It was on the 9th of August that people were first seen, coming over the ice in dog sledges. Sacheuse was sent out to meet them, but found that they spoke a different dialect from his own. Afterwards several were induced to come on board. A most interesting people had been discovered, for they had been isolated, possibly, for centuries. Captain Ross took great pains to collect information about them. He minutely described their persons, clothing, and weapons, and careful drawings were made of a dog sledge, narwhal-horn spear, and a knife made of thin circles of meteoric iron fixed into a bone handle. The iron was said to come from a place near called Sewallik. Ross and Sacheuse also collected 38 words, 24 of which had the same meaning as in the Greenland Eskimos’ language. Sacheuse declared that the tradition of his people was that they came from the north and pointing to the newly-discovered men, exclaimed, “These are our fathers.” Captain Ross gave them the name of Arctic Highlanders, and called the heights at the back, from Wolstenholme Sound of Baffin to Melville Bay, the Duneira Mountains.
The expedition then proceeded northwards, re-discovering Wolstenholme and Whale Sounds, and the Cary Islands. But here Captain Ross began to make fatal mistakes. He passed too far south of Sir Thomas Smith’s Sound of Baffin to ascertain whether it was a channel, though he named the two points at the entrance after his two ships. It was the same with Sir Francis Jones’s Sound. He entered and advanced some distance up Sir James Lancaster’s Sound, but unfortunately he fancied that he saw high land across it, which he named the Croker Mountains after the Secretary to the Admiralty. He then sent Lieut. Parry, Captain Sabine, and a party on shore at a point on the south side of Lancaster Sound, which he named Cape Byam Martin, to take possession and make collections. This practically brought their work to an end, and a homeward course was set. On his return Captain Ross wrote in the highest terms of the correctness of Baffin’s latitudes, and quite restored the good name of that illustrious navigator.
The mistakes of Captain Ross may well be forgiven, for his expedition was in many ways most fruitful in results. Among other researches, he took special pains to obtain specimens from great depths. For this purpose he invented a very ingenious contrivance which he called a deep sea clam, and on the 1st of September, 1818, in 73° 37′ N. he brought up a beautiful Caput medusae in 1000 fathoms. It was the first time any animal was brought up from anything approaching this depth. A new and very interesting gull was also discovered by Captain Sabine on an island in Melville Bay, the Xema sabinii, usually found associated with the Arctic tern.
The most important results of Ross’s expedition, however, were the restitution of Baffin’s good name as a navigator and discoverer, the discovery of the Arctic Highlanders, and the training of several young naval officers in ice navigation. The greatest practical result was that his voyage showed the way to the whalers, and that by reaching the north water of Baffin’s Bay they would find another very lucrative whale fishery. It was another example of the use of Arctic enterprises in furthering the commercial prosperity of the country which encourages them.
On the return of Ross’s expedition there was an outcry about the supposed closing of Lancaster Sound, as some of the officers believed it to be a wide channel leading westward. Lieut. Parry was decidedly of that opinion. Sir John Barrow strongly represented the doubt to the Board of Admiralty, and it was decided that another expedition should be despatched in 1819.
CHAPTER XXIII
PARRY AND HIS SCHOOL
Sir Edward Parry was one of the greatest of Arctic discoverers. Without an equal as an organiser and administrator, unsurpassed as a leader of men, he was an accomplished officer and a bold and resolute navigator, knowing when to take risks and when to avoid them. Parry was a very perfect sailor, thoroughly well read in all that concerned his enterprises, thoughtful and levelheaded. While promoting hilarity and good-fellowship, he was, through life, deeply yet unostentatiously religious. He was the beau ideal of an Arctic officer.
Parry was the son of a physician at Bath, where he went to school. As a boy he was tall and athletic, very popular, with a good ear for music, a talent for acting, and a habit of doing all he had to do with all his might. Miss Cornwallis, a friend of the family and a near relation of the Admiral then in command of the fleet blockading Brest, obtained an appointment for him. Young Parry could not have entered the service under better auspices. He continued to serve in the Channel, Baltic, and North Sea, always fortunate with his captains and winning their regard, until he attained the rank of Lieutenant.
His next service was on the coast of Scotland, and one season his ship was employed to protect the returning whalers, when he made his first acquaintance with pack ice. In these days Parry was devoted to the study of navigation and surveying. He made several useful surveys of harbours in Scotland, which his captain sent to the Hydrographer, and he wrote a little book on nautical astronomy for the use of young officers which his father caused to be printed. It contained useful directions for finding stars in the northern hemisphere.
In 1813 he served on the North American station, and was engaged in an important and very dangerous boat action up the Connecticut river, when between 40 and 50 privateers and letters-of-marque vessels were burnt. On this station Parry formed a life-long friendship with Charles Martyn, the Admiral’s secretary, who was about the same age, but died young in 1825.