The remarkable series of physical observations of Kane's expedition, the most valuable scientific contribution of any single arctic party in that generation, was almost entirely due to the scientific training and personal devotion of his astronomer, August Sonntag. While the nature of his duties lay in the observatory, his adventurous spirit sought field service whenever practicable. As shown in "Kane's Rescue of His Freezing Shipmates," Sonntag's prudence kept him from freezing in that terrible winter sledging, while his energy in the long journey for aid contributed to the final rescue of the disabled party.
When Dr. I. I. Hayes outfitted his expedition of 1860 in the United States, the glamour of the arctic seas was still on Sonntag, who for service therewith resigned his fine position as associate director of the Dudley Observatory at Albany. Of his expeditionary force Hayes wrote that he "lacked men. My only well-instructed associate was Mr. Sonntag."
Sailing as astronomer and as second in command, Sonntag met his fate with the expedition on the ice-foot of the West Greenland coast. His dangerous journey was made for reasons vital to the success of the expedition. The incidents of the sledge trip are briefly supplemented by such references to his previous field experiences as show the physical fitness and heroic quality of the man.[10]
The schooner United States was in winter quarters at Port Foulke, near Littleton Island. Without steam-power, the ship had not only been unable to pass to the northward of Cape Sabine, but her unavoidable conflicts with the polar pack had sadly damaged her. Conscious that his ship was so near a wreck as to be unable to renew her voyage toward the north the next summer, Hayes found himself obliged to undertake his polar explorations with dogs over a long line of ice-floes.
Tests of dogs became the order of the day, and Hayes's delight was great when, driving his own team—twelve strong, selected animals with no load—twelve miles in sixty-one minutes, he beat Sonntag by four minutes.
Although knowing the danger of such a journey, Sonntag arranged to climb Brother John's Glacier (named by Kane for his brother) to determine its seaward march. The approach was through a deep canyon. "This gorge is interrupted in places by immense bowlders which have fallen from the overhanging cliffs, or by equally large masses of ice which have broken from the glacier. Sometimes the ice, moving bodily forward, had pushed the rocks up the hill-side in a confused wave. After travelling two miles along the gorge Sonntag made the ascent, Alpine fashion, with which he was familiar, by steps cut with a hatchet in solid ice."
The deep, irregular crevasses common to most glaciers were bridged by crust formations of the recent autumnal snows. These bridges were so uniform with the general surface of the glacier as to make their detection almost impossible. Although Sonntag moved with great caution and continually tested the snow with his ice-chisel, which replaced the Alpine alpenstock, he broke through one bridge. Most fortunately the fall was at a place where the fissure was only about three feet wide, opening either way into a broad crevasse. Still more fortunately he did not fall entirely into the chasm, but as he pitched forward he instinctively extended his left hand, in which he was carrying a mercurial barometer three feet long, which caught on two points of the glacier and thus barely saved his life.[11]
But Sonntag's ardent wish was for a bear hunt which occurred during an unsuccessful attempt to revisit Rensselaer Harbor by dog-sledge, when a bear and cub were killed.
Hayes says: "Sonntag has given me a lively description of the chase. As soon as the dogs discovered the trail they dashed off utterly regardless of the safety of the people on the sledges. Jensen's sledge nearly capsized, and Sonntag rolled off in the snow, but he was fortunate enough to catch the upstander and with its aid to regain his seat. The delay in the hummocks gave the bears a start and made it probable that they would reach the open sea. Maddened by the detention and the prospect of the prey escaping them, the bloodthirsty pack swept across the snowy plain like a whirlwind. The dogs manifested the impatience of hounds in view of a fox, with ten times their savageness. To Sonntag they seemed like so many wolves closing upon a wounded buffalo.
"The old bear was kept back by the young one, which she was unwilling to abandon. The poor beast was in agony and her cries were piteous. The little one jogged on, frightened and anxious, retarding the progress of the mother who would not abandon it. Fear and maternal affection alternately governed her. One moment she would rush forward toward the open water, intent only upon her own safety; then she would wheel around and push on the struggling cub with her snout and again coaxingly encourage it to greater speed.
"Within fifty yards of the struggling animals the hunters, leaning forward, slipped the knot which bound the traces together in one fastening, and the dogs, freed from the sledges, bounded fiercely for their prey. The old bear heard the rush of her enemies and squared herself to meet the assault. The little one ran frightened around her and then crouched for shelter between her legs.
"The old and experienced leader, Oo-si-so-ak, led the attack. Queen Ar-ka-dik was close beside him, and twenty other wolfish beasts followed. Only one dog faced her, and he, young, with more courage than discretion, rushed at her throat and in a moment was crushed by her huge paw. Oo-si-so-ak came in upon her flank, Ar-ka-dik tore at her haunch, and other dogs followed this prudent example. She turned upon Oo-si-so-ak and drove him from his hold, but in this act the cub was uncovered. Quick as lightning Karsuk flew at its neck and a slender yellow mongrel followed after. The little bear prepared to do battle. Karsuk missed his grip and the mongrel tangled among the legs of the cub was soon doubled up with a blow in the side and escaped yowling. Oo-si-so-ak was hard pressed, but his powerful rival came to his relief with his followers upon the opposite flank, which concentrated onslaught turned the bear in the direction of the cub in time to save it, for it was now being pulled down by Karsuk and his pack.
