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The Voyage of the "Fox" in the Arctic Seas.

no hope for us. But we have been
brought safely through, and are truly
grateful, I hope and believe."

All is not gloom and danger, how ever, in a winter's drift in a polar pack, for we find much to show how these naval worthies found time and opportunity to be merry under the most apparently adverse circumstances: and there is a dry humour in some of the tales, which shows that even wit does not freeze up in an Arctic winter. Let us take, for instance, the diary of November 29, 1857:

"Keen biting winds from the northwest," says Captain M'Clintock. "No cracks in the ice, therefore no seals. Grey dawn at ten o'clock, and dark at two. The moon is everywhere the sailor's friend-she is a source of comfort to us

here. Nothing to excite conversation, except an occasional inroad of the dogs in search of food; this generally occurs at night. Whenever the deck-light which burns under the housing happens to go out, they scale the steep snow banking, and rush round the deck like wolves. Why, bless you, sir, the wery moment that there light goes out, and the quartermaster turns his back, they makes a regular sortee, and in they all comes,' But where do they come in, Harvey?' 'Where, sir? why everywheres; they makes no more to do, but in they comes, clean over all.' Not long ago old Harvey was chief quartermaster in a line-of-battle ship, and a regular magnet to all the younger midshipmen. He would spin them yarns by the hour during the night-watches about the wonders of the sea, and of the Arctic regions in particular-its bears, its icebergs, and still more terrific auroras, roaring and flashing about the ship

enough to frighten a fellow!'”

6

We may not, however, delay longer over this portion of the narrative, but proceed to the second summer operations of the "Fox"; for without any flourish of trumpets, but calmly, as if no other measures were possible, her gallant captain and crew turned their steps northward from Davis Straits, whither they had been drifted, and again, like "good men and true," proceeded to do what they had failed to accomplish in that first unlucky season. The year 1858 was as propitious as that of 1857 had been otherwise, and with the exception of one accident of a really alarm

[Jan.

ing nature, when the vessel perched herself upon a rock with a falling tide, and nearly tumbled over, before the returning flood enabled them to extricate her, there was no very serious obstacle to their progress into Lancaster Sound, which highway to the "North-West" they entered by the month of July. We need not stay to point out more than the fact that Captain M'Clintock, in that neighbourhood, perfectly cleared up all the thousand and one stories emanating from whalers and Esquimaux, of some of the "white men" having been seen there, and that he discovered a new fishing-ground for hereafter prove of no small importwhales up Pond's Inlet, which may ance to our enterprising merchants Hull. On the 15th August 1858, and whaling seamen of Aberdeen and we find the "Fox" at Beechey Island, in that bay where, as we have long known, Franklin passed his winter of 1845-46, and with which the writings of subsequent explorers have made the public tolerably concompleted his stock of provisions versant. Here Captain M'Clintock from the immense depôt left at Northumberland House by Belcher and Inglefield, and under its gloomy cliffs he erected a monument with which he had been intrusted; the epitaph by Lady Franklin runs as follows:-"To the memory of Franklin, Crozier, Fitzjames, and all their gallant brother officers and faithful companions who have suffered and perished in the cause of science and Tablet is erected near the spot where they passed their first Arctic winter, the service of their country. The quer difficulties or to die. It comand whence they issued forth to conmemorates the grief of their admiring countrymen and friends, and the anguish, subdued by faith, of her who has lost in the leader of the expedition the most devoted and affectionate of husbands." A more fitting record, or more heart-stirring words, could hardly be conceived; and it will touch the best feelings of those seamen who, in future generations, may, in enterprises equally bold, in the minds of all who hold our reach this lone spot, now so hallowed glory dear as the greatest of maritime nations.

Sailing from Beechey Island, our modern paladins steered away with flowing sheet, and but slightly checked by ice, to Capes Walker and Bunny in the south-west, those gloomy yet picturesque portals to the channel known until now as that of Peel, but fated to bear hereafter the name of Franklin, in commemoration of its having been the path to death and fame of his noble expedition. Down it for twenty-five miles M'Clintock advanced, until ice was seen stretching across from shore to shore. On his left lay those precipices of North Somerset, along which, in 1848, Capt.

