Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/278

Rh the midst of the little circle, lay the form of him who was lost, but now found. But oh, what a finding! Spare me from the like again!

"I had hoped to find the lost man—to have become a guide to him—to have given hope to the despairing—to have saved human life; and yet how thankful I felt that his fate had been truthfully determined. "Evidently, from his tracks and the rigidness of his limbs, John had died some time in the morning. From the iceberg for a distance of two miles the footprints were quite fresh compared with the tracks we had seen leading to it. It is quite likely that in the covered shelving of the iceberg, whither he made his way so desperately, he spent some of his time in resting—perhaps sleeping. It was almost a sleep of death, for his tracks indicated feebleness—almost a blindness. Two rods before reaching the final spot of his death, we found where he had fallen down as he walked along, the disturbed snow showing that great effort had been made to regain his walking posture. The place where we found him also exhibited unmistakable signs of a terrible struggle to raise himself up again; but alas! a foe as irresistible as iron had been fastening his fingers upon him all the night long. John had fought like a true soldier—like a hero; but he had to yield at last. He died facing the heavens, the left hand by his side, the right extended, and his eyes directed upward, as if the last objects mirrored by them were the stars looking down upon him in his death-struggles. His face bore evidence that his death was like sweet sleep.

"Every article of John's clothing was in its place—his hands mittened—his head, ears, and nose protected as well as they could be by a Russian cap—his feet shielded by native boots and stockings, and his body well clothed in woollen garments, over which was his sealskin jacket. "Well, we found the lost, determined his terrible fate, and now what remained to be done? "We considered it imprudent for us to attempt to convey the remains back to the vessel; we thought it our duty to