Dr. Kane’s Expedition—His short but eventful Career—Departure of the Advance—Dangers of the Voyage—Grinding Ice—Among the Bergs—A Close Shave—Nippings—The Brig towed from the Ice-beach—Smith’s Sound—Rensselaer Harbour—Winter Quarters—Return of an Exploring Party—Fearful Sufferings—To the Rescue—Saved—Curious Effects of Intense Cold.
Although the expedition about to be described left the United States in 1852—several years before M’Clintock’s memorable voyage—and although it was organised especially for the Franklin search, its consideration has been deferred till now, in order not to interfere with the narrative of the discoveries relative to the lost expedition. Dr. Kane was not, indeed, to share with Rae and M’Clintock the honour of determining the fate of Franklin and his brave companions, but he was, and long must be, destined to hold a foremost place among the great Arctic explorers of all ages, while his work is one of the classics of Arctic literature.41
Dr. Kane was in the field of action he eventually chose one of the most ardent and enthusiastic workers; indeed, the untiring energy and perseverance with which he laboured in the face of all difficulties entitle him to be considered a model explorer. His short life had been full of adventure. Born on February 3rd, 1820, he became at a very early age an assistant-surgeon in the United States navy, and visited most parts of the world, including China, India, Ceylon, and the coasts of Africa. At a station of the latter he was stricken down with “coast fever,” and never entirely recovered from the effects. He was engaged in the Mexican war with the United States, and succeeded in passing through the enemy’s lines with an oral despatch to the American head-quarters, when several others had failed. On the voyage from New Orleans to Mexico he was shipwrecked, and was afterwards laid low with typhus fever in the latter country. His first visit to the Arctic was, as already mentioned, in company with Lieutenant De Haven. He died at Havana, shortly after his return from the expedition we are about to record. His slight frame had been too severely tested; the flesh was weaker than the spirit; and at the early age of thirty-seven he passed away, leaving behind a reputation scarcely second to that of any Arctic explorer. Ambitious always, he was nevertheless one of the most thoughtful and humane of commanders. When his men were almost starving, he travelled, sometimes alone, long distances on the ice and snow for succour and relief; when nearly every member [pg 233]of his party was stricken down with scurvy, he nursed, cooked, and cared for them, oft-times when enfeebled, downhearted, and scarcely able to stand himself. His naval education had made him appreciate the value of discipline, but where humanity was concerned self-abnegation was his leading characteristic. Kane could most assuredly be termed a practical Christian. All honour to his memory!
Dr. Kane received special orders in December, 1852, from the then Secretary of the United States navy, “to conduct an expedition to the Arctic seas in search of Sir John Franklin.” The noble-hearted American merchant, Mr. Grinnell of New York, who had organised De Haven’s expedition, placed a brig, the Advance, at his disposal. Mr. Peabody, the American benefactor of the London poor, contributed handsomely to the outfit, which was aided by several scientific institutions. The United States Government detailed ten officers and men from the navy, which with seven others made up the full complement of the expedition. Leaving New York on May 30th, 1853, South Greenland was reached on July 1st. Several Danish settlements were visited on the way north, where they received much hospitality, and obtained skins, fur clothing, and native dogs.
As we have already seen, Baffin was the discoverer of Smith’s Sound. From the year 1616, the date of his visit, until Kane explored it, no European or American had sailed over its waters. The voyage of the Advance thither was one of peril and difficulty. [pg 234]Storm succeeded storm; the little brig was constantly beset and nearly crushed in the ice, and sometimes heeled over to such an extent that it seemed a miracle when she righted. Dr. Kane’s description of some of the dangers through which they passed is very graphic.
“At seven in the morning we were close on to the piling masses. We dropped our heaviest anchor with the desperate hope of winding the brig; but there was no withstanding the ice-torrent that followed us. We had only time to fasten a spar as a buoy to the chain, and let her slip. So went our best bower.
“Down we went upon the gale again, helplessly scraping along a lee of ice seldom less than thirty feet thick; one floe, measured by a line as we tried to fasten to it, more than forty. I had seen such ice only once before, and never in such rapid motion. One upturned mass rose above our gunwale, smashing in our bulwarks, and depositing half a ton of ice in a lump upon our decks. Our staunch little brig bore herself through all this wild adventure as if she had a charmed life.
