Dr. Kane had made a careful study of the Eskimos, and had come to the wise conclusion that their form of habitations and their peculiar diet, minus their unthrift and filth, was the safest and best method of existence under the unusual circumstances of an Arctic winter. He therefore determined to borrow a lesson from the natives and, as far as possible, turn the brig into an igloë. The quarter-deck was padded down with moss and turf, so as to form a nearly cold-proof covering. Below a space some eighteen feet square was packed from floor to ceiling with inner walls of the same material. The floor was carefully calked with plaster-of-Paris and common paste, covered a couple of inches deep with Manila oakum, and carpeted with canvas. A low moss-lined tunnel was arranged to connect with the hold, and divided with as many doors and curtains as possible to keep out the cold draughts.

Large banks of snow were also thrown up along the brig’s sides to keep off the cold wind. These arduous labours in the open air greatly improved the health and spirits of the men.

Intercourse with the Eskimos at the winter settlements of Etah and Anoatok, distant some thirty and seventy miles, led to a treaty by which the Eskimos, for such presents as needles, pins, and knives, engaged to furnish walrus and fresh seal meat, to the ship. Common hunting parties were organized, and the white men were directed by the natives where to find the game. To these supplies of fresh meat, Kane and his companions owed their salvation, and the Eskimos on their part learned to regard the white men as their benefactors, and sincerely mourned their departure.

Before the darkness came on, Dr. Kane again nearly lost his life in an attempt to secure a seal—while out in the ice, Hans had just cried out, “Pusey! pusey mut! seal! seal!” “At the same instant,” writes Dr. Kane, “the dogs bounded forward, and, as I looked up, I saw crowds of gray netsik, the rough or hispid seal of the whalers disporting in an open sea of water.”

“I had hardly welcomed the spectacle when I saw that we had passed upon a new belt of ice that was obviously unsafe. To the right and left and front was one great expanse of snow-flowered ice. The nearest solid floe was a mere lump, which stood like an island in the white level. To turn was impossible; we had to keep up our gait. We urged on the dogs with whip and voice, the ice rolling like leather beneath the sledge-runners; it was more than a mile to the lump of solid ice. Fear gave to the poor beasts their utmost speed, and our voices were soon hushed to silence.

“This suspense, unrelieved by action or efforts, was intolerable; we knew that there was no remedy but to reach the floe, and that everything depended upon our dogs, and our dogs alone. A moment’s check would plunge the whole concern into the rapid tideway; no presence of mind or resource, bodily or mental, could avail us. The seals—for we were now near enough to see their expressive faces—were looking at us with that strange curiosity which seems to be their characteristic expression; we must have passed some fifty of them, breast-high out of water, mocking us by their self-complacency.

“This desperate race against fate could not last: the rolling of the tough salt-water ice terrified our dogs; and when within fifty paces from the floe, they paused. The left-hand runner went through: our leader ‘Toodlamick’ followed, and in one second the entire left of the sledge was submerged. My first thought was to liberate the dogs. I leaned forward to cut poor ‘Tood’s’ traces, and the next minute was swimming in a little circle of pasty ice and water alongside him. Hans, dear good fellow, drew near to help me, uttering piteous expressions in broken English; but I ordered him to throw himself on his belly with his hands and legs extended, and to make for the island by cogging himself forward with his jack-knife. In the meantime—a mere instant—I was floundering about with sledge, dogs, and lines, in a confused puddle around me.

“I succeeded in cutting poor Tood’s lines and letting him scramble to the ice, for the poor fellow was drowning me with his piteous caresses, and made my way for the sledge; but I found that it would not buoy me, and that I had no resource but to try the circumference of the hole. Around this I paddled faithfully, the miserable ice always yielding when my hopes of a lodgment were greatest. During this process, I enlarged my circle of operations to a very uncomfortable diameter, and was beginning to feel weaker after every effort. Hans, meanwhile, had reached the firm ice, and was on his knees, like a good Moravian, praying incoherently in English and Eskimo; at every fresh crushing-in of the ice he would ejaculate ‘God!’ and when I recommenced my paddling he recommenced his prayers.

