The English at the North Pole: Part I of the Adventures of Captain HatterasVerne, Jules
Science
The English at the North Pole: Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras
Verne, Jules
Adventure stories; Sea stories
The weather cleared up towards evening, and land was clearly
distinguished between Cape Sepping and Cape Clarence, which runs east,
then south, and is joined to the coast on the west by a rather low
neck of land. The sea at the entrance to Regent Strait was free from
ice, with the exception of an impenetrable ice-bank, a little further
than Port Leopold, which threatened to stop the _Forward_ in her
north-westerly course. Hatteras was greatly vexed, but he did not
show it; he was obliged to have recourse to petards in order to force
an entrance to Port Leopold; he reached it on Sunday, the 27th of
May; the brig was solidly anchored to the enormous icebergs, which
were as upright, hard, and solid as rocks.
The captain, followed by the doctor, Johnson, and his dog Dick,
immediately leaped upon the ice, and soon reached land. Dick leaped
with joy, for since he had recognised the captain he had become more
sociable, keeping his grudge against certain men of the crew for whom
his master had no more friendship than he. The port was not then
blocked up with ice that the east winds generally heaped up there;
the earth, intersected with peaks, offered at their summits graceful
undulations of snow. The house and lantern erected by James Ross were
still in a tolerable state of preservation; but the provisions seemed
to have been ransacked by foxes and bears, the recent traces of which
were easily distinguished. Men, too, had had something to do with
the devastation, for a few remains of Esquimaux huts remained upon
the shores of the Bay. The six graves inclosing the remains of the
six sailors of the _Enterprise_ and the _Investigator_ were
recognisable by a slight swelling of the ground; they had been
respected both by men and animals. In placing his foot for the first
time on boreal land, the doctor experienced much emotion. It is
impossible to imagine the feelings with which the heart is assailed
at the sight of the remains of houses, tents, huts, and magazines
that Nature so marvellously preserves in those cold countries.
"There is that residence," he said to his companions, "which James
Ross himself called the Camp of Refuge; if Franklin's expedition had
reached this spot, it would have been saved. There is the engine which
was abandoned here, and the stove at which the crew of the _Prince
Albert_ warmed themselves in 1851. Things have remained just as they
were, and any one would think that Captain Kennedy had only left
yesterday. Here is the long boat which sheltered him and his for a
few days, for this Kennedy, separated from his ship, was in reality
saved by Lieutenant Bellot, who braved the October temperature in
order to go to his assistance."
"I knew that brave and worthy officer," said Johnson.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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