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Getting Started with Python
and Raspberry Pi

Learn to design and implement reliable Python

applications on Raspberry Pi, using a range of external
libraries, the Raspberry Pi's GPIO port, and the camera
module

Dan Nixon

BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Getting Started with Python and Raspberry Pi

Copyright © 2015 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written
permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in
critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy
of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is
sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt
Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages
caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the
companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals.
However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: September 2015

Production reference: 1210915

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78355-159-0

www.packtpub.com

[ FM-2 ]
 Credits

Author Copy Editor

Dan Nixon Alpha Singh

Reviewers Project Coordinator

Ankit Aggarwal Suzanne Coutinho
Neil Broers
Yash Gajera Proofreader
Safis Editing
Bhavyanshu Parasher
David Whale
Indexer
Tejal Soni
Commissioning Editor
Dipika Gaonkar
Graphics
Jason Monteiro
Acquisition Editor
Indrajit Das
Production Coordinator
Manu Joseph
Content Development Editor
Zeeyan Pinheiro
Cover Work
Manu Joseph
Technical Editor
Namrata Patil

[ FM-3 ]
 About the Author

Dan Nixon is a software and electronics engineer living in the north of England.
He has past experience of creating software for data analysis, process control, and
business intelligence applications. In most of these projects, Python was one of the
main languages used.

Dan previously authored another book on the uses of the Raspberry Pi, called
Raspberry Pi Blueprints, and has worked on many personal projects that use both
Python and the Raspberry Pi.

I would like to thank my mother and father for their support in

writing this book and Greg Fenton for his help in testing some of
the examples included.

[ FM-4 ]
 About the Reviewers

Ankit Aggarwal has been fascinated with science and technology since childhood.
He likes to experiment and learn new things. He is a software engineer and
researcher by profession and loves computer science. He wants to solve problems
using technology. His interests include science, technology, academic research,
music, photography, entrepreneurship, DIY, movies, anime, and much more.

He has worked in the fields of networking, distributed systems, pervasive/mobile

computing, data science, AI, and computer vision; the list goes on. Ankit has
authored IEEE Xplore research papers and is an active contributor to and author
of several open source projects. He is socially active, blogs occasionally, and
maintains his website at http://ankitaggarwal.me.

In his free time, he reads, takes part in competitive programming, captures photos
of nature with a lens, and watches TV shows, movies, and anime. When he is not
doing these things, he can be found jogging at the nearest ground.

Neil Broers is a Python developer by day and a hardware hacker by night,

building his "Smart Home," one Raspberry Pi at a time. He is an avid technical
blogger on www.foo.co.za, where he documents his adventures with home
automation. In 2014, he presented a talk on the Raspberry Pi and the Internet
of Things at the PyConZA conference in South Africa.

[ FM-5 ]
Yash Gajera is an embedded software engineer at Insignex in Anand, India.
He studied electronics and communication engineering and graduated in 2014
from the A. D. Patel Institute of Technology, Anand. At Insignex, he has worked
on fully automated irrigation control systems. He did his final year project on the
Internet of Things. It was selected as the best project from the EC department at
Gujarat Technological University in 2014. Yash wrote a Python library for the
Zigbee protocol to work with the Raspberry Pi. He also has a lot of experience
in embedded system development and web technologies.

Bhavyanshu Parasher holds a BTech degree in computer science engineering.

He is currently working toward getting a master's degree in computer science.
He has been developing web applications since 2011. He also has experience in
developing apps for Android and Linux. He has authored and contributed to
various open source projects. Apart from computer science, he is also interested in
electronics. He has developed various projects using the Raspberry Pi, including
service bots, weather monitoring systems, and data analysis automation tools.
When he is not writing code, he spends time writing tutorials on his blog at
https://bhavyanshu.me.

David Whale is a software developer living in Essex, UK. He started coding as

a schoolboy aged 11, inspired by the school science technician to build his own
computer from a kit, and quickly progressed to writing machine code programs
because they were "small and fast." These early experiments led to some of his
code being used in a saleable educational word game when he was only 13.

David has been developing software professionally ever since, mainly writing
small and fast code that goes into electronic products, including automated
machinery, electric cars, mobile phones, energy meters, and wireless doorbells.

[ FM-6 ]
These days, he runs his own software consultancy called Thinking Binaries.
He spends much of his time helping design the next wave of the Internet, called
the Internet of Things. This means connecting electronic devices to the Internet.
The rest of the time, he volunteers for The Institution of Engineering and Technology,
running training courses for teachers, designing and running workshops and clubs
for school children, and generally being busy with his Raspberry Pi.

David was the technical editor of the book Adventures in Raspberry Pi. He is a coauthor
of the book Adventures in Minecraft and is the technical editor of the official Raspberry
Pi magazine, the MagPi.

I was really pleased to be asked to review this new book. Dan Nixon
has done an excellent job of getting you started with Python and
your Raspberry Pi, and he presents the material in an easy-to-follow
format. There are lots of fun ideas and building blocks here, which
I hope many readers will extend into bigger and more ambitious
projects of their own.

[ FM-7 ]
 www.PacktPub.com

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[ FM-8 ]
 Table of Contents
Preface v
Chapter 1: Your First Steps with Python on the Pi 1
Installing and setting up Raspbian 2
Writing to the SD card 2
Windows 2
Linux and Mac 4
Booting the Pi for the first time 6
The Python development tools 13
Python 2 versus Python 3 15
Running some simple Python scripts 15
Summary 17
Chapter 2: Understanding Control Flow and Data Types 19
Data in Python 19
Numerical types 21
Operations on numerical types 25
String manipulation 28
String functions 29
String formatting 32
String templates 33
Control flow operators 36
Using functions 39
Summary 42
Chapter 3: Working with Data Structures and I/O 43
Data structures 43
Lists 43
Creating lists 44
List operations 46

[i]
Table of Contents

Dictionaries 48
Creating dictionaries 48
Dictionary operations 49
Sets 51
Set operations 52
Frozen sets 53
Tuples 54
Input/output 55
The os.path module 55
Reading and writing files 57
Summary 58
Chapter 4: Understanding Object-oriented Programming
and Threading 59
Object-oriented programming 59
Classes in Python 61
Operation.py 61
Calculator.py 62
Using the module 63
Inheritance 64
Threading 66
Locks 68
Summary 70
Chapter 5: Packaging Code with setuptools 71
Using packages in your Python code 71
Importing modules 71
Installing modules manually 72
Installing modules using pip 74
Installing modules using apt 75
Packaging your own Python modules 76
Packaging a library 77
Adding an entry point 79
Summary 81
Chapter 6: Accessing the GPIO Pins 83
Digital electronics 84
The GPIO library 85
Single LED output 86
PWM output 87
Multiple outputs 89
Basic switch 90
Switch using interrupt 92

