48 THE SEA. 



upon the scars, which reminded them of every stage of her dismantling. The figure-head 

 the fair Augusta, the little blue girl with pink cheeks, who had lost her breast by an 

 iceberg and her nose by a nip off Bedevilled Reach was taken from the bows. " She is 

 at any rate wood/' said the men, when Kane hesitated about giving them the extra 

 burden, "and if we cannot carry her far we can burn her." 



Their boats were three in number, all of them well battered by exposure to ice and 

 storm, almost as destructive of their seaworthiness as the hot sun of other regions. Two 

 of them were cypress whale-boats, twenty-six feet long, with seven feet beam, and three 

 feet deep. These were strengthened with oak bottom-pieces and a long string-piece bolted 

 to the keel. A washboard of light cedar, about six inches high, served to strengthen the 

 gunwale and give increased depth. A neat housing of light canvas was stretched upon 

 a ridge-line sustained fore and aft by stanchions. The third boat was the little Red Eric. 

 They mounted her on the old sledge, the Faith, hardly relying on her for any purposes 

 of navigation, but with the intention of cutting her up for firewood in case their guns 

 should fail to give them a supply of blubber. Indeed, in spite of all the ingenuity of the 

 carpenter, Mr. Ohlsen, well seconded by the persevering labours of M'Garey and Bonsall, 

 not one of the boats was positively seaworthy. The Hope would not pass even charitable 

 inspection, and they expected to burn her on reaching water. The planking of all of 

 them was so dried up that it could hardly be made tight by caulking. The three boats 

 were mounted on the sledges, the provisions stowed snugly under the thwarts; the chrono- 

 meters, carefully boxed and padded, placed in the stern-sheets of the Hope, in charge cf 

 Mr. Sontag. With them were such of the instruments as they could venture to transport. 

 Their powder and shot, upon which their lives depended, were carefully distributed in bags 

 iind tin canisters. 



" There was," says Kane, "no sign or affectation of spirit or enthusiasm upon the 

 memorable day when we first adjusted the boats to their cradles on the sledges, and moved 

 them off to the ice-foot. But the ice immediately around the vessel was smooth, and as 

 the boats had not received their lading, the first labour was an easy one. As the runners 

 moved, the gloom of several countenances was perceptibly lightened. The croakers had 

 protested that we could not stir an inch. These cheering remarks always reach a com- 

 mander's ears, and I took good care, of course, to make the onset contradict them. By 

 the time we reached the end of our little level the tone had improved wonderfully, and 

 we were prepared for the effort of crossing the successive lines of the belt-ice, and forcing 

 a way through the smashed material which interposed between us and the ice-foot. 



" This was a work of great difficulty, and sorrowfully exhausting to the poor fellows 

 not yet accustomed to heave together. But in the end I had the satisfaction, before twenty- 

 four hours were over, of seeing our little arks of safety hauled up on the higher plane of 

 the ice-foot, in full time for ornamental exhibition from the brig; their neat canvas housing 

 rigged tent-fashion over the entire length of each ; a jaunty little flag, made out of one of 

 the commander's obsolete linen shirts, decorated in stripes from a disused article of stationery 

 the red-ink bottle and with a very little of the blue-bag in the star-spangled corner. 

 All hands after this returned on board. I had ready for them the best supper our supplies 

 afforded, and they turned in with minds prepared for their departure next day. 



