161. OVER THE ICE.
We left Mr. Hall near the close of January, 1861, when he was just returning to the ship after his first overland expedition. We do not propose to follow him through the course of his personal narrative, although it abounds with striking incidents and details of hardship and peril. Thus, one day in March, John Brown, one of the ship’s crew, in company with two Innuits, started off from an igloo a few miles distant to rejoin the ship. Somehow he got separated from his companions, but the next morning he had not arrived. The night had been intensely cold, the thermometer marking 57 degrees below freezing-point. A party of a dozen set off in the attempt to find him. In two hours they came upon the tracks of the wanderer, but only Hall and four others could hold out; the others, one by one, fell back. They kept on, following the tracks, which now began to grow faint, being partly filled up with snow. For a time the tracks went straight for the ship; then they began to waver, now in one direction, and then in another, showing that the man had lost his way. They followed the tracks, in the intense cold, 60 degrees below freezing-point. They were tormented by thirst, which they attempted to allay by the use of ice. The first fragment which Hall put into his mouth froze it fast. He managed to reduce the temperature of the ice by holding the fragments in his mittened hand, so that he could place them in his mouth. After six hours, Hall’s companions said they could go no farther and must return; for they had brought along no snow-knife, with which they could build an igloo for the night; and if a storm should spring up, they must all be inevitably lost. Hall went on alone. One of the crew named Johnston soon overtook him, saying, “Brown was my shipmate, and I loved him. I will go on with you. If I were to go back now, I shall always regret it.” They followed the tracks, which now began to run in circles, interlocking one another. There were twelve of these within less than two miles. Every little while they came upon places where the wanderer had lain down to rest. At five o’clock, nine hours after setting out, they were overtaken by Captain Buddington, with two sailors and two Innuits, accompanied by a dog-team. They all pressed on with renewed vigor, and in a few minutes came upon poor Brown, frozen dead. They could not convey the corpse to the ship, fully ten miles away, and so buried him in the snow upon the spot where he was found.
162. THE FROZEN SAILOR.
It was the middle of July before the ship was released from her icy prison. The whalers went to work, and Hall made several important expeditions by land and water, living nearly all the while with the Innuits. Towards the middle of October the captain began to prepare for returning home. But he was a few days too late. The ship was beset in the ice-pack, with no hope of escape. There was nothing left but to make up their minds to spend another winter in the ice.
We must pass wholly over the incidents and adventures of this second winter. It is the old tale of suffering and privation. On the 12th of January the thermometer fell to 72 degrees below the freezing point. One of the men who had left to visit an Innuit encampment came back, saying that he thought he had frozen his toe. Upon pulling off his boots both feet were found to be frozen stiff, and as hard as ice. The usual attempts to save the members were made in vain; mortification began, and, to save the man’s life, the captain was obliged to amputate portions of both his feet.
This year, 1862, the ice held on unusually late; but on the 8th of August it was found that the pack had broken up. The way home was apparently open; and all hands were summoned on board. The vessel spread her canvas and sailed off, the Innuits surrounding her in their canoes, and shouting farewell.
Tookoolito and Ebierbing resolved to accompany Hall to the States, taking with them Tukeliketa (“Butterfly”), their infant, a year old. The child died a few months after their arrival in the States, and lies buried in the graveyard at Groton, Connecticut. “I never saw,” says Hall, “a more animated, sweet-tempered, and engaging child.” For days the mother was delirious; then she longed to die, that she might be with her lost Butterfly. Upon his grave were laid, according to the custom of his people, all his childish playthings. They were sacred to the dead. The mother went to the grave one day, and found that one article, a gayly-painted little tin pail, had been taken away. She was inconsolable. “Poor little Butterfly,” she said, “how he will miss his beautiful pail!”
The homeward voyage was speedy and prosperous. On the 13th of September the “George Henry” dropped anchor at New London, whence she had sailed two years and three and a half months before.