m H Sir John Frmklin ■5— '4^-^ 1 THE NEW PLUTARCH SIR JOHN FRANKLIN PUBLICATIONS OF G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. THE NEW PLUTARCH: Lives of those who have made the History of the World. Edited by Walter Besant. i6mo, cloth extra, per volume $i co "We should place l The New Plutarch' among the very best of the recent series . . . The volumes rise to the full dignity of biographical studies." — N. Y. Evening Mail. I. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By Charles G. Leland, author of " The Egyptian Sketch-Book," ' ' The Breitmann Ballads," etc With portrait on steel. " The study of Lincoln's character will always be a fascinating and profitable pursuit. . . . Mr. Leland's life is in many respects an admirable work, written with skill, judgment, and the power to interest.''— Scribner's Monthly. II. COLIGNY, and the Failure of the French Reformation. By Walter Besant. 11 The work of a thorough and scholarly student of history. ... A book which is alive^ and which gives us a real man and a hero." — Buffalo Express. III. JUDAS MACCABEUS, and the Revival of the Jewish Nationality. By Lieut. C. R. Conder, R.E. " A volume which will be most valuable to the scholar as a summary, and priceless to the enquirer who has small opportunity to study at first hand."— Boston Courier. IV. JOAN OF ARC, and the Expulsion of the English from France. By Janet Tuckey. " A really beautiful book, whose highest praise is, that it is worthy of its sub- ject."— Penn Monthly. V. HAROUN ALRASCHID, and Saracen Civilization. By E. H. Palmer. 11 An admirable and graphic presentation of a remarkable and little-known life." — Springfield Republican. VI. SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. By A. H. Beesley. VII. MARTIN LUTHER and his Work. By John H. Tread- well. VIII. SIR RICHARD WHITTINGTON, Lord Mayor of Lon- don. By Walter Besant and James Rice. in preparation. VICTOR EMANUEL, CHARLEMAGNE, RICHELIEU, Etc. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 27 and 29 West 23D Street, New York. I L i SIR JOHN FRANKLIN A . H. BEESLY, M.A Heroic sailor-soul. " — Tennyson NEW YORK G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS 27 & 29 WEST 23D STREET l88l Press of G. P. Putnam's Sens New York PREFACE THIS book is based mainly on narratives of two expeditions to the Polar Seas by Sir John Franklin himself, and on a monograph — of which he is the subject — written by M. de la Roquette. For the latter — which I fonnd to be in part identical with the article on Franklin in the old edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica — I am indebted to Miss Sophia Cracroft, Sir John Franklin's niece, who has most generously given me other assistance, for which I here tender her my heartiest thanks. A few paragraphs have already appeared in articles contributed by me to the Cornhill Magazine. Gener- ally, I have made use of the well-known w r orks of Sir John Richardson, Captain Sherard Osborne, Dr. Kane, Admiral M'Clintock, &c. The maps, it is hoped, will enable the reader to follow the narrative with ease. A. H. BEESLY. February, 1881. CONTENTS. Chap. I. — A Survey of Arctic History. page English Polar Expeditions — Threefold object of Explorers— Three Eoutes to the Pole — English, American, Russian, and other Explorations — The North Pole and North Polar regions, . 9 Chap. II. — Franklin's Early Career. Franklin's Parentage, Boyhood, and Youth — Enters the Navy — At Copenhagen — With Captain Flinders — Wrecked — In Battle against the French — At Trafalgar — At the Sieges of Flushing and New Orleans, . . . . . .17 Chap. III. — Franklin's First Expedition. Sooresby's Letter to Sir J. Banks — Expeditions of Ross and Buchan — Franklin with Buchan — Franklin's First Expedition to the Coppermine River — Its objects — His Comrades — Ship- wreck imminent — Hudson's Bay — Cumberland House — An Indian Davenport, . . . . . .21 Chap. IV. — Franklin's First Expedition (continued). Departure from Cumberland House — Snow Shoes — Lack of Pro- visions — Collection of Stores, Boats, Guides, &c. — Fort Provi- dence — Visit of Akaitcho — His Proceedings — Preliminary Excursions to the Coppermine River — The Cold — News from Home — Misconduct of Weeks — Winter Occupations — Back's Visit to Fort Providence, . . . . .36 Chap. V. — Franklin's First Expedition (continued). Misconduct of St. Germain — Difficulties with Akaitcho — The Start from Fort Enterprise— " Bloody Fall" — Esquimaux — The Indians desert — Wentzel sent back — Boat Voyage along the Coast — Point Turnagain, . . . . . 59 Chap. VI. — Franklin's First Expedition (continued). Return by Land — Terrible Suffering — The Canoes broken— Famine — Fishing Nets abandoned — Tripe de Roche — Back sent ahead — Richardson's Gallantry — Credit and Vaillant break down — Hood's Illness— Heroic Self-sacrifice of Richardson and Hepburn — Perrault breaks down — Death of Fontano — Franklin finds Fort Enterprise deserted — Richardson rejoins him there, . 73 Chap. VII. — Franklin's First Expedition (continued). Richardson's Narrative — Murder of Hood — Michel shot — Fearful Sufferings at Fort Enterprise — Death of Peltier and of Samandre — The Indians come — The Party reach Akaitcho's Camp — Back's Adventures— Death of Beauparlant — Return to England, . 94 Contents. Chap. VIII. — :Franklin's Second Expedition. PAai4 Honours conferred on Franklin — His First Marriage — Parry's Congratulations — Preparations for an Expedition down the Mackenzie — Richardson and Back volunteer — Preliminary Ex- peditions of Franklin and Richardson, . . . .112 Chap. IX. — Franklin's Second Expedition (continued). Fort Franklin — Franklin's Letter — Winter Occupations and Pre- parations — The two parties under Franklin and Richardson set out, 125 Chap. X. — Franklin's Second Expedition (continued). Franklin's Voyage down the Mackenzie — Encounter with Esqui- maux — Good Conduct of Augustus — Voyage to Return Reef — Fogs— Return to Fort Franklin, . . . .138 Chap. XL— Eranklin's Second Expedition (continued). Richardson's Voyage down the Mackenzie — Encounter with Esqui- maux — Richardson's opinion of Franklin — He reaches the Coppermine River and Fort Franklin — Second Winter at Fort Franklin — Dog Rib Traditions — Return to England, . .157 Chap. XII. — Franklin in Tasmania. Honours conferred on Franklin — His Second Marriage — Appointed Governor of Tasmania— His Letter thence — His and his Wife's Beneficence — Return Home, . . . . .178 Chap. XIII. — Franklin's Last Expedition. Anecdotes of Parry, Franklin, and Brougham — Instructions for another Polar Expedition — The Erebus and Terror — Fitz- james — Last sight of the two Ships — Rewards offered for their Relief by Government — Their Track in 1845— Corn wallis Island circumnavigated — Winter at Beechey Island — Deaths of Brain e, Hartnell, and Torrington — Failure of Pemmican — Departure from Beechey Island in 1846 — Victoria Strait entered — Winter in the Pack — Gore's Visit to King William's Island in 1847— Death of Franklin— Slow Drift down Victoria Strait- Second Winter in the Pack — The Ships abandoned — Rae's news of the fate of the Expedition — M'Clintock's Discovery of the Record at Point Victory — Esquimaux Accounts — Conjectures as to what had happened — Geographical results of the Franklin era — Franklin's Character, . . . . , 190 Index. . . . . ♦ . , .235 SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. CHAPTEE I. A SURVEY OF ARCTIC HISTORY. English Polar Expeditions — Threefold object of Explorers— Three routes to the Pole — English, American, Russian, and other Explo- rations — The North Pole and North Polar regions. THE earliest venture of England in the Arctic Seas was made so far back as Alfred's reign. That was when Venice " held the gorgeous East in fee," and if an English or French ship entered the Mediterranean, it was at once seized by the Venetians, and the sailors sold as slaves. The produce of India was then brought by land to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, and carried in Venetian ships to Europe. It was to break this monopoly of trade that we tried to find another passage there ; but wa now know that this was an idle dream, and that the Venetian monopoly was broken, not by us, but by the Portuguese when they doubled the Cape of Good Hope. And it is curious — and may afford 10 Sir John Franklin. some consolation to those who think that the national spirit has been cankered by money-grubbing — to notice that, whereas the early Arctic expeditions (even when the whole world was lit up by a flame of ardour which the discovery of new worlds and practically a new literature had kindled) were often due to commercial rivalry, and much the same sort of emulation as that which prompts the annual tea-race from China, it is the spirit of honour and the love of science which have been the mainsprings of those of our own times. We do not dream of shores sown with gems, or of a short cut to the treasure-lands of the East. No fabled glories of Cathay allure our imaginations. Thirst for knowledge, national enthusiasm, the hope of rescuing some lost expedition — these are the more noble motives which have spurred us on, gilding with some rays of romance a prosaic century, linking together a knot of men by ties as generous as those of King Arthur's Table, and giving the lie to Burke's lamentation that the age of chivalry is dead. There are three avenues to the unknown region round the Pole — one east of Greenland, through the seas on either side of Spitzbergen; another west of Greenland, through Davis' Straits, Baffin's Bay, and Smith's Sound ; and the third by Bering's Straits. And whatever has been the object of the various expeditions sent by these three routes, they sought to attain that object in three different ways, which, in fact, constitute Threefold Object of Polar Exploration. 11 three chapters into which all Arctic history may be divided. Either they have sought for a North-West Passage — that is, for a passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific by the north of North America ; or for a North- East Passage — that is, for the same passage by the north of Norway and Siberia; or for a North Polar Passage — that is, for the same passage straight across the Pole. Whencesoever they started, they have all, it need hardly be said, for many years aimed at one goal — the straits which since 1728 have borne the name of Bering. As for the North Pole, it is of course merely a name. If we imagine a string passed through the globe as through an apple, each end of the imaginary string is a Pole; and whether there is water at the North Pole or land, no one knows. But out of the ambition to discover a North Polar Passage has grown up a rivalry between England and America as to which shall first reach the North Pole. Two of the three objects (for the third and fourth are practically the same) have been attained. Of the discovery of the North- East Passage little can be said here. The North-East Cape, doubled long since in 1742 by sledges, was doubled in a ship for the first time in 1879 by Pro- fessor Nordenskjold, who successfully accomplished the voyage from the Sea of Kara to Japan through Bering's Straits. The North Polar Passage, or the North Pole, has been essayed by many : on the west of Spitzbergen by Hudson, Poole, Eotherby, Phipps, 12 Sir John Franklin. Scoresby, Buchan, Clavering, Parry, and Koldewey ; on the east of it by Hudson, Barendz, and Payer ; and on the west of Greenland by the Americans and Captain Nares. These, and others following these routes, have sooner or later come upon an impenetrable barrier of pack ice, and from the highest point reached some four hundred miles remain yet to be traversed before anyone reaches the North Pole. By what heroic efforts, at the cost of how many noble lives, England won the glory of having discovered the North- West Passage, all students of Arctic history know. And here it may be said that the study of that history is most fascinating. It grows on one just as the glamour of the North seems to fascinate explorers themselves, who, over and over again, have escaped from the jaws of death only to offer themselves again as volunteers in the same quest. It is rather a recreation than a study. In it you seem to come in contact with men who are almost all noble. Here and there a piece of villainy or cowardice chequers the narrative, but as a rule it is a record of single-hearted bravery and self-sacrificing endurance unsurpassed, and, perhaps, unparallelled in any other section of the world's annals. As mountain air makes a man capable of walking twice the distance he can ordinarily cover with half the fatigue, so the Polar enterprise seems to brace the explorer's morale, and converts him into a hero. With the third and last of the above-mentioned The Polar Area, 13 divisions, viz., the discovery of the North- West Passage, the following pages are more particularly concerned, relating, as they will, some of the expeditions which paved the way to it, and its final accomplishment. The general result of all of them has been, that the unknown region round the Pole has been steadily, though slowly, circumscribed. An enormous area still remains undis- covered. But the circle has been uniformly contracting, and on every side wedges, as it were, have been driven into it of, it may be, an island in one quarter which has been circumnavigated, or of a mountainous shore skirted In another, which, though unexplored, is clearly the outline of a vast interior, while conjecture, almost amounting to certainty, enables us to picture to our- selves a large portion of space which the eye of man has never seen. The outer circle of the great Polar basin is formed by the three continents of Asia, America, and Europe. But an inner, uneven circle has of late been traced, which is marked off by the northern shores of Spitsbergen, Greenland, Grinnell Land, the Parry Islands, Wrangel Land, New Siberia, and Franz Joseph Land. It must however, be remembered, that though we may use the term circle for convenience, it would be wholly misleading if it conveyed the notion of a central sea round the Pole surrounded by a belt of land. Whether there is sea or land at the Pole itself is uncertain, but it seems probable that no central land- locked ocean exists. We are more likely to be correct 14 Sir John Franklin. in imagining the unknown region to be irregularly broken up into great patches of ice-bound sea, inter- sected by water-lanes in summer, such as that between Iceland and Spitzbergen, or that between Bank's Land and Bering's Straits ; into vast tracts of ice-bound land, like Greenland and Grinnell Land ; and into groups of islands such as the Parry Islands, New Siberia, Spitz- bergen, and, apparently, Franz Joseph Land. This is the sum of the results obtained by the three- fold process of explorations towards the North-West, the North, and the North-East, mentioned above. The first of these fields of discovery has been occupied almost solely by Englishmen. In the second, also, they have been pre-eminent, though they have been run close by the Americans. In the third, the Kussians, in spite of recent achievements, have borne away the palm. The Dutch in old times, and Sweden and Norway of late years, have been conspicuous for their enterprise in the seas of Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla, and both these islands were for the first time circumnavigated in our day by a Norwegian seaman, Captain Carlsen. Thus the honours of Arctic discovery are shared by many nations. Englishmen discovered the North- West Pas- sage and the Magnetic Pole. Englishmen led the way to Smith's Sound. Englishmen discovered the straits between Nova Zembla and the mainland. Englishmen first sailed north of Spitzbergen. Englishmen have gone nearest the Pole. But the accomplishment of the A New Era in Polar Exploration. 15 North-East Passage has not fallen to our lot, and both in brilliance and patience of discovery we are falling out of the race with other nations. One result of so many competitors filling the field has been that the story of Arctic enterprise has become as familiar as a twice-told tale. But at the beginning of the century it was far otherwise. The northern shores of America were practically a terra incognita, and such knowledge of them as we did possess was hard to discriminate from conjecture or legend. Tor nearly fifty years England had desisted from the search for a North-West Passage; and so little was known of the geography of the Polar regions, that even in 1818, Baffin's Bay, which had been discovered two centuries before, was supposed to exist only in the imagination of the man who gave that sea its name. On the maps of the time it did indeed exist in outline, but on some of them may be found a dotted line, with this inscrip- tion — " Baffin's Bay, according to the relation of William Baffin in 1616, but not now believed." All that we now see north of it was a blank, and from Fox Channel, north of Hudson's Bay, on the east, to Icy Cape on the west, nothing was known of the coast- line, much less of the group of islands since discovered beyond it, except at two points where Hearne and Mackenzie had penetrated to, or nearly to, the shores of the Arctic Ocean. But a blaze of light was suddenly to be thrown upon this unknown region, and 16 Sir John Franklin. while Parry was to find an outlet from Lancaster Sound, and so, sailing westwards, discover Melville Island, and achieve a large share of the honours of the North- West Passage, Franklin was destined at first to co-operate patiently by land, adding the while to our maps all the coast from Keturn Eeef on the west to Point Turnagain on the east, and finally to complete what Parry had begun, and carry off the laurels which had been coveted for so many ages by so many brave men. A new era of Arctic enterprise was in short dawning, and the two friends were to be its heroes and pioneers. And if it is sad to see ourselves now dropping behind other nations in a noble quest, it is pleasant at least to think that of our past glory no man can rob us ; that, do what others may in the future, a splendid share has already been done by us, and that the discovery of the North- West* Passage must for ever be connected with the name and fame of England. To that discovery Parry and Franklin undoubtedly contributed more than any other two men. Staunch comrades in life, in death they will never be divided. They toiled in the same field for the same object, and rarely has any nation been able to boast of possessing two friends of such lofty, prTe, and dis- interested character. CHAPTEE II. franklin's early career. Franklin's Parentage, Boyhood, and Youth — Enters the Navy — At Copenhagen — With Captain Flinders— Wrecked — In Battle against the French — At Trafalgar — At the Sieges of Flushing and New Orleans. JOHN" FBANKLIN was born on the 16th of April, ^ 1786, at Spilsby, a small market town of Lincoln- shire, distant some ten miles, as the crow flies, from the shores of the North Sea. His ancestors were "frank- lins," or freeholders, who had for many years lived in this part of England; but his father, Willingham Franklin, finding that his predecessor had mortgaged the family estate too deeply, determined to sell it and embark in business. His manly good sense was rewarded by a competency, and out of his large family of twelve children, eleven grew up and received a good education. Thomas, the eldest of them, succeeded his father in his business, and in the esteem of his neigh- bours. When an invasion was expected, he became adjutant of a troop of yeomanry cavalry, which had 18 Sir John Franklin. been raised chiefly by his exertions. Afterwards, he was chosen lieutenant-colonel of a regiment of volunteer infantry. The second son, Willingham, went to school at Westminster, carried off at Oxford a Christ Church scholarship and a fellowship at Oriel, was called to the bar and made a judge, and died at Madras. The third son, James, went to India, where he rose to the rank of Major. His scientific knowledge, fulfilling the promise which his distinguished cadetship had foreshadowed, procured him a civil appointment, but ill health com- pelled him to return to England, where he died. The youngest son, John, was first destined for the church, and was sent to school at St. Ives, and afterwards at Louth. , One holiday, however, he and a friend took a walk to the sea. As yet he knew it only by hearsay, though, like so many English boys, he was already dreaming of a sailor's life. The grand sight fixed his fancy for ever, and, with his usual good sense, his father sent him to Lisbon in a merchantman, thinking that the experiences of a voyage would cure him of his whim. Hut his own steadfastness was reproduced in his son. When the boy came home, still bent on the naval pro- fession, he was no longer thwarted in his wish, but obtained through his father's agency a midshipman's berth on the Polyphemus, which led the line in the battle of Copenhagen on the 2nd of April, 1801. Two months later he was serving in the Investigator, com- manded by his relation Captain Flinders, who was sent Franklin's Professional Career. 19 : out to survey the coasts of Australia. The experience- he acquired in this cruise was invaluable, and the well- known naturalist of the expedition, Robert Brown, became his friend for life. The Investigator was condemned at Port Jackson as unfit for her duties, and Franklin sailed in the Porpoise with Captain Flinders/ who went home to procure another ship. The Porpoise- struck on a coral reef off the coast of Australia, and her crew, with that of her consort the Cato, ninety-four in number, were imprisoned for fifty days on a strip of sand 150 fathoms long and only four feet above water. Flinders, after a voyage of 250 leagues to Port Jackson 5 in an open boat, rescued his companions, but, war having broken out between France and England, was un- generously detained as prisoner at the Isle of France by General de Caen. Franklin, sailing to Canton, procured a passage home in an East Iudiaman com-; manded by Sir Nathaniel Dance. On the voyage, the China fleet, of which Dance was Commodore, brilliantly, beat off a strong French squadron commanded by Admiral Linois, and Franklin on this occasion acted as signal midshipman. Joining the BelleropTwn at home, he filled the same post at the battle of Trafalgar with a gallantry which even the hero of Trafalgar could not have surpassed. Of those who stood near him on the poop, all except four or five were either wounded or killed. During the two years after Trafalgar he served under Admirals Cornwallis, Saint Vincent, and Strahan, 20 Sir John Franklin. and then, joining the Bedford, remained on her for six years, and saw much and varied service at the siege of Flushing, and on the coasts of Portugal and Brazil. He was now a lieutenant, and in the disastrous attack on New Orleans commanded the boats in a fight with the enemy's gunboats, capturing one of them, and receiving a slight wound in the shoulder. For his gallantry on this occasion he was promoted to a first lieutenancy on the Forth, which, at the restoration of the Bourbons, con- veyed the Duchess d'Angouleme back to France. With the fall of Napoleon and the close of the war there was apparently an end also to the brilliant young officer's prospects of distinction. But to such souls opportunity is but seldom wanting long, and he who had played his part so worthily under such renowned captains in war was now himself destined to show the qualities of a great leader, and to reap the first harvest of a fame which will hardly be outlasted by that even of the giants of his age. CHAPTER III. franklin's first expedition. Scoresby's Letter to Sir J. Banks — Expeditions of Ross and Buchan — Franklin with Buchan — Franklin's First Expedition to the Copper- mine River — Its objects — His Comrades — Shipwreck imminent — Hudson's Bay — Cumberland House — An Indian Davenport. IT has been already mentioned that for a long time England had desisted from prosecuting the search for a North- West Passage. Partly, no doubt, this was owing to the all-absorbing struggle with Prance and Napoleon, which left no capacity for expenditure of energy in any other direction. Partly, perhaps, the search had come to be considered as hopeless as the search for the Holy Grail. But just when we emerged triumphant from our long agony, and the nation was full of the pride and daring inspired by the conscious- ness of great deeds, fresh interest began to be taken in the old field of adventure, owing to the reports brought home by that bold and able seaman, the whaling-master Scoresby. He had noticed in 1817 a great change in the sea west of Greenland, which, between the 74 ch 22 Sir John Franklin, and 80th degrees of latitude, was for some 18,000 square miles entirely free from ice, so that he had twice in his last voyage sailed in a region which previously he had been able to enter only very rarely. The cause of this state of things he attributed to some mighty dislocation of the ice-fields far north, and he wrote to Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Eoyal Society, suggesting that now was the time for renewing Arctic exploration with reasonable hopes of success. Sir Joseph Banks, ever eager to second such applications, brought the matter before the Government, and met with warm support from the Secretary to the Admiralty, Sir John Barrow. The consequence was, that in the year 1818 two expeditions were sent to the North, one under Captain John Eoss, which was ordered to sail to Davis' Straits, and thence make its way westwards, so as, if possible, to find a North-West Passage; and the other, under Captain Buchan, to sail due north between Greenland and Spitzbergen, and, if the sea was free from ice, to make for Bering's Straits. A reward of £5,000, which had been offered by Act of Parliament in 1776 to anyone who sailed beyond 89 degrees of latitude north- wards, was now supplemented by another of £20,000 to anyone who discovered a passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. ... Both the expeditions were failures. Captain Eoss sighted Smith's Sound, but failed to explore either it or Jones' Sound, and when many of his crew were of Franklin and Parry. 23 opinion that the passage of promise had been descried in Lancaster Sound, he himself by faith saw mountains •where there were none, and, to the disappointment of his officers-, steered southwards home again. Buchan, after touching at Bear Island, advanced beyond the 80th degree of latitude on the north-west of Spits- bergen, only to find an impenetrable barrier of ice in his way; and one of his ships being crippled by an encounter with the ice, he too was forced to. return to England. But though the main objects of the venture had altogether failed, incidentally they had great results, for under each captain served a lieutenant who now obtained his first experience of the Arctic seas — Franklin being second in command to Buchan, and Parry being one of the officers who, where their captain could only read failure, had confidently pre- dicted success. Franklin, when his commander's ship was disabled, had begged to be allowed to proceed on his mission by himself, and both of them had displayed qualities in their respective positions which promptly found recognition at home. So that the very next year, when a new expedition was organised, which was to comprise an attempt by sea to find a westward outlet from Lancaster Sound, and an attempt by land to strike the mouth of the Coppermine Biver and trace the coast eastward, the first of the two was entrusted to Parry's leadership, and the other to Franklin's, in the hope that these young officers who had shown such 24 Sir John Franklin. aptitude for the service would meet somewhere half- way. With the splendid success which Parry achieved we have nothing to do here. What Franklin did might almost be called failure, but it was a failure almost as splendid as his comrade's success ; and so heroic was the fortitude displayed by himself and his officers, so terrible the tale of the sufferings which they endured, that, even if the last tragedy of his life had never happened, his name must have lived for ever in the roll of those Englishmen of whom Englishmen are most proud. Franklin's mission may be best explained in his own words. "My instructions; in substance, informed me that the main object of the expedition was that of determining the latitude and longitude of the northern coast of North America, and the trending of that coast from the mouth of the Coppermine Biver to the eastern extremity of that continent." Much was left to his own discretion, but he was directed to take counsel with the Hudson's Bay Company officials, to be as exact as possible in scientific observations — especially of the Aurora Borealis — and geographical surveys, and to deposit at intervals on his route information which might be of service to Lieutenant Parry. Before leav- ing England, he received many useful hints from the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, and from Sir Alexander Mackenzie, the only living Englishman who had visited the coast to be explored. Franklin s Expedition. 25 Franklin embarked at Gravesend, in the Prince of Wales, on the 23rd of May, 1819. With him were Dr. Eichardson, since so well known as Sir John Eichardson, who was to act as surgeon and naturalist to the expedition, and two Admiralty midshipmen, George (afterwards Sir George) Back and Bobert Hood, who were to assist in the general objects in view, and to make drawings of the land, the natives, and the various objects of natural history. Only one other Englishman accompanied these officers to their final destination, John Hepburn, to whose staunch heart and stalwart frame his companions subsequently owed their lives. Franklin was indeed peculiarly fortunate in his comrades, and at the very outset had a proof of the stuff of which one of them, Back, was made. When the ship sailed from Yarmouth he was on an excursion, and it was only by dint of travelling for nine days almost without rest that he caught up the party at Stromness. A ball was going on, and to it, instead of to bed, he went, and remained till a late hour. While Franklin endeavoured to procure boatmen, Dr. Eichardson occupied himself in botanising, and Hood and Back in sketching, thus training themselves for their respective duties. Of boatmen Franklin could only procure four, and these would only engage to go as far as Fort Chipewyan — a serious misfortune, as he afterwards found to his cost. On the 16th June Stromness was left, and when we find that Davis' •26 Sir yohn Franklin. Straits were not entered till the 25th of July, we have a striking example of the advantages which steam gives the modern navigator. On the 7th of August the island of Resolution was seen from the Prince, of Wales. .With her had come from Stromness three other ships, .the Eddystone, the Wear, and the missionary brig Harmony. A heavy fog and a dead calm came on, and the ships drifted with the currents which ran between large icebergs. At half-past twelve o'clock the fog suddenly lifted, and they saw, towering over the mast- heads, a rugged shore only a few yards off. Almost immediately, the ship struck violently on a projecting point of rock, displacing the rudder, and so rendering her the more helpless. A gentle swell floated her off, and as she struck again while passing over a ledge, the rudder was replaced by the blow. Though now more manageable, she struck a third time, and was again released by a swell of the sea, only to be carried forcibly by the current against a large iceberg. Shipwreck seemed inevitable, as water was being made fast, and on signals of distress being hoisted, the Eddystone took the Prince of Wales in tow, while the passengers and crew set to pumping, and endeavouring to find and stop the leak. But all efforts seemed unavailing. In vain the carpenters tried to stop the inrush of the water by forcing oakum between the timbers. The leak increased so fast that parties had to bail out the water from the hold in buckets. Then the tow-rope. Voyage to Hudson's Bay. broke, and some of the seamen had to leave the pumps to work the ship. They were so weary, too, that during the night of the 8th they relaxed their exer- tions, and on the 9th there w T as a depth of more than five feet of water in the well. As the day wore on they could but just keep matters from getting no worse, and again they felt their strength leaving them. So they tried thrusting in felt as well as , oakum, over which they nailed a plank. This had such an effect that by nightfall they had only to use the pumps at intervals of ten minutes. Then a sail, covered with everything that could be drawn into the leak by suction, was hauled under the ship, and secured by ropes on each side. The relief came none too soon, for though the elder women and children had been sent to the Eddystone, the younger women had been forced to share the labour at the pumps. Meanwhile the Wear had been lost sight of, and much anxiety was felt as to her fate. At Upper Savage Island the first Esquimaux was seen. On the 19th the Eddystone parted company off Digge's Island, being bound for Moose Factory, at the bottom of Hudson's Bay, and on the 30th the Prince of Wales reached the anchorage of York Flats, where a ship was already lying, which, after anxious examination, happily proved to be the Wear. Such were the perils Franklin encountered before he had even begun his real journey. They were the shadows of what was to come. 28 Sir John Franklin. York Factory is distant seven miles from the Flats, and there Franklin went with the Governor on landing. It is the principal depot of the Hudson's Bay Company, and stands on the west bank of the Hayes Eiver, five miles from its month. There was at this time bitter commercial rivalry, and even open war, between the Hudson's Bay Company and the North- West Company, which divided with it the fur trade with the natives of North America. Several of the partners in the latter company were under detention at York Factory, and Franklin was gratified at finding that, if at variance with each other, both parties professed equal eager- ness to serve him. He, on his part, issued orders to his men not to interfere in any existing quarrels or any future ones — orders which had a most satisfactory effect. All his advisers recommended him to take the route to Cumberland House, where both companies possessed fortified houses, and thence through the chain of posts to the Great Slave Lake. He could, however, only procure one steersman for his voyage up the Hayes Eiver, and the boat given him by Governor Williams of York Factory, though one of the largest belonging to the Company, proved too small to hold the necessary stores, so that the bacon and part of the rice, tobacco, flour, and ammunition were left behind — the Governor undertaking to forward all but the bacon the following season, and assuring him that he could pro- cure tobacco, ammunition, and spirits in the iuterior. Expedition leaves York Factory. 29 It was an ominous beginning to the undertaking, that from the very first there was a deficiency of stores. On the 9th of September a start was made, and the boat set sail up the Hayes Eiver amid a salute of guns and the cheers of the Governor and his people. But when they had sailed six miles the wind fell, and the crew had to begin tracking — that is, dragging the boat up stream from the shore by a rope to which they were harnessed. It was hard work, the ground being slippery from rain, and encumbered by fallen trees, but they proceeded at the rate of two miles an hour, work- ing in gangs, which relieved each other every hour and a-half. As they went along, a careful survey was made of the river, and Mr. Hood laid down the route each evening on a map. Leaving the Hayes Eiver, after a journey of 48 miles and a-half, they ascended one of its confluents, the Steel Eiver, which at its mouth is three hundred yards wide. Tracking was usually the order of the day, as the course of the river was too serpentine for sailing. The scenery was charming. Poplars with fading yellow leaves, dark evergreen spruces, grey willows, purple dog-wood, birch of a browner shade, and bright yellow cinquefoil, made up a wealth of beautifully-blended colour. But not a human being was to be seen, and, as the monotonous toil went on, the silence was so deep, that the men would start at the note of a bird. On September 19th they began the ascent of the 30 Sir Jo hi Franklin. Hill Eiver, which, with the Fox, forms the river Steel. Here they met a party, the Indians of which had, with only a hatchet, killed on the previous day two deer, a hawk, a curlew, and a sturgeon. Here, too, they were joined by three other of the Company's boats, and Franklin, finding he could not keep' pace with them owing to his boat being so overladen, begged those in charge to carry part of his stores. This they churlishly refused to do, in spite of the Governor's orders that they should assist him in every way. The steersman, having no one in whose track he could follow, kept taking the wrong channel, the track rope broke twice, and officers and men had to leap into the water, and hold the head of the boat to the current to prevent it going down broadside and being dashed to pieces against the stones. The other boats now con- sented to carry a few boxes of stores, but only as far as a depot called Eock House, which is a short distance beyond Eock Portage. By a portage is meant a place where, owing to rapids and waterfalls, a boat, when ascending a river, has to be hauled ashore, unloaded, carried by land to navigable water higher up, reloaded there, and re-launched. This toilsome process was exe- cuted at this place, with this exception, that sixteen packages of stores were left behind at the depot to be forwarded the next season, as it was feared that, unless lightened, the boat would be stopped by the winter ice before it could reach Cumberland House. : . -.; Toils of the Route. 31 In this weary way they toiled on through portage after portage, sometimes with a line hauling the boat up falls and rapids, which the boatmen called spouts ; sometimes carrying enormous loads through deep bogs ; sometimes in imminent peril of being carried away by the current ; remaining in wet clothes all day, when the temperature was below the freezing point, with perhaps the reflection at night that they had advanced a mile and a-half after all their exertions ; but cheered at times by the views from the river-banks, near which, from one hill, thirty-six lakes are said to be visible ; till at length the ascent of Hill Eiver was accomplished, and, rigging up a new mast, they set sail on Swampy Lake; where they reached a depot of the Company. The tenants of this depot gave them a supply of mouldy pemmican — their own sole subsistence at this season, when the lake yields no fish. Jack Eiver, which they entered from the lake, was full of rapids, though only eight miles long ; and here an Indian came back with an answer to a letter written by Franklin nine days before, renewing Governor Williams' injunctions to the Company's officials to assist the expedition. Knee Lake, so called from the bend in it, succeeded the Jack Eiver, and Trout Eiver Knee Lake. At one of the portages this river formed- a cascade sixteen feet in height called Trout Fall, and at another, called Knife Portage, the bed of the river ; consisted of slaty rocks, which lacerated the boatmen's 32 Sir John Franklin. feet. On the 28th of September they reached Oxford House, on Holey Lake, once a Hudson's Bay post of some importance. Here they obtained some better pemmican and some fish, with which the lake abounds, trout of upwards of forty pounds in weight being caught in it. Up the Weepinapannis River and through Windy Lake they went on till they reached a romantic defile, named Hill Gates, where perpendicular rocks sixty or eighty feet high contract the river so narrowly for three-quarters of a mile that there is not room to ply oars. The labours of the next portage, thirteen hundred yards in length, were lightened by the majestic scenery, rushing torrents ending in wild cascades, beneath huge masses of shapeless rock, coloured by moss and lichen, and crowned by evergreen pines. Here, for the first time, a "lop stick" was seen — that is to say, a pine-tree shorn of all but its topmost tufts, which serves to point out the right route. These rude landmarks have a rather curious origin. A man treats his friends to some rum, and out of gratitude they shave the tree, and call it for the future by his name. Soon afterwards an accident befell Franklin. He slipped from a rock into the river, and was carried some distance down the stream, till he grasped a willow, and held on until rescued. Though that night the thermometer stood at 25°, the only injury he sustained Progress of the Expedition. was the loss of the minute hand of his chronometer. All this time they had been ascending the waters which, near York Factory, end at the mouth of the Hayes Eiver. At a point called the "Painted Stone" they began the descent of the Echemamis, which flows westward at first and then joins the Nelson, which flows eastward, till it reaches Hudson's Bay. Governor Williams now .joined them, having come from York Factory in a canoe. By October 6th they had reached the Hudson's Bay trading post at Norway Point, which is the point of the peninsula separating Play Green Lake from Lake Winnipeg. The muddiness of these lakes is quaintly accounted for by the Indians. One of their deities, a sort of Eobin Puck named Weesakootchakt, is treated with scant respect by them. An old woman, it is said, suc- ceeded in capturing the mischievous imp, and called in all the squaws of her tribe to join in punishing him. When he got free, they had left him in so filthy a condition that he dirtied all the waters of the lakes in washing himself clean, and ever since then they have been called Winnipeg, or Muddy Water. Sailing along the northern shore of Lake Winnipeg, the boats reached the mouth of the Saskatchawan, and all the 10th of October was spent in getting them from the mouth of the river to the foot of the great rapid — a distance of two miles. Crossing Cross Lake, they entered Cedar Lake, the largest sheet of fresh water 34 Sir John Franklin. they had yet seen, and followed the Saskatchawan till they reached first the Little Eiver, and then by it and Pine Island Lake, on October 23rd, Cumberland House. It was none too soon. Latterly the oars had been so loaded with ice as to be scarcely workable, and the ice had to be broken before the landing-place could be reached. Here, at Governor Williams' invitation, Franklin determined to spend the winter; but the necessity of obtaining intelligence betimes about the country north of the Great Slave Lake, and how guides, hunters, and interpreters could be obtained, determined him to set out with Back and Hepburn to the Athabasca Lake, leaving Eichardson and Hood till the spring at Cumberland House. It was during his stay at Cumberland House that Dr. Eichardson collected some curious statistics about the Cree Indians. For instance, they have a tradition of a deluge caused by an attempt of the fish to drown a demigod with whom they had quarrelled. He built a raft, and embarked with his family and all kinds of birds and beasts. After the flood had lasted for some time, he ordered several water-fowl to dive to the bottom. They were drowned ; but a musk rat brought back a mouthful of mud, out of which the new earth was formed. Of many of their habits and superstitions Dr. Eichardson had ocular evidence. In 1819, a conjuror came to the fort, who preyed upon the terrors of the poor Indians, and, among other boasts, declared An Indian Davenport. 