As we have already seen, in the summer of 1883 the Proteus started off, accompanied by the Yantic, under Captain Wilde, with orders either to bring Greely home or to establish an ample depot of provisions on Littleton Island. The command of the Proteus was entrusted to Captain Pike, while Lieutenant Garlington, who had volunteered for the service, was placed at the head of the entire expedition. The initial mistake was made when the Yantic was allowed to sail with her boilers in a very poor state of repair, necessitating an early visit to a Greenland port. Consequently, she was unable to accompany the Proteus far north, as was originally designed. Wilde, however, was given orders to join Garlington at Littleton Island with as little delay as possible.
Near the entrance to Smith Sound the Proteus was stopped by ice. Garlington, however, while prospecting from a hill not far from Payer Harbour, saw a lead of open water through what had hitherto been solid ice, and, returning to the ship, he ordered Pike to proceed up it. Pike, who had had great experience of ice, said that he did not like the look of it and would prefer to wait a few days, as the season was still very early. Garlington, however, insisted, and Pike had, of course, no choice but to obey his orders. The result was that the Proteus was caught in the ice and sank. Before the ship went down, some 3000 rations or more were landed on the floe, but, a portion of the ice detaching itself, seven or eight hundred were allowed to drift away, together with a number of dogs, Garlington refusing to make an effort to save them. Of the 2000 rations or more taken eventually to Cape Sabine, Garlington only left 500 for Greely, loading the boats with the remainder and reserving them for his own use.
He then proceeded to Littleton Island. Here there was no lack of game, and, as he had plenty of ammunition, he could easily have formed a splendid depot of provisions for the explorers whom he must have known would be in dire straits during the winter. He knew this, and he knew that the Yantic was bound by his orders to join him at Littleton Island, yet nothing would suit him but to start off at once in his boats to meet her. Lieutenant Colwell offered to go off for this purpose in the whaler while Garlington laid in a store of provisions; the offer was rejected. Pike urged him to wait for a few days as there could be no doubt that the Yantic would cross Melville Bay in safety; the advice was rejected. Events showed that Pike was right, for the Yantic reached Littleton Island three days after Garlington and his men had left it, having, of course, missed them on the way. Wilde now had no choice but to put about and look for the crew of the Proteus, and he eventually succeeded in finding them on the coast of Greenland.
Now comes the most astonishing part of the whole story. No sooner was Garlington on board than he gave Wilde orders to sail straight for home, although the navigable season was not yet half over, and although he had left behind a message for Greely reporting the loss of the Proteus, stating that he was rejoining the Yantic, and adding that “everything in the power of man” should be done to rescue him.
The Yantic made a good passage home, and even then it would have been easy to equip and send out a special vessel to Cape Sabine, for whaling captains were all agreed that a boat leaving New York as late as September 19 could reach Cape Sabine in safety. General Hazen, the chief signalling-officer, entreated Lincoln to purchase and dispatch a vessel at once; nothing was done. Lieutenant Melville, of whom we shall have cause to say more in connection with the Jeannette expedition, offered to take a party there himself; his offer was not accepted, and shortly afterwards Lincoln expressed his conviction that it was now too late. As events proved, Melville Bay was navigable that year for forty-five days after that “too late” was uttered, and many of Greely’s companions paid for the mistake with their lives.
This story is one of the very few dark spots on the history of Arctic exploration. No one, of course, would dream of accusing either Lieutenant Garlington or the Secretary for War of wilfully sacrificing the lives of their fellow men, but it is extraordinary that, while they knew that there was the barest likelihood of Greely and his men starving to death on a barren and inhospitable shore where there was no chance of their obtaining food, they should have neglected to use their utmost effort to save them.
CHAPTER XXV
NORDENSKIÖLD AND HIS WORK
Of all the men who have added to the world’s scientific knowledge of the Polar regions there is none who has made his name more famous than Adolph Erik Nordenskiöld. The data that he collected, and the discoveries that he made on his many voyages to the Arctic world have proved invaluable, and his explorations have not merely been rich in scientific and geographical results, but they have also benefited the mercantile world by opening up new fields for enterprise, and proving the practicability of routes which had always been regarded as absolutely hopeless.
Nordenskiöld was born at Helsingfors, the capital of Finland, on Nov. 18, 1832. His father was a well-known naturalist, and the head of the mining department of Finland, and it was to his early training that the son owed his first instruction in that particular branch of science of which he was destined to become one of the leading lights. Honours crowded thickly upon him, and he was already becoming one of the most noted mineralogists in Sweden when, at the age of twenty-six, he joined Professor Torrell’s expedition to Spitzbergen. Neither with this expedition nor with that of 1861, in which he served under the same leader, need we concern ourselves. In 1864, however, that is to say, in the year after Spitzbergen had been circumnavigated for the first time by the Norwegian Carlsen, the illness of Professor Chydenius, who was to have acted as leader of the Swedish expedition of that year, left the command of the expedition open. It was offered to Nordenskiöld, who, of course, accepted it. This party was sent out with a view not only to pursuing scientific researches in Spitzbergen, but also to exploring the unknown regions to the north of that island. The first part of his task Nordenskiöld fulfilled admirably, among other things rediscovering Wiche Land, which had not been sighted since Thomas Edge chanced upon it in 1617; he was only prevented from fulfilling the second by the fact that he fell in with seven boatloads of shipwrecked walrus hunters to whom, of course, he had to give succour. This placed so severe a strain upon his commissariat department that he was obliged to desist from his original intention.
To Nordenskiöld’s deep regret, the Swedish Government now came to the conclusion that it had done enough in the way of Arctic research for the present. The explorer, however, had acquired a taste for Arctic travel, and he was by no means inclined to give in without a murmur. Accordingly, he approached Count Ehrensvärd, the Governor of Gothenburg, upon the subject, and through his kind offices a fund was raised by such mercantile princes as Dickson, Ekman and Carnegie, with the result that, in 1868, he was able to depart upon an expedition during the course of which he succeeded in attaining to a higher point than ever explorer in the old world had reached in a ship.