Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. IV, No. 19, Dec 1851. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ and soon the long polar night, with all its darkness and horrors, would fall upon them. Slowly they drifted in those vast fields of ice, whither, or to what result, they knew not. Locked in the moving yet compact mass; liable every moment to be crushed; far away from land; the mercury sinking daily lower and lower from the zero figure, toward the point where that metal freezes, they felt small hope of ever reaching home again. Yet they prepared for winter comforts and winter sports, as cheerfully as if lying safe in Barlow's Inlet. As the winter advanced, the crews of both vessels went on board the larger one. They unshipped the rudders of each to prevent their being injured by the ice, covered the deck of the Advance with felt, prepared their stores, and made arrangements for enduring the long winter, now upon them. Physical and mental activity being necessary for the preservation of health, they daily exercised in the open air for several hours. They built ice huts, hunted the huge white bears and the little polar foxes, and when the darkness of the winter night had spread over them, they arranged in-door amusements and employments.

      Before the end of October, the sun made its appearance for the last time, and the awful polar night closed in. Early in November they wholly abandoned the Rescue, and both crews made the Advance their permanent winter home. The cold soon became intense; the mercury congealed, and the spirit thermometer indicated 46° below zero! Its average range was 30° to 35°. They had drifted helplessly up Wellington Channel as high as the point 4. on the map, almost to the latitude from whence Captain Penny saw an open sea, and which all believe to be the great polar basin, where there is a more genial clime than that which intervenes between the Arctic Circle and the 75th degree. Here, when almost in sight of the open ocean, that mighty polar tide, with its vast masses of ice, suddenly ebbed, and our little vessels were carried back as resistlessly as before, through Barrow's Straits into Lancaster Sound! All this while the immense fields of hummock-ice were moving, and the vessels were in hourly danger of being crushed and destroyed. At length, while drifting through Barrow's Straits, the congealed mass, as if crushed together by the opposite shores, became more compact, and the Advance was elevated almost seven feet by the stern, and keeled two feet eight inches, starboard, as seen in the engraving. In this position she remained, with very little alteration, for five consecutive months; for, soon after entering Baffin's Bay in the midst of the winter, the ice became frozen in one immense tract, covering millions of acres. Thus frozen in, sometimes more than a hundred miles from land, they drifted slowly along the southwest coast of Baffin's Bay, a distance of more than a thousand miles from Wellington Channel. For eleven weeks that dreary night continued, and during that time the disc of the sun was never seen above the horizon. Yet nature was not wholly forbidding in aspect. Sometimes the Aurora Borealis would flash up still further northward; and sometimes Aurora Parhelia – mock suns and mock moons – would appear in varied beauty in the starry sky. Brilliant, too, were the northern constellations; and when the real moon was at its full, it made its stately circuit in the heavens without descending below the horizon, and lighted up the vast piles of ice with a pale lustre, almost as great as the morning twilights of more genial skies.

      Around the vessels the crews built a wall of ice; and in ice huts they stowed away their cordage and stores to make room for exercise on the decks. They organized a theatrical company, and amused themselves and the officers with comedy well performed. Behind the pieces of hummock each actor learned his part, and by means of calico they transformed themselves into female characters, as occasion required. These dramas were acted upon the deck of the Advance, sometimes while the thermometer indicated 30° below zero, and actors and audience highly enjoyed the fun. They also went out in parties during that long night, fully armed, to hunt the polar bear, the grim monarch of the frozen North, on which occasions they often encountered perilous adventures. They played at foot-ball, and exercised themselves in drawing sledges, heavily laden with provisions. Five hours of each twenty-four, they thus exercised in the open air, and once a week each man washed his whole body in cold snow water. Serious sickness was consequently avoided, and the scurvy which attacked them soon yielded to remedies.

      Often during that fearful night, they expected the disaster of having their vessels crushed. All through November and December, before the ice became fast, they slept in their clothes, with knapsacks on their backs, and sledges upon the ice, laden with stores, not knowing at what moment the vessels might be demolished, and themselves forced to leave them and make their way toward land. On the 8th of December, and the 23d of January, they actually lowered their boats and stood upon the ice, for the crushing masses were making the timbers of the gallant vessel creak and its decks to rise in the centre. They were then ninety miles from land, and hope hardly whispered an encouraging idea of life being sustained. On the latter occasion, when officers and crew stood upon the ice, with the ropes of their provision sledges in their hands, a terrible snow-drift came from the northeast, and intense darkness shrouded them. Had the vessel then been crushed, all must have perished. But God, who ruled the storm, also put forth his protecting arm and saved them.

      Early in February the northern horizon began to be streaked with gorgeous twilight, the herald of the approaching king of day; and on the 18th the disc of the sun first appeared above the horizon. As its golden rim rose above the glittering snow-drifts and piles of ice, three hearty cheers went up from those hardy mariners, and they welcomed their deliverer from the chains of frost as cordially as those of old who chanted,

      "See! the conquering hero comes!

      Sound the trumpet, beat the drums."

      Day after day it rose higher and higher, and while the pallid faces of the voyagers, bleached during that long night, darkened by its beams, the vast masses of ice began to yield to its fervid influences. The scurvy disappeared, and from that time, until their arrival home, not a man suffered from sickness. As they slowly drifted through Davis's Straits, and the ice gave indications of breaking up, the voyagers made preparations for sailing. The Rescue was re-occupied, (May 13th 1851), and her stern-post, which had been broken by the ice in Barrow's Straits, was repaired. To accomplish this, they were obliged to dig away the ice which was from 12 to 14 feet thick around her, as represented in the engraving. They re-shipped their rudders; removed the felt covering; placed their stores on deck, and then patiently awaited the disruption of the ice. This event was very sudden and appalling. It began to give way on the 5th of June, and in the space of twenty minutes the whole mass, as far as the eye could reach became one vast field of moving floes. On the 10th of June they emerged into open water (7, on the map) a little south of the Arctic Circle, in latitude 65° 30'. They immediately repaired to Godhaven, on the coast of Greenland, where they re-fitted, and, unappalled by the perils through which they had just passed, they once more turned their prows northward to encounter anew the ice squadrons of Baffin's Bay. Again they traversed the coast of Greenland to about the 73d degree, when they bore to the westward, and on the 7th and 8th of July passed the English whaling fleet near the Dutch Islands. Onward they pressed through the accumulating ice to Baffin's Island, where, on the 11th, they were joined by the Prince Albert, then out upon another cruise. They continued in company until the 3d of August, when the Albert departed for the westward, determined to try the more southern passage. Here again (8,) our expedition encountered vast fields of hummock-ice, and were subjected to the most imminent perils. The floating ice, as if moved by adverse currents, tumbled in huge masses, and reared upon the sides of the sturdy little vessels like monsters of the deep intent upon destruction. These masses broke in the bulwarks, and sometimes fell over upon the decks with terrible force, like rocks rolled over a plain by mountain torrents. The noise was fearful; so deafening that the mariners could scarcely hear each other's voices. The sounds of these rolling masses, together with the rending of the icebergs floating near, and the vast floes, produced a din like the discharge of a thousand pieces of ordnance upon a field of battle.

      Finding the north and west closed against further progress, by impenetrable ice, the brave De Haven was balked, and turning his vessels homeward, they came out into an open sea, somewhat crippled, but not a plank seriously started. During a storm off the banks of Newfoundland, a thousand miles from New York, the vessels parted company. The Advance arrived safely at the Navy Yard at Brooklyn on the 30th of September, and the Rescue joined her there a few days afterward. Toward the close of October СКАЧАТЬ