[ ii ]
 Table of Contents

Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter (UART) 94

Setting up the serial port 94
Using pySerial 96
Additional libraries 98
Summary 99
Chapter 7: Using the Camera Module 101
Setting up the camera module 101
Installing and testing the Python library 106
Writing applications for the camera 107
A time lapse recorder 107
A point-and-shoot camera 109
An image effect randomizer 112
Summary 114
Chapter 8: Extracting Data from the Internet 115
Using urllib2 to download data 115
Parsing JSON APIs 117
Parsing XML APIs 119
The DOM method 120
The SAX method 123
Parsing a web page using BeautifulSoup 125
Summary 130
Chapter 9: Creating Command-line Interfaces 131
Unit conversion application 131
Command-line interface 134
Summary 139
Chapter 10: Debugging Applications with PDB and Log Files 141
The Python debugger 141
Writing log files 146
Unit testing 149
Summary 154
Chapter 11: Designing Your GUI with Qt 155
Setting up the codebase 155
Building the UI with Qt Designer 156
Writing the UI code 170
Launching the UI 172
Packaging the code 173
Summary 174
Index 175

[ iii ]
 Preface

Preface
The Raspberry Pi is one of the smallest and most affordable single board computers
that has taken over the world of hobby electronics and programming, and the Python
programming language makes this the perfect platform to start coding with.

Getting Started with Python and Raspberry Pi will guide you through the process of
designing, implementing, and debugging your own Python applications to run on
the Raspberry Pi and will help you interact with some of its unique hardware.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Your First Steps with Python on the Pi, introduces the Python development
tools as you install and set them up on the Raspberry Pi after installing the Raspbian
operating system.

Chapter 2, Understanding Control Flow and Data Types, introduces you to the control
flow and conditional execution operations. Also, the basic data types and the
operations that can be performed on them will be covered in this chapter.

Chapter 3, Working with Data Structures and I/O, gives you an overview of the standard
Python data structures (for example, list, dict, and tuple) and how they can be used
within an application. Also, this chapter will provide an introduction to reading and
writing files on the Raspberry Pi's filesystem, including reading from the sysfs to get
data such as the current temperature of the processor.

Chapter 4, Understanding Object-oriented Programming and Threading, introduces

the concept of object-oriented programming and compares it to the functional
programming that has been done up to this point in this book.

[v]
Preface

Chapter 5, Packaging Code with setuptools, introduces you to the setup tools in the
Python package, which are used to package Python applications and libraries for
easier installation. This will also include an introduction to the pip utility and PyPi
package repository.

Chapter 6, Accessing the GPIO Pins, gives you an overview of the Python library for
accessing the GPIO pins on the Raspberry Pi and a brief introduction to some basic
electronics needed for the tutorials in the chapter.

Chapter 7, Using the Camera Module, covers using the picamera Python library to
interact with the camera module, the options that can be configured using the
library, and writing a simple application to record a section of video in several
different modes.

Chapter 8, Extracting Data from the Internet, covers the use of several libraries
(including requests and urllib2) to connect to webservers and request data, and
will include obtaining weather forecasts from an online API. Also, you will be
introduced to several third-party libraries that access data from specific sources.

Chapter 9, Creating Command-line Interfaces, covers interaction with applications via

the command line using the argparse Python module.

Chapter 10, Debugging Applications with PDB and Log Files, introduces you to the PDB
(Python debugger) tool, discusses how it can be used to diagnose and fix issues in
Python programs, and covers how the logging Python module can be used to capture
information from an application to be used later for debugging. This includes a tutorial
in which code with several issues placed into it will be debugged and corrected.

Chapter 11, Designing Your GUI with Qt, provides an introduction to GUI design with
Qt using Qt Designer and the Python Qt package.

What you need for this book

You will need:

• A Raspberry Pi
• An SD card (4 GB or higher)

[ vi ]
 Preface

Who this book is for

This book is designed for those who are unfamiliar with the art of Python development
and want to get to know their way around the language and the many additional
libraries that allow you to get a full application up and running in no time.

Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between
different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an
explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions,
pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows:
"We can include other contexts through the use of the include directive."

A block of code is set as follows:

flan = "495"
flan
type(flan)
flan_i = int(flan)
flan_i
type(flan_i)

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

sudo python setup.py install

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the
screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Next we
will disable the LineEdit widget that will be used for displaying the result of a unit
conversion, this is done by selecting the widget and removing the tick in the enabled
property in the Property Editor as shown in the following screenshot."

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tips and tricks appear like this.

[ vii ]
Preface

Reader feedback
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[ viii ]
 Preface

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[ ix ]
 Your First Steps with
Python on the Pi
In this chapter, we will look at setting up the Raspbian operating system on the
Raspberry Pi and have a quick look at the Python development tools that come
pre-installed on it, along with looking at some basic ways in which we can execute
the Python code.

The only things that are required here are:

• A Raspberry Pi
• A USB power source capable of delivering at least 1A
• USB keyboard
• USB mouse
• TV with HDMI port
• An SD card (or microSD card for the model B+ and Pi 2) of at least
4GB capacity
• An SD card reader
• A USB hub (if you wish to connect more USB devices that there are ports
on the Raspberry Pi)
• Optionally, a WiFi adapter if you want to connect the Pi to your network
wirelessly (the list of supported USB WiFi adapters is available at
elinux.org/RPi_USB_Wi-Fi_Adapters)

