Lost Words

August 1 & 2—All yesterday it blew very hard, with so much sea that we shipped one or two over the quarter-deck, by which I got a good drenching once. The sea was of the most perfect transparency—a beautiful, delicate, cold-looking green, or ultramarine. Long rollers, as if carved out of the essence of bottle glass, came rolling toward us; now and then topped with a beautiful pot-of-porter head. By evening the wind moderated, and was calm at night. This morning the wind was quite fair, but instead of having clear weather as with the northeast wind, it came to the southeast, and brought hard rain and thick fogs all day. We are now, however, (11 p.m.), going three knots and a quarter in a fog with the Terror close in on one side for fear of losing sight of us. Sir John will not cut sail and we are having fun navigating the bergs which loom at us out of the fog like huge, ghostly mountains. I calculate we are some forty miles off Cape Horsburgh, the most western extremity of Devon ...

July 28—We have a fair wind! Around noontime it turned to the northwest and we got in such a rush to bring the magnetic equipment on board, cast off and make the most of it, that for two hours or so you would have thought our friendly berg was home to a colony of black ants busily going about their business.  Around 3 p.m. we finally cast off and, with a final wave to the Enterprise, set course for Lancaster Sound. I am sorry we did not have the chance to return the hospitality of those stout men and, more important, pass on to them a short letter for delivery to you, but we must take what the fates offer and make the most of it, and if they suddenly give us a fair wind we cannot turn it down.  There is a feeling amongst some that, if we make Lancaster Sound by the first or second day of August, and if the ice remains as open as it is we may complete the passage this year and set through Behring’s Strait before it becomes blocked for the winter. I hope not.  I ha...

July 27—This morning we came upon a further whaler, the Enterprise from Peterhead captained by Robert Martin. This evening a few of us accepted the kind gentleman’s offer and dined aboard his vessel. It was a most enjoyable occasion much given over to talk of our prospects which were universally spoken of in a sanguine manner. The whalers are fine hearty fellows from the north country and they regaled us with tales of the whaling fleets. It is a most adventurous and interesting profession, but not one which I could take to, the whaling boat carrying such a disagreeable odour with her as I have ever smelled. It comes from the barrels she carries which are full of oil rendered from the whale fat, or blubber, heated over large fires on some suitable beach. Captain Martin laughed at our sensibilities and invited us to visit one of his rendering stations on the Greenland coast where, he assured us, the smell is one hundred times worse. We used the urgency of our passage to excuse ourselves...

July 26— Today around noon we were met by a whaler, the Prince of Wales out of Hull, with Captain Dannet commanding. We exchanged pleasantries and offered an invitation to supper on board but, unfortunately for our social agenda, a favourable wind came up (favourable for the whaler), and Captain Dannet felt he could not let it go so we parted company. Our island of ice has become quite homey with our observation huts scattered over it and men walking everywhere for exercise, but I wish for a fair wind to speed us on our way also.

July 25—The wind does not hold steady for long in these waters and we are making poor progress. We lie about sixty miles south of Cape York and can go no farther until a favourable wind comes to push us across the bay. It is frustrating as the season is moving on, however, we are making good use of the time.  This morning we got under the lee of a huge berg and made fast with the ice anchors. It was an undertaking I did not relish since, at Disco, I had witnessed one about 200 feet high topple over and come down with a crash like an avalanche, but in fact this berg seems as solid as if it were rock anchored to the sea bed. It is a large, irregular mountain of ice, upwards of 150 feet high and some 600 feet across. The ice, where it is shewing on a vertical face, is a deep blue, like thick coloured glass in some places. But the surface is not smooth and the ground is quite easy to walk on, being rough and a dull opaque white. There is a wave-cut ledge on the lee side which mak...

July 24—A clear, fine sunset at nine, and Goodsir examining ‘mollusca,’ in the microscope. He is in ecstasies about a bag full of blubber-like stuff, which he has just hauled up in a net, and which turns out to be whales’ food and other animals. It is all part of Sir John’s instructions on the necessity of observing everything from flea to whale in the unknown regions we are to visit. This afternoon, seven or eight large grampuses came shooting past us to the southwest, which Mister Goodsir declared delightful animals. Last evening a shoal of porpoises bounded about the bows of the vessel as she plunged into the sea, and a bird called a mullimauk, a sort of peterel, wheeled over us. The Arctic folk say the bird, when seen in open water, is a sign of approaching ice. We need no such indicators. Today I counted 180 icebergs within sight of the masthead, and yet they are widely spaced and as long as a secure watch is kept, pose no threat. It is but a month since I saw my first iceberg,...

July 23—A fine sunny day, quite warm and the air clear. Ice glistening in all directions. The only problem is the complete contrariness of wind, so we can make no headway. “But you have your steam engines,” I hear you say. Indeed we have, but the decision has been made to save our irreplaceable coal supplies for the tighter work of pushing us through the ice, rather than burning it as we drudge along making precious little headway toward our goal.

July 22—Blowing hard for two days, a circumstance which I did not relish since it brought many large bergs down upon us. Reid, however, put us at ease. I was not overly taken initially with his rough manner, and his misplacing us at the Whalefish Islands so soon after our first encounter with the ice inspired little confidence in his purported knowledge of the ice. Yet, gradually, I am coming to see some of his benefits. Not least is the amusement his broadly-accented comments bring. Reid is a Greenland whaler from Aberdeen and amuses us constantly with tales and quaint remarks about ice and catching whales. He is a most original character—rough, intelligent, good humoured and honest hearted, unpolished but not vulgar. When I asked him of his experience of bergs and whether we might not get into difficulties should a gale blow up, he answered, “Ah! now, Mister Jems, we’ll not be worrying about the bergs. We’ll be having the weather fine, sir! fine! No ice at arl about it, sir, unles...