"Disregarding her own tormentors, she threw herself upon the assailants of the cub, and to avoid her blows they quickly abandoned their hold, which enabled her to once more draw under her the plucky little creature, weakened with loss of blood and exhausted with the fight. The dogs, beaten off from the cub, now concentrated on the mother, and the battle became more fierce than ever. The snow was covered with blood. A crimson stream poured from the old bear's mouth and another trickled over the white hair of her shoulder, from shots fired by Hans and Jensen. The little one was torn and bleeding. One dog was crushed almost lifeless, and another marked with many a red stain the spot where he was soothing his agony with piteous cries.
"Sonntag now came up, but their united volley, while weakening her, was not sufficient to prevent her from again scattering the dogs and sheltering her offspring, which then sank expiring. Seeing it fall, she for a moment forgot the dogs, and licking its face tried to coax it to rise. Now, apparently conscious that the cub no longer needed her protection, she turned upon her tormentors with redoubled fury, and flung another dog to join the luckless mongrel.
"For the first time she seemed to know that she was beset with other enemies than dogs, when, his rifle missing fire, Hans advanced with an Eskimo spear to a hand-to-hand encounter. Seeing him approach, the infuriated monster cleared away the dogs with a vigorous dash and charged him. He threw his weapon at the animal and turned in flight. The bear bounded after him, and in an instant more neither speed nor dogs could have saved him. Fortunately Sonntag and Jensen had by this time reloaded their rifles, and with well-directed shots rolled her over on the blood-stained snow."
In early December a great misfortune befell the expedition through an epidemic disease attacking the dogs. "The serious nature of this disaster [says Hayes] will be apparent when it is remembered that my plans of operations for the spring were mainly based upon dogs as a means of transportation across the ice. Unless I shall be able to supply the loss, all of my plans would be abortive." The first dog attacked, Karsuk of the bear-fight, was the best draught animal of the best team. Of the effect of the malady he adds: "I have never seen such expression of ferocity and mad strength exhibited by any living creature as he manifested two hours after the first symptoms were observed. I had him caught and placed in a large box, but this aggravated rather than soothed the violence of the symptoms. He tore the boards with indescribable fierceness, ripping off splinter after splinter, when I ordered him to be shot." About the middle of December there remained only nine dogs out of the original pack of thirty-six.
It occurred both to Hayes and to Sonntag that the best method of replacing their lost animals was to open communication with the Eskimos of Whale Sound. If they could induce several native families, through offers of stores and food, to come north to Foulke Harbor, they would bring along their dog teams which would thus be available for the sledge journeys of the coming spring.
There were supposed to be several Inuit families living on the south side of Whale Sound, which was distant a midwinter sledge journey of at least one hundred and fifty miles. Hayes says: "That we should communicate with these people at the earliest practicable moment was a matter of the first importance. When the moon came it was arranged that Sonntag should make the journey, taking a single sledge and Hans as a driver."
Sonntag and Hans started with a team of nine dogs on the day of the arctic midnight, December 21, when the sun had reached its greatest southern declension. Hayes writes on the 22d: "Sonntag set out yesterday to reach the Eskimos. We had talked the matter over from day to day, and saw clearly it was the only thing to do. It was evident that if we waited for daylight they would be beyond our reach."
Five weeks later came the news of Sonntag's death, which is told by Hans in his "Memoirs":[12]
"In winter, just before Christmas, the astronomer [Sonntag] and I undertook a journey by sledge to look for natives. We crossed the great glacier [at Cape Alexander] and travelled the whole day without meeting with any people. A strong wind sprang up from the north and caused a thick drifting of snow, while we made our snow hut and went to sleep. On wakening the next day it still blew a gale and the snow drifting dreadfully, for which reason we resolved to return. While we proceeded homeward the ice began to break up, so we were forced to go ashore and continue our drive over the beach ice [ice-foot]. We arrived at a small firth and crossed it, but on trying to proceed by land on the other side it proved impassable and we were obliged to return to the ice again. On descending here my companion fell through the ice which was nothing but a thick sheet of snow and water. I stooped [from the high ice-foot evidently] but was unable to seize him, it being very low tide. As a last resort I remembered a strap hanging on the sledge-poles; this I threw to him, and when he had tied it around his body I pulled, but found it very difficult. At length I succeeded in drawing him up, but he was at the point of freezing to death, and now in the storm and drifting snow he took off his clothes and slipped into the sleeping-bag, whereupon I placed him on the sledge and repaired to our last resting-place.
"Our road being very rough, I cried from despair for want of help; but I reached the snow hut and brought him inside. I was, however, unable to kindle a fire and was myself overpowered with cold. My companion grew still worse, although placed in the bear-skin bag, but with nothing else than his shirt. By and by his breathing grew scarcer, and I, too, began to feel extremely cold on account of now standing still after having perspired with exertion. During the whole night my friend still breathed, but he drew his breath at long intervals and toward morning only very rarely. When finally I was at the point of freezing to death, I shut up the entrance with snow, and as the breaking up of the ice had rendered any near road to the ship impracticable, and the gale continued violently, I set out for the south in search of men, although I had a wide sea to cross."