“But a new enemy came in sight ahead. Directly in our way, just beyond the line of floe-ice against which we were alternately sliding and thumping, was a group of bergs. We had no power to avoid them; the only question was, whether we were to be dashed in pieces against them, or whether they might not offer us some providential nook of refuge against the storm. But as we neared them we perceived that they were at some distance from the floe-edge, and separated from it by an interval of open water. Our hopes rose as the gale drove us towards this passage and into it; and we were ready to exult when, from some unexplained cause—probably an eddy of the wind against the lofty ice-walls—we lost our headway. Almost at the same moment we saw that the bergs were not at rest, that with a momentum of their own they were bearing down upon the other ice, and that it must be our fate to be crushed between the two.
“Just then a broad sconce-piece, or low water-washed berg, came driving up from the southward. The thought flashed upon me of one of our escapes in Melville Bay; and as the sconce moved rapidly alongside us, M’Garry managed to plant an anchor on its slope and hold on to it by a whale line. It was an anxious moment. Our noble tow-horse, whiter than the pale horse that seemed to be pursuing us, hauled us bravely on, the spray dashing over his windward flanks, and his forehead ploughing up the lesser ice as if in scorn. The bergs encroached upon us as we advanced; our channel narrowed to a width of perhaps forty feet; we braced the yards to clear the impending ice-walls.... We passed clear, but it was a close shave—so close that our port quarter-boat would have been crushed if we had not taken it in from the davits—and found ourselves under the lee of a berg, in a comparative open lead. Never did heart-tried men acknowledge with more gratitude their merciful deliverance from a wretched death.” And so the narrative continues—a long series of hairbreadth escapes from the nippings and crushing of the ice. Kane says at this juncture:—
“During the whole of the scenes I have been trying to describe I could not help being struck by the composed and manly demeanour of my comrades. The turmoil of ice under a heavy sea often conveys the impression of danger when the reality is absent; but in this fearful passage the parting of our hawsers, the loss of our anchors, the abrupt crushing of our stoven bulwarks, and the actual deposit of ice upon our decks, would have tried the [pg 235]nerves of the most experienced ice-man. All—officers and men—worked alike. Upon each occasion of collision with the ice which formed our lee coast, efforts were made to carry out lines, and some narrow escapes were incurred by the zeal of the parties leading them into positions of danger. Mr. Bonsall avoided being crushed by leaping to a floating fragment; and no less than four of our men at one time were carried down by the drift, and could only be recovered by a relief party after the gale had subsided.
“As our brig, borne on by the ice, commenced her ascent of the berg, the suspense was oppressive. The immense blocks piled against her, range upon range, pressing themselves under her keel and throwing her over upon her side, till, urged by the successive accumulations, she rose slowly, and as if with convulsive efforts, along the sloping wall. Still there was no relaxation of the impelling force. Shock after shock, jarring her to her very centre, she continued to mount steadily on her precarious cradle. But for the groaning of her timbers and the heavy sough of the floes we might have heard a pin drop; and then as she settled down into her old position, quietly taking her place among the broken rubbish, there was a deep breathing silence, as though all were waiting for some signal before the clamour of congratulation and comment should burst forth.” After the storm had abated, the crew went on the ice-beach and towed the vessel a considerable distance, being harnessed up, as Kane says, “like mules on a canal.” Shortly afterwards a council was called to consider the feasibility of proceeding northward or returning southward to find a wintering place, and the latter idea was the more favourably received. After some further discussion it was resolved to cross the bay in which they now were to its northern headland, and thence despatch sledging parties in quest of a suitable spot to “dock” the brig. On the way across the vessel grounded and heeled over, throwing men out of their berths and setting the cabin-deck on fire by upsetting the stove. She was surrounded with ice, which piled up in immense heaps. These alarming experiences were repeated on several occasions. Dr. Kane meantime took a whale-boat, well sheathed with tin, ahead of the brig, and after about twenty-four hours came to a solid ice-shelf or table, clinging round the base of the cliffs. They hauled up the boat and then prepared for a sledge journey. The rough and difficult nature of their icy route may be inferred from the fact that it took them five days to make a direct distance of forty miles, while they had travelled twice that distance in reality. They then arrived at a bay into which a large river fell. This Kane considers the largest stream of North Greenland; its width at the mouth was three-fourths of a mile. Its course was afterwards pursued to an interior glacier, from the base of which it was found to issue in numerous streams. By the banks of this river they encamped, lulled by the unusual music of running waters. “Here,” says Kane, “protected from the frost by the infiltration of the melted snows, and fostered by the reverberation of solar heat from the rocks, we met a flower growth, which, though drearily Arctic in its type, was rich in variety and colouring. Amid festuca and other tufted grasses twinkled the purple lychnis, and the white star of the chickweed; and, not without its pleasing associations, I recognised a solitary hesperis—the Arctic representative of the wallflowers of home.” After a careful examination of the bays and anchorages, Rensselaer Harbour, the spot where he had left the Advance, was chosen for their winter quarters, and a storehouse and observatory were erected ashore.
