THE MARVELLOUS ICE-DRIFT OF CAPTAIN TYSON
"To die be given us, or to attain!
Fierce work it were to do again."
—Arnold.
Only once in our history has the United States sent forth an expedition to reach the north pole, and that was under Charles Francis Hall, already distinguished for his daring arctic work in search of relics of the Franklin squadron. Hall sailed in the Polaris, and in a voyage of unusual rapidity, passing through Smith Sound, added to his fame by discovering Robeson Channel and its bordering lands. He broke the record in navigating his ship to 82° 11′ north latitude, in the Great Frozen Ocean, which was reached August 30, 1871. The Polaris, forced southward by the arctic pack, wintered at Thank God Harbor, Greenland, where Hall died of apoplexy. With his death the north-polar quest was abandoned, and the ice-master Buddington sailed homeward the following summer. Pushed hastily into an impassable pack, the ship was subjected to its vicissitudes for two months without possibility of escape. Drifting steadily southward the Polaris was off Northumberland Island on October 15, 1872, when she was nearly destroyed by a violent blizzard and her crew was separated—half on the floating pack and the rest on shipboard. The latter party beached the sinking ship in Life Boat Cove, where the crew wintered. Going south in 1873 they were picked up by the whaler Ravenscraig near Cape York. The story of the separation and of the experiences of the castaways follow.[14]
Above the shining waters of the blue and historic Potomac at Washington rise the oak-crowned hills of Arlington where repose many heroic dead in our American Valhalla. Side by side in almost countless rows stand thousands of plain white stones which preserve for coming patriotic generations the names and memories of those who died for the Union. Here and there the prevailing monotony is broken by a more ambitious monument raised by family or by friends. These men, inspired by patriotism as a rule, did deeds of valor, with weapons in hand, in the face of an armed foe. But the men of the American nation have conquered fate in other fields than those of war, and such services are elsewhere commemorated in Washington. In the Hall of Fame at our national capital each American State places the statues of its two most distinguished servitors—in memory of deeds done for the good and the greatness of the State. And near by the Congressional Cemetery contains stately shafts and memorial columns that mark the graves of other men famous in national annals through civic worth.
Yet there are other heroes than those of war or of civic service buried within sight of the majestic monument to Washington or of the graceful dome of the Capitol. In the shades of Greenwood stands a plain shaft of black marble whereon the passer-by may read as follows:
"To the memory of an arctic hero, Captain George E. Tyson, 1829-1906. In 1872-73, while adrift on an ice-floe 196 days, he saved the lives of 18 companions. They serve God well who serve his creatures."
This memorial, built through small contributions from self-denying men of meagre means, was in honor of a plain man of small education, of humble occupation, who loved his fellows. It therefore seems well that the tale of his arctic services thus recognized should be told anew to the rising generation of Americans that his deeds may not soon fade from the minds of men.
The fateful disaster of October 15, 1872, which led to the Tyson floe-drift occurred in the midst of a dark winter night when a snow-filled hurricane wind drove huge icebergs through the solid and seemingly impenetrable ice-field in which the Polaris was fast beset. As if by magic the solemn, quiet calm of the polar night was broken by a series of tornado-like gusts, and soon the responsive ice-field quivered as though upcast by a marine earthquake. The howlings of the wind were broken by horrible groanings from the moving polar pack, while now and then arose deafening sounds, as of a cannonade, from the explosions of the ice-surface. It takes much to move to fear men long in arctic service, but the quiet ship life was stirred into startled action when heavy floes near the ship began to split into countless fragments. One and all knew that the long-dreaded peril was upon them—the disruption of the polar pack. For weeks they had watched with pleasure the changing lights and reflected tints from their azure-colored neighbors—the tall, white sentinels of the arctic seas. After pleasure the pain, and now with terror they saw the pale blue icebergs of enormous size—wind-driven and slow-moving—plough their way serenely through the main pack of flat-topped paleocrystic floes scores of feet in thickness.
Under these awful pressures the huge floes, as they met, crumbling at the edges, threw up vast masses of broken ice which in long pressure-ridges acted as buffers. Caught in this maelstrom of whirling, upturning ice the Polaris was bodily lifted many feet, quite out of the water, so that she careened on her beam ends.
