They had hoped that when they were once through this preliminary field of broken ice they would reach a level sheet, over which they might travel with comparative ease, but, as time went on, the conditions seemed to become worse instead of better, for on the morning of the 26th rain began to fall heavily, with the result that the explorers were soon wet through, and nearly half the surface of the ice over which they had to travel was covered with little pools. From that time rain was almost constant, and Parry was the first to observe that the climate of these remoter Polar regions is actually milder than those of the northern shores of America, 7° to 15° further south.

The rain was often varied by fog, while, to add to the difficulties of the journey, they found that much of the surface ice over which they had to travel was composed of needle-like crystals, placed vertically, which, as the season advanced, afforded very poor foothold and cut their boots and feet.

One day was very like another on that most difficult journey. The party was usually aroused at about eight o’clock in the evening by a lusty tar blowing a reveille on a bugle. After prayers had been read, the men exchanged their fur sleeping suits for their walking clothes, which were, as a rule, still soaking wet or else frozen solid. This done, they would breakfast on cocoa and biscuits, and, having loaded the sledges, they would set about the day’s work. Their course underwent a good deal of variety, but it was never anything but arduous. Sometimes they had to haul the boat by main force over almost perpendicular blocks of ice. Sometimes they had to toil through snowy sludge, into which they sank so deeply that on one occasion it took them two hours to travel a hundred yards. Sometimes the pools and channels which separated the ice blocks from one another were not more than half a boat’s length broad, and the provisions had to be ferried over on blocks of ice, a most anxious proceeding, seeing that if an accident had occurred the whole party would have been left to starve.

After anything between five and ten hours’ work, during which they would make four or five miles, they would halt for the night, or, to speak more accurately, for the day, and, having changed into dry clothes, they would set about the necessary repairs, take supper, and retire to bed.

As they proceeded northward their progress seemed to become slower and slower. Parry had long since given up all hope of reaching the North Pole, but he had made up his mind, if possible, to touch the 83rd parallel, and thus to win the £1000 reward offered by the Government, but he was not prepared for the terrible disappointment with which he met at the end of July. On the 20th he ascertained by observation that his latitude was only 82° 36´, or less than five miles to the northward of his situation at noon on the 17th, although he was positive that they had travelled at least twelve miles. During the next few days the result of the observations was always the same, and he invariably found himself several miles south of the point to which he believed the previous day’s journey had brought him. He was therefore forced to the conclusion that the ice over which he was travelling was drifting steadily southward, and that he was losing during the day much of the ground that he had made during the night. So, after reaching lat. 82° 45´, a point which had never been attained before, and stood as a record for forty-five years, he decided to turn back. He was now only 172 miles from the Hecla, and of these 100 miles represented the journey over the water before reaching the ice. But as most of the 72 miles over the ice had been covered at least three, and sometimes five, times, the distance that they had travelled was about 580 geographical or 688 statute miles, almost exactly the distance from the Hecla to the Pole in a direct line.

The return journey was begun on July 27, and on August 21 they reached the Hecla without meeting with any contretemps. They set sail for home on August 28, and on September 29 Parry went to report himself at the Admiralty, where, curiously enough, he met Franklin, who had returned from his North American journey on exactly the same day.

Parry was received with enthusiasm wherever he went, and honours were showered on him in England and on the Continent. But from that point he leaves our narrative, for he never again sailed for the Polar seas.

CHAPTER IX
ROSS’S ADVENTURES IN THE “VICTORY”

The idea of discovering a north-west passage, though temporarily eclipsed by Parry’s great effort to reach the North Pole, was by no means set aside, and in 1828, soon after the return of the Polar Expedition, Captain John Ross approached the Government with a plan for the long-dreamt-of route through Prince Regent’s Inlet. It will be remembered that Ross had had some previous experience of Arctic navigation, for in 1818 he had set out with the Isabella and Alexander on a voyage through Baffin’s Bay, Parry being his second in command. On that occasion he distinguished himself by jumping to the conclusion that Lancaster Sound was a land-locked bay, and possibly on account of this error the Government did not see fit to entertain his new proposal.

Thanks, however, to the generosity of his friend Mr Felix Booth, he was able, in 1829, to buy and fit out a paddle steamer called the Victory, which had previously been used as a steam packet running between Liverpool and the Isle of Man.