Explorers and Travellers Part 13

"I cannot rest from travel, ...

For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known: cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least but honored of them all."

Suffice it here to say that before Kane was thirty he had visited in America the greater part of the eastern half of the United States, the city of Mexico, Cuba, and Brazil from Rio de Janeiro to the eastern Andes; in Africa, along the Gold and Slave Coasts, to Dahomey, Cape Colony, and up the Nile to the Second Cataract; in Europe, the eastern, southern, and central countries; in Asia, the coast of China, Ceylon, India from Bombay to the Himalayas, Persia, and Syria. Elsewhere he had travelled in the islands of Cape Verde, Singapore, Java, Sumatra, and Luzon of the Philippines. This incessant travel is the more remarkable as he was always sea-sick, was a man of delicate physique, and nowhere pa.s.sed six months without being prostrated by severe illness. As to personal experiences, he had been wounded in Egypt by a Bedouin who strove to rob him, narrowly escaped death in saving captured Mexican officers from slaughter at the hands of renegade irregulars, and barely survived his unique experiences in the crater of a volcano.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Elisha Kent Kane.]

His descent into the volcano of Tael, in the Philippines, ill.u.s.trates Kane's utter disregard of dangers whenever he desired to investigate any phenomena. As related by Dr. Elder, Kane not only was lowered two hundred feet below the point usually visited, but descended to the very surface of the burning lake and dipped his specimen bottles into the steaming sulphur water. This feat nearly cost him his life, for although he was able to crawl to and fasten the bamboo ropes around his body, yet his boots were charred in pieces on his feet, sulphurous air-currents stifled him into insensibility, and he would have perished had it not been for the strenuous exertions of Baron Loe, his companion.

The turning-point in Kane's life came in 1850, when, induced by the persistent pet.i.tion of Lady Franklin, President Taylor recommended to Congress an appropriation for an expedition in search of Sir John Franklin and his missing ships. Kane immediately volunteered for Arctic service, pressing and urging his application by every means at his command. Congress acted tardily, so that the whole expedition was fitted out in eighteen days, and Kane at the last moment, when his hopes had failed, received orders as surgeon of the Advance, the flagship, which he joined May 20, 1850.

The expedition owed its existence to the enterprise and generosity of Henry Grinnell, whose philanthropic mind planned, practical energy equipped, and munificence endowed it. Without Grinnell's action Congress would have failed to fit out the expedition, and the grateful chapter of American co-operation with England in its Franklin search would have been unwritten. Such practical displays of sympathy in matters of general and national interest, now considered the most hopeful signs of international fellowship, may be said to have been inaugurated by the despatch of the first Grinnell expedition on its errand of humanity.

Under a joint resolution of Congress, pa.s.sed May 2, 1850, the President was authorized "to accept and attach to the navy two vessels offered by Henry Grinnell, Esq., to be sent to the Arctic seas in search of Sir John Franklin and his companions." These vessels--two very small brigs, the flagship Advance and the Rescue--were placed under command of Lieutenant Edwin J. DeHaven, an officer of Antarctic service under Wilkes. The vessels had detachable rudders, modern fittings, were admirably strengthened and fully equipped; in short, they were thoroughly adapted to the difficult navigation in prospect. Where Grinnell's forethought and liberality ended there was, says Kane, another tale: the strictly naval equipment could not be praised, and the "crews consisted of man-of-war's-men of various climes and habitudes, with const.i.tutions most of them impaired by disease or temporarily broken by the excesses of sh.o.r.e life;" but he commends them as ever brave, willing, and reliable.

The squadron touched at various Greenland ports and then entered the dreaded ice-pack of Melville Bay, in which the sailing vessels made slow progress; but in their besetment of three weeks the only dangerous experience was a "nip," which nearly destroyed the Advance. The movement of the ice-floes is thus graphically told by Kane: "The momentum of the a.s.sailing floe was so irresistible that as it impinged against the solid margin of the land ice there was no recoil, no interruption to its progress. The elastic material corrugated before the enormous pressure, then cracked, then crumbled, and at last rose, the lesser over the greater, sliding up in great inclined planes, and these again, breaking by their weight and their continued impulse, toppled over in long lines of fragmentary ice."