In this crisis, amid intense excitement, some one cried out that the ship's sides were broken in and that she was making water freely. At this Buddington shouted: "Work for your lives, boys! Throw everything overboard"—meaning the emergency packages of stores and provisions which for weeks had been kept ready on deck in view of possible and sudden shipwreck. Stores, clothing, records, boats, food, and other articles were frantically cast upon the main floe to which the ship was secured by ice-anchors. Fearing that the Polaris would soon sink and carry down in her final plunge everything near her, Captain Tyson busied himself in removing and piling together, at a safe distance, the scattered stores. While thus engaged the main pack loosened up near the Polaris. The ice pressures slowly relaxed, the pressure-ridges dropped apart, and the ship, slipping down into the sea, dragged her ice-anchors, broke her hawser, and was driven out of sight—disappearing almost in the twinkling of an eye, as it seemed to the dazed men yet on the floe.
The stranded men and supplies were not on a single floe, but scattered on several, which were separated by rapidly widening lanes of water. Tyson acted with decision and promptness, and launching a whale-boat at the risk of his life succeeded during that dark, tempestuous night in bringing together the nineteen men, women, and children on the immense floe to which the ship had been anchored for weeks. Here the exhausted party huddled together under some musk-ox skins, which in a degree protected them from the increasing southwest blizzard that then prevailed; but dawn found them chilled to the bone, covered with the heavy snow-fall of the night.[15]
Tyson took charge and at once decided to abandon the floe and the main supplies, knowing that the party would be safe if it could reach land and the Etah Eskimos. The ice had so drifted that the shore was within a few miles, and the party in an attempt to reach it was hurried into the boat, which unfortunately had only three oars and was rudderless. Two men actually reached the land over the ice, on a scouting trip, but later the wind, ice, and tides were so adverse that Tyson decided, as the pack closed in front of the boat, to return to their original floe.
Although sadly reduced in size by the action of the grinding pack and by the ploughing icebergs, the flat-topped floe-berg was still enormous. Nearly circular in shape, and averaging quite a hundred feet in thickness, its area was about seven square miles. With its diversified surface of hill and dale, favored by several fresh-water lakes, and of marble-like texture and hardness as to its ice, it seemed to be a floe-berg of such solidity and extent as would insure safety under any and all conditions.
The castaways numbered nineteen in all—Captain Tyson, Signal Sergeant Meyer, eight seamen, and nine Eskimos, of whom seven were women and children. Except Tyson and the negro cook Jackson, there were no Americans in the party.
With the foresight, system, and judgment which insured the final safety of the party, Tyson collected the materials scattered over the several floes, inventoried and provided for the safety of the food, and insisted on a fixed ration. Their food supplies on October 18 consisted of 14 hams, 14 cans of pemmican, 12 bags of bread, 1 can of dried apples, 132 cans of meats and soups, and a small bag of chocolate. They also had 2 whale-boats, 2 kayaks, an A-tent, compasses, chronometer, etc., rifles and ammunition.
Food was of surpassing importance, and Tyson calculated that the supply would last four months at the rate of twelve ounces daily to each adult, the Eskimo children to receive half rations.
To insure an equable distribution of the food, Tyson took charge and personally measured out both bread and pemmican. Later he was able to give exact weights through a pair of improvised scales. They were made by Meyer most ingeniously of a lever balance taken from an aneroid barometer and connected with a three-cornered rule; the weights used were shot from their shot-gun ammunition.
The foreigners of the party, except the docile Eskimos, were not thoroughly amenable to command. After Hall's death the failings of the sailing-master in command, Captain Buddington, were such that he could not maintain proper discipline, and hence a certain degree of demoralization existed among the seamen. The rule of the sea that loosens bonds and makes seamen free from service on the loss of a ship, was also injuriously felt.
As a result Tyson's powers of control simply arose from his high character, sound judgment, and professional knowledge. His orders were obeyed as seemed convenient, but, as one man testified under oath, "When we didn't [obey his orders] we found out it didn't turn out well"—the highest of praise.
With increasing cold the tent was no longer habitable, and it became necessary to provide warm shelter, which was done through the building of igloos, or snow huts, by the Eskimo Ebierbing (Joe) and Hans Hendrik. Hans and his family of six built their igloo a little apart from the others. While there were five separate igloos, they were thrown into close connection by a system of arched snow passages through which the men came and went without exposure to the weather. Some delay and trouble occurred in finding suitable drifts of packed snow from which were dexterously carved the snow slabs needful for the huts. The very low entrances to the igloos were covered by a canvas flap frozen into the outer wall so as to exclude almost entirely the entrance into the hut of either cold air or wind-driven snow. Feeble light was introduced through windows made of thin slabs of fresh-water ice cut from an adjacent lake.
