AN ARCTIC JOURNAL. (continued 4)

Unable to advance in consequence of a severe gale, which raged for six-and-thirty hours, we found, on the 1st of May, that sixteen men and one officer were, more or less, snow-blind and otherwise unwell; a large proportion out of the entire number of thirty souls. To be ill in any place is trying enough; but such an hospital as a brown-holland tent, with the thermometer in it at 18° below zero, the snow for a bed, your very breath forming into a small snow called "barber," which penetrated into your very innermost garments, and no water to be procured to assuage the thirst of fever until snow had been melted for the purpose, called for much patience on the part of the patients, and true Samaritan feelings on the part of the "doctors,"—a duty which had now devolved on each officer of a sledge-party, or, in default of him, upon some kind volunteer amongst the men. Happily, the effects of snow-blindness are not lasting, for we recovered as suddenly as we had been struck down. The gale blew itself out, leaving all calm and still, as if the death-like scenery was incapable of such wild revelry as it had been enjoying; and again we plodded onwards, parting from the last supporting sledge on the 6th of May.

Since leaving Cape Walker on the 24th of April, we had gradually passed, in a distance of sixty miles, from a red sandstone to a limestone region; the scenery at every mile becoming more and more monotonous, and less marked by bold outline, cliff, or mountain: as far as the bay, of which Snow-blind Point formed one extreme, a long range of hills, soft and rounded in contour, faced the sea, and sloped to it with a gradual inclination, some three miles in length; ravines became more and more scarce; and after passing the bay, in 100° long. W., none of any size were to be seen. Drearily monotonous as all Arctic scenery must naturally be, when one universal mantle of snow makes earth and water alike, such a tame region as this was, if possible, more so; and walking along the weary terraces, which in endless succession swept far into the interior, and then only rose in diminutive heights of maybe 500 feet, I recalled to memory the like melancholy aspect of the Arctic shores of Asia as described by Baron Wrangell.

ZEAL OF THE MEN.

The broken and rugged nature of the floes obliged us to keep creeping along the coast-line, whilst our ignorance of the land ahead, its trend or direction, occasioned, together with the endless thick weather that we had until the 14th May, many a weary mile to be trodden over, which a knowledge of the bays or indentations would have saved us. It was under such unprofitable labour that the sterling value of our men the more conspicuously showed itself. Captain Ommanney, myself, and Mr. Webb of the "Pioneer," (who sooner than be left behind had voluntarily taken his place as one of the sledge-crew,) were the only three officers; we were consequently thrown much into the society of the men, and I feel assured I am not singular in saying that that intercourse served much to raise our opinion of the character and indomitable spirit of our seamen and marines. On them fell the hard labour, to us fell the honours of the enterprise, and to our chief the reward; yet none equalled the men in cheerfulness and sanguine hopefulness of a successful issue to our enterprise, without which, of course, energy would soon have flagged. Gallant fellows! they met our commiseration with a smile, and a vow that they could do far more. They spoke of cold as "Jack Frost," a real tangible foe, with whom they could combat and would master. Hunger was met with a laugh, and a chuckle at some future feast or jolly recollections told, in rough terms, of by-gone good cheer; and often, standing on some neighbouring pile of ice, and scanning the horizon for those we sought, have I heard a rough voice encouraging the sledge-crew by saying, "Keep step, boys! keep step! she (the sledge) is coming along almost by herself: there's the 'Erebus's' masts showing over the point ahead! Keep step, boys! keep step!"

PLEASING DREAMS.

We had our moments of pleasure too,—plenty of them, in spite of the cold, in spite of fatigue. There was an honest congratulation after a good day's work; there was the time after the pemmican had been eaten, and each one, drawing up his blanket-bag around him, sat, pannikin in hand, and received from the cook the half-gill of grog; and after drinking it, there was sometimes an hour's conversation, in which there was more hearty merriment, I trow, than in many a palace,—dry witticisms, or caustic remarks, which made one's sides ache with laughter. An old marine, mayhap, telling a giddy lamby of a seaman to take his advice and never to be more than a simple private; for, as he philosophically argued, "whilst you're that, do you see, you have to think of nothing: there are petty officers, officers, captains, and admirals paid for looking after you and taking care of you!" or perhaps some scamp, with mock solemnity, wondering whether his mother was thinking of him, and whether she would cry if he never returned to England; on which a six-foot marine remarks, that "thank God, he has got no friends; and there would only be two people in England to cry about him,—the one, the captain of his company, who liked him because he was the tallest man in it, and the canteen sergeant, whom he had forgot to pay for some beer." Now a joke about our flags and mottoes, which one vowed to be mere jack-acting; then a learned disquisition on raising the devil, which one of the party declared he had seen done, one Sunday afternoon, for the purpose of borrowing some cash to play skittles with. In fact, care and thought were thrown to the winds; and, tired as we were, sleep often overtook us, still laughing at the men's witticisms. And then such dreams,—they seemed as if an angel had sent them to reward us for the hard realities of the day: we revelled in a sweet elysium; home was around us,—friends, kind, good friends, plenty smiled on every side; we eat, drank, and were merry; we visited old scenes with by-gone shipmates; even those who had long gone to that bourne whence traveller returneth not, came back to cheer our sleeping hours; and many a one, nigh forgot amongst the up-hill struggles of life, returned to gladden us with their smiles: and as we awoke to the morning meal, many a regret would be heard that so pleasant a delusion as the night had been spent in should be dispelled: each succeeding night, however, brought again "the cherub that watcheth over poor Jack," to throw sunny thoughts around the mind, and thus relieve our wayworn bodies.

On the 14th of May, the "Reliance" and "True Blue" sledges reached a wide break in the continuation of the land, looking like a channel, and some heights to the S.W. appeared to mark the opposite shore of a channel full twenty-five miles wide. Captain Ommanney and myself ascended an elevated mass of table-land, and looked upon the wide-spread wintry scene. Landward, to the south, and far over the rugged and frozen sea, all was death-like and silent as the grave: we felt we might have been the first since "creation's morn" to have looked upon it; the very hills were still clothed in their winter's livery, and the eye could not detect the line of demarkation between land and sea. The frozen foot-prints of a musk-ox excited our curiosity, as being the first and only ones we had seen, and, together with like traces of reindeer, a short distance from Cape Walker, was the sum total of the realization of all our once rosy anticipations of beef and venison to be found during the southern journey.

Ptarmigan, in small numbers, were occasionally seen, and about four brace shot; and now and then a stray fox was espied, watching us, although their numerous tracks showed them to be pretty plentiful: traces of hares were very numerous, but none were fallen in with by our sportsmen, except at Cape Walker, where many were seen by later visitors, and several shot; indeed, it appeared as if it was the limit, in this direction, of animal life: the Polar bears, and ergo the seals, not showing themselves west of the same headland in our route.

On the 17th May the "Reliance" and "True Blue" parted company, each having provisions left to enable them to advance for a further period of five days; Captain Ommanney generously allowing me, his junior, to take the search up in a westerly direction, whilst he went down the channel to the southward, which after all ended in a blind bay. I went some fifty miles farther, and, finding the coast trend to the south, endeavoured to march in a westerly direction across the floe. The sledge was light, with only ten days' provision, and the men were well inured to their work; but I saw, that from the severe strains that were brought on the fastenings of the sledge, that wood, iron, and lashings would not long stand it; and as every foot we advanced, progress became more laborious, and risk greater, I desisted in the attempt; for, situated as we were, nigh three hundred miles from our ship, the breaking down of the sledge would have entailed fearful misery, if not destruction, to my party. Turning southward, we again closed the land, when another severe storm, on the 21st of May, obliged us to take shelter in our tent, and remain there until it was time to return.

CONCLUSION OF JOURNEY.

The journey homeward was light work: the sledges were now half emptied; the weather had become mild, being only a little below freezing-point; we knew the ground, and could make short cuts, and by forced marches we succeeded in making two days' journey in one, thereby giving ourselves a double quantity of food to consume. Lost flesh was quickly recovered; and the two sledges, again rejoining, reached by the night of the 4th of June a dépôt formed at Snow-blind Bay.

Here we met Lieutenant Mecham. He informed us that neither by our parties, or those of Penny's, had intelligence of Franklin been brought back by the supporting sledges. There was, however, hope yet: the long parties had not yet come in; and Captain Penny had been stopped by water—open water—early in May. He had again gone out with a boat; and all attention was directed to Wellington Channel, for every one felt that on no other route was there a chance of Franklin being heard of. Lastly, great fears were entertained lest our long parties should not beat those of the "Lady Franklin" and "Sophia" in time and distance; a piece of esprit-de-corps highly commendable, no doubt, but which, I blush to say, I took no interest in, having gone to the Arctic regions for other motives and purposes than to run races for a Newmarket cup, or to be backed against the field like a Whitechapel game-cock.

Whilst Captain Ommanney went to Cape Walker for some observations, we pulled foot (with forced marches) straight across the floe for Griffith's Island. Every hour wasted in the return journey was a crime, we felt, towards those whom we had come here to save. The fast increasing heat told that the open season was at hand: and even if we could not get our ship to the water, we had brought out a number of beautiful boats, built expressly, at a great expense; our foot journeys in the spring had been new and successful, what might we not yet expect from boat expeditions when the floes were in motion?

