HAYES, HALL AND OTHER ADVENTURERS 305 



V 



From this point the energetic explorers pushed northward, 

 though only twelve days' allowance of dog food remained. Onward 

 they went until Kennedy Channel was entered, and a point beyond 

 that attained by Morton, in Kane's expedition, was reached. At this 

 point Jansen, the strongest man in the expedition, broke down. He 

 was left in charge of Macdonald, and Hayes pushed on with Knorr, 

 the remaining member of the small party. 



His progress was checked at length by the rotten ice, which 

 proved to be impassable. Hayes had reached his ne plus ultra; he 

 had not attained latitude 82 degrees, but he had actually advanced 

 to the shore of that northernmost gulf, into which Kennedy Channel 

 opens through a broad bay. Here the ice was broken up, and water- 

 ways ramified across it, and led into the free ocean which, it may be, 

 lies beyond. Climbing to the summit of a rugged cliff about 800 

 feet in height, Hayes was rewarded for his labors and suffering by 

 a glorious prospect. Standing against the dark "water-sky" at the 

 north, rose, in dim outline, the white sloping summit of a nobk 

 headland, the northernmost known land upon the globe. He calcu- 

 lated it to be in latitude 82 degrees 30 minutes, or about four hun- 

 dred and fifty miles from the North Pole. Nearer, another bold 

 cape stood forth; and nearer, a third headland towered majestically 

 above the sea, as if pushing up into the very skies a lofty mountain- 

 peak, on which winter had dropped its diadem of snows. 



Nothing remained for him but to return as quickly as possible 

 to Port Foulke; as quickly as possible, for the summer was rapidly 

 approaching, the ice was yielding to the solar influence, and the open 

 water was eating from Kennedy Channel into the ice-masses of 

 Smith Sound in the north, as well as through Baffin Bay in the 

 south. But before turning his back on the unexplored Polar Sea, 

 he desired to erect some memorial of his adventures. Some flags 

 which he had brought with him were suspended by a whip-lash 

 between two tall rocks ; and the following record, enclosed in a small 

 glass vial, was deposited beneath a hastily-reared cairn of stones : 



