotten and worthless even for burning."
+And this forest bed is on the shore of the Beaufort Sea in 74° north
+latitude, a similar one being in Prince Patrick Island, on the other
+side of Banks Strait.
+
+After one or two narrow escapes the _Investigator_ entered her last home
+at the Bay of Mercy, well within the strait, near Cape Hamilton, the
+most prominent of the three capes discovered from the Dundas Peninsula
+by Parry's lieutenant, Beechey, thirty-one years before. The winter
+passed, and on the 11th of April M'Clure left the ship on a sledge
+journey across to Parry's old quarters at Winter Harbour, which were
+reached on the 28th, to find nothing but a notice of M'Clintock's having
+been there in the previous June. Noticing Parry's inscription rock,
+M'Clure judiciously left on it a statement that the _Investigator_ was
+in want of relief at Mercy Bay. But all through that year no news from
+the outside came to Banks Land, and matters became serious owing to the
+appearance of scurvy, notwithstanding the abundance of fresh meat, for
+even in January a herd of reindeer trotted by.
+
+[Illustration: THE PARRY ISLANDS]
+
+Another winter went wearily, each month with a gloomier outlook than the
+last, and on the 5th of April the first of the scurvy patients died.
+Next morning M'Clure and Haswell were walking near the ship discussing
+how they could dig a grave in the frozen ground, when they noticed a man
+hurriedly approaching from the entrance of the bay, throwing up his arms
+and shouting at the top of his voice, his face as black as ebony. When
+he came within talking range the dark-faced stranger called out, "I am
+Lieutenant Pim, late of the _Herald_ and now in the _Resolute_; Captain
+Kellett is in her at Dealy Island." And soon the dog-sledge with two men
+came into view. Pim's arrival was most fortunate for the sufferers, for
+the captain, as a desperate resource, was—in spite of the doctor's
+protests—just about to send off two sledge parties of the invalids to
+take their chance of escaping somehow, as there was no hope of their
+recovery in the ship; and on examination by the doctor of the
+_Resolute_, it was found that every man of the crew was more or less
+affected by the disease. So the ship was abandoned in Mercy Bay, and the
+officers and crew, crossing to the _Resolute_, reached England by way of
+Hudson Strait.
+
+Collinson's was the most remarkable voyage ever accomplished by a
+sailing-ship in the Arctic regions. It lasted from 1850 to 1855—five
+years and a hundred and sixteen days—all the way out across the Atlantic
+and Pacific and home again in safety, traversing a hundred and
+twenty-eight degrees of longitude in the Arctic sea, coming nearest at
+the time to completing the north-west passage by ship (up Prince of
+Wales Strait), finding two north-west passages by sledge (one joining
+with Parry's discoveries across Banks Strait, the other with Franklin's
+up Victoria Strait), and approaching nearer than any other naval
+expedition to the great discovery by travelling up Franklin's route for
+some distance, and passing within thirty miles of the spot where the
+vessels he was in search of had been abandoned, though unfortunately,
+like Rae, he was on the west side of the waterway instead of the east.
+
+Passing Bering Strait in July, 1850, the _Enterprise_ went north from
+Wainwright Inlet into the Beaufort Sea, until she was stopped by the
+heavy pack. Trying east, to join with Parry's farthest, and then west,
+she arrived, on the 28th of August, at 73° 23´ in 164°, and here she
+turned south after having sailed over eleven thousand miles without
+having to reef her topsails, an unprecedented run of distance and fine
+weather combined. Returning in 1851 from wintering at Hong Kong,
+Collinson, with a southerly wind "too precious to be wasted," made his
+way up Prince of Wales Strait, knowing nothing of the visit of the
+_Investigator_, to find ice blocking his way just at the northern
+outlet, his furthest north, by ship, 73° 30´, forty miles beyond
+M'Clure's winter quarters, as given in the record he found in one of the
+cairns.
+
+Unable to round the corner into Banks Strait owing to the ice block,
+Collinson returned down Prince of Wales Strait and followed the track of
+the _Investigator_ half-way up the west coast of Banks Land, though he
+had found nothing to indicate she had gone in that direction. Finding
+the ice conditions dangerous, he retraced his route along the coast and
+went into comfortable winter quarters in Walker Bay, at the entrance of
+Prince of Wales Strait. By the end of November the natives fishing for
+salmon-trout had cleared off, as also had the reindeer, hares, and
+ptarmigan and other birds, and on the 17th of March the ravens, which
+had been the last to leave, were the first to return. In April sledge
+parties went out, one of which under Lieutenant Parkes crossed the route
+of the _Hecla_ along the strait and reached Melville Island at Cape
+Providence on the way to Winter Harbour, short of which, within sight of
+Point Hearne, Parkes began his homeward journey, owing to his taking the
+tracks of sledges and barking of dogs as indicating the presence, not of
+M'Clure as it did, but of Eskimos, with whom, being without weapons, he
+was unable to cope.
+
+Released on the 5th of August, the _Enterprise_ proceeded to sea,
+coasting along past Rae's farthest and Cape Baring, and so, where no
+ship had been, through Coronation Gulf to Cambridge Bay. Here the winter
+of 1852-3 was spent, and hence the sledges went up Victoria Strait. At
+Finlayson Islands, what seemed to be a piece of a companion-door was
+found among the driftwood, which might have been a relic of the lost
+ships; but that was all. During the return along the northern coast the
+_Enterprise_ was beset in Camden Bay, and here the third winter was
+passed, release not coming until the end of the following July, and
+Bering Strait not being reached until the 21st of August after a voyage,
+like that of the _Vega_, too well managed to yield much adventure. Like
+all the other Arctic voyages of this period, it failed in the one object
+it was undertaken to achieve; but in days to come the first ship to sail
+the passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific was to follow Collinson
+from Cambridge Bay along the route laboriously completed by the
+surveyors of the mainland from James Cook to Dease and Simpson.
+
+M'Clure claimed and—to have done with the matter—obtained the reward of
+£10,000 for discovering the North-West Passage through Prince of Wales
+Strait, though he sailed only half-way up it and, in attempting to get
+round to Parry's farthest, lost his ship and started sledging on the
+west side of the pack; while Collinson took his ship much nearer to
+Parry's course on the east side; and Franklin, by linking up with Dease
+and Simpson over the ice by way of Victoria Strait, had previously found
+another of the possible passages, as shown by Collinson's voyage to
+Cambridge Bay. But surely what was done by M'Clure, and by Collinson in
+his northerly cruise, was to see where ships could pass when there was
+no ice in the way, which was no more than had been done by Parry, who
+had taken his ship within sight of both their farthest, and would have
+sailed into the Beaufort Sea had not the pack forbidden it. It was
+Parry, in fact, who discovered the main road, the route by Prince of
+Wales Strait, like that by Peel Sound taken by Franklin and successfully
+accomplished by Amundsen, being only one of the many by-roads leading
+off along his course.
+
+His famous voyage to Melville Island was due to the influence of Sir
+John Barrow. Barrow, to whom more than any other man this country owes
+its position in Arctic story, was born in a small thatched cottage at
+Dragley Beck, near Ulverston, in North Lancashire, in 1764, and, in a
+remarkable course of promotion by merit, became second secretary of the
+Admiralty for forty years under twelve or thirteen different naval
+administrations, Whig and Tory; being so unmistakably the right man in
+the right place that he was only dispensed with once—on a change of
+First Lords—and then was reinstated the next year. When he was seventeen
+he was given the opportunity of a voyage in a Greenland whaler, which he
+accepted, and that was his only Arctic experience; but even when with
+Macartney in China and South Africa, he kept up his interest in the
+north, and in 1817, when at the Admiralty, proposed to Lord Melville his
+plan for two voyages of discovery, one to the north and the other to the
+north-west, which opened the new era of Polar exploration.
+
+[Illustration: Yours very truly John Barrow]
+
+The voyage to the north was that of Buchan and Franklin in the
+_Dorothea_ and _Trent_; that to the north-west was undertaken by John
+Ross in the _Isabella_ and William Edward Parry in the _Alexander_. Of
+this we need only say here that on their return from the north of Baffin
+Bay, Ross and Parry coasted down the west side and sailed into Lancaster
+Sound for a considerable distance until Ross—who seems to have had the
+mountain-finding eye and an unenviable gift for missing straits—declared
+that it ended in a range of mountains which he appropriately named
+Croker's; and, that there should be no mistake about them, he gave a
+very pretty picture of them as a full-page plate in his book. Parry,
+however, saw no mountains and took the liberty of saying so to Barrow
+when he reported himself at the Admiralty, the result being the despatch
+of Parry's expedition in the _Hecla_ and _Griper_ which left Yarmouth on
+the 12th of May, 1819, and, for the first time after leaving the coast
+of Norfolk, dropped anchor in the bay named after them in Melville
+Island, on the 5th of September.
+
+Parry, before his voyage in the _Alexander_, had had Arctic experience
+while lieutenant of the _Alexandria_ frigate engaged in protecting the
+Spitsbergen whale fisheries, and knew thoroughly what he was about. For
+instance, he worked his crews in three watches, and had both his vessels
+rigged as barques as the most convenient rig among ice, though the
+_Griper_, a strong, slow gunboat, was rather too small to be so treated,
+being only about half the tonnage of the _Hecla_, whose measurement was
+under four hundred. Had she been a little speedier more work might have
+been done; but what was done was magnificent.
+
+Entering Lancaster Sound, Parry found a strait not blocked by mountains
+but thirty miles broad leading into a region up to then unknown,
+except—so it is said—to the Norsemen. On the 12th of August Prince
+Regent Inlet was discovered and named, it being George IV's birthday.
+Then North Somerset was sighted and the course laid across Barrow Strait
+to North Devon and its south-western peninsula known as Beechey Island;
+then Wellington Channel was descried, and then Cornwallis Island.
+Griffith Island was discovered on the 23rd of August, Bathurst Island on
+the 25th, Byam Martin Island on the 27th, where Sabine, the astronomer
+of the expedition, found they had passed north of the magnetic north
+pole. Then the south side of Melville Island was coasted along, Dealy
+Island being found on the 4th of September at noon, and, at a quarter
+past nine at night, just after passing Bounty Cape (named in honour of
+the event), the _Hecla_ crossed the 110th meridian west, and became
+entitled to the Government grant of £5000 for doing so—which Parry
+shared between the ships.
+
+[Illustration: H.M.S. "HECLA" AND "GRIPER" IN WINTER HARBOUR]
+
+Soon the ice became difficult and the ships had to anchor, but, the
+conditions improving, the westerly voyage was resumed. Cape Providence
+was passed and Cape Hay sighted, but the ships could get no further than
+about half-way between these capes, and they had to return to Winter
+Harbour, where, on the 26th of September, they were warped to their
+quarters through a channel cut in the ice. The _Hecla_, sending down all
+her upper masts except the main topmast, and the _Griper_, housing her
+fore and main topmasts, used the spars to support a roof which
+completely enclosed their upper decks and made them both snug for the
+winter, which did not seem so long owing to the efforts of the officers
+to keep every one amused and on the move. Parry, a host in himself, was
+well seconded by his lieutenant, Beechey, late of the _Trent_, James
+Clark Ross, one of his midshipmen, Captain Sabine, and Lieutenant
+Liddon, the commander of the _Griper_, who was almost disabled with
+rheumatism, and Lieutenant Hoppner, also of the _Griper_. A couple of
+books of plays on board proved a real treasure; owing to them the Royal
+Arctic Theatre was started, the pioneer of so many amateur theatrical
+ventures in the Polar seas, and the _North Georgia Gazette_ and _Winter
+Chronicle_ came into existence, the first of ship newspapers. On
+Christmas Day there was a dinner of roast beef which had been on board
+since May, the condition of which, as Parry said, was an excellent
+testimony to the antiseptic properties of a cold atmosphere; and the
+food generally was good and abundant, and the management and supplies
+far better than on many subsequent expeditions. In the spring, game was
+found in fair quantity, nearly four thousand pounds of musk ox, deer,
+hares, geese, ducks, and ptarmigan being brought on board.
+
+In May the vessels were afloat again, though ice-bound, and, in June,
+walking, not sledging, journeys were organised, the furthest points
+reached being Cape Fisher to the north and Cape Hoppner to the west. On
+the 1st of August the vessels moved out of the bay to the westward, and
+six days afterwards Beechey called attention to the land with the three
+capes already mentioned. "The land," says Parry, "which extends beyond
+the 117th degree of west longitude, and is the most western yet
+discovered in the Polar Sea to the north of the American continent, was
+honoured with the name of Banks Land out of respect to the late
+venerable and worthy President of the Royal Society."
+
+On the 16th Cape Dundas was named, but progress was impossible. For a
+week Parry made every endeavour to pass, but the floes, forty to fifty
+feet thick, heaped up by the tides from the east and the west so as to
+form a wide-stretching landscape of hill and dale, barred the way right
+across Banks Strait; and no further west could be attained than 113° 46´
+43·5˝, in latitude 74° 26´ 25˝. Thence Parry returned, hoping to get
+through on another voyage, and bidding farewell to the North Georgian
+Islands, as he called them, or the Parry Islands, as we now know them,
+he came home by the way he went out, through Lancaster Sound. Needless
+to say, the very next season the whalers followed on Parry's track, and
+Lancaster Sound became the highway to a very profitable fishing-ground.
+
+[Illustration: PARRY'S DISCOVERIES ON HIS FIRST VOYAGE]
+
+Among the Parry Islands in 1851 were several vessels in search of
+Franklin. Sir John Ross, aged seventy-four, was there in the
+schooner-yacht _Felix_ on a private expedition chiefly memorable for the
+story of his having sent off a carrier pigeon from his winter quarters
+at Cornwallis Island, which reached his home—North-West Castle,
+Stranraer, Wigtownshire—three thousand miles away, in five days. Lady
+Franklin's vessel, the _Prince Albert_, was there, with Captain Forsyth
+and Parker Snow on board, an old fruit schooner, and therefore the
+speediest sailing-craft among the crowd. The Grinnell expedition of the
+two American brigs, _Advance_ and _Racer_, under De Haven, was also
+there, to drift afterwards up Wellington Channel and down again back
+into Baffin Bay; as was a British Government expedition of the two
+whaling brigs, _Lady Franklin_ and _Sophia_, under Captain William
+Penny, who was to discover the sea open north of Wellington Channel. In
+addition to these was the British squadron under Captain Horatio Austin
+in H.M.S. _Resolute_, with H.M.S. _Assistance_, Captain Erasmus
+Ommanney, and the old Cattle Conveyance Company's boats known as H.M.S.
+_Intrepid_, Lieutenant Cator, and H.M.S. _Pioneer_, Lieutenant Sherard
+Osborn, these two being screw steamers used as tenders, which proved of
+great value as tugs and ice-breakers.
+
+On the 23rd of August Captain Ommanney found Franklin's winter quarters
+on Beechey Island, and four days afterwards Captain Penny came upon the
+gravestones marking where the three men, two of the _Erebus_ and one of
+the _Terror_, had been buried in 1846, though nothing was discoverable
+of the route intended to be taken by the ships. The news was important,
+and the _Prince Albert_, acting as despatch vessel, was immediately sent
+home with it, to return next year with Kennedy and Bellot to make a
+discovery of her own. Soon Captain Austin's four ships departed, also to
+return in the following year, Sir Edward Belcher, in the _Assistance_,
+being then in command, Kellett being in the _Resolute_, M'Clintock in
+the _Intrepid_, and Sherard Osborn again in the _Pioneer_. Belcher's
+attempt ended in his abandoning his vessels in the ice; one of them, the
+_Resolute_, as though in mute protest, drifting from 74° 41´ for a
+thousand miles, to be picked up by Buddington off Cape Dyer in Baffin
+Bay, bought from him by the American Government and presented to Great
+Britain, refitted as she used to be, as a much-appreciated token of
+goodwill.
+
+The great feature of these years was the wonderful sledge work; by it
+mainly the northern coasts of the islands discovered by Parry were
+surveyed and other islands added to the archipelago, including the
+westernmost, Prince Patrick, named after the Duke of Connaught, who was
+at first known as Prince Patrick instead of Prince Arthur. The sledges
+fitted out by Austin traversed 1500 miles of coast-line, 850 of which
+were new, the routes radiating between Osborn's 72° 18´ and Bradford's
+76° 25´, M'Clintock going farthest, 760 miles, to 114° 20´ in 74° 38´.
+Those next year from Kellett at Dealy Island covered 8558 miles,
+radiating from Pim's 74° 6´ (to rescue M'Clure) to M'Clintock's 77° 23´,
+a run to 118° 20´ and back of 1401 miles, while Mecham reached 120° 30´
+on a trip of 1163 miles; and Belcher from his winter quarters in
+Northumberland Sound, in 76° 52´, aided by Richards and Osborn, was
+almost as busy further north.
+
+Thus practically the whole belt of land and sea westward between and
+including Lancaster Sound and Jones Sound as far as 120° was searched
+and mapped, the most northerly of the Parry Islands known up to then
+being Finlay Island, North Cornwall, and Graham Island. But in 1898
+Captain Otto Sverdrup went up Smith Sound in his old ship the _Fram_ on
+an endeavour to sail round the north coast of Greenland from west to
+east. He had to winter in Rice Strait, near Pim Island, and finding, to
+put it sportingly, that he was to a certain extent trespassing on
+Peary's preserves, decided to devote his attention to the unknown region
+approachable through Jones Sound. In 1899, therefore, he took the _Fram_
+up the sound, and, failing to pass through Cardigan Strait, spent the
+three following years among the fiords at the north-western end.
+
+From here he sent his sledge and ski parties far and wide, west and
+south and north over an approximate area of a hundred thousand square
+miles. Long stretches of coast-fine were explored and named, in a few
+cases unnecessarily, though, strange to say, the unnecessary names were
+all royal ones, King Oscar Land being the west of Ellesmere Land, Crown
+Prince Gustav Sea and Prince Gustav Adolf Sea being the Polar Ocean, and
+King Christian Land being simply Finlay Island. Separated from Finlay
+Island by Danish Sound and from North Cornwall by Hendriksen Sound, he
+found two large islands, which—just as John Ross named Boothia after his
+principal patron, the distiller—Sverdrup named Ellef Ringnes and Amund
+Ringnes after two of his supporters, the brewers; his other discovery,
+Axel Heiberg Land—which seems to be Peary's Jesup Land sighted in
+1898—to the west and north-west of these, being so called after his
+other munificent patron.
+
+His farthest south was Beechey Island, his farthest west Cape Isachsen
+in Ellef Ringnes Land, his farthest north Lands Lokk in Grant Land, in
+latitude 81° 40´ and longitude about 92°, within sixty miles of
+Aldrich's farthest along the north-eastern coast, the gap afterwards
+traversed by Peary. Within these limits the amount of coast detail
+filled in was remarkable. Owing to the favourable condition of the ice
+and the excellent management in all ways, the sledges frequently did
+their fifteen miles and more a day. Though the expedition lost its
+doctor during the first winter, there was little trouble as regards
+health; and game was in plenty right up to the far north where Hare
+Fiord tells of hares in hundreds.
+
+With hunting episodes the story is pleasantly varied, one in particular
+being so graphically described by Sverdrup that as a sample we may be
+forgiven a rather long quotation. "The bear," says Sverdrup, "was
+determined to go up a difficult stony valley a little north of our tent,
+and, try as the dogs would to prevent it, up the valley it went. Schei
+and I ran full speed northward along the ice-foot, and soon heard that
+the dogs had brought it to bay. We made a short cut across some hills of
+grit, and, when we reached the top of one of them, saw the bear on the
+other side of the valley, sitting on a hill-top, which fell almost sheer
+away. But on the north side it was accessible, and here it was probably
+that the bear had climbed it. There sat the king of the icefields
+enthroned on a kind of pedestal, and the whole staff of yelping dogs
+standing at a respectful distance. I tried a couple of shots, but
+overrated the distance, and the bullets went over the bear's head. I
+then told Schei to go and shoot it whilst I looked on at the further
+development of the drama. The bear's position was a first-rate one. It
+had taken its stand on a little plateau high up on a mountain crag; this
+little ledge was reached by a bridge not more than a good yard in width,
+and there stood the bear, like Sven Dufva, ready with his sledgehammer
+to fell the first being that should venture across. His majesty was not
+visible to Schei until he came within a few feet of him, but then it was
+not long before a shot was heard. The bear sank together, and a few
+seconds afterwards all the dogs had thrown themselves on to it. They
+tugged and pulled at the bear's coat, tearing tufts of hair out of it,
+and before we knew what they were doing, had dragged the body to the
+edge of the plateau, where it shot out over the precipice. The dogs
+stood amazed, gazing down into the depths where the bear was falling
+swiftly through the air—but not alone, for on it as large as life were
+two dogs which had clung so fast to its hair, that they now stood
+planted head to head, and bit themselves still faster to it in order to
+keep their balance. I was breathless as I watched this unexpected
+journey through the air. The next moment the bear in its perpendicular
+fall would reach the projecting point of rock, and my poor dogs!—it was
+a cruel revenge the bear was taking on them. I should now have only
+three dogs left in my team. The bear's body dashed violently against the
+rock, turned a somersault out from the mountain wall and fell still
+further, until, after falling a height of altogether at least a hundred
+feet, it reached the slopes by the river, and was shot by the impetus
+right across the river-ice and a good way up the other side. And the
+dogs? When the bear dashed against the mountain they sprang up like
+rubber balls, described a large curve, and with stiffened legs continued
+the journey on their own account, falling with a loud thud on to the
+hardly packed snow at the bottom of the valley. But they were on their
+legs again in a moment, and set off as fast as they could go across the
+river after the bear. Not many minutes afterwards the whole pack came
+running up, but when they were driven away from the carcase, they lay
+down again to await their turn. I hurried back to camp to fetch the dog
+harness; we put a lanyard through the nose of the mighty fallen, and set
+off. The dogs knew well enough that this meant food for them, and the
+nearer we came to camp the harder they pulled. In fact, I had to sit on
+the carcase to keep them back, and, jolting backwards and forwards, on
+this new kind of conveyance I made my entrance into camp, in the light
+spring night." But bears were few, compared with the musk oxen, which,
+with the reindeer and hares, and with the wolves and foxes, and stoats
+and lemmings, seals and walruses, narwhals and white whales, represented
+the Arctic mammalia.
+
+The most singular experience met with was perhaps the sledge journey
+through the ice tunnel on the return across the Simmons Peninsula in
+1900. Descending a valley which became narrower and narrower Sverdrup
+and Fosheim began to think it was going to end in a canyon, but without
+any warning they were stopped by a high wall of ice, perpendicular and
+inaccessible to any one without wings. Looking about, Sverdrup found a
+large hole which proved to be the beginning of a tunnel through the
+glacier. Through this lofty vault they sped. From the roof hung
+threateningly above their heads gigantic blocks of ice, seamed and cleft
+and glittering sinisterly; and all around were icicles like steel-bright
+spears and lances piercing downwards on them. Along the walls were caves
+after caves, with pillars in rows like giants in rank; and over all
+shone a ghostly whitish light which became bluish as they went. "I dared
+not speak," says Sverdrup. "It seemed to me that in doing so I should be
+committing a deed of desecration; I felt like one who has impiously
+broken into something sacred which Nature had wished to keep closed to
+every mortal eye. I felt mean and contemptible as I drove through all
+this purity. The sledges jolted from block to block, awakening
+thunderous echoes in their passage: and it seemed as if all the spirits
+of the ice had been aroused and called to arms against the intruders on
+their church-like peace."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X
+                                BOOTHIA
+
+  Christopher Middleton—Wager River—Repulse Bay—Parry's second
+    north-west voyage—Melville Peninsula—Fury and Hecla Strait—John
+    Ross's second Arctic voyage—Introduces steam navigation into the
+    Arctic regions—The whaler _John_—Ross misses the North-West
+    Passage—Snow houses—Eskimo geographers—James Clark Ross finds the
+    Magnetic North Pole—Lyon in the _Griper_—Back in the
+    _Terror_—Rae's journey round Committee Bay—Sir John Franklin's
+    last voyage—Kennedy and Bellot—Discovery of Bellot Strait—Rae's
+    journey in 1854—His Franklin discoveries—M'Clintock's voyage in
+    the _Fox_—Lady Franklin's instructions—Captain Charles
+    Hall—Frederick Schwatka—Amundsen accomplishes the North-West
+    Passage.
+
+
+In July, 1742, Christopher Middleton, working northwards in Hudson Bay
+from Fort Churchill, made his way up Rowe's Welcome and entered a deep
+inlet apparently leading to the South Sea. Middleton—who gained his
+Fellowship of the Royal Society for his variation observations at Fort
+Churchill, and was the first to practise the modern method of finding
+longitude by eight or ten different altitudes of the sun or stars when
+near the prime vertical—spent eighteen days in the inlet observing the
+tides, and then came to the conclusion that it was an estuary; and he
+named it Wager River after Sir Charles Wager, who was First Lord of the
+Admiralty when he began his voyage. Proceeding north, he reached his
+Repulse Bay, and at the north-east end of it saw Frozen Strait, as he
+called it, stretching away along the north of Southampton Island towards
+Cape Comfort. Here, also from tidal observations, he satisfied himself
+that Repulse Bay afforded no passage to the westward and that Frozen
+Strait led into Fox Channel.
+
+[Illustration: AN IGLOOLIK ESKIMO CARRYING HIS KAYAK]
+
+His opinions were disputed by those who only knew the coast from his
+chart, and two vessels were sent out to prove he was wrong. The reports
+of the captains of these—there is no need to mention their names—were
+embarrassing. Neither had been to Repulse Bay, but both had been to
+Wager River, and they agreed that it was unmistakably a river and not a
+strait; but in every other respect, even in naming the places they had
+seen, they were at variance. Thus the matter was left in sufficient
+doubt to encourage some people in believing in a north-west passage
+through Repulse Bay, just at the Arctic Circle, and to seek this, Parry,
+on his return from Melville Island, was despatched on his second voyage.
+
+This time the _Hecla_ was commanded by George Francis Lyon—the North
+African traveller—Parry being in the _Fury_, a sister ship; both
+vessels, at Parry's suggestion, being exactly alike so that their gear
+and fittings were interchangeable. They sailed from the Little Nore on
+the 8th of May, 1821, and going direct up Frozen Strait, with much
+trouble from the ice, ran into Repulse Bay on the 22nd of August. Here
+after a careful examination it was ascertained beyond a doubt that no
+passage existed through to the westward. "Thus," says Lyon, "the
+veracity of poor Middleton, as far as regards this bay at least, was now
+at length established; and in looking down the strait we had passed, he
+was fully justified in calling it a frozen strait. We were now
+indisputably on our scene of future action, the coast of America; and it
+only remained for us to follow minutely the line of shore in
+continuation from Repulse Bay."
+
+During a stay at Gore Bay red snow was brought off to the _Fury_, its
+colour being much fainter than that found in the _Isabella_ voyage at
+Crimson Cliffs in Greenland; "the appearance of the mass was not unlike
+what is called raspberry ice, in a far better climate, where cold is
+made subservient to luxury." The colouring of this is due to one of the
+Algæ, _Protococcus nivalis_, and not as Peter Paterson said in
+1671—ninety years before De Saussure—to the rocks being "full of white,
+red, and yellow veins, like marble; upon any alteration of the weather,
+these stones sweat, which, together with the rains, tinges the snow
+red." The day on which this snow was found, the 30th of August, was so
+warm that the party were glad to pull off their coats and waistcoats.
+"The valleys were fertile in grasses and moss; and the fineness of the
+weather had drawn forth a number of butterflies, spiders, and other
+insects, which would, by their gay colours and active motions, have
+almost deceived us into an idea that we were not in the Arctic regions,
+had not the Frozen Strait, filled with huge masses of moving ice,
+reminded us but too forcibly, that we were in the most dangerous of
+them."
+
+[Illustration: PARRY'S FARTHEST ON HIS THIRD VOYAGE]
+
+Early in October the ships took up their quarters at Winter Island on
+the coast of Melville Peninsula in 66° 32´, and there, during the
+cordial intercourse with the Eskimos, Parry heard of the way through
+further north which led him on his release in the following July to
+discover Fury and Hecla Strait, along which the ships passed to find
+their progress blocked by the ice just beyond its entrance into Regent
+Inlet. Returning through the strait, they reached the island of Igloolik
+at the eastern entrance, and there they passed the winter, Igloolik
+being an important Eskimo settlement, with four fixed places of
+residence on it, to which as the season changes the natives move in
+rotation. From this island, as the health of the men did not permit of
+his venturing to spend another winter in the ice, Parry retraced his
+route and returned to England.
+
+The ships dropped anchor in the Thames on Trafalgar Day, 1823. Next
+year, on the 19th of May, they were off again to the north to seek a
+passage to the west down Prince Regent Inlet, Parry in the _Hecla_,
+Hoppner in the _Fury_. It was a bad season. The ships were late in
+leaving Baffin Bay and were hindered by new ice in Lancaster Sound. So
+far from reaching the strait discovered two years before, they could get
+no further south than Port Bowen, in 73° 12´, where they spent the
+winter in a singularly barren part of Cockburn Land. Starting in July
+they went down to Cresswell Bay, the ships being forced by the weather
+and the ice to work—as is not unusual under such circumstances—in almost
+every possible direction within every mile, their track—as shown in the
+illustration—being most complicated. The end of it all was that the
+_Fury_ was wrecked and her stores carefully taken out and left, on what
+was named Fury Beach, for the use of future callers in want of them. And
+the _Hecla_ came home alone.
+
+Four years afterwards Captain John Ross, anxious for further work in the
+north, started in search of the passage by the same route. After some
+years of effort he had succeeded in organising an expedition, the
+expenses of which to the amount of over £17,000 were borne by Felix
+Booth, with the exception of over £2000 added by Ross himself. It was a
+memorable voyage in many respects, and for one thing in particular that
+is frequently passed unnoticed. This was the introduction of steam into
+Arctic navigation. The _Victory_ was an old Isle of Man packet-boat of
+eighty-five tons, which, by raising her sides five feet, Ross increased
+to one hundred and fifty tons. Taking out her old paddles, he replaced
+them with a pair of Robertson's patents, hoistable out of water in a
+minute, so as to clear the ice. The engine was also a patent, by
+Braithwaite and Ericsson, who built the Novelty that appeared at
+Rainhill. But neither Braithwaite nor Ericsson was any happier in this
+production. Its great feature was the doing away with the funnel, no
+flue being required owing to the fires being kept going by artificial
+draught derived from two bellows of unequal sizes—"the bellows draught,"
+in fact, like that of the Novelty which broke down in the great
+locomotive contest won by the Rocket. Had not Ross been a man of
+enterprise he would never have ventured to sea with such an experimental
+arrangement; but he did, and he suffered for it.
+
+[Illustration: THE "VICTORY"]
+
+The "execrable machinery," as he inadequately called it, went wrong from
+the first. On the way from Galleons Reach to Woolwich, part of it became
+displaced, causing a delay for repairs. At Woolwich, Sir Byam Martin,
+the Comptroller of the Navy, and Sir John Franklin went on board and
+said uncomplimentary things about it, as also did the Duke of Orleans
+(afterwards King Louis Philippe) and the Duke of Chartres, though the
+Frenchmen were more gentle in their phrases. From Woolwich to Margate
+this remarkable engine, aided by the sails, took the _Victory_ in just
+over twelve hours, the boiler leaking so much that the additional
+forcing pump had to be kept working by hand all the time. Passing the
+Lizard, the piston-rod was found to be so much worn on one side by
+friction against the guide-wheels that a piece of iron had to be brazed
+on to it. Then the keys of the main shaft broke and the substitutes made
+on board broke one after the other. "The boilers also continued to leak,
+though we had put dung and potatoes in them by Mr. Ericsson's
+directions." The air-pump drew quantities of water; the feeding pump was
+insufficient to supply the boiler. The big bellows nearly wore out; so
+did the small one. Off the Mull of Galloway the stoker fell into the
+machinery and had his arm crushed and nearly severed above the elbow.
+Then the teeth of the fly-wheel of the small bellows were shorn off, and
+the boiler joints gave way, and the water, or rather the potato soup,
+flowed out of the furnace doors and put out the fire.
+
+Enough has been said to show the difficulties under which Ross first
+used steam on a voyage to the northern seas. The list of damages need
+not be continued. Every constituent part of the apparatus gave way in
+turn; and when the _Victory_ became imprisoned for the winter, and the
+engineering staff had some time on their hands, they employed it in
+taking what was left of the installation, piece by piece, out of the
+ship, laying it on the ice, and leaving it there.
+
+Ross was to be accompanied by the whaler _John_, but the men mutinied
+and refused to start, so that he went on from Loch Ryan alone. The
+following year the crew of the _John_, then on a whaling voyage in
+Baffin Bay, again mutinied, killed the master, put the mate adrift in a
+boat in the manner of Henry Hudson, and lost the ship on the western
+coast, where most of them were drowned.
+
+With the _Krusenstern_, a boat of eighteen tons, in tow, Ross crossed
+the Atlantic, sighting Sanderson's Hope on the 29th of July, having left
+Scotland six weeks before. Early in August he sailed through Lancaster
+Sound, and, taking the opportunity of removing his Croker's Mountains to
+the north-east corner of North Somerset, went down Prince Regent Inlet
+to Fury Beach. After completing his provisions for twenty-seven months
+from the stores left behind by Parry, he crossed Cresswell Bay, passed
+Cape Garry, Parry's farthest south, on the 15th of August, and next day,
+Sunday, "I went on shore," he says, "with all the officers, to take
+formal possession of the new-discovered land; and at one o'clock, being
+a few minutes after seven in London, the colours were displayed with the
+usual ceremony, and the health of the King drunk, together with that of
+the founder of our expedition, after whom the land was named."
+
+[Illustration: NORTH HENDON]
+
+"From the highest part of this land, which was upwards of a hundred feet
+above the level of the sea," he continues, "we had a good view of the
+bay and the adjoining shores, and had the satisfaction to find that the
+ice was in motion and fast clearing away. We therefore resolved to wait
+patiently till we could see an opening; and proceeded to the northern
+quarter of this spot to make some observations on the dip of the
+magnetic needle.... To this place I gave the name Brown Island, after
+the amiable sister of Mr. Booth; the inlet was named Brentford Bay, and
+the islands Grimble Islands." And in his book is a beautiful steel
+engraving by W. Chevalier, "Taking Possession. Cape Hussard, Grimble
+Isle, Brentford Bay, Brown's Island." In short, Ross found the place,
+landed on it, took possession of it, named it and sketched it. "The
+sketches from which the drawings were made were taken by Mr. Ronald's
+invaluable perspective instrument, and therefore _must_ be true
+delineations."
+
+And Ross passed on, apparently quite pleased with himself. But the Fates
+had again been against him, for this was the very North-West Passage he
+had come specially to find; the bay, as Kennedy was to show, being the
+entrance to Bellot Strait in which the _Fox_ was to winter when on the
+Franklin search. He had blundered along from the island of North
+Somerset to the mainland of America, and passed unheeded its
+northernmost point, which M'Clintock was to name Cape Murchison.
+
+Working down the coast of the newly-named Boothia, the _Victory_ reached
+Felix Harbour, and there she wintered. No Eskimos were seen until the
+9th of January, when thirty-one came to the ship and were invited on
+board, a return visit being paid next day to their village, which Ross
+named North Hendon. As this was a typical Eskimo snow camp we may as
+well copy his picture and quote his description.
+
+"The village soon appeared, consisting of twelve snow huts, erected at
+the bottom of a little bight on the shore, about two miles and a half
+from the ship. They had the appearance of inverted basins, and were
+placed without any order; each of them having a long crooked appendage,
+in which was the passage, at the entrance of which were the women, with
+the female children and the infants. We were soon invited to visit
+these, for whom we had prepared presents of glass beads and needles; a
+distribution of which soon drove away the timidity which they had
+displayed at our first appearance. The passage, always long, and
+generally crooked, led to the principal apartment, which was a circular
+dome, being ten feet in diameter when intended for one family, and an
+oval of fifteen by ten where it lodged two. Opposite the doorway there
+was a bank of snow, occupying nearly a third of the breadth of the area,
+about two feet and a half high, level at the top, and covered by various
+skins, forming the general bed or sleeping place for the whole. At the
+end of this sat the mistress of the house, opposite to the lamp, which,
+being of moss and oil, as is the universal custom in these regions, gave
+a sufficient flame to supply both light and heat; so that the apartment
+was perfectly comfortable. Over the lamp was the cooking dish of stone,
+containing the flesh of deer and of seals, with oil; and of such
+provision there seemed no want. Everything else, dresses, implements, as
+well as provisions, lay about in unspeakable confusion, showing that
+order, at least, was not in the class of their virtues. It was much more
+interesting to us to find, that among this disorder there were some
+fresh salmon; since, when they could find this fish, we were sure that
+it would also furnish us with supplies which we could not too much
+multiply. On inquiry, we were informed that they were abundant; and we
+had, therefore, the prospect of a new amusement, as well as of a
+valuable market at the mere price of our labour."
+
+[Illustration: ESKIMO LISTENING AT A SEAL-HOLE]
+
+A few weeks later Ross was to see how these houses were built. "Four
+families," he says, "comprising fifteen persons, passed the ship to
+erect new huts about half a mile to the southward. They had four
+heavy-laden sledges, drawn each by two or three dogs, but proceeded very
+slowly. We went after them to see the process of building the snow
+house, and were surprised at their dexterity; one man having closed in
+his roof within forty-five minutes. A tent is scarcely pitched sooner
+than a house is here built. The whole process is worth describing.
+Having ascertained, by the rod used in examining seal holes, whether the
+snow is sufficiently deep and solid, they level the intended spot by a
+wooden shovel, leaving beneath a solid mass of snow not less than three
+feet thick. Commencing then in the centre of the intended circle, which
+is ten feet or more in diameter, different wedge-shaped blocks are cut
+out, about two feet long, and a foot thick at the outer part; then
+trimming them accurately by the knife, they proceed upwards until the
+courses, gradually inclining inwards, terminate in a perfect dome. The
+door being cut out from the inside before it is quite closed serves to
+supply the upper materials. In the meantime the women are employed in
+stuffing the joints with snow, and the boys in constructing kennels for
+the dogs. The laying the snow sofa with skins and the insertion of the
+ice window complete the work; the passage only remaining to be added, as
+it is after the house is finished, together with some smaller huts for
+stores"—the design being similar to that of the yurts of the Eskimos of
+the north, with a change of material, snow for stone, and ice instead of
+seal-gut for the window over the entrance.
+
+Making friends with the Eskimos, and gaining a great reputation by the
+carpenter fitting one of them with a wooden leg, Ross obtained much
+valuable information from them, particularly as to the geography of the
+district. Like all Arctic men, he was impressed by their quickness in
+understanding maps and their skill in drawing them upon anything, snow,
+paper, or otherwise, that lay handy. One of them, Ikmallik, drew in the
+ship's cabin a map, which he reprints in his book, showing the
+coast-line of the country south of the _Victory's_ quarters, with the
+capes, inlets, and islands, giving the isthmus of Boothia and Committee
+Bay, and Repulse Bay on the other side of the Melville Peninsula, which
+is really wonderful, for neither the Eskimo, nor Ross, had anything to
+copy from, it being nearly twenty years before Rae's exploration; and
+the one thing it clearly demonstrated was that there was no waterway to
+the westward, south of Felix Harbour.
+
+Ross owed much to Ikmallik, and really a good deal of the time of the
+expedition was spent in confirming the statements of that well-informed
+man. The west coast of Boothia was surveyed down to Bulow Bay; the east
+side from Cape Nicholas down to Cape Porter, including the crossing of
+the upper part of James Ross Strait, the discovery of Matty Island and
+the north-east coast of King William Land from Cape Landon, opposite
+Cape Porter—where Ross, as usual, missed a strait—westward to capes
+Franklin and Jane Franklin, within sight of which in the days that were
+coming, by one of those remarkable coincidences so frequent in the
+north, the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ were to meet their fate.
+
+The one conspicuous triumph of the expedition was the journey of James
+Ross to the site of the Magnetic North Pole, which he found on the
+western coast of Boothia on the 1st of June, 1831. In the younger Ross's
+own words, "the land at this place is very low near the coast, but it
+rises into ridges of fifty or sixty feet high about a mile inland. We
+could have wished that a place so important had possessed more of mark
+or note. It was scarcely censurable to regret that there was not a
+mountain to indicate a spot to which so much of interest must ever be
+attached; and I could even have pardoned any one among us who had been
+so romantic or absurd as to expect that the magnetic pole was an object
+as conspicuous and mysterious as the fabled mountain of Sinbad, that it
+even was a mountain of iron, or a magnet as large as Mont Blanc. But
+Nature had here erected no monument to denote the spot which she had
+chosen as the centre of one of her great and dark powers; and where we
+could do little ourselves towards this end, it was our business to
+submit, and to be content in noting by mathematical numbers and signs,
+as with things of far more importance in the terrestrial system, what we
+could but ill distinguish in any other manner.... We fixed the British
+flag on the spot and took possession of the North Magnetic Pole and its
+adjoining territory in the name of Great Britain and King William the
+Fourth. We had abundance of materials for building, in the fragments of
+limestone that covered the beach; and we therefore erected a cairn of
+some magnitude, under which we buried a canister containing a record of
+the interesting fact; only regretting that we had not the means of
+constructing a pyramid of more importance and of strength sufficient to
+withstand the assaults of time and of the Eskimos. Had it been a pyramid
+as large as that of Cheops, I am not quite sure that it would have done
+more than satisfy our ambition, under the feelings of that exciting day.
+The latitude of this spot is 70° 5´ 17˝, and its longitude 96° 46´ 45˝
+west."
+
+The _Victory_ in the short summer of 1830 sailed a few miles further
+south and spent the winter in Victoria Harbour, to be there abandoned in
+May, 1832. Ross in his boats made for Fury Beach, where, at Somerset
+House, as he called it, he passed the following winter. On the 26th of
+August, 1833, when in his boats off the eastern mouth of Lancaster
+Sound, he was picked up by the _Isabella_, his old ship, and in her he
+reached the Humber in October of that year after four successive winters
+in the ice, having been enabled to make so long a stay by his fortunate
+find of the stores left by Parry.
+
+[Illustration: H.M.S. "TERROR" LIFTED BY ICE]
+
+In 1824 Captain Lyon was sent out in the _Griper_ to winter at Repulse
+Bay, and thence crossing the isthmus described by the Eskimos continue
+along to Franklin's Point Turnagain; but the _Griper_ was nearly wrecked
+in Rowe's Welcome and did not reach Wager River. The discoveries of Ross
+led to the renewal of this attempt by Captain Back in the _Terror_ in
+1836. He was to go to Wager River or Repulse Bay, and then make his way
+into Prince Regent Inlet, and so west; but he became imprisoned in the
+ice off Cape Comfort during one of the severest winters known. Drifting
+up Frozen Strait amid most perilous experiences, the ship, lifted high
+above sea-level by pressure, lay at times almost horizontal. Once "they
+beheld," he says, "the strange and appalling spectacle of what may be
+fitly termed a submerged berg, fixed low down, with one end to the
+ship's side, while the other, with the purchase of a long lever
+advantageously placed at a right angle with the keel, was slowly rising
+towards the surface. Meanwhile, those who happened to be below, finding
+everything falling, rushed or clambered on deck, where they saw the ship
+on her beam-ends, with the lee boats touching the water, and felt that a
+few moments only trembled between them and eternity."
+
+Day after day the _Terror_ defied the persistent effort of the ice to
+smash her, but suffering much in almost every timber she withstood it
+sufficiently to keep together. For four months she was entirely out of
+water, and when at last she was free, Back wrapped her up as best he
+could, and brought her home with the water pouring into her so that the
+men were so wearied out that they could hardly have continued at the
+pumps another day; and he ran her ashore in Lough Swilly only just in
+time. Upwards of twenty feet of her keel, together with ten feet of the
+stern-post, were driven over more than three and a half feet on one
+side, leaving a frightful opening astern for the free ingress of water.
+The forefoot was entirely gone; numbers of bolts were either loosened or
+broken; and when, besides this, the strained and twisted state of the
+ship's frame was considered, there was not one on board who did not
+express astonishment that they had ever floated across the Atlantic.
+
+The next attempt to complete the coast of the American mainland was made
+from the land, and at the cost of the Hudson's Bay Company. Really it
+was the expedition proposed by Simpson some five years before, of which
+he would have been the leader had he not been shot; and it was entrusted
+to the capable hands of Dr. John Rae.
+
+After wintering at York Factory, Rae reached Repulse Bay with two boats,
+the _Magnet_ and _North Pole_, on the 25th of July, 1846, and in his
+usual style started immediately across the chain of lakes and portages
+which make up the isthmus that now bears his name, launching his boats
+in the tidal water of Committee Bay on the 1st of August. Stopped by ice
+on the west side and then on the east he returned to Repulse Bay, where
+he built Fort Hope of stones and roofed it with sails, and lived in it
+through the winter on what he could shoot and catch, for many weeks
+venturing on only one meal a day. Outside the men kept themselves warm
+chiefly by building snow houses and playing football; inside, as the
+only fuel used was for cooking, the only thing they could do was to wrap
+themselves in furs, and trust to their natural heat in a temperature
+that ranged about zero.
+
+[Illustration: FRACTURED STERN-POST OF H.M.S. "TERROR"]
+
+In April, with a couple of sledges, eight dogs, and five men, he crossed
+the isthmus again and went straightaway up the east side of Boothia to
+Ross's farthest south, thus completing that coast-line. Back he went to
+Fort Hope after a trip of nearly six hundred miles, to start again on
+the 12th of May up the west coast of the Melville Peninsula to Cape
+Ellice, which Parry had sighted from the strait on that side. And he was
+back once more at Fort Hope on the 9th of June. Thus the survey of the
+northern coast was complete with the exception of the gap between the
+Boothia isthmus, on the west side, and Castor and Pollux River of Dease
+and Simpson, which Rae in another famous effort from Repulse Bay was to
+link up later on.
+
+When Rae reached Lord Mayor's Bay on the east coast of Boothia,
+Franklin, with the _Erebus_ and _Terror_, was off its west coast in the
+same latitude. This was the reappearance of the _Terror_ in the north.
+After Back's voyage she had been repaired to sail with the _Erebus_,
+under Sir James Clark Ross, when he discovered the South Magnetic Pole;
+and on their return the barques had been thoroughly overhauled and
+fitted with auxiliary screws, the first time that the screw propeller
+was used in Arctic work. Franklin was in the _Erebus_, the _Terror_
+being commanded by Francis R. M. Crozier as she had been in the
+Antarctic voyage. Crozier was one of Parry's men, he having been in the
+_Fury_ in 1821 and in the _Hecla_ on her two subsequent expeditions.
+
+The ships left England on the 19th of May, 1845, and were last seen and
+spoken with on the 26th of July in Melville Bay on their way to
+Lancaster Sound. According to information gained during the long series
+of searches, they passed through the sound and went north for about a
+hundred and fifty miles, to 77°, up Wellington Channel into Penny
+Strait—the first time the passage had been made. Returning down the west
+side of Cornwallis Island, discovering the strait between it and
+Bathurst Island, they wintered at Beechey Island, where three of the men
+died and were buried; and where the most significant relic was about
+seven hundred tins of preserved meat that seemed to have been condemned
+as bad, just as the stock of similar stuff had in the same year been
+condemned and thrown overboard at Portsmouth.
+
+Leaving Beechey Island in 1846, they went south down Peel Sound, being
+the first to pass through it, and Franklin Strait—another new
+discovery—to within twelve miles of Cape Felix in King William Land,
+where, on the 12th of September, they were beset about half-way between
+Cape Adelaide in Boothia and Pelly Point in Victoria Land. Hereabouts
+the second winter was passed, and on the 24th of May a party under
+Lieutenant Gore crossed the ice to Point Victory, probably on a journey
+to examine the unknown coast between there and Cape Herschel. On the
+11th of June, 1847, Sir John Franklin died. The ships drifted a short
+distance during their imprisonment in the ice, and the third winter was
+passed some twenty miles further south down Victoria Strait, where, on
+the 22nd of April, 1848, when fifteen miles north-north-west of Point
+Victory, they were abandoned, and the officers and crews, a hundred and
+five in all, under Crozier's command, started for Back's Great Fish
+River, some of them completing the first North-West Passage in crossing
+Simpson Strait and reaching Montreal Island.
+
+The first undoubted traces of the lost expedition were those discovered
+at Beechey Island, the news reaching England in the _Prince Albert_ in
+the autumn of 1850. As soon as the winter was over this excellent little
+schooner was again sent out by Lady Franklin under the command of
+Captain William Kennedy, who took with him as a volunteer Lieutenant
+Joseph René Bellot of the French navy, and also John Hepburn, who had
+been with Franklin on the land journey in 1819. Kennedy wintered at
+Batty Bay in North Somerset, and during a remarkable sledge journey, in
+which he made the circuit of the island, he and Bellot reached Brentford
+Bay, and, on the 21st of April, 1852, discovered the strait named after
+the gallant Frenchman. But he found no traces of the expedition through
+turning to the north and crossing to Prince of Wales Island, instead of
+going to the south at the western mouth of the strait. He had, however,
+discovered the termination of Boothia, the north point of the American
+continent which men had been seeking for three centuries.
+
+To the southern end of Boothia came the indefatigable Rae. That cheery
+hero of the north left Repulse Bay on the 31st of March, 1854, to
+complete the Hudson's Bay Company's survey. On the 20th of April he met
+a young Eskimo in Pelly Bay, who told him the fate of the _Erebus_ and
+_Terror_, and from him and his people Rae obtained a number of small
+articles, forks and spoons and so forth, which had undoubtedly come from
+the ships, one of which had been crushed in the ice, the other sinking
+after drifting further south.
+
+Rae was not the man to return until he had attacked the work he had set
+out to do, and he continued his surveying with his customary accuracy,
+despatch, and general alertness, striking across the peninsula,
+discovering the Murchison River, reaching Simpson's farthest at Castor
+and Pollux River, and thence proving the insularity of King William Land
+by travelling up the east coast of the strait now named after him—and he
+was back again in August. He had almost finished the survey of the
+northern coast-line; and he had ascertained how and where Franklin's
+voyage had ended, for which discovery the British Government gave him
+the reward of £10,000, letting it be understood that so far as they were
+concerned the Franklin searches were at an end.
+
+But Lady Franklin thought one more effort should be made to unravel the
+mystery of her husband's fate, and there were many who thought the same.
+Helped to a certain extent by a public subscription, she organised
+another expedition. The steam-yacht _Fox_ was bought from the executors
+of Sir Richard Sutton and altered for Arctic work by her builders, the
+Halls of Aberdeen clipper fame. As leader went Captain, afterwards Sir,
+Frederick Leopold M'Clintock, who had done such brilliant sledge-work in
+the north; like his second in command, Lieutenant W. R. Hobson, he gave
+his services gratuitously, as also did Dr. David Walker and Captain,
+afterwards Sir, Allen Young, then of the Mercantile Marine, who also
+subscribed £500 towards the fund. Carl Petersen, the Eskimo interpreter
+on the voyages of Penny and Kane, came to join from Copenhagen, having
+landed there from Greenland only six days previously. The British
+Government, although declining to send out an expedition, contributed
+liberally to the supplies, and sent on board all the arms and ammunition
+and ice-gear and every instrument that was asked for.
+
+[Illustration: THE "FOX" ESCAPING FROM THE PACK]
+
+Lady Franklin's instructions were so characteristic of the noble-hearted
+woman whose name can never be forgotten in Arctic story that they must
+be given in full:—
+
+                                           "ABERDEEN, _June 29, 1857_.
+
+  "MY DEAR CAPTAIN M'CLINTOCK,
+
+  "You have kindly invited me to give you 'Instructions,' but I cannot
+  bring myself to feel that it would be right in me in any way to
+  influence your judgment in the conduct of your noble undertaking;
+  and indeed I have no temptation to do so, since it appears to me
+  that your views are almost identical with those which I had
+  independently formed before I had the advantage of being thoroughly
+  possessed of yours. But had this been otherwise, I trust you would
+  have found me ready to prove the implicit confidence I place in you
+  by yielding my own views to your more enlightened judgment; knowing
+  too as I do that your whole heart also is in the cause, even as my
+  own is. As to the objects of the expedition and their relative
+  importance, I am sure that you know that the rescue of any possible
+  survivor of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ would be to me, as it would be
+  to you, the noblest result of our efforts.
+
+  "To this object I wish every other to be subordinate; and next to it
+  in importance is the recovery of the unspeakably precious documents
+  of the expedition, public and private, and the personal relics of my
+  dear husband and his companions.
+
+  "And lastly, I trust it may be in your power to confirm, directly or
+  inferentially, the claims of my husband's expedition to the earliest
+  discovery of the passage, which, if Dr. Rae's report be true (and
+  the Government of our country has accepted and rewarded it as such),
+  these martyrs in a noble cause achieved at their last extremity,
+  after five long years of labour and suffering, if not at an earlier
+  period.
+
+  "I am sure that you will do all that man can do for the attainment
+  of all these objects; my only fear is that you may spend yourselves
+  too much in the effort; and you must therefore let me tell you how
+  much dearer to me even than any of them is the preservation of the
+  valuable lives of the little band of heroes who are your companions
+  and followers.
+
+  "May God in His great mercy preserve you all from harm amidst the
+  labours and perils which await you, and restore you to us in health
+  and safety as well as honour. As to the honour I can have _no_
+  misgiving. It will be yours as much if you fail (since you _may_
+  fail in spite of every effort) as if you succeed; and be assured
+  that, under _any and all circumstances whatever_, such is my
+  unbounded confidence in you, you will possess and be entitled to the
+  enduring gratitude of your sincere and attached friend,
+
+                                                      "JANE FRANKLIN."
+
+[Illustration: THE "FOX" ON A ROCK]
+
+The men of the _Fox_ were worthy of the confidence placed in them.
+Leaving Aberdeen on the 1st of July, M'Clintock reached Disco on the
+last day of the month, and, proceeding northwards, was, by a perverse
+freak of fortune, beset in Melville Bay on the 8th of August, and kept
+imprisoned thence onwards all through the winter, drifting south through
+Baffin Bay and Davis Strait. On the 26th of April, 1858, after a drift
+of 1194 geographical miles, the _Fox_ escaped from the pack and steamed
+to the eastward amid the most perilous of ice experiences. Most men
+would have returned and tried again; not so M'Clintock. He boldly ran up
+the Greenland coast as if nothing had happened and, making good
+deficiencies, resumed his voyage. Soon after leaving Sanderson's Hope
+the _Fox_ was nearly wrecked near Buchan Island, remaining on a rock
+until the tide rose again to set her free. After calling at Beechey
+Island, M'Clintock followed Franklin's track down Peel Sound until
+stopped by the pack, when he retraced his course and tried Prince Regent
+Inlet, reaching Bellot Strait on the 21st of August. At Port Kennedy in
+this famous waterway—which is like a Greenland fiord, about twenty miles
+long and scarcely a mile wide at its narrowest part, the water four
+hundred feet deep within a quarter of a mile of its northern shore—he
+passed the winter.
+
+On the 1st of March he reached by sledge the Magnetic Pole and fell in
+with four of the Boothian Eskimos, who, at the cost of a needle each,
+built him a snow hut in an hour, in which they all spent the night.
+"Perhaps," says M'Clintock, "the records of architecture do not furnish
+another instance of a dwelling-house so cheaply constructed!" Halting at
+Cape Victoria the Eskimos came up from their village close by with a
+number of small relics of the lost expedition. Returning to the _Fox_
+after a journey of four hundred and twenty statute miles in which the
+survey of the west coast of Boothia was completed, everything was made
+ready for three long sledge journeys of two sledges each, the captain
+taking that for Montreal Island, and giving Hobson the best chance of
+promotion by sending him round the west coast of King William Land,
+while Young took the Prince of Wales Land route.
+
+On the east coast of King William Land M'Clintock met with more Eskimos,
+from whom he obtained relics and obtained information. Pushing on, he
+reached Montreal Island on the 15th of May, where the only traces of a
+boat were some scraps of copper and an iron-hoop bolt. A crossing to the
+mainland on the 18th of May revealed no more; and next day the return
+journey began. Six days afterwards, walking along a gravel ridge near
+the beach on the way to Cape Herschel, M'Clintock found the first
+skeleton, partly exposed, with a few fragments of clothing appearing
+through the snow, evidently one of the men who, as the old Eskimo woman
+said, fell down and died as they walked along. Visiting Simpson's cairn
+at Cape Herschel and meeting with nothing, he went on for about twelve
+miles, where he caught sight of a small cairn built by Hobson's party at
+their furthest south, reached six days before, containing a note with
+the great news that at Point Victory they had found what is now known as
+the Franklin record.
+
+This record, which has frequently been printed—in a smaller size than
+the original—was one of the navy bottle-papers with the request in six
+languages that it should be forwarded to the Admiralty. A pale blue
+paper, twelve and a half inches by eight, it was filled up in the
+ordinary way, and then added to round the four margins in the
+handwriting of Lieutenant Gore, Captain FitzJames, and Captain Crozier,
+and signed by these and C. F. Des Vœux. It had been first deposited four
+miles away, so it said, "by the late Commander Gore," in 1847, and next
+year found by Lieutenant Irving, added to, and removed to the new cairn
+on the site of Sir James Ross's pillar.
+
+[Illustration: DISCOVERY OF THE CAIRN]
+
+Brief as it was, it contained all the authentic information regarding
+Franklin's voyage up to the time the ships were abandoned. Resuming the
+return journey along the edge of the strait where the meeting of the
+Pacific and Atlantic tides keeps the ice drifting down from the
+north-west almost constantly packed, M'Clintock reached a boat with two
+skeletons and other relics already visited by Hobson, who had found
+other cairns and many relics, and, in Back Bay, another record by Gore,
+also deposited in 1847, but giving no additional news.
+
+Hobson was dragged alongside the _Fox_, on the 14th of June, so ill with
+scurvy that he was unable to walk or even stand without assistance.
+M'Clintock arrived five days later; and on the 27th Allen Young returned
+after an exploration of three hundred and eighty miles of coast-line,
+which, added to that discovered by M'Clintock and Hobson, gave a total
+of eight hundred geographical miles of new coast as the work of the
+expedition, besides what it had done in clearing up the Franklin
+mystery.
+
+In 1869 Captain C. F. Hall collected other relics and sufficient
+information to account for seventy-nine men out of the hundred and five
+who left the ships. Ten years after that, Schwatka, in his long, careful
+search of King William Land, discovered the grave of Lieutenant Irving,
+in which were some fragments of his instruments and the prize medal he
+won at the Royal Naval College. Near by were many traces indicating that
+it was the site of the first encampment of the retreating crews after
+leaving their ships; and down the coast he traced camp after camp, and
+death after death. Irving's remains were brought away and are buried at
+Edinburgh. The spot where they were found was Cape Jane Franklin.
+
+More fortunate than Franklin was Captain Roald Amundsen. Leaving
+Christiania in the _Gjöa_ on the 16th of June, 1903, he crossed the
+Atlantic and proceeded down Peel Sound, past Bellot Strait, and along
+the west coast of Boothia, where a fire on the ship did a certain amount
+of damage, and, struggling thereafter for ten days among shoals and
+rocks, down James Ross Strait, past Matty Island into Rae Strait, he
+dropped anchor in Petersen Bay, King William Land. For his base station
+he required a site in which the inclination was eighty-nine degrees, and
+at Gjöahaven, in this bay, he found it in 68° 30´ N., 96° W.
+
+Here he arranged his headquarters for his observations on the Magnetic
+Pole which were kept going night and day for nineteen months; and here
+he stayed for two winters, moving about in the country around and over
+into Boothia, where he proved that the Pole was not immovable and
+stationary, but in all likelihood in continual movement. Leaving the
+south-eastern corner of King William Land in his little ship he passed
+through Simpson Strait, linking up with Collinson; and, like him, he was
+delayed for a winter on the coast of the American mainland. Through
+Bering Strait he reached San Francisco, where the voyage ended in the
+sale of the _Gjöa_. Thus of Amundsen it can be said, without any
+qualification whatever, that he accomplished the North-West Passage.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XI
+                               BAFFIN BAY
+
+  Sir Humphrey Gilbert—Sir Martin Frobisher—His first voyage—The
+    fateful stone—First meeting with the Eskimos—The Cathay
+    Company—Second voyage—Third voyage—Frobisher builds a fort—The
+    ships among the floes—Captain Hall finds the Frobisher
+    relics—Adrian Gilbert—John Davis—His voyages and dealings with the
+    Eskimos—Reaches and names Sanderson's Hope—The Traverse
+    Book—William Baffin—His first voyage to Greenland—His fourth and
+    fifth voyages—Discovers Baffin Land—Discovers Baffin Bay—Smith
+    Sound—Jones Sound—Lancaster Sound—Baffin's farthest north—John
+    Ross and Parry verify his discoveries.
+
+
+In 1566 Humphrey Gilbert—who was as near to heaven by sea as by
+land—petitioned Queen Elizabeth for privileges in regard to discoveries
+"by the North-west to Cataia" as an alternative to a petition he, in
+conjunction with Anthony Jenkinson, had presented the previous year for
+a voyage by the north-east. He received no answer; but ten years
+afterwards, in support of this unanswered petition, he published his
+_Discourse of a Discovery for a New Passage to Cataia_. This met with
+approval, and led, with little delay, to the expedition under the Martin
+Frobisher who, among other noteworthy services, commanded the _Triumph_
+in the Armada fight to such good purpose that he was one of the five
+distinguished men knighted by Howard in mid-channel after the battle off
+the Isle of Wight.
+
+Frobisher was a good seaman—but no mineralogist. Mainly at the expense
+of Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and under the business management of
+that old seafarer, Michael Lock, of the Muscovy Company, he left
+Blackwall on the 7th of June, 1576, in the _Gabriel_ of twenty-five
+tons, accompanied by the _Michael_ of twenty tons—which deserted and
+returned as soon as difficulties arose—and a ten-ton pinnace, which
+ended by foundering off Greenland. All told, the expedition numbered
+thirty-five, of whom the _Gabriel_ carried eighteen; and with these the
+voyage through the Arctic Ocean was to be made to China.
+
+Leaving the Shetlands at her top speed of a league and a half an
+hour—which her master, good Christopher Hall, proudly recorded—the
+_Gabriel_ sighted Cape Farewell on the 11th of July. Two days afterwards
+she was thrown on her beam-ends in a storm, and was rapidly filling with
+water flowing in at her waist when she was relieved by the loss of her
+fore-yard and the cutting away of her mizen-mast. Rounding the cape,
+steering westward when he could among the floating ice, Frobisher
+reached a high headland at the south-east end of what is now Frobisher
+Bay, which he named Queen Elizabeth Foreland. A few days afterwards
+Hall, out in a boat seeking a way through the ice for the ship, landed
+on what they called Hall's Island, and, noticing a fog coming on, left
+hurriedly, snatching up, as specimens of the plants, a few grasses and
+flowers, and, as a rock specimen, a heavy black stone picked up
+haphazard on the beach. The grass faded, the flowers perished, and the
+fateful stone remained.
+
+[Illustration: SIR MARTIN FROBISHER]
+
+For fifty leagues Frobisher sailed north-westward into the bay, thinking
+it to be a strait with Asia on the right hand and America on the left.
+He landed at what he called Butcher's Island, saw "mightie deere which
+ranne at him and hardly he escaped with his life in a narrow way where
+he was faine to use defence and policie," and from a hill-top "perceived
+a number of small things fleeting in the sea afarre off whyche hee
+supposed to be porposes or seales or some kind of strange fishe but
+coming nearer he discovered them to be men in small boates made of
+leather," who only just failed in capturing his boat before he reached
+it. Subsequent conferences with the Eskimos ended in his losing the boat
+with five men who had gone ashore to trade; and finally, having lifted
+single-handed one of the interesting natives, kayak and all, into the
+_Gabriel_, he made sail for home.
+
+When Lock went aboard on the ship's arrival there were no riches from
+Cathay, nothing worth mentioning beyond the Eskimo—who soon died—the
+kayak and paddle, and "the fyrste thynge found in the new land," the
+black stone. He carried away the stone, after chipping off a few
+fragments for the friends around, and after a week or two's
+consideration sent some of it to the Mint to be assayed. The report was
+not as he expected; the "saymaster" was of opinion that it was
+marcasite, that is, iron pyrites. Not satisfied, Lock sent some to
+another expert, who also said it was pyrites. Then he tried a third man,
+who could find no gold in it. And then he tried a fourth—this time an
+Italian—who gave him the answer he wanted: "A very little powder of gold
+came thereout."
+
+Lock sent him some more, telling him frankly that three other assayers
+"could find no such thing therein," but again the Italian was equal to
+the occasion. "The xviii day of January," writes Lock, "he sent me by
+his mayde this little scrap of paper written, No. 1, hereinclosed; and
+thereinclosed the grayne of gold, which afterward I delivered to your
+majesty." For the Queen had become interested in the wonderful stone
+which was the talk of the town, its value increasing at every recital
+until many believed, as Sir Philip Sidney seems to have done, that it
+was "the purest gold unalloyed with any other metals."
+
+Lock was not the man to let such excellent advertisement be lost, and
+forthwith he projected the Cathay Company for which the charter was
+obtained from the Crown on St. Patrick's Day, 1577. Lock was named as
+Governor for six years with remuneration "for ever" of one per cent on
+all goods imported; Frobisher was named as Captain by sea and Admiral of
+the ships and navy of the Company for life with a yearly stipend and one
+per cent, like Lock, on all goods the Company brought in. Queen
+Elizabeth—notwithstanding the report from the Mint—headed the list of
+shareholders with £1000; and Burghley, Howard, Leicester, Walsingham,
+Hunsdon, Sidney, even Gresham, subscribed for shares in this remarkable
+company.
+
+To bring home more of the "golden ore," a new expedition was entered
+upon at once, and on the 26th of May, Whit-Sunday as it happened,
+Frobisher started on his second voyage. He had three vessels, the _Aid_
+of two hundred tons, lent him from the Royal Navy, and the _Gabriel_ and
+_Michael_ as before, and one hundred and twenty officers and men, of
+whom thirty were miners and other landsmen, and, in addition, six
+condemned criminals whom he was to land in Greenland as colonists but
+put ashore at Harwich instead.
+
+To the new land—named by the Queen Meta Incognita, "the unknown limit of
+the outward course"—he made his way without much adventure. Landing on
+Hall's Island, he sought for more stone but could find not so much as a
+piece as big as a walnut; for Hall, who was again with him as master,
+had apparently lighted, in the one sample, on the whole of its mineral
+wealth. This disappointment, however, was forgotten in the finding of
+occasional patches of pyrites on the mainland and other islands which in
+due course were visited. Thirty leagues up the bay a landing was made on
+what was called Countess of Warwick's Island, where more ore was found
+and a fort called Best's Bulwark was built. That was Frobisher's
+farthest on this voyage, and thence he sailed on the 24th of August,
+bringing with him two hundred tons of pyrites, and, as a present for the
+Queen, a horn two yards long, wreathed and straight, which he had found
+in the nose of a dead narwhal.
+
+The ore was received with rejoicings. Some of it was deposited in
+Bristol Castle, some in the Tower of London under four locks, but there
+was not enough of it; and as there were then, as now, no furnaces in
+England capable of getting gold out of marcasite, a new expedition was
+despatched while the furnaces were being prepared. This time the
+enterprise was to be on a very different scale. Frobisher was given a
+fleet of fifteen vessels, Drake's old ship, the _Judith_, amongst them,
+the _Aid_, as before, being the flagship. He was to bring home two
+thousand tons of mineral and find other mines, if he could, besides
+taking out a colony of a hundred persons to settle in Meta Incognita,
+for whom the materials of a wooden house were among the miscellaneous
+cargo.
+
+The fleet left Harwich on the 31st of May, 1578. A landing was made in
+the south of Greenland, which Frobisher named West England and took
+possession of, his point of departure from there being called by him,
+"from a certain similitude," Charing Cross! Soon he was among the ice
+floes. One of the ships was driven on to a floe and sank with some of
+the materials for the wooden house. Then followed a storm in which most
+of the ships had a terrible experience. "Some," says Captain Best of the
+_Ann Frances_, the chronicler of the voyage, "were so fast shut up and
+compassed in amongst an infinite number of great countreys and ilands of
+ise, that they were fayne to submit themselves and their ships to the
+mercie of the unmercifull ise, and strengthened the sides of their ships
+with junckes of cables, beds, masts, planckes, and such like, which
+being hanged overboord, on the sides of their shippes, mighte the better
+defend them from the outrageous sway and strokes of the said ise. But as
+in greatest distresse, men of best value are best to be discerned, so it
+is greatly worthy commendation and noting with what invincible mind
+every captayne encouraged his company, and with what incredible labour
+the paynefull mariners and poore miners (unacquainted with such
+extremities) to the everlasting renoune of our nation, dyd overcome the
+brunt of these so great and extreame daungers; for some, even without
+boorde uppon the ise, and some within boorde, uppon the sides of their
+shippes, having poles, pikes, peeces of timber and ores in their hands,
+stood almost day and night, without any reste, bearing off the force,
+and breaking the sway of the ise, with suche incredible payne and perill
+that it was wonderfull to behold, which otherwise no doubt had striken
+quite through and through the sides of their shippes, notwithstanding
+our former provision; for planckes of timber, of more than three ynches
+thick, and other things of greater force and bignesse, by the surging of
+the sea and billow, with the ise were shevered and cutte in sunder at
+the sides of oure ships, that it will seeme more than credible to be
+reported of. And yet (that which is more) it is faythfully and playnely
+to be proved, and that by many substantiall witnesses, that our shippes,
+even those of greatest burdens, with the meeting of contrary waves of
+the sea, were heaved up betweene islandes of ise a foote welneere out of
+the sea above their watermarke, having their knees and timbers within
+boorde both bowed and broken therewith."
+
+To add to the difficulties of the voyage Frobisher lost his way, and
+entered what he called the Mistaken Streight—now designated Hudson
+Strait—through which he might have found his way to Cathay, had he been
+so minded; but recognising that he was on the wrong road he returned and
+reached his mining district at the end of July. While the ore was being
+gathered in, Best ventured into the upper part of Frobisher Bay as far
+as the Gabriel Islands—the only exploring work that was done—and early
+in September the fleet departed on the homeward voyage.
+
+Frobisher had left one unmistakable indication of his visit behind him.
+On Countess of Warwick Island he had built a house of lime and stone,
+and "the better," says Best, "to allure those brutish and uncivill
+people to courtesie, againste other times of our comming, we left
+therein dyvers of our countrye toyes, as bells and knives, wherein they
+specially delight, one for the necessarie use, and the other for the
+great pleasure thereof. Also pictures of men and women in lead, men a
+horsebacke, lookinglasses, whistles and pipes. Also in the house was
+made an oven, and breade left baked therein, for them to see and taste.
+We buried the timber of our pretended forte, with manye barrels of
+meale, pease, griste, and sundrie other good things, which was of the
+provision of those whyche should inhabite, if occasion served. And
+insteade therof we fraight oure ships full of ore, whiche we holde of
+farre greater price."
+
+Here we part from the Cathay Company. The inevitable trouble came with
+the discovery that, practically, the only gold the ore would yield was
+that put in as an "additament" by the Italian. A very thick cloud rolled
+over Frobisher, who, like Lock, seems to have believed in the
+genuineness of the affair all through; but soon his country had need of
+him and he came to the front again in so worthy a manner that little
+more was heard of his connection with this company that failed.
+
+[Illustration: ESKIMO AWAITING A SEAL]
+
+To complete the story. In 1861 (say three hundred years afterwards)
+Captain Hall—hearing among the Eskimos how numerous white men had
+arrived first in two, then three, then a great many ships, how they had
+killed several natives and taken away two, how five of the white men had
+been captured, and how these had built a large boat and put a mast in
+her and sailed away to death when the water was open—went to Kod-lun-arn
+(White Man's Island) and there found the house of lime and stone as
+described, and traces of the diggings, and many relics among which he
+made the collection presented by him to the British Government.
+
+In the year 1583, when Sir Humphrey Gilbert, whose _Discourse_ gave so
+great a stimulus to Arctic discovery, founded St. John's,
+Newfoundland—the first English colony in America—a patent was granted by
+Queen Elizabeth to his brother Adrian "of Sandridge in the county of
+Devon," as one of the colleagues of the Fellowship for the Discovery of
+the North-West Passage. At this Sandridge—on the east of the Dart,
+bounded on three sides by the river, some two miles above Dartmouth—was
+the home of the three Gilberts (John, Humphrey, and Adrian), whose
+mother by a second marriage became the mother of Carew and Walter
+Raleigh; and here, about 1550, of a family also owning property in the
+small peninsula, was born John Davis, as we know him, or John Davys, as
+he signed himself, who was probably a playmate, and certainly a
+life-long friend, of these five.
+
+Davis was an accomplished seaman, the best of the Elizabethan
+navigators, and a man of accurate observation, always on the alert,
+whose reputation does not rest only on the work he did in the northern
+and other seas, for he was the author of _The Seaman's Secrets_, the
+most popular practical navigation treatise of its time. Very early,
+perhaps from the first, he was one of the moving spirits in this new
+north-west enterprise, for on the 23rd of January, 1583, we find Dr.
+Dee-who had helped to send Frobisher on his first voyage—making an entry
+in his journal that Mr. Secretary Walsingham had come to his house,
+where by good luck he found Mr. Adrian Gilbert, and so talk began on
+"the north-west straits discovery"; and, next day, "I, Mr. Awdrian
+Gilbert and John Davis, went by appointment to Mr. Beale, his howse,
+where only we four were secret, and we made Mr. Secretary privie of the
+N.W. Passage, and all charts and rutters were agreed upon in
+generall"—"rutter" being the French "routier," originating in _Le
+Routier de la Mer_, signifying a book of sea routes. Another important
+friend of Davis was William Sanderson, the representative of the
+merchants by whom the expenses of the voyage were borne, he being the
+chief subscriber. One of the ships, the _Moonshine_, seems to have
+belonged to him, and it was largely owing to his influence among the
+shareholders that Davis was appointed captain and chief pilot of the
+"exployt," in which he was to practically rediscover Greenland.
+
+There were two vessels, the _Sunshine_ of London, fifty-nine tons, with
+twenty-three persons on board, and the _Moonshine_ of Dartmouth,
+thirty-five tons, with nineteen. They left Dartmouth on the 7th of June,
+1585, but had to put in at Falmouth and then at the Scillies, where
+Davis occupied the twelve days he spent there in surveying and charting
+the islands. On the 20th of July they were sailing down the east coast
+of Greenland, and were so little attracted by it that Davis called it
+the Land of Desolation. Nine days afterwards he found a group of many
+pleasant green islands bordering on the shore, while the mountains of
+the mainland were still covered with snow, and here he landed on the
+west coast at Gilbert Sound, as he named it, near where Godthaab now is,
+and entered into communication with the natives.
+
+[Illustration: A GREENLANDER IN HIS KAYAK]
+
+For such occasions, apparently, he had among the _Sunshine_ people four
+described as musicians, whom, on sighting the Eskimos, he sent for. As
+soon as they arrived from the ship he ordered them to strike up a
+dancing tune, and to their merry music Davis and his men began to caper
+as if they were enjoying themselves immensely, while the lookers-on
+gradually increased in number. "At length," he says, "one of them
+poynting up to the sunne with his hande would presently strike his brest
+so hard that we might hear the blowe. This he did many times, before he
+would any way trust us. Then John Ellis the master of the _Mooneshine_,
+was appointed to use his best policie to gaine their friendshippe: who
+strooke his breast and poynted to the sunne after their order: which
+when he had diverse times done, they began to trust him, and one of them
+came on shoare, to whom we threwe our caps, stockings and gloves, and
+such other things as then we had about us, playing with our musicke, and
+making signes of joy, and dancing. So the night comming we bade them
+farewell, and went aboord our barks."
+
+The next morning, being the 30th of July, thirty-seven canoes came up to
+the ships, their occupants calling to the English to come on shore. "Wee
+not making any great haste unto them, one of them went up to the top of
+the rocke, and lept and daunced as they had done the day before, shewing
+us a seales skinne, and another thing made like a timbrel, which he did
+beate upon with a sticke, making a noyse like a small drumme." Whereupon
+Davis manned his boats and went to the waterside where they were in
+their canoes, "and after we had sworne by the sunne after their fashion,
+they did trust us. So I shooke hands with one of them, and hee kissed my
+hand, and we were very familier with them. We bought five canoas of
+them, we bought their clothes from their backs, which were all made of
+seales skins and birdes skinnes: their buskins, their hose, their
+gloves, all being commonly sewed and well dressed: so that we were fully
+persuaded that they have divers artificers among them. Wee had a paire
+of buskins of them full of fine wooll like bever. Their apparell for
+heate, was made of bird skinnes with their feathers on them. We sawe
+among them leather dressed like glovers leather, and thicke thongs like
+white leather of a good length. Wee had of their darts and oares, and
+found in them that they would by no meanes displease us, but would give
+us whatsoever we asked of them and would be satisfied with whatsoever we
+gave them. They took great care one of an other: for when we had bought
+their boates, then two other woulde come and carie him away betweene
+them that had soulde us his." He describes them as "a very tractable
+people, voyde of craft or double dealing, and easie to be brought to
+civiltie or good order," the men of good stature, unbearded, small-eyed,
+"by whom, as signes would permit, we understood that towards the north
+and west there was a great sea."
+
+During his stay among these islands he found considerable quantities of
+wood—fir, spruce, and juniper—which whether it came floating any great
+distance or grew in some island near he did not discover; but he thought
+it grew further inland because the people had so many darts and paddles
+which they held of little value and gave away for insignificant trifles.
+He also found "great abundance of seales" in shoals as if they were
+small fish; but saw no fresh water, only snow water in large pools, and
+he notes that the "cliffes were all of such oare as M. Frobisher brought
+from Meta Incognita."
+
+Leaving the sound on the 1st of August he crossed the strait now named
+after him and reached land in 66° 40´. In water "altogether voyd from ye
+pester of ice" he anchored, "in a very fair rode, under a very brave
+mount, the cliffs whereof were as orient as gold." This mount he named
+Mount Raleigh, the roadstead he called Totnes Rode, the sound round the
+mount he named Exeter Sound, the foreland to the north he called Dyer's
+Cape, the southern foreland being named Cape Walsingham—all of which
+names remain. Here white bears were killed "of monstrous bignesse," a
+raven was descried upon Mount Raleigh, withies were found growing low
+like shrubs, and there were flowers like primroses, though there was no
+grass.
+
+For three days Davis went coasting downwards, and rounding the
+southern point of the peninsula, which he named the Cape of God's
+Mercy, he entered what he afterwards called Cumberland Strait, now
+Cumberland Gulf, supposing it to be his way to the westward. It was
+clear of ice; sixty leagues up islands were found, among which a stay
+was made during five days of very foggy foul weather. On the 15th of
+August "we heard dogs houle on the shoare, which we thought had bene
+Wolves, and therefore we went on shoare to kil them; when we came on
+lande, the dogs came presently to our boate very gently, yet we
+thought they came to pray upon us, and therefore we shot at them and
+killed two: and about the necke of one of them we found a letheren
+coller, whereupon we thought them to be tame dogs. Then wee went
+farther and founde two sleads made like ours in Englande. The one was
+made of firre, spruse and oken boards, sawen like inch boards; the
+other was made all of whale bone, and there hung on the toppes of the
+sleds three heads of beasts, which they had killed. We saw here
+larkes, ravens, and partriges"—probably rock ptarmigan.
+
+Searching about, it was agreed that the place was all islands, with
+sounds passing between them; that the water remained of the same colour
+as the main ocean, whereas in every bay they had been into it became
+blackish; that a shoal of whales they saw must have come from the west,
+because to the eastward no whale had been seen; that "there came a
+violent counter checke of a tide from the south-west against the flood
+which we came with, not knowing from whence it was maintayned"; that the
+further they ran westward the deeper was the water, "so that hard abord
+the shoare among these yles we could not have ground in 330 fathoms";
+and that, lastly, there was a tide range of six or seven fathoms, "the
+flood comming from diverse parts, so as we could not perceive the chiefe
+maintenance thereof." For which six reasons it was determined to
+continue the voyage to the westward if the weather changed—which it did
+to worse with the wind unfavourable, so that the ships had to run for
+shelter and then sail for home, crossing the Atlantic from Greenland in
+a fortnight. On arrival Davis reported to Walsingham that the North-West
+Passage was a matter nothing doubtful, but at any time almost to be
+passed, the sea navigable, void of ice, the air tolerable, and the
+waters very deep; and a voyage for next year was decided on, for which
+the merchants of Exeter, Totnes, London, Cullompton, Chard, and
+Tiverton, and five private subscribers, "did adventure their money"—to
+the amount of £1175—"with Mr. Adrian Gilbert and Mr. John Davis in a
+voyage for the discovery of China, the seventh daie of April in the
+xxviij yeare of the rayne of or. soverayne Ladie Elizabeth."
+
+The fleet, consisting of the _Mermaid_ of one hundred and twenty tons,
+the _Sunshine_ and _Moonshine_, and a ten-ton pinnace named the _North
+Star_, left Dartmouth on the 7th of May, 1586. On reaching Greenland the
+_Sunshine_ and _North Star_ were sent up the east coast of Greenland,
+while the _Mermaid_ and _Moonshine_ made for Gilbert Sound.
+
+Here the Eskimos received them cordially "after they had espied in the
+boate, some of our companie that were the yeere before heere with us,
+they presently rowed to the boate, and tooke holde on the oare, and hung
+about the boate with such comfortable joy as woulde require a long
+discourse to be uttered: they came with the boates to our shippes,
+making signes that they knewe all those that the yere before had bene
+with them. After I perceived their joy, and smal feare of us, my selfe
+with the merchaunts, and others of the company went a shoare, bearing
+with me twentie knives: I had no sooner landed, but they lept out of
+their Canoas, and came running to mee and the rest, and imbraced us with
+many signes of hartie welcome: at this present there were eighteene of
+them, and to each of them I gave a knife: they offered skinnes to mee
+for rewarde, but I made signes that it was not solde, but given them of
+curtesie: and so dismissed them for that time, with signes that they
+shoulde returne againe after certaine houres." But soon there were
+passing troubles owing to iron having so great an attraction for them
+that they could not resist stealing it. While amongst them, exploring
+the country, Davis compiled the first Eskimo vocabulary known, a list of
+some forty words written down phonetically, most of them remarkably good
+approaches considering that both parties were ignorant of each other's
+language, none of them, however, except that for "sea" being likely to
+be of any use in putting him on the road to China.
+
+On leaving Gilbert Sound, Davis when in latitude 63° 8´ "fel upon a most
+mighty and strange quantity of ice, in one intyre masse, so bigge as
+that we knew not the limits thereof, and being withall so very high, in
+forme of a land, with bayes and capes, and like high cliffe land, as
+that we supposed it to be land, and therefore sent our pinnesse off to
+discover it: but at her returne we were certainely informed that it was
+onely ice, which bred great admiration to us all, considering the huge
+quantity thereof, incredible to be reported in truth as it was, and
+therefore I omit to speake any further thereof. This onely, I thinke
+that the like before was never seene, and in this place we had very
+stickle and strong currants. We coasted this mighty masse of ice untill
+the 30 of July, finding it a mighty bar to our purpose: the ayre in this
+time was so contagious, and the sea so pestered with ice, as that all
+hope was banished of proceeding: for the 24 of July all our shrowds,
+ropes, and sailes were so frozen, and compassed with ice, onely by a
+grosse fogge, as seemed to me more then strange, sith the last yeere I
+found this sea free and navigable, without impediments."
+
+Crossing the straits he repaired and revictualled the _Moonshine_ in an
+excellent harbour among islands where they found it very hot and were
+"very much troubled with a flie which is called Musketa, for they did
+sting grievously." Forsaken by the _Mermaid_, he abandoned the search in
+Cumberland Sound as he "found small hope to pass any farther that way,"
+and worked south, it being too late to go northwards, crossing Frobisher
+Bay, which he described as "another great inlet neere forty leagues
+broad where the water entered with violent swiftnesse, this we also
+thought might be a passage, for no doubt the north parts of America are
+all islands." Off the coast of Labrador he found a vast shoal of
+codfish, of which he caught over forty with a long spike nail made into
+a hook. These he salted, and some of them, on his return, he gave, at
+Walsingham's request, to Burghley, who, at an interview, encouraged him
+to make a further attempt.
+
+Next year he was off again, this time "to the Isles of the Molucca or
+the coast of China." He seems to have been on board the _Ellen_, a small
+craft of some twenty tons, his two other vessels being the _Sunshine_ as
+before, and the _Elizabeth_. These he left to fish for cod in the
+straits while he went northward from Gilbert Sound in his little
+"clinker," which he had probably chosen as being handy for ice
+navigation. Running along the land, to which he gave the name of London
+Coast, he reached 72° 12´—the highest north up to then attained—where he
+named the loftiest of the headlands Sanderson's Hope, whose lofty crest
+piercing through the driving clouds near Upernivik has become perhaps
+the best-known landmark in the northern seas. Here the wind suddenly
+shifting to the northward made further progress impossible, and he had
+to shape his course westerly, and then, owing to ice, which he in vain
+endeavoured to get round to the north, he had to turn southwards. Amid
+much fog, and with the ice always present, he came down the coast of
+Baffin Land, giving a name here and there on the way, until on the 31st
+of July he passed "a very great gulfe, the water whirling and roring, as
+it were the meetings of tides," which was probably the entrance to
+Hudson Strait. Next day he was off the Labrador coast and named Cape
+Chidley after his friend who died in the Straits of Magellan, and on the
+15th of August he laid his course for England.
+
+[Illustration: BAFFIN BAY IN 1819]
+
+Of this voyage Hakluyt prints the Traverse Book, one of the earliest
+known. In it the full detail is given for every day, arranged in nine
+columns, one each for the month, the day, the hour, the courses, the
+leagues, the elevation of the pole in degrees and minutes, the wind, and
+a remarks column headed "The Discourse"—for Davis was an exact and
+systematic man remarkable for his latitudes never being wrong, though
+like all those old navigators before the invention of the chronometer,
+he was frequently out in his longitude. He was going off again bound for
+the sea north of Sanderson's Hope, but the coming of the Armada and the
+death of Walsingham caused the postponement of the project he did not
+abandon, for it seems that the _Desire_, in which he discovered the
+Falkland Islands at the other end of America, was to be his reward for
+accompanying Cavendish round the world, and that in her he intended to
+make his next Polar voyage.
+
+The work he had set himself to do was done by William Baffin, who first
+appears in the Arctic record as pilot of the _Patience_ in James Hall's
+Greenland voyage in 1612, which ended in Hall being killed in revenge
+for the kidnapping proceedings on the two previous voyages under the
+Danish flag. Baffin then made two voyages, as we have seen, to
+Spitsbergen in the service of the Muscovy Company, and, in that of the
+Company for the Discovery of the North-West Passage, he made his fourth,
+in 1615. In Hudson's old ship the _Discovery_, also her fourth trip to
+the north, he passed up Hudson Strait to the end of Southampton Island,
+where he abandoned the attempt to get through owing to ice and shallow
+water, and returned after discovering the land that Parry named after
+him.
+
+In his fifth voyage, again in the _Discovery_, with Robert Bylot again
+as master, he left Gravesend on the 16th of March, 1616, and reached
+Sanderson's Hope on the 30th of May, discovering the great bay to the
+north which bears his name. Passing the Women Islands and the Baffin
+Islands off Cape Shackleton, he took the middle passage across Melville
+Bay, coasting along by Cape York, by the cape named after one of his
+directors, Sir Dudley Digges, and the sound named after another of his
+directors, Sir John Wolstenholme; along Prudhoe Land, entering the North
+Water of the whalers, reaching Cape Alexander in 77° 45´, his farthest
+north; opening up and naming Smith Sound, after Sir Thomas Smith,
+another of his directors, and Jones Sound, after Alderman Sir Francis
+Jones, another of the board, and Lancaster Sound, after Sir James
+Lancaster of the East India Company. Thus, coasting Ellesmere Land,
+North Devon, Bylot Island, and Baffin Land, he continued his voyage from
+the north on his way home. A good piece of work: the discoveries so many
+and unexpected that people ceased to believe in them, geographers going
+so far as to erase his bay from their maps until, two hundred years
+afterwards, Ross and Parry sailed over the land of the unbelievers and
+confirmed Baffin's work in every detail—and Ross, in his best
+mountain-finding manner, reported no thoroughfare at Smith Sound.
+
+[Illustration: DR. E. K. KANE]
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII
+                              SMITH SOUND
+
+  Captain Inglefield—Dr. Kane—The open Polar Sea—Hans Hendrik the
+    Greenlander—Kalutunah the Eskimo—An Eskimo bear-hunt—A lesson in
+    catching auks—Dr. Hayes—His journey over the glacier—Tyndall
+    Glacier—Captain C. F. Hall—Joe and Hannah—Voyage of the
+    _Polaris_—Drift of the _Polaris_—The voyage on the ice-floe—The
+    British Government Expedition of 1875—The _Alert_ and
+    _Discovery_—The cairn on Washington Irving Island—Discovery
+    Harbour—How the _Alert_ got into safety at Floeberg Beach—Low
+    temperatures—Nares on sledging—Description of the sledges and
+    their burden—Markham starts for the Pole—Reaches 83° 20´
+    26˝—Outbreak of scurvy—Parr's walk—Aldrich's journey
+    west—Beaumont's journey east—The perilous homeward voyage.
+
+
+Lady Franklin, who incidentally did so much for Arctic discovery, sent
+out the _Isabel_ in 1852 under Commander, afterwards Sir, Edward
+Augustus Inglefield to search for her husband to the north of Baffin
+Bay. Unlike John Ross, the names of whose ships, _Isabella_ and
+_Alexander_, are home by the capes at its entrance, he found Smith Sound
+to be the highway to the north. Steaming up the open water "stretching
+through seven points of the compass," noting the coasts as he went, he
+was turned back by the ice in 78° 28´, at the entrance to the Kane Sea,
+with Cairn Point and the way in to Rensselaer Harbour on his right, and
+Cape Sabine and Ellesmere Land, which he named, on his left; the
+farthest north he sighted being Cape Louis Napoleon, the farthest east
+Cape Frederick VII, now known as Cape Russell. Needless to say he found
+no Franklin traces, although he really looked for them.
+
+Twelve months afterwards Dr. Elisha Kent Kane in the United States brig
+_Advance_ followed in his track and wintered in Rensselaer Harbour, nine
+miles further north. Ostensibly Kane was on a Franklin search, but his
+real object was the Pole. He explored the sea named after him, naming
+many landmarks, not always placing them in their true positions, and
+underwent many hardships. For one mistake he was famous for a time, and
+his reputation now suffers. One of his expedition, William Morton,
+almost reached Cape Constitution, in about 80½°, which he placed some
+sixty miles too far north, and described as the corner of the north
+coast of Greenland; and from the southern horn of the bay of which it is
+the northern boundary he looked out over the south of Kennedy Channel,
+which is open every summer, and mistook it for the Polar Sea. And he
+returned with a report of an even more wonderful discovery than the
+Polar Sea, for, according to the illustration, he beheld the midnight
+sun dipping in its waters on Midsummer Day.
+
+In May, 1854, the month before Morton's discoveries, Dr. Hayes and
+William Godfrey crossed the Kane Sea to connect the northern coast with
+Inglefield's survey, "but it disclosed no channel or any form of exit
+from the bay," being, in fact, Ellesmere Land continued, and yet on
+reaching the shore for the first time at Hayes Point, three miles north
+of Cape Louis Napoleon, and following it for two miles to Cape Frazer,
+they quite unnecessarily named the country Grinnell Land. On the other
+side of this sea the chief discovery was Kane's Humboldt glacier, some
+fifty miles north-east of their winter quarters, which was described as
+"the mighty crystal bridge which connects the two continents of America
+and Greenland," when, of course, it does nothing of the sort.
+
+[Illustration: KALUTUNAH]
+
+What with sickness, accident, and other disaster, it became evident that
+the _Advance_ would never leave her wintering place, and in July Kane
+set off on a wild endeavour to reach Beechey Island and obtain relief
+from the Franklin search vessels, but he had to return. Next month Hayes
+was sent to Upernivik, but he also came back. Finally in May, 1855, the
+brig was abandoned and the survivors began their journey to the south.
+Fortunately on the outward voyage Kane, at Fiskernaes, had engaged Hans
+Hendrik the Greenlander, then a boy of nineteen, who became quite a
+prominent figure in this and subsequent voyages, and without him and
+Kalutunah, chief of the Etah Eskimos, the whole party would have
+perished miserably.
+
+Hans first appears when spearing a bird on the wing; Kalutunah's first
+appearance was equally encouraging. "The leader of the party," says
+Kane, "was a noble savage, greatly superior in everything to the others
+of his race. He greeted me with respectful courtesy, yet as one who
+might rightfully expect an equal measure of it in return, and, after a
+short interchange of salutations, seated himself in the post of honour
+at my side. I waited, of course, till the company had fed and slept, for
+among savages especially haste is indecorous, and then, after
+distributing a few presents, opened to them my project of a northern
+exploration. Kalutunah received his knife and needles with a 'Kuyanaka,'
+'I thank you'; the first thanks I have heard from a native of this upper
+region. He called me his friend—'Asakaoteet,' 'I love you well'—and
+would be happy, he said, to join the nalegak-soak in a hunt."
+
+And the journey ended in a hunt, for the dogs caught sight of a large
+male bear in the act of devouring a seal. The impulse was irresistible;
+Kane lost all control over both dogs and drivers, who seemed dead to
+everything but the passion of pursuit. Off they sped with incredible
+speed; the Eskimos clinging to their sledges and cheering their dogs
+with loud cries. A mad, wild chase, wilder than German legend—"the dogs,
+wolves; the drivers, devils." After a furious run, the animal was
+brought to bay, and the lance and rifle did their work. There were more
+bears and more hunts, and when Kane objected that this could hardly be
+called northern exploration, he was told by Kalutunah, significantly,
+that the bear-meat was absolutely necessary for the support of their
+families, and that the nalegak-soak had no right to prevent him from
+providing for his household. "It was a strong argument," says Kane, "and
+withal the argument of the strong."
+
+[Illustration: THE EAST COAST OF SMITH SOUND]
+
+Bear-hunting hereabouts has its dangers, for the Eskimos of the north
+are not armed with bows and arrows as are those of the mainland. When
+the bear is found the dogs are set upon the trail, and the hunter runs
+by their side in silence. As he turns the angle ahead his game is in
+view before him, stalking probably along with quiet march, sometimes
+sniffing the air suspiciously, but making, nevertheless, for a clump of
+hummocks. The dogs spring forward, opening in a wild wolfish yell, the
+driver shrieking "Nannook! nannook!" and all straining every nerve in
+pursuit. The bear rises on his haunches, views his pursuers, and starts
+off at full speed. The hunter, as he runs, leaning over his sledge,
+seizes the traces of a couple of his dogs and liberates them from their
+burden. It is the work of a minute; for the speed is not checked and the
+remaining dogs rush on with apparent ease. Pressed more severely, the
+bear stands at bay while his two foremost pursuers halt at a short
+distance and quietly await the arrival of the hunter. At this moment the
+whole pack are liberated; the hunter grasps his lance, and, stumbling
+through the snow and ice, prepares for the encounter. Grasping the lance
+firmly in his hands he provokes the animal to pursue him by moving
+rapidly across its path, and then running as if to escape. But hardly is
+its long body extended for the tempting chase, before, with a quick
+jump, the hunter doubles on his track, and, as the bear turns after him
+again, the lance is plunged into the left side below the shoulder; and
+that so dexterously, that, if it be an inch or so wide of the proper
+spot, the spear has to be left in the bear and the man has to run for
+his life.
+
+At this hazardous work Kalutunah was an adept, and he was equally
+skilful at a much less dangerous game, as Dr. Hayes was to discover when
+wintering in the schooner _United States_ in Foulke Harbour, further
+south, in 1860-61. Hayes wished to learn how to catch auks, and the
+Eskimo gave him a lesson. Kalutunah carried a small net, made of light
+strings of sealskin knitted together, the staff by which it was held
+being about ten feet in length. Arriving about half-way up the cliffs he
+crouched behind a rock and invited the doctor to follow his example. The
+slope on which the birds were congregated was about a mile long, and in
+vast flocks they were sweeping over it a few feet above the stones down
+the whole length of the hill, returning higher in the air, and so round
+and round in a complete circuit. Occasionally a few hundreds or
+thousands would drop down as if following some leader, and in an instant
+the rocks, for some distance, would swarm with them as they speckled the
+hill with their black backs and white breasts. The doctor was told to
+lie lower, as the birds noticed him and were flying too far overhead.
+Having placed himself as Kalutunah approved, the birds began to sweep
+lower and lower in their flight until their track came well within
+reach. Then, as a dense portion of the crowd approached, up went the
+net, and half a dozen birds flew into it, and, stunned by the blow,
+could not recover before the Eskimo had slipped the staff through his
+hands and seized the net. With his left hand he pressed down the birds,
+while with the right he drew them out one by one, and, for want of a
+third hand, used his teeth to crush their heads. The wings were then
+locked across each other; and with an air of triumph the old chief
+looked around, spat the blood and feathers from his mouth, and went on
+with the sport, tossing up his net and hauling it in with much rapidity
+until he had caught about a hundred, and wanted no more.
+
+[Illustration: I. I. Hayes]
+
+Hayes did his best to disparage both Kalutunah and Hans, to whom he was
+not quite so much indebted as Kane, owing to his having given himself a
+better chance of retreat by not taking the schooner out of Smith Sound,
+his quarters in Hartstene Bay being only some twelve miles north of Cape
+Alexander. He had come to verify the existence of the open sea and sail
+to the Pole across it if he could; and he verified it to his own
+satisfaction. But he did not get so far north as Morton, although he
+claimed to have done so, for he climbed a cliff eight hundred feet high
+and looked out over the open water—in Kennedy Channel—and did not see
+the Greenland cliffs trending away northwards within thirty miles of
+him, and visible all the way up for two degrees north of Cape
+Constitution. Thus he left the map as Kane left it, with Greenland cut
+off short south of the eighty-first parallel, and his farthest seems to
+have been the south point of Rawlings Bay, where the _Alert_ was forced
+on shore in August, 1876, in 80° 15´.
+
+"I climbed," he says, "the steep hillside to the top of a ragged cliff,
+which I supposed to be about eight hundred feet above the level of the
+sea. The view which I had from this elevation furnished a solution of
+the cause of my progress being arrested on the previous day. The ice was
+everywhere in the same condition as in the mouth of the bay across which
+I had endeavoured to pass. A broad crack, starting from the middle of
+the bay, stretched over the sea, and uniting with other cracks as it
+meandered to the eastward, it expanded as the delta of some mighty river
+discharging into the ocean, and under a water-sky, which hung upon the
+northern horizon, it was lost in the open sea. The sea beneath me was a
+mottled sheet of white and dark patches, these latter being either soft
+decaying ice or places where the ice had wholly disappeared. These spots
+were heightened in intensity of shade and multiplied in size as they
+receded, until the belt of the water-sky blended them all together into
+one uniform colour of dark blue. The old and solid floes (some a quarter
+of a mile, and others miles across) and the massive ridges and wastes of
+hummocked ice which lay piled between them and around their margins,
+were the only parts of the sea which retained the whiteness and solidity
+of winter."
+
+Unfortunately for Hayes, the astronomer of the expedition, August
+Sonntag, who had assisted Kane in the same capacity, was frozen to death
+on a sledge journey, and the doctor was left to do the work for himself,
+with disappointing results, as with errors of many miles in either
+latitude or longitude his journeys can only be noticed in a very general
+way. In October, 1860, he proceeded for some distance over the glacier
+to the east of his wintering place. The first attempt to scale the
+glacier was attended by what might have been a serious accident. The
+foremost member of the party missed his footing as he was clambering up
+the rude steps, and, sliding down the steep side, scattered those who
+were below him to the right and left and sent them rolling into the
+valley beneath. The next effort was more successful, and, the end of a
+rope being carried over the side of the glacier, the sledge was drawn up
+the inclined plane and a fair start obtained. A little further on Hayes
+was only saved from disappearing down a crevasse by clutching a pole he
+was carrying on his shoulder. Next day, the surface being smoother, more
+progress was made, and they reached a plain of compact snow covered with
+a crust through which the feet broke at every step. The day afterwards
+the cold grew more intense and a gale came on. At night the men
+complained bitterly and could not sleep, and as the storm increased in
+strength they were forced to leave the tent and by active exercise
+prevent themselves from freezing.
+
+[Illustration: THE SHORES OF KENNEDY CHANNEL]
+
+To face the wind was impossible, and shelter was nowhere to be found
+upon the unbroken plain, there being but one direction in which they
+could move, that being with their backs to the gale. It was not without
+difficulty that the tent was taken down and bundled upon the sledge, the
+wind blowing so fiercely that they could scarcely roll it up with their
+stiffened hands. The men were in pain and could only hold on for a few
+moments to the hardened canvas, their fingers, freezing continually,
+requiring vigorous pounding to keep them on the flickering verge of
+life. "In the midst of a vast frozen Sahara, with neither hill,
+mountain, nor gorge anywhere in view," says Hayes, "fitful clouds swept
+over the face of the full-orbed moon, which, descending toward the
+horizon, glimmered through the drifting snow that whirled out of the
+illimitable distance, and scudded over the icy plain, to the eye in
+undulating lines of downy softness, to the flesh in showers of piercing
+darts. Our only safety was in flight; and like a ship driven before a
+tempest which she cannot withstand, and which has threatened her ruin,
+we turned our backs to the gale; and, hastening down the slope, we ran
+to save our lives. We travelled upwards of forty miles, and had
+descended about three thousand feet before we ventured to halt."
+
+Next year he visited the large glacier in Whale Sound which he named
+after Professor John Tyndall, pulling first along its front in a boat
+and then mounting its surface. As he rowed along within a few fathoms of
+this two miles of ice, he found the face "worn and wasted away until it
+seemed like the front of some vast incongruous temple, here a groined
+roof of some huge cathedral, and there a pointed window or a Norman
+doorway deeply moulded; while on all sides were pillars round and fluted
+and pendants dripping crystal drops of the purest water, and all bathed
+in a soft blue atmosphere. Above these wondrous archways and galleries
+there was still preserved the same Gothic character; tall spires and
+pinnacles rose along the entire front and multiplied behind them, and
+new forms met the eye continually. Strange, there was nothing cold or
+forbidding anywhere. The ice seemed to take the warmth which suffused
+the air, and I longed to pull my boat far within the opening and paddle
+beneath the Gothic archways."
+
+Charles Francis Hall, of Cincinnati, was a man of a very different
+stamp. He was a genius and a genuine worker, an accurate observer and
+painstaking explorer who believed above all things in thoroughness.
+Realising that the best way to study the Polar regions was to understand
+the Eskimos, who know most about them, and utilise their local
+knowledge, he settled amongst them, lived with them, adopted their
+customs, and became as one of them in their huts and tents, taking part
+in their sports and hardships. Two friends he made amongst them,
+Ebierbing and his wife Tookoolito, better known as Joe and Hannah, who
+accompanied him till he died.
+
+[Illustration: TYNDALL GLACIER]
+
+After clearing up the Frobisher problem and throwing some light on the
+Franklin mystery, he started in 1871 to go as far north as he could
+across the reported Polar Sea. To him Henry Grinnell, who did so much
+for northern discovery, entrusted the American flag which had been to
+the Antarctic with Wilkes in 1838, to the Arctic with De Haven, with
+Kane and with Hayes, and was a sort of oriflamme of Polar discovery. His
+ship was the _Polaris_, of 387 tons, once the _Periwinkle_, a name which
+seemed to be a little too unassuming. Buddington, his sailing-master,
+was an experienced whaling captain; his assistant, Tyson, destined for
+the independent command of an ice-floe, was another whale-fisher. The
+naturalist was Emil Bessels. On board were also Joe and Hannah—of
+course—and William Morton, to show where the sea was, and, picked up at
+Upernivik, the indispensable Hans Hendrik with his wife and three
+children.
+
+The voyage was fortunate so long as Hall lived. The _Polaris_ found the
+Polar gates open before her. She steamed right up Smith Sound, through
+Kane Sea, up Kennedy Channel, into Robeson Channel—named after the
+Secretary to the American Navy—until she reached the ice, in 82° 16´, on
+the 30th of August, 1871, the highest latitude then attained by a ship.
+Hall would have pressed on into the ice, but Buddington wisely refused,
+and hardly had the _Polaris_ been headed round when she was beset and
+carried southwards, to escape in a few days and take refuge for the
+winter in a harbour on the east of what is now known as Hall Basin,
+protected at its entrance by a grounded floeberg. The latitude is 81°
+38´, the harbour Hall called Thank God Bay. There in November he died;
+and close by is Hall's Rest, where he is buried.
+
+His death was the end of the enterprise. Buddington wished to return as
+soon as the ship was released, and eventually had his way, after a
+journey or two of little importance. But he stayed too long. The ship
+was clear in June, and he did not start until the 1st of August, and he
+started by driving her into the pack, anchored her to a floe, and
+drifted helplessly into Baffin Bay, as De Haven had done through
+Lancaster Sound in 1850. For eleven weeks the drift continued until she
+was off Northumberland Island on the 15th of October. Here in the middle
+of the night a violent gale arose, and the crippled ship, nipped between
+two masses of ice, was lifted bodily and thrown on her side, her timbers
+cracking loudly and her sides apparently breaking in. Two boats, all she
+had, were hurriedly got on to the ice, and provisions, stores, and
+clothing were being passed out, when with a roar the floe broke asunder,
+and the _Polaris_ disappeared like a phantom in the gale. As the ice
+cracked and the sides lurched apart, a bundle of fur lay across the
+fissure. A grab was made at it, and the bundle was saved. It contained
+the baby of Joe the Eskimo, whose wife had been confined the year before
+in latitude 82°, perhaps the most northerly birthplace of any of this
+world's inhabitants.
+
+[Illustration: A SEAL IN DANGER]
+
+On the ice were Tyson, with Sergeant Meyer, the steward, the cook, six
+sailors, and nine Eskimos, men, women, and children, including Hans and
+Joe. They built a house, from the materials thrown out from the ship, as
+a shelter; and they built snow houses as the time went on and the floe
+diminished. Provisions they had but few, but Hans and Joe were
+indefatigable. They speared seals, caught fish, trapped birds, and,
+sometimes, a bear would scramble up on to the ice for them to shoot—and
+they never missed. In short, without them the party would have starved
+to death.
+
+The floe on which the castaways passed the winter was about a hundred
+yards long and seventy-five broad. On this they voyaged down the whole
+length of Baffin Bay and through Davis Strait, the ice melting away and
+getting smaller and smaller as they drifted south, until on the 1st of
+April, when it was only twenty yards round, they had to take to the
+remaining boat, the other having been used for fuel. Once they nearly
+touched the shore, but the wind rose and off they were driven in the
+snow. When they were picked up by the sealer _Tigress_ in 53° 35´, near
+the coast of Labrador, on the 30th of April, they had drifted fifteen
+hundred miles in the hundred and ninety-six days that had elapsed since
+they left the ship.
+
+The _Polaris_, blown to the northward, reached land at Lifeboat Cove in
+the entrance to Smith Sound, a little north of Foulke Harbour, and here
+with the aid of the Etah Eskimos the crew passed the winter; and, in the
+spring, some of them went on an expedition in the Hayes country and lost
+the famous flag. As the ship could not be made seaworthy, two
+flat-bottomed boats were built of her materials, and on the 21st of June
+these were found hauled up on a floe in Melville Bay, and their people
+rescued by the whaler _Ravenscraig_, which shifted them into the
+_Arctic_, another Dundee whaler, on board of which was Commander
+Markham, who, with Hans Hendrik, four years afterwards, was to follow up
+Hall's track to the north.
+
+The results of this expedition were of considerable importance. In five
+days Captain Hall had run five hundred miles through what on most
+occasions has been found to be an ice-choked sea. He completed the
+exploration of Kennedy Channel, discovered Hall Basin and Robeson
+Channel, and was the first to reach the Polar ocean by this route.
+Greenland and Grinnell Land he extended northward for nearly a hundred
+and forty miles; and, north of Petermann Fiord, where he showed that the
+inland ice terminated, he had found a large area free from ice, with its
+wild flowers and herbage and musk oxen.
+
+Hall's remarkable success in taking a ship to so high a latitude led to
+the Government expedition of 1875, the first British attempt to reach
+the Pole since Parry's failure in 1827. Three ships were employed: the
+_Alert_, a seventeen-gun sloop; the _Discovery_, once the _Bloodhound_,
+a Dundee whaler; and the _Valorous_. The _Alert_ and _Discovery_ were
+specially prepared for the voyage at Portsmouth by Sir Leopold
+M'Clintock who was then Admiral Superintendent of the dockyard; the
+_Valorous_, an old paddle sloop, required little alteration, as her duty
+was merely to carry the stores that could not safely be taken by the
+exploring vessels in crossing the Atlantic and hand them over at Disco.
+
+[Illustration: SIR GEORGE NARES]
+
+The leader, Captain George Strong Nares, when one of the Franklin search
+officers under Kellett at Melville Island, had distinguished himself by
+a sledge journey in which he had travelled nine hundred and eighty miles
+in sixty-nine days and reached 119½° west longitude. He was known as one
+of the best navigators in the Navy, and when called upon to go to the
+north was in command of H.M.S. _Challenger_, then on her famous voyage
+of scientific exploration in very different seas. With him in the
+_Alert_ was Commander Albert Hastings Markham, whose experience, varied
+and considerable, gained by his spending much of his spare time within
+the Arctic Circle, rendered him especially well fitted for the position.
+In command of the _Discovery_ was Captain Henry Frederick Stephenson;
+and the officers of both ships were, like the crews, all specially
+selected. There was no difficulty in the manning. One commanding officer
+called at the office at Portsmouth where the men were being entered and
+asked for advice. "An order," he said, "has come on board my ship,
+directing me to send volunteers for Arctic service to this office. What
+am I to do? The whole ship's company, nearly eight hundred men, have
+given in their names."
+
+The three ships left Spithead on the 29th of May, 1875, and were all at
+Godhavn on the 6th of July. Nine days afterwards they left for Ritenbenk
+of the curious name, which is an anagram of that of Berkentin who was in
+charge of the Greenland department when it was founded. Here the
+_Valorous_ parted company to return home after filling up with fuel at
+the coal quarries on the north side of Disco Island, while the two ships
+went to Proven to pick up Hans Hendrik, who this time left his wife and
+children behind him.
+
+Through Smith Sound, almost choked with ice, progress was slow and
+difficult; but the passage was safely accomplished, and so across Kane
+Sea and up Kennedy Channel. On Washington Irving Island an ancient cairn
+was found, evidently the work of white men's hands and of great age, as
+shown by the state of the lichens on it—yet another of the many
+indications in the Polar regions that there was always a somebody before
+the first on record. Crossing the mouth of Archer Fiord, a snug harbour
+was found in 81° 44´, where the _Discovery_ was left to spend the
+winter, the _Alert_ going on, hampered much by the floes, though helped
+at last by a south-westerly wind, until she had to stop in 82° 27´ on
+the shore of the Polar Ocean, at what was named Floeberg Beach, off an
+open coast and with no more protection during the winter than was
+afforded by masses of ice ranging up to sixty feet in height aground in
+from eight to twelve fathoms of water.
+
+"The protected space," says Nares, "available for shelter was so
+contracted and shallow, the entrance to it so small, and the united
+force of the wind and flood-tide so powerful, that it was with much
+labour and no trifling expense in broken hawsers that the ship was
+hauled in stem foremost. It was a close race whether the ice or the ship
+would be in first, and my anxiety was much relieved when I saw the
+ship's bow swing clear into safety just as the advancing edge of the
+heavy pack closed in against the outside of our friendly barrier of ice.
+From our position of comparative security the danger we had so narrowly
+escaped was strikingly apparent as we gazed with wonder and awe at the
+power exerted by the ice driven past us to the eastward with
+irresistible force by the wind and flood-tide at the rate of about a
+mile an hour. The projecting points of each passing floe which grounded
+near the shore in about ten fathoms of water would be at once wrenched
+off from its still moving parent mass; the pressure continuing, the
+several pieces, frequently thirty thousand tons in weight, would be
+forced up the inclined shore, rising slowly and majestically ten or
+twelve feet above their old line of flotation. Such pieces quickly
+accumulated until a rampart-like barrier of solid ice-blocks, measuring
+about two hundred yards in breadth and rising fifty feet high, lined the
+shore, locking us in, but effectually protecting us from the
+overwhelming power of the pack." The land had already assumed a wintry
+aspect, and the ship soon put on a garb of snow and ice, each spar and
+rope being double its ordinary thickness from the accumulation of rime.
+Around her everything was white and solemn; no voice of bird or beast
+was heard; all was still and silent save the gathering floes; and in two
+days the men were able to walk on shore over the new ice.
+
+For eleven months she stayed here, secured by cables to anchors frozen
+on to the shore to protect her from gales on the landward side. With the
+ship housed in awnings of tilt-cloth, with snow a foot thick laid on the
+upper deck and banked up on each side as high as the main-chains, with
+skylights and hatchways carefully covered up, except two hatchways for
+ingress and egress constructed with porches and double doors so as to
+prevent the entrance of the bitter air, the crew here passed the long
+Polar night. On the 11th of October the sun disappeared, and then began
+those entertainments, lectures, lessons, games, not forgetting the Royal
+Arctic Theatre which opened on the 18th of November, with which the
+winter was pleasantly whiled away. "Can you sing or dance? or what can
+you do for the amusement of others?" every man had been asked before he
+was chosen, and the result was a singularly happy time kept up until
+sunrise.
+
+The cold was intense and long-continued. Even the tobacco pipes froze,
+the stem becoming solidly clogged with ice as the smoking went on unless
+it was made so short as to bring the bowl unpleasantly close to the
+mouth. On the 1st of April the temperature was down to minus 64°, and
+three days afterwards it was a hundred and five below freezing, the cold
+weather preventing the departure of the dog-sledge for Discovery Bay.
+
+During the autumn, sledging parties had laid out reserves of stores for
+the spring journeys, and a certain amount of practice had been given to
+the men in what was intended to be the chief work of the expedition. The
+field, however, was not promising. On one occasion Nares went out to
+look at it. He obtained a fine view of the pack for a distance of six
+miles from the land. The southern side of each purely white snow-covered
+hummock was brilliantly lighted by the orange-tinted twilight. The
+stranded floebergs lining the shore extended from half to three-quarters
+of a mile off the land. Outside were old floes with undulating upper
+surfaces separated from each other by Sherard Osborn's "hedgerows of
+Arctic landscape," otherwise ridges of pressed-up ice of every size. "It
+will be as difficult," was his verdict, "to drag a sledge over such ice
+as to transport a carriage directly across country in England." He gave
+a lecture on sledging at one of the winter entertainments. It was
+interesting but not encouraging. He told his hearers that if they could
+imagine the hardest work they had ever been called upon to perform in
+their lives intensified to the utmost degree, it would only be as
+child's play in comparison with the work they would have to perform
+whilst sledging. "These prophetic words," says Markham, "were fully
+realised, and were often recalled and commented on by the men."
+
+They had four different kinds of sledges. From the illustrations it will
+appear how the eight-feet sledges differed from those used by
+M'Clintock, the Nares sledge being higher and more slender in the
+uprights. The eight-men sledge, such as the Marco Polo—which was bound
+for the Pole—had six uprights eighteen inches apart. It was eleven feet
+long, thirty-eight inches wide, eleven inches high, and weighed one
+hundred and thirty pounds. The tent, made of light, unbleached duck, was
+nine feet four inches long at the bottom, eight feet at the top, seven
+feet wide and high, and weighed forty-four pounds. The tent poles, five
+in number, weighed five pounds apiece. The coverlet weighed thirty-one
+pounds and a half, and the extra coverlet twenty pounds. The lower robe
+weighed twenty-three pounds, the waterproof floor-cloth fifteen. The
+eight sleeping-bags weighed eight pounds apiece, and the eight
+knapsacks, when packed, twelve pounds apiece. The shovel and two
+pickaxes accounted for twenty-one pounds, the store-bag for twenty-five,
+the cooking gear for twenty-nine, the gun and ammunition for
+twenty-five, the medical stores for twelve, the instruments for fifteen,
+and the tent for nine and a quarter. To this must be added a thousand
+and eighty pounds for forty-five days' provisions for the eight men, and
+we have the total of sixteen hundred and sixty-four pounds odd, which
+with seven men at the ropes gives each man a drag of about two hundred
+and thirty-eight pounds. In the spring the weight decreases as the
+provisions are consumed, but the rate of decrease is not the same in the
+autumn, for then the steadily falling temperature increases the weight
+of the outfit by the moisture it adds to the tent and clothing. In
+Markham's autumn journey the tent of thirty-two pounds came back as
+fifty-five, the coverlet as forty-eight, the lower robe as forty, the
+floor-cloth as forty, and everything else was heavier than at the start.
+
+The sledges mustered for their journeys on the 3rd of April. Seven in
+number, they were drawn up in single line according to the seniority of
+the leaders, all fully equipped and provisioned, and manned by
+fifty-three officers and men. On each was its commander's banner—a
+swallow-tailed flag charged with a St. George's cross and displaying the
+armorial bearings. As a precaution against snow-blindness, the men had
+been ordered to decorate the backs of their snow-jumpers with any device
+they thought fit, the result being a display of comic blazonry that
+often formed a topic of conversation when others failed. For the same
+reason the two boats carried on the north-going sledges were gaily
+decorated with the royal arms, and the rose, shamrock, and thistle; the
+artist, as on other occasions, being Doctor Moss, whose great difficulty
+in the matter was that in spite of the quantity of turpentine used in
+mixing the paint it would persist in freezing so that the brush became
+as stiff as a stick every few seconds.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+  SECTION    SLEDGES USED BY (1) SIR LEOPOLD M'CLINTOCK AND    SECTION
+ M'CLINTOCK               (2) SIR GEORGE NARES                  NARES
+
+                   (In the collection of Ed. Whymper)
+
+Lieutenant Aldrich, supported for three weeks by Lieutenant Giffard, was
+to explore the shores of Grant Land, towards the north and west, along
+the coast-line he had discovered in the previous autumn. Commander
+Markham, seconded by Lieutenant Parr, was to accompany Aldrich to Cape
+Joseph Henry and then strike off to the northward over the ice. The
+other three sledges were to accompany these as far as their own
+provisions would allow, after completing the four's deficiencies and
+giving them a fresh start from an advance post.
+
+When Markham was only eleven days out, one of his crew complained of
+pain in his ankles and knees, and was of no help for the rest of the
+journey. This was the first appearance of the scurvy which was to ruin
+so many hopes, for man after man was taken ill and became a passenger.
+To make matters worse no rougher road was ever traversed by sledge. Over
+a labyrinth of piled-up blocks of ice ranging to forty feet and more in
+height, through which the road had to be cut with pickaxe and shovel,
+and amid gale and fog and falling snow, the painful progress went on.
+With many a "One; two; three; haul!" the heavy mass would be dragged
+where the men could hardly drag themselves; one of the sledges taken a
+few yards by the combined crews, who would then return for the other. On
+the 19th of April one of the boats was abandoned and this made matters
+easier, but only for a time, as the disease spread. At last it was
+decided to stop; and on the 12th of May a party of ten went ahead to
+reach the farthest north.
+
+"The walking," says Markham, "was undoubtedly severe, at one moment
+struggling through deep snowdrifts, in which we floundered up to our
+waists, and at another tumbling about amongst the hummocks. Some idea
+may be formed of the difficulties of the road, when, after more than two
+hours' hard walking, with little or nothing to carry, we had barely
+accomplished one mile. Shortly before noon a halt was called, the
+artificial horizon set up, and the flags and sledge standards displayed.
+Fortunately the sun was favourable to us, and we were able to obtain a
+good altitude as it passed the meridian, although almost immediately
+afterwards dark clouds rolled up, snow began to fall, and the sun was
+lost in obscurity. We found the latitude to be 83° 20´ 26˝ N., or three
+hundred and ninety-nine miles and a half from the North Pole."
+
+On the 8th of June Lieutenant Parr appeared on the quarter-deck of the
+_Alert_ greeting in silence the one or two who chanced to meet him. That
+some calamity had happened was evident from his looks. He had walked on
+alone for forty miles to bring the news that Markham's party were in
+sore distress. Measures of rescue were instantly taken; Lieutenant May
+and Doctor Moss, on snow-shoes, pushing ahead with the dog-sledge laden
+with medical stores, while Nares with a strong party followed. On their
+arrival one man had died, and of the others no less than eleven were
+brought back to the ship on the relief sledges.
+
+Ten days afterwards, fearing a similar fate had overtaken Aldrich's
+party, Lieutenant May was despatched to find him. As with Markham,
+scurvy had begun on the outward journey, and it had become so bad on the
+return that one of the men was being sent off to the ship when May
+arrived with help. It had nevertheless been a successful journey, the
+road being easier than that by the northern route. Aldrich had traced
+the continuous border of the heavy pack for two hundred miles from
+Floeberg Beach, rounded Cape Columbia, in 83° 7´ N., the northernmost
+point of Grant Land, and, along the coast trending steadily south-west,
+had reached longitude 85° 33´ and sighted Cape Alfred Ernest in
+longitude 86½°.
+
+With his arrival there were over forty scurvy patients on board the
+_Alert_; and Nares was to learn that the sledge parties from the
+_Discovery_ had been similarly affected. Lieutenant Beaumont had gone
+along the North Greenland coast, reaching, on the 21st of May, 51° W.,
+in 82° 20´ N., and sighting Cape May, Mount Hooker, and Cape Britannia.
+On the 10th of May, while on his outward journey, he had sent back
+Lieutenant Rawson to bring a relief party to meet him, and Rawson with
+Hans and eight dogs, accompanied by Doctor Coppinger, reached him on the
+25th of June when he was on his last possible day's journey, he and two
+of his men dragging the sledge with four helpless comrades lashed on the
+top of it.
+
+The _Discovery_ had also sent out Lieutenant Archer to survey the fiord
+named after him, which opens out into Lady Franklin Bay; and Lieutenant
+Fulford had crossed the channel and explored Petermann Fiord. In fact,
+the expedition's geographical work was of great extent, as was the other
+scientific work, the most important, as usual, being that done from the
+ships. Among the odds and ends easily rememberable was the haul of the
+seine in Sheridan Lake, near the wintering station of the _Alert_, which
+yielded forty-three char (_Salmo arcturus_), the most northerly
+freshwater fish; the finding of the nest of the sanderling (_Calidris
+arenarius_), now in the Natural History Museum, in 82° 33´, and the
+discovery of the nesting of the grey phalarope and the knot in the same
+neighbourhood; the thirty-feet seam of Miocene coal worked in Discovery
+Harbour; and the Eskimo relics at Cape Beechey, near the eighty-second
+parallel, which, in connection with the encampments on the opposite
+coast, suggested that there, at the narrowest part of Robeson Channel,
+had been a crossing place from shore to shore.
+
+On the 31st of July, 1876, the _Alert_ was again under steam after her
+long rest, and one of the most dangerous voyages on record began. The
+ships, of from five hundred to six hundred tons, were handled as if they
+were small tugs; blocked, beset, pressed on shore, Nares with consummate
+skill, constant watchfulness, and never-failing patience, brought them
+through. But they did not get out of Smith Sound until the 9th of
+September, and then it was against head winds in stormy weather amid
+icebergs innumerable that they were slowly worked southwards and
+homewards.
+
+[Illustration: BISHOP PAUL EGEDE]
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIII
+                               GREENLAND
+
+  Hans Egede—The house of Eric the Red—Nansen's crossing of
+    Greenland—Nansen and Sverdrup row to Ny Herrnhut—Nordenskiöld's
+    journeys—Berggren's discovery—Nordenskiöld on the inland
+    ice—Glaciers and icebergs—Diatoms and whales—Edward Whymper's
+    expedition—Greenland in Miocene times—Graah—Scoresby—Ryder—The
+    _Germania_ and _Hansa_—The Duke of Orleans—The Eskimos of
+    Clavering Island—Franz Josef Fiord—The drift of the _Hansa_—The
+    Greely expedition—The International Polar stations—Voyage of the
+    _Proteus_—Lockwood reaches 83° 24´—Greely's wagon—The Eskimo house
+    at Lake Hazen—Greely Relief expeditions—The rescue of
+    Greely—Peary—His journey to Independence Bay—His four years'
+    expedition—Reaches 84° 17´—His Polar expedition of 1905—The
+    _Roosevelt_—The voyage to Cape Sheridan—Plan of the northern
+    advance—Peary reaches 87° 6´—Moxon's mariner.
+
+
+Hans Egede, aged twenty-two, priest of the parish of Vaagen, in the
+north of Norway, reading, in 1710, about the Norse colonists of the
+west—and apparently knowing nothing of Thiodhilda—was led to think that
+some of their descendants might still be living in heathenism. Writing
+to the Bishop of Trondhjem, he proposed to go out to these as a
+missionary. The good father rather astonished him by the reply that
+"Greenland was undoubtedly part of America, and could not be very far
+from Cuba and Hispaniola, where there was found such abundance of gold,"
+and, as those who went to Greenland might bring home "incredible
+riches," he approved of the suggestion.
+
+Unfortunately, however, Egede had written his letter without the
+knowledge of his wife, who by no means thought with the Bishop until
+seven years afterwards, when she changed her mind. Trying in vain
+locally, Egede applied for support to Frederick IV of Denmark, who
+finding him an earnest, honest, interesting man, gave him his patronage,
+the result being that a company was formed at Bergen for the development
+of trade and the propagation of the gospel; and, on the 3rd of May,
+1721, the _Hope_ set sail from there for Greenland with forty-six
+intending colonists, including the missionary and his wife and family.
+
+His landing-place was on an island at the mouth of Godthaab Fiord, or
+Baal's River. He found the Greenlanders very different from what he had
+supposed; and also that the Dutch were carrying on a profitable trade
+with them and keeping it quiet. To begin with they were nothing like
+Vikings in appearance; and their language, instead of being a
+Scandinavian dialect, was of the same character as that of the Eskimos
+of Labrador—and not at all easy to learn. Learn it, however, he and his
+family did; and among the Greenlanders they remained and laboured with
+truly admirable energy and devotion, battling hard for life amid much
+disaster until, with the help of his son Paul, who succeeded him as
+superintendent of the mission with the title of bishop, the settlement
+became permanent, and other settlements arose from it up the western
+coast as they are found to-day.
+
+[Illustration: GREENLANDERS]
+
+ _From a photo by Dr. H. Rink_
+
+Though there were no Norsemen, there were many traces of them, the most
+interesting being the house of Eric the Red, near Igaliko. Here, close
+to Erik's Fiord and overlooking Einar's Fiord, on one of the prettiest
+sites in Greenland, was Brattelid—"the steep side of a rock"—one side of
+it a natural cliff, the walls of the other sides, more than four feet
+thick, built of blocks of red sandstone from four to six feet in length
+as well as in breadth and thickness, reminding the visitor of those of
+Stonehenge, and evoking similar wonderment as to how they were got into
+place. And in his first colony, now called Igdluernerit, Egede seems to
+have followed the Norsemen—at an interval—in their architecture, to
+judge by the large stones in the walls of his house, which, like Eric's,
+is now in ruins.
+
+Twelve years after Egede, came the Moravians to take up their quarters
+at Ny Herrnhut, also at the mouth of Godthaab (that is, Good Hope)
+Fiord. It was here that Nansen and Sverdrup landed in October, 1888,
+having rowed up from Ameralik Fiord in their "half a boat," as the
+Eskimos called it.
+
+"Are you Englishmen?" they were asked.
+
+"No," said Nansen, in good Norse, "we are Norwegians."
+
+"May I ask your name?"
+
+"My name is Nansen and we have just come from the interior."
+
+"Oh, allow me to congratulate you on taking your doctor's degree!"
+
+From which it is clear that Godthaab is not so much out of the world as
+one would suppose.
+
+Nansen with his three Norsemen and two Lapps had reached the east coast
+in the _Jason_, and on the 17th of July had left the ship in their boats
+to make their way to the shore; but they had been caught in the floes,
+and on them and among them they had drifted for twelve days—an
+experience they had not bargained for. Getting ashore at last near Cape
+Tordenskiold, they worked their way back northwards along the coast,
+spending a short time at an Eskimo encampment at Cape Bille, until on
+the 15th of August they hauled their two boats up near Umivik and
+started to cross Greenland over the inland ice.
+
+The country is now in its glacial period, and for days they toiled
+across its glacial desert; each day alike in its wearisome monotony.
+"Flatness and whiteness were the two features of this ocean of snow,"
+says Nansen; "in the day we could see three things only, the sun, the
+snowfield and ourselves. We looked like a diminutive black line feebly
+traced upon an infinite expanse of white. There was no break or change
+in our horizon, no object to rest the eye upon, and no point by which to
+direct the course. We had to steer by a diligent use of the compass, and
+keep our line as well as possible by careful watching of the sun and
+repeated glances back at the four men following and the long track which
+the caravan left in the snow. We passed from one horizon to another, but
+our advance brought us no change."
+
+By the 2nd of September they had all taken to their skis on which they
+made great progress alone, but when it came to hauling the sledges there
+was a difference. Sometimes the snow proved to be very heavy going,
+particularly when it was wind-packed, and then it was no better than
+sand. One entry in Nansen's journal will suffice: "It began to snow in
+the middle of the day, and our work was heavier than ever. It was worse
+even than yesterday, and to say it was like hauling in blue clay will
+scarcely give an idea of it. At every step we had to use all our force
+to get the heavy sledges along, and in the evening Sverdrup and I, who
+had to go first and plough a way for ourselves, were pretty well done
+up."
+
+[Illustration: ON LEVEL GROUND]
+
+When at last the wind became favourable they hoisted sail, and off they
+went over the waves and drifts of snow at a speed that almost took their
+breath away; and when they reached the western slopes they slid down
+them using the sledges as toboggans. At first they had intended making
+for Christianshaab, but the route had to be changed for that to
+Godthaab, and the sea was reached some distance to the south. Here they
+stitched the floor-sheet of their tent over a framework of withies, and
+with oars made of canvas stretched across forked willows and tied to
+bamboo shafts, Nansen and Sverdrup boldly trusted themselves to the
+waves and with much hard labour pulled into Ny Herrnhut on the 3rd of
+October. Such was the first crossing of Greenland, a really remarkable
+instance of daring endeavour.
+
+Further north, Nordenskiöld, in 1883, had attempted to cross over the
+ice-cap from near Disco on the west coast, but, hindered and finally
+stopped by crevasses and other obstacles, could do no more than send his
+Lapps to try their best on their skis, and they returned after their
+journey eastwards of a hundred and forty miles reporting similar
+monotonous conditions all along their track. Thirteen years before, he
+had, also from Auleitsivik Fiord, started out with Berggren; and
+deserted by their followers, they had gone on by themselves for some
+thirty miles east of the northern arm of the fiord. It was on this
+occasion that Berggren discovered _Ancylonema_, that small poly-cellular
+alga forming the dark masses that absorb a far greater amount of heat
+than the white ice and thus cause the deep holes that aid in the process
+of melting.
+
+"The same plant," says Nordenskiöld, "has no doubt played the same part
+in our country; and we have to thank it, perhaps, that the deserts of
+ice which formerly covered the whole of Northern Europe and America have
+now given place to shady woods and undulating cornfields."
+
+Nordenskiöld looked upon Greenland and its icefield as a broad-lipped,
+shallow vessel with chinks in the lip, the glacier being viscous matter
+within it. As more is poured in, the matter runs over the edges, taking
+the lines of the chinks, that is, of the fiords and valleys, as that of
+its outflow. In other words, the ice floats out by force of the
+superincumbent weight of snow just as does the grain on the floor of a
+barn when another sackful is shot on to the top of the heap already
+there. When the glacier reaches the sea it makes its way along the
+bottom under water for a considerable distance, in some cases, as near
+Avigait, for more than a mile. This is where the water is too shallow
+for it to affect the mass, which forms a breakwater; though as a rule
+the shore deepens more suddenly and the projection is less. It was long
+supposed that the berg broke from the glacier by force of gravity, but
+this is not generally so. The berg is forced off from the parent glacier
+by the buoyant action of the sea from beneath; the ice groans and
+creaks; then there is a crashing, then a roar like the discharge of
+artillery; and with a great regurgitation of the waves the iceberg is
+launched into life. These huge floating islands of ice are the most
+conspicuous exports of Greenland; and their true magnitude is not
+realised until it is remembered that only about an eighth of their bulk
+appears above the water. Bergs as large as liners we frequently hear
+of—one such is shown in our illustration—but sometimes they are of much
+greater freeboard, though the very large ones reported as extending
+along the horizon are invariably groups of several crowded together.
+
+[Illustration: THE ALLAN LINER "SARDINIAN" AMONG ICEBERGS]
+
+_Ancylonema_ has evidently plenty to do. Another instance of the
+important part played by the insignificant in these regions is suggested
+by the colour of the sea. This varies from ultramarine blue to
+olive-green, from the purest transparency to striking opacity; and the
+changes are not transitory but permanent. These patches of dark water
+abound with diatoms, while the bluer the water the fewer are the
+diatoms; and where they are most numerous, there the animals that feed
+on them assemble in their greatest numbers. And these animals are
+jellyfish, entomostracans, and, to a greater extent, pteropods, their
+chief representative being _Clio borealis_. In short, the animals that
+feed on the diatoms are food of the Greenland whale, and where the
+waters are dark the whale-fishers thrive. "I know nothing stranger than
+the curious tale I have unfolded," says Dr. Robert Brown, who worked out
+this remarkable chain, "the diatom staining the broad frozen sea, again
+supporting myriads of living beings which crowd there to feed on it, and
+these again supporting the huge whale. Thus it is no stretch of the
+imagination to say that the greatest animal depends for its existence on
+a being so minute that it takes thousands to be massed together before
+they are visible to the naked eye."
+
+Cold as Greenland is, there was a time when matters were different. In
+token of this we have the Miocene fossils collected by Edward Whymper
+during his expedition from near Jakobshavn in 1867, which were described
+and illustrated by Oswald Heer in the _Philosophical Transactions_ for
+1869. A look at these is a welcome relief after such a surfeit of ice.
+Here, as well preserved as in the leaf beds of Alum Bay, are the leaves
+and fruits of an unmistakable temperate flora. Magnolias, maples,
+poplars, limes, walnuts, water-lilies; myrica, smilax, aralia; sedges
+and grasses, conifers and ferns: these at the least were all growing in
+Greenland in its Miocene age. And even a thousand years ago the climate
+must have been milder than now, to judge by the farming reports of the
+colonists who seem to have been quite at home along the coast, which,
+with its innumerable islands and fiords, is as intricate as that of
+Norway.
+
+Searching for the ancient eastern settlement of the Norsemen, W. A.
+Graah, in 1829, wintered at Julianehaab, which in all likelihood is the
+site, although he knew it not. Possessed with the idea that it must be
+on the south-eastern coast, he devoted his attention to that region
+only, finding Eskimos who had never seen a white man and starting a
+trading intercourse which led to most of them migrating to the less
+inclement west. His work linked up with that of Scoresby, who in 1822
+charted the main features of the sea-front from 69° to 75°. Ryder,
+seventy years afterwards, filled in the details of much of Scoresby's
+work, and found Eskimos further north, as Clavering had done in 1823,
+when in the _Griper_ during Sabine's observations at Pendulum Island.
+
+[Illustration: THE "GERMANIA" IN THE ICE]
+
+It was to Pendulum Island, in 74° 32´, that Karl Koldewey, after his
+preliminary run to 81° 5´ in 1868, took the _Germania_ to winter during
+the German expedition of 1869. The two vessels, the _Germania_, a small
+two-masted screw steamer of one hundred and forty-three tons, built
+specially for Arctic service, and the _Hansa_, only half her size, which
+had been strengthened for the voyage, reached Jan Mayen on the 9th of
+July, and, hidden from each other by fog, sailed northwards for five
+days. On the fifth evening the wind rose, the fog cleared, and a hundred
+yards in front of them lay the ice like a rugged line of cliffs.
+
+For a few days they sailed along it endeavouring to find an opening to
+the north. Then, on the 20th, the _Germania_ ran up a signal to approach
+and communicate, which was misunderstood, and, instead of repeating it
+and making sure, the _Hansa_ put up her helm, fell off, crowded on all
+sail, and disappeared in the fog. Koldewey, persisting in his efforts to
+get through the pack, found an opening on the 1st of August. Nine days
+afterwards he was again blocked, and finally, on the 27th, he reached
+Pendulum Island, where he made the _Germania_ snug for the winter, which
+proved to be remarkably mild.
+
+The first sledge party travelling up one of the fiords met with abundant
+vegetation and herds of reindeer and musk oxen, and were visited by
+bears who had not learnt to be wary of man; and when the bears came back
+with the sun in February they were as troublesome as those of Ice Haven
+to the Dutchmen. Several sledge parties went out in the spring, and,
+notwithstanding inadequate equipment, did excellent work. In April,
+1870, Koldewey reached 77° 1´, almost up to Lambert Land, otherwise the
+Land of Edam. Here, looking out over the ice-belt, they agreed that it
+was "a bulwark built for eternity," and hoisting sails on their sledges
+they ran back to the ship. But in 1905 the Duke of Orleans arrived on
+the coast to reach 78° 16´ and discover that their Cape Bismarck was on
+an island and their Dove Bay a strait.
+
+In the neighbourhood of their winter quarters the glaciers and mountains
+were well explored, and an attempt was made to measure an arc of the
+meridian, which proved to be rather rough work among such surroundings.
+The snowstorms were particularly pitiless and heavy, and the travelling
+decidedly bad. The thaw began about the middle of May, and there was
+more sledging through pools than usual, so that they did not want
+variety in their occupations. On the 14th of July boating became
+practicable, and a voyage was made to the Eskimo village found by
+Clavering in 1823, on the island named after him, but the village proved
+to be deserted and the huts in ruins—an unwelcome discovery, for, as
+M'Clintock says in reference to it: "It is not less strange than sad to
+find that a peaceable and once numerous tribe, inhabiting a coast-line
+of at least seven degrees of latitude, 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."
+
+[Illustration: THE REGION ROUND MOUNT PETERMANN]
+
+A little north of the seventy-third parallel Koldewey discovered on his
+way home the magnificent Franz Josef Fiord. Here the grandest scenery in
+Greenland is to be found along its deep branches winding among the
+mountains, one of which, Mount Petermann, is over eleven thousand feet
+high. As the _Germania_ entered this remarkable inlet, which extends
+inland for some five degrees of longitude, a fleet of icebergs were
+sailing out of it with the current; the farther she advanced the warmer
+seemed the temperature of the air and surface water, and the wilder and
+more impressive became the grouping of the mighty cliffs and peaks with
+their lofty waterfalls and raging torrents and deep glacier-filled
+ravines. It was the great geographical discovery of the expedition.
+
+Meanwhile Hegemann, trying to pass to the north more to the westward,
+got the _Hansa_ beset on the 9th of September some twenty-four miles
+from Foster Bay. As the ice-pressure threatened to become too great for
+the vessel to resist, an elaborate house was planned and built on the
+floe. Briquettes were used for the walls, the joints were filled up with
+dry snow on which water was poured, and in ten minutes it hardened into
+a compact mass. The house was twenty feet long, fourteen feet wide, and
+four feet eight inches high at the sides, with a rising roof consisting
+of sails and mats covered with deep snow. Into this house, which took a
+week to build, provisions for two months were carried, besides wood and
+fuel. The boats were put out, a flagstaff was set up, and quite a little
+settlement was started on the ice; and no sooner was it completed than a
+violent snowstorm, lasting for five days, buried both the ship and the
+house. The ice increased around, and, the pressure of the accumulation
+lifting the _Hansa_ seventeen feet above her original level, everything
+of value was removed from her on to the ice and into the house. On the
+22nd of October she sank, having drifted below the seventy-first
+parallel; and all through the winter the floe, which was about two miles
+across, leisurely made its way to the south.
+
+Off Knighton Bay Christmas was kept with all possible honour. The
+briquette house was decorated with coloured-paper festoons, and, by the
+light of the sole remaining wax candle, the genial Germans made
+themselves merry around a stubby Christmas tree devised out of an old
+birch broom. Three weeks afterwards the floe cracked beneath the
+dwelling. There was barely time to take refuge, but all hands were saved
+in the boats. For two days they remained in them, poorly sheltered from
+the storm and unable to clear out the snow. Then a smaller house was
+built of the ruins of the old one, but it was only large enough for half
+the party; and as the spring advanced the floe decreased, breaking away
+at the edges as did that on which the _Polaris_ people drifted to
+Labrador.
+
+[Illustration: THE LAST DAYS OF THE "HANSA"]
+
+At the end of March it entered Nukarbik Bay and there it stayed four
+weeks, caught in an eddy, slowly moving round and round just far enough
+from the shore to render an attempt at escape impossible; twice a day
+they went in with the tide and out with the tide, the ice too bad for
+the boats and never promising enough for a dash to the land. Having
+become thoroughly acquainted with this portion of the coast with its
+bold range of hills, its deep bays, its inlets, headlands, and islands,
+a storm came on which cleared them out of the eddy and drove them
+further south. Three weeks after that the floe had become so diminished
+by the lashing of the surge that it was hardly a hundred yards across,
+and large fragments were slipping off every hour.
+
+They had been on it for two hundred days and drifted eleven hundred
+miles when, on the 7th of May, water-lanes opening shorewards, they took
+to the boats and ventured among the masses of ice, making for the south.
+At first they had their difficulties in being compelled to haul up on
+the floes to pass the night or wait for a favourable wind, which meant
+severe work in unloading and reloading. Once during their painful
+progress of more than a month they were kept on a floe for six days by
+gales and snow-showers. Finally, after a long desperate effort, they
+reached Illuilek Island, and thence proceeded close inshore among rocks
+and ice to Frederiksdal, a couple of hours' walk from the southernmost
+point of the Greenland mainland, Cape Farewell being part of an island
+twenty-eight miles further to the south-east. On the 21st of June, eight
+days afterwards, they were at Julianehaab, whence they sailed to be
+landed at Copenhagen on the 1st of September, just ten days before the
+_Germania_ steamed into Bremen. Thus the expedition, by its two
+divisions, ice-borne and ship-borne, had skirted nearly all that was
+then known of the east coast from end to end.
+
+On the north coast, Beaumont's discoveries were extended by Lieutenant
+James B. Lockwood for ninety-five miles, the trend of the shore taking
+him up to 83° 24´, three minutes and thirty-four seconds nearer the
+North Pole than Markham reached out on the sea. This was on the 13th of
+May, 1882, during the ill-fated A. W. Greely expedition. Like most
+American expeditions up to then this began well and ended badly, worse,
+in fact, than any; and unlike them, and all others, it consisted
+entirely of soldiers—as if a detachment of Royal Engineers had been sent
+north on ordnance survey work. It was, however, more miscellaneous, for
+among its twenty-three members were representatives of three cavalry
+regiments, six infantry regiments, and an artilleryman.
+
+This was to be the garrison of the International Circumpolar Station at
+Lady Franklin Bay. The idea of a ring of stations round the Pole for the
+study of the natural phenomena for which the Arctic regions afford so
+wide and important a field was not new, but it was first reduced to
+definiteness and its adoption secured by Karl Weyprecht of the
+Austro-Hungarian expedition of 1872. At a meeting of German scientific
+men at Gratz, in September, 1875, he procured assent to his general
+principle that the best results in Arctic inquiry were to be obtained by
+subordinating geographical discovery to physical investigation. It had
+long been evident that the most valuable results had been obtained by
+the ships and fixed observatories, and that the toilsome work of the
+sledges in their successive approaches by a few more miles towards a
+mathematical point, though most interesting to read about, had really
+been of very little practical use owing to the necessarily light
+equipment. Instead, therefore, of a number of isolated attempts at
+irregular intervals, Weyprecht suggested that the better way would be to
+attack the subject systematically by a group of expeditions at permanent
+stations working together long enough at the same time for their
+observations to be dealt with as part of a general scheme; and the
+suggestion was approved although he did not live long enough to see the
+stations occupied.
+
+[Illustration: GREENLAND]
+
+Three International Polar Conferences were held, in 1879 and the two
+following years, at Hamburg, Berne, and St. Petersburg, at the last of
+which it was arranged that the stations should be fourteen in number,
+two in the south and twelve in the north, these twelve being—(1) The
+Austrian at Jan Mayen; (2) the Danish at Godthaab; (3) the Finnish at
+Sodankyla in Uleaborg; (4) the German at Kingua in Cumberland Sound; (5)
+the British at Fort Rae on the northern arm of the Great Slave Lake; (6)
+the Dutch at Dickson Harbour at the mouth of the Yenesei; (7) the
+Norwegian at Bosekop at the head of Alten Fiord; (8) the Russian at
+Little Karmakul Bay in Novaya Zemlya; (9) the second Russian on Sagastyr
+Island in the Lena Delta; (10) the Swedish at Mossel Bay in Spitsbergen;
+(11) the American at Point Barrow under Lieutenant P. H. Ray, who met
+with marked success and brought his men all home in safety; and (12) the
+second American at Lady Franklin Bay, the winter quarters of H.M.S.
+_Discovery_, which Greely renamed Fort Conger.
+
+In direct opposition to the guiding idea of the scheme, Greely's work
+was complicated by having tacked on to it Howgate's proposal of another
+dash for the Pole, his instructions requiring him to send out "sledging
+parties in the interests of exploration and discovery." Further, his
+expedition was fitted out in a way that almost invited disaster. Let one
+instance suffice. "In speaking of this instrument," he explains, "it is
+necessary to say that a dip-circle was especially made for the Lady
+Franklin Bay Expedition, but it was by error shipped to the United
+States Coast Survey. On calling for it, when the duplicate instrument
+ordered could not be had in time, the late Mr. Carlisle Patterson, then
+Superintendent, promptly promised that it should be sent on to me at New
+York. On the day of my sailing, a dip-circle, carefully boxed, was
+received; but on opening it at St. John, an old, rusty, unreliable
+instrument was found in the place of the new circle. This resulted in
+unsatisfactory and incomplete observations at Conger, for the old circle
+having upright standards instead of transverse ones, as in the new, but
+one end of the needle could be read. It must always be a matter of
+regret that this unwarrantable and unauthorised substitution by some
+person was made, which materially impaired, if not effectually
+destroyed, the value of our two-years' dip-observations." This sort of
+thing reduced International Polar Research to a farce, and the same
+spirit appeared in other departments, more seriously than all in the
+relief proceedings, which were conducted in a way that could only lead
+to starvation.
+
+In August, 1881, the _Proteus_, with the expedition on board, made her
+way up Smith Sound and Kennedy Channel without serious hindrance until
+she entered the south-eastern part of Lady Franklin Bay, where the
+close, heavy pack brought her to a stop within eight miles of her
+destination. She had come seven hundred miles from Upernivik in less
+than a week, and, faced by ice twenty to fifty feet thick, she had to
+wait another seven days before she got into Discovery Harbour. Here the
+party landed and a house was built, and dissension arose which ended in
+one of the company returning in the ship and another endeavouring to do
+so and being too late, so that he had to remain as a sort of tolerated
+volunteer. Two others were sent away as being physically unfit; but,
+making up for these, were two Eskimos engaged at Upernivik.
+
+Preliminary sledging began at once, and in the spring the two great
+efforts were made. The doctor's, towards the Pole, left on the 19th of
+March and got adrift on a floe from which the party escaped with the
+loss of their tent, provisions, and some of their instruments. According
+to Greely's report: "The farthest latitude attained by this party is
+given by Dr. Pavy as 82° 56´, it being estimated, as no observations for
+time, magnetic declination, or latitude were made at any period during
+his absence."
+
+On the 3rd of April, Lockwood with twelve men left for the coast of
+Greenland. Up to Newman Bay four men had been sent back as unfit for
+field-work. On the 16th, when the party started from here for the
+north-east, Lockwood and Christiansen, the Eskimo, were in advance
+hauling about eight hundred pounds with a team of eight dogs, a
+three-men sledge following, and then two two-men sledges; at Cape Bryant
+the men-sledges were sent back, and Lockwood, Brainard, and the Eskimo
+went on with the dog-sledge. Cape Britannia was reached on the 5th of
+May, and on the 13th they camped at Lockwood Island, and there, for the
+first time, Americans reached a farthest north.
+
+"I decided to make this cape my farthest," reported Lockwood, "and to
+devote the little time we could stay to determining accurately my
+position, if the weather would allow, which seemed doubtful. We built a
+large, conspicuous cairn, about six feet high and the same width at the
+base, on the lower of two benches. After repitching the tent Sergeant
+Brainard and I returned to the cairn, and collected in that vicinity
+specimens of the rocks and vegetation of the country, the sergeant
+making almost all the collection. We ascended without difficulty to a
+small fringe of rocks, which seemed from below to form the top. The
+ascent, at first very gradual, became steeper as we went up, but we had
+no difficulty, as for some distance below the summit the surface is
+covered with small stones, as uniform in size, position, etc., as those
+of a macadamised road. Reached the top at 3.45 p.m. and unfurled the
+American flag (Mrs. Greely's) to the breeze in latitude 83° 24´ N.
+(according to last observation). The summit is a small plateau, narrow,
+but extending back to the south to broken, snow-covered heights. It
+commanded a very extended view in every direction. The barometer, being
+out of order, was not brought along, so I did not get the altitude. The
+horizon on the land side was concealed by numberless snow-covered
+mountains, one profile overlapping another, and all so merged together,
+on account of their universal covering of snow, that it was impossible
+to detect the topography of the region. To the north lay an unbroken
+expanse of ice, interrupted only by the horizon."
+
+On Midsummer Day Greely started with a four-wheel wagon to explore
+Grinnell Land. The wagon, in the men's vernacular, was a man-killer, and
+was abandoned after they had dragged it a hundred miles. On this journey
+much exploring work was done in the unknown country, the most
+interesting find being that of the Eskimo house at Lake Hazen. In this,
+according to Greely's description, there were two fireplaces, one in the
+east and the other in the south, both of which had been built outward so
+as to take up no part of the space of the room, which was over seventeen
+feet long and nine feet wide. The sides of the entire dwelling were low
+walls of sodded earth, lined inside with flat thin slates, the tops of
+which were about two feet above the level of the interior floor, and the
+bench was covered with flat slabs of slate. Near by was a smaller house
+of the same character, and around were a large number of relics,
+including walrus-ivory toggles for dog-traces, sledge-bars and runners,
+an arrow head, skinning knife, and articles of worked bone. Next year
+further explorations of the back country were undertaken, so that some
+six thousand miles of the interior were viewed, disclosing many fertile
+valleys with their herds of musk ox.
+
+Meanwhile the _Neptune_, with supplies for Fort Conger, had in August,
+1882, been vainly endeavouring to get north, and, a few miles from Cape
+Hawks, had turned back with the pack piling the ice as high as her rail.
+Six attempts she made before she gave up and retreated, after making
+several deposits of stores at Cape Sabine and elsewhere. In July, 1883,
+the _Proteus_, making a similar attempt to reach Greely, was crushed in
+the ice off Cape Albert, her side opening with a crash while the men
+were working in the hold, the ice forcing its way into the coal-bunkers
+and then pouring in so that as soon as the pressure slackened she went
+down, escape to the south being effected in the boats.
+
+Next year, matters having become serious, a naval expedition consisting
+of the _Thetis_, the _Bear_, and Nares's old ship the _Alert_, presented
+by the British Government, was placed in the capable hands of Commander
+Winfield Schley, who had with him George Melville of _Jeannette_ fame as
+engineer of the _Thetis_, and matters were conducted in quite a
+different way under much more favourable circumstances. Schley intended
+to find Greely, at all costs, and he did so. First he found a cairn at
+Brevoort Island, in which were the papers deposited by Greely relating
+how he had had to come south owing to shortness of supplies, and how his
+party were then—21st of October, 1883—encamped on the west side of a
+small neck of land distant about equally from Cape Sabine and Cocked Hat
+Island.
+
+As it was then the 22nd of June, 1884, and they had had only forty days'
+complete rations to live upon, Schley hurried off at once. Had he been
+two days later he would have been too late. There was a tent wrecked by
+the gale, with its pole toppling over and only kept in place by the guy
+ropes. Ripping it up with a knife, a sight of horror was disclosed. On
+one side, close to the opening, with his head towards the outside, lay
+what was apparently a dead man. On the opposite side was a poor fellow,
+alive but without hands or feet, and with a spoon tied to the stump of
+his right arm. Two others, seated on the ground, were pouring something
+out of a rubber bottle into a tin can. Directly opposite, on his hands
+and knees, was a dark man with a long matted beard, in a dirty and
+tattered dressing-gown with a little red skull cap on his head, and
+brilliant staring eyes. As Colwell appeared, he raised himself a little,
+and put on a pair of eyeglasses.
+
+"Who are you?" asked Colwell.
+
+The man made no answer, staring at him vacantly.
+
+"Who are you?" again.
+
+One of the men spoke up. "That's the Major—Major Greely."
+
+Colwell crawled in and took him by the hand, saying to him, "Greely, is
+this you?"
+
+"Yes," said Greely in a faint, broken voice, hesitating with his words;
+"yes—seven of us left—here we are—dying—like men. Did what I came to
+do—beat the best record."
+
+Near at hand were ten graves. The bodies, despite Greely's
+remonstrances, were taken up and removed for burial in the United
+States. "Little could be seen of the condition of the bodies, as they
+had been clothed, and all that appeared was intact. In preparing them
+subsequently," says Schley, "it was found that six had been cut and the
+flesh removed." One of these, that of a cavalryman serving under the
+assumed name of Henry, had a bullet in it. He had been shot, at Greely's
+written order, "for stealing sealskin thongs, the only remaining food."
+
+The next to add to our knowledge of the northern coast of Greenland was
+Robert E. Peary, of the American Navy, who seems to have devoted his
+life to Arctic exploration. On his first expedition in 1886, he
+penetrated with Maigaard for some distance into the country in the
+neighbourhood of Jakobshavn as a sort of pioneering venture. In 1891,
+accompanied by his wife, when outward bound in the _Kite_ in the
+Melville Bay pack, he had his leg broken. The ship had been butting a
+passage through the spongy sheets of ice which had imprisoned her, when
+in going astern a detached cake struck the rudder, jamming the tiller
+against the wheel-house where Peary was standing, and pinned his leg
+long enough to snap it between the knee and the ankle. In spite of this
+he insisted on being landed with the rest of the party at McCormick Bay,
+a little to the north of Whale Sound, where a house was built and the
+winter spent.
+
+Making a good recovery, he set off in May to sledge across North
+Greenland through snow and over it, and over snow-arched crevasses,
+often, in cloudy weather, travelling in grey space with nothing visible
+beyond a foot or two around him. After fifty-seven days' journey to the
+north-east and along Peary Channel, the northern boundary of the
+mainland, he left the inland ice for a strange country dotted with
+snowdrifts and mostly of red sandstone, in which murmuring streams,
+roaring waterfalls, and the song of snow-buntings formed an agreeable
+change from the silence of the desert of snow. Four days' hard labouring
+through this brought him on the 4th of July to Independence Bay on the
+north-east coast, where from Navy Cliff, nearly four thousand feet high,
+he looked across to Academy Land on the other side of the bay and beyond
+it over the region leading down to the farthest north of the Duke of
+Orleans. "It was almost impossible," he says, "to believe that we were
+standing upon the northern shore of Greenland as we gazed from the
+summit of this bronze cliff, with the most brilliant sunshine all about
+us, with yellow poppies growing between the rocks around our feet, and a
+herd of muskoxen in the valley behind us. Down in that valley I had
+found an old friend, a dandelion in bloom, and had seen the bullet-like
+flight and heard the energetic buzz of the humble-bee."
+
+[Illustration: R. E. Peary, U. S. N.]
+
+Next year he and his wife were out again to take up their quarters at a
+house they built at Bowdoin Bay, where, in September, their daughter was
+born. In March, 1894, he started for another journey across Greenland,
+with twelve sledges and over ninety dogs, but severe weather drove him
+back after travelling some two hundred miles. Staying over that winter
+instead of returning in the _Falcon_, he set out in the spring, and
+under almost desperate circumstances managed to reach and return from
+Independence Bay.
+
+Following this came his expedition of 1898, in which he spent four
+winters in the Arctic regions and almost met with Petersen's fate by a
+venturesome winter sledge journey, which resulted in the freezing of his
+feet and the loss of eight of his toes. Travelling in Grinnell Land he
+proved beyond doubt that it was continuous with Ellesmere Land, as had
+been admitted by those who named it. Following Lockwood's track, he
+continued it up to 83° 54´, along Hazen Land, practically completing the
+coast-line to Cape Henry Parish, its furthest east, thus rounding the
+north of the Greenland archipelago, and even there finding traces of
+Eskimos and a fauna similar to that of other Arctic lands hundreds of
+miles further south. And striking northwards over the sea from Cape
+Hecla, with seven men and six dog-sledges, into the breaking, drifting
+pack, he made a dash for the Pole which ended at 84° 17´.
+
+His next northern venture, though not more remarkable, is destined,
+perhaps, to be remembered longer. On it he sighted the new land away out
+in the sea north-west of Grinnell Land, nearer to the Pole than any
+other land discovered up to then, and where it was expected to be. And
+out over the ice he went to eclipse his 1902 record by nearly two
+hundred miles, in the best planned of all his journeys.
+
+In July, 1905, he had left New York in the _Roosevelt_, a steamship of
+over six hundred tons and more than a thousand horse-power, rigged
+complete as a three-masted coasting schooner, able to hold her own
+almost anywhere in the event of her engines becoming useless. One
+hundred and eighty-two feet in length, thirty-five and a half in beam,
+and sixteen and a quarter in depth; sharp in the bow and rounded
+amidships; treble in framing and double in planking, with sides thirty
+inches thick, twelve feet of deadwood in her bow, and six feet of false
+keels and kelsons, she was specially built for the expedition as the
+strongest and most powerful vessel ever sent on Arctic service, and was
+launched on the 23rd of May, 1905, Mrs. Peary naming her by smashing a
+block of ice against her ironclad stem.
+
+A month out from New York, the _Roosevelt_ left Etah laden deep with
+coal from the _Eric_ that had awaited her there, and having on board
+over fifty Eskimos, of both sexes and all sizes, and some two hundred
+Eskimo dogs. Leaving a reserve of provisions at Bache Peninsula, she
+worked up through open water and occasional ice to Richardson Bay, where
+the pack looked so threatening that Peary literally rammed his way
+across to the eastern side, and so continued northwards. When off Cape
+Lupton the ship received such rough treatment that the rudder was
+twisted and the head-bands and tiller-rods broken, as she ground along
+the face of the ice-foot "with a motion and noise like that of a
+railway-car which has left the rails"; but this was the only time she
+was in serious danger during her most fortunate run. Resting for six
+days in Newman Bay to repair damages and make ready for a final effort,
+she was headed westward to Grinnell Land through the floes, and after a
+continuous battle of thirty-five hours, reached the ice-foot at Cape
+Sheridan, a little north of the old winter quarters of the _Alert_, and
+found her wintering place, like her, just as the Polar pack closed in
+against the shore. The endeavour had been to lay up in Porter Bay,
+twenty-seven miles further north, but the state of the ice made this
+impossible.
+
+Provisions were plentiful, as no less than two hundred and fifty musk
+oxen had been shot by the 1st of November, and there were numbers of
+hares and several herds of the white reindeer first mentioned by Hudson
+in his second voyage three hundred years ago. During the very mild
+winter eighty of the dogs died, and when sledging began only twenty
+teams of six each were available. The plan of the northern advance over
+the ice was to divide it into sections of about fifty miles each, with
+snow houses at each station, the nearest station being supplied from the
+base and supplying the next, and so on, thus keeping up an unbroken line
+of communication gradually extending nearer to the Pole, the sledges
+working backwards and forwards, outwards laden and inwards empty,
+between station and station along the line.
+
+The land was left at Point Moss, north-west of Cape Joseph Henry. At 84°
+38´ a lead in the pack stopped the way for six days until the young ice
+was thick enough to bear, and forty miles further north the vanguard
+drifted east some seventy miles during a storm for another six days. On
+the 20th of April a region of much open water was reached, and from
+midnight to noon next day the last effort was made by Peary, Henson, and
+a small party of Eskimos, the farthest north, 87° 6´, being attained and
+immediately left in a rapid retreat for safety.
+
+Thus Peary went nearer to the Pole than Cagni by thirty-two minutes or
+thirty-seven statute miles, both being stopped by water with apparently
+similar conditions ahead of them. What the conditions may be along the
+intervening two hundred miles from Peary's farthest nobody knows; but
+although a good many things may happen between London and York, which is
+about the same distance, there is good reason for supposing that, even
+if there be land somewhere, the road is over a sea more or less packed
+with ice which is never without its channels.
+
+One thing is clear: the attainment of the Pole is a matter of money.
+Given the funds, the men and the dogs, and the ships, boats, sledges,
+and other things will be forthcoming, and the journey accomplished, not
+by a rush, but on some systematic station-to-station plan; though it is
+not impossible that it may be done by chance in some exceptional year,
+for the climate of the north is variable and has a wider range of
+temperature than that of Britain in its good years and its bad years.
+
+Let us hope there may be land at the exact spot, for then the position
+can be checked at leisure, and there will be no doubt of its having been
+reached. Joseph Moxon, Hydrographer to the King, in 1652 met at
+Amsterdam a sailor of a Greenland ship which "went not out to fish that
+summer, but only to take in the lading of the whole fleet to bring it to
+an early market"—in other words, to act as a carrier—which ship, before
+the whaling fleet had caught enough to lade her, had by order of the
+Company sailed to the North Pole and back again, and even two degrees
+beyond it; no land seen, no ice, and the weather as it was in
+summer-time at Amsterdam.
+
+A sailor's yarn told in a tavern? Only this and nothing more, perhaps;
+though a good many things were kept dark in the whaling trade as in
+other trades. But if there had been an island at the Pole we might
+eventually have been able to verify that ancient mariner's tale.
+
+
+
+
+                                 INDEX
+
+
+ Abruzzi, Duke of, The, 76
+
+ Academy Land, 281
+
+ Actinia Haven, 87
+
+ _Advance_, The, 183, 236
+
+ _Aid_, The, 218, 219
+
+ Akaitcho, 150, 156, 160
+
+ Alaska, 134
+
+ Aldrich, Pelham, 255
+
+ _Alert_, H.M.S., 248, 278
+
+ _Alexander_, The, 179
+
+ Alexander, Cape, 234, 235
+
+ Alexandra Land, 75
+
+ _Alexandria_, H.M.S., 179
+
+ Alfred Ernest, Cape, 257
+
+ Ameralik Fiord, 261
+
+ America, The Norse discovery of, 3
+
+ Amundsen, Roald, 178, 214
+
+ _Ancylonema nordenskioeldii_, 264
+
+ Anderson Falls, The, 163
+
+ Andrée, S. A., 104
+
+ Anjou, P. F., 108
+
+ _Ann Frances_, The, 220
+
+ Antelope, 126
+
+ Archangel, 6
+
+ Archer, Colin, 91
+
+ Archer Fiord, 250, 257
+
+ Archer, R., 257
+
+ _Arctic_, The, 247
+
+ Arctic Search Expedition, The first, 7
+
+ _Assistance_, H.M.S., 183, 184
+
+ Atlassof, 128
+
+ Augustus the Eskimo, 157, 159, 160
+
+ Auk, Cape, 69
+
+ Auleitsivik Fiord, 263
+
+ Aurora Borealis, The, 67
+
+ Austin, Horatio, 183
+
+ Austria Sound, 68
+
+ Avigait, 264
+
+
+ Baal's River, 260
+
+ Back, George, 38, 149, 151, 156, 160, 203
+
+ Baden-Powell, Sir George, 105
+
+ Baffin, William, 15, 233
+
+ Baffin Land, 233
+
+ Banks Land, 172, 176, 182
+
+ Baranoff Cape, 85
+
+ Barents Bay, 49
+
+ Barents, Willem, 9, 49
+
+ Barnacle Goose, The, 12
+
+ Barren Grounds, The, 156, 159
+
+ Barrington, The Hon. Daines, 29
+
+ Barrow Point, 137, 167, 273
+
+ Barrow, Sir John, 178
+
+ Barrow Strait, 180
+
+ Bathurst Island, 180, 206
+
+ Bear, Black, 110
+
+ Bear Island, 12
+
+ Bear, Polar, 11, 12, 23, 27, 28, 52, 73, 74, 88, 99, 186, 238, 267
+
+ _Bear_, The, 278
+
+ Beaufort Sea, The, 173
+
+ Beaumont, Lewis Anthony, 257
+
+ Beechey, Cape, 159
+
+ Beechey, Frederick William, 35, 137
+
+ Beechey Island, 180, 183, 186, 206
+
+ Belanger, 151
+
+ Belcher, Edward, 184
+
+ Bellot, Joseph René, 183, 207
+
+ Bellot Strait, 197
+
+ Bennet, Stephen, 12
+
+ Bennett Island, 107, 117, 126
+
+ Bering Strait, 85, 127
+
+ Bering, Veit, 130
+
+ Berry, Captain, 141
+
+ Bessels, Emil, 245
+
+ Best, George, 220
+
+ Best's Bulwark, 219
+
+ Bille, Cape, 262
+
+ Bird Cape, 12
+
+ Birds, 12, 88, 113, 114, 141, 160, 172, 181, 228, 239, 258, 280
+
+ Bismarck, Cape, 268
+
+ Bjarni discovers America, 2
+
+ Bjelkof Island, 107
+
+ _Blossom_, H.M.S., 137
+
+ Boat Extreme, 167
+
+ Bolscheretzkoi, 131
+
+ _Bona Confidentia_, The, 5
+
+ _Bona Esperanza_, The, 5
+
+ Booth, Felix, 194
+
+ Boothia, 190
+
+ Borough, Steven, 6
+
+ Borough, William, 8
+
+ Bosekop, 273
+
+ Bounty Cape, 180
+
+ Bowdoin Bay, 281
+
+ Bowen, Port, 193
+
+ Bradley, Thomas, 4
+
+ Brainard, D. L., 276
+
+ Brattelid, 261
+
+ Brentford Bay, 197, 207
+
+ British Channel, 75, 99
+
+ Brorok, Cape, 82
+
+ Brown, Robert, 265
+
+ Brunel, Olivier, 9
+
+ Brunn, Mount, 71
+
+ Buchan, David, 33, 157
+
+ Buchan Island, 211
+
+ Buddington, J. M., 245
+
+ Bulun, 124
+
+ Bunge, A., 126
+
+ Burrough Strait, 7
+
+ Bush, Henry, 129
+
+ Butcher's Island, 217
+
+ Byam Martin Island, 180
+
+ Bylot, Robert, 233
+
+
+ Cabot, Sebastian, 4, 5
+
+ Cagni, Umberto, 77, 284
+
+ Cambridge Bay, 177
+
+ Camden Bay, 177
+
+ _Carcass_, H.M.S., 29
+
+ Carlsen, Elling, 44, 58
+
+ Carlsen, Olaf, 65
+
+ _Castor_, The (boat), 166
+
+ Castor and Pollux River, 169, 208
+
+ Cathay Company, The, 218
+
+ Catherine, The Empress, 130
+
+ Cator, Lieutenant, 183
+
+ Cavendish thermometer, The, 30
+
+ Chamisso Island, 138
+
+ Chancellor, Richard, 5
+
+ Char, 44, 258
+
+ Charing Cross, 220
+
+ Charles's Foreland, Prince, 14
+
+ Chelagskoi, Cape, 108
+
+ Chelyuskin, Cape, 84
+
+ Cherie Island, 12
+
+ Chippewyan, Fort, 147, 152, 166
+
+ Christian Land, King, 185
+
+ Chukches, The, 89, 115, 127
+
+ Chvoinof, 106
+
+ Clavering Island, 268
+
+ Clerke, Charles, 136
+
+ _Clio borealis_, 268
+
+ Coal, 45, 249, 258
+
+ Collinson, Richard, 171, 175
+
+ Columbia, Cape, 257
+
+ Columbus visits Iceland, 3
+
+ Colwell, J. C., 279
+
+ Commander Islands, The, 135
+
+ Conferences, The Polar, 273
+
+ Confidence, Fort, 167
+
+ Conger, Fort, 273
+
+ Constitution, Cape, 236
+
+ Conway, William Martin, 47
+
+ Cook, James, 90, 136
+
+ Cookery-of-Haarlem, 25
+
+ Coppermine River, 147, 153, 159, 167
+
+ Cornwall, North, 185
+
+ Cornwallis Island, 180, 206
+
+ Coronation Gulf, 155
+
+ Countess of Warwick Island, 219, 222
+
+ Crow's Nest, The, 30
+
+ Crozier, F. R. M., 205, 212
+
+ Cumberland Gulf, 227
+
+
+ Dall, W. H., 142
+
+ Danes Island, 104
+
+ Danish Sound, 185
+
+ Davis, John, 9, 223
+
+ Davis Strait, 227
+
+ Dealy Island, 174, 180
+
+ Dease, Peter Warren, 158, 165
+
+ Dease River, 158, 159
+
+ Dease Strait, 168
+
+ Dee, Dr. John, 223
+
+ De Haven, Lieutenant, 183
+
+ De Long, G. W., 116
+
+ Deschnef, 85
+
+ Des Vœux, C. F., 212
+
+ Devon, North, 180
+
+ _Diana_, The, 44
+
+ Dickson Harbour, 85, 273
+
+ _Discovery_, H.M.S. (Cook), 136
+
+ _Discovery_, H.M.S. (Nares), 248
+
+ _Discovery_, The (Hudson), 233
+
+ Discovery Harbour, 250
+
+ Distillation apparatus, The, 30
+
+ _Dolphin_, The (boat), 157, 158
+
+ Dolphin and Union Strait, 159
+
+ _Dorothea_, H.M.S., 33
+
+ Dove Bay, 268
+
+ Drummond, Thomas, 157, 160
+
+ Dudley, Ambrose, 216
+
+ Dudley Digges Cape, 234
+
+ Durfourth, Captain, 5
+
+ Dyer, Cape, 227
+
+
+ East Cape, 132
+
+ Ebierbing and Tookoolito, 244
+
+ Edam, Land of, 268
+
+ Edge, Thomas, 15
+
+ Edge's Island, 15
+
+ _Edward Bonaventure_, The, 5
+
+ Egede, Hans, 259
+
+ Egede, Paul, 260
+
+ _Eira_, The, 72
+
+ _Elizabeth_, The, 232
+
+ _Ellen_, The, 231
+
+ Ellesmere Land, 235, 281
+
+ Ellis, John, 225
+
+ Elmwood, 103
+
+ Elson, Thomas, 137, 159
+
+ Elson Bay, 137
+
+ _Endeavour_, The (boat), 41
+
+ English Chief, 147
+
+ Entada bean, The, 44
+
+ Enterprise, Fort, 150
+
+ _Enterprise_, H.M.S., 171, 175
+
+ _Enterprise_, The (boat), 41
+
+ _Erebus_, H.M.S., 171, 183, 205
+
+ _Eric_, The, 283
+
+ Eric the Red, 2, 261
+
+ Ermine, 188
+
+ Eskimo relics, 277
+
+ Eskimos first met with, 217
+
+ Eskimos, Migration of the, 3
+
+ Eskimos, 3, 139, 140, 145, 152, 154, 157, 158, 159, 167, 168, 176, 192,
+    198, 200, 207, 211, 217, 222, 225, 229, 237, 244, 246, 258, 260,
+    277, 282, 283
+
+ Etah, 283
+
+ Evensen, Captain, 83
+
+ Exeter Sound, 227
+
+ _Express_, The, 87
+
+
+ _Falcon_, The, 281
+
+ Farewell, Cape, 271
+
+ Fedotof, 129
+
+ Felix Harbour, 197
+
+ _Felix_, The, 182
+
+ Fern, The first Spitsbergen, 43
+
+ Finlay Island, 185
+
+ Finlayson Islands, 177
+
+ Fish River, The Great, 160, 169
+
+ Fishes, 153, 176, 258
+
+ FitzJames, James, 212
+
+ Fligely, Cape, 70, 76
+
+ Floeberg Beach, 250
+
+ Flora, Cape, 72, 75, 103
+
+ Forsyth, C. C., 183
+
+ Fossils, 43, 107, 126, 173, 266
+
+ Foulke Harbour, 239
+
+ Fox, Arctic, 23, 53
+
+ Fox, Black, 144
+
+ Fox, Silver-grey, 144
+
+ _Fox_, The, 208
+
+ _Fram_, The, 91, 185
+
+ Franklin, Fort, 158
+
+ Franklin, John, 33, 149, 156, 195, 205
+
+ Franklin, Lady, 209, 235
+
+ Franklin Record, The, 212
+
+ Franklin Strait, 206
+
+ Franz Josef Fiord, 269
+
+ Franz Josef Land, 62, 64
+
+ _Fraser_, The, 87
+
+ Frazer, Cape, 236
+
+ Frederick Jackson Island, 99
+
+ Frederiksdal, 271
+
+ Frobisher Bay, 216
+
+ Frobisher, Martin, 215
+
+ Frozen Strait, 190
+
+ Fur-seal, The, 135
+
+ Fury Beach, 193, 202
+
+ Fury and Hecla Strait, 193
+
+ _Fury_, H.M.S., 191
+
+
+ _Gabriel_, The (Bering), 132
+
+ _Gabriel_, (Frobisher), 216, 218
+
+ Gabriel Islands, The, 221
+
+ Gardiner, Charles, 59
+
+ Garry, Fort, 165
+
+ _George_, The, 8
+
+ _Germania_, The, 267
+
+ Gibraltar Bay, Battle of, 58
+
+ Giffard, G. A., 255
+
+ Gilbert, Adrian, 223, 229
+
+ Gilbert, Humphrey, 215, 221
+
+ Gilbert Sound, 225
+
+ Gjöa, The, 214
+
+ Gjöahaven, 214
+
+ Glaciers, 16, 46, 68, 189, 242, 237, 244, 264
+
+ _Glow-worm_, The, 59
+
+ Godfrey, William, 236
+
+ Godthaab, 91, 225, 273
+
+ Godthaab Fiord, 260
+
+ Gore, Graham, 206, 212
+
+ Graah, W. A., 266
+
+ Graham Island, 185
+
+ Greely, A. W., 272
+
+ Greenland, 2, 14, 259
+
+ Greenland Archipelago, The, 282
+
+ Greenland, East, 12
+
+ _Greyhound_, The, 10
+
+ Griffith Island, 180
+
+ Grinnell Land, 236, 277, 281
+
+ _Griper_, H.M.S., 179, 202, 267
+
+ Gulf Stream, The, 13, 26, 44
+
+ Gundersen, Captain, 59
+
+ Gunnbiörn discovers Greenland, 2
+
+
+ Hakluyt Headland, 14
+
+ Hall Basin, 245
+
+ Hall, C. F., 213, 222, 244
+
+ Hall, Christopher, 216
+
+ Hall, James, 233
+
+ Hall Island, 68
+
+ Hall's Rest, 246
+
+ Hamilton, Cape, 174
+
+ Hans Hendrik, 237, 245, 249
+
+ _Hansa_, The, 267
+
+ Hare, 172, 176, 181, 186, 188, 283
+
+ Hare Fiord, 186
+
+ Hartstene Bay, 241
+
+ Hayes, I. I., 237
+
+ Hazen, Lake, 277
+
+ Hazen Land, 281
+
+ Hearne, Samuel, 147
+
+ Hecla, Cape, 282
+
+ _Hecla_, H.M.S., 40, 179, 191
+
+ Hedenström, 107
+
+ Heemskerck, Jacob van, 10, 49
+
+ Heer, Oswald, 266
+
+ Hegemann, Captain, 269
+
+ Heiberg Land, Axel, 185
+
+ Helluland, 3
+
+ Hendon, North, 197
+
+ Hendrik, Hans, 237, 245, 249
+
+ Hendriksen Sound, 185
+
+ Henrietta Island, 107
+
+ Henson, C., 284
+
+ Hepburn, John, 156, 207
+
+ _Herald_, H.M.S., 138
+
+ Herald Island, 116, 141
+
+ Herschel, Cape, 169, 212
+
+ Himkoff, Alexis, 26
+
+ Hinlopen Strait, 17
+
+ Hobson, W. R., 208, 212
+
+ Hohenlohe Island, 68
+
+ Hood River, The, 155
+
+ Hood, Robert, 149
+
+ Hooper, William Hulme, 140
+
+ Hope, Fort, 204
+
+ _Hope_, The (Young), 75
+
+ _Hope_, The (Egede), 260
+
+ Howgate, H. W., 274
+
+ Hudson Bay, 62
+
+ Hudson, Henry, 13, 15, 60
+
+ Hudson River, The, 61
+
+ Hudson Strait, 4, 62, 221, 232
+
+ Hudson's Bay Company, The, 146
+
+ Hudson's Touches, 14
+
+ Humboldt Glacier, The, 237
+
+ Hyaqua shell, The, 145
+
+
+ Icebergs, 35, 230, 264
+
+ Ice-drill, The, 30
+
+ Ice Haven, 49
+
+ Iceland, 2
+
+ Icy Cape, 136, 137
+
+ Igloolik, 193
+
+ Igloos, 198, 211
+
+ Ikmallik, 200
+
+ Independence Bay, 280
+
+ Inglefield, E. A., 235
+
+ Ingolf lands in Iceland, 2
+
+ Insects, 192, 281
+
+ International Polar Stations, The, 272
+
+ _Intrepid_, H.M.S., 183
+
+ _Investigator_, H.M.S., 171
+
+ Irkaipii, 89, 136
+
+ Irving, John, 212, 213
+
+ _Isabel_, The, 235
+
+ Isabella, Cape, 235
+
+ _Isabella_, The, 179, 202
+
+ Isachsen, Cape, 186
+
+ _Isbjörn_, The, 64
+
+
+ Jackman, Charles, 8, 60
+
+ Jackson, Frederick G., 75, 103
+
+ Jakobshavn, 266, 280
+
+ Jan Mayen, 14, 273
+
+ Japanese, The, 129, 133
+
+ _Jason_, The, 261
+
+ _Jeannette_, The, 91, 116, 141
+
+ Jeannette Island, 107
+
+ Jenkinson, Anthony, 7, 215
+
+ Jesup Land, 185
+
+ Joe and Hannah, 244
+
+ Johansen, F. H., 96
+
+ _John_, The, 196
+
+ Jones Sound, 234
+
+ Joseph Henry, Cape, 284
+
+ Journal, The, introduced, 5
+
+ _Judith_, The, 219
+
+ Julianehaab, 266
+
+
+ Kalutunah, 237
+
+ Kamchatka, 129
+
+ Kane, E. K., 236
+
+ Kane Sea, The, 235
+
+ Kara Sea, The, 7
+
+ Karmakul Bay, 273
+
+ Kay, E. C. Lister, 59
+
+ Kellett, Henry, 138, 174, 184
+
+ Kendall, E. N., 156
+
+ Kennedy Channel, 236
+
+ Kennedy, Port, 211
+
+ Kennedy, William, 183, 207
+
+ King, Richard, 160
+
+ Kingua, 273
+
+ King William Land, 163, 214
+
+ _Kite_, The, 280
+
+ Knight, John, 146
+
+ Kod-lun-arn, 223
+
+ Kola, 9, 12, 57
+
+ Koldewey, Karl, 267
+
+ Kolguiev, 8
+
+ Kolyuchin Bay, 90
+
+ Kompakova, The, 129
+
+ Kotelnoi Island, 106, 117
+
+ Kraechoj, 127
+
+ _Krusenstern_, The, 196
+
+ Kruzof Island, 134
+
+ Ku Mark Surka, 122
+
+ Kuriles, The, 133
+
+ Kutchins, The, 145
+
+
+ Labrador, Discovery of, 4
+
+ Labrets, 145
+
+ Lady Franklin, 183
+
+ Lady Franklin Bay, 250, 272
+
+ Lambert Land, 268
+
+ Lamont, James, 44
+
+ Lancaster Sound, 179, 180, 234
+
+ Lands Lokk, 186
+
+ Laptef, Dmitri, 85
+
+ Laptef, Khariton, 84
+
+ Leif lands in America, 3
+
+ Lemming, 188
+
+ _Lena_, The, 87
+
+ Lena Delta, The, 106
+
+ Liakhoff, 89, 106
+
+ Liakhoff Island, 89, 126
+
+ Lichens, 156
+
+ Lifeboat Cove, 247
+
+ Linschoten, Van, 10
+
+ _Lion_, The (boat), 157, 158
+
+ Little Table Island, 41
+
+ Lock, Michael, 61, 216
+
+ Lockwood, James B., 272, 275
+
+ Lockwood Island, 276
+
+ Log, The, introduced, 5
+
+ Long, G. W. De, 116
+
+ Long, Thomas, 141
+
+ Loschkin, S., 62
+
+ Louis Napoleon, Cape, 235
+
+ Ludlow, 62
+
+ Lunar at sea, The first, 17
+
+ Lundstrom, 85
+
+ Lütke, 63
+
+ Lutwidge, Skeffington, 29
+
+ Lyon, George Francis, 191, 202
+
+
+ Mackenzie, Alexander, 147
+
+ Mackenzie River, Discovery of, 148
+
+ Macintoshes, The first, 157
+
+ M'Clintock, F. L., 184, 208, 248, 268
+
+ M'Clintock, Cape, 99
+
+ M'Clure, Robert Le M., 171, 177
+
+ McCormick Bay, 280
+
+ McKay, James, 161
+
+ _Magnet_, The (boat), 204
+
+ Magnetic North Pole, 214
+
+ Mahlemut labret, The, 145
+
+ Mammals, Fossil, 126
+
+ Mammoth, 107, 115, 126
+
+ Markham, A. H., 247, 249
+
+ Markland, 3
+
+ Marten skins, 144
+
+ Martens, F., 25
+
+ Mary Harmsworth, Cape, 75
+
+ _Mary Margaret_, The, 15
+
+ Matiuschkin, 108
+
+ _Matthew_, The, 4
+
+ Matty Island, 201
+
+ Matyushin Shar, 60
+
+ May, William H., 256
+
+ Melville Bay, 234
+
+ Melville, G. W., 117
+
+ Melville Island, 174, 176, 180
+
+ Melville Peninsula, 192, 205
+
+ Merchant Adventurers, The, 5
+
+ _Mercury_, The, 9
+
+ Mercy Bay, 174
+
+ _Mermaid_, The, 229
+
+ Meta Incognita, 219
+
+ _Michael_, The, 216
+
+ Middendorf Glacier, The, 68
+
+ Middleton, Christopher, 190
+
+ Mistaken Streight, 221
+
+ Moloi, 106
+
+ Montreal Island, 162, 169, 206, 212
+
+ Moons, Mock, 151
+
+ _Moonshine_, The, 224, 229
+
+ Moore, Thomas E. L., 138
+
+ Moose-hunting, 144
+
+ Moravians, The, 261
+
+ Morton, William, 236, 245
+
+ Moss, E. L., 254
+
+ Moss Point, 284
+
+ Mossel Bay, 44, 45, 273
+
+ Moxon, Joseph, 285
+
+ Murchison, Cape, 197
+
+ Murchison River, 208
+
+ Muscovy Company, The, 6, 13, 15, 17, 60, 233
+
+ Musk ox, 126, 172, 181, 188, 248, 267, 283
+
+
+ Nai, Cornelis, 9
+
+ _Nancy Dawson_, The, 139
+
+ Nansen, Fridtjof, 91, 261
+
+ Nares, G. S., 248
+
+ Narwhal, 31, 188, 219
+
+ Nassau, Cape, 9
+
+ Navy Cliff, 280
+
+ Nelson, Horatio, 29
+
+ _Neptune_, The, 277
+
+ Newfoundland, Discovery of, 4
+
+ Newman Bay, 283
+
+ New Siberian Islands, The, 88, 106
+
+ Nindemann, 118
+
+ Nordenskiöld, Adolf Erik, 43, 44, 85, 263
+
+ Noros, 118
+
+ Norsemen discover America, 2
+
+ Northbrook Island, 100
+
+ North Cape, The, 6, 89, 136
+
+ North East Land, 26
+
+ North-East Passage, The, 5, 85
+
+ Northern Passage, The, 5
+
+ _North Pole_, The (boat), 204
+
+ North Pole, Magnetic, 214
+
+ _North Star_, The, 229
+
+ North Water, The, 234
+
+ North-West Fur Company, The, 147
+
+ North-West Passage, The, 5
+
+ Norton Sound, 142
+
+ Nova Kholmogory, 9
+
+ Novaya Zemlya, 7, 9, 49
+
+ Nulato, 142
+
+ Ny Herrnhut, 261
+
+
+ Obi, The, 85
+
+ Observation, Mount, 172
+
+ Ochotsk, 129
+
+ Ommanney, Erasmus, 183
+
+ Omoki, The, 115
+
+ Ooligbuck the Eskimo, 157, 158, 168
+
+ Oraefa, Mount, 2
+
+ Orleans, Duke of, 268
+
+ Osborn, Sherard, 183
+
+ Ostiaks, The, 115
+
+ _Otaria_, The, 105
+
+
+ Pachtussoff, 63
+
+ _Pandora_, The, 116
+
+ Parhelia, 152
+
+ Parker Bay, 171
+
+ Parr, Alfred A. C., 255
+
+ Parry, William Edward, 40, 178, 179, 191, 234
+
+ Parry Falls, The, 163
+
+ _Patience_, The, 233
+
+ Patrick Island, Prince, 174, 184
+
+ Pavy, O., 275
+
+ Payer, Julius, 64
+
+ Peary Channel, 280
+
+ Peary, Robert E., 185, 186, 280
+
+ Peel Sound, 206
+
+ Pellham, Edward, 18
+
+ Pelly Bay, 207
+
+ Pelly Point, 171
+
+ Pendulum Island, 267
+
+ Penny Strait, 206
+
+ Penny, William, 183
+
+ Pet, Arthur, 7, 60
+
+ Pet Strait, 8
+
+ Peter the Great, 130
+
+ Petermann Fiord, 248
+
+ Petermann, Mount, 269
+
+ Petersen Bay, 214
+
+ Petersen, C., 208
+
+ Petropaulovsk, 134
+
+ Phipps, The Hon. Constantine John, 29
+
+ Pim, Bedford, 174
+
+ _Pioneer_, H.M.S., 183
+
+ Plants, 43, 88, 91, 113, 114, 156, 192, 248, 264, 266, 281
+
+ _Plover_, H.M.S., 138
+
+ Point Lake, 153
+
+ Point Victory, 206
+
+ Polar Stations, The International, 272, 273
+
+ _Polaris_, The, 245
+
+ _Polhem_, The, 44
+
+ _Pollux_, The (boat), 166
+
+ Poole, Jonas, 13, 15
+
+ Porcupine River, The, 142
+
+ Pospeloff, 62
+
+ Pribylov Islands, The, 135
+
+ _Prince Albert_, The, 183, 207
+
+ Prince of Wales, Cape, 136
+
+ Prince of Wales Strait, 172, 176
+
+ _Proeven_, The, 85
+
+ Pronchistschef, 85
+
+ _Proteus_, The, 274, 278
+
+ _Protococcus nivalis_, 192
+
+ Prudhoe Land, 234
+
+ Pullen, W. J. S., 139
+
+
+ Quennerstedt, A., 43
+
+
+ _Racehorse_, H.M.S., 29
+
+ _Racer_, The, 183
+
+ Rae, Fort, 273
+
+ Rae, John, 170, 204, 207
+
+ Rae Strait, 208, 214
+
+ Raleigh, Mount, 227
+
+ Rat River, The, 142
+
+ _Ravenscraig_, The, 247
+
+ Rawlings Bay, 241
+
+ Rawson, Wyatt, 257
+
+ Red snow, 192
+
+ Regent Inlet, Prince, 180
+
+ _Regina_, The, 59
+
+ Reikjavik founded, 2
+
+ Reindeer, 10, 18, 23, 27, 28, 60, 109, 150, 169, 172, 174, 176, 181,
+    188, 267, 283
+
+ Reindeer, White, 61, 283
+
+ Reliance, Fort, 160
+
+ _Reliance_, The (boat), 158
+
+ Rensselaer Harbour, 235, 236
+
+ Repulse Bay, 191, 204, 207
+
+ _Resolute_, H.M.S., 175, 183, 184
+
+ _Resolution_, H.M.S., 136
+
+ _Resolution_, The (whaler), 31
+
+ Return Reef, 159, 166
+
+ Rhinoceros, 126
+
+ Richardson, John, 149, 156, 170
+
+ Richthofen Peak, 71
+
+ Rijp, Jan Corneliszoon, 11, 57
+
+ Ringnes Islands, The, 185
+
+ Ritenbenk, 249
+
+ Robeson Channel, 245
+
+ Rocky Mountains first crossed, 149
+
+ _Rodgers_, The, 141
+
+ _Roosevelt_, The, 282
+
+ Rosmysslof, 62
+
+ Ross, James Clark, 41, 181, 201
+
+ Ross, John, 179, 182, 194, 234
+
+ Rudolf Island, Prince, 75, 76, 82
+
+ Hudson's Point, 14
+
+ Russell, Cape, 235
+
+ Ryder, Lieut., 266
+
+
+ Sabine, Edward, 181, 267
+
+ Sabine, Cape, 235
+
+ Sable, The, 135
+
+ Sagastyr Island, 273
+
+ St. Elias, Cape, 134
+
+ St. Elias, Mount, 136
+
+ St. Lawrence Bay, 141
+
+ St. Lawrence Island, 132
+
+ _St. Paul_, The, 134
+
+ _St. Peter_, The, 134
+
+ _Salmo arcturus_, 258
+
+ Salmon trout, 176
+
+ _Salutation_, The, 18
+
+ Samoyeds, The, 10, 115
+
+ Sanderson's Hope, 232
+
+ Sanderson, William, 224
+
+ Sannikof, 107
+
+ Schley, Winfield S., 278
+
+ Schonau Island, 70
+
+ Schwatka, Frederick, 213
+
+ Scoresby, William, the elder, 30
+
+ Scoresby, William, the younger, 31, 129, 266
+
+ Seal, The Fur, 135
+
+ Seals, 31, 88
+
+ Sea-otter, The, 135
+
+ _Searchthrift_, The, 7
+
+ Semonovski Island, 117
+
+ Serdze Kamen, Cape, 90, 132, 136
+
+ Seven Islands, The, 40
+
+ Shackleton, Cape, 233
+
+ Shantar Islands, The, 130
+
+ Sheathing for ships introduced, 5
+
+ Shedden, Robert, 139
+
+ Sheridan, Cape, 283
+
+ Siberia, 84, 106
+
+ Siberian Islands, The, 88, 106
+
+ Silver Bay, 63
+
+ Simmons Peninsula, 188
+
+ Simpson, Sir George, 165
+
+ Simpson, Thomas, 165
+
+ Simpson Strait, 168, 206, 214
+
+ Sinclair, George, 166
+
+ Sirovatskof, 107
+
+ Sitka Sound, 134
+
+ Sledges and sledge-work, 184, 252
+
+ Smeerenberg, 24
+
+ Smith, Benjamin Leigh, 44, 72
+
+ Smith Sound, 234, 235
+
+ Snow, William Parker, 183
+
+ Snow houses, 198, 211
+
+ Sodankyla, 273
+
+ _Sofia_, The, 44
+
+ Somerset House, 202
+
+ Somerset, North, 180
+
+ Sonntag, August, 242
+
+ _Sophia_, The, 183
+
+ Spangberg, Martin, 131
+
+ Spinks, Robert, 37, 158
+
+ Spitsbergen, 12, 15, 16, 18, 24, 104
+
+ Steamship, The first Arctic, 194
+
+ _Stella Polare_, The, 76
+
+ Sterlegof, Cape, 85
+
+ Stoat, 188
+
+ Stolbovoi, 107
+
+ Stuxberg, 85
+
+ _Sunshine_, The, 224, 229, 232
+
+ Sverdrup, Otto, 104, 185, 261
+
+ Svjatoi Nos, 89
+
+
+ Tanana, The, 144
+
+ Tananas, The, 145
+
+ _Tegetthoff_, The, 64
+
+ Teplitz Bay, 69, 77
+
+ _Terror_, H.M.S., 171, 183, 203, 205
+
+ Thaddeus Island, 107, 117
+
+ _Thames_, The, 87
+
+ Thermometer, The deep-sea, 30
+
+ _Thetis_, The, 278
+
+ Thirkill, Launcelot, 4
+
+ _Thomasine_, The, 16
+
+ Thorne, Robert, 5
+
+ Tiger, 126
+
+ _Tigress_, The, 247
+
+ Toll, Baron E., 126
+
+ Torell, Otto, 43
+
+ _Trent_, H.M.S., 33
+
+ Treurenberg Bay, 40
+
+ Tripe-de-roche, 156
+
+ Tschirikof, Alexei, 131
+
+ Tundra, The, 86, 113
+
+ Turnagain, Point, 155, 167
+
+ Tyndall Glacier, 244
+
+
+ Umivik, 262
+
+ _Union_, The (boat), 157, 158
+
+ _United States_, The, 239
+
+ Upernivik, 232
+
+
+ _Valorous_, H.M.S., 248
+
+ Veer, Gerrit de, 10, 49
+
+ _Vega_, The, 87
+
+ Victoria, Cape, 211
+
+ Victoria Land, 168
+
+ Victoria Sea, Queen, 75
+
+ Victoria Strait, 206
+
+ _Victory_, The, 194
+
+ Victory, Point, 212
+
+ Vinland, 3
+
+ Vlamingh, Willem de, 62
+
+ Vrangel', Ferdinand, 108
+
+
+ Wager River, 190
+
+ Waigatz Island, 7
+
+ Wainwright Inlet, 139
+
+ Walden Island, 40
+
+ Walker Bay, 176
+
+ _Walnut Shell_, The (boat), 157, 159
+
+ Walrus, 12, 13, 20, 31, 34, 57, 73, 82, 88, 93, 101
+
+ Walsingham, Francis, 224, 229, 231
+
+ Washington Irving Island, 250
+
+ Welden, Captain, 13
+
+ Wellington Channel, 180
+
+ Wentzel, 150, 151, 154
+
+ West England, 220
+
+ Weyprecht, K., 64, 272
+
+ Whale fishery, The, 15, 17
+
+ Whale, Greenland, 14, 15, 31, 265
+
+ Whale Island, 148
+
+ Whale, White, 88, 148, 188
+
+ Whaling trade begins, 15
+
+ White Man's Island, 223
+
+ White Sea, The, 6
+
+ White Shirt, 2
+
+ Whymper, Edward, 266
+
+ Whymper, Frederick, 142
+
+ Wiggins, Joseph, 87
+
+ Wijde Bay, 17
+
+ Wilberforce Falls, The, 155
+
+ Wilczek Island, 66
+
+ William Land, King, 163, 214
+
+ _William_, The, 8
+
+ Willoughby, Sir Hugh, 5
+
+ _Windward_, The, 76, 103
+
+ Winter Harbour, 174, 181
+
+ Winter Island, 192
+
+ _Winthont_, The, 10
+
+ Wollaston Land, 158
+
+ Wolstenholme, Cape, 234
+
+ Wolverine, 144
+
+ Women Islands, The, 233
+
+ Wrangell, Ferdinand Von, 108
+
+ Wrangell Island, 116, 141
+
+
+ Yakuts, The, 115
+
+ Yalmal, 85
+
+ Yenesei, The, 85
+
+ _Ymer_, The, 87
+
+ Young, Allen, 75, 116, 208, 213
+
+ Young's Foreland, 14
+
+ Yugor Strait, 8
+
+ Yukon, Fort, 142, 144
+
+ Yukon, The, 142
+
+
+                                PLYMOUTH
+                     WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.
+                                PRINTERS
+
+
+
+
+                          TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
+
+
+ 1. Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical
+    errors.
+ 2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
+ 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
+ 4. Superscripts are denoted by a carat before a single superscript
+    character or a series of superscripted characters enclosed in curly
+    braces, e.g. M^r. or M^{ister}.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Round About the North Pole, by W. J. Gordon
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 52462 ***
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-       .c018 { vertical-align: top; text-align: center; padding-right: 1em; }

-       .c019 { vertical-align: top; text-align: center; }

-       .c020 { margin-top: .5em; }

-       div.tnotes { padding-left:1em;padding-right:1em;background-color:#E3E4FA;

-              border:1px solid silver; margin:2em 10% 0 10%; }

-       .covernote { visibility: hidden; display: none; }

-       div.tnotes p { text-align:left; }

-       @media handheld { .covernote { visibility: visible; display: block;} }

-       .sc {font-style: normal; }

-       .footnote {font-size: 90%; }

-       .ph1 { text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; }

-       .ph1 { font-size: xx-large; margin: .67em auto; }

-    </style>

-  </head>

-  <body>

-

-

-<pre>

-

-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Round About the North Pole, by W. J. Gordon

-

-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most

-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions

-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of

-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at

-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have

-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.

-

-

-

-Title: Round About the North Pole

-

-Author: W. J. Gordon

-

-Illustrator: Edward Whymper

-

-Release Date: July 1, 2016 [EBook #52462]

-

-Language: English

-

-Character set encoding: UTF-8

-

-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUND ABOUT THE NORTH POLE ***

-

-

-

-

-Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed

-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was

-produced from images generously made available by The

-Internet Archive)

-

-

-

-

-

-

-</pre>

-

-

-<div class='tnotes covernote'>

-

-<p class='c000'>  <strong>Transcriber's Note:</strong></p>

-

-<p class='c000'>  The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class='ph1'>

-

-<div class='nf-center-c1'>

-<div class='nf-center c001'>

-    <div>ROUND ABOUT</div>

-    <div>THE NORTH POLE</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-

-</div>

-

-<div id='Frontispiece'  class='figcenter id001'>

-<img src='images/i_004.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>"DONE UP"</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-<div class='c002'>Frontispiece</div>

-

-<div>

-  <h1 class='c003'>ROUND ABOUT<br /> THE NORTH POLE</h1>

-</div>

-

-<div class='nf-center-c1'>

-<div class='nf-center c004'>

-    <div><span class='xlarge'>BY W. J. GORDON</span></div>

-    <div class='c005'>WITH WOODCUTS AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS</div>

-    <div>BY EDWARD WHYMPER</div>

-    <div class='c001'>NEW YORK</div>

-    <div><span class='large'>E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY</span></div>

-    <div><span class='sc'>31 West Twenty-third Street</span></div>

-    <div>1907</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-

-<div class='nf-center-c1'>

-<div class='nf-center c001'>

-    <div><em>Printed in Great Britain</em></div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_v'>v</span>

-  <h2 class='c006'>PREFACE</h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c007'>Among the many books about the Polar regions

-there is none quite like this, dealing with the

-gradual progress of exploration towards the north

-along the different areas of advance within the Arctic

-Circle.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The subject is always interesting, for few regions

-have been the scene of more persistent effort and

-exciting adventure and unexpected gains from the

-unknown, particularly in the earlier days when the

-endeavour to find the northern passages to the east and

-west led to the beginning of our foreign trade.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>It is often asked, "What is the use of further Arctic

-discovery?" No one knows. Nor did any one know

-the use of most discoveries before they were made.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>When Eric landed in Greenland he was not in

-search of cryolite for aluminium. When Cabral sailed

-to Porto Seguro he knew nothing of the incandescent

-gas-mantle. When Oersted looped the live wire round

-the magnetic needle he was not bent on founding

-electrical engineering. And when Linnæus noticed

-the sleep of plants he had no intention of providing

-a substitute for a clock in high latitudes where, though

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_vi'>vi</span>the sunshine is continuous during the summer, the

-plants within the Circle sleep as in the night time,

-their sleeping leaves telling the traveller that midnight

-is at hand.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Men have made up their minds to reach the Pole,

-and thither they will go. What they will find when

-they get there may not promise to be much, but what

-they have found round about it has been enough to

-influence considerably the history of the world.</p>

-

-<div class='lg-container-r'>

-  <div class='linegroup'>

-    <div class='group'>

-      <div class='line'>W. J. G.</div>

-    </div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-

-<div class='lg-container-l'>

-  <div class='linegroup'>

-    <div class='group'>

-      <div class='line'><em>July, 1907.</em></div>

-    </div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_vii'>vii</span>

-  <h2 class='c006'>CONTENTS</h2>

-</div>

-

-<table class='table0' summary='CONTENTS'>

-<colgroup>

-<col width='82%' />

-<col width='17%' />

-</colgroup>

-  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER I</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <th class='c009'></th>

-    <th class='c010'>PAGE</th>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c009'>SPITSBERGEN</td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER II</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c009'>SPITSBERGEN (<em>continued</em>)</td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_24'>24</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER III</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c009'>NOVAYA ZEMLYA</td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_49'>49</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER IV</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c009'>FRANZ JOSEF LAND</td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_64'>64</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER V</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c009'>CAPE CHELYUSKIN</td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_84'>84</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER VI</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c009'>THE LENA DELTA</td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_106'>106</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER VII</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c009'>BERING STRAIT</td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_127'>127</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER VIII</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c009'>THE AMERICAN MAINLAND</td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_146'>146</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER IX</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c009'>THE PARRY ISLANDS</td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_170'>170</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER X</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c009'>BOOTHIA</td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_190'>190</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'><span class='pageno' id='Page_viii'>viii</span>CHAPTER XI</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c009'>BAFFIN BAY</td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_215'>215</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XII</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c009'>SMITH SOUND</td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_235'>235</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XIII</td></tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c009'>GREENLAND</td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_259'>259</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c009'>INDEX</td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_287'>287</a></td>

-  </tr>

-</table>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_ix'>ix</span>

-  <h2 class='c006'>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>

-</div>

-

-<table class='table0' summary='LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS'>

-<colgroup>

-<col width='5%' />

-<col width='73%' />

-<col width='20%' />

-</colgroup>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'>"<span class='sc'>Done up</span>"</td>

-    <td class='c010'><em><a href='#Frontispiece'>Frontispiece</a></em></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Nansen's <cite>First Crossing of Greenland</cite> (Longmans)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <th class='c011' colspan='2'>&nbsp;</th>

-    <th class='c010'>TO FACE PAGE</th>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Summit of Oraefa</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg2'>2</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From a photograph</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Columbus</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg4'>4</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From the portrait at Versailles</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Samoyeds and their Dwellings</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg10'>10</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Hartwig's <cite>Polar World</cite> (Longmans)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Franz Josef Fiord</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg14'>14</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From a drawing by Lieutenant Julius Payer</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Whalers among Icebergs</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg30'>30</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Hartwig's <cite>Polar World</cite> (Longmans)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Sir John Franklin</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg34'>34</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Tour du Monde</span></cite>, 1860 (Hachette)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Track of H.M.S. "Dorothea" and "Trent"</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg36'>36</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From <cite>A Voyage of Discovery towards the North Pole, performed in His Majesty's Ships "Dorothea" and "Trent," under the command of Capt. David Buchan, R.N., 1818</cite>, by Capt. F. W. Beechey, <span class='fss'>R.N., F.R.S.</span> (Richard Bentley, 1843.)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Parry Camped on the Ice</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg40'>40</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Captain Parry's <cite>Narrative</cite>, 1828 (Murray)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Parry's Boats among the Hummocks</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg42'>42</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Captain Parry's <cite>Narrative</cite>, 1828 (Murray)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>How our Ship stuck fast in the Ice</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg50'>50</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From <cite>A True Description</cite>, by Gerrit de Veer (Hakluyt Society, 1853)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>How we nearly got into trouble with the Sea-horses</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg56'>56</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From <cite>A True Description</cite>, by Gerrit de Veer (Hakluyt Society, 1853)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg90'>90</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From a photograph</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Fridtjof Nansen</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg96'>96</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>With autograph. From a photograph supplied by himself</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Reindeer</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg112'>112</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>By permission. From <cite>Short Stalks</cite>, by Edward Buxton (Stanford)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Samoyed Man</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg114'>114</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Seebohm's <cite>Siberia in Asia</cite> (Murray)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='pageno' id='Page_x'>x</span><span class='sc'>Ostiak Man</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg116'>116</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Seebohm's <cite>Siberia in Asia</cite> (Murray)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Face of the Fur Seal</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg130'>130</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From <cite>The Seal Islands of Alaska</cite>, by Henry W. Elliott (Washington, 1881)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Aleutian Islands</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg132'>132</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Hartwig's <cite>Polar World</cite> (Longmans). From an original Sketch by Frederick Whymper</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Driving the Fur Seal</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg134'>134</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From <cite>The Seal Islands of Alaska</cite>, by Henry W. Elliott (Washington, 1881)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Fur Seals at Sea</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg136'>136</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From <cite>The Seal Islands of Alaska</cite>, by Henry W. Elliott (Washington, 1881)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Parka of the Alaskan Innuits</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg138'>138</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Whymper's <cite>Alaska</cite> (Sampson Low)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Frozen Yukon</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg140'>140</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Whymper's <cite>Alaska</cite> (Sampson Low)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Ascending the Yukon</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg142'>142</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Whymper's <cite>Alaska</cite> (Sampson Low)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Moose-hunting on the Yukon</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg144'>144</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Whymper's <cite>Alaska</cite> (Sampson Low)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Mahlemut Man</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg146'>146</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Whymper's <cite>Alaska</cite> (Sampson Low)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Winter Travelling on the Great Slave Lake</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg150'>150</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Franklin's <cite>Journey to the Polar Sea</cite>, 1819-22 (Murray, 1823)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Crossing Point Lake</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg152'>152</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Franklin's <cite>Journey to the Polar Sea, 1819-22</cite> (Murray, 1823)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Kutchin Indians</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg154'>154</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Hartwig's <cite>Polar World</cite> (Longmans). From an original sketch by Frederick Whymper</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Preparing an Encampment on the Barren Grounds</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg156'>156</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Franklin's <cite>Journey to the Polar Sea, 1819-22</cite> (Murray, 1823)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Sir John Richardson</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg158'>158</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>With autograph, from a letter in the possession of Edward Whymper</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Back's Journey down the Great Fish River</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg160'>160</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Back's <cite>Arctic Land Expedition to the mouth of the Great Fish River in the years 1833, 1834, and 1835</cite> (Murray, 1836)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Sir William Edward Parry</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg170'>170</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>With autograph, from a letter in the possession of Edward Whymper</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Sir John Barrow</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg178'>178</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>With autograph</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>H.M.S. "Hecla" and "Griper" in Winter Harbour</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg180'>180</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From <cite>A Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west Passage</cite>, by Capt. Parry (Murray, 1821)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xi'>xi</span><span class='sc'>Parry's Discoveries on his First Voyage</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg182'>182</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From <cite>A Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west Passage</cite>, by Captain Parry (Murray, 1821)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>An Igloolik Eskimo carrying his Kayak</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg190'>190</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Parry's <cite>Second Voyage</cite> (Murray, 1824)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Parry's farthest on his Third Voyage</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg192'>192</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Parry's <cite>Third Voyage</cite> (Murray, 1826)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The "Victory"</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg194'>194</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Sir J. Ross's <cite>Arctic Expedition, 1829-33</cite> (Webster, 1835)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>North Hendon</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg196'>196</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Sir J. Ross's <cite>Arctic Expedition, 1829-33</cite> (Webster, 1835)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Eskimo listening at a Seal-hole</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg198'>198</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Parry's <cite>Second Voyage</cite> (Murray, 1824)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>H.M.S. "Terror" lifted by Ice</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg202'>202</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Hartwig's <cite>Polar World</cite> (Longmans)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Fractured Stern-post of H.M.S. "Terror"</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg204'>204</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Capt. Back's <cite>Narrative, 1838</cite> (Murray)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The "Fox" escaping from the pack</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg208'>208</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From M'Clintock's <cite>Voyage of the "Fox"</cite></td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The "Fox" on a rock</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg210'>210</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From M'Clintock's <cite>Voyage of the "Fox"</cite></td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Discovery of the Cairn</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg212'>212</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From M'Clintock's <cite>Voyage of the "Fox"</cite></td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Sir Martin Frobisher</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg216'>216</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From <cite>The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher</cite> (Hakluyt Society, 1867)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Eskimo awaiting a Seal</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg222'>222</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Hartwig's <cite>Polar World</cite> (Longmans)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>A Greenlander in his Kayak</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg224'>224</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Tour du Monde</span></cite>, 1868 (Hachette)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Baffin Bay in 1819</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg232'>232</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From <cite>A Voyage of Discovery</cite>, by Capt. John Ross (Longmans, 1819)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Dr. E. K. Kane</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg234'>234</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From the Frontispiece to Kane's <cite>Arctic Explorations</cite>, 1856</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Kalutunah</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg236'>236</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Tour du Monde</span></cite>, 1868 (Hachette)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The East Coast of Smith Sound</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg238'>238</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Hayes' <cite>Open Polar Sea</cite> (Sampson Low)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Dr. I. I. Hayes</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg240'>240</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>By permission, from Hayes' <cite>Open Polar Sea</cite></td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xii'>xii</span><span class='sc'>The Shores of Kennedy Channel</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg242'>242</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Hayes' <cite>Open Polar Sea</cite></td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Tyndall Glacier</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg244'>244</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Hayes' <cite>Open Polar Sea</cite></td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>A Seal in Danger</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg246'>246</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Parry's <cite>Second Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west Passage</cite> (Murray, 1824)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Sir George Nares</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg248'>248</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From a photograph</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Sledges used by Sir Leopold M'Clintock and Sir George Nares</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg254'>254</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>(In the collection of Edward Whymper)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Bishop Paul Egede</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg258'>258</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From the Frontispiece to <cite><span lang="da" xml:lang="da">Efterretninger om Grönland</span></cite> (Copenhagen)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Greenlanders</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg260'>260</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From Hartwig's <cite>Polar World</cite> (Longmans)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>On level ground</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg262'>262</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>Nansen's <cite>First Crossing of Greenland</cite> (Longmans)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Allan Liner "Sardinian" among Icebergs</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg264'>264</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From a photograph</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The "Germania" in the Ice</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg266'>266</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Tour du Monde</span></cite>, 1874 (Hachette)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Region round Mount Petermann</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg268'>268</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From a drawing by Lieutenant Julius Payer</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Last Days of the "Hansa"</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg270'>270</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>From <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Tour du Monde</span></cite>, 1874 (Hachette)</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Robert E. Peary</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg280'>280</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c011'>With autograph, from a letter in the possession of Edward Whymper From <cite>Nearest the Pole</cite>, by Commander Peary. By permission of Hutchinson and Co.</td>

-    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-</table>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <h2 class='c006'>SECTIONAL MAPS</h2>

-</div>

-<table class='table0' summary='SECTIONAL MAPS'>

-<colgroup>

-<col width='6%' />

-<col width='56%' />

-<col width='36%' />

-</colgroup>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c012'>1.</td>

-    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Spitsbergen</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg12'>12</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c012'>2.</td>

-    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Cape Chelyuskin</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg84'>84</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c012'>3.</td>

-    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Lena Delta</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg106'>106</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c012'>4.</td>

-    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Bering Strait</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg128'>128</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c012'>5.</td>

-    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Parry Islands</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg174'>174</a></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c012'>6.</td>

-    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Greenland</span></td>

-    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg272'>272</a></td>

-  </tr>

-</table>

-

-<div class='ph1'>

-

-<div class='nf-center-c1'>

-<div class='nf-center c001'>

-    <div>ROUND ABOUT</div>

-    <div>THE NORTH POLE</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-

-</div>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span>

-  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER I<br /> SPITSBERGEN</h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c013'>Iceland—Greenland—America—Sebastian Cabot—Robert Thorne—The

-North-east Passage—Willoughby—Chancellor—Borough—The North

-Cape rounded—The White Sea reached—The First Arctic Search Expedition—Pet

-and Jackman—Brunel—Cornelis Nai—Barents reaches

-77° 20´—Second voyage of Nai—The Samoyeds—Rijp, Jacob Van

-Heemskerck and Barents—Bear Island discovered—Spitsbergen discovered—The

-Dutch reach 79° 49´—Stephen Bennet—Welden—Jonas

-Poole—Henry Hudson reaches 80° 23´—Poole starts the British whaling

-trade—Baffin's voyages to Spitsbergen—Pellham winters at Green

-Harbour.</p>

-

-<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>The story of the lands within the Arctic Circle is

-a record of the brave deeds of healthy men.

-This would seem to be true were we to take the story,

-if we could, back to the days when man followed the

-retreat of the glaciers, as he may in turn have to retreat

-before them, such a condition of things being not beyond

-the range of probability though it may be remote. For

-the boundaries of the frozen north are not dependent on

-a line of latitude, and have never been the same from

-period to period, or even from year to year. In some

-cases they have changed considerably within the

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>Christian era, and it is evident that the ice is not

-eternal. The fossils declare that the climate round

-the North Pole has varied greatly, and must in

-comparatively recent ages have been comfortably

-warm, so genial indeed that some people would have

-us believe that men came from there in their last distribution.

-Not, however, with such migrants from

-the far north do we concern ourselves, but with those

-who have endeavoured to get there in historical times

-by different lines of approach, as we follow the circle

-round from east to west and note the record of each

-section by itself.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Who was the first to sail to the northern seas we

-know not. Suffice it for us that in 875 Ingolf the

-<span lang="no" xml:lang="no">jarl</span>, from Norway, refusing to live under the sway of

-Harold Haarfager, sighted Mount Oraefa. As he

-neared the coast, overboard went the carved wood;

-and where the wood drifted ashore he founded Reikjavik.

-But he was not the first in Iceland, for the

-Irish monastery had been there for years when he

-arrived, though the monks retired to their old country

-when they found the Norsemen had come to stay.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Then the Icelander Gunnbiörn, driven westward in

-a gale, sighted the strange land he called White Shirt

-from its snowfields, which Eric the Red, following a

-long time afterwards, more happily renamed. "What

-shall we call the land?" he was asked. "Call it Green

-Land," replied Eric. "But it is not always green!"

-"It matters not: give it a good name and people will

-come to it!"</p>

-

-<div id='pg2'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_017.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>THE SUMMIT OF ORAEFA</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-<div class='lg-container-l'>

-  <div class='linegroup'>

-    <div class='group'>

-      <div class='line'>From a photo</div>

-    </div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>Then the Norsemen worked further south. In 986

-Bjarni sighted what we now call America, and in 1000

-came the voyage of Leif Ericson, who, on his way

-down the mainland, landing again and again, gave the

-names to Helluland, Markland, Vinland—in short,

-the Viking discovery of the New World.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Greenland, like the eastern coast of the continent,

-was duly colonised, its two chief settlements being one

-just round Cape Farewell, the other further north on

-the same coast. In those days the island, or chain of

-islands beneath an ice-cap, as many think it is, would

-appear to have had a milder climate than it has

-now. The colonies throve, their population becoming

-numerous enough to require a series of seventeen

-bishops, the last one dying about 1540, to superintend

-their spiritual welfare. But the Eskimos, in their

-migration from Asia across the Arctic islands, arrived

-in the country before the middle of the fourteenth

-century and gradually drove the Norsemen downwards,

-the northern colony coming to an end in 1342

-owing to the enemy attacking during a visitation of

-the Black Death.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Meanwhile Iceland, which touches the Arctic Circle

-in its northernmost point, and extends but half as far

-south of it as Greenland, increased in prosperity as a

-sort of aristocratic republic, and produced more vernacular

-literature than any country in Europe, in which,

-as might be expected, the story of Greenland and the

-American colonies was kept so well to the fore that

-it became as familiar among the people as a nursery

-tale. Thither, from Bristol, in February, 1477, went

-Columbus; and thence it was he returned to seek a

-patron for his western voyage across the Atlantic.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The first voyage of Columbus in 1492 gave a great

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>stimulus to maritime discovery, and many were the

-projects for searching the seas for a new route to the

-east. Of these the most important was that submitted

-to Henry VII by John Cabot, of Bristol.

-Much has been written, on slender and confusing

-evidence, as to the share in its success due to him and

-to his son, the more famous Sebastian; and, to be brief,

-we cannot do better than follow Anderson, who, in his

-<cite>Origin of Commerce</cite>, ingeniously evades the difficulty

-by speaking, commercially, of "Cabot and Sons."

-The Bristol firm, then, in 1497 despatched their ship

-<em>Matthew</em> to the westward and discovered and took

-possession of Labrador and the islands and peninsulas in

-the mouth of the St. Lawrence, the district being at first

-known as the New Found Land, a name afterwards

-restricted to the largest island. And they had their

-reward, as shown in the Privy Purse accounts of

-Henry VII, where an entry of the 10th August, 1497,

-appears—"To hym that found the new isle, £10."

-Surely not an excessive honorarium for the finding of

-a continent.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In 1498 another voyage of the same ship by way of

-Iceland, in which some attempt seems to have been

-made to colonise the newly discovered territories, resulted

-in the discovery of Hudson Strait and a visit to

-Labrador, judging by the finding of the deer in herds,

-the white bears, and the Eskimos who are not known

-to have ever crossed into the island of Newfoundland.

-This was not the only English vessel to appear in

-these parts at that time, for in the same year the Privy

-Purse accounts record a gift of £30 to Thomas Bradley

-and Launcelot Thirkill for going to the New Isle,

-adding that Launcelot had already received £20 "as

-preste" for his ship going there.</p>

-

-<div id='pg4'  class='figcenter id003'>

-<img src='images/i_021.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>COLUMBUS</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>It is evident that the fisheries were found to be

-worth working, for no less than fifty Spanish, French,

-and Portuguese ships were engaged in them in 1517,

-the year of Sebastian Cabot's disputed voyage to

-Hudson Bay. Ten years afterwards Robert Thorne, of

-Bristol, wrote to the King, mentioning this voyage and

-suggesting three sea routes to Cathay—by the north-west,

-as Sebastian had attempted, by the north over

-the Pole, and by the north-east—and, in 1547, when

-Sebastian returned to England for good, after his long

-service with Spain, he again, as the first Governor of

-the Company of Merchant Adventurers, took up this

-Cathay question, which had frequently been raised,

-and fitted out, as a commencement, an expedition to

-the north-east.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The ships were built at Bristol specially for the

-purpose, and they were sheathed with lead, the first

-so treated in this country. This sheathing of ships was

-not the only innovation we owe to the most scientific

-seaman of his time, for in his famous ordinances for the

-voyage many excellent new things are enjoined, including

-the keeping of a log and journal, which date

-from this expedition. There were three vessels, the

-<em>Bona Esperanza</em>, of one hundred and twenty tons,

-Captain Sir Hugh Willoughby; the <em>Edward Bonaventure</em>,

-one hundred and sixty tons, Captain Richard

-Chancellor; and the <em>Bona Confidentia</em>, ninety tons,

-Captain Durfourth. In Chancellor's ship, as master,

-was the best navigator of the fleet, whose monumental

-brass in Chatham Church is noteworthy for its

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>epitaph: "Here lieth buried the bodie of Steven

-Borough, who departed this life ye xij day of July in

-ye yere of our Lord 1584, and was borne at Northam

-in Devonshire ye xxv<sup>th</sup> of Septemb. 1525. He in his

-life time discouered Moscouia, by the Northerne sea

-passage to St. Nicholas, in the yere 1553. At his

-setting foorth of England he was accompanied with

-two other shippes, Sir Hugh Willobie being Admirell of

-the fleete, who, with all the company of ye said two

-shippes, were frozen to death in Lappia ye same

-winter. After his discouerie of Roosia, and ye

-Coastes thereto adioyninge—to wit, Lappia, Nova

-Zemla, and the Countrie of Samoyeda, etc.: he frequented

-ye trade to St. Nicholas yearlie, as chief pilot

-for ye voyage, until he was chosen of one of ye foure

-principall Masters in ordinarie of ye Queen's Mat<sup>ties</sup>

-royall Nauy, where in he continued in charge of

-sundrie sea services till time of his death."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The ships left in May, but did not remain long

-together. On the 2nd of August Willoughby and

-Durfourth separated from Chancellor in a storm off

-the Lofodens, and after devious courses, that might

-have led anywhere, were frozen in on the coast of

-Lapland, where they wintered and died, as did all the

-men with them. Chancellor, having waited at the

-rendezvous in vain, crossed the Arctic Circle, rounded

-the North Cape—so named by Borough—and found

-his way into the White Sea. While his ship was in

-winter quarters near where Archangel now is, he made

-a sledge journey to the Czar at Moscow, which led

-to the formation of the Muscovy Company and the

-beginning of England's Russian trade; and through

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>his meeting there with the Persian Ambassador came

-about the mission of Anthony Jenkinson to the Shah,

-which opened up for us the Persian trade. Never was

-a voyage more successful. With it began the foreign

-commerce of this country, and from it dates the rise

-of our mercantile marine.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In 1556 Borough, in the <em>Searchthrift</em>, persevered

-further east, and, passing between Novaya Zemlya and

-Waigatz Island, through the strait that bears his name

-spelt differently, entered the Kara Sea. Next year in

-the same ship he was given the command of the first

-Arctic Search Expedition, its object being to discover

-what had become of Willoughby. Of one ship, the

-<em>Confidentia</em>, he obtained news in an interview with a

-man who had bought her sails, but the full story of

-the disastrous end of the voyage remained a mystery

-until the Russians found the ships and bodies and

-Willoughby's journal, and took the ships round to the

-Dwina. Then for the first time did people realise

-what it meant to battle with an Arctic winter without

-preparation, and many were those who withdrew their

-interest in the frozen north, preferring tropical dangers

-to the possibility of such accumulating miseries as the

-journal records in due order in its matter-of-fact way,

-its last entry being the terribly suggestive—"Unknowen

-and most wonderful wild beasts assembling in fearful

-numbers about the ships."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>With Stephen Borough in the Chancellor voyage

-was Arthur Pet—or Pett, a name not unknown in the

-navy—who, after two centuries, has become notable

-again through a strange discovery. In search of the

-much-desired passage by the north-east he sailed from

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>Harwich on the 31st of May, 1580, in the <em>George</em>, of

-forty tons, accompanied by Charles Jackman, in the

-<em>William</em>, of twenty tons. His orders were to avoid

-the open sea and keep the coast in sight all the way

-out on the starboard side, and William Borough—Stephen's

-brother, afterwards Comptroller of the Navy—gave

-him certain instructions and notes.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Arranging with Jackman, whose little vessel sailed

-badly, to wait for him at Waigatz, Pet went ahead

-and endeavoured to pass through Burrough Strait, but

-meeting with trouble from the ice, missed the passage,

-and working round Waigatz to the south, entered the

-Kara Sea through Yugor Strait, or as it used to be

-called after him, Pet Strait. Coasting eastward with

-the mainland in sight, he was, as might be expected,

-much hampered by the heavy pack. On being joined

-by the little <em>William</em> he made for the northward, seeking

-a way to the east, but the "more and thicker was

-the ice so that they could go no further," and, after

-talking the matter over on the 28th of July, Pet and

-Jackman reluctantly decided to return to Waigatz

-and there decide on what should be done.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Their way back was difficult. They became shut in

-so that "they could not stir, labouring only to defend

-the ice as it came upon them." For one day they

-were clear of it, but next day, the 16th of August,

-they were encumbered again, though they got out of

-the trouble by sailing between the ice and the shore,

-which was a new experience. In this way they just

-scraped through Pet Strait, and bore away in the open

-sea to Kolguiev, both vessels grounding for a time on

-the sands to the south of that island. On the 22nd of

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>August, two days afterwards, the <em>William</em> parted from

-the <em>George</em> in a dense fog, while Pet brought his ship

-home and dropped anchor at Ratcliff on Boxing Day.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The Dutch had for some time been trying to outstrip

-the English on this route to the far east. In

-1565 they had settled at Kola, and about thirteen

-years afterwards had established the factory at the

-mouth of the Dwina on the site of Nova Kholmogory,

-generally known as Archangel. In 1584 Olivier

-Brunel, their energetic emissary in Russia, sailed on

-the first Dutch Arctic discovery expedition. He tried

-in vain to pass through Pet Strait, and the ship, with

-a valuable cargo of furs and mica, was wrecked on its

-homeward voyage at the mouth of the Petchora.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Ten years elapsed, and then there sailed from the

-Texel the expedition of Cornelis Nai, in which the

-<em>Mercury</em>, of Amsterdam, was commanded by Willem

-Barents. Barents—really Barentszoon, the son of

-Bernard—sighted Novaya Zemlya, with which his name

-was to be thenceforth associated, on the 4th of July,

-and coasting along its mighty cliffs, peopled with their

-myriad seabirds, passed Cape Nassau ten days later.

-Thence reaching 77° 20´, and thus improving on John

-Davis's record for the highest north, he struggled

-through the ice to the Orange Islands and back, some

-twenty-five miles, during which he tacked eighty-one

-times and thereby sailed some seventeen hundred geographical

-miles. Failing to proceed further, he came

-south, and off Pet Strait—named by the Dutchmen

-Nassau Strait—fell in with the other two ships returning

-from their unsuccessful attempt to cross the Kara Sea.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Next year a fleet of seven vessels under Nai left the

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>Mars Diep on another endeavour to get through to

-China. One of the two chief commissioners on board

-was the famous Van Linschoten, who had been on the

-previous voyage, and the chief pilot was Barents, who

-was in the <em>Winthont</em> (Greyhound) with Jacob van

-Heemskerck as supercargo. Arriving at Pet Strait

-they found it so blocked with ice that no passage was

-possible, and Barents, in search of information, went

-ashore on the mainland south of the strait and made

-friends—in a way—with the Samoyeds, whose appearance,

-as described by Gerrit de Veer, was "like that of

-wild men," dressed as they were in deerskins from head

-to foot, those of importance wearing caps of coloured

-cloth lined with fur; for the most part short of stature,

-with broad flat faces, small eyes, and bow legs; their

-hair worn long, plaited, and hanging down their backs.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>They were evidently suspicious of the Dutchmen,

-who did their best to be friendly. The chief had

-placed sentinels all round to see what the new-comers

-were about and note everything that was bought and

-sold. One of the sentinels was offered a biscuit, which

-"he with great thanks took and ate, and while he ate

-it he still looked diligently about him on all sides,

-watching what was done." Their reindeer sledges were

-kept ready—"that run so swiftly with one or two

-men in them that our horses were not able to follow

-them." They were unacquainted with firearms, and,

-when a musket was fired to impress them, "ran and

-leapt like madmen," but calmed down as soon as they

-saw there was no malicious intention, to wonder much

-more, however, when the man with the gun aimed at a

-flat stone he placed as a mark, and, fortunately, hit and

-broke it. The meeting ended satisfactorily; "after that

-we took our leaves one of the other with great friendship

-on both sides, and when we were in our pinnace

-we all put off our hats and bowed to them, sounding

-our trumpet; they in their manner saluting us also,

-and then went to their sledges again."</p>

-

-<div id='pg10'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_029.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>SAMOYEDS AND THEIR DWELLINGS</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>Barents was by no means convinced that the strait

-was impassable, and held out against the opinion of

-the others for some days, but with the firm ice

-stretching round in all directions he had to give in,

-and on the 15th of September the fleet began the

-voyage home. Much had been expected, and the result

-was so conspicuous a failure that the States

-General abandoned any further attempt at a north-east

-passage on their own account, but decided to

-offer a reward to any private expedition that proved

-successful. Whereupon the authorities and merchants

-of Amsterdam fitted out two vessels for a third

-voyage, giving the command of one to Jan Corneliszoon

-Rijp, and that of the other to Jacob van

-Heemskerck, with Barents as chief pilot.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The ships left the Dutch coast on the 18th of May.

-Four days afterwards they were off the Shetlands,

-going north-east. On the 9th of June they discovered

-an island, on which they landed. Here they saw a

-prodigious white bear, which they went after in a boat,

-intending to slip a noose over her neck, but when they

-were near her she looked so strong that their courage

-failed, and they returned to the ships to fetch more

-men, and what seems to have been quite an armoury

-of "muskets, harquebusses, halberds and hatchets."

-Accompanied by another boat they attacked this

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>formidable beast for over two hours, one of them

-getting an axe into her back, with which she swam

-away until she was caught and had her head split open

-by another blow from an axe. From this remarkable

-bear, whose skin, we are told, was twelve feet long,

-the island was named Bear Island.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Continuing northwards they sighted, on the 19th of

-June, Spitsbergen, which they supposed to be Greenland—an

-error that led to much confusion—and on

-the 21st of June they landed and had another trying

-time with a bear, whose skin proved to be thirteen

-feet long. On one island of the cluster they found

-the eggs of the barnacle goose, <em>Bernicla leucopsis</em>,

-whose nesting ground was up to then unknown, and

-on others they saw reindeer, for in this land "there

-groweth leaves and grass." Returning to Bear Island

-after attaining 79° 49´, some hundred and seventy

-miles higher north than in 1594, Rijp departed for the

-north again, and, failing to get beyond Bird Cape,

-went home to Holland by way of Kola; and to Kola

-he came back the year afterwards.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In 1603, following the Dutch, came Stephen Bennet

-to call Bear Island Cherie Island, after his patron, and

-find the walruses in thousands and the birds in millions.

-A rocky tableland of mountain limestone and carboniferous

-sandstone, with the usual fossils in unusual

-numbers and a few coal seams in between; the ravines

-faced and floored with fragments of every dimension

-and shape, split off by the frost and weathered by

-wind and rain: a grey, grassless, monotonous country,

-except along the coast, where the guano from the vast

-numbers of seabirds has coated the crannies and ledges

-of the cliffs, that tower up perhaps four hundred

-feet from the water, with a thin layer of soil in which

-the scurvy-grass and a few other plants thrive amazingly,

-though the island's complete flora contains but

-forty species—such is Bear Island, the stepping-stone

-to Spitsbergen, of which Jonas Poole took possession

-in 1609 for the Muscovy Company.</p>

-

-<div id='pg12'  class='figcenter id004'>

-<a href='images/i_033.jpg'><img src='images/i_033_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>SPITSBERGEN</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>Lying east of the influence of the Gulf Stream,

-the range of temperature is of the widest. Often

-the island is unapproachable owing to the ice, sometimes

-it is even now as hot as Welden found it in 1608,

-when, in June, "the pitch did run down the ship's

-sides, and that side of the masts that was to the sun-ward

-was so hot that the tar did fry out of it as

-though it had boiled." That was a great year for

-Welden, for he killed a thousand walruses in less than

-seven hours and took a young one home with him,

-"where the king and many honourable personages

-beheld it with admiration, the like whereof had never

-before been seen alive in England."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Poole did much useful work in these seas, but is now

-little heard of, most of the surviving interest in such

-matters being concentrated on Henry Hudson, who

-was in the same service at the same time. Hudson

-was, perhaps, a grandson of Alderman Henry Hudson,

-one of the founders of the Muscovy Company, but

-nothing is really known of him beyond his being a

-captain in the Muscovy Company, who, on the 19th of

-April, 1607, took the sacrament at St. Ethelburga's,

-in Bishopsgate Street, with his son and crew "and the

-rest of the parishioners." That he was a parishioner

-may be true, but that all the ten members of the crew

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>were so is unlikely. Anyhow, they were outward

-bound for Japan and China by way of the North Pole,

-and sailed from Gravesend on the 1st of May.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Where he went is not clear in detail, as his latitudes

-are seldom correct and his longitudes are not recorded.

-He sighted Greenland north of Iceland, and, shouldered

-off by the ice barrier, left it somewhere about Franz

-Josef Fjord, working easterly by the edge of the

-ice to Spitsbergen. Here he sailed round Prince

-Charles's Foreland and went north, passing Hakluyt

-Headland, which he named, reaching on the 13th of

-July, 80° 23´, "by observation." He saw many whales,

-but found his way blocked by ice; and after many

-attempts, assuring himself that there was no passage

-hereabouts to the north, sailed southwards for Bear

-Island. On leaving this he seems to have gone west,

-possibly to the coast of Greenland again, for on his

-way home he lighted upon Hudson's Touches, now

-known as Jan Mayen Island, the principal cape of

-which bears the name of Hudson's Point—which may

-be either Hudson's or Rudston's (after the Rudston

-mentioned in Baffin's fourth voyage)—while another is

-known as Young's Foreland, perhaps after the James

-Young who was the first in the ship to sight the coast

-of Greenland on the outward journey. He dropped

-anchor in the Thames on the 15th of September all

-well. He had not crossed the Pole, nor did he find

-Spitsbergen stretching up to 82°, as he said, its most

-northerly point being miles further south; but he

-had gone beyond Van Heemskerck's furthest north and

-found a fishing ground for whales and walruses which

-proved of great commercial value.</p>

-

-<div id='pg14'  class='figcenter id005'>

-<img src='images/i_037.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>FRANZ JOSEF FIORD</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>In 1610, Poole, finding that he could not land on

-Bear Island owing to the ice, stood away to the north-west,

-reached Spitsbergen, and worked along the

-western side to Hakluyt Headland, where the ice

-barred further advance. On his way up and down the

-coast he gave many of the capes and bays the names

-they still bear, and generally did so well that on his

-return he was put in the place of Hudson, who had

-left the service two years before, and made a sort of

-special commissioner by the Muscovy Company "for

-certain years upon a stipend certain" to make further

-discoveries round Spitsbergen and to ascertain whether

-there was an open sea further northward than had

-already been found. In addition to searching for the

-open polar sea, he was to convoy the <em>Mary Margaret</em>,

-in which were six Biscayners "expert in the killing of

-the whale," to Bear Island, and thence to Whale Bay in

-Spitsbergen. In short, Poole was to start the British

-whaling trade, the <em>Mary Margaret</em> being the first

-British vessel to be employed in that lucrative but

-hazardous occupation; and she was under the command

-of Thomas Edge, whose name is borne by

-Edge's Island.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The beginning was so promising that in 1613, two

-years afterwards, a fleet of seven vessels went out to take

-part in the fishery and clear away the foreigners who

-had come to share in the good fortune; the company

-claiming the islands on the ground of their purely

-imaginary discovery by Willoughby, the Dutch resting

-their claim on the real discovery by Van Heemskerck.

-In this fleet as chief pilot was William Baffin—his

-second recorded voyage. By him, who as usual kept

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>his eyes open, we have the first description of the

-Spitsbergen glaciers. He was at the time—the 29th of

-July—in Green Harbour in Ice Fjord. "One thing

-more I observed," he says, "in this harbour which I

-have thought good also to set down. Purposing on a

-time to walk towards the mountains, I, and two more

-of my company, ascended up a long plain hill, as we

-supposed it to be; but having gone a while upon it, we

-perceived it to be ice. Notwithstanding we proceeded

-higher up, about the length of half a mile, and as we

-went saw many deep rifts or gutters on the land of ice,

-which were cracked down through to the ground, or, at

-the least, an exceeding great depth; as we might well

-perceive by hearing the snow water run below, as it

-does oftentimes in a brook whose current is somewhat

-opposed with little stones. But for better satisfaction

-I brake down some pieces of ice with a staff I had

-in my hand, which in their falling made a noise on

-each side much like to a piece of glass thrown down

-the well within Dover Castle, whereby we did estimate

-the thickness or height of this ice to be thirty fathoms.

-This huge ice, in my opinion, is nothing but snow,

-which from time to time has for the most part been

-driven off the mountains; and so continuing and increasing

-all the time of winter (which may be counted

-three-quarters of the year) cannot possibly be consumed

-with the thaw of so short a summer, but is only

-a little dissolved to moisture, whereby it becomes more

-compact, and with the quick succeeding frost is congealed

-to a firm ice."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Next year he was out again in the <em>Thomasine</em>, one of

-a fleet of thirteen vessels, and in endeavouring to pass

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>to the north-east, reached Wijde Bay, where at the

-point of the beach at the entrance he "set up a cross

-and nailed a sixpence thereon with the king's arms,"

-probably the neatest property mark in history. Thence

-he went on to the entrance to Hinlopen Strait, completing

-the journey along the north of the main island. It

-was on this voyage that he endeavoured to find his

-longitudes by observing the moon, for Baffin was the

-first who attempted to take a lunar at sea.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Year by year the fishery increased, and the whale

-fishers multiplied as if the sea were a goldfield, the

-monopoly being respected until 1618, when the Dutch,

-who had all along prospered more than the rest, proved

-too strong for the English, and a compromise was

-arrived at by which the different harbours were

-allotted to the different nations for the processes

-necessary in the preparation of the whale products for

-shipment. But it was purely a summer industry.

-There was no colony, and it did not seem as though

-there would be one, for no man willing to winter in

-the place could be found. Vainly were rewards offered

-to those who would venture. In the north was the

-ever-present barrier of ice, more distant some years

-than others, but always there to come south and hold

-the islands in its grip when the fishery was over, and

-those who came early and those who stayed late saw

-enough of the wintry landscape to make them doubt

-if life were possible under such conditions.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Then the idea, not new to Englishmen, that colonies

-should be started by criminals, was acted upon, and

-the Muscovy Company procured the reprieve of a

-batch of prisoners under sentence of death and landed

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>them in Spitsbergen under promise of a free pardon,

-a handsome reward, and full provisions and suitable

-clothes if they would remain there for a continuous

-twelve months. But, as the ship that brought them

-was preparing to return to London, "they conceived

-such a horror and inward fear in their hearts" that

-they besought the captain to take them back that they

-might be hanged rather than perish amid such desolation;

-and the captain "being a pitiful and a merciful

-gentleman, would not by force constrain them to stay,"

-and brought them home again, when the company—who

-could do no less—procured them a pardon. One

-captain—of a different disposition—had left nine men

-behind him, all of whom perished miserably; and

-another, in 1630, left eight others, apparently through

-causes beyond his control, whose adventure was to

-form one of the most interesting episodes in Arctic

-story.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>It was on the 15th of August in that year that the

-<em>Salutation</em> sent Edward Pellham and his seven companions

-ashore to kill reindeer for the ship's provisions

-on her voyage home. Taking with them two dogs, a

-snap-hance, two lances, and a tinder-box, they landed

-near Black Point, between Green Harbour and Bell

-Sound, and, "laying fourteen tall and nimble deer

-along," camped for the night. During the night

-the weather changed and brought in the ice between

-the shore and the ship, and in the morning the ship

-had gone. The boat's crew made for Green Harbour,

-thinking she would put in there to pick them up, but

-she failed to appear, being due to leave the country in

-three days, and after a fruitless attempt to catch her at

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>Bell Sound, they eventually took up their quarters

-there on the 3rd of September.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Here was one of the so-called tents of the whale-fishers.

-"This," says Pellham, "which we call the

-tent, was a kind of house built of timber and boards

-very substantially, and covered with Flemish tiles, by

-the men of which nation it had in the time of their

-trading thither been built. Four-score foot long it is

-and in breadth fifty. The use of it was for the coopers,

-employed for the service of the company, to work,

-lodge, and live in, all the while they make casks for the

-putting up of the train oil." As this was too large for

-their comfort, they very sensibly built another within

-it. "Taking down another lesser tent therefore (built

-for the landmen hard by the other, wherein they lay

-whilst they made their oil), from thence we fetched our

-materials. That tent furnished us with one hundred

-and fifty deal boards, besides posts or stanchions and

-rafters. From three chimneys of the furnaces wherein

-they used to boil their oil, we brought a thousand

-bricks: there also found we three hogsheads of very

-fine lime, of which stuff we also fetched another hogshead

-from Bottle Cove, on the other side of the sound,

-some three leagues distant. Mingling this lime with

-the sand of the sea-shore, we made very excellent good

-morter for the laying of our bricks: falling to work

-thereon, the weather was so extreme cold as that we

-were fain to make two fires to keep our morter from

-freezing. William Fakely and myself, undertaking the

-masonry, began to raise a wall of one brick thickness

-against the inner planks of the side of the tent.

-Whilst we were laying of these bricks, the rest of our

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>company were otherwise employed every one of them:

-some in taking them down, others in making of them

-clean and in bringing them in baskets into the tent.

-Some in making morter, and hewing of boards to build

-the other side withal, and two others all the while in

-flaying of our venison. And thus, having built the

-two outermost sides of the tent with bricks and morter,

-and our bricks now almost spent, we were enforced to

-build the two other sides with boards; and that in this

-manner. First we nailed our deal boards on one side

-of the post or stanchion to the thickness of one foot:

-and on the other side in like manner: and so filling up

-the hollow place with sand, it became so tight and

-warm as not the least breath of air could possibly

-annoy us. Our chimney's vent was into the greater

-tent, being the breadth of one deal board and four foot

-long. The length of this our tent was twenty foot

-and the breadth sixteen; the height ten; our ceiling

-being deal boards five or six times double, the middle

-of one joining so close to the shut of the other that no

-wind could possibly get between. As for our door,

-besides our making it so close as possibly it could shut;

-we lined it moreover with a bed that we found lying

-there, which came over both the opening and the shutting

-of it. As for windows, we made none at all, so that

-our light we brought in through the greater tent, by

-removing two or three tiles in the eaves, which light

-came to us through the vent of our chimney. Our

-next work was to set up four cabins, billeting ourselves

-two and two in a cabin. Our beds were the deer skins

-dried, which we found to be extraordinary warm, and a

-very comfortable kind of lodging to us in our distress."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>For fuel they knocked to pieces seven old boats left

-ashore by the ships, storing the wood over the beams

-of the tent so as to make a sort of floor protecting the

-interior from snow driven in under the tiles, and, in

-addition, they broke up a number of empty casks. To

-make the wood last as long as possible they hit upon a

-device for keeping the fire in—"when we raked up our

-fire at night, with a good quantity of ashes and of

-embers, we put into the midst of it a piece of elm

-wood, where, after it had lain sixteen hours, we at our

-opening of it found great store of fire upon it, whereupon

-we made a common practice of it ever after: it never

-went out in eight months together, or thereabouts."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Upon the 12th of September a small quantity of

-drift ice came into the sound, on a piece of which they

-found two walruses asleep, when "William Fakely

-being ready with his harping iron, heaved it so strongly

-into the old one that he quite disturbed her of her rest:

-after which, she, receiving five or six thrusts with our

-lances, fell into a sounder sleep of death." The young

-one, refusing to leave her mother, was also killed; and

-a week afterwards another walrus fell a victim; but

-even with these the store of provisions was inadequate.

-To make the food last, they put themselves on an

-allowance of one good meal a day, except on Wednesdays

-and Fridays which were fasting days devoted to

-whale sundries—"a very loathsome meat," says Pellham,

-in brackets—later on, for four days in the week

-they fed upon "the unsavoury and mouldy fritters, and

-the other three we feasted it with bear and venison."

-"But," continues the narrative, "as if it were not

-enough for us to want meat, we now began to want

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>light also; all our meals proved suppers now, for little

-light could we see; even the glorious sun (as if unwilling

-to behold our miseries) masking his lovely face

-from us, under the sable veil of coal-black night."But

-they were equal to the emergency. "At the beginning

-of this darksome, irksome time, we sought some

-means of preserving light amongst us; finding therefore

-a piece of sheet lead over a seam of one of the

-coolers, that we ripped off and made three lamps of it,

-which, maintaining with oil that we found in the

-coopers' tent, and rope-yarn serving us instead of

-candle-wicks, we kept them continually burning."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Cheerful and resourceful as they were, their fits of depression

-were not infrequent. "Our extremities being

-so many, made us sometimes in impatient speeches

-to break forth against the causers of our miseries; but

-then again, our consciences telling us of our own evil

-deservings, we took it either for a punishment upon us

-for our former wicked lives; or else for an example of

-God's mercy in our wonderful deliverance: humbling

-ourselves therefore, under the mighty hand of God, we

-cast down ourselves before him in prayer, two or three

-times a day, which course we constantly held all the

-time of our misery."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Their prospects got worse, but they never lost a

-little hope. "The new year now began: as the days

-began to lengthen, so the cold began to strengthen;

-which cold came at last to that extremity, as that it

-would raise blisters on our flesh, as if we had been

-burnt with fire, and if we touched iron at any time it

-would stick to our fingers like bird-lime: sometimes if

-we went but out of doors to fetch in a little water, the

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>cold would nip us in such a sort that it made us as sore

-as if we had been beaten in some cruel manner."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Provisions were running low; the men began to talk

-of famine, and the outlook became daily gloomier until

-the 3rd of February. "This proved a marvellous cold

-day; yet a fair and clear one; about the middle

-whereof, all clouds now quite dispersed and night's

-sable curtain drawn, Aurora with her golden face

-smiled once again upon us, at her rising out of her

-bed; for now the glorious sun with his glittering beams

-began to gild the highest tops of the lofty mountains.

-The brightness of the sun and the whiteness of the

-snow, both together, were such as that it was able to

-revive even a dying spirit. But to make a new addition

-to our new joy, we might perceive two bears (a she

-one with her cub) now coming towards our tent;

-whereupon we, straight arming ourselves with our lances,

-issued out of the tent to await her coming. She soon

-cast her greedy eyes upon us, and with full hopes of

-devouring us she made the more haste unto us; but

-with our hearty lances we gave her such a welcome as

-that she fell down and biting the very snow for anger."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Then more bears came to be eaten; then the birds

-began to arrive, and the foxes to come out of their

-winter earths to be trapped to the number of fifty;

-then the reindeer returned; and then, on the 25th May,

-two ships of Hull came into the sound from which a

-boat's crew landing unperceived came close up to the

-tent and shouted "Hey!" And Ayers, the only man

-at the moment in the outer tent, shouted "Ho!"—and

-Pellham and his shipmates had proved it to be possible

-to live through a winter in Spitsbergen.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>

-  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER II<br /> SPITSBERGEN</h2>

-</div>

-

-<div class='nf-center-c1'>

-<div class='nf-center c004'>

-    <div>(<em>continued</em>)</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c014'>The summer town of Smeerenberg—Himkoff winters in North East Land—Phipps

-reaches 80° 48´—Scoresby the elder reaches 81° 30´—Scoresby the

-younger—Voyage of the <em>Dorothea</em> and <em>Trent</em> under Buchan and Franklin—Parry

-reaches 82° 45´—Torell and Nordenskiöld—Carlsen sails round

-Spitsbergen—Swedish North Polar expedition under Nordenskiöld—Lamont—The

-Diana coal mine—Leigh Smith—Conway.</p>

-

-<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>This wintering of the <em>Salutation</em> men occurred

-when the Spitsbergen fisheries were most flourishing,

-the prosperity continuing for seven more years.

-So lucrative was the trade that on Amsterdam Island

-under Hakluyt Headland, within fifteen miles of 80°

-north latitude, about as far from the North Pole as

-St. Malo is from John o' Groat's, there sprang up as

-a summer resort the Dutch village of Smeerenberg.

-Such was the bustle produced by the yearly visit of

-two or three hundred double-manned vessels, containing

-from twelve thousand to eighteen thousand men,

-that this village of the farthest north was as busy as a

-manufacturing town. The incitement of prices proportionate

-to the latitude attracted hundreds of annual

-settlers, who throve on the sale of brandy, wine,

-tobacco, and sundries to the whale-fishers in shops of

-all varieties, including bakehouses, where the blowing

-of a horn let the sailors know that the bread had just

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>been drawn hot from the oven. In fact, hot rolls and

-every delicacy could be had in Smeerenberg, which the

-Dutch averred was as flourishing as Batavia, founded

-by them a few years before. And when winter was

-just about due every man—and woman—went back to

-Holland. But the life of Smeerenberg was a short

-and a merry one, for in 1640 the shore fisheries were

-failing, and a year or so afterwards the lingerers of its

-last season left it for good, clearing out from its houses

-of brick and wood, demolishing its furnaces, removing

-its copper cauldrons and coolers and casks and everything

-that could be taken away, and leaving it in

-desolation to be occupied in the next and subsequent

-summers by polar bears.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Like all seaside resorts it had its rival. Close by is

-the Cookery-of-Haarlem, abandoned at the same time,

-but rather more hurriedly. When Martens went there

-on the 15th of July, 1671, he found four houses still

-standing, in one of which were "several barrels or

-kardels that were quite decayed, the ice standing in

-the same shape the vessels had been made of: an anvil,

-smith's tongs, and other tools belonging to the cookery,

-were frozen up in the ice; the kettle was still standing

-as it was set, and the wooden troughs stood by it."

-Behind these houses "are high mountains," he continues,

-"if one climbeth upon these, as we do on others,

-and doth not mark every step with chalk, one doth not

-know how to get down again: when you go up you

-think it to be very easy to be down; but when you

-descend it is very difficult and dangerous, so that many

-have fallen and lost their lives." Absurd as this chalking

-of the steps may seem, there have been many who

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>have taken the hint from the careful Martens when

-climbing in Spitsbergen, and many who have regretted

-not having done so.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In ordinary summers the west side of Spitsbergen is

-clear of ice, not so the eastern side, the difference being

-due to the Gulf Stream, which, though evidently failing,

-is traceable along the coast round Hakluyt Headland

-and up to the ice barrier. In addition to this

-there is the general cause, whatever it may be, which

-makes the western coasts of all Arctic lands, isolated

-or not, warmer than the eastern. Greenland, for

-instance, is more approachable in summer from Davis

-Strait than from the Greenland Sea, Novaya Zemlya

-from Barents Sea than from Kara Sea, and so on with

-all the islands and peninsulas of Asia and America.

-Hence all this whaling was confined practically to the

-western harbours of West Spitsbergen, the largest of

-the group of islands. The next largest, North East

-Land, was never much visited except from Hinlopen

-Strait, though the Russians from time to time took

-some interest in the north and east harbours, and would

-have taken more, for it abounded in reindeer, if the

-ice had not made the landing an enterprise of some

-difficulty.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On the east coast of North East Land, in 1743, a

-Russian whaler was caught in the pack, and the mate,

-Alexis Himkoff, remembering that a house had been

-built there some years before, went on shore with his

-godson, Ivan Himkoff, and two sailors, Scharapoff and

-Weregin, in search of it, in case the ship should have

-to be abandoned. They found the house, but, on

-returning to the shore next morning, could see nothing

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>of the ship, which had apparently been carried away

-and crushed in the ice. They had brought with them

-a musket, a powder-horn with twelve charges of

-powder, twelve bullets, an axe, a small kettle, a bag

-with about twenty pounds of flour, a knife, a tinder-box

-and tinder, a bladder of tobacco, and every man

-had his pipe. That was their outfit.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The house was thirty-six feet in length, and eighteen

-in height and breadth. It contained a small antechamber

-about twelve feet broad, which had two doors,

-one to close it from the outer air, the other admitting

-to the inner room in which was a Russian stove, a kind

-of oven without a chimney, serving at will for heating,

-for baking, or for sleeping on. Realising that they had

-a long stay before them, they began by shooting

-twelve reindeer, one for each bullet. They then repaired

-the house, stopping up all the crevices with

-moss; and they then laid in a store of fuel from the

-driftwood, there being no trees on the island. On the

-beach they found some boards with nails in them, and

-a long iron hook and a few other pieces of old iron.

