CHAPTER EIGHT.
DIFFICULTIES AND DANGERS INCREASE, AND THE CAPTAIN EXPOUNDS HIS VIEWS.
The first part of the journey over the rugged ice was not so difficultas had been anticipated, because they found a number of openings--narrowlanes, as it were--winding between the masses, most of which were wideenough to permit of the passage of the sledges; and when they chanced tocome on a gap that was too narrow, they easily widened it with theirhatchets and ice-chisels.
There was, however, some danger connected with this process, for some ofthe mighty blocks of ice amongst which they moved were piled in suchpositions that it only required a few choppings at their base to bringthem down in ruins on their heads. One instance of this kind sufficedto warn them effectually.
Captain Vane's dog-sledge was leading the way at the time. Leo droveit, for by that time the Eskimos had taught him how to use theshort-handled whip with the lash full fifteen feet long, and Leo was anapt pupil in every athletic and manly exercise. Beside him sat theCaptain, Alf, Benjy, and Butterface--the black visage of the latterabsolutely shining with delight at the novelty of the situation. Behindcame the sledge of Chingatok, which, besides being laden with bear-rugs,sealskins, junks of meat, and a host of indescribable Eskimo implements,carried himself and the precious persons of Toolooha and Tekkona. Nextcame the sledge of the laughter-loving Oolichuk, with the timid Oblooriaand another woman. Then followed the sledges of Ivitchuk and Akeetolik,laden with the rest of the Eskimo women and goods, and last of all cameCaptain Vane's two English-made sledges, heavily-laden with the goodsand provisions of the explorers. These latter sledges, although made inEngland, had been constructed on the principle of the native sledge,namely, with the parts fastened by means of walrus-sinew lashingsinstead of nails, which last would have snapped like glass in the winterfrosts of the Polar regions, besides being incapable of standing thetwistings and shocks of ice-travel.
All the dogs being fresh, and the floor of the lanes not too rough, thestrangely-assorted party trotted merrily along, causing the echoes amongthe great ice-blocks, spires, and obelisks, to ring to the music oftheir chatting, and the cracks of their powerful whips. Suddenly, ashout at the front, and an abrupt pull up, brought the whole column to ahalt. The Captain's dogs had broken into a gallop. On turning suddenlyround a spur of a glacier about as big as Saint Paul's Cathedral, theywent swish into a shallow pond which had been formed on the ice. It wasnot deep, but there was sufficient water in it to send a deluge of sprayover the travellers.
A burst of laughter greeted the incident as they sprang off the sledge,and waded to the dry ice a few yards ahead.
"No damage done," exclaimed the Captain, as he assisted the dogs to haulthe sledge out of the water.
"No damage!" repeated Benjy, with a rueful look, "why, I'm soaked fromtop to toe!"
"Yes, you've got the worst of it," said Leo, with a laugh; "that comesof being forward, Benjy. You would insist on sitting in front."
"Well, it is some comfort," retorted Benjy, squeezing the water from hisgarments, "that _Alf_ is as wet as myself, for that gives us anopportunity of sympathising with each other. Eh, _Alf_? Does Buzzbyoffer no consolatory remarks for such an occasion as this?"
"O yes," replied Alf; "in his beautiful poem on Melancholy, sixth canto,Buzzby says:--
"`When trouble, like a curtain spread, Obscures the clouded brain, And worries on the weary head Descend like soaking rain-- Lift up th'umbrella of the heart, Stride manfully along; Defy depression's dreary dart, And shout in gleeful song.'"
"Come, Alf, clap on to this tow-rope, an' stop your nonsense," saidCaptain Vane, who was not in a poetical frame of mind just then.
"Dat is mos' boosiful potry!" exclaimed Butterface, with an immensedisplay of eyes and teeth, as he lent a willing hand to haul out thesledge. "Mos' boosiful. But he's rader a strong rem'dy, massa, don'you tink? Not bery easy to git up a gleefoo' shout when one's down inde mout' bery bad, eh!"
Alf's reply was checked by the necessity for remounting the sledge andresuming the journey. Those in rear avoided the pond by going round it.
"The weather's warm, anyhow, and that's a comfort," remarked Benjy, ashe settled down in his wet garments. "We can't freeze in summer, youknow, and--"
He stopped abruptly, for it became apparent just then that the openingclose ahead of them was too narrow for the sledge to pass. It wasnarrowed by a buttress, or projection, of the cathedral-berg, whichjutted up close to a vast obelisk of ice about forty feet high, if nothigher.