[1]
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
sight of a small American flag fluttering from a hummock, and lower
down a little masonic banner hanging from a tent-pole hardly above the
drift. It was the camp of our disabled comrades; we reached it after an
unbroken march of twenty-one hours.
The little tent was nearly covered. I was not among the first to come
up; but, when I reached the tent-curtain, the men were standing in silent
file on each side of it. With more kindness and delicacy of feeling than is
often supposed to belong to sailors, but which is almost characteristic,
they intimated their wish that I should go in alone. As I crawled in, and,
coming upon the darkness, heard before me the burst of welcome
gladness that came from the four poor fellows stretched on their backs,
and then for the first time the cheer outside, my weakness and my
gratitude together almost overcame me. “They had expected me: they
were sure I would come!”
We were now fifteen souls; the thermometer 75° below the freezing
point; and our sole accommodation a tent barely able to contain eight
persons: more than half our party were obliged to keep from freezing by
walking outside while the others slept. We could not halt long. Each of us
took a turn of two hours’ sleep, and we prepared for our homeward
march.
We took with us nothing but the tent, furs to protect the The Retreat
rescued party, and food for a journey of fifty hours. Everything
else was abandoned. Two large buffalo-bags, each made of four skins,
were doubled up, so as to form a sort of sack, lined on each side by fur,
closed at the bottom, but opened at the top. This was laid on the sledge;
the tent, smoothly folded, serving as a floor. The sick, with their limbs
sewed up carefully in reindeer-skins, were placed upon the bed of
buffalo-robes, in a half-reclining posture; other skins and blanket-bags
were thrown above them; and the whole litter was lashed together so as
to allow but a single opening opposite the mouth for breathing.
This necessary work cost us a great deal of time and effort; but it was
essential to the lives of the sufferers. It took us no less than four hours
to strip and refresh them, and then to embale them in the manner I have
described. Few of us escaped without frost-bitten fingers.
 It was completed at last, however; all hands stood round, and after
repeating a short prayer, we set out on our retreat. It was fortunate
indeed that we were not inexperienced in sledging over the ice. A great
part of our track lay among a succession of hummocks, some of them
extending in long lines, fifteen or twenty feet high, and so uniformly
steep that we had to turn them by a considerable deviation from our
direct course; others that we forced our way through, far above our
heads in height, lying in parallel ridges, with the space between too
narrow for the sledge to be lowered into it safely, and yet not enough for
the runners to cross without the aid of ropes to stay them. These spaces,
too, were generally choked with light snow, hiding the openings between
the ice-fragments. They were fearful traps to disengage a limb from, for
every man knew that a fracture, or a sprain even, would cost him his life.
Besides all this, the sledge was top-heavy with its load: the maimed men
could not bear to be lashed down tight enough to secure them against
falling off. Notwithstanding our caution in rejecting every superfluous
burden, the weight, including bags and tent, was eleven hundred
pounds.
And yet our march for the first six hours was very cheering. We made,
by vigorous pulls and lifts, nearly a mile an hour, and reached the new
floes before we were absolutely weary. Our sledge sustained the trial
admirably. Ohlsen, restored by hope, walked steadily at the leading belt
of the sledge lines; and I began to feel certain of reaching our half-way
station of the day before, where we had left our tent. But we were still
nine miles from it, when, almost without premonition, we all became
aware of an alarming failure of our energies.
Bonsall and Morton, two of our stoutest men, came to me, begging
permission to sleep. “They were not cold, the wind did not enter them
now,—a little sleep was all they wanted.” Presently Hans was found
nearly stiff under a drift; and Thomas, bolt upright, had his eyes closed,
and could hardly articulate. At last John Blake threw himself on the snow,
and refused to rise. They did not complain of feeling cold; but it was in
vain that I wrestled, boxed, ran, argued, jeered, or reprimanded: an
immediate halt could not be avoided.
We pitched our tent with much difficulty. Our hands were too
powerless to strike a fire; we were obliged to do without water or food.
Even the spirits (whisky) had frozen at the men’s feet, under all the
coverings. We put Bonsall, Ohlsen, Thomas, and Hans, with the other
sick men, well inside the tent, and crowded in as many others as we
could. Then, leaving the party in charge of Mr M’Gary, with orders to
come on after four hours’ rest, I pushed ahead with William Godfrey, who
volunteered to be my companion. My aim was to reach the half-way tent,
and thaw some ice and pemmican before the others arrived.
The floe was of level ice, and the walking excellent. I A Bear Frolic
cannot tell how long it took us to make the nine miles, for we
were in a strange sort of stupor, and had little apprehension of time. It
was probably about four hours. We kept ourselves awake by imposing on
each other a continued articulation of words; they must have been
incoherent enough. I recall these hours as among the most wretched I
have ever gone through: we were neither of us in our right senses, and
retained a very confused recollection of what preceded our arrival at the
tent. We both of us, however, remember a bear, who walked leisurely
before us, and tore up as he went a jumper that Mr M’Gary had
improvidently thrown off the day before. He tore it into shreds and rolled
it into a ball, but never offered to interfere with our progress. I
remember this, and with it a confused sentiment that our tent and
buffalo-robes might probably share the same fate. Godfrey, with whom
the memory of this day’s work may atone for many faults of a later time,
had a better eye than myself; and, looking some miles ahead, he could
see that our tent was undergoing the same unceremonious treatment. I
thought I saw it too, but we were so drunken with cold that we strode on
steadily, and, for aught I know, without quickening our pace.
Probably our approach saved the contents of the tent; for when we
reached it the tent was uninjured, though the bear had overturned it,
tossing the buffalo-robes and pemmican into the snow; we missed only a
couple of blanket-bags. What we recollect, however,—and perhaps all we
recollect,—is, that we had great difficulty in raising it. We crawled into
our reindeer sleeping-bags without speaking, and for the next three
hours slept on in a dreamy but intense slumber. When I awoke, my long
beard was a mass of ice, frozen fast to the buffalo-skin; Godfrey had to
cut me out with his jack-knife. Four days after our escape, I found my
woollen comfortable with a goodly share of my beard still adhering to it.
 We were able to melt water and get some soup cooked before the
rest of our party arrived: it took them but five hours to walk the nine
miles. They were doing well, and, considering the circumstances, in
wonderful spirits. The day was almost providentially windless, with a
clear sun. All enjoyed the refreshment we had got ready: the crippled
were repacked in their robes; and we sped briskly toward the hummock-
ridges which lay between us and the Pinnacly Berg.
It required desperate efforts to work our way over it—literally
desperate, for our strength failed us anew, and we began to lose our self-
control. We could not abstain any longer from eating snow; our mouths
swelled, and some of us became speechless.
Our halts multiplied, and we fell half-sleeping on the snow. I could not
prevent it. Strange to say, it refreshed us. I ventured upon the
experiment myself, making Riley wake me at the end of three minutes;
and I felt so much benefited by it that I timed the men in the same way.
They sat on the runners of the sledge, fell asleep instantly, and were
forced to wakefulness when their three minutes were out.
