reach, and no other person was in sight,--ship and boats and
men were all gone down before the crushing avalanche, and nothing was
left but myself and a senseless boy.

"I must here pause to tell you that, although we were in the Arctic
regions, and on the ice, the weather was not cold, the time being the
middle of the summer. Of course the dense fog made the air damp and
chilly, but, as I have said, not exactly cold. My shipmates, before the
wreck happened, never dressed in anything warmer than the usual woollen
clothing, and seldom wore coats. For some reason, I do not exactly
remember why, I had, upon going on deck from breakfast that fatal
morning, in addition to my ordinary coat, put on a heavy pilot-cloth
overcoat, which had been furnished me by the master of the ship,--the
price of it to be deducted from my wages. And it was most fortunate that
I had put this coat on, for it now served a good purpose in wrapping up
the boy.

"Seeing that there was now nothing to be gained by longer delay on the
ice, I picked up the boy in my arms and started for the land. It may
strike you as somewhat strange that I should have gone about it so
calmly, or indeed that I did not fall down in despair, and at once give
up the hope of saving myself when there was so little, or rather no,
apparent prospect of it before me. But for this there were some very
natural reasons. In the first place, the thought of saving the boy's
life kept my mind from dwelling too much upon my own misfortunes; and
then, the hope of finding the land which had come in sight out of the
fog inhabited, stimulated my courage, and inspired exertion.

"Although the boy was not heavy, yet I found that in the distance I had
to carry him I grew much fatigued; but the necessity for haste made me
strong, and to save the boy's life seemed now much more desirable than
to save my own, inasmuch as if the boy died, and I survived him, and
could in any way manage to live on, I should be in a worse condition
than if dead, as it appeared to me,--being all alone.

"As I approached very near the land, I became much alarmed by
discovering that a considerable space of water, partly filled with
fragments of ice, intervened between me and the shore; but, after
holding to the right for a little distance, I came at length to a spot
where the ice was firmly in contact with the land, and, after climbing
over some very rough masses which had been squeezed up along the shore,
I got at