was beset in the pack, and drifted help- | more Esquimaux were met with, and lessly with it for two hundred and forty- these were found to be in possession of two days, for thirteen hundred and silver spoons and forks bearing the eighty-five statute miles, thus losing a crests and initials of Sir John Franklin, whole season. Captain Crozier, Captain Fitzjames, and others. These articles McClintock obtained from them at the price of four needles each. Going on further south, Montreal Island and Point Ogle were The next year she returned to the charge, passed safely up Baffin's Bay into the North Water, across through Lancaster Sound and Barrow Strait, down Prince Regent's Inlet, almost each visited, but without result of any through Bellot Strait, near the western kind. Returning up the western shore entrance of which, in a small bay called of King William Island, the first trace Kennedy Harbor, the gallant little Fox which McClintock met with of the misswas frozen in for her second winter. ing crews of the Erebus and Terror was And from thence McClintock equipped the skeleton of a single man, apparently those three sledging parties, two of an officer's servant or a ship's steward. which were destined to solve the ques- Off Cape Herschel McClintock found a tion of the fate of the Franklin expe- small cairn erected by Lieutenant Hobdition, and the early death of Sir John son, who had been there but six days himself; and the other to add many previously, and who had left a letter for hundreds of miles of undiscovered land his commanding officer saying that, alto the Arctic chart. though he had failed to find any traces The first party, under the charge of of the wrecked ships in the position deCaptain Allen Young, was to examine scribed by the Esquimaux, yet he had the land to the westward of Cape Bird, succeeded in discovering the only writoff the western entrance to Bellot ten record of the doings of Sir John Strait; the second, under the command | Franklin and his companions since of Lieutenant Hobson, to go down parting with the whalers at the head of the west coast of Boothia Felix, and, Baffin's Bay; the only record indeed crossing over to the north end of King of any kind which has ever been disWilliam Island, to explore a portion of covered from that time to this. its western shores in search of traces of That record was found in a cairn the Erebus and Terror, and thence over which had been erected by the retreatto Gateshead Island so as to connect if ing Franklin party at Point Victory, possible that point with Mr. Wynniatt's the nearest point of land to the place furthest; the third, under the command in which the Erebus and Terror had of McClintock himself, was to accompany Lieutenant Hobson as far as King William Island, and from thence to pass, by the eastern coast of that island, to the mouth of the Great Fish River, returning to the Fox by the western side of King William Island. On the way down McClintock and Hobson met some Esquimaux, who told them that a long time ago two ships had been wrecked off their coast; that one ship went down as she was, while the other was driven on shore, but the exact spot mentioned could never be found. One of the natives said that when they boarded the stranded ship they found the body of one man, but that the rest of the crew went away to the large river. Lower down some been abandoned. It was simply a printed paper supplied to all discovery ships; and upon it was written, apparently by Lieutenant Graham Gore, the following account, and although Arctic travellers and those who have taken an interest in Arctic researches are quite familiar with it, from reading McClintock's charming book on "the fate of Franklin and his discoveries" commonly known as "the Voyage of the Fox," yet for the benefit of others, who have never seen it, the record is here repeated. It runs thus: “ 28th of May, 1847, H.M. ships Erebus and Terror wintered in the ice in latitude 70° 5' N.-longitude 98° 23′ W., having wintered in 1846-7 at Beechey Island in latitude 74° 43' 28" N. -lon gitude 91° 39′ 15′′ W., after having noted Arctic traveller, a former comascended Wellington Channel to lati-panion of Back's, begging and entreattude 77° and returned by the West side ing of the English Admiralty Board of of Cornwallis Island. Sir John Franklin commanding the expedition. All well. A party consisting of two officers and six men left the ships on Monday, 24th May, 1847." There is a slight inaccuracy in this record, as the date of the two ships wintering at Beechey Island was 1845–6 and not 1846-7. The winter of 1846-7 was clearly spent in the ice in the position described in the document. We know, therefore, that on May 28, 1847, all was well with the expedition, and doubtless all were yet full of hope that they would accomplish the desire of their hearts and make the North-West Passage. But upon the same paper a later date and further record was added, and the writing was in another hand, as follows: "April 25, 1848.