Part 23 (2/2)
”Long months after, I attended a burial service conducted in the same way--in silence.
”In due course of time we anch.o.r.ed in Norton Sound, and spent the rest of the winter there; and in the spring of sixty-eight, we worked our way north through the ice. We pa.s.sed the seventy-fifth parallel of lat.i.tude on July 4th. During the summer we took a number of whales, storing away as much oil as the captain thought necessary, as he only wanted it for fuel and our needs, intending to take none home to sell unless we were unsuccessful in the line of discovery--in that event he intended to stay until he had a full cargo.”
Here our entertainer gave out, and had to rest; and while resting he went to sleep, so that he did not take up his story until the next day.
In the morning our guest expressed a desire to be taken on deck; and, dressed in warm sailor clothes, he rested his hand on my shoulder, and slowly crawled on deck and to a sheltered corner beside the captain's cabin. Here he was bundled up; and again Enoch and I sat down to listen to the strange story of the wanderer.
”I hope it won't annoy you, gentlemen,” said he, ”but I can't settle down without my pack; I find myself thinking of its safety. Would you mind sending down for it?”
It was brought up, and set down beside him; he looked at it lovingly, slipped the rude strap-loop over his arm, and seemed ready to take up his story where he left off. He began:
”I don't remember whether I told you or not, but one of the objects of Captain Burrows's trip was to settle something definite about the location of the magnetic pole, and other magnetic problems, and determine the cause of some of the well-known distortions of the magnetic needle. He had some odd, perhaps crude, instruments, of his own design, which he had caused to be constructed for this purpose, and we found them very efficient devices in the end. Late in July, we found much open water, and steamed steadily in a northwesterly course. We would find a great field of icebergs, then miles of floe, and then again open water. The aurora was seen every evening, but it seemed pale and white.
”Captain Burrows brought the 'Duncan McDonald's' head around to the west in open water, one fine day in early August, and cruised slowly; taking a great many observations, and hunting, as he told me, for floating ice--he was hunting for a current. For several days we kept in the open water, but close to the ice, until one morning the captain ordered the s.h.i.+p to stand due north across the open sea.
”He called me into his cabin, and with a large map of the polar regions on his table, to which he often referred, he said: 'Son, I've been hunting for a current; there's plenty of 'em in the Arctic ocean, but the one I want ain't loafing around here. You see, son, it's currents that carries these icebergs and floes south; I didn't tell you, but some days when we were in those floes, we lost as much as we gained. We worked our way north through the floe, but not on the surface of the globe; the floe was taking us south with it. Maybe you won't believe it, but there are currents going north in this sea; once or twice in a lifetime, a whaler or pa.s.sage hunter returns with a story of being drifted _north_--now that's what I want, I am hunting for a northern current. We will go to the northern sh.o.r.e of this open water, be it one mile or one thousand, and there--well, hunt again.'
”Well, it was in September when we at last got to what seemed the northern sh.o.r.e of this open sea. We had to proceed very slowly, as there were almost daily fogs and occasional snow-storms; but one morning the s.h.i.+p rounded to, almost under the shadow of what seemed to be a giant iceberg. Captain Burrows came on deck, rubbing his hands in glee.
”'Son,' said he, 'that is no iceberg; that's ancient ice, perpetual ice, the great ice-ring--palaecrystic ice, you scientific fellows call it. I saw it once before, in thirty-seven, when a boy; that's it, and, son, beyond that there is something. Take notice that that is ice; clear, glary ice. You know a so-called iceberg is really a s...o...b..rg; it's three-fourths under water. Now, it may be possible that, that being ice which will float more than half out of water, the northern currents may go under it--but I don't believe it. Under or over, I am going to find one of 'em, if it takes till doomsday.'
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”What seemed to be a giant iceberg....”]
