EXPLORERS WHO NEVER RETURNED.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10042, 9 January 1909, Page 1 (Supplement)

EXPLORERS WHO NEVER RETURNED.

(By Harry Be Windt.)

Of explorers who have never returned from the Frozen North, Since *he day when Sir John Franklin and over a hundred souls mysteriously vanished for ever from the sight of man, poor George De Long and his companions of the Arctic 6teamer Jeinnette perhaps furnish the saddest example. My old friend, Commp- ' dore Alelville, one of the few survivors of tne ill-fated expedition, only lately gave me a brief account of a tragedy the horrors of which have seldom been surpassed —even in the dark annais of Polar enterprise. The Jeannette, a screw-steamer, previously known as Sir Allen Young's Pan?" dora, left San Francisco for BehringStraits in the summer of 1879, and entered the pack due north of the latter, hoping to establish winter quarters at Wrangell Land. But the vessel was soon firmly jammed in the ice, and swept away in a north-westerly direction, far from the coveted goal. Winter crept on

with its furious gales and blizzards, and; v the Jeannette was only saved by a miracle from being d;usficd to destruction by the floes. . -n Another summer, another winter, and ~ vet another summer found the ship helplessly drift-in" at' the mercy of the pact. _ Two years after leaving San Francisco P Melville risked his life to hoist the Ame—rican flag on a barren rock, now mapped as Jeannette Island, a few days later % a similar islet- was discovered and named Henrietta. . Some useful work had. thereto re been accomplished which revived f< the hopes of De Long and his now despar- a ing crew. There was even some attempt ci at jollification aboard to celebrate these it events, and no one anticipated the sudden h and total loss of the ship which occurred h only a week later. <1 On the 12th of June, 1881, a terrific hurricane arose, and the Jeannette was h literally smashed in two by the tremen- c; dous pressure, and went down bodily, si leaving her crew shelterless several hundred miles from land. Let the reader picture the situation!—the league of ice b, and storm-swept sea which lay between a ] this miserable handful of men and Siberia (itself a Heath-trap of cold and hunger), j c and' Ist them realise the dogged pluck of w the gallant De Long, who could under p such ghastly conditions cheerfully enter c: in his journal: "Jeannette went down at j, 4 a.m. Set up tents on the ice. Getting sleds and boats ready. Everybody bright w and cheerful. In the evening Lauterbach a serenaded us with his harmonica!" e . The Jeannette Expedition now struck p south for the New Siberian Islands, and during this harassing and perilous jour- 0 nev Melville was the mo6t energetic and & resourceful member of the party most of n whom were doomed to destruction. Five j boats and nine sledges carried! sixty days' 0 provisions, which underfed and enfeebled men and dors could hardly drag at a n snail's pace. Bennett Island was even- a tually reached after terrible hardships in p twenty-three days, and 1 here they landed, and obtained; a supply of food by shooting 0 the sea birds which swarm about that ice- p bound mass of eranite. Leaving, this on the Bth of August, Ine j ( Liakov Islands were reached eleven days later, and from these to the Siberian j?j coast extended open water—lashed into ceaseless fury by ceaseless gales. Many of the party were now sick and footsore, g all weTe exhausted by cold and! hunger, but the indomitable Melville mged them j ( on with the fact that every inactive c hgur must lessen the chance of salvation. fi( So they embarked', one grey tempestuous rj morning, on a moiintaious sea, in three £ ( ship's boats, one of which soon foundered ■with all hands. De Long and Melville, _ in charge of the others, were separated j> bv the storm, the former being carried ■ westward on to the sandy shores of the Lena delta, to which he and hi 6 com- ■ panions had to wade waist deep through ' miies of loose, floating ice. I have been with dogs along that coast for two months without seeing a living f soul and- can therefore imagine the feel- y inirs of these poor castaways on landing, ii almost at the end of their supplies, in h that- grim region, bereft of human and b animal life. Melville, with nine men, 'i was more fortunate, for he eventually v reached a Siberian settlement on the Lena p River, and how he travelled thence to. 1 the town of' VeTkoyansk, hundreds of h miles inland and speedily returned with s assistance, is now a matter of history. G But he was too late. For when the fol- Jl lowing spring, after almost superhuman o hardships and privations, he reached De a Long's last camping place, it was only to 1< find' the stark and frozen remains, half- tburied in the snow, of his beloved .leader, a the ship's doctor, and' eleven, of the crew, c "De Long's journal, found near him, shows t how they must have suffered before death v brought them Telief, presumably six months before. "Boyd and Goetz (seamen) la u ed' during th& night. Mr Collins (met teorologist) dying/' is the last entry. But s three weeks before this there is mention- r of ''Last, spoonful of glycerine and hot \ water" ; and two days afterwards, "Break- I fast—Willow-tea and two old boots." The 1 dogs had, of course, air been eaten long <j before. It. can safely be predicted that c the tortures of poor De Long and: his t ■ brave comrades mil now never be known, e but the fact can never be questioned that c they died like heroes. Cither records which came to light show j that throughout that ghastly martyrd'om t of death and inanition, De Long maintain- . •ed! a cheerful demeanor, and was always thinking of others, never.. of himself.Tennyson's beautiful epitaph on Franklin's £ tomb in Westminster Abbey might well , apply to this intrepid but ill-fated Ameri- J can exploreri "Not here; the White North has thy 1 'bones; and thou, . 1 Heroic Sailbi>soul. Art passing on thine happier voyage now 1 Toward no PoI«." J

