"A brave and excellent officer he was," said Johnson. "I knew him."
While the doctor eagerly sought for traces of previous winterings there, Hatteras busied himself with collecting the scanty fragments of fuel and provisions which lay there. The next day was devoted to carrying them on board ship. The doctor explored the whole neighborhood, never going too far from the brig, and sketched the most remarkable views. The weather gradually grew milder; the snow-drifts began to melt. The doctor made a tolerably large collection of northern birds, such as gulls, divers, molly-nochtes, and eider-ducks, which resemble ordinary ducks, with a white back and breast, a blue belly, the top of the head blue, the rest of the plumage white, shaded with different tints of green; many of them had already plucked from their bellies the eider-down, which both the male and the female devote to lining their nests. The doctor also saw great seals breathing at the surface of the water, but he was unable to draw one.
In his wanderings he discovered the stone on which is engraved the following inscription:—
[E I]
1849,
which marks the passage of the Enterprise and Investigator; he pushed on to Cape Clarence, to the spot where, in 1833, John and James Ross waited so impatiently for the ice to thaw. The earth was covered with the skulls and bones of animals, and traces of the dwellings of Esquimaux were to be seen.
The doctor thought of erecting a cairn at Leopold Harbor, and of leaving a letter there to indicate the passage of the Forward and the aim of the expedition. But Hatteras formally objected; he did not wish to leave behind him any traces which might be of use to a rival. In spite of all he could say, the doctor was obliged to yield to the captain's will. Shandon was ready enough to blame this obstinacy, for, in case of accident, no ship could have put out to the aid of the Forward.
Hatteras refused to comply. Having completed his preparations on Monday, he tried once more to go to the north through the ice, but, after dangerous efforts, he was obliged to descend again Regent's Channel; he was utterly averse to remaining at Leopold's Harbor, which is open one day and closed the next by the unheralded motion of the ice,—a frequent phenomenon in these seas, and one against which navigators have to be ever on their guard.
If Hatteras kept his anxiety from the others, he was at heart very anxious; he wanted to go northward, and he was obliged to retreat to the south! Where would that bring him? Was he going as far back as Victoria Harbor in the Gulf of Boothia, where Sir John Ross wintered in 1833? Should he find Bellot Sound free at this time, and, by going around North Somerset, could he ascend through Peel Sound? Or should he, like his predecessors, be caught for many winters, and be obliged to consume all his supplies and provisions?