The Siege and Conquest of the North Pole. Bryce George
done us good; we want to help you: we are friends.’ ”
Kane and his men were delayed by a gale till 19th June, when they embarked in three boats. Of the original nineteen men, three had died. Another, Hans Christian the Esquimaux, had fallen in love, and remained behind. The party now, therefore, consisted of fifteen. They made first for Hakluyt Island, where the boats had to undergo further repairs. In the morning of 22nd June, they pushed forward through a snowstorm for Northumberland Island, where a number of auks were secured. Murchison Channel was crossed on 23rd June, and they encamped for the night near the base of Cape Parry. Soon after leaving here they encountered a gale from the north-west, and had great difficulty in escaping from the drifting ice. By good luck, however, they landed at the breeding-grounds of a large number of eider ducks, and were able to gather 1200 eggs a day. Here they remained three days, until the storm abated. They now made for Cape Dudley Digges, which they reached on 11th July. Here they obtained an abundance of birds, and scurvy grass. The ice ahead barred their passage, and they were nothing loath to spend a week where there was plenty of food. On 18th July they again set out, but in doing so were unfortunate enough to lose their best shot-gun and their kettle, owing to the capsizing of one of the boats. Cape York was reached on 21st July. Here they left the coast-line and entered the ice-pack. On the 28th the daily allowance of food was restricted to 5 oz. of bread-dust, 4 oz. of tallow, and 3 oz. of bird-meat. The Red Eric was broken up for fuel, so that the whole party had now to be transported in two boats. The short rations soon began to tell on their strength, and the old symptoms of scurvy came back again. It was at this crisis that a seal was seen, and the incident is thus described by Dr. Kane: —
“It was an ussuk, and so large that I at first mistook it for a walrus. Signal was made for the Hope to follow astern, and, trembling with anxiety, we prepared to crawl down upon him.
“Petersen, with the 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. I had a set of signals for such occasions which spared us the noise of the voice; and when about 300 yards off, the oars were taken in, and we moved in deep silence with a single scull astern.
“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 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, slowly but noiselessly sagging ahead, 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-flippers, 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 both 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 realised 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. The intestines found their way into the soup-kettles without any observance of the preliminary home-processes. The cartilaginous parts of the fore-flippers were cut off in the mêlée, and passed round to be chewed upon; and even the liver, warm and raw as it was, bade fair to be eaten before it had seen the pot. That night, on the large halting-floe, to which, in contempt of the dangers of drifting, we happy men had hauled our boats, two entire planks of the Red Eric were devoted to a grand cooking-fire, and we enjoyed a rare and savage feast.
“This was our last experience of the disagreeable effects of hunger. In the words of George Stephenson, ‘The charm was broken and the dogs were safe.’ The dogs I have said little about, for none of us liked to think of them. The poor creatures Toodla and Whitey had been taken with us as last resources against starvation. They were, as McGary worded it, ‘meat on the hoof,’ and ‘able to carry their own fat over the floes.’ Once, near Weary Man’s Rest, I had been on the point of killing them; but they had been the leaders of our winter’s team, and we could not bear the sacrifice.”
Within a day or two after killing the large seal, another was shot, and from that time forward they had a full supply of food. On the 1st of August they sighted the Devil’s Thumb, and were soon among the Duck Islands. A few days after this they met an Upernavik oil-boat, and received some scanty news of the world. They learnt that a squadron under Captain Hartstene had left for the north in search of them a short time before. On the 6th of August they arrived at Upernavik, where they were well received by the Danes – eighty-three days after leaving the Advance. The squadron under Hartstene returned in time to convey Dr. Kane and his party to America.
The results of Dr. Kane’s expedition were very important. Ross had declared that Smith Sound was a bay, and although Captain Inglefield in 1852 proved that it was a sound, he reached only 78° 28′. Kane extended our knowledge up to 81° 22′, and all indications tended to show that Kennedy Channel led to the Polar Ocean.
No one can read Kane’s book without being impressed by the noble character of the man. He was a hero in the highest sense of the word. It is sad to relate that he died in Havana on the 16th February 1857, when only thirty-seven years of age.
CHAPTER III
EXPEDITION COMMANDED BY DR. HAYESIN 1860−61
The object of Dr. Hayes’ expedition may be given in his own words: —
“The plan of the enterprise first suggested itself to me while acting as surgeon of the expedition commanded by the late Dr. E. K. Kane, of the United States Navy. Although its execution did not appear feasible at the period of my return from that voyage in October 1855, yet I did not at any time abandon the design. It comprehended an extensive scheme of discovery. The proposed route was that by Smith Sound. My object was to complete the survey of the north coasts of Greenland and Grinnell Land, and to make such explorations as I might find practicable in the direction of the North Pole.
“My proposed base of operations was Grinnell Land, which I had discovered on my former voyage, and had personally traced beyond latitude 80°, far enough to satisfy me that it was available for my design.
“Accepting the deductions of many learned physicists that the sea about the North Pole cannot be frozen, that an open area of varying extent must be found within the Ice-belt which is known to invest it, I desired to add to the proofs which had already been accumulated by the early Dutch and English voyagers, and, more recently, by the researches of Scoresby, Wrangel, and Parry, and still later by Dr. Kane’s expedition.
“It is well known that the great difficulty which has been encountered, in the various attempts that have been made to solve this important physical problem, has been the inability of the explorer to penetrate the Ice-belt with his ship, or to travel over it with sledges sufficiently far to obtain indisputable proof. My former experience led me to the conclusion that the chances of success were greater by Smith Sound than by any other route, and my hopes of success were based upon the expectation which I entertained of being able to push a vessel into the Ice-belt, to about the 80th parallel of latitude, and thence to transport a boat over the ice to the open sea which I hoped to find beyond. Reaching this open sea, if such fortune awaited me, I proposed to launch my boat and to push off northward. For the ice-transportation I expected to rely, mainly, upon the dog of the Esquimaux.”
Dr. Hayes had a strong belief in the existence of an open Polar Sea, but it may here be mentioned that subsequent exploration proved that his views were not correct. On the other hand, the view of the old geographers that for a long distance around the Pole the sea was covered with immovable ice has also been disproved. Throughout the whole year the ice is found to be more or less in motion, except where it is in contact with the land.
Dr.