636 THE VOYAGE OF THE JEANNETTE. 



While waiting for everything to come up to the first 

 ferry, I was much struck with the unusual appearance 

 of the clouds to the southwest, which gave more indica- 

 tions of water than anything we had yet seen. Calling 

 Mr. Dunbar's attention to them, he expressed his opin- 

 ion that such clouds did not hang over ice. Climbing 

 to the top of a hummock twenty feet above the water- 

 level, and examining carefully with a glass, I saw un- 

 mistakable land and water. It now appears that this 

 was the land seen yesterday. At all events it is land, 

 sure enough, and water, too. What it may be no one 

 can say — whether newly discovered land, or (our lon- 

 gitude being out) some portion of Siberia. ]t can 

 hardly be any one of the Liakhoff Islands. 



Another pleasant feature is our course, southwest be- 

 ing a straight line to it. My change from south to 

 southwest may therefore be a wise act, resulting in our 

 speedier liberation. Judging by ordinary distances, I 

 should say the land is ten to fifteen miles distant ; and 

 as I could see quite a large expanse of water, with long 

 streams of detached ice, it may be that once at the mar- 

 gin of this ice-field through which we are now toiling 

 w r e may have open water to the Siberian coast, thus 

 verifying some part of the statement of Russian ex- 

 plorers. We have exploded so many theories of other 

 people that it will be hard to make us believe that we 

 can have left the ice behind us short of the Arctic 

 circle. 



One month ago to-day our ship went down, and I do 

 not see any one the worse for the work that has fallen 

 to us since. That it is hard work there can be no dis- 

 pute. It is conceded by everybody to be the hardest 

 work they ever did. The drag, drag, the slips and 

 jerks, the sudden bringing up of the hauling belt across 