-And also there was a root of a fir tree in shape not

-unlike a bow. Those were the materials they had to

-make the best of.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>A large stone served for an anvil, a pair of deer horns

-did duty for tongs, and with these and the fire, the iron

-hook was made into a hammer; and then two of the

-nails were shaped into spear-heads, which were tied to

-sticks from the driftwood with strips of deerskin.

-With these weapons they began by killing a bear,

-whose flesh they ate, whose skin they kept, and whose

-tendons they made into thread and a string for the

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>bow formed out of the root of the fir tree. More

-nails were forged into arrow-heads, tied with sinew on

-to light sticks cut with the knife, the shafts being

-feathered from the feathers of seafowl. With these

-weapons they shot, before they had finished, two hundred

-and fifty reindeer, and they kept the skins, as they

-did also those of a large number of blue and white

-foxes, as we shall see in the sequel. In their own

-protection they killed nine bears, the only one they

-deliberately attacked being the first.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>To be sure of keeping their fire alight they modelled

-a lamp out of clay, which they filled with deer-fat,

-with twisted linen for a wick; but the clay was too

-porous, the fat ran through it; so they made another

-lamp of the same stuff, dried it in the air, heated it red

-hot, and cooled it in a sort of thin starch made of flour

-and water, strengthening the pottery by pasting linen

-rags over it. The result was so successful that they

-made a second lamp as a reserve. Some wreckage

-gave them a little cordage and a quantity of oakum,

-which came in for lamp-wicks. The lamp, like the

-sacred fire, was never allowed to go out. To make

-themselves clothes, they soaked skins in fresh water till

-the hair could be pulled off easily, and rubbed them

-well, and then rubbed deer fat into them until they

-were pliant and supple. Some of the skins they prepared

-as furs. Out of nails they, after many failures,

-made awls and needles, getting the eyes by piercing the

-heads with the point of the knife, and smoothing and

-pointing them by rounding and whetting them on a

-stone.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>For six years they lived in this desert place. Then

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>one of them, Weregin, died of scurvy, and their

-gloomy forebodings as to which was to be taken next

-were broken in upon by their sighting a ship, to which

-they signalled with a flag made of deerskin. The

-signal was seen and they were rescued; and they took

-back to Archangel two thousand pounds weight of

-reindeer fat, their bales of skins and furs, their bow and

-arrows and spears, and in short everything they possessed.

-And they arrived there on the 28th of September,

-1749, comfortably off from the value of the

-goods they brought with them—the heroes of one of

-the very best of true desert island stories.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Like most Russians they do not seem to have

-suffered much from the cold or to have been inconvenienced

-by the summer heat, which is also considerable.

-In 1773, on the 13th of June, when Phipps

-and Lutwidge anchored in Fair Haven, round by

-Amsterdam Island, they found the thermometer reach

-58½° at noon and descend no lower than 51° at midnight,

-and on the 16th it rose in the sun to 89½° till a

-light breeze made it fall almost suddenly ten degrees.

-This was the expedition sent out to the North Pole,

-mainly at the instigation of Daines Barrington, Gilbert

-White's friend. The ships were the <em>Racehorse</em> and

-<em>Carcass</em>; and, as every one knows, or ought to know,

-as midshipman with Captain Lutwidge went Horatio

-Nelson, then a boy of fourteen, who was to figure

-largely in the world, though on this occasion he did

-nothing remarkable beyond attacking a polar bear,

-whose skin he thought would make a nice present for

-his father, and bringing his boat to the rescue when

-one of the <em>Racehorse</em> boats was attacked by walruses.

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>For another thing the expedition is memorable, that

-being that the useful apparatus for the distillation of

-fresh water from sea water, known to every seafarer,

-was first used on this voyage, Dr. Irving, its inventor,

-being the surgeon of the <em>Racehorse</em>. Another item to

-be noted is that Phipps had with him a Cavendish

-thermometer, which he tried the day after he crossed

-the Arctic Circle, and found that at a depth of 780

-fathoms the temperature was 26°, while at the surface

-it was 48°.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Phipps did all he could to go north, and, in

-longitude 14° 59´ east, reached 80° 48', the nearest to

-the Pole up to then, but he was foiled by the ice

-barrier, which he tried to penetrate again and again.

-He got his ships caught in the ice and took to his

-boats, thinking he would have to abandon them, when

-fortunately the pack drifted south, and the vessels,

-clearing themselves under sail, caught the boats up

-and took them on board. Then he went along the

-edge of the ice westward, and, finding no opening,

-gave the venture up and sailed for home.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The next to do good work within this area was

-William Scoresby the elder, whose only equal as a

-whale-fisher was his son. To him we owe the invention

-of the crow's nest, that cylindrical frame covered

-with canvas, entrance to which is given by a trap-hatch

-in the base, reached by a Jacob's ladder from the topmast

-crosstrees, the conning-tower, so to speak, carried

-since by every ship on Arctic service. He was also

-the inventor of the ice-drill and many another implement

-and device used in Polar navigation; and he it

-was who sloped off his fore and main courses to come

-inboard to a boom fitted to the foot, used by every

-whaler, by which, in fact, you may know them. He

-also, long before the <em>America</em>, discovered the advantage

-of flat sails, and, in order to get his weights well down,

-he filled his casks with water as ballast and packed

-them with shingle, so that, instead of going out light,

-he was in the best of trim, with a power of beating

-to windward that took him to the fishing ground in

-double quick time and further into the ice, when he

-chose, than any of his competitors.</p>

-

-<div id='pg30'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_055.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>WHALERS AMONG ICEBERGS</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>Out in the <em>Resolution</em> in 1806 he saw from his crow's

-nest, in which he often spent a dozen hours at a stretch,

-that below the ice-blink—the white line in the sky

-which betokens the presence of ice—there was a blue-grey

-streak denoting open water, and that the motion

-of the sea around the ship must be due to a swell,

-which could only come from open water to the northward.

-On the 13th of May he started for this. By

-sawing the ice, hammering at it, dropping his boats on

-to it from the bow, sallying the ship—that is, rolling

-her by running the crew backwards and forwards

-across her deck—and, in fact, using every means he

-could think of, he passed the barrier in the eightieth

-parallel, and, on the 24th of June, attained 81° 30´, the

-farthest north ever reached by a sailing vessel in these

-seas. On that day there was not a ship within three

-hundred and fifty miles of the <em>Resolution</em>. The bold

-venture proved a thorough success; in thirty-two days

-he filled up with twenty-four whales, two seals, two

-walruses, and a narwhal—one of the most profitable

-of his thirty voyages.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In this voyage the chief officer was his son, William

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>Scoresby the younger, whose <em>Arctic Regions</em> is the best

-book ever written on the northern seas. Sent by his

-father to Edinburgh University where he studied

-almost every branch of natural and physical science, he

-was thoroughly equipped for his task, and his practical

-experience as a whaling captain and trained observer

-stood him in such stead that his book is still the basis

-of all scientific Polar research. His description of the

-Spitsbergen coast as seen from a ship is as faithful to-day

-as when he wrote it. "Spitsbergen and its islands,

-with some other countries within the Arctic Circle,

-exhibit a kind of scenery which is altogether novel.

-The principal objects which strike the eye are innumerable

-mountainous peaks, ridges, precipices, or needles,

-rising immediately out of the sea to an elevation of

-3000 or 4000 feet, the colour of which, at a moderate

-distance, appears to be blackish shades of brown, green,

-grey and purple; snow or ice, in striæ or patches,

-occupying the various clefts and hollows in the sides of

-the hills, capping some of the mountain summits, and

-filling with extended beds the most considerable valleys;

-and ice of the glacier form, occurring at intervals all

-along the coast, in particular situations as already described,

-in prodigious accumulations. The glistening or

-vitreous appearance of the icy precipices; the purity,

-whiteness, and beauty of the sloping expanse formed

-by their snowy surfaces; the gloomy shade presented

-by the adjoining or intermixed mountains and rocks,

-perpetually covered with a mourning veil of black

-lichens, with the sudden transitions into a robe of

-purest white, where patches or beds of snow occur,

-present a variety and extent of contrast altogether

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>peculiar; which, when enlightened by the occasional

-ethereal brilliancy of the Polar sky, and harmonised in

-its serenity with the calmness of the ocean, constitute a

-picture both novel and magnificent. There is, indeed,

-a kind of majesty, not to be conveyed in words, in

-these extraordinary accumulations of snow and ice in

-the valleys, and in the rocks above rocks and peaks

-above peaks, in the mountain groups, seen rising above

-the ordinary elevation of the clouds, and terminating

-occasionally in crests of snow, especially when you

-approach the shore under the shelter of the impenetrable

-density of a summer fog; in which case the fog

-sometimes disperses like the drawing of a curtain, when

-the strong contrast of light and shade, heightened by a

-cloudless atmosphere and powerful sun, bursts on the

-senses in a brilliant exhibition resembling the production

-of magic."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In 1818 there went out the first British expedition

-prepared to winter in the north. The vessels were two

-whalers bought into the navy, the <em>Dorothea</em> and <em>Trent</em>,

-the first under the command of David Buchan, the

-other under that of John Franklin. Neither officer

-had been in the Arctic region before, but Buchan had

-done excellent service in surveying Newfoundland, and

-Franklin had been marked for special duty owing to his

-work in Australian seas under his cousin, Matthew

-Flinders, and for the manner in which on his way home

-he had acted as signal officer to Nathaniel Dance in

-that ever-memorable victory off the Straits of Malacca,

-when the Indiamen defeated and pursued a French

-fleet under Admiral Linois. Dance's report gave

-Franklin a further chance of distinction, for it led to

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>his appointment to the <em>Bellerophon</em>, whose signal

-officer he was during the battle of Trafalgar.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>They were instructed to proceed to the North Pole,

-thence to continue on to Bering Strait direct, or by the

-best route they could find, to make their way to the

-Sandwich Islands or New Albion, and thence to come

-back through Bering Strait eastward, keeping in sight

-and approaching the coast of America whenever the

-position of the ice permitted them so to do. A nice

-little programme. But they started too early in a bad

-season; they did not get so far north as Phipps; they

-made accurate surveys and other observations; in

-exploration they did little; and they had many adventures.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>As they ranged along the western side of Spitsbergen

-the weather was severe. The snow fell in heavy

-showers, and several tons' weight of ice accumulated

-about the sides of the <em>Trent</em>, and formed a complete

-casing to the planks, which received an additional layer

-at each plunge of the vessel. So great, indeed, was

-the accumulation about the bows, that they were

-obliged to cut it away repeatedly with axes to relieve

-the bowsprit from the enormous weight that was

-attached to it: and the ropes were so thickly covered

-with ice that it was necessary to beat them with large

-sticks to keep them in a state of readiness. In the

-gale the ships parted company, but they met again at

-the rendezvous in Magdalena Bay.</p>

-

-<div id='pg34'  class='figcenter id006'>

-<img src='images/i_061.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>SIR JOHN FRANKLIN</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>Later on, off Cloven Cliff, there was a walrus fight

-begun by the seamen and continued by the walruses

-when they found themselves more at home in the

-water than on the ice. They rose in numbers about

-the boats, rushing at them, snorting with rage, endeavouring

-to upset them or stave them in by hooking

-their tusks on the gunwales, or butting at them with

-their heads. "It was the opinion of our people," says

-Beechey, "that in this assault the walruses were led on

-by one animal in particular, a much larger and more

-formidable beast than any of the others; and they

-directed their efforts more particularly towards him,

-but he withstood all the blows of their tomahawks

-without flinching, and his tough hide resisted the entry

-of the whale lances, which were, unfortunately, not

-very sharp, and soon bent double. The herd was so

-numerous, and their attacks so incessant, that there

-was not time to load a musket, which, indeed, was the

-only effectual mode of seriously injuring them. The

-purser, fortunately, had his gun loaded, and the whole

-now being nearly exhausted with chopping and sticking

-at their assailants, he snatched it up, and, thrusting

-the muzzle down the throat of the leader, fired

-into him. The wound proved mortal, and the animal

-fell back amongst his companions, who immediately

-desisted from their attack, assembled round him, and

-in a moment quitted the boat, swimming away as hard

-as they could with their leader, whom they actually

-bore up with their tusks and assiduously preserved

-from sinking."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On one occasion Franklin and Beechey, when out in

-a boat together, witnessed the launch of an iceberg.

-They had approached the end of a glacier and were

-trying to search into the recess of a deep cavern at

-its foot when they heard a report as if of a cannon,

-and, turning to the quarter whence it proceeded, perceived

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>an immense piece of the front of the cliff of ice

-gliding down from a height of two hundred feet at

-least into the sea, and dispersing the water in every

-direction, accompanied by a loud grinding noise, and

-followed by a quantity of water, which, lodged in the

-fissures, made its escape in numberless small cataracts

-over the front of the glacier. They kept the boat's

-head in the direction of the sea and thus escaped

-disaster, for the disturbance occasioned by the plunge

-of this enormous fragment caused a succession of

-rollers, which swept over the surface of the bay,

-making its shores resound as it travelled along it, and

-at a distance of four miles was so considerable that it

-became necessary to right the <em>Dorothea</em>, which was then

-careening, by instantly releasing the tackles which confined

-her. The piece that had been disengaged wholly

-disappeared under water, and nothing was seen but a

-violent boiling of the sea and a shooting up of clouds

-of spray like that which occurs at the foot of a great

-cataract. After a short time it reappeared, raising its

-head full a hundred feet above the surface, with water

-pouring down from all parts of it; and then, labouring

-as if doubtful which way it should fall, it rolled over,

-and, after rocking about for some minutes, became

-settled. It was nearly a quarter of a mile round and

-floated sixty feet out of the water, and making a

-fair allowance for its inequalities, was computed to

-weigh 421,600 tons.</p>

-

-<div id='pg36'  class='figcenter id007'>

-<a href='images/i_065.jpg'><img src='images/i_065_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>TRACK OF H.M.S. "DOROTHEA" AND "TRENT"</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>There were frequent landings, often with difficulties

-in the return, due generally to attempts at making a

-short cut to the shore or across the ice. Of these

-short cuts the very shortest was that made by one of

-the sailors named Spinks, who was out with a party in

-pursuit of reindeer. The ardour of the chase had led

-them beyond the prescribed limits, and when the

-signal was made for their return to the boat some of

-them were upon the top of a hill. Spinks, an active

-and zealous fellow, anxious to be first at his post,

-thought he would outstrip his comrades by descending

-the snow, which was banked against the mountain at

-an angle of about 40° with the horizon, and rested

-against a small glacier on the left. The height was

-about two thousand feet, and in the event of his foot

-slipping there was nothing to impede his progress until

-he reached the beach, either by the slope or the more

-terrific descent of the face of the glacier. He began

-his career by digging his heels into the snow, the

-surface of which was rather hard. At first he got on

-very well, but presently his foot slipped, or the snow

-was too hard for his heel to make an impression, and

-he increased in speed, keeping his balance, however, by

-means of his hands. In a very short time his descent

-was fearfully quick; the fine snow flew about him like

-dust, and there seemed but little chance of his reaching

-the bottom in safety, especially as his course was

-taking him in the direction of the glacier. For a

-moment he was lost sight of behind a crag of the

-mountain, and it was thought he had gone over the

-glacier, but with great presence of mind and dexterity,

-"by holding water first with one hand and then the

-other," to use his own expression, he contrived to

-escape the danger, and, like a skilful pilot, steered into

-a place of refuge amid a bed of soft snow recently

-drifted against the hill. When he extricated himself

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>from the depths into which he had been plunged he

-had to hold together his tattered clothes, for he had

-worn away two pairs of trousers and something more.

-That was all his damage, and we shall meet with him

-again in the west out with Franklin and Captain Back.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In the morning of the 30th of July the ships found

-themselves caught in a gale with the ice close to leeward.

-The only way of escaping destruction seemed

-to be by taking refuge in the pack. It was a desperate

-expedient rarely resorted to by whalers and only in

-extreme cases. In the <em>Trent</em> a cable was cut up into

-thirty-foot lengths, and these, with plates of iron four

-feet square, supplied as fenders, and some walrus hides,

-were hung around her, mainly about her bows; the

-masts were secured with extra ropes, and the hatches

-were battened and nailed down. When a few fathoms

-from the ice those on board searched with anxiety for

-an opening in the pack, but saw nothing but an unbroken

-line of furious breakers with huge masses heaving

-and plunging with the waves and dashing together

-with a violence that nothing but a solid body seemed

-likely to withstand; and the noise was so great that the

-orders to the crew could with difficulty be heard. At

-one moment the sea was bursting upon the ice blocks

-and burying them deep beneath its wave, and the next,

-as the buoyancy brought them up again, the water was

-pouring in foaming cataracts over their edges, the

-masses rocking and labouring in their bed, grinding

-and striving with each other until one was either split

-with the shock or lifted on to the top of its neighbour.

-Far as the eye could reach the turmoil stretched, and

-overhead was the clearness of a calm and silvery

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>atmosphere bounded by a dark line of storm cloud

-lowering over the masts as if to mark the confines

-within which no effort would avail.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>"At this instant," says Beechey, "when we were

-about to put the strength of our little vessel in competition

-with that of the great icy continent, and when

-it seemed almost presumption to reckon on the possibility

-of her surviving the unequal conflict, it was

-gratifying in the extreme to observe in all our crew the

-greatest calmness and resolution. If ever the fortitude

-of seamen was fairly tried it was assuredly not less so

-than on this occasion; and I will not conceal the pride

-I felt in witnessing the bold and decisive tone in which

-the orders were issued by the commander of our little

-vessel, and the promptitude and steadiness with which

-they were executed by the crew."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The brig was steered bow on to the ice. Every man

-instinctively gripped his hold, and with his eyes fixed

-on the masts awaited the moment of concussion. In

-an instant they all lost their footing, the masts bent

-with the shock, and the timbers cracked below; the

-vessel staggered and seemed to recoil, when the next

-wave, curling up under her counter, drove her about her

-own length within the edge of the ice, where she gave

-a roll and was thrown broadside to the wind by the

-succeeding wave which beat furiously against her stern,

-bringing her lee in touch with the main mass and leaving

-her weather side exposed to a floe about twice her

-size. Battered on all sides, tossed from fragment to

-fragment, nothing could be done but await the issue,

-for the men could hardly keep their feet, the motion

-being so great that the ship's bell, which in the heaviest

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>gale had never struck of itself, now tolled so continuously

-that it had to be muffled.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>After a time an effort was made to put the vessel

-before the wind and drive her further into the pack.

-Some of the men gained the fore-topsail-yard and let a

-reef out of the sail, and the jib was dragged half up

-the stay by the windlass. The brig swung into position,

-and, aided by a mass under her stern, split the

-block, fourteen feet thick, which had barred her way,

-and made a passage for herself into comparative safety;

-and after some four hours the gale moderated. Strained

-and leaking the <em>Trent</em> had suffered much, but the

-<em>Dorothea</em> had been damaged more; and both returned

-to Fair Haven, where it was found hopeless to continue

-the voyage, and thence, when the ships had been

-temporarily repaired, they sailed for England. The

-expedition had not done much, but it had given their

-Arctic schooling to Franklin, Beechey, and Back.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In May, 1827, Parry, in the <em>Hecla</em>, was forced to

-run into the ice, but not quite in the same way as

-Buchan did. He was beset for three weeks, and then,

-getting clear, proceeded to the Seven Islands to the

-north of Spitsbergen, on one of which, Walden, he

-placed a reserve of provisions; the ship, after reaching

-81° 5´, going to Treurenberg Bay, in Hinlopen Strait,

-to await his return.</p>

-

-<div id='pg40'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_071.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>PARRY CAMPED ON THE ICE</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>From here he made his dash for the Pole. He had

-with him two boats of his own design, seven feet in

-beam, twenty in length. On each side of the keel was

-a strong runner, shod with steel, upon which the boat

-stood upright on the ice. They were so built that they

-would have floated as bags had they been stove in. On

-ash and hickory timbers, an inch by an inch and a half

-thick, placed a foot apart, with a half-timber of smaller

-size between each, was stretched a casing of waterproof

-canvas tarred on the outer side and protected by a skin

-of fir three-sixteenths of an inch thick, over this came

-a sheet of stout felt, and over all a skin of oak of the

-same thickness as the fir, each boat weighing about

-fourteen hundredweight—that is the hull, as launched.

-One of these boats was named the <em>Enterprise</em>, the other

-the <em>Endeavour</em>. They were intended to be hauled by

-reindeer, but the state of the ice rendered this impracticable

-and the men did the work themselves. Parry

-took command of the <em>Enterprise</em>, the other being in

-charge of Lieutenant James Clark Ross; and, altogether,

-officers and men numbered twenty-eight.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>From Little Table Island, where they left a reserve

-as they had done at Walden, they started for the north—two

-heavy boats laden with food for seventy days

-and clothing for twenty-eight men, with a compact

-equipment including light sledges, travelling in a sea

-crowded or covered with ice in every form, large and

-small, over which they were dragged up and down

-hummocks, round and among crags and ridges, along

-surfaces of every kind of ruggedness, of every slope

-and irregularity, the few flat stretches broken with

-patches of sharp crystals or waist-deep snow; through

-lanes and pools of water with frequent ferryings and

-transhipments, in sunshine and fog, and, strange to

-say, frequently in pouring rain. They travelled by

-night and rested by day, though, of course, there was

-daylight all the time. "The advantages of this plan,"

-says Parry, "which was occasionally deranged by circumstances,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>consisted, first in our avoiding the intense

-and oppressive glare from the snow during the time of

-the sun's greatest altitude, so as to prevent in some

-degree the painful inflammation in the eyes called

-snow-blindness which is common in all snowy countries.

-We also thus enjoyed greater warmth during

-the hours of rest and had a better chance of drying our

-clothes; besides which no small advantage was derived

-from the snow being harder at night for travelling.

-When we rose in the evening we commenced our day

-by prayers, after which we took off our sleeping dresses

-and put on those for travelling, the former being made

-of camlet lined with racoon skin, and the latter of

-strong blue, box cloth. We made a point of always

-putting on the same stockings and boots for travelling

-in, whether they had dried during the day or not, and

-I believe it was only in five or six instances that they

-were not either still wet or hard frozen." When halted

-for rest the boats were placed alongside each other,

-with their sterns to the wind, the snow or wet cleared

-out of them, and the sails, held up by the bamboo

-masts and three paddles, were placed over them as

-awnings with the entrance at the bow.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Progress was not great, sometimes fifty yards an hour,

-occasionally twelve miles a day, that is on the ice, for

-soon it was apparent that the distance gained by

-reckoning was greater than that given by observation,

-and Parry realised to his dismay that the pack was

-drifting south while he was going north. But he

-kept on till on the 21st of July he reached 82° 45´,

-which remained the farthest north for forty-nine

-years.</p>

-

-<div id='pg42'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_075.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>PARRY'S BOATS AMONG THE HUMMOCKS</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>During the last few days he had been drifting south

-in the day almost as far as he had advanced north in

-the night, and, having used up half his provisions, he

-reluctantly abandoned the struggle as hopeless. "As

-we travelled," he says, "by far the greater part of our

-distance on the ice, three, and not infrequently, five

-times over, we may safely multiply the road by 2½;

-so that our whole distance, on a very moderate calculation,

-amounted to five hundred and eighty geographical

-miles, or six hundred and sixty-eight statute

-miles; being nearly sufficient to have reached the Pole

-in a direct line."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In 1858 a Swedish expedition under Otto Torell

-started from Hammerfest for Spitsbergen. He was

-accompanied by A. Quennerstedt and Adolf Erik

-Nordenskiöld. They explored Horn Sound, Bell

-Sound, and Green Harbour. In Bell Sound they

-dredged with great success for <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">mollusca</span>; they made a

-botanical collection, chiefly of mosses and lichens,

-found tertiary plant fossils, and, in the North Harbour,

-carboniferous limestone beds with the tertiary plant-bearing

-strata above them—in short, Nordenskiöld

-entered upon his long and fruitful study of Spitsbergen

-geology. Three years afterwards Torell took

-out another expedition, Nordenskiöld going with him,

-which was to explore the northern coast and then

-make for the far north; but the ice conditions kept

-them in Treurenberg Bay, where they visited Hecla

-Cove and found Parry's flagstaff. In the course of

-their journeys they noticed in Cross Bay the first

-known Spitsbergen fern, <em>Cystopteris fragilis</em>; by the

-side of a freshwater lake in Wijde Bay an Alpine

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>char was picked up; and, at Shoal Point, Torell discovered

-in a mass of driftwood a specimen of the unmistakable

-Entada bean, two and a quarter inches

-across, brought there from the West Indies by the

-Gulf Stream, as other specimens have been drifted to

-European shores.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In 1864, the year that Elling Carlsen found the

-navigation so open that he passed the Northern Gate

-and sailed round Spitsbergen, Nordenskiöld, at the

-head of a small expedition, was at work in Ice Fjord,

-and, unable to go north on account of the ice, rounded

-South Cape, entered Stor Fjord, visited Edge's Land

-and Barents Land, and from the summit of White

-Mountain, near Unicorn Bay, rediscovered the west

-coast of the island reported by Edge two hundred and

-fifty years before. In 1868, as leader of the Swedish

-North Polar Expedition in the <em>Sofia</em>, he reached

-81° 42´, in 17° 30´ east, the highest latitude then

-reached by a steam vessel, and his farthest north; his

-next Polar venture, four years afterwards, in the

-<em>Polhem</em>, ending in his having to winter in Mossel Bay,

-where his generous endeavour to feed one hundred and

-one extra men, who were ice-bound, on provisions

-intended for his own twenty-four, would have ended in

-disaster had he not been relieved by Leigh Smith in the

-<em>Diana</em>.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The <em>Diana</em> was the steam yacht built for James

-Lamont, in which, like Leigh Smith, he cruised for

-several seasons in the Arctic seas, combining sport with

-exploration in a truly admirable way. To these two

-yachtsmen we owe much of our knowledge of Spitsbergen,

-Novaya Zemlya, and Franz Josef Land, but we

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>can only give them passing mention here. We must,

-however, find room for Lamont's useful find of the

-coal mine in Advent Bay, from which he filled up the

-<em>Diana's</em> bunkers. "When I paid a visit to the coal

-mine," he says, "I found it quite a busy scene for a

-quiet Arctic shore. The engineer and fireman directed

-the blasting, my English hands quarried, while the

-Norwegians carried the sacks down the hill. The old

-mate, the many-sidedness of whose character I have

-so much valued on my various voyages, was digging

-away with the rest, though I am sorry that in the

-sketch his weather-beaten face is turned away. All

-the rest are portraits, and the reader will notice that

-Arctic work is not done in the attractive uniforms

-known to Cowes and Ryde. The coal-bed was about

-three feet thick, and lay very horizontally between

-two layers of soft, mud-coloured limestone. It was

-harder to obtain than I anticipated, because saturated,

-through all the cracks and interstices, with water which

-had frozen into ice more difficult to break through

-than the coal itself, thereby rendering these fissures

-worse than useless in quarrying. This is tertiary coal,

-and is of fair quality, but contains a good deal of

-sulphur. When we began to burn it, so much water

-and ice was unavoidably mixed with it that the

-engineers had to let it drain on deck in the hot sun

-and then mix it with an equal bulk of Scotch coal.

-Consumed in this way the ten tons obtained in three

-days was a useful addition to the fast-dwindling stock

-on board."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>While Nordenskiöld was at Mossel Bay he attempted

-a journey to the north, but was stopped by the ice

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>at Seven Islands, and returned round North East

-Land. It took him five days to pass across the

-twenty-three miles between Phipps Island and Cape

-Platen over pyramids of angular ice up to thirty

-feet high. On the coast, which he found extending,

-as Leigh Smith had reported, much further to the

-east than was shown on the charts, he met with the

-inland ice ending in precipices from two thousand to

-three thousand feet high. Ascending this ice they

-had scarcely gone a quarter of a mile before one of

-the men disappeared at a place where the surface was

-level, and so instantaneously that he could not even

-give a cry for help. When they looked into the hole

-they found him hanging on to the drag-line, to which

-he was fastened with reindeer harness, over a deep

-abyss. Had his arms slipped out of the harness, a

-single belt, he would have been lost. Along the level

-surface every puff of wind drove a stream of fine snow-dust,

-which, from the ease with which it penetrated

-everywhere, was as the fine sand of the desert to the

-travellers in the Sahara. By means of this fine snow-dust,

-steadily driven forward by the wind, the upper

-part of the glacier—which did not consist of ice, but

-of hard packed blinding white snow—was glazed and

-polished so that it seemed to be a faultless, spotless

-floor of white marble, or rather a white satin carpet.

-Examination showed that the snow, at a depth of four

-to six feet, passed into ice, being changed first into a

-stratum of ice crystals, partly large and perfect, then

-to a crystalline mass of ice, and finally to hard glacier

-ice, in which could still be observed numerous air

-cavities compressed by the overlying weight; and,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>when, as the surface thaws, the pressure of the enclosed

-air exceeds that of the superincumbent weight,

-these cavities break up with the peculiar cracking

-sound heard in summer from the glacier ice that floats

-about in the fjords. Occasionally broad channels were

-crossed, of which the only way to ascertain the depth

-was to lower a man into them, and frequently he had

-to be hoisted up again without having reached the

-bottom; such danger areas causing so circuitous a

-route that much progress was impossible.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Prior to the explorations of Sir Martin Conway in

-1896, it was supposed that this inland ice extended

-over all the islands of the group, an area exceeding

-twenty thousand square miles. He, however, proved

-that so far as West Spitsbergen was concerned, this

-was not the case. Crossing it he found much of the

-interior a complex of mountains and valleys, amongst

-which were many glaciers, as in Central Europe, but

-with no continuous covering of ice, each glacier being

-a separate unit with its own drainage system and

-catchment area, the valleys boggy and relatively fertile,

-the hillsides bare of snow in summer up to more than

-a thousand feet above sea-level. In the rise of the

-country from the sea it seems to have come up as a

-plain which did not reach the level of perpetual snow,

-so that as it rose it was cut down into valleys in the

-usual way by the agency of water pouring off from

-the plateau over its edge down a frost-split rock-face,

-the valleys gently sloped, the head necessarily steep

-owing to the face of the cliff being stripped off as the

-waterfalls cut their way back.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Since Nordenskiöld's first expedition we have learnt

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>much of the geology and physical features of Spitsbergen;

-and we hear no more of the poverty of its

-flora and fauna. Now it has become a summer tourist

-resort we are yearly increasing our knowledge of this

-land of no thunderstorms, for centuries the largest

-uninhabited area on the globe, the only considerable

-stretch on which there is no trace of human occupation

-before its discovery by the moderns in 1596, when it

-was found by Barents and his companions.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>

-  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER III<br /> NOVAYA ZEMLYA</h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c013'>Van Heemskerck and Barents reach Ice Haven—The ship in the ice—The

-first crew to winter in the Arctic—The house the Dutch built—The bears—The

-foxes—Intense cold—Twelfth Eve rejoicings—Preparations for

-departure—Death of Barents—The boat voyage—Meeting with Rijp—Admiral

-Jacob Van Heemskerck—Carlsen at Ice Haven—Finds the house

-as described by De Veer—The relics at the Hague—Gardiner finds the

-powder-flask—Gundersen finds the translation of the voyage of Pet and

-Jackman—Second voyage of Hudson—His third voyage—De Vlamingh—Russian

-explorers.</p>

-

-<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>We left Barents parting company with Rijp at

-Bear Island, Rijp bound northwards. Barents,

-taking his vessel eastwards, struck Novaya Zemlya at

-Loms Bay, near Cross Bay, and bearing north-eastwards

-reached the Orange Islands and rounded Cape

-Mauritius. Steering south he got down into Ice Haven,

-where at length, says De Veer, "the ice began to drive

-with such force that we were enclosed round about

-therewith, and yet we sought all the means we could to

-get out, but it was all in vain: and at that time we had

-like to have lost three men that were upon the ice to

-make way for the ship, if the ice had held the course it

-went; but as we drove back again, and the ice also

-whereon our men stood, they being nimble, as the ship

-drove by them, one of them caught hold of the beak

-head, another upon the shrouds, and the third upon the

-mainbrace that hung out behind, and so by great

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>adventure by the hold they took they got into the ship

-again, for which they thanked God with all their

-hearts." The same evening, that of the 26th of August,

-1596, they reached the west of Ice Haven—now known

-as Barents Bay—where they were forced to remain,

-being the first crew on record to spend a winter in the

-Arctic regions and survive to tell the story.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>To begin with, the ice gathered round the ship and

-lifted her bow four feet out of the water. Endeavouring

-to right her by clearing the ice away, Barents was

-on his knees measuring the height she had to fall when

-the ice broke with "such a noise and so great a crack

-that they thought verily they were all cast away." As

-she lay upright again they tried in vain with crowbars

-and other tools to break off the piled-up ice, and next

-day in a heavy snow the pressure became such that the

-whole ship was borne up and so squeezed that "all that

-was both about and in it began to crack, so that it

-seemed to burst in a hundred pieces, which was most

-fearful both to see and hear, and made all the hair of

-our heads to rise upright with fear." The grip continuing,

-the vessel was driven up four or five feet and

-the rudder squeezed off, which was replaced by a new

-one, when she sank back into the water a few hours

-afterwards owing to the ice drifting clear for a while.

-Thus matters went on for a little time, the ship being

-alternately lifted and released.</p>

-

-<div id='pg50'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_085.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>HOW OUR SHIP STUCK FAST IN THE ICE</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>On the 11th of September, as there was no hope of

-escape, it was decided to build a house wherein to

-spend the winter, and in seeking for a suitable position,

-a mass of driftwood—"trees, roots and all"—was discovered,

-"driven ashore from Tartaria, Muscovia, or

-elsewhere," for there were no trees growing on the

-land, "wherewith," says De Veer, "we were much

-comforted, being in good hope that God would show

-us some further favour; for that wood served us not

-only to build our house, but also to burn and serve us

-all the winter long; otherwise without all doubt we

-had died there miserably with extreme cold."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The timber was collected and piled up in heaps that

-it might not be hidden under the snow, and two sledges

-were made on which to drag it to the site of the house.

-This was heavy work in which all took part, four of

-them in turn remaining by the ship, there being thirteen

-men to each party, five to each sledge, with three

-to help and lift the wood behind "to make us draw the

-better and with more ease," and at the end of the first

-week of it the carpenter died, so that only sixteen were

-left. But the wood was brought along day after day,

-some to build with, some for fuel; and the house was

-built, the frost so hard at times that "as we put a nail

-into our mouths, as carpenters do, there would ice hang

-thereon when we took it out again and made the blood

-follow"; and when a great fire was made to soften the

-ground, in order that earth might be dug to shovel

-round the house, "it was all lost labour for the earth

-was so hard and frozen so deep that we could not thaw

-it, and it would have cost us too much wood."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The house was roofed with deals obtained by breaking

-up the lower deck of the fore part of the ship, and,

-to make it weather-tight, it was covered with a sail on

-which afterwards shingle was spread to keep it from

-being blown off; and the materials of the cabin yielded

-the wood for the door. Inside, the house was made as

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>comfortable as possible, as shown in the illustration

-given in De Veer's book in 1598. Low shelves, with

-partitions between, along the side served for sleeping

-places; a cask on end with a square hole like a window

-in the upper half was frequently used as a bath; a

-striking clock and a time-glass marked the passing of

-the hours; the large fire in the centre with its frame

-and trivet and spit and copper pots and other kitchen

-utensils served for warmth and cooking; and over the

-fire hung a large lamp beneath the chimney, which

-terminated outside in a cask giving it the appearance of

-a crow's nest ashore.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>While the house was building, and as long as the

-sun was above the horizon, there was much trouble

-with the bears, whose daily visits were always productive

-of excitement. On the 26th of October, for

-instance, the day after all the crew first slept in the

-house, when the men had loaded the last sledge and

-stood in the track-ropes ready to draw it to the house,

-Van Heemskerck caught sight of three coming towards

-them from behind the ship. The men jumped out of

-the track-ropes, and as fortunately two halberds lay

-upon the sledge, Van Heemskerck took one and De

-Veer the other, while the rest ran to the ship, "and as

-they ran one of them fell into a crevice in the ice,

-which grieved us much, for we thought the bears would

-have run unto him to devour him," but they made

-straight after the others instead. "Meantime we and

-the man that fell into the cleft of ice took our advantage

-and got into the ship on the other side; which the

-bears perceiving, they came fiercely towards us that

-had no arms to defend us withal but only the two

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>halberds, gave them work to do by throwing billets of

-firewood and other things at them, and every time we

-threw they ran after them as a dog does at a stone that

-has been cast at him. Meantime we sent a man down

-into the caboose to strike fire and another to fetch

-pikes; but we could get no fire, and so we had no

-means to shoot"—their firearms being matchlocks.

-"At the last as the bears came fiercely upon us we

-struck one of them with a halberd on the snout, wherewith

-she gave back when she felt herself hurt and went

-away, which the other two, that were not so large as

-she, perceiving, ran away."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>When the bears had gone and the long night set in,

-their place was taken by the white foxes, many of

-these being caught in traps and furnishing skins for

-clothes and flesh for meat—"not unlike that of the

-rabbit"—that was "as grateful as venison." The 19th

-of November was a great day. A chest of linen was

-opened and divided among the men for shirts, "for

-they had need of them." Next day they washed their

-shirts, having evidently made the new ones in a hurry,

-and, says De Veer, "it was so cold that when we had

-washed and wrung them they presently froze so stiff

-(out of the warm water) that although we laid them

-by a great fire the side that lay next the fire thawed,

-but the other side was hard frozen, so that we should

-sooner have torn them in sunder than have opened

-them, whereby we were forced to put them into the

-boiling water again to thaw them, it was so exceeding

-cold."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On the 3rd of December and the two following

-days it was so cold that as the men lay in their bunks

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>they could hear the ice cracking in the sea two miles

-away, and thought that icebergs were breaking on

-each other; and as they had not so great a fire as

-usual owing to the smoke "it froze so sore within the

-house that the walls and the roof thereof were frozen

-two fingers thick with ice, even in the bunks in which

-we lay. All those three days while we could not go

-out by reason of the foul weather we set up the sandglass

-of twelve hours, and when it was run out we set

-it up again, still watching it lest we should miss our

-time. For the cold was so great that our clock was

-frozen and would not go, although we hung more

-weight on it than before."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The snow fell until it was so deep round the house

-that on Christmas Day they heard foxes running over

-the roof; and the last day of the year was so cold that

-"the fire almost cast no heat, for as we put our feet

-to the fire we burnt our hose before we could feel the

-heat, so that we had work enough to do to patch our

-hose." On the 4th of January, "to know where the

-wind blew we thrust a half pike out of the chimney

-with a little cloth or feather upon it; but we had to

-look at it immediately the wind caught it, for as soon

-as we thrust it out it was frozen as hard as a piece of

-wood and could not go about or stir with the wind, so

-that we said to one another how fearfully cold it must

-be out of doors."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Next day, being Twelfth Eve, on which foreigners,

-according to the old practice, hold the festivities now

-customary in England on the following day, the men

-asked Van Heemskerck that they might enjoy themselves,

-"and so that night we made merry and drank

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>to the three kings. And therewith we had two pounds

-of meal, which we had taken to make paste for the

-cartridges wherewith, of which we now made pancakes

-with oil, and to every man a white biscuit, which we

-sopped in wine. And so supposing that we were in

-our own country and amongst our friends it comforted

-us as well as if we had made a great banquet in our

-own house. And we also distributed tickets, and our

-gunner was king of Nova Zembla, which is at least

-eight hundred miles long and lieth between two seas."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In time the sun reappeared—as also the bears—and

-the rigours of the winter relaxing, the men, on the

-9th of May, applied to Barents asking him to speak

-to Van Heemskerck with a view to preparing for

-departure. This, after two other appeals, he did on

-the 15th of May, Van Heemskerck's answer being

-that, if the ship were not free by the end of the month,

-he would get ready to go away in the boats. The two

-boats, or, to be exact, the boat and the herring skute,

-were then repaired and made suitable for a long sea

-voyage, and on the 13th of June were in proper condition

-with all their stores ready. Then Van Heemskerck,

-"seeing that it was open water and a good west

-wind, came back to the house again, and there he

-spake unto Willem Barents (that had been long sick)

-and showed him that he thought it good (seeing it was

-a fit time) to go from thence, and they then resolved

-jointly with the ship's company to take the boat and

-the skute down to the water side, and in the name of

-God to begin our voyage to sail from Nova Zembla.

-Then Willem Barents wrote a letter, which he put

-into a powder flask and hanged it up in the chimney,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>showing how we came out of Holland to sail to the

-kingdom of China, and what had happened to us."

-Then Barents was taken down to the shore on a sledge

-and put into one boat, the other sick man, Andriesz,

-being placed in the other, and "with a west-north-west

-wind and an indifferent open water" they set sail on a

-voyage of over fifteen hundred miles among the ice,

-over the ice, and through the sea.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Barents, though they little suspected it, had but a

-few days to live. As they passed the northernmost

-cape of Novaya Zemlya, "Gerrit," he said to De Veer,

-"if we are near the Ice Point, just lift me up again.

-I must see that point once more." They were amongst

-the ice floes again; soon they had to make fast to one;

-and then they became shut in and forced to stay there.

-Next day their only means of safety lay in hauling

-their boats up on to a floe, taking the sick men out on

-to the ice and putting the clothes and other things

-under them; but after mending the boats, which had

-been much bruised and crushed, they drifted into a

-little open water and got afloat. On the 20th of June,

-about eight in the morning it became evident that

-Andriesz was nearing his end. "Methinks," said

-Barents, in the other boat, when he heard of it, "with

-me too it will not last long." But still his companions

-did not realise how ill he was, and talked on unconcernedly.

-Then he looked at the little chart which

-De Veer had made of the voyage. Putting it down,

-he said, "Gerrit, give me something to drink." And

-no sooner did he drink than he suddenly died. Thus

-passed away their chief guide and only pilot, than

-whom none better ever sailed the northern seas.</p>

-

-<div id='pg56'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_093.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>HOW WE NEARLY GOT INTO TROUBLE WITH THE SEA-HORSES</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>Working their way down the west coast of the long

-island, putting in every now and then in search of birds

-and eggs, constantly in peril from the floating ice and

-the bears, they slowly came south. When passing

-Admiralty Peninsula they had to deal with a danger

-of their own causing. They sighted about two hundred

-walruses upon one of the floes. Sailing close to

-them they drove them off, "which," says De Veer,

-"had almost cost us dear, for they, being mighty

-strong sea monsters, swam towards us round about our

-boats with a great noise as if they would have devoured

-us; but we escaped from them by reason that we had a

-good gale of wind, yet it was not wisely done of us to

-waken sleeping wolves."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Day by day De Veer tells the story of that adventurous

-voyage, with its long succession of dangers and

-disappointments, until they reached the mainland and

-sent the Lapland messenger to Kola, who returned

-with a letter from Jan Corneliszoon Rijp, who at

-first they could not believe was the old friend from

-whom they had parted at Bear Island; and more

-briefly he continues the story until Amsterdam was

-reached on the 1st of November, when the survivors, in

-the same clothes they wore in their winter quarters,

-fur caps and white fox-skins, walked up to the house of

-Pieter Hasselaer to report themselves on arrival and

-received the hearty welcome they deserved.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Though Van Heemskerck had failed to make the

-passage to the east by way of the north, he was

-perhaps destined for greater fame on the far less

-rigorous route. Like Nelson he went on an Arctic

-expedition that failed, and then secured a place in

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>history by a sea-fight in Spanish waters, for which his

-countrymen will never forget him. He it was who

-as Vice-Admiral of Holland fought the Spanish fleet

-at Gibraltar in the decisive battle of the 25th of

-April, 1607, in which with his twenty-six vessels he

-attacked Juan Alvarez Davila's twenty ships and ten

-galleons. Early in the struggle he had his leg swept

-off by a cannon shot, but he remained on deck till he

-died, gaining the complete victory which rendered his

-countrymen free from hindrance on the road to the

-Indies round the Cape of Good Hope, of which for

-so many years they made such profitable use. It is

-customary to give all the credit of the Arctic voyage

-to Barents on the ground that his captain was no

-sailor, but Holland knows no better sailor than Jacob

-Van Heemskerck of Gibraltar Bay.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On the 9th of September, 1871, Captain Elling

-Carlsen, sailing in the Barents Sea, which he had

-entered round Icy Cape, landed in Ice Haven and

-found the house just as De Veer had described it.

-There it had stood in cold storage for 274 years, never

-having been entered by human foot since Van Heemskerck

-had shut the door. The bunks, the table, the

-bath, the clock, in short everything, all in order,

-as the orderly Dutchmen had left it. Never did a

-voyage book receive such ample verification; never did

-the description of an island home stand the test better.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Carlsen, to begin with, knew nothing of De Veer or

-Barents, but he set to work in a conscientious way

-and recorded the results like a true archæologist.

-"Thursday, 14th," he wrote in his log, "Calm with

-clear sky. Four o'clock in the morning we went

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>ashore further to investigate the wintering place. On

-digging we found again several objects, such as drumsticks,

-a hilt of a sword, and spears. Altogether it

-seemed that the people had been equipped in a warlike

-manner, but nothing was found which could indicate

-the presence of human remains. On the beach we

-found pieces of wood which had formerly belonged to

-some part of a ship, for which reason I believe that a

-vessel has been wrecked there, the crew of which built

-the house with the materials of the wreck and afterwards

-betook themselves to boats."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Bringing away a very large number of articles, he

-resumed his voyage and landed at Hammerfest, where

-Mr. E. C. Lister Kay, who happened to be there on a

-yachting trip, bought them, thinking they would be repurchased

-from him, at the price he gave, for one of our

-own museums. In this he was disappointed, and the

-collection was taken down to his house in Dorsetshire,

-where Count Bylandt, the Dutch Ambassador, happening

-to hear of it, called and bought it for his Government,

-who placed it at the Hague in a room, the

-exact imitation of that in Novaya Zemlya.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In July, 1876, Mr. Charles Gardiner, another English

-yachtsman, when on a cruise in the <em>Glow-worm</em> in

-Barents Sea, made a call at the house and brought

-away many other relics, which he presented to the

-Dutch, to be added to those at the Hague; and

-among them was the powder-flask hung in the

-chimney, containing the paper mentioned by De Veer.

-The previous August Captain Gundersen had been

-there in the Norwegian schooner <em>Regina</em>. In one of

-the chests he found two charts and what he described

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>as Barents's Journal. The journal proved to be a

-manuscript Dutch translation of the story of the

-voyage in 1580 of Arthur Pet and Charles Jackman.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In 1608, eleven years after Barents died, Henry

-Hudson, in the Muscovy Company's service, was sent

-to China by the north-east. He sailed on the 22nd of

-April from St. Katharine's, near the Tower of London,

-and on the 3rd of June passed the North Cape on his

-way to Novaya Zemlya, which he reached near Cape

-Britwin twenty-three days afterwards. For some considerable

-distance he had skirted the ice pack, vainly

-endeavouring to get through to the northward and

-enter the Kara Sea round the Orange Islands.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>This being impracticable he ranged southwards looking

-for a passage through at Kostin Shar, which in the

-Dutch map he had with him was marked as a strait

-and proved to be a bay. Had he been able to go a

-little further north than Cape Britwin he might have

-found that Matyushin Shar, like a rift in the rocks,

-divides the long island in half, though at that early

-season the ice would have probably been blocking it.

-From Kostin or thereabouts he departed for home, his

-voyage failing almost at the outset, owing to his being

-two months too early.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>While off the coast he sent his boat ashore several

-times. "Generally," he says, "all the land of Nova

-Zembla that we have yet seen is to a man's eye a

-pleasant land; much main high land with no snow on

-it, looking in some places green, and deer feeding

-thereon; and the hills are partly covered with snow

-and partly bare"—rather a different picture from that

-given by De Veer of what it was like in the winter.

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>De Veer, too, had committed himself to the statement

-that there were no deer in the country, but here were

-Hudson's men frequently coming upon their traces, and

-on the 2nd of July reporting that they had seen "a

-herd of white deer, ten in a company," bringing on

-board with them a white lock of deer's hair in proof

-thereof.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On his return Hudson left the service of the Muscovy

-Company. He went to Holland, and, early in

-April, 1609, was sent out by the Amsterdam Chamber

-of the Dutch East India Company. On the 5th of

-May he rounded the North Cape, making for Novaya

-Zemlya, and a few days afterwards reached the ice.

-Here, according to Dutch accounts, his men mutinied,

-but what happened during the trouble is not recorded.

-Whether it was really owing to a mutiny, or, as is by

-no means improbable, to secret instructions received at

-his departure, Hudson, on the 14th, made sail for the

-North Cape, passed it on the 19th, when he observed a

-spot on the sun, and then went off westwards to Newfoundland,

-making direct apparently for the mouth of

-the river now bearing his name, which was discovered

-by Verrazano in March, 1524, and surveyed by Gomez

-in the following year, and was at the time of Hudson's

-visit British territory.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The reason for this astonishing change of route was,

-perhaps, that on some of the charts of the period, as on

-Michael Lock's planisphere, this river, the Rio de Gamas

-or Rio Grande of the Spaniards, was made to communicate

-with what seems to be intended for Lake

-Ontario, and this with the other lakes to the westward

-was widened out into the waterway to the South Sea.

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>Thus Hudson drops out of our story at his first

-mutiny, for he did not cross the Arctic Circle on his

-fourth voyage, when his second mutiny ended his career

-in the bay that bears his name, which, like the river

-and the strait, was indicated on the maps years before

-he went there.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In 1664 Willem de Vlamingh, the Dutch navigator,

-or—to be cautious—the namesake of the Dutch navigator,

-who thirty-one years afterwards found Dirk

-Hartog's plate and named Swan River in West Australia

-after the black swans, was in these regions and

-rounded Novaya Zemlya into the Kara Sea, reaching so

-far north that if his recorded latitude be correct he

-must have sighted the Franz Josef archipelago, and,

-contrary to the tendency of Arctic explorers, mistaken

-land for a bank of mist or a group of icebergs. After

-him neither Dutch nor English delay us, the opening

-up of this continuation of the Urals being left to the

-Russians, who found it first and named it—Novaya

-Zemlya meaning simply New Land.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>For years it was left to the Samoyeds and the walrus

-hunters, whose persistent reports of deposits of silver in

-its cliffs led to Loschkin's making his way round it and

-spending two winters on its east coast. In 1768 Rosmysslof,

-also on silver bent, wintered in Matyushin

-Shar, that wonderful waterway, ninety fathoms deep,

-bounded by high hills and precipitous cliffs, winding so

-sharply that ships have been into it for a dozen miles or

-so and seeing no passage ahead have come out again to

-seek it elsewhere. In 1807 came Pospeloff, with Ludlow

-the mining engineer, to settle the silver question

-once for all, and settle it they did by showing that

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>everywhere the so-called silver was either talc or mica,

-and naming Silver Bay ironically in memory thereof.

-Fourteen years afterwards Lütke surveyed the west

-coast, continuing during the next three summers; and

-in 1832 Pachtussoff arrived to undergo in the course of

-his really admirable work the hardships and privations

-of which he died.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>

-  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER IV<br /> FRANZ JOSEF LAND</h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c013'>Austro-Hungarian expedition of 1872—The voyage as planned—The drift of

-the <em>Tegetthoff</em>—The polyglot crew—Discovery of Franz Josef Land—Payer's

-description of an aurora—The sledge journeys—Crown Prince

-Rudolf Land—Cape Fligely reached—Abandonment of the <em>Tegetthoff</em>—The

-boat voyage to Cape Britwin—Leigh Smith's expeditions—Loss of

-the <em>Eira</em>—The retreat in the boats—Jackson in Franz Josef Land—His

-excellent survey work—The Italian expedition under the Duke of the

-Abruzzi—Cagni attempts to reach the Pole and is stopped at 86° 34´—The

-return journey.</p>

-

-<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>In 1871 Weyprecht and Payer were out in the

-cutter <em>Isbjörn</em>, pioneering for their intended voyage

-to the eastward, which started next year in the <em>Tegetthoff</em>,

-the famous Austro-Hungarian attempt of 1872

-which may be described as an unintentional voyage of

-unexpected discovery. The amount of credit due to

-a man who starts to find one thing and lights upon

-another has always been a contentious matter, and

-this expedition afforded an extreme case for such

-speculations. The plan was to go east-north-east, the

-wintering places being undetermined, though they

-might be Cape Chelyuskin, the New Siberian Islands,

-or any land that might be discovered; and a return

-to Europe through Bering Strait lay among the

-possibilities of the venture, as an endeavour was to

-be made to reach the coast of Siberia in boats and

-penetrate south down one of the large rivers of

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>Northern Asia. What happened was that during the

-afternoon of the 20th of August, when off the north-west

-coast of Novaya Zemlya in 76° 22´ north, 63° 3´

-east, the ship was run into an ice-hole and made fast

-to a floe, and during the night the ice, instead of parting

-asunder, closed in and imprisoned her, so that she

-never steamed or sailed again. In the ice and on the

-ice she lay perfectly helpless, drifting with the floe,

-and still in its grip when she was abandoned by her

-crew on the 20th of May, two years afterwards.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>It was a wonderful drift. North-easterly in the

-main to begin with, then north-westerly, then easterly

-to about 73°, then north, then west, in and out and

-roundabout, till they reached much the same longitude

-as they started from and then with a general tendency to

-the northward. Autumn passed away; the Polar night

-set in; and still they drifted ice-bound—a miscellaneous

-company representative of the polyglot empire; "on

-board the <em>Tegetthoff</em>," says Payer, "are heard all the

-languages of our country, German, Italian, Slavonic,

-and Hungarian; Italian is, however, the language in

-which all orders are given," to which we should add

-the Norwegian of Olaf Carlsen, the ice-master. During

-the winter there was enough of occupation and amusement,

-though private theatricals were impossible, as

-they would have had to be given in four languages to

-be intelligible to the audience.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The short summer came and went, and August had

-almost gone when—it was on the 30th, in 79° 43´—there

-came a surprise. The rays of the sun were fitfully

-breaking through the gloom when suddenly the gliding

-mists rolled up like a curtain, revealing in the

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>north-west the outlines of a rocky coast, which in a

-few minutes grew into a radiant Alpine land. The

-shore, however, was unattainable, as a rush over the

-icefield soon showed, but from the edge of the fissure

-that barred any further progress they could make out

-its hills and glaciers and imagine the green pastures of

-its valleys. They called it Kaiser Franz Josef's Land,

-and along it they drifted during September till its outlines

-faded as the wind began to drive the floe to the

-south. But at the end of the month the direction of

-the floe changed to the north-west, taking the <em>Tegetthoff</em>

-up to 79° 58´, her highest north, near enough to

-one of the islands for an effort to be made to land.

-Six started from the ship over the grinding, groaning,

-broken walls of ice, and when they were out of sight

-of the ship a mist settled down which cut them off

-from the sight of land and then so closely enwrapped

-them that they could see nothing. Advance they

-found hopeless, and as they returned they lost their

-way and were saved by the sagacity of a dog they had

-with them. All through October the drift continued,

-and it was not until forenoon of the 1st of November,

-two months after sighting the country, that they

-managed to get ashore. This was on Wilczek Island

-in the same longitude as Admiralty Peninsula in

-Novaya Zemlya, and in the same latitude as Mossel

-Bay in Spitsbergen.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The sun had retired for the winter nine days before,

-and it was by the light of the moon that they first

-explored the unknown country. Little could be done,

-and, as it was much too late for attempting to shift

-from the ship to the shore, the winter had to be spent

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>on board as the other had been. Through this winter,

-as before, the auroral displays were remarkable, and

-they are excellently described by Payer. Of one of

-them, he says: "It is now eight o'clock at night, the

-hour of the greatest intensity of the northern lights.

-For a moment some bundles of rays only are to be

-seen in the sky. In the south a faint, scarcely observable,

-band lies close to the horizon. All at once it

-rises rapidly and spreads east and west. The waves

-of light begin to dart and shoot; some rays mount

-towards the zenith. For a short time it remains

-stationary, then suddenly springs to life. The waves

-of light drive violently from east to west; the edges

-assume a deep red and green colour and dance up and

-down. The rays shoot up more rapidly; they become

-shorter; all rise together and approach nearer and

-nearer to the magnetic Pole. It looks as if there were

-a race among the rays, and that each aspired to reach

-the Pole first. And now the point is reached, and

-they shoot out on every side, to the north and the

-south, to the east and the west. Do the rays shoot

-from above downwards, or from below upwards? Who

-can distinguish? From the centre issues a sea of

-flames. Is that sea red, white, or green? Who can

-say?—it is all three colours at the same moment. The

-rays reach almost to the horizon; the whole sky is in

-flames. Nature displays before us such an exhibition

-of fireworks as transcends the powers of imagination

-to conceive. Involuntarily we listen; such a spectacle

-must, we think, be accompanied with sound. But

-unbroken stillness prevails, not the least sound strikes

-on the ear. Once more it becomes clear over the ice,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>and the whole phenomenon has disappeared with the

-same inconceivable rapidity with which it came, and

-gloomy night has again stretched her dark veil over

-everything. This was the aurora of the coming storm—the

-aurora in its fullest splendour."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Sledging was begun in March, Hall Island being first

-visited, and, on the 26th, Payer, with six men, started

-on his main journey up Austria Sound, reaching

-Hohenlohe Island, where three men were left, and then

-proceeding further north to Crown Prince Rudolf

-Land. Off the southern promontory of this were

-innumerable icebergs, up to two hundred feet in height,

-cracking and snapping in the sunshine. The Middendorf

-Glacier, with an enormous sea-wall, ran towards

-the north-west; layers of snow and rents in the sea-ice,

-caused by icebergs falling in, filled the intervening

-space. Into these fissures Payer and his men were

-continually falling, drenching their canvas boots and

-clothes with sea-water. One of the men was sent on

-ahead to find a path by which the glacier might be

-climbed, and discovering a fairly open road the summit

-was gained across many crevasses bridged with snow,

-three of those at the lower part needing but a slight

-movement to detach the severed portions and form

-them into bergs.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>While resting on the glacier looking down on the

-semicircular terminal precipice and the gleaming host

-of bergs which filled the indentations of the coast, one

-of the men reported that his foot was swollen and

-ulcerated, and he had to be sent back to Hohenlohe

-Island. Just as the others were setting off, the snow

-gave way beneath the sledge, and down fell Zaninovich,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>the dogs and the sledge, while Payer was dragged backwards

-by the rope. The fall was arrested at a depth of

-thirty feet by the sledge sticking fast between the sides

-of the crevasse. Payer, on his face, the rope attaching

-him to the sledge tightly strained and cutting into the

-snow, shouted that he would sever the rope, but

-Zaninovich implored him not to do so as the sledge

-would then turn over and he would be killed; hearing,

-however, from Orel, that the man was lying on a ledge

-of snow with precipices all around him and that the

-dogs were still fast to the traces, Payer cut the rope,

-and the sledge made a short turn and stuck fast again.

-Then, telling Zaninovich that he must contrive to keep

-himself from freezing for four hours, Payer and Orel

-set off to run the six miles back to Hohenlohe Island.

-Payer, as he went on ahead, threw off his bird-skin

-clothes, his boots and his gloves, and ran in his stockings

-through the snow. In an hour he reached the

-camp, and leaving it unattended they all set off to the

-rescue with a rope and a pole. Picking up his clothes

-on the way, Payer and his men reached the crevasse;

-one of the party was let down by the rope, and finally

-Zaninovich and the sledge and dogs were brought

-from their dangerous position four hours and a half

-after their fall.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The advance was then resumed along the west coast

-of Crown Prince Rudolf Land round the imposing

-headland they named Cape Auk—the rocky cliffs being

-covered with little auks and other seabirds, enormous

-flocks flying up and filling the air, the whole region

-seeming to be alive with their incessant whirring—and

-following the line of Teplitz Bay, Payer mounted one

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>of the bergs detached from a glacier and saw open

-water with ice bounding it on the horizon. As the

-sheet over which their course lay became thinner, and

-threatened to give way beneath them, they had to open

-up a track among the hummocks by pick and shovel;

-and when this failed they had to unload the sledge and

-carry the things separately. At Cape Saulen they

-camped for the night in the fissure of a glacier into

-which they had to drag their baggage by a long rope;

-and next day—the 12th of April, 1874—they went on

-again and reached Cape Fligely, in 81° 50´ 43˝, their

-farthest north.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>With great difficulty they made their way back to

-the ship, a long, toilsome journey through snow and

-sludge, with open water in places where there had been

-ice, which made them fear the <em>Tegetthoff</em> might have

-drifted away again. The imminent danger of starvation

-was ended by their reaching their depot on Schonau

-Island, whence Payer went on for the remaining twenty-five

-miles alone with the dog-sledge, the two dogs

-giving much trouble until they struck the old sledge

-track almost obliterated by snow, when they raised

-their heads, stuck their tails in the air, and broke into a

-run. Halting on an iceberg for a meal, the berg capsized,

-and in a moment Payer was begirt by fissures,

-water-pools, and rolling blocks of ice, from which he

-managed to escape. When he turned into the narrow

-passage between Salm and Wilczek Islands, Orgel

-Cape, visible at a great distance, was the only dark spot

-on the scene. At once the dogs made for it, and about

-midnight he arrived there. With an anxious heart he

-began the ascent; a barren stony plateau confronted

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>him; with every advancing step, made with increasing

-difficulty, the land gradually disappeared and the

-horizon of the frozen sea expanded before him; no ship

-was to be seen, no trace of man for thousands of miles

-except a cairn with the fragments of a flag fluttering in

-the wind, and a grave half covered with snow. Still

-he climbed, and suddenly three masts emerged. He

-had found the ship; there she lay about three miles off,

-appearing on the frozen ocean no bigger than a fly, the

-icebergs and drifts around her having hidden her

-amongst them. He held the heads of the dogs towards

-her and pointed with his arm to where she lay;

-and they saw her, and away they went, to find all but

-the watch asleep.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>After another sledge journey north-westwards to

-Mount Brunn, from which Richthofen Peak was sighted,

-preparations were made for abandoning the ship and

-returning home. The three boats left the <em>Tegetthoff</em>

-on the 20th of May, but so slow was the progress over

-the difficult route that at the end of every day in the

-first week it was possible for Payer to go back to her

-on the dog-sledge to replenish the stores which had

-been consumed; and at the end of two months of indescribable

-effort the distance between the boats and

-the ship was not more than eight statute miles. The

-heights of Wilczek Land were still distinctly visible

-and its lines of rocks shone with mocking brilliance in

-the ever-growing daylight. All things appeared to

-promise that after a long struggle with the ice there

-remained for the expedition but a despairing return to

-the ship and a third winter there with the frozen ocean

-for their grave.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>In the middle of July the fissures which had been

-opening out around them became wider and longer,

-progress reaching some four miles a day; then the

-north wind blew and the icefield commenced to drift

-to the south, to drift again north-east when the wind

-changed. Backwards and forwards, amid every variety

-of weather, including heavy rain, the pack ice moved

-until it changed to drift ice, and, on the 15th of August,

-the much-tried company got afloat at last in open

-water and laid their course for Novaya Zemlya, where

-they fell in with two Russian schooners off Cape

-Britwin.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The next to visit Franz Josef Land was Leigh Smith,

-whom we met with in the Spitsbergen seas. Building

-the <em>Eira</em> especially for Arctic service, he started in

-1880, the year she was launched, on a cruise to Greenland

-and thence eastwards, which took him to the west

-and north-west of the ground gone over by the Austrians.

-He surveyed the whole coast from 42° east to

-the most westerly point seen by Payer, and sorted it

-out into several islands, but found no trace of the

-<em>Tegetthoff</em>, for where she had been left was open water.

-Encouraged by the success of his visit, in which the

-observations and collections were unusually good, he

-returned in the <em>Eira</em> the following year to meet with

-much more unfavourable ice conditions. Finding it

-impossible to get westward of Barents Hook the <em>Eira</em>

-was, on the 15th of August, made fast to the land floe

-off Cape Flora, and six days afterwards she was nipped

-and stove by the ice and slowly sank in eleven fathoms

-of water. As she settled down the steam winch was

-set to work, and by its means half a dozen casks of

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>flour and about three hundredweight of bread were

-saved from the main hold; and when nothing more

-could be got from the lower deck the stores in the

-after cabin were attacked, and within the two hours

-from the discovery of the leak to the disappearance of

-the ship, all these provisions and the boats and clothes

-were safe on the ice; and the sails were cut away, and

-with them and some oars a tent was erected in which

-all the company, twenty-five in number, took shelter.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>A move was made next day to the land. On Cape

-Flora a house was built mainly of earth and stones,

-covered with sails, in which the winter was passed.

-Fortunately the district abounds with bears and walruses,

-and the meat from these, boiled with vegetables,

-and served out three times a day into twenty-five

-plates made out of old provision tins, proved the right

-sort of fare to keep every one in excellent health.

-Thanks in a great measure to Bob, the retriever, the

-larder was kept full; but there being a shortness of

-coal, recourse for fuel had to be made to rope and

-blubber, so that no one could mistake the time when the

-cooking was on. In fact, the odour and the smoke were

-of great interest to the bears, who lingered about intending

-to pay surprise visits, and the dog had always

-to be sent in front of those leaving the house. One

-day when out on his own account, Bob discovered a

-school of walruses on the ice and reported the matter

-in his own fashion, whereupon several of these were

-shot, and after an exciting chase five were secured. In

-January he found another school, of which three were

-bagged and stowed alongside the house, although the

-thermometer stood at forty below zero. On another

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>occasion he managed to tempt a bear up to the front

-door, where it was promptly tumbled over, to his

-evident satisfaction.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>During the winter the party killed twenty-nine walruses

-and three dozen bears. Once, when only a fortnight's

-meat was left, and things began to look serious,

-no less than eight bears were killed in two weeks. At

-the end of April the birds returned, and in June the ice

-was cleared away by a gale and walruses were seen

-swimming on the water in hundreds. Never did a

-wintering party meet with better fortune, and never

-was one better managed.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On the 21st of June they started from Cape Flora

-in four boats, six men each in three of them, seven in

-the other, to reach the open sea, leaving in the house

-six bottles of champagne in case any person might

-look in, besides a few other things, and blocking up

-the door to keep out the bears. Before the boats

-reached the ice they crossed eighty miles of water, and

-then six weeks' hard labour began, zigzagging through

-channels, hauling over hummocky floes, sailing through

-pools, halting for days on a floe with no water in sight,

-but never doubting that a clearance would come. On

-leaving the ice they steered for Novaya Zemlya, at first

-in a gentle breeze, which rapidly increased to a gale in

-a heavy thunderstorm, so that the boats, with their

-sails of tablecloth and shirt-tail, had to be carefully

-handled as they scudded before it at such a pace that

-within twenty-four hours of leaving the ice they were

-drawn up all safe on the beach at the entrance of

-Matyushin Shar. Next morning the Dutch exploring

-schooner, <em>Willem Barents</em>, was descried coming out of

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>the strait, and before the schooner was reached by the

-boats there came round the point the <em>Hope</em>, which

-Sir Allen Young, of the <em>Pandora</em>, had brought out as

-a rescue ship for them. They had been driven by the

-gale to the very spot on the very day they could be

-best relieved.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>From the reports of Weyprecht and Payer it

-appeared that the north-east of Franz Josef Land

-would make an excellent base for a start for the North

-Pole, and Leigh Smith was led to the same view by

-his visit to Alexandra Land, but along the south he

-had made so many changes in Payer's map that a

-further examination of the region was evidently desirable.

-To effect this by a careful survey of the coasts,

-Frederick G. Jackson landed near Cape Flora on the

-7th of September, 1894, and began his residence of a

-thousand days. Setting to work in a businesslike way,

-and recording his progress in similar style, he disintegrated

-the land masses into a group of some fifty size-able

-islands, through which run two main waterways,

-his British Channel and Payer's Austria Sound, both

-opening out northwards into Queen Victoria Sea;

-Crown Prince Rudolf Land being a large island at

-the northern entrance of Austria Sound, Wilczek Land

-at its southern entrance being about twice its size.

-He defined the coast-lines for over eighty miles of

-latitude, extending to fifteen degrees of longitude as

-far west as the most westerly headland, Cape Mary

-Harmsworth, and so cutting up Franz Josef Land that

-not even an island now bears the name, which is used

-only as that of the archipelago. Never in Arctic

-exploration was work rendered more evident than in

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>the difference between the map as Jackson found it

-and as he left it.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The <em>Windward</em>, with the expedition on board,

-sighted the land on the 25th of August, but, stopped

-by intervening ice, could not reach the coast until a

-fortnight afterwards, the landing taking place at Cape

-Flora, close to Leigh Smith's house, which was found

-with the roof off. Not far away Jackson established

-his headquarters, quite a little settlement, though the

-expedition consisted of only eight men. Just as Leigh

-Smith found no remains of the <em>Tegetthoff</em>, so Jackson

-found no trace of the <em>Eira</em>. It had been intended

-that the <em>Windward</em> should return after putting the

-party ashore, but, shut in by the ice, she had to remain

-during the first winter, getting away safely next

-year, to return in 1896 and take away Nansen, who, as

-we shall see further on, ended his long land journey

-here. On her 1897 trip she departed with the members

-of the expedition all well, so that neither ship nor man

-was lost, the only serious casualties being among the

-dogs and the Russian ponies which did such excellent

-service.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Two years afterwards, in July, 1899, the deserted

-settlement was visited by the Duke of the Abruzzi,

-in his expedition in the <em>Stella Polare</em>, on his way to

-the north, a few days before he met with his short

-imprisonment in the ice in British Channel. His was

-a successful run all the same, for he was in 82° 4´, to

-the northward of Crown Prince Rudolf Land, or, as

-it is now called, Prince Rudolf Island, twenty-seven

-days out from Archangel. Passing Cape Fligely—the

-latitude of which was afterwards found to be sixteen

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>miles south of the 82° 5´ Payer had made it—and

-rounding Cape Auk, the <em>Stella Polare</em> went into

-winter quarters in Teplitz Bay, whence Captain

-Umberto Cagni started, on the 11th of March, 1900,

-for his forty-five days' march towards the North Pole.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>It was a great disappointment to the Duke to have

-to stay with the ship instead of leading this well-equipped

-and thoroughly organised sledge attempt,

-but owing to an accident two of his fingers had been

-so severely frost-bitten that they had to be amputated,

-and, unless a second winter was to be spent in the ice,

-a start was imperative before he could recover from

-the operation. Thus all he could do was to assist at

-the first encounter of the sledges with the pressure

-ridges and wish Cagni the longest possible journey and

-a safe return. There was every appearance of the

-journey being a difficult one, for on the first day a

-stoppage had to be made every quarter of a mile or

-thereabouts for a road to be cut through the ridges

-with ice-axes, while next day a new hindrance was

-experienced in the young ice in the channels being too

-thin at times to support the sledges, one of which began

-to sink and was only extricated with difficulty, so that

-only one sledge could be allowed on such ice at a time.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On the 13th of March the auxiliary sledge was sent

-back, thus reducing the caravan to a dozen sledges and

-ninety-eight dogs, which in a long line passed over

-a vast plain covered with great rugged blocks of ice,

-as though they had been thrown down confusedly by

-a giant's hand to bar the way. The wind was north-east,

-the cold intense, fifty below zero, not to be

-particular to a degree or so, for, as Cagni says, when

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>the temperature is below twenty-two, and it is impossible

-to use a screen or a magnifying glass, the

-mere fact of approaching to read the scale on an unmounted

-thermometer sends it up a couple of degrees,

-and when the temperature is below fifty-eight an

-approach makes a difference of three or four degrees.

-So cold was it that the sleeping bags were as hard as

-wood, and the men got into them after much effort,

-not to sleep but to feel their teeth chattering for hours,

-the only warm parts of the body being the feet clad in

-long woollen stockings. "There are patches of ice on

-our knees," says Cagni, "like horses' knee-caps, and we

-have others, both large and small, sometimes thick

-enough to be scraped off with a knife, everywhere, but

-especially on our cheeks and backs and in all places

-where the perspiration has oozed through."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Amid such surroundings the camp must have seemed

-somewhat out of place. When a suitable site was

-chosen the first sledge was stopped, and near it the

-three other sledges of the third detachment were

-drawn up at a distance of about ten feet from each

-other. The sledges of the second detachment as they

-came up formed a second line, those of the third forming

-another. The tents were pitched between two

-sledges, generally those in the centre, the guy ropes

-being fastened to the sledge runners, those at the ends

-to an ice-axe stuck in the ice. The sleeping bags were

-then unpacked, the cooking stoves taken out of the

-boats, and everything arranged under the tent. The

-thin steel wire ropes to which the dogs were tethered,

-when unharnessed, were stretched between the sledges

-away from the tents. While the men were taking

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>the dogs out of the harness, which always remained

-attached to the traces on the sledges, and tethering

-them to the steel ropes, one of the guides took a

-chosen victim to some distance from the camp, and

-felled it with a blow from an ice-axe, then opened it,

-skinned it quickly, divided it up into ten shares and

-distributed these to the dogs, already destined to

-undergo the same fate, these being the weakest and

-most ailing—in short, this was the elimination of the

-unfit.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On the 22nd of March the first detachment began

-its return journey; it consisted of Lieutenant Querini

-and two men, and it was never heard of again. The

-way northwards continued extremely difficult, with

-channels and ridges plentiful and the road so rough

-that the sledges began to break up in the bows and

-runners, some at last so badly that their fragments had

-to be used to repair the others with. On the 31st the

-second detachment was sent back, consisting of the

-doctor and two men, and it got safely to the ship. The

-third detachment, consisting of Cagni with two Courmayeur

-guides—Petigax and Fenoillet—and a sailor,

-Canepa, all four Italians, made the final effort. That

-day they were on level ice and covered seventeen miles,

-but at night a snowstorm came on and there was

-trouble. After a rest they pressed forward in rapid

-marches amid bad weather over the drifting fields. On

-the 12th of April while raising camp a strong pressure

-piled up within a hundred yards of them a wall from

-thirty-six to forty-five feet high, the highest ridge they

-had seen. Enormous blocks rolled down towards them

-with loud crashes after being thrown up by other

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>blocks, lifted to the brow of the ridge and rolled over

-in their turn, raising a cloud of ice-dust in their fall,

-the loud continual creaking of the pressure drowned by

-the booming of the cascade which shook the ice for

-yards around. These ridges were constantly forming,

-most of them remaining, some of them subsiding as the

-edges drifted apart, and the channels thus caused were

-even more difficult to deal with, some having to be

-passed over thin ice, some ferried over on small floes.

-But they did not cross the track all along, and during

-the last few days the travelling was easy.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On the 24th of April the long journey reached its

-end. "At ten minutes past twelve," says Cagni, "we

-are on our way to the north. The ice is like that of

-yesterday, level and smooth, and, later on, undulating.

-At first the dogs are not very willing to pull, but encouraged

-by our shouts and a few strokes, they advance

-at a rapid pace, which they keep up during the whole

-march. At five we meet with a large pressure ridge,

-which almost surprises us, as it seems to us a century

-since we have seen any; we lost a quarter of an hour in

-preparing a passage through and crossing it. Beyond

-it the aspect of the ice changes; the undulations are

-more strongly marked, and large blocks and small

-ridges indicate recent pressure, but luckily they do not

-stop us or obstruct our way. Soon after six we come

-upon a large channel running from east to west; we

-must stop. Beyond the channel is a vast expanse of

-new ice, much broken up and traversed by many other

-channels. Even if I were not prevented from doing

-so, I would now think twice before risking myself in

-the midst of them. If we did push forward on that

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>ice, even for half a day, we would gain very few miles

-and besides run the risk of losing a sledge. The dogs

-are very tired, and we too feel the effects of yesterday's

-strain. I therefore consider that it is more prudent to

-stop here, and both the guides are of the same opinion.

-The sun is unclouded. I bring out the sextant and

-take altitudes of the sun to calculate the longitude

-(65° 19´ 45˝ E.) while Fenoillet and Canepa put the

-sledges in order and pitch the tent in a sort of small

-amphitheatre of hillocks which shelter us from the

-north wind. On that farthest to the north, which is

-almost touched by the water of the channel, we plant

-the staff from which our flag waves. The air is very

-clear; between the north-east and the north-west there

-stand out distinctly, some sharply pointed, others

-rounded, dark or blue and white, often with strange

-shapes, the innumerable pinnacles of the great blocks of

-ice raised up by the pressure. Farther away again on

-the bright horizon in a chain from east to west is a

-great azure wall which from afar seems insurmountable."

-The latitude was 86° 34´.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The outward journey took forty-five days; the homeward

-took sixty, and proved a perilous adventure

-owing to the drift of the pack to the westward and its

-breaking up as the weather became warmer and the

-southern boundary was approached. At first there

-was good promise. The dogs knew they were going

-back, and followed the outward track so fast that the

-men, failing to keep up with them, for the first time

-took a seat on the sledges and were drawn along at

-four miles an hour. Progress was rapid for a few days

-owing to there being now only four sledges and, in a

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>considerable degree, to the intelligence of the leading

-dog, Messicano. Ever since leaving Teplitz Bay this

-small white dog, with the intelligent eyes and bushy

-legs, had held the first place in the leading sledge

-because he followed the man at the head of the convoy

-better than the others, and now when the guide was

-behind or on the sledge, Messicano took the track at

-a gallop with his nose on the snow, losing the way now

-and then, but finding it again, though to the men it

-was often invisible. The time came, however, when

-the old track had to be left for a better course to the

-ship, and then difficulties of every sort had to be overcome,

-the delays being such that dog after dog had to

-be killed to keep away starvation, and it was only with

-seven of them and two sledges that Prince Rudolf

-Island was reached from the westward on the 23rd of

-June. "The snow is wet, which is very bad for

-dragging the sledges, as it sticks to the runners and

-tires our dogs exceedingly; we have still seven, but

-only three that really pull (three to each sledge), for

-Messicano is at the last extremity and can hardly hold

-up the trace." Toiling on thus through the fog to Cape

-Brorok a noise was heard in the distance like the

-creaking caused by pressure among ice floes, and when

-the fog lifted it was found that the sound was that of

-the seabirds on the cliffs. Out on the icefield no signs

-of life had been met with beyond the traces of a bear,

-a seal that vanished, and a walrus that popped up

-through thin ice to send Fenoillet scuttling off on his

-hands and knees.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Meanwhile the ship, which had been seriously

-damaged, had been made seaworthy. Liberated from

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>her berth by mines of gunpowder and guncotton,

-she sailed from Teplitz Bay on the 16th of August,

-and, after further unpleasant experiences in the ice,

-reached Cape Flora, where a call was made at Jackson's

-house in the vain hope of news of Querini; and

-thence, after more ice complications, Captain Evensen

-took her to Hammerfest. Though, as in all Arctic

-endeavour, conditions were against them, the employment

-of a Norwegian crew for the ship and an Italian

-crew for the sledges had, under excellent management,

-worked thoroughly well.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>

-  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER V<br /> CAPE CHELYUSKIN</h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c013'>Chelyuskin reaches the cape—The Laptefs—Deschnef's voyage through

-Bering Strait—Nordenskiöld's voyages to the Yenesei—The Siberian

-tundra—The voyage of the <em>Vega</em>—Nordenskiöld rounds Cape Chelyuskin—Endeavour

-to reach the Siberian Islands—Liakhoff's discovery—The

-<em>Vega</em> passes the Cape North of Captain Cook—Frozen in within six miles

-of Cape Serdze Kamen—Completes the North-east Passage—Nansen's

-voyage—The <em>Fram</em>—Her drift in the ice—Nansen and Johansen start

-for the Pole—They reach 86° 13´ 6˝—Their journey to Frederick Jackson

-Island—The meeting with Jackson—Sverdrup's voyage to Spitsbergen.</p>

-

-<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>The tundras and shores of Siberia abound with

-obstacles to exploration, and yet a third of the

-threshold of the Polar regions has been surveyed along

-their line. No spot remains unvisited on the northern

-margin of the Asiatic mainland, the northernmost

-point of which is Cape Chelyuskin in 77° 36·8´, so that

-the Arctic Circle sweeps inland for 770 miles to the

-south of it—in other words the cape is practically half-way

-between the Circle and the Pole.</p>

-

-<div id='pg84'  class='figcenter id008'>

-<a href='images/i_123.jpg'><img src='images/i_123_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>CAPE CHELYUSKIN</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>It was chiefly from the land that the northern coast-line

-was surveyed by the Russians, whose Arctic work

-has been immense and thorough, though not marked by

-any striking discoveries. Cape Chelyuskin was first

-reached, in May, 1742, by the explorer whose name it

-bears, after a sledge journey from the Chatanga, he

-being at the time second in command to Khariton

-Laptef, whose first expedition in 1739 ended in the loss

-of his ship three hundred miles from his winter quarters,

-to which he had to travel on foot, losing twelve

-men by cold and exhaustion on the way. Within the

-preceding four years the survey of the coast west of it

-had been completed in four stages—from Archangel to

-Yalmal (that is Land's End); from Yalmal to the Obi;

-from the Obi to the Yenesei; from the Yenesei to

-Cape Sterlegof. In 1735 Pronchistschef, from the

-Lena, failed to round Cape Chelyuskin from the east,

-and returned to the Olenek to die but two days before

-his young wife, who was his companion on his perilous

-voyage. Two years afterwards Dmitri Laptef began

-his explorations east of the Lena which took him to

-Cape Baranoff, thus joining up to the discoveries of

-the sable-hunters made a century before, including

-those of Deschnef, who, in 1648, sailed from the

-Kolyma to Kamchatka and went through Bering

-Strait more than thirty years before Bering was born.

-Thus the route of the North-east Passage was known,

-although no man had travelled the whole way either

-by land or sea, before the task was undertaken by

-Nordenskiöld.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>To begin with, Nordenskiöld made two voyages to

-the Yenesei. In the first voyage he left Tromsoe in the

-<em>Proeven</em> on the 14th of June, 1875, and reached what

-he named Dickson Harbour at the mouth of the

-Yenesei on the 15th of August. Sending back the

-<em>Proeven</em>, which returned through Matyushin Shar, he,

-with Lundstrom the botanist and Stuxberg the zoologist,

-and three walrus-hunters, embarked in a boat they

-had brought out with them and proceeded up the

-estuary into the river; and during the first six hundred

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>miles they landed only twice. On the last day of the

-month they caught up a steamer on which they became

-passengers.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>"We were yet," says Nordenskiöld, "far to the

-north of the Arctic Circle, and as many perhaps

-imagine that the little-known region we were now

-travelling through, the Siberian tundra, is a desert

-wilderness covered either by ice and snow, or by an

-exceedingly scanty moss vegetation, it perhaps may not

-be out of place to say that this is by no means the

-case. On the contrary, we saw snow during our

-journey up the Yenesei only at one place, in a deep

-valley cleft some fathoms in breadth, and the vegetation,

-especially on the islands which are overflowed

-during the spring floods, is distinguished by a luxuriance

-to which I have seldom seen anything comparable.

-Already had the fertility of the soil and the

-immeasurable extent and richness in grass of the pastures

-drawn forth from one of our walrus-hunters, a

-middle-aged man who is owner of a little patch of

-ground among the fells of Northern Norway, a cry of

-envy at the splendid land our Lord had given the

-Russian, and of astonishment that no creature pastured,

-no scythe mowed, the grass. Daily and hourly

-we heard the same cry repeated, and even in louder

-tones, when some weeks after we came to the grand

-old forests between Yeneseisk and Turuchansk, or to

-the nearly uninhabited plains on the other side of

-Krasnojarsk covered with deep black earth, equal without

-doubt in fertility to the best parts of Scania, and in

-extent surpassing the whole Scandinavian peninsula.

-This judgment formed on the spot by a genuine though

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>illiterate agriculturist is not without interest in forming

-an idea of the future importance of Siberia."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In fact, Siberia is particularly rich in mineral and

-agricultural wealth, and this voyage, which opened up

-the route to and from Europe by the natural outlets

-to the north, was of such commercial promise that

-the explorer received for it the special thanks of the

-Russian Government. As, however, there were people

-who looked upon it as an exceptional voyage in an exceptional

-year, Nordenskiöld next season took another

-voyage to the river, this time in the <em>Ymer</em>, carrying

-the first instalment of merchandise so as to begin the

-trade; and he was followed in a few weeks by Captain

-Joseph Wiggins, in the <em>Thames</em>, whose subsequent

-voyages made the northern route well known.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Assured by the experience gained in these voyages

-that the North-east Passage was possible to a steam

-vessel of moderate size, Nordenskiöld, in 1878, was

-enabled to fit out the <em>Vega</em>, and sailed from Tromsoe

-on the 31st of July. Three other vessels accompanied

-her, two bound for the Yenesei, one for the Lena, the

-rendezvous being Khabarova. All went well. On the

-9th of August the <em>Fraser</em> and <em>Express</em> proceeded up

-the Yenesei to discharge their cargoes and return to

-Europe in safety; next day the <em>Vega</em> and <em>Lena</em> left

-for the eastward, and, after some risky navigation

-among islands and through fog, lay for four days in

-Actinia Haven, between Taimyr Island and the mainland,

-vainly waiting for clear weather. Pushing on

-through fitful fog they sighted a promontory in the

-north-east gleaming in the sunshine, and rounding its

-western horn anchored in a bay open to the north and

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>free from ice at the extremity of Cape Chelyuskin.

-With the rounding of the most northerly point of the

-Old World the first object of the expedition had been

-attained. The salute fired in honour of the event

-having frightened away the only polar bear who had

-stood watching the ship from the western horn, some

-of the party landed, the botanists to discover that

-all the plants of the peninsula had apparently been

-stopped on the outermost promontory when trying to

-migrate further north. The flora was not extensive—a

-few luxuriant lichens and twenty-three flowering

-plants, eight of them saxifrages, most of them with a

-tendency to form semi-globular tufts; the fauna consisted

-of the bear, a few seals, a walrus, two shoals of

-white whales, some ducks and geese, and a number of

-sandpipers. Not so long a list as was obtained at

-other landings, but by no means a bad one for the

-half-way house to the Pole.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>After passing the cape the course was laid for the

-New Siberian Islands, but ice prevented progress

-in their direction beyond 77° 45´, the highest north of

-the voyage, and the ship had to work her way out by

-the route she went in, thus losing a day, which had

-serious consequences, though it proved the correctness

-of Nordenskiöld's theory that the water delivered by

-the Siberian rivers is, for a few months, of sufficiently

-high temperature to give a clear passage to vessels

-content to keep near the coast. On reaching the

-mouth of the Lena the ships parted company, Captain

-Johannsen taking the smaller steamer up the river as

-intended and bringing the news of the rounding of

-Cape Chelyuskin and the promise of the North-east

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>Passage being accomplished in one season, which was

-not destined to be fulfilled.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Another attempt was then made by the <em>Vega</em> to

-reach the islands to the north, but after sighting the

-two most westerly of the group the shallow sea was

-too crowded with rotten ice, and an idea of landing

-on Liakhoff Island having to be given up for the

-same reason, the course was altered so as to take the

-ship round Svjatoi Nos (the Holy Cape), where in

-April, 1770, Liakhoff had noticed the mighty crowd

-of reindeer going south. Justly considering they must

-have come over the ice from some northern land, he

-went back on their tracks in a dog-sledge, discovering

-two of the most southerly islands, and obtaining from

-Catherine the Second as a reward the monopoly of hunting

-the foxes and collecting the ivory there from the

-fossil mammoths he found in abundance.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Forced to keep to the channel along the coast, which

-daily became narrower, the <em>Vega</em> reached Cape Chelagskoi,

-and when off this promontory Nordenskiöld

-saw the first natives during his voyage. Two boats

-built of skin almost exactly similar to the oomiaks, or

-women's boats, used by the Eskimos, came out to the

-ship, the men, women, and children in them intimating

-by shouts and gestures that they wished to come on

-board. The <em>Vega</em> was brought-to that they might do

-so, but as none of the Chukches could speak Russian

-and none of the Swedes knew Chukche, the interview

-was not so satisfactory as expected, though the universal

-language of pantomime with presents ensured a

-favourable termination.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On the 12th of September the <em>Vega</em> passed Irkaipii,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>the Cape North of Captain Cook, and by rounding it

-Nordenskiöld joined up with the westernmost limit of

-the Arctic discoveries of the great navigator. Cook

-tried to weather it in August, 1778, but was turned

-back by fog and snow, and thinking it was "not consistent

-with prudence to make any further attempts to

-find a passage into the Atlantic this year in any direction,

-so little was the prospect of succeeding," he sailed

-for Hawaii, where his intention of making the attempt

-the ensuing summer came to nought owing to his

-death.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On the 28th of September the <em>Vega's</em> progress for

-the year was arrested by her being frozen in for the

-winter on the eastern side of Kolyuchin Bay in the

-northernmost part of Bering Strait, only six miles of

-ice barring the way round Cape Serdze Kamen into the

-open sea. During her detention of two hundred and

-sixty-four days the scientific investigations of many

-kinds that were undertaken were of lasting importance,

-as they had been throughout, and when she was released

-on the 18th of July, 1879, to come home by way

-of Yokohama, the collections and records she brought

-with her were simply enormous. No better work with

-greater results was done by any Arctic expedition

-than during this successful voyage, which was too well

-managed to have much adventure. For it Nordenskiöld

-very justly claimed the reward of twenty-five

-thousand guilders offered in 1596 by the States-General

-of Holland, the endeavour to win which sent out Van

-Heemskerck, Barents, and Rijp.</p>

-

-<div id='pg90'  class='figcenter id009'>

-<img src='images/i_131.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>ADOLF ERIK NORDENSKIÖLD</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>We have seen how the Dutchmen built their house

-at Ice Haven mainly of the driftwood from the Siberian

-rivers. Similar wood from probably the same source is

-found on the shores of Greenland and of almost all the

-northerly islands of the Arctic Ocean. Further, the

-Greenland flora includes a series of Siberian plants

-apparently from seeds drifted there by some current.

-Not only do trees and seeds travel by water from Asia

-westward to America; at Godthaab, for instance, on

-the western coast of Greenland, there was found a

-throwing-stick of a shape and ornamentation used only

-by the Alaskan Eskimos; and three years after the

-foundering of the <em>Jeannette</em> to the north of the New

-Siberian Islands there were found on the south-west

-coast of Greenland a number of articles in the drift-ice

-that must have come from the sunken vessel. For

-these and other reasons it seemed clear to Fridtjof

-Nansen that a current flowed at some point between

-the Pole and Franz Josef Land from the Siberian

-Arctic Sea to the Greenland coast, and so he set to

-work to organise his daring expedition to strike this

-current well to the eastward, trusting to its mercies to

-take him to or near the Pole.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In 1893, when the <em>Fram</em> rounded Cape Chelyuskin,

-Nansen had found the Kara Sea almost as open as

-Nordenskiöld had done, but had met with more difficulties

-among the islands off the Taimyr Peninsula.

-A famous vessel, the <em>Fram</em>, the first of her kind, built

-specially for the ice to take her where it listed in the

-hope that she would drift to discovery like the <em>Tegetthoff</em>,

-and not to disaster like the <em>Jeannette</em>. The

-general idea was Nansen's, the carrying out of the

-idea was Colin Archer's. As Nansen says: "We must

-gratefully recognise that the success of the expedition

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>was in no small degree due to this man." Plan after

-plan did he make of the projected ship, model after

-model did he prepare and abandon before he was

-satisfied: and never was a ship more honestly built.

-With her double-ended deck plan, with a side of such

-curve and slope that under ice pressure she would be

-lifted instead of crushed between the floes, and with

-bow, stern, and keel so rounded off that she would slip

-like an eel from the embrace of the ice, she was of

-such solidity as to withstand any pressure from any

-direction. Her stem of three stout oak beams, one

-inside the other, was four feet in thickness, protected

-with iron; her rudder-post and propeller-post, two feet

-across, had on either side a stout oak counter-timber

-following the curvature upwards and forming a double

-stern-post, with the planking cased with heavy iron

-plates; and between these timbers was a well for the

-screw and another for the rudder, so that each could

-be hoisted on deck, the rudder with the help of the

-capstan coming up in a few minutes. Her frames,

-ten inches thick and twenty-one wide, stood close

-together, carrying three layers of planking, giving

-altogether a side of two feet or more of solid wood,

-so shored and stayed for strength that the hold looked

-like a thicket of balks, joists, and stanchions. With

-a length of 128 feet over all, a breadth of thirty-six, a

-depth of seventeen, and a displacement of 800 tons,

-she was quite a <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">multum-in-parvo</span> engined with a

-220 horse-power triple expansion, so contrived that in

-case of accident or for any other cause the cylinders

-could be used singly or two together. Rigged as a three-masted

-fore-and-aft schooner, with the mainmast much

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>higher than the others—it being unusually high, for

-the crow's-nest on the main-topmast was 102 feet

-above the water—she proved equal to the demands on

-her, though in her case strength and warmth had to be

-thought of before weatherliness and speed. But her

-speed was not so poor, for when steaming and sailing

-after leaving Cape Chelyuskin on the 10th of September

-she was doing her nine knots.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The day after she had entered the Nordenskiöld

-Sea came a walrus-hunt, so graphically described by

-Nansen that we must find room for an extract. "It

-was," he says, "a lovely morning—fine, still weather;

-the walruses' guffaw sounded over to us along the

-clear ice surface. They were lying crowded together

-on a floe a little to landward of us, blue mountains

-glittering behind them in the sun. At last the harpoons

-were sharpened, guns and cartridges ready, and

-Henriksen, Juell, and I set off. There seemed to be

-a slight breeze from the south, so we rowed to the

-north side of the floe, to get to leeward of the animals.

-From time to time their sentry raised his head, but

-apparently did not see us. We advanced slowly, and

-soon were so near that we had to row very cautiously.

-Juell kept us going, while Henriksen was ready in the

-bow with a harpoon, and I behind him with a gun.

-The moment the sentry raised his head the oars

-stopped, and we stood motionless; when he sank it

-again, a few more strokes brought us nearer. Body

-to body they lay, close-packed on a small floe, old and

-young ones mixed. Enormous masses of flesh they

-were. Now and again one of the ladies fanned herself

-by moving one of her flippers backwards and forwards

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>over her body; then she lay quiet again on her back

-or side. More and more cautiously we drew near.

-Whilst I sat ready with the gun, Henriksen took a

-good grip of the harpoon shaft, and as the boat

-touched the floe he rose, and off flew the harpoon.

-But it struck too high, glanced off the tough hide,

-and skipped over the backs of the animals. Now

-there was a pretty to do! Ten or twelve great weird

-faces glared upon us at once; the colossal creatures

-twisted themselves round with incredible celerity, and

-came waddling with lifted heads and hollow bellowings

-to the edge of the ice where we lay. It was undeniably

-an imposing sight; but I laid my gun to my

-shoulder and fired at one of the biggest heads. The

-animal staggered and then fell head foremost into the

-water. Now a ball into another head; this creature

-fell, too, but was able to fling itself into the sea. And

-now the whole flock dashed in, and we, as well as they,

-were hidden in the spray. It had all happened in a

-few seconds. But up they came again immediately

-round the boat, the one head bigger and uglier than

-the other—their young ones close beside them. They

-stood up in the water, bellowed and roared till the air

-trembled, threw themselves forward towards us, then

-rose up again, and new bellowings filled the air.

-Then they rolled over and disappeared with a splash,

-then bobbed up again. The water foamed and boiled

-for yards around—the ice-world that had been so still

-before seemed in a moment to have been transformed

-into a raging Bedlam. Any moment we might expect

-to have a walrus tusk or two through the boat or to

-be heaved up or capsized. Something of this kind

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>was the very least that could happen after such a

-terrible commotion. But the hurly-burly went on

-and nothing came of it."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The <em>Fram</em> had to follow the coast owing to the thick

-pack barring the way across the sea. The mouth of

-the Chatanga was passed, then that of the Olenek, and

-then the influence of the warm water of the Lena

-being apparent by the clearance of the floes, the course

-was laid straight for the Pole in open water until

-77° 44´ was reached, when, checked by the long compact

-edge of ice shining through the fog, the route

-became north-westerly until they stopped for fear they

-should get near land, which was the very thing they

-wished to avoid; and on the 25th of September in

-about 78½° north latitude—north-west of Sannikof

-Land—they were frozen in.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Preparations for wintering began. The rudder was

-hauled up, the engine was taken to pieces, each separate

-part oiled and laid away with the greatest care—for

-Amundsen looked after it as if it were his own child—a

-carpenter's shop was started in the hold, a smithy

-arranged first on deck and then on the ice. But it all

-had to be replaced, even the engine put together again,

-for the pack cleared away for a brief period, to return,

-when again the shiftings were made; and when the

-windmill was put up to drive the dynamo, the winter

-installation was in all senses complete.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Slowly the <em>Fram</em> drifted in her ice-berth, so slowly

-that at the end of twelve months she had moved from

-point to point only 189 miles, having returned no further

-west than the longitude of the Olenek; her

-highest north, attained on the 18th of June, being

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>81° 46´. In the main the drift was north-westerly, but

-three times it had boxed the compass in irregular loops,

-the only constant thing about it being that, in no

-matter what direction she was taken, the bow of the

-<em>Fram</em> always pointed south. Of grips she had many,

-some of the pressures were enormous, once they were

-severe enough to suggest measures for her abandonment,

-but she survived them all unscathed. Early in

-the drift it became apparent that the ice was packing

-twice and slacking twice in every twenty-four hours,

-and in this sea, as afterwards in the Atlantic area, the

-influence of the tides, particularly the spring tides, was

-unmistakable—as it was expected it would be—though

-in the deep Polar basin the wind had more effect; and,

-in truth, the wind was a factor throughout in the packing

-of the ice and in the drift's direction. One thing was

-clear, that the current was not taking the <em>Fram</em> across

-the North Pole, but about half-way between it and

-Spitsbergen; and if the Pole was to be reached some

-of the expedition must attempt to get there over the

-ice. This meant leaving the ship, going north, and

-returning to the nearest known land, for, owing to the

-irregularity of the drift, it was hopeless to think of

-again reaching the <em>Fram</em>. During the second winter

-the route of the ship trended more to the north, and,

-after a loop all round in January, she reached 84° 4´ on

-the 14th of March in the longitude of Cape Chelyuskin.

-Here Nansen and Lieutenant F. H. Johansen, who

-rather than not join the <em>Fram</em> had shipped in her as

-stoker, left the ship with three sledges, two kayaks, and

-twenty-eight dogs to go as far northward as they could,

-their expectation being that they would reach the Pole

-in fifty days. Had they remained in the ship until

-November they would have saved themselves trouble,

-for, as matters turned out, the embarrassing drift took

-the <em>Fram</em> within eight miles of the farthest north

-they attained after twenty-three days of strenuous endeavour.</p>

-

-<div id='pg96'  class='figcenter id010'>

-<img src='images/i_139.jpg' alt='Yours sincerely Fridtjof Nansen.' class='ig001' />

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>The ice, fairly easy for a few days, soon became

-terrible in the difficulties it offered to progress over it,

-and the continual toil of hauling and carrying the

-sledges, and righting them when capsized, soon told on

-the two men to such an extent as to tire them out so

-thoroughly that sometimes in the evening they fell

-asleep as they went along. The cold, too, proved

-singularly searching and severe. During the course of

-the day the damp exhalations of the body little by

-little became condensed in their outer garments, which

-became transformed into suits of ice-armour, so hard

-that if they could have been got off they could have

-stood by themselves, and they crackled audibly at every

-movement. The clothes were so stiff that the sleeve

-of Nansen's coat rubbed deep sores in his wrist, one of

-which got frost-bitten, the wound growing deeper and

-deeper and nearly reaching the bone. "How cold we

-were," says Nansen, "as we lay there shivering in the

-bag, waiting for the supper to be ready! I, who was

-cook, was obliged to keep myself more or less awake to

-see to the culinary operations, and sometimes I succeeded.

-At last the supper was ready, was portioned

-out, and, as always, tasted delicious. These occasions

-were the supreme moments of our existence, moments

-to which we looked forward all day long. But sometimes

-we were so weary that our eyes closed, and we

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>fell asleep with the food on its way to our mouths.

-Our hands would fall back inanimate with the spoons

-in them and the food fly out on the bag."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The further they went the worse became the conditions.

-On the 8th of April, with ridge after ridge and

-nothing but rubble to travel over, the work became so

-disheartening that Nansen went on ahead on his skis

-and from the highest hummocks viewed the state of

-affairs; and as far as the horizon, lay a chaos of such

-character that progress across was impracticable if he

-and Johansen were to return alive. Here, then, they

-stopped, this being their northernmost limit, 128 miles

-from the <em>Fram</em>, 260 miles from the Pole, latitude

-86° 13·6´, longitude 95°.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>To reach this point they had been travelling north-westwards

-for six days, the way due north being

-impassable; but on turning south they seemed to enter

-another country; so much did the going improve after

-the first mile that in three days they covered over forty

-miles. They were making for Petermann Land, which

-does not exist, or for the wide-stretching Franz Josef

-Land, also placed on the maps by Payer, which Jackson

-had been cutting up into fragments while the <em>Fram</em>

-was in the ice. Further south difficulties thickened

-ahead of them till the road became almost as bad as

-that to the north. Before they reached land the hundred

-days they had allowed themselves had increased to

-more than half as many again, their dogs had been

-killed one by one to yield food for the rest, until only

-two remained; Nansen was helpless with rheumatism

-for two days; and Johansen was nearly killed by a

-bear. Through a chain of disasters caused by storms

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>and fogs and snow and the state of the ice, they

-threaded their way, sometimes by sledge, sometimes by

-kayak, through mazes of open channels, leaping from

-floe to floe and ferrying back to get their baggage over,

-hundreds of yards on mere brash, dragging the sledges

-after them in constant fear of their capsizing into the

-water. Then the ice gave out and, taking to their

-kayaks, they sailed and paddled to what is now known

-as Frederick Jackson Island in the north of the Franz

-Josef Archipelago.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Here they wintered, quite at a loss at first to know

-where they were, owing to their watches having run

-down during a great effort of thirty-six hours at a

-stretch, so that they did not know their longitude,

-though they subsequently concluded they must be

-somewhere on Franz Josef Land within 140 miles of

-Eira Harbour. They built a hut and altogether lived

-passably well, there being no lack of food, thanks

-mainly to the bears, whose visits were embarrassing in

-their frequency though the visitors were not unwelcome

-when they came to stay.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On the 19th of May they set out for the south, down

-British Channel, with their sledges and kayaks, and

-five days afterwards, when off Cape M'Clintock, while

-Johansen was busy lashing the sail and mast securely to

-the deck of his kayak to prevent their being blown

-away, Nansen went on ahead to look for a camping

-ground and fell through a crack in the ice which had

-been hidden by the snow. He tried to get out, but

-with his skis firmly fastened could not pull them up

-through the rubble of ice which had fallen into the

-water on the top of them, and, being harnessed to the

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>sledge, he could not turn round. Fortunately, as he

-fell, he had dug his staff into the ice on the opposite

-side of the crack, and holding himself up with its aid,

-and the arm he had got over the edge of the ice, he

-waited patiently for Johansen to come and pull him

-out. When he thought a long time had passed and

-felt the staff giving way and the water creeping further

-up his body, he called out but received no answer; and

-it was not until the water had reached his chest that

-Johansen came and pulled him out.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>For a few days they were storm-bound. On the

-3rd of June they started again down the channel, their

-whereabouts still a mystery to them, nothing in the

-least like it being on their map. Nine days afterwards,

-after rounding Cape Barents on Northbrook

-Island, the kayaks, which had been left moored to the

-edge of the ice, got adrift. Nansen, running down

-from the hummock, from which he had been looking

-round, threw off some of his clothes and sprang into

-the water. The wind was off the ice, and the kayaks

-with their high rigging were moving away as fast as

-he could swim. It seemed more than doubtful if he

-could reach them. But all their hope was there, all

-they had was on board; they had not even a knife

-with them, and whether he sank or turned back

-amounted to much the same thing. When he tired

-he turned over and swam on his back, and then he

-could see Johansen walking restlessly up and down on

-the ice, unable to do anything, and having the worst

-time he ever lived through. But the wind lulled, and

-when Nansen turned over he saw he was nearing the

-kayaks, and though his limbs were stiffening and

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>losing all feeling, he put all the strength he could into

-his strokes, and eventually was able to reach them.

-He tried to pull himself up, but was so stiff with cold

-that he could not do so. For a moment he thought

-he was too late; but after a little he managed to swing

-one leg up on to the edge of the sledge, which lay on

-the deck, and in this way he scrambled on board.

-The kayaks were lashed together so as to form a

-double boat, and the only way in which, owing to his

-stiffness, he could paddle them was to take one or two

-strokes on one side and then step into the other kayak

-and take a few strokes on the other side. The return

-was consequently slow, but it was a return, though

-the ice was reached a long way from where the drifting

-had begun.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Next day but one came another perilous episode.

-"Towards morning," says Nansen, "we rowed for some

-time without seeing any walrus, and now felt more

-secure. Just then we saw a solitary rover pop up a

-little in front of us. Johansen, who was in front at

-the time, put in to a sunken ledge of ice; and although

-I really thought that this was caution carried to excess,

-I was on the point of following his example. I had not

-gone so far, however, when suddenly the walrus shot

-up beside me, threw himself on to the edge of the kayak,

-took hold further over the deck with one flipper, and

-as it tried to upset me aimed a blow at the kayak with

-its tusks. I held on as tightly as possible, so as not

-to be upset into the water, and struck at the animal's

-head with the paddle as hard as I could. It took hold of

-the kayak once more and tilted me up so that the deck

-was almost under water, then let go and raised itself

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>right up. I seized my gun, but at the same moment it

-turned round and disappeared as quickly as it had

-come. The whole thing had happened in a moment,

-and I was just going to remark to Johansen that we

-were fortunate in escaping so easily from that adventure,

-when I noticed that my legs were wet. I listened,

-and now heard the water trickling into the kayak

-under me. To turn and run her in on to the sunken

-ledge of ice was the work of a moment, but I sank

-there. The thing was to get out and on to the ice,

-the kayak filling all the time. The edge of the ice was

-high and loose, but I managed to rise; and Johansen,

-by tilting the sinking kayak over to starboard, so that

-the leak came above the water, managed to bring her

-to a place where the ice was low enough to admit of

-our drawing her up. All I possessed was floating

-about inside, soaked through. So here we lie, with

-all our worldly goods spread out to dry and a kayak

-that must be mended before we can face the walrus

-again. It is a good big rent that he has made, at

-least six inches long; but it is fortunate that it was no

-worse."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The kayak was mended, and, after a long rest, it was

-past noon on the 17th of June when Nansen turned

-out to prepare breakfast. After doing so he went up

-on a hummock to look around. Flocks of little auks

-were flying overhead, and, amid the confused noise of

-their calls, he heard a couple of barks from a dog.

-Thinking he was mistaken he waited for a time, and

-then the barking was unmistakable, bark after bark,

-one of a deeper tone than the other. He shouted to

-Johansen, who started up from the sleeping-bag incredulous.

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>The sound ceased, and, breakfast over,

-Nansen went forth to investigate. Soon he came on

-the footprints of a dog or wolf, and then, still doubting,

-he heard a distant yelping that certainly came not from

-a wolf. Making his way among the hummocks, he

-heard a shout from a human voice, a strange voice—the

-first for three years. Running up on to a hummock

-he shouted with all his might. Back came a

-shout in reply; and among the hummocks he caught

-sight of a dog, and further off a man walked into view.

-The man spoke to the dog in English. Thinking he

-recognised Jackson, Nansen raised his hat as he met

-him, and they shook hands heartily.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The contrast could not have been greater. One the

-well-groomed, civilised European in a check suit and

-rubber water-boots, the other in dirty rags black with

-oil and soot, with long matted hair and shaggy beard,

-and a face in which the complexion was undiscernible

-through the accumulations which a winter's endeavours,

-including scrapings with a knife, had failed to remove.

-As they talked they had turned to go inland. Suddenly

-Jackson stopped, and, looking the new arrival

-straight in the face, said—</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>"Aren't you Nansen?"</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>"Yes, I am."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>"By Jove! I'm damned glad to see you."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>And seizing his hand he shook it again, his whole

-face beaming with a smile of welcome and delight at

-the unexpected meeting; and needless to say, both

-Nansen and Johansen received the warmest of welcomes

-from all at Elmwood. The <em>Windward</em> was then

-on her way, and when she arrived the two Norsemen

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>from the farthest north went in her to Vardoe, where

-they landed on the 13th of August.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Meanwhile the <em>Fram</em> had continued her leisurely

-drift, north-west, south-west, north-west, west, then all

-round the compass, still with her head pointing south,

-until on the 15th of November she reached 85° 55·5´ in

-longitude 66° 31´, thus giving Captain Otto Sverdrup

-the honour of attaining the highest north in a ship.

-Another winter was passed in her ice-berth, during

-which she moved westerly. In February came another

-complete triangle in her course, after which she went

-south-west, and on the 16th of May turned due south.

-Then, in the later days of the month with the southerly

-drift continuing and open water on ahead, Sverdrup

-resolved to set her free by mines, and on the 3rd of

-June, as a result of the blastings, she gave a lurch,

-settled a little deeper at the stern and moved away

-from the edge of the ice until the hawsers tautened.

-But, though she was afloat, the ice around still kept her

-captive, and in the pool she drifted straight towards

-Spitsbergen.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Again and again was steam got up and endeavour

-made to break a way out, but day after day elapsed,

-and it was not until the 13th of August that she passed

-through the last floes into open water, and her thirty-five

-months of imprisonment came to an end. Making

-for Danes Island in Spitsbergen, she was there boarded

-by Andrée, who was then preparing for his disappearance

-in the balloon voyage to the Pole. Going on

-direct to Skjervoe in Norway, Sverdrup landed at two

-o'clock in the morning to wake up the telegraphist,

-who told him that Nansen had reached Vardoe a week

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>before and was then at Hammerfest and probably

-leaving for Tromsoe. For Tromsoe Sverdrup started,

-after telegraphing to Nansen. And there, at four

-o'clock in the afternoon of the 25th of August, 1896,

-Sir George Baden-Powell's yacht <em>Otaria</em>, with Nansen

-and Johansen on board, glided alongside the <em>Fram</em>, the

-good little ship looking much weather-beaten though

-none the worse for such a task of strength and endurance

-as had been set no other in the story of the sea.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>

-  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER VI<br /> THE LENA DELTA</h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c013'>Discovery of the Siberian Islands—Hedenström—Anjou and Wrangell—Migration

-of reindeer—Animals and plants of the tundra—The northward

-migration of the native tribes—The voyage of the <em>Jeannette</em>—Her

-drift in the pack—Jeannette Island—Henrietta Island—The ship crushed

-and sunk—Landing on Bennett Island—The boat voyage—The boats

-separate in a storm—De Long lands on the Lena Delta—Nindemann

-and Noros in search of assistance—Safety of the whale-boat—Fate of

-De Long and his companions—Baron Toll's discoveries.</p>

-

-<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>The Siberian Islands, lying north of the delta of

-the Lena, answer to the Parry Islands on the

-American side, the two groups being separated by that

-wide stretch of the Arctic Ocean communicating with

-the Pacific through Bering Strait. At first the Asiatic

-group was officially named after Liakhoff, then it was

-called after the unwisely named New Siberia, but,

-under any designation, it took half a century to find

-the different islands, and considerably more to land

-on them.</p>

-

-<div id='pg106'  class='figcenter id004'>

-<a href='images/i_151.jpg'><img src='images/i_151_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>THE LENA DELTA</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>When Liakhoff discovered the one named after him

-by the Empress Catherine, he also went north to

-Moloi, and he seems to have visited Kotelnoi to the

-north-west. In 1775 Chvoinof was sent to survey

-these three, but he devoted most of his attention to

-Liakhoff Island—fifty miles across—which he found

-to consist, as reported, of hills of granite rising from

-a mass of mammoth bones, sand, and ice, some of the

-ice ancient enough to carry a deep covering of moss.

-Though he stated that other islands could be made

-out in the distance, nothing was done to verify his

-discoveries, real or imaginary, until thirty years had

-passed, when Thaddeus and Stolbovoi were reached.

-Next year (1806) New Siberia, to the eastward, was

-discovered by Sirovatskof, and two years afterwards

-Bjelkof was added to the southerly portion of the

-archipelago.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In 1809 Hedenström, assisted by Sannikof, began

-his series of surveys extending over all these, and

-cleared up much of the mystery concerning them.

-From Thaddeus, Sannikof sighted, away to the northward,

-what is now known as Bennett Island; and,

-from New Siberia, Hedenström sighted Henrietta and

-Jeannette Islands, and set out for them, and would

-have reached them had his sledges not been stopped by

-open water. Like his predecessors he was astonished

-at the mammoth remains on Liakhoff Island.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>According to his account, "these bones or tusks

-are less large and heavy the further we advance

-towards the north, so that it is a rare occurrence on

-the islands to meet with a tusk of more than 108 lbs.

-in weight, whereas on the continent they are said often

-to weigh as much as 432 lbs. In quantity, however, these

-bones increase wonderfully to the northward, and as

-Sannikof expresses himself, the whole soil of the first

-of the Liakhoff Islands appears to consist of them.

-For about eighty years the fur-hunters have every

-year brought large cargoes from this island, but as yet

-there is no sensible diminution of the stock. The

-tusks on the islands are also much more fresh and

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>white than those on the continent. A sandbank on

-the western side was most productive of all, and the

-fur-hunters maintain that when the sea recedes after a

-long continuance of easterly winds, a fresh supply of

-mammoth bones is always found to have been washed

-from this bank, proceeding apparently from some vast

-store at the bottom of the sea." Besides these multitudinous

-remains of the mammoth Hedenström found

-numerous remains of rhinoceros, the horn of which

-was then thought to be a bird's claw three feet long.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>To clear up the wide discrepancies in the maps the

-Emperor Alexander, in 1820, equipped two expeditions

-to proceed by land to the northern coast of Siberia

-and properly survey it, the work to be carried as far

-east as Cape Chelagskoi, whence a sledge party was to

-start for the north in search of the inhabited country reported

-to exist in the Polar Sea in that direction. One

-of these expeditions, under Lieutenant P. F. Anjou,

-was to commence its operations from the mouth of

-the Yana; the other, under Lieutenant Ferdinand

-Vrangel' (or, as he is generally known amongst us,

-Wrangell or Von Wrangell), was to start from the

-mouth of the Kolyma, his chief assistant being Midshipman

-Matiuschkin. Both parties did good survey

-work, but neither made any striking discovery. Anjou

-reached 76° 36´ to the north of Kotelnoi; Wrangell

-reached 72° 2´ (north-east of the Bear Islands, one

-hundred and seventy-four miles out on the sea from

-the great Baranoff rock), beyond which progress was

-impossible owing to the thinness of the ice, which was

-covered with salt water.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Wrangell had many perilous experiences. In his

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>fourth journey over the sea the ice broke up around

-him and he found himself on a floe with a labyrinth

-of water lanes hemming him in on every side and a

-storm coming on from the westward. The storm

-rapidly increased in fury, and the masses of ice around

-him were soon dashing against each other and breaking

-in all directions. On the floe, which was tossing to

-and fro on the waves, he gazed in painful inactivity on

-the conflict, expecting every moment to be swallowed

-up. For three long hours he had remained unable to

-move, the mass of ice beneath him holding together,

-when it was caught by the storm and hurled against a

-large field of ice. The crash was terrific, as it was

-shattered into little pieces. At that dreadful moment,

-when escape seemed impossible, he was saved by the

-impulse of self-preservation. Instinctively the party

-sprang on to the sledges and urged the dogs to full

-speed, and as hard as they could gallop they skimmed

-across the yielding fragments to the field on which

-they had been stranded, and safely reached a stretch

-of firmer ice, where the dogs ceased running among

-the hummocks, conscious that the danger was past.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>But it is not so much for adventures like this that his

-account of his work is of continuing interest as for the

-abundance of its notes and reflections on the country

-and its life and climate. Once, for instance, when on

-the Baranicha he was fortunate enough to witness a

-migration of reindeer. "I had hardly finished the

-observation," he says, "when my whole attention was

-called to a highly interesting, and to me a perfectly

-novel, spectacle. Two large migrating bodies of reindeer

-passed us at no great distance. They were descending

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>the hills from the north-west and crossing the

-plain on their way to the forests, where they spend the

-winter. Both bodies of deer extended further than the

-eye could reach, and formed a compact mass, narrowing

-towards the front. They moved slowly and majestically

-along, their broad antlers resembling a moving

-wood of leafless trees. Each body was led by a deer of

-unusual size, which my guides assured me was always a

-female. One of the herds was stealthily followed by a

-wolf, who was apparently watching for an opportunity

-of seizing any one of the younger and weaker deer

-which might fall behind the rest, but on seeing us he

-made off in another direction. The other column was

-followed at some distance by a large black bear, who,

-however, appeared only intent on digging out a mouse's

-nest every now and then, so much so that he took no

-notice of us. We had great difficulty in restraining

-our two dogs, but happily succeeded in doing so; their

-barking, or any sound or motion on our part, might

-have alarmed the deer, and by turning them from their

-course, have proved a terrible misfortune to the hunters,

-who were awaiting their passage, on which they

-are entirely dependent for support. We remained for

-two hours whilst the herds of deer were passing by,

-and then resumed our march."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The way in which the deer are dealt with by the

-hunters was seen by Matiuschkin when despatched by

-Wrangell to survey the Anyui. "The true harvest,

-which we arrived just in time to see, is in August or

-September, when the reindeer are returning from the

-plains to the forests. They are then healthy and well

-fed, the venison is excellent, and as they have just

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>acquired their winter coats the fur is thick and warm.

-The difference of the quality of the skins at the two

-seasons is such, that whilst an autumn skin is valued at

-five or six roubles, a spring one will only fetch one or

-one and a half roubles. In good years the migrating

-body of reindeer consists of many thousands; and

-though they are divided into herds of two or three

-hundred each, yet the herds keep so near together as to

-form only one immense mass, which is sometimes from

-thirty to seventy miles in breadth. They always

-follow the same route, and in crossing the river near

-Plotbischtsche, they choose a place where a dry valley

-leads down to the stream on one side, and a flat sandy

-shore facilitates their landing on the other side. As

-each separate herd approaches the river, the deer draw

-more closely together, and the largest and strongest

-takes the lead. He advances, closely followed by a

-few of the others, with head erect, and apparently

-intent on examining the locality. When he has satisfied

-himself, he enters the river, the rest of the herd

-crowd after him, and in a few minutes the surface is

-covered with them. Then the hunters, who have been

-concealed to leeward, rush in their light canoes from

-their hiding-places, surround the deer, and delay their

-passage, whilst two or three chosen men armed with

-short spears dash into the middle of the herd and despatch

-large numbers in an incredibly short time; or at

-least wound them so, that, if they reach the bank, it is

-only to fall into the hands of the women and children.

-The office of the spearman is a very dangerous one.

-It is no easy thing to keep the light boat afloat among

-the dense crowd of swimming deer, which, moreover,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>make considerable resistance; the males with their

-horns, teeth, and hind legs, whilst the females try to

-overset the boat by getting their fore-feet over the

-gunwale; if they succeed in this the hunter is lost, for

-it is hardly possible that he should extricate himself

-from the throng; but the skill of these people is so

-great that accidents very rarely occur. A good hunter

-may kill a hundred or more in less than half an hour.

-When the herd is large, and gets into disorder, it often

-happens that their antlers become entangled with each

-other; they are then unable to defend themselves, and

-the business is much easier. Meanwhile the rest of the

-boats pick up the slain and fasten them together with

-thongs, and every one is allowed to keep what he lays

-hold of in this manner. It might seem that in this

-way nothing would be left to requite the spearmen for

-their skill, and the danger they have encountered; but

-whilst everything taken in the river is the property of

-whoever secures it, the wounded animals which reach

-the bank before they fall, belong to the spearman who

-wounded them. The skill and experience of these men

-are such that in the thickest of the conflict, when

-every energy is taxed to the uttermost, and their life is

-every moment at stake, they have sufficient presence of

-mind to contrive to measure the force of their blows so

-as to kill the smallest animals outright, but only to

-wound the larger and finer ones, so that they may be

-just able to reach the bank. Such proceeding is not

-sanctioned by the general voice, but it seems nevertheless

-to be almost always practised. The whole scene is

-of a most singular and curious character, and quite

-indescribable. The throng of thousands of swimming

-reindeer, the sound produced by the striking together

-of their antlers, the swift canoes dashing in amongst

-them, the terror of the frightened animals, the danger

-of the hunters, the shouts of warning advice or applause

-from their friends, the blood-stained water, and all the

-accompanying circumstances, form a whole which no

-one can picture to himself without having witnessed

-the scene."</p>

-

-<div id='pg112'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_159.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>REINDEER</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>The tundra has no more characteristic animal than

-the reindeer. Over the mossy hillocks and the matted

-tops of the dwarf birches he runs, or through the rivers

-and lakes he swims, with his broad-hoofed, spade-like

-feet never at a loss to find a footing. In the long

-winter he is protected by his thick skin against the

-influence of the cold, and is seldom at starvation point,

-as he digs for food in the deepest snow, and is by no

-means particular what he eats; and in the short

-summer he is in luxurious ease, for the tundra, as we

-have seen, is not always as bad as it is painted. In

-exposed places near the coast it is little else than

-gravel beds interspersed with patches of peat and

-clay, with scarcely a rush or a sedge to break the

-monotony, but by far the greater part of it is a gently

-undulating plain, broken up by lakes, rivers, swamps,

-and bogs; the lakes with patches of green water-plants,

-the rivers flowing between sedges and rushes,

-the swamps the breeding haunts of ruffs and phalaropes,

-the bogs dotted with the white fluffy seeds of

-the cotton-grass. Almost everywhere the birds are in

-noticeable numbers, among the commonest being the

-golden plover (who wears the tundra colours), the bluethroat,

-the fieldfare, the whooper swan, and the

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>ducks and divers—particularly the divers—and, among

-the birds of prey, the falcons and the rough-legged

-buzzards, which, with the owls, find such abundant

-provision in the lemmings that migrate in myriads

-compared with which the reindeer troops are insignificant.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>"The groundwork of all this variegated scenery,"

-says Seebohm, "is more beautiful and varied still—lichens

-and mosses of almost every conceivable colour,

-from the cream-coloured reindeer-moss to the scarlet-cupped

-trumpet-moss, interspersed with a brilliant

-alpine flora, gentians, anemones, saxifrages, and hundreds

-of plants, each a picture in itself, the tall aconites,

-both the blue and yellow species, the beautiful cloudberry,

-with its gay white blossom and amber fruit,

-the fragrant <em>Ledum palustre</em> and the delicate pink

-<em>Andromeda polifolia</em>. In the sheltered valleys and

-deep water-courses a few stunted birches, and sometimes

-large patches of willow scrub, survive the long

-severe winter, and serve as cover for willow-grouse or

-ptarmigan. The Lapland bunting and red-throated

-pipit are everywhere to be seen, and certain favoured

-places are the breeding-grounds of plovers and sandpipers

-of many species. So far from meriting the name

-of Barren Ground, the tundra is for the most part a

-veritable paradise in summer. But it has one almost

-fatal drawback—it swarms with mosquitoes."</p>

-

-<div id='pg116'  class='figcenter id011'>

-<img src='images/i_163a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>OSTIAK MAN</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<div id='pg114'  class='figcenter id012'>

-<img src='images/i_163b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>SAMOYED MAN</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>The beauty of the tundra is, however, transient and

-skin deep; it is only such plants as can live in the soil

-that thaws that survive. Wherever the ground is dug

-into, ice is sure to be reached; in fact, it may be said

-that ice is one of the rocks of the subsoil, and in some

-places these strata of ice that never melts have been

-found to be three hundred feet thick—ice that has

-remained in block since the mammoths got into cold

-storage in it ages ago, for otherwise they would not

-have lasted intact in skin and flesh as many have done,

-like the very first discovered in a complete state, that

-chipped out by Adams in 1807.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In such a climate, whose winter terrors are only too

-prominent, all along the north of Siberia live the

-ancient peoples driven towards the sea by those

-mighty movements from the land of the Turk and

-Mongol which, north and south, east and west,

-flooded Europe and Asia with invaders—Ostiaks and

-Samoyeds west of Chelyuskin; Yakuts, Chukches,

-and others to the east of it, the descriptions of whose

-unpleasant manners and customs appear to be written

-with a view to showing how curiously local are the

-laws of health. One may well ask, as Wrangell did,

-why they should remain in so dreary a region and

-take life so contentedly. And the answer may be

-that they might go further north and fare worse, as

-their predecessors in the eastern section would seem

-to have done. Once, according to the legend, there

-were more hearths of the Omoki on the shores of the

-Kolyma than there are stars in the clear sky, and these

-Omoki, or some other departed race, appear to have

-left as their traces the remains of the timber forts and

-the tumuli that are found on the coast, especially near

-the Indiyirka, and the huts of earth and stones and

-bones found all along from Chelagskoi to the straits,

-similar remains of a departed people now existing in

-the Parry Islands, over a thousand miles away.

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>According to another legend of more recent date,

-there was an intervening land, the land that Wrangell

-went to seek and the <em>Jeannette</em> went to winter at,

-and the supposed site of which she drifted through, in

-her last and longest imprisonment in the ice.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The <em>Jeannette</em> was the old <em>Pandora</em>, bought from

-Sir Allen Young by James Gordon Bennett, and

-accepted by and fitted out, officered, and manned

-under the orders of the Navy Department of the

-United States, her commander being Lieutenant

-George Washington De Long. She left San Francisco

-on the 8th of July, 1879, and two months afterwards

-had been run into the pack and was fast in the

-ice off Herald Island, drifting to her doom. Her

-route, in the main, was north-westerly, with many

-complicated loops, at first at the rate of half a mile a

-day, then at two miles, then at three, showing that

-the current from Bering Strait had been reinforced by

-some other current as she went further west, and,

-from its direction, there seemed to be land to the

-northward which was never sighted.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Wrangell Land, passed to the south, proved to be

-not a continent but a small island. No other land was

-seen for a monotonous twenty months, and then, in

-May, 1881, the ship drifted, stern first, past that

-sighted by Hedenström from New Siberia, which was

-found to consist of two islands, to be henceforth known

-as Jeannette and Henrietta. On the 12th of June, in

-latitude 77° 14´ 57˝, the <em>Jeannette</em> was crushed and sank,

-her fore yardarms breaking upwards as she slipped

-down through the rift in the pack, and a start was

-made for the Siberian Islands over the ice; but the

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>drift had taken the party to 77° 36´, before they got

-on their proper course, and after a most laborious

-journey, lasting up to the 28th of July, they were safe

-ashore on the land sighted by Sannikof from Thaddeus,

-which De Long named Bennett Island.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Bennett Island was left on the 7th of August, the

-party of thirty-three being in three boats, thirteen

-under De Long in the first cutter, ten under Lieutenant

-Chipp in the much smaller second cutter, and

-ten, under Engineer George W. Melville, whose skill

-and resourcefulness had been conspicuous throughout,

-were given the whale-boat, the most suitable of the

-three. Sail was made for Thaddeus Island, which was

-reached in safety; after a halt of some days it was left

-on the 31st of August. Then Kotelnoi Island was

-reached and rested at; then the boats made for Semonovski,

-which was left on the 12th of September.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The same day a gale came on in which the first

-cutter had great difficulty in keeping afloat, the second

-cutter disappeared never to be heard of again, and the

-whale-boat, behaving excellently, went off before the

-wind straight for the continent to reach in safety one

-of the eastern mouths of the Lena, up which Melville

-arrived at a Russian village on the 26th of September.

-De Long's party ran their boat aground in shallow

-water, on the 17th of September, and rafted and waded

-ashore to one of the most inhospitable spots on the

-globe. Heavily laden they made their way down the

-dreary delta, toiling through the snow, delayed by the

-tributaries which were not frozen over hard enough to

-bear, hampered by sickness and disablement, and finally

-dying one by one of starvation.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>On the 9th of October De Long sent two of the seamen,

-Nindemann and Noros, ahead in search of relief.

-They had no food but what they could find, and on the

-second day out their dinner consisted of a little willow

-tea and a burnt boot sole. Next morning they burnt

-another sole of a boot, and they spent the day struggling

-through a morass in drifting snow, crossing

-streams of all sizes, and halting for the night in so high

-a wind that they were unable to light a fire and took

-refuge in a hole in the snow from which they emerged

-with difficulty in the morning, owing to the wind having

-piled up the snow against the opening. At the end of

-the third day they reached a deserted hut in which

-were some deer bones, which they grilled and tried to

-eat, and in the morning a gale was blowing and the

-wild drifting snow was so thick that they had to remain

-where they were and continue their diet of charred

-bones and willow tea.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Next day, Thursday, the 13th of October, they

-began against a strong head wind. In the afternoon

-they sighted a hut on the west bank of the river.

-"They had seen one in the morning, but had in vain

-attempted to cross the ice to it. Now they tried to

-reach this, but were turned back by the brittle ice.

-They kept it in sight as they moved southward, and

-made another attempt to cross the ice, but it broke and

-they came back. Then they saw that there was no

-further progress possible to the southward on that side

-of the water, and they returned to the ice. It broke

-again, but they kept on. They went in up to their

-waists, but managed to pull themselves up on the

-stronger ice." The wind was blowing against them

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>and the ice was like glass, so that they were driven

-back. They looked about for ice which had been

-roughened by the ripples beneath, and finding some

-they succeeded at length in reaching the other side,

-where were two wooden crosses beneath a bank, which

-rose fifty feet above them. They pulled themselves up

-the bank, but when they came to the hut which they

-had kept in sight they found it a ruin nearly full of

-snow. "While Noros was trying to make a place in it

-for shelter, Nindemann saw a black object farther along

-to the south and went to it. It was a small peaked

-hut without a door, but large enough to hold two men.

-There were some fresh wood shavings outside the hut

-and higher up on the hill two boxes. On going to

-them Nindemann found them old and decayed, and he

-began to break one of them open. When he had

-ripped off the top he discovered that there was another

-box enclosed; breaking into it he found a dead body,

-and hastily left it. Doubtless the two crosses below on

-the river bank were memorials of the two beings left

-high up above the reach of the floods."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In the small hut they found a sort of floor, the

-boards of which they pulled up for firewood, and in a

-hole beneath was a box in which were a couple of fish

-and two fish heads; and, as these were discovered, a

-lemming came out of another hole and was promptly

-caught. On the lemming, roasted on the ramrod, and

-the fishes, which were so decayed that they dropped

-apart as they were handled, they made their meal for

-that day. Next day the snowstorm was so heavy that

-they were driven back here after striving in vain to

-make headway. On the Saturday, still without food,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>they rested for the night in a fissure in the river bank,

-where as a last resource Nindemann cut a piece off his

-sealskin trousers and soaked it in water and burnt it to

-a crust. Their breakfast consisted of the remains of

-this toasted sealskin. During the day they saw a crow

-flying across the river and in among the hills, and, as

-the crow in these regions is rarely found away from the

-haunts of men, Nindemann decided to cross the river

-in the hope of meeting with either natives or game on

-the other side. When darkness came on no shelter

-was discoverable, and so, after a meal of more sealskin

-and hot water, they went to rest in a hole in the snow.

-Next day, during which they recrossed the river, their

-experiences were similar and the end the same.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On Tuesday the 18th, after a terrible day, they came

-upon a hut with a pile of wood close by, which proved

-to be sledges, and these they broke up, as there was no

-other firing. Next day as they were struggling on

-they reached a place where there were three huts, in

-one of which was a half-kayak and in it was some blue

-mouldy fish; and here, attacked by dysentery, they

-remained until the Saturday, unable to go any further.

-About noon there was a noise outside like a flock of

-geese sweeping by. Nindemann, looking through the

-crack of the door, saw something moving which he took

-to be a reindeer, and was going out with his rifle when

-the door opened and a man entered, who promptly fell

-on his knees when he caught sight of the gun. Nindemann

-threw the rifle into a corner and, trying to make

-friends with the man by signs, offered him some of the

-fish, which the man by an emphatic gesture pronounced

-not fit to eat. After some more of the sign

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>language it was clear that the native had no food with

-him, and holding up three or four fingers to show that

-he would return in so many hours or days he drove off.

-About six o'clock in the evening, while they were preparing

-their fish dinner, the visitor returned with two

-other men, one of whom brought in a frozen fish which

-he skinned and sliced, and while the sailors were eating

-it—the first healthy meal they had had for weeks—the

-natives invited them to accompany them, and brought

-in deerskin coats and boots and finally got them into

-the sledges and drove off to the westward for about

-fifteen miles. Here there were two tents, and Nindemann

-was taken into one, Noros into the other, and

-both were well looked after, the natives doing their

-very best to get them well.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>This was intelligible on both sides, for the language

-of kindness is universal, but as the sailors knew not the

-language of their hosts, and the natives knew not the

-language of their guests, the difficulty of being understood

-by each other was great, and the delivery of the

-urgent message in signs was almost impossible. Nindemann

-did his best; he appealed to the man who seemed

-to be the head of the party, and drawing in the snow a

-map of the places where he had been, with every combination

-of signs he could think of, he tried to explain

-what he wanted. That he succeeded to a certain

-extent was clear, though he did not think so at first, for

-the natives loaded up their sledges, twenty-seven in

-number, with reindeer meat and skins and fish, and

-struck their tents, and, with over a hundred head of

-deer harnessed up, started for the south. At noon,

-when the deer were resting, the man for whom the

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>map had been drawn in the snow took Nindemann to

-where he could show him a prominent landmark, and

-asked by signs if that was where he had left his

-friends. And on learning by signs that it was further

-to the north, he shook his head as if sorry, and resumed

-his journey to the south. During the next day they

-reached Ku Mark Surka, where there were a number of

-natives who were much interested in the new-comers,

-and again the sailors used every effort to deliver their

-message.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Immediately after breakfast on the morning of the

-25th, Nindemann began talking to these people in

-signs and pantomime. Soon one of them showed that

-he had an idea of where the sailors came from, for

-he spoke to one of the boys, who ran off and returned

-with a model of a Yakutsk boat. Then they gathered

-round and evidently asked if the ship was anything

-like it. And in answer, Nindemann took up some

-sticks and placed three of them in the boat to show

-that his ship had three masts, and then he fastened

-smaller sticks across to show that she had yards, which

-seemed to surprise them greatly. Then he made a

-funnel out of wood and put it in position, and pointed

-to the fire and smoke to show that she was a steamer,

-and then he cut out a propeller with his knife and put

-it where the rudder was to show that she was a screw.

-Continuing his work he soon chipped out so many

-small boats to show how many she had; and then,

-signing to one of the men to get him two pieces of ice,

-he showed them how the ship had been crushed.

-Pointing to the northward he tried to tell them that

-the ship had been crushed up there; and then he put

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>away the ship and kept only three of the little boats to

-tell that part of the story, and in the boats he put so

-many sticks to represent the number of men in each.

-When he had done this one of the men pointed to a

-dog that was looking on and asked if the ship had any,

-whereupon the sailor counted on his fingers to show

-there were about forty, and by pantomime explained

-that they had been shot. This being evidently

-understood, Nindemann drew a chart of the coast-line,

-and imitating a gale of wind showed that the boat he

-came from went to the land at a certain point and that

-he knew nothing of the others. Then he went on to

-show how they had all left the boat, waded ashore and

-walked along the river-bank, and he marked the huts

-where they had stopped, and then he indicated where

-one of the men had died and been buried in the river.

-This was understood, for all the audience shook their

-heads as if to say how sorry they were. But when he

-tried to tell them that he had left the captain two days

-afterwards and had been so many days on the way to

-ask for help, they showed that they either did not or

-would not understand; and really it was not easy to

-make such a matter clear.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Next day Nindemann made another attempt to get

-them to understand the one essential, urgent fact that

-help was needed, or the men would die; but no, he

-could not do it. On the Thursday, despairing of the

-hopelessness of his task and the helplessness of his

-companions, he broke into tears and groans, and a

-woman in the hut took pity on him and spoke earnestly

-to one of the men, who came and said something

-about a commandant. Then the sailor, who had

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>picked up a few words, asked him to take him to

-Bulun, to which the man replied by again saying

-commandant and holding up five or six fingers. Late in

-the evening there arrived a tall Russian, whom Nindemann

-supposed to be the commandant and addressed

-in English, but he was a Russian exile who could

-not understand him, though he seemed to know something

-about the matter, for in what he said he clearly

-mentioned Jeannette and Americansk. Nindemann

-tried him in German, but at this he shook his head.

-Then Nindemann showed him the chart given him by

-De Long, which the Russian evidently did not understand,

-though he said something that sounded like

-St. Petersburg and telegrams. While this apparently

-hopeless conversation was going on Noros was busy

-steadily writing out a note that the two sailors had

-drawn up, and the tall Russian—who we shall see was

-really a most intelligent man—giving over his talk

-with Nindemann in despair, coolly picked this up and

-put it in his pocket, and notwithstanding the protest

-of the Americans, walked off with it. In the morning

-he came in and gave them to understand that he was

-going to Bulun, and that they were to follow, and

-soon afterwards the natives fitted them out with

-clothing and boots and food and sent them off on a

-sledge. At Bulun they were taken to the commandant,

-who, after a little sign language from Nindemann,

-showed that he understood, and said something

-about a telegram. The sailors jumped at the idea,

-and one of them dictated to the other a despatch to

-the American Minister at St. Petersburg. This the

-Russian took, explaining that the captain should have

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>it next day. Who the captain was the sailors could

-not make out; but three days afterwards, that is on

-the 3rd of November, while Nindemann lay on the

-bed and Noros was sitting on the table, a man came in

-dressed in fur.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>"My God, Mr. Melville!" said Noros, recognising

-him as soon as he spoke. "Are you alive? We

-thought that the whale-boats were all dead!"</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The exile had handed the note to Melville, whom he

-knew as the captain, and his difficulty in understanding

-the sailors had been in their speaking of one boat

-while he had only seen the other. The whale-boat

-crew had reached a village opposite to where he lived,

-and he had agreed to take them to Bulun, and he was

-on his way there to arrange for their transport when he

-heard of the sailors. Like a sensible man he ordered

-the men to be sent to Bulun, and had hurried there,

-made his arrangements with the commandant and returned

-to Melville, who, seeing the urgency of the

-case as soon as he read the letter, had started at once,

-leaving his party to follow.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Melville, as soon as possible, went off along the

-track of the two sailors, who were too weak to go

-with him, and eventually found the chronometer and

-the log-books and other records; but the winter was

-too far advanced for him to do more, and he had

-to return, after a journey of over six hundred miles,

-to try again in the spring. Then, accompanied by

-Nindemann, he went north, and came upon the bodies

-of the commander and those who had perished with

-him, and three or four feet behind De Long, as if

-he had tossed it over his shoulder, lay the journal in

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>which the last page was but a chronicle of death after

-death.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>This chapter must conclude with another tragedy.

-In 1885 Dr. Bunge and Baron Toll made some important

-investigations in the neighbourhood of the

-mouth of the Yana; and next year Bunge among the

-fossils of Liakhoff Island found not only mammoth

-and rhinoceros, but horse, musk-ox and deer, and two

-new species of ox. To these Toll, after discovering

-that there were flourishing trees on Kotelnoi in the

-time of the mammoth—nearly two hundred miles

-north of their present limit—added frozen carcases

-of musk-ox and rhinoceros, and bones of antelope

-and tiger.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In 1902 Toll, pushing his geological researches

-further north, reached Bennett Island, where he

-collected bones of the mammoth and other recent

-mammals, while the main mass of the plateau he

-identified as of Cambrian age. These discoveries he

-included in the record announcing his intention of

-leaving for Kotelnoi, which was found in 1904 by the

-expedition sent to his relief, for he was never seen

-alive again.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>

-  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER VII<br /> BERING STRAIT</h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c013'>Native stories of the distant continent—The Russians in Kamchatka—Bering's

-expedition—The difficulties of his task—Builds a vessel and

-reaches Kamchatka—Builds another vessel and discovers the strait named

-after him by Captain Cook—His second expedition—Spangberg's voyage

-to Japan—Bering reaches the American coast—His shipwreck and death—The

-influence of the sea-otter and the fur-seal on geographical discovery—The

-Arctic voyage of Captain Cook—Clerke's voyage—Beechey's

-voyage—Point Barrow reached by the barge of the <em>Blossom</em>—Kellett's

-voyage in the <em>Herald</em>—Boat expedition to Hudson Bay—Kellett reaches

-72° 51´—Landing on Herald Island—Kellett sights Wrangell Island—Berry

-in the <em>Rodgers</em> explores Wrangell Island—He reaches 73° 44´—Frederick

-Whymper and W. H. Dall ascend the Yukon.</p>

-

-<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>Rumours of land over against the far corner of

-Siberia had reached the Russians for years, and

-many were the legends of those who had seen these

-lands from the cliffs, or had been on the ice to look at

-them more closely, or had gone away to them and

-never come back. There was, for instance, the old

-legend of Kraechoj, who believed he had found safe

-shelter at Irkaipii from the Chukche vengeance, but

-the Chukche made his way into the stronghold and

-killed Kraechoj's son, whereupon Kraechoj escaped by

-letting himself down with thongs to the boat and fled

-to the land whose mountains can be seen in clear sunshine

-from Cape Yakan; and there he was among his

-people who had left Asia before him.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>And among the official documents was the statement

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>made by the Chukches when they went to Anadyrskoi

-Ostrog to acknowledge the dominion of the Russians,

-that "The Noss is full of rocky mountains, and the

-low grounds consist of land covered with turf. Opposite

-to it lies an island, within sight of it, of no great

-extent, and void of wood. It is inhabited by people

-who have the same aspect as the Chukche, but are

-quite a different nation, and speak their own language,

-though they are not numerous. It is half a day's

-voyage with boats from the Noss to the island. There

-are no sables on the island, and no other animals but

-foxes, wolves, and reindeer. Beyond the island is a

-large continent that can be scarcely discerned from it,

-and that only on clear days; in calm weather one may

-row over the sea from the island to the continent,

-which is inhabited by a people who in every particular

-resemble the Chukches. There are large forests of fir,

-pine, larch, and cedar trees; great rivers flow through

-the country and fall into the sea. The inhabitants have

-dwellings and fortified places of abode environed with

-ramparts of earth; they live upon wild reindeer and

-fish; their clothes are made of sable, fox, and reindeer

-skins, for sables and foxes are there in great abundance.

-The number of men in that country may be twice or

-three times as many as that of the Chukches who are

-often at war with them." That there was land in sight

-somewhere seemed clear, but the reports differed in

-placing it all the way round from the north to the east.

-Many were the vain attempts to reach it from the

-northward-flowing rivers, and it was left to be found

-from the Pacific side.</p>

-

-<div id='pg128'  class='figcenter id013'>

-<a href='images/i_179.jpg'><img src='images/i_179_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>BERING STRAIT</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>When Atlassof, in 1697, took the first steps in the

-conquest of Kamchatka the Russians were already

-known to the inhabitants. Long before him Fedotof

-and a few comrades had made their way into the

-country and intermarried with native women. They

-had been held in great honour and almost deified as

-being evidently of a superior race. For some time it

-was supposed that no human hand could hurt them,

-but this belief was rudely shattered when two of the

-demigods quarrelled and fought, and one wounding the

-other, the blood flowed. That flow of blood was fatal,

-for the natives, judging that they were but ordinary

-flesh, took an early opportunity of wiping them out, the

-name of their leader being still traceable in that of the

-Fedotcha River on the banks of which they had lived.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The Kamchadales had other tales to tell of visitors

-from the east and south, and Atlassof himself discovered

-on the River Itcha a Japanese who had been

-wrecked on the coast two years before, from whom he

-learnt of islands innumerable. But there were no

-ships on the Pacific coast of Siberia, and nothing in

-the way of discovery could be done until 1714, when

-there arrived at Ochotsk a detachment of sailors and

-shipwrights despatched thither overland. According

-to one of the sailors, Henry Bush, a Dutchman, the

-carpenters built a good durable vessel some fifty feet

-long which was ready for sea in 1716 when the first

-voyage was undertaken. The coast of Kamchatka was

-made near the River Itcha, and sailing south they

-reached the Kompakova, where they wintered and

-found the whale that had in its body the harpoon of

-European workmanship marked with Roman letters,

-mentioned by Scoresby. Bush returned to Ochotsk in

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>July, to be sent in the following year to discover the

-Shantar Islands, and next year, 1718, the Kuriles; thus

-venturing into the Pacific beyond Cape Lopatka.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The last of these expeditions was due to the direct

-order of Peter the Great, who, knowing nothing of

-Deschnef, and finding the sea open to the north, resolved

-on a voyage in that direction, his holograph instructions

-to Admiral Apraxin being: "One or two boats

-with decks to be built at Kamchatka, or at any other

-convenient place, with which inquiry should be made

-relative to the northerly coasts, to see whether they

-are not contiguous with America, since their termination

-is not yet known." Peter died, and the Empress

-Catherine, carrying out these instructions in their

-fullest meaning, began her reign with an order for the

-expedition.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Veit Bering, Dane by birth and sailor by trade, had

-voyaged to the Indies, east and west, and, like many

-other men of enterprise, had entered the Russian

-service at Peter's invitation. He had served with

-distinction in the Cronstadt fleet in the war against

-the Swedes, and, being in good repute for his knowledge

-of ships and their handling, was appointed to the

-command of the most remarkable Arctic enterprise on

-record. Just as Nicholas ruled a line and ordered a

-railway to be built there, so did Catherine in the same

-imperial way order an exploring expedition, and it

-was done. But it meant building the ship from the

-trees of the forest on the coast of the Pacific and

-carrying the materials and stores—everything but the

-timber—right across the Russian empire in the days

-when for thousands of miles there were not even roads.</p>

-

-<div id='pg130'  class='figcenter id014'>

-<img src='images/i_183.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>THE FACE OF THE FUR SEAL</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>Bering's lieutenants were Martin Spangberg and

-Alexei Tschirikof. With them and the rest of the

-expedition he left St. Petersburg on the 5th of February,

-1725. During that year they got as far as the

-Ilim, where they wintered. In the spring of 1726

-they sailed down the Lena to Yakutsk, where they

-parted company for a time owing to the difficulties of

-the route to Ochotsk, the way not being passable in

-summer with wagons, or in winter with sledges, on

-account of the marshes and rocky ground. So Spangberg

-set out, working along the rivers Aldan, Maia,

-and Judoma, with part of the provisions and heavy

-naval stores, while Bering followed overland through

-uninhabited country with more stores on horses, and

-Tschirikof remained to collect still more and follow in

-the track of his commander.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Bering reached Ochotsk first. Spangberg was frozen

-up in the Judoma, and thence he walked to Ochotsk

-with the most necessary materials; but he suffered so

-much from hunger on the way that he had to support

-life by eating leather bags, straps, and shoes, and did

-not reach Bering till the 1st of January, 1727, nearly

-two years after leaving St. Petersburg. In the beginning

-of February he returned to the Judoma and

-brought away about half of his lading, the other half

-being left for a third journey, which he made from

-and to Ochotsk on horses. Meanwhile Tschirikof was

-toiling along from Yakutsk, and did not arrive to

-complete the party until the 30th of July.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On arrival Bering had to build a vessel to take his

-most necessary naval stores and his shipbuilders across

-the sea of Ochotsk to Bolscheretzkoi, which, in her, he

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>reached on the 2nd of September. From here he

-followed the shipwrights, who went on ahead to fell the

-trees, taking with them the provisions and stores, over

-the backbone of the isthmus and down the Kamchatka

-River to the mouth, a distance of some two hundred

-miles, the journey being very slow on account of the

-travelling being by dog-sledge. In short, it was

-not until the 4th of April, 1728, that is, more than

-three years after leaving St. Petersburg, that it was

-possible to put on the stocks the vessel in which the

-voyage to the north was to be made. But she took

-only three months to build, being launched on the

-10th of July, when she was named the <em>Gabriel</em>.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Laden with stores for forty men during a year's

-voyage, she put to sea ten days afterwards, Bering

-keeping close to the coast so that he could map it as he

-went. On the 10th of August he was off the island of

-St. Lawrence, which he so named, as it was the day of

-that saint. In a day or two he had passed the East

-Cape without seeing the American coast, and had

-entered the Arctic Circle. And on the 15th he was

-well through the strait, out in the Arctic Ocean, in

-67° 18´ off Serdze Kamen, a promontory behind which

-the coast trended to the west, as the Chukches had told

-him it did; and he assumed, and rightly so, though he

-had not gone far enough to prove it, that there was

-no land connection between Asia and America. Whereupon,

-as he had in his opinion accomplished his mission,

-seeing no need for wintering in those parts, he put

-the <em>Gabriel</em> about and was back in the Kamchatka

-River on the 20th of September, after a voyage of seven

-weeks in a vessel that took three months to build on a

-spot that took over three years to reach—the plan of

-campaign being much the same as that in which a

-mountain stronghold is advanced on across a desert,

-besieged for a few days, and captured by assault.</p>

-

-<div id='pg132'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_187.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>After wintering, Bering went off next year on a

-voyage due east in search of reported land, but, after

-some hundred and thirty miles out, he was blown back,

-and, rounding the south end of Kamchatka, put in at

-the River Bolschaia; thence he crossed to Ochotsk,

-whence he started for St. Petersburg, where he arrived

-after an absence of five years. Catherine was dead and

-another empress reigned in her stead, who was pleased

-and satisfied if no one else was, and the 21st of February,

-1733, saw him starting again in the same

-laborious fashion to arrange other voyages as part of a

-great scheme for the exploration of Northern and North-eastern

-Asia. Some of these expeditions on the north

-coast have already been mentioned; Bering's particular

-task was to send Spangberg in search of Japan, while

-he and Tschirikof, in separate ships, went eastward to

-America. More stores and provisions went overland

-across Siberia than before; Spangberg got again frozen

-up on the Judoma and had to continue on foot to

-Ochotsk, where he found plenty of food owing to

-Bering having sent on ahead, in case of any such

-trouble, a hundred horses, each of them laden with

-meal. In June, 1738, Spangberg, in two newly-built

-vessels and the <em>Gabriel</em>, was off to Japan, to reach the

-Kuriles and return to winter in Kamchatka; but next

-year he arrived there all well and found to his astonishment

-that the Japanese knew as much about maps as

-he did. He was still more astonished on his return to

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>be told by those high in office at St. Petersburg that he

-could not possibly have been there as they had not got

-it on their maps where he said it was, and, consequently,

-he was to go where he had been as soon as he could to

-make sure. He started on this voyage of verification,

-but circumstances were against him and he did not

-reach there; and his Japanese trip remained discredited

-until the Russian geographers knew better. His voyage

-thither had, however, used such a stock of provisions

-that it was two years before the deficiency could be

-made up, and it was actually the 4th of September,

-1740, seven and a half years after leaving St. Petersburg,

-when Bering, in the specially-built <em>St. Peter</em>, and

-Tschirikof, in her sister the <em>St. Paul</em>, got off outward

-bound to America.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In about three weeks they were at Awatcha Bay on

-the east of Kamchatka, anchored in the fine harbour

-named Petropaulovsk after the two ships, and here

-they had to stay for the winter, so that they did not

-leave Russian territory until the 4th of the following

-June. A few days out the ships were separated in a

-fog and storm, and the <em>St. Paul</em> reached the American

-coast first, at Kruzof Island on the western shore of

-Sitka Sound. The <em>St. Peter</em> three days afterwards, on

-the 18th of July, drifted to the coast more to the

-northward, at Cape St. Elias near the mighty mountain

-of that name. In this neighbourhood amid much

-fog Bering stayed six weeks until he was blown out to

-sea, when, his men beginning to die from scurvy, he

-resolved to return to Kamchatka. It was a voyage of

-misfortune in a continual downfall, the men in want,

-misery, and sickness, continuously at work in the cold

-and wet, becoming fewer and fewer, so that there were

-not enough to work the ship properly. It ended on

-one of the Commander Islands by the vessel being

-lifted by the sea clear over a reef into calm water.

-Bering died—the island is named after him—and the

-survivors of the crew, building a boat from the materials

-of the <em>St. Peter</em>, arrived at Petropaulovsk on the 27th

-of August, bringing with them a quantity of sea-otter

-skins, which did more for discovery in those seas than

-any imperial expedition.</p>

-

-<div id='pg134'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_191.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>DRIVING THE FUR SEAL</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>As the sable had brought about the conquest of

-Siberia, so did the sea-otter lead to the seizure of the

-islands of the Bering Sea and the coasts of Alaska.

-Three years after the return of the survivors of the

-<em>St. Peter</em>, Nevodtsikof wintered on one of the Aleutian

-Islands, and in a few years the fur-hunters were at

-their exterminating work over the whole chain. In

-time the fur-seal attracted as much attention, and, with

-Pribylov's discovery, in 1786, of its rookeries on the

-islands named after him, the trade became of such

-increasing importance as to endanger in our time the

-peace of the world. Every one has heard of the wonderful

-haunts and habits of that strange eared seal which

-seems to have come from the south through the tropics

-to breed in the coldest limit of its range, now almost

-entirely on the Pribylovs and the Commanders; how

-it is pursued in skin boats and every sort of craft, and

-scared in long lines to slaughter by clapping of boards

-and bones and waving of flags and opening and shutting

-of gingham umbrellas, until it promises to become

-as extinct as Steller's sea-cow or as rare as the sea-otter.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>Following Bering on the way to the north came

-Captain James Cook, in H.M.S. <em>Resolution</em>, who gave

-Bering's name to the strait. Cook sighted Mount

-St. Elias in May, 1778, and, cruising slowly along the

-coast with many discoveries and much accurate surveying,

-was off, and named, Cape Prince of Wales, the

-western extremity of America, on the 9th of August.

-He then crossed the strait and plied back until on

-the 18th he sighted and named Icy Cape in 70° 29´.

-Close to the edge of the ice, which was as compact as

-a wall, and seemed to be ten or twelve feet high at the

-least, he sought persistently for a passage through, but

-none was to be found; and after reaching 70° 6´ in

-196° 42´ (163° 18´ W.) on the 19th, he turned westward

-to the Asiatic coast, along which he went until he

-sighted and named Cape North, as already stated.

-Then, blocked by ice, east, north, and west, he returned,

-passing Cape Serdze Kamen (Bering's farthest)

-and naming East Cape, confirming Bering's observation

-that it was the most easterly point of Asia.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On Cook's death at Hawaii Captain Charles Clerke,

-of the accompanying vessel H.M.S. <em>Discovery</em>, took

-command of the expedition and carried out Cook's

-intention of making another effort during the following

-year. The ice conditions were, however, worse.

-The two ships found the ice block further south, and

-as impenetrable as before, and Clerke's highest was

-70° 33´ on the American side, on the 19th of July.

-As it was Cook's last voyage, so it was Clerke's. He

-was in a bad way with consumption, and continued his

-work in the north, though, under the special circumstances

-and being in command, he could at any time

-have given up the obviously hopeless attempt and left

-for a more genial climate, in which he would at least

-have had a chance of longer life; but, remaining at

-his duty, he died at sea on the 22nd of August, and

-was buried at Petropaulovsk.</p>

-

-<div id='pg136'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_195.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>FUR SEALS AT SEA</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>Captain Beechey, in H.M.S. <em>Blossom</em>, passed through

-the strait in 1826 when sent north from the Pacific

-with a view of meeting with his old commander,

-Franklin, then on his second land journey. Beechey

-took the ship to Icy Cape, whence on the 17th of

-August he despatched the barge under the master,

-Thomas Elson, to survey the coast to the north-eastward

-as far as he could go in three weeks, there and

-back. Elson reached his farthest on the 25th at a spit

-of land jutting out several miles from the more regular

-coast-line, the width of the neck not exceeding a mile

-and a half, broadest at its extremity, with several

-frozen lakes on it, and a village, whose natives proved

-so troublesome that it was thought unsafe to land.

-This was Point Barrow, in 71° 23´ 31˝, longitude

-156° 21´ 30˝, the northernmost land on the western

-half of the American continent. To the eastward

-curved a wide bay—named Elson Bay by Beechey—the

-shore-line of which joined on to the ice pack that

-encircled the horizon. Here he was within a hundred

-and sixty miles of where Franklin had turned back a

-week before. Though Beechey did not meet Franklin

-he did most useful work in these parts, for by him the

-whole coast was surveyed between Point Barrow and

-Point Rodney, to the south of Prince of Wales Cape.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Franklin was also the cause of the appearance of

-the next British expedition in the strait. This was in

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>1848, Captain Henry Kellett, in H.M.S. <em>Herald</em>, with

-Commander Thomas Moore in H.M.S. <em>Plover</em>, forming

-the western detachment of the first series of search

-expeditions. There were three detachments, one to

-follow the <em>Erebus</em> and <em>Terror</em> from the eastward,

-another under John Richardson to descend the Mackenzie

-and search the northern coast, the other coming

-in from the west to meet the ships should they have

-made the passage. On this duty the <em>Herald</em> and

-<em>Plover</em> were hereabouts for three seasons, the <em>Plover</em>

-wintering, the <em>Herald</em> going south when the navigation

-closed.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In October, 1826, Beechey had buried a barrel of

-flour for Franklin on the sandy point of Chamisso

-Island, ample directions for finding it being cut and

-painted on the rock, and to call the attention of the

-party to the spot the name of the <em>Blossom</em> was painted

-on the cliffs of Puffin Island. When the <em>Herald</em> was

-at Chamisso Island in 1849 Captain Kellett searched

-for this flour and found it. A considerable space was

-cleared round the cask, its chimes were freed, and, only

-adhering to the sand by the two lower bilge staves, it

-required the united strength of two boats' crews, with

-a parbuckle and a large spar as a lever, to free it

-altogether. The sand was frozen so hard that it

-emitted sparks with every blow of the pickaxe. The

-cask itself was perfectly sound and the hoops good,

-and out of the 336 lb. of flour which it contained,

-175 lb. were as sweet and well tasted as any he had

-with him; so good indeed was it that Captain Kellett

-gave a dinner party, at which all the pies and puddings

-were made of this flour.</p>

-

-<div id='pg138'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_199.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>THE PARKA OF THE ALASKAN INNUITS<br /><br />(THE SHORTER COAT IS THAT WORN BY THE MEN)</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>After the dinner party, on the 18th of July, the two

-vessels started for the north, being joined as soon as

-they stood from the anchorage by Robert Shedden in

-his yacht the <em>Nancy Dawson</em>, who at his own initiative

-had come up from Hong Kong to join in the search.

-From Wainwright Inlet Kellett sent off the boats

-under Lieutenant Pullen, two of which made the

-journey along the northern coast and up the Mackenzie,

-their crews thence making their way home eastwards

-to York Factory.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>When Kellett was about to commence his observations

-at the inlet he drew a semicircle on the sand from

-water's edge to water's edge, and placed the boats'

-noses between its points. The natives seemed to

-understand the meaning of this line. Not one of them

-attempted to overstep it, and they squatted down and

-remained perfectly quiet and silent. When a stranger

-arrived they shouted to him, and he no sooner comprehended

-the directions than he crept rather than

-walked to the boundary, and squatted among the rest.

-Afterwards they danced and sang and played football

-with the seamen—who stood no chance with them at

-that game—and when they had gone off, after all this

-good behaviour, it was discovered that they had been

-picking the pockets of some of the party, one losing a

-handkerchief, another a glove, and Commander Moore

-a box of percussion caps.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The boat party had a similar experience, without the

-pocket-picking. Reaching Point Barrow they landed

-to make observations and look about for traces of the

-visit of the <em>Blossom's</em> boat, which they did not find.

-Their interpreter did not understand the tribe, and

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>recourse was had to the universal language of signs.

-"We made a rude model of a vessel," says Lieutenant

-Hooper, "and performed sundry antics to signify what

-we were in search of, but could elicit no information,

-and so set to work at obtaining observations. We concluded

-that these people must have been entirely misunderstood.

-Far from evidencing any disposition to

-assail or molest us, they were most docile and well-behaved,

-agreeably disappointing us in their conduct.

-When we arrived on the hillock, all, big and little, sat

-down around us, and I amused myself by filling their

-pipes, becoming a great favourite immediately in consequence.

-They had among them a great many knives,

-which we feared would influence the magnet. Mr.

-Pullen therefore kindly drew off the crowd to a distance,

-distributing among them tobacco, beads, snuff,

-etc., and much to their credit be it said, there was

-neither confusion nor contention, each taking his

-allotted portion, and seeming delighted with his good

-fortune. They took care not to come near the instruments,

-finding that we did not like their approach; one

-or two indeed came towards us, but retired instantly

-when laughingly motioned back, and this should be

-considered as a display of great forbearance, inasmuch

-as their curiosity must have been highly excited.

-When the observations were concluded they were

-allowed to inspect the objects of their wonder; then

-fast and thickly to utterance flew their expressions of

-astonishment at the—to them—novel and splendid

-instruments. The trough of quicksilver, liquid and

-restless, especially attracted them, pleasure and wonder

-were evident at the simple view, but when one or two

-had permission to take some from the dish, and found

-it ever elude the grasp, their astonishment knew no

-bounds."</p>

-

-<div id='pg140'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_203.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>THE FROZEN YUKON</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>From Wainwright Inlet, which is between Icy Cape

-and Point Barrow, the <em>Herald</em> sailed along the pack to

-the westward, reaching her highest north, 72° 51´, in

-163° 48´, and, on the 17th of August, Kellett landed

-on and named Herald Island in 71° 17´ 45˝, a mass of

-granite towering nine hundred feet above the sea, under

-five miles long and three broad, inhabited mainly by

-black and white divers and yielding the collector only

-four flowering plants. Further to the west he sighted

-Wrangell Island, sailed past and named by the American

-whaling captain, Thomas Long, in August, 1867.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In 1881 Wrangell Island was thoroughly explored

-by another search expedition, that of Captain Berry in

-the American ship <em>Rodgers</em>, who was in these parts

-looking out for traces of the <em>Jeannette</em>. He found it

-to be, not a continent as some had supposed, but an

-island forty miles broad and sixty-six miles long, about

-thirty miles from Herald Island and eighty from the

-Siberian coast; and on it, as on all these Siberian

-islands and the coast of Alaska, remains of the mammoth

-were found. Examining the ice to the northward,

-he reached 73° 44´ in 171° 30´, being fifty-three

-miles further north than Kellett and twenty-four miles

-further than Collinson in 1850. Returning from the

-north to winter quarters he achieved another Arctic

-record in his ship being destroyed by fire in St. Lawrence

-Bay on the Asiatic side of Bering Strait.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Opposite this, on the American side, from Cape

-York downwards the land trends away to the south-east

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>to Norton Sound, in which are the mouths of the

-Yukon, one of the mightiest rivers of the world, its

-volume being as great as, or according to some writers

-greater than, the Mississippi. In a course of two thousand

-miles it runs northwards to the Arctic Circle at

-the now abandoned trading post of Fort Yukon, where

-its waters are reinforced by its tributary, the Rat or

-Porcupine, coming in from the north-east, and given

-their seaward direction to the south-west. Up this

-vast waterway in 1866 went Frederick Whymper and

-William H. Dall.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Beginning with a sledge journey of a hundred and

-seventy miles from Unalachleet, they struck the Yukon

-on the 10th of November, gliding down a high steep

-bank on to it. Hardly a patch of clear ice was to be

-seen, the snow covering the whole extent. Accumulations

-of hummocks had in many places been forced on

-the surface before the river had become thoroughly

-frozen, and the water was still open, running swiftly in

-a few isolated streaks. From bank to bank was not less

-than a mile, the stream flowing among several islands.

-As they sledged up the river the dreary expanse of

-snow made them almost forget they were on a sheet of

-ice; and, as it winds considerably, their course was

-often from bank to bank to cut off corners and bends.

-Many cliffs abutted on the stream, and islands of

-sombre green forest studded it in all directions.</p>

-

-<div id='pg142'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_207.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>ASCENDING THE YUKON</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>On the 15th they reached Nulato, six hundred miles

-from the mouth, where they spent the winter. Here

-they found a curious method of fishing practised all

-through the season. Early in the winter large piles or

-stakes had been driven down into the bed of the river,

-and to these were affixed wickerwork traps like eel-pots

-on a large scale, oblong holes being kept open over

-them by frequently breaking the ice. This was cold

-work, for the temperature ran low. "In November

-and December," says Whymper, "I succeeded in

-making sketches of the fort and neighbourhood when

-the temperature was as low as thirty degrees below

-zero. It was done, it need not be said, with difficulty,

-and often by instalments. Between every five strokes

-of the pencil, I ran about to exercise myself or went

-into our quarters for warmth. The use of water-colours

-was of course impracticable—except when I

-could keep a pot of warm water on a small fire by my

-side—a thing done by me on two or three occasions,

-when engaged at a distance from the post. Even

-inside the house the spaces near the windows, as well as

-the floor, were often below freezing point. Once, forgetful

-of the fact, I mixed some colours up with water

-that had just stood near the oven, and wetting a small

-brush commenced to apply it to my drawing block.

-Before it reached the paper it was covered with a skin

-of ice, and simply scratched the surface, and I had to

-give up for the time being."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On the 12th of May the Nulato River broke up and

-ran out on the top of the Yukon ice for more than a

-mile upstream; and in a few days the ice of the main

-river was coming down in a steady flow at a rate of

-five or six knots, surging into mountains as it met

-with obstacles, and grinding and crashing and carrying

-all before it, whole trees and banks being swept away

-on its victorious march, the water rising fourteen feet

-above the winter level. On the 26th Whymper and

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>Dall started with two Indians and a steersman in a

-skin canoe, the river still full of ice, and navigation

-difficult. They had proceeded but a short distance

-when they came to bends, round which logs and ice

-were sweeping at a great rate, so that it was necessary

-for a man to stand in the bows of the canoe, with a

-pole shod at one end with iron, to push away the masses

-of ice and tangle of driftwood. They could often feel

-the ice and logs rolling and scraping under the canoe;

-and it was not the thickness of a plank between them

-and destruction, but that of a piece of sealskin a

-tenth of an inch thick.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On the 7th of June they were two hundred and

-forty miles above Nulato, at the junction of the

-Tanana, the furthest point reached by the Russians,

-and soon were in a part abounding with moose owing

-to their seeking refuge in the stream from the millions

-of mosquitoes. Here the Indian hunters were busy,

-not wasting powder and shot, but manœuvring round

-the swimming deer in their birch-bark canoes until they

-tired the victim out; and then stealthily approaching,

-securing it with a stab from their knives.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>After twenty-six laborious days against the stream

-they reached Fort Yukon, the then furthest outpost

-of the Hudson's Bay Company, six hundred miles

-from Nulato, and, of course, managed and victualled

-from the east. Here the amount of peltry was

-astonishing, the fur-room of the fort containing

-thousands of marten skins, hanging from the beams,

-and huge piles of common furs lying around, together

-with a considerable number of foxes, black and silver-grey,

-and many skins of the wolverine, thought so

-much more of by the Indians than by any one else

-that they are used as a medium of exchange. All

-these furs were brought in from the surrounding

-districts, far and near, and traded for goods, as widely

-distributed, among the native tribes whose representatives

-gathered at the fort in such a miscellaneous

-crowd that perhaps half a dozen dialects were heard in

-a morning.</p>

-

-<div id='pg144'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_211.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>MOOSE-HUNTING ON THE YUKON</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>In the crowd the busiest and most prominent were

-the primitive Tananas, gay with feathers and painted

-faces, looking like survivals among the local Kutchins

-and the Kutchins of the upper river, the Birch River

-men, and the Rat River men by whom the skins were

-brought from the natives of the northern coast, as

-were the messages from the Franklin search parties.

-Indians were all of these, distinguishable by their

-wearing the hyaqua or tooth-shell (<em>Dentalium entalis</em>)

-through the septum of the nose, while the Mahlemut

-wears a bone on each side of the mouth, a practice

-common with all the Innuit, or Eskimo tribes, from

-the Alaska Peninsula to Point Barrow, unless some

-other form of labret happens to be the local fashion.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>

-  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER VIII<br /> THE AMERICAN MAINLAND</h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c013'>The Hudson's Bay Company—Samuel Hearne—His journey down the

-Coppermine River—The North West Fur Company—Sir Alexander

-Mackenzie—His journey down the Mackenzie—Sir John Franklin's first

-land journey—Fort Enterprise—Back's journey to Athabasca—The rapids

-of the Coppermine—Point Turnagain reached—The Wilberforce Falls—The

-terrible crossing of the Barren Grounds—Franklin's second land

-journey—Richardson's voyage to the eastward—Discovers Wollaston

-Land and Dolphin and Union Strait—Franklin's voyage to Return Reef—Back's

-journey down the Great Fish River—Discovers Montreal Island

-and King William Land—The Parry Falls—Sir George Simpson—Peter

-Warren Dease and Thomas Simpson—Exploration of the coast between

-Return Reef and Point Barrow—Simpson advances beyond Point Turnagain

-and discovers Victoria Land and Dease Strait—Their second voyage

-down the Coppermine—Discovery of Simpson Strait—Reach the Great

-Fish River—Their farthest east—Complete the survey of the northern

-coast between Boothia and Bering Strait—The first to find the North-West

-Passage.</p>

-

-<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>For two elks and two black beavers, paid yearly

-whensoever the King of England entered their

-estate, the Hudson's Bay Company were, in 1670,

-presented by Charles II with the northern part of the

-American mainland, thus ensuring an ample stretch of

-British territory along the passage to the South Sea.

-But the company soon ceased to be interested in any

-such passage, finding quite enough to do in developing

-the very profitable fur trade of their vast possessions.

-With the exception of John Knight's disastrous voyage

-to Marble Island in 1719, whatever attempts at discoveries

-there may have been were kept quiet for fear

-of aiding their rivals the French to the south, who

-were fostering the trade in the region of the great

-lakes; and not until the French dominion ended in

-1763 and the Frenchmen's interests were passing to

-an opposition British company was any effort made to

-explore the coast of the Polar Sea.</p>

-

-<div id='pg146'  class='figcenter id015'>

-<img src='images/i_215.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>MAHLEMUT MAN</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>Owing to Indian reports of rich deposits of native

-copper and an abundance of fur-bearing animals,

-Samuel Hearne, once a midshipman in the Royal

-Navy, was sent by the company in 1769 to explore

-to the west and north. After a journey of thirteen

-hundred miles to the west he found the Coppermine

-River and the Great Slave Lake, and he traced the

-river to its mouth and emerged on the northern shore,

-being the first known white man to see the Arctic

-Ocean between the Boothia Peninsula and Bering

-Strait. Among other things he was instructed to discover

-a north-west passage, and he certainly did something

-definite towards it by showing there was open

-water so much further west; but, though he suspected

-it, he was unable to prove that the northernmost point

-of the continent was in the unexplored country between

-the Coppermine and Hudson Bay.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In 1783 the North West Fur Company was formally

-established, and after a severe struggle obtained, owing

-mainly to the efforts of Alexander Mackenzie, a fair

-share of the trade in the west of the region controlled

-by the Hudson's Bay people. Mackenzie was at Fort

-Chippewyan, on Lake Athabasca, and thence he was

-sent in 1789 on an exploring voyage to the north. In

-four birch-bark canoes, one of his party being an

-Indian known as English Chief, who had been with

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>Hearne on his journey to the Coppermine, he started

-down the Great Slave River into the Great Slave

-Lake. After spending twenty days in crossing and

-exploring this vast sheet of water, he entered the large

-river now bearing his name, and down it amid many

-dangers and difficulties, overcome by skill, persuasion,

-force, good humour or good fortune, he reached the

-sea on the 14th of July. He camped on Whale

-Island, the name being given owing to one of the men

-sighting a great many animals in the water, which he

-at first supposed to be pieces of ice. "However," says

-Mackenzie, "I was awakened to resolve the doubts

-which had taken place respecting this extraordinary

-appearance. I immediately perceived that they were

-whales; and having ordered the canoe to be prepared,

-we embarked in pursuit of them. It was indeed a

-very wild and unreflecting enterprise, and it was a very

-fortunate circumstance that we failed in our attempt

-to overtake them, as a stroke from the tail of one of

-these enormous fish would have dashed the canoe to

-pieces. We may, perhaps, have been indebted to the

-foggy weather for our safety, as it prevented us from

-continuing our pursuit. Our guide informed us that

-they are the same kind of fish which are the principal

-food of the Eskimos, and they were frequently seen as

-large as our canoe. The part of them which appeared

-above the water was altogether white, and they were

-much larger than the largest porpoise"—being evidently

-belugas (<em>Delphinapterus leucas</em>).</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Satisfied with a short canoe voyage on the sea, he

-returned to the river and made his way back to the

-fort, arriving there in the middle of September. He

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>had thus proved the existence of the sea twenty

-degrees further west than Hearne had done. Three

-years afterwards he started on his notable journey to

-the Pacific at Cape Menzies, facing Princess Royal

-Island, being the first white man to cross the Rocky

-Mountains, and, as he had reached Fort Chippewyan

-by way of Montreal, the first to cross North America

-above the Gulf of Mexico.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Another of Hearne's Indians accompanied Franklin

-on his first land journey in 1819, the object of which

-was to explore the coast between Hearne's farthest and

-Hudson Bay, thus filling in the gap in which the

-assumed northern promontory was to be found.

-Franklin, who was sent out by the British Government,

-had with him, as surgeon and naturalist, Dr.,

-afterwards Sir, John Richardson, to whom as a boy

-Robert Burns had lent Spenser's <em>Faerie Queene</em>, a

-naval surgeon with a distinguished record, who while

-on half-pay had studied botany and mineralogy at

-Edinburgh. Like another member of the expedition,

-George Back, who had been with Franklin in the

-<em>Trent</em> and <em>Dorothea</em> voyage, he was destined to gain

-a great reputation among Arctic explorers. With

-Back was another midshipman, Robert Hood, whose

-fate it was to be murdered by an Iroquois half-breed

-who, through want of food, betook himself to cannibalism.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Landing at York Factory, in Hudson Bay, after an

-exciting voyage, on the 30th of August, Franklin,

-disregarding local advice, pushed on across the continent

-during the winter, arriving at Fort Chippewyan on the

-26th of March, the losses and trying experiences of

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>the long journey being mainly due to the rigours of

-the climate at that time of year; and thence, in July,

-the party followed Mackenzie's route to Fort Providence

-on Great Slave Lake. Here they were joined

-by Mr. Wentzel, of the North West Company.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Starting for the north on the 2nd of August in four

-canoes, they were joined next day at the mouth of the

-Yellow Knife by a band of Indians, under a chief

-named Akaitcho, in seventeen canoes. The Indians

-were to guide the party and supply them with food by

-hunting and fishing on the way, but game and fish

-proved scarce—and scarcer owing to the poorness of

-the Indian marksmanship—provisions were short and

-portages long, so that the journey, which soon led

-across a series of lakes, was pursued under toilsome

-and hazardous conditions until it ended at Winter

-Lake in 64° 30´, where it became necessary to winter

-in a log house built by Wentzel, and named Fort

-Enterprise. The site was delightful: a hillside amid

-trees three feet in diameter at the roots, the view in

-front bounded at a distance of three miles by round-backed

-hills, to the eastward and westward the Winter

-and Roundrock Lakes connected by the Winter River,

-its banks clothed with pines and ornamented with a

-profusion of mosses, lichens, and shrubs.</p>

-

-<div id='pg150'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_221.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>WINTER TRAVELLING ON THE GREAT SLAVE LAKE</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>In a few weeks, however, the weather became so

-severe that, according to Franklin, the trees froze to

-their very centres and became as hard as stones, on

-which some of the axes were broken daily, until but

-one was left. And though at first the reindeer appeared

-in numbers, their visits lasted only for a short time,

-and the party, short of tobacco for the Canadian

-voyageurs and of ammunition for the Indians, had so

-poor an outlook that it became necessary to accept

-Back's proposal to return to the forts and bring on

-supplies which had not been forwarded as promised;

-the failure being due to the journey, unlike the

-successful ventures of Hearne and Mackenzie, being

-pushed on regardless of climatal conditions, and, in

-some degree, to the rivalry between the two fur companies

-which were amalgamated while the expedition

-was in progress.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Back set out accompanied by Wentzel and two

-Canadians and two Indians and their wives, crossing

-lakes frozen just hard enough to bear them, going wide

-circuits to avoid those which were open, amid mist and

-fog and storm, over rugged, bare country, through

-dense woods and snow-covered swamps, rafting across

-a river with pine branches for paddles, until Fort

-Providence was reached. From here he sent back

-Belanger with letters and a hundred bullets he procured

-on loan. Belanger arrived at Fort Enterprise

-on the 23rd of October alone; he had walked constantly

-for the last six-and-thirty hours through a

-storm, his locks were matted with snow, and he was

-encrusted with ice from head to foot, so that he was

-scarcely recognised when he slipped in through the

-doorway.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>At Fort Providence Back had to wait until the

-Great Slave Lake was frozen over. On the 18th of

-November he observed two mock moons at equal

-distances from the central one, the whole encircled by

-a halo, the colour of the inner edge of the large circle

-a light red inclining to a faint purple; and two days

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>afterwards two parhelia were observable, with a halo,

-the colours of the inner edge of the circle a bright

-carmine and red-lake intermingled with a rich yellow

-forming a purplish orange, the outer edge being a pale

-gamboge. On the 7th of December he left, sledging

-across the lake before the wind, for the North West fort

-on Moose Deer Island, and finding at the Hudson's

-Bay fort, also on the island, five packages of belated

-supplies and two Eskimo interpreters on their way to

-Franklin.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Here he was told that nothing could be spared at

-Fort Chippewyan, that goods had never been transported

-so far in the winter season, that the same dogs

-could not go and return, and that from having to walk

-constantly on snow-shoes he would suffer a great deal

-of misery and fatigue. Nevertheless he undertook the

-journey in dog-sledges with a Canadian and an Indian,

-leaving Wentzel behind. At times the weather was so

-cold that they had to run to keep themselves warm,

-and, owing to the snow, the feet of the dogs became so

-raw that an endeavour was made to fit them with

-shoes. With legs and ankles so swollen that it was

-painful to drag the snow-shoes after him, Back hurried

-on, reaching Fort Chippewyan on the 2nd of January

-to find that he and all Franklin's party had been

-reported to have been killed by Eskimos. Here he had

-to wait a month, and then, with an instalment of what

-he wanted, he set out on his return, arriving at Fort

-Enterprise on St. Patrick's Day after a memorable

-journey of over a thousand miles.</p>

-

-<div id='pg152'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_225.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>CROSSING POINT LAKE</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>During his absence he was told that the cold had

-been so severe that Hood had found accurate observing

-difficult owing to the sextant having changed its error

-and the glasses lost their parallelism from the contraction

-of the brass, a circumstance, combined with the

-crystallisation of the mercury of the artificial horizon,

-that might account for some of the diversity of results

-obtained by Arctic navigators. And Richardson had

-to tell him of an early discovery that when fishing and

-the hands get cold by hauling in the line, the best way

-to warm them is to put them in the water; and how the

-fish had frozen as they were taken out of the water so

-that by a blow or two of the hatchet they were easily

-split open, leaving the intestines removable in one lump,

-and yet that these much-frozen fish retained their

-vitality so that he had seen a thawed carp recover so

-far as to leap about with much vigour after it had been

-frozen for thirty-six hours.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On the 14th of June Fort Enterprise was left, and

-on the 25th the expedition began to cross Point Lake

-on the way to the Coppermine, the river being reached

-through Rocknest Lake on the 30th. Down the river

-they paddled, taking the rapids as they went—in one

-place three miles of them on end. "We were carried

-along with extraordinary rapidity, shooting over large

-stones, upon which a single stroke would have been

-destructive to the canoes; and we were also in danger

-of breaking them, from the want of the long poles

-which lie along their bottoms and equalise their cargoes,

-as they plunged very much, and on one occasion the

-first canoe was almost filled with the waves; but there

-was no receding after we had once launched into the

-stream, and our safety depended on the skill and dexterity

-of the bowmen and steersmen."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>There were rapids day by day affording almost every

-possible chance of wreck except that due to driftwood;

-the two worst being one where the stream descends for

-three-quarters of a mile in a deep but narrow and

-crooked channel which it has cut through the foot

-of a hill of five hundred or six hundred feet high,

-confined between perpendicular cliffs resembling stone

-walls varying in height from eighty to a hundred and

-fifty feet, on which lies a mass of fine sand; the body

-of the river pent within this narrow chasm dashing

-furiously round the projecting rocky columns as it discharges

-itself at the northern extremity in a sheet of

-foam. The other being where the river flows between

-lofty stone cliffs, reddish clay rocks and shelving banks

-of white clay, and is full of shoals. Franklin's people

-had entered this rapid before they were aware of it,

-and the steepness of the cliffs prevented them from

-landing, so that they owed their preservation to the swiftness

-of their descent. Two waves made a complete

-breach over the canoes; a third would probably have

-filled and overset them, which would have proved fatal

-to all on board. This Escape Rapid, as it was named,

-was, as it were, the gate into the territory of the Eskimos

-who were soon met with in small parties all the way

-down to the sea. It was passed on the 15th of July;

-three days afterwards the Indians bade farewell to the

-expedition in the morning, and in the afternoon the

-canoes were afloat on the Arctic Ocean.</p>

-

-<div id='pg154'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_229.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>KUTCHIN INDIANS</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>From the river mouth Wentzel returned, as arranged,

-with despatches, taking with him a number of voyageurs

-and others, thus reducing the party to twenty in all in

-two canoes. In these Franklin, nearly two years after

-he had landed in America, went on his voyage to the

-eastward to enter at last on the work he had been sent

-to do. But the survey of this lofty rocky coast was no

-easy matter; the sea was rough, the weather tempestuous,

-the canoes were lightly built and only suited for

-river work, and, in short, it was a most risky enterprise.

-Tracing the shore of Coronation Gulf and coasting up

-and out of Bathurst Inlet, Franklin reached Point Turnagain

-in 109° 25´ W., at the entrance of Dease Strait, on

-the 16th of August, 1821. Though the voyage had

-extended over only six and a half degrees of longitude,

-he had sailed 555 geographical miles; and then, as his

-resources did not permit of his going further or of his

-returning to the Coppermine, and in his own words

-"Our scanty stock of provisions rendering it necessary

-to make for a nearer place," he, on the 22nd, turned

-back to ascend the Hood River.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Here they soon reached the Wilberforce Falls,

-beautiful and remarkable, but not easy of navigation.

-"In the evening," says Franklin in his journal, "we

-encamped at the lower end of a narrow chasm through

-which the river flows for upwards of a mile. The walls

-of this chasm are upwards of two hundred feet high,

-quite perpendicular, and in some places only a few yards

-apart. The river precipitates itself into it over a rock

-forming two magnificent and picturesque falls close to

-each other. The upper fall is about sixty feet high,

-and the lower one at least one hundred, but perhaps

-considerably more, for the narrowness of the chasm

-into which it fell prevented us from seeing its bottom

-and we could merely discern the top of the spray far

-beneath our feet. The lower fall is divided into two by

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>an insulated column of rock which rises about forty

-feet above it."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>As the river above the falls appeared too rapid and

-shallow for the large canoes they were taken to pieces,

-and two smaller ones built from their materials. The

-voyage in these lasted but three days, when the river

-was abandoned as trending too far to the west, and the

-party, carrying the canoes, proceeded overland to Point

-Lake on their struggle of starvation across the Barren

-Grounds. For days they had nothing to eat but lichens—species

-of <em>Gyrophora</em> or <em>Umbilicaria</em> known as tripe-de-roche—a

-diet varied with leather, burnt bones and

-skins, an occasional ptarmigan, and, once, a musk ox,

-until they were so weak that when a herd of reindeer

-went strolling past they had not strength enough to

-shoot at them.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The tragedy need not be lingered over. Back was

-again sent for help, and, finding no stores at Fort

-Enterprise, was on his way to Fort Providence when he

-fell in with Akaitcho, who at once hurried to the rescue;

-and on the 14th of July, 1822, Franklin, Richardson,

-Back, and Hepburn the seaman, who had behaved as a

-hero all through, returned to York Factory after a

-three years' journey, fraught with peril and horror, by

-land and water, of over six thousand three hundred

-statute miles.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>After he had been at home a year, Franklin suggested

-that another attempt should be made to survey the

-northern coast while Parry was at work in search of the

-North-West Passage. The suggestion was accepted.

-Accompanied by Richardson and Back, and by E. N.

-Kendall as assistant surveyor—who had been out with

-Captain Lyon in the same capacity—and by Thomas

-Drummond as assistant naturalist, he left Liverpool on

-the 26th of February, 1825.</p>

-

-<div id='pg156'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_233.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>PREPARING AN ENCAMPMENT ON THE BARREN GROUNDS</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>Taught by experience, the expedition was better

-managed in every way. Instead of driving ahead

-regardless of the season or the trade routine, the

-ordinary conditions of local travel were kept in view

-throughout, and the results were more in proportion

-to the effort. Three boats were specially built at

-Woolwich on Franklin's design and under Buchan's

-superintendence. They were of mahogany with timbers

-of ash, both ends alike, steerable by oar or rudder, the

-largest 26 ft. by 5 ft. 4 ins., the two others 24 ft. by

-4 ft. 10 ins., and with them Colonel Pasley's portable

-boat, known as the <em>Walnut Shell</em> from its shape, 9 ft.

-long and half as wide, with frames of ash fastened with

-thongs and covered with canvas. The canvas was

-"waterproofed by Mr. Macintosh, of Glasgow"—the

-first instance of its use—and for the first time also what

-we know as macintosh coats and overalls were issued

-as part of the outfit, the process having been patented

-in 1824.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The boats and stores were sent on ahead by way of

-York Factory in 1824, and Franklin and his party,

-travelling by New York and the lakes, caught them up

-on the Methye River at sunrise on the 29th of June.

-With them were several old friends, not the least

-delighted being the two Eskimo interpreters, Augustus

-and Ooligbuck, who were to be of the utmost importance

-throughout. On the 8th of August they had got

-along so well that they were at the junction of the Bear

-Lake River with the Mackenzie. Here Back and Peter

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>Warren Dease of the Hudson's Bay Company, who

-had joined the expedition to look after the local

-arrangements, were sent off to build a house to winter

-in on the banks of the Great Bear Lake, in Keith's Bay,

-where the river leaves it; Richardson also left to explore

-the northern shore of the lake, and Franklin and

-Kendall continuing down the Mackenzie reached the

-sea before the week was out in less than six months

-from their departure from Liverpool. And on the 5th

-of September they had returned upstream and were at

-their winter quarters at the new house on the lake,

-which Back had named Fort Franklin, to find that

-Richardson had been along the northern shore and

-noted as being the nearest point to the Coppermine the

-entrance of the river he had named after Dease, which

-was to be of so much service to him later on.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>During the winter another boat, the <em>Reliance</em>, was

-built on the lines of the <em>Lion</em>, the largest of the Woolwich

-boats, and leaving Dease to complete the stores

-for another comfortable winter, the expedition started

-on the 24th of June. At Point Separation, at the

-head of the Mackenzie delta, Franklin in the <em>Lion</em>

-with Back in the <em>Reliance</em>—our old friend Robert

-Spinks being his coxswain—took the western arm, and

-Richardson in the <em>Dolphin</em> and Kendall in the <em>Union</em>,

-carrying the <em>Walnut Shell</em> with them, took the eastern

-arm.</p>

-

-<div id='pg158'  class='figcenter id016'>

-<img src='images/i_237.jpg' alt='Yours faithfully John Richardson' class='ig001' />

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>Richardson, with a few more or less threatening

-encounters with the Eskimos, ending fairly well owing

-to Ooligbuck, and in constant danger of wreck avoided

-by careful navigation, rounded Cape Bathurst in 70° 36´

-and discovered Wollaston Land, the coast-line of which

-they left continuing to the east, when they reached

-Coronation Gulf and, on the 8th of August, entered

-the Coppermine, and thus filled in the gap of nine

-hundred and two statute miles from Point Separation.

-Leaving the <em>Dolphin</em> and <em>Union</em> at Bloody Fall on that

-river, it being impossible to take them further, the

-expedition, carrying the <em>Walnut Shell</em> with them, proceeded

-along the banks, but finding they had no use

-for the portable boat, owing to the shallowness of the

-stream, they soon abandoned it, and in 67° 13´, where

-the river is nearest to the north-eastern arm of Great

-Bear Lake, the Coppermine was left and the course

-laid across the Barren Grounds for Dease River. This

-was reached three days afterwards, Richardson being

-met at its mouth by Dease's people on the 24th of

-August.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Franklin had similar experiences with the Eskimos,

-and was as deeply indebted to Augustus for his tact

-and bravery in dealing with them. Coasting along to

-the westward, hindered by ice, bad weather and fog,

-and tormented by mosquitoes, his progress was much

-slower than that of Richardson. Delayed for some

-days on or about Foggy Island, he had to give up his

-intention of reaching Bering Strait, and not knowing

-that Elson with the barge of the <em>Blossom</em> had come as

-far east as Point Barrow, he gave the name of Cape

-Beechey to the westernmost headland in sight, and

-leaving Return Reef in 148° 52´ on the 18th of August,

-after covering six hundred and ten statute miles through

-parts not previously discovered, began his voyage back

-to Fort Franklin, where he arrived on the 21st of

-September. Meanwhile Richardson had gone off to

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>explore the Great Slave Lake, whence Drummond had

-started on his journey among the Rockies; and, being

-unable to get away till another winter had passed,

-both Franklin and Richardson landed in England in

-September, 1827, after an important and fruitful expedition

-that had no death-roll.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Back was again in these regions in 1833 on his

-expedition in search of Sir John Ross. Reaching the

-Great Slave Lake, he built Fort Reliance at its north-eastern

-corner and began the long winter there on the

-5th of November. Soon afterwards Akaitcho put in

-an appearance, and expressed his intention—which he

-did his best to fulfil—of being of as much assistance

-as he could; and later on Augustus made his way

-across country to offer his services, but, either exhausted

-by suffering and privation, or caught in a snowstorm,

-he died alone near the Rivière à Jean.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Temperatures ranging from 50 to 70 minus were of

-frequent occurrence, and, on one occasion Back, after

-washing his face within a yard of the fire, had his hair

-clotted with ice before he had time to dry it. Every

-animal was driven away from the neighbourhood by

-the cold, except a solitary raven which swept once

-round the house and then winged his flight to the

-westward. On the 25th of April a messenger arrived

-at the fort with the news of the safe return of Sir

-John Ross to England, but Back determined to proceed

-with the journey for exploring purposes, taking

-one boat instead of two, and, with Richard King the

-surgeon, and eight men, he started for the Great Fish

-River on the 8th of July.</p>

-

-<div id='pg160'  class='figcenter id017'>

-<a href='images/i_241.jpg'><img src='images/i_241_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>BACK'S JOURNEY DOWN THE GREAT FISH RIVER</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>The voyage was a hazardous and adventurous one.

-For five hundred and thirty geographical miles the

-river was found to run through an iron-ribbed country

-without a single tree on the whole line of its banks,

-expanding into fine large lakes with clear horizons,

-most embarrassing to the navigator, and broken into

-falls, cascades, and rapids, to the number of no less

-than eighty-three, pouring its waters into the Polar

-Sea in latitude 67° 11´ and longitude 94° 30´; so that

-his explorations on the northern coast were confined to

-a section further east than Point Turnagain.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The expedition met with its greatest danger at

-Escape Rapid, between Lake Macdougall and Lake

-Franklin, on the 25th of July. Here the stream was

-broken by a mile of heavy and dangerous rapids. The

-boat was lightened, and every care taken to avoid

-accident; but so overwhelming was the rush and whirl

-of the water, that she, and consequently those in her,

-were twice in imminent peril of being plunged into

-one of the gulfs formed in the rocks and hollows. It

-was in one of these places, which are fall, rapid, and

-eddy within a few yards, that the boat owed its safety

-to an unintentional disobedience of the steersman's

-directions.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The power of the water so far exceeded whatever

-had been witnessed on any of the other rivers that the

-precautions used elsewhere were weak and unavailing.

-McKay, the steersman, was endeavouring to clear a fall

-and some sunken rocks on the left, but the man to

-whom he spoke misunderstood him, and did exactly the

-reverse; and then, seeing the danger, the steersman

-swept the stern round; instantly the boat was caught

-by an eddy to the right, which, snapping an oar, twirled

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>her irresistibly broadside on; so that for a moment it

-seemed uncertain whether the boat was to be hurled

-into the hollow of the fall, or dashed stern foremost on

-the sunken rocks. Of how it happened no account can

-be given, but her head swung inshore towards the beach

-and thereby gave an opportunity for some of the men

-to spring into the water and by their united strength

-rescue her from her perilous position. Had the man

-to whom the first order was given understood and acted

-on it no human power could have saved the crew from

-being buried in the abyss. Nor yet could any blame be

-justly attached to the steersman, who had never been so

-situated before and whose coolness and self-possession

-never in this imminent peril forsook him. At the

-awful moment of suspense, when one of the crew with

-less nerve than his companions began to cry aloud to

-Heaven for aid, McKay in a still louder voice exclaimed,

-"Is this a time for praying? Pull your starboard

-oar." Never could a reminder that <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">laborare est

-orare</span></i> have been more opportune.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On the 1st of August Montreal Island was reached.

-Nine days afterwards a log of driftwood, nine feet long

-and nine inches in diameter, jocularly described as a

-piece of the North Pole, was found on the beach,

-which, as there are no trees on the Fish River or the

-Coppermine, Captain Back was of opinion must

-have come from the Mackenzie and drifted eastward, so

-that he was on the main line of the land. The inference,

-confirmed by the appearance of a whale, was

-correct, but, misled, perhaps, by hilly islands, he missed

-the channel through which it had come, blocking it,

-in the manner of John Ross, with a range of mountains

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>that does not exist. Though he reached Mount Barrow

-and mistook the head of Simpson Strait for an inlet,

-thus failing to find one of the north-west passages, he

-discovered and named King William Land and sighted

-Point Booth at its eastern extremity. An attempt to

-reach Point Turnagain to the westward and thus link

-up with Franklin's farthest east, in which he might

-have discovered the passage, proving impracticable

-owing to the bogginess of the ground, Back began his

-return from King William Land in latitude 68° 13´,

-longitude 94° 58´, and entered on a wearisome journey

-up the river and lakes he had come down, meeting

-with a party from Fort Reliance on the 17th of

-September.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>A week after, when within a couple of days of the

-fort, on that "small but abominable river" the Ah-hel-dessy

-from Artillery Lake, Back discovered the Anderson

-Falls. Toiling along over the mountains, every man

-with a seventy-five-pound package on his back, he had

-not proceeded more than six or seven miles when, observing

-the spray rising from another fall, he was induced to

-visit it and was well consoled for having left the boat

-behind. "From the only point," says Back, "at which

-the greater part of it was visible, we could distinguish

-the river coming sharp round a rock, and falling into

-an upper basin almost concealed by intervening rocks;

-whence it broke in one vast sheet into a chasm between

-four and five hundred feet deep, yet in appearance so

-narrow that we fancied we could almost step across it.

-Out of this the spray rose in misty columns several

-hundred feet above our heads; but as it was impossible

-to see the main fall from the side on which we were, in

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>the following spring I paid a second visit to it,

-approaching from the western bank. The road to it,

-which I then traversed in snow-shoes, was fatiguing in

-the extreme, and scarcely less dangerous; for, to say

-nothing of the steep ascents, fissures in the rocks, and

-deep snow in the valleys, we had sometimes to creep

-along the narrow shelves of precipices slippery with the

-frozen mist that fell on them. But it was a sight that

-well repaid any risk. My first impression was of a

-strong resemblance to an iceberg in Smeerenberg

-Harbour, Spitsbergen. The whole face of the rocks

-forming the chasm was entirely coated with blue,

-green, and white ice, in thousands of pendent icicles;

-and there were, moreover, caverns, fissures, and overhanging

-ledges in all imaginable varieties of form, so

-curious and beautiful as to surpass anything of which I

-had ever heard or read. The immediate approaches

-were extremely hazardous, nor could we obtain a perfect

-view of the lower fall, in consequence of the projection

-of the western cliffs. At the lowest position

-we were able to attain, we were still more than a

-hundred feet above the level of the river beneath; and

-this, instead of being narrow enough to step across, as it

-had seemed from the opposite heights, was found to be

-at least two hundred feet wide. The colour of the water

-varied from a very light to a very dark green; and the

-spray, which spread a dimness above, was thrown up in

-clouds of light grey. Niagara, Wilberforce Falls on

-Hood River, the falls of Kakabikka near Lake

-Superior, the Swiss or Italian falls—although they may

-each charm the eye with dread—are not to be compared

-to this for splendour of effect. It was the most imposing

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>spectacle I had ever witnessed; and, as its berg-like

-appearance brought to mind associations of another

-scene, I bestowed upon it the name of our celebrated

-navigator, Sir Edward Parry, and called it Parry's

-Falls."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Back, like Franklin, owed much of the success of

-his expedition to the cordial help of the Governor of

-the Hudson's Bay Company, George, afterwards Sir

-George, Simpson. Ever the fastest of travellers in the

-north, Simpson had, in 1828, made a 3260-mile canoe

-voyage from Hudson Bay to the Pacific, passing the

-Rockies through canyons previously untried, and

-slipping down mountain torrents and through unknown

-rapids at such speed that hostile Indians let him pass

-in sheer amazement; and all his life he was distinguished

-for similar energy and celerity. When it

-became clear that the British Government had no

-immediate intention of completing the survey of the

-northern coast, Simpson organised an expedition at the

-Company's expense to undertake the task, and entrusted

-the leadership to Dease, who had done such excellent

-work for Franklin; and with Dease he associated his

-own nephew, Thomas Simpson, in no way inferior to

-his uncle in energy, speediness, or decision of character,

-being in fact one of our very best explorers, Arctic or

-otherwise.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Thomas Simpson, Master of Arts of Aberdeen and a

-winner of the Huttonian, began characteristically by

-starting off to Fort Garry—now Winnipeg—with a

-view, as he says, "to refresh and extend my astronomical

-practice which had for some years been interrupted

-by avocations of a very different nature"; and

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>thence, in the winter, making his way to Fort Chippewyan,

-a journey of 1277 miles, joining Dease there

-more than a month before he was expected. Two

-boats were built, light clinker craft of 24 ft. keel and

-6 ft. beam, adapted for shallow navigation by their

-small draught, both alike and honoured with the

-classical names of the heavenly twins, <em>Castor</em> and

-<em>Pollux</em>, each boat provided with a small oiled canvas

-canoe and portable wooden frame. Of one, the steersman

-was the redoubtable James McKay—"Pull your

-starboard oar!"—and of the other, George Sinclair,

-Back's bowman; and one of the bowmen was Felix,

-who had been with Franklin in 1826. All told, the

-expedition numbered fourteen.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Leaving Fort Chippewyan on the 1st of June, 1837,

-they reached Bear Lake River on the 3rd of July, and

-six days afterwards were out on the sea. On the 23rd

-of July they camped at Return Reef, that is to say

-they had traversed the whole extent of Franklin's

-survey in a fortnight, and not without danger from

-the ice and losing much time by doubling the floes,

-however far they extended seawards. Once Simpson's

-boat, which was of course leading, was only saved from

-destruction by throwing out everything it contained

-upon the floating masses. By means of portages made

-from one fragment to another, the oars forming the

-perilous bridges, and after repeated risks of boats, men,

-and baggage being separated by the motion of the ice,

-they succeeded with much labour in collecting the

-whole equipment on one floe, which, being covered

-with water, formed a sort of wet dock. There they

-hauled up the boats, momentarily liable to be overwhelmed

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>by the turning over of the ice, three miles

-from land, with the fog settled round them throughout

-the inclement night.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Continuing westwards along new country, they

-reached and named Cape George Simpson (after the

-Governor) and, a little further on, Boat Extreme,

-where, from the coldness of the weather and the interminable

-ice, the further advance of the boats appeared

-to be so hopeless that Dease agreed to stay in charge

-of them while Simpson with five men, including

-McKay and Felix, pushed ahead for Point Barrow on

-foot. Passing McKay Inlet and Sinclair River, named

-after the two steersmen, an Eskimo camp was reached,

-where Simpson exchanged his tin plate for a platter

-made out of a mammoth tusk, and borrowed an oomiak

-which floated in about half a foot of water. In this

-useful skin boat the journey was resumed to Point

-Barrow, and on the 4th of August the survey completed

-between Franklin's farthest and Elson's.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The winter was passed at the mouth of the Dease

-River, on Great Bear Lake, where Fort Confidence

-had been built ready for the expedition on its return.

-On the 6th of June, 1838, a start for the coast was

-made by the Coppermine route, that river being reached

-on the 22nd, and its descent accomplished, on the spring

-flood, in nine days. But it was a bad season, and the

-navigation was so hampered by ice that no start was

-made to the eastward until the 17th of July. At

-Boathaven, in 109° 20´, Simpson again left the boats

-and went ahead with Sinclair and six others who had

-not been to Point Barrow. Passing Franklin's farthest

-at Point Turnagain, he kept on for a hundred miles

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>along the whole length of Dease Strait, discovering

-and naming Victoria Land, reaching Beaufort River

-beyond Cape Alexander, and sighting an open sea to

-the eastward. From here, in 106° 3´, the return began;

-and by many devices and the unfailing skill of McKay

-and Sinclair, the two boats were taken up the Coppermine

-stream, falls and rapids and all, to the nearest

-point to Fort Confidence, where they were hauled up

-in readiness for next year.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On the 22nd of June, 1839, the boats again left for

-the sea; and they were run down to Bloody Fall without

-a stoppage in eleven hours. Again there were

-fourteen all told in them, but this time one of the men

-was Ooglibuck, who had come specially from Ungava in

-Labrador, in the wonderful time of three months less

-eight days, to join the expedition which was to meet

-with great success and accomplish an Arctic boat

-journey of over sixteen hundred statute miles.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Entirely blocked until the 3rd of July, and hindered

-by ice difficulties all the way, the boats did not reach

-the previous year's farthest until the 28th of July.

-On the 11th of August, through an outlet only three

-miles wide, they passed into the much-desired eastern

-sea. "That glorious sight," says Simpson, after whom

-the strait is named, "was first beheld by myself from

-the top of one of the high limestone islands, and I had

-the satisfaction of announcing it to some of the men

-who, incited by curiosity, followed me thither. The

-joyful news was soon conveyed to Mr. Dease, who was

-with the boats at the end of the island, about half a

-mile off." On the continent and on King William

-Land, where Franklin's men were in time coming to

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>perish of starvation, reindeer were seen browsing on the

-scanty herbage among the shingle. A terrible thunderstorm

-followed, and then, doubling a very sharp point

-on the 13th, Simpson landed and saw before him a

-sandy desert. It was Back's Point Sir C. Ogle that he

-had at length reached. Away in the distance was the

-Great Fish River, and three days afterwards the party

-were encamped on Montreal Island, where McKay led

-the way to the provisions and gunpowder deposited by

-Back among the rocks.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The expedition had performed its allotted task, and

-the men were consulted as to whether they would continue

-for a short distance to the eastward. To their

-honour they all assented without a murmur; but the

-cruel north-east wind forbade much progress in that

-direction, and their farthest east was reached at Castor

-and Pollux River. From there immediate return was

-imperative, as not a day could be spared. And so,

-from latitude 68° 28´ 23˝, longitude 94° 14´, they turned

-back on the 21st of August, leaving the survey of the

-north coast of the American mainland practically complete

-from Bering Strait to Boothia.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Further, on their return journey they crossed to the

-southern shore of King William Land and traced its coast

-for nearly sixty miles, discovering and naming Cape

-Herschel, south-eastward of which, in Simpson Strait,

-M'Clintock found the remains of one of Franklin's

-men. They thus linked up with what was to be the

-route of the Franklin expedition and were the first to

-find the North-West Passage for the command of

-which the territory was given by Charles II to the

-Hudson's Bay Company.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>

-  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER IX<br /> THE PARRY ISLANDS</h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c013'>John Rae—Wollaston Land and Victoria Strait—Overlaps Franklin's route—M'Clure

-discovers Prince of Wales Strait—The North-West Passage—Banks

-Land—M'Clure rescued by Bedford Pim—Collinson's remarkable

-voyage—In Beaufort Sea—Reaches Banks Strait—Voyage to Cambridge

-Bay—On Franklin's route—The North-West Passage sailed by Amundsen

-along the track of the <em>Enterprise</em>—Sir John Barrow—Parry's first voyage—Penetrates

-Lancaster Sound and discovers the Parry Islands—Stopped

-by ice in Banks Strait—The search for Franklin—Sir John Ross—De

-Haven—Penny—Austin—Ommanney—Osborn—Belcher—Kellett—M'Clintock—Drift

-of the <em>Resolute</em>—Sledge work—Sverdrup's discoveries

-during his four years in the north.</p>

-

-<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>The second to complete a north-west passage by

-linking up with Franklin's voyage was Dr. John

-Rae, an Orkneyman by birth, as energetic as Thomas

-Simpson and evidently not inferior to him in stamina,

-for in his Arctic journeys he walked a distance equal to

-that of the circumference of the earth. In 1846 he

-had surveyed the Committee Bay district between

-Boothia and the Melville Peninsula, reaching it from

-Repulse Bay, and in 1848 and 1849 he had been associated

-with Richardson in searching for Franklin along the

-coast from the Mackenzie eastwards. Next year, while

-in charge of the Mackenzie district, he was again requested

-to lead a Franklin search expedition, and,

-starting from Fort Confidence on the 25th of April,

-was on the sea by the 1st of May. Crossing over to

-Wollaston Land, and making westward along the coast

-on the 22nd of May, he rounded Cape Baring, just

-above the seventieth parallel. Crossing to its continuation,

-Victoria Land, on a second journey, he

-travelled eastward, and, going up Victoria Strait,

-rounded Pelly Point, also just above the seventieth

-parallel, on the 12th of July, thus practically completing

-the survey of the southern half of what Collinson

-was to prove is one large island.</p>

-

-<div id='pg170'  class='figcenter id018'>

-<img src='images/i_253.jpg' alt='Yours very truly W Parry' class='ig001' />

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>Off Pelly Point, it afterwards appeared, the <em>Erebus</em>

-and <em>Terror</em> were beset in the ice in September, 1846,

-and fifty miles to the south-east they had been

-abandoned in April, 1848; but the only relic found by

-Rae on this occasion was the doubtful one—picked up

-in Parker Bay—of the butt-end of a flagstaff on

-which was nailed a piece of white line by two copper

-tacks, all three bearing the Government mark. This

-was the first to be found of anything that could be

-thought to be a trace of the missing ships, a sort

-of promise of what he was to meet with four years

-later; and it is worth noting that, had he not failed in

-getting across the strait to King William Land, Rae

-would in 1850 have probably discovered Franklin's

-fate.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>His farthest in these parts was passed in May, 1853,

-by Captain Richard Collinson, in his sledge journey to

-Gateshead Island from H.M.S. <em>Enterprise</em>, then wintering

-in Cambridge Bay. The <em>Enterprise</em> and <em>Investigator</em>

-had been placed under Collinson's command and sent

-by way of Cape Horn to search for Franklin from

-the west, the instructions being that the ships should

-not part company; but regardless of this, Commander

-Robert Le Mesurier M'Clure, of the <em>Investigator</em>,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>happening to get through Bering Strait first, declined

-to wait for his commanding officer, went off on an

-expedition on his own account and, by a sledge journey,

-joined Parry's track when in search of the North-West

-Passage.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Steering north-east from Franklin Bay, M'Clure

-reached the south of Parry's Banks Land and followed

-the coast north-eastwards, discovering Prince of Wales

-Strait and making his way rather more than half-way

-up, until, near Princess Royal Island in 72° 50´, he

-was caught in the ice and imprisoned for the winter.

-On Trafalgar Day, 1850, M'Clure left the <em>Investigator</em>

-on a sledge journey up the strait, and at sunrise on the

-26th of October, from Mount Observation in 73° 30´, a

-hill six hundred feet above the sea, he looked over

-Banks Strait and Melville Sound, and saw the coast of

-Banks Land terminating about twelve miles further on

-and thence trending to the north-west, while Wollaston

-Land, as it proved to be, turned eastward on the other

-side at Peel Point. That evening Banks Strait was

-reached at Cape Lord John Russell, and the North-West

-Passage by Prince of Wales Strait clearly

-demonstrated. The spot was not bare of vegetation,

-and there were many traces of animals, for, fortunately

-for M'Clure, there was no scarcity of game during his

-three winterings in Banks Land—reindeer in herds,

-musk oxen occasionally, hares in troops, ducks in

-plenty, ptarmigan almost as numerous, and bears,

-wolves, and foxes to feed on them; for instance, the

-weights of three items in the bag, 1945 lb. of musk ox,

-7716 lb. of deer, and 1017 lb. of hare, show fairly good

-shooting.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>Enclosing a record of the visit in a cairn, M'Clure

-returned to the ship, from which in the spring three

-sledge parties were sent out—Cresswell's to the north-west

-finding that Banks Land was an island, Wynniatt's

-to the north-east reaching Reynolds Point on the north

-of Wollaston Land, and Haswell's down Wollaston

-Land to within forty miles of where Rae turned back

-about a week later—this being the only attempt at

-searching for Franklin that the expedition undertook

-after sighting Nelson Head. Released in July, the

-<em>Investigator</em> retreated down the strait and attempted to

-circumnavigate Banks Land, finding to the west a

-coast as precipitous as a wall, the water deep—fifteen

-fathoms close in, with the yardarms almost touching

-the cliffs on one hand and the lofty ice on the other—and

-the pack drawing forty feet of water, rising in

-rolling hills a hundred feet from base to summit. On

-shore the hills were as remarkable. Many of them

-were peaked and isolated by precipitous gorges, about

-three hundred feet deep. And all the way up them

-were numbers of fallen trees, in many places in layers,

-some protruding twelve or fourteen feet, one of these

-trunks measuring nineteen inches in diameter. Says

-M'Clure: "I entered a ravine some miles inland, and

-found the north side of it, for a depth of forty feet

-from the surface, composed of one mass of wood

-similar to what I had before seen. The whole depth

-of the ravine was about two hundred feet. The

-ground around the wood or trees was formed of sand

-and shingle; some of the wood was petrified, the remainder

-very rotten and worthless even for burning."

-And this forest bed is on the shore of the Beaufort Sea

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>in 74° north latitude, a similar one being in Prince

-Patrick Island, on the other side of Banks Strait.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>After one or two narrow escapes the <em>Investigator</em>

-entered her last home at the Bay of Mercy, well

-within the strait, near Cape Hamilton, the most

-prominent of the three capes discovered from the

-Dundas Peninsula by Parry's lieutenant, Beechey,

-thirty-one years before. The winter passed, and on

-the 11th of April M'Clure left the ship on a sledge

-journey across to Parry's old quarters at Winter

-Harbour, which were reached on the 28th, to find

-nothing but a notice of M'Clintock's having been there

-in the previous June. Noticing Parry's inscription

-rock, M'Clure judiciously left on it a statement that

-the <em>Investigator</em> was in want of relief at Mercy Bay.

-But all through that year no news from the outside

-came to Banks Land, and matters became serious

-owing to the appearance of scurvy, notwithstanding

-the abundance of fresh meat, for even in January a

-herd of reindeer trotted by.</p>

-

-<div id='pg174'  class='figcenter id019'>

-<a href='images/i_259.jpg'><img src='images/i_259_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>THE PARRY ISLANDS</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>Another winter went wearily, each month with a

-gloomier outlook than the last, and on the 5th of April

-the first of the scurvy patients died. Next morning

-M'Clure and Haswell were walking near the ship discussing

-how they could dig a grave in the frozen

-ground, when they noticed a man hurriedly approaching

-from the entrance of the bay, throwing up his

-arms and shouting at the top of his voice, his face as

-black as ebony. When he came within talking range

-the dark-faced stranger called out, "I am Lieutenant

-Pim, late of the <em>Herald</em> and now in the <em>Resolute</em>;

-Captain Kellett is in her at Dealy Island." And soon

-the dog-sledge with two men came into view. Pim's

-arrival was most fortunate for the sufferers, for the

-captain, as a desperate resource, was—in spite of the

-doctor's protests—just about to send off two sledge

-parties of the invalids to take their chance of escaping

-somehow, as there was no hope of their recovery in

-the ship; and on examination by the doctor of the

-<em>Resolute</em>, it was found that every man of the crew was

-more or less affected by the disease. So the ship was

-abandoned in Mercy Bay, and the officers and crew,

-crossing to the <em>Resolute</em>, reached England by way of

-Hudson Strait.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Collinson's was the most remarkable voyage ever

-accomplished by a sailing-ship in the Arctic regions.

-It lasted from 1850 to 1855—five years and a hundred

-and sixteen days—all the way out across the Atlantic

-and Pacific and home again in safety, traversing a

-hundred and twenty-eight degrees of longitude in the

-Arctic sea, coming nearest at the time to completing

-the north-west passage by ship (up Prince of Wales

-Strait), finding two north-west passages by sledge (one

-joining with Parry's discoveries across Banks Strait,

-the other with Franklin's up Victoria Strait), and

-approaching nearer than any other naval expedition

-to the great discovery by travelling up Franklin's

-route for some distance, and passing within thirty miles

-of the spot where the vessels he was in search of had

-been abandoned, though unfortunately, like Rae, he

-was on the west side of the waterway instead of the

-east.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Passing Bering Strait in July, 1850, the <em>Enterprise</em>

-went north from Wainwright Inlet into the Beaufort

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>Sea, until she was stopped by the heavy pack. Trying

-east, to join with Parry's farthest, and then west, she

-arrived, on the 28th of August, at 73° 23´ in 164°, and

-here she turned south after having sailed over eleven

-thousand miles without having to reef her topsails, an

-unprecedented run of distance and fine weather combined.

-Returning in 1851 from wintering at Hong

-Kong, Collinson, with a southerly wind "too precious

-to be wasted," made his way up Prince of Wales

-Strait, knowing nothing of the visit of the <em>Investigator</em>,

-to find ice blocking his way just at the northern outlet,

-his furthest north, by ship, 73° 30´, forty miles beyond

-M'Clure's winter quarters, as given in the record he

-found in one of the cairns.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Unable to round the corner into Banks Strait owing

-to the ice block, Collinson returned down Prince of

-Wales Strait and followed the track of the <em>Investigator</em>

-half-way up the west coast of Banks Land, though he

-had found nothing to indicate she had gone in that

-direction. Finding the ice conditions dangerous, he

-retraced his route along the coast and went into comfortable

-winter quarters in Walker Bay, at the entrance

-of Prince of Wales Strait. By the end of November

-the natives fishing for salmon-trout had cleared off, as

-also had the reindeer, hares, and ptarmigan and other

-birds, and on the 17th of March the ravens, which had

-been the last to leave, were the first to return. In

-April sledge parties went out, one of which under

-Lieutenant Parkes crossed the route of the <em>Hecla</em>

-along the strait and reached Melville Island at Cape

-Providence on the way to Winter Harbour, short of

-which, within sight of Point Hearne, Parkes began his

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>homeward journey, owing to his taking the tracks of

-sledges and barking of dogs as indicating the presence,

-not of M'Clure as it did, but of Eskimos, with whom,

-being without weapons, he was unable to cope.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Released on the 5th of August, the <em>Enterprise</em> proceeded

-to sea, coasting along past Rae's farthest and

-Cape Baring, and so, where no ship had been, through

-Coronation Gulf to Cambridge Bay. Here the winter

-of 1852-3 was spent, and hence the sledges went up

-Victoria Strait. At Finlayson Islands, what seemed

-to be a piece of a companion-door was found among

-the driftwood, which might have been a relic of the

-lost ships; but that was all. During the return along

-the northern coast the <em>Enterprise</em> was beset in Camden

-Bay, and here the third winter was passed, release not

-coming until the end of the following July, and Bering

-Strait not being reached until the 21st of August after

-a voyage, like that of the <em>Vega</em>, too well managed to

-yield much adventure. Like all the other Arctic

-voyages of this period, it failed in the one object it

-was undertaken to achieve; but in days to come the

-first ship to sail the passage from the Atlantic to the

-Pacific was to follow Collinson from Cambridge Bay

-along the route laboriously completed by the surveyors

-of the mainland from James Cook to Dease and

-Simpson.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>M'Clure claimed and—to have done with the matter—obtained

-the reward of £10,000 for discovering the

-North-West Passage through Prince of Wales Strait,

-though he sailed only half-way up it and, in attempting

-to get round to Parry's farthest, lost his ship and

-started sledging on the west side of the pack; while

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>Collinson took his ship much nearer to Parry's course

-on the east side; and Franklin, by linking up with

-Dease and Simpson over the ice by way of Victoria

-Strait, had previously found another of the possible

-passages, as shown by Collinson's voyage to Cambridge

-Bay. But surely what was done by M'Clure, and by

-Collinson in his northerly cruise, was to see where ships

-could pass when there was no ice in the way, which

-was no more than had been done by Parry, who had

-taken his ship within sight of both their farthest, and

-would have sailed into the Beaufort Sea had not the

-pack forbidden it. It was Parry, in fact, who discovered

-the main road, the route by Prince of Wales

-Strait, like that by Peel Sound taken by Franklin and

-successfully accomplished by Amundsen, being only

-one of the many by-roads leading off along his course.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>His famous voyage to Melville Island was due to the

-influence of Sir John Barrow. Barrow, to whom more

-than any other man this country owes its position in

-Arctic story, was born in a small thatched cottage at

-Dragley Beck, near Ulverston, in North Lancashire, in

-1764, and, in a remarkable course of promotion by

-merit, became second secretary of the Admiralty for

-forty years under twelve or thirteen different naval

-administrations, Whig and Tory; being so unmistakably

-the right man in the right place that he was only dispensed

-with once—on a change of First Lords—and

-then was reinstated the next year. When he was

-seventeen he was given the opportunity of a voyage

-in a Greenland whaler, which he accepted, and that

-was his only Arctic experience; but even when with

-Macartney in China and South Africa, he kept up

-his interest in the north, and in 1817, when at the

-Admiralty, proposed to Lord Melville his plan for two

-voyages of discovery, one to the north and the other

-to the north-west, which opened the new era of Polar

-exploration.</p>

-

-<div id='pg178'  class='figcenter id020'>

-<img src='images/i_265.jpg' alt='Yours very truly John Barrow' class='ig001' />

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>The voyage to the north was that of Buchan and

-Franklin in the <em>Dorothea</em> and <em>Trent</em>; that to the north-west

-was undertaken by John Ross in the <em>Isabella</em> and

-William Edward Parry in the <em>Alexander</em>. Of this we

-need only say here that on their return from the north

-of Baffin Bay, Ross and Parry coasted down the west

-side and sailed into Lancaster Sound for a considerable

-distance until Ross—who seems to have had the

-mountain-finding eye and an unenviable gift for missing

-straits—declared that it ended in a range of mountains

-which he appropriately named Croker's; and, that

-there should be no mistake about them, he gave a very

-pretty picture of them as a full-page plate in his book.

-Parry, however, saw no mountains and took the liberty

-of saying so to Barrow when he reported himself at the

-Admiralty, the result being the despatch of Parry's

-expedition in the <em>Hecla</em> and <em>Griper</em> which left Yarmouth

-on the 12th of May, 1819, and, for the first time

-after leaving the coast of Norfolk, dropped anchor in

-the bay named after them in Melville Island, on the 5th

-of September.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Parry, before his voyage in the <em>Alexander</em>, had had

-Arctic experience while lieutenant of the <em>Alexandria</em>

-frigate engaged in protecting the Spitsbergen

-whale fisheries, and knew thoroughly what he was

-about. For instance, he worked his crews in three

-watches, and had both his vessels rigged as barques

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>as the most convenient rig among ice, though the

-<em>Griper</em>, a strong, slow gunboat, was rather too small to

-be so treated, being only about half the tonnage of the

-<em>Hecla</em>, whose measurement was under four hundred.

-Had she been a little speedier more work might have

-been done; but what was done was magnificent.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Entering Lancaster Sound, Parry found a strait not

-blocked by mountains but thirty miles broad leading

-into a region up to then unknown, except—so it is said—to

-the Norsemen. On the 12th of August Prince

-Regent Inlet was discovered and named, it being

-George IV's birthday. Then North Somerset was

-sighted and the course laid across Barrow Strait to

-North Devon and its south-western peninsula known

-as Beechey Island; then Wellington Channel was descried,

-and then Cornwallis Island. Griffith Island was

-discovered on the 23rd of August, Bathurst Island on

-the 25th, Byam Martin Island on the 27th, where

-Sabine, the astronomer of the expedition, found they

-had passed north of the magnetic north pole. Then

-the south side of Melville Island was coasted along,

-Dealy Island being found on the 4th of September at

-noon, and, at a quarter past nine at night, just after

-passing Bounty Cape (named in honour of the event),

-the <em>Hecla</em> crossed the 110th meridian west, and

-became entitled to the Government grant of £5000 for

-doing so—which Parry shared between the ships.</p>

-

-<div id='pg180'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_269.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>H.M.S. "HECLA" AND "GRIPER" IN WINTER HARBOUR</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>Soon the ice became difficult and the ships had to

-anchor, but, the conditions improving, the westerly

-voyage was resumed. Cape Providence was passed and

-Cape Hay sighted, but the ships could get no further

-than about half-way between these capes, and they had

-to return to Winter Harbour, where, on the 26th of

-September, they were warped to their quarters through

-a channel cut in the ice. The <em>Hecla</em>, sending down all

-her upper masts except the main topmast, and the

-<em>Griper</em>, housing her fore and main topmasts, used the

-spars to support a roof which completely enclosed their

-upper decks and made them both snug for the winter,

-which did not seem so long owing to the efforts of the

-officers to keep every one amused and on the move.

-Parry, a host in himself, was well seconded by his

-lieutenant, Beechey, late of the <em>Trent</em>, James Clark

-Ross, one of his midshipmen, Captain Sabine, and

-Lieutenant Liddon, the commander of the <em>Griper</em>, who

-was almost disabled with rheumatism, and Lieutenant

-Hoppner, also of the <em>Griper</em>. A couple of books of

-plays on board proved a real treasure; owing to them

-the Royal Arctic Theatre was started, the pioneer of so

-many amateur theatrical ventures in the Polar seas,

-and the <em>North Georgia Gazette</em> and <em>Winter Chronicle</em>

-came into existence, the first of ship newspapers. On

-Christmas Day there was a dinner of roast beef which

-had been on board since May, the condition of

-which, as Parry said, was an excellent testimony to the

-antiseptic properties of a cold atmosphere; and the

-food generally was good and abundant, and the management

-and supplies far better than on many subsequent

-expeditions. In the spring, game was found in fair

-quantity, nearly four thousand pounds of musk ox,

-deer, hares, geese, ducks, and ptarmigan being brought

-on board.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In May the vessels were afloat again, though ice-bound,

-and, in June, walking, not sledging, journeys

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>were organised, the furthest points reached being Cape

-Fisher to the north and Cape Hoppner to the west.

-On the 1st of August the vessels moved out of the

-bay to the westward, and six days afterwards Beechey

-called attention to the land with the three capes already

-mentioned. "The land," says Parry, "which extends

-beyond the 117th degree of west longitude, and is the

-most western yet discovered in the Polar Sea to the

-north of the American continent, was honoured with

-the name of Banks Land out of respect to the late

-venerable and worthy President of the Royal Society."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On the 16th Cape Dundas was named, but progress

-was impossible. For a week Parry made every endeavour

-to pass, but the floes, forty to fifty feet thick,

-heaped up by the tides from the east and the west so

-as to form a wide-stretching landscape of hill and dale,

-barred the way right across Banks Strait; and no

-further west could be attained than 113° 46´ 43·5˝, in

-latitude 74° 26´ 25˝. Thence Parry returned, hoping

-to get through on another voyage, and bidding farewell

-to the North Georgian Islands, as he called them, or

-the Parry Islands, as we now know them, he came

-home by the way he went out, through Lancaster

-Sound. Needless to say, the very next season the

-whalers followed on Parry's track, and Lancaster

-Sound became the highway to a very profitable fishing-ground.</p>

-

-<div id='pg182'  class='figcenter id021'>

-<a href='images/i_273.jpg'><img src='images/i_273_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>PARRY'S DISCOVERIES ON HIS FIRST VOYAGE</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>Among the Parry Islands in 1851 were several

-vessels in search of Franklin. Sir John Ross, aged

-seventy-four, was there in the schooner-yacht <em>Felix</em> on

-a private expedition chiefly memorable for the story

-of his having sent off a carrier pigeon from his winter

-quarters at Cornwallis Island, which reached his home—North-West

-Castle, Stranraer, Wigtownshire—three

-thousand miles away, in five days. Lady Franklin's

-vessel, the <em>Prince Albert</em>, was there, with Captain

-Forsyth and Parker Snow on board, an old fruit

-schooner, and therefore the speediest sailing-craft

-among the crowd. The Grinnell expedition of the

-two American brigs, <em>Advance</em> and <em>Racer</em>, under De

-Haven, was also there, to drift afterwards up Wellington

-Channel and down again back into Baffin Bay;

-as was a British Government expedition of the two

-whaling brigs, <em>Lady Franklin</em> and <em>Sophia</em>, under Captain

-William Penny, who was to discover the sea open north

-of Wellington Channel. In addition to these was the

-British squadron under Captain Horatio Austin in

-H.M.S. <em>Resolute</em>, with H.M.S. <em>Assistance</em>, Captain

-Erasmus Ommanney, and the old Cattle Conveyance

-Company's boats known as H.M.S. <em>Intrepid</em>, Lieutenant

-Cator, and H.M.S. <em>Pioneer</em>, Lieutenant Sherard Osborn,

-these two being screw steamers used as tenders, which

-proved of great value as tugs and ice-breakers.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On the 23rd of August Captain Ommanney found

-Franklin's winter quarters on Beechey Island, and four

-days afterwards Captain Penny came upon the gravestones

-marking where the three men, two of the

-<em>Erebus</em> and one of the <em>Terror</em>, had been buried in

-1846, though nothing was discoverable of the route

-intended to be taken by the ships. The news was

-important, and the <em>Prince Albert</em>, acting as despatch

-vessel, was immediately sent home with it, to return

-next year with Kennedy and Bellot to make a discovery

-of her own. Soon Captain Austin's four ships

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>departed, also to return in the following year, Sir

-Edward Belcher, in the <em>Assistance</em>, being then in command,

-Kellett being in the <em>Resolute</em>, M'Clintock in the

-<em>Intrepid</em>, and Sherard Osborn again in the <em>Pioneer</em>.

-Belcher's attempt ended in his abandoning his vessels

-in the ice; one of them, the <em>Resolute</em>, as though in

-mute protest, drifting from 74° 41´ for a thousand

-miles, to be picked up by Buddington off Cape Dyer

-in Baffin Bay, bought from him by the American

-Government and presented to Great Britain, refitted

-as she used to be, as a much-appreciated token of goodwill.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The great feature of these years was the wonderful

-sledge work; by it mainly the northern coasts of the

-islands discovered by Parry were surveyed and other

-islands added to the archipelago, including the westernmost,

-Prince Patrick, named after the Duke of Connaught,

-who was at first known as Prince Patrick instead

-of Prince Arthur. The sledges fitted out by Austin

-traversed 1500 miles of coast-line, 850 of which were new,

-the routes radiating between Osborn's 72° 18´ and Bradford's

-76° 25´, M'Clintock going farthest, 760 miles, to

-114° 20´ in 74° 38´. Those next year from Kellett at

-Dealy Island covered 8558 miles, radiating from Pim's

-74° 6´ (to rescue M'Clure) to M'Clintock's 77° 23´, a

-run to 118° 20´ and back of 1401 miles, while Mecham

-reached 120° 30´ on a trip of 1163 miles; and Belcher

-from his winter quarters in Northumberland Sound, in

-76° 52´, aided by Richards and Osborn, was almost as

-busy further north.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Thus practically the whole belt of land and sea

-westward between and including Lancaster Sound and

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>Jones Sound as far as 120° was searched and mapped,

-the most northerly of the Parry Islands known up to

-then being Finlay Island, North Cornwall, and Graham

-Island. But in 1898 Captain Otto Sverdrup went up

-Smith Sound in his old ship the <em>Fram</em> on an endeavour

-to sail round the north coast of Greenland from west

-to east. He had to winter in Rice Strait, near Pim

-Island, and finding, to put it sportingly, that he was

-to a certain extent trespassing on Peary's preserves,

-decided to devote his attention to the unknown region

-approachable through Jones Sound. In 1899, therefore,

-he took the <em>Fram</em> up the sound, and, failing

-to pass through Cardigan Strait, spent the three

-following years among the fiords at the north-western

-end.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>From here he sent his sledge and ski parties far and

-wide, west and south and north over an approximate

-area of a hundred thousand square miles. Long

-stretches of coast-fine were explored and named, in a

-few cases unnecessarily, though, strange to say, the

-unnecessary names were all royal ones, King Oscar

-Land being the west of Ellesmere Land, Crown Prince

-Gustav Sea and Prince Gustav Adolf Sea being the

-Polar Ocean, and King Christian Land being simply

-Finlay Island. Separated from Finlay Island by

-Danish Sound and from North Cornwall by Hendriksen

-Sound, he found two large islands, which—just as

-John Ross named Boothia after his principal patron,

-the distiller—Sverdrup named Ellef Ringnes and

-Amund Ringnes after two of his supporters, the

-brewers; his other discovery, Axel Heiberg Land—which

-seems to be Peary's Jesup Land sighted in 1898—to

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>the west and north-west of these, being so called

-after his other munificent patron.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>His farthest south was Beechey Island, his farthest

-west Cape Isachsen in Ellef Ringnes Land, his farthest

-north Lands Lokk in Grant Land, in latitude 81° 40´

-and longitude about 92°, within sixty miles of Aldrich's

-farthest along the north-eastern coast, the gap afterwards

-traversed by Peary. Within these limits the

-amount of coast detail filled in was remarkable.

-Owing to the favourable condition of the ice and the

-excellent management in all ways, the sledges frequently

-did their fifteen miles and more a day. Though

-the expedition lost its doctor during the first winter,

-there was little trouble as regards health; and game

-was in plenty right up to the far north where Hare

-Fiord tells of hares in hundreds.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>With hunting episodes the story is pleasantly varied,

-one in particular being so graphically described by

-Sverdrup that as a sample we may be forgiven a rather

-long quotation. "The bear," says Sverdrup, "was

-determined to go up a difficult stony valley a little

-north of our tent, and, try as the dogs would to

-prevent it, up the valley it went. Schei and I ran full

-speed northward along the ice-foot, and soon heard

-that the dogs had brought it to bay. We made a short

-cut across some hills of grit, and, when we reached

-the top of one of them, saw the bear on the other side

-of the valley, sitting on a hill-top, which fell almost

-sheer away. But on the north side it was accessible,

-and here it was probably that the bear had climbed it.

-There sat the king of the icefields enthroned on a kind

-of pedestal, and the whole staff of yelping dogs standing

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>at a respectful distance. I tried a couple of shots,

-but overrated the distance, and the bullets went over

-the bear's head. I then told Schei to go and shoot it

-whilst I looked on at the further development of the

-drama. The bear's position was a first-rate one. It

-had taken its stand on a little plateau high up on a

-mountain crag; this little ledge was reached by a

-bridge not more than a good yard in width, and there

-stood the bear, like Sven Dufva, ready with his sledgehammer

-to fell the first being that should venture

-across. His majesty was not visible to Schei until he

-came within a few feet of him, but then it was not

-long before a shot was heard. The bear sank together,

-and a few seconds afterwards all the dogs had

-thrown themselves on to it. They tugged and pulled

-at the bear's coat, tearing tufts of hair out of it, and

-before we knew what they were doing, had dragged

-the body to the edge of the plateau, where it shot out

-over the precipice. The dogs stood amazed, gazing

-down into the depths where the bear was falling swiftly

-through the air—but not alone, for on it as large as

-life were two dogs which had clung so fast to its hair,

-that they now stood planted head to head, and bit

-themselves still faster to it in order to keep their

-balance. I was breathless as I watched this unexpected

-journey through the air. The next moment the bear

-in its perpendicular fall would reach the projecting

-point of rock, and my poor dogs!—it was a cruel

-revenge the bear was taking on them. I should now

-have only three dogs left in my team. The bear's

-body dashed violently against the rock, turned a

-somersault out from the mountain wall and fell still

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>further, until, after falling a height of altogether at

-least a hundred feet, it reached the slopes by the river,

-and was shot by the impetus right across the river-ice

-and a good way up the other side. And the dogs?

-When the bear dashed against the mountain they

-sprang up like rubber balls, described a large curve,

-and with stiffened legs continued the journey on their

-own account, falling with a loud thud on to the hardly

-packed snow at the bottom of the valley. But they

-were on their legs again in a moment, and set off as

-fast as they could go across the river after the bear.

-Not many minutes afterwards the whole pack came

-running up, but when they were driven away from the

-carcase, they lay down again to await their turn. I

-hurried back to camp to fetch the dog harness; we

-put a lanyard through the nose of the mighty fallen,

-and set off. The dogs knew well enough that this

-meant food for them, and the nearer we came to camp

-the harder they pulled. In fact, I had to sit on the

-carcase to keep them back, and, jolting backwards and

-forwards, on this new kind of conveyance I made my

-entrance into camp, in the light spring night." But

-bears were few, compared with the musk oxen, which,

-with the reindeer and hares, and with the wolves and

-foxes, and stoats and lemmings, seals and walruses,

-narwhals and white whales, represented the Arctic

-mammalia.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The most singular experience met with was perhaps

-the sledge journey through the ice tunnel on the return

-across the Simmons Peninsula in 1900. Descending a

-valley which became narrower and narrower Sverdrup

-and Fosheim began to think it was going to end in a

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>canyon, but without any warning they were stopped by

-a high wall of ice, perpendicular and inaccessible to any

-one without wings. Looking about, Sverdrup found a

-large hole which proved to be the beginning of a tunnel

-through the glacier. Through this lofty vault they

-sped. From the roof hung threateningly above their

-heads gigantic blocks of ice, seamed and cleft and

-glittering sinisterly; and all around were icicles like

-steel-bright spears and lances piercing downwards on

-them. Along the walls were caves after caves, with

-pillars in rows like giants in rank; and over all shone a

-ghostly whitish light which became bluish as they went.

-"I dared not speak," says Sverdrup. "It seemed to me

-that in doing so I should be committing a deed of desecration;

-I felt like one who has impiously broken into

-something sacred which Nature had wished to keep

-closed to every mortal eye. I felt mean and contemptible

-as I drove through all this purity. The

-sledges jolted from block to block, awakening thunderous

-echoes in their passage: and it seemed as if all the

-spirits of the ice had been aroused and called to arms

-against the intruders on their church-like peace."</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>

-  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER X<br /> BOOTHIA</h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c013'>Christopher Middleton—Wager River—Repulse Bay—Parry's second north-west

-voyage—Melville Peninsula—Fury and Hecla Strait—John Ross's

-second Arctic voyage—Introduces steam navigation into the Arctic regions—The

-whaler <em>John</em>—Ross misses the North-West Passage—Snow houses—Eskimo

-geographers—James Clark Ross finds the Magnetic North Pole—Lyon

-in the <em>Griper</em>—Back in the <em>Terror</em>—Rae's journey round Committee

-Bay—Sir John Franklin's last voyage—Kennedy and Bellot—Discovery

-of Bellot Strait—Rae's journey in 1854—His Franklin discoveries—M'Clintock's

-voyage in the <em>Fox</em>—Lady Franklin's instructions—Captain

-Charles Hall—Frederick Schwatka—Amundsen accomplishes the North-West

-Passage.</p>

-

-<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>In July, 1742, Christopher Middleton, working

-northwards in Hudson Bay from Fort Churchill,

-made his way up Rowe's Welcome and entered a deep

-inlet apparently leading to the South Sea. Middleton—who

-gained his Fellowship of the Royal Society for

-his variation observations at Fort Churchill, and was

-the first to practise the modern method of finding

-longitude by eight or ten different altitudes of the sun

-or stars when near the prime vertical—spent eighteen

-days in the inlet observing the tides, and then came to

-the conclusion that it was an estuary; and he named

-it Wager River after Sir Charles Wager, who was First

-Lord of the Admiralty when he began his voyage.

-Proceeding north, he reached his Repulse Bay, and at

-the north-east end of it saw Frozen Strait, as he called

-it, stretching away along the north of Southampton

-Island towards Cape Comfort. Here, also from tidal

-observations, he satisfied himself that Repulse Bay

-afforded no passage to the westward and that Frozen

-Strait led into Fox Channel.</p>

-

-<div id='pg190'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_283.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>AN IGLOOLIK ESKIMO CARRYING HIS KAYAK</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>His opinions were disputed by those who only knew

-the coast from his chart, and two vessels were sent out

-to prove he was wrong. The reports of the captains

-of these—there is no need to mention their names—were

-embarrassing. Neither had been to Repulse Bay,

-but both had been to Wager River, and they agreed

-that it was unmistakably a river and not a strait; but

-in every other respect, even in naming the places they

-had seen, they were at variance. Thus the matter was

-left in sufficient doubt to encourage some people in

-believing in a north-west passage through Repulse Bay,

-just at the Arctic Circle, and to seek this, Parry, on

-his return from Melville Island, was despatched on his

-second voyage.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>This time the <em>Hecla</em> was commanded by George

-Francis Lyon—the North African traveller—Parry

-being in the <em>Fury</em>, a sister ship; both vessels, at Parry's

-suggestion, being exactly alike so that their gear and

-fittings were interchangeable. They sailed from the

-Little Nore on the 8th of May, 1821, and going direct

-up Frozen Strait, with much trouble from the ice, ran

-into Repulse Bay on the 22nd of August. Here after

-a careful examination it was ascertained beyond a doubt

-that no passage existed through to the westward.

-"Thus," says Lyon, "the veracity of poor Middleton,

-as far as regards this bay at least, was now at length

-established; and in looking down the strait we had

-passed, he was fully justified in calling it a frozen strait.

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>We were now indisputably on our scene of future

-action, the coast of America; and it only remained for

-us to follow minutely the line of shore in continuation

-from Repulse Bay."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>During a stay at Gore Bay red snow was brought off

-to the <em>Fury</em>, its colour being much fainter than that

-found in the <em>Isabella</em> voyage at Crimson Cliffs in

-Greenland; "the appearance of the mass was not unlike

-what is called raspberry ice, in a far better climate,

-where cold is made subservient to luxury." The colouring

-of this is due to one of the Algæ, <em>Protococcus

-nivalis</em>, and not as Peter Paterson said in 1671—ninety

-years before De Saussure—to the rocks being "full of

-white, red, and yellow veins, like marble; upon any

-alteration of the weather, these stones sweat, which,

-together with the rains, tinges the snow red." The

-day on which this snow was found, the 30th of August,

-was so warm that the party were glad to pull off their

-coats and waistcoats. "The valleys were fertile in

-grasses and moss; and the fineness of the weather had

-drawn forth a number of butterflies, spiders, and other

-insects, which would, by their gay colours and active

-motions, have almost deceived us into an idea that we

-were not in the Arctic regions, had not the Frozen

-Strait, filled with huge masses of moving ice, reminded

-us but too forcibly, that we were in the most dangerous

-of them."</p>

-

-<div id='pg192'  class='figcenter id021'>

-<a href='images/i_287.jpg'><img src='images/i_287_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>PARRY'S FARTHEST ON HIS THIRD VOYAGE</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>Early in October the ships took up their quarters at

-Winter Island on the coast of Melville Peninsula in

-66° 32´, and there, during the cordial intercourse with

-the Eskimos, Parry heard of the way through further

-north which led him on his release in the following

-July to discover Fury and Hecla Strait, along which

-the ships passed to find their progress blocked by the

-ice just beyond its entrance into Regent Inlet. Returning

-through the strait, they reached the island of Igloolik

-at the eastern entrance, and there they passed the

-winter, Igloolik being an important Eskimo settlement,

-with four fixed places of residence on it, to which as the

-season changes the natives move in rotation. From

-this island, as the health of the men did not permit of

-his venturing to spend another winter in the ice, Parry

-retraced his route and returned to England.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The ships dropped anchor in the Thames on Trafalgar

-Day, 1823. Next year, on the 19th of May, they were

-off again to the north to seek a passage to the west

-down Prince Regent Inlet, Parry in the <em>Hecla</em>, Hoppner

-in the <em>Fury</em>. It was a bad season. The ships were

-late in leaving Baffin Bay and were hindered by new

-ice in Lancaster Sound. So far from reaching the

-strait discovered two years before, they could get no

-further south than Port Bowen, in 73° 12´, where they

-spent the winter in a singularly barren part of Cockburn

-Land. Starting in July they went down to Cresswell

-Bay, the ships being forced by the weather and the ice

-to work—as is not unusual under such circumstances—in

-almost every possible direction within every mile,

-their track—as shown in the illustration—being most

-complicated. The end of it all was that the <em>Fury</em> was

-wrecked and her stores carefully taken out and left, on

-what was named Fury Beach, for the use of future

-callers in want of them. And the <em>Hecla</em> came home

-alone.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Four years afterwards Captain John Ross, anxious

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>for further work in the north, started in search of the

-passage by the same route. After some years of effort

-he had succeeded in organising an expedition, the expenses

-of which to the amount of over £17,000 were

-borne by Felix Booth, with the exception of over £2000

-added by Ross himself. It was a memorable voyage

-in many respects, and for one thing in particular that

-is frequently passed unnoticed. This was the introduction

-of steam into Arctic navigation. The <em>Victory</em>

-was an old Isle of Man packet-boat of eighty-five tons,

-which, by raising her sides five feet, Ross increased

-to one hundred and fifty tons. Taking out her old

-paddles, he replaced them with a pair of Robertson's

-patents, hoistable out of water in a minute, so as to

-clear the ice. The engine was also a patent, by Braithwaite

-and Ericsson, who built the Novelty that appeared

-at Rainhill. But neither Braithwaite nor Ericsson was

-any happier in this production. Its great feature was

-the doing away with the funnel, no flue being required

-owing to the fires being kept going by artificial draught

-derived from two bellows of unequal sizes—"the bellows

-draught," in fact, like that of the Novelty which broke

-down in the great locomotive contest won by the

-Rocket. Had not Ross been a man of enterprise he

-would never have ventured to sea with such an experimental

-arrangement; but he did, and he suffered

-for it.</p>

-

-<div id='pg194'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_291.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>THE "VICTORY"</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>The "execrable machinery," as he inadequately

-called it, went wrong from the first. On the way from

-Galleons Reach to Woolwich, part of it became displaced,

-causing a delay for repairs. At Woolwich, Sir

-Byam Martin, the Comptroller of the Navy, and

-Sir John Franklin went on board and said uncomplimentary

-things about it, as also did the Duke of

-Orleans (afterwards King Louis Philippe) and the

-Duke of Chartres, though the Frenchmen were more

-gentle in their phrases. From Woolwich to Margate

-this remarkable engine, aided by the sails, took the

-<em>Victory</em> in just over twelve hours, the boiler leaking so

-much that the additional forcing pump had to be kept

-working by hand all the time. Passing the Lizard, the

-piston-rod was found to be so much worn on one side

-by friction against the guide-wheels that a piece of iron

-had to be brazed on to it. Then the keys of the main

-shaft broke and the substitutes made on board broke

-one after the other. "The boilers also continued to

-leak, though we had put dung and potatoes in them by

-Mr. Ericsson's directions." The air-pump drew quantities

-of water; the feeding pump was insufficient to

-supply the boiler. The big bellows nearly wore out;

-so did the small one. Off the Mull of Galloway the

-stoker fell into the machinery and had his arm crushed

-and nearly severed above the elbow. Then the teeth

-of the fly-wheel of the small bellows were shorn off,

-and the boiler joints gave way, and the water, or

-rather the potato soup, flowed out of the furnace

-doors and put out the fire.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Enough has been said to show the difficulties under

-which Ross first used steam on a voyage to the

-northern seas. The list of damages need not be continued.

-Every constituent part of the apparatus gave

-way in turn; and when the <em>Victory</em> became imprisoned

-for the winter, and the engineering staff had some time

-on their hands, they employed it in taking what was

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>left of the installation, piece by piece, out of the ship,

-laying it on the ice, and leaving it there.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Ross was to be accompanied by the whaler <em>John</em>, but

-the men mutinied and refused to start, so that he went

-on from Loch Ryan alone. The following year the

-crew of the <em>John</em>, then on a whaling voyage in Baffin

-Bay, again mutinied, killed the master, put the mate

-adrift in a boat in the manner of Henry Hudson, and

-lost the ship on the western coast, where most of them

-were drowned.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>With the <em>Krusenstern</em>, a boat of eighteen tons, in

-tow, Ross crossed the Atlantic, sighting Sanderson's

-Hope on the 29th of July, having left Scotland six

-weeks before. Early in August he sailed through

-Lancaster Sound, and, taking the opportunity of

-removing his Croker's Mountains to the north-east

-corner of North Somerset, went down Prince Regent

-Inlet to Fury Beach. After completing his provisions

-for twenty-seven months from the stores left behind by

-Parry, he crossed Cresswell Bay, passed Cape Garry,

-Parry's farthest south, on the 15th of August, and

-next day, Sunday, "I went on shore," he says, "with

-all the officers, to take formal possession of the new-discovered

-land; and at one o'clock, being a few minutes

-after seven in London, the colours were displayed with

-the usual ceremony, and the health of the King drunk,

-together with that of the founder of our expedition,

-after whom the land was named."</p>

-

-<div id='pg196'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_295.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>NORTH HENDON</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>"From the highest part of this land, which was

-upwards of a hundred feet above the level of the sea,"

-he continues, "we had a good view of the bay and the

-adjoining shores, and had the satisfaction to find that

-the ice was in motion and fast clearing away. We

-therefore resolved to wait patiently till we could see

-an opening; and proceeded to the northern quarter of

-this spot to make some observations on the dip of the

-magnetic needle.... To this place I gave the name

-Brown Island, after the amiable sister of Mr. Booth;

-the inlet was named Brentford Bay, and the islands

-Grimble Islands." And in his book is a beautiful steel

-engraving by W. Chevalier, "Taking Possession.

-Cape Hussard, Grimble Isle, Brentford Bay, Brown's

-Island." In short, Ross found the place, landed

-on it, took possession of it, named it and sketched

-it. "The sketches from which the drawings were

-made were taken by Mr. Ronald's invaluable perspective

-instrument, and therefore <em>must</em> be true delineations."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>And Ross passed on, apparently quite pleased with

-himself. But the Fates had again been against him, for

-this was the very North-West Passage he had come

-specially to find; the bay, as Kennedy was to show,

-being the entrance to Bellot Strait in which the <em>Fox</em>

-was to winter when on the Franklin search. He had

-blundered along from the island of North Somerset to

-the mainland of America, and passed unheeded its

-northernmost point, which M'Clintock was to name

-Cape Murchison.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Working down the coast of the newly-named

-Boothia, the <em>Victory</em> reached Felix Harbour, and there

-she wintered. No Eskimos were seen until the 9th of

-January, when thirty-one came to the ship and were

-invited on board, a return visit being paid next day to

-their village, which Ross named North Hendon. As

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>this was a typical Eskimo snow camp we may as well

-copy his picture and quote his description.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>"The village soon appeared, consisting of twelve

-snow huts, erected at the bottom of a little bight on

-the shore, about two miles and a half from the ship.

-They had the appearance of inverted basins, and were

-placed without any order; each of them having a long

-crooked appendage, in which was the passage, at the

-entrance of which were the women, with the female

-children and the infants. We were soon invited to

-visit these, for whom we had prepared presents of glass

-beads and needles; a distribution of which soon drove

-away the timidity which they had displayed at our first

-appearance. The passage, always long, and generally

-crooked, led to the principal apartment, which was a

-circular dome, being ten feet in diameter when intended

-for one family, and an oval of fifteen by ten where it

-lodged two. Opposite the doorway there was a bank

-of snow, occupying nearly a third of the breadth of the

-area, about two feet and a half high, level at the top,

-and covered by various skins, forming the general bed

-or sleeping place for the whole. At the end of this sat

-the mistress of the house, opposite to the lamp, which,

-being of moss and oil, as is the universal custom in

-these regions, gave a sufficient flame to supply both

-light and heat; so that the apartment was perfectly

-comfortable. Over the lamp was the cooking dish of

-stone, containing the flesh of deer and of seals, with

-oil; and of such provision there seemed no want.

-Everything else, dresses, implements, as well as provisions,

-lay about in unspeakable confusion, showing

-that order, at least, was not in the class of their virtues.