“I was nearly gone. My knife had been lost in cutting out the dogs; and a spare one which I carried in my trousers-pocket was so enveloped in the wet skins that I could not reach it. I owed my extrication at last to a newly broken team-dog, who was still fast to the sledge and in struggling carried one of the runners chock against the edge of the circle. All my previous attempts to use the sledge as a bridge had failed, for it broke through, to the much greater injury of the ice. I felt it was a last chance. I threw myself on my back, so as to lessen as much as possible my weight, and placed the nape of my neck against the run or edge of the ice; then with caution slowly bent my leg, and, placing the ball of my moccasined foot against the sledge, I pressed steadily against the runner, listening to the half-yielding crunch of the ice beneath.

“Presently I felt that my head was pillowed by the ice, and that my wet fur jumper was sliding up the surface. Next came my shoulders; they were fairly on. One more decided push and I was launched up on the ice and safe. I reached the ice-floe, and was frictioned by Hans with frightful zeal. We saved all the dogs, but the sledge, kayack, tents, guns, snow-shoes, and everything besides, were left behind. The thermometer at 8° will keep them frozen fast in the sledge till we can come and cut them out.

“On reaching the ship, after a twelve-mile trot, I found so much of comfort and warm welcome that I forgot my failure. The fire was lit up, and one of our few birds slaughtered forthwith. It is with real gratitude that I look back upon my escape, and bless the great presiding Goodness for the very many resources which remain to us.”

On December 12, the party which had deserted the ship returned; they had had a bitter experience struggling for more than four months among the hummocks and snow-drifts, and were in a pitiable condition.

“The thermometer was at -50°”, writes Dr. Kane; “they were covered with rime and snow, and were fainting with hunger. It was necessary to use caution in taking them below; for after an exposure of such fearful intensity and duration as they had gone through, the warmth of the cabin would have prostrated them completely. They had journeyed three hundred and fifty miles; and their last run from the bay near Etah, some seventy miles in a right line, was through the hummocks at this appalling temperature. Poor fellows! as they threw open their Eskimo 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.”

To Dr. Kane’s determination to stand by the brig was due the preservation of the entire party, for had he been less firm in his resolution, the entire expedition would undoubtedly have perished on the ice.

“February closes,” writes the heroic leader; “thank God the lapse of its twenty-eight days! Should the thirty-one of the coming March not drag us further downward, we may hope for a successful close to this dreary drama. By April 10 we should have seals; and when they come, if we remain to welcome them, we can call ourselves saved. But a fair review of our prospects tells me that I must look the lion in the face. The scurvy is steadily gaining on us. I do my best to sustain the more desperate cases, but as fast as I partially build up one, another is stricken down. Of the six workers of our party, as I counted them a month ago, two are unable to do out-door work, and the remaining four divide the duty of the ship among them. Hans musters his remaining energies to conduct the hunt. Petersen is his disheartened, moping assistant. The other two, Bonsall and myself, have all the daily offices of household and hospital.

“We chop five large sacks of ice, cut six fathoms of eight-inch hawser into junks of a foot each, serve out the meat when we have it, hack at the molasses, and hew out with crow-bar and axe the pork and dried apples; pass up the foul slop and cleansings of our dormitory, and in a word, cook, scullionize, and attend the sick.

“Added to this, for five nights running, I have kept watch from 8 P.M. to 4 A.M., catching such naps as I could in the day without changing my clothes, but carefully waking every hour to note thermometers.”

The sufferings endured during the month of March are painfully interesting. Had Dr. Kane’s strength given way at this juncture, the whole party, deprived of their leading spirit, must have perished. He attributes his comparative immunity from scurvy to “rat-soup.” These rodents, surviving the bleak winter, had overrun the ship; but he was the only man who would eat them. Having no fuel, the only method of heating was the Eskimo method of lamps; the soot and fatty carbon blacking everything on which it rested.

Heroic methods were made to keep in touch with the friendly natives, and Hans, on more than one occasion, saved the life of the party by securing fresh meat from them.

To add to their troubles, two men attempted to desert at this critical juncture; only one succeeded—Godfrey—who joined the Eskimos. But strange as it may seem, this man returned with a supply of meat for his desperate comrades, while refusing to return on board ship. Fearing Godfrey might have done bodily harm to Hans, who was absent, Dr. Kane determined to follow the man and bring him back. To this end he made a journey along with a dog sledge of over eighty miles to the Eskimo settlement, and returned with his man.

There was no other alternative but to prepare for abandoning the Advance, as early in the spring as the weather would permit, and hope to reach the Danish settlements at Upernavik. Before the boats could be transferred to the open water, much labour in preparation must be expended, and the most of the party were bedridden and unable to move.

