516 DR. KANE'S EXPEDITION. 



" 4.-. Dark nimbus clouds and water-sky invested the 

 north-eastern horizon. 



"5. Crowds of migratory birds were observed throng' 

 ing its waters.' 3 



There is much in Dr. Kane's wonderful narrative to 

 remind the reader of the story of old William Barentz, 

 who, two hundred and fifty-nine years ago, wintered on 

 the coast of Nova Zernbla. His men, seventeen in 

 number, broke down during the trials of winter, and 

 three died, just as of the eighteen under Dr. Kane three 

 had gone. Barentz abandoned his vessel, as the Ameri- 

 cans abandoned theirs, took to his boats, and escaped 

 along the Lapland coast to lands of Norwegian civiliza- 

 tion. The Americans embarked with sledges and boats 

 to attempt the same thing. They had the longer jour- 

 ney, and the more difficult one, before them. Barentz 

 lost, as they did, a cherished comrade by the wayside. 

 But one resemblance luckily does not exist: Barentz 

 himself perished - -Dr Kane lived to write an account of 

 all that he suffered in a noble cause. No mere abstract 

 of his narrative can give an idea of its absorbing inter- 

 est. 



His book is above all common praise, on account of 

 the simple, manly, unaffected style in which the nar- 

 rative of arduous enterprise and firm endurance is told. 

 It is obviously a faithful record of occurrences, made by 

 a man who was quite aware that what he had to tell 

 needed no extraneous embellishment. There is, how- 

 ever, so much of artistic order in the mind of the nar- 

 rator, that the unvarnished record has naturally shaped 

 itself into a work of distinguished excellence upon 

 literary grounds. The scenes which it describes are 

 so vividly and vigorously brought before the reader, 

 that there are few who sit down to the perusal of the 

 narrative but will fancy, before they rise from the en- 