By eight in the evening we emerged from the floes. The Bight of
Pinnacly Berg revived us. Brandy, an invaluable resource in emergency,
had already been served out in table-spoonful doses. We now took a
longer rest, and a last but stouter dram, and reached the brig at 1 P.M.,
we believe without a halt.
 I say we believe; and here perhaps is the most Mental Failure
decided proof of our sufferings; we were quite delirious,
and had ceased to entertain a sane apprehension of the
circumstances about us. We moved on like men in a dream. Our
footmarks seen afterward showed that we had steered a straight line
for the brig. It must have been by a sort of instinct, for it left no
impress on the memory. Bonsall was sent staggering ahead, and
reached the brig, God knows how, for he had fallen repeatedly at
the track-lines; but he delivered with punctilious accuracy the
messages I had sent by him to Dr Hayes. I thought myself the
soundest of all, for I went through all the formula of sanity, and can
recall the muttering delirium of my comrades when we got back into
the cabin of our brig. Yet I have been told since of some speeches
and some orders too of mine, which I should have remembered for
their absurdity, if my mind had retained its balance.
Petersen and Whipple came out to meet us about two miles from
the brig. They brought my dog-team, with the restoratives I had
sent for by Bonsall. I do not remember their coming. Dr Hayes
entered with judicious energy upon the treatment our condition
called for, administering morphine freely, after the usual frictions. He
reported none of our brain-symptoms as serious, referring them
properly to the class of those indications of exhausted power which
yield to generous diet and rest. Mr Ohlsen suffered some time from
strabismus and blindness; two others underwent amputation of parts
of the foot without unpleasant consequences, and two died in spite
of all our efforts. This rescue-party had been out for seventy-two
hours. We had halted in all eight hours, half of our number sleeping
at a time. We travelled between eighty and ninety miles, most of the
way dragging a heavy sledge. The mean temperature of the whole
time, including the warmest hours of three days, was at -41°·2. We
had no water except at our halts, and were at no time able to
intermit vigorous exercise without freezing.
“April 4.—Four days have passed, and I am again at my record of
failures, sound, but aching still in every joint. The rescued men are
not out of danger, but their gratitude is very touching. Pray God that
they may live!”
 CHAPTER VII.
THE FIRST STRANGE FACES—THE ESQUIMAUX.
The week that followed has left me nothing to remember but
anxieties and sorrow. Nearly all our party, as well the rescuers as the
rescued, were tossing in their sick-bunks, some frozen, others
undergoing amputations, several with dreadful premonitions of
tetanus. I was myself among the first to be about; the necessities of
the others claimed it of me.
Early in the morning of the 7th I was awakened by a sound from
Baker’s throat, one of those the most frightful and ominous that ever
startle a physician’s ear. The lock-jaw had seized him—that dark
visitant whose foreshadowings were on so many of us. His
symptoms marched rapidly to their result; he died the next day. On
the 9th we placed him in his coffin, and, forming a rude, but heart-
full procession, bore him over the broken ice and up the steep side
of the ice-foot to Butler Island; then, passing along the snow-level to
Fern Rock, and climbing the slope of the Observatory, we deposited
his corpse upon the pedestals which had served to support our
instruments. We read the service for the burial of the dead,
sprinkling over him snow for dust, and repeated the Lord’s Prayer;
and then icing up again the opening in the walls we had made to
admit the coffin, left him in his narrow house.
We were watching in the morning at Baker’s death- The Esquimaux
bed, when one of our deck-watch, who had been
cutting ice for the melter, came hurrying down into the cabin with
the report, “People holloaing ashore!” I went up, followed by as
many as could mount the gangway; and there they were, on all
sides of our rocky harbour, dotting the snow-shores and emerging
from the blackness of the cliffs,—wild and uncouth, but evidently
human beings.
As we gathered on the deck, they rose upon the more elevated
fragments of the land-ice, and distributing themselves around almost
in a half-circle. They were vociferating as if to attract our attention,
or perhaps only to give vent to their surprise; but I could make
nothing out of their cries, except “Hoah, ha, ha!” and “Ka, kăāh! ka,
kăāh!” repeated over and over again.
There was light enough for me to see that they brandished no
weapons, and were only tossing their heads and arms about in
violent gesticulations. A more unexcited inspection showed us, too,
that their numbers were not as great nor their size as large as some
of us had been disposed to fancy at first. In a word, I was satisfied
that they were natives of the country; and, calling Petersen from his
bunk to be my interpreter, I proceeded unarmed, and waving my
open hands, toward a stout figure who made himself conspicuous,
and seemed to have a greater number near him than the rest. He
evidently understood the movement, for he at once, like a brave
fellow, leaped down upon the floe and advanced to meet me fully
half-way.
He was nearly a head taller than myself, extremely powerful and
well-built, with swarthy complexion and piercing black eyes. His
dress was a hooded capôte or jumper of mixed white and blue fox-
pelts, arranged with something of fancy, and booted trousers of
white bear-skin, which at the end of the foot were made to
terminate with the claws of the animal.
I soon came to an understanding with this gallant diplomatist.
Almost as soon as we commenced our parley, his companions,
probably receiving signals from him, flocked in and surrounded us;
but we had no difficulty in making them know positively that they
must remain where they were, while Metek went with me on board
the ship. This gave me the advantage of negotiating with an
important hostage.
 Although this was the first time he had ever seen a white man,
he went with me fearlessly; his companions staying behind on the
ice. Hickey took them out what he esteemed our greatest delicacies,
—slices of good wheat bread and corned pork, with exorbitant lumps
of white sugar; but they refused to touch them. They had evidently
no apprehension of open violence from us. I found afterward that
several among them were singly a match for the white bear and the
walrus, and that they thought us a very pale-faced crew.
Being satisfied with my interview in the Outfit of the Esquimaux
cabin, I sent out word that the rest might be
admitted to the ship; and, although they, of course, could not know
how their chief had been dealt with, some nine or ten of them
followed with boisterous readiness upon the bidding. Others in the
meantime, as if disposed to give us their company for the full time of
a visit, brought up from behind the land-ice as many as fifty-six fine
dogs, with their sledges, and secured them within two hundred feet
of the brig, driving their lances into the ice, and picketing the dogs
to them by the seal-skin traces. The animals understood the
operation perfectly, and lay down as soon as it commenced. The
sledges were made up of small fragments of porous bone, admirably
knit together by thongs of hide; the runners, which glistened like
burnished steel, were of highly-polished ivory, obtained from the
tusks of the walrus.
The only arms they carried were knives, concealed in their boots;
but their lances, which were lashed to the sledges, were quite a
formidable weapon. The staff was of the horn of the narwhal, or else
of the thigh-bones of the bear, two lashed together, or sometimes
the mirabilis of the walrus, three or four of them united. This last
was a favourite material also for the cross-bars of their sledges.
They had no wood. A single rusty hoop from a current-drifted cask
might have furnished all the knives of the party; but the flame-
shaped tips of their lances were of unmistakable steel, and were
riveted to the tapering bony point with no mean skill. I learned
