The Open Polar Sea: A narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States"Hayes, I. I. (Isaac Israel)
History
The Open Polar Sea: A narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States"
Hayes, I. I. (Isaac Israel)
Arctic regions; United States (Schooner)
shown the hazard of exposing men in the wind in such low temperatures.
This, however, is one of those things against which no foresight
can provide. No serious consequences appear to have resulted from
the event, and the sufferers are growing more comfortable as the
temperature of the hut rises. We have had our rude camp supper, and I
have started an alcohol lamp; the door is closed tightly; the party are
all drawn under the sleeping-furs; the plucky ones smoke their pipes,
and the balance of them shiver as if they would grow warm with the
exercise. The chattering of teeth is not pleasant music.
April 5th.
Under the snow again near Cape Hatherton. Our halt at the last camp
was continued for eighteen hours, until the men had got fairly thawed
out, and the wind had entirely subsided. The short march hence was made
slowly and steadily, as I do not wish at first to urge upon the men
too much work, nor to keep them long exposed to the cold. There are no
frost-bites of consequence resulting from the exposure of yesterday.
The spirits of the party have somewhat revived. The temperature has
risen, and the hut is warmer than that of last night,--that is, my
thermometer, hanging from the runner of the sledge over my head shows
10° above zero.
April 6th.
[Sidenote: AT CAIRN POINT.]
We have reached Cairn Point, and are comfortably housed. The men have
come up to the work reasonably well. The depression of spirits which
followed the blast of cold wind that overtook us above Sunrise Point
has passed away, and all hands are gay and lively. I had no need to
urge or instruct or use the snow-shovel myself at this camp. The weak
in spirit have profited by their lessons, and have learned that in
providing for one's comfort and safety on the ice-fields the shovel
materially assists appeals to Heaven,--a very wholesome change, and, as
a result of it, instead of being upward of two hours in constructing
our hut, as on the first night, we have this time accomplished the
task in less than one, and everybody seemed ambitious of doing the work
in the shortest possible space of time.
[Sidenote: THE PROSPECT.]
The traveling to-day has been very fair for the dog-sledges, but very
bad for the boat. It runs easily enough on the smooth surface, but
dragging its long length over a snow-drift even four feet deep, or,
worse still, over hummocks even half as high, is a troublesome task;
and we have crossed many strips of rough ice to-day which could not
be passed until we had broken a track. In consequence of this we were
obliged to leave some of the load behind, especially as I wished to
reach Cairn Point before camping. Knorr and Jensen had already cached
one of their cargoes of March at Cape Hatherton, and this was left with
it. It will cost us a day's labor to bring it up.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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