CHAPTER XXI.

THE FIRST AMERICAN EXPEDITION -ABORTIVE ATTEMPT TO REACH BANKS LAND-DR. KANE'S EXPEDITION TO SMITH SOUND-- WINTER IN RENSSELAER HARBOUR SLEDGE JOURNEY TO THE GREAT GLACIER-DISCOVERY OF OPEN OCEAN-DESCENT OF SMITH SOUND ON THE ICE-BOAT VOYAGE TO UPERNAVICK.

YMPATHY with the situation of Franklin and his companions, if living, and the desire to penetrate the mystery which surrounded them, were as strongly felt in America as in Europe. Two small vessels were prepared at New York, mainly at

the cost of Mr. Grinnell, a wealthy shipowner of that port, with the co-operation of the Government of the United States, and placed under the command of Lieutenant De Haven, who had served under Commodore Wilkes in the Antarctic exploring expedition. They sailed from New York on the 24th of May, 1850, under instructions to proceed as rapidly as possible to Banks Land, search as long as might be practicable, and winter in or out of the pack, wherever they might be set fast. The expedition did not reach its destination. The vessels were beset by ice opposite the mouth of Wellington Channel, and drifted with it through Lancaster Sound and down the western shore of Baffin Bay, as far as Cape Walsingham, a distance of more than a thousand miles. They were not extricated from the ice until the 16th of June, 1851,

Dr. Kane in Smith Sound.

249 when Lieutenant De Haven deemed it advisable to return to New York.

Two years later a small brig was equipped, partly at the cost of Mr. Grinnell, and partly by the contributions of scientific associations in the United States, aided by the Government, and placed under the command of Dr. Kane, who had accompanied the former expedition. The vessel sailed from New York on the 30th of May, 1853, and after calling at Fiskernaes, a Danish settlement on the west coast of Greenland, for fifty dogs and a native driver, ran to the north-west. At the end of July she was battling with the ice in Melville Bay, where, for her security in a breeze, she was anchored to an enormous iceberg. Near Cape York the mass began to crack, and they had no sooner cast off from it than its precipitous face crumbled, and an avalanche of fragments fell into the sea, where the vessel had been but a few moments before. They had now to battle, on a rough night, and without the protection of the iceberg, with the masses of ice which were driving past them; and coming into collision with two great bergs, the jib-boom and shrouds were carried away, and one of the boats crushed. A few days afterwards they entered Smith Sound, which, though discovered by Baffin early in the seventeenth century, had never yet been explored. The scene which met the voyager's eye was not inviting. "As we look off to the west," says Kane, "snow comes down with heavy uniformity to the water's edge, and the patches of land seen are as rare as summer's snow on the hills about Sukkertoppen and Fiskernaes. On the right we have an array of cliffs, whose frowning grandeur might dignify the entrance to the proudest of Southern Seas. I should say they would average from four to five hundred yards in height, with some of their precipices eight hundred feet at a single steep. They have been until now the Arctic

Pillars of Hercules, and they look down on us as if they challenged our right to pass.'

The provision of food for the large number of dogs brought from Greenland, with a view to sledging expeditions, was found to be a difficult task. They declined to eat meal, salt meat would have been injurious to them, and fresh was hard to obtain. Two bears were shot, but their carcases provided the ravenous animals with meals for eight days only. Walruses being numerous in the sound, endeavours were made to shoot them, but their thick hides proved impenetrable. When the dogs had become so hungry as to devour a couple of bird's nests with their contents, which one of the officers had found, the carcase of a dead narwhal, or unicorn whale, was discovered, and furnished the famished brutes with a long series of meals.

Meanwhile, the progress of the voyagers varied with the quantity of ice met with, and the force and direction of the wind. Terrible gales were encountered towards the end of August. On the 29th the vessel was made fast to a ledge of rocks with three hawsers, in anticipation of a gale; but it came with such fury that the hawsers snapped one after another, and she drove before the wind into the ice, which was rushing and crashing in conflict with fearful violence. An anchor was dropped, but the ship drove on unchecked, and her destruction seemed inevitable. A mass of ice rose over the gunwale, smashed the bulwarks, and deposited about half a ton of ice upon the deck. She was driving rapidly towards a group of icebergs; but the wind lulled, and time was afforded to anchor to a mass of ice as it drove past. The channel became narrower, however, and as she ran between two lofty bergs, the yards had to be sharply braced to avoid a collision.

The water now became shallow, and the brig grounded

several times; the last time at high water, so that she had to be secured to the rocks with hawsers, and her anchors and heavy stores got into the boats. Notwithstanding this precaution, the vessel heeled over in the night, pitching the men out of their hammocks, and upsetting the cabin stove, which set fire to the deck. A few buckets of water sufficed, however, to extinguish the flames. The vessel was got off with the flood-tide, but Kane was convinced by the accident that she could not be got any farther, and that he must rely upon his sledges and dogs for farther explorations. A boat expedition started, indeed, but the navigation was so much impeded by ice that it had to be abandoned.

Kane then started with a sledge, along a wild and rocky coast; but it had so often to be carried over projecting points of glaciers and other obstructions, that it was soon abandoned, and the party proceeded on foot, with their provisions and scientific instruments in knapsacks. Several skeletons of deer and musk-oxen were passed. On the fifth day, when they had advanced only forty miles, they came to a large bay, into which flowed a noble river, which they named the Mary Minturn, after a sister of Mrs. Grinnell. "Here," says Kane, "protected from the frost by the infiltration of the melted snow, and fostered by the reverberation of solar heat from the rocks, we met a flower growth which, though drearily Arctic in its type, was rich in variety and colouring. Amid festuca and other tufted grasses twinkled the purple lychnis and the white star of the chickweed; and not without its pleasing associations I recognised a solitary hesperis, the Arctic representative of the wallflowers of home." No deer were seen, though their tracks were numerous. Having passed the seventy-ninth parallel, they reached a bold headland, from the summit of which they saw, on the left, the dreary shore stretching northward as far

as they could see, and, on the right, the rugged north-western coast of Greenland, backed by snow-covered hills, intersected by glaciers. At this point, which they named Cape Hawke, they turned back.

As it was now September, the ship was warped into a little bay, which was named Rensselaer Harbour, and preparations made for wintering. On the 10th they were frozen in, and before the middle of October a faint gleam of light on the horizon was the only indication of day; this soon faded out, and then only the stars and the fitful Aurora illumined the sky until the return of the sun in February. During the winter most of the dogs died, and the men suffered from scurvy. Sledging and hunting excursions were made, however, chiefly with the view to obtaining supplies of fresh meat, animals being very scarce. Dr. Hayes made a journey of ninety miles, in order to ascertain the food resources of the region, and saw many hares, but few deer, and those at a distance. His farther progress was arrested by a glacier four hundred feet high, which extended to the north and west as far as he could see.

On the 21st of January, 1854, an orange tint on the southern horizon heralded the return of the sun, which soon afterwards began to silver the ice between the headlands. The luminary was not seen, however, until the 21st of February, when Kane ascended a hill for the purpose of seeing its welcome disk. Towards the end of March, the establishment of depôts of provisions in advance was commenced, with a view to extensive explorations northward. The first journey resulted disastrously. Two of the men returned to the ship at midnight on the 28th, exhausted and suffering from scurvy, and reported that five of their companions were disabled by frost-bite and scurvy, and had been left in the tent, on the ice, with another to guard and attend them. Kane started immediately, with nine men, to