July 20—Pitching heavily, breeze increasing steadily from ESE. The cloud came on as the sun was lowering to the horizon in the form of a bank which was painted the most delightful rose-red by the dying light; it then rose in the form of an arch, and I expected wind; but the cloud overspread the sky and all we have is this breeze. Barometer rising as rapidly as it fell, and I have been prognosticating a sort of gale in consequence. It was calm last night, cloudy all today. Passed the day working and making observations with Le Vesconte, when the sun did peep out. There is nothing in this day’s journal that will interest or amuse you and I am not in a humour for describing any more messmates.

July 19—The life below these cold waters is quite extraordinarily plentiful and is providing continual delight for Goodsir who, though an Æsculapian by trade and lately curator of the Edinburgh College of Surgeons, is only truly happy in the presence of some unusual or hitherto unknown denizen of the natural world. He is a splendidly entertaining fellow and has the useful facility of being able to impart his enthusiasm to any idle hands he comes across and to make them uncomplainingly aid him in his explorations. He is what I believe is called ‘canny.’ His upper lip projects beyond his lower and his lower begins his chin thus producing a gradation, but a whisker comes down beyond the chin so you imagine there is more of the chin than meets the eye. He is long and straight (like a can of pump water) and walks upright—on his toes, with his hands tucked up in his jacket pockets. He is perfectly good humoured, very well informed on general points, in natural history learned, appears to be...

July 18—Passed within hailing of a whaler today. She confirmed the openness of the ice and stated that we should have no difficulty in the crossing if we should only catch a fair wind. For the moment it still leads us north toward Cape York. I wish I could convey to you a just idea of the immense stock of good feeling, good humour, and real kindliness of heart which fills our small mess. We are very happy, and our opinion of Sir John improves very much as we come to know more of him. He is anything but nervous or fidgety; in fact, I should say remarkable for energetic decisions in sudden emergencies; but I should think he might be easily persuaded where he has not already formed a strong opinion.  As you know, the rumours abounded in Admiralty circles in England that the first choice to command this expedition was James Ross, but that he turned it down because of the exhaustion he felt after four years battling the icy southern ocean on his magnificent circumnavigation of the ...

July 17—A wonderful clear evening. Osmer came from on deck dancing with an imaginary skipping-rope. I said to him, “What a happy fellow you are, always in good humour.” His answer was, “Well, sir, if I am not happy here, I don’t know where else I could be.” He has an extraordinary facility to remember and recount the details of our provisions, and we take comfort in having him recite what will keep us from want in the months to come.  “Why, sirs,” he says, “we need fear nothing. We have sixty-one tons of flour; sixteen tons of biscuits; fourteen tons each of salt beef and pork; ten and one-half tons of sugar; nine tons of concentrated soup; four tons of chocolate; three tons of tobacco; a ton each of tea, soap and candles; 8,000 cans of preserved meat, soup and vegetables; 3,684 gallons of liquor; 900 gallons of lemon juice; 170 gallons of cranberries; and 200 pounds of pepper to season it all.”  Of course all this is supplemented by the personal supplies that all of th...

July 15-16—I was beginning to write last night, but the ship was tumbling about to such an extent that I went to bed but had to turn out again immediately and get the top-sails reefed, as it blew very hard in squalls. The ship pitched about as much as I ever witnessed. Reid is a most extraordinary rustic and prognosticates endlessly on all manner of topics, nautical and otherwise. After the experience at Disco I am disinclined to give much weight to his sayings, but they are undoubtedly quaint and sometimes amusing. Today he was saying that he does not like to see the wind “seeking a corner to blow into,” and followed this with a rough comment on the impracticality of kilt wearing in windy climates. The weather moderated this morning, and all day we have had little wind and tolerably smooth sea. This allowed us to get the proper ‘crow’s-nest’ up. The construction is a hooped canvas cylinder attached at the main-top-gallant-masthead (if you know where that is). According to Reid, who...

July 14—A fine day and we make steady progress. The air hereabouts has the clarity of desert air, but with a cold sharpness I have not experienced before. It is most refreshing to both nose and eye, imparting a hard-clarity to the views which I have never perceived through the soft, moisture-laden air of England. The coast of Greenland is in sight—a rugged place of black rock cut by white furrows and ravines of snow and some of the most magnificent glaciers the equal of any in Switzerland. The whole is canopied with a mass of clouds and mist. In bold relief, at the foot of this black mass, the most fantastically formed and perfectly white bergs shine out. Grand scenery, but desolate beyond expression. Our time at Disco was longer than we had hoped, the off-loading of the transport being a more arduous undertaking than expected—but we used the time to advantage. We commenced by beating up to the Whalefish Islands, which are in the bay formed at the south end of Disco and the ma...

Her Majesty’s Ship Erebus, off the coast of Greenland. Sunday, July 13, 1845, 11 p.m. —My Dearest Elizabeth. We are begun. All the endless preparation is done. The supplies are loaded and we have said a last farewell to civilisation, or what passes for it in this barren land. We weighed anchor on the tide last night, beneath the most beautiful clear sky you could imagine. The sea was as flat as a glass and peppered with a most remarkable assortment of icebergs which shone on the horizon like a twelfth cake with each occasional gleam of the midnight sun. This really is the most extraordinary of lands we have entered. Around eight the wind picked up and has moved us quite briskly northwards all day. There was some discussion before we sailed as to whether we should head straight across Baffin’s Bay to Lancaster Sound or sail north and around the top of the ice. A Dane from Lievely who had married an Esquimaux came over to visit us at Disco and indicated that this was the one of ...