"Nothing for it, boys, but to cut through," said the Captain, jumpingout, and seizing an axe, as the sledge was jammed between the masses.The dogs lay down to rest and pant while the men were at work.
"It's cut an' come again in dem regins," muttered the negro steward,also seizing an axe, and attacking the base of the obelisk.
A sudden cry of alarm from the whole party caused him to desist and lookup. He echoed the cry and sprang back swiftly, for the huge mass of icehaving been just on the balance, one slash at its base had destroyed theequilibrium, and it was leaning slowly over with a deep grinding sound.A moment later the motion was swift, and it fell with a terrible crash,bursting into a thousand fragments, scattering lumps and glitteringmorsels far and wide, and causing the whole ice-field to tremble. Theconcussion overturned several other masses, which had been in the samenicely-balanced condition, some near at hand, others out of sight,though within earshot, and, for a moment, the travellers felt as if thesurrounding pack were disrupting everywhere and falling into utter ruin,but in a few seconds the sounds ceased, and again all was quiet.
Fortunately, the obelisk which had been overturned fell towards thenorth--away from the party; but although it thus narrowly missedcrushing them all in one icy tomb, it blocked up their path socompletely that the remainder of that day had to be spent in cutting apassage through it.
Need we say that, after this, they were careful how they used their axesand ice-chisels?
Soon after the occurrence of this incident, the labyrinths among the icebecame more broken, tortuous, and bewildering. At last they ceasedaltogether, and the travellers were compelled to take an almost straightcourse right over everything, for blocks, masses, and drifts on agigantic scale were heaved up in such dire confusion, that nothinghaving the faintest resemblance to a track or passage could be found.
"It's hard work, this," remarked the Captain to Leo one evening, seatinghimself on a mass of ice which he had just chopped from an obstruction,and wiping the perspiration from his brow.
"Hard, indeed," said Leo, sitting down beside him, "I fear it begins totell upon poor Benjy. You should really order him to rest more than hedoes, uncle."
A grim smile of satisfaction played for a minute on the Captain's ruggedface, as he glanced at his son, who, a short distance ahead, was hackingat the ice with a pick-axe, in company with Alf and Butterface and theEskimo men.
"It'll do him good, lad," replied the Captain. "Hard work is just whatmy Benjy needs. He's not very stout, to be sure, but there is nothingwrong with his constitution, and he's got plenty of spirit."
This was indeed true. Benjy had too much spirit for his somewhatslender frame, but his father, being a herculean man, did not quiteperceive that what was good for himself might be too much for his son.Captain Vane was, however, the reverse of a harsh man. He pondered whatLeo had said, and soon afterwards went up to his son.
"Benjy, my lad."
"Yes, father," said the boy, dropping the head of his pick-axe on theice, resting his hands on the haft, and looking up with a flushedcountenance.
"You should rest a bit now and then, Benjy. You'll knock yourself up ifyou don't."
"Rest a bit, father! Why, I've just had a rest, and I'm not tired--thatis, not very. Ain't it fun, father? And the ice cuts up so easily, andflies about so splendidly--see here."
With flashing eyes our little hero raised his pick and drove it into theice at which he had been working, with all h
is force, so that a greatrent was made, and a mass the size of a dressing-table sprang from theside of a berg, and, falling down, burst into a shower of sparklinggems. But this was not all. To Benjy's intense delight, a mass of manytons in weight was loosened by the fall of the smaller lump, and rolleddown with a thunderous roar, causing Butterface, who was too near it, tojump out of the way with an amount of agility that threw the whole partyinto fits of laughter.
"What d'ye think o' that, father?"
"I think it's somewhat dangerous," answered the Captain, recovering hisgravity and re-shouldering his axe. "However, as long as you enjoy thework, it can't hurt you, so go ahead, my boy; it'll be a long timebefore you cut away too much o' the Polar ice!"
Reaching a slightly open space beyond this point, the dogs wereharnessed, and the party advanced for a mile or so, when they came toanother obstruction worse than that which they had previously passed.
"There's a deal of ice-rubbish in these regions," remarked Benjy, eyeingthe wildly heaped masses with a grave face, and heaving a deep sigh.