On reaching that part of the frozen strait which was evidently covered with only one season's ice, namely, that of about three feet in thickness, symptoms of a speedy disruption were very apparent; long narrow cracks extended continuously for miles; the snow from the surface had all melted, and, running through, served to render the ice-fields porous and spongy: the joyful signs hurried us on, though not without suffering from the lack of pure snow, with which to procure water for drinking. At last Griffith's Island rose above the horizon; a five-and-twenty-mile march brought us to it, and another heavy drag through the melting snow carried us to our ships, on the 12th June, after a journey of five hundred miles in direct lines, in fifty-eight days. We were punished for our last forced march by having five out of the sledge-crew laid up with another severe attack of snow-blindness.

Eight-and-forty hours afterwards, Captain Ommanney arrived; he had crossed some of the cracks in the floe with difficulty, aided by a bridge of boarding-pikes; and Lieut. Mecham, with the sledge "Russell," coming from Cape Walker, on the 17th of June, was obliged to desert his sledge, and wade through water and sludge to Griffith's Island, and thence to the ships: showing how remarkably the breaking up of the ice in Barrow's Strait promised to coincide in date with the time it was first seen to be in motion, by Sir E. Parry's squadron, in 1820.

All the parties were now in, except three sledges and twenty-one men, towards Melville Island; the supports in that direction had suffered in about the same ratio as ourselves to the southward; the progress, however, as might be expected where the coast-line was known, was more rapid. The total number of accidents from frost-bites amounted to eighteen, and amongst them were several cases in which portions of injured feet had to be amputated; only one man had fallen, John Malcolm, a seaman of the "Resolute;" he, poor fellow, appears to have been delicate from the outset, having fainted on his road to the place of inspection and departure, in April, 1851.

LIEUTENANT M'CLINTOCK RETURNS.

After an absence of sixty-two days, Lieut. Aldrich, with the "Lady Franklin" sledge, arrived from Byam Martin Channel. He had searched the west coast of Bathurst Island, which tended a little westerly of north until in latitude 76° 155′ N. At that point, the channel was still full twenty miles wide between Bathurst and Melville Islands, and extended northward as far as could be seen. The only things of note observed, were reindeer, in the month of April, on Bathurst Island, and, with the temperature at 60° below freezing-point, they were grazing on moss or lichen; this point placed beyond doubt the fact, which is now incontestable, that the animals of the Parry group do not migrate to the American continent in the winter. On his way back, Lieut. A. fell in with large flocks of wild fowl winging their way northward.

The floes around our ships were entirely covered with the water of the melted snow, in some places full four feet in depth, eating its way rapidly through in all directions, when Lieut. M'Clintock's sledge, the "Perseverance," and the "Resolute" sledge, Dr. Bradford's, hove in sight, having been out exactly eighty days. Lieut. M'Clintock had been to Winter Harbour, and visited all the points known to Parry's squadron, such as Bushman Cove, Cape Dundas, &c.; but of course no traces of Franklin. He had, however, brought a portion of Parry's last wheel, used in his journey, and substantial proofs of the extraordinary abundance of animal life in that remote region, in the hides and heads of musk-oxen, the meat of which had helped to bring back his crew in wonderful condition. Eighty head of oxen and reindeer had been counted by Mr. M'Clintock, and he could have shot as many as he pleased. Dr. Bradford's journey was not so cheering a one. He had been early knocked up from a fall,—serious symptoms threatened, and for nearly a month the gallant officer was dragged upon his sledge; carrying out—thanks to his own pluck, and the zeal of his men—the object of his journey,—the search of the eastern side of Melville Island. We were now all in: Lieut. M'Clintock had fairly won the palm,—"palmam qui meruit ferat;" in eighty days he had travelled eight hundred miles, and heartily did we congratulate him on his success.

The day following, July 7th, I and one of the officers of the "Pioneer" started to visit Penny's expedition: he was expected back, and we longed to hear the news; Captain Penny having last been reported to have reached the water with a sound boat, a good crew, and a month's provisions. Landing at Cape Martyr, wet up to our necks with splashing through the pools of water, nowhere less than knee-deep, and often a mile in extent, we did not willingly leave the dry land again. On ascending a slope which gave us a view of the south shore of Cornwall's Island as far as Cape Hotham, and near a point known as that whence the dog-sledges in the winter used to strike off when communicating with the ships, our astonishment was great at finding the ice of Barrow's Strait to have broken up;—the gray light of the morning, and the perfect calm, prevented us seeing to what extent, but there was plenty of it, and a sea again gladdened our eyesight. Oh! it was a joyous, exhilarating sight, after nine months of eternal ice and snow.

DISAPPEARANCE OF ICE.

The ground flew under our feet as, elevated in spirits, we walked rapidly into Assistance Bay, and grasped by the hand our old friends of the "Lady Franklin." We had each our tale to recount, our news to exchange, our hopes and disappointments to prose over. One thing was undoubtedly certain,—that, on May 16th, Captain Penny had discovered a great extent of water northward of Cornwallis Island: that this same water prevented Captain Stewart, of the "Sophia," from passing some precipitous cliffs, against which a heavy sea was beating: that this same sea was clear of all but sea-washed ice, and no floes were to be seen. Moreover, owing to a southerly breeze, which blew away to seaward the ice over which Dr. Goodsir had advanced to the westward, his retreat was nearly endangered by the water obliging him with his sledge to take to the neighbouring heights: and all this, a month before any thing like a disruption had taken place in Barrow's Strait. This latter event, it seems, took place about the 25th of June, 1851; and, on the 28th June, the commander of the "Sophia" had gone in a whale-boat from the entrance of the harbour to Wellington Channel.

Three days after our arrival at Assistance Harbour, not a particle of ice was to be seen, east or west, in Barrow's Strait, looking from the highland on the east side of the anchorage, except between Griffith's Island and Cape Martyr, where, some ten miles from the water, and in the centre of a fixed floe, our unlucky squadron was jammed. Every where else a clear sea spread itself, sparkling and breaking under a fresh southerly breeze. Some individuals, who had visited Cape Hotham, reported the water in Wellington Channel to have made up as high as Barlow Inlet, beyond which, up to the north water, a floe still intervened.

In default of Penny's arrival, I was much interested in a journey, upon which Mr. John Stuart, surgeon of the "Lady Franklin," had been despatched to follow the traces of some of Franklin's sledges, towards Caswell's Tower, and to re-examine the traces found in 1850. The sledge-tracts, which I have elsewhere alluded to, as existing on the east side of "Erebus and Terror Bay," Mr. Stuart found, as we conjectured, to have been those of some exploring party, sent from Beechey Island to Caswell's Tower, in Radstock Bay; for at the base of the said tower—a remarkable detached mass of limestone—two carefully-constructed cairns were found, but no record in them; beyond this, no farther signs of the missing navigators were found—nothing whatever that could indicate a retreating party. That these cairns were placed to attract attention, appears certain; the most conspicuous points have been chosen for them; they are well and carefully built, evidently not the mere work of an idle hour.

Failing Penny, and his intelligence, I contented myself with visiting the neighbourhood of Assistance Harbour, and with observing the various phenomena connected with the dissolution of the winter ice and snow upon the land; and, of these, none was more interesting than the breaking out of the ravines, which, having filled with snow during the winter, had formed, during the previous fortnight, into large lakes of water, sometimes of acres in extent; and then, in one moment, the barriers which had pent up the ravines gave way, and, with irresistible force, the waters rushed over every obstacle to the sea. Three large ravines broke open whilst I was in Assistance Harbour, and the thundering sound of the ice, water, and shingle, which swept down, and soon cut a broad channel for many yards through the floe in the bay, was a cheering tune to the gallant fellows who were looking forward to being released from their winter imprisonment. Within twenty-four hours the body of water in these ravines would release itself, and an almost dry water-course be left. Nothing in the shape of a river seemed to exist in this island—rather a remarkable fact, considering its size, and the immense quantity of snow annually thawed in its interior valleys and plains.

ASSISTANCE HARBOUR.

A beautiful lake existed about two miles inland; and, having been discovered by one of Captain Penny's people on the anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar, was very appropriately called Trafalgar Lake; in it a small species of trout had been caught occasionally throughout the winter; and if the ice broke up early, a good haul of fish was anticipated from the seine-nets: on elevated land around the lake, sorrel and scurvy-grass grew in abundance. I need hardly say we eat of it voraciously, for the appetite delighted in any thing like vegetable food.

Occasionally eider and pin-tailed duck were shot, as well as a few brent-geese, but these birds appeared remarkably shy and wary, although evidently here to breed.

During the first week of my stay in Assistance Harbour, immense flights of wild fowl were to be seen amongst the loose ice in Barrow's Strait; but when the pack had dispersed, and left nothing but an open sea, the birds appeared to have gone elsewhere for food. Indeed, I always observed that at the edge of ice more birds were invariably to be found in the Arctic regions, than in large or open water,—a rule equally applicable to the whale, seal, and bear, all of which are to be found at the floe-edge, or in loosely-packed ice.

