Having made all necessary arrangements for the safety of the vessel, Parry left the station on June 21st with the two boats, which were named the Enterprise and the Endeavour, Lieutenant (afterwards Sir) James Clarke Ross having command of the second. Lieutenant Crozier accompanied the boats to Low and Walden Islands, where depôts of provisions were made. Provisions for seventy-one days were taken, which, including the boats and all necessary gear, made up a weight of 260 lbs. per man. Four officers and twenty-four men constituted the party. The boats made good progress until stopped by the ice at noon on the 24th, when they were hauled upon a small floe, the latitude by observation being 81° 12′ 51″. The plan of travelling on the ice was much as follows: Night—if the term can be used at all in connection with the long Arctic summer day—was selected for travelling, partly because the snow was harder, and they also avoided the glare on its surface produced by the rays of the sun at its greatest altitude, which is the immediate cause of snow blindness. Greater warmth was enjoyed during the hours of rest, and it also gave them a better chance of drying their clothes. “This travelling by night and sleeping by day,” says Parry, “so completely inverted the natural order of things that it was difficult to persuade ourselves of the reality. Even the officers and myself, who were all furnished with pocket chronometers, could not always bear in mind at what part of the twenty-four hours we had arrived; and there were several of the men who declared—and I believe truly—that they never knew night from day during the whole excursion.” The day was always commenced by prayers, after which they took off their fur sleeping-dresses, and put on those for travelling. Breakfast was rather a light meal, consisting only of warm cocoa and biscuit. After stowing the boats, &c., so as to secure them from wet, they usually travelled five to five and a half hours, halted an hour for dinner, and then again travelled four, five, or even six hours. After this they halted for the “night,”—usually early in the morning—selecting the largest surface of ice in the vicinity for hauling the boats on, in order to lessen the danger of collision with other masses or from its breaking up. The boats were placed [pg 180]close alongside each other, and the sails, supported by the bamboo masts and three paddles, formed awnings over them. Supper over, the officers and men smoked their pipes, usually raising the temperature of their lodging 10° or 15°; the men told their stories and “fought all their battles o’er again, and the labours of the day, unsuccessful as they too often were, were forgotten.” The day was concluded with prayer, after which they retired for the night, a watch being set for bears or for the breaking up of the ice. The cook roused them with a bugle call after seven hours’ rest, and the work of the day commenced as before. The dietary scale seems to have been very light for such hard work in that severe climate—ten ounces of biscuit, nine ounces of pemmican, and one ounce of sweetened cocoa-powder, with one gill of rum per day each man. The fuel used consisted exclusively of spirits of wine, the cocoa, or pemmican soup, being cooked in an iron pot over a shallow lamp with seven wicks.
THE EDGE OF THE PACK.
The journey commenced with very slow and laborious travelling, the pieces of ice at the margin of the pack being of small extent and very rugged. This obliged them to make three, and sometimes four, journeys with the boats and baggage, and to launch frequently over narrow pools of water. In other words, in making a distance of two miles they had to travel six or eight, and their progress was very tedious. Fog and [pg 181]rain hindered them somewhat, while the condition of much of the ice over which they passed rendered their journey very fatiguing. Much of it “presented a very curious appearance and structure, being composed, on its upper surface, of numberless irregular, needle-like crystals, placed vertically and nearly close together, their length varying, in different pieces of ice, from five to ten inches.” A vertical section of it resembled satin-spar and asbestos when falling to pieces. This kind of ice affords pretty firm footing early in the season, but as the summer advances the needles become loose and movable, rendering progress very difficult, besides cutting into the boots and feet. The men called these ice-spikes “pen-knives.” This peculiar formation of ice Parry attributed to the infiltration of rain-water from above. The water was standing in pools on the ice, and they had often to wade through it. On the 28th the party arrived at a floe covered with high and rugged hummocks in successive tiers, and the boats had to be dragged up and down places which were almost perpendicular. While performing this laborious work, one of the men was nearly crushed by a boat falling upon him from one of the hummocks. As an example of the harassing nature of this service, we find them on the 29th, in making a mile of northing by a circuitous route among the ice-masses and open pools, travelling and re-travelling about ten miles in order to keep the party and supplies together. They tried for soundings, and found no bottom at two hundred fathoms (1,200 feet); later, a four hundred fathom line gave no bottom. On the 30th snowy and inclement weather rendered the atmosphere so thick that they were obliged to halt; later in the same day they made five miles by rowing in a very winding channel.
