Part 3 (1/2)

A southerly breeze enabling us to regain our northing, we ran along the margin of the ice, but were led so much to the eastward by it, that we could approach the s.h.i.+p no nearer than before during the whole day. She appeared to us at this distance to have a much greater heel than when the people left her, which made us still more anxious to get near her. A south-west wind gave us hopes of the ice setting off from the land, but it produced no good effect during the whole of the 24th. We, therefore, beat again to the southward to see if we could manage to get in with the land anywhere about the sh.o.r.es of the bay; but this was now impracticable, the ice being once more closely packed there. We could only wait, therefore, in patience, for some alteration in our favour.

The lat.i.tude at noon was 72 34' 57?, making our distance from the _Fury_ twelve miles, which by the morning of the 25th had increased to at least five leagues, the ice continuing to ”pack” between us and the sh.o.r.e. The wind, however, now gradually drew round to the westward, giving us hopes of a change, and we continued to ply about the margin of the ice, in constant readiness for taking advantage of any opening that might occur.

It favoured us so much by streaming off in the course of the day, that by seven P.M. we had nearly reached a channel of clear water, which kept open for seven or eight miles from the land. Being impatient to obtain a sight of the _Fury_, and the wind becoming light, Captain Hoppner and myself left the _Hecla_ in two boats, and reached the s.h.i.+p at half-past nine, or about three-quarters of an hour before high water, being the most favourable time of tide for arriving to examine her condition.

We found her heeling so much outward, that her main channels were within a foot of the water; and the large floe-piece, which was still alongside of her, seemed alone to support her below water, and to prevent her falling over still more considerably. The s.h.i.+p had been forced much further up the beach than before, and she had now in her bilge above nine feet of water, which reached higher than the lower-deck beams. On looking down the stern-post, which, seen against the light-coloured ground, and in shoal water, was now very distinctly visible, we found that she had pushed the stones at the bottom up before her, and that the broken keel, stern-post, and deadwood had, by the recent pressure, been more damaged and turned up than before. She appeared princ.i.p.ally to hang upon the ground abreast of the gangway, where, at high water, the depth was eleven feet alongside her keel; forward and aft from thirteen to sixteen feet; so that at low tide, allowing the usual fall of five or six feet, she would be lying in a depth of from five to ten feet only. The first hour's inspection of the _Fury's_ condition too plainly a.s.sured me that exposed as she was, and forcibly pressed up upon an open and stony beach, her holds full of water, and the damage of her hull to all appearance and in all probability more considerable than before, without any adequate means of hauling her off to seaward, or securing her from the further incursions of the ice, every endeavour of ours to get her off, or if got off, to float her to any known place of safety, would be at once utterly hopeless in itself, and productive of extreme risk to our remaining s.h.i.+p.

Being anxious, however, in a case of so much importance, to avail myself of the judgment and experience of others, I directed Captain Hoppner, in conjunction with Lieutenants Austin and Sherer, and Mr. Pulfer, carpenter, being the officers who accompanied me to the _Fury_, to hold a survey upon her, and to report their opinions to me. And to prevent the possibility of the officers receiving any bias from my own opinion, the order was given to them the moment we arrived on board the _Fury_.

Captain Hoppner and the other officers, after spending several hours in attentively examining every part of the s.h.i.+p, both within and without, and maturely weighing all the circ.u.mstances of her situation, gave it as their opinion that it would be quite impracticable to make her seaworthy, even if she could be hauled off, which would first require the water to be got out of the s.h.i.+p, and the holds to be once more entirely cleared.

Mr. Pulfer, the carpenter of the _Fury_, considered that it would occupy five days to clear the s.h.i.+p of water; that if she were got off, all the pumps would not be sufficient to keep her free, in consequence of the additional damage she seemed to have sustained; and that, if even hove down, twenty days' work, with the means we possessed, would be required for making her seaworthy. Captain Hoppner and the other officers were, therefore, of opinion that an absolute necessity existed for abandoning the _Fury_. My own opinion being thus confirmed as to the utter hopelessness of saving her, and feeling more strongly than ever the responsibility which attached to me of preserving the _Hecla_ unhurt, it was with extreme pain and regret that I made the signal for the _Fury's_ officers and men to be sent for their clothes, most of which had been put on sh.o.r.e with the stores.

The _Hecla's_ bower-anchor, which had been placed on the beach, was sent on board as soon as the people came on sh.o.r.e; but her remaining cable was too much entangled with the grounded ice to be disengaged without great loss of time. Having allowed the officers and men an hour for packing up their clothes, and what else belonging to them the water in the s.h.i.+p had not covered, the _Fury's_ boats were hauled up on the beach, and at two A.M. I left her, and was followed by Captain Hoppner, Lieutenant Austin, and the last of the people in half an hour after.

