CHAPTER V 



THE WHALING FLEET SAILS AWAY 



A week after I got to Herschel Island Captain Amundsen 

 sailed west, and the whaling ships began to follow. They 

 were pessimistic about the ice conditions and left me 

 with gloomy forebodings as to the Duchess of Bedford. 

 Captain McKenna had come in to Herschel Island har- 

 bor from his whaling cruise shortly after Klinkenberg 

 got away. On August 26th he, the last of the whalers in 

 the harbor, was about to sail. We thought he was not 

 only the last in the harbor but also the last in this part 

 of the ocean, for we had seen all but one of the whaling 

 ships start west. The only ship we had not seen, the 

 Alexander, was supposed by the other whalers to have 

 passed outside the island and to have preceded them to 

 the westward. The early morning had been decided on 

 by McKenna for weighing anchor, but shortly after mid- 

 night a whaleboat came in from the east bringing Mark- 

 ley, the second mate of the Alexander, and the story that 

 the Alexander had been wrecked several days before by 

 running ashore on the rocks of Cape Parry, three hundred 

 miles to the eastward. A few hours later a second boat 

 came in, bringing Captain Tilton and a number of the 

 crew. Captain McKenna now waited for the rest of the 

 crew of the Alexander. They arrived during the next two 

 days and on August the 28th the Charles Hanson and 

 Olga set sail, thus cutting off from the world for a year 

 the little arctic colony of Herschel Island. 



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