St. Landry democrat., 1883-01-13
Belongs Record.

WASHINGTON, December %.
Lieutenant belongs report, found beside
his dead body, has been made public. 1t makes
s0,GC0 words, and details the incidents of the
cruise from the departure from San Fran
cisco, in 1872 to January, 1881. Its principal
feature is an elaborate account of belongs
views in regard to the expedition. He consid-
cred it good judgment to head for Wrangell
Land. His idea was to adopt that land as the
support of the first winters campaign; he en-
bodies the story Of how the land was sighted,
and how he expected to reach it. He graphic
ally described how, on the next day, the
Jeanette became beset in the ice, never again
to be relieved, and says: ''The party was COM
PEELED to make virtue of necessity and stay
where we were. Sometimes all night, and
sometimes all day and night, from January 10
to February 4, Sweetman and sNinderman
stood down in the forepeak, the icy water flow
ing around them nearly to their knees, work
ing faithfully until their work WAS accom-
p!ished, and the good results of that work were
evident in the gradually reduced amount of
water coming into the ship, and our ability to
control the leak without such ruinous expend-
iture of fuel as had been necessary thereto
FORE 1t is for these reasons that / have had
the honor to recommend these two men to you
for medals of honor as recognition of heroic
conduct under the most trying circum-
stances" 3#E,sz
Captain De Long record of the remainder
of the winter and summer of 1880 is, for the
most part, q monotonous, record of storms,
ice-mountaius constant anxiety, and almost
unbroken dsappo ntment. As the short Arc
tic summer drew to close without setting the
Jeanette free and another dreary winter APP
preached, Captain De Long evidently began to
revoIve in his mind the question whether it
would not be better to abandon the ship and
make fer the northern coast of Siberia over
the ice than to run the risk Of second winter
in the pack.
Under date of September 20, 1880, he says:
81 dislike naturally to dwell on the idea of the
abandonment of the ship. We We come
through SO much it gives me hopes of surviving
more. So 10 g as enough of the ship remains
to shelter us, sticking by that fragment is pref
cradle to cam ping on the ice, and can con-
| ceive of no greater 'forlorn hope than an at
| tempt to reach Siberia SAY 2t0 miles distant)
| over the ice that surrounds u.s. and with win
| ters cold sapping ones life at every step. OF
| course, If we were to lose our ship. we would
| make an effort to get there, but our chances
| of success would be extremely problematicaL"
| The last entry in the record j. dated Decem-
| Der 81, is 0. and is as follows: Minstrels are
| ringing in the New Year in latitude Is degrees
| As m NUTS north, Longitude LIT degrees 81
minutes east. During the last sixteen months
we have drifted 1880 miles-far enough, ii it
| had been in straight line, to carry us to and
/ beyond the pole, but we are yet only 40 mi es
northwest OF where we were first beset. We
/ have suffered Jury, and danger has often
/ confronted us. We have been squeezed and
/ jammed tossed and tumbled. We have
pumped a eaky ship for a year, but we are
! not vet daunted. and are as ready to dare ev-
| erything as we ever were. And we face the
4 new year firmly, hoping to do something
! worthy of ourselves, of Bennetts enterprise.
! and of the flag above us"
In less than ten months after these words
/ were written the Jeanette was at the bottom
1 of the Arctic Ocean and De Long lay dead In
i the Lena Delta.