The first thought of the doctor was to ask permission of the Royal Geographical Society of London to lay a communication before it; he was admitted to the meeting of July 15th. The astonishment of the learned assembly, and its enthusiastic cheers after reading Hatteras’s document, may be imagined.
This journey, the only one of its kind, went over all the discoveries that had been made in the regions about the Pole; it brought together the expeditions of Parry, Ross, Franklin, MacClure; it completed the chart between the one hundredth and one hundred and fifteenth meridians; and, finally, it ended with the point of the globe hitherto inaccessible, with the Pole itself.
Never had news so unexpected burst upon astonished England.
The English take great interest in geographical facts; they are proud of them, lord and cockney, from the merchant prince to the workman in the docks.
The news of this great discovery was telegraphed over the United Kingdom with great rapidity; the papers printed the name of Hatteras at the head of their columns as that of a martyr, and England glowed with pride.
The doctor and his companions were feasted everywhere; they were formally presented to her Majesty by the Lord High Chancellor.
The government confirmed the name of Queen’s Island for the rock at the North Pole, of Mount Hatteras for the mountain itself, and of Altamont Harbor for the port in New America.
Altamont did not part from those whose misery and glory he had shared, and who were now his friends. He followed the doctor, Johnson, and Bell to Liverpool, where they were warmly received, after they had been thought to be long dead, and buried in the eternal ice.
But Dr. Clawbonny always gave the glory to the man who most deserved it. In his account of the journey entitled “The English at the North Pole,” published the next year by the Royal Geographical Society, he made John Hatteras equal to the greatest explorers, the rival of those bold men who sacrifice everything to science.
But the sad victim of a lofty passion lived peacefully at the asylum of Starr Cottage near Liverpool, where the doctor had placed him. His madness was of a gentle kind, but he never spoke, he understood nothing, his power of speech seemed to have gone with his reason. A single feeling seemed to unite him to the outer world, his love for Duke, who was not separated from him.
This disease, this “polar madness,” pursued its course quietly, presenting no particular symptom, when Dr. Clawbonny, who often visited his poor patient, was struck by his singular manner.
For some time Captain Hatteras, followed by his faithful dog, that used to gaze at him sadly, would walk for hours every day; but he always walked in one way, in the direction of a certain path. When he had reached the end, he would return, walking backwards. If anyone stopped him, he would point his finger at a portion of the sky. If anyone tried to make him turn round, he grew angry, and Duke would show his anger and bark furiously.
The doctor observed carefully this odd mania; he understood the motive of this strange obstinacy; he guessed the reason of this walk always in the same direction, and, so to speak, under the influence of a magnetic force.
Captain John Hatteras was always walking towards the north.
Endnotes
Colophon
The Adventures of Captain Hatteras
was published in 1864 by
Jules Verne.
It was translated from French in 1876 by
James R. Osgood and Company.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Jason Livermore,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2009 by
Ron Swanson
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans from the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
The Explorer A. E. Nordenskiöld,
a painting completed in 1886 by
Georg von Rosen.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
September 12, 2024, 5:08 p.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/jules-verne/the-adventures-of-captain-hatteras/james-r-osgood-and-company.
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