A more unutterably miserable winter was probably never passed by any band of Arctic explorers. As the anti-scorbutics, the food and the fuel failed, the condition of the men grew worse and worse, and Kane made up his mind that as soon as spring came round he would spare no efforts to make his way to civilised regions. The only person on board who seems to have been reasonably happy was the hunter, Hans Christian. While all his comrades were wondering how in the world they were to support life, he had fallen head over ears in love with a fair Eskimo damsel of Etah, to whom he intended to get married as soon as he could make his way to the nearest settlement.
With the details of the return journey we need not concern ourselves. It began in May, and after almost superhuman exertions, the party succeeded in reaching Upernivik on August 3. Thence they were taken back to the United States in the squadron which, under the command of Lieutenant Harstene, had been sent out to their rescue.
In the following year Hayes, Kane’s surgeon, set out in the schooner United States on an expedition, the object of which was to verify Morton’s story of the open polar sea, in which the worthy doctor had the firmest belief. The winter was marked by a tragedy, for Sontag, the astronomer and probably the most valuable member of the party, was frozen to death on a sledging expedition. Had he been spared he might have saved Hayes from perpetrating the extraordinary series of blunders which were the most startling feature of his spring journey up the coast of Grinnell Land. Not only did he make a number of unreliable observations, with the result that his chart had to be entirely altered by subsequent explorers, but he also imagined that he saw a magnificent polar sea, which proved ultimately to be nothing but the southern half of Kennedy Channel. This part of the channel freezes late and opens early, owing to the exceptionally high tides, and is rarely entirely closed.
CHAPTER XX
HALL AND THE “POLARIS”
We now come to one of the most curious figures in the whole history of Arctic exploration, that of the American, Charles Francis Hall, who, in the year 1864, set sail for Smith Sound in the barque Polaris. Hall came from Cincinnati, and in his earlier days he followed the peaceful avocation of a blacksmith. He was an ambitious man, however, and something of a dreamer, and he had not the least intention of spending all his days at the forge. Journalism claimed his attention for a while, and he became editor of the Cincinnati Daily Penny Press, but his heart yearned towards the Polar regions, and, though he had never seen the sea in his life, he felt himself irresistibly impelled to quit the life in which he was already beginning to win some measure of success for the more hazardous career of an Arctic explorer.
It was probably the fate of the Franklin expedition which first made him turn his thoughts seriously in this direction. He firmly believed that the English explorers had been absolutely wrong in their methods of conducting the search. The only way by which success could possibly be obtained was, he imagined, by settling among the Eskimos, by acquiring their language, their ways and their confidence, and so obtaining from them any information which they might possess concerning the fate of Franklin’s party, many of whom he believed to be still alive.
ESKIMO ARCHITECTS
FROM A DRAWING BY CAPT. LYON
Hall seems to have imagined that he was “called” to undertake this task himself, so, with an energy and enterprise which must command our admiration, he promptly set about the fulfilment of his mission.
Funds having been provided by Henry Grinnell and a number of other men who were interested in the project, he set sail in the barque George Henry with a crew of thirty officers and men, including an interpreter. His object was to proceed direct to Boothia, and there to spend three years among the natives, living with them as one of themselves, and completing the history of the Franklin expedition. This scheme, however, he only partially fulfilled. He lived with the natives, it is true, and became by far the greatest authority of the day on their manners and customs, but, beyond demonstrating that what was known as Frobisher Strait was in reality a bay, he did nothing towards adding to the world’s knowledge of the Arctic regions, or towards elucidating the mystery of the fate of the Franklin expedition. He returned home in 1862, and occupied himself for some time in writing up an account of his experiences.