From the entrance the canvas-covered snow floor sloped gently upward to the rear of the igloo, thus making that portion of the room a little higher and somewhat warmer, as the colder air flowed down toward the door. Their scant bedding of sleeping-bags and musk-ox skins was arranged in the rear of the hut, on canvas-covered boards, where, however, the arched snow roof was near the head of the sleeper. The only place where one could stand erect was in the very centre of the hut, where the separate messes cooked their scanty meals.
Tyson and the Eskimo families did their cooking from the first by lamp, native-fashion, the lamps being made from pemmican cans with wicks of canvas ravelings. He urged the others to follow the example thus set, telling them that this economical method was necessary owing to scarcity of fuel. The seamen tried it for a while, but as there was much smoke from lack of care they abandoned the lamp. Despite Tyson's advice, they began, with reckless disregard for the future, to break up the smaller of the two boats and use it as fuel for cooking. In excuse they said that the astronomical observations and opinions of Meyer showed that the floe was drifting toward Disco, Greenland, and that they would soon reach that place and the occupancy of the ice camp would be of short duration.
On October 27 the sun left them permanently for three months, and soon the bitter, benumbing cold of the arctic winter was felt by all. The cold, hunger, and short rations soon affected both body and mind, causing less bodily activity and inducing a sharpness of temper which often led to long and angry discussions among the seamen.
An unfortunate loss of food occurred in connection with the dogs, all nine having been kept for bear-hunting. Slowly perishing of starvation, the wolfish dogs succeeded in breaking into the storehouse, and devoured everything within reach before they were discovered. Five of the most ravenous brutes were shot, greatly to the advantage of the Eskimo, who made a royal feast. The white men, not yet reduced to extremities, looked on with amusement as their native companions with luxurious satisfaction cooked and swallowed the slaughtered animals.
Tyson's experiences as a whaler made him realize that the only chance of life lay in obtaining game, and so he organized and encouraged hunting-parties. All the men were armed except the captain himself, but it must be here admitted that the entire crew of seamen did not obtain enough game, during the drift of six months' duration, to make a single meal for the party. The successful hunters were the Eskimo, Ebierbing (Joe) being most successful, though Hans Hendrik killed many seal.
Once Hans barely escaped death from the rifles of Ebierbing and Seaman Kruger, as in the darkness they mistook him for a bear owing to the color of his snow-covered fur clothing and to the lumbering methods by which he climbed over the hummocky ridges. Fortunately the hunters waited for a better shot, and meantime saw that it was Hans.
Matters were getting bad after one boat had been burned and there was no blubber left for cooking. Some of the men were so weak that they trembled as they walked, and the native children often cried from the pangs of hunger. Once the men ate the seal meat uncooked and undressed, so keen was their hunger.
As no bears appeared, seal-hunting was followed with renewed and feverish energy. At first seal were killed in open water-spaces around the edges of the floe. When the extreme cold cemented together the floes, it was necessary to hunt carefully for seal-holes—places where the seal comes regularly for air, keeping the hole open by his nose, rising and breaking the new ice as it forms from day to day.
Such holes are only three or four inches across, and it often requires long search before the trained eye of the seal-hunter locates a breathing space. Even then unwearied patience and great skill are needful for successful hunting. Seated by the hole, with his back to the wind, his feet on a bit of seal-skin, with a barbed spear in his hand, the Inuit hunter steadily and intently fastens his eyes on the glazed water-space where the animal rises. Often it is hours before the seal comes, if indeed at all, and he is caught only through a swift, single stroke by which the spear unerringly pierces the thin skull of the animal. Five seals were killed during November, and Thanksgiving day was celebrated by adding to the usual meal a little chocolate and some dried apples.
The moral attitude of the greater number of the seamen was evident from several incidents. On Thanksgiving day the captain suggested that all unite in some religious service appropriate to the day and to their situation, but the seamen were unwilling to participate.
In marked contrast were the feelings of the Inuit Hans Hendrik, who thus writes: "I considered the miserable condition of my wife and children, on a piece of ice in the mid-ocean, then I pronounced my prayer:
"Jesu, lead me by the hand,
While I am here below;
Forsake me not."
With bad judgment Meyer, who was an under-officer, left Tyson's hut and joined the seamen—mostly Germans like himself. As a result of the growing demoralization, incursions were made on the food by unknown persons, and when Tyson was one day sick a seaman made the issues and then decided to retain this duty. There had been complaint that Tyson was too stingy in his issues, and the new issuing officer gave with freer hand in accord with the wishes of the heedless few.