A gale of wind from the southward occurred, and I was extremely anxious to see whether it would bring over the ice from the opposite shore, as the croakers in Assistance Harbour, unable to deny the existence of water along the north shore of Barrow's Strait, consoled themselves by declaring that the floe had merely formed itself into pack, and was now lying along the coast of North Somerset, ready at an hour's warning to spread itself over the waters. The southerly gale, however, piped cheerily. A heavy swell and surf—Oh! most pleasant sound!—beat upon the fixed ice of Assistance Harbour; yet no pack came, nor floe-pieces either, and thus was placed beyond all doubt the fact that, at any rate, as far west as Griffith's Island, Barrow's Strait was clear of ice. In an angle formed between Leopold Island and North Somerset, there was evidently a pack; for an ice-blink, which moved daily about in that direction, showed that the mass was acted upon by the winds; and at last the southerly wind drove it up into Wellington Channel. To be condemned to inactivity, with such a body of water close at hand, was painful to all but those whose age and prudence seemed to justify in congratulating themselves on being yet frozen in; and trying as had been many disappointments we experienced in the Arctic regions, there was none that pained us more than the ill luck which had consigned our squadron, and its 180 men, to inactivity, in an icy prison under Griffith's Island, whilst so much might have been done during the thirty days that the waters of Barrow's Strait, and God only knows how much more beside, were clear from ice in every shape, and seeming to beckon us on to the north-westward.

It was now we felt the full evil result of our winter quarters. Boats could not be despatched, I suppose, because the ships might at any time in July have been swept by the ice whither it pleased, and the junction of boats and ships rendered uncertain. Future expeditions will, however, hit this nail on the head, and three distinct periods for Arctic exploration will be found to exist, viz.:—The spring, from April to June 25th, for foot journeys; from June 25th to the first week in August, for boat expeditions; and then six weeks (for steam vessels) of navigable season.

BARROW'S STRAIT CLEAR OF ICE.

Unable to remain with satisfaction away from our squadron, to be daily tantalized with looking at a sea which might as well not have existed for us, we returned to the "Pioneer," calling the attention of the officers of Penny's squadron to the possibility of a vessel from England, sent to communicate with the squadrons, actually running past us all, and reaching Melville Island, mayhap, without detecting our winter quarters; an opinion in which all seemed to concur; and a large cairn was therefore afterwards erected upon the low land, in such a position as to attract the attention of a craft bound westward.

On our return to the Naval squadron, we found them still seven miles from the water to the southward from Griffith's Island. Towards the westward, on the 25th of July, all was water, and a water sky. About Somerville Island, and Brown Island, a patch of fixed ice, similar to that we were in, connected itself with the Cornwallis Island shore; but between that and us the water was fast making; indeed, it every day became apparent that we should be released from the northward, and not from the southward. One officer saw Lowther Island in a sea of water; and thus early, if not earlier, I had the firmest conviction on my mind that a ship might have been carried in a lead of water, very similar to that Parry found in 1829, into Winter Harbour, Melville Island; or, what, in view of our object, would have been more desirable, up to the north-west, by Byam Martin Channel.

Griffith's Island had, by July 25th, put on its gayest summer aspect—the ravines had emptied themselves—the snow had disappeared from the slopes—a uniform dull brown spread from one end of the island to the other—on its sheltered terraces, poppies, saxifrage, and sorrel in full flower, intermingled with lichens and mosses of every hue and description; and we, poor mortals, congratulated ourselves upon verdure, which was only charming by comparison. The great body of melted snow that had been on top of the floe, had now nearly all escaped through it in numerous fissures and holes, and they were rapidly connecting themselves one with the other. Canals, which had been formed in the floe, for the purpose of enabling the squadron to get out, should the water make exactly in the same way it did last year, now spread snake-like over the floe, and the waters of Barrow's Strait had approached to within a distance of four miles. Thus closed the month of July, with the additional disappointing intelligence, that Penny, who returned to Assistance Harbour on the 25th, had not been able, owing to the constant prevalence of contrary winds setting in from the N.W., and his want of provisions, to make much progress in Wellington Channel. Indeed, he had, from all accounts, found his boat but ill-adapted to contend with the strong breezes, heavy sea, and rapid tides into which he had launched between the islands north of Cornwallis Island, and never succeeded in obtaining a desirable offing; the islands, however, were thoroughly searched for traces; a small piece of fresh English elm was found on one of them, which Penny believed to have been thrown overboard from the "Erebus" and "Terror;" also a bit of charred pine, which Sir John Richardson believes to have been burnt by a party belonging to the same ships. But the most important result of Penny's efforts was the verification of the existence of a great body of open water, north-west, and beyond the barrier of ice which still existed in Wellington Channel.

I will not bore the reader with some days of hard labour, in which we cut to the southward into the ice, whilst the water was trying hard to get to us from the north; it eventually caught us, and (Saturday, August 8th,) we were all afloat in open water, with a barrier of ice still southward towards Barrow's Strait. The "Intrepid" had been sent early in the week to look round the north end of Griffith's Island, and reported a narrow neck of ice from the N.W. bluffs towards Somerville Island. Eastward, and not westward, was, however, to be our course, and we therefore remained where we were. On the 9th and 10th, a general disruption of the little remaining ice took place: we made gentle and very cautious moves towards Barrow's Strait; and, at last, on August 11th, the ice, as if heartily tired of us, shot us out into Barrow's Strait, by turning itself fairly round on a pivot. We were at sea because we could not help it, and the navigable season was proclaimed to have commenced.

STEAMING FOR ASSISTANCE HARBOUR.

Taking, like another Sinbad, our "Resolute" old burden behind us, the "Pioneer" steamed away for Assistance Harbour, from whence, as we had been given to understand some days previously, Jones's Sound was to be our destination; a plan to which I the more gladly submitted, as I felt confident, from all I had heard and seen of its geography or of that of the neighbouring land, that it would be found to connect itself with Penny's North Water: once in it we felt failure of our object to be impossible; we had still three years' provisions, and nearly four years of many things. One man had died, perhaps half-a-dozen more were invalids, but the rest were strong and hearty: to be sure, we all lacked much of that sanguineness which had animated us hitherto. Repeated disappointment, long journeys in the wrong direction (as it had proved), over regions which had, of course, shown no trace of those we had hoped to rescue—had all combined to damp our feelings.

The morning fog broke, and a day, beautiful, serene, and sunny, welcomed us into Assistance Harbour, which we found had just cleared out of ice; and the "Lady Franklin," "Sophia," and "Felix," with anchors down, rode all ready for sea. As we towed the "Resolute" up to her anchorage, Captain Penny pulled past in his gig, evidently going to make an official visit to our leader. Directly after the "Pioneer" was secured, I went on board the "Resolute," to hear the news, her first lieutenant having been in Assistance Harbour (Captain Penny's quarters) up to the moment of our arrival. I then learned that Penny was going to volunteer to proceed up Wellington Channel, if it cleared out, in one of our steamers; and my gallant friend, the first lieutenant, spoke strongly upon the necessity of still trying to reach the North Water by the said route, whilst I maintained that, until we had visited Jones's Sound, it was impossible to say whether it would not be found an easier road into the open sea seen by Captain Penny than Wellington Channel appeared to be. Captain Penny soon joined us, and there, as well as afterwards on board the "Lady Franklin," I heard of his proposal above alluded to, which had been declined. Failing in his offer of coöperation, which was for one reason not to be wondered at,—insomuch that our large and efficient squadron needed no assistance either in men or material to do the work alone,—Captain Penny had decided on returning home, believing that Franklin was so far to the N.W. as to be beyond his reach, and also looking to the tenor of his instructions, which strictly enjoined him to return to England in 1852.

DEPARTURE FOR JONES'S SOUND.

Next morning, by four o'clock, we were all bound to the eastward. A few amongst those of our squadron still hoped by Jones's Sound to reach that sea of whose existence, at any rate, we had no longer any doubt, whatever might be its difficulty of access. Off Cape Hotham we found a loose pack; it extended about half way across Wellington Channel, and then a clear sea spread itself eastward and northward along the shores off North Devon to Cape Bowden. From a strong ice-blink up Wellington Channel there was reason to think the barrier⁴ still athwart it; we did not, however, go to ascertain whether it was so, but, favoured by a fair wind, steamed, sailed, and towed the "Resolute," as fast as possible past Beechey Island. The form of sending letters to England had been duly enacted, but few were in a humour to write; the news would be unsatisfactory, and, unless Jones's Sound was an open sea, and we could not therefore help entering it, there was a moral certainty of all being in England within a short time of one another.

And so it proved. Leaving the "Assistance" and "Resolute" to join us off Cape Dudley Digges, the steamers proceeded, under Captain Austin, with three months' provisions, on the night of the 14th of August, for Jones's Sound.

Next morning brought the steamers close in with the shore between Capes Horsburgh and Osborn, along which we steered towards Jones's Sound. Glacier and iceberg again abounded, and the comparatively tame scenery of Barrow's Strait was changed for bold and picturesque mountains and headlands. As the evening of the 15th drew in, Jones's Sound gradually opened itself in the Coburg Bay of the charts, and, in spite of a strong head-wind, we drew up to and commenced working up it under sail and steam. During the night, Cape Leopold showed to be an island, dividing the sound into two entrances; and the exhilarating effect of a fine broad expanse of water leading to the westward, up which we were thrashing under a press of canvas, was only marred by the unpleasant fact that we had parted from the ships containing our main stock of provisions, without the means of following up any traces, should we be happy enough to discover them, of the poor missing expedition.

Saturday, August 16th, 1851.—The sound is evidently narrowest about the entrance; from a point to the N.W. of us it evidently increases in width; loose patches of ice are occasionally met with, and the tides seem somewhat strong, judging by the set of the vessel. The scenery is magnificent, especially on the south shore, where some ten miles in the interior a huge dome of pure white snow envelopes land some 3000 or 4000 feet high, which Captain Austin has named the Trenter Mountains, in compliment to the family of Sir John Barrow (that being the maiden name of the Dowager Lady Barrow). From this range long winding glaciers pour down the valleys, and project, through the ravines, into the deep-blue waters of this magnificent strait. Northward of us the land is peculiar, lofty table-land, having here and there a sudden dip, or thrown up in a semi-peak. The draught of the wind has blown constantly down the strait. Such are my rough notes made during the day, as the "Pioneer" and "Intrepid" worked to the westward; but as evening drew on, the increasing smoothness of the water, and a hard icy blink to the west, prepared us for a report which came from the crow's nest about midnight, that there was very much ice to the windward of us.

