The Mammoth Book of Travel in Dangerous Places (70 page)

We had now seen the ice leave the shore at last, but had yesterday been prevented from embarking, by a heavy fog. This ending in rain and sleet, with an adverse east wind, on the last morning of
the month, we did not load the boats till mid-day; but as it proved, in vain, since it came to blow and rain so heavily all the afternoon and evening, that it was impossible to embark. In every way
it was desirable to quit this place; as the stones had now begun to fall from the cliffs, in consequence of which two men experienced severe contusions, and one narrowly escaped with his life. Thus
ended July.

Of that month, any summary is superseded by the preceding journal; it is almost sufficient to note that the mean temperature had been 36°, and the extremes 28° and 50° plus. It had
not been an unfavourable one to our prospects, on the whole while we had no right to expect an open sea in these regions at so early a period, far less in a strait which had exhibited such
perseverance in preserving its ice through the whole summer during the preceding years. That the sick had improved was a very consoling circumstance; while our situation was, at least, one of joint
exertion and hope.

Between the first and the fifteenth of the month of August, the changes of the wind and the vacillations in the nature of the weather were such as I have often recorded during
the past two; while the general result is all that is here worthy of notice. The prevailing nature of the former was north-easterly: and the consequence was, to block up the shore with ice, and to
keep us closely imprisoned to our beach and our boats. On the third, indeed, we made an attempt to move round the southern point of the bay: but being unable to effect this, and finding the
blockade of this headland so heavy that the bay must open sooner, so as to give us notice where we might possibly pass it, we returned, as there was nothing to gain by this project.

But even this fruitless labour was not without its use. The result of it was to do something: and, to do, even what was useless, was to keep up the spirits and hopes of the people, as it also
interrupted that uniformity of idle wakefulness which led them to brood over their present condition, and to indulge in evil anticipations. The Highland squire who makes Boswell haul on the
backstay in a gale of wind, displays more knowledge than a landsman has any right to possess.

I know not what we should have done, what would have “become of us,” as the phrase is, had we not made work when we had ceased to find it. “The men,” as they are called,
are not much given to thinking, it is certain; though seamen of the present day (and I am sorry to say it), think much more than they did in the days of my junior service, and, most assuredly and
certainly, are “all the worse” for it. Let my fraternity in command say whether this be true or not; and they are the bold men who will so say, despite of the paltry, fantastical, and
pretending, ultra philanthropy of these days of ruinous folly. But that is an over serious matter to discuss at present. “An idle man is a pillow for the devil,” says a Spanish or
Italian proverb; it was no good that our men should have been pillowed in this manner: better was it that they should work themselves into utter weariness, that they should so hunger as to think
only of their stomachs, fall asleep and dream of nothing but a better dinner, as they awoke to hope and labour for it, and that their sleep should be, not on the pillow of the proverb, but on a
couch of snow, sufficient to impede all reflections but the wish for a better bed after a better supper and the gnawing desire of more and better on the following day.

The shooting of waterfowl furnished indeed some occupation to those who were worthy of being trusted with powder and shot; but I believe the best occupation, to a set of such starved wretches as
we were, was to eat the game, not to shoot it. Every morning now rose on the hopes of a good supper: if that came, it was more than welcome; and when it did not, why then there was the chance of
one to-morrow. I do not say that the supper which was missed was equivalent to the one that was eaten; since hope or expectation will not, more than wishing, fill a man’s stomach; but it is
certain that the sick recovered rapidly, and the well improved in strength; nor could I doubt that their present state of mind was, in this, scarcely less efficacious than the broiled ducks and the
dovekie sea-pies.

To look out from the top of the hill, for the state of the ice, was another occupation for any one that chose; and it was exercise, while it served to waste the time. It was not, like
Behring’s unhappy men, to watch for the ship that was destined never to appear, and, when the day closed, to retire once more to darkness and despair. The day of relief might be delayed, but
it was long yet before it would be time to fear that it was not to arrive; while, in every change of a breeze, in every shower of rain, and in every movement of the ice, however minute, there was
sufficient to maintain hope, and to render all anxious for the to-morrow; as each, on retiring for the night, felt inclined to say, yet not under the same motives as the wretches in the Castle of
Indolence, “Thank God, the day is done.”

