CHAPTER XXIII.
THE MOST NORTHERN POINT EVER REACHED BY MAN.
| “And here on snows, where never human foot Of common mortal trod, we nightly tread And leave no traces, o’er the savage sea, The glassy ocean of the mountain ice; We skim its rugged breakers, which put on The aspect of a tumbling tempest’s foam Frozen in a moment.” Byron. |
May 1st.—A fine sunny morning ushered in the month of May, all the more appreciated in consequence of the enforced idleness of the preceding day. The bright sun had a wonderful effect upon us all. It seemed to cheer and invigorate our spirits, whilst it stimulated us to renewed exertions in our endeavours to reach as high a northern latitude as possible. Our invalids, however, were very faint and weak. They exhibited no favourable symptoms of improvement, and were a great clog and drawback to our progress. With our diminished crews we found it hard work to drag the sledges over the rough hummocky road, and through the deep soft snow-drifts that were constantly met. Road-making became a necessary part of the daily routine. Floes of any extent were rarely seen, and we had to thread our way through a perfect labyrinth of piled-up masses of ice, with little or no prospect of its improving. It was a dreary and wild-looking scene: no living thing in sight but our own little party, no colour or object to relieve the eye; nothing but a chaotic and illimitable sea of ice. Sometimes a fog was observed gradually rolling itself towards us, like a large mantle, until we were completely enveloped in its dense folds; when, continuing its onward course, it would roll as rapidly away, leaving a bright luminous band stretching across the horizon in the direction whence it had come.
May 2nd.—Although we had been told that there was not the slightest chance of our being attacked with scurvy, still, from the utter prostration of our invalids, combined with other symptoms, we were almost inclined to believe that we were really afflicted with this dire and wasting disease. It was a terrible idea that forced itself upon us, and one that we were loath to indulge in; but we feared that the symptoms pointed unmistakeably to the fact that this fearful disease, so dreaded by the mariners of old, was gradually but surely laying its hand upon us, completely prostrating those it attacked and rendering them helpless from pain and exhaustion. Parr and myself spoke of it only when we were by ourselves, as we considered it of the utmost importance that the men should remain in ignorance as long as possible, and not even suspect the nature of the disease which had crippled so many of their number. Swollen joints and discolouration of the skin, attended with faintness and great weakness, were the principal symptoms. Great as were the natural difficulties which surrounded us, still, should our surmise be correct, we could not but regard this as the most formidable of all obstacles to our advance that could possibly be imagined. Our only hope was that the five men now afflicted might, through their habits or disposition, have been more prone to the attacks of this insidious disease, than the remainder of our party, who, we hoped, might escape scathless. We camped this evening amidst a pile of hummocks, after one of the hardest day’s work we have yet performed. So rough was the road and so deep was the snow that the sledges could only be advanced by “standing pulls.” This was disheartening, for we had all been cherishing the hope that as we advanced northwards we should find larger and more level floes and less snow; the reverse, however, was the case. Several times did one or other of us disappear through deep rents in the floe, but we always succeeded in scrambling up again unhurt.
May 3rd.—A dull, dark, foggy day rendered it extremely difficult to select our road, and we were occasionally compelled to unload the sledges before they could be dragged through the deep soft snow-drifts which were continually met across our route, making the work all the more hard and distressing. The fog persistently hung over us all day; but was not sufficiently dense to retard our progress altogether, though it materially increased our labours and augmented our difficulties.
May 4th.—Everything appeared to combine against us: weather, snow ice, and sickness! In spite of these evils our tents were struck and a start made; but after advancing for half a mile, which took us exactly three and a half hours to accomplish, we arrived at such a confused heap of hummocks that, with the dense fog prevailing and the falling snow, it was impossible to make any headway. To persevere would have been imprudent. The tents were accordingly pitched, and we consoled ourselves by saying that the rest would be productive of much good to our sick companions, for even those that had to be carried on the sledges could get no rest whilst being dragged and jolted and sometimes capsized over the roughest road imaginable. After lunch, the weather clearing a little, we employed ourselves in cutting a road through an amorphous conglomeration of ice for quite three-quarters of a mile. The pack over which we were travelling appeared to consist of numerous small floes, the largest being barely one hundred yards across at its widest diameter, but the majority much smaller, and each of these floes was surrounded by a mass of hummocks piled up and lying one on top of the other to the height of twenty and thirty feet: the belts of hummocks being from thirty to forty yards in breadth.
Observing one large hummock to be very much discoloured, we found, on approach, that this discolouration was caused by the adhesion of mud or clay, a line of which extended for some distance along the edge of the floe, and gave one the idea that it had rubbed against, or in some manner had come into contact with, the shore. Mud it undoubtedly was, and we bottled a quantity of it for the purpose of subjecting it to microscopic investigation when we should return on board. This was conclusive evidence that a periodical, if not an annual, disruption of the pack occurs, and that these floes, although now at such a distance from the land, had at some time or another been in very close proximity. Moreover, this must have occurred at a recent date, otherwise the summer thaws and the autumn snow would have obliterated all such traces as those we had discovered.