TWIN GLACIER VALLEY.
A splendid erratic block of red granite, twelve or fifteen feet high, lay in the south side of the valley, and round it a complete trench was worn deep into the ground by the foot prints of musk oxen as they rubbed themselves against it or stood under it for shelter. This glen was even more fertile than Port Foulke, and would make a delightful winter quarters for an amateur Arctic Expedition. There was plenty of willow, with large well-grown leaves, and in many places the ground was covered with a perfect garden of dwarf flowers; even in the dry parts of the river bed, patches of purple Epilobium covered the sand. We could only account for the absence of game by supposing that the neighbouring valleys were equally rich. An old reindeer antler was picked up, together with the skull of a bear, and at the upper end of the valley some remains of Eskimo “igloos” were discovered, with door posts made of whale ribs.
Our furthest point in Hayes’ Sound was reached two days afterwards, and, so far as we could see, the peninsula on our right was not an island. We subsequently saw that it, and the very similar headland next north of it, were parts of the same land, only separated by a curve in the coast with a low hill in the centre. We accordingly ceased to speak of our headlands as Henry and Bache Islands, and returned to their original titles, Capes Albert and Victoria.
At length the long check at Hayes’ Sound came to an end. Some southward motion in the ice opened a lead round Cape Albert. It was at once taken advantage of, and when it closed in again the ships were well to the north of the Cape, but, unfortunately, completely imprisoned in close pack drifting steadily southwards, and taking them with it. There was no fixed point to lay hold on. The long wall of horizontally banded cliffs was more than a mile off, and, even if we could have reached it, there did not appear to be any little curve or hollow where we could have held our own. What little we had won seemed slipping from us. There was nothing to be done but wait patiently for the chances of the next tide. “Tea” had been cleared away in the wardroom, and logs were being written up and journals posted, when we were startled by sudden orders on deck. “Full speed ahead!” “Clear away jib!” “Set fore-top sail, top-gallant sail, and foresail!” We rushed on deck, expecting that a fine lead had opened northwards, but, lo! the ships were still fast in the pack, and drifting right down upon an iceberg two hundred yards long and forty feet above water that crushed through the floes towards us. The “Alert” was directly in its path. Men out on the ice ahead and astern tried to make way, and hauled with ice anchors and tackle; full steam and sail failed to move her. The pack tightened every moment with increasing pressure. The roar of the crushing ice came nearer and nearer. And as the orders “Up screw and up rudders” were given, those of us who were useless on deck went below to see that our messmates’ haversacks were ready to be flung out on the ice alongside, if our ship’s strong beams should prove unequal to the crush. In solitary possession of the wardroom, and quite undisturbed by the excitement on deck, our white cat “Pops” dozed peacefully in her favourite posture on a chair in front of the stove. When we went on deck again the critical moment had come. The stern was clear of the berg, but the bow was in its direct path. The ice pack, buckling and shovelling in front, caught the fore part of the ship, and pushed her forcibly sternwards, swinging her half round into a stream of ice and water sweeping past the berg. The danger was over, but our jibboom was not four feet from the wall of ice. Such an opportunity of arresting our southward drift was not to be lost. Grappling appliances were all ready, and in a moment both ships were being towed comfortably along in the wake of their old enemy.
OUR WHITE CAT “POPS.”++
The events of next day well illustrate the uncertainties of ice navigation. At 2 a.m. the ships had slowly struggled northwards until they were abeam of Cape Victoria, but there the ice closed in and “nipped” the ships close inshore under the cliffs. Rudder and screw were again raised to save them from the dangerous pressure, which increased till the floes, sliding one under the other, were forced landwards completely under the ship. At that moment nothing could be more unpromising than the prospects of the expedition, and yet, twenty minutes afterwards we were steaming cheerily along through a good lead towards Franklin and Pierce Bay. By breakfast time we had crossed to the north-eastern shore of the bay, and found further progress checked for the time by floes close packed against the rugged headlands to the north. As the ships were secured to the edge of a broad flat floe lying between an island and the high conglomerate cliffs of the mainland, several walrus were seen lying on a fragment of floe about a mile off. Their flesh would make a most valuable store of food for our dogs, who had been living almost exclusively on preserved Australian meat, for they disliked dog biscuit. Accordingly, a whale-boat with a harpoon gun in her bows was lowered and manned. It was necessary to make a long detour. New ice forming in the shadow of the cliffs impeded our progress and rendered a noiseless attack impossible. Our game, however, paid no attention to the noise we made scraping the ice with the oars and breaking a road with a paddle. We soon got close enough to see that there were three of them lying close together. Occasionally one or other would rear himself slowly up, displaying his double-lobed head and long gleaming tusks, scratch his side lazily with his huge flipper, and fling himself down again with a satisfied grunt beside his slumbering companions. They lay on the edge of a floe. We steered for the largest of the three, and at length the broad arrow-head of the harpoon, projecting from the muzzle of the gun, was within five yards of the beast. Then, with the flash, the steel buries itself deep in his side, a stream of blood spurts on the snow, and all three walrus start up and heave themselves upright before plunging into the water, looking as formidable game as any post-diluvian sportsman could desire, but evidently too much frightened to attack. A well-aimed bullet struck our victim’s throat and shortened his death-struggle. Ere long the drag on the harpoon line slackened, and the huge carcase was drawn to the surface and towed slowly to the ship. It measured twelve and a-half feet from nose to tail, eleven and a-half in girth. The tusks, eighteen inches from gum to point, gave the creature a savage appearance, but their use was to dig up the molluscs on which he fed, or to hook himself up on to the ice floes. The dogs were not alone in their appreciation of fresh meat. We ourselves found some steaks by no means unpalatable though desperately tough, and for some days walrus liver figured upon our breakfast-table.