It was on the fourteenth that hope became anxiety, when a lane of water was for the first time seen, leading to the northward; and not many, I believe, slept, under the anticipations of what the
next day might bring. On this, all were employed in cutting the ice which obstructed the shore, as early as four o’clock in the morning; and the tide having risen soon after, with a fine
westerly breeze, we launched the boats, embarked the stores and the sick, and, at eight o’clock, were under way.

We really were under way at last; and it was our business to forget that we had been in the same circumstances, the year before, in the same place; to feel that the time for exertion was now
come, and those exertions to be at length rewarded; to exchange hope for certainty, and to see, in the mind’s eye, the whole strait open before us, and our little fleet sailing with a fair
wind through that bay which was now, in our views, England and home.

We soon rounded the north cape of Batty bay, and, finding lane of water, crossed Elwin’s bay at midnight; reaching, on the sixteenth, that spot to the north of it where we had pitched our
tents on the twenty-eighth of August in the preceding year. I know not if all were here quite free of recollections to damp our new hopes. The difference in time was but twelve days; and should
those days pass as they had done in the former, it might still be our fate to return to our last winter’s home and there to end our toils as it was but too easy to anticipate; the first whose
fortune it should be, in a frozen grave, and the last in the maws of bears and foxes.

We found here no passage to the eastward, but the lane of water still extended towards the north; so that our stay was of no longer duration than was indispensable for rest. As we proceeded, the
open water increased in breadth; and, at eight in the evening, we reached our former position at the north-eastern cape of America. A view from the hill here, showed that the ice to the northward
and northeastward was in such a state as to admit of sailing through it; but as it blew too hard to venture among it in the night, we pitched our tents for rest.

At three in the morning we embarked once more, leaving an additional note of our proceedings, in the same place where the former was concealed. It was calm, and we held on to the eastward by
rowing, until, at noon, we reached the edge of the packed ice, through many streams of floating pieces; when we found that its extremity was but a mile to the northward. A southerly breeze then
springing up, enabled us to round it: when, finding the water open, we stood on through it, and reached the eastern shore of the strait at three in the afternoon. In a few hours we had at length
effected that for which we had formerly waited in vain so many days, and which, it is likely, could not have been effected in any of the years that we had been imprisoned in this country.

Accustomed as we were to the ice, to its caprices, and to its sudden and unexpected alterations, it was a change like that of magic, to find that solid mass of ocean which was but too fresh in
our memories, which we had looked at for so many years as if it was fixed for ever in a repose which nothing could hereafter disturb, suddenly converted into water; navigable, and navigable to us,
who had almost forgotten what it was to float at freedom on the seas. It was at times scarcely to be believed: and he who dozed to awake again, had for a moment to renew the conviction that he was
at length a seaman on his own element, that his boat once more rose on the waves beneath him, and that when the winds blew, it obeyed his will and his hand.

Thus we ran quickly along the shore as the breeze increased; and, passing Eardly point, were at length compelled, by the rising of this breeze to a gale accompanied by hard squalls, to take
shelter on a beach twelve miles west of Cape York; having made, on this day, a run of seventy-two miles.

The wind moderating, and it at length becoming calm, we were obliged, in the morning, to take to the oars; and finding no ice to obstruct us, rowed along to the eastward, and by midnight rested
for a short time at the cape to the east of Admiralty inlet. On the next day, the weather being the same, we were halfway between this place and that termed Navy-board inlet, by eight in the
morning; when, the men being exhausted with nearly twenty hours rowing, we stopped on the beach and pitched our tents. The weather had not yet become warm, clear as the water might be; since the
night temperature had never exceeded 35°, nor that of the day 40°.

