RESCUE AT LAST. 321 



The mate, followed slowly by lioss's boats, reached the ship, and jumped 

 up the side. His wondrous message must have been speedily told, for in 

 a minute the rigging of the vessel was manned, and three ringing cheers 

 saluted Ross and his companions as they rowed slowly forward to within a 

 cable's length. " We were not long in getting on board my old vessel," says 

 Ross, " when we were all received by Captain Humphreys with a hearty 

 seaman's welcome." 



As they stood on the trim deck of the " Isabella," the appearance of the 

 explorers was pitiable in the extreme. " Unshaven since I know not when ; 

 dirty, dressed in the rags of wild beasts instead of the tatters of civilisation, 

 and starved to the very bones," writes Ross ; " our gaunt and grim looks, 

 when contrasted with those of the well-dressed and well-fed men around us, 

 made us all feel, I believe, for the first time, what we really were, as well as 

 what we seemed to others. . . . But the ludicrous soon took the place 

 of all other feelings. In such a crowd and such a confusion, all serious 

 thought was impossible ; while the new buoyancy of our spirits made us 

 abundantly willing to be amused by the scene which now opened. Every 

 man was hungry, and was to be fed ; all were ragged, and were to be clothed ; 

 there was not one to whom washing was not indispensable, nor one whom 

 his beard did not deprive of all English semblance. All— everything — was 

 to be done at once; it was washing, dressing, shaving, eating, all inter- 

 mingled ; it was all the materials of each jumbled together ; while in the 

 midst of all these were interminable questions to be asked and answered on 

 all sides — the adventures of the * Victory,' our own escapes, the politics of 

 England, and the news which was now four years old. But all subsided 

 into peace at last. The sick were accommodated, the seamen disposed of, 

 and all was done for all of us that care and kindness could perform. Night 

 at length brought quiet and serious thoughts ; and I trust there was not one 

 man among us who did not then express, where it was due, his gratitude 

 for that interposition which had raised us all from a despair which none 

 could now forget, and had brought us from the very borders of a not distant 

 grave, to life and friends and civilisation. Long accustomed, however, to a 

 cold bed on the hard snow or the bare rock, few could sleep amid the com- 

 forts of our new accommodation. I was myself compelled to leave the bed 

 which had been kindly assigned me, and take my abode in a chair for the 

 night. Nor did it fare much better with the rest. It was for time to recon- 

 cile us to this sudden and violent change— to break through what had 

 become habit, and to inure us once more to the usages of our former days." 

 On the 30th September the " Isabella," with the captain and crew of the 

 "Victory" on board, sailed out of Davis Strait, and on the 12th October 

 she reached Stromness. On the 19th Ross arrived in London, and having 

 reported himself to the Secretary of the Admiralty, he set out at once for 

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