-It was much more interesting to us to find, that among

-this disorder there were some fresh salmon; since, when

-they could find this fish, we were sure that it would also

-furnish us with supplies which we could not too much

-multiply. On inquiry, we were informed that they

-were abundant; and we had, therefore, the prospect of

-a new amusement, as well as of a valuable market at

-the mere price of our labour."</p>

-

-<div id='pg198'  class='figcenter id022'>

-<img src='images/i_299.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>ESKIMO LISTENING AT A SEAL-HOLE</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>A few weeks later Ross was to see how these houses

-were built. "Four families," he says, "comprising

-fifteen persons, passed the ship to erect new huts about

-half a mile to the southward. They had four heavy-laden

-sledges, drawn each by two or three dogs, but

-proceeded very slowly. We went after them to see

-the process of building the snow house, and were surprised

-at their dexterity; one man having closed in his

-roof within forty-five minutes. A tent is scarcely

-pitched sooner than a house is here built. The whole

-process is worth describing. Having ascertained, by

-the rod used in examining seal holes, whether the snow

-is sufficiently deep and solid, they level the intended

-spot by a wooden shovel, leaving beneath a solid mass

-of snow not less than three feet thick. Commencing

-then in the centre of the intended circle, which is ten

-feet or more in diameter, different wedge-shaped blocks

-are cut out, about two feet long, and a foot thick at the

-outer part; then trimming them accurately by the

-knife, they proceed upwards until the courses, gradually

-inclining inwards, terminate in a perfect dome. The

-door being cut out from the inside before it is quite

-closed serves to supply the upper materials. In the

-meantime the women are employed in stuffing the joints

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>with snow, and the boys in constructing kennels for the

-dogs. The laying the snow sofa with skins and the insertion

-of the ice window complete the work; the

-passage only remaining to be added, as it is after the

-house is finished, together with some smaller huts for

-stores"—the design being similar to that of the yurts

-of the Eskimos of the north, with a change of material,

-snow for stone, and ice instead of seal-gut for the window

-over the entrance.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Making friends with the Eskimos, and gaining a

-great reputation by the carpenter fitting one of them

-with a wooden leg, Ross obtained much valuable information

-from them, particularly as to the geography

-of the district. Like all Arctic men, he was impressed

-by their quickness in understanding maps and their

-skill in drawing them upon anything, snow, paper, or

-otherwise, that lay handy. One of them, Ikmallik,

-drew in the ship's cabin a map, which he reprints in his

-book, showing the coast-line of the country south of

-the <em>Victory's</em> quarters, with the capes, inlets, and islands,

-giving the isthmus of Boothia and Committee Bay, and

-Repulse Bay on the other side of the Melville Peninsula,

-which is really wonderful, for neither the Eskimo, nor

-Ross, had anything to copy from, it being nearly twenty

-years before Rae's exploration; and the one thing it

-clearly demonstrated was that there was no waterway

-to the westward, south of Felix Harbour.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Ross owed much to Ikmallik, and really a good deal

-of the time of the expedition was spent in confirming

-the statements of that well-informed man. The west

-coast of Boothia was surveyed down to Bulow Bay;

-the east side from Cape Nicholas down to Cape Porter,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>including the crossing of the upper part of James Ross

-Strait, the discovery of Matty Island and the north-east

-coast of King William Land from Cape Landon,

-opposite Cape Porter—where Ross, as usual, missed a

-strait—westward to capes Franklin and Jane Franklin,

-within sight of which in the days that were coming,

-by one of those remarkable coincidences so frequent in

-the north, the <em>Erebus</em> and <em>Terror</em> were to meet their

-fate.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The one conspicuous triumph of the expedition was

-the journey of James Ross to the site of the Magnetic

-North Pole, which he found on the western coast of

-Boothia on the 1st of June, 1831. In the younger

-Ross's own words, "the land at this place is very low

-near the coast, but it rises into ridges of fifty or sixty

-feet high about a mile inland. We could have wished

-that a place so important had possessed more of mark

-or note. It was scarcely censurable to regret that there

-was not a mountain to indicate a spot to which so

-much of interest must ever be attached; and I could

-even have pardoned any one among us who had been

-so romantic or absurd as to expect that the magnetic

-pole was an object as conspicuous and mysterious as

-the fabled mountain of Sinbad, that it even was a

-mountain of iron, or a magnet as large as Mont Blanc.

-But Nature had here erected no monument to denote

-the spot which she had chosen as the centre of one of

-her great and dark powers; and where we could do

-little ourselves towards this end, it was our business to

-submit, and to be content in noting by mathematical

-numbers and signs, as with things of far more importance

-in the terrestrial system, what we could but ill

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>distinguish in any other manner.... We fixed the

-British flag on the spot and took possession of the

-North Magnetic Pole and its adjoining territory in

-the name of Great Britain and King William the

-Fourth. We had abundance of materials for building,

-in the fragments of limestone that covered the beach;

-and we therefore erected a cairn of some magnitude,

-under which we buried a canister containing a record

-of the interesting fact; only regretting that we had not

-the means of constructing a pyramid of more importance

-and of strength sufficient to withstand the assaults

-of time and of the Eskimos. Had it been a pyramid

-as large as that of Cheops, I am not quite sure that it

-would have done more than satisfy our ambition, under

-the feelings of that exciting day. The latitude of this

-spot is 70° 5´ 17˝, and its longitude 96° 46´ 45˝ west."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The <em>Victory</em> in the short summer of 1830 sailed a few

-miles further south and spent the winter in Victoria

-Harbour, to be there abandoned in May, 1832. Ross

-in his boats made for Fury Beach, where, at Somerset

-House, as he called it, he passed the following winter.

-On the 26th of August, 1833, when in his boats off the

-eastern mouth of Lancaster Sound, he was picked up

-by the <em>Isabella</em>, his old ship, and in her he reached the

-Humber in October of that year after four successive

-winters in the ice, having been enabled to make so long

-a stay by his fortunate find of the stores left by Parry.</p>

-

-<div id='pg202'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_305.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>H.M.S. "TERROR" LIFTED BY ICE</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>In 1824 Captain Lyon was sent out in the <em>Griper</em> to

-winter at Repulse Bay, and thence crossing the isthmus

-described by the Eskimos continue along to Franklin's

-Point Turnagain; but the <em>Griper</em> was nearly wrecked

-in Rowe's Welcome and did not reach Wager River.

-The discoveries of Ross led to the renewal of this

-attempt by Captain Back in the <em>Terror</em> in 1836. He

-was to go to Wager River or Repulse Bay, and then

-make his way into Prince Regent Inlet, and so west;

-but he became imprisoned in the ice off Cape Comfort

-during one of the severest winters known. Drifting up

-Frozen Strait amid most perilous experiences, the ship,

-lifted high above sea-level by pressure, lay at times

-almost horizontal. Once "they beheld," he says, "the

-strange and appalling spectacle of what may be fitly

-termed a submerged berg, fixed low down, with one

-end to the ship's side, while the other, with the purchase

-of a long lever advantageously placed at a right angle

-with the keel, was slowly rising towards the surface.

-Meanwhile, those who happened to be below, finding

-everything falling, rushed or clambered on deck, where

-they saw the ship on her beam-ends, with the lee boats

-touching the water, and felt that a few moments only

-trembled between them and eternity."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Day after day the <em>Terror</em> defied the persistent effort

-of the ice to smash her, but suffering much in almost

-every timber she withstood it sufficiently to keep

-together. For four months she was entirely out of

-water, and when at last she was free, Back wrapped

-her up as best he could, and brought her home with

-the water pouring into her so that the men were so

-wearied out that they could hardly have continued at

-the pumps another day; and he ran her ashore in

-Lough Swilly only just in time. Upwards of twenty

-feet of her keel, together with ten feet of the stern-post,

-were driven over more than three and a half feet on

-one side, leaving a frightful opening astern for the free

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>ingress of water. The forefoot was entirely gone;

-numbers of bolts were either loosened or broken; and

-when, besides this, the strained and twisted state of the

-ship's frame was considered, there was not one on board

-who did not express astonishment that they had ever

-floated across the Atlantic.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The next attempt to complete the coast of the

-American mainland was made from the land, and at

-the cost of the Hudson's Bay Company. Really it was

-the expedition proposed by Simpson some five years

-before, of which he would have been the leader had he

-not been shot; and it was entrusted to the capable

-hands of Dr. John Rae.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>After wintering at York Factory, Rae reached

-Repulse Bay with two boats, the <em>Magnet</em> and <em>North

-Pole</em>, on the 25th of July, 1846, and in his usual style

-started immediately across the chain of lakes and

-portages which make up the isthmus that now bears

-his name, launching his boats in the tidal water of

-Committee Bay on the 1st of August. Stopped by

-ice on the west side and then on the east he returned

-to Repulse Bay, where he built Fort Hope of stones

-and roofed it with sails, and lived in it through the

-winter on what he could shoot and catch, for many

-weeks venturing on only one meal a day. Outside the

-men kept themselves warm chiefly by building snow

-houses and playing football; inside, as the only fuel

-used was for cooking, the only thing they could do was

-to wrap themselves in furs, and trust to their natural

-heat in a temperature that ranged about zero.</p>

-

-<div id='pg204'  class='figcenter id023'>

-<img src='images/i_309.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>FRACTURED STERN-POST OF H.M.S. "TERROR"</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>In April, with a couple of sledges, eight dogs, and

-five men, he crossed the isthmus again and went straightaway

-up the east side of Boothia to Ross's farthest

-south, thus completing that coast-line. Back he went

-to Fort Hope after a trip of nearly six hundred miles,

-to start again on the 12th of May up the west coast of

-the Melville Peninsula to Cape Ellice, which Parry had

-sighted from the strait on that side. And he was back

-once more at Fort Hope on the 9th of June. Thus

-the survey of the northern coast was complete with

-the exception of the gap between the Boothia isthmus,

-on the west side, and Castor and Pollux River of Dease

-and Simpson, which Rae in another famous effort from

-Repulse Bay was to link up later on.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>When Rae reached Lord Mayor's Bay on the east

-coast of Boothia, Franklin, with the <em>Erebus</em> and

-<em>Terror</em>, was off its west coast in the same latitude.

-This was the reappearance of the <em>Terror</em> in the north.

-After Back's voyage she had been repaired to sail with

-the <em>Erebus</em>, under Sir James Clark Ross, when he discovered

-the South Magnetic Pole; and on their return

-the barques had been thoroughly overhauled and fitted

-with auxiliary screws, the first time that the screw

-propeller was used in Arctic work. Franklin was in the

-<em>Erebus</em>, the <em>Terror</em> being commanded by Francis R. M.

-Crozier as she had been in the Antarctic voyage.

-Crozier was one of Parry's men, he having been in the

-<em>Fury</em> in 1821 and in the <em>Hecla</em> on her two subsequent

-expeditions.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The ships left England on the 19th of May, 1845,

-and were last seen and spoken with on the 26th of

-July in Melville Bay on their way to Lancaster Sound.

-According to information gained during the long series

-of searches, they passed through the sound and went

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>north for about a hundred and fifty miles, to 77°, up

-Wellington Channel into Penny Strait—the first time

-the passage had been made. Returning down the west

-side of Cornwallis Island, discovering the strait between

-it and Bathurst Island, they wintered at Beechey Island,

-where three of the men died and were buried; and where

-the most significant relic was about seven hundred tins

-of preserved meat that seemed to have been condemned

-as bad, just as the stock of similar stuff had in the

-same year been condemned and thrown overboard at

-Portsmouth.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Leaving Beechey Island in 1846, they went south

-down Peel Sound, being the first to pass through it,

-and Franklin Strait—another new discovery—to within

-twelve miles of Cape Felix in King William Land,

-where, on the 12th of September, they were beset

-about half-way between Cape Adelaide in Boothia and

-Pelly Point in Victoria Land. Hereabouts the second

-winter was passed, and on the 24th of May a party

-under Lieutenant Gore crossed the ice to Point Victory,

-probably on a journey to examine the unknown coast

-between there and Cape Herschel. On the 11th of June,

-1847, Sir John Franklin died. The ships drifted a short

-distance during their imprisonment in the ice, and the

-third winter was passed some twenty miles further south

-down Victoria Strait, where, on the 22nd of April, 1848,

-when fifteen miles north-north-west of Point Victory,

-they were abandoned, and the officers and crews, a

-hundred and five in all, under Crozier's command, started

-for Back's Great Fish River, some of them completing

-the first North-West Passage in crossing Simpson Strait

-and reaching Montreal Island.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>The first undoubted traces of the lost expedition were

-those discovered at Beechey Island, the news reaching

-England in the <em>Prince Albert</em> in the autumn of 1850.

-As soon as the winter was over this excellent little

-schooner was again sent out by Lady Franklin under

-the command of Captain William Kennedy, who took

-with him as a volunteer Lieutenant Joseph René Bellot

-of the French navy, and also John Hepburn, who had

-been with Franklin on the land journey in 1819.

-Kennedy wintered at Batty Bay in North Somerset,

-and during a remarkable sledge journey, in which he

-made the circuit of the island, he and Bellot reached

-Brentford Bay, and, on the 21st of April, 1852, discovered

-the strait named after the gallant Frenchman.

-But he found no traces of the expedition through turning

-to the north and crossing to Prince of Wales Island,

-instead of going to the south at the western mouth of

-the strait. He had, however, discovered the termination

-of Boothia, the north point of the American continent

-which men had been seeking for three centuries.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>To the southern end of Boothia came the indefatigable

-Rae. That cheery hero of the north left

-Repulse Bay on the 31st of March, 1854, to complete

-the Hudson's Bay Company's survey. On the 20th of

-April he met a young Eskimo in Pelly Bay, who told

-him the fate of the <em>Erebus</em> and <em>Terror</em>, and from him

-and his people Rae obtained a number of small articles,

-forks and spoons and so forth, which had undoubtedly

-come from the ships, one of which had been crushed in

-the ice, the other sinking after drifting further south.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Rae was not the man to return until he had attacked

-the work he had set out to do, and he continued his

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>surveying with his customary accuracy, despatch, and

-general alertness, striking across the peninsula, discovering

-the Murchison River, reaching Simpson's

-farthest at Castor and Pollux River, and thence proving

-the insularity of King William Land by travelling up

-the east coast of the strait now named after him—and

-he was back again in August. He had almost finished

-the survey of the northern coast-line; and he had

-ascertained how and where Franklin's voyage had

-ended, for which discovery the British Government gave

-him the reward of £10,000, letting it be understood

-that so far as they were concerned the Franklin searches

-were at an end.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>But Lady Franklin thought one more effort should

-be made to unravel the mystery of her husband's fate,

-and there were many who thought the same. Helped

-to a certain extent by a public subscription, she organised

-another expedition. The steam-yacht <em>Fox</em> was

-bought from the executors of Sir Richard Sutton and

-altered for Arctic work by her builders, the Halls of

-Aberdeen clipper fame. As leader went Captain, afterwards

-Sir, Frederick Leopold M'Clintock, who had

-done such brilliant sledge-work in the north; like his

-second in command, Lieutenant W. R. Hobson, he

-gave his services gratuitously, as also did Dr. David

-Walker and Captain, afterwards Sir, Allen Young,

-then of the Mercantile Marine, who also subscribed

-£500 towards the fund. Carl Petersen, the Eskimo

-interpreter on the voyages of Penny and Kane, came

-to join from Copenhagen, having landed there from

-Greenland only six days previously. The British

-Government, although declining to send out an expedition,

-contributed liberally to the supplies, and sent on

-board all the arms and ammunition and ice-gear and

-every instrument that was asked for.</p>

-

-<div id='pg208'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_315.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>THE "FOX" ESCAPING FROM THE PACK</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>Lady Franklin's instructions were so characteristic of

-the noble-hearted woman whose name can never be forgotten

-in Arctic story that they must be given in full:—</p>

-

-<div class='c015'>"<span class='sc'>Aberdeen</span>, <em>June 29, 1857</em>.</div>

-

-<div class='lg-container-l c016'>

-  <div class='linegroup'>

-    <div class='group'>

-      <div class='line'>"<span class='sc'>My dear Captain M'Clintock</span>,</div>

-    </div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c017'>"You have kindly invited me to give you

-'Instructions,' but I cannot bring myself to feel that it

-would be right in me in any way to influence your judgment

-in the conduct of your noble undertaking; and

-indeed I have no temptation to do so, since it appears

-to me that your views are almost identical with those

-which I had independently formed before I had the

-advantage of being thoroughly possessed of yours.

-But had this been otherwise, I trust you would have

-found me ready to prove the implicit confidence I place

-in you by yielding my own views to your more enlightened

-judgment; knowing too as I do that your

-whole heart also is in the cause, even as my own is. As

-to the objects of the expedition and their relative importance,

-I am sure that you know that the rescue of

-any possible survivor of the <em>Erebus</em> and <em>Terror</em> would

-be to me, as it would be to you, the noblest result of

-our efforts.</p>

-

-<p class='c017'>"To this object I wish every other to be subordinate;

-and next to it in importance is the recovery of the unspeakably

-precious documents of the expedition, public

-and private, and the personal relics of my dear husband

-and his companions.</p>

-

-<p class='c017'>"And lastly, I trust it may be in your power to confirm,

-directly or inferentially, the claims of my

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>husband's expedition to the earliest discovery of the

-passage, which, if Dr. Rae's report be true (and the

-Government of our country has accepted and rewarded

-it as such), these martyrs in a noble cause achieved at

-their last extremity, after five long years of labour and

-suffering, if not at an earlier period.</p>

-

-<p class='c017'>"I am sure that you will do all that man can do for

-the attainment of all these objects; my only fear is

-that you may spend yourselves too much in the effort;

-and you must therefore let me tell you how much

-dearer to me even than any of them is the preservation

-of the valuable lives of the little band of heroes who

-are your companions and followers.</p>

-

-<p class='c017'>"May God in His great mercy preserve you all from

-harm amidst the labours and perils which await you,

-and restore you to us in health and safety as well as

-honour. As to the honour I can have <em>no</em> misgiving.

-It will be yours as much if you fail (since you <em>may</em> fail

-in spite of every effort) as if you succeed; and be

-assured that, under <em>any and all circumstances whatever</em>,

-such is my unbounded confidence in you, you will

-possess and be entitled to the enduring gratitude of

-your sincere and attached friend,</p>

-

-<div class='lg-container-r c016'>

-  <div class='linegroup'>

-    <div class='group'>

-      <div class='line'>"<span class='sc'>Jane Franklin</span>."</div>

-    </div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-

-<div id='pg210'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_319.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>THE "FOX" ON A ROCK</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>The men of the <em>Fox</em> were worthy of the confidence

-placed in them. Leaving Aberdeen on the 1st of July,

-M'Clintock reached Disco on the last day of the month,

-and, proceeding northwards, was, by a perverse freak of

-fortune, beset in Melville Bay on the 8th of August,

-and kept imprisoned thence onwards all through the

-winter, drifting south through Baffin Bay and Davis

-Strait. On the 26th of April, 1858, after a drift of

-1194 geographical miles, the <em>Fox</em> escaped from the

-pack and steamed to the eastward amid the most

-perilous of ice experiences. Most men would have

-returned and tried again; not so M'Clintock. He

-boldly ran up the Greenland coast as if nothing had

-happened and, making good deficiencies, resumed his

-voyage. Soon after leaving Sanderson's Hope the

-<em>Fox</em> was nearly wrecked near Buchan Island, remaining

-on a rock until the tide rose again to set her free.

-After calling at Beechey Island, M'Clintock followed

-Franklin's track down Peel Sound until stopped by the

-pack, when he retraced his course and tried Prince

-Regent Inlet, reaching Bellot Strait on the 21st of

-August. At Port Kennedy in this famous waterway—which

-is like a Greenland fiord, about twenty miles long

-and scarcely a mile wide at its narrowest part, the water

-four hundred feet deep within a quarter of a mile of

-its northern shore—he passed the winter.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On the 1st of March he reached by sledge the Magnetic

-Pole and fell in with four of the Boothian Eskimos,

-who, at the cost of a needle each, built him a snow hut

-in an hour, in which they all spent the night. "Perhaps,"

-says M'Clintock, "the records of architecture do

-not furnish another instance of a dwelling-house so

-cheaply constructed!" Halting at Cape Victoria the

-Eskimos came up from their village close by with a

-number of small relics of the lost expedition. Returning

-to the <em>Fox</em> after a journey of four hundred and

-twenty statute miles in which the survey of the west

-coast of Boothia was completed, everything was made

-ready for three long sledge journeys of two sledges each,

-the captain taking that for Montreal Island, and giving

-Hobson the best chance of promotion by sending him

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>round the west coast of King William Land, while

-Young took the Prince of Wales Land route.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On the east coast of King William Land M'Clintock

-met with more Eskimos, from whom he obtained relics

-and obtained information. Pushing on, he reached

-Montreal Island on the 15th of May, where the only

-traces of a boat were some scraps of copper and an

-iron-hoop bolt. A crossing to the mainland on the

-18th of May revealed no more; and next day the

-return journey began. Six days afterwards, walking

-along a gravel ridge near the beach on the way to Cape

-Herschel, M'Clintock found the first skeleton, partly

-exposed, with a few fragments of clothing appearing

-through the snow, evidently one of the men who, as

-the old Eskimo woman said, fell down and died as they

-walked along. Visiting Simpson's cairn at Cape Herschel

-and meeting with nothing, he went on for about

-twelve miles, where he caught sight of a small cairn

-built by Hobson's party at their furthest south, reached

-six days before, containing a note with the great news

-that at Point Victory they had found what is now

-known as the Franklin record.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>This record, which has frequently been printed—in a

-smaller size than the original—was one of the navy

-bottle-papers with the request in six languages that

-it should be forwarded to the Admiralty. A pale blue

-paper, twelve and a half inches by eight, it was filled up

-in the ordinary way, and then added to round the four

-margins in the handwriting of Lieutenant Gore, Captain

-FitzJames, and Captain Crozier, and signed by these

-and C. F. Des Vœux. It had been first deposited four

-miles away, so it said, "by the late Commander Gore,"

-in 1847, and next year found by Lieutenant Irving,

-added to, and removed to the new cairn on the site of

-Sir James Ross's pillar.</p>

-

-<div id='pg212'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_323.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>DISCOVERY OF THE CAIRN</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>Brief as it was, it contained all the authentic information

-regarding Franklin's voyage up to the time the ships

-were abandoned. Resuming the return journey along

-the edge of the strait where the meeting of the Pacific

-and Atlantic tides keeps the ice drifting down from the

-north-west almost constantly packed, M'Clintock reached

-a boat with two skeletons and other relics already visited

-by Hobson, who had found other cairns and many

-relics, and, in Back Bay, another record by Gore, also

-deposited in 1847, but giving no additional news.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Hobson was dragged alongside the <em>Fox</em>, on the 14th

-of June, so ill with scurvy that he was unable to walk or

-even stand without assistance. M'Clintock arrived five

-days later; and on the 27th Allen Young returned

-after an exploration of three hundred and eighty miles

-of coast-line, which, added to that discovered by

-M'Clintock and Hobson, gave a total of eight hundred

-geographical miles of new coast as the work of the

-expedition, besides what it had done in clearing up the

-Franklin mystery.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In 1869 Captain C. F. Hall collected other relics

-and sufficient information to account for seventy-nine

-men out of the hundred and five who left the ships.

-Ten years after that, Schwatka, in his long, careful

-search of King William Land, discovered the grave of

-Lieutenant Irving, in which were some fragments of his

-instruments and the prize medal he won at the Royal

-Naval College. Near by were many traces indicating

-that it was the site of the first encampment of the

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>retreating crews after leaving their ships; and down

-the coast he traced camp after camp, and death after

-death. Irving's remains were brought away and are

-buried at Edinburgh. The spot where they were found

-was Cape Jane Franklin.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>More fortunate than Franklin was Captain Roald

-Amundsen. Leaving Christiania in the <em>Gjöa</em> on the

-16th of June, 1903, he crossed the Atlantic and proceeded

-down Peel Sound, past Bellot Strait, and along

-the west coast of Boothia, where a fire on the ship did

-a certain amount of damage, and, struggling thereafter

-for ten days among shoals and rocks, down James

-Ross Strait, past Matty Island into Rae Strait, he

-dropped anchor in Petersen Bay, King William Land.

-For his base station he required a site in which the

-inclination was eighty-nine degrees, and at Gjöahaven,

-in this bay, he found it in 68° 30´ N., 96° W.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Here he arranged his headquarters for his observations

-on the Magnetic Pole which were kept going

-night and day for nineteen months; and here he stayed

-for two winters, moving about in the country around

-and over into Boothia, where he proved that the Pole

-was not immovable and stationary, but in all likelihood

-in continual movement. Leaving the south-eastern

-corner of King William Land in his little ship he

-passed through Simpson Strait, linking up with Collinson;

-and, like him, he was delayed for a winter on the

-coast of the American mainland. Through Bering

-Strait he reached San Francisco, where the voyage

-ended in the sale of the <em>Gjöa</em>. Thus of Amundsen it

-can be said, without any qualification whatever, that

-he accomplished the North-West Passage.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>

-  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XI<br /> BAFFIN BAY</h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c013'>Sir Humphrey Gilbert—Sir Martin Frobisher—His first voyage—The fateful

-stone—First meeting with the Eskimos—The Cathay Company—Second

-voyage—Third voyage—Frobisher builds a fort—The ships among the

-floes—Captain Hall finds the Frobisher relics—Adrian Gilbert—John

-Davis—His voyages and dealings with the Eskimos—Reaches and names

-Sanderson's Hope—The Traverse Book—William Baffin—His first voyage

-to Greenland—His fourth and fifth voyages—Discovers Baffin Land—Discovers

-Baffin Bay—Smith Sound—Jones Sound—Lancaster Sound—Baffin's

-farthest north—John Ross and Parry verify his discoveries.</p>

-

-<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>In 1566 Humphrey Gilbert—who was as near to

-heaven by sea as by land—petitioned Queen

-Elizabeth for privileges in regard to discoveries "by

-the North-west to Cataia" as an alternative to a petition

-he, in conjunction with Anthony Jenkinson, had presented

-the previous year for a voyage by the north-east.

-He received no answer; but ten years afterwards,

-in support of this unanswered petition, he published

-his <cite>Discourse of a Discovery for a New Passage to

-Cataia</cite>. This met with approval, and led, with little

-delay, to the expedition under the Martin Frobisher

-who, among other noteworthy services, commanded

-the <em>Triumph</em> in the Armada fight to such good purpose

-that he was one of the five distinguished men knighted

-by Howard in mid-channel after the battle off the

-Isle of Wight.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Frobisher was a good seaman—but no mineralogist.

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>Mainly at the expense of Ambrose Dudley, Earl of

-Warwick, and under the business management of that

-old seafarer, Michael Lock, of the Muscovy Company,

-he left Blackwall on the 7th of June, 1576, in the

-<em>Gabriel</em> of twenty-five tons, accompanied by the

-<em>Michael</em> of twenty tons—which deserted and returned

-as soon as difficulties arose—and a ten-ton pinnace,

-which ended by foundering off Greenland. All told,

-the expedition numbered thirty-five, of whom the

-<em>Gabriel</em> carried eighteen; and with these the voyage

-through the Arctic Ocean was to be made to China.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Leaving the Shetlands at her top speed of a league

-and a half an hour—which her master, good Christopher

-Hall, proudly recorded—the <em>Gabriel</em> sighted Cape Farewell

-on the 11th of July. Two days afterwards she

-was thrown on her beam-ends in a storm, and was

-rapidly filling with water flowing in at her waist when

-she was relieved by the loss of her fore-yard and the

-cutting away of her mizen-mast. Rounding the cape,

-steering westward when he could among the floating

-ice, Frobisher reached a high headland at the south-east

-end of what is now Frobisher Bay, which he

-named Queen Elizabeth Foreland. A few days afterwards

-Hall, out in a boat seeking a way through the

-ice for the ship, landed on what they called Hall's

-Island, and, noticing a fog coming on, left hurriedly,

-snatching up, as specimens of the plants, a few grasses

-and flowers, and, as a rock specimen, a heavy black

-stone picked up haphazard on the beach. The grass

-faded, the flowers perished, and the fateful stone

-remained.</p>

-

-<div id='pg216'  class='figcenter id024'>

-<img src='images/i_329.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>SIR MARTIN FROBISHER</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>For fifty leagues Frobisher sailed north-westward

-into the bay, thinking it to be a strait with Asia on

-the right hand and America on the left. He landed

-at what he called Butcher's Island, saw "mightie deere

-which ranne at him and hardly he escaped with his

-life in a narrow way where he was faine to use defence

-and policie," and from a hill-top "perceived a number

-of small things fleeting in the sea afarre off whyche

-hee supposed to be porposes or seales or some kind of

-strange fishe but coming nearer he discovered them to

-be men in small boates made of leather," who only just

-failed in capturing his boat before he reached it. Subsequent

-conferences with the Eskimos ended in his losing

-the boat with five men who had gone ashore to trade;

-and finally, having lifted single-handed one of the

-interesting natives, kayak and all, into the <em>Gabriel</em>, he

-made sail for home.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>When Lock went aboard on the ship's arrival there

-were no riches from Cathay, nothing worth mentioning

-beyond the Eskimo—who soon died—the kayak

-and paddle, and "the fyrste thynge found in the new

-land," the black stone. He carried away the stone,

-after chipping off a few fragments for the friends

-around, and after a week or two's consideration sent

-some of it to the Mint to be assayed. The report was

-not as he expected; the "saymaster" was of opinion

-that it was marcasite, that is, iron pyrites. Not satisfied,

-Lock sent some to another expert, who also said it was

-pyrites. Then he tried a third man, who could find no

-gold in it. And then he tried a fourth—this time an

-Italian—who gave him the answer he wanted: "A very

-little powder of gold came thereout."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Lock sent him some more, telling him frankly that

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>three other assayers "could find no such thing therein,"

-but again the Italian was equal to the occasion. "The

-xviii day of January," writes Lock, "he sent me by his

-mayde this little scrap of paper written, No. 1, hereinclosed;

-and thereinclosed the grayne of gold, which

-afterward I delivered to your majesty." For the Queen

-had become interested in the wonderful stone which

-was the talk of the town, its value increasing at every

-recital until many believed, as Sir Philip Sidney seems

-to have done, that it was "the purest gold unalloyed

-with any other metals."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Lock was not the man to let such excellent advertisement

-be lost, and forthwith he projected the Cathay

-Company for which the charter was obtained from the

-Crown on St. Patrick's Day, 1577. Lock was named as

-Governor for six years with remuneration "for ever"

-of one per cent on all goods imported; Frobisher was

-named as Captain by sea and Admiral of the ships and

-navy of the Company for life with a yearly stipend and

-one per cent, like Lock, on all goods the Company

-brought in. Queen Elizabeth—notwithstanding the

-report from the Mint—headed the list of shareholders

-with £1000; and Burghley, Howard, Leicester, Walsingham,

-Hunsdon, Sidney, even Gresham, subscribed

-for shares in this remarkable company.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>To bring home more of the "golden ore," a new

-expedition was entered upon at once, and on the 26th

-of May, Whit-Sunday as it happened, Frobisher

-started on his second voyage. He had three vessels,

-the <em>Aid</em> of two hundred tons, lent him from the

-Royal Navy, and the <em>Gabriel</em> and <em>Michael</em> as before,

-and one hundred and twenty officers and men, of whom

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>thirty were miners and other landsmen, and, in addition,

-six condemned criminals whom he was to land in Greenland

-as colonists but put ashore at Harwich instead.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>To the new land—named by the Queen Meta

-Incognita, "the unknown limit of the outward course"—he

-made his way without much adventure. Landing

-on Hall's Island, he sought for more stone but

-could find not so much as a piece as big as a walnut;

-for Hall, who was again with him as master, had

-apparently lighted, in the one sample, on the whole of

-its mineral wealth. This disappointment, however, was

-forgotten in the finding of occasional patches of pyrites

-on the mainland and other islands which in due course

-were visited. Thirty leagues up the bay a landing was

-made on what was called Countess of Warwick's

-Island, where more ore was found and a fort called

-Best's Bulwark was built. That was Frobisher's

-farthest on this voyage, and thence he sailed on the

-24th of August, bringing with him two hundred tons

-of pyrites, and, as a present for the Queen, a horn two

-yards long, wreathed and straight, which he had found

-in the nose of a dead narwhal.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The ore was received with rejoicings. Some of it

-was deposited in Bristol Castle, some in the Tower of

-London under four locks, but there was not enough of it;

-and as there were then, as now, no furnaces in England

-capable of getting gold out of marcasite, a new expedition

-was despatched while the furnaces were being

-prepared. This time the enterprise was to be on a very

-different scale. Frobisher was given a fleet of fifteen

-vessels, Drake's old ship, the <em>Judith</em>, amongst them, the

-<em>Aid</em>, as before, being the flagship. He was to bring

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>home two thousand tons of mineral and find other

-mines, if he could, besides taking out a colony of a

-hundred persons to settle in Meta Incognita, for whom

-the materials of a wooden house were among the miscellaneous

-cargo.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The fleet left Harwich on the 31st of May, 1578. A

-landing was made in the south of Greenland, which

-Frobisher named West England and took possession

-of, his point of departure from there being called by

-him, "from a certain similitude," Charing Cross! Soon

-he was among the ice floes. One of the ships was driven

-on to a floe and sank with some of the materials for the

-wooden house. Then followed a storm in which most

-of the ships had a terrible experience. "Some," says

-Captain Best of the <em>Ann Frances</em>, the chronicler of the

-voyage, "were so fast shut up and compassed in amongst

-an infinite number of great countreys and ilands of ise,

-that they were fayne to submit themselves and their

-ships to the mercie of the unmercifull ise, and strengthened

-the sides of their ships with junckes of cables,

-beds, masts, planckes, and such like, which being hanged

-overboord, on the sides of their shippes, mighte the

-better defend them from the outrageous sway and

-strokes of the said ise. But as in greatest distresse,

-men of best value are best to be discerned, so it is

-greatly worthy commendation and noting with what

-invincible mind every captayne encouraged his company,

-and with what incredible labour the paynefull mariners

-and poore miners (unacquainted with such extremities)

-to the everlasting renoune of our nation, dyd overcome

-the brunt of these so great and extreame daungers; for

-some, even without boorde uppon the ise, and some

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>within boorde, uppon the sides of their shippes, having

-poles, pikes, peeces of timber and ores in their hands,

-stood almost day and night, without any reste, bearing

-off the force, and breaking the sway of the ise, with

-suche incredible payne and perill that it was wonderfull

-to behold, which otherwise no doubt had striken quite

-through and through the sides of their shippes, notwithstanding

-our former provision; for planckes of

-timber, of more than three ynches thick, and other

-things of greater force and bignesse, by the surging of

-the sea and billow, with the ise were shevered and cutte

-in sunder at the sides of oure ships, that it will seeme

-more than credible to be reported of. And yet (that

-which is more) it is faythfully and playnely to be proved,

-and that by many substantiall witnesses, that our

-shippes, even those of greatest burdens, with the

-meeting of contrary waves of the sea, were heaved up

-betweene islandes of ise a foote welneere out of the sea

-above their watermarke, having their knees and timbers

-within boorde both bowed and broken therewith."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>To add to the difficulties of the voyage Frobisher

-lost his way, and entered what he called the Mistaken

-Streight—now designated Hudson Strait—through

-which he might have found his way to Cathay, had he

-been so minded; but recognising that he was on the

-wrong road he returned and reached his mining district

-at the end of July. While the ore was being gathered

-in, Best ventured into the upper part of Frobisher Bay

-as far as the Gabriel Islands—the only exploring work

-that was done—and early in September the fleet departed

-on the homeward voyage.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Frobisher had left one unmistakable indication of

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>his visit behind him. On Countess of Warwick Island

-he had built a house of lime and stone, and "the better,"

-says Best, "to allure those brutish and uncivill people to

-courtesie, againste other times of our comming, we left

-therein dyvers of our countrye toyes, as bells and knives,

-wherein they specially delight, one for the necessarie

-use, and the other for the great pleasure thereof. Also

-pictures of men and women in lead, men a horsebacke,

-lookinglasses, whistles and pipes. Also in the house

-was made an oven, and breade left baked therein, for

-them to see and taste. We buried the timber of our

-pretended forte, with manye barrels of meale, pease,

-griste, and sundrie other good things, which was of the

-provision of those whyche should inhabite, if occasion

-served. And insteade therof we fraight oure ships

-full of ore, whiche we holde of farre greater price."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Here we part from the Cathay Company. The inevitable

-trouble came with the discovery that, practically,

-the only gold the ore would yield was that put in as an

-"additament" by the Italian. A very thick cloud

-rolled over Frobisher, who, like Lock, seems to have

-believed in the genuineness of the affair all through;

-but soon his country had need of him and he came to

-the front again in so worthy a manner that little more

-was heard of his connection with this company that

-failed.</p>

-

-<div id='pg222'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_337.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>ESKIMO AWAITING A SEAL</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>To complete the story. In 1861 (say three hundred

-years afterwards) Captain Hall—hearing among the

-Eskimos how numerous white men had arrived first in

-two, then three, then a great many ships, how they had

-killed several natives and taken away two, how five of

-the white men had been captured, and how these had

-built a large boat and put a mast in her and sailed away

-to death when the water was open—went to Kod-lun-arn

-(White Man's Island) and there found the house of

-lime and stone as described, and traces of the diggings,

-and many relics among which he made the collection

-presented by him to the British Government.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In the year 1583, when Sir Humphrey Gilbert, whose

-<em>Discourse</em> gave so great a stimulus to Arctic discovery,

-founded St. John's, Newfoundland—the first English

-colony in America—a patent was granted by Queen

-Elizabeth to his brother Adrian "of Sandridge in the

-county of Devon," as one of the colleagues of the

-Fellowship for the Discovery of the North-West

-Passage. At this Sandridge—on the east of the Dart,

-bounded on three sides by the river, some two miles

-above Dartmouth—was the home of the three Gilberts

-(John, Humphrey, and Adrian), whose mother by a

-second marriage became the mother of Carew and

-Walter Raleigh; and here, about 1550, of a family

-also owning property in the small peninsula, was born

-John Davis, as we know him, or John Davys, as he

-signed himself, who was probably a playmate, and

-certainly a life-long friend, of these five.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Davis was an accomplished seaman, the best of the

-Elizabethan navigators, and a man of accurate observation,

-always on the alert, whose reputation does not

-rest only on the work he did in the northern and other

-seas, for he was the author of <em>The Seaman's Secrets</em>,

-the most popular practical navigation treatise of its

-time. Very early, perhaps from the first, he was one

-of the moving spirits in this new north-west enterprise,

-for on the 23rd of January, 1583, we find Dr. Dee-who

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>had helped to send Frobisher on his first voyage—making

-an entry in his journal that Mr. Secretary

-Walsingham had come to his house, where by good

-luck he found Mr. Adrian Gilbert, and so talk began

-on "the north-west straits discovery"; and, next day,

-"I, Mr. Awdrian Gilbert and John Davis, went by

-appointment to Mr. Beale, his howse, where only we

-four were secret, and we made Mr. Secretary privie of

-the N.W. Passage, and all charts and rutters were

-agreed upon in generall"—"rutter" being the French

-"<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">routier</span>," originating in <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Routier de la Mer</span></cite>, signifying

-a book of sea routes. Another important friend

-of Davis was William Sanderson, the representative

-of the merchants by whom the expenses of the voyage

-were borne, he being the chief subscriber. One of the

-ships, the <em>Moonshine</em>, seems to have belonged to him,

-and it was largely owing to his influence among the

-shareholders that Davis was appointed captain and

-chief pilot of the "exployt," in which he was to

-practically rediscover Greenland.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>There were two vessels, the <em>Sunshine</em> of London,

-fifty-nine tons, with twenty-three persons on board,

-and the <em>Moonshine</em> of Dartmouth, thirty-five tons, with

-nineteen. They left Dartmouth on the 7th of June,

-1585, but had to put in at Falmouth and then at the

-Scillies, where Davis occupied the twelve days he

-spent there in surveying and charting the islands. On

-the 20th of July they were sailing down the east coast

-of Greenland, and were so little attracted by it that

-Davis called it the Land of Desolation. Nine days

-afterwards he found a group of many pleasant green

-islands bordering on the shore, while the mountains of

-the mainland were still covered with snow, and here he

-landed on the west coast at Gilbert Sound, as he named

-it, near where Godthaab now is, and entered into communication

-with the natives.</p>

-

-<div id='pg224'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_341.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>A GREENLANDER IN HIS KAYAK</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>For such occasions, apparently, he had among the

-<em>Sunshine</em> people four described as musicians, whom, on

-sighting the Eskimos, he sent for. As soon as they

-arrived from the ship he ordered them to strike up a

-dancing tune, and to their merry music Davis and his

-men began to caper as if they were enjoying themselves

-immensely, while the lookers-on gradually increased

-in number. "At length," he says, "one of

-them poynting up to the sunne with his hande would

-presently strike his brest so hard that we might hear

-the blowe. This he did many times, before he would

-any way trust us. Then John Ellis the master of the

-<em>Mooneshine</em>, was appointed to use his best policie to

-gaine their friendshippe: who strooke his breast and

-poynted to the sunne after their order: which when he

-had diverse times done, they began to trust him, and

-one of them came on shoare, to whom we threwe our

-caps, stockings and gloves, and such other things as

-then we had about us, playing with our musicke, and

-making signes of joy, and dancing. So the night

-comming we bade them farewell, and went aboord

-our barks."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The next morning, being the 30th of July, thirty-seven

-canoes came up to the ships, their occupants

-calling to the English to come on shore. "Wee not

-making any great haste unto them, one of them went

-up to the top of the rocke, and lept and daunced as

-they had done the day before, shewing us a seales

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>skinne, and another thing made like a timbrel, which

-he did beate upon with a sticke, making a noyse like a

-small drumme." Whereupon Davis manned his boats

-and went to the waterside where they were in their

-canoes, "and after we had sworne by the sunne after

-their fashion, they did trust us. So I shooke hands

-with one of them, and hee kissed my hand, and we

-were very familier with them. We bought five canoas

-of them, we bought their clothes from their backs,

-which were all made of seales skins and birdes skinnes:

-their buskins, their hose, their gloves, all being commonly

-sewed and well dressed: so that we were fully

-persuaded that they have divers artificers among them.

-Wee had a paire of buskins of them full of fine wooll

-like bever. Their apparell for heate, was made of bird

-skinnes with their feathers on them. We sawe among

-them leather dressed like glovers leather, and thicke

-thongs like white leather of a good length. Wee had

-of their darts and oares, and found in them that they

-would by no meanes displease us, but would give us

-whatsoever we asked of them and would be satisfied

-with whatsoever we gave them. They took great care

-one of an other: for when we had bought their boates,

-then two other woulde come and carie him away betweene

-them that had soulde us his." He describes

-them as "a very tractable people, voyde of craft or

-double dealing, and easie to be brought to civiltie or

-good order," the men of good stature, unbearded,

-small-eyed, "by whom, as signes would permit, we

-understood that towards the north and west there was

-a great sea."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>During his stay among these islands he found considerable

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>quantities of wood—fir, spruce, and juniper—which

-whether it came floating any great distance or

-grew in some island near he did not discover; but he

-thought it grew further inland because the people had

-so many darts and paddles which they held of little

-value and gave away for insignificant trifles. He also

-found "great abundance of seales" in shoals as if they

-were small fish; but saw no fresh water, only snow

-water in large pools, and he notes that the "cliffes were

-all of such oare as M. Frobisher brought from Meta

-Incognita."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Leaving the sound on the 1st of August he crossed

-the strait now named after him and reached land in

-66° 40´. In water "altogether voyd from ye pester of

-ice" he anchored, "in a very fair rode, under a very

-brave mount, the cliffs whereof were as orient as gold."

-This mount he named Mount Raleigh, the roadstead

-he called Totnes Rode, the sound round the mount he

-named Exeter Sound, the foreland to the north he

-called Dyer's Cape, the southern foreland being named

-Cape Walsingham—all of which names remain. Here

-white bears were killed "of monstrous bignesse," a

-raven was descried upon Mount Raleigh, withies were

-found growing low like shrubs, and there were flowers

-like primroses, though there was no grass.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>For three days Davis went coasting downwards, and

-rounding the southern point of the peninsula, which he

-named the Cape of God's Mercy, he entered what he

-afterwards called Cumberland Strait, now Cumberland

-Gulf, supposing it to be his way to the westward. It

-was clear of ice; sixty leagues up islands were found,

-among which a stay was made during five days of very

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>foggy foul weather. On the 15th of August "we

-heard dogs houle on the shoare, which we thought had

-bene Wolves, and therefore we went on shoare to kil

-them; when we came on lande, the dogs came presently

-to our boate very gently, yet we thought they came to

-pray upon us, and therefore we shot at them and killed

-two: and about the necke of one of them we found

-a letheren coller, whereupon we thought them to be

-tame dogs. Then wee went farther and founde two

-sleads made like ours in Englande. The one was made

-of firre, spruse and oken boards, sawen like inch

-boards; the other was made all of whale bone, and

-there hung on the toppes of the sleds three heads of

-beasts, which they had killed. We saw here larkes,

-ravens, and partriges"—probably rock ptarmigan.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Searching about, it was agreed that the place was all

-islands, with sounds passing between them; that the

-water remained of the same colour as the main ocean,

-whereas in every bay they had been into it became

-blackish; that a shoal of whales they saw must have

-come from the west, because to the eastward no whale

-had been seen; that "there came a violent counter

-checke of a tide from the south-west against the flood

-which we came with, not knowing from whence it was

-maintayned"; that the further they ran westward the

-deeper was the water, "so that hard abord the shoare

-among these yles we could not have ground in 330

-fathoms"; and that, lastly, there was a tide range of

-six or seven fathoms, "the flood comming from

-diverse parts, so as we could not perceive the chiefe

-maintenance thereof." For which six reasons it was

-determined to continue the voyage to the westward if

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>the weather changed—which it did to worse with the

-wind unfavourable, so that the ships had to run for

-shelter and then sail for home, crossing the Atlantic

-from Greenland in a fortnight. On arrival Davis

-reported to Walsingham that the North-West Passage

-was a matter nothing doubtful, but at any time almost

-to be passed, the sea navigable, void of ice, the air

-tolerable, and the waters very deep; and a voyage for

-next year was decided on, for which the merchants

-of Exeter, Totnes, London, Cullompton, Chard, and

-Tiverton, and five private subscribers, "did adventure

-their money"—to the amount of £1175—"with Mr.

-Adrian Gilbert and Mr. John Davis in a voyage for

-the discovery of China, the seventh daie of April in

-the xxviij yeare of the rayne of or. soverayne Ladie

-Elizabeth."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The fleet, consisting of the <em>Mermaid</em> of one hundred

-and twenty tons, the <em>Sunshine</em> and <em>Moonshine</em>, and a

-ten-ton pinnace named the <em>North Star</em>, left Dartmouth

-on the 7th of May, 1586. On reaching Greenland the

-<em>Sunshine</em> and <em>North Star</em> were sent up the east coast

-of Greenland, while the <em>Mermaid</em> and <em>Moonshine</em> made

-for Gilbert Sound.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Here the Eskimos received them cordially "after

-they had espied in the boate, some of our companie

-that were the yeere before heere with us, they presently

-rowed to the boate, and tooke holde on the oare, and

-hung about the boate with such comfortable joy as

-woulde require a long discourse to be uttered: they

-came with the boates to our shippes, making signes

-that they knewe all those that the yere before had

-bene with them. After I perceived their joy, and smal

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>feare of us, my selfe with the merchaunts, and others

-of the company went a shoare, bearing with me

-twentie knives: I had no sooner landed, but they lept

-out of their Canoas, and came running to mee and the

-rest, and imbraced us with many signes of hartie

-welcome: at this present there were eighteene of them,

-and to each of them I gave a knife: they offered

-skinnes to mee for rewarde, but I made signes that it

-was not solde, but given them of curtesie: and so dismissed

-them for that time, with signes that they

-shoulde returne againe after certaine houres." But

-soon there were passing troubles owing to iron having

-so great an attraction for them that they could not

-resist stealing it. While amongst them, exploring the

-country, Davis compiled the first Eskimo vocabulary

-known, a list of some forty words written down

-phonetically, most of them remarkably good approaches

-considering that both parties were ignorant of each

-other's language, none of them, however, except that

-for "sea" being likely to be of any use in putting him

-on the road to China.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On leaving Gilbert Sound, Davis when in latitude

-63° 8´ "fel upon a most mighty and strange quantity of

-ice, in one intyre masse, so bigge as that we knew not

-the limits thereof, and being withall so very high, in

-forme of a land, with bayes and capes, and like high

-cliffe land, as that we supposed it to be land, and therefore

-sent our pinnesse off to discover it: but at her

-returne we were certainely informed that it was onely

-ice, which bred great admiration to us all, considering

-the huge quantity thereof, incredible to be reported in

-truth as it was, and therefore I omit to speake any

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>further thereof. This onely, I thinke that the like

-before was never seene, and in this place we had very

-stickle and strong currants. We coasted this mighty

-masse of ice untill the 30 of July, finding it a mighty

-bar to our purpose: the ayre in this time was so contagious,

-and the sea so pestered with ice, as that all

-hope was banished of proceeding: for the 24 of July

-all our shrowds, ropes, and sailes were so frozen, and

-compassed with ice, onely by a grosse fogge, as seemed

-to me more then strange, sith the last yeere I found this

-sea free and navigable, without impediments."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Crossing the straits he repaired and revictualled the

-<em>Moonshine</em> in an excellent harbour among islands where

-they found it very hot and were "very much troubled

-with a flie which is called Musketa, for they did sting

-grievously." Forsaken by the <em>Mermaid</em>, he abandoned

-the search in Cumberland Sound as he "found small

-hope to pass any farther that way," and worked south,

-it being too late to go northwards, crossing Frobisher

-Bay, which he described as "another great inlet neere

-forty leagues broad where the water entered with

-violent swiftnesse, this we also thought might be a

-passage, for no doubt the north parts of America are

-all islands." Off the coast of Labrador he found a vast

-shoal of codfish, of which he caught over forty with a

-long spike nail made into a hook. These he salted, and

-some of them, on his return, he gave, at Walsingham's

-request, to Burghley, who, at an interview, encouraged

-him to make a further attempt.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Next year he was off again, this time "to the Isles

-of the Molucca or the coast of China." He seems to

-have been on board the <em>Ellen</em>, a small craft of some

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>twenty tons, his two other vessels being the <em>Sunshine</em>

-as before, and the <em>Elizabeth</em>. These he left to fish for

-cod in the straits while he went northward from Gilbert

-Sound in his little "clinker," which he had probably

-chosen as being handy for ice navigation. Running

-along the land, to which he gave the name of London

-Coast, he reached 72° 12´—the highest north up to then

-attained—where he named the loftiest of the headlands

-Sanderson's Hope, whose lofty crest piercing through

-the driving clouds near Upernivik has become perhaps

-the best-known landmark in the northern seas. Here

-the wind suddenly shifting to the northward made

-further progress impossible, and he had to shape his

-course westerly, and then, owing to ice, which he in

-vain endeavoured to get round to the north, he had to

-turn southwards. Amid much fog, and with the ice

-always present, he came down the coast of Baffin Land,

-giving a name here and there on the way, until on the

-31st of July he passed "a very great gulfe, the water

-whirling and roring, as it were the meetings of tides,"

-which was probably the entrance to Hudson Strait.

-Next day he was off the Labrador coast and named

-Cape Chidley after his friend who died in the Straits of

-Magellan, and on the 15th of August he laid his course

-for England.</p>

-

-<div id='pg232'  class='figcenter id025'>

-<a href='images/i_351.jpg'><img src='images/i_351_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>BAFFIN BAY IN 1819</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>Of this voyage Hakluyt prints the Traverse Book,

-one of the earliest known. In it the full detail is given

-for every day, arranged in nine columns, one each for

-the month, the day, the hour, the courses, the leagues,

-the elevation of the pole in degrees and minutes, the

-wind, and a remarks column headed "The Discourse"—for

-Davis was an exact and systematic man remarkable

-for his latitudes never being wrong, though like

-all those old navigators before the invention of the

-chronometer, he was frequently out in his longitude.

-He was going off again bound for the sea north of

-Sanderson's Hope, but the coming of the Armada and

-the death of Walsingham caused the postponement of

-the project he did not abandon, for it seems that the

-<em>Desire</em>, in which he discovered the Falkland Islands at

-the other end of America, was to be his reward for

-accompanying Cavendish round the world, and that in

-her he intended to make his next Polar voyage.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The work he had set himself to do was done by

-William Baffin, who first appears in the Arctic record

-as pilot of the <em>Patience</em> in James Hall's Greenland

-voyage in 1612, which ended in Hall being killed in

-revenge for the kidnapping proceedings on the two

-previous voyages under the Danish flag. Baffin then

-made two voyages, as we have seen, to Spitsbergen in

-the service of the Muscovy Company, and, in that of the

-Company for the Discovery of the North-West Passage,

-he made his fourth, in 1615. In Hudson's old ship the

-<em>Discovery</em>, also her fourth trip to the north, he passed

-up Hudson Strait to the end of Southampton Island,

-where he abandoned the attempt to get through owing

-to ice and shallow water, and returned after discovering

-the land that Parry named after him.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In his fifth voyage, again in the <em>Discovery</em>, with

-Robert Bylot again as master, he left Gravesend on

-the 16th of March, 1616, and reached Sanderson's

-Hope on the 30th of May, discovering the great bay

-to the north which bears his name. Passing the

-Women Islands and the Baffin Islands off Cape

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>Shackleton, he took the middle passage across Melville

-Bay, coasting along by Cape York, by the cape named

-after one of his directors, Sir Dudley Digges, and the

-sound named after another of his directors, Sir John

-Wolstenholme; along Prudhoe Land, entering the North

-Water of the whalers, reaching Cape Alexander in

-77° 45´, his farthest north; opening up and naming

-Smith Sound, after Sir Thomas Smith, another of his

-directors, and Jones Sound, after Alderman Sir Francis

-Jones, another of the board, and Lancaster Sound,

-after Sir James Lancaster of the East India Company.

-Thus, coasting Ellesmere Land, North Devon, Bylot

-Island, and Baffin Land, he continued his voyage from

-the north on his way home. A good piece of work:

-the discoveries so many and unexpected that people

-ceased to believe in them, geographers going so far as

-to erase his bay from their maps until, two hundred

-years afterwards, Ross and Parry sailed over the land

-of the unbelievers and confirmed Baffin's work in every

-detail—and Ross, in his best mountain-finding manner,

-reported no thoroughfare at Smith Sound.</p>

-

-<div id='pg234'  class='figcenter id026'>

-<img src='images/i_355.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>DR. E. K. KANE</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>

-  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XII<br /> SMITH SOUND</h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c013'>Captain Inglefield—Dr. Kane—The open Polar Sea—Hans Hendrik the

-Greenlander—Kalutunah the Eskimo—An Eskimo bear-hunt—A lesson

-in catching auks—Dr. Hayes—His journey over the glacier—Tyndall

-Glacier—Captain C. F. Hall—Joe and Hannah—Voyage of the <em>Polaris</em>—Drift

-of the <em>Polaris</em>—The voyage on the ice-floe—The British Government

-Expedition of 1875—The <em>Alert</em> and <em>Discovery</em>—The cairn on Washington

-Irving Island—Discovery Harbour—How the <em>Alert</em> got into safety at

-Floeberg Beach—Low temperatures—Nares on sledging—Description of

-the sledges and their burden—Markham starts for the Pole—Reaches

-83° 20´ 26˝—Outbreak of scurvy—Parr's walk—Aldrich's journey west—Beaumont's

-journey east—The perilous homeward voyage.</p>

-

-<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>Lady Franklin, who incidentally did so much

-for Arctic discovery, sent out the <em>Isabel</em> in 1852

-under Commander, afterwards Sir, Edward Augustus

-Inglefield to search for her husband to the north of

-Baffin Bay. Unlike John Ross, the names of whose

-ships, <em>Isabella</em> and <em>Alexander</em>, are home by the capes

-at its entrance, he found Smith Sound to be the highway

-to the north. Steaming up the open water

-"stretching through seven points of the compass,"

-noting the coasts as he went, he was turned back by the

-ice in 78° 28´, at the entrance to the Kane Sea, with

-Cairn Point and the way in to Rensselaer Harbour on

-his right, and Cape Sabine and Ellesmere Land, which

-he named, on his left; the farthest north he sighted

-being Cape Louis Napoleon, the farthest east Cape

-Frederick VII, now known as Cape Russell. Needless

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>to say he found no Franklin traces, although he really

-looked for them.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Twelve months afterwards Dr. Elisha Kent Kane in

-the United States brig <em>Advance</em> followed in his track

-and wintered in Rensselaer Harbour, nine miles further

-north. Ostensibly Kane was on a Franklin search, but

-his real object was the Pole. He explored the sea

-named after him, naming many landmarks, not always

-placing them in their true positions, and underwent

-many hardships. For one mistake he was famous for

-a time, and his reputation now suffers. One of his expedition,

-William Morton, almost reached Cape Constitution,

-in about 80½°, which he placed some sixty

-miles too far north, and described as the corner of the

-north coast of Greenland; and from the southern horn

-of the bay of which it is the northern boundary he

-looked out over the south of Kennedy Channel, which

-is open every summer, and mistook it for the Polar

-Sea. And he returned with a report of an even more

-wonderful discovery than the Polar Sea, for, according

-to the illustration, he beheld the midnight sun dipping

-in its waters on Midsummer Day.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In May, 1854, the month before Morton's discoveries,

-Dr. Hayes and William Godfrey crossed the Kane Sea

-to connect the northern coast with Inglefield's survey,

-"but it disclosed no channel or any form of exit from

-the bay," being, in fact, Ellesmere Land continued, and

-yet on reaching the shore for the first time at Hayes

-Point, three miles north of Cape Louis Napoleon, and

-following it for two miles to Cape Frazer, they quite

-unnecessarily named the country Grinnell Land. On

-the other side of this sea the chief discovery was

-Kane's Humboldt glacier, some fifty miles north-east

-of their winter quarters, which was described as "the

-mighty crystal bridge which connects the two continents

-of America and Greenland," when, of course, it does

-nothing of the sort.</p>

-

-<div id='pg236'  class='figcenter id027'>

-<img src='images/i_359.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>KALUTUNAH</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>What with sickness, accident, and other disaster, it

-became evident that the <em>Advance</em> would never leave her

-wintering place, and in July Kane set off on a wild

-endeavour to reach Beechey Island and obtain relief

-from the Franklin search vessels, but he had to return.

-Next month Hayes was sent to Upernivik, but he also

-came back. Finally in May, 1855, the brig was abandoned

-and the survivors began their journey to the

-south. Fortunately on the outward voyage Kane, at

-Fiskernaes, had engaged Hans Hendrik the Greenlander,

-then a boy of nineteen, who became quite a

-prominent figure in this and subsequent voyages, and

-without him and Kalutunah, chief of the Etah Eskimos,

-the whole party would have perished miserably.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Hans first appears when spearing a bird on the wing;

-Kalutunah's first appearance was equally encouraging.

-"The leader of the party," says Kane, "was a noble

-savage, greatly superior in everything to the others of

-his race. He greeted me with respectful courtesy, yet

-as one who might rightfully expect an equal measure

-of it in return, and, after a short interchange of salutations,

-seated himself in the post of honour at my side.

-I waited, of course, till the company had fed and slept,

-for among savages especially haste is indecorous, and

-then, after distributing a few presents, opened to them

-my project of a northern exploration. Kalutunah

-received his knife and needles with a 'Kuyanaka,' 'I

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>thank you'; the first thanks I have heard from a native

-of this upper region. He called me his friend—'Asakaoteet,'

-'I love you well'—and would be happy,

-he said, to join the nalegak-soak in a hunt."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>And the journey ended in a hunt, for the dogs caught

-sight of a large male bear in the act of devouring a seal.

-The impulse was irresistible; Kane lost all control over

-both dogs and drivers, who seemed dead to everything

-but the passion of pursuit. Off they sped with incredible

-speed; the Eskimos clinging to their sledges

-and cheering their dogs with loud cries. A mad, wild

-chase, wilder than German legend—"the dogs, wolves;

-the drivers, devils." After a furious run, the animal

-was brought to bay, and the lance and rifle did their

-work. There were more bears and more hunts, and

-when Kane objected that this could hardly be called

-northern exploration, he was told by Kalutunah, significantly,

-that the bear-meat was absolutely necessary

-for the support of their families, and that the nalegak-soak

-had no right to prevent him from providing for

-his household. "It was a strong argument," says

-Kane, "and withal the argument of the strong."</p>

-

-<div id='pg238'  class='figcenter id021'>

-<a href='images/i_363.jpg'><img src='images/i_363_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>THE EAST COAST OF SMITH SOUND</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>Bear-hunting hereabouts has its dangers, for the

-Eskimos of the north are not armed with bows and

-arrows as are those of the mainland. When the bear

-is found the dogs are set upon the trail, and the hunter

-runs by their side in silence. As he turns the angle

-ahead his game is in view before him, stalking probably

-along with quiet march, sometimes sniffing the air

-suspiciously, but making, nevertheless, for a clump of

-hummocks. The dogs spring forward, opening in a

-wild wolfish yell, the driver shrieking "Nannook!

-nannook!" and all straining every nerve in pursuit.

-The bear rises on his haunches, views his pursuers,

-and starts off at full speed. The hunter, as he runs,

-leaning over his sledge, seizes the traces of a couple of

-his dogs and liberates them from their burden. It is

-the work of a minute; for the speed is not checked and

-the remaining dogs rush on with apparent ease. Pressed

-more severely, the bear stands at bay while his two

-foremost pursuers halt at a short distance and quietly

-await the arrival of the hunter. At this moment the

-whole pack are liberated; the hunter grasps his lance,

-and, stumbling through the snow and ice, prepares for

-the encounter. Grasping the lance firmly in his hands

-he provokes the animal to pursue him by moving

-rapidly across its path, and then running as if to escape.

-But hardly is its long body extended for the tempting

-chase, before, with a quick jump, the hunter doubles

-on his track, and, as the bear turns after him again,

-the lance is plunged into the left side below the

-shoulder; and that so dexterously, that, if it be an

-inch or so wide of the proper spot, the spear has

-to be left in the bear and the man has to run for

-his life.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>At this hazardous work Kalutunah was an adept, and

-he was equally skilful at a much less dangerous game,

-as Dr. Hayes was to discover when wintering in the

-schooner <em>United States</em> in Foulke Harbour, further

-south, in 1860-61. Hayes wished to learn how to

-catch auks, and the Eskimo gave him a lesson.

-Kalutunah carried a small net, made of light strings of

-sealskin knitted together, the staff by which it was held

-being about ten feet in length. Arriving about half-way

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>up the cliffs he crouched behind a rock and invited the

-doctor to follow his example. The slope on which the

-birds were congregated was about a mile long, and in

-vast flocks they were sweeping over it a few feet above

-the stones down the whole length of the hill, returning

-higher in the air, and so round and round in a complete

-circuit. Occasionally a few hundreds or thousands

-would drop down as if following some leader, and in

-an instant the rocks, for some distance, would swarm

-with them as they speckled the hill with their black

-backs and white breasts. The doctor was told to lie

-lower, as the birds noticed him and were flying too

-far overhead. Having placed himself as Kalutunah

-approved, the birds began to sweep lower and lower

-in their flight until their track came well within reach.

-Then, as a dense portion of the crowd approached, up

-went the net, and half a dozen birds flew into it, and,

-stunned by the blow, could not recover before the

-Eskimo had slipped the staff through his hands and

-seized the net. With his left hand he pressed down

-the birds, while with the right he drew them out one

-by one, and, for want of a third hand, used his teeth to

-crush their heads. The wings were then locked across

-each other; and with an air of triumph the old chief

-looked around, spat the blood and feathers from his

-mouth, and went on with the sport, tossing up his net

-and hauling it in with much rapidity until he had

-caught about a hundred, and wanted no more.</p>

-

-<div id='pg240'  class='figcenter id028'>

-<img src='images/i_367.jpg' alt='I. I. Hayes' class='ig001' />

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>Hayes did his best to disparage both Kalutunah and

-Hans, to whom he was not quite so much indebted as

-Kane, owing to his having given himself a better chance

-of retreat by not taking the schooner out of Smith

-Sound, his quarters in Hartstene Bay being only some

-twelve miles north of Cape Alexander. He had come

-to verify the existence of the open sea and sail to the

-Pole across it if he could; and he verified it to his

-own satisfaction. But he did not get so far north as

-Morton, although he claimed to have done so, for he

-climbed a cliff eight hundred feet high and looked out

-over the open water—in Kennedy Channel—and did

-not see the Greenland cliffs trending away northwards

-within thirty miles of him, and visible all the way up

-for two degrees north of Cape Constitution. Thus he

-left the map as Kane left it, with Greenland cut off

-short south of the eighty-first parallel, and his farthest

-seems to have been the south point of Rawlings Bay,

-where the <em>Alert</em> was forced on shore in August, 1876,

-in 80° 15´.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>"I climbed," he says, "the steep hillside to the top

-of a ragged cliff, which I supposed to be about eight

-hundred feet above the level of the sea. The view

-which I had from this elevation furnished a solution of

-the cause of my progress being arrested on the previous

-day. The ice was everywhere in the same condition as

-in the mouth of the bay across which I had endeavoured

-to pass. A broad crack, starting from the middle of

-the bay, stretched over the sea, and uniting with other

-cracks as it meandered to the eastward, it expanded as

-the delta of some mighty river discharging into the

-ocean, and under a water-sky, which hung upon the

-northern horizon, it was lost in the open sea. The sea

-beneath me was a mottled sheet of white and dark

-patches, these latter being either soft decaying ice or

-places where the ice had wholly disappeared. These

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>spots were heightened in intensity of shade and multiplied

-in size as they receded, until the belt of the

-water-sky blended them all together into one uniform

-colour of dark blue. The old and solid floes (some a

-quarter of a mile, and others miles across) and the

-massive ridges and wastes of hummocked ice which

-lay piled between them and around their margins, were

-the only parts of the sea which retained the whiteness

-and solidity of winter."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Unfortunately for Hayes, the astronomer of the

-expedition, August Sonntag, who had assisted Kane in

-the same capacity, was frozen to death on a sledge

-journey, and the doctor was left to do the work for

-himself, with disappointing results, as with errors of

-many miles in either latitude or longitude his journeys

-can only be noticed in a very general way. In October,

-1860, he proceeded for some distance over the glacier

-to the east of his wintering place. The first attempt to

-scale the glacier was attended by what might have been

-a serious accident. The foremost member of the party

-missed his footing as he was clambering up the rude

-steps, and, sliding down the steep side, scattered those

-who were below him to the right and left and sent them

-rolling into the valley beneath. The next effort was

-more successful, and, the end of a rope being carried

-over the side of the glacier, the sledge was drawn up

-the inclined plane and a fair start obtained. A little

-further on Hayes was only saved from disappearing

-down a crevasse by clutching a pole he was carrying on

-his shoulder. Next day, the surface being smoother,

-more progress was made, and they reached a plain of

-compact snow covered with a crust through which the

-feet broke at every step. The day afterwards the cold

-grew more intense and a gale came on. At night the

-men complained bitterly and could not sleep, and as the

-storm increased in strength they were forced to leave the

-tent and by active exercise prevent themselves from

-freezing.</p>

-

-<div id='pg242'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_371.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>THE SHORES OF KENNEDY CHANNEL</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>To face the wind was impossible, and shelter was

-nowhere to be found upon the unbroken plain, there

-being but one direction in which they could move, that

-being with their backs to the gale. It was not without

-difficulty that the tent was taken down and bundled

-upon the sledge, the wind blowing so fiercely that they

-could scarcely roll it up with their stiffened hands.

-The men were in pain and could only hold on for a few

-moments to the hardened canvas, their fingers, freezing

-continually, requiring vigorous pounding to keep them

-on the flickering verge of life. "In the midst of a vast

-frozen Sahara, with neither hill, mountain, nor gorge

-anywhere in view," says Hayes, "fitful clouds swept

-over the face of the full-orbed moon, which, descending

-toward the horizon, glimmered through the drifting

-snow that whirled out of the illimitable distance, and

-scudded over the icy plain, to the eye in undulating

-lines of downy softness, to the flesh in showers of

-piercing darts. Our only safety was in flight; and like

-a ship driven before a tempest which she cannot withstand,

-and which has threatened her ruin, we turned

-our backs to the gale; and, hastening down the slope,

-we ran to save our lives. We travelled upwards of

-forty miles, and had descended about three thousand

-feet before we ventured to halt."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Next year he visited the large glacier in Whale

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>Sound which he named after Professor John Tyndall,

-pulling first along its front in a boat and then mounting

-its surface. As he rowed along within a few fathoms

-of this two miles of ice, he found the face "worn and

-wasted away until it seemed like the front of some vast

-incongruous temple, here a groined roof of some

-huge cathedral, and there a pointed window or a

-Norman doorway deeply moulded; while on all sides

-were pillars round and fluted and pendants dripping

-crystal drops of the purest water, and all bathed in a

-soft blue atmosphere. Above these wondrous archways

-and galleries there was still preserved the same Gothic

-character; tall spires and pinnacles rose along the

-entire front and multiplied behind them, and new forms

-met the eye continually. Strange, there was nothing

-cold or forbidding anywhere. The ice seemed to take

-the warmth which suffused the air, and I longed to pull

-my boat far within the opening and paddle beneath the

-Gothic archways."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Charles Francis Hall, of Cincinnati, was a man of a

-very different stamp. He was a genius and a genuine

-worker, an accurate observer and painstaking explorer

-who believed above all things in thoroughness.

-Realising that the best way to study the Polar regions

-was to understand the Eskimos, who know most about

-them, and utilise their local knowledge, he settled

-amongst them, lived with them, adopted their customs,

-and became as one of them in their huts and tents,

-taking part in their sports and hardships. Two friends

-he made amongst them, Ebierbing and his wife Tookoolito,

-better known as Joe and Hannah, who accompanied

-him till he died.</p>

-

-<div id='pg244'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_375.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>TYNDALL GLACIER</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>After clearing up the Frobisher problem and throwing

-some light on the Franklin mystery, he started in 1871

-to go as far north as he could across the reported Polar

-Sea. To him Henry Grinnell, who did so much for

-northern discovery, entrusted the American flag which

-had been to the Antarctic with Wilkes in 1838, to the

-Arctic with De Haven, with Kane and with Hayes,

-and was a sort of oriflamme of Polar discovery. His

-ship was the <em>Polaris</em>, of 387 tons, once the <em>Periwinkle</em>,

-a name which seemed to be a little too unassuming.

-Buddington, his sailing-master, was an experienced

-whaling captain; his assistant, Tyson, destined for the

-independent command of an ice-floe, was another

-whale-fisher. The naturalist was Emil Bessels. On

-board were also Joe and Hannah—of course—and

-William Morton, to show where the sea was, and,

-picked up at Upernivik, the indispensable Hans

-Hendrik with his wife and three children.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The voyage was fortunate so long as Hall lived.

-The <em>Polaris</em> found the Polar gates open before her.

-She steamed right up Smith Sound, through Kane Sea,

-up Kennedy Channel, into Robeson Channel—named

-after the Secretary to the American Navy—until she

-reached the ice, in 82° 16´, on the 30th of August, 1871,

-the highest latitude then attained by a ship. Hall

-would have pressed on into the ice, but Buddington

-wisely refused, and hardly had the <em>Polaris</em> been headed

-round when she was beset and carried southwards, to

-escape in a few days and take refuge for the winter in

-a harbour on the east of what is now known as Hall

-Basin, protected at its entrance by a grounded floeberg.

-The latitude is 81° 38´, the harbour Hall called Thank

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>God Bay. There in November he died; and close by

-is Hall's Rest, where he is buried.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>His death was the end of the enterprise. Buddington

-wished to return as soon as the ship was released,

-and eventually had his way, after a journey or two of

-little importance. But he stayed too long. The ship

-was clear in June, and he did not start until the 1st of

-August, and he started by driving her into the pack,

-anchored her to a floe, and drifted helplessly into

-Baffin Bay, as De Haven had done through Lancaster

-Sound in 1850. For eleven weeks the drift continued

-until she was off Northumberland Island on the 15th

-of October. Here in the middle of the night a violent

-gale arose, and the crippled ship, nipped between two

-masses of ice, was lifted bodily and thrown on her side,

-her timbers cracking loudly and her sides apparently

-breaking in. Two boats, all she had, were hurriedly

-got on to the ice, and provisions, stores, and clothing

-were being passed out, when with a roar the floe

-broke asunder, and the <em>Polaris</em> disappeared like a

-phantom in the gale. As the ice cracked and the

-sides lurched apart, a bundle of fur lay across the

-fissure. A grab was made at it, and the bundle was

-saved. It contained the baby of Joe the Eskimo,

-whose wife had been confined the year before in latitude

-82°, perhaps the most northerly birthplace of any

-of this world's inhabitants.</p>

-

-<div id='pg246'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_379.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>A SEAL IN DANGER</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>On the ice were Tyson, with Sergeant Meyer, the

-steward, the cook, six sailors, and nine Eskimos, men,

-women, and children, including Hans and Joe. They

-built a house, from the materials thrown out from the

-ship, as a shelter; and they built snow houses as the time

-went on and the floe diminished. Provisions they had

-but few, but Hans and Joe were indefatigable. They

-speared seals, caught fish, trapped birds, and, sometimes,

-a bear would scramble up on to the ice for them

-to shoot—and they never missed. In short, without

-them the party would have starved to death.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The floe on which the castaways passed the winter

-was about a hundred yards long and seventy-five broad.

-On this they voyaged down the whole length of Baffin

-Bay and through Davis Strait, the ice melting away

-and getting smaller and smaller as they drifted south,

-until on the 1st of April, when it was only twenty

-yards round, they had to take to the remaining boat,

-the other having been used for fuel. Once they nearly

-touched the shore, but the wind rose and off they were

-driven in the snow. When they were picked up by the

-sealer <em>Tigress</em> in 53° 35´, near the coast of Labrador, on

-the 30th of April, they had drifted fifteen hundred miles

-in the hundred and ninety-six days that had elapsed

-since they left the ship.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The <em>Polaris</em>, blown to the northward, reached land

-at Lifeboat Cove in the entrance to Smith Sound, a

-little north of Foulke Harbour, and here with the aid

-of the Etah Eskimos the crew passed the winter; and,

-in the spring, some of them went on an expedition in

-the Hayes country and lost the famous flag. As the

-ship could not be made seaworthy, two flat-bottomed

-boats were built of her materials, and on the 21st of

-June these were found hauled up on a floe in Melville

-Bay, and their people rescued by the whaler <em>Ravenscraig</em>,

-which shifted them into the <em>Arctic</em>, another Dundee

-whaler, on board of which was Commander Markham,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>who, with Hans Hendrik, four years afterwards, was to

-follow up Hall's track to the north.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The results of this expedition were of considerable

-importance. In five days Captain Hall had run five

-hundred miles through what on most occasions has been

-found to be an ice-choked sea. He completed the

-exploration of Kennedy Channel, discovered Hall

-Basin and Robeson Channel, and was the first to reach

-the Polar ocean by this route. Greenland and Grinnell

-Land he extended northward for nearly a hundred and

-forty miles; and, north of Petermann Fiord, where he

-showed that the inland ice terminated, he had found a

-large area free from ice, with its wild flowers and

-herbage and musk oxen.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Hall's remarkable success in taking a ship to so high

-a latitude led to the Government expedition of 1875,

-the first British attempt to reach the Pole since Parry's

-failure in 1827. Three ships were employed: the <em>Alert</em>,

-a seventeen-gun sloop; the <em>Discovery</em>, once the <em>Bloodhound</em>,

-a Dundee whaler; and the <em>Valorous</em>. The

-<em>Alert</em> and <em>Discovery</em> were specially prepared for the

-voyage at Portsmouth by Sir Leopold M'Clintock who

-was then Admiral Superintendent of the dockyard;

-the <em>Valorous</em>, an old paddle sloop, required little alteration,

-as her duty was merely to carry the stores that

-could not safely be taken by the exploring vessels in

-crossing the Atlantic and hand them over at Disco.</p>

-

-<div id='pg248'  class='figcenter id029'>

-<img src='images/i_383.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>SIR GEORGE NARES</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>The leader, Captain George Strong Nares, when one

-of the Franklin search officers under Kellett at Melville

-Island, had distinguished himself by a sledge journey

-in which he had travelled nine hundred and eighty

-miles in sixty-nine days and reached 119½° west

-longitude. He was known as one of the best navigators

-in the Navy, and when called upon to go to the north

-was in command of H.M.S. <em>Challenger</em>, then on her

-famous voyage of scientific exploration in very different

-seas. With him in the <em>Alert</em> was Commander Albert

-Hastings Markham, whose experience, varied and considerable,

-gained by his spending much of his spare

-time within the Arctic Circle, rendered him especially

-well fitted for the position. In command of the <em>Discovery</em>

-was Captain Henry Frederick Stephenson; and

-the officers of both ships were, like the crews, all

-specially selected. There was no difficulty in the

-manning. One commanding officer called at the office

-at Portsmouth where the men were being entered and

-asked for advice. "An order," he said, "has come on

-board my ship, directing me to send volunteers for

-Arctic service to this office. What am I to do? The

-whole ship's company, nearly eight hundred men, have

-given in their names."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The three ships left Spithead on the 29th of May,

-1875, and were all at Godhavn on the 6th of July.

-Nine days afterwards they left for Ritenbenk of the

-curious name, which is an anagram of that of Berkentin

-who was in charge of the Greenland department when

-it was founded. Here the <em>Valorous</em> parted company to

-return home after filling up with fuel at the coal

-quarries on the north side of Disco Island, while the

-two ships went to Proven to pick up Hans Hendrik,

-who this time left his wife and children behind him.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Through Smith Sound, almost choked with ice,

-progress was slow and difficult; but the passage was

-safely accomplished, and so across Kane Sea and up

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>Kennedy Channel. On Washington Irving Island an

-ancient cairn was found, evidently the work of white

-men's hands and of great age, as shown by the state of

-the lichens on it—yet another of the many indications

-in the Polar regions that there was always a somebody

-before the first on record. Crossing the mouth of

-Archer Fiord, a snug harbour was found in 81° 44´,

-where the <em>Discovery</em> was left to spend the winter, the

-<em>Alert</em> going on, hampered much by the floes, though

-helped at last by a south-westerly wind, until she had

-to stop in 82° 27´ on the shore of the Polar Ocean, at

-what was named Floeberg Beach, off an open coast

-and with no more protection during the winter than

-was afforded by masses of ice ranging up to sixty feet

-in height aground in from eight to twelve fathoms of

-water.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>"The protected space," says Nares, "available for

-shelter was so contracted and shallow, the entrance to

-it so small, and the united force of the wind and flood-tide

-so powerful, that it was with much labour and no

-trifling expense in broken hawsers that the ship was

-hauled in stem foremost. It was a close race whether

-the ice or the ship would be in first, and my anxiety

-was much relieved when I saw the ship's bow swing

-clear into safety just as the advancing edge of the

-heavy pack closed in against the outside of our friendly

-barrier of ice. From our position of comparative

-security the danger we had so narrowly escaped was

-strikingly apparent as we gazed with wonder and awe

-at the power exerted by the ice driven past us to the

-eastward with irresistible force by the wind and flood-tide

-at the rate of about a mile an hour. The projecting

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>points of each passing floe which grounded near

-the shore in about ten fathoms of water would be at

-once wrenched off from its still moving parent mass;

-the pressure continuing, the several pieces, frequently

-thirty thousand tons in weight, would be forced up the

-inclined shore, rising slowly and majestically ten or

-twelve feet above their old line of flotation. Such

-pieces quickly accumulated until a rampart-like barrier

-of solid ice-blocks, measuring about two hundred yards

-in breadth and rising fifty feet high, lined the shore,

-locking us in, but effectually protecting us from the

-overwhelming power of the pack." The land had

-already assumed a wintry aspect, and the ship soon

-put on a garb of snow and ice, each spar and rope

-being double its ordinary thickness from the accumulation

-of rime. Around her everything was white and

-solemn; no voice of bird or beast was heard; all was

-still and silent save the gathering floes; and in two

-days the men were able to walk on shore over the new

-ice.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>For eleven months she stayed here, secured by cables

-to anchors frozen on to the shore to protect her from

-gales on the landward side. With the ship housed in

-awnings of tilt-cloth, with snow a foot thick laid on

-the upper deck and banked up on each side as high as

-the main-chains, with skylights and hatchways carefully

-covered up, except two hatchways for ingress and

-egress constructed with porches and double doors so as

-to prevent the entrance of the bitter air, the crew here

-passed the long Polar night. On the 11th of October

-the sun disappeared, and then began those entertainments,

-lectures, lessons, games, not forgetting the

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>Royal Arctic Theatre which opened on the 18th of

-November, with which the winter was pleasantly whiled

-away. "Can you sing or dance? or what can you do

-for the amusement of others?" every man had been

-asked before he was chosen, and the result was a

-singularly happy time kept up until sunrise.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The cold was intense and long-continued. Even the

-tobacco pipes froze, the stem becoming solidly clogged

-with ice as the smoking went on unless it was made so

-short as to bring the bowl unpleasantly close to the

-mouth. On the 1st of April the temperature was

-down to minus 64°, and three days afterwards it was

-a hundred and five below freezing, the cold weather

-preventing the departure of the dog-sledge for Discovery

-Bay.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>During the autumn, sledging parties had laid out

-reserves of stores for the spring journeys, and a certain

-amount of practice had been given to the men in what

-was intended to be the chief work of the expedition.

-The field, however, was not promising. On one occasion

-Nares went out to look at it. He obtained a fine

-view of the pack for a distance of six miles from the

-land. The southern side of each purely white snow-covered

-hummock was brilliantly lighted by the orange-tinted

-twilight. The stranded floebergs lining the

-shore extended from half to three-quarters of a mile off

-the land. Outside were old floes with undulating

-upper surfaces separated from each other by Sherard

-Osborn's "hedgerows of Arctic landscape," otherwise

-ridges of pressed-up ice of every size. "It will be as

-difficult," was his verdict, "to drag a sledge over such

-ice as to transport a carriage directly across country in

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>England." He gave a lecture on sledging at one of the

-winter entertainments. It was interesting but not encouraging.

-He told his hearers that if they could

-imagine the hardest work they had ever been called

-upon to perform in their lives intensified to the utmost

-degree, it would only be as child's play in comparison

-with the work they would have to perform whilst

-sledging. "These prophetic words," says Markham,

-"were fully realised, and were often recalled and commented

-on by the men."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>They had four different kinds of sledges. From the

-illustrations it will appear how the eight-feet sledges

-differed from those used by M'Clintock, the Nares

-sledge being higher and more slender in the uprights.

-The eight-men sledge, such as the Marco Polo—which

-was bound for the Pole—had six uprights eighteen

-inches apart. It was eleven feet long, thirty-eight

-inches wide, eleven inches high, and weighed one

-hundred and thirty pounds. The tent, made of light,

-unbleached duck, was nine feet four inches long at the

-bottom, eight feet at the top, seven feet wide and high,

-and weighed forty-four pounds. The tent poles, five

-in number, weighed five pounds apiece. The coverlet

-weighed thirty-one pounds and a half, and the extra

-coverlet twenty pounds. The lower robe weighed

-twenty-three pounds, the waterproof floor-cloth fifteen.

-The eight sleeping-bags weighed eight pounds apiece,

-and the eight knapsacks, when packed, twelve pounds

-apiece. The shovel and two pickaxes accounted for

-twenty-one pounds, the store-bag for twenty-five, the

-cooking gear for twenty-nine, the gun and ammunition

-for twenty-five, the medical stores for twelve, the

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>instruments for fifteen, and the tent for nine and a

-quarter. To this must be added a thousand and eighty

-pounds for forty-five days' provisions for the eight men,

-and we have the total of sixteen hundred and sixty-four

-pounds odd, which with seven men at the ropes

-gives each man a drag of about two hundred and

-thirty-eight pounds. In the spring the weight decreases

-as the provisions are consumed, but the rate of

-decrease is not the same in the autumn, for then the

-steadily falling temperature increases the weight of the

-outfit by the moisture it adds to the tent and clothing.

-In Markham's autumn journey the tent of thirty-two

-pounds came back as fifty-five, the coverlet as forty-eight,

-the lower robe as forty, the floor-cloth as forty,

-and everything else was heavier than at the start.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The sledges mustered for their journeys on the 3rd of

-April. Seven in number, they were drawn up in single

-line according to the seniority of the leaders, all fully

-equipped and provisioned, and manned by fifty-three

-officers and men. On each was its commander's banner—a

-swallow-tailed flag charged with a St. George's

-cross and displaying the armorial bearings. As a precaution

-against snow-blindness, the men had been

-ordered to decorate the backs of their snow-jumpers

-with any device they thought fit, the result being a display

-of comic blazonry that often formed a topic of

-conversation when others failed. For the same reason

-the two boats carried on the north-going sledges were

-gaily decorated with the royal arms, and the rose,

-shamrock, and thistle; the artist, as on other occasions,

-being Doctor Moss, whose great difficulty in the matter

-was that in spite of the quantity of turpentine used in

-mixing the paint it would persist in freezing so that the

-brush became as stiff as a stick every few seconds.</p>

-

-<div>

-

-<div id='pg254'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_391.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-</div>

-<table class='table1' summary=''>

-<colgroup>

-<col width='14%' />

-<col width='71%' />

-<col width='14%' />

-</colgroup>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c018'><span class='sc'>Section M'Clintock</span></td>

-    <td class='c018'>SLEDGES USED BY (1) SIR LEOPOLD M'CLINTOCK AND (2) SIR GEORGE NARES</td>

-    <td class='c019'><span class='sc'>Section Nares</span></td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td class='c018'>&nbsp;</td>

-    <td class='c018'>(In the collection of Ed. Whymper)</td>

-    <td class='c019'>&nbsp;</td>

-  </tr>

-</table>

-

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>Lieutenant Aldrich, supported for three weeks by

-Lieutenant Giffard, was to explore the shores of Grant

-Land, towards the north and west, along the coast-line

-he had discovered in the previous autumn. Commander

-Markham, seconded by Lieutenant Parr, was to accompany

-Aldrich to Cape Joseph Henry and then strike off

-to the northward over the ice. The other three sledges

-were to accompany these as far as their own provisions

-would allow, after completing the four's deficiencies and

-giving them a fresh start from an advance post.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>When Markham was only eleven days out, one of his

-crew complained of pain in his ankles and knees, and

-was of no help for the rest of the journey. This was

-the first appearance of the scurvy which was to ruin so

-many hopes, for man after man was taken ill and

-became a passenger. To make matters worse no

-rougher road was ever traversed by sledge. Over a

-labyrinth of piled-up blocks of ice ranging to forty feet

-and more in height, through which the road had to be

-cut with pickaxe and shovel, and amid gale and fog and

-falling snow, the painful progress went on. With many

-a "One; two; three; haul!" the heavy mass would be

-dragged where the men could hardly drag themselves;

-one of the sledges taken a few yards by the combined

-crews, who would then return for the other. On the

-19th of April one of the boats was abandoned and this

-made matters easier, but only for a time, as the disease

-spread. At last it was decided to stop; and on the

-12th of May a party of ten went ahead to reach the

-farthest north.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>"The walking," says Markham, "was undoubtedly

-severe, at one moment struggling through deep snowdrifts,

-in which we floundered up to our waists, and at

-another tumbling about amongst the hummocks.

-Some idea may be formed of the difficulties of the

-road, when, after more than two hours' hard walking,

-with little or nothing to carry, we had barely accomplished

-one mile. Shortly before noon a halt was

-called, the artificial horizon set up, and the flags and

-sledge standards displayed. Fortunately the sun was

-favourable to us, and we were able to obtain a good

-altitude as it passed the meridian, although almost

-immediately afterwards dark clouds rolled up, snow

-began to fall, and the sun was lost in obscurity. We

-found the latitude to be 83° 20´ 26˝ N., or three

-hundred and ninety-nine miles and a half from the

-North Pole."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On the 8th of June Lieutenant Parr appeared on

-the quarter-deck of the <em>Alert</em> greeting in silence the

-one or two who chanced to meet him. That some

-calamity had happened was evident from his looks.

-He had walked on alone for forty miles to bring the

-news that Markham's party were in sore distress.

-Measures of rescue were instantly taken; Lieutenant

-May and Doctor Moss, on snow-shoes, pushing ahead

-with the dog-sledge laden with medical stores, while

-Nares with a strong party followed. On their arrival

-one man had died, and of the others no less than

-eleven were brought back to the ship on the relief

-sledges.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Ten days afterwards, fearing a similar fate had overtaken

-Aldrich's party, Lieutenant May was despatched

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>to find him. As with Markham, scurvy had begun on

-the outward journey, and it had become so bad on the

-return that one of the men was being sent off to the

-ship when May arrived with help. It had nevertheless

-been a successful journey, the road being easier than that

-by the northern route. Aldrich had traced the continuous

-border of the heavy pack for two hundred miles from

-Floeberg Beach, rounded Cape Columbia, in 83° 7´ N.,

-the northernmost point of Grant Land, and, along the

-coast trending steadily south-west, had reached longitude

-85° 33´ and sighted Cape Alfred Ernest in

-longitude 86½°.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>With his arrival there were over forty scurvy patients

-on board the <em>Alert</em>; and Nares was to learn that the

-sledge parties from the <em>Discovery</em> had been similarly

-affected. Lieutenant Beaumont had gone along the

-North Greenland coast, reaching, on the 21st of May,

-51° W., in 82° 20´ N., and sighting Cape May, Mount

-Hooker, and Cape Britannia. On the 10th of May,

-while on his outward journey, he had sent back Lieutenant

-Rawson to bring a relief party to meet him, and

-Rawson with Hans and eight dogs, accompanied by

-Doctor Coppinger, reached him on the 25th of June

-when he was on his last possible day's journey, he and

-two of his men dragging the sledge with four helpless

-comrades lashed on the top of it.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The <em>Discovery</em> had also sent out Lieutenant Archer

-to survey the fiord named after him, which opens out

-into Lady Franklin Bay; and Lieutenant Fulford had

-crossed the channel and explored Petermann Fiord.

-In fact, the expedition's geographical work was of great

-extent, as was the other scientific work, the most important,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>as usual, being that done from the ships.

-Among the odds and ends easily rememberable was the

-haul of the seine in Sheridan Lake, near the wintering

-station of the <em>Alert</em>, which yielded forty-three char

-(<em>Salmo arcturus</em>), the most northerly freshwater fish;

-the finding of the nest of the sanderling (<em>Calidris

-arenarius</em>), now in the Natural History Museum, in

-82° 33´, and the discovery of the nesting of the grey

-phalarope and the knot in the same neighbourhood;

-the thirty-feet seam of Miocene coal worked in Discovery

-Harbour; and the Eskimo relics at Cape

-Beechey, near the eighty-second parallel, which, in

-connection with the encampments on the opposite

-coast, suggested that there, at the narrowest part of

-Robeson Channel, had been a crossing place from shore

-to shore.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On the 31st of July, 1876, the <em>Alert</em> was again under

-steam after her long rest, and one of the most dangerous

-voyages on record began. The ships, of from five

-hundred to six hundred tons, were handled as if they

-were small tugs; blocked, beset, pressed on shore,

-Nares with consummate skill, constant watchfulness,

-and never-failing patience, brought them through. But

-they did not get out of Smith Sound until the 9th of

-September, and then it was against head winds in

-stormy weather amid icebergs innumerable that they

-were slowly worked southwards and homewards.</p>

-

-<div id='pg258'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_397.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>BISHOP PAUL EGEDE</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>

-  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XIII<br /> GREENLAND</h2>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c013'>Hans Egede—The house of Eric the Red—Nansen's crossing of Greenland—Nansen

-and Sverdrup row to Ny Herrnhut—Nordenskiöld's journeys—Berggren's

-discovery—Nordenskiöld on the inland ice—Glaciers and icebergs—Diatoms

-and whales—Edward Whymper's expedition—Greenland

-in Miocene times—Graah—Scoresby—Ryder—The <em>Germania</em> and <em>Hansa</em>—The

-Duke of Orleans—The Eskimos of Clavering Island—Franz Josef

-Fiord—The drift of the <em>Hansa</em>—The Greely expedition—The International

-Polar stations—Voyage of the <em>Proteus</em>—Lockwood reaches 83° 24´—Greely's

-wagon—The Eskimo house at Lake Hazen—Greely Relief expeditions—The

-rescue of Greely—Peary—His journey to Independence Bay—His

-four years' expedition—Reaches 84° 17´—His Polar expedition of 1905—The

-<em>Roosevelt</em>—The voyage to Cape Sheridan—Plan of the northern advance—Peary

-reaches 87° 6´—Moxon's mariner.</p>

-

-<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>Hans Egede, aged twenty-two, priest of the

-parish of Vaagen, in the north of Norway,

-reading, in 1710, about the Norse colonists of the west—and

-apparently knowing nothing of Thiodhilda—was

-led to think that some of their descendants might

-still be living in heathenism. Writing to the Bishop

-of Trondhjem, he proposed to go out to these as a

-missionary. The good father rather astonished him by

-the reply that "Greenland was undoubtedly part of

-America, and could not be very far from Cuba and

-Hispaniola, where there was found such abundance of

-gold," and, as those who went to Greenland might

-bring home "incredible riches," he approved of the

-suggestion.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>Unfortunately, however, Egede had written his letter

-without the knowledge of his wife, who by no means

-thought with the Bishop until seven years afterwards,

-when she changed her mind. Trying in vain locally,

-Egede applied for support to Frederick IV of Denmark,

-who finding him an earnest, honest, interesting man,

-gave him his patronage, the result being that a company

-was formed at Bergen for the development of

-trade and the propagation of the gospel; and, on the

-3rd of May, 1721, the <em>Hope</em> set sail from there for

-Greenland with forty-six intending colonists, including

-the missionary and his wife and family.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>His landing-place was on an island at the mouth

-of Godthaab Fiord, or Baal's River. He found the

-Greenlanders very different from what he had supposed;

-and also that the Dutch were carrying on a

-profitable trade with them and keeping it quiet. To

-begin with they were nothing like Vikings in appearance;

-and their language, instead of being a Scandinavian

-dialect, was of the same character as that of

-the Eskimos of Labrador—and not at all easy to learn.

-Learn it, however, he and his family did; and among

-the Greenlanders they remained and laboured with

-truly admirable energy and devotion, battling hard for

-life amid much disaster until, with the help of his

-son Paul, who succeeded him as superintendent of the

-mission with the title of bishop, the settlement became

-permanent, and other settlements arose from it up the

-western coast as they are found to-day.</p>

-

-<div id='pg260'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_401.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>GREENLANDERS</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-<div class='lg-container-l'>

-  <div class='linegroup'>

-    <div class='group'>

-      <div class='line'><em>From a photo by Dr. H. Rink</em></div>

-    </div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>Though there were no Norsemen, there were many

-traces of them, the most interesting being the house of

-Eric the Red, near Igaliko. Here, close to Erik's

-Fiord and overlooking Einar's Fiord, on one of the

-prettiest sites in Greenland, was Brattelid—"the steep

-side of a rock"—one side of it a natural cliff, the walls

-of the other sides, more than four feet thick, built of

-blocks of red sandstone from four to six feet in length

-as well as in breadth and thickness, reminding the

-visitor of those of Stonehenge, and evoking similar

-wonderment as to how they were got into place. And

-in his first colony, now called Igdluernerit, Egede

-seems to have followed the Norsemen—at an interval—in

-their architecture, to judge by the large stones in

-the walls of his house, which, like Eric's, is now in

-ruins.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Twelve years after Egede, came the Moravians to

-take up their quarters at Ny Herrnhut, also at the

-mouth of Godthaab (that is, Good Hope) Fiord. It

-was here that Nansen and Sverdrup landed in October,

-1888, having rowed up from Ameralik Fiord in their

-"half a boat," as the Eskimos called it.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>"Are you Englishmen?" they were asked.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>"No," said Nansen, in good Norse, "we are Norwegians."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>"May I ask your name?"</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>"My name is Nansen and we have just come from

-the interior."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>"Oh, allow me to congratulate you on taking your

-doctor's degree!"</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>From which it is clear that Godthaab is not so much

-out of the world as one would suppose.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Nansen with his three Norsemen and two Lapps had

-reached the east coast in the <em>Jason</em>, and on the 17th of

-July had left the ship in their boats to make their way

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>to the shore; but they had been caught in the floes,

-and on them and among them they had drifted for

-twelve days—an experience they had not bargained for.

-Getting ashore at last near Cape Tordenskiold, they

-worked their way back northwards along the coast,

-spending a short time at an Eskimo encampment at

-Cape Bille, until on the 15th of August they hauled

-their two boats up near Umivik and started to cross

-Greenland over the inland ice.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The country is now in its glacial period, and for days

-they toiled across its glacial desert; each day alike in its

-wearisome monotony. "Flatness and whiteness were

-the two features of this ocean of snow," says Nansen;

-"in the day we could see three things only, the sun,

-the snowfield and ourselves. We looked like a diminutive

-black line feebly traced upon an infinite expanse of

-white. There was no break or change in our horizon,

-no object to rest the eye upon, and no point by which to

-direct the course. We had to steer by a diligent use of

-the compass, and keep our line as well as possible by

-careful watching of the sun and repeated glances back

-at the four men following and the long track which the

-caravan left in the snow. We passed from one horizon

-to another, but our advance brought us no change."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>By the 2nd of September they had all taken to their

-skis on which they made great progress alone, but when

-it came to hauling the sledges there was a difference.

-Sometimes the snow proved to be very heavy going,

-particularly when it was wind-packed, and then it was

-no better than sand. One entry in Nansen's journal

-will suffice: "It began to snow in the middle of the

-day, and our work was heavier than ever. It was worse

-even than yesterday, and to say it was like hauling in

-blue clay will scarcely give an idea of it. At every

-step we had to use all our force to get the heavy

-sledges along, and in the evening Sverdrup and I, who

-had to go first and plough a way for ourselves, were

-pretty well done up."</p>

-

-<div id='pg262'  class='figcenter id030'>

-<img src='images/i_405.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>ON LEVEL GROUND</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>When at last the wind became favourable they

-hoisted sail, and off they went over the waves and drifts

-of snow at a speed that almost took their breath away;

-and when they reached the western slopes they slid

-down them using the sledges as toboggans. At first

-they had intended making for Christianshaab, but the

-route had to be changed for that to Godthaab, and

-the sea was reached some distance to the south. Here

-they stitched the floor-sheet of their tent over a framework

-of withies, and with oars made of canvas stretched

-across forked willows and tied to bamboo shafts,

-Nansen and Sverdrup boldly trusted themselves to the

-waves and with much hard labour pulled into Ny

-Herrnhut on the 3rd of October. Such was the first

-crossing of Greenland, a really remarkable instance of

-daring endeavour.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Further north, Nordenskiöld, in 1883, had attempted

-to cross over the ice-cap from near Disco on the west

-coast, but, hindered and finally stopped by crevasses

-and other obstacles, could do no more than send

-his Lapps to try their best on their skis, and

-they returned after their journey eastwards of a

-hundred and forty miles reporting similar monotonous

-conditions all along their track. Thirteen years

-before, he had, also from Auleitsivik Fiord, started out

-with Berggren; and deserted by their followers, they

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>had gone on by themselves for some thirty miles east

-of the northern arm of the fiord. It was on this occasion

-that Berggren discovered <em>Ancylonema</em>, that small

-poly-cellular alga forming the dark masses that absorb a

-far greater amount of heat than the white ice and thus

-cause the deep holes that aid in the process of melting.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>"The same plant," says Nordenskiöld, "has no doubt

-played the same part in our country; and we have to

-thank it, perhaps, that the deserts of ice which

-formerly covered the whole of Northern Europe and

-America have now given place to shady woods and

-undulating cornfields."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Nordenskiöld looked upon Greenland and its icefield

-as a broad-lipped, shallow vessel with chinks in the lip,

-the glacier being viscous matter within it. As more is

-poured in, the matter runs over the edges, taking the

-lines of the chinks, that is, of the fiords and valleys, as

-that of its outflow. In other words, the ice floats out

-by force of the superincumbent weight of snow just as

-does the grain on the floor of a barn when another

-sackful is shot on to the top of the heap already there.

-When the glacier reaches the sea it makes its way along

-the bottom under water for a considerable distance, in

-some cases, as near Avigait, for more than a mile. This

-is where the water is too shallow for it to affect the

-mass, which forms a breakwater; though as a rule the

-shore deepens more suddenly and the projection is less.

-It was long supposed that the berg broke from the

-glacier by force of gravity, but this is not generally so.

-The berg is forced off from the parent glacier by the

-buoyant action of the sea from beneath; the ice groans

-and creaks; then there is a crashing, then a roar like

-the discharge of artillery; and with a great regurgitation

-of the waves the iceberg is launched into life. These

-huge floating islands of ice are the most conspicuous

-exports of Greenland; and their true magnitude is not

-realised until it is remembered that only about an

-eighth of their bulk appears above the water. Bergs as

-large as liners we frequently hear of—one such is shown

-in our illustration—but sometimes they are of much

-greater freeboard, though the very large ones reported

-as extending along the horizon are invariably groups of

-several crowded together.</p>

-

-<div id='pg264'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_409.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>THE ALLAN LINER "SARDINIAN" AMONG ICEBERGS</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span><em>Ancylonema</em> has evidently plenty to do. Another

-instance of the important part played by the insignificant

-in these regions is suggested by the colour of the sea.

-This varies from ultramarine blue to olive-green, from

-the purest transparency to striking opacity; and the

-changes are not transitory but permanent. These

-patches of dark water abound with diatoms, while the

-bluer the water the fewer are the diatoms; and where

-they are most numerous, there the animals that feed on

-them assemble in their greatest numbers. And these

-animals are jellyfish, entomostracans, and, to a greater

-extent, pteropods, their chief representative being <em>Clio

-borealis</em>. In short, the animals that feed on the diatoms

-are food of the Greenland whale, and where the waters

-are dark the whale-fishers thrive. "I know nothing

-stranger than the curious tale I have unfolded," says

-Dr. Robert Brown, who worked out this remarkable

-chain, "the diatom staining the broad frozen sea, again

-supporting myriads of living beings which crowd there

-to feed on it, and these again supporting the huge

-whale. Thus it is no stretch of the imagination to say

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>that the greatest animal depends for its existence on a

-being so minute that it takes thousands to be massed

-together before they are visible to the naked eye."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Cold as Greenland is, there was a time when matters

-were different. In token of this we have the Miocene

-fossils collected by Edward Whymper during his

-expedition from near Jakobshavn in 1867, which were

-described and illustrated by Oswald Heer in the <em>Philosophical

-Transactions</em> for 1869. A look at these is a

-welcome relief after such a surfeit of ice. Here, as

-well preserved as in the leaf beds of Alum Bay, are

-the leaves and fruits of an unmistakable temperate flora.

-Magnolias, maples, poplars, limes, walnuts, water-lilies;

-myrica, smilax, aralia; sedges and grasses, conifers and

-ferns: these at the least were all growing in Greenland

-in its Miocene age. And even a thousand years ago

-the climate must have been milder than now, to judge

-by the farming reports of the colonists who seem to

-have been quite at home along the coast, which, with

-its innumerable islands and fiords, is as intricate as that

-of Norway.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Searching for the ancient eastern settlement of the

-Norsemen, W. A. Graah, in 1829, wintered at

-Julianehaab, which in all likelihood is the site, although

-he knew it not. Possessed with the idea that it must

-be on the south-eastern coast, he devoted his attention

-to that region only, finding Eskimos who had never

-seen a white man and starting a trading intercourse

-which led to most of them migrating to the less inclement

-west. His work linked up with that of Scoresby,

-who in 1822 charted the main features of the sea-front

-from 69° to 75°. Ryder, seventy years afterwards, filled

-in the details of much of Scoresby's work, and found

-Eskimos further north, as Clavering had done in 1823,

-when in the <em>Griper</em> during Sabine's observations at

-Pendulum Island.</p>

-

-<div id='pg266'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_413.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>THE "GERMANIA" IN THE ICE</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>It was to Pendulum Island, in 74° 32´, that Karl

-Koldewey, after his preliminary run to 81° 5´ in 1868,

-took the <em>Germania</em> to winter during the German expedition

-of 1869. The two vessels, the <em>Germania</em>, a

-small two-masted screw steamer of one hundred and

-forty-three tons, built specially for Arctic service,

-and the <em>Hansa</em>, only half her size, which had been

-strengthened for the voyage, reached Jan Mayen on

-the 9th of July, and, hidden from each other by fog,

-sailed northwards for five days. On the fifth evening

-the wind rose, the fog cleared, and a hundred yards in

-front of them lay the ice like a rugged line of cliffs.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>For a few days they sailed along it endeavouring to

-find an opening to the north. Then, on the 20th, the

-<em>Germania</em> ran up a signal to approach and communicate,

-which was misunderstood, and, instead of repeating

-it and making sure, the <em>Hansa</em> put up her helm,

-fell off, crowded on all sail, and disappeared in the fog.

-Koldewey, persisting in his efforts to get through the

-pack, found an opening on the 1st of August. Nine

-days afterwards he was again blocked, and finally, on

-the 27th, he reached Pendulum Island, where he made

-the <em>Germania</em> snug for the winter, which proved to be

-remarkably mild.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The first sledge party travelling up one of the fiords

-met with abundant vegetation and herds of reindeer

-and musk oxen, and were visited by bears who had not

-learnt to be wary of man; and when the bears came

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>back with the sun in February they were as troublesome

-as those of Ice Haven to the Dutchmen. Several

-sledge parties went out in the spring, and, notwithstanding

-inadequate equipment, did excellent work.

-In April, 1870, Koldewey reached 77° 1´, almost up to

-Lambert Land, otherwise the Land of Edam. Here,

-looking out over the ice-belt, they agreed that it was

-"a bulwark built for eternity," and hoisting sails on

-their sledges they ran back to the ship. But in 1905

-the Duke of Orleans arrived on the coast to reach

-78° 16´ and discover that their Cape Bismarck was on

-an island and their Dove Bay a strait.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In the neighbourhood of their winter quarters the

-glaciers and mountains were well explored, and an

-attempt was made to measure an arc of the meridian,

-which proved to be rather rough work among such

-surroundings. The snowstorms were particularly pitiless

-and heavy, and the travelling decidedly bad. The

-thaw began about the middle of May, and there was

-more sledging through pools than usual, so that they

-did not want variety in their occupations. On the

-14th of July boating became practicable, and a voyage

-was made to the Eskimo village found by Clavering

-in 1823, on the island named after him, but the village

-proved to be deserted and the huts in ruins—an unwelcome

-discovery, for, as M'Clintock says in reference

-to it: "It is not less strange than sad to find that a

-peaceable and once numerous tribe, inhabiting a coast-line

-of at least seven degrees of latitude, 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."</p>

-

-<div id='pg268'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_417.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>THE REGION ROUND MOUNT PETERMANN</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>A little north of the seventy-third parallel Koldewey

-discovered on his way home the magnificent Franz Josef

-Fiord. Here the grandest scenery in Greenland is to

-be found along its deep branches winding among the

-mountains, one of which, Mount Petermann, is over

-eleven thousand feet high. As the <em>Germania</em> entered

-this remarkable inlet, which extends inland for some five

-degrees of longitude, a fleet of icebergs were sailing out

-of it with the current; the farther she advanced the

-warmer seemed the temperature of the air and surface

-water, and the wilder and more impressive became the

-grouping of the mighty cliffs and peaks with their lofty

-waterfalls and raging torrents and deep glacier-filled

-ravines. It was the great geographical discovery of the

-expedition.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Meanwhile Hegemann, trying to pass to the north

-more to the westward, got the <em>Hansa</em> beset on the 9th

-of September some twenty-four miles from Foster Bay.

-As the ice-pressure threatened to become too great for

-the vessel to resist, an elaborate house was planned and

-built on the floe. Briquettes were used for the walls,

-the joints were filled up with dry snow on which water

-was poured, and in ten minutes it hardened into a compact

-mass. The house was twenty feet long, fourteen

-feet wide, and four feet eight inches high at the sides,

-with a rising roof consisting of sails and mats covered

-with deep snow. Into this house, which took a week

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>to build, provisions for two months were carried,

-besides wood and fuel. The boats were put out, a

-flagstaff was set up, and quite a little settlement was

-started on the ice; and no sooner was it completed than

-a violent snowstorm, lasting for five days, buried both

-the ship and the house. The ice increased around, and,

-the pressure of the accumulation lifting the <em>Hansa</em>

-seventeen feet above her original level, everything of

-value was removed from her on to the ice and into the

-house. On the 22nd of October she sank, having

-drifted below the seventy-first parallel; and all through

-the winter the floe, which was about two miles across,

-leisurely made its way to the south.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Off Knighton Bay Christmas was kept with all

-possible honour. The briquette house was decorated

-with coloured-paper festoons, and, by the light of the

-sole remaining wax candle, the genial Germans made

-themselves merry around a stubby Christmas tree

-devised out of an old birch broom. Three weeks afterwards

-the floe cracked beneath the dwelling. There

-was barely time to take refuge, but all hands were

-saved in the boats. For two days they remained in them,

-poorly sheltered from the storm and unable to clear out

-the snow. Then a smaller house was built of the ruins

-of the old one, but it was only large enough for half

-the party; and as the spring advanced the floe decreased,

-breaking away at the edges as did that on

-which the <em>Polaris</em> people drifted to Labrador.</p>

-

-<div id='pg270'  class='figcenter id002'>

-<img src='images/i_421.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>THE LAST DAYS OF THE "HANSA"</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>At the end of March it entered Nukarbik Bay and

-there it stayed four weeks, caught in an eddy, slowly

-moving round and round just far enough from the

-shore to render an attempt at escape impossible; twice

-a day they went in with the tide and out with the tide, the

-ice too bad for the boats and never promising enough

-for a dash to the land. Having become thoroughly

-acquainted with this portion of the coast with its bold

-range of hills, its deep bays, its inlets, headlands, and

-islands, a storm came on which cleared them out of the

-eddy and drove them further south. Three weeks after

-that the floe had become so diminished by the lashing

-of the surge that it was hardly a hundred yards across,

-and large fragments were slipping off every hour.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>They had been on it for two hundred days and

-drifted eleven hundred miles when, on the 7th of May,

-water-lanes opening shorewards, they took to the boats

-and ventured among the masses of ice, making for the

-south. At first they had their difficulties in being

-compelled to haul up on the floes to pass the night or

-wait for a favourable wind, which meant severe work in

-unloading and reloading. Once during their painful

-progress of more than a month they were kept on a

-floe for six days by gales and snow-showers. Finally,

-after a long desperate effort, they reached Illuilek

-Island, and thence proceeded close inshore among rocks

-and ice to Frederiksdal, a couple of hours' walk from

-the southernmost point of the Greenland mainland,

-Cape Farewell being part of an island twenty-eight

-miles further to the south-east. On the 21st of June,

-eight days afterwards, they were at Julianehaab, whence

-they sailed to be landed at Copenhagen on the 1st of

-September, just ten days before the <em>Germania</em> steamed

-into Bremen. Thus the expedition, by its two divisions,

-ice-borne and ship-borne, had skirted nearly all that

-was then known of the east coast from end to end.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>On the north coast, Beaumont's discoveries were

-extended by Lieutenant James B. Lockwood for ninety-five

-miles, the trend of the shore taking him up to

-83° 24´, three minutes and thirty-four seconds nearer

-the North Pole than Markham reached out on the sea.

-This was on the 13th of May, 1882, during the ill-fated

-A. W. Greely expedition. Like most American expeditions

-up to then this began well and ended badly,

-worse, in fact, than any; and unlike them, and all others,

-it consisted entirely of soldiers—as if a detachment of

-Royal Engineers had been sent north on ordnance

-survey work. It was, however, more miscellaneous,

-for among its twenty-three members were representatives

-of three cavalry regiments, six infantry regiments,

-and an artilleryman.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>This was to be the garrison of the International

-Circumpolar Station at Lady Franklin Bay. The idea

-of a ring of stations round the Pole for the study of

-the natural phenomena for which the Arctic regions

-afford so wide and important a field was not new, but

-it was first reduced to definiteness and its adoption

-secured by Karl Weyprecht of the Austro-Hungarian

-expedition of 1872. At a meeting of German scientific

-men at Gratz, in September, 1875, he procured assent

-to his general principle that the best results in Arctic

-inquiry were to be obtained by subordinating geographical

-discovery to physical investigation. It had

-long been evident that the most valuable results had

-been obtained by the ships and fixed observatories, and

-that the toilsome work of the sledges in their successive

-approaches by a few more miles towards a mathematical

-point, though most interesting to read about, had really

-been of very little practical use owing to the necessarily

-light equipment. Instead, therefore, of a number of

-isolated attempts at irregular intervals, Weyprecht

-suggested that the better way would be to attack the

-subject systematically by a group of expeditions at

-permanent stations working together long enough at

-the same time for their observations to be dealt with as

-part of a general scheme; and the suggestion was

-approved although he did not live long enough to see

-the stations occupied.</p>

-

-<div id='pg272'  class='figcenter id031'>

-<a href='images/i_425.jpg'><img src='images/i_425_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>

-<div class='ic001'>

-<p>GREENLAND</p>

-</div>

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>Three International Polar Conferences were held, in

-1879 and the two following years, at Hamburg, Berne,

-and St. Petersburg, at the last of which it was arranged

-that the stations should be fourteen in number, two in

-the south and twelve in the north, these twelve being—(1)

-The Austrian at Jan Mayen; (2) the Danish at

-Godthaab; (3) the Finnish at Sodankyla in Uleaborg;

-(4) the German at Kingua in Cumberland Sound;

-(5) the British at Fort Rae on the northern arm of the

-Great Slave Lake; (6) the Dutch at Dickson Harbour

-at the mouth of the Yenesei; (7) the Norwegian at

-Bosekop at the head of Alten Fiord; (8) the Russian at

-Little Karmakul Bay in Novaya Zemlya; (9) the second

-Russian on Sagastyr Island in the Lena Delta; (10) the

-Swedish at Mossel Bay in Spitsbergen; (11) the

-American at Point Barrow under Lieutenant P. H.

-Ray, who met with marked success and brought his

-men all home in safety; and (12) the second American

-at Lady Franklin Bay, the winter quarters of H.M.S.

-<em>Discovery</em>, which Greely renamed Fort Conger.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In direct opposition to the guiding idea of the

-scheme, Greely's work was complicated by having

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>tacked on to it Howgate's proposal of another dash for

-the Pole, his instructions requiring him to send out

-"sledging parties in the interests of exploration and

-discovery." Further, his expedition was fitted out in

-a way that almost invited disaster. Let one instance

-suffice. "In speaking of this instrument," he explains,

-"it is necessary to say that a dip-circle was especially

-made for the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, but it

-was by error shipped to the United States Coast Survey.

-On calling for it, when the duplicate instrument

-ordered could not be had in time, the late Mr. Carlisle

-Patterson, then Superintendent, promptly promised that

-it should be sent on to me at New York. On the day

-of my sailing, a dip-circle, carefully boxed, was received;

-but on opening it at St. John, an old, rusty, unreliable

-instrument was found in the place of the new circle.

-This resulted in unsatisfactory and incomplete observations

-at Conger, for the old circle having upright

-standards instead of transverse ones, as in the new, but

-one end of the needle could be read. It must always

-be a matter of regret that this unwarrantable and unauthorised

-substitution by some person was made, which

-materially impaired, if not effectually destroyed, the

-value of our two-years' dip-observations." This sort of

-thing reduced International Polar Research to a farce,

-and the same spirit appeared in other departments,

-more seriously than all in the relief proceedings, which

-were conducted in a way that could only lead to starvation.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In August, 1881, the <em>Proteus</em>, with the expedition

-on board, made her way up Smith Sound and Kennedy

-Channel without serious hindrance until she entered

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>the south-eastern part of Lady Franklin Bay, where

-the close, heavy pack brought her to a stop within

-eight miles of her destination. She had come seven

-hundred miles from Upernivik in less than a week, and,

-faced by ice twenty to fifty feet thick, she had to wait

-another seven days before she got into Discovery

-Harbour. Here the party landed and a house was

-built, and dissension arose which ended in one of the

-company returning in the ship and another endeavouring

-to do so and being too late, so that he had to remain as

-a sort of tolerated volunteer. Two others were sent

-away as being physically unfit; but, making up for

-these, were two Eskimos engaged at Upernivik.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Preliminary sledging began at once, and in the spring

-the two great efforts were made. The doctor's, towards

-the Pole, left on the 19th of March and got adrift on

-a floe from which the party escaped with the loss of

-their tent, provisions, and some of their instruments.

-According to Greely's report: "The farthest latitude

-attained by this party is given by Dr. Pavy as 82° 56´,

-it being estimated, as no observations for time, magnetic

-declination, or latitude were made at any period during

-his absence."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On the 3rd of April, Lockwood with twelve men

-left for the coast of Greenland. Up to Newman Bay

-four men had been sent back as unfit for field-work.

-On the 16th, when the party started from here for the

-north-east, Lockwood and Christiansen, the Eskimo,

-were in advance hauling about eight hundred pounds

-with a team of eight dogs, a three-men sledge following,

-and then two two-men sledges; at Cape Bryant

-the men-sledges were sent back, and Lockwood,

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>Brainard, and the Eskimo went on with the dog-sledge.

-Cape Britannia was reached on the 5th of May, and

-on the 13th they camped at Lockwood Island, and

-there, for the first time, Americans reached a farthest

-north.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>"I decided to make this cape my farthest," reported

-Lockwood, "and to devote the little time we could

-stay to determining accurately my position, if the

-weather would allow, which seemed doubtful. We

-built a large, conspicuous cairn, about six feet high

-and the same width at the base, on the lower of two

-benches. After repitching the tent Sergeant Brainard

-and I returned to the cairn, and collected in that

-vicinity specimens of the rocks and vegetation of the

-country, the sergeant making almost all the collection.

-We ascended without difficulty to a small fringe of

-rocks, which seemed from below to form the top. The

-ascent, at first very gradual, became steeper as we went

-up, but we had no difficulty, as for some distance below

-the summit the surface is covered with small stones,

-as uniform in size, position, etc., as those of a macadamised

-road. Reached the top at 3.45 p.m. and unfurled

-the American flag (Mrs. Greely's) to the breeze in

-latitude 83° 24´ N. (according to last observation). The

-summit is a small plateau, narrow, but extending back

-to the south to broken, snow-covered heights. It commanded

-a very extended view in every direction. The

-barometer, being out of order, was not brought along,

-so I did not get the altitude. The horizon on the land

-side was concealed by numberless snow-covered mountains,

-one profile overlapping another, and all so merged

-together, on account of their universal covering of

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>snow, that it was impossible to detect the topography

-of the region. To the north lay an unbroken expanse

-of ice, interrupted only by the horizon."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>On Midsummer Day Greely started with a four-wheel

-wagon to explore Grinnell Land. The wagon,

-in the men's vernacular, was a man-killer, and was

-abandoned after they had dragged it a hundred miles.

-On this journey much exploring work was done in the

-unknown country, the most interesting find being that

-of the Eskimo house at Lake Hazen. In this, according

-to Greely's description, there were two fireplaces,

-one in the east and the other in the south, both of

-which had been built outward so as to take up no part

-of the space of the room, which was over seventeen

-feet long and nine feet wide. The sides of the entire

-dwelling were low walls of sodded earth, lined inside

-with flat thin slates, the tops of which were about two

-feet above the level of the interior floor, and the bench

-was covered with flat slabs of slate. Near by was a smaller

-house of the same character, and around were a large

-number of relics, including walrus-ivory toggles for

-dog-traces, sledge-bars and runners, an arrow head,

-skinning knife, and articles of worked bone. Next

-year further explorations of the back country were

-undertaken, so that some six thousand miles of the

-interior were viewed, disclosing many fertile valleys

-with their herds of musk ox.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Meanwhile the <em>Neptune</em>, with supplies for Fort

-Conger, had in August, 1882, been vainly endeavouring

-to get north, and, a few miles from Cape Hawks, had

-turned back with the pack piling the ice as high as her

-rail. Six attempts she made before she gave up and

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>retreated, after making several deposits of stores at

-Cape Sabine and elsewhere. In July, 1883, the <em>Proteus</em>,

-making a similar attempt to reach Greely, was crushed

-in the ice off Cape Albert, her side opening with a

-crash while the men were working in the hold, the ice

-forcing its way into the coal-bunkers and then pouring

-in so that as soon as the pressure slackened she went

-down, escape to the south being effected in the boats.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Next year, matters having become serious, a naval

-expedition consisting of the <em>Thetis</em>, the <em>Bear</em>, and

-Nares's old ship the <em>Alert</em>, presented by the British

-Government, was placed in the capable hands of

-Commander Winfield Schley, who had with him George

-Melville of <em>Jeannette</em> fame as engineer of the <em>Thetis</em>,

-and matters were conducted in quite a different way

-under much more favourable circumstances. Schley

-intended to find Greely, at all costs, and he did so.

-First he found a cairn at Brevoort Island, in which

-were the papers deposited by Greely relating how he

-had had to come south owing to shortness of supplies,

-and how his party were then—21st of October, 1883—encamped

-on the west side of a small neck of land

-distant about equally from Cape Sabine and Cocked

-Hat Island.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>As it was then the 22nd of June, 1884, and they had

-had only forty days' complete rations to live upon,

-Schley hurried off at once. Had he been two days

-later he would have been too late. There was a tent

-wrecked by the gale, with its pole toppling over and

-only kept in place by the guy ropes. Ripping it up

-with a knife, a sight of horror was disclosed. On one

-side, close to the opening, with his head towards the

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>outside, lay what was apparently a dead man. On the

-opposite side was a poor fellow, alive but without hands

-or feet, and with a spoon tied to the stump of his right

-arm. Two others, seated on the ground, were pouring

-something out of a rubber bottle into a tin can.

-Directly opposite, on his hands and knees, was a dark

-man with a long matted beard, in a dirty and tattered

-dressing-gown with a little red skull cap on his head,

-and brilliant staring eyes. As Colwell appeared, he

-raised himself a little, and put on a pair of eyeglasses.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>"Who are you?" asked Colwell.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The man made no answer, staring at him vacantly.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>"Who are you?" again.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>One of the men spoke up. "That's the Major—Major

-Greely."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Colwell crawled in and took him by the hand, saying

-to him, "Greely, is this you?"</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>"Yes," said Greely in a faint, broken voice, hesitating

-with his words; "yes—seven of us left—here we are—dying—like

-men. Did what I came to do—beat the

-best record."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Near at hand were ten graves. The bodies, despite

-Greely's remonstrances, were taken up and removed

-for burial in the United States. "Little could be seen

-of the condition of the bodies, as they had been clothed,

-and all that appeared was intact. In preparing them

-subsequently," says Schley, "it was found that six had

-been cut and the flesh removed." One of these, that

-of a cavalryman serving under the assumed name of

-Henry, had a bullet in it. He had been shot, at

-Greely's written order, "for stealing sealskin thongs,

-the only remaining food."</p>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>The next to add to our knowledge of the northern

-coast of Greenland was Robert E. Peary, of the

-American Navy, who seems to have devoted his life

-to Arctic exploration. On his first expedition in 1886,

-he penetrated with Maigaard for some distance into

-the country in the neighbourhood of Jakobshavn as

-a sort of pioneering venture. In 1891, accompanied

-by his wife, when outward bound in the <em>Kite</em> in the

-Melville Bay pack, he had his leg broken. The ship

-had been butting a passage through the spongy sheets

-of ice which had imprisoned her, when in going astern

-a detached cake struck the rudder, jamming the tiller

-against the wheel-house where Peary was standing,

-and pinned his leg long enough to snap it between the

-knee and the ankle. In spite of this he insisted on

-being landed with the rest of the party at McCormick

-Bay, a little to the north of Whale Sound, where a

-house was built and the winter spent.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Making a good recovery, he set off in May to sledge

-across North Greenland through snow and over it, and

-over snow-arched crevasses, often, in cloudy weather,

-travelling in grey space with nothing visible beyond

-a foot or two around him. After fifty-seven days'

-journey to the north-east and along Peary Channel, the

-northern boundary of the mainland, he left the inland

-ice for a strange country dotted with snowdrifts and

-mostly of red sandstone, in which murmuring streams,

-roaring waterfalls, and the song of snow-buntings

-formed an agreeable change from the silence of the

-desert of snow. Four days' hard labouring through

-this brought him on the 4th of July to Independence

-Bay on the north-east coast, where from Navy Cliff,

-nearly four thousand feet high, he looked across to

-Academy Land on the other side of the bay and beyond

-it over the region leading down to the farthest north

-of the Duke of Orleans. "It was almost impossible,"

-he says, "to believe that we were standing upon the

-northern shore of Greenland as we gazed from the

-summit of this bronze cliff, with the most brilliant

-sunshine all about us, with yellow poppies growing

-between the rocks around our feet, and a herd of muskoxen

-in the valley behind us. Down in that valley

-I had found an old friend, a dandelion in bloom, and

-had seen the bullet-like flight and heard the energetic

-buzz of the humble-bee."</p>

-

-<div id='pg280'  class='figcenter id032'>

-<img src='images/i_435.jpg' alt='R. E. Peary, U. S. N.' class='ig001' />

-</div>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>Next year he and his wife were out again to take up

-their quarters at a house they built at Bowdoin Bay,

-where, in September, their daughter was born. In

-March, 1894, he started for another journey across

-Greenland, with twelve sledges and over ninety dogs,

-but severe weather drove him back after travelling

-some two hundred miles. Staying over that winter

-instead of returning in the <em>Falcon</em>, he set out in the

-spring, and under almost desperate circumstances

-managed to reach and return from Independence Bay.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Following this came his expedition of 1898, in which

-he spent four winters in the Arctic regions and almost

-met with Petersen's fate by a venturesome winter

-sledge journey, which resulted in the freezing of his

-feet and the loss of eight of his toes. Travelling in

-Grinnell Land he proved beyond doubt that it was

-continuous with Ellesmere Land, as had been admitted

-by those who named it. Following Lockwood's track,

-he continued it up to 83° 54´, along Hazen Land, practically

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>completing the coast-line to Cape Henry Parish,

-its furthest east, thus rounding the north of the Greenland

-archipelago, and even there finding traces of

-Eskimos and a fauna similar to that of other Arctic lands

-hundreds of miles further south. And striking northwards

-over the sea from Cape Hecla, with seven men and

-six dog-sledges, into the breaking, drifting pack, he made

-a dash for the Pole which ended at 84° 17´.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>His next northern venture, though not more remarkable,

-is destined, perhaps, to be remembered longer.

-On it he sighted the new land away out in the sea

-north-west of Grinnell Land, nearer to the Pole than

-any other land discovered up to then, and where it was

-expected to be. And out over the ice he went to

-eclipse his 1902 record by nearly two hundred miles,

-in the best planned of all his journeys.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>In July, 1905, he had left New York in the <em>Roosevelt</em>,

-a steamship of over six hundred tons and more than

-a thousand horse-power, rigged complete as a three-masted

-coasting schooner, able to hold her own almost

-anywhere in the event of her engines becoming useless.

-One hundred and eighty-two feet in length, thirty-five

-and a half in beam, and sixteen and a quarter in depth;

-sharp in the bow and rounded amidships; treble in

-framing and double in planking, with sides thirty

-inches thick, twelve feet of deadwood in her bow, and

-six feet of false keels and kelsons, she was specially

-built for the expedition as the strongest and most

-powerful vessel ever sent on Arctic service, and was

-launched on the 23rd of May, 1905, Mrs. Peary

-naming her by smashing a block of ice against her

-ironclad stem.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>A month out from New York, the <em>Roosevelt</em> left

-Etah laden deep with coal from the <em>Eric</em> that had

-awaited her there, and having on board over fifty

-Eskimos, of both sexes and all sizes, and some two

-hundred Eskimo dogs. Leaving a reserve of provisions

-at Bache Peninsula, she worked up through open

-water and occasional ice to Richardson Bay, where

-the pack looked so threatening that Peary literally

-rammed his way across to the eastern side, and so continued

-northwards. When off Cape Lupton the ship

-received such rough treatment that the rudder was

-twisted and the head-bands and tiller-rods broken, as

-she ground along the face of the ice-foot "with a

-motion and noise like that of a railway-car which has

-left the rails"; but this was the only time she was in

-serious danger during her most fortunate run. Resting

-for six days in Newman Bay to repair damages and

-make ready for a final effort, she was headed westward

-to Grinnell Land through the floes, and after a continuous

-battle of thirty-five hours, reached the ice-foot

-at Cape Sheridan, a little north of the old winter

-quarters of the <em>Alert</em>, and found her wintering place,

-like her, just as the Polar pack closed in against the

-shore. The endeavour had been to lay up in Porter

-Bay, twenty-seven miles further north, but the state

-of the ice made this impossible.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Provisions were plentiful, as no less than two hundred

-and fifty musk oxen had been shot by the 1st of November,

-and there were numbers of hares and several herds

-of the white reindeer first mentioned by Hudson in his

-second voyage three hundred years ago. During the

-very mild winter eighty of the dogs died, and when

-<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>sledging began only twenty teams of six each were

-available. The plan of the northern advance over the

-ice was to divide it into sections of about fifty miles

-each, with snow houses at each station, the nearest

-station being supplied from the base and supplying the

-next, and so on, thus keeping up an unbroken line of

-communication gradually extending nearer to the Pole,

-the sledges working backwards and forwards, outwards

-laden and inwards empty, between station and station

-along the line.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>The land was left at Point Moss, north-west of Cape

-Joseph Henry. At 84° 38´ a lead in the pack stopped

-the way for six days until the young ice was thick enough

-to bear, and forty miles further north the vanguard

-drifted east some seventy miles during a storm for

-another six days. On the 20th of April a region of

-much open water was reached, and from midnight to

-noon next day the last effort was made by Peary,

-Henson, and a small party of Eskimos, the farthest

-north, 87° 6´, being attained and immediately left in a

-rapid retreat for safety.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Thus Peary went nearer to the Pole than Cagni by

-thirty-two minutes or thirty-seven statute miles, both

-being stopped by water with apparently similar conditions

-ahead of them. What the conditions may be

-along the intervening two hundred miles from Peary's

-farthest nobody knows; but although a good many

-things may happen between London and York, which

-is about the same distance, there is good reason for

-supposing that, even if there be land somewhere, the

-road is over a sea more or less packed with ice which

-is never without its channels.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>One thing is clear: the attainment of the Pole is a

-matter of money. Given the funds, the men and the

-dogs, and the ships, boats, sledges, and other things

-will be forthcoming, and the journey accomplished, not

-by a rush, but on some systematic station-to-station

-plan; though it is not impossible that it may be done

-by chance in some exceptional year, for the climate of

-the north is variable and has a wider range of temperature

-than that of Britain in its good years and its bad

-years.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>Let us hope there may be land at the exact spot, for

-then the position can be checked at leisure, and there

-will be no doubt of its having been reached. Joseph

-Moxon, Hydrographer to the King, in 1652 met at

-Amsterdam a sailor of a Greenland ship which "went

-not out to fish that summer, but only to take in the

-lading of the whole fleet to bring it to an early

-market"—in other words, to act as a carrier—which

-ship, before the whaling fleet had caught enough to

-lade her, had by order of the Company sailed to the

-North Pole and back again, and even two degrees

-beyond it; no land seen, no ice, and the weather as it

-was in summer-time at Amsterdam.</p>

-

-<p class='c000'>A sailor's yarn told in a tavern? Only this and

-nothing more, perhaps; though a good many things

-were kept dark in the whaling trade as in other trades.

-But if there had been an island at the Pole we might

-eventually have been able to verify that ancient

-mariner's tale.</p>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>

-  <h2 class='c006'>INDEX</h2>

-</div>

-

-<ul class='index c004'>

-  <li class='c020'>Abruzzi, Duke of, The, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Academy Land, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Actinia Haven, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Advance</em>, The, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Aid</em>, The, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Akaitcho, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Alaska, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Aldrich, Pelham, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Alert</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Alexander</em>, The, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Alexander, Cape, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Alexandra Land, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Alexandria</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_179'>179</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Alfred Ernest, Cape, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Ameralik Fiord, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>America, The Norse discovery of, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Amundsen, Roald, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Ancylonema nordenskioeldii</em>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Anderson Falls, The, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Andrée, S. A., <a href='#Page_104'>104</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Anjou, P. F., <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Ann Frances</em>, The, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Antelope, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Archangel, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Archer, Colin, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Archer Fiord, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Archer, R., <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Arctic</em>, The, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Arctic Search Expedition, The first, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Assistance</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Atlassof, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Augustus the Eskimo, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Auk, Cape, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Auleitsivik Fiord, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Aurora Borealis, The, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Austin, Horatio, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Austria Sound, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Avigait, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'>Baal's River, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Back, George, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Baden-Powell, Sir George, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Baffin, William, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Baffin Land, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Banks Land, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Baranoff Cape, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Barents Bay, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Barents, Willem, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Barnacle Goose, The, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Barren Grounds, The, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Barrington, The Hon. Daines, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Barrow Point, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Barrow, Sir John, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Barrow Strait, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bathurst Island, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bear, Black, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bear Island, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bear, Polar, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Bear</em>, The, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Beaufort Sea, The, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Beaumont, Lewis Anthony, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Beechey, Cape, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Beechey, Frederick William, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Beechey Island, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Belanger, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Belcher, Edward, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bellot, Joseph René, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bellot Strait, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bennet, Stephen, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bennett Island, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bering Strait, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bering, Veit, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Berry, Captain, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bessels, Emil, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Best, George, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Best's Bulwark, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bille, Cape, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bird Cape, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Birds, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bismarck, Cape, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bjarni discovers America, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bjelkof Island, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Blossom</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Boat Extreme, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bolscheretzkoi, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Bona Confidentia</em>, The, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Bona Esperanza</em>, The, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>Booth, Felix, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Boothia, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Borough, Steven, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Borough, William, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bosekop, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bounty Cape, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bowdoin Bay, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bowen, Port, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bradley, Thomas, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Brainard, D. L., <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Brattelid, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Brentford Bay, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>British Channel, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Brorok, Cape, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Brown, Robert, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Brunel, Olivier, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Brunn, Mount, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Buchan, David, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Buchan Island, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Buddington, J. M., <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bulun, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bunge, A., <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Burrough Strait, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bush, Henry, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Butcher's Island, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Byam Martin Island, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Bylot, Robert, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'>Cabot, Sebastian, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Cagni, Umberto, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Cambridge Bay, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Camden Bay, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Carcass</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Carlsen, Elling, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Carlsen, Olaf, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Castor</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_166'>166</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Castor and Pollux River, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Cathay Company, The, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Catherine, The Empress, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Cator, Lieutenant, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Cavendish thermometer, The, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Chamisso Island, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Chancellor, Richard, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Char, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Charing Cross, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Charles's Foreland, Prince, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Chelagskoi, Cape, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Chelyuskin, Cape, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Cherie Island, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Chippewyan, Fort, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Christian Land, King, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Chukches, The, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Chvoinof, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Clavering Island, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Clerke, Charles, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Clio borealis</em>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Coal, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Collinson, Richard, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Columbia, Cape, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Columbus visits Iceland, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Colwell, J. C., <a href='#Page_279'>279</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Commander Islands, The, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Conferences, The Polar, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Confidence, Fort, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Conger, Fort, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Constitution, Cape, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Conway, William Martin, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Cook, James, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Cookery-of-Haarlem, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Coppermine River, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Cornwall, North, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Cornwallis Island, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Coronation Gulf, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Countess of Warwick Island, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Crow's Nest, The, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Crozier, F. R. M., <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Cumberland Gulf, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'>Dall, W. H., <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Danes Island, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Danish Sound, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Davis, John, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Davis Strait, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Dealy Island, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Dease, Peter Warren, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Dease River, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Dease Strait, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Dee, Dr. John, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>De Haven, Lieutenant, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>De Long, G. W., <a href='#Page_116'>116</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Deschnef, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Des Vœux, C. F., <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Devon, North, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Diana</em>, The, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Dickson Harbour, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Discovery</em>, H.M.S. (Cook), <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Discovery</em>, H.M.S. (Nares), <a href='#Page_248'>248</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Discovery</em>, The (Hudson), <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Discovery Harbour, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Distillation apparatus, The, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Dolphin</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Dolphin and Union Strait, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Dorothea</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_33'>33</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Dove Bay, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Drummond, Thomas, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Dudley, Ambrose, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Dudley Digges Cape, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Durfourth, Captain, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Dyer, Cape, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'>East Cape, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>Ebierbing and Tookoolito, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Edam, Land of, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Edge, Thomas, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Edge's Island, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Edward Bonaventure</em>, The, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Egede, Hans, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Egede, Paul, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Eira</em>, The, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Elizabeth</em>, The, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Ellen</em>, The, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Ellesmere Land, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Ellis, John, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Elmwood, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Elson, Thomas, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Elson Bay, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Endeavour</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_41'>41</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>English Chief, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Entada bean, The, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Enterprise, Fort, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Enterprise</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Enterprise</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_41'>41</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Erebus</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Eric</em>, The, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Eric the Red, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Ermine, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Eskimo relics, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Eskimos first met with, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Eskimos, Migration of the, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Eskimos, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Etah, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Evensen, Captain, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Exeter Sound, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Express</em>, The, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'><em>Falcon</em>, The, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Farewell, Cape, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Fedotof, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Felix Harbour, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Felix</em>, The, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Fern, The first Spitsbergen, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Finlay Island, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Finlayson Islands, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Fish River, The Great, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Fishes, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>FitzJames, James, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Fligely, Cape, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Floeberg Beach, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Flora, Cape, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Forsyth, C. C., <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Fossils, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Foulke Harbour, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Fox, Arctic, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Fox, Black, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Fox, Silver-grey, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Fox</em>, The, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Fram</em>, The, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Franklin, Fort, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Franklin, John, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Franklin, Lady, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Franklin Record, The, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Franklin Strait, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Franz Josef Fiord, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Franz Josef Land, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Fraser</em>, The, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Frazer, Cape, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Frederick Jackson Island, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Frederiksdal, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Frobisher Bay, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Frobisher, Martin, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Frozen Strait, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Fur-seal, The, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Fury Beach, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Fury and Hecla Strait, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Fury</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_191'>191</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'><em>Gabriel</em>, The (Bering), <a href='#Page_132'>132</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Gabriel</em>, (Frobisher), <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Gabriel Islands, The, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Gardiner, Charles, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Garry, Fort, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>George</em>, The, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Germania</em>, The, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Gibraltar Bay, Battle of, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Giffard, G. A., <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Gilbert, Adrian, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Gilbert, Humphrey, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Gilbert Sound, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Gjöa, The, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Gjöahaven, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Glaciers, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Glow-worm</em>, The, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Godfrey, William, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Godthaab, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Godthaab Fiord, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Gore, Graham, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Graah, W. A., <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Graham Island, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Greely, A. W., <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Greenland, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Greenland Archipelago, The, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Greenland, East, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Greyhound</em>, The, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Griffith Island, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Grinnell Land, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Griper</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Gulf Stream, The, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>Gundersen, Captain, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Gunnbiörn discovers Greenland, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'>Hakluyt Headland, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hall Basin, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hall, C. F., <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hall, Christopher, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hall, James, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hall Island, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hall's Rest, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hamilton, Cape, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hans Hendrik, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Hansa</em>, The, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hare, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hare Fiord, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hartstene Bay, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hayes, I. I., <a href='#Page_237'>237</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hazen, Lake, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hazen Land, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hearne, Samuel, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hecla, Cape, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Hecla</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hedenström, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Heemskerck, Jacob van, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Heer, Oswald, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hegemann, Captain, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Heiberg Land, Axel, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Helluland, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hendon, North, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hendrik, Hans, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hendriksen Sound, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Henrietta Island, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Henson, C., <a href='#Page_284'>284</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hepburn, John, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Herald</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Herald Island, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Herschel, Cape, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Himkoff, Alexis, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hinlopen Strait, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hobson, W. R., <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hohenlohe Island, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hood River, The, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hood, Robert, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hooper, William Hulme, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hope, Fort, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Hope</em>, The (Young), <a href='#Page_75'>75</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Hope</em>, The (Egede), <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Howgate, H. W., <a href='#Page_274'>274</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hudson Bay, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hudson, Henry, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hudson River, The, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hudson Strait, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hudson's Bay Company, The, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hudson's Touches, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Humboldt Glacier, The, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hyaqua shell, The, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'>Icebergs, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Ice-drill, The, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Ice Haven, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Iceland, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Icy Cape, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Igloolik, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Igloos, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Ikmallik, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Independence Bay, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Inglefield, E. A., <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Ingolf lands in Iceland, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Insects, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>International Polar Stations, The, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Intrepid</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Investigator</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Irkaipii, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Irving, John, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Isabel</em>, The, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Isabella, Cape, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Isabella</em>, The, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Isachsen, Cape, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Isbjörn</em>, The, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'>Jackman, Charles, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Jackson, Frederick G., <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Jakobshavn, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Jan Mayen, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Japanese, The, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Jason</em>, The, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Jeannette</em>, The, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Jeannette Island, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Jenkinson, Anthony, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Jesup Land, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Joe and Hannah, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Johansen, F. H., <a href='#Page_96'>96</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>John</em>, The, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Jones Sound, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Joseph Henry, Cape, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Journal, The, introduced, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Judith</em>, The, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Julianehaab, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'>Kalutunah, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Kamchatka, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Kane, E. K., <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Kane Sea, The, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Kara Sea, The, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Karmakul Bay, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Kay, E. C. Lister, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Kellett, Henry, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Kendall, E. N., <a href='#Page_156'>156</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Kennedy Channel, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Kennedy, Port, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Kennedy, William, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>King, Richard, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>Kingua, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>King William Land, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Kite</em>, The, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Knight, John, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Kod-lun-arn, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Kola, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Koldewey, Karl, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Kolguiev, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Kolyuchin Bay, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Kompakova, The, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Kotelnoi Island, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Kraechoj, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Krusenstern</em>, The, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Kruzof Island, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Ku Mark Surka, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Kuriles, The, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Kutchins, The, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'>Labrador, Discovery of, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Labrets, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Lady Franklin, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Lady Franklin Bay, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Lambert Land, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Lamont, James, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Lancaster Sound, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Lands Lokk, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Laptef, Dmitri, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Laptef, Khariton, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Leif lands in America, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Lemming, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Lena</em>, The, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Lena Delta, The, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Liakhoff, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Liakhoff Island, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Lichens, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Lifeboat Cove, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Linschoten, Van, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Lion</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Little Table Island, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Lock, Michael, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Lockwood, James B., <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Lockwood Island, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Log, The, introduced, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Long, G. W. De, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Long, Thomas, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Loschkin, S., <a href='#Page_62'>62</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Louis Napoleon, Cape, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Ludlow, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Lunar at sea, The first, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Lundstrom, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Lütke, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Lutwidge, Skeffington, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Lyon, George Francis, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'>Mackenzie, Alexander, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Mackenzie River, Discovery of, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Macintoshes, The first, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>M'Clintock, F. L., <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>M'Clintock, Cape, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>M'Clure, Robert Le M., <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>McCormick Bay, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>McKay, James, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Magnet</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_204'>204</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Magnetic North Pole, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Mahlemut labret, The, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Mammals, Fossil, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Mammoth, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Markham, A. H., <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Markland, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Marten skins, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Martens, F., <a href='#Page_25'>25</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Mary Harmsworth, Cape, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Mary Margaret</em>, The, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Matiuschkin, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Matthew</em>, The, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Matty Island, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Matyushin Shar, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>May, William H., <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Melville Bay, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Melville, G. W., <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Melville Island, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Melville Peninsula, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Merchant Adventurers, The, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Mercury</em>, The, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Mercy Bay, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Mermaid</em>, The, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Meta Incognita, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Michael</em>, The, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Middendorf Glacier, The, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Middleton, Christopher, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Mistaken Streight, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Moloi, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Montreal Island, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Moons, Mock, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Moonshine</em>, The, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Moore, Thomas E. L., <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Moose-hunting, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Moravians, The, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Morton, William, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Moss, E. L., <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Moss Point, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Mossel Bay, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Moxon, Joseph, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Murchison, Cape, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Murchison River, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Muscovy Company, The, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Musk ox, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'>Nai, Cornelis, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Nancy Dawson</em>, The, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>Nansen, Fridtjof, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Nares, G. S., <a href='#Page_248'>248</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Narwhal, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Nassau, Cape, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Navy Cliff, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Nelson, Horatio, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Neptune</em>, The, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Newfoundland, Discovery of, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Newman Bay, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>New Siberian Islands, The, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Nindemann, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Nordenskiöld, Adolf Erik, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Noros, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Norsemen discover America, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Northbrook Island, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>North Cape, The, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>North East Land, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>North-East Passage, The, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Northern Passage, The, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>North Pole</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_204'>204</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>North Pole, Magnetic, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>North Star</em>, The, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>North Water, The, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>North-West Fur Company, The, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>North-West Passage, The, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Norton Sound, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Nova Kholmogory, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Novaya Zemlya, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Nulato, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Ny Herrnhut, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'>Obi, The, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Observation, Mount, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Ochotsk, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Ommanney, Erasmus, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Omoki, The, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Ooligbuck the Eskimo, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Oraefa, Mount, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Orleans, Duke of, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Osborn, Sherard, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Ostiaks, The, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Otaria</em>, The, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'>Pachtussoff, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Pandora</em>, The, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Parhelia, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Parker Bay, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Parr, Alfred A. C., <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Parry, William Edward, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Parry Falls, The, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Patience</em>, The, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Patrick Island, Prince, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Pavy, O., <a href='#Page_275'>275</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Payer, Julius, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Peary Channel, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Peary, Robert E., <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Peel Sound, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Pellham, Edward, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Pelly Bay, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Pelly Point, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Pendulum Island, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Penny Strait, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Penny, William, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Pet, Arthur, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Pet Strait, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Peter the Great, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Petermann Fiord, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Petermann, Mount, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Petersen Bay, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Petersen, C., <a href='#Page_208'>208</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Petropaulovsk, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Phipps, The Hon. Constantine John, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Pim, Bedford, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Pioneer</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Plants, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Plover</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Point Lake, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Point Victory, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Polar Stations, The International, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Polaris</em>, The, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Polhem</em>, The, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Pollux</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_166'>166</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Poole, Jonas, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Porcupine River, The, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Pospeloff, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Pribylov Islands, The, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Prince Albert</em>, The, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Prince of Wales, Cape, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Prince of Wales Strait, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Proeven</em>, The, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Pronchistschef, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Proteus</em>, The, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Protococcus nivalis</em>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Prudhoe Land, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Pullen, W. J. S., <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'>Quennerstedt, A., <a href='#Page_43'>43</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'><em>Racehorse</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Racer</em>, The, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Rae, Fort, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Rae, John, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Rae Strait, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Raleigh, Mount, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Rat River, The, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Ravenscraig</em>, The, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Rawlings Bay, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>Rawson, Wyatt, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Red snow, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Regent Inlet, Prince, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Regina</em>, The, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Reikjavik founded, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Reindeer, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Reindeer, White, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Reliance, Fort, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Reliance</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Rensselaer Harbour, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Repulse Bay, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Resolute</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_175'>175</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Resolution</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Resolution</em>, The (whaler), <a href='#Page_31'>31</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Return Reef, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Rhinoceros, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Richardson, John, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Richthofen Peak, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Rijp, Jan Corneliszoon, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Ringnes Islands, The, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Ritenbenk, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Robeson Channel, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Rocky Mountains first crossed, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Rodgers</em>, The, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Roosevelt</em>, The, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Rosmysslof, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Ross, James Clark, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Ross, John, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Rudolf Island, Prince, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Hudson's Point, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Russell, Cape, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Ryder, Lieut., <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'>Sabine, Edward, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Sabine, Cape, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Sable, The, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Sagastyr Island, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>St. Elias, Cape, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>St. Elias, Mount, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>St. Lawrence Bay, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>St. Lawrence Island, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>St. Paul</em>, The, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>St. Peter</em>, The, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Salmo arcturus</em>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Salmon trout, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Salutation</em>, The, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Samoyeds, The, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Sanderson's Hope, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Sanderson, William, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Sannikof, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Schley, Winfield S., <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Schonau Island, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Schwatka, Frederick, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Scoresby, William, the elder, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Scoresby, William, the younger, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Seal, The Fur, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Seals, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Sea-otter, The, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Searchthrift</em>, The, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Semonovski Island, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Serdze Kamen, Cape, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Seven Islands, The, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Shackleton, Cape, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Shantar Islands, The, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Sheathing for ships introduced, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Shedden, Robert, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Sheridan, Cape, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Siberia, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Siberian Islands, The, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Silver Bay, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Simmons Peninsula, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Simpson, Sir George, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Simpson, Thomas, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Simpson Strait, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Sinclair, George, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Sirovatskof, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Sitka Sound, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Sledges and sledge-work, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Smeerenberg, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Smith, Benjamin Leigh, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Smith Sound, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Snow, William Parker, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Snow houses, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Sodankyla, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Sofia</em>, The, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Somerset House, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Somerset, North, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Sonntag, August, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Sophia</em>, The, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Spangberg, Martin, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Spinks, Robert, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Spitsbergen, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Steamship, The first Arctic, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Stella Polare</em>, The, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Sterlegof, Cape, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Stoat, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Stolbovoi, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Stuxberg, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Sunshine</em>, The, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Sverdrup, Otto, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Svjatoi Nos, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'>Tanana, The, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Tananas, The, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Tegetthoff</em>, The, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Teplitz Bay, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Terror</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Thaddeus Island, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Thames</em>, The, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>Thermometer, The deep-sea, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Thetis</em>, The, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Thirkill, Launcelot, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Thomasine</em>, The, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Thorne, Robert, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Tiger, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Tigress</em>, The, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Toll, Baron E., <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Torell, Otto, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Trent</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_33'>33</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Treurenberg Bay, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Tripe-de-roche, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Tschirikof, Alexei, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Tundra, The, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Turnagain, Point, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Tyndall Glacier, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'>Umivik, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Union</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>United States</em>, The, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Upernivik, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'><em>Valorous</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_248'>248</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Veer, Gerrit de, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Vega</em>, The, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Victoria, Cape, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Victoria Land, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Victoria Sea, Queen, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Victoria Strait, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Victory</em>, The, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Victory, Point, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Vinland, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Vlamingh, Willem de, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Vrangel', Ferdinand, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'>Wager River, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Waigatz Island, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Wainwright Inlet, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Walden Island, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Walker Bay, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Walnut Shell</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Walrus, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Walsingham, Francis, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Washington Irving Island, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Welden, Captain, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Wellington Channel, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Wentzel, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>West England, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Weyprecht, K., <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Whale fishery, The, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Whale, Greenland, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Whale Island, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Whale, White, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Whaling trade begins, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>White Man's Island, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>White Sea, The, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>White Shirt, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Whymper, Edward, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Whymper, Frederick, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Wiggins, Joseph, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Wijde Bay, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Wilberforce Falls, The, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Wilczek Island, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>William Land, King, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>William</em>, The, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Willoughby, Sir Hugh, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Windward</em>, The, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Winter Harbour, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Winter Island, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Winthont</em>, The, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Wollaston Land, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Wolstenholme, Cape, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Wolverine, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Women Islands, The, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Wrangell, Ferdinand Von, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Wrangell Island, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li>

-  <li class='c004'>Yakuts, The, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Yalmal, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Yenesei, The, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'><em>Ymer</em>, The, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Young, Allen, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Young's Foreland, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Yugor Strait, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Yukon, Fort, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li>

-  <li class='c020'>Yukon, The, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li>

-</ul>

-

-<div class='nf-center-c1'>

-<div class='nf-center c004'>

-    <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span>PLYMOUTH</div>

-    <div>WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.</div>

-    <div>PRINTERS</div>

-  </div>

-</div>

-

-<div class='tnotes'>

-

-<div class='chapter'>

-  <h2 class='c006'>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES</h2>

-</div>

- <ol class='ol_1 c004'>

-    <li>Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors.

-

-    </li>

-    <li>Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.