"Yes, Massa Benjy, bery too much altogidder," said Butterface, echoingthe sigh.
"Come, we won't cut through this," cried Captain Vane in a cheery voice;"we'll try to go over it. There is a considerable drift of old snowthat seems to offer a sort of track. What says Chingatok?"
The easy-going Eskimo said that it would be as well to go over it asthrough it, perhaps better!
So, over it they went, but they soon began to wish they had tried anyother plan, for the snow-track quickly came to an end, and then thedifficulty of passing even the empty sledges from one ice mass toanother was very great, while the process of carrying forward the goodson the shoulders of the men was exceedingly laborious. The poor dogs,too, were constantly falling between masses, and dragging each otherdown, so that they gave more trouble at last than they were worth.
In all these trying circumstances, the Eskimo women were almost asuseful as the men. Indeed they would have been quite as useful if theyhad been as strong, and they bore the fatigues and trials of the journeywith the placid good humour, and apparent, if not real, humility oftheir race.
At last, one afternoon, our discoverers came suddenly to the edge ofthis great barrier of ancient ice, and beheld, from an elevated plateauto which they had climbed, a scene which was calculated to rouse intheir breasts feelings at once of admiration and despair, for there,stretching away below them for several miles, lay a sea of comparativelylevel ice, and beyond it a chain of stupendous glaciers, which presentedan apparently impassable barrier--a huge continuous wall of ice thatseemed to rise into the very sky.
This chain bore all the evidences of being very old ice--compared towhich that of the so-called "ancient sea" was absolutely juvenile. Onthe ice-plain, which was apparently illimitable to the right and left,were hundreds of pools of water in which the icebergs, the goldenclouds, the sun, and the blue sky were reflected, and on the surface ofwhich myriads of Arctic wild-fowl were sporting about, making the airvocal with their plaintive cries, and ruffling the glassy surfaces ofthe lakes with their dipping wings. The heads of seals were alsoobserved here and there.
"These will stop us at last," said Alf, pointing to the bergs with aprofound sigh.
"No, they won't," remarked the Captain quietly. "_Nothing_ will stopus!"
"That's true, anyhow, uncle," returned Alf; "for if it be, as Chingatokthinks, that we are in search of nothing, of course when we findnothing, nothing will stop us!"
"Why, Alf," said Leo, "I wonder that you, who are usually in anenthusiastic and poetical frame of mind, should be depressed by distantdifficulties, instead of admiring such a splendid sight of birds andbeasts enjoying themselves in what I may style an Arctic heaven. Youshould take example by Benjy."
That youth did indeed afford a bright example of rapt enthusiasm justthen, for, standing a little apart by himself, he gazed at the scenewith flushed face, open mouth, and glittering eyes, in speechlessdelight.
"Ask Chingatok if he ever saw this range before," said the Captain toAnders, on recovering from his first feeling of surprise.
No, Chingatok had never seen it, except, indeed, the tops of the bergs--at sea, in the far distance--but he had often heard of it from some ofhis countrymen, who, like himself, were fond of exploring. But that seaof ice was not there, he said, when he had passed on his journeysouthward. It had drifted there, since that time, from the great sea.
"Ah! the great sea that he speaks of is just what we must find and crossover," muttered the Captain to himself.
"But how are we to cross over it, uncle?" asked Leo.
The Captain replied with one of his quiet glances. His followers hadlong become accustomed to this silent method of declining to reply, andforbore to press the subject.
"Come now, boys, get ready to descend to the plain. We'll have to do itwith caution."
There was, indeed, ground for caution. We have said that they hadclimbed to an elevated plateau on one of the small bergs which formedthe outside margin of the rugged ice. The side of this berg was a steepslope of hard snow, so steep that they thought it unwise to attempt thedescent by what in Switzerland is termed glissading.
"We'll have to zig-zag down, I think," continued the Captain, settlinghimself on his sledge; but the Captain's dogs thought otherwise. Undera sudden impulse of reckless free-will, the whole team, giving vent to ahowl of mingled glee and fear, dashed down the slope at full gallop. Ofcourse they were overtaken in a few seconds by the sledge, which notonly ran into them, but sent them sprawling on their backs right andleft. Then it met a slight obstruction, and itself upset, sendingCaptain Vane and his companions, with its other contents, into the midstof the struggling dogs. With momentarily increasing speed thisavalanche of mixed dead and living matter went sliding, hurtling,swinging, shouting, struggling, and yelling to the bottom. Fortunately,there was no obstruction there, else had destruction been inevitable.The slope merged gradually into the level plain, over which theavalanche swept for a considerable distance before the momentum of theirflight was expended.
