MORTON'S VIEW OF THE OPEN WATERS. 239 



party. The now soft snow made travelling very difficult for both men and dogs; indeed, 

 the former sank to their waists, and the latter were nearly buried. Three of the men were 

 taken with snow blindness; one was utterly, and another partially disabled. Kane was, 

 while taking an observation for latitude, seized with a sudden pain, and fainted. His 

 limbs became rigid, and he had to be strapped on the sledge. On May 5th he became 

 delirious, and fainted every time he was taken from the tent to the sledge. The last 

 man to give in, he owns that on this occasion he succumbed entirely, and that to five brave 

 men Morton, Riley, Hickey, Stephenson, and Hans themselves scarcely able to travel, 

 he owed his preservation. They carried him baek to the brig by forced marches, and he 

 long lay there in a very critical state. A few days after the return of the party, Schubert, 

 one of the merriest and best liked of the little band, died. Dr. Hayes, the surgeon of the 

 ship, worked zealously in the discharge of his duties, and with the better diet obtained 

 in the , summer fresh seal-meat, reindeer, ptarmigan, and rabbits the invalids gradually 

 recovered strength, and set about their duties. 



The most important sledge journey undertaken at this time was that made by Morton. 

 After travelling a considerable distance, " due north over a solid area choked with bergs 

 and frozen fields, he was startled by the growing weakness of the ice; its surface became 

 rotten, and the snow wet and pulpy. His dogs, seized with terror, refused to advance. 

 Then for the first time the fact broke upon him that a long dark band seen to the north 

 beyond a protruding cape, Cape Andrew Jackson, was water." He retraced his steps, and 

 leaving Hans and his dogs, passed between Sir John Franklin Island and the narrow 

 beach line, the coast becoming more wall-like and dark masses of porphyritic rock abutting 

 into the sea. With growing difficulty he managed to climb from rock to rock in hopes 

 of doubling the promontory and sighting the coasts beyond, but the water kept encroaching 

 more and more on his track. 



"It rqust have been an imposing sight as he stood at this termination of his journey 

 looking out upon the great waste of waters before him. Not 'a speck of ice/ to use his 

 own words, could be seen. There, from a height of 480 feet, which commanded a horizon 

 of almost fort}- miles, his ears were gladdened with the novel music of dashing waves ; and 

 a surf breaking in among the rocks at his feet, stayed his further progress. . . . The 

 high ridges to the north-west dwindled off into low blue knobs, which blended finally with 

 the air. Morton called the cape which baffled his labours after his commander, but I have 

 given it the more enduring name of ' Cape Constitution/ I do not believe there was a 

 man among us who did not long for the means of embarking upon its bright and lonely 

 waters. But he who may be content to follow our story for the next few months will feel 

 as we did, that a controlling necessity made the desire a fruitless one." 



Morton had undoubtedly seen an open sea, but the water which he described we now 

 know to be simply Kennedy Channel, a continuation of Smith Sound. He had reached 

 a latitude (about 80 30') further north than any previous explorer of the Greenland 

 coast. 



A year and three months had passed since the starting of the expedition, and still 

 the little brig was fast in the ice. The men were, as Kane calls it, " scurvy riddled " 

 and utterly prostrated, their supplies were rapidly becoming exhausted, and Kane deter- 



