82 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



feels when the devouring flames destroy the home which was their shelter, and with it the little 

 souvenirs and priceless memorials which had been so carefully collected and so earnestly treasured, 

 so feels the mariner when compelled to tear himself from the ship, which seems to him at once parent, 

 friend, and shelter. In these vessels lay the result of all the toil and danger encountered by them 

 since leaving home. Their chests contained those little tokens received frotn or reserved for friends 

 thousands of miles away, and nothing could be taken with them save certain prescribed and 

 indispensable articles. With heavy hearts they entered their boats and pulled away, a mournful, 

 almost funereal, flotilla, toward where the vessels lay that were to prove their salvation. Tender 

 women and children were there, who, by their presence, sought to relieve the tedium of a long 

 voyage to their husbands and fathers, and the cold north wind blew pitilessly over the frozen sea, 

 chilling to the marrow the unfortunate fugitives. 



" The first-night out the wanderers encamped on the beach behind the sand-hills. A scanty 

 supply of fire-wood they had with them and such drift-wood as they could collect squiced to make 

 a fire to protect them somewhat from the chilling frost. The sailors dragged boats over the hills, 

 and by turning them bottom upward and covering them with sails, made quite comfortable habi- 

 tations for the women and children. The rest made themselves comfortable as best they could. 



" On the second day out," says Captain Preble, " the boats reached Blossom Shoals, and there 

 spied the refuge- vessels lying 5 miles out from shore, and behind a tougue of ice that stretched 

 like a great peninsula 10 miles farther down the coast, and around the point of which the weary 

 crews were obliged to pull before they could get aboard. The weather here was very bad, the 

 wind blowing fresh from the southwest, causing a sea that threatened the little craft with annihi- 

 lation. Still the hazardous journey had to be performed, and there was no time to be lost in setting 

 about it. * * * All submitted to this new danger with becoming cheerfulness, and the little 

 boats started on their almost hopeless voyage, even the women and children smothering their 

 apprehensions as best 'they could. On the voyage along the inside of the icy point of the peninsula 

 everything went moderately well ; but on rounding it they encountered the full force of a tremen- 

 dous southwest gale and a sea that would have made the stoutest ship tremble. In this fearful 

 sea the whale-boats were tossed about like pieces of cork. They shipped quantities of water from 

 every wave which struck them, requiring the utmost diligence of all hands at bailing to keep 

 them afloat. Everybody's clothing was thoroughly saturated with the freezing brine, while all 

 the bread and flour in the boats was completely spoiled. The strength of the gale was such that 

 the ship Arctic, after getting her portion of the refugees on board, parted her chain-cable and lost 

 her port anchor, but brought up again with her starboard anchor, which held until the little fleet 



was ready to sail. 



"By four o'clock in the afternoon of the second day all were distributed among the seven 

 vessels that formed the remnant of the fleet that sailed for the Arctic Ocean the previous spring. 

 Not a person was lost to add to the grief already felt or to increase the gloom of their situation. 



ships or drive them high upon the beach. Three of the fleet have already been crushed, and two are now lying hove 

 out, which have been crushed by the ice, and are leaking badly. We have now five wrecked crews distributed among 

 us. ' We have barely room to swing at anchorbetween the pack of ice and the beach, and we are lying in three fathoms 

 of water. Should we be cast on the beach it would be at least eleven mouths before we could look for assistance, and 

 in all probability nine out often would die of starvation or scurvy before the opening of spring. 



" Therefore, we have arrived at these conclusions : After the return of our expedition under command of Capt. 

 D. R. Frazer, of the Florida, he having with whale-boats worked to the southward as far as Blossom Sboals, and 

 found that the ice pressed ashore the entire distance from our position to the shoals, leaving in several places on I 

 sufficient wter for our boats to pass through, and this liable at any moment to be frozen over during the twenty 

 hours, which would cut off. our retreat, even by the boats, as Captain Fra,zor had to work through a eonsidenU) 

 quantity of young ice during his expedition, which cut up his boats badly." 



(Signed by the masters.) 



