XII FROM LOCKWOOD ISLAND TO LADY FRANKLIN BAY.

When returning to Lady Franklin Bay, Lockwood and his companions reached Shoe Island shortly after midnight. They deposited a record in the cairn there, and proceeded to the cape west of the island, where they went into camp, after a retreat of twenty miles in eight hours. Lockwood suffered much from his eyes, having evidently strained them while endeavoring to see the sun during the late stormy weather. The cold food, upon which alone they could depend, seemed to weaken the stomachs of all the party, and yet they plodded on. At Storm Cape, they left the grand line of cliffs behind, and took a compass course across the great fiord, amid a storm as before when they crossed that inlet. As usual, the dogs thought they knew best, and Frederick thought he knew best, so the compass received little consideration, and they inclined too much to the left, being three hours and twenty minutes in crossing. They stopped at a cairn and deposited a record. In another hour they reached Pocket Bay, and in another, Dome Cape, and then, crossing the inlet, went into camp. “Skaffer” was soon ready, cold chocolate, 179 and a stew with lumps of ice floating round in it, particularly unfortunate after a march which was perhaps the most uncomfortable of the trip. It had been blowing and snowing all day directly in their faces—very severe on snow-blind eyes, which it was necessary in crossing the fiords to keep open in order to see the way. In addition to this, strange to say, Lockwood suffered with cold hands. Generally, while traveling, they were warm enough, and only got cold when stopping; but on that day they were aching with cold a great part of the time. The dogs had eaten up his seal-skin mits some time before, and the woolen ones gave little protection against the storm, with the mercury 30° below zero. They found the ice-foot now generally covered with snow, but they retreated twenty-seven miles in eight hours and forty minutes. Left camp shortly after 5 P. M., and, passing Cape Surprise, struck directly across the fiord for Distant Cape. When opposite their old camp at Low Point, a glacier was seen in the interior, a green wall of ice lying at the foot of what looked like a low, dome-shaped hill, but which must have been a mass of ice covered with snow, as is all the interior of this country. The travel over the floe was quite good, but when just beyond Distant Cape, they found themselves in the deep snow of the wide fiord to the west of it, a part of the route they had been dreading for some time. They finally, however, reached the farther side. The dogs must have smelled the pemmican in cache there, for, during the last two hundred yards, they bent all their energies to the work and 180 seemed wild to get ashore. They pulled the sledge through a fringe of hummocky ice at the coast in a way that proved how they could pull when they set their hearts on business. The weather during the day was variable. When they started, it was quite thick, and the wind blew strongly in their faces, making the traveling very disagreeable; but toward the latter part of the march, the wind died away and the sun appeared. The traveling was better than when outward bound, the late storm having improved it very much. Brainard did all the cooking, Lockwood chopping the ice and assisting in various ways. They got off a little after six, and in two hours were at Black Cape. Here they stopped awhile and built a cairn, and at Blue Cape stopped again. The next four and a half hours they pursued their monotonous course across the floe, Lockwood indulging in these reflections: “What thoughts one has when thus plodding along! Home and everything there, and the scenes and incidents of early youth! Home, again, when this Arctic experience shall be a thing of the past! But it must be confessed, and lamentable, it is, as well as true, that the reminiscences to which my thoughts oftenest recur on these occasions are connected with eating—the favorite dishes I have enjoyed—while in dreams of the future, my thoughts turn from other contemplations to the discussion of a beefsteak, and, equally absurd, to whether the stew and tea at our next supper will be hot or cold.”

They next camped some miles from North Cape, opposite the immense fiord there, which runs inland 181 an interminable distance without visible land at its head. Lockwood had intended going up this fiord to what seemed like the opening of a channel on the south side of Cape Britannia, but the uncertainty and their fatigue finally induced him to continue the way they had come, the weather being delightful. Ritenbank went about all day with his head and tail down, perhaps repenting his numerous thefts. Advanced seventeen miles in eight hours.

Left camp at 6 P. M., and in about three hours reached North Cape, where they stopped some time to take a sub-polar observation, making its latitude 82° 51′. Cape Britannia was reached without event, and there they stopped long enough to get the rations left in cache, and deposit a record in the cairn; then continued on the floe a half-mile to get out of the shadow of the mountain. At the cairn they got the snow-shoes left there, and the spare sledge-runner. They also collected some specimens of the vegetation and rocks, and saw traces of the musk-ox, showing that these animals wander even this far north. They saw also some snow-birds. They had thought that when they reached Cape Britannia they would feel near home; but now having reached it, the station seemed as far off as at any point they had left behind, and they could not rest until Cape Bryant was reached.

