May arrived, and with returning spring, and some supplies obtained from the natives, the crew were so far restored to health that all but three or four could take some part in the preparations for an immediate start to the southward. It had become only too evident that their vessel, now almost dismantled to the water’s edge—the woodwork having been needed for fuel—_must_ be abandoned. But one month’s provisions remained, and they were thirteen hundred miles from the nearest Danish settlement. The last farewell to the brig was made with some degree of solemnity. It was Sunday. After prayers and a chapter of the Bible had been read, Kane addressed his men, not affecting to disguise from them the difficulties still to be overcome, but reminding them how often an unseen Power had already rescued them from peril. He was met in a right spirit, and a memorial was shortly afterwards brought to him, signed by the whole company, which stated that they entirely concurred in his attempt to reach the south by means of boats, and that they were convinced of the necessity of abandoning the brig. All then went on deck. The flags were hoisted and hauled down again, and the men walked once or twice around the brig, looking at her timbers, and exchanging comments upon the scars, which reminded them of every stage of her dismantling. The figure-head—the fair Augusta, the little blue girl with pink cheeks, who had lost her breast by an iceberg and her nose by a nip off Bedevilled Reach—was taken from the bows. “She is at any rate wood,” said the men, when Kane hesitated about giving them the extra burden, “and if we cannot carry her far we can burn her.”