OSBORN’S ARCTIC JOURNAL.*

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 704, 12 January 1853, Page 4

OSBORN’S ARCTIC JOURNAL.*

fFrom i lie “Spectator.”]

The Arctic narrative in this volume has the novelty of containing the first account of a steam voyage in the Polar regions; Lieutenant Osborn having commanded the Pioneer in the expedition of 1850-61, despatched to search of Sir John Franklin. The frank, straightforward, svilorlike character of the author, is an additional feature. There is nothing of solemn blue-book ponderosity about Lieutenant Osborn, not much of official reserve. He is not so unshackled in the expression of his opinions or in his criticisms as some American officers, but he freely unbosoms himself to the reader, especially upon the manner in which his steamer was retarded in towing a heavy tub of a sailing-vessel. How a steamer, with her necessarily heavy cargo of fuel, leaving small space for provision, is fitted for the solitary navigation of those ice-bound seas, where accident may detain the crew for nearly a twelvemonth, may be matter of question. The interest of Lieutenant Osborn’s book as a narrative or story has been in a measure forestalled, because the official reports, and ,thc discussions on the premature return of the expedition, have made the public acquainted with the final results, as well as with the discovered traces of Franklin. Those who with the latest map in hand like to follow the course of the navigators, may learn in what directions a search has been made, and where in all human probability Franklin’s expedition is not. Hut these things are more readily ascertainhle from Lieutenant Osborn’s book and its companion map. fit also brings the daily life of the expedition before us not only in its "details but its feelings. The impression produced by the scenery—the hopes and fears as the ice, that is as the weather, fluctuated —the rivalry of the different squadrons, for four or five expeditions were navigating those seas, and apparently without any proper understanding as to the division of duty—the amusements to vary the monotony of the winter —the cordiality, and the enthusiastic feelings that animated the men for the objects of the expedition—are all vividly brought out. As a writer, Mr. Osborn has occasionally too much of undisciplined feeling for a pure close style of composition, but he writes with vigour and spirit, if a little dashed with exuberance.

The most striking feature of the Stray Leaves is hardship, danger, and their cheerful endurance. Neither hardship nor danger, indeed, were much encountered on board the slaps, the discoveryvessels are now so fitted and found for the voyage, that the risk is not great during the navigable season, and when frozen up for the winter in known regions, tire danger is not much more than in 'harbour. The real perils and labours were undergone in the sledge-expeditions, undertaken across r the frozen sea during the spring, when the weather was sufficiently advanced to render it possible without certain death, and yet not so warm as to make the ice altogether precarious. Lieutenant Osborn commanded one of those expeditions, which was to examine the Southern shore of Barrow’s Strait from Cape Walker in a Westerly direction; the sledges having crossed the Straits upon the ice. The labour was severe * for every man on starting was to draw as much as it was calculated ho could, and the weight was not diminished for a long time, because each sledge was accompanied by a “support” —another sledge carrying provisions, to prevent diminution of the stock for a certain distance, and to form a cache or store. Labour and weather were not the only things to complain of; another enemy had to be encountered.

“ Cape Walker was found to form the Eastern and most lofty extreme of a laud-trending to the South-west on its Northern coast and to the South on its Eastern shore. The cape itself, full 1000 feet in altitude was formed of red sandstone and conglomerate, very abrupt to the Eastward but dipping with an undulating outline to the West. •v '*r v*' *

