FUNERAL OF CAPTAIN HALL.
On the 10th of October Captain Hall organized a sledging expedition, as a preliminary to an extended journey in the spring. There were two sledges, each drawn by seven dogs; Captain Hall and Eskimo Joe in one sledge, and Mr. Chester and Eskimo Hans in the other. They were absent until the 24th, but owing to the roughness of the ice had accomplished only fifty miles, and had made no discovery.
Meantime, the crew had been engaged in banking up the ice around the ship, in order to protect it from collision with drifting floes; the deck was partly roofed over, and covered with canvas; and other preparations were made to resist the terrible inclemency of an Arctic winter. These, however, were temporarily suspended by the sudden illness of Captain Hall. On the 1st of November he was a little better, but on the 3rd his malady, which appears to have been a form of paralysis, took a turn for the worse; and the end came so rapidly that the eager-hearted, enthusiastic explorer, who had braved so many harsh experiences in the Polar World, “fell asleep” early on the morning of the 8th. A grave was immediately prepared for the reception of his remains about half a mile inland; a shallow grave, for the ground was frozen so hard that it was scarcely possible to break it up, even with picks; and on the 11th, the funeral took place. The time chosen was half-past eleven in the morning; yet it was so dark that Mr. Bryan read prayers by the light “of a lantern dimly burning.” All the ship’s company were present. The coffin was hauled on a sledge, over which, by way of pall, was spread the American flag with its stars and stripes. The captain and officers, Dr. Bessel, and Mr. Meyers, followed as mourners; and strange and picturesque must the melancholy procession have appeared, as it wound its way through ice and snow, while a weird boreal light or gleam in the air revealed the outlines of the distant hills, rising like a rampart on the edge of the snow-covered plain, and flickered every now and then over the frozen expanse of the ice-bound bay.
Thus, says Captain Tyson, thus ended poor Hall’s ambitious projects; thus was stilled the effervescing enthusiasm of his ardent nature. “Wise he might not always have been, but his soul was in his work; and had he lived till spring, I think he would have gone as far as mortal man could go to accomplish his mission. But with his death, I fear that all hopes of further progress will have to be abandoned.” That Tyson was right in his conjecture, our narrative will show.
Captain Buddington succeeded to the command, and one of his first measures was to discontinue the Sunday service, for reasons which he does not seem to have explained, and we are unable to imagine. So far as we can gather from the published records of the expedition, he was a man unfitted to bear responsibility,—a man without enthusiasm in himself, and incapable, therefore, of stimulating it in others. Nor could he secure the obedience of his inferiors. Seamen are always prompt to detect the weakness of their officers; and the crew of the Polaris soon assured themselves that their new captain was deficient both in courage and resolution.
However, the winter gradually closed in upon the little ice-bound company of the Polaris, and they were called upon to endure, with such patience as was at their command, the severities of the long Arctic night. It was very dark, yet not totally dark. For an hour or two at noon it was possible to wander a short distance from the snow-roofed vessel; but, once away from it, the gloom and silence of everything around settled down on the wanderer like a pall. There were none of the usual sounds of Nature to relieve the deep oppression of the scene. “The other evening,” says Tyson, “I had wandered away from the ship, disgusted with the confusion and noise, and longing for a moment’s quiet. Once beyond range of the men’s voices, there was absolutely no other sound whatever. It was quite calm—no wind, no movement of any living creature; nothing but a leaden sky above, ice beneath my feet, and silence everywhere. It hung like a pall over everything. So painfully oppressive did it become at last, that I was frequently tempted to shout aloud, to break the spell. At last I did; but no response came, not even an echo.
‘The space was void; there I stood,
And the sole spectre was the solitude.’”