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North-Pole Voyages

<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2> <div class='chaptertitle'>COLLIDING FLOES.</div> <div class='cap'>AFTER this ice encounter the expedition put into a little port called Tessuissak, to complete their outfit of dogs. An impatient tarry of two days enabled them to count, on the deck of the little vessel, thirty first-class, howling dogs, whose amiable tempers found expression in biting each other, and making both day and night hideous with their noise.</div> This port was left on the twenty-third of August, and, much to the joy of all, the dreaded Melville Bay was clear of the ice-pack; the icebergs, however, kept their watch over its storm-tossed waters. Through these waters driven before a fierce wind, and buried often in a fog so dense that the length of the vessel could not be seen, the "United States" sped. Its anxious commander was on deck night and day, not knowing the moment when an icy wall, as fatal to the vessel as one of granite, might arrest its course and send it instantly to the bottom of the sea. Once they passed so near a berg just crossing their track that the fore-yard grazed its side, and the spray from its surf-beaten wall was thrown upon the deck. A berg at one time hove in sight with an arch through it large enough for a passage-way for[242] the schooner. The explorers declined, however, the novel adventure. The passage of Melville Bay was made, with sails only, in fifty-five hours. The pack which had invariably troubled explorers seemed to have been enjoying a summer vacation, and the bergs were off duty. The expedition had reached the North Water and lay off Cape York. The ocean current which sweeps past this cape, and opens the way to the other side of Baffin Bay, is wonderful. It is the great Polar current which comes rushing down through Spitzbergen Sea, along the eastern coast of Greenland, laden with ice, and taking the waters of its rivers with their freight of drift-wood as it passes. Leaving most of the wood along its shore, a welcome gift to the people, it sweeps around Cape Farewell, courses near the western shore in its run north until it has passed Melville Bay. When it has crossed over to the American shore near Jones Strait, it joins the current from the Arctic Sea, turns south, and makes the long journey until it reaches our own coast, dropping its ice freight as it goes, and sending its cooling air through the heat-oppressed atmosphere of our summer. As our explorers approached the shore of Cape York they looked carefully for the natives. Soon a company of Esquimo were seen making their wild gesticulations to attract attention. A boat was lowered, and Dr. Hayes and Professor Sontag went ashore, and as they approached the landing-place one of the Esquimo called them by name.[243] It was our old friend Hans, of the Kane voyage, who, the reader will recollect, left his white friends for an Esquimo wife. The group consisted, besides Hans, of his wife and baby, his wife's mother, an old woman having marked talking ability, and her son, a bright-eyed boy of twelve years. Hans had found his self-imposed banishment among the savages of this extreme north rather tedious. He had removed his family to this lookout for the whale ships, and had watched and waited. It was the dreariest of places, and his hut, pitched on a bleak spot the better to command a view of the sea, was the most miserable of abodes. It had plainly cost him dear to break his faith with his confiding commander and the friends of his early Christian home. Dr. Hayes asked Hans if he would go with the expedition. He answered promptly, "Yes." "Would you take your wife and baby?" "Yes." "Would you go without them?" "Yes." He was taken on board with his wife and baby. The mother and her boy cried to go, but the schooner was already overcrowded. Leaving Cape York, the vessel spread her sails before a "ten-knot" breeze, and dodging the icebergs with something of a reckless daring, seemed bent on reaching the Polar Sea before winter set in. At one time what appeared to be two icebergs a short distance apart lay in the course of the vessel. The helmsman was ordered to steer[244] between them, for to go round involved quite a circuit. On dashed the brave little craft for the narrow passage. When she was almost abreast of them the officer on the lookout shuddered to see that the seeming bergs were but one, and that the connecting ice appeared to be only a few feet below the surface. It was too late to stop the headway of the vessel, or to turn her to the right or left. She rushed onward, but the water of the opening proved to be deeper than it appeared, and her keel but touched once or twice, just to show how narrow was the escape. Hans was delighted with his return to ship life. His wife seemed pleased and half bewildered by the strange surroundings. The baby crowed, laughed, and cried, and ate and slept—like other babies. The sailors put the new comers through a soap-and-water ordeal, to which was added the use of scissors and combs. Esquimo do not bathe, nor practice the arts of the barber, and consequently they keep numerous boarders on their persons. When this necessary cleansing and cropping was done, they donned red shirts and other luxuries of civilization. With the new dresses they were delighted, and they were never tired of strutting about in them. But the soap and water was not so agreeable. At first it was taken as a rough joke, but the wife soon began to cry. She inquired of her husband if it was a religious ceremony of the white men. The vessel made good time until she came[245] within three miles of Cape Alexander. It was now August twenty-eighth, and so it was time these Arctic regions should begin to