The whole of the _Fury's_ stores were of necessity left either on board her or on sh.o.r.e, every spare corner that we could find in the _Hecla_ being now absolutely required for the accommodation of our double complement of officers and men, whose cleanliness and health could only be maintained by keeping the decks as clear and well ventilated as our limited s.p.a.ce would permit. The spot where the _Fury_ was left is in lat.i.tude 72 42' 30?, the longitude by chronometers is 91 50' 05?, the dip of the magnetic needle 88 19' 22?, and the variation 129 25'

westerly.

When the accident first happened to the _Fury_, I confidently expected to have been able to repair her damages in good time to take advantage of a large remaining part of the navigable season in the prosecution of the voyage; and while the clearing of the s.h.i.+p was going on with so much alacrity, and the repairs seemed to be within the reach of our means and resources, I still flattered myself with the same hope. But as soon as the gales began to destroy, with a rapidity of which we had before no conception, our sole defence from the incursions of the ice, as well as the only trustworthy means we before possessed of holding the _Hecla_ out for heaving the _Fury_ down, I confess that the prospect of the necessity then likely to arise for removing her to some other station, was sufficient to shake every reasonable expectation I had hitherto cherished of the ultimate accomplishment of our object. Those expectations were now at an end. With a twelvemonth's provisions for both s.h.i.+ps'

companies, extending our resources only to the autumn of the following year, it would have been folly to hope for final success, considering the small progress we had already made, the uncertain nature of this navigation, and the advanced period of the present season. I was, therefore, reduced to the only remaining conclusion that it was my duty, under all the circ.u.mstances of the case, to return to England, in compliance with the plain tenor of my instructions. As soon as the boats were hoisted up, therefore, and the anchor stowed, the s.h.i.+p's head was put to the north-eastward, with a light air off the land, in order to gain an offing before the ice should again set in-sh.o.r.e.

CHAPTER VII.

Some Remarks upon the loss of the Fury-And on the Natural History, &c., of the Coast of North Somerset-Arrive at Neill's Harbour-Death of John Page-Leave Neill's Harbour-Recross the Ice in Baffin's Bay-Heavy Gales-Aurora Borealis-Temperature of the Sea-Arrival in England.

The accident which had now befallen the _Fury_, and which, when its fatal result was finally ascertained, at once put an end to every prospect of success in the main object of this voyage, is not an event which will excite surprise in the minds of those who are either personally acquainted with the true nature of this precarious navigation, or have had patience to follow me through the tedious and monotonous detail of our operations during seven successive summers. To any persons thus qualified to judge it will be plain that an occurrence of this nature was at all times rather to be expected than otherwise, and that the only real cause for wonder has been our long exemption from such a catastrophe. I can confidently affirm, and I trust that on such an occasion I may be permitted to make the remark, that the mere safety of the s.h.i.+ps has never been more than a secondary object in the conduct of the expeditions under my command. To push forward while there was any open water to enable us to do so has uniformly been our first endeavour; it has not been until the channel has actually terminated that we have ever been accustomed to look for a place of shelter, to which the s.h.i.+ps were then conducted with all possible despatch; and I may safely venture to predict that no s.h.i.+p acting otherwise will ever accomplish the Northwest Pa.s.sage. On numerous occasions, which will easily recur to the memory of those I have had the honour to command, the s.h.i.+ps might easily have been placed among the ice and left to drift with it in comparative, if not absolute, security, when the holding them on has been preferred, though attended with hourly and imminent peril. This was precisely the case on the present occasion; the s.h.i.+ps might certainly have been pushed into the ice a day or two, or even a week beforehand, and thus preserved from all risk of being forced on sh.o.r.e; but where they would have been drifted, and when they would have been again disengaged from the ice, or at liberty to take advantage of the occasional openings in-sh.o.r.e (by which alone the navigation of these seas is to be performed with any degree of certainty), I believe it impossible for any one to form the most distant idea. Such, then, being the necessity for constant and unavoidable risk, it cannot reasonably excite surprise that on a single occasion out of so many in which the same accident seemed, as it were, impending, it should actually have taken place.

The ice we met with after leaving Port Bowen, previously to the _Fury's_ disaster, and for some days after, I consider to have been much the lightest as well as the most broken we have ever had to contend with.

During the time we were shut up at our last station near the _Fury_, one or two floes of very large dimensions drifted past us; and these were of that heavy ”hummocky” kind which we saw off Cape Kater in the beginning of August, 1819. On the whole, however, Mr. Allison and myself had constant occasion to remark the total absence of floes, and the unusual lightness of the other ice. We thought, indeed, that this latter circ.u.mstance might account for its being almost incessantly in motion on this coast; for heavy ice, when once it is pressed home upon the sh.o.r.e, and has ceased to move, generally remains quiet, until a change of wind or tide makes it slacken. But with lighter ice, the frequent breaking and doubling of the parts which sustain the strain, whenever any increase of pressure takes place, will set the whole body once more in motion till the s.p.a.ce is again filled up. This was so often the case while our s.h.i.+ps lay in the most exposed situations on this unsheltered coast, that we were never relieved for a moment from the apprehension of some new and increased pressure.

