Fortunately summer was now fast approaching, with his cheering sunbeams and his genial warmth. The seals began to appear on the coast in large numbers, and there was now no want of fresh meat, the chief panacea against the scurvy. The snow-buntings returned to the ice-crusted rocks, and the gulls and eider-ducks came winging their way to their northern breeding-places.
Vegetation likewise sprang into life with marvellous rapidity, and the green sloping banks not only refreshed the eye, but yielded juicy, anti-scorbutic herbs.
Kane’s health slowly but steadily improved. He was, however, obliged to give up all further sledge excursions for the season, and to leave the execution of his plans to his more able-bodied companions.
Thus Dr. Hayes, crossing the sound in a north-easterly direction, reached the opposite coast of Grinnell Land, which he surveyed as far as Cape Frazer in lat. 70° 45´.
This journey was rendered uncommonly slow and tedious by the excessively broken and rugged character of the ice. Deep cavities filled with snow intervened between lines of hummocks frequently exceeding twenty or thirty feet in height. Over these the sledge had to be lifted by main strength, and it required the most painful efforts of the whole party to liberate it from the snow between them. Dr. Hayes returned on June 1, and a few days later Morton left the brig, to survey the Greenland coast beyond the Great Glacier. The difficulties were great, for, besides the usual impediments of hummocks, the lateness of the season had in many places rendered the ice extremely unsafe, or even entirely destroyed the ice-ledge along the shore. Thus for the last days of his onward journey he was obliged to toil over the rocks and along the beach of a sea which, like the familiar waters of the south, dashed in waves at his feet. Morton and his companion Hans, the Esquimaux, reached on June 26, 1854, Cape Constitution, a bold headland, where the surf rolled furiously against high overhanging cliffs, which it was found impossible to pass. Climbing from rock to rock, in hopes of doubling the promontory, Morton stood at this termination of his journey, and from a height of 300 feet looked out upon a great waste of waters, stretching to the unknown north. Numerous birds—sea-swallows, kittiwakes, brent-geese—mixed their discordant notes with the novel music of dashing waves; and among the flowering plants growing on the rocks was found a crucifer (Hesperis pygmæa), the dried pods of which, still containing seed, had survived the wear and tear of winter. From Cape Constitution the coast of Washington Land trended to the east, but far to the north-west, beyond the open waters of the channel, a peak, terminating a range of mountains similar in their features to those of Spitzbergen, was seen towering to a height of from 2500 to 3000 feet. This peak, the most remote northern land at that time known upon our globe, received the name of Mount Parry.
Meanwhile the short summer was wearing on, and, as far as the eye could reach, the ice remained inflexibly solid. It was evident that many days must still elapse before the vessel could possibly be liberated—but then most likely winter would almost have returned—a dismal prospect for men who knew by experience the long fearful night of the 79° of latitude, and who, broken in health and with very insufficient supplies of provisions and fuel, were but ill armed for a second encounter. No wonder that many of Kane’s companions thought it better to abandon the vessel than to tarry any longer in those frozen solitudes.
But though it was horrible to look another winter in the face, the resolution of Kane could not be shaken. On August 24, when the last hope of seeing the vessel once more afloat had vanished, he called the officers and crew together, and explained to them frankly the considerations which determined him to remain. To abandon the vessel earlier would have been unseemly, and to reach Upernavik so late in the season was next to impossible. To such of them, however, as were desirous of making the attempt, he freely gave his permission so to do, assuring them of a brother’s welcome should they be driven back. He then directed the roll to be called, and each man to answer for himself. In result, eight out of the seventeen survivors of the party resolved to stand by the brig. The others left on the 28th, with every appliance which the narrow circumstances of the brig could furnish to speed and guard them. When they disappeared among the hummocks, the stern realities of their condition pressed themselves with double force on those whom they left behind.
The reduced numbers of the party, the helplessness of many, the waning efficiency of all, the impending winter, with its cold, dark nights, the penury of their resources, the dreary sense of increased isolation—all combined to depress them. But their energetic leader, leaving them no time for these gloomy thoughts, set them actively to work to make the best possible preparations they could for the long cold night to come.
He had carefully studied the Esquimaux, and determined that their form of habitations and their mode of diet, without their unthrift and filth, were the safest and best that could be adopted. The deck was well padded with moss and turf, so as to form a nearly cold-proof covering, and, down below, a space some eighteen feet square—the apartment of all uses—was inclosed and packed from floor to ceiling with inner walls of the same non-conducting material. The floor itself, after having been carefully caulked, was covered with Manilla oakum a couple of inches deep and a canvas carpet. The entrance was from the hold, by a low moss-lined tunnel, with as many doors and curtains to close it up as ingenuity could devise. Large banks of snow were also thrown up along the brig’s sides to keep off the cold wind.
All these labors in the open air wonderfully improved the health of the exiles, and their strength increased from day to day. A friendly intercourse was opened with the Esquimaux of the winter settlements of Etah and Anoatok, distant some thirty and seventy miles from the ship, who, for presents of needles, pins, and knives, engaged to furnish walrus and fresh seal meat, and to show the white men where to find the game. Common hunting-parties were organized, visits of courtesy and necessity paid, and even some personal attachments established deserving of the name. As long as the Americans remained prisoners of the ice, they were indebted to their savage friends for invaluable counsel in relation to their hunting expeditions, and in the joint hunt they shared alike.