256 THE FIRST FRANKLIN EXPEDITION 



Sea, which they found almost tideless, and comparatively free 

 from ice. 



The extreme westward point at which, after many perilous 

 experiences, Franklin arrived, was situated in latitude 68 degrees 

 30 minutes, and he appropriately named it Point Turnagain. Be- 

 tween this headland on the east and Cape Barrow on the west, a 

 deep gulf opens inland as far south as the Arctic Circle. It was 

 found to be studded with numerous islands, and indented with 

 sounds affording excellent harbors, all of them supplied with small 

 rivers of fresh water, abounding with salmon, trout and other fish. 

 The survey of George IV's Coronation Gulf to adopt Franklin's 

 barbarous nomenclature being completed, the explorers prepared 

 to return to Fort Enterprise. The overland part of the journey was 

 attended with the most terrible hardships. They suffered from the 

 combined afflictions of cold, hunger and fatigue. They were so 

 reduced in bodily strength that it was with difficulty they could drag 

 along their languid limbs; and when at last within forty miles of 

 their winter asylum, they found themselves at their last ration. No 

 food, no shelter and the severity of an Arctic winter pressing upon 

 them! Mr. Back, with three of the stoutest Canadians, gallantly 

 started forward to seek assistance ; and were followed in a few days 

 by Franklin and seven of the party leaving the weakest, under the 

 care of Dr. Richardson and Mr. Hood, to proceed at leisure. Four 

 of Franklin's companions, however, soon gave up the attempt from 

 absolute physical incapacity. One of these Michel, an Iroquois 

 returned to Dr. Richardson; the others were never again heard of. 

 Franklin pushed forward, living on berries and a lichen called tripe- 

 de-roche, and reached the hut; but it was without an inhabitant, 

 \vithout stores and blocked up by snow. Here he and his three 

 companions lingered for seventeen days, with no other food than 

 the bones and skin of the deer which had been killed the preceding 

 winter, boiled down into a kind of soup. On October 29th Dr. 

 Richardson and John Hepburn, one of the seamen, made their 

 appearance. 