Not until May 20, 1855, were they able to bid farewell to the brig, and the retreat was started under the most trying experiences of sickness and famine. By June 17, they stood beside open sea, but not for fifty-six more days did they reach Upernavik.

Before the open water was reached, a sad and tragic accident had befallen one of the ablest men. “I had left the party on the floe,” writes Dr. Kane, “with many apprehensions for their safety, and the result proved they were not without cause. While crossing a ‘tide-hole’ one of the runners of the Hope’s sledge broke through, and, but for the strength and presence of mind of Ohlsen, the boat would have gone under. He saw the ice give way, and, by a violent exercise of strength, passed a capstan-bar under the sledge, and thus bore the load till it was hauled on to safer ice. He was a very powerful man, and might have done this without injuring himself, but it would seem his footing gave way under him, forcing him to make a still more desperate effort to extricate himself. It cost him his life; he died three days afterwards.

“I was bringing down George Stephenson from the sick-station, and, my sledge being heavily laden, I had just crossed, with some anxiety, near the spot at which the accident occurred. A little way beyond we met Mr. Ohlsen, seated upon a lump of ice and very pale. He pointed to the camp about three miles farther on, and told us in a faint voice, that he had not detained the party: he ‘had a little cramp in the small of his back,’ but would soon be better.

“I put him at once in Stephenson’s place, and drove him on to the Faith. There he was placed in the stern sheets of the boat, and well muffled up in our best buffalo robes. During all that night he was assiduously attended by Dr. Hayes; but he sank rapidly. His symptoms had from the first a certain obscure but fatal resemblance to our winter’s tetanus and filled us with forebodings.”

The strength of the stricken band was gradually reaching its minimum. The exertion of bailing the unseaworthy boats required all the strength left to the enfeebled party. They breathed heavily, their limbs swelled, and they suffered from insomnia, so that each day rendered their weakened efforts less promising. At this crisis of their fortunes, they saw a large seal floating on a small patch of ice, and seemingly asleep.

“Trembling with anxiety,” writes Dr. Kane, “we prepared to crawl down upon him. Petersen, with a large English rifle, was stationed in the bow, and stockings were drawn over the oars as mufflers. As we neared the animal, our excitement became so intense that the men could hardly keep stroke. He was not asleep; for he reared his head when we were almost within rifle-shot; and to this day I can remember the hard, careworn, almost despairing expression of the men’s thin faces as they saw him move; their thin lives depended on his capture. I depressed my hand nervously, as a signal for Petersen to fire. McGary hung upon his oar, and the boat seemed to me within certain range. Looking at Petersen, I saw that the poor fellow was paralysed by his anxiety, trying vainly to obtain a rest for his gun against the cut-water of the boat. The seal rose on his fore flipper, gazed at us for a moment with frightened curiosity, and coiled himself for a plunge. At that instant, simultaneously with the crack of our rifle, he relaxed his long length on the ice, and, at the very brink of the water, his head fell helpless to one side. I would have ordered another shot, but no discipline could have controlled the men. With a wild yell, each vociferating according to his own impulse, they urged their boats upon the floes. A crowd of hands seized the seal, and bore him up to safer ice. The men seemed half crazy. I had not realized how much we were reduced by absolute famine. They ran over the floe, crying and laughing, and brandishing their knives. It was not five minutes before every man was sucking his bloody fingers, or mouthing long strips of raw blubber. Not an ounce of this seal was lost.”

A few days later the familiar cadence of a “halloo” fell upon the ears.

“Listen, Petersen! oars, men!” “What is it?”—and he listened quietly at first and then, trembling said, in a half whisper, “Danne markers!”

“I remember this,” writes Kane, “the first tone of Christian voice which had greeted our return to the world. How we all stood up and peered into the distant nooks; and how the cry came to us again, just as, having seen nothing, we were doubting whether the whole was not a dream; and then how, with long sweeps, the white ash cracking under the spring of the rowers, we stood for the cape that the sound proceeded from, and how nervously we scanned the green spots which our experience, grown now into instinct, told us would be the likely camping ground of wayfarer. By-and-by—for we must have been pulling a good half hour—the single mast of a small shallop showed itself; and Petersen, who had been very quiet and grave, burst out into an incoherent fit of crying, only relieved by broken exclamations of mingled Danish and English. ‘’Tis the Upernavik oil-boat! the Fräulein Flaischer! Carlie Mossyn, the assistant cooper, must be on his road to Kingatok for blubber. The Mariane (the one animal ship) has come, and Carlie Mossyn—’ and here he did it all over again, gulping down his words and wringing his hands.”