-

-    </li>

-  </ol>

-

-</div>

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-<pre>

-

-

-

-

-

-End of Project Gutenberg's Round About the North Pole, by W. J. Gordon

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+  <body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 52462 ***</div>
+
+<div class='tnotes covernote'>
+
+<p class='c000'>  <strong>Transcriber's Note:</strong></p>
+
+<p class='c000'>  The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='ph1'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div>ROUND ABOUT</div>
+    <div>THE NORTH POLE</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div id='Frontispiece'  class='figcenter id001'>
+<img src='images/i_004.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>"DONE UP"</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class='c002'>Frontispiece</div>
+
+<div>
+  <h1 class='c003'>ROUND ABOUT<br /> THE NORTH POLE</h1>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c004'>
+    <div><span class='xlarge'>BY W. J. GORDON</span></div>
+    <div class='c005'>WITH WOODCUTS AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS</div>
+    <div>BY EDWARD WHYMPER</div>
+    <div class='c001'>NEW YORK</div>
+    <div><span class='large'>E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY</span></div>
+    <div><span class='sc'>31 West Twenty-third Street</span></div>
+    <div>1907</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div><em>Printed in Great Britain</em></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_v'>v</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>PREFACE</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>Among the many books about the Polar regions
+there is none quite like this, dealing with the
+gradual progress of exploration towards the north
+along the different areas of advance within the Arctic
+Circle.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The subject is always interesting, for few regions
+have been the scene of more persistent effort and
+exciting adventure and unexpected gains from the
+unknown, particularly in the earlier days when the
+endeavour to find the northern passages to the east and
+west led to the beginning of our foreign trade.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>It is often asked, "What is the use of further Arctic
+discovery?" No one knows. Nor did any one know
+the use of most discoveries before they were made.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>When Eric landed in Greenland he was not in
+search of cryolite for aluminium. When Cabral sailed
+to Porto Seguro he knew nothing of the incandescent
+gas-mantle. When Oersted looped the live wire round
+the magnetic needle he was not bent on founding
+electrical engineering. And when Linnæus noticed
+the sleep of plants he had no intention of providing
+a substitute for a clock in high latitudes where, though
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_vi'>vi</span>the sunshine is continuous during the summer, the
+plants within the Circle sleep as in the night time,
+their sleeping leaves telling the traveller that midnight
+is at hand.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Men have made up their minds to reach the Pole,
+and thither they will go. What they will find when
+they get there may not promise to be much, but what
+they have found round about it has been enough to
+influence considerably the history of the world.</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>W. J. G.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-l'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'><em>July, 1907.</em></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_vii'>vii</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CONTENTS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<table class='table0' summary='CONTENTS'>
+<colgroup>
+<col width='82%' />
+<col width='17%' />
+</colgroup>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER I</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th class='c009'></th>
+    <th class='c010'>PAGE</th>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>SPITSBERGEN</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER II</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>SPITSBERGEN (<em>continued</em>)</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_24'>24</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER III</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>NOVAYA ZEMLYA</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_49'>49</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER IV</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>FRANZ JOSEF LAND</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_64'>64</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER V</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>CAPE CHELYUSKIN</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_84'>84</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER VI</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>THE LENA DELTA</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_106'>106</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER VII</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>BERING STRAIT</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_127'>127</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER VIII</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>THE AMERICAN MAINLAND</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_146'>146</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER IX</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>THE PARRY ISLANDS</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_170'>170</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER X</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>BOOTHIA</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_190'>190</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'><span class='pageno' id='Page_viii'>viii</span>CHAPTER XI</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>BAFFIN BAY</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_215'>215</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XII</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>SMITH SOUND</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_235'>235</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XIII</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>GREENLAND</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_259'>259</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>INDEX</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_287'>287</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_ix'>ix</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<table class='table0' summary='LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS'>
+<colgroup>
+<col width='5%' />
+<col width='73%' />
+<col width='20%' />
+</colgroup>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'>"<span class='sc'>Done up</span>"</td>
+    <td class='c010'><em><a href='#Frontispiece'>Frontispiece</a></em></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Nansen's <cite>First Crossing of Greenland</cite> (Longmans)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th class='c011' colspan='2'>&nbsp;</th>
+    <th class='c010'>TO FACE PAGE</th>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Summit of Oraefa</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg2'>2</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From a photograph</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Columbus</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg4'>4</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From the portrait at Versailles</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Samoyeds and their Dwellings</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg10'>10</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Hartwig's <cite>Polar World</cite> (Longmans)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Franz Josef Fiord</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg14'>14</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From a drawing by Lieutenant Julius Payer</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Whalers among Icebergs</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg30'>30</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Hartwig's <cite>Polar World</cite> (Longmans)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Sir John Franklin</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg34'>34</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Tour du Monde</span></cite>, 1860 (Hachette)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Track of H.M.S. "Dorothea" and "Trent"</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg36'>36</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite>A Voyage of Discovery towards the North Pole, performed in His Majesty's Ships "Dorothea" and "Trent," under the command of Capt. David Buchan, R.N., 1818</cite>, by Capt. F. W. Beechey, <span class='fss'>R.N., F.R.S.</span> (Richard Bentley, 1843.)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Parry Camped on the Ice</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg40'>40</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Captain Parry's <cite>Narrative</cite>, 1828 (Murray)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Parry's Boats among the Hummocks</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg42'>42</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Captain Parry's <cite>Narrative</cite>, 1828 (Murray)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>How our Ship stuck fast in the Ice</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg50'>50</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite>A True Description</cite>, by Gerrit de Veer (Hakluyt Society, 1853)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>How we nearly got into trouble with the Sea-horses</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg56'>56</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite>A True Description</cite>, by Gerrit de Veer (Hakluyt Society, 1853)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg90'>90</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From a photograph</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Fridtjof Nansen</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg96'>96</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>With autograph. From a photograph supplied by himself</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Reindeer</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg112'>112</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>By permission. From <cite>Short Stalks</cite>, by Edward Buxton (Stanford)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Samoyed Man</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg114'>114</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Seebohm's <cite>Siberia in Asia</cite> (Murray)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='pageno' id='Page_x'>x</span><span class='sc'>Ostiak Man</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg116'>116</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Seebohm's <cite>Siberia in Asia</cite> (Murray)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Face of the Fur Seal</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg130'>130</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite>The Seal Islands of Alaska</cite>, by Henry W. Elliott (Washington, 1881)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Aleutian Islands</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg132'>132</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Hartwig's <cite>Polar World</cite> (Longmans). From an original Sketch by Frederick Whymper</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Driving the Fur Seal</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg134'>134</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite>The Seal Islands of Alaska</cite>, by Henry W. Elliott (Washington, 1881)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Fur Seals at Sea</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg136'>136</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite>The Seal Islands of Alaska</cite>, by Henry W. Elliott (Washington, 1881)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Parka of the Alaskan Innuits</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg138'>138</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Whymper's <cite>Alaska</cite> (Sampson Low)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Frozen Yukon</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg140'>140</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Whymper's <cite>Alaska</cite> (Sampson Low)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Ascending the Yukon</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg142'>142</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Whymper's <cite>Alaska</cite> (Sampson Low)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Moose-hunting on the Yukon</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg144'>144</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Whymper's <cite>Alaska</cite> (Sampson Low)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Mahlemut Man</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg146'>146</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Whymper's <cite>Alaska</cite> (Sampson Low)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Winter Travelling on the Great Slave Lake</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg150'>150</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Franklin's <cite>Journey to the Polar Sea</cite>, 1819-22 (Murray, 1823)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Crossing Point Lake</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg152'>152</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Franklin's <cite>Journey to the Polar Sea, 1819-22</cite> (Murray, 1823)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Kutchin Indians</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg154'>154</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Hartwig's <cite>Polar World</cite> (Longmans). From an original sketch by Frederick Whymper</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Preparing an Encampment on the Barren Grounds</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg156'>156</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Franklin's <cite>Journey to the Polar Sea, 1819-22</cite> (Murray, 1823)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Sir John Richardson</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg158'>158</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>With autograph, from a letter in the possession of Edward Whymper</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Back's Journey down the Great Fish River</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg160'>160</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Back's <cite>Arctic Land Expedition to the mouth of the Great Fish River in the years 1833, 1834, and 1835</cite> (Murray, 1836)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Sir William Edward Parry</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg170'>170</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>With autograph, from a letter in the possession of Edward Whymper</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Sir John Barrow</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg178'>178</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>With autograph</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>H.M.S. "Hecla" and "Griper" in Winter Harbour</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg180'>180</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite>A Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west Passage</cite>, by Capt. Parry (Murray, 1821)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xi'>xi</span><span class='sc'>Parry's Discoveries on his First Voyage</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg182'>182</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite>A Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west Passage</cite>, by Captain Parry (Murray, 1821)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>An Igloolik Eskimo carrying his Kayak</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg190'>190</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Parry's <cite>Second Voyage</cite> (Murray, 1824)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Parry's farthest on his Third Voyage</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg192'>192</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Parry's <cite>Third Voyage</cite> (Murray, 1826)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The "Victory"</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg194'>194</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Sir J. Ross's <cite>Arctic Expedition, 1829-33</cite> (Webster, 1835)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>North Hendon</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg196'>196</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Sir J. Ross's <cite>Arctic Expedition, 1829-33</cite> (Webster, 1835)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Eskimo listening at a Seal-hole</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg198'>198</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Parry's <cite>Second Voyage</cite> (Murray, 1824)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>H.M.S. "Terror" lifted by Ice</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg202'>202</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Hartwig's <cite>Polar World</cite> (Longmans)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Fractured Stern-post of H.M.S. "Terror"</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg204'>204</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Capt. Back's <cite>Narrative, 1838</cite> (Murray)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The "Fox" escaping from the pack</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg208'>208</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From M'Clintock's <cite>Voyage of the "Fox"</cite></td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The "Fox" on a rock</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg210'>210</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From M'Clintock's <cite>Voyage of the "Fox"</cite></td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Discovery of the Cairn</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg212'>212</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From M'Clintock's <cite>Voyage of the "Fox"</cite></td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Sir Martin Frobisher</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg216'>216</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite>The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher</cite> (Hakluyt Society, 1867)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Eskimo awaiting a Seal</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg222'>222</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Hartwig's <cite>Polar World</cite> (Longmans)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>A Greenlander in his Kayak</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg224'>224</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Tour du Monde</span></cite>, 1868 (Hachette)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Baffin Bay in 1819</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg232'>232</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite>A Voyage of Discovery</cite>, by Capt. John Ross (Longmans, 1819)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Dr. E. K. Kane</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg234'>234</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From the Frontispiece to Kane's <cite>Arctic Explorations</cite>, 1856</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Kalutunah</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg236'>236</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Tour du Monde</span></cite>, 1868 (Hachette)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The East Coast of Smith Sound</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg238'>238</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Hayes' <cite>Open Polar Sea</cite> (Sampson Low)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Dr. I. I. Hayes</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg240'>240</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>By permission, from Hayes' <cite>Open Polar Sea</cite></td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xii'>xii</span><span class='sc'>The Shores of Kennedy Channel</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg242'>242</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Hayes' <cite>Open Polar Sea</cite></td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Tyndall Glacier</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg244'>244</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Hayes' <cite>Open Polar Sea</cite></td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>A Seal in Danger</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg246'>246</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Parry's <cite>Second Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west Passage</cite> (Murray, 1824)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Sir George Nares</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg248'>248</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From a photograph</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Sledges used by Sir Leopold M'Clintock and Sir George Nares</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg254'>254</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>(In the collection of Edward Whymper)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Bishop Paul Egede</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg258'>258</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From the Frontispiece to <cite><span lang="da" xml:lang="da">Efterretninger om Grönland</span></cite> (Copenhagen)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Greenlanders</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg260'>260</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Hartwig's <cite>Polar World</cite> (Longmans)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>On level ground</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg262'>262</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>Nansen's <cite>First Crossing of Greenland</cite> (Longmans)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Allan Liner "Sardinian" among Icebergs</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg264'>264</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From a photograph</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The "Germania" in the Ice</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg266'>266</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Tour du Monde</span></cite>, 1874 (Hachette)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Region round Mount Petermann</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg268'>268</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From a drawing by Lieutenant Julius Payer</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Last Days of the "Hansa"</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg270'>270</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Tour du Monde</span></cite>, 1874 (Hachette)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Robert E. Peary</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg280'>280</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>With autograph, from a letter in the possession of Edward Whymper From <cite>Nearest the Pole</cite>, by Commander Peary. By permission of Hutchinson and Co.</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c006'>SECTIONAL MAPS</h2>
+</div>
+<table class='table0' summary='SECTIONAL MAPS'>
+<colgroup>
+<col width='6%' />
+<col width='56%' />
+<col width='36%' />
+</colgroup>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c012'>1.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Spitsbergen</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg12'>12</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c012'>2.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Cape Chelyuskin</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg84'>84</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c012'>3.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Lena Delta</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg106'>106</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c012'>4.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Bering Strait</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg128'>128</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c012'>5.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Parry Islands</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg174'>174</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c012'>6.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Greenland</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg272'>272</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class='ph1'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div>ROUND ABOUT</div>
+    <div>THE NORTH POLE</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER I<br /> SPITSBERGEN</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>Iceland—Greenland—America—Sebastian Cabot—Robert Thorne—The
+North-east Passage—Willoughby—Chancellor—Borough—The North
+Cape rounded—The White Sea reached—The First Arctic Search Expedition—Pet
+and Jackman—Brunel—Cornelis Nai—Barents reaches
+77° 20´—Second voyage of Nai—The Samoyeds—Rijp, Jacob Van
+Heemskerck and Barents—Bear Island discovered—Spitsbergen discovered—The
+Dutch reach 79° 49´—Stephen Bennet—Welden—Jonas
+Poole—Henry Hudson reaches 80° 23´—Poole starts the British whaling
+trade—Baffin's voyages to Spitsbergen—Pellham winters at Green
+Harbour.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>The story of the lands within the Arctic Circle is
+a record of the brave deeds of healthy men.
+This would seem to be true were we to take the story,
+if we could, back to the days when man followed the
+retreat of the glaciers, as he may in turn have to retreat
+before them, such a condition of things being not beyond
+the range of probability though it may be remote. For
+the boundaries of the frozen north are not dependent on
+a line of latitude, and have never been the same from
+period to period, or even from year to year. In some
+cases they have changed considerably within the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>Christian era, and it is evident that the ice is not
+eternal. The fossils declare that the climate round
+the North Pole has varied greatly, and must in
+comparatively recent ages have been comfortably
+warm, so genial indeed that some people would have
+us believe that men came from there in their last distribution.
+Not, however, with such migrants from
+the far north do we concern ourselves, but with those
+who have endeavoured to get there in historical times
+by different lines of approach, as we follow the circle
+round from east to west and note the record of each
+section by itself.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Who was the first to sail to the northern seas we
+know not. Suffice it for us that in 875 Ingolf the
+<span lang="no" xml:lang="no">jarl</span>, from Norway, refusing to live under the sway of
+Harold Haarfager, sighted Mount Oraefa. As he
+neared the coast, overboard went the carved wood;
+and where the wood drifted ashore he founded Reikjavik.
+But he was not the first in Iceland, for the
+Irish monastery had been there for years when he
+arrived, though the monks retired to their old country
+when they found the Norsemen had come to stay.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Then the Icelander Gunnbiörn, driven westward in
+a gale, sighted the strange land he called White Shirt
+from its snowfields, which Eric the Red, following a
+long time afterwards, more happily renamed. "What
+shall we call the land?" he was asked. "Call it Green
+Land," replied Eric. "But it is not always green!"
+"It matters not: give it a good name and people will
+come to it!"</p>
+
+<div id='pg2'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_017.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE SUMMIT OF ORAEFA</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class='lg-container-l'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>From a photo</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>Then the Norsemen worked further south. In 986
+Bjarni sighted what we now call America, and in 1000
+came the voyage of Leif Ericson, who, on his way
+down the mainland, landing again and again, gave the
+names to Helluland, Markland, Vinland—in short,
+the Viking discovery of the New World.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Greenland, like the eastern coast of the continent,
+was duly colonised, its two chief settlements being one
+just round Cape Farewell, the other further north on
+the same coast. In those days the island, or chain of
+islands beneath an ice-cap, as many think it is, would
+appear to have had a milder climate than it has
+now. The colonies throve, their population becoming
+numerous enough to require a series of seventeen
+bishops, the last one dying about 1540, to superintend
+their spiritual welfare. But the Eskimos, in their
+migration from Asia across the Arctic islands, arrived
+in the country before the middle of the fourteenth
+century and gradually drove the Norsemen downwards,
+the northern colony coming to an end in 1342
+owing to the enemy attacking during a visitation of
+the Black Death.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Meanwhile Iceland, which touches the Arctic Circle
+in its northernmost point, and extends but half as far
+south of it as Greenland, increased in prosperity as a
+sort of aristocratic republic, and produced more vernacular
+literature than any country in Europe, in which,
+as might be expected, the story of Greenland and the
+American colonies was kept so well to the fore that
+it became as familiar among the people as a nursery
+tale. Thither, from Bristol, in February, 1477, went
+Columbus; and thence it was he returned to seek a
+patron for his western voyage across the Atlantic.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The first voyage of Columbus in 1492 gave a great
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>stimulus to maritime discovery, and many were the
+projects for searching the seas for a new route to the
+east. Of these the most important was that submitted
+to Henry VII by John Cabot, of Bristol.
+Much has been written, on slender and confusing
+evidence, as to the share in its success due to him and
+to his son, the more famous Sebastian; and, to be brief,
+we cannot do better than follow Anderson, who, in his
+<cite>Origin of Commerce</cite>, ingeniously evades the difficulty
+by speaking, commercially, of "Cabot and Sons."
+The Bristol firm, then, in 1497 despatched their ship
+<em>Matthew</em> to the westward and discovered and took
+possession of Labrador and the islands and peninsulas in
+the mouth of the St. Lawrence, the district being at first
+known as the New Found Land, a name afterwards
+restricted to the largest island. And they had their
+reward, as shown in the Privy Purse accounts of
+Henry VII, where an entry of the 10th August, 1497,
+appears—"To hym that found the new isle, £10."
+Surely not an excessive honorarium for the finding of
+a continent.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1498 another voyage of the same ship by way of
+Iceland, in which some attempt seems to have been
+made to colonise the newly discovered territories, resulted
+in the discovery of Hudson Strait and a visit to
+Labrador, judging by the finding of the deer in herds,
+the white bears, and the Eskimos who are not known
+to have ever crossed into the island of Newfoundland.
+This was not the only English vessel to appear in
+these parts at that time, for in the same year the Privy
+Purse accounts record a gift of £30 to Thomas Bradley
+and Launcelot Thirkill for going to the New Isle,
+adding that Launcelot had already received £20 "as
+preste" for his ship going there.</p>
+
+<div id='pg4'  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_021.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>COLUMBUS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>It is evident that the fisheries were found to be
+worth working, for no less than fifty Spanish, French,
+and Portuguese ships were engaged in them in 1517,
+the year of Sebastian Cabot's disputed voyage to
+Hudson Bay. Ten years afterwards Robert Thorne, of
+Bristol, wrote to the King, mentioning this voyage and
+suggesting three sea routes to Cathay—by the north-west,
+as Sebastian had attempted, by the north over
+the Pole, and by the north-east—and, in 1547, when
+Sebastian returned to England for good, after his long
+service with Spain, he again, as the first Governor of
+the Company of Merchant Adventurers, took up this
+Cathay question, which had frequently been raised,
+and fitted out, as a commencement, an expedition to
+the north-east.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The ships were built at Bristol specially for the
+purpose, and they were sheathed with lead, the first
+so treated in this country. This sheathing of ships was
+not the only innovation we owe to the most scientific
+seaman of his time, for in his famous ordinances for the
+voyage many excellent new things are enjoined, including
+the keeping of a log and journal, which date
+from this expedition. There were three vessels, the
+<em>Bona Esperanza</em>, of one hundred and twenty tons,
+Captain Sir Hugh Willoughby; the <em>Edward Bonaventure</em>,
+one hundred and sixty tons, Captain Richard
+Chancellor; and the <em>Bona Confidentia</em>, ninety tons,
+Captain Durfourth. In Chancellor's ship, as master,
+was the best navigator of the fleet, whose monumental
+brass in Chatham Church is noteworthy for its
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>epitaph: "Here lieth buried the bodie of Steven
+Borough, who departed this life ye xij day of July in
+ye yere of our Lord 1584, and was borne at Northam
+in Devonshire ye xxv<sup>th</sup> of Septemb. 1525. He in his
+life time discouered Moscouia, by the Northerne sea
+passage to St. Nicholas, in the yere 1553. At his
+setting foorth of England he was accompanied with
+two other shippes, Sir Hugh Willobie being Admirell of
+the fleete, who, with all the company of ye said two
+shippes, were frozen to death in Lappia ye same
+winter. After his discouerie of Roosia, and ye
+Coastes thereto adioyninge—to wit, Lappia, Nova
+Zemla, and the Countrie of Samoyeda, etc.: he frequented
+ye trade to St. Nicholas yearlie, as chief pilot
+for ye voyage, until he was chosen of one of ye foure
+principall Masters in ordinarie of ye Queen's Mat<sup>ties</sup>
+royall Nauy, where in he continued in charge of
+sundrie sea services till time of his death."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The ships left in May, but did not remain long
+together. On the 2nd of August Willoughby and
+Durfourth separated from Chancellor in a storm off
+the Lofodens, and after devious courses, that might
+have led anywhere, were frozen in on the coast of
+Lapland, where they wintered and died, as did all the
+men with them. Chancellor, having waited at the
+rendezvous in vain, crossed the Arctic Circle, rounded
+the North Cape—so named by Borough—and found
+his way into the White Sea. While his ship was in
+winter quarters near where Archangel now is, he made
+a sledge journey to the Czar at Moscow, which led
+to the formation of the Muscovy Company and the
+beginning of England's Russian trade; and through
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>his meeting there with the Persian Ambassador came
+about the mission of Anthony Jenkinson to the Shah,
+which opened up for us the Persian trade. Never was
+a voyage more successful. With it began the foreign
+commerce of this country, and from it dates the rise
+of our mercantile marine.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1556 Borough, in the <em>Searchthrift</em>, persevered
+further east, and, passing between Novaya Zemlya and
+Waigatz Island, through the strait that bears his name
+spelt differently, entered the Kara Sea. Next year in
+the same ship he was given the command of the first
+Arctic Search Expedition, its object being to discover
+what had become of Willoughby. Of one ship, the
+<em>Confidentia</em>, he obtained news in an interview with a
+man who had bought her sails, but the full story of
+the disastrous end of the voyage remained a mystery
+until the Russians found the ships and bodies and
+Willoughby's journal, and took the ships round to the
+Dwina. Then for the first time did people realise
+what it meant to battle with an Arctic winter without
+preparation, and many were those who withdrew their
+interest in the frozen north, preferring tropical dangers
+to the possibility of such accumulating miseries as the
+journal records in due order in its matter-of-fact way,
+its last entry being the terribly suggestive—"Unknowen
+and most wonderful wild beasts assembling in fearful
+numbers about the ships."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>With Stephen Borough in the Chancellor voyage
+was Arthur Pet—or Pett, a name not unknown in the
+navy—who, after two centuries, has become notable
+again through a strange discovery. In search of the
+much-desired passage by the north-east he sailed from
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>Harwich on the 31st of May, 1580, in the <em>George</em>, of
+forty tons, accompanied by Charles Jackman, in the
+<em>William</em>, of twenty tons. His orders were to avoid
+the open sea and keep the coast in sight all the way
+out on the starboard side, and William Borough—Stephen's
+brother, afterwards Comptroller of the Navy—gave
+him certain instructions and notes.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Arranging with Jackman, whose little vessel sailed
+badly, to wait for him at Waigatz, Pet went ahead
+and endeavoured to pass through Burrough Strait, but
+meeting with trouble from the ice, missed the passage,
+and working round Waigatz to the south, entered the
+Kara Sea through Yugor Strait, or as it used to be
+called after him, Pet Strait. Coasting eastward with
+the mainland in sight, he was, as might be expected,
+much hampered by the heavy pack. On being joined
+by the little <em>William</em> he made for the northward, seeking
+a way to the east, but the "more and thicker was
+the ice so that they could go no further," and, after
+talking the matter over on the 28th of July, Pet and
+Jackman reluctantly decided to return to Waigatz
+and there decide on what should be done.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Their way back was difficult. They became shut in
+so that "they could not stir, labouring only to defend
+the ice as it came upon them." For one day they
+were clear of it, but next day, the 16th of August,
+they were encumbered again, though they got out of
+the trouble by sailing between the ice and the shore,
+which was a new experience. In this way they just
+scraped through Pet Strait, and bore away in the open
+sea to Kolguiev, both vessels grounding for a time on
+the sands to the south of that island. On the 22nd of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>August, two days afterwards, the <em>William</em> parted from
+the <em>George</em> in a dense fog, while Pet brought his ship
+home and dropped anchor at Ratcliff on Boxing Day.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The Dutch had for some time been trying to outstrip
+the English on this route to the far east. In
+1565 they had settled at Kola, and about thirteen
+years afterwards had established the factory at the
+mouth of the Dwina on the site of Nova Kholmogory,
+generally known as Archangel. In 1584 Olivier
+Brunel, their energetic emissary in Russia, sailed on
+the first Dutch Arctic discovery expedition. He tried
+in vain to pass through Pet Strait, and the ship, with
+a valuable cargo of furs and mica, was wrecked on its
+homeward voyage at the mouth of the Petchora.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Ten years elapsed, and then there sailed from the
+Texel the expedition of Cornelis Nai, in which the
+<em>Mercury</em>, of Amsterdam, was commanded by Willem
+Barents. Barents—really Barentszoon, the son of
+Bernard—sighted Novaya Zemlya, with which his name
+was to be thenceforth associated, on the 4th of July,
+and coasting along its mighty cliffs, peopled with their
+myriad seabirds, passed Cape Nassau ten days later.
+Thence reaching 77° 20´, and thus improving on John
+Davis's record for the highest north, he struggled
+through the ice to the Orange Islands and back, some
+twenty-five miles, during which he tacked eighty-one
+times and thereby sailed some seventeen hundred geographical
+miles. Failing to proceed further, he came
+south, and off Pet Strait—named by the Dutchmen
+Nassau Strait—fell in with the other two ships returning
+from their unsuccessful attempt to cross the Kara Sea.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Next year a fleet of seven vessels under Nai left the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>Mars Diep on another endeavour to get through to
+China. One of the two chief commissioners on board
+was the famous Van Linschoten, who had been on the
+previous voyage, and the chief pilot was Barents, who
+was in the <em>Winthont</em> (Greyhound) with Jacob van
+Heemskerck as supercargo. Arriving at Pet Strait
+they found it so blocked with ice that no passage was
+possible, and Barents, in search of information, went
+ashore on the mainland south of the strait and made
+friends—in a way—with the Samoyeds, whose appearance,
+as described by Gerrit de Veer, was "like that of
+wild men," dressed as they were in deerskins from head
+to foot, those of importance wearing caps of coloured
+cloth lined with fur; for the most part short of stature,
+with broad flat faces, small eyes, and bow legs; their
+hair worn long, plaited, and hanging down their backs.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>They were evidently suspicious of the Dutchmen,
+who did their best to be friendly. The chief had
+placed sentinels all round to see what the new-comers
+were about and note everything that was bought and
+sold. One of the sentinels was offered a biscuit, which
+"he with great thanks took and ate, and while he ate
+it he still looked diligently about him on all sides,
+watching what was done." Their reindeer sledges were
+kept ready—"that run so swiftly with one or two
+men in them that our horses were not able to follow
+them." They were unacquainted with firearms, and,
+when a musket was fired to impress them, "ran and
+leapt like madmen," but calmed down as soon as they
+saw there was no malicious intention, to wonder much
+more, however, when the man with the gun aimed at a
+flat stone he placed as a mark, and, fortunately, hit and
+broke it. The meeting ended satisfactorily; "after that
+we took our leaves one of the other with great friendship
+on both sides, and when we were in our pinnace
+we all put off our hats and bowed to them, sounding
+our trumpet; they in their manner saluting us also,
+and then went to their sledges again."</p>
+
+<div id='pg10'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_029.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>SAMOYEDS AND THEIR DWELLINGS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>Barents was by no means convinced that the strait
+was impassable, and held out against the opinion of
+the others for some days, but with the firm ice
+stretching round in all directions he had to give in,
+and on the 15th of September the fleet began the
+voyage home. Much had been expected, and the result
+was so conspicuous a failure that the States
+General abandoned any further attempt at a north-east
+passage on their own account, but decided to
+offer a reward to any private expedition that proved
+successful. Whereupon the authorities and merchants
+of Amsterdam fitted out two vessels for a third
+voyage, giving the command of one to Jan Corneliszoon
+Rijp, and that of the other to Jacob van
+Heemskerck, with Barents as chief pilot.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The ships left the Dutch coast on the 18th of May.
+Four days afterwards they were off the Shetlands,
+going north-east. On the 9th of June they discovered
+an island, on which they landed. Here they saw a
+prodigious white bear, which they went after in a boat,
+intending to slip a noose over her neck, but when they
+were near her she looked so strong that their courage
+failed, and they returned to the ships to fetch more
+men, and what seems to have been quite an armoury
+of "muskets, harquebusses, halberds and hatchets."
+Accompanied by another boat they attacked this
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>formidable beast for over two hours, one of them
+getting an axe into her back, with which she swam
+away until she was caught and had her head split open
+by another blow from an axe. From this remarkable
+bear, whose skin, we are told, was twelve feet long,
+the island was named Bear Island.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Continuing northwards they sighted, on the 19th of
+June, Spitsbergen, which they supposed to be Greenland—an
+error that led to much confusion—and on
+the 21st of June they landed and had another trying
+time with a bear, whose skin proved to be thirteen
+feet long. On one island of the cluster they found
+the eggs of the barnacle goose, <em>Bernicla leucopsis</em>,
+whose nesting ground was up to then unknown, and
+on others they saw reindeer, for in this land "there
+groweth leaves and grass." Returning to Bear Island
+after attaining 79° 49´, some hundred and seventy
+miles higher north than in 1594, Rijp departed for the
+north again, and, failing to get beyond Bird Cape,
+went home to Holland by way of Kola; and to Kola
+he came back the year afterwards.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1603, following the Dutch, came Stephen Bennet
+to call Bear Island Cherie Island, after his patron, and
+find the walruses in thousands and the birds in millions.
+A rocky tableland of mountain limestone and carboniferous
+sandstone, with the usual fossils in unusual
+numbers and a few coal seams in between; the ravines
+faced and floored with fragments of every dimension
+and shape, split off by the frost and weathered by
+wind and rain: a grey, grassless, monotonous country,
+except along the coast, where the guano from the vast
+numbers of seabirds has coated the crannies and ledges
+of the cliffs, that tower up perhaps four hundred
+feet from the water, with a thin layer of soil in which
+the scurvy-grass and a few other plants thrive amazingly,
+though the island's complete flora contains but
+forty species—such is Bear Island, the stepping-stone
+to Spitsbergen, of which Jonas Poole took possession
+in 1609 for the Muscovy Company.</p>
+
+<div id='pg12'  class='figcenter id004'>
+<a href='images/i_033.jpg'><img src='images/i_033_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>SPITSBERGEN</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>Lying east of the influence of the Gulf Stream,
+the range of temperature is of the widest. Often
+the island is unapproachable owing to the ice, sometimes
+it is even now as hot as Welden found it in 1608,
+when, in June, "the pitch did run down the ship's
+sides, and that side of the masts that was to the sun-ward
+was so hot that the tar did fry out of it as
+though it had boiled." That was a great year for
+Welden, for he killed a thousand walruses in less than
+seven hours and took a young one home with him,
+"where the king and many honourable personages
+beheld it with admiration, the like whereof had never
+before been seen alive in England."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Poole did much useful work in these seas, but is now
+little heard of, most of the surviving interest in such
+matters being concentrated on Henry Hudson, who
+was in the same service at the same time. Hudson
+was, perhaps, a grandson of Alderman Henry Hudson,
+one of the founders of the Muscovy Company, but
+nothing is really known of him beyond his being a
+captain in the Muscovy Company, who, on the 19th of
+April, 1607, took the sacrament at St. Ethelburga's,
+in Bishopsgate Street, with his son and crew "and the
+rest of the parishioners." That he was a parishioner
+may be true, but that all the ten members of the crew
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>were so is unlikely. Anyhow, they were outward
+bound for Japan and China by way of the North Pole,
+and sailed from Gravesend on the 1st of May.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Where he went is not clear in detail, as his latitudes
+are seldom correct and his longitudes are not recorded.
+He sighted Greenland north of Iceland, and, shouldered
+off by the ice barrier, left it somewhere about Franz
+Josef Fjord, working easterly by the edge of the
+ice to Spitsbergen. Here he sailed round Prince
+Charles's Foreland and went north, passing Hakluyt
+Headland, which he named, reaching on the 13th of
+July, 80° 23´, "by observation." He saw many whales,
+but found his way blocked by ice; and after many
+attempts, assuring himself that there was no passage
+hereabouts to the north, sailed southwards for Bear
+Island. On leaving this he seems to have gone west,
+possibly to the coast of Greenland again, for on his
+way home he lighted upon Hudson's Touches, now
+known as Jan Mayen Island, the principal cape of
+which bears the name of Hudson's Point—which may
+be either Hudson's or Rudston's (after the Rudston
+mentioned in Baffin's fourth voyage)—while another is
+known as Young's Foreland, perhaps after the James
+Young who was the first in the ship to sight the coast
+of Greenland on the outward journey. He dropped
+anchor in the Thames on the 15th of September all
+well. He had not crossed the Pole, nor did he find
+Spitsbergen stretching up to 82°, as he said, its most
+northerly point being miles further south; but he
+had gone beyond Van Heemskerck's furthest north and
+found a fishing ground for whales and walruses which
+proved of great commercial value.</p>
+
+<div id='pg14'  class='figcenter id005'>
+<img src='images/i_037.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>FRANZ JOSEF FIORD</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>In 1610, Poole, finding that he could not land on
+Bear Island owing to the ice, stood away to the north-west,
+reached Spitsbergen, and worked along the
+western side to Hakluyt Headland, where the ice
+barred further advance. On his way up and down the
+coast he gave many of the capes and bays the names
+they still bear, and generally did so well that on his
+return he was put in the place of Hudson, who had
+left the service two years before, and made a sort of
+special commissioner by the Muscovy Company "for
+certain years upon a stipend certain" to make further
+discoveries round Spitsbergen and to ascertain whether
+there was an open sea further northward than had
+already been found. In addition to searching for the
+open polar sea, he was to convoy the <em>Mary Margaret</em>,
+in which were six Biscayners "expert in the killing of
+the whale," to Bear Island, and thence to Whale Bay in
+Spitsbergen. In short, Poole was to start the British
+whaling trade, the <em>Mary Margaret</em> being the first
+British vessel to be employed in that lucrative but
+hazardous occupation; and she was under the command
+of Thomas Edge, whose name is borne by
+Edge's Island.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The beginning was so promising that in 1613, two
+years afterwards, a fleet of seven vessels went out to take
+part in the fishery and clear away the foreigners who
+had come to share in the good fortune; the company
+claiming the islands on the ground of their purely
+imaginary discovery by Willoughby, the Dutch resting
+their claim on the real discovery by Van Heemskerck.
+In this fleet as chief pilot was William Baffin—his
+second recorded voyage. By him, who as usual kept
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>his eyes open, we have the first description of the
+Spitsbergen glaciers. He was at the time—the 29th of
+July—in Green Harbour in Ice Fjord. "One thing
+more I observed," he says, "in this harbour which I
+have thought good also to set down. Purposing on a
+time to walk towards the mountains, I, and two more
+of my company, ascended up a long plain hill, as we
+supposed it to be; but having gone a while upon it, we
+perceived it to be ice. Notwithstanding we proceeded
+higher up, about the length of half a mile, and as we
+went saw many deep rifts or gutters on the land of ice,
+which were cracked down through to the ground, or, at
+the least, an exceeding great depth; as we might well
+perceive by hearing the snow water run below, as it
+does oftentimes in a brook whose current is somewhat
+opposed with little stones. But for better satisfaction
+I brake down some pieces of ice with a staff I had
+in my hand, which in their falling made a noise on
+each side much like to a piece of glass thrown down
+the well within Dover Castle, whereby we did estimate
+the thickness or height of this ice to be thirty fathoms.
+This huge ice, in my opinion, is nothing but snow,
+which from time to time has for the most part been
+driven off the mountains; and so continuing and increasing
+all the time of winter (which may be counted
+three-quarters of the year) cannot possibly be consumed
+with the thaw of so short a summer, but is only
+a little dissolved to moisture, whereby it becomes more
+compact, and with the quick succeeding frost is congealed
+to a firm ice."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Next year he was out again in the <em>Thomasine</em>, one of
+a fleet of thirteen vessels, and in endeavouring to pass
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>to the north-east, reached Wijde Bay, where at the
+point of the beach at the entrance he "set up a cross
+and nailed a sixpence thereon with the king's arms,"
+probably the neatest property mark in history. Thence
+he went on to the entrance to Hinlopen Strait, completing
+the journey along the north of the main island. It
+was on this voyage that he endeavoured to find his
+longitudes by observing the moon, for Baffin was the
+first who attempted to take a lunar at sea.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Year by year the fishery increased, and the whale
+fishers multiplied as if the sea were a goldfield, the
+monopoly being respected until 1618, when the Dutch,
+who had all along prospered more than the rest, proved
+too strong for the English, and a compromise was
+arrived at by which the different harbours were
+allotted to the different nations for the processes
+necessary in the preparation of the whale products for
+shipment. But it was purely a summer industry.
+There was no colony, and it did not seem as though
+there would be one, for no man willing to winter in
+the place could be found. Vainly were rewards offered
+to those who would venture. In the north was the
+ever-present barrier of ice, more distant some years
+than others, but always there to come south and hold
+the islands in its grip when the fishery was over, and
+those who came early and those who stayed late saw
+enough of the wintry landscape to make them doubt
+if life were possible under such conditions.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Then the idea, not new to Englishmen, that colonies
+should be started by criminals, was acted upon, and
+the Muscovy Company procured the reprieve of a
+batch of prisoners under sentence of death and landed
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>them in Spitsbergen under promise of a free pardon,
+a handsome reward, and full provisions and suitable
+clothes if they would remain there for a continuous
+twelve months. But, as the ship that brought them
+was preparing to return to London, "they conceived
+such a horror and inward fear in their hearts" that
+they besought the captain to take them back that they
+might be hanged rather than perish amid such desolation;
+and the captain "being a pitiful and a merciful
+gentleman, would not by force constrain them to stay,"
+and brought them home again, when the company—who
+could do no less—procured them a pardon. One
+captain—of a different disposition—had left nine men
+behind him, all of whom perished miserably; and
+another, in 1630, left eight others, apparently through
+causes beyond his control, whose adventure was to
+form one of the most interesting episodes in Arctic
+story.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>It was on the 15th of August in that year that the
+<em>Salutation</em> sent Edward Pellham and his seven companions
+ashore to kill reindeer for the ship's provisions
+on her voyage home. Taking with them two dogs, a
+snap-hance, two lances, and a tinder-box, they landed
+near Black Point, between Green Harbour and Bell
+Sound, and, "laying fourteen tall and nimble deer
+along," camped for the night. During the night
+the weather changed and brought in the ice between
+the shore and the ship, and in the morning the ship
+had gone. The boat's crew made for Green Harbour,
+thinking she would put in there to pick them up, but
+she failed to appear, being due to leave the country in
+three days, and after a fruitless attempt to catch her at
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>Bell Sound, they eventually took up their quarters
+there on the 3rd of September.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Here was one of the so-called tents of the whale-fishers.
+"This," says Pellham, "which we call the
+tent, was a kind of house built of timber and boards
+very substantially, and covered with Flemish tiles, by
+the men of which nation it had in the time of their
+trading thither been built. Four-score foot long it is
+and in breadth fifty. The use of it was for the coopers,
+employed for the service of the company, to work,
+lodge, and live in, all the while they make casks for the
+putting up of the train oil." As this was too large for
+their comfort, they very sensibly built another within
+it. "Taking down another lesser tent therefore (built
+for the landmen hard by the other, wherein they lay
+whilst they made their oil), from thence we fetched our
+materials. That tent furnished us with one hundred
+and fifty deal boards, besides posts or stanchions and
+rafters. From three chimneys of the furnaces wherein
+they used to boil their oil, we brought a thousand
+bricks: there also found we three hogsheads of very
+fine lime, of which stuff we also fetched another hogshead
+from Bottle Cove, on the other side of the sound,
+some three leagues distant. Mingling this lime with
+the sand of the sea-shore, we made very excellent good
+morter for the laying of our bricks: falling to work
+thereon, the weather was so extreme cold as that we
+were fain to make two fires to keep our morter from
+freezing. William Fakely and myself, undertaking the
+masonry, began to raise a wall of one brick thickness
+against the inner planks of the side of the tent.
+Whilst we were laying of these bricks, the rest of our
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>company were otherwise employed every one of them:
+some in taking them down, others in making of them
+clean and in bringing them in baskets into the tent.
+Some in making morter, and hewing of boards to build
+the other side withal, and two others all the while in
+flaying of our venison. And thus, having built the
+two outermost sides of the tent with bricks and morter,
+and our bricks now almost spent, we were enforced to
+build the two other sides with boards; and that in this
+manner. First we nailed our deal boards on one side
+of the post or stanchion to the thickness of one foot:
+and on the other side in like manner: and so filling up
+the hollow place with sand, it became so tight and
+warm as not the least breath of air could possibly
+annoy us. Our chimney's vent was into the greater
+tent, being the breadth of one deal board and four foot
+long. The length of this our tent was twenty foot
+and the breadth sixteen; the height ten; our ceiling
+being deal boards five or six times double, the middle
+of one joining so close to the shut of the other that no
+wind could possibly get between. As for our door,
+besides our making it so close as possibly it could shut;
+we lined it moreover with a bed that we found lying
+there, which came over both the opening and the shutting
+of it. As for windows, we made none at all, so that
+our light we brought in through the greater tent, by
+removing two or three tiles in the eaves, which light
+came to us through the vent of our chimney. Our
+next work was to set up four cabins, billeting ourselves
+two and two in a cabin. Our beds were the deer skins
+dried, which we found to be extraordinary warm, and a
+very comfortable kind of lodging to us in our distress."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>For fuel they knocked to pieces seven old boats left
+ashore by the ships, storing the wood over the beams
+of the tent so as to make a sort of floor protecting the
+interior from snow driven in under the tiles, and, in
+addition, they broke up a number of empty casks. To
+make the wood last as long as possible they hit upon a
+device for keeping the fire in—"when we raked up our
+fire at night, with a good quantity of ashes and of
+embers, we put into the midst of it a piece of elm
+wood, where, after it had lain sixteen hours, we at our
+opening of it found great store of fire upon it, whereupon
+we made a common practice of it ever after: it never
+went out in eight months together, or thereabouts."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Upon the 12th of September a small quantity of
+drift ice came into the sound, on a piece of which they
+found two walruses asleep, when "William Fakely
+being ready with his harping iron, heaved it so strongly
+into the old one that he quite disturbed her of her rest:
+after which, she, receiving five or six thrusts with our
+lances, fell into a sounder sleep of death." The young
+one, refusing to leave her mother, was also killed; and
+a week afterwards another walrus fell a victim; but
+even with these the store of provisions was inadequate.
+To make the food last, they put themselves on an
+allowance of one good meal a day, except on Wednesdays
+and Fridays which were fasting days devoted to
+whale sundries—"a very loathsome meat," says Pellham,
+in brackets—later on, for four days in the week
+they fed upon "the unsavoury and mouldy fritters, and
+the other three we feasted it with bear and venison."
+"But," continues the narrative, "as if it were not
+enough for us to want meat, we now began to want
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>light also; all our meals proved suppers now, for little
+light could we see; even the glorious sun (as if unwilling
+to behold our miseries) masking his lovely face
+from us, under the sable veil of coal-black night."But
+they were equal to the emergency. "At the beginning
+of this darksome, irksome time, we sought some
+means of preserving light amongst us; finding therefore
+a piece of sheet lead over a seam of one of the
+coolers, that we ripped off and made three lamps of it,
+which, maintaining with oil that we found in the
+coopers' tent, and rope-yarn serving us instead of
+candle-wicks, we kept them continually burning."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Cheerful and resourceful as they were, their fits of depression
+were not infrequent. "Our extremities being
+so many, made us sometimes in impatient speeches
+to break forth against the causers of our miseries; but
+then again, our consciences telling us of our own evil
+deservings, we took it either for a punishment upon us
+for our former wicked lives; or else for an example of
+God's mercy in our wonderful deliverance: humbling
+ourselves therefore, under the mighty hand of God, we
+cast down ourselves before him in prayer, two or three
+times a day, which course we constantly held all the
+time of our misery."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Their prospects got worse, but they never lost a
+little hope. "The new year now began: as the days
+began to lengthen, so the cold began to strengthen;
+which cold came at last to that extremity, as that it
+would raise blisters on our flesh, as if we had been
+burnt with fire, and if we touched iron at any time it
+would stick to our fingers like bird-lime: sometimes if
+we went but out of doors to fetch in a little water, the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>cold would nip us in such a sort that it made us as sore
+as if we had been beaten in some cruel manner."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Provisions were running low; the men began to talk
+of famine, and the outlook became daily gloomier until
+the 3rd of February. "This proved a marvellous cold
+day; yet a fair and clear one; about the middle
+whereof, all clouds now quite dispersed and night's
+sable curtain drawn, Aurora with her golden face
+smiled once again upon us, at her rising out of her
+bed; for now the glorious sun with his glittering beams
+began to gild the highest tops of the lofty mountains.
+The brightness of the sun and the whiteness of the
+snow, both together, were such as that it was able to
+revive even a dying spirit. But to make a new addition
+to our new joy, we might perceive two bears (a she
+one with her cub) now coming towards our tent;
+whereupon we, straight arming ourselves with our lances,
+issued out of the tent to await her coming. She soon
+cast her greedy eyes upon us, and with full hopes of
+devouring us she made the more haste unto us; but
+with our hearty lances we gave her such a welcome as
+that she fell down and biting the very snow for anger."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Then more bears came to be eaten; then the birds
+began to arrive, and the foxes to come out of their
+winter earths to be trapped to the number of fifty;
+then the reindeer returned; and then, on the 25th May,
+two ships of Hull came into the sound from which a
+boat's crew landing unperceived came close up to the
+tent and shouted "Hey!" And Ayers, the only man
+at the moment in the outer tent, shouted "Ho!"—and
+Pellham and his shipmates had proved it to be possible
+to live through a winter in Spitsbergen.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER II<br /> SPITSBERGEN</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c004'>
+    <div>(<em>continued</em>)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c014'>The summer town of Smeerenberg—Himkoff winters in North East Land—Phipps
+reaches 80° 48´—Scoresby the elder reaches 81° 30´—Scoresby the
+younger—Voyage of the <em>Dorothea</em> and <em>Trent</em> under Buchan and Franklin—Parry
+reaches 82° 45´—Torell and Nordenskiöld—Carlsen sails round
+Spitsbergen—Swedish North Polar expedition under Nordenskiöld—Lamont—The
+Diana coal mine—Leigh Smith—Conway.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>This wintering of the <em>Salutation</em> men occurred
+when the Spitsbergen fisheries were most flourishing,
+the prosperity continuing for seven more years.
+So lucrative was the trade that on Amsterdam Island
+under Hakluyt Headland, within fifteen miles of 80°
+north latitude, about as far from the North Pole as
+St. Malo is from John o' Groat's, there sprang up as
+a summer resort the Dutch village of Smeerenberg.
+Such was the bustle produced by the yearly visit of
+two or three hundred double-manned vessels, containing
+from twelve thousand to eighteen thousand men,
+that this village of the farthest north was as busy as a
+manufacturing town. The incitement of prices proportionate
+to the latitude attracted hundreds of annual
+settlers, who throve on the sale of brandy, wine,
+tobacco, and sundries to the whale-fishers in shops of
+all varieties, including bakehouses, where the blowing
+of a horn let the sailors know that the bread had just
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>been drawn hot from the oven. In fact, hot rolls and
+every delicacy could be had in Smeerenberg, which the
+Dutch averred was as flourishing as Batavia, founded
+by them a few years before. And when winter was
+just about due every man—and woman—went back to
+Holland. But the life of Smeerenberg was a short
+and a merry one, for in 1640 the shore fisheries were
+failing, and a year or so afterwards the lingerers of its
+last season left it for good, clearing out from its houses
+of brick and wood, demolishing its furnaces, removing
+its copper cauldrons and coolers and casks and everything
+that could be taken away, and leaving it in
+desolation to be occupied in the next and subsequent
+summers by polar bears.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Like all seaside resorts it had its rival. Close by is
+the Cookery-of-Haarlem, abandoned at the same time,
+but rather more hurriedly. When Martens went there
+on the 15th of July, 1671, he found four houses still
+standing, in one of which were "several barrels or
+kardels that were quite decayed, the ice standing in
+the same shape the vessels had been made of: an anvil,
+smith's tongs, and other tools belonging to the cookery,
+were frozen up in the ice; the kettle was still standing
+as it was set, and the wooden troughs stood by it."
+Behind these houses "are high mountains," he continues,
+"if one climbeth upon these, as we do on others,
+and doth not mark every step with chalk, one doth not
+know how to get down again: when you go up you
+think it to be very easy to be down; but when you
+descend it is very difficult and dangerous, so that many
+have fallen and lost their lives." Absurd as this chalking
+of the steps may seem, there have been many who
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>have taken the hint from the careful Martens when
+climbing in Spitsbergen, and many who have regretted
+not having done so.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In ordinary summers the west side of Spitsbergen is
+clear of ice, not so the eastern side, the difference being
+due to the Gulf Stream, which, though evidently failing,
+is traceable along the coast round Hakluyt Headland
+and up to the ice barrier. In addition to this
+there is the general cause, whatever it may be, which
+makes the western coasts of all Arctic lands, isolated
+or not, warmer than the eastern. Greenland, for
+instance, is more approachable in summer from Davis
+Strait than from the Greenland Sea, Novaya Zemlya
+from Barents Sea than from Kara Sea, and so on with
+all the islands and peninsulas of Asia and America.
+Hence all this whaling was confined practically to the
+western harbours of West Spitsbergen, the largest of
+the group of islands. The next largest, North East
+Land, was never much visited except from Hinlopen
+Strait, though the Russians from time to time took
+some interest in the north and east harbours, and would
+have taken more, for it abounded in reindeer, if the
+ice had not made the landing an enterprise of some
+difficulty.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the east coast of North East Land, in 1743, a
+Russian whaler was caught in the pack, and the mate,
+Alexis Himkoff, remembering that a house had been
+built there some years before, went on shore with his
+godson, Ivan Himkoff, and two sailors, Scharapoff and
+Weregin, in search of it, in case the ship should have
+to be abandoned. They found the house, but, on
+returning to the shore next morning, could see nothing
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>of the ship, which had apparently been carried away
+and crushed in the ice. They had brought with them
+a musket, a powder-horn with twelve charges of
+powder, twelve bullets, an axe, a small kettle, a bag
+with about twenty pounds of flour, a knife, a tinder-box
+and tinder, a bladder of tobacco, and every man
+had his pipe. That was their outfit.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The house was thirty-six feet in length, and eighteen
+in height and breadth. It contained a small antechamber
+about twelve feet broad, which had two doors,
+one to close it from the outer air, the other admitting
+to the inner room in which was a Russian stove, a kind
+of oven without a chimney, serving at will for heating,
+for baking, or for sleeping on. Realising that they had
+a long stay before them, they began by shooting
+twelve reindeer, one for each bullet. They then repaired
+the house, stopping up all the crevices with
+moss; and they then laid in a store of fuel from the
+driftwood, there being no trees on the island. On the
+beach they found some boards with nails in them, and
+a long iron hook and a few other pieces of old iron.
+And also there was a root of a fir tree in shape not
+unlike a bow. Those were the materials they had to
+make the best of.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>A large stone served for an anvil, a pair of deer horns
+did duty for tongs, and with these and the fire, the iron
+hook was made into a hammer; and then two of the
+nails were shaped into spear-heads, which were tied to
+sticks from the driftwood with strips of deerskin.
+With these weapons they began by killing a bear,
+whose flesh they ate, whose skin they kept, and whose
+tendons they made into thread and a string for the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>bow formed out of the root of the fir tree. More
+nails were forged into arrow-heads, tied with sinew on
+to light sticks cut with the knife, the shafts being
+feathered from the feathers of seafowl. With these
+weapons they shot, before they had finished, two hundred
+and fifty reindeer, and they kept the skins, as they
+did also those of a large number of blue and white
+foxes, as we shall see in the sequel. In their own
+protection they killed nine bears, the only one they
+deliberately attacked being the first.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>To be sure of keeping their fire alight they modelled
+a lamp out of clay, which they filled with deer-fat,
+with twisted linen for a wick; but the clay was too
+porous, the fat ran through it; so they made another
+lamp of the same stuff, dried it in the air, heated it red
+hot, and cooled it in a sort of thin starch made of flour
+and water, strengthening the pottery by pasting linen
+rags over it. The result was so successful that they
+made a second lamp as a reserve. Some wreckage
+gave them a little cordage and a quantity of oakum,
+which came in for lamp-wicks. The lamp, like the
+sacred fire, was never allowed to go out. To make
+themselves clothes, they soaked skins in fresh water till
+the hair could be pulled off easily, and rubbed them
+well, and then rubbed deer fat into them until they
+were pliant and supple. Some of the skins they prepared
+as furs. Out of nails they, after many failures,
+made awls and needles, getting the eyes by piercing the
+heads with the point of the knife, and smoothing and
+pointing them by rounding and whetting them on a
+stone.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>For six years they lived in this desert place. Then
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>one of them, Weregin, died of scurvy, and their
+gloomy forebodings as to which was to be taken next
+were broken in upon by their sighting a ship, to which
+they signalled with a flag made of deerskin. The
+signal was seen and they were rescued; and they took
+back to Archangel two thousand pounds weight of
+reindeer fat, their bales of skins and furs, their bow and
+arrows and spears, and in short everything they possessed.
+And they arrived there on the 28th of September,
+1749, comfortably off from the value of the
+goods they brought with them—the heroes of one of
+the very best of true desert island stories.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Like most Russians they do not seem to have
+suffered much from the cold or to have been inconvenienced
+by the summer heat, which is also considerable.
+In 1773, on the 13th of June, when Phipps
+and Lutwidge anchored in Fair Haven, round by
+Amsterdam Island, they found the thermometer reach
+58½° at noon and descend no lower than 51° at midnight,
+and on the 16th it rose in the sun to 89½° till a
+light breeze made it fall almost suddenly ten degrees.
+This was the expedition sent out to the North Pole,
+mainly at the instigation of Daines Barrington, Gilbert
+White's friend. The ships were the <em>Racehorse</em> and
+<em>Carcass</em>; and, as every one knows, or ought to know,
+as midshipman with Captain Lutwidge went Horatio
+Nelson, then a boy of fourteen, who was to figure
+largely in the world, though on this occasion he did
+nothing remarkable beyond attacking a polar bear,
+whose skin he thought would make a nice present for
+his father, and bringing his boat to the rescue when
+one of the <em>Racehorse</em> boats was attacked by walruses.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>For another thing the expedition is memorable, that
+being that the useful apparatus for the distillation of
+fresh water from sea water, known to every seafarer,
+was first used on this voyage, Dr. Irving, its inventor,
+being the surgeon of the <em>Racehorse</em>. Another item to
+be noted is that Phipps had with him a Cavendish
+thermometer, which he tried the day after he crossed
+the Arctic Circle, and found that at a depth of 780
+fathoms the temperature was 26°, while at the surface
+it was 48°.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Phipps did all he could to go north, and, in
+longitude 14° 59´ east, reached 80° 48', the nearest to
+the Pole up to then, but he was foiled by the ice
+barrier, which he tried to penetrate again and again.
+He got his ships caught in the ice and took to his
+boats, thinking he would have to abandon them, when
+fortunately the pack drifted south, and the vessels,
+clearing themselves under sail, caught the boats up
+and took them on board. Then he went along the
+edge of the ice westward, and, finding no opening,
+gave the venture up and sailed for home.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The next to do good work within this area was
+William Scoresby the elder, whose only equal as a
+whale-fisher was his son. To him we owe the invention
+of the crow's nest, that cylindrical frame covered
+with canvas, entrance to which is given by a trap-hatch
+in the base, reached by a Jacob's ladder from the topmast
+crosstrees, the conning-tower, so to speak, carried
+since by every ship on Arctic service. He was also
+the inventor of the ice-drill and many another implement
+and device used in Polar navigation; and he it
+was who sloped off his fore and main courses to come
+inboard to a boom fitted to the foot, used by every
+whaler, by which, in fact, you may know them. He
+also, long before the <em>America</em>, discovered the advantage
+of flat sails, and, in order to get his weights well down,
+he filled his casks with water as ballast and packed
+them with shingle, so that, instead of going out light,
+he was in the best of trim, with a power of beating
+to windward that took him to the fishing ground in
+double quick time and further into the ice, when he
+chose, than any of his competitors.</p>
+
+<div id='pg30'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_055.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>WHALERS AMONG ICEBERGS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>Out in the <em>Resolution</em> in 1806 he saw from his crow's
+nest, in which he often spent a dozen hours at a stretch,
+that below the ice-blink—the white line in the sky
+which betokens the presence of ice—there was a blue-grey
+streak denoting open water, and that the motion
+of the sea around the ship must be due to a swell,
+which could only come from open water to the northward.
+On the 13th of May he started for this. By
+sawing the ice, hammering at it, dropping his boats on
+to it from the bow, sallying the ship—that is, rolling
+her by running the crew backwards and forwards
+across her deck—and, in fact, using every means he
+could think of, he passed the barrier in the eightieth
+parallel, and, on the 24th of June, attained 81° 30´, the
+farthest north ever reached by a sailing vessel in these
+seas. On that day there was not a ship within three
+hundred and fifty miles of the <em>Resolution</em>. The bold
+venture proved a thorough success; in thirty-two days
+he filled up with twenty-four whales, two seals, two
+walruses, and a narwhal—one of the most profitable
+of his thirty voyages.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In this voyage the chief officer was his son, William
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>Scoresby the younger, whose <em>Arctic Regions</em> is the best
+book ever written on the northern seas. Sent by his
+father to Edinburgh University where he studied
+almost every branch of natural and physical science, he
+was thoroughly equipped for his task, and his practical
+experience as a whaling captain and trained observer
+stood him in such stead that his book is still the basis
+of all scientific Polar research. His description of the
+Spitsbergen coast as seen from a ship is as faithful to-day
+as when he wrote it. "Spitsbergen and its islands,
+with some other countries within the Arctic Circle,
+exhibit a kind of scenery which is altogether novel.
+The principal objects which strike the eye are innumerable
+mountainous peaks, ridges, precipices, or needles,
+rising immediately out of the sea to an elevation of
+3000 or 4000 feet, the colour of which, at a moderate
+distance, appears to be blackish shades of brown, green,
+grey and purple; snow or ice, in striæ or patches,
+occupying the various clefts and hollows in the sides of
+the hills, capping some of the mountain summits, and
+filling with extended beds the most considerable valleys;
+and ice of the glacier form, occurring at intervals all
+along the coast, in particular situations as already described,
+in prodigious accumulations. The glistening or
+vitreous appearance of the icy precipices; the purity,
+whiteness, and beauty of the sloping expanse formed
+by their snowy surfaces; the gloomy shade presented
+by the adjoining or intermixed mountains and rocks,
+perpetually covered with a mourning veil of black
+lichens, with the sudden transitions into a robe of
+purest white, where patches or beds of snow occur,
+present a variety and extent of contrast altogether
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>peculiar; which, when enlightened by the occasional
+ethereal brilliancy of the Polar sky, and harmonised in
+its serenity with the calmness of the ocean, constitute a
+picture both novel and magnificent. There is, indeed,
+a kind of majesty, not to be conveyed in words, in
+these extraordinary accumulations of snow and ice in
+the valleys, and in the rocks above rocks and peaks
+above peaks, in the mountain groups, seen rising above
+the ordinary elevation of the clouds, and terminating
+occasionally in crests of snow, especially when you
+approach the shore under the shelter of the impenetrable
+density of a summer fog; in which case the fog
+sometimes disperses like the drawing of a curtain, when
+the strong contrast of light and shade, heightened by a
+cloudless atmosphere and powerful sun, bursts on the
+senses in a brilliant exhibition resembling the production
+of magic."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1818 there went out the first British expedition
+prepared to winter in the north. The vessels were two
+whalers bought into the navy, the <em>Dorothea</em> and <em>Trent</em>,
+the first under the command of David Buchan, the
+other under that of John Franklin. Neither officer
+had been in the Arctic region before, but Buchan had
+done excellent service in surveying Newfoundland, and
+Franklin had been marked for special duty owing to his
+work in Australian seas under his cousin, Matthew
+Flinders, and for the manner in which on his way home
+he had acted as signal officer to Nathaniel Dance in
+that ever-memorable victory off the Straits of Malacca,
+when the Indiamen defeated and pursued a French
+fleet under Admiral Linois. Dance's report gave
+Franklin a further chance of distinction, for it led to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>his appointment to the <em>Bellerophon</em>, whose signal
+officer he was during the battle of Trafalgar.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>They were instructed to proceed to the North Pole,
+thence to continue on to Bering Strait direct, or by the
+best route they could find, to make their way to the
+Sandwich Islands or New Albion, and thence to come
+back through Bering Strait eastward, keeping in sight
+and approaching the coast of America whenever the
+position of the ice permitted them so to do. A nice
+little programme. But they started too early in a bad
+season; they did not get so far north as Phipps; they
+made accurate surveys and other observations; in
+exploration they did little; and they had many adventures.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>As they ranged along the western side of Spitsbergen
+the weather was severe. The snow fell in heavy
+showers, and several tons' weight of ice accumulated
+about the sides of the <em>Trent</em>, and formed a complete
+casing to the planks, which received an additional layer
+at each plunge of the vessel. So great, indeed, was
+the accumulation about the bows, that they were
+obliged to cut it away repeatedly with axes to relieve
+the bowsprit from the enormous weight that was
+attached to it: and the ropes were so thickly covered
+with ice that it was necessary to beat them with large
+sticks to keep them in a state of readiness. In the
+gale the ships parted company, but they met again at
+the rendezvous in Magdalena Bay.</p>
+
+<div id='pg34'  class='figcenter id006'>
+<img src='images/i_061.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>SIR JOHN FRANKLIN</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>Later on, off Cloven Cliff, there was a walrus fight
+begun by the seamen and continued by the walruses
+when they found themselves more at home in the
+water than on the ice. They rose in numbers about
+the boats, rushing at them, snorting with rage, endeavouring
+to upset them or stave them in by hooking
+their tusks on the gunwales, or butting at them with
+their heads. "It was the opinion of our people," says
+Beechey, "that in this assault the walruses were led on
+by one animal in particular, a much larger and more
+formidable beast than any of the others; and they
+directed their efforts more particularly towards him,
+but he withstood all the blows of their tomahawks
+without flinching, and his tough hide resisted the entry
+of the whale lances, which were, unfortunately, not
+very sharp, and soon bent double. The herd was so
+numerous, and their attacks so incessant, that there
+was not time to load a musket, which, indeed, was the
+only effectual mode of seriously injuring them. The
+purser, fortunately, had his gun loaded, and the whole
+now being nearly exhausted with chopping and sticking
+at their assailants, he snatched it up, and, thrusting
+the muzzle down the throat of the leader, fired
+into him. The wound proved mortal, and the animal
+fell back amongst his companions, who immediately
+desisted from their attack, assembled round him, and
+in a moment quitted the boat, swimming away as hard
+as they could with their leader, whom they actually
+bore up with their tusks and assiduously preserved
+from sinking."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On one occasion Franklin and Beechey, when out in
+a boat together, witnessed the launch of an iceberg.
+They had approached the end of a glacier and were
+trying to search into the recess of a deep cavern at
+its foot when they heard a report as if of a cannon,
+and, turning to the quarter whence it proceeded, perceived
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>an immense piece of the front of the cliff of ice
+gliding down from a height of two hundred feet at
+least into the sea, and dispersing the water in every
+direction, accompanied by a loud grinding noise, and
+followed by a quantity of water, which, lodged in the
+fissures, made its escape in numberless small cataracts
+over the front of the glacier. They kept the boat's
+head in the direction of the sea and thus escaped
+disaster, for the disturbance occasioned by the plunge
+of this enormous fragment caused a succession of
+rollers, which swept over the surface of the bay,
+making its shores resound as it travelled along it, and
+at a distance of four miles was so considerable that it
+became necessary to right the <em>Dorothea</em>, which was then
+careening, by instantly releasing the tackles which confined
+her. The piece that had been disengaged wholly
+disappeared under water, and nothing was seen but a
+violent boiling of the sea and a shooting up of clouds
+of spray like that which occurs at the foot of a great
+cataract. After a short time it reappeared, raising its
+head full a hundred feet above the surface, with water
+pouring down from all parts of it; and then, labouring
+as if doubtful which way it should fall, it rolled over,
+and, after rocking about for some minutes, became
+settled. It was nearly a quarter of a mile round and
+floated sixty feet out of the water, and making a
+fair allowance for its inequalities, was computed to
+weigh 421,600 tons.</p>
+
+<div id='pg36'  class='figcenter id007'>
+<a href='images/i_065.jpg'><img src='images/i_065_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>TRACK OF H.M.S. "DOROTHEA" AND "TRENT"</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>There were frequent landings, often with difficulties
+in the return, due generally to attempts at making a
+short cut to the shore or across the ice. Of these
+short cuts the very shortest was that made by one of
+the sailors named Spinks, who was out with a party in
+pursuit of reindeer. The ardour of the chase had led
+them beyond the prescribed limits, and when the
+signal was made for their return to the boat some of
+them were upon the top of a hill. Spinks, an active
+and zealous fellow, anxious to be first at his post,
+thought he would outstrip his comrades by descending
+the snow, which was banked against the mountain at
+an angle of about 40° with the horizon, and rested
+against a small glacier on the left. The height was
+about two thousand feet, and in the event of his foot
+slipping there was nothing to impede his progress until
+he reached the beach, either by the slope or the more
+terrific descent of the face of the glacier. He began
+his career by digging his heels into the snow, the
+surface of which was rather hard. At first he got on
+very well, but presently his foot slipped, or the snow
+was too hard for his heel to make an impression, and
+he increased in speed, keeping his balance, however, by
+means of his hands. In a very short time his descent
+was fearfully quick; the fine snow flew about him like
+dust, and there seemed but little chance of his reaching
+the bottom in safety, especially as his course was
+taking him in the direction of the glacier. For a
+moment he was lost sight of behind a crag of the
+mountain, and it was thought he had gone over the
+glacier, but with great presence of mind and dexterity,
+"by holding water first with one hand and then the
+other," to use his own expression, he contrived to
+escape the danger, and, like a skilful pilot, steered into
+a place of refuge amid a bed of soft snow recently
+drifted against the hill. When he extricated himself
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>from the depths into which he had been plunged he
+had to hold together his tattered clothes, for he had
+worn away two pairs of trousers and something more.
+That was all his damage, and we shall meet with him
+again in the west out with Franklin and Captain Back.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In the morning of the 30th of July the ships found
+themselves caught in a gale with the ice close to leeward.
+The only way of escaping destruction seemed
+to be by taking refuge in the pack. It was a desperate
+expedient rarely resorted to by whalers and only in
+extreme cases. In the <em>Trent</em> a cable was cut up into
+thirty-foot lengths, and these, with plates of iron four
+feet square, supplied as fenders, and some walrus hides,
+were hung around her, mainly about her bows; the
+masts were secured with extra ropes, and the hatches
+were battened and nailed down. When a few fathoms
+from the ice those on board searched with anxiety for
+an opening in the pack, but saw nothing but an unbroken
+line of furious breakers with huge masses heaving
+and plunging with the waves and dashing together
+with a violence that nothing but a solid body seemed
+likely to withstand; and the noise was so great that the
+orders to the crew could with difficulty be heard. At
+one moment the sea was bursting upon the ice blocks
+and burying them deep beneath its wave, and the next,
+as the buoyancy brought them up again, the water was
+pouring in foaming cataracts over their edges, the
+masses rocking and labouring in their bed, grinding
+and striving with each other until one was either split
+with the shock or lifted on to the top of its neighbour.
+Far as the eye could reach the turmoil stretched, and
+overhead was the clearness of a calm and silvery
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>atmosphere bounded by a dark line of storm cloud
+lowering over the masts as if to mark the confines
+within which no effort would avail.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"At this instant," says Beechey, "when we were
+about to put the strength of our little vessel in competition
+with that of the great icy continent, and when
+it seemed almost presumption to reckon on the possibility
+of her surviving the unequal conflict, it was
+gratifying in the extreme to observe in all our crew the
+greatest calmness and resolution. If ever the fortitude
+of seamen was fairly tried it was assuredly not less so
+than on this occasion; and I will not conceal the pride
+I felt in witnessing the bold and decisive tone in which
+the orders were issued by the commander of our little
+vessel, and the promptitude and steadiness with which
+they were executed by the crew."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The brig was steered bow on to the ice. Every man
+instinctively gripped his hold, and with his eyes fixed
+on the masts awaited the moment of concussion. In
+an instant they all lost their footing, the masts bent
+with the shock, and the timbers cracked below; the
+vessel staggered and seemed to recoil, when the next
+wave, curling up under her counter, drove her about her
+own length within the edge of the ice, where she gave
+a roll and was thrown broadside to the wind by the
+succeeding wave which beat furiously against her stern,
+bringing her lee in touch with the main mass and leaving
+her weather side exposed to a floe about twice her
+size. Battered on all sides, tossed from fragment to
+fragment, nothing could be done but await the issue,
+for the men could hardly keep their feet, the motion
+being so great that the ship's bell, which in the heaviest
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>gale had never struck of itself, now tolled so continuously
+that it had to be muffled.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>After a time an effort was made to put the vessel
+before the wind and drive her further into the pack.
+Some of the men gained the fore-topsail-yard and let a
+reef out of the sail, and the jib was dragged half up
+the stay by the windlass. The brig swung into position,
+and, aided by a mass under her stern, split the
+block, fourteen feet thick, which had barred her way,
+and made a passage for herself into comparative safety;
+and after some four hours the gale moderated. Strained
+and leaking the <em>Trent</em> had suffered much, but the
+<em>Dorothea</em> had been damaged more; and both returned
+to Fair Haven, where it was found hopeless to continue
+the voyage, and thence, when the ships had been
+temporarily repaired, they sailed for England. The
+expedition had not done much, but it had given their
+Arctic schooling to Franklin, Beechey, and Back.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In May, 1827, Parry, in the <em>Hecla</em>, was forced to
+run into the ice, but not quite in the same way as
+Buchan did. He was beset for three weeks, and then,
+getting clear, proceeded to the Seven Islands to the
+north of Spitsbergen, on one of which, Walden, he
+placed a reserve of provisions; the ship, after reaching
+81° 5´, going to Treurenberg Bay, in Hinlopen Strait,
+to await his return.</p>
+
+<div id='pg40'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_071.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>PARRY CAMPED ON THE ICE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>From here he made his dash for the Pole. He had
+with him two boats of his own design, seven feet in
+beam, twenty in length. On each side of the keel was
+a strong runner, shod with steel, upon which the boat
+stood upright on the ice. They were so built that they
+would have floated as bags had they been stove in. On
+ash and hickory timbers, an inch by an inch and a half
+thick, placed a foot apart, with a half-timber of smaller
+size between each, was stretched a casing of waterproof
+canvas tarred on the outer side and protected by a skin
+of fir three-sixteenths of an inch thick, over this came
+a sheet of stout felt, and over all a skin of oak of the
+same thickness as the fir, each boat weighing about
+fourteen hundredweight—that is the hull, as launched.
+One of these boats was named the <em>Enterprise</em>, the other
+the <em>Endeavour</em>. They were intended to be hauled by
+reindeer, but the state of the ice rendered this impracticable
+and the men did the work themselves. Parry
+took command of the <em>Enterprise</em>, the other being in
+charge of Lieutenant James Clark Ross; and, altogether,
+officers and men numbered twenty-eight.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>From Little Table Island, where they left a reserve
+as they had done at Walden, they started for the north—two
+heavy boats laden with food for seventy days
+and clothing for twenty-eight men, with a compact
+equipment including light sledges, travelling in a sea
+crowded or covered with ice in every form, large and
+small, over which they were dragged up and down
+hummocks, round and among crags and ridges, along
+surfaces of every kind of ruggedness, of every slope
+and irregularity, the few flat stretches broken with
+patches of sharp crystals or waist-deep snow; through
+lanes and pools of water with frequent ferryings and
+transhipments, in sunshine and fog, and, strange to
+say, frequently in pouring rain. They travelled by
+night and rested by day, though, of course, there was
+daylight all the time. "The advantages of this plan,"
+says Parry, "which was occasionally deranged by circumstances,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>consisted, first in our avoiding the intense
+and oppressive glare from the snow during the time of
+the sun's greatest altitude, so as to prevent in some
+degree the painful inflammation in the eyes called
+snow-blindness which is common in all snowy countries.
+We also thus enjoyed greater warmth during
+the hours of rest and had a better chance of drying our
+clothes; besides which no small advantage was derived
+from the snow being harder at night for travelling.
+When we rose in the evening we commenced our day
+by prayers, after which we took off our sleeping dresses
+and put on those for travelling, the former being made
+of camlet lined with racoon skin, and the latter of
+strong blue, box cloth. We made a point of always
+putting on the same stockings and boots for travelling
+in, whether they had dried during the day or not, and
+I believe it was only in five or six instances that they
+were not either still wet or hard frozen." When halted
+for rest the boats were placed alongside each other,
+with their sterns to the wind, the snow or wet cleared
+out of them, and the sails, held up by the bamboo
+masts and three paddles, were placed over them as
+awnings with the entrance at the bow.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Progress was not great, sometimes fifty yards an hour,
+occasionally twelve miles a day, that is on the ice, for
+soon it was apparent that the distance gained by
+reckoning was greater than that given by observation,
+and Parry realised to his dismay that the pack was
+drifting south while he was going north. But he
+kept on till on the 21st of July he reached 82° 45´,
+which remained the farthest north for forty-nine
+years.</p>
+
+<div id='pg42'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_075.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>PARRY'S BOATS AMONG THE HUMMOCKS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>During the last few days he had been drifting south
+in the day almost as far as he had advanced north in
+the night, and, having used up half his provisions, he
+reluctantly abandoned the struggle as hopeless. "As
+we travelled," he says, "by far the greater part of our
+distance on the ice, three, and not infrequently, five
+times over, we may safely multiply the road by 2½;
+so that our whole distance, on a very moderate calculation,
+amounted to five hundred and eighty geographical
+miles, or six hundred and sixty-eight statute
+miles; being nearly sufficient to have reached the Pole
+in a direct line."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1858 a Swedish expedition under Otto Torell
+started from Hammerfest for Spitsbergen. He was
+accompanied by A. Quennerstedt and Adolf Erik
+Nordenskiöld. They explored Horn Sound, Bell
+Sound, and Green Harbour. In Bell Sound they
+dredged with great success for <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">mollusca</span>; they made a
+botanical collection, chiefly of mosses and lichens,
+found tertiary plant fossils, and, in the North Harbour,
+carboniferous limestone beds with the tertiary plant-bearing
+strata above them—in short, Nordenskiöld
+entered upon his long and fruitful study of Spitsbergen
+geology. Three years afterwards Torell took
+out another expedition, Nordenskiöld going with him,
+which was to explore the northern coast and then
+make for the far north; but the ice conditions kept
+them in Treurenberg Bay, where they visited Hecla
+Cove and found Parry's flagstaff. In the course of
+their journeys they noticed in Cross Bay the first
+known Spitsbergen fern, <em>Cystopteris fragilis</em>; by the
+side of a freshwater lake in Wijde Bay an Alpine
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>char was picked up; and, at Shoal Point, Torell discovered
+in a mass of driftwood a specimen of the unmistakable
+Entada bean, two and a quarter inches
+across, brought there from the West Indies by the
+Gulf Stream, as other specimens have been drifted to
+European shores.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1864, the year that Elling Carlsen found the
+navigation so open that he passed the Northern Gate
+and sailed round Spitsbergen, Nordenskiöld, at the
+head of a small expedition, was at work in Ice Fjord,
+and, unable to go north on account of the ice, rounded
+South Cape, entered Stor Fjord, visited Edge's Land
+and Barents Land, and from the summit of White
+Mountain, near Unicorn Bay, rediscovered the west
+coast of the island reported by Edge two hundred and
+fifty years before. In 1868, as leader of the Swedish
+North Polar Expedition in the <em>Sofia</em>, he reached
+81° 42´, in 17° 30´ east, the highest latitude then
+reached by a steam vessel, and his farthest north; his
+next Polar venture, four years afterwards, in the
+<em>Polhem</em>, ending in his having to winter in Mossel Bay,
+where his generous endeavour to feed one hundred and
+one extra men, who were ice-bound, on provisions
+intended for his own twenty-four, would have ended in
+disaster had he not been relieved by Leigh Smith in the
+<em>Diana</em>.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The <em>Diana</em> was the steam yacht built for James
+Lamont, in which, like Leigh Smith, he cruised for
+several seasons in the Arctic seas, combining sport with
+exploration in a truly admirable way. To these two
+yachtsmen we owe much of our knowledge of Spitsbergen,
+Novaya Zemlya, and Franz Josef Land, but we
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>can only give them passing mention here. We must,
+however, find room for Lamont's useful find of the
+coal mine in Advent Bay, from which he filled up the
+<em>Diana's</em> bunkers. "When I paid a visit to the coal
+mine," he says, "I found it quite a busy scene for a
+quiet Arctic shore. The engineer and fireman directed
+the blasting, my English hands quarried, while the
+Norwegians carried the sacks down the hill. The old
+mate, the many-sidedness of whose character I have
+so much valued on my various voyages, was digging
+away with the rest, though I am sorry that in the
+sketch his weather-beaten face is turned away. All
+the rest are portraits, and the reader will notice that
+Arctic work is not done in the attractive uniforms
+known to Cowes and Ryde. The coal-bed was about
+three feet thick, and lay very horizontally between
+two layers of soft, mud-coloured limestone. It was
+harder to obtain than I anticipated, because saturated,
+through all the cracks and interstices, with water which
+had frozen into ice more difficult to break through
+than the coal itself, thereby rendering these fissures
+worse than useless in quarrying. This is tertiary coal,
+and is of fair quality, but contains a good deal of
+sulphur. When we began to burn it, so much water
+and ice was unavoidably mixed with it that the
+engineers had to let it drain on deck in the hot sun
+and then mix it with an equal bulk of Scotch coal.
+Consumed in this way the ten tons obtained in three
+days was a useful addition to the fast-dwindling stock
+on board."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>While Nordenskiöld was at Mossel Bay he attempted
+a journey to the north, but was stopped by the ice
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>at Seven Islands, and returned round North East
+Land. It took him five days to pass across the
+twenty-three miles between Phipps Island and Cape
+Platen over pyramids of angular ice up to thirty
+feet high. On the coast, which he found extending,
+as Leigh Smith had reported, much further to the
+east than was shown on the charts, he met with the
+inland ice ending in precipices from two thousand to
+three thousand feet high. Ascending this ice they
+had scarcely gone a quarter of a mile before one of
+the men disappeared at a place where the surface was
+level, and so instantaneously that he could not even
+give a cry for help. When they looked into the hole
+they found him hanging on to the drag-line, to which
+he was fastened with reindeer harness, over a deep
+abyss. Had his arms slipped out of the harness, a
+single belt, he would have been lost. Along the level
+surface every puff of wind drove a stream of fine snow-dust,
+which, from the ease with which it penetrated
+everywhere, was as the fine sand of the desert to the
+travellers in the Sahara. By means of this fine snow-dust,
+steadily driven forward by the wind, the upper
+part of the glacier—which did not consist of ice, but
+of hard packed blinding white snow—was glazed and
+polished so that it seemed to be a faultless, spotless
+floor of white marble, or rather a white satin carpet.
+Examination showed that the snow, at a depth of four
+to six feet, passed into ice, being changed first into a
+stratum of ice crystals, partly large and perfect, then
+to a crystalline mass of ice, and finally to hard glacier
+ice, in which could still be observed numerous air
+cavities compressed by the overlying weight; and,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>when, as the surface thaws, the pressure of the enclosed
+air exceeds that of the superincumbent weight,
+these cavities break up with the peculiar cracking
+sound heard in summer from the glacier ice that floats
+about in the fjords. Occasionally broad channels were
+crossed, of which the only way to ascertain the depth
+was to lower a man into them, and frequently he had
+to be hoisted up again without having reached the
+bottom; such danger areas causing so circuitous a
+route that much progress was impossible.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Prior to the explorations of Sir Martin Conway in
+1896, it was supposed that this inland ice extended
+over all the islands of the group, an area exceeding
+twenty thousand square miles. He, however, proved
+that so far as West Spitsbergen was concerned, this
+was not the case. Crossing it he found much of the
+interior a complex of mountains and valleys, amongst
+which were many glaciers, as in Central Europe, but
+with no continuous covering of ice, each glacier being
+a separate unit with its own drainage system and
+catchment area, the valleys boggy and relatively fertile,
+the hillsides bare of snow in summer up to more than
+a thousand feet above sea-level. In the rise of the
+country from the sea it seems to have come up as a
+plain which did not reach the level of perpetual snow,
+so that as it rose it was cut down into valleys in the
+usual way by the agency of water pouring off from
+the plateau over its edge down a frost-split rock-face,
+the valleys gently sloped, the head necessarily steep
+owing to the face of the cliff being stripped off as the
+waterfalls cut their way back.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Since Nordenskiöld's first expedition we have learnt
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>much of the geology and physical features of Spitsbergen;
+and we hear no more of the poverty of its
+flora and fauna. Now it has become a summer tourist
+resort we are yearly increasing our knowledge of this
+land of no thunderstorms, for centuries the largest
+uninhabited area on the globe, the only considerable
+stretch on which there is no trace of human occupation
+before its discovery by the moderns in 1596, when it
+was found by Barents and his companions.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER III<br /> NOVAYA ZEMLYA</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>Van Heemskerck and Barents reach Ice Haven—The ship in the ice—The
+first crew to winter in the Arctic—The house the Dutch built—The bears—The
+foxes—Intense cold—Twelfth Eve rejoicings—Preparations for
+departure—Death of Barents—The boat voyage—Meeting with Rijp—Admiral
+Jacob Van Heemskerck—Carlsen at Ice Haven—Finds the house
+as described by De Veer—The relics at the Hague—Gardiner finds the
+powder-flask—Gundersen finds the translation of the voyage of Pet and
+Jackman—Second voyage of Hudson—His third voyage—De Vlamingh—Russian
+explorers.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>We left Barents parting company with Rijp at
+Bear Island, Rijp bound northwards. Barents,
+taking his vessel eastwards, struck Novaya Zemlya at
+Loms Bay, near Cross Bay, and bearing north-eastwards
+reached the Orange Islands and rounded Cape
+Mauritius. Steering south he got down into Ice Haven,
+where at length, says De Veer, "the ice began to drive
+with such force that we were enclosed round about
+therewith, and yet we sought all the means we could to
+get out, but it was all in vain: and at that time we had
+like to have lost three men that were upon the ice to
+make way for the ship, if the ice had held the course it
+went; but as we drove back again, and the ice also
+whereon our men stood, they being nimble, as the ship
+drove by them, one of them caught hold of the beak
+head, another upon the shrouds, and the third upon the
+mainbrace that hung out behind, and so by great
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>adventure by the hold they took they got into the ship
+again, for which they thanked God with all their
+hearts." The same evening, that of the 26th of August,
+1596, they reached the west of Ice Haven—now known
+as Barents Bay—where they were forced to remain,
+being the first crew on record to spend a winter in the
+Arctic regions and survive to tell the story.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>To begin with, the ice gathered round the ship and
+lifted her bow four feet out of the water. Endeavouring
+to right her by clearing the ice away, Barents was
+on his knees measuring the height she had to fall when
+the ice broke with "such a noise and so great a crack
+that they thought verily they were all cast away." As
+she lay upright again they tried in vain with crowbars
+and other tools to break off the piled-up ice, and next
+day in a heavy snow the pressure became such that the
+whole ship was borne up and so squeezed that "all that
+was both about and in it began to crack, so that it
+seemed to burst in a hundred pieces, which was most
+fearful both to see and hear, and made all the hair of
+our heads to rise upright with fear." The grip continuing,
+the vessel was driven up four or five feet and
+the rudder squeezed off, which was replaced by a new
+one, when she sank back into the water a few hours
+afterwards owing to the ice drifting clear for a while.
+Thus matters went on for a little time, the ship being
+alternately lifted and released.</p>
+
+<div id='pg50'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_085.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>HOW OUR SHIP STUCK FAST IN THE ICE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>On the 11th of September, as there was no hope of
+escape, it was decided to build a house wherein to
+spend the winter, and in seeking for a suitable position,
+a mass of driftwood—"trees, roots and all"—was discovered,
+"driven ashore from Tartaria, Muscovia, or
+elsewhere," for there were no trees growing on the
+land, "wherewith," says De Veer, "we were much
+comforted, being in good hope that God would show
+us some further favour; for that wood served us not
+only to build our house, but also to burn and serve us
+all the winter long; otherwise without all doubt we
+had died there miserably with extreme cold."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The timber was collected and piled up in heaps that
+it might not be hidden under the snow, and two sledges
+were made on which to drag it to the site of the house.
+This was heavy work in which all took part, four of
+them in turn remaining by the ship, there being thirteen
+men to each party, five to each sledge, with three
+to help and lift the wood behind "to make us draw the
+better and with more ease," and at the end of the first
+week of it the carpenter died, so that only sixteen were
+left. But the wood was brought along day after day,
+some to build with, some for fuel; and the house was
+built, the frost so hard at times that "as we put a nail
+into our mouths, as carpenters do, there would ice hang
+thereon when we took it out again and made the blood
+follow"; and when a great fire was made to soften the
+ground, in order that earth might be dug to shovel
+round the house, "it was all lost labour for the earth
+was so hard and frozen so deep that we could not thaw
+it, and it would have cost us too much wood."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The house was roofed with deals obtained by breaking
+up the lower deck of the fore part of the ship, and,
+to make it weather-tight, it was covered with a sail on
+which afterwards shingle was spread to keep it from
+being blown off; and the materials of the cabin yielded
+the wood for the door. Inside, the house was made as
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>comfortable as possible, as shown in the illustration
+given in De Veer's book in 1598. Low shelves, with
+partitions between, along the side served for sleeping
+places; a cask on end with a square hole like a window
+in the upper half was frequently used as a bath; a
+striking clock and a time-glass marked the passing of
+the hours; the large fire in the centre with its frame
+and trivet and spit and copper pots and other kitchen
+utensils served for warmth and cooking; and over the
+fire hung a large lamp beneath the chimney, which
+terminated outside in a cask giving it the appearance of
+a crow's nest ashore.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>While the house was building, and as long as the
+sun was above the horizon, there was much trouble
+with the bears, whose daily visits were always productive
+of excitement. On the 26th of October, for
+instance, the day after all the crew first slept in the
+house, when the men had loaded the last sledge and
+stood in the track-ropes ready to draw it to the house,
+Van Heemskerck caught sight of three coming towards
+them from behind the ship. The men jumped out of
+the track-ropes, and as fortunately two halberds lay
+upon the sledge, Van Heemskerck took one and De
+Veer the other, while the rest ran to the ship, "and as
+they ran one of them fell into a crevice in the ice,
+which grieved us much, for we thought the bears would
+have run unto him to devour him," but they made
+straight after the others instead. "Meantime we and
+the man that fell into the cleft of ice took our advantage
+and got into the ship on the other side; which the
+bears perceiving, they came fiercely towards us that
+had no arms to defend us withal but only the two
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>halberds, gave them work to do by throwing billets of
+firewood and other things at them, and every time we
+threw they ran after them as a dog does at a stone that
+has been cast at him. Meantime we sent a man down
+into the caboose to strike fire and another to fetch
+pikes; but we could get no fire, and so we had no
+means to shoot"—their firearms being matchlocks.
+"At the last as the bears came fiercely upon us we
+struck one of them with a halberd on the snout, wherewith
+she gave back when she felt herself hurt and went
+away, which the other two, that were not so large as
+she, perceiving, ran away."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>When the bears had gone and the long night set in,
+their place was taken by the white foxes, many of
+these being caught in traps and furnishing skins for
+clothes and flesh for meat—"not unlike that of the
+rabbit"—that was "as grateful as venison." The 19th
+of November was a great day. A chest of linen was
+opened and divided among the men for shirts, "for
+they had need of them." Next day they washed their
+shirts, having evidently made the new ones in a hurry,
+and, says De Veer, "it was so cold that when we had
+washed and wrung them they presently froze so stiff
+(out of the warm water) that although we laid them
+by a great fire the side that lay next the fire thawed,
+but the other side was hard frozen, so that we should
+sooner have torn them in sunder than have opened
+them, whereby we were forced to put them into the
+boiling water again to thaw them, it was so exceeding
+cold."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 3rd of December and the two following
+days it was so cold that as the men lay in their bunks
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>they could hear the ice cracking in the sea two miles
+away, and thought that icebergs were breaking on
+each other; and as they had not so great a fire as
+usual owing to the smoke "it froze so sore within the
+house that the walls and the roof thereof were frozen
+two fingers thick with ice, even in the bunks in which
+we lay. All those three days while we could not go
+out by reason of the foul weather we set up the sandglass
+of twelve hours, and when it was run out we set
+it up again, still watching it lest we should miss our
+time. For the cold was so great that our clock was
+frozen and would not go, although we hung more
+weight on it than before."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The snow fell until it was so deep round the house
+that on Christmas Day they heard foxes running over
+the roof; and the last day of the year was so cold that
+"the fire almost cast no heat, for as we put our feet
+to the fire we burnt our hose before we could feel the
+heat, so that we had work enough to do to patch our
+hose." On the 4th of January, "to know where the
+wind blew we thrust a half pike out of the chimney
+with a little cloth or feather upon it; but we had to
+look at it immediately the wind caught it, for as soon
+as we thrust it out it was frozen as hard as a piece of
+wood and could not go about or stir with the wind, so
+that we said to one another how fearfully cold it must
+be out of doors."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Next day, being Twelfth Eve, on which foreigners,
+according to the old practice, hold the festivities now
+customary in England on the following day, the men
+asked Van Heemskerck that they might enjoy themselves,
+"and so that night we made merry and drank
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>to the three kings. And therewith we had two pounds
+of meal, which we had taken to make paste for the
+cartridges wherewith, of which we now made pancakes
+with oil, and to every man a white biscuit, which we
+sopped in wine. And so supposing that we were in
+our own country and amongst our friends it comforted
+us as well as if we had made a great banquet in our
+own house. And we also distributed tickets, and our
+gunner was king of Nova Zembla, which is at least
+eight hundred miles long and lieth between two seas."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In time the sun reappeared—as also the bears—and
+the rigours of the winter relaxing, the men, on the
+9th of May, applied to Barents asking him to speak
+to Van Heemskerck with a view to preparing for
+departure. This, after two other appeals, he did on
+the 15th of May, Van Heemskerck's answer being
+that, if the ship were not free by the end of the month,
+he would get ready to go away in the boats. The two
+boats, or, to be exact, the boat and the herring skute,
+were then repaired and made suitable for a long sea
+voyage, and on the 13th of June were in proper condition
+with all their stores ready. Then Van Heemskerck,
+"seeing that it was open water and a good west
+wind, came back to the house again, and there he
+spake unto Willem Barents (that had been long sick)
+and showed him that he thought it good (seeing it was
+a fit time) to go from thence, and they then resolved
+jointly with the ship's company to take the boat and
+the skute down to the water side, and in the name of
+God to begin our voyage to sail from Nova Zembla.
+Then Willem Barents wrote a letter, which he put
+into a powder flask and hanged it up in the chimney,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>showing how we came out of Holland to sail to the
+kingdom of China, and what had happened to us."
+Then Barents was taken down to the shore on a sledge
+and put into one boat, the other sick man, Andriesz,
+being placed in the other, and "with a west-north-west
+wind and an indifferent open water" they set sail on a
+voyage of over fifteen hundred miles among the ice,
+over the ice, and through the sea.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Barents, though they little suspected it, had but a
+few days to live. As they passed the northernmost
+cape of Novaya Zemlya, "Gerrit," he said to De Veer,
+"if we are near the Ice Point, just lift me up again.
+I must see that point once more." They were amongst
+the ice floes again; soon they had to make fast to one;
+and then they became shut in and forced to stay there.
+Next day their only means of safety lay in hauling
+their boats up on to a floe, taking the sick men out on
+to the ice and putting the clothes and other things
+under them; but after mending the boats, which had
+been much bruised and crushed, they drifted into a
+little open water and got afloat. On the 20th of June,
+about eight in the morning it became evident that
+Andriesz was nearing his end. "Methinks," said
+Barents, in the other boat, when he heard of it, "with
+me too it will not last long." But still his companions
+did not realise how ill he was, and talked on unconcernedly.
+Then he looked at the little chart which
+De Veer had made of the voyage. Putting it down,
+he said, "Gerrit, give me something to drink." And
+no sooner did he drink than he suddenly died. Thus
+passed away their chief guide and only pilot, than
+whom none better ever sailed the northern seas.</p>
+
+<div id='pg56'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_093.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>HOW WE NEARLY GOT INTO TROUBLE WITH THE SEA-HORSES</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>Working their way down the west coast of the long
+island, putting in every now and then in search of birds
+and eggs, constantly in peril from the floating ice and
+the bears, they slowly came south. When passing
+Admiralty Peninsula they had to deal with a danger
+of their own causing. They sighted about two hundred
+walruses upon one of the floes. Sailing close to
+them they drove them off, "which," says De Veer,
+"had almost cost us dear, for they, being mighty
+strong sea monsters, swam towards us round about our
+boats with a great noise as if they would have devoured
+us; but we escaped from them by reason that we had a
+good gale of wind, yet it was not wisely done of us to
+waken sleeping wolves."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Day by day De Veer tells the story of that adventurous
+voyage, with its long succession of dangers and
+disappointments, until they reached the mainland and
+sent the Lapland messenger to Kola, who returned
+with a letter from Jan Corneliszoon Rijp, who at
+first they could not believe was the old friend from
+whom they had parted at Bear Island; and more
+briefly he continues the story until Amsterdam was
+reached on the 1st of November, when the survivors, in
+the same clothes they wore in their winter quarters,
+fur caps and white fox-skins, walked up to the house of
+Pieter Hasselaer to report themselves on arrival and
+received the hearty welcome they deserved.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Though Van Heemskerck had failed to make the
+passage to the east by way of the north, he was
+perhaps destined for greater fame on the far less
+rigorous route. Like Nelson he went on an Arctic
+expedition that failed, and then secured a place in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>history by a sea-fight in Spanish waters, for which his
+countrymen will never forget him. He it was who
+as Vice-Admiral of Holland fought the Spanish fleet
+at Gibraltar in the decisive battle of the 25th of
+April, 1607, in which with his twenty-six vessels he
+attacked Juan Alvarez Davila's twenty ships and ten
+galleons. Early in the struggle he had his leg swept
+off by a cannon shot, but he remained on deck till he
+died, gaining the complete victory which rendered his
+countrymen free from hindrance on the road to the
+Indies round the Cape of Good Hope, of which for
+so many years they made such profitable use. It is
+customary to give all the credit of the Arctic voyage
+to Barents on the ground that his captain was no
+sailor, but Holland knows no better sailor than Jacob
+Van Heemskerck of Gibraltar Bay.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 9th of September, 1871, Captain Elling
+Carlsen, sailing in the Barents Sea, which he had
+entered round Icy Cape, landed in Ice Haven and
+found the house just as De Veer had described it.
+There it had stood in cold storage for 274 years, never
+having been entered by human foot since Van Heemskerck
+had shut the door. The bunks, the table, the
+bath, the clock, in short everything, all in order,
+as the orderly Dutchmen had left it. Never did a
+voyage book receive such ample verification; never did
+the description of an island home stand the test better.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Carlsen, to begin with, knew nothing of De Veer or
+Barents, but he set to work in a conscientious way
+and recorded the results like a true archæologist.
+"Thursday, 14th," he wrote in his log, "Calm with
+clear sky. Four o'clock in the morning we went
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>ashore further to investigate the wintering place. On
+digging we found again several objects, such as drumsticks,
+a hilt of a sword, and spears. Altogether it
+seemed that the people had been equipped in a warlike
+manner, but nothing was found which could indicate
+the presence of human remains. On the beach we
+found pieces of wood which had formerly belonged to
+some part of a ship, for which reason I believe that a
+vessel has been wrecked there, the crew of which built
+the house with the materials of the wreck and afterwards
+betook themselves to boats."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Bringing away a very large number of articles, he
+resumed his voyage and landed at Hammerfest, where
+Mr. E. C. Lister Kay, who happened to be there on a
+yachting trip, bought them, thinking they would be repurchased
+from him, at the price he gave, for one of our
+own museums. In this he was disappointed, and the
+collection was taken down to his house in Dorsetshire,
+where Count Bylandt, the Dutch Ambassador, happening
+to hear of it, called and bought it for his Government,
+who placed it at the Hague in a room, the
+exact imitation of that in Novaya Zemlya.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In July, 1876, Mr. Charles Gardiner, another English
+yachtsman, when on a cruise in the <em>Glow-worm</em> in
+Barents Sea, made a call at the house and brought
+away many other relics, which he presented to the
+Dutch, to be added to those at the Hague; and
+among them was the powder-flask hung in the
+chimney, containing the paper mentioned by De Veer.
+The previous August Captain Gundersen had been
+there in the Norwegian schooner <em>Regina</em>. In one of
+the chests he found two charts and what he described
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>as Barents's Journal. The journal proved to be a
+manuscript Dutch translation of the story of the
+voyage in 1580 of Arthur Pet and Charles Jackman.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1608, eleven years after Barents died, Henry
+Hudson, in the Muscovy Company's service, was sent
+to China by the north-east. He sailed on the 22nd of
+April from St. Katharine's, near the Tower of London,
+and on the 3rd of June passed the North Cape on his
+way to Novaya Zemlya, which he reached near Cape
+Britwin twenty-three days afterwards. For some considerable
+distance he had skirted the ice pack, vainly
+endeavouring to get through to the northward and
+enter the Kara Sea round the Orange Islands.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>This being impracticable he ranged southwards looking
+for a passage through at Kostin Shar, which in the
+Dutch map he had with him was marked as a strait
+and proved to be a bay. Had he been able to go a
+little further north than Cape Britwin he might have
+found that Matyushin Shar, like a rift in the rocks,
+divides the long island in half, though at that early
+season the ice would have probably been blocking it.
+From Kostin or thereabouts he departed for home, his
+voyage failing almost at the outset, owing to his being
+two months too early.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>While off the coast he sent his boat ashore several
+times. "Generally," he says, "all the land of Nova
+Zembla that we have yet seen is to a man's eye a
+pleasant land; much main high land with no snow on
+it, looking in some places green, and deer feeding
+thereon; and the hills are partly covered with snow
+and partly bare"—rather a different picture from that
+given by De Veer of what it was like in the winter.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>De Veer, too, had committed himself to the statement
+that there were no deer in the country, but here were
+Hudson's men frequently coming upon their traces, and
+on the 2nd of July reporting that they had seen "a
+herd of white deer, ten in a company," bringing on
+board with them a white lock of deer's hair in proof
+thereof.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On his return Hudson left the service of the Muscovy
+Company. He went to Holland, and, early in
+April, 1609, was sent out by the Amsterdam Chamber
+of the Dutch East India Company. On the 5th of
+May he rounded the North Cape, making for Novaya
+Zemlya, and a few days afterwards reached the ice.
+Here, according to Dutch accounts, his men mutinied,
+but what happened during the trouble is not recorded.
+Whether it was really owing to a mutiny, or, as is by
+no means improbable, to secret instructions received at
+his departure, Hudson, on the 14th, made sail for the
+North Cape, passed it on the 19th, when he observed a
+spot on the sun, and then went off westwards to Newfoundland,
+making direct apparently for the mouth of
+the river now bearing his name, which was discovered
+by Verrazano in March, 1524, and surveyed by Gomez
+in the following year, and was at the time of Hudson's
+visit British territory.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The reason for this astonishing change of route was,
+perhaps, that on some of the charts of the period, as on
+Michael Lock's planisphere, this river, the Rio de Gamas
+or Rio Grande of the Spaniards, was made to communicate
+with what seems to be intended for Lake
+Ontario, and this with the other lakes to the westward
+was widened out into the waterway to the South Sea.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>Thus Hudson drops out of our story at his first
+mutiny, for he did not cross the Arctic Circle on his
+fourth voyage, when his second mutiny ended his career
+in the bay that bears his name, which, like the river
+and the strait, was indicated on the maps years before
+he went there.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1664 Willem de Vlamingh, the Dutch navigator,
+or—to be cautious—the namesake of the Dutch navigator,
+who thirty-one years afterwards found Dirk
+Hartog's plate and named Swan River in West Australia
+after the black swans, was in these regions and
+rounded Novaya Zemlya into the Kara Sea, reaching so
+far north that if his recorded latitude be correct he
+must have sighted the Franz Josef archipelago, and,
+contrary to the tendency of Arctic explorers, mistaken
+land for a bank of mist or a group of icebergs. After
+him neither Dutch nor English delay us, the opening
+up of this continuation of the Urals being left to the
+Russians, who found it first and named it—Novaya
+Zemlya meaning simply New Land.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>For years it was left to the Samoyeds and the walrus
+hunters, whose persistent reports of deposits of silver in
+its cliffs led to Loschkin's making his way round it and
+spending two winters on its east coast. In 1768 Rosmysslof,
+also on silver bent, wintered in Matyushin
+Shar, that wonderful waterway, ninety fathoms deep,
+bounded by high hills and precipitous cliffs, winding so
+sharply that ships have been into it for a dozen miles or
+so and seeing no passage ahead have come out again to
+seek it elsewhere. In 1807 came Pospeloff, with Ludlow
+the mining engineer, to settle the silver question
+once for all, and settle it they did by showing that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>everywhere the so-called silver was either talc or mica,
+and naming Silver Bay ironically in memory thereof.
+Fourteen years afterwards Lütke surveyed the west
+coast, continuing during the next three summers; and
+in 1832 Pachtussoff arrived to undergo in the course of
+his really admirable work the hardships and privations
+of which he died.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER IV<br /> FRANZ JOSEF LAND</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>Austro-Hungarian expedition of 1872—The voyage as planned—The drift of
+the <em>Tegetthoff</em>—The polyglot crew—Discovery of Franz Josef Land—Payer's
+description of an aurora—The sledge journeys—Crown Prince
+Rudolf Land—Cape Fligely reached—Abandonment of the <em>Tegetthoff</em>—The
+boat voyage to Cape Britwin—Leigh Smith's expeditions—Loss of
+the <em>Eira</em>—The retreat in the boats—Jackson in Franz Josef Land—His
+excellent survey work—The Italian expedition under the Duke of the
+Abruzzi—Cagni attempts to reach the Pole and is stopped at 86° 34´—The
+return journey.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>In 1871 Weyprecht and Payer were out in the
+cutter <em>Isbjörn</em>, pioneering for their intended voyage
+to the eastward, which started next year in the <em>Tegetthoff</em>,
+the famous Austro-Hungarian attempt of 1872
+which may be described as an unintentional voyage of
+unexpected discovery. The amount of credit due to
+a man who starts to find one thing and lights upon
+another has always been a contentious matter, and
+this expedition afforded an extreme case for such
+speculations. The plan was to go east-north-east, the
+wintering places being undetermined, though they
+might be Cape Chelyuskin, the New Siberian Islands,
+or any land that might be discovered; and a return
+to Europe through Bering Strait lay among the
+possibilities of the venture, as an endeavour was to
+be made to reach the coast of Siberia in boats and
+penetrate south down one of the large rivers of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>Northern Asia. What happened was that during the
+afternoon of the 20th of August, when off the north-west
+coast of Novaya Zemlya in 76° 22´ north, 63° 3´
+east, the ship was run into an ice-hole and made fast
+to a floe, and during the night the ice, instead of parting
+asunder, closed in and imprisoned her, so that she
+never steamed or sailed again. In the ice and on the
+ice she lay perfectly helpless, drifting with the floe,
+and still in its grip when she was abandoned by her
+crew on the 20th of May, two years afterwards.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>It was a wonderful drift. North-easterly in the
+main to begin with, then north-westerly, then easterly
+to about 73°, then north, then west, in and out and
+roundabout, till they reached much the same longitude
+as they started from and then with a general tendency to
+the northward. Autumn passed away; the Polar night
+set in; and still they drifted ice-bound—a miscellaneous
+company representative of the polyglot empire; "on
+board the <em>Tegetthoff</em>," says Payer, "are heard all the
+languages of our country, German, Italian, Slavonic,
+and Hungarian; Italian is, however, the language in
+which all orders are given," to which we should add
+the Norwegian of Olaf Carlsen, the ice-master. During
+the winter there was enough of occupation and amusement,
+though private theatricals were impossible, as
+they would have had to be given in four languages to
+be intelligible to the audience.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The short summer came and went, and August had
+almost gone when—it was on the 30th, in 79° 43´—there
+came a surprise. The rays of the sun were fitfully
+breaking through the gloom when suddenly the gliding
+mists rolled up like a curtain, revealing in the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>north-west the outlines of a rocky coast, which in a
+few minutes grew into a radiant Alpine land. The
+shore, however, was unattainable, as a rush over the
+icefield soon showed, but from the edge of the fissure
+that barred any further progress they could make out
+its hills and glaciers and imagine the green pastures of
+its valleys. They called it Kaiser Franz Josef's Land,
+and along it they drifted during September till its outlines
+faded as the wind began to drive the floe to the
+south. But at the end of the month the direction of
+the floe changed to the north-west, taking the <em>Tegetthoff</em>
+up to 79° 58´, her highest north, near enough to
+one of the islands for an effort to be made to land.
+Six started from the ship over the grinding, groaning,
+broken walls of ice, and when they were out of sight
+of the ship a mist settled down which cut them off
+from the sight of land and then so closely enwrapped
+them that they could see nothing. Advance they
+found hopeless, and as they returned they lost their
+way and were saved by the sagacity of a dog they had
+with them. All through October the drift continued,
+and it was not until forenoon of the 1st of November,
+two months after sighting the country, that they
+managed to get ashore. This was on Wilczek Island
+in the same longitude as Admiralty Peninsula in
+Novaya Zemlya, and in the same latitude as Mossel
+Bay in Spitsbergen.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The sun had retired for the winter nine days before,
+and it was by the light of the moon that they first
+explored the unknown country. Little could be done,
+and, as it was much too late for attempting to shift
+from the ship to the shore, the winter had to be spent
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>on board as the other had been. Through this winter,
+as before, the auroral displays were remarkable, and
+they are excellently described by Payer. Of one of
+them, he says: "It is now eight o'clock at night, the
+hour of the greatest intensity of the northern lights.
+For a moment some bundles of rays only are to be
+seen in the sky. In the south a faint, scarcely observable,
+band lies close to the horizon. All at once it
+rises rapidly and spreads east and west. The waves
+of light begin to dart and shoot; some rays mount
+towards the zenith. For a short time it remains
+stationary, then suddenly springs to life. The waves
+of light drive violently from east to west; the edges
+assume a deep red and green colour and dance up and
+down. The rays shoot up more rapidly; they become
+shorter; all rise together and approach nearer and
+nearer to the magnetic Pole. It looks as if there were
+a race among the rays, and that each aspired to reach
+the Pole first. And now the point is reached, and
+they shoot out on every side, to the north and the
+south, to the east and the west. Do the rays shoot
+from above downwards, or from below upwards? Who
+can distinguish? From the centre issues a sea of
+flames. Is that sea red, white, or green? Who can
+say?—it is all three colours at the same moment. The
+rays reach almost to the horizon; the whole sky is in
+flames. Nature displays before us such an exhibition
+of fireworks as transcends the powers of imagination
+to conceive. Involuntarily we listen; such a spectacle
+must, we think, be accompanied with sound. But
+unbroken stillness prevails, not the least sound strikes
+on the ear. Once more it becomes clear over the ice,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>and the whole phenomenon has disappeared with the
+same inconceivable rapidity with which it came, and
+gloomy night has again stretched her dark veil over
+everything. This was the aurora of the coming storm—the
+aurora in its fullest splendour."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Sledging was begun in March, Hall Island being first
+visited, and, on the 26th, Payer, with six men, started
+on his main journey up Austria Sound, reaching
+Hohenlohe Island, where three men were left, and then
+proceeding further north to Crown Prince Rudolf
+Land. Off the southern promontory of this were
+innumerable icebergs, up to two hundred feet in height,
+cracking and snapping in the sunshine. The Middendorf
+Glacier, with an enormous sea-wall, ran towards
+the north-west; layers of snow and rents in the sea-ice,
+caused by icebergs falling in, filled the intervening
+space. Into these fissures Payer and his men were
+continually falling, drenching their canvas boots and
+clothes with sea-water. One of the men was sent on
+ahead to find a path by which the glacier might be
+climbed, and discovering a fairly open road the summit
+was gained across many crevasses bridged with snow,
+three of those at the lower part needing but a slight
+movement to detach the severed portions and form
+them into bergs.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>While resting on the glacier looking down on the
+semicircular terminal precipice and the gleaming host
+of bergs which filled the indentations of the coast, one
+of the men reported that his foot was swollen and
+ulcerated, and he had to be sent back to Hohenlohe
+Island. Just as the others were setting off, the snow
+gave way beneath the sledge, and down fell Zaninovich,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>the dogs and the sledge, while Payer was dragged backwards
+by the rope. The fall was arrested at a depth of
+thirty feet by the sledge sticking fast between the sides
+of the crevasse. Payer, on his face, the rope attaching
+him to the sledge tightly strained and cutting into the
+snow, shouted that he would sever the rope, but
+Zaninovich implored him not to do so as the sledge
+would then turn over and he would be killed; hearing,
+however, from Orel, that the man was lying on a ledge
+of snow with precipices all around him and that the
+dogs were still fast to the traces, Payer cut the rope,
+and the sledge made a short turn and stuck fast again.
+Then, telling Zaninovich that he must contrive to keep
+himself from freezing for four hours, Payer and Orel
+set off to run the six miles back to Hohenlohe Island.
+Payer, as he went on ahead, threw off his bird-skin
+clothes, his boots and his gloves, and ran in his stockings
+through the snow. In an hour he reached the
+camp, and leaving it unattended they all set off to the
+rescue with a rope and a pole. Picking up his clothes
+on the way, Payer and his men reached the crevasse;
+one of the party was let down by the rope, and finally
+Zaninovich and the sledge and dogs were brought
+from their dangerous position four hours and a half
+after their fall.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The advance was then resumed along the west coast
+of Crown Prince Rudolf Land round the imposing
+headland they named Cape Auk—the rocky cliffs being
+covered with little auks and other seabirds, enormous
+flocks flying up and filling the air, the whole region
+seeming to be alive with their incessant whirring—and
+following the line of Teplitz Bay, Payer mounted one
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>of the bergs detached from a glacier and saw open
+water with ice bounding it on the horizon. As the
+sheet over which their course lay became thinner, and
+threatened to give way beneath them, they had to open
+up a track among the hummocks by pick and shovel;
+and when this failed they had to unload the sledge and
+carry the things separately. At Cape Saulen they
+camped for the night in the fissure of a glacier into
+which they had to drag their baggage by a long rope;
+and next day—the 12th of April, 1874—they went on
+again and reached Cape Fligely, in 81° 50´ 43˝, their
+farthest north.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>With great difficulty they made their way back to
+the ship, a long, toilsome journey through snow and
+sludge, with open water in places where there had been
+ice, which made them fear the <em>Tegetthoff</em> might have
+drifted away again. The imminent danger of starvation
+was ended by their reaching their depot on Schonau
+Island, whence Payer went on for the remaining twenty-five
+miles alone with the dog-sledge, the two dogs
+giving much trouble until they struck the old sledge
+track almost obliterated by snow, when they raised
+their heads, stuck their tails in the air, and broke into a
+run. Halting on an iceberg for a meal, the berg capsized,
+and in a moment Payer was begirt by fissures,
+water-pools, and rolling blocks of ice, from which he
+managed to escape. When he turned into the narrow
+passage between Salm and Wilczek Islands, Orgel
+Cape, visible at a great distance, was the only dark spot
+on the scene. At once the dogs made for it, and about
+midnight he arrived there. With an anxious heart he
+began the ascent; a barren stony plateau confronted
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>him; with every advancing step, made with increasing
+difficulty, the land gradually disappeared and the
+horizon of the frozen sea expanded before him; no ship
+was to be seen, no trace of man for thousands of miles
+except a cairn with the fragments of a flag fluttering in
+the wind, and a grave half covered with snow. Still
+he climbed, and suddenly three masts emerged. He
+had found the ship; there she lay about three miles off,
+appearing on the frozen ocean no bigger than a fly, the
+icebergs and drifts around her having hidden her
+amongst them. He held the heads of the dogs towards
+her and pointed with his arm to where she lay;
+and they saw her, and away they went, to find all but
+the watch asleep.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>After another sledge journey north-westwards to
+Mount Brunn, from which Richthofen Peak was sighted,
+preparations were made for abandoning the ship and
+returning home. The three boats left the <em>Tegetthoff</em>
+on the 20th of May, but so slow was the progress over
+the difficult route that at the end of every day in the
+first week it was possible for Payer to go back to her
+on the dog-sledge to replenish the stores which had
+been consumed; and at the end of two months of indescribable
+effort the distance between the boats and
+the ship was not more than eight statute miles. The
+heights of Wilczek Land were still distinctly visible
+and its lines of rocks shone with mocking brilliance in
+the ever-growing daylight. All things appeared to
+promise that after a long struggle with the ice there
+remained for the expedition but a despairing return to
+the ship and a third winter there with the frozen ocean
+for their grave.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>In the middle of July the fissures which had been
+opening out around them became wider and longer,
+progress reaching some four miles a day; then the
+north wind blew and the icefield commenced to drift
+to the south, to drift again north-east when the wind
+changed. Backwards and forwards, amid every variety
+of weather, including heavy rain, the pack ice moved
+until it changed to drift ice, and, on the 15th of August,
+the much-tried company got afloat at last in open
+water and laid their course for Novaya Zemlya, where
+they fell in with two Russian schooners off Cape
+Britwin.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The next to visit Franz Josef Land was Leigh Smith,
+whom we met with in the Spitsbergen seas. Building
+the <em>Eira</em> especially for Arctic service, he started in
+1880, the year she was launched, on a cruise to Greenland
+and thence eastwards, which took him to the west
+and north-west of the ground gone over by the Austrians.
+He surveyed the whole coast from 42° east to
+the most westerly point seen by Payer, and sorted it
+out into several islands, but found no trace of the
+<em>Tegetthoff</em>, for where she had been left was open water.
+Encouraged by the success of his visit, in which the
+observations and collections were unusually good, he
+returned in the <em>Eira</em> the following year to meet with
+much more unfavourable ice conditions. Finding it
+impossible to get westward of Barents Hook the <em>Eira</em>
+was, on the 15th of August, made fast to the land floe
+off Cape Flora, and six days afterwards she was nipped
+and stove by the ice and slowly sank in eleven fathoms
+of water. As she settled down the steam winch was
+set to work, and by its means half a dozen casks of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>flour and about three hundredweight of bread were
+saved from the main hold; and when nothing more
+could be got from the lower deck the stores in the
+after cabin were attacked, and within the two hours
+from the discovery of the leak to the disappearance of
+the ship, all these provisions and the boats and clothes
+were safe on the ice; and the sails were cut away, and
+with them and some oars a tent was erected in which
+all the company, twenty-five in number, took shelter.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>A move was made next day to the land. On Cape
+Flora a house was built mainly of earth and stones,
+covered with sails, in which the winter was passed.
+Fortunately the district abounds with bears and walruses,
+and the meat from these, boiled with vegetables,
+and served out three times a day into twenty-five
+plates made out of old provision tins, proved the right
+sort of fare to keep every one in excellent health.
+Thanks in a great measure to Bob, the retriever, the
+larder was kept full; but there being a shortness of
+coal, recourse for fuel had to be made to rope and
+blubber, so that no one could mistake the time when the
+cooking was on. In fact, the odour and the smoke were
+of great interest to the bears, who lingered about intending
+to pay surprise visits, and the dog had always
+to be sent in front of those leaving the house. One
+day when out on his own account, Bob discovered a
+school of walruses on the ice and reported the matter
+in his own fashion, whereupon several of these were
+shot, and after an exciting chase five were secured. In
+January he found another school, of which three were
+bagged and stowed alongside the house, although the
+thermometer stood at forty below zero. On another
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>occasion he managed to tempt a bear up to the front
+door, where it was promptly tumbled over, to his
+evident satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>During the winter the party killed twenty-nine walruses
+and three dozen bears. Once, when only a fortnight's
+meat was left, and things began to look serious,
+no less than eight bears were killed in two weeks. At
+the end of April the birds returned, and in June the ice
+was cleared away by a gale and walruses were seen
+swimming on the water in hundreds. Never did a
+wintering party meet with better fortune, and never
+was one better managed.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 21st of June they started from Cape Flora
+in four boats, six men each in three of them, seven in
+the other, to reach the open sea, leaving in the house
+six bottles of champagne in case any person might
+look in, besides a few other things, and blocking up
+the door to keep out the bears. Before the boats
+reached the ice they crossed eighty miles of water, and
+then six weeks' hard labour began, zigzagging through
+channels, hauling over hummocky floes, sailing through
+pools, halting for days on a floe with no water in sight,
+but never doubting that a clearance would come. On
+leaving the ice they steered for Novaya Zemlya, at first
+in a gentle breeze, which rapidly increased to a gale in
+a heavy thunderstorm, so that the boats, with their
+sails of tablecloth and shirt-tail, had to be carefully
+handled as they scudded before it at such a pace that
+within twenty-four hours of leaving the ice they were
+drawn up all safe on the beach at the entrance of
+Matyushin Shar. Next morning the Dutch exploring
+schooner, <em>Willem Barents</em>, was descried coming out of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>the strait, and before the schooner was reached by the
+boats there came round the point the <em>Hope</em>, which
+Sir Allen Young, of the <em>Pandora</em>, had brought out as
+a rescue ship for them. They had been driven by the
+gale to the very spot on the very day they could be
+best relieved.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>From the reports of Weyprecht and Payer it
+appeared that the north-east of Franz Josef Land
+would make an excellent base for a start for the North
+Pole, and Leigh Smith was led to the same view by
+his visit to Alexandra Land, but along the south he
+had made so many changes in Payer's map that a
+further examination of the region was evidently desirable.
+To effect this by a careful survey of the coasts,
+Frederick G. Jackson landed near Cape Flora on the
+7th of September, 1894, and began his residence of a
+thousand days. Setting to work in a businesslike way,
+and recording his progress in similar style, he disintegrated
+the land masses into a group of some fifty size-able
+islands, through which run two main waterways,
+his British Channel and Payer's Austria Sound, both
+opening out northwards into Queen Victoria Sea;
+Crown Prince Rudolf Land being a large island at
+the northern entrance of Austria Sound, Wilczek Land
+at its southern entrance being about twice its size.
+He defined the coast-lines for over eighty miles of
+latitude, extending to fifteen degrees of longitude as
+far west as the most westerly headland, Cape Mary
+Harmsworth, and so cutting up Franz Josef Land that
+not even an island now bears the name, which is used
+only as that of the archipelago. Never in Arctic
+exploration was work rendered more evident than in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>the difference between the map as Jackson found it
+and as he left it.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The <em>Windward</em>, with the expedition on board,
+sighted the land on the 25th of August, but, stopped
+by intervening ice, could not reach the coast until a
+fortnight afterwards, the landing taking place at Cape
+Flora, close to Leigh Smith's house, which was found
+with the roof off. Not far away Jackson established
+his headquarters, quite a little settlement, though the
+expedition consisted of only eight men. Just as Leigh
+Smith found no remains of the <em>Tegetthoff</em>, so Jackson
+found no trace of the <em>Eira</em>. It had been intended
+that the <em>Windward</em> should return after putting the
+party ashore, but, shut in by the ice, she had to remain
+during the first winter, getting away safely next
+year, to return in 1896 and take away Nansen, who, as
+we shall see further on, ended his long land journey
+here. On her 1897 trip she departed with the members
+of the expedition all well, so that neither ship nor man
+was lost, the only serious casualties being among the
+dogs and the Russian ponies which did such excellent
+service.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Two years afterwards, in July, 1899, the deserted
+settlement was visited by the Duke of the Abruzzi,
+in his expedition in the <em>Stella Polare</em>, on his way to
+the north, a few days before he met with his short
+imprisonment in the ice in British Channel. His was
+a successful run all the same, for he was in 82° 4´, to
+the northward of Crown Prince Rudolf Land, or, as
+it is now called, Prince Rudolf Island, twenty-seven
+days out from Archangel. Passing Cape Fligely—the
+latitude of which was afterwards found to be sixteen
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>miles south of the 82° 5´ Payer had made it—and
+rounding Cape Auk, the <em>Stella Polare</em> went into
+winter quarters in Teplitz Bay, whence Captain
+Umberto Cagni started, on the 11th of March, 1900,
+for his forty-five days' march towards the North Pole.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>It was a great disappointment to the Duke to have
+to stay with the ship instead of leading this well-equipped
+and thoroughly organised sledge attempt,
+but owing to an accident two of his fingers had been
+so severely frost-bitten that they had to be amputated,
+and, unless a second winter was to be spent in the ice,
+a start was imperative before he could recover from
+the operation. Thus all he could do was to assist at
+the first encounter of the sledges with the pressure
+ridges and wish Cagni the longest possible journey and
+a safe return. There was every appearance of the
+journey being a difficult one, for on the first day a
+stoppage had to be made every quarter of a mile or
+thereabouts for a road to be cut through the ridges
+with ice-axes, while next day a new hindrance was
+experienced in the young ice in the channels being too
+thin at times to support the sledges, one of which began
+to sink and was only extricated with difficulty, so that
+only one sledge could be allowed on such ice at a time.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 13th of March the auxiliary sledge was sent
+back, thus reducing the caravan to a dozen sledges and
+ninety-eight dogs, which in a long line passed over
+a vast plain covered with great rugged blocks of ice,
+as though they had been thrown down confusedly by
+a giant's hand to bar the way. The wind was north-east,
+the cold intense, fifty below zero, not to be
+particular to a degree or so, for, as Cagni says, when
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>the temperature is below twenty-two, and it is impossible
+to use a screen or a magnifying glass, the
+mere fact of approaching to read the scale on an unmounted
+thermometer sends it up a couple of degrees,
+and when the temperature is below fifty-eight an
+approach makes a difference of three or four degrees.
+So cold was it that the sleeping bags were as hard as
+wood, and the men got into them after much effort,
+not to sleep but to feel their teeth chattering for hours,
+the only warm parts of the body being the feet clad in
+long woollen stockings. "There are patches of ice on
+our knees," says Cagni, "like horses' knee-caps, and we
+have others, both large and small, sometimes thick
+enough to be scraped off with a knife, everywhere, but
+especially on our cheeks and backs and in all places
+where the perspiration has oozed through."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Amid such surroundings the camp must have seemed
+somewhat out of place. When a suitable site was
+chosen the first sledge was stopped, and near it the
+three other sledges of the third detachment were
+drawn up at a distance of about ten feet from each
+other. The sledges of the second detachment as they
+came up formed a second line, those of the third forming
+another. The tents were pitched between two
+sledges, generally those in the centre, the guy ropes
+being fastened to the sledge runners, those at the ends
+to an ice-axe stuck in the ice. The sleeping bags were
+then unpacked, the cooking stoves taken out of the
+boats, and everything arranged under the tent. The
+thin steel wire ropes to which the dogs were tethered,
+when unharnessed, were stretched between the sledges
+away from the tents. While the men were taking
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>the dogs out of the harness, which always remained
+attached to the traces on the sledges, and tethering
+them to the steel ropes, one of the guides took a
+chosen victim to some distance from the camp, and
+felled it with a blow from an ice-axe, then opened it,
+skinned it quickly, divided it up into ten shares and
+distributed these to the dogs, already destined to
+undergo the same fate, these being the weakest and
+most ailing—in short, this was the elimination of the
+unfit.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 22nd of March the first detachment began
+its return journey; it consisted of Lieutenant Querini
+and two men, and it was never heard of again. The
+way northwards continued extremely difficult, with
+channels and ridges plentiful and the road so rough
+that the sledges began to break up in the bows and
+runners, some at last so badly that their fragments had
+to be used to repair the others with. On the 31st the
+second detachment was sent back, consisting of the
+doctor and two men, and it got safely to the ship. The
+third detachment, consisting of Cagni with two Courmayeur
+guides—Petigax and Fenoillet—and a sailor,
+Canepa, all four Italians, made the final effort. That
+day they were on level ice and covered seventeen miles,
+but at night a snowstorm came on and there was
+trouble. After a rest they pressed forward in rapid
+marches amid bad weather over the drifting fields. On
+the 12th of April while raising camp a strong pressure
+piled up within a hundred yards of them a wall from
+thirty-six to forty-five feet high, the highest ridge they
+had seen. Enormous blocks rolled down towards them
+with loud crashes after being thrown up by other
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>blocks, lifted to the brow of the ridge and rolled over
+in their turn, raising a cloud of ice-dust in their fall,
+the loud continual creaking of the pressure drowned by
+the booming of the cascade which shook the ice for
+yards around. These ridges were constantly forming,
+most of them remaining, some of them subsiding as the
+edges drifted apart, and the channels thus caused were
+even more difficult to deal with, some having to be
+passed over thin ice, some ferried over on small floes.
+But they did not cross the track all along, and during
+the last few days the travelling was easy.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 24th of April the long journey reached its
+end. "At ten minutes past twelve," says Cagni, "we
+are on our way to the north. The ice is like that of
+yesterday, level and smooth, and, later on, undulating.
+At first the dogs are not very willing to pull, but encouraged
+by our shouts and a few strokes, they advance
+at a rapid pace, which they keep up during the whole
+march. At five we meet with a large pressure ridge,
+which almost surprises us, as it seems to us a century
+since we have seen any; we lost a quarter of an hour in
+preparing a passage through and crossing it. Beyond
+it the aspect of the ice changes; the undulations are
+more strongly marked, and large blocks and small
+ridges indicate recent pressure, but luckily they do not
+stop us or obstruct our way. Soon after six we come
+upon a large channel running from east to west; we
+must stop. Beyond the channel is a vast expanse of
+new ice, much broken up and traversed by many other
+channels. Even if I were not prevented from doing
+so, I would now think twice before risking myself in
+the midst of them. If we did push forward on that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>ice, even for half a day, we would gain very few miles
+and besides run the risk of losing a sledge. The dogs
+are very tired, and we too feel the effects of yesterday's
+strain. I therefore consider that it is more prudent to
+stop here, and both the guides are of the same opinion.
+The sun is unclouded. I bring out the sextant and
+take altitudes of the sun to calculate the longitude
+(65° 19´ 45˝ E.) while Fenoillet and Canepa put the
+sledges in order and pitch the tent in a sort of small
+amphitheatre of hillocks which shelter us from the
+north wind. On that farthest to the north, which is
+almost touched by the water of the channel, we plant
+the staff from which our flag waves. The air is very
+clear; between the north-east and the north-west there
+stand out distinctly, some sharply pointed, others
+rounded, dark or blue and white, often with strange
+shapes, the innumerable pinnacles of the great blocks of
+ice raised up by the pressure. Farther away again on
+the bright horizon in a chain from east to west is a
+great azure wall which from afar seems insurmountable."
+The latitude was 86° 34´.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The outward journey took forty-five days; the homeward
+took sixty, and proved a perilous adventure
+owing to the drift of the pack to the westward and its
+breaking up as the weather became warmer and the
+southern boundary was approached. At first there
+was good promise. The dogs knew they were going
+back, and followed the outward track so fast that the
+men, failing to keep up with them, for the first time
+took a seat on the sledges and were drawn along at
+four miles an hour. Progress was rapid for a few days
+owing to there being now only four sledges and, in a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>considerable degree, to the intelligence of the leading
+dog, Messicano. Ever since leaving Teplitz Bay this
+small white dog, with the intelligent eyes and bushy
+legs, had held the first place in the leading sledge
+because he followed the man at the head of the convoy
+better than the others, and now when the guide was
+behind or on the sledge, Messicano took the track at
+a gallop with his nose on the snow, losing the way now
+and then, but finding it again, though to the men it
+was often invisible. The time came, however, when
+the old track had to be left for a better course to the
+ship, and then difficulties of every sort had to be overcome,
+the delays being such that dog after dog had to
+be killed to keep away starvation, and it was only with
+seven of them and two sledges that Prince Rudolf
+Island was reached from the westward on the 23rd of
+June. "The snow is wet, which is very bad for
+dragging the sledges, as it sticks to the runners and
+tires our dogs exceedingly; we have still seven, but
+only three that really pull (three to each sledge), for
+Messicano is at the last extremity and can hardly hold
+up the trace." Toiling on thus through the fog to Cape
+Brorok a noise was heard in the distance like the
+creaking caused by pressure among ice floes, and when
+the fog lifted it was found that the sound was that of
+the seabirds on the cliffs. Out on the icefield no signs
+of life had been met with beyond the traces of a bear,
+a seal that vanished, and a walrus that popped up
+through thin ice to send Fenoillet scuttling off on his
+hands and knees.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Meanwhile the ship, which had been seriously
+damaged, had been made seaworthy. Liberated from
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>her berth by mines of gunpowder and guncotton,
+she sailed from Teplitz Bay on the 16th of August,
+and, after further unpleasant experiences in the ice,
+reached Cape Flora, where a call was made at Jackson's
+house in the vain hope of news of Querini; and
+thence, after more ice complications, Captain Evensen
+took her to Hammerfest. Though, as in all Arctic
+endeavour, conditions were against them, the employment
+of a Norwegian crew for the ship and an Italian
+crew for the sledges had, under excellent management,
+worked thoroughly well.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER V<br /> CAPE CHELYUSKIN</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>Chelyuskin reaches the cape—The Laptefs—Deschnef's voyage through
+Bering Strait—Nordenskiöld's voyages to the Yenesei—The Siberian
+tundra—The voyage of the <em>Vega</em>—Nordenskiöld rounds Cape Chelyuskin—Endeavour
+to reach the Siberian Islands—Liakhoff's discovery—The
+<em>Vega</em> passes the Cape North of Captain Cook—Frozen in within six miles
+of Cape Serdze Kamen—Completes the North-east Passage—Nansen's
+voyage—The <em>Fram</em>—Her drift in the ice—Nansen and Johansen start
+for the Pole—They reach 86° 13´ 6˝—Their journey to Frederick Jackson
+Island—The meeting with Jackson—Sverdrup's voyage to Spitsbergen.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>The tundras and shores of Siberia abound with
+obstacles to exploration, and yet a third of the
+threshold of the Polar regions has been surveyed along
+their line. No spot remains unvisited on the northern
+margin of the Asiatic mainland, the northernmost
+point of which is Cape Chelyuskin in 77° 36·8´, so that
+the Arctic Circle sweeps inland for 770 miles to the
+south of it—in other words the cape is practically half-way
+between the Circle and the Pole.</p>
+
+<div id='pg84'  class='figcenter id008'>
+<a href='images/i_123.jpg'><img src='images/i_123_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>CAPE CHELYUSKIN</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>It was chiefly from the land that the northern coast-line
+was surveyed by the Russians, whose Arctic work
+has been immense and thorough, though not marked by
+any striking discoveries. Cape Chelyuskin was first
+reached, in May, 1742, by the explorer whose name it
+bears, after a sledge journey from the Chatanga, he
+being at the time second in command to Khariton
+Laptef, whose first expedition in 1739 ended in the loss
+of his ship three hundred miles from his winter quarters,
+to which he had to travel on foot, losing twelve
+men by cold and exhaustion on the way. Within the
+preceding four years the survey of the coast west of it
+had been completed in four stages—from Archangel to
+Yalmal (that is Land's End); from Yalmal to the Obi;
+from the Obi to the Yenesei; from the Yenesei to
+Cape Sterlegof. In 1735 Pronchistschef, from the
+Lena, failed to round Cape Chelyuskin from the east,
+and returned to the Olenek to die but two days before
+his young wife, who was his companion on his perilous
+voyage. Two years afterwards Dmitri Laptef began
+his explorations east of the Lena which took him to
+Cape Baranoff, thus joining up to the discoveries of
+the sable-hunters made a century before, including
+those of Deschnef, who, in 1648, sailed from the
+Kolyma to Kamchatka and went through Bering
+Strait more than thirty years before Bering was born.
+Thus the route of the North-east Passage was known,
+although no man had travelled the whole way either
+by land or sea, before the task was undertaken by
+Nordenskiöld.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>To begin with, Nordenskiöld made two voyages to
+the Yenesei. In the first voyage he left Tromsoe in the
+<em>Proeven</em> on the 14th of June, 1875, and reached what
+he named Dickson Harbour at the mouth of the
+Yenesei on the 15th of August. Sending back the
+<em>Proeven</em>, which returned through Matyushin Shar, he,
+with Lundstrom the botanist and Stuxberg the zoologist,
+and three walrus-hunters, embarked in a boat they
+had brought out with them and proceeded up the
+estuary into the river; and during the first six hundred
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>miles they landed only twice. On the last day of the
+month they caught up a steamer on which they became
+passengers.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"We were yet," says Nordenskiöld, "far to the
+north of the Arctic Circle, and as many perhaps
+imagine that the little-known region we were now
+travelling through, the Siberian tundra, is a desert
+wilderness covered either by ice and snow, or by an
+exceedingly scanty moss vegetation, it perhaps may not
+be out of place to say that this is by no means the
+case. On the contrary, we saw snow during our
+journey up the Yenesei only at one place, in a deep
+valley cleft some fathoms in breadth, and the vegetation,
+especially on the islands which are overflowed
+during the spring floods, is distinguished by a luxuriance
+to which I have seldom seen anything comparable.
+Already had the fertility of the soil and the
+immeasurable extent and richness in grass of the pastures
+drawn forth from one of our walrus-hunters, a
+middle-aged man who is owner of a little patch of
+ground among the fells of Northern Norway, a cry of
+envy at the splendid land our Lord had given the
+Russian, and of astonishment that no creature pastured,
+no scythe mowed, the grass. Daily and hourly
+we heard the same cry repeated, and even in louder
+tones, when some weeks after we came to the grand
+old forests between Yeneseisk and Turuchansk, or to
+the nearly uninhabited plains on the other side of
+Krasnojarsk covered with deep black earth, equal without
+doubt in fertility to the best parts of Scania, and in
+extent surpassing the whole Scandinavian peninsula.
+This judgment formed on the spot by a genuine though
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>illiterate agriculturist is not without interest in forming
+an idea of the future importance of Siberia."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In fact, Siberia is particularly rich in mineral and
+agricultural wealth, and this voyage, which opened up
+the route to and from Europe by the natural outlets
+to the north, was of such commercial promise that
+the explorer received for it the special thanks of the
+Russian Government. As, however, there were people
+who looked upon it as an exceptional voyage in an exceptional
+year, Nordenskiöld next season took another
+voyage to the river, this time in the <em>Ymer</em>, carrying
+the first instalment of merchandise so as to begin the
+trade; and he was followed in a few weeks by Captain
+Joseph Wiggins, in the <em>Thames</em>, whose subsequent
+voyages made the northern route well known.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Assured by the experience gained in these voyages
+that the North-east Passage was possible to a steam
+vessel of moderate size, Nordenskiöld, in 1878, was
+enabled to fit out the <em>Vega</em>, and sailed from Tromsoe
+on the 31st of July. Three other vessels accompanied
+her, two bound for the Yenesei, one for the Lena, the
+rendezvous being Khabarova. All went well. On the
+9th of August the <em>Fraser</em> and <em>Express</em> proceeded up
+the Yenesei to discharge their cargoes and return to
+Europe in safety; next day the <em>Vega</em> and <em>Lena</em> left
+for the eastward, and, after some risky navigation
+among islands and through fog, lay for four days in
+Actinia Haven, between Taimyr Island and the mainland,
+vainly waiting for clear weather. Pushing on
+through fitful fog they sighted a promontory in the
+north-east gleaming in the sunshine, and rounding its
+western horn anchored in a bay open to the north and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>free from ice at the extremity of Cape Chelyuskin.
+With the rounding of the most northerly point of the
+Old World the first object of the expedition had been
+attained. The salute fired in honour of the event
+having frightened away the only polar bear who had
+stood watching the ship from the western horn, some
+of the party landed, the botanists to discover that
+all the plants of the peninsula had apparently been
+stopped on the outermost promontory when trying to
+migrate further north. The flora was not extensive—a
+few luxuriant lichens and twenty-three flowering
+plants, eight of them saxifrages, most of them with a
+tendency to form semi-globular tufts; the fauna consisted
+of the bear, a few seals, a walrus, two shoals of
+white whales, some ducks and geese, and a number of
+sandpipers. Not so long a list as was obtained at
+other landings, but by no means a bad one for the
+half-way house to the Pole.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>After passing the cape the course was laid for the
+New Siberian Islands, but ice prevented progress
+in their direction beyond 77° 45´, the highest north of
+the voyage, and the ship had to work her way out by
+the route she went in, thus losing a day, which had
+serious consequences, though it proved the correctness
+of Nordenskiöld's theory that the water delivered by
+the Siberian rivers is, for a few months, of sufficiently
+high temperature to give a clear passage to vessels
+content to keep near the coast. On reaching the
+mouth of the Lena the ships parted company, Captain
+Johannsen taking the smaller steamer up the river as
+intended and bringing the news of the rounding of
+Cape Chelyuskin and the promise of the North-east
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>Passage being accomplished in one season, which was
+not destined to be fulfilled.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Another attempt was then made by the <em>Vega</em> to
+reach the islands to the north, but after sighting the
+two most westerly of the group the shallow sea was
+too crowded with rotten ice, and an idea of landing
+on Liakhoff Island having to be given up for the
+same reason, the course was altered so as to take the
+ship round Svjatoi Nos (the Holy Cape), where in
+April, 1770, Liakhoff had noticed the mighty crowd
+of reindeer going south. Justly considering they must
+have come over the ice from some northern land, he
+went back on their tracks in a dog-sledge, discovering
+two of the most southerly islands, and obtaining from
+Catherine the Second as a reward the monopoly of hunting
+the foxes and collecting the ivory there from the
+fossil mammoths he found in abundance.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Forced to keep to the channel along the coast, which
+daily became narrower, the <em>Vega</em> reached Cape Chelagskoi,
+and when off this promontory Nordenskiöld
+saw the first natives during his voyage. Two boats
+built of skin almost exactly similar to the oomiaks, or
+women's boats, used by the Eskimos, came out to the
+ship, the men, women, and children in them intimating
+by shouts and gestures that they wished to come on
+board. The <em>Vega</em> was brought-to that they might do
+so, but as none of the Chukches could speak Russian
+and none of the Swedes knew Chukche, the interview
+was not so satisfactory as expected, though the universal
+language of pantomime with presents ensured a
+favourable termination.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 12th of September the <em>Vega</em> passed Irkaipii,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>the Cape North of Captain Cook, and by rounding it
+Nordenskiöld joined up with the westernmost limit of
+the Arctic discoveries of the great navigator. Cook
+tried to weather it in August, 1778, but was turned
+back by fog and snow, and thinking it was "not consistent
+with prudence to make any further attempts to
+find a passage into the Atlantic this year in any direction,
+so little was the prospect of succeeding," he sailed
+for Hawaii, where his intention of making the attempt
+the ensuing summer came to nought owing to his
+death.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 28th of September the <em>Vega's</em> progress for
+the year was arrested by her being frozen in for the
+winter on the eastern side of Kolyuchin Bay in the
+northernmost part of Bering Strait, only six miles of
+ice barring the way round Cape Serdze Kamen into the
+open sea. During her detention of two hundred and
+sixty-four days the scientific investigations of many
+kinds that were undertaken were of lasting importance,
+as they had been throughout, and when she was released
+on the 18th of July, 1879, to come home by way
+of Yokohama, the collections and records she brought
+with her were simply enormous. No better work with
+greater results was done by any Arctic expedition
+than during this successful voyage, which was too well
+managed to have much adventure. For it Nordenskiöld
+very justly claimed the reward of twenty-five
+thousand guilders offered in 1596 by the States-General
+of Holland, the endeavour to win which sent out Van
+Heemskerck, Barents, and Rijp.</p>
+
+<div id='pg90'  class='figcenter id009'>
+<img src='images/i_131.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>ADOLF ERIK NORDENSKIÖLD</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>We have seen how the Dutchmen built their house
+at Ice Haven mainly of the driftwood from the Siberian
+rivers. Similar wood from probably the same source is
+found on the shores of Greenland and of almost all the
+northerly islands of the Arctic Ocean. Further, the
+Greenland flora includes a series of Siberian plants
+apparently from seeds drifted there by some current.
+Not only do trees and seeds travel by water from Asia
+westward to America; at Godthaab, for instance, on
+the western coast of Greenland, there was found a
+throwing-stick of a shape and ornamentation used only
+by the Alaskan Eskimos; and three years after the
+foundering of the <em>Jeannette</em> to the north of the New
+Siberian Islands there were found on the south-west
+coast of Greenland a number of articles in the drift-ice
+that must have come from the sunken vessel. For
+these and other reasons it seemed clear to Fridtjof
+Nansen that a current flowed at some point between
+the Pole and Franz Josef Land from the Siberian
+Arctic Sea to the Greenland coast, and so he set to
+work to organise his daring expedition to strike this
+current well to the eastward, trusting to its mercies to
+take him to or near the Pole.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1893, when the <em>Fram</em> rounded Cape Chelyuskin,
+Nansen had found the Kara Sea almost as open as
+Nordenskiöld had done, but had met with more difficulties
+among the islands off the Taimyr Peninsula.
+A famous vessel, the <em>Fram</em>, the first of her kind, built
+specially for the ice to take her where it listed in the
+hope that she would drift to discovery like the <em>Tegetthoff</em>,
+and not to disaster like the <em>Jeannette</em>. The
+general idea was Nansen's, the carrying out of the
+idea was Colin Archer's. As Nansen says: "We must
+gratefully recognise that the success of the expedition
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>was in no small degree due to this man." Plan after
+plan did he make of the projected ship, model after
+model did he prepare and abandon before he was
+satisfied: and never was a ship more honestly built.
+With her double-ended deck plan, with a side of such
+curve and slope that under ice pressure she would be
+lifted instead of crushed between the floes, and with
+bow, stern, and keel so rounded off that she would slip
+like an eel from the embrace of the ice, she was of
+such solidity as to withstand any pressure from any
+direction. Her stem of three stout oak beams, one
+inside the other, was four feet in thickness, protected
+with iron; her rudder-post and propeller-post, two feet
+across, had on either side a stout oak counter-timber
+following the curvature upwards and forming a double
+stern-post, with the planking cased with heavy iron
+plates; and between these timbers was a well for the
+screw and another for the rudder, so that each could
+be hoisted on deck, the rudder with the help of the
+capstan coming up in a few minutes. Her frames,
+ten inches thick and twenty-one wide, stood close
+together, carrying three layers of planking, giving
+altogether a side of two feet or more of solid wood,
+so shored and stayed for strength that the hold looked
+like a thicket of balks, joists, and stanchions. With
+a length of 128 feet over all, a breadth of thirty-six, a
+depth of seventeen, and a displacement of 800 tons,
+she was quite a <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">multum-in-parvo</span> engined with a
+220 horse-power triple expansion, so contrived that in
+case of accident or for any other cause the cylinders
+could be used singly or two together. Rigged as a three-masted
+fore-and-aft schooner, with the mainmast much
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>higher than the others—it being unusually high, for
+the crow's-nest on the main-topmast was 102 feet
+above the water—she proved equal to the demands on
+her, though in her case strength and warmth had to be
+thought of before weatherliness and speed. But her
+speed was not so poor, for when steaming and sailing
+after leaving Cape Chelyuskin on the 10th of September
+she was doing her nine knots.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The day after she had entered the Nordenskiöld
+Sea came a walrus-hunt, so graphically described by
+Nansen that we must find room for an extract. "It
+was," he says, "a lovely morning—fine, still weather;
+the walruses' guffaw sounded over to us along the
+clear ice surface. They were lying crowded together
+on a floe a little to landward of us, blue mountains
+glittering behind them in the sun. At last the harpoons
+were sharpened, guns and cartridges ready, and
+Henriksen, Juell, and I set off. There seemed to be
+a slight breeze from the south, so we rowed to the
+north side of the floe, to get to leeward of the animals.
+From time to time their sentry raised his head, but
+apparently did not see us. We advanced slowly, and
+soon were so near that we had to row very cautiously.
+Juell kept us going, while Henriksen was ready in the
+bow with a harpoon, and I behind him with a gun.
+The moment the sentry raised his head the oars
+stopped, and we stood motionless; when he sank it
+again, a few more strokes brought us nearer. Body
+to body they lay, close-packed on a small floe, old and
+young ones mixed. Enormous masses of flesh they
+were. Now and again one of the ladies fanned herself
+by moving one of her flippers backwards and forwards
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>over her body; then she lay quiet again on her back
+or side. More and more cautiously we drew near.
+Whilst I sat ready with the gun, Henriksen took a
+good grip of the harpoon shaft, and as the boat
+touched the floe he rose, and off flew the harpoon.
+But it struck too high, glanced off the tough hide,
+and skipped over the backs of the animals. Now
+there was a pretty to do! Ten or twelve great weird
+faces glared upon us at once; the colossal creatures
+twisted themselves round with incredible celerity, and
+came waddling with lifted heads and hollow bellowings
+to the edge of the ice where we lay. It was undeniably
+an imposing sight; but I laid my gun to my
+shoulder and fired at one of the biggest heads. The
+animal staggered and then fell head foremost into the
+water. Now a ball into another head; this creature
+fell, too, but was able to fling itself into the sea. And
+now the whole flock dashed in, and we, as well as they,
+were hidden in the spray. It had all happened in a
+few seconds. But up they came again immediately
+round the boat, the one head bigger and uglier than
+the other—their young ones close beside them. They
+stood up in the water, bellowed and roared till the air
+trembled, threw themselves forward towards us, then
+rose up again, and new bellowings filled the air.
+Then they rolled over and disappeared with a splash,
+then bobbed up again. The water foamed and boiled
+for yards around—the ice-world that had been so still
+before seemed in a moment to have been transformed
+into a raging Bedlam. Any moment we might expect
+to have a walrus tusk or two through the boat or to
+be heaved up or capsized. Something of this kind
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>was the very least that could happen after such a
+terrible commotion. But the hurly-burly went on
+and nothing came of it."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The <em>Fram</em> had to follow the coast owing to the thick
+pack barring the way across the sea. The mouth of
+the Chatanga was passed, then that of the Olenek, and
+then the influence of the warm water of the Lena
+being apparent by the clearance of the floes, the course
+was laid straight for the Pole in open water until
+77° 44´ was reached, when, checked by the long compact
+edge of ice shining through the fog, the route
+became north-westerly until they stopped for fear they
+should get near land, which was the very thing they
+wished to avoid; and on the 25th of September in
+about 78½° north latitude—north-west of Sannikof
+Land—they were frozen in.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Preparations for wintering began. The rudder was
+hauled up, the engine was taken to pieces, each separate
+part oiled and laid away with the greatest care—for
+Amundsen looked after it as if it were his own child—a
+carpenter's shop was started in the hold, a smithy
+arranged first on deck and then on the ice. But it all
+had to be replaced, even the engine put together again,
+for the pack cleared away for a brief period, to return,
+when again the shiftings were made; and when the
+windmill was put up to drive the dynamo, the winter
+installation was in all senses complete.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Slowly the <em>Fram</em> drifted in her ice-berth, so slowly
+that at the end of twelve months she had moved from
+point to point only 189 miles, having returned no further
+west than the longitude of the Olenek; her
+highest north, attained on the 18th of June, being
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>81° 46´. In the main the drift was north-westerly, but
+three times it had boxed the compass in irregular loops,
+the only constant thing about it being that, in no
+matter what direction she was taken, the bow of the
+<em>Fram</em> always pointed south. Of grips she had many,
+some of the pressures were enormous, once they were
+severe enough to suggest measures for her abandonment,
+but she survived them all unscathed. Early in
+the drift it became apparent that the ice was packing
+twice and slacking twice in every twenty-four hours,
+and in this sea, as afterwards in the Atlantic area, the
+influence of the tides, particularly the spring tides, was
+unmistakable—as it was expected it would be—though
+in the deep Polar basin the wind had more effect; and,
+in truth, the wind was a factor throughout in the packing
+of the ice and in the drift's direction. One thing was
+clear, that the current was not taking the <em>Fram</em> across
+the North Pole, but about half-way between it and
+Spitsbergen; and if the Pole was to be reached some
+of the expedition must attempt to get there over the
+ice. This meant leaving the ship, going north, and
+returning to the nearest known land, for, owing to the
+irregularity of the drift, it was hopeless to think of
+again reaching the <em>Fram</em>. During the second winter
+the route of the ship trended more to the north, and,
+after a loop all round in January, she reached 84° 4´ on
+the 14th of March in the longitude of Cape Chelyuskin.
+Here Nansen and Lieutenant F. H. Johansen, who
+rather than not join the <em>Fram</em> had shipped in her as
+stoker, left the ship with three sledges, two kayaks, and
+twenty-eight dogs to go as far northward as they could,
+their expectation being that they would reach the Pole
+in fifty days. Had they remained in the ship until
+November they would have saved themselves trouble,
+for, as matters turned out, the embarrassing drift took
+the <em>Fram</em> within eight miles of the farthest north
+they attained after twenty-three days of strenuous endeavour.</p>
+
+<div id='pg96'  class='figcenter id010'>
+<img src='images/i_139.jpg' alt='Yours sincerely Fridtjof Nansen.' class='ig001' />
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>The ice, fairly easy for a few days, soon became
+terrible in the difficulties it offered to progress over it,
+and the continual toil of hauling and carrying the
+sledges, and righting them when capsized, soon told on
+the two men to such an extent as to tire them out so
+thoroughly that sometimes in the evening they fell
+asleep as they went along. The cold, too, proved
+singularly searching and severe. During the course of
+the day the damp exhalations of the body little by
+little became condensed in their outer garments, which
+became transformed into suits of ice-armour, so hard
+that if they could have been got off they could have
+stood by themselves, and they crackled audibly at every
+movement. The clothes were so stiff that the sleeve
+of Nansen's coat rubbed deep sores in his wrist, one of
+which got frost-bitten, the wound growing deeper and
+deeper and nearly reaching the bone. "How cold we
+were," says Nansen, "as we lay there shivering in the
+bag, waiting for the supper to be ready! I, who was
+cook, was obliged to keep myself more or less awake to
+see to the culinary operations, and sometimes I succeeded.
+At last the supper was ready, was portioned
+out, and, as always, tasted delicious. These occasions
+were the supreme moments of our existence, moments
+to which we looked forward all day long. But sometimes
+we were so weary that our eyes closed, and we
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>fell asleep with the food on its way to our mouths.
+Our hands would fall back inanimate with the spoons
+in them and the food fly out on the bag."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The further they went the worse became the conditions.
+On the 8th of April, with ridge after ridge and
+nothing but rubble to travel over, the work became so
+disheartening that Nansen went on ahead on his skis
+and from the highest hummocks viewed the state of
+affairs; and as far as the horizon, lay a chaos of such
+character that progress across was impracticable if he
+and Johansen were to return alive. Here, then, they
+stopped, this being their northernmost limit, 128 miles
+from the <em>Fram</em>, 260 miles from the Pole, latitude
+86° 13·6´, longitude 95°.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>To reach this point they had been travelling north-westwards
+for six days, the way due north being
+impassable; but on turning south they seemed to enter
+another country; so much did the going improve after
+the first mile that in three days they covered over forty
+miles. They were making for Petermann Land, which
+does not exist, or for the wide-stretching Franz Josef
+Land, also placed on the maps by Payer, which Jackson
+had been cutting up into fragments while the <em>Fram</em>
+was in the ice. Further south difficulties thickened
+ahead of them till the road became almost as bad as
+that to the north. Before they reached land the hundred
+days they had allowed themselves had increased to
+more than half as many again, their dogs had been
+killed one by one to yield food for the rest, until only
+two remained; Nansen was helpless with rheumatism
+for two days; and Johansen was nearly killed by a
+bear. Through a chain of disasters caused by storms
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>and fogs and snow and the state of the ice, they
+threaded their way, sometimes by sledge, sometimes by
+kayak, through mazes of open channels, leaping from
+floe to floe and ferrying back to get their baggage over,
+hundreds of yards on mere brash, dragging the sledges
+after them in constant fear of their capsizing into the
+water. Then the ice gave out and, taking to their
+kayaks, they sailed and paddled to what is now known
+as Frederick Jackson Island in the north of the Franz
+Josef Archipelago.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Here they wintered, quite at a loss at first to know
+where they were, owing to their watches having run
+down during a great effort of thirty-six hours at a
+stretch, so that they did not know their longitude,
+though they subsequently concluded they must be
+somewhere on Franz Josef Land within 140 miles of
+Eira Harbour. They built a hut and altogether lived
+passably well, there being no lack of food, thanks
+mainly to the bears, whose visits were embarrassing in
+their frequency though the visitors were not unwelcome
+when they came to stay.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 19th of May they set out for the south, down
+British Channel, with their sledges and kayaks, and
+five days afterwards, when off Cape M'Clintock, while
+Johansen was busy lashing the sail and mast securely to
+the deck of his kayak to prevent their being blown
+away, Nansen went on ahead to look for a camping
+ground and fell through a crack in the ice which had
+been hidden by the snow. He tried to get out, but
+with his skis firmly fastened could not pull them up
+through the rubble of ice which had fallen into the
+water on the top of them, and, being harnessed to the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>sledge, he could not turn round. Fortunately, as he
+fell, he had dug his staff into the ice on the opposite
+side of the crack, and holding himself up with its aid,
+and the arm he had got over the edge of the ice, he
+waited patiently for Johansen to come and pull him
+out. When he thought a long time had passed and
+felt the staff giving way and the water creeping further
+up his body, he called out but received no answer; and
+it was not until the water had reached his chest that
+Johansen came and pulled him out.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>For a few days they were storm-bound. On the
+3rd of June they started again down the channel, their
+whereabouts still a mystery to them, nothing in the
+least like it being on their map. Nine days afterwards,
+after rounding Cape Barents on Northbrook
+Island, the kayaks, which had been left moored to the
+edge of the ice, got adrift. Nansen, running down
+from the hummock, from which he had been looking
+round, threw off some of his clothes and sprang into
+the water. The wind was off the ice, and the kayaks
+with their high rigging were moving away as fast as
+he could swim. It seemed more than doubtful if he
+could reach them. But all their hope was there, all
+they had was on board; they had not even a knife
+with them, and whether he sank or turned back
+amounted to much the same thing. When he tired
+he turned over and swam on his back, and then he
+could see Johansen walking restlessly up and down on
+the ice, unable to do anything, and having the worst
+time he ever lived through. But the wind lulled, and
+when Nansen turned over he saw he was nearing the
+kayaks, and though his limbs were stiffening and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>losing all feeling, he put all the strength he could into
+his strokes, and eventually was able to reach them.
+He tried to pull himself up, but was so stiff with cold
+that he could not do so. For a moment he thought
+he was too late; but after a little he managed to swing
+one leg up on to the edge of the sledge, which lay on
+the deck, and in this way he scrambled on board.
+The kayaks were lashed together so as to form a
+double boat, and the only way in which, owing to his
+stiffness, he could paddle them was to take one or two
+strokes on one side and then step into the other kayak
+and take a few strokes on the other side. The return
+was consequently slow, but it was a return, though
+the ice was reached a long way from where the drifting
+had begun.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Next day but one came another perilous episode.
+"Towards morning," says Nansen, "we rowed for some
+time without seeing any walrus, and now felt more
+secure. Just then we saw a solitary rover pop up a
+little in front of us. Johansen, who was in front at
+the time, put in to a sunken ledge of ice; and although
+I really thought that this was caution carried to excess,
+I was on the point of following his example. I had not
+gone so far, however, when suddenly the walrus shot
+up beside me, threw himself on to the edge of the kayak,
+took hold further over the deck with one flipper, and
+as it tried to upset me aimed a blow at the kayak with
+its tusks. I held on as tightly as possible, so as not
+to be upset into the water, and struck at the animal's
+head with the paddle as hard as I could. It took hold of
+the kayak once more and tilted me up so that the deck
+was almost under water, then let go and raised itself
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>right up. I seized my gun, but at the same moment it
+turned round and disappeared as quickly as it had
+come. The whole thing had happened in a moment,
+and I was just going to remark to Johansen that we
+were fortunate in escaping so easily from that adventure,
+when I noticed that my legs were wet. I listened,
+and now heard the water trickling into the kayak
+under me. To turn and run her in on to the sunken
+ledge of ice was the work of a moment, but I sank
+there. The thing was to get out and on to the ice,
+the kayak filling all the time. The edge of the ice was
+high and loose, but I managed to rise; and Johansen,
+by tilting the sinking kayak over to starboard, so that
+the leak came above the water, managed to bring her
+to a place where the ice was low enough to admit of
+our drawing her up. All I possessed was floating
+about inside, soaked through. So here we lie, with
+all our worldly goods spread out to dry and a kayak
+that must be mended before we can face the walrus
+again. It is a good big rent that he has made, at
+least six inches long; but it is fortunate that it was no
+worse."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The kayak was mended, and, after a long rest, it was
+past noon on the 17th of June when Nansen turned
+out to prepare breakfast. After doing so he went up
+on a hummock to look around. Flocks of little auks
+were flying overhead, and, amid the confused noise of
+their calls, he heard a couple of barks from a dog.
+Thinking he was mistaken he waited for a time, and
+then the barking was unmistakable, bark after bark,
+one of a deeper tone than the other. He shouted to
+Johansen, who started up from the sleeping-bag incredulous.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>The sound ceased, and, breakfast over,
+Nansen went forth to investigate. Soon he came on
+the footprints of a dog or wolf, and then, still doubting,
+he heard a distant yelping that certainly came not from
+a wolf. Making his way among the hummocks, he
+heard a shout from a human voice, a strange voice—the
+first for three years. Running up on to a hummock
+he shouted with all his might. Back came a
+shout in reply; and among the hummocks he caught
+sight of a dog, and further off a man walked into view.
+The man spoke to the dog in English. Thinking he
+recognised Jackson, Nansen raised his hat as he met
+him, and they shook hands heartily.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The contrast could not have been greater. One the
+well-groomed, civilised European in a check suit and
+rubber water-boots, the other in dirty rags black with
+oil and soot, with long matted hair and shaggy beard,
+and a face in which the complexion was undiscernible
+through the accumulations which a winter's endeavours,
+including scrapings with a knife, had failed to remove.
+As they talked they had turned to go inland. Suddenly
+Jackson stopped, and, looking the new arrival
+straight in the face, said—</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"Aren't you Nansen?"</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"Yes, I am."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"By Jove! I'm damned glad to see you."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>And seizing his hand he shook it again, his whole
+face beaming with a smile of welcome and delight at
+the unexpected meeting; and needless to say, both
+Nansen and Johansen received the warmest of welcomes
+from all at Elmwood. The <em>Windward</em> was then
+on her way, and when she arrived the two Norsemen
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>from the farthest north went in her to Vardoe, where
+they landed on the 13th of August.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Meanwhile the <em>Fram</em> had continued her leisurely
+drift, north-west, south-west, north-west, west, then all
+round the compass, still with her head pointing south,
+until on the 15th of November she reached 85° 55·5´ in
+longitude 66° 31´, thus giving Captain Otto Sverdrup
+the honour of attaining the highest north in a ship.
+Another winter was passed in her ice-berth, during
+which she moved westerly. In February came another
+complete triangle in her course, after which she went
+south-west, and on the 16th of May turned due south.
+Then, in the later days of the month with the southerly
+drift continuing and open water on ahead, Sverdrup
+resolved to set her free by mines, and on the 3rd of
+June, as a result of the blastings, she gave a lurch,
+settled a little deeper at the stern and moved away
+from the edge of the ice until the hawsers tautened.
+But, though she was afloat, the ice around still kept her
+captive, and in the pool she drifted straight towards
+Spitsbergen.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Again and again was steam got up and endeavour
+made to break a way out, but day after day elapsed,
+and it was not until the 13th of August that she passed
+through the last floes into open water, and her thirty-five
+months of imprisonment came to an end. Making
+for Danes Island in Spitsbergen, she was there boarded
+by Andrée, who was then preparing for his disappearance
+in the balloon voyage to the Pole. Going on
+direct to Skjervoe in Norway, Sverdrup landed at two
+o'clock in the morning to wake up the telegraphist,
+who told him that Nansen had reached Vardoe a week
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>before and was then at Hammerfest and probably
+leaving for Tromsoe. For Tromsoe Sverdrup started,
+after telegraphing to Nansen. And there, at four
+o'clock in the afternoon of the 25th of August, 1896,
+Sir George Baden-Powell's yacht <em>Otaria</em>, with Nansen
+and Johansen on board, glided alongside the <em>Fram</em>, the
+good little ship looking much weather-beaten though
+none the worse for such a task of strength and endurance
+as had been set no other in the story of the sea.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER VI<br /> THE LENA DELTA</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>Discovery of the Siberian Islands—Hedenström—Anjou and Wrangell—Migration
+of reindeer—Animals and plants of the tundra—The northward
+migration of the native tribes—The voyage of the <em>Jeannette</em>—Her
+drift in the pack—Jeannette Island—Henrietta Island—The ship crushed
+and sunk—Landing on Bennett Island—The boat voyage—The boats
+separate in a storm—De Long lands on the Lena Delta—Nindemann
+and Noros in search of assistance—Safety of the whale-boat—Fate of
+De Long and his companions—Baron Toll's discoveries.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>The Siberian Islands, lying north of the delta of
+the Lena, answer to the Parry Islands on the
+American side, the two groups being separated by that
+wide stretch of the Arctic Ocean communicating with
+the Pacific through Bering Strait. At first the Asiatic
+group was officially named after Liakhoff, then it was
+called after the unwisely named New Siberia, but,
+under any designation, it took half a century to find
+the different islands, and considerably more to land
+on them.</p>
+
+<div id='pg106'  class='figcenter id004'>
+<a href='images/i_151.jpg'><img src='images/i_151_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE LENA DELTA</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>When Liakhoff discovered the one named after him
+by the Empress Catherine, he also went north to
+Moloi, and he seems to have visited Kotelnoi to the
+north-west. In 1775 Chvoinof was sent to survey
+these three, but he devoted most of his attention to
+Liakhoff Island—fifty miles across—which he found
+to consist, as reported, of hills of granite rising from
+a mass of mammoth bones, sand, and ice, some of the
+ice ancient enough to carry a deep covering of moss.
+Though he stated that other islands could be made
+out in the distance, nothing was done to verify his
+discoveries, real or imaginary, until thirty years had
+passed, when Thaddeus and Stolbovoi were reached.
+Next year (1806) New Siberia, to the eastward, was
+discovered by Sirovatskof, and two years afterwards
+Bjelkof was added to the southerly portion of the
+archipelago.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1809 Hedenström, assisted by Sannikof, began
+his series of surveys extending over all these, and
+cleared up much of the mystery concerning them.
+From Thaddeus, Sannikof sighted, away to the northward,
+what is now known as Bennett Island; and,
+from New Siberia, Hedenström sighted Henrietta and
+Jeannette Islands, and set out for them, and would
+have reached them had his sledges not been stopped by
+open water. Like his predecessors he was astonished
+at the mammoth remains on Liakhoff Island.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>According to his account, "these bones or tusks
+are less large and heavy the further we advance
+towards the north, so that it is a rare occurrence on
+the islands to meet with a tusk of more than 108 lbs.
+in weight, whereas on the continent they are said often
+to weigh as much as 432 lbs. In quantity, however, these
+bones increase wonderfully to the northward, and as
+Sannikof expresses himself, the whole soil of the first
+of the Liakhoff Islands appears to consist of them.
+For about eighty years the fur-hunters have every
+year brought large cargoes from this island, but as yet
+there is no sensible diminution of the stock. The
+tusks on the islands are also much more fresh and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>white than those on the continent. A sandbank on
+the western side was most productive of all, and the
+fur-hunters maintain that when the sea recedes after a
+long continuance of easterly winds, a fresh supply of
+mammoth bones is always found to have been washed
+from this bank, proceeding apparently from some vast
+store at the bottom of the sea." Besides these multitudinous
+remains of the mammoth Hedenström found
+numerous remains of rhinoceros, the horn of which
+was then thought to be a bird's claw three feet long.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>To clear up the wide discrepancies in the maps the
+Emperor Alexander, in 1820, equipped two expeditions
+to proceed by land to the northern coast of Siberia
+and properly survey it, the work to be carried as far
+east as Cape Chelagskoi, whence a sledge party was to
+start for the north in search of the inhabited country reported
+to exist in the Polar Sea in that direction. One
+of these expeditions, under Lieutenant P. F. Anjou,
+was to commence its operations from the mouth of
+the Yana; the other, under Lieutenant Ferdinand
+Vrangel' (or, as he is generally known amongst us,
+Wrangell or Von Wrangell), was to start from the
+mouth of the Kolyma, his chief assistant being Midshipman
+Matiuschkin. Both parties did good survey
+work, but neither made any striking discovery. Anjou
+reached 76° 36´ to the north of Kotelnoi; Wrangell
+reached 72° 2´ (north-east of the Bear Islands, one
+hundred and seventy-four miles out on the sea from
+the great Baranoff rock), beyond which progress was
+impossible owing to the thinness of the ice, which was
+covered with salt water.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Wrangell had many perilous experiences. In his
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>fourth journey over the sea the ice broke up around
+him and he found himself on a floe with a labyrinth
+of water lanes hemming him in on every side and a
+storm coming on from the westward. The storm
+rapidly increased in fury, and the masses of ice around
+him were soon dashing against each other and breaking
+in all directions. On the floe, which was tossing to
+and fro on the waves, he gazed in painful inactivity on
+the conflict, expecting every moment to be swallowed
+up. For three long hours he had remained unable to
+move, the mass of ice beneath him holding together,
+when it was caught by the storm and hurled against a
+large field of ice. The crash was terrific, as it was
+shattered into little pieces. At that dreadful moment,
+when escape seemed impossible, he was saved by the
+impulse of self-preservation. Instinctively the party
+sprang on to the sledges and urged the dogs to full
+speed, and as hard as they could gallop they skimmed
+across the yielding fragments to the field on which
+they had been stranded, and safely reached a stretch
+of firmer ice, where the dogs ceased running among
+the hummocks, conscious that the danger was past.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>But it is not so much for adventures like this that his
+account of his work is of continuing interest as for the
+abundance of its notes and reflections on the country
+and its life and climate. Once, for instance, when on
+the Baranicha he was fortunate enough to witness a
+migration of reindeer. "I had hardly finished the
+observation," he says, "when my whole attention was
+called to a highly interesting, and to me a perfectly
+novel, spectacle. Two large migrating bodies of reindeer
+passed us at no great distance. They were descending
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>the hills from the north-west and crossing the
+plain on their way to the forests, where they spend the
+winter. Both bodies of deer extended further than the
+eye could reach, and formed a compact mass, narrowing
+towards the front. They moved slowly and majestically
+along, their broad antlers resembling a moving
+wood of leafless trees. Each body was led by a deer of
+unusual size, which my guides assured me was always a
+female. One of the herds was stealthily followed by a
+wolf, who was apparently watching for an opportunity
+of seizing any one of the younger and weaker deer
+which might fall behind the rest, but on seeing us he
+made off in another direction. The other column was
+followed at some distance by a large black bear, who,
+however, appeared only intent on digging out a mouse's
+nest every now and then, so much so that he took no
+notice of us. We had great difficulty in restraining
+our two dogs, but happily succeeded in doing so; their
+barking, or any sound or motion on our part, might
+have alarmed the deer, and by turning them from their
+course, have proved a terrible misfortune to the hunters,
+who were awaiting their passage, on which they
+are entirely dependent for support. We remained for
+two hours whilst the herds of deer were passing by,
+and then resumed our march."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The way in which the deer are dealt with by the
+hunters was seen by Matiuschkin when despatched by
+Wrangell to survey the Anyui. "The true harvest,
+which we arrived just in time to see, is in August or
+September, when the reindeer are returning from the
+plains to the forests. They are then healthy and well
+fed, the venison is excellent, and as they have just
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>acquired their winter coats the fur is thick and warm.
+The difference of the quality of the skins at the two
+seasons is such, that whilst an autumn skin is valued at
+five or six roubles, a spring one will only fetch one or
+one and a half roubles. In good years the migrating
+body of reindeer consists of many thousands; and
+though they are divided into herds of two or three
+hundred each, yet the herds keep so near together as to
+form only one immense mass, which is sometimes from
+thirty to seventy miles in breadth. They always
+follow the same route, and in crossing the river near
+Plotbischtsche, they choose a place where a dry valley
+leads down to the stream on one side, and a flat sandy
+shore facilitates their landing on the other side. As
+each separate herd approaches the river, the deer draw
+more closely together, and the largest and strongest
+takes the lead. He advances, closely followed by a
+few of the others, with head erect, and apparently
+intent on examining the locality. When he has satisfied
+himself, he enters the river, the rest of the herd
+crowd after him, and in a few minutes the surface is
+covered with them. Then the hunters, who have been
+concealed to leeward, rush in their light canoes from
+their hiding-places, surround the deer, and delay their
+passage, whilst two or three chosen men armed with
+short spears dash into the middle of the herd and despatch
+large numbers in an incredibly short time; or at
+least wound them so, that, if they reach the bank, it is
+only to fall into the hands of the women and children.
+The office of the spearman is a very dangerous one.
+It is no easy thing to keep the light boat afloat among
+the dense crowd of swimming deer, which, moreover,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>make considerable resistance; the males with their
+horns, teeth, and hind legs, whilst the females try to
+overset the boat by getting their fore-feet over the
+gunwale; if they succeed in this the hunter is lost, for
+it is hardly possible that he should extricate himself
+from the throng; but the skill of these people is so
+great that accidents very rarely occur. A good hunter
+may kill a hundred or more in less than half an hour.
+When the herd is large, and gets into disorder, it often
+happens that their antlers become entangled with each
+other; they are then unable to defend themselves, and
+the business is much easier. Meanwhile the rest of the
+boats pick up the slain and fasten them together with
+thongs, and every one is allowed to keep what he lays
+hold of in this manner. It might seem that in this
+way nothing would be left to requite the spearmen for
+their skill, and the danger they have encountered; but
+whilst everything taken in the river is the property of
+whoever secures it, the wounded animals which reach
+the bank before they fall, belong to the spearman who
+wounded them. The skill and experience of these men
+are such that in the thickest of the conflict, when
+every energy is taxed to the uttermost, and their life is
+every moment at stake, they have sufficient presence of
+mind to contrive to measure the force of their blows so
+as to kill the smallest animals outright, but only to
+wound the larger and finer ones, so that they may be
+just able to reach the bank. Such proceeding is not
+sanctioned by the general voice, but it seems nevertheless
+to be almost always practised. The whole scene is
+of a most singular and curious character, and quite
+indescribable. The throng of thousands of swimming
+reindeer, the sound produced by the striking together
+of their antlers, the swift canoes dashing in amongst
+them, the terror of the frightened animals, the danger
+of the hunters, the shouts of warning advice or applause
+from their friends, the blood-stained water, and all the
+accompanying circumstances, form a whole which no
+one can picture to himself without having witnessed
+the scene."</p>
+
+<div id='pg112'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_159.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>REINDEER</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>The tundra has no more characteristic animal than
+the reindeer. Over the mossy hillocks and the matted
+tops of the dwarf birches he runs, or through the rivers
+and lakes he swims, with his broad-hoofed, spade-like
+feet never at a loss to find a footing. In the long
+winter he is protected by his thick skin against the
+influence of the cold, and is seldom at starvation point,
+as he digs for food in the deepest snow, and is by no
+means particular what he eats; and in the short
+summer he is in luxurious ease, for the tundra, as we
+have seen, is not always as bad as it is painted. In
+exposed places near the coast it is little else than
+gravel beds interspersed with patches of peat and
+clay, with scarcely a rush or a sedge to break the
+monotony, but by far the greater part of it is a gently
+undulating plain, broken up by lakes, rivers, swamps,
+and bogs; the lakes with patches of green water-plants,
+the rivers flowing between sedges and rushes,
+the swamps the breeding haunts of ruffs and phalaropes,
+the bogs dotted with the white fluffy seeds of
+the cotton-grass. Almost everywhere the birds are in
+noticeable numbers, among the commonest being the
+golden plover (who wears the tundra colours), the bluethroat,
+the fieldfare, the whooper swan, and the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>ducks and divers—particularly the divers—and, among
+the birds of prey, the falcons and the rough-legged
+buzzards, which, with the owls, find such abundant
+provision in the lemmings that migrate in myriads
+compared with which the reindeer troops are insignificant.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"The groundwork of all this variegated scenery,"
+says Seebohm, "is more beautiful and varied still—lichens
+and mosses of almost every conceivable colour,
+from the cream-coloured reindeer-moss to the scarlet-cupped
+trumpet-moss, interspersed with a brilliant
+alpine flora, gentians, anemones, saxifrages, and hundreds
+of plants, each a picture in itself, the tall aconites,
+both the blue and yellow species, the beautiful cloudberry,
+with its gay white blossom and amber fruit,
+the fragrant <em>Ledum palustre</em> and the delicate pink
+<em>Andromeda polifolia</em>. In the sheltered valleys and
+deep water-courses a few stunted birches, and sometimes
+large patches of willow scrub, survive the long
+severe winter, and serve as cover for willow-grouse or
+ptarmigan. The Lapland bunting and red-throated
+pipit are everywhere to be seen, and certain favoured
+places are the breeding-grounds of plovers and sandpipers
+of many species. So far from meriting the name
+of Barren Ground, the tundra is for the most part a
+veritable paradise in summer. But it has one almost
+fatal drawback—it swarms with mosquitoes."</p>
+
+<div id='pg116'  class='figcenter id011'>
+<img src='images/i_163a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>OSTIAK MAN</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div id='pg114'  class='figcenter id012'>
+<img src='images/i_163b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>SAMOYED MAN</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>The beauty of the tundra is, however, transient and
+skin deep; it is only such plants as can live in the soil
+that thaws that survive. Wherever the ground is dug
+into, ice is sure to be reached; in fact, it may be said
+that ice is one of the rocks of the subsoil, and in some
+places these strata of ice that never melts have been
+found to be three hundred feet thick—ice that has
+remained in block since the mammoths got into cold
+storage in it ages ago, for otherwise they would not
+have lasted intact in skin and flesh as many have done,
+like the very first discovered in a complete state, that
+chipped out by Adams in 1807.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In such a climate, whose winter terrors are only too
+prominent, all along the north of Siberia live the
+ancient peoples driven towards the sea by those
+mighty movements from the land of the Turk and
+Mongol which, north and south, east and west,
+flooded Europe and Asia with invaders—Ostiaks and
+Samoyeds west of Chelyuskin; Yakuts, Chukches,
+and others to the east of it, the descriptions of whose
+unpleasant manners and customs appear to be written
+with a view to showing how curiously local are the
+laws of health. One may well ask, as Wrangell did,
+why they should remain in so dreary a region and
+take life so contentedly. And the answer may be
+that they might go further north and fare worse, as
+their predecessors in the eastern section would seem
+to have done. Once, according to the legend, there
+were more hearths of the Omoki on the shores of the
+Kolyma than there are stars in the clear sky, and these
+Omoki, or some other departed race, appear to have
+left as their traces the remains of the timber forts and
+the tumuli that are found on the coast, especially near
+the Indiyirka, and the huts of earth and stones and
+bones found all along from Chelagskoi to the straits,
+similar remains of a departed people now existing in
+the Parry Islands, over a thousand miles away.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>According to another legend of more recent date,
+there was an intervening land, the land that Wrangell
+went to seek and the <em>Jeannette</em> went to winter at,
+and the supposed site of which she drifted through, in
+her last and longest imprisonment in the ice.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The <em>Jeannette</em> was the old <em>Pandora</em>, bought from
+Sir Allen Young by James Gordon Bennett, and
+accepted by and fitted out, officered, and manned
+under the orders of the Navy Department of the
+United States, her commander being Lieutenant
+George Washington De Long. She left San Francisco
+on the 8th of July, 1879, and two months afterwards
+had been run into the pack and was fast in the
+ice off Herald Island, drifting to her doom. Her
+route, in the main, was north-westerly, with many
+complicated loops, at first at the rate of half a mile a
+day, then at two miles, then at three, showing that
+the current from Bering Strait had been reinforced by
+some other current as she went further west, and,
+from its direction, there seemed to be land to the
+northward which was never sighted.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Wrangell Land, passed to the south, proved to be
+not a continent but a small island. No other land was
+seen for a monotonous twenty months, and then, in
+May, 1881, the ship drifted, stern first, past that
+sighted by Hedenström from New Siberia, which was
+found to consist of two islands, to be henceforth known
+as Jeannette and Henrietta. On the 12th of June, in
+latitude 77° 14´ 57˝, the <em>Jeannette</em> was crushed and sank,
+her fore yardarms breaking upwards as she slipped
+down through the rift in the pack, and a start was
+made for the Siberian Islands over the ice; but the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>drift had taken the party to 77° 36´, before they got
+on their proper course, and after a most laborious
+journey, lasting up to the 28th of July, they were safe
+ashore on the land sighted by Sannikof from Thaddeus,
+which De Long named Bennett Island.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Bennett Island was left on the 7th of August, the
+party of thirty-three being in three boats, thirteen
+under De Long in the first cutter, ten under Lieutenant
+Chipp in the much smaller second cutter, and
+ten, under Engineer George W. Melville, whose skill
+and resourcefulness had been conspicuous throughout,
+were given the whale-boat, the most suitable of the
+three. Sail was made for Thaddeus Island, which was
+reached in safety; after a halt of some days it was left
+on the 31st of August. Then Kotelnoi Island was
+reached and rested at; then the boats made for Semonovski,
+which was left on the 12th of September.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The same day a gale came on in which the first
+cutter had great difficulty in keeping afloat, the second
+cutter disappeared never to be heard of again, and the
+whale-boat, behaving excellently, went off before the
+wind straight for the continent to reach in safety one
+of the eastern mouths of the Lena, up which Melville
+arrived at a Russian village on the 26th of September.
+De Long's party ran their boat aground in shallow
+water, on the 17th of September, and rafted and waded
+ashore to one of the most inhospitable spots on the
+globe. Heavily laden they made their way down the
+dreary delta, toiling through the snow, delayed by the
+tributaries which were not frozen over hard enough to
+bear, hampered by sickness and disablement, and finally
+dying one by one of starvation.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>On the 9th of October De Long sent two of the seamen,
+Nindemann and Noros, ahead in search of relief.
+They had no food but what they could find, and on the
+second day out their dinner consisted of a little willow
+tea and a burnt boot sole. Next morning they burnt
+another sole of a boot, and they spent the day struggling
+through a morass in drifting snow, crossing
+streams of all sizes, and halting for the night in so high
+a wind that they were unable to light a fire and took
+refuge in a hole in the snow from which they emerged
+with difficulty in the morning, owing to the wind having
+piled up the snow against the opening. At the end of
+the third day they reached a deserted hut in which
+were some deer bones, which they grilled and tried to
+eat, and in the morning a gale was blowing and the
+wild drifting snow was so thick that they had to remain
+where they were and continue their diet of charred
+bones and willow tea.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Next day, Thursday, the 13th of October, they
+began against a strong head wind. In the afternoon
+they sighted a hut on the west bank of the river.
+"They had seen one in the morning, but had in vain
+attempted to cross the ice to it. Now they tried to
+reach this, but were turned back by the brittle ice.
+They kept it in sight as they moved southward, and
+made another attempt to cross the ice, but it broke and
+they came back. Then they saw that there was no
+further progress possible to the southward on that side
+of the water, and they returned to the ice. It broke
+again, but they kept on. They went in up to their
+waists, but managed to pull themselves up on the
+stronger ice." The wind was blowing against them
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>and the ice was like glass, so that they were driven
+back. They looked about for ice which had been
+roughened by the ripples beneath, and finding some
+they succeeded at length in reaching the other side,
+where were two wooden crosses beneath a bank, which
+rose fifty feet above them. They pulled themselves up
+the bank, but when they came to the hut which they
+had kept in sight they found it a ruin nearly full of
+snow. "While Noros was trying to make a place in it
+for shelter, Nindemann saw a black object farther along
+to the south and went to it. It was a small peaked
+hut without a door, but large enough to hold two men.
+There were some fresh wood shavings outside the hut
+and higher up on the hill two boxes. On going to
+them Nindemann found them old and decayed, and he
+began to break one of them open. When he had
+ripped off the top he discovered that there was another
+box enclosed; breaking into it he found a dead body,
+and hastily left it. Doubtless the two crosses below on
+the river bank were memorials of the two beings left
+high up above the reach of the floods."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In the small hut they found a sort of floor, the
+boards of which they pulled up for firewood, and in a
+hole beneath was a box in which were a couple of fish
+and two fish heads; and, as these were discovered, a
+lemming came out of another hole and was promptly
+caught. On the lemming, roasted on the ramrod, and
+the fishes, which were so decayed that they dropped
+apart as they were handled, they made their meal for
+that day. Next day the snowstorm was so heavy that
+they were driven back here after striving in vain to
+make headway. On the Saturday, still without food,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>they rested for the night in a fissure in the river bank,
+where as a last resource Nindemann cut a piece off his
+sealskin trousers and soaked it in water and burnt it to
+a crust. Their breakfast consisted of the remains of
+this toasted sealskin. During the day they saw a crow
+flying across the river and in among the hills, and, as
+the crow in these regions is rarely found away from the
+haunts of men, Nindemann decided to cross the river
+in the hope of meeting with either natives or game on
+the other side. When darkness came on no shelter
+was discoverable, and so, after a meal of more sealskin
+and hot water, they went to rest in a hole in the snow.
+Next day, during which they recrossed the river, their
+experiences were similar and the end the same.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On Tuesday the 18th, after a terrible day, they came
+upon a hut with a pile of wood close by, which proved
+to be sledges, and these they broke up, as there was no
+other firing. Next day as they were struggling on
+they reached a place where there were three huts, in
+one of which was a half-kayak and in it was some blue
+mouldy fish; and here, attacked by dysentery, they
+remained until the Saturday, unable to go any further.
+About noon there was a noise outside like a flock of
+geese sweeping by. Nindemann, looking through the
+crack of the door, saw something moving which he took
+to be a reindeer, and was going out with his rifle when
+the door opened and a man entered, who promptly fell
+on his knees when he caught sight of the gun. Nindemann
+threw the rifle into a corner and, trying to make
+friends with the man by signs, offered him some of the
+fish, which the man by an emphatic gesture pronounced
+not fit to eat. After some more of the sign
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>language it was clear that the native had no food with
+him, and holding up three or four fingers to show that
+he would return in so many hours or days he drove off.
+About six o'clock in the evening, while they were preparing
+their fish dinner, the visitor returned with two
+other men, one of whom brought in a frozen fish which
+he skinned and sliced, and while the sailors were eating
+it—the first healthy meal they had had for weeks—the
+natives invited them to accompany them, and brought
+in deerskin coats and boots and finally got them into
+the sledges and drove off to the westward for about
+fifteen miles. Here there were two tents, and Nindemann
+was taken into one, Noros into the other, and
+both were well looked after, the natives doing their
+very best to get them well.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>This was intelligible on both sides, for the language
+of kindness is universal, but as the sailors knew not the
+language of their hosts, and the natives knew not the
+language of their guests, the difficulty of being understood
+by each other was great, and the delivery of the
+urgent message in signs was almost impossible. Nindemann
+did his best; he appealed to the man who seemed
+to be the head of the party, and drawing in the snow a
+map of the places where he had been, with every combination
+of signs he could think of, he tried to explain
+what he wanted. That he succeeded to a certain
+extent was clear, though he did not think so at first, for
+the natives loaded up their sledges, twenty-seven in
+number, with reindeer meat and skins and fish, and
+struck their tents, and, with over a hundred head of
+deer harnessed up, started for the south. At noon,
+when the deer were resting, the man for whom the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>map had been drawn in the snow took Nindemann to
+where he could show him a prominent landmark, and
+asked by signs if that was where he had left his
+friends. And on learning by signs that it was further
+to the north, he shook his head as if sorry, and resumed
+his journey to the south. During the next day they
+reached Ku Mark Surka, where there were a number of
+natives who were much interested in the new-comers,
+and again the sailors used every effort to deliver their
+message.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Immediately after breakfast on the morning of the
+25th, Nindemann began talking to these people in
+signs and pantomime. Soon one of them showed that
+he had an idea of where the sailors came from, for
+he spoke to one of the boys, who ran off and returned
+with a model of a Yakutsk boat. Then they gathered
+round and evidently asked if the ship was anything
+like it. And in answer, Nindemann took up some
+sticks and placed three of them in the boat to show
+that his ship had three masts, and then he fastened
+smaller sticks across to show that she had yards, which
+seemed to surprise them greatly. Then he made a
+funnel out of wood and put it in position, and pointed
+to the fire and smoke to show that she was a steamer,
+and then he cut out a propeller with his knife and put
+it where the rudder was to show that she was a screw.
+Continuing his work he soon chipped out so many
+small boats to show how many she had; and then,
+signing to one of the men to get him two pieces of ice,
+he showed them how the ship had been crushed.
+Pointing to the northward he tried to tell them that
+the ship had been crushed up there; and then he put
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>away the ship and kept only three of the little boats to
+tell that part of the story, and in the boats he put so
+many sticks to represent the number of men in each.
+When he had done this one of the men pointed to a
+dog that was looking on and asked if the ship had any,
+whereupon the sailor counted on his fingers to show
+there were about forty, and by pantomime explained
+that they had been shot. This being evidently
+understood, Nindemann drew a chart of the coast-line,
+and imitating a gale of wind showed that the boat he
+came from went to the land at a certain point and that
+he knew nothing of the others. Then he went on to
+show how they had all left the boat, waded ashore and
+walked along the river-bank, and he marked the huts
+where they had stopped, and then he indicated where
+one of the men had died and been buried in the river.
+This was understood, for all the audience shook their
+heads as if to say how sorry they were. But when he
+tried to tell them that he had left the captain two days
+afterwards and had been so many days on the way to
+ask for help, they showed that they either did not or
+would not understand; and really it was not easy to
+make such a matter clear.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Next day Nindemann made another attempt to get
+them to understand the one essential, urgent fact that
+help was needed, or the men would die; but no, he
+could not do it. On the Thursday, despairing of the
+hopelessness of his task and the helplessness of his
+companions, he broke into tears and groans, and a
+woman in the hut took pity on him and spoke earnestly
+to one of the men, who came and said something
+about a commandant. Then the sailor, who had
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>picked up a few words, asked him to take him to
+Bulun, to which the man replied by again saying
+commandant and holding up five or six fingers. Late in
+the evening there arrived a tall Russian, whom Nindemann
+supposed to be the commandant and addressed
+in English, but he was a Russian exile who could
+not understand him, though he seemed to know something
+about the matter, for in what he said he clearly
+mentioned Jeannette and Americansk. Nindemann
+tried him in German, but at this he shook his head.
+Then Nindemann showed him the chart given him by
+De Long, which the Russian evidently did not understand,
+though he said something that sounded like
+St. Petersburg and telegrams. While this apparently
+hopeless conversation was going on Noros was busy
+steadily writing out a note that the two sailors had
+drawn up, and the tall Russian—who we shall see was
+really a most intelligent man—giving over his talk
+with Nindemann in despair, coolly picked this up and
+put it in his pocket, and notwithstanding the protest
+of the Americans, walked off with it. In the morning
+he came in and gave them to understand that he was
+going to Bulun, and that they were to follow, and
+soon afterwards the natives fitted them out with
+clothing and boots and food and sent them off on a
+sledge. At Bulun they were taken to the commandant,
+who, after a little sign language from Nindemann,
+showed that he understood, and said something
+about a telegram. The sailors jumped at the idea,
+and one of them dictated to the other a despatch to
+the American Minister at St. Petersburg. This the
+Russian took, explaining that the captain should have
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>it next day. Who the captain was the sailors could
+not make out; but three days afterwards, that is on
+the 3rd of November, while Nindemann lay on the
+bed and Noros was sitting on the table, a man came in
+dressed in fur.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"My God, Mr. Melville!" said Noros, recognising
+him as soon as he spoke. "Are you alive? We
+thought that the whale-boats were all dead!"</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The exile had handed the note to Melville, whom he
+knew as the captain, and his difficulty in understanding
+the sailors had been in their speaking of one boat
+while he had only seen the other. The whale-boat
+crew had reached a village opposite to where he lived,
+and he had agreed to take them to Bulun, and he was
+on his way there to arrange for their transport when he
+heard of the sailors. Like a sensible man he ordered
+the men to be sent to Bulun, and had hurried there,
+made his arrangements with the commandant and returned
+to Melville, who, seeing the urgency of the
+case as soon as he read the letter, had started at once,
+leaving his party to follow.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Melville, as soon as possible, went off along the
+track of the two sailors, who were too weak to go
+with him, and eventually found the chronometer and
+the log-books and other records; but the winter was
+too far advanced for him to do more, and he had
+to return, after a journey of over six hundred miles,
+to try again in the spring. Then, accompanied by
+Nindemann, he went north, and came upon the bodies
+of the commander and those who had perished with
+him, and three or four feet behind De Long, as if
+he had tossed it over his shoulder, lay the journal in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>which the last page was but a chronicle of death after
+death.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>This chapter must conclude with another tragedy.
+In 1885 Dr. Bunge and Baron Toll made some important
+investigations in the neighbourhood of the
+mouth of the Yana; and next year Bunge among the
+fossils of Liakhoff Island found not only mammoth
+and rhinoceros, but horse, musk-ox and deer, and two
+new species of ox. To these Toll, after discovering
+that there were flourishing trees on Kotelnoi in the
+time of the mammoth—nearly two hundred miles
+north of their present limit—added frozen carcases
+of musk-ox and rhinoceros, and bones of antelope
+and tiger.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1902 Toll, pushing his geological researches
+further north, reached Bennett Island, where he
+collected bones of the mammoth and other recent
+mammals, while the main mass of the plateau he
+identified as of Cambrian age. These discoveries he
+included in the record announcing his intention of
+leaving for Kotelnoi, which was found in 1904 by the
+expedition sent to his relief, for he was never seen
+alive again.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER VII<br /> BERING STRAIT</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>Native stories of the distant continent—The Russians in Kamchatka—Bering's
+expedition—The difficulties of his task—Builds a vessel and
+reaches Kamchatka—Builds another vessel and discovers the strait named
+after him by Captain Cook—His second expedition—Spangberg's voyage
+to Japan—Bering reaches the American coast—His shipwreck and death—The
+influence of the sea-otter and the fur-seal on geographical discovery—The
+Arctic voyage of Captain Cook—Clerke's voyage—Beechey's
+voyage—Point Barrow reached by the barge of the <em>Blossom</em>—Kellett's
+voyage in the <em>Herald</em>—Boat expedition to Hudson Bay—Kellett reaches
+72° 51´—Landing on Herald Island—Kellett sights Wrangell Island—Berry
+in the <em>Rodgers</em> explores Wrangell Island—He reaches 73° 44´—Frederick
+Whymper and W. H. Dall ascend the Yukon.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>Rumours of land over against the far corner of
+Siberia had reached the Russians for years, and
+many were the legends of those who had seen these
+lands from the cliffs, or had been on the ice to look at
+them more closely, or had gone away to them and
+never come back. There was, for instance, the old
+legend of Kraechoj, who believed he had found safe
+shelter at Irkaipii from the Chukche vengeance, but
+the Chukche made his way into the stronghold and
+killed Kraechoj's son, whereupon Kraechoj escaped by
+letting himself down with thongs to the boat and fled
+to the land whose mountains can be seen in clear sunshine
+from Cape Yakan; and there he was among his
+people who had left Asia before him.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>And among the official documents was the statement
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>made by the Chukches when they went to Anadyrskoi
+Ostrog to acknowledge the dominion of the Russians,
+that "The Noss is full of rocky mountains, and the
+low grounds consist of land covered with turf. Opposite
+to it lies an island, within sight of it, of no great
+extent, and void of wood. It is inhabited by people
+who have the same aspect as the Chukche, but are
+quite a different nation, and speak their own language,
+though they are not numerous. It is half a day's
+voyage with boats from the Noss to the island. There
+are no sables on the island, and no other animals but
+foxes, wolves, and reindeer. Beyond the island is a
+large continent that can be scarcely discerned from it,
+and that only on clear days; in calm weather one may
+row over the sea from the island to the continent,
+which is inhabited by a people who in every particular
+resemble the Chukches. There are large forests of fir,
+pine, larch, and cedar trees; great rivers flow through
+the country and fall into the sea. The inhabitants have
+dwellings and fortified places of abode environed with
+ramparts of earth; they live upon wild reindeer and
+fish; their clothes are made of sable, fox, and reindeer
+skins, for sables and foxes are there in great abundance.
+The number of men in that country may be twice or
+three times as many as that of the Chukches who are
+often at war with them." That there was land in sight
+somewhere seemed clear, but the reports differed in
+placing it all the way round from the north to the east.
+Many were the vain attempts to reach it from the
+northward-flowing rivers, and it was left to be found
+from the Pacific side.</p>
+
+<div id='pg128'  class='figcenter id013'>
+<a href='images/i_179.jpg'><img src='images/i_179_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>BERING STRAIT</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>When Atlassof, in 1697, took the first steps in the
+conquest of Kamchatka the Russians were already
+known to the inhabitants. Long before him Fedotof
+and a few comrades had made their way into the
+country and intermarried with native women. They
+had been held in great honour and almost deified as
+being evidently of a superior race. For some time it
+was supposed that no human hand could hurt them,
+but this belief was rudely shattered when two of the
+demigods quarrelled and fought, and one wounding the
+other, the blood flowed. That flow of blood was fatal,
+for the natives, judging that they were but ordinary
+flesh, took an early opportunity of wiping them out, the
+name of their leader being still traceable in that of the
+Fedotcha River on the banks of which they had lived.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The Kamchadales had other tales to tell of visitors
+from the east and south, and Atlassof himself discovered
+on the River Itcha a Japanese who had been
+wrecked on the coast two years before, from whom he
+learnt of islands innumerable. But there were no
+ships on the Pacific coast of Siberia, and nothing in
+the way of discovery could be done until 1714, when
+there arrived at Ochotsk a detachment of sailors and
+shipwrights despatched thither overland. According
+to one of the sailors, Henry Bush, a Dutchman, the
+carpenters built a good durable vessel some fifty feet
+long which was ready for sea in 1716 when the first
+voyage was undertaken. The coast of Kamchatka was
+made near the River Itcha, and sailing south they
+reached the Kompakova, where they wintered and
+found the whale that had in its body the harpoon of
+European workmanship marked with Roman letters,
+mentioned by Scoresby. Bush returned to Ochotsk in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>July, to be sent in the following year to discover the
+Shantar Islands, and next year, 1718, the Kuriles; thus
+venturing into the Pacific beyond Cape Lopatka.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The last of these expeditions was due to the direct
+order of Peter the Great, who, knowing nothing of
+Deschnef, and finding the sea open to the north, resolved
+on a voyage in that direction, his holograph instructions
+to Admiral Apraxin being: "One or two boats
+with decks to be built at Kamchatka, or at any other
+convenient place, with which inquiry should be made
+relative to the northerly coasts, to see whether they
+are not contiguous with America, since their termination
+is not yet known." Peter died, and the Empress
+Catherine, carrying out these instructions in their
+fullest meaning, began her reign with an order for the
+expedition.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Veit Bering, Dane by birth and sailor by trade, had
+voyaged to the Indies, east and west, and, like many
+other men of enterprise, had entered the Russian
+service at Peter's invitation. He had served with
+distinction in the Cronstadt fleet in the war against
+the Swedes, and, being in good repute for his knowledge
+of ships and their handling, was appointed to the
+command of the most remarkable Arctic enterprise on
+record. Just as Nicholas ruled a line and ordered a
+railway to be built there, so did Catherine in the same
+imperial way order an exploring expedition, and it
+was done. But it meant building the ship from the
+trees of the forest on the coast of the Pacific and
+carrying the materials and stores—everything but the
+timber—right across the Russian empire in the days
+when for thousands of miles there were not even roads.</p>
+
+<div id='pg130'  class='figcenter id014'>
+<img src='images/i_183.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE FACE OF THE FUR SEAL</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>Bering's lieutenants were Martin Spangberg and
+Alexei Tschirikof. With them and the rest of the
+expedition he left St. Petersburg on the 5th of February,
+1725. During that year they got as far as the
+Ilim, where they wintered. In the spring of 1726
+they sailed down the Lena to Yakutsk, where they
+parted company for a time owing to the difficulties of
+the route to Ochotsk, the way not being passable in
+summer with wagons, or in winter with sledges, on
+account of the marshes and rocky ground. So Spangberg
+set out, working along the rivers Aldan, Maia,
+and Judoma, with part of the provisions and heavy
+naval stores, while Bering followed overland through
+uninhabited country with more stores on horses, and
+Tschirikof remained to collect still more and follow in
+the track of his commander.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Bering reached Ochotsk first. Spangberg was frozen
+up in the Judoma, and thence he walked to Ochotsk
+with the most necessary materials; but he suffered so
+much from hunger on the way that he had to support
+life by eating leather bags, straps, and shoes, and did
+not reach Bering till the 1st of January, 1727, nearly
+two years after leaving St. Petersburg. In the beginning
+of February he returned to the Judoma and
+brought away about half of his lading, the other half
+being left for a third journey, which he made from
+and to Ochotsk on horses. Meanwhile Tschirikof was
+toiling along from Yakutsk, and did not arrive to
+complete the party until the 30th of July.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On arrival Bering had to build a vessel to take his
+most necessary naval stores and his shipbuilders across
+the sea of Ochotsk to Bolscheretzkoi, which, in her, he
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>reached on the 2nd of September. From here he
+followed the shipwrights, who went on ahead to fell the
+trees, taking with them the provisions and stores, over
+the backbone of the isthmus and down the Kamchatka
+River to the mouth, a distance of some two hundred
+miles, the journey being very slow on account of the
+travelling being by dog-sledge. In short, it was
+not until the 4th of April, 1728, that is, more than
+three years after leaving St. Petersburg, that it was
+possible to put on the stocks the vessel in which the
+voyage to the north was to be made. But she took
+only three months to build, being launched on the
+10th of July, when she was named the <em>Gabriel</em>.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Laden with stores for forty men during a year's
+voyage, she put to sea ten days afterwards, Bering
+keeping close to the coast so that he could map it as he
+went. On the 10th of August he was off the island of
+St. Lawrence, which he so named, as it was the day of
+that saint. In a day or two he had passed the East
+Cape without seeing the American coast, and had
+entered the Arctic Circle. And on the 15th he was
+well through the strait, out in the Arctic Ocean, in
+67° 18´ off Serdze Kamen, a promontory behind which
+the coast trended to the west, as the Chukches had told
+him it did; and he assumed, and rightly so, though he
+had not gone far enough to prove it, that there was
+no land connection between Asia and America. Whereupon,
+as he had in his opinion accomplished his mission,
+seeing no need for wintering in those parts, he put
+the <em>Gabriel</em> about and was back in the Kamchatka
+River on the 20th of September, after a voyage of seven
+weeks in a vessel that took three months to build on a
+spot that took over three years to reach—the plan of
+campaign being much the same as that in which a
+mountain stronghold is advanced on across a desert,
+besieged for a few days, and captured by assault.</p>
+
+<div id='pg132'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_187.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>After wintering, Bering went off next year on a
+voyage due east in search of reported land, but, after
+some hundred and thirty miles out, he was blown back,
+and, rounding the south end of Kamchatka, put in at
+the River Bolschaia; thence he crossed to Ochotsk,
+whence he started for St. Petersburg, where he arrived
+after an absence of five years. Catherine was dead and
+another empress reigned in her stead, who was pleased
+and satisfied if no one else was, and the 21st of February,
+1733, saw him starting again in the same
+laborious fashion to arrange other voyages as part of a
+great scheme for the exploration of Northern and North-eastern
+Asia. Some of these expeditions on the north
+coast have already been mentioned; Bering's particular
+task was to send Spangberg in search of Japan, while
+he and Tschirikof, in separate ships, went eastward to
+America. More stores and provisions went overland
+across Siberia than before; Spangberg got again frozen
+up on the Judoma and had to continue on foot to
+Ochotsk, where he found plenty of food owing to
+Bering having sent on ahead, in case of any such
+trouble, a hundred horses, each of them laden with
+meal. In June, 1738, Spangberg, in two newly-built
+vessels and the <em>Gabriel</em>, was off to Japan, to reach the
+Kuriles and return to winter in Kamchatka; but next
+year he arrived there all well and found to his astonishment
+that the Japanese knew as much about maps as
+he did. He was still more astonished on his return to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>be told by those high in office at St. Petersburg that he
+could not possibly have been there as they had not got
+it on their maps where he said it was, and, consequently,
+he was to go where he had been as soon as he could to
+make sure. He started on this voyage of verification,
+but circumstances were against him and he did not
+reach there; and his Japanese trip remained discredited
+until the Russian geographers knew better. His voyage
+thither had, however, used such a stock of provisions
+that it was two years before the deficiency could be
+made up, and it was actually the 4th of September,
+1740, seven and a half years after leaving St. Petersburg,
+when Bering, in the specially-built <em>St. Peter</em>, and
+Tschirikof, in her sister the <em>St. Paul</em>, got off outward
+bound to America.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In about three weeks they were at Awatcha Bay on
+the east of Kamchatka, anchored in the fine harbour
+named Petropaulovsk after the two ships, and here
+they had to stay for the winter, so that they did not
+leave Russian territory until the 4th of the following
+June. A few days out the ships were separated in a
+fog and storm, and the <em>St. Paul</em> reached the American
+coast first, at Kruzof Island on the western shore of
+Sitka Sound. The <em>St. Peter</em> three days afterwards, on
+the 18th of July, drifted to the coast more to the
+northward, at Cape St. Elias near the mighty mountain
+of that name. In this neighbourhood amid much
+fog Bering stayed six weeks until he was blown out to
+sea, when, his men beginning to die from scurvy, he
+resolved to return to Kamchatka. It was a voyage of
+misfortune in a continual downfall, the men in want,
+misery, and sickness, continuously at work in the cold
+and wet, becoming fewer and fewer, so that there were
+not enough to work the ship properly. It ended on
+one of the Commander Islands by the vessel being
+lifted by the sea clear over a reef into calm water.
+Bering died—the island is named after him—and the
+survivors of the crew, building a boat from the materials
+of the <em>St. Peter</em>, arrived at Petropaulovsk on the 27th
+of August, bringing with them a quantity of sea-otter
+skins, which did more for discovery in those seas than
+any imperial expedition.</p>
+
+<div id='pg134'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_191.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>DRIVING THE FUR SEAL</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>As the sable had brought about the conquest of
+Siberia, so did the sea-otter lead to the seizure of the
+islands of the Bering Sea and the coasts of Alaska.
+Three years after the return of the survivors of the
+<em>St. Peter</em>, Nevodtsikof wintered on one of the Aleutian
+Islands, and in a few years the fur-hunters were at
+their exterminating work over the whole chain. In
+time the fur-seal attracted as much attention, and, with
+Pribylov's discovery, in 1786, of its rookeries on the
+islands named after him, the trade became of such
+increasing importance as to endanger in our time the
+peace of the world. Every one has heard of the wonderful
+haunts and habits of that strange eared seal which
+seems to have come from the south through the tropics
+to breed in the coldest limit of its range, now almost
+entirely on the Pribylovs and the Commanders; how
+it is pursued in skin boats and every sort of craft, and
+scared in long lines to slaughter by clapping of boards
+and bones and waving of flags and opening and shutting
+of gingham umbrellas, until it promises to become
+as extinct as Steller's sea-cow or as rare as the sea-otter.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>Following Bering on the way to the north came
+Captain James Cook, in H.M.S. <em>Resolution</em>, who gave
+Bering's name to the strait. Cook sighted Mount
+St. Elias in May, 1778, and, cruising slowly along the
+coast with many discoveries and much accurate surveying,
+was off, and named, Cape Prince of Wales, the
+western extremity of America, on the 9th of August.
+He then crossed the strait and plied back until on
+the 18th he sighted and named Icy Cape in 70° 29´.
+Close to the edge of the ice, which was as compact as
+a wall, and seemed to be ten or twelve feet high at the
+least, he sought persistently for a passage through, but
+none was to be found; and after reaching 70° 6´ in
+196° 42´ (163° 18´ W.) on the 19th, he turned westward
+to the Asiatic coast, along which he went until he
+sighted and named Cape North, as already stated.
+Then, blocked by ice, east, north, and west, he returned,
+passing Cape Serdze Kamen (Bering's farthest)
+and naming East Cape, confirming Bering's observation
+that it was the most easterly point of Asia.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On Cook's death at Hawaii Captain Charles Clerke,
+of the accompanying vessel H.M.S. <em>Discovery</em>, took
+command of the expedition and carried out Cook's
+intention of making another effort during the following
+year. The ice conditions were, however, worse.
+The two ships found the ice block further south, and
+as impenetrable as before, and Clerke's highest was
+70° 33´ on the American side, on the 19th of July.
+As it was Cook's last voyage, so it was Clerke's. He
+was in a bad way with consumption, and continued his
+work in the north, though, under the special circumstances
+and being in command, he could at any time
+have given up the obviously hopeless attempt and left
+for a more genial climate, in which he would at least
+have had a chance of longer life; but, remaining at
+his duty, he died at sea on the 22nd of August, and
+was buried at Petropaulovsk.</p>
+
+<div id='pg136'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_195.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>FUR SEALS AT SEA</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>Captain Beechey, in H.M.S. <em>Blossom</em>, passed through
+the strait in 1826 when sent north from the Pacific
+with a view of meeting with his old commander,
+Franklin, then on his second land journey. Beechey
+took the ship to Icy Cape, whence on the 17th of
+August he despatched the barge under the master,
+Thomas Elson, to survey the coast to the north-eastward
+as far as he could go in three weeks, there and
+back. Elson reached his farthest on the 25th at a spit
+of land jutting out several miles from the more regular
+coast-line, the width of the neck not exceeding a mile
+and a half, broadest at its extremity, with several
+frozen lakes on it, and a village, whose natives proved
+so troublesome that it was thought unsafe to land.
+This was Point Barrow, in 71° 23´ 31˝, longitude
+156° 21´ 30˝, the northernmost land on the western
+half of the American continent. To the eastward
+curved a wide bay—named Elson Bay by Beechey—the
+shore-line of which joined on to the ice pack that
+encircled the horizon. Here he was within a hundred
+and sixty miles of where Franklin had turned back a
+week before. Though Beechey did not meet Franklin
+he did most useful work in these parts, for by him the
+whole coast was surveyed between Point Barrow and
+Point Rodney, to the south of Prince of Wales Cape.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Franklin was also the cause of the appearance of
+the next British expedition in the strait. This was in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>1848, Captain Henry Kellett, in H.M.S. <em>Herald</em>, with
+Commander Thomas Moore in H.M.S. <em>Plover</em>, forming
+the western detachment of the first series of search
+expeditions. There were three detachments, one to
+follow the <em>Erebus</em> and <em>Terror</em> from the eastward,
+another under John Richardson to descend the Mackenzie
+and search the northern coast, the other coming
+in from the west to meet the ships should they have
+made the passage. On this duty the <em>Herald</em> and
+<em>Plover</em> were hereabouts for three seasons, the <em>Plover</em>
+wintering, the <em>Herald</em> going south when the navigation
+closed.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In October, 1826, Beechey had buried a barrel of
+flour for Franklin on the sandy point of Chamisso
+Island, ample directions for finding it being cut and
+painted on the rock, and to call the attention of the
+party to the spot the name of the <em>Blossom</em> was painted
+on the cliffs of Puffin Island. When the <em>Herald</em> was
+at Chamisso Island in 1849 Captain Kellett searched
+for this flour and found it. A considerable space was
+cleared round the cask, its chimes were freed, and, only
+adhering to the sand by the two lower bilge staves, it
+required the united strength of two boats' crews, with
+a parbuckle and a large spar as a lever, to free it
+altogether. The sand was frozen so hard that it
+emitted sparks with every blow of the pickaxe. The
+cask itself was perfectly sound and the hoops good,
+and out of the 336 lb. of flour which it contained,
+175 lb. were as sweet and well tasted as any he had
+with him; so good indeed was it that Captain Kellett
+gave a dinner party, at which all the pies and puddings
+were made of this flour.</p>
+
+<div id='pg138'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_199.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE PARKA OF THE ALASKAN INNUITS<br /><br />(THE SHORTER COAT IS THAT WORN BY THE MEN)</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>After the dinner party, on the 18th of July, the two
+vessels started for the north, being joined as soon as
+they stood from the anchorage by Robert Shedden in
+his yacht the <em>Nancy Dawson</em>, who at his own initiative
+had come up from Hong Kong to join in the search.
+From Wainwright Inlet Kellett sent off the boats
+under Lieutenant Pullen, two of which made the
+journey along the northern coast and up the Mackenzie,
+their crews thence making their way home eastwards
+to York Factory.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>When Kellett was about to commence his observations
+at the inlet he drew a semicircle on the sand from
+water's edge to water's edge, and placed the boats'
+noses between its points. The natives seemed to
+understand the meaning of this line. Not one of them
+attempted to overstep it, and they squatted down and
+remained perfectly quiet and silent. When a stranger
+arrived they shouted to him, and he no sooner comprehended
+the directions than he crept rather than
+walked to the boundary, and squatted among the rest.
+Afterwards they danced and sang and played football
+with the seamen—who stood no chance with them at
+that game—and when they had gone off, after all this
+good behaviour, it was discovered that they had been
+picking the pockets of some of the party, one losing a
+handkerchief, another a glove, and Commander Moore
+a box of percussion caps.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The boat party had a similar experience, without the
+pocket-picking. Reaching Point Barrow they landed
+to make observations and look about for traces of the
+visit of the <em>Blossom's</em> boat, which they did not find.
+Their interpreter did not understand the tribe, and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>recourse was had to the universal language of signs.
+"We made a rude model of a vessel," says Lieutenant
+Hooper, "and performed sundry antics to signify what
+we were in search of, but could elicit no information,
+and so set to work at obtaining observations. We concluded
+that these people must have been entirely misunderstood.
+Far from evidencing any disposition to
+assail or molest us, they were most docile and well-behaved,
+agreeably disappointing us in their conduct.
+When we arrived on the hillock, all, big and little, sat
+down around us, and I amused myself by filling their
+pipes, becoming a great favourite immediately in consequence.
+They had among them a great many knives,
+which we feared would influence the magnet. Mr.
+Pullen therefore kindly drew off the crowd to a distance,
+distributing among them tobacco, beads, snuff,
+etc., and much to their credit be it said, there was
+neither confusion nor contention, each taking his
+allotted portion, and seeming delighted with his good
+fortune. They took care not to come near the instruments,
+finding that we did not like their approach; one
+or two indeed came towards us, but retired instantly
+when laughingly motioned back, and this should be
+considered as a display of great forbearance, inasmuch
+as their curiosity must have been highly excited.
+When the observations were concluded they were
+allowed to inspect the objects of their wonder; then
+fast and thickly to utterance flew their expressions of
+astonishment at the—to them—novel and splendid
+instruments. The trough of quicksilver, liquid and
+restless, especially attracted them, pleasure and wonder
+were evident at the simple view, but when one or two
+had permission to take some from the dish, and found
+it ever elude the grasp, their astonishment knew no
+bounds."</p>
+
+<div id='pg140'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_203.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE FROZEN YUKON</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>From Wainwright Inlet, which is between Icy Cape
+and Point Barrow, the <em>Herald</em> sailed along the pack to
+the westward, reaching her highest north, 72° 51´, in
+163° 48´, and, on the 17th of August, Kellett landed
+on and named Herald Island in 71° 17´ 45˝, a mass of
+granite towering nine hundred feet above the sea, under
+five miles long and three broad, inhabited mainly by
+black and white divers and yielding the collector only
+four flowering plants. Further to the west he sighted
+Wrangell Island, sailed past and named by the American
+whaling captain, Thomas Long, in August, 1867.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1881 Wrangell Island was thoroughly explored
+by another search expedition, that of Captain Berry in
+the American ship <em>Rodgers</em>, who was in these parts
+looking out for traces of the <em>Jeannette</em>. He found it
+to be, not a continent as some had supposed, but an
+island forty miles broad and sixty-six miles long, about
+thirty miles from Herald Island and eighty from the
+Siberian coast; and on it, as on all these Siberian
+islands and the coast of Alaska, remains of the mammoth
+were found. Examining the ice to the northward,
+he reached 73° 44´ in 171° 30´, being fifty-three
+miles further north than Kellett and twenty-four miles
+further than Collinson in 1850. Returning from the
+north to winter quarters he achieved another Arctic
+record in his ship being destroyed by fire in St. Lawrence
+Bay on the Asiatic side of Bering Strait.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Opposite this, on the American side, from Cape
+York downwards the land trends away to the south-east
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>to Norton Sound, in which are the mouths of the
+Yukon, one of the mightiest rivers of the world, its
+volume being as great as, or according to some writers
+greater than, the Mississippi. In a course of two thousand
+miles it runs northwards to the Arctic Circle at
+the now abandoned trading post of Fort Yukon, where
+its waters are reinforced by its tributary, the Rat or
+Porcupine, coming in from the north-east, and given
+their seaward direction to the south-west. Up this
+vast waterway in 1866 went Frederick Whymper and
+William H. Dall.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Beginning with a sledge journey of a hundred and
+seventy miles from Unalachleet, they struck the Yukon
+on the 10th of November, gliding down a high steep
+bank on to it. Hardly a patch of clear ice was to be
+seen, the snow covering the whole extent. Accumulations
+of hummocks had in many places been forced on
+the surface before the river had become thoroughly
+frozen, and the water was still open, running swiftly in
+a few isolated streaks. From bank to bank was not less
+than a mile, the stream flowing among several islands.
+As they sledged up the river the dreary expanse of
+snow made them almost forget they were on a sheet of
+ice; and, as it winds considerably, their course was
+often from bank to bank to cut off corners and bends.
+Many cliffs abutted on the stream, and islands of
+sombre green forest studded it in all directions.</p>
+
+<div id='pg142'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_207.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>ASCENDING THE YUKON</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>On the 15th they reached Nulato, six hundred miles
+from the mouth, where they spent the winter. Here
+they found a curious method of fishing practised all
+through the season. Early in the winter large piles or
+stakes had been driven down into the bed of the river,
+and to these were affixed wickerwork traps like eel-pots
+on a large scale, oblong holes being kept open over
+them by frequently breaking the ice. This was cold
+work, for the temperature ran low. "In November
+and December," says Whymper, "I succeeded in
+making sketches of the fort and neighbourhood when
+the temperature was as low as thirty degrees below
+zero. It was done, it need not be said, with difficulty,
+and often by instalments. Between every five strokes
+of the pencil, I ran about to exercise myself or went
+into our quarters for warmth. The use of water-colours
+was of course impracticable—except when I
+could keep a pot of warm water on a small fire by my
+side—a thing done by me on two or three occasions,
+when engaged at a distance from the post. Even
+inside the house the spaces near the windows, as well as
+the floor, were often below freezing point. Once, forgetful
+of the fact, I mixed some colours up with water
+that had just stood near the oven, and wetting a small
+brush commenced to apply it to my drawing block.
+Before it reached the paper it was covered with a skin
+of ice, and simply scratched the surface, and I had to
+give up for the time being."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 12th of May the Nulato River broke up and
+ran out on the top of the Yukon ice for more than a
+mile upstream; and in a few days the ice of the main
+river was coming down in a steady flow at a rate of
+five or six knots, surging into mountains as it met
+with obstacles, and grinding and crashing and carrying
+all before it, whole trees and banks being swept away
+on its victorious march, the water rising fourteen feet
+above the winter level. On the 26th Whymper and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>Dall started with two Indians and a steersman in a
+skin canoe, the river still full of ice, and navigation
+difficult. They had proceeded but a short distance
+when they came to bends, round which logs and ice
+were sweeping at a great rate, so that it was necessary
+for a man to stand in the bows of the canoe, with a
+pole shod at one end with iron, to push away the masses
+of ice and tangle of driftwood. They could often feel
+the ice and logs rolling and scraping under the canoe;
+and it was not the thickness of a plank between them
+and destruction, but that of a piece of sealskin a
+tenth of an inch thick.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 7th of June they were two hundred and
+forty miles above Nulato, at the junction of the
+Tanana, the furthest point reached by the Russians,
+and soon were in a part abounding with moose owing
+to their seeking refuge in the stream from the millions
+of mosquitoes. Here the Indian hunters were busy,
+not wasting powder and shot, but manœuvring round
+the swimming deer in their birch-bark canoes until they
+tired the victim out; and then stealthily approaching,
+securing it with a stab from their knives.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>After twenty-six laborious days against the stream
+they reached Fort Yukon, the then furthest outpost
+of the Hudson's Bay Company, six hundred miles
+from Nulato, and, of course, managed and victualled
+from the east. Here the amount of peltry was
+astonishing, the fur-room of the fort containing
+thousands of marten skins, hanging from the beams,
+and huge piles of common furs lying around, together
+with a considerable number of foxes, black and silver-grey,
+and many skins of the wolverine, thought so
+much more of by the Indians than by any one else
+that they are used as a medium of exchange. All
+these furs were brought in from the surrounding
+districts, far and near, and traded for goods, as widely
+distributed, among the native tribes whose representatives
+gathered at the fort in such a miscellaneous
+crowd that perhaps half a dozen dialects were heard in
+a morning.</p>
+
+<div id='pg144'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_211.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>MOOSE-HUNTING ON THE YUKON</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>In the crowd the busiest and most prominent were
+the primitive Tananas, gay with feathers and painted
+faces, looking like survivals among the local Kutchins
+and the Kutchins of the upper river, the Birch River
+men, and the Rat River men by whom the skins were
+brought from the natives of the northern coast, as
+were the messages from the Franklin search parties.
+Indians were all of these, distinguishable by their
+wearing the hyaqua or tooth-shell (<em>Dentalium entalis</em>)
+through the septum of the nose, while the Mahlemut
+wears a bone on each side of the mouth, a practice
+common with all the Innuit, or Eskimo tribes, from
+the Alaska Peninsula to Point Barrow, unless some
+other form of labret happens to be the local fashion.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER VIII<br /> THE AMERICAN MAINLAND</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>The Hudson's Bay Company—Samuel Hearne—His journey down the
+Coppermine River—The North West Fur Company—Sir Alexander
+Mackenzie—His journey down the Mackenzie—Sir John Franklin's first
+land journey—Fort Enterprise—Back's journey to Athabasca—The rapids
+of the Coppermine—Point Turnagain reached—The Wilberforce Falls—The
+terrible crossing of the Barren Grounds—Franklin's second land
+journey—Richardson's voyage to the eastward—Discovers Wollaston
+Land and Dolphin and Union Strait—Franklin's voyage to Return Reef—Back's
+journey down the Great Fish River—Discovers Montreal Island
+and King William Land—The Parry Falls—Sir George Simpson—Peter
+Warren Dease and Thomas Simpson—Exploration of the coast between
+Return Reef and Point Barrow—Simpson advances beyond Point Turnagain
+and discovers Victoria Land and Dease Strait—Their second voyage
+down the Coppermine—Discovery of Simpson Strait—Reach the Great
+Fish River—Their farthest east—Complete the survey of the northern
+coast between Boothia and Bering Strait—The first to find the North-West
+Passage.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>For two elks and two black beavers, paid yearly
+whensoever the King of England entered their
+estate, the Hudson's Bay Company were, in 1670,
+presented by Charles II with the northern part of the
+American mainland, thus ensuring an ample stretch of
+British territory along the passage to the South Sea.
+But the company soon ceased to be interested in any
+such passage, finding quite enough to do in developing
+the very profitable fur trade of their vast possessions.
+With the exception of John Knight's disastrous voyage
+to Marble Island in 1719, whatever attempts at discoveries
+there may have been were kept quiet for fear
+of aiding their rivals the French to the south, who
+were fostering the trade in the region of the great
+lakes; and not until the French dominion ended in
+1763 and the Frenchmen's interests were passing to
+an opposition British company was any effort made to
+explore the coast of the Polar Sea.</p>
+
+<div id='pg146'  class='figcenter id015'>
+<img src='images/i_215.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>MAHLEMUT MAN</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>Owing to Indian reports of rich deposits of native
+copper and an abundance of fur-bearing animals,
+Samuel Hearne, once a midshipman in the Royal
+Navy, was sent by the company in 1769 to explore
+to the west and north. After a journey of thirteen
+hundred miles to the west he found the Coppermine
+River and the Great Slave Lake, and he traced the
+river to its mouth and emerged on the northern shore,
+being the first known white man to see the Arctic
+Ocean between the Boothia Peninsula and Bering
+Strait. Among other things he was instructed to discover
+a north-west passage, and he certainly did something
+definite towards it by showing there was open
+water so much further west; but, though he suspected
+it, he was unable to prove that the northernmost point
+of the continent was in the unexplored country between
+the Coppermine and Hudson Bay.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1783 the North West Fur Company was formally
+established, and after a severe struggle obtained, owing
+mainly to the efforts of Alexander Mackenzie, a fair
+share of the trade in the west of the region controlled
+by the Hudson's Bay people. Mackenzie was at Fort
+Chippewyan, on Lake Athabasca, and thence he was
+sent in 1789 on an exploring voyage to the north. In
+four birch-bark canoes, one of his party being an
+Indian known as English Chief, who had been with
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>Hearne on his journey to the Coppermine, he started
+down the Great Slave River into the Great Slave
+Lake. After spending twenty days in crossing and
+exploring this vast sheet of water, he entered the large
+river now bearing his name, and down it amid many
+dangers and difficulties, overcome by skill, persuasion,
+force, good humour or good fortune, he reached the
+sea on the 14th of July. He camped on Whale
+Island, the name being given owing to one of the men
+sighting a great many animals in the water, which he
+at first supposed to be pieces of ice. "However," says
+Mackenzie, "I was awakened to resolve the doubts
+which had taken place respecting this extraordinary
+appearance. I immediately perceived that they were
+whales; and having ordered the canoe to be prepared,
+we embarked in pursuit of them. It was indeed a
+very wild and unreflecting enterprise, and it was a very
+fortunate circumstance that we failed in our attempt
+to overtake them, as a stroke from the tail of one of
+these enormous fish would have dashed the canoe to
+pieces. We may, perhaps, have been indebted to the
+foggy weather for our safety, as it prevented us from
+continuing our pursuit. Our guide informed us that
+they are the same kind of fish which are the principal
+food of the Eskimos, and they were frequently seen as
+large as our canoe. The part of them which appeared
+above the water was altogether white, and they were
+much larger than the largest porpoise"—being evidently
+belugas (<em>Delphinapterus leucas</em>).</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Satisfied with a short canoe voyage on the sea, he
+returned to the river and made his way back to the
+fort, arriving there in the middle of September. He
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>had thus proved the existence of the sea twenty
+degrees further west than Hearne had done. Three
+years afterwards he started on his notable journey to
+the Pacific at Cape Menzies, facing Princess Royal
+Island, being the first white man to cross the Rocky
+Mountains, and, as he had reached Fort Chippewyan
+by way of Montreal, the first to cross North America
+above the Gulf of Mexico.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Another of Hearne's Indians accompanied Franklin
+on his first land journey in 1819, the object of which
+was to explore the coast between Hearne's farthest and
+Hudson Bay, thus filling in the gap in which the
+assumed northern promontory was to be found.
+Franklin, who was sent out by the British Government,
+had with him, as surgeon and naturalist, Dr.,
+afterwards Sir, John Richardson, to whom as a boy
+Robert Burns had lent Spenser's <em>Faerie Queene</em>, a
+naval surgeon with a distinguished record, who while
+on half-pay had studied botany and mineralogy at
+Edinburgh. Like another member of the expedition,
+George Back, who had been with Franklin in the
+<em>Trent</em> and <em>Dorothea</em> voyage, he was destined to gain
+a great reputation among Arctic explorers. With
+Back was another midshipman, Robert Hood, whose
+fate it was to be murdered by an Iroquois half-breed
+who, through want of food, betook himself to cannibalism.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Landing at York Factory, in Hudson Bay, after an
+exciting voyage, on the 30th of August, Franklin,
+disregarding local advice, pushed on across the continent
+during the winter, arriving at Fort Chippewyan on the
+26th of March, the losses and trying experiences of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>the long journey being mainly due to the rigours of
+the climate at that time of year; and thence, in July,
+the party followed Mackenzie's route to Fort Providence
+on Great Slave Lake. Here they were joined
+by Mr. Wentzel, of the North West Company.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Starting for the north on the 2nd of August in four
+canoes, they were joined next day at the mouth of the
+Yellow Knife by a band of Indians, under a chief
+named Akaitcho, in seventeen canoes. The Indians
+were to guide the party and supply them with food by
+hunting and fishing on the way, but game and fish
+proved scarce—and scarcer owing to the poorness of
+the Indian marksmanship—provisions were short and
+portages long, so that the journey, which soon led
+across a series of lakes, was pursued under toilsome
+and hazardous conditions until it ended at Winter
+Lake in 64° 30´, where it became necessary to winter
+in a log house built by Wentzel, and named Fort
+Enterprise. The site was delightful: a hillside amid
+trees three feet in diameter at the roots, the view in
+front bounded at a distance of three miles by round-backed
+hills, to the eastward and westward the Winter
+and Roundrock Lakes connected by the Winter River,
+its banks clothed with pines and ornamented with a
+profusion of mosses, lichens, and shrubs.</p>
+
+<div id='pg150'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_221.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>WINTER TRAVELLING ON THE GREAT SLAVE LAKE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>In a few weeks, however, the weather became so
+severe that, according to Franklin, the trees froze to
+their very centres and became as hard as stones, on
+which some of the axes were broken daily, until but
+one was left. And though at first the reindeer appeared
+in numbers, their visits lasted only for a short time,
+and the party, short of tobacco for the Canadian
+voyageurs and of ammunition for the Indians, had so
+poor an outlook that it became necessary to accept
+Back's proposal to return to the forts and bring on
+supplies which had not been forwarded as promised;
+the failure being due to the journey, unlike the
+successful ventures of Hearne and Mackenzie, being
+pushed on regardless of climatal conditions, and, in
+some degree, to the rivalry between the two fur companies
+which were amalgamated while the expedition
+was in progress.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Back set out accompanied by Wentzel and two
+Canadians and two Indians and their wives, crossing
+lakes frozen just hard enough to bear them, going wide
+circuits to avoid those which were open, amid mist and
+fog and storm, over rugged, bare country, through
+dense woods and snow-covered swamps, rafting across
+a river with pine branches for paddles, until Fort
+Providence was reached. From here he sent back
+Belanger with letters and a hundred bullets he procured
+on loan. Belanger arrived at Fort Enterprise
+on the 23rd of October alone; he had walked constantly
+for the last six-and-thirty hours through a
+storm, his locks were matted with snow, and he was
+encrusted with ice from head to foot, so that he was
+scarcely recognised when he slipped in through the
+doorway.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>At Fort Providence Back had to wait until the
+Great Slave Lake was frozen over. On the 18th of
+November he observed two mock moons at equal
+distances from the central one, the whole encircled by
+a halo, the colour of the inner edge of the large circle
+a light red inclining to a faint purple; and two days
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>afterwards two parhelia were observable, with a halo,
+the colours of the inner edge of the circle a bright
+carmine and red-lake intermingled with a rich yellow
+forming a purplish orange, the outer edge being a pale
+gamboge. On the 7th of December he left, sledging
+across the lake before the wind, for the North West fort
+on Moose Deer Island, and finding at the Hudson's
+Bay fort, also on the island, five packages of belated
+supplies and two Eskimo interpreters on their way to
+Franklin.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Here he was told that nothing could be spared at
+Fort Chippewyan, that goods had never been transported
+so far in the winter season, that the same dogs
+could not go and return, and that from having to walk
+constantly on snow-shoes he would suffer a great deal
+of misery and fatigue. Nevertheless he undertook the
+journey in dog-sledges with a Canadian and an Indian,
+leaving Wentzel behind. At times the weather was so
+cold that they had to run to keep themselves warm,
+and, owing to the snow, the feet of the dogs became so
+raw that an endeavour was made to fit them with
+shoes. With legs and ankles so swollen that it was
+painful to drag the snow-shoes after him, Back hurried
+on, reaching Fort Chippewyan on the 2nd of January
+to find that he and all Franklin's party had been
+reported to have been killed by Eskimos. Here he had
+to wait a month, and then, with an instalment of what
+he wanted, he set out on his return, arriving at Fort
+Enterprise on St. Patrick's Day after a memorable
+journey of over a thousand miles.</p>
+
+<div id='pg152'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_225.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>CROSSING POINT LAKE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>During his absence he was told that the cold had
+been so severe that Hood had found accurate observing
+difficult owing to the sextant having changed its error
+and the glasses lost their parallelism from the contraction
+of the brass, a circumstance, combined with the
+crystallisation of the mercury of the artificial horizon,
+that might account for some of the diversity of results
+obtained by Arctic navigators. And Richardson had
+to tell him of an early discovery that when fishing and
+the hands get cold by hauling in the line, the best way
+to warm them is to put them in the water; and how the
+fish had frozen as they were taken out of the water so
+that by a blow or two of the hatchet they were easily
+split open, leaving the intestines removable in one lump,
+and yet that these much-frozen fish retained their
+vitality so that he had seen a thawed carp recover so
+far as to leap about with much vigour after it had been
+frozen for thirty-six hours.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 14th of June Fort Enterprise was left, and
+on the 25th the expedition began to cross Point Lake
+on the way to the Coppermine, the river being reached
+through Rocknest Lake on the 30th. Down the river
+they paddled, taking the rapids as they went—in one
+place three miles of them on end. "We were carried
+along with extraordinary rapidity, shooting over large
+stones, upon which a single stroke would have been
+destructive to the canoes; and we were also in danger
+of breaking them, from the want of the long poles
+which lie along their bottoms and equalise their cargoes,
+as they plunged very much, and on one occasion the
+first canoe was almost filled with the waves; but there
+was no receding after we had once launched into the
+stream, and our safety depended on the skill and dexterity
+of the bowmen and steersmen."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>There were rapids day by day affording almost every
+possible chance of wreck except that due to driftwood;
+the two worst being one where the stream descends for
+three-quarters of a mile in a deep but narrow and
+crooked channel which it has cut through the foot
+of a hill of five hundred or six hundred feet high,
+confined between perpendicular cliffs resembling stone
+walls varying in height from eighty to a hundred and
+fifty feet, on which lies a mass of fine sand; the body
+of the river pent within this narrow chasm dashing
+furiously round the projecting rocky columns as it discharges
+itself at the northern extremity in a sheet of
+foam. The other being where the river flows between
+lofty stone cliffs, reddish clay rocks and shelving banks
+of white clay, and is full of shoals. Franklin's people
+had entered this rapid before they were aware of it,
+and the steepness of the cliffs prevented them from
+landing, so that they owed their preservation to the swiftness
+of their descent. Two waves made a complete
+breach over the canoes; a third would probably have
+filled and overset them, which would have proved fatal
+to all on board. This Escape Rapid, as it was named,
+was, as it were, the gate into the territory of the Eskimos
+who were soon met with in small parties all the way
+down to the sea. It was passed on the 15th of July;
+three days afterwards the Indians bade farewell to the
+expedition in the morning, and in the afternoon the
+canoes were afloat on the Arctic Ocean.</p>
+
+<div id='pg154'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_229.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>KUTCHIN INDIANS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>From the river mouth Wentzel returned, as arranged,
+with despatches, taking with him a number of voyageurs
+and others, thus reducing the party to twenty in all in
+two canoes. In these Franklin, nearly two years after
+he had landed in America, went on his voyage to the
+eastward to enter at last on the work he had been sent
+to do. But the survey of this lofty rocky coast was no
+easy matter; the sea was rough, the weather tempestuous,
+the canoes were lightly built and only suited for
+river work, and, in short, it was a most risky enterprise.
+Tracing the shore of Coronation Gulf and coasting up
+and out of Bathurst Inlet, Franklin reached Point Turnagain
+in 109° 25´ W., at the entrance of Dease Strait, on
+the 16th of August, 1821. Though the voyage had
+extended over only six and a half degrees of longitude,
+he had sailed 555 geographical miles; and then, as his
+resources did not permit of his going further or of his
+returning to the Coppermine, and in his own words
+"Our scanty stock of provisions rendering it necessary
+to make for a nearer place," he, on the 22nd, turned
+back to ascend the Hood River.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Here they soon reached the Wilberforce Falls,
+beautiful and remarkable, but not easy of navigation.
+"In the evening," says Franklin in his journal, "we
+encamped at the lower end of a narrow chasm through
+which the river flows for upwards of a mile. The walls
+of this chasm are upwards of two hundred feet high,
+quite perpendicular, and in some places only a few yards
+apart. The river precipitates itself into it over a rock
+forming two magnificent and picturesque falls close to
+each other. The upper fall is about sixty feet high,
+and the lower one at least one hundred, but perhaps
+considerably more, for the narrowness of the chasm
+into which it fell prevented us from seeing its bottom
+and we could merely discern the top of the spray far
+beneath our feet. The lower fall is divided into two by
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>an insulated column of rock which rises about forty
+feet above it."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>As the river above the falls appeared too rapid and
+shallow for the large canoes they were taken to pieces,
+and two smaller ones built from their materials. The
+voyage in these lasted but three days, when the river
+was abandoned as trending too far to the west, and the
+party, carrying the canoes, proceeded overland to Point
+Lake on their struggle of starvation across the Barren
+Grounds. For days they had nothing to eat but lichens—species
+of <em>Gyrophora</em> or <em>Umbilicaria</em> known as tripe-de-roche—a
+diet varied with leather, burnt bones and
+skins, an occasional ptarmigan, and, once, a musk ox,
+until they were so weak that when a herd of reindeer
+went strolling past they had not strength enough to
+shoot at them.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The tragedy need not be lingered over. Back was
+again sent for help, and, finding no stores at Fort
+Enterprise, was on his way to Fort Providence when he
+fell in with Akaitcho, who at once hurried to the rescue;
+and on the 14th of July, 1822, Franklin, Richardson,
+Back, and Hepburn the seaman, who had behaved as a
+hero all through, returned to York Factory after a
+three years' journey, fraught with peril and horror, by
+land and water, of over six thousand three hundred
+statute miles.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>After he had been at home a year, Franklin suggested
+that another attempt should be made to survey the
+northern coast while Parry was at work in search of the
+North-West Passage. The suggestion was accepted.
+Accompanied by Richardson and Back, and by E. N.
+Kendall as assistant surveyor—who had been out with
+Captain Lyon in the same capacity—and by Thomas
+Drummond as assistant naturalist, he left Liverpool on
+the 26th of February, 1825.</p>
+
+<div id='pg156'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_233.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>PREPARING AN ENCAMPMENT ON THE BARREN GROUNDS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>Taught by experience, the expedition was better
+managed in every way. Instead of driving ahead
+regardless of the season or the trade routine, the
+ordinary conditions of local travel were kept in view
+throughout, and the results were more in proportion
+to the effort. Three boats were specially built at
+Woolwich on Franklin's design and under Buchan's
+superintendence. They were of mahogany with timbers
+of ash, both ends alike, steerable by oar or rudder, the
+largest 26 ft. by 5 ft. 4 ins., the two others 24 ft. by
+4 ft. 10 ins., and with them Colonel Pasley's portable
+boat, known as the <em>Walnut Shell</em> from its shape, 9 ft.
+long and half as wide, with frames of ash fastened with
+thongs and covered with canvas. The canvas was
+"waterproofed by Mr. Macintosh, of Glasgow"—the
+first instance of its use—and for the first time also what
+we know as macintosh coats and overalls were issued
+as part of the outfit, the process having been patented
+in 1824.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The boats and stores were sent on ahead by way of
+York Factory in 1824, and Franklin and his party,
+travelling by New York and the lakes, caught them up
+on the Methye River at sunrise on the 29th of June.
+With them were several old friends, not the least
+delighted being the two Eskimo interpreters, Augustus
+and Ooligbuck, who were to be of the utmost importance
+throughout. On the 8th of August they had got
+along so well that they were at the junction of the Bear
+Lake River with the Mackenzie. Here Back and Peter
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>Warren Dease of the Hudson's Bay Company, who
+had joined the expedition to look after the local
+arrangements, were sent off to build a house to winter
+in on the banks of the Great Bear Lake, in Keith's Bay,
+where the river leaves it; Richardson also left to explore
+the northern shore of the lake, and Franklin and
+Kendall continuing down the Mackenzie reached the
+sea before the week was out in less than six months
+from their departure from Liverpool. And on the 5th
+of September they had returned upstream and were at
+their winter quarters at the new house on the lake,
+which Back had named Fort Franklin, to find that
+Richardson had been along the northern shore and
+noted as being the nearest point to the Coppermine the
+entrance of the river he had named after Dease, which
+was to be of so much service to him later on.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>During the winter another boat, the <em>Reliance</em>, was
+built on the lines of the <em>Lion</em>, the largest of the Woolwich
+boats, and leaving Dease to complete the stores
+for another comfortable winter, the expedition started
+on the 24th of June. At Point Separation, at the
+head of the Mackenzie delta, Franklin in the <em>Lion</em>
+with Back in the <em>Reliance</em>—our old friend Robert
+Spinks being his coxswain—took the western arm, and
+Richardson in the <em>Dolphin</em> and Kendall in the <em>Union</em>,
+carrying the <em>Walnut Shell</em> with them, took the eastern
+arm.</p>
+
+<div id='pg158'  class='figcenter id016'>
+<img src='images/i_237.jpg' alt='Yours faithfully John Richardson' class='ig001' />
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>Richardson, with a few more or less threatening
+encounters with the Eskimos, ending fairly well owing
+to Ooligbuck, and in constant danger of wreck avoided
+by careful navigation, rounded Cape Bathurst in 70° 36´
+and discovered Wollaston Land, the coast-line of which
+they left continuing to the east, when they reached
+Coronation Gulf and, on the 8th of August, entered
+the Coppermine, and thus filled in the gap of nine
+hundred and two statute miles from Point Separation.
+Leaving the <em>Dolphin</em> and <em>Union</em> at Bloody Fall on that
+river, it being impossible to take them further, the
+expedition, carrying the <em>Walnut Shell</em> with them, proceeded
+along the banks, but finding they had no use
+for the portable boat, owing to the shallowness of the
+stream, they soon abandoned it, and in 67° 13´, where
+the river is nearest to the north-eastern arm of Great
+Bear Lake, the Coppermine was left and the course
+laid across the Barren Grounds for Dease River. This
+was reached three days afterwards, Richardson being
+met at its mouth by Dease's people on the 24th of
+August.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Franklin had similar experiences with the Eskimos,
+and was as deeply indebted to Augustus for his tact
+and bravery in dealing with them. Coasting along to
+the westward, hindered by ice, bad weather and fog,
+and tormented by mosquitoes, his progress was much
+slower than that of Richardson. Delayed for some
+days on or about Foggy Island, he had to give up his
+intention of reaching Bering Strait, and not knowing
+that Elson with the barge of the <em>Blossom</em> had come as
+far east as Point Barrow, he gave the name of Cape
+Beechey to the westernmost headland in sight, and
+leaving Return Reef in 148° 52´ on the 18th of August,
+after covering six hundred and ten statute miles through
+parts not previously discovered, began his voyage back
+to Fort Franklin, where he arrived on the 21st of
+September. Meanwhile Richardson had gone off to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>explore the Great Slave Lake, whence Drummond had
+started on his journey among the Rockies; and, being
+unable to get away till another winter had passed,
+both Franklin and Richardson landed in England in
+September, 1827, after an important and fruitful expedition
+that had no death-roll.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Back was again in these regions in 1833 on his
+expedition in search of Sir John Ross. Reaching the
+Great Slave Lake, he built Fort Reliance at its north-eastern
+corner and began the long winter there on the
+5th of November. Soon afterwards Akaitcho put in
+an appearance, and expressed his intention—which he
+did his best to fulfil—of being of as much assistance
+as he could; and later on Augustus made his way
+across country to offer his services, but, either exhausted
+by suffering and privation, or caught in a snowstorm,
+he died alone near the Rivière à Jean.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Temperatures ranging from 50 to 70 minus were of
+frequent occurrence, and, on one occasion Back, after
+washing his face within a yard of the fire, had his hair
+clotted with ice before he had time to dry it. Every
+animal was driven away from the neighbourhood by
+the cold, except a solitary raven which swept once
+round the house and then winged his flight to the
+westward. On the 25th of April a messenger arrived
+at the fort with the news of the safe return of Sir
+John Ross to England, but Back determined to proceed
+with the journey for exploring purposes, taking
+one boat instead of two, and, with Richard King the
+surgeon, and eight men, he started for the Great Fish
+River on the 8th of July.</p>
+
+<div id='pg160'  class='figcenter id017'>
+<a href='images/i_241.jpg'><img src='images/i_241_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>BACK'S JOURNEY DOWN THE GREAT FISH RIVER</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>The voyage was a hazardous and adventurous one.
+For five hundred and thirty geographical miles the
+river was found to run through an iron-ribbed country
+without a single tree on the whole line of its banks,
+expanding into fine large lakes with clear horizons,
+most embarrassing to the navigator, and broken into
+falls, cascades, and rapids, to the number of no less
+than eighty-three, pouring its waters into the Polar
+Sea in latitude 67° 11´ and longitude 94° 30´; so that
+his explorations on the northern coast were confined to
+a section further east than Point Turnagain.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The expedition met with its greatest danger at
+Escape Rapid, between Lake Macdougall and Lake
+Franklin, on the 25th of July. Here the stream was
+broken by a mile of heavy and dangerous rapids. The
+boat was lightened, and every care taken to avoid
+accident; but so overwhelming was the rush and whirl
+of the water, that she, and consequently those in her,
+were twice in imminent peril of being plunged into
+one of the gulfs formed in the rocks and hollows. It
+was in one of these places, which are fall, rapid, and
+eddy within a few yards, that the boat owed its safety
+to an unintentional disobedience of the steersman's
+directions.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The power of the water so far exceeded whatever
+had been witnessed on any of the other rivers that the
+precautions used elsewhere were weak and unavailing.
+McKay, the steersman, was endeavouring to clear a fall
+and some sunken rocks on the left, but the man to
+whom he spoke misunderstood him, and did exactly the
+reverse; and then, seeing the danger, the steersman
+swept the stern round; instantly the boat was caught
+by an eddy to the right, which, snapping an oar, twirled
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>her irresistibly broadside on; so that for a moment it
+seemed uncertain whether the boat was to be hurled
+into the hollow of the fall, or dashed stern foremost on
+the sunken rocks. Of how it happened no account can
+be given, but her head swung inshore towards the beach
+and thereby gave an opportunity for some of the men
+to spring into the water and by their united strength
+rescue her from her perilous position. Had the man
+to whom the first order was given understood and acted
+on it no human power could have saved the crew from
+being buried in the abyss. Nor yet could any blame be
+justly attached to the steersman, who had never been so
+situated before and whose coolness and self-possession
+never in this imminent peril forsook him. At the
+awful moment of suspense, when one of the crew with
+less nerve than his companions began to cry aloud to
+Heaven for aid, McKay in a still louder voice exclaimed,
+"Is this a time for praying? Pull your starboard
+oar." Never could a reminder that <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">laborare est
+orare</span></i> have been more opportune.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 1st of August Montreal Island was reached.
+Nine days afterwards a log of driftwood, nine feet long
+and nine inches in diameter, jocularly described as a
+piece of the North Pole, was found on the beach,
+which, as there are no trees on the Fish River or the
+Coppermine, Captain Back was of opinion must
+have come from the Mackenzie and drifted eastward, so
+that he was on the main line of the land. The inference,
+confirmed by the appearance of a whale, was
+correct, but, misled, perhaps, by hilly islands, he missed
+the channel through which it had come, blocking it,
+in the manner of John Ross, with a range of mountains
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>that does not exist. Though he reached Mount Barrow
+and mistook the head of Simpson Strait for an inlet,
+thus failing to find one of the north-west passages, he
+discovered and named King William Land and sighted
+Point Booth at its eastern extremity. An attempt to
+reach Point Turnagain to the westward and thus link
+up with Franklin's farthest east, in which he might
+have discovered the passage, proving impracticable
+owing to the bogginess of the ground, Back began his
+return from King William Land in latitude 68° 13´,
+longitude 94° 58´, and entered on a wearisome journey
+up the river and lakes he had come down, meeting
+with a party from Fort Reliance on the 17th of
+September.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>A week after, when within a couple of days of the
+fort, on that "small but abominable river" the Ah-hel-dessy
+from Artillery Lake, Back discovered the Anderson
+Falls. Toiling along over the mountains, every man
+with a seventy-five-pound package on his back, he had
+not proceeded more than six or seven miles when, observing
+the spray rising from another fall, he was induced to
+visit it and was well consoled for having left the boat
+behind. "From the only point," says Back, "at which
+the greater part of it was visible, we could distinguish
+the river coming sharp round a rock, and falling into
+an upper basin almost concealed by intervening rocks;
+whence it broke in one vast sheet into a chasm between
+four and five hundred feet deep, yet in appearance so
+narrow that we fancied we could almost step across it.
+Out of this the spray rose in misty columns several
+hundred feet above our heads; but as it was impossible
+to see the main fall from the side on which we were, in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>the following spring I paid a second visit to it,
+approaching from the western bank. The road to it,
+which I then traversed in snow-shoes, was fatiguing in
+the extreme, and scarcely less dangerous; for, to say
+nothing of the steep ascents, fissures in the rocks, and
+deep snow in the valleys, we had sometimes to creep
+along the narrow shelves of precipices slippery with the
+frozen mist that fell on them. But it was a sight that
+well repaid any risk. My first impression was of a
+strong resemblance to an iceberg in Smeerenberg
+Harbour, Spitsbergen. The whole face of the rocks
+forming the chasm was entirely coated with blue,
+green, and white ice, in thousands of pendent icicles;
+and there were, moreover, caverns, fissures, and overhanging
+ledges in all imaginable varieties of form, so
+curious and beautiful as to surpass anything of which I
+had ever heard or read. The immediate approaches
+were extremely hazardous, nor could we obtain a perfect
+view of the lower fall, in consequence of the projection
+of the western cliffs. At the lowest position
+we were able to attain, we were still more than a
+hundred feet above the level of the river beneath; and
+this, instead of being narrow enough to step across, as it
+had seemed from the opposite heights, was found to be
+at least two hundred feet wide. The colour of the water
+varied from a very light to a very dark green; and the
+spray, which spread a dimness above, was thrown up in
+clouds of light grey. Niagara, Wilberforce Falls on
+Hood River, the falls of Kakabikka near Lake
+Superior, the Swiss or Italian falls—although they may
+each charm the eye with dread—are not to be compared
+to this for splendour of effect. It was the most imposing
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>spectacle I had ever witnessed; and, as its berg-like
+appearance brought to mind associations of another
+scene, I bestowed upon it the name of our celebrated
+navigator, Sir Edward Parry, and called it Parry's
+Falls."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Back, like Franklin, owed much of the success of
+his expedition to the cordial help of the Governor of
+the Hudson's Bay Company, George, afterwards Sir
+George, Simpson. Ever the fastest of travellers in the
+north, Simpson had, in 1828, made a 3260-mile canoe
+voyage from Hudson Bay to the Pacific, passing the
+Rockies through canyons previously untried, and
+slipping down mountain torrents and through unknown
+rapids at such speed that hostile Indians let him pass
+in sheer amazement; and all his life he was distinguished
+for similar energy and celerity. When it
+became clear that the British Government had no
+immediate intention of completing the survey of the
+northern coast, Simpson organised an expedition at the
+Company's expense to undertake the task, and entrusted
+the leadership to Dease, who had done such excellent
+work for Franklin; and with Dease he associated his
+own nephew, Thomas Simpson, in no way inferior to
+his uncle in energy, speediness, or decision of character,
+being in fact one of our very best explorers, Arctic or
+otherwise.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Thomas Simpson, Master of Arts of Aberdeen and a
+winner of the Huttonian, began characteristically by
+starting off to Fort Garry—now Winnipeg—with a
+view, as he says, "to refresh and extend my astronomical
+practice which had for some years been interrupted
+by avocations of a very different nature"; and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>thence, in the winter, making his way to Fort Chippewyan,
+a journey of 1277 miles, joining Dease there
+more than a month before he was expected. Two
+boats were built, light clinker craft of 24 ft. keel and
+6 ft. beam, adapted for shallow navigation by their
+small draught, both alike and honoured with the
+classical names of the heavenly twins, <em>Castor</em> and
+<em>Pollux</em>, each boat provided with a small oiled canvas
+canoe and portable wooden frame. Of one, the steersman
+was the redoubtable James McKay—"Pull your
+starboard oar!"—and of the other, George Sinclair,
+Back's bowman; and one of the bowmen was Felix,
+who had been with Franklin in 1826. All told, the
+expedition numbered fourteen.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Leaving Fort Chippewyan on the 1st of June, 1837,
+they reached Bear Lake River on the 3rd of July, and
+six days afterwards were out on the sea. On the 23rd
+of July they camped at Return Reef, that is to say
+they had traversed the whole extent of Franklin's
+survey in a fortnight, and not without danger from
+the ice and losing much time by doubling the floes,
+however far they extended seawards. Once Simpson's
+boat, which was of course leading, was only saved from
+destruction by throwing out everything it contained
+upon the floating masses. By means of portages made
+from one fragment to another, the oars forming the
+perilous bridges, and after repeated risks of boats, men,
+and baggage being separated by the motion of the ice,
+they succeeded with much labour in collecting the
+whole equipment on one floe, which, being covered
+with water, formed a sort of wet dock. There they
+hauled up the boats, momentarily liable to be overwhelmed
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>by the turning over of the ice, three miles
+from land, with the fog settled round them throughout
+the inclement night.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Continuing westwards along new country, they
+reached and named Cape George Simpson (after the
+Governor) and, a little further on, Boat Extreme,
+where, from the coldness of the weather and the interminable
+ice, the further advance of the boats appeared
+to be so hopeless that Dease agreed to stay in charge
+of them while Simpson with five men, including
+McKay and Felix, pushed ahead for Point Barrow on
+foot. Passing McKay Inlet and Sinclair River, named
+after the two steersmen, an Eskimo camp was reached,
+where Simpson exchanged his tin plate for a platter
+made out of a mammoth tusk, and borrowed an oomiak
+which floated in about half a foot of water. In this
+useful skin boat the journey was resumed to Point
+Barrow, and on the 4th of August the survey completed
+between Franklin's farthest and Elson's.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The winter was passed at the mouth of the Dease
+River, on Great Bear Lake, where Fort Confidence
+had been built ready for the expedition on its return.
+On the 6th of June, 1838, a start for the coast was
+made by the Coppermine route, that river being reached
+on the 22nd, and its descent accomplished, on the spring
+flood, in nine days. But it was a bad season, and the
+navigation was so hampered by ice that no start was
+made to the eastward until the 17th of July. At
+Boathaven, in 109° 20´, Simpson again left the boats
+and went ahead with Sinclair and six others who had
+not been to Point Barrow. Passing Franklin's farthest
+at Point Turnagain, he kept on for a hundred miles
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>along the whole length of Dease Strait, discovering
+and naming Victoria Land, reaching Beaufort River
+beyond Cape Alexander, and sighting an open sea to
+the eastward. From here, in 106° 3´, the return began;
+and by many devices and the unfailing skill of McKay
+and Sinclair, the two boats were taken up the Coppermine
+stream, falls and rapids and all, to the nearest
+point to Fort Confidence, where they were hauled up
+in readiness for next year.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 22nd of June, 1839, the boats again left for
+the sea; and they were run down to Bloody Fall without
+a stoppage in eleven hours. Again there were
+fourteen all told in them, but this time one of the men
+was Ooglibuck, who had come specially from Ungava in
+Labrador, in the wonderful time of three months less
+eight days, to join the expedition which was to meet
+with great success and accomplish an Arctic boat
+journey of over sixteen hundred statute miles.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Entirely blocked until the 3rd of July, and hindered
+by ice difficulties all the way, the boats did not reach
+the previous year's farthest until the 28th of July.
+On the 11th of August, through an outlet only three
+miles wide, they passed into the much-desired eastern
+sea. "That glorious sight," says Simpson, after whom
+the strait is named, "was first beheld by myself from
+the top of one of the high limestone islands, and I had
+the satisfaction of announcing it to some of the men
+who, incited by curiosity, followed me thither. The
+joyful news was soon conveyed to Mr. Dease, who was
+with the boats at the end of the island, about half a
+mile off." On the continent and on King William
+Land, where Franklin's men were in time coming to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>perish of starvation, reindeer were seen browsing on the
+scanty herbage among the shingle. A terrible thunderstorm
+followed, and then, doubling a very sharp point
+on the 13th, Simpson landed and saw before him a
+sandy desert. It was Back's Point Sir C. Ogle that he
+had at length reached. Away in the distance was the
+Great Fish River, and three days afterwards the party
+were encamped on Montreal Island, where McKay led
+the way to the provisions and gunpowder deposited by
+Back among the rocks.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The expedition had performed its allotted task, and
+the men were consulted as to whether they would continue
+for a short distance to the eastward. To their
+honour they all assented without a murmur; but the
+cruel north-east wind forbade much progress in that
+direction, and their farthest east was reached at Castor
+and Pollux River. From there immediate return was
+imperative, as not a day could be spared. And so,
+from latitude 68° 28´ 23˝, longitude 94° 14´, they turned
+back on the 21st of August, leaving the survey of the
+north coast of the American mainland practically complete
+from Bering Strait to Boothia.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Further, on their return journey they crossed to the
+southern shore of King William Land and traced its coast
+for nearly sixty miles, discovering and naming Cape
+Herschel, south-eastward of which, in Simpson Strait,
+M'Clintock found the remains of one of Franklin's
+men. They thus linked up with what was to be the
+route of the Franklin expedition and were the first to
+find the North-West Passage for the command of
+which the territory was given by Charles II to the
+Hudson's Bay Company.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER IX<br /> THE PARRY ISLANDS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>John Rae—Wollaston Land and Victoria Strait—Overlaps Franklin's route—M'Clure
+discovers Prince of Wales Strait—The North-West Passage—Banks
+Land—M'Clure rescued by Bedford Pim—Collinson's remarkable
+voyage—In Beaufort Sea—Reaches Banks Strait—Voyage to Cambridge
+Bay—On Franklin's route—The North-West Passage sailed by Amundsen
+along the track of the <em>Enterprise</em>—Sir John Barrow—Parry's first voyage—Penetrates
+Lancaster Sound and discovers the Parry Islands—Stopped
+by ice in Banks Strait—The search for Franklin—Sir John Ross—De
+Haven—Penny—Austin—Ommanney—Osborn—Belcher—Kellett—M'Clintock—Drift
+of the <em>Resolute</em>—Sledge work—Sverdrup's discoveries
+during his four years in the north.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>The second to complete a north-west passage by
+linking up with Franklin's voyage was Dr. John
+Rae, an Orkneyman by birth, as energetic as Thomas
+Simpson and evidently not inferior to him in stamina,
+for in his Arctic journeys he walked a distance equal to
+that of the circumference of the earth. In 1846 he
+had surveyed the Committee Bay district between
+Boothia and the Melville Peninsula, reaching it from
+Repulse Bay, and in 1848 and 1849 he had been associated
+with Richardson in searching for Franklin along the
+coast from the Mackenzie eastwards. Next year, while
+in charge of the Mackenzie district, he was again requested
+to lead a Franklin search expedition, and,
+starting from Fort Confidence on the 25th of April,
+was on the sea by the 1st of May. Crossing over to
+Wollaston Land, and making westward along the coast
+on the 22nd of May, he rounded Cape Baring, just
+above the seventieth parallel. Crossing to its continuation,
+Victoria Land, on a second journey, he
+travelled eastward, and, going up Victoria Strait,
+rounded Pelly Point, also just above the seventieth
+parallel, on the 12th of July, thus practically completing
+the survey of the southern half of what Collinson
+was to prove is one large island.</p>
+
+<div id='pg170'  class='figcenter id018'>
+<img src='images/i_253.jpg' alt='Yours very truly W Parry' class='ig001' />
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>Off Pelly Point, it afterwards appeared, the <em>Erebus</em>
+and <em>Terror</em> were beset in the ice in September, 1846,
+and fifty miles to the south-east they had been
+abandoned in April, 1848; but the only relic found by
+Rae on this occasion was the doubtful one—picked up
+in Parker Bay—of the butt-end of a flagstaff on
+which was nailed a piece of white line by two copper
+tacks, all three bearing the Government mark. This
+was the first to be found of anything that could be
+thought to be a trace of the missing ships, a sort
+of promise of what he was to meet with four years
+later; and it is worth noting that, had he not failed in
+getting across the strait to King William Land, Rae
+would in 1850 have probably discovered Franklin's
+fate.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>His farthest in these parts was passed in May, 1853,
+by Captain Richard Collinson, in his sledge journey to
+Gateshead Island from H.M.S. <em>Enterprise</em>, then wintering
+in Cambridge Bay. The <em>Enterprise</em> and <em>Investigator</em>
+had been placed under Collinson's command and sent
+by way of Cape Horn to search for Franklin from
+the west, the instructions being that the ships should
+not part company; but regardless of this, Commander
+Robert Le Mesurier M'Clure, of the <em>Investigator</em>,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>happening to get through Bering Strait first, declined
+to wait for his commanding officer, went off on an
+expedition on his own account and, by a sledge journey,
+joined Parry's track when in search of the North-West
+Passage.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Steering north-east from Franklin Bay, M'Clure
+reached the south of Parry's Banks Land and followed
+the coast north-eastwards, discovering Prince of Wales
+Strait and making his way rather more than half-way
+up, until, near Princess Royal Island in 72° 50´, he
+was caught in the ice and imprisoned for the winter.
+On Trafalgar Day, 1850, M'Clure left the <em>Investigator</em>
+on a sledge journey up the strait, and at sunrise on the
+26th of October, from Mount Observation in 73° 30´, a
+hill six hundred feet above the sea, he looked over
+Banks Strait and Melville Sound, and saw the coast of
+Banks Land terminating about twelve miles further on
+and thence trending to the north-west, while Wollaston
+Land, as it proved to be, turned eastward on the other
+side at Peel Point. That evening Banks Strait was
+reached at Cape Lord John Russell, and the North-West
+Passage by Prince of Wales Strait clearly
+demonstrated. The spot was not bare of vegetation,
+and there were many traces of animals, for, fortunately
+for M'Clure, there was no scarcity of game during his
+three winterings in Banks Land—reindeer in herds,
+musk oxen occasionally, hares in troops, ducks in
+plenty, ptarmigan almost as numerous, and bears,
+wolves, and foxes to feed on them; for instance, the
+weights of three items in the bag, 1945 lb. of musk ox,
+7716 lb. of deer, and 1017 lb. of hare, show fairly good
+shooting.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>Enclosing a record of the visit in a cairn, M'Clure
+returned to the ship, from which in the spring three
+sledge parties were sent out—Cresswell's to the north-west
+finding that Banks Land was an island, Wynniatt's
+to the north-east reaching Reynolds Point on the north
+of Wollaston Land, and Haswell's down Wollaston
+Land to within forty miles of where Rae turned back
+about a week later—this being the only attempt at
+searching for Franklin that the expedition undertook
+after sighting Nelson Head. Released in July, the
+<em>Investigator</em> retreated down the strait and attempted to
+circumnavigate Banks Land, finding to the west a
+coast as precipitous as a wall, the water deep—fifteen
+fathoms close in, with the yardarms almost touching
+the cliffs on one hand and the lofty ice on the other—and
+the pack drawing forty feet of water, rising in
+rolling hills a hundred feet from base to summit. On
+shore the hills were as remarkable. Many of them
+were peaked and isolated by precipitous gorges, about
+three hundred feet deep. And all the way up them
+were numbers of fallen trees, in many places in layers,
+some protruding twelve or fourteen feet, one of these
+trunks measuring nineteen inches in diameter. Says
+M'Clure: "I entered a ravine some miles inland, and
+found the north side of it, for a depth of forty feet
+from the surface, composed of one mass of wood
+similar to what I had before seen. The whole depth
+of the ravine was about two hundred feet. The
+ground around the wood or trees was formed of sand
+and shingle; some of the wood was petrified, the remainder
+very rotten and worthless even for burning."
+And this forest bed is on the shore of the Beaufort Sea
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>in 74° north latitude, a similar one being in Prince
+Patrick Island, on the other side of Banks Strait.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>After one or two narrow escapes the <em>Investigator</em>
+entered her last home at the Bay of Mercy, well
+within the strait, near Cape Hamilton, the most
+prominent of the three capes discovered from the
+Dundas Peninsula by Parry's lieutenant, Beechey,
+thirty-one years before. The winter passed, and on
+the 11th of April M'Clure left the ship on a sledge
+journey across to Parry's old quarters at Winter
+Harbour, which were reached on the 28th, to find
+nothing but a notice of M'Clintock's having been there
+in the previous June. Noticing Parry's inscription
+rock, M'Clure judiciously left on it a statement that
+the <em>Investigator</em> was in want of relief at Mercy Bay.
+But all through that year no news from the outside
+came to Banks Land, and matters became serious
+owing to the appearance of scurvy, notwithstanding
+the abundance of fresh meat, for even in January a
+herd of reindeer trotted by.</p>
+
+<div id='pg174'  class='figcenter id019'>
+<a href='images/i_259.jpg'><img src='images/i_259_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE PARRY ISLANDS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>Another winter went wearily, each month with a
+gloomier outlook than the last, and on the 5th of April
+the first of the scurvy patients died. Next morning
+M'Clure and Haswell were walking near the ship discussing
+how they could dig a grave in the frozen
+ground, when they noticed a man hurriedly approaching
+from the entrance of the bay, throwing up his
+arms and shouting at the top of his voice, his face as
+black as ebony. When he came within talking range
+the dark-faced stranger called out, "I am Lieutenant
+Pim, late of the <em>Herald</em> and now in the <em>Resolute</em>;
+Captain Kellett is in her at Dealy Island." And soon
+the dog-sledge with two men came into view. Pim's
+arrival was most fortunate for the sufferers, for the
+captain, as a desperate resource, was—in spite of the
+doctor's protests—just about to send off two sledge
+parties of the invalids to take their chance of escaping
+somehow, as there was no hope of their recovery in
+the ship; and on examination by the doctor of the
+<em>Resolute</em>, it was found that every man of the crew was
+more or less affected by the disease. So the ship was
+abandoned in Mercy Bay, and the officers and crew,
+crossing to the <em>Resolute</em>, reached England by way of
+Hudson Strait.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Collinson's was the most remarkable voyage ever
+accomplished by a sailing-ship in the Arctic regions.
+It lasted from 1850 to 1855—five years and a hundred
+and sixteen days—all the way out across the Atlantic
+and Pacific and home again in safety, traversing a
+hundred and twenty-eight degrees of longitude in the
+Arctic sea, coming nearest at the time to completing
+the north-west passage by ship (up Prince of Wales
+Strait), finding two north-west passages by sledge (one
+joining with Parry's discoveries across Banks Strait,
+the other with Franklin's up Victoria Strait), and
+approaching nearer than any other naval expedition
+to the great discovery by travelling up Franklin's
+route for some distance, and passing within thirty miles
+of the spot where the vessels he was in search of had
+been abandoned, though unfortunately, like Rae, he
+was on the west side of the waterway instead of the
+east.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Passing Bering Strait in July, 1850, the <em>Enterprise</em>
+went north from Wainwright Inlet into the Beaufort
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>Sea, until she was stopped by the heavy pack. Trying
+east, to join with Parry's farthest, and then west, she
+arrived, on the 28th of August, at 73° 23´ in 164°, and
+here she turned south after having sailed over eleven
+thousand miles without having to reef her topsails, an
+unprecedented run of distance and fine weather combined.
+Returning in 1851 from wintering at Hong
+Kong, Collinson, with a southerly wind "too precious
+to be wasted," made his way up Prince of Wales
+Strait, knowing nothing of the visit of the <em>Investigator</em>,
+to find ice blocking his way just at the northern outlet,
+his furthest north, by ship, 73° 30´, forty miles beyond
+M'Clure's winter quarters, as given in the record he
+found in one of the cairns.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Unable to round the corner into Banks Strait owing
+to the ice block, Collinson returned down Prince of
+Wales Strait and followed the track of the <em>Investigator</em>
+half-way up the west coast of Banks Land, though he
+had found nothing to indicate she had gone in that
+direction. Finding the ice conditions dangerous, he
+retraced his route along the coast and went into comfortable
+winter quarters in Walker Bay, at the entrance
+of Prince of Wales Strait. By the end of November
+the natives fishing for salmon-trout had cleared off, as
+also had the reindeer, hares, and ptarmigan and other
+birds, and on the 17th of March the ravens, which had
+been the last to leave, were the first to return. In
+April sledge parties went out, one of which under
+Lieutenant Parkes crossed the route of the <em>Hecla</em>
+along the strait and reached Melville Island at Cape
+Providence on the way to Winter Harbour, short of
+which, within sight of Point Hearne, Parkes began his
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>homeward journey, owing to his taking the tracks of
+sledges and barking of dogs as indicating the presence,
+not of M'Clure as it did, but of Eskimos, with whom,
+being without weapons, he was unable to cope.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Released on the 5th of August, the <em>Enterprise</em> proceeded
+to sea, coasting along past Rae's farthest and
+Cape Baring, and so, where no ship had been, through
+Coronation Gulf to Cambridge Bay. Here the winter
+of 1852-3 was spent, and hence the sledges went up
+Victoria Strait. At Finlayson Islands, what seemed
+to be a piece of a companion-door was found among
+the driftwood, which might have been a relic of the
+lost ships; but that was all. During the return along
+the northern coast the <em>Enterprise</em> was beset in Camden
+Bay, and here the third winter was passed, release not
+coming until the end of the following July, and Bering
+Strait not being reached until the 21st of August after
+a voyage, like that of the <em>Vega</em>, too well managed to
+yield much adventure. Like all the other Arctic
+voyages of this period, it failed in the one object it
