210 THE SEA. 



directing the saw could reach up and down. A little powder was used to break up the 

 pieces that were cut, so as to get them easily out of the mouth of the dock an operation 

 which the officers of our vessels performed while the men cut away with the saws. In a 

 very short time all the vessels were in safety, the pressure of the pack expending itself on 

 a chain of bergs some ten miles north of our present position. The unequal contest between 

 floe and iceberg exhibited itself there in a fearful manner; for the former, pressing onward 

 against the huge grounded masses, were torn into shreds, and thrown back piecemeal, 

 layer on layer of many feet in elevation, as if mere shreds of some flimsy material, instead 

 of solid, hard ice, every cubic yard of which weighed nearly a ton." 



They were not always so fortunate. A little later they were again beset, and escape 

 seemed hopeless. The commander, called from his berth to deck, found the vessel thrown 

 considerably over by the pressure of the ice on one side, while every timber was straining, 

 cracking, and groaning. " On reaching the deck," says Osborn, " I saw, indeed, that the 

 poor Pioneer was in sad peril : the deck was arching with the pressure on her sides, the 

 scupper pieces were turned up out of the mortices, and a quiver of agony wrung my craft's 

 frame from stem to taffrail, whilst the floe, as if impatient to overwhelm its victim, had 

 piled up as high as the bulwark in many places. The men who, whaler fashion, had without 

 orders brought their clothes on deck, ready to save their little property, stood in knots 

 waiting for directions from their officers, who, with anxious eyes, watched the floe-edge 

 as it ground past the side to see whether the strain was easing. Suddenly it did so, and 

 we were safe. But a deep dent in the Pioneer's side, extending for some forty feet, and 

 the fact, as we afterwards learned, of twenty-one timbers being broken on one side, proved 

 that the trial had been a severe one." 



After overtaking Captain Penny, Osborn learned of the former's discoveries on Beechey 

 Island, the first wintering place of Sir John Franklin, and on August 29th paid a visit 

 to the spot. "It needed not," says he, "a dark wintry sky or a gloomy day to throw 

 a sombre shade around my feelings as I landed on Beechey Island and looked down upon 

 the bay on whose bosom had ridden Her Majesty's ships U rebus and Terror. There was a 

 sickening anxiety of the heart as one involuntarily clutched at every relic which they of 

 Franklin's squadron had left behind, in the vain hope that some clue as to the route they 

 had taken hence might be found." The hope was vain : no document of any kind was 

 discovered, although a carefully constructed cairn, formed of meat-tins filled with gravel, 

 was found and carefully searched. There was the embankment of a house, with a carpenter's 

 and armourer's workshops, coal-bags, tubs, pieces of old clothing, rope, cinders, chips, &c. ; 

 the remnants of a garden, probably made in joke, but with neat borders of moss and lichens, 

 and even poppies and anemones transplanted from some more genial part of the island. 

 The graves of three of the crews of the Erebus and Terror, bearing the dates of 1845 and 

 1846, proved conclusively that the expedition had wintered there. 



Osborn's description of an Arctic dinner is interesting. " ' The pemmican is all ready, 

 sir/ reports our Soyer. In troth, appetite need wait on one, for the greasy compound 

 would pall on moderate taste or hunger. Tradition said that it was composed of the best 

 rump-steaks and suet, and cost Is. 6d. per pound. To our then untutored tastes it seemed 

 composed of broken-down horses and Russian tallow. If not sweet in savour, it was strong 



