American Merchant Ships and Sailors by Willis J. Abbot

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"Our breakfast was a thin pea-soup, with seal blubber, and a small
quantity of preserved potatoes. Later two cans of cloudberries were served
to each mess, and at half-past one o'clock Long and Frederick commenced
cooking dinner, which consisted of a seal stew, containing seal blubber,
preserved potatoes and bread, flavored with pickled onions; then came a
kind of rice pudding, with raisins, seal blubber, and condensed milk.
Afterward we had chocolate, followed later by a kind of punch made of a
gill of rum and a quarter of a lemon to each man.... Everybody was
required to sing a song or tell a story, and pleasant conversation with
the expression of kindly feelings, was kept up until midnight."

[Illustration: AN ARCTIC HOUSE]

But that comparative plenty and good cheer did not last long. In a few
weeks the unhappy men, or such as still clung to life, were living on a
few shrimps, pieces of sealskin boots, lichens, and even more offensive
food. The shortening of the ration, and the resulting hunger, broke down
the moral sense of some, and by one device or another, food was stolen.
Only two or three were guilty of this crime--an execrable one in such an
emergency--and one of these, Private Henry, was shot by order of
Lieutenant Greely toward the end of the winter. Even before Christmas,
casualties which would have been avoided, had the party been
well-nourished and strong, began. Ellison, in making a gallant dash for
the cache at Isabella, was overcome by cold and fatigue, and froze both
his hands and feet so that in time they dropped off. Only the tender care
of Frederick, who was with him, and the swift rush of Lockwood and
Brainard to his aid, saved him from death. It tells a fine story of the
unselfish devotion of the men, that this poor wreck, maimed and helpless,
so that he had to be fed, and incapable of performing one act in his own
service, should have been nursed throughout the winter, fed with double
portions, and actually saved living until the rescue party arrived, while
many of those who cared for him yielded up their lives. The first to die
was Cross, of scurvy and starvation, and he was buried in a shallow grave
near the hut, all hands save Ellison turning out to honor his memory.
Though the others clung to life with amazing tenacity, illness began to
make inroads upon them, the gallant Lockwood, for example, spending weeks
in Greely's sleeping bag, his mind wandering, his body utterly exhausted.
But it was April before the second death occurred--one of the Esquimaux.
"Action of water on the heart caused by insufficient nutrition," was the
doctor's verdict--in a word, but a word all dreaded to hear, starvation.

Thereafter the men went fast. In a day or two Christiansen, an Esquimau,
died. Rice, the sharer of his sleeping bag, was forced to spend a night
enveloped in a bag with the dead body. The next day he started on a
sledging trip to seek some beef cached by the English years earlier.
Before the errand was completed, he, too, died, freezing to death in the
arms of his companion, Frederick, who held him tenderly until the last,
and stripped himself to the shirtsleeves in the icy blast, to warm his
dying comrade. Then Lockwood died--the hero of the Farthest North; then
Jewell. Jens, the untiring Esquimau hunter, was drowned, his kayak being
cut by the sharp edge of a piece of ice. Ellis, Whisler, Israel, the
astronomer, and Dr. Pavy, the surgeon, one by one, passed away.

But why continue the pitiful chronicle? To tell the story in detail is
impossible here--to tell it baldly and hurriedly, means to omit from it
all that makes the narrative of the last days of the Greely expedition
worth reading; the unflagging courage of most of the men, the high sense
of honor that characterized them, the tenderness shown to the sick and
helpless, the pluck and endurance of Long and Brainard, the fierce
determination of Greely, that come what might, the records of his
expedition should be saved, and its honor bequeathed unblemished to the
world. And so through suffering and death, despairing perhaps, but never
neglecting through cowardice or lethargy, any expedient for winning the
fight against death, the party, daily growing smaller, fought its way on
through winter and spring, until that memorable day in June, when Colwell
cut open the tent and saw, as the first act of the rescued sufferers, two
haggard, weak, and starving men pouring all that was left of the brandy,
down the throat of one a shade more haggard and weak than they.

Men of English lineage are fond of telling the story of the meeting of
Stanley and Dr. Livingston in the depths of the African jungle. For years
Livingston had disappeared from the civilized world. Everywhere
apprehension was felt lest he had fallen a victim to the ferocity of the
savages, or to the pestilential climate. The world rung with speculations
concerning his fate. Stanley, commissioned to solve the mystery, by the
same America journalist who sent DeLong into the Arctic, had cut his path
through the savages and the jungle, until at the door of a hut in a
clearing, he saw a white man who could be none but him whom he sought, for
in all that dark and gloomy forest there was none other of white skin.
Then Anglo-Saxon stolidity asserted itself. Men of Latin race would have
rushed into each others' arms with loud rejoicings. Not so these twain.

