Year: 1876

Francisco, and two from Hawaii, are
| floating in ice of the Northern Ocean


borne no one knows whittier, but to a


fate which may be easily imagined


If the good vessels were utterly aban


doned to the winds, waves and ice
:. to be bufeted to pieces, one could al


most feel touch of sympathy for the


sailorless craft; but when we realize


that fifty or sixty men are waiting on


board the destruction which they are


powerless to avert, mere sentimentali-


ty is forgotten in natural grief. Out


of the feet of fourteen ships that rem.


dezvoused off Point Barrow, the north.


ermost cape of Alaska, about the 1st


of August, only two escaped disaster.


In the statement published by the


masters of the lost vessels the story


of their misfortune has been briefly


but geographically told, and there is


no need of repeating it. The picture


of the ships caught in the drifting ice


on the Oath and carried aimessly away


to the northeast is one that only such


pen as Poe's could describe in all it's
dreary horror. The council of the


masters, the examination of their
stores, the discovery that there were
not provisions sufficient for a long


winter, the resolution to abandon the
ships on the 9th Of September, the
fearful journey over the treacherous
ice through binding storm for four
days, to the vessels that had remained
in safety at Point Barrow; the subse-
quent vicissitudes and disasters of the
party, and their final rescue-all these
things have the weird interest which |
attaches to Arctic adventure hanging
over them. But the Imagination leaves
those who escaped at the threshold of
safety, and returns to those who re-
fused to abandon the vessels and
those who turned back disheartened to
them, after attempting the journey
through the ice-ffty or sixty men
caught by nature in her fiercest mood
and among her widest solitudes, and
borne away to inevitable destruction.
How slowly but steadily the great


orces closed in about them! How
srimly the sea, the ice and the wind
their victims beyond the reach
If succor, and how they have heaped
)arrier-barrier after barrier in the
bath to safety. In some way or other
nan has had so many bold encounters
With the powers of nature in the
Northern Ocean that we instinctively
,ersonify her as an opponent to be met
nd overcome, and the impulse to
,rapple with her and dispute her prey {
prings up as we think of the poor {
vhalers drifting off into the unknown
ca about the Pole. The idea is doubt t
,ss a vain one, and yet we cannot I
clip hoping that the abandoned YES. t
els, or at least one or two Of them, S
Jay get wedged into solid ice ice and {
emain for a while unbroken. The .
hipswere propisioncd for three months, i
nd those who escaped did not take e
lore than one months provisions with r
lem, SO that abundance of food was i
1T behind for the men who were de- Il
erted. Most of them are said to be c
anakas, but if they have a few Amer c
;ans, as leaders it is possible that they |
AXE even yet gallant struggle with q
atuIe for the mastery Since there q


such a possibility of o protracted :
fort for safety on their part and al Il
Of prolonged suffering, Q
ould it not be well to make some at


mpt, however hopeless the task may !,
em, for rescue? The lives Of the !
Iilors left drifting in the Northern =