“And now,” writes Dr. Hayes, “my journey was ended, and I had nothing to do but make my way back to Port Foulke. The advancing season, the rapidity with which the thaw was taking place, the certainty that the open water was eating into Smith Sound as well as through Baffin Bay from the south, as through Kennedy Channel from the north, thus endangering my return across to the Greenland shore, warned me that I had lingered long enough.
“It now only remained for us to plant our flag in token of our discovery, and to deposit a record proof of our presence. The flags were tied to the whip-lash, and suspended between two tall rocks, and while we were building a cairn, they were allowed to flutter in the breeze; then, tearing a leaf from my note-book, I wrote on it as follows:—
“‘This point, the most northern land that has ever been reached, was visited by the undersigned, May 18th, 19th, 1861, accompanied by George T. Knorr, travelling dog-sledge. We arrived here after a toilsome march of forty-six days from my winter harbor near Cape Alexander, at the mouth of Smith Sound. My observations place us in latitude 81° 35´, longitude 70° 30´ W. Our further progress was stopped by rotten ice and cracks. Kennedy Channel appears to expand into the Polar Basin; and, satisfied that it is navigable at least during the months of July, August, and September, I go hence to my winter harbor, to make another trial to get through Smith Sound with my vessel, after the ice breaks up this summer.
“‘I. I. Hayes.
“‘May 19, 1861.’”
“I quit the place with reluctance,” he writes. “It possessed a fascination for me, and it was with no ordinary sensations that I contemplated my situation, with one solitary companion, in that hitherto untrodden desert; while my nearness to the earth’s axis, the consciousness of standing upon land beyond the limits of previous observations, the reflections which crossed my mind respecting the vast ocean which lay spread out before me, the thought that these ice-girdled waters where dwell human beings of an unknown race, were circumstances calculated to invest the very air with mystery, to deepen the curiosity, and to strengthen the resolution to persevere in my determination to sail upon this sea and to explore its furthest limits; and as I recalled the struggles which had been made to reach this sea,—through the ice and across the ice,—by generations of brave men, it seemed as if the spirits of these Old Worthies came to encourage me, as their experience had already guided me; and I felt that I had within my grasp ‘the great and notable thing’ which had inspired the zeal of sturdy Frobisher, and that I had achieved the hope of matchless Parry.” The much-discussed “open polar sea,” in which Dr. Hayes had implicit faith, has since been found to be only the south half of Kennedy Channel, which freezes late and opens early, owing to the very high tides, that sometimes rise thirty feet. Dr. Hayes reached the schooner, June 3, after an absence of two months, in which he travelled not less than 1300 miles. After careful examination of his ship, Dr. Hayes found she had greatly suffered from her experience in the ice, and that, for the safety of his party, great care had to be exercised in her navigation.
“By dint of much earnest exertion,” he writes, “and the use of bolts and spikes,—by replacing the torn cut-water, careful calking, and renewal of the iron plates,—it seemed probable that the schooner would be sea-worthy; but I was forced to agree with my sailing master, that to strike the ice again was sure to sink her.”
Dr. Hayes awaited with some anxiety the breaking up of the ice, and the liberation of the schooner. Not until July 14, 1861, did the United States glide out to sea under full sail, and by August 10 she was in latitude 74° 19´, longitude 66°. By the 12th they made land which proved to be Horse’s Head, and three days later found the schooner at anchor in Upernavik harbour.
“While the chain was yet clinking in the hawse-hole,” writes Dr. Hayes, “an old Dane, dressed in seal-skins, and possessing a small stock of English and a large stock of articles to trade, pulled off to us with an Eskimo crew, and with little ceremony, clambered over the gangway. Knorr met him, and, without any ceremony at all, demanded the news.