344 VOYAGE TO THE POLAR SEA. Jink 



CHAPTER XIV. 



LIEUTENANT PARR ARRIVES ON BOARD ' ALERT ' — DISTRESSING CONDI- 

 TION OF NORTHERN DIVISION OF SLEDGES — RELIEF PARTY START 

 —DEATH OF GEORGE PORTER — MARKHAM's JOURNEY. 



On the evening of the 8 th, Lieutenant Parr made his 

 appearance on board the 'Alert.' As he crossed the 

 quarter-deck, silently nodding to the one or two who 

 chanced to meet him, his grave and weary ex- 

 pression was unmistakable, and v in a very few 

 moments the certainty that some sore calamity had 

 occurred had spread throughout the ship. So travel - 

 stained was he on entering my cabin that I mistook 

 him for his more swarthy friend Beaumont, then on the 

 Greenland coast, and therefore anxiously questioned 

 him concerning the disaster which had occasioned his 

 totally unexpected return. 



I then received the distressing intelligence that 

 nearly the whole of Commander Markham's men were 

 attacked with scurvy and in want of immediate assist- 

 ance. Markham and the few men who were able to 

 work had succeeded in conveying the invalids to the 

 neighbourhood of Cape Joseph Henry, twenty-seven 

 miles distant from the ship, and were still advancing 

 slowly ; but each day was rapidly adding to the in- 

 tensity of the disease and the number of the sick. 