DeHaven entered Lancaster Sound, near the end of August, in company with half a dozen English ships bound on the same humane errand, and on the 24th Master Griffin, of the Rescue, partic.i.p.ated in the search with Captain Ommaney, which resulted in the discovery, on Beechy Island, of vestiges of an encampment. Two days later DeHaven and Kane shared in the joint search, wherein Captain Penny discovered the graves of three of Franklin's crew. These discoveries proved that Franklin's expedition had wintered there during 1845-46, and later innumerable traces of their stay were noted, indicating the good condition and activity of the expedition. On September 10th DeHaven's squadron was off Griffith Island in company with eight English search ships. Consulting with Griffin, DeHaven concluded that they had not attained such a position as promised advantageous operations in the season of 1851, and so decided to extricate the vessels from the ice and return home.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Arctic Highway.]

Strong gales and an unusually early advance of winter prevented such action and resulted in the ships being frozen up in the pack, where they drifted helplessly to and fro, a condition they were destined to undergo for many months. Beset in the middle of Wellington Channel, the American squadron, with varying movements to and fro, first drifted under the influence of southerly gales to the north-northwest, attaining lat.i.tude 75 25' N., longitude 93 31' W. In this northerly drift the expedition discovered Murdaugh Island and quite extensive ma.s.ses of land to the northwest of North Devon, to which the name of Grinnell was given. This land was further extended the following year by the discoveries of Captain Penny, and most unwarrantable efforts were made by ungenerous and unappreciating officials in England to take from the American squadron its ewe lamb of 1850, an attempt that, properly refuted, failed of its purpose.

October 2, 1860, the direction of the drift changed to the south and later to the east. Their involuntary course lay through Wellington Channel, Barrow Strait, and Lancaster Sound into Baffin Bay, where release came, near Cape Walsingham, June 5, 1851. The drift covered ten hundred and fifty miles and lasted eight and a half months. The sun was absent twelve weeks. It is impossible to adequately describe the physical and mental sufferings of the party during this protracted ice imprisonment. It was a constant succession of hara.s.sing conditions, each, if possible, seeming worse than the former. Now the ships were so firmly imbedded in the cemented ice-pack that extrication appeared impossible; again the complete disruption of the pack threatened, or the instant destruction of their vessels impended, with prospects of a winter on the naked floe under such conditions of darkness, sickness, lack of shelter, and suitable nutrition as would render a lingering death unavoidable. No single week pa.s.sed with a feeling of security; for days at a time there was no hour free from terrible suspense as to what fate might immediately befall, and four times in one day the entire party prepared to abandon ship at order. The cold became extreme, the mean of one week in March being thirty-one degrees below zero; seal and other fresh meat could be got only in small quant.i.ties, and scurvy, the bane of Arctic explorers, affected all save six of the crew, DeHaven being put off duty by this disease. In all these terrible experiences, which were borne with a fort.i.tude, courage, and patience most creditable, Kane was first and foremost in sustaining the heroic efforts of Griffin, master of the Rescue, on whom the executive duties devolved during DeHaven's illness. It may be said that not only Kane's medical skill, but also his cheeriness, activity, and ingenious devices contributed largely to conserve the health, spirits, and morale of the crew in these dark hours when despair seemed justified.

Released from the pack, DeHaven patched up his injured ships and attempted to return and prosecute further the Franklin search; but, stopped in his return journey by ice in the upper part of Melville Bay, he judiciously decided to return to the United States, which was safely reached September 30, 1851.

The following extracts from Kane's very vivid account of the expedition ill.u.s.trate some of the most striking phases of their experiences as recorded in his journal.

Of the conditions and experience of the Advance in the moving ice-pack he says:

"We were yet to be familiarized with the strife of the ice-tables, now broken into tumbling ma.s.ses and piling themselves in angry confusion against our sides; now fixed in chaotic disarray by the fields of new ice that imbedded them in a single night; again, perhaps, opening in treacherous pools, only to close around us with a force that threatened to grind our brig to powder."

"A level snow-covered surface was rising up in inclined planes or rudely undulating curves. These, breaking at their summits, fell off on each side in ma.s.ses of twenty tons' weight. Tables of six feet in thickness by twenty of perpendicular height, and some of them fifteen yards in length, surging up into the misty air, heaving, rolling, tottering, and falling with a majestic deliberation worthy of the forces that impelled them."

The following descriptions indicate the narrow escapes of the ships from destruction during disruptions of the ice-pack:

"The separated sides would come together with an explosion like a mortar, craunching the newly formed field and driving it headlong in fragments for fifty feet upon the floe till it piled up against our bulwarks. Everything betokened a crisis. Sledges, boats, packages of all sorts were disposed in order; contingencies were met as they approached by new delegations of duty; every man was at work, officers and seamen alike. The Rescue, crippled and thrown away from us to the further side of a chasm, was deserted, and her company consolidated with ours. Our own brig groaned and quivered under the pressure against her sides."