We were soon driven from this exposed place by the coming on of an easterly wind; and thus, taking once more to the oars, we rowed along among icebergs, till we arrived at an excellent harbour,
receiving a considerable stream, where we were protected by these heavy masses, while we could, if necessary, haul the boats into a pool at the mouth of the river. We had thus gained five miles
more; and being six or seven to the west of Navy-board inlet, were within eighty of Possession bay.

It began to blow hard last night with a north-east wind, and a heavy sea, which continued this day; blocking us up completely, but allowing us to haul up the boats for repair. Growing worse at
length, we brought them into the inner harbour which the pool formed; when, increasing to a violent gale, all the icebergs which had arranged themselves into an outer one, broke away and
disappeared. There was, with this storm, a steady fall of mixed rain and snow, and the thermometer subsided to 34°.

August 22
It had become prudent to reduce ourselves, once more, to a two-thirds allowance; and thus were we imprisoned on the twenty-third and twenty-fourth, by a continuance of the gale,
with fog and rain; the thermometer falling to 29°; a degree of cold which was severely felt by the sick people.

The wind at length abated, and the sea came down, so that we launched the boats; and it being by that time calm, we rowed to the eastward across Navy-board inlet, passing through several streams
of ice; when, the men being exhausted by twelve hours’ labour, we found a harbour after a progress of ten miles, and pitched our tents at the mouth of another river; there resting, and
repairing the boats, which were not in the best condition.

August 26
At four in the morning, when all were asleep, the lookout man, David Wood, thought he discovered a sail in the offing, and immediately informed Commander Ross, who, by means of
his glass, soon saw that it was, in reality, a ship. All hands were immediately out of their tents and on the beach, discussing her rig, quality, and course; though there were still some despairers
who maintained that it was only an iceberg.

No time was however lost: the boats were launched, and signals made by burning wet powder; when, completing our embarkation, we left our little harbour at six o’clock. Our progress was
tedious, owing to alternate calms, and light airs blowing in every direction; yet we made way towards the vessel, and had it remained calm where she was, should soon have been alongside. Unluckily,
a breeze just then sprang up, and she made all sail to the south-eastward; by which means the boat that was foremost was soon left astern, while the other two were steering more to the eastward,
with the hopes of cutting her off.

About ten o’clock we saw another sail to the northward, which appeared to be lying to for her boats; thinking, at one time, when she hove to, that she had seen us. That, however, proved
not to be the case, as she soon bore up under all sail. In no long time it was apparent that she was fast leaving us; and it was the most anxious moment that we had yet experienced, to find that we
were near to no less than two ships, either of which would have put an end to all our fears and all our toils, and that we should probably reach neither.

It was necessary, however, to keep up the courage of the men, by assuring them, from time to time, that we were coming up with her; when, most fortunately, it fell calm, and we really gained so
fast, that, at eleven o’clock we saw her heave to with all sails aback, and lower down a boat, which rowed immediately towards our own.

She was soon alongside, when the mate in command addressed us, by presuming that we had met with some misfortune and lost our ship. This being answered in the affirmative, I requested to know
the name of his vessel, and expressed our wish to be taken on board. I was answered that it was “the Isabella of Hull, once commanded by Captain Ross”; on which I stated that I was the
identical man in question, and my people the crew of the
Victory.
That the mate, who commanded this boat, was as much astonished at this information as he appeared to be, I do not doubt;
while, with the usual blunderheadedness of men on such occasions, he assured me that I had been dead two years. I easily convinced him, however, that what ought to have been true, according to his
estimate, was a somewhat premature conclusion; as the bear-like form of the whole set of us might have shown him, had he taken time to consider, that we were certainly not whaling gentlemen, and
that we carried tolerable evidence of our being “true men, and no impostors,” on our backs, and in our starved and unshaven countenances. A hearty congratulation followed of course, in
the true seaman style, and, after a few natural inquiries, he added that the
Isabella
was commanded by Captain Humphreys; when he immediately went off in his boat to communicate his
information on board; repeating that we had long been given up as lost, not by them alone, but by all England.