"Dr. Livingston, I believe," said the newcomer, with the air of greeting
an acquaintance on Fifth Avenue. "I am Mr. Stanley."

"I am glad to see you," was the response, and it might have taken place in
a drawing-room for all the emotion shown by either man.

[Illustration: AN ESQUIMAU]

That was a dramatic meeting in the tropical jungles, but history will not
give second place to the encounter of the advance guard of the Greely
relief expedition with the men they sought. The story is told with
dramatic directness in Commander (now Admiral) Schley's book, "The Rescue
of Greely."

"It was half-past eight in the evening as the cutter steamed around the
rocky bluff of Cape Sabine, and made her way to the cove, four miles
further on, which Colwell remembered so well.... The storm which had been
raging with only slight intervals since early the day before, still kept
up, and the wind was driving in bitter gusts through the opening in the
ridge that followed the coast to the westward. Although the sky was
overcast it was broad daylight--the daylight of a dull winter
afternoon.... At last the boat arrived at the site of the wreck cache, and
the shore was eagerly scanned, but nothing could be seen. Rounding the
next point, the cutter opened out the cove beyond. There on the top of a
little ridge, fifty or sixty yards above the ice-foot, was plainly
outlined the figure of a man. Instantly the coxswain caught up his
boathook and waved his flag. The man on the ridge had seen them, for he
stooped, picked up a signal flag, and waved it in reply. Then he was seen
coming slowly and cautiously down the steep rocky slope. Twice he fell
down before he reached the foot. As he approached, still walking slowly
and with difficulty, Colwell hailed him from the bow of the boat.

"'Who all are there left?'

"'Seven left.'

"As the cutter struck the ice Colwell jumped off, and went up to him. He
was a ghastly sight. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes wild, his hair and
beard long and matted. His army blouse, covering several thicknesses of
shirts and jackets, was ragged and dirty. He wore a little fur cap and
rough moccasins of untanned leather tied around the leg. As he spoke his
utterance was thick and mumbling, and in his agitation his jaws worked in
convulsive twitches. As the two met, the man, with a sudden impulse, took
off his gloves and shook Colwell's hand.

"'Where are they?' asked Colwell, briefly.

"'In the tent,' said the man, pointing over his shoulder, 'over the
hill--the tent's down.'

"'Is Mr. Greely alive?'

"'Yes, Greely's alive.'

"'Any other officers?'

"'No.' Then he repeated absently, 'The tent's down.'

"'Who are you?'

"'Long.'

"Before this colloquy was over Lowe and Norman had started up the hill.
Hastily filling his pockets with bread, and taking the two cans of
pemmican, Colwell told the coxswain to take Long into the cutter, and
started after the others with Ash. Reaching the crest of the ridge and
looking southward, they saw spread out before them a desolate expanse of
rocky ground, sloping gradually from a ridge on the east to the ice-bound
shore, which on the west made in and formed a cove. Back of the level
space was a range of hills rising up eight hundred feet with a precipitous
face, broken in two by a gorge, through which the wind was blowing
furiously. On a little elevation directly in front was the tent. Hurrying
on across the intervening hollow, Colwell came up with Lowe and Norman
just as they were greeting a soldierly-looking man who had come out of the
tent.

"As Colwell approached, Norman was saying to the man: 'There is the
Lieutenant.'

"And he added to Lieutenant Colwell:

"'This is Sergeant Brainard.'

"Brainard immediately drew himself up to the position of the soldier, and
was about to salute, when Colwell took his hand.

"At this moment there was a confused murmur within the tent, and a voice
said: 'Who's there?'

"Norman answered, 'It's Norman--Norman who was in the "Proteus."'

"This was followed by cries of 'Oh, it's Norman,' and a sound like a
feeble cheer.

"Meanwhile one of the relief party, who in his agitation and excitement
was crying like a child, was down on his knees trying to roll away the
stones that held the flapping tent-cloth.... Colwell called for a knife,
cut a slit in the tent-cover, and looked in. It was a sight horror. On one
side, close to the opening, with his face toward the opening, lay what was
apparently a dead man. His jaw had dropped, his eyes were open, but fixed
and glassy, his limbs were motionless. On the opposite side was a poor
fellow, alive to be sure, but without hands or feet, and with a spoon tied
to the stump of his right arm. Two others, seated on the ground in the
middle, had just got down a rubber bottle that hung on the tent pole, and
were pouring from it into a tin can. Directly opposite, on his hands and
knees, was a dark man, with a long matted beard, in a dirty and tattered
dressing-gown, with a little red tattered skull-cap on his head, and
brilliant, staring eyes. As Colwell appeared he raised himself a little
and put on a pair of eye-glasses.