afterward that the metal was obtained in traffic from the more
southern tribes.
They were clad much as I have described Metek, in jumpers,
boots, and white bear-skin breeches, with their feet decorated like
his, en griffe. A strip of knotted leather worn round the neck, very
greasy and dirty-looking, which no one could be persuaded to part
with for an instant, was mistaken at first for an ornament by the
crew: it was not until mutual hardships had made us better
acquainted that we learned its mysterious uses.
When they were first allowed to come on board, they were very
rude and difficult to manage. They spoke three or four at a time, to
each other and to us, laughing heartily at our ignorance in not
understanding them, and then talking away as before. They were
incessantly in motion, going everywhere, trying doors, and
squeezing themselves through dark passages, round casks and
boxes, and out into the light again, anxious to touch and handle
everything they saw, and asking for, or else endeavouring to steal,
everything they touched. It was the more difficult to restrain them,
as I did not wish them to suppose that we were at all intimidated.
But there were some signs of our disabled condition which it was
important they should not see; it was especially necessary to keep
them out of the forecastle, where the dead body of poor Baker was
lying; and, as it was in vain to reason or persuade, we had at last to
employ the “gentle laying-on of hands,” which, I believe, the laws of
all countries tolerate, to keep them in order.
Our whole force was mustered and kept constantly on the alert;
but though there may have been something of discourtesy in the
occasional shoulderings and bustlings that enforced the police of the
ship, things went on good-humouredly. Our guests continued
running in and out and about the vessel, bringing in provisions, and
carrying them out again to their dogs on the ice,—in fact, stealing all
the time until the afternoon, when, like tired children, they threw
themselves down to sleep. I ordered them to be made comfortable
in the hold; and Morton spread a large buffalo-robe for them, not far
from a coal-fire in the galley-stove.
They were lost in barbarous amaze at the new fuel,— Eating Habits
too hard for blubber, too soft for firestone,—but they
were content to believe it might cook as well as seals’ fat. They
borrowed from us an iron pot and some melted water, and parboiled
a couple of pieces of walrus-meat; but the real pièce de resistance,
some five pounds a head, they preferred to eat raw. Yet there was
something of the gourmet in their mode of assorting their mouthfuls
of beef and blubber Slices of each, or rather strips, passed between
the lips, either together or in strict alternation, and with a regularity
of sequence that kept the molars well to their work.
They did not eat all at once, but each man when and as often as
the impulse prompted. Each slept after eating, his raw meat lying
beside him on the buffalo-skin; and as he woke, the first act was to
eat, and the next to sleep again. They did not lie down, but
slumbered away in a sitting posture, with the head declined upon
the breast, some of them snoring famously.
In the morning they were anxious to go; but I had given orders
to detain them for a parting interview with myself. It resulted in a
treaty, brief in its terms, that it might be certainly remembered, and
mutually beneficial, that it might possibly be kept. I tried to make
them understand what a powerful Prospero they had had for a host,
and how beneficent he would prove himself so long as they did his
bidding. And, as an earnest of my favour, I bought all the walrus-
meat they had to spare, and four of their dogs enriching them in
return with needles and beads, and a treasure of old cask-staves.
In the fulness of their gratitude, they pledged themselves
emphatically to return in a few days with more meat, and to allow
me to use their dogs and sledges for my excursions to the north. I
then gave them leave to go. They yoked in their dogs in less than
two minutes, got on their sledges, cracked their two-fathom-and-a-
half-long seal-skin whips, and were off down the ice to the south-
west at a rate of seven knots an hour.
They did not return. I had read enough of treaty-makings not to
expect them too confidently. But the next day came a party of five,
on foot—two old men, one of middle age, and a couple of gawky
boys. We had missed a number of articles soon after the first party
left us, an axe, a saw, and some knives. We found afterward that
our storehouse at Butler Island had been entered; we were too
short-handed to guard it by a special watch. Besides all this,
reconnoitring stealthily beyond Sylvia Head, we discovered a train of
sledges drawn up behind the hummocks.
There was cause for apprehension in all this; but I felt that I
could not afford to break with the rogues. They had it in their power
to molest us seriously in our sledge-travel; they could make our
hunts around the harbour dangerous; and my best chance of
obtaining an abundant supply of fresh meat, our great desideratum,
was by their agency. I treated the new party with marked kindness,
and gave them many presents; but took care to make them aware
that, until all the missing articles were restored, no member of the
tribe would be admitted again as a guest on board the brig. They
went off with many pantomimic protestations of innocence; but
M’Gary, nevertheless, caught the incorrigible scamps stealing a coal-
barrel as they passed Butler Island, and expedited their journey
homeward by firing among them a charge of small shot.
Still, one peculiar worthy—we thought it must have been the
venerable of the party, whom I knew afterwards as a staunch friend,
old Shang-hu—managed to work round in a westerly direction, and
to cut to pieces my India-rubber boat, which had been left on the
floe since Mr Brook’s disaster, and to carry off every particle of the
wood.
A few days after this, an agile, elfin youth drove up to “Myouk”
our floe in open day. He was sprightly and good-looking, and
had quite a neat turn-out of sledge and dogs. He told his name with
frankness,—“Myouk, I am,”—and where he lived. We asked him
about the boat; but he denied all knowledge of it, and refused either
to confess or repent. He was surprised when I ordered him to be
confined to the hold. At first he refused to eat, and sat down in the
deepest grief; but after a while he began to sing, and then to talk
and cry, and then to sing again; and he kept crying, singing, and
talking by turns, till a late hour of the night. When I turned in, he
was still noisily disconsolate.
There was a simplicity and bonhommie about this boy that
interested me much; and I confess that when I made my
appearance next morning—I could hardly conceal it from the
gentleman on duty, whom I affected to censure—I was glad my bird
had flown. Some time during the morning-watch he had succeeded
in throwing off the hatch and escaping. We suspected that he had
confederates ashore, for his dogs had escaped with as much address
as himself. I was convinced, however, that I had the truth from him,
where he lived, and how many lived with him—my cross-
examination on these points having been very complete and
satisfactory.
It was a sad business for some time after these Esquimaux left
us, to go on making and registering our observations at Fern Rock.
Baker’s corpse still lay in the vestibule, and it was not long before
another was placed by the side of it. We had to pass the bodies as
often as we went in or out; but the men, grown feeble and nervous,
disliked going near them in the night-time. When the summer thaw
came, and we could gather stones enough, we built up a grave on a
depression of the rocks, and raised a substantial cairn above it.
“April 19.—I have been out on the floe again, breaking in my
dogs. My reinforcement from the Esquimaux makes a noble team for
me. For the last five days I have been striving with them, just as
often and as long as my strength allowed me; and to-day I have my
victory. The Society for Preventing Cruelty to Animals would have put
me in custody if they had been near enough; but, thanks to a
merciless whip freely administered, I have been dashing along
twelve miles in the last hour, and am back again; harness, sledge,
