TV INTRODUCTION. 



-and thrilling interest. Those sturdy men of many nationalities and 

 many languages, embracing not only the best known European 

 people, but the Chinese and the North American Indians, all work- 

 ing in harmony, and for the common good; those rude and primi- 

 tive Tunguses of Northern Asia, hospitable and kindly; the Cos- 

 sacks, and even the exiles who had been driven to Siberia for 

 their offences, wanning into charity and hospitality towards the 

 sufferers from a distant land ; the zeal of the surviving men of 

 the Jeannette to learn, to the last particular, the fate of DeLong 

 and of Chipp; the earnestness and eagerness of the officers to attain 

 to all possible scientific results; the loyalty of all to their superiors 

 in office, and the fidelity to the great fact of law, all this invests 

 the book with a delightful and incessant charm. 



And as the interest of the world grows breathless to catch the 

 last words of this intrepid band, and the remotest whispers of their 

 fate, the sense of their endurance, their courage, and their high 

 and manly hope, becomes more inspiring. No audience is larger than 

 that which now awaits each voice that can tell us of the fortunes 

 of the Jeannette and her crew. The discovery of the dreadful 

 fate which met the DeLong party comes to us as the crowning 

 agony of a long series of distresses. But while such disasters win 

 universal sympathy, the story of such a retreat as that of the boat- 

 loads of men whose untiring efforts during the summer of 1881, 

 after they left the Jeannette, this volume records, will be read with 

 the interest which is only given to deeds of sustained courage 

 and manly striving. A nd we have no fear that the modest tale 

 will fail of finding its thousands of readers. 