STOPPED BY ICE-FIELDS.

Next day, 17th, after a fog which caused some delay had cleared off, the disagreeable truth revealed itself: from a little beyond a conical-shaped island on the north shore, the sound was still barred with floes, although at this point it increased at least twelve miles more in breadth. Going up to the floe-edge, the steamers crossed to the S.W., following the ice carefully along until it impinged upon the southern shore. The night was beautifully serene and clear; and, as if to add to our regret, four points and a half of the compass, or 54° of bearing to the westward, showed no symptom of land. The northern side of the sound trended away to the west, preserving its lofty and marked character; whilst on the south the land ended abruptly some fifteen miles farther on, and then, beyond a small break, one of those wedge-shaped hills peculiar to the limestone lands of Barrow's Strait showed itself at a great distance; and the natural suggestion to my own mind was, that the opening between the said wedge-shaped hill and the land on our southern hand would have been found to connect itself with the deep fiords running to the northward from Croker Bay, in Lancaster Sound; and for an opinion as to the direction of Jones's Sound, whose frozen surface forbade us to advance with our vessels, I was, from what I saw, fully willing to believe in the report of my ice quarter-master, Robert Moore, a clever, observant seaman, as the annexed report will show:—

"Sir,

"It was in 1848 that I was with Captain Lee in the 'Prince of Wales,' when we ran up Jones's Sound. The wind was from the S.S.E. compass (E.N.E. true), thick weather, with a strong breeze. We steered up Jones's Sound, N.E. by compass (westwardly true), for fourteen hours, when, seeing some ice aground, we hauled to.

"The next day, being fine weather, we proceeded farther up, and seeing no ice or fish (whales), a boat was sent on shore. She, returning, reported not having seen any thing but very high land and deep water close to rocks on the south shore.

"We tacked ship, and stood to the N.E. compass (N.W. true); saw some ice aground on a sand-bank, with only six feet water on it at low water, but standing on the N.E. compass (N.W. true), found deep water from five to eight miles across from the sand to the north shore. When past the sand, open water as far as we could see from the masthead, and extending from about N.E. to N.N.W. compass (N.W. to W.S.W. true). We then returned, being fine and clear, and could not see what we were in search of (whales).

"Leaving the north land, a long, low point, running up to a table-top mountain, we came across to the south side, which was bold land right out of the sound.

"We saw the Pinnacle Rocks at the end of that sound (Princess Charlotte's Monument); and this and the low land between that sound and Lancaster Sound, as we were running to the S.E., makes me confident is the same place which we were up in the 'Pioneer.'

"The distance we ran up the sound in the 'Prince of Wales,' I think, to the best of my judgment, was about a hundred and fifty or sixty miles, &c.

"(Signed) Robert Moore,

"Ice quarter-master, H.M.S. 'Pioneer.'

"To Lieut. Sherard Osborn."

The italics in the above letter serve to show how correctly these observations of my quarter-master agreed with the sound we were up; and taking this, together with the description of the land seen by Captain Stewart and Dr. Sutherland, during their late journey up the eastern side of Wellington Channel, I believe that a very narrow intervening belt of low land divides Jones's Sound from Baring Bay, in Wellington Channel, and that, turning to the northward, this sound eventually opens into the same great Polar Sea which washes the northern shores of the Parry group.

ERECTION OF A CAIRN.

Unable to advance, we returned, upon our wake, to the conical island on the north side of the sound; and a boat, with two officers in it, was sent to erect a cairn. They returned next morning, having found, what interested me very much, numerous Esquimaux traces, though of very ancient date, and shot several birds—a seasonable increase to our stock for table-consumption. One of the sportsmen assured me that, in spite of the increased number of glaciers around us, and other appearances of a more severe climate than we had been in the habit of seeing in Barrow's Strait, he was of opinion that there was much more vegetation in our neighbourhood than in the more southern latitude of Cornwallis Island. The specimens of plants brought off in the boat, such as poppies, saxifrage, and moss, were all finer than we had seen elsewhere; and reindeer horns, near the Esquimaux ruins, showed that these animals were to be found.

The island was a mass of gray-coloured granite, with some dark masses of ferruginous-coloured rock intermixed, the whole much broken and rent by the agency of frost and water.

Monday, the 18th of August, we proceeded along the northern shore, towards another entrance which had shown itself on the north side of Leopold Island,—the Jones's Sound of the old charts,—which we now proved not to have been blocked up by either land or glaciers.

The land about Cape Hardwicke was little else, in my opinion, than a group of islands,—an impression in which I became the more confirmed when the ice obliged us to strike off directly to the eastward; and Cape Clarence stood out bold and clear, with a midnight sun behind it: and the light streamed through the different ice-choked channels between Capes Hardwicke and Clarence, throwing up the land, where there was land, in strong and dark relief.

Beyond Cape Clarence I saw no symptom of land, nor did any one else either. It is said to recede; very possibly it may; but as neither we, nor the "Resolute" and "Assistance," (who all reached a higher latitude than any discovery-ships have been since Baffin's memorable voyage,) ever saw land north of Cape Clarence, I trust, for the sake of geography, that the beautifully-indented line which now joins the land about Smith's Sound to that of Clarence Head, in our charts, may be altered into a dotted one, as denoting that the said coast exists rather in the imagination of channel-closing voyagers than actually in the north-west corner of Baffin's Bay.

A multitude of grounded icebergs showed a shoal, which appears to bar the northern entrance to Jones's Sound; and, during the night, a sudden gale from the north, together with high water in the tides, set them all floating and dancing around us in a very exciting style. Edging constantly along large floe-pieces, we were eventually carried next day into the packed ice, through which our way had to be found under double-reefed sails, the two pretty screw-schooners thrashing away in gallant style, until a dead calm again left us to steam our best; indeed, all night of the 19th was a constant heavy tussle with a pack, in which the old floe-pieces were being glued together by young ice, varying from two to five inches in thickness; patches of water, perhaps each an acre in extent, were to be seen from the crow's nest, and from one to the other of these we had to work our way. By-and-by the Cary Isles showed themselves to the northward, and then the flat-topped land between Cape York and Dudley Digges.

EASTERN SIDE OF BAFFIN'S BAY.

Our last hope of doing any service this season lay in the expectation that open water would be found along the northeast side of Baffin's Bay; but this expectation was damped by the disagreeable knowledge that our provisions on board the steamers were too scanty to allow us to follow up any opening we should have found.

On the afternoon of the 28th of August, a strong water-sky and heavy bank showed the sea to be close at hand to the south, as well as a strong breeze behind it. We rattled on for Wolstenholme Island, reached under its lee by the evening, and edged away to the north, quickly opening out Cape Stair, and finding it to be an island, as the Cape York Esquimaux, on board the "Assistance," had led us to believe. Passing some striking-looking land, which, although like that of the more southern parts of Greenland, was bold and precipitous, intersected with deep valleys, yet comparatively free from glaciers, we saw the Booth Sound of Sir John Ross, and shortly afterwards sighted what proved afterwards to be the southern bluff of Whale Sound. We could not approach it, however, and, choosing an iceberg, we anchored our steamers to await an opening.

On Thursday, the 21st of August, I started in a boat with Mr. MacDougal, to see if we could get as far as Whale Sound. The bay-ice, in which we could neither pull nor sail, whilst it was too thin to stand upon, or track the boat through, materially checked our progress. By the afternoon we reached a close pack-edge, which defied farther progress; but, on landing, we found ourselves to be at the entrance of a magnificent inlet, still filled with ice, which extended to the eastward for some fifteen miles, having in its centre a peculiarly-shaped rock, which the seamen immediately christened "Prince Albert's Hat," from its resemblance to a marine's shako. The numerous traces here of Esquimaux were perfectly startling; their tent-places, winter abodes, cachés, and graves, covered every prominent point about us. Of what date they were, it was impossible, as I have elsewhere said, to form a correct idea. The enamel was still perfect on the bones of the seals which strewed the rocks, the flesh of which had been used for food. On opening one of the graves, I found the skeleton of an old man, with a good deal of the cartilage adhering to the bones, and in the skull there was still symptoms of decaying flesh; nothing, however, was seen to denote a recent visit of these interesting denizens of the north. Each caché, or rather, circle of stones, had a flat slab for a cover, with a cairn near it, or else an upright mass of stone, to denote its position; and some of the graves were constructed with a degree of care and labour worthy of a more civilized people: several had huge slabs of stone on the top, which it must have required a great many men to lift, and some ingenuity to secure.

Scurvy-grass in great abundance, as well as another antiscorbutic plant, bearing a small white flower, was found wherever we landed; and I likewise observed London-pride, poppies, sorrel, dwarf willow, crow-feet grass, saxifrage, and tripe-de-roche, besides plenty of turf, which, with very little trouble, would have served for fuel,—and this in latitude 76° 52′ N. Large flocks of geese and ducks were flying about; the great northern diver passed overhead, and uttered its shrill warning cry to its mate, and loons, dovekies, and plalaropes, in small numbers, gave occasional exercise for our guns.

