Adventure and adventurers > Hudson Bay, or, Everyday life in the wilds of North America

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A PARTY OF UNFORTUNATE SEAMEN.
to be a sailor jumped up, and, seizing an axe, began to
cut down the main-mast, at the same time exclaiming
to the steersman, “ You’ve done for us now, Cooper! ”
He was mistaken, however, for the sails were taken in
just in time to save us; and, while the boat lay tum¬
bling in the sea, we all began to bail, with anything we
could lay hands on, as fast as we could. In a few
minutes the boat was lightened enough to allow of our
hoisting the fore-sail; and about half an hour after¬
wards we were safely anchored in the harbour.
This happened within about three or four hundred
yards of the shore; yet the best swimmer in the world
would have been drowned ere he reached it, as the
water was so bitterly cold, that when I was bailing for
my life, and, consequently, in pretty violent exercise,
my hands became quite benumbed and almost powerless.
Shortly after this I was again sent up to Tadousac,
in charge of a small batteau, of about ten or fifteen
tons, with a number of shipwrecked seamen on board.
These unfortunate men had been cast on shore about
the commencement of winter, on an uninhabited part of
the coast, and had remained without provisions or fire
for a long time, till they were discovered by a gentle¬
man of the Hudson Bay Company, and conveyed over
the snow in sleighs to the nearest establishment, which
happened to be Isle Jeremie. Here they remained all
winter, in a most dreadfully mutilated condition, some
of them having been desperately frozen. One of the
poor fellows, a negro, had one of his feet frozen off at
the ankle, and had lost all the toes and the heel of the
other, the bone being laid bare for about an inch and a