M'Clintock had travelled with Sir James Ross, as previously recounted; on the other, the equally barren but far more navigable coasts of Prince of Wales' Land. He could not but feel certain that down this strait Franklin had sailed in some more favourable season, or perhaps later in the year; and it was a question which had to be quickly decided, whether he, in the "Fox," should remain where he was, and run the chance of the strait opening in a fortnight; or, instead of doing so, turn back to Regent's Inlet and proceed down to Bellot Strait, where he would be sure of being within easy access of King William's Land for sledges, even should that strait prove likewise to be closed this season. M'Clintock decided at any rate to visit Bellot Strait, even if he afterwards returned to Peel Sound; and in a few hours the "Fox," under sail and steam, was rattling back towards Regent's Inlet. By August 21st she had entered Bellot Strait, and was battling her way to the westward. Three several times did Capt. M'Clintock strive to pass through this remarkable strait into that arctic sea, which washes the shores of North America. We need only give one instance of how he was foiled in his endeavours :—

"To-day an unsparing use of steam and canvass forced the ship eight miles further west: we were then about halfway through Bellot Strait! Its western capes are lofty bluffs, such as may be distinguished fifty miles distant in clear

weather between them there was a clear broad channel, but five or six miles of close heavy pack intervened-the sole obstacle to our progress. Of course

this pack will speedily disperse it is no wonder that we should feel elated at such a glorious prospect, and content to bide our time in the security of Depôt Bay. A feeling of tranquillity, of earnest, hearty satisfaction has come over us. There is no appearance amongst us of anything boastful; we have all experienced too keenly the vicissitudes of Arctic voyaging to admit of such a feeling.

"At the turn of tide we perceived that we were being carried, together with the pack, back to the eastward. Every moment our velocity was increased; and presently we were dismayed at seeing grounded ice near us, but were

very quickly swept past it, at the rate of nearly six miles an hour, though within two hundred yards of the rocks, and of instant destruction. As soon as we possibly could, we got clear of the packed ice, and left it to be wildly hurled about by various whirlpools and rushes of the tide, until finally carried out into Brentford Bay. The ice-masses were large, and dashed violently against each other,

and the rocks lay at some distance off

the southern shore. We had a fortunate escape from such dangerous company."

The little "Fox" stood but little chance in a struggle against blocks of ice, each quite as heavy as she was, in a six-knot tide; and when, after a survey of the western ocean from a lofty cape, the leader saw that it was still covered with ice, which would only break up with the early winter gales, he fain sought shelter and winter-quarters in a small bay on the shores of North Somerset, and iminediately set to work to place depôts of provisions out upon the routes his sledges would have to travel in the spring of 1859. These autumn sledgeparties were undertakings of no ordinary danger and difficulty; for the violence of the storms, fearful snowdrifts, and unexpected disruption of ice, nigh caused the loss of Lieut. Hobson's party, and entailed much suffering upon all. This arduous duty executed, they prepared to pass another and second winter of darkness and monotony-but not before the sportsman and naturalist had rummaged every valley and sheltered slope, and satisfied themselves that they, at any rate, had not fallen upon one of those pleasant places" abounding in game and salmon," of which they who have never visited those

lands are prone to write and talk. Failing venison and salmon steaks, they, like wise men, made the best of what Providence sent them, and they were by no means squeamish, provided it was fresh meat. In these gastronomic feats, Petersen's experiences in Greenland stood them in good stead. That worthy Dane seemed to have a keen digestion, and not over-delicate taste. Dog-mutton, however, he could not even lure our gallant countrymen to undertake, though they agreed with him that "old owls and peregrine falcons were the best beef in the country, and the young birds tender and white as chickens!" and, indeed, on one occasion, the worthy Captain quite warms up in his reminiscences of such luxuries as thin frozen slices of seal's fat!"

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Winter passed as pleasantly as it may in 74° north latitude; the sun returned; there was light without warmth; but with the experience of so many seasons of sledging, and the perfect equipment of his men, Captain M'Clintock at once put forth his parties to carry forward the depôts of provision, and to strive to pick up some clue by which to ascertain whether Franklin's ships had been beset or wrecked north or south of his present position. Captain Allen Young started to the northwest for Prince of Wales' Land; Captain M'Clintock towards the Magnetic Pole.

"For several days this severe weather continued, the mercury of my artificial horizon remaining frozen (its freezing point is 39°); and our rum, at first thick like treacle, required thawing latterly, when the more fluid and stronger part had been used. We travelled each day until dusk, and then were occupied for a couple of hours in building our snow-hut. The four walls were run up until 5 feet high, inclining inwards as much as possible; over these our tent was laid to form a roof; we could not afford the time necessary to construct a dome of snow."