and bones all unbroken. I am ready for another journey.
“April 22.—Schubert has increasing symptoms of erysipelas
around his amputated stump; and every one on board is depressed
and silent except himself. He is singing in his bunk, as joyously as
ever. Poor fellow! I am alarmed about him: it is a hard duty which
compels me to take the field, while my presence might cheer his last
moments.”
 CHAPTER VIII.
A NEW EXPLORATION—RETURN OF SPRING.
The month of April was about to close, and the short season
available for Arctic search was upon us. The condition of things on
board the brig was not such as I could have wished for; but there
was nothing to exact my presence, and it seemed to me clear that
the time had come for pressing on the work of the expedition. The
arrangements for our renewed exploration had not been intermitted,
and were soon complete. I leave to my journal its own story.
“April 25.—A journey on the carpet, and the crew busy with the
little details of their outfit: the officers the same.
“April 26.—These Esquimaux must be watched carefully; at the
same time they are to be dealt with kindly, though with a strict
enforcement of our police regulations, and some caution as to the
freedom with which they may come on board. No punishments must
be permitted, either of them or in their presence, and no resort to
fire-arms unless to repel a serious attack. I have given orders
however, that if the contingency does occur, there shall be no firing
over head. The prestige of the gun with a savage is in his notion of
its infallibility. You may spare blood-shed by killing a dog, or even
wounding him; but in no event should you throw away your ball it is
neither politic nor humane.
“Our stowage precautions are all arranged, to meet the chance of
the ice breaking up while I am away; and a boat is placed ashore
with stores, as the brig may be forced from her moorings.
“The worst thought I have now in setting out is, that of the entire
crew I can leave but two behind in able condition, and the doctor
and Bonsall are the only two officers who can help Ohlsen. This is
our force, four able-bodied, and six disabled, to keep the brig; the
commander and seven men, scarcely better upon the average, out
upon the ice. Eighteen souls, thank God! certainly not eighteen
bodies!
“I am going this time to follow the ice-belt to the Great Glacier of
Humboldt, and there load up with pemmican from our cache of last
October. From this point I expect to stretch along the face of the
glacier inclining to the west of north, and make an attempt to cross
the ice to the American side. Once on smooth ice, near this shore, I
may pass to the west, and enter the large indentation whose
existence I can infer with nearly positive certainty. In this I may find
an outlet, and determine the state of things beyond the ice-clogged
area of this bay.
“I take with me pemmican, bread, and tea, a canvas tent, five
feet by six, and two sleeping bags of reindeer-skin. The sledge has
been built on board by Mr Ohlsen. It is very light, of hickory, and but
nine feet long. Our kitchen is a soup-kettle for melting snow and
making tea, arranged so as to boil with either lard or spirits.
“M’Gary has taken the Faith. He carries few stores, intending to
replenish at the cache of Bonsall Point, and to lay in pemmican at
M’Gary Island. Most of his cargo consists of bread, which we find it
hard to dispense with in eating cooked food. It has a good effect in
absorbing the fat of the pemmican, which is apt to disagree with the
stomach.”
Godfrey and myself followed on the 27th, as I had A New Start
intended. The journey was an arduous one to be
undertaken, even under the most favouring circumstances, and by
unbroken men. It was to be the crowning expedition of the
campaign, to attain the Ultima Thule of the Greenland shore,
measure the waste that lay between it and the unknown West, and
seek round the furthest circle of the ice for an outlet to the
mysterious channels beyond. The scheme could not be carried out in
its details; yet it was prosecuted far enough to indicate what must
be our future fields of labour, and to determine many points of
geographical interest. Our observations were in general confirmatory
of those which had been made by Mr Bonsall; and they accorded so
well with our subsequent surveys as to trace for us the outline of the
coast with great certainty.
“It is now the 20th of May, and for the first time I am able,
propped up by pillows and surrounded by sick messmates, to note
the fact that we have failed again to force the passage to the north.
“Godfrey and myself overtook the advance party under M’Gary
two days after leaving the brig. Our dogs were in fair travelling
condition, and, except snow-blindness, there seemed to be no
drawback to our efficiency. In crossing Marshall Bay we found the
snow so accumulated in drifts that, with all our efforts to pick out a
track, we became involved; we could not force our sledges through.
We were forced to unload, and carry forward the cargo on our
backs, beating a path for the dogs to follow in. In this way we
plodded on to the opposite headland, Cape William Wood, where the
waters of Mary Minturn River, which had delayed the freezing of the
ice, gave us a long reach of level travel. We then made a better rate;
and our days’ marches were such as to carry us by the 4th of May
nearly to the glacier.
“This progress, however, was dearly earned. As early as the 3d of
May the winter’s scurvy re-appeared painfully among our party. As
we struggled through the snow along the Greenland coast we sank
up to our middle; and the dogs, floundering about, were so buried
as to preclude any attempts at hauling. Here three of the party were
taken with snow-blindness, and George Stephenson had to be
condemned as unfit for travel altogether, on account of chest-
symptoms accompanying his scorbutic troubles. On the 4th Thomas
Hickey also gave in, although not quite disabled for labour at the
track-lines.
 “Perhaps we would still have got on; but, to crown all, we found
that the bears had effected an entrance into our pemmican casks,
and destroyed our chances of reinforcing our provisions at the
several caches. This great calamity was certainly inevitable; for it is
simple justice to the officers under whose charge the provision
depôts were constructed, to say that no means in their power could
have prevented the result. The pemmican was covered with blocks
of stone, which it had required the labour of three men to adjust;
but the extraordinary strength of the bear had enabled him to force
aside the heaviest rocks, and his pawing had broken the iron casks
which held our pemmican literally into chips. Our alcohol cask, which
it had cost me a separate and special journey in the late fall to
deposit, was so completely destroyed that we could not find a stave
of it.
“Off Cape James Kent, about eight miles from More Misfortunes
‘Sunny Gorge,’ while taking an observation for
latitude, I was myself seized with a sudden pain, and fainted. My
limbs became rigid, and certain obscure tetanoid symptoms of our
late winter’s enemy disclosed themselves. In this condition I was
unable to make more than nine miles a day. I was strapped upon the
sledge, and the march continued as usual; but my powers
diminished so rapidly that I could not resist even the otherwise
comfortable temperament of 5° below zero. My left foot becoming
frozen, caused a vexatious delay; and the same night it became
evident that the immovability of my limbs was due to dropsical
effusion.
“On the 5th, becoming delirious, and fainting every time that I
was taken from the tent to the sledge, I succumbed entirely.
“The scurvy had already broken out among the men, with
symptoms like my own; and Morton, our strongest man, was
beginning to give way. It is the reverse of comfort to me that they
shared my weakness. All that I should remember with pleasurable
feeling is, that to five brave men,—Morton, Riley, Hickey,
Stephenson, and Hans, themselves scarcely able to travel,—I owe
my preservation. They carried me back by forced marches, and I
was taken into the brig on the 14th. Since then, fluctuating between
life and death, I have by the blessing of God reached the present
date, and see feebly in prospect my recovery. Dr Hayes regards my
attack as one of scurvy, complicated by typhoid fever. George
