132 THE FROZEN NORTH. 



fellows, eager for adventure, ripe for risks, 

 alert and hardy, not all speaking one language, 

 but all stimulated by the one hope of a pros- 

 perous voyage, and rich renumeration as its 

 results. 



It was in 1876, after a successful cruise of 

 seven months, the Arctic was crushed in the ice 

 July 7th, off Sea Horse Island, eighteen miles 

 from the Bend, her crew being distributed among 

 the other vessels. On August 1st the fleet reached 

 Point Barrows, where it became completely 

 hemmed in by ice. The Florence saved herself 

 by managing to keep in the rear of a grounded 

 iceberg, and the Rainbow and Three Brothers 

 reached a point of safety at Point Barrows. The 

 rudder of the Clara Bell becoming broken, she 

 drifted ashore, and was jammed into the ice, 

 while the other vessels were driven northward 

 by the floating ice, struggling in vain to reach 

 open water. Early in September, they found 

 themselves completely ice-bound off Smith's Bay, 

 twenty or thirty miles from land, and with no 

 prospect of release. Their only hope seemed 

 to lie in the abandonment of the vessels ; a 

 course which was finally agreed upon. 



Tents made from the sails, rations of bread 

 and meat for twenty-five days, with a change of 