s .Another Arctic expedition commandet K -by; Lieutenant (now General) Greeley met - with as tragic ai termination as that oi 1 tho ■ Jeamnefcte; although - this occurred.' on a the; other side of the Polar Sea, near t Greenland, and one man died under such - unusual and; tragic conditions that the > case*, is probably unique in the history o£ r exploration. [ Lieutenant Greeley, and a party of 1 twenty-four; officers and men, were landed by the sealer Proteus in July 1881 at Disj co very Haxbor, where winter quarters were established', and the vessel then left them ; "to return to Newfoundland. The cold during the first winter was intense, but 1 useful work was done, and' health maintained by a plentiful diet, exercise, and ' amusements. Lieutenant Lockwood and ]■ Sergeant Brainard. were •especially active, and made several daring and important sledge trips, their efforts being crowned with success, for. in May, 1882, they attained the farthest north then reached by man'. I dined with Colonel (then Sergeant) Brainard in. New York only recently,- and the leader may therefore rely on tho. Accuracy of the following brief - account of the Greeley Expedition- and its lamentable termination. * Itt the summer of 1882 the entire party reached- Fort Conger (or a. stone cairn so named), whence sledge journeys were continued' northward, the leader penetrating- Grimiell Land, and ascending its highest peak, 4500 feet above the sea. Thus Greeley, Lieutenant Lockwood, and Sergeant Brainard opened up - altogether about 6000 square miles of new land, and discovered' fertile -valleys supporting herds of musk oxen (which, by the way, Commander Peary told me he intended to utilise as food in his forthcoming dash for the Pole). But, notwithstanding these satisfactory results, Greefey now began to feel uneasy, for the relief ship Proteus had not arrived. as arranged, and, as subsequently transpired, for a very good Teason, having 'been jammed l in the ice for away. to the southward!. Before the return of the sun in 1883 st-ores were laid down- at Cape Baird to enable the expedition to retreat if the ship again failed them the following spring. And what was dreaded came to pass, for throughout that summer they watched nil vain for the welcome smoke of a steamer. However, on the 29th of August, a- landing was effected between Capes Sabine and Isabella, with men in fairly 'good » health, but shelterless, and with rapidly failing provisions. Then, slowly but surely, appeared- the two fiends that too often beset the Arctic explorer—cold and' hunger, followed by the grßy hag, despair. The long polar night had already begun, when on the 15th of October, the last camping ground was reached, with clothing in rags, mo fuel, and only forty days' rations, although no vessel could be expected;: for at least two hundred and fifty. However, a shanty _of stones and; canvas was constructed, and here the men lay in cold, filth, and semi-darkness, throughout that terrible winter, the stronger ones scouring the coast for game and seals, which grew so scarce that food gradually failed, and the men began to die off, one 'by one, from scurvy, starvation, and insanitary surroundings. "This hut will be "our grave," -wrote Greeley a week after it was 'built, and the prophecy was, to a great extent, fulfilled. For a long time the men subsisted' on seaweed and a species of shrimp caught by Brainard, who wa6 strongly constituted and. also occasionally shot a seal or dovekie to "-eko out their miserable provender. " But even these began to fail, and- before the winter was-over Greeley had almost 'given up all hopes of rescue. But his men never knew dt, for even; when iliving, weakened by scurvy and .fever, in the coldi and darkness .of their wretched .hut, the commander and ;:his officers would eive talks and readiniss".-on various sub-