-H.M. ships Erebus and Terror were deserted on 22nd April, five leagues N.N.W. of this, having been beset since 12th September, 1846. The officers and crews consisting of one hundred and five souls, under the command of Captain F. R. M. Crozier, landed here in latitude 96° 37′ 42′′ N. - longitude 98° 41′ W. Sir John Franklin died on the 11th June, 1847; and the total loss by deaths in the expedition has been to this date nine officers and fifteen men." This was signed by both Captain Crozier and Captain Fitzjames, and a footnote added and start on to-morrow, 26th, for Back's Fish River." And then commenced that fatal march when no less than one hundred and five brave English sailors started to walk, and to drag heavy boats, along the shores of King William Island, hoping to reach the mouth of the Great Fish River, and to ascend it to one of the Hudson's Bay Company's stations, from whence succor could be had. And it is lamentable to think that at the very moment when Captain Crozier penned those last few words which ever in this world he was to write "and start on to-morrow, 26th, for Back's Fish River" there was that day to let him go to the help of Franklin's party by way of that very Great Fish River, with every inch of which he was acquainted, and at the entrance to which he would have come upon the famishing party just in time to save their lives. Captain Crozier and his party of one hundred and five English sailors left their ships on April 22, 1848, but on June 10, 1847, Dr. King wrote a letter to Earl Grey, the then colonial secretary, pointing out that the missing expedition was in all human probability on the western coast of North Somerset, which then was thought to be only a continuation of King William Island; and that, therefore, its members would be found by a journey down the Great Fish River. Will it be believed? His letter was certainly officially acknowledged, but it never received any answer at all. Amongst all the many and costly expeditions which had been sent out by a grateful country, surely one more might have been encouraged, and that a most inexpensive and simple one, the raison d'être of which was the almost absolute certainty that an English naval captain had gone whither his instructions directed him to go. And meantime those poor souls starved and hoped, and dropped down dead as they walked ; and, of all their number, only the corpses of thirty men and a few graves were found at the mouth of the Great Fish River, five dead bodies on Montreal Island, the skeleton of the steward, and two skeletons in a boat about fifty miles from Point Victory. The supposition is that the fatal retreat was made some time during the short summer of 1848, and that, with the exception of those few whose bodies were discovered, all the rest had found a grave at nature's hands in the shape of the winter snow, beneath which all traces of them were hidden from the view of both Hobson and McClintock, who travelled over the very same ground as that by which the retreating it." The driver nodded again. He knew no English, or next to none. "Yah! 'Alf-hour!" I tried once more.. Half an hour, say, four miles; it could not be away over there, then, by those mountains. From the box-seat of the mail-cart I described an imaginary semi-circle with a radius of four miles, and searched Franklin party had endeavored to reach | trees. "Where?" I repeated. "My It was then eleven years since all this had happened; it is now just four times eleven years; and while men and women, not then born, are now reading this narrative of facts, comfortably seated by their firesides, those whitened bones of Arctic heroes long gone to rest still lie bleaching beneath the northern snow, their faces turned towards that far-off home they never more could reach, and looking to the very last for help that never came. From Macmillan's Magazine. "Where?" I asked. "Dere!" he nodded, as the four horses broke into a gallop, glad to have surmounted the long up-gradient through the sandy soil. curve till I could have sworn there was “Yah, yahı! Maraisburg! 'Alfhour!" These little playthings were indeed real houses and trees, only farther, much farther off than they seemed. The illusion (presenting as small and near objects really remote and large) was due to the extreme dryness and clearness of the atmosphere on the elevated plains of the north-eastern Karroo, and to the unsuspected magnitude of the scale on which nature had built. That back scene of mountains was thirty miles away; that conical hillock at least fifteen, and a thousand feet high; that little cluster of toys was the important village of Maraisburg, connected by telegraph with Cradock and Cape Town, and boasting a town hall, a school, a Dutch Reformed Church, and a hotel. Whipping up the leaders, we drove I looked carefully over the expanse in considerable style to the gates of the of the veld right up to the level-topped hotel yard, and alighted, stiff and weary mountains on the horizon. A conical with the thirty-five miles' drive. I inhill of regular geometrical contour lay, quired at the bar if Mr. Van Breda had grey and isolated, on the carpet of Kar- been heard of. "Oh, yes," was the roo grass in the middle distance to the answer. "Mr. Van Breda drove in to right, as if it had been left there by meet you on Monday. Probably he accident. Straight ahead a few red and will be here again to-morrow." Clearly white objects, like bricks, were visible, they knew who I was. It was a comwith a cluster apparently of little toy-fort, too, to find that one person, at least, in the Great Karroo could speak | of Harris. Of course he was acquainted "There he is!" said my friend. I turned out of the forge, and went to meet Mr. Van Breda as he walked across the open space. We shook hands in the middle of it. Mr. Van Breda was a short, though well-built man, with a grey beard, and, in contrast to most of the Dutchmen I had seen, very well dressed. "I am afraid you drove in for me on Monday," I said. "That doesn't matter," he replied with an excellent English accent. drive in every week; I or one of my sons. If you will be ready I'll start in about an hour." The truth was less romantic. I had come out to the Cape on medical advice, to avoid the winter climate of England; and had applied for, and obtained through the kindness of the superintendent of education