The Winter went, the Summer went, 'The Winter came around; But the hard, green ice was strong as deat Hark! heard you not the sound of guns? Hurra! hurra! the Esquimaux God give them grace for their charity! Sir John, where are the English fields, And where are the little English flowers, Be still, be still, my brave sailors! You shall see the fields again, And smell the scent of the opening flowers, Oh! when shall I see my orphan child? Oh! when shall I see my old mother, Be still, be still, my brave sailors! Ah! bitter, bitter grows the cold, The ice grows more and more; Oh! think you, good Sir John Franklin, 'Twas cruel to send us here to starve, 'Twas cruel, Sir John, to send us here, So far from help or home; 10 starve and freeze on this lonely sea; I ween, the Lords of the Admiralty Had rather send than come. Oh! whether we starve to death alone We have done what man has never don We passed the Northern Sea! THE GOVERNMENT AND PRIVATE SEARCHING EXPEDITIONS AFTER SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. I shall now proceed to furnish an account of the principal researches which have been made to ascertain the fate of Franklin's vessels, merely premising that it will be as brief as is consistent with intelligibleness. Early in January, 1850, the Enterprise, Captain Collinson, and the Investigator, Captain M'Clure, again started to pursue the search. They passed through the Strait of Magellan in April, and made for the Sandwich Islands, which the Enterprise left on the 30th of June. The Investigator arrived there three days after, and pursued her course to Behring's Strait, reaching Cape Lisburne, within the Strait, after an unparalleled passage of only twenty-six days. The Enterprise pushed to seventy miles eastward of Point Barrow, when she was stopped by the ice; and the difficulty of finding a harbour induced Captain Collinson to return, and winter at Hong Kong; which he again left in April, 1851, to prosecute the search. Meantime, the Investigator, after having quitted Cape Lisburne, was seen both by the Herald and Plover, for the last time, on the 5th August, 1850, under press of canvas, with a strong south-west wind. To a signal of recall, she is reported to have replied-"Important duty;" "Own responsibility." After a long protracted struggle with the ice, the Investigator wintered, in 1850-51, in a newly discovered strait, between Banks' Land and Prince Albert's Land; and, by a journey over the ice, Melville Island was reached from the west, and a communication opened with the ships sent from the east, as will be found detailed in subsequent pages. The efforts begun thus early in 1850 were vigorously followed up in the spring of the same year; several vessels started to renew the search by way of Lancaster Sound. Captain Austin, in the Resolute, and Captain Ommanney, in the Assistance, attended by two screw steamers, the Intrepid, Lieutenant Cator, and the Pioneer, Lieutenant Osborne. The veteran, Sir John Ross, volunteered, aided by the Hudson's Bay Company, to join the search in his yacht, the Felix. Captain Penny, an experienced commander in the whaling service, received orders from the Admiralty to equip two vessels, the Lady Franklin, and a tender, the Sophia, in charge of Captain Stewart. And that no portion of the polar regions might be left unsearched, Lady Franklin herself, by her private means, sent a small schooner, the Prince Albert, in command of Captain Forsyth, R.N., to examine Regent Inlet, for which the other vessels had not provided; so that, in the summer of 1850, not less than eight British vessels were assembled within Lancaster Sound, besides the two American schooners, the Advance, Lieutenant de Haven, and the Rescue, Lieutenant Griffin; which the munificent liberality of Mr. Grinnel, of New York, had contributed to this noble object; upon which at least fourteen vessels were thus employed in the Arctic seas. In the autumn, Captain Forsyth having found Regent Inlet blocked up with ice, returned to England, bringing tidings of some traces of Franklin's expedition having been discovered at Point Riley, at the mouth of Wellington Channel; and also a rumour picked up by Sir John Ross's Esquimaux interpreter, respecting an attack of treacherous natives on certain ships at one of the many places called Ommanak, to which little or no credence has been given. The various searching vessels got into winter quarters in the bays of Cornwallis Land, and Griffith Island, at the southern extremity of Wellington Channel, excepting the American ones, which being caught in the pack ice, were drifting helplessly during the whole winter; and carried a linear distance of more than 1000 miles, not being liberated till they were south of Cape Walsingham, in Baffin's Bay, in the month of June, 1851. Captain Austin's ships were locked in the ice for nearly a year. In the early spring, the travelling parties from the ships began their operations over the ice, and thoroughly searched the shores north and south of Barrow's Strait, to the amount, in the aggregate, of over 2000 miles. Captain Ommanney visited Cape Walker, and the land trending west, up to 100° 42′ W., and was gone from his vessel sixty days. During some of this time the thermometer indicated a temperature of 71° below the freezing point. Captain Ommanney gives his decided opinion, that