VISIT FROM ESQUIMAUX.

The coast was all of granitic formation: and if one might judge from the specimens of iron pyrites and copper ore found here and there, the existence of minerals in large quantities, as is the case about Uppernavik, may be taken for granted.

The 22d, 23d, 24th, and 25th of August passed without a favourable change taking place; indeed, by this time our retreat, as well as advance, had been barred by the pack. Pressed up from Baffin's Bay by the southerly gales of this season of the year, the broken floes seemed to have been seeking an outlet by the north-west. The winter was fast setting in, temperature falling thus early, and the birds every day more scarce.

About one o'clock on the morning of the 26th August, I was aroused and told that Esquimaux were coming off on dog-sledges. All hands turned out voluntarily to witness the arrival of our visitors. They were five in number, each man having a single sledge. As they approached, they uttered an expression very like Tima! or rather Timouh! accompanied by a loud, hoarse laugh. Some of our crew answered them, and then they appeared delighted, laughing most immoderately.

The sledges were entirely constructed of bone, and were small, neat-looking vehicles: no sledge had more than five dogs; some had only three. The dogs were fine-looking, wolfish animals, and either white or tan colour. The well-fed appearance of the natives astonished us all; without being tall (averaging about 5 ft. 5 in.), they were brawny-looking fellows, deep-chested, and large-limbed, with Tartar beards and moustachios, and a breadth of shoulder which denoted more than ordinary strength. Their clothing consisted of a dressed seal-skin frock, with a hood which served for a cap when it was too cold to trust to a thick head of jet-black hair for warmth. A pair of bear-skin trowsers reaching to the knee, and walrus-hide boots, completed their attire. Knowing how perfectly isolated these people were from the rest of the world,—indeed, they are said with some degree of probability to have believed themselves to be the only people in the world,—I was not a little delighted to see how well necessity had taught them to clothe themselves; and the skill of the women was apparent in the sewing, and in one case tasteful ornamental work of their habiliments.

I need hardly say that we loaded them with presents: their ecstacy exceeded all bounds when each was presented with a boat-hook staff, a piece of wood some twelve feet long. They danced, shouted, and laughed again with astonishment at possessing such a prize. Wood was evidently with them a scarce article; they had it not even to construct sledges with. York, the interpreter, had before told us they had no canoes for want of it; and they seemed perfectly incapable of understanding that our ships and masts were altogether made of wood. The intelligence shown by these people was very gratifying; and from having evidently been kindly treated on board the "North Star," during her sojourn in this neighbourhood, they were confident of good treatment, and went about fearlessly. On seeing a gun, they laughed, and said, "Pooh! pooh!" to imitate its sound. One man danced, and was evidently anxious to repeat some nautical shuffling of the feet to the time of a fiddle, of which he had agreeable recollections, whilst another described how we slept in hammocks. After some time, a document was given them, to show any ship they might visit hereafter; and they were sent away in high spirits. The course they had taken, both coming and going, proved them to be from Wolstenholme Sound; and, as well as we could understand, they had lately been to the northward, looking for pousies (seals), and no doubt were the natives whose recent traces had been seen by some of the officers near Booth Inlet, who had likewise observed the remnants of some old oil-cask staves, which once had been in an English whaler.

GALE IN THE PACK.

August 26th, 1851.—Beset against a floe, which is in motion, owing to the pressure of bergs upon its southern face; and as it slowly coachwheels (as the whalers term it) round upon an iceberg to seaward of us, we employ ourselves heaving clear of the danger. A gale—fast rising, and things looking very ugly. The "Intrepid," who had changed her berth from the "inshore" to the "offshore" side of the "Pioneer," through some accident of ice-anchors slipping, was caught between the floe and the iceberg, and in a minute inextricably, as far as human power was concerned, surrounded with ice; and as the floe, acted upon by the pressure of bergs and ice driving before the gale, forced more and more upon the berg, we were glad to see the vessel rise up the inclined plane formed by the tongue of the iceberg under her bottom. Had she not done so, she must have sunk. Sending a portion of our crew to keep launching her boats ahead during the night, we watched with anxiety the fast-moving floes and icebergs around us. A wilder scene than that of this night and the next morning it would be impossible to conceive. Our forced inactivity—for escape or reciprocal help was impossible—rendered it the more trying.

Lieutenant Cator has himself told the trials to which the "Intrepid's" qualities were subjected that night and day; how she was pushed up the iceberg high and dry; and how the bonnie screw came down again right and tight. We meanwhile drifted away, cradled in floe-pieces, and perfectly helpless, shaving past icebergs, in close proximity, but safely, until the gale as suddenly abated, and we found ourselves some six miles north of the "Intrepid," and off the Sound, which, for want of a name, we will call "Hat Sound." Steaming and sailing up a head of water back towards our consort, we soon saw that she was all right and afloat again, though beset in the pack. We therefore took advantage of an opening in the ice to run to the northward alone. About midnight, the Whale Sound of Baffin being then open to our view, but filled with broken ice, and our farther progress impeded by the pack, we again made fast at this, the farthest northern latitude reached by any of our squadron, viz., 77° north latitude.

Friday, August 29th.—Finding progress in this direction hopeless, we rejoined the "Intrepid" as close as the ice would allow us, and learnt that she had injured her rudder and screw-framing. It was now decided to rejoin the "Resolute" and "Assistance" at their rendezvous off Cape Dudley Digges; and as the winter snow was fast covering the land, and pancake-ice forming on the sea, there was little time to be lost in doing so.

The 30th and 31st, the "Pioneer" made fruitless attempts to reach the "Intrepid." The leads of water were evidently separating us more and more: she was working in for Wolstenholme Sound, whilst we were obliged to edge to the westward.

September 1st, 1851, came in on us. From the crow's nest one interminable barrier of ice spread itself around; and as the imprisonment of our vessels would have entailed starvation upon us, it was necessary to make a push, and endeavour, by one of us at any rate reaching supplies, to secure the means of rescue to both.

FORCING THROUGH THE PACK.

A lucky slackening of the ice encouraged us to enter the pack, and we entered it. It was a long and tough struggle, sometimes for an hour not making a ship's length of headway, then bursting into a crack of water, which seemed an ocean by comparison. Screwing and heaving, my gallant crew working like Britons, now over the stern, booming off pieces from the screw as she went astern for a fresh rush at some obstinate bar; now over the bows, coaxing her sharp stem into the crack which had to be wedged open until the hull could pass; now leaping from piece to piece of the broken ice, clearing the lines, resetting the anchors, then rushing for the ladders, as the vessel cleared the obstacles, to prevent being left behind,—light-hearted, obedient, and zealous, if my heartfelt admiration of them could have lightened their labours, I should have been glad indeed. Late in the evening, the "Intrepid" was seen working inside of Wolstenholme Island: we made fast to a lofty iceberg, to obtain a good view, for the most promising lead of water; and the experienced eye of a quarter-master, Joseph Organ, enabled him to detect the glisten of open water on the horizon to the westward. For it we accordingly struck through the pack. Never were screw and steam more taxed. To stop was to be beset for the winter, and be starved and drifted Heaven knows where. An iron stem and a good engine did the work,—I will not bore the non-professional reader how. A little before midnight the "Resolute" and "Assistance" were seen, and by four o'clock on the morning of the 2d September we were alongside of them. Shortly afterwards our amateurs and visitors left us, and the three vessels cruised about, waiting for the "Intrepid," it being generally understood that when she rejoined the squadron we were to return to England.

We learned that the ships had been in open water as high as the Cary Islands: they had seen no land on the west side, north of Cape Clarence. On Cary Islands they had found traces of the remote visits of whalers, and had shot immense numbers (about 700) of birds, loons especially. On one occasion they had been placed in trying circumstances by a gale from the southward amongst the packed ice, the extraordinary disappearance of which to the northward, was only to be accounted for by supposing the ice of Baffin's Bay to have been blown through Smith's Sound into the Polar Sea, a small gateway for so much ice to escape by. In my opinion, however, the disappearance of the ice, which a fortnight earlier had spread over the whole sea between the Arctic Highlands and Jones's Sound, under the influence of southerly gales, confirmed me the more strongly in my belief that the north-west portion of Baffin's Bay is open, and forms no cul-de-sac there any more than it does in Jones's Sound, Lancaster Sound, or Pond's Bay.

From Hudson's Straits, in latitude 60° N., to Jones's Sound, in latitude 76° N., a distance of 960 miles, we find on the western hand a mass of islands, of every conceivable shape and size, with long and tortuous channels intersecting the land in every direction; yet vain men, anxious to put barriers in the way of future navigators, draw large continents, where no one has dared to penetrate to see whether there be such or not, and block up natural outlets without cause or reason.

ESQUIMAUX TRACES.

I will now, with the reader's permission, carry him back to a subject that here and there has been cursorily alluded to throughout these pages—the Esquimaux traces and ruins, every where found by us, and the extraordinary chain of evidence which, commencing in Melville Island, our farthest west, carries us, link by link, to the isolated inhabitants of North Greenland, yclept Arctic Highlands.

Strange and ancient signs were found by us in almost every sheltered nook on the seaboard of this sad and solitary land,—signs indubitably of a race having once existed, who have either decayed away, or else, more probably, migrated to more hospitable portions of the Arctic zone. That all these traces were those of the houses, cachés, hunting-posts, and graves of the Esquimaux, or Innuit, there could be on our minds no doubt; and looking to the immense extent of land over which this extraordinary race of fishermen have been, and are to be found, well might Captain Washington, the talented compiler of the Esquimaux vocabulary, say, that they are one "of the most widely-spread nations of the globe."

