THE LAST VOYAGE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.
BY CAPTAIN SILER ABD OSBORN, R.N. (PART II.)
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Burial of Sir John Franklin. (See page 366 )
Under the friendly shelter of Beechey Island, Franklin and his followers reposed from their arduous labours of 1845, and looked forward confidently to the success which must now attend their efforts in the following year. And had they not reason to be confident? Did they not know that, in their remarkable voyage up Wellington Channel and down the new Strait, west of Cornwallis Island, they had explored three hundred miles of previously unknown channels leading to the north- west? Could they not point to Cape Walker, and say, “Assuredly it will be an easy task next season to push our ships over the two hundred and fifty miles of water which must intervene between Cape Walker and King William’s Land.” Of course they thought thus. And that their hopes were fulfilled, though they lived not to wear their honours, we know, alas! too well. The Polar winter came in upon them like a giant — it ever does so. No alternate frost and thaw, sunshine and gloom, there delays the advent of the winter. Within the frigid zone each season steps upon sea and earth to the appointed day, with all its distinctive characteristics strongly marked. In one night winter strikes nature with its mailed hand, and silence, coldness, death, reign supreme. The soil and springs are frozen adamant: the streamlet no longer trickles from aneath the snow-choked ravines: the plains, slopes, and terraces of this land of barrenness are clad in winter livery of dazzling white: the adjacent seas and fiords can hardly be distinguished from the land, owing to the uniformity of colour. A shroud of snow envelopes the stricken region, except where sharp and clear against the hard blue sky stand out the gaunt mountain precipices of North Devon and the dark and frowning cliffs of Beechey Island — cliffs too steep for even snow-flake to hang upon. There they stand, huge ebon giants, brooding over the land of famine and suffering spread beneath their feet!
Day after day, in rapidly diminishing arcs, the sun at noon approaches the southern edge of the horizon. It is the first week of November, and I see before me a goodly array of officers and men issue from the ship, and proceed to scale the heights of the neighbouring island: they go to bid the bright sun good-bye until February, 1846. At noon, the upper edge of the orb gleams like a beacon-fire for a few minutes over the snow -enveloped shores of North Somerset — and it is gone — leaving them to three months of twilight and darkness. Offering up a silent, fervent prayer for themselves, who were standing there to see
I that sunset, and for their dear friends in the ice-beset