+was undertaken to achieve; but in days to come the
+first ship to sail the passage from the Atlantic to the
+Pacific was to follow Collinson from Cambridge Bay
+along the route laboriously completed by the surveyors
+of the mainland from James Cook to Dease and
+Simpson.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>M'Clure claimed and—to have done with the matter—obtained
+the reward of £10,000 for discovering the
+North-West Passage through Prince of Wales Strait,
+though he sailed only half-way up it and, in attempting
+to get round to Parry's farthest, lost his ship and
+started sledging on the west side of the pack; while
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>Collinson took his ship much nearer to Parry's course
+on the east side; and Franklin, by linking up with
+Dease and Simpson over the ice by way of Victoria
+Strait, had previously found another of the possible
+passages, as shown by Collinson's voyage to Cambridge
+Bay. But surely what was done by M'Clure, and by
+Collinson in his northerly cruise, was to see where ships
+could pass when there was no ice in the way, which
+was no more than had been done by Parry, who had
+taken his ship within sight of both their farthest, and
+would have sailed into the Beaufort Sea had not the
+pack forbidden it. It was Parry, in fact, who discovered
+the main road, the route by Prince of Wales
+Strait, like that by Peel Sound taken by Franklin and
+successfully accomplished by Amundsen, being only
+one of the many by-roads leading off along his course.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>His famous voyage to Melville Island was due to the
+influence of Sir John Barrow. Barrow, to whom more
+than any other man this country owes its position in
+Arctic story, was born in a small thatched cottage at
+Dragley Beck, near Ulverston, in North Lancashire, in
+1764, and, in a remarkable course of promotion by
+merit, became second secretary of the Admiralty for
+forty years under twelve or thirteen different naval
+administrations, Whig and Tory; being so unmistakably
+the right man in the right place that he was only dispensed
+with once—on a change of First Lords—and
+then was reinstated the next year. When he was
+seventeen he was given the opportunity of a voyage
+in a Greenland whaler, which he accepted, and that
+was his only Arctic experience; but even when with
+Macartney in China and South Africa, he kept up
+his interest in the north, and in 1817, when at the
+Admiralty, proposed to Lord Melville his plan for two
+voyages of discovery, one to the north and the other
+to the north-west, which opened the new era of Polar
+exploration.</p>
+
+<div id='pg178'  class='figcenter id020'>
+<img src='images/i_265.jpg' alt='Yours very truly John Barrow' class='ig001' />
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>The voyage to the north was that of Buchan and
+Franklin in the <em>Dorothea</em> and <em>Trent</em>; that to the north-west
+was undertaken by John Ross in the <em>Isabella</em> and
+William Edward Parry in the <em>Alexander</em>. Of this we
+need only say here that on their return from the north
+of Baffin Bay, Ross and Parry coasted down the west
+side and sailed into Lancaster Sound for a considerable
+distance until Ross—who seems to have had the
+mountain-finding eye and an unenviable gift for missing
+straits—declared that it ended in a range of mountains
+which he appropriately named Croker's; and, that
+there should be no mistake about them, he gave a very
+pretty picture of them as a full-page plate in his book.
+Parry, however, saw no mountains and took the liberty
+of saying so to Barrow when he reported himself at the
+Admiralty, the result being the despatch of Parry's
+expedition in the <em>Hecla</em> and <em>Griper</em> which left Yarmouth
+on the 12th of May, 1819, and, for the first time
+after leaving the coast of Norfolk, dropped anchor in
+the bay named after them in Melville Island, on the 5th
+of September.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Parry, before his voyage in the <em>Alexander</em>, had had
+Arctic experience while lieutenant of the <em>Alexandria</em>
+frigate engaged in protecting the Spitsbergen
+whale fisheries, and knew thoroughly what he was
+about. For instance, he worked his crews in three
+watches, and had both his vessels rigged as barques
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>as the most convenient rig among ice, though the
+<em>Griper</em>, a strong, slow gunboat, was rather too small to
+be so treated, being only about half the tonnage of the
+<em>Hecla</em>, whose measurement was under four hundred.
+Had she been a little speedier more work might have
+been done; but what was done was magnificent.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Entering Lancaster Sound, Parry found a strait not
+blocked by mountains but thirty miles broad leading
+into a region up to then unknown, except—so it is said—to
+the Norsemen. On the 12th of August Prince
+Regent Inlet was discovered and named, it being
+George IV's birthday. Then North Somerset was
+sighted and the course laid across Barrow Strait to
+North Devon and its south-western peninsula known
+as Beechey Island; then Wellington Channel was descried,
+and then Cornwallis Island. Griffith Island was
+discovered on the 23rd of August, Bathurst Island on
+the 25th, Byam Martin Island on the 27th, where
+Sabine, the astronomer of the expedition, found they
+had passed north of the magnetic north pole. Then
+the south side of Melville Island was coasted along,
+Dealy Island being found on the 4th of September at
+noon, and, at a quarter past nine at night, just after
+passing Bounty Cape (named in honour of the event),
+the <em>Hecla</em> crossed the 110th meridian west, and
+became entitled to the Government grant of £5000 for
+doing so—which Parry shared between the ships.</p>
+
+<div id='pg180'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_269.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>H.M.S. "HECLA" AND "GRIPER" IN WINTER HARBOUR</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>Soon the ice became difficult and the ships had to
+anchor, but, the conditions improving, the westerly
+voyage was resumed. Cape Providence was passed and
+Cape Hay sighted, but the ships could get no further
+than about half-way between these capes, and they had
+to return to Winter Harbour, where, on the 26th of
+September, they were warped to their quarters through
+a channel cut in the ice. The <em>Hecla</em>, sending down all
+her upper masts except the main topmast, and the
+<em>Griper</em>, housing her fore and main topmasts, used the
+spars to support a roof which completely enclosed their
+upper decks and made them both snug for the winter,
+which did not seem so long owing to the efforts of the
+officers to keep every one amused and on the move.
+Parry, a host in himself, was well seconded by his
+lieutenant, Beechey, late of the <em>Trent</em>, James Clark
+Ross, one of his midshipmen, Captain Sabine, and
+Lieutenant Liddon, the commander of the <em>Griper</em>, who
+was almost disabled with rheumatism, and Lieutenant
+Hoppner, also of the <em>Griper</em>. A couple of books of
+plays on board proved a real treasure; owing to them
+the Royal Arctic Theatre was started, the pioneer of so
+many amateur theatrical ventures in the Polar seas,
+and the <em>North Georgia Gazette</em> and <em>Winter Chronicle</em>
+came into existence, the first of ship newspapers. On
+Christmas Day there was a dinner of roast beef which
+had been on board since May, the condition of
+which, as Parry said, was an excellent testimony to the
+antiseptic properties of a cold atmosphere; and the
+food generally was good and abundant, and the management
+and supplies far better than on many subsequent
+expeditions. In the spring, game was found in fair
+quantity, nearly four thousand pounds of musk ox,
+deer, hares, geese, ducks, and ptarmigan being brought
+on board.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In May the vessels were afloat again, though ice-bound,
+and, in June, walking, not sledging, journeys
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>were organised, the furthest points reached being Cape
+Fisher to the north and Cape Hoppner to the west.
+On the 1st of August the vessels moved out of the
+bay to the westward, and six days afterwards Beechey
+called attention to the land with the three capes already
+mentioned. "The land," says Parry, "which extends
+beyond the 117th degree of west longitude, and is the
+most western yet discovered in the Polar Sea to the
+north of the American continent, was honoured with
+the name of Banks Land out of respect to the late
+venerable and worthy President of the Royal Society."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 16th Cape Dundas was named, but progress
+was impossible. For a week Parry made every endeavour
+to pass, but the floes, forty to fifty feet thick,
+heaped up by the tides from the east and the west so
+as to form a wide-stretching landscape of hill and dale,
+barred the way right across Banks Strait; and no
+further west could be attained than 113° 46´ 43·5˝, in
+latitude 74° 26´ 25˝. Thence Parry returned, hoping
+to get through on another voyage, and bidding farewell
+to the North Georgian Islands, as he called them, or
+the Parry Islands, as we now know them, he came
+home by the way he went out, through Lancaster
+Sound. Needless to say, the very next season the
+whalers followed on Parry's track, and Lancaster
+Sound became the highway to a very profitable fishing-ground.</p>
+
+<div id='pg182'  class='figcenter id021'>
+<a href='images/i_273.jpg'><img src='images/i_273_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>PARRY'S DISCOVERIES ON HIS FIRST VOYAGE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>Among the Parry Islands in 1851 were several
+vessels in search of Franklin. Sir John Ross, aged
+seventy-four, was there in the schooner-yacht <em>Felix</em> on
+a private expedition chiefly memorable for the story
+of his having sent off a carrier pigeon from his winter
+quarters at Cornwallis Island, which reached his home—North-West
+Castle, Stranraer, Wigtownshire—three
+thousand miles away, in five days. Lady Franklin's
+vessel, the <em>Prince Albert</em>, was there, with Captain
+Forsyth and Parker Snow on board, an old fruit
+schooner, and therefore the speediest sailing-craft
+among the crowd. The Grinnell expedition of the
+two American brigs, <em>Advance</em> and <em>Racer</em>, under De
+Haven, was also there, to drift afterwards up Wellington
+Channel and down again back into Baffin Bay;
+as was a British Government expedition of the two
+whaling brigs, <em>Lady Franklin</em> and <em>Sophia</em>, under Captain
+William Penny, who was to discover the sea open north
+of Wellington Channel. In addition to these was the
+British squadron under Captain Horatio Austin in
+H.M.S. <em>Resolute</em>, with H.M.S. <em>Assistance</em>, Captain
+Erasmus Ommanney, and the old Cattle Conveyance
+Company's boats known as H.M.S. <em>Intrepid</em>, Lieutenant
+Cator, and H.M.S. <em>Pioneer</em>, Lieutenant Sherard Osborn,
+these two being screw steamers used as tenders, which
+proved of great value as tugs and ice-breakers.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 23rd of August Captain Ommanney found
+Franklin's winter quarters on Beechey Island, and four
+days afterwards Captain Penny came upon the gravestones
+marking where the three men, two of the
+<em>Erebus</em> and one of the <em>Terror</em>, had been buried in
+1846, though nothing was discoverable of the route
+intended to be taken by the ships. The news was
+important, and the <em>Prince Albert</em>, acting as despatch
+vessel, was immediately sent home with it, to return
+next year with Kennedy and Bellot to make a discovery
+of her own. Soon Captain Austin's four ships
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>departed, also to return in the following year, Sir
+Edward Belcher, in the <em>Assistance</em>, being then in command,
+Kellett being in the <em>Resolute</em>, M'Clintock in the
+<em>Intrepid</em>, and Sherard Osborn again in the <em>Pioneer</em>.
+Belcher's attempt ended in his abandoning his vessels
+in the ice; one of them, the <em>Resolute</em>, as though in
+mute protest, drifting from 74° 41´ for a thousand
+miles, to be picked up by Buddington off Cape Dyer
+in Baffin Bay, bought from him by the American
+Government and presented to Great Britain, refitted
+as she used to be, as a much-appreciated token of goodwill.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The great feature of these years was the wonderful
+sledge work; by it mainly the northern coasts of the
+islands discovered by Parry were surveyed and other
+islands added to the archipelago, including the westernmost,
+Prince Patrick, named after the Duke of Connaught,
+who was at first known as Prince Patrick instead
+of Prince Arthur. The sledges fitted out by Austin
+traversed 1500 miles of coast-line, 850 of which were new,
+the routes radiating between Osborn's 72° 18´ and Bradford's
+76° 25´, M'Clintock going farthest, 760 miles, to
+114° 20´ in 74° 38´. Those next year from Kellett at
+Dealy Island covered 8558 miles, radiating from Pim's
+74° 6´ (to rescue M'Clure) to M'Clintock's 77° 23´, a
+run to 118° 20´ and back of 1401 miles, while Mecham
+reached 120° 30´ on a trip of 1163 miles; and Belcher
+from his winter quarters in Northumberland Sound, in
+76° 52´, aided by Richards and Osborn, was almost as
+busy further north.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Thus practically the whole belt of land and sea
+westward between and including Lancaster Sound and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>Jones Sound as far as 120° was searched and mapped,
+the most northerly of the Parry Islands known up to
+then being Finlay Island, North Cornwall, and Graham
+Island. But in 1898 Captain Otto Sverdrup went up
+Smith Sound in his old ship the <em>Fram</em> on an endeavour
+to sail round the north coast of Greenland from west
+to east. He had to winter in Rice Strait, near Pim
+Island, and finding, to put it sportingly, that he was
+to a certain extent trespassing on Peary's preserves,
+decided to devote his attention to the unknown region
+approachable through Jones Sound. In 1899, therefore,
+he took the <em>Fram</em> up the sound, and, failing
+to pass through Cardigan Strait, spent the three
+following years among the fiords at the north-western
+end.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>From here he sent his sledge and ski parties far and
+wide, west and south and north over an approximate
+area of a hundred thousand square miles. Long
+stretches of coast-fine were explored and named, in a
+few cases unnecessarily, though, strange to say, the
+unnecessary names were all royal ones, King Oscar
+Land being the west of Ellesmere Land, Crown Prince
+Gustav Sea and Prince Gustav Adolf Sea being the
+Polar Ocean, and King Christian Land being simply
+Finlay Island. Separated from Finlay Island by
+Danish Sound and from North Cornwall by Hendriksen
+Sound, he found two large islands, which—just as
+John Ross named Boothia after his principal patron,
+the distiller—Sverdrup named Ellef Ringnes and
+Amund Ringnes after two of his supporters, the
+brewers; his other discovery, Axel Heiberg Land—which
+seems to be Peary's Jesup Land sighted in 1898—to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>the west and north-west of these, being so called
+after his other munificent patron.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>His farthest south was Beechey Island, his farthest
+west Cape Isachsen in Ellef Ringnes Land, his farthest
+north Lands Lokk in Grant Land, in latitude 81° 40´
+and longitude about 92°, within sixty miles of Aldrich's
+farthest along the north-eastern coast, the gap afterwards
+traversed by Peary. Within these limits the
+amount of coast detail filled in was remarkable.
+Owing to the favourable condition of the ice and the
+excellent management in all ways, the sledges frequently
+did their fifteen miles and more a day. Though
+the expedition lost its doctor during the first winter,
+there was little trouble as regards health; and game
+was in plenty right up to the far north where Hare
+Fiord tells of hares in hundreds.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>With hunting episodes the story is pleasantly varied,
+one in particular being so graphically described by
+Sverdrup that as a sample we may be forgiven a rather
+long quotation. "The bear," says Sverdrup, "was
+determined to go up a difficult stony valley a little
+north of our tent, and, try as the dogs would to
+prevent it, up the valley it went. Schei and I ran full
+speed northward along the ice-foot, and soon heard
+that the dogs had brought it to bay. We made a short
+cut across some hills of grit, and, when we reached
+the top of one of them, saw the bear on the other side
+of the valley, sitting on a hill-top, which fell almost
+sheer away. But on the north side it was accessible,
+and here it was probably that the bear had climbed it.
+There sat the king of the icefields enthroned on a kind
+of pedestal, and the whole staff of yelping dogs standing
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>at a respectful distance. I tried a couple of shots,
+but overrated the distance, and the bullets went over
+the bear's head. I then told Schei to go and shoot it
+whilst I looked on at the further development of the
+drama. The bear's position was a first-rate one. It
+had taken its stand on a little plateau high up on a
+mountain crag; this little ledge was reached by a
+bridge not more than a good yard in width, and there
+stood the bear, like Sven Dufva, ready with his sledgehammer
+to fell the first being that should venture
+across. His majesty was not visible to Schei until he
+came within a few feet of him, but then it was not
+long before a shot was heard. The bear sank together,
+and a few seconds afterwards all the dogs had
+thrown themselves on to it. They tugged and pulled
+at the bear's coat, tearing tufts of hair out of it, and
+before we knew what they were doing, had dragged
+the body to the edge of the plateau, where it shot out
+over the precipice. The dogs stood amazed, gazing
+down into the depths where the bear was falling swiftly
+through the air—but not alone, for on it as large as
+life were two dogs which had clung so fast to its hair,
+that they now stood planted head to head, and bit
+themselves still faster to it in order to keep their
+balance. I was breathless as I watched this unexpected
+journey through the air. The next moment the bear
+in its perpendicular fall would reach the projecting
+point of rock, and my poor dogs!—it was a cruel
+revenge the bear was taking on them. I should now
+have only three dogs left in my team. The bear's
+body dashed violently against the rock, turned a
+somersault out from the mountain wall and fell still
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>further, until, after falling a height of altogether at
+least a hundred feet, it reached the slopes by the river,
+and was shot by the impetus right across the river-ice
+and a good way up the other side. And the dogs?
+When the bear dashed against the mountain they
+sprang up like rubber balls, described a large curve,
+and with stiffened legs continued the journey on their
+own account, falling with a loud thud on to the hardly
+packed snow at the bottom of the valley. But they
+were on their legs again in a moment, and set off as
+fast as they could go across the river after the bear.
+Not many minutes afterwards the whole pack came
+running up, but when they were driven away from the
+carcase, they lay down again to await their turn. I
+hurried back to camp to fetch the dog harness; we
+put a lanyard through the nose of the mighty fallen,
+and set off. The dogs knew well enough that this
+meant food for them, and the nearer we came to camp
+the harder they pulled. In fact, I had to sit on the
+carcase to keep them back, and, jolting backwards and
+forwards, on this new kind of conveyance I made my
+entrance into camp, in the light spring night." But
+bears were few, compared with the musk oxen, which,
+with the reindeer and hares, and with the wolves and
+foxes, and stoats and lemmings, seals and walruses,
+narwhals and white whales, represented the Arctic
+mammalia.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The most singular experience met with was perhaps
+the sledge journey through the ice tunnel on the return
+across the Simmons Peninsula in 1900. Descending a
+valley which became narrower and narrower Sverdrup
+and Fosheim began to think it was going to end in a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>canyon, but without any warning they were stopped by
+a high wall of ice, perpendicular and inaccessible to any
+one without wings. Looking about, Sverdrup found a
+large hole which proved to be the beginning of a tunnel
+through the glacier. Through this lofty vault they
+sped. From the roof hung threateningly above their
+heads gigantic blocks of ice, seamed and cleft and
+glittering sinisterly; and all around were icicles like
+steel-bright spears and lances piercing downwards on
+them. Along the walls were caves after caves, with
+pillars in rows like giants in rank; and over all shone a
+ghostly whitish light which became bluish as they went.
+"I dared not speak," says Sverdrup. "It seemed to me
+that in doing so I should be committing a deed of desecration;
+I felt like one who has impiously broken into
+something sacred which Nature had wished to keep
+closed to every mortal eye. I felt mean and contemptible
+as I drove through all this purity. The
+sledges jolted from block to block, awakening thunderous
+echoes in their passage: and it seemed as if all the
+spirits of the ice had been aroused and called to arms
+against the intruders on their church-like peace."</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER X<br /> BOOTHIA</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>Christopher Middleton—Wager River—Repulse Bay—Parry's second north-west
+voyage—Melville Peninsula—Fury and Hecla Strait—John Ross's
+second Arctic voyage—Introduces steam navigation into the Arctic regions—The
+whaler <em>John</em>—Ross misses the North-West Passage—Snow houses—Eskimo
+geographers—James Clark Ross finds the Magnetic North Pole—Lyon
+in the <em>Griper</em>—Back in the <em>Terror</em>—Rae's journey round Committee
+Bay—Sir John Franklin's last voyage—Kennedy and Bellot—Discovery
+of Bellot Strait—Rae's journey in 1854—His Franklin discoveries—M'Clintock's
+voyage in the <em>Fox</em>—Lady Franklin's instructions—Captain
+Charles Hall—Frederick Schwatka—Amundsen accomplishes the North-West
+Passage.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>In July, 1742, Christopher Middleton, working
+northwards in Hudson Bay from Fort Churchill,
+made his way up Rowe's Welcome and entered a deep
+inlet apparently leading to the South Sea. Middleton—who
+gained his Fellowship of the Royal Society for
+his variation observations at Fort Churchill, and was
+the first to practise the modern method of finding
+longitude by eight or ten different altitudes of the sun
+or stars when near the prime vertical—spent eighteen
+days in the inlet observing the tides, and then came to
+the conclusion that it was an estuary; and he named
+it Wager River after Sir Charles Wager, who was First
+Lord of the Admiralty when he began his voyage.
+Proceeding north, he reached his Repulse Bay, and at
+the north-east end of it saw Frozen Strait, as he called
+it, stretching away along the north of Southampton
+Island towards Cape Comfort. Here, also from tidal
+observations, he satisfied himself that Repulse Bay
+afforded no passage to the westward and that Frozen
+Strait led into Fox Channel.</p>
+
+<div id='pg190'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_283.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>AN IGLOOLIK ESKIMO CARRYING HIS KAYAK</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>His opinions were disputed by those who only knew
+the coast from his chart, and two vessels were sent out
+to prove he was wrong. The reports of the captains
+of these—there is no need to mention their names—were
+embarrassing. Neither had been to Repulse Bay,
+but both had been to Wager River, and they agreed
+that it was unmistakably a river and not a strait; but
+in every other respect, even in naming the places they
+had seen, they were at variance. Thus the matter was
+left in sufficient doubt to encourage some people in
+believing in a north-west passage through Repulse Bay,
+just at the Arctic Circle, and to seek this, Parry, on
+his return from Melville Island, was despatched on his
+second voyage.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>This time the <em>Hecla</em> was commanded by George
+Francis Lyon—the North African traveller—Parry
+being in the <em>Fury</em>, a sister ship; both vessels, at Parry's
+suggestion, being exactly alike so that their gear and
+fittings were interchangeable. They sailed from the
+Little Nore on the 8th of May, 1821, and going direct
+up Frozen Strait, with much trouble from the ice, ran
+into Repulse Bay on the 22nd of August. Here after
+a careful examination it was ascertained beyond a doubt
+that no passage existed through to the westward.
+"Thus," says Lyon, "the veracity of poor Middleton,
+as far as regards this bay at least, was now at length
+established; and in looking down the strait we had
+passed, he was fully justified in calling it a frozen strait.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>We were now indisputably on our scene of future
+action, the coast of America; and it only remained for
+us to follow minutely the line of shore in continuation
+from Repulse Bay."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>During a stay at Gore Bay red snow was brought off
+to the <em>Fury</em>, its colour being much fainter than that
+found in the <em>Isabella</em> voyage at Crimson Cliffs in
+Greenland; "the appearance of the mass was not unlike
+what is called raspberry ice, in a far better climate,
+where cold is made subservient to luxury." The colouring
+of this is due to one of the Algæ, <em>Protococcus
+nivalis</em>, and not as Peter Paterson said in 1671—ninety
+years before De Saussure—to the rocks being "full of
+white, red, and yellow veins, like marble; upon any
+alteration of the weather, these stones sweat, which,
+together with the rains, tinges the snow red." The
+day on which this snow was found, the 30th of August,
+was so warm that the party were glad to pull off their
+coats and waistcoats. "The valleys were fertile in
+grasses and moss; and the fineness of the weather had
+drawn forth a number of butterflies, spiders, and other
+insects, which would, by their gay colours and active
+motions, have almost deceived us into an idea that we
+were not in the Arctic regions, had not the Frozen
+Strait, filled with huge masses of moving ice, reminded
+us but too forcibly, that we were in the most dangerous
+of them."</p>
+
+<div id='pg192'  class='figcenter id021'>
+<a href='images/i_287.jpg'><img src='images/i_287_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>PARRY'S FARTHEST ON HIS THIRD VOYAGE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>Early in October the ships took up their quarters at
+Winter Island on the coast of Melville Peninsula in
+66° 32´, and there, during the cordial intercourse with
+the Eskimos, Parry heard of the way through further
+north which led him on his release in the following
+July to discover Fury and Hecla Strait, along which
+the ships passed to find their progress blocked by the
+ice just beyond its entrance into Regent Inlet. Returning
+through the strait, they reached the island of Igloolik
+at the eastern entrance, and there they passed the
+winter, Igloolik being an important Eskimo settlement,
+with four fixed places of residence on it, to which as the
+season changes the natives move in rotation. From
+this island, as the health of the men did not permit of
+his venturing to spend another winter in the ice, Parry
+retraced his route and returned to England.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The ships dropped anchor in the Thames on Trafalgar
+Day, 1823. Next year, on the 19th of May, they were
+off again to the north to seek a passage to the west
+down Prince Regent Inlet, Parry in the <em>Hecla</em>, Hoppner
+in the <em>Fury</em>. It was a bad season. The ships were
+late in leaving Baffin Bay and were hindered by new
+ice in Lancaster Sound. So far from reaching the
+strait discovered two years before, they could get no
+further south than Port Bowen, in 73° 12´, where they
+spent the winter in a singularly barren part of Cockburn
+Land. Starting in July they went down to Cresswell
+Bay, the ships being forced by the weather and the ice
+to work—as is not unusual under such circumstances—in
+almost every possible direction within every mile,
+their track—as shown in the illustration—being most
+complicated. The end of it all was that the <em>Fury</em> was
+wrecked and her stores carefully taken out and left, on
+what was named Fury Beach, for the use of future
+callers in want of them. And the <em>Hecla</em> came home
+alone.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Four years afterwards Captain John Ross, anxious
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>for further work in the north, started in search of the
+passage by the same route. After some years of effort
+he had succeeded in organising an expedition, the expenses
+of which to the amount of over £17,000 were
+borne by Felix Booth, with the exception of over £2000
+added by Ross himself. It was a memorable voyage
+in many respects, and for one thing in particular that
+is frequently passed unnoticed. This was the introduction
+of steam into Arctic navigation. The <em>Victory</em>
+was an old Isle of Man packet-boat of eighty-five tons,
+which, by raising her sides five feet, Ross increased
+to one hundred and fifty tons. Taking out her old
+paddles, he replaced them with a pair of Robertson's
+patents, hoistable out of water in a minute, so as to
+clear the ice. The engine was also a patent, by Braithwaite
+and Ericsson, who built the Novelty that appeared
+at Rainhill. But neither Braithwaite nor Ericsson was
+any happier in this production. Its great feature was
+the doing away with the funnel, no flue being required
+owing to the fires being kept going by artificial draught
+derived from two bellows of unequal sizes—"the bellows
+draught," in fact, like that of the Novelty which broke
+down in the great locomotive contest won by the
+Rocket. Had not Ross been a man of enterprise he
+would never have ventured to sea with such an experimental
+arrangement; but he did, and he suffered
+for it.</p>
+
+<div id='pg194'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_291.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE "VICTORY"</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>The "execrable machinery," as he inadequately
+called it, went wrong from the first. On the way from
+Galleons Reach to Woolwich, part of it became displaced,
+causing a delay for repairs. At Woolwich, Sir
+Byam Martin, the Comptroller of the Navy, and
+Sir John Franklin went on board and said uncomplimentary
+things about it, as also did the Duke of
+Orleans (afterwards King Louis Philippe) and the
+Duke of Chartres, though the Frenchmen were more
+gentle in their phrases. From Woolwich to Margate
+this remarkable engine, aided by the sails, took the
+<em>Victory</em> in just over twelve hours, the boiler leaking so
+much that the additional forcing pump had to be kept
+working by hand all the time. Passing the Lizard, the
+piston-rod was found to be so much worn on one side
+by friction against the guide-wheels that a piece of iron
+had to be brazed on to it. Then the keys of the main
+shaft broke and the substitutes made on board broke
+one after the other. "The boilers also continued to
+leak, though we had put dung and potatoes in them by
+Mr. Ericsson's directions." The air-pump drew quantities
+of water; the feeding pump was insufficient to
+supply the boiler. The big bellows nearly wore out;
+so did the small one. Off the Mull of Galloway the
+stoker fell into the machinery and had his arm crushed
+and nearly severed above the elbow. Then the teeth
+of the fly-wheel of the small bellows were shorn off,
+and the boiler joints gave way, and the water, or
+rather the potato soup, flowed out of the furnace
+doors and put out the fire.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Enough has been said to show the difficulties under
+which Ross first used steam on a voyage to the
+northern seas. The list of damages need not be continued.
+Every constituent part of the apparatus gave
+way in turn; and when the <em>Victory</em> became imprisoned
+for the winter, and the engineering staff had some time
+on their hands, they employed it in taking what was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>left of the installation, piece by piece, out of the ship,
+laying it on the ice, and leaving it there.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Ross was to be accompanied by the whaler <em>John</em>, but
+the men mutinied and refused to start, so that he went
+on from Loch Ryan alone. The following year the
+crew of the <em>John</em>, then on a whaling voyage in Baffin
+Bay, again mutinied, killed the master, put the mate
+adrift in a boat in the manner of Henry Hudson, and
+lost the ship on the western coast, where most of them
+were drowned.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>With the <em>Krusenstern</em>, a boat of eighteen tons, in
+tow, Ross crossed the Atlantic, sighting Sanderson's
+Hope on the 29th of July, having left Scotland six
+weeks before. Early in August he sailed through
+Lancaster Sound, and, taking the opportunity of
+removing his Croker's Mountains to the north-east
+corner of North Somerset, went down Prince Regent
+Inlet to Fury Beach. After completing his provisions
+for twenty-seven months from the stores left behind by
+Parry, he crossed Cresswell Bay, passed Cape Garry,
+Parry's farthest south, on the 15th of August, and
+next day, Sunday, "I went on shore," he says, "with
+all the officers, to take formal possession of the new-discovered
+land; and at one o'clock, being a few minutes
+after seven in London, the colours were displayed with
+the usual ceremony, and the health of the King drunk,
+together with that of the founder of our expedition,
+after whom the land was named."</p>
+
+<div id='pg196'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_295.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>NORTH HENDON</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>"From the highest part of this land, which was
+upwards of a hundred feet above the level of the sea,"
+he continues, "we had a good view of the bay and the
+adjoining shores, and had the satisfaction to find that
+the ice was in motion and fast clearing away. We
+therefore resolved to wait patiently till we could see
+an opening; and proceeded to the northern quarter of
+this spot to make some observations on the dip of the
+magnetic needle.... To this place I gave the name
+Brown Island, after the amiable sister of Mr. Booth;
+the inlet was named Brentford Bay, and the islands
+Grimble Islands." And in his book is a beautiful steel
+engraving by W. Chevalier, "Taking Possession.
+Cape Hussard, Grimble Isle, Brentford Bay, Brown's
+Island." In short, Ross found the place, landed
+on it, took possession of it, named it and sketched
+it. "The sketches from which the drawings were
+made were taken by Mr. Ronald's invaluable perspective
+instrument, and therefore <em>must</em> be true delineations."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>And Ross passed on, apparently quite pleased with
+himself. But the Fates had again been against him, for
+this was the very North-West Passage he had come
+specially to find; the bay, as Kennedy was to show,
+being the entrance to Bellot Strait in which the <em>Fox</em>
+was to winter when on the Franklin search. He had
+blundered along from the island of North Somerset to
+the mainland of America, and passed unheeded its
+northernmost point, which M'Clintock was to name
+Cape Murchison.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Working down the coast of the newly-named
+Boothia, the <em>Victory</em> reached Felix Harbour, and there
+she wintered. No Eskimos were seen until the 9th of
+January, when thirty-one came to the ship and were
+invited on board, a return visit being paid next day to
+their village, which Ross named North Hendon. As
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>this was a typical Eskimo snow camp we may as well
+copy his picture and quote his description.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"The village soon appeared, consisting of twelve
+snow huts, erected at the bottom of a little bight on
+the shore, about two miles and a half from the ship.
+They had the appearance of inverted basins, and were
+placed without any order; each of them having a long
+crooked appendage, in which was the passage, at the
+entrance of which were the women, with the female
+children and the infants. We were soon invited to
+visit these, for whom we had prepared presents of glass
+beads and needles; a distribution of which soon drove
+away the timidity which they had displayed at our first
+appearance. The passage, always long, and generally
+crooked, led to the principal apartment, which was a
+circular dome, being ten feet in diameter when intended
+for one family, and an oval of fifteen by ten where it
+lodged two. Opposite the doorway there was a bank
+of snow, occupying nearly a third of the breadth of the
+area, about two feet and a half high, level at the top,
+and covered by various skins, forming the general bed
+or sleeping place for the whole. At the end of this sat
+the mistress of the house, opposite to the lamp, which,
+being of moss and oil, as is the universal custom in
+these regions, gave a sufficient flame to supply both
+light and heat; so that the apartment was perfectly
+comfortable. Over the lamp was the cooking dish of
+stone, containing the flesh of deer and of seals, with
+oil; and of such provision there seemed no want.
+Everything else, dresses, implements, as well as provisions,
+lay about in unspeakable confusion, showing
+that order, at least, was not in the class of their virtues.
+It was much more interesting to us to find, that among
+this disorder there were some fresh salmon; since, when
+they could find this fish, we were sure that it would also
+furnish us with supplies which we could not too much
+multiply. On inquiry, we were informed that they
+were abundant; and we had, therefore, the prospect of
+a new amusement, as well as of a valuable market at
+the mere price of our labour."</p>
+
+<div id='pg198'  class='figcenter id022'>
+<img src='images/i_299.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>ESKIMO LISTENING AT A SEAL-HOLE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>A few weeks later Ross was to see how these houses
+were built. "Four families," he says, "comprising
+fifteen persons, passed the ship to erect new huts about
+half a mile to the southward. They had four heavy-laden
+sledges, drawn each by two or three dogs, but
+proceeded very slowly. We went after them to see
+the process of building the snow house, and were surprised
+at their dexterity; one man having closed in his
+roof within forty-five minutes. A tent is scarcely
+pitched sooner than a house is here built. The whole
+process is worth describing. Having ascertained, by
+the rod used in examining seal holes, whether the snow
+is sufficiently deep and solid, they level the intended
+spot by a wooden shovel, leaving beneath a solid mass
+of snow not less than three feet thick. Commencing
+then in the centre of the intended circle, which is ten
+feet or more in diameter, different wedge-shaped blocks
+are cut out, about two feet long, and a foot thick at the
+outer part; then trimming them accurately by the
+knife, they proceed upwards until the courses, gradually
+inclining inwards, terminate in a perfect dome. The
+door being cut out from the inside before it is quite
+closed serves to supply the upper materials. In the
+meantime the women are employed in stuffing the joints
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>with snow, and the boys in constructing kennels for the
+dogs. The laying the snow sofa with skins and the insertion
+of the ice window complete the work; the
+passage only remaining to be added, as it is after the
+house is finished, together with some smaller huts for
+stores"—the design being similar to that of the yurts
+of the Eskimos of the north, with a change of material,
+snow for stone, and ice instead of seal-gut for the window
+over the entrance.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Making friends with the Eskimos, and gaining a
+great reputation by the carpenter fitting one of them
+with a wooden leg, Ross obtained much valuable information
+from them, particularly as to the geography
+of the district. Like all Arctic men, he was impressed
+by their quickness in understanding maps and their
+skill in drawing them upon anything, snow, paper, or
+otherwise, that lay handy. One of them, Ikmallik,
+drew in the ship's cabin a map, which he reprints in his
+book, showing the coast-line of the country south of
+the <em>Victory's</em> quarters, with the capes, inlets, and islands,
+giving the isthmus of Boothia and Committee Bay, and
+Repulse Bay on the other side of the Melville Peninsula,
+which is really wonderful, for neither the Eskimo, nor
+Ross, had anything to copy from, it being nearly twenty
+years before Rae's exploration; and the one thing it
+clearly demonstrated was that there was no waterway
+to the westward, south of Felix Harbour.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Ross owed much to Ikmallik, and really a good deal
+of the time of the expedition was spent in confirming
+the statements of that well-informed man. The west
+coast of Boothia was surveyed down to Bulow Bay;
+the east side from Cape Nicholas down to Cape Porter,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>including the crossing of the upper part of James Ross
+Strait, the discovery of Matty Island and the north-east
+coast of King William Land from Cape Landon,
+opposite Cape Porter—where Ross, as usual, missed a
+strait—westward to capes Franklin and Jane Franklin,
+within sight of which in the days that were coming,
+by one of those remarkable coincidences so frequent in
+the north, the <em>Erebus</em> and <em>Terror</em> were to meet their
+fate.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The one conspicuous triumph of the expedition was
+the journey of James Ross to the site of the Magnetic
+North Pole, which he found on the western coast of
+Boothia on the 1st of June, 1831. In the younger
+Ross's own words, "the land at this place is very low
+near the coast, but it rises into ridges of fifty or sixty
+feet high about a mile inland. We could have wished
+that a place so important had possessed more of mark
+or note. It was scarcely censurable to regret that there
+was not a mountain to indicate a spot to which so
+much of interest must ever be attached; and I could
+even have pardoned any one among us who had been
+so romantic or absurd as to expect that the magnetic
+pole was an object as conspicuous and mysterious as
+the fabled mountain of Sinbad, that it even was a
+mountain of iron, or a magnet as large as Mont Blanc.
+But Nature had here erected no monument to denote
+the spot which she had chosen as the centre of one of
+her great and dark powers; and where we could do
+little ourselves towards this end, it was our business to
+submit, and to be content in noting by mathematical
+numbers and signs, as with things of far more importance
+in the terrestrial system, what we could but ill
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>distinguish in any other manner.... We fixed the
+British flag on the spot and took possession of the
+North Magnetic Pole and its adjoining territory in
+the name of Great Britain and King William the
+Fourth. We had abundance of materials for building,
+in the fragments of limestone that covered the beach;
+and we therefore erected a cairn of some magnitude,
+under which we buried a canister containing a record
+of the interesting fact; only regretting that we had not
+the means of constructing a pyramid of more importance
+and of strength sufficient to withstand the assaults
+of time and of the Eskimos. Had it been a pyramid
+as large as that of Cheops, I am not quite sure that it
+would have done more than satisfy our ambition, under
+the feelings of that exciting day. The latitude of this
+spot is 70° 5´ 17˝, and its longitude 96° 46´ 45˝ west."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The <em>Victory</em> in the short summer of 1830 sailed a few
+miles further south and spent the winter in Victoria
+Harbour, to be there abandoned in May, 1832. Ross
+in his boats made for Fury Beach, where, at Somerset
+House, as he called it, he passed the following winter.
+On the 26th of August, 1833, when in his boats off the
+eastern mouth of Lancaster Sound, he was picked up
+by the <em>Isabella</em>, his old ship, and in her he reached the
+Humber in October of that year after four successive
+winters in the ice, having been enabled to make so long
+a stay by his fortunate find of the stores left by Parry.</p>
+
+<div id='pg202'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_305.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>H.M.S. "TERROR" LIFTED BY ICE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>In 1824 Captain Lyon was sent out in the <em>Griper</em> to
+winter at Repulse Bay, and thence crossing the isthmus
+described by the Eskimos continue along to Franklin's
+Point Turnagain; but the <em>Griper</em> was nearly wrecked
+in Rowe's Welcome and did not reach Wager River.
+The discoveries of Ross led to the renewal of this
+attempt by Captain Back in the <em>Terror</em> in 1836. He
+was to go to Wager River or Repulse Bay, and then
+make his way into Prince Regent Inlet, and so west;
+but he became imprisoned in the ice off Cape Comfort
+during one of the severest winters known. Drifting up
+Frozen Strait amid most perilous experiences, the ship,
+lifted high above sea-level by pressure, lay at times
+almost horizontal. Once "they beheld," he says, "the
+strange and appalling spectacle of what may be fitly
+termed a submerged berg, fixed low down, with one
+end to the ship's side, while the other, with the purchase
+of a long lever advantageously placed at a right angle
+with the keel, was slowly rising towards the surface.
+Meanwhile, those who happened to be below, finding
+everything falling, rushed or clambered on deck, where
+they saw the ship on her beam-ends, with the lee boats
+touching the water, and felt that a few moments only
+trembled between them and eternity."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Day after day the <em>Terror</em> defied the persistent effort
+of the ice to smash her, but suffering much in almost
+every timber she withstood it sufficiently to keep
+together. For four months she was entirely out of
+water, and when at last she was free, Back wrapped
+her up as best he could, and brought her home with
+the water pouring into her so that the men were so
+wearied out that they could hardly have continued at
+the pumps another day; and he ran her ashore in
+Lough Swilly only just in time. Upwards of twenty
+feet of her keel, together with ten feet of the stern-post,
+were driven over more than three and a half feet on
+one side, leaving a frightful opening astern for the free
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>ingress of water. The forefoot was entirely gone;
+numbers of bolts were either loosened or broken; and
+when, besides this, the strained and twisted state of the
+ship's frame was considered, there was not one on board
+who did not express astonishment that they had ever
+floated across the Atlantic.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The next attempt to complete the coast of the
+American mainland was made from the land, and at
+the cost of the Hudson's Bay Company. Really it was
+the expedition proposed by Simpson some five years
+before, of which he would have been the leader had he
+not been shot; and it was entrusted to the capable
+hands of Dr. John Rae.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>After wintering at York Factory, Rae reached
+Repulse Bay with two boats, the <em>Magnet</em> and <em>North
+Pole</em>, on the 25th of July, 1846, and in his usual style
+started immediately across the chain of lakes and
+portages which make up the isthmus that now bears
+his name, launching his boats in the tidal water of
+Committee Bay on the 1st of August. Stopped by
+ice on the west side and then on the east he returned
+to Repulse Bay, where he built Fort Hope of stones
+and roofed it with sails, and lived in it through the
+winter on what he could shoot and catch, for many
+weeks venturing on only one meal a day. Outside the
+men kept themselves warm chiefly by building snow
+houses and playing football; inside, as the only fuel
+used was for cooking, the only thing they could do was
+to wrap themselves in furs, and trust to their natural
+heat in a temperature that ranged about zero.</p>
+
+<div id='pg204'  class='figcenter id023'>
+<img src='images/i_309.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>FRACTURED STERN-POST OF H.M.S. "TERROR"</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>In April, with a couple of sledges, eight dogs, and
+five men, he crossed the isthmus again and went straightaway
+up the east side of Boothia to Ross's farthest
+south, thus completing that coast-line. Back he went
+to Fort Hope after a trip of nearly six hundred miles,
+to start again on the 12th of May up the west coast of
+the Melville Peninsula to Cape Ellice, which Parry had
+sighted from the strait on that side. And he was back
+once more at Fort Hope on the 9th of June. Thus
+the survey of the northern coast was complete with
+the exception of the gap between the Boothia isthmus,
+on the west side, and Castor and Pollux River of Dease
+and Simpson, which Rae in another famous effort from
+Repulse Bay was to link up later on.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>When Rae reached Lord Mayor's Bay on the east
+coast of Boothia, Franklin, with the <em>Erebus</em> and
+<em>Terror</em>, was off its west coast in the same latitude.
+This was the reappearance of the <em>Terror</em> in the north.
+After Back's voyage she had been repaired to sail with
+the <em>Erebus</em>, under Sir James Clark Ross, when he discovered
+the South Magnetic Pole; and on their return
+the barques had been thoroughly overhauled and fitted
+with auxiliary screws, the first time that the screw
+propeller was used in Arctic work. Franklin was in the
+<em>Erebus</em>, the <em>Terror</em> being commanded by Francis R. M.
+Crozier as she had been in the Antarctic voyage.
+Crozier was one of Parry's men, he having been in the
+<em>Fury</em> in 1821 and in the <em>Hecla</em> on her two subsequent
+expeditions.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The ships left England on the 19th of May, 1845,
+and were last seen and spoken with on the 26th of
+July in Melville Bay on their way to Lancaster Sound.
+According to information gained during the long series
+of searches, they passed through the sound and went
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>north for about a hundred and fifty miles, to 77°, up
+Wellington Channel into Penny Strait—the first time
+the passage had been made. Returning down the west
+side of Cornwallis Island, discovering the strait between
+it and Bathurst Island, they wintered at Beechey Island,
+where three of the men died and were buried; and where
+the most significant relic was about seven hundred tins
+of preserved meat that seemed to have been condemned
+as bad, just as the stock of similar stuff had in the
+same year been condemned and thrown overboard at
+Portsmouth.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Leaving Beechey Island in 1846, they went south
+down Peel Sound, being the first to pass through it,
+and Franklin Strait—another new discovery—to within
+twelve miles of Cape Felix in King William Land,
+where, on the 12th of September, they were beset
+about half-way between Cape Adelaide in Boothia and
+Pelly Point in Victoria Land. Hereabouts the second
+winter was passed, and on the 24th of May a party
+under Lieutenant Gore crossed the ice to Point Victory,
+probably on a journey to examine the unknown coast
+between there and Cape Herschel. On the 11th of June,
+1847, Sir John Franklin died. The ships drifted a short
+distance during their imprisonment in the ice, and the
+third winter was passed some twenty miles further south
+down Victoria Strait, where, on the 22nd of April, 1848,
+when fifteen miles north-north-west of Point Victory,
+they were abandoned, and the officers and crews, a
+hundred and five in all, under Crozier's command, started
+for Back's Great Fish River, some of them completing
+the first North-West Passage in crossing Simpson Strait
+and reaching Montreal Island.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>The first undoubted traces of the lost expedition were
+those discovered at Beechey Island, the news reaching
+England in the <em>Prince Albert</em> in the autumn of 1850.
+As soon as the winter was over this excellent little
+schooner was again sent out by Lady Franklin under
+the command of Captain William Kennedy, who took
+with him as a volunteer Lieutenant Joseph René Bellot
+of the French navy, and also John Hepburn, who had
+been with Franklin on the land journey in 1819.
+Kennedy wintered at Batty Bay in North Somerset,
+and during a remarkable sledge journey, in which he
+made the circuit of the island, he and Bellot reached
+Brentford Bay, and, on the 21st of April, 1852, discovered
+the strait named after the gallant Frenchman.
+But he found no traces of the expedition through turning
+to the north and crossing to Prince of Wales Island,
+instead of going to the south at the western mouth of
+the strait. He had, however, discovered the termination
+of Boothia, the north point of the American continent
+which men had been seeking for three centuries.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>To the southern end of Boothia came the indefatigable
+Rae. That cheery hero of the north left
+Repulse Bay on the 31st of March, 1854, to complete
+the Hudson's Bay Company's survey. On the 20th of
+April he met a young Eskimo in Pelly Bay, who told
+him the fate of the <em>Erebus</em> and <em>Terror</em>, and from him
+and his people Rae obtained a number of small articles,
+forks and spoons and so forth, which had undoubtedly
+come from the ships, one of which had been crushed in
+the ice, the other sinking after drifting further south.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Rae was not the man to return until he had attacked
+the work he had set out to do, and he continued his
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>surveying with his customary accuracy, despatch, and
+general alertness, striking across the peninsula, discovering
+the Murchison River, reaching Simpson's
+farthest at Castor and Pollux River, and thence proving
+the insularity of King William Land by travelling up
+the east coast of the strait now named after him—and
+he was back again in August. He had almost finished
+the survey of the northern coast-line; and he had
+ascertained how and where Franklin's voyage had
+ended, for which discovery the British Government gave
+him the reward of £10,000, letting it be understood
+that so far as they were concerned the Franklin searches
+were at an end.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>But Lady Franklin thought one more effort should
+be made to unravel the mystery of her husband's fate,
+and there were many who thought the same. Helped
+to a certain extent by a public subscription, she organised
+another expedition. The steam-yacht <em>Fox</em> was
+bought from the executors of Sir Richard Sutton and
+altered for Arctic work by her builders, the Halls of
+Aberdeen clipper fame. As leader went Captain, afterwards
+Sir, Frederick Leopold M'Clintock, who had
+done such brilliant sledge-work in the north; like his
+second in command, Lieutenant W. R. Hobson, he
+gave his services gratuitously, as also did Dr. David
+Walker and Captain, afterwards Sir, Allen Young,
+then of the Mercantile Marine, who also subscribed
+£500 towards the fund. Carl Petersen, the Eskimo
+interpreter on the voyages of Penny and Kane, came
+to join from Copenhagen, having landed there from
+Greenland only six days previously. The British
+Government, although declining to send out an expedition,
+contributed liberally to the supplies, and sent on
+board all the arms and ammunition and ice-gear and
+every instrument that was asked for.</p>
+
+<div id='pg208'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_315.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE "FOX" ESCAPING FROM THE PACK</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>Lady Franklin's instructions were so characteristic of
+the noble-hearted woman whose name can never be forgotten
+in Arctic story that they must be given in full:—</p>
+
+<div class='c015'>"<span class='sc'>Aberdeen</span>, <em>June 29, 1857</em>.</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-l c016'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>"<span class='sc'>My dear Captain M'Clintock</span>,</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c017'>"You have kindly invited me to give you
+'Instructions,' but I cannot bring myself to feel that it
+would be right in me in any way to influence your judgment
+in the conduct of your noble undertaking; and
+indeed I have no temptation to do so, since it appears
+to me that your views are almost identical with those
+which I had independently formed before I had the
+advantage of being thoroughly possessed of yours.
+But had this been otherwise, I trust you would have
+found me ready to prove the implicit confidence I place
+in you by yielding my own views to your more enlightened
+judgment; knowing too as I do that your
+whole heart also is in the cause, even as my own is. As
+to the objects of the expedition and their relative importance,
+I am sure that you know that the rescue of
+any possible survivor of the <em>Erebus</em> and <em>Terror</em> would
+be to me, as it would be to you, the noblest result of
+our efforts.</p>
+
+<p class='c017'>"To this object I wish every other to be subordinate;
+and next to it in importance is the recovery of the unspeakably
+precious documents of the expedition, public
+and private, and the personal relics of my dear husband
+and his companions.</p>
+
+<p class='c017'>"And lastly, I trust it may be in your power to confirm,
+directly or inferentially, the claims of my
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>husband's expedition to the earliest discovery of the
+passage, which, if Dr. Rae's report be true (and the
+Government of our country has accepted and rewarded
+it as such), these martyrs in a noble cause achieved at
+their last extremity, after five long years of labour and
+suffering, if not at an earlier period.</p>
+
+<p class='c017'>"I am sure that you will do all that man can do for
+the attainment of all these objects; my only fear is
+that you may spend yourselves too much in the effort;
+and you must therefore let me tell you how much
+dearer to me even than any of them is the preservation
+of the valuable lives of the little band of heroes who
+are your companions and followers.</p>
+
+<p class='c017'>"May God in His great mercy preserve you all from
+harm amidst the labours and perils which await you,
+and restore you to us in health and safety as well as
+honour. As to the honour I can have <em>no</em> misgiving.
+It will be yours as much if you fail (since you <em>may</em> fail
+in spite of every effort) as if you succeed; and be
+assured that, under <em>any and all circumstances whatever</em>,
+such is my unbounded confidence in you, you will
+possess and be entitled to the enduring gratitude of
+your sincere and attached friend,</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c016'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>"<span class='sc'>Jane Franklin</span>."</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div id='pg210'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_319.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE "FOX" ON A ROCK</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>The men of the <em>Fox</em> were worthy of the confidence
+placed in them. Leaving Aberdeen on the 1st of July,
+M'Clintock reached Disco on the last day of the month,
+and, proceeding northwards, was, by a perverse freak of
+fortune, beset in Melville Bay on the 8th of August,
+and kept imprisoned thence onwards all through the
+winter, drifting south through Baffin Bay and Davis
+Strait. On the 26th of April, 1858, after a drift of
+1194 geographical miles, the <em>Fox</em> escaped from the
+pack and steamed to the eastward amid the most
+perilous of ice experiences. Most men would have
+returned and tried again; not so M'Clintock. He
+boldly ran up the Greenland coast as if nothing had
+happened and, making good deficiencies, resumed his
+voyage. Soon after leaving Sanderson's Hope the
+<em>Fox</em> was nearly wrecked near Buchan Island, remaining
+on a rock until the tide rose again to set her free.
+After calling at Beechey Island, M'Clintock followed
+Franklin's track down Peel Sound until stopped by the
+pack, when he retraced his course and tried Prince
+Regent Inlet, reaching Bellot Strait on the 21st of
+August. At Port Kennedy in this famous waterway—which
+is like a Greenland fiord, about twenty miles long
+and scarcely a mile wide at its narrowest part, the water
+four hundred feet deep within a quarter of a mile of
+its northern shore—he passed the winter.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 1st of March he reached by sledge the Magnetic
+Pole and fell in with four of the Boothian Eskimos,
+who, at the cost of a needle each, built him a snow hut
+in an hour, in which they all spent the night. "Perhaps,"
+says M'Clintock, "the records of architecture do
+not furnish another instance of a dwelling-house so
+cheaply constructed!" Halting at Cape Victoria the
+Eskimos came up from their village close by with a
+number of small relics of the lost expedition. Returning
+to the <em>Fox</em> after a journey of four hundred and
+twenty statute miles in which the survey of the west
+coast of Boothia was completed, everything was made
+ready for three long sledge journeys of two sledges each,
+the captain taking that for Montreal Island, and giving
+Hobson the best chance of promotion by sending him
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>round the west coast of King William Land, while
+Young took the Prince of Wales Land route.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the east coast of King William Land M'Clintock
+met with more Eskimos, from whom he obtained relics
+and obtained information. Pushing on, he reached
+Montreal Island on the 15th of May, where the only
+traces of a boat were some scraps of copper and an
+iron-hoop bolt. A crossing to the mainland on the
+18th of May revealed no more; and next day the
+return journey began. Six days afterwards, walking
+along a gravel ridge near the beach on the way to Cape
+Herschel, M'Clintock found the first skeleton, partly
+exposed, with a few fragments of clothing appearing
+through the snow, evidently one of the men who, as
+the old Eskimo woman said, fell down and died as they
+walked along. Visiting Simpson's cairn at Cape Herschel
+and meeting with nothing, he went on for about
+twelve miles, where he caught sight of a small cairn
+built by Hobson's party at their furthest south, reached
+six days before, containing a note with the great news
+that at Point Victory they had found what is now
+known as the Franklin record.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>This record, which has frequently been printed—in a
+smaller size than the original—was one of the navy
+bottle-papers with the request in six languages that
+it should be forwarded to the Admiralty. A pale blue
+paper, twelve and a half inches by eight, it was filled up
+in the ordinary way, and then added to round the four
+margins in the handwriting of Lieutenant Gore, Captain
+FitzJames, and Captain Crozier, and signed by these
+and C. F. Des Vœux. It had been first deposited four
+miles away, so it said, "by the late Commander Gore,"
+in 1847, and next year found by Lieutenant Irving,
+added to, and removed to the new cairn on the site of
+Sir James Ross's pillar.</p>
+
+<div id='pg212'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_323.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>DISCOVERY OF THE CAIRN</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>Brief as it was, it contained all the authentic information
+regarding Franklin's voyage up to the time the ships
+were abandoned. Resuming the return journey along
+the edge of the strait where the meeting of the Pacific
+and Atlantic tides keeps the ice drifting down from the
+north-west almost constantly packed, M'Clintock reached
+a boat with two skeletons and other relics already visited
+by Hobson, who had found other cairns and many
+relics, and, in Back Bay, another record by Gore, also
+deposited in 1847, but giving no additional news.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Hobson was dragged alongside the <em>Fox</em>, on the 14th
+of June, so ill with scurvy that he was unable to walk or
+even stand without assistance. M'Clintock arrived five
+days later; and on the 27th Allen Young returned
+after an exploration of three hundred and eighty miles
+of coast-line, which, added to that discovered by
+M'Clintock and Hobson, gave a total of eight hundred
+geographical miles of new coast as the work of the
+expedition, besides what it had done in clearing up the
+Franklin mystery.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1869 Captain C. F. Hall collected other relics
+and sufficient information to account for seventy-nine
+men out of the hundred and five who left the ships.
+Ten years after that, Schwatka, in his long, careful
+search of King William Land, discovered the grave of
+Lieutenant Irving, in which were some fragments of his
+instruments and the prize medal he won at the Royal
+Naval College. Near by were many traces indicating
+that it was the site of the first encampment of the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>retreating crews after leaving their ships; and down
+the coast he traced camp after camp, and death after
+death. Irving's remains were brought away and are
+buried at Edinburgh. The spot where they were found
+was Cape Jane Franklin.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>More fortunate than Franklin was Captain Roald
+Amundsen. Leaving Christiania in the <em>Gjöa</em> on the
+16th of June, 1903, he crossed the Atlantic and proceeded
+down Peel Sound, past Bellot Strait, and along
+the west coast of Boothia, where a fire on the ship did
+a certain amount of damage, and, struggling thereafter
+for ten days among shoals and rocks, down James
+Ross Strait, past Matty Island into Rae Strait, he
+dropped anchor in Petersen Bay, King William Land.
+For his base station he required a site in which the
+inclination was eighty-nine degrees, and at Gjöahaven,
+in this bay, he found it in 68° 30´ N., 96° W.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Here he arranged his headquarters for his observations
+on the Magnetic Pole which were kept going
+night and day for nineteen months; and here he stayed
+for two winters, moving about in the country around
+and over into Boothia, where he proved that the Pole
+was not immovable and stationary, but in all likelihood
+in continual movement. Leaving the south-eastern
+corner of King William Land in his little ship he
+passed through Simpson Strait, linking up with Collinson;
+and, like him, he was delayed for a winter on the
+coast of the American mainland. Through Bering
+Strait he reached San Francisco, where the voyage
+ended in the sale of the <em>Gjöa</em>. Thus of Amundsen it
+can be said, without any qualification whatever, that
+he accomplished the North-West Passage.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XI<br /> BAFFIN BAY</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>Sir Humphrey Gilbert—Sir Martin Frobisher—His first voyage—The fateful
+stone—First meeting with the Eskimos—The Cathay Company—Second
+voyage—Third voyage—Frobisher builds a fort—The ships among the
+floes—Captain Hall finds the Frobisher relics—Adrian Gilbert—John
+Davis—His voyages and dealings with the Eskimos—Reaches and names
+Sanderson's Hope—The Traverse Book—William Baffin—His first voyage
+to Greenland—His fourth and fifth voyages—Discovers Baffin Land—Discovers
+Baffin Bay—Smith Sound—Jones Sound—Lancaster Sound—Baffin's
+farthest north—John Ross and Parry verify his discoveries.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>In 1566 Humphrey Gilbert—who was as near to
+heaven by sea as by land—petitioned Queen
+Elizabeth for privileges in regard to discoveries "by
+the North-west to Cataia" as an alternative to a petition
+he, in conjunction with Anthony Jenkinson, had presented
+the previous year for a voyage by the north-east.
+He received no answer; but ten years afterwards,
+in support of this unanswered petition, he published
+his <cite>Discourse of a Discovery for a New Passage to
+Cataia</cite>. This met with approval, and led, with little
+delay, to the expedition under the Martin Frobisher
+who, among other noteworthy services, commanded
+the <em>Triumph</em> in the Armada fight to such good purpose
+that he was one of the five distinguished men knighted
+by Howard in mid-channel after the battle off the
+Isle of Wight.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Frobisher was a good seaman—but no mineralogist.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>Mainly at the expense of Ambrose Dudley, Earl of
+Warwick, and under the business management of that
+old seafarer, Michael Lock, of the Muscovy Company,
+he left Blackwall on the 7th of June, 1576, in the
+<em>Gabriel</em> of twenty-five tons, accompanied by the
+<em>Michael</em> of twenty tons—which deserted and returned
+as soon as difficulties arose—and a ten-ton pinnace,
+which ended by foundering off Greenland. All told,
+the expedition numbered thirty-five, of whom the
+<em>Gabriel</em> carried eighteen; and with these the voyage
+through the Arctic Ocean was to be made to China.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Leaving the Shetlands at her top speed of a league
+and a half an hour—which her master, good Christopher
+Hall, proudly recorded—the <em>Gabriel</em> sighted Cape Farewell
+on the 11th of July. Two days afterwards she
+was thrown on her beam-ends in a storm, and was
+rapidly filling with water flowing in at her waist when
+she was relieved by the loss of her fore-yard and the
+cutting away of her mizen-mast. Rounding the cape,
+steering westward when he could among the floating
+ice, Frobisher reached a high headland at the south-east
+end of what is now Frobisher Bay, which he
+named Queen Elizabeth Foreland. A few days afterwards
+Hall, out in a boat seeking a way through the
+ice for the ship, landed on what they called Hall's
+Island, and, noticing a fog coming on, left hurriedly,
+snatching up, as specimens of the plants, a few grasses
+and flowers, and, as a rock specimen, a heavy black
+stone picked up haphazard on the beach. The grass
+faded, the flowers perished, and the fateful stone
+remained.</p>
+
+<div id='pg216'  class='figcenter id024'>
+<img src='images/i_329.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>SIR MARTIN FROBISHER</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>For fifty leagues Frobisher sailed north-westward
+into the bay, thinking it to be a strait with Asia on
+the right hand and America on the left. He landed
+at what he called Butcher's Island, saw "mightie deere
+which ranne at him and hardly he escaped with his
+life in a narrow way where he was faine to use defence
+and policie," and from a hill-top "perceived a number
+of small things fleeting in the sea afarre off whyche
+hee supposed to be porposes or seales or some kind of
+strange fishe but coming nearer he discovered them to
+be men in small boates made of leather," who only just
+failed in capturing his boat before he reached it. Subsequent
+conferences with the Eskimos ended in his losing
+the boat with five men who had gone ashore to trade;
+and finally, having lifted single-handed one of the
+interesting natives, kayak and all, into the <em>Gabriel</em>, he
+made sail for home.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>When Lock went aboard on the ship's arrival there
+were no riches from Cathay, nothing worth mentioning
+beyond the Eskimo—who soon died—the kayak
+and paddle, and "the fyrste thynge found in the new
+land," the black stone. He carried away the stone,
+after chipping off a few fragments for the friends
+around, and after a week or two's consideration sent
+some of it to the Mint to be assayed. The report was
+not as he expected; the "saymaster" was of opinion
+that it was marcasite, that is, iron pyrites. Not satisfied,
+Lock sent some to another expert, who also said it was
+pyrites. Then he tried a third man, who could find no
+gold in it. And then he tried a fourth—this time an
+Italian—who gave him the answer he wanted: "A very
+little powder of gold came thereout."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Lock sent him some more, telling him frankly that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>three other assayers "could find no such thing therein,"
+but again the Italian was equal to the occasion. "The
+xviii day of January," writes Lock, "he sent me by his
+mayde this little scrap of paper written, No. 1, hereinclosed;
+and thereinclosed the grayne of gold, which
+afterward I delivered to your majesty." For the Queen
+had become interested in the wonderful stone which
+was the talk of the town, its value increasing at every
+recital until many believed, as Sir Philip Sidney seems
+to have done, that it was "the purest gold unalloyed
+with any other metals."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Lock was not the man to let such excellent advertisement
+be lost, and forthwith he projected the Cathay
+Company for which the charter was obtained from the
+Crown on St. Patrick's Day, 1577. Lock was named as
+Governor for six years with remuneration "for ever"
+of one per cent on all goods imported; Frobisher was
+named as Captain by sea and Admiral of the ships and
+navy of the Company for life with a yearly stipend and
+one per cent, like Lock, on all goods the Company
+brought in. Queen Elizabeth—notwithstanding the
+report from the Mint—headed the list of shareholders
+with £1000; and Burghley, Howard, Leicester, Walsingham,
+Hunsdon, Sidney, even Gresham, subscribed
+for shares in this remarkable company.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>To bring home more of the "golden ore," a new
+expedition was entered upon at once, and on the 26th
+of May, Whit-Sunday as it happened, Frobisher
+started on his second voyage. He had three vessels,
+the <em>Aid</em> of two hundred tons, lent him from the
+Royal Navy, and the <em>Gabriel</em> and <em>Michael</em> as before,
+and one hundred and twenty officers and men, of whom
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>thirty were miners and other landsmen, and, in addition,
+six condemned criminals whom he was to land in Greenland
+as colonists but put ashore at Harwich instead.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>To the new land—named by the Queen Meta
+Incognita, "the unknown limit of the outward course"—he
+made his way without much adventure. Landing
+on Hall's Island, he sought for more stone but
+could find not so much as a piece as big as a walnut;
+for Hall, who was again with him as master, had
+apparently lighted, in the one sample, on the whole of
+its mineral wealth. This disappointment, however, was
+forgotten in the finding of occasional patches of pyrites
+on the mainland and other islands which in due course
+were visited. Thirty leagues up the bay a landing was
+made on what was called Countess of Warwick's
+Island, where more ore was found and a fort called
+Best's Bulwark was built. That was Frobisher's
+farthest on this voyage, and thence he sailed on the
+24th of August, bringing with him two hundred tons
+of pyrites, and, as a present for the Queen, a horn two
+yards long, wreathed and straight, which he had found
+in the nose of a dead narwhal.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The ore was received with rejoicings. Some of it
+was deposited in Bristol Castle, some in the Tower of
+London under four locks, but there was not enough of it;
+and as there were then, as now, no furnaces in England
+capable of getting gold out of marcasite, a new expedition
+was despatched while the furnaces were being
+prepared. This time the enterprise was to be on a very
+different scale. Frobisher was given a fleet of fifteen
+vessels, Drake's old ship, the <em>Judith</em>, amongst them, the
+<em>Aid</em>, as before, being the flagship. He was to bring
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>home two thousand tons of mineral and find other
+mines, if he could, besides taking out a colony of a
+hundred persons to settle in Meta Incognita, for whom
+the materials of a wooden house were among the miscellaneous
+cargo.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The fleet left Harwich on the 31st of May, 1578. A
+landing was made in the south of Greenland, which
+Frobisher named West England and took possession
+of, his point of departure from there being called by
+him, "from a certain similitude," Charing Cross! Soon
+he was among the ice floes. One of the ships was driven
+on to a floe and sank with some of the materials for the
+wooden house. Then followed a storm in which most
+of the ships had a terrible experience. "Some," says
+Captain Best of the <em>Ann Frances</em>, the chronicler of the
+voyage, "were so fast shut up and compassed in amongst
+an infinite number of great countreys and ilands of ise,
+that they were fayne to submit themselves and their
+ships to the mercie of the unmercifull ise, and strengthened
+the sides of their ships with junckes of cables,
+beds, masts, planckes, and such like, which being hanged
+overboord, on the sides of their shippes, mighte the
+better defend them from the outrageous sway and
+strokes of the said ise. But as in greatest distresse,
+men of best value are best to be discerned, so it is
+greatly worthy commendation and noting with what
+invincible mind every captayne encouraged his company,
+and with what incredible labour the paynefull mariners
+and poore miners (unacquainted with such extremities)
+to the everlasting renoune of our nation, dyd overcome
+the brunt of these so great and extreame daungers; for
+some, even without boorde uppon the ise, and some
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>within boorde, uppon the sides of their shippes, having
+poles, pikes, peeces of timber and ores in their hands,
+stood almost day and night, without any reste, bearing
+off the force, and breaking the sway of the ise, with
+suche incredible payne and perill that it was wonderfull
+to behold, which otherwise no doubt had striken quite
+through and through the sides of their shippes, notwithstanding
+our former provision; for planckes of
+timber, of more than three ynches thick, and other
+things of greater force and bignesse, by the surging of
+the sea and billow, with the ise were shevered and cutte
+in sunder at the sides of oure ships, that it will seeme
+more than credible to be reported of. And yet (that
+which is more) it is faythfully and playnely to be proved,
+and that by many substantiall witnesses, that our
+shippes, even those of greatest burdens, with the
+meeting of contrary waves of the sea, were heaved up
+betweene islandes of ise a foote welneere out of the sea
+above their watermarke, having their knees and timbers
+within boorde both bowed and broken therewith."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>To add to the difficulties of the voyage Frobisher
+lost his way, and entered what he called the Mistaken
+Streight—now designated Hudson Strait—through
+which he might have found his way to Cathay, had he
+been so minded; but recognising that he was on the
+wrong road he returned and reached his mining district
+at the end of July. While the ore was being gathered
+in, Best ventured into the upper part of Frobisher Bay
+as far as the Gabriel Islands—the only exploring work
+that was done—and early in September the fleet departed
+on the homeward voyage.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Frobisher had left one unmistakable indication of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>his visit behind him. On Countess of Warwick Island
+he had built a house of lime and stone, and "the better,"
+says Best, "to allure those brutish and uncivill people to
+courtesie, againste other times of our comming, we left
+therein dyvers of our countrye toyes, as bells and knives,
+wherein they specially delight, one for the necessarie
+use, and the other for the great pleasure thereof. Also
+pictures of men and women in lead, men a horsebacke,
+lookinglasses, whistles and pipes. Also in the house
+was made an oven, and breade left baked therein, for
+them to see and taste. We buried the timber of our
+pretended forte, with manye barrels of meale, pease,
+griste, and sundrie other good things, which was of the
+provision of those whyche should inhabite, if occasion
+served. And insteade therof we fraight oure ships
+full of ore, whiche we holde of farre greater price."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Here we part from the Cathay Company. The inevitable
+trouble came with the discovery that, practically,
+the only gold the ore would yield was that put in as an
+"additament" by the Italian. A very thick cloud
+rolled over Frobisher, who, like Lock, seems to have
+believed in the genuineness of the affair all through;
+but soon his country had need of him and he came to
+the front again in so worthy a manner that little more
+was heard of his connection with this company that
+failed.</p>
+
+<div id='pg222'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_337.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>ESKIMO AWAITING A SEAL</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>To complete the story. In 1861 (say three hundred
+years afterwards) Captain Hall—hearing among the
+Eskimos how numerous white men had arrived first in
+two, then three, then a great many ships, how they had
+killed several natives and taken away two, how five of
+the white men had been captured, and how these had
+built a large boat and put a mast in her and sailed away
+to death when the water was open—went to Kod-lun-arn
+(White Man's Island) and there found the house of
+lime and stone as described, and traces of the diggings,
+and many relics among which he made the collection
+presented by him to the British Government.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In the year 1583, when Sir Humphrey Gilbert, whose
+<em>Discourse</em> gave so great a stimulus to Arctic discovery,
+founded St. John's, Newfoundland—the first English
+colony in America—a patent was granted by Queen
+Elizabeth to his brother Adrian "of Sandridge in the
+county of Devon," as one of the colleagues of the
+Fellowship for the Discovery of the North-West
+Passage. At this Sandridge—on the east of the Dart,
+bounded on three sides by the river, some two miles
+above Dartmouth—was the home of the three Gilberts
+(John, Humphrey, and Adrian), whose mother by a
+second marriage became the mother of Carew and
+Walter Raleigh; and here, about 1550, of a family
+also owning property in the small peninsula, was born
+John Davis, as we know him, or John Davys, as he
+signed himself, who was probably a playmate, and
+certainly a life-long friend, of these five.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Davis was an accomplished seaman, the best of the
+Elizabethan navigators, and a man of accurate observation,
+always on the alert, whose reputation does not
+rest only on the work he did in the northern and other
+seas, for he was the author of <em>The Seaman's Secrets</em>,
+the most popular practical navigation treatise of its
+time. Very early, perhaps from the first, he was one
+of the moving spirits in this new north-west enterprise,
+for on the 23rd of January, 1583, we find Dr. Dee-who
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>had helped to send Frobisher on his first voyage—making
+an entry in his journal that Mr. Secretary
+Walsingham had come to his house, where by good
+luck he found Mr. Adrian Gilbert, and so talk began
+on "the north-west straits discovery"; and, next day,
+"I, Mr. Awdrian Gilbert and John Davis, went by
+appointment to Mr. Beale, his howse, where only we
+four were secret, and we made Mr. Secretary privie of
+the N.W. Passage, and all charts and rutters were
+agreed upon in generall"—"rutter" being the French
+"<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">routier</span>," originating in <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Routier de la Mer</span></cite>, signifying
+a book of sea routes. Another important friend
+of Davis was William Sanderson, the representative
+of the merchants by whom the expenses of the voyage
+were borne, he being the chief subscriber. One of the
+ships, the <em>Moonshine</em>, seems to have belonged to him,
+and it was largely owing to his influence among the
+shareholders that Davis was appointed captain and
+chief pilot of the "exployt," in which he was to
+practically rediscover Greenland.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>There were two vessels, the <em>Sunshine</em> of London,
+fifty-nine tons, with twenty-three persons on board,
+and the <em>Moonshine</em> of Dartmouth, thirty-five tons, with
+nineteen. They left Dartmouth on the 7th of June,
+1585, but had to put in at Falmouth and then at the
+Scillies, where Davis occupied the twelve days he
+spent there in surveying and charting the islands. On
+the 20th of July they were sailing down the east coast
+of Greenland, and were so little attracted by it that
+Davis called it the Land of Desolation. Nine days
+afterwards he found a group of many pleasant green
+islands bordering on the shore, while the mountains of
+the mainland were still covered with snow, and here he
+landed on the west coast at Gilbert Sound, as he named
+it, near where Godthaab now is, and entered into communication
+with the natives.</p>
+
+<div id='pg224'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_341.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>A GREENLANDER IN HIS KAYAK</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>For such occasions, apparently, he had among the
+<em>Sunshine</em> people four described as musicians, whom, on
+sighting the Eskimos, he sent for. As soon as they
+arrived from the ship he ordered them to strike up a
+dancing tune, and to their merry music Davis and his
+men began to caper as if they were enjoying themselves
+immensely, while the lookers-on gradually increased
+in number. "At length," he says, "one of
+them poynting up to the sunne with his hande would
+presently strike his brest so hard that we might hear
+the blowe. This he did many times, before he would
+any way trust us. Then John Ellis the master of the
+<em>Mooneshine</em>, was appointed to use his best policie to
+gaine their friendshippe: who strooke his breast and
+poynted to the sunne after their order: which when he
+had diverse times done, they began to trust him, and
+one of them came on shoare, to whom we threwe our
+caps, stockings and gloves, and such other things as
+then we had about us, playing with our musicke, and
+making signes of joy, and dancing. So the night
+comming we bade them farewell, and went aboord
+our barks."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The next morning, being the 30th of July, thirty-seven
+canoes came up to the ships, their occupants
+calling to the English to come on shore. "Wee not
+making any great haste unto them, one of them went
+up to the top of the rocke, and lept and daunced as
+they had done the day before, shewing us a seales
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>skinne, and another thing made like a timbrel, which
+he did beate upon with a sticke, making a noyse like a
+small drumme." Whereupon Davis manned his boats
+and went to the waterside where they were in their
+canoes, "and after we had sworne by the sunne after
+their fashion, they did trust us. So I shooke hands
+with one of them, and hee kissed my hand, and we
+were very familier with them. We bought five canoas
+of them, we bought their clothes from their backs,
+which were all made of seales skins and birdes skinnes:
+their buskins, their hose, their gloves, all being commonly
+sewed and well dressed: so that we were fully
+persuaded that they have divers artificers among them.
+Wee had a paire of buskins of them full of fine wooll
+like bever. Their apparell for heate, was made of bird
+skinnes with their feathers on them. We sawe among
+them leather dressed like glovers leather, and thicke
+thongs like white leather of a good length. Wee had
+of their darts and oares, and found in them that they
+would by no meanes displease us, but would give us
+whatsoever we asked of them and would be satisfied
+with whatsoever we gave them. They took great care
+one of an other: for when we had bought their boates,
+then two other woulde come and carie him away betweene
+them that had soulde us his." He describes
+them as "a very tractable people, voyde of craft or
+double dealing, and easie to be brought to civiltie or
+good order," the men of good stature, unbearded,
+small-eyed, "by whom, as signes would permit, we
+understood that towards the north and west there was
+a great sea."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>During his stay among these islands he found considerable
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>quantities of wood—fir, spruce, and juniper—which
+whether it came floating any great distance or
+grew in some island near he did not discover; but he
+thought it grew further inland because the people had
+so many darts and paddles which they held of little
+value and gave away for insignificant trifles. He also
+found "great abundance of seales" in shoals as if they
+were small fish; but saw no fresh water, only snow
+water in large pools, and he notes that the "cliffes were
+all of such oare as M. Frobisher brought from Meta
+Incognita."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Leaving the sound on the 1st of August he crossed
+the strait now named after him and reached land in
+66° 40´. In water "altogether voyd from ye pester of
+ice" he anchored, "in a very fair rode, under a very
+brave mount, the cliffs whereof were as orient as gold."
+This mount he named Mount Raleigh, the roadstead
+he called Totnes Rode, the sound round the mount he
+named Exeter Sound, the foreland to the north he
+called Dyer's Cape, the southern foreland being named
+Cape Walsingham—all of which names remain. Here
+white bears were killed "of monstrous bignesse," a
+raven was descried upon Mount Raleigh, withies were
+found growing low like shrubs, and there were flowers
+like primroses, though there was no grass.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>For three days Davis went coasting downwards, and
+rounding the southern point of the peninsula, which he
+named the Cape of God's Mercy, he entered what he
+afterwards called Cumberland Strait, now Cumberland
+Gulf, supposing it to be his way to the westward. It
+was clear of ice; sixty leagues up islands were found,
+among which a stay was made during five days of very
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>foggy foul weather. On the 15th of August "we
+heard dogs houle on the shoare, which we thought had
+bene Wolves, and therefore we went on shoare to kil
+them; when we came on lande, the dogs came presently
+to our boate very gently, yet we thought they came to
+pray upon us, and therefore we shot at them and killed
+two: and about the necke of one of them we found
+a letheren coller, whereupon we thought them to be
+tame dogs. Then wee went farther and founde two
+sleads made like ours in Englande. The one was made
+of firre, spruse and oken boards, sawen like inch
+boards; the other was made all of whale bone, and
+there hung on the toppes of the sleds three heads of
+beasts, which they had killed. We saw here larkes,
+ravens, and partriges"—probably rock ptarmigan.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Searching about, it was agreed that the place was all
+islands, with sounds passing between them; that the
+water remained of the same colour as the main ocean,
+whereas in every bay they had been into it became
+blackish; that a shoal of whales they saw must have
+come from the west, because to the eastward no whale
+had been seen; that "there came a violent counter
+checke of a tide from the south-west against the flood
+which we came with, not knowing from whence it was
+maintayned"; that the further they ran westward the
+deeper was the water, "so that hard abord the shoare
+among these yles we could not have ground in 330
+fathoms"; and that, lastly, there was a tide range of
+six or seven fathoms, "the flood comming from
+diverse parts, so as we could not perceive the chiefe
+maintenance thereof." For which six reasons it was
+determined to continue the voyage to the westward if
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>the weather changed—which it did to worse with the
+wind unfavourable, so that the ships had to run for
+shelter and then sail for home, crossing the Atlantic
+from Greenland in a fortnight. On arrival Davis
+reported to Walsingham that the North-West Passage
+was a matter nothing doubtful, but at any time almost
+to be passed, the sea navigable, void of ice, the air
+tolerable, and the waters very deep; and a voyage for
+next year was decided on, for which the merchants
+of Exeter, Totnes, London, Cullompton, Chard, and
+Tiverton, and five private subscribers, "did adventure
+their money"—to the amount of £1175—"with Mr.
+Adrian Gilbert and Mr. John Davis in a voyage for
+the discovery of China, the seventh daie of April in
+the xxviij yeare of the rayne of or. soverayne Ladie
+Elizabeth."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The fleet, consisting of the <em>Mermaid</em> of one hundred
+and twenty tons, the <em>Sunshine</em> and <em>Moonshine</em>, and a
+ten-ton pinnace named the <em>North Star</em>, left Dartmouth
+on the 7th of May, 1586. On reaching Greenland the
+<em>Sunshine</em> and <em>North Star</em> were sent up the east coast
+of Greenland, while the <em>Mermaid</em> and <em>Moonshine</em> made
+for Gilbert Sound.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Here the Eskimos received them cordially "after
+they had espied in the boate, some of our companie
+that were the yeere before heere with us, they presently
+rowed to the boate, and tooke holde on the oare, and
+hung about the boate with such comfortable joy as
+woulde require a long discourse to be uttered: they
+came with the boates to our shippes, making signes
+that they knewe all those that the yere before had
+bene with them. After I perceived their joy, and smal
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>feare of us, my selfe with the merchaunts, and others
+of the company went a shoare, bearing with me
+twentie knives: I had no sooner landed, but they lept
+out of their Canoas, and came running to mee and the
+rest, and imbraced us with many signes of hartie
+welcome: at this present there were eighteene of them,
+and to each of them I gave a knife: they offered
+skinnes to mee for rewarde, but I made signes that it
+was not solde, but given them of curtesie: and so dismissed
+them for that time, with signes that they
+shoulde returne againe after certaine houres." But
+soon there were passing troubles owing to iron having
+so great an attraction for them that they could not
+resist stealing it. While amongst them, exploring the
+country, Davis compiled the first Eskimo vocabulary
+known, a list of some forty words written down
+phonetically, most of them remarkably good approaches
+considering that both parties were ignorant of each
+other's language, none of them, however, except that
+for "sea" being likely to be of any use in putting him
+on the road to China.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On leaving Gilbert Sound, Davis when in latitude
+63° 8´ "fel upon a most mighty and strange quantity of
+ice, in one intyre masse, so bigge as that we knew not
+the limits thereof, and being withall so very high, in
+forme of a land, with bayes and capes, and like high
+cliffe land, as that we supposed it to be land, and therefore
+sent our pinnesse off to discover it: but at her
+returne we were certainely informed that it was onely
+ice, which bred great admiration to us all, considering
+the huge quantity thereof, incredible to be reported in
+truth as it was, and therefore I omit to speake any
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>further thereof. This onely, I thinke that the like
+before was never seene, and in this place we had very
+stickle and strong currants. We coasted this mighty
+masse of ice untill the 30 of July, finding it a mighty
+bar to our purpose: the ayre in this time was so contagious,
+and the sea so pestered with ice, as that all
+hope was banished of proceeding: for the 24 of July
+all our shrowds, ropes, and sailes were so frozen, and
+compassed with ice, onely by a grosse fogge, as seemed
+to me more then strange, sith the last yeere I found this
+sea free and navigable, without impediments."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Crossing the straits he repaired and revictualled the
+<em>Moonshine</em> in an excellent harbour among islands where
+they found it very hot and were "very much troubled
+with a flie which is called Musketa, for they did sting
+grievously." Forsaken by the <em>Mermaid</em>, he abandoned
+the search in Cumberland Sound as he "found small
+hope to pass any farther that way," and worked south,
+it being too late to go northwards, crossing Frobisher
+Bay, which he described as "another great inlet neere
+forty leagues broad where the water entered with
+violent swiftnesse, this we also thought might be a
+passage, for no doubt the north parts of America are
+all islands." Off the coast of Labrador he found a vast
+shoal of codfish, of which he caught over forty with a
+long spike nail made into a hook. These he salted, and
+some of them, on his return, he gave, at Walsingham's
+request, to Burghley, who, at an interview, encouraged
+him to make a further attempt.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Next year he was off again, this time "to the Isles
+of the Molucca or the coast of China." He seems to
+have been on board the <em>Ellen</em>, a small craft of some
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>twenty tons, his two other vessels being the <em>Sunshine</em>
+as before, and the <em>Elizabeth</em>. These he left to fish for
+cod in the straits while he went northward from Gilbert
+Sound in his little "clinker," which he had probably
+chosen as being handy for ice navigation. Running
+along the land, to which he gave the name of London
+Coast, he reached 72° 12´—the highest north up to then
+attained—where he named the loftiest of the headlands
+Sanderson's Hope, whose lofty crest piercing through
+the driving clouds near Upernivik has become perhaps
+the best-known landmark in the northern seas. Here
+the wind suddenly shifting to the northward made
+further progress impossible, and he had to shape his
+course westerly, and then, owing to ice, which he in
+vain endeavoured to get round to the north, he had to
+turn southwards. Amid much fog, and with the ice
+always present, he came down the coast of Baffin Land,
+giving a name here and there on the way, until on the
+31st of July he passed "a very great gulfe, the water
+whirling and roring, as it were the meetings of tides,"
+which was probably the entrance to Hudson Strait.
+Next day he was off the Labrador coast and named
+Cape Chidley after his friend who died in the Straits of
+Magellan, and on the 15th of August he laid his course
+for England.</p>
+
+<div id='pg232'  class='figcenter id025'>
+<a href='images/i_351.jpg'><img src='images/i_351_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>BAFFIN BAY IN 1819</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>Of this voyage Hakluyt prints the Traverse Book,
+one of the earliest known. In it the full detail is given
+for every day, arranged in nine columns, one each for
+the month, the day, the hour, the courses, the leagues,
+the elevation of the pole in degrees and minutes, the
+wind, and a remarks column headed "The Discourse"—for
+Davis was an exact and systematic man remarkable
+for his latitudes never being wrong, though like
+all those old navigators before the invention of the
+chronometer, he was frequently out in his longitude.
+He was going off again bound for the sea north of
+Sanderson's Hope, but the coming of the Armada and
+the death of Walsingham caused the postponement of
+the project he did not abandon, for it seems that the
+<em>Desire</em>, in which he discovered the Falkland Islands at
+the other end of America, was to be his reward for
+accompanying Cavendish round the world, and that in
+her he intended to make his next Polar voyage.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The work he had set himself to do was done by
+William Baffin, who first appears in the Arctic record
+as pilot of the <em>Patience</em> in James Hall's Greenland
+voyage in 1612, which ended in Hall being killed in
+revenge for the kidnapping proceedings on the two
+previous voyages under the Danish flag. Baffin then
+made two voyages, as we have seen, to Spitsbergen in
+the service of the Muscovy Company, and, in that of the
+Company for the Discovery of the North-West Passage,
+he made his fourth, in 1615. In Hudson's old ship the
+<em>Discovery</em>, also her fourth trip to the north, he passed
+up Hudson Strait to the end of Southampton Island,
+where he abandoned the attempt to get through owing
+to ice and shallow water, and returned after discovering
+the land that Parry named after him.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In his fifth voyage, again in the <em>Discovery</em>, with
+Robert Bylot again as master, he left Gravesend on
+the 16th of March, 1616, and reached Sanderson's
+Hope on the 30th of May, discovering the great bay
+to the north which bears his name. Passing the
+Women Islands and the Baffin Islands off Cape
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>Shackleton, he took the middle passage across Melville
+Bay, coasting along by Cape York, by the cape named
+after one of his directors, Sir Dudley Digges, and the
+sound named after another of his directors, Sir John
+Wolstenholme; along Prudhoe Land, entering the North
+Water of the whalers, reaching Cape Alexander in
+77° 45´, his farthest north; opening up and naming
+Smith Sound, after Sir Thomas Smith, another of his
+directors, and Jones Sound, after Alderman Sir Francis
+Jones, another of the board, and Lancaster Sound,
+after Sir James Lancaster of the East India Company.
+Thus, coasting Ellesmere Land, North Devon, Bylot
+Island, and Baffin Land, he continued his voyage from
+the north on his way home. A good piece of work:
+the discoveries so many and unexpected that people
+ceased to believe in them, geographers going so far as
+to erase his bay from their maps until, two hundred
+years afterwards, Ross and Parry sailed over the land
+of the unbelievers and confirmed Baffin's work in every
+detail—and Ross, in his best mountain-finding manner,
+reported no thoroughfare at Smith Sound.</p>
+
+<div id='pg234'  class='figcenter id026'>
+<img src='images/i_355.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>DR. E. K. KANE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XII<br /> SMITH SOUND</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>Captain Inglefield—Dr. Kane—The open Polar Sea—Hans Hendrik the
+Greenlander—Kalutunah the Eskimo—An Eskimo bear-hunt—A lesson
+in catching auks—Dr. Hayes—His journey over the glacier—Tyndall
+Glacier—Captain C. F. Hall—Joe and Hannah—Voyage of the <em>Polaris</em>—Drift
+of the <em>Polaris</em>—The voyage on the ice-floe—The British Government
+Expedition of 1875—The <em>Alert</em> and <em>Discovery</em>—The cairn on Washington
+Irving Island—Discovery Harbour—How the <em>Alert</em> got into safety at
+Floeberg Beach—Low temperatures—Nares on sledging—Description of
+the sledges and their burden—Markham starts for the Pole—Reaches
+83° 20´ 26˝—Outbreak of scurvy—Parr's walk—Aldrich's journey west—Beaumont's
+journey east—The perilous homeward voyage.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>Lady Franklin, who incidentally did so much
+for Arctic discovery, sent out the <em>Isabel</em> in 1852
+under Commander, afterwards Sir, Edward Augustus
+Inglefield to search for her husband to the north of
+Baffin Bay. Unlike John Ross, the names of whose
+ships, <em>Isabella</em> and <em>Alexander</em>, are home by the capes
+at its entrance, he found Smith Sound to be the highway
+to the north. Steaming up the open water
+"stretching through seven points of the compass,"
+noting the coasts as he went, he was turned back by the
+ice in 78° 28´, at the entrance to the Kane Sea, with
+Cairn Point and the way in to Rensselaer Harbour on
+his right, and Cape Sabine and Ellesmere Land, which
+he named, on his left; the farthest north he sighted
+being Cape Louis Napoleon, the farthest east Cape
+Frederick VII, now known as Cape Russell. Needless
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>to say he found no Franklin traces, although he really
+looked for them.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Twelve months afterwards Dr. Elisha Kent Kane in
+the United States brig <em>Advance</em> followed in his track
+and wintered in Rensselaer Harbour, nine miles further
+north. Ostensibly Kane was on a Franklin search, but
+his real object was the Pole. He explored the sea
+named after him, naming many landmarks, not always
+placing them in their true positions, and underwent
+many hardships. For one mistake he was famous for
+a time, and his reputation now suffers. One of his expedition,
+William Morton, almost reached Cape Constitution,
+in about 80½°, which he placed some sixty
+miles too far north, and described as the corner of the
+north coast of Greenland; and from the southern horn
+of the bay of which it is the northern boundary he
+looked out over the south of Kennedy Channel, which
+is open every summer, and mistook it for the Polar
+Sea. And he returned with a report of an even more
+wonderful discovery than the Polar Sea, for, according
+to the illustration, he beheld the midnight sun dipping
+in its waters on Midsummer Day.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In May, 1854, the month before Morton's discoveries,
+Dr. Hayes and William Godfrey crossed the Kane Sea
+to connect the northern coast with Inglefield's survey,
+"but it disclosed no channel or any form of exit from
+the bay," being, in fact, Ellesmere Land continued, and
+yet on reaching the shore for the first time at Hayes
+Point, three miles north of Cape Louis Napoleon, and
+following it for two miles to Cape Frazer, they quite
+unnecessarily named the country Grinnell Land. On
+the other side of this sea the chief discovery was
+Kane's Humboldt glacier, some fifty miles north-east
+of their winter quarters, which was described as "the
+mighty crystal bridge which connects the two continents
+of America and Greenland," when, of course, it does
+nothing of the sort.</p>
+
+<div id='pg236'  class='figcenter id027'>
+<img src='images/i_359.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>KALUTUNAH</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>What with sickness, accident, and other disaster, it
+became evident that the <em>Advance</em> would never leave her
+wintering place, and in July Kane set off on a wild
+endeavour to reach Beechey Island and obtain relief
+from the Franklin search vessels, but he had to return.
+Next month Hayes was sent to Upernivik, but he also
+came back. Finally in May, 1855, the brig was abandoned
+and the survivors began their journey to the
+south. Fortunately on the outward voyage Kane, at
+Fiskernaes, had engaged Hans Hendrik the Greenlander,
+then a boy of nineteen, who became quite a
+prominent figure in this and subsequent voyages, and
+without him and Kalutunah, chief of the Etah Eskimos,
+the whole party would have perished miserably.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Hans first appears when spearing a bird on the wing;
+Kalutunah's first appearance was equally encouraging.
+"The leader of the party," says Kane, "was a noble
+savage, greatly superior in everything to the others of
+his race. He greeted me with respectful courtesy, yet
+as one who might rightfully expect an equal measure
+of it in return, and, after a short interchange of salutations,
+seated himself in the post of honour at my side.
+I waited, of course, till the company had fed and slept,
+for among savages especially haste is indecorous, and
+then, after distributing a few presents, opened to them
+my project of a northern exploration. Kalutunah
+received his knife and needles with a 'Kuyanaka,' 'I
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>thank you'; the first thanks I have heard from a native
+of this upper region. He called me his friend—'Asakaoteet,'
+'I love you well'—and would be happy,
+he said, to join the nalegak-soak in a hunt."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>And the journey ended in a hunt, for the dogs caught
+sight of a large male bear in the act of devouring a seal.
+The impulse was irresistible; Kane lost all control over
+both dogs and drivers, who seemed dead to everything
+but the passion of pursuit. Off they sped with incredible
+speed; the Eskimos clinging to their sledges
+and cheering their dogs with loud cries. A mad, wild
+chase, wilder than German legend—"the dogs, wolves;
+the drivers, devils." After a furious run, the animal
+was brought to bay, and the lance and rifle did their
+work. There were more bears and more hunts, and
+when Kane objected that this could hardly be called
+northern exploration, he was told by Kalutunah, significantly,
+that the bear-meat was absolutely necessary
+for the support of their families, and that the nalegak-soak
+had no right to prevent him from providing for
+his household. "It was a strong argument," says
+Kane, "and withal the argument of the strong."</p>
+
+<div id='pg238'  class='figcenter id021'>
+<a href='images/i_363.jpg'><img src='images/i_363_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE EAST COAST OF SMITH SOUND</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>Bear-hunting hereabouts has its dangers, for the
+Eskimos of the north are not armed with bows and
+arrows as are those of the mainland. When the bear
+is found the dogs are set upon the trail, and the hunter
+runs by their side in silence. As he turns the angle
+ahead his game is in view before him, stalking probably
+along with quiet march, sometimes sniffing the air
+suspiciously, but making, nevertheless, for a clump of
+hummocks. The dogs spring forward, opening in a
+wild wolfish yell, the driver shrieking "Nannook!
+nannook!" and all straining every nerve in pursuit.
+The bear rises on his haunches, views his pursuers,
+and starts off at full speed. The hunter, as he runs,
+leaning over his sledge, seizes the traces of a couple of
+his dogs and liberates them from their burden. It is
+the work of a minute; for the speed is not checked and
+the remaining dogs rush on with apparent ease. Pressed
+more severely, the bear stands at bay while his two
+foremost pursuers halt at a short distance and quietly
+await the arrival of the hunter. At this moment the
+whole pack are liberated; the hunter grasps his lance,
+and, stumbling through the snow and ice, prepares for
+the encounter. Grasping the lance firmly in his hands
+he provokes the animal to pursue him by moving
+rapidly across its path, and then running as if to escape.
+But hardly is its long body extended for the tempting
+chase, before, with a quick jump, the hunter doubles
+on his track, and, as the bear turns after him again,
+the lance is plunged into the left side below the
+shoulder; and that so dexterously, that, if it be an
+inch or so wide of the proper spot, the spear has
+to be left in the bear and the man has to run for
+his life.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>At this hazardous work Kalutunah was an adept, and
+he was equally skilful at a much less dangerous game,
+as Dr. Hayes was to discover when wintering in the
+schooner <em>United States</em> in Foulke Harbour, further
+south, in 1860-61. Hayes wished to learn how to
+catch auks, and the Eskimo gave him a lesson.
+Kalutunah carried a small net, made of light strings of
+sealskin knitted together, the staff by which it was held
+being about ten feet in length. Arriving about half-way
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>up the cliffs he crouched behind a rock and invited the
+doctor to follow his example. The slope on which the
+birds were congregated was about a mile long, and in
+vast flocks they were sweeping over it a few feet above
+the stones down the whole length of the hill, returning
+higher in the air, and so round and round in a complete
+circuit. Occasionally a few hundreds or thousands
+would drop down as if following some leader, and in
+an instant the rocks, for some distance, would swarm
+with them as they speckled the hill with their black
+backs and white breasts. The doctor was told to lie
+lower, as the birds noticed him and were flying too
+far overhead. Having placed himself as Kalutunah
+approved, the birds began to sweep lower and lower
+in their flight until their track came well within reach.
+Then, as a dense portion of the crowd approached, up
+went the net, and half a dozen birds flew into it, and,
+stunned by the blow, could not recover before the
+Eskimo had slipped the staff through his hands and
+seized the net. With his left hand he pressed down
+the birds, while with the right he drew them out one
+by one, and, for want of a third hand, used his teeth to
+crush their heads. The wings were then locked across
+each other; and with an air of triumph the old chief
+looked around, spat the blood and feathers from his
+mouth, and went on with the sport, tossing up his net
+and hauling it in with much rapidity until he had
+caught about a hundred, and wanted no more.</p>
+
+<div id='pg240'  class='figcenter id028'>
+<img src='images/i_367.jpg' alt='I. I. Hayes' class='ig001' />
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>Hayes did his best to disparage both Kalutunah and
+Hans, to whom he was not quite so much indebted as
+Kane, owing to his having given himself a better chance
+of retreat by not taking the schooner out of Smith
+Sound, his quarters in Hartstene Bay being only some
+twelve miles north of Cape Alexander. He had come
+to verify the existence of the open sea and sail to the
+Pole across it if he could; and he verified it to his
+own satisfaction. But he did not get so far north as
+Morton, although he claimed to have done so, for he
+climbed a cliff eight hundred feet high and looked out
+over the open water—in Kennedy Channel—and did
+not see the Greenland cliffs trending away northwards
+within thirty miles of him, and visible all the way up
+for two degrees north of Cape Constitution. Thus he
+left the map as Kane left it, with Greenland cut off
+short south of the eighty-first parallel, and his farthest
+seems to have been the south point of Rawlings Bay,
+where the <em>Alert</em> was forced on shore in August, 1876,
+in 80° 15´.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"I climbed," he says, "the steep hillside to the top
+of a ragged cliff, which I supposed to be about eight
+hundred feet above the level of the sea. The view
+which I had from this elevation furnished a solution of
+the cause of my progress being arrested on the previous
+day. The ice was everywhere in the same condition as
+in the mouth of the bay across which I had endeavoured
+to pass. A broad crack, starting from the middle of
+the bay, stretched over the sea, and uniting with other
+cracks as it meandered to the eastward, it expanded as
+the delta of some mighty river discharging into the
+ocean, and under a water-sky, which hung upon the
+northern horizon, it was lost in the open sea. The sea
+beneath me was a mottled sheet of white and dark
+patches, these latter being either soft decaying ice or
+places where the ice had wholly disappeared. These
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>spots were heightened in intensity of shade and multiplied
+in size as they receded, until the belt of the
+water-sky blended them all together into one uniform
+colour of dark blue. The old and solid floes (some a
+quarter of a mile, and others miles across) and the
+massive ridges and wastes of hummocked ice which
+lay piled between them and around their margins, were
+the only parts of the sea which retained the whiteness
+and solidity of winter."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Unfortunately for Hayes, the astronomer of the
+expedition, August Sonntag, who had assisted Kane in
+the same capacity, was frozen to death on a sledge
+journey, and the doctor was left to do the work for
+himself, with disappointing results, as with errors of
+many miles in either latitude or longitude his journeys
+can only be noticed in a very general way. In October,
+1860, he proceeded for some distance over the glacier
+to the east of his wintering place. The first attempt to
+scale the glacier was attended by what might have been
+a serious accident. The foremost member of the party
+missed his footing as he was clambering up the rude
+steps, and, sliding down the steep side, scattered those
+who were below him to the right and left and sent them
+rolling into the valley beneath. The next effort was
+more successful, and, the end of a rope being carried
+over the side of the glacier, the sledge was drawn up
+the inclined plane and a fair start obtained. A little
+further on Hayes was only saved from disappearing
+down a crevasse by clutching a pole he was carrying on
+his shoulder. Next day, the surface being smoother,
+more progress was made, and they reached a plain of
+compact snow covered with a crust through which the
+feet broke at every step. The day afterwards the cold
+grew more intense and a gale came on. At night the
+men complained bitterly and could not sleep, and as the
+storm increased in strength they were forced to leave the
+tent and by active exercise prevent themselves from
+freezing.</p>
+
+<div id='pg242'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_371.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE SHORES OF KENNEDY CHANNEL</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>To face the wind was impossible, and shelter was
+nowhere to be found upon the unbroken plain, there
+being but one direction in which they could move, that
+being with their backs to the gale. It was not without
+difficulty that the tent was taken down and bundled
+upon the sledge, the wind blowing so fiercely that they
+could scarcely roll it up with their stiffened hands.
+The men were in pain and could only hold on for a few
+moments to the hardened canvas, their fingers, freezing
+continually, requiring vigorous pounding to keep them
+on the flickering verge of life. "In the midst of a vast
+frozen Sahara, with neither hill, mountain, nor gorge
+anywhere in view," says Hayes, "fitful clouds swept
+over the face of the full-orbed moon, which, descending
+toward the horizon, glimmered through the drifting
+snow that whirled out of the illimitable distance, and
+scudded over the icy plain, to the eye in undulating
+lines of downy softness, to the flesh in showers of
+piercing darts. Our only safety was in flight; and like
+a ship driven before a tempest which she cannot withstand,
+and which has threatened her ruin, we turned
+our backs to the gale; and, hastening down the slope,
+we ran to save our lives. We travelled upwards of
+forty miles, and had descended about three thousand
+feet before we ventured to halt."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Next year he visited the large glacier in Whale
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>Sound which he named after Professor John Tyndall,
+pulling first along its front in a boat and then mounting
+its surface. As he rowed along within a few fathoms
+of this two miles of ice, he found the face "worn and
+wasted away until it seemed like the front of some vast
+incongruous temple, here a groined roof of some
+huge cathedral, and there a pointed window or a
+Norman doorway deeply moulded; while on all sides
+were pillars round and fluted and pendants dripping
+crystal drops of the purest water, and all bathed in a
+soft blue atmosphere. Above these wondrous archways
+and galleries there was still preserved the same Gothic
+character; tall spires and pinnacles rose along the
+entire front and multiplied behind them, and new forms
+met the eye continually. Strange, there was nothing
+cold or forbidding anywhere. The ice seemed to take
+the warmth which suffused the air, and I longed to pull
+my boat far within the opening and paddle beneath the
+Gothic archways."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Charles Francis Hall, of Cincinnati, was a man of a
+very different stamp. He was a genius and a genuine
+worker, an accurate observer and painstaking explorer
+who believed above all things in thoroughness.
+Realising that the best way to study the Polar regions
+was to understand the Eskimos, who know most about
+them, and utilise their local knowledge, he settled
+amongst them, lived with them, adopted their customs,
+and became as one of them in their huts and tents,
+taking part in their sports and hardships. Two friends
+he made amongst them, Ebierbing and his wife Tookoolito,
+better known as Joe and Hannah, who accompanied
+him till he died.</p>
+
+<div id='pg244'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_375.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>TYNDALL GLACIER</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>After clearing up the Frobisher problem and throwing
+some light on the Franklin mystery, he started in 1871
+to go as far north as he could across the reported Polar
+Sea. To him Henry Grinnell, who did so much for
+northern discovery, entrusted the American flag which
+had been to the Antarctic with Wilkes in 1838, to the
+Arctic with De Haven, with Kane and with Hayes,
+and was a sort of oriflamme of Polar discovery. His
+ship was the <em>Polaris</em>, of 387 tons, once the <em>Periwinkle</em>,
+a name which seemed to be a little too unassuming.
+Buddington, his sailing-master, was an experienced
+whaling captain; his assistant, Tyson, destined for the
+independent command of an ice-floe, was another
+whale-fisher. The naturalist was Emil Bessels. On
+board were also Joe and Hannah—of course—and
+William Morton, to show where the sea was, and,
+picked up at Upernivik, the indispensable Hans
+Hendrik with his wife and three children.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The voyage was fortunate so long as Hall lived.
+The <em>Polaris</em> found the Polar gates open before her.
+She steamed right up Smith Sound, through Kane Sea,
+up Kennedy Channel, into Robeson Channel—named
+after the Secretary to the American Navy—until she
+reached the ice, in 82° 16´, on the 30th of August, 1871,
+the highest latitude then attained by a ship. Hall
+would have pressed on into the ice, but Buddington
+wisely refused, and hardly had the <em>Polaris</em> been headed
+round when she was beset and carried southwards, to
+escape in a few days and take refuge for the winter in
+a harbour on the east of what is now known as Hall
+Basin, protected at its entrance by a grounded floeberg.
+The latitude is 81° 38´, the harbour Hall called Thank
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>God Bay. There in November he died; and close by
+is Hall's Rest, where he is buried.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>His death was the end of the enterprise. Buddington
+wished to return as soon as the ship was released,
+and eventually had his way, after a journey or two of
+little importance. But he stayed too long. The ship
+was clear in June, and he did not start until the 1st of
+August, and he started by driving her into the pack,
+anchored her to a floe, and drifted helplessly into
+Baffin Bay, as De Haven had done through Lancaster
+Sound in 1850. For eleven weeks the drift continued
+until she was off Northumberland Island on the 15th
+of October. Here in the middle of the night a violent
+gale arose, and the crippled ship, nipped between two
+masses of ice, was lifted bodily and thrown on her side,
+her timbers cracking loudly and her sides apparently
+breaking in. Two boats, all she had, were hurriedly
+got on to the ice, and provisions, stores, and clothing
+were being passed out, when with a roar the floe
+broke asunder, and the <em>Polaris</em> disappeared like a
+phantom in the gale. As the ice cracked and the
+sides lurched apart, a bundle of fur lay across the
+fissure. A grab was made at it, and the bundle was
+saved. It contained the baby of Joe the Eskimo,
+whose wife had been confined the year before in latitude
+82°, perhaps the most northerly birthplace of any
+of this world's inhabitants.</p>
+
+<div id='pg246'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_379.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>A SEAL IN DANGER</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>On the ice were Tyson, with Sergeant Meyer, the
+steward, the cook, six sailors, and nine Eskimos, men,
+women, and children, including Hans and Joe. They
+built a house, from the materials thrown out from the
+ship, as a shelter; and they built snow houses as the time
+went on and the floe diminished. Provisions they had
+but few, but Hans and Joe were indefatigable. They
+speared seals, caught fish, trapped birds, and, sometimes,
+a bear would scramble up on to the ice for them
+to shoot—and they never missed. In short, without
+them the party would have starved to death.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The floe on which the castaways passed the winter
+was about a hundred yards long and seventy-five broad.
+On this they voyaged down the whole length of Baffin
+Bay and through Davis Strait, the ice melting away
+and getting smaller and smaller as they drifted south,
+until on the 1st of April, when it was only twenty
+yards round, they had to take to the remaining boat,
+the other having been used for fuel. Once they nearly
+touched the shore, but the wind rose and off they were
+driven in the snow. When they were picked up by the
+sealer <em>Tigress</em> in 53° 35´, near the coast of Labrador, on
+the 30th of April, they had drifted fifteen hundred miles
+in the hundred and ninety-six days that had elapsed
+since they left the ship.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The <em>Polaris</em>, blown to the northward, reached land
+at Lifeboat Cove in the entrance to Smith Sound, a
+little north of Foulke Harbour, and here with the aid
+of the Etah Eskimos the crew passed the winter; and,
+in the spring, some of them went on an expedition in
+the Hayes country and lost the famous flag. As the
+ship could not be made seaworthy, two flat-bottomed
+boats were built of her materials, and on the 21st of
+June these were found hauled up on a floe in Melville
+Bay, and their people rescued by the whaler <em>Ravenscraig</em>,
+which shifted them into the <em>Arctic</em>, another Dundee
+whaler, on board of which was Commander Markham,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>who, with Hans Hendrik, four years afterwards, was to
+follow up Hall's track to the north.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The results of this expedition were of considerable
+importance. In five days Captain Hall had run five
+hundred miles through what on most occasions has been
+found to be an ice-choked sea. He completed the
+exploration of Kennedy Channel, discovered Hall
+Basin and Robeson Channel, and was the first to reach
+the Polar ocean by this route. Greenland and Grinnell
+Land he extended northward for nearly a hundred and
+forty miles; and, north of Petermann Fiord, where he
+showed that the inland ice terminated, he had found a
+large area free from ice, with its wild flowers and
+herbage and musk oxen.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Hall's remarkable success in taking a ship to so high
+a latitude led to the Government expedition of 1875,
+the first British attempt to reach the Pole since Parry's
+failure in 1827. Three ships were employed: the <em>Alert</em>,
+a seventeen-gun sloop; the <em>Discovery</em>, once the <em>Bloodhound</em>,
+a Dundee whaler; and the <em>Valorous</em>. The
+<em>Alert</em> and <em>Discovery</em> were specially prepared for the
+voyage at Portsmouth by Sir Leopold M'Clintock who
+was then Admiral Superintendent of the dockyard;
+the <em>Valorous</em>, an old paddle sloop, required little alteration,
+as her duty was merely to carry the stores that
+could not safely be taken by the exploring vessels in
+crossing the Atlantic and hand them over at Disco.</p>
+
+<div id='pg248'  class='figcenter id029'>
+<img src='images/i_383.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>SIR GEORGE NARES</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>The leader, Captain George Strong Nares, when one
+of the Franklin search officers under Kellett at Melville
+Island, had distinguished himself by a sledge journey
+in which he had travelled nine hundred and eighty
+miles in sixty-nine days and reached 119½° west
+longitude. He was known as one of the best navigators
+in the Navy, and when called upon to go to the north
+was in command of H.M.S. <em>Challenger</em>, then on her
+famous voyage of scientific exploration in very different
+seas. With him in the <em>Alert</em> was Commander Albert
+Hastings Markham, whose experience, varied and considerable,
+gained by his spending much of his spare
+time within the Arctic Circle, rendered him especially
+well fitted for the position. In command of the <em>Discovery</em>
+was Captain Henry Frederick Stephenson; and
+the officers of both ships were, like the crews, all
+specially selected. There was no difficulty in the
+manning. One commanding officer called at the office
+at Portsmouth where the men were being entered and
+asked for advice. "An order," he said, "has come on
+board my ship, directing me to send volunteers for
+Arctic service to this office. What am I to do? The
+whole ship's company, nearly eight hundred men, have
+given in their names."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The three ships left Spithead on the 29th of May,
+1875, and were all at Godhavn on the 6th of July.
+Nine days afterwards they left for Ritenbenk of the
+curious name, which is an anagram of that of Berkentin
+who was in charge of the Greenland department when
+it was founded. Here the <em>Valorous</em> parted company to
+return home after filling up with fuel at the coal
+quarries on the north side of Disco Island, while the
+two ships went to Proven to pick up Hans Hendrik,
+who this time left his wife and children behind him.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Through Smith Sound, almost choked with ice,
+progress was slow and difficult; but the passage was
+safely accomplished, and so across Kane Sea and up
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>Kennedy Channel. On Washington Irving Island an
+ancient cairn was found, evidently the work of white
+men's hands and of great age, as shown by the state of
+the lichens on it—yet another of the many indications
+in the Polar regions that there was always a somebody
+before the first on record. Crossing the mouth of
+Archer Fiord, a snug harbour was found in 81° 44´,
+where the <em>Discovery</em> was left to spend the winter, the
+<em>Alert</em> going on, hampered much by the floes, though
+helped at last by a south-westerly wind, until she had
+to stop in 82° 27´ on the shore of the Polar Ocean, at
+what was named Floeberg Beach, off an open coast
+and with no more protection during the winter than
+was afforded by masses of ice ranging up to sixty feet
+in height aground in from eight to twelve fathoms of
+water.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"The protected space," says Nares, "available for
+shelter was so contracted and shallow, the entrance to
+it so small, and the united force of the wind and flood-tide
+so powerful, that it was with much labour and no
+trifling expense in broken hawsers that the ship was
+hauled in stem foremost. It was a close race whether
+the ice or the ship would be in first, and my anxiety
+was much relieved when I saw the ship's bow swing
+clear into safety just as the advancing edge of the
+heavy pack closed in against the outside of our friendly
+barrier of ice. From our position of comparative
+security the danger we had so narrowly escaped was
+strikingly apparent as we gazed with wonder and awe
+at the power exerted by the ice driven past us to the
+eastward with irresistible force by the wind and flood-tide
+at the rate of about a mile an hour. The projecting
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>points of each passing floe which grounded near
+the shore in about ten fathoms of water would be at
+once wrenched off from its still moving parent mass;
+the pressure continuing, the several pieces, frequently
+thirty thousand tons in weight, would be forced up the
+inclined shore, rising slowly and majestically ten or
+twelve feet above their old line of flotation. Such
+pieces quickly accumulated until a rampart-like barrier
+of solid ice-blocks, measuring about two hundred yards
+in breadth and rising fifty feet high, lined the shore,
+locking us in, but effectually protecting us from the
+overwhelming power of the pack." The land had
+already assumed a wintry aspect, and the ship soon
+put on a garb of snow and ice, each spar and rope
+being double its ordinary thickness from the accumulation
+of rime. Around her everything was white and
+solemn; no voice of bird or beast was heard; all was
+still and silent save the gathering floes; and in two
+days the men were able to walk on shore over the new
+ice.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>For eleven months she stayed here, secured by cables
+to anchors frozen on to the shore to protect her from
+gales on the landward side. With the ship housed in
+awnings of tilt-cloth, with snow a foot thick laid on
+the upper deck and banked up on each side as high as
+the main-chains, with skylights and hatchways carefully
+covered up, except two hatchways for ingress and
+egress constructed with porches and double doors so as
+to prevent the entrance of the bitter air, the crew here
+passed the long Polar night. On the 11th of October
+the sun disappeared, and then began those entertainments,
+lectures, lessons, games, not forgetting the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>Royal Arctic Theatre which opened on the 18th of
+November, with which the winter was pleasantly whiled
+away. "Can you sing or dance? or what can you do
+for the amusement of others?" every man had been
+asked before he was chosen, and the result was a
+singularly happy time kept up until sunrise.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The cold was intense and long-continued. Even the
+tobacco pipes froze, the stem becoming solidly clogged
+with ice as the smoking went on unless it was made so
+short as to bring the bowl unpleasantly close to the
+mouth. On the 1st of April the temperature was
+down to minus 64°, and three days afterwards it was
+a hundred and five below freezing, the cold weather
+preventing the departure of the dog-sledge for Discovery
+Bay.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>During the autumn, sledging parties had laid out
+reserves of stores for the spring journeys, and a certain
+amount of practice had been given to the men in what
+was intended to be the chief work of the expedition.
+The field, however, was not promising. On one occasion
+Nares went out to look at it. He obtained a fine
+view of the pack for a distance of six miles from the
+land. The southern side of each purely white snow-covered
+hummock was brilliantly lighted by the orange-tinted
+twilight. The stranded floebergs lining the
+shore extended from half to three-quarters of a mile off
+the land. Outside were old floes with undulating
+upper surfaces separated from each other by Sherard
+Osborn's "hedgerows of Arctic landscape," otherwise
+ridges of pressed-up ice of every size. "It will be as
+difficult," was his verdict, "to drag a sledge over such
+ice as to transport a carriage directly across country in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>England." He gave a lecture on sledging at one of the
+winter entertainments. It was interesting but not encouraging.
+He told his hearers that if they could
+imagine the hardest work they had ever been called
+upon to perform in their lives intensified to the utmost
+degree, it would only be as child's play in comparison
+with the work they would have to perform whilst
+sledging. "These prophetic words," says Markham,
+"were fully realised, and were often recalled and commented
+on by the men."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>They had four different kinds of sledges. From the
+illustrations it will appear how the eight-feet sledges
+differed from those used by M'Clintock, the Nares
+sledge being higher and more slender in the uprights.
+The eight-men sledge, such as the Marco Polo—which
+was bound for the Pole—had six uprights eighteen
+inches apart. It was eleven feet long, thirty-eight
+inches wide, eleven inches high, and weighed one
+hundred and thirty pounds. The tent, made of light,
+unbleached duck, was nine feet four inches long at the
+bottom, eight feet at the top, seven feet wide and high,
+and weighed forty-four pounds. The tent poles, five
+in number, weighed five pounds apiece. The coverlet
+weighed thirty-one pounds and a half, and the extra
+coverlet twenty pounds. The lower robe weighed
+twenty-three pounds, the waterproof floor-cloth fifteen.
+The eight sleeping-bags weighed eight pounds apiece,
+and the eight knapsacks, when packed, twelve pounds
+apiece. The shovel and two pickaxes accounted for
+twenty-one pounds, the store-bag for twenty-five, the
+cooking gear for twenty-nine, the gun and ammunition
+for twenty-five, the medical stores for twelve, the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>instruments for fifteen, and the tent for nine and a
+quarter. To this must be added a thousand and eighty
+pounds for forty-five days' provisions for the eight men,
+and we have the total of sixteen hundred and sixty-four
+pounds odd, which with seven men at the ropes
+gives each man a drag of about two hundred and
+thirty-eight pounds. In the spring the weight decreases
+as the provisions are consumed, but the rate of
+decrease is not the same in the autumn, for then the
+steadily falling temperature increases the weight of the
+outfit by the moisture it adds to the tent and clothing.
+In Markham's autumn journey the tent of thirty-two
+pounds came back as fifty-five, the coverlet as forty-eight,
+the lower robe as forty, the floor-cloth as forty,
+and everything else was heavier than at the start.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The sledges mustered for their journeys on the 3rd of
+April. Seven in number, they were drawn up in single
+line according to the seniority of the leaders, all fully
+equipped and provisioned, and manned by fifty-three
+officers and men. On each was its commander's banner—a
+swallow-tailed flag charged with a St. George's
+cross and displaying the armorial bearings. As a precaution
+against snow-blindness, the men had been
+ordered to decorate the backs of their snow-jumpers
+with any device they thought fit, the result being a display
+of comic blazonry that often formed a topic of
+conversation when others failed. For the same reason
+the two boats carried on the north-going sledges were
+gaily decorated with the royal arms, and the rose,
+shamrock, and thistle; the artist, as on other occasions,
+being Doctor Moss, whose great difficulty in the matter
+was that in spite of the quantity of turpentine used in
+mixing the paint it would persist in freezing so that the
+brush became as stiff as a stick every few seconds.</p>
+
+<div>
+
+<div id='pg254'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_391.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+</div>
+<table class='table1' summary=''>
+<colgroup>
+<col width='14%' />
+<col width='71%' />
+<col width='14%' />
+</colgroup>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c018'><span class='sc'>Section M'Clintock</span></td>
+    <td class='c018'>SLEDGES USED BY (1) SIR LEOPOLD M'CLINTOCK AND (2) SIR GEORGE NARES</td>
+    <td class='c019'><span class='sc'>Section Nares</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c018'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c018'>(In the collection of Ed. Whymper)</td>
+    <td class='c019'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>Lieutenant Aldrich, supported for three weeks by
+Lieutenant Giffard, was to explore the shores of Grant
+Land, towards the north and west, along the coast-line
+he had discovered in the previous autumn. Commander
+Markham, seconded by Lieutenant Parr, was to accompany
+Aldrich to Cape Joseph Henry and then strike off
+to the northward over the ice. The other three sledges
+were to accompany these as far as their own provisions
+would allow, after completing the four's deficiencies and
+giving them a fresh start from an advance post.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>When Markham was only eleven days out, one of his
+crew complained of pain in his ankles and knees, and
+was of no help for the rest of the journey. This was
+the first appearance of the scurvy which was to ruin so
+many hopes, for man after man was taken ill and
+became a passenger. To make matters worse no
+rougher road was ever traversed by sledge. Over a
+labyrinth of piled-up blocks of ice ranging to forty feet
+and more in height, through which the road had to be
+cut with pickaxe and shovel, and amid gale and fog and
+falling snow, the painful progress went on. With many
+a "One; two; three; haul!" the heavy mass would be
+dragged where the men could hardly drag themselves;
+one of the sledges taken a few yards by the combined
+crews, who would then return for the other. On the
+19th of April one of the boats was abandoned and this
+made matters easier, but only for a time, as the disease
+spread. At last it was decided to stop; and on the
+12th of May a party of ten went ahead to reach the
+farthest north.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>"The walking," says Markham, "was undoubtedly
+severe, at one moment struggling through deep snowdrifts,
+in which we floundered up to our waists, and at
+another tumbling about amongst the hummocks.
+Some idea may be formed of the difficulties of the
+road, when, after more than two hours' hard walking,
+with little or nothing to carry, we had barely accomplished
+one mile. Shortly before noon a halt was
+called, the artificial horizon set up, and the flags and
+sledge standards displayed. Fortunately the sun was
+favourable to us, and we were able to obtain a good
+altitude as it passed the meridian, although almost
+immediately afterwards dark clouds rolled up, snow
+began to fall, and the sun was lost in obscurity. We
+found the latitude to be 83° 20´ 26˝ N., or three
+hundred and ninety-nine miles and a half from the
+North Pole."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 8th of June Lieutenant Parr appeared on
+the quarter-deck of the <em>Alert</em> greeting in silence the
+one or two who chanced to meet him. That some
+calamity had happened was evident from his looks.
+He had walked on alone for forty miles to bring the
+news that Markham's party were in sore distress.
+Measures of rescue were instantly taken; Lieutenant
+May and Doctor Moss, on snow-shoes, pushing ahead
+with the dog-sledge laden with medical stores, while
+Nares with a strong party followed. On their arrival
+one man had died, and of the others no less than
+eleven were brought back to the ship on the relief
+sledges.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Ten days afterwards, fearing a similar fate had overtaken
+Aldrich's party, Lieutenant May was despatched
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>to find him. As with Markham, scurvy had begun on
+the outward journey, and it had become so bad on the
+return that one of the men was being sent off to the
+ship when May arrived with help. It had nevertheless
+been a successful journey, the road being easier than that
+by the northern route. Aldrich had traced the continuous
+border of the heavy pack for two hundred miles from
+Floeberg Beach, rounded Cape Columbia, in 83° 7´ N.,
+the northernmost point of Grant Land, and, along the
+coast trending steadily south-west, had reached longitude
+85° 33´ and sighted Cape Alfred Ernest in
+longitude 86½°.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>With his arrival there were over forty scurvy patients
+on board the <em>Alert</em>; and Nares was to learn that the
+sledge parties from the <em>Discovery</em> had been similarly
+affected. Lieutenant Beaumont had gone along the
+North Greenland coast, reaching, on the 21st of May,
+51° W., in 82° 20´ N., and sighting Cape May, Mount
+Hooker, and Cape Britannia. On the 10th of May,
+while on his outward journey, he had sent back Lieutenant
+Rawson to bring a relief party to meet him, and
+Rawson with Hans and eight dogs, accompanied by
+Doctor Coppinger, reached him on the 25th of June
+when he was on his last possible day's journey, he and
+two of his men dragging the sledge with four helpless
+comrades lashed on the top of it.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The <em>Discovery</em> had also sent out Lieutenant Archer
+to survey the fiord named after him, which opens out
+into Lady Franklin Bay; and Lieutenant Fulford had
+crossed the channel and explored Petermann Fiord.
+In fact, the expedition's geographical work was of great
+extent, as was the other scientific work, the most important,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>as usual, being that done from the ships.
+Among the odds and ends easily rememberable was the
+haul of the seine in Sheridan Lake, near the wintering
+station of the <em>Alert</em>, which yielded forty-three char
+(<em>Salmo arcturus</em>), the most northerly freshwater fish;
+the finding of the nest of the sanderling (<em>Calidris
+arenarius</em>), now in the Natural History Museum, in
+82° 33´, and the discovery of the nesting of the grey
+phalarope and the knot in the same neighbourhood;
+the thirty-feet seam of Miocene coal worked in Discovery
+Harbour; and the Eskimo relics at Cape
+Beechey, near the eighty-second parallel, which, in
+connection with the encampments on the opposite
+coast, suggested that there, at the narrowest part of
+Robeson Channel, had been a crossing place from shore
+to shore.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 31st of July, 1876, the <em>Alert</em> was again under
+steam after her long rest, and one of the most dangerous
+voyages on record began. The ships, of from five
+hundred to six hundred tons, were handled as if they
+were small tugs; blocked, beset, pressed on shore,
+Nares with consummate skill, constant watchfulness,
+and never-failing patience, brought them through. But
+they did not get out of Smith Sound until the 9th of
+September, and then it was against head winds in
+stormy weather amid icebergs innumerable that they
+were slowly worked southwards and homewards.</p>
+
+<div id='pg258'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_397.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>BISHOP PAUL EGEDE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XIII<br /> GREENLAND</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>Hans Egede—The house of Eric the Red—Nansen's crossing of Greenland—Nansen
+and Sverdrup row to Ny Herrnhut—Nordenskiöld's journeys—Berggren's
+discovery—Nordenskiöld on the inland ice—Glaciers and icebergs—Diatoms
+and whales—Edward Whymper's expedition—Greenland
+in Miocene times—Graah—Scoresby—Ryder—The <em>Germania</em> and <em>Hansa</em>—The
+Duke of Orleans—The Eskimos of Clavering Island—Franz Josef
+Fiord—The drift of the <em>Hansa</em>—The Greely expedition—The International
+Polar stations—Voyage of the <em>Proteus</em>—Lockwood reaches 83° 24´—Greely's
+wagon—The Eskimo house at Lake Hazen—Greely Relief expeditions—The
+rescue of Greely—Peary—His journey to Independence Bay—His
+four years' expedition—Reaches 84° 17´—His Polar expedition of 1905—The
+<em>Roosevelt</em>—The voyage to Cape Sheridan—Plan of the northern advance—Peary
+reaches 87° 6´—Moxon's mariner.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>Hans Egede, aged twenty-two, priest of the
+parish of Vaagen, in the north of Norway,
+reading, in 1710, about the Norse colonists of the west—and
+apparently knowing nothing of Thiodhilda—was
+led to think that some of their descendants might
+still be living in heathenism. Writing to the Bishop
+of Trondhjem, he proposed to go out to these as a
+missionary. The good father rather astonished him by
+the reply that "Greenland was undoubtedly part of
+America, and could not be very far from Cuba and
+Hispaniola, where there was found such abundance of
+gold," and, as those who went to Greenland might
+bring home "incredible riches," he approved of the
+suggestion.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>Unfortunately, however, Egede had written his letter
+without the knowledge of his wife, who by no means
+thought with the Bishop until seven years afterwards,
+when she changed her mind. Trying in vain locally,
+Egede applied for support to Frederick IV of Denmark,
+who finding him an earnest, honest, interesting man,
+gave him his patronage, the result being that a company
+was formed at Bergen for the development of
+trade and the propagation of the gospel; and, on the
+3rd of May, 1721, the <em>Hope</em> set sail from there for
+Greenland with forty-six intending colonists, including
+the missionary and his wife and family.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>His landing-place was on an island at the mouth
+of Godthaab Fiord, or Baal's River. He found the
+Greenlanders very different from what he had supposed;
+and also that the Dutch were carrying on a
+profitable trade with them and keeping it quiet. To
+begin with they were nothing like Vikings in appearance;
+and their language, instead of being a Scandinavian
+dialect, was of the same character as that of
+the Eskimos of Labrador—and not at all easy to learn.
+Learn it, however, he and his family did; and among
+the Greenlanders they remained and laboured with
+truly admirable energy and devotion, battling hard for
+life amid much disaster until, with the help of his
+son Paul, who succeeded him as superintendent of the
+mission with the title of bishop, the settlement became
+permanent, and other settlements arose from it up the
+western coast as they are found to-day.</p>
+
+<div id='pg260'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_401.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>GREENLANDERS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class='lg-container-l'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'><em>From a photo by Dr. H. Rink</em></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>Though there were no Norsemen, there were many
+traces of them, the most interesting being the house of
+Eric the Red, near Igaliko. Here, close to Erik's
+Fiord and overlooking Einar's Fiord, on one of the
+prettiest sites in Greenland, was Brattelid—"the steep
+side of a rock"—one side of it a natural cliff, the walls
+of the other sides, more than four feet thick, built of
+blocks of red sandstone from four to six feet in length
+as well as in breadth and thickness, reminding the
+visitor of those of Stonehenge, and evoking similar
+wonderment as to how they were got into place. And
+in his first colony, now called Igdluernerit, Egede
+seems to have followed the Norsemen—at an interval—in
+their architecture, to judge by the large stones in
+the walls of his house, which, like Eric's, is now in
+ruins.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Twelve years after Egede, came the Moravians to
+take up their quarters at Ny Herrnhut, also at the
+mouth of Godthaab (that is, Good Hope) Fiord. It
+was here that Nansen and Sverdrup landed in October,
+1888, having rowed up from Ameralik Fiord in their
+"half a boat," as the Eskimos called it.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"Are you Englishmen?" they were asked.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"No," said Nansen, in good Norse, "we are Norwegians."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"May I ask your name?"</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"My name is Nansen and we have just come from
+the interior."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"Oh, allow me to congratulate you on taking your
+doctor's degree!"</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>From which it is clear that Godthaab is not so much
+out of the world as one would suppose.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Nansen with his three Norsemen and two Lapps had
+reached the east coast in the <em>Jason</em>, and on the 17th of
+July had left the ship in their boats to make their way
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>to the shore; but they had been caught in the floes,
+and on them and among them they had drifted for
+twelve days—an experience they had not bargained for.
+Getting ashore at last near Cape Tordenskiold, they
+worked their way back northwards along the coast,
+spending a short time at an Eskimo encampment at
+Cape Bille, until on the 15th of August they hauled
+their two boats up near Umivik and started to cross
+Greenland over the inland ice.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The country is now in its glacial period, and for days
+they toiled across its glacial desert; each day alike in its
+wearisome monotony. "Flatness and whiteness were
+the two features of this ocean of snow," says Nansen;
+"in the day we could see three things only, the sun,
+the snowfield and ourselves. We looked like a diminutive
+black line feebly traced upon an infinite expanse of
+white. There was no break or change in our horizon,
+no object to rest the eye upon, and no point by which to
+direct the course. We had to steer by a diligent use of
+the compass, and keep our line as well as possible by
+careful watching of the sun and repeated glances back
+at the four men following and the long track which the
+caravan left in the snow. We passed from one horizon
+to another, but our advance brought us no change."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>By the 2nd of September they had all taken to their
+skis on which they made great progress alone, but when
+it came to hauling the sledges there was a difference.
+Sometimes the snow proved to be very heavy going,
+particularly when it was wind-packed, and then it was
+no better than sand. One entry in Nansen's journal
+will suffice: "It began to snow in the middle of the
+day, and our work was heavier than ever. It was worse
+even than yesterday, and to say it was like hauling in
+blue clay will scarcely give an idea of it. At every
+step we had to use all our force to get the heavy
+sledges along, and in the evening Sverdrup and I, who
+had to go first and plough a way for ourselves, were
+pretty well done up."</p>
+
+<div id='pg262'  class='figcenter id030'>
+<img src='images/i_405.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>ON LEVEL GROUND</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>When at last the wind became favourable they
+hoisted sail, and off they went over the waves and drifts
+of snow at a speed that almost took their breath away;
+and when they reached the western slopes they slid
+down them using the sledges as toboggans. At first
+they had intended making for Christianshaab, but the
+route had to be changed for that to Godthaab, and
+the sea was reached some distance to the south. Here
+they stitched the floor-sheet of their tent over a framework
+of withies, and with oars made of canvas stretched
+across forked willows and tied to bamboo shafts,
+Nansen and Sverdrup boldly trusted themselves to the
+waves and with much hard labour pulled into Ny
+Herrnhut on the 3rd of October. Such was the first
+crossing of Greenland, a really remarkable instance of
+daring endeavour.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Further north, Nordenskiöld, in 1883, had attempted
+to cross over the ice-cap from near Disco on the west
+coast, but, hindered and finally stopped by crevasses
+and other obstacles, could do no more than send
+his Lapps to try their best on their skis, and
+they returned after their journey eastwards of a
+hundred and forty miles reporting similar monotonous
+conditions all along their track. Thirteen years
+before, he had, also from Auleitsivik Fiord, started out
+with Berggren; and deserted by their followers, they
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>had gone on by themselves for some thirty miles east
+of the northern arm of the fiord. It was on this occasion
+that Berggren discovered <em>Ancylonema</em>, that small
+poly-cellular alga forming the dark masses that absorb a
+far greater amount of heat than the white ice and thus
+cause the deep holes that aid in the process of melting.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"The same plant," says Nordenskiöld, "has no doubt
+played the same part in our country; and we have to
+thank it, perhaps, that the deserts of ice which
+formerly covered the whole of Northern Europe and
+America have now given place to shady woods and
+undulating cornfields."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Nordenskiöld looked upon Greenland and its icefield
+as a broad-lipped, shallow vessel with chinks in the lip,
+the glacier being viscous matter within it. As more is
+poured in, the matter runs over the edges, taking the
+lines of the chinks, that is, of the fiords and valleys, as
+that of its outflow. In other words, the ice floats out
+by force of the superincumbent weight of snow just as
+does the grain on the floor of a barn when another
+sackful is shot on to the top of the heap already there.
+When the glacier reaches the sea it makes its way along
+the bottom under water for a considerable distance, in
+some cases, as near Avigait, for more than a mile. This
+is where the water is too shallow for it to affect the
+mass, which forms a breakwater; though as a rule the
+shore deepens more suddenly and the projection is less.
+It was long supposed that the berg broke from the
+glacier by force of gravity, but this is not generally so.
+The berg is forced off from the parent glacier by the
+buoyant action of the sea from beneath; the ice groans
+and creaks; then there is a crashing, then a roar like
+the discharge of artillery; and with a great regurgitation
+of the waves the iceberg is launched into life. These
+huge floating islands of ice are the most conspicuous
+exports of Greenland; and their true magnitude is not
+realised until it is remembered that only about an
+eighth of their bulk appears above the water. Bergs as
+large as liners we frequently hear of—one such is shown
+in our illustration—but sometimes they are of much
+greater freeboard, though the very large ones reported
+as extending along the horizon are invariably groups of
+several crowded together.</p>
+
+<div id='pg264'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_409.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE ALLAN LINER "SARDINIAN" AMONG ICEBERGS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span><em>Ancylonema</em> has evidently plenty to do. Another
+instance of the important part played by the insignificant
+in these regions is suggested by the colour of the sea.
+This varies from ultramarine blue to olive-green, from
+the purest transparency to striking opacity; and the
+changes are not transitory but permanent. These
+patches of dark water abound with diatoms, while the
+bluer the water the fewer are the diatoms; and where
+they are most numerous, there the animals that feed on
+them assemble in their greatest numbers. And these
+animals are jellyfish, entomostracans, and, to a greater
+extent, pteropods, their chief representative being <em>Clio
+borealis</em>. In short, the animals that feed on the diatoms
+are food of the Greenland whale, and where the waters
+are dark the whale-fishers thrive. "I know nothing
+stranger than the curious tale I have unfolded," says
+Dr. Robert Brown, who worked out this remarkable
+chain, "the diatom staining the broad frozen sea, again
+supporting myriads of living beings which crowd there
+to feed on it, and these again supporting the huge
+whale. Thus it is no stretch of the imagination to say
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>that the greatest animal depends for its existence on a
+being so minute that it takes thousands to be massed
+together before they are visible to the naked eye."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Cold as Greenland is, there was a time when matters
+were different. In token of this we have the Miocene
+fossils collected by Edward Whymper during his
+expedition from near Jakobshavn in 1867, which were
+described and illustrated by Oswald Heer in the <em>Philosophical
+Transactions</em> for 1869. A look at these is a
+welcome relief after such a surfeit of ice. Here, as
+well preserved as in the leaf beds of Alum Bay, are
+the leaves and fruits of an unmistakable temperate flora.
+Magnolias, maples, poplars, limes, walnuts, water-lilies;
+myrica, smilax, aralia; sedges and grasses, conifers and
+ferns: these at the least were all growing in Greenland
+in its Miocene age. And even a thousand years ago
+the climate must have been milder than now, to judge
+by the farming reports of the colonists who seem to
+have been quite at home along the coast, which, with
+its innumerable islands and fiords, is as intricate as that
+of Norway.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Searching for the ancient eastern settlement of the
+Norsemen, W. A. Graah, in 1829, wintered at
+Julianehaab, which in all likelihood is the site, although
+he knew it not. Possessed with the idea that it must
+be on the south-eastern coast, he devoted his attention
+to that region only, finding Eskimos who had never
+seen a white man and starting a trading intercourse
+which led to most of them migrating to the less inclement
+west. His work linked up with that of Scoresby,
+who in 1822 charted the main features of the sea-front
+from 69° to 75°. Ryder, seventy years afterwards, filled
+in the details of much of Scoresby's work, and found
+Eskimos further north, as Clavering had done in 1823,
+when in the <em>Griper</em> during Sabine's observations at
+Pendulum Island.</p>
+
+<div id='pg266'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_413.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE "GERMANIA" IN THE ICE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>It was to Pendulum Island, in 74° 32´, that Karl
+Koldewey, after his preliminary run to 81° 5´ in 1868,
+took the <em>Germania</em> to winter during the German expedition
+of 1869. The two vessels, the <em>Germania</em>, a
+small two-masted screw steamer of one hundred and
+forty-three tons, built specially for Arctic service,
+and the <em>Hansa</em>, only half her size, which had been
+strengthened for the voyage, reached Jan Mayen on
+the 9th of July, and, hidden from each other by fog,
+sailed northwards for five days. On the fifth evening
+the wind rose, the fog cleared, and a hundred yards in
+front of them lay the ice like a rugged line of cliffs.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>For a few days they sailed along it endeavouring to
+find an opening to the north. Then, on the 20th, the
+<em>Germania</em> ran up a signal to approach and communicate,
+which was misunderstood, and, instead of repeating
+it and making sure, the <em>Hansa</em> put up her helm,
+fell off, crowded on all sail, and disappeared in the fog.
+Koldewey, persisting in his efforts to get through the
+pack, found an opening on the 1st of August. Nine
+days afterwards he was again blocked, and finally, on
+the 27th, he reached Pendulum Island, where he made
+the <em>Germania</em> snug for the winter, which proved to be
+remarkably mild.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The first sledge party travelling up one of the fiords
+met with abundant vegetation and herds of reindeer
+and musk oxen, and were visited by bears who had not
+learnt to be wary of man; and when the bears came
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>back with the sun in February they were as troublesome
+as those of Ice Haven to the Dutchmen. Several
+sledge parties went out in the spring, and, notwithstanding
+inadequate equipment, did excellent work.
+In April, 1870, Koldewey reached 77° 1´, almost up to
+Lambert Land, otherwise the Land of Edam. Here,
+looking out over the ice-belt, they agreed that it was
+"a bulwark built for eternity," and hoisting sails on
+their sledges they ran back to the ship. But in 1905
+the Duke of Orleans arrived on the coast to reach
+78° 16´ and discover that their Cape Bismarck was on
+an island and their Dove Bay a strait.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In the neighbourhood of their winter quarters the
+glaciers and mountains were well explored, and an
+attempt was made to measure an arc of the meridian,
+which proved to be rather rough work among such
+surroundings. The snowstorms were particularly pitiless
+and heavy, and the travelling decidedly bad. The
+thaw began about the middle of May, and there was
+more sledging through pools than usual, so that they
+did not want variety in their occupations. On the
+14th of July boating became practicable, and a voyage
+was made to the Eskimo village found by Clavering
+in 1823, on the island named after him, but the village
+proved to be deserted and the huts in ruins—an unwelcome
+discovery, for, as M'Clintock says in reference
+to it: "It is not less strange than sad to find that a
+peaceable and once numerous tribe, inhabiting a coast-line
+of at least seven degrees of latitude, 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."</p>
+
+<div id='pg268'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_417.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE REGION ROUND MOUNT PETERMANN</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>A little north of the seventy-third parallel Koldewey
+discovered on his way home the magnificent Franz Josef
+Fiord. Here the grandest scenery in Greenland is to
+be found along its deep branches winding among the
+mountains, one of which, Mount Petermann, is over
+eleven thousand feet high. As the <em>Germania</em> entered
+this remarkable inlet, which extends inland for some five
+degrees of longitude, a fleet of icebergs were sailing out
+of it with the current; the farther she advanced the
+warmer seemed the temperature of the air and surface
+water, and the wilder and more impressive became the
+grouping of the mighty cliffs and peaks with their lofty
+waterfalls and raging torrents and deep glacier-filled
+ravines. It was the great geographical discovery of the
+expedition.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Meanwhile Hegemann, trying to pass to the north
+more to the westward, got the <em>Hansa</em> beset on the 9th
+of September some twenty-four miles from Foster Bay.
+As the ice-pressure threatened to become too great for
+the vessel to resist, an elaborate house was planned and
+built on the floe. Briquettes were used for the walls,
+the joints were filled up with dry snow on which water
+was poured, and in ten minutes it hardened into a compact
+mass. The house was twenty feet long, fourteen
+feet wide, and four feet eight inches high at the sides,
+with a rising roof consisting of sails and mats covered
+with deep snow. Into this house, which took a week
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>to build, provisions for two months were carried,
+besides wood and fuel. The boats were put out, a
+flagstaff was set up, and quite a little settlement was
+started on the ice; and no sooner was it completed than
+a violent snowstorm, lasting for five days, buried both
+the ship and the house. The ice increased around, and,
+the pressure of the accumulation lifting the <em>Hansa</em>
+seventeen feet above her original level, everything of
+value was removed from her on to the ice and into the
+house. On the 22nd of October she sank, having
+drifted below the seventy-first parallel; and all through
+the winter the floe, which was about two miles across,
+leisurely made its way to the south.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Off Knighton Bay Christmas was kept with all
+possible honour. The briquette house was decorated
+with coloured-paper festoons, and, by the light of the
+sole remaining wax candle, the genial Germans made
+themselves merry around a stubby Christmas tree
+devised out of an old birch broom. Three weeks afterwards
+the floe cracked beneath the dwelling. There
+was barely time to take refuge, but all hands were
+saved in the boats. For two days they remained in them,
+poorly sheltered from the storm and unable to clear out
+the snow. Then a smaller house was built of the ruins
+of the old one, but it was only large enough for half
+the party; and as the spring advanced the floe decreased,
+breaking away at the edges as did that on
+which the <em>Polaris</em> people drifted to Labrador.</p>
+
+<div id='pg270'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_421.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE LAST DAYS OF THE "HANSA"</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>At the end of March it entered Nukarbik Bay and
+there it stayed four weeks, caught in an eddy, slowly
+moving round and round just far enough from the
+shore to render an attempt at escape impossible; twice
+a day they went in with the tide and out with the tide, the
+ice too bad for the boats and never promising enough
+for a dash to the land. Having become thoroughly
+acquainted with this portion of the coast with its bold
+range of hills, its deep bays, its inlets, headlands, and
+islands, a storm came on which cleared them out of the
+eddy and drove them further south. Three weeks after
+that the floe had become so diminished by the lashing
+of the surge that it was hardly a hundred yards across,
+and large fragments were slipping off every hour.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>They had been on it for two hundred days and
+drifted eleven hundred miles when, on the 7th of May,
+water-lanes opening shorewards, they took to the boats
+and ventured among the masses of ice, making for the
+south. At first they had their difficulties in being
+compelled to haul up on the floes to pass the night or
+wait for a favourable wind, which meant severe work in
+unloading and reloading. Once during their painful
+progress of more than a month they were kept on a
+floe for six days by gales and snow-showers. Finally,
+after a long desperate effort, they reached Illuilek
+Island, and thence proceeded close inshore among rocks
+and ice to Frederiksdal, a couple of hours' walk from
+the southernmost point of the Greenland mainland,
+Cape Farewell being part of an island twenty-eight
+miles further to the south-east. On the 21st of June,
+eight days afterwards, they were at Julianehaab, whence
+they sailed to be landed at Copenhagen on the 1st of
+September, just ten days before the <em>Germania</em> steamed
+into Bremen. Thus the expedition, by its two divisions,
+ice-borne and ship-borne, had skirted nearly all that
+was then known of the east coast from end to end.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>On the north coast, Beaumont's discoveries were
+extended by Lieutenant James B. Lockwood for ninety-five
+miles, the trend of the shore taking him up to
+83° 24´, three minutes and thirty-four seconds nearer
+the North Pole than Markham reached out on the sea.
+This was on the 13th of May, 1882, during the ill-fated
+A. W. Greely expedition. Like most American expeditions
+up to then this began well and ended badly,
+worse, in fact, than any; and unlike them, and all others,
+it consisted entirely of soldiers—as if a detachment of
+Royal Engineers had been sent north on ordnance
+survey work. It was, however, more miscellaneous,
+for among its twenty-three members were representatives
+of three cavalry regiments, six infantry regiments,
+and an artilleryman.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>This was to be the garrison of the International
+Circumpolar Station at Lady Franklin Bay. The idea
+of a ring of stations round the Pole for the study of
+the natural phenomena for which the Arctic regions
+afford so wide and important a field was not new, but
+it was first reduced to definiteness and its adoption
+secured by Karl Weyprecht of the Austro-Hungarian
+expedition of 1872. At a meeting of German scientific
+men at Gratz, in September, 1875, he procured assent
+to his general principle that the best results in Arctic
+inquiry were to be obtained by subordinating geographical
+discovery to physical investigation. It had
+long been evident that the most valuable results had
+been obtained by the ships and fixed observatories, and
+that the toilsome work of the sledges in their successive
+approaches by a few more miles towards a mathematical
+point, though most interesting to read about, had really
+been of very little practical use owing to the necessarily
+light equipment. Instead, therefore, of a number of
+isolated attempts at irregular intervals, Weyprecht
+suggested that the better way would be to attack the
+subject systematically by a group of expeditions at
+permanent stations working together long enough at
+the same time for their observations to be dealt with as
+part of a general scheme; and the suggestion was
+approved although he did not live long enough to see
+the stations occupied.</p>
+
+<div id='pg272'  class='figcenter id031'>
+<a href='images/i_425.jpg'><img src='images/i_425_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>GREENLAND</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>Three International Polar Conferences were held, in
+1879 and the two following years, at Hamburg, Berne,
+and St. Petersburg, at the last of which it was arranged
+that the stations should be fourteen in number, two in
+the south and twelve in the north, these twelve being—(1)
+The Austrian at Jan Mayen; (2) the Danish at
+Godthaab; (3) the Finnish at Sodankyla in Uleaborg;
+(4) the German at Kingua in Cumberland Sound;
+(5) the British at Fort Rae on the northern arm of the
+Great Slave Lake; (6) the Dutch at Dickson Harbour
+at the mouth of the Yenesei; (7) the Norwegian at
+Bosekop at the head of Alten Fiord; (8) the Russian at
+Little Karmakul Bay in Novaya Zemlya; (9) the second
+Russian on Sagastyr Island in the Lena Delta; (10) the
+Swedish at Mossel Bay in Spitsbergen; (11) the
+American at Point Barrow under Lieutenant P. H.
+Ray, who met with marked success and brought his
+men all home in safety; and (12) the second American
+at Lady Franklin Bay, the winter quarters of H.M.S.
+<em>Discovery</em>, which Greely renamed Fort Conger.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In direct opposition to the guiding idea of the
+scheme, Greely's work was complicated by having
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>tacked on to it Howgate's proposal of another dash for
+the Pole, his instructions requiring him to send out
+"sledging parties in the interests of exploration and
+discovery." Further, his expedition was fitted out in
+a way that almost invited disaster. Let one instance
+suffice. "In speaking of this instrument," he explains,
+"it is necessary to say that a dip-circle was especially
+made for the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, but it
+was by error shipped to the United States Coast Survey.
+On calling for it, when the duplicate instrument
+ordered could not be had in time, the late Mr. Carlisle
+Patterson, then Superintendent, promptly promised that
+it should be sent on to me at New York. On the day
+of my sailing, a dip-circle, carefully boxed, was received;
+but on opening it at St. John, an old, rusty, unreliable
+instrument was found in the place of the new circle.
+This resulted in unsatisfactory and incomplete observations
+at Conger, for the old circle having upright
+standards instead of transverse ones, as in the new, but
+one end of the needle could be read. It must always
+be a matter of regret that this unwarrantable and unauthorised
+substitution by some person was made, which
+materially impaired, if not effectually destroyed, the
+value of our two-years' dip-observations." This sort of
+thing reduced International Polar Research to a farce,
+and the same spirit appeared in other departments,
+more seriously than all in the relief proceedings, which
+were conducted in a way that could only lead to starvation.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In August, 1881, the <em>Proteus</em>, with the expedition
+on board, made her way up Smith Sound and Kennedy
+Channel without serious hindrance until she entered
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>the south-eastern part of Lady Franklin Bay, where
+the close, heavy pack brought her to a stop within
+eight miles of her destination. She had come seven
+hundred miles from Upernivik in less than a week, and,
+faced by ice twenty to fifty feet thick, she had to wait
+another seven days before she got into Discovery
+Harbour. Here the party landed and a house was
+built, and dissension arose which ended in one of the
+company returning in the ship and another endeavouring
+to do so and being too late, so that he had to remain as
+a sort of tolerated volunteer. Two others were sent
+away as being physically unfit; but, making up for
+these, were two Eskimos engaged at Upernivik.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Preliminary sledging began at once, and in the spring
+the two great efforts were made. The doctor's, towards
+the Pole, left on the 19th of March and got adrift on
+a floe from which the party escaped with the loss of
+their tent, provisions, and some of their instruments.
+According to Greely's report: "The farthest latitude
+attained by this party is given by Dr. Pavy as 82° 56´,
+it being estimated, as no observations for time, magnetic
+declination, or latitude were made at any period during
+his absence."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 3rd of April, Lockwood with twelve men
+left for the coast of Greenland. Up to Newman Bay
+four men had been sent back as unfit for field-work.
+On the 16th, when the party started from here for the
+north-east, Lockwood and Christiansen, the Eskimo,
+were in advance hauling about eight hundred pounds
+with a team of eight dogs, a three-men sledge following,
+and then two two-men sledges; at Cape Bryant
+the men-sledges were sent back, and Lockwood,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>Brainard, and the Eskimo went on with the dog-sledge.
+Cape Britannia was reached on the 5th of May, and
+on the 13th they camped at Lockwood Island, and
+there, for the first time, Americans reached a farthest
+north.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"I decided to make this cape my farthest," reported
+Lockwood, "and to devote the little time we could
+stay to determining accurately my position, if the
+weather would allow, which seemed doubtful. We
+built a large, conspicuous cairn, about six feet high
+and the same width at the base, on the lower of two
+benches. After repitching the tent Sergeant Brainard
+and I returned to the cairn, and collected in that
+vicinity specimens of the rocks and vegetation of the
+country, the sergeant making almost all the collection.
+We ascended without difficulty to a small fringe of
+rocks, which seemed from below to form the top. The
+ascent, at first very gradual, became steeper as we went
+up, but we had no difficulty, as for some distance below
+the summit the surface is covered with small stones,
+as uniform in size, position, etc., as those of a macadamised
+road. Reached the top at 3.45 p.m. and unfurled
+the American flag (Mrs. Greely's) to the breeze in
+latitude 83° 24´ N. (according to last observation). The
+summit is a small plateau, narrow, but extending back
+to the south to broken, snow-covered heights. It commanded
+a very extended view in every direction. The
+barometer, being out of order, was not brought along,
+so I did not get the altitude. The horizon on the land
+side was concealed by numberless snow-covered mountains,
+one profile overlapping another, and all so merged
+together, on account of their universal covering of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>snow, that it was impossible to detect the topography
+of the region. To the north lay an unbroken expanse
+of ice, interrupted only by the horizon."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On Midsummer Day Greely started with a four-wheel
+wagon to explore Grinnell Land. The wagon,
+in the men's vernacular, was a man-killer, and was
+abandoned after they had dragged it a hundred miles.
+On this journey much exploring work was done in the
+unknown country, the most interesting find being that
+of the Eskimo house at Lake Hazen. In this, according
+to Greely's description, there were two fireplaces,
+one in the east and the other in the south, both of
+which had been built outward so as to take up no part
+of the space of the room, which was over seventeen
+feet long and nine feet wide. The sides of the entire
+dwelling were low walls of sodded earth, lined inside
+with flat thin slates, the tops of which were about two
+feet above the level of the interior floor, and the bench
+was covered with flat slabs of slate. Near by was a smaller
+house of the same character, and around were a large
+number of relics, including walrus-ivory toggles for
+dog-traces, sledge-bars and runners, an arrow head,
+skinning knife, and articles of worked bone. Next
+year further explorations of the back country were
+undertaken, so that some six thousand miles of the
+interior were viewed, disclosing many fertile valleys
+with their herds of musk ox.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Meanwhile the <em>Neptune</em>, with supplies for Fort
+Conger, had in August, 1882, been vainly endeavouring
+to get north, and, a few miles from Cape Hawks, had
+turned back with the pack piling the ice as high as her
+rail. Six attempts she made before she gave up and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>retreated, after making several deposits of stores at
+Cape Sabine and elsewhere. In July, 1883, the <em>Proteus</em>,
+making a similar attempt to reach Greely, was crushed
+in the ice off Cape Albert, her side opening with a
+crash while the men were working in the hold, the ice
+forcing its way into the coal-bunkers and then pouring
+in so that as soon as the pressure slackened she went
+down, escape to the south being effected in the boats.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Next year, matters having become serious, a naval
+expedition consisting of the <em>Thetis</em>, the <em>Bear</em>, and
+Nares's old ship the <em>Alert</em>, presented by the British
+Government, was placed in the capable hands of
+Commander Winfield Schley, who had with him George
+Melville of <em>Jeannette</em> fame as engineer of the <em>Thetis</em>,
+and matters were conducted in quite a different way
+under much more favourable circumstances. Schley
+intended to find Greely, at all costs, and he did so.
+First he found a cairn at Brevoort Island, in which
+were the papers deposited by Greely relating how he
+had had to come south owing to shortness of supplies,
+and how his party were then—21st of October, 1883—encamped
+on the west side of a small neck of land
+distant about equally from Cape Sabine and Cocked
+Hat Island.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>As it was then the 22nd of June, 1884, and they had
+had only forty days' complete rations to live upon,
+Schley hurried off at once. Had he been two days
+later he would have been too late. There was a tent
+wrecked by the gale, with its pole toppling over and
+only kept in place by the guy ropes. Ripping it up
+with a knife, a sight of horror was disclosed. On one
+side, close to the opening, with his head towards the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>outside, lay what was apparently a dead man. On the
+opposite side was a poor fellow, alive but without hands
+or feet, and with a spoon tied to the stump of his right
+arm. Two others, seated on the ground, were pouring
+something out of a rubber bottle into a tin can.
+Directly opposite, on his hands and knees, was a dark
+man with a long matted beard, in a dirty and tattered
+dressing-gown with a little red skull cap on his head,
+and brilliant staring eyes. As Colwell appeared, he
+raised himself a little, and put on a pair of eyeglasses.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"Who are you?" asked Colwell.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The man made no answer, staring at him vacantly.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"Who are you?" again.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>One of the men spoke up. "That's the Major—Major
+Greely."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Colwell crawled in and took him by the hand, saying
+to him, "Greely, is this you?"</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"Yes," said Greely in a faint, broken voice, hesitating
+with his words; "yes—seven of us left—here we are—dying—like
+men. Did what I came to do—beat the
+best record."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Near at hand were ten graves. The bodies, despite
+Greely's remonstrances, were taken up and removed
+for burial in the United States. "Little could be seen
+of the condition of the bodies, as they had been clothed,
+and all that appeared was intact. In preparing them
+subsequently," says Schley, "it was found that six had
+been cut and the flesh removed." One of these, that
+of a cavalryman serving under the assumed name of
+Henry, had a bullet in it. He had been shot, at
+Greely's written order, "for stealing sealskin thongs,
+the only remaining food."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>The next to add to our knowledge of the northern
+coast of Greenland was Robert E. Peary, of the
+American Navy, who seems to have devoted his life
+to Arctic exploration. On his first expedition in 1886,
+he penetrated with Maigaard for some distance into
+the country in the neighbourhood of Jakobshavn as
+a sort of pioneering venture. In 1891, accompanied
+by his wife, when outward bound in the <em>Kite</em> in the
+Melville Bay pack, he had his leg broken. The ship
+had been butting a passage through the spongy sheets
+of ice which had imprisoned her, when in going astern
+a detached cake struck the rudder, jamming the tiller
+against the wheel-house where Peary was standing,
+and pinned his leg long enough to snap it between the
+knee and the ankle. In spite of this he insisted on
+being landed with the rest of the party at McCormick
+Bay, a little to the north of Whale Sound, where a
+house was built and the winter spent.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Making a good recovery, he set off in May to sledge
+across North Greenland through snow and over it, and
+over snow-arched crevasses, often, in cloudy weather,
+travelling in grey space with nothing visible beyond
+a foot or two around him. After fifty-seven days'
+journey to the north-east and along Peary Channel, the
+northern boundary of the mainland, he left the inland
+ice for a strange country dotted with snowdrifts and
+mostly of red sandstone, in which murmuring streams,
+roaring waterfalls, and the song of snow-buntings
+formed an agreeable change from the silence of the
+desert of snow. Four days' hard labouring through
+this brought him on the 4th of July to Independence
+Bay on the north-east coast, where from Navy Cliff,
+nearly four thousand feet high, he looked across to
+Academy Land on the other side of the bay and beyond
+it over the region leading down to the farthest north
+of the Duke of Orleans. "It was almost impossible,"
+he says, "to believe that we were standing upon the
+northern shore of Greenland as we gazed from the
+summit of this bronze cliff, with the most brilliant
+sunshine all about us, with yellow poppies growing
+between the rocks around our feet, and a herd of muskoxen
+in the valley behind us. Down in that valley
+I had found an old friend, a dandelion in bloom, and
+had seen the bullet-like flight and heard the energetic
+buzz of the humble-bee."</p>
+
+<div id='pg280'  class='figcenter id032'>
+<img src='images/i_435.jpg' alt='R. E. Peary, U. S. N.' class='ig001' />
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>Next year he and his wife were out again to take up
+their quarters at a house they built at Bowdoin Bay,
+where, in September, their daughter was born. In
+March, 1894, he started for another journey across
+Greenland, with twelve sledges and over ninety dogs,
+but severe weather drove him back after travelling
+some two hundred miles. Staying over that winter
+instead of returning in the <em>Falcon</em>, he set out in the
+spring, and under almost desperate circumstances
+managed to reach and return from Independence Bay.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Following this came his expedition of 1898, in which
+he spent four winters in the Arctic regions and almost
+met with Petersen's fate by a venturesome winter
+sledge journey, which resulted in the freezing of his
+feet and the loss of eight of his toes. Travelling in
+Grinnell Land he proved beyond doubt that it was
+continuous with Ellesmere Land, as had been admitted
+by those who named it. Following Lockwood's track,
+he continued it up to 83° 54´, along Hazen Land, practically
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>completing the coast-line to Cape Henry Parish,
+its furthest east, thus rounding the north of the Greenland
+archipelago, and even there finding traces of
+Eskimos and a fauna similar to that of other Arctic lands
+hundreds of miles further south. And striking northwards
+over the sea from Cape Hecla, with seven men and
+six dog-sledges, into the breaking, drifting pack, he made
+a dash for the Pole which ended at 84° 17´.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>His next northern venture, though not more remarkable,
+is destined, perhaps, to be remembered longer.
+On it he sighted the new land away out in the sea
+north-west of Grinnell Land, nearer to the Pole than
+any other land discovered up to then, and where it was
+expected to be. And out over the ice he went to
+eclipse his 1902 record by nearly two hundred miles,
+in the best planned of all his journeys.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In July, 1905, he had left New York in the <em>Roosevelt</em>,
+a steamship of over six hundred tons and more than
+a thousand horse-power, rigged complete as a three-masted
+coasting schooner, able to hold her own almost
+anywhere in the event of her engines becoming useless.
+One hundred and eighty-two feet in length, thirty-five
+and a half in beam, and sixteen and a quarter in depth;
+sharp in the bow and rounded amidships; treble in
+framing and double in planking, with sides thirty
+inches thick, twelve feet of deadwood in her bow, and
+six feet of false keels and kelsons, she was specially
+built for the expedition as the strongest and most
+powerful vessel ever sent on Arctic service, and was
+launched on the 23rd of May, 1905, Mrs. Peary
+naming her by smashing a block of ice against her
+ironclad stem.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>A month out from New York, the <em>Roosevelt</em> left
+Etah laden deep with coal from the <em>Eric</em> that had
+awaited her there, and having on board over fifty
+Eskimos, of both sexes and all sizes, and some two
+hundred Eskimo dogs. Leaving a reserve of provisions
+at Bache Peninsula, she worked up through open
+water and occasional ice to Richardson Bay, where
+the pack looked so threatening that Peary literally
+rammed his way across to the eastern side, and so continued
+northwards. When off Cape Lupton the ship
+received such rough treatment that the rudder was
+twisted and the head-bands and tiller-rods broken, as
+she ground along the face of the ice-foot "with a
+motion and noise like that of a railway-car which has
+left the rails"; but this was the only time she was in
+serious danger during her most fortunate run. Resting
+for six days in Newman Bay to repair damages and
+make ready for a final effort, she was headed westward
+to Grinnell Land through the floes, and after a continuous
+battle of thirty-five hours, reached the ice-foot
+at Cape Sheridan, a little north of the old winter
+quarters of the <em>Alert</em>, and found her wintering place,
+like her, just as the Polar pack closed in against the
+shore. The endeavour had been to lay up in Porter
+Bay, twenty-seven miles further north, but the state
+of the ice made this impossible.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Provisions were plentiful, as no less than two hundred
+and fifty musk oxen had been shot by the 1st of November,
+and there were numbers of hares and several herds
+of the white reindeer first mentioned by Hudson in his
+second voyage three hundred years ago. During the
+very mild winter eighty of the dogs died, and when
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>sledging began only twenty teams of six each were
+available. The plan of the northern advance over the
+ice was to divide it into sections of about fifty miles
+each, with snow houses at each station, the nearest
+station being supplied from the base and supplying the
+next, and so on, thus keeping up an unbroken line of
+communication gradually extending nearer to the Pole,
+the sledges working backwards and forwards, outwards
+laden and inwards empty, between station and station
+along the line.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The land was left at Point Moss, north-west of Cape
+Joseph Henry. At 84° 38´ a lead in the pack stopped
+the way for six days until the young ice was thick enough
+to bear, and forty miles further north the vanguard
+drifted east some seventy miles during a storm for
+another six days. On the 20th of April a region of
+much open water was reached, and from midnight to
+noon next day the last effort was made by Peary,
+Henson, and a small party of Eskimos, the farthest
+north, 87° 6´, being attained and immediately left in a
+rapid retreat for safety.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Thus Peary went nearer to the Pole than Cagni by
+thirty-two minutes or thirty-seven statute miles, both
+being stopped by water with apparently similar conditions
+ahead of them. What the conditions may be
+along the intervening two hundred miles from Peary's
+farthest nobody knows; but although a good many
+things may happen between London and York, which
+is about the same distance, there is good reason for
+supposing that, even if there be land somewhere, the
+road is over a sea more or less packed with ice which
+is never without its channels.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>One thing is clear: the attainment of the Pole is a
+matter of money. Given the funds, the men and the
+dogs, and the ships, boats, sledges, and other things
+will be forthcoming, and the journey accomplished, not
+by a rush, but on some systematic station-to-station
+plan; though it is not impossible that it may be done
+by chance in some exceptional year, for the climate of
+the north is variable and has a wider range of temperature
+than that of Britain in its good years and its bad
+years.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Let us hope there may be land at the exact spot, for
+then the position can be checked at leisure, and there
+will be no doubt of its having been reached. Joseph
+Moxon, Hydrographer to the King, in 1652 met at
+Amsterdam a sailor of a Greenland ship which "went
+not out to fish that summer, but only to take in the
+lading of the whole fleet to bring it to an early
+market"—in other words, to act as a carrier—which
+ship, before the whaling fleet had caught enough to
+lade her, had by order of the Company sailed to the
+North Pole and back again, and even two degrees
+beyond it; no land seen, no ice, and the weather as it
+was in summer-time at Amsterdam.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>A sailor's yarn told in a tavern? Only this and
+nothing more, perhaps; though a good many things
+were kept dark in the whaling trade as in other trades.
+But if there had been an island at the Pole we might
+eventually have been able to verify that ancient
+mariner's tale.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>INDEX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<ul class='index c004'>
+  <li class='c020'>Abruzzi, Duke of, The, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Academy Land, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Actinia Haven, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Advance</em>, The, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Aid</em>, The, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Akaitcho, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Alaska, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Aldrich, Pelham, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Alert</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Alexander</em>, The, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Alexander, Cape, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Alexandra Land, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Alexandria</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_179'>179</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Alfred Ernest, Cape, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ameralik Fiord, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>America, The Norse discovery of, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Amundsen, Roald, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Ancylonema nordenskioeldii</em>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Anderson Falls, The, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Andrée, S. A., <a href='#Page_104'>104</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Anjou, P. F., <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Ann Frances</em>, The, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Antelope, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Archangel, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Archer, Colin, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Archer Fiord, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Archer, R., <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Arctic</em>, The, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Arctic Search Expedition, The first, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Assistance</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Atlassof, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Augustus the Eskimo, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Auk, Cape, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Auleitsivik Fiord, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Aurora Borealis, The, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Austin, Horatio, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Austria Sound, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Avigait, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Baal's River, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Back, George, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Baden-Powell, Sir George, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Baffin, William, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Baffin Land, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Banks Land, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Baranoff Cape, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Barents Bay, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Barents, Willem, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Barnacle Goose, The, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Barren Grounds, The, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Barrington, The Hon. Daines, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Barrow Point, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Barrow, Sir John, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Barrow Strait, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bathurst Island, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bear, Black, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bear Island, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bear, Polar, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Bear</em>, The, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Beaufort Sea, The, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Beaumont, Lewis Anthony, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Beechey, Cape, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Beechey, Frederick William, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Beechey Island, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Belanger, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Belcher, Edward, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bellot, Joseph René, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bellot Strait, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bennet, Stephen, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bennett Island, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bering Strait, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bering, Veit, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Berry, Captain, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bessels, Emil, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Best, George, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Best's Bulwark, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bille, Cape, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bird Cape, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Birds, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bismarck, Cape, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bjarni discovers America, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bjelkof Island, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Blossom</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Boat Extreme, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bolscheretzkoi, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Bona Confidentia</em>, The, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Bona Esperanza</em>, The, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>Booth, Felix, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Boothia, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Borough, Steven, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Borough, William, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bosekop, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bounty Cape, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bowdoin Bay, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bowen, Port, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bradley, Thomas, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Brainard, D. L., <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Brattelid, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Brentford Bay, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>British Channel, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Brorok, Cape, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Brown, Robert, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Brunel, Olivier, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Brunn, Mount, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Buchan, David, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Buchan Island, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Buddington, J. M., <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bulun, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bunge, A., <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Burrough Strait, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bush, Henry, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Butcher's Island, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Byam Martin Island, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bylot, Robert, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Cabot, Sebastian, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Cagni, Umberto, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Cambridge Bay, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Camden Bay, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Carcass</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Carlsen, Elling, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Carlsen, Olaf, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Castor</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_166'>166</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Castor and Pollux River, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Cathay Company, The, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Catherine, The Empress, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Cator, Lieutenant, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Cavendish thermometer, The, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Chamisso Island, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Chancellor, Richard, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Char, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Charing Cross, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Charles's Foreland, Prince, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Chelagskoi, Cape, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Chelyuskin, Cape, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Cherie Island, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Chippewyan, Fort, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Christian Land, King, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Chukches, The, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Chvoinof, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Clavering Island, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Clerke, Charles, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Clio borealis</em>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Coal, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Collinson, Richard, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Columbia, Cape, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Columbus visits Iceland, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Colwell, J. C., <a href='#Page_279'>279</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Commander Islands, The, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Conferences, The Polar, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Confidence, Fort, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Conger, Fort, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Constitution, Cape, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Conway, William Martin, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Cook, James, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Cookery-of-Haarlem, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Coppermine River, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Cornwall, North, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Cornwallis Island, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Coronation Gulf, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Countess of Warwick Island, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Crow's Nest, The, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Crozier, F. R. M., <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Cumberland Gulf, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Dall, W. H., <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Danes Island, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Danish Sound, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Davis, John, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Davis Strait, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Dealy Island, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Dease, Peter Warren, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Dease River, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Dease Strait, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Dee, Dr. John, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>De Haven, Lieutenant, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>De Long, G. W., <a href='#Page_116'>116</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Deschnef, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Des Vœux, C. F., <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Devon, North, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Diana</em>, The, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Dickson Harbour, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Discovery</em>, H.M.S. (Cook), <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Discovery</em>, H.M.S. (Nares), <a href='#Page_248'>248</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Discovery</em>, The (Hudson), <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Discovery Harbour, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Distillation apparatus, The, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Dolphin</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Dolphin and Union Strait, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Dorothea</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_33'>33</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Dove Bay, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Drummond, Thomas, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Dudley, Ambrose, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Dudley Digges Cape, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Durfourth, Captain, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Dyer, Cape, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>East Cape, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>Ebierbing and Tookoolito, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Edam, Land of, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Edge, Thomas, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Edge's Island, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Edward Bonaventure</em>, The, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Egede, Hans, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Egede, Paul, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Eira</em>, The, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Elizabeth</em>, The, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Ellen</em>, The, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ellesmere Land, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ellis, John, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Elmwood, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Elson, Thomas, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Elson Bay, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Endeavour</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_41'>41</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>English Chief, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Entada bean, The, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Enterprise, Fort, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Enterprise</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Enterprise</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_41'>41</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Erebus</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Eric</em>, The, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Eric the Red, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ermine, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Eskimo relics, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Eskimos first met with, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Eskimos, Migration of the, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Eskimos, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Etah, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Evensen, Captain, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Exeter Sound, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Express</em>, The, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'><em>Falcon</em>, The, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Farewell, Cape, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fedotof, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Felix Harbour, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Felix</em>, The, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fern, The first Spitsbergen, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Finlay Island, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Finlayson Islands, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fish River, The Great, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fishes, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>FitzJames, James, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fligely, Cape, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Floeberg Beach, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Flora, Cape, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Forsyth, C. C., <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fossils, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Foulke Harbour, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fox, Arctic, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fox, Black, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fox, Silver-grey, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Fox</em>, The, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Fram</em>, The, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Franklin, Fort, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Franklin, John, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Franklin, Lady, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Franklin Record, The, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Franklin Strait, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Franz Josef Fiord, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Franz Josef Land, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Fraser</em>, The, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Frazer, Cape, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Frederick Jackson Island, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Frederiksdal, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Frobisher Bay, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Frobisher, Martin, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Frozen Strait, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fur-seal, The, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fury Beach, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fury and Hecla Strait, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Fury</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_191'>191</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'><em>Gabriel</em>, The (Bering), <a href='#Page_132'>132</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Gabriel</em>, (Frobisher), <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Gabriel Islands, The, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Gardiner, Charles, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Garry, Fort, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>George</em>, The, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Germania</em>, The, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Gibraltar Bay, Battle of, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Giffard, G. A., <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Gilbert, Adrian, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Gilbert, Humphrey, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Gilbert Sound, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Gjöa, The, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Gjöahaven, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Glaciers, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Glow-worm</em>, The, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Godfrey, William, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Godthaab, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Godthaab Fiord, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Gore, Graham, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Graah, W. A., <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Graham Island, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Greely, A. W., <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Greenland, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Greenland Archipelago, The, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Greenland, East, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Greyhound</em>, The, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Griffith Island, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Grinnell Land, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Griper</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Gulf Stream, The, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>Gundersen, Captain, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Gunnbiörn discovers Greenland, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Hakluyt Headland, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hall Basin, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hall, C. F., <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hall, Christopher, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hall, James, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hall Island, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hall's Rest, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hamilton, Cape, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hans Hendrik, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Hansa</em>, The, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hare, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hare Fiord, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hartstene Bay, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hayes, I. I., <a href='#Page_237'>237</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hazen, Lake, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hazen Land, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hearne, Samuel, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hecla, Cape, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Hecla</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hedenström, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Heemskerck, Jacob van, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Heer, Oswald, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hegemann, Captain, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Heiberg Land, Axel, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Helluland, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hendon, North, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hendrik, Hans, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hendriksen Sound, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Henrietta Island, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Henson, C., <a href='#Page_284'>284</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hepburn, John, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Herald</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Herald Island, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Herschel, Cape, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Himkoff, Alexis, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hinlopen Strait, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hobson, W. R., <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hohenlohe Island, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hood River, The, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hood, Robert, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hooper, William Hulme, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hope, Fort, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Hope</em>, The (Young), <a href='#Page_75'>75</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Hope</em>, The (Egede), <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Howgate, H. W., <a href='#Page_274'>274</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hudson Bay, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hudson, Henry, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hudson River, The, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hudson Strait, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hudson's Bay Company, The, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hudson's Touches, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Humboldt Glacier, The, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hyaqua shell, The, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Icebergs, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ice-drill, The, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ice Haven, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Iceland, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Icy Cape, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Igloolik, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Igloos, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ikmallik, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Independence Bay, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Inglefield, E. A., <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ingolf lands in Iceland, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Insects, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>International Polar Stations, The, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Intrepid</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Investigator</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Irkaipii, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Irving, John, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Isabel</em>, The, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Isabella, Cape, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Isabella</em>, The, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Isachsen, Cape, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Isbjörn</em>, The, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Jackman, Charles, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Jackson, Frederick G., <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Jakobshavn, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Jan Mayen, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Japanese, The, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Jason</em>, The, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Jeannette</em>, The, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Jeannette Island, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Jenkinson, Anthony, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Jesup Land, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Joe and Hannah, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Johansen, F. H., <a href='#Page_96'>96</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>John</em>, The, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Jones Sound, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Joseph Henry, Cape, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Journal, The, introduced, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Judith</em>, The, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Julianehaab, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Kalutunah, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kamchatka, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kane, E. K., <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kane Sea, The, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kara Sea, The, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Karmakul Bay, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kay, E. C. Lister, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kellett, Henry, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kendall, E. N., <a href='#Page_156'>156</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kennedy Channel, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kennedy, Port, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kennedy, William, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>King, Richard, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>Kingua, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>King William Land, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Kite</em>, The, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Knight, John, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kod-lun-arn, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kola, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Koldewey, Karl, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kolguiev, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kolyuchin Bay, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kompakova, The, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kotelnoi Island, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kraechoj, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Krusenstern</em>, The, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kruzof Island, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ku Mark Surka, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kuriles, The, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kutchins, The, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Labrador, Discovery of, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Labrets, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lady Franklin, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lady Franklin Bay, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lambert Land, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lamont, James, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lancaster Sound, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lands Lokk, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Laptef, Dmitri, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Laptef, Khariton, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Leif lands in America, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lemming, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Lena</em>, The, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lena Delta, The, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Liakhoff, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Liakhoff Island, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lichens, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lifeboat Cove, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Linschoten, Van, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Lion</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Little Table Island, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lock, Michael, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lockwood, James B., <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lockwood Island, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Log, The, introduced, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Long, G. W. De, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Long, Thomas, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Loschkin, S., <a href='#Page_62'>62</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Louis Napoleon, Cape, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ludlow, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lunar at sea, The first, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lundstrom, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lütke, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lutwidge, Skeffington, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lyon, George Francis, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Mackenzie, Alexander, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Mackenzie River, Discovery of, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Macintoshes, The first, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>M'Clintock, F. L., <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>M'Clintock, Cape, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>M'Clure, Robert Le M., <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>McCormick Bay, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>McKay, James, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Magnet</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_204'>204</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Magnetic North Pole, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Mahlemut labret, The, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Mammals, Fossil, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Mammoth, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Markham, A. H., <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Markland, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Marten skins, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Martens, F., <a href='#Page_25'>25</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Mary Harmsworth, Cape, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Mary Margaret</em>, The, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Matiuschkin, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Matthew</em>, The, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Matty Island, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Matyushin Shar, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>May, William H., <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Melville Bay, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Melville, G. W., <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Melville Island, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Melville Peninsula, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Merchant Adventurers, The, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Mercury</em>, The, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Mercy Bay, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Mermaid</em>, The, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Meta Incognita, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Michael</em>, The, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Middendorf Glacier, The, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Middleton, Christopher, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Mistaken Streight, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Moloi, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Montreal Island, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Moons, Mock, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Moonshine</em>, The, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Moore, Thomas E. L., <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Moose-hunting, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Moravians, The, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Morton, William, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Moss, E. L., <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Moss Point, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Mossel Bay, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Moxon, Joseph, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Murchison, Cape, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Murchison River, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Muscovy Company, The, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Musk ox, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Nai, Cornelis, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Nancy Dawson</em>, The, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>Nansen, Fridtjof, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Nares, G. S., <a href='#Page_248'>248</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Narwhal, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Nassau, Cape, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Navy Cliff, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Nelson, Horatio, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Neptune</em>, The, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Newfoundland, Discovery of, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Newman Bay, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>New Siberian Islands, The, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Nindemann, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Nordenskiöld, Adolf Erik, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Noros, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Norsemen discover America, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Northbrook Island, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>North Cape, The, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>North East Land, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>North-East Passage, The, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Northern Passage, The, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>North Pole</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_204'>204</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>North Pole, Magnetic, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>North Star</em>, The, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>North Water, The, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>North-West Fur Company, The, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>North-West Passage, The, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Norton Sound, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Nova Kholmogory, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Novaya Zemlya, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Nulato, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ny Herrnhut, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Obi, The, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Observation, Mount, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ochotsk, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ommanney, Erasmus, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Omoki, The, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ooligbuck the Eskimo, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Oraefa, Mount, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Orleans, Duke of, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Osborn, Sherard, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ostiaks, The, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Otaria</em>, The, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Pachtussoff, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Pandora</em>, The, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Parhelia, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Parker Bay, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Parr, Alfred A. C., <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Parry, William Edward, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Parry Falls, The, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Patience</em>, The, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Patrick Island, Prince, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pavy, O., <a href='#Page_275'>275</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Payer, Julius, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Peary Channel, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Peary, Robert E., <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Peel Sound, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pellham, Edward, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pelly Bay, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pelly Point, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pendulum Island, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Penny Strait, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Penny, William, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pet, Arthur, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pet Strait, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Peter the Great, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Petermann Fiord, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Petermann, Mount, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Petersen Bay, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Petersen, C., <a href='#Page_208'>208</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Petropaulovsk, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Phipps, The Hon. Constantine John, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pim, Bedford, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Pioneer</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Plants, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Plover</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Point Lake, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Point Victory, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Polar Stations, The International, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Polaris</em>, The, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Polhem</em>, The, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Pollux</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_166'>166</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Poole, Jonas, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Porcupine River, The, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pospeloff, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pribylov Islands, The, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Prince Albert</em>, The, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Prince of Wales, Cape, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Prince of Wales Strait, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Proeven</em>, The, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pronchistschef, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Proteus</em>, The, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Protococcus nivalis</em>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Prudhoe Land, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pullen, W. J. S., <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Quennerstedt, A., <a href='#Page_43'>43</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'><em>Racehorse</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Racer</em>, The, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Rae, Fort, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Rae, John, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Rae Strait, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Raleigh, Mount, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Rat River, The, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Ravenscraig</em>, The, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Rawlings Bay, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>Rawson, Wyatt, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Red snow, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Regent Inlet, Prince, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Regina</em>, The, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Reikjavik founded, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Reindeer, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Reindeer, White, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Reliance, Fort, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Reliance</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Rensselaer Harbour, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Repulse Bay, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Resolute</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_175'>175</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Resolution</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Resolution</em>, The (whaler), <a href='#Page_31'>31</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Return Reef, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Rhinoceros, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Richardson, John, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Richthofen Peak, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Rijp, Jan Corneliszoon, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ringnes Islands, The, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ritenbenk, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Robeson Channel, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Rocky Mountains first crossed, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Rodgers</em>, The, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Roosevelt</em>, The, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Rosmysslof, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ross, James Clark, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ross, John, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Rudolf Island, Prince, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hudson's Point, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Russell, Cape, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ryder, Lieut., <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Sabine, Edward, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sabine, Cape, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sable, The, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sagastyr Island, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>St. Elias, Cape, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>St. Elias, Mount, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>St. Lawrence Bay, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>St. Lawrence Island, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>St. Paul</em>, The, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>St. Peter</em>, The, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Salmo arcturus</em>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Salmon trout, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Salutation</em>, The, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Samoyeds, The, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sanderson's Hope, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sanderson, William, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sannikof, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Schley, Winfield S., <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Schonau Island, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Schwatka, Frederick, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Scoresby, William, the elder, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Scoresby, William, the younger, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Seal, The Fur, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Seals, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sea-otter, The, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Searchthrift</em>, The, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Semonovski Island, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Serdze Kamen, Cape, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Seven Islands, The, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Shackleton, Cape, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Shantar Islands, The, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sheathing for ships introduced, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Shedden, Robert, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sheridan, Cape, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Siberia, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Siberian Islands, The, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Silver Bay, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Simmons Peninsula, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Simpson, Sir George, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Simpson, Thomas, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Simpson Strait, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sinclair, George, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sirovatskof, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sitka Sound, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sledges and sledge-work, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Smeerenberg, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Smith, Benjamin Leigh, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Smith Sound, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Snow, William Parker, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Snow houses, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sodankyla, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Sofia</em>, The, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Somerset House, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Somerset, North, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sonntag, August, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Sophia</em>, The, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Spangberg, Martin, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Spinks, Robert, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Spitsbergen, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Steamship, The first Arctic, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Stella Polare</em>, The, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sterlegof, Cape, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Stoat, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Stolbovoi, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Stuxberg, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Sunshine</em>, The, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sverdrup, Otto, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Svjatoi Nos, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Tanana, The, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Tananas, The, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Tegetthoff</em>, The, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Teplitz Bay, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Terror</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Thaddeus Island, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Thames</em>, The, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>Thermometer, The deep-sea, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Thetis</em>, The, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Thirkill, Launcelot, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Thomasine</em>, The, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Thorne, Robert, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Tiger, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Tigress</em>, The, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Toll, Baron E., <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Torell, Otto, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Trent</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_33'>33</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Treurenberg Bay, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Tripe-de-roche, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Tschirikof, Alexei, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Tundra, The, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Turnagain, Point, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Tyndall Glacier, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Umivik, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Union</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>United States</em>, The, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Upernivik, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'><em>Valorous</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_248'>248</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Veer, Gerrit de, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Vega</em>, The, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Victoria, Cape, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Victoria Land, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Victoria Sea, Queen, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Victoria Strait, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Victory</em>, The, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Victory, Point, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Vinland, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Vlamingh, Willem de, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Vrangel', Ferdinand, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Wager River, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Waigatz Island, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wainwright Inlet, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Walden Island, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Walker Bay, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Walnut Shell</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Walrus, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Walsingham, Francis, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Washington Irving Island, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Welden, Captain, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wellington Channel, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wentzel, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>West England, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Weyprecht, K., <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Whale fishery, The, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Whale, Greenland, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Whale Island, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Whale, White, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Whaling trade begins, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>White Man's Island, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>White Sea, The, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>White Shirt, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Whymper, Edward, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Whymper, Frederick, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wiggins, Joseph, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wijde Bay, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wilberforce Falls, The, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wilczek Island, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>William Land, King, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>William</em>, The, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Willoughby, Sir Hugh, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Windward</em>, The, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Winter Harbour, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Winter Island, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Winthont</em>, The, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wollaston Land, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wolstenholme, Cape, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wolverine, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Women Islands, The, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wrangell, Ferdinand Von, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wrangell Island, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Yakuts, The, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Yalmal, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Yenesei, The, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Ymer</em>, The, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Young, Allen, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Young's Foreland, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Yugor Strait, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Yukon, Fort, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Yukon, The, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c004'>
+    <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span>PLYMOUTH</div>
+    <div>WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.</div>
+    <div>PRINTERS</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='tnotes'>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c006'>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES</h2>
+</div>
+ <ol class='ol_1 c004'>
+    <li>Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors.
+
+    </li>
+    <li>Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
+
+    </li>
+  </ol>
+
+</div>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 52462 ***</div>
+  </body>
+  <!-- created with ppgen.py 3.56a on 2016-06-30 21:56:17 GMT -->
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Round About the North Pole, by W. J. Gordon
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+Title: Round About the North Pole
+
+Author: W. J. Gordon
+
+Illustrator: Edward Whymper
+
+Release Date: July 1, 2016 [EBook #52462]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUND ABOUT THE NORTH POLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                              ROUND ABOUT
+                             THE NORTH POLE
+
+
+[Illustration: "DONE UP"]
+
+                                                            Frontispiece
+
+
+
+
+                              ROUND ABOUT
+                             THE NORTH POLE
+
+
+                            BY W. J. GORDON
+
+                 WITH WOODCUTS AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
+                           BY EDWARD WHYMPER
+
+
+
+
+                                NEW YORK
+                        E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY
+                      31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET
+                                  1907
+
+
+
+
+                       _Printed in Great Britain_
+
+
+
+
+                                PREFACE
+
+
+Among the many books about the Polar regions there is none quite like
+this, dealing with the gradual progress of exploration towards the north
+along the different areas of advance within the Arctic Circle.
+
+The subject is always interesting, for few regions have been the scene
+of more persistent effort and exciting adventure and unexpected gains
+from the unknown, particularly in the earlier days when the endeavour to
+find the northern passages to the east and west led to the beginning of
+our foreign trade.
+
+It is often asked, "What is the use of further Arctic discovery?" No one
+knows. Nor did any one know the use of most discoveries before they were
+made.
+
+When Eric landed in Greenland he was not in search of cryolite for
+aluminium. When Cabral sailed to Porto Seguro he knew nothing of the
+incandescent gas-mantle. When Oersted looped the live wire round the
+magnetic needle he was not bent on founding electrical engineering. And
+when Linnæus noticed the sleep of plants he had no intention of
+providing a substitute for a clock in high latitudes where, though the
+sunshine is continuous during the summer, the plants within the Circle
+sleep as in the night time, their sleeping leaves telling the traveller
+that midnight is at hand.
+
+Men have made up their minds to reach the Pole, and thither they will
+go. What they will find when they get there may not promise to be much,
+but what they have found round about it has been enough to influence
+considerably the history of the world.
+
+                                                                W. J. G.
+
+ _July, 1907._
+
+
+
+
+                                CONTENTS
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+                                               PAGE
+
+                     SPITSBERGEN                  1
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+                     SPITSBERGEN (_continued_)   24
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+                     NOVAYA ZEMLYA               49
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+
+                     FRANZ JOSEF LAND            64
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+
+                     CAPE CHELYUSKIN             84
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VI
+
+                     THE LENA DELTA             106
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII
+
+                     BERING STRAIT              127
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII
+
+                     THE AMERICAN MAINLAND      146
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IX
+
+                     THE PARRY ISLANDS          170
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X
+
+                     BOOTHIA                    190
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XI
+
+                     BAFFIN BAY                 215
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII
+
+                     SMITH SOUND                235
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIII
+
+                     GREENLAND                  259
+
+                     INDEX                      287
+
+
+
+
+                         LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+ "DONE UP"                                                _Frontispiece_
+
+      From Nansen's _First Crossing of Greenland_
+        (Longmans)
+
+                                                            TO FACE PAGE
+
+ THE SUMMIT OF ORAEFA                                                  2
+
+      From a photograph
+
+ COLUMBUS                                                              4
+
+      From the portrait at Versailles
+
+ SAMOYEDS AND THEIR DWELLINGS                                         10
+
+      From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans)
+
+ FRANZ JOSEF FIORD                                                    14
+
+      From a drawing by Lieutenant Julius Payer
+
+ WHALERS AMONG ICEBERGS                                               30
+
+      From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans)
+
+ SIR JOHN FRANKLIN                                                    34
+
+      From _Le Tour du Monde_, 1860 (Hachette)
+
+ TRACK OF H.M.S. "DOROTHEA" AND "TRENT"                               36
+
+      From _A Voyage of Discovery towards the North Pole,
+        performed in His Majesty's Ships "Dorothea" and
+        "Trent," under the command of Capt. David Buchan,
+        R.N., 1818_, by Capt. F. W. Beechey, R.N., F.R.S.
+        (Richard Bentley, 1843.)
+
+ PARRY CAMPED ON THE ICE                                              40
+
+      From Captain Parry's _Narrative_, 1828 (Murray)
+
+ PARRY'S BOATS AMONG THE HUMMOCKS                                     42
+
+      From Captain Parry's _Narrative_, 1828 (Murray)
+
+ HOW OUR SHIP STUCK FAST IN THE ICE                                   50
+
+      From _A True Description_, by Gerrit de Veer
+        (Hakluyt Society, 1853)
+
+ HOW WE NEARLY GOT INTO TROUBLE WITH THE SEA-HORSES                   56
+
+      From _A True Description_, by Gerrit de Veer
+        (Hakluyt Society, 1853)
+
+ ADOLF ERIK NORDENSKIÖLD                                              90
+
+      From a photograph
+
+ FRIDTJOF NANSEN                                                      96
+
+      With autograph. From a photograph supplied by
+        himself
+
+ REINDEER                                                            112
+
+      By permission. From _Short Stalks_, by Edward
+        Buxton (Stanford)
+
+ SAMOYED MAN                                                         114
+
+      From Seebohm's _Siberia in Asia_ (Murray)
+
+ OSTIAK MAN                                                          116
+
+      From Seebohm's _Siberia in Asia_ (Murray)
+
+ THE FACE OF THE FUR SEAL                                            130
+
+      From _The Seal Islands of Alaska_, by Henry W.
+        Elliott (Washington, 1881)
+
+ THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS                                                132
+
+      From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans). From an
+        original Sketch by Frederick Whymper
+
+ DRIVING THE FUR SEAL                                                134
+
+      From _The Seal Islands of Alaska_, by Henry W.
+        Elliott (Washington, 1881)
+
+ FUR SEALS AT SEA                                                    136
+
+      From _The Seal Islands of Alaska_, by Henry W.
+        Elliott (Washington, 1881)
+
+ THE PARKA OF THE ALASKAN INNUITS                                    138
+
+      From Whymper's _Alaska_ (Sampson Low)
+
+ THE FROZEN YUKON                                                    140
+
+      From Whymper's _Alaska_ (Sampson Low)
+
+ ASCENDING THE YUKON                                                 142
+
+      From Whymper's _Alaska_ (Sampson Low)
+
+ MOOSE-HUNTING ON THE YUKON                                          144
+
+      From Whymper's _Alaska_ (Sampson Low)
+
+ MAHLEMUT MAN                                                        146
+
+      From Whymper's _Alaska_ (Sampson Low)
+
+ WINTER TRAVELLING ON THE GREAT SLAVE LAKE                           150
+
+      From Franklin's _Journey to the Polar Sea_, 1819-22
+        (Murray, 1823)
+
+ CROSSING POINT LAKE                                                 152
+
+      From Franklin's _Journey to the Polar Sea, 1819-22_
+        (Murray, 1823)
+
+ KUTCHIN INDIANS                                                     154
+
+      From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans). From an
+        original sketch by Frederick Whymper
+
+ PREPARING AN ENCAMPMENT ON THE BARREN GROUNDS                       156
+
+      From Franklin's _Journey to the Polar Sea, 1819-22_
+        (Murray, 1823)
+
+ SIR JOHN RICHARDSON                                                 158
+
+      With autograph, from a letter in the possession of
+        Edward Whymper
+
+ BACK'S JOURNEY DOWN THE GREAT FISH RIVER                            160
+
+      From Back's _Arctic Land Expedition to the mouth of
+        the Great Fish River in the years 1833, 1834, and
+        1835_ (Murray, 1836)
+
+ SIR WILLIAM EDWARD PARRY                                            170
+
+      With autograph, from a letter in the possession of
+        Edward Whymper
+
+ SIR JOHN BARROW                                                     178
+
+      With autograph
+
+ H.M.S. "HECLA" AND "GRIPER" IN WINTER HARBOUR                       180
+
+      From _A Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west
+        Passage_, by Capt. Parry (Murray, 1821)
+
+ PARRY'S DISCOVERIES ON HIS FIRST VOYAGE                             182
+
+      From _A Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west
+        Passage_, by Captain Parry (Murray, 1821)
+
+ AN IGLOOLIK ESKIMO CARRYING HIS KAYAK                               190
+
+      From Parry's _Second Voyage_ (Murray, 1824)
+
+ PARRY'S FARTHEST ON HIS THIRD VOYAGE                                192
+
+      From Parry's _Third Voyage_ (Murray, 1826)
+
+ THE "VICTORY"                                                       194
+
+      From Sir J. Ross's _Arctic Expedition, 1829-33_
+        (Webster, 1835)
+
+ NORTH HENDON                                                        196
+
+      From Sir J. Ross's _Arctic Expedition, 1829-33_
+        (Webster, 1835)
+
+ ESKIMO LISTENING AT A SEAL-HOLE                                     198
+
+      From Parry's _Second Voyage_ (Murray, 1824)
+
+ H.M.S. "TERROR" LIFTED BY ICE                                       202
+
+      From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans)
+
+ FRACTURED STERN-POST OF H.M.S. "TERROR"                             204
+
+      From Capt. Back's _Narrative, 1838_ (Murray)
+
+ THE "FOX" ESCAPING FROM THE PACK                                    208
+
+      From M'Clintock's _Voyage of the "Fox"_
+
+ THE "FOX" ON A ROCK                                                 210
+
+      From M'Clintock's _Voyage of the "Fox"_
+
+ DISCOVERY OF THE CAIRN                                              212
+
+      From M'Clintock's _Voyage of the "Fox"_
+
+ SIR MARTIN FROBISHER                                                216
+
+      From _The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher_
+        (Hakluyt Society, 1867)
+
+ ESKIMO AWAITING A SEAL                                              222
+
+      From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans)
+
+ A GREENLANDER IN HIS KAYAK                                          224
+
+      From _Le Tour du Monde_, 1868 (Hachette)
+
+ BAFFIN BAY IN 1819                                                  232
+
+      From _A Voyage of Discovery_, by Capt. John Ross
+        (Longmans, 1819)
+
+ DR. E. K. KANE                                                      234
+
+      From the Frontispiece to Kane's _Arctic
+        Explorations_, 1856
+
+ KALUTUNAH                                                           236
+
+      From _Le Tour du Monde_, 1868 (Hachette)
+
+ THE EAST COAST OF SMITH SOUND                                       238
+
+      From Hayes' _Open Polar Sea_ (Sampson Low)
+
+ DR. I. I. HAYES                                                     240
+
+      By permission, from Hayes' _Open Polar Sea_
+
+ THE SHORES OF KENNEDY CHANNEL                                       242
+
+      From Hayes' _Open Polar Sea_
+
+ TYNDALL GLACIER                                                     244
+
+      From Hayes' _Open Polar Sea_
+
+ A SEAL IN DANGER                                                    246
+
+      From Parry's _Second Voyage for the Discovery of a
+        North-west Passage_ (Murray, 1824)
+
+ SIR GEORGE NARES                                                    248
+
+      From a photograph
+
+ SLEDGES USED BY SIR LEOPOLD M'CLINTOCK AND SIR GEORGE               254
+   NARES
+
+      (In the collection of Edward Whymper)
+
+ BISHOP PAUL EGEDE                                                   258
+
+      From the Frontispiece to _Efterretninger om
+        Grönland_ (Copenhagen)
+
+ GREENLANDERS                                                        260
+
+      From Hartwig's _Polar World_ (Longmans)
+
+ ON LEVEL GROUND                                                     262
+
+      Nansen's _First Crossing of Greenland_ (Longmans)
+
+ THE ALLAN LINER "SARDINIAN" AMONG ICEBERGS                          264
+
+      From a photograph
+
+ THE "GERMANIA" IN THE ICE                                           266
+
+      From _Le Tour du Monde_, 1874 (Hachette)
+
+ THE REGION ROUND MOUNT PETERMANN                                    268
+
+      From a drawing by Lieutenant Julius Payer
+
+ THE LAST DAYS OF THE "HANSA"                                        270
+
+      From _Le Tour du Monde_, 1874 (Hachette)
+
+ ROBERT E. PEARY                                                     280
+
+      With autograph, from a letter in the possession of
+        Edward Whymper From _Nearest the Pole_, by
+        Commander Peary. By permission of Hutchinson and
+        Co.
+
+
+
+
+                             SECTIONAL MAPS
+
+
+                        1. SPITSBERGEN        12
+
+                        2. CAPE CHELYUSKIN    84
+
+                        3. THE LENA DELTA    106
+
+                        4. BERING STRAIT     128
+
+                        5. THE PARRY ISLANDS 174
+
+                        6. GREENLAND         272
+
+
+
+
+                              ROUND ABOUT
+                             THE NORTH POLE
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+                              SPITSBERGEN
+
+  Iceland—Greenland—America—Sebastian Cabot—Robert Thorne—The
+    North-east Passage—Willoughby—Chancellor—Borough—The North Cape
+    rounded—The White Sea reached—The First Arctic Search
+    Expedition—Pet and Jackman—Brunel—Cornelis Nai—Barents reaches 77°
+    20´—Second voyage of Nai—The Samoyeds—Rijp, Jacob Van Heemskerck
+    and Barents—Bear Island discovered—Spitsbergen discovered—The
+    Dutch reach 79° 49´—Stephen Bennet—Welden—Jonas Poole—Henry Hudson
+    reaches 80° 23´—Poole starts the British whaling trade—Baffin's
+    voyages to Spitsbergen—Pellham winters at Green Harbour.
+
+
+The story of the lands within the Arctic Circle is a record of the brave
+deeds of healthy men. This would seem to be true were we to take the
+story, if we could, back to the days when man followed the retreat of
+the glaciers, as he may in turn have to retreat before them, such a
+condition of things being not beyond the range of probability though it
+may be remote. For the boundaries of the frozen north are not dependent
+on a line of latitude, and have never been the same from period to
+period, or even from year to year. In some cases they have changed
+considerably within the Christian era, and it is evident that the ice is
+not eternal. The fossils declare that the climate round the North Pole
+has varied greatly, and must in comparatively recent ages have been
+comfortably warm, so genial indeed that some people would have us
+believe that men came from there in their last distribution. Not,
+however, with such migrants from the far north do we concern ourselves,
+but with those who have endeavoured to get there in historical times by
+different lines of approach, as we follow the circle round from east to
+west and note the record of each section by itself.
+
+Who was the first to sail to the northern seas we know not. Suffice it
+for us that in 875 Ingolf the jarl, from Norway, refusing to live under
+the sway of Harold Haarfager, sighted Mount Oraefa. As he neared the
+coast, overboard went the carved wood; and where the wood drifted ashore
+he founded Reikjavik. But he was not the first in Iceland, for the Irish
+monastery had been there for years when he arrived, though the monks
+retired to their old country when they found the Norsemen had come to
+stay.
+
+Then the Icelander Gunnbiörn, driven westward in a gale, sighted the
+strange land he called White Shirt from its snowfields, which Eric the
+Red, following a long time afterwards, more happily renamed. "What shall
+we call the land?" he was asked. "Call it Green Land," replied Eric.
+"But it is not always green!" "It matters not: give it a good name and
+people will come to it!"
+
+[Illustration: THE SUMMIT OF ORAEFA]
+
+ From a photo
+
+Then the Norsemen worked further south. In 986 Bjarni sighted what we
+now call America, and in 1000 came the voyage of Leif Ericson, who, on
+his way down the mainland, landing again and again, gave the names to
+Helluland, Markland, Vinland—in short, the Viking discovery of the New
+World.
+
+Greenland, like the eastern coast of the continent, was duly colonised,
+its two chief settlements being one just round Cape Farewell, the other
+further north on the same coast. In those days the island, or chain of
+islands beneath an ice-cap, as many think it is, would appear to have
+had a milder climate than it has now. The colonies throve, their
+population becoming numerous enough to require a series of seventeen
+bishops, the last one dying about 1540, to superintend their spiritual
+welfare. But the Eskimos, in their migration from Asia across the Arctic
+islands, arrived in the country before the middle of the fourteenth
+century and gradually drove the Norsemen downwards, the northern colony
+coming to an end in 1342 owing to the enemy attacking during a
+visitation of the Black Death.
+
+Meanwhile Iceland, which touches the Arctic Circle in its northernmost
+point, and extends but half as far south of it as Greenland, increased
+in prosperity as a sort of aristocratic republic, and produced more
+vernacular literature than any country in Europe, in which, as might be
+expected, the story of Greenland and the American colonies was kept so
+well to the fore that it became as familiar among the people as a
+nursery tale. Thither, from Bristol, in February, 1477, went Columbus;
+and thence it was he returned to seek a patron for his western voyage
+across the Atlantic.
+
+The first voyage of Columbus in 1492 gave a great stimulus to maritime
+discovery, and many were the projects for searching the seas for a new
+route to the east. Of these the most important was that submitted to
+Henry VII by John Cabot, of Bristol. Much has been written, on slender
+and confusing evidence, as to the share in its success due to him and to
+his son, the more famous Sebastian; and, to be brief, we cannot do
+better than follow Anderson, who, in his _Origin of Commerce_,
+ingeniously evades the difficulty by speaking, commercially, of "Cabot
+and Sons." The Bristol firm, then, in 1497 despatched their ship
+_Matthew_ to the westward and discovered and took possession of Labrador
+and the islands and peninsulas in the mouth of the St. Lawrence, the
+district being at first known as the New Found Land, a name afterwards
+restricted to the largest island. And they had their reward, as shown in
+the Privy Purse accounts of Henry VII, where an entry of the 10th
+August, 1497, appears—"To hym that found the new isle, £10." Surely not
+an excessive honorarium for the finding of a continent.
+
+In 1498 another voyage of the same ship by way of Iceland, in which some
+attempt seems to have been made to colonise the newly discovered
+territories, resulted in the discovery of Hudson Strait and a visit to
+Labrador, judging by the finding of the deer in herds, the white bears,
+and the Eskimos who are not known to have ever crossed into the island
+of Newfoundland. This was not the only English vessel to appear in these
+parts at that time, for in the same year the Privy Purse accounts record
+a gift of £30 to Thomas Bradley and Launcelot Thirkill for going to the
+New Isle, adding that Launcelot had already received £20 "as preste" for
+his ship going there.
+
+[Illustration: COLUMBUS]
+
+It is evident that the fisheries were found to be worth working, for no
+less than fifty Spanish, French, and Portuguese ships were engaged in
+them in 1517, the year of Sebastian Cabot's disputed voyage to Hudson
+Bay. Ten years afterwards Robert Thorne, of Bristol, wrote to the King,
+mentioning this voyage and suggesting three sea routes to Cathay—by the
+north-west, as Sebastian had attempted, by the north over the Pole, and
+by the north-east—and, in 1547, when Sebastian returned to England for
+good, after his long service with Spain, he again, as the first Governor
+of the Company of Merchant Adventurers, took up this Cathay question,
+which had frequently been raised, and fitted out, as a commencement, an
+expedition to the north-east.
+
+The ships were built at Bristol specially for the purpose, and they were
+sheathed with lead, the first so treated in this country. This sheathing
+of ships was not the only innovation we owe to the most scientific
+seaman of his time, for in his famous ordinances for the voyage many
+excellent new things are enjoined, including the keeping of a log and
+journal, which date from this expedition. There were three vessels, the
+_Bona Esperanza_, of one hundred and twenty tons, Captain Sir Hugh
+Willoughby; the _Edward Bonaventure_, one hundred and sixty tons,
+Captain Richard Chancellor; and the _Bona Confidentia_, ninety tons,
+Captain Durfourth. In Chancellor's ship, as master, was the best
+navigator of the fleet, whose monumental brass in Chatham Church is
+noteworthy for its epitaph: "Here lieth buried the bodie of Steven
+Borough, who departed this life ye xij day of July in ye yere of our
+Lord 1584, and was borne at Northam in Devonshire ye xxv^{th} of Septemb.
+1525. He in his life time discouered Moscouia, by the Northerne sea
+passage to St. Nicholas, in the yere 1553. At his setting foorth of
+England he was accompanied with two other shippes, Sir Hugh Willobie
+being Admirell of the fleete, who, with all the company of ye said two
+shippes, were frozen to death in Lappia ye same winter. After his
+discouerie of Roosia, and ye Coastes thereto adioyninge—to wit, Lappia,
+Nova Zemla, and the Countrie of Samoyeda, etc.: he frequented ye trade
+to St. Nicholas yearlie, as chief pilot for ye voyage, until he was
+chosen of one of ye foure principall Masters in ordinarie of ye Queen's
+Mat^{ties} royall Nauy, where in he continued in charge of sundrie sea
+services till time of his death."
+
+The ships left in May, but did not remain long together. On the 2nd of
+August Willoughby and Durfourth separated from Chancellor in a storm off
+the Lofodens, and after devious courses, that might have led anywhere,
+were frozen in on the coast of Lapland, where they wintered and died, as
+did all the men with them. Chancellor, having waited at the rendezvous
+in vain, crossed the Arctic Circle, rounded the North Cape—so named by
+Borough—and found his way into the White Sea. While his ship was in
+winter quarters near where Archangel now is, he made a sledge journey to
+the Czar at Moscow, which led to the formation of the Muscovy Company
+and the beginning of England's Russian trade; and through his meeting
+there with the Persian Ambassador came about the mission of Anthony
+Jenkinson to the Shah, which opened up for us the Persian trade. Never
+was a voyage more successful. With it began the foreign commerce of this
+country, and from it dates the rise of our mercantile marine.
+
+In 1556 Borough, in the _Searchthrift_, persevered further east, and,
+passing between Novaya Zemlya and Waigatz Island, through the strait
+that bears his name spelt differently, entered the Kara Sea. Next year
+in the same ship he was given the command of the first Arctic Search
+Expedition, its object being to discover what had become of Willoughby.
+Of one ship, the _Confidentia_, he obtained news in an interview with a
+man who had bought her sails, but the full story of the disastrous end
+of the voyage remained a mystery until the Russians found the ships and
+bodies and Willoughby's journal, and took the ships round to the Dwina.
+Then for the first time did people realise what it meant to battle with
+an Arctic winter without preparation, and many were those who withdrew
+their interest in the frozen north, preferring tropical dangers to the
+possibility of such accumulating miseries as the journal records in due
+order in its matter-of-fact way, its last entry being the terribly
+suggestive—"Unknowen and most wonderful wild beasts assembling in
+fearful numbers about the ships."
+
+With Stephen Borough in the Chancellor voyage was Arthur Pet—or Pett, a
+name not unknown in the navy—who, after two centuries, has become
+notable again through a strange discovery. In search of the much-desired
+passage by the north-east he sailed from Harwich on the 31st of May,
+1580, in the _George_, of forty tons, accompanied by Charles Jackman, in
+the _William_, of twenty tons. His orders were to avoid the open sea and
+keep the coast in sight all the way out on the starboard side, and
+William Borough—Stephen's brother, afterwards Comptroller of the
+Navy—gave him certain instructions and notes.
+
+Arranging with Jackman, whose little vessel sailed badly, to wait for
+him at Waigatz, Pet went ahead and endeavoured to pass through Burrough
+Strait, but meeting with trouble from the ice, missed the passage, and
+working round Waigatz to the south, entered the Kara Sea through Yugor
+Strait, or as it used to be called after him, Pet Strait. Coasting
+eastward with the mainland in sight, he was, as might be expected, much
+hampered by the heavy pack. On being joined by the little _William_ he
+made for the northward, seeking a way to the east, but the "more and
+thicker was the ice so that they could go no further," and, after
+talking the matter over on the 28th of July, Pet and Jackman reluctantly
+decided to return to Waigatz and there decide on what should be done.
+
+Their way back was difficult. They became shut in so that "they could
+not stir, labouring only to defend the ice as it came upon them." For
+one day they were clear of it, but next day, the 16th of August, they
+were encumbered again, though they got out of the trouble by sailing
+between the ice and the shore, which was a new experience. In this way
+they just scraped through Pet Strait, and bore away in the open sea to
+Kolguiev, both vessels grounding for a time on the sands to the south of
+that island. On the 22nd of August, two days afterwards, the _William_
+parted from the _George_ in a dense fog, while Pet brought his ship home
+and dropped anchor at Ratcliff on Boxing Day.
+
+The Dutch had for some time been trying to outstrip the English on this
+route to the far east. In 1565 they had settled at Kola, and about
+thirteen years afterwards had established the factory at the mouth of
+the Dwina on the site of Nova Kholmogory, generally known as Archangel.
+In 1584 Olivier Brunel, their energetic emissary in Russia, sailed on
+the first Dutch Arctic discovery expedition. He tried in vain to pass
+through Pet Strait, and the ship, with a valuable cargo of furs and
+mica, was wrecked on its homeward voyage at the mouth of the Petchora.
+
+Ten years elapsed, and then there sailed from the Texel the expedition
+of Cornelis Nai, in which the _Mercury_, of Amsterdam, was commanded by
+Willem Barents. Barents—really Barentszoon, the son of Bernard—sighted
+Novaya Zemlya, with which his name was to be thenceforth associated, on
+the 4th of July, and coasting along its mighty cliffs, peopled with
+their myriad seabirds, passed Cape Nassau ten days later. Thence
+reaching 77° 20´, and thus improving on John Davis's record for the
+highest north, he struggled through the ice to the Orange Islands and
+back, some twenty-five miles, during which he tacked eighty-one times
+and thereby sailed some seventeen hundred geographical miles. Failing to
+proceed further, he came south, and off Pet Strait—named by the Dutchmen
+Nassau Strait—fell in with the other two ships returning from their
+unsuccessful attempt to cross the Kara Sea.
+
+Next year a fleet of seven vessels under Nai left the Mars Diep on
+another endeavour to get through to China. One of the two chief
+commissioners on board was the famous Van Linschoten, who had been on
+the previous voyage, and the chief pilot was Barents, who was in the
+_Winthont_ (Greyhound) with Jacob van Heemskerck as supercargo. Arriving
+at Pet Strait they found it so blocked with ice that no passage was
+possible, and Barents, in search of information, went ashore on the
+mainland south of the strait and made friends—in a way—with the
+Samoyeds, whose appearance, as described by Gerrit de Veer, was "like
+that of wild men," dressed as they were in deerskins from head to foot,
+those of importance wearing caps of coloured cloth lined with fur; for
+the most part short of stature, with broad flat faces, small eyes, and
+bow legs; their hair worn long, plaited, and hanging down their backs.
+
+They were evidently suspicious of the Dutchmen, who did their best to be
+friendly. The chief had placed sentinels all round to see what the
+new-comers were about and note everything that was bought and sold. One
+of the sentinels was offered a biscuit, which "he with great thanks took
+and ate, and while he ate it he still looked diligently about him on all
+sides, watching what was done." Their reindeer sledges were kept
+ready—"that run so swiftly with one or two men in them that our horses
+were not able to follow them." They were unacquainted with firearms,
+and, when a musket was fired to impress them, "ran and leapt like
+madmen," but calmed down as soon as they saw there was no malicious
+intention, to wonder much more, however, when the man with the gun aimed
+at a flat stone he placed as a mark, and, fortunately, hit and broke it.
+The meeting ended satisfactorily; "after that we took our leaves one of
+the other with great friendship on both sides, and when we were in our
+pinnace we all put off our hats and bowed to them, sounding our trumpet;
+they in their manner saluting us also, and then went to their sledges
+again."
+
+[Illustration: SAMOYEDS AND THEIR DWELLINGS]
+
+Barents was by no means convinced that the strait was impassable, and
+held out against the opinion of the others for some days, but with the
+firm ice stretching round in all directions he had to give in, and on
+the 15th of September the fleet began the voyage home. Much had been
+expected, and the result was so conspicuous a failure that the States
+General abandoned any further attempt at a north-east passage on their
+own account, but decided to offer a reward to any private expedition
+that proved successful. Whereupon the authorities and merchants of
+Amsterdam fitted out two vessels for a third voyage, giving the command
+of one to Jan Corneliszoon Rijp, and that of the other to Jacob van
+Heemskerck, with Barents as chief pilot.
+
+The ships left the Dutch coast on the 18th of May. Four days afterwards
+they were off the Shetlands, going north-east. On the 9th of June they
+discovered an island, on which they landed. Here they saw a prodigious
+white bear, which they went after in a boat, intending to slip a noose
+over her neck, but when they were near her she looked so strong that
+their courage failed, and they returned to the ships to fetch more men,
+and what seems to have been quite an armoury of "muskets, harquebusses,
+halberds and hatchets." Accompanied by another boat they attacked this
+formidable beast for over two hours, one of them getting an axe into her
+back, with which she swam away until she was caught and had her head
+split open by another blow from an axe. From this remarkable bear, whose
+skin, we are told, was twelve feet long, the island was named Bear
+Island.
+
+Continuing northwards they sighted, on the 19th of June, Spitsbergen,
+which they supposed to be Greenland—an error that led to much
+confusion—and on the 21st of June they landed and had another trying
+time with a bear, whose skin proved to be thirteen feet long. On one
+island of the cluster they found the eggs of the barnacle goose,
+_Bernicla leucopsis_, whose nesting ground was up to then unknown, and
+on others they saw reindeer, for in this land "there groweth leaves and
+grass." Returning to Bear Island after attaining 79° 49´, some hundred
+and seventy miles higher north than in 1594, Rijp departed for the north
+again, and, failing to get beyond Bird Cape, went home to Holland by way
+of Kola; and to Kola he came back the year afterwards.
+
+In 1603, following the Dutch, came Stephen Bennet to call Bear Island
+Cherie Island, after his patron, and find the walruses in thousands and
+the birds in millions. A rocky tableland of mountain limestone and
+carboniferous sandstone, with the usual fossils in unusual numbers and a
+few coal seams in between; the ravines faced and floored with fragments
+of every dimension and shape, split off by the frost and weathered by
+wind and rain: a grey, grassless, monotonous country, except along the
+coast, where the guano from the vast numbers of seabirds has coated the
+crannies and ledges of the cliffs, that tower up perhaps four hundred
+feet from the water, with a thin layer of soil in which the scurvy-grass
+and a few other plants thrive amazingly, though the island's complete
+flora contains but forty species—such is Bear Island, the stepping-stone
+to Spitsbergen, of which Jonas Poole took possession in 1609 for the
+Muscovy Company.
+
+[Illustration: SPITSBERGEN]
+
+Lying east of the influence of the Gulf Stream, the range of temperature
+is of the widest. Often the island is unapproachable owing to the ice,
+sometimes it is even now as hot as Welden found it in 1608, when, in
+June, "the pitch did run down the ship's sides, and that side of the
+masts that was to the sun-ward was so hot that the tar did fry out of it
+as though it had boiled." That was a great year for Welden, for he
+killed a thousand walruses in less than seven hours and took a young one
+home with him, "where the king and many honourable personages beheld it
+with admiration, the like whereof had never before been seen alive in
+England."
+
+Poole did much useful work in these seas, but is now little heard of,
+most of the surviving interest in such matters being concentrated on
+Henry Hudson, who was in the same service at the same time. Hudson was,
+perhaps, a grandson of Alderman Henry Hudson, one of the founders of the
+Muscovy Company, but nothing is really known of him beyond his being a
+captain in the Muscovy Company, who, on the 19th of April, 1607, took
+the sacrament at St. Ethelburga's, in Bishopsgate Street, with his son
+and crew "and the rest of the parishioners." That he was a parishioner
+may be true, but that all the ten members of the crew were so is
+unlikely. Anyhow, they were outward bound for Japan and China by way of
+the North Pole, and sailed from Gravesend on the 1st of May.
+
+Where he went is not clear in detail, as his latitudes are seldom
+correct and his longitudes are not recorded. He sighted Greenland north
+of Iceland, and, shouldered off by the ice barrier, left it somewhere
+about Franz Josef Fjord, working easterly by the edge of the ice to
+Spitsbergen. Here he sailed round Prince Charles's Foreland and went
+north, passing Hakluyt Headland, which he named, reaching on the 13th of
+July, 80° 23´, "by observation." He saw many whales, but found his way
+blocked by ice; and after many attempts, assuring himself that there was
+no passage hereabouts to the north, sailed southwards for Bear Island.
+On leaving this he seems to have gone west, possibly to the coast of
+Greenland again, for on his way home he lighted upon Hudson's Touches,
+now known as Jan Mayen Island, the principal cape of which bears the
+name of Hudson's Point—which may be either Hudson's or Rudston's (after
+the Rudston mentioned in Baffin's fourth voyage)—while another is known
+as Young's Foreland, perhaps after the James Young who was the first in
+the ship to sight the coast of Greenland on the outward journey. He
+dropped anchor in the Thames on the 15th of September all well. He had
+not crossed the Pole, nor did he find Spitsbergen stretching up to 82°,
+as he said, its most northerly point being miles further south; but he
+had gone beyond Van Heemskerck's furthest north and found a fishing
+ground for whales and walruses which proved of great commercial value.
+
+[Illustration: FRANZ JOSEF FIORD]
+
+In 1610, Poole, finding that he could not land on Bear Island owing to
+the ice, stood away to the north-west, reached Spitsbergen, and worked
+along the western side to Hakluyt Headland, where the ice barred further
+advance. On his way up and down the coast he gave many of the capes and
+bays the names they still bear, and generally did so well that on his
+return he was put in the place of Hudson, who had left the service two
+years before, and made a sort of special commissioner by the Muscovy
+Company "for certain years upon a stipend certain" to make further
+discoveries round Spitsbergen and to ascertain whether there was an open
+sea further northward than had already been found. In addition to
+searching for the open polar sea, he was to convoy the _Mary Margaret_,
+in which were six Biscayners "expert in the killing of the whale," to
+Bear Island, and thence to Whale Bay in Spitsbergen. In short, Poole was
+to start the British whaling trade, the _Mary Margaret_ being the first
+British vessel to be employed in that lucrative but hazardous
+occupation; and she was under the command of Thomas Edge, whose name is
+borne by Edge's Island.
+
+The beginning was so promising that in 1613, two years afterwards, a
+fleet of seven vessels went out to take part in the fishery and clear
+away the foreigners who had come to share in the good fortune; the
+company claiming the islands on the ground of their purely imaginary
+discovery by Willoughby, the Dutch resting their claim on the real
+discovery by Van Heemskerck. In this fleet as chief pilot was William
+Baffin—his second recorded voyage. By him, who as usual kept his eyes
+open, we have the first description of the Spitsbergen glaciers. He was
+at the time—the 29th of July—in Green Harbour in Ice Fjord. "One thing
+more I observed," he says, "in this harbour which I have thought good
+also to set down. Purposing on a time to walk towards the mountains, I,
+and two more of my company, ascended up a long plain hill, as we
+supposed it to be; but having gone a while upon it, we perceived it to
+be ice. Notwithstanding we proceeded higher up, about the length of half
+a mile, and as we went saw many deep rifts or gutters on the land of
+ice, which were cracked down through to the ground, or, at the least, an
+exceeding great depth; as we might well perceive by hearing the snow
+water run below, as it does oftentimes in a brook whose current is
+somewhat opposed with little stones. But for better satisfaction I brake
+down some pieces of ice with a staff I had in my hand, which in their
+falling made a noise on each side much like to a piece of glass thrown
+down the well within Dover Castle, whereby we did estimate the thickness
+or height of this ice to be thirty fathoms. This huge ice, in my
+opinion, is nothing but snow, which from time to time has for the most
+part been driven off the mountains; and so continuing and increasing all
+the time of winter (which may be counted three-quarters of the year)
+cannot possibly be consumed with the thaw of so short a summer, but is
+only a little dissolved to moisture, whereby it becomes more compact,
+and with the quick succeeding frost is congealed to a firm ice."
+
+Next year he was out again in the _Thomasine_, one of a fleet of
+thirteen vessels, and in endeavouring to pass to the north-east, reached
+Wijde Bay, where at the point of the beach at the entrance he "set up a
+cross and nailed a sixpence thereon with the king's arms," probably the
+neatest property mark in history. Thence he went on to the entrance to
+Hinlopen Strait, completing the journey along the north of the main
+island. It was on this voyage that he endeavoured to find his longitudes
+by observing the moon, for Baffin was the first who attempted to take a
+lunar at sea.
+
+Year by year the fishery increased, and the whale fishers multiplied as
+if the sea were a goldfield, the monopoly being respected until 1618,
+when the Dutch, who had all along prospered more than the rest, proved
+too strong for the English, and a compromise was arrived at by which the
+different harbours were allotted to the different nations for the
+processes necessary in the preparation of the whale products for
+shipment. But it was purely a summer industry. There was no colony, and
+it did not seem as though there would be one, for no man willing to
+winter in the place could be found. Vainly were rewards offered to those
+who would venture. In the north was the ever-present barrier of ice,
+more distant some years than others, but always there to come south and
+hold the islands in its grip when the fishery was over, and those who
+came early and those who stayed late saw enough of the wintry landscape
+to make them doubt if life were possible under such conditions.
+
+Then the idea, not new to Englishmen, that colonies should be started by
+criminals, was acted upon, and the Muscovy Company procured the reprieve
+of a batch of prisoners under sentence of death and landed them in
+Spitsbergen under promise of a free pardon, a handsome reward, and full
+provisions and suitable clothes if they would remain there for a
+continuous twelve months. But, as the ship that brought them was
+preparing to return to London, "they conceived such a horror and inward
+fear in their hearts" that they besought the captain to take them back
+that they might be hanged rather than perish amid such desolation; and
+the captain "being a pitiful and a merciful gentleman, would not by
+force constrain them to stay," and brought them home again, when the
+company—who could do no less—procured them a pardon. One captain—of a
+different disposition—had left nine men behind him, all of whom perished
+miserably; and another, in 1630, left eight others, apparently through
+causes beyond his control, whose adventure was to form one of the most
+interesting episodes in Arctic story.
+
+It was on the 15th of August in that year that the _Salutation_ sent
+Edward Pellham and his seven companions ashore to kill reindeer for the
+ship's provisions on her voyage home. Taking with them two dogs, a
+snap-hance, two lances, and a tinder-box, they landed near Black Point,
+between Green Harbour and Bell Sound, and, "laying fourteen tall and
+nimble deer along," camped for the night. During the night the weather
+changed and brought in the ice between the shore and the ship, and in
+the morning the ship had gone. The boat's crew made for Green Harbour,
+thinking she would put in there to pick them up, but she failed to
+appear, being due to leave the country in three days, and after a
+fruitless attempt to catch her at Bell Sound, they eventually took up
+their quarters there on the 3rd of September.
+
+Here was one of the so-called tents of the whale-fishers. "This," says
+Pellham, "which we call the tent, was a kind of house built of timber
+and boards very substantially, and covered with Flemish tiles, by the
+men of which nation it had in the time of their trading thither been
+built. Four-score foot long it is and in breadth fifty. The use of it
+was for the coopers, employed for the service of the company, to work,
+lodge, and live in, all the while they make casks for the putting up of
+the train oil." As this was too large for their comfort, they very
+sensibly built another within it. "Taking down another lesser tent
+therefore (built for the landmen hard by the other, wherein they lay
+whilst they made their oil), from thence we fetched our materials. That
+tent furnished us with one hundred and fifty deal boards, besides posts
+or stanchions and rafters. From three chimneys of the furnaces wherein
+they used to boil their oil, we brought a thousand bricks: there also
+found we three hogsheads of very fine lime, of which stuff we also
+fetched another hogshead from Bottle Cove, on the other side of the
+sound, some three leagues distant. Mingling this lime with the sand of
+the sea-shore, we made very excellent good morter for the laying of our
+bricks: falling to work thereon, the weather was so extreme cold as that
+we were fain to make two fires to keep our morter from freezing. William
+Fakely and myself, undertaking the masonry, began to raise a wall of one
+brick thickness against the inner planks of the side of the tent. Whilst
+we were laying of these bricks, the rest of our company were otherwise
+employed every one of them: some in taking them down, others in making
+of them clean and in bringing them in baskets into the tent. Some in
+making morter, and hewing of boards to build the other side withal, and
+two others all the while in flaying of our venison. And thus, having
+built the two outermost sides of the tent with bricks and morter, and
+our bricks now almost spent, we were enforced to build the two other
+sides with boards; and that in this manner. First we nailed our deal
+boards on one side of the post or stanchion to the thickness of one
+foot: and on the other side in like manner: and so filling up the hollow
+place with sand, it became so tight and warm as not the least breath of
+air could possibly annoy us. Our chimney's vent was into the greater
+tent, being the breadth of one deal board and four foot long. The length
+of this our tent was twenty foot and the breadth sixteen; the height
+ten; our ceiling being deal boards five or six times double, the middle
+of one joining so close to the shut of the other that no wind could
+possibly get between. As for our door, besides our making it so close as
+possibly it could shut; we lined it moreover with a bed that we found
+lying there, which came over both the opening and the shutting of it. As
+for windows, we made none at all, so that our light we brought in
+through the greater tent, by removing two or three tiles in the eaves,
+which light came to us through the vent of our chimney. Our next work
+was to set up four cabins, billeting ourselves two and two in a cabin.
+Our beds were the deer skins dried, which we found to be extraordinary
+warm, and a very comfortable kind of lodging to us in our distress."
+
+For fuel they knocked to pieces seven old boats left ashore by the
+ships, storing the wood over the beams of the tent so as to make a sort
+of floor protecting the interior from snow driven in under the tiles,
+and, in addition, they broke up a number of empty casks. To make the
+wood last as long as possible they hit upon a device for keeping the
+fire in—"when we raked up our fire at night, with a good quantity of
+ashes and of embers, we put into the midst of it a piece of elm wood,
+where, after it had lain sixteen hours, we at our opening of it found
+great store of fire upon it, whereupon we made a common practice of it
+ever after: it never went out in eight months together, or thereabouts."
+
+Upon the 12th of September a small quantity of drift ice came into the
+sound, on a piece of which they found two walruses asleep, when "William
+Fakely being ready with his harping iron, heaved it so strongly into the
+old one that he quite disturbed her of her rest: after which, she,
+receiving five or six thrusts with our lances, fell into a sounder sleep
+of death." The young one, refusing to leave her mother, was also killed;
+and a week afterwards another walrus fell a victim; but even with these
+the store of provisions was inadequate. To make the food last, they put
+themselves on an allowance of one good meal a day, except on Wednesdays
+and Fridays which were fasting days devoted to whale sundries—"a very
+loathsome meat," says Pellham, in brackets—later on, for four days in
+the week they fed upon "the unsavoury and mouldy fritters, and the other
+three we feasted it with bear and venison." "But," continues the
+narrative, "as if it were not enough for us to want meat, we now began
+to want light also; all our meals proved suppers now, for little light
+could we see; even the glorious sun (as if unwilling to behold our
+miseries) masking his lovely face from us, under the sable veil of
+coal-black night."But they were equal to the emergency. "At the
+beginning of this darksome, irksome time, we sought some means of
+preserving light amongst us; finding therefore a piece of sheet lead
+over a seam of one of the coolers, that we ripped off and made three
+lamps of it, which, maintaining with oil that we found in the coopers'
+tent, and rope-yarn serving us instead of candle-wicks, we kept them
+continually burning."
+
+Cheerful and resourceful as they were, their fits of depression were not
+infrequent. "Our extremities being so many, made us sometimes in
+impatient speeches to break forth against the causers of our miseries;
+but then again, our consciences telling us of our own evil deservings,
+we took it either for a punishment upon us for our former wicked lives;
+or else for an example of God's mercy in our wonderful deliverance:
+humbling ourselves therefore, under the mighty hand of God, we cast down
+ourselves before him in prayer, two or three times a day, which course
+we constantly held all the time of our misery."
+
+Their prospects got worse, but they never lost a little hope. "The new
+year now began: as the days began to lengthen, so the cold began to
+strengthen; which cold came at last to that extremity, as that it would
+raise blisters on our flesh, as if we had been burnt with fire, and if
+we touched iron at any time it would stick to our fingers like
+bird-lime: sometimes if we went but out of doors to fetch in a little
+water, the cold would nip us in such a sort that it made us as sore as
+if we had been beaten in some cruel manner."
+
+Provisions were running low; the men began to talk of famine, and the
+outlook became daily gloomier until the 3rd of February. "This proved a
+marvellous cold day; yet a fair and clear one; about the middle whereof,
+all clouds now quite dispersed and night's sable curtain drawn, Aurora
+with her golden face smiled once again upon us, at her rising out of her
+bed; for now the glorious sun with his glittering beams began to gild
+the highest tops of the lofty mountains. The brightness of the sun and
+the whiteness of the snow, both together, were such as that it was able
+to revive even a dying spirit. But to make a new addition to our new
+joy, we might perceive two bears (a she one with her cub) now coming
+towards our tent; whereupon we, straight arming ourselves with our
+lances, issued out of the tent to await her coming. She soon cast her
+greedy eyes upon us, and with full hopes of devouring us she made the
+more haste unto us; but with our hearty lances we gave her such a
+welcome as that she fell down and biting the very snow for anger."
+
+Then more bears came to be eaten; then the birds began to arrive, and
+the foxes to come out of their winter earths to be trapped to the number
+of fifty; then the reindeer returned; and then, on the 25th May, two
+ships of Hull came into the sound from which a boat's crew landing
+unperceived came close up to the tent and shouted "Hey!" And Ayers, the
+only man at the moment in the outer tent, shouted "Ho!"—and Pellham and
+his shipmates had proved it to be possible to live through a winter in
+Spitsbergen.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+                              SPITSBERGEN
+
+                             (_continued_)
+
+  The summer town of Smeerenberg—Himkoff winters in North East
+    Land—Phipps reaches 80° 48´—Scoresby the elder reaches 81°
+    30´—Scoresby the younger—Voyage of the _Dorothea_ and _Trent_
+    under Buchan and Franklin—Parry reaches 82° 45´—Torell and
+    Nordenskiöld—Carlsen sails round Spitsbergen—Swedish North Polar
+    expedition under Nordenskiöld—Lamont—The Diana coal mine—Leigh
+    Smith—Conway.
+
+
+This wintering of the _Salutation_ men occurred when the Spitsbergen
+fisheries were most flourishing, the prosperity continuing for seven
+more years. So lucrative was the trade that on Amsterdam Island under
+Hakluyt Headland, within fifteen miles of 80° north latitude, about as
+far from the North Pole as St. Malo is from John o' Groat's, there
+sprang up as a summer resort the Dutch village of Smeerenberg. Such was
+the bustle produced by the yearly visit of two or three hundred
+double-manned vessels, containing from twelve thousand to eighteen
+thousand men, that this village of the farthest north was as busy as a
+manufacturing town. The incitement of prices proportionate to the
+latitude attracted hundreds of annual settlers, who throve on the sale
+of brandy, wine, tobacco, and sundries to the whale-fishers in shops of
+all varieties, including bakehouses, where the blowing of a horn let the
+sailors know that the bread had just been drawn hot from the oven. In
+fact, hot rolls and every delicacy could be had in Smeerenberg, which
+the Dutch averred was as flourishing as Batavia, founded by them a few
+years before. And when winter was just about due every man—and
+woman—went back to Holland. But the life of Smeerenberg was a short and
+a merry one, for in 1640 the shore fisheries were failing, and a year or
+so afterwards the lingerers of its last season left it for good,
+clearing out from its houses of brick and wood, demolishing its
+furnaces, removing its copper cauldrons and coolers and casks and
+everything that could be taken away, and leaving it in desolation to be
+occupied in the next and subsequent summers by polar bears.
+
+Like all seaside resorts it had its rival. Close by is the
+Cookery-of-Haarlem, abandoned at the same time, but rather more
+hurriedly. When Martens went there on the 15th of July, 1671, he found
+four houses still standing, in one of which were "several barrels or
+kardels that were quite decayed, the ice standing in the same shape the
+vessels had been made of: an anvil, smith's tongs, and other tools
+belonging to the cookery, were frozen up in the ice; the kettle was
+still standing as it was set, and the wooden troughs stood by it."
+Behind these houses "are high mountains," he continues, "if one climbeth
+upon these, as we do on others, and doth not mark every step with chalk,
+one doth not know how to get down again: when you go up you think it to
+be very easy to be down; but when you descend it is very difficult and
+dangerous, so that many have fallen and lost their lives." Absurd as
+this chalking of the steps may seem, there have been many who have taken
+the hint from the careful Martens when climbing in Spitsbergen, and many
+who have regretted not having done so.
+
+In ordinary summers the west side of Spitsbergen is clear of ice, not so
+the eastern side, the difference being due to the Gulf Stream, which,
+though evidently failing, is traceable along the coast round Hakluyt
+Headland and up to the ice barrier. In addition to this there is the
+general cause, whatever it may be, which makes the western coasts of all
+Arctic lands, isolated or not, warmer than the eastern. Greenland, for
+instance, is more approachable in summer from Davis Strait than from the
+Greenland Sea, Novaya Zemlya from Barents Sea than from Kara Sea, and so
+on with all the islands and peninsulas of Asia and America. Hence all
+this whaling was confined practically to the western harbours of West
+Spitsbergen, the largest of the group of islands. The next largest,
+North East Land, was never much visited except from Hinlopen Strait,
+though the Russians from time to time took some interest in the north
+and east harbours, and would have taken more, for it abounded in
+reindeer, if the ice had not made the landing an enterprise of some
+difficulty.
+
+On the east coast of North East Land, in 1743, a Russian whaler was
+caught in the pack, and the mate, Alexis Himkoff, remembering that a
+house had been built there some years before, went on shore with his
+godson, Ivan Himkoff, and two sailors, Scharapoff and Weregin, in search
+of it, in case the ship should have to be abandoned. They found the
+house, but, on returning to the shore next morning, could see nothing of
+the ship, which had apparently been carried away and crushed in the ice.
+They had brought with them a musket, a powder-horn with twelve charges
+of powder, twelve bullets, an axe, a small kettle, a bag with about
+twenty pounds of flour, a knife, a tinder-box and tinder, a bladder of
+tobacco, and every man had his pipe. That was their outfit.
+
+The house was thirty-six feet in length, and eighteen in height and
+breadth. It contained a small antechamber about twelve feet broad, which
+had two doors, one to close it from the outer air, the other admitting
+to the inner room in which was a Russian stove, a kind of oven without a
+chimney, serving at will for heating, for baking, or for sleeping on.
+Realising that they had a long stay before them, they began by shooting
+twelve reindeer, one for each bullet. They then repaired the house,
+stopping up all the crevices with moss; and they then laid in a store of
+fuel from the driftwood, there being no trees on the island. On the
+beach they found some boards with nails in them, and a long iron hook
+and a few other pieces of old iron. And also there was a root of a fir
+tree in shape not unlike a bow. Those were the materials they had to
+make the best of.
+
+A large stone served for an anvil, a pair of deer horns did duty for
+tongs, and with these and the fire, the iron hook was made into a
+hammer; and then two of the nails were shaped into spear-heads, which
+were tied to sticks from the driftwood with strips of deerskin. With
+these weapons they began by killing a bear, whose flesh they ate, whose
+skin they kept, and whose tendons they made into thread and a string for
+the bow formed out of the root of the fir tree. More nails were forged
+into arrow-heads, tied with sinew on to light sticks cut with the knife,
+the shafts being feathered from the feathers of seafowl. With these
+weapons they shot, before they had finished, two hundred and fifty
+reindeer, and they kept the skins, as they did also those of a large
+number of blue and white foxes, as we shall see in the sequel. In their
+own protection they killed nine bears, the only one they deliberately
+attacked being the first.
+
+To be sure of keeping their fire alight they modelled a lamp out of
+clay, which they filled with deer-fat, with twisted linen for a wick;
+but the clay was too porous, the fat ran through it; so they made
+another lamp of the same stuff, dried it in the air, heated it red hot,
+and cooled it in a sort of thin starch made of flour and water,
+strengthening the pottery by pasting linen rags over it. The result was
+so successful that they made a second lamp as a reserve. Some wreckage
+gave them a little cordage and a quantity of oakum, which came in for
+lamp-wicks. The lamp, like the sacred fire, was never allowed to go out.
+To make themselves clothes, they soaked skins in fresh water till the
+hair could be pulled off easily, and rubbed them well, and then rubbed
+deer fat into them until they were pliant and supple. Some of the skins
+they prepared as furs. Out of nails they, after many failures, made awls
+and needles, getting the eyes by piercing the heads with the point of
+the knife, and smoothing and pointing them by rounding and whetting them
+on a stone.
+
+For six years they lived in this desert place. Then one of them,
+Weregin, died of scurvy, and their gloomy forebodings as to which was to
+be taken next were broken in upon by their sighting a ship, to which
+they signalled with a flag made of deerskin. The signal was seen and
+they were rescued; and they took back to Archangel two thousand pounds
+weight of reindeer fat, their bales of skins and furs, their bow and
+arrows and spears, and in short everything they possessed. And they
+arrived there on the 28th of September, 1749, comfortably off from the
+value of the goods they brought with them—the heroes of one of the very
+best of true desert island stories.
+
+Like most Russians they do not seem to have suffered much from the cold
+or to have been inconvenienced by the summer heat, which is also
+considerable. In 1773, on the 13th of June, when Phipps and Lutwidge
+anchored in Fair Haven, round by Amsterdam Island, they found the
+thermometer reach 58½° at noon and descend no lower than 51° at
+midnight, and on the 16th it rose in the sun to 89½° till a light breeze
+made it fall almost suddenly ten degrees. This was the expedition sent
+out to the North Pole, mainly at the instigation of Daines Barrington,
+Gilbert White's friend. The ships were the _Racehorse_ and _Carcass_;
+and, as every one knows, or ought to know, as midshipman with Captain
+Lutwidge went Horatio Nelson, then a boy of fourteen, who was to figure
+largely in the world, though on this occasion he did nothing remarkable
+beyond attacking a polar bear, whose skin he thought would make a nice
+present for his father, and bringing his boat to the rescue when one of
+the _Racehorse_ boats was attacked by walruses. For another thing the
+expedition is memorable, that being that the useful apparatus for the
+distillation of fresh water from sea water, known to every seafarer, was
+first used on this voyage, Dr. Irving, its inventor, being the surgeon
+of the _Racehorse_. Another item to be noted is that Phipps had with him
+a Cavendish thermometer, which he tried the day after he crossed the
+Arctic Circle, and found that at a depth of 780 fathoms the temperature
+was 26°, while at the surface it was 48°.
+
+Phipps did all he could to go north, and, in longitude 14° 59´ east,
+reached 80° 48', the nearest to the Pole up to then, but he was foiled
+by the ice barrier, which he tried to penetrate again and again. He got
+his ships caught in the ice and took to his boats, thinking he would
+have to abandon them, when fortunately the pack drifted south, and the
+vessels, clearing themselves under sail, caught the boats up and took
+them on board. Then he went along the edge of the ice westward, and,
+finding no opening, gave the venture up and sailed for home.
+
+The next to do good work within this area was William Scoresby the
+elder, whose only equal as a whale-fisher was his son. To him we owe the
+invention of the crow's nest, that cylindrical frame covered with
+canvas, entrance to which is given by a trap-hatch in the base, reached
+by a Jacob's ladder from the topmast crosstrees, the conning-tower, so
+to speak, carried since by every ship on Arctic service. He was also the
+inventor of the ice-drill and many another implement and device used in
+Polar navigation; and he it was who sloped off his fore and main courses
+to come inboard to a boom fitted to the foot, used by every whaler, by
+which, in fact, you may know them. He also, long before the _America_,
+discovered the advantage of flat sails, and, in order to get his weights
+well down, he filled his casks with water as ballast and packed them
+with shingle, so that, instead of going out light, he was in the best of
+trim, with a power of beating to windward that took him to the fishing
+ground in double quick time and further into the ice, when he chose,
+than any of his competitors.
+
+[Illustration: WHALERS AMONG ICEBERGS]
+
+Out in the _Resolution_ in 1806 he saw from his crow's nest, in which he
+often spent a dozen hours at a stretch, that below the ice-blink—the
+white line in the sky which betokens the presence of ice—there was a
+blue-grey streak denoting open water, and that the motion of the sea
+around the ship must be due to a swell, which could only come from open
+water to the northward. On the 13th of May he started for this. By
+sawing the ice, hammering at it, dropping his boats on to it from the
+bow, sallying the ship—that is, rolling her by running the crew
+backwards and forwards across her deck—and, in fact, using every means
+he could think of, he passed the barrier in the eightieth parallel, and,
+on the 24th of June, attained 81° 30´, the farthest north ever reached
+by a sailing vessel in these seas. On that day there was not a ship
+within three hundred and fifty miles of the _Resolution_. The bold
+venture proved a thorough success; in thirty-two days he filled up with
+twenty-four whales, two seals, two walruses, and a narwhal—one of the
+most profitable of his thirty voyages.
+
+In this voyage the chief officer was his son, William Scoresby the
+younger, whose _Arctic Regions_ is the best book ever written on the
+northern seas. Sent by his father to Edinburgh University where he
+studied almost every branch of natural and physical science, he was
+thoroughly equipped for his task, and his practical experience as a
+whaling captain and trained observer stood him in such stead that his
+book is still the basis of all scientific Polar research. His
+description of the Spitsbergen coast as seen from a ship is as faithful
+to-day as when he wrote it. "Spitsbergen and its islands, with some
+other countries within the Arctic Circle, exhibit a kind of scenery
+which is altogether novel. The principal objects which strike the eye
+are innumerable mountainous peaks, ridges, precipices, or needles,
+rising immediately out of the sea to an elevation of 3000 or 4000 feet,
+the colour of which, at a moderate distance, appears to be blackish
+shades of brown, green, grey and purple; snow or ice, in striæ or
+patches, occupying the various clefts and hollows in the sides of the
+hills, capping some of the mountain summits, and filling with extended
+beds the most considerable valleys; and ice of the glacier form,
+occurring at intervals all along the coast, in particular situations as
+already described, in prodigious accumulations. The glistening or
+vitreous appearance of the icy precipices; the purity, whiteness, and
+beauty of the sloping expanse formed by their snowy surfaces; the gloomy
+shade presented by the adjoining or intermixed mountains and rocks,
+perpetually covered with a mourning veil of black lichens, with the
+sudden transitions into a robe of purest white, where patches or beds of
+snow occur, present a variety and extent of contrast altogether
+peculiar; which, when enlightened by the occasional ethereal brilliancy
+of the Polar sky, and harmonised in its serenity with the calmness of
+the ocean, constitute a picture both novel and magnificent. There is,
+indeed, a kind of majesty, not to be conveyed in words, in these
+extraordinary accumulations of snow and ice in the valleys, and in the
+rocks above rocks and peaks above peaks, in the mountain groups, seen
+rising above the ordinary elevation of the clouds, and terminating
+occasionally in crests of snow, especially when you approach the shore
+under the shelter of the impenetrable density of a summer fog; in which
+case the fog sometimes disperses like the drawing of a curtain, when the
+strong contrast of light and shade, heightened by a cloudless atmosphere
+and powerful sun, bursts on the senses in a brilliant exhibition
+resembling the production of magic."
+
+In 1818 there went out the first British expedition prepared to winter
+in the north. The vessels were two whalers bought into the navy, the
+_Dorothea_ and _Trent_, the first under the command of David Buchan, the
+other under that of John Franklin. Neither officer had been in the
+Arctic region before, but Buchan had done excellent service in surveying
+Newfoundland, and Franklin had been marked for special duty owing to his
+work in Australian seas under his cousin, Matthew Flinders, and for the
+manner in which on his way home he had acted as signal officer to
+Nathaniel Dance in that ever-memorable victory off the Straits of
+Malacca, when the Indiamen defeated and pursued a French fleet under
+Admiral Linois. Dance's report gave Franklin a further chance of
+distinction, for it led to his appointment to the _Bellerophon_, whose
+signal officer he was during the battle of Trafalgar.
+
+They were instructed to proceed to the North Pole, thence to continue on
+to Bering Strait direct, or by the best route they could find, to make
+their way to the Sandwich Islands or New Albion, and thence to come back
+through Bering Strait eastward, keeping in sight and approaching the
+coast of America whenever the position of the ice permitted them so to
+do. A nice little programme. But they started too early in a bad season;
+they did not get so far north as Phipps; they made accurate surveys and
+other observations; in exploration they did little; and they had many
+adventures.
+
+As they ranged along the western side of Spitsbergen the weather was
+severe. The snow fell in heavy showers, and several tons' weight of ice
+accumulated about the sides of the _Trent_, and formed a complete casing
+to the planks, which received an additional layer at each plunge of the
+vessel. So great, indeed, was the accumulation about the bows, that they
+were obliged to cut it away repeatedly with axes to relieve the bowsprit
+from the enormous weight that was attached to it: and the ropes were so
+thickly covered with ice that it was necessary to beat them with large
+sticks to keep them in a state of readiness. In the gale the ships
+parted company, but they met again at the rendezvous in Magdalena Bay.
+
+[Illustration: SIR JOHN FRANKLIN]
+
+Later on, off Cloven Cliff, there was a walrus fight begun by the seamen
+and continued by the walruses when they found themselves more at home in
+the water than on the ice. They rose in numbers about the boats, rushing
+at them, snorting with rage, endeavouring to upset them or stave them in
+by hooking their tusks on the gunwales, or butting at them with their
+heads. "It was the opinion of our people," says Beechey, "that in this
+assault the walruses were led on by one animal in particular, a much
+larger and more formidable beast than any of the others; and they
+directed their efforts more particularly towards him, but he withstood
+all the blows of their tomahawks without flinching, and his tough hide
+resisted the entry of the whale lances, which were, unfortunately, not
+very sharp, and soon bent double. The herd was so numerous, and their
+attacks so incessant, that there was not time to load a musket, which,
+indeed, was the only effectual mode of seriously injuring them. The
+purser, fortunately, had his gun loaded, and the whole now being nearly
+exhausted with chopping and sticking at their assailants, he snatched it
+up, and, thrusting the muzzle down the throat of the leader, fired into
+him. The wound proved mortal, and the animal fell back amongst his
+companions, who immediately desisted from their attack, assembled round
+him, and in a moment quitted the boat, swimming away as hard as they
+could with their leader, whom they actually bore up with their tusks and
+assiduously preserved from sinking."
+
+On one occasion Franklin and Beechey, when out in a boat together,
+witnessed the launch of an iceberg. They had approached the end of a
+glacier and were trying to search into the recess of a deep cavern at
+its foot when they heard a report as if of a cannon, and, turning to the
+quarter whence it proceeded, perceived an immense piece of the front of
+the cliff of ice gliding down from a height of two hundred feet at least
+into the sea, and dispersing the water in every direction, accompanied
+by a loud grinding noise, and followed by a quantity of water, which,
+lodged in the fissures, made its escape in numberless small cataracts
+over the front of the glacier. They kept the boat's head in the
+direction of the sea and thus escaped disaster, for the disturbance
+occasioned by the plunge of this enormous fragment caused a succession
+of rollers, which swept over the surface of the bay, making its shores
+resound as it travelled along it, and at a distance of four miles was so
+considerable that it became necessary to right the _Dorothea_, which was
+then careening, by instantly releasing the tackles which confined her.
+The piece that had been disengaged wholly disappeared under water, and
+nothing was seen but a violent boiling of the sea and a shooting up of
+clouds of spray like that which occurs at the foot of a great cataract.
+After a short time it reappeared, raising its head full a hundred feet
+above the surface, with water pouring down from all parts of it; and
+then, labouring as if doubtful which way it should fall, it rolled over,
+and, after rocking about for some minutes, became settled. It was nearly
+a quarter of a mile round and floated sixty feet out of the water, and
+making a fair allowance for its inequalities, was computed to weigh
+421,600 tons.
+
+[Illustration: TRACK OF H.M.S. "DOROTHEA" AND "TRENT"]
+
+There were frequent landings, often with difficulties in the return, due
+generally to attempts at making a short cut to the shore or across the
+ice. Of these short cuts the very shortest was that made by one of the
+sailors named Spinks, who was out with a party in pursuit of reindeer.
+The ardour of the chase had led them beyond the prescribed limits, and
+when the signal was made for their return to the boat some of them were
+upon the top of a hill. Spinks, an active and zealous fellow, anxious to
+be first at his post, thought he would outstrip his comrades by
+descending the snow, which was banked against the mountain at an angle
+of about 40° with the horizon, and rested against a small glacier on the
+left. The height was about two thousand feet, and in the event of his
+foot slipping there was nothing to impede his progress until he reached
+the beach, either by the slope or the more terrific descent of the face
+of the glacier. He began his career by digging his heels into the snow,
+the surface of which was rather hard. At first he got on very well, but
+presently his foot slipped, or the snow was too hard for his heel to
+make an impression, and he increased in speed, keeping his balance,
+however, by means of his hands. In a very short time his descent was
+fearfully quick; the fine snow flew about him like dust, and there
+seemed but little chance of his reaching the bottom in safety,
+especially as his course was taking him in the direction of the glacier.
+For a moment he was lost sight of behind a crag of the mountain, and it
+was thought he had gone over the glacier, but with great presence of
+mind and dexterity, "by holding water first with one hand and then the
+other," to use his own expression, he contrived to escape the danger,
+and, like a skilful pilot, steered into a place of refuge amid a bed of
+soft snow recently drifted against the hill. When he extricated himself
+from the depths into which he had been plunged he had to hold together
+his tattered clothes, for he had worn away two pairs of trousers and
+something more. That was all his damage, and we shall meet with him
+again in the west out with Franklin and Captain Back.
+
+In the morning of the 30th of July the ships found themselves caught in
+a gale with the ice close to leeward. The only way of escaping
+destruction seemed to be by taking refuge in the pack. It was a
+desperate expedient rarely resorted to by whalers and only in extreme
+cases. In the _Trent_ a cable was cut up into thirty-foot lengths, and
+these, with plates of iron four feet square, supplied as fenders, and
+some walrus hides, were hung around her, mainly about her bows; the
+masts were secured with extra ropes, and the hatches were battened and
+nailed down. When a few fathoms from the ice those on board searched
+with anxiety for an opening in the pack, but saw nothing but an unbroken
+line of furious breakers with huge masses heaving and plunging with the
+waves and dashing together with a violence that nothing but a solid body
+seemed likely to withstand; and the noise was so great that the orders
+to the crew could with difficulty be heard. At one moment the sea was
+bursting upon the ice blocks and burying them deep beneath its wave, and
+the next, as the buoyancy brought them up again, the water was pouring
+in foaming cataracts over their edges, the masses rocking and labouring
+in their bed, grinding and striving with each other until one was either
+split with the shock or lifted on to the top of its neighbour. Far as
+the eye could reach the turmoil stretched, and overhead was the
+clearness of a calm and silvery atmosphere bounded by a dark line of
+storm cloud lowering over the masts as if to mark the confines within
+which no effort would avail.
+
+"At this instant," says Beechey, "when we were about to put the strength
+of our little vessel in competition with that of the great icy
+continent, and when it seemed almost presumption to reckon on the
+possibility of her surviving the unequal conflict, it was gratifying in
+the extreme to observe in all our crew the greatest calmness and
+resolution. If ever the fortitude of seamen was fairly tried it was
+assuredly not less so than on this occasion; and I will not conceal the
+pride I felt in witnessing the bold and decisive tone in which the
+orders were issued by the commander of our little vessel, and the
+promptitude and steadiness with which they were executed by the crew."
+
+The brig was steered bow on to the ice. Every man instinctively gripped
+his hold, and with his eyes fixed on the masts awaited the moment of
+concussion. In an instant they all lost their footing, the masts bent
+with the shock, and the timbers cracked below; the vessel staggered and
+seemed to recoil, when the next wave, curling up under her counter,
+drove her about her own length within the edge of the ice, where she
+gave a roll and was thrown broadside to the wind by the succeeding wave
+which beat furiously against her stern, bringing her lee in touch with
+the main mass and leaving her weather side exposed to a floe about twice
+her size. Battered on all sides, tossed from fragment to fragment,
+nothing could be done but await the issue, for the men could hardly keep
+their feet, the motion being so great that the ship's bell, which in the
+heaviest gale had never struck of itself, now tolled so continuously
+that it had to be muffled.
+
+After a time an effort was made to put the vessel before the wind and
+drive her further into the pack. Some of the men gained the
+fore-topsail-yard and let a reef out of the sail, and the jib was
+dragged half up the stay by the windlass. The brig swung into position,
+and, aided by a mass under her stern, split the block, fourteen feet
+thick, which had barred her way, and made a passage for herself into
+comparative safety; and after some four hours the gale moderated.
+Strained and leaking the _Trent_ had suffered much, but the _Dorothea_
+had been damaged more; and both returned to Fair Haven, where it was
+found hopeless to continue the voyage, and thence, when the ships had
+been temporarily repaired, they sailed for England. The expedition had
+not done much, but it had given their Arctic schooling to Franklin,
+Beechey, and Back.
+
+In May, 1827, Parry, in the _Hecla_, was forced to run into the ice, but
+not quite in the same way as Buchan did. He was beset for three weeks,
+and then, getting clear, proceeded to the Seven Islands to the north of
+Spitsbergen, on one of which, Walden, he placed a reserve of provisions;
+the ship, after reaching 81° 5´, going to Treurenberg Bay, in Hinlopen
+Strait, to await his return.
+
+[Illustration: PARRY CAMPED ON THE ICE]
+
+From here he made his dash for the Pole. He had with him two boats of
+his own design, seven feet in beam, twenty in length. On each side of
+the keel was a strong runner, shod with steel, upon which the boat stood
+upright on the ice. They were so built that they would have floated as
+bags had they been stove in. On ash and hickory timbers, an inch by an
+inch and a half thick, placed a foot apart, with a half-timber of
+smaller size between each, was stretched a casing of waterproof canvas
+tarred on the outer side and protected by a skin of fir three-sixteenths
+of an inch thick, over this came a sheet of stout felt, and over all a
+skin of oak of the same thickness as the fir, each boat weighing about
+fourteen hundredweight—that is the hull, as launched. One of these boats
+was named the _Enterprise_, the other the _Endeavour_. They were
+intended to be hauled by reindeer, but the state of the ice rendered
+this impracticable and the men did the work themselves. Parry took
+command of the _Enterprise_, the other being in charge of Lieutenant
+James Clark Ross; and, altogether, officers and men numbered
+twenty-eight.
+
+From Little Table Island, where they left a reserve as they had done at
+Walden, they started for the north—two heavy boats laden with food for
+seventy days and clothing for twenty-eight men, with a compact equipment
+including light sledges, travelling in a sea crowded or covered with ice
+in every form, large and small, over which they were dragged up and down
+hummocks, round and among crags and ridges, along surfaces of every kind
+of ruggedness, of every slope and irregularity, the few flat stretches
+broken with patches of sharp crystals or waist-deep snow; through lanes
+and pools of water with frequent ferryings and transhipments, in
+sunshine and fog, and, strange to say, frequently in pouring rain. They
+travelled by night and rested by day, though, of course, there was
+daylight all the time. "The advantages of this plan," says Parry, "which
+was occasionally deranged by circumstances, consisted, first in our
+avoiding the intense and oppressive glare from the snow during the time
+of the sun's greatest altitude, so as to prevent in some degree the
+painful inflammation in the eyes called snow-blindness which is common
+in all snowy countries. We also thus enjoyed greater warmth during the
+hours of rest and had a better chance of drying our clothes; besides
+which no small advantage was derived from the snow being harder at night
+for travelling. When we rose in the evening we commenced our day by