[pg 236]The return of an exploring party, which had suffered severely, is well described by Kane. “We were at work cheerfully, sewing away at the skins of some mocassins by the blaze of our lamps, when, towards midnight, we heard the noise of steps above, and the next minute Sontag, Ohlsen, and Petersen, came down into the cabin. Their manner startled me even more than their unexpected appearance on board. They were swollen and haggard, and hardly able to speak.
“Their story was a fearful one. They had left their companions in the ice, risking their own lives to bring us the news. Brooks, Baker, Wilson, and Pierre, were all lying frozen and disabled. Where? They could not tell. Somewhere in among the hummocks to the north and east. It was drifting heavily round them when they parted. Irish Tom had stayed by to feed and care for the others, but the chances were sorely against them. It was in vain to question them further. They had evidently travelled a great distance, for they were sinking with fatigue and hunger, and could hardly be rallied enough to tell us the direction in which they had come.”
Kane’s promptness saved the party. A sledge was hastily loaded, Ohlsen deposited upon it, wrapped in furs, and an immediate departure made. The thermometer stood at 76° below freezing. For sixteen hours they struggled on, till at length they came to [pg 237]a place where Ohlsen had to acknowledge he was quite “at sea,” and could not recognise the landmarks. Kane continues:—“Pushing ahead of the party, and clambering over some rugged ice-piles, I came to a long level floe, which I thought might probably have attracted the eyes of weary men in circumstances like our own. It was a light conjecture, but it was enough to turn the scale, for there was no other to balance it. I gave orders to abandon the sledge, and disperse in search of footmarks. We raised our tent, placed our pemmican in cache, except a small allowance for each man to carry on his person, and poor Ohlsen, now just able to keep his legs, was liberated from his bag. The thermometer had fallen by this time to minus 49° 3′ and the wind was setting in sharp from the north-west. It was out of the question to halt; it required brisk exercise to keep us from freezing. The men ‘extended’ in skirmishing order, but kept nervously closing up; several were seized with trembling fits, and Dr. Kane fainted twice from the effect of the intense cold. At length a sledge track was discovered, which followed, brought them in sight of a small American flag fluttering from a hummock, and lower down a little masonic banner, hanging from a tent-pole hardly above the drift. It was the camp of our disabled comrades; we reached it after an unbroken march of twenty-one hours.
“The little tent was nearly covered.... As I crawled in, and coming upon the darkness, heard before me the burst of welcome gladness that came from the four poor fellows stretched on their backs, and then for the first time the cheer outside, my weakness and my gratitude together almost overcame me. They had expected me; they were sure I would come!” The tent only being capable of holding eight, while there were fifteen souls in all, they had to take “watch and watch” by turns. When sufficiently rested and refreshed, the sick men were sewn up in reindeer skins and placed on the sledge. Although they left all superfluous articles behind, the load was eleven hundred pounds. “We made by vigorous pulls and lifts nearly a mile an hour.... Almost without premonition, we all became aware of an alarming failure of our energies. I was of course familiar with the benumbed and almost lethargic sensation of extreme cold.... But I had treated the sleepy comfort of freezing as something like the embellishment of romance. I had evidence now to the contrary.