35 that, if tied up ever so fast in his conjuring-house, he would, with the help of two or three familiar spirits, set himself free. He was promised a greatcoat if he succeeded, and Governor Williams, an expert sailor, tied the knots. A moose-skin was thrown over a frame made of four willow sticks stuck in the ground, with the tops tied together, and in it the " God-like " man was placed. For an hour and a-half nothing was heard but the conjuror's monotonous chant, chorussed by the Indians outside. Then the structure shook violently, and the believers whispered that " one devil had crept under the moose-skin." But it was only the God-like man trembling with cold. He had entered the lists stript to the skin, and that evening the thermometer stood very low. For half-an-hour longer he held out, and then owned he was beaten. His countrymen, whose careless fastenings he had easily unloosed, ceased to put faith in him, and this Cree Davenport sneaked away from the fort in disgrace. CHAPTER IV. FKANKLIN'S FIRST EXPEDITION — CONTINUED. Departure from Cumberland House — Snow Shoes — Lack of Provisions — Collection of Stores, Boats, Guides, &c. — Fort Providence — Visit of Akaitcho — His Proceedings — Preliminary Excursions to the Coppermine Piiver — The Cold — News from Home — Misconduct of Weeks — Winter Occupations — Back's Visit to Fort Providence. FRANKLIN, Back, and Hepburn set out from Cumberland House on the 18th of January, 1820. They were bound for Carlton House first, and Fort Chipewyan finally, and their object was to procure guides, hunters, interpreters, provisions, and intelligence, for the journey to the sea. They started with two caiioles and two sledges, the drivers and dogs of which were supplied in equal proportions by the two com- pares. Fifteen days' provisions so filled the sledges that the dog-drivers grumbled bitterly at the way their teams were overloaded. A sledge drawn by three dogs weighs about thirty pounds, and carries a load of 300 pounds at the rate of fifteen miles a-day. Four Hudson's Bay sledges kept them company to the second stage, and they proceeded on the frozen river in Indian Journey from Cumberland House, 37 file, forming quite a procession. The journey from Cumberland House, though made in winter, seems to have been far pleasanter than that from York Factory. It was indeed bitterly cold, so cold that the mercury of the thermometers froze, and it was necessary at times to keep rubbing the face to prevent frostbite. The tea at night would freeze before it could be drunk, and even spirits and water became half congealed. Walking in snow shoes was also a serious hardship. Experts in such travelling go at a great pace, but the novice, with a weight of between two and three pounds attached to his galled and aching feet, must either keep pace with his comrades or be left behind, for they will not wait. The cruelties of the drivers to the dogs were another constant source of annoyance to the Englishmen of the party. On the other hand, when they could ride, wrapped up in the carioles, through splendid scenery, which at times resembled that of a well-kept park, with high hill-ranges in sight, from which numerous rills fed the river running through the wide intervening plain, the journey was delightful, and the day's toil served only to give zest to the evening's chat round the tent fire, when the Canadians were always cheery, however brutal to the dogs they might have been by day. On the 31st they reached Carlton House, where Mr. Prudens, the official in charge, regaled them with buffalo steaks, which a long course of pemmican made more than ordinarily delicious. Then the clothes 38 Sir John Franklin. which for fourteen days had not been taken off were exchanged for others, and the tired travellers proceeded to rest for nine days, in order to recover from the pains and swellings of their feet. Franklin himself was, from this cause, at first kept a prisoner to the house. Carlton House is a provision depot, not a fur store, and the meat procured from Indians in winter is converted there into pemmican for the support of the officials of the Company travelling to and from the various posts. On ftie 9th of February they left Carlton House, and, reaching posts of the two Companies on the 16th, were informed by Mr. Cameron, the superintendent of one of them, that provisions would probably be scarce in the fol- lowing spring about Athabasca, owing to the sickness of the Indians in the hunting season. At Franklin's request he undertook to forward supplies of pemmican to Isle a la Crosse during the winter, which Kichardson and Hood were ordered by letter to bring with them when they passed. On the 23rd, Franklin found at Isle a la Crosse the letters he had forwarded to the Athabasca officials from Cumberland House in November, a fact which showed him he had been right in coming to look after matters in person. Mr. Bethune of the North-West, and Mr. Clark of the Hudson's Bay Company, engaged to procure pemmican to be brought on by Richardson in the spring, and Mr. Clark gave them many useful hints for travelling, and escorted them himself to the boundary of his department. It receives its name Alarming News. 39 from an island on the lake where the Indians used to play the game lately introduced into London, and called La Crosse. From none of the superintendents of the various departments, nor from the Indians they had met, could any intelligence be gained about the country beyond Lake Athabasca. When they reached Pierre au Calumet, Mr. John Stuart, the senior partner of the North-West Company, told them that information could be gained from the Indians who frequent the north of the lake in spring, when they visit the forts, but not before, and recom- mended Franklin to send letters to the Great Slave Lake posts asking for intelligence, and that guides should be engaged in advance. He also communicated some alarming news — viz., that it would be very hard to prevail on any Canadian voyagers to accompany the expedition to the sea, owing to their dread of the Esquimaux ; and that, in consequence of the sickness which had prevailed among the Indian hunters, the residents at Fort Chipewyan had been reduced to live entirely on the fish they caught in their nets. This famine-note, audible from the very outset, was already growing louder, and ominously preluded the day when death and disaster were heralded to the expedition by its imperious and appalling tones. Franklin, however, thought it necessary to proceed at once to Fort Chipe- wyan, where he arrived on March 26th, after a journey from Cumberland House of 257 miles. At Fort Chipe- 40 Sir John Franklin, wyan, Beaulieu, one of the North- West Company's half-breed interpreters, gave some information as to the route to the Coppermine Biveiyand an Indian named Black Meat drew with charcoal on the floor a rough delineation of the coast. Franklin immediately wrote to Mr. Smith and Mr. McVicar, the officials of the two Companies at the Great Slave Lake, soliciting their assistance in other respects, and especially asking them to explain the objects of his visit to the Copper Indians, and to procure from them hunters and guides. He also had a useful conversation with Mr. Dease, himself afterwards a notable explorer, who had lately come from his station at the Athabasca Lake,. and with an old Indian who, when a boy, had accompanied Hearne to the sea. The agents of the two Companies were at this season bringing to Fort Chipewyan their winter's collection of furs, and Franklin, perceiving the rivalry and hostility that existed between them, invited members of each to meet him in a tent which he pitched apart from each establishment, and after putting a series of previously prepared questions to them, made a requisition on each Company for eight men and such stores as it could spare. The stores the Companies could give were small, for they had been lavishly expending them in their opposition tactics, and the men held back,' demanding higher wages than could be afforded. But, happily, at 'this juncture Mr. Smith came from the Great Slave Acquisitions for the yourney. 41 Lake, announcing that Akaitcho, the leading Chief of the Copper Indians, was thoroughly favourable to the expedition, and that at the instigation of Mr. Wentzel, a North- West Company's clerk whom they wished to accompany them, he and some of his men were ready to join it as hunters and guides, and would await its coming at Fort Providence, to the north of the Slave Lake. This altered the tone of the Canadian voyagers, and that night two of them volunteered their services, which were accepted. Franklin's great anxiety now was to obtain a good stock of provisions. The furs which had been brought to the Fort were being despatched daily to the different depots in canoes; the assemblage of officials was dispersing, each taking with him a supply of food from the Fort ; and so small was the stock in hand, that Mr. Smith, now in charge of the post, said that whereas there had been 40,000 pounds of meat after the despatch of the canoes in the previous year, this year there would only be 500. Franklin therefore wrote urgently to Dr. Eichardson to bring all he could possibly collect. Meanwhile, he received from Mr. Smith the acceptable present of a bark canoe 32 feet 6 inches long, 1 foot 11 J inches deep, and in the middle 4 feet 10 inches broad. Such a vessel will carry a load of 3,30 Q pounds in weight. It weighs about 300 pounds itself, but the bowman and steersman, on whose skill its safety in rapids depends, often run with it at a portage. 42 Sir John Franklin, On July 13th, Dr. Bichardson and Hood rejoined the party. All that men could do they had done ; but after Franklin's wise forethought and incessant efforts to collect provisions, the tidings they brought must have been a bitter disappointment. Ten bags of pem- mican, which they had procured at Isle a la Crosse from the North-West Company, turned out to be mouldy, and had to be left behind. The Hudson's Bay post furnished none, for its voyagers, being provisionless themselves, had eaten the stores destined for Franklin. In short, Kichardson arrived with only one day's supply of this essential article. The start, however, could not be delayed, for Fort Chipewyan could no longer provision its visitors. All that could be done was to obtain such stores as could be spared, including some small stock of clothing for the men engaged there and for presents to the Indians : and though unable to procure additional ammunition or spirits, and but little tobacco, Franklin made his final arrangements for setting out. Mr. Hood had brought with him from Cumberland House ten Canadians, and as the men who had come from Stromness showed no zeal for the service, they were dismissed, and Franklin left Fort Chipewyan with sixteen Canadians, one Indian woman, Hepburn, and the three officers. Mr. Smith had only been able to give him seventy pounds of moose meat and a little barley. Besides this, he had pemmican for one day's consump- Moose Deer Island reached. 43 tion and two barrels of flour, three cases of preserved meat, some chocolate, arrowroot, and portable soup, which he had brought from England, and intended to reserve for the journey to the coast in tbe following season. The Canadians, however, after a dram, set out in high spirits to a lively paddling song, evincing then, as always afterwards, an improvident inatten- tion to anything but the circumstances of the hour. And now began once more the old experiences of rivers, lakes, and portages, the details of which are too familiar to be described again. The Slave Eiver, connecting Lake Athabasca, which the party was leaving, with the Great Slave Lake, for which they were making, is a magnificent sheet of water three-quarters of a mile wide. Down this they went with great rapidity, till they reached Moose Deer Island, on the Great Slave Lake, having suffered no other mishap than the breaking of a canoe, but tormented for a time by mosquitoes. Swarms of these appeared after a thunderstorm which caused the river to overflow its banks and flood their night encampment. At the island — which is 260 miles by the river-course from Fort Chipewyan — letters were found from Mr. Wentzel, stating that, on the north side of the Great Slave Lake, an Indian guide was waiting at Fort Providence. Franklin also engaged Pierre St. Germain as an interpreter for the Copper 44 Sir John Franklin. Indians, and obtained from the two Companies a gun, a pair of pistols, and 550 pounds of meat. Eesuming the voyage, the party crossed the lake, and reached Fort Providence on the 28th of July. At this post of the North- Western Company they found Mr. Wentzel, the interpreter, Jean Baptiste Adam, and some Indian guides, and fire-signals brought a messenger from Akaitcho announcing that he would visit Franklin next morning. Mr. Wentzel imparted all the information he had gathered from the Indians, and, as he spoke their language, promised to be very useful. His duties were to be the management of the Indians, the superintendence of the Canadians, and the distribution of the stores. Akaitcho's visit was prepared for with much cere- mony. Each officer dressed himself in uniform, and wore a medal, and a silken Union Jack was hoisted over one of the tents. About noon a procession of canoes appeared, Akaitcho in the foremost paddled by two men. With grave face and dignified step he walked past the spectators on the beach, looking neither to the right nor the left till he reached the tent. There, having smoked a pipe and drunk a glass of spirits and water, he made an harangue, saying how glad he was to see such great chiefs, but that he was disappointed at finding they had not, as he had been led to expect, brought with them a medicine man who could raise the dead, for he felt as if the friends- he had hoped to Conference with the Indians. 45 see had been torn from him again ; and that he wished to know the precise objects of the expedition. Franklin made a polite reply, to the effect that he was searching for a passage which would enable the great Chief he served to send abundance of stores by sea for the Indians, that this Chief wished the Esquimaux and Indians to be at peace, and that, though his stores were at present small, he would reward the Indians' service with a present now, with another on his return, and with a discharge of their debts to the North-West Company. It appeared that none of the Indians knew the coast for more than three days' march east of the Copper- mine Eiver's mouth, and they recommended a different route from that which Franklin had proposed, on the ground that reindeer would be more plentiful there. Twenty-five lakes, half of them connected by a river flowing into the Slave Lake, would, they said, lead to the Coppermine Kiver, and they pointed out a lake south of that river, which, having plenty of wood and fish, would be a good place for the winter's encamp- ment. This lake, they thought, might be reached in about twenty days. Though shorter in distance, the route thus proposed was a more difficult one than that down the Mackenzie Eiver and across Great Bear Lake, which Franklin had first intended to take ; but besides the reasons given by the Indians, he did not like to move too far from the Great Slave Lake depots, whence 46 Sir John Franklin, he hoped to get ammunition in the winter. So he accepted Akaitcho's suggestion, placed a medal round his neck, and the next day welcomed him to a dance, where the movements of the dancers threw him into fits of laughter. On the 1st of August the Indians went ahead, intending to wait for the expedition at the mouth of the Yellow Knife Eiver. Franklin's party remained behind to pack up the stores unseen by them, as they would have begged for everything they saw. Two barrels of gunpowder, a hundred and forty pounds of ball and small shot, and food for ten days' consumption were the main stores contained by their three canoes, and the whole company were thirty-one, including three women and two children. Besides Franklin, Eichardson, Back, Hood, Wentzel, and Hepburn, there were eighteen Canadian voyagers — Peltier, Credit, Solomon Belanger. Jean Baptiste Belanger, Bennoit, Gagne, Dumas, Forcier, Perrault, Samandre, Beaupar- lant, Fontano, Yaillant, Parent, Belleau, Coumoy^e, and Michel, an Iroquois, with two Chipewyan hois brules, or metifs — that is to say, the children of the companies' agents and Indian or half-breed wives. These men acted as interpreters, and their names were Adam and St. Germain. In high spirits at entering at last on the grand object of the whole expedition, and on a region unvisited hitherto by any European, they set out northwards A Mutiny quelled. 47 along the eastern side of a deep bay of the lake. It was the 2nd of August, and next day they met Akaitcho at the Yellow Knife Eiver, up which they paddled, Akaitcho soon sinking the dignity which at first he thought it proper to maintain, and sharing the work with the rest. Four days later the provisions were well nigh exhausted, with the exception of the portable soup and preserved meats, and frequent portages exhausted the men. The Canadians broke out into open murmurs, and threatened to return unless given more food. But Franklin's firmness in threaten- ing instant punishment for insubordination overawed them, and when two reindeer were brought in by the hunters, they forgot all their cares. Plenty of meat was afterwards procured for daily consumption, and without further adventures they reached the site for the winter encampment, which proved to be not only convenient, but picturesque. The portages crossed were twenty-one miles in length altogether. Each had to be crossed seven times, four times with a load of 180 pounds, so that the men had to walk 150 miles instead of twenty-one. The total distance from Chipewyan was 553 miles. Next morning, August 21st, they set about collecting meat and materials for a house, while an Indian was sent to summon Akaitcho. He, when he came, brought only fifteen reindeer, and, what was far more galling to Franklin, refused to accompany him in the descent of 48 Sir yohn Franklin. the Coppermine Eiver, prophesying for the party death from cold or starvation if his advice was disregarded. At last, after much parley, he said, " Well, I have said all I can urge to dissuade you from going on this service, on which it seems you wish to sacrifice your own lives as well as the Indians who might attend you ; however, if, after all I have said, you are deter- mined to go, some of my young men shall join the party, because it shall not be said that we permitted you to die alone after having brought you hither; but from the moment they embark in the canoes, I and my relatives shall lament them as dead." In consequence of this conversation, and hearing that the chief was meditating a return to Fort Providence, Franklin reluctantly gave up the idea of descending the Copper- mine Eiver for that season. But he determined to send Back and Hood to reconnoitre it in a light canoe, and they set out on the 29th. On September 4th the building of the house was begun, and as the hunting parties were organised, and all in train for the winter's sojourn, Franklin, Eichard- son, and Hepburn, with Samandre and one Indian, Keskarrah, as guide, started on foot to visit the river. At night they gathered some pine brush, and, though the thermometer stood at 29°, slept soundly, with only one blanket to cover them. They did not, however, undress. Old Keskarrah, on the contrary, stripped himself to the skin, and after toasting himself over the Fort Enterprise, 49 fire, crept into his heap of deerskins, and instantly fell asleep. This is the custom of all the Indian tribes, even when tying in the open air. On the 12th they reached the Coppermine Eiver, and were glad to see that plenty of spruce trees grew near its course. On the 15th they regained Fort Enterprise — for that was the name given to the house that was being built — and found that Back and Hood had arrived there before them. Their men had behaved extremely well under severe hardships, being generally obliged to lie down in their wet clothes, with only just fuel enough to boil a kettle. Including these journeys, the total distance travelled by the expedition in 1820 was 1,520 miles up to the time of its taking up its quarters at Fort Enterprise. On first taking up their residence in the house, they had to eat, sit, and sleep upon the floor. But every day some table or chair or bedstead was added to their comforts. The men were set to work to build another house, 34 feet long and 18 wide, for themselves, and the carcases of 100 deer, with 1,000 pounds of suet and some dried meat, were placed in the storehouse. Eighty deer were lying en cache at various distances away. On the 18th of October, Back and Wentzel set out for Fort Providence to arrange for transporting the expected stores from Fort Cumberland, and to obtain additional supplies. If the stores had not come, Back 50 Sir John Franklin. was, if he could, to go on to Fort Chipewyan, for the want of ammunition and tobacco was becoming a pressing necessity, without which it would be impos- sible to ensure the Indians' friendship or the Canadians' cheerfulness. Akaitcho and his party came in on the 26th, the reindeer season being over. They made a merit of asking for ammunition, knowing there was none to give them, though they might have been netting fish or snaring birds, as they ordinarily do. Their arrival was a serious drain on the stock of pro- visions. By-and-by, too, the fish failed, and fishing was given up on November 5th. Altogether, 1,250 white fish of two or three pounds each had been caught up till then. Latterly the fish froze as they were taken out of the nets. In a short time they became a solid mass of ice, and were easily split by a blow of a hatchet, when the intestines could be removed in one lump. If in this frozen state they were thawed before a fire, they recovered their animation. The return of Back was eagerly expected, and the Indians were full of forebodings at his non-appearance. At last, on November 23rd, Belanger, one of his party, appeared, covered with ice from head to foot, and scarcely recognisable, having walked for thirty-six hours at a stretch. In a moment his packet was opened, and letters and newspapers from England, the latest dating from April, were being eagerly devoured. George III/s death and George IV/s accession were kept Bad Conduct of Mr, Weeks, 51 secret from the Indians, lest they should think Franklin would now be unable to fulfil the promises which he had made in the former's name. Belanger brought bad news about the stores. After a squabble with a North-West Company's man as to the share he should take in carrying these stores, the Hudson's Bay official in charge of them had actually left the tobacco and ammunition on the beach at the Grand Sapid on the Saskatchawan River. Nor was this, to tli em most dire loss, all ; Belanger's companions, the Indians, reported to Akaitcho that Mr. Weeks, the official in charge at Fort Providence, had been spreading it about that Franklin and his party were not officers of a great king, but poor wretches trying to subsist on the plenty of the Copper Indians. Akaitcho sensibly came straight to Franklin, and seemed satisfied with his explanation ; but Back also by letter reported the allegation of Weeks — that he had been desired not to assist the expedition — and the unfriend- liness of the .tribes ; and in the end, this shameful misconduct of an obscure Jack-in-office was destined to affect fatally the fortunes of the expedition. The Indians were, however, much cheered at hearing that two Esquimaux interpreters were at the Slave Lake on their way to join the party; and Franklin, giving them one hundred bails, which Belanger had brought from Fort Providence, at last, on the 10th of December, induced them to betake themselves to 52 Sir John Franklin. other quarters, and so relieve his storehouse of the alarming drain on its contents. Previously, he had sent St. Germain, bearing strongly-worded requests to the officials at Moose Deer Island and Chipewyan, to furnish Back with stores. St. Germain also carried a bundle of broken axes to be repaired. For though the Indians called it a warm winter, the cold had now grown intense. The trees froze to their centres, and became as hard as stones, so that the axes were daily broken in cutting them. A thermometer in the bedroom, sixteen feet from the fire, stood occasionally at 15° below zero, even when exposed to the fire's direct radiation, and before it was lighted fell more than once to 40° below zero. Once it sank to 59° below zero. Luckily, however, the weather was calm; and it has been the experience of all Arctic travellers, that intense cold is perfectly endurable so long as there is no wind. The woodcutters did not use any defence for their faces even while at their work. The little party found plenty to do in the cold, dark winter, when even the resplendent beauty of the moon, which for many days hardly disappeared below the horizon, and the brilliant aurora, which lit up the heavens for twenty-eight days in December, could not make up for want of sunlight, a modicum of which they enjoyed only from half-past eleven a.m. to half-past two p.m. Hood drew a portrait of Keskarrah's daughter, Green Stockings, the belle of her tribe, Winter Occupations. 53 against the wishes of her mother, who feared King George might be so fascinated as to send for the original of the picture ; but the young lady herself was anything but displeased. Indeed, though under sixteen years old, she had already been married twice, and no doubt regarded the prospect which her mother feared with more than composure. With such and other occupations — map-making, soap-making, candle-making, botanising, observations of the- aurora, writing of journals, readings, and games — the year 1820 came to an end. Eeindeer-meat and tea formed the daily subsistence of the party, varied by fish twice a- week and chocolate on Sundays; but they had no vegetables, and but little flour. Every voyager in these countries, when en route, strains every nerve to reach a post before New Year's Day, that he may share its merriment and good cheer. Eagerly, therefore, did Franklin watch for the return of his messengers on the 1st of January, 1821. But they did not arrive till the 15 th. They brought some rum, ammunition, and tobacco, but the Indians had broached one cask, and spent two days in drinking, and Franklin, though dis- tressed at this proof of their untrustworthiness, felt constrained to accept their artful apology that they only meant to take the New Year's present which he could not give them. The rum, which was proof, was frozen, and, even after being before the fire for some time, was as thick as honey. The fingers, when applied to a 54 Sir John Franklin. glass of it, adhered, and would soon have frozen, but each voyager tossed off his dram without any com- plaint of toothache. On the 27th, Wentzel and St. Germain returned, with four dogs and the two Esquimaux, who had been called by the English Augustus and Junius. Back, they said, had discharged one of the men, Belleau, and proceeded to Chipewyan. On the 5th of February, Akaitcho sent for more ammunition, complaining that he was degraded in the eyes of his tribe by being supplied so scantily, and alluding to fresh unpleasant reports circulated at Fort Providence, and to Weeks having refused to cash some small notes given to the Indian hunters by Franklin. Some powder and shot, some diluted spirits, and some unmixed expressions of regard were sent 4 to the irate chief, who, however, being a remark- ably shrewd man, calculated, perhaps, that a petitioner poses sometimes most efficaciously in the attitude of an aggrieved person, and may have used the mean lies of the miserable concocter rather than believed them. He was, indeed, always practical and prudent, even in speculative matters. He would not, for instance, say what his own notions of a future state were, but was quite willing to attend the Christian worship, and to learn what it meant; whereas conceited old Keskarrah openly avowed his scepticism, beginning one of his speeches with the words, " It is very strange Back's Return. 55 that I never meet with anyone who is equal in sense to myself." That Weeks had spread reports was sub- sequently proved, and the only defence he seems to have made was, that Franklin's party lowered his Company in the eyes of the traders, so that he was only acting in the Company's interests as a retort. But now he sent by Franklin's messenger, who came back from the great Slave Lake on the 5th of March, a denial of having spread any reports. When such a miscreant was at work, Akaitcho might plausibly pretend to be suspicious. On the 12th of March four more men were sent on a mission to Fort Providence, and on the 17th Back returned, after a marvellous journey, which could only have been performed by a man of dauntless courage and iron strength. Back, it will be remembered, set out on the 18th of October for Fort Providence, with Wentzel, some Indians, and two Indian women, who behaved very well on the journey. Provisions ran short, and, thinking him badly off, one of them gave him a pike she caught, and refused to share it, saying, "We are accustomed to starvation, but you are not." One of the Indian men behaved in the same way, but was at last induced to share the present he had made. The walking was very toilsome, over snow, through which they constantly fell, among broken wood and loose stones, and once up a towering rock. Hunger made such toils the more insupportable, and they were 5tf Sir John Franklin, reduced to feed on tripe de roche — a lichen scraped from the rocks, which we now hear of for the first time in the annals of the expedition, but which subse- quently becomes so dismally frequent. An unexpected "luxury," which they much relished, was given them by one of the women, who scraped from an old skin some relics of fat, mixed with deer's hairs and Indian's hairs, and presented it with some pounded meat. On reaching Fort Providence, a ludicrous scene occurred. Back wished to send back the Indians at once with letters to Franklin. But they alleged illness and want of rest. Some spirits were given them, and in a quarter of an hour they were, they said, ready to go anywhere. With the last drops, however, their courage oozed out, and they began to cry, only to dry their tears, and to become as jovial as before, on the production of a second bottle. At Fort Providence Back received nothing but disappointing news of the stores. So he set out in a dog-sledge, and on December 10th reached Moose Deer Island. Here he found some spirits adulterated by the men who had brought them, thirty-five instead of sixty pounds of sugar, and neither ammunition nor tobacco. He vigorously demanded supplies from both Companies, but, as they were themselves badly off, and he could not get half what he wanted, he sent off what he had obtained to Fort Enterprise, and himself set out again Back's Sufferings. 57 for the Athabasca Lake, with Beauparlant, a half- breed, and two dog-sledges laden with pemmican. The snow was so deep that on some days the dogs were forced to stop every ten minutes, and the cold so great that the faces of both his followers were badly frozen. He himself got a bad fall, owing to his snow- shoes becoming entangled in the sledges, and was dragged some way by them, and his knees became very painful, so th£t, though the dogs went slowly, he could hardly keep pace with them. The poor animals suffered still more. Snow fell, and balled in lumps between their toes. They became quite exhausted, and their feet perfectly raw. Back made shoes for them, but they continually came off in the deep snow. From extremity of cold they passed, when they reached the upper part of the Slave Kiver, to what was to them extremity of heat. "It is terrible," said Beauparlant, " to be frozen and sunburnt in the same da}'." It was not the physical pain which he minded most. Veteran voyagers consider a frostbite to be a sign of effeminacy, and excusable only in " pork- eaters," as they call novices in the country. Presently a north-west gale rose, and the cold became piercingly intense. It was necessary to keep rubbing the face with one hand, while the other was made warm to take its turn at the same operation ; and scarcely had the remedy relieved one frostbite, when another required it again. Almost the whole side of 58 Sir John Franklin. one man's face was raw. Back and Beauparlant were both lame, and in great pain. Yet in spite of all their sufferings they reached Chipewyan after a journey of ten days and four hours — the shortest time in which the distance had ever been done at that season of the year. It was a grand walk; and the Company's officials were the more surprised, because a report had come that the party had been speared to death by the Esquimaux. Back's demands were only partially satisfied, and he was kept waiting for goods, which did not come till February 9th. However, he at last set out with four sledge-loads of stores, after giving one more proof of his endurance by kissing the whole female population of the Fort, when it drew up in line to see him off. Taking up the stock at Fort Providence, and leaving directions for fresh supplies to be sent the following year, he made straight for Fort Enterprise, after an absence of nearly five months, during which he had travelled one thousand one hundred and four miles on snow-shoes, with no other covering at night in the woods but a blanket and a deerskin, with the thermo- meter frequently at 40°, and once at 67° below zero, and sometimes passing two or three days without tasting food. CHAPTER V FRANKLINS FIRST EXPEDITION (CONTINUED). Misconduct of St. Germain — Difficulties with Akaitcho — The Start from Fort Enterprise — "Bloody Fall" — Esquimaux — The Indians desert — "Wentzel sent back — Boat Voyage along the Coast — Point Turn again. FRANKLIN now began to prepare for his grand attempt. The month of March was fine, and the two Belangers, who were sent with despatches for the Colonial Secretary in April, came back by the end of the month with the rest of the goods which Back's indomitable efforts had procured from the Athabascan department. Cournoyee, being ill, was discharged. One Indian and an Indian woman were also sent back, and the two others preferred to join Akaitcho. A letter had been sent to Governor Williams, begging him to send a schooner to Wager Bay, with provisions and clothing for the party, should it reach that part of the coast. It was, in fact, high time to be gone. Signs of summer were thickening. . The whole establishment was thrown into commotion, and filled with cheerful- 60 Sir John Franklin. ness, by the apparition of a large house-fly on the 8th of May. This great event was a topic of conversation for the rest of the day. On the 14th a robin appeared, which the natives consider the infallible precursor of warm weather. The birds are, in fact, to them a sort of natural almanack. Geese reach Cumberland House about April 12th, Fort Chipewyan about the 25th, Fort Providence about the the 1st of May, and Fort Enter- prise about the 14th. But if summer was coming, food was going. The nets produced but few fish. The hunters sent no meat. The pounded meat kept for summer use was almost gone. Occasionally only one meal a-day w r as to be had. The Indians about the house suffered most. Franklin in vain tried to get them to join Akaitcho, but they were sick or infirm, and liked Dr. Richardson's medicines. With pity he saw them scraping the snow away at the autumn encampment to look for bits of hide, bones, and deers' feet, in order to gnaw or suck them after they had been boiled. Little then did he think that the day would soon come when he himself should envy them their miserable meal. In order to keep the men from brooding over their privations, Franklin encouraged sledging down the banks of the river, and while cheerily joining in the fun, was thrown from his sledge, and driven over by a fat Indian woman, who sprained his knee in her career. He had other causes for anxiety besides want of St. Germai7is Misconduct. 61 food. St. Germain, he found, had been tampering with the Indians since his visit to Fort Providence, having no doubt been corrupted by the bad example of the evil genius of the expedition — Weeks. The interpreter had worked on the fears both of the Canadians and Indians, representing the intended journey as certain to be fatal, and suggesting to Akaitcho that affronts were being deliberately offered him. Franklin threatened to carry him for trial to England, but St. Germain doggedly replied that it mattered little whether he died in England or at the sea, where, if he persisted in going on, they would all perish. Unable to dispense with the traitor's services, Franklin could only remonstrate. Akaitcho, too, who in March seemed friendly, and had promised to go to the mouth of the Coppermine Eiver, and for some distance along the coast, now assumed another attitude. He sent to request that he might be received with a salute and presents, as when he visited Fort Providence. When this was complied with, though Franklin grudged the waste of the precious powder, he proceeded to detail a number of grievances, some of which, though irritating to Franklin, were, we can see, reasonable enough, and others which showed the evil effects of St. Germain's baseness and his own inability to resist driving a hard bargain with distressed men. He first asked that the great chief King George should send him a fine present by sea, if the passage to it was found. Then he asked how he could expect to be paid 62 Sir John Franklin. the large reward promised by Franklin if Weeks would not now cash Franklin's trifling notes. Both Com- panies seemed, he said, enemies to the expedition. Then Franklin's rum was too weak, and his presents too small, and he really could not accept them. With long-suffering prudence, Franklin replied that King George would certainly send him a present; that the rumours spread about were lies, such as, he took it for granted, were the rumours he heard about Akaitcho; that his debts to the Company had been cancelled ; that Weeks was too far away to be brought to book ; and that the rum was really of better quality, though milder, and was what English noblemen drank. Akaitcho, however, remained sullen, and declared that the expedition, if persisted in, was doomed to destruc- tion. This was clearly an inspiration from St. Germain, who, knowing it would be attributed to him, took alarm, and to some extent altered Akaitcho's de- meanour. In strong contrast with such sulky avarice was the gratitude of Augustus and Junius on being given some lace dresses. It is impossible to describe the joy of the latter on the receipt of this present. The happy little fellow burst into laughter as he surveyed the different articles of his gay habiliments. Luckily for Franklin, jealousies among the Indians stood him in good stead. He had previously received offers to collect provisions for him on his route from the second chief in importance, named The Hook. Akaitcho's Whims. G3 And now, when the rest of the Indians came in with Akaitcho's brothers, Humpy and Anoethaiyazzeh, and Longlegs, brother of The Hook, it soon appeared that Akaitcho was not to have it all his own way. Akaitcho still refused to say whether he would go to the sea, and still refused to accept the presents, saying he must have more. Humpy then said that he could testify that Franklin had, at the outset, stated his inability to give larger rewards till the journey was over. This somewhat staggered Akaitcho, but he would not give way, and the provoking pettiness of the whole affair may be gauged by the fact that, after much haggling, he demanded two or three more kettles and some blankets. The officers gave him one a-piece from their own beds ; but sorely tried indeed must their patience and good temper have been, as they reflected how the vital necessity- of this man's co-operation forced them to chaffer with a savage in whose eyes some tinker's ware was more valuable than the welfare and projects of civilised men. At last, Akaitcho's avarice betrayed him into an indiscretion. "There are too few goods," he sulkily said, " for me to distribute ; those that mean to follow the white people to the sea may take them." To his chagrin, the guide and most of the hunters declared that they would go, and the hunters, on being given ammunition, set off to procure supplies for the march. Akaitcho saw now that he had ?one too far, 64 Sir John Franklin. and made a sort of apologia -pro vita sua, representing himself as Chief Beggar for the whole tribe, and there- fore importunate on principle — an excuse which proved him qualified to shine in callings and countries less rude than his own. One more artful attempt, however, he made to discover if, after all, he had thoroughly explored the nakedness of the land. Two old men, he said, were come with some meat, if Franklin wished to have it. Franklin said he would pay for it with notes on the North-West Company ; and at length the astute Akaitcho was convinced that he had sucked the orange dry, and that, whatever price he was to get for his services, its payment must be waited for till some future day. Through all these negotiations Franklin's good sense and good humour appear in a striking light. Even when most worried by their mixture of childish- ness and diplomacy, he had an eye for the better qualities of which, it will be seen in the sequel, Akaitcho was possessed, and his dignified resistance to imposture, and never-varying kindness, inspired a respect and attachment which eventually was the salvation of his own and his companions' lives. On the 4th of June, 1821, Dr. Eichardson started in charge of the first party, which numbered twenty-three adults and some children, with three dog-sledges and a number of hand-sledges. Franklin's plan was to make for the sea down the Coppermine Eiver, and there to take only enough of the party to man two canoes, Franklins Departure. 