The terrors of an iceberg scene are most graphically depicted by Ross, in the account of his second voyage of discovery. “It is unfortunate,” says he, “that no description can convey an idea of a scene of this nature; and, as to pencil, it cannot represent motion or noise. And to those who have not seen a northern ocean in winter—who have not seen it, I should say, in a winter’s storm—the term ice, exciting but the recollection of what they only know at rest, in an inland lake or canal, conveys no ideas of what it is the fate of an arctic navigator to witness and to feel. But let them remember that ice is stone; a floating rock in the stream, a promontory or an island when aground, not less solid than if it were a land of granite. Then let them imagine, if they can, these mountains of crystal hurled through a narrow strait by a rapid tide; meeting, as mountains in motion would meet, with the noise of thunder, breaking from each other’s precipices huge fragments, or rending each other asunder, till, losing their former equilibrium, they fall over headlong, lifting the sea around in breakers, and whirling it in eddies; while the flatter fields of ice forced against these masses, or against the rocks, by the wind and the stream, rise out of the sea till they fall back on themselves, adding to the indescribable commotion and noise which attend these occurrences.”
How tremendous must be the sense of danger to the tenants of a frail ship amidst such gigantic forces of nature, the most inexperienced reader can form some conception. But, overwhelming as the feeling of awe must be with the sailor surrounded with such terrors, it must be infinitely more tolerable than the prolonged and indescribably irksome heart-ache he experiences when inclosed for months in fixed ice, encompassed on every hand with desolation. “He must be a seaman,” says the same gallant adventurer, “to feel that the vessel which bounds beneath him, which listens to and obeys the smallest movement of his hand, which seems to move but under his will, is ‘a thing of life,’ a mind conforming to his wishes: not an inert body, the sport of winds and waves. But what seaman could feel this as we did, when this creature, which used to carry us buoyantly over the ocean, had been during an entire year immoveable as the ice and the rocks around it, helpless, disobedient, dead? We were weary for want of occupation, for want of variety, for want of the means of mental exertion, for want of thought, and (why should I not say it?) for want of society. To-day was as yesterday—and as was to-day, so would be to-morrow: while, if there were no variety, no hope of better, is it wonderful that even the visits of barbarians were welcome? or can anything more strongly show the nature of our pleasures, than the confession that these visits were delightful—even as the society of London might be amid the business of London? When the winter has once in reality set in, our minds become made up on the subject; like the dormouse (though we may not sleep, which would be the most desirable condition by far), we wrap ourselves up in a sort of furry contentment, since better cannot be, and wait for the times to come: it was a far other thing to be ever awake, waiting to rise and become active, yet ever to find that all nature was still asleep, and that we had nothing more to do than to wish and groan, and—hope as we best might.” How truly poetical his description of human feeling amidst the eternal appearance of ice and snow!—“When snow was our decks, snow was our awnings, snow our observations, snow our larders, snow our salt; and, when all the other uses of snow should be at last of no more avail, our coffins and our graves were to be graves and coffins of snow. Is this not more than enough of snow than suffices for admiration? Is it not worse, that during ten months in a year the ground is snow, and ice, and ‘slush;’ that during the whole year its tormenting, chilling, odious presence is ever before the eye? Who more than I has admired the glaciers of the extreme north? Who more has loved to contemplate the icebergs sailing from the Pole before the tide and the gale, floating along the ocean, through calm and through storm, like castles and towers and mountains, gorgeous in colouring, and magnificent, if often capricious, in form? And have I, too, not sought amid the crashing, and the splitting, and the thundering roarings of a sea of moving mountains, for the sublime, and felt that Nature could do no more? In all this there has been beauty, horror, danger, everything that could excite; they would have excited a poet even to the verge of madness. But to see, to have seen, ice and snow—to have felt snow and ice for ever, and nothing for ever but snow and ice, during all the months of a year—to have seen and felt but uninterrupted and unceasing ice and snow during all the months of four years—this it is that has made the sight of those most chilling and wearisome objects an evil which is still one in recollection, as if the remembrance would never cease.”
To bid farewell to his ship in these regions of deathly solitariness must be a trial of the heart even severer than its sense of awe amid icebergs, or wearisomeness with the eternal snow. This fell to the lot of the brave Ross and his crew. Fast beset where there was no prospect of release, they commenced carrying forwards a certain quantity of provisions, and the boats with their sledges, for the purpose of advancing more easily afterwards. The labour of proceeding over ice and snow was most severe, and the wind and snow-drift rendered it almost intolerable. On the 21st of May, 1832 (for this was during Sir John Ross’s second voyage) all the provisions from their ship, the Victory, had been carried forward to the several deposits, except as much as would serve for about a month. In the process of forming these deposits it was found that they had travelled, forwards and backwards, three hundred and twenty-nine miles to gain about thirty in a direct line. Preparation was now made for their final departure, which took place on the 29th of May.