”We sailed west, around close to this great wall of ice, for two weeks, without seeing any evidence of a current of any kind, until there came on a storm from the northwest that drove a great deal of ice around the great ring; but it seemed to keep rather clear of the great wall of ice and to go off in a tangent toward the south. The lead showed no bottom at one hundred fathoms, even within a quarter of a mile of the ice.
”It was getting late in the season, the mercury often going down to fifteen below zero, and every night the aurora became brighter. We sailed slowly around the open water, and finally found a place where the sheer precipice of ice disappeared and the sh.o.r.e sloped down to something like a beach. Putting out a sea-anchor, the 'Duncan McDonald'
kept within a half-a-mile of this icy sh.o.r.e. The captain had determined to land and survey the place, which far away back seemed to terminate in mountain peaks of ice.
”That night the captain and I sat on the rail of our s.h.i.+p, talking over the plans for to-morrow's expedition, when the s.h.i.+p slowly but steadily swung around her stern to the mountain of ice--the engines had been moving slowly to keep her head to the wind. Captain Burrows jumped to his feet in joy. 'A current!' he shouted; 'a current, and toward the north, too--old man Providence again, son; he allus takes care of his own!'
”Some staves were thrown overboard, and, sure enough, they floated toward the ice; but there was no evidence of an opening in the mighty ring, and I remarked to Captain Burrows that the current evidently went under the ice.
”'It looks like it did, son; it looks like it did; but if it goes under, we will go over.'
”After we had taken a few hours of sleep, the long-boat landed our little party of five men and seven dogs. We had food and drink for a two weeks' trip, were well armed, and carried some of our instruments. It appeared to be five or six miles to the top of the mountain, but it proved more than thirty. We were five days in getting there, and did so only after a dozen adventures that I will tell you at another time.
”We soon began to find stones and dirt in the ice, and before we had gone ten miles, found the frozen carca.s.s of an immense mastodon--its great tusks only showing above the level; but its huge, woolly body quite plainly visible in the ice. The ice was melting, and there were many streams running towards the open water. It was warmer as we proceeded. Dirt and rocks became the rule, instead of the exception, and we were often obliged to go around a great boulder of granite. While we were resting, on the third day, for a bite to eat, one of the men took a dish, scooped up some sand from the bottom of the icy stream, and 'panned' it out. There was gold in it: gold enough to pay to work the ground. About noon of the fifth day, we reached the summit of the mountain, and from there looked down the other side--upon a sight the like of which no white men had ever seen before.
”From the very summits of this icy-ring mountain the northern side was a sheer precipice of more than three thousand feet, and was composed of rocks, and rocks only, the foot of the mighty crags being washed by an open ocean; and this was lighted up by a peculiar crimson glow. Great white whales sported in the waters; huge sea-birds hung in circles high in the air; yet below us, and with our gla.s.ses, we could see, on the rocks at the foot of the crags, seals and some other animals that were strange to us. But follow the line of beetling crags and mountain peaks where you would, the northern side presented a solid blank wall of awful rocks, in many places the summit overhanging and the sh.o.r.e well under in the mighty shadow. Nothing that any of us had ever seen in nature before was so impressive, so awful. We started on our return, after a couple of hours of the awe-inspiring sight beyond the great ring, and for full two hours not a man spoke.
”'Father Burrows,' said I, 'what do you think that is back there?'
”'No man knows, my son, and it will devolve on you and me to name it; but we won't unless we get to it and can take back proofs.'
”'Do you think we could get down the other side?'
”'No, I don't think so, and we seem to have struck it in the lowest spot in sight. I'd give ten years of my life if the 'Duncan McDonald' was over there in that duck pond.'
”'Captain,' said Eli Jeffries, the second mate, 'do you know what I've been thinkin'? I believe that 'ere water we seen is an open pa.s.sage from the Behring side of the frozen ocean over agin' some of them 'ere Roosian straits. If we could get round to the end of it, we'd sail right through the great Northwest Pa.s.sage.'
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