65 sending back the rest with Mr. Wentzel, who was to collect meat and deposit it at fixed places for the crews of the canoes, should they be forced to return overland. Akaitcho was specially ordered to victual Fort Enter- prise before the following September, and promised to do so, suggesting the cellar as the best place in which to store the meat. In the afternoon he set out on his hunting duties, after slyly remarking to Franklin that, now the house was stripped, he saw the English had really no more presents to make him, and that he would do his best to supply them with food. On the 13th, messengers came from Eichardson saying he had reached Point Lake, and on the 14th, Franklin, having sent the canoes ahead, each dragged by four men and two dogs, himself with the rest of the party left Fort Enterprise. The course lay northwards, along a chain of lakes connected by rivers. Franklin fell through the ice in one place, and the matter-of-fact way in which he chronicles his own misfortune contrasts with his pity- ing mention of a similar mishap to the Esquimaux Junius. But to be wet through all day, to march when suffering from rheumatic pains, to be half eaten by mosquitoes by night, were the normal conditions of such travelling, and after several days of it, Franklin was glad to reach Point Lake and Dr. BichardsonV encampment. Here he found that Akaitcho had spent all his ammunition, without having accumulated any Qb Sir John Franklin. meat, and all that he had to depend on was two hundred pounds of dried meat prepared by Eichardson. He told Akaitcho he would in future give him ammu- nition only in proportion to the meat brought in. Proceeding down the main channel of the lake, he found his men so jaded by excessive toil, as well as crippled by inflammation, that he determined to leave one of his three canoes behind so as to provide an additional dog for each of the other two canoes, and three men to help in carrying the loads. But the travelling grew worse as they went on. Eecent rain had honeycombed the ice, and its innumerable sharp points tore the shoes and the feet of those walking on it at every step. The steps of the dogs, too, were marked by a trail of blood. At length this irksome work of hauling boats over land and lake and river, of cutting paths through ice drifts, of wading through water two feet deep over rotten ice, was over, and at nine a.m., July 2nd, they had the happiness to embark on the Coppermine River — at this point about two hundred yards wide — and were borne along with tremendous rapidity over large stones, which would have dashed the canoes to pieces had the bottoms struck on them. But there was nothing for it but to trust to the bowman and steers- man's skill, and admire the beautiful scenery-on the banks, where wooded dells and dales were bounded by a range of hills six hundred feet high. The trees had 1 he Hook's Generosity. 67 begun to put forth leaves, and flowers decked the moss- covered ground. When they reached any dangerous rapid, they disembarked the ammunition and instru- ments till the canoes had got clear. On the 7th of July they came to The Hook's encampment. Akaitcho had just told Franklin that he was a rogue, but he turned out to be a far more generous- man than Akaitcho. He made Franklin a present of all the meat he had, saying -that he was too much indebted to the white men to see them in want of food, that he knew they could not afford to delay, and that his people could live on fish till they could procure more meat. He also agreed to remain east of the Bear Lake till November, at the spot nearest the. Coppermine Eiver, with which it communicates by lakes and portages, and to deposit provisions both thete and at convenient distances along the line of communi- cation, and along the river to the Copper Mountains. Soon after parting from The Hook, they came to a bend in the river, which then ran due north, through the hills which had before been parallel to its eastern bank. It is less broad here, and the Indians had told them that they would reach a "terrific rapid," impassable by canoes. This rapid is formed by perpendicular cliffs from 80 to 150 feet high, round the spurs of which the water dashes furiously. It was safely passed, and a flying visit made to the Copper Mountains, on the west of the river, which are 68 Sir John Franklin. from 1200 to 1500 feet high. They were now near the spot where Esquimaux had been always seen, and Augustus and Junius were sent ahead to reconnoitre, and as they did not return as soon as expected, the Indians were persuaded to stay behind, in spite of the opposition of Akaitcho, now as always full of objections when acquiescence was necessary. " United/' he said, " the party might do something ; separated, they would fall a prey to the Esquimaux." Franklin persuaded him that the first thing was to avoid alarming the Esquimaux, and he stayed behind, only to reappear, to Franklin's disgust, just at the time when Esquimaux had actually been encountered by the two interpreters. The Esquimaux were not unfriendly, but, on catching sight of a number of the party, had fled from the place where they were conversing with Augustus, and dis- appeared on the eastern shore. The neighbourhood was an ominous one. At the Esquimaux encampment were skulls bearing the marks of violence, and appar- ently it was the place which Hearne had christened " Bloody Fall," to commemorate the massacre of Esquimaux perpetrated there by his Indian followers. Another party of Esquimaux was shortly afterwards seen, and when they took to flight, one old man of their number was unable to escape, and Augustus made friends with him. He agreed to barter some meat — which, however, proved too putrid for use — and informed him that his people came to the Bloody Fall The Indians desert. 69 in summer to fish for salmon, and retired to the coast in winter, where they lived in snow huts. Other bands of Esquimaux being seen, the Indians became terribly alarmed, and, in spite of all Franklin could say, they determined to leave him at once. They promised, however, to halt at the Copper Mountains for Wentzel and the four men who were to return as soon as the sea was reached, and pledged themselves to deposit provisions both at Fort Enterprise and on the banks of the Coppermine River. Not one of their promises was kept. The interpreters. Adam and St Germain, were infected by the same panic as the Indians; but Franklin, having their written engagement to go with him throughout the voyage, and being unable to dis- pense with their skill in hunting, would not allow them to withdraw, and kept them under surveillance. On the 19th July, he gave his letters into Wentzel's charge, and in the evening sent him, with four Canadians — Parent, Cannier, Dumas, and Forcier — on the homeward route, his own party numbering twenty. Wentzel's instructions were as follows, and it is important to note them, because, dreadful though the subsequent sufferings of the expedition were, it is clear that both at this stage of it, as at every other, Franklin had neglected no precaution which anxious foresight could suggest to render such sufferings impossible. He was to go to Point Lake, take the canoe left there to Fort Enterprise, embark in it the books and instru- 70 Sir John Franklin. ments remaining in the house, carry them to the Slave Lake, and despatch them to England. But he was not to quit Fort Enterprise till he had satisfied himself that the Indians would stock it with provisions; he was to get ammunition for them, if they wanted any, from Fort Providence ; he was to leave a letter at the Fort, stating where the Indian hunting parties would be in September and October; and he was to take to the North-West Company a list of the goods promised to Akaitcho, and a request that the drafts on it might be duly honoured. Further, if he met The Hook, he was to assure him that he was carrying documents which would ensure payment for any meat placed en cache, and to say that Franklin fully relied on his keeping his word. Lastly, if he could kill any animals himself, he was to put them en cache under conspicuous marks. Thus, having taken every precaution which prudence could suggest, and after a journey from Fort Enterprise of 334 miles, during 117 of which the canoes were dragged over snow and ice, Franklin and his little party prepared to essay the waters of the unknown sea. A gale at first prevented the canoes from being launched on an element which the Englishmen hailed as an old friend. What was worse, an inroad had to be made on the dried meat, of which they only had brought enough for fifteen days' consumption. But on the 21st they paddled aw T ay at noon, and for ^the rest Food fails. 71 of the day eastwards, and on the following day were able to pursue the voyage under sail, naming islands and rivers as they passed along. They were, however, much impeded by loose ice and fog, which sometimes made it doubtful whether they were following the main line of the coast or that of some inlet. On the 28th of July, two bags of the pemmicau, on which they chiefly relied, were found to be mouldy from wet, and their meat had been so badly cured as to be scarcely eatable. Seals were the only live animals they saw (and these they could not kill) till the 30th, when one small deer was shot. Having only food enough to last eight days, Franklin tried to open communications with the Esquimaux, sending Augustus, Junius, and Hepburn to try and effect that object. But they came back unsuccessful, though they had killed a bear and two small deer. On the 3rd of August, in spite of occasional supplies of fresh meat, there were only two bags of pemmican left, and the men began gloomily to forebode starvation, till, by good luck, they killed some bears. But nine invaluable days were lost in following the shore of a bay, which they named Bathurst Inlet, under the impression that it was the main coast-line. The Indians, who strike straight across the embouchure of a river from point to point, had not, in speaking of the coast, described this inlet at all. The Canadians, who had hitherto been more or less cheerful, were terrified 72 Sir yohn Franklin, by some rough waves which a breeze blew up, and were still more alarmed, chiefly through the cowardly example of St. Germain and Adam, when they found the canoes badly damaged. Franklin, too, reflected that these fresh breezes pointed probably to the break- ing up of the season ; that no fish was to be had ; that his provisions were all but gone; that they had lost too much time to dream of reaching Eepulse Bay ; and that the farther they now advanced in that direction, the farther would they have to march overland through a barren country to Fort Enterprise. So he announced on the 15th of August that, unless he met Esquimaux, and could^effect satisfactory arrangements with them during the next four days, he would return. He met no Esquimaux, and a real storm increased the desire of his men to be quit of the sea. On the 18th, therefore, at the spot named Point Turnagain, after he had traced the deeply-indented coast 555 geographical miles, he gave the word for return. " I trust," he modestly says, "it will be judged that we prosecuted the enterprise as far as was prudent, and abandoned it only under a well-founded conviction that a further advance would endanger the lives of the whole party." Curiously enough, Parry, on that very day, sailed out of Eepulse Bay, which was about 540 miles off. CHAPTEE VI. franklin's first expedition (continued). Return by Land — Terrible Suffering — The Canoes broken — Famine — Fishing Nets abandoned — Tripe de Roche — Back sent ahead — Richardson's Gallantry — Credit and Vaillant break down — Hood's Illness — Heroic Self-sacrifice of Richardson and Hepburn — Perrault breaks down — Death of Fontano — Franklin finds Fort Enterprise deserted — Richardson rejoins him there. FRANKLIN had originally intended to return by the same route — that is to say, by the coast to the Coppermine River, and then up that river to Point Lake. But his experience of the barrenness of the country, and the recent storms, induced him to change his plan, and make by sea for the lately-christened Arctic Sound, and thence up Hood's River as far as he could. Then he meant to break up the large canoes, and, constructing smaller ones from the materials, carry them, and be carried by them in turn, to Fort Enterprise. But even before he could leave Point Turnagain, he had a foretaste of the miseries which were approaching. Rain, followed by a gale, prevented him from stirring from his anchorage. Then came a 74 Sir John Franklin. frost, and one of the men had his thighs frostbitten. He and another had thrown away meat which they had been sent out to procure. Yet another gale hindered them setting out till August 23rd, by which time they had only enough pemmican left to serve for two meals. The terrors of starvation overcame the voyagers' terror of the waves, and they volunteered to traverse Melville Sound in a rough sea. This they did, after much peril, but on landing could find no game, and supped on berries and tea made from herbs. Next day a respite from starvation came in the shape of some deer, and for the rest of the sea- voyage they were in no want of food. When they encamped at the first rapid of Hood's Eiver, the voyagers could not conceal their delight at having left the sea behind for ever, and talked over their adventures with much humour and exaggeration. This was on the 25th of August. The weather was delightfully fine and warm, but so hard was the labour of dragging the canoes up stream, that they did not accomplish more than twelve or fourteen miles during the next two days. On the 27th they encamped near two magnificent cascades, which Franklin called Wilberforce Falls. The rocks, through a chasm in which the river flows, are here over two hundred feet high. The upper fall is sixty, the lower over a hundred feet, the latter being split in two by a lofty column of rock. Here the large canoes were abandoned. Moose-skin leather was equally divided The Return Overland. among the men for making shoes ; warm socks and one of the tents were given them ; all unnecessary stores, as books, etc., were placed en cache; and Franklin announced his intention of making for Point Lake, distant then in a straight line only a hundred and forty-nine miles. And now we come to one of the most tragic histories ever told. One might call it pathetic, but that, as Thackeray says of the circumstances of George the Third's madness, it is too terrible for tears. Neverthe- less, no one could read Franklin's diary and not be touched. It was, it must be remembered, written from night to night, after the day had been spent in one of the most frightful of all torments, starvation, and when death seemed to draw visibly nearer hour by hour. It is as if he had written it with his heart's blood, which to the last drop he was determined should be shed for those at home in England. There is no unmanly wailing in it. It is the most matter-of-fact record of appalling suffering. Perhaps the most tragic feature of it is that at one point the dates cease. Whether he had lost count of time or not, it is impossible to say. The diary does not cease, though the dates do. Perhaps the record of those days was added afterwards, because, however willing the spirit was, he found it frequently impossible to pen his notes upon the spot. On the 1st of September all preparations were com- pleted, and they started, each man carrying a load of 76 Sir Jo hi Franklin. about ninety pounds, with which they advanced about a mile an hour. They killed a cow in a herd of musk oxen, but could not carry much of the meat owing to their loads, and because they did not then dream how much more precious than any other load meat would soon become. A high wind rose, which made the carrying of the canoes difficult, and the ground was covered with small stones, from which the soft moose- skin shoes were but poor protection. All went well, however, till they left the river-side to strike direct for Point Lake. By the 6th the men had become very wayworn, but did not complain, though one was lame from inflammation in the knee. The last piece of pemmican was given out, with a little arrowroot, and they lay down for the night. jSTot to sleep, however, for at midnight heavy rain fell, and then snow, followed by a violent gale. Having no food, and no means of making a fire, they remained in bed all next day. Their tents were frozen, and buried three feet deep in snow, which even in the inside was several inches deep on the blankets. The temperature was at 20°. But the pangs of hunger were felt more than the pangs of cold. On the 7th they made such shift as they could to pack up the frozen tents with their freezing hands, weak as they were from fasting, and with their garments also stiffened by the cold. Just before they set out, Franklin fainted, but recovered after eating a morsel of portable soup. For this he makes a charac- Horrors of the March. 77 teristic apology. " I was unwilling at first to take this morsel, which was diminishing the small and only remaining meal for the party, but several of the men urged me to it with much kindness." The ground was now buried a foot deep in snow and the swamps frozen, but the ice often broke and plunged them knee-deep in water. Gusts of wind blew down the canoe-bearers repeatedly, and the largest canoe was broken beyond repair. The voyagers had grumbled at this special duty, and Bennoit was suspected of having broken it on purpose. In any case, it was a dreadful loss, as the other was not large enough for some purposes, and if the party was divided, it was almost indispensable that each division should have a canoe. However, making the best of a bad business, they lit a fire with the broken timbers, cooked the rest of their soup and arrowroot, and, after three days' fasting, were considerably strengthened by the warmth and by even so scanty a meal. They marched in Indian file because of the snow. Some object ahead was pointed out to the front man, and Hood followed him to keep him to his bearings. The last man of the party w T ould in this way have much the easiest walking. That night they lay down in their wet clothes, after a supper of half-a- partridge a-piece, and the glutinous lichen scraped from the rocks, called tripe de roche. They did not again take off their shoes and stockings, for fear of their freezing. On the 8th they reached a river, which Franklin 78 Sir John Franklin. named after his relations, " Cracroft." In crossing it, several men fell in, and all were wet to the waist. Their clothes froze, and in much pain they marched till late, having started at half-past five in the morning. A partridge each and tripe de roche was all they had to eat at night, " but," says Franklin, " the meal proved a cheerful one, and was received with thankfulness." One of the hunters being absent with the tent, most of the men had to sleep in the open air. On the 9th, they came to a place where the river expanded into a lake, and, not knowing the course of this lake (the Congecatha wha Chaga of Hearne), they determined to cross it — an unlucky mistake, which cost them several days' additional toil, for they ought to have kept to the westward of it, and to the westward of the Conwoyto Lake, which subsequently they made a disastrous attempt to cross, after a harassing march along its shore. The smallness of the canoe made crossing a dangerous matter, and the voyagers must now have felt remorse at their short-sighted selfishness. One by one each man, lying flat on his back, was ferried over in it by St. Germain, Adam, and Peltier. On the 10th, musk oxen were sighted, and a scene took place which was parallelled afterwards in Kane's search for Franklin, except that the quarry then was a seal instead of an ox. The party halted. The hunters crept ahead. Two hours passed before they got within gunshot — hours of painful suspense for their comrades, who Increased Hardships, 79 looked on, silently but fervently praying for their success. At last a gun went off, and one cow fell. In a very few minutes it was cut up and skinned. The contents of the stomach were devoured on the spot. Next the intestines were swallowed raw, and pro- nounced excellent by the most fastidious. That night they had a good meal, the first for six days, for tripe de roche only allayed hunger for a short time. The next day they could not proceed owing to the wind, and only had one meal, as the meat would not last for more than one more day. When they did proceed on the 12th, they all felt much weaker, in spite of having thus obtained animal food asrain. On the 13th they reached Conwoyto Lake, and had laboriously to coast along its edge in order to find a crossing-place. Here Franklin found that the voyagers had, with mad improvidence, thrown away three of the fishing-nets, so that there was no fish — on which at the lakes he had counted as his chief resource — to be had. The men, too, were so much weaker, that it was necessary to lighten their loads by leaving behind most of the instruments and books. On the 14th, Perrault presented the officers with a small portion of meat saved from his own allowance — "an act of self-denial," says Franklin, "at which our eyes filled with tears." Two deer were killed by Credit the same day. They now determined to cross the water, here three hundred yards wide, and flowing fast 80 Sir John Franklin. over a rocky bed. The canoe, with Franklin, S. Belanger, and St. Germain in it, was npset in the middle of the rapid. Franklin and St. Germain managed to get in again, and, after another upset, reached the opposite shore. But Belanger remained on a rock, exposed to a strong breeze, when the tempera- ture was little above zero. Piteously he cried for help, but it was found impossible to get him on board. At last the canoe carried him a cord, by which he was dragged perfectly senseless through the rapid. He was stripped and rolled up in blankets, and two men also stripped and lay b} 7 him, but it was some hours before he recovered sensation. All this time, Franklin, alone with St. Germain on the other side, had, with inex- pressible anxiety, been watching what was going on. Every minute it seemed as if the canoe would be lost, and that, he knew, meant immediate death to himself, and the almost equally certain, if more lingering, destruction of his companions. Most of their meals consisted now of tripe de roche, though a deer was shot on the 15th. Besides being a poor substitute for meat, this lichen produced stomach disorders, from which some of the party suffered severely. Even of it there was often but little, and the men grew very faint and disheartened, threatening to throw away their bundles and leave the officers. The canoe, too, was broken by a fall. Poor Hood was in the worst plight of all, and Franklin could no longer keep pace with the Discipline and Mutiny, 81 rest. Yet we find a spirited sketch of the march inserted in Franklin's journal, which Back must have made only four days before this time. And on this very day, when at night the blankets did not suffice to keep them warm, and the slightest breeze seemed to pierce through them, Franklin describes how his party passed their time according to their regular routine. After encamping, the first operation was to thaw theii shoes, if a fire could be lit, and put on dry ones. Each officer then wrote notes of the day's events, and prayers were read ; then supper was eaten, generally in the dark, and they went to bed, keeping up a cheerful con- versation till the heat of their bodies thawed the blankets sufficiently to admit of sleep. Often they dared not take off their wet clothes, for fear they should freeze. On the 21st they discovered that they had gone out of their route, and Eichardson, who till then had carried his geological and botanical specimens, was forced to leave them behind. Next day Peltier refused to carry the canoe any further, and Yaillant was told to take it. While Franklin was rebuking and remonstrating with these two, he missed the rest of the party, and when he found them, they had lit a fire with some willow boughs, and, burning some bones of deer left by wolves in the spring, had eaten them and some of their old shoes. With them sat the guilty pair, Peltier and Vaillant, who now told Franklin, to his inexpressible anguish, that the canoe had been rendered useless by 82 Sir John Franklin. another fall, and that they had left it behind. He ordered them to fetch it, but they flatly refused. This mutinous misconduct, to which the chapter of horrors soon to be recorded was chiefly due, proved infectious, and when the tracks of Back and the hunters who had been sent ahead were lost, the stronger men could only be prevented by the entreaties as well as threats of the officers from leaving the weaker to their fate. After another meal of old shoes and some scraps of leather, they came to some pines, and made a good fire ; and, what cheered them still more, five deer were shot. Hood had, since Wentzel's departure, divided the portions of the meat, and done so with the utmost impartiality, always taking the smallest portion for his own mess; but habitual self-denial is, even among more civilised beings, sometimes impotent to satisfy jealous greed, and the hunters now grumbled at their share. Every- one suffered from eating animal food after such long abstinence — those who ate most, most severely. On the 26th they reached the Coppermine Eiver, which, however, the men would not believe it to be. They were reduced to despair, and when convinced it was the Coppermine Eiver, and that the rapid they were at could easily be crossed in a canoe, they bitterly bewailed the loss of the one Peltier and Vaillant had abandoned. St. Germain said he could not make one large enough of willow-wood, and they were forced to march on in the hopes of finding pines. Back and the hunters were Richardson s Heroism. 83 sent on ahead avowedly to procure meat, but Franklin told Back, if he could make a raft, to cross Point Lake and apprize the Indians of the condition of the party. When Back was gone, Franklin had much difficulty in keeping his men together. They were beyond fear of punishment or hope of reward. Two of them stole part of the portions of food fairly allotted to the officers, and the hunters often secreted part of the game they shot for their own eating. They plucked up some courage after devouring a putrid deer which had been found, and went back to the rapid to construct a willow canoe. Junius was now missing, and no more mention is made of him in Franklin's journal, except that he probably would try to join the Esquimaux at the mouth of the river. Augustus was sent to inform Back of the new scheme. A raft was made of bundles of willows, but being green it-would not support more than one man at a time, and how to guide it was the difficulty. A paddle they had was useless against the force of the wind which blew from the opposite shore, and a pole made of the two tent props would not reach the bottom. Eichardson then most gallantly offered to swim over with a line, but had gone a short distance only when his arms became numbed and powerless. Still he persevered, and had almost got across on his back, when, to their horror, he suddenly sank. His legs had become as numbed as his arms, and so he went down. They hauled him back through the water, 84 Sir John Franklin. and then treated him as Belanger had been treated. But the skin of the whole of his left side was deprived of feeling, in consequence of having been exposed to too great heat after his immersion, and did not fully recover sensation till the following summer. The heroic self-devotion displayed by Eichardson may be estimated by the thrill which went through his comrades when they saw him stripped, for he was a mere skeleton, and the awe-struck Canadians exclaimed altogether, "Ah que nous sommes maigres." He had, moreover, when entering the water, stepped on a dagger, which cut his foot to the bone. Augustus returned without having seen Back; and as the wind still continued adverse, St. Germain hit on the expedient of making a better canoe with the canvas wrappings of the bedding. Some men were sent to collect pitch from the last pines they had seen, with which to pay over the seams ; and, meanwhile, Credit brought in the antlers and back-bone of a deer. The wolves had failed to extract the spinal marrow, and this, though putrid, and so acrid as to excoriate the lips, was eaten with avidity. Then the bones themselves were burned and eaten. On the 3rd of October, Franklin tried to walk to St. Germain, in order to stimulate him to be quick with the canoe ; but though the distance to be traversed was only three-quarters of a mile, he failed to perform it, after trying to wade through the snow for three hours, and came back much Desperate Straits, 85 bruised by the many falls he had had. The other officers were equally feeble — Hood being reduced to a shadow, Eichardson lame, and Back unable to walk without a stick. The voyagers were rather stronger, but from despair even less capable of exertion. No one felt the sensation of hunger any longer, but no one was able to talk of hardly anything except eating. Hepburn at this crisis saved their lives, patiently and bravely gathering tripe cle roche. Hood could not eat this, and a partridge reserved for him was stolen by one of the men. St. Germain finished the canoe on the 4th, and crossed the water first. Then the canoe was drawn back by a line, and one by one the rest were hauled across in it, but all the clothes and bedding got wet, and they could gather no wood to dry them. Back, St. Germain, S. Belanger, and Beaupaiiant were at once sent off to find the Indians at Fort Enterprise, or at least the letter which Wentzel had been ordered to leave there, stating their whereabouts. If St. Germain killed any animals, he was to cocker them, and con- spicuously mark the place. The voyagers were greatly cheered, now they were across the water, but no tripe cle roche was to be found, and they went supperless to bed. Next morning they advanced slowly through the snow — Hood, who had become very feeble, walking in the rear with Eichardson, who helped him on. The tripe de roche disagreed with Credit and Yaillant, as it did with Hood, and the former, when he reached the 86 Sir John Franklin. camping-place, was unable to stand. Nothing but tripe de roclie and some scraps of roasted leather was to be had for supper. On October 6th, "the whole party ate the remains of their old shoes and whatever scraps of leather they had, to strengthen their stomachs for the fatigues of the day," and they crept on over some hills, through deep snow, and in a piercingly keen wind. About noon, Samandre announced that Credit and Vaillant could go no further. Eichardson went back, but failed to find Credit. He persuaded Vaillant to try and reach the fire, but after staggering a few yards he fell, and could not rise, or scarcely answer a question. J. B. Belanger went back to Vaillant's help, but found him past rousing, and returned with his load. The strongest men, though implored to go back and bring him to the fire, said they were unable to do so, but at the same time begged to be allowed to throw away their loads, and get on as fast as they could to Fort Enter- prise. This would have been fatal to all, as no officer was fit to. accompany them, and they must have lost their way. But something had to be done, so it was settled that Richardson, with one attendant, should stay with Hood at the first place where tripe de roche was plentiful. Credit and Vaillant, it was hoped, would join them. Meanwhile, Franklin was to push on with the rest to Fort Enterprise. On that night they had little fire,' and no food. Nor could they sleep for thoughts of their two poor comrades lying behind them A Sad Parti7ig. 87 in the snow. On the morning of October 7th, they came to a place suitable for the proposed plan. Hepburn volunteered to stay with the two, and the others, taking the barest necessaries with them, renewed their march. In deep distress, Franklin left the friends who had become so dear to him, conscious that Hood's motive for remaining was to avoid being a burden on the others, and that Eichardson and Hepburn, with characteristic generosity, were determined to stand by him. to the last. Who ever read of self-sacrifice more noble ? ~No hasty impulse of valour in the full flush of health and strength stirred them. No visions of glory gilded for them some sudden peril of death. It was the crowning proof of the greatest love that man can show, when, after agonies unspeakable, they calmly put away the hope just dawning, and prepared to give their lives for their friend. Such men's names and memories should never die. Franklin was now alone with the. Canadians. They only had strength to proceed four miles and a-half, and Michel and Belanger were left far behind. On coming up, they begged to be allowed to go back to Richardson, and next morning, October 8th, Franklin granted their request. Michel had ten balls and some shot. He was very particular in asking the route Franklin would take, and volunteered to say he should go and search for Yaillant and Credit. The rest of the party again essayed to march, but the men were now too weak to Sir John Franklin. raise the tent. It was therefore cut up, and strips taken for covering. Hardly had this been done, when Pcrrault and Fontano became dizzy. Tea was made, and this and some scraps of burnt leather revived them ; but the sight affected the other men, who declared they could move no further. Franklin, how- ever, his spirit rising, as Kane's did in a similar emergency, superior to bodily weakness, so worked on them by his arguments and prayers, that they set out, leaving Michel and Belanger not yet ready to start the other way. For two hundred yards they advanced, and then Perrault, again becoming dizzy, begged them to halt. This they did, and for ten minutes more he accompanied them. Then, bursting into tears, he said he was utterly exhausted, and must stop. He was told to rejoin Belanger and Michel, and with them to make his way to Eichardson. A lake was now crossed, but the ice was so smooth, and they so feeble, that the wind kept blowing them down with great force, so as to shake their whole frames. Fontano was the next to give way. The same symptoms showed themselves as in Perrault's case, and though overwhelmed with grief, he said he could not go on. So he too was told to follow the now beaten track backwards, and after bidding each of his friends a most tender farewell, he set out, they watching him as he moved away. He was an Italian, and had been a soldier, and that morning had talked to Franklin about his father, and Fort Enterprise at last his wish to see home again, if he should survive. With indescribable anguish Franklin thus parted from another of his companions, of whom he had now only four left — Adam, Peltier, Bennoit, and Samandre. That day they could gather no tripe de roche, owing to the severity of the weather, but on the 9th they gathered some, and enjoyed the first meal they had had for four days, having been existing on scraps of leather only during that time. In the afternoon they reached Marten Lake, and, finding it frozen, exulted at being able to keep straight on to Fort Enterprise. They encamped on the banks of Winter River, but could not make a fire large enough to thaw their shoes, and having no food, crept under their blankets. But one thought buoyed them up — they were close to Fort Enterprise— and they chatted cheerfully till they fell asleep. On the 10th, with much pain, caused by frequent falls in a stony valley, they obtained some pine wood, and, making a good fire, drank some herb tea, and ate some of their shoes. Then they lay down full of thankfulness, for on the morrow they felt sure they would reach the Fort, where once more they hoped to revel in shelter and food, and above all, to be able to send help to the friends they had left behind them. The morrow came. They could not as usual talk, but walked on in silence. " Their very hopes belied their fears, their fears their hopes belied." 90 Sit John Franklin. They reached the Fort. Alas ! it was desolate. No food was in it. No letter from Wentzel. Not a trace of the Indians. All four of the poor fellows burst into tears, less for themselves than for Hood and Hepburn and Eichardson, whose fate they felt was sealed. A note from Back was found, saying that he was going to search for the Indians, and if he could not find them, attempt to reach Fort Providence. Franklin himself determined to go in search of them, but first it was necessary to recruit his strength. The parchment had been torn from the windows, and the wind whistled through the room. But they placed planks across, and were overjoyed to find some deer-skins and bones on which they could subsist for a time. For firing, they pulled up the floor of the other rooms. For water, they melted the snow. And while supper was being pre- pared, Augustus came in, having made his way alone over a country he had never traversed before. Next morning Franklin was so swollen as to be unable to walk more than a few yards, and Adam could not rise without help. The others gathered tripe de roche, and with the bones a soup was concocted, which, though it excoriated the mouth, seemed palatable to these starving men. On the 13th, S. Belanger arrived, bringing a note from Back, who had failed to find the Indians, and asked for instructions. Belanger came in almost speechless, and coated with ice, having fallen A Forlorn Hope. 91 into a rapid, and for the third time narrowly escaped drowning. His comrades nursed him tenderly, the soup and warmth having apparently much improved their morale, for they were no longer intent on self- preservation, or impatient, and had given up swearing. Belanger himself, however, behaved badly. He would not describe where Back was, his reason being, as was discovered next day, that he feared any addition to Back's party would lessen his share of what St. Germain might kill. He also tried to entice away the hunter, Adam, with the only kettle there was in the house, without which its inmates could not have lived two days. So sadly had hardships corrupted an ordi- narily diligent and well-behaved man. Adam was much too ill to walk, and, as Peltier and Sarnandre' volunteered to stay with him, Franklin, Bennoit, and Augustus set out to look for the Indians, Back having been told by letter to make for Eeindeer Lake. The leader neglected no duty before he went. He packed up the journals of the party, with a letter for the Under-Secretary of State, which he told the men in the house to forward by the Indians. Another letter he left for Bichardson and Hood. He made the three promise to eat two meals every day, and to send the first Indians who came to Bichardson's assistance. And then, when the hour < came to face again the terrible perils of the way without the comrades who so long had shared, them, " no language," says Franklin, 92 Sir John Franklin. " that I can use could adequately describe the parting scene." He was, however, soon back again with them, having broken his snow-shoes the following day, so as to be unable to keep up with Bennoit and Augustus, to whom he gave a note to Back, asking him to send meat from Eeincleer Lake. He found Samandre prostrate with despair, and Peltier doing all the labour of collect- ing wood. Franklin became cook, but was too weak to pound the bones, so Peltier did that as well as collect wood. Adam and Samandre would not quit their beds, and shed tears all day long. At this point in Franklin's journal we find three days omitted — a fact of terrible significance. All four grew gradually weaker. So hard was it to rise when once they were seated, that frequently they had to lift each other up. Yet still their talk continued cheerful. Peltier began to pull down the partitions of the next house for firewood. Though he had only to go twenty yards, the labour exhausted him so much that soon he could scarcely lift his hatchet, and on the 29th could only cut a few pieces of wood. Luckily some bark was found to kindle a fire. A herd of reindeer was seen, but even if they had been within reach, not a man could have fired a gun without resting it. That evening, as they sat round the fire, Peltier exclaimed, " Ah, le moncle." The Indians, he fancied, were in the other room. The next moment Eichardson and Hep- burn walked in. Peltier was at first too disappointed Return of Richardson. 