Part 10 (2/2)
For Arctic work, if s.h.i.+ps are to go into every nook and lane of ice that will yield at all to wind and steam, they must be as nearly indestructible as man can make them. For Arctic work, therefore, and for discovery work, s.h.i.+ps built of the _teak_ wood of Malabar and Java are considered most precisely fitted. s.h.i.+ps built of teak are said to be wholly indestructible by time. To this we owe the fact, which now becomes part of a strange coincidence, that one of the old Captain Cook's s.h.i.+ps which went round the world with him has been, till within a few years, a whaling among the American whalers, revisiting, as a familiar thing, the sh.o.r.es which she was first to discover. The English admiralty, eager to fit out for Arctic service a s.h.i.+p of the best build they could find, bought the two teak-built s.h.i.+ps Baboo and Ptarmigan in 1850,--sent them to their own dock-yards to be refitted, and the Baboo became the a.s.sistance,--the Ptarmigan became the Resolute, of their squadrons of Arctic discovery.
Does the reader know that in the desolation of the Arctic sh.o.r.es the Ptarmigan is the bird most often found? It is the Arctic grouse or partridge,[O] and often have the ptarmigans of Melville Island furnished sport and even dinners to the hungry officers of the ”Resolute,” wholly unconscious that she had ever been their G.o.d-child, and had thrown off their name only to take that which she now wears.
Early in May, 1850, just at the time we now know that brave Sir John Franklin and the remnant of his crew were dying of starvation at the mouth of Back's River, the ”Resolute” sailed first for the Arctic seas, the flag-s.h.i.+p of Commodore Austin, with whose little squadron our own De Haven and his men had such pleasant intercourse near Beechey Island. In the course of that expedition she wintered off Cornwallis Island,--and in autumn of the next year returned to England.
Whenever a squadron or a man or an army returns to England, unless in the extreme and exceptional case of complete victory over obstacle invincible, there is always dissatisfaction. This is the English way.
And so there was dissatisfaction when Captain Austin returned with his s.h.i.+ps and men. There was also still a lingering hope that some trace of Franklin might yet be found, perhaps some of his party. Yet more, there were two of the searching s.h.i.+ps which had entered the Polar seas from Behring's Straits on the west, the ”Enterprise” and ”Investigator,”
which might need relief before they came through or returned. Arctic search became a pa.s.sion by this time, and at once a new squadron was fitted out to take the seas in the spring of 1852. This squadron consisted of the ”a.s.sistance” and ”Resolute” again, which had been refitted since their return, of the ”Intrepid” and ”Pioneer,” two steams.h.i.+ps used as tenders to the ”a.s.sistance” and ”Resolute”
respectively, and of the ”North Star,” which had also been in those regions, and now went as a stores.h.i.+p to the rest of the squadron. To the command of the whole Sir Edward Belcher was appointed, an officer who had served in some of the earlier Arctic expeditions. Officers and men volunteered in full numbers for the service, and these five vessels therefore carried out a body of men who brought more experience of the Northern seas together than any expedition which had ever visited them.
Of these, Captain Henry Kellett had command of the ”Resolute,” and was second in seniority to Sir Edward Belcher, who made the ”a.s.sistance” the flag-s.h.i.+p. It shows what sort of man he was, to say that for more than ten years he spent only part of one in England, and was the rest of the time in an antipodean hemisphere or a hyperborean zone. Before brave Sir John Franklin sailed, Captain Kellett was in the Pacific. Just as he was to return home, he was ordered into the Arctic seas to search for Sir John. Three years successively, in his s.h.i.+p the ”Herald,” he pa.s.sed inside Behring's Straits, and far into the Arctic Ocean. He discovered ”Herald Island,” the farthest land known there. He was one of the last men to see McClure in the ”Investigator” before she entered the Polar seas from the northwest. He sent three of his men on board that s.h.i.+p to meet them all again, as will be seen, in strange surroundings. After more than seven years of this Pacific and Arctic life, he returned to England, in May or June, 1851, and in the next winter volunteered to try the eastern approach to the same Arctic seas in our s.h.i.+p, the ”Resolute.” Some of his old officers sailed with him.
We know nothing of Captain Kellett but what his own letters, despatches, and instructions show, as they are now printed in enormous parliamentary blue-books, and what the despatches and letters of his officers and of his commander show. But these papers present the picture of a vigorous, hearty man, kind to his crew and a great favorite with them, brave in whatever trial, always considerate, generous to his officers, reposing confidence in their integrity; a man, in short, of whom the world will be apt to hear more. His commander, Sir Edward Belcher, tried by the same standard, appears a brave and ready man, apt to talk of himself, not very considerate of his inferiors, confident in his own opinion; in short, a man with whom one would not care to spend three Arctic winters.
