interval to considerable damage from the drifting ice. They had eaten nearly all their remaining provisions, and seals were killed and devoured with the appetites of famished Esquimaux.

Upernavick, the most northern of the Danish settlements on the west coast of Greenland, was reached at length, and they remained there, recruiting their exhausted strength, until the 6th of September, when they embarked aboard a Danish vessel, bound for Lerwick. Putting into Godhaven on the 11th, however, they found there the vessel of Captain Hartstein, who had been despatched in search of them by the United States Government. To his vessel, therefore, they transferred themselves, and landed in New York on the 11th of October, having suffered the toils and privations of Arctic exploration in a more than ordinary degree, but not without adding considerably to our knowledge of the regions near the North Pole.

CHAPTER XXII.

DR. RAE'S VOYAGE TO REPULSE BAY-SEARCH FOR THE FRANKLIN EXPEDITION-VOYAGE OF CAPTAIN MACLINTOCK- WINTER IN BAFFIN BAY AND BELLOT STRAIT- SLEDGE JOURNEY ROUND PRINCE OF WALES LAND-EXPEDITION TO MONTREAL ISLAND-FATE OF THE FRANKLIN EXPEDITION.

HILE Dr. Kane was struggling with the polar ice and snow in Smith Sound, Dr. Rae again left Fort York in a sailing-boat, and proceeded to Repulse Bay, to renew the search for the missing expedition of Sir John Franklin. Having reached the head of the bay, and crossed the isthmus which divides it from the Gulf of Boothia, he proceeded to Pelly Bay, and thence to the farthest point reached by Dease and Simpson. He then crossed Inglis Bay and Shepherd Bay to Cape Colville, and followed the coast northward to Balfour Bay; but was prevented from exploring between the Magnetic Pole and Bellot Strait by bad weather.

While in Boothia, he met a party of Esquimaux, who informed him that in the spring of 1850 some of their race, who were seal-hunting on the north coast of King William Land, saw about forty white men going southward, dragging their boats on sledges. The white men spoke the language of the Esquimaux imperfectly, but intimated by signs that their ships had been destroyed by the ice. They were emaciated by famine, and bought a seal from the hunters. Later the same season,

but before the ice broke up, the Esquimaux discovered several graves and thirty corpses on the shore of the mainland, and five corpses on an island a day's journey from the mouth of a river, which Dr. Rae inferred from the description was the Great Fish River. Some of the corpses were in tents, and others under boats. One of those found on the island had a double-barrelled gun under him, and a telescope slung from

THE FRANKLIN RELICS AT GREENWICH HOSPITAL.

one shoulder. In confirmation of this story, the Esquimaux produced a small silver plate, on which the name of Sir John Franklin was engraved, and several silver spoons and forks, bearing the names of various officers of the ill-fated expedition. These relics were purchased by Dr. Rae, who, on his return to Fort York, sailed for England, where he arrived in October, 1854, bringing them with him.

Maclintock's Search for Franklin.

261

There could now be no doubt that Franklin and all who accompanied him had perished among the ice and snow of the Ice King's dreary realm. But Lady Franklin could not rest content while the faintest doubt remained; it was just possible that a remnant might yet survive, and that those miserables might number her husband among them. At the worst, it would be a melancholy satisfaction to know when and where he had died. A small steamer was therefore purchased by friends of the gallant Franklin, furnished with stores by the Government, and placed under the command of Captain Maclintock, for the purpose of exploring the region to which the communications of the Esquimaux to Dr. Rae had directed attention, and ascertaining the truth.

The vessel left Aberdeen on the 1st of July, 1857, and the coast of Greenland was sighted on the 12th. Disko Island was reached on the 31st, and a week's stay made for the purpose of obtaining thirty dogs and a native driver. Sailing again on the 7th of August, they ran along the edge of the middle ice for forty miles, seeking an opening, but none was found; and on the 12th they were in Melville Bay, the shores of which were occupied by a glacier between forty and fifty miles long, the parent of innumerable icebergs, which were constantly breaking off, with a crash and a rumbling like thunder, and throwing up volumes of water and showers of spray as they fell into the sea. On the 17th they pushed into the middle ice, under sail and steam; but a thick fog came on, obliging them to lay-to, and then a gale closed the ice around them, and the ship was set fast.

Sawing and blasting were resorted to, in the hope of reaching Lancaster Sound before winter set in; but all their efforts were unavailing, and on the 18th of September the new ice was so thick that it became evident that they would have to

remain there through the winter. The ship was housed over, and banked round with snow, as a protection from the wintry gales; and ship and ice drifted slowly southward. Elementary classes were again formed, for the instruction of those whose education had been neglected; and fine weather was employed for shooting and athletic games upon the ice. The sledge-driver proved an expert seal-hunter, and killed as many seals as were required to feed the dogs, which were kenneled in snow-houses upon the ice. Bears were occasionally seen, but only one was killed. 'This animal approached the ship at night, when his presence being made known by the furious barking of the dogs, several rifles were soon aimed at him by the light of a mist-veiled moon. Scared by the barking of the dogs and the shouts of the men, the bear commenced a hasty retreat; but stepping upon new ice, it broke under his weight, and he plunged into the water. In this situation he received three bullets, and as he scrambled out, growling savagely, a fourth pierced his brain, and prostrated him upon the ice.

Furious gales blew over the ice at intervals, and it broke up on four occasions, but united again as soon as the wind subsided. The fourth disruption occurred in March, 1858, when the vessel heeled over before a violent gale from the south-east, received a nip between two floes, and had her stern lifted up a foot. Boats, sledges, and stores were got out in haste, in the anticipation of her destruction; but the floes receded, and she righted, not without considerable damage. In April the ice broke up for the season, but by that time the ship had drifted thirteen hundred and eighty-five miles from her position in August, and sustained so much damage that she had to return to the coast of Greenland for repairs.

Being refitted, she was again pushed through the ice, under