When at length they stopped, and disentangled themselves from the knotinto which the traces had tied them, it was found that no one wasmaterially hurt. Looking up at the height down which they had come,they beheld the Eskimos standing at the top with outstretched arms inthe attitude of men who glare in speechless horror. But these did notstand thus long. Descending by a more circuitous route, they soonrejoined the Captain's party, and then, as the night was far advanced,they encamped on the edge of the ice-plain, on a part that was bathed inthe beams of the ever-circling sun.
That night at supper Captain Vane was unusually thoughtful and silent.
"You're not losing heart, are you, uncle?" asked Leo, during a pause.
"No, lad, certainly not," replied the Captain, dreamily.
"You've not been bumped very badly in the tumble, father, have you?"asked Benjy with an anxious look.
"Bumped? no; what makes you think so?"
"Because you're gazing at Toolooha's lamp as if you saw a ghost in it."
"Well, perhaps I do see a ghost there," returned the Captain with aneffort to rouse his attention to things going on around him. "I see theghost of things to come. I am looking through Toolooha's lamp intofuturity."
"And what does futurity look like?" asked Alf. "Bright or dark?"
"Black--black as me," muttered Butterface, as he approached and laidfresh viands before the party.
It ought to be told that Butterface had suffered rather severely in therecent glissade on the snow-slope, which will account for the gloomyview he took of the future at that time.
"Listen," said the Captain, with a look of sudden earnestness; "as it ishighly probable that a day or two more will decide the question of oursuccess or failure, I think it right to reveal to you more fully mythoughts, my plans, and the prospects that lie before us. You all knowvery well that there is much difference of opinion about the conditionof the sea around
the North Pole. Some think it must be cumbered witheternal ice, others that it is comparatively free from ice, and that itenjoys a somewhat milder climate than those parts of the Arctic regionswith which we have hitherto been doing battle. I hold entirely with thelatter view--with those who believe in an open Polar basin. I won'tweary you with the grounds of my belief in detail, but here are a few ofmy reasons--
"It is an admitted fact that there is constant circulation of the waterin the ocean. That wise and painstaking philosopher, Maury, of the USnavy, has proved to my mind that this grand circulation of the sea-waterround the world is the cause of all the oceanic streams, hot and cold,with which we have been so long acquainted.
"This circulation is a necessity as well as a fact. At the Equator thewater is extremely warm and salt, besides lime-laden, in consequence ofexcessive evaporation. At the Poles it is extremely cold and fresh.Mixing is therefore a necessity. The hot salt-waters of the Equatorflow to the Poles to get freshened and cooled. Those of the Poles flowto the Equator to get salted, limed, and warmed. They do thiscontinuously in two grand currents, north and south, all round theworld. But the land comes in as a disturbing element; it diverts thewater into streams variously modified in force and direction, and thestreams also change places variously, sometimes the hot currentstravelling north as under-currents with the cold currents above,sometimes the reverse. One branch of the current comes from the Equatorround the Cape of Good Hope, turns up the west coast of Africa, and isdeflected into the Gulf of Mexico, round which it sweeps, and thenshoots across the Atlantic to England and Norway. It is known as ourGulf Stream.
"Now, the equatorial warm and salt current enters Baffin's Bay as asubmarine current, while the cold and comparatively fresh waters of thePolar regions descend as a surface-current, bearing the great ice-fieldsof the Arctic seas to the southward. One thing that goes far to provethis, is the fact that the enormous icebergs thrown off from thenorthern glaciers have been frequently seen by navigators travellingnorthward, right _against_ the current flowing south. These hugeice-mountains, floating as they do with seven or eight parts of theirbulk beneath the surface, are carried thus forcibly up stream by theunder-current until their bases are worn off by the warm waters below,thus allowing the upper current to gain the mastery, and hurry themsouth again to their final dissolution in the Atlantic.