The sun was very bright and warm when they left camp at 9.50 P. M., but a heavy fog hung like a curtain on the horizon, and shut out the land all around. They were, in fact, traveling on the Polar Sea, out of sight of land. Shortly after starting, Lockwood put 182 on snow-shoes to try them, and found immense relief at once. He blamed himself every day for a week for not having tried them during the journey out, and thus saved himself many hours of the most fatiguing travel through deep snow. Brainard, seeing the advantage, put on the other pair, and from that time there was nothing about which they were so enthusiastic as the snow-shoes. They afterward wore them more or less every day. At 6 A. M. they went into camp on the floe. The fog by this time had disappeared, and everything was singularly bright and clear. Advanced sixteen miles in eight hours, and got off again a little after 8 A. M.

It was a beautiful day, calm and clear, and the sun was really too warm for dogs and men. They got along very well, however, on the snow-shoes, and one of the men keeping ahead to encourage the dogs and make a straight course, they finally reached, at the place they had crossed before, their old friend, the tidal crack, now frozen over. They lunched regularly every day on pemmican and hard bread, and rested whenever tired. A beautiful parhelion was seen, one of the most complete yet observed, in the perfection of its circles and the brightness of its colors. The blue, yellow, and orange were very distinct. They went into camp after four, the weather cloudy and threatening snow, having advanced sixteen miles in eight hours. They left again at 8.40 P. M. Snow falling, and no land being in sight, they kept near the right course by means of the compass. Their course was north-west (magnetic), the variation being in the neighborhood 183 of ninety degrees. Went into camp near St. George’s Fiord at 4.40 A. M., suffering a good deal from snow-blindness afterward. During the march were troubled very little, strange to say. Rations were now getting low. The snow was very soft, and, owing to this and the warm sun, the dogs “complained” a good deal. Advanced sixteen miles in eight hours. Started off again at 8.40 P. M., reached shore shortly after twelve, about three quarters of a mile short of Cape Bryant, and, following the coast, pitched tent at the old camping-ground. After visiting the cairn on the hill, they determined to make up arrears by having a royal feast—anticipated for many days. “How nice that English bacon must be! How superior that English pemmican to the abominable lime-juice pemmican!” Brainard made a generous stew out of the aforesaid, with a liberal allowance of desiccated potatoes, etc., and they “pitched in!” But oh! what disappointment! Before eating a half-dozen spoonfuls they came to a dead halt, and looked at each other. Even Frederick stopped and gazed. The dish was absolutely nauseating. “Oft expectation fails, and most where most it promises.” Fortunately, there was left there a tin of frozen musk-ox meat, with other stores rendered surplus by the supporting party being able to go no farther. After this feast on the English stores, they confined themselves to the musk-ox. The English pemmican, though a little musty, when eaten cold was quite palatable. This and the bacon were each put up in metallic cases. 184 The bacon they subsequently found to be inclosed in tallow, and this it was that made their feast so disappointing. After this they all went to look for Lieutenant Beaumont’s cache, left here when his party was disabled by scurvy. The search was unsuccessful, although they traveled the coast for two miles and a half, advancing twelve miles in four hours. Getting up at twelve, Lockwood and Brainard went out to the tide-crack about half a mile from shore, and, by means of a rope and stone, undertook to get a set of tidal observations. They kept up the observations for nearly twelve hours, and then becoming satisfied that their arrangements did not register the tide, owing to the depth, currents, etc., gave it up, much disappointed. All their work went for nothing. These observations made their eyes much worse, and both suffered with snow-blindness all the rest of the way.

While thus occupied, the dogs took advantage of their absence to visit the cache and eat up part of a sack of hard bread and half a dozen shot-gun cartridges—the shot and the brass being rather indigestible. They left camp after midnight and a beautiful morning followed, calm and clear, the sun unpleasantly warm; and no wonder, since Lockwood was wearing three heavy flannel shirts, a chamois-skin vest, a vest of two thicknesses of blanket (double all round), a knitted guernsey and canvas frock, besides two or three pairs of drawers, etc.

