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"'Minds me o' Baffin's Bay," growled Slag, with a mighty slap of the arms between each word. Mitford seemed to think any remark superfluous, for he only groaned. "Pity it's too dark to see yer face, John," said Terrence. "It must be a sight worth seein'. Och, av I only had a good-sized pocket-han'kicher I'd wrap me feet in it, anyhow." "Suppose we cut some grass and try that?" suggested Mitford.
At first she was naturally called the Flying Dutchman, and was most useful; but here we have learned when a better instrument is available that it is the truest economy to scrap-heap the old. We were to give delivery of the boat in Baffin's Land. There were plenty of volunteers for the task, for the tough jobs are the very ones which appeal to real men.
They had gone in by Behring's Strait and returned by Baffin's Bay, which established the fact of the so long doubted passage parallel with the American coast between these pieces of water. In 1854 the ships Assistance, Resolute, Pioneer, Intrepid, and the Investigator were all abandoned.
One morning, on rounding one of those bluff precipitous capes which jut out from the western coast of Greenland into Baffin's Bay, they came unexpectedly in sight of a band of Eskimos who were travelling northwards. Ujarak pulled up at once, and for some moments seemed uncertain what to do.
The wild geese drove steadily south when they should have been feeding from the Kogatuk to Baffin's Bay, and the beaver built his walls thick, and anchored his alders and his willows deep so that he would not starve when the ice grew heavy. East, west, north and south, in forest and swamp, in the trapper's cabin and the wolf's hiding-place, was warning of it. Gray rabbits turned white.
But of the new brotherhood that grew presently among men, of the saving of laws and books and machines, of the strange change that had come over Iceland and Greenland and the shores of Baffin's Bay, so that the sailors coming there presently found them green and gracious, and could scarce believe their eyes, this story does not tell.
Kane, and sent in search of Sir John Franklin, advanced in 1853 through Baffin's Sea and Smith's Strait, beyond the eighty-second degree of boreal latitude, much nearer the Pole than any of his predecessors. Now, this vessel was American, Grinnell was American, and Kane was American.
This voyage was the least fortunate of any undertaken by this skilful seaman, not on account of any falling off in his work, but because he was the victim of unlucky accidents and unfavourable circumstances. Meeting, for instance, with an unusual quantity of ice in Baffin's Bay, he had the greatest trouble to reach Prince Regent's inlet.
The existence of Baffin's Bay is confirmed, though its width and form are different from those which were previously assigned it in the maps; and thus this enterprising and deserving navigator has at length justice done to him.
Captain Back followed in his steps from 1823 to 1835, and these explorations were completed in 1839 by Messrs. Dease and Simpson and Dr. Rae. Lastly, Sir John Franklin, wishing to discover the North-West passage, left England in 1845 on board the Erebus and the Terror; he penetrated into Baffin's Sea, and since his passage across Disko Island no news had been heard of his expedition.
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