IF the scenes in the life-boats were tear-bringing, hardly
less so was the arrival of the boats at the Carpathia
with their bands of terror-stricken, grief-ridden survivors,
many of them too exhausted to know that safety was
at hand. Watchers on the Carpathia were moved to tears.
"The first life-boat reached the Carpathia about half-past
five o'clock in the morning," recorded one of the passengers
on the Carpathia. "And the last of the sixteen boats was
unloaded before nine o'clock. Some of the life-boats were
only half filled, the first one having but two men and eleven
women, when it had accommodations for at least forty.
There were few men in the boats. The women were the gamest
lot I have ever seen. Some of the men and women were in
evening clothes, and others among those saved had nothing
on but night clothes and raincoats."
After the Carpathia had made certain that there were no
more passengers of the Titanic to be picked up, she threaded
her way out of the ice fields for fifty miles. It was dangerous
work, but it was managed without trouble.