“As soon,” says Parry, “as we landed on a floe-piece, Lieutenant Ross and myself generally went on ahead, while the boats were unloading and hauling up, in order to select the easiest road for them. The sledges then followed in our track, Messrs. Beverly and Bird accompanying them, by which the snow was much trodden down, and the road thus improved for the boats. As soon as we arrived at the other end of the floe, or came to any difficult place, we mounted one of the highest hummocks of ice near at hand (many of which were from fifteen to five-and-twenty feet above the sea), in order to obtain a better view around us; and nothing could well exceed the dreariness which such a view presented. The eye wearied itself in vain to find an object but ice and sky to rest upon; and even the latter was often hidden from our view by the dense and dismal fogs which so generally prevailed. For want of variety, the most trifling circumstances engaged a more than ordinary share of our attention—a passing gull or a mass of ice of unusual form became objects which our situation and circumstances magnified into ridiculous importance; and we have since often smiled to remember the eager interest with which we regarded many insignificant occurrences. It may well be imagined, then, how cheering it was to turn from this scene of inanimate desolation to our two little boats in the distance, to see the moving figures of our men winding among the hummocks, and to hear once more the sound of human voices breaking the stillness of this icy wilderness. In some cases Lieutenant Ross and myself took separate routes to try the ground, which kept us almost continually floundering among deep snow and water.” The soft snow encountered was a great hindrance; on [pg 182]one occasion it took the party two hours to make a distance of 150 yards! They had been deviating from their night travelling, and were otherwise feeling the effects of it in that inflammation of the eyes which ends in snow-blindness. The night travelling was therefore resumed. On July 3rd their way at first lay across a number of small loose pieces of ice, most of which were from five to twenty yards apart, or just sufficiently separated to give them all the trouble of launching and hauling up the boats without the advantage of making any progress by water. Sometimes the boats were used as a kind of bridge, by which the men crossed from one mass to another. By this means they at length reached a floe about a mile in length, on which the snow lay to the depth of five inches or so, under which, again, there was about the same depth of water. Parry says that snow-shoes would not have been of the least service, as the surface was so irregular that the men would have been thrown down at every other step. Among the hummocks noted at this time were smooth, regular cones of ice, “resembling in shape the aromatic pastiles sold by chemists; this roundness and regularity of form indicate age, all the more recent ones being sharp and angular.”
Day after day they laboured on, with little variation in the circumstances detailed above. The men worked with great cheerfulness and goodwill, “being animated with the hope of soon reaching the more continuous body which had been considered as composing the ‘main ice’ to the northward of Spitzbergen,” which Captain Lutwidge had described as “one continued plain of smooth, unbroken ice, bounded only by the horizon.”[33] They certainly deserved to reach it, if it existed at all; but it is more than probable that this apparently continuous level, mentioned by several navigators, had been seen from an elevation, the “crow’s nest” on board ship, or some hill ashore, and that a nearer inspection would have shown it to be full of hummocks and breaks.
It is amusing to read of them breakfasting at five p.m., dining at midnight, and taking supper at six or seven o’clock in the morning! On July 11th, having halted an hour at midnight for dinner, they were again harassed by a heavy rainfall, but although drenched to the skin they made better progress soon after, traversing twelve miles, and making seven and a half in a northerly direction. They had now reached the latitude of 82° 11′ 51″. Next day’s exertions only enabled them to make three and a half miles of direct northing, and the following day but two and a half. Much thin ice was encountered; it was often a nervous thing to see their whole means of subsistence lying on a decayed sheet, with holes quite through it, and which would have broken up with the slightest motion among the surrounding masses. One day the ice on one side of a boat, heavy with provisions and stores, gave way, almost upsetting her; a number of the men jumped upon the ice and restored the balance temporarily. A rain-storm of twenty-one hours’ duration is recorded on the 14th and 15th, which was, as generally the case, succeeded by a thick wet fog. On the 16th the narrative records “the unusual comfort of putting on dry stockings, and the no less rare luxury of delightfully pleasant weather.” It was so warm in the sun that the tar exuded from the seams of the boats. Even the sea-water, though loaded with ice, had a temperature of 34°. At this time the ice-floes were larger, [pg 183]though none are recorded over three miles in length. On the 18th, after eleven hours’ actual labour, “requiring, for the most part,” says Parry, “our whole strength to be exerted, we had travelled over a space not exceeding four miles, of which only two were made good in a NNW. direction.” The men, exhausted by their day’s work, were treated to a little extra hot cocoa. They were also put into good spirits by having killed a small seal, which next night gave them an excellent supper. “The meat of these young animals is tender,” says Parry, “and free from oiliness; but it certainly has a smell and a look which would not have been agreeable to any but very hungry people like ourselves.” They utilised its blubber for fuel, after the Esquimaux manner. Some few birds—rotges, dovekies, looms, mollemucks, and ivory and Ross gulls—were very occasionally seen and shot; and one day a couple of small flies were found upon the ice, which to them was an event of ridiculous importance, and as so is recorded in the narrative. This at least gives an insight into the terrible monotony of their existence at this period.
