318 THE SITUATION. 



brought to a stand-still. There does not appear to be 

 the ghost of a chance for me. Must I own myself a 

 defeated man ? I fear so. 



I was never in all my life so disheartened as I am 

 to-night; not even when, in the midst of a former 

 winter, I bore up with my party through hunger and 

 cold, beset by hostile savages, and, without food or 

 means of transportation, encountered the uncertain 

 fortunes of the Arctic night in the ineffectual pursuit 

 of succor. 



Smith Sound has given me but one succession of 

 baffling obstacles. Since I first caught sight of Cape 

 Alexander, last autumn, as the vanishing storm uncov- 

 ered its grizzly head, I have met with but ill fortune. 

 My struggles to reach the west coast were then made 

 against embarrassments of the most grave description, 

 and they were not abandoned until the winter closed 

 upon me with a crippled and almost a sinking ship, 

 driving me to seek the nearest place of refuge. Then 

 my dogs died, and my best assistant became the vic- 

 tim of an unhappy accident. Afterward I succeed in 

 some measure in replacing the lost teams, on which I 

 had depended as my sole reliance ; and here I am 

 once more baffled in the middle of the Sound, stuck 

 fast and powerless. My men have failed me as a 

 means of getting over the difficulties, as those of Dr. 

 Kane did before me. Two foot parties sent out by 

 that commander to cross the Sound failed. Ulti- 

 mately I succeeded in crossing with dogs, but the pas- 

 sage was made against almost insuperable difficulties, 

 so great that my companion, convinced that starvation 

 and death only would result from a continuance of the 

 trial, resolved to settle it with a Sharp's rifle ball ; but 

 the ball whizzed past my ear, and I got to the shore 