at Cape Town, a situation as tutor, or schoolHere he left me and I returned to master, in the family of Mr. Van the hotel to pay my bill. In an hour Breda, a Dutchman, in the healthiest Mr. Van Breda drove up; my luggage part of the colony. Such teaching as I was hoisted into the cart, the blackhad done hitherto had not been ele- smith shouted "So long!" from his mentary; still, I undertook the task forge, and we were off. The cart with few misgivings at first. Of the rocked and swayed on its light springs number and age of my pupils I had no as we drove across the veld, on or off idea, and could only guess at the sub- the track, according as it was smoother jects which I should be required to or rougher than the adjoining country. teach. "Take your gun with you,' "Smoke?" said Mr. Van Breda, handsaid the superintendent-general; "the ing me a great pouch full of Boer towork will be nothing." I had no gun; bacco. I filled my pipe with difficulty. but as to the work I am constrained cannoning repeatedly against my comto observe that the superintendent-panion during the process; for I had general was mistaken. It happened that I had been entrusted by a chance travelling acquaintance with a letter for a leading citizen of Maraisburg, a blacksmith and wheelwright by trade. To his forge I accordingly repaired next morning, and met with a hearty welcome. He was English, that is of English, not Dutch, descent, and bore the mysterious name no third hand to hold on by. We started a spring-buck or two as we drove along, to my intense excitement, even Mr. Van Breda being moved to point them out with the whip as they leaped gracefully to the shelter of some bush. He said very little, and smoked incessantly for two hours or more. Having come six hundred miles from Cape Town to teach, I was curious to ་་་་་་་་་་་ know at least the number of my pupils | burst of happy voices; and a swarm of and what they were expected to learn. children jumped, clambered, and fell I had pictured to myself three or four from a gate on which they had been shambling farm-lads coming indoors for perched, and ran shouting to meet us. an hour or two every morning to do Beautiful children they were, blue-eyed, sums in long division, and to learn to golden-haired, and as active as gazelles; read English out of a horn-book. As three boys and two girls, the eldest girl Mr. Van Breda volunteered no informa- about ten years old. Mr. Van Breda tion on this matter, I took occasion, drove quickly past, saluting with his on his making some remark about his whip, and then slackened his pace children, to ask how many he had. down to give them a chance; for, needless to say, they were racing after us at the top of their speed. The smaller girl quickly outstripped the rest. "I am almost ashamed to tell you," he answered with a twinkle of humor in his kind blue eyes. 66 My first wife had four. We have had twelve since ; but I lost my little Adriana a year ago. The others, thank God, are well and strong. The doctor says there isn't a family so healthy for forty miles round." My mental picture of the three or four hobbledehoys now shifted, dissolved, and reformed itself into a more regular and imposing vision. Methought I saw before me a row of fifteen lads, ranged in descending scale of magnitude from six feet high to three, each one of them thirsting for instruction proportioned to his height. "They do not all go to school," added Mr. Van Breda. A sense of relief came over me, to be suddenly disturbed. For now, for the first time, the thought occurred that it was very unlikely this large family consisted of boys alone. Perhaps I should have to teach girls as well; perhaps even grown-up young ladies! The thought was eminently disquieting. Boys, at any rate English boys, I knew by experience that I could manage, in time of need, by working on their feelings, or, in extreme cases, by physical castigation. But with girls the latter expedient was out of the question, and even the former seemed to be fraught with unknown perils. Besides, though I might exhibit an adamantine firmness with boys, in the hands of a class of young ladies I felt that I should be as wax. I dared not ask Mr. Van Breda if he had any daughters. Perhaps I may venture here to record my opinion that it is not given to many girls, even if quite young and perfectly formed, to look well running at full speed. The drapery is either too long for perfect freedom, or too scant for perfect grace. If there is a margin, it is an extremely narrow one, and rarely hit. Possibly Atalanta was an exception; but there is almost invariably present in the mind of the spectator a disturbing impression of too much knee. This child and her movements were a joy to behold. "Some of the little ones," said her father, pretending to whip up the horses, and to signal a farewell to his little daughter with a movement of his shoulder and wrist. She seemed to redouble her speed. The way that little figure in the light blue frock got over the ground, half dazzled by the setting sun which lit up her face and her streaming golden hair, was a sight for sore eyes. She gained on us, caught us up, and held on for a minute to the cart. "She'll get in somehow; trust Winnie for that," said her father, without drawing rein. I did not believe she would try; but sure enough, I saw a look of determination come into her face, and putting forth a quite remarkable effort of strength, she hauled herself bodily over the rail, and plumped down, flushed and panting, at the bottom of the cart. "Halloa!" said her father, looking round, "where did you come from?" "Oh, I got in, father," she answered Doubts on this head were soon set at |