Tyson was then driven to leave his lonely hut for the igloo wherein lived Ebierbing and his worthy wife Tookoolito (Hannah) and their young adopted daughter. This hut was the very centre of activity on the floe. Apart from the time needful for cooking, Tookoolito busied herself either in deftly mending the torn and sadly worn skin garments of her husband and of Tyson, or in making some article that would add to the general comfort and be of daily use. Thus the party was divided into two camps, one of care and production, the other of amusement and consumption. Ebierbing kept the field daily, and his success as a hunter proved to be the salvation of the party. Hans did what he could, it is true, but he was either less skilful or less fortunate than his native companion. The crew did almost nothing save to cook the food given them. They scarcely took exercise and filled in their time with endless discussions as to the future or with a pack of cards made out of heavy paper. Tyson controlled the Eskimos alone, and gave advice to the men only as occasion urgently demanded.
The winter month of December passed badly, with increasing darkness, severer cold, and despondent feelings. The poor natives, hearing so much desperate talk, unfortunately gained the notion that in the last extremity, which then seemed to be at hand, they would be sacrificed, and much uneasiness was felt by Tyson who strove to reassure them. Two wretchedly thin foxes, giving about three ounces of fresh meat to each man, was the only game up to Christmas, and nothing was encouraging except the steady drift to the south.
The captain felt it best to give a starvation feast on Christmas, and so added to the usual ration the last remaining delicacies—a bit of frozen ham, a few spoonfuls of dried apples, and a swallow or two of seal blood saved in a frozen condition. The knowledge that the sun was returning, of southing being made by drift, and chances of game increasing were conditions of hope that made it an almost cheerful holiday.
Actually they were in desperate straits of hunger, for Tyson relates that in his igloo they ate greedily the refuse of the cooking-lamp oil. Tookoolito turned into food and cooked pieces of dried seal-skin which had been set aside for repairing their clothing. Of this Tyson says: "It was so very tough it made my jaws ache to chew it."
Day after day, in storm and in calm, faithful Ebierbing kept the field, always hoping for success on the morrow. After thirty-six days of unsuccess he killed a seal in the open sea. Shot through the brain, the seal floated until he could be reached by that wonderful skin boat of the Eskimos—the kayak. Then land shot up into view to the southwestward, and all felt that they were saved.
The new year of 1873 opened in dreary form, with no game, and a dinner of two mouldy biscuit with seal entrails and blubber served frozen, as their fuel was gone. The improvident seamen had not only burned one boat, but even the boards under their sleeping-robes. Compelled at last by dire need, they now made a lamp from an old can and began to cook Eskimo-fashion. Most of the time the seamen passed idly in their igloo, quarrelling and disputing. In their ill-clad, half-starved condition they suffered terribly from the severe and prolonged cold of January, during which the mercury was often frozen, with occasional temperatures seventy degrees below freezing. Hopes of relief were high when a bear was found near, and then came a feeling of despair when the animal escaped after injuring badly the two remaining dogs.
Affairs then went from bad to worse, and the utter disruption of the party was imminent, although Tyson used to the utmost his powers of command over the natives and of persuasion with the seamen. An unruly and mutinous member of the crew invaded Tyson's igloo, roundly abused the captain, and even threatened him with personal violence, well knowing that he was unarmed. The evil effects of such conduct was so plain to all that the culprit was forced by public opinion to make an apology for his actions and thus in a manner to strengthen Tyson's hands in the future.
After an absence of eighty-three days the sun returned on January 19, which gave new courage to the natives and increased chances of game. When they killed a seal after many days of hunting, the starving seamen, almost crazy at the sight of food, dragged the animal into their own igloo and gave to the hunters only a small and unfair part of the meat and blubber. With difficulty Tyson was able to mollify the offended natives, by whom this injustice was the more felt as Tobias, one of Hans's babies, was quite sick and could not eat pemmican.
February opened with ten days of fruitless hunting, when Hans fortunately saw a seal thrust his head up through young ice far from the floe. Would he come again? Could he kill him at that distance, and was it possible to bring him in? While asking himself these questions, with his eyes intent on the air-hole, the nose and then the head of the seal rose slowly into view. On this shot might depend their lives, and with the care and slowness of the Inuit hunter, half-starved Hans, with steady hand and unerring aim, sent a bullet through the brain of the seal, paralyzing him and thus keeping the air in the seal's lungs and floating his body. As the thin new ice would not bear a man, Tyson solved the difficulty by putting Hans in his kayak and pushing him forward as far as could be done. With his paddle braced against rough bits of the floe and by squirming his body, Hans finally reached the seal, fastened a line to it, and worked his way back in the kayak.
