August 7/8, Around the Mess

August 7—Off Prince Regent Inlet. It looks quite open, unlike the waters ahead in Barrow Strait which appear increasingly heavy with ice. The open path down the inlet is an enticement, but to what? No one knows if Boothia is an island or not and whether we may find easy passage around it to join with the seacoast mapped by Simpson and Dease—but our orders to proceed to Cape Walker are clear. Sir John is not a man to set off on some private escapade in the face of unambiguous instruction whatever the seductions might be. 

The thickening ice pushes us to the far shore of the sound, that is to say, away from our goal at Cape Walker. But this is not all bad for we shall perhaps be given a chance to examine Wellington Channel into which we shall proceed if our more southerly route is blocked. The prospect pleases Le Vesconte, as it will give him a chance to examine the beginning of what he regards as the best route to the east. I do not hold with an open northern ocean and we have discussed his ideas at some length in a friendly fashion, much like the debates we used to have around the fire at home. Our disagreements not withstanding, Le Vesconte improves, on closer acquaintance and it is a joy to see his swaying, bowed figure on our cluttered decks. His height and Roman nose give him an imposing appearance quite out of keeping with his temperament. Only when he smiles and flashes his gold teeth does one realise that Le Vesconte’s sternness is of one’s own imagining. 

This evening in the mess, Graham Gore played the flute for us. He plays dreadfully well and kept us all well entertained. As Crozier pointed out, he has an honourable nautical name, it being a Gore who brought Captain Cook’s vessels home after the Commander and second died along the third voyage. Crozier also pointed out that he himself was a Mate on the Doteral in 1818 under a Captain James Gore. Our Gore was in China although I never ran into him there, has curly hair, mutton-chop whiskers, a prominent nose, permanent half-smile and eyes with a definite sparkle to them. He is a man of great stability of character, a very good officer, and the sweetest of tempers, is not so much a man of the world as Fairholme or Des Voeux, is more of Le Vesconte’s style, without his shyness, draws sometimes very well, sometimes very badly, but is altogether a capital fellow. 

To continue my tour around the mess, Couch is a little, bullet-headed, black-haired, smooth-faced inanity of a fellow—but good humoured in his own way; writes, reads, draws, all quietly. Is never in the way of anybody, and always ready when wanted; but I can find no remarkable point in his character, except, perhaps, he is, I should think, obstinate. He is much in with Sargent and has occupied himself capitally with an illustrated signal book of Sir John’s copied from one of Parry’s. Sargent, a nice pleasant-looking lad very good-natured but no energy of character although he is most assuredly artistic, and I fear of not too much sense, but fortunately he does not (as is usual in such cases) fancy himself very clever. It is good to see friendships develop between the young Mates—as long as there is no unnatural element to it.

Stanley, the Surgeon, I knew in China: he was in the Cornwallis a short time, where he worked very hard in his vocation. Is rather inclined to be good-looking, but fat or flabby as if from drinking beer, with jet-black hair always parted and swept forward in front of his ears which gives him a supercilious look when he smiles—very white hands, which are always abominably clean, and the shirt sleeves tucked up—giving one the unpleasant ideas that he would not mind cutting one’s leg off immediately—if not sooner. He is what is called a ‘good fellow’—inclined to be coarse if it were the fashion—is vulgar to a certain extent but thoroughly good-natured and obliging, and very attentive to our mess although he tends toward touchiness and must be handled with care on occasion, particularly, as we have found, where some of the new ideas of medicine propounded by Goodsir are concerned. 

Fairholme, as you know, was with me on the Ganges at the bombardment of Beyrouth and in China. He is a smart, agreeable companion, and a well informed man and is forever off with Le Vesconte in Mister Halkett’s India rubber boat which, you recall, they were first testing when you came to Greenwich to bully me into spending more time with you and the children before I sailed. He has a square face which can appear most severe on occasion—a boon when dealing with some recalcitrant crew member. His only flaw is a certain confusion with figures and he is forever transposing dates and numbers to the consternation of his watch companions. 

Des Voeux I knew in the Cornwallis. He went out in her to join the Endymion in 1841, and was then a mere boy of 16. He is now a most clever, agreeable, light-hearted, obliging young fellow, and a great favourite of Hodgson’s, which is to his advantage. He wears eyeglasses and is in line to inherit the Baronacy. Gore has very much taken to the lad and takes much trouble to improve his navigational skills. 

The Second Master Collins is the very essence of good nature, and I may say good humour—but he is mad, I am sure—for he squints to himself with a painful expression of countenance when he is thinking (or thinking of nothing)—and I can get no work out of him, though ever so willing he may be—yet he is not a bore or a nuisance—but a nonentity. We might as well be without him—we intend however to make something of him. To this end I bullied him the other day about the ship’s log which is badly written and which he is to rewrite by Sunday.

Here ends my catalogue. I don’t know whether I have managed to convey an impression of our mess, but you may be sure that I have tried my best to accurately describe each and every one of my companions. 

Sir John is like a father to many of us and we a collection of brothers embarked upon some exciting adventure under his watchful eye. Of course there is much work to do, and it is important work; we shall bring back volumes of scientific information and, I suspect, set many of the learned gentlemen of the Royal Society on their ear. But we carry it all out with such good cheer that it seems more like garden play than work. I sometimes cannot believe my luck being here with such a fine, energetic bunch of fellows engaged in such a worthwhile pursuit. 

August 8—Off the coast of the unexplored lands north of Barrow Strait (I say north, but our compasses are all but useless, being so close to the Magnetic Pole that its effects are so weak, and that of the ship’s iron so strong, that they cannot well be used for navigation). I continue to take readings with Le Vesconte, but wish we could go ashore and set a proper observatory far from the influences of the ships. We have with us two portable observatories which contain no iron whatsoever and so, if we can erect them sufficiently far from the ships, will enable us to take very sensitive readings indeed. I daresay we will have the opportunity to set them up soon enough, for the ice is getting heavy and we must snake about as best we can, sometimes going ten miles for the gain of two or three toward our goal. 

The ice is very different from the bergs in Baffin’s Bay or by Greenland, not standing up hundreds of feet in the air and threatening to crush us from above, but rather lying like an uneven carpet all across the water and threatening to nip us from below. But it is a carpet continually in motion, heaving with the waves and breaking up and reforming with paths through or ‘leads’ as Reid calls them. At times there is a network of leads through which we can sail with relative ease, at others we follow but a single path which may or may not take us where we wish. But it is never a worry for long, since the wind, currents, and tides keep the ice-pack moving and changing and we need just patience to find a way through. But we move ever more slowly and, unless we find a wondrous open ocean somewhere before us, I am beginning to think I shall have my wish of spending a winter up here. 

 The coast is very spectacular hereabouts, being composed of massive, brown cliffs which rise several hundreds of feet above narrow rocky beaches. The tops of the cliffs seem level and probably constitute a flat plateau. The coast here too is flat with precious little to afford a harbour if one were required.

Elizabeth, it is a wondrous and a strange place we have come to and I shall have much to tell upon my return but for tonight I am done.