After finding two deserted huts he threw himself down in despair, awaiting his death. He continues: "When here I lay prostrate I uttered sighing, They say some one on high watches over me too. Have mercy on me, and save me if possible, though I am a great sinner. My dear wife and child are in such a pitiful state—may I first be able to bring them to the land of the baptized.[13]
"I also pronounced the following prayer:
"Thereafter I arose and set off again.... I discovered the light of a window.... These folks [Etah Inuits] were very kind and hospitable. When I entered the house and began to take off my clothes the fox-skin of my jacket was as soft and moist as if newly flayed. My outer bear-skin trousers were not so very wet. When I took off my hare-skin gaiters they stuck to my stockings from being frozen together, and I could not get them off but by cutting open the boots. Had I used seal-skin gaiters I think that I should have frozen to death. Here I stayed many days, being unable to return alone."
Sonntag's body was recovered in the early spring, the hut in which he died being found to be completely covered with drifted snow, and he was buried on the desolate shores of Port Foulke.
In an unpublished journal his shipmate Dodge writes: "Not yet in the prime of life, but already enjoying a well-earned reputation which gray-haired men might envy, with prospects of honor and usefulness before him, he was endowed with abilities to achieve success in the highest walks of science. Peace to his remains and all honor to his memory. For among the gallant and the gifted men who have fallen victims to their zeal for scientific research in the arctic regions, there has been none braver or worthier than August Sonntag."
Thus perished one of nature's gentlemen, wedded to the universe through his devotion to astronomy and yet alive to the winning aspects of terrestrial grandeurs. Unsparing of self where the lives or comfort of his comrades were in question, in unobtrusive ways he contributed to their happiness and shared cheerfully the common burden of daily duties. Such manly qualities, simple though they seem, made heroic the life and death of August Sonntag.
In "The Discovery of the Northwest Passage" and in "Pim's Timely Sledge Journey" there have been sketched various heroic phases connected with the last voyage of Sir John Franklin and the expeditions of the Franklin search. In the search there were employed thirty-three ships and nearly two thousand officers and men, whose utmost endeavors during a period of eight years, and at an expense of many millions of dollars, had failed to obtain any definite information as to the fate of the missing explorers. One clew had come from private sources, as shown in the tale of "Dr. Rae and the Franklin Mystery."
This present narrative sets forth the work accomplished through the devotion of the widow of Sir John Franklin, in a so-called hopeless enterprise. Sacrificing her ease and her private fortune to a sense of duty, not alone to her husband but also to those who served under him, her labors eventually wrested from the desolate isles of the northern seas the definite secret of the fate of the expedition as a whole.
After his abandonment in 1853 of four expeditionary ships of the Franklin search, Sir Edward Belcher returned to England, ending what he termed "The Last of Arctic Voyages," in which opinion the British Government concurred. Lady Jane Franklin did not accept this decision as final. On April 12, 1856, in a letter to the admiralty, she strongly urged the need for a further search, saying: "It is due to a set of men who have solved the problem of centuries by the sacrifice of their lives." To this letter no reply was made, and efforts for another expedition made by her friends in Parliament were equally futile.
It is needless to say that even such unwonted and discourteous neglect did not silence this noble-hearted woman, whose heroic devotion had been conspicuously displayed in her earlier efforts. It will be remembered that she had previously awakened the interest and engaged the active support of two great nations—Russia and the United States—in the search for the Franklin squadron.
Americans will recall with pride that, moved by Lady Franklin's appeal, President Zachary Taylor, in a message of January 4, 1850, urged co-operation on Congress, which took action that resulted in the expedition commanded by Lieutenant E. J. De Haven, United States Navy.
In her letter to President Taylor, Lady Franklin alluded gracefully to "that continent of which the American republic forms so vast and conspicuous a portion," and says: "To the American whalers I look with more hope, being well aware of their numbers and strength, their thorough equipment, and the bold spirit of enterprise which animates their crews. But I venture to look even beyond these. I am not without hope that you will deem it not unworthy of a great and kindred nation to take up the cause of humanity, which I plead, in a national spirit."
On learning of the attitude of the American press, she wrote: "I learn that the people of the United States have responded to the appeal made to their humane and generous feelings, and that in a manner worthy of so great and powerful a nation—indeed, with a munificence which is almost without parallel."
Now the efforts of three nations having failed, Lady Jane then resolved to undertake a final search at the expense of herself and of her sympathizing friends. There was then available the Resolute, abandoned by Belcher, brought back by the American whaler, J. M. Buddington, bought by the American Congress, and presented to the Queen. The admiralty would neither loan the Resolute nor any of its surplus stores suited for arctic service. By the efforts of Lady Franklin and her friends the steam-yacht Fox was sent forth on an expedition that cost about thirty-five thousand pounds sterling, of which the greater portion came from Lady Jane's private fortune. McClintock and Allen Young volunteered to serve without pay, and both Hobson and Dr. Walker made similar pecuniary sacrifices.
At McClintock's request Lady Jane wrote out her wishes, in which the personal element came last. She says: "The rescue of any survivor of the Erebus and Terror would be to me the noblest results 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, to confirm, directly or inferentially, the claim of my husband's expedition to the earliest discovery of the passage, which, if Dr. Rae's report be true (and the government has accepted it as such), these martyrs in a noble cause achieved at their last extremity."
Captain Sir Leopold McClintock sailed July 2, 1857, inspired by the feeling that "the glorious mission intrusted to me was in reality a great national duty." He was the greatest of arctic sledgemen, having made in unexplored parts of Parry archipelago, without dogs, a sledge journey of one hundred and five days, in which he travelled twelve hundred and ten miles.