“Bonsall and Morton, two of our stoutest men, came to me, begging permission to sleep. ‘They were not cold, the wind did not enter them now; a little sleep was all they wanted.’ Presently Hans was found nearly stiff under a drift, and Thomas, bolt upright, had his eyes closed, and could hardly articulate. At last John Blake threw himself into the snow, and refused to rise. They did not complain of feeling cold, but it was in vain that I wrestled, boxed, ran, argued, jeered, or reprimanded—an immediate halt could not be avoided.” The tent was pitched with much difficulty, and then Kane with one man pushed on to a tent and cache left the previous day, his object being to prepare some hot food before the rest arrived. He continues:—“I cannot tell how long it took us to make the nine miles, for we were in a strange kind of stupor, and had little apprehension of time. It was probably about four hours. We kept ourselves awake by imposing on each other a continued articulation of words; they must have been incoherent enough! I recall these hours as amongst the most wretched I have ever [pg 238]gone through. We were neither of us in our right senses, and retained a very confused recollection of what preceded our arrival at the tent. We both of us, however, remember a bear who walked leisurely before us, and tore up as he went a jumper that Mr. M’Garry had improvidently thrown off the day before. He tore it into shreds and rolled it into a ball, but never offered to interfere with our progress. I remember this, and with it a confused sentiment that our tent and buffalo robe might probably share the same fate.” This was a really wonderful example of the almost intoxicating and bewildering effect of intense cold, frequently noted by arctic explorers. They were dazed, and walked as in a dream. But they arrived safely at the tent, and by the time the others came up had a good steaming pemmican soup ready. When they again started, Kane tried the effect of brief three-minute naps in the snow, the men taking it in turns to wake each other, and he considered the result satisfactory. After many a halt they reached the brig. Two of the men had to undergo amputation of parts of the foot, and two died, in spite of unremitting care. The searching party had been out seventy-two hours, during which they had only rested eight.
Arrival of Esquimaux at the Brig—A Treaty Concluded—Hospitality on Board—Arctic Appetites—Sledge Journeys—A Break-down—Morton’s Trip—The Open Sea—The Brig hopelessly Beset—A Council Called—Eight Men stand by the Advance—Departure of the Rest—Their Return—Terrible Sufferings—A Characteristic Entry—Raw Meat for Food—Fruitless Journeys for Fresh Meat—A Scurvied Crew—Starving Esquimaux—Attempted Desertion—A Deserter brought back from the Esquimaux Settlements.
The arrival and visit of a number of Esquimaux at the brig caused some little excitement. They were fine specimens of the race, and evidently inclined for friendship. At first only one of them was admitted on board. His dress is described as a kind of hooded capôte or jumper of mixed blue and white fox-skins arranged with some taste, and booted trousers of white bear-skin, which at the end of the foot were made to terminate with the claws of the animal. Kane soon came to an understanding with this individual, and the rest were admitted to the brig, where they were hospitably treated. When offered, however, good fresh wheaten bread and corned pork, and large lumps of white sugar, they could not be induced to touch them, but much preferred gorging on walrus meat. They were greatly amazed at the coal on board—too hard for blubber, and so unlike wood. They were allowed to sleep in the hold. Next morning a treaty was made whereby they pledged themselves, before departing, to return in a few days with more meat, and to allow Kane to use their dogs and sledges in the proposed excursions.
Kane with a party attempted in the spring of 1854 a journey to the great glacier of Humboldt, from which point he had hoped “to cross the ice to the American side.” They had made some progress when the winter’s scurvy reappeared painfully among the [pg 239]party. The now soft snow made travelling very difficult for both men and dogs; indeed, the former sank to their waists, and the latter were nearly buried. Three of the men were taken with snow blindness; one was utterly, and another partially disabled. Kane was, while taking an observation for latitude, seized with a sudden pain, and fainted. His limbs became rigid, and he had to be strapped on the sledge. On May 5th he became delirious, and fainted every time he was taken from the tent to the sledge. The last man to give in, he owns that on this occasion he succumbed entirely, and that to five brave men—Morton, Riley, Hickey, Stephenson, and Hans—themselves scarcely able to travel, he owed his preservation. They carried him back to the brig by forced marches, and he long lay there in a very critical state. A few days after the return of the party, Schubert, one of the merriest and best liked of the little band, died. Dr. Hayes, the surgeon of the ship, worked zealously in the discharge of his duties, and with the better diet obtained in the summer—fresh seal-meat, reindeer, ptarmigan, and rabbits—the invalids gradually recovered strength, and set about their duties.
