808 THE VOYAGE OF THE JEANNETTE. 



day that Captain De Long wrote in his journal : " No 

 news from Nindemann. We are in the hands of God, 

 and unless He intervenes 1 are lost. We cannot move 

 against the wind." Nindemann himself was slowly 

 passing the point where he was later to help bury his 

 captain. 



In the afternoon they sighted a hut on the west 

 bank of the river. They had seen one in the morn- 

 ing, but had in vain attempted to cross the ice to it. 

 Now they tried to reach this, but were turned back by 

 the brittle ice. They kept it in sight, as they moved 

 southward, and made another attempt to cross the ice, 

 but it broke and they came back. Then they saw that 

 there was no further progress possible to the south- 

 ward on that side of the water, and they returned to 

 the ice. It broke again, but they kept on. They went 

 in to their waists, but managed to pull themselves up 

 on the stronger ice. The wind was blowing against 

 them, and the ice was a glare, so that they were driven 

 back. They looked about for ice which had been 

 roughened by the ripples beneath, and finding some 

 they succeeded at length in reaching the other side, 

 where were two wooden crosses beneath a bank, which 

 rose fifty feet above them. 



They pulled themselves up the bank, but when they 

 came to the hut which they had kept in sight, they 

 found it a ruin nearly full of snow. While Noros was 

 trying to make a place in it for shelter Nindemann 

 saw a black object farther along to the south and 

 went to it. It was a small peaked hut without a door, 



1 By an error this word in some copies of Captain De Long's journal has 

 been made relents. Not so did Captain De Long read the Divine mind. 

 To him God was no vindictive, stern tyrant. The records sufficiently wit- 

 ness to his devout, unswerving confidence in a watchful Father. 



