Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 21.djvu/180



172 Southern Historical Society Papers.

in its vise-like clasp. It grated against the frail timbers that now only stood between us and death, as if envious that its realms had been invaded, and wanting to reach with its cold grasp the intruder. Lips unused to prayer, now sent up a supplication. Added to all, as if to mock our miseries, a group of walruses climbed clumsily out of the sea, and began disporting themselves so near that we could almost touch them. Gradually, as hope began to sink, the sun slowly came upon the scene. Though low in the north, it brought hope and warmth. The long, cold northern day that knows no sunset was upon us with its low, mocking noon. The sails began to lose their rigged bend, the ice loosened, and we forged ahead. Then, lowering our propeller in the wake thus made, we pushed sternwise out of the terrible ice floe.

FOLLOWING THE WHALER.

" We had now enough of floe ice; our errand was not that of a Franklin or a Kane, but to follow wherever the hardy whaler went. We sailed into Behring Sea and chasing a bark which proved to be the Robert Downs, an Englishman with a Russian flag flying, he answered to the call that he was the Prince Petropoliski bound for a cruise. Our boatswain, a broad Milesian, with a touch of Sclay upon his tongue, was our spokesman, therefore it was easy to imagine how this unpronounceable name must have sounded through the trumpet from such an anti-Russian source.

"On the i8th of June we made St. Lawrence Island, and its Esquimaux inhabitants came out to trade with us. They brought out walrus tusks and fur, which we declined to barter for. The cook, however, brought from the galley a slush bucket of odds and ends of grease and food, and our little stunted friends squatted upon the deck in silence, and dug deeply with their hands into the mixed viands. A pound of tallow candles to each served as dessert, and when the king's meal to an Esquimaux was at an end they departed with full hearts and stomachs.

On the 2yth June, after destroying much shipping in Behring Sea, we captured the Susan Abigail, twenty-eight days from San Fran- cisco. Then, for the first time, we heard that the war was over. But as the captain could show no proof, not even a newspaper, we set it down as a smart Yankee trick, thought of to save his ship.

" On the 5th of July occurred our greatest day's work perhaps