With him, as we trace the ”Resolute's” fortunes, we shall have much to do. Of Captain Kellett we shall see something all along till the day when he sadly left her, as bidden by Sir Edward Belcher, ”ready for occupation.”
With such a captain, and with sixty-odd men, the ”Resolute” cast off her moorings in the gray of the morning on the 21st of April, 1852, to go in search of Sir John Franklin. The brave Sir John had died two years before, but no one knew that, nor whispered it. The river steam-tug ”Monkey” took her in tow, other steamers took the ”a.s.sistance” and the ”North Star”; the ”Intrepid” and ”Pioneer” got up their own steam, and to the cheers of the little company gathered at Greenhithe to see them off, they went down the Thames. At the Nore, the steams.h.i.+p ”Desperate”
took the ”Resolute” in charge, Sir Edward Belcher made the signal ”Orkneys” as the place of rendezvous, and in four days she was there, in Stromness outer harbor. Here there was a little s.h.i.+fting of provisions and coal-bags, those of the men who could get on sh.o.r.e squandered their spending-money, and then, on the 28th of April, she and hers bade good by to British soil. And, though they have welcomed it again long since, she has not seen it from then till now.
The ”Desperate” steamer took her in tow, she sent her own tow-lines to the ”North Star,” and for three days in this procession of so wild and weird a name, they three forged on westward toward Greenland,--a train which would have startled any old Viking had he fallen in with it, with a fresh gale blowing all the time and ”a nasty sea.” On the fourth day all the tow-lines broke or were cast off however, Neptune and the winds claimed their own, and the ”Resolute” tried her own resources. The towing steamers were sent home in a few days more, and the squadron left to itself.
We have too much to tell in this short article to be able to dwell on the details of her visits to the hospitable Danes of Greenland, or of her pa.s.sage through the ice of Baffin's Bay. But here is one incident, which, as the event has proved, is part of a singular coincidence. On the 6th of July all the squadron, tangled in the ice, joined a fleet of whalers beset in it, by a temporary opening between the gigantic ma.s.ses.
Caught at the head of a bight in the ice, with the ”a.s.sistance” and the ”Pioneer,” the ”Resolute” was, for the emergency, docked there, and, by the ice closing behind her, was, for a while, detained. Meanwhile the rest of the fleet, whalers and discovery s.h.i.+ps, pa.s.sed on by a little lane of water, the American whaler ”McLellan” leading. This ”McLellan”
was one of the s.h.i.+ps of the spirited New London merchants, Messrs.
Perkins & Smith, another of whose vessels has now found the ”Resolute”
and befriended her in her need in those seas. The ”McLellan” was their pioneer vessel there.
The ”North Star” of the English squadron followed the ”McLellan.” A long train stretched out behind. Whalers and government s.h.i.+ps, as they happened to fall into line,--a long three quarters of a mile. It was lovely weather, and, though the long lane closed up so that they could neither go back nor forward,--n.o.body apprehended injury till it was announced on the morning of the 7th that the poor ”McLellan” was nipped in the ice and her crew were deserting her. Sir Edward Belcher was then in condition to befriend her, sent his carpenters to examine her,--put a few charges of powder into the ice to relieve the pressure upon her,--and by the end of the day it was agreed that her injuries could be repaired, and her crew went on board again. But there is no saying what ice will do next. The next morning there was a fresh wind, the ”McLellan” was caught again, and the water poured into her, a steady stream. She drifted about unmanageable, now into one s.h.i.+p, now into another, and the English whalemen began to pour on board, to help themselves to such plunder as they chose. At the Captain's request, Sir Edward Belcher put an end to this, sent sentries on board, and working parties, to clear her as far as might be, and keep account of what her stores were and where they went to. In a day or two more she sank to the water's edge and a friendly charge or two of powder put her out of the way of harm to the rest of the fleet. After such a week spent together it will easily be understood that the New London whalemen did not feel strangers on board one of Sir Edward's vessels when they found her ”ready for occupation” three years and more afterwards.
In this tussle with the ice, the ”Resolute” was nipped once or twice, but she has known harder nips than that since. As July wore away, she made her way across Baffin's Bay, and on the 10th of August made Beechey Island,--known now as the head-quarters for years of the searching squadrons, because, as it happened, the place where the last traces of Franklin's s.h.i.+ps were found,--the wintering place of his first winter.
