Fruitless Labour.

95

the grand efforts of Parry and his party, remark that much of their trouble might have been saved by the use of snow shoes. They constantly, and with doubtless good reason, complain of the soft snow encountered. In one place they admit that it took them two hours to make a distance of 150 yards! The narrative continues :—

"In proportion then to the hopes we had begun to entertain was our disappointment in finding at noon that we were in latitude 82° 43′ 5′′, or not quite four miles to the northwards of yesterday's observation, instead of the ten or eleven which we had travelled! However, we determined to continue to the last our utmost exertions, though we could never once encourage the men by assuring them of our making good progress; and, setting out at seven in the evening, soon found that our hope of having permanently reached better ice was not to be realised, for the floe on which we slept was so full of hummocks, that it occupied us just six hours to cross it, the distance in a straight line not exceeding two miles and a-half."

They often laughingly remarked that they were a long time getting to this 83°! It became obvious that they were employed in a labour comparable to which the labour of Sisyphus was nought. On the 23rd, after five weeks' incessant travel, they had only reached the latitude of 82° 45′, and, after a

96

Return to the Ship.

brief rest, it was decided to return. This they appear to have done mournfully; no party has ever since that time got so far, and Parry's statement appended will best show that their perseverance deserved a greater reward.

"The distance traversed during this excursion was five hundred and sixty-nine geographical miles; but, allowing for the number of times we had to return for our baggage during the greater part of the journeys over the ice, we estimated our actual travelling at nine hundred and seventy-eight geographical, or eleven hundred and twenty-seven statute miles. Considering our constant exposure to wet, cold, and fatigue, our stockings having generally been drenched in snow-water for twelve hours out of every four-and-twenty, I had great reason to be thankful for the excellent health in which, upon the whole, we reached the ship."

CHAPTER X.

Franklin's Early Career-The Fight at Copenhagen-Explorations on the Australian Coasts-His Tutor Flinders-Wrecked on a Reef in Torres Straits-Life on a Sand-bank-Trafalgar-Wounded at New Orleans-Commencement of his Arctic Experiences.

HERARD OSBORNE, whose comparatively early death we have had this year to deplore, gathered and gave to the world some very interesting facts connected with the life of Franklin.* He tells us that, "like Cook, Dampier, and Nelson, his first essay was on board a merchant ship (into which he had been sent to disgust him of the sea), and like them the hardships of a sailor's life were more than counterbalanced in his opinion by the charms of its unceasing change, novelty, and excitement."

In those good old times, his Majesty George III., of glorious memory, rejoiced in ships named after personages tabooed in these more modern days, and on board of one entitled the Polyphemus, a stout sixty-four, commanded, no doubt, by an equally

* "The Career, Last Voyage, and Fate of Franklin." By Captain Osborne, C.B., &c.

H

98

Franklin's Youth.

stout Captain Lawford, our young sailor (now fourteen years old) entered, in 1800, as a quarterdeck petty officer to make his first experiences of the Royal Navy.

Within a year, the Lincolnshire boy shared in the terrible sea-fight at Copenhagen, at the time when Nelson crushed the great Northern Confederacy formed for the humiliation of England; and, as leading ship in the attack, the Polyphemus covered herself with laurels, and young Franklin soon after returned home, to tell the old and young folks, in and around his home, how the modern Dane had submitted to the sword of the descendant of their viking forefathers. But John Franklin had intuitively learnt that for

"Sluggard's brow the laurel never grows—

Renown is not the child of indolent repose."

And within two months he had succeeded in entering on board of the discovery-ship Investigator, commanded by his relative, the distinguished navigator, Captain Flinders. This step naturally led his mind into those scientific pursuits which eventually rendered Franklin one of the most ardent and trustworthy of our geographical explorers.

For more than two years we see the Investigator -old, leaky, and crazy, such a vessel as, in our day, would not be deemed fit even for the work of

Exploration of the Australian Coasts. 99

a collier-struggling along the then unknown shores of that great southern continent to which Flinders first gave the appropriate name of Australia. It was a school of hardship and painful labour, yet not devoid of interest to the ardent young sailor; and in all probability it was in making there the first discoveries of many a mile of coast, many a reef, many a haven, that Franklin's mind became first imbued with that sincere love of geographical exploration and maritime discovery which subsequently formed so prominent a feature in his professional

career.

Flinders was exactly the man to awaken such feelings in one so intelligent as John Franklin. He had been one of that goodly company of circumnavigators who won for England the honour of having really explored the great South Sea. He could tell of Otaheite, and explain how our rough, uncared-for seamen of that day forsook their country and king for the love of its warm-hearted people. He had witnessed the ferocity of the Sandwich Islanders, and could thrill his listeners with that awful hour of murder and cannibalism in which the greatest of England's navigators fell. He had weathered many a danger upon the inhospitable shores of the then unknown Australia, and often navigated in high southern latitudes. He had in a little boat in bygone days circumnavigated the tem