Hitherto they had been favoured by the wind, but on the 19th a northerly breeze set in, which, while it was the means of opening several lanes of water, counterbalanced this advantage by drifting the ice—and, by consequence, the party on it—in a southerly direction. Great was their mortification at noon on the 20th to find by observation that since the same hour on the 17th they had only advanced five miles in a northerly direction. Although they had apparently made good progress in the intervening time, their efforts had been nullified by the ice drifting southward. These facts were carefully concealed from the men. On the 21st the floe broke under the weight of the boats and sledges; some of the men went completely through, and one of them was only held up by his drag-belt being attached to a sledge which happened to be on firmer ice. This day they made nearly seven miles by travelling, and drifted back four and a half; or, in other words, their observation of the latitude showed them to have, in reality, advanced only two miles and a quarter. Under these circumstances we can understand their anxiety when, after a calm of short duration, fog-banks were observed rising both to the southward and north. Which would prevail? That from the south came first, with a light air from that quarter, but soon after the weather became perfectly calm and clear. Next night they made the best travelling during the expedition. The floes were large and tolerably level, and some good lanes of water occurring, they believed that they must have advanced ten or eleven miles in a NNE. direction, having traversed a distance of about seventeen. They had done so—on the ice; but the ice itself had drifted so much to the southward that they found, to their great disappointment and disgust, by observation of the latitude, that they had only made four miles. Still worse was it on the 26th, when they found themselves in latitude 82° 40′ 23″; since their last observation on the 22nd they had, though travelling almost incessantly, lost by drift no less than thirteen miles and a half, and were more than three miles to the southward of their earlier position. The men unsuspiciously remarked that they “were a long time getting to this 83°!” ignorant of the fact that the current was now taking them faster south than all their labours advanced them north. Unlike Sisyphus, they were but exerting an honourable ambition, but like him they were rolling a stone up-hill which constantly rolled back again. The eighty-third parallel had been for some time past the limit of Parry’s ambition, but although he never reached it, [pg 184]he had the proud satisfaction of having hoisted the British flag in a higher latitude than ever attained before. Markham has since beaten him. Parry reached 82° 45′, and in reaching it the party had, in the necessarily circuitous course taken, and counting the constant retracing of their steps, travelled a distance nearly sufficient to have reached the North Pole itself in a direct line.
It became evident that the nature and drift of the ice were such as to preclude the possibility of a final success greater than that recorded. They had now been absent from the ship thirty-five days, and one-half their supplies were exhausted. Parry therefore determined to give the party a day’s rest, and then set out on the return. He says:—“Dreary and cheerless as were the scenes we were about to leave, we never turned homewards with so little satisfaction as on this occasion.” Still, the southern current was now an advantage, and they knew that every mile would tell. The return was made successfully and without any very serious casualties. Lieutenant Ross shot a fat she-bear which had approached within twenty yards. Before the animal had done biting the snow, one of the men was alongside of her with an open knife, cutting out the heart and liver for the pot which happened to be then boiling their supper. Hardly had the bear been dead an hour when all hands were employed in discussing its merits as a viand, and some of them very much over-gorged themselves, and were ill in consequence, though they “attributed this effect to the quality, and not the quantity, of meat they had eaten.” On the morning of August 11th the first sound of the ocean swell was heard under the hollow margins of the ice, and they soon reached the open sea, which was dashing with heavy surges against the outer masses. Sailing and paddling, fifty miles further brought them to Table Island, where they found that bears had devoured all the bread left at the depôt, as arranged at the commencement of their voyage. The men naïvely remarked, says Parry, that “Bruin was only square with us.” From a document deposited there during his absence, he learned that on July 7th the Hecla had been forced on shore by the ice breaking up, but that she had been hove off safely. Taking advantage of a favourable breeze, they steered their boats for Walden Island, but en route had bad weather, reaching it completely drenched and worn-out, having had no rest for fifty-six hours. They had barely strength to haul the boats ashore above the surf; but a hot supper, a blazing fire of drift-wood, and a few hours’ quiet rest soon restored them. The party arrived at the ship on August 21st, having been absent sixty-one days. Allowing for the number of times they had to return for their baggage during most of the journeys on the ice, Parry estimated their actual travelling at eleven hundred and twenty-seven statute miles; and as they were constantly exposed to wet, cold, and fatigue, as well as to considerable peril, it was matter for thankfulness that all of the party returned in excellent health, two only requiring some little medical care for trifling ailments.
The future career of Parry was of a very different nature. After being knighted, and fêted by the people of England, in the spring of 1829 he was appointed Commissioner of the Australian Agricultural Company in New South Wales; and one who visited the country a few years later wrote:—“At Port Stephens Sir Edward Parry found a wilderness, but left a land of hope and promise.” Returning to England in 1835, he was appointed Assistant Commissioner of Poor Law in the county of Norfolk, but [pg 185]after a year and a half was forced to resign through ill-health. He was afterwards made Comptroller of Steam Machinery to the Admiralty, a post which he held for nearly nine years, during which time the duties of his office became every day more arduous; and in December, 1846, he received the appointment to the post of Captain Superintendent of the Royal Clarence Yard and of the Naval Hospital at Haslar. He took a prominent part in the founding of a sailors’ home at Portsmouth; and in 1852 had to resign his post at Haslar in consequence of attaining his rear-admiral’s flag. At the close of the following year he was made Governor of Greenwich Hospital, and died on the 8th of July, 1855, at Ems. His remains were brought to England and buried in the mausoleum at Greenwich Hospital.