The seat of this race (arguing from traditions extant during Baron Wrangell's travels in Siberia) might be placed in the north-east extreme of Asia, the western boundary being ill defined; for on the dreary banks of the Lena and Indigirka, along the whole extent of the frozen Tundra, which faces the Polar Sea, and in the distant isles of New Siberia, rarely visited by even the bold seekers of fossil ivory, the same ruined circles of stone, betokening the former abode of human beings, the same whalebone rafters, the same stone axes, the same implements of the chase, are to be found as to this day are used, and only used, by the Tchuktches of Behring's Straits, the Innuit of North America, or the Esquimaux of Hudson's Straits and Greenland,—a people identical in language (of which they all speak different dialects), habits, and disposition.

Supposing, then, that from the east of Asia these people first migrated to the American continent, and thence, eventually wandered to the eastern shores of Greenland, it became an interesting question to us, how the lands upon our northern hand, in our passage to the west up Barrow's Strait, should bear such numerous marks of human location, whereas upon the southern side they were comparatively scarce; and how the natives residing in the northern portion of Baffin's Bay should have been ignorant that their brethren dwelt in great numbers southward of the glaciers of Melville Bay.

Some amongst us—and I was of this number—objected to the theory summarily advanced, that at a remote period these northern lands had been peopled from the south, and that the population had perished or wasted away from increased severity of climate or diminution of the means of subsistence. Our objections were argued on the following grounds:—If the Parry group had been colonized from the American continent, that continent, their nursery, would have shown signs of a large population at points immediately in juxtaposition, which it does not do.

From the estuary of the Coppermine to the Great Fish River, the Esquimaux traces are less numerous than on the north shore of Barrow's Strait. To assert that the Esquimaux have travelled from the American continent to the bleak shores of Bathurst Island, is to suppose a savage capable of voluntarily quitting a land of plenty for one of gaunt famine: on the other hand, it seems unreasonable to attribute these signs of a by-gone people's existence to some convulsion of nature, or some awful increase of cold, since no similar catastrophe has occurred in any other part of the world. Contrary to such opinions, we opined that the traces were those of a vast and prolonged emigration, and that it could be shown, on very fair premises, that a large number of the Innuit, Skræling, or Esquimaux—call them what you please—had travelled from Asia to the eastward along a much higher parallel of latitude than the American continent, and, in their very natural search for the most hospitable region, had gone from the north towards the south, not from the south towards the north, or, what may yet one day be laid open to the world, reached a high northern latitude, in which a deep and uncongealable sea gives rise to a milder climate and an increased amount of the capabilities of subsistence.

I will now lightly sketch the probable route of the Esquimaux emigration, as I believe it to have taken place in the north-east of Asia. The Tchuktches, the only independent tribe in Siberia, are seen to assume, amongst that portion of them residing on the sea-coast, habits closely analogous to those of the Esquimaux. The hunters of Siberia tell how a similar race, the Omoki, "whose hearths were once more numerous on the banks of the Lena than the stars of an Arctic night," are gone, none know whither. The natives now living in the neighbourhood of Cape Chelajskoi, in Siberia, aver that emigration to a land in the north-east had occurred within the memory of their fathers; and amongst other cases we find them telling Wrangell, that the Onkillon tribe had once occupied that land, but, being attacked by the Tchuktches, they, headed by a chief called Krachnoi, had taken shelter in the land visible northward from Cape Jakan.

This land, Wrangell and others did not then believe in. British seamen have, however, proved the assertion to be a fact; and Captains Kellett and Moore have found "an extensive land" in the very direction the Siberian fishermen declared it to exist. It is not my purpose to enter into a disquisition upon the causes which brought about this emigration. Sad and bitter necessity alone it must have been which thrust these poor members of the human family into localities which, even in Asia, caused the Russians to exclaim, "What could have led men to forsake more favoured lands for this grave of Nature?" Choice it could not have been, for, in America, we see that the Esquimaux has struggled hard to reach southern and genial climes. In the Aleutian Isles, and on the coast of Labrador, local circumstances favoured the attempt, and the Indian hunter was unable to subsist in lands which were, comparatively, overflowing with subsistence for the Arctic fishermen; but elsewhere the bloodthirsty races of North America obliged the human tide, which for some wise cause was made to roll along the margin of the Polar Sea, to confine itself purely to the sea-coast; and although vast tracts, such as the barren grounds between longitudes 99° and 109° W., are at the present day almost untenanted, still a sufficient population remains to show that an emigration of these tribes had taken place there at a remote period.

These people reached, in time, the shores of Davis's Straits and the Atlantic Ocean; and, in a line parallel to them, others of their brethren who reached the land lately re-discovered, northward of Behring's Straits, may have likewise wandered along the Parry Group to Lancaster Sound.

In order to have done this, land must be presumed to extend from the meridian of Behring's Straits to Melville Island,—a point upon which few who study the geography of that region can have now a doubt; and eminent men have long supposed it to be the case,⁵ from various phenomena, such as the shallow nature of the sea between the Mackenzie River and Behring's Straits, and the non-appearance of heavy ice in that direction—all indicating that a barrier lay northward of the American continent. The gallant squadron, under Captains Collinson and M'Clure, will, doubtless, solve this problem, and connect, either by a continent or a chain of islands, the ruined yourts of Cape Jakan with the time-worn stone huts of Melville Island.

Situated as these places are, under the same degree of latitude, the savage, guided by the length of his seasons and the periodical arrival of bird and beast, would fearlessly progress along the north shore of the great strait, which may be said to extend from Lancaster Sound to the Straits of Behring. This progress was, doubtless, a work of centuries, but gradual, constant, and imperative. The seal, the rein-deer, and the whale, all desert or avoid places where man or beast wages war on them whilst multiplying their species, and have to be followed, as we find to be the case with our hunters, sealers, and whalers of the present day.

As the northern Esquimaux travelled to the east, offshoots from the main body no doubt struck to the southward. For instance, there is every reason to believe Boothia to have been originally peopled from the north. The natives seen there by Sir John Ross spoke of their fathers having fished and lived in more northern lands. They described the shores of North Somerset sufficiently to show that they knew that it was only by rounding Cape Bunny, that Ross could carry his vessel into that western sea, from whose waters an isthmus barred him: and this knowledge, traditional as I believe it to have been, has since been proved to be correct by those who wintered in Leopold Harbour finding Esquimaux traces about that neighbourhood, and by the foot journey of Sir James Ross, in 1848, round Cape Bunny towards the Magnetic Pole.

In corroboration of my idea that these inhabitants of the Arctic zone were once very numerous along the north shore of Barrow's Strait and Lancaster Sound, the following localities were found to abound with ruins:—The gulf between Bathurst and Cornwallis Land, the whole southern shore of Cornwallis Island, Wellington Channel, Cape Spenser, and Cape Riley; Radstock Bay, Ommanney Harbour, near Cape Warrender, where the "Intrepid" discovered numerous well-finished graves, bearing the marks of a comparatively more recent date. Passing Cape Warrender, I supposed the remnant of the northern emigration from Asia to have still travelled round the coast; the more so, as at Jones's Sound, the only spot one of our officers happened to land upon, Esquimaux had evidently once lived. (Vide page 173.) The Arctic Highlander, Erasmus York, who was serving in our squadron, seemed to believe his mother to have dwelt about Smith's Sound: all his ideas of things that he had heard of, but not seen, referred to places northward. He knew a musk-ox when shown a sketch of one, and said that they were spoken of by his brethren: with a pencil he could sketch the coast-line northward of where he embarked, Cape York, as far as Whale Sound, or even farther, by tradition; but southward he knew of nothing.

Old whale-fishermen say that, when in former days their pursuit carried them into the head of Baffin's Bay, they found the natives numerous; and it is undoubted that, in spite of an apparently severe mortality amongst these Arctic Highlanders, or Northern Esquimaux, the stock is not yet extinct. Every whaler who has visited the coast northward of Cape York, during late years, reports deserted villages and dead bodies, as if some sudden epidemic had cut down men and women suddenly and in their prime. Our squadron found the same thing. The "Intrepid's" people found in the huts of the natives which were situated close to the winter quarters of the "North Star," in Wolstenholme Sound, numerous corpses, unburied, indeed, as if the poor creatures had been suddenly cut off, and their brethren had fled from them. Poor York, who, amongst the dead, recognized his own brother, described the malady of which they died as one of the chest or lungs: at any rate, the mortality was great.

Where did the supply of human life come from? Not from the south, for then the Northern and Southern Esquimaux would have known of each other's existence. Yet the Southern Esquimaux have faint traditions of the head of Baffin's Bay and Lancaster Sound; and Egede and Crantz tell us of their belief in a northern origin, and of their tales of remote regions where beacons on hills had been erected to denote the way. Surely all this points to the long and landward route pursued by this extraordinary people.

It may be quite possible that a portion of the Esquimaux crossed Davis's Straits by accident from the west to the east: such things have occurred within the memory of living men; but I deny that it would ever be a voluntary act, and therefore unlikely to have led to the population of South Greenland. A single hunter of seals, or more, might have been caught in the ice and been drifted across, or a boat's load of women may have been similarly obliged to perform a voyage which would have been very distasteful to an Esquimaux; but such accidents do not populate countries.

