Dr. Ambler quickly resolved both difficulties by pointing out that as for the perplexity, till May came, we had had tomatoes but four times a week while since then we had had them daily, thus practically doubling the lead dosage and nearly as promptly starting the trouble. As for the reason why some were victims and some not—of the bad cases, Chipp, weak already from overwork and in poor condition, was a natural victim; Newcomb, little resistant to anything, another; as for himself and the bluejackets who were a little less affected, they were just somewhat more susceptible than some of the rest of us, but in a short time the lead would have got us all. Tong Sing’s case, worse than anybody’s, he had to confess he couldn’t explain, but Ah Sam could and quickly did make it crystal clear,
“Cholly Tong Sing, he likee tomato! He eat plenty, allee same bleakfast, dinner, supper!”
All we need do to prevent scurvy was go back to the issue of tomatoes only four times a week, which quantity of lead absorption we had before apparently withstood. In addition we tried to reduce the lead still further by having Ah Sam carefully strain out and remove all pellets of solder before cooking, thus keeping the lead content down to the minimum, that is, whatever the cold tomatoes had already dissolved.
So with Ah Sam clearing away the mess of emptied cans, we went back to finish our dinner, lukewarm salt beef only now; silent again, wondering, if we had to stay in the Arctic another year, whether it was preferable to eschew the tomatoes and die of scurvy or to continue eating them and pass away of chronic lead poisoning.
The day dragged along. We were in the middle of May, it being the 16th. Our rapid drift continued through the afternoon, more westerly than northerly, but either was perfectly all right with us. The ice was “livelier,” cracks and water leads showed up more frequently, the ship was often jolted by submerged masses of ice, and not so far away as earlier in the spring, high ridges of broken floes were piling up all around us. Then in the early evening after supper, from Mr. Dunbar who more out of habit than hope had crawled up to the crow’s-nest for a look around, came the cry,
“LAND!”
And sure enough, there was land! Off to the westward lay an unknown island!
The crew of the Jeannette was delirious with excitement. Instead of ice, there was land to look at, something we had dully begun to assume had somehow ceased to exist on this globe. And we had discovered it! In exploration, our voyage was no longer a blank! In honor of that, Captain De Long immediately ordered served out to all hands a double ration of rum.
Not since March, 1880, when Wrangel Land last disappeared from sight, had we seen land. As yet we could not see much of this island, nor even make out its distance, but somewhere between thirty and seventy miles off it stood, in black and white against the sky and the ice, masked a little by fog over part of it. But our imaginations ran riot over our island! That must have been the land toward which the ducks and geese were flying, and when we got there, what a feast awaited us! Some eagle-eyed observers clearly spotted reindeer on its cliffs; others even more eagle-eyed plainly distinguished the bucks from the does! Our mouths, dry from chewing on salt beef, watered in eager anticipation.
De Long, positively glowing, hugged Dunbar for discovering our island and looking happily off toward it, exclaimed,