Time pressed, and we bid our kind friends good-bye. Herr Agar fired a salute of three guns, which we returned with three cheers; and, after taking a stirrup cup on board the "Peru," started for Whale-Fish Islands, which we reached at eleven o'clock at night, much pleased with our excursion.
Every one likes a souvenir of some pleasant by-gone scene or event: these souvenirs are often odd ones. A messmate of mine used to tell of Greece, her temples and ruins: "he had had many a pleasant snooze amongst them!" Another dwelt on the scenes of Montezuma's sorrows, for it was there he had partaken of most savoury wild fowl,—and yet another hero knew but of Peru and Pizarro's triumphs, by the markets producing very good prawns; whilst I must plead guilty to associating Greenland and the deeds of Scandinavian heroes with Herr Agar's seal-skin trowsers.
Amidst a last flourish of coals and dust, which left us filled to repletion,—indeed we were just awash,—we were ordered to take the ships in tow, and start. This being done, I came to a virtuous resolution in my own mind, after what I was going through in dragging my "fat friend," the "Resolute," about, to think twice ere I laughed at those whom fate had shackled to a mountain of flesh. When I had time to ask the day and date, it was Sunday, 28th June, 1850, and we had turned our back on the last trace of civilized man. Vogue-la-galère.
The night was serenely calm. We skirted the Black Land of Lively, making an average speed of three miles per hour, so that our fearful load of coal—full three hundred tons—did not diminish the speed nearly as much as I at first anticipated. Although I could not but feel from our staggering motion and bad steerage that the poor "Pioneer" was severely taxed in carrying her own dead weight of about five hundred tons, and towing a clumsy craft, which fully equalled another seven hundred tons, all this receiving vitality from two little engines of thirty-horse power each.
Whilst a sudden and rattling breeze from the south caused us to make sail and run merrily past the striking clifts of the Waigat and Jacob's Sound, I will briefly refer to the character of the vessels composing our squadron, their equipment, and general efficiency.
THE SHIPS.
The "Resolute" and "Assistance" were sailing ships rigged as barks; their hulls strengthened according to the most orthodox arctic rules, until, instead of presenting the appearances of a body intended for progress through the water, they resembled nothing so much as very ungainly snuff-boxes; and their bows formed a buttress which rather pushed the water before it than passed through it. The remark made by an old seaman who had grown gray amongst the ice was often recalled to my mind, as with an aching heart for many a long mile I dragged the clumsy "Resolute" about. "Lord, sir! you would think by the quantity of wood they are putting into them ships, that the dock-yard maties believed they could stop the Almighty from moving the floes in Baffin's Bay! Every pound of African oak they put into them the less likely they are to rise to pressure; and you must in the ice either rise or sink. If the floe cannot pass through the ship it will go over it."
Internally the fittings of the ships were most perfect: nothing had been spared to render them the most comfortable vessels that ever went out avowedly to winter in the Polar ice. Hot air was distributed by means of an ingenious apparatus throughout lower deck and cabins. Double bulkheads and doors prevented the ingress of unnecessary cold air. A cooking battery, as the French say, promised abundance of room for roasting, boiling, baking, and thawing snow to make water for daily consumption. The mess places of the crew were neatly fitted in man-of-war style; and the well-laden shelves of crockery and hardware showed that Jack, as well as jolly marine, had spent a portion of his money in securing his comfort in the long voyage before them. A long tier of cabins on either side showed how large a proportion of officers these vessels carried; but it was so far satisfactory, as it proved that the division of labour, consequent upon numbers, would make arctic labours comparatively light.
A large captain's cabin, with a gunroom capable of containing all the officers when met together for their meals, completed the accommodation. The crews consisted of sixty souls each, of which a fourth were officers.
The vessels chosen to be the first to carry the novel agent, steam, into hyperborean climes, were the "Pioneer" and "Intrepid," sister vessels, belonging, originally, to the cattle conveyance company; they were propelled by screws, and were of sixty-horse power each, about 150 feet long, of 400 tons burden, and rigged as three-masted schooners. Over the whole of their original frames, tough planking called doubling was placed, varying from three to six inches in thickness. The decks were likewise doubled; and, as may be supposed, from such numerous fastenings passing through the original timbers of a merchantman, every timber was perforated with so many holes as to be weakened and rendered useless; indeed, the vessels may have at last been considered as what is termed "bread-and-butter built," the two layers of planking constituting with the decks the actual strength of the vessels. At the bow, the fine form had happily been retained, the timber strengthenings being thrown into them at that point within, and not without; they were, therefore, at the fore end somewhat like a strong wedge. Many an oracle had shaken his head at this novelty; and when I talked of cutting and breaking ice with an iron stem, the lip curled in derision and pity, and I saw that they thought of me as Joe Stag, the Plymouth boatman, did of the Brazilian frigate when she ran the breakwater down in a fog,—"Happy beggar, he knows nothing, and he fears nothing."