The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-10-13


| was to prove her tomb, the luckless
vessel was carried hither and thither
by the drifting ice. Eventually she
was crushed and her people had to
abandon her, forming a camp on a
nearby berg. This was in June, 1881.
About 4 o'clock the next morning"
one of the survivors wrote, tine camp
! was aroused by the man on the watch
| crying: Turn out if you want to see
the last of the Jeannette-there she
soesi' Most of u.s." the CHASTITY rec
ord continues, had barely time to
rise, when, amid the rafting and
banging Of her timbers and iron
work, the ship righted and stood al
most upright; the foes that had come
in and crushed her slowly backed off,
and as she sank with slightly accel-
Grated velocity the yard arms were
| stripped and broken upward parallel
to the masts, and so, like a great,
gaunt skeleton, clapping its hands
above its head, she plunged out of
sight"
De Longs Tragic Fate.
The Jeanette had been provisioned
for three years, but as NJ tidings had
been received of her up to 1881, two
/ other vessels were sent in search of
her. One party, under the command
of Engineer George w. Melville, OF
the United States Navy, reached
Yakutsk, and afterward found the
| bodies of De Long and some of the
crew. To quote from Melville's own
narrative:
81 identified De Long at a glance
by his coat. He lay on his right side,
| with his right hand under his cheek
his head pointing north, and his face
turned to the west. His feet were
drawn slightly up as though he were
sleeping; his left arm was raised with
the elbow bent, and his hand, thus
horizontally lifted, was bare. About
four feet back of him, or toward the
east, I found his small notebook or
ice-journal, where he had tossed 1t
with his left hand, which looked as
though it had never recovered from
the act, but had frozen, as I found IL,
appraised"
Perhaps no better picture of terrors
of the Arctic and its stabbing cold
| can be found than that which is given
by MI. Melville: GA cold. barren
plateau, between a small outlying
promontory and a bleak weather.
| riven rock of red syenite reaching up
to the skies, on which even the MOSES
and lichens would scarce grow. The
raging of the Tfnd and the pitiless
sea, and the oar OF the black water
of the bay dashing over the %ice-foot,
made the lonesome picture look cold
er and nor appalling. Drifts of ice
and snow choked the ravines and hol-
lows; but, saving ourselves ~1d the
famished, skeleton-like survivors, not
a living thing appeared on the whit
ened landscape. The region truly
seemed to be the most desolate on
the face of the earth. 1t looked as
though the curses of 10000 witches
had descended upon and blasted it,
and even the birds would not dare to
take their flight across the lifeless
land, lest they, too, fall victims into
the death-gap below.
struggling up the valley of death
against the frantic wind from the low
point to the westward of the camp,
where we managed with difficulty to
effect a landing in our whaleboats,
we first came upon the remains Of
the winter ~habitation,a parallelogram
of four walls about three feet high
built of loose stone, the inside di-
mansions being eighteen by twenty
two feet, with a tunnel or covered
way facing the mountain to the
southwark. This hut had been rooted
over with the whaleboats turned up
side down and covered with the sails
and tent cloths; the smoke flue made
of old tin kettles bound with bits of
canvas was thrown to one side, and
water had risen in and about the
wretched dwelling place to a height
of eight inches, concealing much of
the foul evidence of squalid misery
in which its poor occupants had lived.
Cast-off fur and cloth clothing, empty
tin cans, and the sickening filth of
twenty-five men for nine months lay
heaped and scattered about, a verita-
BILE Augean scene"
On August IL, 1881, the steamer
ProteuS conveyed Lieutenant Greedy
and his party to Lady Franklin Bay.
A house was built and they were left
with two years provisions. The reg
ular series of observations was at
once commenced, and two winters
were passed without accident. Trav-
cling parties were also sent out in the
summer, dogs having been obtained
at Disco. Lieutenant Lockwood
made a journey along the north coast
of Greenland and reached a small
island. DR.. Pavy and another went
a short distance beyond the winter
quarters of the Alert, and a trip was
made into the interior O. Grinnell
Land.
Relief of Greedy.
AS no succor arrived in the sum-
mer of 1SS3-though relieving YES