In April that passage was found which had been so perseveringly and vainly sought for during three centuries. The discovery resulted from a bold stroke of desperation.
Captain Maclure having made his way in by Behring's strait was, for two years, shut in by the ice. Finding it impossible to return, he determined, at all hazards, to push forward. He did so and in only forty miles further found himself along side of English ships in the Eastern ocean. His boldness saved him and the great problem was at length solved.
At that very time, May, 1858, New York sent out an expedition for the extreme North. A young naval surgeon, Elisha Kent Kane, only about thirty years old, but who had already sailed far and wide, announced an idea which greatly excited the American mind. Just as Wilkes had proposed to find a world, Kane proposed to find a sea, an open sea, under the pole. The English, in their routine, had searched from East to West; Kane proposed to sail due North and take possession, for his country, of that, as yet, undiscovered open polar sea. The bold proposal was enthusiastically hailed. Grinnell of New York, a great ship owner, princely alike in fortune and in heart, generously gave two ships; learned societies, and not a few of the general public, assisted with pecuniary contributions, with a perfectly religious zeal made up and contributed warm clothing. The crews, carefully selected from volunteers, were sworn to three things; to be obedient to orders, to abstain from spirituous liquors, and from profane language. A first expedition failed, but its failure daunted neither Mr. Grinnell nor the American public; and a second was fitted out, with the aid of certain English societies, who had chiefly in view the propagation of the gospel or a final search after Franklin.
Few voyages are more interesting than this second one of Kane's. We can readily understand the ascendancy which young Kane acquired over his followers. Every line of his book is marked by his strength, his brilliant vivacity, and his practical exemplification of the bold American watchword—Go ahead. He knows every thing; is confident of everything; prudent, hopeful, more than hopeful,—positive. Every line tells you that he is a man to be conquered by no obstacle. He will go as far as mortal man can go. The combat is curious between such a character and the pitiless and icy North, that rampart of terrible obstacles. Scarcely has he sailed when he is already seized by the cold hand of winter and detained for six months amidst the ice. Even in the spring he had a cold of seventy degrees! At the approach of the second winter, on the 28th of August, nine out of his seventeen men, deserted him. But the fewer his men and resources, the bolder and sterner he became, being determined, as he tells us, to make himself the better respected. His good friends, the Esquimaux, who hunted or fished for him, and from whom he is even compelled to take some small objects, stole three copper vessels from him. In return he kidnapped two of their women. An excessive and savage chastisement. It was hardly prudent to bring these poor creatures among the eight seamen who still remained with him; all the less prudent when we consider that discipline was already so much relaxed. They were married women, too. Siver, wife of Metek, and Aninqua, wife of Marsiqua, were in tears for five days. Kane laughed at them and makes us laugh too, when he says: "They wept and made terrible lamentation; but they did not lose their appetite."
At length their husbands and friends took back the stolen articles and took all that had passed in good part, with the native good sense of men who had no weapons, but sharpened fish bones, to oppose to revolvers. They agreed to every thing and promised the utmost friendship and most faithful alliance. A week after, they disappeared and we may easily imagine with what feelings of friendship! Of course, wherever they went, they would warn the natives to shun the white man. And thus it is that we close the uncivilized world alike against ourselves and civilization.
The sequel is sad. So cruel are the sufferings of the seamen that some die and others want to return. But Kane is of quite another mind, he has promised to discover a new sea, and discover it he will. Plots, desertions, treacheries, all add to the horrors of his situation. In the third winter he must have died, destitute as he was of food and fuel, had not other Esquimaux supplied him with fish; he aiding them by hunting. In the mean time some of the men, who had been out exploring, had the good fortune to find that sea about which he was so anxious. At least they reported that they had seen a vast extent of open unfrozen water, and, all around, birds which seemed to find there the shelter of a less severe climate.
That was enough to warrant the return. Kane, saved by the Esquimaux, who took no advantage either of their superior numbers or of his extreme destitution, left there his vessel frozen up in the ice.
Weak and exhausted, he yet contrived, in eighty-two days, to get back to the South. But he got back only to die. That intrepid young man, who approached nearer to the pole than any other man had ever done, dying, carried off the prize which the learned societies of France laid upon his tomb—the great geographical prize.
In his narrative, which contains so many terrible things, there is one which seems to me to be very touching. It enables us to estimate the exceeding sufferings of such an expedition; I allude to the death of his dogs. He had some excellent ones of the Newfoundland breed, and some of the Esquimaux; they, rather than men, were his companions and his friends. During his long winter nights, those nights of months, they watched around his ship, and when he sallied out in the dense darkness he recognized the brave brutes by their warm breath as they came and licked his hands.