93 to speak. Franklin was full of dreadful forebodings, which Eichardson's first words realised. Hood was dead. Michel was dead. Perrault and Fontano had neither been seen nor heard of. The new-comers were shocked at the skeleton-like appearance of the men in the house, who, in their turn, beheld with dismay that Eichardson and Hepburn were mere skin and bone. The Doctor begged his friends not to speak in such a sepulchral tone, not knowing that his own was pitched in the same key. Hepburn had shot a partridge, which was divided into seven portions and ravenously devoured, being the first flesh they had tasted for thirty-one days. Eichardson did all he could to rouse his comrades, and next day went out after deer with Hepburn. They were unsuccessful, however, though the gallant Hepburn stayed out till late. But they collected more deerskins from the snow, and in the evening, after supper, Eichardson told Franklin the following horrible narrative, which till then he had apparently dreaded to relate. CHAPTER VII. franklin's first expedition (continued). Richardson's Narrative — Murder of Hood — Michel shot — Fearful Sufferings at Fort Enterprise — Death of Peltier and of Samandie — The Indians come — The Party reach Akaitcho's Camp — Back's Adventures— Death of Beauparlant — Return to England. WHEN Franklin had departed, Bichardson, Hood, and Hepburn sat by the fire as long as it lasted, and then went to bed, where they remained all next day, reading to each other portions of some religious books which a lady in London had given them, and so comforted by their trust in an omnipresent Being that they felt their situation to be no longer destitute, and talked cheerily, confiding to each other their past lives, and speaking of the future with hope. " Had my poor friend," says Bichardson, "been spared to re-visit his native land, I should look back to this period with unalloyed delight." The day after this conversation, Michel, the Iroquois, came in. He said he had missed his way, and passed the night on the snow, and that J. B. Bel anger had left the fire before him, and must Michel's Villainy. 95 also, as he had not arrived, have missed his way. He produced a hare and partridge, which they received with intense gratitude. As he complained of cold, Hood said he would share his buffalo robe with him at night. Eichardson gave him one of his two shirts, and Hepburn exclaimed, " How I shall love this man if I find that he does not tell lies, like the others!" a remark which speaks volumes about "the others." Michel next day conducted them straight to the pines where he had left Franklin, as being better camping- ground; and they did not notice that he must there- fore have lied in saying he had lost his way in coming thence. They left him there at his own desire, but were obliged themselves to return for one night to their first encampment, as they had been unable to carry everything away in one journey. They did not find Michel when they again reached the pines. When he did come in, he produced part of what he said was a wolf, which he had found pierced by a deer's horn. They did not guess then, but soon afterwards became convinced, that this was in reality part of the body of Perrault or Belanger, whom this accursed Iroquois had murdered and chopped up with his hatchet. Probably he had slain Belanger when Perrault came up, and then, to prevent detection, had killed him too. This was why he had asked for a hatchet the night before, and insisted on staying alone at the pines. His conduct, however, soon excited suspicion. He would 96 Sir John Franklin. not sleep in the tent at night, nor accept Bichardson's company when he went hunting, and when he went hunting himself, came back very soon. He also said he wished he had gone with Franklin, and would go now if he knew the way. In vain they tried to soothe him. He grew very surly, and would neither cut wood nor hunt. So Eichardson thought it best to promise that, if he would hunt diligently for four days, he would send him with Hepburn to Franklin. Hood now became rapidly weaker ; the least breeze seemed to blow through him, and though Eichardson lay close to him at night, the heat of their bodies could not thaw the frozen rime on the blankets formed by their breath. Still he never complained, and spoke hopefully of his future prospects. Each in fact felt that he dared not speak, or think of the horrors of his present state, lest he should go mad, for the mind's strength had decayed with that of the body. On the 19th, Michel again refused to hunt, and, growing angry at their remonstrances, made this significant remark, " It is no use hunting. There are no animals. You had better kill and eat me." On the 20th, a similar scene occurred, and Eichardson, going out to gather tripe de roche, left Hood sitting in front of the tent arguing with Michel. Suddenly he heard a shot, and the next minute Hepburn called out to him to come at once. He did so, and found Hood shot through the Death of Hood. 97 head. At first lie thought the poor fellow had com- mitted suicide, but Michel's behaviour excited other suspicions, which grew stronger when he found the shot had entered at the back of the head. Being questioned, Michel said Hood had sent him into the tent for another gun, and that the long gun went off while he was inside. But Hepburn had heard angry words, and, directly the shot was fired, had seen Michel rise before the tent just behind Hood. Michel did not call to him for some time, and he suspected nothing, thinking the gun was only fired to clean it. The man's own behaviour condemned him. Though not charged with the murder, he went on saying he was incapable of such an act, and would not leave the two Englishmen by themselves for a moment. All that could be done at present was to remove the body to a clump of willows hard by, for they could not bury it, and sadly read the funeral service by the tent fire. Richardson — a doctor, it must be remembered — says that Hood had suffered more than any one of the survivors, and speaks of the patience and fortitude with which he sustained " unparallelled bodily sufferings." Some of the sketches which illustrate Franklin's narrative evince the skill and taste of the ardent young Englishman thus foully murdered. Meanwhile, the assassin was gradually throwing aside the mask. He said he would not go to the Fort — kept muttering to himself — tried to get them to go to 98 Sir John Franklin. the woods, where he said he could maintain himself all the winter — threatened Hepburn, and said he hated the French (by which phrase he meant the white people), who had killed and eaten his uncle and two of his relations. It was clear that they must kill him, or he would kill them, and at the first moment he left them together, Hepburn offered to do the deed. But if it was to be done, Richardson felt he must take the responsibility on himself, and when Michel returned, he shot him with a pistol through the head. The one genuine pleasure which the reader of this story feels is that that pistol did not miss its aim. The rest of Richardson's narrative is soon told. He and Hepburn repeatedly sank under the load of their blankets, when each would help the other to rise. They found the spine of a deer, and fed on the acrid marrow. Richardson became so feeble that, when the track lay through some large stones, he fell more than twenty times, and at last could not stand. But the staunch Hepburn, exerting himself beyond his strength, lit a fire speedily, and saved his life. They became so dazed by fatigue and want of food that they lost their way when quite near the Fort, which at last they reached, as already related. Fontano, Credit, Perrault, J. B. Belanger, Michel, and Hood had thus perished. But death had not yet done his work. On November 1st, Peltier could not eat any tripe de roche, owing to the soreness of his More Deaths. throat. He slid from his stool upon his bed, seemingly to sleep. Two hours later, his companions were alarmed at hearing the death-rattle in his throat, and he died during the night, and so did Samandre. They were too weak to bury the bodies, or even carry them to the river. All their united strength could effect was to remove them to the next room. Both men were in the end killed by mental despondency acting on enfeebled frames. Peltier had fixed on the 1st as the day after which he should cease to expect the Indians, and as the day, therefore, of his own death. Samandre gave up all hope on witnessing Peltier's fate. Peltier was mourned by all, having won their warm regard by his cheerfulness, activity, and tender care of the sick. The loss of his two comrades terribly affected Adam, who had been plucking up health and spirits before. He could no longer bring in the wood, and Franklin was forced to be with him constantly, talking to cheer him, and lying by his side at night. In this dark hour the superiority of moral over physical qualities was strik- ingly illustrated, as the hunters were naturally of course hardier men than the English, because seasoned to the country. But though still " full of hope," Eichardson and Hepburn began to give way, and could only collect wood enough to build up the fire thrice in the day. The labour of separating the hair from the deer-skins had become so wearisome that they ate less than they 100 Sir John Franklin.^ would otherwise have done. Matters grew daily worse and worse. On the 6th, Adam could scarcely eat. Hepburn was half-an-hour in cutting a piece of wood which it had taken the Doctor another half-hour to drag thirty yards. They w 7 ere all covered with sores from lying on the floor, yet so weak as to find turning as they lay a labour. In sleep only were they happy, dreaming often about feasting. When awake, they talked of anything rather than their sufferings or of the chance of relief. They became pettish as their minds grew weaker, and each thought the other's intellect weaker than his own. One would recommend another to remove to a warmer place, and would fretfully chide him if, from dread of moving, he did not stir. Then he would feel compunction and express regret, but directly afterwards would be as fretful as before. No one, for instance, could carry wood to the fire well without help, but each was offended if offered it. Once Hep- burn said — " Dear me, if we are spared to return to England, I wonder if we shall recover our understand- ings/' But it is darkest before dawn, and at last the worst was ever. On November 7th, as Adam was almost speechless, Franklin remained in bed with him to try and cheer him. All of a sudden he heard a noise, which he thought must be the house falling in on Hepburn and Eichardson, who were cutting wood. But it was not. It was a musket shot. It was the Indians. Relief at last, 101 The food they brought was too eagerly devoured by all but Adam, who could not feed himself, and they suffered dreadfully in consequence all night. He steadily revived. Richardson cautioned them to be moderate, but was unable to practise what he preached. Hope, however, was too potent a healer to be cheated now. A note was at once returned by one of the Indians, telling Back to send more meat. Two remained to look after the sick. To the feeble eyes that watched them, they seemed gigantic figures of supernatural strength and activity. They prevailed on their patients to wash and shave. Strength revived so rapidly with plenty of food, that the weather seemed to have grown milder in proportion as they acquired greater resistance to the cold. There was a temporary relapse when it was found that the Indians had stolen away with the intention of going to Akaitcho for more help, and Adam again became very desponding ; but on the 15th another party of Indians arrived with Bennoit, and a note from Back, who was preparing to go to Fort Providence. It was on the 16th that the whole body finally left Fort Enterprise, and by dint of most tender care on the part of the Indians, who gave them their own snow shoes, lifted them when they fell, cooked for them, and fed them like children, they reached Akaitcho's camp on the 26th. They were received in profound silence, and with every demonstration of heartfelt compassion, Akaitcho cooking for them with his own hands. His 102 Sir yohn Franklin. brothers and Augustus were with him in perfect health. On the 6th of December, S. Belanger arrived from Fort Providence, bringing some spirits and tobacco for the Indians, a change of dress for the Englishmen, some tea and sugar, letters from England, and from Back and Wentzel. They now heard of Parry's successful voyage, of the promotions of Franklin, Back, and Hood, of the union of the two rival Companies, of the non- arrival at Fort Providence of the goods which had been ordered thither as rewards for Akaitcho, and of the hardships undergone by Wentzel and his band on their march along the Coppermine Eiver, they having lived entirely on tripe de roche for eleven days. Then they enjoyed the intense luxury of changing their linen, which they had worn for nearly three months and a-half. Leaving Akaitcho on the 8th, they reached Fort Providence on the 11th, where Weeks partly atoned for his previous misconduct by the hearty welcome he gave them. Here they waited till Akaitcho came, in order to make him a present of such goods as could be collected from Moose Deer Island. Akaitcho came on the 14th, and, so far from being sulky at the sinallness of the present, expressed himself with great magna- nimity. "The world," he said, "goes badly. All are poor; you are poor; the traders appear to be poor; I and my party are poor likewise, and since the goods Akaitcho's Generosity, 103 have not come in, we cannot have them. I do not regret having supplied you with provisions, for a Copper Indian can never permit white men to suffer from want of food on his lands, without flying to their aid. I trust, however, that we shall, as you say, receive what is due next autumn ; and, at all events, it is the fiist time that the white people have been indebted to the Copper Indians. I know," he proceeded, "you write down every occurrence in your books, but pro- bably you have only noticed the bad things we have said and done, and have omitted to mention the good.'' So he begged them to represent him as favourably as possible to their countrymen, and incidentally remarked that they had always spoken well of the traders to him. This must have been a humiliating thing for Weeks to hear, as it completely demolished the only defence — a mean and paltry one at best — he could offer for his conduct in spreading mischievous reports about the expedition. Adam was now discharged, being anxious to cast in his lot with the Copper Indians. The three Englishmen, after a warm farewell from Akaitcho, set out, with Bennoit, Belanger, and Augustus, for Moose Deer Island, arrived on the 18th of December, 1821, and stayed there till May the following year. At Moose Deer Island Back was once more re-united to his friends, and he had a tale to tell almost as harrowing as their own. He w T as sent, it will be recollected, by Franklin to 104 Sir John Franklin. Fort Enterprise, in company with St. Germain, Belanger, and Beauparlant, on October the 4th. They only advanced four miles that day, what with wind, snow, and swampy ground, and at night supped on tripe de roche and old leather. Their first serious accident was Belanger's breaking through the ice, and being in danger of freezing, but luckily they found brushwood enough to build a fire, by which he was dried. Back was very weak and sore at the joints, especially between the shoulders — so much so, that he was forced to use a stick to extend his arms, as he could not bear them to remain hanging down for long together, In the after- noon they devoured an old pair of leather trousers. On reaching Marten Lake they found it frozen, but the men did not recognise it for some time. When per- suaded of its identity, they all exclaimed, " Mon Dieu, nous sommes scmvh" The luckless Belanger again fell through the ice in deeper water, and was only rescued by their fastening their worsted belts together and hauling him out. They then forced him on as fast as his frozen clothes would allow till they reached some pines. But though he sat so near the fire as twice to set his hair alight, he did not get warm till nightfall. On the 8th they were too weak to make headway against the wind, which kept blowing them over, so they encamped under some pines, and regaled them- selves on a pair of old shoes and a gun-cover. Crawling on, only buoyed up by one thought, that Fort Enter- Back's Story. 105 prise was at hand, they reached that spot on the 9 th. The appalling spectacle of a deserted house, which had evidently been the resort of wild animals, met their gaze, and affected them as it did Franklin afterwards. Hunger for once proved a blessing, for they could, after the first shock, think only of satisfying that. After their meals of shoes, gun-covers, and trousers, a deer's neck which they found was a dainty dish. Besting for a day, they set out to search for the Indians, intending to follow the deer into the woods, so long as that did not take them out of their route, and so collect food enough to last till they reached Fort Providence. On the 13th and 14th, the same terribly terse entry occurs in Back's journal, " we had nothing to eat," reminding one of Johnson's celebrated Tuus irnpransus. St. Germain was an unsatisfactory hunter, and, in uncer- tainty what to do, Back despatched Belanger to Fort Enterprise, as before related, for instructions. He himself was to wait till he returned at a place four miles further on, where he hoped to catch some fish. While Beauparlant was cutting fuel, his face became so swollen that he could hardly see. Back lost his temper on the most trivial occasions, and was become very peevish. His shoulders were as if they would fall from his body. His legs seemed unable to support him. He would sooner have stayed where he was, at ail risks, if his duty to his fr.ends had not nerved him to move. As it was, he could only traverse 106 Sir John Franklin. three-quarters of a mile before he was forced to encamp. On the 16th, while trying to march the remaining three miles to their destination, Beanparlant said he was much weaker, to which no attention was paid, as each felt the same thing. A little further on, he said he should never get beyond the next encampment, and asked where it was to be. St. Germain pointed to a clump of pines ahead. " Well," said Beauparlant, "take your axe, Mr. Back, and I will follow at my leisure. I shall join you by the time the encampment is made." St. Germain spied some crows on some pine tops, and said there must be a dead animal near. Soon the cry, " Oh, merciful God, we are saved ! " broke from their lips, as they saw several heads of deer half-buried in the snow and ice, eyeless and tongueless indeed, but otherwise saved from the wolves by the previous hard weather. St. Germain made the camp. Back was too far spent to help him. But for the meat, he says, he must have perished within twenty-four hours. As it was, the sight of it so stimulated him, that, with incredible exertion, he carried several of the heads, one by one, thirty paces to the fire. It grew dark, and Beauparlant did not arrive. So they fired guns, and shouted to him, and he fired, and called faintly in return. St. Germain refused to return for him, as he said he should never make his way back. They could only hope that,* having Back's blanket and means Beauparlanfs Death. 107 for lighting a fire, lie had encamped. They had no sleep that night, suffering excruciating torments from having eaten too much meat, though Back did not eat one-quarter of what would have satisfied him. Next morning he sent St. Germain back for Beauparlant while he prepared breakfast. With tears in his eyes, St. Germain came back saying that Beauparlant was dead, that he hfld found him on a sand-bank frozen to death, with his limbs enormously swollen, and as hard as ice. Back suppressed his own emotions to avoid depressing his companion; but he felt their situation to be almost hopeless, the more so that, as Belanger had not returned, he felt some great calamity had probably happened. At length, on the 18th, they saw Belanger tottering round a point. He was just able to say that five, with the Captain, were at the house, and the rest at the river, but was too weak to tell the whole tale. When he partially recovered, his news set St. Germain crying, and Back, who had shown more composure during the recital, when he received Franklin's letter, and read the same story " in another language, mingled with the pious resignation of a good man," could bear up no longer, and gave way to his grief. Belanger, too, was greatly affected at Beauparlant's death, but that and every other feeling was absorbed by his present crave for food. He ate for two hours — chiefly skin and sinews — and then complained of hunger. Back now 108 Sir John Franklin, proposed to go to Reindeer Lake, but both men refused point blank. St. Germain said he did not know the way, and they declared they would stay where they were till they had recovered their strength. Being quite helpless, he was forced to acquiesce, and from the 19th to the 25th they did nothing but collect such scraps of skin and bone as they could, as provisions for the way. Even these he could scarcely •induce them to husband, as they would snatch the piece nearest them the moment his back was turned, and swallow it raw. He was the weakest of the three, and the soles of his feet were cracked all over, but he constantly urged his companions to rejoin Franklin, who he now concluded was at or on his way to Fort Providence. At last they were persuaded to set out, and they came on the track of the party with which Franklin had started, but from which he had returned to Fort Enterprise. The marks of the encampment were so small that Back augured some great disaster, but the men absolutely refused to turn back to Fort Enterprise to see what had happened, and the distress of mind he was in, added to his bodily weakness, which was now aggra- vated by a frozen face, almost prevented him from proceeding at all. But now help was at hand. On November 3rd, a cry was heard from Belanger, who was ahead-—" Footsteps of Indians." St. Germain was sent on their tracks, and in the evening an Indian boy brought meat, and that note which Franklin had sent WentzeVs Defence. 109 by Bennoit and Augustus. Back soon readied Akaitcho, and early next morning a cargo of meat was sent off to Fort Enterprise. The Indian who returned thence at first said that all of the party were dead. Subsequently he produced Franklin's note, and Back, after arranging for further supplies being sent to the Fort, set out himself for Fort Providence. Little now lemains to be told of this memorable expeditiou. It was extremely gratifying to Franklin to be able to pay Akaitcho in full before he left the Great Slave Lake, the more so as the Indians were in great distress. On the 2nd of June, he reached Fort Chipewyan, and met Wentzel, who accounted for not fulfilling his orders in the following way : — " Humpy." he said, "had failed to keep tryst with Akaitcho. The Indians, after suffering great hardships, were disap- pointed at this, and abused him for having led them from their families, so, though still professing to be willing to execute their compact, they did nothing. As for Humpy, he was found destitute of ammunition, and actually starving, and soon afterwards he lost three of his hunters. He himself had written no note because he had no paper, but he had left a plank at Fort Enterprise on which he had written his report to Franklin, and this some Indians must have destroyed. While there, the two Indians with him laid up no food, because one would not hunt for fear of meeting the Dog Eib Indians, and the other was lame." Lame, 110 Sir John Franklin. indeed, this apology reads, and Franklin remembered offering Wentzel paper at parting, which he declined, having then a note-book. But, on the whole, it must be taken into consideration that he had had a most difficult task to perform, and that he was almost powerless to conteDd against the opposition of the Indians. In 1833, Back in his expedition to the Great Fish Kiver met Akaitcho again, and was again indebted to him for supplies of food in a trying winter. But with true Indian reticence, he never asked after Franklin and Eichardson on first seeing Back, though he seemed glad to hear about them, and to receive some remem- brances they had sent him. On the 14th of July, Franklin reached York Factory, thus completing a journey of 5,550 miles, and one of the most eventful ever recorded. Of the twenty-four men who set out with him originally, ten were dead, six had been discharged before the hardships began, and nine survived them. Of the two Esquimaux, Junius was lost ; Augustus, Franklin was to meet again. The faithful Hepburn was, it is pleasant to know, rewarded with a snug berth at home, and afterwards in Tasmania. In all those terrible days, neither his affection nor that of the officers for their chief had ever wavered. A leader who succeeds never lacks followers. He who fails, but does not forfeit the confidence of brave and able men, has proved his great qualities by even a The Ruling Passion. Ill higher title. Franklin may well have felt proud of the devotion of such men after such disasters. It only remains to say that this expedition returned to England in 1822, and that Franklin, Kichardson, and Back actually volunteered for another expedition to the same region in 1824. Surely every Englishman may feel proud that he is of one blood with that Triumvirate. CHAPTER VIII. fkanklin's second expedition. Honours conferred on Franklin — His first Marriage — Parry's Congra- tulations — Preparations for an Expedition down the Mackenzie — Richardson and Back volunteer — Preliminary Expeditions of Franklin and Eichardson. WHEN Franklin reached England, he was received with the utmost enthusiasm, and became at once the hero of the hour. The sufferings he had undergone, and the modesty with which he related them, excited the curiosity and delight of all classes. He was made post-captain, and elected a member of the Eoyal Society, and in 1823 he married Eleanor Anne Porden — the youngest daughter of a London architect, and authoress of two poems, " The Veils," and " Coeur de Lion, or the Third Crusade" — who died in 1825. Nowhere was admiration of his achievement stronger than in his own profession. The following letter, from Sir Edward Parry, is equally honourable to the writer and the recipient of it : — Parry s Letter. 113 Stamford Hill, October 23rd, 1823. My Dear Franklin, I can sincerely assure you that "it was with no ordinary feelings of gratification that I read your kind letter of congratulation on my return. Of the splendid achievements of yourself and your brave companions in enterprise I can hardly trust myself to speak, for I am apprehensive of not conveying — what, indeed, never can be conveyed adequately by words — my unbounded admiration of what you have, under the blessing of God, been enabled to perform, and the manner in which you have performed -it. To place you, in the rank of travellers, above Park and Hearne and others, would, in my estimation, be nothing in comparison of your merits. But in you and your party, my dear friend, we see so sublime an instance of Christian confidence in the Almighty, of the superiority of moral and religious energy over mere brute strength of body, that it is impossible to contemplate your sufferings and preservation without a sensation of reverential awe. I have not yet seen your book, and have only read the Quarterly Review. This latter was put into my hand at Shetland, and I need not be ashamed to say that I Gried over it like a child. The tears I shed, however, were those of pride and pleasure — pride at being your countryman, brother officer, and friend — pleasure in seeing the virtues of the Christian adding their first and highest charm to the unconquerable perseverance and splendid talents of the officer and the man. I shall only add that I am, my dear Franklin, your ever faithful and most sincerely admiring friend, W. E. Parry. H 114 Sir John Franklin. Franklin soon received a proof of esteem and con- fidence more gratifying even than this generous tribute from his brother-in-arms. His ardent spirit could not rest satisfied while so much of the north coast of America remained unexplored, and he submitted to the . Government a plan for a second expedition, offering to carry it out in person. Immediately it was known that his offer was accepted, a number of able and experienced officers eagerly came forward and proffered their services. Among the first were Back and Eichardson, the latter giving up a good position at home, and leaving a wife to whom he was tenderly attached, in order to accompany his old friend. The other officers selected were Mr. Kendall, who was to be assistant surveyor, and Mr. Drummond, assistant naturalist. Mr. Dease, chief trader of the Hudson's Bay Company, was to look after the arrangements with the Indians and Canadian voyagers. The Hudson's Bay Company entered warmly into the project, and ordered their officials in the Fur Countries to provide dep6ts of provisions at the places which Franklin specified. As pemmican could not be supplied in sufficient quantity sooner than the spring of 1825, that was the date fixed for the arrival of the expedition in the Fur Countries. Stores were forwarded in 1824 to Mr. Dease at the Athabasca Lake. He was to organise a party, and after wintering with them at Great Slave Lake, to proceed to Great Bear Lake in the spring of Plan of Operations. 115 1825, and begin the buildings for the expedition* Great Bear Lake was chosen as the head-quarters of the expedition, being the station nearest to the mouth of the Mackenzie Eiver capable of supplying such numbers with fish. Two carpenters, and a party. of men with, three light boats and more stores, were sent to York Factory in 1824. They were to go to Cumberland House that season, and get on as early as possible the next spring towards Bear Lake. The officers were to start in 1825 and make for Lake Huron, where two canoes had been sent to await their arrival, and thence would catch up the last-mentioned detachment on its way to Bear Lake. The greatest care had been taken in constructing the boats. By hard experience Franklin had learnt the weak points in a birch-bark canoe. These boats had to be strong enoughHo withstand rough waves, and yet as light as possible, in view of portages. They were made of mahogany, with ash timbers, and could be steered by a sweep-oar, or rudder. The largest, 26ft. by 5ft. 4in., would carry six rowers, a steersman, an officer, and three tons weight. Six men could carry it on their shoulders. The other two were a little smaller. A fourth boat was called the Walnut Shell. It was 9ft. long by 4ft. 4in. broad, was made of ash, covered with macintosh canvas, was in shape like half a walnut, weighed eighty-five pounds, could be taken to pieces and carried in five or six parcels, and could be put 116 Sir yohn Franklin. together in less than twenty minutes. It would doubt- less have saved several lives if it had been with Franklin in his first expedition. Several ladies were paddled across the Thames in it in" a fresh breeze. The stores were ample in quantity, and selected with great care. On the 16th of February, 1825, the officers left Liverpool amid the cheers of the chief inhabitants. After a pleasant passage they were equally warmly received in New York, where no doubt the favourable impression produced by Franklin had something to do with the genuine and most generous interest shown by the Americans in his subsequent fate. After visiting Niagara, they crossed Lake Ontario and Lake Simcoe, and found their canoes in readiness at Lake Huron. (Thence, with thirty-three voyagers, they coasted along the north shore of Lake Superior as far as Fort William, where they exchanged their canoes for four small ones, in one of which Eichardson and Franklin hurried ahead to organise supplies of pro- vieions, while Back brought on the three others. On the loth of June they reached Cumberland House, vid Kainy Lake, the Lake of the Woods, Lake Winnipeg, and the Saskatchawan Eiver, and found their boats had left that place on the 2nd, but that Mathews the chief 'carpenter was lying there with a broken leg. Arranging ibr him to be sent on in two months, and for supplies l)ei ng sent to Mr. Drummond, who was to make natural Objects proposed. 117 history collections in the Rocky Mountains, Franklin reached Isle a la Crosse on the 25th, and overtook the boats in Methye River at sunrise on the 29th of June. Such were the preliminary preparations for, and opera- tions of the expedition. It is time to explain what were its objects. In 1825, Franklin was to proceed to the western side of Great Bear Lake, to winter there, and endeavour to make friends with the Esquimaux. In 1826, as early as possible, in order to avail himself of the first opening in the ice-bound sea, he was to advance along the coast to Icy Cape, and, doubling it, proceed to Kotzebue's Inlet, a bight on the American shore of Bering's Straits. There he might expect the Blossom, commanded by Captain Beechey, which the Admiralty were to send there in 1826, and he mioht embark on that ship or return to Great Bear Lake, as he preferred. On reaching the mouth of the Mackenzie River, he was, if he had stores enough, to despatch Dr. Richard- son and Lieutenant Kendall with a party to examine the coast from the Mackenzie to the Coppermine River. If not, Dr. Richardson was to make a collection of the objects of the country, and to lay up depots of pro- visions. Meanwhile, Parry was to sail to Lancaster Sound, and make his way westwards .as far as he could, so that a second time the two friends were co-operating in the same enterprise, each on ground that he had made his own. 118 Sir John Franklin. : The boats of the expedition had now travelled 1,200 miles from Hudson's Bay, and the officers had come 2,800 miles, by New York and Canada, when they met at the Methye Eiver, which is almost at the head of the waters flowing from the north into Hudson's Bay. Franklin was received with enthusiasm by the boat party, which was under the charge of a Hudson's Bay clerk named Fraser, and no one showed more delight than his old friend Augustus the Esquimaux, who, instead of the lost Junius, brought with him this time a companion called .Ooligbuck. Franklin gave the men an hour to read the letters he had brought from England, and then lost no time in setting to work. .Everyone was forced to walk in the shallow river, dragging the boats, and when they reached the Methye Portage, one boat was borne on men's shoulders, another was dragged by eight men, and the largest was drawn on a truck. Nothing of note occurred on the route. Franklin reached Fort Chipewyan on the 15th. The boats were there by the 18th, and sent on, under Eichardson, on the 20th. Back and Kendall, with three canoes, arrived on the 23rd. On the 29th, Franklin came to Fort Resolution, on the Slave Lake, whence Richardson had previously gone forward with the boats ; and as all the portages on the way to Bear Lake had been passed, his Canadians begged to be allowed a dance. They had been paddling for thirty out of the thirty-nine preceding hours, but they kept it up till News of Akaitcho, 119 daylight to the music of bagpipes, varied by the Jew's harp. At Fort Resolution, Franklin, found two more old friends, Humpy and Keskarrah, who, seizing his hands and pressing them against their hearts, exclaimed, " How much we regret that we cannot tell what we feel for you here." Humpy told him that many of the hunters he had known at Fort Enterprise had been killed by the Dog Eib Indians, and that one motive foi the peace which had just been concluded between them and the Copper Indians was Akaitcho's wish not to imperii the success of the expedition by his wars. Akaitcho was now collecting meat for the party, and promised to hunt for them ; but not where his men had fallen in battle against the Dog Ribs, lest the passion of revenge should be too strong, and the flame of war should be relighted. He hoped, he had said, that the Dog Ribs, though his enemies, would help the English. On leaving Fort Resolution, Franklin left also the track to Fort Enterprise which he had hitherto been pursuing from Lake Winnipeg, and, as his course was now westwards, steered for the Buffalo River, and then along the south shore of the Slave Lake, past the mouths of the Sandy and Hay Rivers, till he came to the spot where the Mackenzie River flows out pf the Slave Lake, on the 3rd of August. Next day he reached Fort Simpson, a Hudson's Bay post 338 miles from Fort Resolution, and found that none of the Esquimaux, and only a few of the Mackenzie River Indians, had been 120 Sir John Franklin. told of his approach. But two Canadians were waiting to serve as guides to Bear Lake, having been sent by Dease, who was at that lake, and who, having engaged Indian hunters, was overseeing the erection of the necessary buildings. On the 7th he reached Fort Norman, 236 miles from Fort Simpson, four days' march from Bear Lake. Here he determined on executing a plan which he had himself formed on leaving England, but which he had told his companions only at Fort Chipewyan, fearing lest unavoidable delays might render it impracticable. It involved the division of the expedition into three parties. (1) Franklin and Kendall were to go to the sea and procure information as to the state of the ice in summer and autumn, the trend of the coast east and west of the mouth of the Mackenzie, and the prospect of pro- visions. This was the most dangerous part to under- take, owing to possible encounters with the Esquimaux j and though Franklin does not say so, doubtless this was one of his reasons for taking it himself. (2) Richardson was to go along the north shore of the Bear Lake, and select the spot at which he would strike it on his overland return from the Coppermine River the following year. (3) Back and Dease were to superin- tend the fishing and hunting arrangements, and the general affairs of the winter establishment then in progress. Back was to go on with the canoes, one of which he was to give to Richardson. The Canadians Preliminary Explorations, 121 from Lake Huron, and some of the voyagers whom Dease had brought, were discharged and sent home- wards. The main stores for the next year's voyage were left at Tort Norman, which would be on the route ; and on August 8th, Franklin set out in the Lion with Kendall, six Englishmen, Augustus, and a voyager as guide. Parting from Back at Bear Lake Eiver, he proceeded down the Mackenzie, meeting a body of Hare Indians on his way, who carefully scrutinised the figures of animals painted on his boat, bursting out laughing whenever they recognised one. On the 10th he reached Fort Good Hope, 312 miles from Fort Norman, and the northernmost station of the Hudson's Bay Company. The master, Mr. Dease, was intensely surprised to see him so soon, but had some pleasant news to give him — viz., that the Loucheux Indians who traded with the Fort had just made peace with the Esquimaux, who were usually their enemies. Dease went with Franklin as far as Trading Eiver, and left with him Baptiste, a young half-breed, the interpreter of the Fort, who wished to join the Chief of the Loucheux. As they dropped down the river, they were hailed by an Indian, who undertook to introduce them to his tribe if they would carry his baggage. As he looked quite poverty-stricken, they at once consented, little thinking that load after load of odorous fish would be thrown into their boat. By-and-by they came to more Indian lodges, and were 122 Sir John Franklin, received suspiciously till the people saw Augustus, whom they caressed and danced round, to show their delight. The excellent little fellow's head was not turned by his popularity, to which, however, he had no objection so long as it did not interfere with his pre- paring the officers' breakfast — a duty which it was his peculiar delight to perform. These Indians resemble the Esquimaux in many of their customs and habits, and Franklin was now nearing the region of the latter. There were numerous islands in the river, and conse- quently many channels ; and when Franklin chose the eastern one of several, the Indians who had accompanied him instantly turned back. Baptiste was asleep at the time, but consoled himself with the thought that he should still meet the Loucheux Chief at a place called the " Forks," which they had really passed, and his com- panions chuckled as they thought of his astonishment if the next halloo he heard should come from the lips of Esquimaux, of whom he stood in great terror. In fact they very soon passed by the huts of those people, and once were convinced they heard a human voice, but they saw no one, and, following the main stream at a point where Sir Alexander Mackenzie took a more northern channel, on the 14th of August they were delighted by the prospect of wide water ahead, which they knew must be the sea. A seal just then appeared,, sporting about the boat, as if to confirm their opinion. Baptiste began to think it just possible he had gone Franklin reaches the Sea. 123 by the Forks and missed the Chief, but would not be satisfied till, on tasting the water, he found it was salt. A moose deer and calf, and a reindeer, were killed on the 15th, and on the 16th they reached an island from a hill on which they saw the sea in all its majesty, quite free from ice, and full of seals and whales. Such a sight not only augured well for them, but gave them lively hopes of the success of Parry's voyage with the Hecla and Fury. The island was named, after the Deputy-Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, Garry Island, and a silk Union Jack was hoisted, which Franklin's wife had made and given him as a parting gift, with the express injunction that it was not to be hoisted till he reached the sea. With a spirit as heroic as his own, she had on her death-bed besought him to start on his voyage on the appelated day, beseeching him, if he set any value on her peace of mind, not to delay his departure for a moment. Her own hours she knew were numbered, and she felt that he would only be staying to close her eyes. In fact, he heard of her death while he was at New York. With what sad memories Franklin obeyed her last wishes may easily be imagined, but he says he felt bound to suppress his own emotions so as not to damp the general joy, and he did his best to return the warm congratulations which he received from his men. Three