disarmed, by a disposition the most kindly and CHAP humane.*

LIX.

OF DIS

COVERY.

The remains of Captain Cook could not be re- VOYAGES covered for interment without great difficulty and much more of bloodshed. That melancholy rite being performed, and a reconciliation effected with the natives, the ships again departed from these islands. Captain Clarke, on whom the principal command had now devolved, applied himself with scarcely less of energy to the same object as his predecessor. Through the whole summer he made repeated but fruitless attempts to discover through the ice and snow an outlet to the East. Coming back from this service at the close of the season, he died along the coasts of Kamtschatka. His disease was consumption, beneath which he had pined for many months. "He knew," these are the words of one of his gallant comrades," he "knew that by delaying his return to a warmer "climate he was giving up the only chance that "remained for his recovery. Yet, careful and

66

jealous to the last degree that a regard to his "own situation should never bias his judgment "to the prejudice of the public service, he per"severed in the search of a passage till it was the

* In the circumstances of Cook's death, as elsewhere, I follow Captain James King. (Third Voyage, vol. iii. pp. 40-46.) There are, however, several Variantes in the narrative of Mr. Samwell, surgeon of the Discovery.

CHAP. " opinion of every officer in both ships that it was impracticable."*

LIX.

VOYAGES

OF DISCOVERY.

On the death of this high-minded man, the surviving officers, proceeding by way of Canton and the Cape, brought back the ships to England. The period of their absence was upwards of four years and two months. Such were the skill and judgment of Captain Cook in the precautions he had used, that there had not appeared the slightest symptom of the scurvy in either vessel during the whole voyage.

The efforts of the British Government at this period were not confined to the Pacific Ocean and to the Southern Hemisphere. The Northern also, and the coasts of the Atlantic, were in some degree explored. In 1773 Lord Mulgrave was sent with two ships to determine how far navigation might be practicable towards the North Pole. Lord Mulgrave showed both skill and courage in pursuing his object, but, like all his predecessors, was baffled by "the realm of frost." In 1776 and 1777 there were other expeditions into Baffin's Bay, less well conducted, by Lieutenant Pickersgill and Lieutenant Young. But, as it proved, the most important enterprise in that quarter was not undertaken by the Admiralty; it was due to a private Association. The Northern Indians, who came down to trade at Fort Prince of Wales, belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company, had

• Third Voyage, vol. iii. (by Captain King), p. 281.

OF DIS

COVERY.

brought to the knowledge of the English the CHAP. existence of a distant river, which, from copper LIX. abounding near it, was called the Coppermine. VOYAGES The Company now resolved to send some competent person to explore the course of this river, and trace it to its termination. For that purpose they pitched on Samuel Hearne, a young gentleman in their service, who had been an officer in the navy, and had already made two shorter expeditions to the inland country.

Accordingly, in December, 1770, Mr. Hearne set forth on his journey. His guides and companions were a party of the Northern Indians; some of those various tribes who, without fixed habitations, rove along the dreary deserts or the frozen lakes of that immense tract of continent. Mr. Hearne found that he had little or no control over the party with which he travelled. They did not always pursue the straight or shortest course, and often halted as inclination or necessity might prompt, to supply themselves with food by the chase. It was the first time that any European had ever advanced nearly so far in that direction. Cheerfully bearing every hardship, and encountering every toil, during more than twelve hundred miles of march, Mr. Hearne at length, in July, 1771, reached the expected place on the Coppermine River. He gazed upon it with no small surprise. The Indians at the Fort, with the usual exaggeration of uneducated tribes, had described the stream as likely to be navigable for

CHAP. ships; Mr. Hearne perceived, on the contrary, LIX. that, besides its shoals and falls, it could scarcely

VOYAGES bear one of their own canoes.

OF DISCOVERY.

He

At that spot the English traveller witnessed, without being able to prevent, an act of atrocious cruelty in his Indian guides. They surprised by night, and put to death, without mercy, a party of poor Esquimaux along the stream. Mr. Hearne felt more especial pity for one girl who, as it chanced, was butchered at his side, and who, in her dying convulsions, grasped his knees. earnestly entreated her life, but the Indians only answered him with ridicule, asking if he wanted an Esquimaux wife. "Nor," adds Mr. Hearne, "did they pay the smallest regard to the shrieks "and agony of the poor wretch, who was twining "round their spears like an eel!"* A few leagues onwards, still following the northern course of the stream, Mr. Hearne found the rise and fall of tides, and gazed with eager eyes upon the open

sea.

At a later period, full eighteen years afterwards, the same track of discovery still further to the westward was explored by another hardy wanderer, Alexander Mackenzie. Like Hearne, he was engaged in the service of a trading company; like Cook, he had not the advantages of early education. But his energy and perseverance were displayed

Journey to the Northern Ocean by Samuel Hearne, p. 154, ed. 1795.

even before his toilsome journey had commenced. CHAP. In his own words: "I felt myself deficient in LIX. "the sciences of astronomy and navigation; I did VOYAGES "not hesitate, therefore, to undertake a winter's OF DISvoyage to England to acquire them. That object being accomplished, I returned."

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In the prosecution of his perilous enterprise, Mr. Mackenzie derived some aid not merely from the native tribes of Indians, but from the Europeans who had freely joined them. It is not necessary

"for me," thus he writes, " to examine the cause, "but experience proves that it requires much less "time for a civilised people to deviate into the manners and customs of savage life, than for savages to rise into a state of civilisation." Such was the case with not a few of the French or English men who accompanied the natives on their hunting and trading parties; for so attached did they become to the Indian mode of life, as to lose all relish for their former habits, and their native homes. Hence they derived the name of COUREURS DES BOIS, and became a ready link of intercourse, of great use to the merchant employed in the fur trade, as well as to the traveller. And strange as it may seem to us to find men thus eager to discard civilisation and embrace a savage life, yet the same strong impulse has been constantly observed among the South Sea Islands, where it needs the utmost vigilance of the commanders to prevent desertion of the crews.

A march of no slight risk or labour brought

COVERY.