"The ice came in with the momentum before mentioned as irresistible, progressive, and grand. All expected to betake ourselves sledgeless to the ice, for the open s.p.a.ce around the vessel barely admits of a foot-board. The timbers and even cross-beams protected by sh.o.r.es vibrated so as to communicate to you the peculiar tremor of a cotton-factory. Presently the stern of the brig, by a succession of jerking leaps, began to rise, while her bows dipped toward the last night's ice ahead. Everybody looked to see her fall upon her beam-ends and rushed out upon the ice."

"On the 13th the hummock ridge astern advanced with a steady march upon the vessel. Twice it rested and advanced again--a dense wall of ice, thirty feet broad at the base and twelve feet high, tumbling huge fragments from its crest, yet increasing in ma.s.s at every new effort. We had ceased to hope, when a merciful interposition arrested it, so close against our counter that there was scarcely room for a man to pa.s.s between. Half a minute of progress more and it would have buried us all.

As we drifted along five months afterward this stupendous memento of controlling power was still hanging over our stern."

The discomfort of the prescribed out-of-door exercise in extreme cold appears from the following:

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Sleeping-bag for Three Men.]

"Close the lips for the first minute or two and admit the air suspiciously through nostril and mustache. Presently you breathe in a dry, pungent but gracious and agreeable atmosphere. The beard, eyebrows, eyelashes, and the downy p.u.b.escence of the ears acquire a delicate white and perfectly enveloped cover of venerable h.o.a.r-frost. The mustache and under lip form pendulous beads of dangling ice. Put out your tongue and it instantly freezes to this icy crusting, and a rapid effort and some hand aid will be required to liberate it. The less you talk the better.

Your chin has a trick of freezing to your upper jaw by the luting aid of your beard; even my eyes have often been so glued as to show that even a wink may be unsafe."

The unfortunate physical condition of the party made Kane's duties most onerous and wearing. In mid-winter he says:

"Scurvy advanced steadily. This fearful disease, so often warded off when in a direct attack, now exhibited itself in a cachexy, a depraved condition of system sad to encounter. Pains diffuse and non-locatable were combined with an apathy and la.s.situde which resisted all attempts at healthy excitement. These, of course, were not confined to the crew alone: out of twenty-four men but five were without ulcerated gums and blotched limbs. All the officers were a.s.sailed."

The expedition safe in port, the recollection of the horrors and privations of his mid-winter drift through the polar pack did not deter Kane from again braving the danger of Arctic exploration, and he was soon busily engaged in stimulating public opinion to the support of another expedition. To this end he especially addressed the American Geographic Society, of which Henry Grinnell was president, presenting a well-intended but fallacious and illogical plan for continuing the search for Franklin.

Kane was personally aware, from the experiences of his previous voyage with DeHaven, that Franklin had wintered at Beechy Island, in 74 43'

N., 91 33' W., and that his positive orders from the admiralty required him to push southward from the vicinity of Cape Walker to Behring Strait. A search for him by the way of Smith Sound, four degrees of lat.i.tude to the _northward_ and seventeen degrees of longitude to the _eastward_ of his last known position, rested on the violent a.s.sumption that Franklin had not only directly disobeyed his positive orders to go _west_ and _southwest_, but had done so after one-third of the distance from Greenland to Behring Strait had been accomplished.

Again there had lately been made public in England the last direct report from the Franklin expedition--a letter from Captain Fitzjames--who relates that Franklin showed him part of his instructions, expressed his disbelief in an open sea to the north, and gave "a pleasant account of his expectations of being able to get through the ice on the coast of America." Dr. Rae had also reported finding drift material on the north coast of America, which, having the broad arrow and red thread of the government, could come from the quarter where Franklin's orders sent him, thus confirming the belief that he had gone southwest from Cape Walker. Moreover, the squadrons of Belcher and Collinson were actively engaged in the search northward of America.

It was finally decided that a second expedition should be sent, the United States co-operating, as before, with private enterprise; and to the command of this expedition Kane was a.s.signed, by orders from the Secretary of the Navy, in November, 1852. The expedition was fitted out through the liberality of two Americans, Henry Grinnell, who again placed the brig Advance at the disposal of the government, and George Peabody, the American philanthropist, who contributed $10,000, a sum that practically covered all other expenses of the voyage.

