GEEELY RELIEF EXPEDITION. 47 



the effect of continued and anxious effort had told its story in his 

 wasted form. Shorter and shorter daily journeys were made during 

 the good weather of that region, while in bad weather, so frequent 

 there, he found his strength unequal to braving winds, storms, and 

 cold. Like the others, he was giving up the battle, and his strength 

 was so much impaired when he heard the sound of the joyful recall 

 signal whistle of the Thetis that enough only was left to enable him 

 to stagger out to the rocks overlooking Kane Sea to discover if that 

 signal proceeded from ships in sight. 



His first visit was a bitter disappointment, as he saw nothing. A 

 second visit, made some fifteen minutes later, under great difficulties, 

 brought him within 50 yards of the Bear's steam cutter, and in view 

 of the relief ships coming around Cape Sabine. When the steam 

 cutter ran into the beach where Long was seen he walked and rolled 

 down the ice-covered cliff and was taken into the cutter. He in- 

 formed Lieutenant Colwell that the location of the camp was just 

 over the cliff, and that only seven men were alive, including Lieuten- 

 ant Greely. 



The experience of the rescued, gained during the latter part of the 

 long and desolate winter while watching their ' dying comrades as 

 one after another had passed away forever from amongst them, taught 

 the few remaining that their swollen joints and faces had a signifi- 

 cance that could not be mistaken. These same symptoms had come 

 to all of those who were .now dead about forty-eight hours before 

 dissolution. It indicated to the survivors but a short lease of life if 

 no rescue came, probably not much more than forty -eight hours. 



During the last few months the rescued party had survived upon 

 boiled strips of seal-skin, cut from their sleeping-bags and clothing. 

 Shrimps boiled with them formed a gelatinous mass of repulsive 

 substance, that sustained without strengthening -them. Supplement- 

 ing this mass with lichens which grew about the rocks, those rescued 

 managed to maintain themselves for several weeks, though when 

 the camp was reached a supply for some forty-eight hours only was 

 found. 



About the camp were strown various articles of cast-off clothing, 

 broken camp equipage of all sorts, the bow of a boat which had been 

 used as fuel, and debris of all kinds. Each one, however, had care- 

 fully wrapped and marked what valuables remained to him aftor 

 their desperate struggle. They were to be opened by friends at 

 home if, perchance, death should come before rescue. 



The conditions of the surroundings of this wretched camp were 

 in keeping with the scenes inside and about the tent — desperate, des- 

 olate, and abandoned. The bleak barrenness of the spot, rarely vis- 

 ited by Arctic fowl or animal ; the row of graves on a little ridge a 

 hundred feet away, with protruding heads and feet of those later 

 buried, were a sad and silent witness to the daily increasing weak' 



