CHAPTER LI.
KENNEDY'S EXPEDITION—SIR EDWARD BELCHER—McCLURE—DISCOVERY OF THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE—JUNCTION OF McCLURE AND KELLETT—EPISODE OF THE RESOLUTE—COMMODORE PERRY'S EXPEDITION—DECISIVE TRACES OF THE FATE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN—THE LEVIATHAN.
Encouraged by the discovery of traces of her husband, Lady Franklin caused the Prince Albert, upon her return with the intelligence, to be at once refitted for another Arctic voyage. The expedition, though conducted with consummate skill by William Kennedy, late of the Hudson's Bay Company, and Lieutenant Bellot, of the French Navy, his second, totally failed of success. It returned in October, 1853. In the mean time, another and more imposing expedition—that under Sir Edward Belcher—had sailed for the Polar regions. The squadron consisted of five vessels,—the Assistance, with the steamer Pioneer, the Resolute, with the steamer Intrepid, and the North Star store-ship. They sailed on the 28th of April, 1852, and arrived at their head-quarters at Beechey Island—the scene of Franklin's hibernation in 1846—on the 10th of August. The North Star remained here with the stores, while the two ships, with their respective tugs, started upon distinct voyages of exploration,—Sir Edward Belcher, in the Assistance, standing up Wellington Channel, and Captain Kellett, in the Resolute, proceeding to Melville Island. The latter was instructed to seek at this point for intelligence of Captains McClure and Collinson, who had been sent to Behring's Strait in 1850, in order to force their way eastward from thence, and who had not since been heard of. As the interest of Sir Edward Belcher's expedition centres entirely in the junction effected by Kellett with McClure, we revert to the adventures of the latter explorer, now distinguished as the discoverer of the Northwest Passage.
Collinson and McClure sailed in the Enterprise and Investigator for Behring's Strait viâ Cape Horn on the 20th of January, 1850. They arrived at the strait in July. The Enterprise, being foiled in her efforts to get through the ice, turned about and wintered at Hong-Kong. McClure, in the Investigator, kept gallantly on through the strait, and, during the month of August, advanced to the southeast, into the heart of the Polar Sea, along a coast never yet visited by a ship, and on the 21st of August arrived at the mouth of Mackenzie River, discovered by Mackenzie in his land-expedition in 1789 to determine the northern coast-line of America. He had now passed the region visited and surveyed in former years by Franklin, Back, Rae, and others, in overland explorations, and on the 6th of September arrived at a point considerably to the east of any land marked upon the charts. He now began to name the islands, headlands, and indentations. On the 9th, the ship was found to be but sixty miles to the west of the spot to which Parry, sailing westward, had carried his ship in 1820. Could he but sail these sixty miles his name would be immortal. "I cannot," he writes, "describe my anxious feelings. Can it be possible that this water communicates with Barrow's Straits and shall prove to be the long-sought Northwest Passage? Can it be that so humble a creature as I am will be permitted to perform what has baffled the talented and wise for hundreds of years?" On the 17th, the Investigator reached the longitude of 117° 10' west,—thirty miles from the waters in which Parry wintered with the Hecla and Griper in a harbor of Melville Island. Alas! the vessel went no farther east: the ice drifted perceptibly to the west, and it was fated that these thirty miles should remain, as they had remained for ages, as impassable to ships as the Isthmus of Suez.
The Investigator passed the winter heeled four degrees to port and elevated a foot out of water by a "nip," in which position she rested quietly for months. Late in October, a sledge-party of six men, headed by McClure, started to traverse on foot the distance which it was forbidden their ship to cross. On the 25th, they saw the Polar Ocean ice. The next morning, before daybreak, they ascended a hill six hundred feet high, convinced that the dawn would reveal them the previous surveys of Sir Edward, and make them the discoverers of the Northwest Passage, by connecting their voyage from the west with his from the east. The return of day showed their anticipations to be correct: Melville Strait was visible to the north, and between it and them, though there was plenty of ice, there was no intervening land. They had discovered the Passage,—that is, an ice-passage, which of course involved a water-passage when the state of the atmosphere permitted it. Though they regretted bitterly that they could not get their ship through, their only remaining course was to send one of their party home by the well-known route through Barrow's Straits, and thus prove the existence of the passage by the return of one who had made it. They erected a cairn and left a record of their visit, and then commenced their homeward journey to the ship. McClure became separated from his companions, and nearly perished in the snow. He arrived in safety, however, and the grand discovery was duly celebrated and the main-brace properly spliced. Numerous searching-parties were now from time to time sent out, and in the middle of July the ice broke up and the Investigator was released. She drifted five miles more to the east,—thus reducing the distance of separation to twenty-five miles. Here she was again firmly and inextricably frozen in. Another and another winter passed; and it was not till the spring of 1853 that relief reached them. In order to make a consecutive story, we must return to that portion of Sir Edward Belcher's squadron which, under Captain Kellett, was sent to Melville Island, and which arrived there late in 1852. At this period, Kellett, in the Resolute, and McClure, in the Investigator, were about one hundred and seventy miles apart.
A sledge-party sent out by Kellett discovered, with the wildest delight, in October, 1852, a cairn in which McClure had deposited, the April previous, a chart of his discoveries. They were compelled to wait the winter through; and it was not till the 10th of March that Kellett ventured to send a travelling-party in quest of the Investigator. The communication was effected on the 6th of April, 1853. McClure thus describes it:
"While walking near the ship, in conversation with the first lieutenant, we perceived a figure coming rapidly towards us from the rough ice at the entrance of the bay. He was certainly unlike any of our men; but, recollecting that it was possible some one might be trying a new travelling-dress preparatory to the departure of our sledges, and certain that no one else was near, we continued to advance. The stranger came quietly on: had the skies fallen upon us we could hardly have been more astonished than when he called out, 'I'm Lieutenant Pim, late of the Herald, now of the Resolute. Captain Kellett is in her, at Dealy Island.'
"To rush at and seize him by the hand was the first impulse; for the heart was too full for the tongue to speak. The news flew with lightning rapidity: the ship was all in commotion; the sick, forgetful of their maladies, leaped from their hammocks; the artificers dropped their tools, and the lower deck was cleared of men; for they all rushed for the hatchway, to be assured that a stranger was actually among them and that his tale was true. Despondency fled the ship, and Lieutenant Pim received a welcome—pure, hearty, and grateful—that he will surely remember and cherish to the end of his days."