seven o'clock of the morning of the
19th of September
I hardly know what to write about it . The Captain is gone . He may come back to us again alive , but I fear me -- I fear me . It is now seven o'clock of the morning of the 19th of September . I have spent the whole night traversing the great ice-floe in front of us with a party of seamen in the hope of coming upon some trace of him , but in vain . I shall try to give some account of the circumstances which attended upon his disappearance . Should any one ever chance to read the words which I put down , I trust they will remember that I do not write from conjecture or from hearsay , but that I , a sane and educated man , am describing accurately what actually occurred before my very eyes .