The unique meeting of Captain M’Clure from the west, and Lieutenant Pim from the east, with a party from the _Resolute_, is graphically described in a private letter from Captain Kellett.
“This is really a red-letter day in our voyage, and shall be kept as a holiday by our heirs and successors forever. At nine o’clock of this day, our lookout man made the signal for a party coming in from the westward; all went out to meet them, and assist them in. A second party was then seen. Dr. Domville was the first person I met. I cannot describe my feelings when he told me that Captain M’Clure was among the next party. I was not long in reaching him, and giving him many hearty shakes—no purer were ever given by two men in this world. M’Clure looks well, but is very hungry. His description of Pim’s making the Harbour of Mercy would have been a fine subject for the pen of Captain Marryat, were he alive.
“M’Clure and his first lieutenant were walking on the floe. Seeing a person coming very fast towards them, they supposed he was chased by a bear, or had seen a bear. Walking towards him, on getting onwards a hundred yards, they could see from his proportions that he was not one of them. Pim began to screech and throw up his hands (his face as black as my hat); this brought the captain and lieutenant to a stand, as they could not hear sufficiently to make out his language.
“At length Pim reached the party, quite beside himself, and stammered out, on M’Clure asking him,—
“‘Who are you, and where are you come from?’
“‘Lieutenant Pim, _Herald_, Captain Kellett.’
“This was the more inexplicable to M’Clure, as I was the last person he shook hands with in Behring’s Strait. He at length found that this solitary stranger was a true Englishman—an angel of light. He says: ‘He soon was seen from the ship; they had only one hatchway open, and the crew were fairly jammed there, in their endeavor to get up. The sick jumped out of their hammocks, and the crew forgot their despondency; in fact, all was changed on board the _Investigator_.’
“M’Clure had thirty men and three officers fully prepared to leave for the depot at Point Spencer. What a disappointment it would have been to go there and find the miserable _Mary_ yacht, with four or five casks of provisions, instead of a fine large depot!