Lastly, before I quit this subject, it would be as well to call the attention of those interested in such questions to the extraordinary fact of the existence of a constantly starving race upon the east side of Greenland. The Danish surveyor's (Capt. Graah) remarks lead me to the opinion that these people come from more northern parts of their own side of Greenland; and it would be a curious circumstance if future geographical discoveries should give us grounds to believe that from the neighbourhood of Smith's Sound the Esquimaux migration divided, and the one branch of it followed down the shores of Baffin's Bay and Davis's Straits, whilst the other, tracing the northern coasts of Greenland, eventually descended by the eastern seaboard to Cape Farewell. The nursery, the hot-bed of this race, I believe to exist northward of spots visited by us in Baffin's Strait,—for bay it is not, even if it had no other outlets into the Polar Sea than Lancaster, Jones's, and Smith's Sound.

Revenons à nos moutons! The 2d, 3d, and 4th of September passed with much anxiety; the signals thrown out by our leader, "Where do you think the 'Intrepid' is gone?" and on another occasion, "Do you think the 'Intrepid' is to leeward of the pack?" denoting how much he was thinking of the missing steamer. We of the sister screw had little anxiety as to her safety or capability of escaping through any pack; especially when alone and unhampered by having to keep company. A knowledge of the screw, its power, and handiness, gave us a confidence in it, which we had never reason to regret. At first we had been pitied, as men doomed to be cast away: we had since learned to pity others, and to be envied in our safe vessels. The "great experiment," as it was called, had succeeded, in spite of the forebodings of the ignorant and the half-measured doubts of questionable friends; but its crowning triumph was yet to come: the single steamer was, alone, unaided, to penetrate the pack and seek her missing mate. Find her, if she could; if not, winter, and seek with foot parties, both this autumn and next spring.

SEARCH FOR THE "INTREPID."

There was a momentary pang of regret on the morning of the 5th September, when I first learned that the "Pioneer" was to return into Wolstenholme Sound with provisions sufficient for herself and the "Intrepid" to meet two winters more; but pride soon, both with myself and my officers and men, came to the rescue. The "Intrepid" might have been caught, and unable to extricate herself. Of course it was an honourable mission to go to the aid of our comrades, to give them the means of subsistence, to spend the winter with them, and, please God, escape next season, if not before, from the disagreeable position into which our summer tour in Baffin's Bay had carried us: and furthermore, the screws, helpless babes! were to winter alone, alone to find their way in and out of the ice, and alone make their way home, whilst the huge incubi that had ridden us like nightmares during the search for Franklin would be (D.V.) safely lashed in Woolwich dockyard.

The 5th was spent in sending away all our sickly or weak hands, increasing the complement of seamen by four, receiving abundance of public and private stores, bidding good-bye to our dear brother officers in the squadron, and friends, who generously pressed upon us every thing they had to spare, in which they were not more generous than our leader, who put, with the utmost liberality, both his kit and storeroom at our disposal. The "Pioneer" was by midnight as deep as a sand-barge. Next morning the commodore came on board, gave me highly flattering orders, and, having read prayers, made a speech, in which he took an affectionate farewell of the "Pioneers," and struck with happy effect the two strongest chords in our hearts, thus:—"You hold," said he, "Pioneers, the honour of the squadron in your hands. I thank you all for the alacrity and spirit with which you have prepared yourselves to re-enter the ice. You shall be no losers by it; and on my arrival in England I will take care to insure that you are not forgotten in rewards: indeed, I shall consider that you have the first claim, provided your commander, on his arrival in England, reports favourably on your conduct." At eight o'clock we parted company, and, under sail and steam, steered direct for Wolstenholme Island.

A little after ten o'clock we broke through a neck of ice, and had just put the helm up to run down a lead, when, happening to look over my shoulder at the "Resolute," now hull down to the westward, I was astonished to see what appeared the smoke of a gun, and soon afterwards another, and another. The general recall at the mast-head was next seen, and the "Assistance," under all sail, pressing to the south, showed that the "Intrepid" had been caught sight of. Joy was strongly marked on every countenance as we turned on our heel, and one exclamation—"Thank God for our escape from a second winter," was on every tongue. It would have been indeed an unprofitable detention to have been caught in Wolstenholme Sound by the pack, as we undoubtedly should have been, whilst the vessel we went to relieve was safe without it. However, the evil was now averted; the whole squadron was united, my provisions, men, and stores again taken out, and a memorandum issued, the purport of which was that we were to go to Woolwich. At eight o'clock the yards were squared, sails spread, and homeward we steered.

Fresh and fair gales, a sea entirely clear of all but stray icebergs, and here and there a patch of broken ice, gave us nothing to do but endeavour to reduce our speed sufficiently under canvas to insure not outrunning our consorts. In eight days we reached the latitude of Cape Farewell. Once in the Atlantic, strong gales and dark nights rendered it impossible for such ill-matched consorts to keep company, and we found ourselves alone, sighting the Orkneys fourteen days after bearing up from the latitude of Wolstenholme Island in Baffin's Bay, and anchored at Grimsby in the river Humber, exactly three weeks from the commencement of our homeward-bound voyage. The rest of the squadron followed us to Woolwich, where all were paid off safe and sound, with the exception of one man, the only one missing out of the original one hundred and eighty officers and men who had sailed in 1850, under Captain Horatio T. Austin, c.b., to rescue or solve the fate of the expedition commanded by Captain Sir John Franklin.

OPINION OF FRIENDS AND THE PUBLIC.

Our self-importance as Arctic heroes of the first water received a sad downfall when we were first asked by a kind friend, what the deuce we came home for? We had a good many becauses ready, but he overturned them altogether; so we had resort to the usual resource of men in such a position: we said, "There was a barrier of ice across Wellington Channel in 1850." Our friend said, "I deny it was a permanent one, for the Americans drifted through it!" "Indeed!" we exclaimed, "at any rate there was one there in 1851." "Yes, granted, on the 12th of August; but you know there was a month of open season left: and, like an honest man, say how long it would take for that barrier, fifteen or twenty miles wide, to disperse." "As many hours!" was our reply: "and we have forsworn in future barriers of ice as well as barriers of land."

What the deuce we came home for? and why we deserted Franklin? were pleasant questions; and at first we felt inclined to be angry. Those, however, who asked them had cause and reason for doing so. We were in the dark as to much that had been arrived at in England. We knew but of our own limited personal experience, and had had neither time nor opportunity to compare notes with others. The public at home sat down with the accumulated evidence of two British expeditions and an American one. They passed a verdict that Franklin had gone up Wellington Channel, and that, having gone up there, in obedience to his country's orders, it was the duty of that country to send after him, save him, or solve his fate. I for one knew I had done my duty in the sphere allotted to me, although feeling at first that the public verdict reflected somewhat upon me as well as others. But "Vox populi, vox Dei." I bowed tacitly to its decision, until attempts were made to damp the hopes of the more sanguine,—in fact, to save our credit at the expense of Franklin's existence. It was time then to reconsider in all its points the subject of farther search, to compare my own recent impression of things with facts that were now before the world, and then to judge for myself whether any one had a right to declaim against farther efforts to save Franklin's expedition.

Need I say I found none. On comparing the information, the phenomena observed in our own squadron with those of Captain Penny's, and the Americans under Lieutenant De Haven, I saw more and more clearly that a northern sea, an open water, must have been close to us in 1850 and 1851, when we were about Wellington Channel; that that sea was not blocked with ice in 1850, as we had ignorantly supposed; and that as assuredly as it was proved that Sir John Franklin had not gone to Cape Walker, nor disobeyed his orders by going to Melville Island, so certain did it now become that up Wellington Channel he had steered to that open sea, which, whether limited or encircling the Pole, it was his object to enter. It was water and an open sea that Franklin wanted to achieve the North-west Passage; and there it was before him. Can any one suppose him, accuse him, capable of hesitating to enter it?

Those who will not admit this, have recourse to two infallible Arctic solutions for the dilemma in which they are placed; it must be either an impenetrable barrier of ice in Wellington Channel, or the ships must have been beset in the pack, and have perished, without God's providence helping them, as it has helped all others similarly placed, without leaving a single survivor or a vestige of any description. No such wholesale calamity is on record.

CHANCES OF FUTURE SUCCESS.

Let us inquire into this barrier of ice in Wellington Channel. Twice had Parry seen the channel, in 1819 and 1820; he saw no barrier then. We reached it in the fall of 1850, after a very backward and severe summer, with winter fast closing in upon us. We saw long flights of birds retreating from their summer breeding-places somewhere beyond the broad fields of ice that lay athwart its channel. We wondered at the numerous shoals of white whale passing, from some unknown northern region, southward to more genial climes. We talked of fixed ice, yet in one day twelve miles of it came away, and nearly beset us amongst its fragments. We heard Captain Penny's report that there was water to be seen north of the remaining belt, of about ten miles in width. We were like deaf adders; we were obstinate, and went into winter quarters under Griffith's Island, believing that nothing more could be done, because a barrier of fixed ice extended across Wellington Channel! We were miserably mistaken.

The expedition under Lieutenant De Haven was then drifting slowly over the place where we, in our ignorance, had placed fixed ice in our charts; and to them likewise the wisdom of an all-merciful Providence revealed the fact of a northern sea of open water, that they might be additional witnesses in the hour of need. We cannot do better than read the plain unvarnished tale of the gallant American—a tale of calm heroism under no ordinary trials, which stamps the document as the truthful narration of a gentleman and a sailor. He says, after describing the being beset by young ice in the mouth of Wellington Channel, and drifting northward, owing to southerly winds,—

"On the 18th September we were above Cape Bowden.... To account for this drift, the fixed ice of Wellington Channel, which we had observed in passing to the westward, must have been broken up, and driven to the southward by the heavy gale the 12th (September).

