In every team of dogs, one is the king. He holds that position by prowess only, and has to fight and thrash every other dog in the team before he can assume the leadership. When he has once assumed it, he has to keep it by the same means; for revolutions may at any moment occur, through some younger dog aspiring to the ruling position. But while a dog has the position of authority, he exercises his rights with decision, and the remainder of the team cluster round him and support him in emergencies, or lie at his feet in times of leisure. The only one who is allowed to snarl at him without at once being bitten is the queen. She is among her sex what the king is among his; for though she depends more upon him for her prominent position than to her own fighting qualities, she maintains it, when once obtained, by a free use of her jaws upon encroachers.
Consequently, when a number of teams were brought together on the decks of the vessels, all strangers to one another, there was a tremendous amount of fighting in prospect before peace could be granted. Firstly, the kings of the various teams were anxious to tussle for the supremacy; and with the prospect of some of them getting badly mauled, there were several inferiors in each team ready to do battle with their injured monarch, and, when he was disposed of, with one another, for the leadership. But their new masters, instead of letting them all loose to settle their various degrees of authority in their own hereditary fashion, tied them up where they could see and hear one another without exchanging a bite. The kings, naturally warlike and ferocious, could only snap at their inferiors as they bayed in their rage, and the inferiors could only bay in their pain, and so between them the ship's company were kept awake by night and annoyed by day.
When at length opportunity occurred for liberating the dogs and giving them some exercise over the ice, great care had to be taken so as to prevent a wholesale mêlée. Each team, as they were freed from their deck chains, were led on to the ice and made fast to a sledge, two men being in charge of each sledge for the purpose of learning how to drive. And a highly exciting time they had of it, for not only did every dog want to start in its own direction as soon as they were harnessed, but every team wanted to attack every other team directly they appeared.
Nor were the troubles of the drivers limited to the dogs. The whip which is used for sledge teams consists of a very short handle and a very long lash. In the hands of an expert it is a most effective weapon, being capable of producing a resounding crack or a stinging blow wherever the wielder desires. But in the hands of a novice it is, like the Australian stock-whip, prone to do everything that the wielder does not wish. The amateur driver of a team, growing impatient as his dogs set off at full speed in various directions, and, besides tangling the harness, upset the sledge and themselves and very nearly himself as well, lashed out viciously at the worst offender; but the lash, instead of bringing the creature to his senses, curled back and hit the striker across the face, or twined round the legs of his companion, with disastrous results. Meanwhile the Eskimo driver was going from one group to another, trying to explain the mysteries of the art, much to the amusement of the onlookers and the indignation of the inexperienced amateurs.
During the wait at Disko, another form of Arctic travelling was practised by the officers of the expedition. This was the use of the Eskimo kayak.
The kayak is a long narrow canoe, entirely covered in with a waterproof covering. The voyager sits in the middle in a small round hole, the covering lapping over the edges and being fastened round the waist. The kayak is thus made as buoyant as a life-belt, whether floating on an even keel or upside down. By reason of their build, they are peculiarly "cranky" craft, turning over at the least provocation, and so require extremely careful handling, unless one is an adept at swimming and diving. The experience of one of the officers made this clear. He had securely strapped himself in, when, by a false stroke of the paddle, he overturned the kayak. He could not get it back again and was unable to loosen the cover; there was only one way of escape, and that possible alone to a man familiar with being under water. Loosening his clothes, he wriggled out of them and came to the surface just in time to avoid drowning.
Having taken on board all the stores that the Valorous carried, as well as a full supply of coal, the Alert and the Discovery started in company for the North. The advantages of steam navigation were made even more apparent as they proceeded, for the ships were able to steam through ice-encumbered water which would have been quite impassable for sailing vessels. Depending so much upon the wind, a sailing vessel is only able to make headway amongst heavy drifting floes by means of long hawsers, run out and made fast to a mass of ice and then slowly hauled in at the capstan. Steamers, on the other hand, experience no difficulty in forcing their way past and between the lesser floes, and Sir George Nares, who had had a great deal of experience of sailing vessels in the ice regions, was frequently astounded at the ease with which the two steamers rammed their way, clearing from out of their course lumps of ice which would have been difficult obstacles to a sailing ship.
Those on board, however, were not to escape without some experience of the peculiarities of ice movements. The vessels were going to make fast for the night, and a boat's crew was sent from the Alert to carry an anchor to a large, heavy mass not far distant. On near approach it was seen that the lump was very rotten, and, as no hold for the anchor could be found near the water-line, one of the men volunteered to clamber up to the top and, with an ice chisel, make a hold for it. He clambered on to the slippery, treacherous mass, and, after a great deal of very careful exertion, succeeded in reaching a point high enough for his purpose. He began lustily to drive in the chisel, but so rotten was the ice, that instead of merely chipping out a crevice, he cracked the top of the lump. Another blow, and, to his intense amazement, a huge mass in front of him slid away. Gliding down the side, fortunately away from the boat, it splashed into the sea. But the removal of so much from the top of the berg upset its balance, with the result that it swayed from one side to the other as it recovered its equilibrium. The unfortunate sailor, with nothing to cling to, had to scramble up and over the summit as the berg dipped down; but no sooner was he over the top than the berg swung the other way, and he had to scramble back again. There was no means of escape until the berg settled down once more, and in the meantime his companions in the boat and on the steamer were shouting with laughter at the antics of what they called their squirrel on the iceberg.
While he was in his lofty if unsteady position, however, he noticed on a floe not far distant three walrus, and as soon as he returned to the ship and reported his discovery, a boat with a harpoon and two rifles was despatched. The three animals lay contentedly enough on the ice, paying scarcely any heed to the advancing boat, with the result that all were hit. The two that were shot slid off into the water and sank, but the one that was harpooned could not escape. He was an immense creature, measuring over twelve feet in length and eleven feet round the thickest part; his tusks were over eighteen inches long, and, when cut up, he yielded five casks of meat, weighing 1250 lbs.
As the two vessels advanced farther to the North they found that the character of the ice was very different from that met with in the neighbourhood of Baffin's Bay and Lancaster Sound. It was more massive and heavy, a berg they passed towering nearly 300 feet above the water-line, and floes frequently occurring some miles in length and standing 50 feet out of the water. The possibility of being caught between such masses and "nipped" was a constant danger, for no vessel could possibly withstand the tremendous pressure exerted by two floes of that size colliding. A constant look-out had to be maintained from the crow's-nest for any sign ahead of the floes closing in, and by careful navigation anything like a severe "nip" was avoided.