HOPELESS CONDITION. 177 



the party in health. On this clay they dressed 

 their last morsel of fresh meat for their sick 

 companions, who hoping to derive benefit from 

 this species of food, ate heartily of it. But it 

 was clear that it was vegetable and not ani- 

 mal food which they required; for on the 16th 

 one of the party died ; on which the narrator 

 exclaims, " Lord have mercy upon his soul, 

 and upon all of us, we being all very sick of 

 the scurvy." They were soon reduced to so 

 deplorable a condition that, with the excep- 

 tion of the journalist, there was not one of them 

 able to help himself, much less to assist any of 

 his companions ; and " I," observes the narrator 

 with much simplicity and commiseration, "am 

 just now going to help our commander out of 

 his cabin at his own request, because he imagines 

 by this change to ease his pain ; but he is 

 struggling with death." Little did this unfor- 

 tunate man think whilst he was administering 

 to the wants of his commander, and removing 

 him, as he supposed, to his last resting-place, 

 that he should be himself the first of the party 

 then alive to sink into his grave ; yet such 

 was the fact. He had recorded the scarcity 

 of food which existed ; that they had been 

 compelled to kill their faithful dog as a last 

 resource; and had taken up his pen to com- 



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