"We continued to drift slowly to the N.N.W. until the 22d, when our progress appeared to be arrested by a small low island, which was discovered about seven miles distant.

"Between Cornwallis Island and some distant high land visible in the north, appeared a wide channel, leading to the westward. A dark, misty-looking cloud which hung over it (technically termed frost-smoke) was indicative of much open water in that direction.

"Nor was the open water the only indication that presented itself in confirmation of theoretical conjecture as to a milder climate in that direction. As we entered Wellington Channel the signs of animal life became more abundant."

So much, then, for the barrier of ice in Wellington Channel in 1850. Let us now speak of what was there in 1851. On the 11th of August about as much fixed floe was remaining in Wellington Channel as had been found by us on the previous year, a month later in the season. On that occasion, late as it was, we have the evidence of Lieutenant De Haven to prove the channel opened: why should we doubt it doing so in 1851? An open sea existed on both sides of a belt of ice, rotten, full of holes, unfit to travel over (as Penny's officers reported it), full thirty days before the winter set in; is there an Arctic navigator hardy enough to say he believes that that belt would have been found there on the next spring-tide after our squadron was liberated from Griffith's Island? Then, I repeat, if it is allowed that Wellington Channel was open in 1819, 1820, 1850, and 1851, it is natural to infer that it was open when Franklin wished to pass through it in 1846, and that, under such circumstances, he would, in obedience to his orders, have gone by it to the N.W.

The day has not long passed by when it was tried to be proved, on undoubted testimony, that Barrow's Strait was barred with the accumulated ice of years,—and this in the face of an autumnal drift of a naval squadron for 350 miles in the pack of Lancaster. What say these barrier-builders to the winter drift of the American schooners under Lieutenant De Haven? Does his marvellous cruise teach us nothing? Between the 1st of November, 1850, and the 6th of June, 1851, his squadron was swept in one vast field of ice from the upper part of Wellington Channel to the southward of Cape Walsingham, in Davis's Straits, through a tortuous route of full 1000 miles! Yes, reader, the "Rescue" and "Advance" were beset in young bay-ice in and about Wellington Channel; but during the winter, amidst the darkness, amidst fierce gales, when the God of storms alone could and did shield those brave barks, they and the ice in which they had been beset, moved, with few pauses, steadily and slowly to the Atlantic Ocean, and reached it by the summer of the following year.

It is true, our expedition was prevented, by ice, from advancing to the west of Griffith's Island. But let it not be supposed that we came, in that direction, upon any fixed bar of ice or interminable floe-edge: far otherwise; for when, as I have elsewhere said, Lieutenant Aldrich was sent, a few days after our arrival at winter quarters, to travel on foot to Lowther Island, he found the task a hopeless one, as water, bay-ice, and a broken pack, lay between Somerville Island and it. We, likewise, in our spring journeys, found ice, smooth as glass, formed, evidently during the past winter, surrounding Lowther Island. It was traced by Lieutenant M'Clintock, leading, in exactly the form of the lead of water found in 1819 and 1820 by Sir E. Parry, in his voyage to Winter Island; and there can be little doubt, that, beyond the floe-pieces which choked the channel between Griffith's Island and Cape Bunny, we should, in 1850, have found water leading us to Winter Harbour, and up the noble channel north of Byam Martin Island.

Enough of icy barriers. I do not believe in Nature having placed such fixtures on the "vasty deep;" but I am ready to allow that there are places in which accumulations of ice naturally exist, and where the ice moves away less rapidly than in other parts. By looking at the chart, and taking into consideration the geographical conformation of such spots, the cause will at once appear.

In a line across the head of Davis's Straits, the pack hangs, because it is there met, in its downward course, by the whole weight of the Atlantic Sea, and strong southerly gales blowing up that funnel-shaped strait. About Leopold Island the pack hangs, for it is acted upon by the cross-tides of Wellington Channel and Regent's Inlet running athwart those of Barrow's Strait, and forming a sort of eddy, or still water. This occurs again in the elbow of Wellington Channel, and between Griffith's Island and Cape Bunny, where a narrowing strait, and the cross-tide of the channel towards the American coast, tie up the broad floes formed in the great water-space west of that point; and lastly, a similar choke takes place, apparently off the S.W. extreme of Melville Island.

Failing in barriers, these Job's comforters dismiss the subject by swallowing up the "Erebus" and "Terror," hull, masts, sails, and crew, in some especially infernal tempest or convulsion executed for the occasion: they—the Job's comforters—have no similar case to adduce in proof of such a catastrophe. Every body who goes to the frozen regions tells of the hairbreadth escapes and imminent dangers attendant on Arctic navigation. I am free to acknowledge, I have "piled the agony" to make my work sell. Behold the "Pioneer" in a nip in Melville Bay; the "Resolute" thumping the pack off Griffith's Island; the "Assistance" holding on to a floe-edge with a moving one threatening to sink her; and the "Intrepid" on the slope of an iceberg, high and dry: yet all are safe and sound in Woolwich dockyard: the brigs, "Rescue" and "Advance," beset for 267 days, drifting during a Polar winter 1150 miles, enduring all possible hardship and risk, yet both vessels and men are safe and sound. Captain Penny's two vessels, the "Lady Franklin" and "Sophia," if their figure-heads could speak, would "a tale unfold." Not the most extraordinary part of their adventures was, being caught in a gale in a bay on the coast of Greenland, and being forced by a moving iceberg through a field of ice full three feet thick, the vessels rearing and plunging through it; yet they are all safe and sound. The "North Star," the "Enterprise," and "Investigator," and farther back, the "Terror," farther still, the "Dorothea" and "Trent," have, with many more we could enumerate, seen no ordinary Arctic dangers; but, thanks to a merciful Providence, unattended with loss of life. Why, therefore, in the name of charity, consign those who are dear to us, as relatives, friends, or countrymen, to sudden death in the dark waters of Lancaster Sound or Baffin's Bay. No one who knew the men of that gallant squadron would so libel the leader, or his officers, as to suppose them to have turned back when at the threshold of their labours: if he does so, he does them foul injustice. And against such I appeal, in the name of that humanity which was never invoked in vain in a Christian land.

Give the lost ones the benefit of the doubt, if there is one on your minds. Let not selfish indifference to your fellow-creatures' fate induce you to dismiss the question by adopting any of the horrible opinions to which unfeeling men have given utterance. True it is, they are in sad peril; true it is, they have suffered long and much; true it is, that many may have fallen by the way: but the remnant, however small, of that heroic band, be assured, by one who knew many of them intimately and dearly, will despair not, but, trusting in their God, their Queen, and country, they will cling to hope with life's latest breath.

They have done their duty: let us not be wanting in ours. The rescue of Franklin's squadron, or the solution of their fate, entails no extraordinary risk of life upon the part of those employed in the search. Insurances to any amount—and I speak from a knowledge of the fact—may be effected in the various insurance offices in London with a lighter premium than is demanded for the Bights of Benin or Bengal. This is a pretty good test, and a sound practical one, too, of the much-talked-of dangers of Polar navigation. Ships are often lost; but the very floe which by its pressure sinks the vessel saves the crew.

In short, we have every thing to stimulate Arctic exploration. No loss of life; (for Franklin it will be time enough to mourn when we know he is not of the living,) the wonderful proofs lately acquired of a Polar sea; the undoubted existence of animal life in regions which were previously supposed to be incapable of supporting animal life; the result of the deeply philosophical inquiries of the talented geographer, Mr. Peterman, which seem to establish the fact of an open Polar sea during the severest season of the year; and lastly, the existence of Esquimaux in a high northern latitude in Baffin's Bay, who appear to be so isolated, and so unconnected with their brethren of South Greenland, as to justify us in connecting them rather with the numerous ruined habitations found westward as far as Melville Island, and lead the mind to speculate upon some more northern region,—some terra incognita, yet to be visited by us,—encourages us, aye, urges us not to halt in our exploration. Humanity and science are united in the cause: where one falters, let a love for the other encourage us to persevere.

Franklin and his matchless followers need no eulogy from me; the sufferings they must have undergone, the mystery that hangs over them, are on every tongue in every civilized land.

The blooming child lisps Franklin's name, as with glistening eye and greedy ear it hears of the wonders of the North, and the brave deeds there done. Youth's bosom glows with generous emotion to emulate the fame of him who has gone where none as yet have followed. And who amongst us does not feel his heart throb faster in recalling to recollection the calm heroism of the veteran leader, who, when about to enter the unknown regions of which Wellington Channel is the portal, addressed his crews in those solemn and emphatic words of Holy Writ,—his motto, doubtless,—"Choose ye this day whom you will serve;" and found in that blissful choice his strength and his endurance.

To rescue even one life were surely well worthy our best endeavours; but if it so please an all-merciful Providence that aid should reach Franklin's ships too late to save even that one, yet would we have fulfilled a high and imperative duty: and would it be no holy satisfaction to trace the last resting-place of those gallant spirits? to recover the records, there assuredly to be found, of their manly struggle, under hardships and difficulties, in achieving that North-west Passage, in the execution of which they had laid down their lives? and to bring back to their surviving relatives and friends those last kind messages of love, which show that sincere affection and stern sense of duty sprang from one source in their gallant and generous hearts?