IN SFAECH OF THE EIRA. 159 



Leigh Smith was pulled, rather than walked, over 

 the side, followed by Dr Xeale, Mr Lofly, and then 

 by Captain Hoffman of the Barents. In a few 

 moments all was told, and the mystery we had been 

 sent to solve was cleared up. The Eira was lost a 

 year ago having been nipped in the ice and sunk 

 off Cape Flora, Franz Josef Land. The crew were 

 now on shore here, close to us ; that was enough for 

 us. With one accord boats were manned, and a 

 race began to reach them and bring them off. We 

 found them soon they were but three miles away ; 

 their boats, begrimed by blubber-soot, and jagged by 

 ice-collisions, hauled up on a beach at the head of 

 the very next bay called henceforth Eira Bay. The 

 men who ran our boats up on the beach for us as 

 we landed were as healthy-looking as men could be, 

 and they were actually arraying themselves in their 

 best yachting clothes, which they had saved, when 

 we surprised them. They had lived for a year on 

 bears, walrus, and preserved vegetables, their only 

 sorrow having been that there was not enough of 

 such food to satisfy their enormous appetites. On a 

 rising ground behind their present camp they had 

 built a small cairn with a boat-hook staff surmounting 

 it, and flying on it was the Eira's burgee of the !New 

 Thames Yacht Club. The boats, in which they had 

 lived for forty-one days, and travelled over sea and 

 ice from Franz Josef Land, were housed in by canvas 

 awnings, and crowded with tools, weapons, and 