The summer of 1825 was, beyond all doubt, the warmest and most favourable we had experienced since that of 1818. Not more than two or three days occurred, during the months of July and August, in which that heavy fall of snow took place which so commonly converts the aspect of Nature in these regions, in a single hour, from the cheerfulness of summer into the dreariness of winter. Indeed, we experienced very little either of snow, rain, or fog; vegetation, wherever the soil allowed any to spring up, was extremely luxuriant and forward; a great deal of the old snow which had laid on the ground during the last season was rapidly dissolving even early in August; and every appearance of Nature exhibited a striking contrast with the last summer, while it seemed evidently to furnish an extraordinary compensation for its rigour and inclemency.

We have scarcely ever visited a coast on which so little of animal life occurs. For days together, only one or two seals, a single sea-horse, and now and then a flock of ducks, were seen. I have already mentioned, however, as an exception to this scarcity of animals, the numberless kittiwakes which were flying about the remarkable spout of water; and we were one day visited, at the place where the _Fury_ was left, by hundreds of white whales sporting about in the shoal water close to the beach. No black whales were ever seen on this coast. Two reindeer were observed by the gentlemen who extended their walks inland; but this was the only summer in which we did not procure a single pound of venison. Indeed, the whole of our supplies obtained in this way during the voyage, including fish, flesh, and fowl, did not exceed twenty pounds per man.

During the time that we were made fast upon this coast, in which situation alone observations on current can be satisfactorily made, it is certain that the ice was setting to the southward, and sometimes at a rapid rate, full seven days out of every ten on an average. Had I now witnessed this for the first time in these seas, I should probably have concluded that there was a constant southerly set at this season; but the experience we had before obtained of that superficial current which every breeze of wind creates in a sea enc.u.mbered with ice, coupled with the fact that while this set was noticed we had an almost continual prevalence of northerly winds, inclines me to believe that it was to be attributed-chiefly at least-to this circ.u.mstance, especially as, on one or two occasions, with rather a light breeze from the southward, the ice did set slowly in the opposite direction. It is not by a few unconnected observations that a question of this kind is to be settled, as the facts noticed during our detention near the west end of Melville Island in 1820 will abundantly testify; every light air of wind producing, in half an hour's time, an extraordinary change of current setting at an incredible rate along the land.

The existence of these variable and irregular currents adds, of course, very much to the difficulty of determining the true direction of the flood-tide, the latter being generally much the weaker of the two, and therefore either wholly counteracted by the current, or simply tending to accelerate it. On this account, though I attended very carefully to the subject of the tides, I cannot pretend to say for certain from what direction the flood-tide comes on this coast; the impression on my mind, however, has been, upon the whole, in favour of its flowing from the southward. The time of high water on the full and change days of the moon is from half-past eleven to twelve o'clock, being nearly the same as at Port Bowen; but the tides are so irregular at times, that in the s.p.a.ce of three days the r.e.t.a.r.dation will occasionally not amount to an hour. I observed, however, that, as the days of full and change, or of the moon's quarter approached, the irregularity was corrected, and the time rectified, by some tide of extraordinary duration. The mean rise and fall was about six feet.

The weather continuing nearly calm during the 26th, and the ice keeping at the distance of several miles from the land, gave us an opportunity of clearing our decks, and stowing the things belonging to the _Fury's_ crew more comfortably for their accommodation and convenience. I now felt more sensibly than ever the necessity I have elsewhere pointed out, of both s.h.i.+ps employed on this kind of service being of the same size, equipped in the same manner, and alike efficient in every respect. The way in which we had been able to apply every article for a.s.sisting to heave the _Fury_ down, without the smallest doubt or selection as to size or strength, proved an excellent practical example of the value of being thus able, at a moment's warning, to double the means and resources of either s.h.i.+p in case of necessity. In fact, by this arrangement, nothing but a harbour to secure the s.h.i.+ps was wanted, to have completed the whole operation in as effectual a manner as in a dockyard; for not a sh.o.r.e, or outrigger, or any other precaution was omitted, that is usually attended to on such occasions, and all as good and effective as could anywhere have been desired. The advantages were now scarcely less conspicuous in the accommodation of the officers and men, who in a short time became little less comfortable than in their own s.h.i.+p; whereas, in a smaller vessel, comfort, to say nothing of health, would have been quite out of the question. Having thus experienced the incalculable benefit of the establishment composing this expedition, I am anxious to repeat my conviction of the advantages that will always be found to attend it in the equipment of any two s.h.i.+ps intended for discovery.

