were positively assured of the locality where these martyrs to science had been, when, as a discovered document proved, the ships were abandoned, and the majority of the crews had taken to the shore.

It is not our purpose to give in detail, and at length, a narrative of Sir John Franklin's expeditions with a view to the discovery of a north-west passage. But a general sketch of leading circumstances may be interesting to the reader, and serve to introduce in succeeding papers a series of engravings illustrative of Life in the Arctic Regions and amongst the Esquimaux.

Franklin's first land expedition, in 1819, was intended to supplement and, if possible, assist that of Parry by sea. It was attended with an amount of danger and suffering which might well have daunted any men not animated with the spirit of thoroughbred English seamen. We may judge of the deprivations they endured from a fact recorded in the diary kept during the expedition :

:

"A partridge shot by one of the party, after being held to the fire, was divided into six portions, and ravenously devoured-the first animal food which had been tasted for thirty-one days."

Several of the men expired of utter exhaustion, and Franklin and three other survivors were reduced to a fearful state, mentally as well as physically:

Sometimes,

"They were so thin, that to lie on the floor-for they had no beds-produced soreness of the body; and so weak, that it was quite a toil to turn over. They seldom, however, spoke of their sufferings, or of the prospect of relief, for their minds were too much weakened to dwell on such things. Sometimes they would read to each other, as they lay in bed, portions of some religious books, with which a lady had provided them before leaving London, one of which was Bickersteth's Scripture Help'; and the morning and evening services were never omitted. also, they would converse on religious subjects; but in the daytime they commonly spoke only of ordinary matters, as though nothing were amiss. In fact, each one thought the intellect of the other weakened, and that they had need of forbearance and advice, although it was only in a measure that they perceived this in themselves. They were fretful and pettish, too, in spite of themselves; and so conscious was one of their number of this, that he once exclaimed, 'Dear me, if we are spared to return to England, I wonder if we shall recover our understandings!'

At length, the long-expected relief arrived, forwarded by three Indians, whose after-care, in cooking for them and tending them, would,

says Franklin, "have done honour to the most civilized people.”

With the greatest caution against repletion, they gradually recovered; and proceeding slowly from station to station, they at length reached York Factory in safety, having travelled in all 5,559 miles, and endured, with almost unparalleled bravery, an amount of hardship and suffering which very few have had to encounter.

To any ordinary person it must be almost inconceivable how, after enduring such almost unheard-of sufferings, Franklin should have been not only willing, but eager, to pursue his researches in the very same regions: nevertheless, such was the fact. And what is more extraordinary still, his enthusiasm was not confined to his own breast, but was so fully and warmly shared by his wife, that, although she was lying on what was expected to be her death-bed, when the preparations were complete she would not keep him a single day beyond that fixed for departure, but entreated him, as he valued her peace of mind and his own glory, not to delay a moment on her account;" adding that "it could be but to close her eyes."

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It was a heroism worthy of the highest cause -too high, perhaps, most persons will think, for a matter of mere discovery; but such men as Franklin, and such women as Franklin's wife, are apt to regard the interests and glory of their profession, and still more of their country, as far beyond any considerations of private interest or feeling. We must remember that, after all, had not our countrymen possessed this spirit of devotion to her honour, England had never risen to her present place among the nations. And it is cheering to think that both our own and other lands can furnish a few examples of as high a courage in a still higher cause-witness the names of Hans Egede, of Captain Allan Gardiner, John Williams, Adoniram Judson, and others.

Franklin and his party again embarked on the 16th of February, 1825; but although science gained much from the exertions of Dr. Richardson and others, as far as navigation went the result of the expedition was discouraging.

The second voyage of Sir John Ross, in 1828, led to the important discovery of the western Magnetic Pole; but this success was arrested by circumstances which at length compelled Sir John to abandon his ship, the Victory. After the greatest hardships, the crew

were rescued by the Isabella. As showing the state to which the men were physically reduced, we are told "they had been so long used to sleeping on rocks and snow, that the ordinary comforts of life had lost their charm. They could not sleep in beds; and even the captain was obliged to throw himself into an arm-chair in order to get any sleep."

Another expedition followed, in 1836, under Captain Back, which proved still more fruitless and disastrous.

The courage of our countrymen seems to have been somewhat damped by these failures, and it was not until eight years later that another Arctic expedition was proposed. This proposal originated with Sir John Barrow, and so great was the enthusiasm of Franklin, who was anxious to undertake the charge of the expedition, that when a doubt was raised about the propriety of sending out so old a man, his friend Sir Edward Parry said, "If you do not let him go, the man will die of disappointment." It proved, alas! his final voyage.

In May, 1845, Sir John Franklin sailed as commander of the Erebus, and of the expedition-Captain Crozier being appointed captain of the Terror; and the transport Barretto, under the command of Lieutenant Griffiths, accompanied them. The two vessels were provisioned for more than three years, and the two crews consisted of 138 men.

It was not expected that news could be received for nearly two years after entering the ice. Lieutenant Griffiths, of the Barretto, left "all well and in good spirits;" and the Prince of Wales, whaling-vessel, saw them shortly afterwards moored to an iceberg in the middle of Baffin's Bay.

From that time a terrible silence ensued; and when the allotted two years had fully expired, the suspense rapidly grew into a fearful anxiety.

In 1848, Sir John Richardson and Dr. Rae, and two other parties of explorers, one under Sir James Ross, sailed in search of the missing vessels; but although every effort was made, the three expeditions proved failures.

From 1850 to 1854, numerous private voyages were planned. In 1850, Captain Penny discovered, on Beechey Island, at the entrance of Wellington Channel, three sailors' graves, and an immense number of cases of preserved meats-apparently discarded because they had turned putrid. From these things the captain. gathered that, at some time or other, this spot had been the wintering-place of his missing

countrymen. This we now know to have been the case; while the quantity of the abandoned food raised very melancholy apprehensions as to the state of their provisions.

The voyage of Sir Robert M'Clure resulted in the discovery of the long-sought NorthWest Passage; but no information was obtained of the missing men.

At length Dr. Rae, lately the companion of Richardson, having been appointed by the Hudson's Bay Company, in 1853, to complete the survey of the western shore of Boothia, fell in with a party of Esquimaux in Pelly Bay; and from one of them he learnt that "a party of kabloonas (white men) had died of hunger a long way to the west of where he then was, and beyond a great river." But the man said that he had never been there himself, and could not travel with them so far. Dr. Rae at once pursued his inquiries, and elicited from different persons other particulars, which led him to believe that the river spoken of was no other than Back's, or the Great Fish River, and also that he was certainly on the track of a part of Franklin's expedition.

From what he could gather, it appeared that when first seen they were about forty in number, and headed by a man who seemed to be an officer; they were dragging a boat and sledges southwards over the ice. They could not speak the Esquimaux language, well enough to be understood; but by signs they made the natives understand that their ships had been crushed by the ice, and that they were going where they hoped to find deer. This was about the 1850; year and later in the same season, but before the breaking up of the ice, some graves were found by the Esquimaux, and about thirty corpses, some in a tent, others under a boat, and others scattered about. But the most dreadful fact of all was that, from the mutilated state of some of the bodies, as well as from the contents of the cooking-vessels, there was reason to believe that the unhappy men had been reduced even to cannibalism.

At the same time there was nothing to lead Dr. Rae to suppose that any violence had been offered to them by the natives; although some of the articles thrown away by the white men were in their possession, and Dr. Rae purchased several things of them-amongst others, a silver star, on which were engraved the words "Sir John Franklin." No writings or papers of any kind had come to hand; and many were the treasures supposed to be still lying on