But just to show them what it could and was minded to do, the evil spirit of the bay invited them at one time to escape impending danger by fastening to a huge berg. This they did, after eight hours of warping, heaving, and planting ice-anchors, a labor of prostrating exhaustion. Hardly had they begun to enjoy the invited hospitality of the berg, when it began to shower upon them, like big drops from a summer cloud, pieces of ice the size of a walnut, accompanied by a crackling, threatening noise from above. A gale from out of its hiding-place on shore came sweeping upon them at the same time, driving before it its icy supporter. Mischief was evidently intended. The "Advance" retreated from the berg with all possible haste, and had barely gone beyond its reach when it launched after it its whole broadside, which came crashing into the water with a roar like a whole park of artillery. Could any thing be rougher? But then it was true to its icebergy character.
The "Advance" was not injured, but the ice held as a trophy more than two thousand feet of good whale line, which had to be cut in the retreat.
These bergs, though thus harsh and treacherous as a rule, can do a generous thing. May be, like some people, they are all the more dangerous on account of exceptional generosity. The loose ice, soon after this incident, was drifting south, and would have borne the navigators with it back from whence they had come, perhaps for hundreds of miles. But a majestic berg came along whose sunken base took hold of the deep water current, and so, impelled by this current, it sailed grandly northward, sweeping a wide path through the rotten floes. It condescendingly offered to do tugboat service for the "Advance," and invited its captain to throw aboard an ice-anchor. We wonder he dared to trust it, but he did, and, grappling its crystal sides, made good headway for awhile until other means of favorable voyaging were presented.
Soon after the explorers parted from this bergy friend the midnight sun came out over its northern crest, kindling on every part of its surface fires of varied colors, and scattering over the ice all around blazing carbuncles, sparkling rubies, and molten gold.
August fifth the "Advance," fairly clearing the hated Melville Bay, sailed along the western coast of the "North Water" of Baffin Bay. At Northumberland Island, at the mouth of Whale Sound, their eyes were again delighted by an exhibition of beautiful colors, delicately tinted, but this time not made by a gorgeous sunrise over a gigantic iceberg. The snow of the island and its vicinity bore, over vast areas, a reddish hue, and great patches of beautiful green mosses broke its monotony, while here and there the protruding sandstone threw in a rich shading of brown. So God paints the dreariest lands in colors of great beauty, and scatters over them profusely at times the richest sunlit gems.
On the sixth of August they passed the frowning headland of Smith's Sound, known as Cape Alexander. It stands like the charred trunk and limbs of some mighty oak, at the entrance of an unexplored, gloomy forest, seen in the murky darkness. Cape Alexander seemed a mighty sentinel of evil purpose, toward all who dared pass to the mysterious regions beyond. It inspired the sailors with superstitious fear, and admonished their officers that eternal vigilance must be the price of safety in the waters beyond.
Arriving at Littleton Island, our explorers built a monument of stones as a conspicuous object from the sea, surmounted by the stripes and stars, put under it a record of their voyage thus far, and, two miles north and east, upon the mainland, deposited a metallic life-boat, with provisions and various stores. These were for a resort in case of accident in their further progress.
While making this deposit they discovered the remains of Esquimo huts, and graves of some of their former occupants. The dead had been buried in a sitting posture, their knees drawn close to their bodies; the few simple implements belonging to the deceased were buried with them. In one grave was a child's toy spear. So even the rude Esquimo child has its toys, and, no doubt, the mother looks upon its trinkets, as she lays them beside its dead body, with tearful interest.
Soon after making these deposits in the life-boat, the "Advance," while making a vigorous struggle with the broken ice, was borne into a land-locked inlet, which Dr. Kane called Refuge Harbor. It was rather a cosy place for an arctic shore, and in it the explorers waited for the movement of the ice.
While here they were much annoyed by their dogs, fifty in number. Two bears had been shot, which were the only game which had been taken for them. They were now on short allowance, and were as ravenous as wolves. They gulped down almost any thing which could go down their throats, even devouring at one time a part of a feather-bed. Dr. Kane's specimens of natural history fared hard at their jaws. He happened once to set down in their way two nests of large sea-fowl. They were filled with feathers, filth, moss and pebbles—a full peck, but the dogs made a rush for them and gobbled down the whole. There were plenty of wolves not far from the brig, on which they delighted to feed. But the hunters had no luck in trying to take them. Rifle balls glanced from their thick hides as if they had been peas from a toy gun. They needed the Esquimo harpoon and the Esquimo skill. But fortunately a dead narwhal, or sea-unicorn, was found. Under its soothing influence, when fed out to them, the dogs became more quiet.