The Romance of Polar Exploration. G. Firth Scott
necessary, and when at length quiet is restored, the driver has to set to work to unplait the harness, which has been twisted and tied into a terrible tangle by the antics of the team. When, at the expense of a great deal of patience and time, everything is ready for a fresh start, the inexperienced driver is able to estimate the value of cracking the whip over, instead of on, the back of a lazy dog.
Even then, however, it is not all plain sailing. The dogs possess a wisdom of their own, and they never act so well together as when they reach a piece of particularly rough ice over which the sledge does not move easily. Directly they find that they have to lean heavily against the collar to pull the load forward, they, with one accord, turn round, sit down, and look at the driver. If he is inexperienced, he lays about him with his whip and the dogs fight and tangle the harness; if he knows his animals, he puts his shoulder to the sledge, pushes it forward on to the toes of the team, whereupon each one gets up, hurries out of the way of the threatening sledge-runners, and, together, pull it easily over the rough place.
Another peculiarity of the dogs is their extraordinary appetite for leather. Shark skin the Eskimo consider to be bad for them because of its excessive roughness, but birds' skins, with the feathers on, are greatly relished by the insatiable feeders, and, as has been said, leather is an especial luxury. The dogs are incorrigible thieves and frequently sneak into the tents, or, if on board ship, into the cabins, in search of plunder. They are generally greeted with a kick, but should it be sufficiently energetic to dislodge the kicker's shoe, the dog at once seizes the delicacy and makes for a quiet spot on the ice where he can devour it at his leisure.
The dogs, however, which McClintock was able to obtain from the Eskimo were genuinely useful to him when he and Lieutenant Hobson began their prolonged search, and his only regret was that he could not get more. Later explorers have profited by his experience, for now an expedition is never considered complete that does not carry at least one team.
After leaving the Eskimo encampment, search was continued along the southern coast of King William's Land, but without very much success. Returning, they again met the same tribe of Eskimo, and discovered that when one of the race speaks he does not necessarily tell all that he knows. During a conversation between the interpreter and one of the young men, the latter made a reference to the ship that came ashore. As the man who had previously mentioned the ship said that it sank in deep water, the young man was asked how it could have come ashore under those circumstances. The other one sank, he said; the one he meant came ashore, where he had seen it.
Further inquiries showed that both the ships had been seen and visited by the Eskimo while they were yet in the ice. One of them they could not find how to enter, so they made a hole in her side, with the result that when the ice melted she filled and sank. In one of the bunks they found a man lying dead, but no other bodies were right near the ship.
Now that they had been discovered in their attempt to evade the truth, the Eskimo spoke readily enough, giving the exact locality where the ship had come ashore. Thither McClintock and his companions at once proceeded. They found enough evidence in the drift-wood on the beach to show them where the vessel had gone to pieces; but whether it was the Erebus or the Terror, there was nothing to show. They had now, however, a definite point from whence to commence their search, and they laid out the probable routes by which the escaping crews would have travelled. Separating into two parties, so as to cover as much ground as possible, they started, Lieutenant Hobson leading.
On May 25, 1859, McClintock, while walking along a sandy ridge from whence the snow had disappeared, noticed something white shining through the sand. He stooped to examine it, thinking it to be a round white stone, but closer inspection showed it to be the back of a skull. Upon the sand being removed, the entire skeleton was found, lying face downwards, with fragments of blue cloth still adhering to its bleached bones. The man had evidently been young, lightly built, and of the average height. Near by were found a small pocket brush and comb, and a pocket-book containing two coins and some scraps of writing. He had evidently fallen forward as he was walking, and never risen. As an old Eskimo woman told Dr. Rae, "they fell down and died as they walked along," overcome with cold, hunger, and sickness.
The explorers were now in the region where all their finds were to be made. Five days later McClintock came upon a boat which he found, from a note attached to it, that Hobson had already examined. It had evidently escaped the notice of the Eskimo, and, until the white men found it, had probably not been touched by human hands from the moment its occupants had died. It was mounted on a sledge, as though it had been hauled over the ice; but from the fact that its bows pointed towards the spot where the ships had been, it was surmised that the men were dragging it back to the vessels when they were overcome. Inside were two bodies, one lying on its side, under a pile of clothing, towards the stern, and the other in the bows, in such a position as to suggest that the man had crawled forward, had laboriously pulled himself up to look over the gunwale, and had then slipped down and died where he fell. Beside him were two guns, loaded and ready cocked, as though the man had been apprehensive of attack. There were also as many as five watches, several books (mostly with the name of Graham Gore or initials G. G. in them), abundance of clothes and other articles such as knives, pieces of sheet-lead, files, sounding leads and lines, spoons and forks, oars, a sail, and two chronometers, but of food only some tea and chocolate.
The story mutely told by these relics was only too plain. Weary with hauling it, the majority of the men had left the boat in order to get back to the ships and obtain a fresh supply of provisions, leaving two, who were too weak to struggle on, in the boat, as comfortable as they could be made until some of the others could get back to help them. Then the days had passed until the store of provisions had been consumed and the two sufferers had grown weary with waiting, so weary that one had slept and died under his wraps, and the other, with his remaining vestige of strength, had crawled forward to peep out once more for the help that was so long in coming. But only ice had met his gaze, and, sinking down, he had also passed into that overwhelming sleep, and had lain undisturbed for twelve years under the covering of the Arctic snows.
Close search was made in the vicinity of the boat for the remains of any other of the lost explorers, but nothing was discovered except drift-wood. The spot where the boat was found was about fifty miles from Point Victory, sixty-five from the place where the ship had gone ashore, and seventy from the skeleton that McClintock had discovered on the ridge.
A few days' march farther on, a cairn was noticed upon the brow of a point near Cape Victoria. On ascending to it, McClintock found another note from Hobson, stating that he had already examined it and recovered from it the record which the crews had deposited there upon the desertion of the ships, and which is given in the account of the Franklin voyages. This was the final triumph of the search, for it conclusively proved that Sir John had been dead before the ships were abandoned, that he, and not McClure, was the real discoverer of the North-West Passage, and that the expedition had ended in a disaster as pitiful as the commencement had been brilliant. Round the cairn were strewn innumerable relics, showing that the three days which had elapsed from the time of their leaving the ships had been sufficient to further decrease the strength and vitality of the scurvy-stricken unfortunates.
No other discovery of moment was made after the unearthing of the vital record, but Lieutenant Hobson had some experience of what the Franklin explorers must have suffered. He had abundance of food with him, and that the best and most nutritious, but he developed scurvy on his journey, and when he reached the Fox he could not walk without assistance. No wonder, then, that Franklin's men, starving as well as sick, should have died by the way.
The return of the Fox in September 1859 effectually set at rest all doubts as to the fate of the Erebus and Terror, and no more search expeditions were sent out. But in 1879 Lieutenant Schwatka, of the United States Navy, made an overland journey to that part of King William's Land where the crews had perished. He found many more skeletons, doubtless of members of the ill-fated expedition, and wherever he found one lying above ground he buried it with proper ceremony, except in a single instance.
This was in the case of an open grave of stones in which the remains of a skeleton, with some blue cloth adhering to it and some coarse canvas around it, was lying. Near the remains he found a silver medal bearing the words,