896 APPENDIX. 



tenant Chipp, who was in charge of her, was noted for his seamanlike 

 qualities, it may safely be assumed that he did all that a brave and 

 capable man could do to weather the gale. 



The first cutter and whale-boat, under the command respectively of 

 Lieutenant-Commander De Long and Chief-Engineer Melville, barely 

 managed to live through the gale by riding to sea-anchors, and in 

 rounding to, the first cutter carried away the step of her mast, and the 

 next day lost her sail, which formed a portion of her drag. During the 

 gale the professional services of Lieutenant Danenhower, who was on 

 the sick list, were called into requisition, and he is deserving of credit 

 for the skill with which he managed the whaleboat, as well as for her 

 subsequent navigation to the land. 



When the weather moderated, both boats endeavored to reach Cape 

 Barkin, the northeast point of the Lena Delta, upon which the charts 

 erroneously indicated winter huts and inhabitants. 



The whaleboat, with eleven people on board, on striking shoal water 

 out of sight of land, stood to the eastward, and hauling in for the land 

 the next day, she was fortunate enough, on September 16, to enter one of 

 the eastern mouths of the Lena River, and three days afterwards fell in 

 with natives, who guided them to the village of Geeomovialocke, where 

 they arrived on the 25th, and subsisted until they were able to com- 

 municate with the commandant of Bulun. 



In the mean time, the first cutter, with fourteen persons in all, had 

 made the best of her way under a jury mast and sail towards the land ; 

 but encountering young ice and shoal water, the party, on the 17th of 

 September, was forced to abandon the boat a mile and a half from the 

 beach, and to wade ashore through the ice and mud, carrying the few 

 remaining stores and provisions on their backs. They had the misfor- 

 tune to land at the mouth of one of the northern outlets of the Lena 

 River, where no inhabitants were to be found, although a considerable 

 village, not indicated on their charts, and consequently unsuspected by 

 them, lay some twenty-five miles to the westward. 



They had landed frost-bitten and exhausted, with only a few (lays' 

 provisions, which were eked out by a meagre supply of game. They 

 began their painful journey to the southward, hampered in their move- 

 ments by those who were disabled, but encouraged from time to time 

 by traces of frequent occupancy in the huts, and footprints about the 

 fox-traps which they encountered on the way. and they struggled on 

 manfully, misled by their imperfect map of the country, and always im- 

 agining themselves near a place of refuge, until toward the end of Oc- 

 tober, when, after eating their remaining dog, they perished from hun- 