+prayers, after which we took off our sleeping dresses and put on those
+for travelling, the former being made of camlet lined with racoon skin,
+and the latter of strong blue, box cloth. We made a point of always
+putting on the same stockings and boots for travelling in, whether they
+had dried during the day or not, and I believe it was only in five or
+six instances that they were not either still wet or hard frozen." When
+halted for rest the boats were placed alongside each other, with their
+sterns to the wind, the snow or wet cleared out of them, and the sails,
+held up by the bamboo masts and three paddles, were placed over them as
+awnings with the entrance at the bow.
+
+Progress was not great, sometimes fifty yards an hour, occasionally
+twelve miles a day, that is on the ice, for soon it was apparent that
+the distance gained by reckoning was greater than that given by
+observation, and Parry realised to his dismay that the pack was drifting
+south while he was going north. But he kept on till on the 21st of July
+he reached 82° 45´, which remained the farthest north for forty-nine
+years.
+
+[Illustration: PARRY'S BOATS AMONG THE HUMMOCKS]
+
+During the last few days he had been drifting south in the day almost as
+far as he had advanced north in the night, and, having used up half his
+provisions, he reluctantly abandoned the struggle as hopeless. "As we
+travelled," he says, "by far the greater part of our distance on the
+ice, three, and not infrequently, five times over, we may safely
+multiply the road by 2½; so that our whole distance, on a very moderate
+calculation, amounted to five hundred and eighty geographical miles, or
+six hundred and sixty-eight statute miles; being nearly sufficient to
+have reached the Pole in a direct line."
+
+In 1858 a Swedish expedition under Otto Torell started from Hammerfest
+for Spitsbergen. He was accompanied by A. Quennerstedt and Adolf Erik
+Nordenskiöld. They explored Horn Sound, Bell Sound, and Green Harbour.
+In Bell Sound they dredged with great success for mollusca; they made a
+botanical collection, chiefly of mosses and lichens, found tertiary
+plant fossils, and, in the North Harbour, carboniferous limestone beds
+with the tertiary plant-bearing strata above them—in short, Nordenskiöld
+entered upon his long and fruitful study of Spitsbergen geology. Three
+years afterwards Torell took out another expedition, Nordenskiöld going
+with him, which was to explore the northern coast and then make for the
+far north; but the ice conditions kept them in Treurenberg Bay, where
+they visited Hecla Cove and found Parry's flagstaff. In the course of
+their journeys they noticed in Cross Bay the first known Spitsbergen
+fern, _Cystopteris fragilis_; by the side of a freshwater lake in Wijde
+Bay an Alpine char was picked up; and, at Shoal Point, Torell discovered
+in a mass of driftwood a specimen of the unmistakable Entada bean, two
+and a quarter inches across, brought there from the West Indies by the
+Gulf Stream, as other specimens have been drifted to European shores.
+
+In 1864, the year that Elling Carlsen found the navigation so open that
+he passed the Northern Gate and sailed round Spitsbergen, Nordenskiöld,
+at the head of a small expedition, was at work in Ice Fjord, and, unable
+to go north on account of the ice, rounded South Cape, entered Stor
+Fjord, visited Edge's Land and Barents Land, and from the summit of
+White Mountain, near Unicorn Bay, rediscovered the west coast of the
+island reported by Edge two hundred and fifty years before. In 1868, as
+leader of the Swedish North Polar Expedition in the _Sofia_, he reached
+81° 42´, in 17° 30´ east, the highest latitude then reached by a steam
+vessel, and his farthest north; his next Polar venture, four years
+afterwards, in the _Polhem_, ending in his having to winter in Mossel
+Bay, where his generous endeavour to feed one hundred and one extra men,
+who were ice-bound, on provisions intended for his own twenty-four,
+would have ended in disaster had he not been relieved by Leigh Smith in
+the _Diana_.
+
+The _Diana_ was the steam yacht built for James Lamont, in which, like
+Leigh Smith, he cruised for several seasons in the Arctic seas,
+combining sport with exploration in a truly admirable way. To these two
+yachtsmen we owe much of our knowledge of Spitsbergen, Novaya Zemlya,
+and Franz Josef Land, but we can only give them passing mention here. We
+must, however, find room for Lamont's useful find of the coal mine in
+Advent Bay, from which he filled up the _Diana's_ bunkers. "When I paid
+a visit to the coal mine," he says, "I found it quite a busy scene for a
+quiet Arctic shore. The engineer and fireman directed the blasting, my
+English hands quarried, while the Norwegians carried the sacks down the
+hill. The old mate, the many-sidedness of whose character I have so much
+valued on my various voyages, was digging away with the rest, though I
+am sorry that in the sketch his weather-beaten face is turned away. All
+the rest are portraits, and the reader will notice that Arctic work is
+not done in the attractive uniforms known to Cowes and Ryde. The
+coal-bed was about three feet thick, and lay very horizontally between
+two layers of soft, mud-coloured limestone. It was harder to obtain than
+I anticipated, because saturated, through all the cracks and
+interstices, with water which had frozen into ice more difficult to
+break through than the coal itself, thereby rendering these fissures
+worse than useless in quarrying. This is tertiary coal, and is of fair
+quality, but contains a good deal of sulphur. When we began to burn it,
+so much water and ice was unavoidably mixed with it that the engineers
+had to let it drain on deck in the hot sun and then mix it with an equal
+bulk of Scotch coal. Consumed in this way the ten tons obtained in three
+days was a useful addition to the fast-dwindling stock on board."
+
+While Nordenskiöld was at Mossel Bay he attempted a journey to the
+north, but was stopped by the ice at Seven Islands, and returned round
+North East Land. It took him five days to pass across the twenty-three
+miles between Phipps Island and Cape Platen over pyramids of angular ice
+up to thirty feet high. On the coast, which he found extending, as Leigh
+Smith had reported, much further to the east than was shown on the
+charts, he met with the inland ice ending in precipices from two
+thousand to three thousand feet high. Ascending this ice they had
+scarcely gone a quarter of a mile before one of the men disappeared at a
+place where the surface was level, and so instantaneously that he could
+not even give a cry for help. When they looked into the hole they found
+him hanging on to the drag-line, to which he was fastened with reindeer
+harness, over a deep abyss. Had his arms slipped out of the harness, a
+single belt, he would have been lost. Along the level surface every puff
+of wind drove a stream of fine snow-dust, which, from the ease with
+which it penetrated everywhere, was as the fine sand of the desert to
+the travellers in the Sahara. By means of this fine snow-dust, steadily
+driven forward by the wind, the upper part of the glacier—which did not
+consist of ice, but of hard packed blinding white snow—was glazed and
+polished so that it seemed to be a faultless, spotless floor of white
+marble, or rather a white satin carpet. Examination showed that the
+snow, at a depth of four to six feet, passed into ice, being changed
+first into a stratum of ice crystals, partly large and perfect, then to
+a crystalline mass of ice, and finally to hard glacier ice, in which
+could still be observed numerous air cavities compressed by the
+overlying weight; and, when, as the surface thaws, the pressure of the
+enclosed air exceeds that of the superincumbent weight, these cavities
+break up with the peculiar cracking sound heard in summer from the
+glacier ice that floats about in the fjords. Occasionally broad channels
+were crossed, of which the only way to ascertain the depth was to lower
+a man into them, and frequently he had to be hoisted up again without
+having reached the bottom; such danger areas causing so circuitous a
+route that much progress was impossible.
+
+Prior to the explorations of Sir Martin Conway in 1896, it was supposed
+that this inland ice extended over all the islands of the group, an area
+exceeding twenty thousand square miles. He, however, proved that so far
+as West Spitsbergen was concerned, this was not the case. Crossing it he
+found much of the interior a complex of mountains and valleys, amongst
+which were many glaciers, as in Central Europe, but with no continuous
+covering of ice, each glacier being a separate unit with its own
+drainage system and catchment area, the valleys boggy and relatively
+fertile, the hillsides bare of snow in summer up to more than a thousand
+feet above sea-level. In the rise of the country from the sea it seems
+to have come up as a plain which did not reach the level of perpetual
+snow, so that as it rose it was cut down into valleys in the usual way
+by the agency of water pouring off from the plateau over its edge down a
+frost-split rock-face, the valleys gently sloped, the head necessarily
+steep owing to the face of the cliff being stripped off as the
+waterfalls cut their way back.
+
+Since Nordenskiöld's first expedition we have learnt much of the geology
+and physical features of Spitsbergen; and we hear no more of the poverty
+of its flora and fauna. Now it has become a summer tourist resort we are
+yearly increasing our knowledge of this land of no thunderstorms, for
+centuries the largest uninhabited area on the globe, the only
+considerable stretch on which there is no trace of human occupation
+before its discovery by the moderns in 1596, when it was found by
+Barents and his companions.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+                             NOVAYA ZEMLYA
+
+  Van Heemskerck and Barents reach Ice Haven—The ship in the ice—The
+    first crew to winter in the Arctic—The house the Dutch built—The
+    bears—The foxes—Intense cold—Twelfth Eve rejoicings—Preparations
+    for departure—Death of Barents—The boat voyage—Meeting with
+    Rijp—Admiral Jacob Van Heemskerck—Carlsen at Ice Haven—Finds the
+    house as described by De Veer—The relics at the Hague—Gardiner
+    finds the powder-flask—Gundersen finds the translation of the
+    voyage of Pet and Jackman—Second voyage of Hudson—His third
+    voyage—De Vlamingh—Russian explorers.
+
+
+We left Barents parting company with Rijp at Bear Island, Rijp bound
+northwards. Barents, taking his vessel eastwards, struck Novaya Zemlya
+at Loms Bay, near Cross Bay, and bearing north-eastwards reached the
+Orange Islands and rounded Cape Mauritius. Steering south he got down
+into Ice Haven, where at length, says De Veer, "the ice began to drive
+with such force that we were enclosed round about therewith, and yet we
+sought all the means we could to get out, but it was all in vain: and at
+that time we had like to have lost three men that were upon the ice to
+make way for the ship, if the ice had held the course it went; but as we
+drove back again, and the ice also whereon our men stood, they being
+nimble, as the ship drove by them, one of them caught hold of the beak
+head, another upon the shrouds, and the third upon the mainbrace that
+hung out behind, and so by great adventure by the hold they took they
+got into the ship again, for which they thanked God with all their
+hearts." The same evening, that of the 26th of August, 1596, they
+reached the west of Ice Haven—now known as Barents Bay—where they were
+forced to remain, being the first crew on record to spend a winter in
+the Arctic regions and survive to tell the story.
+
+To begin with, the ice gathered round the ship and lifted her bow four
+feet out of the water. Endeavouring to right her by clearing the ice
+away, Barents was on his knees measuring the height she had to fall when
+the ice broke with "such a noise and so great a crack that they thought
+verily they were all cast away." As she lay upright again they tried in
+vain with crowbars and other tools to break off the piled-up ice, and
+next day in a heavy snow the pressure became such that the whole ship
+was borne up and so squeezed that "all that was both about and in it
+began to crack, so that it seemed to burst in a hundred pieces, which
+was most fearful both to see and hear, and made all the hair of our
+heads to rise upright with fear." The grip continuing, the vessel was
+driven up four or five feet and the rudder squeezed off, which was
+replaced by a new one, when she sank back into the water a few hours
+afterwards owing to the ice drifting clear for a while. Thus matters
+went on for a little time, the ship being alternately lifted and
+released.
+
+[Illustration: HOW OUR SHIP STUCK FAST IN THE ICE]
+
+On the 11th of September, as there was no hope of escape, it was decided
+to build a house wherein to spend the winter, and in seeking for a
+suitable position, a mass of driftwood—"trees, roots and all"—was
+discovered, "driven ashore from Tartaria, Muscovia, or elsewhere," for
+there were no trees growing on the land, "wherewith," says De Veer, "we
+were much comforted, being in good hope that God would show us some
+further favour; for that wood served us not only to build our house, but
+also to burn and serve us all the winter long; otherwise without all
+doubt we had died there miserably with extreme cold."
+
+The timber was collected and piled up in heaps that it might not be
+hidden under the snow, and two sledges were made on which to drag it to
+the site of the house. This was heavy work in which all took part, four
+of them in turn remaining by the ship, there being thirteen men to each
+party, five to each sledge, with three to help and lift the wood behind
+"to make us draw the better and with more ease," and at the end of the
+first week of it the carpenter died, so that only sixteen were left. But
+the wood was brought along day after day, some to build with, some for
+fuel; and the house was built, the frost so hard at times that "as we
+put a nail into our mouths, as carpenters do, there would ice hang
+thereon when we took it out again and made the blood follow"; and when a
+great fire was made to soften the ground, in order that earth might be
+dug to shovel round the house, "it was all lost labour for the earth was
+so hard and frozen so deep that we could not thaw it, and it would have
+cost us too much wood."
+
+The house was roofed with deals obtained by breaking up the lower deck
+of the fore part of the ship, and, to make it weather-tight, it was
+covered with a sail on which afterwards shingle was spread to keep it
+from being blown off; and the materials of the cabin yielded the wood
+for the door. Inside, the house was made as comfortable as possible, as
+shown in the illustration given in De Veer's book in 1598. Low shelves,
+with partitions between, along the side served for sleeping places; a
+cask on end with a square hole like a window in the upper half was
+frequently used as a bath; a striking clock and a time-glass marked the
+passing of the hours; the large fire in the centre with its frame and
+trivet and spit and copper pots and other kitchen utensils served for
+warmth and cooking; and over the fire hung a large lamp beneath the
+chimney, which terminated outside in a cask giving it the appearance of
+a crow's nest ashore.
+
+While the house was building, and as long as the sun was above the
+horizon, there was much trouble with the bears, whose daily visits were
+always productive of excitement. On the 26th of October, for instance,
+the day after all the crew first slept in the house, when the men had
+loaded the last sledge and stood in the track-ropes ready to draw it to
+the house, Van Heemskerck caught sight of three coming towards them from
+behind the ship. The men jumped out of the track-ropes, and as
+fortunately two halberds lay upon the sledge, Van Heemskerck took one
+and De Veer the other, while the rest ran to the ship, "and as they ran
+one of them fell into a crevice in the ice, which grieved us much, for
+we thought the bears would have run unto him to devour him," but they
+made straight after the others instead. "Meantime we and the man that
+fell into the cleft of ice took our advantage and got into the ship on
+the other side; which the bears perceiving, they came fiercely towards
+us that had no arms to defend us withal but only the two halberds, gave
+them work to do by throwing billets of firewood and other things at
+them, and every time we threw they ran after them as a dog does at a
+stone that has been cast at him. Meantime we sent a man down into the
+caboose to strike fire and another to fetch pikes; but we could get no
+fire, and so we had no means to shoot"—their firearms being matchlocks.
+"At the last as the bears came fiercely upon us we struck one of them
+with a halberd on the snout, wherewith she gave back when she felt
+herself hurt and went away, which the other two, that were not so large
+as she, perceiving, ran away."
+
+When the bears had gone and the long night set in, their place was taken
+by the white foxes, many of these being caught in traps and furnishing
+skins for clothes and flesh for meat—"not unlike that of the
+rabbit"—that was "as grateful as venison." The 19th of November was a
+great day. A chest of linen was opened and divided among the men for
+shirts, "for they had need of them." Next day they washed their shirts,
+having evidently made the new ones in a hurry, and, says De Veer, "it
+was so cold that when we had washed and wrung them they presently froze
+so stiff (out of the warm water) that although we laid them by a great
+fire the side that lay next the fire thawed, but the other side was hard
+frozen, so that we should sooner have torn them in sunder than have
+opened them, whereby we were forced to put them into the boiling water
+again to thaw them, it was so exceeding cold."
+
+On the 3rd of December and the two following days it was so cold that as
+the men lay in their bunks they could hear the ice cracking in the sea
+two miles away, and thought that icebergs were breaking on each other;
+and as they had not so great a fire as usual owing to the smoke "it
+froze so sore within the house that the walls and the roof thereof were
+frozen two fingers thick with ice, even in the bunks in which we lay.
+All those three days while we could not go out by reason of the foul
+weather we set up the sandglass of twelve hours, and when it was run out
+we set it up again, still watching it lest we should miss our time. For
+the cold was so great that our clock was frozen and would not go,
+although we hung more weight on it than before."
+
+The snow fell until it was so deep round the house that on Christmas Day
+they heard foxes running over the roof; and the last day of the year was
+so cold that "the fire almost cast no heat, for as we put our feet to
+the fire we burnt our hose before we could feel the heat, so that we had
+work enough to do to patch our hose." On the 4th of January, "to know
+where the wind blew we thrust a half pike out of the chimney with a
+little cloth or feather upon it; but we had to look at it immediately
+the wind caught it, for as soon as we thrust it out it was frozen as
+hard as a piece of wood and could not go about or stir with the wind, so
+that we said to one another how fearfully cold it must be out of doors."
+
+Next day, being Twelfth Eve, on which foreigners, according to the old
+practice, hold the festivities now customary in England on the following
+day, the men asked Van Heemskerck that they might enjoy themselves, "and
+so that night we made merry and drank to the three kings. And therewith
+we had two pounds of meal, which we had taken to make paste for the
+cartridges wherewith, of which we now made pancakes with oil, and to
+every man a white biscuit, which we sopped in wine. And so supposing
+that we were in our own country and amongst our friends it comforted us
+as well as if we had made a great banquet in our own house. And we also
+distributed tickets, and our gunner was king of Nova Zembla, which is at
+least eight hundred miles long and lieth between two seas."
+
+In time the sun reappeared—as also the bears—and the rigours of the
+winter relaxing, the men, on the 9th of May, applied to Barents asking
+him to speak to Van Heemskerck with a view to preparing for departure.
+This, after two other appeals, he did on the 15th of May, Van
+Heemskerck's answer being that, if the ship were not free by the end of
+the month, he would get ready to go away in the boats. The two boats,
+or, to be exact, the boat and the herring skute, were then repaired and
+made suitable for a long sea voyage, and on the 13th of June were in
+proper condition with all their stores ready. Then Van Heemskerck,
+"seeing that it was open water and a good west wind, came back to the
+house again, and there he spake unto Willem Barents (that had been long
+sick) and showed him that he thought it good (seeing it was a fit time)
+to go from thence, and they then resolved jointly with the ship's
+company to take the boat and the skute down to the water side, and in
+the name of God to begin our voyage to sail from Nova Zembla. Then
+Willem Barents wrote a letter, which he put into a powder flask and
+hanged it up in the chimney, showing how we came out of Holland to sail
+to the kingdom of China, and what had happened to us." Then Barents was
+taken down to the shore on a sledge and put into one boat, the other
+sick man, Andriesz, being placed in the other, and "with a
+west-north-west wind and an indifferent open water" they set sail on a
+voyage of over fifteen hundred miles among the ice, over the ice, and
+through the sea.
+
+Barents, though they little suspected it, had but a few days to live. As
+they passed the northernmost cape of Novaya Zemlya, "Gerrit," he said to
+De Veer, "if we are near the Ice Point, just lift me up again. I must
+see that point once more." They were amongst the ice floes again; soon
+they had to make fast to one; and then they became shut in and forced to
+stay there. Next day their only means of safety lay in hauling their
+boats up on to a floe, taking the sick men out on to the ice and putting
+the clothes and other things under them; but after mending the boats,
+which had been much bruised and crushed, they drifted into a little open
+water and got afloat. On the 20th of June, about eight in the morning it
+became evident that Andriesz was nearing his end. "Methinks," said
+Barents, in the other boat, when he heard of it, "with me too it will
+not last long." But still his companions did not realise how ill he was,
+and talked on unconcernedly. Then he looked at the little chart which De
+Veer had made of the voyage. Putting it down, he said, "Gerrit, give me
+something to drink." And no sooner did he drink than he suddenly died.
+Thus passed away their chief guide and only pilot, than whom none better
+ever sailed the northern seas.
+
+[Illustration: HOW WE NEARLY GOT INTO TROUBLE WITH THE SEA-HORSES]
+
+Working their way down the west coast of the long island, putting in
+every now and then in search of birds and eggs, constantly in peril from
+the floating ice and the bears, they slowly came south. When passing
+Admiralty Peninsula they had to deal with a danger of their own causing.
+They sighted about two hundred walruses upon one of the floes. Sailing
+close to them they drove them off, "which," says De Veer, "had almost
+cost us dear, for they, being mighty strong sea monsters, swam towards
+us round about our boats with a great noise as if they would have
+devoured us; but we escaped from them by reason that we had a good gale
+of wind, yet it was not wisely done of us to waken sleeping wolves."
+
+Day by day De Veer tells the story of that adventurous voyage, with its
+long succession of dangers and disappointments, until they reached the
+mainland and sent the Lapland messenger to Kola, who returned with a
+letter from Jan Corneliszoon Rijp, who at first they could not believe
+was the old friend from whom they had parted at Bear Island; and more
+briefly he continues the story until Amsterdam was reached on the 1st of
+November, when the survivors, in the same clothes they wore in their
+winter quarters, fur caps and white fox-skins, walked up to the house of
+Pieter Hasselaer to report themselves on arrival and received the hearty
+welcome they deserved.
+
+Though Van Heemskerck had failed to make the passage to the east by way
+of the north, he was perhaps destined for greater fame on the far less
+rigorous route. Like Nelson he went on an Arctic expedition that failed,
+and then secured a place in history by a sea-fight in Spanish waters,
+for which his countrymen will never forget him. He it was who as
+Vice-Admiral of Holland fought the Spanish fleet at Gibraltar in the
+decisive battle of the 25th of April, 1607, in which with his twenty-six
+vessels he attacked Juan Alvarez Davila's twenty ships and ten galleons.
+Early in the struggle he had his leg swept off by a cannon shot, but he
+remained on deck till he died, gaining the complete victory which
+rendered his countrymen free from hindrance on the road to the Indies
+round the Cape of Good Hope, of which for so many years they made such
+profitable use. It is customary to give all the credit of the Arctic
+voyage to Barents on the ground that his captain was no sailor, but
+Holland knows no better sailor than Jacob Van Heemskerck of Gibraltar
+Bay.
+
+On the 9th of September, 1871, Captain Elling Carlsen, sailing in the
+Barents Sea, which he had entered round Icy Cape, landed in Ice Haven
+and found the house just as De Veer had described it. There it had stood
+in cold storage for 274 years, never having been entered by human foot
+since Van Heemskerck had shut the door. The bunks, the table, the bath,
+the clock, in short everything, all in order, as the orderly Dutchmen
+had left it. Never did a voyage book receive such ample verification;
+never did the description of an island home stand the test better.
+
+Carlsen, to begin with, knew nothing of De Veer or Barents, but he set
+to work in a conscientious way and recorded the results like a true
+archæologist. "Thursday, 14th," he wrote in his log, "Calm with clear
+sky. Four o'clock in the morning we went ashore further to investigate
+the wintering place. On digging we found again several objects, such as
+drumsticks, a hilt of a sword, and spears. Altogether it seemed that the
+people had been equipped in a warlike manner, but nothing was found
+which could indicate the presence of human remains. On the beach we
+found pieces of wood which had formerly belonged to some part of a ship,
+for which reason I believe that a vessel has been wrecked there, the
+crew of which built the house with the materials of the wreck and
+afterwards betook themselves to boats."
+
+Bringing away a very large number of articles, he resumed his voyage and
+landed at Hammerfest, where Mr. E. C. Lister Kay, who happened to be
+there on a yachting trip, bought them, thinking they would be
+repurchased from him, at the price he gave, for one of our own museums.
+In this he was disappointed, and the collection was taken down to his
+house in Dorsetshire, where Count Bylandt, the Dutch Ambassador,
+happening to hear of it, called and bought it for his Government, who
+placed it at the Hague in a room, the exact imitation of that in Novaya
+Zemlya.
+
+In July, 1876, Mr. Charles Gardiner, another English yachtsman, when on
+a cruise in the _Glow-worm_ in Barents Sea, made a call at the house and
+brought away many other relics, which he presented to the Dutch, to be
+added to those at the Hague; and among them was the powder-flask hung in
+the chimney, containing the paper mentioned by De Veer. The previous
+August Captain Gundersen had been there in the Norwegian schooner
+_Regina_. In one of the chests he found two charts and what he described
+as Barents's Journal. The journal proved to be a manuscript Dutch
+translation of the story of the voyage in 1580 of Arthur Pet and Charles
+Jackman.
+
+In 1608, eleven years after Barents died, Henry Hudson, in the Muscovy
+Company's service, was sent to China by the north-east. He sailed on the
+22nd of April from St. Katharine's, near the Tower of London, and on the
+3rd of June passed the North Cape on his way to Novaya Zemlya, which he
+reached near Cape Britwin twenty-three days afterwards. For some
+considerable distance he had skirted the ice pack, vainly endeavouring
+to get through to the northward and enter the Kara Sea round the Orange
+Islands.
+
+This being impracticable he ranged southwards looking for a passage
+through at Kostin Shar, which in the Dutch map he had with him was
+marked as a strait and proved to be a bay. Had he been able to go a
+little further north than Cape Britwin he might have found that
+Matyushin Shar, like a rift in the rocks, divides the long island in
+half, though at that early season the ice would have probably been
+blocking it. From Kostin or thereabouts he departed for home, his voyage
+failing almost at the outset, owing to his being two months too early.
+
+While off the coast he sent his boat ashore several times. "Generally,"
+he says, "all the land of Nova Zembla that we have yet seen is to a
+man's eye a pleasant land; much main high land with no snow on it,
+looking in some places green, and deer feeding thereon; and the hills
+are partly covered with snow and partly bare"—rather a different picture
+from that given by De Veer of what it was like in the winter. De Veer,
+too, had committed himself to the statement that there were no deer in
+the country, but here were Hudson's men frequently coming upon their
+traces, and on the 2nd of July reporting that they had seen "a herd of
+white deer, ten in a company," bringing on board with them a white lock
+of deer's hair in proof thereof.
+
+On his return Hudson left the service of the Muscovy Company. He went to
+Holland, and, early in April, 1609, was sent out by the Amsterdam
+Chamber of the Dutch East India Company. On the 5th of May he rounded
+the North Cape, making for Novaya Zemlya, and a few days afterwards
+reached the ice. Here, according to Dutch accounts, his men mutinied,
+but what happened during the trouble is not recorded. Whether it was
+really owing to a mutiny, or, as is by no means improbable, to secret
+instructions received at his departure, Hudson, on the 14th, made sail
+for the North Cape, passed it on the 19th, when he observed a spot on
+the sun, and then went off westwards to Newfoundland, making direct
+apparently for the mouth of the river now bearing his name, which was
+discovered by Verrazano in March, 1524, and surveyed by Gomez in the
+following year, and was at the time of Hudson's visit British territory.
+
+The reason for this astonishing change of route was, perhaps, that on
+some of the charts of the period, as on Michael Lock's planisphere, this
+river, the Rio de Gamas or Rio Grande of the Spaniards, was made to
+communicate with what seems to be intended for Lake Ontario, and this
+with the other lakes to the westward was widened out into the waterway
+to the South Sea. Thus Hudson drops out of our story at his first
+mutiny, for he did not cross the Arctic Circle on his fourth voyage,
+when his second mutiny ended his career in the bay that bears his name,
+which, like the river and the strait, was indicated on the maps years
+before he went there.
+
+In 1664 Willem de Vlamingh, the Dutch navigator, or—to be cautious—the
+namesake of the Dutch navigator, who thirty-one years afterwards found
+Dirk Hartog's plate and named Swan River in West Australia after the
+black swans, was in these regions and rounded Novaya Zemlya into the
+Kara Sea, reaching so far north that if his recorded latitude be correct
+he must have sighted the Franz Josef archipelago, and, contrary to the
+tendency of Arctic explorers, mistaken land for a bank of mist or a
+group of icebergs. After him neither Dutch nor English delay us, the
+opening up of this continuation of the Urals being left to the Russians,
+who found it first and named it—Novaya Zemlya meaning simply New Land.
+
+For years it was left to the Samoyeds and the walrus hunters, whose
+persistent reports of deposits of silver in its cliffs led to Loschkin's
+making his way round it and spending two winters on its east coast. In
+1768 Rosmysslof, also on silver bent, wintered in Matyushin Shar, that
+wonderful waterway, ninety fathoms deep, bounded by high hills and
+precipitous cliffs, winding so sharply that ships have been into it for
+a dozen miles or so and seeing no passage ahead have come out again to
+seek it elsewhere. In 1807 came Pospeloff, with Ludlow the mining
+engineer, to settle the silver question once for all, and settle it they
+did by showing that everywhere the so-called silver was either talc or
+mica, and naming Silver Bay ironically in memory thereof. Fourteen years
+afterwards Lütke surveyed the west coast, continuing during the next
+three summers; and in 1832 Pachtussoff arrived to undergo in the course
+of his really admirable work the hardships and privations of which he
+died.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+                            FRANZ JOSEF LAND
+
+  Austro-Hungarian expedition of 1872—The voyage as planned—The drift
+    of the _Tegetthoff_—The polyglot crew—Discovery of Franz Josef
+    Land—Payer's description of an aurora—The sledge journeys—Crown
+    Prince Rudolf Land—Cape Fligely reached—Abandonment of the
+    _Tegetthoff_—The boat voyage to Cape Britwin—Leigh Smith's
+    expeditions—Loss of the _Eira_—The retreat in the boats—Jackson in
+    Franz Josef Land—His excellent survey work—The Italian expedition
+    under the Duke of the Abruzzi—Cagni attempts to reach the Pole and
+    is stopped at 86° 34´—The return journey.
+
+
+In 1871 Weyprecht and Payer were out in the cutter _Isbjörn_, pioneering
+for their intended voyage to the eastward, which started next year in
+the _Tegetthoff_, the famous Austro-Hungarian attempt of 1872 which may
+be described as an unintentional voyage of unexpected discovery. The
+amount of credit due to a man who starts to find one thing and lights
+upon another has always been a contentious matter, and this expedition
+afforded an extreme case for such speculations. The plan was to go
+east-north-east, the wintering places being undetermined, though they
+might be Cape Chelyuskin, the New Siberian Islands, or any land that
+might be discovered; and a return to Europe through Bering Strait lay
+among the possibilities of the venture, as an endeavour was to be made
+to reach the coast of Siberia in boats and penetrate south down one of
+the large rivers of Northern Asia. What happened was that during the
+afternoon of the 20th of August, when off the north-west coast of Novaya
+Zemlya in 76° 22´ north, 63° 3´ east, the ship was run into an ice-hole
+and made fast to a floe, and during the night the ice, instead of
+parting asunder, closed in and imprisoned her, so that she never steamed
+or sailed again. In the ice and on the ice she lay perfectly helpless,
+drifting with the floe, and still in its grip when she was abandoned by
+her crew on the 20th of May, two years afterwards.
+
+It was a wonderful drift. North-easterly in the main to begin with, then
+north-westerly, then easterly to about 73°, then north, then west, in
+and out and roundabout, till they reached much the same longitude as
+they started from and then with a general tendency to the northward.
+Autumn passed away; the Polar night set in; and still they drifted
+ice-bound—a miscellaneous company representative of the polyglot empire;
+"on board the _Tegetthoff_," says Payer, "are heard all the languages of
+our country, German, Italian, Slavonic, and Hungarian; Italian is,
+however, the language in which all orders are given," to which we should
+add the Norwegian of Olaf Carlsen, the ice-master. During the winter
+there was enough of occupation and amusement, though private theatricals
+were impossible, as they would have had to be given in four languages to
+be intelligible to the audience.
+
+The short summer came and went, and August had almost gone when—it was
+on the 30th, in 79° 43´—there came a surprise. The rays of the sun were
+fitfully breaking through the gloom when suddenly the gliding mists
+rolled up like a curtain, revealing in the north-west the outlines of a
+rocky coast, which in a few minutes grew into a radiant Alpine land. The
+shore, however, was unattainable, as a rush over the icefield soon
+showed, but from the edge of the fissure that barred any further
+progress they could make out its hills and glaciers and imagine the
+green pastures of its valleys. They called it Kaiser Franz Josef's Land,
+and along it they drifted during September till its outlines faded as
+the wind began to drive the floe to the south. But at the end of the
+month the direction of the floe changed to the north-west, taking the
+_Tegetthoff_ up to 79° 58´, her highest north, near enough to one of the
+islands for an effort to be made to land. Six started from the ship over
+the grinding, groaning, broken walls of ice, and when they were out of
+sight of the ship a mist settled down which cut them off from the sight
+of land and then so closely enwrapped them that they could see nothing.
+Advance they found hopeless, and as they returned they lost their way
+and were saved by the sagacity of a dog they had with them. All through
+October the drift continued, and it was not until forenoon of the 1st of
+November, two months after sighting the country, that they managed to
+get ashore. This was on Wilczek Island in the same longitude as
+Admiralty Peninsula in Novaya Zemlya, and in the same latitude as Mossel
+Bay in Spitsbergen.
+
+The sun had retired for the winter nine days before, and it was by the
+light of the moon that they first explored the unknown country. Little
+could be done, and, as it was much too late for attempting to shift from
+the ship to the shore, the winter had to be spent on board as the other
+had been. Through this winter, as before, the auroral displays were
+remarkable, and they are excellently described by Payer. Of one of them,
+he says: "It is now eight o'clock at night, the hour of the greatest
+intensity of the northern lights. For a moment some bundles of rays only
+are to be seen in the sky. In the south a faint, scarcely observable,
+band lies close to the horizon. All at once it rises rapidly and spreads
+east and west. The waves of light begin to dart and shoot; some rays
+mount towards the zenith. For a short time it remains stationary, then
+suddenly springs to life. The waves of light drive violently from east
+to west; the edges assume a deep red and green colour and dance up and
+down. The rays shoot up more rapidly; they become shorter; all rise
+together and approach nearer and nearer to the magnetic Pole. It looks
+as if there were a race among the rays, and that each aspired to reach
+the Pole first. And now the point is reached, and they shoot out on
+every side, to the north and the south, to the east and the west. Do the
+rays shoot from above downwards, or from below upwards? Who can
+distinguish? From the centre issues a sea of flames. Is that sea red,
+white, or green? Who can say?—it is all three colours at the same
+moment. The rays reach almost to the horizon; the whole sky is in
+flames. Nature displays before us such an exhibition of fireworks as
+transcends the powers of imagination to conceive. Involuntarily we
+listen; such a spectacle must, we think, be accompanied with sound. But
+unbroken stillness prevails, not the least sound strikes on the ear.
+Once more it becomes clear over the ice, and the whole phenomenon has
+disappeared with the same inconceivable rapidity with which it came, and
+gloomy night has again stretched her dark veil over everything. This was
+the aurora of the coming storm—the aurora in its fullest splendour."
+
+Sledging was begun in March, Hall Island being first visited, and, on
+the 26th, Payer, with six men, started on his main journey up Austria
+Sound, reaching Hohenlohe Island, where three men were left, and then
+proceeding further north to Crown Prince Rudolf Land. Off the southern
+promontory of this were innumerable icebergs, up to two hundred feet in
+height, cracking and snapping in the sunshine. The Middendorf Glacier,
+with an enormous sea-wall, ran towards the north-west; layers of snow
+and rents in the sea-ice, caused by icebergs falling in, filled the
+intervening space. Into these fissures Payer and his men were
+continually falling, drenching their canvas boots and clothes with
+sea-water. One of the men was sent on ahead to find a path by which the
+glacier might be climbed, and discovering a fairly open road the summit
+was gained across many crevasses bridged with snow, three of those at
+the lower part needing but a slight movement to detach the severed
+portions and form them into bergs.
+
+While resting on the glacier looking down on the semicircular terminal
+precipice and the gleaming host of bergs which filled the indentations
+of the coast, one of the men reported that his foot was swollen and
+ulcerated, and he had to be sent back to Hohenlohe Island. Just as the
+others were setting off, the snow gave way beneath the sledge, and down
+fell Zaninovich, the dogs and the sledge, while Payer was dragged
+backwards by the rope. The fall was arrested at a depth of thirty feet
+by the sledge sticking fast between the sides of the crevasse. Payer, on
+his face, the rope attaching him to the sledge tightly strained and
+cutting into the snow, shouted that he would sever the rope, but
+Zaninovich implored him not to do so as the sledge would then turn over
+and he would be killed; hearing, however, from Orel, that the man was
+lying on a ledge of snow with precipices all around him and that the
+dogs were still fast to the traces, Payer cut the rope, and the sledge
+made a short turn and stuck fast again. Then, telling Zaninovich that he
+must contrive to keep himself from freezing for four hours, Payer and
+Orel set off to run the six miles back to Hohenlohe Island. Payer, as he
+went on ahead, threw off his bird-skin clothes, his boots and his
+gloves, and ran in his stockings through the snow. In an hour he reached
+the camp, and leaving it unattended they all set off to the rescue with
+a rope and a pole. Picking up his clothes on the way, Payer and his men
+reached the crevasse; one of the party was let down by the rope, and
+finally Zaninovich and the sledge and dogs were brought from their
+dangerous position four hours and a half after their fall.
+
+The advance was then resumed along the west coast of Crown Prince Rudolf
+Land round the imposing headland they named Cape Auk—the rocky cliffs
+being covered with little auks and other seabirds, enormous flocks
+flying up and filling the air, the whole region seeming to be alive with
+their incessant whirring—and following the line of Teplitz Bay, Payer
+mounted one of the bergs detached from a glacier and saw open water with
+ice bounding it on the horizon. As the sheet over which their course lay
+became thinner, and threatened to give way beneath them, they had to
+open up a track among the hummocks by pick and shovel; and when this
+failed they had to unload the sledge and carry the things separately. At
+Cape Saulen they camped for the night in the fissure of a glacier into
+which they had to drag their baggage by a long rope; and next day—the
+12th of April, 1874—they went on again and reached Cape Fligely, in 81°
+50´ 43˝, their farthest north.
+
+With great difficulty they made their way back to the ship, a long,
+toilsome journey through snow and sludge, with open water in places
+where there had been ice, which made them fear the _Tegetthoff_ might
+have drifted away again. The imminent danger of starvation was ended by
+their reaching their depot on Schonau Island, whence Payer went on for
+the remaining twenty-five miles alone with the dog-sledge, the two dogs
+giving much trouble until they struck the old sledge track almost
+obliterated by snow, when they raised their heads, stuck their tails in
+the air, and broke into a run. Halting on an iceberg for a meal, the
+berg capsized, and in a moment Payer was begirt by fissures,
+water-pools, and rolling blocks of ice, from which he managed to escape.
+When he turned into the narrow passage between Salm and Wilczek Islands,
+Orgel Cape, visible at a great distance, was the only dark spot on the
+scene. At once the dogs made for it, and about midnight he arrived
+there. With an anxious heart he began the ascent; a barren stony plateau
+confronted him; with every advancing step, made with increasing
+difficulty, the land gradually disappeared and the horizon of the frozen
+sea expanded before him; no ship was to be seen, no trace of man for
+thousands of miles except a cairn with the fragments of a flag
+fluttering in the wind, and a grave half covered with snow. Still he
+climbed, and suddenly three masts emerged. He had found the ship; there
+she lay about three miles off, appearing on the frozen ocean no bigger
+than a fly, the icebergs and drifts around her having hidden her amongst
+them. He held the heads of the dogs towards her and pointed with his arm
+to where she lay; and they saw her, and away they went, to find all but
+the watch asleep.
+
+After another sledge journey north-westwards to Mount Brunn, from which
+Richthofen Peak was sighted, preparations were made for abandoning the
+ship and returning home. The three boats left the _Tegetthoff_ on the
+20th of May, but so slow was the progress over the difficult route that
+at the end of every day in the first week it was possible for Payer to
+go back to her on the dog-sledge to replenish the stores which had been
+consumed; and at the end of two months of indescribable effort the
+distance between the boats and the ship was not more than eight statute
+miles. The heights of Wilczek Land were still distinctly visible and its
+lines of rocks shone with mocking brilliance in the ever-growing
+daylight. All things appeared to promise that after a long struggle with
+the ice there remained for the expedition but a despairing return to the
+ship and a third winter there with the frozen ocean for their grave.
+
+In the middle of July the fissures which had been opening out around
+them became wider and longer, progress reaching some four miles a day;
+then the north wind blew and the icefield commenced to drift to the
+south, to drift again north-east when the wind changed. Backwards and
+forwards, amid every variety of weather, including heavy rain, the pack
+ice moved until it changed to drift ice, and, on the 15th of August, the
+much-tried company got afloat at last in open water and laid their
+course for Novaya Zemlya, where they fell in with two Russian schooners
+off Cape Britwin.
+
+The next to visit Franz Josef Land was Leigh Smith, whom we met with in
+the Spitsbergen seas. Building the _Eira_ especially for Arctic service,
+he started in 1880, the year she was launched, on a cruise to Greenland
+and thence eastwards, which took him to the west and north-west of the
+ground gone over by the Austrians. He surveyed the whole coast from 42°
+east to the most westerly point seen by Payer, and sorted it out into
+several islands, but found no trace of the _Tegetthoff_, for where she
+had been left was open water. Encouraged by the success of his visit, in
+which the observations and collections were unusually good, he returned
+in the _Eira_ the following year to meet with much more unfavourable ice
+conditions. Finding it impossible to get westward of Barents Hook the
+_Eira_ was, on the 15th of August, made fast to the land floe off Cape
+Flora, and six days afterwards she was nipped and stove by the ice and
+slowly sank in eleven fathoms of water. As she settled down the steam
+winch was set to work, and by its means half a dozen casks of flour and
+about three hundredweight of bread were saved from the main hold; and
+when nothing more could be got from the lower deck the stores in the
+after cabin were attacked, and within the two hours from the discovery
+of the leak to the disappearance of the ship, all these provisions and
+the boats and clothes were safe on the ice; and the sails were cut away,
+and with them and some oars a tent was erected in which all the company,
+twenty-five in number, took shelter.
+
+A move was made next day to the land. On Cape Flora a house was built
+mainly of earth and stones, covered with sails, in which the winter was
+passed. Fortunately the district abounds with bears and walruses, and
+the meat from these, boiled with vegetables, and served out three times
+a day into twenty-five plates made out of old provision tins, proved the
+right sort of fare to keep every one in excellent health. Thanks in a
+great measure to Bob, the retriever, the larder was kept full; but there
+being a shortness of coal, recourse for fuel had to be made to rope and
+blubber, so that no one could mistake the time when the cooking was on.
+In fact, the odour and the smoke were of great interest to the bears,
+who lingered about intending to pay surprise visits, and the dog had
+always to be sent in front of those leaving the house. One day when out
+on his own account, Bob discovered a school of walruses on the ice and
+reported the matter in his own fashion, whereupon several of these were
+shot, and after an exciting chase five were secured. In January he found
+another school, of which three were bagged and stowed alongside the
+house, although the thermometer stood at forty below zero. On another
+occasion he managed to tempt a bear up to the front door, where it was
+promptly tumbled over, to his evident satisfaction.
+
+During the winter the party killed twenty-nine walruses and three dozen
+bears. Once, when only a fortnight's meat was left, and things began to
+look serious, no less than eight bears were killed in two weeks. At the
+end of April the birds returned, and in June the ice was cleared away by
+a gale and walruses were seen swimming on the water in hundreds. Never
+did a wintering party meet with better fortune, and never was one better
+managed.
+
+On the 21st of June they started from Cape Flora in four boats, six men
+each in three of them, seven in the other, to reach the open sea,
+leaving in the house six bottles of champagne in case any person might
+look in, besides a few other things, and blocking up the door to keep
+out the bears. Before the boats reached the ice they crossed eighty
+miles of water, and then six weeks' hard labour began, zigzagging
+through channels, hauling over hummocky floes, sailing through pools,
+halting for days on a floe with no water in sight, but never doubting
+that a clearance would come. On leaving the ice they steered for Novaya
+Zemlya, at first in a gentle breeze, which rapidly increased to a gale
+in a heavy thunderstorm, so that the boats, with their sails of
+tablecloth and shirt-tail, had to be carefully handled as they scudded
+before it at such a pace that within twenty-four hours of leaving the
+ice they were drawn up all safe on the beach at the entrance of
+Matyushin Shar. Next morning the Dutch exploring schooner, _Willem
+Barents_, was descried coming out of the strait, and before the schooner
+was reached by the boats there came round the point the _Hope_, which
+Sir Allen Young, of the _Pandora_, had brought out as a rescue ship for
+them. They had been driven by the gale to the very spot on the very day
+they could be best relieved.
+
+From the reports of Weyprecht and Payer it appeared that the north-east
+of Franz Josef Land would make an excellent base for a start for the
+North Pole, and Leigh Smith was led to the same view by his visit to
+Alexandra Land, but along the south he had made so many changes in
+Payer's map that a further examination of the region was evidently
+desirable. To effect this by a careful survey of the coasts, Frederick
+G. Jackson landed near Cape Flora on the 7th of September, 1894, and
+began his residence of a thousand days. Setting to work in a
+businesslike way, and recording his progress in similar style, he
+disintegrated the land masses into a group of some fifty size-able
+islands, through which run two main waterways, his British Channel and
+Payer's Austria Sound, both opening out northwards into Queen Victoria
+Sea; Crown Prince Rudolf Land being a large island at the northern
+entrance of Austria Sound, Wilczek Land at its southern entrance being
+about twice its size. He defined the coast-lines for over eighty miles
+of latitude, extending to fifteen degrees of longitude as far west as
+the most westerly headland, Cape Mary Harmsworth, and so cutting up
+Franz Josef Land that not even an island now bears the name, which is
+used only as that of the archipelago. Never in Arctic exploration was
+work rendered more evident than in the difference between the map as
+Jackson found it and as he left it.
+
+The _Windward_, with the expedition on board, sighted the land on the
+25th of August, but, stopped by intervening ice, could not reach the
+coast until a fortnight afterwards, the landing taking place at Cape
+Flora, close to Leigh Smith's house, which was found with the roof off.
+Not far away Jackson established his headquarters, quite a little
+settlement, though the expedition consisted of only eight men. Just as
+Leigh Smith found no remains of the _Tegetthoff_, so Jackson found no
+trace of the _Eira_. It had been intended that the _Windward_ should
+return after putting the party ashore, but, shut in by the ice, she had
+to remain during the first winter, getting away safely next year, to
+return in 1896 and take away Nansen, who, as we shall see further on,
+ended his long land journey here. On her 1897 trip she departed with the
+members of the expedition all well, so that neither ship nor man was
+lost, the only serious casualties being among the dogs and the Russian
+ponies which did such excellent service.
+
+Two years afterwards, in July, 1899, the deserted settlement was visited
+by the Duke of the Abruzzi, in his expedition in the _Stella Polare_, on
+his way to the north, a few days before he met with his short
+imprisonment in the ice in British Channel. His was a successful run all
+the same, for he was in 82° 4´, to the northward of Crown Prince Rudolf
+Land, or, as it is now called, Prince Rudolf Island, twenty-seven days
+out from Archangel. Passing Cape Fligely—the latitude of which was
+afterwards found to be sixteen miles south of the 82° 5´ Payer had made
+it—and rounding Cape Auk, the _Stella Polare_ went into winter quarters
+in Teplitz Bay, whence Captain Umberto Cagni started, on the 11th of
+March, 1900, for his forty-five days' march towards the North Pole.
+
+It was a great disappointment to the Duke to have to stay with the ship
+instead of leading this well-equipped and thoroughly organised sledge
+attempt, but owing to an accident two of his fingers had been so
+severely frost-bitten that they had to be amputated, and, unless a
+second winter was to be spent in the ice, a start was imperative before
+he could recover from the operation. Thus all he could do was to assist
+at the first encounter of the sledges with the pressure ridges and wish
+Cagni the longest possible journey and a safe return. There was every
+appearance of the journey being a difficult one, for on the first day a
+stoppage had to be made every quarter of a mile or thereabouts for a
+road to be cut through the ridges with ice-axes, while next day a new
+hindrance was experienced in the young ice in the channels being too
+thin at times to support the sledges, one of which began to sink and was
+only extricated with difficulty, so that only one sledge could be
+allowed on such ice at a time.
+
+On the 13th of March the auxiliary sledge was sent back, thus reducing
+the caravan to a dozen sledges and ninety-eight dogs, which in a long
+line passed over a vast plain covered with great rugged blocks of ice,
+as though they had been thrown down confusedly by a giant's hand to bar
+the way. The wind was north-east, the cold intense, fifty below zero,
+not to be particular to a degree or so, for, as Cagni says, when the
+temperature is below twenty-two, and it is impossible to use a screen or
+a magnifying glass, the mere fact of approaching to read the scale on an
+unmounted thermometer sends it up a couple of degrees, and when the
+temperature is below fifty-eight an approach makes a difference of three
+or four degrees. So cold was it that the sleeping bags were as hard as
+wood, and the men got into them after much effort, not to sleep but to
+feel their teeth chattering for hours, the only warm parts of the body
+being the feet clad in long woollen stockings. "There are patches of ice
+on our knees," says Cagni, "like horses' knee-caps, and we have others,
+both large and small, sometimes thick enough to be scraped off with a
+knife, everywhere, but especially on our cheeks and backs and in all
+places where the perspiration has oozed through."
+
+Amid such surroundings the camp must have seemed somewhat out of place.
+When a suitable site was chosen the first sledge was stopped, and near
+it the three other sledges of the third detachment were drawn up at a
+distance of about ten feet from each other. The sledges of the second
+detachment as they came up formed a second line, those of the third
+forming another. The tents were pitched between two sledges, generally
+those in the centre, the guy ropes being fastened to the sledge runners,
+those at the ends to an ice-axe stuck in the ice. The sleeping bags were
+then unpacked, the cooking stoves taken out of the boats, and everything
+arranged under the tent. The thin steel wire ropes to which the dogs
+were tethered, when unharnessed, were stretched between the sledges away
+from the tents. While the men were taking the dogs out of the harness,
+which always remained attached to the traces on the sledges, and
+tethering them to the steel ropes, one of the guides took a chosen
+victim to some distance from the camp, and felled it with a blow from an
+ice-axe, then opened it, skinned it quickly, divided it up into ten
+shares and distributed these to the dogs, already destined to undergo
+the same fate, these being the weakest and most ailing—in short, this
+was the elimination of the unfit.
+
+On the 22nd of March the first detachment began its return journey; it
+consisted of Lieutenant Querini and two men, and it was never heard of
+again. The way northwards continued extremely difficult, with channels
+and ridges plentiful and the road so rough that the sledges began to
+break up in the bows and runners, some at last so badly that their
+fragments had to be used to repair the others with. On the 31st the
+second detachment was sent back, consisting of the doctor and two men,
+and it got safely to the ship. The third detachment, consisting of Cagni
+with two Courmayeur guides—Petigax and Fenoillet—and a sailor, Canepa,
+all four Italians, made the final effort. That day they were on level
+ice and covered seventeen miles, but at night a snowstorm came on and
+there was trouble. After a rest they pressed forward in rapid marches
+amid bad weather over the drifting fields. On the 12th of April while
+raising camp a strong pressure piled up within a hundred yards of them a
+wall from thirty-six to forty-five feet high, the highest ridge they had
+seen. Enormous blocks rolled down towards them with loud crashes after
+being thrown up by other blocks, lifted to the brow of the ridge and
+rolled over in their turn, raising a cloud of ice-dust in their fall,
+the loud continual creaking of the pressure drowned by the booming of
+the cascade which shook the ice for yards around. These ridges were
+constantly forming, most of them remaining, some of them subsiding as
+the edges drifted apart, and the channels thus caused were even more
+difficult to deal with, some having to be passed over thin ice, some
+ferried over on small floes. But they did not cross the track all along,
+and during the last few days the travelling was easy.
+
+On the 24th of April the long journey reached its end. "At ten minutes
+past twelve," says Cagni, "we are on our way to the north. The ice is
+like that of yesterday, level and smooth, and, later on, undulating. At
+first the dogs are not very willing to pull, but encouraged by our
+shouts and a few strokes, they advance at a rapid pace, which they keep
+up during the whole march. At five we meet with a large pressure ridge,
+which almost surprises us, as it seems to us a century since we have
+seen any; we lost a quarter of an hour in preparing a passage through
+and crossing it. Beyond it the aspect of the ice changes; the
+undulations are more strongly marked, and large blocks and small ridges
+indicate recent pressure, but luckily they do not stop us or obstruct
+our way. Soon after six we come upon a large channel running from east
+to west; we must stop. Beyond the channel is a vast expanse of new ice,
+much broken up and traversed by many other channels. Even if I were not
+prevented from doing so, I would now think twice before risking myself
+in the midst of them. If we did push forward on that ice, even for half
+a day, we would gain very few miles and besides run the risk of losing a
+sledge. The dogs are very tired, and we too feel the effects of
+yesterday's strain. I therefore consider that it is more prudent to stop
+here, and both the guides are of the same opinion. The sun is unclouded.
+I bring out the sextant and take altitudes of the sun to calculate the
+longitude (65° 19´ 45˝ E.) while Fenoillet and Canepa put the sledges in
+order and pitch the tent in a sort of small amphitheatre of hillocks
+which shelter us from the north wind. On that farthest to the north,
+which is almost touched by the water of the channel, we plant the staff
+from which our flag waves. The air is very clear; between the north-east
+and the north-west there stand out distinctly, some sharply pointed,
+others rounded, dark or blue and white, often with strange shapes, the
+innumerable pinnacles of the great blocks of ice raised up by the
+pressure. Farther away again on the bright horizon in a chain from east
+to west is a great azure wall which from afar seems insurmountable." The
+latitude was 86° 34´.
+
+The outward journey took forty-five days; the homeward took sixty, and
+proved a perilous adventure owing to the drift of the pack to the
+westward and its breaking up as the weather became warmer and the
+southern boundary was approached. At first there was good promise. The
+dogs knew they were going back, and followed the outward track so fast
+that the men, failing to keep up with them, for the first time took a
+seat on the sledges and were drawn along at four miles an hour. Progress
+was rapid for a few days owing to there being now only four sledges and,
+in a considerable degree, to the intelligence of the leading dog,
+Messicano. Ever since leaving Teplitz Bay this small white dog, with the
+intelligent eyes and bushy legs, had held the first place in the leading
+sledge because he followed the man at the head of the convoy better than
+the others, and now when the guide was behind or on the sledge,
+Messicano took the track at a gallop with his nose on the snow, losing
+the way now and then, but finding it again, though to the men it was
+often invisible. The time came, however, when the old track had to be
+left for a better course to the ship, and then difficulties of every
+sort had to be overcome, the delays being such that dog after dog had to
+be killed to keep away starvation, and it was only with seven of them
+and two sledges that Prince Rudolf Island was reached from the westward
+on the 23rd of June. "The snow is wet, which is very bad for dragging
+the sledges, as it sticks to the runners and tires our dogs exceedingly;
+we have still seven, but only three that really pull (three to each
+sledge), for Messicano is at the last extremity and can hardly hold up
+the trace." Toiling on thus through the fog to Cape Brorok a noise was
+heard in the distance like the creaking caused by pressure among ice
+floes, and when the fog lifted it was found that the sound was that of
+the seabirds on the cliffs. Out on the icefield no signs of life had
+been met with beyond the traces of a bear, a seal that vanished, and a
+walrus that popped up through thin ice to send Fenoillet scuttling off
+on his hands and knees.
+
+Meanwhile the ship, which had been seriously damaged, had been made
+seaworthy. Liberated from her berth by mines of gunpowder and guncotton,
+she sailed from Teplitz Bay on the 16th of August, and, after further
+unpleasant experiences in the ice, reached Cape Flora, where a call was
+made at Jackson's house in the vain hope of news of Querini; and thence,
+after more ice complications, Captain Evensen took her to Hammerfest.
+Though, as in all Arctic endeavour, conditions were against them, the
+employment of a Norwegian crew for the ship and an Italian crew for the
+sledges had, under excellent management, worked thoroughly well.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+                            CAPE CHELYUSKIN
+
+  Chelyuskin reaches the cape—The Laptefs—Deschnef's voyage through
+    Bering Strait—Nordenskiöld's voyages to the Yenesei—The Siberian
+    tundra—The voyage of the _Vega_—Nordenskiöld rounds Cape
+    Chelyuskin—Endeavour to reach the Siberian Islands—Liakhoff's
+    discovery—The _Vega_ passes the Cape North of Captain Cook—Frozen
+    in within six miles of Cape Serdze Kamen—Completes the North-east
+    Passage—Nansen's voyage—The _Fram_—Her drift in the ice—Nansen and
+    Johansen start for the Pole—They reach 86° 13´ 6˝—Their journey to
+    Frederick Jackson Island—The meeting with Jackson—Sverdrup's
+    voyage to Spitsbergen.
+
+
+The tundras and shores of Siberia abound with obstacles to exploration,
+and yet a third of the threshold of the Polar regions has been surveyed
+along their line. No spot remains unvisited on the northern margin of
+the Asiatic mainland, the northernmost point of which is Cape Chelyuskin
+in 77° 36·8´, so that the Arctic Circle sweeps inland for 770 miles to
+the south of it—in other words the cape is practically half-way between
+the Circle and the Pole.
+
+[Illustration: CAPE CHELYUSKIN]
+
+It was chiefly from the land that the northern coast-line was surveyed
+by the Russians, whose Arctic work has been immense and thorough, though
+not marked by any striking discoveries. Cape Chelyuskin was first
+reached, in May, 1742, by the explorer whose name it bears, after a
+sledge journey from the Chatanga, he being at the time second in command
+to Khariton Laptef, whose first expedition in 1739 ended in the loss of
+his ship three hundred miles from his winter quarters, to which he had
+to travel on foot, losing twelve men by cold and exhaustion on the way.
+Within the preceding four years the survey of the coast west of it had
+been completed in four stages—from Archangel to Yalmal (that is Land's
+End); from Yalmal to the Obi; from the Obi to the Yenesei; from the
+Yenesei to Cape Sterlegof. In 1735 Pronchistschef, from the Lena, failed
+to round Cape Chelyuskin from the east, and returned to the Olenek to
+die but two days before his young wife, who was his companion on his
+perilous voyage. Two years afterwards Dmitri Laptef began his
+explorations east of the Lena which took him to Cape Baranoff, thus
+joining up to the discoveries of the sable-hunters made a century
+before, including those of Deschnef, who, in 1648, sailed from the
+Kolyma to Kamchatka and went through Bering Strait more than thirty
+years before Bering was born. Thus the route of the North-east Passage
+was known, although no man had travelled the whole way either by land or
+sea, before the task was undertaken by Nordenskiöld.
+
+To begin with, Nordenskiöld made two voyages to the Yenesei. In the
+first voyage he left Tromsoe in the _Proeven_ on the 14th of June, 1875,
+and reached what he named Dickson Harbour at the mouth of the Yenesei on
+the 15th of August. Sending back the _Proeven_, which returned through
+Matyushin Shar, he, with Lundstrom the botanist and Stuxberg the
+zoologist, and three walrus-hunters, embarked in a boat they had brought
+out with them and proceeded up the estuary into the river; and during
+the first six hundred miles they landed only twice. On the last day of
+the month they caught up a steamer on which they became passengers.
+
+"We were yet," says Nordenskiöld, "far to the north of the Arctic
+Circle, and as many perhaps imagine that the little-known region we were
+now travelling through, the Siberian tundra, is a desert wilderness
+covered either by ice and snow, or by an exceedingly scanty moss
+vegetation, it perhaps may not be out of place to say that this is by no
+means the case. On the contrary, we saw snow during our journey up the
+Yenesei only at one place, in a deep valley cleft some fathoms in
+breadth, and the vegetation, especially on the islands which are
+overflowed during the spring floods, is distinguished by a luxuriance to
+which I have seldom seen anything comparable. Already had the fertility
+of the soil and the immeasurable extent and richness in grass of the
+pastures drawn forth from one of our walrus-hunters, a middle-aged man
+who is owner of a little patch of ground among the fells of Northern
+Norway, a cry of envy at the splendid land our Lord had given the
+Russian, and of astonishment that no creature pastured, no scythe mowed,
+the grass. Daily and hourly we heard the same cry repeated, and even in
+louder tones, when some weeks after we came to the grand old forests
+between Yeneseisk and Turuchansk, or to the nearly uninhabited plains on
+the other side of Krasnojarsk covered with deep black earth, equal
+without doubt in fertility to the best parts of Scania, and in extent
+surpassing the whole Scandinavian peninsula. This judgment formed on the
+spot by a genuine though illiterate agriculturist is not without
+interest in forming an idea of the future importance of Siberia."
+
+In fact, Siberia is particularly rich in mineral and agricultural
+wealth, and this voyage, which opened up the route to and from Europe by
+the natural outlets to the north, was of such commercial promise that
+the explorer received for it the special thanks of the Russian
+Government. As, however, there were people who looked upon it as an
+exceptional voyage in an exceptional year, Nordenskiöld next season took
+another voyage to the river, this time in the _Ymer_, carrying the first
+instalment of merchandise so as to begin the trade; and he was followed
+in a few weeks by Captain Joseph Wiggins, in the _Thames_, whose
+subsequent voyages made the northern route well known.
+
+Assured by the experience gained in these voyages that the North-east
+Passage was possible to a steam vessel of moderate size, Nordenskiöld,
+in 1878, was enabled to fit out the _Vega_, and sailed from Tromsoe on
+the 31st of July. Three other vessels accompanied her, two bound for the
+Yenesei, one for the Lena, the rendezvous being Khabarova. All went
+well. On the 9th of August the _Fraser_ and _Express_ proceeded up the
+Yenesei to discharge their cargoes and return to Europe in safety; next
+day the _Vega_ and _Lena_ left for the eastward, and, after some risky
+navigation among islands and through fog, lay for four days in Actinia
+Haven, between Taimyr Island and the mainland, vainly waiting for clear
+weather. Pushing on through fitful fog they sighted a promontory in the
+north-east gleaming in the sunshine, and rounding its western horn
+anchored in a bay open to the north and free from ice at the extremity
+of Cape Chelyuskin. With the rounding of the most northerly point of the
+Old World the first object of the expedition had been attained. The
+salute fired in honour of the event having frightened away the only
+polar bear who had stood watching the ship from the western horn, some
+of the party landed, the botanists to discover that all the plants of
+the peninsula had apparently been stopped on the outermost promontory
+when trying to migrate further north. The flora was not extensive—a few
+luxuriant lichens and twenty-three flowering plants, eight of them
+saxifrages, most of them with a tendency to form semi-globular tufts;
+the fauna consisted of the bear, a few seals, a walrus, two shoals of
+white whales, some ducks and geese, and a number of sandpipers. Not so
+long a list as was obtained at other landings, but by no means a bad one
+for the half-way house to the Pole.
+
+After passing the cape the course was laid for the New Siberian Islands,
+but ice prevented progress in their direction beyond 77° 45´, the
+highest north of the voyage, and the ship had to work her way out by the
+route she went in, thus losing a day, which had serious consequences,
+though it proved the correctness of Nordenskiöld's theory that the water
+delivered by the Siberian rivers is, for a few months, of sufficiently
+high temperature to give a clear passage to vessels content to keep near
+the coast. On reaching the mouth of the Lena the ships parted company,
+Captain Johannsen taking the smaller steamer up the river as intended
+and bringing the news of the rounding of Cape Chelyuskin and the promise
+of the North-east Passage being accomplished in one season, which was
+not destined to be fulfilled.
+
+Another attempt was then made by the _Vega_ to reach the islands to the
+north, but after sighting the two most westerly of the group the shallow
+sea was too crowded with rotten ice, and an idea of landing on Liakhoff
+Island having to be given up for the same reason, the course was altered
+so as to take the ship round Svjatoi Nos (the Holy Cape), where in
+April, 1770, Liakhoff had noticed the mighty crowd of reindeer going
+south. Justly considering they must have come over the ice from some
+northern land, he went back on their tracks in a dog-sledge, discovering
+two of the most southerly islands, and obtaining from Catherine the
+Second as a reward the monopoly of hunting the foxes and collecting the
+ivory there from the fossil mammoths he found in abundance.
+
+Forced to keep to the channel along the coast, which daily became
+narrower, the _Vega_ reached Cape Chelagskoi, and when off this
+promontory Nordenskiöld saw the first natives during his voyage. Two
+boats built of skin almost exactly similar to the oomiaks, or women's
+boats, used by the Eskimos, came out to the ship, the men, women, and
+children in them intimating by shouts and gestures that they wished to
+come on board. The _Vega_ was brought-to that they might do so, but as
+none of the Chukches could speak Russian and none of the Swedes knew
+Chukche, the interview was not so satisfactory as expected, though the
+universal language of pantomime with presents ensured a favourable
+termination.
+
+On the 12th of September the _Vega_ passed Irkaipii, the Cape North of
+Captain Cook, and by rounding it Nordenskiöld joined up with the
+westernmost limit of the Arctic discoveries of the great navigator. Cook
+tried to weather it in August, 1778, but was turned back by fog and
+snow, and thinking it was "not consistent with prudence to make any
+further attempts to find a passage into the Atlantic this year in any
+direction, so little was the prospect of succeeding," he sailed for
+Hawaii, where his intention of making the attempt the ensuing summer
+came to nought owing to his death.
+
+On the 28th of September the _Vega's_ progress for the year was arrested
+by her being frozen in for the winter on the eastern side of Kolyuchin
+Bay in the northernmost part of Bering Strait, only six miles of ice
+barring the way round Cape Serdze Kamen into the open sea. During her
+detention of two hundred and sixty-four days the scientific
+investigations of many kinds that were undertaken were of lasting
+importance, as they had been throughout, and when she was released on
+the 18th of July, 1879, to come home by way of Yokohama, the collections
+and records she brought with her were simply enormous. No better work
+with greater results was done by any Arctic expedition than during this
+successful voyage, which was too well managed to have much adventure.
+For it Nordenskiöld very justly claimed the reward of twenty-five
+thousand guilders offered in 1596 by the States-General of Holland, the
+endeavour to win which sent out Van Heemskerck, Barents, and Rijp.
+
+[Illustration: ADOLF ERIK NORDENSKIÖLD]
+
+We have seen how the Dutchmen built their house at Ice Haven mainly of
+the driftwood from the Siberian rivers. Similar wood from probably the
+same source is found on the shores of Greenland and of almost all the
+northerly islands of the Arctic Ocean. Further, the Greenland flora
+includes a series of Siberian plants apparently from seeds drifted there
+by some current. Not only do trees and seeds travel by water from Asia
+westward to America; at Godthaab, for instance, on the western coast of
+Greenland, there was found a throwing-stick of a shape and ornamentation
+used only by the Alaskan Eskimos; and three years after the foundering
+of the _Jeannette_ to the north of the New Siberian Islands there were
+found on the south-west coast of Greenland a number of articles in the
+drift-ice that must have come from the sunken vessel. For these and
+other reasons it seemed clear to Fridtjof Nansen that a current flowed
+at some point between the Pole and Franz Josef Land from the Siberian
+Arctic Sea to the Greenland coast, and so he set to work to organise his
+daring expedition to strike this current well to the eastward, trusting
+to its mercies to take him to or near the Pole.
+
+In 1893, when the _Fram_ rounded Cape Chelyuskin, Nansen had found the
+Kara Sea almost as open as Nordenskiöld had done, but had met with more
+difficulties among the islands off the Taimyr Peninsula. A famous
+vessel, the _Fram_, the first of her kind, built specially for the ice
+to take her where it listed in the hope that she would drift to
+discovery like the _Tegetthoff_, and not to disaster like the
+_Jeannette_. The general idea was Nansen's, the carrying out of the idea
+was Colin Archer's. As Nansen says: "We must gratefully recognise that
+the success of the expedition was in no small degree due to this man."
+Plan after plan did he make of the projected ship, model after model did
+he prepare and abandon before he was satisfied: and never was a ship
+more honestly built. With her double-ended deck plan, with a side of
+such curve and slope that under ice pressure she would be lifted instead
+of crushed between the floes, and with bow, stern, and keel so rounded
+off that she would slip like an eel from the embrace of the ice, she was
+of such solidity as to withstand any pressure from any direction. Her
+stem of three stout oak beams, one inside the other, was four feet in
+thickness, protected with iron; her rudder-post and propeller-post, two
+feet across, had on either side a stout oak counter-timber following the
+curvature upwards and forming a double stern-post, with the planking
+cased with heavy iron plates; and between these timbers was a well for
+the screw and another for the rudder, so that each could be hoisted on
+deck, the rudder with the help of the capstan coming up in a few
+minutes. Her frames, ten inches thick and twenty-one wide, stood close
+together, carrying three layers of planking, giving altogether a side of
+two feet or more of solid wood, so shored and stayed for strength that
+the hold looked like a thicket of balks, joists, and stanchions. With a
+length of 128 feet over all, a breadth of thirty-six, a depth of
+seventeen, and a displacement of 800 tons, she was quite a
+multum-in-parvo engined with a 220 horse-power triple expansion, so
+contrived that in case of accident or for any other cause the cylinders
+could be used singly or two together. Rigged as a three-masted
+fore-and-aft schooner, with the mainmast much higher than the others—it
+being unusually high, for the crow's-nest on the main-topmast was 102
+feet above the water—she proved equal to the demands on her, though in
+her case strength and warmth had to be thought of before weatherliness
+and speed. But her speed was not so poor, for when steaming and sailing
+after leaving Cape Chelyuskin on the 10th of September she was doing her
+nine knots.
+
+The day after she had entered the Nordenskiöld Sea came a walrus-hunt,
+so graphically described by Nansen that we must find room for an
+extract. "It was," he says, "a lovely morning—fine, still weather; the
+walruses' guffaw sounded over to us along the clear ice surface. They
+were lying crowded together on a floe a little to landward of us, blue
+mountains glittering behind them in the sun. At last the harpoons were
+sharpened, guns and cartridges ready, and Henriksen, Juell, and I set
+off. There seemed to be a slight breeze from the south, so we rowed to
+the north side of the floe, to get to leeward of the animals. From time
+to time their sentry raised his head, but apparently did not see us. We
+advanced slowly, and soon were so near that we had to row very
+cautiously. Juell kept us going, while Henriksen was ready in the bow
+with a harpoon, and I behind him with a gun. The moment the sentry
+raised his head the oars stopped, and we stood motionless; when he sank
+it again, a few more strokes brought us nearer. Body to body they lay,
+close-packed on a small floe, old and young ones mixed. Enormous masses
+of flesh they were. Now and again one of the ladies fanned herself by
+moving one of her flippers backwards and forwards over her body; then
+she lay quiet again on her back or side. More and more cautiously we
+drew near. Whilst I sat ready with the gun, Henriksen took a good grip
+of the harpoon shaft, and as the boat touched the floe he rose, and off
+flew the harpoon. But it struck too high, glanced off the tough hide,
+and skipped over the backs of the animals. Now there was a pretty to do!
+Ten or twelve great weird faces glared upon us at once; the colossal
+creatures twisted themselves round with incredible celerity, and came
+waddling with lifted heads and hollow bellowings to the edge of the ice
+where we lay. It was undeniably an imposing sight; but I laid my gun to
+my shoulder and fired at one of the biggest heads. The animal staggered
+and then fell head foremost into the water. Now a ball into another
+head; this creature fell, too, but was able to fling itself into the
+sea. And now the whole flock dashed in, and we, as well as they, were
+hidden in the spray. It had all happened in a few seconds. But up they
+came again immediately round the boat, the one head bigger and uglier
+than the other—their young ones close beside them. They stood up in the
+water, bellowed and roared till the air trembled, threw themselves
+forward towards us, then rose up again, and new bellowings filled the
+air. Then they rolled over and disappeared with a splash, then bobbed up
+again. The water foamed and boiled for yards around—the ice-world that
+had been so still before seemed in a moment to have been transformed
+into a raging Bedlam. Any moment we might expect to have a walrus tusk
+or two through the boat or to be heaved up or capsized. Something of
+this kind was the very least that could happen after such a terrible
+commotion. But the hurly-burly went on and nothing came of it."
+
+The _Fram_ had to follow the coast owing to the thick pack barring the
+way across the sea. The mouth of the Chatanga was passed, then that of
+the Olenek, and then the influence of the warm water of the Lena being
+apparent by the clearance of the floes, the course was laid straight for
+the Pole in open water until 77° 44´ was reached, when, checked by the
+long compact edge of ice shining through the fog, the route became
+north-westerly until they stopped for fear they should get near land,
+which was the very thing they wished to avoid; and on the 25th of
+September in about 78½° north latitude—north-west of Sannikof Land—they
+were frozen in.
+
+Preparations for wintering began. The rudder was hauled up, the engine
+was taken to pieces, each separate part oiled and laid away with the
+greatest care—for Amundsen looked after it as if it were his own child—a
+carpenter's shop was started in the hold, a smithy arranged first on
+deck and then on the ice. But it all had to be replaced, even the engine
+put together again, for the pack cleared away for a brief period, to
+return, when again the shiftings were made; and when the windmill was
+put up to drive the dynamo, the winter installation was in all senses
+complete.
+
+Slowly the _Fram_ drifted in her ice-berth, so slowly that at the end of
+twelve months she had moved from point to point only 189 miles, having
+returned no further west than the longitude of the Olenek; her highest
+north, attained on the 18th of June, being 81° 46´. In the main the
+drift was north-westerly, but three times it had boxed the compass in
+irregular loops, the only constant thing about it being that, in no
+matter what direction she was taken, the bow of the _Fram_ always
+pointed south. Of grips she had many, some of the pressures were
+enormous, once they were severe enough to suggest measures for her
+abandonment, but she survived them all unscathed. Early in the drift it
+became apparent that the ice was packing twice and slacking twice in
+every twenty-four hours, and in this sea, as afterwards in the Atlantic
+area, the influence of the tides, particularly the spring tides, was
+unmistakable—as it was expected it would be—though in the deep Polar
+basin the wind had more effect; and, in truth, the wind was a factor
+throughout in the packing of the ice and in the drift's direction. One
+thing was clear, that the current was not taking the _Fram_ across the
+North Pole, but about half-way between it and Spitsbergen; and if the
+Pole was to be reached some of the expedition must attempt to get there
+over the ice. This meant leaving the ship, going north, and returning to
+the nearest known land, for, owing to the irregularity of the drift, it
+was hopeless to think of again reaching the _Fram_. During the second
+winter the route of the ship trended more to the north, and, after a
+loop all round in January, she reached 84° 4´ on the 14th of March in
+the longitude of Cape Chelyuskin. Here Nansen and Lieutenant F. H.
+Johansen, who rather than not join the _Fram_ had shipped in her as
+stoker, left the ship with three sledges, two kayaks, and twenty-eight
+dogs to go as far northward as they could, their expectation being that
+they would reach the Pole in fifty days. Had they remained in the ship
+until November they would have saved themselves trouble, for, as matters
+turned out, the embarrassing drift took the _Fram_ within eight miles of
+the farthest north they attained after twenty-three days of strenuous
+endeavour.
+
+[Illustration: Yours sincerely Fridtjof Nansen.]
+
+The ice, fairly easy for a few days, soon became terrible in the
+difficulties it offered to progress over it, and the continual toil of
+hauling and carrying the sledges, and righting them when capsized, soon
+told on the two men to such an extent as to tire them out so thoroughly
+that sometimes in the evening they fell asleep as they went along. The
+cold, too, proved singularly searching and severe. During the course of
+the day the damp exhalations of the body little by little became
+condensed in their outer garments, which became transformed into suits
+of ice-armour, so hard that if they could have been got off they could
+have stood by themselves, and they crackled audibly at every movement.
+The clothes were so stiff that the sleeve of Nansen's coat rubbed deep
+sores in his wrist, one of which got frost-bitten, the wound growing
+deeper and deeper and nearly reaching the bone. "How cold we were," says
+Nansen, "as we lay there shivering in the bag, waiting for the supper to
+be ready! I, who was cook, was obliged to keep myself more or less awake
+to see to the culinary operations, and sometimes I succeeded. At last
+the supper was ready, was portioned out, and, as always, tasted
+delicious. These occasions were the supreme moments of our existence,
+moments to which we looked forward all day long. But sometimes we were
+so weary that our eyes closed, and we fell asleep with the food on its
+way to our mouths. Our hands would fall back inanimate with the spoons
+in them and the food fly out on the bag."
+
+The further they went the worse became the conditions. On the 8th of
+April, with ridge after ridge and nothing but rubble to travel over, the
+work became so disheartening that Nansen went on ahead on his skis and
+from the highest hummocks viewed the state of affairs; and as far as the
+horizon, lay a chaos of such character that progress across was
+impracticable if he and Johansen were to return alive. Here, then, they
+stopped, this being their northernmost limit, 128 miles from the _Fram_,
+260 miles from the Pole, latitude 86° 13·6´, longitude 95°.
+
+To reach this point they had been travelling north-westwards for six
+days, the way due north being impassable; but on turning south they
+seemed to enter another country; so much did the going improve after the
+first mile that in three days they covered over forty miles. They were
+making for Petermann Land, which does not exist, or for the
+wide-stretching Franz Josef Land, also placed on the maps by Payer,
+which Jackson had been cutting up into fragments while the _Fram_ was in
+the ice. Further south difficulties thickened ahead of them till the
+road became almost as bad as that to the north. Before they reached land
+the hundred days they had allowed themselves had increased to more than
+half as many again, their dogs had been killed one by one to yield food
+for the rest, until only two remained; Nansen was helpless with
+rheumatism for two days; and Johansen was nearly killed by a bear.
+Through a chain of disasters caused by storms and fogs and snow and the
+state of the ice, they threaded their way, sometimes by sledge,
+sometimes by kayak, through mazes of open channels, leaping from floe to
+floe and ferrying back to get their baggage over, hundreds of yards on
+mere brash, dragging the sledges after them in constant fear of their
+capsizing into the water. Then the ice gave out and, taking to their
+kayaks, they sailed and paddled to what is now known as Frederick
+Jackson Island in the north of the Franz Josef Archipelago.
+
+Here they wintered, quite at a loss at first to know where they were,
+owing to their watches having run down during a great effort of
+thirty-six hours at a stretch, so that they did not know their
+longitude, though they subsequently concluded they must be somewhere on
+Franz Josef Land within 140 miles of Eira Harbour. They built a hut and
+altogether lived passably well, there being no lack of food, thanks
+mainly to the bears, whose visits were embarrassing in their frequency
+though the visitors were not unwelcome when they came to stay.
+
+On the 19th of May they set out for the south, down British Channel,
+with their sledges and kayaks, and five days afterwards, when off Cape
+M'Clintock, while Johansen was busy lashing the sail and mast securely
+to the deck of his kayak to prevent their being blown away, Nansen went
+on ahead to look for a camping ground and fell through a crack in the
+ice which had been hidden by the snow. He tried to get out, but with his
+skis firmly fastened could not pull them up through the rubble of ice
+which had fallen into the water on the top of them, and, being harnessed
+to the sledge, he could not turn round. Fortunately, as he fell, he had
+dug his staff into the ice on the opposite side of the crack, and
+holding himself up with its aid, and the arm he had got over the edge of
+the ice, he waited patiently for Johansen to come and pull him out. When
+he thought a long time had passed and felt the staff giving way and the
+water creeping further up his body, he called out but received no
+answer; and it was not until the water had reached his chest that
+Johansen came and pulled him out.
+
+For a few days they were storm-bound. On the 3rd of June they started
+again down the channel, their whereabouts still a mystery to them,
+nothing in the least like it being on their map. Nine days afterwards,
+after rounding Cape Barents on Northbrook Island, the kayaks, which had
+been left moored to the edge of the ice, got adrift. Nansen, running
+down from the hummock, from which he had been looking round, threw off
+some of his clothes and sprang into the water. The wind was off the ice,
+and the kayaks with their high rigging were moving away as fast as he
+could swim. It seemed more than doubtful if he could reach them. But all
+their hope was there, all they had was on board; they had not even a
+knife with them, and whether he sank or turned back amounted to much the
+same thing. When he tired he turned over and swam on his back, and then
+he could see Johansen walking restlessly up and down on the ice, unable
+to do anything, and having the worst time he ever lived through. But the
+wind lulled, and when Nansen turned over he saw he was nearing the
+kayaks, and though his limbs were stiffening and losing all feeling, he
+put all the strength he could into his strokes, and eventually was able
+to reach them. He tried to pull himself up, but was so stiff with cold
+that he could not do so. For a moment he thought he was too late; but
+after a little he managed to swing one leg up on to the edge of the
+sledge, which lay on the deck, and in this way he scrambled on board.
+The kayaks were lashed together so as to form a double boat, and the
+only way in which, owing to his stiffness, he could paddle them was to
+take one or two strokes on one side and then step into the other kayak
+and take a few strokes on the other side. The return was consequently
+slow, but it was a return, though the ice was reached a long way from
+where the drifting had begun.
+
+Next day but one came another perilous episode. "Towards morning," says
+Nansen, "we rowed for some time without seeing any walrus, and now felt
+more secure. Just then we saw a solitary rover pop up a little in front
+of us. Johansen, who was in front at the time, put in to a sunken ledge
+of ice; and although I really thought that this was caution carried to
+excess, I was on the point of following his example. I had not gone so
+far, however, when suddenly the walrus shot up beside me, threw himself
+on to the edge of the kayak, took hold further over the deck with one
+flipper, and as it tried to upset me aimed a blow at the kayak with its
+tusks. I held on as tightly as possible, so as not to be upset into the
+water, and struck at the animal's head with the paddle as hard as I
+could. It took hold of the kayak once more and tilted me up so that the
+deck was almost under water, then let go and raised itself right up. I
+seized my gun, but at the same moment it turned round and disappeared as
+quickly as it had come. The whole thing had happened in a moment, and I
+was just going to remark to Johansen that we were fortunate in escaping
+so easily from that adventure, when I noticed that my legs were wet. I
+listened, and now heard the water trickling into the kayak under me. To
+turn and run her in on to the sunken ledge of ice was the work of a
+moment, but I sank there. The thing was to get out and on to the ice,
+the kayak filling all the time. The edge of the ice was high and loose,
+but I managed to rise; and Johansen, by tilting the sinking kayak over
+to starboard, so that the leak came above the water, managed to bring
+her to a place where the ice was low enough to admit of our drawing her
+up. All I possessed was floating about inside, soaked through. So here
+we lie, with all our worldly goods spread out to dry and a kayak that
+must be mended before we can face the walrus again. It is a good big
+rent that he has made, at least six inches long; but it is fortunate
+that it was no worse."
+
+The kayak was mended, and, after a long rest, it was past noon on the
+17th of June when Nansen turned out to prepare breakfast. After doing so
+he went up on a hummock to look around. Flocks of little auks were
+flying overhead, and, amid the confused noise of their calls, he heard a
+couple of barks from a dog. Thinking he was mistaken he waited for a
+time, and then the barking was unmistakable, bark after bark, one of a
+deeper tone than the other. He shouted to Johansen, who started up from
+the sleeping-bag incredulous. The sound ceased, and, breakfast over,
+Nansen went forth to investigate. Soon he came on the footprints of a
+dog or wolf, and then, still doubting, he heard a distant yelping that
+certainly came not from a wolf. Making his way among the hummocks, he
+heard a shout from a human voice, a strange voice—the first for three
+years. Running up on to a hummock he shouted with all his might. Back
+came a shout in reply; and among the hummocks he caught sight of a dog,
+and further off a man walked into view. The man spoke to the dog in
+English. Thinking he recognised Jackson, Nansen raised his hat as he met
+him, and they shook hands heartily.
+
+The contrast could not have been greater. One the well-groomed,
+civilised European in a check suit and rubber water-boots, the other in
+dirty rags black with oil and soot, with long matted hair and shaggy
+beard, and a face in which the complexion was undiscernible through the
+accumulations which a winter's endeavours, including scrapings with a
+knife, had failed to remove. As they talked they had turned to go
+inland. Suddenly Jackson stopped, and, looking the new arrival straight
+in the face, said—
+
+"Aren't you Nansen?"
+
+"Yes, I am."
+
+"By Jove! I'm damned glad to see you."
+
+And seizing his hand he shook it again, his whole face beaming with a
+smile of welcome and delight at the unexpected meeting; and needless to
+say, both Nansen and Johansen received the warmest of welcomes from all
+at Elmwood. The _Windward_ was then on her way, and when she arrived the
+two Norsemen from the farthest north went in her to Vardoe, where they
+landed on the 13th of August.
+
+Meanwhile the _Fram_ had continued her leisurely drift, north-west,
+south-west, north-west, west, then all round the compass, still with her
+head pointing south, until on the 15th of November she reached 85° 55·5´
+in longitude 66° 31´, thus giving Captain Otto Sverdrup the honour of
+attaining the highest north in a ship. Another winter was passed in her
+ice-berth, during which she moved westerly. In February came another
+complete triangle in her course, after which she went south-west, and on
+the 16th of May turned due south. Then, in the later days of the month
+with the southerly drift continuing and open water on ahead, Sverdrup
+resolved to set her free by mines, and on the 3rd of June, as a result
+of the blastings, she gave a lurch, settled a little deeper at the stern
+and moved away from the edge of the ice until the hawsers tautened. But,
+though she was afloat, the ice around still kept her captive, and in the
+pool she drifted straight towards Spitsbergen.
+
+Again and again was steam got up and endeavour made to break a way out,
+but day after day elapsed, and it was not until the 13th of August that
+she passed through the last floes into open water, and her thirty-five
+months of imprisonment came to an end. Making for Danes Island in
+Spitsbergen, she was there boarded by Andrée, who was then preparing for
+his disappearance in the balloon voyage to the Pole. Going on direct to
+Skjervoe in Norway, Sverdrup landed at two o'clock in the morning to
+wake up the telegraphist, who told him that Nansen had reached Vardoe a
+week before and was then at Hammerfest and probably leaving for Tromsoe.
+For Tromsoe Sverdrup started, after telegraphing to Nansen. And there,
+at four o'clock in the afternoon of the 25th of August, 1896, Sir George
+Baden-Powell's yacht _Otaria_, with Nansen and Johansen on board, glided
+alongside the _Fram_, the good little ship looking much weather-beaten
+though none the worse for such a task of strength and endurance as had
+been set no other in the story of the sea.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VI
+                             THE LENA DELTA
+
+  Discovery of the Siberian Islands—Hedenström—Anjou and
+    Wrangell—Migration of reindeer—Animals and plants of the
+    tundra—The northward migration of the native tribes—The voyage of
+    the _Jeannette_—Her drift in the pack—Jeannette Island—Henrietta
+    Island—The ship crushed and sunk—Landing on Bennett Island—The
+    boat voyage—The boats separate in a storm—De Long lands on the
+    Lena Delta—Nindemann and Noros in search of assistance—Safety of
+    the whale-boat—Fate of De Long and his companions—Baron Toll's
+    discoveries.
+
+
+The Siberian Islands, lying north of the delta of the Lena, answer to
+the Parry Islands on the American side, the two groups being separated
+by that wide stretch of the Arctic Ocean communicating with the Pacific
+through Bering Strait. At first the Asiatic group was officially named
+after Liakhoff, then it was called after the unwisely named New Siberia,
+but, under any designation, it took half a century to find the different
+islands, and considerably more to land on them.
+
+[Illustration: THE LENA DELTA]
+
+When Liakhoff discovered the one named after him by the Empress
+Catherine, he also went north to Moloi, and he seems to have visited
+Kotelnoi to the north-west. In 1775 Chvoinof was sent to survey these
+three, but he devoted most of his attention to Liakhoff Island—fifty
+miles across—which he found to consist, as reported, of hills of granite
+rising from a mass of mammoth bones, sand, and ice, some of the ice
+ancient enough to carry a deep covering of moss. Though he stated that
+other islands could be made out in the distance, nothing was done to
+verify his discoveries, real or imaginary, until thirty years had
+passed, when Thaddeus and Stolbovoi were reached. Next year (1806) New
+Siberia, to the eastward, was discovered by Sirovatskof, and two years
+afterwards Bjelkof was added to the southerly portion of the
+archipelago.
+
+In 1809 Hedenström, assisted by Sannikof, began his series of surveys
+extending over all these, and cleared up much of the mystery concerning
+them. From Thaddeus, Sannikof sighted, away to the northward, what is
+now known as Bennett Island; and, from New Siberia, Hedenström sighted
+Henrietta and Jeannette Islands, and set out for them, and would have
+reached them had his sledges not been stopped by open water. Like his
+predecessors he was astonished at the mammoth remains on Liakhoff
+Island.
+
+According to his account, "these bones or tusks are less large and heavy
+the further we advance towards the north, so that it is a rare
+occurrence on the islands to meet with a tusk of more than 108 lbs. in
+weight, whereas on the continent they are said often to weigh as much as
+432 lbs. In quantity, however, these bones increase wonderfully to the
+northward, and as Sannikof expresses himself, the whole soil of the
+first of the Liakhoff Islands appears to consist of them. For about
+eighty years the fur-hunters have every year brought large cargoes from
+this island, but as yet there is no sensible diminution of the stock.
+The tusks on the islands are also much more fresh and white than those
+on the continent. A sandbank on the western side was most productive of
+all, and the fur-hunters maintain that when the sea recedes after a long
+continuance of easterly winds, a fresh supply of mammoth bones is always
+found to have been washed from this bank, proceeding apparently from
+some vast store at the bottom of the sea." Besides these multitudinous
+remains of the mammoth Hedenström found numerous remains of rhinoceros,
+the horn of which was then thought to be a bird's claw three feet long.
+
+To clear up the wide discrepancies in the maps the Emperor Alexander, in
+1820, equipped two expeditions to proceed by land to the northern coast
+of Siberia and properly survey it, the work to be carried as far east as
+Cape Chelagskoi, whence a sledge party was to start for the north in
+search of the inhabited country reported to exist in the Polar Sea in
+that direction. One of these expeditions, under Lieutenant P. F. Anjou,
+was to commence its operations from the mouth of the Yana; the other,
+under Lieutenant Ferdinand Vrangel' (or, as he is generally known
+amongst us, Wrangell or Von Wrangell), was to start from the mouth of
+the Kolyma, his chief assistant being Midshipman Matiuschkin. Both
+parties did good survey work, but neither made any striking discovery.
+Anjou reached 76° 36´ to the north of Kotelnoi; Wrangell reached 72° 2´
+(north-east of the Bear Islands, one hundred and seventy-four miles out
+on the sea from the great Baranoff rock), beyond which progress was
+impossible owing to the thinness of the ice, which was covered with salt
+water.
+
+Wrangell had many perilous experiences. In his fourth journey over the
+sea the ice broke up around him and he found himself on a floe with a
+labyrinth of water lanes hemming him in on every side and a storm coming
+on from the westward. The storm rapidly increased in fury, and the
+masses of ice around him were soon dashing against each other and
+breaking in all directions. On the floe, which was tossing to and fro on
+the waves, he gazed in painful inactivity on the conflict, expecting
+every moment to be swallowed up. For three long hours he had remained
+unable to move, the mass of ice beneath him holding together, when it
+was caught by the storm and hurled against a large field of ice. The
+crash was terrific, as it was shattered into little pieces. At that
+dreadful moment, when escape seemed impossible, he was saved by the
+impulse of self-preservation. Instinctively the party sprang on to the
+sledges and urged the dogs to full speed, and as hard as they could
+gallop they skimmed across the yielding fragments to the field on which
+they had been stranded, and safely reached a stretch of firmer ice,
+where the dogs ceased running among the hummocks, conscious that the
+danger was past.
+
+But it is not so much for adventures like this that his account of his
+work is of continuing interest as for the abundance of its notes and
+reflections on the country and its life and climate. Once, for instance,
+when on the Baranicha he was fortunate enough to witness a migration of
+reindeer. "I had hardly finished the observation," he says, "when my
+whole attention was called to a highly interesting, and to me a
+perfectly novel, spectacle. Two large migrating bodies of reindeer
+passed us at no great distance. They were descending the hills from the
+north-west and crossing the plain on their way to the forests, where
+they spend the winter. Both bodies of deer extended further than the eye
+could reach, and formed a compact mass, narrowing towards the front.
+They moved slowly and majestically along, their broad antlers resembling
+a moving wood of leafless trees. Each body was led by a deer of unusual
+size, which my guides assured me was always a female. One of the herds
+was stealthily followed by a wolf, who was apparently watching for an
+opportunity of seizing any one of the younger and weaker deer which
+might fall behind the rest, but on seeing us he made off in another
+direction. The other column was followed at some distance by a large
+black bear, who, however, appeared only intent on digging out a mouse's
+nest every now and then, so much so that he took no notice of us. We had
+great difficulty in restraining our two dogs, but happily succeeded in
+doing so; their barking, or any sound or motion on our part, might have
+alarmed the deer, and by turning them from their course, have proved a
+terrible misfortune to the hunters, who were awaiting their passage, on
+which they are entirely dependent for support. We remained for two hours
+whilst the herds of deer were passing by, and then resumed our march."
+
+The way in which the deer are dealt with by the hunters was seen by
+Matiuschkin when despatched by Wrangell to survey the Anyui. "The true
+harvest, which we arrived just in time to see, is in August or
+September, when the reindeer are returning from the plains to the
+forests. They are then healthy and well fed, the venison is excellent,
+and as they have just acquired their winter coats the fur is thick and
+warm. The difference of the quality of the skins at the two seasons is
+such, that whilst an autumn skin is valued at five or six roubles, a
+spring one will only fetch one or one and a half roubles. In good years
+the migrating body of reindeer consists of many thousands; and though
+they are divided into herds of two or three hundred each, yet the herds
+keep so near together as to form only one immense mass, which is
+sometimes from thirty to seventy miles in breadth. They always follow
+the same route, and in crossing the river near Plotbischtsche, they
+choose a place where a dry valley leads down to the stream on one side,
+and a flat sandy shore facilitates their landing on the other side. As
+each separate herd approaches the river, the deer draw more closely
+together, and the largest and strongest takes the lead. He advances,
+closely followed by a few of the others, with head erect, and apparently
+intent on examining the locality. When he has satisfied himself, he
+enters the river, the rest of the herd crowd after him, and in a few
+minutes the surface is covered with them. Then the hunters, who have
+been concealed to leeward, rush in their light canoes from their
+hiding-places, surround the deer, and delay their passage, whilst two or
+three chosen men armed with short spears dash into the middle of the
+herd and despatch large numbers in an incredibly short time; or at least
+wound them so, that, if they reach the bank, it is only to fall into the
+hands of the women and children. The office of the spearman is a very
+dangerous one. It is no easy thing to keep the light boat afloat among
+the dense crowd of swimming deer, which, moreover, make considerable
+resistance; the males with their horns, teeth, and hind legs, whilst the
+females try to overset the boat by getting their fore-feet over the
+gunwale; if they succeed in this the hunter is lost, for it is hardly
+possible that he should extricate himself from the throng; but the skill
+of these people is so great that accidents very rarely occur. A good
+hunter may kill a hundred or more in less than half an hour. When the
+herd is large, and gets into disorder, it often happens that their
+antlers become entangled with each other; they are then unable to defend
+themselves, and the business is much easier. Meanwhile the rest of the
+boats pick up the slain and fasten them together with thongs, and every
+one is allowed to keep what he lays hold of in this manner. It might
+seem that in this way nothing would be left to requite the spearmen for
+their skill, and the danger they have encountered; but whilst everything
+taken in the river is the property of whoever secures it, the wounded
+animals which reach the bank before they fall, belong to the spearman
+who wounded them. The skill and experience of these men are such that in
+the thickest of the conflict, when every energy is taxed to the
+uttermost, and their life is every moment at stake, they have sufficient
+presence of mind to contrive to measure the force of their blows so as
+to kill the smallest animals outright, but only to wound the larger and
+finer ones, so that they may be just able to reach the bank. Such
+proceeding is not sanctioned by the general voice, but it seems
+nevertheless to be almost always practised. The whole scene is of a most
+singular and curious character, and quite indescribable. The throng of
+thousands of swimming reindeer, the sound produced by the striking
+together of their antlers, the swift canoes dashing in amongst them, the
+terror of the frightened animals, the danger of the hunters, the shouts
+of warning advice or applause from their friends, the blood-stained
+water, and all the accompanying circumstances, form a whole which no one
+can picture to himself without having witnessed the scene."
+
+[Illustration: REINDEER]
+
+The tundra has no more characteristic animal than the reindeer. Over the
+mossy hillocks and the matted tops of the dwarf birches he runs, or
+through the rivers and lakes he swims, with his broad-hoofed, spade-like
+feet never at a loss to find a footing. In the long winter he is
+protected by his thick skin against the influence of the cold, and is
+seldom at starvation point, as he digs for food in the deepest snow, and
+is by no means particular what he eats; and in the short summer he is in
+luxurious ease, for the tundra, as we have seen, is not always as bad as
+it is painted. In exposed places near the coast it is little else than
+gravel beds interspersed with patches of peat and clay, with scarcely a
+rush or a sedge to break the monotony, but by far the greater part of it
+is a gently undulating plain, broken up by lakes, rivers, swamps, and
+bogs; the lakes with patches of green water-plants, the rivers flowing
+between sedges and rushes, the swamps the breeding haunts of ruffs and
+phalaropes, the bogs dotted with the white fluffy seeds of the
+cotton-grass. Almost everywhere the birds are in noticeable numbers,
+among the commonest being the golden plover (who wears the tundra
+colours), the bluethroat, the fieldfare, the whooper swan, and the ducks
+and divers—particularly the divers—and, among the birds of prey, the
+falcons and the rough-legged buzzards, which, with the owls, find such
+abundant provision in the lemmings that migrate in myriads compared with
+which the reindeer troops are insignificant.
+
+"The groundwork of all this variegated scenery," says Seebohm, "is more
+beautiful and varied still—lichens and mosses of almost every
+conceivable colour, from the cream-coloured reindeer-moss to the
+scarlet-cupped trumpet-moss, interspersed with a brilliant alpine flora,
+gentians, anemones, saxifrages, and hundreds of plants, each a picture
+in itself, the tall aconites, both the blue and yellow species, the
+beautiful cloudberry, with its gay white blossom and amber fruit, the
+fragrant _Ledum palustre_ and the delicate pink _Andromeda polifolia_.
+In the sheltered valleys and deep water-courses a few stunted birches,
+and sometimes large patches of willow scrub, survive the long severe
+winter, and serve as cover for willow-grouse or ptarmigan. The Lapland
+bunting and red-throated pipit are everywhere to be seen, and certain
+favoured places are the breeding-grounds of plovers and sandpipers of
+many species. So far from meriting the name of Barren Ground, the tundra
+is for the most part a veritable paradise in summer. But it has one
+almost fatal drawback—it swarms with mosquitoes."
+
+[Illustration: OSTIAK MAN]
+
+[Illustration: SAMOYED MAN]
+
+The beauty of the tundra is, however, transient and skin deep; it is
+only such plants as can live in the soil that thaws that survive.
+Wherever the ground is dug into, ice is sure to be reached; in fact, it
+may be said that ice is one of the rocks of the subsoil, and in some
+places these strata of ice that never melts have been found to be three
+hundred feet thick—ice that has remained in block since the mammoths got
+into cold storage in it ages ago, for otherwise they would not have
+lasted intact in skin and flesh as many have done, like the very first
+discovered in a complete state, that chipped out by Adams in 1807.
+
+In such a climate, whose winter terrors are only too prominent, all
+along the north of Siberia live the ancient peoples driven towards the
+sea by those mighty movements from the land of the Turk and Mongol
+which, north and south, east and west, flooded Europe and Asia with
+invaders—Ostiaks and Samoyeds west of Chelyuskin; Yakuts, Chukches, and
+others to the east of it, the descriptions of whose unpleasant manners
+and customs appear to be written with a view to showing how curiously
+local are the laws of health. One may well ask, as Wrangell did, why
+they should remain in so dreary a region and take life so contentedly.
+And the answer may be that they might go further north and fare worse,
+as their predecessors in the eastern section would seem to have done.
+Once, according to the legend, there were more hearths of the Omoki on
+the shores of the Kolyma than there are stars in the clear sky, and
+these Omoki, or some other departed race, appear to have left as their
+traces the remains of the timber forts and the tumuli that are found on
+the coast, especially near the Indiyirka, and the huts of earth and
+stones and bones found all along from Chelagskoi to the straits, similar
+remains of a departed people now existing in the Parry Islands, over a
+thousand miles away. According to another legend of more recent date,
+there was an intervening land, the land that Wrangell went to seek and
+the _Jeannette_ went to winter at, and the supposed site of which she
+drifted through, in her last and longest imprisonment in the ice.
+
+The _Jeannette_ was the old _Pandora_, bought from Sir Allen Young by
+James Gordon Bennett, and accepted by and fitted out, officered, and
+manned under the orders of the Navy Department of the United States, her
+commander being Lieutenant George Washington De Long. She left San
+Francisco on the 8th of July, 1879, and two months afterwards had been
+run into the pack and was fast in the ice off Herald Island, drifting to
+her doom. Her route, in the main, was north-westerly, with many
+complicated loops, at first at the rate of half a mile a day, then at
+two miles, then at three, showing that the current from Bering Strait
+had been reinforced by some other current as she went further west, and,
+from its direction, there seemed to be land to the northward which was
+never sighted.
+
+Wrangell Land, passed to the south, proved to be not a continent but a
+small island. No other land was seen for a monotonous twenty months, and
+then, in May, 1881, the ship drifted, stern first, past that sighted by
+Hedenström from New Siberia, which was found to consist of two islands,
+to be henceforth known as Jeannette and Henrietta. On the 12th of June,
+in latitude 77° 14´ 57˝, the _Jeannette_ was crushed and sank, her fore
+yardarms breaking upwards as she slipped down through the rift in the
+pack, and a start was made for the Siberian Islands over the ice; but
+the drift had taken the party to 77° 36´, before they got on their
+proper course, and after a most laborious journey, lasting up to the
+28th of July, they were safe ashore on the land sighted by Sannikof from
+Thaddeus, which De Long named Bennett Island.
+
+Bennett Island was left on the 7th of August, the party of thirty-three
+being in three boats, thirteen under De Long in the first cutter, ten
+under Lieutenant Chipp in the much smaller second cutter, and ten, under
+Engineer George W. Melville, whose skill and resourcefulness had been
+conspicuous throughout, were given the whale-boat, the most suitable of
+the three. Sail was made for Thaddeus Island, which was reached in
+safety; after a halt of some days it was left on the 31st of August.
+Then Kotelnoi Island was reached and rested at; then the boats made for
+Semonovski, which was left on the 12th of September.
+
+The same day a gale came on in which the first cutter had great
+difficulty in keeping afloat, the second cutter disappeared never to be
+heard of again, and the whale-boat, behaving excellently, went off
+before the wind straight for the continent to reach in safety one of the
+eastern mouths of the Lena, up which Melville arrived at a Russian
+village on the 26th of September. De Long's party ran their boat aground
+in shallow water, on the 17th of September, and rafted and waded ashore
+to one of the most inhospitable spots on the globe. Heavily laden they
+made their way down the dreary delta, toiling through the snow, delayed
+by the tributaries which were not frozen over hard enough to bear,
+hampered by sickness and disablement, and finally dying one by one of
+starvation.
+
+On the 9th of October De Long sent two of the seamen, Nindemann and
+Noros, ahead in search of relief. They had no food but what they could
+find, and on the second day out their dinner consisted of a little
+willow tea and a burnt boot sole. Next morning they burnt another sole
+of a boot, and they spent the day struggling through a morass in
+drifting snow, crossing streams of all sizes, and halting for the night
+in so high a wind that they were unable to light a fire and took refuge
+in a hole in the snow from which they emerged with difficulty in the
+morning, owing to the wind having piled up the snow against the opening.
+At the end of the third day they reached a deserted hut in which were
+some deer bones, which they grilled and tried to eat, and in the morning
+a gale was blowing and the wild drifting snow was so thick that they had
+to remain where they were and continue their diet of charred bones and
+willow tea.
+
+Next day, Thursday, the 13th of October, they began against a strong
+head wind. In the afternoon they sighted a hut on the west bank of the
+river. "They had seen one in the morning, but had in vain attempted to
+cross the ice to it. Now they tried to reach this, but were turned back
+by the brittle ice. They kept it in sight as they moved southward, and
+made another attempt to cross the ice, but it broke and they came back.
+Then they saw that there was no further progress possible to the
+southward on that side of the water, and they returned to the ice. It
+broke again, but they kept on. They went in up to their waists, but
+managed to pull themselves up on the stronger ice." The wind was blowing
+against them and the ice was like glass, so that they were driven back.
+They looked about for ice which had been roughened by the ripples
+beneath, and finding some they succeeded at length in reaching the other
+side, where were two wooden crosses beneath a bank, which rose fifty
+feet above them. They pulled themselves up the bank, but when they came
+to the hut which they had kept in sight they found it a ruin nearly full
+of snow. "While Noros was trying to make a place in it for shelter,
+Nindemann saw a black object farther along to the south and went to it.
+It was a small peaked hut without a door, but large enough to hold two
+men. There were some fresh wood shavings outside the hut and higher up
+on the hill two boxes. On going to them Nindemann found them old and
+decayed, and he began to break one of them open. When he had ripped off
+the top he discovered that there was another box enclosed; breaking into
+it he found a dead body, and hastily left it. Doubtless the two crosses
+below on the river bank were memorials of the two beings left high up
+above the reach of the floods."
+
+In the small hut they found a sort of floor, the boards of which they
+pulled up for firewood, and in a hole beneath was a box in which were a
+couple of fish and two fish heads; and, as these were discovered, a
+lemming came out of another hole and was promptly caught. On the
+lemming, roasted on the ramrod, and the fishes, which were so decayed
+that they dropped apart as they were handled, they made their meal for
+that day. Next day the snowstorm was so heavy that they were driven back
+here after striving in vain to make headway. On the Saturday, still
+without food, they rested for the night in a fissure in the river bank,
+where as a last resource Nindemann cut a piece off his sealskin trousers
+and soaked it in water and burnt it to a crust. Their breakfast
+consisted of the remains of this toasted sealskin. During the day they
+saw a crow flying across the river and in among the hills, and, as the
+crow in these regions is rarely found away from the haunts of men,
+Nindemann decided to cross the river in the hope of meeting with either
+natives or game on the other side. When darkness came on no shelter was
+discoverable, and so, after a meal of more sealskin and hot water, they
+went to rest in a hole in the snow. Next day, during which they
+recrossed the river, their experiences were similar and the end the
+same.
+
+On Tuesday the 18th, after a terrible day, they came upon a hut with a
+pile of wood close by, which proved to be sledges, and these they broke
+up, as there was no other firing. Next day as they were struggling on
+they reached a place where there were three huts, in one of which was a
+half-kayak and in it was some blue mouldy fish; and here, attacked by
+dysentery, they remained until the Saturday, unable to go any further.
+About noon there was a noise outside like a flock of geese sweeping by.
+Nindemann, looking through the crack of the door, saw something moving
+which he took to be a reindeer, and was going out with his rifle when
+the door opened and a man entered, who promptly fell on his knees when
+he caught sight of the gun. Nindemann threw the rifle into a corner and,
+trying to make friends with the man by signs, offered him some of the
+fish, which the man by an emphatic gesture pronounced not fit to eat.
+After some more of the sign language it was clear that the native had no
+food with him, and holding up three or four fingers to show that he
+would return in so many hours or days he drove off. About six o'clock in
+the evening, while they were preparing their fish dinner, the visitor
+returned with two other men, one of whom brought in a frozen fish which
+he skinned and sliced, and while the sailors were eating it—the first
+healthy meal they had had for weeks—the natives invited them to
+accompany them, and brought in deerskin coats and boots and finally got
+them into the sledges and drove off to the westward for about fifteen
+miles. Here there were two tents, and Nindemann was taken into one,
+Noros into the other, and both were well looked after, the natives doing
+their very best to get them well.
+
+This was intelligible on both sides, for the language of kindness is
+universal, but as the sailors knew not the language of their hosts, and
+the natives knew not the language of their guests, the difficulty of
+being understood by each other was great, and the delivery of the urgent
+message in signs was almost impossible. Nindemann did his best; he
+appealed to the man who seemed to be the head of the party, and drawing
+in the snow a map of the places where he had been, with every
+combination of signs he could think of, he tried to explain what he
+wanted. That he succeeded to a certain extent was clear, though he did
+not think so at first, for the natives loaded up their sledges,
+twenty-seven in number, with reindeer meat and skins and fish, and
+struck their tents, and, with over a hundred head of deer harnessed up,
+started for the south. At noon, when the deer were resting, the man for
+whom the map had been drawn in the snow took Nindemann to where he could
+show him a prominent landmark, and asked by signs if that was where he
+had left his friends. And on learning by signs that it was further to
+the north, he shook his head as if sorry, and resumed his journey to the
+south. During the next day they reached Ku Mark Surka, where there were
+a number of natives who were much interested in the new-comers, and
+again the sailors used every effort to deliver their message.
+
+Immediately after breakfast on the morning of the 25th, Nindemann began
+talking to these people in signs and pantomime. Soon one of them showed
+that he had an idea of where the sailors came from, for he spoke to one
+of the boys, who ran off and returned with a model of a Yakutsk boat.
+Then they gathered round and evidently asked if the ship was anything
+like it. And in answer, Nindemann took up some sticks and placed three
+of them in the boat to show that his ship had three masts, and then he
+fastened smaller sticks across to show that she had yards, which seemed
+to surprise them greatly. Then he made a funnel out of wood and put it
+in position, and pointed to the fire and smoke to show that she was a
+steamer, and then he cut out a propeller with his knife and put it where
+the rudder was to show that she was a screw. Continuing his work he soon
+chipped out so many small boats to show how many she had; and then,
+signing to one of the men to get him two pieces of ice, he showed them
+how the ship had been crushed. Pointing to the northward he tried to
+tell them that the ship had been crushed up there; and then he put away
+the ship and kept only three of the little boats to tell that part of
+the story, and in the boats he put so many sticks to represent the
+number of men in each. When he had done this one of the men pointed to a
+dog that was looking on and asked if the ship had any, whereupon the
+sailor counted on his fingers to show there were about forty, and by
+pantomime explained that they had been shot. This being evidently
+understood, Nindemann drew a chart of the coast-line, and imitating a
+gale of wind showed that the boat he came from went to the land at a
+certain point and that he knew nothing of the others. Then he went on to
+show how they had all left the boat, waded ashore and walked along the
+river-bank, and he marked the huts where they had stopped, and then he
+indicated where one of the men had died and been buried in the river.
+This was understood, for all the audience shook their heads as if to say
+how sorry they were. But when he tried to tell them that he had left the
+captain two days afterwards and had been so many days on the way to ask
+for help, they showed that they either did not or would not understand;
+and really it was not easy to make such a matter clear.
+
+Next day Nindemann made another attempt to get them to understand the
+one essential, urgent fact that help was needed, or the men would die;
+but no, he could not do it. On the Thursday, despairing of the
+hopelessness of his task and the helplessness of his companions, he
+broke into tears and groans, and a woman in the hut took pity on him and
+spoke earnestly to one of the men, who came and said something about a
+commandant. Then the sailor, who had picked up a few words, asked him to
+take him to Bulun, to which the man replied by again saying commandant
+and holding up five or six fingers. Late in the evening there arrived a
+tall Russian, whom Nindemann supposed to be the commandant and addressed
+in English, but he was a Russian exile who could not understand him,
+though he seemed to know something about the matter, for in what he said
+he clearly mentioned Jeannette and Americansk. Nindemann tried him in
+German, but at this he shook his head. Then Nindemann showed him the
+chart given him by De Long, which the Russian evidently did not
+understand, though he said something that sounded like St. Petersburg
+and telegrams. While this apparently hopeless conversation was going on
+Noros was busy steadily writing out a note that the two sailors had
+drawn up, and the tall Russian—who we shall see was really a most
+intelligent man—giving over his talk with Nindemann in despair, coolly
+picked this up and put it in his pocket, and notwithstanding the protest
+of the Americans, walked off with it. In the morning he came in and gave
+them to understand that he was going to Bulun, and that they were to
+follow, and soon afterwards the natives fitted them out with clothing
+and boots and food and sent them off on a sledge. At Bulun they were
+taken to the commandant, who, after a little sign language from
+Nindemann, showed that he understood, and said something about a
+telegram. The sailors jumped at the idea, and one of them dictated to
+the other a despatch to the American Minister at St. Petersburg. This
+the Russian took, explaining that the captain should have it next day.
+Who the captain was the sailors could not make out; but three days
+afterwards, that is on the 3rd of November, while Nindemann lay on the
+bed and Noros was sitting on the table, a man came in dressed in fur.
+
+"My God, Mr. Melville!" said Noros, recognising him as soon as he spoke.
+"Are you alive? We thought that the whale-boats were all dead!"
+
+The exile had handed the note to Melville, whom he knew as the captain,
+and his difficulty in understanding the sailors had been in their
+speaking of one boat while he had only seen the other. The whale-boat
+crew had reached a village opposite to where he lived, and he had agreed
+to take them to Bulun, and he was on his way there to arrange for their
+transport when he heard of the sailors. Like a sensible man he ordered
+the men to be sent to Bulun, and had hurried there, made his
+arrangements with the commandant and returned to Melville, who, seeing
+the urgency of the case as soon as he read the letter, had started at
+once, leaving his party to follow.
+
+Melville, as soon as possible, went off along the track of the two
+sailors, who were too weak to go with him, and eventually found the
+chronometer and the log-books and other records; but the winter was too
+far advanced for him to do more, and he had to return, after a journey
+of over six hundred miles, to try again in the spring. Then, accompanied
+by Nindemann, he went north, and came upon the bodies of the commander
+and those who had perished with him, and three or four feet behind De
+Long, as if he had tossed it over his shoulder, lay the journal in which
+the last page was but a chronicle of death after death.
+
+This chapter must conclude with another tragedy. In 1885 Dr. Bunge and
+Baron Toll made some important investigations in the neighbourhood of
+the mouth of the Yana; and next year Bunge among the fossils of Liakhoff
+Island found not only mammoth and rhinoceros, but horse, musk-ox and
+deer, and two new species of ox. To these Toll, after discovering that
+there were flourishing trees on Kotelnoi in the time of the
+mammoth—nearly two hundred miles north of their present limit—added
+frozen carcases of musk-ox and rhinoceros, and bones of antelope and
+tiger.
+
+In 1902 Toll, pushing his geological researches further north, reached
+Bennett Island, where he collected bones of the mammoth and other recent
+mammals, while the main mass of the plateau he identified as of Cambrian
+age. These discoveries he included in the record announcing his
+intention of leaving for Kotelnoi, which was found in 1904 by the
+expedition sent to his relief, for he was never seen alive again.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII
+                             BERING STRAIT
+
+  Native stories of the distant continent—The Russians in
+    Kamchatka—Bering's expedition—The difficulties of his task—Builds
+    a vessel and reaches Kamchatka—Builds another vessel and discovers
+    the strait named after him by Captain Cook—His second
+    expedition—Spangberg's voyage to Japan—Bering reaches the American
+    coast—His shipwreck and death—The influence of the sea-otter and
+    the fur-seal on geographical discovery—The Arctic voyage of
+    Captain Cook—Clerke's voyage—Beechey's voyage—Point Barrow reached
+    by the barge of the _Blossom_—Kellett's voyage in the
+    _Herald_—Boat expedition to Hudson Bay—Kellett reaches 72°
+    51´—Landing on Herald Island—Kellett sights Wrangell Island—Berry
+    in the _Rodgers_ explores Wrangell Island—He reaches 73°
+    44´—Frederick Whymper and W. H. Dall ascend the Yukon.
+
+
+Rumours of land over against the far corner of Siberia had reached the
+Russians for years, and many were the legends of those who had seen
+these lands from the cliffs, or had been on the ice to look at them more
+closely, or had gone away to them and never come back. There was, for
+instance, the old legend of Kraechoj, who believed he had found safe
+shelter at Irkaipii from the Chukche vengeance, but the Chukche made his
+way into the stronghold and killed Kraechoj's son, whereupon Kraechoj
+escaped by letting himself down with thongs to the boat and fled to the
+land whose mountains can be seen in clear sunshine from Cape Yakan; and
+there he was among his people who had left Asia before him.
+
+And among the official documents was the statement made by the Chukches
+when they went to Anadyrskoi Ostrog to acknowledge the dominion of the
+Russians, that "The Noss is full of rocky mountains, and the low grounds
+consist of land covered with turf. Opposite to it lies an island, within
+sight of it, of no great extent, and void of wood. It is inhabited by
+people who have the same aspect as the Chukche, but are quite a
+different nation, and speak their own language, though they are not
+numerous. It is half a day's voyage with boats from the Noss to the
+island. There are no sables on the island, and no other animals but
+foxes, wolves, and reindeer. Beyond the island is a large continent that
+can be scarcely discerned from it, and that only on clear days; in calm
+weather one may row over the sea from the island to the continent, which
+is inhabited by a people who in every particular resemble the Chukches.
+There are large forests of fir, pine, larch, and cedar trees; great
+rivers flow through the country and fall into the sea. The inhabitants
+have dwellings and fortified places of abode environed with ramparts of
+earth; they live upon wild reindeer and fish; their clothes are made of
+sable, fox, and reindeer skins, for sables and foxes are there in great
+abundance. The number of men in that country may be twice or three times
+as many as that of the Chukches who are often at war with them." That
+there was land in sight somewhere seemed clear, but the reports differed
+in placing it all the way round from the north to the east. Many were
+the vain attempts to reach it from the northward-flowing rivers, and it
+was left to be found from the Pacific side.
+
+[Illustration: BERING STRAIT]
+
+When Atlassof, in 1697, took the first steps in the conquest of
+Kamchatka the Russians were already known to the inhabitants. Long
+before him Fedotof and a few comrades had made their way into the
+country and intermarried with native women. They had been held in great
+honour and almost deified as being evidently of a superior race. For
+some time it was supposed that no human hand could hurt them, but this
+belief was rudely shattered when two of the demigods quarrelled and
+fought, and one wounding the other, the blood flowed. That flow of blood
+was fatal, for the natives, judging that they were but ordinary flesh,
+took an early opportunity of wiping them out, the name of their leader
+being still traceable in that of the Fedotcha River on the banks of
+which they had lived.
+
+The Kamchadales had other tales to tell of visitors from the east and
+south, and Atlassof himself discovered on the River Itcha a Japanese who
+had been wrecked on the coast two years before, from whom he learnt of
+islands innumerable. But there were no ships on the Pacific coast of
+Siberia, and nothing in the way of discovery could be done until 1714,
+when there arrived at Ochotsk a detachment of sailors and shipwrights
+despatched thither overland. According to one of the sailors, Henry
+Bush, a Dutchman, the carpenters built a good durable vessel some fifty
+feet long which was ready for sea in 1716 when the first voyage was
+undertaken. The coast of Kamchatka was made near the River Itcha, and
+sailing south they reached the Kompakova, where they wintered and found
+the whale that had in its body the harpoon of European workmanship
+marked with Roman letters, mentioned by Scoresby. Bush returned to
+Ochotsk in July, to be sent in the following year to discover the
+Shantar Islands, and next year, 1718, the Kuriles; thus venturing into
+the Pacific beyond Cape Lopatka.
+
+The last of these expeditions was due to the direct order of Peter the
+Great, who, knowing nothing of Deschnef, and finding the sea open to the
+north, resolved on a voyage in that direction, his holograph
+instructions to Admiral Apraxin being: "One or two boats with decks to
+be built at Kamchatka, or at any other convenient place, with which
+inquiry should be made relative to the northerly coasts, to see whether
+they are not contiguous with America, since their termination is not yet
+known." Peter died, and the Empress Catherine, carrying out these
+instructions in their fullest meaning, began her reign with an order for
+the expedition.
+
+Veit Bering, Dane by birth and sailor by trade, had voyaged to the
+Indies, east and west, and, like many other men of enterprise, had
+entered the Russian service at Peter's invitation. He had served with
+distinction in the Cronstadt fleet in the war against the Swedes, and,
+being in good repute for his knowledge of ships and their handling, was
+appointed to the command of the most remarkable Arctic enterprise on
+record. Just as Nicholas ruled a line and ordered a railway to be built
+there, so did Catherine in the same imperial way order an exploring
+expedition, and it was done. But it meant building the ship from the
+trees of the forest on the coast of the Pacific and carrying the
+materials and stores—everything but the timber—right across the Russian
+empire in the days when for thousands of miles there were not even
+roads.
+
+[Illustration: THE FACE OF THE FUR SEAL]
+
+Bering's lieutenants were Martin Spangberg and Alexei Tschirikof. With
+them and the rest of the expedition he left St. Petersburg on the 5th of
+February, 1725. During that year they got as far as the Ilim, where they
+wintered. In the spring of 1726 they sailed down the Lena to Yakutsk,
+where they parted company for a time owing to the difficulties of the
+route to Ochotsk, the way not being passable in summer with wagons, or
+in winter with sledges, on account of the marshes and rocky ground. So
+Spangberg set out, working along the rivers Aldan, Maia, and Judoma,
+with part of the provisions and heavy naval stores, while Bering
+followed overland through uninhabited country with more stores on
+horses, and Tschirikof remained to collect still more and follow in the
+track of his commander.
+
+Bering reached Ochotsk first. Spangberg was frozen up in the Judoma, and
+thence he walked to Ochotsk with the most necessary materials; but he
+suffered so much from hunger on the way that he had to support life by
+eating leather bags, straps, and shoes, and did not reach Bering till
+the 1st of January, 1727, nearly two years after leaving St. Petersburg.
+In the beginning of February he returned to the Judoma and brought away
+about half of his lading, the other half being left for a third journey,
+which he made from and to Ochotsk on horses. Meanwhile Tschirikof was
+toiling along from Yakutsk, and did not arrive to complete the party
+until the 30th of July.
+
+On arrival Bering had to build a vessel to take his most necessary naval
+stores and his shipbuilders across the sea of Ochotsk to Bolscheretzkoi,
+which, in her, he reached on the 2nd of September. From here he followed
+the shipwrights, who went on ahead to fell the trees, taking with them
+the provisions and stores, over the backbone of the isthmus and down the
+Kamchatka River to the mouth, a distance of some two hundred miles, the
+journey being very slow on account of the travelling being by
+dog-sledge. In short, it was not until the 4th of April, 1728, that is,
+more than three years after leaving St. Petersburg, that it was possible
+to put on the stocks the vessel in which the voyage to the north was to
+be made. But she took only three months to build, being launched on the
+10th of July, when she was named the _Gabriel_.
+
+Laden with stores for forty men during a year's voyage, she put to sea
+ten days afterwards, Bering keeping close to the coast so that he could
+map it as he went. On the 10th of August he was off the island of St.
+Lawrence, which he so named, as it was the day of that saint. In a day
+or two he had passed the East Cape without seeing the American coast,
+and had entered the Arctic Circle. And on the 15th he was well through
+the strait, out in the Arctic Ocean, in 67° 18´ off Serdze Kamen, a
+promontory behind which the coast trended to the west, as the Chukches
+had told him it did; and he assumed, and rightly so, though he had not
+gone far enough to prove it, that there was no land connection between
+Asia and America. Whereupon, as he had in his opinion accomplished his
+mission, seeing no need for wintering in those parts, he put the
+_Gabriel_ about and was back in the Kamchatka River on the 20th of
+September, after a voyage of seven weeks in a vessel that took three
+months to build on a spot that took over three years to reach—the plan
+of campaign being much the same as that in which a mountain stronghold
+is advanced on across a desert, besieged for a few days, and captured by
+assault.
+
+[Illustration: THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS]
+
+After wintering, Bering went off next year on a voyage due east in
+search of reported land, but, after some hundred and thirty miles out,
+he was blown back, and, rounding the south end of Kamchatka, put in at
+the River Bolschaia; thence he crossed to Ochotsk, whence he started for
+St. Petersburg, where he arrived after an absence of five years.
+Catherine was dead and another empress reigned in her stead, who was
+pleased and satisfied if no one else was, and the 21st of February,
+1733, saw him starting again in the same laborious fashion to arrange
+other voyages as part of a great scheme for the exploration of Northern
+and North-eastern Asia. Some of these expeditions on the north coast
+have already been mentioned; Bering's particular task was to send
+Spangberg in search of Japan, while he and Tschirikof, in separate
+ships, went eastward to America. More stores and provisions went
+overland across Siberia than before; Spangberg got again frozen up on
+the Judoma and had to continue on foot to Ochotsk, where he found plenty
+of food owing to Bering having sent on ahead, in case of any such
+trouble, a hundred horses, each of them laden with meal. In June, 1738,
+Spangberg, in two newly-built vessels and the _Gabriel_, was off to
+Japan, to reach the Kuriles and return to winter in Kamchatka; but next
+year he arrived there all well and found to his astonishment that the
+Japanese knew as much about maps as he did. He was still more astonished
+on his return to be told by those high in office at St. Petersburg that
+he could not possibly have been there as they had not got it on their
+maps where he said it was, and, consequently, he was to go where he had
+been as soon as he could to make sure. He started on this voyage of
+verification, but circumstances were against him and he did not reach
+there; and his Japanese trip remained discredited until the Russian
+geographers knew better. His voyage thither had, however, used such a
+stock of provisions that it was two years before the deficiency could be
+made up, and it was actually the 4th of September, 1740, seven and a
+half years after leaving St. Petersburg, when Bering, in the
+specially-built _St. Peter_, and Tschirikof, in her sister the _St.
+Paul_, got off outward bound to America.
+
+In about three weeks they were at Awatcha Bay on the east of Kamchatka,
+anchored in the fine harbour named Petropaulovsk after the two ships,
+and here they had to stay for the winter, so that they did not leave
+Russian territory until the 4th of the following June. A few days out
+the ships were separated in a fog and storm, and the _St. Paul_ reached
+the American coast first, at Kruzof Island on the western shore of Sitka
+Sound. The _St. Peter_ three days afterwards, on the 18th of July,
+drifted to the coast more to the northward, at Cape St. Elias near the
+mighty mountain of that name. In this neighbourhood amid much fog Bering
+stayed six weeks until he was blown out to sea, when, his men beginning
+to die from scurvy, he resolved to return to Kamchatka. It was a voyage
+of misfortune in a continual downfall, the men in want, misery, and
+sickness, continuously at work in the cold and wet, becoming fewer and
+fewer, so that there were not enough to work the ship properly. It ended
+on one of the Commander Islands by the vessel being lifted by the sea
+clear over a reef into calm water. Bering died—the island is named after
+him—and the survivors of the crew, building a boat from the materials of
+the _St. Peter_, arrived at Petropaulovsk on the 27th of August,
+bringing with them a quantity of sea-otter skins, which did more for
+discovery in those seas than any imperial expedition.
+
+[Illustration: DRIVING THE FUR SEAL]
+
+As the sable had brought about the conquest of Siberia, so did the
+sea-otter lead to the seizure of the islands of the Bering Sea and the
+coasts of Alaska. Three years after the return of the survivors of the
+_St. Peter_, Nevodtsikof wintered on one of the Aleutian Islands, and in
+a few years the fur-hunters were at their exterminating work over the
+whole chain. In time the fur-seal attracted as much attention, and, with
+Pribylov's discovery, in 1786, of its rookeries on the islands named
+after him, the trade became of such increasing importance as to endanger
+in our time the peace of the world. Every one has heard of the wonderful
+haunts and habits of that strange eared seal which seems to have come
+from the south through the tropics to breed in the coldest limit of its
+range, now almost entirely on the Pribylovs and the Commanders; how it
+is pursued in skin boats and every sort of craft, and scared in long
+lines to slaughter by clapping of boards and bones and waving of flags
+and opening and shutting of gingham umbrellas, until it promises to
+become as extinct as Steller's sea-cow or as rare as the sea-otter.
+
+Following Bering on the way to the north came Captain James Cook, in
+H.M.S. _Resolution_, who gave Bering's name to the strait. Cook sighted
+Mount St. Elias in May, 1778, and, cruising slowly along the coast with
+many discoveries and much accurate surveying, was off, and named, Cape
+Prince of Wales, the western extremity of America, on the 9th of August.
+He then crossed the strait and plied back until on the 18th he sighted
+and named Icy Cape in 70° 29´. Close to the edge of the ice, which was
+as compact as a wall, and seemed to be ten or twelve feet high at the
+least, he sought persistently for a passage through, but none was to be
+found; and after reaching 70° 6´ in 196° 42´ (163° 18´ W.) on the 19th,
+he turned westward to the Asiatic coast, along which he went until he
+sighted and named Cape North, as already stated. Then, blocked by ice,
+east, north, and west, he returned, passing Cape Serdze Kamen (Bering's
+farthest) and naming East Cape, confirming Bering's observation that it
+was the most easterly point of Asia.
+
+On Cook's death at Hawaii Captain Charles Clerke, of the accompanying
+vessel H.M.S. _Discovery_, took command of the expedition and carried
+out Cook's intention of making another effort during the following year.
+The ice conditions were, however, worse. The two ships found the ice
+block further south, and as impenetrable as before, and Clerke's highest
+was 70° 33´ on the American side, on the 19th of July. As it was Cook's
+last voyage, so it was Clerke's. He was in a bad way with consumption,
+and continued his work in the north, though, under the special
+circumstances and being in command, he could at any time have given up
+the obviously hopeless attempt and left for a more genial climate, in
+which he would at least have had a chance of longer life; but, remaining
+at his duty, he died at sea on the 22nd of August, and was buried at
+Petropaulovsk.
+
+[Illustration: FUR SEALS AT SEA]
+
+Captain Beechey, in H.M.S. _Blossom_, passed through the strait in 1826
+when sent north from the Pacific with a view of meeting with his old
+commander, Franklin, then on his second land journey. Beechey took the
+ship to Icy Cape, whence on the 17th of August he despatched the barge
+under the master, Thomas Elson, to survey the coast to the
+north-eastward as far as he could go in three weeks, there and back.
+Elson reached his farthest on the 25th at a spit of land jutting out
+several miles from the more regular coast-line, the width of the neck
+not exceeding a mile and a half, broadest at its extremity, with several
+frozen lakes on it, and a village, whose natives proved so troublesome
+that it was thought unsafe to land. This was Point Barrow, in 71° 23´
+31˝, longitude 156° 21´ 30˝, the northernmost land on the western half
+of the American continent. To the eastward curved a wide bay—named Elson
+Bay by Beechey—the shore-line of which joined on to the ice pack that
+encircled the horizon. Here he was within a hundred and sixty miles of
+where Franklin had turned back a week before. Though Beechey did not
+meet Franklin he did most useful work in these parts, for by him the
+whole coast was surveyed between Point Barrow and Point Rodney, to the
+south of Prince of Wales Cape.
+
+Franklin was also the cause of the appearance of the next British
+expedition in the strait. This was in 1848, Captain Henry Kellett, in
+H.M.S. _Herald_, with Commander Thomas Moore in H.M.S. _Plover_, forming
+the western detachment of the first series of search expeditions. There
+were three detachments, one to follow the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ from the
+eastward, another under John Richardson to descend the Mackenzie and
+search the northern coast, the other coming in from the west to meet the
+ships should they have made the passage. On this duty the _Herald_ and
+_Plover_ were hereabouts for three seasons, the _Plover_ wintering, the
+_Herald_ going south when the navigation closed.
+
+In October, 1826, Beechey had buried a barrel of flour for Franklin on
+the sandy point of Chamisso Island, ample directions for finding it
+being cut and painted on the rock, and to call the attention of the
+party to the spot the name of the _Blossom_ was painted on the cliffs of
+Puffin Island. When the _Herald_ was at Chamisso Island in 1849 Captain
+Kellett searched for this flour and found it. A considerable space was
+cleared round the cask, its chimes were freed, and, only adhering to the
+sand by the two lower bilge staves, it required the united strength of
+two boats' crews, with a parbuckle and a large spar as a lever, to free
+it altogether. The sand was frozen so hard that it emitted sparks with
+every blow of the pickaxe. The cask itself was perfectly sound and the
+hoops good, and out of the 336 lb. of flour which it contained, 175 lb.
+were as sweet and well tasted as any he had with him; so good indeed was
+it that Captain Kellett gave a dinner party, at which all the pies and
+puddings were made of this flour.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  THE PARKA OF THE ALASKAN INNUITS
+
+  (THE SHORTER COAT IS THAT WORN BY THE MEN)
+]
+
+After the dinner party, on the 18th of July, the two vessels started for
+the north, being joined as soon as they stood from the anchorage by
+Robert Shedden in his yacht the _Nancy Dawson_, who at his own
+initiative had come up from Hong Kong to join in the search. From
+Wainwright Inlet Kellett sent off the boats under Lieutenant Pullen, two
+of which made the journey along the northern coast and up the Mackenzie,
+their crews thence making their way home eastwards to York Factory.
+
+When Kellett was about to commence his observations at the inlet he drew
+a semicircle on the sand from water's edge to water's edge, and placed
+the boats' noses between its points. The natives seemed to understand
+the meaning of this line. Not one of them attempted to overstep it, and
+they squatted down and remained perfectly quiet and silent. When a
+stranger arrived they shouted to him, and he no sooner comprehended the
+directions than he crept rather than walked to the boundary, and
+squatted among the rest. Afterwards they danced and sang and played
+football with the seamen—who stood no chance with them at that game—and
+when they had gone off, after all this good behaviour, it was discovered
+that they had been picking the pockets of some of the party, one losing
+a handkerchief, another a glove, and Commander Moore a box of percussion
+caps.
+
+The boat party had a similar experience, without the pocket-picking.
+Reaching Point Barrow they landed to make observations and look about
+for traces of the visit of the _Blossom's_ boat, which they did not
+find. Their interpreter did not understand the tribe, and recourse was
+had to the universal language of signs. "We made a rude model of a
+vessel," says Lieutenant Hooper, "and performed sundry antics to signify
+what we were in search of, but could elicit no information, and so set
+to work at obtaining observations. We concluded that these people must
+have been entirely misunderstood. Far from evidencing any disposition to
+assail or molest us, they were most docile and well-behaved, agreeably
+disappointing us in their conduct. When we arrived on the hillock, all,
+big and little, sat down around us, and I amused myself by filling their
+pipes, becoming a great favourite immediately in consequence. They had
+among them a great many knives, which we feared would influence the
+magnet. Mr. Pullen therefore kindly drew off the crowd to a distance,
+distributing among them tobacco, beads, snuff, etc., and much to their
+credit be it said, there was neither confusion nor contention, each
+taking his allotted portion, and seeming delighted with his good
+fortune. They took care not to come near the instruments, finding that
+we did not like their approach; one or two indeed came towards us, but
+retired instantly when laughingly motioned back, and this should be
+considered as a display of great forbearance, inasmuch as their
+curiosity must have been highly excited. When the observations were
+concluded they were allowed to inspect the objects of their wonder; then
+fast and thickly to utterance flew their expressions of astonishment at
+the—to them—novel and splendid instruments. The trough of quicksilver,
+liquid and restless, especially attracted them, pleasure and wonder were
+evident at the simple view, but when one or two had permission to take
+some from the dish, and found it ever elude the grasp, their
+astonishment knew no bounds."
+
+[Illustration: THE FROZEN YUKON]
+
+From Wainwright Inlet, which is between Icy Cape and Point Barrow, the
+_Herald_ sailed along the pack to the westward, reaching her highest
+north, 72° 51´, in 163° 48´, and, on the 17th of August, Kellett landed
+on and named Herald Island in 71° 17´ 45˝, a mass of granite towering
+nine hundred feet above the sea, under five miles long and three broad,
+inhabited mainly by black and white divers and yielding the collector
+only four flowering plants. Further to the west he sighted Wrangell
+Island, sailed past and named by the American whaling captain, Thomas
+Long, in August, 1867.
+
+In 1881 Wrangell Island was thoroughly explored by another search
+expedition, that of Captain Berry in the American ship _Rodgers_, who
+was in these parts looking out for traces of the _Jeannette_. He found
+it to be, not a continent as some had supposed, but an island forty
+miles broad and sixty-six miles long, about thirty miles from Herald
+Island and eighty from the Siberian coast; and on it, as on all these
+Siberian islands and the coast of Alaska, remains of the mammoth were
+found. Examining the ice to the northward, he reached 73° 44´ in 171°
+30´, being fifty-three miles further north than Kellett and twenty-four
+miles further than Collinson in 1850. Returning from the north to winter
+quarters he achieved another Arctic record in his ship being destroyed
+by fire in St. Lawrence Bay on the Asiatic side of Bering Strait.
+
+Opposite this, on the American side, from Cape York downwards the land
+trends away to the south-east to Norton Sound, in which are the mouths
+of the Yukon, one of the mightiest rivers of the world, its volume being
+as great as, or according to some writers greater than, the Mississippi.
+In a course of two thousand miles it runs northwards to the Arctic
+Circle at the now abandoned trading post of Fort Yukon, where its waters
+are reinforced by its tributary, the Rat or Porcupine, coming in from
+the north-east, and given their seaward direction to the south-west. Up
+this vast waterway in 1866 went Frederick Whymper and William H. Dall.
+
+Beginning with a sledge journey of a hundred and seventy miles from
+Unalachleet, they struck the Yukon on the 10th of November, gliding down
+a high steep bank on to it. Hardly a patch of clear ice was to be seen,
+the snow covering the whole extent. Accumulations of hummocks had in
+many places been forced on the surface before the river had become
+thoroughly frozen, and the water was still open, running swiftly in a
+few isolated streaks. From bank to bank was not less than a mile, the
+stream flowing among several islands. As they sledged up the river the
+dreary expanse of snow made them almost forget they were on a sheet of
+ice; and, as it winds considerably, their course was often from bank to
+bank to cut off corners and bends. Many cliffs abutted on the stream,
+and islands of sombre green forest studded it in all directions.
+
+[Illustration: ASCENDING THE YUKON]
+
+On the 15th they reached Nulato, six hundred miles from the mouth, where
+they spent the winter. Here they found a curious method of fishing
+practised all through the season. Early in the winter large piles or
+stakes had been driven down into the bed of the river, and to these were
+affixed wickerwork traps like eel-pots on a large scale, oblong holes
+being kept open over them by frequently breaking the ice. This was cold
+work, for the temperature ran low. "In November and December," says
+Whymper, "I succeeded in making sketches of the fort and neighbourhood
+when the temperature was as low as thirty degrees below zero. It was
+done, it need not be said, with difficulty, and often by instalments.
+Between every five strokes of the pencil, I ran about to exercise myself
+or went into our quarters for warmth. The use of water-colours was of
+course impracticable—except when I could keep a pot of warm water on a
+small fire by my side—a thing done by me on two or three occasions, when
+engaged at a distance from the post. Even inside the house the spaces
+near the windows, as well as the floor, were often below freezing point.
+Once, forgetful of the fact, I mixed some colours up with water that had
+just stood near the oven, and wetting a small brush commenced to apply
+it to my drawing block. Before it reached the paper it was covered with
+a skin of ice, and simply scratched the surface, and I had to give up
+for the time being."
+
+On the 12th of May the Nulato River broke up and ran out on the top of
+the Yukon ice for more than a mile upstream; and in a few days the ice
+of the main river was coming down in a steady flow at a rate of five or
+six knots, surging into mountains as it met with obstacles, and grinding
+and crashing and carrying all before it, whole trees and banks being
+swept away on its victorious march, the water rising fourteen feet above
+the winter level. On the 26th Whymper and Dall started with two Indians
+and a steersman in a skin canoe, the river still full of ice, and
+navigation difficult. They had proceeded but a short distance when they
+came to bends, round which logs and ice were sweeping at a great rate,
+so that it was necessary for a man to stand in the bows of the canoe,
+with a pole shod at one end with iron, to push away the masses of ice
+and tangle of driftwood. They could often feel the ice and logs rolling
+and scraping under the canoe; and it was not the thickness of a plank
+between them and destruction, but that of a piece of sealskin a tenth of
+an inch thick.
+
+On the 7th of June they were two hundred and forty miles above Nulato,
+at the junction of the Tanana, the furthest point reached by the
+Russians, and soon were in a part abounding with moose owing to their
+seeking refuge in the stream from the millions of mosquitoes. Here the
+Indian hunters were busy, not wasting powder and shot, but manœuvring
+round the swimming deer in their birch-bark canoes until they tired the
+victim out; and then stealthily approaching, securing it with a stab
+from their knives.
+
+After twenty-six laborious days against the stream they reached Fort
+Yukon, the then furthest outpost of the Hudson's Bay Company, six
+hundred miles from Nulato, and, of course, managed and victualled from
+the east. Here the amount of peltry was astonishing, the fur-room of the
+fort containing thousands of marten skins, hanging from the beams, and
+huge piles of common furs lying around, together with a considerable
+number of foxes, black and silver-grey, and many skins of the wolverine,
+thought so much more of by the Indians than by any one else that they
+are used as a medium of exchange. All these furs were brought in from
+the surrounding districts, far and near, and traded for goods, as widely
+distributed, among the native tribes whose representatives gathered at
+the fort in such a miscellaneous crowd that perhaps half a dozen
+dialects were heard in a morning.
+
+[Illustration: MOOSE-HUNTING ON THE YUKON]
+
+In the crowd the busiest and most prominent were the primitive Tananas,
+gay with feathers and painted faces, looking like survivals among the
+local Kutchins and the Kutchins of the upper river, the Birch River men,
+and the Rat River men by whom the skins were brought from the natives of
+the northern coast, as were the messages from the Franklin search
+parties. Indians were all of these, distinguishable by their wearing the
+hyaqua or tooth-shell (_Dentalium entalis_) through the septum of the
+nose, while the Mahlemut wears a bone on each side of the mouth, a
+practice common with all the Innuit, or Eskimo tribes, from the Alaska
+Peninsula to Point Barrow, unless some other form of labret happens to
+be the local fashion.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII
+                         THE AMERICAN MAINLAND
+
+  The Hudson's Bay Company—Samuel Hearne—His journey down the
+    Coppermine River—The North West Fur Company—Sir Alexander
+    Mackenzie—His journey down the Mackenzie—Sir John Franklin's first
+    land journey—Fort Enterprise—Back's journey to Athabasca—The
+    rapids of the Coppermine—Point Turnagain reached—The Wilberforce
+    Falls—The terrible crossing of the Barren Grounds—Franklin's
+    second land journey—Richardson's voyage to the eastward—Discovers
+    Wollaston Land and Dolphin and Union Strait—Franklin's voyage to
+    Return Reef—Back's journey down the Great Fish River—Discovers
+    Montreal Island and King William Land—The Parry Falls—Sir George
+    Simpson—Peter Warren Dease and Thomas Simpson—Exploration of the
+    coast between Return Reef and Point Barrow—Simpson advances beyond
+    Point Turnagain and discovers Victoria Land and Dease Strait—Their
+    second voyage down the Coppermine—Discovery of Simpson
+    Strait—Reach the Great Fish River—Their farthest east—Complete the
+    survey of the northern coast between Boothia and Bering Strait—The
+    first to find the North-West Passage.
+
+
+For two elks and two black beavers, paid yearly whensoever the King of
+England entered their estate, the Hudson's Bay Company were, in 1670,
+presented by Charles II with the northern part of the American mainland,
+thus ensuring an ample stretch of British territory along the passage to
+the South Sea. But the company soon ceased to be interested in any such
+passage, finding quite enough to do in developing the very profitable
+fur trade of their vast possessions. With the exception of John Knight's
+disastrous voyage to Marble Island in 1719, whatever attempts at
+discoveries there may have been were kept quiet for fear of aiding their
+rivals the French to the south, who were fostering the trade in the
+region of the great lakes; and not until the French dominion ended in
+1763 and the Frenchmen's interests were passing to an opposition British
+company was any effort made to explore the coast of the Polar Sea.
+
+[Illustration: MAHLEMUT MAN]
+
+Owing to Indian reports of rich deposits of native copper and an
+abundance of fur-bearing animals, Samuel Hearne, once a midshipman in
+the Royal Navy, was sent by the company in 1769 to explore to the west
+and north. After a journey of thirteen hundred miles to the west he
+found the Coppermine River and the Great Slave Lake, and he traced the
+river to its mouth and emerged on the northern shore, being the first
+known white man to see the Arctic Ocean between the Boothia Peninsula
+and Bering Strait. Among other things he was instructed to discover a
+north-west passage, and he certainly did something definite towards it
+by showing there was open water so much further west; but, though he
+suspected it, he was unable to prove that the northernmost point of the
+continent was in the unexplored country between the Coppermine and
+Hudson Bay.
+
+In 1783 the North West Fur Company was formally established, and after a
+severe struggle obtained, owing mainly to the efforts of Alexander
+Mackenzie, a fair share of the trade in the west of the region
+controlled by the Hudson's Bay people. Mackenzie was at Fort Chippewyan,
+on Lake Athabasca, and thence he was sent in 1789 on an exploring voyage
+to the north. In four birch-bark canoes, one of his party being an
+Indian known as English Chief, who had been with Hearne on his journey
+to the Coppermine, he started down the Great Slave River into the Great
+Slave Lake. After spending twenty days in crossing and exploring this
+vast sheet of water, he entered the large river now bearing his name,
+and down it amid many dangers and difficulties, overcome by skill,
+persuasion, force, good humour or good fortune, he reached the sea on
+the 14th of July. He camped on Whale Island, the name being given owing
+to one of the men sighting a great many animals in the water, which he
+at first supposed to be pieces of ice. "However," says Mackenzie, "I was
+awakened to resolve the doubts which had taken place respecting this
+extraordinary appearance. I immediately perceived that they were whales;
+and having ordered the canoe to be prepared, we embarked in pursuit of
+them. It was indeed a very wild and unreflecting enterprise, and it was
+a very fortunate circumstance that we failed in our attempt to overtake
+them, as a stroke from the tail of one of these enormous fish would have
+dashed the canoe to pieces. We may, perhaps, have been indebted to the
+foggy weather for our safety, as it prevented us from continuing our
+pursuit. Our guide informed us that they are the same kind of fish which
+are the principal food of the Eskimos, and they were frequently seen as
+large as our canoe. The part of them which appeared above the water was
+altogether white, and they were much larger than the largest
+porpoise"—being evidently belugas (_Delphinapterus leucas_).
+
+Satisfied with a short canoe voyage on the sea, he returned to the river
+and made his way back to the fort, arriving there in the middle of
+September. He had thus proved the existence of the sea twenty degrees
+further west than Hearne had done. Three years afterwards he started on
+his notable journey to the Pacific at Cape Menzies, facing Princess
+Royal Island, being the first white man to cross the Rocky Mountains,
+and, as he had reached Fort Chippewyan by way of Montreal, the first to
+cross North America above the Gulf of Mexico.
+
+Another of Hearne's Indians accompanied Franklin on his first land
+journey in 1819, the object of which was to explore the coast between
+Hearne's farthest and Hudson Bay, thus filling in the gap in which the
+assumed northern promontory was to be found. Franklin, who was sent out
+by the British Government, had with him, as surgeon and naturalist, Dr.,
+afterwards Sir, John Richardson, to whom as a boy Robert Burns had lent
+Spenser's _Faerie Queene_, a naval surgeon with a distinguished record,
+who while on half-pay had studied botany and mineralogy at Edinburgh.
+Like another member of the expedition, George Back, who had been with
+Franklin in the _Trent_ and _Dorothea_ voyage, he was destined to gain a
+great reputation among Arctic explorers. With Back was another
+midshipman, Robert Hood, whose fate it was to be murdered by an Iroquois
+half-breed who, through want of food, betook himself to cannibalism.
+
+Landing at York Factory, in Hudson Bay, after an exciting voyage, on the
+30th of August, Franklin, disregarding local advice, pushed on across
+the continent during the winter, arriving at Fort Chippewyan on the 26th
+of March, the losses and trying experiences of the long journey being
+mainly due to the rigours of the climate at that time of year; and
+thence, in July, the party followed Mackenzie's route to Fort Providence
+on Great Slave Lake. Here they were joined by Mr. Wentzel, of the North
+West Company.
+
+Starting for the north on the 2nd of August in four canoes, they were
+joined next day at the mouth of the Yellow Knife by a band of Indians,
+under a chief named Akaitcho, in seventeen canoes. The Indians were to
+guide the party and supply them with food by hunting and fishing on the
+way, but game and fish proved scarce—and scarcer owing to the poorness
+of the Indian marksmanship—provisions were short and portages long, so
+that the journey, which soon led across a series of lakes, was pursued
+under toilsome and hazardous conditions until it ended at Winter Lake in
+64° 30´, where it became necessary to winter in a log house built by
+Wentzel, and named Fort Enterprise. The site was delightful: a hillside
+amid trees three feet in diameter at the roots, the view in front
+bounded at a distance of three miles by round-backed hills, to the
+eastward and westward the Winter and Roundrock Lakes connected by the
+Winter River, its banks clothed with pines and ornamented with a
+profusion of mosses, lichens, and shrubs.
+
+[Illustration: WINTER TRAVELLING ON THE GREAT SLAVE LAKE]
+
+In a few weeks, however, the weather became so severe that, according to
+Franklin, the trees froze to their very centres and became as hard as
+stones, on which some of the axes were broken daily, until but one was
+left. And though at first the reindeer appeared in numbers, their visits
+lasted only for a short time, and the party, short of tobacco for the
+Canadian voyageurs and of ammunition for the Indians, had so poor an
+outlook that it became necessary to accept Back's proposal to return to
+the forts and bring on supplies which had not been forwarded as
+promised; the failure being due to the journey, unlike the successful
+ventures of Hearne and Mackenzie, being pushed on regardless of climatal
+conditions, and, in some degree, to the rivalry between the two fur
+companies which were amalgamated while the expedition was in progress.
+
+Back set out accompanied by Wentzel and two Canadians and two Indians
+and their wives, crossing lakes frozen just hard enough to bear them,
+going wide circuits to avoid those which were open, amid mist and fog
+and storm, over rugged, bare country, through dense woods and
+snow-covered swamps, rafting across a river with pine branches for
+paddles, until Fort Providence was reached. From here he sent back
+Belanger with letters and a hundred bullets he procured on loan.
+Belanger arrived at Fort Enterprise on the 23rd of October alone; he had
+walked constantly for the last six-and-thirty hours through a storm, his
+locks were matted with snow, and he was encrusted with ice from head to
+foot, so that he was scarcely recognised when he slipped in through the
+doorway.
+
+At Fort Providence Back had to wait until the Great Slave Lake was
+frozen over. On the 18th of November he observed two mock moons at equal
+distances from the central one, the whole encircled by a halo, the
+colour of the inner edge of the large circle a light red inclining to a
+faint purple; and two days afterwards two parhelia were observable, with
+a halo, the colours of the inner edge of the circle a bright carmine and
+red-lake intermingled with a rich yellow forming a purplish orange, the
+outer edge being a pale gamboge. On the 7th of December he left,
+sledging across the lake before the wind, for the North West fort on
+Moose Deer Island, and finding at the Hudson's Bay fort, also on the
+island, five packages of belated supplies and two Eskimo interpreters on
+their way to Franklin.
+
+Here he was told that nothing could be spared at Fort Chippewyan, that
+goods had never been transported so far in the winter season, that the
+same dogs could not go and return, and that from having to walk
+constantly on snow-shoes he would suffer a great deal of misery and
+fatigue. Nevertheless he undertook the journey in dog-sledges with a
+Canadian and an Indian, leaving Wentzel behind. At times the weather was
+so cold that they had to run to keep themselves warm, and, owing to the
+snow, the feet of the dogs became so raw that an endeavour was made to
+fit them with shoes. With legs and ankles so swollen that it was painful
+to drag the snow-shoes after him, Back hurried on, reaching Fort
+Chippewyan on the 2nd of January to find that he and all Franklin's
+party had been reported to have been killed by Eskimos. Here he had to
+wait a month, and then, with an instalment of what he wanted, he set out
+on his return, arriving at Fort Enterprise on St. Patrick's Day after a
+memorable journey of over a thousand miles.
+
+[Illustration: CROSSING POINT LAKE]
+
+During his absence he was told that the cold had been so severe that
+Hood had found accurate observing difficult owing to the sextant having
+changed its error and the glasses lost their parallelism from the
+contraction of the brass, a circumstance, combined with the
+crystallisation of the mercury of the artificial horizon, that might
+account for some of the diversity of results obtained by Arctic
+navigators. And Richardson had to tell him of an early discovery that
+when fishing and the hands get cold by hauling in the line, the best way
+to warm them is to put them in the water; and how the fish had frozen as
+they were taken out of the water so that by a blow or two of the hatchet
+they were easily split open, leaving the intestines removable in one
+lump, and yet that these much-frozen fish retained their vitality so
+that he had seen a thawed carp recover so far as to leap about with much
+vigour after it had been frozen for thirty-six hours.
+
+On the 14th of June Fort Enterprise was left, and on the 25th the
+expedition began to cross Point Lake on the way to the Coppermine, the
+river being reached through Rocknest Lake on the 30th. Down the river
+they paddled, taking the rapids as they went—in one place three miles of
+them on end. "We were carried along with extraordinary rapidity,
+shooting over large stones, upon which a single stroke would have been
+destructive to the canoes; and we were also in danger of breaking them,
+from the want of the long poles which lie along their bottoms and
+equalise their cargoes, as they plunged very much, and on one occasion
+the first canoe was almost filled with the waves; but there was no
+receding after we had once launched into the stream, and our safety
+depended on the skill and dexterity of the bowmen and steersmen."
+
+There were rapids day by day affording almost every possible chance of
+wreck except that due to driftwood; the two worst being one where the
+stream descends for three-quarters of a mile in a deep but narrow and
+crooked channel which it has cut through the foot of a hill of five
+hundred or six hundred feet high, confined between perpendicular cliffs
+resembling stone walls varying in height from eighty to a hundred and
+fifty feet, on which lies a mass of fine sand; the body of the river
+pent within this narrow chasm dashing furiously round the projecting
+rocky columns as it discharges itself at the northern extremity in a
+sheet of foam. The other being where the river flows between lofty stone
+cliffs, reddish clay rocks and shelving banks of white clay, and is full
+of shoals. Franklin's people had entered this rapid before they were
+aware of it, and the steepness of the cliffs prevented them from
+landing, so that they owed their preservation to the swiftness of their
+descent. Two waves made a complete breach over the canoes; a third would
+probably have filled and overset them, which would have proved fatal to
+all on board. This Escape Rapid, as it was named, was, as it were, the
+gate into the territory of the Eskimos who were soon met with in small
+parties all the way down to the sea. It was passed on the 15th of July;
+three days afterwards the Indians bade farewell to the expedition in the
+morning, and in the afternoon the canoes were afloat on the Arctic
+Ocean.
+
+[Illustration: KUTCHIN INDIANS]
+
+From the river mouth Wentzel returned, as arranged, with despatches,
+taking with him a number of voyageurs and others, thus reducing the
+party to twenty in all in two canoes. In these Franklin, nearly two
+years after he had landed in America, went on his voyage to the eastward
+to enter at last on the work he had been sent to do. But the survey of
+this lofty rocky coast was no easy matter; the sea was rough, the
+weather tempestuous, the canoes were lightly built and only suited for
+river work, and, in short, it was a most risky enterprise. Tracing the
+shore of Coronation Gulf and coasting up and out of Bathurst Inlet,
+Franklin reached Point Turnagain in 109° 25´ W., at the entrance of
+Dease Strait, on the 16th of August, 1821. Though the voyage had
+extended over only six and a half degrees of longitude, he had sailed
+555 geographical miles; and then, as his resources did not permit of his
+going further or of his returning to the Coppermine, and in his own
+words "Our scanty stock of provisions rendering it necessary to make for
+a nearer place," he, on the 22nd, turned back to ascend the Hood River.
+
+Here they soon reached the Wilberforce Falls, beautiful and remarkable,
+but not easy of navigation. "In the evening," says Franklin in his
+journal, "we encamped at the lower end of a narrow chasm through which
+the river flows for upwards of a mile. The walls of this chasm are
+upwards of two hundred feet high, quite perpendicular, and in some
+places only a few yards apart. The river precipitates itself into it
+over a rock forming two magnificent and picturesque falls close to each
+other. The upper fall is about sixty feet high, and the lower one at
+least one hundred, but perhaps considerably more, for the narrowness of
+the chasm into which it fell prevented us from seeing its bottom and we
+could merely discern the top of the spray far beneath our feet. The
+lower fall is divided into two by an insulated column of rock which
+rises about forty feet above it."
+
+As the river above the falls appeared too rapid and shallow for the
+large canoes they were taken to pieces, and two smaller ones built from
+their materials. The voyage in these lasted but three days, when the
+river was abandoned as trending too far to the west, and the party,
+carrying the canoes, proceeded overland to Point Lake on their struggle
+of starvation across the Barren Grounds. For days they had nothing to
+eat but lichens—species of _Gyrophora_ or _Umbilicaria_ known as
+tripe-de-roche—a diet varied with leather, burnt bones and skins, an
+occasional ptarmigan, and, once, a musk ox, until they were so weak that
+when a herd of reindeer went strolling past they had not strength enough
+to shoot at them.
+
+The tragedy need not be lingered over. Back was again sent for help,
+and, finding no stores at Fort Enterprise, was on his way to Fort
+Providence when he fell in with Akaitcho, who at once hurried to the
+rescue; and on the 14th of July, 1822, Franklin, Richardson, Back, and
+Hepburn the seaman, who had behaved as a hero all through, returned to
+York Factory after a three years' journey, fraught with peril and
+horror, by land and water, of over six thousand three hundred statute
+miles.
+
+After he had been at home a year, Franklin suggested that another
+attempt should be made to survey the northern coast while Parry was at
+work in search of the North-West Passage. The suggestion was accepted.
+Accompanied by Richardson and Back, and by E. N. Kendall as assistant
+surveyor—who had been out with Captain Lyon in the same capacity—and by
+Thomas Drummond as assistant naturalist, he left Liverpool on the 26th
+of February, 1825.
+
+[Illustration: PREPARING AN ENCAMPMENT ON THE BARREN GROUNDS]
+
+Taught by experience, the expedition was better managed in every way.
+Instead of driving ahead regardless of the season or the trade routine,
+the ordinary conditions of local travel were kept in view throughout,
+and the results were more in proportion to the effort. Three boats were
+specially built at Woolwich on Franklin's design and under Buchan's
+superintendence. They were of mahogany with timbers of ash, both ends
+alike, steerable by oar or rudder, the largest 26 ft. by 5 ft. 4 ins.,
+the two others 24 ft. by 4 ft. 10 ins., and with them Colonel Pasley's
+portable boat, known as the _Walnut Shell_ from its shape, 9 ft. long
+and half as wide, with frames of ash fastened with thongs and covered
+with canvas. The canvas was "waterproofed by Mr. Macintosh, of
+Glasgow"—the first instance of its use—and for the first time also what
+we know as macintosh coats and overalls were issued as part of the
+outfit, the process having been patented in 1824.
+
+The boats and stores were sent on ahead by way of York Factory in 1824,
+and Franklin and his party, travelling by New York and the lakes, caught
+them up on the Methye River at sunrise on the 29th of June. With them
+were several old friends, not the least delighted being the two Eskimo
+interpreters, Augustus and Ooligbuck, who were to be of the utmost
+importance throughout. On the 8th of August they had got along so well
+that they were at the junction of the Bear Lake River with the
+Mackenzie. Here Back and Peter Warren Dease of the Hudson's Bay Company,
+who had joined the expedition to look after the local arrangements, were
+sent off to build a house to winter in on the banks of the Great Bear
+Lake, in Keith's Bay, where the river leaves it; Richardson also left to
+explore the northern shore of the lake, and Franklin and Kendall
+continuing down the Mackenzie reached the sea before the week was out in
+less than six months from their departure from Liverpool. And on the 5th
+of September they had returned upstream and were at their winter
+quarters at the new house on the lake, which Back had named Fort
+Franklin, to find that Richardson had been along the northern shore and
+noted as being the nearest point to the Coppermine the entrance of the
+river he had named after Dease, which was to be of so much service to
+him later on.
+
+During the winter another boat, the _Reliance_, was built on the lines
+of the _Lion_, the largest of the Woolwich boats, and leaving Dease to
+complete the stores for another comfortable winter, the expedition
+started on the 24th of June. At Point Separation, at the head of the
+Mackenzie delta, Franklin in the _Lion_ with Back in the _Reliance_—our
+old friend Robert Spinks being his coxswain—took the western arm, and
+Richardson in the _Dolphin_ and Kendall in the _Union_, carrying the
+_Walnut Shell_ with them, took the eastern arm.
+
+[Illustration: Yours faithfully John Richardson]
+
+Richardson, with a few more or less threatening encounters with the
+Eskimos, ending fairly well owing to Ooligbuck, and in constant danger
+of wreck avoided by careful navigation, rounded Cape Bathurst in 70° 36´
+and discovered Wollaston Land, the coast-line of which they left
+continuing to the east, when they reached Coronation Gulf and, on the
+8th of August, entered the Coppermine, and thus filled in the gap of
+nine hundred and two statute miles from Point Separation. Leaving the
+_Dolphin_ and _Union_ at Bloody Fall on that river, it being impossible
+to take them further, the expedition, carrying the _Walnut Shell_ with
+them, proceeded along the banks, but finding they had no use for the
+portable boat, owing to the shallowness of the stream, they soon
+abandoned it, and in 67° 13´, where the river is nearest to the
+north-eastern arm of Great Bear Lake, the Coppermine was left and the
+course laid across the Barren Grounds for Dease River. This was reached
+three days afterwards, Richardson being met at its mouth by Dease's
+people on the 24th of August.
+
+Franklin had similar experiences with the Eskimos, and was as deeply
+indebted to Augustus for his tact and bravery in dealing with them.
+Coasting along to the westward, hindered by ice, bad weather and fog,
+and tormented by mosquitoes, his progress was much slower than that of
+Richardson. Delayed for some days on or about Foggy Island, he had to
+give up his intention of reaching Bering Strait, and not knowing that
+Elson with the barge of the _Blossom_ had come as far east as Point
+Barrow, he gave the name of Cape Beechey to the westernmost headland in
+sight, and leaving Return Reef in 148° 52´ on the 18th of August, after
+covering six hundred and ten statute miles through parts not previously
+discovered, began his voyage back to Fort Franklin, where he arrived on
+the 21st of September. Meanwhile Richardson had gone off to explore the
+Great Slave Lake, whence Drummond had started on his journey among the
+Rockies; and, being unable to get away till another winter had passed,
+both Franklin and Richardson landed in England in September, 1827, after
+an important and fruitful expedition that had no death-roll.
+
+Back was again in these regions in 1833 on his expedition in search of
+Sir John Ross. Reaching the Great Slave Lake, he built Fort Reliance at
+its north-eastern corner and began the long winter there on the 5th of
+November. Soon afterwards Akaitcho put in an appearance, and expressed
+his intention—which he did his best to fulfil—of being of as much
+assistance as he could; and later on Augustus made his way across
+country to offer his services, but, either exhausted by suffering and
+privation, or caught in a snowstorm, he died alone near the Rivière à
+Jean.
+
+Temperatures ranging from 50 to 70 minus were of frequent occurrence,
+and, on one occasion Back, after washing his face within a yard of the
+fire, had his hair clotted with ice before he had time to dry it. Every
+animal was driven away from the neighbourhood by the cold, except a
+solitary raven which swept once round the house and then winged his
+flight to the westward. On the 25th of April a messenger arrived at the
+fort with the news of the safe return of Sir John Ross to England, but
+Back determined to proceed with the journey for exploring purposes,
+taking one boat instead of two, and, with Richard King the surgeon, and
+eight men, he started for the Great Fish River on the 8th of July.
+
+[Illustration: BACK'S JOURNEY DOWN THE GREAT FISH RIVER]
+
+The voyage was a hazardous and adventurous one. For five hundred and
+thirty geographical miles the river was found to run through an
+iron-ribbed country without a single tree on the whole line of its
+banks, expanding into fine large lakes with clear horizons, most
+embarrassing to the navigator, and broken into falls, cascades, and
+rapids, to the number of no less than eighty-three, pouring its waters
+into the Polar Sea in latitude 67° 11´ and longitude 94° 30´; so that
+his explorations on the northern coast were confined to a section
+further east than Point Turnagain.
+
+The expedition met with its greatest danger at Escape Rapid, between
+Lake Macdougall and Lake Franklin, on the 25th of July. Here the stream
+was broken by a mile of heavy and dangerous rapids. The boat was
+lightened, and every care taken to avoid accident; but so overwhelming
+was the rush and whirl of the water, that she, and consequently those in
+her, were twice in imminent peril of being plunged into one of the gulfs
+formed in the rocks and hollows. It was in one of these places, which
+are fall, rapid, and eddy within a few yards, that the boat owed its
+safety to an unintentional disobedience of the steersman's directions.
+
+The power of the water so far exceeded whatever had been witnessed on
+any of the other rivers that the precautions used elsewhere were weak
+and unavailing. McKay, the steersman, was endeavouring to clear a fall
+and some sunken rocks on the left, but the man to whom he spoke
+misunderstood him, and did exactly the reverse; and then, seeing the
+danger, the steersman swept the stern round; instantly the boat was
+caught by an eddy to the right, which, snapping an oar, twirled her
+irresistibly broadside on; so that for a moment it seemed uncertain
+whether the boat was to be hurled into the hollow of the fall, or dashed
+stern foremost on the sunken rocks. Of how it happened no account can be
+given, but her head swung inshore towards the beach and thereby gave an
+opportunity for some of the men to spring into the water and by their
+united strength rescue her from her perilous position. Had the man to
+whom the first order was given understood and acted on it no human power
+could have saved the crew from being buried in the abyss. Nor yet could
+any blame be justly attached to the steersman, who had never been so
+situated before and whose coolness and self-possession never in this
+imminent peril forsook him. At the awful moment of suspense, when one of
+the crew with less nerve than his companions began to cry aloud to
+Heaven for aid, McKay in a still louder voice exclaimed, "Is this a time
+for praying? Pull your starboard oar." Never could a reminder that
+_laborare est orare_ have been more opportune.
+
+On the 1st of August Montreal Island was reached. Nine days afterwards a
+log of driftwood, nine feet long and nine inches in diameter, jocularly
+described as a piece of the North Pole, was found on the beach, which,
+as there are no trees on the Fish River or the Coppermine, Captain Back
+was of opinion must have come from the Mackenzie and drifted eastward,
+so that he was on the main line of the land. The inference, confirmed by
+the appearance of a whale, was correct, but, misled, perhaps, by hilly
+islands, he missed the channel through which it had come, blocking it,
+in the manner of John Ross, with a range of mountains that does not
+exist. Though he reached Mount Barrow and mistook the head of Simpson
+Strait for an inlet, thus failing to find one of the north-west
+passages, he discovered and named King William Land and sighted Point
+Booth at its eastern extremity. An attempt to reach Point Turnagain to
+the westward and thus link up with Franklin's farthest east, in which he
+might have discovered the passage, proving impracticable owing to the
+bogginess of the ground, Back began his return from King William Land in
+latitude 68° 13´, longitude 94° 58´, and entered on a wearisome journey
+up the river and lakes he had come down, meeting with a party from Fort
+Reliance on the 17th of September.
+
+A week after, when within a couple of days of the fort, on that "small
+but abominable river" the Ah-hel-dessy from Artillery Lake, Back
+discovered the Anderson Falls. Toiling along over the mountains, every
+man with a seventy-five-pound package on his back, he had not proceeded
+more than six or seven miles when, observing the spray rising from
+another fall, he was induced to visit it and was well consoled for
+having left the boat behind. "From the only point," says Back, "at which
+the greater part of it was visible, we could distinguish the river
+coming sharp round a rock, and falling into an upper basin almost
+concealed by intervening rocks; whence it broke in one vast sheet into a
+chasm between four and five hundred feet deep, yet in appearance so
+narrow that we fancied we could almost step across it. Out of this the
+spray rose in misty columns several hundred feet above our heads; but as
+it was impossible to see the main fall from the side on which we were,
+in the following spring I paid a second visit to it, approaching from
+the western bank. The road to it, which I then traversed in snow-shoes,
+was fatiguing in the extreme, and scarcely less dangerous; for, to say
+nothing of the steep ascents, fissures in the rocks, and deep snow in
+the valleys, we had sometimes to creep along the narrow shelves of
+precipices slippery with the frozen mist that fell on them. But it was a
+sight that well repaid any risk. My first impression was of a strong
+resemblance to an iceberg in Smeerenberg Harbour, Spitsbergen. The whole
+face of the rocks forming the chasm was entirely coated with blue,
+green, and white ice, in thousands of pendent icicles; and there were,
+moreover, caverns, fissures, and overhanging ledges in all imaginable
+varieties of form, so curious and beautiful as to surpass anything of
+which I had ever heard or read. The immediate approaches were extremely
+hazardous, nor could we obtain a perfect view of the lower fall, in
+consequence of the projection of the western cliffs. At the lowest
+position we were able to attain, we were still more than a hundred feet
+above the level of the river beneath; and this, instead of being narrow
+enough to step across, as it had seemed from the opposite heights, was
+found to be at least two hundred feet wide. The colour of the water
+varied from a very light to a very dark green; and the spray, which
+spread a dimness above, was thrown up in clouds of light grey. Niagara,
+Wilberforce Falls on Hood River, the falls of Kakabikka near Lake
+Superior, the Swiss or Italian falls—although they may each charm the
+eye with dread—are not to be compared to this for splendour of effect.
+It was the most imposing spectacle I had ever witnessed; and, as its
+berg-like appearance brought to mind associations of another scene, I
+bestowed upon it the name of our celebrated navigator, Sir Edward Parry,
+and called it Parry's Falls."
+
+Back, like Franklin, owed much of the success of his expedition to the
+cordial help of the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, George,
+afterwards Sir George, Simpson. Ever the fastest of travellers in the
+north, Simpson had, in 1828, made a 3260-mile canoe voyage from Hudson
+Bay to the Pacific, passing the Rockies through canyons previously
+untried, and slipping down mountain torrents and through unknown rapids
+at such speed that hostile Indians let him pass in sheer amazement; and
+all his life he was distinguished for similar energy and celerity. When
+it became clear that the British Government had no immediate intention
+of completing the survey of the northern coast, Simpson organised an
+expedition at the Company's expense to undertake the task, and entrusted
+the leadership to Dease, who had done such excellent work for Franklin;
+and with Dease he associated his own nephew, Thomas Simpson, in no way
+inferior to his uncle in energy, speediness, or decision of character,
+being in fact one of our very best explorers, Arctic or otherwise.
+
+Thomas Simpson, Master of Arts of Aberdeen and a winner of the
+Huttonian, began characteristically by starting off to Fort Garry—now
+Winnipeg—with a view, as he says, "to refresh and extend my astronomical
+practice which had for some years been interrupted by avocations of a
+very different nature"; and thence, in the winter, making his way to
+Fort Chippewyan, a journey of 1277 miles, joining Dease there more than
+a month before he was expected. Two boats were built, light clinker
+craft of 24 ft. keel and 6 ft. beam, adapted for shallow navigation by
+their small draught, both alike and honoured with the classical names of
+the heavenly twins, _Castor_ and _Pollux_, each boat provided with a
+small oiled canvas canoe and portable wooden frame. Of one, the
+steersman was the redoubtable James McKay—"Pull your starboard oar!"—and
+of the other, George Sinclair, Back's bowman; and one of the bowmen was
+Felix, who had been with Franklin in 1826. All told, the expedition
+numbered fourteen.
+
+Leaving Fort Chippewyan on the 1st of June, 1837, they reached Bear Lake
+River on the 3rd of July, and six days afterwards were out on the sea.
+On the 23rd of July they camped at Return Reef, that is to say they had
+traversed the whole extent of Franklin's survey in a fortnight, and not
+without danger from the ice and losing much time by doubling the floes,
+however far they extended seawards. Once Simpson's boat, which was of
+course leading, was only saved from destruction by throwing out
+everything it contained upon the floating masses. By means of portages
+made from one fragment to another, the oars forming the perilous
+bridges, and after repeated risks of boats, men, and baggage being
+separated by the motion of the ice, they succeeded with much labour in
+collecting the whole equipment on one floe, which, being covered with
+water, formed a sort of wet dock. There they hauled up the boats,
+momentarily liable to be overwhelmed by the turning over of the ice,
+three miles from land, with the fog settled round them throughout the
+inclement night.
+
+Continuing westwards along new country, they reached and named Cape
+George Simpson (after the Governor) and, a little further on, Boat
+Extreme, where, from the coldness of the weather and the interminable
+ice, the further advance of the boats appeared to be so hopeless that
+Dease agreed to stay in charge of them while Simpson with five men,
+including McKay and Felix, pushed ahead for Point Barrow on foot.
+Passing McKay Inlet and Sinclair River, named after the two steersmen,
+an Eskimo camp was reached, where Simpson exchanged his tin plate for a
+platter made out of a mammoth tusk, and borrowed an oomiak which floated
+in about half a foot of water. In this useful skin boat the journey was
+resumed to Point Barrow, and on the 4th of August the survey completed
+between Franklin's farthest and Elson's.
+
+The winter was passed at the mouth of the Dease River, on Great Bear
+Lake, where Fort Confidence had been built ready for the expedition on
+its return. On the 6th of June, 1838, a start for the coast was made by
+the Coppermine route, that river being reached on the 22nd, and its
+descent accomplished, on the spring flood, in nine days. But it was a
+bad season, and the navigation was so hampered by ice that no start was
+made to the eastward until the 17th of July. At Boathaven, in 109° 20´,
+Simpson again left the boats and went ahead with Sinclair and six others
+who had not been to Point Barrow. Passing Franklin's farthest at Point
+Turnagain, he kept on for a hundred miles along the whole length of
+Dease Strait, discovering and naming Victoria Land, reaching Beaufort
+River beyond Cape Alexander, and sighting an open sea to the eastward.
+From here, in 106° 3´, the return began; and by many devices and the
+unfailing skill of McKay and Sinclair, the two boats were taken up the
+Coppermine stream, falls and rapids and all, to the nearest point to
+Fort Confidence, where they were hauled up in readiness for next year.
+
+On the 22nd of June, 1839, the boats again left for the sea; and they
+were run down to Bloody Fall without a stoppage in eleven hours. Again
+there were fourteen all told in them, but this time one of the men was
+Ooglibuck, who had come specially from Ungava in Labrador, in the
+wonderful time of three months less eight days, to join the expedition
+which was to meet with great success and accomplish an Arctic boat
+journey of over sixteen hundred statute miles.
+
+Entirely blocked until the 3rd of July, and hindered by ice difficulties
+all the way, the boats did not reach the previous year's farthest until
+the 28th of July. On the 11th of August, through an outlet only three
+miles wide, they passed into the much-desired eastern sea. "That
+glorious sight," says Simpson, after whom the strait is named, "was
+first beheld by myself from the top of one of the high limestone
+islands, and I had the satisfaction of announcing it to some of the men
+who, incited by curiosity, followed me thither. The joyful news was soon
+conveyed to Mr. Dease, who was with the boats at the end of the island,
+about half a mile off." On the continent and on King William Land, where
+Franklin's men were in time coming to perish of starvation, reindeer
+were seen browsing on the scanty herbage among the shingle. A terrible
+thunderstorm followed, and then, doubling a very sharp point on the
+13th, Simpson landed and saw before him a sandy desert. It was Back's
+Point Sir C. Ogle that he had at length reached. Away in the distance
+was the Great Fish River, and three days afterwards the party were
+encamped on Montreal Island, where McKay led the way to the provisions
+and gunpowder deposited by Back among the rocks.
+
+The expedition had performed its allotted task, and the men were
+consulted as to whether they would continue for a short distance to the
+eastward. To their honour they all assented without a murmur; but the
+cruel north-east wind forbade much progress in that direction, and their
+farthest east was reached at Castor and Pollux River. From there
+immediate return was imperative, as not a day could be spared. And so,
+from latitude 68° 28´ 23˝, longitude 94° 14´, they turned back on the
+21st of August, leaving the survey of the north coast of the American
+mainland practically complete from Bering Strait to Boothia.
+
+Further, on their return journey they crossed to the southern shore of
+King William Land and traced its coast for nearly sixty miles,
+discovering and naming Cape Herschel, south-eastward of which, in
+Simpson Strait, M'Clintock found the remains of one of Franklin's men.
+They thus linked up with what was to be the route of the Franklin
+expedition and were the first to find the North-West Passage for the
+command of which the territory was given by Charles II to the Hudson's
+Bay Company.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IX
+                           THE PARRY ISLANDS
+
+  John Rae—Wollaston Land and Victoria Strait—Overlaps Franklin's
+    route—M'Clure discovers Prince of Wales Strait—The North-West
+    Passage—Banks Land—M'Clure rescued by Bedford Pim—Collinson's
+    remarkable voyage—In Beaufort Sea—Reaches Banks Strait—Voyage to
+    Cambridge Bay—On Franklin's route—The North-West Passage sailed
+    by Amundsen along the track of the _Enterprise_—Sir
+    John Barrow—Parry's first voyage—Penetrates Lancaster
+    Sound and discovers the Parry Islands—Stopped by ice in
+    Banks Strait—The search for Franklin—Sir John Ross—De
+    Haven—Penny—Austin—Ommanney—Osborn—Belcher—Kellett—M'Clintock—Drift
+    of the _Resolute_—Sledge work—Sverdrup's discoveries during his
+    four years in the north.
+
+
+The second to complete a north-west passage by linking up with
+Franklin's voyage was Dr. John Rae, an Orkneyman by birth, as energetic
+as Thomas Simpson and evidently not inferior to him in stamina, for in
+his Arctic journeys he walked a distance equal to that of the
+circumference of the earth. In 1846 he had surveyed the Committee Bay
+district between Boothia and the Melville Peninsula, reaching it from
+Repulse Bay, and in 1848 and 1849 he had been associated with Richardson
+in searching for Franklin along the coast from the Mackenzie eastwards.
+Next year, while in charge of the Mackenzie district, he was again
+requested to lead a Franklin search expedition, and, starting from Fort
+Confidence on the 25th of April, was on the sea by the 1st of May.
+Crossing over to Wollaston Land, and making westward along the coast on
+the 22nd of May, he rounded Cape Baring, just above the seventieth
+parallel. Crossing to its continuation, Victoria Land, on a second
+journey, he travelled eastward, and, going up Victoria Strait, rounded
+Pelly Point, also just above the seventieth parallel, on the 12th of
+July, thus practically completing the survey of the southern half of
+what Collinson was to prove is one large island.
+
+[Illustration: Yours very truly W Parry]
+
+Off Pelly Point, it afterwards appeared, the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ were
+beset in the ice in September, 1846, and fifty miles to the south-east
+they had been abandoned in April, 1848; but the only relic found by Rae
+on this occasion was the doubtful one—picked up in Parker Bay—of the
+butt-end of a flagstaff on which was nailed a piece of white line by two
+copper tacks, all three bearing the Government mark. This was the first
+to be found of anything that could be thought to be a trace of the
+missing ships, a sort of promise of what he was to meet with four years
+later; and it is worth noting that, had he not failed in getting across
+the strait to King William Land, Rae would in 1850 have probably
+discovered Franklin's fate.
+
+His farthest in these parts was passed in May, 1853, by Captain Richard
+Collinson, in his sledge journey to Gateshead Island from H.M.S.
+_Enterprise_, then wintering in Cambridge Bay. The _Enterprise_ and
+_Investigator_ had been placed under Collinson's command and sent by way
+of Cape Horn to search for Franklin from the west, the instructions
+being that the ships should not part company; but regardless of this,
+Commander Robert Le Mesurier M'Clure, of the _Investigator_, happening
+to get through Bering Strait first, declined to wait for his commanding
+officer, went off on an expedition on his own account and, by a sledge
+journey, joined Parry's track when in search of the North-West Passage.
+
+Steering north-east from Franklin Bay, M'Clure reached the south of
+Parry's Banks Land and followed the coast north-eastwards, discovering
+Prince of Wales Strait and making his way rather more than half-way up,
+until, near Princess Royal Island in 72° 50´, he was caught in the ice
+and imprisoned for the winter. On Trafalgar Day, 1850, M'Clure left the
+_Investigator_ on a sledge journey up the strait, and at sunrise on the
+26th of October, from Mount Observation in 73° 30´, a hill six hundred
+feet above the sea, he looked over Banks Strait and Melville Sound, and
+saw the coast of Banks Land terminating about twelve miles further on
+and thence trending to the north-west, while Wollaston Land, as it
+proved to be, turned eastward on the other side at Peel Point. That
+evening Banks Strait was reached at Cape Lord John Russell, and the
+North-West Passage by Prince of Wales Strait clearly demonstrated. The
+spot was not bare of vegetation, and there were many traces of animals,
+for, fortunately for M'Clure, there was no scarcity of game during his
+three winterings in Banks Land—reindeer in herds, musk oxen
+occasionally, hares in troops, ducks in plenty, ptarmigan almost as
+numerous, and bears, wolves, and foxes to feed on them; for instance,
+the weights of three items in the bag, 1945 lb. of musk ox, 7716 lb. of
+deer, and 1017 lb. of hare, show fairly good shooting.
+
+Enclosing a record of the visit in a cairn, M'Clure returned to the
+ship, from which in the spring three sledge parties were sent
+out—Cresswell's to the north-west finding that Banks Land was an island,
+Wynniatt's to the north-east reaching Reynolds Point on the north of
+Wollaston Land, and Haswell's down Wollaston Land to within forty miles
+of where Rae turned back about a week later—this being the only attempt
+at searching for Franklin that the expedition undertook after sighting
+Nelson Head. Released in July, the _Investigator_ retreated down the
+strait and attempted to circumnavigate Banks Land, finding to the west a
+coast as precipitous as a wall, the water deep—fifteen fathoms close in,
+with the yardarms almost touching the cliffs on one hand and the lofty
+ice on the other—and the pack drawing forty feet of water, rising in
+rolling hills a hundred feet from base to summit. On shore the hills
+were as remarkable. Many of them were peaked and isolated by precipitous
+gorges, about three hundred feet deep. And all the way up them were
+numbers of fallen trees, in many places in layers, some protruding
+twelve or fourteen feet, one of these trunks measuring nineteen inches
+in diameter. Says M'Clure: "I entered a ravine some miles inland, and
+found the north side of it, for a depth of forty feet from the surface,
+composed of one mass of wood similar to what I had before seen. The
+whole depth of the ravine was about two hundred feet. The ground around
+the wood or trees was formed of sand and shingle; some of the wood was
+petrified, the remainder very rotten and worthless even for burning."
+And this forest bed is on the shore of the Beaufort Sea in 74° north
+latitude, a similar one being in Prince Patrick Island, on the other
+side of Banks Strait.
+
+After one or two narrow escapes the _Investigator_ entered her last home
+at the Bay of Mercy, well within the strait, near Cape Hamilton, the
+most prominent of the three capes discovered from the Dundas Peninsula
+by Parry's lieutenant, Beechey, thirty-one years before. The winter
+passed, and on the 11th of April M'Clure left the ship on a sledge
+journey across to Parry's old quarters at Winter Harbour, which were
+reached on the 28th, to find nothing but a notice of M'Clintock's having
+been there in the previous June. Noticing Parry's inscription rock,
+M'Clure judiciously left on it a statement that the _Investigator_ was
+in want of relief at Mercy Bay. But all through that year no news from
+the outside came to Banks Land, and matters became serious owing to the
+appearance of scurvy, notwithstanding the abundance of fresh meat, for
+even in January a herd of reindeer trotted by.
+
+[Illustration: THE PARRY ISLANDS]
+
+Another winter went wearily, each month with a gloomier outlook than the
+last, and on the 5th of April the first of the scurvy patients died.
+Next morning M'Clure and Haswell were walking near the ship discussing
+how they could dig a grave in the frozen ground, when they noticed a man
+hurriedly approaching from the entrance of the bay, throwing up his arms
+and shouting at the top of his voice, his face as black as ebony. When
+he came within talking range the dark-faced stranger called out, "I am
+Lieutenant Pim, late of the _Herald_ and now in the _Resolute_; Captain
+Kellett is in her at Dealy Island." And soon the dog-sledge with two men
+came into view. Pim's arrival was most fortunate for the sufferers, for
+the captain, as a desperate resource, was—in spite of the doctor's
+protests—just about to send off two sledge parties of the invalids to
+take their chance of escaping somehow, as there was no hope of their
+recovery in the ship; and on examination by the doctor of the
+_Resolute_, it was found that every man of the crew was more or less
+affected by the disease. So the ship was abandoned in Mercy Bay, and the
+officers and crew, crossing to the _Resolute_, reached England by way of
+Hudson Strait.
+
+Collinson's was the most remarkable voyage ever accomplished by a
+sailing-ship in the Arctic regions. It lasted from 1850 to 1855—five
+years and a hundred and sixteen days—all the way out across the Atlantic
+and Pacific and home again in safety, traversing a hundred and
+twenty-eight degrees of longitude in the Arctic sea, coming nearest at
+the time to completing the north-west passage by ship (up Prince of
+Wales Strait), finding two north-west passages by sledge (one joining
+with Parry's discoveries across Banks Strait, the other with Franklin's
+up Victoria Strait), and approaching nearer than any other naval
+expedition to the great discovery by travelling up Franklin's route for
+some distance, and passing within thirty miles of the spot where the
+vessels he was in search of had been abandoned, though unfortunately,
+like Rae, he was on the west side of the waterway instead of the east.
+
+Passing Bering Strait in July, 1850, the _Enterprise_ went north from
+Wainwright Inlet into the Beaufort Sea, until she was stopped by the
+heavy pack. Trying east, to join with Parry's farthest, and then west,
+she arrived, on the 28th of August, at 73° 23´ in 164°, and here she
+turned south after having sailed over eleven thousand miles without
+having to reef her topsails, an unprecedented run of distance and fine
+weather combined. Returning in 1851 from wintering at Hong Kong,
+Collinson, with a southerly wind "too precious to be wasted," made his
+way up Prince of Wales Strait, knowing nothing of the visit of the
+_Investigator_, to find ice blocking his way just at the northern
+outlet, his furthest north, by ship, 73° 30´, forty miles beyond
+M'Clure's winter quarters, as given in the record he found in one of the
+cairns.
+
+Unable to round the corner into Banks Strait owing to the ice block,
+Collinson returned down Prince of Wales Strait and followed the track of
+the _Investigator_ half-way up the west coast of Banks Land, though he
+had found nothing to indicate she had gone in that direction. Finding
+the ice conditions dangerous, he retraced his route along the coast and
+went into comfortable winter quarters in Walker Bay, at the entrance of
+Prince of Wales Strait. By the end of November the natives fishing for
+salmon-trout had cleared off, as also had the reindeer, hares, and
+ptarmigan and other birds, and on the 17th of March the ravens, which
+had been the last to leave, were the first to return. In April sledge
+parties went out, one of which under Lieutenant Parkes crossed the route
+of the _Hecla_ along the strait and reached Melville Island at Cape
+Providence on the way to Winter Harbour, short of which, within sight of
+Point Hearne, Parkes began his homeward journey, owing to his taking the
+tracks of sledges and barking of dogs as indicating the presence, not of
+M'Clure as it did, but of Eskimos, with whom, being without weapons, he
+was unable to cope.
+
+Released on the 5th of August, the _Enterprise_ proceeded to sea,
+coasting along past Rae's farthest and Cape Baring, and so, where no
+ship had been, through Coronation Gulf to Cambridge Bay. Here the winter
+of 1852-3 was spent, and hence the sledges went up Victoria Strait. At
+Finlayson Islands, what seemed to be a piece of a companion-door was
+found among the driftwood, which might have been a relic of the lost
+ships; but that was all. During the return along the northern coast the
+_Enterprise_ was beset in Camden Bay, and here the third winter was
+passed, release not coming until the end of the following July, and
+Bering Strait not being reached until the 21st of August after a voyage,
+like that of the _Vega_, too well managed to yield much adventure. Like
+all the other Arctic voyages of this period, it failed in the one object
+it was undertaken to achieve; but in days to come the first ship to sail
+the passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific was to follow Collinson
+from Cambridge Bay along the route laboriously completed by the
+surveyors of the mainland from James Cook to Dease and Simpson.
+
+M'Clure claimed and—to have done with the matter—obtained the reward of
+£10,000 for discovering the North-West Passage through Prince of Wales
+Strait, though he sailed only half-way up it and, in attempting to get
+round to Parry's farthest, lost his ship and started sledging on the
+west side of the pack; while Collinson took his ship much nearer to
+Parry's course on the east side; and Franklin, by linking up with Dease
+and Simpson over the ice by way of Victoria Strait, had previously found
+another of the possible passages, as shown by Collinson's voyage to
+Cambridge Bay. But surely what was done by M'Clure, and by Collinson in
+his northerly cruise, was to see where ships could pass when there was
+no ice in the way, which was no more than had been done by Parry, who
+had taken his ship within sight of both their farthest, and would have
+sailed into the Beaufort Sea had not the pack forbidden it. It was
+Parry, in fact, who discovered the main road, the route by Prince of
+Wales Strait, like that by Peel Sound taken by Franklin and successfully
+accomplished by Amundsen, being only one of the many by-roads leading
+off along his course.
+
+His famous voyage to Melville Island was due to the influence of Sir
+John Barrow. Barrow, to whom more than any other man this country owes
+its position in Arctic story, was born in a small thatched cottage at
+Dragley Beck, near Ulverston, in North Lancashire, in 1764, and, in a
+remarkable course of promotion by merit, became second secretary of the
+Admiralty for forty years under twelve or thirteen different naval
+administrations, Whig and Tory; being so unmistakably the right man in
+the right place that he was only dispensed with once—on a change of
+First Lords—and then was reinstated the next year. When he was seventeen
+he was given the opportunity of a voyage in a Greenland whaler, which he
+accepted, and that was his only Arctic experience; but even when with
+Macartney in China and South Africa, he kept up his interest in the
+north, and in 1817, when at the Admiralty, proposed to Lord Melville his
+plan for two voyages of discovery, one to the north and the other to the
+north-west, which opened the new era of Polar exploration.
+
+[Illustration: Yours very truly John Barrow]
+
+The voyage to the north was that of Buchan and Franklin in the
+_Dorothea_ and _Trent_; that to the north-west was undertaken by John
+Ross in the _Isabella_ and William Edward Parry in the _Alexander_. Of
+this we need only say here that on their return from the north of Baffin
+Bay, Ross and Parry coasted down the west side and sailed into Lancaster
+Sound for a considerable distance until Ross—who seems to have had the
+mountain-finding eye and an unenviable gift for missing straits—declared
+that it ended in a range of mountains which he appropriately named
+Croker's; and, that there should be no mistake about them, he gave a
+very pretty picture of them as a full-page plate in his book. Parry,
+however, saw no mountains and took the liberty of saying so to Barrow
+when he reported himself at the Admiralty, the result being the despatch
+of Parry's expedition in the _Hecla_ and _Griper_ which left Yarmouth on
+the 12th of May, 1819, and, for the first time after leaving the coast
+of Norfolk, dropped anchor in the bay named after them in Melville
+Island, on the 5th of September.
+
+Parry, before his voyage in the _Alexander_, had had Arctic experience
+while lieutenant of the _Alexandria_ frigate engaged in protecting the
+Spitsbergen whale fisheries, and knew thoroughly what he was about. For
+instance, he worked his crews in three watches, and had both his vessels
+rigged as barques as the most convenient rig among ice, though the
+_Griper_, a strong, slow gunboat, was rather too small to be so treated,
+being only about half the tonnage of the _Hecla_, whose measurement was
+under four hundred. Had she been a little speedier more work might have
+been done; but what was done was magnificent.
+
+Entering Lancaster Sound, Parry found a strait not blocked by mountains
+but thirty miles broad leading into a region up to then unknown,
+except—so it is said—to the Norsemen. On the 12th of August Prince
+Regent Inlet was discovered and named, it being George IV's birthday.
+Then North Somerset was sighted and the course laid across Barrow Strait
+to North Devon and its south-western peninsula known as Beechey Island;
+then Wellington Channel was descried, and then Cornwallis Island.
+Griffith Island was discovered on the 23rd of August, Bathurst Island on
+the 25th, Byam Martin Island on the 27th, where Sabine, the astronomer
+of the expedition, found they had passed north of the magnetic north
+pole. Then the south side of Melville Island was coasted along, Dealy
+Island being found on the 4th of September at noon, and, at a quarter
+past nine at night, just after passing Bounty Cape (named in honour of
+the event), the _Hecla_ crossed the 110th meridian west, and became
+entitled to the Government grant of £5000 for doing so—which Parry
+shared between the ships.
+
+[Illustration: H.M.S. "HECLA" AND "GRIPER" IN WINTER HARBOUR]
+
+Soon the ice became difficult and the ships had to anchor, but, the
+conditions improving, the westerly voyage was resumed. Cape Providence
+was passed and Cape Hay sighted, but the ships could get no further than
+about half-way between these capes, and they had to return to Winter
+Harbour, where, on the 26th of September, they were warped to their
+quarters through a channel cut in the ice. The _Hecla_, sending down all
+her upper masts except the main topmast, and the _Griper_, housing her
+fore and main topmasts, used the spars to support a roof which
+completely enclosed their upper decks and made them both snug for the
+winter, which did not seem so long owing to the efforts of the officers
+to keep every one amused and on the move. Parry, a host in himself, was
+well seconded by his lieutenant, Beechey, late of the _Trent_, James
+Clark Ross, one of his midshipmen, Captain Sabine, and Lieutenant
+Liddon, the commander of the _Griper_, who was almost disabled with
+rheumatism, and Lieutenant Hoppner, also of the _Griper_. A couple of
+books of plays on board proved a real treasure; owing to them the Royal
+Arctic Theatre was started, the pioneer of so many amateur theatrical
+ventures in the Polar seas, and the _North Georgia Gazette_ and _Winter
+Chronicle_ came into existence, the first of ship newspapers. On
+Christmas Day there was a dinner of roast beef which had been on board
+since May, the condition of which, as Parry said, was an excellent
+testimony to the antiseptic properties of a cold atmosphere; and the
+food generally was good and abundant, and the management and supplies
+far better than on many subsequent expeditions. In the spring, game was
+found in fair quantity, nearly four thousand pounds of musk ox, deer,
+hares, geese, ducks, and ptarmigan being brought on board.
+
+In May the vessels were afloat again, though ice-bound, and, in June,
+walking, not sledging, journeys were organised, the furthest points
+reached being Cape Fisher to the north and Cape Hoppner to the west. On
+the 1st of August the vessels moved out of the bay to the westward, and
+six days afterwards Beechey called attention to the land with the three
+capes already mentioned. "The land," says Parry, "which extends beyond
+the 117th degree of west longitude, and is the most western yet
+discovered in the Polar Sea to the north of the American continent, was
+honoured with the name of Banks Land out of respect to the late
+venerable and worthy President of the Royal Society."
+
+On the 16th Cape Dundas was named, but progress was impossible. For a
+week Parry made every endeavour to pass, but the floes, forty to fifty
+feet thick, heaped up by the tides from the east and the west so as to
+form a wide-stretching landscape of hill and dale, barred the way right
+across Banks Strait; and no further west could be attained than 113° 46´
+43·5˝, in latitude 74° 26´ 25˝. Thence Parry returned, hoping to get
+through on another voyage, and bidding farewell to the North Georgian
+Islands, as he called them, or the Parry Islands, as we now know them,
+he came home by the way he went out, through Lancaster Sound. Needless
+to say, the very next season the whalers followed on Parry's track, and
+Lancaster Sound became the highway to a very profitable fishing-ground.
+
+[Illustration: PARRY'S DISCOVERIES ON HIS FIRST VOYAGE]
+
+Among the Parry Islands in 1851 were several vessels in search of
+Franklin. Sir John Ross, aged seventy-four, was there in the
+schooner-yacht _Felix_ on a private expedition chiefly memorable for the
+story of his having sent off a carrier pigeon from his winter quarters
+at Cornwallis Island, which reached his home—North-West Castle,
+Stranraer, Wigtownshire—three thousand miles away, in five days. Lady
+Franklin's vessel, the _Prince Albert_, was there, with Captain Forsyth
+and Parker Snow on board, an old fruit schooner, and therefore the
+speediest sailing-craft among the crowd. The Grinnell expedition of the
+two American brigs, _Advance_ and _Racer_, under De Haven, was also
+there, to drift afterwards up Wellington Channel and down again back
+into Baffin Bay; as was a British Government expedition of the two
+whaling brigs, _Lady Franklin_ and _Sophia_, under Captain William
+Penny, who was to discover the sea open north of Wellington Channel. In
+addition to these was the British squadron under Captain Horatio Austin
+in H.M.S. _Resolute_, with H.M.S. _Assistance_, Captain Erasmus
+Ommanney, and the old Cattle Conveyance Company's boats known as H.M.S.
+_Intrepid_, Lieutenant Cator, and H.M.S. _Pioneer_, Lieutenant Sherard
+Osborn, these two being screw steamers used as tenders, which proved of
+great value as tugs and ice-breakers.
+
+On the 23rd of August Captain Ommanney found Franklin's winter quarters
+on Beechey Island, and four days afterwards Captain Penny came upon the
+gravestones marking where the three men, two of the _Erebus_ and one of
+the _Terror_, had been buried in 1846, though nothing was discoverable
+of the route intended to be taken by the ships. The news was important,
+and the _Prince Albert_, acting as despatch vessel, was immediately sent
+home with it, to return next year with Kennedy and Bellot to make a
+discovery of her own. Soon Captain Austin's four ships departed, also to
+return in the following year, Sir Edward Belcher, in the _Assistance_,
+being then in command, Kellett being in the _Resolute_, M'Clintock in
+the _Intrepid_, and Sherard Osborn again in the _Pioneer_. Belcher's
+attempt ended in his abandoning his vessels in the ice; one of them, the
+_Resolute_, as though in mute protest, drifting from 74° 41´ for a
+thousand miles, to be picked up by Buddington off Cape Dyer in Baffin
+Bay, bought from him by the American Government and presented to Great
+Britain, refitted as she used to be, as a much-appreciated token of
+goodwill.
+
+The great feature of these years was the wonderful sledge work; by it
+mainly the northern coasts of the islands discovered by Parry were
+surveyed and other islands added to the archipelago, including the
+westernmost, Prince Patrick, named after the Duke of Connaught, who was
+at first known as Prince Patrick instead of Prince Arthur. The sledges
+fitted out by Austin traversed 1500 miles of coast-line, 850 of which
+were new, the routes radiating between Osborn's 72° 18´ and Bradford's
+76° 25´, M'Clintock going farthest, 760 miles, to 114° 20´ in 74° 38´.
+Those next year from Kellett at Dealy Island covered 8558 miles,
+radiating from Pim's 74° 6´ (to rescue M'Clure) to M'Clintock's 77° 23´,
+a run to 118° 20´ and back of 1401 miles, while Mecham reached 120° 30´
+on a trip of 1163 miles; and Belcher from his winter quarters in
+Northumberland Sound, in 76° 52´, aided by Richards and Osborn, was
+almost as busy further north.
+
+Thus practically the whole belt of land and sea westward between and
+including Lancaster Sound and Jones Sound as far as 120° was searched
+and mapped, the most northerly of the Parry Islands known up to then
+being Finlay Island, North Cornwall, and Graham Island. But in 1898
+Captain Otto Sverdrup went up Smith Sound in his old ship the _Fram_ on
+an endeavour to sail round the north coast of Greenland from west to
+east. He had to winter in Rice Strait, near Pim Island, and finding, to
+put it sportingly, that he was to a certain extent trespassing on
+Peary's preserves, decided to devote his attention to the unknown region
+approachable through Jones Sound. In 1899, therefore, he took the _Fram_
+up the sound, and, failing to pass through Cardigan Strait, spent the
+three following years among the fiords at the north-western end.
+
+From here he sent his sledge and ski parties far and wide, west and
+south and north over an approximate area of a hundred thousand square
+miles. Long stretches of coast-fine were explored and named, in a few
+cases unnecessarily, though, strange to say, the unnecessary names were
+all royal ones, King Oscar Land being the west of Ellesmere Land, Crown
+Prince Gustav Sea and Prince Gustav Adolf Sea being the Polar Ocean, and
+King Christian Land being simply Finlay Island. Separated from Finlay
+Island by Danish Sound and from North Cornwall by Hendriksen Sound, he
+found two large islands, which—just as John Ross named Boothia after his
+principal patron, the distiller—Sverdrup named Ellef Ringnes and Amund
+Ringnes after two of his supporters, the brewers; his other discovery,
+Axel Heiberg Land—which seems to be Peary's Jesup Land sighted in
+1898—to the west and north-west of these, being so called after his
+other munificent patron.
+
+His farthest south was Beechey Island, his farthest west Cape Isachsen
+in Ellef Ringnes Land, his farthest north Lands Lokk in Grant Land, in
+latitude 81° 40´ and longitude about 92°, within sixty miles of
+Aldrich's farthest along the north-eastern coast, the gap afterwards
+traversed by Peary. Within these limits the amount of coast detail
+filled in was remarkable. Owing to the favourable condition of the ice
+and the excellent management in all ways, the sledges frequently did
+their fifteen miles and more a day. Though the expedition lost its
+doctor during the first winter, there was little trouble as regards
+health; and game was in plenty right up to the far north where Hare
+Fiord tells of hares in hundreds.
+
+With hunting episodes the story is pleasantly varied, one in particular
+being so graphically described by Sverdrup that as a sample we may be
+forgiven a rather long quotation. "The bear," says Sverdrup, "was
+determined to go up a difficult stony valley a little north of our tent,
+and, try as the dogs would to prevent it, up the valley it went. Schei
+and I ran full speed northward along the ice-foot, and soon heard that
+the dogs had brought it to bay. We made a short cut across some hills of
+grit, and, when we reached the top of one of them, saw the bear on the
+other side of the valley, sitting on a hill-top, which fell almost sheer
+away. But on the north side it was accessible, and here it was probably
+that the bear had climbed it. There sat the king of the icefields
+enthroned on a kind of pedestal, and the whole staff of yelping dogs
+standing at a respectful distance. I tried a couple of shots, but
+overrated the distance, and the bullets went over the bear's head. I
+then told Schei to go and shoot it whilst I looked on at the further
+development of the drama. The bear's position was a first-rate one. It
+had taken its stand on a little plateau high up on a mountain crag; this
+little ledge was reached by a bridge not more than a good yard in width,
+and there stood the bear, like Sven Dufva, ready with his sledgehammer
+to fell the first being that should venture across. His majesty was not
+visible to Schei until he came within a few feet of him, but then it was
+not long before a shot was heard. The bear sank together, and a few
+seconds afterwards all the dogs had thrown themselves on to it. They
+tugged and pulled at the bear's coat, tearing tufts of hair out of it,
+and before we knew what they were doing, had dragged the body to the
+edge of the plateau, where it shot out over the precipice. The dogs
+stood amazed, gazing down into the depths where the bear was falling
+swiftly through the air—but not alone, for on it as large as life were
+two dogs which had clung so fast to its hair, that they now stood
+planted head to head, and bit themselves still faster to it in order to
+keep their balance. I was breathless as I watched this unexpected
+journey through the air. The next moment the bear in its perpendicular
+fall would reach the projecting point of rock, and my poor dogs!—it was
+a cruel revenge the bear was taking on them. I should now have only
+three dogs left in my team. The bear's body dashed violently against the
+rock, turned a somersault out from the mountain wall and fell still
+further, until, after falling a height of altogether at least a hundred
+feet, it reached the slopes by the river, and was shot by the impetus
+right across the river-ice and a good way up the other side. And the
+dogs? When the bear dashed against the mountain they sprang up like
+rubber balls, described a large curve, and with stiffened legs continued
+the journey on their own account, falling with a loud thud on to the
+hardly packed snow at the bottom of the valley. But they were on their
+legs again in a moment, and set off as fast as they could go across the
+river after the bear. Not many minutes afterwards the whole pack came
+running up, but when they were driven away from the carcase, they lay
+down again to await their turn. I hurried back to camp to fetch the dog
+harness; we put a lanyard through the nose of the mighty fallen, and set
+off. The dogs knew well enough that this meant food for them, and the
+nearer we came to camp the harder they pulled. In fact, I had to sit on
+the carcase to keep them back, and, jolting backwards and forwards, on
+this new kind of conveyance I made my entrance into camp, in the light
+spring night." But bears were few, compared with the musk oxen, which,
+with the reindeer and hares, and with the wolves and foxes, and stoats
+and lemmings, seals and walruses, narwhals and white whales, represented
+the Arctic mammalia.
+
+The most singular experience met with was perhaps the sledge journey
+through the ice tunnel on the return across the Simmons Peninsula in
+1900. Descending a valley which became narrower and narrower Sverdrup
+and Fosheim began to think it was going to end in a canyon, but without
+any warning they were stopped by a high wall of ice, perpendicular and
+inaccessible to any one without wings. Looking about, Sverdrup found a
+large hole which proved to be the beginning of a tunnel through the
+glacier. Through this lofty vault they sped. From the roof hung
+threateningly above their heads gigantic blocks of ice, seamed and cleft
+and glittering sinisterly; and all around were icicles like steel-bright
+spears and lances piercing downwards on them. Along the walls were caves
+after caves, with pillars in rows like giants in rank; and over all
+shone a ghostly whitish light which became bluish as they went. "I dared
+not speak," says Sverdrup. "It seemed to me that in doing so I should be
+committing a deed of desecration; I felt like one who has impiously
+broken into something sacred which Nature had wished to keep closed to
+every mortal eye. I felt mean and contemptible as I drove through all
+this purity. The sledges jolted from block to block, awakening
+thunderous echoes in their passage: and it seemed as if all the spirits
+of the ice had been aroused and called to arms against the intruders on
+their church-like peace."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X
+                                BOOTHIA
+
+  Christopher Middleton—Wager River—Repulse Bay—Parry's second
+    north-west voyage—Melville Peninsula—Fury and Hecla Strait—John
+    Ross's second Arctic voyage—Introduces steam navigation into the
+    Arctic regions—The whaler _John_—Ross misses the North-West
+    Passage—Snow houses—Eskimo geographers—James Clark Ross finds the
+    Magnetic North Pole—Lyon in the _Griper_—Back in the
+    _Terror_—Rae's journey round Committee Bay—Sir John Franklin's
+    last voyage—Kennedy and Bellot—Discovery of Bellot Strait—Rae's
+    journey in 1854—His Franklin discoveries—M'Clintock's voyage in
+    the _Fox_—Lady Franklin's instructions—Captain Charles
+    Hall—Frederick Schwatka—Amundsen accomplishes the North-West
+    Passage.
+
+
+In July, 1742, Christopher Middleton, working northwards in Hudson Bay
+from Fort Churchill, made his way up Rowe's Welcome and entered a deep
+inlet apparently leading to the South Sea. Middleton—who gained his
+Fellowship of the Royal Society for his variation observations at Fort
+Churchill, and was the first to practise the modern method of finding
+longitude by eight or ten different altitudes of the sun or stars when
+near the prime vertical—spent eighteen days in the inlet observing the
+tides, and then came to the conclusion that it was an estuary; and he
+named it Wager River after Sir Charles Wager, who was First Lord of the
+Admiralty when he began his voyage. Proceeding north, he reached his
+Repulse Bay, and at the north-east end of it saw Frozen Strait, as he
+called it, stretching away along the north of Southampton Island towards
+Cape Comfort. Here, also from tidal observations, he satisfied himself
+that Repulse Bay afforded no passage to the westward and that Frozen
+Strait led into Fox Channel.
+
+[Illustration: AN IGLOOLIK ESKIMO CARRYING HIS KAYAK]
+
+His opinions were disputed by those who only knew the coast from his
+chart, and two vessels were sent out to prove he was wrong. The reports
+of the captains of these—there is no need to mention their names—were
+embarrassing. Neither had been to Repulse Bay, but both had been to
+Wager River, and they agreed that it was unmistakably a river and not a
+strait; but in every other respect, even in naming the places they had
+seen, they were at variance. Thus the matter was left in sufficient
+doubt to encourage some people in believing in a north-west passage
+through Repulse Bay, just at the Arctic Circle, and to seek this, Parry,
+on his return from Melville Island, was despatched on his second voyage.
+
+This time the _Hecla_ was commanded by George Francis Lyon—the North
+African traveller—Parry being in the _Fury_, a sister ship; both
+vessels, at Parry's suggestion, being exactly alike so that their gear
+and fittings were interchangeable. They sailed from the Little Nore on
+the 8th of May, 1821, and going direct up Frozen Strait, with much
+trouble from the ice, ran into Repulse Bay on the 22nd of August. Here
+after a careful examination it was ascertained beyond a doubt that no
+passage existed through to the westward. "Thus," says Lyon, "the
+veracity of poor Middleton, as far as regards this bay at least, was now
+at length established; and in looking down the strait we had passed, he
+was fully justified in calling it a frozen strait. We were now
+indisputably on our scene of future action, the coast of America; and it
+only remained for us to follow minutely the line of shore in
+continuation from Repulse Bay."
+
+During a stay at Gore Bay red snow was brought off to the _Fury_, its
+colour being much fainter than that found in the _Isabella_ voyage at
+Crimson Cliffs in Greenland; "the appearance of the mass was not unlike
+what is called raspberry ice, in a far better climate, where cold is
+made subservient to luxury." The colouring of this is due to one of the
+Algæ, _Protococcus nivalis_, and not as Peter Paterson said in
+1671—ninety years before De Saussure—to the rocks being "full of white,
+red, and yellow veins, like marble; upon any alteration of the weather,
+these stones sweat, which, together with the rains, tinges the snow
+red." The day on which this snow was found, the 30th of August, was so
+warm that the party were glad to pull off their coats and waistcoats.
+"The valleys were fertile in grasses and moss; and the fineness of the
+weather had drawn forth a number of butterflies, spiders, and other
+insects, which would, by their gay colours and active motions, have
+almost deceived us into an idea that we were not in the Arctic regions,
+had not the Frozen Strait, filled with huge masses of moving ice,
+reminded us but too forcibly, that we were in the most dangerous of
+them."
+
+[Illustration: PARRY'S FARTHEST ON HIS THIRD VOYAGE]
+
+Early in October the ships took up their quarters at Winter Island on
+the coast of Melville Peninsula in 66° 32´, and there, during the
+cordial intercourse with the Eskimos, Parry heard of the way through
+further north which led him on his release in the following July to
+discover Fury and Hecla Strait, along which the ships passed to find
+their progress blocked by the ice just beyond its entrance into Regent
+Inlet. Returning through the strait, they reached the island of Igloolik
+at the eastern entrance, and there they passed the winter, Igloolik
+being an important Eskimo settlement, with four fixed places of
+residence on it, to which as the season changes the natives move in
+rotation. From this island, as the health of the men did not permit of
+his venturing to spend another winter in the ice, Parry retraced his
+route and returned to England.
+
+The ships dropped anchor in the Thames on Trafalgar Day, 1823. Next
+year, on the 19th of May, they were off again to the north to seek a
+passage to the west down Prince Regent Inlet, Parry in the _Hecla_,
+Hoppner in the _Fury_. It was a bad season. The ships were late in
+leaving Baffin Bay and were hindered by new ice in Lancaster Sound. So
+far from reaching the strait discovered two years before, they could get
+no further south than Port Bowen, in 73° 12´, where they spent the
+winter in a singularly barren part of Cockburn Land. Starting in July
+they went down to Cresswell Bay, the ships being forced by the weather
+and the ice to work—as is not unusual under such circumstances—in almost
+every possible direction within every mile, their track—as shown in the
+illustration—being most complicated. The end of it all was that the
+_Fury_ was wrecked and her stores carefully taken out and left, on what
+was named Fury Beach, for the use of future callers in want of them. And
+the _Hecla_ came home alone.
+
+Four years afterwards Captain John Ross, anxious for further work in the
+north, started in search of the passage by the same route. After some
+years of effort he had succeeded in organising an expedition, the
+expenses of which to the amount of over £17,000 were borne by Felix
+Booth, with the exception of over £2000 added by Ross himself. It was a
+memorable voyage in many respects, and for one thing in particular that
+is frequently passed unnoticed. This was the introduction of steam into
+Arctic navigation. The _Victory_ was an old Isle of Man packet-boat of
+eighty-five tons, which, by raising her sides five feet, Ross increased
+to one hundred and fifty tons. Taking out her old paddles, he replaced
+them with a pair of Robertson's patents, hoistable out of water in a
+minute, so as to clear the ice. The engine was also a patent, by
+Braithwaite and Ericsson, who built the Novelty that appeared at
+Rainhill. But neither Braithwaite nor Ericsson was any happier in this
+production. Its great feature was the doing away with the funnel, no
+flue being required owing to the fires being kept going by artificial
+draught derived from two bellows of unequal sizes—"the bellows draught,"
+in fact, like that of the Novelty which broke down in the great
+locomotive contest won by the Rocket. Had not Ross been a man of
+enterprise he would never have ventured to sea with such an experimental
+arrangement; but he did, and he suffered for it.
+
+[Illustration: THE "VICTORY"]
+
+The "execrable machinery," as he inadequately called it, went wrong from
+the first. On the way from Galleons Reach to Woolwich, part of it became
+displaced, causing a delay for repairs. At Woolwich, Sir Byam Martin,
+the Comptroller of the Navy, and Sir John Franklin went on board and
+said uncomplimentary things about it, as also did the Duke of Orleans
+(afterwards King Louis Philippe) and the Duke of Chartres, though the
+Frenchmen were more gentle in their phrases. From Woolwich to Margate
+this remarkable engine, aided by the sails, took the _Victory_ in just
+over twelve hours, the boiler leaking so much that the additional
+forcing pump had to be kept working by hand all the time. Passing the
+Lizard, the piston-rod was found to be so much worn on one side by
+friction against the guide-wheels that a piece of iron had to be brazed
+on to it. Then the keys of the main shaft broke and the substitutes made
+on board broke one after the other. "The boilers also continued to leak,
+though we had put dung and potatoes in them by Mr. Ericsson's
+directions." The air-pump drew quantities of water; the feeding pump was
+insufficient to supply the boiler. The big bellows nearly wore out; so
+did the small one. Off the Mull of Galloway the stoker fell into the
+machinery and had his arm crushed and nearly severed above the elbow.
+Then the teeth of the fly-wheel of the small bellows were shorn off, and
+the boiler joints gave way, and the water, or rather the potato soup,
+flowed out of the furnace doors and put out the fire.
+
+Enough has been said to show the difficulties under which Ross first
+used steam on a voyage to the northern seas. The list of damages need
+not be continued. Every constituent part of the apparatus gave way in
+turn; and when the _Victory_ became imprisoned for the winter, and the
+engineering staff had some time on their hands, they employed it in
+taking what was left of the installation, piece by piece, out of the
+ship, laying it on the ice, and leaving it there.
+
+Ross was to be accompanied by the whaler _John_, but the men mutinied
+and refused to start, so that he went on from Loch Ryan alone. The
+following year the crew of the _John_, then on a whaling voyage in
+Baffin Bay, again mutinied, killed the master, put the mate adrift in a
+boat in the manner of Henry Hudson, and lost the ship on the western
+coast, where most of them were drowned.
+
+With the _Krusenstern_, a boat of eighteen tons, in tow, Ross crossed
+the Atlantic, sighting Sanderson's Hope on the 29th of July, having left
+Scotland six weeks before. Early in August he sailed through Lancaster
+Sound, and, taking the opportunity of removing his Croker's Mountains to
+the north-east corner of North Somerset, went down Prince Regent Inlet
+to Fury Beach. After completing his provisions for twenty-seven months
+from the stores left behind by Parry, he crossed Cresswell Bay, passed
+Cape Garry, Parry's farthest south, on the 15th of August, and next day,
+Sunday, "I went on shore," he says, "with all the officers, to take
+formal possession of the new-discovered land; and at one o'clock, being
+a few minutes after seven in London, the colours were displayed with the
+usual ceremony, and the health of the King drunk, together with that of
+the founder of our expedition, after whom the land was named."
+
+[Illustration: NORTH HENDON]
+
+"From the highest part of this land, which was upwards of a hundred feet
+above the level of the sea," he continues, "we had a good view of the
+bay and the adjoining shores, and had the satisfaction to find that the
+ice was in motion and fast clearing away. We therefore resolved to wait
+patiently till we could see an opening; and proceeded to the northern
+quarter of this spot to make some observations on the dip of the
+magnetic needle.... To this place I gave the name Brown Island, after
+the amiable sister of Mr. Booth; the inlet was named Brentford Bay, and
+the islands Grimble Islands." And in his book is a beautiful steel
+engraving by W. Chevalier, "Taking Possession. Cape Hussard, Grimble
+Isle, Brentford Bay, Brown's Island." In short, Ross found the place,
+landed on it, took possession of it, named it and sketched it. "The
+sketches from which the drawings were made were taken by Mr. Ronald's
+invaluable perspective instrument, and therefore _must_ be true
+delineations."
+
+And Ross passed on, apparently quite pleased with himself. But the Fates
+had again been against him, for this was the very North-West Passage he
+had come specially to find; the bay, as Kennedy was to show, being the
+entrance to Bellot Strait in which the _Fox_ was to winter when on the
+Franklin search. He had blundered along from the island of North
+Somerset to the mainland of America, and passed unheeded its
+northernmost point, which M'Clintock was to name Cape Murchison.
+
+Working down the coast of the newly-named Boothia, the _Victory_ reached
+Felix Harbour, and there she wintered. No Eskimos were seen until the
+9th of January, when thirty-one came to the ship and were invited on
+board, a return visit being paid next day to their village, which Ross
+named North Hendon. As this was a typical Eskimo snow camp we may as
+well copy his picture and quote his description.
+
+"The village soon appeared, consisting of twelve snow huts, erected at
+the bottom of a little bight on the shore, about two miles and a half
+from the ship. They had the appearance of inverted basins, and were
+placed without any order; each of them having a long crooked appendage,
+in which was the passage, at the entrance of which were the women, with
+the female children and the infants. We were soon invited to visit
+these, for whom we had prepared presents of glass beads and needles; a
+distribution of which soon drove away the timidity which they had
+displayed at our first appearance. The passage, always long, and
+generally crooked, led to the principal apartment, which was a circular
+dome, being ten feet in diameter when intended for one family, and an
+oval of fifteen by ten where it lodged two. Opposite the doorway there
+was a bank of snow, occupying nearly a third of the breadth of the area,
+about two feet and a half high, level at the top, and covered by various
+skins, forming the general bed or sleeping place for the whole. At the
+end of this sat the mistress of the house, opposite to the lamp, which,
+being of moss and oil, as is the universal custom in these regions, gave
+a sufficient flame to supply both light and heat; so that the apartment
+was perfectly comfortable. Over the lamp was the cooking dish of stone,
+containing the flesh of deer and of seals, with oil; and of such
+provision there seemed no want. Everything else, dresses, implements, as
+well as provisions, lay about in unspeakable confusion, showing that
+order, at least, was not in the class of their virtues. It was much more
+interesting to us to find, that among this disorder there were some
+fresh salmon; since, when they could find this fish, we were sure that
+it would also furnish us with supplies which we could not too much
+multiply. On inquiry, we were informed that they were abundant; and we
+had, therefore, the prospect of a new amusement, as well as of a
+valuable market at the mere price of our labour."
+
+[Illustration: ESKIMO LISTENING AT A SEAL-HOLE]
+
+A few weeks later Ross was to see how these houses were built. "Four
+families," he says, "comprising fifteen persons, passed the ship to
+erect new huts about half a mile to the southward. They had four
+heavy-laden sledges, drawn each by two or three dogs, but proceeded very
+slowly. We went after them to see the process of building the snow
+house, and were surprised at their dexterity; one man having closed in
+his roof within forty-five minutes. A tent is scarcely pitched sooner
+than a house is here built. The whole process is worth describing.
+Having ascertained, by the rod used in examining seal holes, whether the
+snow is sufficiently deep and solid, they level the intended spot by a
+wooden shovel, leaving beneath a solid mass of snow not less than three
+feet thick. Commencing then in the centre of the intended circle, which
+is ten feet or more in diameter, different wedge-shaped blocks are cut
+out, about two feet long, and a foot thick at the outer part; then
+trimming them accurately by the knife, they proceed upwards until the
+courses, gradually inclining inwards, terminate in a perfect dome. The
+door being cut out from the inside before it is quite closed serves to
+supply the upper materials. In the meantime the women are employed in
+stuffing the joints with snow, and the boys in constructing kennels for
+the dogs. The laying the snow sofa with skins and the insertion of the
+ice window complete the work; the passage only remaining to be added, as
+it is after the house is finished, together with some smaller huts for
+stores"—the design being similar to that of the yurts of the Eskimos of
+the north, with a change of material, snow for stone, and ice instead of
+seal-gut for the window over the entrance.
+
+Making friends with the Eskimos, and gaining a great reputation by the
+carpenter fitting one of them with a wooden leg, Ross obtained much
+valuable information from them, particularly as to the geography of the
+district. Like all Arctic men, he was impressed by their quickness in
+understanding maps and their skill in drawing them upon anything, snow,
+paper, or otherwise, that lay handy. One of them, Ikmallik, drew in the
+ship's cabin a map, which he reprints in his book, showing the
+coast-line of the country south of the _Victory's_ quarters, with the
+capes, inlets, and islands, giving the isthmus of Boothia and Committee
+Bay, and Repulse Bay on the other side of the Melville Peninsula, which
+is really wonderful, for neither the Eskimo, nor Ross, had anything to
+copy from, it being nearly twenty years before Rae's exploration; and
+the one thing it clearly demonstrated was that there was no waterway to
+the westward, south of Felix Harbour.
+
+Ross owed much to Ikmallik, and really a good deal of the time of the
+expedition was spent in confirming the statements of that well-informed
+man. The west coast of Boothia was surveyed down to Bulow Bay; the east
+side from Cape Nicholas down to Cape Porter, including the crossing of
+the upper part of James Ross Strait, the discovery of Matty Island and
+the north-east coast of King William Land from Cape Landon, opposite
+Cape Porter—where Ross, as usual, missed a strait—westward to capes
+Franklin and Jane Franklin, within sight of which in the days that were
+coming, by one of those remarkable coincidences so frequent in the
+north, the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ were to meet their fate.
+
+The one conspicuous triumph of the expedition was the journey of James
+Ross to the site of the Magnetic North Pole, which he found on the
+western coast of Boothia on the 1st of June, 1831. In the younger Ross's
+own words, "the land at this place is very low near the coast, but it
+rises into ridges of fifty or sixty feet high about a mile inland. We
+could have wished that a place so important had possessed more of mark
+or note. It was scarcely censurable to regret that there was not a
+mountain to indicate a spot to which so much of interest must ever be
+attached; and I could even have pardoned any one among us who had been
+so romantic or absurd as to expect that the magnetic pole was an object
+as conspicuous and mysterious as the fabled mountain of Sinbad, that it
+even was a mountain of iron, or a magnet as large as Mont Blanc. But
+Nature had here erected no monument to denote the spot which she had
+chosen as the centre of one of her great and dark powers; and where we
+could do little ourselves towards this end, it was our business to
+submit, and to be content in noting by mathematical numbers and signs,
+as with things of far more importance in the terrestrial system, what we
+could but ill distinguish in any other manner.... We fixed the British
+flag on the spot and took possession of the North Magnetic Pole and its
+adjoining territory in the name of Great Britain and King William the
+Fourth. We had abundance of materials for building, in the fragments of
+limestone that covered the beach; and we therefore erected a cairn of
+some magnitude, under which we buried a canister containing a record of
+the interesting fact; only regretting that we had not the means of
+constructing a pyramid of more importance and of strength sufficient to
+withstand the assaults of time and of the Eskimos. Had it been a pyramid
+as large as that of Cheops, I am not quite sure that it would have done
+more than satisfy our ambition, under the feelings of that exciting day.
+The latitude of this spot is 70° 5´ 17˝, and its longitude 96° 46´ 45˝
+west."
+
+The _Victory_ in the short summer of 1830 sailed a few miles further
+south and spent the winter in Victoria Harbour, to be there abandoned in
+May, 1832. Ross in his boats made for Fury Beach, where, at Somerset
+House, as he called it, he passed the following winter. On the 26th of
+August, 1833, when in his boats off the eastern mouth of Lancaster
+Sound, he was picked up by the _Isabella_, his old ship, and in her he
+reached the Humber in October of that year after four successive winters
+in the ice, having been enabled to make so long a stay by his fortunate
+find of the stores left by Parry.
+
+[Illustration: H.M.S. "TERROR" LIFTED BY ICE]
+
+In 1824 Captain Lyon was sent out in the _Griper_ to winter at Repulse
+Bay, and thence crossing the isthmus described by the Eskimos continue
+along to Franklin's Point Turnagain; but the _Griper_ was nearly wrecked
+in Rowe's Welcome and did not reach Wager River. The discoveries of Ross
+led to the renewal of this attempt by Captain Back in the _Terror_ in
+1836. He was to go to Wager River or Repulse Bay, and then make his way
+into Prince Regent Inlet, and so west; but he became imprisoned in the
+ice off Cape Comfort during one of the severest winters known. Drifting
+up Frozen Strait amid most perilous experiences, the ship, lifted high
+above sea-level by pressure, lay at times almost horizontal. Once "they
+beheld," he says, "the strange and appalling spectacle of what may be
+fitly termed a submerged berg, fixed low down, with one end to the
+ship's side, while the other, with the purchase of a long lever
+advantageously placed at a right angle with the keel, was slowly rising
+towards the surface. Meanwhile, those who happened to be below, finding
+everything falling, rushed or clambered on deck, where they saw the ship
+on her beam-ends, with the lee boats touching the water, and felt that a
+few moments only trembled between them and eternity."
+
+Day after day the _Terror_ defied the persistent effort of the ice to
+smash her, but suffering much in almost every timber she withstood it
+sufficiently to keep together. For four months she was entirely out of
+water, and when at last she was free, Back wrapped her up as best he
+could, and brought her home with the water pouring into her so that the
+men were so wearied out that they could hardly have continued at the
+pumps another day; and he ran her ashore in Lough Swilly only just in
+time. Upwards of twenty feet of her keel, together with ten feet of the
+stern-post, were driven over more than three and a half feet on one
+side, leaving a frightful opening astern for the free ingress of water.
+The forefoot was entirely gone; numbers of bolts were either loosened or
+broken; and when, besides this, the strained and twisted state of the
+ship's frame was considered, there was not one on board who did not
+express astonishment that they had ever floated across the Atlantic.
+
+The next attempt to complete the coast of the American mainland was made
+from the land, and at the cost of the Hudson's Bay Company. Really it
+was the expedition proposed by Simpson some five years before, of which
+he would have been the leader had he not been shot; and it was entrusted
+to the capable hands of Dr. John Rae.
+
+After wintering at York Factory, Rae reached Repulse Bay with two boats,
+the _Magnet_ and _North Pole_, on the 25th of July, 1846, and in his
+usual style started immediately across the chain of lakes and portages
+which make up the isthmus that now bears his name, launching his boats
+in the tidal water of Committee Bay on the 1st of August. Stopped by ice
+on the west side and then on the east he returned to Repulse Bay, where
+he built Fort Hope of stones and roofed it with sails, and lived in it
+through the winter on what he could shoot and catch, for many weeks
+venturing on only one meal a day. Outside the men kept themselves warm
+chiefly by building snow houses and playing football; inside, as the
+only fuel used was for cooking, the only thing they could do was to wrap
+themselves in furs, and trust to their natural heat in a temperature
+that ranged about zero.
+
+[Illustration: FRACTURED STERN-POST OF H.M.S. "TERROR"]
+
+In April, with a couple of sledges, eight dogs, and five men, he crossed
+the isthmus again and went straightaway up the east side of Boothia to
+Ross's farthest south, thus completing that coast-line. Back he went to
+Fort Hope after a trip of nearly six hundred miles, to start again on
+the 12th of May up the west coast of the Melville Peninsula to Cape
+Ellice, which Parry had sighted from the strait on that side. And he was
+back once more at Fort Hope on the 9th of June. Thus the survey of the
+northern coast was complete with the exception of the gap between the
+Boothia isthmus, on the west side, and Castor and Pollux River of Dease
+and Simpson, which Rae in another famous effort from Repulse Bay was to
+link up later on.
+
+When Rae reached Lord Mayor's Bay on the east coast of Boothia,
+Franklin, with the _Erebus_ and _Terror_, was off its west coast in the
+same latitude. This was the reappearance of the _Terror_ in the north.
+After Back's voyage she had been repaired to sail with the _Erebus_,
+under Sir James Clark Ross, when he discovered the South Magnetic Pole;
+and on their return the barques had been thoroughly overhauled and
+fitted with auxiliary screws, the first time that the screw propeller
+was used in Arctic work. Franklin was in the _Erebus_, the _Terror_
+being commanded by Francis R. M. Crozier as she had been in the
+Antarctic voyage. Crozier was one of Parry's men, he having been in the
+_Fury_ in 1821 and in the _Hecla_ on her two subsequent expeditions.
+
+The ships left England on the 19th of May, 1845, and were last seen and
+spoken with on the 26th of July in Melville Bay on their way to
+Lancaster Sound. According to information gained during the long series
+of searches, they passed through the sound and went north for about a
+hundred and fifty miles, to 77°, up Wellington Channel into Penny
+Strait—the first time the passage had been made. Returning down the west
+side of Cornwallis Island, discovering the strait between it and
+Bathurst Island, they wintered at Beechey Island, where three of the men
+died and were buried; and where the most significant relic was about
+seven hundred tins of preserved meat that seemed to have been condemned
+as bad, just as the stock of similar stuff had in the same year been
+condemned and thrown overboard at Portsmouth.
+
+Leaving Beechey Island in 1846, they went south down Peel Sound, being
+the first to pass through it, and Franklin Strait—another new
+discovery—to within twelve miles of Cape Felix in King William Land,
+where, on the 12th of September, they were beset about half-way between
+Cape Adelaide in Boothia and Pelly Point in Victoria Land. Hereabouts
+the second winter was passed, and on the 24th of May a party under
+Lieutenant Gore crossed the ice to Point Victory, probably on a journey
+to examine the unknown coast between there and Cape Herschel. On the
+11th of June, 1847, Sir John Franklin died. The ships drifted a short
+distance during their imprisonment in the ice, and the third winter was
+passed some twenty miles further south down Victoria Strait, where, on
+the 22nd of April, 1848, when fifteen miles north-north-west of Point
+Victory, they were abandoned, and the officers and crews, a hundred and
+five in all, under Crozier's command, started for Back's Great Fish
+River, some of them completing the first North-West Passage in crossing
+Simpson Strait and reaching Montreal Island.
+
+The first undoubted traces of the lost expedition were those discovered
+at Beechey Island, the news reaching England in the _Prince Albert_ in
+the autumn of 1850. As soon as the winter was over this excellent little
+schooner was again sent out by Lady Franklin under the command of
+Captain William Kennedy, who took with him as a volunteer Lieutenant
+Joseph René Bellot of the French navy, and also John Hepburn, who had
+been with Franklin on the land journey in 1819. Kennedy wintered at
+Batty Bay in North Somerset, and during a remarkable sledge journey, in
+which he made the circuit of the island, he and Bellot reached Brentford
+Bay, and, on the 21st of April, 1852, discovered the strait named after
+the gallant Frenchman. But he found no traces of the expedition through
+turning to the north and crossing to Prince of Wales Island, instead of
+going to the south at the western mouth of the strait. He had, however,
+discovered the termination of Boothia, the north point of the American
+continent which men had been seeking for three centuries.
+
+To the southern end of Boothia came the indefatigable Rae. That cheery
+hero of the north left Repulse Bay on the 31st of March, 1854, to
+complete the Hudson's Bay Company's survey. On the 20th of April he met
+a young Eskimo in Pelly Bay, who told him the fate of the _Erebus_ and
+_Terror_, and from him and his people Rae obtained a number of small
+articles, forks and spoons and so forth, which had undoubtedly come from
+the ships, one of which had been crushed in the ice, the other sinking
+after drifting further south.
+
+Rae was not the man to return until he had attacked the work he had set
+out to do, and he continued his surveying with his customary accuracy,
+despatch, and general alertness, striking across the peninsula,
+discovering the Murchison River, reaching Simpson's farthest at Castor
+and Pollux River, and thence proving the insularity of King William Land
+by travelling up the east coast of the strait now named after him—and he
+was back again in August. He had almost finished the survey of the
+northern coast-line; and he had ascertained how and where Franklin's
+voyage had ended, for which discovery the British Government gave him
+the reward of £10,000, letting it be understood that so far as they were
+concerned the Franklin searches were at an end.
+
+But Lady Franklin thought one more effort should be made to unravel the
+mystery of her husband's fate, and there were many who thought the same.
+Helped to a certain extent by a public subscription, she organised
+another expedition. The steam-yacht _Fox_ was bought from the executors
+of Sir Richard Sutton and altered for Arctic work by her builders, the
+Halls of Aberdeen clipper fame. As leader went Captain, afterwards Sir,
+Frederick Leopold M'Clintock, who had done such brilliant sledge-work in
+the north; like his second in command, Lieutenant W. R. Hobson, he gave
+his services gratuitously, as also did Dr. David Walker and Captain,
+afterwards Sir, Allen Young, then of the Mercantile Marine, who also
+subscribed £500 towards the fund. Carl Petersen, the Eskimo interpreter
+on the voyages of Penny and Kane, came to join from Copenhagen, having
+landed there from Greenland only six days previously. The British
+Government, although declining to send out an expedition, contributed
+liberally to the supplies, and sent on board all the arms and ammunition
+and ice-gear and every instrument that was asked for.
+
+[Illustration: THE "FOX" ESCAPING FROM THE PACK]
+
+Lady Franklin's instructions were so characteristic of the noble-hearted
+woman whose name can never be forgotten in Arctic story that they must
+be given in full:—
+
+                                           "ABERDEEN, _June 29, 1857_.
+
+  "MY DEAR CAPTAIN M'CLINTOCK,
+
+  "You have kindly invited me to give you 'Instructions,' but I cannot
+  bring myself to feel that it would be right in me in any way to
+  influence your judgment in the conduct of your noble undertaking;
+  and indeed I have no temptation to do so, since it appears to me
+  that your views are almost identical with those which I had
+  independently formed before I had the advantage of being thoroughly
+  possessed of yours. But had this been otherwise, I trust you would
+  have found me ready to prove the implicit confidence I place in you
+  by yielding my own views to your more enlightened judgment; knowing
+  too as I do that your whole heart also is in the cause, even as my
+  own is. As to the objects of the expedition and their relative
+  importance, I am sure that you know that the rescue of any possible
+  survivor of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ would be to me, as it would be
+  to you, the noblest result of our efforts.
+
+  "To this object I wish every other to be subordinate; and next to it
+  in importance is the recovery of the unspeakably precious documents
+  of the expedition, public and private, and the personal relics of my
+  dear husband and his companions.
+
+  "And lastly, I trust it may be in your power to confirm, directly or
+  inferentially, the claims of my husband's expedition to the earliest
+  discovery of the passage, which, if Dr. Rae's report be true (and
+  the Government of our country has accepted and rewarded it as such),
+  these martyrs in a noble cause achieved at their last extremity,
+  after five long years of labour and suffering, if not at an earlier
+  period.
+
+  "I am sure that you will do all that man can do for the attainment
+  of all these objects; my only fear is that you may spend yourselves
+  too much in the effort; and you must therefore let me tell you how
+  much dearer to me even than any of them is the preservation of the
+  valuable lives of the little band of heroes who are your companions
+  and followers.
+
+  "May God in His great mercy preserve you all from harm amidst the
+  labours and perils which await you, and restore you to us in health
+  and safety as well as honour. As to the honour I can have _no_
+  misgiving. It will be yours as much if you fail (since you _may_
+  fail in spite of every effort) as if you succeed; and be assured
+  that, under _any and all circumstances whatever_, such is my
+  unbounded confidence in you, you will possess and be entitled to the
+  enduring gratitude of your sincere and attached friend,
+
+                                                      "JANE FRANKLIN."
+
+[Illustration: THE "FOX" ON A ROCK]
+
+The men of the _Fox_ were worthy of the confidence placed in them.
+Leaving Aberdeen on the 1st of July, M'Clintock reached Disco on the
+last day of the month, and, proceeding northwards, was, by a perverse
+freak of fortune, beset in Melville Bay on the 8th of August, and kept
+imprisoned thence onwards all through the winter, drifting south through
+Baffin Bay and Davis Strait. On the 26th of April, 1858, after a drift
+of 1194 geographical miles, the _Fox_ escaped from the pack and steamed
+to the eastward amid the most perilous of ice experiences. Most men
+would have returned and tried again; not so M'Clintock. He boldly ran up
+the Greenland coast as if nothing had happened and, making good
+deficiencies, resumed his voyage. Soon after leaving Sanderson's Hope
+the _Fox_ was nearly wrecked near Buchan Island, remaining on a rock
+until the tide rose again to set her free. After calling at Beechey
+Island, M'Clintock followed Franklin's track down Peel Sound until
+stopped by the pack, when he retraced his course and tried Prince Regent
+Inlet, reaching Bellot Strait on the 21st of August. At Port Kennedy in
+this famous waterway—which is like a Greenland fiord, about twenty miles
+long and scarcely a mile wide at its narrowest part, the water four
+hundred feet deep within a quarter of a mile of its northern shore—he
+passed the winter.
+
+On the 1st of March he reached by sledge the Magnetic Pole and fell in
+with four of the Boothian Eskimos, who, at the cost of a needle each,
+built him a snow hut in an hour, in which they all spent the night.
+"Perhaps," says M'Clintock, "the records of architecture do not furnish
+another instance of a dwelling-house so cheaply constructed!" Halting at
+Cape Victoria the Eskimos came up from their village close by with a
+number of small relics of the lost expedition. Returning to the _Fox_
+after a journey of four hundred and twenty statute miles in which the
+survey of the west coast of Boothia was completed, everything was made
+ready for three long sledge journeys of two sledges each, the captain
+taking that for Montreal Island, and giving Hobson the best chance of
+promotion by sending him round the west coast of King William Land,
+while Young took the Prince of Wales Land route.
+
+On the east coast of King William Land M'Clintock met with more Eskimos,
+from whom he obtained relics and obtained information. Pushing on, he
+reached Montreal Island on the 15th of May, where the only traces of a
+boat were some scraps of copper and an iron-hoop bolt. A crossing to the
+mainland on the 18th of May revealed no more; and next day the return
+journey began. Six days afterwards, walking along a gravel ridge near
+the beach on the way to Cape Herschel, M'Clintock found the first
+skeleton, partly exposed, with a few fragments of clothing appearing
+through the snow, evidently one of the men who, as the old Eskimo woman
+said, fell down and died as they walked along. Visiting Simpson's cairn
+at Cape Herschel and meeting with nothing, he went on for about twelve
+miles, where he caught sight of a small cairn built by Hobson's party at
+their furthest south, reached six days before, containing a note with
+the great news that at Point Victory they had found what is now known as
+the Franklin record.
+
+This record, which has frequently been printed—in a smaller size than
+the original—was one of the navy bottle-papers with the request in six
+languages that it should be forwarded to the Admiralty. A pale blue
+paper, twelve and a half inches by eight, it was filled up in the
+ordinary way, and then added to round the four margins in the
+handwriting of Lieutenant Gore, Captain FitzJames, and Captain Crozier,
+and signed by these and C. F. Des Vœux. It had been first deposited four
+miles away, so it said, "by the late Commander Gore," in 1847, and next
+year found by Lieutenant Irving, added to, and removed to the new cairn
+on the site of Sir James Ross's pillar.
+
+[Illustration: DISCOVERY OF THE CAIRN]
+
+Brief as it was, it contained all the authentic information regarding
+Franklin's voyage up to the time the ships were abandoned. Resuming the
+return journey along the edge of the strait where the meeting of the
+Pacific and Atlantic tides keeps the ice drifting down from the
+north-west almost constantly packed, M'Clintock reached a boat with two
+skeletons and other relics already visited by Hobson, who had found
+other cairns and many relics, and, in Back Bay, another record by Gore,
+also deposited in 1847, but giving no additional news.
+
+Hobson was dragged alongside the _Fox_, on the 14th of June, so ill with
+scurvy that he was unable to walk or even stand without assistance.
+M'Clintock arrived five days later; and on the 27th Allen Young returned
+after an exploration of three hundred and eighty miles of coast-line,
+which, added to that discovered by M'Clintock and Hobson, gave a total
+of eight hundred geographical miles of new coast as the work of the
+expedition, besides what it had done in clearing up the Franklin
+mystery.
+
+In 1869 Captain C. F. Hall collected other relics and sufficient
+information to account for seventy-nine men out of the hundred and five
+who left the ships. Ten years after that, Schwatka, in his long, careful
+search of King William Land, discovered the grave of Lieutenant Irving,
+in which were some fragments of his instruments and the prize medal he
+won at the Royal Naval College. Near by were many traces indicating that
+it was the site of the first encampment of the retreating crews after
+leaving their ships; and down the coast he traced camp after camp, and
+death after death. Irving's remains were brought away and are buried at
+Edinburgh. The spot where they were found was Cape Jane Franklin.
+
+More fortunate than Franklin was Captain Roald Amundsen. Leaving
+Christiania in the _Gjöa_ on the 16th of June, 1903, he crossed the
+Atlantic and proceeded down Peel Sound, past Bellot Strait, and along
+the west coast of Boothia, where a fire on the ship did a certain amount
+of damage, and, struggling thereafter for ten days among shoals and
+rocks, down James Ross Strait, past Matty Island into Rae Strait, he
+dropped anchor in Petersen Bay, King William Land. For his base station
+he required a site in which the inclination was eighty-nine degrees, and
+at Gjöahaven, in this bay, he found it in 68° 30´ N., 96° W.
+
+Here he arranged his headquarters for his observations on the Magnetic
+Pole which were kept going night and day for nineteen months; and here
+he stayed for two winters, moving about in the country around and over
+into Boothia, where he proved that the Pole was not immovable and
+stationary, but in all likelihood in continual movement. Leaving the
+south-eastern corner of King William Land in his little ship he passed
+through Simpson Strait, linking up with Collinson; and, like him, he was
+delayed for a winter on the coast of the American mainland. Through
+Bering Strait he reached San Francisco, where the voyage ended in the
+sale of the _Gjöa_. Thus of Amundsen it can be said, without any
+qualification whatever, that he accomplished the North-West Passage.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XI
+                               BAFFIN BAY
+
+  Sir Humphrey Gilbert—Sir Martin Frobisher—His first voyage—The
+    fateful stone—First meeting with the Eskimos—The Cathay
+    Company—Second voyage—Third voyage—Frobisher builds a fort—The
+    ships among the floes—Captain Hall finds the Frobisher
+    relics—Adrian Gilbert—John Davis—His voyages and dealings with the
+    Eskimos—Reaches and names Sanderson's Hope—The Traverse
+    Book—William Baffin—His first voyage to Greenland—His fourth and
+    fifth voyages—Discovers Baffin Land—Discovers Baffin Bay—Smith
+    Sound—Jones Sound—Lancaster Sound—Baffin's farthest north—John
+    Ross and Parry verify his discoveries.
+
+
+In 1566 Humphrey Gilbert—who was as near to heaven by sea as by
+land—petitioned Queen Elizabeth for privileges in regard to discoveries
+"by the North-west to Cataia" as an alternative to a petition he, in
+conjunction with Anthony Jenkinson, had presented the previous year for
+a voyage by the north-east. He received no answer; but ten years
+afterwards, in support of this unanswered petition, he published his
+_Discourse of a Discovery for a New Passage to Cataia_. This met with
+approval, and led, with little delay, to the expedition under the Martin
+Frobisher who, among other noteworthy services, commanded the _Triumph_
+in the Armada fight to such good purpose that he was one of the five
+distinguished men knighted by Howard in mid-channel after the battle off
+the Isle of Wight.
+
+Frobisher was a good seaman—but no mineralogist. Mainly at the expense
+of Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and under the business management of
+that old seafarer, Michael Lock, of the Muscovy Company, he left
+Blackwall on the 7th of June, 1576, in the _Gabriel_ of twenty-five
+tons, accompanied by the _Michael_ of twenty tons—which deserted and
+returned as soon as difficulties arose—and a ten-ton pinnace, which
+ended by foundering off Greenland. All told, the expedition numbered
+thirty-five, of whom the _Gabriel_ carried eighteen; and with these the
+voyage through the Arctic Ocean was to be made to China.
+
+Leaving the Shetlands at her top speed of a league and a half an
+hour—which her master, good Christopher Hall, proudly recorded—the
+_Gabriel_ sighted Cape Farewell on the 11th of July. Two days afterwards
+she was thrown on her beam-ends in a storm, and was rapidly filling with
+water flowing in at her waist when she was relieved by the loss of her
+fore-yard and the cutting away of her mizen-mast. Rounding the cape,
+steering westward when he could among the floating ice, Frobisher
+reached a high headland at the south-east end of what is now Frobisher
+Bay, which he named Queen Elizabeth Foreland. A few days afterwards
+Hall, out in a boat seeking a way through the ice for the ship, landed
+on what they called Hall's Island, and, noticing a fog coming on, left
+hurriedly, snatching up, as specimens of the plants, a few grasses and
+flowers, and, as a rock specimen, a heavy black stone picked up
+haphazard on the beach. The grass faded, the flowers perished, and the
+fateful stone remained.
+
+[Illustration: SIR MARTIN FROBISHER]
+
+For fifty leagues Frobisher sailed north-westward into the bay, thinking
+it to be a strait with Asia on the right hand and America on the left.
+He landed at what he called Butcher's Island, saw "mightie deere which
+ranne at him and hardly he escaped with his life in a narrow way where
+he was faine to use defence and policie," and from a hill-top "perceived
+a number of small things fleeting in the sea afarre off whyche hee
+supposed to be porposes or seales or some kind of strange fishe but
+coming nearer he discovered them to be men in small boates made of
+leather," who only just failed in capturing his boat before he reached
+it. Subsequent conferences with the Eskimos ended in his losing the boat
+with five men who had gone ashore to trade; and finally, having lifted
+single-handed one of the interesting natives, kayak and all, into the
+_Gabriel_, he made sail for home.
+
+When Lock went aboard on the ship's arrival there were no riches from
+Cathay, nothing worth mentioning beyond the Eskimo—who soon died—the
+kayak and paddle, and "the fyrste thynge found in the new land," the
+black stone. He carried away the stone, after chipping off a few
+fragments for the friends around, and after a week or two's
+consideration sent some of it to the Mint to be assayed. The report was
+not as he expected; the "saymaster" was of opinion that it was
+marcasite, that is, iron pyrites. Not satisfied, Lock sent some to
+another expert, who also said it was pyrites. Then he tried a third man,
+who could find no gold in it. And then he tried a fourth—this time an
+Italian—who gave him the answer he wanted: "A very little powder of gold
+came thereout."
+
+Lock sent him some more, telling him frankly that three other assayers
+"could find no such thing therein," but again the Italian was equal to
+the occasion. "The xviii day of January," writes Lock, "he sent me by
+his mayde this little scrap of paper written, No. 1, hereinclosed; and
+thereinclosed the grayne of gold, which afterward I delivered to your
+majesty." For the Queen had become interested in the wonderful stone
+which was the talk of the town, its value increasing at every recital
+until many believed, as Sir Philip Sidney seems to have done, that it
+was "the purest gold unalloyed with any other metals."
+
+Lock was not the man to let such excellent advertisement be lost, and
+forthwith he projected the Cathay Company for which the charter was
+obtained from the Crown on St. Patrick's Day, 1577. Lock was named as
+Governor for six years with remuneration "for ever" of one per cent on
+all goods imported; Frobisher was named as Captain by sea and Admiral of
+the ships and navy of the Company for life with a yearly stipend and one
+per cent, like Lock, on all goods the Company brought in. Queen
+Elizabeth—notwithstanding the report from the Mint—headed the list of
+shareholders with £1000; and Burghley, Howard, Leicester, Walsingham,
+Hunsdon, Sidney, even Gresham, subscribed for shares in this remarkable
+company.
+
+To bring home more of the "golden ore," a new expedition was entered
+upon at once, and on the 26th of May, Whit-Sunday as it happened,
+Frobisher started on his second voyage. He had three vessels, the _Aid_
+of two hundred tons, lent him from the Royal Navy, and the _Gabriel_ and
+_Michael_ as before, and one hundred and twenty officers and men, of
+whom thirty were miners and other landsmen, and, in addition, six
+condemned criminals whom he was to land in Greenland as colonists but
+put ashore at Harwich instead.
+
+To the new land—named by the Queen Meta Incognita, "the unknown limit of
+the outward course"—he made his way without much adventure. Landing on
+Hall's Island, he sought for more stone but could find not so much as a
+piece as big as a walnut; for Hall, who was again with him as master,
+had apparently lighted, in the one sample, on the whole of its mineral
+wealth. This disappointment, however, was forgotten in the finding of
+occasional patches of pyrites on the mainland and other islands which in
+due course were visited. Thirty leagues up the bay a landing was made on
+what was called Countess of Warwick's Island, where more ore was found
+and a fort called Best's Bulwark was built. That was Frobisher's
+farthest on this voyage, and thence he sailed on the 24th of August,
+bringing with him two hundred tons of pyrites, and, as a present for the
+Queen, a horn two yards long, wreathed and straight, which he had found
+in the nose of a dead narwhal.
+
+The ore was received with rejoicings. Some of it was deposited in
+Bristol Castle, some in the Tower of London under four locks, but there
+was not enough of it; and as there were then, as now, no furnaces in
+England capable of getting gold out of marcasite, a new expedition was
+despatched while the furnaces were being prepared. This time the
+enterprise was to be on a very different scale. Frobisher was given a
+fleet of fifteen vessels, Drake's old ship, the _Judith_, amongst them,
+the _Aid_, as before, being the flagship. He was to bring home two
+thousand tons of mineral and find other mines, if he could, besides
+taking out a colony of a hundred persons to settle in Meta Incognita,
+for whom the materials of a wooden house were among the miscellaneous
+cargo.
+
+The fleet left Harwich on the 31st of May, 1578. A landing was made in
+the south of Greenland, which Frobisher named West England and took
+possession of, his point of departure from there being called by him,
+"from a certain similitude," Charing Cross! Soon he was among the ice
+floes. One of the ships was driven on to a floe and sank with some of
+the materials for the wooden house. Then followed a storm in which most
+of the ships had a terrible experience. "Some," says Captain Best of the
+_Ann Frances_, the chronicler of the voyage, "were so fast shut up and
+compassed in amongst an infinite number of great countreys and ilands of
+ise, that they were fayne to submit themselves and their ships to the
+mercie of the unmercifull ise, and strengthened the sides of their ships
+with junckes of cables, beds, masts, planckes, and such like, which
+being hanged overboord, on the sides of their shippes, mighte the better
+defend them from the outrageous sway and strokes of the said ise. But as
+in greatest distresse, men of best value are best to be discerned, so it
+is greatly worthy commendation and noting with what invincible mind
+every captayne encouraged his company, and with what incredible labour
+the paynefull mariners and poore miners (unacquainted with such
+extremities) to the everlasting renoune of our nation, dyd overcome the
+brunt of these so great and extreame daungers; for some, even without
+boorde uppon the ise, and some within boorde, uppon the sides of their
+shippes, having poles, pikes, peeces of timber and ores in their hands,
+stood almost day and night, without any reste, bearing off the force,
+and breaking the sway of the ise, with suche incredible payne and perill
+that it was wonderfull to behold, which otherwise no doubt had striken
+quite through and through the sides of their shippes, notwithstanding
+our former provision; for planckes of timber, of more than three ynches
+thick, and other things of greater force and bignesse, by the surging of
+the sea and billow, with the ise were shevered and cutte in sunder at
+the sides of oure ships, that it will seeme more than credible to be
+reported of. And yet (that which is more) it is faythfully and playnely
+to be proved, and that by many substantiall witnesses, that our shippes,
+even those of greatest burdens, with the meeting of contrary waves of
+the sea, were heaved up betweene islandes of ise a foote welneere out of
+the sea above their watermarke, having their knees and timbers within
+boorde both bowed and broken therewith."
+
+To add to the difficulties of the voyage Frobisher lost his way, and
+entered what he called the Mistaken Streight—now designated Hudson
+Strait—through which he might have found his way to Cathay, had he been
+so minded; but recognising that he was on the wrong road he returned and
+reached his mining district at the end of July. While the ore was being
+gathered in, Best ventured into the upper part of Frobisher Bay as far
+as the Gabriel Islands—the only exploring work that was done—and early
+in September the fleet departed on the homeward voyage.
+
+Frobisher had left one unmistakable indication of his visit behind him.
+On Countess of Warwick Island he had built a house of lime and stone,
+and "the better," says Best, "to allure those brutish and uncivill
+people to courtesie, againste other times of our comming, we left
+therein dyvers of our countrye toyes, as bells and knives, wherein they
+specially delight, one for the necessarie use, and the other for the
+great pleasure thereof. Also pictures of men and women in lead, men a
+horsebacke, lookinglasses, whistles and pipes. Also in the house was
+made an oven, and breade left baked therein, for them to see and taste.
+We buried the timber of our pretended forte, with manye barrels of
+meale, pease, griste, and sundrie other good things, which was of the
+provision of those whyche should inhabite, if occasion served. And
+insteade therof we fraight oure ships full of ore, whiche we holde of
+farre greater price."
+
+Here we part from the Cathay Company. The inevitable trouble came with
+the discovery that, practically, the only gold the ore would yield was
+that put in as an "additament" by the Italian. A very thick cloud rolled
+over Frobisher, who, like Lock, seems to have believed in the
+genuineness of the affair all through; but soon his country had need of
+him and he came to the front again in so worthy a manner that little
+more was heard of his connection with this company that failed.
+
+[Illustration: ESKIMO AWAITING A SEAL]
+
+To complete the story. In 1861 (say three hundred years afterwards)
+Captain Hall—hearing among the Eskimos how numerous white men had
+arrived first in two, then three, then a great many ships, how they had
+killed several natives and taken away two, how five of the white men had
+been captured, and how these had built a large boat and put a mast in
+her and sailed away to death when the water was open—went to Kod-lun-arn
+(White Man's Island) and there found the house of lime and stone as
+described, and traces of the diggings, and many relics among which he
+made the collection presented by him to the British Government.
+
+In the year 1583, when Sir Humphrey Gilbert, whose _Discourse_ gave so
+great a stimulus to Arctic discovery, founded St. John's,
+Newfoundland—the first English colony in America—a patent was granted by
+Queen Elizabeth to his brother Adrian "of Sandridge in the county of
+Devon," as one of the colleagues of the Fellowship for the Discovery of
+the North-West Passage. At this Sandridge—on the east of the Dart,
+bounded on three sides by the river, some two miles above Dartmouth—was
+the home of the three Gilberts (John, Humphrey, and Adrian), whose
+mother by a second marriage became the mother of Carew and Walter
+Raleigh; and here, about 1550, of a family also owning property in the
+small peninsula, was born John Davis, as we know him, or John Davys, as
+he signed himself, who was probably a playmate, and certainly a
+life-long friend, of these five.
+
+Davis was an accomplished seaman, the best of the Elizabethan
+navigators, and a man of accurate observation, always on the alert,
+whose reputation does not rest only on the work he did in the northern
+and other seas, for he was the author of _The Seaman's Secrets_, the
+most popular practical navigation treatise of its time. Very early,
+perhaps from the first, he was one of the moving spirits in this new
+north-west enterprise, for on the 23rd of January, 1583, we find Dr.
+Dee-who had helped to send Frobisher on his first voyage—making an entry
+in his journal that Mr. Secretary Walsingham had come to his house,
+where by good luck he found Mr. Adrian Gilbert, and so talk began on
+"the north-west straits discovery"; and, next day, "I, Mr. Awdrian
+Gilbert and John Davis, went by appointment to Mr. Beale, his howse,
+where only we four were secret, and we made Mr. Secretary privie of the
+N.W. Passage, and all charts and rutters were agreed upon in
+generall"—"rutter" being the French "routier," originating in _Le
+Routier de la Mer_, signifying a book of sea routes. Another important
+friend of Davis was William Sanderson, the representative of the
+merchants by whom the expenses of the voyage were borne, he being the
+chief subscriber. One of the ships, the _Moonshine_, seems to have
+belonged to him, and it was largely owing to his influence among the
+shareholders that Davis was appointed captain and chief pilot of the
+"exployt," in which he was to practically rediscover Greenland.
+
+There were two vessels, the _Sunshine_ of London, fifty-nine tons, with
+twenty-three persons on board, and the _Moonshine_ of Dartmouth,
+thirty-five tons, with nineteen. They left Dartmouth on the 7th of June,
+1585, but had to put in at Falmouth and then at the Scillies, where
+Davis occupied the twelve days he spent there in surveying and charting
+the islands. On the 20th of July they were sailing down the east coast
+of Greenland, and were so little attracted by it that Davis called it
+the Land of Desolation. Nine days afterwards he found a group of many
+pleasant green islands bordering on the shore, while the mountains of
+the mainland were still covered with snow, and here he landed on the
+west coast at Gilbert Sound, as he named it, near where Godthaab now is,
+and entered into communication with the natives.
+
+[Illustration: A GREENLANDER IN HIS KAYAK]
+
+For such occasions, apparently, he had among the _Sunshine_ people four
+described as musicians, whom, on sighting the Eskimos, he sent for. As
+soon as they arrived from the ship he ordered them to strike up a
+dancing tune, and to their merry music Davis and his men began to caper
+as if they were enjoying themselves immensely, while the lookers-on
+gradually increased in number. "At length," he says, "one of them
+poynting up to the sunne with his hande would presently strike his brest
+so hard that we might hear the blowe. This he did many times, before he
+would any way trust us. Then John Ellis the master of the _Mooneshine_,
+was appointed to use his best policie to gaine their friendshippe: who
+strooke his breast and poynted to the sunne after their order: which
+when he had diverse times done, they began to trust him, and one of them
+came on shoare, to whom we threwe our caps, stockings and gloves, and
+such other things as then we had about us, playing with our musicke, and
+making signes of joy, and dancing. So the night comming we bade them
+farewell, and went aboord our barks."
+
+The next morning, being the 30th of July, thirty-seven canoes came up to
+the ships, their occupants calling to the English to come on shore. "Wee
+not making any great haste unto them, one of them went up to the top of
+the rocke, and lept and daunced as they had done the day before, shewing
+us a seales skinne, and another thing made like a timbrel, which he did
+beate upon with a sticke, making a noyse like a small drumme." Whereupon
+Davis manned his boats and went to the waterside where they were in
+their canoes, "and after we had sworne by the sunne after their fashion,
+they did trust us. So I shooke hands with one of them, and hee kissed my
+hand, and we were very familier with them. We bought five canoas of
+them, we bought their clothes from their backs, which were all made of
+seales skins and birdes skinnes: their buskins, their hose, their
+gloves, all being commonly sewed and well dressed: so that we were fully
+persuaded that they have divers artificers among them. Wee had a paire
+of buskins of them full of fine wooll like bever. Their apparell for
+heate, was made of bird skinnes with their feathers on them. We sawe
+among them leather dressed like glovers leather, and thicke thongs like
+white leather of a good length. Wee had of their darts and oares, and
+found in them that they would by no meanes displease us, but would give
+us whatsoever we asked of them and would be satisfied with whatsoever we
+gave them. They took great care one of an other: for when we had bought
+their boates, then two other woulde come and carie him away betweene
+them that had soulde us his." He describes them as "a very tractable
+people, voyde of craft or double dealing, and easie to be brought to
+civiltie or good order," the men of good stature, unbearded, small-eyed,
+"by whom, as signes would permit, we understood that towards the north
+and west there was a great sea."
+
+During his stay among these islands he found considerable quantities of
+wood—fir, spruce, and juniper—which whether it came floating any great
+distance or grew in some island near he did not discover; but he thought
+it grew further inland because the people had so many darts and paddles
+which they held of little value and gave away for insignificant trifles.
+He also found "great abundance of seales" in shoals as if they were
+small fish; but saw no fresh water, only snow water in large pools, and
+he notes that the "cliffes were all of such oare as M. Frobisher brought
+from Meta Incognita."
+
+Leaving the sound on the 1st of August he crossed the strait now named
+after him and reached land in 66° 40´. In water "altogether voyd from ye
+pester of ice" he anchored, "in a very fair rode, under a very brave
+mount, the cliffs whereof were as orient as gold." This mount he named
+Mount Raleigh, the roadstead he called Totnes Rode, the sound round the
+mount he named Exeter Sound, the foreland to the north he called Dyer's
+Cape, the southern foreland being named Cape Walsingham—all of which
+names remain. Here white bears were killed "of monstrous bignesse," a
+raven was descried upon Mount Raleigh, withies were found growing low
+like shrubs, and there were flowers like primroses, though there was no
+grass.
+
+For three days Davis went coasting downwards, and rounding the
+southern point of the peninsula, which he named the Cape of God's
+Mercy, he entered what he afterwards called Cumberland Strait, now
+Cumberland Gulf, supposing it to be his way to the westward. It was
+clear of ice; sixty leagues up islands were found, among which a stay
+was made during five days of very foggy foul weather. On the 15th of
+August "we heard dogs houle on the shoare, which we thought had bene
+Wolves, and therefore we went on shoare to kil them; when we came on
+lande, the dogs came presently to our boate very gently, yet we
+thought they came to pray upon us, and therefore we shot at them and
+killed two: and about the necke of one of them we found a letheren
+coller, whereupon we thought them to be tame dogs. Then wee went
+farther and founde two sleads made like ours in Englande. The one was
+made of firre, spruse and oken boards, sawen like inch boards; the
+other was made all of whale bone, and there hung on the toppes of the
+sleds three heads of beasts, which they had killed. We saw here
+larkes, ravens, and partriges"—probably rock ptarmigan.
+
+Searching about, it was agreed that the place was all islands, with
+sounds passing between them; that the water remained of the same colour
+as the main ocean, whereas in every bay they had been into it became
+blackish; that a shoal of whales they saw must have come from the west,
+because to the eastward no whale had been seen; that "there came a
+violent counter checke of a tide from the south-west against the flood
+which we came with, not knowing from whence it was maintayned"; that the
+further they ran westward the deeper was the water, "so that hard abord
+the shoare among these yles we could not have ground in 330 fathoms";
+and that, lastly, there was a tide range of six or seven fathoms, "the
+flood comming from diverse parts, so as we could not perceive the chiefe
+maintenance thereof." For which six reasons it was determined to
+continue the voyage to the westward if the weather changed—which it did
+to worse with the wind unfavourable, so that the ships had to run for
+shelter and then sail for home, crossing the Atlantic from Greenland in
+a fortnight. On arrival Davis reported to Walsingham that the North-West
+Passage was a matter nothing doubtful, but at any time almost to be
+passed, the sea navigable, void of ice, the air tolerable, and the
+waters very deep; and a voyage for next year was decided on, for which
+the merchants of Exeter, Totnes, London, Cullompton, Chard, and
+Tiverton, and five private subscribers, "did adventure their money"—to
+the amount of £1175—"with Mr. Adrian Gilbert and Mr. John Davis in a
+voyage for the discovery of China, the seventh daie of April in the
+xxviij yeare of the rayne of or. soverayne Ladie Elizabeth."
+
+The fleet, consisting of the _Mermaid_ of one hundred and twenty tons,
+the _Sunshine_ and _Moonshine_, and a ten-ton pinnace named the _North
+Star_, left Dartmouth on the 7th of May, 1586. On reaching Greenland the
+_Sunshine_ and _North Star_ were sent up the east coast of Greenland,
+while the _Mermaid_ and _Moonshine_ made for Gilbert Sound.
+
+Here the Eskimos received them cordially "after they had espied in the
+boate, some of our companie that were the yeere before heere with us,
+they presently rowed to the boate, and tooke holde on the oare, and hung
+about the boate with such comfortable joy as woulde require a long
+discourse to be uttered: they came with the boates to our shippes,
+making signes that they knewe all those that the yere before had bene
+with them. After I perceived their joy, and smal feare of us, my selfe
+with the merchaunts, and others of the company went a shoare, bearing
+with me twentie knives: I had no sooner landed, but they lept out of
+their Canoas, and came running to mee and the rest, and imbraced us with
+many signes of hartie welcome: at this present there were eighteene of
+them, and to each of them I gave a knife: they offered skinnes to mee
+for rewarde, but I made signes that it was not solde, but given them of
+curtesie: and so dismissed them for that time, with signes that they
+shoulde returne againe after certaine houres." But soon there were
+passing troubles owing to iron having so great an attraction for them
+that they could not resist stealing it. While amongst them, exploring
+the country, Davis compiled the first Eskimo vocabulary known, a list of
+some forty words written down phonetically, most of them remarkably good
+approaches considering that both parties were ignorant of each other's
+language, none of them, however, except that for "sea" being likely to
+be of any use in putting him on the road to China.
+
+On leaving Gilbert Sound, Davis when in latitude 63° 8´ "fel upon a most
+mighty and strange quantity of ice, in one intyre masse, so bigge as
+that we knew not the limits thereof, and being withall so very high, in
+forme of a land, with bayes and capes, and like high cliffe land, as
+that we supposed it to be land, and therefore sent our pinnesse off to
+discover it: but at her returne we were certainely informed that it was
+onely ice, which bred great admiration to us all, considering the huge
+quantity thereof, incredible to be reported in truth as it was, and
+therefore I omit to speake any further thereof. This onely, I thinke
+that the like before was never seene, and in this place we had very
+stickle and strong currants. We coasted this mighty masse of ice untill
+the 30 of July, finding it a mighty bar to our purpose: the ayre in this
+time was so contagious, and the sea so pestered with ice, as that all
+hope was banished of proceeding: for the 24 of July all our shrowds,
+ropes, and sailes were so frozen, and compassed with ice, onely by a
+grosse fogge, as seemed to me more then strange, sith the last yeere I
+found this sea free and navigable, without impediments."
+
+Crossing the straits he repaired and revictualled the _Moonshine_ in an
+excellent harbour among islands where they found it very hot and were
+"very much troubled with a flie which is called Musketa, for they did
+sting grievously." Forsaken by the _Mermaid_, he abandoned the search in
+Cumberland Sound as he "found small hope to pass any farther that way,"
+and worked south, it being too late to go northwards, crossing Frobisher
+Bay, which he described as "another great inlet neere forty leagues
+broad where the water entered with violent swiftnesse, this we also
+thought might be a passage, for no doubt the north parts of America are
+all islands." Off the coast of Labrador he found a vast shoal of
+codfish, of which he caught over forty with a long spike nail made into
+a hook. These he salted, and some of them, on his return, he gave, at
+Walsingham's request, to Burghley, who, at an interview, encouraged him
+to make a further attempt.
+
+Next year he was off again, this time "to the Isles of the Molucca or
+the coast of China." He seems to have been on board the _Ellen_, a small
+craft of some twenty tons, his two other vessels being the _Sunshine_ as
+before, and the _Elizabeth_. These he left to fish for cod in the
+straits while he went northward from Gilbert Sound in his little
+"clinker," which he had probably chosen as being handy for ice
+navigation. Running along the land, to which he gave the name of London
+Coast, he reached 72° 12´—the highest north up to then attained—where he
+named the loftiest of the headlands Sanderson's Hope, whose lofty crest
+piercing through the driving clouds near Upernivik has become perhaps
+the best-known landmark in the northern seas. Here the wind suddenly
+shifting to the northward made further progress impossible, and he had
+to shape his course westerly, and then, owing to ice, which he in vain
+endeavoured to get round to the north, he had to turn southwards. Amid
+much fog, and with the ice always present, he came down the coast of
+Baffin Land, giving a name here and there on the way, until on the 31st
+of July he passed "a very great gulfe, the water whirling and roring, as
+it were the meetings of tides," which was probably the entrance to
+Hudson Strait. Next day he was off the Labrador coast and named Cape
+Chidley after his friend who died in the Straits of Magellan, and on the
+15th of August he laid his course for England.
+
+[Illustration: BAFFIN BAY IN 1819]
+
+Of this voyage Hakluyt prints the Traverse Book, one of the earliest
+known. In it the full detail is given for every day, arranged in nine
+columns, one each for the month, the day, the hour, the courses, the
+leagues, the elevation of the pole in degrees and minutes, the wind, and
+a remarks column headed "The Discourse"—for Davis was an exact and
+systematic man remarkable for his latitudes never being wrong, though
+like all those old navigators before the invention of the chronometer,
+he was frequently out in his longitude. He was going off again bound for
+the sea north of Sanderson's Hope, but the coming of the Armada and the
+death of Walsingham caused the postponement of the project he did not
+abandon, for it seems that the _Desire_, in which he discovered the
+Falkland Islands at the other end of America, was to be his reward for
+accompanying Cavendish round the world, and that in her he intended to
+make his next Polar voyage.
+
+The work he had set himself to do was done by William Baffin, who first
+appears in the Arctic record as pilot of the _Patience_ in James Hall's
+Greenland voyage in 1612, which ended in Hall being killed in revenge
+for the kidnapping proceedings on the two previous voyages under the
+Danish flag. Baffin then made two voyages, as we have seen, to
+Spitsbergen in the service of the Muscovy Company, and, in that of the
+Company for the Discovery of the North-West Passage, he made his fourth,
+in 1615. In Hudson's old ship the _Discovery_, also her fourth trip to
+the north, he passed up Hudson Strait to the end of Southampton Island,
+where he abandoned the attempt to get through owing to ice and shallow
+water, and returned after discovering the land that Parry named after
+him.
+
+In his fifth voyage, again in the _Discovery_, with Robert Bylot again
+as master, he left Gravesend on the 16th of March, 1616, and reached
+Sanderson's Hope on the 30th of May, discovering the great bay to the
+north which bears his name. Passing the Women Islands and the Baffin
+Islands off Cape Shackleton, he took the middle passage across Melville
+Bay, coasting along by Cape York, by the cape named after one of his
+directors, Sir Dudley Digges, and the sound named after another of his
+directors, Sir John Wolstenholme; along Prudhoe Land, entering the North
+Water of the whalers, reaching Cape Alexander in 77° 45´, his farthest
+north; opening up and naming Smith Sound, after Sir Thomas Smith,
+another of his directors, and Jones Sound, after Alderman Sir Francis
+Jones, another of the board, and Lancaster Sound, after Sir James
+Lancaster of the East India Company. Thus, coasting Ellesmere Land,
+North Devon, Bylot Island, and Baffin Land, he continued his voyage from
+the north on his way home. A good piece of work: the discoveries so many
+and unexpected that people ceased to believe in them, geographers going
+so far as to erase his bay from their maps until, two hundred years
+afterwards, Ross and Parry sailed over the land of the unbelievers and
+confirmed Baffin's work in every detail—and Ross, in his best
+mountain-finding manner, reported no thoroughfare at Smith Sound.
+
+[Illustration: DR. E. K. KANE]
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII
+                              SMITH SOUND
+
+  Captain Inglefield—Dr. Kane—The open Polar Sea—Hans Hendrik the
+    Greenlander—Kalutunah the Eskimo—An Eskimo bear-hunt—A lesson in
+    catching auks—Dr. Hayes—His journey over the glacier—Tyndall
+    Glacier—Captain C. F. Hall—Joe and Hannah—Voyage of the
+    _Polaris_—Drift of the _Polaris_—The voyage on the ice-floe—The
+    British Government Expedition of 1875—The _Alert_ and
+    _Discovery_—The cairn on Washington Irving Island—Discovery
+    Harbour—How the _Alert_ got into safety at Floeberg Beach—Low
+    temperatures—Nares on sledging—Description of the sledges and
+    their burden—Markham starts for the Pole—Reaches 83° 20´
+    26˝—Outbreak of scurvy—Parr's walk—Aldrich's journey
+    west—Beaumont's journey east—The perilous homeward voyage.
+
+
+Lady Franklin, who incidentally did so much for Arctic discovery, sent
+out the _Isabel_ in 1852 under Commander, afterwards Sir, Edward
+Augustus Inglefield to search for her husband to the north of Baffin
+Bay. Unlike John Ross, the names of whose ships, _Isabella_ and
+_Alexander_, are home by the capes at its entrance, he found Smith Sound
+to be the highway to the north. Steaming up the open water "stretching
+through seven points of the compass," noting the coasts as he went, he
+was turned back by the ice in 78° 28´, at the entrance to the Kane Sea,
+with Cairn Point and the way in to Rensselaer Harbour on his right, and
+Cape Sabine and Ellesmere Land, which he named, on his left; the
+farthest north he sighted being Cape Louis Napoleon, the farthest east
+Cape Frederick VII, now known as Cape Russell. Needless to say he found
+no Franklin traces, although he really looked for them.
+
+Twelve months afterwards Dr. Elisha Kent Kane in the United States brig
+_Advance_ followed in his track and wintered in Rensselaer Harbour, nine
+miles further north. Ostensibly Kane was on a Franklin search, but his
+real object was the Pole. He explored the sea named after him, naming
+many landmarks, not always placing them in their true positions, and
+underwent many hardships. For one mistake he was famous for a time, and
+his reputation now suffers. One of his expedition, William Morton,
+almost reached Cape Constitution, in about 80½°, which he placed some
+sixty miles too far north, and described as the corner of the north
+coast of Greenland; and from the southern horn of the bay of which it is
+the northern boundary he looked out over the south of Kennedy Channel,
+which is open every summer, and mistook it for the Polar Sea. And he
+returned with a report of an even more wonderful discovery than the
+Polar Sea, for, according to the illustration, he beheld the midnight
+sun dipping in its waters on Midsummer Day.
+
+In May, 1854, the month before Morton's discoveries, Dr. Hayes and
+William Godfrey crossed the Kane Sea to connect the northern coast with
+Inglefield's survey, "but it disclosed no channel or any form of exit
+from the bay," being, in fact, Ellesmere Land continued, and yet on
+reaching the shore for the first time at Hayes Point, three miles north
+of Cape Louis Napoleon, and following it for two miles to Cape Frazer,
+they quite unnecessarily named the country Grinnell Land. On the other
+side of this sea the chief discovery was Kane's Humboldt glacier, some
+fifty miles north-east of their winter quarters, which was described as
+"the mighty crystal bridge which connects the two continents of America
+and Greenland," when, of course, it does nothing of the sort.
+
+[Illustration: KALUTUNAH]
+
+What with sickness, accident, and other disaster, it became evident that
+the _Advance_ would never leave her wintering place, and in July Kane
+set off on a wild endeavour to reach Beechey Island and obtain relief
+from the Franklin search vessels, but he had to return. Next month Hayes
+was sent to Upernivik, but he also came back. Finally in May, 1855, the
+brig was abandoned and the survivors began their journey to the south.
+Fortunately on the outward voyage Kane, at Fiskernaes, had engaged Hans
+Hendrik the Greenlander, then a boy of nineteen, who became quite a
+prominent figure in this and subsequent voyages, and without him and
+Kalutunah, chief of the Etah Eskimos, the whole party would have
+perished miserably.
+
+Hans first appears when spearing a bird on the wing; Kalutunah's first
+appearance was equally encouraging. "The leader of the party," says
+Kane, "was a noble savage, greatly superior in everything to the others
+of his race. He greeted me with respectful courtesy, yet as one who
+might rightfully expect an equal measure of it in return, and, after a
+short interchange of salutations, seated himself in the post of honour
+at my side. I waited, of course, till the company had fed and slept, for
+among savages especially haste is indecorous, and then, after
+distributing a few presents, opened to them my project of a northern
+exploration. Kalutunah received his knife and needles with a 'Kuyanaka,'
+'I thank you'; the first thanks I have heard from a native of this upper
+region. He called me his friend—'Asakaoteet,' 'I love you well'—and
+would be happy, he said, to join the nalegak-soak in a hunt."
+
+And the journey ended in a hunt, for the dogs caught sight of a large
+male bear in the act of devouring a seal. The impulse was irresistible;
+Kane lost all control over both dogs and drivers, who seemed dead to
+everything but the passion of pursuit. Off they sped with incredible
+speed; the Eskimos clinging to their sledges and cheering their dogs
+with loud cries. A mad, wild chase, wilder than German legend—"the dogs,
+wolves; the drivers, devils." After a furious run, the animal was
+brought to bay, and the lance and rifle did their work. There were more
+bears and more hunts, and when Kane objected that this could hardly be
+called northern exploration, he was told by Kalutunah, significantly,
+that the bear-meat was absolutely necessary for the support of their
+families, and that the nalegak-soak had no right to prevent him from
+providing for his household. "It was a strong argument," says Kane, "and
+withal the argument of the strong."
+
+[Illustration: THE EAST COAST OF SMITH SOUND]
+
+Bear-hunting hereabouts has its dangers, for the Eskimos of the north
+are not armed with bows and arrows as are those of the mainland. When
+the bear is found the dogs are set upon the trail, and the hunter runs
+by their side in silence. As he turns the angle ahead his game is in
+view before him, stalking probably along with quiet march, sometimes
+sniffing the air suspiciously, but making, nevertheless, for a clump of
+hummocks. The dogs spring forward, opening in a wild wolfish yell, the
+driver shrieking "Nannook! nannook!" and all straining every nerve in
+pursuit. The bear rises on his haunches, views his pursuers, and starts
+off at full speed. The hunter, as he runs, leaning over his sledge,
+seizes the traces of a couple of his dogs and liberates them from their
+burden. It is the work of a minute; for the speed is not checked and the
+remaining dogs rush on with apparent ease. Pressed more severely, the
+bear stands at bay while his two foremost pursuers halt at a short
+distance and quietly await the arrival of the hunter. At this moment the
+whole pack are liberated; the hunter grasps his lance, and, stumbling
+through the snow and ice, prepares for the encounter. Grasping the lance
+firmly in his hands he provokes the animal to pursue him by moving
+rapidly across its path, and then running as if to escape. But hardly is
+its long body extended for the tempting chase, before, with a quick
+jump, the hunter doubles on his track, and, as the bear turns after him
+again, the lance is plunged into the left side below the shoulder; and
+that so dexterously, that, if it be an inch or so wide of the proper
+spot, the spear has to be left in the bear and the man has to run for
+his life.
+
+At this hazardous work Kalutunah was an adept, and he was equally
+skilful at a much less dangerous game, as Dr. Hayes was to discover when
+wintering in the schooner _United States_ in Foulke Harbour, further
+south, in 1860-61. Hayes wished to learn how to catch auks, and the
+Eskimo gave him a lesson. Kalutunah carried a small net, made of light
+strings of sealskin knitted together, the staff by which it was held
+being about ten feet in length. Arriving about half-way up the cliffs he
+crouched behind a rock and invited the doctor to follow his example. The
+slope on which the birds were congregated was about a mile long, and in
+vast flocks they were sweeping over it a few feet above the stones down
+the whole length of the hill, returning higher in the air, and so round
+and round in a complete circuit. Occasionally a few hundreds or
+thousands would drop down as if following some leader, and in an instant
+the rocks, for some distance, would swarm with them as they speckled the
+hill with their black backs and white breasts. The doctor was told to
+lie lower, as the birds noticed him and were flying too far overhead.
+Having placed himself as Kalutunah approved, the birds began to sweep
+lower and lower in their flight until their track came well within
+reach. Then, as a dense portion of the crowd approached, up went the
+net, and half a dozen birds flew into it, and, stunned by the blow,
+could not recover before the Eskimo had slipped the staff through his
+hands and seized the net. With his left hand he pressed down the birds,
+while with the right he drew them out one by one, and, for want of a
+third hand, used his teeth to crush their heads. The wings were then
+locked across each other; and with an air of triumph the old chief
+looked around, spat the blood and feathers from his mouth, and went on
+with the sport, tossing up his net and hauling it in with much rapidity
+until he had caught about a hundred, and wanted no more.
+
+[Illustration: I. I. Hayes]
+
+Hayes did his best to disparage both Kalutunah and Hans, to whom he was
+not quite so much indebted as Kane, owing to his having given himself a
+better chance of retreat by not taking the schooner out of Smith Sound,
+his quarters in Hartstene Bay being only some twelve miles north of Cape
+Alexander. He had come to verify the existence of the open sea and sail
+to the Pole across it if he could; and he verified it to his own
+satisfaction. But he did not get so far north as Morton, although he
+claimed to have done so, for he climbed a cliff eight hundred feet high
+and looked out over the open water—in Kennedy Channel—and did not see
+the Greenland cliffs trending away northwards within thirty miles of
+him, and visible all the way up for two degrees north of Cape
+Constitution. Thus he left the map as Kane left it, with Greenland cut
+off short south of the eighty-first parallel, and his farthest seems to
+have been the south point of Rawlings Bay, where the _Alert_ was forced
+on shore in August, 1876, in 80° 15´.
+
+"I climbed," he says, "the steep hillside to the top of a ragged cliff,
+which I supposed to be about eight hundred feet above the level of the
+sea. The view which I had from this elevation furnished a solution of
+the cause of my progress being arrested on the previous day. The ice was
+everywhere in the same condition as in the mouth of the bay across which
+I had endeavoured to pass. A broad crack, starting from the middle of
+the bay, stretched over the sea, and uniting with other cracks as it
+meandered to the eastward, it expanded as the delta of some mighty river
+discharging into the ocean, and under a water-sky, which hung upon the
+northern horizon, it was lost in the open sea. The sea beneath me was a
+mottled sheet of white and dark patches, these latter being either soft
+decaying ice or places where the ice had wholly disappeared. These spots
+were heightened in intensity of shade and multiplied in size as they
+receded, until the belt of the water-sky blended them all together into
+one uniform colour of dark blue. The old and solid floes (some a quarter
+of a mile, and others miles across) and the massive ridges and wastes of
+hummocked ice which lay piled between them and around their margins,
+were the only parts of the sea which retained the whiteness and solidity
+of winter."
+
+Unfortunately for Hayes, the astronomer of the expedition, August
+Sonntag, who had assisted Kane in the same capacity, was frozen to death
+on a sledge journey, and the doctor was left to do the work for himself,
+with disappointing results, as with errors of many miles in either
+latitude or longitude his journeys can only be noticed in a very general
+way. In October, 1860, he proceeded for some distance over the glacier
+to the east of his wintering place. The first attempt to scale the
+glacier was attended by what might have been a serious accident. The
+foremost member of the party missed his footing as he was clambering up
+the rude steps, and, sliding down the steep side, scattered those who
+were below him to the right and left and sent them rolling into the
+valley beneath. The next effort was more successful, and, the end of a
+rope being carried over the side of the glacier, the sledge was drawn up
+the inclined plane and a fair start obtained. A little further on Hayes
+was only saved from disappearing down a crevasse by clutching a pole he
+was carrying on his shoulder. Next day, the surface being smoother, more
+progress was made, and they reached a plain of compact snow covered with
+a crust through which the feet broke at every step. The day afterwards
+the cold grew more intense and a gale came on. At night the men
+complained bitterly and could not sleep, and as the storm increased in
+strength they were forced to leave the tent and by active exercise
+prevent themselves from freezing.
+
+[Illustration: THE SHORES OF KENNEDY CHANNEL]
+
+To face the wind was impossible, and shelter was nowhere to be found
+upon the unbroken plain, there being but one direction in which they
+could move, that being with their backs to the gale. It was not without
+difficulty that the tent was taken down and bundled upon the sledge, the
+wind blowing so fiercely that they could scarcely roll it up with their
+stiffened hands. The men were in pain and could only hold on for a few
+moments to the hardened canvas, their fingers, freezing continually,
+requiring vigorous pounding to keep them on the flickering verge of
+life. "In the midst of a vast frozen Sahara, with neither hill,
+mountain, nor gorge anywhere in view," says Hayes, "fitful clouds swept
+over the face of the full-orbed moon, which, descending toward the
+horizon, glimmered through the drifting snow that whirled out of the
+illimitable distance, and scudded over the icy plain, to the eye in
+undulating lines of downy softness, to the flesh in showers of piercing
+darts. Our only safety was in flight; and like a ship driven before a
+tempest which she cannot withstand, and which has threatened her ruin,
+we turned our backs to the gale; and, hastening down the slope, we ran
+to save our lives. We travelled upwards of forty miles, and had
+descended about three thousand feet before we ventured to halt."
+
+Next year he visited the large glacier in Whale Sound which he named
+after Professor John Tyndall, pulling first along its front in a boat
+and then mounting its surface. As he rowed along within a few fathoms of
+this two miles of ice, he found the face "worn and wasted away until it
+seemed like the front of some vast incongruous temple, here a groined
+roof of some huge cathedral, and there a pointed window or a Norman
+doorway deeply moulded; while on all sides were pillars round and fluted
+and pendants dripping crystal drops of the purest water, and all bathed
+in a soft blue atmosphere. Above these wondrous archways and galleries
+there was still preserved the same Gothic character; tall spires and
+pinnacles rose along the entire front and multiplied behind them, and
+new forms met the eye continually. Strange, there was nothing cold or
+forbidding anywhere. The ice seemed to take the warmth which suffused
+the air, and I longed to pull my boat far within the opening and paddle
+beneath the Gothic archways."
+
+Charles Francis Hall, of Cincinnati, was a man of a very different
+stamp. He was a genius and a genuine worker, an accurate observer and
+painstaking explorer who believed above all things in thoroughness.
+Realising that the best way to study the Polar regions was to understand
+the Eskimos, who know most about them, and utilise their local
+knowledge, he settled amongst them, lived with them, adopted their
+customs, and became as one of them in their huts and tents, taking part
+in their sports and hardships. Two friends he made amongst them,
+Ebierbing and his wife Tookoolito, better known as Joe and Hannah, who
+accompanied him till he died.
+
+[Illustration: TYNDALL GLACIER]
+
+After clearing up the Frobisher problem and throwing some light on the
+Franklin mystery, he started in 1871 to go as far north as he could
+across the reported Polar Sea. To him Henry Grinnell, who did so much
+for northern discovery, entrusted the American flag which had been to
+the Antarctic with Wilkes in 1838, to the Arctic with De Haven, with
+Kane and with Hayes, and was a sort of oriflamme of Polar discovery. His
+ship was the _Polaris_, of 387 tons, once the _Periwinkle_, a name which
+seemed to be a little too unassuming. Buddington, his sailing-master,
+was an experienced whaling captain; his assistant, Tyson, destined for
+the independent command of an ice-floe, was another whale-fisher. The
+naturalist was Emil Bessels. On board were also Joe and Hannah—of
+course—and William Morton, to show where the sea was, and, picked up at
+Upernivik, the indispensable Hans Hendrik with his wife and three
+children.
+
+The voyage was fortunate so long as Hall lived. The _Polaris_ found the
+Polar gates open before her. She steamed right up Smith Sound, through
+Kane Sea, up Kennedy Channel, into Robeson Channel—named after the
+Secretary to the American Navy—until she reached the ice, in 82° 16´, on
+the 30th of August, 1871, the highest latitude then attained by a ship.
+Hall would have pressed on into the ice, but Buddington wisely refused,
+and hardly had the _Polaris_ been headed round when she was beset and
+carried southwards, to escape in a few days and take refuge for the
+winter in a harbour on the east of what is now known as Hall Basin,
+protected at its entrance by a grounded floeberg. The latitude is 81°
+38´, the harbour Hall called Thank God Bay. There in November he died;
+and close by is Hall's Rest, where he is buried.
+
+His death was the end of the enterprise. Buddington wished to return as
+soon as the ship was released, and eventually had his way, after a
+journey or two of little importance. But he stayed too long. The ship
+was clear in June, and he did not start until the 1st of August, and he
+started by driving her into the pack, anchored her to a floe, and
+drifted helplessly into Baffin Bay, as De Haven had done through
+Lancaster Sound in 1850. For eleven weeks the drift continued until she
+was off Northumberland Island on the 15th of October. Here in the middle
+of the night a violent gale arose, and the crippled ship, nipped between
+two masses of ice, was lifted bodily and thrown on her side, her timbers
+cracking loudly and her sides apparently breaking in. Two boats, all she
+had, were hurriedly got on to the ice, and provisions, stores, and
+clothing were being passed out, when with a roar the floe broke asunder,
+and the _Polaris_ disappeared like a phantom in the gale. As the ice
+cracked and the sides lurched apart, a bundle of fur lay across the
+fissure. A grab was made at it, and the bundle was saved. It contained
+the baby of Joe the Eskimo, whose wife had been confined the year before
+in latitude 82°, perhaps the most northerly birthplace of any of this
+world's inhabitants.
+
+[Illustration: A SEAL IN DANGER]
+
+On the ice were Tyson, with Sergeant Meyer, the steward, the cook, six
+sailors, and nine Eskimos, men, women, and children, including Hans and
+Joe. They built a house, from the materials thrown out from the ship, as
+a shelter; and they built snow houses as the time went on and the floe
+diminished. Provisions they had but few, but Hans and Joe were
+indefatigable. They speared seals, caught fish, trapped birds, and,
+sometimes, a bear would scramble up on to the ice for them to shoot—and
+they never missed. In short, without them the party would have starved
+to death.
+
+The floe on which the castaways passed the winter was about a hundred
+yards long and seventy-five broad. On this they voyaged down the whole
+length of Baffin Bay and through Davis Strait, the ice melting away and
+getting smaller and smaller as they drifted south, until on the 1st of
+April, when it was only twenty yards round, they had to take to the
+remaining boat, the other having been used for fuel. Once they nearly
+touched the shore, but the wind rose and off they were driven in the
+snow. When they were picked up by the sealer _Tigress_ in 53° 35´, near
+the coast of Labrador, on the 30th of April, they had drifted fifteen
+hundred miles in the hundred and ninety-six days that had elapsed since
+they left the ship.
+
+The _Polaris_, blown to the northward, reached land at Lifeboat Cove in
+the entrance to Smith Sound, a little north of Foulke Harbour, and here
+with the aid of the Etah Eskimos the crew passed the winter; and, in the
+spring, some of them went on an expedition in the Hayes country and lost
+the famous flag. As the ship could not be made seaworthy, two
+flat-bottomed boats were built of her materials, and on the 21st of June
+these were found hauled up on a floe in Melville Bay, and their people
+rescued by the whaler _Ravenscraig_, which shifted them into the
+_Arctic_, another Dundee whaler, on board of which was Commander
+Markham, who, with Hans Hendrik, four years afterwards, was to follow up
+Hall's track to the north.
+
+The results of this expedition were of considerable importance. In five
+days Captain Hall had run five hundred miles through what on most
+occasions has been found to be an ice-choked sea. He completed the
+exploration of Kennedy Channel, discovered Hall Basin and Robeson
+Channel, and was the first to reach the Polar ocean by this route.
+Greenland and Grinnell Land he extended northward for nearly a hundred
+and forty miles; and, north of Petermann Fiord, where he showed that the
+inland ice terminated, he had found a large area free from ice, with its
+wild flowers and herbage and musk oxen.
+
+Hall's remarkable success in taking a ship to so high a latitude led to
+the Government expedition of 1875, the first British attempt to reach
+the Pole since Parry's failure in 1827. Three ships were employed: the
+_Alert_, a seventeen-gun sloop; the _Discovery_, once the _Bloodhound_,
+a Dundee whaler; and the _Valorous_. The _Alert_ and _Discovery_ were
+specially prepared for the voyage at Portsmouth by Sir Leopold
+M'Clintock who was then Admiral Superintendent of the dockyard; the
+_Valorous_, an old paddle sloop, required little alteration, as her duty
+was merely to carry the stores that could not safely be taken by the
+exploring vessels in crossing the Atlantic and hand them over at Disco.
+
+[Illustration: SIR GEORGE NARES]
+
+The leader, Captain George Strong Nares, when one of the Franklin search
+officers under Kellett at Melville Island, had distinguished himself by
+a sledge journey in which he had travelled nine hundred and eighty miles
+in sixty-nine days and reached 119½° west longitude. He was known as one
+of the best navigators in the Navy, and when called upon to go to the
+north was in command of H.M.S. _Challenger_, then on her famous voyage
+of scientific exploration in very different seas. With him in the
+_Alert_ was Commander Albert Hastings Markham, whose experience, varied
+and considerable, gained by his spending much of his spare time within
+the Arctic Circle, rendered him especially well fitted for the position.
+In command of the _Discovery_ was Captain Henry Frederick Stephenson;
+and the officers of both ships were, like the crews, all specially
+selected. There was no difficulty in the manning. One commanding officer
+called at the office at Portsmouth where the men were being entered and
+asked for advice. "An order," he said, "has come on board my ship,
+directing me to send volunteers for Arctic service to this office. What
+am I to do? The whole ship's company, nearly eight hundred men, have
+given in their names."
+
+The three ships left Spithead on the 29th of May, 1875, and were all at
+Godhavn on the 6th of July. Nine days afterwards they left for Ritenbenk
+of the curious name, which is an anagram of that of Berkentin who was in
+charge of the Greenland department when it was founded. Here the
+_Valorous_ parted company to return home after filling up with fuel at
+the coal quarries on the north side of Disco Island, while the two ships
+went to Proven to pick up Hans Hendrik, who this time left his wife and
+children behind him.
+
+Through Smith Sound, almost choked with ice, progress was slow and
+difficult; but the passage was safely accomplished, and so across Kane
+Sea and up Kennedy Channel. On Washington Irving Island an ancient cairn
+was found, evidently the work of white men's hands and of great age, as
+shown by the state of the lichens on it—yet another of the many
+indications in the Polar regions that there was always a somebody before