vessels would be unable to navigate along the coast he explored, from the appearance of fixed ice and shoals, and from the southerly trending of the land where it was supposed to lie in a westerly direction. Another sledge party travelled along the eastern shore of the land, explored on the west side by Captain Ommanney's party. The mercury in the thermometer carried by this party was frequently frozen and their chronometer was stopped from excessive cold. In this travelling sails were occasionally hoisted on the sledges, and large kites were also attached. When the wind was high, these aids propelled the sledge very rapidly, and the whole of the party then rode; but when the wind fell, the sledges, with their provisions and stores, had to be dragged by main force over the ice by the men harnessed to them. Another party examined Cornwallis Island, which lies on the western side of Wellington Channel, Bathurst Island, Byam Martin Island and Straits, and the coast north-west of Bathurst Island, to the 76° lat. Lieutenant Osborn reached in the same direction to 100° 25'. Lieutenant M'Clintock visited Winter Harbour, in Melville Island, and rounded Cape Dundas into Liddon Gulf, as far as Bushnan Cove, returning across the island to Winter Harbour, bringing back as a trophy part of the broken cart-wheel left by Sir E. Parry, in 1820. This extraordinary journey, which occupied eighty days, and involved a distance of 760 miles, gave no traces of the missing navigators, but produced unmistakable evidence of the great abundance of animal life on the Parry Islands, for the travellers fell in with a great number of hares, deer, and musk oxen, bears and foxes, as well as birds in great abundance. They travelled when the cold was so intense that bottles of water, carried by the men in their breasts, froze after an hour or so; salt pork broke like suet, and rum thickened. Other parties examined the islands lying east of Melville Island, with the like ill success. Sledge parties from Captain Penny's vessels proceeded up Wellington Channel, to examine both its sides. On the 30th May, Captain Stewart, commanding one of these parties, arrived at a northern dividing channel, which leads from Wellington into Queen Victoria's Channel. Here, to his great astonishment, he found an open sea; but unfortunately, the want of a boat stopped his further progress. Ducks and sea-fowl, of various kinds, were swimming on the water, and snipe were flying about the beach. The entrance to Wellington Strait was barred against the entrance of vessels by a firm and impassable barrier of ice, the evident accumulation of several seasons. Captain Penny's party discovered and explored Queen's Channel, which is, without doubt, a prolongation of Wellington Strait into the great Polar Basin. In this new channel Penny met with wood and other foreign substances adrift, and polar bears, deer, walruses, and whales in great numbers. It is highly probable that Franklin has passed north through this passage. Some jealousies and petty differences having taken place between the naval commander of the expedition, Captain Austin, and the civilian, Mr. Penny, the latter was induced to return home in the autumn of 1851. Sir John Ross followed shortly after; and Captain Austin and his ships arrived on the 7th October, after an absence from England of about eighteen months. The American expedition consisted of two brigantines, the Advance, of 144 tons, and the Rescue, of 91 tons. They left New York on the 25th May, 1850. The unfortunate result of their ice-drift I have already alluded to. With the exceptions of Captain Back and Sir James Ross, there is no other like record of a Polar drift, and this is without parallel as to distance and exposure. On Sept. 13, 1851, Griffith's Island, the greatest westing, was observed by the Advance and the Rescue, when they attempted to return, but were frozen in opposite Wellington Channel. Then commenced the northern drift, and the vessels were carried to 75° 30'-the greatest northing ever yet attained in that meridian of latitude. Afterwards, about the latter end of November, they re-entered Lancaster Sound, under the influence of the drift. The ice then closed upon them, and they were amid all the horrors of a Polar winter, but it was subject to repeated disruptions effected by wind, storm, or drift. During the months of November, December, January, and February, the darkness was perpetual (a Polar night)-and the discomfort of such a home, thus ice-bound, can be better imagined than described. The men were then prepared with knapsacks for any immediate emergency, no one knowing when the fearful pressure of the ice would crush the little barks. Previous to this, however, and preparatory for it, the Rescue was deserted, about November 5, to save fuel, &c., the thermometer being 40° below zero. Meantime constant exposure to wet and cold here introduced scurvy, and in a short time, notwithstanding the usual preventives, the disease assumed in some cases an alarming form. Lieut. de Haven became severely afflicted, but by pouring hot water on dried apples, with some seasoning of lemon juice, a preparation for a drink was made, which soon restored the health of the officers and crew. Lieut. de Haven's was the most severe attack, and afforded a singular illustration of one of the peculiar fea |