One day's routine will suffice to depict what the work and suffering of these early spring journeys must have been :

"Our equipment consisted of a very

small brown-holland tent, macintosh floor-cloth, and felt robes; besides this, each man had a bag of double blanketing, and a pair of fur boots to sleep in. blanket in which our feet were wrapped We wore mocassins over the pieces of up, and, with the exception of a change of this foot-gear, carried no spare clothes. The daily routine was as follows:--I led the way; Petersen and Thompson followed, conducting their sledges; and in this manner we trudged on for eight or ten hours without halting, except when necessary to disentangle the dog-harness. When we halted for the night, Thompson and I usually sawed out the blocks of compact snow and carried them to Petersen, who acted as the master mason in building the snow hut: the hour and a half or two hours usually employed in erecting the edifice was the most disagreeable part of the day's labour, for, in addition to being already well tired and desiring repose, we became thoroughly chilled whilst standing about. When the hut was finished, the dogs were fed, and here the great difficulty was to insure the weaker ones their full share in the scramble for supper; then commenced the operation of unpacking the sledge, and carrying into our hut everything necessary for ourselves, such as provision and sleeping gear, as well as all boots, fur mittens, and even the sledge dogharness, to prevent the dogs from eating them during our sleeping hours. door was now blocked up with snow, the cooking-lamp lighted, foot-gear changed, diary written up, watches wound, sleeping bags wriggled into, pipes lighted, and the merits of the various dogs discussed, until supper was ready; the supper swallowed, the upper robe or coverlet was pulled over, and then to sleep.

The

"Next morning came breakfast, a after which the sledges were packed, and struggle to get into frozen mocassins, another day's march commenced.

"In these little huts we usually slept warm enough, although latterly, when our blankets and clothes became loaded with ice, we felt the cold severely. When our low doorway was carefully blocked up with snow, and the cooking-lamp alight, the temperature quickly rose, so that the walls became glazed, and our bedding thawed; but the cooking over, or the doorway partially opened, it as quickly fell again, so that it was impossible to sleep, or to hold a pannikin of hot tea without pulling on our mitts, so intense was the cold."

Thus, with toil and suffering, have all our gallant explorers opened up

that vast extent of country which lies between Greenland and Behring's Straits, and nothing will convey a better idea of the extraordinary additions which have been made in those regions to our geographical knowledge, than a careful comparison of the two excellent maps which Mr Murray has very wisely given us in this work-namely, the chart of the Arctic regions as they were known to us when Franklin sailed in 1845, and that of the same quarter of the globe in 1859. Our Arctic navigators and explorers need no better monument than this noble result of their exertions.

On March 1, 1859, Capt. M'Clintock met Esquimaux, and from them learnt that one of the ships (the longsought ships "Erebus" and "Terror," for there could be no others), "had been crushed by the ice out in the sea to the west of King William's Land, but that all the people landed safely." They told, likewise, of white men having died upon an island at the mouth of a river; and with this meagre information M'Clintock was fain to be content; it pointed to King William's Land as the place where one of the vessels would be found, and he hastened back to the "Fox" to equip and start his parties for their long summer journeys. The uncertainty as to the second ship compelled him to again send Capt. Allen Young to Prince of Wales' Land, in case one of Franklin's ships might have been wrecked there. Subsequent information disproved this supposition, but Allen Young did right good service; he added a great deal of new coast-line to our charts

proved the insularity of Prince of Wales' Land - discovered the M'Clintock channel-corrected Capt. Osborn's position of 1851, and fully confirmed the opinions of that officer, as well as those of Captain Ommaney, as to the impenetrable nature of the ice-stream which encumbers that Strait, and the north-east shores of Victoria and Albert Land. Captain M'Clintock and Lieutenant Hobson, in the mean time, proceeded towards King William's Land and the Great Fish River. Nothing was found on the western or southern coasts of King William's Land; and the estu

ary of the Great Fish River as well as Montreal Island were equally bare of traces of the lost expedition. The Esquimaux had swept away all relics of Franklin's people in these quarters, though most of those relics of an imperishable character have been subsequently recovered by Dr Rae in Repulse Bay, and by Capt. M-Clintock. There was, however, a wonderful paucity of natives in all the extent of coast above alluded to; indeed, beyond the Esquimaux at the Magnetic Pole in Boothia, Captain M'Clintock only encountered one more village of ten or twelve snow-huts with inhabitants on King William's Land and near Cape Norton. Some additional information was gleaned from them of a trivial nature; instead of one ship, they now spoke of two; but described one as having sunk when the ice broke up-the other had evidently been drifted safely into some position which was within their haunts. The party at Cape Norton had visited this wreck, and described their journey to her as occupying five days.

