“I need hardly say how great the relief was to my overstretched mind,” the captain wrote of Alexey’s bounty. “Had [Alexey] failed, our provisions would consist of poor Snoozer.” De Long had come to see the hand of God behind these timely encounters with game and shelter: “If ever Divine Providence was manifested in behalf of needy and exposed people, we are an instance of it. All that I need to make my present anxiety nil is some tidings of the two boats and their occupants.”