A little snow, which had fallen in the course of the last two or three days, now remained upon the land, lightly powdering the higher parts, especially those having a northern aspect, and creating a much more wintry sensation than the large broad patches or drifts, which, on all tolerably high land in these regions, remain undissolved during the whole of each successive summer. With the exception of a few such patches here and there, the whole of this coast was now free from snow before the middle of August.

A breeze from the northward freshening up strong on the 27th, we stretched over to the eastern sh.o.r.e of Prince Regent's Inlet, and this with scarcely any obstruction from ice. We could, indeed, scarcely believe this the same sea which, but a few weeks before, had been loaded with one impenetrable body of closely packed ice from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, and as far as the eye could discern to the southward. We found this land rather more covered with the newly fallen snow than that to the westward; but there was no ice, except the grounded ma.s.ses, anywhere along the sh.o.r.e. Having a great deal of heavy work to do in the re-stowage of the holds which could not well be accomplished at sea, and also a quant.i.ty of water to fill for our increased complement, I determined to take advantage of our fetching the entrance of Neill's Harbour to put in here, in order to prepare the s.h.i.+p completely for crossing the Atlantic. I was desirous also of ascertaining the depth of water in this place, which was wanting to complete Lieutenant Sherer's survey of it. At one P.M., therefore, after communicating to the officers and s.h.i.+ps' companies my intention to return to England, I left the s.h.i.+p, accompanied by Lieutenant Sherer in a second boat, to obtain the necessary soundings for conducting the s.h.i.+p to the anchorage, and to lay down a buoy in the proper berth. Finding the harbour an extremely convenient one for our purpose, we worked the s.h.i.+p in, and at four P.M. anch.o.r.ed in thirteen fathoms, but afterwards s.h.i.+fted out to eighteen on a bottom of soft mud.

Almost at the moment of our dropping the anchor, John Page, seaman of the _Fury_, departed this life; he had for several months been affected with a scrofulous disorder, and had been gradually sinking for some time.

The funeral of the deceased took place after Divine service had been performed on the 28th; the body being followed to the grave by a procession of all the officers, seamen, and marines of both s.h.i.+ps, and every solemnity observed which the occasion demanded. The grave is situated near the beach close to the anchorage, and a board was placed at the head as a subst.i.tute for a tombstone, having on it a copper-plate with the usual inscription.

This duty being performed, we immediately commenced landing the casks and filling water; but notwithstanding the large streams which, a short time before, had been running into the harbour, we could hardly obtain enough for our purpose by sinking a cask with holes in it. I have no doubt that this rapid dissolution of all the snow on land so high as this, was the result of an unusually warm summer. This work, together with the entire re-stowage of all the holds, occupied the whole of the 29th and 30th; during which time Lieutenant Sherer was employed in completing the survey of the harbour, more especially the soundings, which the presence of ice had before prevented. These arrangements had just been completed when the north-easterly wind died away, and was succeeded on the morning of the 31st by a light air from the north-west. As soon as we had sent to ascertain that the sea was clear of ice on the outside, and that the breeze which blew in the harbour was the true one, we weighed and stood out, and before noon had cleared the shoals at the entrance.

Neill's Harbour, the only one on this eastern coast of Prince Regent's Inlet, except Port Bowen, to which it is far superior, corresponds with one of the apparent openings seen at a distance in 1819, and marked on the chart of that voyage as a ”valley or bay.” We found it not merely a convenient place of shelter but a most excellent harbour, with sufficient s.p.a.ce for a great number of s.h.i.+ps, and holding-ground of the best quality, consisting of a tenacious mud of a greenish colour, in which the flukes of an anchor are entirely embedded. A great deal of the anchoring ground is entirely land-locked, and some shoal points which narrow the entrance would serve to break off any heavy sea from the eastward. The depth of water in most parts is greater than could be wished, but several good berths are pointed out in the accompanying survey made by Lieutenant Sherer. The beach on the west side is a fine bold one, with four fathoms within twenty yards of low water mark, and consists of small pebbles of limestone. The formation of the rocks about the harbour is so similar to that of Port Bowen that no description of them is necessary. The harbour may best be known by its lat.i.tude; by the very remarkable flat-topped hill eight miles south of it, which I have named after Lieutenant Sherer who observed its lat.i.tude; by the high cliffs on the south side of the entrance, and the comparative low land on the north. The high land is the more peculiar, as consisting of that very regular horizontal stratification appearing to be supported by b.u.t.tresses, which characterises a large portion of the western sh.o.r.e of Prince Regent's Inlet, but is not seen on any part of this coast so well marked as here.