340 ONCE A WKkk. [Octobkr 22, iS5t.
tell-tale record which informs me that you are
sixty years of age.” “No, no, my lord,” was
Franklin’s rejoinder, “I am only fifty-nine!'1
Before such earnestness all scruples yielded — the
offer was officially made and accepted — to Sir John
Franklin was confided the Arctic Expedition, con-
sisting of H.M.S. Erebus, in which he hoisted his
pendant, and H.M.S. Terror, commanded by
Captain Crozier, who had recently accompanied
Sir James Boss in his wonderful voyage to the
Antarctic seas.
The 18th of May, 1845, found the Erebus and Terror at Greenhithe in the Thames. On board of each ship there were sixty-nine officers and men, every possible comer was carefully filled with stores and provisions— -enough, they said, for three years; and, for the first time in Arctic annals, these discovery vessels had auxiliary screws and engines of twenty-horse power each. Hope rode high in every breast, and the cry of Hurrah! for Behring’s Straits! succeeded their last hearty cheer as the gallant ships weighed on the morrow for Baffin’s Bay.
A month they sailed across the Atlantic before they reached their first halting-place, Disco, or the Whale Fish Islands, on the west coast of Greenland, in latitude 69° north. Thither a store- ship had accompanied them from England, in order that the expedition might be completed with every necessary up to the latest moment before entering the polar ice. That voyage of thirty days had served to make the officers and men thoroughly acquainted with their chief, and with each other. Of him the warm-hearted Fitzjames writes: “That Sir John was delightful; that all had be- come very fond of him, and that he appeared remarkable for energetic decision in an emergency. The officers were remarkable for good feeling, good humour, and great talents; whilst the men were fine hearty sailors, mostly from the northern sea-ports.” Love already it is apparent, as much as duty, bound together the gallant souls on board the Erebus and Terror.
Away from Disco they sped with all haste; the Bay of Baffin is fairly entered, and their long and arduous labours commence with an Arctic tempest so severe that their brother seamen of the store-ship, hastening homeward, think with anxiety of the deep-laden Erebus and Terror. He who is strong to save guides the gallant barks, how- ever, past the dangers of an iron-bound coast, and amongst the huge, ghost-like ice-bergs which glimmer through the storm. We see them, in better weather, urging under all sail their strong but clumsy ships, before a favourable gale, along that coast of Greenland, every headland of which has its record of human trial and noble endurance. There the lofty headland of Sanderson-his-Hope (of a North-west Passage) rears its crest of black granite, rich with crimson lichen, and crowned with snow. Norseman and Dane and Englishman have alike sailed under its stupendous cliffs, or sought shelter in quaint Uppemavik which nestles at its feet. The Erebus and Terror may not delay. Greenland has no charms for men whose leader already talks sanguinely of the yet far distant Mackenzie and Copper-mine rivers.
The floes and broad masses of the Middle-ice
now rise upon their sight; the northern horizon
gleams with reflected light from the frozen surface
of the sea; the south wind fails; the ships sail
from the black mists and fog-laden atmosphere
common to open water in the Arctic regions, into
the bright skies, smooth lanes, and mirror-like
pools generally found amongst the pack during the
summer season. The ice is streaming southward;
the eager novices in either ship look forward with
delight to the first onset with the foe they have
come to do battle with. Wiser heads know that
mother- wit will do more than dashing gallantry in
the conflict with packed ice; the sails are taken
in so as to reduce the speed, and the experienced
ice-master from the crow’s nest at the masthead
selects the weakest looking point through which
to force the ships into a lane of water, that winds
snake-like along the landward edge of the pack.
“So -ho! steady — steer her with a small helm, my lad!” baw ls out, in strong North-country dialect, the honest old ice-pilot, who has grown grey killing whales in Greenland. “Stand by to brail up the after-sails, if you please, sir; and to pack all the canvass upon her directly we break through the pack-edge,” he urges to the officer of the watch. The churning and growling of the ice now strikes upon the ear, and at the same moment the Erebus and Terror take it man- fully. There is a shock: for a second the pieces of ice hold their ground, but they yield to the weight of the ships: one mass tilts up, and slips over another, another sinks under the bows, and is heard scraping along the bottom of the ship: the road is opening. “Hard up with the helm,” shouts the ice-master, and at the same time the sail is set forward to urge the ship faster through the pack; the speed accelerates, and in a few minutes they are fairly in the ice. We need not follow them in their daily labour. Ice is now on every hand: open water scarce. The crews often drag the ships for hours with ropes along the edge of the land floe that is still fast to the face of the glacier which curves round Melville Bay. Now we see them perfectly beset, the vessel s secured to the lowest icebergs that can be found: they studiously avoid those lofty masses which, with spires, and domes, and steeples, resemble huge cathedrals of crystal, — for they know that such icebergs are prone to turn over, or break up suddenly, and would infallibly crush any ship that might be near them.
For a while the discovery ships meet the whaling-vessels of Aberdeen and Hull, striving; like themselves, to get through the loose ice into the waters of Pond’s Bay. On July 26th they part company from the last of them, and pursue their solitary course alone. Again they pass from the northern edge of the pack into open water, — if such may be called an open sea, where ice- bergs are strewn plentifully. The course is now shaped for Lancaster Sound. August has set in; the sun, which has hitherto wheeled round the heavens without setting, again commences to dip below the horizon; its absence and already de- clining power is marked by the nightly formation of thin, glass-like ice, known as bay-ice. The south wind freshens; the Erebus and Terror
press on, staggering in a heavy sea, all the more