Grounding of the Brig.

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late effort. He receives, if successful, too large a share of the credit, and he justly bears all the odium of failure." He therefore called a council together, and, with one exception, the officers agreed that it would be better to winter in some more southern latitude. After some further consultation, it was resolved to proceed to the northern headland of the bay, as that point was deemed a good station from whence to despatch sledging parties. During the progress thither the brig grounded, and considerable apprehension was felt as to her safety. Once she heeled over, throwing the men out of their berths, and setting the cabin deck on fire by the upsetting of the coal stove. The ice ground and piled round her, but she was eventually got off without damage, the process being subsequently repeated. She grounded five times in three days. Kane, with seven others, pushed on ahead in a whale-boat to examine the situation. The boat was housed in with canvas, and sheathed with tin to prevent the jagged ice from cutting into it. They had been out about twenty-four hours when they came to the end of the open water; they hauled up the boat, and prepared for a sledge journey. They found an extensive ice shelf or table, which clung round the base of the cliffs on which they dragged the sledge, meeting frequent obstructions in the shape of huge angular masses of ice, and numerous water-courses,

through which they had to struggle. They encountered a small glacier, which gave them great trouble to cross, their smooth boots not being adapted for such travel. They found on the fifth day that they had only made an actual distance of forty miles, while they had probably rowed and sledged double that distance, and they determined to push on without the sledge. Their progress was arrested by a large bay, into which a roaring and tumultuous river issued. "This river, the largest probably yet known in North Greenland, was about three-quarters of a mile wide at its mouth. Its course was afterwards pursued to an interior glacier, from the base of which it was found to issue in numerous streams, that united into a single trunk about forty miles above its mouth. By the banks of this stream we encamped, lulled by the unusual music of running waters.

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Here, protected from the frost by the infiltration of the melted snows, and fostered by the reverberation of solar heat from the rocks, we met a flowergrowth which, though drearily Arctic in its type, was rich in variety and colouring. Amid festuca and other tufted grasses twinkled the purple lychnis, and the white star of the chickweed; and, not without its pleasing associations, I recognised a solitary hesperis-the Arctic representative of the wallflowers of home." The river was waded the next

Humboldt's Glacier.

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morning, not without difficulty. Kane, with three volunteers, made for a large headland from which he hoped to be able to examine the surrounding country. After sixteen miles of arduous travel he reached it, naming it after Thackeray, the great novelist. Eight miles further, a second headland jutted, shutting from his view all points further north. "I shall never forget," says he, "when, after a hard day's walk, I looked out from an altitude of eleven hundred feet upon an expanse extending beyond the eightieth parallel of latitude. Far off on my left was the western shore of the Sound (Smith's Sound), losing itself in distance toward the north. To my right, a rolling primary country led on to a low dusky wall-like ridge, which I afterward recognised as the Great Glacier of Humboldt; and still beyond this, reaching northward from the northnorth-east, was the land which now bears the name of Washington. The great area between

was a solid sea of ice. Close along its shore, almost looking down upon it from the crest of our lofty station, we could see the long lines of hummocks dividing the floes like the trenches of a beleaguered city. Farther out a stream of icebergs, increasing in numbers as they receded, showed an almost impenetrable barrier, since I could not doubt that among their recesses the ice was so crushed as to be impassable by the sledge."

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Rensselaer Harbour.

The result of Dr. Kane's examination was that the original bay, Rensselaer Harbour, in which he had left the Advance, was chosen for their winter quarters. It proved a long resting-place for the little brig, if indeed the same ice is not around her still.

Having housed in the Advance, a store-house was erected on Butler's Island, and an observatory erected on a rocky islet a hundred yards or so off. Then a depôt party started to make arrangements for storing provisions, &c., at different points, in order that, when their travels commenced in good earnest, they should have these stations, in case of necessity, to fall back on.

CHAPTER XV.

Return of the Exploring Party-A Fearful Story-To the Rescue-The Camp on the Ice-Gratitude-Frozen Sleep-Travel in a Dream— At the Brig again-Sickness and Suffering-Baker's Death.

HE return of an exploring party, sent out by Dr. Kane for preliminary observations, is thus described in the narrative :

"We were at work cheerfully, sewing away at the skins of some mocassins, by the blaze of our lamps, when, toward midnight, we heard the noise of steps above, and the next minute Sontag, Ohlsen, and Petersen came down into the cabin. Their manner startled me even more than their unexpected appearance on board. They were swollen and haggard, and hardly able to speak.

"Their story was a fearful one. They had left their companions in the ice, risking their own lives to bring us the news: Brooks, Baker, Wilson, and Pierre were all lying frozen and disabled. Where? They could not tell somewhere in among the