“Every mile that we advanced showed ns that the coast was one which could only he approachable by ships at extraordinary seasons: the ice appeared the accumulation of many years, and bore for some forty miles a quiet undisturbed look. Then we passed into a region with still more aged features: there the inequalities on the surface, occasioned by the repeated snows of winters and thaws of summer, gave it the appearance of a constant succession of hill and dale. Entangled amongst it, our men laboured with untiring energy up steep acclivities and through pigmy ravines, in which the loose snow caused them to sink deeply, and sadly increased their toil. To avoid this description of ice, amongst which a lengthened journey became perfectly hopeless, we struck in for the land, preferring the heavy snow that encumbered the beach to such a heart-breaking struggle as that on the floe. The injury had, however, been done during onr last day’s labour amongst the hnmmucks ; a fine clear evening had given us the full effects of a powerful sunlight upon the pure virgin snow : the painful effete those alone can conceive who have witnessed it. All was white, brilliant, and dazzling; the eye in vain turned from earth to heaven for rest or shade—there was none; an unclouded sunlight poured through the calm and frosty air with merciless power-, and the sun, being exactly in our faces, increased the intensity of its effects. “That day several complained of a dull aching sensation in the eyeball, as if it had been overstrained, and otr the morrow blindness was rapidly corning on. From experience I can speak of the mental anxiety which must have likewise, with others, supervened, at the thought of one’s entire helplessness, and the encumbrance one had become to others, who, God knows, had troubles and labour enough of their own. Gradually the film spread itself, objects became dimmer and dimmer, and at last all was darkness, with an irrteirse horror of the slightest ray of sunlight. In this condition, many of the four sledge parties reached a place called hj r us all, in commeration of the event, ‘ Snow-blind Point,’ at the entrance of a bay in 100 ° W. long. “ Unable to advance in consequence of a severe gale which raged for six-and-thirty hours, we found, on the Ist of May, that sixteen men and one officer were more or less snow-blind, and otherwise unwell; a large proportion out of the entire number of thirty souls, To be ill in any place is trying enough ; but such an hospital as a brown-holland tent, with the thermometer in it at 18° below zero, the snow for a bed, your very breath forming into a small snow called 1 barber,’ which penetrated into your very inner-most garments, and no water to be procured to assuage the thirst of fever until snow had been melted for the purpose, called for much patience on the part of the patient’s and true Samaritan feelings on the part of the * doctors’ ; a duty which had now devolved on each officer of a sledge-party, or, in default of him, upon some kind volunteer amongst the men. Happily, the effects of snow-blindness are not lasting, for we recovered as suddenly as we had been struck down. The gale blew itself out, leaving all calm and still, as if the deathlike scenery was incapable of such wild revelry as it had been enjoying ; and again we plodded onwards, parting from the last supporting sledge on the b’th of May.” In spite of cold, hardships, and hard work, the indomitable spirit of the British sailor triumphed over all. “ The broken and rugged nature of the floes obliged us to keep creeping along the coast-line, whilst our ignorance of the land ahead, its trend or direction, occasioned, together with the endless thick weather that we had until the 14th May, many a weary mile to be trodden over, which a knowledge of the bays or indentations would

have saved us. It was under such unprofitable labour that the sterling value of our men the more conspicuously showed itself. Captain Ornmanney, myself, and Mr. Webb, of the Pioneer, (who, sooner than be left behind,had voluntarily taken his place as one of the sledge-crew,) were the only three officers; we were consequently thrown much into the society of the men; and I feel assured I am not singular in saying that that intercourse served much to raise our opinion of the character and indomitable spirit of our seamen and marines. On them fell the hard labour, to us fell the honours of the enterprise, and to our chief the reward; yet none equalled the men in cheerfulness and sanguine hopefulness of a successful issue to our enterprise, without which, of course, energy would soon have flagged. Gallant follows! they met our commiseration with a smile, and a vow that they could do far more. They spoke of cold as 4 Jack Frost,’ a real tangible foe, with whom they could combat and would master. Hunger was met with a laugh, and a chuckle at some future feast, or jolly recollections, told in rough terms, of bygone good cheer; and often, standing on some neighbouring pile of ice, and scanning the horizon for those we sought, have I heard a rough, voice encouraging the sledgcrew by saying, 4 Keep step, boys! keep step! she (the sledge) is coming along almost by herself there’s the Erebus’s masts showing over the point ahead. Keep step hoys! keep step !’ ” The explorations of the different expeditions seem to prove that Franklin must he looked for, at least from the Eastern or Baffin’s Bay quarter, further North than Barrow’s Strait, or its adjacent inlets—that is to say, further North than 75 or 76 degrees of North latitude. It is Lieutenant Osborn’s opinion that this unknown region is not land, as usually laid down in the maps, hut either an open sea, or one intersected by islands; and that these Northern regions are more fertile in life available for the food of man, than the lower Arctic latitudes. He draws the conclusion that Franklin went to the North of Barrow’s Strait, and would there fmd subsistence. His reasons are founded on modern discoveries and his own observations. These geographical arguments are supported by a disquisition on the Esquimaux, who are more numerous and in better case in, Baffin’s Bay than on the mainland of America. He also holds that Davis Straits is the region of icebergs, which are never produced hut where the land is favourable to their production ; and that as the navigator advances through Lancaster Sound in a Westerly direction, he leaves the icebergs behind. This theory, if true, would seem to put an end to the story of the Erebus and Terror having been seen attached to an iceberg, for Franklin’s first wintering place was beyond their region. The actual facts of the following passage, on discovering the traces of Franklin’s winter-quar-ters and the graves of his men, are not new, any more than the information conveyed; but the details realize the scene and the emotions it excited —we have feelings as well as facts. 44 It needed not a dark wintry sky nor a gloomy day to throw a sombre shade around my feelings as I landed on Beechey Island, and looked down upon the bay, on whose bosom once had riden her Majesty’s ships Erebus and Terror : there was a sickening anxiety of the heart as one involuntarily clutched at every relic they of Franklin’s squadron had left behind, in the vain hope that some clue as to the route they had taken hence might be found. 44 From the cairn to the long and curving beach, from the frozen surface of the bay to the tops of the distant cliffs, the eye involuntarily but keenly sought for something more than had yet been found.