But Captain Kellett was on what is called the ”western search,” and he only stayed at Beechey Island to complete his provisions from the stores.h.i.+ps, and in the few days which this took, to see for himself the sad memorials of Franklin's party,--and then the ”Resolute” and ”Intrepid” were away, through Barrow's Straits,--on the track which Parry ran along with such success thirty-three years before,--and which no one had followed with as good fortune as he, until now.
On the 15th of August Captain Kellett was off; bade good by to the party at Beechey Island, and was to try his fortune in independent command. He had not the best of luck at starting. The reader must remember that one great object of these Arctic expeditions was to leave provisions for starving men. For such a purpose, and for travelling parties of his own over the ice, Captain Kellett was to leave a depot at a.s.sistance Bay, some thirty miles only from Beechey Island. In nearing for that purpose the ”Resolute” grounded, was left with but seven feet of water, the ice threw her over on her starboard bilge, and she was almost lost. Not quite lost, however, or we should not be telling her story. At midnight she was got off, leaving sixty feet of her false keel behind. Captain Kellett forged on in her,--left a depot here and another there,--and at the end of the short Arctic summer had come as far westward as Sir Edward Parry came. Here is the most westerly point the reader will find on most maps far north in America,--the Melville Island of Captain Parry. Captain Kellett's a.s.sociate, Captain McClintock of the ”Intrepid,” had commanded the only party which had been here since Parry. In 1851 he came over from Austin's squadron with a sledge party.
So confident is every one there that n.o.body has visited those parts unless he was sent, that McClintock encouraged his men one day by telling them that if they got on well, they should have an old cart Parry had left thirty-odd years before, to make a fire of. Sure enough; they came to the place, and there was the wreck of the cart just as Parry left it. They even found the ruts the old cart left in the ground as if they had not been left a week. Captain Kellett came into harbor, and with great spirit he and his officers began to prepare for the extended searching parties of the next spring. The ”Resolute” and her tender came to anchor off Dealy Island, and there she spent the next eleven months of her life, with great news around her in that time.
There is not much time for travelling in autumn. The days grow very short and very cold. But what, days there were were spent in sending out carts and sledges with depots of provisions, which the parties of the next spring could use. Different officers were already a.s.signed to different lines of search in spring. On their journeys they would be gone three months and more, with a party of some eight men,--dragging a sled very like a Yankee wood-sled with their instruments and provisions, over ice and snow. To extend those searches as much as possible, and to prepare the men for that work when it should come, advanced depots were now sent forward in the autumn, under the charge of the gentlemen who would have to use them in the spring.
One of these parties, the ”South line of Melville Island” party, was under a spirited young officer Mr. Mecham, who had tried such service in the last expedition. He had two of ”her Majesty's sledges,” ”The Discovery” and ”The Fearless,” a depot of twenty days' provision to be used in the spring, and enough for twenty-five days' present use. All the sledges had little flags, made by some young lady friends of Sir Edward Belcher's. Mr. Mecham's bore an armed hand and sword on a white ground, with the motto, ”_Per mare, per terram, per glaciem_” Over mud, land, snow, and ice they carried their depot, and were nearly back, when, on the 12th of October, 1852, Mr. Mecham made the great discovery of the expedition.
On the sh.o.r.e of Melville Island, above Winter Harbor, is a great sandstone boulder, ten feet high, seven or eight broad, and twenty and more long, which is known to all those who have anything to do with those regions as ”Parry's sandstone,” for it stood near Parry's observatory the winter he spent here, and Mr. Fisher, his surgeon, cut on a flat face of it this inscription:--
HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S s.h.i.+PS HECLA AND GRIPER, COMMANDED BY W.E. PARRY AND MR. LIDDON, WINTERED IN THE ADJACENT HARBOR 1819-20.
A. FISHER, SCULPT.
It was a sort of G.o.d Terminus put up to mark the end of that expedition, as the Danish gentlemen tell us our Dighton rock is the last point of Thorfinn's expedition to these parts. n.o.body came to read Mr. Fisher's inscription for thirty years and more,--a little Arctic hare took up her home under the great rock, and saw the face of man for the first time when, on the 5th of June, 1851, Mr. McClintock, on his first expedition this way, had stopped to see whether possibly any of Franklin's men had ever visited it. He found no signs of them, had not so much time as Mr.
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