Another halt, a night’s rest, and the settlement was reached, where a generous welcome awaited the weary explorers.

“For eighty-four days,” says Kane, “we had lived in the open air. Our habits were hard and weather-worn. We could not remain within the four walls of a house without a distressing sense of suffocation. But we drank coffee that night before many a hospitable threshold, and listened again and again to the hymn of welcome, which, sung by many voices, greeted our deliverance.”

The Danish vessel was not ready for her homeward journey till the 4th of September. On the 6th, Dr. Kane and his party left Upernavik, in the Mariane, whose captain had promised to convey them to the Shetland Islands; on the 11th they touched at Godhaven, the inspectorate of North Greenland, and later at Disco, where the Mariane remained a few days.

As early as February 3, 1855, a resolution had passed Congress authorizing the Secretary of the Navy to despatch a suitable steamer and tender for the relief of Dr. Kane. The Release and Arctic were accordingly equipped and put in command of Lieutenant Hartstein, accompanied by a brother of Dr. Kane. By July 5, the relief expedition had reached Lievely, Isle of Disco, Greenland, and from this point Lieutenant Hartstein says in a letter to the Secretary of the Navy: “To avoid further risk of human life, in a search so extremely hazardous, I would suggest the impropriety of making any efforts to relieve us if we should not return; feeling confident that we shall be able to accomplish all necessary for our own release, under the most extraordinary circumstances.”

Having forced a passage through the closely packed ice into the north water, they proceeded to examine the coast from Cape York to Wolstenholme Island, also Cape Alexander and Sutherland Island.

A few stones heaped together near Point Pellam gave assurance of Kane’s having been there, but no other clew was secured. Taking a retrograde course, they examined Cape Hatherton and Littleton Island, finally reaching a point some fifteen miles northwest of Cape Alexander. Here they were surprised to fall in with some Eskimos, in whose possession were found certain articles known to have belonged to Dr. Kane. After diligent inquiries, they learned of the abandonment of the ship and the retreat to the south of Dr. Kane’s party.

After some further reconnoitring in the hope of finding the party should they be in the vicinity, Lieutenant Hartstein decided to make for Upernavik. A furious gale drove them out of their course adrift in the ice pack.

“After this gale,” writes Dr. Kane’s brother, “we had little or no more troubles with the ice; one or two trifling detentions of a few days brought us to open water. We had drifted so far to the south that Lievely was nearer than Upernavik, and Captain Hartstein determined to put in there. We had a heavy gale the night after we left the ice; but so glad were we all to get clear of it, that I heard no complaints about rough weather. It cleared away beautifully towards morning, and we were all on the deck, admiring the clear water, and the fantastic shapes of the water-washed icebergs. All hands were in high spirits; the gale had blown in the right direction, and in a few hours we should be in Lievely. The rocks of its land-locked harbor were already in sight. We were discussing our news by anticipation, when the man in the crow’s nest cried out: ‘A brig in the harbor!’ and the next minute, before we had time to congratulate each other on the chance of sending letters home, that she had hoisted American colors—a delicate compliment, we thought, on the part of our friends, the Danes. I believe our captain was about to return it, when to our surprise, she hoisted another flag, the veritable one which had gone out with the Advance, bearing the name of Mr. Henry Grinnell. At the same moment, two boats were seen rounding the point, and pulling towards us. Did they contain our lost friends? Yes, the sailors had settled that. ‘Those are Yankees, sir; no Danes ever feathered their oars that way.’

“For those who had friends among the missing party, the few minutes that followed were of bitter anxiety; for the men in the boats were long-bearded and weather-beaten; they had strange wild costumes; there was no possibility of recognition.”

In Dr. Kane’s own words, let us conclude the chapter:—

“Presently we were alongside. An officer whom I shall ever remember as a cherished friend, Captain Hartstein, hailed a little man in a ragged flannel shirt. ‘Is this Dr. Kane?’ and with the ‘Yes!’ that followed, the rigging was manned by our countrymen, and cheers welcomed us back to the social world of love which they represented.”

Dr. Kane and his party reached New York, October 11, 1855, and received an enthusiastic welcome, after an absence of thirty months. Honours of the most flattering kind awaited him on both sides of the Atlantic, but his health was completely broken by the trials of his wonderful journey. On February 16, 1857, he died at Havana, in the thirty-seventh year of his age.