“ But no ! as sharp as anxious hearts, had already been there, and I was obliged to be content with the information, which my observation proved to be true, that the search had been close and careful, but that nothing was to be found in the shape of written record. On the Eastern slope of the ridge of Beechey Island, a remnant of a garden (for remnant it now only was, having been dug up in tbe search) told an interesting tale: its neatly-shaped oval outline, tbe border carefully formed of moss, lichen, poppies, and anemonies, transplanted from some more genial part of' this dreary region, contrived still to show symptoms of vitality; but the seeds which doubtless they Lad sown in the garden bad decayed away. A lew hundred yards lower down, a mound, the foundation of a storehouse, was next to be seen. It consisted of an exterior and interior embankment, into which, from the remnants left, we saw that oak and elm scantling had been stuck as props to the roofing; in one part of the enclosed space some coal-sacks were found, and in another part numerous wood-shav-ings proved the ship’s artificers to have been working here. The generally received opinion as to the object of this storehouse was, that Franklin had constructed k to shelter a portion of his superabundant provisions and stores, with which it was well known his decks were lumbered on leaving Whale Fish Islands.

“ Nearer tothe beach, aheap of cinders and scraps of iron showed the armourer’s working-place ; and along an old watercourse, now chained up by frost, several tubs, constructed of the ends of salt meatcasks, left no doubt as to washing-places of the men of Franklin’s squadron. Happening to cross a level piece of ground, which as yet no one had lighted upon, I was pleased to see a pair of Cashmere gloves laid out to dry, with two small stones on the palms to prevent their blowing away : they had been there since 1840, I took them up carefully, as melancholy mementoes of my missing friends.”

“ The graves next attracted our attention ; they, like all that English seamen construct, were scrupulously neat. Go where you will over the globe surface, afar in the East, or afar in the West, down amongst the coral-girded isles of the South Seas, or here where the grim North frowns on the sailor’s grave, you will always find it alike ; it is the monument raised by rough hands, but affectionate hearts, over the last home of their messmate ; it breaths of the quiet churchyard in some of England’s many nooks, where each had formed his idea of what was due to departed worth; and the ornaments that nature decks herself with, even in the desolation of the Frozen Zone, were carefully culled to mark the dead seamen’s Lome, The good taste of the officers had prevented the general simplicity of an oaken head and foot board to each of the three graves being marred by any long and childish epitaphs or the doggrel of a lower-deck poet, and the three inscriptions were as follows,— “ ‘ Sacred to the memory of J. Torrington, who departed this life, January Ist, 1846, on board of H.M.S. Terror, aged 20 years,’ “ ‘ Sacred to the memory of Win. Braine, r.m., of H.M.S. Erebus ; died April Brd, 1846, aged 32 years. “ ‘ Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.’— Josh. xxiv. 15.’ Sacred to the memory of J. Hartwell, a.b., of H.M.S. Erebus ; died January 4th, 1846, aged 25 years. “ ‘ Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, consider your ways.’—Haggai. i. 7.’ “ I thought I traced in the epitaphs over the graves of the men from the Erebus, the manly and Christian spirit of Franklin. In the true spirit of chivalry, he, their captain and leader, led them amidst dangers and unknown difficulties, with iron will stamped upon his brow, but the words of meekness, gentleness, and truth were his device. We have seen his career and we know his deeds! ‘ Why should their praise in verse be sung ? The name that dwells on every tongue No minstrel needs.”'