"'Who are you?' asked Colwell.

"The man made no reply, staring at him vacantly.

"'Who are you?' again.

"One of the men spoke up. 'That's the Major--Major Greely."

"Colwell crawled in and took him by the hand, saying: 'Greely, is this
you?'

"'Yes,' said Greely in a faint voice, hesitating and shuffling with his
words, 'yes--seven of us left--here we are--dying--like men. Did what I
came to do--beat the best record.'

"Then he fell back exhausted."

Slowly and cautiously the men were nursed back to life and health--all
save poor Ellison, whose enfeebled constitution could not stand the shock
of the necessary amputation of his mutilated limbs. The nine bodies
buried in the shallow graves were exhumed and taken to the ship, Private
Henry's body being found lying where it fell at the moment of his
execution. At that time the castaways were too feeble to give even hasty
sepulture to their dead. A horrible circumstance, reported by Commander
Schley himself, was that the flesh of many of the bodies was cut from the
bones--by whom, and for what end of cannibalism, can only be conjectured.

Following the disaster to the Greely expedition, came a period of lethargy
in polar exploration, and when the work was taken up again, it was in ways
foreign to the purpose of this book. Foreigners for a time led in
activity, and in 1895 Fridjof Nansen in his drifting ship, the "Fram,"
attained the then farthest North, latitude 86 deg. 14', while Rudolph
Andree, in 1897, put to the test the desperate expedient of setting out
for the Pole in a balloon from Dane's Island, Spitzbergen; but the wind
that bore him swiftly out of sight, has never brought back again tidings
of his achievement or his fate. Nansen's laurels were wrested from him in
1900 by the Duke of Abruzzi, who reached 86 deg. 33' north. The stories of
these brave men are fascinating and instructive, but they are no part of
the story of the American sailor. Indeed, the sailor is losing his
importance as an explorer in the Arctic. It has become clear enough to all
that it is not to be a struggle between stout ships and crushing ice, but
rather a test of the endurance of men and dogs, pushing forward over solid
floes of heaped and corrugated ice, toward the long-sought goal. Two
Americans in late years have made substantial progress toward the conquest
of the polar regions. Mr. Walter Wellman, an eminent journalist, has made
two efforts to reach the Pole, but met with ill-luck and disaster in each,
though in the first he attained to latitude 81 deg. to the northeast of
Spitzbergen, and in the second he discovered and named many new islands
about Franz Josef Land. Most pertinacious of all the American explorers,
however, has been Lieutenant Robert E. Peary, U.S.N., who since 1886, has
been going into the frozen regions whenever the opportunity offered--and
when none offered he made one. His services in exploration and in mapping
out the land and seas to the north of Greenland have been of the greatest
value to geographical science, and at the moment of writing this book he
is wintering at Cape Sabine, where the Greely survivors were found,
awaiting the coming of summer to make a desperate dash for the goal,
sought for a century, but still secure in its wintry fortifications, the
geographical Pole. Nor is he wholly alone, either in his ambition or his
patience. Evelyn B. Baldwin, a native of Illinois, with an expedition
equipped by William Zeigler, of New York, and made up of Americans, is
wintering at Alger Island, near Franz Josef Land, awaiting the return of
the sun to press on to the northward. It is within the bounds of
possibility that before this volume is fairly in the hands of its
readers, the fight may be won and the Stars and Stripes wave over that
mysterious spot that has awakened the imagination and stimulated the
daring of brave men of all nations.

CHAPTER VII.

THE GREAT LAKES--THEIR SHARE IN THE MARITIME TRAFFIC OF THE UNITED
STATES--THE EARLIEST RECORDED VOYAGERS--INDIANS AND FUR TRADERS--THE PIGMY
CANAL AT THE SAULT STE. MARIE--BEGINNINGS OF NAVIGATION BY SAILS--DE LA
SALLE AND THE "GRIFFIN"--RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY LAKE SEAMEN--THE LAKES AS
A HIGHWAY FOR WESTWARD EMIGRATION--THE FIRST STEAMBOAT--EFFECT OF MINERAL
DISCOVERIES ON LAKE SUPERIOR--THE ORE-CARRYING FLEET--THE WHALEBACKS--THE
SEAMEN OF THE LAKES--THE GREAT CANAL AT THE "SOO"--THE CHANNEL TO
BUFFALO--BARRED OUT FROM THE OCEAN.

