sence of two years and nearly seven months. Mr. King, with eight of the men, reached England in the Hudson's Bay Company's ship in October. His Majesty honoured Back with an audience, and expressed his approbation of his efforts,-first in the cause of humanity, and next in that of geographical and scientific research.

In glancing over the subjects of natural history mentioned in the Appendix,-the quadrupeds, birds, and fishes, described in England by Dr. Richardson, the insects by Mr. Children, and the plants by Sir William Hooker-it is impossible not to bestow the highest degree of praise on Mr. King, who, with great exertion and diligence in collecting, and careful attention in preserving them, must have undergone much labour and constant anxiety. Dr. Richardson says, "those specimens were all carefully prepared by Mr. Richard King, surgeon to the expedition, who deserves the thanks of zoologists for devoting so much time and labour to the promotion of the science."

CHAPTER XIII.

CAPTAIN GEORGE BACK.

1836-37.

Narrative of an Expedition in H.M.S. Terror, undertaken with a view to Geographical Discovery on the Arctic Shores.

THIS Voyage was recommended by the Royal Geographical Society to the Colonial Secretary, and by him to the Lords of the Admiralty. The object of the Society was nearly the same as that on which Captain Lyon had been employed; and the Admiralty having supplied a ship, the Terror, furnished him also with instructions, the general import of which was that he should proceed in the first instance to Wager River, or Repulse Bay, as he should find most expedient; observing, however, that, at Salisbury Island, "you will have to choose between the direct and obvious course up Frozen Strait, which was performed with apparent ease by the Fury and Hecla, in 1821, or the more circuitous route by the Welcome, which was unsuccessfully attempted by the Griper, in 1824." Captain Back, having this choice, from such high authority,—success the one hand and failure on the other, could

on

scarcely venture to hesitate in his decision; he unfortunately, though naturally enough, made choice of the former or easy route. Whichsoever of the two bays, Repulse or Wager, he should be able to reach (and neither of them did he reach) the Terror was to be left with an officer, to take charge of her, and to employ himself in making surveys and observations, while the Captain with a large party should cross the intervening land to the eastern shore of Prince Regent's Inlet, sending one party to the north as far as the Fury and Hecla Strait, and the other to pursue the continental coast line to the mouth or estuary of Back's River, and its continuation as far as the Point Turnagain of Franklin. These were the objects of the voyage, as pointed out by the Geographical Society.

The details of the instructions are not necessary to be stated, as the object of them failed; but one remark is made in them, which cannot always, however advisable, be complied with-it is their Lordships' full belief that all the service detailed may be fully and faithfully performed in the course of the present season, and "that this Arctic expedition may be distinguished from all others, by the promptitude of its execution, and by escaping from the gloomy and unprofitable waste of eight months' detention it is therefore our distinct orders that every effort shall be made to return to England in the fall of this year." The old proverb may here

be applied-" Man proposes, but God disposes." Back and his associates not only wintered, but were wedged up by massive ice in the wide ocean for nine whole months, from October to July, four of which, as Captain Back graphically calls it, on "an icy cradle;" many scenes are also graphically and beautifully expressed, in numerous exquisite prints by Lieutenant (now Captain) Smyth. Yet the Terror has survived it all, was three or four years in the Antarctic Ocean, and is now with Sir John Franklin in the Polar Seas.

On the present occasion she was commanded, officered, and manned as follows:

It may as well be at once stated, that Smyth and Stanley are now Captains; Fisher and M'Murdo, Commanders; Gore, M'Clure, and Marcuard, Lieu

tenants; J. A. Mould, Surgeon; Wm. Lawes, Paymaster and Purser; Jas. Saunders, Master.

On the 14th June, 1836, the Terror left Chatham, and on the 28th July crossed Davis' Strait; and on that evening, when the weather cleared up, Back says. "We observed an enormous iceberg, the perpendicular face of which was not less than 300 feet high.' Enormous indeed: in what depth of water could it be, or had it been floating? The next morning is described as beautifully fine-" the tall ship with all her sails set threading her graceful way through the masses of ice, upon a sea as smooth as an inland lake." A A very different scene quickly succeeded on approaching that universally-detested Resolution Island, with its dense fogs, and its whirlpools, tossing about masses of ice, sweeping the ship among them, and rendering her utterly unmanageable. Having got clear of all the impediments, they proceeded as far as the Savage Islands, where an iceberg either toppled over or parted with a large mass from its summit; "and the splash in the water, the foam which succeeded, and the fearful rocking of the berg, before it again settled upon its base, gave us some notion of danger."

Near these islands a fleet of Keiyacks and Komiaks hailed them, as usual, with vociferous cries of tima. Back gives them the same bad character they had received from Lyon and others :-"The women, in particular, were more outrageous than I had ever