having been artfully and cleverly substituted for the dry meat. Fearful that they might be carrying heaps of stone instead of provision, Back had to examine carefully the remainder, which were all found sound and well-tasted. He began to fear, from the inclination of the river at one time toward the south, that it would be found to discharge itself in Chesterfield Inlet, in Hudson's Bay, but subsequently, to his great joy, it took a direct course toward the north, and his hopes of reaching the Polar Sea were revived. The river now led into several large lakes, some studded with islands, which were named successively after Sir H. Pelly, and Mr. Garry, of the Hudson's Bay Company; two others were named Lake Macdougall and Lake Franklin. On the 28th of July, they fell in with a tribe of about thirty-five very friendly Esquimaux, who aided them in transporting their boat over the last long and steep portage, to which his men were utterly unequal, and Back justly remarks, to their kind assistance he is mainly indebted for getting to the sea at all. It was late when they got away, and while threading their course between some sand-banks with a strong current, they first caught sight of a majestic headland in the extreme distance to the north, which had a coast-like appearance. This important promontory, Back subsequently named after our gracious Queen, then Princess Victoria. 66 "This, then," observes Back, " may be considered as the mouth of the Thlew-ee-choh, which after a violent and tortuous course of 530 geographical miles, running through an iron-ribbed country, without a single tree on the whole line of its banks, expanding into five large lakes, with clear horizon, most embarrassing to the navigator, and broken into falls, cascades, and rapids, to the number of eighty-three in the whole, pours its water into the Polar Sea, in lat. 67° 11' N., and long. 94° 30′ W., that is to say, about thirty-seven miles more south than the Coppermine River, and nineteen miles more south than that of Back's River, (of Frankiin,) at the lower extremity of Bathurst's Inlet." For several days Back was able to make but slow progress along the eastern shore, in consequence of the solid body of drift-ice. A barren, rocky elevation of 800 feet high, was named Cape Beaufort, after the present hydrographer to the Admiralty. A bluff point on the eastern side of the estuary, which he considered to be the northern extreme, he named Cape Hay. Dean and Simpson, however, in 1839, traced the shore much beyond this. The difficulties met with here, began to dispirit the men. For a week or ten days they had a continuation of wet, chilly, foggy weather, and the only vegetation, fern and moss, was so wet that it would not burn; being thus without fuel, during this time they had but one hot meal. Almost without water, without any means of warmth, or any kind of warm or comforting food, sinking knee-deep, as they proceeded on land, in the soft slush and snow, no wonder that some of the best men, benumbed in their limbs and dispirited by the dreary and unpromising prospect before them, broke out for a moment, in low murmurings, that theirs was a hard and painful duty. Captain Back found it utterly impossible to proceed, as he had intended, to the Point Turnagain of Franklin, and after vainly essaying a land expedition by three of the best walkers, and these having returned, after making but fifteen miles' way, in consequence of the heavy rains and the swampy nature of the ground, he came to the resolution of returning. Reflecting, he says, on the long and dangerous stream they had to ascend combining all the bad features of the worst rivers in the country, the hazard of the falls and the rapids, and the slender hope which remained of their attaining even a single mile further, he felt he had no choice. Assembling, therefore, the men around him, and unfurling the British flag, which was saluted with three cheers, he announced to them this determination. The latitude of this place was 68° 13′ 57′′ N., and longitude 94° 58' 1" W. The extreme point seen to the northward on the western side of the estuary, in latitude 68° 46' N., longitude 96° 20′ W., Back named Cape Rich ardson. The spirits of many of the men, whose health had suffered greatly for want of warm and nourishing food, now brightened, and they set to work with alacrity to prepare for their return journey. The boat being dragged across, was brought to the place of their former station, after which the crew went back four miles for their baggage. The whole was safely conveyed over before the evening, when the water-casks, were broken up to make a fire to warm a kettle of cocoa, the second hot meal they had had for nine days. On the 15th of August, they managed to make their way about twenty miles, on their return to the southward, through a breach in the ice, till they came to open water. The difficulties of the river were doubled in the ascent, from having to proceed against the stream. All the obstacles of rocks, rapids, sand-banks, and long portages had to be faced. In some days as many as sixteen or twenty rapids were ascended. They found, as they proceeded, that many of the deposits of provisions, on which they relied, had been discovered and destroyed by wolves. On the 16th of September, they met Mr. McLeod and his party, who had been several days at Sand Hill Bay, waiting for them. On the 24th, they reached the Ah-hel-dessy, where they met with some Indians. They were ultimately stopped by one most formidable perpendicular fall, and as it was found impossible to convey the boat further over so rugged and mountainous a country, most of the declivities of which were coated with thin ice, and the whole hidden by snow, it was here abandoned, and the party proceeded the rest of the journey on foot, each laden with a pack of about 75 lbs. weight. Late on the 27th of September, they arrived at their old habitation, Fort Reliance, after being absent nearly four months, wearied indeed, but "truly grateful for the manifold mercies they had experienced in the course of their long and perilous journey." Arrangements were now made to pass the winter as comfortably as their means would permit, and as there was no probability that there would be sufficient food in the |