The following day, September 12, after a night’s encampment upon a floe, the party landed in Semenovski, and the hunters had the good fortune to secure a deer, which provided them for the first time in many months a full and delicious meal. Cape Barkin, the point of destination, was found to be only ninety miles distant, and, after a day’s rest and depositing a record at Semenovski Island, the party embarked once more full of hope and courage that Cape Barkin might be reached after one more night at sea.
The three boats sped forward to the southwest in a rising sea, the gale increased, and the heavy seas grew hourly more formidable and threatening. De Long and Chipp were experiencing great difficulty in the management of their overloaded boats. Melville, in his endeavour to obey the order to keep within hail, was all but swamped by the fury of the waves as they broke over the whale-boat.
In an endeavour to answer signals from De Long, Melville shouted down the wind that he must run or swamp—De Long waved back, motioning him onward. Melville hoisted sail, shook out one reef, and the whale-boat shot forward like an arrow. De Long then signalled Chipp; for an instant the second cutter was seen in the dim twilight to rise on the crest of a wave, then sink out of sight; once more she appeared; a tremendous sea broke over her; a man was seen striving to free the sail; she sank again from view, and, though seas rose and fell, one after another, the second cutter with all on board was never seen again.
The whale-boat plunged on at a spanking rate and was soon out of sight of De Long. The question now was whether she would outlive the gale—and to insure greater safety Melville ordered a drag anchor to be made of tent poles weighted with such available material as came to hand.
What a night, lying anchored at the mercy of the gale, bailing out with pumps, buckets, and pans the heavy seas as they broke over the boat; hungry and thirsty men, soaked to the skin with repeated ice-cold baths, half frozen from exposure to the icy blasts. A little whiskey was all they had during that fearful night, and in the morning a quarter of a pound of pemmican served as breakfast to the wretched crew. The gale still raged about them with unabated fury. But by afternoon it had abated sufficiently for them to get under way, and the morning of the 14th found them sailing through young ice, and in shoal waters, which they avoided by steering to the eastward all day. Short rations of a quarter of a pound of pemmican three times a day, without water, was all they had, and another miserable night settled upon the toilers, as they bailed the water-logged whale-boat, the water turning to slush the minute it was in the boat.
The men were now undergoing severe sufferings from thirst. The following day they were fortunate in reaching one mouth of the Lena River, and, proceeding up this stream, they disembarked for the first time, after five days of misery. Taking shelter in a deserted hut, lately vacated by natives, they thawed their aching bodies around a cheering camp fire, brewed a pot of tea, and ate of a stew made of a few birds shot at Semenovski Island. But their swollen limbs, blistered and cracked hands, gave them excruciating pain, and another sleepless night added to their misery. Two more toilsome days were spent pulling up the river and encamping at night under a cold and cheerless sky.
On the 19th of September, 1881, Melville’s party had the good fortune to fall in with natives, who treated the forlorn men with great kindness and generosity, and on the 26th of September they reached the Russian village of Geemovialocke, where they subsisted until they were able to communicate with the commandant at Belun.
Upon the separation of the boats already described, De Long experienced the same threatened destruction of the first cutter that had caused Melville so much anxiety in the whale-boat. After three miserable days and nights of exposure to the merciless seas, he decided to make a landing by wading ashore September 17, at a point 73° 25´ north latitude, 26° 30´ east longitude. Owing to the shallow water, it was found necessary to abandon the boat, and the wretched, enfeebled party, destitute, save for four days’ scant provisions, began their fatal march on the inhospitable tundra of northern Siberia, in search of a settlement ninety-five miles distant. De Long’s record of this weary tramp is one long agony of a slowly perishing party. Everything was abandoned that was not absolutely necessary, but in spite of lightened loads, the half-frozen men limped and hobbled slowly along, falling in their tracks, the weaker assisted by the stronger, but even then the ground covered was inconsiderable, so that on September 21, upon reaching some deserted huts, De Long records:—
“According to my accounts we are now thirty-seven miles away from the next station! and eighty-seven from a probable settlement. We have two days’ rations after to-morrow morning’s breakfast, and we have three lame men who cannot make more than five or six miles a day; of course, I cannot leave them, and they certainly cannot keep up with the pace necessary to take.”