Kane's faith in the existence of an open polar sea and his intention of reaching it were clearly a.s.serted. Combined with the proposed search for Franklin was a declared purpose to extend northward the discoveries of Inglefield, in 1851, on the west coast of Greenland, where, as Kane says, he contemplated reaching "its most northern attainable point, and thence pressing on toward the Pole as far as boats or sledges could carry us, examine the coast lines for vestiges of the lost party."

The expedition sailed from New York May 30, 1853, consisting of eighteen men, all volunteers, although ten belonged to the United States Navy.

Except as regards scientific instruments, the equipment of the expedition was in most respects inadequate and unsuitable for Arctic service, the bulk of the provisions, for instance, being hard bread, salt beef, and pork, with no canned meats or vegetables.

The Greenland ports were visited, where a moderate amount of fur clothing and fifty Esquimau dogs were purchased. On June 27th the Advance entered Melville Bay, and standing boldly to the westward, although hindered by the loose drifting ice, was favored by an offsh.o.r.e gale, and in ten days pa.s.sed into the open sea west of Cape York, known to Arctic voyagers as the "North Water," the only misfortune being the loss of a whaleboat. In order to secure retreat Kane, fortunately for himself as it afterward proved, cached his metallic life-boat, filled with boat stores, on Littleton Island. Favored by the conditions of the ice Kane rounded Cape Hatherton, when the main pack setting southward obliged him to seek shelter in Refuge Harbor, a land-locked cove. Later the Advance was able, as the ice opened, to make sail and pa.s.s around Cairn Point, but a violent gale broke her from her moorings and nearly wrecked her. The ice conditions were now so adverse that seven of his eight officers addressed to him written opinions in favor of a return to a more southern harbor. Such retrograde movement would have removed them from the contemplated field of operations, and Kane declined. Every favorable opportunity of warping the brig--she could be moved in no other way--was availed of, and despite most difficult conditions of ice and water, the brig being on her beam-ends at low tide and jammed by floes at high water, she was moved a number of miles to the eastward, and on September 9th was put into winter-quarters in Rensselaer Harbor, 78 37' N., 71 14' W., which, says Kane, "we were fated never to leave together--a long resting-place to her, for the same ice is around her still."

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Coming Arctic Night.]

Scarcely were they moored than signs of coming winter crowded fast one after another; the flowers were blackened by frost; long lines of flying water-fowl trended southward, leaving solitary the hardy snow-bird; the sun grew lower from day to day with startling rapidity, and the young ice cemented the separated old floes into one solid roadway for the sledgemen. Kane set about exploring the country and travelled some fifty miles to Mary Minturn River, whence from adjoining high land he had a view of Washington land, the vicinity of Cape Const.i.tution. During this journey he first observed the peculiar ice formation now known as the ice-foot, but then novel. It is best described in his words: "We were on a table or shelf of ice which clung to the base of rocks overlooking the sea, ... with huge angular blocks, some many tons in weight, scattered over its surface." Hayes and Wilson travelled some fifty miles into the interior till their further progress was stopped by the edge of the inland ice. McGary and Bonsall, with sledge party of seven, made three caches to the northeast, the farthest being in 79 12' N., 65 25' W., under the face of an enormous glacier, to which the name of Humboldt was given.

The winter pa.s.sed quietly, the officers making tidal, astronomical, magnetic, and meteorological observations, while the men, engaged in ordinary pursuits, kept in health. Unfortunately fifty-seven, nearly all, of the dogs died, thus depriving Kane of his main reliance for field operations. The extreme cold--the mean temperature for December to March, inclusive, being thirty-two degrees below zero--had reduced the fuel so that the allowance was three buckets a day. Other supplies commenced to show their need or inadequacy; oil for lamps failed, as did fresh meat from game, and unfortunately there was no canned meat, only salted.

Despite his loss of dogs Kane decided on laying out new depots, and with the advance of March he watched eagerly the temperature. From the 10th to the 19th the cold averaged seventy-six degrees below the freezing-point. He started his man-sledge on the 20th, under charge of Brooks, first officer, with seven others at the drag-ropes.

Unfortunately the equipment was either somewhat defective or some of the party were inexperienced in the methods needful for self-preservation in such extreme cold. Kane gives no details of the causes of the calamity save to say that "a heavy gale from the north-northeast broke upon the party, and the temperature fell to fifty-seven below zero."

The first news of the disaster came from Sontag, Ohlsen, and Petersen, who suddenly appeared in the cabin, at midnight of March 31st, swollen, haggard, and hardly able to speak. Kane continues: "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 among the hummocks to the northeast; it was drifting heavily around them. Irish Tom had stayed to care for the others. It was vain to question them, for they were sinking with fatigue and hunger, and could hardly be rallied enough to tell us the direction."