give xaiKS ana reaaiags -on various sud- i jects to cheer them; lectures on Ameri- r can trade, the capitals* vof Europe, and f readings from Dickons and other authors, s But these soon palled,, and no wonder, t For who could appreciate" the humors of i "•Pickwick" while -undergoing mental- and physical agony, and with death lurking ,\ behind every man? When" spring came g their number was so reduced, that it was c evident that unl-ees help came all mU6t' 1 die before-the summer. -v;tr,l Yet-theononth of June came, and found- J fourteen; still;. alive,.. Greeley and JByainard ■! EiiaoiigOT'ihem. -~Ntyw\. ho-wfever/'dSat'lis ofc- *■ ;urred more frequently, for summer, with * its dense mists and chilly gales', was even 1 harder to bear than the intense but J healthier cold of winter. On the 4th of . June Greeley wrote:— , _ J "Our condition grows more horrible. No man knows when death is coming, and I ® lan never sleep without a feeling that I ' shall never waken. But there were tragedies worse than these—one of the men, Private Henry, had j been repeatedly caught pilfering the miserible store of rations and was warned that ieat-h by a rifle bullet wouid quickly fol- | low a repetition of the offence. But it j ivas soon repeated by the poor wretch, probably maddened bv : hunger, and he was j :aught Ted-handed, and summarily shot- j by three of his comrades. "Private Henry j will be executed to-day," was Greeley s ] written order, which must have seemed ( ilmost unnecessary when men were dying svery day from natural causes. The des- c perate straits to which the few survivors j had now come is shown by the assertion j of one man accused by another of stealing r some rancid 6eal-meat. 'As I.am a dying c man," said the poor fellow, "it is-untrue. | I only ate a boot and part of an old pair , of pants, and. they belonged to me!" t By the 18th of June no less than 18 ( men had passed away, including Lieuten- t ants Lockwood and ivialingOury and 1 Dr t Parry, but in some cases insanity robbed t dissolution of- its terrors. The condition s of the seven survivors was indeed now t pitiable. During winter the walls of their ] wretched hut had been thickly'coated with j ice, and their sleeping bags irozen to the j ground. Now they lay inch deep in tt'he £ slush caused- by dripping walls and a leak- i ing Toom-. All fuel was gone, and they shivered in the darkness without light or j fire. t How anyone survived is a marvel, for a { fortnight before the rescue the daily meal t consisted of "some lichens and a pair of t sealskin gloves." Brainard worked like a a Trojan to the very end, trying to procure food foT his weaker companions, but on j the 21st- of June even this brave fellow gave in, and crawled for the last time into his sleeping bag. And- that day all j was silence, while outside a furious blizzard was raging, the wind screaming £ round the hut as though mocking its in- c mates in their last agony. c All were quietly waiting and longing l for the end, when suddenly a stealer's c whistle was faintly heard above the roar- 1 ing of the wind. The Telief had come at r last in the shape of the Thetis {the vessel, i by the way, which, conveyed the Paris-New t York expedition across Behring St rail,;) n which had' risked ten. days of imminent £ peril to gain this almost inaccessible spot, a A few minutes later strange voices were -t heard, and it gradually dawned upon the 1 seven half-unconscious survivors of the £ Greeley Expedition that they were saved, t A bit of soaked sealskin had been their I only food for tie forty-eight hours before, and their appearance was so terrible to c look upon that strong men gave way to j tears. lam glad, as an Englishman, to be f able to add that the rescue was partly ac- £ complished by the most daring seamen ] that sail those PolaT seas—the Scottish j whalemen. ( Poor Andree is another explorer who l has vanished from mortal ken, and c.I- < though 'his iioble sacrifice in the cause of ( science compels our admiration, one must i regret that the lives of such men were t wasted on such a foolhardy enterprise. For, when airships are yet in thsir baby-. ] hood, and, under the most favorable con- i ditions, can only fly a few miles in a given ' - direction, it is surely absurd to suppose -, that the distant North Pole can be reach- ' ed, fortified as it is by the most stupen- ( dous and conflicting forces of nature. Talking of poor Andree, a good story, ' is told, which may form a pleasant relief : to this unavoidably gloomy article. The i aeronaut had a keen sense of humor, but was very much averse to being pestered with foolish questions anent his forthcoming expedition. -At a banquet in Paris given prior to his departure Andi-ee's neighbor,- a French lady, was more than usually inquisitive. "But how will you , know," she asked "when you have actual : ly crossed the North, Pole?" "Oh, that is very simple, madame," was the prompt reply. "The north wind will become a southerly, ga«!'!