Reaching Baffin Bay, the Fox had the great misfortune of being caught in the pack in the midst of summer, on August 15. McClintock's experiences and sufferings were horrible. His assistant engineer died of an accident, and for days at a time the Fox was in danger of instant destruction from gales, icebergs, and other elements attendant on life in the pack. After a besetment of eight months and nine days, in which she drifted twelve hundred miles to the south, the yacht escaped, buffeted, racked, and leaking.
The winter in the pack was not entirely without the presence of game, for in the beginning of November a bear crept up to the yacht, attracted by odors from the cook's galley. Fortunately an alert quartermaster detected his form outlined against the snow and at once shouted to the dogs. Some of them ran like cowards, while others, rushing the bear, closed in on him, biting his legs as he ran. Crossing a lane of lately frozen sea, the bear broke through the new ice, followed by a number of dogs who held fast to him in the water-space. One dog, old Sophy, fared badly at close quarters, receiving a deep cut in one of her shoulders from his sharp claws. It took four shots to kill the animal, it being a large male bear seven feet three inches long. McClintock tells us that "The chase and death were exciting. A misty moon affording but scanty light, dark figures gliding singly about, not daring to approach each other, for the ice trembled under their feet, the enraged bear, the wolfish, howling dogs, and the bright flashes of the rifles made a novel scene."
The escape from the pack was made under conditions that would turn one's hair gray in a few days. For eighteen hours the chief stood fast at his engines, while navigation was made through very high seas, with waves from ten to thirteen feet high, which threatened to destroy the yacht by driving against her great ice-floes which shook the vessel violently and nearly knocked the crew off their legs.
Return to Europe for repairs seemed inevitable, but with the thought of poor Lady Franklin in his heart, McClintock patched up the ship as best he could in Greenland, and, crossing Baffin Bay, was driven, after a fruitless sea-search, to winter quarters in Port Kennedy, 72° N. 94° W.
Hunting filled in the winter, though most animal life had gone south. Lemmings were plentiful, about twice the size of and resembling the short-tailed field-mouse. Bold and fearless, they enlivened the members of the crew. An ermine visited the ship, and, being seen by one of the dogs, the pack set up a perfect pandemonium in their efforts to catch him. The beautiful snow-white creature rather unconcernedly watched the efforts of the dogs to get at him under the grating of the boat where he was safely ensconced. It was amusing to see an ermine play around the ship, and when closely pursued by man or by dog plunge into a drift of soft snow only to reappear at a considerable distance and in a quarter where least expected. It was with the active little animals a kind of hide-and-seek game, with their lives for forfeit if they were caught.
During Hobson's long journey to lay down an advance depot he lost a dog actually from overcare. She had the bad habit of gnawing and eating her seal-thong harness, and to prevent this Hobson caused her to be tightly muzzled after the evening meal. One of the numberless dog-fights occurred during the night, and with the trait so common to these half-wolfish beasts they fell on the least defenceless, and the whole pack bit and tore almost to pieces their muzzled and defenceless sister. Her wounds were so many and so deep that she died during the day.
In this journey Hobson's party barely escaped perishing through a violent northeasterly gale which drove seaward the ice-pack on which they were encamped. McClintock says that on discovering that the entire ice-field was adrift "They packed their sledge, harnessed the dogs, and passed the long and fearful night in anxious waiting for some chance to escape. A little distance offshore the ice broke up under the influence of the wind and sea, and the disruption continued until the piece they were on was scarce twenty yards in diameter. Impelled by the storm, in utter darkness and amid fast-falling snow, they drifted across a wide inlet. The gale was quickly followed by a calm, and an intense frost in a single night formed ice strong enough to bear them safely to land, although it bent fearfully under their weight. Their escape was indeed providential."
Death spared these men of action in the field, but it invaded the ship, and Brand, the engineer, died of apoplexy.
When the sun came back after seventy-three days of absence, McClintock decided to take the field, and started February 14, earlier than any previous arctic traveller, for an extended journey. His great hope of success depended on finding Eskimos in the region of the north magnetic pole, which entailed a trip of four hundred and twenty miles, in temperatures as much as eighty degrees below the freezing-point.
Sledging through an unknown country, wearily breaking day after day a trail for his emaciated, untrained dogs, McClintock vainly searched the unbroken snowy wastes for trace of sledge or of man, and anxiously scanned the dreary landscape for sight of the longed-for igloo or hut. The cold was intense, the land was barren of game, the region seemed accursed in its desolation, while the conditions of travel were hard in the extreme.
The absence of human life was far more distressing to the heroic McClintock than the rigors of the journey, for without Inuit aid the labors and sufferings of his crew and of himself would be unavailing. Was it possible that the region was abandoned by beast and so by man? Was his mission destined to be a failure? Could he succeed without Eskimo help?
He reached the magnetic pole without seeing any one, his dogs in such fearful plight that he could advance but one day farther. Six of the dogs were then useless, and during the journey the poor animals had so suffered from poor food, intense cold, and bad snow that several of them had repeatedly fallen down in fits.