+the first on record. Crossing the mouth of Archer Fiord, a snug harbour
+was found in 81° 44´, where the _Discovery_ was left to spend the
+winter, the _Alert_ going on, hampered much by the floes, though helped
+at last by a south-westerly wind, until she had to stop in 82° 27´ on
+the shore of the Polar Ocean, at what was named Floeberg Beach, off an
+open coast and with no more protection during the winter than was
+afforded by masses of ice ranging up to sixty feet in height aground in
+from eight to twelve fathoms of water.
+
+"The protected space," says Nares, "available for shelter was so
+contracted and shallow, the entrance to it so small, and the united
+force of the wind and flood-tide so powerful, that it was with much
+labour and no trifling expense in broken hawsers that the ship was
+hauled in stem foremost. It was a close race whether the ice or the ship
+would be in first, and my anxiety was much relieved when I saw the
+ship's bow swing clear into safety just as the advancing edge of the
+heavy pack closed in against the outside of our friendly barrier of ice.
+From our position of comparative security the danger we had so narrowly
+escaped was strikingly apparent as we gazed with wonder and awe at the
+power exerted by the ice driven past us to the eastward with
+irresistible force by the wind and flood-tide at the rate of about a
+mile an hour. The projecting points of each passing floe which grounded
+near the shore in about ten fathoms of water would be at once wrenched
+off from its still moving parent mass; the pressure continuing, the
+several pieces, frequently thirty thousand tons in weight, would be
+forced up the inclined shore, rising slowly and majestically ten or
+twelve feet above their old line of flotation. Such pieces quickly
+accumulated until a rampart-like barrier of solid ice-blocks, measuring
+about two hundred yards in breadth and rising fifty feet high, lined the
+shore, locking us in, but effectually protecting us from the
+overwhelming power of the pack." The land had already assumed a wintry
+aspect, and the ship soon put on a garb of snow and ice, each spar and
+rope being double its ordinary thickness from the accumulation of rime.
+Around her everything was white and solemn; no voice of bird or beast
+was heard; all was still and silent save the gathering floes; and in two
+days the men were able to walk on shore over the new ice.
+
+For eleven months she stayed here, secured by cables to anchors frozen
+on to the shore to protect her from gales on the landward side. With the
+ship housed in awnings of tilt-cloth, with snow a foot thick laid on the
+upper deck and banked up on each side as high as the main-chains, with
+skylights and hatchways carefully covered up, except two hatchways for
+ingress and egress constructed with porches and double doors so as to
+prevent the entrance of the bitter air, the crew here passed the long
+Polar night. On the 11th of October the sun disappeared, and then began
+those entertainments, lectures, lessons, games, not forgetting the Royal
+Arctic Theatre which opened on the 18th of November, with which the
+winter was pleasantly whiled away. "Can you sing or dance? or what can
+you do for the amusement of others?" every man had been asked before he
+was chosen, and the result was a singularly happy time kept up until
+sunrise.
+
+The cold was intense and long-continued. Even the tobacco pipes froze,
+the stem becoming solidly clogged with ice as the smoking went on unless
+it was made so short as to bring the bowl unpleasantly close to the
+mouth. On the 1st of April the temperature was down to minus 64°, and
+three days afterwards it was a hundred and five below freezing, the cold
+weather preventing the departure of the dog-sledge for Discovery Bay.
+
+During the autumn, sledging parties had laid out reserves of stores for
+the spring journeys, and a certain amount of practice had been given to
+the men in what was intended to be the chief work of the expedition. The
+field, however, was not promising. On one occasion Nares went out to
+look at it. He obtained a fine view of the pack for a distance of six
+miles from the land. The southern side of each purely white snow-covered
+hummock was brilliantly lighted by the orange-tinted twilight. The
+stranded floebergs lining the shore extended from half to three-quarters
+of a mile off the land. Outside were old floes with undulating upper
+surfaces separated from each other by Sherard Osborn's "hedgerows of
+Arctic landscape," otherwise ridges of pressed-up ice of every size. "It
+will be as difficult," was his verdict, "to drag a sledge over such ice
+as to transport a carriage directly across country in England." He gave
+a lecture on sledging at one of the winter entertainments. It was
+interesting but not encouraging. He told his hearers that if they could
+imagine the hardest work they had ever been called upon to perform in
+their lives intensified to the utmost degree, it would only be as
+child's play in comparison with the work they would have to perform
+whilst sledging. "These prophetic words," says Markham, "were fully
+realised, and were often recalled and commented on by the men."
+
+They had four different kinds of sledges. From the illustrations it will
+appear how the eight-feet sledges differed from those used by
+M'Clintock, the Nares sledge being higher and more slender in the
+uprights. The eight-men sledge, such as the Marco Polo—which was bound
+for the Pole—had six uprights eighteen inches apart. It was eleven feet
+long, thirty-eight inches wide, eleven inches high, and weighed one
+hundred and thirty pounds. The tent, made of light, unbleached duck, was
+nine feet four inches long at the bottom, eight feet at the top, seven
+feet wide and high, and weighed forty-four pounds. The tent poles, five
+in number, weighed five pounds apiece. The coverlet weighed thirty-one
+pounds and a half, and the extra coverlet twenty pounds. The lower robe
+weighed twenty-three pounds, the waterproof floor-cloth fifteen. The
+eight sleeping-bags weighed eight pounds apiece, and the eight
+knapsacks, when packed, twelve pounds apiece. The shovel and two
+pickaxes accounted for twenty-one pounds, the store-bag for twenty-five,
+the cooking gear for twenty-nine, the gun and ammunition for
+twenty-five, the medical stores for twelve, the instruments for fifteen,
+and the tent for nine and a quarter. To this must be added a thousand
+and eighty pounds for forty-five days' provisions for the eight men, and
+we have the total of sixteen hundred and sixty-four pounds odd, which
+with seven men at the ropes gives each man a drag of about two hundred
+and thirty-eight pounds. In the spring the weight decreases as the
+provisions are consumed, but the rate of decrease is not the same in the
+autumn, for then the steadily falling temperature increases the weight
+of the outfit by the moisture it adds to the tent and clothing. In
+Markham's autumn journey the tent of thirty-two pounds came back as
+fifty-five, the coverlet as forty-eight, the lower robe as forty, the
+floor-cloth as forty, and everything else was heavier than at the start.
+
+The sledges mustered for their journeys on the 3rd of April. Seven in
+number, they were drawn up in single line according to the seniority of
+the leaders, all fully equipped and provisioned, and manned by
+fifty-three officers and men. On each was its commander's banner—a
+swallow-tailed flag charged with a St. George's cross and displaying the
+armorial bearings. As a precaution against snow-blindness, the men had
+been ordered to decorate the backs of their snow-jumpers with any device
+they thought fit, the result being a display of comic blazonry that
+often formed a topic of conversation when others failed. For the same
+reason the two boats carried on the north-going sledges were gaily
+decorated with the royal arms, and the rose, shamrock, and thistle; the
+artist, as on other occasions, being Doctor Moss, whose great difficulty
+in the matter was that in spite of the quantity of turpentine used in
+mixing the paint it would persist in freezing so that the brush became
+as stiff as a stick every few seconds.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+  SECTION    SLEDGES USED BY (1) SIR LEOPOLD M'CLINTOCK AND    SECTION
+ M'CLINTOCK               (2) SIR GEORGE NARES                  NARES
+
+                   (In the collection of Ed. Whymper)
+
+Lieutenant Aldrich, supported for three weeks by Lieutenant Giffard, was
+to explore the shores of Grant Land, towards the north and west, along
+the coast-line he had discovered in the previous autumn. Commander
+Markham, seconded by Lieutenant Parr, was to accompany Aldrich to Cape
+Joseph Henry and then strike off to the northward over the ice. The
+other three sledges were to accompany these as far as their own
+provisions would allow, after completing the four's deficiencies and
+giving them a fresh start from an advance post.
+
+When Markham was only eleven days out, one of his crew complained of
+pain in his ankles and knees, and was of no help for the rest of the
+journey. This was the first appearance of the scurvy which was to ruin
+so many hopes, for man after man was taken ill and became a passenger.
+To make matters worse no rougher road was ever traversed by sledge. Over
+a labyrinth of piled-up blocks of ice ranging to forty feet and more in
+height, through which the road had to be cut with pickaxe and shovel,
+and amid gale and fog and falling snow, the painful progress went on.
+With many a "One; two; three; haul!" the heavy mass would be dragged
+where the men could hardly drag themselves; one of the sledges taken a
+few yards by the combined crews, who would then return for the other. On
+the 19th of April one of the boats was abandoned and this made matters
+easier, but only for a time, as the disease spread. At last it was
+decided to stop; and on the 12th of May a party of ten went ahead to
+reach the farthest north.
+
+"The walking," says Markham, "was undoubtedly severe, at one moment
+struggling through deep snowdrifts, in which we floundered up to our
+waists, and at another tumbling about amongst the hummocks. Some idea
+may be formed of the difficulties of the road, when, after more than two
+hours' hard walking, with little or nothing to carry, we had barely
+accomplished one mile. Shortly before noon a halt was called, the
+artificial horizon set up, and the flags and sledge standards displayed.
+Fortunately the sun was favourable to us, and we were able to obtain a
+good altitude as it passed the meridian, although almost immediately
+afterwards dark clouds rolled up, snow began to fall, and the sun was
+lost in obscurity. We found the latitude to be 83° 20´ 26˝ N., or three
+hundred and ninety-nine miles and a half from the North Pole."
+
+On the 8th of June Lieutenant Parr appeared on the quarter-deck of the
+_Alert_ greeting in silence the one or two who chanced to meet him. That
+some calamity had happened was evident from his looks. He had walked on
+alone for forty miles to bring the news that Markham's party were in
+sore distress. Measures of rescue were instantly taken; Lieutenant May
+and Doctor Moss, on snow-shoes, pushing ahead with the dog-sledge laden
+with medical stores, while Nares with a strong party followed. On their
+arrival one man had died, and of the others no less than eleven were
+brought back to the ship on the relief sledges.
+
+Ten days afterwards, fearing a similar fate had overtaken Aldrich's
+party, Lieutenant May was despatched to find him. As with Markham,
+scurvy had begun on the outward journey, and it had become so bad on the
+return that one of the men was being sent off to the ship when May
+arrived with help. It had nevertheless been a successful journey, the
+road being easier than that by the northern route. Aldrich had traced
+the continuous border of the heavy pack for two hundred miles from
+Floeberg Beach, rounded Cape Columbia, in 83° 7´ N., the northernmost
+point of Grant Land, and, along the coast trending steadily south-west,
+had reached longitude 85° 33´ and sighted Cape Alfred Ernest in
+longitude 86½°.
+
+With his arrival there were over forty scurvy patients on board the
+_Alert_; and Nares was to learn that the sledge parties from the
+_Discovery_ had been similarly affected. Lieutenant Beaumont had gone
+along the North Greenland coast, reaching, on the 21st of May, 51° W.,
+in 82° 20´ N., and sighting Cape May, Mount Hooker, and Cape Britannia.
+On the 10th of May, while on his outward journey, he had sent back
+Lieutenant Rawson to bring a relief party to meet him, and Rawson with
+Hans and eight dogs, accompanied by Doctor Coppinger, reached him on the
+25th of June when he was on his last possible day's journey, he and two
+of his men dragging the sledge with four helpless comrades lashed on the
+top of it.
+
+The _Discovery_ had also sent out Lieutenant Archer to survey the fiord
+named after him, which opens out into Lady Franklin Bay; and Lieutenant
+Fulford had crossed the channel and explored Petermann Fiord. In fact,
+the expedition's geographical work was of great extent, as was the other
+scientific work, the most important, as usual, being that done from the
+ships. Among the odds and ends easily rememberable was the haul of the
+seine in Sheridan Lake, near the wintering station of the _Alert_, which
+yielded forty-three char (_Salmo arcturus_), the most northerly
+freshwater fish; the finding of the nest of the sanderling (_Calidris
+arenarius_), now in the Natural History Museum, in 82° 33´, and the
+discovery of the nesting of the grey phalarope and the knot in the same
+neighbourhood; the thirty-feet seam of Miocene coal worked in Discovery
+Harbour; and the Eskimo relics at Cape Beechey, near the eighty-second
+parallel, which, in connection with the encampments on the opposite
+coast, suggested that there, at the narrowest part of Robeson Channel,
+had been a crossing place from shore to shore.
+
+On the 31st of July, 1876, the _Alert_ was again under steam after her
+long rest, and one of the most dangerous voyages on record began. The
+ships, of from five hundred to six hundred tons, were handled as if they
+were small tugs; blocked, beset, pressed on shore, Nares with consummate
+skill, constant watchfulness, and never-failing patience, brought them
+through. But they did not get out of Smith Sound until the 9th of
+September, and then it was against head winds in stormy weather amid
+icebergs innumerable that they were slowly worked southwards and
+homewards.
+
+[Illustration: BISHOP PAUL EGEDE]
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIII
+                               GREENLAND
+
+  Hans Egede—The house of Eric the Red—Nansen's crossing of
+    Greenland—Nansen and Sverdrup row to Ny Herrnhut—Nordenskiöld's
+    journeys—Berggren's discovery—Nordenskiöld on the inland
+    ice—Glaciers and icebergs—Diatoms and whales—Edward Whymper's
+    expedition—Greenland in Miocene times—Graah—Scoresby—Ryder—The
+    _Germania_ and _Hansa_—The Duke of Orleans—The Eskimos of
+    Clavering Island—Franz Josef Fiord—The drift of the _Hansa_—The
+    Greely expedition—The International Polar stations—Voyage of the
+    _Proteus_—Lockwood reaches 83° 24´—Greely's wagon—The Eskimo house
+    at Lake Hazen—Greely Relief expeditions—The rescue of
+    Greely—Peary—His journey to Independence Bay—His four years'
+    expedition—Reaches 84° 17´—His Polar expedition of 1905—The
+    _Roosevelt_—The voyage to Cape Sheridan—Plan of the northern
+    advance—Peary reaches 87° 6´—Moxon's mariner.
+
+
+Hans Egede, aged twenty-two, priest of the parish of Vaagen, in the
+north of Norway, reading, in 1710, about the Norse colonists of the
+west—and apparently knowing nothing of Thiodhilda—was led to think that
+some of their descendants might still be living in heathenism. Writing
+to the Bishop of Trondhjem, he proposed to go out to these as a
+missionary. The good father rather astonished him by the reply that
+"Greenland was undoubtedly part of America, and could not be very far
+from Cuba and Hispaniola, where there was found such abundance of gold,"
+and, as those who went to Greenland might bring home "incredible
+riches," he approved of the suggestion.
+
+Unfortunately, however, Egede had written his letter without the
+knowledge of his wife, who by no means thought with the Bishop until
+seven years afterwards, when she changed her mind. Trying in vain
+locally, Egede applied for support to Frederick IV of Denmark, who
+finding him an earnest, honest, interesting man, gave him his patronage,
+the result being that a company was formed at Bergen for the development
+of trade and the propagation of the gospel; and, on the 3rd of May,
+1721, the _Hope_ set sail from there for Greenland with forty-six
+intending colonists, including the missionary and his wife and family.
+
+His landing-place was on an island at the mouth of Godthaab Fiord, or
+Baal's River. He found the Greenlanders very different from what he had
+supposed; and also that the Dutch were carrying on a profitable trade
+with them and keeping it quiet. To begin with they were nothing like
+Vikings in appearance; and their language, instead of being a
+Scandinavian dialect, was of the same character as that of the Eskimos
+of Labrador—and not at all easy to learn. Learn it, however, he and his
+family did; and among the Greenlanders they remained and laboured with
+truly admirable energy and devotion, battling hard for life amid much
+disaster until, with the help of his son Paul, who succeeded him as
+superintendent of the mission with the title of bishop, the settlement
+became permanent, and other settlements arose from it up the western
+coast as they are found to-day.
+
+[Illustration: GREENLANDERS]
+
+ _From a photo by Dr. H. Rink_
+
+Though there were no Norsemen, there were many traces of them, the most
+interesting being the house of Eric the Red, near Igaliko. Here, close
+to Erik's Fiord and overlooking Einar's Fiord, on one of the prettiest
+sites in Greenland, was Brattelid—"the steep side of a rock"—one side of
+it a natural cliff, the walls of the other sides, more than four feet
+thick, built of blocks of red sandstone from four to six feet in length
+as well as in breadth and thickness, reminding the visitor of those of
+Stonehenge, and evoking similar wonderment as to how they were got into
+place. And in his first colony, now called Igdluernerit, Egede seems to
+have followed the Norsemen—at an interval—in their architecture, to
+judge by the large stones in the walls of his house, which, like Eric's,
+is now in ruins.
+
+Twelve years after Egede, came the Moravians to take up their quarters
+at Ny Herrnhut, also at the mouth of Godthaab (that is, Good Hope)
+Fiord. It was here that Nansen and Sverdrup landed in October, 1888,
+having rowed up from Ameralik Fiord in their "half a boat," as the
+Eskimos called it.
+
+"Are you Englishmen?" they were asked.
+
+"No," said Nansen, in good Norse, "we are Norwegians."
+
+"May I ask your name?"
+
+"My name is Nansen and we have just come from the interior."
+
+"Oh, allow me to congratulate you on taking your doctor's degree!"
+
+From which it is clear that Godthaab is not so much out of the world as
+one would suppose.
+
+Nansen with his three Norsemen and two Lapps had reached the east coast
+in the _Jason_, and on the 17th of July had left the ship in their boats
+to make their way to the shore; but they had been caught in the floes,
+and on them and among them they had drifted for twelve days—an
+experience they had not bargained for. Getting ashore at last near Cape
+Tordenskiold, they worked their way back northwards along the coast,
+spending a short time at an Eskimo encampment at Cape Bille, until on
+the 15th of August they hauled their two boats up near Umivik and
+started to cross Greenland over the inland ice.
+
+The country is now in its glacial period, and for days they toiled
+across its glacial desert; each day alike in its wearisome monotony.
+"Flatness and whiteness were the two features of this ocean of snow,"
+says Nansen; "in the day we could see three things only, the sun, the
+snowfield and ourselves. We looked like a diminutive black line feebly
+traced upon an infinite expanse of white. There was no break or change
+in our horizon, no object to rest the eye upon, and no point by which to
+direct the course. We had to steer by a diligent use of the compass, and
+keep our line as well as possible by careful watching of the sun and
+repeated glances back at the four men following and the long track which
+the caravan left in the snow. We passed from one horizon to another, but
+our advance brought us no change."
+
+By the 2nd of September they had all taken to their skis on which they
+made great progress alone, but when it came to hauling the sledges there
+was a difference. Sometimes the snow proved to be very heavy going,
+particularly when it was wind-packed, and then it was no better than
+sand. One entry in Nansen's journal will suffice: "It began to snow in
+the middle of the day, and our work was heavier than ever. It was worse
+even than yesterday, and to say it was like hauling in blue clay will
+scarcely give an idea of it. At every step we had to use all our force
+to get the heavy sledges along, and in the evening Sverdrup and I, who
+had to go first and plough a way for ourselves, were pretty well done
+up."
+
+[Illustration: ON LEVEL GROUND]
+
+When at last the wind became favourable they hoisted sail, and off they
+went over the waves and drifts of snow at a speed that almost took their
+breath away; and when they reached the western slopes they slid down
+them using the sledges as toboggans. At first they had intended making
+for Christianshaab, but the route had to be changed for that to
+Godthaab, and the sea was reached some distance to the south. Here they
+stitched the floor-sheet of their tent over a framework of withies, and
+with oars made of canvas stretched across forked willows and tied to
+bamboo shafts, Nansen and Sverdrup boldly trusted themselves to the
+waves and with much hard labour pulled into Ny Herrnhut on the 3rd of
+October. Such was the first crossing of Greenland, a really remarkable
+instance of daring endeavour.
+
+Further north, Nordenskiöld, in 1883, had attempted to cross over the
+ice-cap from near Disco on the west coast, but, hindered and finally
+stopped by crevasses and other obstacles, could do no more than send his
+Lapps to try their best on their skis, and they returned after their
+journey eastwards of a hundred and forty miles reporting similar
+monotonous conditions all along their track. Thirteen years before, he
+had, also from Auleitsivik Fiord, started out with Berggren; and
+deserted by their followers, they had gone on by themselves for some
+thirty miles east of the northern arm of the fiord. It was on this
+occasion that Berggren discovered _Ancylonema_, that small poly-cellular
+alga forming the dark masses that absorb a far greater amount of heat
+than the white ice and thus cause the deep holes that aid in the process
+of melting.
+
+"The same plant," says Nordenskiöld, "has no doubt played the same part
+in our country; and we have to thank it, perhaps, that the deserts of
+ice which formerly covered the whole of Northern Europe and America have
+now given place to shady woods and undulating cornfields."
+
+Nordenskiöld looked upon Greenland and its icefield as a broad-lipped,
+shallow vessel with chinks in the lip, the glacier being viscous matter
+within it. As more is poured in, the matter runs over the edges, taking
+the lines of the chinks, that is, of the fiords and valleys, as that of
+its outflow. In other words, the ice floats out by force of the
+superincumbent weight of snow just as does the grain on the floor of a
+barn when another sackful is shot on to the top of the heap already
+there. When the glacier reaches the sea it makes its way along the
+bottom under water for a considerable distance, in some cases, as near
+Avigait, for more than a mile. This is where the water is too shallow
+for it to affect the mass, which forms a breakwater; though as a rule
+the shore deepens more suddenly and the projection is less. It was long
+supposed that the berg broke from the glacier by force of gravity, but
+this is not generally so. The berg is forced off from the parent glacier
+by the buoyant action of the sea from beneath; the ice groans and
+creaks; then there is a crashing, then a roar like the discharge of
+artillery; and with a great regurgitation of the waves the iceberg is
+launched into life. These huge floating islands of ice are the most
+conspicuous exports of Greenland; and their true magnitude is not
+realised until it is remembered that only about an eighth of their bulk
+appears above the water. Bergs as large as liners we frequently hear
+of—one such is shown in our illustration—but sometimes they are of much
+greater freeboard, though the very large ones reported as extending
+along the horizon are invariably groups of several crowded together.
+
+[Illustration: THE ALLAN LINER "SARDINIAN" AMONG ICEBERGS]
+
+_Ancylonema_ has evidently plenty to do. Another instance of the
+important part played by the insignificant in these regions is suggested
+by the colour of the sea. This varies from ultramarine blue to
+olive-green, from the purest transparency to striking opacity; and the
+changes are not transitory but permanent. These patches of dark water
+abound with diatoms, while the bluer the water the fewer are the
+diatoms; and where they are most numerous, there the animals that feed
+on them assemble in their greatest numbers. And these animals are
+jellyfish, entomostracans, and, to a greater extent, pteropods, their
+chief representative being _Clio borealis_. In short, the animals that
+feed on the diatoms are food of the Greenland whale, and where the
+waters are dark the whale-fishers thrive. "I know nothing stranger than
+the curious tale I have unfolded," says Dr. Robert Brown, who worked out
+this remarkable chain, "the diatom staining the broad frozen sea, again
+supporting myriads of living beings which crowd there to feed on it, and
+these again supporting the huge whale. Thus it is no stretch of the
+imagination to say that the greatest animal depends for its existence on
+a being so minute that it takes thousands to be massed together before
+they are visible to the naked eye."
+
+Cold as Greenland is, there was a time when matters were different. In
+token of this we have the Miocene fossils collected by Edward Whymper
+during his expedition from near Jakobshavn in 1867, which were described
+and illustrated by Oswald Heer in the _Philosophical Transactions_ for
+1869. A look at these is a welcome relief after such a surfeit of ice.
+Here, as well preserved as in the leaf beds of Alum Bay, are the leaves
+and fruits of an unmistakable temperate flora. Magnolias, maples,
+poplars, limes, walnuts, water-lilies; myrica, smilax, aralia; sedges
+and grasses, conifers and ferns: these at the least were all growing in
+Greenland in its Miocene age. And even a thousand years ago the climate
+must have been milder than now, to judge by the farming reports of the
+colonists who seem to have been quite at home along the coast, which,
+with its innumerable islands and fiords, is as intricate as that of
+Norway.
+
+Searching for the ancient eastern settlement of the Norsemen, W. A.
+Graah, in 1829, wintered at Julianehaab, which in all likelihood is the
+site, although he knew it not. Possessed with the idea that it must be
+on the south-eastern coast, he devoted his attention to that region
+only, finding Eskimos who had never seen a white man and starting a
+trading intercourse which led to most of them migrating to the less
+inclement west. His work linked up with that of Scoresby, who in 1822
+charted the main features of the sea-front from 69° to 75°. Ryder,
+seventy years afterwards, filled in the details of much of Scoresby's
+work, and found Eskimos further north, as Clavering had done in 1823,
+when in the _Griper_ during Sabine's observations at Pendulum Island.
+
+[Illustration: THE "GERMANIA" IN THE ICE]
+
+It was to Pendulum Island, in 74° 32´, that Karl Koldewey, after his
+preliminary run to 81° 5´ in 1868, took the _Germania_ to winter during
+the German expedition of 1869. The two vessels, the _Germania_, a small
+two-masted screw steamer of one hundred and forty-three tons, built
+specially for Arctic service, and the _Hansa_, only half her size, which
+had been strengthened for the voyage, reached Jan Mayen on the 9th of
+July, and, hidden from each other by fog, sailed northwards for five
+days. On the fifth evening the wind rose, the fog cleared, and a hundred
+yards in front of them lay the ice like a rugged line of cliffs.
+
+For a few days they sailed along it endeavouring to find an opening to
+the north. Then, on the 20th, the _Germania_ ran up a signal to approach
+and communicate, which was misunderstood, and, instead of repeating it
+and making sure, the _Hansa_ put up her helm, fell off, crowded on all
+sail, and disappeared in the fog. Koldewey, persisting in his efforts to
+get through the pack, found an opening on the 1st of August. Nine days
+afterwards he was again blocked, and finally, on the 27th, he reached
+Pendulum Island, where he made the _Germania_ snug for the winter, which
+proved to be remarkably mild.
+
+The first sledge party travelling up one of the fiords met with abundant
+vegetation and herds of reindeer and musk oxen, and were visited by
+bears who had not learnt to be wary of man; and when the bears came back
+with the sun in February they were as troublesome as those of Ice Haven
+to the Dutchmen. Several sledge parties went out in the spring, and,
+notwithstanding inadequate equipment, did excellent work. In April,
+1870, Koldewey reached 77° 1´, almost up to Lambert Land, otherwise the
+Land of Edam. Here, looking out over the ice-belt, they agreed that it
+was "a bulwark built for eternity," and hoisting sails on their sledges
+they ran back to the ship. But in 1905 the Duke of Orleans arrived on
+the coast to reach 78° 16´ and discover that their Cape Bismarck was on
+an island and their Dove Bay a strait.
+
+In the neighbourhood of their winter quarters the glaciers and mountains
+were well explored, and an attempt was made to measure an arc of the
+meridian, which proved to be rather rough work among such surroundings.
+The snowstorms were particularly pitiless and heavy, and the travelling
+decidedly bad. The thaw began about the middle of May, and there was
+more sledging through pools than usual, so that they did not want
+variety in their occupations. On the 14th of July boating became
+practicable, and a voyage was made to the Eskimo village found by
+Clavering in 1823, on the island named after him, but the village proved
+to be deserted and the huts in ruins—an unwelcome discovery, for, as
+M'Clintock says in reference to it: "It is not less strange than sad to
+find that a peaceable and once numerous tribe, inhabiting a coast-line
+of at least seven degrees of latitude, 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."
+
+[Illustration: THE REGION ROUND MOUNT PETERMANN]
+
+A little north of the seventy-third parallel Koldewey discovered on his
+way home the magnificent Franz Josef Fiord. Here the grandest scenery in
+Greenland is to be found along its deep branches winding among the
+mountains, one of which, Mount Petermann, is over eleven thousand feet
+high. As the _Germania_ entered this remarkable inlet, which extends
+inland for some five degrees of longitude, a fleet of icebergs were
+sailing out of it with the current; the farther she advanced the warmer
+seemed the temperature of the air and surface water, and the wilder and
+more impressive became the grouping of the mighty cliffs and peaks with
+their lofty waterfalls and raging torrents and deep glacier-filled
+ravines. It was the great geographical discovery of the expedition.
+
+Meanwhile Hegemann, trying to pass to the north more to the westward,
+got the _Hansa_ beset on the 9th of September some twenty-four miles
+from Foster Bay. As the ice-pressure threatened to become too great for
+the vessel to resist, an elaborate house was planned and built on the
+floe. Briquettes were used for the walls, the joints were filled up with
+dry snow on which water was poured, and in ten minutes it hardened into
+a compact mass. The house was twenty feet long, fourteen feet wide, and
+four feet eight inches high at the sides, with a rising roof consisting
+of sails and mats covered with deep snow. Into this house, which took a
+week to build, provisions for two months were carried, besides wood and
+fuel. The boats were put out, a flagstaff was set up, and quite a little
+settlement was started on the ice; and no sooner was it completed than a
+violent snowstorm, lasting for five days, buried both the ship and the
+house. The ice increased around, and, the pressure of the accumulation
+lifting the _Hansa_ seventeen feet above her original level, everything
+of value was removed from her on to the ice and into the house. On the
+22nd of October she sank, having drifted below the seventy-first
+parallel; and all through the winter the floe, which was about two miles
+across, leisurely made its way to the south.
+
+Off Knighton Bay Christmas was kept with all possible honour. The
+briquette house was decorated with coloured-paper festoons, and, by the
+light of the sole remaining wax candle, the genial Germans made
+themselves merry around a stubby Christmas tree devised out of an old
+birch broom. Three weeks afterwards the floe cracked beneath the
+dwelling. There was barely time to take refuge, but all hands were saved
+in the boats. For two days they remained in them, poorly sheltered from
+the storm and unable to clear out the snow. Then a smaller house was
+built of the ruins of the old one, but it was only large enough for half
+the party; and as the spring advanced the floe decreased, breaking away
+at the edges as did that on which the _Polaris_ people drifted to
+Labrador.
+
+[Illustration: THE LAST DAYS OF THE "HANSA"]
+
+At the end of March it entered Nukarbik Bay and there it stayed four
+weeks, caught in an eddy, slowly moving round and round just far enough
+from the shore to render an attempt at escape impossible; twice a day
+they went in with the tide and out with the tide, the ice too bad for
+the boats and never promising enough for a dash to the land. Having
+become thoroughly acquainted with this portion of the coast with its
+bold range of hills, its deep bays, its inlets, headlands, and islands,
+a storm came on which cleared them out of the eddy and drove them
+further south. Three weeks after that the floe had become so diminished
+by the lashing of the surge that it was hardly a hundred yards across,
+and large fragments were slipping off every hour.
+
+They had been on it for two hundred days and drifted eleven hundred
+miles when, on the 7th of May, water-lanes opening shorewards, they took
+to the boats and ventured among the masses of ice, making for the south.
+At first they had their difficulties in being compelled to haul up on
+the floes to pass the night or wait for a favourable wind, which meant
+severe work in unloading and reloading. Once during their painful
+progress of more than a month they were kept on a floe for six days by
+gales and snow-showers. Finally, after a long desperate effort, they
+reached Illuilek Island, and thence proceeded close inshore among rocks
+and ice to Frederiksdal, a couple of hours' walk from the southernmost
+point of the Greenland mainland, Cape Farewell being part of an island
+twenty-eight miles further to the south-east. On the 21st of June, eight
+days afterwards, they were at Julianehaab, whence they sailed to be
+landed at Copenhagen on the 1st of September, just ten days before the
+_Germania_ steamed into Bremen. Thus the expedition, by its two
+divisions, ice-borne and ship-borne, had skirted nearly all that was
+then known of the east coast from end to end.
+
+On the north coast, Beaumont's discoveries were extended by Lieutenant
+James B. Lockwood for ninety-five miles, the trend of the shore taking
+him up to 83° 24´, three minutes and thirty-four seconds nearer the
+North Pole than Markham reached out on the sea. This was on the 13th of
+May, 1882, during the ill-fated A. W. Greely expedition. Like most
+American expeditions up to then this began well and ended badly, worse,
+in fact, than any; and unlike them, and all others, it consisted
+entirely of soldiers—as if a detachment of Royal Engineers had been sent
+north on ordnance survey work. It was, however, more miscellaneous, for
+among its twenty-three members were representatives of three cavalry
+regiments, six infantry regiments, and an artilleryman.
+
+This was to be the garrison of the International Circumpolar Station at
+Lady Franklin Bay. The idea of a ring of stations round the Pole for the
+study of the natural phenomena for which the Arctic regions afford so
+wide and important a field was not new, but it was first reduced to
+definiteness and its adoption secured by Karl Weyprecht of the
+Austro-Hungarian expedition of 1872. At a meeting of German scientific
+men at Gratz, in September, 1875, he procured assent to his general
+principle that the best results in Arctic inquiry were to be obtained by
+subordinating geographical discovery to physical investigation. It had
+long been evident that the most valuable results had been obtained by
+the ships and fixed observatories, and that the toilsome work of the
+sledges in their successive approaches by a few more miles towards a
+mathematical point, though most interesting to read about, had really
+been of very little practical use owing to the necessarily light
+equipment. Instead, therefore, of a number of isolated attempts at
+irregular intervals, Weyprecht suggested that the better way would be to
+attack the subject systematically by a group of expeditions at permanent
+stations working together long enough at the same time for their
+observations to be dealt with as part of a general scheme; and the
+suggestion was approved although he did not live long enough to see the
+stations occupied.
+
+[Illustration: GREENLAND]
+
+Three International Polar Conferences were held, in 1879 and the two
+following years, at Hamburg, Berne, and St. Petersburg, at the last of
+which it was arranged that the stations should be fourteen in number,
+two in the south and twelve in the north, these twelve being—(1) The
+Austrian at Jan Mayen; (2) the Danish at Godthaab; (3) the Finnish at
+Sodankyla in Uleaborg; (4) the German at Kingua in Cumberland Sound; (5)
+the British at Fort Rae on the northern arm of the Great Slave Lake; (6)
+the Dutch at Dickson Harbour at the mouth of the Yenesei; (7) the
+Norwegian at Bosekop at the head of Alten Fiord; (8) the Russian at
+Little Karmakul Bay in Novaya Zemlya; (9) the second Russian on Sagastyr
+Island in the Lena Delta; (10) the Swedish at Mossel Bay in Spitsbergen;
+(11) the American at Point Barrow under Lieutenant P. H. Ray, who met
+with marked success and brought his men all home in safety; and (12) the
+second American at Lady Franklin Bay, the winter quarters of H.M.S.
+_Discovery_, which Greely renamed Fort Conger.
+
+In direct opposition to the guiding idea of the scheme, Greely's work
+was complicated by having tacked on to it Howgate's proposal of another
+dash for the Pole, his instructions requiring him to send out "sledging
+parties in the interests of exploration and discovery." Further, his
+expedition was fitted out in a way that almost invited disaster. Let one
+instance suffice. "In speaking of this instrument," he explains, "it is
+necessary to say that a dip-circle was especially made for the Lady
+Franklin Bay Expedition, but it was by error shipped to the United
+States Coast Survey. On calling for it, when the duplicate instrument
+ordered could not be had in time, the late Mr. Carlisle Patterson, then
+Superintendent, promptly promised that it should be sent on to me at New
+York. On the day of my sailing, a dip-circle, carefully boxed, was
+received; but on opening it at St. John, an old, rusty, unreliable
+instrument was found in the place of the new circle. This resulted in
+unsatisfactory and incomplete observations at Conger, for the old circle
+having upright standards instead of transverse ones, as in the new, but
+one end of the needle could be read. It must always be a matter of
+regret that this unwarrantable and unauthorised substitution by some
+person was made, which materially impaired, if not effectually
+destroyed, the value of our two-years' dip-observations." This sort of
+thing reduced International Polar Research to a farce, and the same
+spirit appeared in other departments, more seriously than all in the
+relief proceedings, which were conducted in a way that could only lead
+to starvation.
+
+In August, 1881, the _Proteus_, with the expedition on board, made her
+way up Smith Sound and Kennedy Channel without serious hindrance until
+she entered the south-eastern part of Lady Franklin Bay, where the
+close, heavy pack brought her to a stop within eight miles of her
+destination. She had come seven hundred miles from Upernivik in less
+than a week, and, faced by ice twenty to fifty feet thick, she had to
+wait another seven days before she got into Discovery Harbour. Here the
+party landed and a house was built, and dissension arose which ended in
+one of the company returning in the ship and another endeavouring to do
+so and being too late, so that he had to remain as a sort of tolerated
+volunteer. Two others were sent away as being physically unfit; but,
+making up for these, were two Eskimos engaged at Upernivik.
+
+Preliminary sledging began at once, and in the spring the two great
+efforts were made. The doctor's, towards the Pole, left on the 19th of
+March and got adrift on a floe from which the party escaped with the
+loss of their tent, provisions, and some of their instruments. According
+to Greely's report: "The farthest latitude attained by this party is
+given by Dr. Pavy as 82° 56´, it being estimated, as no observations for
+time, magnetic declination, or latitude were made at any period during
+his absence."
+
+On the 3rd of April, Lockwood with twelve men left for the coast of
+Greenland. Up to Newman Bay four men had been sent back as unfit for
+field-work. On the 16th, when the party started from here for the
+north-east, Lockwood and Christiansen, the Eskimo, were in advance
+hauling about eight hundred pounds with a team of eight dogs, a
+three-men sledge following, and then two two-men sledges; at Cape Bryant
+the men-sledges were sent back, and Lockwood, Brainard, and the Eskimo
+went on with the dog-sledge. Cape Britannia was reached on the 5th of
+May, and on the 13th they camped at Lockwood Island, and there, for the
+first time, Americans reached a farthest north.
+
+"I decided to make this cape my farthest," reported Lockwood, "and to
+devote the little time we could stay to determining accurately my
+position, if the weather would allow, which seemed doubtful. We built a
+large, conspicuous cairn, about six feet high and the same width at the
+base, on the lower of two benches. After repitching the tent Sergeant
+Brainard and I returned to the cairn, and collected in that vicinity
+specimens of the rocks and vegetation of the country, the sergeant
+making almost all the collection. We ascended without difficulty to a
+small fringe of rocks, which seemed from below to form the top. The
+ascent, at first very gradual, became steeper as we went up, but we had
+no difficulty, as for some distance below the summit the surface is
+covered with small stones, as uniform in size, position, etc., as those
+of a macadamised road. Reached the top at 3.45 p.m. and unfurled the
+American flag (Mrs. Greely's) to the breeze in latitude 83° 24´ N.
+(according to last observation). The summit is a small plateau, narrow,
+but extending back to the south to broken, snow-covered heights. It
+commanded a very extended view in every direction. The barometer, being
+out of order, was not brought along, so I did not get the altitude. The
+horizon on the land side was concealed by numberless snow-covered
+mountains, one profile overlapping another, and all so merged together,
+on account of their universal covering of snow, that it was impossible
+to detect the topography of the region. To the north lay an unbroken
+expanse of ice, interrupted only by the horizon."
+
+On Midsummer Day Greely started with a four-wheel wagon to explore
+Grinnell Land. The wagon, in the men's vernacular, was a man-killer, and
+was abandoned after they had dragged it a hundred miles. On this journey
+much exploring work was done in the unknown country, the most
+interesting find being that of the Eskimo house at Lake Hazen. In this,
+according to Greely's description, there were two fireplaces, one in the
+east and the other in the south, both of which had been built outward so
+as to take up no part of the space of the room, which was over seventeen
+feet long and nine feet wide. The sides of the entire dwelling were low
+walls of sodded earth, lined inside with flat thin slates, the tops of
+which were about two feet above the level of the interior floor, and the
+bench was covered with flat slabs of slate. Near by was a smaller house
+of the same character, and around were a large number of relics,
+including walrus-ivory toggles for dog-traces, sledge-bars and runners,
+an arrow head, skinning knife, and articles of worked bone. Next year
+further explorations of the back country were undertaken, so that some
+six thousand miles of the interior were viewed, disclosing many fertile
+valleys with their herds of musk ox.
+
+Meanwhile the _Neptune_, with supplies for Fort Conger, had in August,
+1882, been vainly endeavouring to get north, and, a few miles from Cape
+Hawks, had turned back with the pack piling the ice as high as her rail.
+Six attempts she made before she gave up and retreated, after making
+several deposits of stores at Cape Sabine and elsewhere. In July, 1883,
+the _Proteus_, making a similar attempt to reach Greely, was crushed in
+the ice off Cape Albert, her side opening with a crash while the men
+were working in the hold, the ice forcing its way into the coal-bunkers
+and then pouring in so that as soon as the pressure slackened she went
+down, escape to the south being effected in the boats.
+
+Next year, matters having become serious, a naval expedition consisting
+of the _Thetis_, the _Bear_, and Nares's old ship the _Alert_, presented
+by the British Government, was placed in the capable hands of Commander
+Winfield Schley, who had with him George Melville of _Jeannette_ fame as
+engineer of the _Thetis_, and matters were conducted in quite a
+different way under much more favourable circumstances. Schley intended
+to find Greely, at all costs, and he did so. First he found a cairn at
+Brevoort Island, in which were the papers deposited by Greely relating
+how he had had to come south owing to shortness of supplies, and how his
+party were then—21st of October, 1883—encamped on the west side of a
+small neck of land distant about equally from Cape Sabine and Cocked Hat
+Island.
+
+As it was then the 22nd of June, 1884, and they had had only forty days'
+complete rations to live upon, Schley hurried off at once. Had he been
+two days later he would have been too late. There was a tent wrecked by
+the gale, with its pole toppling over and only kept in place by the guy
+ropes. Ripping it up with a knife, a sight of horror was disclosed. On
+one side, close to the opening, with his head towards the outside, lay
+what was apparently a dead man. On the opposite side was a poor fellow,
+alive but without hands or feet, and with a spoon tied to the stump of
+his right arm. Two others, seated on the ground, were pouring something
+out of a rubber bottle into a tin can. Directly opposite, on his hands
+and knees, was a dark man with a long matted beard, in a dirty and
+tattered dressing-gown with a little red skull cap on his head, and
+brilliant staring eyes. As Colwell appeared, he raised himself a little,
+and put on a pair of eyeglasses.
+
+"Who are you?" asked Colwell.
+
+The man made no answer, staring at him vacantly.
+
+"Who are you?" again.
+
+One of the men spoke up. "That's the Major—Major Greely."
+
+Colwell crawled in and took him by the hand, saying to him, "Greely, is
+this you?"
+
+"Yes," said Greely in a faint, broken voice, hesitating with his words;
+"yes—seven of us left—here we are—dying—like men. Did what I came to
+do—beat the best record."
+
+Near at hand were ten graves. The bodies, despite Greely's
+remonstrances, were taken up and removed for burial in the United
+States. "Little could be seen of the condition of the bodies, as they
+had been clothed, and all that appeared was intact. In preparing them
+subsequently," says Schley, "it was found that six had been cut and the
+flesh removed." One of these, that of a cavalryman serving under the
+assumed name of Henry, had a bullet in it. He had been shot, at Greely's
+written order, "for stealing sealskin thongs, the only remaining food."
+
+The next to add to our knowledge of the northern coast of Greenland was
+Robert E. Peary, of the American Navy, who seems to have devoted his
+life to Arctic exploration. On his first expedition in 1886, he
+penetrated with Maigaard for some distance into the country in the
+neighbourhood of Jakobshavn as a sort of pioneering venture. In 1891,
+accompanied by his wife, when outward bound in the _Kite_ in the
+Melville Bay pack, he had his leg broken. The ship had been butting a
+passage through the spongy sheets of ice which had imprisoned her, when
+in going astern a detached cake struck the rudder, jamming the tiller
+against the wheel-house where Peary was standing, and pinned his leg
+long enough to snap it between the knee and the ankle. In spite of this
+he insisted on being landed with the rest of the party at McCormick Bay,
+a little to the north of Whale Sound, where a house was built and the
+winter spent.
+
+Making a good recovery, he set off in May to sledge across North
+Greenland through snow and over it, and over snow-arched crevasses,
+often, in cloudy weather, travelling in grey space with nothing visible
+beyond a foot or two around him. After fifty-seven days' journey to the
+north-east and along Peary Channel, the northern boundary of the
+mainland, he left the inland ice for a strange country dotted with
+snowdrifts and mostly of red sandstone, in which murmuring streams,
+roaring waterfalls, and the song of snow-buntings formed an agreeable
+change from the silence of the desert of snow. Four days' hard labouring
+through this brought him on the 4th of July to Independence Bay on the
+north-east coast, where from Navy Cliff, nearly four thousand feet high,
+he looked across to Academy Land on the other side of the bay and beyond
+it over the region leading down to the farthest north of the Duke of
+Orleans. "It was almost impossible," he says, "to believe that we were
+standing upon the northern shore of Greenland as we gazed from the
+summit of this bronze cliff, with the most brilliant sunshine all about
+us, with yellow poppies growing between the rocks around our feet, and a
+herd of muskoxen in the valley behind us. Down in that valley I had
+found an old friend, a dandelion in bloom, and had seen the bullet-like
+flight and heard the energetic buzz of the humble-bee."
+
+[Illustration: R. E. Peary, U. S. N.]
+
+Next year he and his wife were out again to take up their quarters at a
+house they built at Bowdoin Bay, where, in September, their daughter was
+born. In March, 1894, he started for another journey across Greenland,
+with twelve sledges and over ninety dogs, but severe weather drove him
+back after travelling some two hundred miles. Staying over that winter
+instead of returning in the _Falcon_, he set out in the spring, and
+under almost desperate circumstances managed to reach and return from
+Independence Bay.
+
+Following this came his expedition of 1898, in which he spent four
+winters in the Arctic regions and almost met with Petersen's fate by a
+venturesome winter sledge journey, which resulted in the freezing of his
+feet and the loss of eight of his toes. Travelling in Grinnell Land he
+proved beyond doubt that it was continuous with Ellesmere Land, as had
+been admitted by those who named it. Following Lockwood's track, he
+continued it up to 83° 54´, along Hazen Land, practically completing the
+coast-line to Cape Henry Parish, its furthest east, thus rounding the
+north of the Greenland archipelago, and even there finding traces of
+Eskimos and a fauna similar to that of other Arctic lands hundreds of
+miles further south. And striking northwards over the sea from Cape
+Hecla, with seven men and six dog-sledges, into the breaking, drifting
+pack, he made a dash for the Pole which ended at 84° 17´.
+
+His next northern venture, though not more remarkable, is destined,
+perhaps, to be remembered longer. On it he sighted the new land away out
+in the sea north-west of Grinnell Land, nearer to the Pole than any
+other land discovered up to then, and where it was expected to be. And
+out over the ice he went to eclipse his 1902 record by nearly two
+hundred miles, in the best planned of all his journeys.
+
+In July, 1905, he had left New York in the _Roosevelt_, a steamship of
+over six hundred tons and more than a thousand horse-power, rigged
+complete as a three-masted coasting schooner, able to hold her own
+almost anywhere in the event of her engines becoming useless. One
+hundred and eighty-two feet in length, thirty-five and a half in beam,
+and sixteen and a quarter in depth; sharp in the bow and rounded
+amidships; treble in framing and double in planking, with sides thirty
+inches thick, twelve feet of deadwood in her bow, and six feet of false
+keels and kelsons, she was specially built for the expedition as the
+strongest and most powerful vessel ever sent on Arctic service, and was
+launched on the 23rd of May, 1905, Mrs. Peary naming her by smashing a
+block of ice against her ironclad stem.
+
+A month out from New York, the _Roosevelt_ left Etah laden deep with
+coal from the _Eric_ that had awaited her there, and having on board
+over fifty Eskimos, of both sexes and all sizes, and some two hundred
+Eskimo dogs. Leaving a reserve of provisions at Bache Peninsula, she
+worked up through open water and occasional ice to Richardson Bay, where
+the pack looked so threatening that Peary literally rammed his way
+across to the eastern side, and so continued northwards. When off Cape
+Lupton the ship received such rough treatment that the rudder was
+twisted and the head-bands and tiller-rods broken, as she ground along
+the face of the ice-foot "with a motion and noise like that of a
+railway-car which has left the rails"; but this was the only time she
+was in serious danger during her most fortunate run. Resting for six
+days in Newman Bay to repair damages and make ready for a final effort,
+she was headed westward to Grinnell Land through the floes, and after a
+continuous battle of thirty-five hours, reached the ice-foot at Cape
+Sheridan, a little north of the old winter quarters of the _Alert_, and
+found her wintering place, like her, just as the Polar pack closed in
+against the shore. The endeavour had been to lay up in Porter Bay,
+twenty-seven miles further north, but the state of the ice made this
+impossible.
+
+Provisions were plentiful, as no less than two hundred and fifty musk
+oxen had been shot by the 1st of November, and there were numbers of
+hares and several herds of the white reindeer first mentioned by Hudson
+in his second voyage three hundred years ago. During the very mild
+winter eighty of the dogs died, and when sledging began only twenty
+teams of six each were available. The plan of the northern advance over
+the ice was to divide it into sections of about fifty miles each, with
+snow houses at each station, the nearest station being supplied from the
+base and supplying the next, and so on, thus keeping up an unbroken line
+of communication gradually extending nearer to the Pole, the sledges
+working backwards and forwards, outwards laden and inwards empty,
+between station and station along the line.
+
+The land was left at Point Moss, north-west of Cape Joseph Henry. At 84°
+38´ a lead in the pack stopped the way for six days until the young ice
+was thick enough to bear, and forty miles further north the vanguard
+drifted east some seventy miles during a storm for another six days. On
+the 20th of April a region of much open water was reached, and from
+midnight to noon next day the last effort was made by Peary, Henson, and
+a small party of Eskimos, the farthest north, 87° 6´, being attained and
+immediately left in a rapid retreat for safety.
+
+Thus Peary went nearer to the Pole than Cagni by thirty-two minutes or
+thirty-seven statute miles, both being stopped by water with apparently
+similar conditions ahead of them. What the conditions may be along the
+intervening two hundred miles from Peary's farthest nobody knows; but
+although a good many things may happen between London and York, which is
+about the same distance, there is good reason for supposing that, even
+if there be land somewhere, the road is over a sea more or less packed
+with ice which is never without its channels.
+
+One thing is clear: the attainment of the Pole is a matter of money.
+Given the funds, the men and the dogs, and the ships, boats, sledges,
+and other things will be forthcoming, and the journey accomplished, not
+by a rush, but on some systematic station-to-station plan; though it is
+not impossible that it may be done by chance in some exceptional year,
+for the climate of the north is variable and has a wider range of
+temperature than that of Britain in its good years and its bad years.
+
+Let us hope there may be land at the exact spot, for then the position
+can be checked at leisure, and there will be no doubt of its having been
+reached. Joseph Moxon, Hydrographer to the King, in 1652 met at
+Amsterdam a sailor of a Greenland ship which "went not out to fish that
+summer, but only to take in the lading of the whole fleet to bring it to
+an early market"—in other words, to act as a carrier—which ship, before
+the whaling fleet had caught enough to lade her, had by order of the
+Company sailed to the North Pole and back again, and even two degrees
+beyond it; no land seen, no ice, and the weather as it was in
+summer-time at Amsterdam.
+
+A sailor's yarn told in a tavern? Only this and nothing more, perhaps;
+though a good many things were kept dark in the whaling trade as in
+other trades. But if there had been an island at the Pole we might
+eventually have been able to verify that ancient mariner's tale.
+
+
+
+
+                                 INDEX
+
+
+ Abruzzi, Duke of, The, 76
+
+ Academy Land, 281
+
+ Actinia Haven, 87
+
+ _Advance_, The, 183, 236
+
+ _Aid_, The, 218, 219
+
+ Akaitcho, 150, 156, 160
+
+ Alaska, 134
+
+ Aldrich, Pelham, 255
+
+ _Alert_, H.M.S., 248, 278
+
+ _Alexander_, The, 179
+
+ Alexander, Cape, 234, 235
+
+ Alexandra Land, 75
+
+ _Alexandria_, H.M.S., 179
+
+ Alfred Ernest, Cape, 257
+
+ Ameralik Fiord, 261
+
+ America, The Norse discovery of, 3
+
+ Amundsen, Roald, 178, 214
+
+ _Ancylonema nordenskioeldii_, 264
+
+ Anderson Falls, The, 163
+
+ Andrée, S. A., 104
+
+ Anjou, P. F., 108
+
+ _Ann Frances_, The, 220
+
+ Antelope, 126
+
+ Archangel, 6
+
+ Archer, Colin, 91
+
+ Archer Fiord, 250, 257
+
+ Archer, R., 257
+
+ _Arctic_, The, 247
+
+ Arctic Search Expedition, The first, 7
+
+ _Assistance_, H.M.S., 183, 184
+
+ Atlassof, 128
+
+ Augustus the Eskimo, 157, 159, 160
+
+ Auk, Cape, 69
+
+ Auleitsivik Fiord, 263
+
+ Aurora Borealis, The, 67
+
+ Austin, Horatio, 183
+
+ Austria Sound, 68
+
+ Avigait, 264
+
+
+ Baal's River, 260
+
+ Back, George, 38, 149, 151, 156, 160, 203
+
+ Baden-Powell, Sir George, 105
+
+ Baffin, William, 15, 233
+
+ Baffin Land, 233
+
+ Banks Land, 172, 176, 182
+
+ Baranoff Cape, 85
+
+ Barents Bay, 49
+
+ Barents, Willem, 9, 49
+
+ Barnacle Goose, The, 12
+
+ Barren Grounds, The, 156, 159
+
+ Barrington, The Hon. Daines, 29
+
+ Barrow Point, 137, 167, 273
+
+ Barrow, Sir John, 178
+
+ Barrow Strait, 180
+
+ Bathurst Island, 180, 206
+
+ Bear, Black, 110
+
+ Bear Island, 12
+
+ Bear, Polar, 11, 12, 23, 27, 28, 52, 73, 74, 88, 99, 186, 238, 267
+
+ _Bear_, The, 278
+
+ Beaufort Sea, The, 173
+
+ Beaumont, Lewis Anthony, 257
+
+ Beechey, Cape, 159
+
+ Beechey, Frederick William, 35, 137
+
+ Beechey Island, 180, 183, 186, 206
+
+ Belanger, 151
+
+ Belcher, Edward, 184
+
+ Bellot, Joseph René, 183, 207
+
+ Bellot Strait, 197
+
+ Bennet, Stephen, 12
+
+ Bennett Island, 107, 117, 126
+
+ Bering Strait, 85, 127
+
+ Bering, Veit, 130
+
+ Berry, Captain, 141
+
+ Bessels, Emil, 245
+
+ Best, George, 220
+
+ Best's Bulwark, 219
+
+ Bille, Cape, 262
+
+ Bird Cape, 12
+
+ Birds, 12, 88, 113, 114, 141, 160, 172, 181, 228, 239, 258, 280
+
+ Bismarck, Cape, 268
+
+ Bjarni discovers America, 2
+
+ Bjelkof Island, 107
+
+ _Blossom_, H.M.S., 137
+
+ Boat Extreme, 167
+
+ Bolscheretzkoi, 131
+
+ _Bona Confidentia_, The, 5
+
+ _Bona Esperanza_, The, 5
+
+ Booth, Felix, 194
+
+ Boothia, 190
+
+ Borough, Steven, 6
+
+ Borough, William, 8
+
+ Bosekop, 273
+
+ Bounty Cape, 180
+
+ Bowdoin Bay, 281
+
+ Bowen, Port, 193
+
+ Bradley, Thomas, 4
+
+ Brainard, D. L., 276
+
+ Brattelid, 261
+
+ Brentford Bay, 197, 207
+
+ British Channel, 75, 99
+
+ Brorok, Cape, 82
+
+ Brown, Robert, 265
+
+ Brunel, Olivier, 9
+
+ Brunn, Mount, 71
+
+ Buchan, David, 33, 157
+
+ Buchan Island, 211
+
+ Buddington, J. M., 245
+
+ Bulun, 124
+
+ Bunge, A., 126
+
+ Burrough Strait, 7
+
+ Bush, Henry, 129
+
+ Butcher's Island, 217
+
+ Byam Martin Island, 180
+
+ Bylot, Robert, 233
+
+
+ Cabot, Sebastian, 4, 5
+
+ Cagni, Umberto, 77, 284
+
+ Cambridge Bay, 177
+
+ Camden Bay, 177
+
+ _Carcass_, H.M.S., 29
+
+ Carlsen, Elling, 44, 58
+
+ Carlsen, Olaf, 65
+
+ _Castor_, The (boat), 166
+
+ Castor and Pollux River, 169, 208
+
+ Cathay Company, The, 218
+
+ Catherine, The Empress, 130
+
+ Cator, Lieutenant, 183
+
+ Cavendish thermometer, The, 30
+
+ Chamisso Island, 138
+
+ Chancellor, Richard, 5
+
+ Char, 44, 258
+
+ Charing Cross, 220
+
+ Charles's Foreland, Prince, 14
+
+ Chelagskoi, Cape, 108
+
+ Chelyuskin, Cape, 84
+
+ Cherie Island, 12
+
+ Chippewyan, Fort, 147, 152, 166
+
+ Christian Land, King, 185
+
+ Chukches, The, 89, 115, 127
+
+ Chvoinof, 106
+
+ Clavering Island, 268
+
+ Clerke, Charles, 136
+
+ _Clio borealis_, 268
+
+ Coal, 45, 249, 258
+
+ Collinson, Richard, 171, 175
+
+ Columbia, Cape, 257
+
+ Columbus visits Iceland, 3
+
+ Colwell, J. C., 279
+
+ Commander Islands, The, 135
+
+ Conferences, The Polar, 273
+
+ Confidence, Fort, 167
+
+ Conger, Fort, 273
+
+ Constitution, Cape, 236
+
+ Conway, William Martin, 47
+
+ Cook, James, 90, 136
+
+ Cookery-of-Haarlem, 25
+
+ Coppermine River, 147, 153, 159, 167
+
+ Cornwall, North, 185
+
+ Cornwallis Island, 180, 206
+
+ Coronation Gulf, 155
+
+ Countess of Warwick Island, 219, 222
+
+ Crow's Nest, The, 30
+
+ Crozier, F. R. M., 205, 212
+
+ Cumberland Gulf, 227
+
+
+ Dall, W. H., 142
+
+ Danes Island, 104
+
+ Danish Sound, 185
+
+ Davis, John, 9, 223
+
+ Davis Strait, 227
+
+ Dealy Island, 174, 180
+
+ Dease, Peter Warren, 158, 165
+
+ Dease River, 158, 159
+
+ Dease Strait, 168
+
+ Dee, Dr. John, 223
+
+ De Haven, Lieutenant, 183
+
+ De Long, G. W., 116
+
+ Deschnef, 85
+
+ Des Vœux, C. F., 212
+
+ Devon, North, 180
+
+ _Diana_, The, 44
+
+ Dickson Harbour, 85, 273
+
+ _Discovery_, H.M.S. (Cook), 136
+
+ _Discovery_, H.M.S. (Nares), 248
+
+ _Discovery_, The (Hudson), 233
+
+ Discovery Harbour, 250
+
+ Distillation apparatus, The, 30
+
+ _Dolphin_, The (boat), 157, 158
+
+ Dolphin and Union Strait, 159
+
+ _Dorothea_, H.M.S., 33
+
+ Dove Bay, 268
+
+ Drummond, Thomas, 157, 160
+
+ Dudley, Ambrose, 216
+
+ Dudley Digges Cape, 234
+
+ Durfourth, Captain, 5
+
+ Dyer, Cape, 227
+
+
+ East Cape, 132
+
+ Ebierbing and Tookoolito, 244
+
+ Edam, Land of, 268
+
+ Edge, Thomas, 15
+
+ Edge's Island, 15
+
+ _Edward Bonaventure_, The, 5
+
+ Egede, Hans, 259
+
+ Egede, Paul, 260
+
+ _Eira_, The, 72
+
+ _Elizabeth_, The, 232
+
+ _Ellen_, The, 231
+
+ Ellesmere Land, 235, 281
+
+ Ellis, John, 225
+
+ Elmwood, 103
+
+ Elson, Thomas, 137, 159
+
+ Elson Bay, 137
+
+ _Endeavour_, The (boat), 41
+
+ English Chief, 147
+
+ Entada bean, The, 44
+
+ Enterprise, Fort, 150
+
+ _Enterprise_, H.M.S., 171, 175
+
+ _Enterprise_, The (boat), 41
+
+ _Erebus_, H.M.S., 171, 183, 205
+
+ _Eric_, The, 283
+
+ Eric the Red, 2, 261
+
+ Ermine, 188
+
+ Eskimo relics, 277
+
+ Eskimos first met with, 217
+
+ Eskimos, Migration of the, 3
+
+ Eskimos, 3, 139, 140, 145, 152, 154, 157, 158, 159, 167, 168, 176, 192,
+    198, 200, 207, 211, 217, 222, 225, 229, 237, 244, 246, 258, 260,
+    277, 282, 283
+
+ Etah, 283
+
+ Evensen, Captain, 83
+
+ Exeter Sound, 227
+
+ _Express_, The, 87
+
+
+ _Falcon_, The, 281
+
+ Farewell, Cape, 271
+
+ Fedotof, 129
+
+ Felix Harbour, 197
+
+ _Felix_, The, 182
+
+ Fern, The first Spitsbergen, 43
+
+ Finlay Island, 185
+
+ Finlayson Islands, 177
+
+ Fish River, The Great, 160, 169
+
+ Fishes, 153, 176, 258
+
+ FitzJames, James, 212
+
+ Fligely, Cape, 70, 76
+
+ Floeberg Beach, 250
+
+ Flora, Cape, 72, 75, 103
+
+ Forsyth, C. C., 183
+
+ Fossils, 43, 107, 126, 173, 266
+
+ Foulke Harbour, 239
+
+ Fox, Arctic, 23, 53
+
+ Fox, Black, 144
+
+ Fox, Silver-grey, 144
+
+ _Fox_, The, 208
+
+ _Fram_, The, 91, 185
+
+ Franklin, Fort, 158
+
+ Franklin, John, 33, 149, 156, 195, 205
+
+ Franklin, Lady, 209, 235
+
+ Franklin Record, The, 212
+
+ Franklin Strait, 206
+
+ Franz Josef Fiord, 269
+
+ Franz Josef Land, 62, 64
+
+ _Fraser_, The, 87
+
+ Frazer, Cape, 236
+
+ Frederick Jackson Island, 99
+
+ Frederiksdal, 271
+
+ Frobisher Bay, 216
+
+ Frobisher, Martin, 215
+
+ Frozen Strait, 190
+
+ Fur-seal, The, 135
+
+ Fury Beach, 193, 202
+
+ Fury and Hecla Strait, 193
+
+ _Fury_, H.M.S., 191
+
+
+ _Gabriel_, The (Bering), 132
+
+ _Gabriel_, (Frobisher), 216, 218
+
+ Gabriel Islands, The, 221
+
+ Gardiner, Charles, 59
+
+ Garry, Fort, 165
+
+ _George_, The, 8
+
+ _Germania_, The, 267
+
+ Gibraltar Bay, Battle of, 58
+
+ Giffard, G. A., 255
+
+ Gilbert, Adrian, 223, 229
+
+ Gilbert, Humphrey, 215, 221
+
+ Gilbert Sound, 225
+
+ Gjöa, The, 214
+
+ Gjöahaven, 214
+
+ Glaciers, 16, 46, 68, 189, 242, 237, 244, 264
+
+ _Glow-worm_, The, 59
+
+ Godfrey, William, 236
+
+ Godthaab, 91, 225, 273
+
+ Godthaab Fiord, 260
+
+ Gore, Graham, 206, 212
+
+ Graah, W. A., 266
+
+ Graham Island, 185
+
+ Greely, A. W., 272
+
+ Greenland, 2, 14, 259
+
+ Greenland Archipelago, The, 282
+
+ Greenland, East, 12
+
+ _Greyhound_, The, 10
+
+ Griffith Island, 180
+
+ Grinnell Land, 236, 277, 281
+
+ _Griper_, H.M.S., 179, 202, 267
+
+ Gulf Stream, The, 13, 26, 44
+
+ Gundersen, Captain, 59
+
+ Gunnbiörn discovers Greenland, 2
+
+
+ Hakluyt Headland, 14
+
+ Hall Basin, 245
+
+ Hall, C. F., 213, 222, 244
+
+ Hall, Christopher, 216
+
+ Hall, James, 233
+
+ Hall Island, 68
+
+ Hall's Rest, 246
+
+ Hamilton, Cape, 174
+
+ Hans Hendrik, 237, 245, 249
+
+ _Hansa_, The, 267
+
+ Hare, 172, 176, 181, 186, 188, 283
+
+ Hare Fiord, 186
+
+ Hartstene Bay, 241
+
+ Hayes, I. I., 237
+
+ Hazen, Lake, 277
+
+ Hazen Land, 281
+
+ Hearne, Samuel, 147
+
+ Hecla, Cape, 282
+
+ _Hecla_, H.M.S., 40, 179, 191
+
+ Hedenström, 107
+
+ Heemskerck, Jacob van, 10, 49
+
+ Heer, Oswald, 266
+
+ Hegemann, Captain, 269
+
+ Heiberg Land, Axel, 185
+
+ Helluland, 3
+
+ Hendon, North, 197
+
+ Hendrik, Hans, 237, 245, 249
+
+ Hendriksen Sound, 185
+
+ Henrietta Island, 107
+
+ Henson, C., 284
+
+ Hepburn, John, 156, 207
+
+ _Herald_, H.M.S., 138
+
+ Herald Island, 116, 141
+
+ Herschel, Cape, 169, 212
+
+ Himkoff, Alexis, 26
+
+ Hinlopen Strait, 17
+
+ Hobson, W. R., 208, 212
+
+ Hohenlohe Island, 68
+
+ Hood River, The, 155
+
+ Hood, Robert, 149
+
+ Hooper, William Hulme, 140
+
+ Hope, Fort, 204
+
+ _Hope_, The (Young), 75
+
+ _Hope_, The (Egede), 260
+
+ Howgate, H. W., 274
+
+ Hudson Bay, 62
+
+ Hudson, Henry, 13, 15, 60
+
+ Hudson River, The, 61
+
+ Hudson Strait, 4, 62, 221, 232
+
+ Hudson's Bay Company, The, 146
+
+ Hudson's Touches, 14
+
+ Humboldt Glacier, The, 237
+
+ Hyaqua shell, The, 145
+
+
+ Icebergs, 35, 230, 264
+
+ Ice-drill, The, 30
+
+ Ice Haven, 49
+
+ Iceland, 2
+
+ Icy Cape, 136, 137
+
+ Igloolik, 193
+
+ Igloos, 198, 211
+
+ Ikmallik, 200
+
+ Independence Bay, 280
+
+ Inglefield, E. A., 235
+
+ Ingolf lands in Iceland, 2
+
+ Insects, 192, 281
+
+ International Polar Stations, The, 272
+
+ _Intrepid_, H.M.S., 183
+
+ _Investigator_, H.M.S., 171
+
+ Irkaipii, 89, 136
+
+ Irving, John, 212, 213
+
+ _Isabel_, The, 235
+
+ Isabella, Cape, 235
+
+ _Isabella_, The, 179, 202
+
+ Isachsen, Cape, 186
+
+ _Isbjörn_, The, 64
+
+
+ Jackman, Charles, 8, 60
+
+ Jackson, Frederick G., 75, 103
+
+ Jakobshavn, 266, 280
+
+ Jan Mayen, 14, 273
+
+ Japanese, The, 129, 133
+
+ _Jason_, The, 261
+
+ _Jeannette_, The, 91, 116, 141
+
+ Jeannette Island, 107
+
+ Jenkinson, Anthony, 7, 215
+
+ Jesup Land, 185
+
+ Joe and Hannah, 244
+
+ Johansen, F. H., 96
+
+ _John_, The, 196
+
+ Jones Sound, 234
+
+ Joseph Henry, Cape, 284
+
+ Journal, The, introduced, 5
+
+ _Judith_, The, 219
+
+ Julianehaab, 266
+
+
+ Kalutunah, 237
+
+ Kamchatka, 129
+
+ Kane, E. K., 236
+
+ Kane Sea, The, 235
+
+ Kara Sea, The, 7
+
+ Karmakul Bay, 273
+
+ Kay, E. C. Lister, 59
+
+ Kellett, Henry, 138, 174, 184
+
+ Kendall, E. N., 156
+
+ Kennedy Channel, 236
+
+ Kennedy, Port, 211
+
+ Kennedy, William, 183, 207
+
+ King, Richard, 160
+
+ Kingua, 273
+
+ King William Land, 163, 214
+
+ _Kite_, The, 280
+
+ Knight, John, 146
+
+ Kod-lun-arn, 223
+
+ Kola, 9, 12, 57
+
+ Koldewey, Karl, 267
+
+ Kolguiev, 8
+
+ Kolyuchin Bay, 90
+
+ Kompakova, The, 129
+
+ Kotelnoi Island, 106, 117
+
+ Kraechoj, 127
+
+ _Krusenstern_, The, 196
+
+ Kruzof Island, 134
+
+ Ku Mark Surka, 122
+
+ Kuriles, The, 133
+
+ Kutchins, The, 145
+
+
+ Labrador, Discovery of, 4
+
+ Labrets, 145
+
+ Lady Franklin, 183
+
+ Lady Franklin Bay, 250, 272
+
+ Lambert Land, 268
+
+ Lamont, James, 44
+
+ Lancaster Sound, 179, 180, 234
+
+ Lands Lokk, 186
+
+ Laptef, Dmitri, 85
+
+ Laptef, Khariton, 84
+
+ Leif lands in America, 3
+
+ Lemming, 188
+
+ _Lena_, The, 87
+
+ Lena Delta, The, 106
+
+ Liakhoff, 89, 106
+
+ Liakhoff Island, 89, 126
+
+ Lichens, 156
+
+ Lifeboat Cove, 247
+
+ Linschoten, Van, 10
+
+ _Lion_, The (boat), 157, 158
+
+ Little Table Island, 41
+
+ Lock, Michael, 61, 216
+
+ Lockwood, James B., 272, 275
+
+ Lockwood Island, 276
+
+ Log, The, introduced, 5
+
+ Long, G. W. De, 116
+
+ Long, Thomas, 141
+
+ Loschkin, S., 62
+
+ Louis Napoleon, Cape, 235
+
+ Ludlow, 62
+
+ Lunar at sea, The first, 17
+
+ Lundstrom, 85
+
+ Lütke, 63
+
+ Lutwidge, Skeffington, 29
+
+ Lyon, George Francis, 191, 202
+
+
+ Mackenzie, Alexander, 147
+
+ Mackenzie River, Discovery of, 148
+
+ Macintoshes, The first, 157
+
+ M'Clintock, F. L., 184, 208, 248, 268
+
+ M'Clintock, Cape, 99
+
+ M'Clure, Robert Le M., 171, 177
+
+ McCormick Bay, 280
+
+ McKay, James, 161
+
+ _Magnet_, The (boat), 204
+
+ Magnetic North Pole, 214
+
+ Mahlemut labret, The, 145
+
+ Mammals, Fossil, 126
+
+ Mammoth, 107, 115, 126
+
+ Markham, A. H., 247, 249
+
+ Markland, 3
+
+ Marten skins, 144
+
+ Martens, F., 25
+
+ Mary Harmsworth, Cape, 75
+
+ _Mary Margaret_, The, 15
+
+ Matiuschkin, 108
+
+ _Matthew_, The, 4
+
+ Matty Island, 201
+
+ Matyushin Shar, 60
+
+ May, William H., 256
+
+ Melville Bay, 234
+
+ Melville, G. W., 117
+
+ Melville Island, 174, 176, 180
+
+ Melville Peninsula, 192, 205
+
+ Merchant Adventurers, The, 5
+
+ _Mercury_, The, 9
+
+ Mercy Bay, 174
+
+ _Mermaid_, The, 229
+
+ Meta Incognita, 219
+
+ _Michael_, The, 216
+
+ Middendorf Glacier, The, 68
+
+ Middleton, Christopher, 190
+
+ Mistaken Streight, 221
+
+ Moloi, 106
+
+ Montreal Island, 162, 169, 206, 212
+
+ Moons, Mock, 151
+
+ _Moonshine_, The, 224, 229
+
+ Moore, Thomas E. L., 138
+
+ Moose-hunting, 144
+
+ Moravians, The, 261
+
+ Morton, William, 236, 245
+
+ Moss, E. L., 254
+
+ Moss Point, 284
+
+ Mossel Bay, 44, 45, 273
+
+ Moxon, Joseph, 285
+
+ Murchison, Cape, 197
+
+ Murchison River, 208
+
+ Muscovy Company, The, 6, 13, 15, 17, 60, 233
+
+ Musk ox, 126, 172, 181, 188, 248, 267, 283
+
+
+ Nai, Cornelis, 9
+
+ _Nancy Dawson_, The, 139
+
+ Nansen, Fridtjof, 91, 261
+
+ Nares, G. S., 248
+
+ Narwhal, 31, 188, 219
+
+ Nassau, Cape, 9
+
+ Navy Cliff, 280
+
+ Nelson, Horatio, 29
+
+ _Neptune_, The, 277
+
+ Newfoundland, Discovery of, 4
+
+ Newman Bay, 283
+
+ New Siberian Islands, The, 88, 106
+
+ Nindemann, 118
+
+ Nordenskiöld, Adolf Erik, 43, 44, 85, 263
+
+ Noros, 118
+
+ Norsemen discover America, 2
+
+ Northbrook Island, 100
+
+ North Cape, The, 6, 89, 136
+
+ North East Land, 26
+
+ North-East Passage, The, 5, 85
+
+ Northern Passage, The, 5
+
+ _North Pole_, The (boat), 204
+
+ North Pole, Magnetic, 214
+
+ _North Star_, The, 229
+
+ North Water, The, 234
+
+ North-West Fur Company, The, 147
+
+ North-West Passage, The, 5
+
+ Norton Sound, 142
+
+ Nova Kholmogory, 9
+
+ Novaya Zemlya, 7, 9, 49
+
+ Nulato, 142
+
+ Ny Herrnhut, 261
+
+
+ Obi, The, 85
+
+ Observation, Mount, 172
+
+ Ochotsk, 129
+
+ Ommanney, Erasmus, 183
+
+ Omoki, The, 115
+
+ Ooligbuck the Eskimo, 157, 158, 168
+
+ Oraefa, Mount, 2
+
+ Orleans, Duke of, 268
+
+ Osborn, Sherard, 183
+
+ Ostiaks, The, 115
+
+ _Otaria_, The, 105
+
+
+ Pachtussoff, 63
+
+ _Pandora_, The, 116
+
+ Parhelia, 152
+
+ Parker Bay, 171
+
+ Parr, Alfred A. C., 255
+
+ Parry, William Edward, 40, 178, 179, 191, 234
+
+ Parry Falls, The, 163
+
+ _Patience_, The, 233
+
+ Patrick Island, Prince, 174, 184
+
+ Pavy, O., 275
+
+ Payer, Julius, 64
+
+ Peary Channel, 280
+
+ Peary, Robert E., 185, 186, 280
+
+ Peel Sound, 206
+
+ Pellham, Edward, 18
+
+ Pelly Bay, 207
+
+ Pelly Point, 171
+
+ Pendulum Island, 267
+
+ Penny Strait, 206
+
+ Penny, William, 183
+
+ Pet, Arthur, 7, 60
+
+ Pet Strait, 8
+
+ Peter the Great, 130
+
+ Petermann Fiord, 248
+
+ Petermann, Mount, 269
+
+ Petersen Bay, 214
+
+ Petersen, C., 208
+
+ Petropaulovsk, 134
+
+ Phipps, The Hon. Constantine John, 29
+
+ Pim, Bedford, 174
+
+ _Pioneer_, H.M.S., 183
+
+ Plants, 43, 88, 91, 113, 114, 156, 192, 248, 264, 266, 281
+
+ _Plover_, H.M.S., 138
+
+ Point Lake, 153
+
+ Point Victory, 206
+
+ Polar Stations, The International, 272, 273
+
+ _Polaris_, The, 245
+
+ _Polhem_, The, 44
+
+ _Pollux_, The (boat), 166
+
+ Poole, Jonas, 13, 15
+
+ Porcupine River, The, 142
+
+ Pospeloff, 62
+
+ Pribylov Islands, The, 135
+
+ _Prince Albert_, The, 183, 207
+
+ Prince of Wales, Cape, 136
+
+ Prince of Wales Strait, 172, 176
+
+ _Proeven_, The, 85
+
+ Pronchistschef, 85
+
+ _Proteus_, The, 274, 278
+
+ _Protococcus nivalis_, 192
+
+ Prudhoe Land, 234
+
+ Pullen, W. J. S., 139
+
+
+ Quennerstedt, A., 43
+
+
+ _Racehorse_, H.M.S., 29
+
+ _Racer_, The, 183
+
+ Rae, Fort, 273
+
+ Rae, John, 170, 204, 207
+
+ Rae Strait, 208, 214
+
+ Raleigh, Mount, 227
+
+ Rat River, The, 142
+
+ _Ravenscraig_, The, 247
+
+ Rawlings Bay, 241
+
+ Rawson, Wyatt, 257
+
+ Red snow, 192
+
+ Regent Inlet, Prince, 180
+
+ _Regina_, The, 59
+
+ Reikjavik founded, 2
+
+ Reindeer, 10, 18, 23, 27, 28, 60, 109, 150, 169, 172, 174, 176, 181,
+    188, 267, 283
+
+ Reindeer, White, 61, 283
+
+ Reliance, Fort, 160
+
+ _Reliance_, The (boat), 158
+
+ Rensselaer Harbour, 235, 236
+
+ Repulse Bay, 191, 204, 207
+
+ _Resolute_, H.M.S., 175, 183, 184
+
+ _Resolution_, H.M.S., 136
+
+ _Resolution_, The (whaler), 31
+
+ Return Reef, 159, 166
+
+ Rhinoceros, 126
+
+ Richardson, John, 149, 156, 170
+
+ Richthofen Peak, 71
+
+ Rijp, Jan Corneliszoon, 11, 57
+
+ Ringnes Islands, The, 185
+
+ Ritenbenk, 249
+
+ Robeson Channel, 245
+
+ Rocky Mountains first crossed, 149
+
+ _Rodgers_, The, 141
+
+ _Roosevelt_, The, 282
+
+ Rosmysslof, 62
+
+ Ross, James Clark, 41, 181, 201
+
+ Ross, John, 179, 182, 194, 234
+
+ Rudolf Island, Prince, 75, 76, 82
+
+ Hudson's Point, 14
+
+ Russell, Cape, 235
+
+ Ryder, Lieut., 266
+
+
+ Sabine, Edward, 181, 267
+
+ Sabine, Cape, 235
+
+ Sable, The, 135
+
+ Sagastyr Island, 273
+
+ St. Elias, Cape, 134
+
+ St. Elias, Mount, 136
+
+ St. Lawrence Bay, 141
+
+ St. Lawrence Island, 132
+
+ _St. Paul_, The, 134
+
+ _St. Peter_, The, 134
+
+ _Salmo arcturus_, 258
+
+ Salmon trout, 176
+
+ _Salutation_, The, 18
+
+ Samoyeds, The, 10, 115
+
+ Sanderson's Hope, 232
+
+ Sanderson, William, 224
+
+ Sannikof, 107
+
+ Schley, Winfield S., 278
+
+ Schonau Island, 70
+
+ Schwatka, Frederick, 213
+
+ Scoresby, William, the elder, 30
+
+ Scoresby, William, the younger, 31, 129, 266
+
+ Seal, The Fur, 135
+
+ Seals, 31, 88
+
+ Sea-otter, The, 135
+
+ _Searchthrift_, The, 7
+
+ Semonovski Island, 117
+
+ Serdze Kamen, Cape, 90, 132, 136
+
+ Seven Islands, The, 40
+
+ Shackleton, Cape, 233
+
+ Shantar Islands, The, 130
+
+ Sheathing for ships introduced, 5
+
+ Shedden, Robert, 139
+
+ Sheridan, Cape, 283
+
+ Siberia, 84, 106
+
+ Siberian Islands, The, 88, 106
+
+ Silver Bay, 63
+
+ Simmons Peninsula, 188
+
+ Simpson, Sir George, 165
+
+ Simpson, Thomas, 165
+
+ Simpson Strait, 168, 206, 214
+
+ Sinclair, George, 166
+
+ Sirovatskof, 107
+
+ Sitka Sound, 134
+
+ Sledges and sledge-work, 184, 252
+
+ Smeerenberg, 24
+
+ Smith, Benjamin Leigh, 44, 72
+
+ Smith Sound, 234, 235
+
+ Snow, William Parker, 183
+
+ Snow houses, 198, 211
+
+ Sodankyla, 273
+
+ _Sofia_, The, 44
+
+ Somerset House, 202
+
+ Somerset, North, 180
+
+ Sonntag, August, 242
+
+ _Sophia_, The, 183
+
+ Spangberg, Martin, 131
+
+ Spinks, Robert, 37, 158
+
+ Spitsbergen, 12, 15, 16, 18, 24, 104
+
+ Steamship, The first Arctic, 194
+
+ _Stella Polare_, The, 76
+
+ Sterlegof, Cape, 85
+
+ Stoat, 188
+
+ Stolbovoi, 107
+
+ Stuxberg, 85
+
+ _Sunshine_, The, 224, 229, 232
+
+ Sverdrup, Otto, 104, 185, 261
+
+ Svjatoi Nos, 89
+
+
+ Tanana, The, 144
+
+ Tananas, The, 145
+
+ _Tegetthoff_, The, 64
+
+ Teplitz Bay, 69, 77
+
+ _Terror_, H.M.S., 171, 183, 203, 205
+
+ Thaddeus Island, 107, 117
+
+ _Thames_, The, 87
+
+ Thermometer, The deep-sea, 30
+
+ _Thetis_, The, 278
+
+ Thirkill, Launcelot, 4
+
+ _Thomasine_, The, 16
+
+ Thorne, Robert, 5
+
+ Tiger, 126
+
+ _Tigress_, The, 247
+
+ Toll, Baron E., 126
+
+ Torell, Otto, 43
+
+ _Trent_, H.M.S., 33
+
+ Treurenberg Bay, 40
+
+ Tripe-de-roche, 156
+
+ Tschirikof, Alexei, 131
+
+ Tundra, The, 86, 113
+
+ Turnagain, Point, 155, 167
+
+ Tyndall Glacier, 244
+
+
+ Umivik, 262
+
+ _Union_, The (boat), 157, 158
+
+ _United States_, The, 239
+
+ Upernivik, 232
+
+
+ _Valorous_, H.M.S., 248
+
+ Veer, Gerrit de, 10, 49
+
+ _Vega_, The, 87
+
+ Victoria, Cape, 211
+
+ Victoria Land, 168
+
+ Victoria Sea, Queen, 75
+
+ Victoria Strait, 206
+
+ _Victory_, The, 194
+
+ Victory, Point, 212
+
+ Vinland, 3
+
+ Vlamingh, Willem de, 62
+
+ Vrangel', Ferdinand, 108
+
+
+ Wager River, 190
+
+ Waigatz Island, 7
+
+ Wainwright Inlet, 139
+
+ Walden Island, 40
+
+ Walker Bay, 176
+
+ _Walnut Shell_, The (boat), 157, 159
+
+ Walrus, 12, 13, 20, 31, 34, 57, 73, 82, 88, 93, 101
+
+ Walsingham, Francis, 224, 229, 231
+
+ Washington Irving Island, 250
+
+ Welden, Captain, 13
+
+ Wellington Channel, 180
+
+ Wentzel, 150, 151, 154
+
+ West England, 220
+
+ Weyprecht, K., 64, 272
+
+ Whale fishery, The, 15, 17
+
+ Whale, Greenland, 14, 15, 31, 265
+
+ Whale Island, 148
+
+ Whale, White, 88, 148, 188
+
+ Whaling trade begins, 15
+
+ White Man's Island, 223
+
+ White Sea, The, 6
+
+ White Shirt, 2
+
+ Whymper, Edward, 266
+
+ Whymper, Frederick, 142
+
+ Wiggins, Joseph, 87
+
+ Wijde Bay, 17
+
+ Wilberforce Falls, The, 155
+
+ Wilczek Island, 66
+
+ William Land, King, 163, 214
+
+ _William_, The, 8
+
+ Willoughby, Sir Hugh, 5
+
+ _Windward_, The, 76, 103
+
+ Winter Harbour, 174, 181
+
+ Winter Island, 192
+
+ _Winthont_, The, 10
+
+ Wollaston Land, 158
+
+ Wolstenholme, Cape, 234
+
+ Wolverine, 144
+
+ Women Islands, The, 233
+
+ Wrangell, Ferdinand Von, 108
+
+ Wrangell Island, 116, 141
+
+
+ Yakuts, The, 115
+
+ Yalmal, 85
+
+ Yenesei, The, 85
+
+ _Ymer_, The, 87
+
+ Young, Allen, 75, 116, 208, 213
+
+ Young's Foreland, 14
+
+ Yugor Strait, 8
+
+ Yukon, Fort, 142, 144
+
+ Yukon, The, 142
+
+
+                                PLYMOUTH
+                     WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.
+                                PRINTERS
+
+
+
+
+                          TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
+
+
+ 1. Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical
+    errors.
+ 2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
+ 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
+ 4. Superscripts are denoted by a carat before a single superscript
+    character or a series of superscripted characters enclosed in curly
+    braces, e.g. M^r. or M^{ister}.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Round About the North Pole, by W. J. Gordon
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Round About the North Pole, by W. J. Gordon
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+Title: Round About the North Pole
+
+Author: W. J. Gordon
+
+Illustrator: Edward Whymper
+
+Release Date: July 1, 2016 [EBook #52462]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUND ABOUT THE NORTH POLE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class='tnotes covernote'>
+
+<p class='c000'>  <strong>Transcriber's Note:</strong></p>
+
+<p class='c000'>  The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='ph1'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div>ROUND ABOUT</div>
+    <div>THE NORTH POLE</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div id='Frontispiece'  class='figcenter id001'>
+<img src='images/i_004.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>"DONE UP"</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class='c002'>Frontispiece</div>
+
+<div>
+  <h1 class='c003'>ROUND ABOUT<br /> THE NORTH POLE</h1>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c004'>
+    <div><span class='xlarge'>BY W. J. GORDON</span></div>
+    <div class='c005'>WITH WOODCUTS AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS</div>
+    <div>BY EDWARD WHYMPER</div>
+    <div class='c001'>NEW YORK</div>
+    <div><span class='large'>E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY</span></div>
+    <div><span class='sc'>31 West Twenty-third Street</span></div>
+    <div>1907</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div><em>Printed in Great Britain</em></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_v'>v</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>PREFACE</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>Among the many books about the Polar regions
+there is none quite like this, dealing with the
+gradual progress of exploration towards the north
+along the different areas of advance within the Arctic
+Circle.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The subject is always interesting, for few regions
+have been the scene of more persistent effort and
+exciting adventure and unexpected gains from the
+unknown, particularly in the earlier days when the
+endeavour to find the northern passages to the east and
+west led to the beginning of our foreign trade.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>It is often asked, "What is the use of further Arctic
+discovery?" No one knows. Nor did any one know
+the use of most discoveries before they were made.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>When Eric landed in Greenland he was not in
+search of cryolite for aluminium. When Cabral sailed
+to Porto Seguro he knew nothing of the incandescent
+gas-mantle. When Oersted looped the live wire round
+the magnetic needle he was not bent on founding
+electrical engineering. And when Linnæus noticed
+the sleep of plants he had no intention of providing
+a substitute for a clock in high latitudes where, though
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_vi'>vi</span>the sunshine is continuous during the summer, the
+plants within the Circle sleep as in the night time,
+their sleeping leaves telling the traveller that midnight
+is at hand.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Men have made up their minds to reach the Pole,
+and thither they will go. What they will find when
+they get there may not promise to be much, but what
+they have found round about it has been enough to
+influence considerably the history of the world.</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>W. J. G.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-l'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'><em>July, 1907.</em></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_vii'>vii</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CONTENTS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<table class='table0' summary='CONTENTS'>
+<colgroup>
+<col width='82%' />
+<col width='17%' />
+</colgroup>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER I</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th class='c009'></th>
+    <th class='c010'>PAGE</th>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>SPITSBERGEN</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER II</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>SPITSBERGEN (<em>continued</em>)</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_24'>24</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER III</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>NOVAYA ZEMLYA</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_49'>49</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER IV</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>FRANZ JOSEF LAND</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_64'>64</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER V</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>CAPE CHELYUSKIN</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_84'>84</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER VI</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>THE LENA DELTA</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_106'>106</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER VII</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>BERING STRAIT</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_127'>127</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER VIII</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>THE AMERICAN MAINLAND</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_146'>146</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER IX</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>THE PARRY ISLANDS</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_170'>170</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER X</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>BOOTHIA</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_190'>190</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'><span class='pageno' id='Page_viii'>viii</span>CHAPTER XI</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>BAFFIN BAY</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_215'>215</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XII</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>SMITH SOUND</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_235'>235</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr><td class='c008' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XIII</td></tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>GREENLAND</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_259'>259</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>INDEX</td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#Page_287'>287</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_ix'>ix</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<table class='table0' summary='LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS'>
+<colgroup>
+<col width='5%' />
+<col width='73%' />
+<col width='20%' />
+</colgroup>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'>"<span class='sc'>Done up</span>"</td>
+    <td class='c010'><em><a href='#Frontispiece'>Frontispiece</a></em></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Nansen's <cite>First Crossing of Greenland</cite> (Longmans)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <th class='c011' colspan='2'>&nbsp;</th>
+    <th class='c010'>TO FACE PAGE</th>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Summit of Oraefa</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg2'>2</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From a photograph</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Columbus</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg4'>4</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From the portrait at Versailles</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Samoyeds and their Dwellings</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg10'>10</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Hartwig's <cite>Polar World</cite> (Longmans)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Franz Josef Fiord</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg14'>14</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From a drawing by Lieutenant Julius Payer</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Whalers among Icebergs</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg30'>30</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Hartwig's <cite>Polar World</cite> (Longmans)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Sir John Franklin</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg34'>34</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Tour du Monde</span></cite>, 1860 (Hachette)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Track of H.M.S. "Dorothea" and "Trent"</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg36'>36</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite>A Voyage of Discovery towards the North Pole, performed in His Majesty's Ships "Dorothea" and "Trent," under the command of Capt. David Buchan, R.N., 1818</cite>, by Capt. F. W. Beechey, <span class='fss'>R.N., F.R.S.</span> (Richard Bentley, 1843.)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Parry Camped on the Ice</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg40'>40</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Captain Parry's <cite>Narrative</cite>, 1828 (Murray)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Parry's Boats among the Hummocks</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg42'>42</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Captain Parry's <cite>Narrative</cite>, 1828 (Murray)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>How our Ship stuck fast in the Ice</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg50'>50</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite>A True Description</cite>, by Gerrit de Veer (Hakluyt Society, 1853)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>How we nearly got into trouble with the Sea-horses</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg56'>56</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite>A True Description</cite>, by Gerrit de Veer (Hakluyt Society, 1853)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg90'>90</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From a photograph</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Fridtjof Nansen</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg96'>96</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>With autograph. From a photograph supplied by himself</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Reindeer</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg112'>112</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>By permission. From <cite>Short Stalks</cite>, by Edward Buxton (Stanford)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Samoyed Man</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg114'>114</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Seebohm's <cite>Siberia in Asia</cite> (Murray)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='pageno' id='Page_x'>x</span><span class='sc'>Ostiak Man</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg116'>116</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Seebohm's <cite>Siberia in Asia</cite> (Murray)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Face of the Fur Seal</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg130'>130</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite>The Seal Islands of Alaska</cite>, by Henry W. Elliott (Washington, 1881)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Aleutian Islands</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg132'>132</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Hartwig's <cite>Polar World</cite> (Longmans). From an original Sketch by Frederick Whymper</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Driving the Fur Seal</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg134'>134</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite>The Seal Islands of Alaska</cite>, by Henry W. Elliott (Washington, 1881)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Fur Seals at Sea</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg136'>136</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite>The Seal Islands of Alaska</cite>, by Henry W. Elliott (Washington, 1881)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Parka of the Alaskan Innuits</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg138'>138</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Whymper's <cite>Alaska</cite> (Sampson Low)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Frozen Yukon</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg140'>140</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Whymper's <cite>Alaska</cite> (Sampson Low)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Ascending the Yukon</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg142'>142</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Whymper's <cite>Alaska</cite> (Sampson Low)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Moose-hunting on the Yukon</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg144'>144</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Whymper's <cite>Alaska</cite> (Sampson Low)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Mahlemut Man</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg146'>146</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Whymper's <cite>Alaska</cite> (Sampson Low)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Winter Travelling on the Great Slave Lake</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg150'>150</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Franklin's <cite>Journey to the Polar Sea</cite>, 1819-22 (Murray, 1823)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Crossing Point Lake</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg152'>152</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Franklin's <cite>Journey to the Polar Sea, 1819-22</cite> (Murray, 1823)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Kutchin Indians</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg154'>154</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Hartwig's <cite>Polar World</cite> (Longmans). From an original sketch by Frederick Whymper</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Preparing an Encampment on the Barren Grounds</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg156'>156</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Franklin's <cite>Journey to the Polar Sea, 1819-22</cite> (Murray, 1823)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Sir John Richardson</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg158'>158</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>With autograph, from a letter in the possession of Edward Whymper</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Back's Journey down the Great Fish River</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg160'>160</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Back's <cite>Arctic Land Expedition to the mouth of the Great Fish River in the years 1833, 1834, and 1835</cite> (Murray, 1836)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Sir William Edward Parry</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg170'>170</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>With autograph, from a letter in the possession of Edward Whymper</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Sir John Barrow</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg178'>178</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>With autograph</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>H.M.S. "Hecla" and "Griper" in Winter Harbour</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg180'>180</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite>A Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west Passage</cite>, by Capt. Parry (Murray, 1821)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xi'>xi</span><span class='sc'>Parry's Discoveries on his First Voyage</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg182'>182</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite>A Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west Passage</cite>, by Captain Parry (Murray, 1821)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>An Igloolik Eskimo carrying his Kayak</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg190'>190</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Parry's <cite>Second Voyage</cite> (Murray, 1824)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Parry's farthest on his Third Voyage</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg192'>192</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Parry's <cite>Third Voyage</cite> (Murray, 1826)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The "Victory"</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg194'>194</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Sir J. Ross's <cite>Arctic Expedition, 1829-33</cite> (Webster, 1835)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>North Hendon</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg196'>196</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Sir J. Ross's <cite>Arctic Expedition, 1829-33</cite> (Webster, 1835)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Eskimo listening at a Seal-hole</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg198'>198</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Parry's <cite>Second Voyage</cite> (Murray, 1824)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>H.M.S. "Terror" lifted by Ice</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg202'>202</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Hartwig's <cite>Polar World</cite> (Longmans)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Fractured Stern-post of H.M.S. "Terror"</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg204'>204</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Capt. Back's <cite>Narrative, 1838</cite> (Murray)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The "Fox" escaping from the pack</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg208'>208</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From M'Clintock's <cite>Voyage of the "Fox"</cite></td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The "Fox" on a rock</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg210'>210</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From M'Clintock's <cite>Voyage of the "Fox"</cite></td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Discovery of the Cairn</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg212'>212</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From M'Clintock's <cite>Voyage of the "Fox"</cite></td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Sir Martin Frobisher</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg216'>216</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite>The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher</cite> (Hakluyt Society, 1867)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Eskimo awaiting a Seal</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg222'>222</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Hartwig's <cite>Polar World</cite> (Longmans)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>A Greenlander in his Kayak</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg224'>224</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Tour du Monde</span></cite>, 1868 (Hachette)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Baffin Bay in 1819</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg232'>232</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite>A Voyage of Discovery</cite>, by Capt. John Ross (Longmans, 1819)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Dr. E. K. Kane</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg234'>234</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From the Frontispiece to Kane's <cite>Arctic Explorations</cite>, 1856</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Kalutunah</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg236'>236</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Tour du Monde</span></cite>, 1868 (Hachette)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The East Coast of Smith Sound</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg238'>238</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Hayes' <cite>Open Polar Sea</cite> (Sampson Low)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Dr. I. I. Hayes</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg240'>240</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>By permission, from Hayes' <cite>Open Polar Sea</cite></td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xii'>xii</span><span class='sc'>The Shores of Kennedy Channel</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg242'>242</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Hayes' <cite>Open Polar Sea</cite></td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Tyndall Glacier</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg244'>244</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Hayes' <cite>Open Polar Sea</cite></td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>A Seal in Danger</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg246'>246</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Parry's <cite>Second Voyage for the Discovery of a North-west Passage</cite> (Murray, 1824)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Sir George Nares</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg248'>248</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From a photograph</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Sledges used by Sir Leopold M'Clintock and Sir George Nares</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg254'>254</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>(In the collection of Edward Whymper)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Bishop Paul Egede</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg258'>258</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From the Frontispiece to <cite><span lang="da" xml:lang="da">Efterretninger om Grönland</span></cite> (Copenhagen)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Greenlanders</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg260'>260</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From Hartwig's <cite>Polar World</cite> (Longmans)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>On level ground</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg262'>262</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>Nansen's <cite>First Crossing of Greenland</cite> (Longmans)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Allan Liner "Sardinian" among Icebergs</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg264'>264</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From a photograph</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The "Germania" in the Ice</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg266'>266</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Tour du Monde</span></cite>, 1874 (Hachette)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Region round Mount Petermann</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg268'>268</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From a drawing by Lieutenant Julius Payer</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>The Last Days of the "Hansa"</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg270'>270</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>From <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Tour du Monde</span></cite>, 1874 (Hachette)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011' colspan='2'><span class='sc'>Robert E. Peary</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg280'>280</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c011'>With autograph, from a letter in the possession of Edward Whymper From <cite>Nearest the Pole</cite>, by Commander Peary. By permission of Hutchinson and Co.</td>
+    <td class='c010'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c006'>SECTIONAL MAPS</h2>
+</div>
+<table class='table0' summary='SECTIONAL MAPS'>
+<colgroup>
+<col width='6%' />
+<col width='56%' />
+<col width='36%' />
+</colgroup>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c012'>1.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Spitsbergen</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg12'>12</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c012'>2.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Cape Chelyuskin</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg84'>84</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c012'>3.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Lena Delta</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg106'>106</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c012'>4.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Bering Strait</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg128'>128</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c012'>5.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Parry Islands</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg174'>174</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c012'>6.</td>
+    <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Greenland</span></td>
+    <td class='c010'><a href='#pg272'>272</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class='ph1'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div>ROUND ABOUT</div>
+    <div>THE NORTH POLE</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER I<br /> SPITSBERGEN</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>Iceland—Greenland—America—Sebastian Cabot—Robert Thorne—The
+North-east Passage—Willoughby—Chancellor—Borough—The North
+Cape rounded—The White Sea reached—The First Arctic Search Expedition—Pet
+and Jackman—Brunel—Cornelis Nai—Barents reaches
+77° 20´—Second voyage of Nai—The Samoyeds—Rijp, Jacob Van
+Heemskerck and Barents—Bear Island discovered—Spitsbergen discovered—The
+Dutch reach 79° 49´—Stephen Bennet—Welden—Jonas
+Poole—Henry Hudson reaches 80° 23´—Poole starts the British whaling
+trade—Baffin's voyages to Spitsbergen—Pellham winters at Green
+Harbour.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>The story of the lands within the Arctic Circle is
+a record of the brave deeds of healthy men.
+This would seem to be true were we to take the story,
+if we could, back to the days when man followed the
+retreat of the glaciers, as he may in turn have to retreat
+before them, such a condition of things being not beyond
+the range of probability though it may be remote. For
+the boundaries of the frozen north are not dependent on
+a line of latitude, and have never been the same from
+period to period, or even from year to year. In some
+cases they have changed considerably within the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>Christian era, and it is evident that the ice is not
+eternal. The fossils declare that the climate round
+the North Pole has varied greatly, and must in
+comparatively recent ages have been comfortably
+warm, so genial indeed that some people would have
+us believe that men came from there in their last distribution.
+Not, however, with such migrants from
+the far north do we concern ourselves, but with those
+who have endeavoured to get there in historical times
+by different lines of approach, as we follow the circle
+round from east to west and note the record of each
+section by itself.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Who was the first to sail to the northern seas we
+know not. Suffice it for us that in 875 Ingolf the
+<span lang="no" xml:lang="no">jarl</span>, from Norway, refusing to live under the sway of
+Harold Haarfager, sighted Mount Oraefa. As he
+neared the coast, overboard went the carved wood;
+and where the wood drifted ashore he founded Reikjavik.
+But he was not the first in Iceland, for the
+Irish monastery had been there for years when he
+arrived, though the monks retired to their old country
+when they found the Norsemen had come to stay.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Then the Icelander Gunnbiörn, driven westward in
+a gale, sighted the strange land he called White Shirt
+from its snowfields, which Eric the Red, following a
+long time afterwards, more happily renamed. "What
+shall we call the land?" he was asked. "Call it Green
+Land," replied Eric. "But it is not always green!"
+"It matters not: give it a good name and people will
+come to it!"</p>
+
+<div id='pg2'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_017.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE SUMMIT OF ORAEFA</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class='lg-container-l'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>From a photo</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>Then the Norsemen worked further south. In 986
+Bjarni sighted what we now call America, and in 1000
+came the voyage of Leif Ericson, who, on his way
+down the mainland, landing again and again, gave the
+names to Helluland, Markland, Vinland—in short,
+the Viking discovery of the New World.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Greenland, like the eastern coast of the continent,
+was duly colonised, its two chief settlements being one
+just round Cape Farewell, the other further north on
+the same coast. In those days the island, or chain of
+islands beneath an ice-cap, as many think it is, would
+appear to have had a milder climate than it has
+now. The colonies throve, their population becoming
+numerous enough to require a series of seventeen
+bishops, the last one dying about 1540, to superintend
+their spiritual welfare. But the Eskimos, in their
+migration from Asia across the Arctic islands, arrived
+in the country before the middle of the fourteenth
+century and gradually drove the Norsemen downwards,
+the northern colony coming to an end in 1342
+owing to the enemy attacking during a visitation of
+the Black Death.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Meanwhile Iceland, which touches the Arctic Circle
+in its northernmost point, and extends but half as far
+south of it as Greenland, increased in prosperity as a
+sort of aristocratic republic, and produced more vernacular
+literature than any country in Europe, in which,
+as might be expected, the story of Greenland and the
+American colonies was kept so well to the fore that
+it became as familiar among the people as a nursery
+tale. Thither, from Bristol, in February, 1477, went
+Columbus; and thence it was he returned to seek a
+patron for his western voyage across the Atlantic.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The first voyage of Columbus in 1492 gave a great
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>stimulus to maritime discovery, and many were the
+projects for searching the seas for a new route to the
+east. Of these the most important was that submitted
+to Henry VII by John Cabot, of Bristol.
+Much has been written, on slender and confusing
+evidence, as to the share in its success due to him and
+to his son, the more famous Sebastian; and, to be brief,
+we cannot do better than follow Anderson, who, in his
+<cite>Origin of Commerce</cite>, ingeniously evades the difficulty
+by speaking, commercially, of "Cabot and Sons."
+The Bristol firm, then, in 1497 despatched their ship
+<em>Matthew</em> to the westward and discovered and took
+possession of Labrador and the islands and peninsulas in
+the mouth of the St. Lawrence, the district being at first
+known as the New Found Land, a name afterwards
+restricted to the largest island. And they had their
+reward, as shown in the Privy Purse accounts of
+Henry VII, where an entry of the 10th August, 1497,
+appears—"To hym that found the new isle, £10."
+Surely not an excessive honorarium for the finding of
+a continent.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1498 another voyage of the same ship by way of
+Iceland, in which some attempt seems to have been
+made to colonise the newly discovered territories, resulted
+in the discovery of Hudson Strait and a visit to
+Labrador, judging by the finding of the deer in herds,
+the white bears, and the Eskimos who are not known
+to have ever crossed into the island of Newfoundland.
+This was not the only English vessel to appear in
+these parts at that time, for in the same year the Privy
+Purse accounts record a gift of £30 to Thomas Bradley
+and Launcelot Thirkill for going to the New Isle,
+adding that Launcelot had already received £20 "as
+preste" for his ship going there.</p>
+
+<div id='pg4'  class='figcenter id003'>
+<img src='images/i_021.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>COLUMBUS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>It is evident that the fisheries were found to be
+worth working, for no less than fifty Spanish, French,
+and Portuguese ships were engaged in them in 1517,
+the year of Sebastian Cabot's disputed voyage to
+Hudson Bay. Ten years afterwards Robert Thorne, of
+Bristol, wrote to the King, mentioning this voyage and
+suggesting three sea routes to Cathay—by the north-west,
+as Sebastian had attempted, by the north over
+the Pole, and by the north-east—and, in 1547, when
+Sebastian returned to England for good, after his long
+service with Spain, he again, as the first Governor of
+the Company of Merchant Adventurers, took up this
+Cathay question, which had frequently been raised,
+and fitted out, as a commencement, an expedition to
+the north-east.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The ships were built at Bristol specially for the
+purpose, and they were sheathed with lead, the first
+so treated in this country. This sheathing of ships was
+not the only innovation we owe to the most scientific
+seaman of his time, for in his famous ordinances for the
+voyage many excellent new things are enjoined, including
+the keeping of a log and journal, which date
+from this expedition. There were three vessels, the
+<em>Bona Esperanza</em>, of one hundred and twenty tons,
+Captain Sir Hugh Willoughby; the <em>Edward Bonaventure</em>,
+one hundred and sixty tons, Captain Richard
+Chancellor; and the <em>Bona Confidentia</em>, ninety tons,
+Captain Durfourth. In Chancellor's ship, as master,
+was the best navigator of the fleet, whose monumental
+brass in Chatham Church is noteworthy for its
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>epitaph: "Here lieth buried the bodie of Steven
+Borough, who departed this life ye xij day of July in
+ye yere of our Lord 1584, and was borne at Northam
+in Devonshire ye xxv<sup>th</sup> of Septemb. 1525. He in his
+life time discouered Moscouia, by the Northerne sea
+passage to St. Nicholas, in the yere 1553. At his
+setting foorth of England he was accompanied with
+two other shippes, Sir Hugh Willobie being Admirell of
+the fleete, who, with all the company of ye said two
+shippes, were frozen to death in Lappia ye same
+winter. After his discouerie of Roosia, and ye
+Coastes thereto adioyninge—to wit, Lappia, Nova
+Zemla, and the Countrie of Samoyeda, etc.: he frequented
+ye trade to St. Nicholas yearlie, as chief pilot
+for ye voyage, until he was chosen of one of ye foure
+principall Masters in ordinarie of ye Queen's Mat<sup>ties</sup>
+royall Nauy, where in he continued in charge of
+sundrie sea services till time of his death."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The ships left in May, but did not remain long
+together. On the 2nd of August Willoughby and
+Durfourth separated from Chancellor in a storm off
+the Lofodens, and after devious courses, that might
+have led anywhere, were frozen in on the coast of
+Lapland, where they wintered and died, as did all the
+men with them. Chancellor, having waited at the
+rendezvous in vain, crossed the Arctic Circle, rounded
+the North Cape—so named by Borough—and found
+his way into the White Sea. While his ship was in
+winter quarters near where Archangel now is, he made
+a sledge journey to the Czar at Moscow, which led
+to the formation of the Muscovy Company and the
+beginning of England's Russian trade; and through
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>his meeting there with the Persian Ambassador came
+about the mission of Anthony Jenkinson to the Shah,
+which opened up for us the Persian trade. Never was
+a voyage more successful. With it began the foreign
+commerce of this country, and from it dates the rise
+of our mercantile marine.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1556 Borough, in the <em>Searchthrift</em>, persevered
+further east, and, passing between Novaya Zemlya and
+Waigatz Island, through the strait that bears his name
+spelt differently, entered the Kara Sea. Next year in
+the same ship he was given the command of the first
+Arctic Search Expedition, its object being to discover
+what had become of Willoughby. Of one ship, the
+<em>Confidentia</em>, he obtained news in an interview with a
+man who had bought her sails, but the full story of
+the disastrous end of the voyage remained a mystery
+until the Russians found the ships and bodies and
+Willoughby's journal, and took the ships round to the
+Dwina. Then for the first time did people realise
+what it meant to battle with an Arctic winter without
+preparation, and many were those who withdrew their
+interest in the frozen north, preferring tropical dangers
+to the possibility of such accumulating miseries as the
+journal records in due order in its matter-of-fact way,
+its last entry being the terribly suggestive—"Unknowen
+and most wonderful wild beasts assembling in fearful
+numbers about the ships."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>With Stephen Borough in the Chancellor voyage
+was Arthur Pet—or Pett, a name not unknown in the
+navy—who, after two centuries, has become notable
+again through a strange discovery. In search of the
+much-desired passage by the north-east he sailed from
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>Harwich on the 31st of May, 1580, in the <em>George</em>, of
+forty tons, accompanied by Charles Jackman, in the
+<em>William</em>, of twenty tons. His orders were to avoid
+the open sea and keep the coast in sight all the way
+out on the starboard side, and William Borough—Stephen's
+brother, afterwards Comptroller of the Navy—gave
+him certain instructions and notes.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Arranging with Jackman, whose little vessel sailed
+badly, to wait for him at Waigatz, Pet went ahead
+and endeavoured to pass through Burrough Strait, but
+meeting with trouble from the ice, missed the passage,
+and working round Waigatz to the south, entered the
+Kara Sea through Yugor Strait, or as it used to be
+called after him, Pet Strait. Coasting eastward with
+the mainland in sight, he was, as might be expected,
+much hampered by the heavy pack. On being joined
+by the little <em>William</em> he made for the northward, seeking
+a way to the east, but the "more and thicker was
+the ice so that they could go no further," and, after
+talking the matter over on the 28th of July, Pet and
+Jackman reluctantly decided to return to Waigatz
+and there decide on what should be done.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Their way back was difficult. They became shut in
+so that "they could not stir, labouring only to defend
+the ice as it came upon them." For one day they
+were clear of it, but next day, the 16th of August,
+they were encumbered again, though they got out of
+the trouble by sailing between the ice and the shore,
+which was a new experience. In this way they just
+scraped through Pet Strait, and bore away in the open
+sea to Kolguiev, both vessels grounding for a time on
+the sands to the south of that island. On the 22nd of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>August, two days afterwards, the <em>William</em> parted from
+the <em>George</em> in a dense fog, while Pet brought his ship
+home and dropped anchor at Ratcliff on Boxing Day.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The Dutch had for some time been trying to outstrip
+the English on this route to the far east. In
+1565 they had settled at Kola, and about thirteen
+years afterwards had established the factory at the
+mouth of the Dwina on the site of Nova Kholmogory,
+generally known as Archangel. In 1584 Olivier
+Brunel, their energetic emissary in Russia, sailed on
+the first Dutch Arctic discovery expedition. He tried
+in vain to pass through Pet Strait, and the ship, with
+a valuable cargo of furs and mica, was wrecked on its
+homeward voyage at the mouth of the Petchora.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Ten years elapsed, and then there sailed from the
+Texel the expedition of Cornelis Nai, in which the
+<em>Mercury</em>, of Amsterdam, was commanded by Willem
+Barents. Barents—really Barentszoon, the son of
+Bernard—sighted Novaya Zemlya, with which his name
+was to be thenceforth associated, on the 4th of July,
+and coasting along its mighty cliffs, peopled with their
+myriad seabirds, passed Cape Nassau ten days later.
+Thence reaching 77° 20´, and thus improving on John
+Davis's record for the highest north, he struggled
+through the ice to the Orange Islands and back, some
+twenty-five miles, during which he tacked eighty-one
+times and thereby sailed some seventeen hundred geographical
+miles. Failing to proceed further, he came
+south, and off Pet Strait—named by the Dutchmen
+Nassau Strait—fell in with the other two ships returning
+from their unsuccessful attempt to cross the Kara Sea.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Next year a fleet of seven vessels under Nai left the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>Mars Diep on another endeavour to get through to
+China. One of the two chief commissioners on board
+was the famous Van Linschoten, who had been on the
+previous voyage, and the chief pilot was Barents, who
+was in the <em>Winthont</em> (Greyhound) with Jacob van
+Heemskerck as supercargo. Arriving at Pet Strait
+they found it so blocked with ice that no passage was
+possible, and Barents, in search of information, went
+ashore on the mainland south of the strait and made
+friends—in a way—with the Samoyeds, whose appearance,
+as described by Gerrit de Veer, was "like that of
+wild men," dressed as they were in deerskins from head
+to foot, those of importance wearing caps of coloured
+cloth lined with fur; for the most part short of stature,
+with broad flat faces, small eyes, and bow legs; their
+hair worn long, plaited, and hanging down their backs.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>They were evidently suspicious of the Dutchmen,
+who did their best to be friendly. The chief had
+placed sentinels all round to see what the new-comers
+were about and note everything that was bought and
+sold. One of the sentinels was offered a biscuit, which
+"he with great thanks took and ate, and while he ate
+it he still looked diligently about him on all sides,
+watching what was done." Their reindeer sledges were
+kept ready—"that run so swiftly with one or two
+men in them that our horses were not able to follow
+them." They were unacquainted with firearms, and,
+when a musket was fired to impress them, "ran and
+leapt like madmen," but calmed down as soon as they
+saw there was no malicious intention, to wonder much
+more, however, when the man with the gun aimed at a
+flat stone he placed as a mark, and, fortunately, hit and
+broke it. The meeting ended satisfactorily; "after that
+we took our leaves one of the other with great friendship
+on both sides, and when we were in our pinnace
+we all put off our hats and bowed to them, sounding
+our trumpet; they in their manner saluting us also,
+and then went to their sledges again."</p>
+
+<div id='pg10'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_029.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>SAMOYEDS AND THEIR DWELLINGS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>Barents was by no means convinced that the strait
+was impassable, and held out against the opinion of
+the others for some days, but with the firm ice
+stretching round in all directions he had to give in,
+and on the 15th of September the fleet began the
+voyage home. Much had been expected, and the result
+was so conspicuous a failure that the States
+General abandoned any further attempt at a north-east
+passage on their own account, but decided to
+offer a reward to any private expedition that proved
+successful. Whereupon the authorities and merchants
+of Amsterdam fitted out two vessels for a third
+voyage, giving the command of one to Jan Corneliszoon
+Rijp, and that of the other to Jacob van
+Heemskerck, with Barents as chief pilot.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The ships left the Dutch coast on the 18th of May.
+Four days afterwards they were off the Shetlands,
+going north-east. On the 9th of June they discovered
+an island, on which they landed. Here they saw a
+prodigious white bear, which they went after in a boat,
+intending to slip a noose over her neck, but when they
+were near her she looked so strong that their courage
+failed, and they returned to the ships to fetch more
+men, and what seems to have been quite an armoury
+of "muskets, harquebusses, halberds and hatchets."
+Accompanied by another boat they attacked this
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>formidable beast for over two hours, one of them
+getting an axe into her back, with which she swam
+away until she was caught and had her head split open
+by another blow from an axe. From this remarkable
+bear, whose skin, we are told, was twelve feet long,
+the island was named Bear Island.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Continuing northwards they sighted, on the 19th of
+June, Spitsbergen, which they supposed to be Greenland—an
+error that led to much confusion—and on
+the 21st of June they landed and had another trying
+time with a bear, whose skin proved to be thirteen
+feet long. On one island of the cluster they found
+the eggs of the barnacle goose, <em>Bernicla leucopsis</em>,
+whose nesting ground was up to then unknown, and
+on others they saw reindeer, for in this land "there
+groweth leaves and grass." Returning to Bear Island
+after attaining 79° 49´, some hundred and seventy
+miles higher north than in 1594, Rijp departed for the
+north again, and, failing to get beyond Bird Cape,
+went home to Holland by way of Kola; and to Kola
+he came back the year afterwards.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1603, following the Dutch, came Stephen Bennet
+to call Bear Island Cherie Island, after his patron, and
+find the walruses in thousands and the birds in millions.
+A rocky tableland of mountain limestone and carboniferous
+sandstone, with the usual fossils in unusual
+numbers and a few coal seams in between; the ravines
+faced and floored with fragments of every dimension
+and shape, split off by the frost and weathered by
+wind and rain: a grey, grassless, monotonous country,
+except along the coast, where the guano from the vast
+numbers of seabirds has coated the crannies and ledges
+of the cliffs, that tower up perhaps four hundred
+feet from the water, with a thin layer of soil in which
+the scurvy-grass and a few other plants thrive amazingly,
+though the island's complete flora contains but
+forty species—such is Bear Island, the stepping-stone
+to Spitsbergen, of which Jonas Poole took possession
+in 1609 for the Muscovy Company.</p>
+
+<div id='pg12'  class='figcenter id004'>
+<a href='images/i_033.jpg'><img src='images/i_033_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>SPITSBERGEN</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>Lying east of the influence of the Gulf Stream,
+the range of temperature is of the widest. Often
+the island is unapproachable owing to the ice, sometimes
+it is even now as hot as Welden found it in 1608,
+when, in June, "the pitch did run down the ship's
+sides, and that side of the masts that was to the sun-ward
+was so hot that the tar did fry out of it as
+though it had boiled." That was a great year for
+Welden, for he killed a thousand walruses in less than
+seven hours and took a young one home with him,
+"where the king and many honourable personages
+beheld it with admiration, the like whereof had never
+before been seen alive in England."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Poole did much useful work in these seas, but is now
+little heard of, most of the surviving interest in such
+matters being concentrated on Henry Hudson, who
+was in the same service at the same time. Hudson
+was, perhaps, a grandson of Alderman Henry Hudson,
+one of the founders of the Muscovy Company, but
+nothing is really known of him beyond his being a
+captain in the Muscovy Company, who, on the 19th of
+April, 1607, took the sacrament at St. Ethelburga's,
+in Bishopsgate Street, with his son and crew "and the
+rest of the parishioners." That he was a parishioner
+may be true, but that all the ten members of the crew
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>were so is unlikely. Anyhow, they were outward
+bound for Japan and China by way of the North Pole,
+and sailed from Gravesend on the 1st of May.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Where he went is not clear in detail, as his latitudes
+are seldom correct and his longitudes are not recorded.
+He sighted Greenland north of Iceland, and, shouldered
+off by the ice barrier, left it somewhere about Franz
+Josef Fjord, working easterly by the edge of the
+ice to Spitsbergen. Here he sailed round Prince
+Charles's Foreland and went north, passing Hakluyt
+Headland, which he named, reaching on the 13th of
+July, 80° 23´, "by observation." He saw many whales,
+but found his way blocked by ice; and after many
+attempts, assuring himself that there was no passage
+hereabouts to the north, sailed southwards for Bear
+Island. On leaving this he seems to have gone west,
+possibly to the coast of Greenland again, for on his
+way home he lighted upon Hudson's Touches, now
+known as Jan Mayen Island, the principal cape of
+which bears the name of Hudson's Point—which may
+be either Hudson's or Rudston's (after the Rudston
+mentioned in Baffin's fourth voyage)—while another is
+known as Young's Foreland, perhaps after the James
+Young who was the first in the ship to sight the coast
+of Greenland on the outward journey. He dropped
+anchor in the Thames on the 15th of September all
+well. He had not crossed the Pole, nor did he find
+Spitsbergen stretching up to 82°, as he said, its most
+northerly point being miles further south; but he
+had gone beyond Van Heemskerck's furthest north and
+found a fishing ground for whales and walruses which
+proved of great commercial value.</p>
+
+<div id='pg14'  class='figcenter id005'>
+<img src='images/i_037.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>FRANZ JOSEF FIORD</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>In 1610, Poole, finding that he could not land on
+Bear Island owing to the ice, stood away to the north-west,
+reached Spitsbergen, and worked along the
+western side to Hakluyt Headland, where the ice
+barred further advance. On his way up and down the
+coast he gave many of the capes and bays the names
+they still bear, and generally did so well that on his
+return he was put in the place of Hudson, who had
+left the service two years before, and made a sort of
+special commissioner by the Muscovy Company "for
+certain years upon a stipend certain" to make further
+discoveries round Spitsbergen and to ascertain whether
+there was an open sea further northward than had
+already been found. In addition to searching for the
+open polar sea, he was to convoy the <em>Mary Margaret</em>,
+in which were six Biscayners "expert in the killing of
+the whale," to Bear Island, and thence to Whale Bay in
+Spitsbergen. In short, Poole was to start the British
+whaling trade, the <em>Mary Margaret</em> being the first
+British vessel to be employed in that lucrative but
+hazardous occupation; and she was under the command
+of Thomas Edge, whose name is borne by
+Edge's Island.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The beginning was so promising that in 1613, two
+years afterwards, a fleet of seven vessels went out to take
+part in the fishery and clear away the foreigners who
+had come to share in the good fortune; the company
+claiming the islands on the ground of their purely
+imaginary discovery by Willoughby, the Dutch resting
+their claim on the real discovery by Van Heemskerck.
+In this fleet as chief pilot was William Baffin—his
+second recorded voyage. By him, who as usual kept
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>his eyes open, we have the first description of the
+Spitsbergen glaciers. He was at the time—the 29th of
+July—in Green Harbour in Ice Fjord. "One thing
+more I observed," he says, "in this harbour which I
+have thought good also to set down. Purposing on a
+time to walk towards the mountains, I, and two more
+of my company, ascended up a long plain hill, as we
+supposed it to be; but having gone a while upon it, we
+perceived it to be ice. Notwithstanding we proceeded
+higher up, about the length of half a mile, and as we
+went saw many deep rifts or gutters on the land of ice,
+which were cracked down through to the ground, or, at
+the least, an exceeding great depth; as we might well
+perceive by hearing the snow water run below, as it
+does oftentimes in a brook whose current is somewhat
+opposed with little stones. But for better satisfaction
+I brake down some pieces of ice with a staff I had
+in my hand, which in their falling made a noise on
+each side much like to a piece of glass thrown down
+the well within Dover Castle, whereby we did estimate
+the thickness or height of this ice to be thirty fathoms.
+This huge ice, in my opinion, is nothing but snow,
+which from time to time has for the most part been
+driven off the mountains; and so continuing and increasing
+all the time of winter (which may be counted
+three-quarters of the year) cannot possibly be consumed
+with the thaw of so short a summer, but is only
+a little dissolved to moisture, whereby it becomes more
+compact, and with the quick succeeding frost is congealed
+to a firm ice."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Next year he was out again in the <em>Thomasine</em>, one of
+a fleet of thirteen vessels, and in endeavouring to pass
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>to the north-east, reached Wijde Bay, where at the
+point of the beach at the entrance he "set up a cross
+and nailed a sixpence thereon with the king's arms,"
+probably the neatest property mark in history. Thence
+he went on to the entrance to Hinlopen Strait, completing
+the journey along the north of the main island. It
+was on this voyage that he endeavoured to find his
+longitudes by observing the moon, for Baffin was the
+first who attempted to take a lunar at sea.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Year by year the fishery increased, and the whale
+fishers multiplied as if the sea were a goldfield, the
+monopoly being respected until 1618, when the Dutch,
+who had all along prospered more than the rest, proved
+too strong for the English, and a compromise was
+arrived at by which the different harbours were
+allotted to the different nations for the processes
+necessary in the preparation of the whale products for
+shipment. But it was purely a summer industry.
+There was no colony, and it did not seem as though
+there would be one, for no man willing to winter in
+the place could be found. Vainly were rewards offered
+to those who would venture. In the north was the
+ever-present barrier of ice, more distant some years
+than others, but always there to come south and hold
+the islands in its grip when the fishery was over, and
+those who came early and those who stayed late saw
+enough of the wintry landscape to make them doubt
+if life were possible under such conditions.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Then the idea, not new to Englishmen, that colonies
+should be started by criminals, was acted upon, and
+the Muscovy Company procured the reprieve of a
+batch of prisoners under sentence of death and landed
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>them in Spitsbergen under promise of a free pardon,
+a handsome reward, and full provisions and suitable
+clothes if they would remain there for a continuous
+twelve months. But, as the ship that brought them
+was preparing to return to London, "they conceived
+such a horror and inward fear in their hearts" that
+they besought the captain to take them back that they
+might be hanged rather than perish amid such desolation;
+and the captain "being a pitiful and a merciful
+gentleman, would not by force constrain them to stay,"
+and brought them home again, when the company—who
+could do no less—procured them a pardon. One
+captain—of a different disposition—had left nine men
+behind him, all of whom perished miserably; and
+another, in 1630, left eight others, apparently through
+causes beyond his control, whose adventure was to
+form one of the most interesting episodes in Arctic
+story.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>It was on the 15th of August in that year that the
+<em>Salutation</em> sent Edward Pellham and his seven companions
+ashore to kill reindeer for the ship's provisions
+on her voyage home. Taking with them two dogs, a
+snap-hance, two lances, and a tinder-box, they landed
+near Black Point, between Green Harbour and Bell
+Sound, and, "laying fourteen tall and nimble deer
+along," camped for the night. During the night
+the weather changed and brought in the ice between
+the shore and the ship, and in the morning the ship
+had gone. The boat's crew made for Green Harbour,
+thinking she would put in there to pick them up, but
+she failed to appear, being due to leave the country in
+three days, and after a fruitless attempt to catch her at
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>Bell Sound, they eventually took up their quarters
+there on the 3rd of September.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Here was one of the so-called tents of the whale-fishers.
+"This," says Pellham, "which we call the
+tent, was a kind of house built of timber and boards
+very substantially, and covered with Flemish tiles, by
+the men of which nation it had in the time of their
+trading thither been built. Four-score foot long it is
+and in breadth fifty. The use of it was for the coopers,
+employed for the service of the company, to work,
+lodge, and live in, all the while they make casks for the
+putting up of the train oil." As this was too large for
+their comfort, they very sensibly built another within
+it. "Taking down another lesser tent therefore (built
+for the landmen hard by the other, wherein they lay
+whilst they made their oil), from thence we fetched our
+materials. That tent furnished us with one hundred
+and fifty deal boards, besides posts or stanchions and
+rafters. From three chimneys of the furnaces wherein
+they used to boil their oil, we brought a thousand
+bricks: there also found we three hogsheads of very
+fine lime, of which stuff we also fetched another hogshead
+from Bottle Cove, on the other side of the sound,
+some three leagues distant. Mingling this lime with
+the sand of the sea-shore, we made very excellent good
+morter for the laying of our bricks: falling to work
+thereon, the weather was so extreme cold as that we
+were fain to make two fires to keep our morter from
+freezing. William Fakely and myself, undertaking the
+masonry, began to raise a wall of one brick thickness
+against the inner planks of the side of the tent.
+Whilst we were laying of these bricks, the rest of our
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>company were otherwise employed every one of them:
+some in taking them down, others in making of them
+clean and in bringing them in baskets into the tent.
+Some in making morter, and hewing of boards to build
+the other side withal, and two others all the while in
+flaying of our venison. And thus, having built the
+two outermost sides of the tent with bricks and morter,
+and our bricks now almost spent, we were enforced to
+build the two other sides with boards; and that in this
+manner. First we nailed our deal boards on one side
+of the post or stanchion to the thickness of one foot:
+and on the other side in like manner: and so filling up
+the hollow place with sand, it became so tight and
+warm as not the least breath of air could possibly
+annoy us. Our chimney's vent was into the greater
+tent, being the breadth of one deal board and four foot
+long. The length of this our tent was twenty foot
+and the breadth sixteen; the height ten; our ceiling
+being deal boards five or six times double, the middle
+of one joining so close to the shut of the other that no
+wind could possibly get between. As for our door,
+besides our making it so close as possibly it could shut;
+we lined it moreover with a bed that we found lying
+there, which came over both the opening and the shutting
+of it. As for windows, we made none at all, so that
+our light we brought in through the greater tent, by
+removing two or three tiles in the eaves, which light
+came to us through the vent of our chimney. Our
+next work was to set up four cabins, billeting ourselves
+two and two in a cabin. Our beds were the deer skins
+dried, which we found to be extraordinary warm, and a
+very comfortable kind of lodging to us in our distress."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>For fuel they knocked to pieces seven old boats left
+ashore by the ships, storing the wood over the beams
+of the tent so as to make a sort of floor protecting the
+interior from snow driven in under the tiles, and, in
+addition, they broke up a number of empty casks. To
+make the wood last as long as possible they hit upon a
+device for keeping the fire in—"when we raked up our
+fire at night, with a good quantity of ashes and of
+embers, we put into the midst of it a piece of elm
+wood, where, after it had lain sixteen hours, we at our
+opening of it found great store of fire upon it, whereupon
+we made a common practice of it ever after: it never
+went out in eight months together, or thereabouts."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Upon the 12th of September a small quantity of
+drift ice came into the sound, on a piece of which they
+found two walruses asleep, when "William Fakely
+being ready with his harping iron, heaved it so strongly
+into the old one that he quite disturbed her of her rest:
+after which, she, receiving five or six thrusts with our
+lances, fell into a sounder sleep of death." The young
+one, refusing to leave her mother, was also killed; and
+a week afterwards another walrus fell a victim; but
+even with these the store of provisions was inadequate.
+To make the food last, they put themselves on an
+allowance of one good meal a day, except on Wednesdays
+and Fridays which were fasting days devoted to
+whale sundries—"a very loathsome meat," says Pellham,
+in brackets—later on, for four days in the week
+they fed upon "the unsavoury and mouldy fritters, and
+the other three we feasted it with bear and venison."
+"But," continues the narrative, "as if it were not
+enough for us to want meat, we now began to want
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>light also; all our meals proved suppers now, for little
+light could we see; even the glorious sun (as if unwilling
+to behold our miseries) masking his lovely face
+from us, under the sable veil of coal-black night."But
+they were equal to the emergency. "At the beginning
+of this darksome, irksome time, we sought some
+means of preserving light amongst us; finding therefore
+a piece of sheet lead over a seam of one of the
+coolers, that we ripped off and made three lamps of it,
+which, maintaining with oil that we found in the
+coopers' tent, and rope-yarn serving us instead of
+candle-wicks, we kept them continually burning."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Cheerful and resourceful as they were, their fits of depression
+were not infrequent. "Our extremities being
+so many, made us sometimes in impatient speeches
+to break forth against the causers of our miseries; but
+then again, our consciences telling us of our own evil
+deservings, we took it either for a punishment upon us
+for our former wicked lives; or else for an example of
+God's mercy in our wonderful deliverance: humbling
+ourselves therefore, under the mighty hand of God, we
+cast down ourselves before him in prayer, two or three
+times a day, which course we constantly held all the
+time of our misery."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Their prospects got worse, but they never lost a
+little hope. "The new year now began: as the days
+began to lengthen, so the cold began to strengthen;
+which cold came at last to that extremity, as that it
+would raise blisters on our flesh, as if we had been
+burnt with fire, and if we touched iron at any time it
+would stick to our fingers like bird-lime: sometimes if
+we went but out of doors to fetch in a little water, the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>cold would nip us in such a sort that it made us as sore
+as if we had been beaten in some cruel manner."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Provisions were running low; the men began to talk
+of famine, and the outlook became daily gloomier until
+the 3rd of February. "This proved a marvellous cold
+day; yet a fair and clear one; about the middle
+whereof, all clouds now quite dispersed and night's
+sable curtain drawn, Aurora with her golden face
+smiled once again upon us, at her rising out of her
+bed; for now the glorious sun with his glittering beams
+began to gild the highest tops of the lofty mountains.
+The brightness of the sun and the whiteness of the
+snow, both together, were such as that it was able to
+revive even a dying spirit. But to make a new addition
+to our new joy, we might perceive two bears (a she
+one with her cub) now coming towards our tent;
+whereupon we, straight arming ourselves with our lances,
+issued out of the tent to await her coming. She soon
+cast her greedy eyes upon us, and with full hopes of
+devouring us she made the more haste unto us; but
+with our hearty lances we gave her such a welcome as
+that she fell down and biting the very snow for anger."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Then more bears came to be eaten; then the birds
+began to arrive, and the foxes to come out of their
+winter earths to be trapped to the number of fifty;
+then the reindeer returned; and then, on the 25th May,
+two ships of Hull came into the sound from which a
+boat's crew landing unperceived came close up to the
+tent and shouted "Hey!" And Ayers, the only man
+at the moment in the outer tent, shouted "Ho!"—and
+Pellham and his shipmates had proved it to be possible
+to live through a winter in Spitsbergen.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER II<br /> SPITSBERGEN</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c004'>
+    <div>(<em>continued</em>)</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c014'>The summer town of Smeerenberg—Himkoff winters in North East Land—Phipps
+reaches 80° 48´—Scoresby the elder reaches 81° 30´—Scoresby the
+younger—Voyage of the <em>Dorothea</em> and <em>Trent</em> under Buchan and Franklin—Parry
+reaches 82° 45´—Torell and Nordenskiöld—Carlsen sails round
+Spitsbergen—Swedish North Polar expedition under Nordenskiöld—Lamont—The
+Diana coal mine—Leigh Smith—Conway.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>This wintering of the <em>Salutation</em> men occurred
+when the Spitsbergen fisheries were most flourishing,
+the prosperity continuing for seven more years.
+So lucrative was the trade that on Amsterdam Island
+under Hakluyt Headland, within fifteen miles of 80°
+north latitude, about as far from the North Pole as
+St. Malo is from John o' Groat's, there sprang up as
+a summer resort the Dutch village of Smeerenberg.
+Such was the bustle produced by the yearly visit of
+two or three hundred double-manned vessels, containing
+from twelve thousand to eighteen thousand men,
+that this village of the farthest north was as busy as a
+manufacturing town. The incitement of prices proportionate
+to the latitude attracted hundreds of annual
+settlers, who throve on the sale of brandy, wine,
+tobacco, and sundries to the whale-fishers in shops of
+all varieties, including bakehouses, where the blowing
+of a horn let the sailors know that the bread had just
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>been drawn hot from the oven. In fact, hot rolls and
+every delicacy could be had in Smeerenberg, which the
+Dutch averred was as flourishing as Batavia, founded
+by them a few years before. And when winter was
+just about due every man—and woman—went back to
+Holland. But the life of Smeerenberg was a short
+and a merry one, for in 1640 the shore fisheries were
+failing, and a year or so afterwards the lingerers of its
+last season left it for good, clearing out from its houses
+of brick and wood, demolishing its furnaces, removing
+its copper cauldrons and coolers and casks and everything
+that could be taken away, and leaving it in
+desolation to be occupied in the next and subsequent
+summers by polar bears.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Like all seaside resorts it had its rival. Close by is
+the Cookery-of-Haarlem, abandoned at the same time,
+but rather more hurriedly. When Martens went there
+on the 15th of July, 1671, he found four houses still
+standing, in one of which were "several barrels or
+kardels that were quite decayed, the ice standing in
+the same shape the vessels had been made of: an anvil,
+smith's tongs, and other tools belonging to the cookery,
+were frozen up in the ice; the kettle was still standing
+as it was set, and the wooden troughs stood by it."
+Behind these houses "are high mountains," he continues,
+"if one climbeth upon these, as we do on others,
+and doth not mark every step with chalk, one doth not
+know how to get down again: when you go up you
+think it to be very easy to be down; but when you
+descend it is very difficult and dangerous, so that many
+have fallen and lost their lives." Absurd as this chalking
+of the steps may seem, there have been many who
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>have taken the hint from the careful Martens when
+climbing in Spitsbergen, and many who have regretted
+not having done so.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In ordinary summers the west side of Spitsbergen is
+clear of ice, not so the eastern side, the difference being
+due to the Gulf Stream, which, though evidently failing,
+is traceable along the coast round Hakluyt Headland
+and up to the ice barrier. In addition to this
+there is the general cause, whatever it may be, which
+makes the western coasts of all Arctic lands, isolated
+or not, warmer than the eastern. Greenland, for
+instance, is more approachable in summer from Davis
+Strait than from the Greenland Sea, Novaya Zemlya
+from Barents Sea than from Kara Sea, and so on with
+all the islands and peninsulas of Asia and America.
+Hence all this whaling was confined practically to the
+western harbours of West Spitsbergen, the largest of
+the group of islands. The next largest, North East
+Land, was never much visited except from Hinlopen
+Strait, though the Russians from time to time took
+some interest in the north and east harbours, and would
+have taken more, for it abounded in reindeer, if the
+ice had not made the landing an enterprise of some
+difficulty.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the east coast of North East Land, in 1743, a
+Russian whaler was caught in the pack, and the mate,
+Alexis Himkoff, remembering that a house had been
+built there some years before, went on shore with his
+godson, Ivan Himkoff, and two sailors, Scharapoff and
+Weregin, in search of it, in case the ship should have
+to be abandoned. They found the house, but, on
+returning to the shore next morning, could see nothing
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>of the ship, which had apparently been carried away
+and crushed in the ice. They had brought with them
+a musket, a powder-horn with twelve charges of
+powder, twelve bullets, an axe, a small kettle, a bag
+with about twenty pounds of flour, a knife, a tinder-box
+and tinder, a bladder of tobacco, and every man
+had his pipe. That was their outfit.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The house was thirty-six feet in length, and eighteen
+in height and breadth. It contained a small antechamber
+about twelve feet broad, which had two doors,
+one to close it from the outer air, the other admitting
+to the inner room in which was a Russian stove, a kind
+of oven without a chimney, serving at will for heating,
+for baking, or for sleeping on. Realising that they had
+a long stay before them, they began by shooting
+twelve reindeer, one for each bullet. They then repaired
+the house, stopping up all the crevices with
+moss; and they then laid in a store of fuel from the
+driftwood, there being no trees on the island. On the
+beach they found some boards with nails in them, and
+a long iron hook and a few other pieces of old iron.
+And also there was a root of a fir tree in shape not
+unlike a bow. Those were the materials they had to
+make the best of.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>A large stone served for an anvil, a pair of deer horns
+did duty for tongs, and with these and the fire, the iron
+hook was made into a hammer; and then two of the
+nails were shaped into spear-heads, which were tied to
+sticks from the driftwood with strips of deerskin.
+With these weapons they began by killing a bear,
+whose flesh they ate, whose skin they kept, and whose
+tendons they made into thread and a string for the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>bow formed out of the root of the fir tree. More
+nails were forged into arrow-heads, tied with sinew on
+to light sticks cut with the knife, the shafts being
+feathered from the feathers of seafowl. With these
+weapons they shot, before they had finished, two hundred
+and fifty reindeer, and they kept the skins, as they
+did also those of a large number of blue and white
+foxes, as we shall see in the sequel. In their own
+protection they killed nine bears, the only one they
+deliberately attacked being the first.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>To be sure of keeping their fire alight they modelled
+a lamp out of clay, which they filled with deer-fat,
+with twisted linen for a wick; but the clay was too
+porous, the fat ran through it; so they made another
+lamp of the same stuff, dried it in the air, heated it red
+hot, and cooled it in a sort of thin starch made of flour
+and water, strengthening the pottery by pasting linen
+rags over it. The result was so successful that they
+made a second lamp as a reserve. Some wreckage
+gave them a little cordage and a quantity of oakum,
+which came in for lamp-wicks. The lamp, like the
+sacred fire, was never allowed to go out. To make
+themselves clothes, they soaked skins in fresh water till
+the hair could be pulled off easily, and rubbed them
+well, and then rubbed deer fat into them until they
+were pliant and supple. Some of the skins they prepared
+as furs. Out of nails they, after many failures,
+made awls and needles, getting the eyes by piercing the
+heads with the point of the knife, and smoothing and
+pointing them by rounding and whetting them on a
+stone.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>For six years they lived in this desert place. Then
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>one of them, Weregin, died of scurvy, and their
+gloomy forebodings as to which was to be taken next
+were broken in upon by their sighting a ship, to which
+they signalled with a flag made of deerskin. The
+signal was seen and they were rescued; and they took
+back to Archangel two thousand pounds weight of
+reindeer fat, their bales of skins and furs, their bow and
+arrows and spears, and in short everything they possessed.
+And they arrived there on the 28th of September,
+1749, comfortably off from the value of the
+goods they brought with them—the heroes of one of
+the very best of true desert island stories.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Like most Russians they do not seem to have
+suffered much from the cold or to have been inconvenienced
+by the summer heat, which is also considerable.
+In 1773, on the 13th of June, when Phipps
+and Lutwidge anchored in Fair Haven, round by
+Amsterdam Island, they found the thermometer reach
+58½° at noon and descend no lower than 51° at midnight,
+and on the 16th it rose in the sun to 89½° till a
+light breeze made it fall almost suddenly ten degrees.
+This was the expedition sent out to the North Pole,
+mainly at the instigation of Daines Barrington, Gilbert
+White's friend. The ships were the <em>Racehorse</em> and
+<em>Carcass</em>; and, as every one knows, or ought to know,
+as midshipman with Captain Lutwidge went Horatio
+Nelson, then a boy of fourteen, who was to figure
+largely in the world, though on this occasion he did
+nothing remarkable beyond attacking a polar bear,
+whose skin he thought would make a nice present for
+his father, and bringing his boat to the rescue when
+one of the <em>Racehorse</em> boats was attacked by walruses.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>For another thing the expedition is memorable, that
+being that the useful apparatus for the distillation of
+fresh water from sea water, known to every seafarer,
+was first used on this voyage, Dr. Irving, its inventor,
+being the surgeon of the <em>Racehorse</em>. Another item to
+be noted is that Phipps had with him a Cavendish
+thermometer, which he tried the day after he crossed
+the Arctic Circle, and found that at a depth of 780
+fathoms the temperature was 26°, while at the surface
+it was 48°.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Phipps did all he could to go north, and, in
+longitude 14° 59´ east, reached 80° 48', the nearest to
+the Pole up to then, but he was foiled by the ice
+barrier, which he tried to penetrate again and again.
+He got his ships caught in the ice and took to his
+boats, thinking he would have to abandon them, when
+fortunately the pack drifted south, and the vessels,
+clearing themselves under sail, caught the boats up
+and took them on board. Then he went along the
+edge of the ice westward, and, finding no opening,
+gave the venture up and sailed for home.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The next to do good work within this area was
+William Scoresby the elder, whose only equal as a
+whale-fisher was his son. To him we owe the invention
+of the crow's nest, that cylindrical frame covered
+with canvas, entrance to which is given by a trap-hatch
+in the base, reached by a Jacob's ladder from the topmast
+crosstrees, the conning-tower, so to speak, carried
+since by every ship on Arctic service. He was also
+the inventor of the ice-drill and many another implement
+and device used in Polar navigation; and he it
+was who sloped off his fore and main courses to come
+inboard to a boom fitted to the foot, used by every
+whaler, by which, in fact, you may know them. He
+also, long before the <em>America</em>, discovered the advantage
+of flat sails, and, in order to get his weights well down,
+he filled his casks with water as ballast and packed
+them with shingle, so that, instead of going out light,
+he was in the best of trim, with a power of beating
+to windward that took him to the fishing ground in
+double quick time and further into the ice, when he
+chose, than any of his competitors.</p>
+
+<div id='pg30'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_055.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>WHALERS AMONG ICEBERGS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>Out in the <em>Resolution</em> in 1806 he saw from his crow's
+nest, in which he often spent a dozen hours at a stretch,
+that below the ice-blink—the white line in the sky
+which betokens the presence of ice—there was a blue-grey
+streak denoting open water, and that the motion
+of the sea around the ship must be due to a swell,
+which could only come from open water to the northward.
+On the 13th of May he started for this. By
+sawing the ice, hammering at it, dropping his boats on
+to it from the bow, sallying the ship—that is, rolling
+her by running the crew backwards and forwards
+across her deck—and, in fact, using every means he
+could think of, he passed the barrier in the eightieth
+parallel, and, on the 24th of June, attained 81° 30´, the
+farthest north ever reached by a sailing vessel in these
+seas. On that day there was not a ship within three
+hundred and fifty miles of the <em>Resolution</em>. The bold
+venture proved a thorough success; in thirty-two days
+he filled up with twenty-four whales, two seals, two
+walruses, and a narwhal—one of the most profitable
+of his thirty voyages.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In this voyage the chief officer was his son, William
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>Scoresby the younger, whose <em>Arctic Regions</em> is the best
+book ever written on the northern seas. Sent by his
+father to Edinburgh University where he studied
+almost every branch of natural and physical science, he
+was thoroughly equipped for his task, and his practical
+experience as a whaling captain and trained observer
+stood him in such stead that his book is still the basis
+of all scientific Polar research. His description of the
+Spitsbergen coast as seen from a ship is as faithful to-day
+as when he wrote it. "Spitsbergen and its islands,
+with some other countries within the Arctic Circle,
+exhibit a kind of scenery which is altogether novel.
+The principal objects which strike the eye are innumerable
+mountainous peaks, ridges, precipices, or needles,
+rising immediately out of the sea to an elevation of
+3000 or 4000 feet, the colour of which, at a moderate
+distance, appears to be blackish shades of brown, green,
+grey and purple; snow or ice, in striæ or patches,
+occupying the various clefts and hollows in the sides of
+the hills, capping some of the mountain summits, and
+filling with extended beds the most considerable valleys;
+and ice of the glacier form, occurring at intervals all
+along the coast, in particular situations as already described,
+in prodigious accumulations. The glistening or
+vitreous appearance of the icy precipices; the purity,
+whiteness, and beauty of the sloping expanse formed
+by their snowy surfaces; the gloomy shade presented
+by the adjoining or intermixed mountains and rocks,
+perpetually covered with a mourning veil of black
+lichens, with the sudden transitions into a robe of
+purest white, where patches or beds of snow occur,
+present a variety and extent of contrast altogether
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>peculiar; which, when enlightened by the occasional
+ethereal brilliancy of the Polar sky, and harmonised in
+its serenity with the calmness of the ocean, constitute a
+picture both novel and magnificent. There is, indeed,
+a kind of majesty, not to be conveyed in words, in
+these extraordinary accumulations of snow and ice in
+the valleys, and in the rocks above rocks and peaks
+above peaks, in the mountain groups, seen rising above
+the ordinary elevation of the clouds, and terminating
+occasionally in crests of snow, especially when you
+approach the shore under the shelter of the impenetrable
+density of a summer fog; in which case the fog
+sometimes disperses like the drawing of a curtain, when
+the strong contrast of light and shade, heightened by a
+cloudless atmosphere and powerful sun, bursts on the
+senses in a brilliant exhibition resembling the production
+of magic."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1818 there went out the first British expedition
+prepared to winter in the north. The vessels were two
+whalers bought into the navy, the <em>Dorothea</em> and <em>Trent</em>,
+the first under the command of David Buchan, the
+other under that of John Franklin. Neither officer
+had been in the Arctic region before, but Buchan had
+done excellent service in surveying Newfoundland, and
+Franklin had been marked for special duty owing to his
+work in Australian seas under his cousin, Matthew
+Flinders, and for the manner in which on his way home
+he had acted as signal officer to Nathaniel Dance in
+that ever-memorable victory off the Straits of Malacca,
+when the Indiamen defeated and pursued a French
+fleet under Admiral Linois. Dance's report gave
+Franklin a further chance of distinction, for it led to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>his appointment to the <em>Bellerophon</em>, whose signal
+officer he was during the battle of Trafalgar.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>They were instructed to proceed to the North Pole,
+thence to continue on to Bering Strait direct, or by the
+best route they could find, to make their way to the
+Sandwich Islands or New Albion, and thence to come
+back through Bering Strait eastward, keeping in sight
+and approaching the coast of America whenever the
+position of the ice permitted them so to do. A nice
+little programme. But they started too early in a bad
+season; they did not get so far north as Phipps; they
+made accurate surveys and other observations; in
+exploration they did little; and they had many adventures.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>As they ranged along the western side of Spitsbergen
+the weather was severe. The snow fell in heavy
+showers, and several tons' weight of ice accumulated
+about the sides of the <em>Trent</em>, and formed a complete
+casing to the planks, which received an additional layer
+at each plunge of the vessel. So great, indeed, was
+the accumulation about the bows, that they were
+obliged to cut it away repeatedly with axes to relieve
+the bowsprit from the enormous weight that was
+attached to it: and the ropes were so thickly covered
+with ice that it was necessary to beat them with large
+sticks to keep them in a state of readiness. In the
+gale the ships parted company, but they met again at
+the rendezvous in Magdalena Bay.</p>
+
+<div id='pg34'  class='figcenter id006'>
+<img src='images/i_061.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>SIR JOHN FRANKLIN</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>Later on, off Cloven Cliff, there was a walrus fight
+begun by the seamen and continued by the walruses
+when they found themselves more at home in the
+water than on the ice. They rose in numbers about
+the boats, rushing at them, snorting with rage, endeavouring
+to upset them or stave them in by hooking
+their tusks on the gunwales, or butting at them with
+their heads. "It was the opinion of our people," says
+Beechey, "that in this assault the walruses were led on
+by one animal in particular, a much larger and more
+formidable beast than any of the others; and they
+directed their efforts more particularly towards him,
+but he withstood all the blows of their tomahawks
+without flinching, and his tough hide resisted the entry
+of the whale lances, which were, unfortunately, not
+very sharp, and soon bent double. The herd was so
+numerous, and their attacks so incessant, that there
+was not time to load a musket, which, indeed, was the
+only effectual mode of seriously injuring them. The
+purser, fortunately, had his gun loaded, and the whole
+now being nearly exhausted with chopping and sticking
+at their assailants, he snatched it up, and, thrusting
+the muzzle down the throat of the leader, fired
+into him. The wound proved mortal, and the animal
+fell back amongst his companions, who immediately
+desisted from their attack, assembled round him, and
+in a moment quitted the boat, swimming away as hard
+as they could with their leader, whom they actually
+bore up with their tusks and assiduously preserved
+from sinking."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On one occasion Franklin and Beechey, when out in
+a boat together, witnessed the launch of an iceberg.
+They had approached the end of a glacier and were
+trying to search into the recess of a deep cavern at
+its foot when they heard a report as if of a cannon,
+and, turning to the quarter whence it proceeded, perceived
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>an immense piece of the front of the cliff of ice
+gliding down from a height of two hundred feet at
+least into the sea, and dispersing the water in every
+direction, accompanied by a loud grinding noise, and
+followed by a quantity of water, which, lodged in the
+fissures, made its escape in numberless small cataracts
+over the front of the glacier. They kept the boat's
+head in the direction of the sea and thus escaped
+disaster, for the disturbance occasioned by the plunge
+of this enormous fragment caused a succession of
+rollers, which swept over the surface of the bay,
+making its shores resound as it travelled along it, and
+at a distance of four miles was so considerable that it
+became necessary to right the <em>Dorothea</em>, which was then
+careening, by instantly releasing the tackles which confined
+her. The piece that had been disengaged wholly
+disappeared under water, and nothing was seen but a
+violent boiling of the sea and a shooting up of clouds
+of spray like that which occurs at the foot of a great
+cataract. After a short time it reappeared, raising its
+head full a hundred feet above the surface, with water
+pouring down from all parts of it; and then, labouring
+as if doubtful which way it should fall, it rolled over,
+and, after rocking about for some minutes, became
+settled. It was nearly a quarter of a mile round and
+floated sixty feet out of the water, and making a
+fair allowance for its inequalities, was computed to
+weigh 421,600 tons.</p>
+
+<div id='pg36'  class='figcenter id007'>
+<a href='images/i_065.jpg'><img src='images/i_065_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>TRACK OF H.M.S. "DOROTHEA" AND "TRENT"</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>There were frequent landings, often with difficulties
+in the return, due generally to attempts at making a
+short cut to the shore or across the ice. Of these
+short cuts the very shortest was that made by one of
+the sailors named Spinks, who was out with a party in
+pursuit of reindeer. The ardour of the chase had led
+them beyond the prescribed limits, and when the
+signal was made for their return to the boat some of
+them were upon the top of a hill. Spinks, an active
+and zealous fellow, anxious to be first at his post,
+thought he would outstrip his comrades by descending
+the snow, which was banked against the mountain at
+an angle of about 40° with the horizon, and rested
+against a small glacier on the left. The height was
+about two thousand feet, and in the event of his foot
+slipping there was nothing to impede his progress until
+he reached the beach, either by the slope or the more
+terrific descent of the face of the glacier. He began
+his career by digging his heels into the snow, the
+surface of which was rather hard. At first he got on
+very well, but presently his foot slipped, or the snow
+was too hard for his heel to make an impression, and
+he increased in speed, keeping his balance, however, by
+means of his hands. In a very short time his descent
+was fearfully quick; the fine snow flew about him like
+dust, and there seemed but little chance of his reaching
+the bottom in safety, especially as his course was
+taking him in the direction of the glacier. For a
+moment he was lost sight of behind a crag of the
+mountain, and it was thought he had gone over the
+glacier, but with great presence of mind and dexterity,
+"by holding water first with one hand and then the
+other," to use his own expression, he contrived to
+escape the danger, and, like a skilful pilot, steered into
+a place of refuge amid a bed of soft snow recently
+drifted against the hill. When he extricated himself
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>from the depths into which he had been plunged he
+had to hold together his tattered clothes, for he had
+worn away two pairs of trousers and something more.
+That was all his damage, and we shall meet with him
+again in the west out with Franklin and Captain Back.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In the morning of the 30th of July the ships found
+themselves caught in a gale with the ice close to leeward.
+The only way of escaping destruction seemed
+to be by taking refuge in the pack. It was a desperate
+expedient rarely resorted to by whalers and only in
+extreme cases. In the <em>Trent</em> a cable was cut up into
+thirty-foot lengths, and these, with plates of iron four
+feet square, supplied as fenders, and some walrus hides,
+were hung around her, mainly about her bows; the
+masts were secured with extra ropes, and the hatches
+were battened and nailed down. When a few fathoms
+from the ice those on board searched with anxiety for
+an opening in the pack, but saw nothing but an unbroken
+line of furious breakers with huge masses heaving
+and plunging with the waves and dashing together
+with a violence that nothing but a solid body seemed
+likely to withstand; and the noise was so great that the
+orders to the crew could with difficulty be heard. At
+one moment the sea was bursting upon the ice blocks
+and burying them deep beneath its wave, and the next,
+as the buoyancy brought them up again, the water was
+pouring in foaming cataracts over their edges, the
+masses rocking and labouring in their bed, grinding
+and striving with each other until one was either split
+with the shock or lifted on to the top of its neighbour.
+Far as the eye could reach the turmoil stretched, and
+overhead was the clearness of a calm and silvery
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>atmosphere bounded by a dark line of storm cloud
+lowering over the masts as if to mark the confines
+within which no effort would avail.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"At this instant," says Beechey, "when we were
+about to put the strength of our little vessel in competition
+with that of the great icy continent, and when
+it seemed almost presumption to reckon on the possibility
+of her surviving the unequal conflict, it was
+gratifying in the extreme to observe in all our crew the
+greatest calmness and resolution. If ever the fortitude
+of seamen was fairly tried it was assuredly not less so
+than on this occasion; and I will not conceal the pride
+I felt in witnessing the bold and decisive tone in which
+the orders were issued by the commander of our little
+vessel, and the promptitude and steadiness with which
+they were executed by the crew."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The brig was steered bow on to the ice. Every man
+instinctively gripped his hold, and with his eyes fixed
+on the masts awaited the moment of concussion. In
+an instant they all lost their footing, the masts bent
+with the shock, and the timbers cracked below; the
+vessel staggered and seemed to recoil, when the next
+wave, curling up under her counter, drove her about her
+own length within the edge of the ice, where she gave
+a roll and was thrown broadside to the wind by the
+succeeding wave which beat furiously against her stern,
+bringing her lee in touch with the main mass and leaving
+her weather side exposed to a floe about twice her
+size. Battered on all sides, tossed from fragment to
+fragment, nothing could be done but await the issue,
+for the men could hardly keep their feet, the motion
+being so great that the ship's bell, which in the heaviest
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>gale had never struck of itself, now tolled so continuously
+that it had to be muffled.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>After a time an effort was made to put the vessel
+before the wind and drive her further into the pack.
+Some of the men gained the fore-topsail-yard and let a
+reef out of the sail, and the jib was dragged half up
+the stay by the windlass. The brig swung into position,
+and, aided by a mass under her stern, split the
+block, fourteen feet thick, which had barred her way,
+and made a passage for herself into comparative safety;
+and after some four hours the gale moderated. Strained
+and leaking the <em>Trent</em> had suffered much, but the
+<em>Dorothea</em> had been damaged more; and both returned
+to Fair Haven, where it was found hopeless to continue
+the voyage, and thence, when the ships had been
+temporarily repaired, they sailed for England. The
+expedition had not done much, but it had given their
+Arctic schooling to Franklin, Beechey, and Back.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In May, 1827, Parry, in the <em>Hecla</em>, was forced to
+run into the ice, but not quite in the same way as
+Buchan did. He was beset for three weeks, and then,
+getting clear, proceeded to the Seven Islands to the
+north of Spitsbergen, on one of which, Walden, he
+placed a reserve of provisions; the ship, after reaching
+81° 5´, going to Treurenberg Bay, in Hinlopen Strait,
+to await his return.</p>
+
+<div id='pg40'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_071.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>PARRY CAMPED ON THE ICE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>From here he made his dash for the Pole. He had
+with him two boats of his own design, seven feet in
+beam, twenty in length. On each side of the keel was
+a strong runner, shod with steel, upon which the boat
+stood upright on the ice. They were so built that they
+would have floated as bags had they been stove in. On
+ash and hickory timbers, an inch by an inch and a half
+thick, placed a foot apart, with a half-timber of smaller
+size between each, was stretched a casing of waterproof
+canvas tarred on the outer side and protected by a skin
+of fir three-sixteenths of an inch thick, over this came
+a sheet of stout felt, and over all a skin of oak of the
+same thickness as the fir, each boat weighing about
+fourteen hundredweight—that is the hull, as launched.
+One of these boats was named the <em>Enterprise</em>, the other
+the <em>Endeavour</em>. They were intended to be hauled by
+reindeer, but the state of the ice rendered this impracticable
+and the men did the work themselves. Parry
+took command of the <em>Enterprise</em>, the other being in
+charge of Lieutenant James Clark Ross; and, altogether,
+officers and men numbered twenty-eight.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>From Little Table Island, where they left a reserve
+as they had done at Walden, they started for the north—two
+heavy boats laden with food for seventy days
+and clothing for twenty-eight men, with a compact
+equipment including light sledges, travelling in a sea
+crowded or covered with ice in every form, large and
+small, over which they were dragged up and down
+hummocks, round and among crags and ridges, along
+surfaces of every kind of ruggedness, of every slope
+and irregularity, the few flat stretches broken with
+patches of sharp crystals or waist-deep snow; through
+lanes and pools of water with frequent ferryings and
+transhipments, in sunshine and fog, and, strange to
+say, frequently in pouring rain. They travelled by
+night and rested by day, though, of course, there was
+daylight all the time. "The advantages of this plan,"
+says Parry, "which was occasionally deranged by circumstances,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>consisted, first in our avoiding the intense
+and oppressive glare from the snow during the time of
+the sun's greatest altitude, so as to prevent in some
+degree the painful inflammation in the eyes called
+snow-blindness which is common in all snowy countries.
+We also thus enjoyed greater warmth during
+the hours of rest and had a better chance of drying our
+clothes; besides which no small advantage was derived
+from the snow being harder at night for travelling.
+When we rose in the evening we commenced our day
+by prayers, after which we took off our sleeping dresses
+and put on those for travelling, the former being made
+of camlet lined with racoon skin, and the latter of
+strong blue, box cloth. We made a point of always
+putting on the same stockings and boots for travelling
+in, whether they had dried during the day or not, and
+I believe it was only in five or six instances that they
+were not either still wet or hard frozen." When halted
+for rest the boats were placed alongside each other,
+with their sterns to the wind, the snow or wet cleared
+out of them, and the sails, held up by the bamboo
+masts and three paddles, were placed over them as
+awnings with the entrance at the bow.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Progress was not great, sometimes fifty yards an hour,
+occasionally twelve miles a day, that is on the ice, for
+soon it was apparent that the distance gained by
+reckoning was greater than that given by observation,
+and Parry realised to his dismay that the pack was
+drifting south while he was going north. But he
+kept on till on the 21st of July he reached 82° 45´,
+which remained the farthest north for forty-nine
+years.</p>
+
+<div id='pg42'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_075.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>PARRY'S BOATS AMONG THE HUMMOCKS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>During the last few days he had been drifting south
+in the day almost as far as he had advanced north in
+the night, and, having used up half his provisions, he
+reluctantly abandoned the struggle as hopeless. "As
+we travelled," he says, "by far the greater part of our
+distance on the ice, three, and not infrequently, five
+times over, we may safely multiply the road by 2½;
+so that our whole distance, on a very moderate calculation,
+amounted to five hundred and eighty geographical
+miles, or six hundred and sixty-eight statute
+miles; being nearly sufficient to have reached the Pole
+in a direct line."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1858 a Swedish expedition under Otto Torell
+started from Hammerfest for Spitsbergen. He was
+accompanied by A. Quennerstedt and Adolf Erik
+Nordenskiöld. They explored Horn Sound, Bell
+Sound, and Green Harbour. In Bell Sound they
+dredged with great success for <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">mollusca</span>; they made a
+botanical collection, chiefly of mosses and lichens,
+found tertiary plant fossils, and, in the North Harbour,
+carboniferous limestone beds with the tertiary plant-bearing
+strata above them—in short, Nordenskiöld
+entered upon his long and fruitful study of Spitsbergen
+geology. Three years afterwards Torell took
+out another expedition, Nordenskiöld going with him,
+which was to explore the northern coast and then
+make for the far north; but the ice conditions kept
+them in Treurenberg Bay, where they visited Hecla
+Cove and found Parry's flagstaff. In the course of
+their journeys they noticed in Cross Bay the first
+known Spitsbergen fern, <em>Cystopteris fragilis</em>; by the
+side of a freshwater lake in Wijde Bay an Alpine
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>char was picked up; and, at Shoal Point, Torell discovered
+in a mass of driftwood a specimen of the unmistakable
+Entada bean, two and a quarter inches
+across, brought there from the West Indies by the
+Gulf Stream, as other specimens have been drifted to
+European shores.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1864, the year that Elling Carlsen found the
+navigation so open that he passed the Northern Gate
+and sailed round Spitsbergen, Nordenskiöld, at the
+head of a small expedition, was at work in Ice Fjord,
+and, unable to go north on account of the ice, rounded
+South Cape, entered Stor Fjord, visited Edge's Land
+and Barents Land, and from the summit of White
+Mountain, near Unicorn Bay, rediscovered the west
+coast of the island reported by Edge two hundred and
+fifty years before. In 1868, as leader of the Swedish
+North Polar Expedition in the <em>Sofia</em>, he reached
+81° 42´, in 17° 30´ east, the highest latitude then
+reached by a steam vessel, and his farthest north; his
+next Polar venture, four years afterwards, in the
+<em>Polhem</em>, ending in his having to winter in Mossel Bay,
+where his generous endeavour to feed one hundred and
+one extra men, who were ice-bound, on provisions
+intended for his own twenty-four, would have ended in
+disaster had he not been relieved by Leigh Smith in the
+<em>Diana</em>.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The <em>Diana</em> was the steam yacht built for James
+Lamont, in which, like Leigh Smith, he cruised for
+several seasons in the Arctic seas, combining sport with
+exploration in a truly admirable way. To these two
+yachtsmen we owe much of our knowledge of Spitsbergen,
+Novaya Zemlya, and Franz Josef Land, but we
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>can only give them passing mention here. We must,
+however, find room for Lamont's useful find of the
+coal mine in Advent Bay, from which he filled up the
+<em>Diana's</em> bunkers. "When I paid a visit to the coal
+mine," he says, "I found it quite a busy scene for a
+quiet Arctic shore. The engineer and fireman directed
+the blasting, my English hands quarried, while the
+Norwegians carried the sacks down the hill. The old
+mate, the many-sidedness of whose character I have
+so much valued on my various voyages, was digging
+away with the rest, though I am sorry that in the
+sketch his weather-beaten face is turned away. All
+the rest are portraits, and the reader will notice that
+Arctic work is not done in the attractive uniforms
+known to Cowes and Ryde. The coal-bed was about
+three feet thick, and lay very horizontally between
+two layers of soft, mud-coloured limestone. It was
+harder to obtain than I anticipated, because saturated,
+through all the cracks and interstices, with water which
+had frozen into ice more difficult to break through
+than the coal itself, thereby rendering these fissures
+worse than useless in quarrying. This is tertiary coal,
+and is of fair quality, but contains a good deal of
+sulphur. When we began to burn it, so much water
+and ice was unavoidably mixed with it that the
+engineers had to let it drain on deck in the hot sun
+and then mix it with an equal bulk of Scotch coal.
+Consumed in this way the ten tons obtained in three
+days was a useful addition to the fast-dwindling stock
+on board."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>While Nordenskiöld was at Mossel Bay he attempted
+a journey to the north, but was stopped by the ice
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>at Seven Islands, and returned round North East
+Land. It took him five days to pass across the
+twenty-three miles between Phipps Island and Cape
+Platen over pyramids of angular ice up to thirty
+feet high. On the coast, which he found extending,
+as Leigh Smith had reported, much further to the
+east than was shown on the charts, he met with the
+inland ice ending in precipices from two thousand to
+three thousand feet high. Ascending this ice they
+had scarcely gone a quarter of a mile before one of
+the men disappeared at a place where the surface was
+level, and so instantaneously that he could not even
+give a cry for help. When they looked into the hole
+they found him hanging on to the drag-line, to which
+he was fastened with reindeer harness, over a deep
+abyss. Had his arms slipped out of the harness, a
+single belt, he would have been lost. Along the level
+surface every puff of wind drove a stream of fine snow-dust,
+which, from the ease with which it penetrated
+everywhere, was as the fine sand of the desert to the
+travellers in the Sahara. By means of this fine snow-dust,
+steadily driven forward by the wind, the upper
+part of the glacier—which did not consist of ice, but
+of hard packed blinding white snow—was glazed and
+polished so that it seemed to be a faultless, spotless
+floor of white marble, or rather a white satin carpet.
+Examination showed that the snow, at a depth of four
+to six feet, passed into ice, being changed first into a
+stratum of ice crystals, partly large and perfect, then
+to a crystalline mass of ice, and finally to hard glacier
+ice, in which could still be observed numerous air
+cavities compressed by the overlying weight; and,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>when, as the surface thaws, the pressure of the enclosed
+air exceeds that of the superincumbent weight,
+these cavities break up with the peculiar cracking
+sound heard in summer from the glacier ice that floats
+about in the fjords. Occasionally broad channels were
+crossed, of which the only way to ascertain the depth
+was to lower a man into them, and frequently he had
+to be hoisted up again without having reached the
+bottom; such danger areas causing so circuitous a
+route that much progress was impossible.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Prior to the explorations of Sir Martin Conway in
+1896, it was supposed that this inland ice extended
+over all the islands of the group, an area exceeding
+twenty thousand square miles. He, however, proved
+that so far as West Spitsbergen was concerned, this
+was not the case. Crossing it he found much of the
+interior a complex of mountains and valleys, amongst
+which were many glaciers, as in Central Europe, but
+with no continuous covering of ice, each glacier being
+a separate unit with its own drainage system and
+catchment area, the valleys boggy and relatively fertile,
+the hillsides bare of snow in summer up to more than
+a thousand feet above sea-level. In the rise of the
+country from the sea it seems to have come up as a
+plain which did not reach the level of perpetual snow,
+so that as it rose it was cut down into valleys in the
+usual way by the agency of water pouring off from
+the plateau over its edge down a frost-split rock-face,
+the valleys gently sloped, the head necessarily steep
+owing to the face of the cliff being stripped off as the
+waterfalls cut their way back.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Since Nordenskiöld's first expedition we have learnt
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>much of the geology and physical features of Spitsbergen;
+and we hear no more of the poverty of its
+flora and fauna. Now it has become a summer tourist
+resort we are yearly increasing our knowledge of this
+land of no thunderstorms, for centuries the largest
+uninhabited area on the globe, the only considerable
+stretch on which there is no trace of human occupation
+before its discovery by the moderns in 1596, when it
+was found by Barents and his companions.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER III<br /> NOVAYA ZEMLYA</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>Van Heemskerck and Barents reach Ice Haven—The ship in the ice—The
+first crew to winter in the Arctic—The house the Dutch built—The bears—The
+foxes—Intense cold—Twelfth Eve rejoicings—Preparations for
+departure—Death of Barents—The boat voyage—Meeting with Rijp—Admiral
+Jacob Van Heemskerck—Carlsen at Ice Haven—Finds the house
+as described by De Veer—The relics at the Hague—Gardiner finds the
+powder-flask—Gundersen finds the translation of the voyage of Pet and
+Jackman—Second voyage of Hudson—His third voyage—De Vlamingh—Russian
+explorers.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>We left Barents parting company with Rijp at
+Bear Island, Rijp bound northwards. Barents,
+taking his vessel eastwards, struck Novaya Zemlya at
+Loms Bay, near Cross Bay, and bearing north-eastwards
+reached the Orange Islands and rounded Cape
+Mauritius. Steering south he got down into Ice Haven,
+where at length, says De Veer, "the ice began to drive
+with such force that we were enclosed round about
+therewith, and yet we sought all the means we could to
+get out, but it was all in vain: and at that time we had
+like to have lost three men that were upon the ice to
+make way for the ship, if the ice had held the course it
+went; but as we drove back again, and the ice also
+whereon our men stood, they being nimble, as the ship
+drove by them, one of them caught hold of the beak
+head, another upon the shrouds, and the third upon the
+mainbrace that hung out behind, and so by great
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>adventure by the hold they took they got into the ship
+again, for which they thanked God with all their
+hearts." The same evening, that of the 26th of August,
+1596, they reached the west of Ice Haven—now known
+as Barents Bay—where they were forced to remain,
+being the first crew on record to spend a winter in the
+Arctic regions and survive to tell the story.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>To begin with, the ice gathered round the ship and
+lifted her bow four feet out of the water. Endeavouring
+to right her by clearing the ice away, Barents was
+on his knees measuring the height she had to fall when
+the ice broke with "such a noise and so great a crack
+that they thought verily they were all cast away." As
+she lay upright again they tried in vain with crowbars
+and other tools to break off the piled-up ice, and next
+day in a heavy snow the pressure became such that the
+whole ship was borne up and so squeezed that "all that
+was both about and in it began to crack, so that it
+seemed to burst in a hundred pieces, which was most
+fearful both to see and hear, and made all the hair of
+our heads to rise upright with fear." The grip continuing,
+the vessel was driven up four or five feet and
+the rudder squeezed off, which was replaced by a new
+one, when she sank back into the water a few hours
+afterwards owing to the ice drifting clear for a while.
+Thus matters went on for a little time, the ship being
+alternately lifted and released.</p>
+
+<div id='pg50'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_085.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>HOW OUR SHIP STUCK FAST IN THE ICE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>On the 11th of September, as there was no hope of
+escape, it was decided to build a house wherein to
+spend the winter, and in seeking for a suitable position,
+a mass of driftwood—"trees, roots and all"—was discovered,
+"driven ashore from Tartaria, Muscovia, or
+elsewhere," for there were no trees growing on the
+land, "wherewith," says De Veer, "we were much
+comforted, being in good hope that God would show
+us some further favour; for that wood served us not
+only to build our house, but also to burn and serve us
+all the winter long; otherwise without all doubt we
+had died there miserably with extreme cold."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The timber was collected and piled up in heaps that
+it might not be hidden under the snow, and two sledges
+were made on which to drag it to the site of the house.
+This was heavy work in which all took part, four of
+them in turn remaining by the ship, there being thirteen
+men to each party, five to each sledge, with three
+to help and lift the wood behind "to make us draw the
+better and with more ease," and at the end of the first
+week of it the carpenter died, so that only sixteen were
+left. But the wood was brought along day after day,
+some to build with, some for fuel; and the house was
+built, the frost so hard at times that "as we put a nail
+into our mouths, as carpenters do, there would ice hang
+thereon when we took it out again and made the blood
+follow"; and when a great fire was made to soften the
+ground, in order that earth might be dug to shovel
+round the house, "it was all lost labour for the earth
+was so hard and frozen so deep that we could not thaw
+it, and it would have cost us too much wood."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The house was roofed with deals obtained by breaking
+up the lower deck of the fore part of the ship, and,
+to make it weather-tight, it was covered with a sail on
+which afterwards shingle was spread to keep it from
+being blown off; and the materials of the cabin yielded
+the wood for the door. Inside, the house was made as
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>comfortable as possible, as shown in the illustration
+given in De Veer's book in 1598. Low shelves, with
+partitions between, along the side served for sleeping
+places; a cask on end with a square hole like a window
+in the upper half was frequently used as a bath; a
+striking clock and a time-glass marked the passing of
+the hours; the large fire in the centre with its frame
+and trivet and spit and copper pots and other kitchen
+utensils served for warmth and cooking; and over the
+fire hung a large lamp beneath the chimney, which
+terminated outside in a cask giving it the appearance of
+a crow's nest ashore.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>While the house was building, and as long as the
+sun was above the horizon, there was much trouble
+with the bears, whose daily visits were always productive
+of excitement. On the 26th of October, for
+instance, the day after all the crew first slept in the
+house, when the men had loaded the last sledge and
+stood in the track-ropes ready to draw it to the house,
+Van Heemskerck caught sight of three coming towards
+them from behind the ship. The men jumped out of
+the track-ropes, and as fortunately two halberds lay
+upon the sledge, Van Heemskerck took one and De
+Veer the other, while the rest ran to the ship, "and as
+they ran one of them fell into a crevice in the ice,
+which grieved us much, for we thought the bears would
+have run unto him to devour him," but they made
+straight after the others instead. "Meantime we and
+the man that fell into the cleft of ice took our advantage
+and got into the ship on the other side; which the
+bears perceiving, they came fiercely towards us that
+had no arms to defend us withal but only the two
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>halberds, gave them work to do by throwing billets of
+firewood and other things at them, and every time we
+threw they ran after them as a dog does at a stone that
+has been cast at him. Meantime we sent a man down
+into the caboose to strike fire and another to fetch
+pikes; but we could get no fire, and so we had no
+means to shoot"—their firearms being matchlocks.
+"At the last as the bears came fiercely upon us we
+struck one of them with a halberd on the snout, wherewith
+she gave back when she felt herself hurt and went
+away, which the other two, that were not so large as
+she, perceiving, ran away."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>When the bears had gone and the long night set in,
+their place was taken by the white foxes, many of
+these being caught in traps and furnishing skins for
+clothes and flesh for meat—"not unlike that of the
+rabbit"—that was "as grateful as venison." The 19th
+of November was a great day. A chest of linen was
+opened and divided among the men for shirts, "for
+they had need of them." Next day they washed their
+shirts, having evidently made the new ones in a hurry,
+and, says De Veer, "it was so cold that when we had
+washed and wrung them they presently froze so stiff
+(out of the warm water) that although we laid them
+by a great fire the side that lay next the fire thawed,
+but the other side was hard frozen, so that we should
+sooner have torn them in sunder than have opened
+them, whereby we were forced to put them into the
+boiling water again to thaw them, it was so exceeding
+cold."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 3rd of December and the two following
+days it was so cold that as the men lay in their bunks
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>they could hear the ice cracking in the sea two miles
+away, and thought that icebergs were breaking on
+each other; and as they had not so great a fire as
+usual owing to the smoke "it froze so sore within the
+house that the walls and the roof thereof were frozen
+two fingers thick with ice, even in the bunks in which
+we lay. All those three days while we could not go
+out by reason of the foul weather we set up the sandglass
+of twelve hours, and when it was run out we set
+it up again, still watching it lest we should miss our
+time. For the cold was so great that our clock was
+frozen and would not go, although we hung more
+weight on it than before."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The snow fell until it was so deep round the house
+that on Christmas Day they heard foxes running over
+the roof; and the last day of the year was so cold that
+"the fire almost cast no heat, for as we put our feet
+to the fire we burnt our hose before we could feel the
+heat, so that we had work enough to do to patch our
+hose." On the 4th of January, "to know where the
+wind blew we thrust a half pike out of the chimney
+with a little cloth or feather upon it; but we had to
+look at it immediately the wind caught it, for as soon
+as we thrust it out it was frozen as hard as a piece of
+wood and could not go about or stir with the wind, so
+that we said to one another how fearfully cold it must
+be out of doors."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Next day, being Twelfth Eve, on which foreigners,
+according to the old practice, hold the festivities now
+customary in England on the following day, the men
+asked Van Heemskerck that they might enjoy themselves,
+"and so that night we made merry and drank
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>to the three kings. And therewith we had two pounds
+of meal, which we had taken to make paste for the
+cartridges wherewith, of which we now made pancakes
+with oil, and to every man a white biscuit, which we
+sopped in wine. And so supposing that we were in
+our own country and amongst our friends it comforted
+us as well as if we had made a great banquet in our
+own house. And we also distributed tickets, and our
+gunner was king of Nova Zembla, which is at least
+eight hundred miles long and lieth between two seas."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In time the sun reappeared—as also the bears—and
+the rigours of the winter relaxing, the men, on the
+9th of May, applied to Barents asking him to speak
+to Van Heemskerck with a view to preparing for
+departure. This, after two other appeals, he did on
+the 15th of May, Van Heemskerck's answer being
+that, if the ship were not free by the end of the month,
+he would get ready to go away in the boats. The two
+boats, or, to be exact, the boat and the herring skute,
+were then repaired and made suitable for a long sea
+voyage, and on the 13th of June were in proper condition
+with all their stores ready. Then Van Heemskerck,
+"seeing that it was open water and a good west
+wind, came back to the house again, and there he
+spake unto Willem Barents (that had been long sick)
+and showed him that he thought it good (seeing it was
+a fit time) to go from thence, and they then resolved
+jointly with the ship's company to take the boat and
+the skute down to the water side, and in the name of
+God to begin our voyage to sail from Nova Zembla.
+Then Willem Barents wrote a letter, which he put
+into a powder flask and hanged it up in the chimney,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>showing how we came out of Holland to sail to the
+kingdom of China, and what had happened to us."
+Then Barents was taken down to the shore on a sledge
+and put into one boat, the other sick man, Andriesz,
+being placed in the other, and "with a west-north-west
+wind and an indifferent open water" they set sail on a
+voyage of over fifteen hundred miles among the ice,
+over the ice, and through the sea.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Barents, though they little suspected it, had but a
+few days to live. As they passed the northernmost
+cape of Novaya Zemlya, "Gerrit," he said to De Veer,
+"if we are near the Ice Point, just lift me up again.
+I must see that point once more." They were amongst
+the ice floes again; soon they had to make fast to one;
+and then they became shut in and forced to stay there.
+Next day their only means of safety lay in hauling
+their boats up on to a floe, taking the sick men out on
+to the ice and putting the clothes and other things
+under them; but after mending the boats, which had
+been much bruised and crushed, they drifted into a
+little open water and got afloat. On the 20th of June,
+about eight in the morning it became evident that
+Andriesz was nearing his end. "Methinks," said
+Barents, in the other boat, when he heard of it, "with
+me too it will not last long." But still his companions
+did not realise how ill he was, and talked on unconcernedly.
+Then he looked at the little chart which
+De Veer had made of the voyage. Putting it down,
+he said, "Gerrit, give me something to drink." And
+no sooner did he drink than he suddenly died. Thus
+passed away their chief guide and only pilot, than
+whom none better ever sailed the northern seas.</p>
+
+<div id='pg56'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_093.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>HOW WE NEARLY GOT INTO TROUBLE WITH THE SEA-HORSES</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>Working their way down the west coast of the long
+island, putting in every now and then in search of birds
+and eggs, constantly in peril from the floating ice and
+the bears, they slowly came south. When passing
+Admiralty Peninsula they had to deal with a danger
+of their own causing. They sighted about two hundred
+walruses upon one of the floes. Sailing close to
+them they drove them off, "which," says De Veer,
+"had almost cost us dear, for they, being mighty
+strong sea monsters, swam towards us round about our
+boats with a great noise as if they would have devoured
+us; but we escaped from them by reason that we had a
+good gale of wind, yet it was not wisely done of us to
+waken sleeping wolves."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Day by day De Veer tells the story of that adventurous
+voyage, with its long succession of dangers and
+disappointments, until they reached the mainland and
+sent the Lapland messenger to Kola, who returned
+with a letter from Jan Corneliszoon Rijp, who at
+first they could not believe was the old friend from
+whom they had parted at Bear Island; and more
+briefly he continues the story until Amsterdam was
+reached on the 1st of November, when the survivors, in
+the same clothes they wore in their winter quarters,
+fur caps and white fox-skins, walked up to the house of
+Pieter Hasselaer to report themselves on arrival and
+received the hearty welcome they deserved.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Though Van Heemskerck had failed to make the
+passage to the east by way of the north, he was
+perhaps destined for greater fame on the far less
+rigorous route. Like Nelson he went on an Arctic
+expedition that failed, and then secured a place in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>history by a sea-fight in Spanish waters, for which his
+countrymen will never forget him. He it was who
+as Vice-Admiral of Holland fought the Spanish fleet
+at Gibraltar in the decisive battle of the 25th of
+April, 1607, in which with his twenty-six vessels he
+attacked Juan Alvarez Davila's twenty ships and ten
+galleons. Early in the struggle he had his leg swept
+off by a cannon shot, but he remained on deck till he
+died, gaining the complete victory which rendered his
+countrymen free from hindrance on the road to the
+Indies round the Cape of Good Hope, of which for
+so many years they made such profitable use. It is
+customary to give all the credit of the Arctic voyage
+to Barents on the ground that his captain was no
+sailor, but Holland knows no better sailor than Jacob
+Van Heemskerck of Gibraltar Bay.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 9th of September, 1871, Captain Elling
+Carlsen, sailing in the Barents Sea, which he had
+entered round Icy Cape, landed in Ice Haven and
+found the house just as De Veer had described it.
+There it had stood in cold storage for 274 years, never
+having been entered by human foot since Van Heemskerck
+had shut the door. The bunks, the table, the
+bath, the clock, in short everything, all in order,
+as the orderly Dutchmen had left it. Never did a
+voyage book receive such ample verification; never did
+the description of an island home stand the test better.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Carlsen, to begin with, knew nothing of De Veer or
+Barents, but he set to work in a conscientious way
+and recorded the results like a true archæologist.
+"Thursday, 14th," he wrote in his log, "Calm with
+clear sky. Four o'clock in the morning we went
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>ashore further to investigate the wintering place. On
+digging we found again several objects, such as drumsticks,
+a hilt of a sword, and spears. Altogether it
+seemed that the people had been equipped in a warlike
+manner, but nothing was found which could indicate
+the presence of human remains. On the beach we
+found pieces of wood which had formerly belonged to
+some part of a ship, for which reason I believe that a
+vessel has been wrecked there, the crew of which built
+the house with the materials of the wreck and afterwards
+betook themselves to boats."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Bringing away a very large number of articles, he
+resumed his voyage and landed at Hammerfest, where
+Mr. E. C. Lister Kay, who happened to be there on a
+yachting trip, bought them, thinking they would be repurchased
+from him, at the price he gave, for one of our
+own museums. In this he was disappointed, and the
+collection was taken down to his house in Dorsetshire,
+where Count Bylandt, the Dutch Ambassador, happening
+to hear of it, called and bought it for his Government,
+who placed it at the Hague in a room, the
+exact imitation of that in Novaya Zemlya.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In July, 1876, Mr. Charles Gardiner, another English
+yachtsman, when on a cruise in the <em>Glow-worm</em> in
+Barents Sea, made a call at the house and brought
+away many other relics, which he presented to the
+Dutch, to be added to those at the Hague; and
+among them was the powder-flask hung in the
+chimney, containing the paper mentioned by De Veer.
+The previous August Captain Gundersen had been
+there in the Norwegian schooner <em>Regina</em>. In one of
+the chests he found two charts and what he described
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>as Barents's Journal. The journal proved to be a
+manuscript Dutch translation of the story of the
+voyage in 1580 of Arthur Pet and Charles Jackman.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1608, eleven years after Barents died, Henry
+Hudson, in the Muscovy Company's service, was sent
+to China by the north-east. He sailed on the 22nd of
+April from St. Katharine's, near the Tower of London,
+and on the 3rd of June passed the North Cape on his
+way to Novaya Zemlya, which he reached near Cape
+Britwin twenty-three days afterwards. For some considerable
+distance he had skirted the ice pack, vainly
+endeavouring to get through to the northward and
+enter the Kara Sea round the Orange Islands.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>This being impracticable he ranged southwards looking
+for a passage through at Kostin Shar, which in the
+Dutch map he had with him was marked as a strait
+and proved to be a bay. Had he been able to go a
+little further north than Cape Britwin he might have
+found that Matyushin Shar, like a rift in the rocks,
+divides the long island in half, though at that early
+season the ice would have probably been blocking it.
+From Kostin or thereabouts he departed for home, his
+voyage failing almost at the outset, owing to his being
+two months too early.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>While off the coast he sent his boat ashore several
+times. "Generally," he says, "all the land of Nova
+Zembla that we have yet seen is to a man's eye a
+pleasant land; much main high land with no snow on
+it, looking in some places green, and deer feeding
+thereon; and the hills are partly covered with snow
+and partly bare"—rather a different picture from that
+given by De Veer of what it was like in the winter.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>De Veer, too, had committed himself to the statement
+that there were no deer in the country, but here were
+Hudson's men frequently coming upon their traces, and
+on the 2nd of July reporting that they had seen "a
+herd of white deer, ten in a company," bringing on
+board with them a white lock of deer's hair in proof
+thereof.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On his return Hudson left the service of the Muscovy
+Company. He went to Holland, and, early in
+April, 1609, was sent out by the Amsterdam Chamber
+of the Dutch East India Company. On the 5th of
+May he rounded the North Cape, making for Novaya
+Zemlya, and a few days afterwards reached the ice.
+Here, according to Dutch accounts, his men mutinied,
+but what happened during the trouble is not recorded.
+Whether it was really owing to a mutiny, or, as is by
+no means improbable, to secret instructions received at
+his departure, Hudson, on the 14th, made sail for the
+North Cape, passed it on the 19th, when he observed a
+spot on the sun, and then went off westwards to Newfoundland,
+making direct apparently for the mouth of
+the river now bearing his name, which was discovered
+by Verrazano in March, 1524, and surveyed by Gomez
+in the following year, and was at the time of Hudson's
+visit British territory.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The reason for this astonishing change of route was,
+perhaps, that on some of the charts of the period, as on
+Michael Lock's planisphere, this river, the Rio de Gamas
+or Rio Grande of the Spaniards, was made to communicate
+with what seems to be intended for Lake
+Ontario, and this with the other lakes to the westward
+was widened out into the waterway to the South Sea.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>Thus Hudson drops out of our story at his first
+mutiny, for he did not cross the Arctic Circle on his
+fourth voyage, when his second mutiny ended his career
+in the bay that bears his name, which, like the river
+and the strait, was indicated on the maps years before
+he went there.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1664 Willem de Vlamingh, the Dutch navigator,
+or—to be cautious—the namesake of the Dutch navigator,
+who thirty-one years afterwards found Dirk
+Hartog's plate and named Swan River in West Australia
+after the black swans, was in these regions and
+rounded Novaya Zemlya into the Kara Sea, reaching so
+far north that if his recorded latitude be correct he
+must have sighted the Franz Josef archipelago, and,
+contrary to the tendency of Arctic explorers, mistaken
+land for a bank of mist or a group of icebergs. After
+him neither Dutch nor English delay us, the opening
+up of this continuation of the Urals being left to the
+Russians, who found it first and named it—Novaya
+Zemlya meaning simply New Land.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>For years it was left to the Samoyeds and the walrus
+hunters, whose persistent reports of deposits of silver in
+its cliffs led to Loschkin's making his way round it and
+spending two winters on its east coast. In 1768 Rosmysslof,
+also on silver bent, wintered in Matyushin
+Shar, that wonderful waterway, ninety fathoms deep,
+bounded by high hills and precipitous cliffs, winding so
+sharply that ships have been into it for a dozen miles or
+so and seeing no passage ahead have come out again to
+seek it elsewhere. In 1807 came Pospeloff, with Ludlow
+the mining engineer, to settle the silver question
+once for all, and settle it they did by showing that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>everywhere the so-called silver was either talc or mica,
+and naming Silver Bay ironically in memory thereof.
+Fourteen years afterwards Lütke surveyed the west
+coast, continuing during the next three summers; and
+in 1832 Pachtussoff arrived to undergo in the course of
+his really admirable work the hardships and privations
+of which he died.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER IV<br /> FRANZ JOSEF LAND</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>Austro-Hungarian expedition of 1872—The voyage as planned—The drift of
+the <em>Tegetthoff</em>—The polyglot crew—Discovery of Franz Josef Land—Payer's
+description of an aurora—The sledge journeys—Crown Prince
+Rudolf Land—Cape Fligely reached—Abandonment of the <em>Tegetthoff</em>—The
+boat voyage to Cape Britwin—Leigh Smith's expeditions—Loss of
+the <em>Eira</em>—The retreat in the boats—Jackson in Franz Josef Land—His
+excellent survey work—The Italian expedition under the Duke of the
+Abruzzi—Cagni attempts to reach the Pole and is stopped at 86° 34´—The
+return journey.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>In 1871 Weyprecht and Payer were out in the
+cutter <em>Isbjörn</em>, pioneering for their intended voyage
+to the eastward, which started next year in the <em>Tegetthoff</em>,
+the famous Austro-Hungarian attempt of 1872
+which may be described as an unintentional voyage of
+unexpected discovery. The amount of credit due to
+a man who starts to find one thing and lights upon
+another has always been a contentious matter, and
+this expedition afforded an extreme case for such
+speculations. The plan was to go east-north-east, the
+wintering places being undetermined, though they
+might be Cape Chelyuskin, the New Siberian Islands,
+or any land that might be discovered; and a return
+to Europe through Bering Strait lay among the
+possibilities of the venture, as an endeavour was to
+be made to reach the coast of Siberia in boats and
+penetrate south down one of the large rivers of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>Northern Asia. What happened was that during the
+afternoon of the 20th of August, when off the north-west
+coast of Novaya Zemlya in 76° 22´ north, 63° 3´
+east, the ship was run into an ice-hole and made fast
+to a floe, and during the night the ice, instead of parting
+asunder, closed in and imprisoned her, so that she
+never steamed or sailed again. In the ice and on the
+ice she lay perfectly helpless, drifting with the floe,
+and still in its grip when she was abandoned by her
+crew on the 20th of May, two years afterwards.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>It was a wonderful drift. North-easterly in the
+main to begin with, then north-westerly, then easterly
+to about 73°, then north, then west, in and out and
+roundabout, till they reached much the same longitude
+as they started from and then with a general tendency to
+the northward. Autumn passed away; the Polar night
+set in; and still they drifted ice-bound—a miscellaneous
+company representative of the polyglot empire; "on
+board the <em>Tegetthoff</em>," says Payer, "are heard all the
+languages of our country, German, Italian, Slavonic,
+and Hungarian; Italian is, however, the language in
+which all orders are given," to which we should add
+the Norwegian of Olaf Carlsen, the ice-master. During
+the winter there was enough of occupation and amusement,
+though private theatricals were impossible, as
+they would have had to be given in four languages to
+be intelligible to the audience.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The short summer came and went, and August had
+almost gone when—it was on the 30th, in 79° 43´—there
+came a surprise. The rays of the sun were fitfully
+breaking through the gloom when suddenly the gliding
+mists rolled up like a curtain, revealing in the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>north-west the outlines of a rocky coast, which in a
+few minutes grew into a radiant Alpine land. The
+shore, however, was unattainable, as a rush over the
+icefield soon showed, but from the edge of the fissure
+that barred any further progress they could make out
+its hills and glaciers and imagine the green pastures of
+its valleys. They called it Kaiser Franz Josef's Land,
+and along it they drifted during September till its outlines
+faded as the wind began to drive the floe to the
+south. But at the end of the month the direction of
+the floe changed to the north-west, taking the <em>Tegetthoff</em>
+up to 79° 58´, her highest north, near enough to
+one of the islands for an effort to be made to land.
+Six started from the ship over the grinding, groaning,
+broken walls of ice, and when they were out of sight
+of the ship a mist settled down which cut them off
+from the sight of land and then so closely enwrapped
+them that they could see nothing. Advance they
+found hopeless, and as they returned they lost their
+way and were saved by the sagacity of a dog they had
+with them. All through October the drift continued,
+and it was not until forenoon of the 1st of November,
+two months after sighting the country, that they
+managed to get ashore. This was on Wilczek Island
+in the same longitude as Admiralty Peninsula in
+Novaya Zemlya, and in the same latitude as Mossel
+Bay in Spitsbergen.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The sun had retired for the winter nine days before,
+and it was by the light of the moon that they first
+explored the unknown country. Little could be done,
+and, as it was much too late for attempting to shift
+from the ship to the shore, the winter had to be spent
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>on board as the other had been. Through this winter,
+as before, the auroral displays were remarkable, and
+they are excellently described by Payer. Of one of
+them, he says: "It is now eight o'clock at night, the
+hour of the greatest intensity of the northern lights.
+For a moment some bundles of rays only are to be
+seen in the sky. In the south a faint, scarcely observable,
+band lies close to the horizon. All at once it
+rises rapidly and spreads east and west. The waves
+of light begin to dart and shoot; some rays mount
+towards the zenith. For a short time it remains
+stationary, then suddenly springs to life. The waves
+of light drive violently from east to west; the edges
+assume a deep red and green colour and dance up and
+down. The rays shoot up more rapidly; they become
+shorter; all rise together and approach nearer and
+nearer to the magnetic Pole. It looks as if there were
+a race among the rays, and that each aspired to reach
+the Pole first. And now the point is reached, and
+they shoot out on every side, to the north and the
+south, to the east and the west. Do the rays shoot
+from above downwards, or from below upwards? Who
+can distinguish? From the centre issues a sea of
+flames. Is that sea red, white, or green? Who can
+say?—it is all three colours at the same moment. The
+rays reach almost to the horizon; the whole sky is in
+flames. Nature displays before us such an exhibition
+of fireworks as transcends the powers of imagination
+to conceive. Involuntarily we listen; such a spectacle
+must, we think, be accompanied with sound. But
+unbroken stillness prevails, not the least sound strikes
+on the ear. Once more it becomes clear over the ice,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>and the whole phenomenon has disappeared with the
+same inconceivable rapidity with which it came, and
+gloomy night has again stretched her dark veil over
+everything. This was the aurora of the coming storm—the
+aurora in its fullest splendour."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Sledging was begun in March, Hall Island being first
+visited, and, on the 26th, Payer, with six men, started
+on his main journey up Austria Sound, reaching
+Hohenlohe Island, where three men were left, and then
+proceeding further north to Crown Prince Rudolf
+Land. Off the southern promontory of this were
+innumerable icebergs, up to two hundred feet in height,
+cracking and snapping in the sunshine. The Middendorf
+Glacier, with an enormous sea-wall, ran towards
+the north-west; layers of snow and rents in the sea-ice,
+caused by icebergs falling in, filled the intervening
+space. Into these fissures Payer and his men were
+continually falling, drenching their canvas boots and
+clothes with sea-water. One of the men was sent on
+ahead to find a path by which the glacier might be
+climbed, and discovering a fairly open road the summit
+was gained across many crevasses bridged with snow,
+three of those at the lower part needing but a slight
+movement to detach the severed portions and form
+them into bergs.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>While resting on the glacier looking down on the
+semicircular terminal precipice and the gleaming host
+of bergs which filled the indentations of the coast, one
+of the men reported that his foot was swollen and
+ulcerated, and he had to be sent back to Hohenlohe
+Island. Just as the others were setting off, the snow
+gave way beneath the sledge, and down fell Zaninovich,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>the dogs and the sledge, while Payer was dragged backwards
+by the rope. The fall was arrested at a depth of
+thirty feet by the sledge sticking fast between the sides
+of the crevasse. Payer, on his face, the rope attaching
+him to the sledge tightly strained and cutting into the
+snow, shouted that he would sever the rope, but
+Zaninovich implored him not to do so as the sledge
+would then turn over and he would be killed; hearing,
+however, from Orel, that the man was lying on a ledge
+of snow with precipices all around him and that the
+dogs were still fast to the traces, Payer cut the rope,
+and the sledge made a short turn and stuck fast again.
+Then, telling Zaninovich that he must contrive to keep
+himself from freezing for four hours, Payer and Orel
+set off to run the six miles back to Hohenlohe Island.
+Payer, as he went on ahead, threw off his bird-skin
+clothes, his boots and his gloves, and ran in his stockings
+through the snow. In an hour he reached the
+camp, and leaving it unattended they all set off to the
+rescue with a rope and a pole. Picking up his clothes
+on the way, Payer and his men reached the crevasse;
+one of the party was let down by the rope, and finally
+Zaninovich and the sledge and dogs were brought
+from their dangerous position four hours and a half
+after their fall.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The advance was then resumed along the west coast
+of Crown Prince Rudolf Land round the imposing
+headland they named Cape Auk—the rocky cliffs being
+covered with little auks and other seabirds, enormous
+flocks flying up and filling the air, the whole region
+seeming to be alive with their incessant whirring—and
+following the line of Teplitz Bay, Payer mounted one
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>of the bergs detached from a glacier and saw open
+water with ice bounding it on the horizon. As the
+sheet over which their course lay became thinner, and
+threatened to give way beneath them, they had to open
+up a track among the hummocks by pick and shovel;
+and when this failed they had to unload the sledge and
+carry the things separately. At Cape Saulen they
+camped for the night in the fissure of a glacier into
+which they had to drag their baggage by a long rope;
+and next day—the 12th of April, 1874—they went on
+again and reached Cape Fligely, in 81° 50´ 43˝, their
+farthest north.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>With great difficulty they made their way back to
+the ship, a long, toilsome journey through snow and
+sludge, with open water in places where there had been
+ice, which made them fear the <em>Tegetthoff</em> might have
+drifted away again. The imminent danger of starvation
+was ended by their reaching their depot on Schonau
+Island, whence Payer went on for the remaining twenty-five
+miles alone with the dog-sledge, the two dogs
+giving much trouble until they struck the old sledge
+track almost obliterated by snow, when they raised
+their heads, stuck their tails in the air, and broke into a
+run. Halting on an iceberg for a meal, the berg capsized,
+and in a moment Payer was begirt by fissures,
+water-pools, and rolling blocks of ice, from which he
+managed to escape. When he turned into the narrow
+passage between Salm and Wilczek Islands, Orgel
+Cape, visible at a great distance, was the only dark spot
+on the scene. At once the dogs made for it, and about
+midnight he arrived there. With an anxious heart he
+began the ascent; a barren stony plateau confronted
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>him; with every advancing step, made with increasing
+difficulty, the land gradually disappeared and the
+horizon of the frozen sea expanded before him; no ship
+was to be seen, no trace of man for thousands of miles
+except a cairn with the fragments of a flag fluttering in
+the wind, and a grave half covered with snow. Still
+he climbed, and suddenly three masts emerged. He
+had found the ship; there she lay about three miles off,
+appearing on the frozen ocean no bigger than a fly, the
+icebergs and drifts around her having hidden her
+amongst them. He held the heads of the dogs towards
+her and pointed with his arm to where she lay;
+and they saw her, and away they went, to find all but
+the watch asleep.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>After another sledge journey north-westwards to
+Mount Brunn, from which Richthofen Peak was sighted,
+preparations were made for abandoning the ship and
+returning home. The three boats left the <em>Tegetthoff</em>
+on the 20th of May, but so slow was the progress over
+the difficult route that at the end of every day in the
+first week it was possible for Payer to go back to her
+on the dog-sledge to replenish the stores which had
+been consumed; and at the end of two months of indescribable
+effort the distance between the boats and
+the ship was not more than eight statute miles. The
+heights of Wilczek Land were still distinctly visible
+and its lines of rocks shone with mocking brilliance in
+the ever-growing daylight. All things appeared to
+promise that after a long struggle with the ice there
+remained for the expedition but a despairing return to
+the ship and a third winter there with the frozen ocean
+for their grave.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>In the middle of July the fissures which had been
+opening out around them became wider and longer,
+progress reaching some four miles a day; then the
+north wind blew and the icefield commenced to drift
+to the south, to drift again north-east when the wind
+changed. Backwards and forwards, amid every variety
+of weather, including heavy rain, the pack ice moved
+until it changed to drift ice, and, on the 15th of August,
+the much-tried company got afloat at last in open
+water and laid their course for Novaya Zemlya, where
+they fell in with two Russian schooners off Cape
+Britwin.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The next to visit Franz Josef Land was Leigh Smith,
+whom we met with in the Spitsbergen seas. Building
+the <em>Eira</em> especially for Arctic service, he started in
+1880, the year she was launched, on a cruise to Greenland
+and thence eastwards, which took him to the west
+and north-west of the ground gone over by the Austrians.
+He surveyed the whole coast from 42° east to
+the most westerly point seen by Payer, and sorted it
+out into several islands, but found no trace of the
+<em>Tegetthoff</em>, for where she had been left was open water.
+Encouraged by the success of his visit, in which the
+observations and collections were unusually good, he
+returned in the <em>Eira</em> the following year to meet with
+much more unfavourable ice conditions. Finding it
+impossible to get westward of Barents Hook the <em>Eira</em>
+was, on the 15th of August, made fast to the land floe
+off Cape Flora, and six days afterwards she was nipped
+and stove by the ice and slowly sank in eleven fathoms
+of water. As she settled down the steam winch was
+set to work, and by its means half a dozen casks of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>flour and about three hundredweight of bread were
+saved from the main hold; and when nothing more
+could be got from the lower deck the stores in the
+after cabin were attacked, and within the two hours
+from the discovery of the leak to the disappearance of
+the ship, all these provisions and the boats and clothes
+were safe on the ice; and the sails were cut away, and
+with them and some oars a tent was erected in which
+all the company, twenty-five in number, took shelter.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>A move was made next day to the land. On Cape
+Flora a house was built mainly of earth and stones,
+covered with sails, in which the winter was passed.
+Fortunately the district abounds with bears and walruses,
+and the meat from these, boiled with vegetables,
+and served out three times a day into twenty-five
+plates made out of old provision tins, proved the right
+sort of fare to keep every one in excellent health.
+Thanks in a great measure to Bob, the retriever, the
+larder was kept full; but there being a shortness of
+coal, recourse for fuel had to be made to rope and
+blubber, so that no one could mistake the time when the
+cooking was on. In fact, the odour and the smoke were
+of great interest to the bears, who lingered about intending
+to pay surprise visits, and the dog had always
+to be sent in front of those leaving the house. One
+day when out on his own account, Bob discovered a
+school of walruses on the ice and reported the matter
+in his own fashion, whereupon several of these were
+shot, and after an exciting chase five were secured. In
+January he found another school, of which three were
+bagged and stowed alongside the house, although the
+thermometer stood at forty below zero. On another
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>occasion he managed to tempt a bear up to the front
+door, where it was promptly tumbled over, to his
+evident satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>During the winter the party killed twenty-nine walruses
+and three dozen bears. Once, when only a fortnight's
+meat was left, and things began to look serious,
+no less than eight bears were killed in two weeks. At
+the end of April the birds returned, and in June the ice
+was cleared away by a gale and walruses were seen
+swimming on the water in hundreds. Never did a
+wintering party meet with better fortune, and never
+was one better managed.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 21st of June they started from Cape Flora
+in four boats, six men each in three of them, seven in
+the other, to reach the open sea, leaving in the house
+six bottles of champagne in case any person might
+look in, besides a few other things, and blocking up
+the door to keep out the bears. Before the boats
+reached the ice they crossed eighty miles of water, and
+then six weeks' hard labour began, zigzagging through
+channels, hauling over hummocky floes, sailing through
+pools, halting for days on a floe with no water in sight,
+but never doubting that a clearance would come. On
+leaving the ice they steered for Novaya Zemlya, at first
+in a gentle breeze, which rapidly increased to a gale in
+a heavy thunderstorm, so that the boats, with their
+sails of tablecloth and shirt-tail, had to be carefully
+handled as they scudded before it at such a pace that
+within twenty-four hours of leaving the ice they were
+drawn up all safe on the beach at the entrance of
+Matyushin Shar. Next morning the Dutch exploring
+schooner, <em>Willem Barents</em>, was descried coming out of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>the strait, and before the schooner was reached by the
+boats there came round the point the <em>Hope</em>, which
+Sir Allen Young, of the <em>Pandora</em>, had brought out as
+a rescue ship for them. They had been driven by the
+gale to the very spot on the very day they could be
+best relieved.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>From the reports of Weyprecht and Payer it
+appeared that the north-east of Franz Josef Land
+would make an excellent base for a start for the North
+Pole, and Leigh Smith was led to the same view by
+his visit to Alexandra Land, but along the south he
+had made so many changes in Payer's map that a
+further examination of the region was evidently desirable.
+To effect this by a careful survey of the coasts,
+Frederick G. Jackson landed near Cape Flora on the
+7th of September, 1894, and began his residence of a
+thousand days. Setting to work in a businesslike way,
+and recording his progress in similar style, he disintegrated
+the land masses into a group of some fifty size-able
+islands, through which run two main waterways,
+his British Channel and Payer's Austria Sound, both
+opening out northwards into Queen Victoria Sea;
+Crown Prince Rudolf Land being a large island at
+the northern entrance of Austria Sound, Wilczek Land
+at its southern entrance being about twice its size.
+He defined the coast-lines for over eighty miles of
+latitude, extending to fifteen degrees of longitude as
+far west as the most westerly headland, Cape Mary
+Harmsworth, and so cutting up Franz Josef Land that
+not even an island now bears the name, which is used
+only as that of the archipelago. Never in Arctic
+exploration was work rendered more evident than in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>the difference between the map as Jackson found it
+and as he left it.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The <em>Windward</em>, with the expedition on board,
+sighted the land on the 25th of August, but, stopped
+by intervening ice, could not reach the coast until a
+fortnight afterwards, the landing taking place at Cape
+Flora, close to Leigh Smith's house, which was found
+with the roof off. Not far away Jackson established
+his headquarters, quite a little settlement, though the
+expedition consisted of only eight men. Just as Leigh
+Smith found no remains of the <em>Tegetthoff</em>, so Jackson
+found no trace of the <em>Eira</em>. It had been intended
+that the <em>Windward</em> should return after putting the
+party ashore, but, shut in by the ice, she had to remain
+during the first winter, getting away safely next
+year, to return in 1896 and take away Nansen, who, as
+we shall see further on, ended his long land journey
+here. On her 1897 trip she departed with the members
+of the expedition all well, so that neither ship nor man
+was lost, the only serious casualties being among the
+dogs and the Russian ponies which did such excellent
+service.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Two years afterwards, in July, 1899, the deserted
+settlement was visited by the Duke of the Abruzzi,
+in his expedition in the <em>Stella Polare</em>, on his way to
+the north, a few days before he met with his short
+imprisonment in the ice in British Channel. His was
+a successful run all the same, for he was in 82° 4´, to
+the northward of Crown Prince Rudolf Land, or, as
+it is now called, Prince Rudolf Island, twenty-seven
+days out from Archangel. Passing Cape Fligely—the
+latitude of which was afterwards found to be sixteen
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>miles south of the 82° 5´ Payer had made it—and
+rounding Cape Auk, the <em>Stella Polare</em> went into
+winter quarters in Teplitz Bay, whence Captain
+Umberto Cagni started, on the 11th of March, 1900,
+for his forty-five days' march towards the North Pole.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>It was a great disappointment to the Duke to have
+to stay with the ship instead of leading this well-equipped
+and thoroughly organised sledge attempt,
+but owing to an accident two of his fingers had been
+so severely frost-bitten that they had to be amputated,
+and, unless a second winter was to be spent in the ice,
+a start was imperative before he could recover from
+the operation. Thus all he could do was to assist at
+the first encounter of the sledges with the pressure
+ridges and wish Cagni the longest possible journey and
+a safe return. There was every appearance of the
+journey being a difficult one, for on the first day a
+stoppage had to be made every quarter of a mile or
+thereabouts for a road to be cut through the ridges
+with ice-axes, while next day a new hindrance was
+experienced in the young ice in the channels being too
+thin at times to support the sledges, one of which began
+to sink and was only extricated with difficulty, so that
+only one sledge could be allowed on such ice at a time.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 13th of March the auxiliary sledge was sent
+back, thus reducing the caravan to a dozen sledges and
+ninety-eight dogs, which in a long line passed over
+a vast plain covered with great rugged blocks of ice,
+as though they had been thrown down confusedly by
+a giant's hand to bar the way. The wind was north-east,
+the cold intense, fifty below zero, not to be
+particular to a degree or so, for, as Cagni says, when
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>the temperature is below twenty-two, and it is impossible
+to use a screen or a magnifying glass, the
+mere fact of approaching to read the scale on an unmounted
+thermometer sends it up a couple of degrees,
+and when the temperature is below fifty-eight an
+approach makes a difference of three or four degrees.
+So cold was it that the sleeping bags were as hard as
+wood, and the men got into them after much effort,
+not to sleep but to feel their teeth chattering for hours,
+the only warm parts of the body being the feet clad in
+long woollen stockings. "There are patches of ice on
+our knees," says Cagni, "like horses' knee-caps, and we
+have others, both large and small, sometimes thick
+enough to be scraped off with a knife, everywhere, but
+especially on our cheeks and backs and in all places
+where the perspiration has oozed through."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Amid such surroundings the camp must have seemed
+somewhat out of place. When a suitable site was
+chosen the first sledge was stopped, and near it the
+three other sledges of the third detachment were
+drawn up at a distance of about ten feet from each
+other. The sledges of the second detachment as they
+came up formed a second line, those of the third forming
+another. The tents were pitched between two
+sledges, generally those in the centre, the guy ropes
+being fastened to the sledge runners, those at the ends
+to an ice-axe stuck in the ice. The sleeping bags were
+then unpacked, the cooking stoves taken out of the
+boats, and everything arranged under the tent. The
+thin steel wire ropes to which the dogs were tethered,
+when unharnessed, were stretched between the sledges
+away from the tents. While the men were taking
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>the dogs out of the harness, which always remained
+attached to the traces on the sledges, and tethering
+them to the steel ropes, one of the guides took a
+chosen victim to some distance from the camp, and
+felled it with a blow from an ice-axe, then opened it,
+skinned it quickly, divided it up into ten shares and
+distributed these to the dogs, already destined to
+undergo the same fate, these being the weakest and
+most ailing—in short, this was the elimination of the
+unfit.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 22nd of March the first detachment began
+its return journey; it consisted of Lieutenant Querini
+and two men, and it was never heard of again. The
+way northwards continued extremely difficult, with
+channels and ridges plentiful and the road so rough
+that the sledges began to break up in the bows and
+runners, some at last so badly that their fragments had
+to be used to repair the others with. On the 31st the
+second detachment was sent back, consisting of the
+doctor and two men, and it got safely to the ship. The
+third detachment, consisting of Cagni with two Courmayeur
+guides—Petigax and Fenoillet—and a sailor,
+Canepa, all four Italians, made the final effort. That
+day they were on level ice and covered seventeen miles,
+but at night a snowstorm came on and there was
+trouble. After a rest they pressed forward in rapid
+marches amid bad weather over the drifting fields. On
+the 12th of April while raising camp a strong pressure
+piled up within a hundred yards of them a wall from
+thirty-six to forty-five feet high, the highest ridge they
+had seen. Enormous blocks rolled down towards them
+with loud crashes after being thrown up by other
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>blocks, lifted to the brow of the ridge and rolled over
+in their turn, raising a cloud of ice-dust in their fall,
+the loud continual creaking of the pressure drowned by
+the booming of the cascade which shook the ice for
+yards around. These ridges were constantly forming,
+most of them remaining, some of them subsiding as the
+edges drifted apart, and the channels thus caused were
+even more difficult to deal with, some having to be
+passed over thin ice, some ferried over on small floes.
+But they did not cross the track all along, and during
+the last few days the travelling was easy.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 24th of April the long journey reached its
+end. "At ten minutes past twelve," says Cagni, "we
+are on our way to the north. The ice is like that of
+yesterday, level and smooth, and, later on, undulating.
+At first the dogs are not very willing to pull, but encouraged
+by our shouts and a few strokes, they advance
+at a rapid pace, which they keep up during the whole
+march. At five we meet with a large pressure ridge,
+which almost surprises us, as it seems to us a century
+since we have seen any; we lost a quarter of an hour in
+preparing a passage through and crossing it. Beyond
+it the aspect of the ice changes; the undulations are
+more strongly marked, and large blocks and small
+ridges indicate recent pressure, but luckily they do not
+stop us or obstruct our way. Soon after six we come
+upon a large channel running from east to west; we
+must stop. Beyond the channel is a vast expanse of
+new ice, much broken up and traversed by many other
+channels. Even if I were not prevented from doing
+so, I would now think twice before risking myself in
+the midst of them. If we did push forward on that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>ice, even for half a day, we would gain very few miles
+and besides run the risk of losing a sledge. The dogs
+are very tired, and we too feel the effects of yesterday's
+strain. I therefore consider that it is more prudent to
+stop here, and both the guides are of the same opinion.
+The sun is unclouded. I bring out the sextant and
+take altitudes of the sun to calculate the longitude
+(65° 19´ 45˝ E.) while Fenoillet and Canepa put the
+sledges in order and pitch the tent in a sort of small
+amphitheatre of hillocks which shelter us from the
+north wind. On that farthest to the north, which is
+almost touched by the water of the channel, we plant
+the staff from which our flag waves. The air is very
+clear; between the north-east and the north-west there
+stand out distinctly, some sharply pointed, others
+rounded, dark or blue and white, often with strange
+shapes, the innumerable pinnacles of the great blocks of
+ice raised up by the pressure. Farther away again on
+the bright horizon in a chain from east to west is a
+great azure wall which from afar seems insurmountable."
+The latitude was 86° 34´.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The outward journey took forty-five days; the homeward
+took sixty, and proved a perilous adventure
+owing to the drift of the pack to the westward and its
+breaking up as the weather became warmer and the
+southern boundary was approached. At first there
+was good promise. The dogs knew they were going
+back, and followed the outward track so fast that the
+men, failing to keep up with them, for the first time
+took a seat on the sledges and were drawn along at
+four miles an hour. Progress was rapid for a few days
+owing to there being now only four sledges and, in a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>considerable degree, to the intelligence of the leading
+dog, Messicano. Ever since leaving Teplitz Bay this
+small white dog, with the intelligent eyes and bushy
+legs, had held the first place in the leading sledge
+because he followed the man at the head of the convoy
+better than the others, and now when the guide was
+behind or on the sledge, Messicano took the track at
+a gallop with his nose on the snow, losing the way now
+and then, but finding it again, though to the men it
+was often invisible. The time came, however, when
+the old track had to be left for a better course to the
+ship, and then difficulties of every sort had to be overcome,
+the delays being such that dog after dog had to
+be killed to keep away starvation, and it was only with
+seven of them and two sledges that Prince Rudolf
+Island was reached from the westward on the 23rd of
+June. "The snow is wet, which is very bad for
+dragging the sledges, as it sticks to the runners and
+tires our dogs exceedingly; we have still seven, but
+only three that really pull (three to each sledge), for
+Messicano is at the last extremity and can hardly hold
+up the trace." Toiling on thus through the fog to Cape
+Brorok a noise was heard in the distance like the
+creaking caused by pressure among ice floes, and when
+the fog lifted it was found that the sound was that of
+the seabirds on the cliffs. Out on the icefield no signs
+of life had been met with beyond the traces of a bear,
+a seal that vanished, and a walrus that popped up
+through thin ice to send Fenoillet scuttling off on his
+hands and knees.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Meanwhile the ship, which had been seriously
+damaged, had been made seaworthy. Liberated from
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>her berth by mines of gunpowder and guncotton,
+she sailed from Teplitz Bay on the 16th of August,
+and, after further unpleasant experiences in the ice,
+reached Cape Flora, where a call was made at Jackson's
+house in the vain hope of news of Querini; and
+thence, after more ice complications, Captain Evensen
+took her to Hammerfest. Though, as in all Arctic
+endeavour, conditions were against them, the employment
+of a Norwegian crew for the ship and an Italian
+crew for the sledges had, under excellent management,
+worked thoroughly well.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER V<br /> CAPE CHELYUSKIN</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>Chelyuskin reaches the cape—The Laptefs—Deschnef's voyage through
+Bering Strait—Nordenskiöld's voyages to the Yenesei—The Siberian
+tundra—The voyage of the <em>Vega</em>—Nordenskiöld rounds Cape Chelyuskin—Endeavour
+to reach the Siberian Islands—Liakhoff's discovery—The
+<em>Vega</em> passes the Cape North of Captain Cook—Frozen in within six miles
+of Cape Serdze Kamen—Completes the North-east Passage—Nansen's
+voyage—The <em>Fram</em>—Her drift in the ice—Nansen and Johansen start
+for the Pole—They reach 86° 13´ 6˝—Their journey to Frederick Jackson
+Island—The meeting with Jackson—Sverdrup's voyage to Spitsbergen.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>The tundras and shores of Siberia abound with
+obstacles to exploration, and yet a third of the
+threshold of the Polar regions has been surveyed along
+their line. No spot remains unvisited on the northern
+margin of the Asiatic mainland, the northernmost
+point of which is Cape Chelyuskin in 77° 36·8´, so that
+the Arctic Circle sweeps inland for 770 miles to the
+south of it—in other words the cape is practically half-way
+between the Circle and the Pole.</p>
+
+<div id='pg84'  class='figcenter id008'>
+<a href='images/i_123.jpg'><img src='images/i_123_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>CAPE CHELYUSKIN</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>It was chiefly from the land that the northern coast-line
+was surveyed by the Russians, whose Arctic work
+has been immense and thorough, though not marked by
+any striking discoveries. Cape Chelyuskin was first
+reached, in May, 1742, by the explorer whose name it
+bears, after a sledge journey from the Chatanga, he
+being at the time second in command to Khariton
+Laptef, whose first expedition in 1739 ended in the loss
+of his ship three hundred miles from his winter quarters,
+to which he had to travel on foot, losing twelve
+men by cold and exhaustion on the way. Within the
+preceding four years the survey of the coast west of it
+had been completed in four stages—from Archangel to
+Yalmal (that is Land's End); from Yalmal to the Obi;
+from the Obi to the Yenesei; from the Yenesei to
+Cape Sterlegof. In 1735 Pronchistschef, from the
+Lena, failed to round Cape Chelyuskin from the east,
+and returned to the Olenek to die but two days before
+his young wife, who was his companion on his perilous
+voyage. Two years afterwards Dmitri Laptef began
+his explorations east of the Lena which took him to
+Cape Baranoff, thus joining up to the discoveries of
+the sable-hunters made a century before, including
+those of Deschnef, who, in 1648, sailed from the
+Kolyma to Kamchatka and went through Bering
+Strait more than thirty years before Bering was born.
+Thus the route of the North-east Passage was known,
+although no man had travelled the whole way either
+by land or sea, before the task was undertaken by
+Nordenskiöld.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>To begin with, Nordenskiöld made two voyages to
+the Yenesei. In the first voyage he left Tromsoe in the
+<em>Proeven</em> on the 14th of June, 1875, and reached what
+he named Dickson Harbour at the mouth of the
+Yenesei on the 15th of August. Sending back the
+<em>Proeven</em>, which returned through Matyushin Shar, he,
+with Lundstrom the botanist and Stuxberg the zoologist,
+and three walrus-hunters, embarked in a boat they
+had brought out with them and proceeded up the
+estuary into the river; and during the first six hundred
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>miles they landed only twice. On the last day of the
+month they caught up a steamer on which they became
+passengers.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"We were yet," says Nordenskiöld, "far to the
+north of the Arctic Circle, and as many perhaps
+imagine that the little-known region we were now
+travelling through, the Siberian tundra, is a desert
+wilderness covered either by ice and snow, or by an
+exceedingly scanty moss vegetation, it perhaps may not
+be out of place to say that this is by no means the
+case. On the contrary, we saw snow during our
+journey up the Yenesei only at one place, in a deep
+valley cleft some fathoms in breadth, and the vegetation,
+especially on the islands which are overflowed
+during the spring floods, is distinguished by a luxuriance
+to which I have seldom seen anything comparable.
+Already had the fertility of the soil and the
+immeasurable extent and richness in grass of the pastures
+drawn forth from one of our walrus-hunters, a
+middle-aged man who is owner of a little patch of
+ground among the fells of Northern Norway, a cry of
+envy at the splendid land our Lord had given the
+Russian, and of astonishment that no creature pastured,
+no scythe mowed, the grass. Daily and hourly
+we heard the same cry repeated, and even in louder
+tones, when some weeks after we came to the grand
+old forests between Yeneseisk and Turuchansk, or to
+the nearly uninhabited plains on the other side of
+Krasnojarsk covered with deep black earth, equal without
+doubt in fertility to the best parts of Scania, and in
+extent surpassing the whole Scandinavian peninsula.
+This judgment formed on the spot by a genuine though
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>illiterate agriculturist is not without interest in forming
+an idea of the future importance of Siberia."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In fact, Siberia is particularly rich in mineral and
+agricultural wealth, and this voyage, which opened up
+the route to and from Europe by the natural outlets
+to the north, was of such commercial promise that
+the explorer received for it the special thanks of the
+Russian Government. As, however, there were people
+who looked upon it as an exceptional voyage in an exceptional
+year, Nordenskiöld next season took another
+voyage to the river, this time in the <em>Ymer</em>, carrying
+the first instalment of merchandise so as to begin the
+trade; and he was followed in a few weeks by Captain
+Joseph Wiggins, in the <em>Thames</em>, whose subsequent
+voyages made the northern route well known.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Assured by the experience gained in these voyages
+that the North-east Passage was possible to a steam
+vessel of moderate size, Nordenskiöld, in 1878, was
+enabled to fit out the <em>Vega</em>, and sailed from Tromsoe
+on the 31st of July. Three other vessels accompanied
+her, two bound for the Yenesei, one for the Lena, the
+rendezvous being Khabarova. All went well. On the
+9th of August the <em>Fraser</em> and <em>Express</em> proceeded up
+the Yenesei to discharge their cargoes and return to
+Europe in safety; next day the <em>Vega</em> and <em>Lena</em> left
+for the eastward, and, after some risky navigation
+among islands and through fog, lay for four days in
+Actinia Haven, between Taimyr Island and the mainland,
+vainly waiting for clear weather. Pushing on
+through fitful fog they sighted a promontory in the
+north-east gleaming in the sunshine, and rounding its
+western horn anchored in a bay open to the north and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>free from ice at the extremity of Cape Chelyuskin.
+With the rounding of the most northerly point of the
+Old World the first object of the expedition had been
+attained. The salute fired in honour of the event
+having frightened away the only polar bear who had
+stood watching the ship from the western horn, some
+of the party landed, the botanists to discover that
+all the plants of the peninsula had apparently been
+stopped on the outermost promontory when trying to
+migrate further north. The flora was not extensive—a
+few luxuriant lichens and twenty-three flowering
+plants, eight of them saxifrages, most of them with a
+tendency to form semi-globular tufts; the fauna consisted
+of the bear, a few seals, a walrus, two shoals of
+white whales, some ducks and geese, and a number of
+sandpipers. Not so long a list as was obtained at
+other landings, but by no means a bad one for the
+half-way house to the Pole.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>After passing the cape the course was laid for the
+New Siberian Islands, but ice prevented progress
+in their direction beyond 77° 45´, the highest north of
+the voyage, and the ship had to work her way out by
+the route she went in, thus losing a day, which had
+serious consequences, though it proved the correctness
+of Nordenskiöld's theory that the water delivered by
+the Siberian rivers is, for a few months, of sufficiently
+high temperature to give a clear passage to vessels
+content to keep near the coast. On reaching the
+mouth of the Lena the ships parted company, Captain
+Johannsen taking the smaller steamer up the river as
+intended and bringing the news of the rounding of
+Cape Chelyuskin and the promise of the North-east
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>Passage being accomplished in one season, which was
+not destined to be fulfilled.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Another attempt was then made by the <em>Vega</em> to
+reach the islands to the north, but after sighting the
+two most westerly of the group the shallow sea was
+too crowded with rotten ice, and an idea of landing
+on Liakhoff Island having to be given up for the
+same reason, the course was altered so as to take the
+ship round Svjatoi Nos (the Holy Cape), where in
+April, 1770, Liakhoff had noticed the mighty crowd
+of reindeer going south. Justly considering they must
+have come over the ice from some northern land, he
+went back on their tracks in a dog-sledge, discovering
+two of the most southerly islands, and obtaining from
+Catherine the Second as a reward the monopoly of hunting
+the foxes and collecting the ivory there from the
+fossil mammoths he found in abundance.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Forced to keep to the channel along the coast, which
+daily became narrower, the <em>Vega</em> reached Cape Chelagskoi,
+and when off this promontory Nordenskiöld
+saw the first natives during his voyage. Two boats
+built of skin almost exactly similar to the oomiaks, or
+women's boats, used by the Eskimos, came out to the
+ship, the men, women, and children in them intimating
+by shouts and gestures that they wished to come on
+board. The <em>Vega</em> was brought-to that they might do
+so, but as none of the Chukches could speak Russian
+and none of the Swedes knew Chukche, the interview
+was not so satisfactory as expected, though the universal
+language of pantomime with presents ensured a
+favourable termination.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 12th of September the <em>Vega</em> passed Irkaipii,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>the Cape North of Captain Cook, and by rounding it
+Nordenskiöld joined up with the westernmost limit of
+the Arctic discoveries of the great navigator. Cook
+tried to weather it in August, 1778, but was turned
+back by fog and snow, and thinking it was "not consistent
+with prudence to make any further attempts to
+find a passage into the Atlantic this year in any direction,
+so little was the prospect of succeeding," he sailed
+for Hawaii, where his intention of making the attempt
+the ensuing summer came to nought owing to his
+death.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 28th of September the <em>Vega's</em> progress for
+the year was arrested by her being frozen in for the
+winter on the eastern side of Kolyuchin Bay in the
+northernmost part of Bering Strait, only six miles of
+ice barring the way round Cape Serdze Kamen into the
+open sea. During her detention of two hundred and
+sixty-four days the scientific investigations of many
+kinds that were undertaken were of lasting importance,
+as they had been throughout, and when she was released
+on the 18th of July, 1879, to come home by way
+of Yokohama, the collections and records she brought
+with her were simply enormous. No better work with
+greater results was done by any Arctic expedition
+than during this successful voyage, which was too well
+managed to have much adventure. For it Nordenskiöld
+very justly claimed the reward of twenty-five
+thousand guilders offered in 1596 by the States-General
+of Holland, the endeavour to win which sent out Van
+Heemskerck, Barents, and Rijp.</p>
+
+<div id='pg90'  class='figcenter id009'>
+<img src='images/i_131.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>ADOLF ERIK NORDENSKIÖLD</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>We have seen how the Dutchmen built their house
+at Ice Haven mainly of the driftwood from the Siberian
+rivers. Similar wood from probably the same source is
+found on the shores of Greenland and of almost all the
+northerly islands of the Arctic Ocean. Further, the
+Greenland flora includes a series of Siberian plants
+apparently from seeds drifted there by some current.
+Not only do trees and seeds travel by water from Asia
+westward to America; at Godthaab, for instance, on
+the western coast of Greenland, there was found a
+throwing-stick of a shape and ornamentation used only
+by the Alaskan Eskimos; and three years after the
+foundering of the <em>Jeannette</em> to the north of the New
+Siberian Islands there were found on the south-west
+coast of Greenland a number of articles in the drift-ice
+that must have come from the sunken vessel. For
+these and other reasons it seemed clear to Fridtjof
+Nansen that a current flowed at some point between
+the Pole and Franz Josef Land from the Siberian
+Arctic Sea to the Greenland coast, and so he set to
+work to organise his daring expedition to strike this
+current well to the eastward, trusting to its mercies to
+take him to or near the Pole.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1893, when the <em>Fram</em> rounded Cape Chelyuskin,
+Nansen had found the Kara Sea almost as open as
+Nordenskiöld had done, but had met with more difficulties
+among the islands off the Taimyr Peninsula.
+A famous vessel, the <em>Fram</em>, the first of her kind, built
+specially for the ice to take her where it listed in the
+hope that she would drift to discovery like the <em>Tegetthoff</em>,
+and not to disaster like the <em>Jeannette</em>. The
+general idea was Nansen's, the carrying out of the
+idea was Colin Archer's. As Nansen says: "We must
+gratefully recognise that the success of the expedition
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>was in no small degree due to this man." Plan after
+plan did he make of the projected ship, model after
+model did he prepare and abandon before he was
+satisfied: and never was a ship more honestly built.
+With her double-ended deck plan, with a side of such
+curve and slope that under ice pressure she would be
+lifted instead of crushed between the floes, and with
+bow, stern, and keel so rounded off that she would slip
+like an eel from the embrace of the ice, she was of
+such solidity as to withstand any pressure from any
+direction. Her stem of three stout oak beams, one
+inside the other, was four feet in thickness, protected
+with iron; her rudder-post and propeller-post, two feet
+across, had on either side a stout oak counter-timber
+following the curvature upwards and forming a double
+stern-post, with the planking cased with heavy iron
+plates; and between these timbers was a well for the
+screw and another for the rudder, so that each could
+be hoisted on deck, the rudder with the help of the
+capstan coming up in a few minutes. Her frames,
+ten inches thick and twenty-one wide, stood close
+together, carrying three layers of planking, giving
+altogether a side of two feet or more of solid wood,
+so shored and stayed for strength that the hold looked
+like a thicket of balks, joists, and stanchions. With
+a length of 128 feet over all, a breadth of thirty-six, a
+depth of seventeen, and a displacement of 800 tons,
+she was quite a <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">multum-in-parvo</span> engined with a
+220 horse-power triple expansion, so contrived that in
+case of accident or for any other cause the cylinders
+could be used singly or two together. Rigged as a three-masted
+fore-and-aft schooner, with the mainmast much
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>higher than the others—it being unusually high, for
+the crow's-nest on the main-topmast was 102 feet
+above the water—she proved equal to the demands on
+her, though in her case strength and warmth had to be
+thought of before weatherliness and speed. But her
+speed was not so poor, for when steaming and sailing
+after leaving Cape Chelyuskin on the 10th of September
+she was doing her nine knots.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The day after she had entered the Nordenskiöld
+Sea came a walrus-hunt, so graphically described by
+Nansen that we must find room for an extract. "It
+was," he says, "a lovely morning—fine, still weather;
+the walruses' guffaw sounded over to us along the
+clear ice surface. They were lying crowded together
+on a floe a little to landward of us, blue mountains
+glittering behind them in the sun. At last the harpoons
+were sharpened, guns and cartridges ready, and
+Henriksen, Juell, and I set off. There seemed to be
+a slight breeze from the south, so we rowed to the
+north side of the floe, to get to leeward of the animals.
+From time to time their sentry raised his head, but
+apparently did not see us. We advanced slowly, and
+soon were so near that we had to row very cautiously.
+Juell kept us going, while Henriksen was ready in the
+bow with a harpoon, and I behind him with a gun.
+The moment the sentry raised his head the oars
+stopped, and we stood motionless; when he sank it
+again, a few more strokes brought us nearer. Body
+to body they lay, close-packed on a small floe, old and
+young ones mixed. Enormous masses of flesh they
+were. Now and again one of the ladies fanned herself
+by moving one of her flippers backwards and forwards
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>over her body; then she lay quiet again on her back
+or side. More and more cautiously we drew near.
+Whilst I sat ready with the gun, Henriksen took a
+good grip of the harpoon shaft, and as the boat
+touched the floe he rose, and off flew the harpoon.
+But it struck too high, glanced off the tough hide,
+and skipped over the backs of the animals. Now
+there was a pretty to do! Ten or twelve great weird
+faces glared upon us at once; the colossal creatures
+twisted themselves round with incredible celerity, and
+came waddling with lifted heads and hollow bellowings
+to the edge of the ice where we lay. It was undeniably
+an imposing sight; but I laid my gun to my
+shoulder and fired at one of the biggest heads. The
+animal staggered and then fell head foremost into the
+water. Now a ball into another head; this creature
+fell, too, but was able to fling itself into the sea. And
+now the whole flock dashed in, and we, as well as they,
+were hidden in the spray. It had all happened in a
+few seconds. But up they came again immediately
+round the boat, the one head bigger and uglier than
+the other—their young ones close beside them. They
+stood up in the water, bellowed and roared till the air
+trembled, threw themselves forward towards us, then
+rose up again, and new bellowings filled the air.
+Then they rolled over and disappeared with a splash,
+then bobbed up again. The water foamed and boiled
+for yards around—the ice-world that had been so still
+before seemed in a moment to have been transformed
+into a raging Bedlam. Any moment we might expect
+to have a walrus tusk or two through the boat or to
+be heaved up or capsized. Something of this kind
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>was the very least that could happen after such a
+terrible commotion. But the hurly-burly went on
+and nothing came of it."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The <em>Fram</em> had to follow the coast owing to the thick
+pack barring the way across the sea. The mouth of
+the Chatanga was passed, then that of the Olenek, and
+then the influence of the warm water of the Lena
+being apparent by the clearance of the floes, the course
+was laid straight for the Pole in open water until
+77° 44´ was reached, when, checked by the long compact
+edge of ice shining through the fog, the route
+became north-westerly until they stopped for fear they
+should get near land, which was the very thing they
+wished to avoid; and on the 25th of September in
+about 78½° north latitude—north-west of Sannikof
+Land—they were frozen in.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Preparations for wintering began. The rudder was
+hauled up, the engine was taken to pieces, each separate
+part oiled and laid away with the greatest care—for
+Amundsen looked after it as if it were his own child—a
+carpenter's shop was started in the hold, a smithy
+arranged first on deck and then on the ice. But it all
+had to be replaced, even the engine put together again,
+for the pack cleared away for a brief period, to return,
+when again the shiftings were made; and when the
+windmill was put up to drive the dynamo, the winter
+installation was in all senses complete.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Slowly the <em>Fram</em> drifted in her ice-berth, so slowly
+that at the end of twelve months she had moved from
+point to point only 189 miles, having returned no further
+west than the longitude of the Olenek; her
+highest north, attained on the 18th of June, being
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>81° 46´. In the main the drift was north-westerly, but
+three times it had boxed the compass in irregular loops,
+the only constant thing about it being that, in no
+matter what direction she was taken, the bow of the
+<em>Fram</em> always pointed south. Of grips she had many,
+some of the pressures were enormous, once they were
+severe enough to suggest measures for her abandonment,
+but she survived them all unscathed. Early in
+the drift it became apparent that the ice was packing
+twice and slacking twice in every twenty-four hours,
+and in this sea, as afterwards in the Atlantic area, the
+influence of the tides, particularly the spring tides, was
+unmistakable—as it was expected it would be—though
+in the deep Polar basin the wind had more effect; and,
+in truth, the wind was a factor throughout in the packing
+of the ice and in the drift's direction. One thing was
+clear, that the current was not taking the <em>Fram</em> across
+the North Pole, but about half-way between it and
+Spitsbergen; and if the Pole was to be reached some
+of the expedition must attempt to get there over the
+ice. This meant leaving the ship, going north, and
+returning to the nearest known land, for, owing to the
+irregularity of the drift, it was hopeless to think of
+again reaching the <em>Fram</em>. During the second winter
+the route of the ship trended more to the north, and,
+after a loop all round in January, she reached 84° 4´ on
+the 14th of March in the longitude of Cape Chelyuskin.
+Here Nansen and Lieutenant F. H. Johansen, who
+rather than not join the <em>Fram</em> had shipped in her as
+stoker, left the ship with three sledges, two kayaks, and
+twenty-eight dogs to go as far northward as they could,
+their expectation being that they would reach the Pole
+in fifty days. Had they remained in the ship until
+November they would have saved themselves trouble,
+for, as matters turned out, the embarrassing drift took
+the <em>Fram</em> within eight miles of the farthest north
+they attained after twenty-three days of strenuous endeavour.</p>
+
+<div id='pg96'  class='figcenter id010'>
+<img src='images/i_139.jpg' alt='Yours sincerely Fridtjof Nansen.' class='ig001' />
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>The ice, fairly easy for a few days, soon became
+terrible in the difficulties it offered to progress over it,
+and the continual toil of hauling and carrying the
+sledges, and righting them when capsized, soon told on
+the two men to such an extent as to tire them out so
+thoroughly that sometimes in the evening they fell
+asleep as they went along. The cold, too, proved
+singularly searching and severe. During the course of
+the day the damp exhalations of the body little by
+little became condensed in their outer garments, which
+became transformed into suits of ice-armour, so hard
+that if they could have been got off they could have
+stood by themselves, and they crackled audibly at every
+movement. The clothes were so stiff that the sleeve
+of Nansen's coat rubbed deep sores in his wrist, one of
+which got frost-bitten, the wound growing deeper and
+deeper and nearly reaching the bone. "How cold we
+were," says Nansen, "as we lay there shivering in the
+bag, waiting for the supper to be ready! I, who was
+cook, was obliged to keep myself more or less awake to
+see to the culinary operations, and sometimes I succeeded.
+At last the supper was ready, was portioned
+out, and, as always, tasted delicious. These occasions
+were the supreme moments of our existence, moments
+to which we looked forward all day long. But sometimes
+we were so weary that our eyes closed, and we
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>fell asleep with the food on its way to our mouths.
+Our hands would fall back inanimate with the spoons
+in them and the food fly out on the bag."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The further they went the worse became the conditions.
+On the 8th of April, with ridge after ridge and
+nothing but rubble to travel over, the work became so
+disheartening that Nansen went on ahead on his skis
+and from the highest hummocks viewed the state of
+affairs; and as far as the horizon, lay a chaos of such
+character that progress across was impracticable if he
+and Johansen were to return alive. Here, then, they
+stopped, this being their northernmost limit, 128 miles
+from the <em>Fram</em>, 260 miles from the Pole, latitude
+86° 13·6´, longitude 95°.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>To reach this point they had been travelling north-westwards
+for six days, the way due north being
+impassable; but on turning south they seemed to enter
+another country; so much did the going improve after
+the first mile that in three days they covered over forty
+miles. They were making for Petermann Land, which
+does not exist, or for the wide-stretching Franz Josef
+Land, also placed on the maps by Payer, which Jackson
+had been cutting up into fragments while the <em>Fram</em>
+was in the ice. Further south difficulties thickened
+ahead of them till the road became almost as bad as
+that to the north. Before they reached land the hundred
+days they had allowed themselves had increased to
+more than half as many again, their dogs had been
+killed one by one to yield food for the rest, until only
+two remained; Nansen was helpless with rheumatism
+for two days; and Johansen was nearly killed by a
+bear. Through a chain of disasters caused by storms
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>and fogs and snow and the state of the ice, they
+threaded their way, sometimes by sledge, sometimes by
+kayak, through mazes of open channels, leaping from
+floe to floe and ferrying back to get their baggage over,
+hundreds of yards on mere brash, dragging the sledges
+after them in constant fear of their capsizing into the
+water. Then the ice gave out and, taking to their
+kayaks, they sailed and paddled to what is now known
+as Frederick Jackson Island in the north of the Franz
+Josef Archipelago.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Here they wintered, quite at a loss at first to know
+where they were, owing to their watches having run
+down during a great effort of thirty-six hours at a
+stretch, so that they did not know their longitude,
+though they subsequently concluded they must be
+somewhere on Franz Josef Land within 140 miles of
+Eira Harbour. They built a hut and altogether lived
+passably well, there being no lack of food, thanks
+mainly to the bears, whose visits were embarrassing in
+their frequency though the visitors were not unwelcome
+when they came to stay.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 19th of May they set out for the south, down
+British Channel, with their sledges and kayaks, and
+five days afterwards, when off Cape M'Clintock, while
+Johansen was busy lashing the sail and mast securely to
+the deck of his kayak to prevent their being blown
+away, Nansen went on ahead to look for a camping
+ground and fell through a crack in the ice which had
+been hidden by the snow. He tried to get out, but
+with his skis firmly fastened could not pull them up
+through the rubble of ice which had fallen into the
+water on the top of them, and, being harnessed to the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>sledge, he could not turn round. Fortunately, as he
+fell, he had dug his staff into the ice on the opposite
+side of the crack, and holding himself up with its aid,
+and the arm he had got over the edge of the ice, he
+waited patiently for Johansen to come and pull him
+out. When he thought a long time had passed and
+felt the staff giving way and the water creeping further
+up his body, he called out but received no answer; and
+it was not until the water had reached his chest that
+Johansen came and pulled him out.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>For a few days they were storm-bound. On the
+3rd of June they started again down the channel, their
+whereabouts still a mystery to them, nothing in the
+least like it being on their map. Nine days afterwards,
+after rounding Cape Barents on Northbrook
+Island, the kayaks, which had been left moored to the
+edge of the ice, got adrift. Nansen, running down
+from the hummock, from which he had been looking
+round, threw off some of his clothes and sprang into
+the water. The wind was off the ice, and the kayaks
+with their high rigging were moving away as fast as
+he could swim. It seemed more than doubtful if he
+could reach them. But all their hope was there, all
+they had was on board; they had not even a knife
+with them, and whether he sank or turned back
+amounted to much the same thing. When he tired
+he turned over and swam on his back, and then he
+could see Johansen walking restlessly up and down on
+the ice, unable to do anything, and having the worst
+time he ever lived through. But the wind lulled, and
+when Nansen turned over he saw he was nearing the
+kayaks, and though his limbs were stiffening and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>losing all feeling, he put all the strength he could into
+his strokes, and eventually was able to reach them.
+He tried to pull himself up, but was so stiff with cold
+that he could not do so. For a moment he thought
+he was too late; but after a little he managed to swing
+one leg up on to the edge of the sledge, which lay on
+the deck, and in this way he scrambled on board.
+The kayaks were lashed together so as to form a
+double boat, and the only way in which, owing to his
+stiffness, he could paddle them was to take one or two
+strokes on one side and then step into the other kayak
+and take a few strokes on the other side. The return
+was consequently slow, but it was a return, though
+the ice was reached a long way from where the drifting
+had begun.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Next day but one came another perilous episode.
+"Towards morning," says Nansen, "we rowed for some
+time without seeing any walrus, and now felt more
+secure. Just then we saw a solitary rover pop up a
+little in front of us. Johansen, who was in front at
+the time, put in to a sunken ledge of ice; and although
+I really thought that this was caution carried to excess,
+I was on the point of following his example. I had not
+gone so far, however, when suddenly the walrus shot
+up beside me, threw himself on to the edge of the kayak,
+took hold further over the deck with one flipper, and
+as it tried to upset me aimed a blow at the kayak with
+its tusks. I held on as tightly as possible, so as not
+to be upset into the water, and struck at the animal's
+head with the paddle as hard as I could. It took hold of
+the kayak once more and tilted me up so that the deck
+was almost under water, then let go and raised itself
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>right up. I seized my gun, but at the same moment it
+turned round and disappeared as quickly as it had
+come. The whole thing had happened in a moment,
+and I was just going to remark to Johansen that we
+were fortunate in escaping so easily from that adventure,
+when I noticed that my legs were wet. I listened,
+and now heard the water trickling into the kayak
+under me. To turn and run her in on to the sunken
+ledge of ice was the work of a moment, but I sank
+there. The thing was to get out and on to the ice,
+the kayak filling all the time. The edge of the ice was
+high and loose, but I managed to rise; and Johansen,
+by tilting the sinking kayak over to starboard, so that
+the leak came above the water, managed to bring her
+to a place where the ice was low enough to admit of
+our drawing her up. All I possessed was floating
+about inside, soaked through. So here we lie, with
+all our worldly goods spread out to dry and a kayak
+that must be mended before we can face the walrus
+again. It is a good big rent that he has made, at
+least six inches long; but it is fortunate that it was no
+worse."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The kayak was mended, and, after a long rest, it was
+past noon on the 17th of June when Nansen turned
+out to prepare breakfast. After doing so he went up
+on a hummock to look around. Flocks of little auks
+were flying overhead, and, amid the confused noise of
+their calls, he heard a couple of barks from a dog.
+Thinking he was mistaken he waited for a time, and
+then the barking was unmistakable, bark after bark,
+one of a deeper tone than the other. He shouted to
+Johansen, who started up from the sleeping-bag incredulous.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>The sound ceased, and, breakfast over,
+Nansen went forth to investigate. Soon he came on
+the footprints of a dog or wolf, and then, still doubting,
+he heard a distant yelping that certainly came not from
+a wolf. Making his way among the hummocks, he
+heard a shout from a human voice, a strange voice—the
+first for three years. Running up on to a hummock
+he shouted with all his might. Back came a
+shout in reply; and among the hummocks he caught
+sight of a dog, and further off a man walked into view.
+The man spoke to the dog in English. Thinking he
+recognised Jackson, Nansen raised his hat as he met
+him, and they shook hands heartily.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The contrast could not have been greater. One the
+well-groomed, civilised European in a check suit and
+rubber water-boots, the other in dirty rags black with
+oil and soot, with long matted hair and shaggy beard,
+and a face in which the complexion was undiscernible
+through the accumulations which a winter's endeavours,
+including scrapings with a knife, had failed to remove.
+As they talked they had turned to go inland. Suddenly
+Jackson stopped, and, looking the new arrival
+straight in the face, said—</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"Aren't you Nansen?"</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"Yes, I am."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"By Jove! I'm damned glad to see you."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>And seizing his hand he shook it again, his whole
+face beaming with a smile of welcome and delight at
+the unexpected meeting; and needless to say, both
+Nansen and Johansen received the warmest of welcomes
+from all at Elmwood. The <em>Windward</em> was then
+on her way, and when she arrived the two Norsemen
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>from the farthest north went in her to Vardoe, where
+they landed on the 13th of August.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Meanwhile the <em>Fram</em> had continued her leisurely
+drift, north-west, south-west, north-west, west, then all
+round the compass, still with her head pointing south,
+until on the 15th of November she reached 85° 55·5´ in
+longitude 66° 31´, thus giving Captain Otto Sverdrup
+the honour of attaining the highest north in a ship.
+Another winter was passed in her ice-berth, during
+which she moved westerly. In February came another
+complete triangle in her course, after which she went
+south-west, and on the 16th of May turned due south.
+Then, in the later days of the month with the southerly
+drift continuing and open water on ahead, Sverdrup
+resolved to set her free by mines, and on the 3rd of
+June, as a result of the blastings, she gave a lurch,
+settled a little deeper at the stern and moved away
+from the edge of the ice until the hawsers tautened.
+But, though she was afloat, the ice around still kept her
+captive, and in the pool she drifted straight towards
+Spitsbergen.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Again and again was steam got up and endeavour
+made to break a way out, but day after day elapsed,
+and it was not until the 13th of August that she passed
+through the last floes into open water, and her thirty-five
+months of imprisonment came to an end. Making
+for Danes Island in Spitsbergen, she was there boarded
+by Andrée, who was then preparing for his disappearance
+in the balloon voyage to the Pole. Going on
+direct to Skjervoe in Norway, Sverdrup landed at two
+o'clock in the morning to wake up the telegraphist,
+who told him that Nansen had reached Vardoe a week
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>before and was then at Hammerfest and probably
+leaving for Tromsoe. For Tromsoe Sverdrup started,
+after telegraphing to Nansen. And there, at four
+o'clock in the afternoon of the 25th of August, 1896,
+Sir George Baden-Powell's yacht <em>Otaria</em>, with Nansen
+and Johansen on board, glided alongside the <em>Fram</em>, the
+good little ship looking much weather-beaten though
+none the worse for such a task of strength and endurance
+as had been set no other in the story of the sea.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER VI<br /> THE LENA DELTA</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>Discovery of the Siberian Islands—Hedenström—Anjou and Wrangell—Migration
+of reindeer—Animals and plants of the tundra—The northward
+migration of the native tribes—The voyage of the <em>Jeannette</em>—Her
+drift in the pack—Jeannette Island—Henrietta Island—The ship crushed
+and sunk—Landing on Bennett Island—The boat voyage—The boats
+separate in a storm—De Long lands on the Lena Delta—Nindemann
+and Noros in search of assistance—Safety of the whale-boat—Fate of
+De Long and his companions—Baron Toll's discoveries.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>The Siberian Islands, lying north of the delta of
+the Lena, answer to the Parry Islands on the
+American side, the two groups being separated by that
+wide stretch of the Arctic Ocean communicating with
+the Pacific through Bering Strait. At first the Asiatic
+group was officially named after Liakhoff, then it was
+called after the unwisely named New Siberia, but,
+under any designation, it took half a century to find
+the different islands, and considerably more to land
+on them.</p>
+
+<div id='pg106'  class='figcenter id004'>
+<a href='images/i_151.jpg'><img src='images/i_151_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE LENA DELTA</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>When Liakhoff discovered the one named after him
+by the Empress Catherine, he also went north to
+Moloi, and he seems to have visited Kotelnoi to the
+north-west. In 1775 Chvoinof was sent to survey
+these three, but he devoted most of his attention to
+Liakhoff Island—fifty miles across—which he found
+to consist, as reported, of hills of granite rising from
+a mass of mammoth bones, sand, and ice, some of the
+ice ancient enough to carry a deep covering of moss.
+Though he stated that other islands could be made
+out in the distance, nothing was done to verify his
+discoveries, real or imaginary, until thirty years had
+passed, when Thaddeus and Stolbovoi were reached.
+Next year (1806) New Siberia, to the eastward, was
+discovered by Sirovatskof, and two years afterwards
+Bjelkof was added to the southerly portion of the
+archipelago.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1809 Hedenström, assisted by Sannikof, began
+his series of surveys extending over all these, and
+cleared up much of the mystery concerning them.
+From Thaddeus, Sannikof sighted, away to the northward,
+what is now known as Bennett Island; and,
+from New Siberia, Hedenström sighted Henrietta and
+Jeannette Islands, and set out for them, and would
+have reached them had his sledges not been stopped by
+open water. Like his predecessors he was astonished
+at the mammoth remains on Liakhoff Island.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>According to his account, "these bones or tusks
+are less large and heavy the further we advance
+towards the north, so that it is a rare occurrence on
+the islands to meet with a tusk of more than 108 lbs.
+in weight, whereas on the continent they are said often
+to weigh as much as 432 lbs. In quantity, however, these
+bones increase wonderfully to the northward, and as
+Sannikof expresses himself, the whole soil of the first
+of the Liakhoff Islands appears to consist of them.
+For about eighty years the fur-hunters have every
+year brought large cargoes from this island, but as yet
+there is no sensible diminution of the stock. The
+tusks on the islands are also much more fresh and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>white than those on the continent. A sandbank on
+the western side was most productive of all, and the
+fur-hunters maintain that when the sea recedes after a
+long continuance of easterly winds, a fresh supply of
+mammoth bones is always found to have been washed
+from this bank, proceeding apparently from some vast
+store at the bottom of the sea." Besides these multitudinous
+remains of the mammoth Hedenström found
+numerous remains of rhinoceros, the horn of which
+was then thought to be a bird's claw three feet long.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>To clear up the wide discrepancies in the maps the
+Emperor Alexander, in 1820, equipped two expeditions
+to proceed by land to the northern coast of Siberia
+and properly survey it, the work to be carried as far
+east as Cape Chelagskoi, whence a sledge party was to
+start for the north in search of the inhabited country reported
+to exist in the Polar Sea in that direction. One
+of these expeditions, under Lieutenant P. F. Anjou,
+was to commence its operations from the mouth of
+the Yana; the other, under Lieutenant Ferdinand
+Vrangel' (or, as he is generally known amongst us,
+Wrangell or Von Wrangell), was to start from the
+mouth of the Kolyma, his chief assistant being Midshipman
+Matiuschkin. Both parties did good survey
+work, but neither made any striking discovery. Anjou
+reached 76° 36´ to the north of Kotelnoi; Wrangell
+reached 72° 2´ (north-east of the Bear Islands, one
+hundred and seventy-four miles out on the sea from
+the great Baranoff rock), beyond which progress was
+impossible owing to the thinness of the ice, which was
+covered with salt water.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Wrangell had many perilous experiences. In his
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>fourth journey over the sea the ice broke up around
+him and he found himself on a floe with a labyrinth
+of water lanes hemming him in on every side and a
+storm coming on from the westward. The storm
+rapidly increased in fury, and the masses of ice around
+him were soon dashing against each other and breaking
+in all directions. On the floe, which was tossing to
+and fro on the waves, he gazed in painful inactivity on
+the conflict, expecting every moment to be swallowed
+up. For three long hours he had remained unable to
+move, the mass of ice beneath him holding together,
+when it was caught by the storm and hurled against a
+large field of ice. The crash was terrific, as it was
+shattered into little pieces. At that dreadful moment,
+when escape seemed impossible, he was saved by the
+impulse of self-preservation. Instinctively the party
+sprang on to the sledges and urged the dogs to full
+speed, and as hard as they could gallop they skimmed
+across the yielding fragments to the field on which
+they had been stranded, and safely reached a stretch
+of firmer ice, where the dogs ceased running among
+the hummocks, conscious that the danger was past.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>But it is not so much for adventures like this that his
+account of his work is of continuing interest as for the
+abundance of its notes and reflections on the country
+and its life and climate. Once, for instance, when on
+the Baranicha he was fortunate enough to witness a
+migration of reindeer. "I had hardly finished the
+observation," he says, "when my whole attention was
+called to a highly interesting, and to me a perfectly
+novel, spectacle. Two large migrating bodies of reindeer
+passed us at no great distance. They were descending
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>the hills from the north-west and crossing the
+plain on their way to the forests, where they spend the
+winter. Both bodies of deer extended further than the
+eye could reach, and formed a compact mass, narrowing
+towards the front. They moved slowly and majestically
+along, their broad antlers resembling a moving
+wood of leafless trees. Each body was led by a deer of
+unusual size, which my guides assured me was always a
+female. One of the herds was stealthily followed by a
+wolf, who was apparently watching for an opportunity
+of seizing any one of the younger and weaker deer
+which might fall behind the rest, but on seeing us he
+made off in another direction. The other column was
+followed at some distance by a large black bear, who,
+however, appeared only intent on digging out a mouse's
+nest every now and then, so much so that he took no
+notice of us. We had great difficulty in restraining
+our two dogs, but happily succeeded in doing so; their
+barking, or any sound or motion on our part, might
+have alarmed the deer, and by turning them from their
+course, have proved a terrible misfortune to the hunters,
+who were awaiting their passage, on which they
+are entirely dependent for support. We remained for
+two hours whilst the herds of deer were passing by,
+and then resumed our march."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The way in which the deer are dealt with by the
+hunters was seen by Matiuschkin when despatched by
+Wrangell to survey the Anyui. "The true harvest,
+which we arrived just in time to see, is in August or
+September, when the reindeer are returning from the
+plains to the forests. They are then healthy and well
+fed, the venison is excellent, and as they have just
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>acquired their winter coats the fur is thick and warm.
+The difference of the quality of the skins at the two
+seasons is such, that whilst an autumn skin is valued at
+five or six roubles, a spring one will only fetch one or
+one and a half roubles. In good years the migrating
+body of reindeer consists of many thousands; and
+though they are divided into herds of two or three
+hundred each, yet the herds keep so near together as to
+form only one immense mass, which is sometimes from
+thirty to seventy miles in breadth. They always
+follow the same route, and in crossing the river near
+Plotbischtsche, they choose a place where a dry valley
+leads down to the stream on one side, and a flat sandy
+shore facilitates their landing on the other side. As
+each separate herd approaches the river, the deer draw
+more closely together, and the largest and strongest
+takes the lead. He advances, closely followed by a
+few of the others, with head erect, and apparently
+intent on examining the locality. When he has satisfied
+himself, he enters the river, the rest of the herd
+crowd after him, and in a few minutes the surface is
+covered with them. Then the hunters, who have been
+concealed to leeward, rush in their light canoes from
+their hiding-places, surround the deer, and delay their
+passage, whilst two or three chosen men armed with
+short spears dash into the middle of the herd and despatch
+large numbers in an incredibly short time; or at
+least wound them so, that, if they reach the bank, it is
+only to fall into the hands of the women and children.
+The office of the spearman is a very dangerous one.
+It is no easy thing to keep the light boat afloat among
+the dense crowd of swimming deer, which, moreover,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>make considerable resistance; the males with their
+horns, teeth, and hind legs, whilst the females try to
+overset the boat by getting their fore-feet over the
+gunwale; if they succeed in this the hunter is lost, for
+it is hardly possible that he should extricate himself
+from the throng; but the skill of these people is so
+great that accidents very rarely occur. A good hunter
+may kill a hundred or more in less than half an hour.
+When the herd is large, and gets into disorder, it often
+happens that their antlers become entangled with each
+other; they are then unable to defend themselves, and
+the business is much easier. Meanwhile the rest of the
+boats pick up the slain and fasten them together with
+thongs, and every one is allowed to keep what he lays
+hold of in this manner. It might seem that in this
+way nothing would be left to requite the spearmen for
+their skill, and the danger they have encountered; but
+whilst everything taken in the river is the property of
+whoever secures it, the wounded animals which reach
+the bank before they fall, belong to the spearman who
+wounded them. The skill and experience of these men
+are such that in the thickest of the conflict, when
+every energy is taxed to the uttermost, and their life is
+every moment at stake, they have sufficient presence of
+mind to contrive to measure the force of their blows so
+as to kill the smallest animals outright, but only to
+wound the larger and finer ones, so that they may be
+just able to reach the bank. Such proceeding is not
+sanctioned by the general voice, but it seems nevertheless
+to be almost always practised. The whole scene is
+of a most singular and curious character, and quite
+indescribable. The throng of thousands of swimming
+reindeer, the sound produced by the striking together
+of their antlers, the swift canoes dashing in amongst
+them, the terror of the frightened animals, the danger
+of the hunters, the shouts of warning advice or applause
+from their friends, the blood-stained water, and all the
+accompanying circumstances, form a whole which no
+one can picture to himself without having witnessed
+the scene."</p>
+
+<div id='pg112'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_159.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>REINDEER</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>The tundra has no more characteristic animal than
+the reindeer. Over the mossy hillocks and the matted
+tops of the dwarf birches he runs, or through the rivers
+and lakes he swims, with his broad-hoofed, spade-like
+feet never at a loss to find a footing. In the long
+winter he is protected by his thick skin against the
+influence of the cold, and is seldom at starvation point,
+as he digs for food in the deepest snow, and is by no
+means particular what he eats; and in the short
+summer he is in luxurious ease, for the tundra, as we
+have seen, is not always as bad as it is painted. In
+exposed places near the coast it is little else than
+gravel beds interspersed with patches of peat and
+clay, with scarcely a rush or a sedge to break the
+monotony, but by far the greater part of it is a gently
+undulating plain, broken up by lakes, rivers, swamps,
+and bogs; the lakes with patches of green water-plants,
+the rivers flowing between sedges and rushes,
+the swamps the breeding haunts of ruffs and phalaropes,
+the bogs dotted with the white fluffy seeds of
+the cotton-grass. Almost everywhere the birds are in
+noticeable numbers, among the commonest being the
+golden plover (who wears the tundra colours), the bluethroat,
+the fieldfare, the whooper swan, and the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>ducks and divers—particularly the divers—and, among
+the birds of prey, the falcons and the rough-legged
+buzzards, which, with the owls, find such abundant
+provision in the lemmings that migrate in myriads
+compared with which the reindeer troops are insignificant.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"The groundwork of all this variegated scenery,"
+says Seebohm, "is more beautiful and varied still—lichens
+and mosses of almost every conceivable colour,
+from the cream-coloured reindeer-moss to the scarlet-cupped
+trumpet-moss, interspersed with a brilliant
+alpine flora, gentians, anemones, saxifrages, and hundreds
+of plants, each a picture in itself, the tall aconites,
+both the blue and yellow species, the beautiful cloudberry,
+with its gay white blossom and amber fruit,
+the fragrant <em>Ledum palustre</em> and the delicate pink
+<em>Andromeda polifolia</em>. In the sheltered valleys and
+deep water-courses a few stunted birches, and sometimes
+large patches of willow scrub, survive the long
+severe winter, and serve as cover for willow-grouse or
+ptarmigan. The Lapland bunting and red-throated
+pipit are everywhere to be seen, and certain favoured
+places are the breeding-grounds of plovers and sandpipers
+of many species. So far from meriting the name
+of Barren Ground, the tundra is for the most part a
+veritable paradise in summer. But it has one almost
+fatal drawback—it swarms with mosquitoes."</p>
+
+<div id='pg116'  class='figcenter id011'>
+<img src='images/i_163a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>OSTIAK MAN</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div id='pg114'  class='figcenter id012'>
+<img src='images/i_163b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>SAMOYED MAN</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>The beauty of the tundra is, however, transient and
+skin deep; it is only such plants as can live in the soil
+that thaws that survive. Wherever the ground is dug
+into, ice is sure to be reached; in fact, it may be said
+that ice is one of the rocks of the subsoil, and in some
+places these strata of ice that never melts have been
+found to be three hundred feet thick—ice that has
+remained in block since the mammoths got into cold
+storage in it ages ago, for otherwise they would not
+have lasted intact in skin and flesh as many have done,
+like the very first discovered in a complete state, that
+chipped out by Adams in 1807.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In such a climate, whose winter terrors are only too
+prominent, all along the north of Siberia live the
+ancient peoples driven towards the sea by those
+mighty movements from the land of the Turk and
+Mongol which, north and south, east and west,
+flooded Europe and Asia with invaders—Ostiaks and
+Samoyeds west of Chelyuskin; Yakuts, Chukches,
+and others to the east of it, the descriptions of whose
+unpleasant manners and customs appear to be written
+with a view to showing how curiously local are the
+laws of health. One may well ask, as Wrangell did,
+why they should remain in so dreary a region and
+take life so contentedly. And the answer may be
+that they might go further north and fare worse, as
+their predecessors in the eastern section would seem
+to have done. Once, according to the legend, there
+were more hearths of the Omoki on the shores of the
+Kolyma than there are stars in the clear sky, and these
+Omoki, or some other departed race, appear to have
+left as their traces the remains of the timber forts and
+the tumuli that are found on the coast, especially near
+the Indiyirka, and the huts of earth and stones and
+bones found all along from Chelagskoi to the straits,
+similar remains of a departed people now existing in
+the Parry Islands, over a thousand miles away.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>According to another legend of more recent date,
+there was an intervening land, the land that Wrangell
+went to seek and the <em>Jeannette</em> went to winter at,
+and the supposed site of which she drifted through, in
+her last and longest imprisonment in the ice.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The <em>Jeannette</em> was the old <em>Pandora</em>, bought from
+Sir Allen Young by James Gordon Bennett, and
+accepted by and fitted out, officered, and manned
+under the orders of the Navy Department of the
+United States, her commander being Lieutenant
+George Washington De Long. She left San Francisco
+on the 8th of July, 1879, and two months afterwards
+had been run into the pack and was fast in the
+ice off Herald Island, drifting to her doom. Her
+route, in the main, was north-westerly, with many
+complicated loops, at first at the rate of half a mile a
+day, then at two miles, then at three, showing that
+the current from Bering Strait had been reinforced by
+some other current as she went further west, and,
+from its direction, there seemed to be land to the
+northward which was never sighted.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Wrangell Land, passed to the south, proved to be
+not a continent but a small island. No other land was
+seen for a monotonous twenty months, and then, in
+May, 1881, the ship drifted, stern first, past that
+sighted by Hedenström from New Siberia, which was
+found to consist of two islands, to be henceforth known
+as Jeannette and Henrietta. On the 12th of June, in
+latitude 77° 14´ 57˝, the <em>Jeannette</em> was crushed and sank,
+her fore yardarms breaking upwards as she slipped
+down through the rift in the pack, and a start was
+made for the Siberian Islands over the ice; but the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>drift had taken the party to 77° 36´, before they got
+on their proper course, and after a most laborious
+journey, lasting up to the 28th of July, they were safe
+ashore on the land sighted by Sannikof from Thaddeus,
+which De Long named Bennett Island.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Bennett Island was left on the 7th of August, the
+party of thirty-three being in three boats, thirteen
+under De Long in the first cutter, ten under Lieutenant
+Chipp in the much smaller second cutter, and
+ten, under Engineer George W. Melville, whose skill
+and resourcefulness had been conspicuous throughout,
+were given the whale-boat, the most suitable of the
+three. Sail was made for Thaddeus Island, which was
+reached in safety; after a halt of some days it was left
+on the 31st of August. Then Kotelnoi Island was
+reached and rested at; then the boats made for Semonovski,
+which was left on the 12th of September.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The same day a gale came on in which the first
+cutter had great difficulty in keeping afloat, the second
+cutter disappeared never to be heard of again, and the
+whale-boat, behaving excellently, went off before the
+wind straight for the continent to reach in safety one
+of the eastern mouths of the Lena, up which Melville
+arrived at a Russian village on the 26th of September.
+De Long's party ran their boat aground in shallow
+water, on the 17th of September, and rafted and waded
+ashore to one of the most inhospitable spots on the
+globe. Heavily laden they made their way down the
+dreary delta, toiling through the snow, delayed by the
+tributaries which were not frozen over hard enough to
+bear, hampered by sickness and disablement, and finally
+dying one by one of starvation.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>On the 9th of October De Long sent two of the seamen,
+Nindemann and Noros, ahead in search of relief.
+They had no food but what they could find, and on the
+second day out their dinner consisted of a little willow
+tea and a burnt boot sole. Next morning they burnt
+another sole of a boot, and they spent the day struggling
+through a morass in drifting snow, crossing
+streams of all sizes, and halting for the night in so high
+a wind that they were unable to light a fire and took
+refuge in a hole in the snow from which they emerged
+with difficulty in the morning, owing to the wind having
+piled up the snow against the opening. At the end of
+the third day they reached a deserted hut in which
+were some deer bones, which they grilled and tried to
+eat, and in the morning a gale was blowing and the
+wild drifting snow was so thick that they had to remain
+where they were and continue their diet of charred
+bones and willow tea.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Next day, Thursday, the 13th of October, they
+began against a strong head wind. In the afternoon
+they sighted a hut on the west bank of the river.
+"They had seen one in the morning, but had in vain
+attempted to cross the ice to it. Now they tried to
+reach this, but were turned back by the brittle ice.
+They kept it in sight as they moved southward, and
+made another attempt to cross the ice, but it broke and
+they came back. Then they saw that there was no
+further progress possible to the southward on that side
+of the water, and they returned to the ice. It broke
+again, but they kept on. They went in up to their
+waists, but managed to pull themselves up on the
+stronger ice." The wind was blowing against them
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>and the ice was like glass, so that they were driven
+back. They looked about for ice which had been
+roughened by the ripples beneath, and finding some
+they succeeded at length in reaching the other side,
+where were two wooden crosses beneath a bank, which
+rose fifty feet above them. They pulled themselves up
+the bank, but when they came to the hut which they
+had kept in sight they found it a ruin nearly full of
+snow. "While Noros was trying to make a place in it
+for shelter, Nindemann saw a black object farther along
+to the south and went to it. It was a small peaked
+hut without a door, but large enough to hold two men.
+There were some fresh wood shavings outside the hut
+and higher up on the hill two boxes. On going to
+them Nindemann found them old and decayed, and he
+began to break one of them open. When he had
+ripped off the top he discovered that there was another
+box enclosed; breaking into it he found a dead body,
+and hastily left it. Doubtless the two crosses below on
+the river bank were memorials of the two beings left
+high up above the reach of the floods."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In the small hut they found a sort of floor, the
+boards of which they pulled up for firewood, and in a
+hole beneath was a box in which were a couple of fish
+and two fish heads; and, as these were discovered, a
+lemming came out of another hole and was promptly
+caught. On the lemming, roasted on the ramrod, and
+the fishes, which were so decayed that they dropped
+apart as they were handled, they made their meal for
+that day. Next day the snowstorm was so heavy that
+they were driven back here after striving in vain to
+make headway. On the Saturday, still without food,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>they rested for the night in a fissure in the river bank,
+where as a last resource Nindemann cut a piece off his
+sealskin trousers and soaked it in water and burnt it to
+a crust. Their breakfast consisted of the remains of
+this toasted sealskin. During the day they saw a crow
+flying across the river and in among the hills, and, as
+the crow in these regions is rarely found away from the
+haunts of men, Nindemann decided to cross the river
+in the hope of meeting with either natives or game on
+the other side. When darkness came on no shelter
+was discoverable, and so, after a meal of more sealskin
+and hot water, they went to rest in a hole in the snow.
+Next day, during which they recrossed the river, their
+experiences were similar and the end the same.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On Tuesday the 18th, after a terrible day, they came
+upon a hut with a pile of wood close by, which proved
+to be sledges, and these they broke up, as there was no
+other firing. Next day as they were struggling on
+they reached a place where there were three huts, in
+one of which was a half-kayak and in it was some blue
+mouldy fish; and here, attacked by dysentery, they
+remained until the Saturday, unable to go any further.
+About noon there was a noise outside like a flock of
+geese sweeping by. Nindemann, looking through the
+crack of the door, saw something moving which he took
+to be a reindeer, and was going out with his rifle when
+the door opened and a man entered, who promptly fell
+on his knees when he caught sight of the gun. Nindemann
+threw the rifle into a corner and, trying to make
+friends with the man by signs, offered him some of the
+fish, which the man by an emphatic gesture pronounced
+not fit to eat. After some more of the sign
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>language it was clear that the native had no food with
+him, and holding up three or four fingers to show that
+he would return in so many hours or days he drove off.
+About six o'clock in the evening, while they were preparing
+their fish dinner, the visitor returned with two
+other men, one of whom brought in a frozen fish which
+he skinned and sliced, and while the sailors were eating
+it—the first healthy meal they had had for weeks—the
+natives invited them to accompany them, and brought
+in deerskin coats and boots and finally got them into
+the sledges and drove off to the westward for about
+fifteen miles. Here there were two tents, and Nindemann
+was taken into one, Noros into the other, and
+both were well looked after, the natives doing their
+very best to get them well.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>This was intelligible on both sides, for the language
+of kindness is universal, but as the sailors knew not the
+language of their hosts, and the natives knew not the
+language of their guests, the difficulty of being understood
+by each other was great, and the delivery of the
+urgent message in signs was almost impossible. Nindemann
+did his best; he appealed to the man who seemed
+to be the head of the party, and drawing in the snow a
+map of the places where he had been, with every combination
+of signs he could think of, he tried to explain
+what he wanted. That he succeeded to a certain
+extent was clear, though he did not think so at first, for
+the natives loaded up their sledges, twenty-seven in
+number, with reindeer meat and skins and fish, and
+struck their tents, and, with over a hundred head of
+deer harnessed up, started for the south. At noon,
+when the deer were resting, the man for whom the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>map had been drawn in the snow took Nindemann to
+where he could show him a prominent landmark, and
+asked by signs if that was where he had left his
+friends. And on learning by signs that it was further
+to the north, he shook his head as if sorry, and resumed
+his journey to the south. During the next day they
+reached Ku Mark Surka, where there were a number of
+natives who were much interested in the new-comers,
+and again the sailors used every effort to deliver their
+message.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Immediately after breakfast on the morning of the
+25th, Nindemann began talking to these people in
+signs and pantomime. Soon one of them showed that
+he had an idea of where the sailors came from, for
+he spoke to one of the boys, who ran off and returned
+with a model of a Yakutsk boat. Then they gathered
+round and evidently asked if the ship was anything
+like it. And in answer, Nindemann took up some
+sticks and placed three of them in the boat to show
+that his ship had three masts, and then he fastened
+smaller sticks across to show that she had yards, which
+seemed to surprise them greatly. Then he made a
+funnel out of wood and put it in position, and pointed
+to the fire and smoke to show that she was a steamer,
+and then he cut out a propeller with his knife and put
+it where the rudder was to show that she was a screw.
+Continuing his work he soon chipped out so many
+small boats to show how many she had; and then,
+signing to one of the men to get him two pieces of ice,
+he showed them how the ship had been crushed.
+Pointing to the northward he tried to tell them that
+the ship had been crushed up there; and then he put
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>away the ship and kept only three of the little boats to
+tell that part of the story, and in the boats he put so
+many sticks to represent the number of men in each.
+When he had done this one of the men pointed to a
+dog that was looking on and asked if the ship had any,
+whereupon the sailor counted on his fingers to show
+there were about forty, and by pantomime explained
+that they had been shot. This being evidently
+understood, Nindemann drew a chart of the coast-line,
+and imitating a gale of wind showed that the boat he
+came from went to the land at a certain point and that
+he knew nothing of the others. Then he went on to
+show how they had all left the boat, waded ashore and
+walked along the river-bank, and he marked the huts
+where they had stopped, and then he indicated where
+one of the men had died and been buried in the river.
+This was understood, for all the audience shook their
+heads as if to say how sorry they were. But when he
+tried to tell them that he had left the captain two days
+afterwards and had been so many days on the way to
+ask for help, they showed that they either did not or
+would not understand; and really it was not easy to
+make such a matter clear.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Next day Nindemann made another attempt to get
+them to understand the one essential, urgent fact that
+help was needed, or the men would die; but no, he
+could not do it. On the Thursday, despairing of the
+hopelessness of his task and the helplessness of his
+companions, he broke into tears and groans, and a
+woman in the hut took pity on him and spoke earnestly
+to one of the men, who came and said something
+about a commandant. Then the sailor, who had
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>picked up a few words, asked him to take him to
+Bulun, to which the man replied by again saying
+commandant and holding up five or six fingers. Late in
+the evening there arrived a tall Russian, whom Nindemann
+supposed to be the commandant and addressed
+in English, but he was a Russian exile who could
+not understand him, though he seemed to know something
+about the matter, for in what he said he clearly
+mentioned Jeannette and Americansk. Nindemann
+tried him in German, but at this he shook his head.
+Then Nindemann showed him the chart given him by
+De Long, which the Russian evidently did not understand,
+though he said something that sounded like
+St. Petersburg and telegrams. While this apparently
+hopeless conversation was going on Noros was busy
+steadily writing out a note that the two sailors had
+drawn up, and the tall Russian—who we shall see was
+really a most intelligent man—giving over his talk
+with Nindemann in despair, coolly picked this up and
+put it in his pocket, and notwithstanding the protest
+of the Americans, walked off with it. In the morning
+he came in and gave them to understand that he was
+going to Bulun, and that they were to follow, and
+soon afterwards the natives fitted them out with
+clothing and boots and food and sent them off on a
+sledge. At Bulun they were taken to the commandant,
+who, after a little sign language from Nindemann,
+showed that he understood, and said something
+about a telegram. The sailors jumped at the idea,
+and one of them dictated to the other a despatch to
+the American Minister at St. Petersburg. This the
+Russian took, explaining that the captain should have
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>it next day. Who the captain was the sailors could
+not make out; but three days afterwards, that is on
+the 3rd of November, while Nindemann lay on the
+bed and Noros was sitting on the table, a man came in
+dressed in fur.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"My God, Mr. Melville!" said Noros, recognising
+him as soon as he spoke. "Are you alive? We
+thought that the whale-boats were all dead!"</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The exile had handed the note to Melville, whom he
+knew as the captain, and his difficulty in understanding
+the sailors had been in their speaking of one boat
+while he had only seen the other. The whale-boat
+crew had reached a village opposite to where he lived,
+and he had agreed to take them to Bulun, and he was
+on his way there to arrange for their transport when he
+heard of the sailors. Like a sensible man he ordered
+the men to be sent to Bulun, and had hurried there,
+made his arrangements with the commandant and returned
+to Melville, who, seeing the urgency of the
+case as soon as he read the letter, had started at once,
+leaving his party to follow.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Melville, as soon as possible, went off along the
+track of the two sailors, who were too weak to go
+with him, and eventually found the chronometer and
+the log-books and other records; but the winter was
+too far advanced for him to do more, and he had
+to return, after a journey of over six hundred miles,
+to try again in the spring. Then, accompanied by
+Nindemann, he went north, and came upon the bodies
+of the commander and those who had perished with
+him, and three or four feet behind De Long, as if
+he had tossed it over his shoulder, lay the journal in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>which the last page was but a chronicle of death after
+death.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>This chapter must conclude with another tragedy.
+In 1885 Dr. Bunge and Baron Toll made some important
+investigations in the neighbourhood of the
+mouth of the Yana; and next year Bunge among the
+fossils of Liakhoff Island found not only mammoth
+and rhinoceros, but horse, musk-ox and deer, and two
+new species of ox. To these Toll, after discovering
+that there were flourishing trees on Kotelnoi in the
+time of the mammoth—nearly two hundred miles
+north of their present limit—added frozen carcases
+of musk-ox and rhinoceros, and bones of antelope
+and tiger.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1902 Toll, pushing his geological researches
+further north, reached Bennett Island, where he
+collected bones of the mammoth and other recent
+mammals, while the main mass of the plateau he
+identified as of Cambrian age. These discoveries he
+included in the record announcing his intention of
+leaving for Kotelnoi, which was found in 1904 by the
+expedition sent to his relief, for he was never seen
+alive again.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER VII<br /> BERING STRAIT</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>Native stories of the distant continent—The Russians in Kamchatka—Bering's
+expedition—The difficulties of his task—Builds a vessel and
+reaches Kamchatka—Builds another vessel and discovers the strait named
+after him by Captain Cook—His second expedition—Spangberg's voyage
+to Japan—Bering reaches the American coast—His shipwreck and death—The
+influence of the sea-otter and the fur-seal on geographical discovery—The
+Arctic voyage of Captain Cook—Clerke's voyage—Beechey's
+voyage—Point Barrow reached by the barge of the <em>Blossom</em>—Kellett's
+voyage in the <em>Herald</em>—Boat expedition to Hudson Bay—Kellett reaches
+72° 51´—Landing on Herald Island—Kellett sights Wrangell Island—Berry
+in the <em>Rodgers</em> explores Wrangell Island—He reaches 73° 44´—Frederick
+Whymper and W. H. Dall ascend the Yukon.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>Rumours of land over against the far corner of
+Siberia had reached the Russians for years, and
+many were the legends of those who had seen these
+lands from the cliffs, or had been on the ice to look at
+them more closely, or had gone away to them and
+never come back. There was, for instance, the old
+legend of Kraechoj, who believed he had found safe
+shelter at Irkaipii from the Chukche vengeance, but
+the Chukche made his way into the stronghold and
+killed Kraechoj's son, whereupon Kraechoj escaped by
+letting himself down with thongs to the boat and fled
+to the land whose mountains can be seen in clear sunshine
+from Cape Yakan; and there he was among his
+people who had left Asia before him.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>And among the official documents was the statement
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>made by the Chukches when they went to Anadyrskoi
+Ostrog to acknowledge the dominion of the Russians,
+that "The Noss is full of rocky mountains, and the
+low grounds consist of land covered with turf. Opposite
+to it lies an island, within sight of it, of no great
+extent, and void of wood. It is inhabited by people
+who have the same aspect as the Chukche, but are
+quite a different nation, and speak their own language,
+though they are not numerous. It is half a day's
+voyage with boats from the Noss to the island. There
+are no sables on the island, and no other animals but
+foxes, wolves, and reindeer. Beyond the island is a
+large continent that can be scarcely discerned from it,
+and that only on clear days; in calm weather one may
+row over the sea from the island to the continent,
+which is inhabited by a people who in every particular
+resemble the Chukches. There are large forests of fir,
+pine, larch, and cedar trees; great rivers flow through
+the country and fall into the sea. The inhabitants have
+dwellings and fortified places of abode environed with
+ramparts of earth; they live upon wild reindeer and
+fish; their clothes are made of sable, fox, and reindeer
+skins, for sables and foxes are there in great abundance.
+The number of men in that country may be twice or
+three times as many as that of the Chukches who are
+often at war with them." That there was land in sight
+somewhere seemed clear, but the reports differed in
+placing it all the way round from the north to the east.
+Many were the vain attempts to reach it from the
+northward-flowing rivers, and it was left to be found
+from the Pacific side.</p>
+
+<div id='pg128'  class='figcenter id013'>
+<a href='images/i_179.jpg'><img src='images/i_179_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>BERING STRAIT</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>When Atlassof, in 1697, took the first steps in the
+conquest of Kamchatka the Russians were already
+known to the inhabitants. Long before him Fedotof
+and a few comrades had made their way into the
+country and intermarried with native women. They
+had been held in great honour and almost deified as
+being evidently of a superior race. For some time it
+was supposed that no human hand could hurt them,
+but this belief was rudely shattered when two of the
+demigods quarrelled and fought, and one wounding the
+other, the blood flowed. That flow of blood was fatal,
+for the natives, judging that they were but ordinary
+flesh, took an early opportunity of wiping them out, the
+name of their leader being still traceable in that of the
+Fedotcha River on the banks of which they had lived.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The Kamchadales had other tales to tell of visitors
+from the east and south, and Atlassof himself discovered
+on the River Itcha a Japanese who had been
+wrecked on the coast two years before, from whom he
+learnt of islands innumerable. But there were no
+ships on the Pacific coast of Siberia, and nothing in
+the way of discovery could be done until 1714, when
+there arrived at Ochotsk a detachment of sailors and
+shipwrights despatched thither overland. According
+to one of the sailors, Henry Bush, a Dutchman, the
+carpenters built a good durable vessel some fifty feet
+long which was ready for sea in 1716 when the first
+voyage was undertaken. The coast of Kamchatka was
+made near the River Itcha, and sailing south they
+reached the Kompakova, where they wintered and
+found the whale that had in its body the harpoon of
+European workmanship marked with Roman letters,
+mentioned by Scoresby. Bush returned to Ochotsk in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>July, to be sent in the following year to discover the
+Shantar Islands, and next year, 1718, the Kuriles; thus
+venturing into the Pacific beyond Cape Lopatka.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The last of these expeditions was due to the direct
+order of Peter the Great, who, knowing nothing of
+Deschnef, and finding the sea open to the north, resolved
+on a voyage in that direction, his holograph instructions
+to Admiral Apraxin being: "One or two boats
+with decks to be built at Kamchatka, or at any other
+convenient place, with which inquiry should be made
+relative to the northerly coasts, to see whether they
+are not contiguous with America, since their termination
+is not yet known." Peter died, and the Empress
+Catherine, carrying out these instructions in their
+fullest meaning, began her reign with an order for the
+expedition.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Veit Bering, Dane by birth and sailor by trade, had
+voyaged to the Indies, east and west, and, like many
+other men of enterprise, had entered the Russian
+service at Peter's invitation. He had served with
+distinction in the Cronstadt fleet in the war against
+the Swedes, and, being in good repute for his knowledge
+of ships and their handling, was appointed to the
+command of the most remarkable Arctic enterprise on
+record. Just as Nicholas ruled a line and ordered a
+railway to be built there, so did Catherine in the same
+imperial way order an exploring expedition, and it
+was done. But it meant building the ship from the
+trees of the forest on the coast of the Pacific and
+carrying the materials and stores—everything but the
+timber—right across the Russian empire in the days
+when for thousands of miles there were not even roads.</p>
+
+<div id='pg130'  class='figcenter id014'>
+<img src='images/i_183.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE FACE OF THE FUR SEAL</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>Bering's lieutenants were Martin Spangberg and
+Alexei Tschirikof. With them and the rest of the
+expedition he left St. Petersburg on the 5th of February,
+1725. During that year they got as far as the
+Ilim, where they wintered. In the spring of 1726
+they sailed down the Lena to Yakutsk, where they
+parted company for a time owing to the difficulties of
+the route to Ochotsk, the way not being passable in
+summer with wagons, or in winter with sledges, on
+account of the marshes and rocky ground. So Spangberg
+set out, working along the rivers Aldan, Maia,
+and Judoma, with part of the provisions and heavy
+naval stores, while Bering followed overland through
+uninhabited country with more stores on horses, and
+Tschirikof remained to collect still more and follow in
+the track of his commander.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Bering reached Ochotsk first. Spangberg was frozen
+up in the Judoma, and thence he walked to Ochotsk
+with the most necessary materials; but he suffered so
+much from hunger on the way that he had to support
+life by eating leather bags, straps, and shoes, and did
+not reach Bering till the 1st of January, 1727, nearly
+two years after leaving St. Petersburg. In the beginning
+of February he returned to the Judoma and
+brought away about half of his lading, the other half
+being left for a third journey, which he made from
+and to Ochotsk on horses. Meanwhile Tschirikof was
+toiling along from Yakutsk, and did not arrive to
+complete the party until the 30th of July.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On arrival Bering had to build a vessel to take his
+most necessary naval stores and his shipbuilders across
+the sea of Ochotsk to Bolscheretzkoi, which, in her, he
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>reached on the 2nd of September. From here he
+followed the shipwrights, who went on ahead to fell the
+trees, taking with them the provisions and stores, over
+the backbone of the isthmus and down the Kamchatka
+River to the mouth, a distance of some two hundred
+miles, the journey being very slow on account of the
+travelling being by dog-sledge. In short, it was
+not until the 4th of April, 1728, that is, more than
+three years after leaving St. Petersburg, that it was
+possible to put on the stocks the vessel in which the
+voyage to the north was to be made. But she took
+only three months to build, being launched on the
+10th of July, when she was named the <em>Gabriel</em>.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Laden with stores for forty men during a year's
+voyage, she put to sea ten days afterwards, Bering
+keeping close to the coast so that he could map it as he
+went. On the 10th of August he was off the island of
+St. Lawrence, which he so named, as it was the day of
+that saint. In a day or two he had passed the East
+Cape without seeing the American coast, and had
+entered the Arctic Circle. And on the 15th he was
+well through the strait, out in the Arctic Ocean, in
+67° 18´ off Serdze Kamen, a promontory behind which
+the coast trended to the west, as the Chukches had told
+him it did; and he assumed, and rightly so, though he
+had not gone far enough to prove it, that there was
+no land connection between Asia and America. Whereupon,
+as he had in his opinion accomplished his mission,
+seeing no need for wintering in those parts, he put
+the <em>Gabriel</em> about and was back in the Kamchatka