"One day up the inlet, still in sight, and one day overland; this would carry them to the western coast of King Wil liam's Land. They added that but little now remained of the wreck which was accessible, their countrymen having carried almost everything away. In answer to an inquiry, they said she was without masts. The question gave rise to some laughter amongst them, and they spoke to each other of fire, from which Petersen thought they had burnt the masts through close to the deck, in order to get them down. There had have long since been destroyed by been many books, they said, but all the weather. The ship was forced on shore in the fall of the year by the ice. She had not been visited during the past winter; and an old woman and a boy were shown to us who were the last to visit the wreck. They said they had been at it during the close of the winter of 1857-58.

"Petersen questioned the woman closely, and she seemed anxious to give said many of the white men dropped by all the information in her power. She the way as they went to the Great

River that some were buried, and some were not. She did not herself witness this, but the Esquimaux discovered their bodies during the winter following."

The allusion to fire points to the possibility of the second vessel having been intentionally or accidentally burnt by the natives, as an easy and barbarous way of breaking her up for the nails and bolts, or pieces of planking-all so precious to these savages. At any rate, she no longer existed upon the south or western shores of King William's Land; but upon that west coast, between a point ten miles south of Cape Herschel, where the skeleton of a European sailor was discovered, up to Cape Victory, where the tale of Franklin's success and death, together with the subsequent attempt of the crews to reach the Great Fish River, was found, there was needed no Esquimaux to interpret the tale of the melancholy fate of those M'Clintock sought. We will epitomise the information he and Lieutenant Hobson there collected. The "Erebus" and "Terror" wintered at Beechey Island 1845-46, after having in the same season that they sailed from England made a very remarkable voyage up Wellington Channel, and down a new strait (now justly named after the gallant Crozier) between Bathurst and Cornwallis Land. Franklin thus forestalled in that direction all the discoveries of Penny, De Haven, Belcher, and Austin. In 1846 the "Erebus" and "Terror" proceeded towards King William's Land; and although the record does not say by what route, still the concurrent opinion of every officer who has visited the channels which lie on either side of Prince of Wales' Land, gives it in favour of Franklin hav. ing taken the route between Capes Walker and Bunny; though, of course, mere theorists, like Captains Snow and Belcher, are at perfect liberty to suppose Franklin reached King William's Land by any route they are pleased to fancy. On the 12th September 1846, the "Erebus" and "Terror" were firmly beset in the ice when only twelve miles distant from the low and dangerous northern extremity of King William's Land, named Cape Felix. They were evidently struggling to get down the west coast to Cape Herschel, and that, in all probability, for two reasons. In the first place, the chart

they possessed connected King William's Land with Boothia Felix, and gave no hope of reaching the American continent by steering down to the south-eastward; and, on the other hand, Cape Herschel was only ninety miles off to the south-west, and from it they knew there was water communication all the way to Behring's Straits; nay, more, on reaching Cape Herschel, the discovery of the northwest passage to the Indies would be accomplished-the prize they had already risked so much to win.

How natural, then, that they should have determined to fight their way down that shoal and dangerous westcoast of King William's Land.

We next hear of them in May 1847, when Lieutenant Graham Gore and Mr Des Voeux of the "Erebus" land with a party of six men for some purpose, possibly to connect the coast-line between the two known points-Capes Herschel and Victory. They tell us, in a few brief words, that" all was well, and Sir John Franklin commanding the expedition." A twelvemonth passes, and the record is again opened, and in a few words the firm hand of the gallant Captain Fitzjames reveals to us a thrilling tale of sorrow and suffering, heroically, calmly met. Their gal lant, loved leader, Franklin, had died on the 11th June 1847. The ships in that summer only drifted, beset in the ice, about fifteen miles. Nine officers and fifteen men had fallen; amongst them Graham Gore, though not until after he had become a commander through the death of Franklin.

And lastly, on the 22d April, one hundred and five souls, the survivors of the original expedition, had abandoned the ships under the orders of Captains Crozier and Fitzjames, and were striving to escape death from scurvy and starvation, by retreating to the Hudson Bay Company's territories, up the Great Fish River.

This information was written in a strong hand, which is recognised as that of Fitzjames; and in a corner, under the very infirm-looking signature of Captain Crozier, we find a note in the same writing as the rest of the record, which shows that these poor starving crews commenced their

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