RECORDS of our advance were to be deposited at Lyttelton Island, for the information of a relief ship which would so far follow us if the Expedition should remain northward for two winters. Accordingly, on the morning of 28th July, our ships anchored off Reindeer Point, Port Foulke. Here we were on ground that must always possess a deep interest for every Arctic traveller. The southern side of our little bay shut in the winter quarters from which Dr. Hayes had brought his ship safely home; out to seaward Lyttelton Island was strewn with remains of the “Polaris;” and Rensselaer Harbour, famed as the winter quarters of Dr. Kane, was but thirty miles to the northward. A path, still plainly discernible, led across a gap in the Doige range to the deserted Eskimo settlement of Etah; and if any further inducement was required to make the shore attractive, it was supplied by a little note on our chart, “reindeer plentiful.”
Our time for exploration was limited, for the ships would weigh anchor on the return of the main party from Lyttelton Island. Leaving the ship as soon as possible after breakfast, we landed amongst fragments of shore ice which still lined the little bay, and travelled inland up a valley completely bare of snow, and green with saxifrage, willow, and grasses. A rivulet trickled through some marshy ground in its centre, amongst treacherous islands of rich-coloured velvety moss, and occasional broad ripple-marked slabs of red sandstone. The whole ground was covered with footprints of reindeer, but a gentle wind blew up the valley, and left little hope of sighting them. Climbing the hills to the northward to obtain a better view, a broad undulating table-land lay spread out before us, ridges of plutonic rock, like low walls, traversed the country from east to west, and here and there marshy pools, some of them almost deserving the name of lakes, lay in the hollows, and sent little streams winding towards gaps in the coast cliffs. Beyond and below the cliffs lay Smith’s Sound, an unbroken expanse of blue, limited westward by snow-clad Ellesmere Land between Capes Isabella and distant Sabine. The strait was, so far, quite open and unencumbered by ice, but away to the northward, where Hayes’ Sound interrupted the outline of the coast, a long thin line of pack, the first indication of coming troubles, streaked the horizon. This was bad news to have to report on our return to the ship, but there was no help for it. We turned our backs on it, and struck out inland across the muddy flats in the direction of Foulke Fiord. The Doige Range looked near enough, but an hour’s hard walking did not bring it much nearer. Two steep ravines had to be crossed, as well as a stream, which fortunately was in one place bridged by a deep snowdrift that afforded firm footing across. At length the precipitous cliffs of Foulke Fiord were reached at a point close above the deserted settlement of Etah. Looking down into the fiord, large flocks of little auks were seen perched in black and white lines along the ledges.
A small ravine intersects the cliff-edge a little eastward from the “Aukrey,” and on the brow over it we came upon two structures, evidently the work of man, puzzling enough at the time, but which we have since learnt to recognise as Eskimo meat caches or safes. Each consisted of a pile of stones covering in a long rectangular chamber, left open at one end, but easily closed by a flat stone which lay close by. Both stood in a conspicuous position on the top of a little rise, and were surrounded by lemming and fox marks. A mile further eastward, the cliffs promised a good commanding position for a view, but the rough and undulating hill-tops took us a good while to get over. At length the ascent of the last ridge was commenced, when suddenly a snow-white object appeared over the brow. It was an Arctic hare, the first we had seen. He was evidently astonished at the reappearance of his old enemy, man, and it was not till after he had made a careful examination of us, standing straight up, full length, on his hind feet, that he concluded we were to be avoided. Then off he went, running ten or fifteen paces erect, then a bound or two on all-fours, then erect again, and finally, when he had run some eighty or one hundred yards, he stopped for another look, sitting on his haunches like a dog begging. This time we were ready for him; he presented a steady mark, and his curiosity was fatal to him. On going to pick him up, we came on a low wall of stones roughly piled, nowhere more than two feet high, leading from the cliff-edge on the right, for about eighty yards inland, to a small shallow tarn; it was apparently some Eskimo hunting contrivance, possibly to assist in driving small game to a suitable spot over the cliffs. Amongst the rounded boulders in the margins of the tarn lay a great number of shed antlers of reindeer, some of them broken and moss-grown, half-buried in the mud; others bleached white, but evidently of no great age. The tips of almost all showed marks of having been gnawed by foxes. Some scattered antlers were found on other parts of the hills, but were always numerous round the tarns; every one we met with had horns of various sizes and ages lying about it.
On reaching the summit we were amply rewarded for our expenditure of energy. The prospect was truly magnificent. A thousand feet below, the blue waters of Foulke Fiord lay, rippled with a breeze, under the richly-coloured cliffs of the opposite shore; further on, the flat expanse at the head of the inlet, with Alida Lake, and Brother John’s Glacier of Kane, shaped like a great paw, closed in the valley. Beyond and above all, a broad white plain, the vast inland ice of Greenland, lay spread before us. Even at first sight, this sea of ice could not be mistaken for a frozen sea, for its distant horizon was sensibly above our level.
The coast of Greenland, like other western shores, is so subdivided by inlets and fiords, that there are but few places where it is possible to get a good view over any extent of the mar de glace. Three or four miles off, as we saw it, its surface seems smooth enough, but it is really so uneven and fissured, that the most persevering attempts to travel inland over it have penetrated but a short distance, after three days’ incessant toil. When not checked by labyrinths of crevasses, the travellers have encountered impassable rivers, flowing in icy beds, till they plunged in a cloud of mist into fathomless pits. Enough, however, has been learned to justify the belief, that a continuous mass of ice, many thousand feet deep, loads the whole of Greenland, from the land’s end near Cape Farewell, to far north beyond Petermann’s fiord, where our Expedition traced its outline behind the coast hills on the shores of the Polar Sea.
The place where we stood afforded an excellent site for a sketch; some bold rocks over the cliffs and a mellow-tinted herbage—principally red-tipped three-cleft saxifrage—supplied a good foreground. Our artistic proceedings were, however, interrupted by the appearance of a little grey fox, attracted doubtless by the dead hare. He seemed perfectly aware of the danger he ran, and never exposed more than his forehead, ears, and eyes over the rocks behind which he had taken up his position. His skin would have made an acceptable addition to our collection; and after waiting some time in hope that he would make a further advance, he was fired at, but missed, and he gave us no opportunity for a second shot.