With food failing again and the revival of the selfish spirit of every man for himself, Tyson's lot was hard and he knew not what would happen from day to day. Always quiet and cool, he spoke only when there was need, and never with harsh tones or angry words. He did not waste his force on matters of minor importance—an attitude that carried weight in the end.
When almost in despair there came seal after seal, and scores of arctic dovekies, or little auks in winter plumage. Though each of the birds gave but four ounces of meat, they were welcomed both as a change of diet and as harbingers of coming spring. The seamen then listened to Tyson's advice and decided to eke out life on one meal a day, owing to the fast-vanishing stock of bread and pemmican.
Cape Mercy, in about 65° north latitude, was now in sight though forty miles distant. Some of the men were ready to heartlessly abandon the natives, owing to the smallness of the sole remaining boat, but Tyson said tactfully that all could go (not must go) when the water was ice-free. Preparations were made, the tent enlarged from spare canvas, the ammunition divided, etc., but ice conditions grew worse instead of better.
March opened with a violent storm, which kept all in their igloos save the indefatigable hunters. Then Ebierbing shot a monster harp seal about nine feet long, the largest that Tyson had ever seen, which gave about seven hundred pounds of its rich, nutritious meat and blubber. So delirious were the quite starved seamen that they rushed at the body, carved out pieces and ate them raw, soon being so frightfully besmeared with blood that they looked like ravenous brutes devouring their prey. The heedless men, who turned to Tyson in all cases of dire distress, now ignored his advice not to eat the liver of the seal, and paid for their imprudence by fits of sickness, fortunately not fatal.
With a persistent, fatuitous belief that they would drift to Disco, the seamen were first aroused to the extreme seriousness of their situation by a most violent gale of sixty hours in which they barely escaped death. As has been said, their igloos were built near the centre of an enormous floe nearly a hundred feet in thickness and fifteen miles in circumference. When the storm began the sea seemed covered by floes of similar size and of equally unbreakable ice. The party again failed to have in mind the many insecure and dangerous icebergs which dotted the ice-plain that covered the sea. Throughout the first night the cracking and breaking of the floes sounded like the firing of heavy artillery and the explosion of high-powered shells. Under stress of anxiety the men passed the second night dressed and ready for the worst.
The howling of the gale, the snow-filled air making everything invisible, the recurring roar of the sea, the sound of splitting floes within a few yards of the igloos, and the awful moaning of the moving pack around them, with the steady grinding of colliding bergs, made it a night of horrors. With the gale ended they found themselves saved almost as by miracle, for though their igloos were safe in the centre of a tiny fragment of the great floe, its area was less than a hundred square yards. Surrounding them were hundreds of icebergs and huge floes of all sizes and shapes inextricably entangled and disrupted. Yesterday they could walk miles on their own floe, now they were confined to a floe-fragment.
Dangerous as was the gale it brought about their safety, for the open pack made seal-hunting more productive. The twenty-three seals which were killed during the succeeding two weeks gave needful food, revived their courage, and renewed their strength. Tyson then arranged to save for emergencies their little remaining bread and pemmican. As they were now off the entrance to Hudson Strait, on the breeding grounds of the seal, their safety as regards food seemed to be assured. But another gale brought fresh and unlooked-for disaster, for while they collided with a large iceberg without destruction they were driven far to the eastward, into the open ocean, where their floe was by itself away from the main ice, with only water in sight.
Tyson knew that separation from the icebergs and floes meant speedy death, and as soon as the sea calmed, April 1, he ordered the party to prepare for the abandonment of the floe. Many objected to leaving their comfortable igloos, with plenty of meat, to seek ice so far to the west that it could not be seen, but they finally obeyed Tyson's orders.
The short-sightedness of the seamen in burning a boat was now evident to all. There were nineteen persons to be crowded into a whale-boat intended for eight. Some of the selfish would have left the natives behind, for taking them meant the leaving behind of nearly all meat and other dead weights. Bread, pemmican, some ammunition, the tent, and sleeping-gear were put in the boat, and with a spirit of loyalty criticised by the seamen, Tyson took on board the desk and records of Captain Hall. If this man lived it would be with honor; if he died it should be with his self-respect. The fearfully overcrowded boat barely escaped swamping several times—saved only through Tyson's skilful seamanship. Some men were so alarmed that in panic they threw overboard seal meat to lighten the boat. Three days of unremitting labor brought them to a floe that seemed solid, which they occupied in face of bad weather.
