The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1857-01-22
THE PACIFIC
Commercial Advertiser.
Dangers of Arctic Navigation.


our coasters near home, to comprehend half the
perils of Arctic navigation. Although familiar with
the journals of Parry, Franklin, Dr. Kane and other
kindred spirits in the field of explorations those
who sit at home can only form a faint idea of the
courage and endurance necessary to those who ven
ture within the regions of the Arctic circle.
The public have already had one work from DIR,
Kane the subject of Arctic discoveries which met
with unprecedented sale and we are now promised
early in October, two more Volumes of nearly five
hundred pages each, relating to his last expedition in
search of Sir John Franklin. 1t will be a work of
the most thrilling interest," as well as great scientific
and geographical Importance. We copy an extract
from advanced sheets
BRUSH WITH DEATH.
We crossed Murchison Channel on the 3d. and
encamped for the night the land-foe at the base
of Cape Parry hard days travel, partly by track
ing over ice, partly through tortuous and zigzag
leads The next day brought to the neghborhood
Of Fitz-Clarence Rock, of the interesting
monuments that themselves along this dreary
coast III a region more familiar to men, it would be
landmark to the navigator. 1t rises from field of
ice like Egyptian pyramid surmounted by an
Obelisk.
had been anxious to communicate with the Esqui-
of Netelk, in the hope of gaining some further
intelligence of Hans. Our friends of Etah had given
me, IN their own style, complete itinerary OF this
region, and we had difficulty in instructing God
frey how to trace his way across the neck of land
which stood between and the settlement. He made
the attempt, but found the snOw-dritt impossible
and Petersen, whom l sent the same errand to
Tessusak, returned equally unsuccessful
The next day gave us admirable progress. The ice
opened in leads before us, somewhat tOrtuOus, but,
the whole fEoring, and for sixteen hours never
left the helm. We all of us exhausted when the
days work came to close. Our allowance had been
small from the first but the delays We seemed fated
to encounter made me reduce them to what L then
thought the minimum quantlty-siX ounces of bread
dust and O lump of tallow the size of walnut ; q
paste BROTH made of these before setting out in the
morning, and distributed occasionally through the
day in scanty rations, our only fare. We were
oil of glad when, running the boats under the lee
of berg, were able to fill our kettles with snow
and boil up for our great restorative, tea. | may
remark that under circumstances of most severe prl
yation, found comforter welcome to the party
aS this. We drank immoderately of it, and always
With advantage
While the men slept after their weary labor,
McGary and myself climbed the berg for a view
ahead 1t was saddening one. We had lost sight
OfCary Island but shoreward up Wostenholm Chan-
nel the ice seemed if it had not yet begun to yield
to the influences of summer. Everything showed how
intense the last winter had been. We were close
upon the 1st of July, and had right to look for the
North Water of the Whalers where we now had solid
ice or clese pack, both of them almost equally unta
vorabe to our progress. Far off in the distance-how
far could not measure-rose the Dalrymple rock,
projecting from the lofty precipice of the Island
ahead but between and in the land OF ice spread
itself from the base of Saunders Island unbroken to
the far south.
The next days progress was, of course, slow and
wearsome, pushing through alternate ice and water
for the land-bet. We fastened at last to the grea
foe near the shore, making our harbor IN cracE
which opened with the changes of tide.
The imperfect diet of the party was showing 1tsel
more and more in the decline of their muscular pow
er They seemed scarcely of it themselves ano
referred the difficulty they found in dragging anC
hiur p1OO nj
sludge rather than to their weakness. But, q:
we endeavored to renew our labors through thu
morning fog, bolted in all sides by ice-ields, 81
distorted and rugged to defy efforts to cros
them the truth seemed to burst upon every one. W.
had lost the feeling of hunger and were almost salts
fed with our pasty broth and the large draughts o
tea which accompanied it. | anxious to send ou1
small boat the Erie, to the umme hill, Appah
where knew from the Esquimaux should fine
plenty of birds but the strength of the party was In
sufficient to drag her.
We were sorey disheartened, and could only wal
for the fog rise, in the hope of some smoother plat
form than that which was about US, load tha
might save us the painful labor of tracking. ha
climbed the iceberg, and there was nothing IN Vle
except Dalrymple Rock, with its red brassy face tow
ernr in the unknown distance. But hardly &C
back to my boat before a gale struck us from tn
northeast, and a foe, taking upon tongue OF 1c
about mile to the north of us, began to swing upol
it like pivot and closed slowly in upon our narro7
resting place.
At first our own foe was driven before the wind
but in little while it encountered the stationary c
at the foot of the very rock itself On the instant tn
widest imaginable ruin around u.s. The me-
sprang mechanically, each his station bearin
back the boats and stores but gave up for the mo
ment all hope of our escape. 1t was not nip sue
as is familiar to Arctic navigators, but the Who'll
platform where we stood, and for hundreds of yard
on every side of us, crumbled and crushed and pile
and tossed itself madly under the pressure. do nc
believe that our little body of men, all of them disc
pned in trials, able to measure danger while combat
ing it, do not believe there is who this day ca
explain how or Why-hardly when, in act-we toun
ourselves afoat. We only know that in the midst
clamor utterly indescribable, through which th
braying of thousand trumpets could no more hay
been heard than the voice of a man, shaker
and raised, and whirled, and let down again, in
swelling waste of broken hummocks, and as the me
grasped their boat-hooks in the stiffness that followed
the boats eddied away in tumultuous skreed of ic
and snow and water
We were borne along in this manner as long as th
unbroken remnant of the inshore foe continued n
volving-utterly powerless, and catching glimps
every now and then of the brazen beadand tha
looked down on us through the snowy sky AT Las
the foe brought up against the rocks the ooser fao
ments that hung round it began to separate and "
We're able, by our and boat-hooks to force ou
battered little otilla clear of them. To our ioyfr
surprise, soon found ourselves In stretch of tn
and water-wide enough to give rowing room, an
j with the assured promise of land close ahead
AS we neared 1t, saw the same forbidding wall
Belt Ice, as at Sutherland and Hakluyt. We pulle