NARROW ESCAPES 171 



our men who had kept together reached us out of their mind and 

 unable to speak, as stiff as machines, and the assistant surgeon 

 quite blind. ^°2 \\q undressed them at once, covered them with 

 feather beds, and revived them with tea.*''^ An hour later the 

 guard-marine, in a still more pitiful condition and wandering aim- 

 lessly about on the beach, was found by three men and brought 

 to us. During the night he had fallen into abrook^""* and all the 

 clothing on his body and even his limbs were frozen almost solid, 

 so that we feared he would lose his hands and feet. His strong 

 constitution pulled him through, however.^"^ But the assistant 

 surgeon did not regain the use of his eyes until eight days after. 

 Another time, April 5, believing that we were forecasting the 

 weather better, ^°« Mr. Plenisner, I, my cossack, and the Captain 

 Commander's servant went^°^ hunting, as we were out of meat, 

 the weather being most pleasant and sunshiny. As soon as we 

 reached the beach we killed as many otters as we could carry 

 and seated ourselves near a cliff around a camp fire in order to 

 pass the night. Before we knew it, the same storm [i. e. as on 

 April I, viz. from NW] rose towards midnight and brought so 

 much snow that we should have been covered in a short time had 

 we not constantly run to and fro and given each other no rest. In 

 the morning, after we had been searching long in vain for a crevice 



«2 The equivalent of what follows "as stiff" reads in the MS: "and 

 so stiflf from the cold that, like rigid machines, they could scarcely still 

 move their feet, while the assistant surgeon, totally blind, kept walking 

 behind the others without seeing." 



403 The MS has in addition: "and other remedies," 



"< The MS has instead: "During the whole night he had been lying 

 in a brook." 



«5 The MS has instead: "God, however, pulled him through without 

 harm." 



*°^ In the MS the recital of this episode begins as follows: "Although 

 this [experience] alarmed us greatly, we others undertook to handle the 

 matter more skillfully and, when it was imperative to go, to forecast the 

 weather better; hence, on April 5," etc, 



407 The MS has: "went south." The party presumably again went by 

 way of the transverse depression (see. above, footnote 344) to the west- 

 ern shore. (S) 