When he was quite in despair, several Eskimos returning from a seal hunt crossed his trail and visited his camp. From the winter colony of forty-five Boothians he gained his first tidings of the missing explorers. One native said that a three-masted ship had been crushed by ice to the west of King William Land, but the crew came safe to shore. Another told of white men who starved on an island (probably Montreal) where salmon came. That the men had perished was quite clear from the abundance of Franklin relics among the Eskimos—buttons, knives, forks, McDonald's medal and a gold chain, which McClintock bought at the average price of one needle each. None of the Inuits had seen the whites, but one native had seen some of their skeletons.
An example of the disregard of the natives for extreme cold made McClintock shiver with pity and anger. He says: "One pertinacious old dame pulled out her infant by the arm from the back of her large fur dress, and quietly held the poor little creature, perfectly naked, before me in the breeze, the temperature at the time being sixty degrees below the freezing-point." McClintock at once gave her a needle, for which she was thus begging, but was considerably alarmed for the infant's safety before it was restored to the warmth of its mother's fur hood.
Active sledging, meantime, by Young, Walker, and Hobson, had no results beyond snow-blindness, freezings, and other suffering for these resolute and efficient officers. McClintock himself, on his return, was scarred by frost-bites, his fingers calloused by frequent freezings, and his body thin with scant food, which made him eat, Boothian fashion, "frozen blubber in delicate little slices." These physical hardships were as nothing in return for the mental satisfaction of tidings of Franklin, with intimations as to the locality of the regions in which further research would doubtless produce results. He was determined to explore the whole King William region, and thus obtain further information as to the fate of the second ship.
McClintock then outfitted his sledge party for a journey of eighty-four days, with Hobson as assistant, while Young was to establish supporting depots of food, the field of operations to be southwest of the magnetic pole.
The journey to the Boothian village was, like other arctic travel, under bad conditions. The uncomplaining leader tells us that despite colored glasses their eyes were inflamed and nearly blinded, while the tale was further told by their blistered faces, frost-bitten members, cracked lips, and split hands. The discomfort of their camps may be inferred from the fact that it took an entire day to clear from accumulated ice and hoar-frost their sleeping-bags and camp gear. The exhausting character of their march is evident from the load of two hundred pounds hauled by each man and the hundred pounds pulled by each dog.
Two Boothian families now told McClintock that one ship sank and that the other broke up on shore where she was forced by the ice. The body of a very large man with long teeth had been found in the ship visited by the Inuits. The crew had gone, taking boats along, to the "large [Back] river," where their bones were later found. An old Eskimo woman and boy had last visited the wreck during the preceding winter, 1857-8.
On leaving the magnetic pole, in order to extend the field of search, Hobson was sent down the west coast of King William Land. McClintock following the land to the east of that island fell in with forty natives, who confirmed the information earlier obtained, and from whom he bought silver plate marked with the crests of Franklin, Crozier, Fairholme, and McDonald.
It was the middle of May when he reached snow-clad Montreal Island, which he fruitlessly searched with as much thoroughness as was possible under conditions of blizzard weather and zero temperatures. Of his travel troubles he tells us that driving a wretched dog team for six weeks had quite exhausted his stock of patience. He relates: "None of the dogs had ever been yoked before, and they displayed astonishing cunning and perversity to avoid whip and work. They bit through their traces, hid under the sled, leaped over each other until the traces were plaited and the dogs knotted together. I had to halt every few minutes, pull off my mitts, and at the risk of frozen fingers disentangle the lines. When the sledge is stopped or stuck fast in deep snow, the perfectly delighted dogs lie down, and the driver has to himself extricate the sledge and apply persuasion to set his team in motion."
His hopes of finding tangible information as to the Franklin records had been centred on Montreal Island, which Rae's report (p. 139) indicated as the scene of the final catastrophe. McClintock's thorough search of that region had been futile. Must he return to England and face Lady Franklin with the admission that her years of effort and her sacrifice of personal fortune had produced no additional results? Was the fate of England's noted explorers to remain always a mystery? Were the records of work done and of courage shown by the officers and the men of the royal navy lost forever to the world? A thousand like and unbidden thoughts filled incessantly the tortured brain of this the greatest of arctic sledgemen. However, it was not in the nature of this noble-hearted man to despair utterly, or to cease from labors to the very end.
Sick at heart and worn in body, the indefatigable McClintock turned shipward, and almost despairingly took up the search of the south coast of King William Land. Here he tells us: "On a gravel ridge near the beach, partially bare of snow, I came upon a human skeleton, now perfectly bleached, lying upon its face. This poor man seems to have fallen in the position in which we found him. It was a melancholy truth that the old woman spoke when she said: 'They fell down and died as they walked along.'" Sad as may appear the fate of this man, one of the rank and file of the expedition, his indomitable courage in struggling to the last moment of his life will always stand as an instance of the high endeavor and heroic persistency of the British race.
Welcome as was the indirect information obtained in this and in other places near by, McClintock's heart was supremely gladdened at finding in a small cairn, prominently placed, a note from Hobson who had found an abandoned boat, in which were two skeletons, with crested silver, etc., and, most vital of all, a record from Franklin's expedition.
