A WHALING CRUISE TO BAFFIN'S BAY.*

A QUAINT fiction is connected with the trip to the Arctic Seas which Captain Markham, R N., made on board the Arctic,' of Dundee, whose commander enjoys a reputation for " dash and enterprise." Whalers have no licence to carry passen- gers, so that anyone wishing to voyage in a whaler is compelled to sign articles as one of the crew. Accordingly, Captain Markham attended at the shipping office, agreed to conduct himself well, and to be obedient to his master, and heard his daily allowance of butter, cheese, oatmeal, bread, beef, pork, tea, sugar, lemon-juice, and water, read out to himself and the whole crew. His wages were to be one shilling per month, and he was to receive one penny for every ton of oil brought home in the ship, and one farthing for every ton of whalebone. He sailed in motley company, for the steamship ' Arctic' carried fifty-five souls, of whom a fourth were Shetland Islanders, one was English, one a Norwegian, and the remainder Highlanders. One of the Shetland men was deaf and dumb, but a good sailor. He was strange to see at times of high excitement and vehement exertion, which Captain Markham describes vividly. They were bent on taking whales ; he, on getting as far as possible into the Arctic regions, for the purpose of " gaining experience in Arctic navigation, of witness- ing the methods of handling steam-vessels in the ice, and of col- lecting information respecting the state of the ice in the upper part of Baffin's Bay, which might prove useful, should an exploring expedition be hereafter despatched from this country to the unknown regions of the North." If the gentlemen who are so perseveringly bent on an Arctic expedition can win over Mr. Disraeli's Chancellor of the Exchequer to the expenditure of some of Mr. Gladstone's savings on the project, and the Spitzbergen route, which Captain Markham treats with rather too much ifettilance and contempt, be discarded, this book will prove most valuable. It bears witness to the writer's diligent observation, and sums up its results in a very happy and lucid manner, while conveying a wonderful notion of the power and efficiency of steam among ice. Dr. Hayes' gallant story of the ' Panther' first made us realise what was being done in the uttermost parts of the earth in this way, but the mettlesome daring, the ' gameness' of that little steamer, her captain,—a gentlemanly Jim Bludso for cool dauntlessness,—and her crew, bad a holiday-making, sporting air about them, and the picturesque style of the book (The Land of Desolation), the succession of sublime and terrible pictures which its artist-author presented to his readers, diverted their attention from the practical bearings of the narrative. Captain Markham does nothing of this kind ; he writes pleasantly and with liveliness, but he is perfectly matter-of-fact, and goes into the details of the whale-fishing and the ice-navigating with the plainest precision.

Life on board the Arctic' must have been a strange experience to an English naval officer accustomed to the discipline and order of a mau-of-war. He was treated with the utmost civility and attention, but " rough and ready" was the rule. The crossing of the Atlantic was the least pleasant part of the voyage, for the weather was wet, and the ship's decks leaked like a sieve from continual straining, and Captain Markham's cabin was in a constant state of drip. The days, the food, and the skipper's jokes were monotonous, and whales were not to be expected short of Davia's Straits, where active preparations are made for the fishing (only the Greenland whale is a " fish," in the terminology of that great industry),— elaborately described by the writer. The phrases used, the names applied to the various processes of the difficult, dangerous, and disgusting operation of whaling, are all either Dutch or Daniell. Most of them are familiar to us in the old book by Scoresby, de- scriptive of whale fishing at Spitzbergen fifty years ago, and we hope and believe no one has forgotten his "Peter Parley" on the subject ; but there are some novelties of expression, as is only natural, considering the many novelties in fact which have almost transformed the art and mystery since then. It is remarkable that Captain Markham, often as be describes the death of the whale, never uses the word "flurry," which all other writers use. Has it become obsolete ? "The whale in its flurry" was a very expressive phrase. Theicire upon seals first, and Captain Markham had " first blood7 "He shot his seal, and when " the monster " (a most inappropriate appellation, unless it applies only to size,) was brought on board, he says, " I was surprised at the marvel- lous rapidity and dexterity with which our men would skin, or, as it is termed, " flinch " the beast. I had the curiosity to time a couple of men while performing this operation on a large seal. It was actually " flinched " and the skin thrown into the boat in 58 • A' Whaling Cruise to Baffin's Bay and the Gulf of Boothia, and an Account of the Rescue of the Grew of the • Polaris.' By Albert Hastings Markham, F.R.G.S., Com- mander Royal Navy. Sampson Low, Marston, and Co.

!seconds." It is a great thing to be first ship of the season on the

I fishing-ground, as the whales will not have been frightened by previous attempts at capture. This was the good-fortune of the Arctic,' and her voyage, extending to Prince Regent Inlet and Admiralty Inlet, was extraordinarily successful. She brought. home the largest cargo of oil that was ever taken from Baffin's- Bay, and no amateur has witnessed and joined in whale fish- ing with such thoroughness as Captain Markham. His book has two distinct characters and claims on attention and interests those of a narrative of whaling adventure, and those of a narrative- of a visit to the classic spots of previous Arctic exploration. The-

whaling stories are very interesting, until we come to the- " making - off," and the " krengiog " (from the Dutch for "carrion "), and then they become disgusting, with their details. of blood and grease and slippery decks. The chase is exciting every. to read of, but one wishes the huge peaceful creatures could be more mercifully killed. The whizzing, tearing harpoons, and the- rending, burning rockets buried deep in the flesh of the tortured

animal, as it goes plunging, sometimes For hours, through seas- " ine.arnadine," are horrible to think of. Captain Markham says that if a female be struck with her calf beside her, she almost. invariably kills the calf. Many of the incidental facts which he- records about the animals of the Arctic world are curious. Here, is one. When near Cape Adair, he says :- "I chased a bear which we suddenly disturbed in the middle of at feast. He had been so seared by the sight of the ship, that he went. away over the ice and through the water at railroad speed, and though we pursued him for half an hour in our boat, failed to get within shot. We revenged ourselves by taking possession of his dinner,—a white- whale fifteen feet long. This whale must have been hauled up on the ice by the bear. The strength of these animals is truly astonishing."

