CHAPTER II.
THE CAUSE OF THE EXPEDITION.
The _Polar King_, in lat. 84', long. 151' 14", had entered an oceancovered with enormous ice-floes. What surprised us most was the factthat we could make any headway whatever, and that the ice wasn'tfrozen into one solid mass as every one expected. On the contrary,leads of open water reached in all directions, and up those leadingnearest due north we joyfully sailed.
May the 10th was a memorable day in our voyage. On that day wecelebrated the double event of having reached the furthest north andof having discovered an open polar sea.
Seated in the luxurious cabin of the ship, I mused on the origin ofthis extraordinary expedition. It was certain, if my father were alivehe would fully approve of the use I was making of the wealth he hadleft me. He was a man utterly without romance, a hard-headed man offacts, which quality doubtless was the cause of his amassing so manymillions of dollars.
My father could appreciate the importance of theories, of enthusiasticideals, but he preferred others to act upon them. As for himself hewould say, "I see no money in it for me." He believed that manyenthusiastic theories were the germs of great fortunes, but he alwayssaid with a knowing smile, "You know it is never safe to be a pioneerin anything. The pioneer usually gets killed in creating aninheritance for his successors." It was a selfish policy which arosefrom his financial experiences, that in proportion as a man wasselfish he was successful.
I was always of a totally different temperament to my father. I wasromantic, idealistic. I loved the marvellous, the magnificent, themiraculous and the mysterious, qualities that I inherited from mymother. I used to dream of exploring tropic islands, of visiting thelands of Europe and the Orient, and of haunting temples and tombs,palaces and pagodas. I wished to discover all that was weird andwonderful on the earth, so that my experiences would be a descriptionof earth's girdle of gold, bringing within reach of the enslavedmultitudes of all nations ideas and experiences of surpassing noveltyand grandeur that would refresh their parched souls. I longed towhisper in the ear of the laborer at the wheel that the world was notwholly a blasted place, but that here and there oases made green itsbarrenness. If he could not actually in person mingle with its joys,his soul, that neither despot nor monopolist could chain, might spreadits wings and feast on such delights as my journeyings might furnish.
How seldom do we realize our fondest desires! Just at the time of myfather's death the entire world was shocked with the news of thefailure of another Arctic expedition, sent out by the United States,to discover, if possible, the North Pole. The expedition leaving theirship frozen up in Smith's Sound essayed to reach the pole by means ofa monster balloon and a favoring wind. The experiment might possiblyhave succeeded had it not happened that the car of the balloon struckthe crest of an iceberg and dashed its occupants into a fearfulcrevasse in the ice, where they miserably perished. This calamitybrought to recollection the ill-fated Sir John Franklin and _Jeanette_expeditions; but, strange to say, in my mind at least, such disastersproduced no deterrent effect against the setting forth of stillanother enterprise in Arctic research.
From the time the expedition I refer to sailed from New York until thenews of its dreadful fate reached the country, I had been readingalmost every narrative of polar discovery. The consequence was I hadawakened in my mind an enthusiasm to penetrate the sublime secret ofthe pole. I longed to stand, as it were, on the roof of the world andsee beneath me the great globe revolve on its axis. There, where thereis neither north, nor south, nor east, nor west, I could survey thefrozen realms of death. I would dare to stand on the very pole itselfwith my few hardy companions, monarch of an empire of ice, on a spotthat never feels the life-sustaining revolutions of the earth. I knewthat on the equator, where all is light, life, and movement,continents and seas flash through space at the rate of one thousandmiles an hour, but on the pole the wheeling of the earth is as dead asthe desolation that surrounds it.
I had conversed with Arctic navigators both in England and the UnitedStates. Some believed the pole would never be discovered. Others,again, declared their belief in an open polar sea. It was generallyconceded that the Smith's Sound route was impracticable, and that theonly possible way to approach the pole was by the Behring Straitroute, that is, by following the 170th degree of west longitude northof Alaska.
I thought it a strange fact that modern sailors, armed with all theresources of science and with the experience of numerous Arcticvoyages to guide them, could get only three degrees nearer the polethan Henry Hudson did nearly three hundred years ago. That redoubtableseaman possessed neither the ships nor men of later voyagers nor themany appliances of his successors to mitigate the intense cold, yethis record in view of the facts of the case remains triumphant.
It was at this time that my father died. He left me the bulk of hisproperty under the following clause in his will:
"I hereby bequeath to my dear son, Lexington White, the real estate,stocks, bonds, shares, title-deeds, mortgages, and other securitiesthat I die possessed of, amounting at present market prices to overfive million dollars. I desire that my said son use this property forsome beneficent purpose, of use to his fellow-men, excepting whatmoney may be necessary for his personal wants as a gentleman."
I could scarcely believe my father was so wealthy as to be able toleave me so large a fortune, but his natural secretiveness kept himfrom mentioning the amount of his gains, even to his own family. Nosooner did I realize the extent of my wealth than I resolved to devoteit to fitting out a private expedition with no less an object than todiscover the North Pole myself. Of course I knew the undertaking wasextremely hazardous and doubtful of success. It could hardly bepossible that any private individual, however wealthy and daring,could hope to succeed where all the resources of mighty nations hadfailed.
Still, these same difficulties had a tremendous power of attractingfresh exploits on that fatal field. Who could say that even I alonemight not stumble upon success? In a word, I had made up my mind toset forth in a vessel strong and swift and manned by sailorsexperienced in Arctic voyages, under my direct command. The expeditionwould be kept a profound secret; I would leave New York ostensibly forAustralia, then, doubling Cape Horn, would make direct for BehringSea. If I failed, none would be the wiser; if I succeeded, what famewould be mine!