NINE MONTHS IN THE ARCTIC. 199 



sea would invite them to secure a profitable sea- 

 son's work. 



We afterwards ascertained that intelligence 

 of oar condition had been carried down the coast 

 full five hundred miles below or south of East 

 Cape, and that the ships which first touched 

 upon the coast were made acquainted with the 

 fact of the Citizen's wreck, and that her officers 

 and crew were among the natives. 



Captain Newal, of the ship Copia, was the 

 first one who heard of the fate of the Citizen. 



The method by which the news of the ship's 

 disaster, and the condition of her crew, was con- 

 veyed down the coast, is at once striking and 

 significant. 



Tracts, those little messengers of truth, become 

 oftentimes the appointed vehicles both of tempo- 

 ral and spiritual blessings. Tracts were found 

 in several huts of the natives, carried thither, we 

 suppose, by seamen ; and with the exception of 

 pieces of copper, they were all that could be 

 written upon, and thus the only reliable means 

 of communication. From the first, therefore, the 

 captain and his officers availed themselves of 

 this instrumentality; and, whenever they found 

 a leaf of a book or a tract, or a piece of copper, 

 if opportunity occurred, they would send it down 

 the coast by the natives, carefully enclosed in a 