The most important sledge journey undertaken at this time was that made by Morton. After travelling a considerable distance, “due north over a solid area choked with bergs and frozen fields, he was startled by the growing weakness of the ice; its surface became rotten, and the snow wet and pulpy. His dogs, seized with terror, refused to advance. Then for the first time the fact broke upon him that a long dark band seen to the north beyond a protruding cape, Cape Andrew Jackson, was water.” He retraced his steps, and leaving Hans and his dogs, passed between Sir John Franklin Island and the narrow beach line, the coast becoming more wall-like and dark masses of porphyritic rock abutting into the sea. With growing difficulty he managed to climb from rock to rock in hopes of doubling the promontory and sighting the coasts beyond, but the water kept encroaching more and more on his track.
“It must have been an imposing sight as he stood at this termination of his journey looking out upon the great waste of waters before him. Not ‘a speck of ice,’ to use his own words, could be seen. There, from a height of 480 feet, which commanded a horizon of almost forty miles, his ears were gladdened with the novel music of dashing waves; and a surf breaking in among the rocks at his feet, stayed his further progress.... The high ridges to the north-west dwindled off into low blue knobs, which blended finally with the air. Morton called the cape which baffled his labours after his commander, but I have given it the more enduring name of ‘Cape Constitution.’ I do not believe there was a man among us who did not long for the means of embarking upon its bright and lonely waters. But he who may be content to follow our story for the next few months will feel as we did, that a controlling necessity made the desire a fruitless one.”
Morton had undoubtedly seen an open sea, but the water which he described we now know to be simply Kennedy Channel, a continuation of Smith Sound. He had reached a latitude (about 80° 30′) further north than any previous explorer of the Greenland coast.
A year and three months had passed since the starting of the expedition, and still the little brig was fast in the ice. The men were, as Kane calls it, “scurvy riddled” and utterly prostrated, their supplies were rapidly becoming exhausted, and Kane deter[pg 240]mined to hold a council of both officers and crew. At noon of August 26th all hands were called, and the situation fully explained to them, the doctor, however, counselling them to stay by the brig, although he gave them full permission to make any attempt at escape they might deem feasible. Eight out of seventeen resolved to stand by the vessel. Dr. Hayes and eight others determined to make an effort to reach the settlements. Kane divided their remaining resources, and they left on the 28th. One of them, George Riley, returned a few days afterwards, and, three and a half months later, the rest were only too glad to rejoin the vessel, after enduring many sufferings. On December 12th, says Kane, “Brooks awoke me with the cry of ‘Esquimaux again!’ I dressed hastily, and groping my way over the pile of boxes that leads up from the hold to the darkness above, made out a group of human figures, masked by the hooded jumpers of the natives. They stopped at the gangway, and, as I was about to challenge, one of them sprang forward and grasped my hand. It was Dr. Hayes. A few words, dictated by suffering, certainly not by any anxiety as to his reception, and at his bidding the whole party came upon deck. Poor fellows! I could only grasp their hands, and give them a brother’s welcome.” The thermometer stood at -50° (82° below freezing); they were covered with rime and snow, and were fainting with hunger. It was necessary to use caution in taking them in to the warm cabin, or it would have prostrated them completely. “Poor fellows,” says Kane, “as they threw open their Esquimaux garments by the stove, how they relished the scanty luxuries which we had to offer them! The coffee and the meat biscuit soup, and the molasses and the wheat bread, even the salt pork which our scurvy forbade the rest of us to touch—how they relished it all! For more than two months they had lived on frozen seal and walrus meat.” They were all in danger of collapse, and had long to be nursed very carefully. Dr. Hayes was much prostrated, and three of his frost-bitten toes had to suffer amputation.
Their hope at starting was that they might reach Upernavik, the nearest Danish settlement in Greenland, a distance of about one thousand miles, and that they might, at all events next spring, send succour to the party left behind. Dr. Kane furnished them with such necessaries as could be properly spared, with sledges: they were to take a life-boat previously deposited near Lyttelton Island, and a whale-boat which had been left at the Six-mile Ravine—a spot so called from being that distance from the brig. Before leaving Dr. Kane called them into the cabin, where in some nook or corner of the aft locker the careful steward had stowed a couple of bottles of champagne, the existence of which was only known to the commander and himself. One of these was drawn from its hiding-place, and in broken-handled tea-cups they exchanged mutual pledges.
