The Press. — London, England, 1855-08-25 00:00:00

812 yittratrat. Memoirs and Journal of Lieutenant Joseph Rene Bellot. London: thirst and Llackett. WE had no conception until the publication of this work that the gallant Lieutenant Bellot left behind him a full and spirited account of the voyage he undertook in the Prince Albert, to assist in the search for Sir John Franklin Of all the narratives of Polar discovery which have been given to the public—and our litera ture is rich in them—we have not one of greater interest than this. The discoveries effected by the crew of the Prince Albert, though far from inconsiderable, cannot of course rank with those made by Parry and other Polar navigators ; but, considering the beauty appliances of the little vessel, we think the fourteen weeks' journey made by Captain Kennedy with Lieutenant Bellot and the crew, may justly rank as the most wonderful achieve ment ever performed in the Polar regions. From an eloquent memoir prefixed to this volume, written by one who knew Bellot well, we learn that this promising young officer was born in Paris in 1826. When four years old his parents removed to Rochefort, and hence he was accustomed to consider himself as a Rochefort man. His parents were in humble circumstances, his father being a smith and farrier, but at school young Bellot gave so much promise of superior ability that, at the recommendation of the Mayor, a demibruso was granted him at the College of Rochefort. At fifteen he was admitted in the naval school, and in due time was nominated an eleve de marine. Many instances are given of his affection for home and of his open-heartedness, but one will suffice. From his scanty pay as slave demarine he left, when appointed to the corvette Berceau, twenty francs a month for the assist ance of his family ; and it is characteristic of his nature that lie seems ever to have sought for distinction more for the pleasure it would afford his friends than for his own gratification. When nineteen he had as fair an opportunity for the display of conduct and courage as he could have wished. He was engaged in the expedition against Tamatave, and performed his part in it with singular gallantry. He was wounded, but was nobly rewarded by being promoted and by being made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. The following year he was raised to the rank of enseign de vaisseau, but he had little further opportunity of en gaging in active service. His was not a disposition which co Id be content in obscurity. In 1850 the anxiety felt for the fate of Sir John Franklin, and the efforts made by Lady Franklin to render the search for her husband as effective as possible, appealed strongly to his enterprising and enthusiastic mind. He solicited and obtained permission from his Government to join in the search for Sir John, as a volunteer, and en tered the Prince Albert, the vessel which Lady 'ranklin had fitted out at her own charge. It was commanded by Captain Kennedy, a Cana dian, who had been employed in the service of the Hudson's Ray Company, and thoroughly inured to the privations and fatigue of a Cana dian voyager's life. He was an amiable, pious man, of great simplicity of manner, but not wanting in decision and energy. Of spare figure, and below the middle size, he was well calculated to accomplish long journeys over the ice. The voyage was undertaken on strict temperance principles, the vessel carrying no kind of spirituous liquors ; yet the crew were healthy and contented. Temperance princi ples were never subjected to a severer trial. The journal kept by Lieutenant Bella of this voyage is extremely amusing, but, in the introduction to it, the division of opinion as to the route Franklin took is marked by the opposite notes of the author. At the com mencement he writes : Franklin, obeying his instructions to the letter, had no doubt become entangled in the narrow channels and among the unknown islands which exist between Bank's Land and Victoria and Wollaston Lands. It is a great pity this view was ever for a moment lost sight of, as those who knew graaklin best, and were acquainted with his hopes uud, designs, felt certain he would make THE PRESS. for the American coast somewhere to the south-west of Cape Walker; but the discovery of the traces of the expeditien on Beechy Island at the entrance •of the Wellington Channel, and the failure to meet any indica tion of him by Captain Austin's travelling parties on either the southern or northern shore of Barrow's Strait as far as Melville Island, gave rise to an irrational, and, as it has turned out, ill-founded opinion that Sir John had proceeded up Wellington Channel. In this opinion Lieutenant Bellot, by the closing paragraph of his "Introduction," seems to have shared. Ho attaches, however, more importance to the explorations of his party, as limiting the region in which