were so
physically exhausted and in such mental condition that they could
not even indicate in what direction they had left their comrades.

Kane appreciated the gravity of the situation and the necessity of
prompt measures. A relief party was at once started, which Kane led
himself, despite his impaired health, physical weakness, and general
unfitness for such a desperate journey; as always, he spared not
himself when danger threatened. Ohlsen, being the clearest-headed of
the sledgemen, was put in a sleeping-bag and dragged on a sledge as
a guide.

Eighteen hours' travel were without tangible result; Kane fainted
twice on the snow; his stoutest men were seized with trembling fits,
and as yet no signs of the missing party. Fortunately Kane had taken
the Eskimo, Hans Hendrik, whose keen eye discovered the track that
led to the tent of the frozen men. They were alive, but crippled
beyond the possibility of marching. The weather remained fine or all
would have perished, and as it was, Hayes, the surgeon, in his
report of their condition on reaching the brig, said: "I was
startled by their ghastly appearance. When I hailed them they met me
only with a vacant, wild stare. They were to a man delirious." Of
the eight men only one returned sound; two shortly died, two others
suffered amputations, and three escaped with temporary disabilities.

Three weeks later, on April 26th, Kane set out on what, to use his
own words, "was to be the crowning expedition of the campaign, to
attain the Ultima Thule of the Greenland shore." Impressed with the
impracticability of a direct journey across the main ice-pack, he
decided to follow the shore-line, five men dragging a sledge, while
Kane and Godfrey travelled by dog-team. He had been led by his
resolute spirit to overestimate the physical strength of his men and
himself, and the party broke down before it had even approached the
Humboldt Glacier. Their enthusiastic leader was stricken with
fainting spells and rigidity of limbs, but Kane would not admit his
illness to be more than temporary, and bidding the men strap him on
the sledge, proceeded onward. His diminished physical powers now
became evident through the freezing of his rigid and swollen limbs.
Delirious and fainting at the end of the march, he was carried in an
almost insensible condition to his tent, when his men wisely took
the matter in their own hands and started back for the brig. Nine
days later, through forced marche