They tramped along on snow-shoes, and a couple of hours after starting, Brainard, who was on the 185 hill-side to the left, discovered, with his one unbandaged eye, relics of Beaumont—an old Enfield rifle, a pole shod with iron, a cross-piece of a sledge, three or four articles of underwear, some cartridges, sewing-thread and thimble, and the remains of a shoe with a wooden sole about an inch thick. Other articles mentioned by Lieutenant Beaumont in his journal were not to be found. They may have been carried off by animals or buried in the snow near by. The articles found were in a little bare mound near the ice-foot. “Poor Beaumont! how badly he must have felt when he passed along there with most of his party down with scurvy, dragging their heavy sledge and heavier equipments!” Farther on, Lockwood shot a ptarmigan on top of a large floe-berg thirty feet high, and, by taking advantage of a snow-drift and doing some “boosting,” they secured the bird. They stopped at cache No. 3 (near Frankfield Bay) and took out what the supporting party had left there. Gave the dogs the lime-juice pemmican and ground beans, but it was only by seeming to favor first one dog and then another that they were induced to eat it, thus illustrating the advantage of their “dog-in-the-manger” spirit. Went into camp on the east shore of Hand Bay. Their buffalo sleeping-bag now began to feel too warm, but was always delightfully soft and dry. Eyes painful. Advanced twelve miles in ten hours. After crossing Hand Bay they made a short stop at Cape Stanton. The Grinnell coast now became very distinct, and seemed home-like. They could see Cape Joseph Henry, or what they took for that headland. 186 The floes off shore, consisting of alternate floes crossed by ridges of hummocks, made very laborious traveling. On reaching the cache near Stanton Gorge, they got the rations left there. The traveling continued very difficult and tiresome. On reaching the Black Horn Cliffs, they decided, as their old tracks were entirely obliterated, to follow along under the cliffs, instead of taking the wide détour they had made going out. They got along pretty well for a while, and then reached a mass of hummocks and rubble-ice. There they found a relic of the past—a towel which the men had used to wipe the dishes, and had lost or abandoned. By dint of hard work they got through this bad ice, crossed the smooth, level floe adjoining, and then came to the next patch of rubble-ice. After proceeding through this some distance, the sledge needing relashing, Lockwood went on alone with the axe, making a road as he went. Found the site of their old camp on the shore, but, as the snow slope there had become impassable, he kept along the coast on the floe and finally found a landing several miles to the west. Sledge and all got here at eight o’clock, and they continued on over the snow slopes, passing the remains of the “Nares” sledge and reaching Drift Point, where they went into camp alongside a big floe-berg, with lots of icicles upon it waiting for them, having advanced twenty-two and a half miles in ten hours. Finding strong winds and snow from the west, they delayed starting till almost midnight. The ice-foot along this low, sloping shore being excellent, they made good time, in an hour 187 reaching the place of their first camp on this coast. The melting of the floe-bergs and the fall of the snow had so changed the general aspect, that the place was hardly recognizable. At 2 A. M. they came opposite the break in the cliff where they had entered on the coast in April. They soon made out the dark object seen previously from this point to be a cairn, and discovered a small bay which they knew must be Repulse Harbor. Crossing this bay, they reached the cairn at three o’clock. It was a tremendous affair, and the tin can inside was full of papers by Beaumont, Dr. Coppinger, and others. As a cold wind was blowing, Lockwood made a short-hand copy of the documents and left the originals.

Lockwood’s eyes filled with tears as he read the last postscript of the several which followed the main record of poor Beaumont. Sitting on these bare rocks amid snow and wind, with a desolate coast-line on one side, and the wide, dreary straits on the other, he could well appreciate what Beaumont’s feelings must have been when he reached here with his party all broken down with scurvy, and, after trying to cross the straits and failing on account of open water, had no other recourse but to try and reach Thank-God Harbor. His last postscript reads thus:

    “Repulse Harbor Depot, June 13, 1876.—Three of us have returned from my camp, half a mile south, to fetch the remainder of the provisions. D—— has failed altogether this morning. Jones is much worse, and can’t last more than two or three days. Craig is 188 nearly helpless. Therefore we can’t hope to reach Polaris Bay without assistance. Two men can’t do it. So will go as far as we can and live as long as we can. God help us! (Signed) “L. A. Beaumont.”

He and Gray were the only ones left, and both shortly discovered scorbutic symptoms.

Chilled through, Lockwood now continued along the coast to the west, following the ice-foot under a grand line of cliffs. After a while, they came to a narrow break or cleft in the cliffs, the gateway of a small mountain-torrent. It was like a winding and dark alley in a city, with vertical sides rising to the height of several hundred feet. Entering it, they presently came to an immense snow-drift, probably fifty or more feet high and filling up the gorge like a barricade, with another a little beyond. They returned to the sledge, thoroughly satisfied that Beaumont never went through that place. About seven they came to what seemed to be the “Gap Valley” of the English, a wide, broad valley, extending due south about three miles to a ravine. They therefore turned off from the coast and followed it, encountering a good deal of deep snow and bare, stony spots. At 11 A. M. they camped in the ravine near its head, thoroughly tired out. They now had only one day’s food left, and it behooved them to make Boat Camp in another march, even though fifty miles off. Advanced seventeen miles in eleven hours. The dogs for several days had been on 189 short allowance, and during their sleep tore open the bag of specimen rocks and stones, but fortunately did not chew them up as they had done the cartridges.