search for Sir John was to be made, than they deserved The expedition of the Prince Albert has, therefore, contri buted to contract more and more the circle of the probable directions taken by Franklin, and it now seems probable that he took the route to the north of Wellington Channel. From the instant Ithat the senseless clamour set in that Sir John must have pro ceeded up Wellington Channel, all chance of discovering him was lost. The expeditions of Captain Inglefield and Sir Edward Belcher were on the wrong track. Sir John should have been steadily sought in that direction which he was ordered to take, and which he had declared his intention of taking. The party of Captain Ommaney and Lieutenant Osborne, who rounded Cape Walker and ad vanced some leagues to the south, must have approached his track closely, and it has always appeared to us that they despaired too early of making any discoveries in that direction. That they found no traces as far as they went should not have weighed with them. Any signals set up are soon obliterated by the snow, or easily overlooked. It is a remarkable fact that Captain Kennedy's party went over the same ground by Cape Walker that Captain Ommaney's party had (lone the previous spring, and actually passed by or walked over the large cairns they had erected without noticing them. Had the efforts of the various expeditions sent out in 1850, numbering alto gether, we think, eleven vessels, been devoted to a thorough exploration of the region south west of Cape Walker, Sir John Franklin and his companions would probably have been brought back in safety. It is a circumstance to be for ever regretted that a diligent and effective search was not made for him in this direction while a reasonable chance of his safety remained. The cry got up, chiefly by Penny and his partisans, in favour of Welling ton Channel, only shows to what an extent our public may be misled by ignorant or de signing speculators. To return to M. Bellot and his voyage. An anecdote he relates, in his own lively, light hearted style, of his misadventures when ou his way over the ice to visit the vessels of the American expedition, painfully recalls the ac cident by which he met his death : Mr. Kennedy and I go on board the Americans, since there is no chance of the ice opening. They are among loose lee, which makes our excursion pretty difficult. We have to jump from piece to piece, and though we take care to feel our way with our gaffs, the ice gives way under my feet while I am in the act of jumping, and then I am swimming in water of 34 deg.—an honour which I should never have sought of my own accord, but which I try to bear as handsomely as T can, and I am the first to laugh at my own mishap. As we are near the ships, I run towards them to keep myself from freezing, jumping over every. thing and thinking nothing of getting into the water up to the middle, so I can but shorten my way. At last I manage so well, that 1 tumble a second time into a hole, but have more difficulty in getting out of it than the first time, because Dr. Kane has come out to meet us, and I have two persons to help me instead of one. Each of them hooks me with his gaff, and draws me towards him self, the consequence being that, between the two, I re main in the water, cutting my fingers against the ice, and swallowing some mouthfuls. My large boots filling with water add considerably to the weight, of say clothes, but, after all, I get out in spite of the efforts made in my behalf. Lieut. Bellot was the first Frenchman who had ever taken a part in Polar discovery. His reflections on the Esquimaux, and on their eingular mode of life, aro full of intelligence His description of an Exquimaux hut is graphic:— A rectangular enclosure of stones, covered on the out side with a thick layer of earth, and on the interior with three or four planks, forms the body of the hut; at each of the doors, and at the further end, a sort of trellis, a foot from the ground, and three or four feet wide, serving for bed and table. In the middle 'Race, of about three feet, lieta SATURDAY, half a seal, from which the fat has been removed, but the bloody flesh, trampled under foot, is there at hand when ever the inmates of the hut feel disposed to eat. On one side of the hut is an old woman, nearly blind, with grisly locks, bare legged, and bare armed, sewing skins which she moves about with her hands and feet. Her red eyelids, contrasting with her bistre skin, seem still more prominent from the leanness which is only found in individuals of her race. She looks the image of one of the witches in Macbeth. Nevi her lies her son, who sits up to do me the honours of his house. At the further end a young woman, nearly naked, is suckling a naked infant, which she holds with one hand, while with the other she snatches up some skins which constitute her garments. Two lamps, fed with