Altamont showed neither approbation nor the contrary.
"August 5, 1850," continued the doctor, "after a final communication with the Plover, MacClure sailed eastward by an almost unknown route; see how little land is marked upon the chart. August 30th he rounded Cape Bathurst; September 6th he discovered Baring Land, which he afterwards discovered to form part of Banks Land, then Prince Albert's Land. Then he resolved to enter the long straits between these two large islands, and he called it Prince of Wales Strait. You can follow his plan. He hoped to come out in Melville Sound, which we have just crossed, and with reason; but the ice at the end of the strait formed an impassable barrier. There MacClure wintered in 1850-51, and meanwhile he pushed on over the ice, to make sure that the strait connected with the sound."
"Yes," said Altamont, "but he didn't succeed."
"One moment," said the doctor. "While wintering there, MacClure's officers explored all the neighboring coasts: Creswell, Baring's Land; Haswell, Prince Albert's Land, to the south; and Wynniat, Cape Walker, to the north. In July, at the beginning of the thaw, MacClure tried a second time to carry the Investigator to Melville Sound; he got within twenty miles of it, twenty miles only, but the winds carried him with irresistible force to the south, before he could get through the obstacle. Then he determined to go back through Prince of Wales Strait, and go around Banks Land, to try at the west what he could not do in the east; he put about; the 18th he rounded Cape Kellet; the 19th, Cape Prince Alfred, two degrees higher; then, after a hard struggle with the icebergs, he was caught in Banks Strait, in the series of straits leading to Baffin's Bay."
| "A hard struggle with the icebergs." |
"But he couldn't get through them," said Altamont.
"Wait a moment, and be as patient as MacClure was. September 26th, he took his station for the winter in Mercy Bay, and stayed there till 1852. April came; MacClure had supplies for only eighteen months. Nevertheless, he was unwilling to return; he started, crossing Banks Strait by sledge, and reached Melville Island. Let us follow him. He hoped to find here Commander Austin's ships, which were sent to meet him by Baffin's Bay and Lancaster Sound; April 28th he arrived at Winter Harbor, at the place where Parry had wintered thirty-three years previously, but no trace of the ships; only he found in a cairn a paper, telling him that MacClintock, Austin's lieutenant, had been there the year before, and gone away. Any one else would have been in despair, but MacClure was not. He put in the cairn another paper, in which he announced his intention of returning to England by the Northwest Passage, which he had discovered by reaching Baffin's Bay and Lancaster Sound. If he is not heard from again, it will be because he will have been to the north or west of Melville Island; then he returned, not discouraged, to Mercy Bay for the third winter, 1852-53."
"I have never doubted his courage," said Altamont, "but his success."
"Let us follow him again," resumed the doctor. "In the month of March, being on two-thirds rations, at the end of a very severe winter, when no game was to be had, MacClure determined to send back half of his crew to England, either by Baffin's Bay, or by Mackenzie River and Hudson's Bay; the other half was to bring the Investigator back. He chose the weakest men, who could not stand a fourth winter; everything was ready, and their departure settled for April 15th, when on the 6th, MacClure, who was walking on the ice with his lieutenant, Creswell, saw a man running northward and gesticulating; it was Lieutenant Pim of the Herald, lieutenant of the same Captain Kellet whom two years before he had left at Behring Strait, as I said when I began. Kellet, having reached Winter Harbor, found the paper left there by MacClure; having heard in that way of his position in Mercy Bay, he sent Lieutenant Pim to meet the captain. He was followed by a detachment of the men of the Herald, among whom was a midshipman of a French ship, M. de Bray, who was a volunteer aid of Captain Kellet. You don't doubt this meeting?"