It appears that Hobson found on the south side of Back Bay, King William Land, a record deposited by Lieutenant Graham Gore in May, 1847. It was in a thin tin soldered-up cylinder, and proved to be a duplicate of the record also found by Hobson at Point Victory. The latter record was in an unsoldered cylinder which had fallen from the top of the cairn where it was originally placed. It was written on one of the printed blanks usually furnished to surveying and to discovery ships to be thrown overboard in a sealed bottle, with a request to return it to the admiralty. This written record, in full, ran as follows:
"H. M. Ships Erebus and Terror 28th of May 1847. Wintered in the ice in Lat. 70° 5′ N., Long. 98° 23′ W. Having wintered in 1846-7 [should read 1845-6] at Beechey Island, in Lat. 74° 43′ N., Long. 91° 39′ 15′′ W. After having ascended Wellington Channel to Lat. 77°, and returning by the west coast of Cornwallis Island. Sir John Franklin commanding the Expedition. All well. Party consisting of 2 officers and 6 men left the ships on Monday 24th May 1847.
"Gm [Graham] Gore Lieut.
"Chas F Des Voeux Mate."
On the margin of the above record was written the following:
"April 25, 1848, H. M. Ships Terror and Erebus were deserted on the 22nd of April, 5 leagues N.N.W. of this, having been beset since 12 September, 1846. The officers and crew, consisting of 105 souls, under the command of Capt. F. R. M. Crozier, landed in Lat. 69° 37′ 42′′, Long. 93° 41′ W. This paper was found by Lieut. Irving, under the cairn supposed to have been built by Sir James Ross in 1831, 4 miles to the northward, where it had been deposited by the late commander Gore in [May, erased and therefor substituted] June, 1847. Sir James Ross' pillar has not however been found and the paper has been transferred to this position, which is that in which Sir J. Ross' pillar was erected. Sir John Franklin died on the 11th of June, 1847, and the total loss by death in the Expedition has been to date 9 officers and 15 men.
"F. R. M. Crozier, Captain and senior officer.
"James Fitzjames, Captain H. M. S. Erebus.
"And start to-morrow, 26th, for Back's Fish River."
These are the only records that have ever been found, and the thorough search made by Hall, Schwatka, and Gilder make it most improbable that any other will ever be discovered.
The heroic persistency of Hobson in locating these precious papers is akin to that shown by the steward who fell down and died as he walked. When ten days out from the ship Hobson found that he was suffering from scurvy, but he went on and in a month walked lame. Near the end of his journey of seventy-four days he was not able to walk more than a few yards at a time, and so had to allow himself to be dragged on the sledge. When he arrived at the ship he was neither able to walk nor even to stand without assistance. Worthy comrades were Sir Allen Young and Dr. Walker, whose strenuous and co-operating labors made this success possible, for which they also paid the price in physical suffering and in impaired health.
McClintock himself played many parts, for with his two engineers dead he stood at a critical time twenty-four consecutive hours at the engine, while Young from the crow's nest piloted the Fox out of the ice-pack on her homeward voyage, in August, 1859.
With characteristic modesty McClintock dwells lightly on his own work, and ends his story with a merited tribute to "those heroic men who perished in the path of duty, but not until they had achieved the grand object of their voyage—the discovery of the northwest passage."
While the self-sacrificing heroism of McClintock and of his loyal companions solved the mystery of the English sailor dead, which their powerful government had been unable to reveal, yet the initiation and in part the prosecution of this work were due to the wifely and patriotic devotion of Lady Jane Franklin.
Well and truly has it been said of this true woman: "So long as the name of Franklin shall be bright in the annals of British heroism will the unwearied devotion and energy of his widow be with it remembered and honored."
Only once in our history has the United States sent forth an expedition to reach the north pole, and that was under Charles Francis Hall, already distinguished for his daring arctic work in search of relics of the Franklin squadron. Hall sailed in the Polaris, and in a voyage of unusual rapidity, passing through Smith Sound, added to his fame by discovering Robeson Channel and its bordering lands. He broke the record in navigating his ship to 82° 11′ north latitude, in the Great Frozen Ocean, which was reached August 30, 1871. The Polaris, forced southward by the arctic pack, wintered at Thank God Harbor, Greenland, where Hall died of apoplexy. With his death the north-polar quest was abandoned, and the ice-master Buddington sailed homeward the following summer. Pushed hastily into an impassable pack, the ship was subjected to its vicissitudes for two months without possibility of escape. Drifting steadily southward the Polaris was off Northumberland Island on October 15, 1872, when she was nearly destroyed by a violent blizzard and her crew was separated—half on the floating pack and the rest on shipboard. The latter party beached the sinking ship in Life Boat Cove, where the crew wintered. Going south in 1873 they were picked up by the whaler Ravenscraig near Cape York. The story of the separation and of the experiences of the castaways follow.[14]
Above the shining waters of the blue and historic Potomac at Washington rise the oak-crowned hills of Arlington where repose many heroic dead in our American Valhalla. Side by side in almost countless rows stand thousands of plain white stones which preserve for coming patriotic generations the names and memories of those who died for the Union. Here and there the prevailing monotony is broken by a more ambitious monument raised by family or by friends. These men, inspired by patriotism as a rule, did deeds of valor, with weapons in hand, in the face of an armed foe. But the men of the American nation have conquered fate in other fields than those of war, and such services are elsewhere commemorated in Washington. In the Hall of Fame at our national capital each American State places the statues of its two most distinguished servitors—in memory of deeds done for the good and the greatness of the State. And near by the Congressional Cemetery contains stately shafts and memorial columns that mark the graves of other men famous in national annals through civic worth.