Getting off at 3.29 and crossing the table-land, they struck a narrow gorge running precipitately down to Newman’s Bay. At its head was a mountainous drift of snow, which they descended on the run; then came a number of smaller drifts, completely blocking up the gorge, over which they had to lower the sledge by hand. Near the bay, they discovered a singular snow-cave one hundred feet long, and occupying the entire bed of the stream, arched through its whole length by beautiful ribs of snow, from which depended delicate snow-crystals. The entrance was quite small, but inside, the roof was far above their heads. They lost sight of its picturesqueness in the thought of its fitness for the burrow of a sledge-party. This brought them on the smooth surface of the bay, with familiar landmarks before and around them—Cape Sumner, Cape Beechy, and far in the distance, Distant Point and the land near Franklin Bay. Looking back at the ravine from the bay, Lockwood felt sure no one would ever take this little, insignificant, narrow gully for the route of a sledge-party, and that no one traveling this, or the one they took going out, would ever take either again in preference to going round Cape Brevoort. They delayed along the shore of the bay almost an hour, leisurely building a cairn and viewing the scenery, and then going on, reached the farther side at eight o’clock, making their last final retreat of ten miles in five hours and a half. 190 There was the whale-boat, and pitched alongside it, anchored down by stones and held by ropes, the six-man tent of the supporting party. Inside were Sergeants Lynn and Ralston, and Corporal Ellison, fast asleep. Lockwood had told Lynn to send back to Conger three of his party on reaching Boat Camp. The remaining three awaited his return. The work of pitching tent woke up the other party, and soon they heard the sound of the Polaris fog-horn (picked up near by), and saw three heads projecting from the tent, whose owners gave them a warm welcome, as well they might, after awaiting their return nearly a month at this place, the dreariest of all in that dreary region. The remaining stores were ransacked for a big feast, without regard to the rations. Corned and boiled beef, canned potatoes and beans, butter, milk, and canned peaches, made a meal fit for a king or for gods that had just experienced an Arctic sledge-journey. The monotonous life of these men had been varied only by a visit from two bears, and the arrival of Dr. Pavy—sent by Lieutenant Greely with some rations.

The news from the station was that Dr. Pavy with Sergeant Rice and Esquimaux Jans had got only as far as Cape Joseph Henry, when they were stopped by open water. Lockwood had taken it for granted that the doctor would attain Markham’s latitude and excel his own. Lieutenant Greely had been west from Fort Conger on a trip of twelve days in the mountains, and had discovered a large lake with a river flowing out of it, which had no ice on its surface—something 191 very wonderful. The vegetation had also shown a much milder atmosphere than anywhere else in these latitudes. Numerous Esquimaux relics had been found, and many musk-oxen seen.

Turning their backs on the Boat Camp, and with many loud blasts on the Polaris fog-horn, they started at 11.25 P. M. for Fort Conger.

The snow along the snow-slopes was badly drifted, but with so many to help, they got along without much delay and soon reached Cape Sumner. They found the rubble-ice south of that point worse than before, and here and there were little pools of water. The weather was very thick, the wind blowing and snow falling, and the farther side of the straits completely hidden, so that they went via the Gap, but there had to leave the shore and direct their course as well as possible by compass. Presently they could see neither shore, and got into a mass of rubble-ice, mixed with soft snow-drifts. Lynn and party (Ralston and Ellison) had not traveled any for so long that they began to get very much fatigued, and could not keep up with the sledge. They had not slept since the arrival at the Boat Camp, owing to the excitement of the occasion. The driving snow hurt their eyes, and they were a very sorry party. However, they kept on, and finally came in sight of the west coast, and some hours afterward, finding good floes to travel over, a little before noon reached the “tent on the straits”—about five miles from Cape Beechy—Ellison and Ralston completely exhausted.
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En route again, they spread the American flag on a long pole and carried it thus till they reached the station. At the snow-house, where they remained some hours to rest and get something to eat, they found Ellis and Whistler, who had come up from Fort Conger to look out for the party.

All found their eyes more or less affected excepting Frederick. Ralston’s were so bad that he was sent on in advance, led by Ellis. He walked almost the whole way with his eyes closed. Lynn held on to the upstanders of the sledge, and thus found his way.

On the first day of June, Ralston and Lynn went in advance, led by Ellis and Ellison. They could not see at all, and, as their guides carried the guns and each had his man made fast by a strap, they looked very much like a party of prisoners. At Watercourse Bay they met Lieutenant Greely, who had come out to meet them, and was well satisfied with the result of the expedition, and soon after they reached Fort Conger.

Lieutenant Lockwood not only received many hearty congratulations from his companions, but even the weather, as if in sympathy with the general gladness, became bright and cheerful. The important business of working out the latitude that had been attained was now proceeded with. Efforts were made to verify the prismatic compass which was serviceable, but had a limited range. Much of the ground around the station was bare of snow, and, as the temperature was rising rapidly, Lockwood 193 felt as if he would like to be off again on a wild tramp. When he said something about certain sledge operations in the future, Greely replied, “If you are content to go, I will give you all the help I can.”