interpreters, to inform their countrymen of his approach, and of the object of his expedition. After reconnoitering the mouth of the Copper Mine River, and giving to one of the neighboring promontories the name of Cape Hearne, he embarked in a canoe, on the 21st of July, and 'commenced the navigation of the Arctic Ocean, with a voyage before him of not less than one thousand two hundred geographical miles; Fort Churchill, on the western shore of Hudson's Bay, being the nearest spot at which he could hope to meet with a civilized being.' The tempestuous weather, however, the shortness of his provisions, and the fears of the Canadians, who were unwilling to proceed further, compelled him to land at Cape Flinders. Hence he proceeded along the coast to Point Turn*-again, now called the Duke of York's Archipelago; and having carried his researches so far as 'to favor the opinion of those who contend for the practicability of a north-west passage,' he, on the 25th of August, terminated his survey of the coast, at the mouth of Hood's River, where he left, in a box, an account of his proceedings, for the information of Captain Parry, who was then exploring the Arctic Sea in an easterly direction.
On the 31st of August, Captain Franklin, having broken up his canoes to make smaller ones, commenced his return to Fort Chepywan, where he arrived in July, 1822, after one of the most appalling and disastrous journeys ever recorded. During the time it occupied, his principal food was tripe de roche, leather, and boiled bones; three of his companions died of cold and hunger, and two were murdered, and devoured unconsciously by the remainder. The nights, in addition to the danger attending them from the frequency of the wolves, were so chilly, that the tents of himself and his party were, every morning, surrounded with snow to the height of three or four feet; and the blankets that covered their bed so hardened with frost that it was with difficulty they could be folded. Several times Captain Franklin fainted from fatigue, and the ice on which he kept continually falling, prevented him from traveling at the rate of more than two or three miles per day; often had he to wade up to his waist through water, where the temperature was scarcely above the freezing point; and, on one occasion, he was upset in his canoe, and only prevented, by clinging to a rock, from being dashed to pieces in the cataracts of the rapids. The following extract from his journal, will give some idea of the sufferings he endured:—'A partridge being shot, the feathers were torn off, it was held to the fire a few minutes, and then divided into six portions. I and my companions ravenously devoured our shares, as it was the first morsel of flesh either of us had tasted for thirty-one days; unless, indeed, the small gristly particles which we found occasionally adhering to the pounded bones may be termed flesh.' The delivery of Captain Franklin and his party from the death with which hunger, fatigue, and disease daily threatened them, was owing to the assistance of some Indian hunters, who came to them in their last stage of despair. 'They treated us,' says the captain, 'with the utmost tenderness, gave us their snow-shoes, and walked without any themselves, keeping by our sides that they might lift us when we fell. They prepared our encampment, cooked for us, and fed us as if we had been children: evincing humanity that would have done honor to the most civilized people.'
On his arrival in England, Captain Franklin was made a post-captain; he married, in August, 1823, the daughter of William Penden, Esq.,
