At ten a.m. we woke, startled to have slept so long, for we were not to stay on the island longer than twenty-four hours. On a bold headland nearby, we built our cairn, burying in it two cases, one zinc and one copper, containing the records with which Captain De Long had provided us. This promontory, Mr. Dunbar named “Melville Head” in my honor, but after considering its bareness of vegetation, I decided “Bald Head” was more appropriate and so entered it on the chart which I now proceeded to make.
With Bartlett and Erichsen reading instruments while I sketched, we ran a compass survey which took all day. From the high headlands, the Jeannette was plainly visible in the ice to the northeast, a black speck against the white pack, but we paid little attention to her, being anxious only to finish. While this was going on, Sharvell and Nindemann searched the valleys, shooting a few of the birds nesting in great profusion among the rocks. But aside from the birds they saw no other game—no bears, no reindeer, no seals—not a trace of animal life on that island.
In the early evening, our survey finished, we harnessed again our staked-out dogs, furled our banner, and started back.
Our retreat through the roaring ice about the island we found even more difficult than our landing. On one small floe, rounded like a whaleback, we took refuge for a moment in that cascading ice. We clung on in terror when it began rolling beneath us, evidently about to capsize. That to our dismay it finally did, but providentially we were scraped off as it went over onto the main floe. From this more solid footing we dragged up out of the icy water by their harnesses the drenched dogs and the even more drenched Dunbar clinging to the submerged sledge.
Back once more on ice moving only as part of the great Arctic pack, we breathed a little more freely, shook ourselves like the dogs to get rid of surplus water before it froze on us, and headed for the spot toward which I figured our abandoned boat had drifted. There was nothing we could recognize, there were none of our previous tracks we could follow; the arrangement of that pack had changed as completely as a shuffled deck of cards. Amongst high hummocks we could see but a little distance and I was becoming thoroughly alarmed at the prospect of never finding our boat again. Then with the weather clearing a bit, from the top of the highest hummock around, Erichsen spied in the distance the oar marking our boat. We hastened toward it, truly thankful, for we had already made away with the single day’s rations which we had carried with us, and had no longer a bite left to eat.
For two days in miserable weather we stumbled back toward the ship, steering a compass course through continuous snow. To add to our troubles, Nindemann came down with severe cramps (lead, of course) and Erichsen, who since Dunbar’s collapse had been guiding the dogs, with snow-blindness. So pitching our tent in the snow, we camped our second night, while I dragged out the medicine chest with which I had been provided by Dr. Ambler and began to read the directions. The remedy for cramps was “Tincture of capsicum in cognac.” Henrietta Island having seen the last of the cognac, the best liquid substitute available in the chest appeared to be a bottle of sweet oil, which I drew out, together with the bottle marked “Tinc. capsicum.”
My own fingers were cold and numbed, so Erichsen who wanted some of the sweet oil to rub on his chafed body which he had stripped for that purpose, volunteered to draw the corks for me. First pouring some of the sweet oil over his hands to soften them, he pulled the second cork, but so clumsily with his frozen paws, that he spilled a liberal portion of the tincture of capsicum over his badly chapped hands to discover promptly that compared to tincture of capsicum, liquid fire was a cooling, soothing lotion!
Startled, Erichsen involuntarily rubbed the mixture on his bared rump and immediately went wild. To the intense interest of his shipmates, down went Erichsen into the snow, trying to extinguish the burn, wiggling his huge form like a snake on fire. Little Sharvell, solicitously taking his arm, piped up,
“’Ere, matey, let me lead you to a ’igher ’ummock! Bli’ me if I don’t think ye’ll soon melt yer way clean through this floe!”
Nindemann began to laugh so hard at this that he completely forgot his cramps, while Dunbar, between his own groans, sang out cheerily,