THE LATEST ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 32, 6 February 1877, Page 4

THE LATEST ARCTIC EXPEDITI ON .

r , . ,- , [&?"* ffo?; Spectator.] : '^The commanders of the Arctic ships have settled clearly and unmis.takeably the conditions • on which alone those who control the' next expedition can hope Ito succeed in reaching thia North Pole by the route noW tried. This is a mast important, service rendered both to science and the State, and we.sincerely trust that if it were for this *I?P® will.be decorated aa rapidly as the interests of the. service will allow. They have failed it is true, but they have done the beat they could to succeed, and in doing it- -ihey -;• and their comrades t equally have exhibited qualities which make stay-at-hpme Englishmen who • eojild not rival them even if they had -the opportunity, flush with -* pleasure; to think that suoh men are their countrym6*- Js ,ba.a, long been marked that Arctic voyaging brings gut the higher qualities of all engaged as no other danger°o§..W*cyi9e, aeeois to dp, aad .the narrativesTol the adventures of the Alert and the Discovery help to show that, the moral greatness, so often manifested by Arctic voyagers is do. developed a s o !^?. n !N.!yr Mo, doubt the qualities W*jy t -:*-Wtod are those whicli are moat, usually found in our countrymen, and ia* good sailors of all nations, but to find them in such abundance and. in auch degree, is nevertheless a great pleasure, as , well as a just source df national pride. The pnblic thoroughly recognises, we believe, the courage and fortitude displayed by the explorers, but we doubt if even yet it realises the full weight of the conditions under which those qualities are displayed in an Arctic voyage. To make one of a forlorn hope is a brave deed, bufc to make one in a forlorn hope which must endura all for eighteen months, and must show its highest resolution, its most implicit obedience when partially blind, is a far grander effort. It is tijat,night of 142 days, that continuous darkness as of a world without a sun, that long protracted sense of gloom, that inability to know anything for certain, which to us constitutes the special aggravating horror of all Arctic endurance. The sailors are called npon pot. only to be brave, but to be brave la $£.&wbi,nojk- only to be cheerful, but to be cheerful without heat, not only to face a danger, but, to face a danger _.h_al continues, which is as pressing when you are ill as when you are in highest vigor, whicb, sleeping or **?i^Si M: starving, is.alwaya. there. No nerve, they say, can stand M^rikead of aeaaasiaation— *even Cromwell broke -down under it; but the *W-?? U '?s b .?Te'ry like, in its.cpntinuorishes. aiid implacability, the horror oi an Arctic .-.fright- qnder which the crews °* their .-Expedition no more lost their c .^- e L f ? , ? e . 88 than_ their discipline. Severe work for months wil hout relaxation often cows meo, but the explorers from the Alert worked like slaves— in one instance, for seventy-two days— at unaccustomed work, in cold that would kUl7.unaeclia_atised men, and under perpetual liability to scurvy, the most heartbreaking of diseases which struck other parties employed in surveying the coast severely ; " owing to theitiinability to procure any freah game, as most former expeditions had done, an attack of scurvy broke out] in eacb of the extended sledge.parties par ties when at- the farthest distance from any hei p. The return journtys were therefore a prolonged 'struggle homewards of gradually weakened meo, the available force, to pull tbe sledge constantly decreasing and the weight to be dragged as steadily increasing as, one after the other, the invalids were stricken, down and had to be carried by* (heir- weakened comrades." There is sustained heroism in an exploit of that kind which it is difficult fully to apprpci^te, from the mere difficulty of realising| fully tbe horror involved io some of, the conditions. We find it easier tb admire Lieut Parr setting out for a lonely walk of thirty-five miles guided over the snow and the heavy broken up ioe by the fr sh track of a roaming wolf, and so bringing succour to his disease-stricken comrades ; of Mr Egerton and Lieutenant Rawson, nursing Petersen, tbe interpreter, at the hazard of their own lives, while on tbeir journey from the Alert to the Discovery, with the temperature 40ieg below zero. Petersen, who had accompanied them with the dog sledge, fell ill, and "at the utmost risks and with a noble disregard of themselves, they sneeaded jn retaining heat in the poor fellow's body hy alternately lying one at a time alongside of him, while tbe other by exercise was recovering his warmth; and thus managed to bring him alive to the ship, but both feet were very badly frostbitten, and be ultimately sank from exhaustion two months alter wards," All Englishmen, we hope, acknowledge conduct like that, yet it is scarcely nobler than that of Captuia Nares, who lived,36 days in tbe " crows' nest " in that horrible climate while his ship was in difficulties in tbe ice, till he was utterly exhausted; and not nobler tban that of the men who for days and weeks drew tbe sledges and tbeir sick comrades, under cold which sometimes . froze the joints, and amid scenes whicb to many natures would have suggested ho feeling but despair. There is something in the continuity of the eft-art made in these regions, ih the protraction or the endurance, in the day. by-day, jWeek-by-week, month?by-mon th heroism displayed till heroism has be■come a nature, which is to us so inexand all the more

so because for much of the time the hope of a brilliant success, which might live for ever in the mouths of men, must have faded out of the minds of all concerned The discovery of the Pole might have repaid ali for anything, but from the spring of this year that hope must bave been slowly and reluctantly surrendered, and in the place of expected cheera the crews must have sought comfort in tbe feeling Lieutenant Rawson expressed when pitied for his sufferings io saving Peterson, When commiserated about their frost-bitten noses, cheeks, and fingers, Lieut. Rawson jovially replied, " Well, at last we feel that the cheers from Southsea beach have been fairly earned."