Stephenson is similarly affected. Our worst symptoms are dropsical
effusion and night-sweats.
“May 22.—Let me, if I can, make up my record for the time I
have been away, or on my back.
“Poor Schubert is gone. Our gallant, merry-hearted companion
left us some ten days ago, for, I trust, a more genial world. It is sad,
in this dreary little homestead of ours, to miss his contented face
and the joyous troll of his ballads.
“The health of the rest has, if anything, improved. Their
complexions show the influence of sunlight, and I think several have
a firmer and more elastic step. Stephenson and Thomas are the only
two beside myself who are likely to suffer permanently from the
effects of our breakdown. Bad scurvy both: symptoms still serious.
“I left Hans as hunter. I gave him a regular exemption from all
other labour, and a promised present to his lady-love on reaching
Fiskernaes. He signalised his promotion by shooting two deer,
Tukkuk, the first yet shot. We have now on hand one hundred and
forty-five pounds of venison, a very gift of grace to our diseased
crew. But, indeed, we are not likely to want for wholesome food,
now that the night is gone, which made our need of it so pressing.
On the first of May those charming little migrants, the snow-birds,
ultima cælicolum, which only left us on the 4th of November,
returned to our ice-crusted rocks, whence they seem to ‘fill the sea
and air with their sweet jargoning.’ Seal literally abound, too. I have
learned to prefer this flesh to the reindeer’s, at least that of the
female seal, which has not the fetor of her mate’s.
 “By the 12th, the sides of the Advance were free from snow, and
her rigging clean and dry. The floe is rapidly undergoing its
wonderful processes of decay, and the level ice measures but six
feet in thickness. To-day they report a burgomaster-gull seen, one of
the earliest but surest indications of returning open water. It is not
strange, ice-leaguered exiles as we are, that we observe and exult in
these things. They are the pledges of renewed life, the olive-branch
of this dreary waste: we feel the spring in all our pulses.
“The first thing I did after my return was to send M’Gary to the
Life-boat Cove, to see that our boat and its buried provisions were
secure. He made the journey by dog-sledge in four days, and has
returned reporting that all is safe—an important help for us, should
this heavy ice of our more northern prison refuse to release us.
“But the pleasantest feature of his journey was the disclosure of
open water, extending up in a sort of tongue, with a trend of north
by east to within two miles of Refuge Harbour, and there widening
as it expanded to the south and west.
“As soon as I had recovered enough to be aware of More Difficulties
my failure, I began to devise means for remedying it.
But I found the resources of the party shattered. Pierre had died but
a week before, and his death exerted an unfavourable influence.
There were only three men able to do duty. Of the officers, Wilson,
Brooks, Sontag, and Petersen, were knocked up. There was no one
except Sontag, Hayes, or myself who was qualified to conduct a
survey; and, of us three, Dr Hayes was the only one on his feet.
“The quarter to which our remaining observations were to be
directed lay to the north and east of the Cape Sabine of Captain
Inglefield. The interruption our progress along the coast of
Greenland had met from the Great Glacier, and destruction of our
provision-caches by the bears, left a blank for us of the entire
northern coast-line. It was necessary to ascertain whether the
farthermost expansion of Smith’s Strait did not find an outlet in still
more remote channels.
 “I determined to trust almost entirely to the dogs for our travel in
the future, and to send our parties of exploration, one after the
other, as rapidly as the strength and refreshing of our team would
permit.
“Dr Hayes was selected for that purpose; and I satisfied myself
that, with a little assistance from my comrades, I could be carried
round to the cots of the sick, and so avail myself of his services in
the field.
“He was a perfectly fresh man, not having yet undertaken a
journey. I gave him a team and my best driver, William Godfrey. He
is to cross Smith’s Straits above the inlet, and make as near as may
be a straight course for Cape Sabine. My opinion is, that by keeping
well south he will find the ice less clogged and easier sledging. Our
experience proves, I think, that the transit of this broken area must
be most impeded as we approach the glacier. The immense
discharge of icebergs cannot fail to break it up seriously for travel.
“I gave him the small sledge which was built by Ohlsen. The
snow was sufficiently thawed to make it almost unnecessary to use
fire as a means of obtaining water; they could therefore dispense
with tallow or alcohol, and were able to carry pemmican in larger
quantities. Their sleeping-bags were a very neat article of a light
reindeer-skin. The dogs were in excellent condition too—no longer
foot-sore, but well rested and completely broken, including the four
from the Esquimaux, animals of great power and size. Two of these,
the stylish leaders of the team, a span of thoroughly wolfish iron-
greys, have the most powerful and wild-beast-like bound that I have
seen in animals of their kind.
“I made up the orders of the party on the 19th, the first day that
I was able to mature a plan; and with commendable zeal they left
the brig on the 20th.
“May 23.—They have had superb weather, thank heaven!—a
profusion of the most genial sunshine, bringing out the seals in
crowds to bask around their breathing-holes. Winter has gone!
“May 26.—I get little done; but I have too much to attend to in
my weak state to journalise. Thermometer above freezing-point,
without the sun to-day.
“May 27.—Everything showing that the summer-changes have
commenced. The ice is rapidly losing its integrity, and a melting
snow has fallen for the last two days,—one of those comforting
home-snows that we have not seen for so long.
“May 28.—Our day of rest and devotion. It was a Pierre Schubert
fortnight ago last Friday since our poor friend Pierre
died. For nearly two months he had been struggling against the
enemy with a resolute will and mirthful spirit, that seemed sure of
victory; but he sunk in spite of them.
“The last offices were rendered to him with the same careful
ceremonial that we observed at Baker’s funeral. There were fewer to
walk in the procession; but the body was encased in a decent pine
coffin, and carried to Observatory Island, where it was placed side
by side with that of his messmate. Neither could yet be buried; but it
is hardly necessary to say that the frost has embalmed their
remains. Dr Hayes read the chapter from Job which has consigned
so many to their last resting-place, and a little snow was sprinkled
upon the face of the coffin. Pierre was a volunteer not only of our
general expedition, but of the party with which he met his death-
blow. He was a gallant man, a universal favourite on board, always
singing some Béranger ballad or other, and so elastic in his
merriment, that even in his last sickness he cheered all that were
about him.
“May 30.—We are gleaning fresh water from the rocks, and the
icebergs begin to show commencing streamlets. The great floe is no
longer a Sahara, if still a desert. The floes are wet, and their snow
dissolve readily under the warmth of the foot, and the old floe
begins to shed fresh water into its hollows. Puddles of salt water
collect around the ice-foot. It is now hardly recognisable,—rounded,
sunken, broken up with water-pools overflowing its base. Its
diminished crusts are so percolated by the saline tides, that neither
tables nor broken fragments unite any longer by freezing. It is
lessening so rapidly that we do not fear it any longer as an enemy to
the brig. The berg indeed vanished long before the sun-
thermometers indicated a noon temperature above 32°.
“Seal grow still more numerous on the level floes, lying cautiously
in the sun beside their breathing-holes. By means of the Esquimaux
stratagem of a white screen pushed forward on a sledge until the
concealed hunter comes within range, Hans has shot four of them.
We have more fresh meat than we can eat. For the past three weeks