"Now, lads," continued the Captain, with the air of a man who propoundsa self-evident proposition; "is it not clear that if the warm waters ofthe south flow into the Polar basin as an _under_ current, they mustcome up _somewhere_, to take the place of the cold waters that are forever flowing away from the Pole to the Equator? Can anything be clearerthan that--except the nose on Benjy's face? Well then, that being so,the waters round the Pole _must_ be comparatively warm waters, and also,comparatively, free from ice, so that if we could only manage to crossthis ice-barrier and get into them, we might sail right away to theNorth Pole."
"But, father," said Benjy, "since you have taken the liberty to triflewith my nose, I feel entitled to remark that we can't sail in waters,either hot or cold, without a ship."
"That's true, boy," rejoined the Captain. "However," he added, with ahalf-humorous curl of his black moustache, "you know I'm not given tostick at trifles. Time will show. Meanwhile I am strongly of opinionthat this is the last ice-barrier we shall meet with on our way to thePole."
"Is there not some tradition of a mild climate in the furthest northamong the Eskimos?" asked Alf.
"Of course there is. It has long been known that the Greenland Eskimoshave a tradition of an island in an iceless sea, lying away in the farnorth, where there are many musk-oxen, and, from what I have been toldby our friend Chingatok, I am disposed to think that he and his kindredinhabit this island, or group of islands, in the Polar basin--not far,perhaps, from the Pole itself. He says there are musk-oxen there. Butthere is another creature, and a much bigger one than any Eskimo, biggereven than Chingatok, who bears his testimony to an open Polar sea,namely, the Greenland whale. It has been ascertained that the `right'whale does not, and cannot, enter the tropical regions of the Ocean.They are to him as a sea of fire, a wall of adamant, so that it isimpossible for him to swim south, double Cape Horn, and proceed to theNorth Pacific; yet the very same kind of whale found in Baffin's Bay isfound at Behring Straits. Now, the question is, how did he get there?"
"Was born there, no doubt," answered Benjy, "and had no occasion to makesuch a long voyage!"
"Ah! my boy, but we have the strongest evidence that he was _not_ bornthere, for you must know that some whalers have a habit of marking theirharpoons with date and name of ship; and as we have been told by thatgood and true man Dr Scoresby, there have been several instances wherewhales have been captured near Behring Straits with harpoons in thembearing the stamp of ships that were known to cruise on the Baffin's Bayside of America. Moreover, in one or two instances a very short timehad elapsed between the date of harpooning on the Atlantic and capturingon the Pacific side. These facts prove, at all events, a `North-westPassage' for whales, and, as whales cannot travel far under ice withoutbreathing, they also tend to prove an open Polar sea.
"Another argument in favour of this basin is the migration of birds tothe northward at certain seasons. Birds do not migrate to frozenregions, and such migrations northward have been observed by those who,like ourselves, have reached the highest latitudes.
"Captain Nares of the _Alert_, in May 1876, when only a little to thesouthward of this, saw ptarmigan flying in pairs to the north-west,seeking for better feeding-grounds. Ducks and geese also passednorthward early in June, indicating plainly the existence of suitablefeeding-grounds in the undiscovered and mysterious North.
"We have now passed beyond the point reached by Captain Nares. My lastobservation placed us in parallel 84 degrees 40 minutes, the highestthat has yet been reached by civilised man."
"The highest, uncle?" interrupted Leo. "Yes--the highest. Scoresbyreached 81 degrees 50 minutes in 1806, Parry 82 degrees 45 minutes in1827--with sledges. That unfortunate and heroic American, Captain Hall,ran his vessel, the _Polaris_, in the shortest space of time on record,up to latitude 82 degrees 16 minutes. Captain Nares reached a higherlatitude than had previously been attained by ships, and CaptainMarkham, of Captain Nares' expedition, travelled over this very `sea ofancient ice' with sledges to latitude 83 degrees 20.4 minutes--about 400miles from the Pole, and the highest yet reached, as I have said. So,you see, we have beaten them all! Moreover, I strongly incline to thebelief that the open Polar Sea lies just beyond that range of hugeicebergs which we see before us."
The Captain rose as he spoke, and pointed to the gigantic chain, behindone of which the sun was just about to dip, causing its jagged peaks toglow as with intense fire.
"But how are we ever to pass that barrier, uncle?" asked Alf, who was bynature the least sanguine of the party in regard to overcomingdifficulties of a geographical nature, although by far the mostenthusiastic in the effort to acquire knowledge.
"You shall see, to-morrow," answered the Captain; "at present we mustturn in and rest. See, the Eskimos have already set us the example."