“Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest.”—Coleridge.
LONDON:
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW;
EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.
PREFACE.
Englishmen have always felt a special interest in the regions of the icy North, from the days when Dr. Thorne first proposed the search after a passage to the Pole, down to these present times, when the Expedition under Captains Nares and Stephenson has shown that such a passage is virtually impracticable. The interest originally kindled by commercial considerations has been maintained by purer and loftier motives,—by the thirst after knowledge, and the sympathy with the brave deeds of brave men. And it must be admitted that our national virtues of resolute perseverance and patient courage have never been more happily displayed than in the prosecution of the great work of Arctic Discovery. Our explorers have refused to know when they were beaten; and in defiance of a terrible climate, of icebergs and ice-floes, of hurricanes and driving snow-storms, of obstacles, dangers, and difficulties, have pressed onward, until the latest adventurers have crossed the Threshold of the Unknown Region, and confronted the immense plain of ice that extends for four hundred miles from the Pole. Their labours, indeed, have been attended by the shadows of melancholy disasters, and the long Arctic night closes over the graves of many whom England was loath to lose; but in their successful issue they have brought us acquainted with the phenomena of a strange and wonderful world, and opened up to us a succession of scenes of the most remarkable character.
There can be no question that in the frozen wastes and snowy wildernesses lurks a powerful fascination, which proves almost irresistible to the adventurous spirit. He who has once entered the Arctic World, however great his sufferings, is restless until he returns to it. Whether the spell lies in the weird magnificence of the scenery, in the splendours of the heavens, in the mystery which still hovers over those far-off seas of ice and remote bays, or in the excitement of a continual struggle with the forces of Nature, or whether all these influences are at work, we cannot stop to inquire. But it seems to us certain that the Arctic World has a romance and an attraction about it, which are far more powerful over the minds of men than the rich glowing lands of the Tropics, or the
“Summer-isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea,”
which are crowned with the bread-fruit and the palm, the spontaneous gifts of a liberal soil. We follow with far deeper interest the footprints of a Parry and a Franklin than those of a Wallis, a Carteret, or even a Cook.
The general reader, therefore, may not be displeased at the attempt of the present writer to put before him, with bold touches, and in outline rather than in detail, a picture of that Polar World which is so awful and yet so fascinating. In the following pages he will find its principal features sketched, its chief characters legibly and clearly traced. They are not intended for the scientific,—though it is hoped the scientific, if they fall in with them, will find no ground for censure. They aim at describing the wonders of sky and sea and land; the glories of the aurora; the beauty of the starry Arctic night; the majesty of iceberg and glacier; the rugged dreariness of the hummocky fields of ice; the habits of the Polar bear, the seal, and the walrus; and the manners and customs of the various tribes which frequent the shores of the Polar seas and straits, or dwell on the border-land of the Frigid Zone. In a word, it has been the writer’s object to bring together just such particulars as might enable the intelligent reader to realize to himself the true character of the world which extends around the North Pole. In carrying out this object, he has necessarily had recourse to the voyages of numerous explorers and the narratives of sundry scientific authorities; and he believes that not a statement has been ventured which could not claim their support.