North-Pole Voyages: Embracing Sketches of the Important Facts and Incidents in the Latest American Efforts to Reach the North Pole, from the Second Grinnell Expedition to That of the PolarisMudge, Zachariah Atwell
History
North-Pole Voyages: Embracing Sketches of the Important Facts and Incidents in the Latest American Efforts to Reach the North Pole, from the Second Grinnell Expedition to That of the Polaris
Mudge, Zachariah Atwell
Arctic regions; Arctic regions -- Discovery and exploration -- American; Discoveries in geography -- American
DR. HAYES and Knorr were buffeted by a fierce storm soon after starting.
They were over fifty miles from M'Donald and Jensen, only ten of which
were traversed before they were obliged to encamp. But the storm howled,
and tossed the snow-clouds about them, making it impossible to build a
snow hut. After a brief halt, and feeding the dogs with the last morsel
of food which remained, they pushed on. The snow was deep, often nearly
burying the dogs as they plunged along; the hummocks and rocks over
which they climbed lay across their path, and the wind blew with
unabated fury; yet they halted not until the remaining forty or more
miles were accomplished, and they tumbled into the hut of their
companions. The dogs rolled themselves together on the snow the moment
they were left, utterly exhausted. The weary men slept a long, sound
sleep. When they awoke a steaming pot of coffee and an abundant
breakfast awaited them. They had fasted thirty-four hours, and traveled
in the last twenty-two over forty miles, which the hummocks and deep
snow made equal to double that distance of smooth sledging. The last few
miles were made in a state of partial bewilderment, so their final
safety was another of their many marked deliverances. The remaining run
to the vessel had its daily perils and escapes. As they were approaching
the American shore they stepped across a crack on the ice. They had
traveled but a short distance when they perceived that there was an
impassable channel between them and the land ice. They ran back to
recross the crack, and that had become twenty yards wide. They were, in
fact, on an ice-raft, and were sweeping helplessly out to sea! They had
hardly collected their thoughts after this terrifying surprise before
one of the shore corners of their raft struck a small grounded iceberg,
and on this, as on a pivot, the outer edge swung toward the shore,
struck its margin, allowed them to scamper off, and then immediately
swung again into the open water, and shot out to sea.
The poor dogs, being insufficiently fed, and necessarily overworked, now
began to fail. Jensen's lameness compelling him to ride, increased their
burden. One died just before the party left the hummocks, and two soon
after. A fourth having failed, the commander, thinking to shorten his
misery, shot him. The ball only wounding him, he set up a terrible cry,
at which his companions flew at him, tore him in pieces, and, almost
before his last howl had died away in the dreary waste, they had eaten
the flesh from his bones.
They arrived at the schooner safely after two months' absence, during
which they had traveled thirteen hundred miles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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