Yet there are other heroes than those of war or of civic service buried within sight of the majestic monument to Washington or of the graceful dome of the Capitol. In the shades of Greenwood stands a plain shaft of black marble whereon the passer-by may read as follows:
"To the memory of an arctic hero, Captain George E. Tyson, 1829-1906. In 1872-73, while adrift on an ice-floe 196 days, he saved the lives of 18 companions. They serve God well who serve his creatures."
This memorial, built through small contributions from self-denying men of meagre means, was in honor of a plain man of small education, of humble occupation, who loved his fellows. It therefore seems well that the tale of his arctic services thus recognized should be told anew to the rising generation of Americans that his deeds may not soon fade from the minds of men.
The fateful disaster of October 15, 1872, which led to the Tyson floe-drift occurred in the midst of a dark winter night when a snow-filled hurricane wind drove huge icebergs through the solid and seemingly impenetrable ice-field in which the Polaris was fast beset. As if by magic the solemn, quiet calm of the polar night was broken by a series of tornado-like gusts, and soon the responsive ice-field quivered as though upcast by a marine earthquake. The howlings of the wind were broken by horrible groanings from the moving polar pack, while now and then arose deafening sounds, as of a cannonade, from the explosions of the ice-surface. It takes much to move to fear men long in arctic service, but the quiet ship life was stirred into startled action when heavy floes near the ship began to split into countless fragments. One and all knew that the long-dreaded peril was upon them—the disruption of the polar pack. For weeks they had watched with pleasure the changing lights and reflected tints from their azure-colored neighbors—the tall, white sentinels of the arctic seas. After pleasure the pain, and now with terror they saw the pale blue icebergs of enormous size—wind-driven and slow-moving—plough their way serenely through the main pack of flat-topped paleocrystic floes scores of feet in thickness.
Under these awful pressures the huge floes, as they met, crumbling at the edges, threw up vast masses of broken ice which in long pressure-ridges acted as buffers. Caught in this maelstrom of whirling, upturning ice the Polaris was bodily lifted many feet, quite out of the water, so that she careened on her beam ends.
In this crisis, amid intense excitement, some one cried out that the ship's sides were broken in and that she was making water freely. At this Buddington shouted: "Work for your lives, boys! Throw everything overboard"—meaning the emergency packages of stores and provisions which for weeks had been kept ready on deck in view of possible and sudden shipwreck. Stores, clothing, records, boats, food, and other articles were frantically cast upon the main floe to which the ship was secured by ice-anchors. Fearing that the Polaris would soon sink and carry down in her final plunge everything near her, Captain Tyson busied himself in removing and piling together, at a safe distance, the scattered stores. While thus engaged the main pack loosened up near the Polaris. The ice pressures slowly relaxed, the pressure-ridges dropped apart, and the ship, slipping down into the sea, dragged her ice-anchors, broke her hawser, and was driven out of sight—disappearing almost in the twinkling of an eye, as it seemed to the dazed men yet on the floe.
The stranded men and supplies were not on a single floe, but scattered on several, which were separated by rapidly widening lanes of water. Tyson acted with decision and promptness, and launching a whale-boat at the risk of his life succeeded during that dark, tempestuous night in bringing together the nineteen men, women, and children on the immense floe to which the ship had been anchored for weeks. Here the exhausted party huddled together under some musk-ox skins, which in a degree protected them from the increasing southwest blizzard that then prevailed; but dawn found them chilled to the bone, covered with the heavy snow-fall of the night.[15]
Tyson took charge and at once decided to abandon the floe and the main supplies, knowing that the party would be safe if it could reach land and the Etah Eskimos. The ice had so drifted that the shore was within a few miles, and the party in an attempt to reach it was hurried into the boat, which unfortunately had only three oars and was rudderless. Two men actually reached the land over the ice, on a scouting trip, but later the wind, ice, and tides were so adverse that Tyson decided, as the pack closed in front of the boat, to return to their original floe.
Although sadly reduced in size by the action of the grinding pack and by the ploughing icebergs, the flat-topped floe-berg was still enormous. Nearly circular in shape, and averaging quite a hundred feet in thickness, its area was about seven square miles. With its diversified surface of hill and dale, favored by several fresh-water lakes, and of marble-like texture and hardness as to its ice, it seemed to be a floe-berg of such solidity and extent as would insure safety under any and all conditions.
The castaways numbered nineteen in all—Captain Tyson, Signal Sergeant Meyer, eight seamen, and nine Eskimos, of whom seven were women and children. Except Tyson and the negro cook Jackson, there were no Americans in the party.
With the foresight, system, and judgment which insured the final safety of the party, Tyson collected the materials scattered over the several floes, inventoried and provided for the safety of the food, and insisted on a fixed ration. Their food supplies on October 18 consisted of 14 hams, 14 cans of pemmican, 12 bags of bread, 1 can of dried apples, 132 cans of meats and soups, and a small bag of chocolate. They also had 2 whale-boats, 2 kayaks, an A-tent, compasses, chronometer, etc., rifles and ammunition.
Food was of surpassing importance, and Tyson calculated that the supply would last four months at the rate of twelve ounces daily to each adult, the Eskimo children to receive half rations.
To insure an equable distribution of the food, Tyson took charge and personally measured out both bread and pemmican. Later he was able to give exact weights through a pair of improvised scales. They were made by Meyer most ingeniously of a lever balance taken from an aneroid barometer and connected with a three-cornered rule; the weights used were shot from their shot-gun ammunition.
