“In five days the spring tides come back: should we fail in passing with them, I think our fortunes are fixed. The young ice bore a man this morning: it had a bad look, this man-supporting August ice! The temperature never falls below 28°; but it is cold o’ nights with no fire.”
“August 18, Friday,” he writes, “reduced our allowance of wood to six pounds a meal. This, among eighteen mouths, is one-third of a pound of fuel each. It allows us coffee twice a day, and soup once. Our fare besides this is cold pork boiled in quantity and eaten as required. This sort of thing works badly; but I must save coal for other emergencies. I see ‘darkness ahead’!
“I inspected the ice again to-day. Bad! Bad!—I must look another winter in the face. I do not shrink from the thought, but, while we have a chance ahead, it is my first duty to have all things in readiness to meet it. It is horrible—yes, that is the word—to look forward to another year of disease and darkness to be met without fresh food and without fuel. I should meet it with a more tempered sadness if I had no comrades to think for and protect.”
“August 20, Sunday.—Rest for all hands. The daily prayer is no longer ‘Lord, accept our gratitude and bless our undertaking,’ but, ‘Lord, accept our gratitude and restore us to our homes.’ The ice shows no change; after a boat and foot journey around the entire southeastern curve of the bay, no signs!”
The future looked so gloomy, and Dr. Kane’s apprehension for the ultimate safety of his party was so grave, that he determined to erect a cairn in a conspicuous spot upon a cliff looking out upon the icy desert, and on a broad face of rock the words—
“Advance
“A.D. 1853-54”
were painted in letters which could be read at a distance. A pyramid of heavy stones perched above it, was marked with the Christian symbol of the cross. “It was not without a holier sentiment than that of mere utility that I placed under this the coffins of our two poor comrades. It was our beacon and their gravestone. Near this a hole was worked into the rock, and a paper, enclosed in glass, sealed in with melted lead. This paper contained a careful record of the expedition up to date.
“The memory of the first winter quarters of Sir John Franklin, and the painful feelings with which, while standing by the graves of his dead, I had five years before sought for written signs pointing to the fate of the living, made me careful to avoid a similar neglect.”