show their peculiar temper. A storm came down upon them, pouring the vials of its wrath upon the shivering vessel for about three days. During a lull in the storm the schooner was hauled under the shelter of the highlands of Cape Alexander and anchored. She rocked and plunged fearfully. At one time when these gymnastics were going on, the old Swedish cook came to the commander in the cabin with refreshments, but he was hardly able to keep his "sea legs." He remarks as he comes in, "I falls down once, but de commander sees I keeps de coffee. It's good an' hot, and very strong, and go right down into de boots." "Bad night on deck, cook," remarks the captain. "O, it's awful, sar! I never see it blow so hard in all my life, an' I's followed de sea morn'n forty years. An' den it's so cold! My galley is full of ice, and de water, it freeze on my stove." "Here, cook, is a guernsey for you. It will keep you warm." "Tank you, sar!" says the cook, starting off with his prize. But encouraged by the kind bearing of his captain, he stops and asks, "Would the commander be so kind as to tell me where we is? De gentlemen fool me." "Certainly, cook. The land over there is Greenland; the big cape is Cape Alexander; beyond that is Smith's Sound, and we are only about eight hundred miles from the North Pole."[246] "De Nort Pole! vere's dat?" The commander explains as well as he can. "Tank you, sar. Vat for we come—to fish?" "No, not to fish, cook; for science." "O, dat it! Dey tell me we come to fish. Tank you, sar." The old cook pulls his greasy cap over his bald head and thinks. "Science!" "De Nort Pole!" He don't get the meaning of these through his cap, and he "tumbles up" the companion-ladder, and goes to the galley to enjoy his guernsey. Dr. Hayes and Knorr went ashore and climbed to the top of the cliffs, twelve hundred feet. The wind was fearfully breezy, and Knorr's cap left and went sailing like a feather out to sea. The view was full of arctic grandeur, but not flattering to the storm-bound navigators. Ice was evidently king a little farther north. Soon after the explorer's return to the vessel the storm gathered fresh power, and the anchors began to drag. Soon one hawser parted, and away went the schooner, with fearful velocity, and brought up against a berg. The crash was appalling, and the stern boat flew into splinters. The spars were either bent or carried away; and, as they attempted to hoist the mainsail, it went to pieces. The crippled craft was with difficulty worked back into the projecting covert of Cape Alexander. Her decks were covered with ice, and the dogs were perishing with wet and cold, three having died. Having repaired damages as well as they could,[247] they again pushed into the pack of Smith's Sound, which lay between them and open water, visible far to the north. Entering a lead under full sail, they made good progress for awhile; but suddenly a solid floe shot across the channel, and the vessel, with full headway, struck it like a battering ram. The cut-water flew into splinters, and the iron sheathing of the bows was torn off as if it had been paper. Pushing off from the floe, and passing through a narrow lead, they emerged into an area of open water. But the floe was on the alert. This began to close up, and, taking a hint of foul play, the explorers steered toward the shore. But the ice battalions moved with celerity, piled up across the vessel's bow, and closed in on every side. In an hour they held her as in a vice, while the reserve force was called up to crush her to atoms. The foe was jubilant, for the power at his command was kindred to that of the earthquake. An ice-field of millions of tons, moved by combined wind and current, rushed upon the solid ice-field which rested against the immovable rocks of the shore. Between these was the schooner—less than an egg-shell between colliding, heavily laden freight trains. As the pressure came steadily, in well assured strength, she groaned and shrieked like a thing of conscious pain, writhing and twisting as if striving to escape her pitiless adversary. Her deck timbers bowed, and the seams of the deck-planks opened, while her sides seemed ready to yield.[248] Thus far the closing forces were permitted to strike severely on the side of the helpless vessel, to show that they could crush her as rotten fruit is crushed in a strong man's hand. Then He, without whose permission no force in nature moves, and at whose word they are instantly stayed, directed the floe under the strongly timbered "bilge" of the hull, and, with a jerk which sent the men reeling about the deck, lifted the vessel out of the water. The floes now fought their battle out beneath her, as if they disdained, like the lion with the mouse in his paw, to crush so small a thing. Great ridges were piled up about her, and one underneath lifted her high into the air. Eight hours she remained in this situation, while the lives of all on board seemed suspended on the slenderest thread. Then came the yielding and breaking up of the floes. Once, at the commencing of the giving way, an ice prop of the bows suddenly yielded, let the forward end of the vessel down while the stern was high in the air. But finally the battered craft settled squarely into the water. She was leaking badly, and the pumps were kept moving with vigor. The rudder was split, and two of its bolts broken; the stern-post started, and fragments of the cut-water and keel were floating away. But, strange to say, no essential injury was done. She was slowly navigated into Hartstene or Etah Bay, where we have been so often, anchored safely, and repairs immediately commenced. <hr style="width: 65%;" />[249] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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