Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage | Page 7

he set forth to explore a large island, and landed, leaving two men to watch the boat, while he, with three men and the mate, set forth and disappeared over a hill. For thirteen hours the watchers kept their post; one had his trumpet with him, for he was a trumpeter, the other had a gun. They trumpeted often and loudly; they fired, but no answer came. They watched ashore all night for the return of their captain and his party, "but they came not at all."
The season is advanced. As we sail on, the sea steams like a line- kiln, "frost-smoke" covers it. The water, cooled less rapidly, is warmer now than the surrounding air, and yields this vapour in consequence. By the time our vessel has reached Baffin's Bay, still coasting along Greenland, in addition to old floes and bergs, the water is beset with "pancake ice." That is the young ice when it first begins to cake upon the surface. Innocent enough it seems, but it is sadly clogging to the ships. It sticks about their sides like treacle on a fly's wing; collecting unequally, it destroys all equilibrium, and impedes the efforts of the steersman. Rocks split on the Greenland coast with loud explosions, and more icebergs fall. Icebergs we soon shall take our leave of; they are only found where there is a coast on which glaciers can form; they are good for nothing but to yield fresh water to the vessels; it will be all field, pack, and saltwater ice presently.
Now we are in Baffin's Bay, explored in the voyages of Bylot and Baffin, 1615-16. When, in 1817, a great movement in the Greenland ice caused many to believe that the northern passages would be found comparatively clear; and when, in consequence of this impression, Sir John Barrow succeeded in setting afoot that course of modern Arctic exploration which has been continued to the present day, Sir John Ross was the first man sent to find the North-West Passage. Buchan and Parry were commissioned at the same the to attempt the North Sea route. Sir John Ross did little more on that occasion than effect a survey of Baffin's Bay, and prove the accuracy of the ancient pilot. In the extreme north of the bay there is an inlet or a channel, called by Baffin Smith's Sound; this Sir John saw, but did not enter. It never yet has been explored. It may be an inlet only; but it is also very possible that by this channel ships might get into the Polar Sea and sail by the north shore of Greenland to Spitzbergen. Turning that corner, and descending along the western coast of Baffin's Bay, there is another inlet called Jones' Sound by Baffin, also unexplored. These two inlets, with their very British titles, Smith and Jones, are of exceeding interest. Jones' Sound may lead by a back way to Melville Island. South of Jones' Sound there is a wide break in the shore, a great sound, named by Baffin, Lancaster's, which Sir John Ross, in that first expedition, failed also to explore. Like our transatlantic friends at the South Pole, he laid down a range of clouds as mountains, and considered the way impervious; so he came home. Parry went out next year, as a lieutenant, in command of his first and most successful expedition. He sailed up Lancaster Sound, which was in that year (1819) unusually clear of ice; and he is the discoverer whose track we now follow in our Phantom Ship. The whole ground being new, he had to name the points of country right and left of him. The way was broad and open, due west, a most prosperous beginning for a North-West Passage. If this continued, he would soon reach Behring Strait. A broad channel to the right, directed, that is to say, southward, he entered on the Prince of Wales's birthday, and so called it the "Prince Regent's Inlet." After exploring this for some miles, he turned back to resume his western course, for still there was a broad strait leading westward. This second part of Lancaster Sound he called after the Secretary of the Admiralty who had so indefatigably laboured to promote the expeditions, Barrow's Strait. Then he came to a channel, turning to the right or northward, and he named that Wellington Channel. Then he had on his right hand ice, islands large and small, and intervening channels; on the left, ice, and a cape visible, Cape Walker. At an island, named after the First Lord of the Admiralty Melville Island, the great frozen wilderness barred farther progress. There he wintered. On the coast of Melville Island they had passed the latitude of one hundred and ten degrees, and the men had become entitled