Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and Narrative of an Attempt to Reach the North Pole, Volume 2Parry, William Edward, Sir
History
Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and Narrative of an Attempt to Reach the North Pole, Volume 2
Parry, William Edward, Sir
Arctic regions; Northwest Passage; Parry, William Edward, Sir, 1790-1855
In the afternoon of the 6th I was much pained at being informed by
telegraph from the Hecla, that Mr. Fife, Greenland master of that ship,
had just expired, an event which for some days past there had been but
too much reason to apprehend; the scurvy having within the last three
weeks continued to increase considerably upon him. It is proper for me,
however, both in justice to the medical officers under whose skilful and
humane care he was placed, and to the means with which we were in this
way so liberally supplied, to state, that during a part of that time Mr.
Fife had taken so great a dislike to the various antiscorbutics which
were administered to him, that he could seldom be induced to use any of
them. The disease, in consequence, reduced him to a state of extreme
debility, which at length carried him off almost without pain. The Hecla
being at the time closely beset, and in a situation of great danger
among the shoals off Winter Island, Captain Lyon caused the remains of
the deceased to be committed to the sea with all the solemnity which
circumstances would permit.
In the night of the 6th, the ships, which had before nearly closed each
other, were again separated to the distance of several miles, though no
motion was perceptible in the masses of ice about them. On the evening
of the 11th, however, the wind at length began to freshen from the
northwest, when the ice immediately commenced driving down the inlet at
the rate of a mile an hour, carrying the Fury with it, and within half a
mile of the rocks, the whole way down to Cape Martineau, but keeping
her in deep water. In the mean time the Hecla had been swept into much
more dangerous situations, passing along the east and south sides of
Winter Island; and, after driving nearly up to Five-hawser Bay, being
carried near some dangerous shoals about Cape Edwards, where Captain
Lyon expected every other tide that she would take the ground.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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