cheers were given, and Franklin and Kendall were going to drink the King's health, when, at the first taste, they found 124 Sir John Franklin. that it was salt water which Baptiste, in his delight at seeing the sea, had given them to mix with their brandy. He was immensely elated at having seen the sea, and stuck his feathers in his hat, crying out, " Now I am one of the Gens de la mer, you shall see how active I will be, and how I will crow over the Gens du nord" — by whom he meant the Athabasca voyagers. On this island Franklin left letters for Parry con- spicuously marked. Then, after in vain attempting to cross to the eastern coast of the Mackenzie embouchure, in order to visit the Eocky Mountains, he began his return route on the 18th, leaving presents in the Esquimaux huts on his way. On the 21st he regained the Loucheux territory, and on the 23rd, Fort Good Hope, where he found the Indians had spread a report that his party had all been massacred by the Esquimaux. On the 1st of September Bear River was entered, and much hard tracking had to be done. Bub on the 5th Bear Lake was entered, and that night, for the first time, all the members of the expedition were assembled together, Dr. Richardson having returned already, and having fixed, as the place he should make for when he should come back from the Coppermine River, the first rapid in the river he had named Dease, near the north- east corner of the lake. CHAPTER IX. franklin's second expedition (continued). Fort Franklin — Franklin's Letter — Winter Occupations and Prepara- tions — The two parties uuder Franklin and Richardson set out. IT was now September, and Franklin had travelled 5,320 miles since he left New York, having in his last trip from Bear Lake River to the sea and back gone 1,206 miles. The buildings which Mr. Dease had been superintending since July formed three sides of a square, and included a blacksmith's shop and a meat store. They were on the site of an old North- West Company's station, on a dry sandy bank about eighty yards from and twenty-five feet above the lake. The stockade of the old fort still stood, and served as a screen from the biting blast and the snow-drifts. Besides Bear Lake, they had a view over another small lake, so that their winter abode was very prettily situated. Franklin had, intended its name to be Fort Reliance, but before he came back from the sea the officers had christened it Fort Franklin. The members of the little community were fifty, consisting of five 126 . Sir John Franklin. officers, nineteen British seamen, marines, and voyagers, nine Canadians, two Esquimaux, the interpreter, Beau- lieu, and four Chipewyan hunters, three women, six children, and one Indian lad. Besides these, there were a few infirm Indians requiring temporary support. All these did not reside at the Fort, two other fishing stations being established at four and seven miles' distance. Fifteen or twenty nets were kept in use, and as few reindeer were killed by the inexperienced hunters, the food mainly relied on was fish. Next to the maintenance of the men, their employ- ment during the winter occupied Franklin's attention. Postal communication with the Slave Lake was kept up by two of the best snow-shoe travellers. Some carried the fish and the meat home. Some felled wood, others carried ifc home, and others again split it up for fuel. A school was formed for the men during the long evenings, and their amusements were always shared by the officers, to whom they became in conse- quence more attached. Everyone seemed anxious to do his utmost to make the winter pass away as agreeably as possible to his neighbours. On the 20th of September, Beaulieu brought a supply of meat, enough for a month's consumption, and on the 23rd, as the last chimney of the buildings was finished, they were formally opened with the festivities usual in the country. The flag was hoisted and saluted. All the men and women having formed in line, a deputa- A Squabble in Camp. 127 tion of thern came to invite the presence of the officers, who found their guns decked with blue ribbons, and were requested to fire at a bit of money fastened to the flag-staff. Then the men fired two volleys, gave three hearty cheers, and, marching after the piper, who played a merry tune on the bagpipes, drank to the King's health and the success of the expedition. A dance followed at night, which was kept up till daybreak next morning. During October, enough snow fell to render sledging possible, and the carcases of such reindeer as were killed, and the fuel, were now brought in by the dogs. In November, an odd mistake nearly led to serious consequences. The Canadians having asked Mr. Dease who the Highlandmen of the party were, were told that they were Montagnards — the name they give to the Dog Eib Indians. A scuffle ensued on their chaffing the Highlandmen as Dog Ribs, and a Dog Rib Indian received a blow in it. The ringleaders in the row were sent to bed, and the Highlanders were easily pacified next morning when the real meaning of " Montagnards" was explained to them. But the Dog Rib Indian spread a report that the white people were going to destroy all the Indians, and, till Franklin carefully explained what had happened, his countrymen were very shy in their approaches. They found the camp, however, an irresistible attraction, and were not alto- gether welcome guests. In spite of being given nets to 128 Sir John Franklin. fish, they preferred to beg and gather up the offal of the camp. They even robbed the nets more than once, and showed themselves a lazy and lying set of people. What thoughts and studies occupied Franklin's mind during the winter will be best seen from a letter written by him, on November 6th, to Mr. (afterwards Sir) E. J. Murchison. Port Franklin, Great Bear Lake, November 6th, 1825. Lat. 65° 12' N. ; Long. 123° 5' W. My Dear Sir, That I have not written to you before, has not arisen from want of inclination, but from pressure of business at the outset of my journey, and subsequently from my mind being unfitted for correspondence by having received the account of the severe domestic affliction that I have had to sustain. I have little doubt of your having heard of our progress from Dr. Fitton, and thorugh other channels, up to the date of my last letters — I shall therefore carry you now forward from Fort Chipewyan. There, I was enabled from the stores of the JEL B Co. to complete our stock of every essential article to a sufficiency for two years' consumption, and, embarking them in the boats (which you may remember had preceded me from England), we set off before the current to Mackenzie Eiver. The season had permitted us to reach it at an unusually early date, and . therefore I determined to distribute the party into three portions, in order to prosecute the examination into some points that we wished to have ascertained this season, but which, I may add, we could Franklin s Letter. 129 scarcely hope to have done on our quitting England. Accompanied by one of the officers, Mr. Kendall, I conr tinued the descent of the river to the sea, and we were so fortunate as to taste the salt water just six months after our departure from Liverpool. By this visit we discovered the direction of the coast east and west from the mouth of the river, and were enabled to take some steps towards pro- curing an interview with the Esquimaux next spring, and thus have we facilitated the commencement of our operations along the sea coast. At the same time, Dr. Richardson took a survey of the northern boundaries of this lake, and found its nearest approach to the Coppermine River, so that he has determined the point to which his course must be directed on his return from the mouth of that river, if he be so fortunate as to reach it. While we were thus employed, Lieut. Back superintended the building of this establishment, which my friends have had the kindness to name Eranklin. These were completed last month (Sept.), and we are now very comfortably settled for the winter. Our chief depen- dence is on the fish which the lake supplies in abundance ; but we get a few reindeer, though this supply will gradually become less as the season advances, as these animals, during the severe weather, retire to the more wooded and bettei sheltered parts of the country — not that we want wood here for every purpose of fuel, nor is it scarce on the banks of the Mackenzie, which are well clothed with trees till you reach within fifty miles of the sea. Advanced, as I presume you now are, in geological knowledge, an excursion down the Mackenzie would be very interesting to you, as its banks offer very fine specimens of the coal formation, with its neighbouring sand and limestones. The latter abound in good specimens of the shells and organic remains peculiar to 130 Sir John Franklin. that series. We have collected a variety of them, and I look forward with pleasure to having them explained by our very kind friend, Dr. Fitton. We have brought up the collection he had the goodness to give us for reference, and our excellent friend Dr. Richardson affords all the information he hears, or which he can gather from the books we have brought respecting them, so that through him we endeavour to keep up the information which Dr. Fitton first imparted. We have got Conybeare and Phillips, Phillips and Jameson on Mineralogy, and Humboldt on the superposition of rocks ; but to the inexperienced, one lecture from a person con- versant with the science is more profitable than many hours' reading on subjects naturally difficult to be comprehended. It is evident, too, on the slightest inquiry into Geology, that a comparative knowledge of other sciences is requisite — Mineralogy and Chemistry for instance, to which I should apply more closely, if the opportunity were permitted me, than I have yet done. You were wisely laying the founda- tion by close application to Mr. Bearde's courses. I have been delighted with Dante, and so have my companions ; but I must confess there is frequently a depth of thought and reasoning to which my mind can hardly reach — perhaps these parts will be better comprehended on re-perusal. It seems clear that Milton, as well as other poets, have borrowed ideas from his comprehensive mind. I am afraid we shall not be able to make any satisfactory experiments with the balls of Colonel Miller's rifle — those which we have brought having unfortunately got the edges of the grooves flattened by rubbing against each other, notwithstanding all our care. It answers well with the cannon-ball. The circumstance of its going off without the aid of flint and steel is a matter of never-failing surprise to the Indians, and even to the traders Letter continued. 131 in these distant parts, for the detonating and other improved locks have not yet reached so far. We have as yet had no severe weather, nor do I think we are likely to have the temperature so low as at Fort Enterprise — we are in fact much less elevated in this secondary formation than when in its vicinity, where the rocks are entirely granite. Until the day before yesterday, 20th October, we had comparativcdy little snow, and this is the first day that our dogs have been used in dragging sledges. Four trains of two dogs each were despatched for meat this morning. We endeavour to keep our- selves in good humour, health, and spirits by an agreeable variety of useful occupation and amusement. Till the snow fell, the game of hockey, played on the ice, was the morning's sport. At other times Wilson's pipes are put in request, and now and then a game of Blind Man's Buff — in fact, any recreation is encouraged to promote exercise and good feeling. I wish you could pop in and partake our fare ; you would be sure of a hearty welcome, and you should have your choice of either moose or reindeer meat or trout, weighing from forty to fifty pounds; but you must bring wine and bread if you wish either for more than one day. I shall send this letter to Dr. Fitton, as I recollect you were on the point of chang- ing your residence. I beg you to offer my best remembrance to Mrs. Murchison, and my friends Dr. R. and Back desire theirs to you ; the latter, as well as Mr. Kendall, have made several very interesting sketches, which I shall have great pleasure in showing you and Mrs. Murchison on our return.- 1 >id I mention to you that my friend A. Garry, Esq., Deputy- Governor of the H. B. Co., has promised to forward any letters for the expedition if sent to him at the H. B. house/ Fenchurch Street, London 1 and 1 need not now say how' happy I shall be to hear from you. Will you tell Mr. 132 Sir yohn Franklin. Gladstone, with my best compliments, that we were delighted with the kind reception we met at Liverpool ] Ever, my dear Sir, Very truly yours, John Franklin. Good news came from Fort Good Hope on the 20th of December. The Loucheux had seen the Esquimaux, who had found the presents left for them, and would be delighted to welcome their visitors in spring. Christmas Day fell on a Sunday. Next night a dance was given. Songs were sung in English, French, and Gaelic, and the Babel of tongues which enlivened the motley scene may be imagined when it is stated that the company, numbering sixty, were made up of eight nationalities. On the 16th of January, a packet of letters and journals arrived from England, and eagerly was the news of the year discussed, as if its events had occurred the day before. The Dog Eibs had at length been induced to take themselves off to other quarters. It was high time, for provisions were running short. There was no more dried meat, and the fish was not only becoming scarce, but, being out of season, made some of the men ill. So Franklin was forced to send to Fort Norman for some of the stores meant for spring consumption. At the same time he wrote to York Factory for further supplies, and to request that provisions should be got Good Omens, 133 ready for his home journey. But there were to be none of the horrible starvation experiences of 1821. In February, just as they were all getting tired of short allowance, some moose deer were killed, and though the party did not obtain all the meat, owing to the Dog- Rib hunters having eaten almost all they had them- selves killed, gorging so as to be unable to move, and becoming seriously ill, yet there was no more lack of food. Fish soon became plentiful, and the dogs grew fat. Indeed such hardship as there had been was not without its compensating circumstances, as it brought out the excellent disposition of the men. One of the seamen, Robert Spinks, said to Franklin, " Why, sir, we never minded the short allowance, but were fearful of having to use the pemmican intended for next summer. We only care about the next voyage, and shall all be glad when the spring comes that we may set off. Besides, at the worst time we could always spare a fish for each of our dogs." And this was not mere talk, for the three dogs he had had in charge were in better condition than any of the others. Franklin never lost an opportunity of doing good to the natives of the districts he visited. On this expedition he had made it a rule to make no presents of rum to the Indians. And now he seized an oppor- tunity of teaching the Dog Ribs a useful lesson. The Chipewyan hunters brought in a Dog Rib girl aged twelve, who had been left to starve to death by her 134 Sir John Franklin. tribe, when they were only one day's march from the fishing station for which they were making, merely because she could not keep up with their pace. On the Dog Eibs coming to the house, Franklin, in their presence, rewarded the Chipewyans handsomely, and then lectured the inhuman wretches severely on their conduct. On March the 22nd, a startling rumour reached the Fort. At the Athabasca and Slave Lakes a rumour had been brought by Chipewyans that relics of white people and their recent footsteps in the snow had been found eastwards of the Coppermine Eiver on the sea- coast. Concluding that this was some hunting party sent by Captain Parry, Franklin's party were full of excitement and joy, and drank the healths of him and Captain Beechey that night in a bowl of punch. It was now drawing near the time when the start for the coast must be made, and the carpenters had com- pleted a new boat, on the model of the Lion, called the Reliance. It was 26 feet long by 5 feet 8 inches broad. Having few nails, they had cut up tools to make some. For tar they used strips of canvas soaked in caoutchouc varnish ; and instead of paint, they boiled resin from the pine-trees and mixed it with grease. The other boats were thoroughly repaired, and the following arrangements made. Beaulieu and four Canadians were to go to Dease Eiver, in Bear Lake, with a boat, and to wait there for Dr. Eichardson's Plan of Operations. 135 return till the 20th of September. If he was not back then, they were to leave the boat, with plenty of pro- visions, and return to the Fort. Mr. Dease was told that Franklin's division might join the Blossom, and go home by Canton ; but, on the other hand, it might have to winter on the sea coast, and therefore he was to keep Fort Franklin in repair and well victualled all through the next year, 1827, and till the spring of 1828. Dr. Eichardson was told to wait in the Fort till 1827, and then, after seeing that Mr. Dease was carrying out these orders, was to go back to Eugland. On the 15th of June the boats were launched, and the men appointed to their posts. Fourteen, including Augustus, accom- panied Franklin and Back in the Lion and Reliance. Two of these were Canadians, who volunteered to a man when Franklin said he wanted two to make up his number. Ten, including Ooligbuck, went with Eichardson and Kendall in the Dolphin and Union. That night there was a merry dance, and on the longest day of 1826 the ice on the lake was broken by a strong westerly breeze, and the men embarked in the evening. On the morning of the 22nd the officers left the Fort, and one old man, Pascal Cote, the fisherman, was left in charge till Mr. Dease should return from Fort Norman. He set up a hearty, though solitary cheer as they went off, and the whole party, in full chorus, responded. Bear Lake Eiver was at first found too choked by drifting ice-masses to be safely navigated, but the party 136 Sir John Franklin. reached Fort Norman on the Mackenzie River by the 25th. There, to their sorrow, they learnt that the rumour of Parry being on the coast was false, and that the Indians had merely seen some fresh cut wood and a deer slain by an arrow, -which was probably the handiwork of Esquimaux. Parting from Mr. Dease and the Canadians on the 28th, they accomplished the 312 miles from Fort Norman to Fort Good Hope by the 1st of July, and found a large party of Loucheux waiting for them. These men had quarrelled with the Esquimaux at the Red River lately, but had not come to blows. The chief said he had told these Esquimaux that Franklin was coming, but Franklin doubted his word. Moreover, he knew nothing of the channels of the Mackenzie, and of the tribes to the west of its mouth. So Franklin determined not to take the two engaged by Dease to act as guides, especially as he found they had reckoned on bringing their wives and families along with them. On hearing this the two were very violent, but after Franklin had in vain tried for a couple of hours to pacify them, he found that their disappoint- ment was assumed merely to get an additional present, which, when given, restored their good humour imme- diately. On the 3rd they reached the point where the river, broadening out, is divided into several channels, and on arriving at a branch flowing westwards towards the Rocky Mountains, Franklin determined that his part\ The Expedition Starts. 137 should here strike away alone. Eichardson was directed to make for the eastern shore of the month of the Mackenzie, survey the coast to the Coppermine Eiver, and then travel overland to the north-east arm of Bear Lake, where he w T ould find Beaulieu. But if he found that there w T as no prospect of reaching the former point by the end of August, or the latter by the 20fch of September, he was not to persevere beyond the 15th or 20th of August, but was to make his way back by the Mackenzie, or as he judged best. The point where these arrangements were made was called Point Separation ; and on the 4th of July, Franklin's party set off, at Eichardson's desire, first, amid the cheers of their friends. Augustus was very melancholy at parting from Ooligbuck, but soon recovered his spirits. Franklin could not help contrasting his former voyage in a frail bark canoe, scantily provisioned, with his present equipment — two excellent boats, manned by Englishmen, and food for three months' consumption. The crews of the two boats were as follows : — In the Lion with Franklin — William Duncan, Thos. Mathews, Gustavus Aird, George Wilson, Archibald Stewart, Neil Macdonald, and Augustus. On the Reliance with Back were Eobert Spinks, Eobert Hallom, Charles Mackenzie, Alexander Currie, Eobert Spence, Alexis Vivier, Francois Felix. CHAPTER X. franklin's second expedition (continued). Franklin's Voyage down the Mackenzie — Encounter with Esquimau* — Good Conduct of Augustus — Voyage to Return Reef — Fogs — Return to Fort Franklin. ON the 7th of July the boats gained the mouth of the Mackenzie, and Franklin discovered a number of Esquimaux on an island in it. He resolved on visiting them, accompanied only by Augustus, and told Back to keep the boats afloat, and the crews with their guns ready, but by no means to fire except as a last resort. The bay was about six miles w 7 ide, and the water shallow near the island, so that the boats touched the ground when a mile from the beach. Shouting, and making signs to the Esquimaux to come to the boats, Franklin made his men pull into deeper water. At first three and then scores of kaiyacks covered the intervening space. The three foremost received the present offered them, and on Augustus detailing the object of the visit, and the prospect of a profitable trade resulting from it, they repeated what he said to the rest, who raised a deafen- Encounter with Esquimaux. 139 ing shout of applause. A brisk exchange of goods began. From two hundred and fifty to three hundred people thronged round the boats, all eager to share in the lucrative trade. Franklin amid the din could get no intelligence about the coast, and, finding their importunity troublesome, ordered the boats' heads to be put to seaward. The Esquimaux did not thwart him ; they even shoved the Lion off when it grounded in turning. Both boats, however, were fast aground, as the tide was ebbing, and the Esquimaux said the whole bay was equally flat. Just at this moment a kaiyack was upset by one of. the Lion's oars, and its owner plunged head foremost into the mud. Out of compassion he was taken into the Lion, and Augustus wrapped him in his own greatcoat. This fellow begged for everything he saw, and was very angry at being refused. He told his friends of all the bales and untold wealth he had seen in the Lion, and some of the younger ones tried to board the boat. Franklin's flag seemed the most coveted object, so he had it furled and stowed away, but finding it very hard to keep them off, he at last admitted two chiefs, on their promising to make the rest stand aloof. Profiting by this respite, the Reliance got into deeper water, but the Lion stuck fast, and Back fastened a tow-line to her. The hero of the ducking was now discovered with a pistol under his shirt. He had stolen it from Back, and jumped out with it and 140 Sir John Franklin. Augustus' coat. By this time the water was only knee-deep, and the younger Esquimaux began slyly to steal everything within their reach. So Franklin told the two chiefs that he found himself much incom- moded by such a crowd, and that, if they would go away for the present, he would come back another time, and bring them a large present from the ship expected on the coast. They retired at once with cries of " Teyma." Franklin thought the danger was over, but was soon undeceived. They were only concerting a plan of attack, and at once began to haul the Reliance to the beach, smiling good-naturedly when Back remonstrated, and repeating the word " Teyma, teyma." To show they meant peace, they tossed their knives and arrows into the boat. The Lion tried to follow, but could not till the Esquimaux dragged her. Two of the strongest jumped in, and, seizing Franklin by the wrists, forced him to sit between them, and as he shook them off, a third stood by to catch his arm whenever he tried to lift his gun or dagger. All this time they kept patting his breast with their hands and pressing his against their breasts. As soon as the Reliance was ashore, a number drew their knives, stripped them- selves to the waist, and began a regular pillage of the boat, handing the articles to the women, who quickly conveyed them awa}^. Back's men resisted, but were overpowered by numbers. One cut the buttons from Vivier's coat, and others, nourishing knives, gazed A Critical Moment. 141 gloatingly at the anchor-buttons on Back's waistcoat. Then one young chief seated himself on his knee, and drove the others off. It was now the Lion's turn to be attacked. Franklin, with Augustus, had gone to the help of the Reliance, and Augustus, with great boldness, rushed among the crowd, reproaching them with their treachery. But Franklin was recalled to the Lion by Duncan, for there the assailants were brandishing their knives furiously, and stealing everything movable, trying in particular to carry off the box of astronomical instru- ments, till Duncan fastened it to his leg by a cord. Hitherto both sides had remained comparatively cool, in spite of the heavy blows which the Englishmen dealt with the butts of their muskets. But matters now grew more serious. The savages, boarding the Lion, tried to wrest from the seamen their daggers and shot-belts. Back sent the friendly chief to the rescue, and he released Franklin just in time to enable him to prevent Wilson from shooting a man who had tried to stab him. But his own gun was immediately made the object of the struggle, and matters were growing serious, when suddenly all the assailants ran away, and hid themselves on the beach. This sudden metamorphosis was produced by the levelled muskets of the crew of the Reliance, which Back had managed to get afloat. Then the Lion got into deep water, and when the Esquimaux were again 142 Sir John Franklin. preparing to approach in their kaiyacks, Franklin bade Augustus tell them he would shoot the first man who came within musket-range. All this time the pillagers had stolen little of value, except some kettles, blankets, shoes, sails, and a tent. They would have been given all else they had purloined if they had waited. Franklin, with his usual generosity, lavishes praise on the crews for their forbearance and coolness, which certainly they deserved ; but it is none the less evident that it was mainly owing to his own exhibition of those qualities that a catastrophe was avoided. The boats soon ran aground again, and were laid side by side. The Esquimaux proposed that Augustus should go to them and hold a conference. Franklin was at first unwilling, but, seeing the friendly chief among them, he consented. The "brave little fellow" was himself eager to go, and came back safely, after telling the Esquimaux that he could forgive their thefts from him, but not those from the white men, who were their benefactors, and had raised up his own people from indigence to comfort. Those white men would never visit them again unless they showed their sorrow by restoring the stolen goods. White men were not afraid of numbers ; it was merely out of pity that they had not used their guns, which would kill from a distance ; " and," concluded he, " I also have a gun, and if a white man had fallen, I would have been the first to have revenged his death." Bravery of Augustus. 143 Such a speech at such a moment was, as Franklin says, " a remarkable instance of personal courage." But shouts of applause greeted the orator, and his audience pleaded that they were very sorry, and really could not help stealing such tempting novelties, and would never do so again. Being told to restore the large kettle and the tent as a proof of their sincerity, they did so, and invited Augustus to a dance, at which he was present for an hour. As night came on, the Esquimaux retired. At midnight the tide flowed, and at half-past one a.m. the boats floated, and were rowed six miles along the western shore, when a gale came on, so that they had to be unloaded, and all the party, except two left on guard, lay down to sleep, after twenty-four hours of incessant anxiety and toil. They slept till eleven, and were mending the holes made in their sails by the Esquimaux knives, when suddenly Back spied the whole fleet of kaiyacks approaching. Instantly they hauled the boats through the surf, loaded them, and had just got into deep water, when the foremost paddler came within hail, holding up a kettle, which* he said, he was anxious to restore. The answer was that the kaiyacks must keep their distance, and as they still pressed on, a ball was fired over the foremost of them. On this they desisted. Subsequently, Franklin discovered the Esquimaux intentions. Till the kaiyack had been upset, they had been friendly. But their cupidity, once aroused, had 144 Sir John Franklin. excited them to pillage, and most of them wished to massacre the whole party. Some, however, demurred, and wished to spare Augustus, that he might be sent back as a sort of decoy with some specious tale to account for the loss of his companions, as otherwise no more white men would visit them. After the dance, the majority regretted being persuaded by their argu- ments, and it was determined to massacre all, without exceptioD, if a chance could be got. The kaiyack paddlers, with kettles displayed, were meant to get in liie way of the boats and occupy them till the rest could come up, and then the attack was to have been made. The boats now sailed W.N.W. along the coast, till stopped by ice adhering to the shore and stretching out to sea as far as could be seen. They had, in fact, been even then sailing up the only water-lane open, for everywhere else the sea was frozen as hard as in winter, and the ice-hummocks close to them were piled up thirty feet high. While thus jointly detained, the crews were roused from sleep by the watch reporting that Esquimaux were at hand. They were three in number, and being given presents, and harangued by Augustus, jumped for joy at what he told them. They were members of a party two miles away, and Augustus went to pay them a visit. In five hours he returned with twenty men and two women, who were not allowed to come nearer to the boats than a hundred More Esquimaux. 145 and fifty yards — a stipulation which, always after this, Franklin insisted on being rigidly observed. They shook hands with Back and Franklin, who prepared to open the conference, when Augustus begged that he might put on his gayest dress and ornaments. They were lost in astonishment at his splendour, and could attend to nothing else for half-an-hour. But at last Franklin gleaned that, as soon as an off-shore breeze blew, the ice would leave a passage for the boats, which would be clear till the reappearance of the stars— that further west the ice often stuck to the land all the summer, and even if broken away, was driven back by the first sea-wind, and sledges and dogs were therefore necessary for coast travelling. Finding that these people usually frequented the Mackenzie in the summer, Franklin considered these to be exaggerated reports. With this Esquimaux tribe Franklin had much com- munication. They had knives, which they must have got from the Kussian traders or through the Loucheux, but other articles were nearly as eagerly demanded and freely supplied to them. Some they applied to strange uses, dancing about with awls stuck into their noses, and one with a large cod-fish hook dangling there. The women put the earrings and thimbles they were given on their dresses as ornaments. They were about four feet and a-half or four feet and three-quarters high; Back sketched some of them, to their vast delight. These Esquimaux expressed themselves very strongly 146 Sir John Franklin. against the first Esquimaux. They were bad men, they said, who always quarrelled with or stole from them when they met. " If," said the speaker, " you are obliged to return by this way before these people remove, we, with a reinforcement of young men, will be in the vicinity, and will willingly accompany you to assist in repelling any attack." On the 11th, the ice having been broken by a westerly breeze, they embarked, but were forced to put back again. Heavy rain on the 12 th made the prospect more hopeful, and they launched out from land, hoping to strike across instead of following the circuit of the coast indentations. A gale rose, and drove such masses of ice on them, that for five hours they were in imminent danger, and with difficulty found a beach where they could encamp. On the 15th they were released from their prison, but could only make their way through the ice a little distance to the mouth of a river, to which Franklin gave the name of Babbage. Day after day was spent in this cheerless fashion. Now, they would be enveloped in fog, and, on its lifting, see a channel, which they entered, only to find themselves in shoal water, or ice-locked as before. Now, they would be forced to haul their boats across some projecting reef. Some- times a fine sheet of open water would be seen, and they would fancy the hardest of their toils was over. But it would turn out to be an ocular delusion, caused Dreary Work. 147 by the fog hanging over the ice. Or it might he genuine water, with seals sporting in it; hut if so, it would soon be passed, and the old dreary outlook seaward would reappear — an expanse of ice, covered with blocks and hills of all shapes and sizes. Or a sea swell would rise, and they would find themselves amid fantastic masses of ice overhanging and threatening to crush the boats as they were pulled through the waterways amid the chaos. Perhaps on turning some corner they came on a fresh batch of Esquimaux, an excitement which, however welcome at first, soon palled, as scant information could be obtained from them about the western coast, and these grown-up children had to be watched incessantly lest their pilfering instincts should lead to mischief. The chase gave the men occasionally a pleasant spell on shore, but few reindeer were shot. And the land had discomforts of its own, for there the excursionists were assailed by myriads of mosquitoes, or sank ankle-deep in the swampy ground. Nor dare they be absent from the boats for any time, lest the ice in its fickle movements should open while they were away. The anxiety of their situation left them little inclination to read, and still less to devise amusements. In this dull and monotonous way they crept gradually westwards till they reached the mouth of the river, which was called the Clarence— the most westerly river in the British dominions on this coast. Here they set up a pile of drift wood, under which they 148 Sir John Franklin, deposited a tin box, containing a royal silver medal and an account of their voyage. Then the Union Jack was hoisted and three cheers given. On the 30th the sun, which had only fitfully shone through the prevailing gloom, just revealing the picturesqueness of the sad spectral shapes which had before loomed through the mist, was visible as it set at eleven, warning them that the time for their operations was fast slipping away, though so little had been done. About the beginning of August a violent gale tem- porarily cleared away the fog and broke up the ice, which drifted fast to the west, and on the 3rd they lost sight of Mount Oonybeare for the first time since the 9th of July. Very considerable progress was made in the next forty-eight hours, and they met several parties of Esquimaux, from whom they learnt that some of their nation, inhabitants of the westward coast, were not far ahead. But on the 5th they were brought to a standstill by an unbroken line of ice from the shore. No water was to be seen in the dense pack seawards ; they had but little fuel, and the water froze in the kettle at night. They were now to the north of Flax- man Island, and on the 7th, by going to the south of it, were enabled to advance. The Lion was very leaky, though they did not stop while they could keep her free by baling. The glare of the sun made them mistake the surf breaking on a reef for a ripple of the tide, and, running aground, they shipped much water. A strong Perpettial Fog. 149 gale was now blowing, and they had some difficulty in landing, having to carry the cargo two hundred yards through shoal water, in order to lighten the boats. By midnight the leaks had been made good, but a very thick fog, with rough weather, prevented movement. Sorrowfully they noted the havoc wrought by the weather on the flowers which were blooming when they first reached the coast, but were now withered, and they longed for a decked ship, in which, with provisions secure from the waves, and able to sleep in shelter, they might sail away, regardless of the gale, straight for Icy Cape. The most depressing circumstance of this voyage must have been the incessant fog. Foggy Island was the name they gave the place of their present encamp- ment. In the murky atmosphere they sometimes sallied out to shoot deer, which took wing as they approached, and turned out to be cranes or geese. Catching a glimpse of a point along the coast in advance, they steered for it by compass through the fog. But they could find no camping-ground, and were forced to return again to the hateful island, which the men began to think enchanted. Cheery though they were, they were leading a hard life. They had been since the 8th at this island. On the 11th they were hauling the boats through mud for more than two hours, when the temperature of the air was 40°, aud of the water 41°. At night their legs were much 150 Sir John Franklin. swollen and inflamed. Franklin became alarmed lest they should be knocked up by such exposure, and resolved to wait for clearer w T eather. On a shoal coast, with drifting ice at sea which a gale may drive shpre- wards, fog is the most dangerous of enemies. This year it seemed to haunt the expedition as if it were under a spell. Three times only in 1821 had Franklin been detained by fog in his voyage from the Copper- mine River. Now, day after day, the same veil of ghostly vapour hid everything distant more than four or five miles. The cause of this difference Franklin attributes to the greater accumulations of ice on this coast, and the exhalations from it and from the swamps on shore, whereas east of the Coppermine River the coast is more high and dry. The tents had now become so saturated by the fog as to be very comfortless, and it was necessary to be economical with the fuel, so the crew had to sit with their feet in blankets in order to keep them warm. The nights, too, were lengthening. Still they persevered, and on the 16th sailed at last in sunshine from what Franklin, with one of the only two touches of spleen to which he ever gives vent in either of his narratives, calls " this detestable island," and rounded the reef which, having defied all their efforts so long, was called Point Anxiety. But their pitiless enemy closed' in on them again, and with a rising breeze the ice-drifts hemmed them in, so that in searching for a landing- Return necessary. 151 place they fell among gravelly reefs. On one of these they were forced to encamp, though there was no water, and not more than one fire's fuel, and space above water only five hundred yards in circumference. The time was now come when it was necessary to consider whether a further advance was prudent or possible. The party was just half-way from the Mac- kenzie to Icy Cape. About Icy Cape it was known from Captain Cook's voyages that the coast was of a character similar to this. A whole month had been taken up in exploring ten degrees of longitude. Ten degrees still remained to be explored. The summer was at an end. The experience of 1821 and the signs of the season now pointed to a break-up of the weather as imminent. The cold was increasing. Ice formed at night. By day the sun had less power. The geese were flying westward. Shipwreck in the summer had been considered probable enough, and only one of the hardships which it was their duty to encounter. Then they would only have had a toilsome march before them. But now, when so far from home, and when the deer were on the point of leaving the coast, it would have been fatal. Moreover, there was the clause in Frank- lin's instructions to be remembered, which ordered him to turn back, if on the 15th or 20 th of August he had no reasonable hopes of reaching Kotzebue's Inlet that season. So, in spite of the honourable ardour of the sailors, 152 Sir John Franklin. who were still eager to advance, Franklin reluctantly recognised the necessity of returning. He found subsequently, from Captain Beechey's experience, that he had been right. A boat sent by him eastwards had actually arrived at a point only 160 miles distant; and could Franklin have known this, no difficulty or danger would have deterred him from attempting to reach her. But that very boat had found the ice and the coast just as Franklin found them, and it was not till it had been beset for several days, and had narrowly escaped shipwreck, that it rejoined the Blossom. Therefore, having by this time traced the coast westward from the Mackenzie three hundred and seventy-four miles, and having named the furthest point they could see after Captain Beechey, Franklin began his homeward journey, at the spot which he designated as Eeturn Eeef, on the 18th of August. In the afternoon they were again at Foggy Island, to which " ill-omened " place a good fire and a warm meal did not reconcile them, so that they hastened to get away as soon as they had deposited coins and letters under some timber with a flag flying on it, in the hopes that some Esquimaux might find them and pass them on to the fur traders, and that so Government might have news of them if any accident befel the party. As they proceeded, they saw that before long the new ice would unite the pack ice to the shore. A gale, however, sent them along at a great speed, to the Danger ahead. 