fetid oil, do the double service of lighting and warming the apartment. Harpoons, lances, and rolls of skin hang from the walls, or are laid against it, the lower ends resting in rubbish and offal of all sorts. There is no opening for the escape of smoke, a single hole near the entrance, glazed with thin intes tinal membranes, alone allows it to be seen that there is an outer world. • The great feature of this voyage was the journey made in the spring of 1852. The party, including Captain Kennedy and Lieute nant Bellot, consisted of six persons. Their luggage and stores were carried on six sledges, made after the Indian fashion, five Esquimaux dogs materially assisting the draught. Through. out their journey they depended on snow. houses for shelter, which were rapidly erected at every resting place. Lieutenant Bellot relates : We took leave of the vessel about the end of February, not to return to it until June, living in the interval on food carried on sledges, some of which were drawn by dogs, others by ourselves. Following the line of coast, or crossing the ice in Cresswell and Brentford Bays and Victoria Straits, we arrived at new lands, which we traversed westward as far as longitude 100 W. (Greenwich) ; and, after visiting Cape Walker, we re turned to Port Leopold, and finally to our vessel. In the course of the last four months we passed out of constant obscurity into perpetual daylight, and were exposed to a temperature of 44 deg. below Zero, centigrade. In the ninety-seven days during which this journey lasted the party traversed a distance of eleven hundred miles. During the whole time they had no other shelter than the snow houses they erected. They were compelled to be very sparing of their provisions, restricting themselves to one meal a day when not on the march, and their greatest luxury being a cup of hot tea night and morning. The amusing journal of Bellot terminates with the return of the Prince Albert to Upper nairk on her way homeward. But full parti culars of the brave Lieutenant's death are given in the Memoir prefixed to the volume. He joined the Phenix steamer under command of Captain Inglefield in the spring of 1853. His biographer relates :- - - - • • - It was from Erebus and Terror Bay that Bellot set out on the 12th of August upon the expedition in which he was to perish. Captain Ingle&ld had left the Phcsnix two days before to go in search of Captain Pullen, who had been separated for a month from his ship North Star, which remained in Erebus and Terror Bay. His intention was, immediately on his return, to devise means for forwarding the Adair ralty despatches to Sir Edward Belcher. The transmis• sion of those despatches was one of the special and urgent objects of the mission of the Thamix. Now, Captain Pullen having reappeared shortly after Captain Ingletield's departure, Bellot, who knew how important it was that the despatches should be promptly delivered, and was always ready to encounter every danger, thought it his duty to anticipate the commander's return. He conferred with Captain Pullen, whom he left with the two tesselS, and set out on the 12th of Xtigifit, accompanied by the quartermaster of the North Star and three sailors, and taking with him a sledge and an indiarubber canoe. It was supposed that Sir Edward Belcher was in Wel• lington Channel in the neighbourhood of Cape Belcher. In that direction, therefore, the little troop set out, march ing close along the eastern shore of the channel. After encamping the first day three miles from Cape Innis, the five men halted next day on detached blocks of ice about three miles from Cape Bowden. On the night of the 14th, on quitting that Cape, they !nut to cross a cleft in the ice four feet wide, which they effected prosperously enough. They were three miles off land, where Bellot proposed to encamp, and he tried to reach it in the. indiarubber canoe, but, being twice driven back by a violent gale from the south-east, he determined to have an attempt made by two of his companions—Harvey, the quartermaster of the North Star, and Madden. The attempt succeeded, and, once on shore, the two men fixed a pass-rope between the sledge and the coast, by which means objects were three times transported. A fourth trip was about to be under taken, when Madden, who.'*ns up to his middle iii the water, perceived that the ice was setting itself in. motion off shore, and towards mid-oltannel. Bellot shouted to let go the rope. An effort may yet be made—a hope remains; but the motion of the ice is so rapid that before any men. sure can be taken it is already at an enormous distance from the shore. " I then went to the to of a hill to watch them," says Madden in his deposition, " and saw them swept away from land towards mid-hannel. I watched from that spot for six hours, but lost sight of them in two. When they passed oat of sight the wen were •