They had barely put up igloos when an awful gale burst on them, and for four days it was a steady battle against death. Their floe began to crumble under pressure from other bergs, and Ebierbing's hut was carried off as the floe split. Seeking the centre of the ice they built a new igloo, which lasted for the night only. Next day the floe, caught between two giant bergs, burst with a mighty roar, splitting completely in two, the crack running through the floor of the igloo. They were left on a piece of ice so small that they could not make arrangements for all to lie down together. Everything was put into the boat, and all through the night they stood watch, half-and-half, ready to launch her at a moment's notice. Again the floe split while breakfast was being cooked in the tent, the crack running through the tent; the cook escaped but the breakfast fell into the sea. The tent was again pitched alongside the whale-boat. The tent could not shelter all the party, but by turns they got a little sleep.
About midnight there was heard a fearful crash, and, as Hans relates, "The ice which served us as a camping-place parted between the boat on which I slept and the tent. I jumped out to the other side, while that piece on which the boat was placed moved off quickly with Mister Maje [Meyer] who was seated in the boat, and we were separated from it by the water. Our Master [Tyson] asked the sailors to make a boat out of a piece of ice and try to reach it, but they refused. We had never felt so distressed as at this moment, when we had lost our boat. At last I said to my comrade [Ebierbing]: 'We must try to get at it!' Each of us then formed an umiardluk "WE WERE NEARLY CARRIED OFF, BOAT AND ALL, MANY TIMES DURING THIS DREADFUL NIGHT." The crucial trial on the evening of April 20 may best be realized from Tyson's graphic description: "Finally came a tremendous wave, carrying away our tent, skins, and bed-clothing, leaving us destitute. The women and children were already in the boat (Merkut having her tiny baby Charlie Polaris, Inuit-fashion, in the hood of her fur jacket), or the little ones would have been swept into watery graves. All we could do was to try and save the boat. All hands were called to man the boat—to hold on to it with might and main to prevent it being washed away. With our boat warp and strong line of oogjook (seal) thongs we secured the boat to vertical projecting points of ice. Having no grapnels or ice-anchors these fastenings were frequently unloosed and broken, and we had to brace ourselves and hold on with all the strength we had. "I got the boat over to the edge of our ice where the seas first struck, for toward the farther edge the gathered momentum of the waves would more than master us and the boat would go.... We were nearly carried off, boat and all, many times during this dreadful night. The heaviest seas came at intervals of fifteen to twenty minutes.... There we stood all night long, from 9 P. M. to 7 A. M., enduring what few, if any, have gone through and lived. Tremendous seas would come and lift up the boat bodily, and carry it and us forward almost to the extreme opposite edge of our piece. "Several times the boat got partly over the edge and was only hauled back by the superhuman strength which a knowledge of the desperate condition its loss would reduce us to gave us. With almost every sea would come an avalanche of ice-blocks in all sizes, from a foot square to the size of a bureau, which, striking our legs and bodies, bowled us off our feet. We were black and blue with bruises for many a day. "We stood hour after hour, the sea as strong as ever, but we weakening. Before morning we had to make Tookoolito and Merkut [the women] get out and help us hold on too.... That was the greatest fight for life we had yet had. God must have given us strength for the occasion. For twelve hours there was scarcely a sound uttered save the crying of the children and my orders: 'Hold on! Bear down! Put on all your weight!' and the responsive 'ay, ay, sir!' which for once came readily enough." These awful experiences past, they were rescued ten days later, off the coast of Labrador, by Captain Bartlett of the sealing-steamer Tigress. They had lived on an ice-floe one hundred and ninety-six days and drifted fifteen hundred miles. Through God's providence they were restored to the world in health and without the loss of a life or even of a limb. His work accomplished, the heroic sailor, Tyson, went back to the every-day things of life without parade or boastings, and in an humble position did well and contentedly the ordinary round of work. In the difficult and dangerous arctic service herein told Tyson did from day to day what seemed his present duty as best he could without thought of self. Without other ambition than to save the lives of the men, the women, and the children whom Providence had intrusted to his charge, he did not seek but he found fame and good report. Let the youth of our great land note that this is but one of the many cases in our day and generation in which, as Tennyson sings: "Let his great example stand,
From Tyson's "Arctic Experiences."
Till in all lands and thro' all human story
The path of duty be the path of glory."