THE LAST EXPEDITION OF CIIAHLES FRANCIS HALL. 759 



they were bound. Of late, indeed, men have come forward to assert that the steamer 

 was not fit for the service. But such certainly was not the judgment of Hall or of 

 his associates, among whom were several men inured to Arctic navigation. A better 

 vessel might doubtless have been built for the express purpose ; but it does not appear 

 that there was then in this country, or in any other, a steamer better adapted to Arc- 

 tic navigation. The vessel was fittingly rechristened the Polaris — " The Polar Star." 



Extraordinary care seems to have been taken in the selection of officers and crew. 

 As for Hall himself, a careful investigation of all that has since come to light, shows 

 that no other man possessed so many qualifications for the command. Eight years in 

 the Arctic regions had made him perfectly acquainted with the best means of pre- 

 serving life and health. He had learned the language of the Esquimaux, of whose 

 assistance he expected largely to avail himself. Ho certainly had the faculfy of 

 maintaining strict discipline, and at the same time of gaining the affection of those 

 under him. It is true he was not a professional sailor or engineer ; neither were 

 Kane or Hayes — the two men whose names best deserve to be associated with his. 

 In any ease, even had he been a naval officer, the practical details of navigation must 

 have been placed in charge of some one accustomed to voyaging in the ice. 



As far as man could judge, no better choice could have been made for sailing 

 master than Sydney 0. Buddington. He had been in a whaling vessel in eleven 

 voyages, extending for more than thirty years, in these very regions. He had been 

 in command of the vessel in which Hall had sailed upon his former expedition. Hall 

 and others who had the best means of knowing the man deemed him the one for the 

 place. If, as there is now reason to believe, his character sadly changed in conse- 

 quence of a newly-acquired passion for liquor, no one had any good reason to antici- 

 pate this. The assistant navigator was George E. Tyson; what will hereafter be said 

 of him will evince his fitness for the post. The first mate, Hubbard -C. Chester, for 

 aught that appears, was well chosen. As second mate went William Morton, who a 

 score of years before had been the right-hand man of the lamented Kane. It was 

 Morton who discovered what Kane firmly believed to be the edge of the open Polar 

 Sea, although it is now known that this is but an expansion of Smith's Sound, and 

 that still north of it lies a frozen strait. Like the foot of the rainbow this sea seems 

 to recede as we try to approach it. As chief of the scientific department was Emil 

 Bessels, who had brought with him from his native Germany the highest testimonials ; 

 and was endorsed by Petermann and Agassiz. He had also been a member of an 

 Arctic expedition sent out by the Prussian government. Besides these there were 

 Emil Schumann, chief engineer, Frederick Meyer, meteorologist, R. D. W. Bryan, 

 astronomer and chaplain, the faithful Esquimaux Ebierbing, his wife Tookoolito, and 

 their child, " Puny," who had come to them in place of the little " Butteifly," whom 

 they had laid in a New England grave-yard. Ebierbing was to act as interpreter and 

 hunter, a'nd to him in the end was mainly owing the preservation of the nineteen 

 persons whom we know to be the survivors of this expedition. The crow of all 

 capacities numbered seventeen, of whom about half were Germans or Scandinavians. 

 In Greenland they also took on board an Esquimaux, Hans Christian, to act as dog- 

 driver, with his wife and three children, to whom another was born afterward. So 

 that, all told, the entire expedition consisted of forty persons. 



The Polaris sailed from New York June 29, 1871, and reached St. John's, New- 