In the heart of the North American Continent, forming in part the boundary
line between the United States and the British possessions to the north,
lies that chain of great freshwater lakes bordered by busy and rapidly
growing commonwealths, washing the water-fronts of rich and populous
cities, and bearing upon their steely blue bosoms a commerce which outdoes
that of the Mediterranean in the days of its greatest glory. The old salt,
the able seaman who has rounded the Horn, the skipper who has stood
unflinchingly at the helm while the green seas towered over the stern,
looks with contempt upon the fresh-water sailor and his craft. Not so the
man of business or the statesman. The growth of lake traffic has been one
of the most marvelous and the most influential factors in the industrial
development of the United States. By it has been systematized and brought
to the highest form of organization the most economical form of freight
carriage in the world. Through it has been made possible the enormous
reduction in the price of American steel that has enabled us to invade
foreign markets, and promises to so reduce the cost of our ships, that we
may be able to compete again in ship-building, with the yards of the Clyde
and the Tyne. Along the shores of these unsalted seas, great shipyards are
springing up, that already build ships more cheaply than can be done
anywhere else in the world, and despite the obstacles of shallow canals,
and the treacherous channels of the St. Lawrence, have been able to build
and send to tidewater, ocean ships in competition with the seacoast
builders. The present of the lake marine is secure; its future is full of
promise. Its story, if lacking in the elements of romance that attend upon
the ocean's story, is well worth telling.

A decade more than two centuries ago a band of Iroquois Indians made their
way in bark canoes from Lake Ontario up Lake Erie to the Detroit River,
across Lake St. Clair, and thence through Lake Huron to Point Iroquois.
They were the first navigators of the Great Lakes, and that they were not
peace-loving boatmen, is certain from the fact that they traveled all
these miles of primeval waterway for the express purpose of battle.
History records that they had no difficulty in bringing on a combat with
the Illinois tribes, and in an attempt to displace the latter from Point
Iroquois, the invaders were destroyed after a six-days' battle.

It is still a matter of debate among philosophical historians, whether
war, trade, or missionary effort has done the more toward opening the
strange, wild places of the world. Each, doubtless, has done its part, but
we shall find in the story of the Great Lakes, that the war canoes of the
savages were followed by the Jesuit missionaries, and these in turn by the
bateaux of the voyageurs employed by the Hudson Bay Company.

After the Iroquois had learned the way, trips of war canoes up and down
the lakes, were annual occurrences, and warfare was almost perpetual. In
1680 the Iroquois, 700 strong, invaded Illinois, killed 1200 of the tribe
there established, and drove the rest beyond the Mississippi. For years
after the Iroquois nation were the rulers of the water-front between Lake
Erie and Lake Huron. While this tribe was in undisputed possession,
commerce had little to do with the navigation of the Great Lakes. The
Indians went up and down the shores on long hunting trips, but war was the
principal business, and every canoe was equipped for a fray at any time.

A story is told of a great naval battle that was fought on Lake Erie,
nearly two centuries before the first steamer made its appearance on that
placid water. A Wyandot prince, so the tale goes, fell in love with a
beautiful princess of the Seneca tribe, who was the promised bride of a
chief of her own nation. The warrior failed to win the heart of the dusky
maiden, and goaded to desperation, entered the Senecas country by night,
and carried off the lady. War immediately followed, and was prosecuted
with great cruelty and slaughter for a long time. At last a final battle
was fought, in which the Wyandots were worsted and forced to flee in great
haste. The fugitives planned to cross the ice of the Straits (Detroit)
River, but found it broken up and floating down stream. Their only
alternative was to throw themselves on the floating ice and leap from cake
to cake; they thus made their escape to the Canadian shore, and joined the
tribes of the Pottawatomies, Ottawas, and Chippewas. A year later the
Wyandots, equipped with light birch canoes, set out to defeat the Senecas,
and succeeded in inducing them to give combat on the water. The Senecas
made a fatal mistake and came out to meet the enemy in their
clumsily-constructed boats hollowed out of the trunks of trees. After
much maneuvering the birch canoe fleet proceeded down Lake Erie to the
head of Long Point, with the Senecas in hot pursuit. In the center of the
lake the Wyandots turned and gave the Senecas so hot a reception that they
were forced to flee, but could not make good their escape in their clumsy
craft, and were all slain but one man, who was allowed to return and
report the catastrophe to his own nation. This closed the war.

Legends are preserved that lead to the belief that there may have been
navigators of the Great Lakes before the Indians, and it is generally
believed that the latter were not the first occupants of the Lake Superior
region. It is said that the Lake Superior country was frequently visited
by a barbaric race, for the purpose of obtaining copper, and it is quite
possible that these people may have been skilled navigators.

