MARCHING THROUGH ICE-HUMMOCKS
“June 29.—Two or three small ‘ice-holes’ and some ice-fields were crossed to-day. The last ice-field we dragged over was of considerable extent. To-day, for the first time, we made the attempt, with great success, to force the boats through narrow ‘leads’ by means of poles. Another seal was got. Every one of us had now learnt, by force of habit, to eat half a pound of seal blubber with our tea at noon, and to eat it with pleasure. It was some comfort to the more delicate and sensitive to be assured that it tasted like butter, and many experiments had been made on the edibility of the tins during the last few days. Kane came to consider seal fin as a kind of salad. We cooked it in our soup, and the dogs at last went beyond us in the high estimate they placed on this article of diet. It is worth remarking, albeit it seems to be a contradiction, that though we had all an abhorrence of fatty substances during the sledge-journeys in the coldest period of the year, we now took to them with great relish when the weather was warm. In fact we never felt better than after a noon-day meal at which we had consumed a considerable quantity of blubber. Our digestion was particularly good, and those who suffered from stomach complaints, produced by the continuous use of pease-sausage, ceased to be so affected. The real ground of this abnormal preference of fatty substances was doubtless the fact that we had now abundance of drinking water, and did not suffer therefore from thirst.
HALT AT NOON.
“June 30.—A small ‘ice-hole,’ and then a large ice-field were crossed, and as we were in the act of passing over a ‘lead’ filled with broken ice, it suddenly closed, and we had to draw our boats up again, and to wait till the ice should part asunder. The snow has become quite soft, and we find water at the bottom of a hole, and employ it for the first time for cooking. Cape Tegetthoff and Salm Island are still visible The dogs to-day drew 12 cwt., and are quite exhausted. I had my hair cut by Klotz, and, with many apologies for my poverty, offered him some water in compensation—an offer he declined. In the Arctic Seas, even to the doctor, a glass of water is a handsome fee.”
So it runs on for weeks together in my journal; and if it be tiresome for readers to follow such repetitions, how much more wearisome must it have been to live through and experience them! Yet if it were possible for our situation to become worse, it did so during the first half of the following month.
CROSSING A FISSURE.
12. On the 1st of July the whole of our day’s labour consisted in passing over a fissure. The observations taken at noon gave 79° 38′ as our latitude, so that during the last four days we had gained one single minute only. Next day we lay amid fragments of floes closely packed together, and there were neither “ice-holes” nor fields of ice over which we could pass. On the 3rd of July we crossed some fissures with great difficulty and traversed two small ice-fields, but a wind from the S.E. set in, and our observations showed 79° 38′ N. latitude; while we discovered from our longitude that we were only four miles to the east of the ship. The small amount of drift discernible in the ice, with such strong winds, was a sad sign of its closely packed condition.
13. With imperturbable patience we continued to drag our heavy loads over the ice, and on the 4th imagined that we had penetrated a mile in a southerly direction; but the wind from the S.E. blew so persistently that when we took our observations on the following day we found our latitude 79° 40½′, and that we had thus been actually driven back towards the north-west, and that the toils of the last three weeks had been fruitless. On the 5th and 6th the ice lay before us in piled-up masses rendering progress impossible, and we were compelled to rest, consuming our provisions without getting one step further. Our seal-hunting also on those days was seldom successful. For hours the hunters lurked round the edges of ice-holes, sometimes without seeing a single seal come to the surface; and when at last the animal did make its appearance, it very often sunk after it was hit, before a boat could be launched. Those we saw on the edges of ice-holes showed a dexterity in diving out of the way of mischief which failed, as things were, to excite our admiration. The bears, even more than the seals, showed a prudence and caution which their previous behaviour had not led us to expect. On the first of those days a bear came pretty near us, but the dogs, alas! rushed at him and drove him away. Henceforward when the dogs were not dragging they were secured with ropes, but our prudence came too late.