+River on the 20th of September, after a voyage of seven
+weeks in a vessel that took three months to build on a
+spot that took over three years to reach—the plan of
+campaign being much the same as that in which a
+mountain stronghold is advanced on across a desert,
+besieged for a few days, and captured by assault.</p>
+
+<div id='pg132'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_187.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>After wintering, Bering went off next year on a
+voyage due east in search of reported land, but, after
+some hundred and thirty miles out, he was blown back,
+and, rounding the south end of Kamchatka, put in at
+the River Bolschaia; thence he crossed to Ochotsk,
+whence he started for St. Petersburg, where he arrived
+after an absence of five years. Catherine was dead and
+another empress reigned in her stead, who was pleased
+and satisfied if no one else was, and the 21st of February,
+1733, saw him starting again in the same
+laborious fashion to arrange other voyages as part of a
+great scheme for the exploration of Northern and North-eastern
+Asia. Some of these expeditions on the north
+coast have already been mentioned; Bering's particular
+task was to send Spangberg in search of Japan, while
+he and Tschirikof, in separate ships, went eastward to
+America. More stores and provisions went overland
+across Siberia than before; Spangberg got again frozen
+up on the Judoma and had to continue on foot to
+Ochotsk, where he found plenty of food owing to
+Bering having sent on ahead, in case of any such
+trouble, a hundred horses, each of them laden with
+meal. In June, 1738, Spangberg, in two newly-built
+vessels and the <em>Gabriel</em>, was off to Japan, to reach the
+Kuriles and return to winter in Kamchatka; but next
+year he arrived there all well and found to his astonishment
+that the Japanese knew as much about maps as
+he did. He was still more astonished on his return to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>be told by those high in office at St. Petersburg that he
+could not possibly have been there as they had not got
+it on their maps where he said it was, and, consequently,
+he was to go where he had been as soon as he could to
+make sure. He started on this voyage of verification,
+but circumstances were against him and he did not
+reach there; and his Japanese trip remained discredited
+until the Russian geographers knew better. His voyage
+thither had, however, used such a stock of provisions
+that it was two years before the deficiency could be
+made up, and it was actually the 4th of September,
+1740, seven and a half years after leaving St. Petersburg,
+when Bering, in the specially-built <em>St. Peter</em>, and
+Tschirikof, in her sister the <em>St. Paul</em>, got off outward
+bound to America.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In about three weeks they were at Awatcha Bay on
+the east of Kamchatka, anchored in the fine harbour
+named Petropaulovsk after the two ships, and here
+they had to stay for the winter, so that they did not
+leave Russian territory until the 4th of the following
+June. A few days out the ships were separated in a
+fog and storm, and the <em>St. Paul</em> reached the American
+coast first, at Kruzof Island on the western shore of
+Sitka Sound. The <em>St. Peter</em> three days afterwards, on
+the 18th of July, drifted to the coast more to the
+northward, at Cape St. Elias near the mighty mountain
+of that name. In this neighbourhood amid much
+fog Bering stayed six weeks until he was blown out to
+sea, when, his men beginning to die from scurvy, he
+resolved to return to Kamchatka. It was a voyage of
+misfortune in a continual downfall, the men in want,
+misery, and sickness, continuously at work in the cold
+and wet, becoming fewer and fewer, so that there were
+not enough to work the ship properly. It ended on
+one of the Commander Islands by the vessel being
+lifted by the sea clear over a reef into calm water.
+Bering died—the island is named after him—and the
+survivors of the crew, building a boat from the materials
+of the <em>St. Peter</em>, arrived at Petropaulovsk on the 27th
+of August, bringing with them a quantity of sea-otter
+skins, which did more for discovery in those seas than
+any imperial expedition.</p>
+
+<div id='pg134'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_191.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>DRIVING THE FUR SEAL</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>As the sable had brought about the conquest of
+Siberia, so did the sea-otter lead to the seizure of the
+islands of the Bering Sea and the coasts of Alaska.
+Three years after the return of the survivors of the
+<em>St. Peter</em>, Nevodtsikof wintered on one of the Aleutian
+Islands, and in a few years the fur-hunters were at
+their exterminating work over the whole chain. In
+time the fur-seal attracted as much attention, and, with
+Pribylov's discovery, in 1786, of its rookeries on the
+islands named after him, the trade became of such
+increasing importance as to endanger in our time the
+peace of the world. Every one has heard of the wonderful
+haunts and habits of that strange eared seal which
+seems to have come from the south through the tropics
+to breed in the coldest limit of its range, now almost
+entirely on the Pribylovs and the Commanders; how
+it is pursued in skin boats and every sort of craft, and
+scared in long lines to slaughter by clapping of boards
+and bones and waving of flags and opening and shutting
+of gingham umbrellas, until it promises to become
+as extinct as Steller's sea-cow or as rare as the sea-otter.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>Following Bering on the way to the north came
+Captain James Cook, in H.M.S. <em>Resolution</em>, who gave
+Bering's name to the strait. Cook sighted Mount
+St. Elias in May, 1778, and, cruising slowly along the
+coast with many discoveries and much accurate surveying,
+was off, and named, Cape Prince of Wales, the
+western extremity of America, on the 9th of August.
+He then crossed the strait and plied back until on
+the 18th he sighted and named Icy Cape in 70° 29´.
+Close to the edge of the ice, which was as compact as
+a wall, and seemed to be ten or twelve feet high at the
+least, he sought persistently for a passage through, but
+none was to be found; and after reaching 70° 6´ in
+196° 42´ (163° 18´ W.) on the 19th, he turned westward
+to the Asiatic coast, along which he went until he
+sighted and named Cape North, as already stated.
+Then, blocked by ice, east, north, and west, he returned,
+passing Cape Serdze Kamen (Bering's farthest)
+and naming East Cape, confirming Bering's observation
+that it was the most easterly point of Asia.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On Cook's death at Hawaii Captain Charles Clerke,
+of the accompanying vessel H.M.S. <em>Discovery</em>, took
+command of the expedition and carried out Cook's
+intention of making another effort during the following
+year. The ice conditions were, however, worse.
+The two ships found the ice block further south, and
+as impenetrable as before, and Clerke's highest was
+70° 33´ on the American side, on the 19th of July.
+As it was Cook's last voyage, so it was Clerke's. He
+was in a bad way with consumption, and continued his
+work in the north, though, under the special circumstances
+and being in command, he could at any time
+have given up the obviously hopeless attempt and left
+for a more genial climate, in which he would at least
+have had a chance of longer life; but, remaining at
+his duty, he died at sea on the 22nd of August, and
+was buried at Petropaulovsk.</p>
+
+<div id='pg136'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_195.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>FUR SEALS AT SEA</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>Captain Beechey, in H.M.S. <em>Blossom</em>, passed through
+the strait in 1826 when sent north from the Pacific
+with a view of meeting with his old commander,
+Franklin, then on his second land journey. Beechey
+took the ship to Icy Cape, whence on the 17th of
+August he despatched the barge under the master,
+Thomas Elson, to survey the coast to the north-eastward
+as far as he could go in three weeks, there and
+back. Elson reached his farthest on the 25th at a spit
+of land jutting out several miles from the more regular
+coast-line, the width of the neck not exceeding a mile
+and a half, broadest at its extremity, with several
+frozen lakes on it, and a village, whose natives proved
+so troublesome that it was thought unsafe to land.
+This was Point Barrow, in 71° 23´ 31˝, longitude
+156° 21´ 30˝, the northernmost land on the western
+half of the American continent. To the eastward
+curved a wide bay—named Elson Bay by Beechey—the
+shore-line of which joined on to the ice pack that
+encircled the horizon. Here he was within a hundred
+and sixty miles of where Franklin had turned back a
+week before. Though Beechey did not meet Franklin
+he did most useful work in these parts, for by him the
+whole coast was surveyed between Point Barrow and
+Point Rodney, to the south of Prince of Wales Cape.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Franklin was also the cause of the appearance of
+the next British expedition in the strait. This was in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>1848, Captain Henry Kellett, in H.M.S. <em>Herald</em>, with
+Commander Thomas Moore in H.M.S. <em>Plover</em>, forming
+the western detachment of the first series of search
+expeditions. There were three detachments, one to
+follow the <em>Erebus</em> and <em>Terror</em> from the eastward,
+another under John Richardson to descend the Mackenzie
+and search the northern coast, the other coming
+in from the west to meet the ships should they have
+made the passage. On this duty the <em>Herald</em> and
+<em>Plover</em> were hereabouts for three seasons, the <em>Plover</em>
+wintering, the <em>Herald</em> going south when the navigation
+closed.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In October, 1826, Beechey had buried a barrel of
+flour for Franklin on the sandy point of Chamisso
+Island, ample directions for finding it being cut and
+painted on the rock, and to call the attention of the
+party to the spot the name of the <em>Blossom</em> was painted
+on the cliffs of Puffin Island. When the <em>Herald</em> was
+at Chamisso Island in 1849 Captain Kellett searched
+for this flour and found it. A considerable space was
+cleared round the cask, its chimes were freed, and, only
+adhering to the sand by the two lower bilge staves, it
+required the united strength of two boats' crews, with
+a parbuckle and a large spar as a lever, to free it
+altogether. The sand was frozen so hard that it
+emitted sparks with every blow of the pickaxe. The
+cask itself was perfectly sound and the hoops good,
+and out of the 336 lb. of flour which it contained,
+175 lb. were as sweet and well tasted as any he had
+with him; so good indeed was it that Captain Kellett
+gave a dinner party, at which all the pies and puddings
+were made of this flour.</p>
+
+<div id='pg138'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_199.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE PARKA OF THE ALASKAN INNUITS<br /><br />(THE SHORTER COAT IS THAT WORN BY THE MEN)</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>After the dinner party, on the 18th of July, the two
+vessels started for the north, being joined as soon as
+they stood from the anchorage by Robert Shedden in
+his yacht the <em>Nancy Dawson</em>, who at his own initiative
+had come up from Hong Kong to join in the search.
+From Wainwright Inlet Kellett sent off the boats
+under Lieutenant Pullen, two of which made the
+journey along the northern coast and up the Mackenzie,
+their crews thence making their way home eastwards
+to York Factory.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>When Kellett was about to commence his observations
+at the inlet he drew a semicircle on the sand from
+water's edge to water's edge, and placed the boats'
+noses between its points. The natives seemed to
+understand the meaning of this line. Not one of them
+attempted to overstep it, and they squatted down and
+remained perfectly quiet and silent. When a stranger
+arrived they shouted to him, and he no sooner comprehended
+the directions than he crept rather than
+walked to the boundary, and squatted among the rest.
+Afterwards they danced and sang and played football
+with the seamen—who stood no chance with them at
+that game—and when they had gone off, after all this
+good behaviour, it was discovered that they had been
+picking the pockets of some of the party, one losing a
+handkerchief, another a glove, and Commander Moore
+a box of percussion caps.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The boat party had a similar experience, without the
+pocket-picking. Reaching Point Barrow they landed
+to make observations and look about for traces of the
+visit of the <em>Blossom's</em> boat, which they did not find.
+Their interpreter did not understand the tribe, and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>recourse was had to the universal language of signs.
+"We made a rude model of a vessel," says Lieutenant
+Hooper, "and performed sundry antics to signify what
+we were in search of, but could elicit no information,
+and so set to work at obtaining observations. We concluded
+that these people must have been entirely misunderstood.
+Far from evidencing any disposition to
+assail or molest us, they were most docile and well-behaved,
+agreeably disappointing us in their conduct.
+When we arrived on the hillock, all, big and little, sat
+down around us, and I amused myself by filling their
+pipes, becoming a great favourite immediately in consequence.
+They had among them a great many knives,
+which we feared would influence the magnet. Mr.
+Pullen therefore kindly drew off the crowd to a distance,
+distributing among them tobacco, beads, snuff,
+etc., and much to their credit be it said, there was
+neither confusion nor contention, each taking his
+allotted portion, and seeming delighted with his good
+fortune. They took care not to come near the instruments,
+finding that we did not like their approach; one
+or two indeed came towards us, but retired instantly
+when laughingly motioned back, and this should be
+considered as a display of great forbearance, inasmuch
+as their curiosity must have been highly excited.
+When the observations were concluded they were
+allowed to inspect the objects of their wonder; then
+fast and thickly to utterance flew their expressions of
+astonishment at the—to them—novel and splendid
+instruments. The trough of quicksilver, liquid and
+restless, especially attracted them, pleasure and wonder
+were evident at the simple view, but when one or two
+had permission to take some from the dish, and found
+it ever elude the grasp, their astonishment knew no
+bounds."</p>
+
+<div id='pg140'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_203.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE FROZEN YUKON</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>From Wainwright Inlet, which is between Icy Cape
+and Point Barrow, the <em>Herald</em> sailed along the pack to
+the westward, reaching her highest north, 72° 51´, in
+163° 48´, and, on the 17th of August, Kellett landed
+on and named Herald Island in 71° 17´ 45˝, a mass of
+granite towering nine hundred feet above the sea, under
+five miles long and three broad, inhabited mainly by
+black and white divers and yielding the collector only
+four flowering plants. Further to the west he sighted
+Wrangell Island, sailed past and named by the American
+whaling captain, Thomas Long, in August, 1867.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1881 Wrangell Island was thoroughly explored
+by another search expedition, that of Captain Berry in
+the American ship <em>Rodgers</em>, who was in these parts
+looking out for traces of the <em>Jeannette</em>. He found it
+to be, not a continent as some had supposed, but an
+island forty miles broad and sixty-six miles long, about
+thirty miles from Herald Island and eighty from the
+Siberian coast; and on it, as on all these Siberian
+islands and the coast of Alaska, remains of the mammoth
+were found. Examining the ice to the northward,
+he reached 73° 44´ in 171° 30´, being fifty-three
+miles further north than Kellett and twenty-four miles
+further than Collinson in 1850. Returning from the
+north to winter quarters he achieved another Arctic
+record in his ship being destroyed by fire in St. Lawrence
+Bay on the Asiatic side of Bering Strait.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Opposite this, on the American side, from Cape
+York downwards the land trends away to the south-east
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>to Norton Sound, in which are the mouths of the
+Yukon, one of the mightiest rivers of the world, its
+volume being as great as, or according to some writers
+greater than, the Mississippi. In a course of two thousand
+miles it runs northwards to the Arctic Circle at
+the now abandoned trading post of Fort Yukon, where
+its waters are reinforced by its tributary, the Rat or
+Porcupine, coming in from the north-east, and given
+their seaward direction to the south-west. Up this
+vast waterway in 1866 went Frederick Whymper and
+William H. Dall.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Beginning with a sledge journey of a hundred and
+seventy miles from Unalachleet, they struck the Yukon
+on the 10th of November, gliding down a high steep
+bank on to it. Hardly a patch of clear ice was to be
+seen, the snow covering the whole extent. Accumulations
+of hummocks had in many places been forced on
+the surface before the river had become thoroughly
+frozen, and the water was still open, running swiftly in
+a few isolated streaks. From bank to bank was not less
+than a mile, the stream flowing among several islands.
+As they sledged up the river the dreary expanse of
+snow made them almost forget they were on a sheet of
+ice; and, as it winds considerably, their course was
+often from bank to bank to cut off corners and bends.
+Many cliffs abutted on the stream, and islands of
+sombre green forest studded it in all directions.</p>
+
+<div id='pg142'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_207.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>ASCENDING THE YUKON</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>On the 15th they reached Nulato, six hundred miles
+from the mouth, where they spent the winter. Here
+they found a curious method of fishing practised all
+through the season. Early in the winter large piles or
+stakes had been driven down into the bed of the river,
+and to these were affixed wickerwork traps like eel-pots
+on a large scale, oblong holes being kept open over
+them by frequently breaking the ice. This was cold
+work, for the temperature ran low. "In November
+and December," says Whymper, "I succeeded in
+making sketches of the fort and neighbourhood when
+the temperature was as low as thirty degrees below
+zero. It was done, it need not be said, with difficulty,
+and often by instalments. Between every five strokes
+of the pencil, I ran about to exercise myself or went
+into our quarters for warmth. The use of water-colours
+was of course impracticable—except when I
+could keep a pot of warm water on a small fire by my
+side—a thing done by me on two or three occasions,
+when engaged at a distance from the post. Even
+inside the house the spaces near the windows, as well as
+the floor, were often below freezing point. Once, forgetful
+of the fact, I mixed some colours up with water
+that had just stood near the oven, and wetting a small
+brush commenced to apply it to my drawing block.
+Before it reached the paper it was covered with a skin
+of ice, and simply scratched the surface, and I had to
+give up for the time being."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 12th of May the Nulato River broke up and
+ran out on the top of the Yukon ice for more than a
+mile upstream; and in a few days the ice of the main
+river was coming down in a steady flow at a rate of
+five or six knots, surging into mountains as it met
+with obstacles, and grinding and crashing and carrying
+all before it, whole trees and banks being swept away
+on its victorious march, the water rising fourteen feet
+above the winter level. On the 26th Whymper and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>Dall started with two Indians and a steersman in a
+skin canoe, the river still full of ice, and navigation
+difficult. They had proceeded but a short distance
+when they came to bends, round which logs and ice
+were sweeping at a great rate, so that it was necessary
+for a man to stand in the bows of the canoe, with a
+pole shod at one end with iron, to push away the masses
+of ice and tangle of driftwood. They could often feel
+the ice and logs rolling and scraping under the canoe;
+and it was not the thickness of a plank between them
+and destruction, but that of a piece of sealskin a
+tenth of an inch thick.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 7th of June they were two hundred and
+forty miles above Nulato, at the junction of the
+Tanana, the furthest point reached by the Russians,
+and soon were in a part abounding with moose owing
+to their seeking refuge in the stream from the millions
+of mosquitoes. Here the Indian hunters were busy,
+not wasting powder and shot, but manœuvring round
+the swimming deer in their birch-bark canoes until they
+tired the victim out; and then stealthily approaching,
+securing it with a stab from their knives.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>After twenty-six laborious days against the stream
+they reached Fort Yukon, the then furthest outpost
+of the Hudson's Bay Company, six hundred miles
+from Nulato, and, of course, managed and victualled
+from the east. Here the amount of peltry was
+astonishing, the fur-room of the fort containing
+thousands of marten skins, hanging from the beams,
+and huge piles of common furs lying around, together
+with a considerable number of foxes, black and silver-grey,
+and many skins of the wolverine, thought so
+much more of by the Indians than by any one else
+that they are used as a medium of exchange. All
+these furs were brought in from the surrounding
+districts, far and near, and traded for goods, as widely
+distributed, among the native tribes whose representatives
+gathered at the fort in such a miscellaneous
+crowd that perhaps half a dozen dialects were heard in
+a morning.</p>
+
+<div id='pg144'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_211.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>MOOSE-HUNTING ON THE YUKON</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>In the crowd the busiest and most prominent were
+the primitive Tananas, gay with feathers and painted
+faces, looking like survivals among the local Kutchins
+and the Kutchins of the upper river, the Birch River
+men, and the Rat River men by whom the skins were
+brought from the natives of the northern coast, as
+were the messages from the Franklin search parties.
+Indians were all of these, distinguishable by their
+wearing the hyaqua or tooth-shell (<em>Dentalium entalis</em>)
+through the septum of the nose, while the Mahlemut
+wears a bone on each side of the mouth, a practice
+common with all the Innuit, or Eskimo tribes, from
+the Alaska Peninsula to Point Barrow, unless some
+other form of labret happens to be the local fashion.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER VIII<br /> THE AMERICAN MAINLAND</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>The Hudson's Bay Company—Samuel Hearne—His journey down the
+Coppermine River—The North West Fur Company—Sir Alexander
+Mackenzie—His journey down the Mackenzie—Sir John Franklin's first
+land journey—Fort Enterprise—Back's journey to Athabasca—The rapids
+of the Coppermine—Point Turnagain reached—The Wilberforce Falls—The
+terrible crossing of the Barren Grounds—Franklin's second land
+journey—Richardson's voyage to the eastward—Discovers Wollaston
+Land and Dolphin and Union Strait—Franklin's voyage to Return Reef—Back's
+journey down the Great Fish River—Discovers Montreal Island
+and King William Land—The Parry Falls—Sir George Simpson—Peter
+Warren Dease and Thomas Simpson—Exploration of the coast between
+Return Reef and Point Barrow—Simpson advances beyond Point Turnagain
+and discovers Victoria Land and Dease Strait—Their second voyage
+down the Coppermine—Discovery of Simpson Strait—Reach the Great
+Fish River—Their farthest east—Complete the survey of the northern
+coast between Boothia and Bering Strait—The first to find the North-West
+Passage.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>For two elks and two black beavers, paid yearly
+whensoever the King of England entered their
+estate, the Hudson's Bay Company were, in 1670,
+presented by Charles II with the northern part of the
+American mainland, thus ensuring an ample stretch of
+British territory along the passage to the South Sea.
+But the company soon ceased to be interested in any
+such passage, finding quite enough to do in developing
+the very profitable fur trade of their vast possessions.
+With the exception of John Knight's disastrous voyage
+to Marble Island in 1719, whatever attempts at discoveries
+there may have been were kept quiet for fear
+of aiding their rivals the French to the south, who
+were fostering the trade in the region of the great
+lakes; and not until the French dominion ended in
+1763 and the Frenchmen's interests were passing to
+an opposition British company was any effort made to
+explore the coast of the Polar Sea.</p>
+
+<div id='pg146'  class='figcenter id015'>
+<img src='images/i_215.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>MAHLEMUT MAN</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>Owing to Indian reports of rich deposits of native
+copper and an abundance of fur-bearing animals,
+Samuel Hearne, once a midshipman in the Royal
+Navy, was sent by the company in 1769 to explore
+to the west and north. After a journey of thirteen
+hundred miles to the west he found the Coppermine
+River and the Great Slave Lake, and he traced the
+river to its mouth and emerged on the northern shore,
+being the first known white man to see the Arctic
+Ocean between the Boothia Peninsula and Bering
+Strait. Among other things he was instructed to discover
+a north-west passage, and he certainly did something
+definite towards it by showing there was open
+water so much further west; but, though he suspected
+it, he was unable to prove that the northernmost point
+of the continent was in the unexplored country between
+the Coppermine and Hudson Bay.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1783 the North West Fur Company was formally
+established, and after a severe struggle obtained, owing
+mainly to the efforts of Alexander Mackenzie, a fair
+share of the trade in the west of the region controlled
+by the Hudson's Bay people. Mackenzie was at Fort
+Chippewyan, on Lake Athabasca, and thence he was
+sent in 1789 on an exploring voyage to the north. In
+four birch-bark canoes, one of his party being an
+Indian known as English Chief, who had been with
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>Hearne on his journey to the Coppermine, he started
+down the Great Slave River into the Great Slave
+Lake. After spending twenty days in crossing and
+exploring this vast sheet of water, he entered the large
+river now bearing his name, and down it amid many
+dangers and difficulties, overcome by skill, persuasion,
+force, good humour or good fortune, he reached the
+sea on the 14th of July. He camped on Whale
+Island, the name being given owing to one of the men
+sighting a great many animals in the water, which he
+at first supposed to be pieces of ice. "However," says
+Mackenzie, "I was awakened to resolve the doubts
+which had taken place respecting this extraordinary
+appearance. I immediately perceived that they were
+whales; and having ordered the canoe to be prepared,
+we embarked in pursuit of them. It was indeed a
+very wild and unreflecting enterprise, and it was a very
+fortunate circumstance that we failed in our attempt
+to overtake them, as a stroke from the tail of one of
+these enormous fish would have dashed the canoe to
+pieces. We may, perhaps, have been indebted to the
+foggy weather for our safety, as it prevented us from
+continuing our pursuit. Our guide informed us that
+they are the same kind of fish which are the principal
+food of the Eskimos, and they were frequently seen as
+large as our canoe. The part of them which appeared
+above the water was altogether white, and they were
+much larger than the largest porpoise"—being evidently
+belugas (<em>Delphinapterus leucas</em>).</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Satisfied with a short canoe voyage on the sea, he
+returned to the river and made his way back to the
+fort, arriving there in the middle of September. He
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>had thus proved the existence of the sea twenty
+degrees further west than Hearne had done. Three
+years afterwards he started on his notable journey to
+the Pacific at Cape Menzies, facing Princess Royal
+Island, being the first white man to cross the Rocky
+Mountains, and, as he had reached Fort Chippewyan
+by way of Montreal, the first to cross North America
+above the Gulf of Mexico.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Another of Hearne's Indians accompanied Franklin
+on his first land journey in 1819, the object of which
+was to explore the coast between Hearne's farthest and
+Hudson Bay, thus filling in the gap in which the
+assumed northern promontory was to be found.
+Franklin, who was sent out by the British Government,
+had with him, as surgeon and naturalist, Dr.,
+afterwards Sir, John Richardson, to whom as a boy
+Robert Burns had lent Spenser's <em>Faerie Queene</em>, a
+naval surgeon with a distinguished record, who while
+on half-pay had studied botany and mineralogy at
+Edinburgh. Like another member of the expedition,
+George Back, who had been with Franklin in the
+<em>Trent</em> and <em>Dorothea</em> voyage, he was destined to gain
+a great reputation among Arctic explorers. With
+Back was another midshipman, Robert Hood, whose
+fate it was to be murdered by an Iroquois half-breed
+who, through want of food, betook himself to cannibalism.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Landing at York Factory, in Hudson Bay, after an
+exciting voyage, on the 30th of August, Franklin,
+disregarding local advice, pushed on across the continent
+during the winter, arriving at Fort Chippewyan on the
+26th of March, the losses and trying experiences of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>the long journey being mainly due to the rigours of
+the climate at that time of year; and thence, in July,
+the party followed Mackenzie's route to Fort Providence
+on Great Slave Lake. Here they were joined
+by Mr. Wentzel, of the North West Company.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Starting for the north on the 2nd of August in four
+canoes, they were joined next day at the mouth of the
+Yellow Knife by a band of Indians, under a chief
+named Akaitcho, in seventeen canoes. The Indians
+were to guide the party and supply them with food by
+hunting and fishing on the way, but game and fish
+proved scarce—and scarcer owing to the poorness of
+the Indian marksmanship—provisions were short and
+portages long, so that the journey, which soon led
+across a series of lakes, was pursued under toilsome
+and hazardous conditions until it ended at Winter
+Lake in 64° 30´, where it became necessary to winter
+in a log house built by Wentzel, and named Fort
+Enterprise. The site was delightful: a hillside amid
+trees three feet in diameter at the roots, the view in
+front bounded at a distance of three miles by round-backed
+hills, to the eastward and westward the Winter
+and Roundrock Lakes connected by the Winter River,
+its banks clothed with pines and ornamented with a
+profusion of mosses, lichens, and shrubs.</p>
+
+<div id='pg150'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_221.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>WINTER TRAVELLING ON THE GREAT SLAVE LAKE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>In a few weeks, however, the weather became so
+severe that, according to Franklin, the trees froze to
+their very centres and became as hard as stones, on
+which some of the axes were broken daily, until but
+one was left. And though at first the reindeer appeared
+in numbers, their visits lasted only for a short time,
+and the party, short of tobacco for the Canadian
+voyageurs and of ammunition for the Indians, had so
+poor an outlook that it became necessary to accept
+Back's proposal to return to the forts and bring on
+supplies which had not been forwarded as promised;
+the failure being due to the journey, unlike the
+successful ventures of Hearne and Mackenzie, being
+pushed on regardless of climatal conditions, and, in
+some degree, to the rivalry between the two fur companies
+which were amalgamated while the expedition
+was in progress.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Back set out accompanied by Wentzel and two
+Canadians and two Indians and their wives, crossing
+lakes frozen just hard enough to bear them, going wide
+circuits to avoid those which were open, amid mist and
+fog and storm, over rugged, bare country, through
+dense woods and snow-covered swamps, rafting across
+a river with pine branches for paddles, until Fort
+Providence was reached. From here he sent back
+Belanger with letters and a hundred bullets he procured
+on loan. Belanger arrived at Fort Enterprise
+on the 23rd of October alone; he had walked constantly
+for the last six-and-thirty hours through a
+storm, his locks were matted with snow, and he was
+encrusted with ice from head to foot, so that he was
+scarcely recognised when he slipped in through the
+doorway.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>At Fort Providence Back had to wait until the
+Great Slave Lake was frozen over. On the 18th of
+November he observed two mock moons at equal
+distances from the central one, the whole encircled by
+a halo, the colour of the inner edge of the large circle
+a light red inclining to a faint purple; and two days
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>afterwards two parhelia were observable, with a halo,
+the colours of the inner edge of the circle a bright
+carmine and red-lake intermingled with a rich yellow
+forming a purplish orange, the outer edge being a pale
+gamboge. On the 7th of December he left, sledging
+across the lake before the wind, for the North West fort
+on Moose Deer Island, and finding at the Hudson's
+Bay fort, also on the island, five packages of belated
+supplies and two Eskimo interpreters on their way to
+Franklin.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Here he was told that nothing could be spared at
+Fort Chippewyan, that goods had never been transported
+so far in the winter season, that the same dogs
+could not go and return, and that from having to walk
+constantly on snow-shoes he would suffer a great deal
+of misery and fatigue. Nevertheless he undertook the
+journey in dog-sledges with a Canadian and an Indian,
+leaving Wentzel behind. At times the weather was so
+cold that they had to run to keep themselves warm,
+and, owing to the snow, the feet of the dogs became so
+raw that an endeavour was made to fit them with
+shoes. With legs and ankles so swollen that it was
+painful to drag the snow-shoes after him, Back hurried
+on, reaching Fort Chippewyan on the 2nd of January
+to find that he and all Franklin's party had been
+reported to have been killed by Eskimos. Here he had
+to wait a month, and then, with an instalment of what
+he wanted, he set out on his return, arriving at Fort
+Enterprise on St. Patrick's Day after a memorable
+journey of over a thousand miles.</p>
+
+<div id='pg152'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_225.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>CROSSING POINT LAKE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>During his absence he was told that the cold had
+been so severe that Hood had found accurate observing
+difficult owing to the sextant having changed its error
+and the glasses lost their parallelism from the contraction
+of the brass, a circumstance, combined with the
+crystallisation of the mercury of the artificial horizon,
+that might account for some of the diversity of results
+obtained by Arctic navigators. And Richardson had
+to tell him of an early discovery that when fishing and
+the hands get cold by hauling in the line, the best way
+to warm them is to put them in the water; and how the
+fish had frozen as they were taken out of the water so
+that by a blow or two of the hatchet they were easily
+split open, leaving the intestines removable in one lump,
+and yet that these much-frozen fish retained their
+vitality so that he had seen a thawed carp recover so
+far as to leap about with much vigour after it had been
+frozen for thirty-six hours.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 14th of June Fort Enterprise was left, and
+on the 25th the expedition began to cross Point Lake
+on the way to the Coppermine, the river being reached
+through Rocknest Lake on the 30th. Down the river
+they paddled, taking the rapids as they went—in one
+place three miles of them on end. "We were carried
+along with extraordinary rapidity, shooting over large
+stones, upon which a single stroke would have been
+destructive to the canoes; and we were also in danger
+of breaking them, from the want of the long poles
+which lie along their bottoms and equalise their cargoes,
+as they plunged very much, and on one occasion the
+first canoe was almost filled with the waves; but there
+was no receding after we had once launched into the
+stream, and our safety depended on the skill and dexterity
+of the bowmen and steersmen."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>There were rapids day by day affording almost every
+possible chance of wreck except that due to driftwood;
+the two worst being one where the stream descends for
+three-quarters of a mile in a deep but narrow and
+crooked channel which it has cut through the foot
+of a hill of five hundred or six hundred feet high,
+confined between perpendicular cliffs resembling stone
+walls varying in height from eighty to a hundred and
+fifty feet, on which lies a mass of fine sand; the body
+of the river pent within this narrow chasm dashing
+furiously round the projecting rocky columns as it discharges
+itself at the northern extremity in a sheet of
+foam. The other being where the river flows between
+lofty stone cliffs, reddish clay rocks and shelving banks
+of white clay, and is full of shoals. Franklin's people
+had entered this rapid before they were aware of it,
+and the steepness of the cliffs prevented them from
+landing, so that they owed their preservation to the swiftness
+of their descent. Two waves made a complete
+breach over the canoes; a third would probably have
+filled and overset them, which would have proved fatal
+to all on board. This Escape Rapid, as it was named,
+was, as it were, the gate into the territory of the Eskimos
+who were soon met with in small parties all the way
+down to the sea. It was passed on the 15th of July;
+three days afterwards the Indians bade farewell to the
+expedition in the morning, and in the afternoon the
+canoes were afloat on the Arctic Ocean.</p>
+
+<div id='pg154'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_229.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>KUTCHIN INDIANS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>From the river mouth Wentzel returned, as arranged,
+with despatches, taking with him a number of voyageurs
+and others, thus reducing the party to twenty in all in
+two canoes. In these Franklin, nearly two years after
+he had landed in America, went on his voyage to the
+eastward to enter at last on the work he had been sent
+to do. But the survey of this lofty rocky coast was no
+easy matter; the sea was rough, the weather tempestuous,
+the canoes were lightly built and only suited for
+river work, and, in short, it was a most risky enterprise.
+Tracing the shore of Coronation Gulf and coasting up
+and out of Bathurst Inlet, Franklin reached Point Turnagain
+in 109° 25´ W., at the entrance of Dease Strait, on
+the 16th of August, 1821. Though the voyage had
+extended over only six and a half degrees of longitude,
+he had sailed 555 geographical miles; and then, as his
+resources did not permit of his going further or of his
+returning to the Coppermine, and in his own words
+"Our scanty stock of provisions rendering it necessary
+to make for a nearer place," he, on the 22nd, turned
+back to ascend the Hood River.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Here they soon reached the Wilberforce Falls,
+beautiful and remarkable, but not easy of navigation.
+"In the evening," says Franklin in his journal, "we
+encamped at the lower end of a narrow chasm through
+which the river flows for upwards of a mile. The walls
+of this chasm are upwards of two hundred feet high,
+quite perpendicular, and in some places only a few yards
+apart. The river precipitates itself into it over a rock
+forming two magnificent and picturesque falls close to
+each other. The upper fall is about sixty feet high,
+and the lower one at least one hundred, but perhaps
+considerably more, for the narrowness of the chasm
+into which it fell prevented us from seeing its bottom
+and we could merely discern the top of the spray far
+beneath our feet. The lower fall is divided into two by
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>an insulated column of rock which rises about forty
+feet above it."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>As the river above the falls appeared too rapid and
+shallow for the large canoes they were taken to pieces,
+and two smaller ones built from their materials. The
+voyage in these lasted but three days, when the river
+was abandoned as trending too far to the west, and the
+party, carrying the canoes, proceeded overland to Point
+Lake on their struggle of starvation across the Barren
+Grounds. For days they had nothing to eat but lichens—species
+of <em>Gyrophora</em> or <em>Umbilicaria</em> known as tripe-de-roche—a
+diet varied with leather, burnt bones and
+skins, an occasional ptarmigan, and, once, a musk ox,
+until they were so weak that when a herd of reindeer
+went strolling past they had not strength enough to
+shoot at them.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The tragedy need not be lingered over. Back was
+again sent for help, and, finding no stores at Fort
+Enterprise, was on his way to Fort Providence when he
+fell in with Akaitcho, who at once hurried to the rescue;
+and on the 14th of July, 1822, Franklin, Richardson,
+Back, and Hepburn the seaman, who had behaved as a
+hero all through, returned to York Factory after a
+three years' journey, fraught with peril and horror, by
+land and water, of over six thousand three hundred
+statute miles.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>After he had been at home a year, Franklin suggested
+that another attempt should be made to survey the
+northern coast while Parry was at work in search of the
+North-West Passage. The suggestion was accepted.
+Accompanied by Richardson and Back, and by E. N.
+Kendall as assistant surveyor—who had been out with
+Captain Lyon in the same capacity—and by Thomas
+Drummond as assistant naturalist, he left Liverpool on
+the 26th of February, 1825.</p>
+
+<div id='pg156'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_233.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>PREPARING AN ENCAMPMENT ON THE BARREN GROUNDS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>Taught by experience, the expedition was better
+managed in every way. Instead of driving ahead
+regardless of the season or the trade routine, the
+ordinary conditions of local travel were kept in view
+throughout, and the results were more in proportion
+to the effort. Three boats were specially built at
+Woolwich on Franklin's design and under Buchan's
+superintendence. They were of mahogany with timbers
+of ash, both ends alike, steerable by oar or rudder, the
+largest 26 ft. by 5 ft. 4 ins., the two others 24 ft. by
+4 ft. 10 ins., and with them Colonel Pasley's portable
+boat, known as the <em>Walnut Shell</em> from its shape, 9 ft.
+long and half as wide, with frames of ash fastened with
+thongs and covered with canvas. The canvas was
+"waterproofed by Mr. Macintosh, of Glasgow"—the
+first instance of its use—and for the first time also what
+we know as macintosh coats and overalls were issued
+as part of the outfit, the process having been patented
+in 1824.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The boats and stores were sent on ahead by way of
+York Factory in 1824, and Franklin and his party,
+travelling by New York and the lakes, caught them up
+on the Methye River at sunrise on the 29th of June.
+With them were several old friends, not the least
+delighted being the two Eskimo interpreters, Augustus
+and Ooligbuck, who were to be of the utmost importance
+throughout. On the 8th of August they had got
+along so well that they were at the junction of the Bear
+Lake River with the Mackenzie. Here Back and Peter
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>Warren Dease of the Hudson's Bay Company, who
+had joined the expedition to look after the local
+arrangements, were sent off to build a house to winter
+in on the banks of the Great Bear Lake, in Keith's Bay,
+where the river leaves it; Richardson also left to explore
+the northern shore of the lake, and Franklin and
+Kendall continuing down the Mackenzie reached the
+sea before the week was out in less than six months
+from their departure from Liverpool. And on the 5th
+of September they had returned upstream and were at
+their winter quarters at the new house on the lake,
+which Back had named Fort Franklin, to find that
+Richardson had been along the northern shore and
+noted as being the nearest point to the Coppermine the
+entrance of the river he had named after Dease, which
+was to be of so much service to him later on.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>During the winter another boat, the <em>Reliance</em>, was
+built on the lines of the <em>Lion</em>, the largest of the Woolwich
+boats, and leaving Dease to complete the stores
+for another comfortable winter, the expedition started
+on the 24th of June. At Point Separation, at the
+head of the Mackenzie delta, Franklin in the <em>Lion</em>
+with Back in the <em>Reliance</em>—our old friend Robert
+Spinks being his coxswain—took the western arm, and
+Richardson in the <em>Dolphin</em> and Kendall in the <em>Union</em>,
+carrying the <em>Walnut Shell</em> with them, took the eastern
+arm.</p>
+
+<div id='pg158'  class='figcenter id016'>
+<img src='images/i_237.jpg' alt='Yours faithfully John Richardson' class='ig001' />
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>Richardson, with a few more or less threatening
+encounters with the Eskimos, ending fairly well owing
+to Ooligbuck, and in constant danger of wreck avoided
+by careful navigation, rounded Cape Bathurst in 70° 36´
+and discovered Wollaston Land, the coast-line of which
+they left continuing to the east, when they reached
+Coronation Gulf and, on the 8th of August, entered
+the Coppermine, and thus filled in the gap of nine
+hundred and two statute miles from Point Separation.
+Leaving the <em>Dolphin</em> and <em>Union</em> at Bloody Fall on that
+river, it being impossible to take them further, the
+expedition, carrying the <em>Walnut Shell</em> with them, proceeded
+along the banks, but finding they had no use
+for the portable boat, owing to the shallowness of the
+stream, they soon abandoned it, and in 67° 13´, where
+the river is nearest to the north-eastern arm of Great
+Bear Lake, the Coppermine was left and the course
+laid across the Barren Grounds for Dease River. This
+was reached three days afterwards, Richardson being
+met at its mouth by Dease's people on the 24th of
+August.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Franklin had similar experiences with the Eskimos,
+and was as deeply indebted to Augustus for his tact
+and bravery in dealing with them. Coasting along to
+the westward, hindered by ice, bad weather and fog,
+and tormented by mosquitoes, his progress was much
+slower than that of Richardson. Delayed for some
+days on or about Foggy Island, he had to give up his
+intention of reaching Bering Strait, and not knowing
+that Elson with the barge of the <em>Blossom</em> had come as
+far east as Point Barrow, he gave the name of Cape
+Beechey to the westernmost headland in sight, and
+leaving Return Reef in 148° 52´ on the 18th of August,
+after covering six hundred and ten statute miles through
+parts not previously discovered, began his voyage back
+to Fort Franklin, where he arrived on the 21st of
+September. Meanwhile Richardson had gone off to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>explore the Great Slave Lake, whence Drummond had
+started on his journey among the Rockies; and, being
+unable to get away till another winter had passed,
+both Franklin and Richardson landed in England in
+September, 1827, after an important and fruitful expedition
+that had no death-roll.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Back was again in these regions in 1833 on his
+expedition in search of Sir John Ross. Reaching the
+Great Slave Lake, he built Fort Reliance at its north-eastern
+corner and began the long winter there on the
+5th of November. Soon afterwards Akaitcho put in
+an appearance, and expressed his intention—which he
+did his best to fulfil—of being of as much assistance
+as he could; and later on Augustus made his way
+across country to offer his services, but, either exhausted
+by suffering and privation, or caught in a snowstorm,
+he died alone near the Rivière à Jean.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Temperatures ranging from 50 to 70 minus were of
+frequent occurrence, and, on one occasion Back, after
+washing his face within a yard of the fire, had his hair
+clotted with ice before he had time to dry it. Every
+animal was driven away from the neighbourhood by
+the cold, except a solitary raven which swept once
+round the house and then winged his flight to the
+westward. On the 25th of April a messenger arrived
+at the fort with the news of the safe return of Sir
+John Ross to England, but Back determined to proceed
+with the journey for exploring purposes, taking
+one boat instead of two, and, with Richard King the
+surgeon, and eight men, he started for the Great Fish
+River on the 8th of July.</p>
+
+<div id='pg160'  class='figcenter id017'>
+<a href='images/i_241.jpg'><img src='images/i_241_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>BACK'S JOURNEY DOWN THE GREAT FISH RIVER</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>The voyage was a hazardous and adventurous one.
+For five hundred and thirty geographical miles the
+river was found to run through an iron-ribbed country
+without a single tree on the whole line of its banks,
+expanding into fine large lakes with clear horizons,
+most embarrassing to the navigator, and broken into
+falls, cascades, and rapids, to the number of no less
+than eighty-three, pouring its waters into the Polar
+Sea in latitude 67° 11´ and longitude 94° 30´; so that
+his explorations on the northern coast were confined to
+a section further east than Point Turnagain.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The expedition met with its greatest danger at
+Escape Rapid, between Lake Macdougall and Lake
+Franklin, on the 25th of July. Here the stream was
+broken by a mile of heavy and dangerous rapids. The
+boat was lightened, and every care taken to avoid
+accident; but so overwhelming was the rush and whirl
+of the water, that she, and consequently those in her,
+were twice in imminent peril of being plunged into
+one of the gulfs formed in the rocks and hollows. It
+was in one of these places, which are fall, rapid, and
+eddy within a few yards, that the boat owed its safety
+to an unintentional disobedience of the steersman's
+directions.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The power of the water so far exceeded whatever
+had been witnessed on any of the other rivers that the
+precautions used elsewhere were weak and unavailing.
+McKay, the steersman, was endeavouring to clear a fall
+and some sunken rocks on the left, but the man to
+whom he spoke misunderstood him, and did exactly the
+reverse; and then, seeing the danger, the steersman
+swept the stern round; instantly the boat was caught
+by an eddy to the right, which, snapping an oar, twirled
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>her irresistibly broadside on; so that for a moment it
+seemed uncertain whether the boat was to be hurled
+into the hollow of the fall, or dashed stern foremost on
+the sunken rocks. Of how it happened no account can
+be given, but her head swung inshore towards the beach
+and thereby gave an opportunity for some of the men
+to spring into the water and by their united strength
+rescue her from her perilous position. Had the man
+to whom the first order was given understood and acted
+on it no human power could have saved the crew from
+being buried in the abyss. Nor yet could any blame be
+justly attached to the steersman, who had never been so
+situated before and whose coolness and self-possession
+never in this imminent peril forsook him. At the
+awful moment of suspense, when one of the crew with
+less nerve than his companions began to cry aloud to
+Heaven for aid, McKay in a still louder voice exclaimed,
+"Is this a time for praying? Pull your starboard
+oar." Never could a reminder that <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">laborare est
+orare</span></i> have been more opportune.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 1st of August Montreal Island was reached.
+Nine days afterwards a log of driftwood, nine feet long
+and nine inches in diameter, jocularly described as a
+piece of the North Pole, was found on the beach,
+which, as there are no trees on the Fish River or the
+Coppermine, Captain Back was of opinion must
+have come from the Mackenzie and drifted eastward, so
+that he was on the main line of the land. The inference,
+confirmed by the appearance of a whale, was
+correct, but, misled, perhaps, by hilly islands, he missed
+the channel through which it had come, blocking it,
+in the manner of John Ross, with a range of mountains
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>that does not exist. Though he reached Mount Barrow
+and mistook the head of Simpson Strait for an inlet,
+thus failing to find one of the north-west passages, he
+discovered and named King William Land and sighted
+Point Booth at its eastern extremity. An attempt to
+reach Point Turnagain to the westward and thus link
+up with Franklin's farthest east, in which he might
+have discovered the passage, proving impracticable
+owing to the bogginess of the ground, Back began his
+return from King William Land in latitude 68° 13´,
+longitude 94° 58´, and entered on a wearisome journey
+up the river and lakes he had come down, meeting
+with a party from Fort Reliance on the 17th of
+September.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>A week after, when within a couple of days of the
+fort, on that "small but abominable river" the Ah-hel-dessy
+from Artillery Lake, Back discovered the Anderson
+Falls. Toiling along over the mountains, every man
+with a seventy-five-pound package on his back, he had
+not proceeded more than six or seven miles when, observing
+the spray rising from another fall, he was induced to
+visit it and was well consoled for having left the boat
+behind. "From the only point," says Back, "at which
+the greater part of it was visible, we could distinguish
+the river coming sharp round a rock, and falling into
+an upper basin almost concealed by intervening rocks;
+whence it broke in one vast sheet into a chasm between
+four and five hundred feet deep, yet in appearance so
+narrow that we fancied we could almost step across it.
+Out of this the spray rose in misty columns several
+hundred feet above our heads; but as it was impossible
+to see the main fall from the side on which we were, in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>the following spring I paid a second visit to it,
+approaching from the western bank. The road to it,
+which I then traversed in snow-shoes, was fatiguing in
+the extreme, and scarcely less dangerous; for, to say
+nothing of the steep ascents, fissures in the rocks, and
+deep snow in the valleys, we had sometimes to creep
+along the narrow shelves of precipices slippery with the
+frozen mist that fell on them. But it was a sight that
+well repaid any risk. My first impression was of a
+strong resemblance to an iceberg in Smeerenberg
+Harbour, Spitsbergen. The whole face of the rocks
+forming the chasm was entirely coated with blue,
+green, and white ice, in thousands of pendent icicles;
+and there were, moreover, caverns, fissures, and overhanging
+ledges in all imaginable varieties of form, so
+curious and beautiful as to surpass anything of which I
+had ever heard or read. The immediate approaches
+were extremely hazardous, nor could we obtain a perfect
+view of the lower fall, in consequence of the projection
+of the western cliffs. At the lowest position
+we were able to attain, we were still more than a
+hundred feet above the level of the river beneath; and
+this, instead of being narrow enough to step across, as it
+had seemed from the opposite heights, was found to be
+at least two hundred feet wide. The colour of the water
+varied from a very light to a very dark green; and the
+spray, which spread a dimness above, was thrown up in
+clouds of light grey. Niagara, Wilberforce Falls on
+Hood River, the falls of Kakabikka near Lake
+Superior, the Swiss or Italian falls—although they may
+each charm the eye with dread—are not to be compared
+to this for splendour of effect. It was the most imposing
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>spectacle I had ever witnessed; and, as its berg-like
+appearance brought to mind associations of another
+scene, I bestowed upon it the name of our celebrated
+navigator, Sir Edward Parry, and called it Parry's
+Falls."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Back, like Franklin, owed much of the success of
+his expedition to the cordial help of the Governor of
+the Hudson's Bay Company, George, afterwards Sir
+George, Simpson. Ever the fastest of travellers in the
+north, Simpson had, in 1828, made a 3260-mile canoe
+voyage from Hudson Bay to the Pacific, passing the
+Rockies through canyons previously untried, and
+slipping down mountain torrents and through unknown
+rapids at such speed that hostile Indians let him pass
+in sheer amazement; and all his life he was distinguished
+for similar energy and celerity. When it
+became clear that the British Government had no
+immediate intention of completing the survey of the
+northern coast, Simpson organised an expedition at the
+Company's expense to undertake the task, and entrusted
+the leadership to Dease, who had done such excellent
+work for Franklin; and with Dease he associated his
+own nephew, Thomas Simpson, in no way inferior to
+his uncle in energy, speediness, or decision of character,
+being in fact one of our very best explorers, Arctic or
+otherwise.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Thomas Simpson, Master of Arts of Aberdeen and a
+winner of the Huttonian, began characteristically by
+starting off to Fort Garry—now Winnipeg—with a
+view, as he says, "to refresh and extend my astronomical
+practice which had for some years been interrupted
+by avocations of a very different nature"; and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>thence, in the winter, making his way to Fort Chippewyan,
+a journey of 1277 miles, joining Dease there
+more than a month before he was expected. Two
+boats were built, light clinker craft of 24 ft. keel and
+6 ft. beam, adapted for shallow navigation by their
+small draught, both alike and honoured with the
+classical names of the heavenly twins, <em>Castor</em> and
+<em>Pollux</em>, each boat provided with a small oiled canvas
+canoe and portable wooden frame. Of one, the steersman
+was the redoubtable James McKay—"Pull your
+starboard oar!"—and of the other, George Sinclair,
+Back's bowman; and one of the bowmen was Felix,
+who had been with Franklin in 1826. All told, the
+expedition numbered fourteen.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Leaving Fort Chippewyan on the 1st of June, 1837,
+they reached Bear Lake River on the 3rd of July, and
+six days afterwards were out on the sea. On the 23rd
+of July they camped at Return Reef, that is to say
+they had traversed the whole extent of Franklin's
+survey in a fortnight, and not without danger from
+the ice and losing much time by doubling the floes,
+however far they extended seawards. Once Simpson's
+boat, which was of course leading, was only saved from
+destruction by throwing out everything it contained
+upon the floating masses. By means of portages made
+from one fragment to another, the oars forming the
+perilous bridges, and after repeated risks of boats, men,
+and baggage being separated by the motion of the ice,
+they succeeded with much labour in collecting the
+whole equipment on one floe, which, being covered
+with water, formed a sort of wet dock. There they
+hauled up the boats, momentarily liable to be overwhelmed
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>by the turning over of the ice, three miles
+from land, with the fog settled round them throughout
+the inclement night.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Continuing westwards along new country, they
+reached and named Cape George Simpson (after the
+Governor) and, a little further on, Boat Extreme,
+where, from the coldness of the weather and the interminable
+ice, the further advance of the boats appeared
+to be so hopeless that Dease agreed to stay in charge
+of them while Simpson with five men, including
+McKay and Felix, pushed ahead for Point Barrow on
+foot. Passing McKay Inlet and Sinclair River, named
+after the two steersmen, an Eskimo camp was reached,
+where Simpson exchanged his tin plate for a platter
+made out of a mammoth tusk, and borrowed an oomiak
+which floated in about half a foot of water. In this
+useful skin boat the journey was resumed to Point
+Barrow, and on the 4th of August the survey completed
+between Franklin's farthest and Elson's.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The winter was passed at the mouth of the Dease
+River, on Great Bear Lake, where Fort Confidence
+had been built ready for the expedition on its return.
+On the 6th of June, 1838, a start for the coast was
+made by the Coppermine route, that river being reached
+on the 22nd, and its descent accomplished, on the spring
+flood, in nine days. But it was a bad season, and the
+navigation was so hampered by ice that no start was
+made to the eastward until the 17th of July. At
+Boathaven, in 109° 20´, Simpson again left the boats
+and went ahead with Sinclair and six others who had
+not been to Point Barrow. Passing Franklin's farthest
+at Point Turnagain, he kept on for a hundred miles
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>along the whole length of Dease Strait, discovering
+and naming Victoria Land, reaching Beaufort River
+beyond Cape Alexander, and sighting an open sea to
+the eastward. From here, in 106° 3´, the return began;
+and by many devices and the unfailing skill of McKay
+and Sinclair, the two boats were taken up the Coppermine
+stream, falls and rapids and all, to the nearest
+point to Fort Confidence, where they were hauled up
+in readiness for next year.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 22nd of June, 1839, the boats again left for
+the sea; and they were run down to Bloody Fall without
+a stoppage in eleven hours. Again there were
+fourteen all told in them, but this time one of the men
+was Ooglibuck, who had come specially from Ungava in
+Labrador, in the wonderful time of three months less
+eight days, to join the expedition which was to meet
+with great success and accomplish an Arctic boat
+journey of over sixteen hundred statute miles.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Entirely blocked until the 3rd of July, and hindered
+by ice difficulties all the way, the boats did not reach
+the previous year's farthest until the 28th of July.
+On the 11th of August, through an outlet only three
+miles wide, they passed into the much-desired eastern
+sea. "That glorious sight," says Simpson, after whom
+the strait is named, "was first beheld by myself from
+the top of one of the high limestone islands, and I had
+the satisfaction of announcing it to some of the men
+who, incited by curiosity, followed me thither. The
+joyful news was soon conveyed to Mr. Dease, who was
+with the boats at the end of the island, about half a
+mile off." On the continent and on King William
+Land, where Franklin's men were in time coming to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>perish of starvation, reindeer were seen browsing on the
+scanty herbage among the shingle. A terrible thunderstorm
+followed, and then, doubling a very sharp point
+on the 13th, Simpson landed and saw before him a
+sandy desert. It was Back's Point Sir C. Ogle that he
+had at length reached. Away in the distance was the
+Great Fish River, and three days afterwards the party
+were encamped on Montreal Island, where McKay led
+the way to the provisions and gunpowder deposited by
+Back among the rocks.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The expedition had performed its allotted task, and
+the men were consulted as to whether they would continue
+for a short distance to the eastward. To their
+honour they all assented without a murmur; but the
+cruel north-east wind forbade much progress in that
+direction, and their farthest east was reached at Castor
+and Pollux River. From there immediate return was
+imperative, as not a day could be spared. And so,
+from latitude 68° 28´ 23˝, longitude 94° 14´, they turned
+back on the 21st of August, leaving the survey of the
+north coast of the American mainland practically complete
+from Bering Strait to Boothia.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Further, on their return journey they crossed to the
+southern shore of King William Land and traced its coast
+for nearly sixty miles, discovering and naming Cape
+Herschel, south-eastward of which, in Simpson Strait,
+M'Clintock found the remains of one of Franklin's
+men. They thus linked up with what was to be the
+route of the Franklin expedition and were the first to
+find the North-West Passage for the command of
+which the territory was given by Charles II to the
+Hudson's Bay Company.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER IX<br /> THE PARRY ISLANDS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>John Rae—Wollaston Land and Victoria Strait—Overlaps Franklin's route—M'Clure
+discovers Prince of Wales Strait—The North-West Passage—Banks
+Land—M'Clure rescued by Bedford Pim—Collinson's remarkable
+voyage—In Beaufort Sea—Reaches Banks Strait—Voyage to Cambridge
+Bay—On Franklin's route—The North-West Passage sailed by Amundsen
+along the track of the <em>Enterprise</em>—Sir John Barrow—Parry's first voyage—Penetrates
+Lancaster Sound and discovers the Parry Islands—Stopped
+by ice in Banks Strait—The search for Franklin—Sir John Ross—De
+Haven—Penny—Austin—Ommanney—Osborn—Belcher—Kellett—M'Clintock—Drift
+of the <em>Resolute</em>—Sledge work—Sverdrup's discoveries
+during his four years in the north.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>The second to complete a north-west passage by
+linking up with Franklin's voyage was Dr. John
+Rae, an Orkneyman by birth, as energetic as Thomas
+Simpson and evidently not inferior to him in stamina,
+for in his Arctic journeys he walked a distance equal to
+that of the circumference of the earth. In 1846 he
+had surveyed the Committee Bay district between
+Boothia and the Melville Peninsula, reaching it from
+Repulse Bay, and in 1848 and 1849 he had been associated
+with Richardson in searching for Franklin along the
+coast from the Mackenzie eastwards. Next year, while
+in charge of the Mackenzie district, he was again requested
+to lead a Franklin search expedition, and,
+starting from Fort Confidence on the 25th of April,
+was on the sea by the 1st of May. Crossing over to
+Wollaston Land, and making westward along the coast
+on the 22nd of May, he rounded Cape Baring, just
+above the seventieth parallel. Crossing to its continuation,
+Victoria Land, on a second journey, he
+travelled eastward, and, going up Victoria Strait,
+rounded Pelly Point, also just above the seventieth
+parallel, on the 12th of July, thus practically completing
+the survey of the southern half of what Collinson
+was to prove is one large island.</p>
+
+<div id='pg170'  class='figcenter id018'>
+<img src='images/i_253.jpg' alt='Yours very truly W Parry' class='ig001' />
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>Off Pelly Point, it afterwards appeared, the <em>Erebus</em>
+and <em>Terror</em> were beset in the ice in September, 1846,
+and fifty miles to the south-east they had been
+abandoned in April, 1848; but the only relic found by
+Rae on this occasion was the doubtful one—picked up
+in Parker Bay—of the butt-end of a flagstaff on
+which was nailed a piece of white line by two copper
+tacks, all three bearing the Government mark. This
+was the first to be found of anything that could be
+thought to be a trace of the missing ships, a sort
+of promise of what he was to meet with four years
+later; and it is worth noting that, had he not failed in
+getting across the strait to King William Land, Rae
+would in 1850 have probably discovered Franklin's
+fate.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>His farthest in these parts was passed in May, 1853,
+by Captain Richard Collinson, in his sledge journey to
+Gateshead Island from H.M.S. <em>Enterprise</em>, then wintering
+in Cambridge Bay. The <em>Enterprise</em> and <em>Investigator</em>
+had been placed under Collinson's command and sent
+by way of Cape Horn to search for Franklin from
+the west, the instructions being that the ships should
+not part company; but regardless of this, Commander
+Robert Le Mesurier M'Clure, of the <em>Investigator</em>,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>happening to get through Bering Strait first, declined
+to wait for his commanding officer, went off on an
+expedition on his own account and, by a sledge journey,
+joined Parry's track when in search of the North-West
+Passage.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Steering north-east from Franklin Bay, M'Clure
+reached the south of Parry's Banks Land and followed
+the coast north-eastwards, discovering Prince of Wales
+Strait and making his way rather more than half-way
+up, until, near Princess Royal Island in 72° 50´, he
+was caught in the ice and imprisoned for the winter.
+On Trafalgar Day, 1850, M'Clure left the <em>Investigator</em>
+on a sledge journey up the strait, and at sunrise on the
+26th of October, from Mount Observation in 73° 30´, a
+hill six hundred feet above the sea, he looked over
+Banks Strait and Melville Sound, and saw the coast of
+Banks Land terminating about twelve miles further on
+and thence trending to the north-west, while Wollaston
+Land, as it proved to be, turned eastward on the other
+side at Peel Point. That evening Banks Strait was
+reached at Cape Lord John Russell, and the North-West
+Passage by Prince of Wales Strait clearly
+demonstrated. The spot was not bare of vegetation,
+and there were many traces of animals, for, fortunately
+for M'Clure, there was no scarcity of game during his
+three winterings in Banks Land—reindeer in herds,
+musk oxen occasionally, hares in troops, ducks in
+plenty, ptarmigan almost as numerous, and bears,
+wolves, and foxes to feed on them; for instance, the
+weights of three items in the bag, 1945 lb. of musk ox,
+7716 lb. of deer, and 1017 lb. of hare, show fairly good
+shooting.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>Enclosing a record of the visit in a cairn, M'Clure
+returned to the ship, from which in the spring three
+sledge parties were sent out—Cresswell's to the north-west
+finding that Banks Land was an island, Wynniatt's
+to the north-east reaching Reynolds Point on the north
+of Wollaston Land, and Haswell's down Wollaston
+Land to within forty miles of where Rae turned back
+about a week later—this being the only attempt at
+searching for Franklin that the expedition undertook
+after sighting Nelson Head. Released in July, the
+<em>Investigator</em> retreated down the strait and attempted to
+circumnavigate Banks Land, finding to the west a
+coast as precipitous as a wall, the water deep—fifteen
+fathoms close in, with the yardarms almost touching
+the cliffs on one hand and the lofty ice on the other—and
+the pack drawing forty feet of water, rising in
+rolling hills a hundred feet from base to summit. On
+shore the hills were as remarkable. Many of them
+were peaked and isolated by precipitous gorges, about
+three hundred feet deep. And all the way up them
+were numbers of fallen trees, in many places in layers,
+some protruding twelve or fourteen feet, one of these
+trunks measuring nineteen inches in diameter. Says
+M'Clure: "I entered a ravine some miles inland, and
+found the north side of it, for a depth of forty feet
+from the surface, composed of one mass of wood
+similar to what I had before seen. The whole depth
+of the ravine was about two hundred feet. The
+ground around the wood or trees was formed of sand
+and shingle; some of the wood was petrified, the remainder
+very rotten and worthless even for burning."
+And this forest bed is on the shore of the Beaufort Sea
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>in 74° north latitude, a similar one being in Prince
+Patrick Island, on the other side of Banks Strait.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>After one or two narrow escapes the <em>Investigator</em>
+entered her last home at the Bay of Mercy, well
+within the strait, near Cape Hamilton, the most
+prominent of the three capes discovered from the
+Dundas Peninsula by Parry's lieutenant, Beechey,
+thirty-one years before. The winter passed, and on
+the 11th of April M'Clure left the ship on a sledge
+journey across to Parry's old quarters at Winter
+Harbour, which were reached on the 28th, to find
+nothing but a notice of M'Clintock's having been there
+in the previous June. Noticing Parry's inscription
+rock, M'Clure judiciously left on it a statement that
+the <em>Investigator</em> was in want of relief at Mercy Bay.
+But all through that year no news from the outside
+came to Banks Land, and matters became serious
+owing to the appearance of scurvy, notwithstanding
+the abundance of fresh meat, for even in January a
+herd of reindeer trotted by.</p>
+
+<div id='pg174'  class='figcenter id019'>
+<a href='images/i_259.jpg'><img src='images/i_259_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE PARRY ISLANDS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>Another winter went wearily, each month with a
+gloomier outlook than the last, and on the 5th of April
+the first of the scurvy patients died. Next morning
+M'Clure and Haswell were walking near the ship discussing
+how they could dig a grave in the frozen
+ground, when they noticed a man hurriedly approaching
+from the entrance of the bay, throwing up his
+arms and shouting at the top of his voice, his face as
+black as ebony. When he came within talking range
+the dark-faced stranger called out, "I am Lieutenant
+Pim, late of the <em>Herald</em> and now in the <em>Resolute</em>;
+Captain Kellett is in her at Dealy Island." And soon
+the dog-sledge with two men came into view. Pim's
+arrival was most fortunate for the sufferers, for the
+captain, as a desperate resource, was—in spite of the
+doctor's protests—just about to send off two sledge
+parties of the invalids to take their chance of escaping
+somehow, as there was no hope of their recovery in
+the ship; and on examination by the doctor of the
+<em>Resolute</em>, it was found that every man of the crew was
+more or less affected by the disease. So the ship was
+abandoned in Mercy Bay, and the officers and crew,
+crossing to the <em>Resolute</em>, reached England by way of
+Hudson Strait.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Collinson's was the most remarkable voyage ever
+accomplished by a sailing-ship in the Arctic regions.
+It lasted from 1850 to 1855—five years and a hundred
+and sixteen days—all the way out across the Atlantic
+and Pacific and home again in safety, traversing a
+hundred and twenty-eight degrees of longitude in the
+Arctic sea, coming nearest at the time to completing
+the north-west passage by ship (up Prince of Wales
+Strait), finding two north-west passages by sledge (one
+joining with Parry's discoveries across Banks Strait,
+the other with Franklin's up Victoria Strait), and
+approaching nearer than any other naval expedition
+to the great discovery by travelling up Franklin's
+route for some distance, and passing within thirty miles
+of the spot where the vessels he was in search of had
+been abandoned, though unfortunately, like Rae, he
+was on the west side of the waterway instead of the
+east.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Passing Bering Strait in July, 1850, the <em>Enterprise</em>
+went north from Wainwright Inlet into the Beaufort
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>Sea, until she was stopped by the heavy pack. Trying
+east, to join with Parry's farthest, and then west, she
+arrived, on the 28th of August, at 73° 23´ in 164°, and
+here she turned south after having sailed over eleven
+thousand miles without having to reef her topsails, an
+unprecedented run of distance and fine weather combined.
+Returning in 1851 from wintering at Hong
+Kong, Collinson, with a southerly wind "too precious
+to be wasted," made his way up Prince of Wales
+Strait, knowing nothing of the visit of the <em>Investigator</em>,
+to find ice blocking his way just at the northern outlet,
+his furthest north, by ship, 73° 30´, forty miles beyond
+M'Clure's winter quarters, as given in the record he
+found in one of the cairns.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Unable to round the corner into Banks Strait owing
+to the ice block, Collinson returned down Prince of
+Wales Strait and followed the track of the <em>Investigator</em>
+half-way up the west coast of Banks Land, though he
+had found nothing to indicate she had gone in that
+direction. Finding the ice conditions dangerous, he
+retraced his route along the coast and went into comfortable
+winter quarters in Walker Bay, at the entrance
+of Prince of Wales Strait. By the end of November
+the natives fishing for salmon-trout had cleared off, as
+also had the reindeer, hares, and ptarmigan and other
+birds, and on the 17th of March the ravens, which had
+been the last to leave, were the first to return. In
+April sledge parties went out, one of which under
+Lieutenant Parkes crossed the route of the <em>Hecla</em>
+along the strait and reached Melville Island at Cape
+Providence on the way to Winter Harbour, short of
+which, within sight of Point Hearne, Parkes began his
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>homeward journey, owing to his taking the tracks of
+sledges and barking of dogs as indicating the presence,
+not of M'Clure as it did, but of Eskimos, with whom,
+being without weapons, he was unable to cope.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Released on the 5th of August, the <em>Enterprise</em> proceeded
+to sea, coasting along past Rae's farthest and
+Cape Baring, and so, where no ship had been, through
+Coronation Gulf to Cambridge Bay. Here the winter
+of 1852-3 was spent, and hence the sledges went up
+Victoria Strait. At Finlayson Islands, what seemed
+to be a piece of a companion-door was found among
+the driftwood, which might have been a relic of the
+lost ships; but that was all. During the return along
+the northern coast the <em>Enterprise</em> was beset in Camden
+Bay, and here the third winter was passed, release not
+coming until the end of the following July, and Bering
+Strait not being reached until the 21st of August after
+a voyage, like that of the <em>Vega</em>, too well managed to
+yield much adventure. Like all the other Arctic
+voyages of this period, it failed in the one object it
+was undertaken to achieve; but in days to come the
+first ship to sail the passage from the Atlantic to the
+Pacific was to follow Collinson from Cambridge Bay
+along the route laboriously completed by the surveyors
+of the mainland from James Cook to Dease and
+Simpson.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>M'Clure claimed and—to have done with the matter—obtained
+the reward of £10,000 for discovering the
+North-West Passage through Prince of Wales Strait,
+though he sailed only half-way up it and, in attempting
+to get round to Parry's farthest, lost his ship and
+started sledging on the west side of the pack; while
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>Collinson took his ship much nearer to Parry's course
+on the east side; and Franklin, by linking up with
+Dease and Simpson over the ice by way of Victoria
+Strait, had previously found another of the possible
+passages, as shown by Collinson's voyage to Cambridge
+Bay. But surely what was done by M'Clure, and by
+Collinson in his northerly cruise, was to see where ships
+could pass when there was no ice in the way, which
+was no more than had been done by Parry, who had
+taken his ship within sight of both their farthest, and
+would have sailed into the Beaufort Sea had not the
+pack forbidden it. It was Parry, in fact, who discovered
+the main road, the route by Prince of Wales
+Strait, like that by Peel Sound taken by Franklin and
+successfully accomplished by Amundsen, being only
+one of the many by-roads leading off along his course.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>His famous voyage to Melville Island was due to the
+influence of Sir John Barrow. Barrow, to whom more
+than any other man this country owes its position in
+Arctic story, was born in a small thatched cottage at
+Dragley Beck, near Ulverston, in North Lancashire, in
+1764, and, in a remarkable course of promotion by
+merit, became second secretary of the Admiralty for
+forty years under twelve or thirteen different naval
+administrations, Whig and Tory; being so unmistakably
+the right man in the right place that he was only dispensed
+with once—on a change of First Lords—and
+then was reinstated the next year. When he was
+seventeen he was given the opportunity of a voyage
+in a Greenland whaler, which he accepted, and that
+was his only Arctic experience; but even when with
+Macartney in China and South Africa, he kept up
+his interest in the north, and in 1817, when at the
+Admiralty, proposed to Lord Melville his plan for two
+voyages of discovery, one to the north and the other
+to the north-west, which opened the new era of Polar
+exploration.</p>
+
+<div id='pg178'  class='figcenter id020'>
+<img src='images/i_265.jpg' alt='Yours very truly John Barrow' class='ig001' />
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>The voyage to the north was that of Buchan and
+Franklin in the <em>Dorothea</em> and <em>Trent</em>; that to the north-west
+was undertaken by John Ross in the <em>Isabella</em> and
+William Edward Parry in the <em>Alexander</em>. Of this we
+need only say here that on their return from the north
+of Baffin Bay, Ross and Parry coasted down the west
+side and sailed into Lancaster Sound for a considerable
+distance until Ross—who seems to have had the
+mountain-finding eye and an unenviable gift for missing
+straits—declared that it ended in a range of mountains
+which he appropriately named Croker's; and, that
+there should be no mistake about them, he gave a very
+pretty picture of them as a full-page plate in his book.
+Parry, however, saw no mountains and took the liberty
+of saying so to Barrow when he reported himself at the
+Admiralty, the result being the despatch of Parry's
+expedition in the <em>Hecla</em> and <em>Griper</em> which left Yarmouth
+on the 12th of May, 1819, and, for the first time
+after leaving the coast of Norfolk, dropped anchor in
+the bay named after them in Melville Island, on the 5th
+of September.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Parry, before his voyage in the <em>Alexander</em>, had had
+Arctic experience while lieutenant of the <em>Alexandria</em>
+frigate engaged in protecting the Spitsbergen
+whale fisheries, and knew thoroughly what he was
+about. For instance, he worked his crews in three
+watches, and had both his vessels rigged as barques
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>as the most convenient rig among ice, though the
+<em>Griper</em>, a strong, slow gunboat, was rather too small to
+be so treated, being only about half the tonnage of the
+<em>Hecla</em>, whose measurement was under four hundred.
+Had she been a little speedier more work might have
+been done; but what was done was magnificent.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Entering Lancaster Sound, Parry found a strait not
+blocked by mountains but thirty miles broad leading
+into a region up to then unknown, except—so it is said—to
+the Norsemen. On the 12th of August Prince
+Regent Inlet was discovered and named, it being
+George IV's birthday. Then North Somerset was
+sighted and the course laid across Barrow Strait to
+North Devon and its south-western peninsula known
+as Beechey Island; then Wellington Channel was descried,
+and then Cornwallis Island. Griffith Island was
+discovered on the 23rd of August, Bathurst Island on
+the 25th, Byam Martin Island on the 27th, where
+Sabine, the astronomer of the expedition, found they
+had passed north of the magnetic north pole. Then
+the south side of Melville Island was coasted along,
+Dealy Island being found on the 4th of September at
+noon, and, at a quarter past nine at night, just after
+passing Bounty Cape (named in honour of the event),
+the <em>Hecla</em> crossed the 110th meridian west, and
+became entitled to the Government grant of £5000 for
+doing so—which Parry shared between the ships.</p>
+
+<div id='pg180'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_269.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>H.M.S. "HECLA" AND "GRIPER" IN WINTER HARBOUR</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>Soon the ice became difficult and the ships had to
+anchor, but, the conditions improving, the westerly
+voyage was resumed. Cape Providence was passed and
+Cape Hay sighted, but the ships could get no further
+than about half-way between these capes, and they had
+to return to Winter Harbour, where, on the 26th of
+September, they were warped to their quarters through
+a channel cut in the ice. The <em>Hecla</em>, sending down all
+her upper masts except the main topmast, and the
+<em>Griper</em>, housing her fore and main topmasts, used the
+spars to support a roof which completely enclosed their
+upper decks and made them both snug for the winter,
+which did not seem so long owing to the efforts of the
+officers to keep every one amused and on the move.
+Parry, a host in himself, was well seconded by his
+lieutenant, Beechey, late of the <em>Trent</em>, James Clark
+Ross, one of his midshipmen, Captain Sabine, and
+Lieutenant Liddon, the commander of the <em>Griper</em>, who
+was almost disabled with rheumatism, and Lieutenant
+Hoppner, also of the <em>Griper</em>. A couple of books of
+plays on board proved a real treasure; owing to them
+the Royal Arctic Theatre was started, the pioneer of so
+many amateur theatrical ventures in the Polar seas,
+and the <em>North Georgia Gazette</em> and <em>Winter Chronicle</em>
+came into existence, the first of ship newspapers. On
+Christmas Day there was a dinner of roast beef which
+had been on board since May, the condition of
+which, as Parry said, was an excellent testimony to the
+antiseptic properties of a cold atmosphere; and the
+food generally was good and abundant, and the management
+and supplies far better than on many subsequent
+expeditions. In the spring, game was found in fair
+quantity, nearly four thousand pounds of musk ox,
+deer, hares, geese, ducks, and ptarmigan being brought
+on board.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In May the vessels were afloat again, though ice-bound,
+and, in June, walking, not sledging, journeys
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>were organised, the furthest points reached being Cape
+Fisher to the north and Cape Hoppner to the west.
+On the 1st of August the vessels moved out of the
+bay to the westward, and six days afterwards Beechey
+called attention to the land with the three capes already
+mentioned. "The land," says Parry, "which extends
+beyond the 117th degree of west longitude, and is the
+most western yet discovered in the Polar Sea to the
+north of the American continent, was honoured with
+the name of Banks Land out of respect to the late
+venerable and worthy President of the Royal Society."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 16th Cape Dundas was named, but progress
+was impossible. For a week Parry made every endeavour
+to pass, but the floes, forty to fifty feet thick,
+heaped up by the tides from the east and the west so
+as to form a wide-stretching landscape of hill and dale,
+barred the way right across Banks Strait; and no
+further west could be attained than 113° 46´ 43·5˝, in
+latitude 74° 26´ 25˝. Thence Parry returned, hoping
+to get through on another voyage, and bidding farewell
+to the North Georgian Islands, as he called them, or
+the Parry Islands, as we now know them, he came
+home by the way he went out, through Lancaster
+Sound. Needless to say, the very next season the
+whalers followed on Parry's track, and Lancaster
+Sound became the highway to a very profitable fishing-ground.</p>
+
+<div id='pg182'  class='figcenter id021'>
+<a href='images/i_273.jpg'><img src='images/i_273_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>PARRY'S DISCOVERIES ON HIS FIRST VOYAGE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>Among the Parry Islands in 1851 were several
+vessels in search of Franklin. Sir John Ross, aged
+seventy-four, was there in the schooner-yacht <em>Felix</em> on
+a private expedition chiefly memorable for the story
+of his having sent off a carrier pigeon from his winter
+quarters at Cornwallis Island, which reached his home—North-West
+Castle, Stranraer, Wigtownshire—three
+thousand miles away, in five days. Lady Franklin's
+vessel, the <em>Prince Albert</em>, was there, with Captain
+Forsyth and Parker Snow on board, an old fruit
+schooner, and therefore the speediest sailing-craft
+among the crowd. The Grinnell expedition of the
+two American brigs, <em>Advance</em> and <em>Racer</em>, under De
+Haven, was also there, to drift afterwards up Wellington
+Channel and down again back into Baffin Bay;
+as was a British Government expedition of the two
+whaling brigs, <em>Lady Franklin</em> and <em>Sophia</em>, under Captain
+William Penny, who was to discover the sea open north
+of Wellington Channel. In addition to these was the
+British squadron under Captain Horatio Austin in
+H.M.S. <em>Resolute</em>, with H.M.S. <em>Assistance</em>, Captain
+Erasmus Ommanney, and the old Cattle Conveyance
+Company's boats known as H.M.S. <em>Intrepid</em>, Lieutenant
+Cator, and H.M.S. <em>Pioneer</em>, Lieutenant Sherard Osborn,
+these two being screw steamers used as tenders, which
+proved of great value as tugs and ice-breakers.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 23rd of August Captain Ommanney found
+Franklin's winter quarters on Beechey Island, and four
+days afterwards Captain Penny came upon the gravestones
+marking where the three men, two of the
+<em>Erebus</em> and one of the <em>Terror</em>, had been buried in
+1846, though nothing was discoverable of the route
+intended to be taken by the ships. The news was
+important, and the <em>Prince Albert</em>, acting as despatch
+vessel, was immediately sent home with it, to return
+next year with Kennedy and Bellot to make a discovery
+of her own. Soon Captain Austin's four ships
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>departed, also to return in the following year, Sir
+Edward Belcher, in the <em>Assistance</em>, being then in command,
+Kellett being in the <em>Resolute</em>, M'Clintock in the
+<em>Intrepid</em>, and Sherard Osborn again in the <em>Pioneer</em>.
+Belcher's attempt ended in his abandoning his vessels
+in the ice; one of them, the <em>Resolute</em>, as though in
+mute protest, drifting from 74° 41´ for a thousand
+miles, to be picked up by Buddington off Cape Dyer
+in Baffin Bay, bought from him by the American
+Government and presented to Great Britain, refitted
+as she used to be, as a much-appreciated token of goodwill.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The great feature of these years was the wonderful
+sledge work; by it mainly the northern coasts of the
+islands discovered by Parry were surveyed and other
+islands added to the archipelago, including the westernmost,
+Prince Patrick, named after the Duke of Connaught,
+who was at first known as Prince Patrick instead
+of Prince Arthur. The sledges fitted out by Austin
+traversed 1500 miles of coast-line, 850 of which were new,
+the routes radiating between Osborn's 72° 18´ and Bradford's
+76° 25´, M'Clintock going farthest, 760 miles, to
+114° 20´ in 74° 38´. Those next year from Kellett at
+Dealy Island covered 8558 miles, radiating from Pim's
+74° 6´ (to rescue M'Clure) to M'Clintock's 77° 23´, a
+run to 118° 20´ and back of 1401 miles, while Mecham
+reached 120° 30´ on a trip of 1163 miles; and Belcher
+from his winter quarters in Northumberland Sound, in
+76° 52´, aided by Richards and Osborn, was almost as
+busy further north.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Thus practically the whole belt of land and sea
+westward between and including Lancaster Sound and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>Jones Sound as far as 120° was searched and mapped,
+the most northerly of the Parry Islands known up to
+then being Finlay Island, North Cornwall, and Graham
+Island. But in 1898 Captain Otto Sverdrup went up
+Smith Sound in his old ship the <em>Fram</em> on an endeavour
+to sail round the north coast of Greenland from west
+to east. He had to winter in Rice Strait, near Pim
+Island, and finding, to put it sportingly, that he was
+to a certain extent trespassing on Peary's preserves,
+decided to devote his attention to the unknown region
+approachable through Jones Sound. In 1899, therefore,
+he took the <em>Fram</em> up the sound, and, failing
+to pass through Cardigan Strait, spent the three
+following years among the fiords at the north-western
+end.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>From here he sent his sledge and ski parties far and
+wide, west and south and north over an approximate
+area of a hundred thousand square miles. Long
+stretches of coast-fine were explored and named, in a
+few cases unnecessarily, though, strange to say, the
+unnecessary names were all royal ones, King Oscar
+Land being the west of Ellesmere Land, Crown Prince
+Gustav Sea and Prince Gustav Adolf Sea being the
+Polar Ocean, and King Christian Land being simply
+Finlay Island. Separated from Finlay Island by
+Danish Sound and from North Cornwall by Hendriksen
+Sound, he found two large islands, which—just as
+John Ross named Boothia after his principal patron,
+the distiller—Sverdrup named Ellef Ringnes and
+Amund Ringnes after two of his supporters, the
+brewers; his other discovery, Axel Heiberg Land—which
+seems to be Peary's Jesup Land sighted in 1898—to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>the west and north-west of these, being so called
+after his other munificent patron.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>His farthest south was Beechey Island, his farthest
+west Cape Isachsen in Ellef Ringnes Land, his farthest
+north Lands Lokk in Grant Land, in latitude 81° 40´
+and longitude about 92°, within sixty miles of Aldrich's
+farthest along the north-eastern coast, the gap afterwards
+traversed by Peary. Within these limits the
+amount of coast detail filled in was remarkable.
+Owing to the favourable condition of the ice and the
+excellent management in all ways, the sledges frequently
+did their fifteen miles and more a day. Though
+the expedition lost its doctor during the first winter,
+there was little trouble as regards health; and game
+was in plenty right up to the far north where Hare
+Fiord tells of hares in hundreds.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>With hunting episodes the story is pleasantly varied,
+one in particular being so graphically described by
+Sverdrup that as a sample we may be forgiven a rather
+long quotation. "The bear," says Sverdrup, "was
+determined to go up a difficult stony valley a little
+north of our tent, and, try as the dogs would to
+prevent it, up the valley it went. Schei and I ran full
+speed northward along the ice-foot, and soon heard
+that the dogs had brought it to bay. We made a short
+cut across some hills of grit, and, when we reached
+the top of one of them, saw the bear on the other side
+of the valley, sitting on a hill-top, which fell almost
+sheer away. But on the north side it was accessible,
+and here it was probably that the bear had climbed it.
+There sat the king of the icefields enthroned on a kind
+of pedestal, and the whole staff of yelping dogs standing
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>at a respectful distance. I tried a couple of shots,
+but overrated the distance, and the bullets went over
+the bear's head. I then told Schei to go and shoot it
+whilst I looked on at the further development of the
+drama. The bear's position was a first-rate one. It
+had taken its stand on a little plateau high up on a
+mountain crag; this little ledge was reached by a
+bridge not more than a good yard in width, and there
+stood the bear, like Sven Dufva, ready with his sledgehammer
+to fell the first being that should venture
+across. His majesty was not visible to Schei until he
+came within a few feet of him, but then it was not
+long before a shot was heard. The bear sank together,
+and a few seconds afterwards all the dogs had
+thrown themselves on to it. They tugged and pulled
+at the bear's coat, tearing tufts of hair out of it, and
+before we knew what they were doing, had dragged
+the body to the edge of the plateau, where it shot out
+over the precipice. The dogs stood amazed, gazing
+down into the depths where the bear was falling swiftly
+through the air—but not alone, for on it as large as
+life were two dogs which had clung so fast to its hair,
+that they now stood planted head to head, and bit
+themselves still faster to it in order to keep their
+balance. I was breathless as I watched this unexpected
+journey through the air. The next moment the bear
+in its perpendicular fall would reach the projecting
+point of rock, and my poor dogs!—it was a cruel
+revenge the bear was taking on them. I should now
+have only three dogs left in my team. The bear's
+body dashed violently against the rock, turned a
+somersault out from the mountain wall and fell still
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>further, until, after falling a height of altogether at
+least a hundred feet, it reached the slopes by the river,
+and was shot by the impetus right across the river-ice
+and a good way up the other side. And the dogs?
+When the bear dashed against the mountain they
+sprang up like rubber balls, described a large curve,
+and with stiffened legs continued the journey on their
+own account, falling with a loud thud on to the hardly
+packed snow at the bottom of the valley. But they
+were on their legs again in a moment, and set off as
+fast as they could go across the river after the bear.
+Not many minutes afterwards the whole pack came
+running up, but when they were driven away from the
+carcase, they lay down again to await their turn. I
+hurried back to camp to fetch the dog harness; we
+put a lanyard through the nose of the mighty fallen,
+and set off. The dogs knew well enough that this
+meant food for them, and the nearer we came to camp
+the harder they pulled. In fact, I had to sit on the
+carcase to keep them back, and, jolting backwards and
+forwards, on this new kind of conveyance I made my
+entrance into camp, in the light spring night." But
+bears were few, compared with the musk oxen, which,
+with the reindeer and hares, and with the wolves and
+foxes, and stoats and lemmings, seals and walruses,
+narwhals and white whales, represented the Arctic
+mammalia.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The most singular experience met with was perhaps
+the sledge journey through the ice tunnel on the return
+across the Simmons Peninsula in 1900. Descending a
+valley which became narrower and narrower Sverdrup
+and Fosheim began to think it was going to end in a
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>canyon, but without any warning they were stopped by
+a high wall of ice, perpendicular and inaccessible to any
+one without wings. Looking about, Sverdrup found a
+large hole which proved to be the beginning of a tunnel
+through the glacier. Through this lofty vault they
+sped. From the roof hung threateningly above their
+heads gigantic blocks of ice, seamed and cleft and
+glittering sinisterly; and all around were icicles like
+steel-bright spears and lances piercing downwards on
+them. Along the walls were caves after caves, with
+pillars in rows like giants in rank; and over all shone a
+ghostly whitish light which became bluish as they went.
+"I dared not speak," says Sverdrup. "It seemed to me
+that in doing so I should be committing a deed of desecration;
+I felt like one who has impiously broken into
+something sacred which Nature had wished to keep
+closed to every mortal eye. I felt mean and contemptible
+as I drove through all this purity. The
+sledges jolted from block to block, awakening thunderous
+echoes in their passage: and it seemed as if all the
+spirits of the ice had been aroused and called to arms
+against the intruders on their church-like peace."</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER X<br /> BOOTHIA</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>Christopher Middleton—Wager River—Repulse Bay—Parry's second north-west
+voyage—Melville Peninsula—Fury and Hecla Strait—John Ross's
+second Arctic voyage—Introduces steam navigation into the Arctic regions—The
+whaler <em>John</em>—Ross misses the North-West Passage—Snow houses—Eskimo
+geographers—James Clark Ross finds the Magnetic North Pole—Lyon
+in the <em>Griper</em>—Back in the <em>Terror</em>—Rae's journey round Committee
+Bay—Sir John Franklin's last voyage—Kennedy and Bellot—Discovery
+of Bellot Strait—Rae's journey in 1854—His Franklin discoveries—M'Clintock's
+voyage in the <em>Fox</em>—Lady Franklin's instructions—Captain
+Charles Hall—Frederick Schwatka—Amundsen accomplishes the North-West
+Passage.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>In July, 1742, Christopher Middleton, working
+northwards in Hudson Bay from Fort Churchill,
+made his way up Rowe's Welcome and entered a deep
+inlet apparently leading to the South Sea. Middleton—who
+gained his Fellowship of the Royal Society for
+his variation observations at Fort Churchill, and was
+the first to practise the modern method of finding
+longitude by eight or ten different altitudes of the sun
+or stars when near the prime vertical—spent eighteen
+days in the inlet observing the tides, and then came to
+the conclusion that it was an estuary; and he named
+it Wager River after Sir Charles Wager, who was First
+Lord of the Admiralty when he began his voyage.
+Proceeding north, he reached his Repulse Bay, and at
+the north-east end of it saw Frozen Strait, as he called
+it, stretching away along the north of Southampton
+Island towards Cape Comfort. Here, also from tidal
+observations, he satisfied himself that Repulse Bay
+afforded no passage to the westward and that Frozen
+Strait led into Fox Channel.</p>
+
+<div id='pg190'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_283.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>AN IGLOOLIK ESKIMO CARRYING HIS KAYAK</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>His opinions were disputed by those who only knew
+the coast from his chart, and two vessels were sent out
+to prove he was wrong. The reports of the captains
+of these—there is no need to mention their names—were
+embarrassing. Neither had been to Repulse Bay,
+but both had been to Wager River, and they agreed
+that it was unmistakably a river and not a strait; but
+in every other respect, even in naming the places they
+had seen, they were at variance. Thus the matter was
+left in sufficient doubt to encourage some people in
+believing in a north-west passage through Repulse Bay,
+just at the Arctic Circle, and to seek this, Parry, on
+his return from Melville Island, was despatched on his
+second voyage.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>This time the <em>Hecla</em> was commanded by George
+Francis Lyon—the North African traveller—Parry
+being in the <em>Fury</em>, a sister ship; both vessels, at Parry's
+suggestion, being exactly alike so that their gear and
+fittings were interchangeable. They sailed from the
+Little Nore on the 8th of May, 1821, and going direct
+up Frozen Strait, with much trouble from the ice, ran
+into Repulse Bay on the 22nd of August. Here after
+a careful examination it was ascertained beyond a doubt
+that no passage existed through to the westward.
+"Thus," says Lyon, "the veracity of poor Middleton,
+as far as regards this bay at least, was now at length
+established; and in looking down the strait we had
+passed, he was fully justified in calling it a frozen strait.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>We were now indisputably on our scene of future
+action, the coast of America; and it only remained for
+us to follow minutely the line of shore in continuation
+from Repulse Bay."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>During a stay at Gore Bay red snow was brought off
+to the <em>Fury</em>, its colour being much fainter than that
+found in the <em>Isabella</em> voyage at Crimson Cliffs in
+Greenland; "the appearance of the mass was not unlike
+what is called raspberry ice, in a far better climate,
+where cold is made subservient to luxury." The colouring
+of this is due to one of the Algæ, <em>Protococcus
+nivalis</em>, and not as Peter Paterson said in 1671—ninety
+years before De Saussure—to the rocks being "full of
+white, red, and yellow veins, like marble; upon any
+alteration of the weather, these stones sweat, which,
+together with the rains, tinges the snow red." The
+day on which this snow was found, the 30th of August,
+was so warm that the party were glad to pull off their
+coats and waistcoats. "The valleys were fertile in
+grasses and moss; and the fineness of the weather had
+drawn forth a number of butterflies, spiders, and other
+insects, which would, by their gay colours and active
+motions, have almost deceived us into an idea that we
+were not in the Arctic regions, had not the Frozen
+Strait, filled with huge masses of moving ice, reminded
+us but too forcibly, that we were in the most dangerous
+of them."</p>
+
+<div id='pg192'  class='figcenter id021'>
+<a href='images/i_287.jpg'><img src='images/i_287_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>PARRY'S FARTHEST ON HIS THIRD VOYAGE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>Early in October the ships took up their quarters at
+Winter Island on the coast of Melville Peninsula in
+66° 32´, and there, during the cordial intercourse with
+the Eskimos, Parry heard of the way through further
+north which led him on his release in the following
+July to discover Fury and Hecla Strait, along which
+the ships passed to find their progress blocked by the
+ice just beyond its entrance into Regent Inlet. Returning
+through the strait, they reached the island of Igloolik
+at the eastern entrance, and there they passed the
+winter, Igloolik being an important Eskimo settlement,
+with four fixed places of residence on it, to which as the
+season changes the natives move in rotation. From
+this island, as the health of the men did not permit of
+his venturing to spend another winter in the ice, Parry
+retraced his route and returned to England.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The ships dropped anchor in the Thames on Trafalgar
+Day, 1823. Next year, on the 19th of May, they were
+off again to the north to seek a passage to the west
+down Prince Regent Inlet, Parry in the <em>Hecla</em>, Hoppner
+in the <em>Fury</em>. It was a bad season. The ships were
+late in leaving Baffin Bay and were hindered by new
+ice in Lancaster Sound. So far from reaching the
+strait discovered two years before, they could get no
+further south than Port Bowen, in 73° 12´, where they
+spent the winter in a singularly barren part of Cockburn
+Land. Starting in July they went down to Cresswell
+Bay, the ships being forced by the weather and the ice
+to work—as is not unusual under such circumstances—in
+almost every possible direction within every mile,
+their track—as shown in the illustration—being most
+complicated. The end of it all was that the <em>Fury</em> was
+wrecked and her stores carefully taken out and left, on
+what was named Fury Beach, for the use of future
+callers in want of them. And the <em>Hecla</em> came home
+alone.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Four years afterwards Captain John Ross, anxious
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>for further work in the north, started in search of the
+passage by the same route. After some years of effort
+he had succeeded in organising an expedition, the expenses
+of which to the amount of over £17,000 were
+borne by Felix Booth, with the exception of over £2000
+added by Ross himself. It was a memorable voyage
+in many respects, and for one thing in particular that
+is frequently passed unnoticed. This was the introduction
+of steam into Arctic navigation. The <em>Victory</em>
+was an old Isle of Man packet-boat of eighty-five tons,
+which, by raising her sides five feet, Ross increased
+to one hundred and fifty tons. Taking out her old
+paddles, he replaced them with a pair of Robertson's
+patents, hoistable out of water in a minute, so as to
+clear the ice. The engine was also a patent, by Braithwaite
+and Ericsson, who built the Novelty that appeared
+at Rainhill. But neither Braithwaite nor Ericsson was
+any happier in this production. Its great feature was
+the doing away with the funnel, no flue being required
+owing to the fires being kept going by artificial draught
+derived from two bellows of unequal sizes—"the bellows
+draught," in fact, like that of the Novelty which broke
+down in the great locomotive contest won by the
+Rocket. Had not Ross been a man of enterprise he
+would never have ventured to sea with such an experimental
+arrangement; but he did, and he suffered
+for it.</p>
+
+<div id='pg194'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_291.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE "VICTORY"</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>The "execrable machinery," as he inadequately
+called it, went wrong from the first. On the way from
+Galleons Reach to Woolwich, part of it became displaced,
+causing a delay for repairs. At Woolwich, Sir
+Byam Martin, the Comptroller of the Navy, and
+Sir John Franklin went on board and said uncomplimentary
+things about it, as also did the Duke of
+Orleans (afterwards King Louis Philippe) and the
+Duke of Chartres, though the Frenchmen were more
+gentle in their phrases. From Woolwich to Margate
+this remarkable engine, aided by the sails, took the
+<em>Victory</em> in just over twelve hours, the boiler leaking so
+much that the additional forcing pump had to be kept
+working by hand all the time. Passing the Lizard, the
+piston-rod was found to be so much worn on one side
+by friction against the guide-wheels that a piece of iron
+had to be brazed on to it. Then the keys of the main
+shaft broke and the substitutes made on board broke
+one after the other. "The boilers also continued to
+leak, though we had put dung and potatoes in them by
+Mr. Ericsson's directions." The air-pump drew quantities
+of water; the feeding pump was insufficient to
+supply the boiler. The big bellows nearly wore out;
+so did the small one. Off the Mull of Galloway the
+stoker fell into the machinery and had his arm crushed
+and nearly severed above the elbow. Then the teeth
+of the fly-wheel of the small bellows were shorn off,
+and the boiler joints gave way, and the water, or
+rather the potato soup, flowed out of the furnace
+doors and put out the fire.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Enough has been said to show the difficulties under
+which Ross first used steam on a voyage to the
+northern seas. The list of damages need not be continued.
+Every constituent part of the apparatus gave
+way in turn; and when the <em>Victory</em> became imprisoned
+for the winter, and the engineering staff had some time
+on their hands, they employed it in taking what was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>left of the installation, piece by piece, out of the ship,
+laying it on the ice, and leaving it there.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Ross was to be accompanied by the whaler <em>John</em>, but
+the men mutinied and refused to start, so that he went
+on from Loch Ryan alone. The following year the
+crew of the <em>John</em>, then on a whaling voyage in Baffin
+Bay, again mutinied, killed the master, put the mate
+adrift in a boat in the manner of Henry Hudson, and
+lost the ship on the western coast, where most of them
+were drowned.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>With the <em>Krusenstern</em>, a boat of eighteen tons, in
+tow, Ross crossed the Atlantic, sighting Sanderson's
+Hope on the 29th of July, having left Scotland six
+weeks before. Early in August he sailed through
+Lancaster Sound, and, taking the opportunity of
+removing his Croker's Mountains to the north-east
+corner of North Somerset, went down Prince Regent
+Inlet to Fury Beach. After completing his provisions
+for twenty-seven months from the stores left behind by
+Parry, he crossed Cresswell Bay, passed Cape Garry,
+Parry's farthest south, on the 15th of August, and
+next day, Sunday, "I went on shore," he says, "with
+all the officers, to take formal possession of the new-discovered
+land; and at one o'clock, being a few minutes
+after seven in London, the colours were displayed with
+the usual ceremony, and the health of the King drunk,
+together with that of the founder of our expedition,
+after whom the land was named."</p>
+
+<div id='pg196'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_295.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>NORTH HENDON</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>"From the highest part of this land, which was
+upwards of a hundred feet above the level of the sea,"
+he continues, "we had a good view of the bay and the
+adjoining shores, and had the satisfaction to find that
+the ice was in motion and fast clearing away. We
+therefore resolved to wait patiently till we could see
+an opening; and proceeded to the northern quarter of
+this spot to make some observations on the dip of the
+magnetic needle.... To this place I gave the name
+Brown Island, after the amiable sister of Mr. Booth;
+the inlet was named Brentford Bay, and the islands
+Grimble Islands." And in his book is a beautiful steel
+engraving by W. Chevalier, "Taking Possession.
+Cape Hussard, Grimble Isle, Brentford Bay, Brown's
+Island." In short, Ross found the place, landed
+on it, took possession of it, named it and sketched
+it. "The sketches from which the drawings were
+made were taken by Mr. Ronald's invaluable perspective
+instrument, and therefore <em>must</em> be true delineations."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>And Ross passed on, apparently quite pleased with
+himself. But the Fates had again been against him, for
+this was the very North-West Passage he had come
+specially to find; the bay, as Kennedy was to show,
+being the entrance to Bellot Strait in which the <em>Fox</em>
+was to winter when on the Franklin search. He had
+blundered along from the island of North Somerset to
+the mainland of America, and passed unheeded its
+northernmost point, which M'Clintock was to name
+Cape Murchison.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Working down the coast of the newly-named
+Boothia, the <em>Victory</em> reached Felix Harbour, and there
+she wintered. No Eskimos were seen until the 9th of
+January, when thirty-one came to the ship and were
+invited on board, a return visit being paid next day to
+their village, which Ross named North Hendon. As
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>this was a typical Eskimo snow camp we may as well
+copy his picture and quote his description.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"The village soon appeared, consisting of twelve
+snow huts, erected at the bottom of a little bight on
+the shore, about two miles and a half from the ship.
+They had the appearance of inverted basins, and were
+placed without any order; each of them having a long
+crooked appendage, in which was the passage, at the
+entrance of which were the women, with the female
+children and the infants. We were soon invited to
+visit these, for whom we had prepared presents of glass
+beads and needles; a distribution of which soon drove
+away the timidity which they had displayed at our first
+appearance. The passage, always long, and generally
+crooked, led to the principal apartment, which was a
+circular dome, being ten feet in diameter when intended
+for one family, and an oval of fifteen by ten where it
+lodged two. Opposite the doorway there was a bank
+of snow, occupying nearly a third of the breadth of the
+area, about two feet and a half high, level at the top,
+and covered by various skins, forming the general bed
+or sleeping place for the whole. At the end of this sat
+the mistress of the house, opposite to the lamp, which,
+being of moss and oil, as is the universal custom in
+these regions, gave a sufficient flame to supply both
+light and heat; so that the apartment was perfectly
+comfortable. Over the lamp was the cooking dish of
+stone, containing the flesh of deer and of seals, with
+oil; and of such provision there seemed no want.
+Everything else, dresses, implements, as well as provisions,
+lay about in unspeakable confusion, showing
+that order, at least, was not in the class of their virtues.
+It was much more interesting to us to find, that among
+this disorder there were some fresh salmon; since, when
+they could find this fish, we were sure that it would also
+furnish us with supplies which we could not too much
+multiply. On inquiry, we were informed that they
+were abundant; and we had, therefore, the prospect of
+a new amusement, as well as of a valuable market at
+the mere price of our labour."</p>
+
+<div id='pg198'  class='figcenter id022'>
+<img src='images/i_299.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>ESKIMO LISTENING AT A SEAL-HOLE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>A few weeks later Ross was to see how these houses
+were built. "Four families," he says, "comprising
+fifteen persons, passed the ship to erect new huts about
+half a mile to the southward. They had four heavy-laden
+sledges, drawn each by two or three dogs, but
+proceeded very slowly. We went after them to see
+the process of building the snow house, and were surprised
+at their dexterity; one man having closed in his
+roof within forty-five minutes. A tent is scarcely
+pitched sooner than a house is here built. The whole
+process is worth describing. Having ascertained, by
+the rod used in examining seal holes, whether the snow
+is sufficiently deep and solid, they level the intended
+spot by a wooden shovel, leaving beneath a solid mass
+of snow not less than three feet thick. Commencing
+then in the centre of the intended circle, which is ten
+feet or more in diameter, different wedge-shaped blocks
+are cut out, about two feet long, and a foot thick at the
+outer part; then trimming them accurately by the
+knife, they proceed upwards until the courses, gradually
+inclining inwards, terminate in a perfect dome. The
+door being cut out from the inside before it is quite
+closed serves to supply the upper materials. In the
+meantime the women are employed in stuffing the joints
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>with snow, and the boys in constructing kennels for the
+dogs. The laying the snow sofa with skins and the insertion
+of the ice window complete the work; the
+passage only remaining to be added, as it is after the
+house is finished, together with some smaller huts for
+stores"—the design being similar to that of the yurts
+of the Eskimos of the north, with a change of material,
+snow for stone, and ice instead of seal-gut for the window
+over the entrance.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Making friends with the Eskimos, and gaining a
+great reputation by the carpenter fitting one of them
+with a wooden leg, Ross obtained much valuable information
+from them, particularly as to the geography
+of the district. Like all Arctic men, he was impressed
+by their quickness in understanding maps and their
+skill in drawing them upon anything, snow, paper, or
+otherwise, that lay handy. One of them, Ikmallik,
+drew in the ship's cabin a map, which he reprints in his
+book, showing the coast-line of the country south of
+the <em>Victory's</em> quarters, with the capes, inlets, and islands,
+giving the isthmus of Boothia and Committee Bay, and
+Repulse Bay on the other side of the Melville Peninsula,
+which is really wonderful, for neither the Eskimo, nor
+Ross, had anything to copy from, it being nearly twenty
+years before Rae's exploration; and the one thing it
+clearly demonstrated was that there was no waterway
+to the westward, south of Felix Harbour.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Ross owed much to Ikmallik, and really a good deal
+of the time of the expedition was spent in confirming
+the statements of that well-informed man. The west
+coast of Boothia was surveyed down to Bulow Bay;
+the east side from Cape Nicholas down to Cape Porter,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>including the crossing of the upper part of James Ross
+Strait, the discovery of Matty Island and the north-east
+coast of King William Land from Cape Landon,
+opposite Cape Porter—where Ross, as usual, missed a
+strait—westward to capes Franklin and Jane Franklin,
+within sight of which in the days that were coming,
+by one of those remarkable coincidences so frequent in
+the north, the <em>Erebus</em> and <em>Terror</em> were to meet their
+fate.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The one conspicuous triumph of the expedition was
+the journey of James Ross to the site of the Magnetic
+North Pole, which he found on the western coast of
+Boothia on the 1st of June, 1831. In the younger
+Ross's own words, "the land at this place is very low
+near the coast, but it rises into ridges of fifty or sixty
+feet high about a mile inland. We could have wished
+that a place so important had possessed more of mark
+or note. It was scarcely censurable to regret that there
+was not a mountain to indicate a spot to which so
+much of interest must ever be attached; and I could
+even have pardoned any one among us who had been
+so romantic or absurd as to expect that the magnetic
+pole was an object as conspicuous and mysterious as
+the fabled mountain of Sinbad, that it even was a
+mountain of iron, or a magnet as large as Mont Blanc.
+But Nature had here erected no monument to denote
+the spot which she had chosen as the centre of one of
+her great and dark powers; and where we could do
+little ourselves towards this end, it was our business to
+submit, and to be content in noting by mathematical
+numbers and signs, as with things of far more importance
+in the terrestrial system, what we could but ill
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>distinguish in any other manner.... We fixed the
+British flag on the spot and took possession of the
+North Magnetic Pole and its adjoining territory in
+the name of Great Britain and King William the
+Fourth. We had abundance of materials for building,
+in the fragments of limestone that covered the beach;
+and we therefore erected a cairn of some magnitude,
+under which we buried a canister containing a record
+of the interesting fact; only regretting that we had not
+the means of constructing a pyramid of more importance
+and of strength sufficient to withstand the assaults
+of time and of the Eskimos. Had it been a pyramid
+as large as that of Cheops, I am not quite sure that it
+would have done more than satisfy our ambition, under
+the feelings of that exciting day. The latitude of this
+spot is 70° 5´ 17˝, and its longitude 96° 46´ 45˝ west."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The <em>Victory</em> in the short summer of 1830 sailed a few
+miles further south and spent the winter in Victoria
+Harbour, to be there abandoned in May, 1832. Ross
+in his boats made for Fury Beach, where, at Somerset
+House, as he called it, he passed the following winter.
+On the 26th of August, 1833, when in his boats off the
+eastern mouth of Lancaster Sound, he was picked up
+by the <em>Isabella</em>, his old ship, and in her he reached the
+Humber in October of that year after four successive
+winters in the ice, having been enabled to make so long
+a stay by his fortunate find of the stores left by Parry.</p>
+
+<div id='pg202'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_305.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>H.M.S. "TERROR" LIFTED BY ICE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>In 1824 Captain Lyon was sent out in the <em>Griper</em> to
+winter at Repulse Bay, and thence crossing the isthmus
+described by the Eskimos continue along to Franklin's
+Point Turnagain; but the <em>Griper</em> was nearly wrecked
+in Rowe's Welcome and did not reach Wager River.
+The discoveries of Ross led to the renewal of this
+attempt by Captain Back in the <em>Terror</em> in 1836. He
+was to go to Wager River or Repulse Bay, and then
+make his way into Prince Regent Inlet, and so west;
+but he became imprisoned in the ice off Cape Comfort
+during one of the severest winters known. Drifting up
+Frozen Strait amid most perilous experiences, the ship,
+lifted high above sea-level by pressure, lay at times
+almost horizontal. Once "they beheld," he says, "the
+strange and appalling spectacle of what may be fitly
+termed a submerged berg, fixed low down, with one
+end to the ship's side, while the other, with the purchase
+of a long lever advantageously placed at a right angle
+with the keel, was slowly rising towards the surface.
+Meanwhile, those who happened to be below, finding
+everything falling, rushed or clambered on deck, where
+they saw the ship on her beam-ends, with the lee boats
+touching the water, and felt that a few moments only
+trembled between them and eternity."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Day after day the <em>Terror</em> defied the persistent effort
+of the ice to smash her, but suffering much in almost
+every timber she withstood it sufficiently to keep
+together. For four months she was entirely out of
+water, and when at last she was free, Back wrapped
+her up as best he could, and brought her home with
+the water pouring into her so that the men were so
+wearied out that they could hardly have continued at
+the pumps another day; and he ran her ashore in
+Lough Swilly only just in time. Upwards of twenty
+feet of her keel, together with ten feet of the stern-post,
+were driven over more than three and a half feet on
+one side, leaving a frightful opening astern for the free
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>ingress of water. The forefoot was entirely gone;
+numbers of bolts were either loosened or broken; and
+when, besides this, the strained and twisted state of the
+ship's frame was considered, there was not one on board
+who did not express astonishment that they had ever
+floated across the Atlantic.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The next attempt to complete the coast of the
+American mainland was made from the land, and at
+the cost of the Hudson's Bay Company. Really it was
+the expedition proposed by Simpson some five years
+before, of which he would have been the leader had he
+not been shot; and it was entrusted to the capable
+hands of Dr. John Rae.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>After wintering at York Factory, Rae reached
+Repulse Bay with two boats, the <em>Magnet</em> and <em>North
+Pole</em>, on the 25th of July, 1846, and in his usual style
+started immediately across the chain of lakes and
+portages which make up the isthmus that now bears
+his name, launching his boats in the tidal water of
+Committee Bay on the 1st of August. Stopped by
+ice on the west side and then on the east he returned
+to Repulse Bay, where he built Fort Hope of stones
+and roofed it with sails, and lived in it through the
+winter on what he could shoot and catch, for many
+weeks venturing on only one meal a day. Outside the
+men kept themselves warm chiefly by building snow
+houses and playing football; inside, as the only fuel
+used was for cooking, the only thing they could do was
+to wrap themselves in furs, and trust to their natural
+heat in a temperature that ranged about zero.</p>
+
+<div id='pg204'  class='figcenter id023'>
+<img src='images/i_309.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>FRACTURED STERN-POST OF H.M.S. "TERROR"</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>In April, with a couple of sledges, eight dogs, and
+five men, he crossed the isthmus again and went straightaway
+up the east side of Boothia to Ross's farthest
+south, thus completing that coast-line. Back he went
+to Fort Hope after a trip of nearly six hundred miles,
+to start again on the 12th of May up the west coast of
+the Melville Peninsula to Cape Ellice, which Parry had
+sighted from the strait on that side. And he was back
+once more at Fort Hope on the 9th of June. Thus
+the survey of the northern coast was complete with
+the exception of the gap between the Boothia isthmus,
+on the west side, and Castor and Pollux River of Dease
+and Simpson, which Rae in another famous effort from
+Repulse Bay was to link up later on.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>When Rae reached Lord Mayor's Bay on the east
+coast of Boothia, Franklin, with the <em>Erebus</em> and
+<em>Terror</em>, was off its west coast in the same latitude.
+This was the reappearance of the <em>Terror</em> in the north.
+After Back's voyage she had been repaired to sail with
+the <em>Erebus</em>, under Sir James Clark Ross, when he discovered
+the South Magnetic Pole; and on their return
+the barques had been thoroughly overhauled and fitted
+with auxiliary screws, the first time that the screw
+propeller was used in Arctic work. Franklin was in the
+<em>Erebus</em>, the <em>Terror</em> being commanded by Francis R. M.
+Crozier as she had been in the Antarctic voyage.
+Crozier was one of Parry's men, he having been in the
+<em>Fury</em> in 1821 and in the <em>Hecla</em> on her two subsequent
+expeditions.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The ships left England on the 19th of May, 1845,
+and were last seen and spoken with on the 26th of
+July in Melville Bay on their way to Lancaster Sound.
+According to information gained during the long series
+of searches, they passed through the sound and went
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>north for about a hundred and fifty miles, to 77°, up
+Wellington Channel into Penny Strait—the first time
+the passage had been made. Returning down the west
+side of Cornwallis Island, discovering the strait between
+it and Bathurst Island, they wintered at Beechey Island,
+where three of the men died and were buried; and where
+the most significant relic was about seven hundred tins
+of preserved meat that seemed to have been condemned
+as bad, just as the stock of similar stuff had in the
+same year been condemned and thrown overboard at
+Portsmouth.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Leaving Beechey Island in 1846, they went south
+down Peel Sound, being the first to pass through it,
+and Franklin Strait—another new discovery—to within
+twelve miles of Cape Felix in King William Land,
+where, on the 12th of September, they were beset
+about half-way between Cape Adelaide in Boothia and
+Pelly Point in Victoria Land. Hereabouts the second
+winter was passed, and on the 24th of May a party
+under Lieutenant Gore crossed the ice to Point Victory,
+probably on a journey to examine the unknown coast
+between there and Cape Herschel. On the 11th of June,
+1847, Sir John Franklin died. The ships drifted a short
+distance during their imprisonment in the ice, and the
+third winter was passed some twenty miles further south
+down Victoria Strait, where, on the 22nd of April, 1848,
+when fifteen miles north-north-west of Point Victory,
+they were abandoned, and the officers and crews, a
+hundred and five in all, under Crozier's command, started
+for Back's Great Fish River, some of them completing
+the first North-West Passage in crossing Simpson Strait
+and reaching Montreal Island.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>The first undoubted traces of the lost expedition were
+those discovered at Beechey Island, the news reaching
+England in the <em>Prince Albert</em> in the autumn of 1850.
+As soon as the winter was over this excellent little
+schooner was again sent out by Lady Franklin under
+the command of Captain William Kennedy, who took
+with him as a volunteer Lieutenant Joseph René Bellot
+of the French navy, and also John Hepburn, who had
+been with Franklin on the land journey in 1819.
+Kennedy wintered at Batty Bay in North Somerset,
+and during a remarkable sledge journey, in which he
+made the circuit of the island, he and Bellot reached
+Brentford Bay, and, on the 21st of April, 1852, discovered
+the strait named after the gallant Frenchman.
+But he found no traces of the expedition through turning
+to the north and crossing to Prince of Wales Island,
+instead of going to the south at the western mouth of
+the strait. He had, however, discovered the termination
+of Boothia, the north point of the American continent
+which men had been seeking for three centuries.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>To the southern end of Boothia came the indefatigable
+Rae. That cheery hero of the north left
+Repulse Bay on the 31st of March, 1854, to complete
+the Hudson's Bay Company's survey. On the 20th of
+April he met a young Eskimo in Pelly Bay, who told
+him the fate of the <em>Erebus</em> and <em>Terror</em>, and from him
+and his people Rae obtained a number of small articles,
+forks and spoons and so forth, which had undoubtedly
+come from the ships, one of which had been crushed in
+the ice, the other sinking after drifting further south.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Rae was not the man to return until he had attacked
+the work he had set out to do, and he continued his
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>surveying with his customary accuracy, despatch, and
+general alertness, striking across the peninsula, discovering
+the Murchison River, reaching Simpson's
+farthest at Castor and Pollux River, and thence proving
+the insularity of King William Land by travelling up
+the east coast of the strait now named after him—and
+he was back again in August. He had almost finished
+the survey of the northern coast-line; and he had
+ascertained how and where Franklin's voyage had
+ended, for which discovery the British Government gave
+him the reward of £10,000, letting it be understood
+that so far as they were concerned the Franklin searches
+were at an end.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>But Lady Franklin thought one more effort should
+be made to unravel the mystery of her husband's fate,
+and there were many who thought the same. Helped
+to a certain extent by a public subscription, she organised
+another expedition. The steam-yacht <em>Fox</em> was
+bought from the executors of Sir Richard Sutton and
+altered for Arctic work by her builders, the Halls of
+Aberdeen clipper fame. As leader went Captain, afterwards
+Sir, Frederick Leopold M'Clintock, who had
+done such brilliant sledge-work in the north; like his
+second in command, Lieutenant W. R. Hobson, he
+gave his services gratuitously, as also did Dr. David
+Walker and Captain, afterwards Sir, Allen Young,
+then of the Mercantile Marine, who also subscribed
+£500 towards the fund. Carl Petersen, the Eskimo
+interpreter on the voyages of Penny and Kane, came
+to join from Copenhagen, having landed there from
+Greenland only six days previously. The British
+Government, although declining to send out an expedition,
+contributed liberally to the supplies, and sent on
+board all the arms and ammunition and ice-gear and
+every instrument that was asked for.</p>
+
+<div id='pg208'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_315.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE "FOX" ESCAPING FROM THE PACK</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>Lady Franklin's instructions were so characteristic of
+the noble-hearted woman whose name can never be forgotten
+in Arctic story that they must be given in full:—</p>
+
+<div class='c015'>"<span class='sc'>Aberdeen</span>, <em>June 29, 1857</em>.</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-l c016'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>"<span class='sc'>My dear Captain M'Clintock</span>,</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c017'>"You have kindly invited me to give you
+'Instructions,' but I cannot bring myself to feel that it
+would be right in me in any way to influence your judgment
+in the conduct of your noble undertaking; and
+indeed I have no temptation to do so, since it appears
+to me that your views are almost identical with those
+which I had independently formed before I had the
+advantage of being thoroughly possessed of yours.
+But had this been otherwise, I trust you would have
+found me ready to prove the implicit confidence I place
+in you by yielding my own views to your more enlightened
+judgment; knowing too as I do that your
+whole heart also is in the cause, even as my own is. As
+to the objects of the expedition and their relative importance,
+I am sure that you know that the rescue of
+any possible survivor of the <em>Erebus</em> and <em>Terror</em> would
+be to me, as it would be to you, the noblest result of
+our efforts.</p>
+
+<p class='c017'>"To this object I wish every other to be subordinate;
+and next to it in importance is the recovery of the unspeakably
+precious documents of the expedition, public
+and private, and the personal relics of my dear husband
+and his companions.</p>
+
+<p class='c017'>"And lastly, I trust it may be in your power to confirm,
+directly or inferentially, the claims of my
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>husband's expedition to the earliest discovery of the
+passage, which, if Dr. Rae's report be true (and the
+Government of our country has accepted and rewarded
+it as such), these martyrs in a noble cause achieved at
+their last extremity, after five long years of labour and
+suffering, if not at an earlier period.</p>
+
+<p class='c017'>"I am sure that you will do all that man can do for
+the attainment of all these objects; my only fear is
+that you may spend yourselves too much in the effort;
+and you must therefore let me tell you how much
+dearer to me even than any of them is the preservation
+of the valuable lives of the little band of heroes who
+are your companions and followers.</p>
+
+<p class='c017'>"May God in His great mercy preserve you all from
+harm amidst the labours and perils which await you,
+and restore you to us in health and safety as well as
+honour. As to the honour I can have <em>no</em> misgiving.
+It will be yours as much if you fail (since you <em>may</em> fail
+in spite of every effort) as if you succeed; and be
+assured that, under <em>any and all circumstances whatever</em>,
+such is my unbounded confidence in you, you will
+possess and be entitled to the enduring gratitude of
+your sincere and attached friend,</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r c016'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>"<span class='sc'>Jane Franklin</span>."</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div id='pg210'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_319.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE "FOX" ON A ROCK</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>The men of the <em>Fox</em> were worthy of the confidence
+placed in them. Leaving Aberdeen on the 1st of July,
+M'Clintock reached Disco on the last day of the month,
+and, proceeding northwards, was, by a perverse freak of
+fortune, beset in Melville Bay on the 8th of August,
+and kept imprisoned thence onwards all through the
+winter, drifting south through Baffin Bay and Davis
+Strait. On the 26th of April, 1858, after a drift of
+1194 geographical miles, the <em>Fox</em> escaped from the
+pack and steamed to the eastward amid the most
+perilous of ice experiences. Most men would have
+returned and tried again; not so M'Clintock. He
+boldly ran up the Greenland coast as if nothing had
+happened and, making good deficiencies, resumed his
+voyage. Soon after leaving Sanderson's Hope the
+<em>Fox</em> was nearly wrecked near Buchan Island, remaining
+on a rock until the tide rose again to set her free.
+After calling at Beechey Island, M'Clintock followed
+Franklin's track down Peel Sound until stopped by the
+pack, when he retraced his course and tried Prince
+Regent Inlet, reaching Bellot Strait on the 21st of
+August. At Port Kennedy in this famous waterway—which
+is like a Greenland fiord, about twenty miles long
+and scarcely a mile wide at its narrowest part, the water
+four hundred feet deep within a quarter of a mile of
+its northern shore—he passed the winter.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 1st of March he reached by sledge the Magnetic
+Pole and fell in with four of the Boothian Eskimos,
+who, at the cost of a needle each, built him a snow hut
+in an hour, in which they all spent the night. "Perhaps,"
+says M'Clintock, "the records of architecture do
+not furnish another instance of a dwelling-house so
+cheaply constructed!" Halting at Cape Victoria the
+Eskimos came up from their village close by with a
+number of small relics of the lost expedition. Returning
+to the <em>Fox</em> after a journey of four hundred and
+twenty statute miles in which the survey of the west
+coast of Boothia was completed, everything was made
+ready for three long sledge journeys of two sledges each,
+the captain taking that for Montreal Island, and giving
+Hobson the best chance of promotion by sending him
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>round the west coast of King William Land, while
+Young took the Prince of Wales Land route.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the east coast of King William Land M'Clintock
+met with more Eskimos, from whom he obtained relics
+and obtained information. Pushing on, he reached
+Montreal Island on the 15th of May, where the only
+traces of a boat were some scraps of copper and an
+iron-hoop bolt. A crossing to the mainland on the
+18th of May revealed no more; and next day the
+return journey began. Six days afterwards, walking
+along a gravel ridge near the beach on the way to Cape
+Herschel, M'Clintock found the first skeleton, partly
+exposed, with a few fragments of clothing appearing
+through the snow, evidently one of the men who, as
+the old Eskimo woman said, fell down and died as they
+walked along. Visiting Simpson's cairn at Cape Herschel
+and meeting with nothing, he went on for about
+twelve miles, where he caught sight of a small cairn
+built by Hobson's party at their furthest south, reached
+six days before, containing a note with the great news
+that at Point Victory they had found what is now
+known as the Franklin record.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>This record, which has frequently been printed—in a
+smaller size than the original—was one of the navy
+bottle-papers with the request in six languages that
+it should be forwarded to the Admiralty. A pale blue
+paper, twelve and a half inches by eight, it was filled up
+in the ordinary way, and then added to round the four
+margins in the handwriting of Lieutenant Gore, Captain
+FitzJames, and Captain Crozier, and signed by these
+and C. F. Des Vœux. It had been first deposited four
+miles away, so it said, "by the late Commander Gore,"
+in 1847, and next year found by Lieutenant Irving,
+added to, and removed to the new cairn on the site of
+Sir James Ross's pillar.</p>
+
+<div id='pg212'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_323.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>DISCOVERY OF THE CAIRN</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>Brief as it was, it contained all the authentic information
+regarding Franklin's voyage up to the time the ships
+were abandoned. Resuming the return journey along
+the edge of the strait where the meeting of the Pacific
+and Atlantic tides keeps the ice drifting down from the
+north-west almost constantly packed, M'Clintock reached
+a boat with two skeletons and other relics already visited
+by Hobson, who had found other cairns and many
+relics, and, in Back Bay, another record by Gore, also
+deposited in 1847, but giving no additional news.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Hobson was dragged alongside the <em>Fox</em>, on the 14th
+of June, so ill with scurvy that he was unable to walk or
+even stand without assistance. M'Clintock arrived five
+days later; and on the 27th Allen Young returned
+after an exploration of three hundred and eighty miles
+of coast-line, which, added to that discovered by
+M'Clintock and Hobson, gave a total of eight hundred
+geographical miles of new coast as the work of the
+expedition, besides what it had done in clearing up the
+Franklin mystery.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In 1869 Captain C. F. Hall collected other relics
+and sufficient information to account for seventy-nine
+men out of the hundred and five who left the ships.
+Ten years after that, Schwatka, in his long, careful
+search of King William Land, discovered the grave of
+Lieutenant Irving, in which were some fragments of his
+instruments and the prize medal he won at the Royal
+Naval College. Near by were many traces indicating
+that it was the site of the first encampment of the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>retreating crews after leaving their ships; and down
+the coast he traced camp after camp, and death after
+death. Irving's remains were brought away and are
+buried at Edinburgh. The spot where they were found
+was Cape Jane Franklin.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>More fortunate than Franklin was Captain Roald
+Amundsen. Leaving Christiania in the <em>Gjöa</em> on the
+16th of June, 1903, he crossed the Atlantic and proceeded
+down Peel Sound, past Bellot Strait, and along
+the west coast of Boothia, where a fire on the ship did
+a certain amount of damage, and, struggling thereafter
+for ten days among shoals and rocks, down James
+Ross Strait, past Matty Island into Rae Strait, he
+dropped anchor in Petersen Bay, King William Land.
+For his base station he required a site in which the
+inclination was eighty-nine degrees, and at Gjöahaven,
+in this bay, he found it in 68° 30´ N., 96° W.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Here he arranged his headquarters for his observations
+on the Magnetic Pole which were kept going
+night and day for nineteen months; and here he stayed
+for two winters, moving about in the country around
+and over into Boothia, where he proved that the Pole
+was not immovable and stationary, but in all likelihood
+in continual movement. Leaving the south-eastern
+corner of King William Land in his little ship he
+passed through Simpson Strait, linking up with Collinson;
+and, like him, he was delayed for a winter on the
+coast of the American mainland. Through Bering
+Strait he reached San Francisco, where the voyage
+ended in the sale of the <em>Gjöa</em>. Thus of Amundsen it
+can be said, without any qualification whatever, that
+he accomplished the North-West Passage.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XI<br /> BAFFIN BAY</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>Sir Humphrey Gilbert—Sir Martin Frobisher—His first voyage—The fateful
+stone—First meeting with the Eskimos—The Cathay Company—Second
+voyage—Third voyage—Frobisher builds a fort—The ships among the
+floes—Captain Hall finds the Frobisher relics—Adrian Gilbert—John
+Davis—His voyages and dealings with the Eskimos—Reaches and names
+Sanderson's Hope—The Traverse Book—William Baffin—His first voyage
+to Greenland—His fourth and fifth voyages—Discovers Baffin Land—Discovers
+Baffin Bay—Smith Sound—Jones Sound—Lancaster Sound—Baffin's
+farthest north—John Ross and Parry verify his discoveries.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>In 1566 Humphrey Gilbert—who was as near to
+heaven by sea as by land—petitioned Queen
+Elizabeth for privileges in regard to discoveries "by
+the North-west to Cataia" as an alternative to a petition
+he, in conjunction with Anthony Jenkinson, had presented
+the previous year for a voyage by the north-east.
+He received no answer; but ten years afterwards,
+in support of this unanswered petition, he published
+his <cite>Discourse of a Discovery for a New Passage to
+Cataia</cite>. This met with approval, and led, with little
+delay, to the expedition under the Martin Frobisher
+who, among other noteworthy services, commanded
+the <em>Triumph</em> in the Armada fight to such good purpose
+that he was one of the five distinguished men knighted
+by Howard in mid-channel after the battle off the
+Isle of Wight.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Frobisher was a good seaman—but no mineralogist.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>Mainly at the expense of Ambrose Dudley, Earl of
+Warwick, and under the business management of that
+old seafarer, Michael Lock, of the Muscovy Company,
+he left Blackwall on the 7th of June, 1576, in the
+<em>Gabriel</em> of twenty-five tons, accompanied by the
+<em>Michael</em> of twenty tons—which deserted and returned
+as soon as difficulties arose—and a ten-ton pinnace,
+which ended by foundering off Greenland. All told,
+the expedition numbered thirty-five, of whom the
+<em>Gabriel</em> carried eighteen; and with these the voyage
+through the Arctic Ocean was to be made to China.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Leaving the Shetlands at her top speed of a league
+and a half an hour—which her master, good Christopher
+Hall, proudly recorded—the <em>Gabriel</em> sighted Cape Farewell
+on the 11th of July. Two days afterwards she
+was thrown on her beam-ends in a storm, and was
+rapidly filling with water flowing in at her waist when
+she was relieved by the loss of her fore-yard and the
+cutting away of her mizen-mast. Rounding the cape,
+steering westward when he could among the floating
+ice, Frobisher reached a high headland at the south-east
+end of what is now Frobisher Bay, which he
+named Queen Elizabeth Foreland. A few days afterwards
+Hall, out in a boat seeking a way through the
+ice for the ship, landed on what they called Hall's
+Island, and, noticing a fog coming on, left hurriedly,
+snatching up, as specimens of the plants, a few grasses
+and flowers, and, as a rock specimen, a heavy black
+stone picked up haphazard on the beach. The grass
+faded, the flowers perished, and the fateful stone
+remained.</p>
+
+<div id='pg216'  class='figcenter id024'>
+<img src='images/i_329.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>SIR MARTIN FROBISHER</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>For fifty leagues Frobisher sailed north-westward
+into the bay, thinking it to be a strait with Asia on
+the right hand and America on the left. He landed
+at what he called Butcher's Island, saw "mightie deere
+which ranne at him and hardly he escaped with his
+life in a narrow way where he was faine to use defence
+and policie," and from a hill-top "perceived a number
+of small things fleeting in the sea afarre off whyche
+hee supposed to be porposes or seales or some kind of
+strange fishe but coming nearer he discovered them to
+be men in small boates made of leather," who only just
+failed in capturing his boat before he reached it. Subsequent
+conferences with the Eskimos ended in his losing
+the boat with five men who had gone ashore to trade;
+and finally, having lifted single-handed one of the
+interesting natives, kayak and all, into the <em>Gabriel</em>, he
+made sail for home.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>When Lock went aboard on the ship's arrival there
+were no riches from Cathay, nothing worth mentioning
+beyond the Eskimo—who soon died—the kayak
+and paddle, and "the fyrste thynge found in the new
+land," the black stone. He carried away the stone,
+after chipping off a few fragments for the friends
+around, and after a week or two's consideration sent
+some of it to the Mint to be assayed. The report was
+not as he expected; the "saymaster" was of opinion
+that it was marcasite, that is, iron pyrites. Not satisfied,
+Lock sent some to another expert, who also said it was
+pyrites. Then he tried a third man, who could find no
+gold in it. And then he tried a fourth—this time an
+Italian—who gave him the answer he wanted: "A very
+little powder of gold came thereout."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Lock sent him some more, telling him frankly that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>three other assayers "could find no such thing therein,"
+but again the Italian was equal to the occasion. "The
+xviii day of January," writes Lock, "he sent me by his
+mayde this little scrap of paper written, No. 1, hereinclosed;
+and thereinclosed the grayne of gold, which
+afterward I delivered to your majesty." For the Queen
+had become interested in the wonderful stone which
+was the talk of the town, its value increasing at every
+recital until many believed, as Sir Philip Sidney seems
+to have done, that it was "the purest gold unalloyed
+with any other metals."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Lock was not the man to let such excellent advertisement
+be lost, and forthwith he projected the Cathay
+Company for which the charter was obtained from the
+Crown on St. Patrick's Day, 1577. Lock was named as
+Governor for six years with remuneration "for ever"
+of one per cent on all goods imported; Frobisher was
+named as Captain by sea and Admiral of the ships and
+navy of the Company for life with a yearly stipend and
+one per cent, like Lock, on all goods the Company
+brought in. Queen Elizabeth—notwithstanding the
+report from the Mint—headed the list of shareholders
+with £1000; and Burghley, Howard, Leicester, Walsingham,
+Hunsdon, Sidney, even Gresham, subscribed
+for shares in this remarkable company.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>To bring home more of the "golden ore," a new
+expedition was entered upon at once, and on the 26th
+of May, Whit-Sunday as it happened, Frobisher
+started on his second voyage. He had three vessels,
+the <em>Aid</em> of two hundred tons, lent him from the
+Royal Navy, and the <em>Gabriel</em> and <em>Michael</em> as before,
+and one hundred and twenty officers and men, of whom
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>thirty were miners and other landsmen, and, in addition,
+six condemned criminals whom he was to land in Greenland
+as colonists but put ashore at Harwich instead.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>To the new land—named by the Queen Meta
+Incognita, "the unknown limit of the outward course"—he
+made his way without much adventure. Landing
+on Hall's Island, he sought for more stone but
+could find not so much as a piece as big as a walnut;
+for Hall, who was again with him as master, had
+apparently lighted, in the one sample, on the whole of
+its mineral wealth. This disappointment, however, was
+forgotten in the finding of occasional patches of pyrites
+on the mainland and other islands which in due course
+were visited. Thirty leagues up the bay a landing was
+made on what was called Countess of Warwick's
+Island, where more ore was found and a fort called
+Best's Bulwark was built. That was Frobisher's
+farthest on this voyage, and thence he sailed on the
+24th of August, bringing with him two hundred tons
+of pyrites, and, as a present for the Queen, a horn two
+yards long, wreathed and straight, which he had found
+in the nose of a dead narwhal.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The ore was received with rejoicings. Some of it
+was deposited in Bristol Castle, some in the Tower of
+London under four locks, but there was not enough of it;
+and as there were then, as now, no furnaces in England
+capable of getting gold out of marcasite, a new expedition
+was despatched while the furnaces were being
+prepared. This time the enterprise was to be on a very
+different scale. Frobisher was given a fleet of fifteen
+vessels, Drake's old ship, the <em>Judith</em>, amongst them, the
+<em>Aid</em>, as before, being the flagship. He was to bring
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>home two thousand tons of mineral and find other
+mines, if he could, besides taking out a colony of a
+hundred persons to settle in Meta Incognita, for whom
+the materials of a wooden house were among the miscellaneous
+cargo.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The fleet left Harwich on the 31st of May, 1578. A
+landing was made in the south of Greenland, which
+Frobisher named West England and took possession
+of, his point of departure from there being called by
+him, "from a certain similitude," Charing Cross! Soon
+he was among the ice floes. One of the ships was driven
+on to a floe and sank with some of the materials for the
+wooden house. Then followed a storm in which most
+of the ships had a terrible experience. "Some," says
+Captain Best of the <em>Ann Frances</em>, the chronicler of the
+voyage, "were so fast shut up and compassed in amongst
+an infinite number of great countreys and ilands of ise,
+that they were fayne to submit themselves and their
+ships to the mercie of the unmercifull ise, and strengthened
+the sides of their ships with junckes of cables,
+beds, masts, planckes, and such like, which being hanged
+overboord, on the sides of their shippes, mighte the
+better defend them from the outrageous sway and
+strokes of the said ise. But as in greatest distresse,
+men of best value are best to be discerned, so it is
+greatly worthy commendation and noting with what
+invincible mind every captayne encouraged his company,
+and with what incredible labour the paynefull mariners
+and poore miners (unacquainted with such extremities)
+to the everlasting renoune of our nation, dyd overcome
+the brunt of these so great and extreame daungers; for
+some, even without boorde uppon the ise, and some
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>within boorde, uppon the sides of their shippes, having
+poles, pikes, peeces of timber and ores in their hands,
+stood almost day and night, without any reste, bearing
+off the force, and breaking the sway of the ise, with
+suche incredible payne and perill that it was wonderfull
+to behold, which otherwise no doubt had striken quite
+through and through the sides of their shippes, notwithstanding
+our former provision; for planckes of
+timber, of more than three ynches thick, and other
+things of greater force and bignesse, by the surging of
+the sea and billow, with the ise were shevered and cutte
+in sunder at the sides of oure ships, that it will seeme
+more than credible to be reported of. And yet (that
+which is more) it is faythfully and playnely to be proved,
+and that by many substantiall witnesses, that our
+shippes, even those of greatest burdens, with the
+meeting of contrary waves of the sea, were heaved up
+betweene islandes of ise a foote welneere out of the sea
+above their watermarke, having their knees and timbers
+within boorde both bowed and broken therewith."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>To add to the difficulties of the voyage Frobisher
+lost his way, and entered what he called the Mistaken
+Streight—now designated Hudson Strait—through
+which he might have found his way to Cathay, had he
+been so minded; but recognising that he was on the
+wrong road he returned and reached his mining district
+at the end of July. While the ore was being gathered
+in, Best ventured into the upper part of Frobisher Bay
+as far as the Gabriel Islands—the only exploring work
+that was done—and early in September the fleet departed
+on the homeward voyage.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Frobisher had left one unmistakable indication of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>his visit behind him. On Countess of Warwick Island
+he had built a house of lime and stone, and "the better,"
+says Best, "to allure those brutish and uncivill people to
+courtesie, againste other times of our comming, we left
+therein dyvers of our countrye toyes, as bells and knives,
+wherein they specially delight, one for the necessarie
+use, and the other for the great pleasure thereof. Also
+pictures of men and women in lead, men a horsebacke,
+lookinglasses, whistles and pipes. Also in the house
+was made an oven, and breade left baked therein, for
+them to see and taste. We buried the timber of our
+pretended forte, with manye barrels of meale, pease,
+griste, and sundrie other good things, which was of the
+provision of those whyche should inhabite, if occasion
+served. And insteade therof we fraight oure ships
+full of ore, whiche we holde of farre greater price."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Here we part from the Cathay Company. The inevitable
+trouble came with the discovery that, practically,
+the only gold the ore would yield was that put in as an
+"additament" by the Italian. A very thick cloud
+rolled over Frobisher, who, like Lock, seems to have
+believed in the genuineness of the affair all through;
+but soon his country had need of him and he came to
+the front again in so worthy a manner that little more
+was heard of his connection with this company that
+failed.</p>
+
+<div id='pg222'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_337.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>ESKIMO AWAITING A SEAL</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>To complete the story. In 1861 (say three hundred
+years afterwards) Captain Hall—hearing among the
+Eskimos how numerous white men had arrived first in
+two, then three, then a great many ships, how they had
+killed several natives and taken away two, how five of
+the white men had been captured, and how these had
+built a large boat and put a mast in her and sailed away
+to death when the water was open—went to Kod-lun-arn
+(White Man's Island) and there found the house of
+lime and stone as described, and traces of the diggings,
+and many relics among which he made the collection
+presented by him to the British Government.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In the year 1583, when Sir Humphrey Gilbert, whose
+<em>Discourse</em> gave so great a stimulus to Arctic discovery,
+founded St. John's, Newfoundland—the first English
+colony in America—a patent was granted by Queen
+Elizabeth to his brother Adrian "of Sandridge in the
+county of Devon," as one of the colleagues of the
+Fellowship for the Discovery of the North-West
+Passage. At this Sandridge—on the east of the Dart,
+bounded on three sides by the river, some two miles
+above Dartmouth—was the home of the three Gilberts
+(John, Humphrey, and Adrian), whose mother by a
+second marriage became the mother of Carew and
+Walter Raleigh; and here, about 1550, of a family
+also owning property in the small peninsula, was born
+John Davis, as we know him, or John Davys, as he
+signed himself, who was probably a playmate, and
+certainly a life-long friend, of these five.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Davis was an accomplished seaman, the best of the
+Elizabethan navigators, and a man of accurate observation,
+always on the alert, whose reputation does not
+rest only on the work he did in the northern and other
+seas, for he was the author of <em>The Seaman's Secrets</em>,
+the most popular practical navigation treatise of its
+time. Very early, perhaps from the first, he was one
+of the moving spirits in this new north-west enterprise,
+for on the 23rd of January, 1583, we find Dr. Dee-who
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>had helped to send Frobisher on his first voyage—making
+an entry in his journal that Mr. Secretary
+Walsingham had come to his house, where by good
+luck he found Mr. Adrian Gilbert, and so talk began
+on "the north-west straits discovery"; and, next day,
+"I, Mr. Awdrian Gilbert and John Davis, went by
+appointment to Mr. Beale, his howse, where only we
+four were secret, and we made Mr. Secretary privie of
+the N.W. Passage, and all charts and rutters were
+agreed upon in generall"—"rutter" being the French
+"<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">routier</span>," originating in <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Routier de la Mer</span></cite>, signifying
+a book of sea routes. Another important friend
+of Davis was William Sanderson, the representative
+of the merchants by whom the expenses of the voyage
+were borne, he being the chief subscriber. One of the
+ships, the <em>Moonshine</em>, seems to have belonged to him,
+and it was largely owing to his influence among the
+shareholders that Davis was appointed captain and
+chief pilot of the "exployt," in which he was to
+practically rediscover Greenland.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>There were two vessels, the <em>Sunshine</em> of London,
+fifty-nine tons, with twenty-three persons on board,
+and the <em>Moonshine</em> of Dartmouth, thirty-five tons, with
+nineteen. They left Dartmouth on the 7th of June,
+1585, but had to put in at Falmouth and then at the
+Scillies, where Davis occupied the twelve days he
+spent there in surveying and charting the islands. On
+the 20th of July they were sailing down the east coast
+of Greenland, and were so little attracted by it that
+Davis called it the Land of Desolation. Nine days
+afterwards he found a group of many pleasant green
+islands bordering on the shore, while the mountains of
+the mainland were still covered with snow, and here he
+landed on the west coast at Gilbert Sound, as he named
+it, near where Godthaab now is, and entered into communication
+with the natives.</p>
+
+<div id='pg224'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_341.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>A GREENLANDER IN HIS KAYAK</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>For such occasions, apparently, he had among the
+<em>Sunshine</em> people four described as musicians, whom, on
+sighting the Eskimos, he sent for. As soon as they
+arrived from the ship he ordered them to strike up a
+dancing tune, and to their merry music Davis and his
+men began to caper as if they were enjoying themselves
+immensely, while the lookers-on gradually increased
+in number. "At length," he says, "one of
+them poynting up to the sunne with his hande would
+presently strike his brest so hard that we might hear
+the blowe. This he did many times, before he would
+any way trust us. Then John Ellis the master of the
+<em>Mooneshine</em>, was appointed to use his best policie to
+gaine their friendshippe: who strooke his breast and
+poynted to the sunne after their order: which when he
+had diverse times done, they began to trust him, and
+one of them came on shoare, to whom we threwe our
+caps, stockings and gloves, and such other things as
+then we had about us, playing with our musicke, and
+making signes of joy, and dancing. So the night
+comming we bade them farewell, and went aboord
+our barks."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The next morning, being the 30th of July, thirty-seven
+canoes came up to the ships, their occupants
+calling to the English to come on shore. "Wee not
+making any great haste unto them, one of them went
+up to the top of the rocke, and lept and daunced as
+they had done the day before, shewing us a seales
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>skinne, and another thing made like a timbrel, which
+he did beate upon with a sticke, making a noyse like a
+small drumme." Whereupon Davis manned his boats
+and went to the waterside where they were in their
+canoes, "and after we had sworne by the sunne after
+their fashion, they did trust us. So I shooke hands
+with one of them, and hee kissed my hand, and we
+were very familier with them. We bought five canoas
+of them, we bought their clothes from their backs,
+which were all made of seales skins and birdes skinnes:
+their buskins, their hose, their gloves, all being commonly
+sewed and well dressed: so that we were fully
+persuaded that they have divers artificers among them.
+Wee had a paire of buskins of them full of fine wooll
+like bever. Their apparell for heate, was made of bird
+skinnes with their feathers on them. We sawe among
+them leather dressed like glovers leather, and thicke
+thongs like white leather of a good length. Wee had
+of their darts and oares, and found in them that they
+would by no meanes displease us, but would give us
+whatsoever we asked of them and would be satisfied
+with whatsoever we gave them. They took great care
+one of an other: for when we had bought their boates,
+then two other woulde come and carie him away betweene
+them that had soulde us his." He describes
+them as "a very tractable people, voyde of craft or
+double dealing, and easie to be brought to civiltie or
+good order," the men of good stature, unbearded,
+small-eyed, "by whom, as signes would permit, we
+understood that towards the north and west there was
+a great sea."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>During his stay among these islands he found considerable
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>quantities of wood—fir, spruce, and juniper—which
+whether it came floating any great distance or
+grew in some island near he did not discover; but he
+thought it grew further inland because the people had
+so many darts and paddles which they held of little
+value and gave away for insignificant trifles. He also
+found "great abundance of seales" in shoals as if they
+were small fish; but saw no fresh water, only snow
+water in large pools, and he notes that the "cliffes were
+all of such oare as M. Frobisher brought from Meta
+Incognita."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Leaving the sound on the 1st of August he crossed
+the strait now named after him and reached land in
+66° 40´. In water "altogether voyd from ye pester of
+ice" he anchored, "in a very fair rode, under a very
+brave mount, the cliffs whereof were as orient as gold."
+This mount he named Mount Raleigh, the roadstead
+he called Totnes Rode, the sound round the mount he
+named Exeter Sound, the foreland to the north he
+called Dyer's Cape, the southern foreland being named
+Cape Walsingham—all of which names remain. Here
+white bears were killed "of monstrous bignesse," a
+raven was descried upon Mount Raleigh, withies were
+found growing low like shrubs, and there were flowers
+like primroses, though there was no grass.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>For three days Davis went coasting downwards, and
+rounding the southern point of the peninsula, which he
+named the Cape of God's Mercy, he entered what he
+afterwards called Cumberland Strait, now Cumberland
+Gulf, supposing it to be his way to the westward. It
+was clear of ice; sixty leagues up islands were found,
+among which a stay was made during five days of very
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>foggy foul weather. On the 15th of August "we
+heard dogs houle on the shoare, which we thought had
+bene Wolves, and therefore we went on shoare to kil
+them; when we came on lande, the dogs came presently
+to our boate very gently, yet we thought they came to
+pray upon us, and therefore we shot at them and killed
+two: and about the necke of one of them we found
+a letheren coller, whereupon we thought them to be
+tame dogs. Then wee went farther and founde two
+sleads made like ours in Englande. The one was made
+of firre, spruse and oken boards, sawen like inch
+boards; the other was made all of whale bone, and
+there hung on the toppes of the sleds three heads of
+beasts, which they had killed. We saw here larkes,
+ravens, and partriges"—probably rock ptarmigan.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Searching about, it was agreed that the place was all
+islands, with sounds passing between them; that the
+water remained of the same colour as the main ocean,
+whereas in every bay they had been into it became
+blackish; that a shoal of whales they saw must have
+come from the west, because to the eastward no whale
+had been seen; that "there came a violent counter
+checke of a tide from the south-west against the flood
+which we came with, not knowing from whence it was
+maintayned"; that the further they ran westward the
+deeper was the water, "so that hard abord the shoare
+among these yles we could not have ground in 330
+fathoms"; and that, lastly, there was a tide range of
+six or seven fathoms, "the flood comming from
+diverse parts, so as we could not perceive the chiefe
+maintenance thereof." For which six reasons it was
+determined to continue the voyage to the westward if
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>the weather changed—which it did to worse with the
+wind unfavourable, so that the ships had to run for
+shelter and then sail for home, crossing the Atlantic
+from Greenland in a fortnight. On arrival Davis
+reported to Walsingham that the North-West Passage
+was a matter nothing doubtful, but at any time almost
+to be passed, the sea navigable, void of ice, the air
+tolerable, and the waters very deep; and a voyage for
+next year was decided on, for which the merchants
+of Exeter, Totnes, London, Cullompton, Chard, and
+Tiverton, and five private subscribers, "did adventure
+their money"—to the amount of £1175—"with Mr.
+Adrian Gilbert and Mr. John Davis in a voyage for
+the discovery of China, the seventh daie of April in
+the xxviij yeare of the rayne of or. soverayne Ladie
+Elizabeth."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The fleet, consisting of the <em>Mermaid</em> of one hundred
+and twenty tons, the <em>Sunshine</em> and <em>Moonshine</em>, and a
+ten-ton pinnace named the <em>North Star</em>, left Dartmouth
+on the 7th of May, 1586. On reaching Greenland the
+<em>Sunshine</em> and <em>North Star</em> were sent up the east coast
+of Greenland, while the <em>Mermaid</em> and <em>Moonshine</em> made
+for Gilbert Sound.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Here the Eskimos received them cordially "after
+they had espied in the boate, some of our companie
+that were the yeere before heere with us, they presently
+rowed to the boate, and tooke holde on the oare, and
+hung about the boate with such comfortable joy as
+woulde require a long discourse to be uttered: they
+came with the boates to our shippes, making signes
+that they knewe all those that the yere before had
+bene with them. After I perceived their joy, and smal
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>feare of us, my selfe with the merchaunts, and others
+of the company went a shoare, bearing with me
+twentie knives: I had no sooner landed, but they lept
+out of their Canoas, and came running to mee and the
+rest, and imbraced us with many signes of hartie
+welcome: at this present there were eighteene of them,
+and to each of them I gave a knife: they offered
+skinnes to mee for rewarde, but I made signes that it
+was not solde, but given them of curtesie: and so dismissed
+them for that time, with signes that they
+shoulde returne againe after certaine houres." But
+soon there were passing troubles owing to iron having
+so great an attraction for them that they could not
+resist stealing it. While amongst them, exploring the
+country, Davis compiled the first Eskimo vocabulary
+known, a list of some forty words written down
+phonetically, most of them remarkably good approaches
+considering that both parties were ignorant of each
+other's language, none of them, however, except that
+for "sea" being likely to be of any use in putting him
+on the road to China.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On leaving Gilbert Sound, Davis when in latitude
+63° 8´ "fel upon a most mighty and strange quantity of
+ice, in one intyre masse, so bigge as that we knew not
+the limits thereof, and being withall so very high, in
+forme of a land, with bayes and capes, and like high
+cliffe land, as that we supposed it to be land, and therefore
+sent our pinnesse off to discover it: but at her
+returne we were certainely informed that it was onely
+ice, which bred great admiration to us all, considering
+the huge quantity thereof, incredible to be reported in
+truth as it was, and therefore I omit to speake any
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>further thereof. This onely, I thinke that the like
+before was never seene, and in this place we had very
+stickle and strong currants. We coasted this mighty
+masse of ice untill the 30 of July, finding it a mighty
+bar to our purpose: the ayre in this time was so contagious,
+and the sea so pestered with ice, as that all
+hope was banished of proceeding: for the 24 of July
+all our shrowds, ropes, and sailes were so frozen, and
+compassed with ice, onely by a grosse fogge, as seemed
+to me more then strange, sith the last yeere I found this
+sea free and navigable, without impediments."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Crossing the straits he repaired and revictualled the
+<em>Moonshine</em> in an excellent harbour among islands where
+they found it very hot and were "very much troubled
+with a flie which is called Musketa, for they did sting
+grievously." Forsaken by the <em>Mermaid</em>, he abandoned
+the search in Cumberland Sound as he "found small
+hope to pass any farther that way," and worked south,
+it being too late to go northwards, crossing Frobisher
+Bay, which he described as "another great inlet neere
+forty leagues broad where the water entered with
+violent swiftnesse, this we also thought might be a
+passage, for no doubt the north parts of America are
+all islands." Off the coast of Labrador he found a vast
+shoal of codfish, of which he caught over forty with a
+long spike nail made into a hook. These he salted, and
+some of them, on his return, he gave, at Walsingham's
+request, to Burghley, who, at an interview, encouraged
+him to make a further attempt.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Next year he was off again, this time "to the Isles
+of the Molucca or the coast of China." He seems to
+have been on board the <em>Ellen</em>, a small craft of some
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>twenty tons, his two other vessels being the <em>Sunshine</em>
+as before, and the <em>Elizabeth</em>. These he left to fish for
+cod in the straits while he went northward from Gilbert
+Sound in his little "clinker," which he had probably
+chosen as being handy for ice navigation. Running
+along the land, to which he gave the name of London
+Coast, he reached 72° 12´—the highest north up to then
+attained—where he named the loftiest of the headlands
+Sanderson's Hope, whose lofty crest piercing through
+the driving clouds near Upernivik has become perhaps
+the best-known landmark in the northern seas. Here
+the wind suddenly shifting to the northward made
+further progress impossible, and he had to shape his
+course westerly, and then, owing to ice, which he in
+vain endeavoured to get round to the north, he had to
+turn southwards. Amid much fog, and with the ice
+always present, he came down the coast of Baffin Land,
+giving a name here and there on the way, until on the
+31st of July he passed "a very great gulfe, the water
+whirling and roring, as it were the meetings of tides,"
+which was probably the entrance to Hudson Strait.
+Next day he was off the Labrador coast and named
+Cape Chidley after his friend who died in the Straits of
+Magellan, and on the 15th of August he laid his course
+for England.</p>
+
+<div id='pg232'  class='figcenter id025'>
+<a href='images/i_351.jpg'><img src='images/i_351_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>BAFFIN BAY IN 1819</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>Of this voyage Hakluyt prints the Traverse Book,
+one of the earliest known. In it the full detail is given
+for every day, arranged in nine columns, one each for
+the month, the day, the hour, the courses, the leagues,
+the elevation of the pole in degrees and minutes, the
+wind, and a remarks column headed "The Discourse"—for
+Davis was an exact and systematic man remarkable
+for his latitudes never being wrong, though like
+all those old navigators before the invention of the
+chronometer, he was frequently out in his longitude.
+He was going off again bound for the sea north of
+Sanderson's Hope, but the coming of the Armada and
+the death of Walsingham caused the postponement of
+the project he did not abandon, for it seems that the
+<em>Desire</em>, in which he discovered the Falkland Islands at
+the other end of America, was to be his reward for
+accompanying Cavendish round the world, and that in
+her he intended to make his next Polar voyage.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The work he had set himself to do was done by
+William Baffin, who first appears in the Arctic record
+as pilot of the <em>Patience</em> in James Hall's Greenland
+voyage in 1612, which ended in Hall being killed in
+revenge for the kidnapping proceedings on the two
+previous voyages under the Danish flag. Baffin then
+made two voyages, as we have seen, to Spitsbergen in
+the service of the Muscovy Company, and, in that of the
+Company for the Discovery of the North-West Passage,
+he made his fourth, in 1615. In Hudson's old ship the
+<em>Discovery</em>, also her fourth trip to the north, he passed
+up Hudson Strait to the end of Southampton Island,
+where he abandoned the attempt to get through owing
+to ice and shallow water, and returned after discovering
+the land that Parry named after him.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In his fifth voyage, again in the <em>Discovery</em>, with
+Robert Bylot again as master, he left Gravesend on
+the 16th of March, 1616, and reached Sanderson's
+Hope on the 30th of May, discovering the great bay
+to the north which bears his name. Passing the
+Women Islands and the Baffin Islands off Cape
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>Shackleton, he took the middle passage across Melville
+Bay, coasting along by Cape York, by the cape named
+after one of his directors, Sir Dudley Digges, and the
+sound named after another of his directors, Sir John
+Wolstenholme; along Prudhoe Land, entering the North
+Water of the whalers, reaching Cape Alexander in
+77° 45´, his farthest north; opening up and naming
+Smith Sound, after Sir Thomas Smith, another of his
+directors, and Jones Sound, after Alderman Sir Francis
+Jones, another of the board, and Lancaster Sound,
+after Sir James Lancaster of the East India Company.
+Thus, coasting Ellesmere Land, North Devon, Bylot
+Island, and Baffin Land, he continued his voyage from
+the north on his way home. A good piece of work:
+the discoveries so many and unexpected that people
+ceased to believe in them, geographers going so far as
+to erase his bay from their maps until, two hundred
+years afterwards, Ross and Parry sailed over the land
+of the unbelievers and confirmed Baffin's work in every
+detail—and Ross, in his best mountain-finding manner,
+reported no thoroughfare at Smith Sound.</p>
+
+<div id='pg234'  class='figcenter id026'>
+<img src='images/i_355.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>DR. E. K. KANE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XII<br /> SMITH SOUND</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>Captain Inglefield—Dr. Kane—The open Polar Sea—Hans Hendrik the
+Greenlander—Kalutunah the Eskimo—An Eskimo bear-hunt—A lesson
+in catching auks—Dr. Hayes—His journey over the glacier—Tyndall
+Glacier—Captain C. F. Hall—Joe and Hannah—Voyage of the <em>Polaris</em>—Drift
+of the <em>Polaris</em>—The voyage on the ice-floe—The British Government
+Expedition of 1875—The <em>Alert</em> and <em>Discovery</em>—The cairn on Washington
+Irving Island—Discovery Harbour—How the <em>Alert</em> got into safety at
+Floeberg Beach—Low temperatures—Nares on sledging—Description of
+the sledges and their burden—Markham starts for the Pole—Reaches
+83° 20´ 26˝—Outbreak of scurvy—Parr's walk—Aldrich's journey west—Beaumont's
+journey east—The perilous homeward voyage.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>Lady Franklin, who incidentally did so much
+for Arctic discovery, sent out the <em>Isabel</em> in 1852
+under Commander, afterwards Sir, Edward Augustus
+Inglefield to search for her husband to the north of
+Baffin Bay. Unlike John Ross, the names of whose
+ships, <em>Isabella</em> and <em>Alexander</em>, are home by the capes
+at its entrance, he found Smith Sound to be the highway
+to the north. Steaming up the open water
+"stretching through seven points of the compass,"
+noting the coasts as he went, he was turned back by the
+ice in 78° 28´, at the entrance to the Kane Sea, with
+Cairn Point and the way in to Rensselaer Harbour on
+his right, and Cape Sabine and Ellesmere Land, which
+he named, on his left; the farthest north he sighted
+being Cape Louis Napoleon, the farthest east Cape
+Frederick VII, now known as Cape Russell. Needless
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>to say he found no Franklin traces, although he really
+looked for them.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Twelve months afterwards Dr. Elisha Kent Kane in
+the United States brig <em>Advance</em> followed in his track
+and wintered in Rensselaer Harbour, nine miles further
+north. Ostensibly Kane was on a Franklin search, but
+his real object was the Pole. He explored the sea
+named after him, naming many landmarks, not always
+placing them in their true positions, and underwent
+many hardships. For one mistake he was famous for
+a time, and his reputation now suffers. One of his expedition,
+William Morton, almost reached Cape Constitution,
+in about 80½°, which he placed some sixty
+miles too far north, and described as the corner of the
+north coast of Greenland; and from the southern horn
+of the bay of which it is the northern boundary he
+looked out over the south of Kennedy Channel, which
+is open every summer, and mistook it for the Polar
+Sea. And he returned with a report of an even more
+wonderful discovery than the Polar Sea, for, according
+to the illustration, he beheld the midnight sun dipping
+in its waters on Midsummer Day.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In May, 1854, the month before Morton's discoveries,
+Dr. Hayes and William Godfrey crossed the Kane Sea
+to connect the northern coast with Inglefield's survey,
+"but it disclosed no channel or any form of exit from
+the bay," being, in fact, Ellesmere Land continued, and
+yet on reaching the shore for the first time at Hayes
+Point, three miles north of Cape Louis Napoleon, and
+following it for two miles to Cape Frazer, they quite
+unnecessarily named the country Grinnell Land. On
+the other side of this sea the chief discovery was
+Kane's Humboldt glacier, some fifty miles north-east
+of their winter quarters, which was described as "the
+mighty crystal bridge which connects the two continents
+of America and Greenland," when, of course, it does
+nothing of the sort.</p>
+
+<div id='pg236'  class='figcenter id027'>
+<img src='images/i_359.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>KALUTUNAH</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>What with sickness, accident, and other disaster, it
+became evident that the <em>Advance</em> would never leave her
+wintering place, and in July Kane set off on a wild
+endeavour to reach Beechey Island and obtain relief
+from the Franklin search vessels, but he had to return.
+Next month Hayes was sent to Upernivik, but he also
+came back. Finally in May, 1855, the brig was abandoned
+and the survivors began their journey to the
+south. Fortunately on the outward voyage Kane, at
+Fiskernaes, had engaged Hans Hendrik the Greenlander,
+then a boy of nineteen, who became quite a
+prominent figure in this and subsequent voyages, and
+without him and Kalutunah, chief of the Etah Eskimos,
+the whole party would have perished miserably.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Hans first appears when spearing a bird on the wing;
+Kalutunah's first appearance was equally encouraging.
+"The leader of the party," says Kane, "was a noble
+savage, greatly superior in everything to the others of
+his race. He greeted me with respectful courtesy, yet
+as one who might rightfully expect an equal measure
+of it in return, and, after a short interchange of salutations,
+seated himself in the post of honour at my side.
+I waited, of course, till the company had fed and slept,
+for among savages especially haste is indecorous, and
+then, after distributing a few presents, opened to them
+my project of a northern exploration. Kalutunah
+received his knife and needles with a 'Kuyanaka,' 'I
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>thank you'; the first thanks I have heard from a native
+of this upper region. He called me his friend—'Asakaoteet,'
+'I love you well'—and would be happy,
+he said, to join the nalegak-soak in a hunt."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>And the journey ended in a hunt, for the dogs caught
+sight of a large male bear in the act of devouring a seal.
+The impulse was irresistible; Kane lost all control over
+both dogs and drivers, who seemed dead to everything
+but the passion of pursuit. Off they sped with incredible
+speed; the Eskimos clinging to their sledges
+and cheering their dogs with loud cries. A mad, wild
+chase, wilder than German legend—"the dogs, wolves;
+the drivers, devils." After a furious run, the animal
+was brought to bay, and the lance and rifle did their
+work. There were more bears and more hunts, and
+when Kane objected that this could hardly be called
+northern exploration, he was told by Kalutunah, significantly,
+that the bear-meat was absolutely necessary
+for the support of their families, and that the nalegak-soak
+had no right to prevent him from providing for
+his household. "It was a strong argument," says
+Kane, "and withal the argument of the strong."</p>
+
+<div id='pg238'  class='figcenter id021'>
+<a href='images/i_363.jpg'><img src='images/i_363_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE EAST COAST OF SMITH SOUND</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>Bear-hunting hereabouts has its dangers, for the
+Eskimos of the north are not armed with bows and
+arrows as are those of the mainland. When the bear
+is found the dogs are set upon the trail, and the hunter
+runs by their side in silence. As he turns the angle
+ahead his game is in view before him, stalking probably
+along with quiet march, sometimes sniffing the air
+suspiciously, but making, nevertheless, for a clump of
+hummocks. The dogs spring forward, opening in a
+wild wolfish yell, the driver shrieking "Nannook!
+nannook!" and all straining every nerve in pursuit.
+The bear rises on his haunches, views his pursuers,
+and starts off at full speed. The hunter, as he runs,
+leaning over his sledge, seizes the traces of a couple of
+his dogs and liberates them from their burden. It is
+the work of a minute; for the speed is not checked and
+the remaining dogs rush on with apparent ease. Pressed
+more severely, the bear stands at bay while his two
+foremost pursuers halt at a short distance and quietly
+await the arrival of the hunter. At this moment the
+whole pack are liberated; the hunter grasps his lance,
+and, stumbling through the snow and ice, prepares for
+the encounter. Grasping the lance firmly in his hands
+he provokes the animal to pursue him by moving
+rapidly across its path, and then running as if to escape.
+But hardly is its long body extended for the tempting
+chase, before, with a quick jump, the hunter doubles
+on his track, and, as the bear turns after him again,
+the lance is plunged into the left side below the
+shoulder; and that so dexterously, that, if it be an
+inch or so wide of the proper spot, the spear has
+to be left in the bear and the man has to run for
+his life.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>At this hazardous work Kalutunah was an adept, and
+he was equally skilful at a much less dangerous game,
+as Dr. Hayes was to discover when wintering in the
+schooner <em>United States</em> in Foulke Harbour, further
+south, in 1860-61. Hayes wished to learn how to
+catch auks, and the Eskimo gave him a lesson.
+Kalutunah carried a small net, made of light strings of
+sealskin knitted together, the staff by which it was held
+being about ten feet in length. Arriving about half-way
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>up the cliffs he crouched behind a rock and invited the
+doctor to follow his example. The slope on which the
+birds were congregated was about a mile long, and in
+vast flocks they were sweeping over it a few feet above
+the stones down the whole length of the hill, returning
+higher in the air, and so round and round in a complete
+circuit. Occasionally a few hundreds or thousands
+would drop down as if following some leader, and in
+an instant the rocks, for some distance, would swarm
+with them as they speckled the hill with their black
+backs and white breasts. The doctor was told to lie
+lower, as the birds noticed him and were flying too
+far overhead. Having placed himself as Kalutunah
+approved, the birds began to sweep lower and lower
+in their flight until their track came well within reach.
+Then, as a dense portion of the crowd approached, up
+went the net, and half a dozen birds flew into it, and,
+stunned by the blow, could not recover before the
+Eskimo had slipped the staff through his hands and
+seized the net. With his left hand he pressed down
+the birds, while with the right he drew them out one
+by one, and, for want of a third hand, used his teeth to
+crush their heads. The wings were then locked across
+each other; and with an air of triumph the old chief
+looked around, spat the blood and feathers from his
+mouth, and went on with the sport, tossing up his net
+and hauling it in with much rapidity until he had
+caught about a hundred, and wanted no more.</p>
+
+<div id='pg240'  class='figcenter id028'>
+<img src='images/i_367.jpg' alt='I. I. Hayes' class='ig001' />
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>Hayes did his best to disparage both Kalutunah and
+Hans, to whom he was not quite so much indebted as
+Kane, owing to his having given himself a better chance
+of retreat by not taking the schooner out of Smith
+Sound, his quarters in Hartstene Bay being only some
+twelve miles north of Cape Alexander. He had come
+to verify the existence of the open sea and sail to the
+Pole across it if he could; and he verified it to his
+own satisfaction. But he did not get so far north as
+Morton, although he claimed to have done so, for he
+climbed a cliff eight hundred feet high and looked out
+over the open water—in Kennedy Channel—and did
+not see the Greenland cliffs trending away northwards
+within thirty miles of him, and visible all the way up
+for two degrees north of Cape Constitution. Thus he
+left the map as Kane left it, with Greenland cut off
+short south of the eighty-first parallel, and his farthest
+seems to have been the south point of Rawlings Bay,
+where the <em>Alert</em> was forced on shore in August, 1876,
+in 80° 15´.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"I climbed," he says, "the steep hillside to the top
+of a ragged cliff, which I supposed to be about eight
+hundred feet above the level of the sea. The view
+which I had from this elevation furnished a solution of
+the cause of my progress being arrested on the previous
+day. The ice was everywhere in the same condition as
+in the mouth of the bay across which I had endeavoured
+to pass. A broad crack, starting from the middle of
+the bay, stretched over the sea, and uniting with other
+cracks as it meandered to the eastward, it expanded as
+the delta of some mighty river discharging into the
+ocean, and under a water-sky, which hung upon the
+northern horizon, it was lost in the open sea. The sea
+beneath me was a mottled sheet of white and dark
+patches, these latter being either soft decaying ice or
+places where the ice had wholly disappeared. These
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>spots were heightened in intensity of shade and multiplied
+in size as they receded, until the belt of the
+water-sky blended them all together into one uniform
+colour of dark blue. The old and solid floes (some a
+quarter of a mile, and others miles across) and the
+massive ridges and wastes of hummocked ice which
+lay piled between them and around their margins, were
+the only parts of the sea which retained the whiteness
+and solidity of winter."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Unfortunately for Hayes, the astronomer of the
+expedition, August Sonntag, who had assisted Kane in
+the same capacity, was frozen to death on a sledge
+journey, and the doctor was left to do the work for
+himself, with disappointing results, as with errors of
+many miles in either latitude or longitude his journeys
+can only be noticed in a very general way. In October,
+1860, he proceeded for some distance over the glacier
+to the east of his wintering place. The first attempt to
+scale the glacier was attended by what might have been
+a serious accident. The foremost member of the party
+missed his footing as he was clambering up the rude
+steps, and, sliding down the steep side, scattered those
+who were below him to the right and left and sent them
+rolling into the valley beneath. The next effort was
+more successful, and, the end of a rope being carried
+over the side of the glacier, the sledge was drawn up
+the inclined plane and a fair start obtained. A little
+further on Hayes was only saved from disappearing
+down a crevasse by clutching a pole he was carrying on
+his shoulder. Next day, the surface being smoother,
+more progress was made, and they reached a plain of
+compact snow covered with a crust through which the
+feet broke at every step. The day afterwards the cold
+grew more intense and a gale came on. At night the
+men complained bitterly and could not sleep, and as the
+storm increased in strength they were forced to leave the
+tent and by active exercise prevent themselves from
+freezing.</p>
+
+<div id='pg242'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_371.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE SHORES OF KENNEDY CHANNEL</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>To face the wind was impossible, and shelter was
+nowhere to be found upon the unbroken plain, there
+being but one direction in which they could move, that
+being with their backs to the gale. It was not without
+difficulty that the tent was taken down and bundled
+upon the sledge, the wind blowing so fiercely that they
+could scarcely roll it up with their stiffened hands.
+The men were in pain and could only hold on for a few
+moments to the hardened canvas, their fingers, freezing
+continually, requiring vigorous pounding to keep them
+on the flickering verge of life. "In the midst of a vast
+frozen Sahara, with neither hill, mountain, nor gorge
+anywhere in view," says Hayes, "fitful clouds swept
+over the face of the full-orbed moon, which, descending
+toward the horizon, glimmered through the drifting
+snow that whirled out of the illimitable distance, and
+scudded over the icy plain, to the eye in undulating
+lines of downy softness, to the flesh in showers of
+piercing darts. Our only safety was in flight; and like
+a ship driven before a tempest which she cannot withstand,
+and which has threatened her ruin, we turned
+our backs to the gale; and, hastening down the slope,
+we ran to save our lives. We travelled upwards of
+forty miles, and had descended about three thousand
+feet before we ventured to halt."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Next year he visited the large glacier in Whale
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>Sound which he named after Professor John Tyndall,
+pulling first along its front in a boat and then mounting
+its surface. As he rowed along within a few fathoms
+of this two miles of ice, he found the face "worn and
+wasted away until it seemed like the front of some vast
+incongruous temple, here a groined roof of some
+huge cathedral, and there a pointed window or a
+Norman doorway deeply moulded; while on all sides
+were pillars round and fluted and pendants dripping
+crystal drops of the purest water, and all bathed in a
+soft blue atmosphere. Above these wondrous archways
+and galleries there was still preserved the same Gothic
+character; tall spires and pinnacles rose along the
+entire front and multiplied behind them, and new forms
+met the eye continually. Strange, there was nothing
+cold or forbidding anywhere. The ice seemed to take
+the warmth which suffused the air, and I longed to pull
+my boat far within the opening and paddle beneath the
+Gothic archways."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Charles Francis Hall, of Cincinnati, was a man of a
+very different stamp. He was a genius and a genuine
+worker, an accurate observer and painstaking explorer
+who believed above all things in thoroughness.
+Realising that the best way to study the Polar regions
+was to understand the Eskimos, who know most about
+them, and utilise their local knowledge, he settled
+amongst them, lived with them, adopted their customs,
+and became as one of them in their huts and tents,
+taking part in their sports and hardships. Two friends
+he made amongst them, Ebierbing and his wife Tookoolito,
+better known as Joe and Hannah, who accompanied
+him till he died.</p>
+
+<div id='pg244'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_375.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>TYNDALL GLACIER</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>After clearing up the Frobisher problem and throwing
+some light on the Franklin mystery, he started in 1871
+to go as far north as he could across the reported Polar
+Sea. To him Henry Grinnell, who did so much for
+northern discovery, entrusted the American flag which
+had been to the Antarctic with Wilkes in 1838, to the
+Arctic with De Haven, with Kane and with Hayes,
+and was a sort of oriflamme of Polar discovery. His
+ship was the <em>Polaris</em>, of 387 tons, once the <em>Periwinkle</em>,
+a name which seemed to be a little too unassuming.
+Buddington, his sailing-master, was an experienced
+whaling captain; his assistant, Tyson, destined for the
+independent command of an ice-floe, was another
+whale-fisher. The naturalist was Emil Bessels. On
+board were also Joe and Hannah—of course—and
+William Morton, to show where the sea was, and,
+picked up at Upernivik, the indispensable Hans
+Hendrik with his wife and three children.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The voyage was fortunate so long as Hall lived.
+The <em>Polaris</em> found the Polar gates open before her.
+She steamed right up Smith Sound, through Kane Sea,
+up Kennedy Channel, into Robeson Channel—named
+after the Secretary to the American Navy—until she
+reached the ice, in 82° 16´, on the 30th of August, 1871,
+the highest latitude then attained by a ship. Hall
+would have pressed on into the ice, but Buddington
+wisely refused, and hardly had the <em>Polaris</em> been headed
+round when she was beset and carried southwards, to
+escape in a few days and take refuge for the winter in
+a harbour on the east of what is now known as Hall
+Basin, protected at its entrance by a grounded floeberg.
+The latitude is 81° 38´, the harbour Hall called Thank
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>God Bay. There in November he died; and close by
+is Hall's Rest, where he is buried.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>His death was the end of the enterprise. Buddington
+wished to return as soon as the ship was released,
+and eventually had his way, after a journey or two of
+little importance. But he stayed too long. The ship
+was clear in June, and he did not start until the 1st of
+August, and he started by driving her into the pack,
+anchored her to a floe, and drifted helplessly into
+Baffin Bay, as De Haven had done through Lancaster
+Sound in 1850. For eleven weeks the drift continued
+until she was off Northumberland Island on the 15th
+of October. Here in the middle of the night a violent
+gale arose, and the crippled ship, nipped between two
+masses of ice, was lifted bodily and thrown on her side,
+her timbers cracking loudly and her sides apparently
+breaking in. Two boats, all she had, were hurriedly
+got on to the ice, and provisions, stores, and clothing
+were being passed out, when with a roar the floe
+broke asunder, and the <em>Polaris</em> disappeared like a
+phantom in the gale. As the ice cracked and the
+sides lurched apart, a bundle of fur lay across the
+fissure. A grab was made at it, and the bundle was
+saved. It contained the baby of Joe the Eskimo,
+whose wife had been confined the year before in latitude
+82°, perhaps the most northerly birthplace of any
+of this world's inhabitants.</p>
+
+<div id='pg246'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_379.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>A SEAL IN DANGER</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>On the ice were Tyson, with Sergeant Meyer, the
+steward, the cook, six sailors, and nine Eskimos, men,
+women, and children, including Hans and Joe. They
+built a house, from the materials thrown out from the
+ship, as a shelter; and they built snow houses as the time
+went on and the floe diminished. Provisions they had
+but few, but Hans and Joe were indefatigable. They
+speared seals, caught fish, trapped birds, and, sometimes,
+a bear would scramble up on to the ice for them
+to shoot—and they never missed. In short, without
+them the party would have starved to death.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The floe on which the castaways passed the winter
+was about a hundred yards long and seventy-five broad.
+On this they voyaged down the whole length of Baffin
+Bay and through Davis Strait, the ice melting away
+and getting smaller and smaller as they drifted south,
+until on the 1st of April, when it was only twenty
+yards round, they had to take to the remaining boat,
+the other having been used for fuel. Once they nearly
+touched the shore, but the wind rose and off they were
+driven in the snow. When they were picked up by the
+sealer <em>Tigress</em> in 53° 35´, near the coast of Labrador, on
+the 30th of April, they had drifted fifteen hundred miles
+in the hundred and ninety-six days that had elapsed
+since they left the ship.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The <em>Polaris</em>, blown to the northward, reached land
+at Lifeboat Cove in the entrance to Smith Sound, a
+little north of Foulke Harbour, and here with the aid
+of the Etah Eskimos the crew passed the winter; and,
+in the spring, some of them went on an expedition in
+the Hayes country and lost the famous flag. As the
+ship could not be made seaworthy, two flat-bottomed
+boats were built of her materials, and on the 21st of
+June these were found hauled up on a floe in Melville
+Bay, and their people rescued by the whaler <em>Ravenscraig</em>,
+which shifted them into the <em>Arctic</em>, another Dundee
+whaler, on board of which was Commander Markham,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>who, with Hans Hendrik, four years afterwards, was to
+follow up Hall's track to the north.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The results of this expedition were of considerable
+importance. In five days Captain Hall had run five
+hundred miles through what on most occasions has been
+found to be an ice-choked sea. He completed the
+exploration of Kennedy Channel, discovered Hall
+Basin and Robeson Channel, and was the first to reach
+the Polar ocean by this route. Greenland and Grinnell
+Land he extended northward for nearly a hundred and
+forty miles; and, north of Petermann Fiord, where he
+showed that the inland ice terminated, he had found a
+large area free from ice, with its wild flowers and
+herbage and musk oxen.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Hall's remarkable success in taking a ship to so high
+a latitude led to the Government expedition of 1875,
+the first British attempt to reach the Pole since Parry's
+failure in 1827. Three ships were employed: the <em>Alert</em>,
+a seventeen-gun sloop; the <em>Discovery</em>, once the <em>Bloodhound</em>,
+a Dundee whaler; and the <em>Valorous</em>. The
+<em>Alert</em> and <em>Discovery</em> were specially prepared for the
+voyage at Portsmouth by Sir Leopold M'Clintock who
+was then Admiral Superintendent of the dockyard;
+the <em>Valorous</em>, an old paddle sloop, required little alteration,
+as her duty was merely to carry the stores that
+could not safely be taken by the exploring vessels in
+crossing the Atlantic and hand them over at Disco.</p>
+
+<div id='pg248'  class='figcenter id029'>
+<img src='images/i_383.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>SIR GEORGE NARES</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>The leader, Captain George Strong Nares, when one
+of the Franklin search officers under Kellett at Melville
+Island, had distinguished himself by a sledge journey
+in which he had travelled nine hundred and eighty
+miles in sixty-nine days and reached 119½° west
+longitude. He was known as one of the best navigators
+in the Navy, and when called upon to go to the north
+was in command of H.M.S. <em>Challenger</em>, then on her
+famous voyage of scientific exploration in very different
+seas. With him in the <em>Alert</em> was Commander Albert
+Hastings Markham, whose experience, varied and considerable,
+gained by his spending much of his spare
+time within the Arctic Circle, rendered him especially
+well fitted for the position. In command of the <em>Discovery</em>
+was Captain Henry Frederick Stephenson; and
+the officers of both ships were, like the crews, all
+specially selected. There was no difficulty in the
+manning. One commanding officer called at the office
+at Portsmouth where the men were being entered and
+asked for advice. "An order," he said, "has come on
+board my ship, directing me to send volunteers for
+Arctic service to this office. What am I to do? The
+whole ship's company, nearly eight hundred men, have
+given in their names."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The three ships left Spithead on the 29th of May,
+1875, and were all at Godhavn on the 6th of July.
+Nine days afterwards they left for Ritenbenk of the
+curious name, which is an anagram of that of Berkentin
+who was in charge of the Greenland department when
+it was founded. Here the <em>Valorous</em> parted company to
+return home after filling up with fuel at the coal
+quarries on the north side of Disco Island, while the
+two ships went to Proven to pick up Hans Hendrik,
+who this time left his wife and children behind him.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Through Smith Sound, almost choked with ice,
+progress was slow and difficult; but the passage was
+safely accomplished, and so across Kane Sea and up
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>Kennedy Channel. On Washington Irving Island an
+ancient cairn was found, evidently the work of white
+men's hands and of great age, as shown by the state of
+the lichens on it—yet another of the many indications
+in the Polar regions that there was always a somebody
+before the first on record. Crossing the mouth of
+Archer Fiord, a snug harbour was found in 81° 44´,
+where the <em>Discovery</em> was left to spend the winter, the
+<em>Alert</em> going on, hampered much by the floes, though
+helped at last by a south-westerly wind, until she had
+to stop in 82° 27´ on the shore of the Polar Ocean, at
+what was named Floeberg Beach, off an open coast
+and with no more protection during the winter than
+was afforded by masses of ice ranging up to sixty feet
+in height aground in from eight to twelve fathoms of
+water.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"The protected space," says Nares, "available for
+shelter was so contracted and shallow, the entrance to
+it so small, and the united force of the wind and flood-tide
+so powerful, that it was with much labour and no
+trifling expense in broken hawsers that the ship was
+hauled in stem foremost. It was a close race whether
+the ice or the ship would be in first, and my anxiety
+was much relieved when I saw the ship's bow swing
+clear into safety just as the advancing edge of the
+heavy pack closed in against the outside of our friendly
+barrier of ice. From our position of comparative
+security the danger we had so narrowly escaped was
+strikingly apparent as we gazed with wonder and awe
+at the power exerted by the ice driven past us to the
+eastward with irresistible force by the wind and flood-tide
+at the rate of about a mile an hour. The projecting
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>points of each passing floe which grounded near
+the shore in about ten fathoms of water would be at
+once wrenched off from its still moving parent mass;
+the pressure continuing, the several pieces, frequently
+thirty thousand tons in weight, would be forced up the
+inclined shore, rising slowly and majestically ten or
+twelve feet above their old line of flotation. Such
+pieces quickly accumulated until a rampart-like barrier
+of solid ice-blocks, measuring about two hundred yards
+in breadth and rising fifty feet high, lined the shore,
+locking us in, but effectually protecting us from the
+overwhelming power of the pack." The land had
+already assumed a wintry aspect, and the ship soon
+put on a garb of snow and ice, each spar and rope
+being double its ordinary thickness from the accumulation
+of rime. Around her everything was white and
+solemn; no voice of bird or beast was heard; all was
+still and silent save the gathering floes; and in two
+days the men were able to walk on shore over the new
+ice.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>For eleven months she stayed here, secured by cables
+to anchors frozen on to the shore to protect her from
+gales on the landward side. With the ship housed in
+awnings of tilt-cloth, with snow a foot thick laid on
+the upper deck and banked up on each side as high as
+the main-chains, with skylights and hatchways carefully
+covered up, except two hatchways for ingress and
+egress constructed with porches and double doors so as
+to prevent the entrance of the bitter air, the crew here
+passed the long Polar night. On the 11th of October
+the sun disappeared, and then began those entertainments,
+lectures, lessons, games, not forgetting the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>Royal Arctic Theatre which opened on the 18th of
+November, with which the winter was pleasantly whiled
+away. "Can you sing or dance? or what can you do
+for the amusement of others?" every man had been
+asked before he was chosen, and the result was a
+singularly happy time kept up until sunrise.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The cold was intense and long-continued. Even the
+tobacco pipes froze, the stem becoming solidly clogged
+with ice as the smoking went on unless it was made so
+short as to bring the bowl unpleasantly close to the
+mouth. On the 1st of April the temperature was
+down to minus 64°, and three days afterwards it was
+a hundred and five below freezing, the cold weather
+preventing the departure of the dog-sledge for Discovery
+Bay.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>During the autumn, sledging parties had laid out
+reserves of stores for the spring journeys, and a certain
+amount of practice had been given to the men in what
+was intended to be the chief work of the expedition.
+The field, however, was not promising. On one occasion
+Nares went out to look at it. He obtained a fine
+view of the pack for a distance of six miles from the
+land. The southern side of each purely white snow-covered
+hummock was brilliantly lighted by the orange-tinted
+twilight. The stranded floebergs lining the
+shore extended from half to three-quarters of a mile off
+the land. Outside were old floes with undulating
+upper surfaces separated from each other by Sherard
+Osborn's "hedgerows of Arctic landscape," otherwise
+ridges of pressed-up ice of every size. "It will be as
+difficult," was his verdict, "to drag a sledge over such
+ice as to transport a carriage directly across country in
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>England." He gave a lecture on sledging at one of the
+winter entertainments. It was interesting but not encouraging.
+He told his hearers that if they could
+imagine the hardest work they had ever been called
+upon to perform in their lives intensified to the utmost
+degree, it would only be as child's play in comparison
+with the work they would have to perform whilst
+sledging. "These prophetic words," says Markham,
+"were fully realised, and were often recalled and commented
+on by the men."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>They had four different kinds of sledges. From the
+illustrations it will appear how the eight-feet sledges
+differed from those used by M'Clintock, the Nares
+sledge being higher and more slender in the uprights.
+The eight-men sledge, such as the Marco Polo—which
+was bound for the Pole—had six uprights eighteen
+inches apart. It was eleven feet long, thirty-eight
+inches wide, eleven inches high, and weighed one
+hundred and thirty pounds. The tent, made of light,
+unbleached duck, was nine feet four inches long at the
+bottom, eight feet at the top, seven feet wide and high,
+and weighed forty-four pounds. The tent poles, five
+in number, weighed five pounds apiece. The coverlet
+weighed thirty-one pounds and a half, and the extra
+coverlet twenty pounds. The lower robe weighed
+twenty-three pounds, the waterproof floor-cloth fifteen.
+The eight sleeping-bags weighed eight pounds apiece,
+and the eight knapsacks, when packed, twelve pounds
+apiece. The shovel and two pickaxes accounted for
+twenty-one pounds, the store-bag for twenty-five, the
+cooking gear for twenty-nine, the gun and ammunition
+for twenty-five, the medical stores for twelve, the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>instruments for fifteen, and the tent for nine and a
+quarter. To this must be added a thousand and eighty
+pounds for forty-five days' provisions for the eight men,
+and we have the total of sixteen hundred and sixty-four
+pounds odd, which with seven men at the ropes
+gives each man a drag of about two hundred and
+thirty-eight pounds. In the spring the weight decreases
+as the provisions are consumed, but the rate of
+decrease is not the same in the autumn, for then the
+steadily falling temperature increases the weight of the
+outfit by the moisture it adds to the tent and clothing.
+In Markham's autumn journey the tent of thirty-two
+pounds came back as fifty-five, the coverlet as forty-eight,
+the lower robe as forty, the floor-cloth as forty,
+and everything else was heavier than at the start.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The sledges mustered for their journeys on the 3rd of
+April. Seven in number, they were drawn up in single
+line according to the seniority of the leaders, all fully
+equipped and provisioned, and manned by fifty-three
+officers and men. On each was its commander's banner—a
+swallow-tailed flag charged with a St. George's
+cross and displaying the armorial bearings. As a precaution
+against snow-blindness, the men had been
+ordered to decorate the backs of their snow-jumpers
+with any device they thought fit, the result being a display
+of comic blazonry that often formed a topic of
+conversation when others failed. For the same reason
+the two boats carried on the north-going sledges were
+gaily decorated with the royal arms, and the rose,
+shamrock, and thistle; the artist, as on other occasions,
+being Doctor Moss, whose great difficulty in the matter
+was that in spite of the quantity of turpentine used in
+mixing the paint it would persist in freezing so that the
+brush became as stiff as a stick every few seconds.</p>
+
+<div>
+
+<div id='pg254'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_391.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+</div>
+<table class='table1' summary=''>
+<colgroup>
+<col width='14%' />
+<col width='71%' />
+<col width='14%' />
+</colgroup>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c018'><span class='sc'>Section M'Clintock</span></td>
+    <td class='c018'>SLEDGES USED BY (1) SIR LEOPOLD M'CLINTOCK AND (2) SIR GEORGE NARES</td>
+    <td class='c019'><span class='sc'>Section Nares</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c018'>&nbsp;</td>
+    <td class='c018'>(In the collection of Ed. Whymper)</td>
+    <td class='c019'>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>Lieutenant Aldrich, supported for three weeks by
+Lieutenant Giffard, was to explore the shores of Grant
+Land, towards the north and west, along the coast-line
+he had discovered in the previous autumn. Commander
+Markham, seconded by Lieutenant Parr, was to accompany
+Aldrich to Cape Joseph Henry and then strike off
+to the northward over the ice. The other three sledges
+were to accompany these as far as their own provisions
+would allow, after completing the four's deficiencies and
+giving them a fresh start from an advance post.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>When Markham was only eleven days out, one of his
+crew complained of pain in his ankles and knees, and
+was of no help for the rest of the journey. This was
+the first appearance of the scurvy which was to ruin so
+many hopes, for man after man was taken ill and
+became a passenger. To make matters worse no
+rougher road was ever traversed by sledge. Over a
+labyrinth of piled-up blocks of ice ranging to forty feet
+and more in height, through which the road had to be
+cut with pickaxe and shovel, and amid gale and fog and
+falling snow, the painful progress went on. With many
+a "One; two; three; haul!" the heavy mass would be
+dragged where the men could hardly drag themselves;
+one of the sledges taken a few yards by the combined
+crews, who would then return for the other. On the
+19th of April one of the boats was abandoned and this
+made matters easier, but only for a time, as the disease
+spread. At last it was decided to stop; and on the
+12th of May a party of ten went ahead to reach the
+farthest north.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>"The walking," says Markham, "was undoubtedly
+severe, at one moment struggling through deep snowdrifts,
+in which we floundered up to our waists, and at
+another tumbling about amongst the hummocks.
+Some idea may be formed of the difficulties of the
+road, when, after more than two hours' hard walking,
+with little or nothing to carry, we had barely accomplished
+one mile. Shortly before noon a halt was
+called, the artificial horizon set up, and the flags and
+sledge standards displayed. Fortunately the sun was
+favourable to us, and we were able to obtain a good
+altitude as it passed the meridian, although almost
+immediately afterwards dark clouds rolled up, snow
+began to fall, and the sun was lost in obscurity. We
+found the latitude to be 83° 20´ 26˝ N., or three
+hundred and ninety-nine miles and a half from the
+North Pole."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 8th of June Lieutenant Parr appeared on
+the quarter-deck of the <em>Alert</em> greeting in silence the
+one or two who chanced to meet him. That some
+calamity had happened was evident from his looks.
+He had walked on alone for forty miles to bring the
+news that Markham's party were in sore distress.
+Measures of rescue were instantly taken; Lieutenant
+May and Doctor Moss, on snow-shoes, pushing ahead
+with the dog-sledge laden with medical stores, while
+Nares with a strong party followed. On their arrival
+one man had died, and of the others no less than
+eleven were brought back to the ship on the relief
+sledges.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Ten days afterwards, fearing a similar fate had overtaken
+Aldrich's party, Lieutenant May was despatched
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>to find him. As with Markham, scurvy had begun on
+the outward journey, and it had become so bad on the
+return that one of the men was being sent off to the
+ship when May arrived with help. It had nevertheless
+been a successful journey, the road being easier than that
+by the northern route. Aldrich had traced the continuous
+border of the heavy pack for two hundred miles from
+Floeberg Beach, rounded Cape Columbia, in 83° 7´ N.,
+the northernmost point of Grant Land, and, along the
+coast trending steadily south-west, had reached longitude
+85° 33´ and sighted Cape Alfred Ernest in
+longitude 86½°.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>With his arrival there were over forty scurvy patients
+on board the <em>Alert</em>; and Nares was to learn that the
+sledge parties from the <em>Discovery</em> had been similarly
+affected. Lieutenant Beaumont had gone along the
+North Greenland coast, reaching, on the 21st of May,
+51° W., in 82° 20´ N., and sighting Cape May, Mount
+Hooker, and Cape Britannia. On the 10th of May,
+while on his outward journey, he had sent back Lieutenant
+Rawson to bring a relief party to meet him, and
+Rawson with Hans and eight dogs, accompanied by
+Doctor Coppinger, reached him on the 25th of June
+when he was on his last possible day's journey, he and
+two of his men dragging the sledge with four helpless
+comrades lashed on the top of it.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The <em>Discovery</em> had also sent out Lieutenant Archer
+to survey the fiord named after him, which opens out
+into Lady Franklin Bay; and Lieutenant Fulford had
+crossed the channel and explored Petermann Fiord.
+In fact, the expedition's geographical work was of great
+extent, as was the other scientific work, the most important,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>as usual, being that done from the ships.
+Among the odds and ends easily rememberable was the
+haul of the seine in Sheridan Lake, near the wintering
+station of the <em>Alert</em>, which yielded forty-three char
+(<em>Salmo arcturus</em>), the most northerly freshwater fish;
+the finding of the nest of the sanderling (<em>Calidris
+arenarius</em>), now in the Natural History Museum, in
+82° 33´, and the discovery of the nesting of the grey
+phalarope and the knot in the same neighbourhood;
+the thirty-feet seam of Miocene coal worked in Discovery
+Harbour; and the Eskimo relics at Cape
+Beechey, near the eighty-second parallel, which, in
+connection with the encampments on the opposite
+coast, suggested that there, at the narrowest part of
+Robeson Channel, had been a crossing place from shore
+to shore.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 31st of July, 1876, the <em>Alert</em> was again under
+steam after her long rest, and one of the most dangerous
+voyages on record began. The ships, of from five
+hundred to six hundred tons, were handled as if they
+were small tugs; blocked, beset, pressed on shore,
+Nares with consummate skill, constant watchfulness,
+and never-failing patience, brought them through. But
+they did not get out of Smith Sound until the 9th of
+September, and then it was against head winds in
+stormy weather amid icebergs innumerable that they
+were slowly worked southwards and homewards.</p>
+
+<div id='pg258'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_397.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>BISHOP PAUL EGEDE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XIII<br /> GREENLAND</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c013'>Hans Egede—The house of Eric the Red—Nansen's crossing of Greenland—Nansen
+and Sverdrup row to Ny Herrnhut—Nordenskiöld's journeys—Berggren's
+discovery—Nordenskiöld on the inland ice—Glaciers and icebergs—Diatoms
+and whales—Edward Whymper's expedition—Greenland
+in Miocene times—Graah—Scoresby—Ryder—The <em>Germania</em> and <em>Hansa</em>—The
+Duke of Orleans—The Eskimos of Clavering Island—Franz Josef
+Fiord—The drift of the <em>Hansa</em>—The Greely expedition—The International
+Polar stations—Voyage of the <em>Proteus</em>—Lockwood reaches 83° 24´—Greely's
+wagon—The Eskimo house at Lake Hazen—Greely Relief expeditions—The
+rescue of Greely—Peary—His journey to Independence Bay—His
+four years' expedition—Reaches 84° 17´—His Polar expedition of 1905—The
+<em>Roosevelt</em>—The voyage to Cape Sheridan—Plan of the northern advance—Peary
+reaches 87° 6´—Moxon's mariner.</p>
+
+<p class='drop-capa0_1 c007'>Hans Egede, aged twenty-two, priest of the
+parish of Vaagen, in the north of Norway,
+reading, in 1710, about the Norse colonists of the west—and
+apparently knowing nothing of Thiodhilda—was
+led to think that some of their descendants might
+still be living in heathenism. Writing to the Bishop
+of Trondhjem, he proposed to go out to these as a
+missionary. The good father rather astonished him by
+the reply that "Greenland was undoubtedly part of
+America, and could not be very far from Cuba and
+Hispaniola, where there was found such abundance of
+gold," and, as those who went to Greenland might
+bring home "incredible riches," he approved of the
+suggestion.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>Unfortunately, however, Egede had written his letter
+without the knowledge of his wife, who by no means
+thought with the Bishop until seven years afterwards,
+when she changed her mind. Trying in vain locally,
+Egede applied for support to Frederick IV of Denmark,
+who finding him an earnest, honest, interesting man,
+gave him his patronage, the result being that a company
+was formed at Bergen for the development of
+trade and the propagation of the gospel; and, on the
+3rd of May, 1721, the <em>Hope</em> set sail from there for
+Greenland with forty-six intending colonists, including
+the missionary and his wife and family.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>His landing-place was on an island at the mouth
+of Godthaab Fiord, or Baal's River. He found the
+Greenlanders very different from what he had supposed;
+and also that the Dutch were carrying on a
+profitable trade with them and keeping it quiet. To
+begin with they were nothing like Vikings in appearance;
+and their language, instead of being a Scandinavian
+dialect, was of the same character as that of
+the Eskimos of Labrador—and not at all easy to learn.
+Learn it, however, he and his family did; and among
+the Greenlanders they remained and laboured with
+truly admirable energy and devotion, battling hard for
+life amid much disaster until, with the help of his
+son Paul, who succeeded him as superintendent of the
+mission with the title of bishop, the settlement became
+permanent, and other settlements arose from it up the
+western coast as they are found to-day.</p>
+
+<div id='pg260'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_401.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>GREENLANDERS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class='lg-container-l'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'><em>From a photo by Dr. H. Rink</em></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>Though there were no Norsemen, there were many
+traces of them, the most interesting being the house of
+Eric the Red, near Igaliko. Here, close to Erik's
+Fiord and overlooking Einar's Fiord, on one of the
+prettiest sites in Greenland, was Brattelid—"the steep
+side of a rock"—one side of it a natural cliff, the walls
+of the other sides, more than four feet thick, built of
+blocks of red sandstone from four to six feet in length
+as well as in breadth and thickness, reminding the
+visitor of those of Stonehenge, and evoking similar
+wonderment as to how they were got into place. And
+in his first colony, now called Igdluernerit, Egede
+seems to have followed the Norsemen—at an interval—in
+their architecture, to judge by the large stones in
+the walls of his house, which, like Eric's, is now in
+ruins.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Twelve years after Egede, came the Moravians to
+take up their quarters at Ny Herrnhut, also at the
+mouth of Godthaab (that is, Good Hope) Fiord. It
+was here that Nansen and Sverdrup landed in October,
+1888, having rowed up from Ameralik Fiord in their
+"half a boat," as the Eskimos called it.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"Are you Englishmen?" they were asked.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"No," said Nansen, in good Norse, "we are Norwegians."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"May I ask your name?"</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"My name is Nansen and we have just come from
+the interior."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"Oh, allow me to congratulate you on taking your
+doctor's degree!"</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>From which it is clear that Godthaab is not so much
+out of the world as one would suppose.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Nansen with his three Norsemen and two Lapps had
+reached the east coast in the <em>Jason</em>, and on the 17th of
+July had left the ship in their boats to make their way
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>to the shore; but they had been caught in the floes,
+and on them and among them they had drifted for
+twelve days—an experience they had not bargained for.
+Getting ashore at last near Cape Tordenskiold, they
+worked their way back northwards along the coast,
+spending a short time at an Eskimo encampment at
+Cape Bille, until on the 15th of August they hauled
+their two boats up near Umivik and started to cross
+Greenland over the inland ice.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The country is now in its glacial period, and for days
+they toiled across its glacial desert; each day alike in its
+wearisome monotony. "Flatness and whiteness were
+the two features of this ocean of snow," says Nansen;
+"in the day we could see three things only, the sun,
+the snowfield and ourselves. We looked like a diminutive
+black line feebly traced upon an infinite expanse of
+white. There was no break or change in our horizon,
+no object to rest the eye upon, and no point by which to
+direct the course. We had to steer by a diligent use of
+the compass, and keep our line as well as possible by
+careful watching of the sun and repeated glances back
+at the four men following and the long track which the
+caravan left in the snow. We passed from one horizon
+to another, but our advance brought us no change."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>By the 2nd of September they had all taken to their
+skis on which they made great progress alone, but when
+it came to hauling the sledges there was a difference.
+Sometimes the snow proved to be very heavy going,
+particularly when it was wind-packed, and then it was
+no better than sand. One entry in Nansen's journal
+will suffice: "It began to snow in the middle of the
+day, and our work was heavier than ever. It was worse
+even than yesterday, and to say it was like hauling in
+blue clay will scarcely give an idea of it. At every
+step we had to use all our force to get the heavy
+sledges along, and in the evening Sverdrup and I, who
+had to go first and plough a way for ourselves, were
+pretty well done up."</p>
+
+<div id='pg262'  class='figcenter id030'>
+<img src='images/i_405.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>ON LEVEL GROUND</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>When at last the wind became favourable they
+hoisted sail, and off they went over the waves and drifts
+of snow at a speed that almost took their breath away;
+and when they reached the western slopes they slid
+down them using the sledges as toboggans. At first
+they had intended making for Christianshaab, but the
+route had to be changed for that to Godthaab, and
+the sea was reached some distance to the south. Here
+they stitched the floor-sheet of their tent over a framework
+of withies, and with oars made of canvas stretched
+across forked willows and tied to bamboo shafts,
+Nansen and Sverdrup boldly trusted themselves to the
+waves and with much hard labour pulled into Ny
+Herrnhut on the 3rd of October. Such was the first
+crossing of Greenland, a really remarkable instance of
+daring endeavour.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Further north, Nordenskiöld, in 1883, had attempted
+to cross over the ice-cap from near Disco on the west
+coast, but, hindered and finally stopped by crevasses
+and other obstacles, could do no more than send
+his Lapps to try their best on their skis, and
+they returned after their journey eastwards of a
+hundred and forty miles reporting similar monotonous
+conditions all along their track. Thirteen years
+before, he had, also from Auleitsivik Fiord, started out
+with Berggren; and deserted by their followers, they
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>had gone on by themselves for some thirty miles east
+of the northern arm of the fiord. It was on this occasion
+that Berggren discovered <em>Ancylonema</em>, that small
+poly-cellular alga forming the dark masses that absorb a
+far greater amount of heat than the white ice and thus
+cause the deep holes that aid in the process of melting.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"The same plant," says Nordenskiöld, "has no doubt
+played the same part in our country; and we have to
+thank it, perhaps, that the deserts of ice which
+formerly covered the whole of Northern Europe and
+America have now given place to shady woods and
+undulating cornfields."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Nordenskiöld looked upon Greenland and its icefield
+as a broad-lipped, shallow vessel with chinks in the lip,
+the glacier being viscous matter within it. As more is
+poured in, the matter runs over the edges, taking the
+lines of the chinks, that is, of the fiords and valleys, as
+that of its outflow. In other words, the ice floats out
+by force of the superincumbent weight of snow just as
+does the grain on the floor of a barn when another
+sackful is shot on to the top of the heap already there.
+When the glacier reaches the sea it makes its way along
+the bottom under water for a considerable distance, in
+some cases, as near Avigait, for more than a mile. This
+is where the water is too shallow for it to affect the
+mass, which forms a breakwater; though as a rule the
+shore deepens more suddenly and the projection is less.
+It was long supposed that the berg broke from the
+glacier by force of gravity, but this is not generally so.
+The berg is forced off from the parent glacier by the
+buoyant action of the sea from beneath; the ice groans
+and creaks; then there is a crashing, then a roar like
+the discharge of artillery; and with a great regurgitation
+of the waves the iceberg is launched into life. These
+huge floating islands of ice are the most conspicuous
+exports of Greenland; and their true magnitude is not
+realised until it is remembered that only about an
+eighth of their bulk appears above the water. Bergs as
+large as liners we frequently hear of—one such is shown
+in our illustration—but sometimes they are of much
+greater freeboard, though the very large ones reported
+as extending along the horizon are invariably groups of
+several crowded together.</p>
+
+<div id='pg264'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_409.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE ALLAN LINER "SARDINIAN" AMONG ICEBERGS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span><em>Ancylonema</em> has evidently plenty to do. Another
+instance of the important part played by the insignificant
+in these regions is suggested by the colour of the sea.
+This varies from ultramarine blue to olive-green, from
+the purest transparency to striking opacity; and the
+changes are not transitory but permanent. These
+patches of dark water abound with diatoms, while the
+bluer the water the fewer are the diatoms; and where
+they are most numerous, there the animals that feed on
+them assemble in their greatest numbers. And these
+animals are jellyfish, entomostracans, and, to a greater
+extent, pteropods, their chief representative being <em>Clio
+borealis</em>. In short, the animals that feed on the diatoms
+are food of the Greenland whale, and where the waters
+are dark the whale-fishers thrive. "I know nothing
+stranger than the curious tale I have unfolded," says
+Dr. Robert Brown, who worked out this remarkable
+chain, "the diatom staining the broad frozen sea, again
+supporting myriads of living beings which crowd there
+to feed on it, and these again supporting the huge
+whale. Thus it is no stretch of the imagination to say
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>that the greatest animal depends for its existence on a
+being so minute that it takes thousands to be massed
+together before they are visible to the naked eye."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Cold as Greenland is, there was a time when matters
+were different. In token of this we have the Miocene
+fossils collected by Edward Whymper during his
+expedition from near Jakobshavn in 1867, which were
+described and illustrated by Oswald Heer in the <em>Philosophical
+Transactions</em> for 1869. A look at these is a
+welcome relief after such a surfeit of ice. Here, as
+well preserved as in the leaf beds of Alum Bay, are
+the leaves and fruits of an unmistakable temperate flora.
+Magnolias, maples, poplars, limes, walnuts, water-lilies;
+myrica, smilax, aralia; sedges and grasses, conifers and
+ferns: these at the least were all growing in Greenland
+in its Miocene age. And even a thousand years ago
+the climate must have been milder than now, to judge
+by the farming reports of the colonists who seem to
+have been quite at home along the coast, which, with
+its innumerable islands and fiords, is as intricate as that
+of Norway.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Searching for the ancient eastern settlement of the
+Norsemen, W. A. Graah, in 1829, wintered at
+Julianehaab, which in all likelihood is the site, although
+he knew it not. Possessed with the idea that it must
+be on the south-eastern coast, he devoted his attention
+to that region only, finding Eskimos who had never
+seen a white man and starting a trading intercourse
+which led to most of them migrating to the less inclement
+west. His work linked up with that of Scoresby,
+who in 1822 charted the main features of the sea-front
+from 69° to 75°. Ryder, seventy years afterwards, filled
+in the details of much of Scoresby's work, and found
+Eskimos further north, as Clavering had done in 1823,
+when in the <em>Griper</em> during Sabine's observations at
+Pendulum Island.</p>
+
+<div id='pg266'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_413.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE "GERMANIA" IN THE ICE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>It was to Pendulum Island, in 74° 32´, that Karl
+Koldewey, after his preliminary run to 81° 5´ in 1868,
+took the <em>Germania</em> to winter during the German expedition
+of 1869. The two vessels, the <em>Germania</em>, a
+small two-masted screw steamer of one hundred and
+forty-three tons, built specially for Arctic service,
+and the <em>Hansa</em>, only half her size, which had been
+strengthened for the voyage, reached Jan Mayen on
+the 9th of July, and, hidden from each other by fog,
+sailed northwards for five days. On the fifth evening
+the wind rose, the fog cleared, and a hundred yards in
+front of them lay the ice like a rugged line of cliffs.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>For a few days they sailed along it endeavouring to
+find an opening to the north. Then, on the 20th, the
+<em>Germania</em> ran up a signal to approach and communicate,
+which was misunderstood, and, instead of repeating
+it and making sure, the <em>Hansa</em> put up her helm,
+fell off, crowded on all sail, and disappeared in the fog.
+Koldewey, persisting in his efforts to get through the
+pack, found an opening on the 1st of August. Nine
+days afterwards he was again blocked, and finally, on
+the 27th, he reached Pendulum Island, where he made
+the <em>Germania</em> snug for the winter, which proved to be
+remarkably mild.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The first sledge party travelling up one of the fiords
+met with abundant vegetation and herds of reindeer
+and musk oxen, and were visited by bears who had not
+learnt to be wary of man; and when the bears came
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>back with the sun in February they were as troublesome
+as those of Ice Haven to the Dutchmen. Several
+sledge parties went out in the spring, and, notwithstanding
+inadequate equipment, did excellent work.
+In April, 1870, Koldewey reached 77° 1´, almost up to
+Lambert Land, otherwise the Land of Edam. Here,
+looking out over the ice-belt, they agreed that it was
+"a bulwark built for eternity," and hoisting sails on
+their sledges they ran back to the ship. But in 1905
+the Duke of Orleans arrived on the coast to reach
+78° 16´ and discover that their Cape Bismarck was on
+an island and their Dove Bay a strait.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In the neighbourhood of their winter quarters the
+glaciers and mountains were well explored, and an
+attempt was made to measure an arc of the meridian,
+which proved to be rather rough work among such
+surroundings. The snowstorms were particularly pitiless
+and heavy, and the travelling decidedly bad. The
+thaw began about the middle of May, and there was
+more sledging through pools than usual, so that they
+did not want variety in their occupations. On the
+14th of July boating became practicable, and a voyage
+was made to the Eskimo village found by Clavering
+in 1823, on the island named after him, but the village
+proved to be deserted and the huts in ruins—an unwelcome
+discovery, for, as M'Clintock says in reference
+to it: "It is not less strange than sad to find that a
+peaceable and once numerous tribe, inhabiting a coast-line
+of at least seven degrees of latitude, 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."</p>
+
+<div id='pg268'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_417.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE REGION ROUND MOUNT PETERMANN</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>A little north of the seventy-third parallel Koldewey
+discovered on his way home the magnificent Franz Josef
+Fiord. Here the grandest scenery in Greenland is to
+be found along its deep branches winding among the
+mountains, one of which, Mount Petermann, is over
+eleven thousand feet high. As the <em>Germania</em> entered
+this remarkable inlet, which extends inland for some five
+degrees of longitude, a fleet of icebergs were sailing out
+of it with the current; the farther she advanced the
+warmer seemed the temperature of the air and surface
+water, and the wilder and more impressive became the
+grouping of the mighty cliffs and peaks with their lofty
+waterfalls and raging torrents and deep glacier-filled
+ravines. It was the great geographical discovery of the
+expedition.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Meanwhile Hegemann, trying to pass to the north
+more to the westward, got the <em>Hansa</em> beset on the 9th
+of September some twenty-four miles from Foster Bay.
+As the ice-pressure threatened to become too great for
+the vessel to resist, an elaborate house was planned and
+built on the floe. Briquettes were used for the walls,
+the joints were filled up with dry snow on which water
+was poured, and in ten minutes it hardened into a compact
+mass. The house was twenty feet long, fourteen
+feet wide, and four feet eight inches high at the sides,
+with a rising roof consisting of sails and mats covered
+with deep snow. Into this house, which took a week
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>to build, provisions for two months were carried,
+besides wood and fuel. The boats were put out, a
+flagstaff was set up, and quite a little settlement was
+started on the ice; and no sooner was it completed than
+a violent snowstorm, lasting for five days, buried both
+the ship and the house. The ice increased around, and,
+the pressure of the accumulation lifting the <em>Hansa</em>
+seventeen feet above her original level, everything of
+value was removed from her on to the ice and into the
+house. On the 22nd of October she sank, having
+drifted below the seventy-first parallel; and all through
+the winter the floe, which was about two miles across,
+leisurely made its way to the south.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Off Knighton Bay Christmas was kept with all
+possible honour. The briquette house was decorated
+with coloured-paper festoons, and, by the light of the
+sole remaining wax candle, the genial Germans made
+themselves merry around a stubby Christmas tree
+devised out of an old birch broom. Three weeks afterwards
+the floe cracked beneath the dwelling. There
+was barely time to take refuge, but all hands were
+saved in the boats. For two days they remained in them,
+poorly sheltered from the storm and unable to clear out
+the snow. Then a smaller house was built of the ruins
+of the old one, but it was only large enough for half
+the party; and as the spring advanced the floe decreased,
+breaking away at the edges as did that on
+which the <em>Polaris</em> people drifted to Labrador.</p>
+
+<div id='pg270'  class='figcenter id002'>
+<img src='images/i_421.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>THE LAST DAYS OF THE "HANSA"</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>At the end of March it entered Nukarbik Bay and
+there it stayed four weeks, caught in an eddy, slowly
+moving round and round just far enough from the
+shore to render an attempt at escape impossible; twice
+a day they went in with the tide and out with the tide, the
+ice too bad for the boats and never promising enough
+for a dash to the land. Having become thoroughly
+acquainted with this portion of the coast with its bold
+range of hills, its deep bays, its inlets, headlands, and
+islands, a storm came on which cleared them out of the
+eddy and drove them further south. Three weeks after
+that the floe had become so diminished by the lashing
+of the surge that it was hardly a hundred yards across,
+and large fragments were slipping off every hour.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>They had been on it for two hundred days and
+drifted eleven hundred miles when, on the 7th of May,
+water-lanes opening shorewards, they took to the boats
+and ventured among the masses of ice, making for the
+south. At first they had their difficulties in being
+compelled to haul up on the floes to pass the night or
+wait for a favourable wind, which meant severe work in
+unloading and reloading. Once during their painful
+progress of more than a month they were kept on a
+floe for six days by gales and snow-showers. Finally,
+after a long desperate effort, they reached Illuilek
+Island, and thence proceeded close inshore among rocks
+and ice to Frederiksdal, a couple of hours' walk from
+the southernmost point of the Greenland mainland,
+Cape Farewell being part of an island twenty-eight
+miles further to the south-east. On the 21st of June,
+eight days afterwards, they were at Julianehaab, whence
+they sailed to be landed at Copenhagen on the 1st of
+September, just ten days before the <em>Germania</em> steamed
+into Bremen. Thus the expedition, by its two divisions,
+ice-borne and ship-borne, had skirted nearly all that
+was then known of the east coast from end to end.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>On the north coast, Beaumont's discoveries were
+extended by Lieutenant James B. Lockwood for ninety-five
+miles, the trend of the shore taking him up to
+83° 24´, three minutes and thirty-four seconds nearer
+the North Pole than Markham reached out on the sea.
+This was on the 13th of May, 1882, during the ill-fated
+A. W. Greely expedition. Like most American expeditions
+up to then this began well and ended badly,
+worse, in fact, than any; and unlike them, and all others,
+it consisted entirely of soldiers—as if a detachment of
+Royal Engineers had been sent north on ordnance
+survey work. It was, however, more miscellaneous,
+for among its twenty-three members were representatives
+of three cavalry regiments, six infantry regiments,
+and an artilleryman.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>This was to be the garrison of the International
+Circumpolar Station at Lady Franklin Bay. The idea
+of a ring of stations round the Pole for the study of
+the natural phenomena for which the Arctic regions
+afford so wide and important a field was not new, but
+it was first reduced to definiteness and its adoption
+secured by Karl Weyprecht of the Austro-Hungarian
+expedition of 1872. At a meeting of German scientific
+men at Gratz, in September, 1875, he procured assent
+to his general principle that the best results in Arctic
+inquiry were to be obtained by subordinating geographical
+discovery to physical investigation. It had
+long been evident that the most valuable results had
+been obtained by the ships and fixed observatories, and
+that the toilsome work of the sledges in their successive
+approaches by a few more miles towards a mathematical
+point, though most interesting to read about, had really
+been of very little practical use owing to the necessarily
+light equipment. Instead, therefore, of a number of
+isolated attempts at irregular intervals, Weyprecht
+suggested that the better way would be to attack the
+subject systematically by a group of expeditions at
+permanent stations working together long enough at
+the same time for their observations to be dealt with as
+part of a general scheme; and the suggestion was
+approved although he did not live long enough to see
+the stations occupied.</p>
+
+<div id='pg272'  class='figcenter id031'>
+<a href='images/i_425.jpg'><img src='images/i_425_thumb.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /></a>
+<div class='ic001'>
+<p>GREENLAND</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>Three International Polar Conferences were held, in
+1879 and the two following years, at Hamburg, Berne,
+and St. Petersburg, at the last of which it was arranged
+that the stations should be fourteen in number, two in
+the south and twelve in the north, these twelve being—(1)
+The Austrian at Jan Mayen; (2) the Danish at
+Godthaab; (3) the Finnish at Sodankyla in Uleaborg;
+(4) the German at Kingua in Cumberland Sound;
+(5) the British at Fort Rae on the northern arm of the
+Great Slave Lake; (6) the Dutch at Dickson Harbour
+at the mouth of the Yenesei; (7) the Norwegian at
+Bosekop at the head of Alten Fiord; (8) the Russian at
+Little Karmakul Bay in Novaya Zemlya; (9) the second
+Russian on Sagastyr Island in the Lena Delta; (10) the
+Swedish at Mossel Bay in Spitsbergen; (11) the
+American at Point Barrow under Lieutenant P. H.
+Ray, who met with marked success and brought his
+men all home in safety; and (12) the second American
+at Lady Franklin Bay, the winter quarters of H.M.S.
+<em>Discovery</em>, which Greely renamed Fort Conger.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In direct opposition to the guiding idea of the
+scheme, Greely's work was complicated by having
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>tacked on to it Howgate's proposal of another dash for
+the Pole, his instructions requiring him to send out
+"sledging parties in the interests of exploration and
+discovery." Further, his expedition was fitted out in
+a way that almost invited disaster. Let one instance
+suffice. "In speaking of this instrument," he explains,
+"it is necessary to say that a dip-circle was especially
+made for the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, but it
+was by error shipped to the United States Coast Survey.
+On calling for it, when the duplicate instrument
+ordered could not be had in time, the late Mr. Carlisle
+Patterson, then Superintendent, promptly promised that
+it should be sent on to me at New York. On the day
+of my sailing, a dip-circle, carefully boxed, was received;
+but on opening it at St. John, an old, rusty, unreliable
+instrument was found in the place of the new circle.
+This resulted in unsatisfactory and incomplete observations
+at Conger, for the old circle having upright
+standards instead of transverse ones, as in the new, but
+one end of the needle could be read. It must always
+be a matter of regret that this unwarrantable and unauthorised
+substitution by some person was made, which
+materially impaired, if not effectually destroyed, the
+value of our two-years' dip-observations." This sort of
+thing reduced International Polar Research to a farce,
+and the same spirit appeared in other departments,
+more seriously than all in the relief proceedings, which
+were conducted in a way that could only lead to starvation.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In August, 1881, the <em>Proteus</em>, with the expedition
+on board, made her way up Smith Sound and Kennedy
+Channel without serious hindrance until she entered
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>the south-eastern part of Lady Franklin Bay, where
+the close, heavy pack brought her to a stop within
+eight miles of her destination. She had come seven
+hundred miles from Upernivik in less than a week, and,
+faced by ice twenty to fifty feet thick, she had to wait
+another seven days before she got into Discovery
+Harbour. Here the party landed and a house was
+built, and dissension arose which ended in one of the
+company returning in the ship and another endeavouring
+to do so and being too late, so that he had to remain as
+a sort of tolerated volunteer. Two others were sent
+away as being physically unfit; but, making up for
+these, were two Eskimos engaged at Upernivik.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Preliminary sledging began at once, and in the spring
+the two great efforts were made. The doctor's, towards
+the Pole, left on the 19th of March and got adrift on
+a floe from which the party escaped with the loss of
+their tent, provisions, and some of their instruments.
+According to Greely's report: "The farthest latitude
+attained by this party is given by Dr. Pavy as 82° 56´,
+it being estimated, as no observations for time, magnetic
+declination, or latitude were made at any period during
+his absence."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On the 3rd of April, Lockwood with twelve men
+left for the coast of Greenland. Up to Newman Bay
+four men had been sent back as unfit for field-work.
+On the 16th, when the party started from here for the
+north-east, Lockwood and Christiansen, the Eskimo,
+were in advance hauling about eight hundred pounds
+with a team of eight dogs, a three-men sledge following,
+and then two two-men sledges; at Cape Bryant
+the men-sledges were sent back, and Lockwood,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>Brainard, and the Eskimo went on with the dog-sledge.
+Cape Britannia was reached on the 5th of May, and
+on the 13th they camped at Lockwood Island, and
+there, for the first time, Americans reached a farthest
+north.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"I decided to make this cape my farthest," reported
+Lockwood, "and to devote the little time we could
+stay to determining accurately my position, if the
+weather would allow, which seemed doubtful. We
+built a large, conspicuous cairn, about six feet high
+and the same width at the base, on the lower of two
+benches. After repitching the tent Sergeant Brainard
+and I returned to the cairn, and collected in that
+vicinity specimens of the rocks and vegetation of the
+country, the sergeant making almost all the collection.
+We ascended without difficulty to a small fringe of
+rocks, which seemed from below to form the top. The
+ascent, at first very gradual, became steeper as we went
+up, but we had no difficulty, as for some distance below
+the summit the surface is covered with small stones,
+as uniform in size, position, etc., as those of a macadamised
+road. Reached the top at 3.45 p.m. and unfurled
+the American flag (Mrs. Greely's) to the breeze in
+latitude 83° 24´ N. (according to last observation). The
+summit is a small plateau, narrow, but extending back
+to the south to broken, snow-covered heights. It commanded
+a very extended view in every direction. The
+barometer, being out of order, was not brought along,
+so I did not get the altitude. The horizon on the land
+side was concealed by numberless snow-covered mountains,
+one profile overlapping another, and all so merged
+together, on account of their universal covering of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>snow, that it was impossible to detect the topography
+of the region. To the north lay an unbroken expanse
+of ice, interrupted only by the horizon."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>On Midsummer Day Greely started with a four-wheel
+wagon to explore Grinnell Land. The wagon,
+in the men's vernacular, was a man-killer, and was
+abandoned after they had dragged it a hundred miles.
+On this journey much exploring work was done in the
+unknown country, the most interesting find being that
+of the Eskimo house at Lake Hazen. In this, according
+to Greely's description, there were two fireplaces,
+one in the east and the other in the south, both of
+which had been built outward so as to take up no part
+of the space of the room, which was over seventeen
+feet long and nine feet wide. The sides of the entire
+dwelling were low walls of sodded earth, lined inside
+with flat thin slates, the tops of which were about two
+feet above the level of the interior floor, and the bench
+was covered with flat slabs of slate. Near by was a smaller
+house of the same character, and around were a large
+number of relics, including walrus-ivory toggles for
+dog-traces, sledge-bars and runners, an arrow head,
+skinning knife, and articles of worked bone. Next
+year further explorations of the back country were
+undertaken, so that some six thousand miles of the
+interior were viewed, disclosing many fertile valleys
+with their herds of musk ox.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Meanwhile the <em>Neptune</em>, with supplies for Fort
+Conger, had in August, 1882, been vainly endeavouring
+to get north, and, a few miles from Cape Hawks, had
+turned back with the pack piling the ice as high as her
+rail. Six attempts she made before she gave up and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>retreated, after making several deposits of stores at
+Cape Sabine and elsewhere. In July, 1883, the <em>Proteus</em>,
+making a similar attempt to reach Greely, was crushed
+in the ice off Cape Albert, her side opening with a
+crash while the men were working in the hold, the ice
+forcing its way into the coal-bunkers and then pouring
+in so that as soon as the pressure slackened she went
+down, escape to the south being effected in the boats.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Next year, matters having become serious, a naval
+expedition consisting of the <em>Thetis</em>, the <em>Bear</em>, and
+Nares's old ship the <em>Alert</em>, presented by the British
+Government, was placed in the capable hands of
+Commander Winfield Schley, who had with him George
+Melville of <em>Jeannette</em> fame as engineer of the <em>Thetis</em>,
+and matters were conducted in quite a different way
+under much more favourable circumstances. Schley
+intended to find Greely, at all costs, and he did so.
+First he found a cairn at Brevoort Island, in which
+were the papers deposited by Greely relating how he
+had had to come south owing to shortness of supplies,
+and how his party were then—21st of October, 1883—encamped
+on the west side of a small neck of land
+distant about equally from Cape Sabine and Cocked
+Hat Island.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>As it was then the 22nd of June, 1884, and they had
+had only forty days' complete rations to live upon,
+Schley hurried off at once. Had he been two days
+later he would have been too late. There was a tent
+wrecked by the gale, with its pole toppling over and
+only kept in place by the guy ropes. Ripping it up
+with a knife, a sight of horror was disclosed. On one
+side, close to the opening, with his head towards the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>outside, lay what was apparently a dead man. On the
+opposite side was a poor fellow, alive but without hands
+or feet, and with a spoon tied to the stump of his right
+arm. Two others, seated on the ground, were pouring
+something out of a rubber bottle into a tin can.
+Directly opposite, on his hands and knees, was a dark
+man with a long matted beard, in a dirty and tattered
+dressing-gown with a little red skull cap on his head,
+and brilliant staring eyes. As Colwell appeared, he
+raised himself a little, and put on a pair of eyeglasses.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"Who are you?" asked Colwell.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The man made no answer, staring at him vacantly.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"Who are you?" again.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>One of the men spoke up. "That's the Major—Major
+Greely."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Colwell crawled in and took him by the hand, saying
+to him, "Greely, is this you?"</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>"Yes," said Greely in a faint, broken voice, hesitating
+with his words; "yes—seven of us left—here we are—dying—like
+men. Did what I came to do—beat the
+best record."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Near at hand were ten graves. The bodies, despite
+Greely's remonstrances, were taken up and removed
+for burial in the United States. "Little could be seen
+of the condition of the bodies, as they had been clothed,
+and all that appeared was intact. In preparing them
+subsequently," says Schley, "it was found that six had
+been cut and the flesh removed." One of these, that
+of a cavalryman serving under the assumed name of
+Henry, had a bullet in it. He had been shot, at
+Greely's written order, "for stealing sealskin thongs,
+the only remaining food."</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>The next to add to our knowledge of the northern
+coast of Greenland was Robert E. Peary, of the
+American Navy, who seems to have devoted his life
+to Arctic exploration. On his first expedition in 1886,
+he penetrated with Maigaard for some distance into
+the country in the neighbourhood of Jakobshavn as
+a sort of pioneering venture. In 1891, accompanied
+by his wife, when outward bound in the <em>Kite</em> in the
+Melville Bay pack, he had his leg broken. The ship
+had been butting a passage through the spongy sheets
+of ice which had imprisoned her, when in going astern
+a detached cake struck the rudder, jamming the tiller
+against the wheel-house where Peary was standing,
+and pinned his leg long enough to snap it between the
+knee and the ankle. In spite of this he insisted on
+being landed with the rest of the party at McCormick
+Bay, a little to the north of Whale Sound, where a
+house was built and the winter spent.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Making a good recovery, he set off in May to sledge
+across North Greenland through snow and over it, and
+over snow-arched crevasses, often, in cloudy weather,
+travelling in grey space with nothing visible beyond
+a foot or two around him. After fifty-seven days'
+journey to the north-east and along Peary Channel, the
+northern boundary of the mainland, he left the inland
+ice for a strange country dotted with snowdrifts and
+mostly of red sandstone, in which murmuring streams,
+roaring waterfalls, and the song of snow-buntings
+formed an agreeable change from the silence of the
+desert of snow. Four days' hard labouring through
+this brought him on the 4th of July to Independence
+Bay on the north-east coast, where from Navy Cliff,
+nearly four thousand feet high, he looked across to
+Academy Land on the other side of the bay and beyond
+it over the region leading down to the farthest north
+of the Duke of Orleans. "It was almost impossible,"
+he says, "to believe that we were standing upon the
+northern shore of Greenland as we gazed from the
+summit of this bronze cliff, with the most brilliant
+sunshine all about us, with yellow poppies growing
+between the rocks around our feet, and a herd of muskoxen
+in the valley behind us. Down in that valley
+I had found an old friend, a dandelion in bloom, and
+had seen the bullet-like flight and heard the energetic
+buzz of the humble-bee."</p>
+
+<div id='pg280'  class='figcenter id032'>
+<img src='images/i_435.jpg' alt='R. E. Peary, U. S. N.' class='ig001' />
+</div>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>Next year he and his wife were out again to take up
+their quarters at a house they built at Bowdoin Bay,
+where, in September, their daughter was born. In
+March, 1894, he started for another journey across
+Greenland, with twelve sledges and over ninety dogs,
+but severe weather drove him back after travelling
+some two hundred miles. Staying over that winter
+instead of returning in the <em>Falcon</em>, he set out in the
+spring, and under almost desperate circumstances
+managed to reach and return from Independence Bay.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Following this came his expedition of 1898, in which
+he spent four winters in the Arctic regions and almost
+met with Petersen's fate by a venturesome winter
+sledge journey, which resulted in the freezing of his
+feet and the loss of eight of his toes. Travelling in
+Grinnell Land he proved beyond doubt that it was
+continuous with Ellesmere Land, as had been admitted
+by those who named it. Following Lockwood's track,
+he continued it up to 83° 54´, along Hazen Land, practically
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>completing the coast-line to Cape Henry Parish,
+its furthest east, thus rounding the north of the Greenland
+archipelago, and even there finding traces of
+Eskimos and a fauna similar to that of other Arctic lands
+hundreds of miles further south. And striking northwards
+over the sea from Cape Hecla, with seven men and
+six dog-sledges, into the breaking, drifting pack, he made
+a dash for the Pole which ended at 84° 17´.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>His next northern venture, though not more remarkable,
+is destined, perhaps, to be remembered longer.
+On it he sighted the new land away out in the sea
+north-west of Grinnell Land, nearer to the Pole than
+any other land discovered up to then, and where it was
+expected to be. And out over the ice he went to
+eclipse his 1902 record by nearly two hundred miles,
+in the best planned of all his journeys.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>In July, 1905, he had left New York in the <em>Roosevelt</em>,
+a steamship of over six hundred tons and more than
+a thousand horse-power, rigged complete as a three-masted
+coasting schooner, able to hold her own almost
+anywhere in the event of her engines becoming useless.
+One hundred and eighty-two feet in length, thirty-five
+and a half in beam, and sixteen and a quarter in depth;
+sharp in the bow and rounded amidships; treble in
+framing and double in planking, with sides thirty
+inches thick, twelve feet of deadwood in her bow, and
+six feet of false keels and kelsons, she was specially
+built for the expedition as the strongest and most
+powerful vessel ever sent on Arctic service, and was
+launched on the 23rd of May, 1905, Mrs. Peary
+naming her by smashing a block of ice against her
+ironclad stem.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>A month out from New York, the <em>Roosevelt</em> left
+Etah laden deep with coal from the <em>Eric</em> that had
+awaited her there, and having on board over fifty
+Eskimos, of both sexes and all sizes, and some two
+hundred Eskimo dogs. Leaving a reserve of provisions
+at Bache Peninsula, she worked up through open
+water and occasional ice to Richardson Bay, where
+the pack looked so threatening that Peary literally
+rammed his way across to the eastern side, and so continued
+northwards. When off Cape Lupton the ship
+received such rough treatment that the rudder was
+twisted and the head-bands and tiller-rods broken, as
+she ground along the face of the ice-foot "with a
+motion and noise like that of a railway-car which has
+left the rails"; but this was the only time she was in
+serious danger during her most fortunate run. Resting
+for six days in Newman Bay to repair damages and
+make ready for a final effort, she was headed westward
+to Grinnell Land through the floes, and after a continuous
+battle of thirty-five hours, reached the ice-foot
+at Cape Sheridan, a little north of the old winter
+quarters of the <em>Alert</em>, and found her wintering place,
+like her, just as the Polar pack closed in against the
+shore. The endeavour had been to lay up in Porter
+Bay, twenty-seven miles further north, but the state
+of the ice made this impossible.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Provisions were plentiful, as no less than two hundred
+and fifty musk oxen had been shot by the 1st of November,
+and there were numbers of hares and several herds
+of the white reindeer first mentioned by Hudson in his
+second voyage three hundred years ago. During the
+very mild winter eighty of the dogs died, and when
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>sledging began only twenty teams of six each were
+available. The plan of the northern advance over the
+ice was to divide it into sections of about fifty miles
+each, with snow houses at each station, the nearest
+station being supplied from the base and supplying the
+next, and so on, thus keeping up an unbroken line of
+communication gradually extending nearer to the Pole,
+the sledges working backwards and forwards, outwards
+laden and inwards empty, between station and station
+along the line.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>The land was left at Point Moss, north-west of Cape
+Joseph Henry. At 84° 38´ a lead in the pack stopped
+the way for six days until the young ice was thick enough
+to bear, and forty miles further north the vanguard
+drifted east some seventy miles during a storm for
+another six days. On the 20th of April a region of
+much open water was reached, and from midnight to
+noon next day the last effort was made by Peary,
+Henson, and a small party of Eskimos, the farthest
+north, 87° 6´, being attained and immediately left in a
+rapid retreat for safety.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Thus Peary went nearer to the Pole than Cagni by
+thirty-two minutes or thirty-seven statute miles, both
+being stopped by water with apparently similar conditions
+ahead of them. What the conditions may be
+along the intervening two hundred miles from Peary's
+farthest nobody knows; but although a good many
+things may happen between London and York, which
+is about the same distance, there is good reason for
+supposing that, even if there be land somewhere, the
+road is over a sea more or less packed with ice which
+is never without its channels.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>One thing is clear: the attainment of the Pole is a
+matter of money. Given the funds, the men and the
+dogs, and the ships, boats, sledges, and other things
+will be forthcoming, and the journey accomplished, not
+by a rush, but on some systematic station-to-station
+plan; though it is not impossible that it may be done
+by chance in some exceptional year, for the climate of
+the north is variable and has a wider range of temperature
+than that of Britain in its good years and its bad
+years.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>Let us hope there may be land at the exact spot, for
+then the position can be checked at leisure, and there
+will be no doubt of its having been reached. Joseph
+Moxon, Hydrographer to the King, in 1652 met at
+Amsterdam a sailor of a Greenland ship which "went
+not out to fish that summer, but only to take in the
+lading of the whole fleet to bring it to an early
+market"—in other words, to act as a carrier—which
+ship, before the whaling fleet had caught enough to
+lade her, had by order of the Company sailed to the
+North Pole and back again, and even two degrees
+beyond it; no land seen, no ice, and the weather as it
+was in summer-time at Amsterdam.</p>
+
+<p class='c000'>A sailor's yarn told in a tavern? Only this and
+nothing more, perhaps; though a good many things
+were kept dark in the whaling trade as in other trades.
+But if there had been an island at the Pole we might
+eventually have been able to verify that ancient
+mariner's tale.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>INDEX</h2>
+</div>
+
+<ul class='index c004'>
+  <li class='c020'>Abruzzi, Duke of, The, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Academy Land, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Actinia Haven, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Advance</em>, The, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Aid</em>, The, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Akaitcho, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Alaska, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Aldrich, Pelham, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Alert</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Alexander</em>, The, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Alexander, Cape, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Alexandra Land, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Alexandria</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_179'>179</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Alfred Ernest, Cape, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ameralik Fiord, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>America, The Norse discovery of, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Amundsen, Roald, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Ancylonema nordenskioeldii</em>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Anderson Falls, The, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Andrée, S. A., <a href='#Page_104'>104</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Anjou, P. F., <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Ann Frances</em>, The, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Antelope, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Archangel, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Archer, Colin, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Archer Fiord, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Archer, R., <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Arctic</em>, The, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Arctic Search Expedition, The first, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Assistance</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Atlassof, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Augustus the Eskimo, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Auk, Cape, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Auleitsivik Fiord, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Aurora Borealis, The, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Austin, Horatio, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Austria Sound, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Avigait, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Baal's River, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Back, George, <a href='#Page_38'>38</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Baden-Powell, Sir George, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Baffin, William, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Baffin Land, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Banks Land, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Baranoff Cape, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Barents Bay, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Barents, Willem, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Barnacle Goose, The, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Barren Grounds, The, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Barrington, The Hon. Daines, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Barrow Point, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Barrow, Sir John, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Barrow Strait, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bathurst Island, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bear, Black, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bear Island, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bear, Polar, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Bear</em>, The, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Beaufort Sea, The, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Beaumont, Lewis Anthony, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Beechey, Cape, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Beechey, Frederick William, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Beechey Island, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Belanger, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Belcher, Edward, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bellot, Joseph René, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bellot Strait, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bennet, Stephen, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bennett Island, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bering Strait, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bering, Veit, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Berry, Captain, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bessels, Emil, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Best, George, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Best's Bulwark, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bille, Cape, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bird Cape, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Birds, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a>, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bismarck, Cape, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bjarni discovers America, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bjelkof Island, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Blossom</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Boat Extreme, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bolscheretzkoi, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Bona Confidentia</em>, The, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Bona Esperanza</em>, The, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>Booth, Felix, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Boothia, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Borough, Steven, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Borough, William, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bosekop, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bounty Cape, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bowdoin Bay, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bowen, Port, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bradley, Thomas, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Brainard, D. L., <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Brattelid, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Brentford Bay, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>British Channel, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Brorok, Cape, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Brown, Robert, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Brunel, Olivier, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Brunn, Mount, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Buchan, David, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Buchan Island, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Buddington, J. M., <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bulun, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bunge, A., <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Burrough Strait, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bush, Henry, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Butcher's Island, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Byam Martin Island, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Bylot, Robert, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Cabot, Sebastian, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Cagni, Umberto, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Cambridge Bay, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Camden Bay, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Carcass</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Carlsen, Elling, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Carlsen, Olaf, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Castor</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_166'>166</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Castor and Pollux River, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Cathay Company, The, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Catherine, The Empress, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Cator, Lieutenant, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Cavendish thermometer, The, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Chamisso Island, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Chancellor, Richard, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Char, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Charing Cross, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Charles's Foreland, Prince, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Chelagskoi, Cape, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Chelyuskin, Cape, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Cherie Island, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Chippewyan, Fort, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Christian Land, King, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Chukches, The, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Chvoinof, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Clavering Island, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Clerke, Charles, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Clio borealis</em>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Coal, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Collinson, Richard, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Columbia, Cape, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Columbus visits Iceland, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Colwell, J. C., <a href='#Page_279'>279</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Commander Islands, The, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Conferences, The Polar, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Confidence, Fort, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Conger, Fort, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Constitution, Cape, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Conway, William Martin, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Cook, James, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Cookery-of-Haarlem, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Coppermine River, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Cornwall, North, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Cornwallis Island, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Coronation Gulf, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Countess of Warwick Island, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Crow's Nest, The, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Crozier, F. R. M., <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Cumberland Gulf, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Dall, W. H., <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Danes Island, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Danish Sound, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Davis, John, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Davis Strait, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Dealy Island, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Dease, Peter Warren, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Dease River, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Dease Strait, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Dee, Dr. John, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>De Haven, Lieutenant, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>De Long, G. W., <a href='#Page_116'>116</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Deschnef, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Des Vœux, C. F., <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Devon, North, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Diana</em>, The, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Dickson Harbour, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Discovery</em>, H.M.S. (Cook), <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Discovery</em>, H.M.S. (Nares), <a href='#Page_248'>248</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Discovery</em>, The (Hudson), <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Discovery Harbour, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Distillation apparatus, The, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Dolphin</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Dolphin and Union Strait, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Dorothea</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_33'>33</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Dove Bay, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Drummond, Thomas, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Dudley, Ambrose, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Dudley Digges Cape, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Durfourth, Captain, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Dyer, Cape, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>East Cape, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>Ebierbing and Tookoolito, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Edam, Land of, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Edge, Thomas, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Edge's Island, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Edward Bonaventure</em>, The, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Egede, Hans, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Egede, Paul, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Eira</em>, The, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Elizabeth</em>, The, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Ellen</em>, The, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ellesmere Land, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ellis, John, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Elmwood, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Elson, Thomas, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Elson Bay, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Endeavour</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_41'>41</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>English Chief, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Entada bean, The, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Enterprise, Fort, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Enterprise</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Enterprise</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_41'>41</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Erebus</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Eric</em>, The, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Eric the Red, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ermine, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Eskimo relics, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Eskimos first met with, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Eskimos, Migration of the, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Eskimos, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a>, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a>, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Page_217'>217</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Etah, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Evensen, Captain, <a href='#Page_83'>83</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Exeter Sound, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Express</em>, The, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'><em>Falcon</em>, The, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Farewell, Cape, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fedotof, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Felix Harbour, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Felix</em>, The, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fern, The first Spitsbergen, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Finlay Island, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Finlayson Islands, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fish River, The Great, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fishes, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>FitzJames, James, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fligely, Cape, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Floeberg Beach, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Flora, Cape, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Forsyth, C. C., <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fossils, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Foulke Harbour, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fox, Arctic, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_53'>53</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fox, Black, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fox, Silver-grey, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Fox</em>, The, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Fram</em>, The, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Franklin, Fort, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Franklin, John, <a href='#Page_33'>33</a>, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Franklin, Lady, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Franklin Record, The, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Franklin Strait, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Franz Josef Fiord, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Franz Josef Land, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Fraser</em>, The, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Frazer, Cape, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Frederick Jackson Island, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Frederiksdal, <a href='#Page_271'>271</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Frobisher Bay, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Frobisher, Martin, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Frozen Strait, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fur-seal, The, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fury Beach, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Fury and Hecla Strait, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Fury</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_191'>191</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'><em>Gabriel</em>, The (Bering), <a href='#Page_132'>132</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Gabriel</em>, (Frobisher), <a href='#Page_216'>216</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Gabriel Islands, The, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Gardiner, Charles, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Garry, Fort, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>George</em>, The, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Germania</em>, The, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Gibraltar Bay, Battle of, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Giffard, G. A., <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Gilbert, Adrian, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Gilbert, Humphrey, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Gilbert Sound, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Gjöa, The, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Gjöahaven, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Glaciers, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Glow-worm</em>, The, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Godfrey, William, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Godthaab, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Godthaab Fiord, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Gore, Graham, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Graah, W. A., <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Graham Island, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Greely, A. W., <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Greenland, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a>, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Greenland Archipelago, The, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Greenland, East, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Greyhound</em>, The, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Griffith Island, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Grinnell Land, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Griper</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Gulf Stream, The, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>Gundersen, Captain, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Gunnbiörn discovers Greenland, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Hakluyt Headland, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hall Basin, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hall, C. F., <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hall, Christopher, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hall, James, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hall Island, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hall's Rest, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hamilton, Cape, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hans Hendrik, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Hansa</em>, The, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hare, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hare Fiord, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hartstene Bay, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hayes, I. I., <a href='#Page_237'>237</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hazen, Lake, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hazen Land, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hearne, Samuel, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hecla, Cape, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Hecla</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hedenström, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Heemskerck, Jacob van, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Heer, Oswald, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hegemann, Captain, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Heiberg Land, Axel, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Helluland, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hendon, North, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hendrik, Hans, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hendriksen Sound, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Henrietta Island, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Henson, C., <a href='#Page_284'>284</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hepburn, John, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Herald</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Herald Island, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Herschel, Cape, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Himkoff, Alexis, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hinlopen Strait, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hobson, W. R., <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hohenlohe Island, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hood River, The, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hood, Robert, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hooper, William Hulme, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hope, Fort, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Hope</em>, The (Young), <a href='#Page_75'>75</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Hope</em>, The (Egede), <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Howgate, H. W., <a href='#Page_274'>274</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hudson Bay, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hudson, Henry, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hudson River, The, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hudson Strait, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hudson's Bay Company, The, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hudson's Touches, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Humboldt Glacier, The, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hyaqua shell, The, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Icebergs, <a href='#Page_35'>35</a>, <a href='#Page_230'>230</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ice-drill, The, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ice Haven, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Iceland, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Icy Cape, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Igloolik, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Igloos, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ikmallik, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Independence Bay, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Inglefield, E. A., <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ingolf lands in Iceland, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Insects, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>International Polar Stations, The, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Intrepid</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Investigator</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Irkaipii, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Irving, John, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Isabel</em>, The, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Isabella, Cape, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Isabella</em>, The, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Isachsen, Cape, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Isbjörn</em>, The, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Jackman, Charles, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Jackson, Frederick G., <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Jakobshavn, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Jan Mayen, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Japanese, The, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Jason</em>, The, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Jeannette</em>, The, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Jeannette Island, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Jenkinson, Anthony, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Jesup Land, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Joe and Hannah, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Johansen, F. H., <a href='#Page_96'>96</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>John</em>, The, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Jones Sound, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Joseph Henry, Cape, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Journal, The, introduced, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Judith</em>, The, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Julianehaab, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Kalutunah, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kamchatka, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kane, E. K., <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kane Sea, The, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kara Sea, The, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Karmakul Bay, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kay, E. C. Lister, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kellett, Henry, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kendall, E. N., <a href='#Page_156'>156</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kennedy Channel, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kennedy, Port, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kennedy, William, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>King, Richard, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>Kingua, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>King William Land, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Kite</em>, The, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Knight, John, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kod-lun-arn, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kola, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Koldewey, Karl, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kolguiev, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kolyuchin Bay, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kompakova, The, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kotelnoi Island, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kraechoj, <a href='#Page_127'>127</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Krusenstern</em>, The, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kruzof Island, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ku Mark Surka, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kuriles, The, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Kutchins, The, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Labrador, Discovery of, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Labrets, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lady Franklin, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lady Franklin Bay, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a>, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lambert Land, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lamont, James, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lancaster Sound, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lands Lokk, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Laptef, Dmitri, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Laptef, Khariton, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Leif lands in America, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lemming, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Lena</em>, The, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lena Delta, The, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Liakhoff, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Liakhoff Island, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lichens, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lifeboat Cove, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Linschoten, Van, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Lion</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Little Table Island, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lock, Michael, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lockwood, James B., <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lockwood Island, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Log, The, introduced, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Long, G. W. De, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Long, Thomas, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Loschkin, S., <a href='#Page_62'>62</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Louis Napoleon, Cape, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ludlow, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lunar at sea, The first, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lundstrom, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lütke, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lutwidge, Skeffington, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Lyon, George Francis, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Mackenzie, Alexander, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Mackenzie River, Discovery of, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Macintoshes, The first, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>M'Clintock, F. L., <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>M'Clintock, Cape, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>M'Clure, Robert Le M., <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>McCormick Bay, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>McKay, James, <a href='#Page_161'>161</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Magnet</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_204'>204</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Magnetic North Pole, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Mahlemut labret, The, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Mammals, Fossil, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Mammoth, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Markham, A. H., <a href='#Page_247'>247</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Markland, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Marten skins, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Martens, F., <a href='#Page_25'>25</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Mary Harmsworth, Cape, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Mary Margaret</em>, The, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Matiuschkin, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Matthew</em>, The, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Matty Island, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Matyushin Shar, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>May, William H., <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Melville Bay, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Melville, G. W., <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Melville Island, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Melville Peninsula, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Merchant Adventurers, The, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Mercury</em>, The, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Mercy Bay, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Mermaid</em>, The, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Meta Incognita, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Michael</em>, The, <a href='#Page_216'>216</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Middendorf Glacier, The, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Middleton, Christopher, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Mistaken Streight, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Moloi, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Montreal Island, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Moons, Mock, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Moonshine</em>, The, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Moore, Thomas E. L., <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Moose-hunting, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Moravians, The, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Morton, William, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a>, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Moss, E. L., <a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Moss Point, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Mossel Bay, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_45'>45</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Moxon, Joseph, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Murchison, Cape, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Murchison River, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Muscovy Company, The, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Musk ox, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Nai, Cornelis, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Nancy Dawson</em>, The, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>Nansen, Fridtjof, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Nares, G. S., <a href='#Page_248'>248</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Narwhal, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Nassau, Cape, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Navy Cliff, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Nelson, Horatio, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Neptune</em>, The, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Newfoundland, Discovery of, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Newman Bay, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>New Siberian Islands, The, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Nindemann, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Nordenskiöld, Adolf Erik, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Noros, <a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Norsemen discover America, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Northbrook Island, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>North Cape, The, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>North East Land, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>North-East Passage, The, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Northern Passage, The, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>North Pole</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_204'>204</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>North Pole, Magnetic, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>North Star</em>, The, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>North Water, The, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>North-West Fur Company, The, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>North-West Passage, The, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Norton Sound, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Nova Kholmogory, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Novaya Zemlya, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Nulato, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ny Herrnhut, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Obi, The, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Observation, Mount, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ochotsk, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ommanney, Erasmus, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Omoki, The, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ooligbuck the Eskimo, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Oraefa, Mount, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Orleans, Duke of, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Osborn, Sherard, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ostiaks, The, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Otaria</em>, The, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Pachtussoff, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Pandora</em>, The, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Parhelia, <a href='#Page_152'>152</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Parker Bay, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Parr, Alfred A. C., <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Parry, William Edward, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Parry Falls, The, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Patience</em>, The, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Patrick Island, Prince, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pavy, O., <a href='#Page_275'>275</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Payer, Julius, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Peary Channel, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Peary, Robert E., <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Peel Sound, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pellham, Edward, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pelly Bay, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pelly Point, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pendulum Island, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Penny Strait, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Penny, William, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pet, Arthur, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pet Strait, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Peter the Great, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Petermann Fiord, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Petermann, Mount, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Petersen Bay, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Petersen, C., <a href='#Page_208'>208</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Petropaulovsk, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Phipps, The Hon. Constantine John, <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pim, Bedford, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Pioneer</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Plants, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>, <a href='#Page_281'>281</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Plover</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Point Lake, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Point Victory, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Polar Stations, The International, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a>, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Polaris</em>, The, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Polhem</em>, The, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Pollux</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_166'>166</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Poole, Jonas, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Porcupine River, The, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pospeloff, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pribylov Islands, The, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Prince Albert</em>, The, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Prince of Wales, Cape, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Prince of Wales Strait, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Proeven</em>, The, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pronchistschef, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Proteus</em>, The, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Protococcus nivalis</em>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Prudhoe Land, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Pullen, W. J. S., <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Quennerstedt, A., <a href='#Page_43'>43</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'><em>Racehorse</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_29'>29</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Racer</em>, The, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Rae, Fort, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Rae, John, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Rae Strait, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Raleigh, Mount, <a href='#Page_227'>227</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Rat River, The, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Ravenscraig</em>, The, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Rawlings Bay, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>Rawson, Wyatt, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Red snow, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Regent Inlet, Prince, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Regina</em>, The, <a href='#Page_59'>59</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Reikjavik founded, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Reindeer, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_28'>28</a>, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Reindeer, White, <a href='#Page_61'>61</a>, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Reliance, Fort, <a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Reliance</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Rensselaer Harbour, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a>, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Repulse Bay, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Resolute</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_175'>175</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Resolution</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Resolution</em>, The (whaler), <a href='#Page_31'>31</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Return Reef, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Rhinoceros, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Richardson, John, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Richthofen Peak, <a href='#Page_71'>71</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Rijp, Jan Corneliszoon, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ringnes Islands, The, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ritenbenk, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Robeson Channel, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Rocky Mountains first crossed, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Rodgers</em>, The, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Roosevelt</em>, The, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Rosmysslof, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ross, James Clark, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ross, John, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Rudolf Island, Prince, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Hudson's Point, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Russell, Cape, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Ryder, Lieut., <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Sabine, Edward, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sabine, Cape, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sable, The, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sagastyr Island, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>St. Elias, Cape, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>St. Elias, Mount, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>St. Lawrence Bay, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>St. Lawrence Island, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>St. Paul</em>, The, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>St. Peter</em>, The, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Salmo arcturus</em>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Salmon trout, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Salutation</em>, The, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Samoyeds, The, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sanderson's Hope, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sanderson, William, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sannikof, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Schley, Winfield S., <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Schonau Island, <a href='#Page_70'>70</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Schwatka, Frederick, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Scoresby, William, the elder, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Scoresby, William, the younger, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Seal, The Fur, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Seals, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sea-otter, The, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Searchthrift</em>, The, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Semonovski Island, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Serdze Kamen, Cape, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>, <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Seven Islands, The, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Shackleton, Cape, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Shantar Islands, The, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sheathing for ships introduced, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Shedden, Robert, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sheridan, Cape, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Siberia, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Siberian Islands, The, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Silver Bay, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Simmons Peninsula, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Simpson, Sir George, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Simpson, Thomas, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Simpson Strait, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sinclair, George, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sirovatskof, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sitka Sound, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sledges and sledge-work, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Smeerenberg, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Smith, Benjamin Leigh, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_72'>72</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Smith Sound, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Snow, William Parker, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Snow houses, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sodankyla, <a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Sofia</em>, The, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Somerset House, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Somerset, North, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sonntag, August, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Sophia</em>, The, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Spangberg, Martin, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Spinks, Robert, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Spitsbergen, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_18'>18</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Steamship, The first Arctic, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Stella Polare</em>, The, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sterlegof, Cape, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Stoat, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Stolbovoi, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Stuxberg, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Sunshine</em>, The, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Sverdrup, Otto, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a>, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Svjatoi Nos, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Tanana, The, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Tananas, The, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Tegetthoff</em>, The, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Teplitz Bay, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Terror</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Thaddeus Island, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Thames</em>, The, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>Thermometer, The deep-sea, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Thetis</em>, The, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Thirkill, Launcelot, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Thomasine</em>, The, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Thorne, Robert, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Tiger, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Tigress</em>, The, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Toll, Baron E., <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Torell, Otto, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Trent</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_33'>33</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Treurenberg Bay, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Tripe-de-roche, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Tschirikof, Alexei, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Tundra, The, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Turnagain, Point, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Tyndall Glacier, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Umivik, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Union</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>United States</em>, The, <a href='#Page_239'>239</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Upernivik, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'><em>Valorous</em>, H.M.S., <a href='#Page_248'>248</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Veer, Gerrit de, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_49'>49</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Vega</em>, The, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Victoria, Cape, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Victoria Land, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Victoria Sea, Queen, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Victoria Strait, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Victory</em>, The, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Victory, Point, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Vinland, <a href='#Page_3'>3</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Vlamingh, Willem de, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Vrangel', Ferdinand, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Wager River, <a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Waigatz Island, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wainwright Inlet, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Walden Island, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Walker Bay, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Walnut Shell</em>, The (boat), <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Walrus, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a>, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Walsingham, Francis, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a>, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Washington Irving Island, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Welden, Captain, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wellington Channel, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wentzel, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>West England, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Weyprecht, K., <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_272'>272</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Whale fishery, The, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Whale, Greenland, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Whale Island, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Whale, White, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Whaling trade begins, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>White Man's Island, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>White Sea, The, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>White Shirt, <a href='#Page_2'>2</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Whymper, Edward, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Whymper, Frederick, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wiggins, Joseph, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wijde Bay, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wilberforce Falls, The, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wilczek Island, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>William Land, King, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>William</em>, The, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Willoughby, Sir Hugh, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Windward</em>, The, <a href='#Page_76'>76</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Winter Harbour, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Winter Island, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Winthont</em>, The, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wollaston Land, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wolstenholme, Cape, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wolverine, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Women Islands, The, <a href='#Page_233'>233</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wrangell, Ferdinand Von, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Wrangell Island, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li>
+  <li class='c004'>Yakuts, The, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Yalmal, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Yenesei, The, <a href='#Page_85'>85</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'><em>Ymer</em>, The, <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Young, Allen, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Young's Foreland, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Yugor Strait, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Yukon, Fort, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a></li>
+  <li class='c020'>Yukon, The, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c1'>
+<div class='nf-center c004'>
+    <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span>PLYMOUTH</div>
+    <div>WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.</div>
+    <div>PRINTERS</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='tnotes'>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c006'>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES</h2>
+</div>
+ <ol class='ol_1 c004'>
+    <li>Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors.
+
+    </li>
+    <li>Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
+
+    </li>
+  </ol>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Round About the North Pole, by W. J. Gordon
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+
+  </body>
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