“October 10.—Our depôt party has been out twenty days, and it is time they were back: their provisions must have run very low, for I enjoined them to leave every pound at the depôt they could spare. I am going out with supplies to look after them. I take four of our best Newfoundlanders, now well broken, in our lightest sledge; and Blake will accompany me with his skates. We have not hands enough to equip a sledge party, and the ice is too unsound for us to attempt to ride with a large team.”
My first effort was, of course, to reach the land; but it was unfortunately low tide, and the ice-belt rose up before me like a wall. The pack was becoming more and more unsafe, and I was extremely anxious to gain an asylum on shore; for, though it was easy to find a temporary refuge by retreating to the old floes which studded the more recent ice, I knew that in doing so we should risk being carried down by the drift.
Accident to the Dogs
The dogs began to flag; but we had to press them;—we were only two men; and, in the event of the animals failing to leap any of the rapidly-multiplying fissures, we could hardly expect to extricate our laden sledge. Three times, in less than three hours, my shaft or hinder dogs went in; and John and myself, who had been trotting alongside the sledge for sixteen miles were nearly as tired as they were. This state of things could not last; and I therefore made for the old ice to seaward.
We were nearing it rapidly, when the dogs failed in leaping a chasm that was somewhat wider than the others and the whole concern came down in the water. I cut the lines instantly, and, with the aid of my companion, hauled the poor animals out. We owed the preservation of the sledge to their admirable docility and perseverance. The tin-cooking apparatus and the air confined in the India-rubber coverings kept it afloat till we could succeed in fastening a couple of seal-skin cords to the cross-pieces at the front and back. By these John and myself were able to give it an uncertain support from the two edges of the opening, till the dogs, after many fruitless struggles, carried it forward at last upon the ice.
Although the thermometer was below zero, and in our wet state we ran considerable risk of freezing, the urgency of our position left no room for thoughts of cold. We started at a run, men and dogs, for the solid ice; and by the time we had gained it we were steaming in the cold atmosphere like a couple of vapour-baths.
We rested on the floe. We could not raise our tent, for it had frozen hard. But our buffalo-robe bags gave us protection; and, though we were too wet inside to be absolutely comfortable, we managed to get something like sleep before it was light enough for us to move on again.
The journey was continued in the same way for a few days; but we found, to our great gratification, that the cracks closed with the change of the tide, and at high-water we succeeded in gaining the ice-belt under the cliffs.
Our progress averaged twenty miles a day since leaving the brig, and we were within a short march of the cape which I have named William Wood, when a broad chasm brought us to a halt. It was in vain that we worked out to seaward, or dived into the shore-ward recesses of the bay: the ice everywhere presented the same impassable fissures. We had no alternative but to retrace our steps and seek among the bergs some place of security. We found a camp for the night on the old floe-ices to the westward, gaining them some time after the darkness had closed in.