62 FROZEN TO BEATS. 



uncovered the hatchway, they descended below to the cabin 

 which the captain had viewed through the port-hole. A 

 tremor seized him as he entered it. Its inmate retained his 

 former position, and seemed to be insensible to the presence 

 of the strangers. He was found to be a corpse, and a green 

 damp mold had covered his cheeks and forehead, and veiled 

 his eye-balls He had a pen in his hand, and a log-book lay 

 before him, the last sentence in whose unfinished page ran 

 thus: *' — November 11th, 1762. We have now been en- 

 closed in the ice seventeen days. The fire went out yester- 

 day, and our master has been trying ever since to kindle it 

 again, but without success. His wife died this morning. 

 There is no relief" 



The captain and his men hurried from the spot w^ithout 

 uttering a word. On entering the principal cabin, the 

 first object that attracted their attention was the dead body 

 of a female, reclining on a bed in an attitude of deep interest 

 and attention. Her countenance retained the freshness of 

 life, and a contraction of the limbs alone showed that her 

 form was inanimate. Seated upon the floor w^as the corpse 

 of an apparently young man, holding a steel in one hand and 

 a flint in the other, as if in the act of striking fire upon some 

 tinder which lay beside him. In the forepart of the vessel 

 several sailors were found lying dead in their berths, and 

 the body of a boy was found crouched at the bottom of the 

 gangway stairs. 



Neither provisions nor fuel could be discovered any- 

 where ; but Captain Warrens was prevented, by the super- 

 stitious prejudices of his seamen, from examining the ves- 

 sel as minutely as he wished to have done. He therefore 

 carried away the log-book already mentioned, and returning 

 to his own ship, immediately steered to the southward, 

 deeply impressed with the awful example which he had just 

 witnessed of the danger of navigating the Polar seas in 

 high northern latitudes. On returning to England, he 