Their hopes had been to reach open water at about ten miles from the brig, but in this they were entirely disappointed, and they had to drag their boats, sledges, and provisions, over ice so rough and broken, that in one place it took them three days to make six miles. Little wonder if some of them thought of returning almost as soon as they started!
The reader would not thank us were we to record the long series of weary marches over the ice which form the bulk of Dr. Hayes’ narrative. Winter was fast approaching, their provisions were nearly exhausted, and it behoved them to erect some place of [pg 241]shelter. A hut was constructed of boulders, a sail doing duty for roof, and a piece of greased linen—part of an old shirt—for window-glass. Like Franklin and Richardson, they tried to eke out their supplies by eating tripe de roche, the rock lichen, which, as it most commonly does, produced diarrhœa, and weakened them still more. Esquimaux visitors arrived at the hut, and brought them some limited supplies of blubber, but declined altogether to sell their dogs or help them to Upernavik. Whether or no Hayes was mistaken, he did not trust much to that innocence and simplicity which are supposed to be the prevailing characteristics of the Esquimaux; and on one or two occasions he seems to have had very good reason for his doubts. Petersen and Godfrey, on the way, during November, to the brig for succour, overheard some natives plotting their destruction, and immediately started from the settlement with their sledge. The Esquimaux followed them with savage cries, but the determined front shown to them seemed to have altered their minds.
“I now,” says Hayes, “repeated to Kalutunah a request which had been made on previous occasions, viz., that his people should take us upon their sledges and carry us northward to the Oomeaksoak. His answer was the same as it had been hitherto. It was [pg 242]then proposed to him and his companions that we should hire from them their teams; but this they also declined to do. No offers which we could make seemed to produce the slightest impression upon them, and it was clear that nothing would induce them to comply with our wishes, nor even give us any reason for their refusal. In fact, they thoroughly understood our situation; and we now entertained no doubt that they had made up their minds, with a unanimity which at an earlier period seemed improbable, to abandon us to our fate and to profit by it.
“The question to be decided became a very plain one. Here were six civilised men, who had no resort for the preservation of their lives, their usefulness, and the happiness of their families, except in the aid of sledges and teams which the savage owners obstinately refused to sell or to hire. The expectation of seizing, after we should have starved or frozen to death, our remaining effects, was the only motive of the refusal. The savages were within easy reach of their friends, and could suffer little by a short delay of their return. For their property compensation could be made after our arrival at the brig. For my own part, before attempting to negotiate with Kalutunah I had determined that his party should not escape us in case of failure in our application to them for aid.
“My comrades were not behind me in their inclinations; indeed, it is to their credit that in so desperate an extremity they were willing to restrain themselves from measures of a kind to give us at the time far less trouble than those which I suggested. Being unwilling that any unnecessary harm should come to the Esquimaux, I proposed to put them to sleep with opium; then taking possession of their dogs and sledges, to push northward as rapidly as possible, and leaving them to awaken at their leisure; to stop for a few hours of rest among our friends at Northumberland Island; then to make directly for Cape Alexander, with the hope of getting so far the start of Kalutunah and his companions that before they could arrive at Netlik and spread the alarm we should be beyond their reach.
“This plan met with the unanimous sanction of the party, and we prepared to put it into immediate execution. In the way of this were some difficulties. Our guests were manifesting great uneasiness, and a decided disinclination to remain. Many threatening glances and very few kind words had been bestowed upon them, and they were evidently beginning to feel that they were not in a safe place. It became now our first duty to reassure them, and accordingly the angry looks gave place to friendly smiles. The old, familiar habits of our people were resumed. Many presents were given to them. I tore the remaining pictures from my ‘Anatomy,’ and the picture of the poor footsore boy who wanted washing from ‘Copperfield,’ and gave them to Kalutunah for his children. Such pieces of wood as remained to us were distributed amongst them. Each received a comb. This last they had sometimes seen us use, and they proceeded immediately to comb out their matted hair, or rather to attempt that work; but forty years of neglect, blubber, and filth, had so glued their locks together that there was no possibility of getting a comb through them. The jests excited by these attempts to imitate our practices did more to restore confidence than anything else.