153 astonishment of the friendly Esquimaux whom they had seen during their former passage. But having to pass through a channel only two hundred yards wide in a dense fosr. while the air resounded with the voices of people whom they could not see, they were in much anxiety as well as peril, and did not discover Herschel Island, the harbourage for which they were making, till they were only forty yards from shore. The next day also it blew a gale. The boats, racing along under close- reefed sails, proved themselves very buoyant, but such a sea ran that they were in imminent danger of foundering. It was therefore necessary to steer them ashore at all hazards, though, as there were but few landing-places, it seemed likely that they would be staved in. As it was,, the surf filled them, but no material damage was done, and, feeling they had had a great deliverance, the crews thankfully reached the land. The Esquimaux had witnessed the landing with the utmost amazement, and now most good-naturedly gave help, sewing sealskin soles over the men's moccasins, to make them fit for tracking. From them too it was that Franklin learnt what the designs of the Mackenzie Esquimaux had been. The latter, he was told by another party further on, had removed eastwards, and if any had stayed behind, could be avoided by another channel being taken. On the 29th more Esquimaux were met, who communicated the alarming intelligence that an attempt had been made to drag Richardson's 154 Sir John Franklin. boats on shore, so that, as the natives collect in numbers at the mouth of the river when the summer ends, he would, if he returned the same way, be exposed to extreme danger. Anxiety for their friends, however, soon gave place to the same fears for their own safety. Two young Esquimaux came running at full speed to say that Indians had come down from the mountains, with the express purpose of assaulting the boats and massacring all in them. An old man to whom Franklin had given a knife had, out of gratitude, sent them to warn him. " These white men," he said, " have been kind to us, and they are few in number, why should we suffer them to be killed ? You are active young men ; run and tell them to depart instantly." The young men said the English had guns, and could defend them- selves. " True," said this sagacious old Esquimaux, " against a small force, but not against so large a body of Indians as this, who are likewise armed with guns, and who will crawl under cover of the drift timber, so as to surround them before they are aware." The messengers urged Franklin to embark at once, for the Indians were preparing for the onset. They said they were chiefly anxious to save Augustus, who had inspired them all, it seems, with strong affection, and they gave minute directions as to the course to be steered, advising that at night the encampment should always be made on an island out of gunshot from the shore. The Indians, it appeared, hearing of the arrival Fort Franklin again. 155 of the Englishmen, and fearing they would spoil their own trade with the Esquimaux, had come down to lie in wait for their return. Some were to have come and offered assistance in hauling the boats, which they were to have staved in, and then the assault was to have been made. It was an anxious moment, for one of the crew, Eobert Spinks, .was absent hunting. Directly he returned they set off, after liberally rewarding the kind Esquimaux, and nothing more of note happened to them, till a week later, on the 7th September, they once more arrived at Fort Good Hope. On the 21st they reached Fort Franklin, and to their extreme joy found Eichard- son and his party there alive and well. In the voyage thus happily concluded the party had travelled 2,048 statute miles, 610 of which were through previously undiscovered parts. If it lacks the thrilling interest of Franklin's first expedition, it reflected on all concerned in it the highest honour. Of perils in the sea, of perils by robbers, of perils by the heathen, of weariness and painfulness, of watchings often, there had been enough to satisfy the most exacting reader of adventures in the northern seas. But the admirable foresight shown by the leader in planning the voyage, and his wisdom in its execution, had happily rendered all those dangers less romantically impressive than they would have been if some of the crew had been butchered in bloody combat with the Esquimaux, or if starvation had carried 156 Sir John Franklin. off others in consequence of a foolhardy persistence in an impossible advance. Not really prosaic, though so substantial as to seem so, was the success of the expe- dition. For the second time Franklin had failed in accomplishing his full object ; but short of that every- thing had gone well, and it may be said that, throughout the journey, the men on whom he so generously and justly lavishes his warmest praise were not more worthy of their commander than the commander showed him- self worthy of the men. CHAPTER XL franklin's second expedition (continued). Richardson's Voyage down the Mackenzie — Encounter with Esquimaux — Richardson's opinion of Franklin — He reaches the Coppermine River and Fort Franklin — Second Winter at Fort Franklin — Dog Rib Traditions — Return to England. DR RICHARDSON and his party waited till the cheers of their friends died away round a projecting point, and then themselves embarked on their voyage. In the Dolphin were himself, Thomas Gillet, John M'Lellan, Shadrack Tj^soe, Thomas Fuller, and Oolig- buck ; in the Union, Mr. , Kendall, John M'Leary, George Munroe, William Money, John M'DufTey, and George Harkness. The direct distance from the Mackenzie to the Coppermine Eiver was, they knew, less than five hundred miles, and having provisions for upwards of eighty days, they were full of confidence and enthusiasm. Taking the channel first explored by Mackenzie, and more carefully surveyed by Franklin in the preceding autumn, they went along it about ten miles, and then struck a branch flowing eastwards through flat and 158 Sir John Franklin. uninterestiDg country, in which, 'however, flocks of sand martins made war on the mosquitoes, and enlivened the air with their twittering. On the first day they advanced forty-two miles. At night the arms were examined, and a watch was set — a practice which was kept up for the rest of the voyage. Making forty-four miles next day, they bivouacked at an Esquimaux encampment, and left some presents for its frequenters, with hieroglyphics written by Mr. Kendall, explaining the peaceable intentions of their visit. On the 7th of July they were off Richard's Island (so they named it), which stretches northwards to the very mouth of the river. Here they saw two women on the shore, who, after gazing at them in amazement for a few minutes, ran into the tents. Out rushed the men, almost naked, making furious gestures of fright and rage. Ooligbuck and Richard- son landed with some small articles, and the word " noowcerlook " — i.e., trade — acted like magic. An old woman fetched some fish, and soon a crowd came to barter, quickly becoming importunate and threatening in their looks and gestures. Ooligbuck said they were very bad people, and, taking Richardson on his back, carried him on board. One ugly fellow, with a brass thimble inserted in his under lip, seized the tea- kettle, and tried to hide it, but was forced to give it up. When the boats left the shore, the Esquimaux in their kaiyacks followed, and an amicable exchange of goods Esquimaux encountered. 159 was kept up on the way. They showed much shrewd- ness in the bargains they made, being careful not to glut the market by displaying too much of their stock- in-trade. When Ooligbuck lit his pipe they called out, " Ookah, ookah " (fire, fire), and asked to be told what he was doing. They begged Eichardson to put away an Esquimaux vocabulary when Ooligbuck told them that it spoke to him ; and afterwards the book could not be found, so probably they purloined it. Seeing Eichardson's pocket telescope, they understood its use at once, calling it " Eeteeyawgah " (far eyes), the name which they give to the eye-shades which they use. They were quite unable to pronounce the word "Doctor," and so spoke of Eichardson only as " Eheumattak " (Chief). But they could pronounce Tysoe's name easily, and called Gillet, " Hillet." The women were not bad-looking, and evidently were aware of the fact. Several other encampments were passed the same morning, and the new-comers, running their kaiyacks alongside, seized the gunwale of the boat, and tried to steal anything within their reach. The crews were compelled to keep constantly at their oars, as the moment they ceased rowing, the pilfering was carried on in the adroitest fashion. But with perfect good humour they restored every stolen article as soon as it was demanded back, laughing heartily at their own discomfiture. It was clear they were friendly, as they 160 Sir John Franklin.. answered questions readily, pointed out the deepest channels, invited the crews ashore and to their tents, offering to provide them with wives, among other luxuries, if they would pay them a visit. But, in accordance with Franklin's experience, as their cupidity became inflamed their conduct grew more equivocal. They led the way into a shallow channel, and one of them made an attempt to board the Dolphin by force. Eichardson tried the expedient of 'buying up their bows, to disarm them, and found them very superior to the Indian bows. They were made of spruce fir, strengthened by cords of reindeer skin, and really formidable weapons. Towards evening the boats, following the course taken by the savages, grounded in shoal water, and in attempting another the Union ran on a bank. The Esquimaux, who had been growing more and more urgent in their invitations to the crews to land, tried to drag the boats ashore, and Kendall called out that he should be obliged to fire, as he saw men coming with knives in their .hands to help their companions. Eichardson gave him liberty to do so, but at the sight of the firearms the savages all fled. Till the muskets were produced, they probably were doubtful as to the sex of their visitors. Among them- selves only crews of women row in large boats, and they must have thought the six-oared boats to be a species of "oomiak." They asked Ooligbuck, too, if all the white women had beards. A Welcome Breeze. 161 The place where these events occurred was named Point Encounter, and perhaps — as the natives were seen consulting together — mischief might even yet have happened, if a fresh breeze had not enabled the sails to be set, and the weary men to get some rest after fourteen hours' incessant rowing. Eichardson called out to the kaiyacks which followed him that he would trade no more. Soon the last of them dropped behind, calling out, " Teymak peechawootoo" — " Friend- ship is good." These people informed Eichardson that the Coppermine Esquimaux were bad people. White people they called " Kabloonacht." Ooligbuck was of little service as an interpreter, for he spoke no English, but his presence showed that the white people were on good terms with the Esquimaux, and personally he was devoted to his officers, and laboured cheerfully at the oar. Making for a round islet in order to encamp, the boats were nearly driven on shoals by a violent wind, and, though this danger was avoided, much discomfort was endured. Hardly had the weary men become warm, after lying down in wet clothes, when a gust of wind blew the Union from her moorings towards a surf-beaten lee shore. She was saved with difficulty, and once more they lay down to rest. Then another gust came, tore up the tent-pegs, and brought down on them the tent, saturated with rain. There was nothing for it but to get up, light a fire, and dry themselves as 162 Sir John Franklin. best they might, Kendall's mishaps, however, were not over. Stumbling against a tent-pole, he drove a small two-edged knife, which he wore round his neck, into his ribs, just over the heart. Luckily it stuck in the bone. That evening, as they lay at anchor in the cave where they had taken refuge, Kichardson saw what he supposed to be kaiyacks passing across the mouth. But it turned out that the objects were drift-wood stumps, magnified by the haze. Quitting the cave in the evening, they saw the ice-blink early on the morning of the 9th, and the ice coming down drove them to the shore, where they saw many Esquimaux huts. The rows of drift-trees, planted roots uppermost in the sand, often seemed like human beings, and some- times like the spires of a town. They learnt to make for these objects whenever they wished to land, as the Esquimaux had placed thern where the shore could be approached most safely. On the 10th the water became brackish, white whales were seen in the offing, and they saw they had reached the mouth of the river and the sea. A glass of grog, kept for this occasion, was given to each of the men. On the 11th and 12th they were constrained to inaction by the weather. They found some amusement ia watching the sagacity of two black foxes, which, having stolen some scraps of meat, buried them in the- sand, putting each bit in a separate hole, and the More Esquimaux, 163 largest bits in the holes farthest from the sea. They also met some more Esquimaux, who welcomed them, and invited them to their tents. Declining this, they rowed along the coast till stopped by the rain, and when they again set out were beset by a thick fog, amid which they could hear the sound of breakers, while seeing nothing. They did not know how far from the beach they were, but, coming on a long line of seaweed, and guessing that it came from the mouth of a river, they groped their way into an inlet, where they stayed for the night. Making, next day, thirty and a-half miles, they saw to their delight, on the 16th, that the coast which had hitherto inclined northward trended to the south-east. But, after pulling to a point across an inlet, they found it to be part of an island, and that the coast trended north-north-west seven or eight miles further on. To the south-west a large sheet of open water was seen, which they concluded was Esquimaux Lake. On the 17th they rounded Cape Maitland, and, crossing Harrowby Bay on the 18th, came upon some Esquimaux. The men brandished their knives, and forbade thern to land. To all protestations of friend- ship they replied by hideous grimaces and contortions, standing on one leg, with the other thrown up to their heads. "Noowserlawgo" (I wish to barter) quieted them, and the women were made supremely happy by some trifling presents, dancing in their boats with such 164 Sir John Franklin. ecstasy as almost to upset them. One old woman, catching a bundle of beads, hugged it with rapture to her breast ; another, who had missed the treasure, was the picture of despair. Being told that the beads were for all, they divided them at once and sang a pleasant song of gratitude. In coaxing fashion they drew their naked children out of their boots, where they carry them, and begged for more beads. When Ooligbuck — first warning theni of what he was going to do — fired his gun, the ice sent back an echo, and they thought the ball had struck the shore a mile away. Eichardson learnt from them that, between some land northwards and the main land, there was a passage leading to the sea. He concluded, from their accounts and his own observations, that the archipelago through which he had been threading his way thus far had been raised by the Mackenzie Eiver, and that, owing to the islands acting as a barrier between the sea and the river, the waters of the latter, overflowing the low land along the coast, had formed the great Esquimaux Lake, which the natives described as extending 140 miles from north to south, and 150 from east to west. After Cape Bathurst had been doubled, the coast seemed to trend straight for the Coppermine Eiver. In stormy weather, and harassed much by fogs, they sailed past some cliffs of bituminous shale, which was on fire, and, when they had got about half-way to the Coppermine Eiver, were disappointed to find Richardson on Franklin. 1C5 another cape confronting them. Steering northwards, therefore, they were for three days in a bay, to which Richardson gave the name of Franklin. These are the comments he makes on the occasion : — " It would not be proper, nor is it my intention, to descant on the professional merits of my superior officer; but after having served under Captain Franklin, for nearly seven years, in two successive voyages of discovery, I may be allowed to say that, however high his brother officers may rate his courage and talents, either in the ordinary line of his professional duty or in the field of discovery, the hold he acquires upon the affections of those under his command, by a continued series of the most con- ciliating attentions to their feelings and a uniform and unremitting regard to their best interests, is most con- spicuous. I feel that the sentiments of my friends and companions, Captain Back and Lieutenant Kendall, are in unison with my own, when I affirm that gratitude and attachment to our late commanding officer will animate our breasts to the latest period of our lives." Tiie cape, when reached, was named after Parry, and a letter for him was deposited under a cairn of stones. For days afterwards the party struggled through ice, which, though it was never seen by them so closely packed as to be impenetrable to a ship under full sail, was yet daugerous for boats like theirs, as at one time it would threaten to crush them, and at another to upset them when it "calfed," that is to say, when it 166 Sir John Franklin. broke off at the base of a big piece and suddenly came up above the surface. Tiresome progress it must have been to press through such obstacles, never knowing but that the coast-line might prove to be a bay, and that the Coppermine Eiver might at any time be as far off, as the crow flies, as it had been days before. Such a sensation they had on the 4th of August, when, sighting land to the north, they at first thought it to be part of the continent But they were rejoiced to find a strait between it and the mainland, which they christened Dolphin and Union Strait. The northward land they saw was named Wollaston Land; and why this — which has since turned out to be an island — should now be known by other names it is hard to say. On modern maps it is called Prince Albert Land and Victoria Land, but surely the name given by the first explorers should have been respected. In high spirits at having passed through this strait, and with a fair wind under which the boats gaily bowled along, they doubled Cape Bexley, whence the coast trended steadily south-east. On the 6th the Dolphin was nipped between a floe and some ground .ice, and one of her timbers was broken. On the 7th they entered Coronation Gulf, thus connecting the dis- coveries of their voyage with those of Franklin in 1821. They could not, however, claim the Government reward of £5,000, because, though it was offered for the dis- covery of the space covered by them, yet the course The Coppermine River. 167 prescribed was from west to east, and for ships, not boats. On the 8th a bold cape was reached, which Richardson named after Kendall, and from its summit be had the satisfaction of pointing out to that officer the gap in the hills at Bloody Fall through which the Coppermine River flows. For fear of raising hopes which might be long deferred, he had till then given the men no intimation that they had so nearly reached the end of their voyage. Surprise of course increased their delight, and with glad and thankful hearts, under sails set to a fine breeze, and with the oars at work also, they steered for the mouth of the river, passing a bay which was named after the gallant Back. Then the river's mouth was reached, and they encamped not a hundred yards from where Franklin had encamped in 1821. The distance traversed from Point Separation, where they had parted from Franklin, to this spot, was 902 statute miles. On the 9th of August, the river was ascended about eleven miles to Bloody Fall. There the trusty boats were abandoned, and the party headed for Bear Lake, the instruments, food, and specimens being divided among them at the rate of seventy-two pounds per man. They also carried with them the little Walnut Shell ; but as it proved unfit for towing purposes, and there were no rivers which could not be forded between them and Bear Lake, it also was abandoned on the 10th. As the men got used to marching, and their 168 Sir John Franklin. loads were lessened by their own appetites, they advanced more rapidly, killing on their way with stones some partridges as tame apparently as English pheasants. On the loth they met Indians, who at first showed suspicion, but on recognising Richardson's dress, which he had worn during his voyage on Bear Lake the preceding autumn, they welcomed him with shouts of joy. It seemed they had been for some time hunting in the neighbourhood, in view of this meeting. They conducted the party to a better route for walking, and on the 18th a bay of the Great Bear Lake was reached, where they breakfasted, and found that they had provisions for two days' consumption left. The question now arose, where was Beaulieu ? He had been ordered to leave Fort Franklin on the 6th of August, and should have been in waiting instead of waited for. Day after day passed, and still he did not come, and, fearing some accident must have happened, Richardson began to think they would be forced to go on foot to the Fort round the lake, that is to say, over 300 miles. It would take at least three weeks, and the men's shoes were worn out, their clothes were too thin for the frosty nights of September, and few deer could be found on the way. The prospect was alarming, but he had made up his mind to start, when on the 24th the truant at last appeared, pleading stress of weather as the cause of his delay. On the 1st of September the party regained Fort Franklin, after a journey by Winter Occupations. 109 water and land of 1,980 statute miles, during which not a murmur had been heard from one of its members, amid many toils and hardships. How to spend the winter was now the only question which Franklin had to consider, for the main objects of the expedition had been attained. Unfortunately, the chances of famine were by no means remote. The lazy Fort hunters and Dog Bibs had stored but little meat, alleging that they were afraid of encountering the Gopper Indians in the woods. Beaulieu, too, the best hunter, procured his discharge, and though he took away with him seventeen idle followers, which was a great relief to the stores, his loss would have been grievously felt at a pinch. Every effort was made to collect fish; but when it became out of season, it disagreed with some of the men so much as to produce serious debility. The poor dogs also necessarily went on short commons, and would be unable to draw the sledges in spring until their strength was recruited. The outlook was not therefore very bright. But the arrival of a large packet of letters from England, containing the news of Back's promotion to the rank of Commander, cheered everyone ; and though the cold at times was so severe that on one occasion Kendall froze some mercury in a bullet-mould, and at six paces penetrated a door with it an eighth of an inch, yet they got through the dark months without any severe privations. The same efforts as before were made by the officers to instruct 170 Sir John Franklin. and amuse the men, who responded as heartily to them. Back came out in a new character, writ- ing a comic piece, which was acted by pasteboard marionettes, and had a successful run of three nights. The reindeer arrived in February, and after that there was no lack of meat. Franklin, meanwhile, had determined to set out as soon as possible for England, going by the ice to Fort Chipewyan, and making arrangements in advance for the provisioning of the main body on their homeward journey. Hearing the ice was in bad condition, he changed his route, and set out for Fort Simpson, by way of the woods, on the 20th of February, 1827. Augustus was sent ahead, and, as the dogs were too weak for service, two Indians were engaged as porters. Back was left behind, with orders to proceed to York Factory as soon as the ice broke, and thence with his countrymen by the Hudson's Bay ship to England, sending the Canadians to Montreal, and Augustus and Ooligbuck to Fort Churchill. Three hearty cheers from his friends as he left the Fort renewed Franklin's "regret at leaving a society whose members had endeared themselves to him by unremitting attention to their duties and the greatest personal kindness." On the second day the two Indians deserted with their load of pemmican, so men and dogs had to be put on short allowance. On the Bth of March they reached Fort Simpson, after Indian Instinct, 171 travelling 220 miles. The Indian, their guide, had never been there before, but would have come straight to the Fort if he had followed his own instinct, instead of an Indian track which they came across by the way. Once, many years before the Fort was built, he had been in that district, and had noticed a mountain in the vicinity, but had nothing else to steer by. Such extraordinary aptitude for storing up in the mind points of topography, which necessity must have made a second nature, may perhaps throw some light on what has often been the subject of controversy, namely, how pigeons find their way home when sent back at a distance from it. On the 21st, Little Lake was reached, and two Cana- dians were met, with a packet of letters for Fort Franklin. In spite of the piercing cold, Franklin spent the night most agreeably in scanning, before forwarding, the contents. On the 26th he reached Fort Resolution, where he was again received most hospitably by Mr. Mc Vicar, who had so kindly attended to the survivors of his first expedition after their sufferings. Richardson had left this place in December, having gone to join the naturalist, Drummond, on the Saskatchawan. After a stay of eight days, Franklin set out for Fort Chipewyan, which he reached on the 12th of April, and was rejoiced to find that many changes for the better had taken place in the habits of the Indians, and their relations with the Company. His naturally humane disposition had been 172 Sir John Franklin. specially interested in these poor people by his constant contact with them during the greater part of seven years. The Company no longer imported spirits into this department, did not encourage loitering round the Fort, but stimulated activity in hunting by distribution of clothes, and had ordered the ground in the imme- diate vicinity of their establishment to be cultivated wherever it was practicable. Franklin relates some curious facts about the Dog Eib traditions and history. The first man was, accord- ing to them, called Chapewee. He created children, and gave to them two kinds of fruit, the black and the white, of which they were only to eat the white. Then he went away to bring the sun to the world, and while he was gone they obeyed him, and ate only the white. But when he went to fetch the moon, they had no white fruit left, and ate the black. For this, Chapewee told them the earth should produce only bad fruits. He lived so long that his throat was worn out, and, though he was sick of life, could not die, till one of his people drove a beaver's tooth into his head. This same, or another Chapewee, lived on a strait between two seas. He caught so many fish at the weir he had built, that the strait was choked up, and the earth was flooded. He took all his family with him in a canoe, with all manner of birds and beasts. As the waters did not sink, he said, " We cannot always live thus," and he sent a beaver to search for the earth. Indian Traditions. 173 The beaver was drowned, so he sent a musk rat next, which, after a long time, brought back a little earth in its paws. The rat he warmed in his bosom till it revived. The earth he moulded with his fingers and laid on the water, where it swelled to an island. He put a wolf on it first, but its weight nearly made the island topple over, so he told the wolf to walk round and round the earth for a year, by the end of which time the land supported all the occupants of the canoe. He planted a fir-tree, which grew up to the skies, whither Chape wee also climbed in chasing a squirrel. He came on a large plain, in which he set a snare for the squirrel, made of his sister's hair. At noon the sun was caught in the snare, and darkness came over the earth. Chapewee's family complained of this, and said he must have committed some sin when he was up in the sky. He confessed that he had, but unintention- ally, and sent animal after animal to cut the snare, but each was burnt up by the heat of the sun, till a mole, by burrowing under the road in the sky, reached the snare and released the sun. It lost its eyes, how- ever, directly it looked up, and its nose and teeth have ever since then been brown. Chapewee's descendants quarrelled, and a -dispersion of mankind took place. One Indian took up his station at a lake, having with him a bitch big with young. When the pups were born, he tied them up before he went out fishing. On returning, he several times 174 Sir John Franklin. heard the voices of children in his hut, but, on entering, only found the puppies. He determined to watch, and one day concealed himself instead of going fishing. The moment he heard the voices, he rushed in, and found children playing, with the puppy- skins lying by them. He threw the skins into the fire, and those children were the ancestors of the Dcg Eibs. So much for their traditions, which, it will be seen, bear a curious analogy to those of other nations. Lately there had been a strange belief among the Northern tribes that a great change was about to take place in their condition — a belief originating with a sort of Indian Joan of Arc. This woman — the wife of one of the North-West Company's Canadian servants — resolved to become a warrior. Procuring a gun, a bow and arrows, and a horse, she displayed such bravery that many young men followed her, and she became the chief leader of the tribe, and was styled the " Manlike Woman." Her exploits caused her to be credited with supernatural power, and she spread the above- mentioned prediction, which, as often happens in such cases, had a tendency to fulfil itself. This heroine, among other feats, undertook to convey a packet from one to another of the Company's posts, through a tract of country not traversed by the traders, and infested by hostile tribes. Though wounded, she carried the packet, and brought back the answer. Subsequently Good-bye to Augustus. 175 she was mortally wounded in a war-raid, and her story fell into discredit. It was in collecting these curious details of savage life that Franklin spent part of the seven weeks he stayed at Fort Chipewyan. Augustus, in order to see Dr. Eichardson, again set out on the 26th of May. Franklin followed on the 31st, and caught up Eichard- son at Cumberland House on the 18fch of June, after a separation of eleven months. By him he was told of the zeal shown by Drummond, the assistant naturalist to the expedition, who, in collecting specimens of natural history in the Eocky Moun- tains, had undergone much suffering, but had amassed 1,500 species of plants, 150 birds, 50 quadrupeds, and a number of insects. . At Norway House the parting from Augustus took place. That staunch little Esquimaux shed tears — a sign of emotion very unusual in those of his race — and the grief and affection he showed were fully recipro- cated by the officers. He begged to be informed if another expedition should be sent out, promising for himself and Ooligbuck to quit, at any time, family and home in order to follow any of their present leaders wherever they might be going. The Hudson's Bay Company undertook to disburse annually to them the Government pay for their services. Poor Augustus, however, did not live long to enjoy it. His fate was a melancholy one. When Back was himself in great 176 Sir John Franklin, straits, it added much to his grief to hear that his old and faithful friend, who had been on his way to join him in his exploration of the Great Fish Eiver, had perished by starvation. That was in 1834. Faithful unto death, he was true to the promise he had made seven years before. Eichardson and Franklin reached Liverpool on the 1st of September, 1827, having come by Lake Champlain and New York, where they were shown the utmost kindness, after an absence of two years and seven and a-half months. Back, Kendall, Drummond, and the rest, with two exceptions, arrived at Portsmouth on the 10th of October. Those two exceptions were Stewart, who had died of consumption, and Aird, who was drowned in the Slave Eiver, while he was striving to save the boat when it was being carried down a fall. It was a sad termination to this otherwise fortunate expedition, and to the lives of two good men and true, who were mourned alike by officers and men. All the survivors who had been in the King's service received promotion. The result of this second expedition was that it had left only fifty leagues of coast unsurveyed, from Point Turnagain to Icy Cape. In 1837, Messrs. Dease and Simpson completed the survey from Icy Cape to Eeturn Eeef. In 1834, Back discovered the source of, and de- scended, the Great Fish Eiver, now called by his name, but failed to reach Point Turnagain from its mouth Completion of Coast Survey, 177 In 1838, Messrs. Dease and Simpson went beyond the Coppermine Eiver, but failed to reach Back's Eiver. Next year, however, by marvellous perseverance, they not only reached Back's Eiver, but sailed round the peninsula of Adelaide, and sighted a part of Boothia. Lastly, in 1845-47, Dr. Eae explored the peninsula of Boothia. And so the whole coast was mapped out in a little less than eighty years by the gradual discoveries of these hardy travellers, of whom Franklin was the chief pioneer. CHAPTER XII. FBANKLIN IN TASMANIA. Honours conferred on Franklin — His Second Marriage— Appointed Governor of Tasmania— His Letter thence — His and his Wife's Beneficence — Return Home. FKANKLIN had now added to the maps of North America a coast-line of more than 1,200 miles, and he was rewarded with honours both at home and abroad. He was knighted in 1829. The University of Oxford conferred on him the degree of D.C.L. The Geographical Society of Paris awarded him its gold medal, as having made the most important geographical discovery of the year, and elected him Foreign Corres- pondent. Later, in 1846, he was elected Correspondent of the Institute of France in the Academy of Sciences. But the pecuniary reward of £5,000, which had been offered for the successful navigation of that part of the sea which had been traversed by his men, was withheld, on the plea, as we have seen, that it had been performed in boats and not in a ship. Surely a shabbier evasion was never used to effect a more pitiful piece of economy. In 1828, the Secretary of the Admiralty carried a bill Franklin s Marriage, 179 abolishing the reward offered, on the ground that the object had been achieved. On the 5th of November, 1828, Franklin married, as his second wife, Jane Griffen, daughter of a man of fortune, and on her mother's side descended from one of the Huguenot families which had fled to England at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Never was man more fortunate in his marriages than he. His first wife devoted her dying hours to his fame ; his second wife consecrated her whole life to his memory. In 1832 he was appointed to the command of the frigate Bainbovj, on the Mediterranean station. The comfort which her officers and crew enjoyed soon became proverbial in the squadron, and the sailors, with their usual knack at playing on words, christened her the Celestial Rainbow, and the Paradise of Franklin. In acknowledgment of his services in the war of Liberation, especially off Patras, King Otho gave him the Cross of the Eedeemer, and on his return to England in 1834 he was made Knight Commander of the Guelphic Order of Hanover. When he set out for the Mediterranean his wife followed him. But as, accord- ing to the rules of the service, she could not remain on board a ship commanded by her husband, she travelled with some friends in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, only rejoining Sir John in places where he was stationed for some time. She had been familiarised with travelling before her marriage, having visited the various countries 180 Sir John Franklin. of Europe in company with her father, who was a great connoisseur. The governorship of Antigua was offered to Franklin in 1836 by Lord Glenelg. This he refused; but he accepted the same position in the more important colony of Van Diemen's Land, or Tasmania, on condition that, if war broke out, he might resign it if he were offered the command of a ship. So much more did he value the chance of distinction in his profession, than the increased income to be obtained in the Civil Service. But either in war or peace, among civilised men or savages, his energetic practical mind was sure not to be idle. The same humane sagacity with which he had sought to ameliorate the condition of the Indians of North America was apparent in his new office. Quarter-deck despotism might seem a bad preparative for a civil magistrate's duties; but what had won for Franklin the affection of Back and Bichardson and others, was his habitual consideration for his subordi- nates. During the seven years of his stay, Franklin gained the esteem and attachment of the colonists by his unaffected cordiality and conciliatory spirit, as much as by his justice, his strict impartiality, and his enlightened devotion to their interests; thus fully justifying the anticipations of Dr. Arnold, who looked on his appointment as inaugurating a new era in Colonial administration, and said how delighted he himself should have been if circumstances had called Work in Tasmania. 181 him to co-operate with such a man in organising an educational system for the young country. One of his most popular measures, which was soon imitated in the older colony of New South Wales, was to throw open to the public the Legislative Council, which, with the Executive Council, assisted the Lieutenant-General in his duties. Equally popular was his support of a petition sent by the Tasmanians to the mother country, in which they asked for a representative Government. He came to the colony at a critical time, and at once found his hands full of work which to many men would have been distasteful in the extreme. The year of his arrival saw the beginning of an emigration from Van Diemen's Land to the adjacent coast of the Australian Continent, which rapidly developed into the nucleus of the magnificent colony of Victoria. He found in Van Diemen's Land a community in which the convict element largely preponderated, under a system which, though suited to the earlier life of the colony, proved disadvantageous to bond and free when its numbers had increased. He gradually intro- duced modifications, but within the last year of his government the system was entirely re-modelled, partly in accordance with his own carefully considered sugges- tions, partly by orders from home, to meet the heavy strain imposed upon the colony by making it the sole receptacle for the felons of the United Kingdom. To Franklin's large and noble nature it was a labour of 182 Sir John Franklin. love to give these outcasts a chance of again becoming good citizens, and he never lost sight of the obligation to unite the moral discipline of the convict with the unflinching coercion imposed by law. He used his position, in short, as one " Who, doomed to go in company with Pain, And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train ! Turns his necessity to glorious gain ; In face of these doth exercise a power Which is our human nature's highest dower ; Controls them, and subdues, transmutes, bereaves Of their bad influence, and their good receives." In all his efforts on behalf of the female prisoner population he was zealously assisted by his wife, whose correspondence with Mrs. Fry was placed before the Colonial Minister, and is quoted in despatches from the Colonial Office. With equal solicitude she aided his efforts in behalf of the non-criminal portion of the community, to whom the new influx of convicts must have been a serious grievance. She employed a portion of her property in buying land on the banks of the beautiful Eiver Huon, which rolls its waters into Entrecasteaux Channel. On this land she placed tenants at a nominal rent, with the power of purchase, her object being to encourage and reward the industrious emigrant ; and to this small settlement one of the most flourishing districts of Tasmania owes its origin. To these beneficent measures His Activity. 