WRECK OF THK WEBSTER. 51 



crushed by the closing of a lead, to the north end of which 

 it had sailed. The captain of the Webster only realized his 

 danger when it was too late. In half an hour after the lead 

 began to close behind him, his ship was crushed, and thrown 

 over on the ice, a wreck. The crew escaped to the shore, 

 and some of them had gone overland to Icy Cape. Nine of 

 the crew were taken aboard the Corwin. 



Leaving Point Barrow, August 18th, the Corwin ran south- 

 erly to Plover Bay, Siberia, a distance of 600 miles, and ar- 

 rived there the 24th. The Golden Fleece was anchored in 

 the harbor, having on board Lieutenant Ray and his party, 

 bound for Point Barrow to establish a signal station, and 

 from them Captain Hooper first learned of the assassination 

 of President Garfield. The natives were very friendly, and 

 reported that the Rodgers had been there eight days previous, 

 and that a Russian man-of-war had gone up the coast. 



An excursion up the bay is thus described by the Herald 

 correspondent : " Having turned over to Lieutenant Ray two 

 of our dog-sledges and a quantity of furs, we towed his ves- 

 sel to sea, and returning took the steam-launch, with two 

 natives, and started up the bay to visit some Reindeer Chuk- 

 ches, about twenty miles off. Soon the busy little launch 

 was spinning through the water, and the rhythmic grind of 

 her machinery greatly astonished the natives. I asked one 

 of them, by way of banter, ' Why don't you people build a 

 boat like this ?' To which he replied, pressing his hand on 

 his forehead, 'Ah, too much think --too much think." 



" Arrived at the deer-man's, we found his house, or rather 

 his ovoidal tent, between two high mountains, and at the foot 

 of a valley, which extended back in the clear air many miles 

 of picturesque distance amid other mountains, remarkable if 

 not unique on account of their desolate grandeur. On mak- 

 ing known the object of our visit, the old man despatched 

 two of his sons, lithe, nimble fellows, who started off in a 

 trot, each with a long spear, over the mountains in the di- 

 rection of the deer pasture. As they were gone some five 

 or six hours, I amused myself in the meantime by climbing 



