368 THE JEANNETTE ARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



number of the (native) people have been lost and frozen 

 during the last month. On our journey here from Bykoff 

 Cape, where I went to get fish and dogs, we came across 

 two families who had taken refuge in an old hut. They had 

 been exposed to the storm for eight days. Food had given 

 out, and three of their children aged eight, five, and three 

 years, respectively were frozen to death. We gave them 

 fish and tea, and our teams on their return to Bykoff will 

 carry them through. 



The weather is now more settled, and I can get to work 

 right away, but the snow is very deep. It covers everything. 

 You can sledge right over the houses without knowing of 

 their whereabouts except by the chimneys or smoke. The 

 snow does not leave the ground by melting from heat of the 

 sun, except on very high ground. The water from the south 

 comes down the river in floods long before the Arctic sum- 

 mer sets in, and covers nearly all the country where our 

 search lies. You may, therefore, imagine some of the diffi- 

 culties we may have in finding our missing comrades. 



When I got into Bykoff last September not one man was 

 well in the boat. Not more than two were able to walk, and 

 then only for a short distance. The ice in the river was 

 thick enough to stop any boat worked by strong, vigorous 

 men, yet not strong enough to walk upon. During the 

 month of October the river freezes and breaks up again 

 half a dozen times. Long before I got to Bulun to see 

 Nindermann and Noros I fear my comrades' troubles were 

 over. I did all I could in the circumstances to get my peo- 

 ple up the river and relief to DeLong. I lost no time by 

 going to Yakutsk or in getting my party there, as all my 

 travel was done in the dead of winter when work could not 

 be done at the delta, and it was necessary to get supplies 

 for the spring and summer, all of which come from Ya- 

 kutsk. It was necessary for me to get to the end of tele- 

 graph communication, and I was in Yakutsk a week before 

 an answer to my telegram of two months before was receiv- 

 ed. However, now that we are on the ground we will use 