183 it was probably owing that during Franklin's tenure of office there was no organised opposition to the new transportation law. In acknowledgment of the zeal with which he faced the increased labour which these circumstances entailed, the Colonial Legislature offered to increase his salary to £4,000. He thought it right to decline this for himself, but for his successors he represented to the British Government that, in con- sideration of the expense entailed by this office, the pay was insufficient. Since then, the salary has been raised to £4,000, and other advantages are attached to the post. The following letter vividly describes the activity and anxieties of this period of his life : — Govt. House, Hobart Town, 22nd June, 1837. My Dear Sir, If I had not been overpressed with business your kind letter should not have remained so long unanswered, and now the opportunity of writing has come upon me so unexpectedly, that I have no time to arrange my ideas sufficiently to write you a connected letter. There are, how- ever, but few subjects of daily occurrence at this place which could interest a person at a distance, though they are of all-engrossing importance to the parties on the spot. The questions of titles to estates being good or not, the settling of disputed boundaries of land, the making of roads and bridges in the retired disticts, and the endeavouring to adjust the conflicting struggles of the parties as to the line of these roads, are matters of daily occurrence ; and when to 184 Sir John Franklin. this is added the general supervision over convicts and prison discipline, and that every trial, whether in the Supreme Court at Quarters Sessions or before the Police Magistrates, must be referred to me before the sentence is carried into execution, you will conceive I have enough to do. These duties are all in addition to the ordinary matters of the Government. One i;rain of ideas is so quickly dis- placed by another that I often wonder that confusion is not the result, yet everything goes on smoothly as yet. The system established by my predecessor, though not entirely unexceptionable, is yet so good that there is a far greater security of life and property here, and more external decorum in the streets, than in any other large town inEngiand. At first landing, everybody feels a kind of involuntary shudder cross him at the idea that he is surrounded by so many persons who have forfeited their liberty on account of crime, but this gradually wears away, and you learn to look on that class of men 'in the light of ordinary labourers, except they be in gangs under punishment, and clothed in yellow or a marked dress. After a certain period, if their conduct has been good, they receive a ticket-of-leave, which enables them to work for themselves and acquire property, but they have to reside in a certain district, and conform to certain regu- lations, such as being within doors after a given hour, to attend weekly muster and the church on a Sunday, if there be one near. I have been fancying your brother may be sent here in the Rose. We shall be very glad to see him, and offer him a bed, if he prefers putting up on shore during his stay. The ships, however, lie close to the wharf. I hope you will kindly write to me, and let me know any Dr. Arnold's Help. 185 news you can pick up. Lady Franklin begs me to give her kind regards to you and your father. Ever, my dear sir, very truly yours, John Franklin. John Barrow, Esq., Admiralty. While mainly occupied by such duties, Franklin did not neglect the interests of science. Among the useful institutions which owed their origin to him may be mentioned a college, endowed partly out of his own purse, to which were admitted all youths who had passed a certain examination, without reference to what religious sect they belonged. At his request Dr. Arnold undertook the responsibility of selecting the first head of this institution. His choice fell upon a favourite pupil, the Eev. J. P. Gell, who afterwards became Franklin's son-in-law. But the liberal spirit of the founder found little favour in the eyes of various religious bodies, and when he had left the colony the college passed into the hands of the Church of England, though free admission was accorded to members of other persuasions. Towards the end of 1838, a scientific society, called the Tasmanian Society, was founded by Franklin at Hobart Town, the object of which was to treat of every- thing appertaining to the natural history, agriculture, and statistics of the colony. The meetings were held at Government House, and it was at his expense that the papers contributed by its members were published 186 Sir John Franklin. at the Government Printing Press. Four years later, on the 16th of March, 1842, the first stone of an edifice destined to contain collections of natural history was laid by him, and under it a parchment with a commemorative inscription in English, French, German, Italian, Greek, and Latin. This building, which was completed at his expense, was called the Tasmanian Museum. Wishing to pay homage to the memory of Captain Flinders, under whom he had served, for his discovery of a part of New Holland, he, in 1839, at his own cost, raised to the memory of that seaman a beautiful granite obelisk in South Australia, with the co-operation of the Government there. Placed on the top of a hill a thousand or fifteen hundred feet high, this obelisk serves as a landmark for sailors. In 1840, a magnetic observatory, founded at Hobart Town in connection with the principal estab- lishment which Lieutenant-Colonel Sabine superin- tended at Woolwich, became the object of his constant care. Lady Franklin, who had accompanied her husband to Tasmania, actively seconded him in all his beneficent projects, and contributed to the popularity of his name, sharing all his interests, and identifying herself with his labours. They had, in fact, only one common thought, how they could co-operate in every possible way in promoting the welfare of their fellow-colonists. In Tasmania there were three kinds of snakes whose Lady Frank tins Beneficence. 187 bite was fatal. In order to diminish their number, Lady Franklin put a price of a shilling a head on them, which she defrayed out of her own purse. So many were brought in in a few months, that she found that the expense would reach several hundred pounds a-yeaf. She was therefore obliged to reduce the head- money, first to sixpence and then to threepence. Finally, she was forced — not without regret — to abandon the project, being informed by the Colonial magistrates that it made numbers of the employed quit their work in order to gain the head-money and spend their time in hunting the serpents. Lady Franklin also, as mentioned already, bought large consignments of land, in which she established settlers, paying all their first expenses, and supplying them with implements for work, on such terms that, at the end of three years, some of them had repaid her all their debt, and blessed the name of their benefactress for the comfort they had attained. In 1850 she went to spend some time in Shetland, and occupied herself in recruiting emigrants for Van Die men's Land, where most of them — who at home were almost starving — had the chance of becoming in a short time, if they were only industrious and respectable, well-to-do farmers. Tasmania was the place where most of the expedi- tions of discovery in the Antarctic regions refitted. This gave Franklin the welcome opportunity of receiv- ing some of the most distinguished sailors of France 188 Sir John Franklin and England. Among the most celebrated of them were Dumont d'Urville, doomed to so melancholy a death ; Jacquinot, his second in command ; Sir James Clark Boss, then commanding the Antarctic expedition of the Erebus and Terror, which afterwards became names of sorrowful import throughout the whole civilised world; and the captains of the surveying ships in those seas — Wickham, Harding, Owen, Stanley, Stokes, and Blackwood. To each and all he gave a generous welcome, and to a man of his tastes and experiences no society could have been more pleasant. But the first and only cloud which seems to have marred the serenity of a public life singularly happy and useful was now at hand. It could not be expected that a colony could be ruled without there being some opposition to the ruler. Disinterestedness and unflinching integrity secure respect, but not always acquiescence, and Franklin had his share of difficulty. Local interests, which had bound individuals together, seemed to him in some instances to interfere with the public good, and he considered that changes were requisite, even in the higher departments of the Government service. Having arrived at this con- clusion, he was not the man to shrink from the responsibility of carrying it out. Till then he had, by prudence and conciliation, steered his way success- fully through accumulating embarrassments. But, though gentle, he was firm, and not to be made the Franklin leaves Tasmania. 189 cat's-paw of any individual or Government, and the time had come when he found it necessary resolutely to take his stand with reference to matters on which he and the Colonial Secretary were at variance. Were it not foreign to the purpose of this book to revive forgotten heart-burnings, it might be shown how little it was to the credit of those concerned that Franklin left the colony under the ban of official disapproval. And if his reputation needed vindication, the facts should, in any case, be related in full. But even at the time it never suffered. Those who knew best what had been going on, and for whom he had worked so long, so wisely, and so well, expressed their appreciation of the state of the case with an emphasis which makes further allusion to it superfluous. Before he left the colony, addresses poured in to him from every district ; and when he left it, the largest crowd ever, till then, seen on those shores "accompanied him to the ship." At the head of it walked the new Bishop of Tasmania and the new Colonial Secretary, and it contained a large majority of the people of Hobart Town, and representatives from the farthest parts of the island. Franklin walked to the pier amid their acclamations and blessings. Nine years afterwards, when Lady Franklin was appealing for funds to pro- secute the search for her lost husband, the Tasmanians showed that time had not weakened their sense of his worth by sending her, as their contribution, £1,700. CHAPTER XIII. franklin's last expedition. Anecdotes of Parry, Franklin, and Brougham — Instructions for another Polar Expedition — The Erebus and Terror — Fitzjames — Last sight of the two Ships — Kewards offered for their Relief "by Government — Their Track in 1845 — Cornwallis Island circum- navigated — Winter at Beechey Island — Deaths of Braine, Hartnell, and Torrington — Failure of Pemmican — Departure from Beechey Island in 1846 — Victoria Strait entered — Winter in the Pack — Gore's Visit to King William's Island in 1847— Death of Franklin— Slow- Drift down Victoria Strait — Second Winter in the Pack — The Ships abandoned — Rae's news of the Fate of the Expedition — M'Clintock's Discovery of the Record at Point Victory — Esquimaux Accounts — Conjectures as to what had happened — Geographical results of the Franklin era — Franklin's Character. FEANKLIN embarked on his voyage home from the young city of Melbourne, and thus secured the opportunity for revisiting places on the shores of the vast bay of Port Philip, on which, as a midshipman, he had landed with Flinders. He had been only a few months at home when Sir John Barrow sent to the Admiralty proposals for a new expedition to effect the discovery of the North- West Passage. His scheme was adopted, and, to Franklin's intense satisfaction, the command was offered to him. Lord Haddington (then First Lord Some Anecdotes. 191 of the Admiralty), conversing, a few days before the offer was made, with Sir Edward Parry, whom he had icalled into consultation, said to him, as he cast a glance down the Navy List, " I see Franklin is sixty years old. Ought we to let him go ?" " My lord," answered Parry, " he is the best man for the post I know, and if you don't let him go, he will, I am certain, die of disappoint- ment." Afterwards, at an interview with Franklin himself, the First Lord made some similar speech, and added, " You might be content with your laurels, after having done so much for your country." With the vivacity of sixteen rather than sixty, Franklin responded, " My lord, I am only fifty-nine !" Lord Brougham made as accurate a diagnosis of his spirit as Parry. Meeting Sir John Herschel in the street, in the spring of 1845, he asked if it was true that Franklin was going in command of the expedition, and, on Herschel saying it was perfectly true, remarked, " Arctic work gets into the blood of these men. They can't help going again if they get a chance." In the instructions given to Franklin by the Ad- miralty, he was told that, though the main object of the expedition was to be the discovery of a passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, he was to neglect no opportunity of making scientific obser- vations, and collecting information on geography and terrestrial magnetism. The expedition was to consist of two vessels — the Erebus and the Terror — which were 192 Sir John Franklin. to be accompanied as far as Baffin's Bay by a transport ship — the Barreto Junior — which was to carry out supplies of clothes, provisions, and coal, so far. Frank- lin was told to make for Davis' Straits and Baffin's Bay, then to deflect westward, through Lancaster and Bar- row Straits, to Cape Walker, a point on Bussel Island. He would then be in about latitude 74J° K, and longi- tude 98° W. ; and, instead of attempting to find a passage along the south of Melville Island, as Parry had done, he was to strike southward and westward in a course as direct for Bering's Straits as the position of the ice and land as yet unknown should allow. If he found all progress in this direction impossible, he was to sail northwards, and attempt to pass between North Devon and Cornwallis Islands. Such were his general instructions. In carrying them out, much was left to his discretion. The Erebus and Terror had already been in the Arctic and Antarctic Seas for seven winters, and were considered especially adapted for the service. The crew of the Erebus con- sisted of seventy men, including the captain and officers, and that of the Terror of sixty-eight men. The latter was commanded by Captain Crozier, who had served under Parry and Ross. Second in command to Franklin himself on the Erebus was Fitzjames, specially charged with the supervision of the magnetic researches that were contemplated. Well officered, well manned, and well victualled, the expedition sailed A Prosperous Start. 193 from Greenhithe on the 19th of May, 1845, and reached Whale Fish Islands, near Disco, in Greenland, on the 4th of July. From this place the Barreto Junior, having unloaded its stores, returned to England with the last despatch which the Admiralty ever received from Franklin. He was in high spirits and full of hope. "The ships," he wrote on the 12th of July, " are now complete with supplies of every kind for three years ; they are therefore very deep, but happily we have no reason to expect much sea as we proceed further." His enthusiasm was shared to the full by his officers and men. Fitzjames wrote to Sir John Barrow's son that Franklin was a delightful captain to serve under, full of energy, activity, and sound judgment, and with a wonderful memory. There seemed to be no falling off in his old powers. His conversation was as attractive as it was instructive, and enlivened by interesting stories of his previous voyages. By his extreme thoughtfulness and kindness he had won the affections of all under his command, and impressed Fitz- james with the conviction that, for an expedition where good sense and perseverance were the chief requisitxes, no better commander could have been found anywhere than his captain, with whom he had already learnt much, and under whom he was delighted to serve. Another of the officers, Lieutenant Fairholme, wrote home by the same ship in a similar strain, saying he 194 Sir John Franklin, should not know how to tell his friend how much everyone liked the captain, who had gained not only the respect but the attachment of all on board. It was the old story over again. As Franklin had by his gentle demeanour so impressed the natives of North America that he was long remembered by them as " the Great Chief who would not kill a mosquito/' so even in this short space of time he had managed to endear himself to all his associates. " Sir John," Lieutenant Fairholme went on, "is in much better health than when we left home, and really looks ten years younger. He takes an active part in everything that goes on, and his long experience in such services makes him a most valuable adviser." Such were the sentiments of mutual goodwill with which the last letters from the doomed crews which ever reached England were filled. On the 26th of July, the Prince of Wales, a whaling vessel, saw the Erebus and Terror awaiting in Melville Bay a favour- able opportunity for crossing the "middle ice," and the captain was invited to dine with Franklin. But a breeze springing up, the ships parted company, and from that day to this were never more seen by civilised men. It was as if some great fog had lifted for a moment, only to envelope ships and crews again and for ever in its dumb, dark folds. Two years passed by, and nothing was heard of the expedition. But little or no anxiety was felt as to its fate. Sir John Ross did TJie First Alarm. 195 indeed write to "the Admiralty a year and a-half later, suggesting that the ships were frozen up at the western end of Melville Island, but there were no grounds for such a supposition, and the strongest probabilities against it, and neither Sir John Eoss nor Franklin's old friend Eichardson entertained any apprehension. But when two years had come and gone, and the last month of 1847 slipped away, and still there were no tidings, another feeling spread fast — " 0, the silence that came next, the patience and long aching !" For twelve consecutive years, expedition after expedition was sent out, at first with the object of ascertaining the fate of the two vessels, and afterwards in the forlorn hope of finding some solitary survivor of the catastrophe which by that time was known to have taken place. In 1849, the British Government offered a reward of £20,000 to any one of any nation who should rescue the crew of the Erebus and Terror ; of £10,000 to any one who should rescue, or be instrumental in rescuing a portion of them; and of £10,000 to the first person who should succeed in ascertaining their fate. Over £800,000 are said to have been spent in equipping the various vessels sent on the search, an expenditure to which Lady Franklin and Mr. Grinnell, of New York, contributed largely out of their own purses. No less than forty expeditions, by 196 Sir John Franklin. land or sea, were made between 1847 and 1859. During this long search, many thousands of miles of previously unexplored coasts were added to our maps, many more thousands previously known were carefully re-examined, the delineation of the coast- line of the American Continent was completed, and, for the first time, men who had sailed to its northern shores through Bering's Straits returned by Baffin's Bay. Briefly stated, these were the main material results of the search for Franklin. Its other results no one can estimate. Human heroism always, perhaps, effects more in the future than in the present ; and if we could trace the fruits of such examples of individual courage and endurance as were then set, to be conned over and assimilated by generation after generation of English boys and men, the sum spent in the search would, apart from all other considerations, be found, perhaps, to be as profitable an investment of a million as a nation ever made. But before anything more is said about these expeditions, the sad story of the Erebus and Terror remains to be told. After parting company with the Prince of Wales, the two ships made their way through the ice to Lancaster Sound. Passing Cape Warrender, they sailed on till they came to Beechey Island, at the entrance of the unknown waters of Wellington Channel. According to his instructions, Franklin tried, no doubt, to reach Cape Walker, and thence to The Voyage. 197 make his way south-westwards to the coast of North America. But he must have found the sea blocked up by ice, and, seeing a passage possible in Wellington Channel, he chose that course, and, ascending to the seventy-seventh parallel, returned by the west side of the land, till then known as Cornwallis Land, which he thus ascertained to be an island. How many attempts were made, before or after this exploration of Welling- ton Channel, to force a passage southwards, we shall never know. We can fancy the vivid hopes which this quick passage so far would have excited, and how, as the autumn came on with its fresh ice-formation and its lengthening night, it became gradually clear that these hopes must be laid by for another year. So far, the expedition had been thoroughly success- ful. Nor did its good fortune end here. Instead of being locked in the outward ice-drift, and remaining its prisoners for months — as was the fate afterwards of De Haven and M'Clintock — the Erebus and Terror reached the bay at Beechey Island subsequently known by their name, and Franklin — no doubt with a thankful heart — made all the arrangements for the winter of 1845-46 which his previous experiences suggested. He had, indeed, every reason to be satisfied with his achievements and prospects. He had traversed three hundred miles in his circumnavigation of Cornwallis Island. Only two hundred and fifty miles had to be traversed from Cape Walker, and the last link in the 198 Sir John Franklin. North-West Passage would be discovered. It was a cheery outlook for the coming spring. Meanwhile the winter night had to be endured, and all that could be thought of to occupy the men's time profitably and healthfully was carried into execution. An observatory was carefully built, with a double embankment, and a neat pathway leading to it. A shooting gallery was devised under the cliffs, where empty bottles and meat-tins bore witness to many merry excursions. A huge cairn, eight feet high and six feet long at each side of the base, was erected on the north point of tha island, the materials for it being old meat-tins filled with gravel. Another cairn was built on the south-west. Tents for magnetic observa- tions were rigged up. A large storehouse and work- shop and a blacksmith's forge were built. Even a garden was made, into which the mosses and anemones gathered by the botanists of. the party were trans- planted. Sledge parties were organised, and nearly six years afterwards the tracks of the sledges were visible on the frozen snow. We have seen in a previous chapter how the long hours of the Arctic night were utilised by Franklin and his officers at Fort Enterprise,, and we can with certainty picture to ourselves the routine and the holiday festivities of the winter of 1845-46. The naturalist's specimens were classified. The journals were written up daily. Daily meteoro- logical observations were recorded. Each nian was Winter Pursuits. 199 obliged to take regular exercise. A newspaper, perhaps, was published. All sorts of games were played by the light of the aurora or the moon, or, in rough weather, in-doors. The men attended schools formed by the officers. Amateur theatricals were set on foot. Christ- mas and New Year's Day were celebrated with an enthusiasm unequalled perhaps in any home in Eng- land — perhaps, too, with almost as good cheer. And at last the greatest day of all arrived, when some of many eager eyes caught the first glint of the long-lost sun, and all hearts were from that day forward full of visions of hope for the summer at hand. But their employments and thoughts were not wholly pleasant. When the English and American expeditions, searching for Franklin, were at Beechey Island in 1850, the commanders — Sir John Eoss, Captain Penny, and Captain De Haven — had, on August 27th, settled a combined plan of operations, and had just separated to carry them into effect, when a man came running over the ice to the spot where Captain Penny stood, calling out, "Graves, Captain Penny, graves!" for on the crest of the isthmus connecting the so-called island— which is, however, strictly speaking, a peninsula — with the shore, amid the snow and slate all round, three graves had been found, coped with slabs of limestone, and with headstones, on which were cut the following inscriptions : — - 200 Sir John Franklin, Sacred to the Memory of W. Braine, K.M., H.M.S. Erebus, Died April 3rd, 1846, Aged 32 years. " Choose ye this day whom ye will serve." Joshua, ch. xxiv. 15. Sacred to the Memory of John Hartnell, A.B., of H.M.S. Erebus, Aged 23 years. " Thus saith the Lord, consider your ways." Haggai i. 7. Sacred to The Memory of John Torrington, Who departed this life, January 1st, a.d. 1846, On board of H.M.'s Ship Terror, Aged 20 years. Three brave men went therefore to their rest that winter, and three times their comrades formed a sorrow- ful procession to lay them in their graves. Full, of pity Departure from Beechey Island. 201 they were then, little dreaming how soon they would envy them their fate. But the texts on the tombs are eloquent of the manly spirit with which the lessons of death were accepted, and when at length the summer came, and the ice-barriers gave way, it was with hopes undashed by sad memories that the 126 survivors left their winter home to strike once more southwards for the North American coast. Probably enough the release came suddenly. There would be some sudden shift of the ice, and every one not on board would be hastily recalled as the order was given to put to sea. Some slight evidence that this was really the case was found. Amid the debris of the encampment — scraps of paper, bits of rope canvas and tarpaulin, halves of barrels sawn in two for wood tubs — were found a key, and a pair of gloves laid out to dry, with stones on them to keep the wind from blowing them away, which in the hurry of departure the owners would have forgotten, or have had no time to fetch. We can imagine how eagerly these traces of the lost explorers were scanned by those who first found them. How confident they must have been of finding some paper which would give a detailed account of the past experience and the future intentions of Sir John Franklin. But record there was none. All but the tombs themselves was silent as the tomb. In all the relics in every part of the encampment, including of course the cairn, which was examined most closely, not 202 Sir John Franklin. a morsel of information could be found. The cause of this strange silence has since been understood. The Polar bear unites to incredible strength a sort of horribly perverse curiosity which makes him rummage everything of human manufacture. There is no reason to doubt that papers, carefully sealed, were duly deposited in the cairn on Beechey Island, and that either the winds carried them away in pieces from the claws of the bears, or that they were more slowly digested in their stomachs. The tale of the sojourn at Beechey Island is not, however, quite finished. One black spot in the hopeful prospect had already appeared. It will be remembered that the expedition had been amply victualled by the Admiralty for three years. Though Wellington Channel and Queen's Channel had been explored, and the lands on both sides added to the map, one year only had been occupied in the work, and two years' provisions should, by rights, have been remaining. But, alas ! this was far from being the case. The preserved meats supplied had been those of Goldner's patent, and when it was known in England that seven hundred or more of the tins had been found on Beechey Island, while at Ports- mouth a large quantity of the same meat had been condemned as putrid, it was plain that this vile stuff had been thrown away as worthless, and that, unless game had been found in plenty during the summer of 1846, the officers of the expedition must have left The Voyage Southwards. 203 Beechey Island in danger of scurvy, if not as yet of starvation. Not a misgiving, however, was probably felt by anyone in either ship when, in the summer of 1846, the two consorts sailed down Peel's Sound, with Prince of Wales Land on their right hand and North Somerset on their left. And all for a time went well. In accordance with the law by which the great fields of ice in the Arctic Ocean are ever floating towards warmer seas, the ice pent up in Parry Sound is incessantly, though slowly pouring towards Lancaster Sound, and the channel which has been ascertained to lead to the coast of North America between Prince of Wales Land and Victoria Land, and which is now known by the name of M'Clintock Channel. Prince of Wales Land forms a barrier to this vast ice-flow, so that the sea to the east of it is navigable in summer, while that to the west of it is choked with pack-ice, which melts only as it comes in contact with the warmer water flowing from the North American Continent. Directly, therefore, the ships had emerged from Peel Sound into that part of Victoria Strait where no sheltering land protected them, they came athwart the. stream of pack-ice making straight for the shore of King William's Land, and instead of their hitherto cheering progress, they were compelled to drift slowly southwards with the ice. The monotonous perils of such a drift we know by other instances, such as of the American, De Haven, 204 Sir John Franklin. who was carried by the ice from Wellington Channel into Baffin's Bay, and was in its clutches from Septem- ber, 1850, to June, 1851. The exact date of the departure from Beechey Island will never be known. But no doubt it was in the month of August, 1846. By the 12th of September Franklin had advanced as far as about 12 miles due north of Cape Felix, the north point of King William's Land. There the grip of the ice locked the ships in when two hundred of the three hundred miles between Cape Walker and Cape Herschel had been passed, and the prize he had been striving for for so many years seemed fairly in his grasp. Had he only known what was ascertained a few years later, that prize would have actually been won, and he, perhaps, have lived to bring the news to England. But it was not to be. Any one who has read the preceding pages, and glanced at the map, will see how large a portion of the North American Continent had been traced by Franklin himself. His old friend Back had struck the coast at the mouth of the Great Fish Eiver. Messrs. Dease and Simpson had connected his discoveries with those of Franklin and Eichardson westwards, and had extended them eastwards as far as the Castor and Pollux Eiver, in 1839. King William's Land was, therefore, known to be separated from the mainland on the south, and on its south-western side Messrs. Dease and Simpson A Fatal Error. 205 had erected a cairn at Cape Herschel in 1839. Bat it was still called King William's Land, for the channel between its eastern shore and the Boothian Isthmus had not yet been traced, as it was soon afterwards by Ross and Eae. The northern part of it was, indeed j known, but it was marked on the charts as a bay by the name of Poet's Bay, and Franklin could not be certain that if he sailed down it he would not be sailing into a cul de sac, and so fatally terminating his voyage. All he did know was that if he could reach Cape Herschel, on the west side of King William's Land, he would have connected the unknown with the known, and solved the problem of the North- West Passage. One short hundred miles, in almost a straight line. That was all that remained to be completed. But the circuitous route would have been his salvation, and in that short passage death lay in wait for him and his men. Just as Prince of Wales Land acts as a breakwater to the ice-stream further North, so King William's Island does on the South ; and whereas on its fearfully bleak western side ho ship could ever probably make its way, on the east a passage might be found in summer which would lead by the south of the island to the estuary of Back's Great Fish River. But of this Franklin knew nothing. There was his chart, and, following the only course which it pointed out as pos- sible, he strove to make his way down Victoria Strait. The -ships were beset on the 12th of September, 206 Sir John Franklin. 1846, when they were just in sight of King William's Land, and the winter months were spent in latitude 70° 5' North, and longitude 98° 23' West, amid the oceanic ice which had poured down between Victoria Land and Prince of Wales Land, through what is now known as M'Clintock Strait. That they passed those months as pleasantly as those of the previous years we can scarcely imagine. Then, every one was buoyed up by the consciousness of a great success achieved, and a still greater one in prospect during the coming summer. Now, the summer was over, another working year was gone, and, if not as far from their goal as before, a barrier lay between it which might prove insurmount- able after all. But still they would hope for the best. Surely in a whole summer the ice would open enough for them to force the ships a hundred miles. Mean- while, as soon as spring came, sledge parties should be organised, and the North- West Passage, if it really, as now it was impossible to doubt, existed, should for the first time be beheld by civilised men. Accordingly, on Monday, the 24th of May, 1847, Lieutenant Graham Gore and Mr. Charles F. Des Yceux, mate, left the ships with six men to deposit papers at the cairn built on King William's Land by Sir James Eoss in 1831, intending, no doubt, to proceed after- wards to Cape Herschel, so as to discover with their own eyes the missing link in the North- West Passage, " Sir John Franklin commanding the expedition. All Gore's Record. 207 well," were the cheery words which Gore wrote on the paper before he deposited it. So we know that, what- ever had been the occurrences of the winter of 1846-47, there had been no serious loss by death or illness. TRACK OP THE CREWS OF THE "EREBUS AND "TERROR. Probably there were still 126 men on the two ships, and though they could hardly have escaped some attacks of scurvy, these had been slight, and, as the days grew longer, were passing away. 208 Sir John Franklin. Gore could not find the cairn of Sir James Boss in the place where he expected it would be. But apparently he did find a cairn, four miles to the north of the spot, on Point Victory. There he left the record, and, as we may guess, set off at once for Cape Herschel. In any case, after completing his mission he returned to the ships. If he did go to Cape Herschel, and if none of the crew had been there before him — a thing perhaps improbable in itself, but to which the absence of other records lends some colour — he returned full of triumph, and with the eagerness of a messenger of good tidings. But his joy was turned to sorrow when he reached the Erebus and Terror. "All was well" no longer. Sir John Franklin was dying or dead. How he died we shall never know. The day we do know — June 11th, 1847, eighteen days after -Gore's party had left the ships. Did they come back too late ? Or did the news of the achievement of a life's enterprise come just in time to soothe the brave old seaman's last hours ? If so, who would pity him ? A noble life was nobly ended. Did anyone ever pity Nelson ? Here, too, though in more peaceful service, a great captain's eyes closed on a crowning victory. The horrors to come he was not doomed to witness. Calmly, as the brave do always, he yielded up his spirit, stainless as the snows which were to give him burial, with weeping friends at his bedside, with the consciousness that his name would be im- mortal, in the cause that he loved best in the world. Franklin s Death. 209 For such a fate few tears should fall. Men and officers mourned for him then, no doubt, bitterly. -But many of them, when, stricken with scurvy and starvation, they fell down on the hopeless road southwards in 1843, must, even in the depths of their own misery, have thanked Heaven that their old Captain's last hours were untroubled by despair and suffering like their own. Happier than they, he had died as one who " Finds comfort in himself and in his cause ; And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause." At Franklin's death the chief command devolved upon Captain Crozier — Fitzjames, captain of the Erebus, being second to him in rank. An anxious duty had fallen to their lot, namely, to decide whether they should stay by the ships for another summer, or at once prepare for an overland journey along the banks, or a boat-voyage up the waters of the Great Fish Eiver. We can clearly understand how the reasons for the former course outweighed those for the latter. With the exception of the Captain's death, the health of the ships' companies was apparently good. True it was that, owing to the failure of the preserved meat, the gravest apprehensions of scurvy might have been felt. But the causes of that disease were less known then than now, and whatever the experience of the autumn of 1846 might have been, it would not have quenched 210 Sir John Franklin. the hope of collecting supplies of meat and fish in the summer of 1847. Again, the perils of an overland march were too vividly impressed on the men, who had heard them from Franklin's lips, to be encountered except in the last emergency. It was too early to hope that their friends at home had sent help to them by way of Hudson's Bay. If they succeeded in reaching the Great Fish River, they would be dependent solely on their own success in fishing and the chase. Without Indian hunters the chance of subsisting by such means w r as small indeed. The instinctive dislike of a sailor to desert his ship would enforce these considerations. And, above all, no one probably could in his heart believe that another summer would not release the vessels from the ice. The distance to be traversed was so short that it must have been impossible to despair of deliverance. On the whole it may be said that, even if the ships had been abandoned in 1847 instead of 1848, the fate of the crews would have been the same, unless their greater strength had induced the Esquimaux whom they afterwards met to aid them. The summer of 1847 saw them slowly drifting down Victoria Strait with the ice, till they were fifteen miles north of Cape Victory, and only sixty miles from Cape Herschel and the open water along the coast of the main land. When first they were aware of their movement, how fast hope w T ould have revived ! Then, as its intolerable slowness became apparent,, how dread- A Black Outlook. 