36 THE VOYAGE OF THE JEANNETTE. 



gale came on, and for thirty hours we were, without doubt, 

 on the brink of eternity. The boat was nearly all the time 

 buried by the sea, she was half full of water, we were sur- 

 rounded by icebergs a hundred feet at least in height. The 

 broken pieces of ice were being hurled like stones on the face 

 of this ice-pack and ground to powder, or else thrown over 

 and over like lava from a volcano. Had we struck this ice, 

 our chances would have been slim, — in fact, I would rather 

 have been in the worst surf that exists than have been thrown 

 up against this terrible wall. Looking back at it now makes 

 me tremble, and I can only say that it was a miracle of Divine 

 Providence that we were saved. When the gale broke we 

 were in a pitiable condition — hungry, cold, and wet, not a 

 dry thing in the boat. The ice was all heaped up between us 

 and Cape York, and getting through it was an impossibility. 

 Our coal was nearly all gone, and we had yet to get back to 

 the ship. I had to decide to return, and had we not been 

 favored by a breeze, we would not have reached here yet. As 

 it was, when we met the Tigress we were burning pork in the 

 furnace to get into Tessi-Ussak. 



Captain Braine and all hands seemed overjoyed to get us 

 back. It appeared when the Tigress met the Juniata at 

 Upernavik, Captain Tj^son, who was one of the survivors 

 picked up on the ice-floe, expressed the opinion that we were 

 as good as lost if we met any bad weather, and that set every- 

 body to thinking very seriously how perilous a journey we 

 had undertaken. What the people on board the Tigress could 

 not understand was my volunteering for the expedition, and 

 many sad shakes of the head and sayings of " Poor De Long " 

 showed how little they expected to see me back. When the 

 Juniata sighted us returning, the ship was wild with excite- 

 ment, the men manning the rigging and cheering us until we 

 came alongside. When I stepped over the side so buried in 

 furs as to be almost invisible, they made as much fuss over me 

 as if I had risen from the dead, and when the captain shook 

 hands with me, he was trembling from head to foot. 



The Juniata returned to St. John's, Newfoundland, 



