THE WHITE WORLD 



wind blew us into Baird Inlet, where we were stranded 

 between two grounded icebergs. We ferried ourselves 

 across the lanes of open water to the nearest land, about 

 fifteen miles south of Cape Sabine. At this time we were 

 all in fair health, but very weak. Rice and our little Eskimo, 

 Jens, were sent to Cape Sabine to ascertain what was left 

 of the English cache, and also to see what records, if any, 

 had been left there by possible parties of succor, who 

 might have made a landing. They returned with the sad 

 tidings, that the Proteus, under command of Lieutenant 

 Garlington, had sunk on July 23, having been crushed by 

 the ice. The Lieutenant had left a record saying that all 

 hands were saved from the Proteus, that they would cross 

 over to Greenland and try to open communication, that the 

 S. S. Yantic was on her way to Littleton Island, but would 

 not enter the ice, and that a Swedish steamer would try to 

 reach Cape York. He would at once attempt to com- 

 municate therewith, and nothing in the power of man would 

 be left undone to send us succor. Unfortunately nothing 

 of the kind happened, and our starvation camp at Cape 

 Sabine was the consequence. Lieutenant Garlington had 

 left a cache of about five hundred rations of bread, some tea 

 and canned goods; there was also a cache of 240 rations 

 left by Mr. Beebe in 1882, and part of the 240 rations 

 cached by Sir George Nares in 1884, was still in good 

 condition. Lieutenant Greely decided it would be best 

 to move our few belongings near to these caches, and a 

 start was made at once. 



We built a hut out of loose stones and ice, using water 

 as cement, which froze all parts solidly together. The 

 walls were about 3^2 feet high, the roof being formed by 

 our whale-boat; its length was 25 feet and width 17 feet. 

 Into this small hole our entire party crowded, spreading 

 our sleeping-bags on the floor with heads to the walls, and 

 feet toward the center, where a small passageway ran 

 through the length of the hut. This passage was used to 

 do our little bit of cooking, and for ingress and egress. 



Our rations were cut down to the smallest possible allow- 

 ance that would sustain life, and as soon as the little lake 

 near which we were encamped froze solid to the bottom, 

 we were put on a short amount of fluid also, consisting of 