211 ful would have been their suspense ! Finally, when the autumn came, and the young ice formed, with what difficulty would the officers assume cheerful faces, and stifle their own forebodings, in order to keep up the courage of their men. It is well known that despon- dency and the absence of light predispose men to scurvy, which a diet mainly consisting of salt meat would by itself induce. All three of these adverse conditions were sorely felt during the winter of 1847-8 —for it is not likely that fresh meat of any importance was procured on the desolate shores of King William's Land. And by the spring of 1848 the fell scourge of Arctic explorers had made terrible havoc among the men whom, in the preceding May, Gore had described as " all well." One hundred and twenty-six men were then alive; but in April, 1848, nine officers and eleven men, besides Franklin, were dead. Of these officers, Gore himself was one. A hundred and five, therefore, were left when it was decided to abandon the ships, and make for the Great Fish Kiver along the coast of King William's Island. How far the progress of scurvy, and how far the prospect of starvation, induced this step, we can hardly decide. The expedition had only been provisioned till July, 1848, and the preserved meat had turned out useless. They shot a good many birds, no doubt, and probably a few seals and bears, but no deer or oxen, for the Esquimaux told Captain M'Clintock that there were few of the former and none 212 Sir John Franklin, of the latter on King William's Island. It is true that there were fewer mouths to feed than when the expedi- tion started with its full complement of 134 men, five of whom had returned before the ships were last seen in Baffin's Bay. And other motives besides want of food would have induced them to set out early. They had over 1,250 miles to travel before they could reach the nearest fur-post, if they went overland, and their first thought would be to substitute for this a sea voyage, if possible. With the narratives of Franklin's and Eichardsou's boat-voyages present to their minds, it is possible that they intended to drag the boats to the Great Fish River, and there attempt to lay in a stock of deer's meat and fish sufficient to last till they reached the Mackenzie River, which they would have then ascended to Fort Resolution; or more probably they meant , to ascend the Great Fish River itself, having the means of constructing smaller boats with them if it became necessary to abandon the large ones. For either of these plans an early start was imperatively necessary, and we may perhaps conclude that they were driven to leave the ships in April by these motives, and by the alarming inroads of scurvy, rather than by any actual lack of food on board the ships. We know, i» fact, that their supply of pemmican was not wholly exhausted at this time, for a case that had held twenty- two pounds was found in the boat they abandoned. That afterwards many of them perished by starvation A Forlorn Hope. 213 is quite certain. But it is also certain that they had grievously overrated their strength, and we may con- jecture that it was because they took too little food at starting, rather than because they had too little to take, that they ultimately succumbed to famine. There is positive and inferential evidence for this conjecture. Of the latter kind is the expectation which they would reasonably have formed of meeting Esquimaux, from whom they would purchase assistance. Again, the enormous stock of superfluous articles taken with them would never have been taken if, on the one hand, they had been actually starving, or, on the other, they had been careful to carry as little with them as the} 7 could of anything except food. Some of the smaller articles would be taken for barter, but much was carried off which had no value in their circum- stances, though valuable in civilised lands. Starving men would not have thought of loading themselves with such goods, which, however, if confident of having sufficient food, they would naturally try to save. The positive evidence is that some of the party returned to the ships. One body was found by the Esquimaux on one of the ships, which was in the end driven ashore. Had this man died before the first exodus, his comrades would certainly have buried him. Again, Captain M'Clintock found a boat, sixty-five miles from the place where the ships had been abandoned, pointing towards the ships. The haulers of that boat must have 214 Sir yohn Franklin. been returning ; and they certainly would not have returned if there had been no food left on board. But taking this point for granted, we are only involved in further difficulties impossible to solve, when we come to compare the record left by the party with the accounts gathered from the Esquimaux. Hitherto we have been depending solely on the words of that record, which, though meagre and curiously inexact, is intelligible enough. Consequently we have been able to tell a connected story. But now we have to collate evidence apparently inconsistent and irrecon- cilable. All that can be done is to construct the most probable theory of what may have happened, after briefly stating what really did happen, in order to complete the preceding narrative. What did happen was this. On the 22nd of April, 1848, the 105 survivors, under the command of Captain Crozier, landed on King William's Island, in latitude 69° 37' 42" K, longitude 98° 41' W., having deserted the Terror and Erebus five leagues N.N.'W. of their place of landing. The document deposited by Gore was taken up from the place where he had left it, four miles to the northward, near Point Victory, and deposited on the site of Sir James Eoss's Pillar. The above information was added to it, as was the change of its location. Gore's death was incidentally men- tioned. The date of the arrival of the crews at the site of the pillar was April 23rd, and on the 26th they were Progress from the Ships, 215 to start for the Great Fish. Eiver. Neither Captain Crozier nor Lieutenant Irving, who wrote the additions to Gore's document, had the time or means to solder up the cylinder in which it was replaced. They merely placed it at the top of the cairn whence it had rolled to the ground, and there it was found in 1859. Three days, therefore, it had taken the party to traverse the fifteen miles which lay between this spot and the Erebus and Terror. Already they had found out their weakness, and a vast quantity of articles was thrown away here which they found themselves unable to carry farther — viz., four heavy sets of boat's cooking stoves, pickaxes, iron hoops, old canvas, part of a copper lightning-conductor, curtain-rods, and a large quantity of clothing. After thus lightening their loads, they proceeded along the western shore of King William's Island, dragging boats or sledges. Somewhere on the journey one of these boats was abandoned, and was found, with two skeletons in it, in 1859, at a spot fifty miles from Point Victory, pointing not southwards, but in the direction of the ships. Those who were with the other boat or boats marched, on, sleeping in tents at night, and hauling their load on sledges by drag-ropes. Every now and then one of them dropped down and died. Some of these, such as Lieut. Le Vescomte, were buried by the survivors. Forty of them thus dragging along a boat met with some Esquimaux sealers, whom they told (according to the Esquimaux tale to Dr. Rae) that their 216 Sir John Franklin. ships had been crushed in the ice (which we know not to have been the case), and that they were going where they expected to find deer to shoot. All looked thin, and seemed in want of .provisions ; and all hauled, except one tall, stout, middle-aged officer. Thus much — though some of it is based on the narratives of Esquimaux, who, whenever they speak of numbers, are anything but exact — we may be said to know, practically, for certain. What happened after- wards is matter for conjecture, for the formation of which we have to rely partly on intelligence coming from the same source, and collected by Dr. Eae, Lieut. M'Clintock, Mr. Anderson, Captain Hall, and Lieut. Schwatka, partly on the silent evidence of the relics found by those explorers. Here and there skeletons have been discovered, marking the spot where some unfortunate man fell down and died from exhaustion on the march, or, perhaps, when he had left the main body to look for game. One of these was found by M'Clintock near Cape Herschel, speaking, even in death, of the successful achievement of the North-Yv^est Passage by Franklin's expedition. The bones of another were brought home by Captain Hall, and are supposed to have been those of Lieutenant Le Yescomte. The same commander heard that a tent full of bodies and a boat had been seen in Terror Bay, and that seven corpses were buried at or near Todd's Island. Dr. Eae heard that five bodies were found on an island, and The Last Survivors. 217 thirty on the mainland at the entrance to the estuary of the Great Fish Eiver. This island was supposed to be Montreal Island when M'Clintock explored it. But he found nothing of note, and was driven to account for the absence of any important relics by the supposition that they must have been washed away by the sea. Whether the seven men of Todd's Island and the five whom Dr. Eae heard of are identical we cannot say for certain, but it seems probable. The relics found on Montreal Island were, we may assume, brought there by Esquimaux, and Lieutenant Schwatka con- firms Captain Hall's account, that the last survivors died in the hollow of the bay formed by Point Richard- son. Some of these were in tents, and one officer lay on his double-barrelled gun, with his telescope strapped to his shoulders. Their boat was said to have been crushed by ice, and was, in any case, never seen again by any European. No doubt they left a record at Cape Herschel as they prepared to cross to the mainland, but none was found there, and it was probably taken away by the Esquimaux. Of the ships, one may have sunk or been destroyed by the natives ; the other is supposed to have drifted southwards, and to have gone ashore on King William's Island or somewhere on the coast of Adelaide Peninsula, opposite the coast where the boat's crew perished. It is clear from the above details what was the fate of a considerable portion of the expedition. From fifty 218 Sir John Franklin. to sixty men, at least, out of the original number— 105 — are accounted for. But this question at once arrests our attention — what became of the remainder ? Some may have lain down to die where, when the ice melted, their bodies would fall into the water, and " be lost evermore in the main." But surely they would be comparatively few. Again, are we quite safe in identifying the forty men who reached the estuary of the Great Fish Eiver with the forty seen by the Esquimaux on the north-west of King William's Island in spring, when we remember, first, that these Esquimaux said that they were told by the party that their ships had been crushed by the ice, and, secondly, that M'Clintock was told that one ship was crushed in the fall of the year, and that her crew had landed in safety ? All we can say is, that at this point in our narrative speculation begins, and that almost every theory which can be formed is open to grave objections. On the whole, it seems more than possible that a separation took place after the ships were abandoned in spring, and that the Esquimaux accounts are a confused version of two attempts at escape — -one by the united body, the other by a portion who returned to the ships, and either remained by them till one sank and the other was wrecked, or were eventually forced to leave them by hunger, or were murdered by the Esquimaux. But before proceeding further, it may be mentioned that it was while this narrative was beingf written Lieutenant Schwatka. 219 that Lieutenant Schwatka, an officer in the American navy, was, with three other Europeans — Messrs. Gilder, Klutschak, and Melms — actually engaged in trying to clear up the mystery which still hangs over the fate of Franklin's expedition. From Chesterfield Inlet they struck across the country for Back's Fish Biver, starting on April 1st, 1879. On May 22nd they reached it, after following for ninety miles the course of a river which Lieutenaut Schwatka named " Hayes," after the President of the United States. After examining Montreal Island, he thoroughly searched the western side of King William's Island, and collected some relics of the expedition — among them the bones of a man supposed to have been Lieutenant Irving, and since buried at Edinburgh. The chivalrous motive of this expedition, the success with which its members adapted themselves to the Esquimaux diet, and the extremities of cold which they suffered without injury, will always make it memorable. But though the newspapers, oblivious of evidence long before obtained, represented some old and unpleasant reports as new discoveries, practically this expedition has added nothing to what was already known. Our main reliance must still be placed on the state- ments in the record found at Point Victory. All we can do is to compare these statements with the various accounts given by the Esquimaux on various occasions, and with the facts observed by M'Clintock, and then 220 Sir John Franklin, leave the reader to form his own conjectures as to what may have occurred. It will be remembered, of course, that the first intelli- gence of all was obtained in 1850, from the graves on Beechey Island. It is noticeable again here only because the dates on the tombs conclusively prove an error in the record found at Point Victory, where it was stated that the ships had wintered at Beechey Island in 1846-47. This was merely a clerical error, and in the addition to the record signed by Fitzjames it was clearly stated that the ships had been beset in the winter of 1846-47 near King "William's Island. From this, too, we know the date of the departure of the crews from the ships in April, 1848, their number — 105 souls — and the number of deaths which had occurred up to that date, including that of Sir John Franklin and Commander Gore. But not one word is said of the ships having been crushed by the ice. On the contrary, they are spoken of as if they were both in existence when the crews set out, nor can we doubt that this was the case. We next come to the intelligence received from the Esquimaux by Dr. Eae in 1854, which, though it related only to facts subsequent to the facts mentioned in the record, was obtained five years before that record was found. These Esquimaux informed Dr. Eae, in 1854, that in the spring, four winters past, while some Esquimaux were killing seals near the north end of Esquimaux Reports. 221 King William's Island, about forty white men were seen dragging a boat and sledges over the ice on the west side of the island. None could speak the Esqui- maux language so as to be understood, but by signs they gave the natives to understand that their ships had been crushed in the ice, and that they 'were going where they expected to find deer to shoot. Besides some other details mentioned above, but unimportant here, they related the discovery of the bodies at the estuary of Back's Great Fish Kiver later in the same season, but before the disruption of the ice. On this we need only remark now that six, not four, winters had elapsed in 1854 since this took place, and that both ships had certainly not been wrecked, as one drifted ashore afterwards, and that the signs given had either been meant to describe the ships being beset, or that these Esquimaux, having had a share in the plunder and destruction of them, wilfully tried to mislead Dr. Rae. The next information came from Boothian Esqui- maux, met by Captain M'Clintock in 1859, near the Magnetic Pole. They possessed relics of the expedition, which, they said, came from some white people who were starved upon an island where there are salmoa ; that none of them had seen the white men, bit one man had seen their bones; and something was said about their boat having been crushed in the ice. Subsequently, one of them said that a ship with three 222 Sir John Franklin. masts had been crushed by the ice out in the sea to the west of King William's Island, but that all the people landed safely. He had not seen it himself, but the ship sank, so nothing had been got from her, and all the relics had come from the island in the river. Not a syllable was said about any ship being driven ashore, but, meeting these same Esquimaux a month later, Captain M'Clintock was told by one of the young men that one ship had sunk in deep water, and another had been forced on shore, and that a body of a very large man, with long teeth, had been found on this ship. This information was, apparently, let out unwillingly, and the old man who had given the previous information now answered questions about the wrecked ship, of which he had made no mention before, evidently because he wished to keep Captain M'Clintock in the dark. Both of them said that the ships were destroyed in the fall of the year, that all the white men went away to the large river, and that the wreck probably still existed. This Esquimaux not only tried to mis- lead Captain M'Clintock, but had lied in saying they had got all their relics froni Montreal Island, whereas most of them must have come from the wreck. A month later, more information was obtained from a party of King William's Island Esquimaux, who also possessed relics from the wreck, from which, they said, they were five days' journey distant. Little of it, they said, then remained, and it was without masts. They Esquimaux Reports. 223 laughed while saying this, and spoke to each other about fire, from which Petersen concluded that they had burnt the masts out of the deck. They said that there had been many boats which the weather had destroyed — that the ship was forced ashore in the fall of the year by the ice, and that they had not visited her in the preceding winter. One old woman said the white men had dropped by the way as they went to the Great Eiver. Another party was also met on King William's Island. Nothing was gathered from them except some additional proof of the untrustworthy nature of Esqui- maux reports. Having abundance of wood, which must have come from the wreck, they yet denied all know- ledge of any white men having died on their shores at all. Captain M'Clintock discovered nothing at Montreal Island except part of a preserved meat-tin and some iron and copper, which, he had reason to think, had been part of the plunder of the boat left by some Esquimaux. Other relics, lie concluded, from the nature of the coast, might have been swept away by the sea. We now come to the silent evidence given by the relics of the expedition found by Captain M'Clintock on King William's Island. But first it must be mentioned that there were signs of the cairn at Cape Herschel having been pulled down and searched, and it is reasonable to conclude that this had been done by Esquimaux, who, hearing of the catastrophe at Todd's 224 Sir John Franklin. Island, and of the white men's course along King William's Island, had followed up their tracks for some distance, and destroyed the record which, we can hardly doubt, had been left at the cairn. For some distance, it must be noted. Because north of Cape Crozier all the relics of the expedition were found lying as they had been thrown aside. The Esquimaux would never have let alone the boat, and the articles in it and at Point Victory, it they had known of them. But as either they met the party of forty before the boat was abandoned, or were not told of its abandonment, they would not expect to find anything by following the track of that party. We may conclude, too, that the ships had drifted considerably farther south before one sank and one drifted ashore " in the fall of the year." But what was the import of the boat found by Captain M'Clintock being pointed for the return road to the ships? This boat was found fifty miles from Point Victory, as a sledge would travel, where the coast trends sharply away to the eastward from Cape Crozier. It was twenty-eight feet long and seven feet three inches wide, built lightly, and with a view to a light draught — suitable, in fact, for the ascent of the Great Fish Eiver, and equipped with paddles and a canvas awning, under which men could sleep in rain. The weight of the boat was from 700 to 800 pounds, but it was mounted on a sledge, which, at the very least, must have weighed 650 pounds. The whole weight of sledge Relics Found. 225 and boat was about 1400 pounds, a heavy load for seven strong men. Inside the boat were portions of two human skeletons — one, much destroyed by wolves, of a slight young man, in the bow; the other, under the after thwart, enveloped in clothes and furs, and in a more perfect state — these were the bones of a man older and strongly made. Near the latter were five watches and two double-barrelled guns, one barrel in each loaded and cocked, standing muzzle upright against the boat side. Five or six books, all religious, except the " Vicar of Wakefield," were found, one with Gore's initials, and an amazing quantity of clothing and mis- cellaneous articles, including two rolls of sheet lead, and twenty-six silver spoons and forks, which were very likely issued to the men for their use as the only way of preserving them. There was a little tea and forty pounds of chocolate, but no biscuit or meat. There was, however, an empty pemmican case, which would have held twenty-two pounds. These are all the data we have for forming an opinio u as to what became of the rest of the two crews. Perhaps what happened was this. The weary journey to Point Victory must, even thus early, have opened the eyes of the travellers to their manifest inability to draw the loads which they had brought away. After discarding much, they toiled on till first one and then another fell behind from weakness. Those who remember the facts of Franklin's retreat p 226 Sir John Franklin. from the sea to Fort Enterprise can picture to them- selves the scene. At last a number would demand permission to return to the ships. This is what they would have urged to their officers, " You see we are rapidly failing. Some are dead already. We shall die too if we continue on the journey. If we die of scurvy on the ships, where there is at least shelter and salt meat, we shall not be worse off. Moreover, the Esqui- maux we have seen may help us till summer comes, when we shall shoot birds, and may drift down to the open water along the coast. Perhaps the ice itself may open and set us free. In any case there is the chance of our subsisting till you send us help if you escape, as you may do if you pick out the strongest men, take most of the provisions left in the boats, and press on. If it is a poor chance, it is at least better than a certain and painful death." Such an appeal would surely have been irresistible, and a large party may have gone back on the return journey, dragging their boat perhaps part of the way, but soon finding it preferable to leave it behind, and make the best of their way to the ships ; for the dreary nature of the coast and the fearful climate, the air of which Captain M'Clintock describes as constantly loaded with chilling fogs, would have made shelter the one thing which these way-worn men would have prized next after wholesome food. After this party had gone back, others might have fallen weak, and begged to- be allowed to join them. Surmises. 227 Failing to overtake the main body, they would come to the boat. Two of them, we may fancy, were too weak to go farther, and staying there for the night, after first taking precautions to load two guns and place them ready to hand, lay down to sleep, never to rise again. Some at all events of the return party reached the ships. One man, we know, died on board, and was unburied. What was the tragedy in which he had been an actor ? Did scurvy and famine daily claim their victims, who were daily buried with such burial as the survivors' strength permitted, till he only remained ? Did the return party in their despair make a second attempt at escape in the fall of the year? Did the Esquimaux come, and, seeing their weak state, slaughter them, inventing afterwards the tale of the ship having sunk in deep water, when they saw other white men, and dreaded their vengeance? Or did most of them really perish by the happier fortune of the foundering of their ship ? Or, lastly, did any considerable number ever reach the ships at all ? These are questions which naturally suggest themselves, but to which no satisfactory answer can be given. The answers of the Esquimaux were suspicious, and their disinclination to tell Captain M'Clintock the whole truth palpable. Nor will the readers of a previous chapter be reassured by their recollection of the experiences of Franklin and Eichard- son, when they came upon the Esquimaux in the vicinity of the Coppermine River. The state of the 228 Sir John Franklin. ice, too, as described by Captain M'Clintock and others, makes the story of a ship sinking in deep water surprising. On the other hand, two parties of Esqui- maux told the same tale, which is conclusive of its truth, unless we imagine that it was set afloat when Dr. Eie's enquiries were rumoured from family to family. Those, too, whom Captain M'Clintock met, seemed friendly, and some had never seen white men before. We can only say that, by their own showing, the Esquimaux gave our countrymen no help ; that they had certainly a large amount of plunder in their possession, which they admitted came from the ship which was wrecked; that some of their statements apparently conflict with the statements of the record (viz., that the crews had left in the fall of the year, and that they were told that the ships had been crushed in the ice); and that it is probable that, if resisted when attempting robbery, they would not have scrupled to commit murder. But it is quite as reasonable to suppose that some of the return party did perish with one of the ships which did break up and sink, owing to some sudden movement of the ice, and that the others perished by disease or starvation, attempting in the fall of the year to tread in the steps of their comrades who had left them in the spring. Here, then, the story of this last expedition of Franklin ends. That we know as much as we do of its fate is due mainly to the dauntless determina- tion of his heroic wife. On Beech ey Island there is a flagged square sacred to the dead, but beneath Tablet on Beechey Island. 229* which no dead lie— all the more impressive, indeed, because its earth is tenantless, and perhaps more suggestive of pathetic memories than any burial-place in the world. There are inscribed the names of the men who died in Sir Edward Belcher's expedition in search of Franklin. There is a tablet to the gallant young Frenchman, Bellot. And there stands a marble slab sent out by Lady Franklin, and erected by Captain M'Ciintock, commemorating the fate of her husband and his men. The following is the inscription : — 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 the service of their country. This Tablet is erected near the spot where they passed their first Arctic winter, and whence they issued forth to conquer difficulties or To Die. It commemorates the grief of their admiring countrymen and friends, and the anguish, subdued by faith. of her who has lost, in the heroic leader of the expedition, the most devoted and affectionate of Husbands. "And so He bringeth them unto the haven where they would be." 1855. 230 Sir John Franklin. The record found at Point Victory has often been alluded to. Subjoined is a copy of it, minus the printed directions, in six languages, to the finder to forward it to the Admiralty. "28th of May, 1847.— H.M. ships Erebus and Terror wintered in the ice in lat. 70° 05' N,, long. 98° 23' W. Having wintered in 1846-7 at Beechey Island, in lat. 74° 43' 28" N., long. 91° 39' 15" W., after having ascended Wellington Channel to lat. 77°, and returned by the west side of Cornwallis Island. Sir John Franklin commanding the expedition. All well. " Party consisting of 2 officers and 6 men left on Monday, 24th of May, 1847. " Gm. Gore, Lieut. Chas. F. Des Yceux, Mate." The above was written, probably by Lieut. Gore, on one of the printed forms furnished by the Admiralty to exploring expeditions, and round the margin of it, in Capt. Fitzjames's hand, was the following information : — "April 25, 1848. — H.M. ships Terror and Erebus were deserted on the 22nd April 5 leagues N.N.W. of this, having been beset since 12th September, 1846. The officers and crews, consisting of 105 souls, under the command of Captain F. R. M. Crozier, landed here in lat. 69° 37' 42" N., long. 98° 41' W. Sir John Franklin died on the 11th June, 1847; and the total lose by deaths in the expedition has been to this date 9 officers and 15 men. " Signed, F. R. M. Crozier, James Fitzjames. Captain and Senior Officer. Captain H.M.S. Erebus" In Captain Crozier's hand was written — "And start on to-morrow, 26th, for Back's Fish River." Results of Expeditio7is. 231 - It is no part of the plan of this book to enter into any account of the various expeditions sent iu search of Franklin. But the enormous additions made to our geographical knowledge by Franklin himself, and by the expeditions sent in search of him, will be apparent at a glance to anyone who takes up a map of the Arctic regions as they were known before the journey to the Coppermine Kiver, and as they are known now. Northwards up Baffin's Bay the entrance to Smith's Sound had been sighted, but that was all. All the American discoveries were unknown. Westwards, out of Baffin's Bay through Lancaster Sound (then marked in the maps in full as Sir "John Lancaster's Sound) and Barrow Straits, the southern coasts of North Devon, Cornwallis Island, Bathurst Island, Byam Martin Island, and Melville Island had been traced by Parry, and the groups thus partially observed had been christened by a name which has been superseded by that of its discoverer, and is now forgotten, the IV. th Georgian Islands. Prince Patrick's Island had not been sighted. On the southern side of the channel up which Parry sailed, a small portion of the north of Bank's Land had been seen, and so had a small portion of the north of North Somerset and of Prince of Wales Land, but Victoria Land and Prince Albert Land were undis- covered. The northerly entrance to Eegent's Inlet was known, and so was Melville Peninsula; but Boothia and King William's Land were a blank on the map. Lastly, 232 Sir John Franklin. the outline of the large island now known as Baffin's Land was very imperfectly delineated, and it had not been discovered that there was a large island to the south of it, and a smaller one to the north-west, each divided from it only by a narrow strait. Proceeding from the islands to the North American Continent, we find that from Icy Cape near Bering's Straits to Melville Peninsula the whole northern seaboard and the inland country for hundreds of miles were terra incognita, except where at two points the maps were marked "Sea according to M'Kenzie;" "Sea according to Hearne." Thus vast are the acquisitions to geography which we connect directly or indirectly with Franklin. His is the central name round which those of all the other discoverers of the first half of the nineteenth century clusters. His story is to theirs what the main Iliad is to its episodes, however brilliant. And, like the Iliad, it is a story which will never be forgotten. Very much of the interest felt in Franklin's fate was assuredly due to his personal character. It is curious, therefore, to notice that, from one point of view at least, he was throughout his career an unsuccessful man. There was something lacking to all the main efforts of his life. In his first expedition he failed, and failed amid horrible disasters, to reach Eepulse Bay ; but all England applauded that failure. In the second he failed to reach the point which he had been ordered to Franklin s Character. 233 make for, while his subordinate Kichardson succeeded in his allotted share of the enterprise; but honours were heaped upon him. when he came home. He was treated with much contumely in his Governorship of Tasmania; but the Tasmanians thronged to cheer him and bless him when he left their shores, and scarcely had he come home when he was appointed to his last command. Finally, his last expedition ended in his own death, and the extinction of the whole party in a catastrophe silent, dire, and complete. Bat as a life of failures had made him famous, so his death made him immortal. Success is so generally accepted as the touchstone of merit, that the man whose failures were treated as triumphs must have possessed extraordinary qualities. And he did possess in an extraordinary degree qualities at once simple and great. He was an indefatigable worker, without making pharisaic proclamation of his industry. He did not take care that his right hand should never be ignorant of the acts of his left, nor kept both figuratively upraised at the imaginary shortcomings of his neighbours, but took his work lightly, while finding time for innumerable occupations and cares. He was absolutely loyal to his friends, so that men like Back and Eichardson, fully his equals, perhaps his superiors in some points, would have given their lives for him. And there was no pettiness in his loyalty. He knew nothing of the small strivings and jealousies which make up the interests of small men. He was so 234 Sir John Franklin. tolerant that he won the affections of men who had over and over again abused his confidence. As far as we can judge from his diary, he never spared himself, he never praised himself. He often praised and rarely censured others. He was conciliatory, firm, straight- forward, and, above all things, just. He might have been said to be " full of longsuffering, goodness, gentle- ness, faith." Without affectation of generosity, he was one of the most generous men that ever breathed, and there was in him withal a genuine spice of the knight- errant. Such qualities as these, when displayed on a striking stage, always enlist the sympathies of English- men, and that is why, during his life and after his death, they loved and honoured Franklin. INDEX Adam, 44, 46, 69, 72, 103. Aird, 137, 176. Akaitcho, 41, 44, 47, 50, 54, 62, 65, 101. Anoethaiyazzeh, 63. Anxiety Point, 150. Arnold, Dr., 185 Athabasca Lake, 34. 114. Augustus, 54, 62, 68, 83, 90, 118, 137, 144, 170, 175, 176. Aurora Borealis, 24, Babbage River, 146. Back, Mr. George, 25, 34, 46, 48, 49, 55, 57, 81, 85, 90, 114, 137, 139, 169, 175. Back Bay, 167. Banks, Sir J., 22. Baptiste, 121. Barendz, 12. Barrow, Sir J., 22. Bathurst Inlet, 71 ; Cape, 164. Beaulieu, 126, 134, 168. Beauparlant, 46, 106. Beechey, Captain, 152. Island, 199. Belanger, S., 46, 50, 59, 90. J. B., 46, 59, 95. Belleau, 46. Bennoit, 46, 77. Bering's Straits, 11. Bethune, Mr., 38. Bexley, Cape, 166. Birds as almanacks, 60. Black meat, 40. Bloody Fall, 68, 167. Braine, W., 200. Brown, Mr. R., 19. Buchan, Captain, 12, 22. Cameron, Mr., 38. Canoe, bark, 41, 115. Carlton House, 37. Carlsen, Captain, 14. Cedar Lake, 33. Cliapewee, 172. Chipewyan, Fort, 25, 36, 40, 42, 50. Clarence River, 147. Clark, Mr., 38. Clavering, 12. Conwoyto, 78. Conybeare, Mount, 148. Copper Indians, 40. ,, Mountains, 67. Coppermine River, 23, 24, 45, 49, 6Q, 167. Cornwallis, Admiral, 19. Coronation Gulf, 166. Cournoyee, 46, 59. Cracroft River, 78. Credit, 46, 79, 84. Cree Indians, 34 ; traditions of, 84. Cross Lake, 33. Crozier, Captain, 192. Cumberland House, 28, 30, 34, 49, 115, 116. Currie, Alexander, 137. Dance, Sir K , 19. Davis' Straits, 22, 25. Dease, Mr., 40, 114, 121, 176. ,, River, 184. De Haven, Captain, 199. Digge's Island, 27. Discoveries, American, 14. „ Dutch, 14. „ English, 14. ,, Russian, 14. ,, Swedish, 14. 236 Index. Dogs, 57, 133. Dolphin, 157. Dolphin Straits, 166. Drummond, Mr., 114, 116, 171, 175. Dumas, 46, 69. Duncan, William, 137, 141. EOHEMAMIS, 33. Encounter, Point, 161. Enterprise, Fort, 49, 69, 70, 90, 101. Esquimaux, 27, 68, 138, 145, 153 158, 163, 220. Fairholme, Lieut., 193 Felix, Francois, 137. Fitzjames, Lieut., 192, 209. Flinders, Captain, 18. Foggy Island, 149. Fontano, 46. Forcier, 46, 69. Fox River, 30. Fotherby, 11. Franklin, 16 ; "birth, 17 ; first voyage, 18 ; enters navy, 18 ; at Copenhagen, 18 ; at Trafal- gar, 19 ; at Flushing, New Orleans, 20 ; first expedition, 23 ; first perils, 27 ; start from Cumberland House, 36 ; scarcity of previsions, 39 ; interview with Akaitcho, 44 ; mutiny quelled, 47 ; misconduct of Mr. Weeks, 51 ; winter occupa- tions, 53 ; Akaitcho's whims, 63 ; Indians desert, 69 ; food fails, 70 ; returns, 72 ; terrible suf- ferings, 74 ; famine, 76 ; dis- cipline and mutiny, 81 ; reaches Fort Enterprise, 90 ; returns to England, 111; honours, 112; married, 112 ; Parry's lecter, 113 ; leaves Liverpool, 116 ; objects of second expedition, 117; reaches the sea, 123; return to foit, 124; letter to Murchison, 128 ; expedition starts, 137 ; encounter with Esquimaux, 140 ; return neces- sary, 151 ; arrives at Fort Franklin, 155 ; winter occupa- tions, 169 ; extreme cold, 169 ; sets out for England, 170 ; honours conferred, 178 ; second marriage, 179 ; Governor of Tasmania, 180 ; letter to Mr. Barrow, 183 ; leaves Tasmania, 189; some anecdotes, 191 ; last expedition, 191 ; first alarm, 195 ; rewards offered, 195 ; relics at Beechey Island, 199 ; his death, 208'; relics, 225; results of expedition, 231 ; his character, 232. Franklin Bav, 165; Fort, 125, 155, 168. Fraser, Mr., 118. Fuller, Thomas, 157. Gagne, 46, 69. Garry Island, 123. Gell, Rev. J., 185. Gillet, Thomas, 157. Good Hope, Fort, 121, 124, 155. Gore, Lieut. G., 206, 207. Great Bear Lake, 45. ,, Slave Lake, 28, 43, 4q. Green Stockings, 52. Griffen, Miss, 179. Hall, Captain, 2 J 6. Hallom, Eobert, 137. Harkness, George, 157. Harrowby Bay, 163. Harmovy, 26. Hartnell, John, 200. Hayes River, 28, 29. Hepburn, John, 25, 34, 46, 48, 85, 92, 94, 110. Herschel Island, 153. Hill Gates, 32. Hill River, 30, 31. Holey Lake, 32. Hood, Mr. Eobert, 25, 29, 34, 42, 46, 48, 82, 85, 96. Index. 237 Hood River, 74. Hook, The, 62, 67, 70. Hudson, 11, 12. Hudson's Bay Company, 24, 28, 114. Humpy, 63, 119. Huron, Lake, 116. Indians, 30, 100, 168 ; Dog Ribs, . 132 ; Hare, 121 ; instinct, 171 ; Loucheux, 121, 136 ; traditions, 172. Irving, Lieut., 215, 219. Isle a la Crosse, 38, 117. Jack River, 31. Jones' Sound, 22. Junius, 54, 62, 65, 68, 83. Kendall, Mr., 114, 157, 158, 162; Cape, 167. Keskanah, 48, 54, 119. Knee Lake, 31. Knife Portage, 31. Koldewej-, 12. Lancaster Sound, 23, 196. Le Vescomte, Lieut , 215. Little Lake, 171 ; River, 34. Longlegs, 63. Lopstick, 32. Macdonald, Neil, 137. Mackenzie, Sir A., 24; River, 45, 137. Maitlaud, Cape, 163. Marten Lake, 104. Mathews, Thomas, 116, 137. M'Clintock, Lieut, 216, 221. Mc Vicar, Mr., 40, 171. Melville Sound, 74. M'Duffey, John, 157. Michel, 4tf, 94, 98. M'Leary, John, 157. M'Lellan, John, 157. - Money, William, 157. Montreal Island, 217. Moose Deer Island, 43. Moose Factory, 27. Munroe, George, 157. Nap.es, Captain. 12. Nordenskjold, Prof., 11. Norman, Port, 120. North-East Passage, 11. North Polar Passage, 11. North- West Passage, 11, 22. North-West Company, 28. Norway Point, 33. Ontario, Lake, 116. Ooligbuck, 118, 157, 158. Oxford House, 32. Painted Stone, 33. Parent, 46, 69. Parry, Sir E., 12, 16, 23, 113, 191. ,, Cape, 165. Penny, Captain, 199. Peltier, 46, 81, 98. Perrault, 46, 79, 95. Phipps, 11. Pierre au Calumet, 39. Pine Island Lake, 34. Play Green Lake, 33. Point Lake, 65, 69. Pole, three routes to, 10 ; prob- able phvsiography of, 13. roole, 11." Porden, Miss, 112. Portage, 30. Prince cf Wales, 25. Providence. Fort, 41, 44, 49. Prudens, Mr. , 37. Rae, Dr., 177, 216, 220. Rainy Lake, 116. Reliance, 134. Resolution, Fort, 119, 171. Return Reef, 152. Richard's Island, 158. Richardson, Dr., 25, 34, 42, 46, 48, 64, 83, 85, 92, 94, 114, 124, 135, 157, 165, 168, 171, 175. Rock House, 30; Portage, 30. Ross, Captain, 22, 199. 238 Index. Samandre, 46, 48, 99. Saskatchawan River, 33, 116. Schwatka, Lieut., 217, 219. Scoresby, 12, 21 ; letter to Sir J. Banks 22. Simcoe, Lake, 116. Simpson, Mr., 176. Fort, 119, 170. Slave Lake, 69. ,, Kiver, 43. Sledge, 36. Smith Sound, 22. Smith, Mr., 40, 42. Snow shoes, 37. Spence, Eobert, 137. Spinks, R., 133, 137, 155. Stewart, Archibald, 137, 176, St. Germain, 43, 46, 52, 54, 61, 69, 72, 84. Steel River, 29. Strahan, Admiral, 19. Stuart, Mr. J. , 39. St. Vincent, Admiral, 19. Superior, Lake, 116. Swampy Lake, 31. Todd's Island, 217. Torrington, John, 200. Tripe de roche, 56, 77. Trout River, 31 j Fall, 31. Turnagain Point, 72. Tysoe, Shadrack, 157. Union, 157. Union Strait, 166. Upper Savage Island, 27. Vaillant, 46, 81. Vivier, Alexis, 137, 140. Wager Bay, 59. Walnut Shell, 115, 167. Wear, 26. Weeks, Mr., 51, 54, 55, 102. Weepinapannis River, 32. Weesakootchakt, 33. Wentzel, Mr., 41, 44, 49, 54, 65, 69, 109. Wilberforce Falls, 74. William, Fort, 116. Williams, Governor, '28, 31, 59. Wilson, George, 137, 141. Windy Lake, 32. Winnipeg, Lake, 33, 116. Winter River, 89. Wollaston Land, 166. Yellow Knife River, 46, York Factory, 28. York Flats, 27. 47. PUBLICATIONS OF G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. A NEW VOLUME BY "JOHN LATOUCHE. PORTUGAL, OLD AND NEW. By Oswald Crawfurd, British Consul at Oporto. Octavo, with maps and illustrations, cloth extra, $3 50 Mr. Crawfurd, who is better known in literature under his nom de plume of John Latouche, has resided for many years in Portugal and has had exceptional op- portunities for becoming thoroughly acquainted with the country and its people. " The whole book, indeed, is excellent, giving the reader not information only, but appreciation of Portugal, its climate, its people and its ways. It is not a book of travel, but a book of residences, if we may say so." — New York Evening Post. " Mr. Crawfurdls admirable book is most opportune, and his long residence in the country, his intimate and critical knowledge of the language, history, poetry, and the inner life of the people, render him an authority as safe to follow as he is pleas- ant. * * * The book is excellent in every way. — Athenceum. " A more agreeable account of Portugal and the Portuguese could scarcely have been written, and it will surprise us if the book does not live as one of the best descriptions we possess of a foreign nation." — St. James Gazette. A FORBIDDEN LAND ; OR, VOYAGES TO THE COREA. With full description of the manners, customs, history, etc., of a com- munity of some 16,000,000 people hitherto almost entirely unknown. By Ernst Oppert. Octavo, with maps and illustrations, $3 00 " The author combines a story of his personal adventures, with a most intel- ligible description of the country, its inhabitants, their customs, and of everything which would help his readers to form a correct idea of what he himself saw and learned." — The Churchman. " Sure to be eagerly and widely read * * * contains almost the only au- thentic description of Corea and its people with which the public are familiar." — San Francisco Bulletin. 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The book is a picturesque mosaic of the many brilliant, sober, gay, comic, dramatic, tragic, poetic, vulgar elements that make up the past history of that wonderful city and the physiognomy it bears to-day. " We welcome this work from the hardy North for its broad scholarship, its freshness and ripeness. The articles betray an artistic discrimination rare in one not a sculptor by profession and experienced and enthusiastic in that art. Rydberg pos- sesses the pure plastic spirit." — N. Y. Herald. PUBLICATIONS OF G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. A NEW BOOK BY THE AUTHOR OF " CONSTANTINOPLE." HOLLAND AND ITS PEOPLE. By Edmundo de Amicis, author of " Constantinople," " Studies of Paris," " Morocco," " Spain," etc. Octavo. With 18 full-page plates $2 00 In this volume of which editions are appearing at once ii Florence, Paris, London and New York, the brilliant author of " Paris" and " Constantinople" has turned his steps to a land abounding in picturesque effects and whose history is full of dramatic interest, and his vivid descriptions of the Hollanders and their homes show that his pen has lost none of its eloquence or delicacy of touch. His analysis of the traits and characteristics of this sturdy race, which has played so important a part in, the history of Europe, is most interesting and valuable. " In descriptive passages, Signor Amicis is at home. A wealth of imagery flows from his pen and lightens the pages into prose poems. 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CONSTANTINOPLE. 8vo, cloth, %i 50 De Amicis is one of the strongest and most brilliant of the present generation of Italian writers, and this latest work from his pen, as well from the picturesqueness of its descriptions as for its skilful analysis of the traits and characteristics of th« med- ley of races represented in the Turkish capital, possesses an exceptional interest and value. 11 The most picturesque and entertaining volume contained in the recent litera- ture on the Eastern question." — Boston Journal. "A remarkable work * * * the author is a poet, an artist, a wonder- worker in words * * * his descriptions are given with rare skill." — N. Y. Evening Post. STUDIES OF PARIS. By Edmundo de Amicis, author of "Con- stantinople," " Morocco," "Holland," etc. i2mo, cloth extra, $1 25 A series of wonderfully vivid and dramatic pictures of the great world's me- tropolis, by a writer Avhose previous books have gained a reputation for exceptional clearness of perception and facilit<* in description. There is hardly a writer who can rival him in his power of reproducing for his readers the very atmosphere of the place he describes. These " Studies" include original and characteristic papers on the two authors whom he considers especially representative of the Paris of to-day— Hugo and Zola. " Poet in prose, painter in phrases, subtle musician in the harmonies of lan- guage, de Amicis has comprehended the manifold amazement, the potent charm of Paris as no writer before him has done." — Portland Press. " A marvel of intense, rapid, graphic and poetic description, by one of the most brilliant of modern Italian writers. The chapters on Hugo and Zola show the same power of description and analysis in dealing with mind and character."— Christian Register. © * LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ^ lillllllllllilllffllllllllll 019 313 429 4 rfgy > IL NTHE NE - PLVTAR* ■PWPfl SlRjOHNpRANKLIN eF 'T ii in mi