[Illustration: THE WOODEN BATEAUX OF THE FUR TRADERS ]

Commercial navigation of the Great Lakes, curiously enough, first assumed
importance in the least accessible portion. The Hudson Bay Company, always
extending its territory toward the northwest, sent its bateaux and canoes
into Lake Superior early in the seventeenth century. To accommodate this
traffic the company dug a canal around the falls of the St. Marie River,
at the point we now call "the Soo." In time this pigmy progenitor of the
busiest canal in the world, became filled with debris, and its very
existence forgotten; but some years ago a student in the thriving town of
Sault Ste. Marie, poring over some old books of the Hudson Bay Company,
noticed several references to the company's canal. What canal could it be?
His curiosity was aroused, and with the aid of the United States engineers
in charge of the new improvements, he began a painstaking investigation.
In time the line of the old ditch was discovered, and, indeed, it was no
more than a ditch, two and a half feet deep, by eight or nine wide. One
lock was built, thirty-eight feet long, with a lift of nine feet. The
floor and sills of this lock were discovered, and the United States
Government has since rebuilt it in stone, that visitors to the Soo may
turn from the massive new locks, through which steel steamships of eight
thousand tons pass all day long through the summer months, to gaze on the
strait and narrow gate which once opened the way for all the commerce of
Lake Superior. But through that gate there passed a picturesque and
historic procession. Canoes spurred along by tufted Indians with
black-robed Jesuit missionaries for passengers; the wooden bateaux of the
fur traders, built of wood and propelled by oars, and carrying gangs of
turbulent trappers and voyageurs; the company's chief factors in swift
private craft, making for the west to extend the influence of the great
corporation still further into the wilderness, all passed through the
little canal and avoided the roaring waters of the Ste. Marie. It was but
a narrow gate, but it played its part in the opening of the West.

War, which is responsible for most of the checks to civilization, whether
or not it may in some instances advance the skirmish line of civilized
peoples, destroyed the pioneer canal. For in 1812 some Americans being in
that part of the country, thought it would be a helpful contribution to
their national defense if they blew up the lock and shattered the canal,
as it was on Canadian soil. Accordingly this was done, of course without
the slightest effect on the conflict then raging, but much to the
discomfort and loss of the honest voyageurs and trappers of the Lake
Superior region, whose interest in the war could hardly have been very
serious.

So far as history records the first sailing vessel to spread its wings on
the Great Lakes beyond Niagara Falls, was the "Griffin," built by the
Chevalier de la Salle in 1679, near the point where Buffalo now stands. La
Salle had brought to this point French ship-builders and carpenters,
together with sailors, to navigate the craft when completed. It was his
purpose to proceed in this vessel to the farthest corners of the Great
Lakes, establish trading and trapping stations, and take possession of the
country in the name of France. He was himself conciliatory with the
Indians and liked by them, but jealousies among the French themselves,
stirred up savage antagonism to him, and his ship narrowly escaped burning
while still on the stocks. In August of 1679, however, she was launched, a
brigantine of sixty tons burden, mounting five small cannon and three
arquebuses. Her model is said to have been not unlike that of the caravels
in which Columbus made his famous voyage, and copies of which were
exhibited at the Columbian Exposition. Bow and stern were high and almost
alike. Yet in this clumsy craft La Salle voyaged the whole length of Lake
Erie, passed through the Detroit River, and St. Clair River and lake;
proceeded north to Mackinaw, and thence south in Lake Michigan and into
Green Bay. It was the first time any vessel under sail had entered those
waters. Maps and charts there were none. The swift rushing waters of the
Detroit River flowed smoothly over limestone reefs, which the steamers of
to-day pass cautiously, despite the Government channels, cut deep and
plainly lighted. The flats, that broad expanse of marsh permeated by a
maze of false channels above Detroit, had to be threaded with no chart or
guide. Yet the "Griffin" made St. Ignace in twenty days from having set
sail, a record which is often not equaled by lumber schooners of the
present time. From Green Bay, La Salle sent the vessel back with a cargo
of furs that would have made him rich for life, had it ever reached a
market. But the vessel disappeared, and for years nothing was heard of
her. Finally La Salle learned that a half-breed pilot, who had shown signs
of treachery on the outward trip, had persuaded the crew to run her ashore
in the Detroit River, and themselves to take the valuable cargo. But the
traitors had reckoned without the savage Indians of the neighborhood, who
also coveted the furs and pelts. While the crew were trying to dispose of
these the red men set upon them and slew them all. The "Griffin" never
again floated on the lakes.

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