166 THE JEANNETTK ARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



declared by the doctor as incapacitated for duty, and was 

 thereby deprived of any active share in the labors in the 

 Arctic. But while confined to his berth his companions 

 relieved the tedium of his existence by telling him all that 

 was going on in the little world above and around him, and 

 when he was able to go on deck and on the ice he was an 

 accurate observer of all that went on around him, and his 

 marvellous memory enables him without notes to tell with 

 exactitude every date, name, or event memorable in the 

 history of the voyage. 



Though deprived of his legitimate command, which was 

 entrusted by Captain DeLong, before leaving the vessel, to 

 Engineer Melville, he was permitted temporarily to assume 

 the command of the boat during the severe gale that sepa- 

 rated the three boats when so near to the land of the Lena's 

 mouth, and all the men saved with him join in the assurance 

 to me that without him they must inevitably have perished. 

 His work, with his defective sight, during that memorable 

 retreat, was grandly and nobly done. 



The narrative of the retreat, through which he carried 

 his boat safely to land, will be, I am sure, of surpassing 

 interest." 



