|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 46
There is a bit of description of Banks Land, from the anthology of that
country, which, so far as we know, consists of two poems by a seaman
named Nelson, one of Captain McClure's crew. The highest temperature
ever observed on this "gem of the sea" was 53� in midsummer. The lowest
was 65� below zero in January, 1853; that day the thermometer did not
rise to 60� below, that month was never warmer than 16� below, and the
average of the month was 43� below. A pleasant climate to spend three
years in!
One day for talk was all that could be allowed, after Mr. Pim's amazing
appearance. On the 8th of April, he and his dogs, and Captain McClure
and a party, were ready to return to our friend the "Resolute." They
picked up Dr. Domville on the way; he had got the broken sledge mended,
and killed five musk-oxen, against they came along. He went on in the
dog-sledge to tell the news, but McClure and his men kept pace with
them; and he and Dr. Domville had the telling of the news together.
It was decided that the "Investigator" should be abandoned, and the
"Intrepid" and "Resolute" made room for her men. Glad greeting they gave
them too, as British seamen can give. More than half the crews were away
when the "Investigator's" parties came in, but by July everybody had
returned. They had found islands where the charts had guessed there was
sea, and sea where they had guessed there was land; had changed
peninsulas into islands and islands into peninsulas. Away off beyond the
seventy eighth parallel, Mr. McClintock had christened the farthest dot
of land "Ireland's Eye," as if his native island were peering off into
the unknown there;--a great island, which will be our farthest now, for
years to come, had been named "Prince Patrick's Land," in honor of the
baby prince who was the youngest when they left home. Will he not be
tempted, when he is a man, to take a crew, like another Madoc, and, as
younger sons of queens should, go and settle upon this tempting
god-child? They had heard from Sir Edward Belcher's part of the
squadron; they had heard from England; had heard of everything but Sir
John Franklin. They had even found an ale-bottle of Captain Collinson's
expedition,--but not a stick nor straw to show where Franklin or his men
had lived or died. Two officers of the "Investigator" were sent home to
England this summer by a ship from Beechey Island, the head-quarters;
and thus we heard, in October, 1853, of the discovery of the Northwest
Passage.
After their crews were on board again, and the "Investigator's" sixty
stowed away also, the "Resolute" and "Intrepid" had a dreary summer of
it. The ice would not break up. They had hunting-parties on shore and
races on the floe; but the captain could not send the "Investigators"
home as he wanted to, in his steam tender. All his plans were made, and
made on a manly scale,--if only the ice would open. He built a
storehouse on the island for Collinson's people, or for you, reader, and
us, if we should happen there, and stored it well, and left this
record:--
"This is a house which I have named the 'Sailor's Home,' under the
especial patronage of my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty.
"_Here_ royal sailors and marines are fed, clothed, and receive
double pay for inhabiting it."
In that house is a little of everything, and a good deal of victuals and
drink; but nobody has been there since the last of the "Resolute's" men
came away.
At last, the 17th of August, a day of foot-racing and jumping in bags
and wrestling, all hands present, as at a sort of "Isthmian games,"
ended with a gale, a cracking up of ice, and the "Investigators" thought
they were on their way home, and Kellett thought he was to have a month
of summer yet. But no; "there is nothing certain in this navigation from
one hour to the next." The "Resolute" and "Intrepid" were never really
free of ice all that autumn; drove and drifted to and fro in Barrow's
Straits till the 12th of November; and then froze up, without anchoring,
off Cape Cockburn, perhaps one hundred and forty miles from their harbor
of the last winter. The log-book of that winter is a curious record; the
ingenuity of the officer in charge was well tasked to make one day
differ from another. Each day has the first entry for "ship's position"
thus: "In the floe off Cape Cockburn." And the blank for the second
entry, thus: "In the same position." Lectures, theatricals, schools,
&c., whiled away the time; but there could be no autumn travelling
parties, and not much hope for discovery in the summer.
Spring came. The captain went over ice in his little dog-sled to
Beechey Island, and received his directions to abandon his ships. It
appears that he would rather have sent most of his men forward, and with
a small crew brought the "Resolute" home that autumn or the next. But
Sir Edward Belcher considered his orders peremptory "that the safety of
the crews must preclude any idea of extricating the ships." Both ships
were to be abandoned. Two distant travelling parties were away, one at
the "Investigator," one looking for traces of Collinson, which they
found. Word was left for them, at a proper point, not to seek the ship
again, but to come on to Beechey Island. And at last, having fitted the
"Intrepid's" engines so that she could be under steam in two hours,
having stored both ships with equal proportions of provisions, and made
both vessels "ready for occupation," the captain calked down the
hatches, and with all the crew he had not sent on before,--forty-two
persons in all,--left her Monday, the 15th of May, 1854, and started
with the sledges for Beechey Island.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|