After the ice had passed away, and the ocean was once more free from the embargo which winter had laid upon it, we anxiously and daily looked for some approaching sail. We knew that arctic whalemen would soon be along, and pressing their way up towards higher latitudes, an open sea would invite them to secure a profitable season's work. We afterwards ascertained that intelligence of our condition had been carried down the coast full five hundred miles below or south of East Cape, and that the ships which first touched upon the coast were made acquainted with the fact of the Citizen's wreck, and that her officers and crew were among the natives. Captain Newal, of the ship Copia, was the first one who heard of the fate of the Citizen. The method by which the news of the ship's disaster, and the condition of her crew, was conveyed down the coast, is at once striking and significant. Tracts, those little messengers of truth, become oftentimes the appointed vehicles both of temporal and spiritual blessings. Tracts were found in several huts of the natives, carried thither, we suppose, by seamen; and with the exception of pieces of copper, they were all that could be written upon, and thus the only reliable means of communication. From the first, therefore, the captain and his officers availed themselves of this instrumentality; and, whenever they found a leaf of a book or a tract, or a piece of copper, if opportunity occurred, they would send it down the coast by the natives, carefully enclosed in a piece of walrus or deer skin, giving some account of the shipwreck, officers, and crew, and where they could be found. We hoped by this means that the news of our condition would, sooner or later, reach the ear of some navigator early on the coast, and thus bring to pass a more speedy deliverance. In this, as the sequel will show, we were not disappointed. The natives had no idea of written language; and, believing that something of great importance was marked upon either the paper or copper, or both, they preserved it with the greatest care, and almost with superstitious reverence. They had an impression that we could converse with our countrymen and absent friends in this way, which was true; but what they supposed was, that we could talk to them at any time by those mysterious marks. And hence they frequently urged us to speak to them, and obtain some assistance from them, or that they might send some aid to us. Mr. Reoy, one of our company, was the first to get on board of a ship,--the Bartholomew Gosnold,--he being down some two hundred miles below East Cape. He therefore gave immediate information as to the locality of the officers and crew of the Citizen.