“We had now,” continues the commander, “secured everything on shore which could be of use to us in case of our return; or which, if we could not, would prove of use to the natives. The colours were therefore hoisted and nailed to the mast, we drank a parting glass to our poor ship, and having seen every man out, in the evening I took my own adieu of the Victory, which had deserved a better fate. It was the first vessel that I had ever been obliged to abandon, after having served in thirty-six, during a period of forty-two years. It was like the last parting with an old friend; and I did not pass the point where she ceased to be visible without stopping to take a sketch of this melancholy desert—rendered more melancholy by the solitary, abandoned, helpless home of our past years, fixed in immovable ice till Time should perform on her his usual work.”
After a full month’s most fatiguing journey, they encamped and constructed a canvass-covered house. This they deserted, and set out once more, but, after several weeks’ vain attempt to reach navigable water, were compelled to return, “their labours at an end, and themselves once more at home.” Here—of the provisions left behind them—flour, sugar, soups, peas, vegetables, pickles, and lemon-juice, were in abundance; but of preserved meats there remained not more than would suffice for their voyage in the boats during the next season. A monotonous winter was spent in their house; and the want of exercise, of sufficient employment, short allowance of food, lowness of spirits produced by the unbroken sight of the dull, melancholy, uniform waste of snow and ice, had the effect of reducing the whole party to a more indifferent state of health than had hitherto been experienced.
“We were indeed all very weary of this miserable home,” says Sir John Ross. “Even the storms were without variety: there was nothing to see out of doors, even when we could face the sky; and within it was to look equally for variety and employment and to find neither. If those of the least active minds dozed away their time in the waking stupefaction which such a state of things produces, they were the most fortunate of the party. Those among us who had the enviable talent of sleeping at all times, whether they were anxious or not, fared best.”
At length the long-looked-for period arrived when it was deemed necessary to abandon the house in search of better fortune; and on the 7th of July, being Sunday, the last divine service was performed in their winter habitation. The following day they bid adieu to it for ever! and having been detained a short time at Batty Bay, and finding the ice to separate and a lane of water to open out, they succeeded in crossing over to the eastern side of Prince Regent Inlet. Standing along the southern shore of Barrow’s Strait, on the 26th of August they discovered a sail, and, after some tantalizing delays, they succeeded in making themselves visible to the crew of one of her boats.
“She was soon alongside,” proceeds Sir John Ross, “when the mate in command addressed us, by presuming that we had met with some misfortune and lost our ship. This being answered in the affirmative, I requested to know the name of his vessel, and expressed our wish to be taken on board. I was answered that it was the ‘Isabella of Hull, once commanded by Captain Ross;’ on which I stated that I was the identical man in question, and my people the crew of the Victory. That the mate who commanded this boat was as much astonished at this information as he appeared to be I do not doubt; while, with the usual blunderheadedness of men on such occasions, he assured me that I had been dead two years! I easily convinced him, however, that what ought to have been true, according to his estimate, was a somewhat premature conclusion, as the bear-like form of the whole set of us might have shown him had he taken time to consider that we were certainly not whaling gentlemen, and that we carried tolerable evidence of our being ‘true men, and no impostors’ on our backs, and in our starved and unshaven countenances. A hearty congratulation followed, of course, in the true seaman style, and after a few natural inquiries he added that the ‘Isabella was commanded by Captain Humphreys,’ when he immediately went off in his boat to communicate his information on board, repeating that we had long been given up as lost, not by them alone, but by all England.
“As we approached slowly after him to the ship, he jumped up the side, and in a minute the rigging was manned, while we were saluted with three cheers as we came within cable’s length, and were not long in getting on board of my old vessel, where we were all received by Captain Humphreys with a hearty seaman’s welcome.
“Though we had not been supported by our names and characters, we should not the less have claimed, from charity, the attentions that we received, for never was seen a more miserable-looking set of wretches; while, that we were but a repulsive-looking people, none of us could doubt. If to be poor, wretchedly poor, as far as all our present property was concerned, was to have a claim on charity, no one could well deserve it more; but if to look so as to frighten away the so-called charitable, no beggar that wanders in Ireland could have outdone us in exciting the repugnance of those who have not known what poverty can be. Unshaven since I know not when, dirty, dressed in the rags of wild beasts instead of the tatters of civilization, and starved to the very bones, our gaunt and grim looks, when contrasted with those of the well-dressed and well-fed men around us, made us all feel, I believe for the first time, what we really were as well as what we seemed to others. Poverty is without half its mark unless it be contrasted with wealth; and what we might have known to be true in the past days, we had forgotten to think of till we were thus reminded of what we truly were as well as seemed to be.