LITMIR.BIZ

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right!” replied Hatteras.

      “Brunton!” he called out to the engineer, “a few turns ahead.”

      Brunton opened the sliders, and the screw being put in movement, the Forward neared the mined mountain.

      “Aim at the pass!” cried the captain to the gunsmith. The latter obeyed, and when the brig was only half a cable’s length from it, Hatteras called out:

      “Fire!”

      A formidable report followed his order, and the blocks, shaken by the atmospheric commotion, were suddenly precipitated into the sea; the disturbance amongst the strata of the air had been sufficient to accomplish this.

      “All steam on, Brunton! Straight for the pass, Johnson!”

      The latter was at the helm; the brig, driven along by her screw, which turned in the foaming waves, dashed into the middle of the then opened pass; it was time, for scarcely had the Forward cleared the opening than her prison closed up again behind her. It was a thrilling moment, and on board there was only one stout and undisturbed heart—that of the captain. The crew, astonished at the manoeuvre, cried out:

      “Hurrah for the captain!”

CHAPTER XIV

      EXPEDITION IN SEARCH OF FRANKLIN

      Table of Contents

      On Wednesday, the 23rd of May, the Forward had again taken up her adventurous navigation, cleverly tacking amongst the packs and icebergs. Thanks to steam, that obedient force which so many of our Polar sea navigators have had to do without, she appeared to be playing in the midst of the moving rocks. She seemed to recognise the hand of an experienced master, and like a horse under an able rider, she obeyed the thought of her captain. The temperature rose. At six o’clock in the morning the thermometer marked twenty-six degrees, at six in the evening twenty-nine degrees, and at midnight twenty-five degrees; the wind was lightly blowing from the southeast.

      On Thursday, towards three in the morning, the Forward was in sight of Possession Bay, on the coast of America. At the entrance to Lancaster Strait, shortly after, the crew caught a glimpse of Burney Cape. A few Esquimaux pulled off towards the vessel, but Hatteras did not take the trouble to wait for them. The Byam-Martin peaks, which overlook Cape Liverpool, were sighted to the left, and soon disappeared in the evening mists, which also prevented any observation being taken from Cape Hay. This cape is so low that it gets confounded with the ice on the coast, a circumstance which often renders the hydrographic determination of the Polar seas extremely difficult.

      Puffins, ducks, and white seagulls showed up in very great numbers. The Forward was then in latitude 74 degrees 1 minute, and in longitude 77 degrees 15 minutes. The snowy hoods of the two mountains, Catherine and Elizabeth, rose up above the clouds.

      On Friday, at six o’clock, Cape Warender was passed on the right side of the strait, and on the left Admiralty Inlet, a bay that has been little explored by navigators, who are generally in a hurry to sail away west. The sea became rather rough, and the waves often swept the deck of the brig, throwing up pieces of ice. The land on the north coast, with its high table lands almost level, and which reverberated the sun’s rays, offered a very curious appearance.

      Hatteras wanted to run along the north coast, in order to reach Beechey Island and the entrance to Wellington Channel sooner; but continual icebergs compelled him, to his great annoyance, to follow the southern passes. That was why, on the 26th of May, the Forward was abreast of Cape York in a thick fog interspersed with snow; a very high mountain, almost perpendicular, caused it to be recognised. The weather cleared up a little, and the sun, towards noon, appeared for an instant, allowing a tolerably good observation to be taken; 74 degrees 4 minutes latitude and 84 degrees 23 minutes longitude. The Forward was then at the extremity of Lancaster Strait.

      Hatteras pointed out to the doctor on his map the route already taken, and the one he meant to follow. The position of the brig at the time was very interesting.

      “I should like to have been further north,” said he, “but no one can do the impossible; see, this is our exact situation.”

      And the captain pricked his map at a short distance from Cape York.

      “We are in the centre of this four-road way, open to every wind, fenced by the outlets of Lancaster Strait, Barrow Strait, Wellington Channel, and Regent’s Passage; it is a point that all navigators in these seas have been obliged to come to.”

      “Well,” replied the doctor, “it must have puzzled them greatly; four cross-roads with no signposts to tell them which to take. How did Parry, Ross, and Franklin manage?”

      “They did not manage at all, they were managed; they had no choice, I can assure you; sometimes Barrow Strait was closed to one of them, and the next year another found it open; sometimes the vessel was irresistibly drawn towards Regent’s Passage, so that we have ended by becoming acquainted with these inextricable seas.”

      “What a singular country!” said the doctor, examining the map. “It is all in pieces, and they seem to have no logical connection. It seems as if the land in the vicinity of the North Pole had been cut up like this on purpose to make access to it more difficult, whilst that in the other hemisphere quietly terminates in tapered-out points like those of Cape Horn, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Indian Peninsula. Is it the greater rapidity of the equator which has thus modified matters, whilst the land at the extremities, yet fluid from the creation, has not been able to get condensed or agglomerated together, for want of a sufficiently rapid rotation?”

      “That must be the case, for everything on earth is logical, and ‘nothing is that errs from law,’ and God often allows men to discover His laws; make use of His permission, doctor.”

      “Unfortunately, I shall not be able to take much advantage of it,” said the doctor, “but the wind here is something dreadful,” added he, muffling himself up as well as he could.

      “Yes, we are quite exposed to the north wind, and it is turning us out of our road.”

      “Anyhow it ought to drive the ice down south, and level a clear road.”

      “It ought to do so, doctor, but the wind does not always do what it ought. Look, that ice-bank seems impenetrable. Never mind, we will try to reach Griffith Island, sail round Cornwallis Island, and get into Queen’s Channel without going by Wellington Channel. Nevertheless I positively desire to touch at Beechey Island in order to renew my coal provision.”

      “What do you mean?” asked the astonished doctor.

      “I mean that, according to orders from the Admiralty, large provisions have been deposited on that island in order to provide for future expeditions, and although Captain McClintock took some in 1859, I assure you that there will be some left for us.”

      “By-the-bye,” said the doctor, “these parts have been explored for the last fifteen years, and since the day when the proof of the loss of Franklin was acquired, the Admiralty has always kept five or six cruisers in these seas. If I am not mistaken, Griffith Island, which I see there on the map, almost in the middle of the cross-roads, has become a general meeting-place for navigators.”

      “It is so, doctor; and Franklin’s unfortunate expedition resulted in making known these distant countries to us.”

      “That is true, captain, for since 1845 expeditions have been very numerous. It was not until 1848 that we began to be uneasy about the disappearance of the Erebus and the Terror, Franklin’s two vessels. It was then that we saw the admiral’s old friend, Dr. Richardson, at the age of seventy, go to Canada, and ascend Coppermine River as far as the Polar Sea; and James Ross, commanding the Enterprise and Investigation, set out from Uppernawik in 1848 and arrived at Cape York, where we now are. Every day he threw a tub containing papers into the sea, for the purpose of making known his whereabouts.

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