“I am sure,” said he, “that one could get used to it in time.” In time shows clearly the doctor’s character.
During these ethnographic studies on his part, Shandon was busying himself, according to his instructions, with procuring means of travel on the ice; he was obliged to pay four pounds for a sledge and six dogs, and the natives were reluctant to sell even at this price.
Shandon would have liked to engage Hans Christian, the skilful driver of the dogs, who accompanied Captain MacClintock, but Hans was then in Southern Greenland.
Then came up the great question of the day; was there at Upernavik a European awaiting the arrival of the Forward? Did the Governor know of any stranger, probably an Englishman, who had come into these latitudes? How recently had they seen any whalers or other ships?
To these questions the Governor answered that no stranger had landed on that part of the coast for more than ten months.
Shandon asked the names of the whalers which had last arrived; he recognized none. He was in despair.
“You must confess, Doctor, that it passes all comprehension,” he said to his companion. “Nothing at Cape Farewell! nothing at Disco! nothing at Upernavik!”
“Tell me in a few days from now, nothing at Melville Bay, my dear Shandon, and I will salute you as sole captain of the Forward.”
The boat returned to the brig towards evening, bringing back the visitors to the shore; Strong had bought several dozen eider-duck’s eggs, which were twice as large as hen’s eggs, and of a greenish color. It was not much, but it was very refreshing for a crew accustomed to little but salt meat.
The next day the wind was fair, but yet Shandon did not set sail; he wanted to wait another day, and, to satisfy his conscience, to give time for any member of the human race to rejoin the Forward; he even fired off, every hour, the ship’s gun, which reechoed among the icebergs; but he only succeeded in frightening the flocks of molly-mokes and rotches.3 During the night many rockets were set off; but in vain. He had to give the order to set sail.
The 8th of May, at six o’clock in the morning, the Forward, under her topsails, foresail, and main-top-gallant-sail, soon lost sight of the station of Upernavik, and hideous long poles on which were hanging along the shore the seals’ entrails and deers’ stomachs.
The wind was southeast, the thermometer stood at 32°. The sun pierced through the fog and the ice melted a little.
The reflection, however, injured the sight of many of the crew. Wolston, the armorer, Gripper, Clifton, and Bell were attacked by snow-blindness, which is very common in the spring, and which totally blinds many of the Eskimo. The doctor advised all, the unharmed as well as the suffering, to cover their faces with a green veil, and he was the first to follow his own recommendation.
The dogs bought by Shandon at Upernavik were rather wild; but they soon got used to their new quarters, and Captain showed no dislike of his new companions; he seemed to know their ways. Clifton was not the last to remark that Captain seemed to be familiar with the dogs of Greenland. And they, always half starved on shore, only thought of making up for it when at sea.
The 9th of May the Forward passed within a few cable-lengths of the westernmost of the Baffin Islands. The doctor noticed many rocks between the islands and the mainland which were what are called crimson cliffs; they were covered with snow as red as carmine, which Dr. Kane says is of purely vegetable origin; Clawbonny wanted to examine this singular phenomenon, but the ice forbade their approaching them; although the temperature was rising, it was easy to see that the icebergs and ice-streams were accumulating toward the north of Baffin’s Bay.
After leaving Upernavik the land presented a different appearance, and huge glaciers were sharply defined against the gray horizon. On the 10th the Forward left on its right Kingston Bay, near the seventy-fourth degree of latitude; Lancaster Sound opened into the sea many hundred miles to the west.
But then this vast expanse of water was hidden beneath enormous fields of ice, in which arose the hummocks, uniform as a homogeneous crystallization. Shandon had the furnace-fires lighted, and until the 11th of May the Forward advanced by a tortuous course, tracing with her smoke against the sky the path she was following through the water.
But new obstacles soon presented themselves; the passages were closing in consequence of the incessant crowding of the floating masses; every moment threatened to close up the clear water before the Forward, and if she were nipped, it would be hard to get her out. Everyone knew it and was thinking about it.
Hence, on board of this ship without any definite aim, any known destination, which was blindly pushing on northward, some symptoms of hesitation began to appear; among these men accustomed to dangers, many, forgetting the advantages which were promised them, regretted having ventured so far. A certain demoralization became common, which was further increased by the fears of Clifton and the talk of two or three ringleaders, such as Pen, Gripper, Warren, and Wolston.
Exhausting fatigue was added to the moral disquiet of the crew, for, on the 12th of May, the brig was caught fast; the steam was of no avail. A path had to be cut through the ice. It was no easy task to manage the saws in the floes which were six or seven feet thick; when two parallel grooves had divided the ice for a hundred feet, it was necessary to break the part that lay between with axes and bars; next they had to fasten anchors in a hole made by a huge auger; then the crew would turn the capstan and haul the ship
