“Rejoice to hear of your safe arrival in the Falkland Islands and trust your comrades on Elephant Island may soon be rescued.

“GeorgeR.I.”

The events of the days that followed our arrival at the Falkland Islands I will not attempt to describe in detail.  My mind was bent upon the rescue of the party on Elephant Island at the earliest possible moment.  Winter was advancing, and I was fully conscious that the lives of some of my comrades might be the price of unnecessary delay.  A proposal had been made to send a relief ship from England, but she could not reach the southern seas for many weeks.  In the meantime I got into communication with the Governments of the South American Republics by wireless and cable and asked if they had any suitable ship I could use for a rescue.  I wanted a wooden ship capable of pushing into loose ice, with fair speed and a reasonable coal capacity.  Messages of congratulation and goodwill were reaching me from all parts of the world, and the kindness of hundreds of friends in many lands was a very real comfort in a time of anxiety and stress.

The British Admiralty informed me that no suitable vessel was available in England and that no relief could be expected before October.  I replied that October would be too late.  Then the British Minister in Montevideo telegraphed me regarding a trawler named ‘Instituto de Pesca No. 1’, belonging to the Uruguayan Government.  She was a stout little vessel, and the Government had generously offered to equip her with coal, provisions, clothing, etc., and send her across to the Falkland Islands for me to take down to Elephant Island.  I accepted this offer gladly, and the trawler was in Port Stanley on June 10.  We started south at once.

The weather was bad but the trawler made good progress, steaming steadily at about six knots, and in the bright, clear dawn of the third day we sighted the peaks of Elephant Island.  Hope ran high; but our ancient enemy the pack was lying in wait, and within twenty miles of the island the trawler was stopped by an impenetrable barrier of ice.  The pack lay in the form of a crescent, with a horn to the west of the ship stretching north.  Steaming north-east, we reached another horn and saw that the pack, heavy and dense, then trended away to the east.  We made an attempt to push into the ice, but it was so heavy that the trawler was held up at once and began to grind in the small thick floes, so we cautiously backed out.  The propeller, going slowly, was not damaged, though any moment I feared we might strip the blades.  The island lay on our starboard quarter, but there was no possibility of approaching it.  The Uruguayan engineer reported to me that he had three days’ coal left, and I had to give the order to turn back.  A screen of fog hid the lower slopes of the island, and the men watching from the camp on the beach could not have seen the ship.  Northward we steamed again, with the engines knocking badly, and after encountering a new gale, made Port Stanley with the bunkers nearly empty and the engines almost broken down.  H.M.S.  ‘Glasgow’ was in the port, and the British sailors gave us a hearty welcome as we steamed in.