"CAPE FLY-AWAY."
As we rounded to in a convenient place for our camp, McDonald looked up at the tall Cape, which rose above our heads; and, as he turned away to get our furnace to prepare a much-needed meal, he was heard to grumble out in a serio-comic tone: "Well, I wonder if that is land, or only 'Cape Fly-away,' after all?"
CHAPTER XXX.
THE PROSPECT AHEAD.—TO CAPE NAPOLEON.—TO CAPE FRAZER.—TRACES OF ESQUIMAUX.—ROTTEN ICE.—KENNEDY CHANNEL.—MILDNESS OF TEMPERATURE.—APPEARANCE OF BIRDS.—GEOLOGICAL FEATURES OF COAST.—VEGETATION.—ACCIDENT TO JENSEN.
Although much gratified with the success which I had achieved against such desperate obstacles, yet, when I came to reflect upon my situation, in connection with the expectations which I had entertained at setting out, I had little heart to feel triumphant. The thirty-one days occupied in crossing the Sound, the failure to get the boat, or even a foot party over, had disarranged my original plans; while the severity of the labor, and the serious and unexpected draft made upon my provisions by the extra feeding of the dogs, in order to keep up their strength, had so much reduced my resources that, for the present season, I could have little hope of making any extended exploration. Under ordinary conditions of traveling, much less than one half the amount of food which I gave to the animals daily would have amply sufficed for their sustenance. As it was, the eight hundred pounds of dog-food which I had when the foot party left me, was reduced by consumption and small depots for our return journey to about three hundred pounds,—in no case more than sufficient for twelve days. The most that I could now expect to do was to explore the route to the shores of the Polar Sea, as a basis for further exploration to follow the event of my reaching the west side of Smith Sound with my vessel late in the summer; in other words, to ascertain what chance there was of carrying into effect my original design, which the circumstance of being forced into a winter harbor on the Greenland coast, instead of the coast opposite, had disturbed.
SLOWNESS OF PROGRESS.
The extracts from my field diary, given in the last chapter, will have shown the reader the slowness of our progress; while a former chapter will have so far satisfied him concerning the track over which we had recently traveled as to make any review of it in this connection unnecessary. Although anticipating at the outset a grave obstacle in the hummocks, I was unprepared to encounter them in such formidable shape; and the failure of the foot party to make headway through them was a serious blow to my expectations. I had, however, prepared myself for every emergency, and looked forward to making up what I had lost by remaining in Smith's Sound another year.
The journey across the Sound from Cairn Point was unexampled in Arctic traveling. The distance from land to land, as the crow flies, did not exceed eighty miles; and yet, as hitherto observed, the journey consumed thirty-one days,—but little more than two miles daily. The track, however, which we were forced to choose, was often at least three times that of a straight line; and since almost every mile of that tortuous route was traveled over three and often five times, in bringing up the separate portions of our cargo, our actual distance did not probably average less than sixteen miles daily, or about five hundred miles in all, between Cairn Point and Cape Hawks. The last forty miles, made with dog-sledges alone, occupied fourteen days—a circumstance which will of itself exhibit the difficult nature of the undertaking, especially when it is borne in mind that forty miles to an ordinary team of dogs, over usually fair ice, is a trifling matter for five hours, and would not fatigue the team half so much as a single hour's pulling of the same load over such hummocks as confronted us throughout this entire journey.
In order to obtain the best result which the Esquimau dog is capable of yielding, it is essential that he shall be able to trot away with his load. To walk at a dead drag is as distressing to his spirits and energies as the hauling of a dray would be to a blooded horse; and he will much more readily run away with a hundred pounds over good ice than to pull one-fourth of that weight over a track which admits only of a slow pace.