The captain of the 'Arctic' was quite a ' character.' He= turns up, much to the enlivenment of the narrative, pretty fre- quently, looking out from his crow's-nest ; presiding at "mollies,' as the social, and intemperate, gatherings of the officers of the various ships are called ; making jokes, indulging in incredibly' long spells of sleep, encouraging Captain Markham with rather- fallacious prospects of getting further North than anybody has.- ever yet gone, reciting Shakespeare, singing songs, and perform- ing the showman. One little trait recorded of this accomplished skipper is very pleasing. It is the custom to throw the skin of the whale away, when the various horrid operations connected with, the capture of the fish have been performed ; but he had the skins. preserved and given to the poor Esquimaux, who utilise whale skin for their humble wares, and eat it when the stress of hunger- is most severe in their wretched lives. At a little distance from Cape Garry the writer came upon a former scene of some such existences :— " I saw with my glasses what I imagined to be the carcase of a whale,. washed up on the beach, but what was my surprise when we arrived at the spot, to find traces of a large Esquimaux village, most of the huts. having been actually composed of the ribs and trunks of whales. We _ counted no less than 34 hut; 7 of which had been originally made of stone, 7 very old ones. and the remainder built from the bones of whales... Sixty skulls had been used to form the foundation and entrances to the-. igloos.' It would be interesting to, know how these remains of whales. had reached this place,—whether they had been washed on shore, or whether they had been killed by the inhabitants of the settlement._ Comparing these with bones which we found at Fury Beach. I should. say no Esquimaux had resided here for fully 80 or 100 years."

The story of the Polaris' expedition, of the rescue of half the- crew, and their reception on board the Arctic,' has the distin- guished place in Captain Markham's book which it merits ; and- the author, like Mr. Clements Markham, urges that that story is.

an argument for, and not against, the feasibility of reaching the - North Pole. In Arctic exploration, it would appear, nothing suc-

ceeds like failure ; and a succession of disasters is the truest- encouragement. If the arguments be not convincing, the enthu- siasm which proffers and supports them is very attractive, and, evidently infectious, for the writer found everybody eager to volunteer for an Arctic expedition, for which be is convinced all- the conditions of the present year are most favourable. One im- portant result of his voyage will be the rectification of the charts, in which Captain Markham has discovered several inaccuracies._ One lofty headland between Byam Martin and Fanshawe is not marked at all ; this he has named Cape Sherard Osborn ; and twelve large hitherto unsuspected glaciers he has called after Sir Bartle Frere.

The book is full of adventure, and of danger, of which the- writer had his full share ; but he narrates it very simply, and does not convey so strong an impression of hardship, fatigue, or peril as is conveyed by many a story of land travel in northern latitudes. He is never intentionally pathetic, —nothing is farther from his purpose than to invest Arctie- adventure with deterrent features, but he is sometimes uninten- tionally so ; as, for instance, in his description of his visit to the

relies on Fury Reach, where no living soul had landed since March, 1859 :—" I looked upon it," he says, "as classic ground,

for here Parry, Hoppner, James Ross, Bird, Austin, and Crozier had displayed all the finest qualities of seamen in 1824. Here the Rosses wintered in 1833 ; here Kennedy and the gallant Bellot had rested in 1852 ; and this was the scene of Allen Young's severe work in 1859, when he left the ' Fox' at Port Kennedy in order to obtain provisions at Fury Beach." It was on his return to the ' Fox' that his sledge broke down among the heavy hummocks

in Creswell Bay, and he became snow-blind, and had to be left alone in a bay for forty-eight hours while his companions made

progress with the heavy load. Captain Markham found casks, spars, rigging, and ship's stores strewn about in all directions, and two boats hauled up on the beach. The remains of "Somerset

House," which the Rosses had built in 1832, lay between the boats. Here are a few items of the description of the scene:— "There were many hundred tons of preserved beef and vegetables, and also what one of the men informed me was 'consecrated' gravy, all in an admirable state of preservation, after a lapse of nearly fifty years. The flour had all perished, but the sugar and tobacco appeared to be good. One would have imagined it had been the wreck of a -whaler, instead of a man-of-war, for a perfect set of whaling implements, including harpoons and lances, was on the beach. I found a pair of large deer antlers. As I could not find the skull, they had probably been shed there by the animal itself. The marks of bears' teeth and claws were plainly visible on some of the casks, the wood of one con- taining flour having been gnawed through Seeing a cairn near the water's edge, I hurried towards it, and quickly demolished the heap, in the expectation of finding some record ; but after an hour's hard work with pick and shovel, I was horrified to find it was a grave, the body having been sewn up in canvas instead of a coffin. I care- fully replaced everything, endeavouring to give the heap more the shape and appearance of a grave than a cairn. It must have been the body of Chinham Thomas, the carpenter of the 'Victory,' with Sir John Ross, who died February 2, 1833."

It is amusing to observe that Captain Markham hastens to account for this man's death, lest anyone should suppose the climate was to blame. " His constitution," he says, " had been undermined by long service in the first Burmese war and on the American lakes, before he ever made an Arctic voyage."