“At length was reached the climax of our hospitalities. The stew which we had been preparing for our guests was ready and was placed before them, and they were soon greedily [pg 243]devouring it. This proceeding was watched by us with mingled anxiety and satisfaction, for while the pot was over the fire I had turned into it unobserved the contents of a small vial of laudanum. The soup, of course, contained the larger part of the opium, but being small in quantity it had been made so bitter that they would not eat more than the half of it. In order to prevent either of them from getting an over-dose we divided the fluid into three equal portions, and then with intense interest awaited the result, apprehensive that the narcotic had not been administered in sufficiently large quantity to ensure the desired effect.
“After an interval of painful watchfulness on the part of my companions the hunters began to droop their eyelids, and asked to be allowed to lie down and sleep. We were not long in granting their wish, and never before had we manifested more kindly dispositions towards them. We assisted them in taking off their coats and boots, and then wrapped them up in our blankets, about which we were no longer fastidious.
“Our guests were in a few minutes asleep, but I did not know how much of their drowsiness was due to fatigue (for they had been hunting), and how much to the opium; nor were we by any means assured that their sleep was sound, for they exhibited signs of restlessness which greatly alarmed us. Every movement had, therefore, to be conducted with the utmost circumspection.
“To prepare for starting was the work of a few minutes. We were in full travelling dress—coats, boots, and mittens, and some of us wore masks; the hunters’ whips were in our hands, and nothing remained to be done but to get a cup from the shelf. The moment was a critical one, for if the sleepers should awake our scheme must be revealed. Godfrey reached up for the desired cup, and down came the whole contents of the shelf, rattling to the ground. I saw the sleepers start, and, anticipating the result, instantly sprang to the light and extinguished it with a blow of my mittened hand. As was to be expected, the hunters were aroused. Kalutunah gave a grunt, and inquired what was the matter. I answered him by throwing myself upon the breck, and, crawling to his side, hugged him close, and cried ‘Singikpok’ (sleep). He laughed, muttered something which I could not understand, and, without having suspected that anything was wrong, again fell asleep.” Dr. Hayes and his companions made their escape.
The dogs, however, gave them a great deal of trouble; and they were not surprised when, after a halt for coffee, and to make some necessary repairs, they saw the prisoners left in the snow hut coming after them in full pursuit. There was nothing for it but a determined front. Hayes and his companions got their rifles ready, and on the approach of the natives, levelled them, ready to fire. This brought the Esquimaux to their senses, and with many deprecatory gestures they promised to do all that was asked of them. The affair ended, happily, without bloodshed, and the natives accompanied Hayes to the brig, which he reached safely, as before recorded, after many adventures.
Kane makes the following characteristic entry for January 6th, 1855:—“If this journal ever gets to be inspected by other eyes, the colour of its pages will tell of the atmosphere it is written in. We have been emulating the Esquimaux for some time in everything else; and now, last of all, this intolerable temperature and our want of fuel have driven us to rely on our lamps for heat. Counting those which I have [pg 244]added since the wanderers came back, we have twelve constantly going, with the grease and soot everywhere in proportion. I can hardly keep my charts and registers in anything like decent trim. Our beds and bedding are absolutely black, and our faces begrimed with fatty carbon like the Esquimaux of South Greenland.”
Still the scurvy kept a number of the men in an unserviceable condition. Some of Kane’s remarks on the use of raw meats àpropos of their value in a medicinal sense, are interesting:—“I do not know,” says he, “that my journal anywhere mentions our habituation to raw meats, nor does it dwell upon their strange adaptation to scorbutic disease. Our journeys have taught us the wisdom of the Esquimaux appetite, and there are few amongst us who do not relish a slice of raw blubber or a chunk of frozen walrus-beef. The liver of a walrus (awuktanuk) eaten with little slices of his fat, of a verity it is a delicious morsel! Fire would ruin the curt, pithy expression of vitality which belongs to its uncooked pieces. Charles Lamb’s roast pig was nothing to awuktanuk. I wonder that raw beef is not eaten at home. Deprived of extraneous fibre, it is neither indigestible nor difficult to masticate. With acids and condiments it makes a salad which an educated palate cannot help relishing; and as a powerful and condensed heat-making and anti-scorbutic food it has no rival....