Kane instantly organized a relief party of ten men, which, despite his delicate physique, he headed himself. Taking Ohlsen, the most rational of the sufferers, in a fur bag, and as lightly equipped as was possible, the rescuers moved out in a temperature seventy-eight degrees below freezing. Ohlsen fell asleep, but on awakening was of no use as guide owing to his delirious condition. Reaching a large level floe Kane put up his tent and scattered his party to find traces of the lost men.

Eighteen hours had now elapsed and Kane's own party was in a deplorable state, partly owing to the extreme cold and partly to extreme nervousness arising from anxiety and sympathy. He says: "McGary and Bonsall, who had stood out our severest marches, were seized with trembling fits and short breath, and in spite of all my efforts I fainted twice on the snow." Fortunately Hans, the Esquimau, found a sledge-track which led to the camp in a few hours, where Kane found the four men on their backs, whose welcome greeting, "We expected you: we were sure you would come," proved how great was their confidence in their commander. The day was extremely cold and most providentially clear and sunny, but even with these favoring conditions it was almost a miracle that they were able to drag the frozen men to the brig. "The tendency to sleep," says Kane, "could only be overcome by mechanical violence; and when at last we got back to the brig, still dragging the wounded men instinctively behind us, there was not one whose mind was found to be unimpaired." Baker and Schubert died; Wilson and Brooks finally recovered, losing, however, part of their feet by amputation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Esquimau Boys Fishing.]

Kane determined to lead the next party himself, and near the end of April, 1854, with seven men he attempted to lay down an india-rubber boat high up on the Greenland coast. He had, however, sadly overrated the strength of his men and of himself. About eighty miles from the brig, near Dallas Bay, one man broke down entirely and four others were partly disabled, and their cache was made at that point with many misgivings, as bears had destroyed the stores laid down the previous autumn. The troubles of the party now commenced, for Kane, fainting while making an observation, had to be hauled back by the disabled men.

Despite the moderate temperature Kane's left foot froze, his limbs became rigid and badly swollen, fainting spells were more frequent, and he fell into alternate spells of delirium and unconsciousness, in which state his broken-down sledge crew conveyed him by forced marches to the brig, where, says Hayes, the surgeon, he arrived nearly insensible and so swollen by scurvy as to be hardly recognizable, and in such a debilitated state that an exposure of a few more hours would have terminated his life. Kane's wonderful recuperative powers speedily restored him from his nearly helpless condition to a state of comparative good health, but he could not conceal his evident inability to personally attempt further sledge journeys that spring.

In this emergency he decided to send his surgeon, Dr. I. I. Hayes, to explore the western sh.o.r.e of Smith's Strait, from Cape Sabine northward, and for this purpose detailed G.o.dfrey with the seven best dogs available.

The ice over Smith's Sound was extremely rough, so that progress was slow and tedious. Finally, with his provisions nearly exhausted, Hayes reached land in the vicinity of Dobbin Bay and made his farthest at Cape Hayes, which, according to his observations, was in about 79 45' N.

Hayes was stricken with snow-blindness; the journey was extremely exhausting; G.o.dfrey broke down, and the dogs were so nearly worn out that at the last camp they abandoned sleeping-bags, extra clothing, and everything except arms and instruments. Kane says that both men were snow-blind on arrival at the brig, and the doctor, in a state of exhaustion, had to be led to his bedside to make his report.

Impressed with Hayes's success on the west sh.o.r.e of Smith's Sound, Kane decided to send Morton northward on the Greenland side so as to determine the extent of the frozen channel seen by Hayes from his farthest. Morton was supported by a sledge party of four men, who reached Humboldt glacier after ten days' travel, and were here joined by Esquimau Hans with a dog-sledge. On the 18th the supporting party turned homeward, while Morton and Hans, with a dog-sledge, started northward, travelling about five miles distant from and parallel with the face of Humboldt glacier.

On June 24th Morton's northward progress was stopped by very high, perpendicular cliffs washed by open water and free from the customary ice-foot. All efforts to pa.s.s around the projecting cliff, to which the name of Cape Const.i.tution was given, proved unavailing. Morton says: "The k.n.o.b to which I climbed was over five hundred feet in height, and from it not a speck of ice was to be seen as far as I could observe; the sea was open, the swell came from the northward, ... and the surf broke in on the rocks below in regular breakers."