188 DEATH OF A SAILOR. [CHAP.IV. 



even on these he always ate some nourishing diet. 

 This day, however, at 9 h p. m. he died without 

 suffering, and indeed so calmly, that those in 

 attendance were unconscious of the moment of 

 his departure. Such visitations are always me- 

 lancholy, and it was. natural that in our case a 

 more than ordinary impression should be made. 

 Isolated as we were from our fellow-creatures, 

 and at the mercy of a power over which we had 

 no control, who could help feeling that his hour 

 also might shortly come ? At 10 h a. m., on the 

 14th, the officers and crew of H.M.S. performed 

 the last mournful duties towards their shipmate. 

 The body was conveyed on a sledge to the 

 extremity of the floe, where a grave had been 

 duo* through the ice ; and the solemn and affect- 

 ing service for the dead having been read, the 

 remains were committed to the deep. 



In the afternoon I went on shore, though not 

 without some trouble and scrambling. It was 

 gratifying to observe that, separated and cur- 

 tailed of its fair proportions, as our floe had been, 

 yet many of the original pieces maintained nearly 

 the same relative positions as when part of the 

 mass, thus forming an additional barrier between 

 us and the shore, which I now found was not 

 more than two miles and a half distant. Along 

 the beach between the jutting rocks the ice 

 appeared to have been forced up full twenty 



