964	JEANNETTE INQUIRY.
by the condition of the ice, which rendered progress impossible. Meantime it had been deemed expedient at Bennett Island, in order to obtain food for the men, that about half of the dogs should be killed, as they were no longer needed to drag the sleds, and it was considered inhuman to leave them there to starve. Afterward all but two of them escaped on the ice ; but still it was found necessary to reduce the allowance of provisions from time to time during the remainder of the journey.
On the 12th of September the three boats were separated in a gale of wind when approaching the Siberian coast, at an estimated distance of about 90 miles to the northward and eastward of the Lena delta, and no further record exists of the second cutter's party. But as Lieutenant Chipp, who was in charge of her, was noted for his seamanlike qualities, it may be safely assumed that he did all that a brave and capable man could do to weather the gale.
The first cutter and whale-boat under the command, respectively, of Lieutenant Commander De Long and Chief Engineer Melville barely managed to live through the gale by riding to sea-anchors. In rounding to the first cutter carried away the step of her mast and the next day lost her sail, which formed a portion of her drag. During the gale the professional services of Lieutenant Danenhower, who was on the sick list, were called into requisition, and he is deserving of credit for the skill with which he managed the whale-boat, as well as for her subsequent navigation to the land.
When the weather moderated both boats endeavored to reach Cape Barkin, the northeast point of the Lena delta, upon which the charts erroneously indicated winter huts and inhabitants.
The whale-boat, with eleven people on board, on striking shoal water out of sight of laud, stood to the eastward, and hauling in for the land the next day, she was fortunate enough, on September 16, to enter one of the eastern mouths of the Lena River, and three days afterwards fell in with natives, who guided them to the village of Geeomovialocke, where they arrived on the 25th, and subsisted until they were able to communicate with the commandant of Bulun.
In the mean time the first cutter, with fourteen persons in all, had made the best of her way under a jury mast and sail towards the land; but encountering young ice and shoal water, the party on the 27th of S eptember was forced to abandon the boat a mile and a half from the beach, and to wade ashore through the ice and mud, carrying the few remaining stores and provisions on their backs. They had the misfortune to land at the mouth of one of the northern outlets of the Lena River, where no inhabitants were to be found, although a considerable village, not indicated on their charts, and consequently unsuspected by them, lay some 25 miles to the westward.
They had landed frost-bitten and exausted, with only a few days' provisons, which were eked out by a meager supply of game. They began their painful journey to the southward, hampered in their movements by those who were disabled, but encouraged from time to time by traces of recent occupancy in the huts, and footprints about the fox-traps which they encountered on the way, and they struggled on man-fully, misled by their imperfect map of the country and always imagining themselves near a place of refuge, until towards the end of October, when, after eating their remaining dogs, all of them perished from hunger and cold but two seamen, Nindemaun and Noros, whom the commander had previously sent on in advance for assistance, and who after great hard ships, were found and rescued by the natives. These two men did their utmost to make the natives understand the condition of the commander's party, and to induce them to go to its relief, but without success. It seems that there was some confu sion in the minds of these people between the commander's party and that under Mr. Melville, at Geeomovialocke. But the two seamen knew nothing of the whaleboat's fate, and c ould not therefore guess at the mistake; nor is it possible that if they had returned they would have found any of the commander's party alive.
Meanwhile the whale-boat's party remained five weeks at Geeomovialocke, living upon the limited hospitality of a few poor natives, who saw their winter supplies rap-idly disappearing before the hunger of this large party. They, like the first cutter's crew, had landed frost-bitten and exhausted, and being ill-fed and badly clothed and lodged, they were many days in regaining their strength.
Efforts were made from the first, but without avail, to get transportation for the party to a place of permanent safety, and also to institute a search for the other parties whom, nevertheless, they believed to have been lost in the gale.
Lieutenant Danenhower started on the 17th of October with a dog-team, to explore the coast for the missing boats, but was unable, from the condition of the ice, to proceed far in any direction and returned without results. The wide river, or rather bay, which separated Geeomovialocke from the mainland, was sometimes covered with young ice, too thick for the passage of boats and too thin for the passage of sledges, and, at times, was filled with floating masses of old ice, while their ignorance of the language left them unable to express their wants or to discover the resources of the vicinity in respect to reindeer or dog teams.