TI1E RED BOAT SINKING. 
<)o - 
Id I 
precaution from the Esquimaux, who always move in 
advance of their sledges when the ice is treacherous, 
and test its strength before bringing on their teams. 
Our first warning impressed us with the policy of ob¬ 
serving it. We were making wide circuits with the 
whaleboats to avoid the tide-holes, when signals of dis¬ 
tress from men scrambling on the ice announced to us 
that the Red Eric had disappeared. This unfortunate 
little craft contained all the dearly-earned documents 
of the expedition. There was not a man who ‘did 
not feel that the reputation of the party rested in a 
great degree upon their preservation. It had cost us 
many a pang to give up our collections of natural his¬ 
tory, to which every one had contributed his quota of 
labor and interest; but the destruction of the vouchers 
of the cruise—the log-books, the meteorological regis¬ 
ters, the surveys, and the journals—seemed to strike 
them all as an irreparable disaster. 
When I reached the boat every thing was in con¬ 
fusion. Blake, with a line passed round his waist, was 
standing up to his knees in sludge, groping for the 
document-box, and Mr. Bonsall, dripping wet, was 
endeavoring to haul the provision-bags to a place of 
safety. Happily the boat Avas our lightest one, and 
every thing was saved. She Avas gradually lightened 
until she could bear a man, and her cargo Avas then 
passed out by a line and hauled upon the ice. In 
spite of the Avet and the cold and our thoughts of poor 
Ohlsen, Ave greeted its safety with three cheers. 
It Avas by great good fortune that no lives AA r ere lost. 
