CHAPTER XIX. • 

 RESCUE OF THE GREELY PARTY. 



Two days after Brainerd sent up that desperate cry a party of American 

 seamen, sent by the government, saved the perishing members of Greely's 

 ill-fated expedition. 



The rescuers were headed by Winfield Scott Schley, then a captain in 

 the navy ; years later a hero of the Spanish-American war. Schley had been 

 chosen to find Greely and bring him home, if alive. The commander headed 

 a squadron of three vessels, one of which, the Alert, was furnished by the 

 British government. These three boats sailed north in April, 1884, and in 

 June passed into the polar sea, anchoring finally at Cape Sabine. Parties 

 were sent out from this point over the ice to seek traces of the lost. 



On June 21, after the searchers had been busy for three days, a seaman 

 rushed up to the ship and delivered to Commander Schley a faded paper. It 

 was one of several records left by Greely where it might be found by search- 

 ers. Under date of October, 1883, it read: "My party is now permanently 

 in camp on the west side of a small neck of land which connects the wrecked 

 cache cove, and the one to its west, distant about equally from Cape Sabine 

 and Cocked Hat Island. All well." The last words had a terrible irony 

 in -view of what Schley and his men found. They proceeded with all speed 

 to the point described, and there found the Greely party in a terrible plight. 

 It is vividly described in Schley's official report, from which the following 



is taken : 



"Lieutenant Greely was found in his sleeping bag, his body inclined for- 

 ward and head resting upon his left hand. The Book of Common Prayer 

 was open and held in his right hand. He appeared to be reading prayers to 

 Private Connell, whose condition was most desperate and critical. He was 

 cold to the waist; all sensation of hunger gone; was speechless and almost 

 breathless; his eyes were fixed and glassy. Indeed, his weakness was such 

 that it was with difficulty he swallowed the stimulants given him by Drs. 



206 