we have been living on ptarmigan, rabbits, two reindeer, and seal.
“They are fast curing our scurvy. With all these resources, coming
to our relief so suddenly too, how can my thoughts turn despairingly
to poor Franklin and his crew?
“Can they have survived? No man can answer with certainty; but
no man without presumption can answer in the negative.
“If, four months ago,—surrounded by darkness and bowed down
by disease,—I had been asked the question, I would have turned
toward the black hills and the frozen sea, and responded in
sympathy with them, ‘No.’ But with the return of light a savage
people come down upon us, destitute of any but the rudest
appliances of the chase, who were fattening on the most wholesome
diet of the region, only forty miles from our anchorage, while I was
denouncing its scarcity.”
 CHAPTER IX.
ADVENT OF THE SECOND YEAR.
“Map 30, 1854.—It is a year ago to-day since we left New York. I am
not as sanguine as I was then: time and experience have chastened
me. There is everything about me to check enthusiasm and
moderate hope. I am here in forced inaction, a broken-down man,
oppressed by cares, with many dangers before me, and still under
the shadow of a hard wearing winter, which has crushed two of my
best associates. Here, on the spot, after two unavailing expeditions
of search, I hold my opinions unchanged; and I record them as a
matter of duty upon a manuscript which may speak the truth when I
can do so no longer.
“June 1.—At ten o’clock this morning the wail of the The Dogs
dogs outside announced the return of Dr Hayes and William
Godfrey. Both of them were completely snow-blind, and the doctor
had to be led to my bedside to make his report. In fact, so
exhausted was he, that in spite of my anxiety I forbore to question
him until he had rested. I venture to say, that both he and his
companion well remember their astonishing performance over
stewed-apples and seal-meat.
“The dogs were not so foot-sore as might have been expected;
but two of them, including poor little Jenny, were completely
knocked up. All attention was bestowed on indispensable essentials
of Arctic search, and soon they were more happy than their
masters.”
Dr Hayes had made a due north line on leaving the brig; but,
encountering the “squeezed ices” of my own party in March, he
wisely worked to the eastward.
 On the 22d he encountered a wall of hummocks, exceeding
twenty feet in height, and extending in a long line to the north-east.
After vain attempts to force them, becoming embarrassed in
fragmentary ice,—worn, to use his own words, into “deep pits and
valleys,”—he was obliged to camp, surrounded by masses of the
wildest character, some of them thirty feet in height.
The next three days were spent in struggles through this broken
plain; fogs sometimes embarrassed them, but at intervals land could
be seen to the north-west. On the 27th they reached the north side
of the bay, passing over but few miles of new and unbroken floe.
Dr Hayes told me, that in many places they could not have
advanced a step but for the dogs. Deep cavities filled with snow
intervened between lines of ice-barricades, making their travel as
slow and tedious as the same obstructions had done to the party of
poor Brooks before their eventful rescue last March.
His journal entry, referring to the 23d, while tangled in the ice,
says, “I was so snow-blind that I could not see; and as riding, owing
to the jaded condition of the dogs, was seldom possible, we were
obliged to lay-to.”
It was not until the 25th that their eyesight was sufficiently
restored to enable them to push on. In these devious and untrodden
ice-fields, even the instinct of the dogs would have been of little
avail to direct their course. It was well for the party that during this
compulsory halt the temperatures were mild and endurable.
On the 26th, disasters accumulated. William Godfrey, one of the
sturdiest travellers, broke down; and the dogs, the indispensable
reliance of the party, were in bad working trim. The rude harness,
always apt to become tangled and broken, had been mended so
often, and with such imperfect means, as to be scarcely serviceable.
This evil would seem the annoyance of an hour to Sledge Trappings
the travellers in a stage-coach, but to a sledge-party
on the ice-waste it is the gravest that can be conceived. The
Esquimaux dog is driven by a single trace, a long thin thong of seal
or walrus hide, which passes from his chest over his haunches to the
sledge. The team is always driven abreast, and the traces are of
course tangling and twisting themselves up incessantly, as the half-
wild or terrified brutes bound right or left from their prescribed
positions. The consequence is, that the seven or nine or fourteen
lines have a marvellous aptitude at knotting themselves up beyond
the reach of skill and patience. If the weather is warm enough to
thaw the snow, they become utterly soft and flaccid, and the naked
hand, if applied ingeniously, may dispense with a resort to the
Gordian process; but in the severe cold, such as I experienced in my
winter journeys of 1854, the knife is often the only appliance,—an
unsafe one if invoked too often, for every new attachment shortens
your harness, and you may end by drawing your dogs so close that
they cannot pull. I have been obliged to halt and camp on the open
flee, till I could renew enough of warmth and energy and patience to
disentangle the knots of my harness.
It was only after appropriating an undue share of his kin
breeches that the leader of the party succeeded in patching up his
mutilated dog-lines. He was rewarded, however, for he shortly after
found an old floe, over which his sledge passed happily to the north
coast. It was the first time that any of our parties had succeeded in
penetrating the area to the north. The ice had baffled three
organized foot-parties. It would certainly never have been traversed
without the aid of dogs; but it is equally certain that the effort must
again have failed, even with their aid, but for the energy and
determination of Dr Hayes, and the endurance of his partner, William
Godfrey.
The party spent the 28th in mending the sledge, which was
completely broken, and feeding up their dogs for a renewal of the
journey. But, their provisions being limited, Dr Hayes did not deem
himself justified in continuing to the north. He determined to follow
and survey the coast toward Cape Sabine.
 His pemmican was reduced to eighteen pounds; there was
apparently no hope of deriving resources from the hunt; and the
coasts were even more covered with snow than those he had left on
the southern side. His return was a thing of necessity.
Most providentially they found the passage home free from
bergs; but their provisions were nearly gone, and their dogs were
exhausted. They threw away their sleeping-bags, which were of
reindeer-skin and weighed about twelve pounds each, and
abandoned, besides, clothing enough to make up a reduction in
weight of nearly fifty pounds. With their load so lightened, they were
enabled to make good the crossing of the bay. They landed at Peter
Force Bay, and reached the brig on the 1st of June.
This journey connected the northern coast with the former
surveys; but it disclosed no channel or any form of exit from this
bay.
It convinced me, however, that such a channel must exist; for
this great curve could be no cul-de-sac. Even were my observations
since my first fall-journey of September 1853, not decisive on this
head, the general movement of the icebergs, the character of the
tides, and the equally sure analogies of physical geography, would
point unmistakably to such a conclusion.
To verify it, I at once commenced the The North-east Party
organization of a double party. This, which is
called in my Report the North-east Party, was to be assisted by dogs,
but was to be subsisted as far as the Great Glacier by provisions
carried by a foot-party in advance.
For the continuation of my plans I again refer to my journal.
“June 2.—There is still this hundred miles wanting to the north-
west to complete our entire circuit of this frozen water. This is to be
the field for our next party. I am at some loss how to organize it. For
myself, I am down with scurvy. Dr Hayes is just from the field, worn-
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