It was, therefore, with no slight joy that on the evening of the 10th, while walking with Mr Bonsall, a distant sound of dogs caught my ear. These faithful servants generally bayed their full-mouthed welcome from afar off, but they always dashed in with a wild speed which made their outcry a direct precursor of their arrival. Not so these well-worn travellers. Hans and Morton staggered beside the limping dogs, and poor Jenny was riding as a passenger upon the sledge. It was many hours before they shared the rest and comfort of our ship.
Mr Morton left the brig with the relief party of M’Gary on the 4th of June. He took his place at the track-lines like the others; but he was ordered to avoid all extra labour, so as to husband his strength for the final passage of the ice.
On the 15th he reached the base of the Great Glacier, and on the 16th was joined by Hans with the dogs. A single day was given to feed and refresh the animals, and on the 18th the two companies parted. Morton’s account I give as nearly as possible in his own words, without affecting any modification of his style.
Morton’s Journey
The party left Cache Island at 12.35 A.M., crossing the land-ices by portage, and going south for about a mile to avoid a couple of bad seams caused by the breakage of the glacier. Here Morton and Hans separated from the land-party, and went northward, keeping parallel with the glacier, and from five to seven miles distant. The ice was free from hummocks, but heavily covered with snow, through which they walked knee deep. They camped about eight miles from the glacier.
They started again at half-past nine. The ice at first was very heavy, and they were frequently over their knees in the dry snow; but, after crossing certain drifts, it became hard enough to bear the sledge, and the dogs made four miles an hour until twenty minutes past four, when they reached the middle of Peabody Bay. They then found themselves among the bergs which on former occasions had prevented other parties from getting through. These were generally very high, evidently newly separated from the glacier.
It took them a long while to get through into smoother ice. A tolerably wide passage would appear between two bergs, which they would gladly follow; then a narrower one; then no opening in front, but one to the side. Following that a little distance, a blank ice-cliff would close the way altogether, and they were forced to retrace their steps and begin again. Constantly baffled, but, like true fellows, determined to “go ahead,” they at last found a lane some six miles to the west, which led upon their right course. But they were from eight o’clock at night till two or three the next morning, puzzling their way out of the maze, like a blind man in the streets of a strange city.
June 19.—At 8.45 A.M. they encamped. Again starting, they went on for ten miles, but were then arrested by wide seams in the ice, bergs, and much broken ice; so they turned about, and reached their last camp by twelve, midnight. They then went westward, and, after several trials, made a way, the dogs running well. It took them but two hours to reach the better ice, for the bergs were in a narrow belt.
They were now nearly abreast of the termination of the Great Glacier. It was mixed with earth and rocks. The snow sloped from the land to the ice, and the two seemed to be mingled together for eight or ten miles to the north, when the land became solid, and the glacier was lost. The height of this land seemed about 400 feet, and the glacier lower.