“My plans for sledging, simple as I once thought them, and simple certainly as compared with those of the English parties, have completely changed. Give me an eight-pound reindeer-fur bag to sleep in, an Esquimaux lamp with a lump of moss, a sheet-iron snow-melter or a copper soup-pot, with a tin cylinder to slip over it and defend it from the wind, a good pièce de résistance of raw walrus-beef, and I want nothing more for a long journey, if the thermometer will keep itself as high as minus 30°. Give me a bear-[pg 245]skin bag, and coffee to boot, and with the clothes on my back I am ready for minus 60°, but no wind.
“The programme runs after this fashion:—Keep the blood in motion, without loitering on the march; and for the halt raise a snow-house; or, if the snow lies scant or impracticable, ensconce yourself in a burrow or under the hospitable lee of an inclined hummock-slab. The outside fat of your walrus sustains your little moss fire; its frozen slices give you bread, its frozen blubber gives you butter, other parts make the soup. The snow supplies you with water; and when you are ambitious of coffee there is a bagful stowed away in your boot. Spread out your bear-bag, your only heavy movable; stuff your reindeer-bag [pg 246]inside, hang your boots up outside, take a blade of bone and scrape off all the ice from your furs. Now crawl in, the whole party of you, feet foremost, draw the top of your dormitory close headlong to leeward. Fancy yourself in Sybaris, and, if you are only tired enough, you may sleep—like St. Lawrence on his gridiron, or even a trifle better.”
On January 17th Kane sadly admits that the “present state of things cannot last.” They required meat above all things, and he determined to make a sledge journey to the Esquimaux huts at Etah in search of it. The preparations made, he started on the 22nd, Hans Christian being the only available man to accompany him, the rest being nearly all prostrated with scurvy, and some in a most dangerous condition. His journal gives a graphic account of the attempt, which was a failure.
“Washington’s birthday, February 22nd, was, however, a day of better omen. Hans had had a shot—a long shot—at a deer, but he had wounded him, and the injured animal, they knew, would not run far. Next morning Hans was out early on the trail of the wounded deer. Rhina, the least barbarous of the sledge dogs, assisted him. He was back by noon with the joyful news, ‘The tukkuk dead only two miles up big fiord!’ The cry found its way through the hatch, and came back in a broken huzza from the sick men.
“We are so badly off for strong arms that our reindeer threatened to be a great embarrassment to us. We had hard work with our dogs carrying him to the brig, and still harder, worn down as we were, in getting him over the ship’s side. But we succeeded, and were tumbling him down the hold, when we found ourselves in a dilemma like the Vicar of Wakefield with his family picture. It was impossible to drag the prize into our little moss-lined dormitory; the tossut was not half big enough to let him pass; and it was equally impossible to skin him anywhere else without freezing our fingers in the operation.
“It was a happy escape from the embarrassments of our hungry little council to determine that the animal might be carved before skinning as well as he could be afterwards; and, in a very few minutes we proved our united wisdom by a feast on his quartered remains.
“It was a glorious meal, such as the compensations of Providence reserve for starving men alone. We ate, forgetful of the past, and almost heedless of the morrow; cleared away the offal wearily, and now, at 10 P.M., all hands have turned in to sleep, leaving to their commanding officer the solitary honour of an eight hours’ vigil.
“The deer was among the largest of all the northern specimens I have seen. He measured five feet one inch in girth, and six feet two inches in length, and stood as large as a two years’ heifer. We estimated his weight at three hundred pounds.”
But such a happy experience was quite exceptional at this time. Other expeditions to the Esquimaux at this time demonstrated that they themselves were in a starving condition. On March 20th two of the men attempted to desert, but Kane had learned of their intentions, and confronted them as they were about to leave the vessel. One man, Godfrey, however, did succeed, his intention being apparently to reach the settlement at Etah Bay, and robbing Hans, their hunter, of sledge and dogs, proceed south to Netlik. He afterwards returned to the brig with this very sledge, reporting that Hans was [pg 247]lying sick at Etah, and that he himself intended to settle down among the Esquimaux. Both Bonsall and Kane were at this time hardly able to walk, while the rest, thirteen in all, were down with the scurvy. Shots were fired at him to make him change his mind, but he again escaped, and this circumstance, with Hans’ continued absence, naturally caused the commander much anxiety. Kane, though weak and dispirited, determined to go in search of both. The sequel was, that disguising himself as an Esquimaux, he succeeded in deceiving the deserter when he arrived at the village, and handcuffing him made him yield unconditionally; he returned to the brig as a prisoner. Hans, however, had been really ill.