The foreigners of the party, except the docile Eskimos, were not thoroughly amenable to command. After Hall's death the failings of the sailing-master in command, Captain Buddington, were such that he could not maintain proper discipline, and hence a certain degree of demoralization existed among the seamen. The rule of the sea that loosens bonds and makes seamen free from service on the loss of a ship, was also injuriously felt.
As a result Tyson's powers of control simply arose from his high character, sound judgment, and professional knowledge. His orders were obeyed as seemed convenient, but, as one man testified under oath, "When we didn't [obey his orders] we found out it didn't turn out well"—the highest of praise.
With increasing cold the tent was no longer habitable, and it became necessary to provide warm shelter, which was done through the building of igloos, or snow huts, by the Eskimo Ebierbing (Joe) and Hans Hendrik. Hans and his family of six built their igloo a little apart from the others. While there were five separate igloos, they were thrown into close connection by a system of arched snow passages through which the men came and went without exposure to the weather. Some delay and trouble occurred in finding suitable drifts of packed snow from which were dexterously carved the snow slabs needful for the huts. The very low entrances to the igloos were covered by a canvas flap frozen into the outer wall so as to exclude almost entirely the entrance into the hut of either cold air or wind-driven snow. Feeble light was introduced through windows made of thin slabs of fresh-water ice cut from an adjacent lake.
From the entrance the canvas-covered snow floor sloped gently upward to the rear of the igloo, thus making that portion of the room a little higher and somewhat warmer, as the colder air flowed down toward the door. Their scant bedding of sleeping-bags and musk-ox skins was arranged in the rear of the hut, on canvas-covered boards, where, however, the arched snow roof was near the head of the sleeper. The only place where one could stand erect was in the very centre of the hut, where the separate messes cooked their scanty meals.
Tyson and the Eskimo families did their cooking from the first by lamp, native-fashion, the lamps being made from pemmican cans with wicks of canvas ravelings. He urged the others to follow the example thus set, telling them that this economical method was necessary owing to scarcity of fuel. The seamen tried it for a while, but as there was much smoke from lack of care they abandoned the lamp. Despite Tyson's advice, they began, with reckless disregard for the future, to break up the smaller of the two boats and use it as fuel for cooking. In excuse they said that the astronomical observations and opinions of Meyer showed that the floe was drifting toward Disco, Greenland, and that they would soon reach that place and the occupancy of the ice camp would be of short duration.
On October 27 the sun left them permanently for three months, and soon the bitter, benumbing cold of the arctic winter was felt by all. The cold, hunger, and short rations soon affected both body and mind, causing less bodily activity and inducing a sharpness of temper which often led to long and angry discussions among the seamen.
An unfortunate loss of food occurred in connection with the dogs, all nine having been kept for bear-hunting. Slowly perishing of starvation, the wolfish dogs succeeded in breaking into the storehouse, and devoured everything within reach before they were discovered. Five of the most ravenous brutes were shot, greatly to the advantage of the Eskimo, who made a royal feast. The white men, not yet reduced to extremities, looked on with amusement as their native companions with luxurious satisfaction cooked and swallowed the slaughtered animals.
Tyson's experiences as a whaler made him realize that the only chance of life lay in obtaining game, and so he organized and encouraged hunting-parties. All the men were armed except the captain himself, but it must be here admitted that the entire crew of seamen did not obtain enough game, during the drift of six months' duration, to make a single meal for the party. The successful hunters were the Eskimo, Ebierbing (Joe) being most successful, though Hans Hendrik killed many seal.
Once Hans barely escaped death from the rifles of Ebierbing and Seaman Kruger, as in the darkness they mistook him for a bear owing to the color of his snow-covered fur clothing and to the lumbering methods by which he climbed over the hummocky ridges. Fortunately the hunters waited for a better shot, and meantime saw that it was Hans.
Matters were getting bad after one boat had been burned and there was no blubber left for cooking. Some of the men were so weak that they trembled as they walked, and the native children often cried from the pangs of hunger. Once the men ate the seal meat uncooked and undressed, so keen was their hunger.
As no bears appeared, seal-hunting was followed with renewed and feverish energy. At first seal were killed in open water-spaces around the edges of the floe. When the extreme cold cemented together the floes, it was necessary to hunt carefully for seal-holes—places where the seal comes regularly for air, keeping the hole open by his nose, rising and breaking the new ice as it forms from day to day.
Such holes are only three or four inches across, and it often requires long search before the trained eye of the seal-hunter locates a breathing space. Even then unwearied patience and great skill are needful for successful hunting. Seated by the hole, with his back to the wind, his feet on a bit of seal-skin, with a barbed spear in his hand, the Inuit hunter steadily and intently fastens his eyes on the glazed water-space where the animal rises. Often it is hours before the seal comes, if indeed at all, and he is caught only through a swift, single stroke by which the spear unerringly pierces the thin skull of the animal. Five seals were killed during November, and Thanksgiving day was celebrated by adding to the usual meal a little chocolate and some dried apples.
The moral attitude of the greater number of the seamen was evident from several incidents. On Thanksgiving day the captain suggested that all unite in some religious service appropriate to the day and to their situation, but the seamen were unwilling to participate.
In marked contrast were the feelings of the Inuit Hans Hendrik, who thus writes: "I considered the miserable condition of my wife and children, on a piece of ice in the mid-ocean, then I pronounced my prayer: