86 PASS INTO THE QUEEN's CHANNEL. \AugUSt, 



it was serene and balmy for this climate. Having re- 

 joined the ' Pioneer/ we overtook the ship to the eastward 

 of Cape Majendie, and mistaking it for Cape Becher, on 

 which I determined to land a cache, despatched Com- 

 mander Richards and the master to execute this duty 

 about eleven P.M. The cache consisted of forty-two 

 days' rations for ten men, or four hundred and twenty 

 rations, and was intended to relieve our parties who 

 might have to travel back with despatches. About two 

 A.M. our boats returned. The tide running strong to 

 the eastward, prevented our getting much beyond Cape 

 Becher before I gained the deck in the morning, so that, 

 as we progressed, I had the full advantage of scanning 

 the entire coast-line. To the southward, I noticed a 

 shoal islet, not on the chart, and some very remarkable 

 capped table mountains, in a northern deep indentation, 

 to which I gave the name of Barrow Bay, and to the 

 conspicuous little detached table mount, John Barrow 

 Head ; saw the islands Parker and Barrow, of Penny, 

 and noticed that any points he might have seen were 

 but the outer spits of several islands covering each other 

 and flanking the northern shore. As to the geography 

 of the place, we were sailing over a great deal of hard 

 land of the published charts, without injury to the ' Pio- 

 neer' or ourselves ! Moving on rapidly under sail and 

 steam, I asked myself the plain question, " Would Sir 

 John Franklin, under such circumstances, stop here to 

 erect a cairn, with the sea open before him?" I ex- 

 claimed to myself, No ! and, tainted with some such 

 prejudice, and with such a breeze thinking it would bt: 

 sinful, on we went. But there is an end to all things, 



