The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1885-01-07

In The Lena Delta, just published
by Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin d Co.
is the same old story so fsmiliar te
all readers of the record which the
uncopquerable and adventurous An
olo-Saxon race has carved wherever
duty was to be done or danger en-
countered--has often written IN its
own blood. Toll endured, peril con-
fronted, privation submitted TO, diff
ficulties overcome. all with the single
beartedness and tte-of-tact mod.
esty of the race, this is the story ol
Melville.
The cruise of the-fated Jeanette
is adverted to but briefly, the story
proper beginning with the separa-
tion of boats of De Long, Mel.
vile and Chipp in the gale OF Sep
tember IL, 1881, and including the
history OF the search for De Long.
There is brief account of the ac-
count of the rescue of Greedy. Mr..
Melville having accompanied the re-
lief expedition under Commander
Scheley, and plan for reaching the
Pole that is not unworthy OF discus
sion. The book is handsomely turn
ed out, and copiously illustrated, and
the story is told with a refreshing
plainness and abstention from rhet-
orlcal excess which enhance its ef-
feet.
The incidental illusions to the
power of the ice and the perils OF
the Polar seas are graphic. We read
of crowding and tumbling foes,
across which seams run and rattle
with the noise of thunder, while
blocks of ice fifty feet high are puff
fed up or tossed across the surface,
and of the chaos of millions of tons
heaped against the rocky islands.
deiying the progress of even the
unhampered pedestrian. Ar Mel
vile blurs the romantic picture OF
the Esquimaux calmly sitting IN
shoe-shaped sleds. with the lashes
of their long whips sailing graceful
ly behind, while the dogs dash in
fail cry and perfect unison across
smooth expanses OF snow and ice,
and substitutes in its place scene
as full OF action, If not OF progress :
Dogs yelling, barking, swapping and
fighting, the leaders in the rear and
the wheelers in the middle, all as
hopeiessly tangled up as a basket
full ofeels. Such tangles the 1akuts
dissolve by merciless poundings with
heavy iron tipped slaves, until the
poor brutes become more tractable
and scud along the hard snow at a
six mile gait. After an hours run,
the team is released and allowed to
roll in the snow and lick their paws
that to soon become sore with travel.
Curiously enough, the Siberian dog
returns promptly to harness when
called. Mr.. Melville gives a pathet-
ic description Of the poor creatures,
starved aad broken down, with bleed
ing feet, when cut loose and aban-
doned: "They would follow after
for little distance and then, unable
to go further, sit on end and howl
dismally, seeming to realize their
fate-to die of starvation or be de-
voured by wolves"
OF the retreat from the Jeanette.
it is enough to say that having to
haul the sleighs singly, and to avoid
hummucks, ETC.. they often had TO
travel from twenty-five to thirty-two
miles TO advance two or three mean
willie the flow was drifting in the
contrary direction. so that after a
fortnight's toll in shoes full of holes
and even in their bare feet, the men
found they had lost twentyfour
miles. When Melville's lucky crew
reached the land it was with fingers
that could not appreciate the differ
ence between rope and a needle
their legs were frozen from the knee
down, and had burst their coverings
so frightful were the swellings; the
flesh was spongy to the touch.
"When one of the men, entering the
smoky hut, stepped on n.y left foot
the skin gave way from the ankle
down, and shot him off to one side
like ship slipped from a creased
launching way"
Life among the Yakuts must bt
like nightmare. Forty per cent.
are blind and go per cent. partially
SO, or one-eyed, ,and syphilitic disease
prevails TO an awful extent. Man
ners none, customs beastly," might
be the verdict of the travler. Il nave
seen," says Mr.. Melville, forty per-
sons sleep in a hut 16 by "a and
feet high For food they have salt
less fish, geese hung till they become
putrid, Hour mixed with spruce
chips-whatever will distend the
stomach. Melville made his first
journeys with little other sustenanct
than the heads and offal of fish
that could be found in abandoned
huts, rotten deer bones, tendons and
rawhide. One of his guides set out
on ajourney OF 200 miles with team
of tired dogs and no provisions bu'
tiny piece chipped from a BLOCK
of tea. OF the capacity OF the va
kut stomach we have a graphic i
not reproducable account at page
BIG. the Siberian Gargantua swallow
ing nearly nineteen pounds OF mel
ted butter at two long drinks. Little
as the natives have they are cheated
The Russian tax-gatherer keeps then
inignorance of the advance in th'
value of furs during the last genera
ton and collecting In kind pays ;
small portion of the proceeds IN cast
into the treasury, and steals the rest
while gamblers infest the village
systematically, buy whatever the ma
tives have to sell and cheat then
out of the money. Nevertheless
these poor wretches supported tn
ship wrecked crew, and showed M
little capacity for fidelity and ODE
dience; there Is a picture of a frol
icsome young brides love-making Il
her bashful husband, which has
touch of the idyl about it, and Mel
vile found near the Pole, as Mung
Park at the Equator, that the We
mans herrt always has a fount G
sympathy for the suffering and th
stranger. He say Up. l9O).
1.-The women at once busted them