I will not lay so heavy a tax upon the reader's patience as to ask him to follow the pages of my diary through the next three weeks. Diaries are of necessity so much taken up with matters that are purely personal and contain so much of endless repetition, so many events that are of daily recurrence, that it is impossible in the very nature of things that they can have much interest for anybody but the writers of them. Suffice it, therefore, to say that the storm continued with unabated violence during the day succeeding that which closed the last chapter, and it did not fairly subside until the end of the tenth day. Meanwhile, however, we were busily occupied. The storm did not keep us housed.
DIFFICULTIES OF THE TRACK.
Our first duty was to bring up the stores left at Cape Hatherton. This accomplished, we broke up our camp and set out to cross the Sound with a moderate load, the men dragging the large sledge, while the dogs were attached as before. The wind had, fortunately, hauled more to the south, and, coming nearly on our backs, we found little inconvenience from this source. But difficulties of another kind soon gave us warning of the serious nature of the task which we had undertaken. By winding to the right and left, and by occasionally retracing our steps when we had selected an impracticable route, we managed to get over the first few miles without much embarrassment, but farther on the track was rough past description. I can compare it to nothing but a promiscuous accumulation of rocks closely packed together and piled up over a vast plain in great heaps and endless ridges, leaving scarcely a foot of level surface and requiring the traveler to pick the best footing he can over the inequalities,—sometimes mounting unavoidable obstructions to an elevation of ten, and again more than a hundred feet above the general level.
SLOW PROGRESS.
The interstices between these closely accumulated ice masses are filled up, to some extent, with drifted snow. The reader will readily imagine the rest. He will see the sledges winding through the tangled wilderness of broken ice-tables, the men and dogs pulling and pushing up their respective loads, as Napoleon's soldiers may be supposed to have done when drawing their artillery through the steep and rugged passes of the Alps. He will see them clambering over the very summit of lofty ridges, through which there is no opening, and again descending on the other side, the sledge often plunging over a precipice, sometimes capsizing, and frequently breaking. Again he will see the party, baffled in their attempt to cross or find a pass, breaking a track with shovel and handspike; or, again, unable even with these appliances to accomplish their end, they retreat to seek a better track; and they may be lucky enough to find a sort of gap or gateway, upon the winding and uneven surface of which they will make a mile or so with comparative ease. The snow-drifts are sometimes a help and sometimes a hindrance. Their surface is uniformly hard, but not always firm to the foot. The crust frequently gives way, and in a most tiresome and provoking manner. It will not quite bear the weight, and the foot sinks at the very moment when the other is lifted. But, worse than this, the chasms between the hummocks are frequently bridged over with snow in such a manner as to leave a considerable space at the bottom quite unfilled; and at the very moment when all looks promising, down sinks one man to his middle, another to the neck, another is buried out of sight, the sledge gives way, and to extricate the whole from this unhappy predicament is probably the labor of hours; especially, as often happens, if the sledge must be unloaded; and this latter is, from many causes, an event of constant occurrence. Not unfrequently it is necessary to carry the cargo in two or three loads. The sledges are coming and going continually, and the day is one endless pull and haul. The nautical cry of the sailors, intended to inspire unison of action, mingles with the loud and not always amiable commands of Jensen and Knorr, each urging on his fatigued and toil-worn dogs.
It would be difficult to imagine any kind of labor more disheartening, or which would sooner sap the energies of both men and animals. The strength gave way gradually; and when, as often happened, after a long and hard day's work, we could look back from an eminence and almost fire a rifle-ball into our last snow-hut, it was truly discouraging.
I need hardly say that I soon gave up all thought of trying to get the boat across the Sound. A hundred men could not have accomplished the task. My only purpose now was to get to the coast of Grinnell Land with as large a stock of provisions as possible, and to retain the men as long as they could be of use; but it soon became a question whether the men themselves could carry over their own provisions independent of the surplus which I should require in order that the severe labor should result to advantage. In spite, however, of every thing the men kept steadfastly to their duty, through sunshine and through storm, through cold, and danger, and fatigue.
SMITH SOUND.
The cause of this extraordinary condition of the ice will need but little explanation in addition to that which has been given in the preceding chapter. The reader will have no difficulty in comprehending the cause by an examination of the Smith Sound map. He will observe that the Sound is, in effect, an extensive sea, with an axis running almost east and west, and having a length of about one hundred and sixty miles and a width of eighty. The name "Sound," by which it is known, was first given to it by its discoverer, brave old William Baffin, two hundred and fifty odd years ago. The entrance from Cape Alexander to Cape Isabella is but thirty miles over, and by referring to the map it will be seen that this gateway rapidly expands into the sea to which I have invited attention,—a sea almost as large as the Caspian or Baltic, measured from the terminus of Baffin Bay to where Kennedy Channel narrows the waters before they expand into the great Polar Basin. This extensive sea should bear the name of the leader of the expedition which first defined its boundaries—I mean, of course, Dr. Kane.
Now into this sea the current sets from the Polar Basin through the broader gateway above mentioned, known as Kennedy Channel; and the ice, escaping but slowly through the narrow Sound into Baffin Bay, has accumulated within the sea from century to century. The summer dismembers it to some extent and breaks it up into fragments of varying size, which are pressing together, wearing and grinding continually, and crowding down upon each other and upon the Greenland coast, thus producing the result which we have seen.