St. Landry democrat., 1882-04-01
DE LONGS PROBABLE TATE.


aims the following interesting information as
| to the experiences of the Jeanette explorers
and the probable fate Of De Long and his
| missing comrades:
A letter WAS received to-day by Mrs. Mel
vile, residing at Sharonsville, a short distance
| outside OF Phladel ha from her husband,
Lieutenant George w. Melville, of the United
States Navy, who went out chief engineer
of the exploring PARTY, and was i'll command
! of the boat containing the survivors which
| landed on the northern coast OF siberia sep
,tcmlcr 20 In this brief letter the hero Of the
latest and, as all tie accounts have shown,
! the most lcrilOuS attempt to explore the I'M
| known Polar seas speaks OF De Long ana the
others with him us having persisted, and lndl-
Gates that when Chief Engineer Melville set
| out upon the search i'll which he Is now en-
! gagged in the regions of eternal ice and snow
it was without hore Of finding his comrades
| alive, but simply to perform the melancholy
| duty Of discovering, if possible, their uead
| bodies and whatever traces of Their hard
| ships and adventures they had lett behind
| them. In all the accounts that have been re-
ceivel from Lieutenant John Dancnhauer,
| who was one of those saved with Melville,
there has been a hopeful tone concerning the
possibility of De Longs safety; but i'll such
! kilograms as contained facts alone there was
not much room for encouragement. In the
last and most important communication from
| Danenhauer, received at Paris February Z,
| from Irkutsk, he gives entire the latest record
| of De Long found by Melville, at one OF those
| polar milestones, such as all Arctic explorers
have erected along their way. On this De
Long wrote: 8 Fourteen OF the officers and
men of the Jeanette reached this hut on
Wednesday, September %, and having been
forced to wait for the river to freeze over, are
proceeding to cross to the west side this
morning, on their journey to reach some
settlement on the Lena River. l have two
DAYS provisions but, having been fortunate
enough thus far to get game in our pressing
needs, we had no fear for the future Our
party are all well except Hans Eriksen whose
toes have been ampu.ated in consequence
of frost-bit Other records will lie found
in several huts on the east side of the river
along which we have come from the mouth"
After quoting this, Danenhauer says: Three
other records were found" but he gives moth
ing of their contents further than to say:
'sEriksen died October ~ The party was in
great distress for want of food. Noros and
w
were sent ahead for relief on October 9.
They marched south for fifteen days, and were
found in starving condition on October "a,
by three natives, who took them to settle
ment.
Evidently there was some reason for not
giving the other records entire. Nine days
after, the party of fourteen had lost two days.
provisions, and after Erksen's toes had been
tnJ IN, .lScfyn f1r~
want of food, and then Eriksen and two men,
probably the only two who were able to walk
went ahead and reached settlement in
starving condition. Exactly five months have
passed since De Long and twelve men tthe
thirteenth having just dieCD were in great
distress for want of food and no tidings of
them to give ray of hope have been received
in that time. In that condition. they were
about five thousand miles from st. Peters
turg, in a region where there is scarcely any
game, just at the beginning of a most rigor-
Gus winter, when everyone, even the hardest
natives, flee hundreds of miles inland, and do
not return until March or April Under such
circumstances Melvilles letter to his wife is
consistent with all the known facts. Since he
was chosen by the authorities at Washington,
out of all the competent men in the navy, to
accompany the Jeanette expedition just four
years ago, and set sail from San Francisco in
july 1878, few months after receiving his
order, Melville has had no opportunity to
mother and the three little girls have been
awaiting "a letter from papa In their Sc
cluded little cottage at Sharon Hill, in Della
ware County, the fond mother and childish
trio have looked out daily from the window
adorned with an anchor as an emblem of hope
of the fathers safe return, and wondered
again and again, with the smoke and whistle of
every mail train, if their long-looked-for mes
sage was coming. last, when three years had
passed, little Meta-who was babe just borr.
.bnv hnt Il ,,l- ,frrIf
and, having kissed it and the lips that were
above it, said: ''Wife, it is possible | will
never know these JOYS again. able to
talk, and she expressed the thoughts of all four
when one day she said: Mamma, think
papa must be dead;' but they never took
down from the nail the hat which he hung up
when he changed it for his naval cap, and hi.
favOrite cup and saucer were never stirred
from their place in the cupboard. There was
Joy in the household when some friend sent
the newspaper containing the telegram signed
with her husbands name, giving the
first news of the safe arrival of himself
and crew, and the JOY was not lessened
by reading after the name ''in command"
Every telegram since signed mel
yille'' has been meat and drink to the news
famished little household and although the
mother kept telling the children continually
"that it was duty, and duty to God and coun-
try must always go ahead of duty to family,'
the little folks could not understand why
papa did not send some messages home"
Yesterday, Maud, a beautiful child about
fifteen years OF age, went, as she has thou
sands of times in over three years. to the post
Office, to know if there was letter. Mrs.
Melville was seated at home sewing listless-
ly, and the other two little girls were .
playing with their dolls. Suddenly one of the
little ones said: why, ma, something's the
matter with Maud. I actually believe there is
letter from papa" Mauds feet did not appear
to touch the ground. She ran through
tie gate. With tears of joy streaming down
herself at her mothers feet, dropping the
letter and crying ont: "Oh, mamma, at last
1t is from papa! Oh, it is from papa.'' The
mother tore it open read it at glance and
read it several times over. All the afternoon,
tL,fr rim LII LII ~:i-x